Butterflies in my hand

I'm moving!

2009-04-27T13:12:00.003-04:00

I'm moving out!

No, not literally, figuratively. I have outgrown my "blog house" here at Blogger. Nothing against it - I've really enjoyed my little starter home - but now that my circle of friends is getting bigger, I need a bigger place for entertaining them.

So, I'm moving to Word Press.

Part of what precipitated the move is the writing contest I entered, but another part is the ease of use and how good looking their themes are. What can I say, I like pretty homes with big, inviting front porches.

I'm still moving and unpacking boxes over at my new place, but visitors are always welcome. Please feel free to come by and sit on the porch. I'll have rockers and some sweet iced tea for you.

Just don't mind the mess.

http://butterfliesinmyhand.wordpress.com/

Outsmarted again

2009-04-26T20:32:00.003-04:00

Yes, I have been outsmarted. Not by my husband, although he is quite intelligent. Not by my clever six-year old daughter. Nor by my three year old son. No. This time, I have been outsmarted by me.

"Huh?" You ask. Yes, I know. Sounds odd, doesn't it. But it's true. Here's the story.

Several months ago - almost a year in fact - I started looking at other outlets for my blog. Blogger works, and is sufficient, but I was really liking the appearance of some of the blogs I follow regularly and thought I'd try Word Press. I went as far as setting up an ID and claiming the "Butterflies in my hand" name on Word Press. Then I made a fateful decision.

I decided that instead of trying to move everything over, since I'm not that computer/blogging savvy, I would just stay where I was.

Well, since I entered into the writing contest over at Collective Inkwell, I decided I would try and access my Word Press account in case I won the contest. Yes, I am forever hopeful that I'll win things I enter, even when I know I probably won't.

It's been too long and I was apparently too clever with my ID and pas sword. How do I know this? Because I have two - yes, TWO - accounts with Word Press. One, I can access. It uses the same email as my blogger blog. The other, I cannot access because I can't remember the email address I created specifically for that place. And to make things even better, the "butterflies in my hand" domain is under that ever-so-cleverly-hidden email address.

Yes, I am outsmarted again. And it's no fun. So if any of you out there knows how I can access the memory in my head of the address I was using for Word Press (surely SOMEONE out there can get me to Fringe's lab in that basement at Harvard) I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise I might be stuck on Blogger forever. Even if I do happen to win that writing contest.

* * * * * *

Just as an update, I have figured out what happened and which account I need to use. I'm hoping the powers that be over at Word Press can help me merge these two accounts or something.

Oh, and thanks for laughing with me on this. All I needed to do was sign in under that other account. I didn't need to try and figure out the email address through yahoo. Again, outsmarted by myself. I didn't think of just trying to sign in until a few minutes ago.

Collective Inkwell - creative fiction contest

2009-04-23T08:05:00.001-04:00

This is the first paragraph of a short story I wrote for a creative writing contest featured over at Creative Inkwell. I hope you enjoy... The rest of the story can be found in the comments section of here.

Well, this is odd, he thought to himself. It was as if he was watching himself from behind, like a witness, not a participant. Everything seemed to revolve slowly around him; taxis and busses crawled by, pedestrians were mime artists moving through Jello, even the birds flew at half-speed.

Easter weekend, part 1

2009-04-23T07:18:00.004-04:00

Can you believe that it's almost the end of April? May is just around the corner. This hasn't been a banner month for me posting anything, but as any of you with children may know, the end of the school year keeps people busy. Projects and parties and stuff.

But that's not all. There's also another - yes, another - consignment sale I'm participating in. Thankfully, this is the last one. All of the things that don't get sold this time around will be donated, so none of it is coming back to me. Two good things, really. Of course, I feel like all I've done in the last four weeks is dig out old toys and clothes and tag them. But in the middle of those four weeks was Easter.

This year, Monkey had a four day weekend for Easter. And I found out back in December, I think it was, that The Dead were going to be touring again and their first show (April 12th - Easter) was going to be in a city about 20 minutes from where my dad lives. The planets were aligning just right for me to make a long weekend trip, both for me and for the grandparents. And that's not all.

Back when I was a child, my dad took me to the Easter Sunrise service at Old Salem. It's the longest running service in America (this year marked 273). I don't remember much about it from when I was a child, but it's been on my heart for a couple of years now to try and go back. Again, the opportunity of this year's four day weekend and my plan to go to the concert gave me a chance to go back to the service, as an adult.

I'm choosing not to go into any great detail, but suffice it to say it was moving. We started out in front of the old Moravian church, then walked a few blocks to the cemetery called God's Acre, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. It's a very traditional service, having not changed much in the last 200 years. Although it's much more crowded now and I did see a news camera there.

The service threatened to lose something for me when I saw the news there filming the walk to God's Acre, but I tried not to pay attention. The sacredness of something seems lost when it's filmed for the local 6:00 news. But as I stood on top of the hill, watched the sun rise and listened to the brass bands play rounds of old hymns, I found the sacredness.

Then I went home, warmed up (it was really cold that early in the morning!!) and went back to sleep while my dad and his wife took the kids to their Easter service. A girl needs her sleep before going to a concert!

This is the first post in what will probably be a series of three or four about Easter weekend. I have photos from our Easter egg hunt from that afternoon and a bunch from the concert. I know the weekend is fast approaching so I may not get the next post until Monday, but I will soon, promise.

Oh, and my story for the writing contest is done. I think. I'll be posting part of that here in the next few days as well.

Hope to see you back soon!

Alive and kickin'

2009-04-22T15:22:00.002-04:00

I'm still here. It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks and it's not over yet. I just thought I'd pop in to let those readers that haven't abandoned me know I'm still alive and well.

I do have plenty of things to update on later: The Dead Show, Easter, the kids, homeschool updates and a writing contest I'm entering.

I hope you'll still stick around for me, or at least come back when I post again. And for those of you who write blogs that I normally visit, I promise, I'll be back. I haven't had time to read, either, so I hope you'll forgive me.

Here's to a peaceful few weeks - and soon!

Catching up

2009-04-15T07:27:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know it's been quite a while since I posted something. However, I've been a bit busy. The kids and I went out of town for Easter while Trey's work sent him to Hawaii (tough bit, that one). Sunday night, I went to the opening show for The Dead's summer tour. It was awesome!! And this week I'm getting ready for a baby shower for two of my friends that will have about 30 friends coming to my home.

Yeah, it's a busy few days.

I took lots of pictures and have lots of stories to share about the Dead show to post on my blog, and I promise, I'll get to it, but really, I have other things I have to get done around the house, first.

I hope you'll come back!

What would you do?

2009-04-06T06:33:00.004-04:00

Technology is great. That is, until it craps out on you, then it's not so great anymore. We have an old computer and by old, I mean it's not quite four years old. It started having issues this weekend and Trey and Apple Support spent some quality time together on the phone Saturday afternoon to try and fix it. By the time he got off the phone, it was looking like all was good and back to normal.

Not so much.

I'm not sure, but I think he managed to back up at least the pictures and music while the computer was functioning properly, which is good. Trey loves music and I'm a bit of a shutterbug. I love to take pictures and one picture just won't do. He collects music like nobody's business. Let's put it this way: We have just over 7000 pictures that have been taken starting around Monkey's first year and I couldn't even begin to count the number of songs we have. Yes, we have a problem.

Hi, my name is Kool Aid and I like to take pictures.

Now, I know that pictures aren't supposed to replace the memories, but it's fun! It's something I enjoy and the family loves it when I remember to send them pictures that I've taken. I can't imagine losing all those pictures.

So, for those of you who take digital pictures, what do you do to back them up? Do you use an external hard drive? Do you also back them up at an internet site? Do you just burn them to a CD or DVD? Or all of the above, making back-ups of your back-ups?

If nothing else, this may be an excuse to get a new computer...

Quote of the day

2009-04-03T07:28:00.002-04:00

I don't care if there is hot lava on the floor, don't climb on the train table.

(As Trey pointed out, only a mother would say something like that.)

Locks of Love

2009-04-02T07:26:00.013-04:00

Yesterday was a big day for Monkey.

Last year, Monkey decided she wanted to give her hair to Locks of Love. Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hair pieces to children suffering from long term medical hair loss. Her hair was already long, but she wanted to make sure that when she cut her hair, it wouldn't be "super-short," so we've been letting it grow on it's own for about 6 months or so.

We decided that spring would be the perfect time to cut her hair because then it would be short for summer. She's been very excited about the whole process and telling people she was going to give her hair away to Locks of Love. We've even wondered about the child that might get her hair.

She has been asking me for weeks starting at the end of February, "When are we going to get my hair cut?" Soon, just a few weeks away. Then this week she was ready. And on April Fool's day, too! So we went to my hairdresser yesterday afternoon after school. Luckily, I still had a few minutes from picking her up because I had forgotten my camera. This was something I had to document for myself and family, so I rushed home, grabbed it, then went to the salon.

First, her hair had to be measured. A minimum of 10" is required to donate and she had just enough.

Then her hair is braided and secured on both ends.

The cutting began. Yes, this tore at my heart just a little because Monkey had beautiful, long, free-spirit hair and I loved it. But I'm very proud of her for doing this.

Her pretty braid, ready to be sent to Locks of Love.

And her final "new 'do!" No more free-spirit hair, just spunky six-year-old hair, and it totally suits her.

Oh, and while I was cleaning the junk out of my car yesterday afternoon (again!), Monkey was practicing on her bike and she started, rode and stopped all on her own, three times, I think.

Yes, yesterday was a big day for us.

Nightmares

2009-04-01T07:13:00.002-04:00

Monkey woke me up last night when she had a nightmare. It was, I dunno, around 2 am. When I heard her feet shuffling in (and felt the cat scatter away from her sleeping spot) I figured it was Little Man, but no, it was Monkey. She asked if I'd get into bed with her and since it's been a long time since she'd asked, I said OK. But just for a little while. My kidneys tend to get bruised when we actually sleep in the same bed. I'm still recovering from our week of visiting family.

Anyway, it got me to thinking. What do children have nightmares about? Not enough cake at the birthday party so they don't get a slice? A bully at school? I never ask Monkey what her nightmares are because I don't want them to linger in her mind any more than they already do. And remembering dreams is so difficult anyway.

But, still, I wonder.

She's in a stable home, she has loving parents, clothes, food, toys out the wazoo, a pesky brother. From my perspective, anyway, her life seems pretty good, so what would she have to be afraid of? I'm not naive enough to think that all children are this lucky. I'm know that there are children all over this world that have legitimate nightmares and may possibly be living those nightmares out. That is terrible and a whole other topic. It's not my intent to travel down that road first thing this morning.

I remember having nightmares as a kid. I had a recurring one that was, in hindsight more strange than scary, and had to do with being stuck on the furniture because the floor was hot lava with some big monster chasing me and I had to jump from couch to chair to steamer trunk to get away. Yes, I was a creative child.

Monkey is a creative child, too. So what does her vivid imagination create for her at night that scares her? I don't know, but I'm glad she still comes to get me.

Life's interruptions

2009-03-31T12:11:00.002-04:00

I have a few minutes to catch up on my blog. Let's see... I took Little Man to the doctor last week and found that he has a double ear infection. Oh.... hang on.... the phone is ringing.

Ok, now I'm back. As I was saying, Little Man has an ear infection. He kept complaining about bugs in his ears. Yeah, I have creative children. Oops.... there goes the door.

I'm back. Anyway, he's doing much better these days. Now if only I can remember to give him his medicine twice a day! I've also been getting things ready for this big consignment sale this week. I just dropped a van-full of toys and clothes to the sale yesterday and the presale starts tomorrow. Oh, crap. I can't finish this now, I have to type up something for the PTA. Back later.

Well, that's done. As I was saying, I have things in this big sale. Last fall, when I participated, I think I made about $250-$300 from it. I can't remember exactly, because I use that same money for buying clothes and things for the kids during the year. I'm hoping for a good sale this time around, too. I've also been spending a lot of time researching materials for home schooling next year. Monkey and I are both excited about it. Right now, I'm focusing on Science and History. You'd be amazed at how much information is out there. Well, I'll have to catch up with this in a while because I have to get some laundry done.

I only have a minute because now I have to run to the store. Man, having a blog to keep up is a bit time-consuming. I just don't know how other people do it. I follow writers that post daily. Either I'm too busy or just not that creative. Anyway, folks, I'll do my best to keep writing. I hope you'll have patience with me.

Sick day

2009-03-23T11:48:00.002-04:00

Today we're having a "sick day." Moms don't usually get sick days, but their kids do. Little Man got sick yesterday. I'm not sure with what, but he had a fever when he woke up from his nap and didn't want to eat.

My guess is that we were going and going so much last week that his little immune system just got plum tuckered out. So we gave him some medicine and sent him to bed at his normal time. We thought he was starting to feel better because he played his normal "get out of bed every 3 minutes" routine before finally going to sleep.

Then sometime around 2:00 am, he came to wake me up because his pajamas were wet. My first groggy thought was his pullups leaked, but he said it was his shirt. My second guess was water leaked out of his sippy cup. Then I got a whiff of that harsh acidic smell of vomit.

Great.

So I get up to check his bed and discover that it's all over his pillow by sticking my hand in it. It's no fun to stick your hand in cold vomit at two in the morning, just so ya know. I say a little prayer of thanks that he didn't aspirate on his vomit while sleeping and, with one eye open (which is probably why I stuck my hand in vomit), I got his clothes and his bed linens changed. I then got him more medicine because I noticed while changing him how hot his little body was and sent him back to bed, again with prayers that he wouldn't get sick again.

He slept through the rest of the night. He hasn't been vomiting again, but he still had his fever when he fell asleep on our bed this morning. He's since been moved to his bed and he's still sleeping.

Oh, and I have a headache and a sore throat. Gee, it's good to be home.

2009-03-16T20:21:00.002-04:00

Hello world. I have about 40 minutes left to complete this post and catch up on my reader from Sunday morning, which means there are probably 235 more entries that I won't get to read before the night is done. You see, people, I'm visiting family and we're staying with my uncle who is still in the ... ummm ... pre-computer age? I don't even know which decade to fill in there, but he has no computer, thus no internet.

Do you have any idea how strange and frustrating it is to not have access to the internet? I had to resort to using a phone book for goodness sakes! And actually CALLING someone to get directions to their location, find out how much admission is, and so forth. Wait, I think I may have lost some of you. We're visiting family, which means we're also in a house that doesn't have anything to keep a 6 and a 3 year old entertained but the TV. Not to mention the family driving in to visit and bringing twin 4 year old cousins to see Monkey and Little Man.

Thank goodness dear ol' mom had a crack-I mean-Blackberry, so that I could sorta google indoor play for children in the city where we are. I was able to at least get a name and a number of a bounce house, although the number on the webpage wasn't the right one. Hence, needing the phonebook. Since I'm not all that familiar with using her blackberry, I just called the location to verify what little info I was able to get from mom's phone and get directions and such.

I decided to go early to the bounce house because it was 9:30 am and I was already being driven crazy by the boy. I grabbed my laptop on a whim and guess what? They had Wi-Fi there! YIPPEE! Only, I couldn't get it to hook up to the computer right. I still don't know what happened but it wouldn't work. Not even on my iTouch. Bummer. So after a little while longer we went back to my uncle's to meet Mawmaw and Pawpaw and Aunt Pat (not her real name) who were bringing my nieces.

So after lunch with the family, we went back and stayed until closing. I'm so glad they were able to make it. I hadn't seen them since last summer some time and so I was able to talk and catch up with them and Monkey and Little Man had great fun with their cousins and seeing their grandparents and great aunt.

So, it's been more than 24 hours without internet. Thankfully, the kids, after today's running and jumping, went to bed and I was able to escape to the local library. I owe Hayden big time for pointing me in the right direction (thanks, girl!!). So, while I'm able to update on my blog, time is running out and I'm having to divide my time between this, facebook, twitter and homeschool research. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for any of these things.

Isn't it amazing how much we have come to rely on the internet? Not necessarily for social stuff like social network sites and blogs, but for simple things like finding something to do or getting directions to a certain place. I was shocked, and a little ashamed, that I was so lost without internet access today when I was trying to think of something to do on a rainy day. I admit, I'm an internet junky. This week just goes to show me how much I've come to depend on it. I follow my friends on social network sites, read status updates and blogs and use it for simple information retrieval.

So, could you go without the internet? And for how long? Well, I have to go. They're kicking the library patrons out - it's closing time.... (oh, and Hayden, when I have more time, I'll come back and link to you ;) ).

Decisions...

2009-03-13T12:25:00.003-04:00

I have a decision to make. It's not an easy one but it's one that thousands of people face.

I have an old dog. She's 14 and a half years old which is very old for her size and breed. She has something going on with her hip and she doesn't bear much weight on her right hind leg. X-rays would be too expensive and would only serve to confirm that she has a problem. Even if it was "fixable" through surgery, I would not put her through that. She's just too old.

She's on medication for the pain now, and I do notice a difference. She's more comfortable and a little more like herself, although she still has an obvious limp. So while the medicine may be helping, it's not getting rid of the pain altogether.

The problem I'm having with all this is that I would like to know what's actually going on inside her hip. Is it cancer? Is it arthritis? Is there a bone spur? What is it? Knowing what it is isn't really going to solve the problem, as I said before. It's just that I want to KNOW. I want to know if it's cancer or arthritis. But that would just be satisfying my own curiosity. It wouldn't really help her. My knowing what's causing the problem isn't going to fix the problem.

So we're in a holding pattern now, giving her medicine to help her stay comfortable and less painful. She's still getting excited about eating, so I know she's feeling better, but at what point am I medicating her for me? Where is the line that delineates my wishful thinking and her quality of life? At what point will I KNOW that she's ready to go chase bunnies in the sky?

I'll be gone for the next week, visiting family (so I may not be here often) and she isn't coming with me and the kids. She's hanging out here with Trey and the puppy - who still irritates the snot out of her - so I'm hoping she'll be able to maintain until I get back. The last time I left town for a long trip without Trey, our very old cat died. That's not setting a good precedent.

But still, having that decision hanging over my head.... It's no fun.

Do you remember...

2009-03-11T15:23:00.002-04:00

photo by lachicana

Do you remember....

rotary phones?

when record players had 3 speeds?

dual cassette decks?

cassette tapes and cassette singles?

8 track tapes? (A good friend of mine had one in her room when we were kids - shout out to e.s.!)

life before microwaves?

when cable only had 40 or so channels?

when you could play outside until the street lamps came on?

teachers could still hug their students in elementary school?

when TVs were in black and white?

or when TVs were those big consoles?

when VCRs and Beta players were competing?

cd's were the "new thing"?

when you could buy laser disc movies?

life before the internet? and cell phones?

crank windows in cars (did you know they still make cars with crank windows???)?

when gas was $0.79/gallon?

cartoons were only on TV on Saturday mornings?

when MTV actually played music videos?

I know there's an email floating around with a lot of these, but these are all from my own experience/childhood. I know if I had more than a few minutes to think about it, I'd have more to add, but I have chores waiting for me. So, what do you remember from your own childhood that isn't part of the "norm" any more?

He's improving his aim

2009-03-05T15:38:00.007-05:00

Potty training a boy is a completely foreign thing to me. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I don't pee standing up, but that's beside the point. He's been in underwear for a little over a month now and it's gone much more successfully than it did last summer when we tried it. I'm sure it helps that he's older and his buddies at school are also in the middle of potty training.

Little Man has gotten to where he doesn't want me anywhere near him when he's in the bathroom. He yells at me to "get out" whenever I try to go in there with him, so I just stand by the door, usually, to make sure he's actually going. The last time I did that, I heard him going, but it didn't sound like anything was hitting the water in the toilet. Let's just say his aim was a little off. Maybe we need to throw cheerios in the toilet again, for target practice.

I'm sure it's payback for me laughing at a friend of mine whose son was training last year. He had a tendency to "mark his territory" whenever he was going to the bathroom - even at our house. Needless to say, I keep the bathroom pretty clean out of necessity since Little Man is still working to improve his aim. Which is ironic since I don't like to clean.

But just the other day, I didn't stay by the door. He has closed it so he could have his privacy and I was sitting on the couch playing solitaire. I heard the toilet flush, he stepped out, closed the door loudly behind him and pronounced to the world "I'm a BIG boy!"

I laughed.

So it goes, so it goes.

A new parenting tip

2009-03-01T18:43:00.002-05:00

When the kids have way too much energy from staying inside all day long when the weather is nasty outside, it helps when you or your spouse has been through boot camp.

Tonight, the kids have done:

suicides

wind sprints

push ups

mountain climbers

leg lifts

squat thrusts

arm circles

jumping jacks

And like the Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going and.....

Top 10 mommy list

2009-02-27T07:36:00.005-05:00

My blogger friend Tara gave me this idea of a top 10 list. Her list was a top 10 of things she says all the time. I think I'm gonna switch it to a Top 10 List of things I thought I would never say. Enjoy (and how many of these things have you said, too?)

10. Wait until your daddy gets home.

9. Yes, you do have to go outside and play.

8. I'm gonna jerk a knot in you.

7. You'll poke your eye out.

6. Finish that cheeseburger if you want dessert.

5. Because I said so, that's why.

4. Sure, you can watch another movie.

3. We'll see.

2. How about we bake cookies for a snack?

1. You kids are making me crazy!

And just to balance the tables, here is a top 10 list of things I always say, even if I have to force myself to whenever I'm having one of "those" days:

10. Good job!

9. Please.

8. Thank you.

7. I'm very proud of you.

6. Can I have a hug and/or kiss?

5. You're my bestest boy/girl.

4. Are you making good choices?

3. Let's go show Daddy.

2. Tell me a story.

1. I love you.

What's on your top 10 list?

Sorry, can't think of a title.

2009-02-25T22:09:00.005-05:00

(Sorry about the title, I'm just not that creative tonight)

It's cold in our house. Why, you ask? Because our furnace isn't on. It's not working properly and it's old and it's leaking water around the base and carbon monoxide into the house. So it's not running tonight.

On a side note, this explains why I've been getting terrible headaches and that overall yucky feeling over the last few days. (No, Daddy, we haven't had the CO detector plugged in - it's still in a box somewhere). I think I'm more sensitive, though, because Trey and the kids haven't really been effected. Unless CO makes kids fight with each other and not share and just be all-around normal kids.

As much as it sucks to be cold, today it was actually kinda nice out and it won't get that cold tonight, so it could be worse. "That cold" meaning below 35. Trey brought home a space heater from his work and we've been moving it back and forth between all our bedrooms.

So tomorrow we're getting a brand-spanking-new furnace installed. That should be fun. Just in time for winter to be over. Murphy's Law really sucks.

* * * * *

We're done, for now at least, with the kitchen. If I can keep it straightened up long enough, I'll take a couple of "after" shots and make a nice pretty post about it. Of course, now that we have the walls and trim painted, we're thinking we want to paint the cabinets. Yeah, that should be fun.

* * * * *

I'm participating in another really big consignment sale coming up next month. I need to get everything tagged before the 14th so I can order the bar codes. Because of that, I won't be around too much in the next couple of weeks. I have some posts that I'll hopefully be able to get together and get out, but if I'm not around, it's not because I don't love you.

Off to curl up under an old down comforter. Hope it doesn't get really cold tonight, like they said it wouldn't.

The homeschool update

2009-02-24T05:57:00.005-05:00

A couple of weekends ago, we received a letter addressed to Monkey about some area magnet schools in our town. At first, I was more curious about how we landed on the list to get their open house mailer, but after talking to friends, I found that it's sent out to all the children registered in our county (that's a LOT of paper, friends). So I started looking at one of them online - an honors academy for elementary children. Children had to test in the 85% or better to attend and they seemed to have a very creative program for kids. The problem was, it was about a 20 minute drive in a questionable part of town.

But because I like to give the benefit of the doubt, I still planned to go to the open house. I thought that maybe we could enroll Monkey in the honors program instead of me trying to piece together my own honors curriculum. I arranged for Little Man to go hang out with his buddy and hit the road. It was an easy drive - interstate the whole way - and it took just over 20 minutes. But because of the location and the interchanges between the highways, the potential for early morning traffic issues was definitely there.

When I arrived, however, I didn't even get out of the car. First impressions are quite often the only impression and my first impression of the school and the neighborhood were not good. Yes, I was willing to give the school the benefit of the doubt, but not risk the safety of my child. While I'm sure the school administration takes steps to take care of it's children, there are just some situations that given the choice (and we're blessed to have a choice) I would rather not be a part of. I know that I'm being judgmental and I'm not quite happy with myself on that note, but unfortunately that's how things are. I have to do what I think is best for my family and the long drive twice a day and a questionable neighborhood is not on the list.

So, even though I wasn't really off the homeschool train, I'm now much more confident about it. I've been researching different curriculums, trying to find something that will suit and challenge Monkey and still be fun for both of us. Little Man was registered for preschool for the fall and he'll be at his school M/W/F and the enrichment program for Monkey will be on M/W so I'll still have some time off for myself to get things done during the day that I don't want to have to do at night or the off days that Trey is home.

There is an unbelievable amount of information out there on different homeschool curriculums. Now what I have to do is start to narrow it down. Thankfully, I have good friends who have done this before, so while I'm doing some research on my own, I'm not reinventing the wheel. My dear friend, we'll call her Lori, is homeschooling her 2nd grader now and will be teaching both of her daughters in the fall. At this time last year, she was buried in curriculums and programs and books and thankfully, because of all her hard work, I'm able to just follow the links she gave me. Lori's daughter also attends the enrichment program that Monkey will be going to, so I've been able to get a lot of information about that as well.

So now I'm hoping that the curriculum I piece together will be the right one - fun, challenging and easy for me to teach. If any of you are homeschooling your child/children, I'd love to get your feedback on the curriculum you use and why you chose it.

quote of the day

2009-02-19T10:40:00.005-05:00

I'm still working on my kitchen today, so it's hard to type and sand/spackle/paint all at the same time. So, while I'm waiting for the spackle to dry so I can sand some more, I thought I'd share a quote with you.

It comes from a set of prints my mom gave us. The artist is Brian Andreas and he has a collection he calls the Story People. They are bright and colorful; fun prints that brighten any room. This quote is from one called No Regret.

I sometimes wake in the

early morning & listen to the

soft breathing of my children

& I think to myself,

This is one thing I'll never regret

& I carry that quiet with me all day long.

He stole a pancake

2009-02-17T19:31:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning, something funny happened in a not-so-funny way. The kids were eating pink pancakes (I made extra pink pancakes on Saturday so they could also have some on Sunday) and I was downstairs catching up on my emails while they ate. I usually get a good 5-10 minutes uninterrupted, depending on what they're eating.

Monkey has this habit of getting up in the middle of breakfast and dashing to the bathroom. One would think that she would get that bit of business taken care of beforehand, but not so.

She came back to the table (after cleaning up, of course) and I hear, "Little Man!"

Monkey walked downstairs, calling for me, and I could tell by her tone that she was barely holding it together.

"What's up?" I ask, thinking any number of things that Little Man could have done.

"Little Man ate my last bite of pancakes,"

"Really? He really did that?" This was not on my list of things that Little Man could have done.

"Yeah, he really did."

Oh man, what to do. Well, he can't really give it back, now can he? So we go upstairs and have as reasonable a conversation as anyone can with a 3 year old about how it's not nice to take food from another person's plate, not even his sister.

But I have to wonder if she'll be leaving her plate of pancakes unprotected again.

future topics teaser

2009-02-16T06:52:00.004-05:00

Yes, I have done the unthinkable in the blogging world. I have gone 8 days without writing a post. That's bad, I know, but it's been one of those weeks. Nothing has really happened that was worth writing about and I really don't want to bore my readers with the mundane things like "today, I folded laundry. Woo hoo!" But this weekend, several different things happened so, like a good blogger should, I'm hanging on to them and posting about them separately and spreading them out so at least it looks like I'm a productive blogger.

There was a conversation/event between Little Man and Monkey that was pretty funny in a not-so-funny sort of way.

I received something in the mail that could be another option for Monkey's education next year.

We're painting and cosmetically upgrading two different areas of the house - the office downstairs and the kitchen upstairs. Yes, I know it sounds funny to say the kitchen is upstairs, but we have a split foyer, so there.

Oh, and I have a post idea that was given to me by Mawmaw (my mother-in-law) about something that happened to them that paralleled something that happened to us.

So, assuming I can find time in the day when I'm not doing laundry, painting, prepping, working, taking care of the kids, cooking dinner, cleaning and organizing the office and the kitchen as well as normal day-to-day housecleaning , then I'll be typing away at my future posts.

And to help me out for future blogging, please feel free to leave topic suggestions in the comments area.

Daddies and daughters

2009-02-08T08:30:00.002-05:00

I've mentioned this before, I think, but sometimes I take pictures for our church. I'm not a great photographer but occasionally, I'll get lucky and snap some really cool shots. There are still some things I'm trying to learn about my camera and taking pictures; technical things, like adjusting the aperture, shutter speed, exposure. But it's fun and sometimes, as I said, I get lucky and find that "money" shot.

Last night I felt a little like Ashton Kutcher from the wedding Nikon commercial, getting great shots (although I didn't knock over any champagne glasses). That is, when my head wasn't imploding with frustration trying to get those great shots. And I really wanted to get those great shots.

You see, last night I was a part of something few moms ever get to see. It made me laugh, smile, grin, giggle and even feel the sting of tears. I found myself watching my dear friends' husbands and daughters and holding them even more dear than I did before because of what I was seeing. I was able to observe, somewhat anonymously, daddies and their daughters laughing and playing and being silly. Last night, our church had their 11th Annual Father Daughter Dance.

There's just something special about a relationship between a daddy and his daughter. If you are a parent, you already understand that there are bonds between a daddy and his daughter and a mommy and her son. There's just no explaining it. The fact that there were at least two scheduled Daddy Daughter dances last night (our church and one at a hotel downtown) is a simple proof that it's there. (On a side note, there was also a Monster Truck Jam this weekend, for the Mommies and Sons.)

So last night I show up a little before all the other dads and daughters to practice taking pictures with my camera. As any place decorated for a dance should be, the lighting was low, with some stage lights (we had a DJ) and a few white Christmas lights for decoration. As people started showing up, I started taking pictures. It was very frustrating at first - little girls don't tend to stand still - but I started getting the hang of it. The nicest thing about a digital camera is seeing the shot after it's taken and being able to take hundreds (I took, literally, about 400 pictures last night) and just deleting the ones that were no good. I think I'll be deleting a lot.

As the night wore on, I can't even begin to tell you what it was like. I almost feel like I'd be betraying some big secret if I talked too much about what happened. Like it's some secret society and the rituals involved can't be discussed outside it's members. I can tell you that I saw daddies dancing with their daughters without any hesitation about how they thought they looked. No one seemed self-conscious about it at all. They all looked like they were having a great time with their daughters. Trey tried to get Monkey to dance some early on, but she was feeling a little bit shy. It took her a while to get warmed up to dancing and, naturally, it was a Hannah Montana song that got them out on the dance floor.

The ages of the daughters ranged from about one year old and still figuring out that their legs can do more than just walk, to a mom dancing with her daddy, but I'd say the majority of the girls' ages fell between 4 and 14. The girls were all dressed up in their fancy valentine dresses and the daddies were in suits, tuxedos that matched their daughters' dresses and I did see one in an Air Force uniform. There's just something about a man in uniform!

I'm so glad that I was there last night. It was something special and wonderful and I won't soon forget it. I can't wait to start culling the pictures I took and I hope I find those "money" shots of all those daddies and daughters.

Monkey's photos

2009-02-04T07:25:00.008-05:00

I'm finally feeling human again and since the kids are out of school AGAIN today, I thought I'd park them in front of the cartoons and update my blog. Great parenting, I know, but it's only 7:00 in the morning. I have all day to get them moving.

As I said before, Tara, over at Sticky Fingers, photo tagged me. The rules are go to the folders you keep your digital pictures in, find the fourth folder, look at the fourth picture and tell about it then link back to who tagged you and tag four more people. I've done this before, a while back, but I wasn't organized enough to do it right, so I just picked a random picture. We use a Mac and all our pics are in iPhoto and we don't normally create separate albums - I know we should, but we don't. A few months ago, we created albums for Disney, Christmas and pictures that Monkey had taken with her camera. That was my fourth album. I hadn't gone any further than that.

So, the fourth picture in the folder was this one:

She went around the day Trey gave her his old digital camera and took pictures of EVERYTHING. She staged her toys, followed the cat around, took goofy pictures of me and Trey, photographed photographs, went outside and took pictures of flowers and weeds and plants. I think she took 50 pictures that day. In the space of about 30 minutes.

Here is a small selection of her portfolio.

However, I realized when I opened up Photoshop, to add my watermark to her pictures, that in Photoshop, everything is in folders already. So I was able to go through and (sorta) follow the instructions. I say "sorta" because there are some pictures of family and friends that I won't post because I don't have their permission and so forth, so I had to fudge it a little. This picture is actually from the third folder, the fourth folder in that folder and the fourth picture of that folder.

It's an old one and I'm not really surprised I landed on it. First, it's a good example why Monkey is called Monkey (she was a year old when this picture was taken) and it was taken at my Great Aunt's farm in Pennsylvania. She just passed week ago yesterday. My daddy's side of the family has a reunion in Pa. every year. We try to go every year, but haven't been in the last three years for a variety of reasons, so she never got to meet Little Man, but she enjoyed Monkey. She still maintained a small vegetable garden and she had a wildly crazy boarder collie that would chase balls all. day. long. She was a spunky ol' farm girl with a clear head and a kind heart. She will be missed.

Now, for the tagging. Hmmm.... I'm trying to think of who I haven't tagged in the past so here goes. Tammy, Kathryn, Betsy and Ryan. I don't know if any of you have done this photo tag before or not. I tried going back several posts and didn't see anything, so if this is a repeat from the past for you, my apologies.

quick updates...

2009-02-02T15:14:00.003-05:00

We have another snow day today. The kiddos were dismissed early because of it.

I'm still recovering from being sick over the weekend, so... yuck.

Oh, and I've gained a child. WB, Little Man's best friend (and arch nemesis, in the way that only they can be) is hanging out with us while his mommy and daddy are at the hospital. She's due in 7 weeks, but may have to go early, so she's checking with the doctor today to see what they say.

Needless to say, I may not be blogging too much in the next couple of days. Yeah, I know, how is that different from how often I've blogged in the last few days, but cut me some slack, will ya?

I've been tagged by Tara over at Sticky Fingers, and I fully intend to follow through, but it may take a couple of days. I will get it done, however, so stay tuned. It's one of those photo tags and it just so happens that the photo file on our computer the tag landed on is a folder of pictures that Monkey has taken. Should be interesting.

Oh, and while I'm at it - what a game last night! First, I couldn't believe I stayed up for it and second, I couldn't believe how good it was. Personally, I was hoping the Cardinals would win simply because they were the underdogs, but since I have family from PA, I'm also glad the Steelers won.

To pee or not to pee...

2009-01-29T06:08:00.005-05:00

Little Man walked awkwardly down the hall towards us , trying really hard to keep his legs from touching each other.

"Did you just have an accident?"

Sadly, "yeah."

Monkey turns to look at her brother, asks,

"Are your pants wet, Little Man?"

"yeah," the wet stain covers his pants like a pair of chaps. He continues his bowlegged walk towards me.

Monkey turns back, carrying her book from the hall to the kitchen, raises her eyebrows and quietly, with a bit of bored amazement and just a hint of inflection, says,

"wow."

worthless

2009-01-26T07:32:00.004-05:00

Today is going to be a worthless day.

Little Man decided he would try and wake up the entire house at 4:00 am. By screaming and crying and moving things around to get to his lamp so he could turn the light on. He knows that screaming will get me up and he thought it was playtime.

I could hear him banging around trying to climb on top of the clothes hamper to get to the lamp. The way our house is laid out, his room is right next to ours, sharing a wall. When I went in to check on (scold, yell, whatever) him, he was stuck inside with the lid crumpled around him.

I put him in bed and took the hamper out of the room.

Not more than one minute later, I hear more banging around. Hoping it would go away, I rolled over. Then I heard it again. So I get up. This time his light is on. What the? He had gotten the two stools out of the bathroom to his room and stacked them up so he could reach the lamp.

Too tired and irritable to admire his resourcefulness, I turned off his lamp and carried the stools back to the bathroom. Told him to stay in bed; it's too early to get up; everyone is trying to sleep, then crawled back into my own bed. Trey is grumbling, too, by the way. This back-and-forth thing had been going on for about 15 minutes and we both had been up to try and get the boy in bed.

Before my head hit the pillow, I hear Little Man carrying the stools again (he bangs them against the wall as he's moving them). Stubborn little bugger, that one. So I get the stools and hide one in the tub, behind the shower curtain, and the other in our room, next to the hamper. Get him in bed. Get myself in bed.

Then I hear him trying to get in our room (our door sticks, so it's not an easy thing to just walk in when it's closed). I don't really remember how many times this happened - at least twice because both Trey and I got up. When Trey went in there, the last time as it happened, he was in there for a little bit longer. I could hear him talking to Little Man but I have no idea what he said. It must have worked because we never heard another peep out of him. This was around 4:30 am or so.

It's a good thing, too, because I was composing in my head the ebay listing for "one cute little three year old boy that won't let me sleep."

Is that really necessary?

2009-01-22T07:55:00.003-05:00

I'm not quite sure how to start this post. I'm sure I'll step on some toes, and I apologize in advance if I offend anyone- it's not my intent to be offensive, but I have a rant to get off my chest.

There's a local blogger that I follow. She's a real estate agent and posts things about the city where I live. Things like featured neighborhoods (which include different houses that are listed in those 'hoods), sales reports, polls and even cool houses that we could never afford. She also posts a weekly foreclosure watch. She usually features a least expensive, a most expensive, then picks one from each directional region (N, S, E, W). I look at the expensive ones and the ones in our region, usually.

Most of the time, the pricier houses seem to be in fair shape. At least they still have their kitchens.

But today, I looked at a house that was listed as-is for $250K.

It was missing pretty much everything but the walls, windows and roof. Not only were the appliances gone, but the kitchen cabinets were gone. The bathrooms had no toilets or sinks. The carpet was ripped up out of the bedrooms. Ceiling fans and light fixtures were missing; the dining room was missing the wainscoting. The crown molding and the base molding were gone. It was missing the central heat and air system. And the door and window frames, too.

The door and window frames, too??? Seriously, people?

I know we're in a recession. I have dear friends whose husbands have been laid off. I know stay-at-home moms that have gone back to work. Our church has started putting together a new networking group of people to help those who have lost their jobs. I get it. I can't imagine the anger and frustration and worry that comes along with not having income or knowing that you are being kicked out of your home. I'm thankful every day for what we have and pray for those who are going through this.

But destroying a house because you're pissed off is just vandalism. I understand that sometimes, in a foreclosure, things will need to be done like new carpet or painting. Probably the appliances would need replacing and I don't know what else. But to completely remove things like door frames and molding? The TOILETS? I mean, what can you possibly get if you're trying to sell these things? What's the going rate for used wainscoting? Don't they understand that by stripping the house means it won't sell for what it was worth and they'd still owe the bank that money?

Sure, you might be able to get a few hundred dollars selling custom cabinets (assuming they were custom to begin with) or granite counters so I could take a step back and see selling off the kitchen cabinets to try and pay down some debt. I could even understand selling bathroom vanities. But the molding? The door frames? Used carpet? The HVAC System?

I know that I should be a little more understanding - I know shit happens and life deals blows you can't see coming. But if you're in debt up to your eyeballs (like the commercial with the guy driving around on a riding lawnmower) then you have to know that something just might come along and yank the rug out from under you. You shouldn't take it out on the house that you thought would be your "forever home," that you bought banking on moving up and getting that promotion but knowing that you'd be house-poor until that promotion came through.

Now, before you people starting blasting the nasty comments to me, understand that I know nothing about that house other than it's on a foreclosure list and that it's missing a whole bunch of stuff. I know nothing about the family or their background. I have no idea why they had to foreclose on their house. I do remember reading a post several months ago on craigslist of someone selling "anything that isn't bolted down in their house" because they couldn't afford the mortgage on their house and they were pissed off at the bank for not cutting them some slack. So they were going to trash the house so the bank wouldn't get their money out of selling the house.

There really are people like that out there. And it pisses me off. I listen to Dave Ramsey and the stories people call in with are tragic. Being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and desperate to find help. But I don't remember hearing anyone talking about how they stripped down a perfectly good house because they were pissed off at the world.

What it looks like to me is a couple of grown-ups having a two-year-old temper tantrum, without accepting any of the responsibility of their actions (whether they were in control of their situation or it was something that just happened to them) and showing lack of respect. Respect is a big thing with me; respect of people, of property, of self. That's one thing I always try and stress to my kids (among lots of other things).

It's the disrespect these people showed that got this rant going. If I offended you, I'm sorry. If you are in a position where you might be losing your job or your home, I'm deeply sorry and I hope and pray for a better outcome for you and yours. I hope you can take a step back and see my underlying point: that no matter what happens in life, you should still be respectful. It gives a person dignity and will get them respect in return.

Pictures from our snow day

2009-01-21T07:50:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a snow day. The kids were very excited about having snow to play in. We went out kinda early - it was before 10am - and played in the snow. I tried teaching them how to make snowballs but unfortunately the snow wasn't very cooperative. We just ended up throwing handfuls of snow at each other. Monkey did manage to get some all the way down the back of my shirt. Note to self: don't duck and cover head, thus exposing the back of the neck, when someone is throwing snow.

There was evidence of some early morning visitors. The kids had fun following the rabbit tracks. Luckily I was able to get a few pictures before they were all obliterated.

Monkey decided to make snow angels. She tried teaching Little Man...

but he didn't quite get it right. He wouldn't lay all the way back on the snow, just his elbows.

But then I had to show them how it was done. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I made a snow angel? I think I may have been not much older than Monkey.

The kids tried making a snowman but it ended up more like a snow pile.

I love a snow day!

Snow day!

2009-01-19T07:24:00.002-05:00

We actually have a snow day today! First time in the two and a half years we've lived in this area! How very exciting!

Sure, I had a lot I needed to do today. I was looking forward to getting the kids to school so I can run errands and such.

But it's a SNOW DAY!

Now, instead of "working" later today, I'll be outside throwing snowballs at the kids and taking pictures.

I love a snow day!

Happy Birthday

2009-01-16T07:08:00.003-05:00

BA-na na na Nah naaah

You say it's your BIRTHday!

BA-na na na Nah naaah

It's my birthday TOO, yeah!

(nothing like being serenaded by the king of the dipshits in an old shop car)

(And I'm one year closer to 40 today)

Oh, bring it ON!

2009-01-15T06:51:00.002-05:00

photo by Stephen Cummings

Girl Scout cookie sales start tonight at midnight.

This is my first year involved with the Girl Scouts - I'm a cookie sales virgin! Ok, that just sounded wrong on so many levels, I should delete that. Here's the deal. This is like no other fund raiser I've ever done. We had our troop meeting this week and everything was explained to us about how this would all go down.

Do not sell cookies before 12:01 am, January 16th. Do not sell cookies BEFORE 12:01 am on January 16th. Do NOT sell cookies before midnight on Thursday night. Yes, this really was emphasized several times. I'm thinking to myself - how would they know? And another mom asked the question before I did. This started the ball rolling of stories from bygone days of selling cookies.

Apparently this is a major competition. And I don't mean between the girls. Some of the stories floating around were, first-off, always from someone else's troop. So-and-so would see someone selling cookies before the start date and would ask, oh-so-innocently, "oh, what troop are you in?" and then go report that troop for selling cookies early.

At another troop, one person trumped another's "regular sales" of 500 boxes at a particular business, again before the official start date. (During all this, I'm visualizing times from childhood of moms bumrushing stores to buy Cabbage Patch dolls, only they're waving Girl Scout order forms instead.) The girls get penalized for early sales, by the way.

Really? This really happens? I'm all up for a bit of healthy competition, but this is ridiculous.

Then she passes out a form for us to sign and they want my SS# or DL#. Huh? This is for the purpose of their Collections department for money that is owed them. HUH??? People are skipping out on what they order? Taking the cookies and running and I'm held responsible for it?? Who are these people?!?

Then she goes over the delivery dates. Again, it is emphasized DO NOT deliver the cookies before February 27th (even though we'll be getting our cookies on the 24th, or somewhere around then). I think we moms were all too stunned to react by this point because I don't remember any horror delivery stories being passed around. From other troops, of course.

Now, I like Girl Scout cookies. The thin mints are the bomb, especially when they're cold, but I will NOT be held responsible for someone else's bad financial decisions. So if I come to you (or better yet, my sweet little Monkey with those big puppy dog eyes comes to you) and ask oh-so-sweetly "would you like to order some Girl Scout cookies?" know that we won't ask before midnight tonight, they for sure won't be delivered to you until February 27th (even though they'll be taking up space in my house for a few days beforehand) and when they are delivered, you better pay for what you ordered with cash, a money order or a check made out to me (which I will promptly go cash).

But you better buy a lot of cookies. Monkey wants to win an ipod.

What is a friend?

2009-01-13T06:34:00.009-05:00

photo by Gwennypics

Friends.

A wise man once told me that if you can count the number of good, true friends on one hand, you are truly blessed (thanks, Daddy). I think that I am lucky enough to have a few more than that. I've made lots of friends over the years. Some have come and gone, but some have stayed with me. One from childhood (Hi, E.S.!), a few from college and many since then. People that I know that I can count on if I need help.

So, what is a friend? How do you define friendship? Is it someone you don't have to talk to but you know is there for you? Is it someone you see every day? Do they take care of your children or do you take care of theirs, or both? Could it be someone that you've never even met face to face, only become friends over the internet?

How do you maintain that friendship? Is it though phone calls, emails, Facebook or texting? Do you see them on a daily or weekly basis? Maybe only once a month for dinner out or once a year for a weekend getaway? Or is it even less often than that?

I know that we can't get through life without building relationships with others. Our children are quick to make friends and we should be, too. We should be open to meeting people of all kinds because we never know what kind of influence they'll have on our lives. I know that I'm guilty of staying within my comfort zone when it comes to meeting people and making friends. I haven't ventured out to areas outside my church or my daughter's school or the gym where I work out. So what am I missing? Is it possible that my horizons could be broadened by befriending someone who is struggling with addiction? Or someone who is from another country or culture than mine? Absolutely.

What holds me back? I don't know... fear of the unknown, perhaps. Shyness. Hmmm... something to work on.

I can't imagine what life would be like without the friends I've made. They make me laugh, hold me when I cry, tell me if I'm screwing up (nothing like brutal honesty from a friend, right?), help me with advice or even just hang out with me. I'm so very thankful for the friends that I have made.

I remember another bit of wisdom. I'm sure I'll get the wording wrong but hopefully you'll get my meaning. Friends love you because they want to, family loves you because they have to. That may not be entirely true - I'm sure there are some who don't love certain family members - but the point is, the friends you have don't have to be your friends. They are there because they want to be and because you want them to be there, too.

Treasure your friends. Tell them once in a while - hey, I'm glad you're here. Think about the things you value in your friends and are you exhibiting those same traits to them? Are you as good a friend to others as they are to you?

Go hug a friend today. Just because.

The Homeschool Debate

2009-01-09T06:03:00.005-05:00

I'm back on the homeschooling idea. Monkey's teacher, who came up with an accelerated program for Monkey and two other advanced readers in her class, had to move back to where she had moved here from. I don't know the whole story, but it had to do with a job for her husband.

Anyway, so Monkey has a new teacher. She's also getting bored in school. She likes learning and she's doing very well, but that's just it. She'll finish her math before the other kids and quietly draw on her paper. She got in trouble for it. Twice. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to talk to the teacher to get her story before she left, so I don't know both sides. I only know that Monkey had finished her work, correctly, and was trying to occupy her own time while waiting on the other students to catch up. At least that's what she told me.

So, now I'm looking again at homeschooling for next year. Can I just tell you there is way. too. much. information out there about homeschooling. I have never felt so overwhelmed about one "simple" topic in my life. Except for maybe statistics. That was pretty overwhelming. Thankfully, I have friends who homeschool and are enjoying it, so it's not like I would be out there all on my own.

So, as I see it, here are a few of the perks: The "school day" is shorter. The state where we live only requires four hours of study for it to count as a full day. This would allow for more free time with Monkey to do things like sports/dance/girl scouts without having to rush, rush, rush after school and before dinner and/or bed time. I wouldn't have to get up quite so early every morning, since we'd be on our own schedule (selfish, I know, but it's true). I could teach to her skills. She's reading on a 3rd or 4th grade level (she's only 6, remember) and she does really well with math. She's even started doing simple multiplication in her head. In her HEAD! Another perk is that in this area, there are lots of homeschool groups and enrichment programs, so she'd still get that classroom feeling with other students two or three times a week. She's a very social girl, so I know that would be important. We'd be able to take field trips to museums and such and I'd be able to teach through involvement. She'd also get to stay in her current Girl Scout troop, so she wouldn't lose that connection with her current friends. And if it doesn't work out after a year, she can go back to school for third grade.

Naturally, just as there are some upsides, there are downsides as well. I would lose a good bit of my own free time. I know, that sounds horribly selfish, but anyone with children will agree (even if they don't want to) that downtime away from one's children is very important to one's sanity. One way to "fix" this would be to make sure Monkey is in one of those enrichment programs (which I would do, anyway). The trick will be getting it to coincide with preschool with Little Man so that when Monkey is at school, Little Man would be, too. That would give me a couple days a week to have my "mommy time" without both children. The idea of coming up with a curriculum is daunting, at best. There is really so much out there - how would I know what to choose? Also, I'm not a very organized person. I know one doesn't HAVE to be organized to teach, but it certainly helps. And will Monkey and I be able to slide into the student/teacher roles? Will I be able to be the teacher without being the mommy? Will she be able to accept and respect me as the teacher when it's time to learn?

All these questions and doubts are floating around. There's a reason I never wanted to homeschool - I just don't know if I "have it." But, if this is something that Monkey needs to succeed, I'll do it. I can't screw her up that bad in a year, can I?

What do you think? Any words of wisdom out there?

Patterns

2009-01-06T06:28:00.004-05:00

photo by mikebaird.

Life. There are a lot of different things people say about life. Circle of life. Seasons of life. Life routines. Getting into the groove. But what about life patterns? Patterns are everywhere if you look hard enough. Seasons come in a pattern. The phases of the moon form a pattern. How plants and animals grow and change is a pattern. Music is a pattern. Reading follows a pattern. Everything starts at one phase and changes to another phase; a pattern. You could even look at day/night as an A/B/A/B pattern.

photo by faeryboots

Have you ever examined a bumble bee? He has a pattern. Flowers follow patterns. Trees, animals - think zebras and tigers and leopards - birds. Think about animals that migrate; they follow a pattern every year of their life. Everything around us has a pattern. Even down to the DNA. We, as people, have and develop patterns. Oh, we call them routines, but they are patterns just the same.

We're entering back into the school pattern today. I love the school pattern. I'm selfish that way. I love being able to get my kids off to school so I can do mundane things like go to the grocery store without them. I can run around and do little errands that would take me twice as long if I had even one of them with me.

Patterns (or routines) make life easy to follow. I bet you travel the same way to work every day, if you work outside the home. If you work from home, I'm sure you follow a pattern there, too. Get up, get coffee, sit at the desk/computer/whatever for about the same length of time before you get more coffee. As a parent getting children ready for school, you follow a pattern. How many times a morning do you say, "Come on or we'll be late for school," or "Hurry up and finish your breakfast"? Wouldn't it be interesting to note for, say, a week, what time every morning you say that or something similar?

Some patterns are necessary for survival. An easy survival pattern to think of might be the spots on a fawn or a snake. They camouflage the animal so it can either hide from the predator or the prey. But what about a traffic pattern? Imagine what might happen if an airplane didn't follow a flight pattern or cars didn't follow the road patterns. What if a building was built haphazardly instead of utilizing the basic pattern needed for construction?

photo by rutlo.

Think about it. What is your pattern like? What would happen if your pattern got disrupted somehow? Would it totally screw up your day or would you just roll with it and adapt?

Stop, today, at some point and look around you. Do you see the patterns?

Calling all writers...

2009-01-04T18:15:00.006-05:00

photo by paul worthington

Hello dear readers. I know several of you (at least I hope you're here reading) are writers. I have a request of you. Trey, my wonderful husband, writes. Well, at least he used to. You see, he was an English major, back in the day, when we first met in college. His concentration was creative writing. He used to write prose, poems, stream of consciousness, you name it.

But he hasn't done it in a long time. His job is a bit more technical now and doesn't really allow for any creativeness. I've encouraged him to write stories about things he's seen and done, or fiction or about whatever it is that inspires him. He's a bit reluctant, possibly because he hasn't done it in a while, but he said he would think about it.

I would love it if some of you writers could encourage him to break out the old leather journal and put pen to paper. He isn't one to share everyday things on a blog (unlike me, right?) but I've told him that if he'd write something, I'd love to share it here.

What challenges have you faced as a writer? What inspires you? When do you find you do your best writing? What other words of encouragement can you share? Do you have any links to writers that you like? (don't assume I go to the same places you do).

I look forward to sharing your words with Trey.

New Year's Goal

2008-12-31T06:51:00.004-05:00

Resolutions.

Everyone is writing about resolutions. Well, maybe not EVERYONE, but quite a few bloggers in my reader are. I can't remember when I stopped making them. It was several years ago, mainly because I couldn't keep any of them.

This year, I resolve to... what? What is it about making a resolution that makes it so difficult to keep? I'm sure we all have something we need to resolve to do. Exercise more, eat better, quit smoking/drinking/whatever-your-addiction, build a better relationship with someone, forgive someone, give more, give less (sounds greedy, I know, but I'm sure there are people out there who give and give until they have nothing left for themselves, be it money, emotions, love, whatever), read more, write more, be more creative, spend more time with family/friends, learn to say "no", learn to say "yes", start a new hobby, finish an old project, clean out a closet, learn a new skill.

There are so many resolutions, but why do we keep it only at the new year? Just because it's a new year? The start of something new always seems to lead to wanting to change something in our lives. The promise of a do-over. The thought that this time, this year will be different. But why not each new month or each new day?

My church has Celebrate Recovery on Thursdays. I haven't been to the services - I'm blessed to not have any addictions - but I do know that some people in recovery go day by day. Before their feet hit the floor they say Thank You to their greater power, be it God or something else, for giving them this day. Maybe they have to resolve to not take that drink, or drug, or participate in whatever their addition is every day.

Why don't we make resolutions every day? Maybe we do, but don't consider them "resolutions". It's a To-Do list, or a chore list, or an "I really need to get this done today" list. I know there are task-oriented people out there who relish the idea of getting things accomplished. I like being able to mark off something on my list and having the satisfaction of completing something but a resolution hangs over my head like a dark cloud.

This year, I resolve to change it from "resolution" to "goal". And my goals will be monthly, not yearly.

In January, my goal will be to work out twice a week, which is a big step up since I haven't really worked out at all since school started in August.

Maybe in February, my goal will be to clear out some things I've collected over the years. It's tough being a pack-rat married to a non-pack-rat. Or maybe I'll step up to working out three times a week. I don't know yet; I'll decide in January.

I like this plan better than one big resolution for the whole year. I might actually be able to keep a resol- oops, I mean, goal and not break it. I encourage you to be creative in your thinking for the upcoming New Year's Resolutions, especially if you have trouble keeping them. Maybe you just need to look at it from a different angle. Write it down, email yourself a reminder once in a while, put it on a calendar, stick it to the fridge. Help yourself keep your goals and be successful.

So, what is your goal for 2009?

(wow, is it really 2009?!?)

Little Man

2008-12-28T07:33:00.006-05:00

I have to tell some stories on my son. The last few days have been kinda funny with him around and I just want to share. Then it'll be Monkey's turn, just to be fair, because when you have two children, there's a law somewhere that says what you do with/for one you must do with/for the other.

About three weeks ago or so, we brought home the Christmas tree. Naturally, the children loved it. And they played with it while we were still setting it up. Even the netting that the store wrapped the tree in became something of a toy for Little Man as he would wrap up his security blankets in it. While I was gone for pizza, though, something must have happened to The King because when I got back and we moved the tree to it's permanent location, Little Man was distraught that The King was under the tree. He wasn't. And he wasn't in the trash, tangled up with the netting. The King was lost. As any parent can tell you, toys of this great importance must never be lost. But we couldn't find the King.

Christmas came and went. Little Man got a small tractor from Grandma. Trey was playing with Little Man and "tipped" the tractor. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. Anyway, watching Little Man later, he tipped the tractor all on his own, with McQueen or Mater doing the work and waiting the few seconds before sounding the "toot" at the end. Very cute. Little Man also scored big with Chick Hicks. This was the one thing he kept asking for and he got the green one and the Dinoco blue one. Not long after opening all his presents - the same day in fact - the green Chick Hicks got lost, too. Tragic, I tell you. I wasn't as concerned about finding Chick. With all the toys and such scattered about the house with abandon, I knew Chick would show up.

The day after Christmas, I was determined to take down the tree. I took off the ornaments and boxed them up. I coiled up all the lights and put them away. I examined the tree to make sure there weren't any ornaments left behind. Then I saw it. Along the bottom of the tree, tucked way back in the branches, was Chick Hicks. I took it back to Little Man and he giggled his cute little giggle. When I went back to the tree to finish checking the branches, there was The King. Tucked in just a little bit further and around the side. Now Little Man's world was complete.

On Saturday, we had a beautiful, spring-like day. It's been raining a lot lately, and while I know we need the rain, we also need sunny days to get the kids out and about. Well, we headed to a park with the puppy in tow. I figured he needed an outing, too. At the last minute, I decided to try out the dog park nearby. It was a great idea. Unless you take into account all the MUD! And all the dogs. Actually, it wasn't so bad - the puppy loved it! - but within 5 minutes of being there, Little Man got tackled by another over-enthusiastic dog and got covered in mud. He didn't like that much. Mud was all over his face, hands, in his hair. And he cried. I took him to the car and cleaned him up and settled him down. We went back in and watched Monkey play fetch with a sweet old mix named Bear. Little Man, of course, had to try. There were altercations, mistakes were made, feelings were hurt, then Little Man spotted another ball and made a dash for it. So did the same dog that tackled him before. As you can imagine, there was another collision. More mud. More tears. But he got over it a little more quickly this time. We stayed a while longer then headed home. Needless to say, we'll take the pup back (he was good and tired) but it'll be after some of the mud dries up.

Th-th-th-th-that's all folks! I'll be back later with more stories and random musings, but I have a long list of chores awaiting me and I must get to it.

Quote of the day

2008-12-28T07:13:00.001-05:00

Glitter is the herpes of the craft world.

by grits404

the aftermath

2008-12-26T10:35:00.004-05:00

It's the day after.

The day after the Son is born.

The day after the big fat guy in a furry red suit comes down the chimney.

The day after the kids have blown through their presents like whirling dervishes.

The day after a huge dinner that was surprisingly easy to cook this year.

The day after we spend the entire day in our pajamas - except for Monkey, who changed from the old pajamas she slept in to the new Hannah Montana pajamas she got from Mawmaw and Pawpaw.

This is the day after.

This is the day Trey takes the opened and destroyed boxes to recycling.

This is the day Trey shops for a new TV for the bedroom (this has been a long... discussion... between us and I finally gave up).

This is the day that Trey witnessed two men arguing and road-raging; the Christmas spirit must be gone.

This is the day that I make a dog and cat food run to the grocery store.

This is the day that I get the kids OUT of the house no matter what.

This is the day that the tree is coming DOWN because I'm tired of Little Man breaking ornaments and of the cats peeing on the paper underneath it.

This is the day that the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

What's in the box??

2008-12-22T12:22:00.003-05:00

Is Christmas really only a couple of days away? I'm so excited! There's a box here - opened! - with my name on it and I really REALLY want to peek inside. Trey has delicately taped it shut, with a tiny hair placed just so, so he'd know if I went snooping around.

Ok, not really, but all the same, it's KILLING ME!

And I can't wait for the kids to open their gifts. Monkey has been asking for one thing and I got it! It's an American Girl doll, and I got it for a steal from someone I work with. She never really played with it that much when she was younger - it's just been sitting in its box in her closet. And I bought it with a scene book. Something that is big enough that Monkey can set it up and play with the doll in different rooms and stuff. It's really cool.

Little Man was easy to shop for this year, too. He loves Cars, so that's most of what he's getting. It's funny, but this is the first year that I was pretty much DONE with all my shopping well before Christmas. By "well before," I mean about two weeks before Christmas. I'm not good enough to get all my shopping done before November. I just can't do that. I've been a procrastinator for years. It takes a while to change habits but I'm working on it. Right now I'm enjoying not having shopping hanging over my head.

And now my house is a little cleaner than it was this morning. I only did the bathrooms, kitchen floor and vacuuming (again, because Little Man broke yet another ornament). I cleared out some leftovers from the fridge and changed the litter box because the trash service comes tomorrow morning.

Now it's time to sit on the couch and eat bon bons. I need a book. There's a particular book that I'm waiting on from the library, but it isn't in yet. Bummer. I got roped in by some friends to read Twilight. It's 500+ pages and I finished it within 24 hours. Luckily, someone had given me book two, New Moon, to hang on to while I was finding the friend to borrow Twilight from, so as soon as I was done with Twilight, I went right into New Moon. Again, 500+ pages done within 24 hours. I had to wait a few days to borrow the third one, Eclipse. I didn't finish that one as quickly because I started it the Friday before Little Man's birthday, but I was done with it by Sunday. It's been over a week since I've finished it and I'm just dying to get my hands on the last one, Breaking Dawn. Now it's just a waiting game to see who comes up with it first; the library or my friend who is still reading it.

Yes, this is one of those random stream-of-consciousness kind of posts where nothing is really connected, I'm just letting my fingers type.

Trey is screwing with me now. He just plopped THE BOX on the desk right next to me. He's just mean. I hate it when he does this. He's just goading me on to open the box and spoil my Christmas.

Survey question: Do I open the box or wait until Christmas?

What do you like?

2008-12-18T10:19:00.004-05:00

Hello dear readers,

I was having a conversation on twitter with Writer Dad about music and it got me to wondering. What's in your CD player? What's on your iPod? Who do you listen to?

I would LOVE to hear your suggestions and recommendations. I like finding new music and I'm sure you can help me.

Randomness

2008-12-18T07:30:00.006-05:00

Is it Thursday already? Time just flies by. I had 170 entries to read in my reader this morning. Will I get to them all? No way. Too much to do. I really don't even have time to write this but I feel as though I'm neglecting my blog duties, so here I am.

I believe that I was tagged last week by Blogger Dad. So, here goes...

The Rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.

2) Post the rules on your blog.

3) Write six random things about yourself.

4) Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5) Let each person know they are tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me.

1) I have a freckle on the side of my foot.

2) I have a tattoo on the back of my shoulder. It's of an eye. It's kinda neat, actually - I designed it myself.

3) I like "guy movies" better than "chick flicks."

4) I got some wonderfully smelling homemade soap from a good friend for Christmas and every time I use it (which is several times a day 'cause I love it), I think of that nasty scene in Fight Club. You know the one...

5) I can't wait for the new season of Lost.

6) I like to do crafty things.

Ok, now for the tagging. I'm tagging Michaela, who gave me the soap; Hey Lola because she makes beautiful things; Secret Agent Mama because I love her photography; Scott at The Ever-Changing Thought because he writes openly about alcoholism; Chuck Westbrook and his under-appreciated blog project; and Dawn at Because I Said So because she said so.

Now, for other randomness...

I have a party at Monkey's school today; a party at Trey's work tomorrow that I'm bringing a dessert to; about 3 dozen cookies to bake because our church delivers them on Christmas Eve to people who are working and they need the cookies dropped off this Sunday so they can get them all packaged up; I still haven't gotten my mom's Christmas present and I need to ship that out to where she lives; I still have birthday party pictures I need to upload to the internet; and somewhere in there I need to eat, sleep and breathe.

Don't you just love this time of year?

Catching up

2008-12-14T20:55:00.003-05:00

It's amazing some of the things you miss when you spend an entire week focused on one story. I'm not sure I could ever be a true niche writer. I would feel like I'm leaving too much out.

Let's start with a tree. We got a Christmas tree this week. Monkey picked it out and I have to admit, she picked a nice tree. Then we put it up and let the kids decorate. It was a very bottom-heavily decorated tree until Trey and I started picking up the children and helping them place some ornaments near the top. It's a very good-looking tree if I do say so myself. I did the rest of the decorating by Thursday. I didn't do as much as I have in the past. I mean, we do have an 8 month old puppy and a now three-year old, so I was less inclined to put out my nice fragile stuff. As it is, I can't tell you how many ornaments have been knocked off the tree.

As if you could miss it, yesterday was Little Man's birthday. Let me be the first to tell you, kid's birthday parties whip my tail. Especially my own kids. And we had two parties back to back. I was exhausted by the time we got home that afternoon.

The first party, Little Man's, was at Chuck-E-Cheese. Oh, how I hate that place. We also had Monkey's party there, back in August, but it was much, much busier there yesterday. The second party was for WB, Little Man's best friend. They have such a love/hate relationship, they really should be related. His party was at one of those indoor bounce house places with all the fun inflatibles. The best part was watching Trey and WB's dad race through the obstacle course. Now THAT was worth the torturous day of screaming children suffering from the hypoglycemic rush of pizza and birthday cake - twice!

There's more to catch up with, like getting tagged for the first time, but I just don't have the energy right now. Another day perhaps...

Our baby story-part six

2008-12-12T15:54:00.004-05:00

photo by *spud*

I'm typing this up the same day as part five because tomorrow is Little Man's birthday, as well as his best buddy, WB. We have a combined total of 4 hours of birthday parties and probably won't have time to post the final part of my series tomorrow morning. Thank you for staying with me and allowing me to share our story with you.

After Little Man was born, we got a quick peak at him before the nurses whisked him away to the NICU. He was so tiny! But so long! And so beautiful. Trey was torn between staying with me and following Little Man to the NICU. I told him to go with the baby, I would be fine. My doula came in to keep me company while they were finishing the surgery. There's nothing weirder than being awake and aware that your innards are on display to a whole surgical team. Truly.

Naturally, it took me some time to recover from my surgery. By the time I was able to see Little Man again, he had been in this world for more than five hours. He was under a heat lamp (I know there is a technical name for it, but I don't know what) since he was unable to control his own body temp. And he had all these lines and tubes and things hooked up to him, feeding him, helping him breathe, checking his blood pressure. He looked so fragile and helpless and I couldn't hold him like I wanted to. According to the nurses, though, he was doing just fine, and I couldn't really do anything, so I went back to my recovery room.

My doctor thought that my blood pressure would improve as soon as Little Man was born. It didn't. It remained on the low end of high, but somewhat controlled under the medication. Then one day, while my friend who was keeping Monkey brought her (and her own kids) for a quick visit with me and Trey, the machine monitoring my BP started alarming. We looked at it and it was something like 210/150. I swear. Things started moving rapidly, as they had just before my surgery. My family and friends were ushered out of the room. I was being moved to a room closer to the nurse's station and they were going to give me something called a Magnesium Sulfate drip to try and bring down my BP. I thought my freak-out meter was pegged before, but this just completely broke the meter.

Friends, let me explain something to you. Words cannot adequately describe what I went through. That Magnesium Sulfate stuff beat me down like nothing ever has before. It's administered through an IV, in my hand, and a nurse has to monitor me very closely. And it burns. And I don't mean a little uncomfortable kind of burning. I mean my body was on fire from the inside out. I could feel it traveling up my hand and through my arm. I could think of nothing else. Not my kids, not my husband, not Christmas, nothing for however long I was on it. All of my focus was on not completely freaking the shit out and ripping all the wires from my body and leaving the hospital.

I have no idea how long it lasted. 12 hours is a good guess because I remember being miserable all night long. When the MagSulf finally worked it's way out of my body, I slept. For 24 hours, in the same position.

After that, everything returned to "normal." My BP was down and controllable by oral medications. I recovered from the surgery and went home. Little Man had to stay at the hospital. Trey had to head back out of town to continue his training and I tried to go about taking care of Monkey, finish my Christmas shopping and getting the house ready for Little Man. Thank goodness a bassinet from Trey's sister had arrived just recently.

Little Man spent a total of 24 days in the hospital. He was off everything except the nasal tube feeding by the first few days and slowly progressed to different beds as his ability to regulate his temperature grew. By the time he was discharged, he weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds and 13.4 ounces. He was so tiny, when he wasn't sleeping in his bassinet in our bedroom, he was sleeping in a laundry basket in our living room.

But he grew and grew and grew. You would never know, to look at him now, that his start was so rocky. He's barely on the Almighty Growth Curve, but at least he's on it (he wasn't for two years). He runs and plays and fights with his sister and his best full-term buddy and he can hold his own.

I'm so excited to share this day - his day - with him; my Little Man.

Our baby story-part five

2008-12-12T07:12:00.003-05:00

I was being induced.

I was being induced? Here? Now?

No, this can't be. There's just too much going on right now. I don't have time for this! Trey isn't even in town. He's FOUR hours away. I have two parties to do for Pampered Chef. I haven't even finished my Christmas shopping! My baby shower isn't until Saturday! Wait - this is too soon, right? What about the baby? Will he survive? He's not due for another 6 weeks! No way you're inducing me now. It's just not feasible. Nope, there has to be another solution.

All that went through my head in a matter of seconds. While the doctor was still talking about steroid shots for the baby, my blood pressure, pitocin drips, possible C-Section.

You know that scratching record sound effect people use on TV when they're "showing" a sudden change of thought? I heard that in my head when the Doc mentioned C-section.

I snapped my attention back to the present and asked him to repeat himself with the c-section part. You see, dear readers, I did NOT under any circumstances want a c-section. My doctor knew this. In fact, he was the MD of a birthing center, where they have mid-wives and such, which is one of the reasons why I chose him. Sure, I wanted to have the baby in a hospital, but under my own power, so to speak. Plus, my father had open-heart surgery several years back, contracted MRSA, and it took him six months, plus another surgery to remove the dirty wire, for him to recover. There was no way I was going under the knife.

But I also wasn't going to risk the health of the baby, so I agreed after he assured me they would do everything possible to avoid the c-section.

The next several hours crawled by. I never did get to eat dinner because of the induction. I contacted Trey and he thought he would be able to get out of training to come back home, but he had to wait until the next day to talk to the powers that be. I called my doula and told her what was happening. I called my girlfriend who was keeping Monkey, found consultants to do my parties for me, called my parents to give them updates, called Trey's parents to give them updates. Then I proceeded to "rest." Not really, but I guess you can call it that.

The blood pressure cuff kept going, every 15 minutes. Oh, how I hated that thing. I still could not move from my left sided position on the bed. Skipping ahead to the next morning, they started the drip. Contractions began and the baby monitor beeped. Nurses came and went. Everything proceeded slowly. Almost too slowly. Trey finally arrived and it was around lunchtime. Somewhere along the way I got an epidural. The doula tried massaging my feet and back but my prone position was just miserable. Think about it. Have you ever laid in the same position for 15 hours?

However, I was not progressing enough in my labor for the doctor's satisfaction. Our baby's heart rate started dropping. My blood pressure remained high. Trey had left the hospital for something - I don't remember what, lunch maybe? But naturally, right after he left, the doctor came in and told me that there had to be an emergency c-section. The baby's heart rate was just dropping too low.

My freak-out meter pegged. I was terrified, going into surgery without my husband. Would he be back in time? Was he going to miss the birth of our baby?? My doula called him as they whisked me off to the surgery room, then she joined me so I wouldn't be alone. Trey showed up while they were prepping me and hovered by my head. He wiped tears from my face and talked to me. I have no idea what he was telling me, but it was comforting hearing his voice. I tried really hard not to listen to the doctor and nurses. I'm sure it didn't take long, less than 30 minutes from start to finish, I think, but it seemed like hours.

Then Little Man was born. 33 1/2 weeks early. 3 pounds 10 ounces and 17 inches long.

Our baby Story - part four

2008-12-11T07:13:00.003-05:00

To those of you who are just joining us, the beginning starts here.

Here are some random facts that go along with this story. Three years ago today was a Sunday. Trey was a student and the phase of training he was in took him to another part of Oklahoma. We decided it would be best for me and the kids to stay in the town where we had a network of friends already established, plus Monkey had preschool. He would only be working out of town for a few months and would be home on weekends. No big deal.

Three years ago, I was still selling Pampered Chef. I had two parties left to do before the holidays. I've always been a last minute shopper for Christmas and hey, I still had two weeks! I also had my baby shower to look forward to.

None of that really mattered in the long run. On December 12th, a Monday, Trey left to head out of town. It was a four hour drive, so he left early. I went about my normal routine during the day and then took Monkey over to a friend's house because I had my weekly doctor appointment that afternoon.

When they checked my blood pressure, it was something like 180/120. On medication. The nurse had me go lie down for a while and see if it would come down any. It didn't. They checked it four or five times. The doctor would come in and out of the room checking on me and the baby to see how we were. Finally, he told me he was sending me to the hospital to see if they could help bring down my blood pressure. He was all calm about it, but my freak-out meter started climbing, just a little. Then he tells me to pack an overnight bag, "just in case."

Ummm.... Okay....

He told me to go straight home, to get my bag, then straight to the hospital. My freak-out meter started climbing even more. As I was driving, I called my friend who was keeping Monkey. Thank God for good friends. She was totally cool with Monkey hanging out with her kids, for however long necessary.

I called Trey, but he was already in class and couldn't answer. I left a message trying really hard not to sound frantic, but just to, you know, say "honey, they're sending me to the hospital..." I called my mom. Her freak-out meter starting climbing really fast. I called my dad. I called everyone I knew, it seemed. When I got home, I grabbed clothes, a book, music, and my paperwork for my parties. Just in case.

When I got to the hospital, I went straight to a room and they put on the pressure cuff and had me lie on my left side. My blood pressure was still high. I lay there for what seemed like hours and the only way to keep it on the low end of high was to stay on my left side. I couldn't even move to my back or my BP would spike. My freak out meter got even higher. Nurses would come and go. Finally, my doctor came in. It was sometime after dinner and not only were pressure sores forming on my left hip, but I was hungry, too.

He starts talking to me about my BP and how they can't seem to get it down. The only thing they can do now is try and induce me.

Ummm.... Okay.... I'm thinking he's talking about in a couple of weeks. Nope.

My due date was January 20th and they were inducing me on December 13th.

Our Baby Story - part three

2008-12-10T07:36:00.004-05:00

photo by Mrs. Flinger.

I think I missed a detail yesterday. I was laying in bed at 4am this morning (just after Little Man came to wake me up for more water) trying to remember when we first went to the perinatologist in Oklahoma City (which is not where we lived). I believe it was just a week or so after my 19 week ultrasound that was inconclusive. So we traveled to OKC to have one of those really cool 4D ultrasounds.

When we arrived, they first took a family history and did a little genetic counseling. Then we did a normal ultrasound to get measurements again. They were laying their own foundation for my progress. Again, it was inconclusive. The only thing they could say for sure is that even though the fetus was growing, he was still a week or two behind based on my conception and due dates. Even though my blood pressure was high, but controlled with medicine, everything looked good.

Even when they did the 4D ultrasound - which is really cool, by the way - they couldn't confirm whether or not our son had DS. They, too, advised doing an amniocentesis to know for sure, but at 20 weeks, there is a risk of miscarriage or early delivery and chances are the baby wouldn't survive. So we opted to wait. And no one was sticking a needle that big into my belly. I was to come back in 8 weeks for another ultrasound and see if there were any changes.

The next two months were the longest of my life. My blood pressure was still high, but no other signs of preclamsia showed up. Everything else progressed normally, if you want to call it that. Around 28 weeks we went back to OKC for our next ultrasound.

Again, nothing conclusive except the size of the baby being smaller than expected. So we opt to do the amnio. I never really saw the needle - if I had, I'm sure I would have passed out - but Trey saw it. He said it was huge. I think I tried to squeeze off the fingers of his hand that I was holding. All things considered, it wasn't really that bad. But then there was waiting for the results.

I have no idea how long we waited. I'm sure it was days, it may have been one day or five days, but I got the call at work. Deep breath, everything is normal. I had to ask the nurse to repeat herself. No Downs Syndrome, or any other genetic problems for that matter. And he was definitely a boy.

I never realized the weight that had been on my shoulders until it was gone.

But she wasn't done. The size of the fetus was still a concern, so they wanted me back in a week or so for another ultrasound. They wanted to make sure it wasn't my blood pressure or anything that was keeping the baby from growing any faster than he was.

Over the next few weeks, I went to OKC twice, I think. Once for an ultrasound, once for an extended stress test on the baby. Even though he was only about 32 weeks old, and small, his stress test rated him somewhere around a 35 or 36 week old fetus. I could tell I confused the doctor a bit but he told me that they would recommend inducing me around 37 weeks because of my BP.

Turns out, I didn't have to wait that long.

Our Baby Story - part two

2008-12-09T07:09:00.009-05:00

photo by memekode

"You tested positive for Downs Syndrome."

Everything kinda went hazy. The nurse went on talking about moving up my next ultrasound, the one normally scheduled for about 25 weeks to around 19 weeks. Numbly, I agreed. But wait - I had questions. Why the ultrasound?

They can take measurements of the baby, look for benchmarks, she explained to me. Oh. Okay. I still felt like I wasn't getting it. But I acted as though I understood everything she was telling me. As soon as she got off the phone, I sat down and finished my lunch. Keep it together, I kept telling myself. You're at a Wendy's for goodness sake! You can't fall apart here.

I couldn't contact Trey because he was working. I was on my own until he called me. Sorry, people, but the details of the next few days were a little fuzzy, I hope you understand. It was like I was in a fog. I remember calling a dear friend of mine back in NC who has a son with Downs. They have a daughter, too, a year younger than Monkey, without Downs, so I wanted to know what happened.

I had a long conversation with them, first with Diane, then with Chris, and they even offered to give me some of their frequent flyer miles to bring me to Duke University. Have I mentioned that I have really good friends? Chris, I believe it was, told me that the odds of the DS part of the test being correct vs. incorrect are about the same as flipping a coin. The other parts of the test, for the more serious, life-threatening diseases are much more accurate which is why they still do the tests. The same thing had happened with their daughter. Her test had come back positive for DS, too, but she doesn't have it.

I can't speak for Trey. He was working and in school and was focusing on that. Internalizing, compartmentalizing the struggle with whether or not our son had DS. I was up late at night. I would wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and get online and research. I looked at reports, published ultrasound pictures. I learned about measuring the nuchal fold and the lengths of the femur bones and something to do with the nose.

Finally the day came for the next ultrasound. Trey came with me; Monkey was at preschool. The ultrasound technician was very nice and we chatted. I remember he was a traveler, meaning he would work at a location for a few months to cover an open position, then move on. At the time, my mom was, too, so we talked about some of the places he has worked. I watched the images flicker on the screen. The black, white and grey images that had become my late-night obsession. The magic of an ultrasound is lost when you're trying to verify a genetic disease.

The only thing the ultrasound could confirm was that the fetus was a little smaller than my gestational time showed and that the fetus was most likely a boy. The tech even showed us the "turtle" sign.

So, at 19 weeks, we still don't know if he has DS or not. The only way now to confirm is to do an amniocentesis or wait 8 more weeks and do another ultrasound. There was no way anyone was sticking a needle in my belly, so we waited.

And my blood pressure started creeping up.

Pardon the interruption

2008-12-08T19:10:00.007-05:00

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog program of my son's Birth Story to bring you an AWARD! I got a blog award! How cool is that??

Rosie, from Tellingmom.com gave me this:

The rules are that the recipient is to list 6 things that make him/her happy before subsequently passing forward the glee to others.

6 Things That Make Me Happy

1) laughing with my husband.

2) watching my kids explore their imagination - as long as it isn't destructive.

3) driving through the mountains on a beautiful, sunny day.

4) curling up with a really good book.

5) poolside cocktail service. (haven't had that since our honeymoon! Vegas, baby. Vegas.)

6) lounging on the boat.

Now, to give this to 6 other bloggers. Hmmm.... that's tough. I have about 35-40 blogs in my reader... OK, someone else needs to give me an award, just so I can give more awards out....

Ok, first would be Tara @ Sticky Fingers.

Then there is Kate @ Live Out of the Box

Next would be Bridge @ Becoming Bridge

Fourth is Daisy @ Namas Daisy and Sean @ Writer Dad. They come as a perfectly matched set. (Yes, I am cheating a bit on this one).

Then comes Dave @ Blogger Dad

And last but not certainly not least, Matthew @ Matthew Dryden

(Now I just need to figure out how to put this in my sidebar. There's no way I'm letting my first blog award go away in the archives.)

Our Baby story - part one

2008-12-08T06:32:00.004-05:00

photo by Josh Parrish

In celebration of my son's birthday, I'm writing about the.... adventures... surrounding my pregnancy with him and his birth. If you already know the story, I'm sorry if I bore you. If you don't know the story, I'm sorry if I bore you. Blame Blogger Dad because I got the idea from him.

We were living in Oklahoma at the time. It was hot and miserable and windy. Did I mention windy? I have a horrible memory but I remember a few things about when I told Trey I was pregnant. He was out cutting the grass and looking miserable. I went outside and waited to catch his eye. He was too focused on what he was doing, trying to get it done quickly because, as I said, it was hot and miserable and windy. I couldn't wait. I yelled. He looked up, irritated that I had interrupted but I waved him over anyway. I think I also bribed him with cold water.

I didn't say anything, I just showed him the test. He broke into a wide smile and hugged me, covered in sweat and dirt and grass clippings. It was gross. But we were excited and we celebrated that night with a nice dinner. We didn't say anything to Monkey, yet.

The first 5 or 6 weeks were long for us. I had an early miscarriage just before we moved to OK, so we were nervous about this one. I went for my doctor's appointment and they did bloodwork to check my levels. They said I was pregnant. I explained to the doctor my concern about actually seeing the baby (because I had been through the miscarriage) so he was kind enough to do an ultrasound right then. I saw the little kidney bean with the tiny flicker of a heartbeat. He said everything looked good.

The next several weeks passed without too many incidents. I didn't have morning sickness in the vomiting-my-guts-up every morning sense, but brushing my teeth was a very difficult thing with all the gagging I was doing. I'm surprised my teeth survived. I couldn't drink coffee because it tasted revolting (and I love coffee) and I was tired all the time. It was nothing for me to fall asleep on the couch after dinner.

The only hiccup so far with my appointments was that the doctor couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat with the doppler, so I got an ultrasound at every visit to see the heartbeat. Then at 15 weeks or so, they did the triple screen blood test. I didn't think anything of it at the time. I don't remember how long it was after the test that they called me - if it was a few hours or a couple of days, but I remember I was at Wendy's when I got the call. I must have had a craving for their french fries.

The nurse was going on about the test and although I was paying attention, I was also distracted because I was waiting for my food. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that last?" I asked her.

"You tested positive for Downs Syndrome."

Security blankets

2008-12-04T07:07:00.003-05:00

photo by popofatticus

Little Man likes cars. And he likes Cars. If you're "in the know," as in haven't been living under a rock in the last several years, you know what Cars is. It's a great little movie about a race car named Lightning McQueen. Marketing has been HUGE for these little cars. There are big toy cars - the kind the kids can actually drive - and little hot wheels sized cars, and now they've even made Mini Adventure Cars that are about half the size of the die cast metals ones.

Little Man will be getting lots of Cars for his birthday and Christmas. See, his birthday is in a little over a week. I have the unique challenge of making sure his birthday is celebrated just as it would be any other time of year and not right before Christmas. No Christmas wrapped presents will be given to him on his birthday. No Christmas candy in the goodie bags. No "this is for your birthday and Christmas" combined presents. I've even thought about taking down the Christmas decorations at home for that one day and redecorating for his birthday. OK, not really, because 1) I don't even have the Christmas decorations up yet and 2) that would be entirely too much work.

But this isn't about his birthday (look for something next week, though, that will be in celebration of his birthday). This is about his Cars. He has two of the die cast metal cars. "The King" and "Lightning McQueen" (he calls them "King" and "Queen"). They are his security blanket.

They travel everywhere with us. It has become quite the discussion when we get ready to go to school because he wants to take them to school. We do manage to keep the Cars in the car at drop off time. They go to the grocery store. They get dropped out of the cart often and if I happen to miss that because I'm doing something important like trying to figure out which detergent will get me the best price with my coupons and sales and then move on without picking up the wayward car and he starts to worry about his car being lost and the upset tone of his voice gets higher and louder and then I have to backtrack and try and figure out where the car was last seen because God KNOWS I can't leave the store without King/Queen and he's so happy when I find it waaay up under the shelf that he actually giggles. Deep Breath.

He sleeps with them. Successfully, I might add. Only once in a while does he lose one in the blankets. And when he comes to climb in bed with us first thing in the morning, the clacking of little metal cars precedes him as he puts them both in one hand so his other is free to help pull himself up onto our bed.

They've also become something of a weapon. I've caught him using them to hit the poor puppy on the head before or throwing them across the room when he's in a tantrum. Those little cars hurt, in case you were wondering.

I'm sure at some point he'll outgrow his need to carry the Cars cars everywhere he goes and after December, he'll have a plethora of Cars cars to choose from, but for now, I think it's kinda cute.

What's your security blanket?

Still Christmas shopping?

2008-12-02T07:50:00.007-05:00

I got this idea over this past weekend that some of you may still be looking for that perfect gift for the mom/sister/friend in your life. Maybe you're scrambling to find that extra-special custom gift that only she can use. Well, allow me to scramble with you. Let's crack those eggs and make an omelette.

I make Mommy Bracelets. I actually hold a BFA in Metal Design but this is all I can do right now. I've been making these bracelets mostly for friends and family for a few years now, but occasionally I get asked to make one for a gift.

I've used children's names with their matching birthstones....

I've used nicknames like Grandma, Mawmaw and Nanny with all of their grandkids' birthstones...

And I've also made bracelets for little girls. I have a picture of one I made for Monkey but the focus is all out of whack. Speaking of bad pictures, please don't let the quality of my pictures sway your opinion on my bracelets. I still haven't figured out how to take good shots of these things.

They are all made with sterling silver clasps and beads and the birthstone beads are Swarovski crystal.

If you are interested in one of these custom bracelets, please let me know in the comments section or by sending me a direct email and we can talk about what you have in mind. Prices generally run as such:

Single strand: $35

Double strand: $50

Triple strand: $65

I can keep adding strands if you like but at some point people may start comparing you to Mr. T, so if you have more than three children/grandchildren you want on a bracelet, think about ways to make it one or two strands. If you need ideas or suggestions, I'm happy to help.

Shipping is a flat $5 and it'll be sent priority mail. Oh, and since we only have about 22 days left, I can't take orders after December 10th so that I'll have time to get the beads, make the bracelet and get it back in the mail to you before Christmas.

Hungry for an omelette yet?

Conversations with a six year old

2008-11-26T05:53:00.004-05:00

I know I said I wasn't going to be posting any more this week, but I couldn't pass this up. You'll see why. Also, to set the stage, we were just arriving home, it was dark and cold and I just wanted to get the kids in bed...

Mommy, I know where puppies are born from.

You do?

They come out of the mommy's butt.

Oh no, No, they don't come out of the butt. It only looks like they come out of the butt.

Well, where do they come from?

Oh shit. Do we have to talk about this now? We're almost home.

Yes, where are puppies born from? The bellybutton?

No, not the bellybutton. Rushing to get out of the car and Little Man unbuckled. Come on, honey, let's get inside.

But I want to know where puppies are born from.

Take a deep breath. They come out of the mommy's vagina.

Bagina? What's a bagina?

Oh shit, shit, shit. It's where the puppies come out.

Do all mommies have one?

Yes. Why won't this unbuckle??

Did I come out of a bagina?

Yes, you did, now let's get inside. You have to get ready for bed.

Okay.

I'm so not ready for this...

Thankfulness

2008-11-24T19:35:00.005-05:00

photo by mathewingram

It's Thanksgiving! Well, almost. In just three days, it'll be Thanksgiving. Close enough, right? We are traveling, just like everyone else in the country, so this will probably be my last post for the week. First one, too, apparently.

I wanted to encourage you, in this time of pushing Christmas shopping, to stop and remember that this week is Thanksgiving. A time to give thanks. We get so wrapped up in Christmas, Christmas, Christmas that Thanksgiving often gets missed (unless you count the Day-After-Thanksgiving attention). Sunday, our pastors reminded us that we should stop and be thankful. Thankful for many big and little things, especially in this time of economic troubles. Do you have your health? Be thankful. Do you have your family? Be thankful. Do you have food and clothes? Be thankful.

I'm thankful for so many things. I'm making a list (and checking it twice, gonna find out ... wait - wrong season!) and I encourage you to do the same.

I'm thankful for my family. My husband who is my best friend. My children who amaze me every day. I'm thankful that my children still have all of their grandparents and nanny. I'm thankful I still have all my aunts, uncles, cousins, sister-in-law and beautiful nieces.

I'm thankful for my friends. 'Nuf said.

I'm thankful for my health - such as it is. Sure, I could be healthier, but I'm good.

I'm thankful for the house we have (even though I have a love/hate relationship with it).

I'm thankful for the grocery game because we're able to eat well and still stay under budget.

I'm thankful for Dave Ramsey (even though I hate having to stick to a budget) and for not having car payments.

I'm thankful it didn't rain on me this morning while I was bagging leaves in the yard. (The rain came later and stayed all day long. In case you were wondering).

I'm thankful that my husband has a good job and I don't have to work, even though I do, part time.

I'm thankful for so many other things like sunrises and sunsets, rain, a good book, brownies, my children's teachers and schools, my church and my pets.

What are you thankful for?

Seasons of life

2008-11-20T15:05:00.002-05:00

An old friend called the other day. Not one of these old friends but a real person kind of old friend. Honestly, we hadn't talked in probably two years. I'll call him Steve, but that's not his real name. We worked together at a music store way back when I was in college. We never dated or anything, we were just friends. In fact, he, his roommate, my roommate and I went to Woodstock '94. Now those were good times. Hanging out in the mud and rain, listening to all different kinds of music... but I digress.

My point this evening is that while talking with Steve, I realized that we are no longer in the same season. Over the last two years or so, I would hear people talking about the "seasons of life". Everyone goes through them at varying times. I've been through several already. Not counting High School (which is a season of seasons), I've survived probably three or four different ones.

Let's see, there's the Freshman in College Season. Yes, this does deserve it's own season. Think back to when you first started college, if you went to college. All of a sudden you are on your own. You have no one to answer to but yourself. Some make it, some don't, some barely scoot by and some excel. But either way, you go through that season. I survived, fairly well if I remember correctly.

Then, for me, there's the party season. Specifically raves. Yes, I'm old school. I admit it. I was going to raves back when they were still in dark warehouses that had electricity pumped in for the weekend or even just the night. Invitations were printed on tiny slips of paper or it would just be word of mouth. I'd think nothing of getting off work at said record store at 9:30 or 10:00pm, drive two hours to get to a rave in another city and stay out all night long then turn around and drive back in time enough to open the store again at 1:00 Sunday afternoon.

That season lasted about a year or two. Then there were the Dead shows. Need I say more? Actually, for a while there, those two seasons coexisted. Come to think of it, College Life needs it's own season, period.

Back then I was young and dumb. Crazy, even. I wasn't a bad person, but hey, it was college. I'll be able to relate to my daughter and son when they get older (God help me!).

Then there was the post-College pre-Marriage season. Just trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. You know, the typical 20-something. Trey and I were hanging out, traveling, working a lot but it was good, you know?

Then we got married. Everything changed, but slowly at first. We would still meet up with friends and hang out at restaurants with bars but nothing that would be considered "partying". We still traveled and had fun. Another season.

Then Monkey came along - ushering in the Parenting Season. This, by far, has been the most challenging and rewarding season of all.

Steve is still in the post-College pre-Marriage season. I talked about being a PTA mom, driving a mini-van and he laughed. I'm guessing he still sees me as the raving hippie that I used to be. He talked to me about his old roommate and going back to our college town for homecoming. He told me about his current jobs and such. He's been seeing someone for a while - you know, we chatted. I talked about the kids and school, we talked movies and music and how much things have changed in the music sales industry since we were working together. We talked for about 45 minutes about lots of things, actually, but when we were done, I realized how different I had become.

Had being a mom really changed me that much? Do I really have that little to offer someone outside my season? Sure, I can relate very well with parents of children about 10 years and younger, but after that, what do I really have other than stories and experiences? I'm sure they will come in handy one day- like when Monkey hits her teen years (AAAH!).

Seasons come and go; the wheel is turning and you can't slow down. All we can do is move forward and look back fondly on our lives. We all have our seasons.

So, what season are you in?

Question of the day

2008-11-19T20:53:00.001-05:00

If a dog drinks ice cold water, does it get brain freeze?

Welcome Home

2008-11-18T21:26:00.003-05:00

I saw something beautiful today at Little Man's preschool. As I was picking him up, I noticed that there was a mom greeting her little boy. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed Mrs. J. taking a picture.

Huh?

So I look closer at the mom and I notice that she's wearing desert BDU's. Mrs. J. said to me, "She just got home today, just now in fact."

This cute little blonde boy, one of Little Man's classmates, is seeing his mom for the first time in a long time. The little boy's twin sister didn't know yet. She was still washing her hands in the bathroom. I never saw the boy's expression when he noticed his mom there, but I can tell you that he didn't leave her embrace. She crouched there with her arms wrapped around him whispering things only he could hear.

Then his sister came out of the bathroom.

You know how young children, older two's specifically, sometimes take a few seconds to register what they're seeing? It's like you can watch their thought process in slow motion across their little faces. This was her reaction. She stared across the room at her mom then recognition flashed across her face.

Then her face completely changed and it glowed. She excitedly tip-toe walked to her mom and wrapped herself around her, sharing the space with her brother as they've done all their lives.

Believe it or not, I never saw a tear from the mom or the dad, standing quietly to the side. It was almost like they were in their own little world completely oblivious to all of us outsiders. But I do believe that everyone else in the room got a little choked up. I couldn't stop smiling. See, I've been a part of that kind of homecoming before but to watch it from the outside, it truly is a sight to behold.

Welcome home.

Depression stole $10

2008-11-17T08:02:00.003-05:00

I'm not an organized person at home. Back in the day, when I used to work full time, I would be very organized at work, but it's like I would leave it there when I clocked out. When Depression moved in, he made it worse. I coined a phrase (although it probably isn't original). He turned me into a Functioning Depressive (is that even a word??). Outside my front door, everything was "normal." I'm doing all the stuff I normally do, usually with a smile on my face. I even managed to go to Kohl's on Friday and buy two new sweaters (they were 1/2 price - love a sale!).

But Depression would sneak in if a friend asked "how's it going?" and I'd fall apart. Quietly, though, hiding behind my sunglasses.

But you should see the inside of the house. OK, maybe I don't need to go on "Clean Sweep" or Oprah's messiest house shows, but really? It's a mess.

Mail, for example. We keep mail in a basket on the steps, just inside the front door. The last few weeks, I haven't really gone through it, except to pull out the bills. As of Sunday morning I had Three. Steps. Full. Of mail. Crazy, right? Magazines, catalogs, ads, junk mail, you name it. It was there. So, Sunday morning I had had enough. I sat down and started going through the stacks.

There is was.

From Kohl's, a $10 gift card to use on anything. Something they had sent in the mail a couple weeks back. I vaguely remembered at the time thinking "Cool! I can always find something at Kohl's." Did I remember on Friday that I had it? No. Depression wanted it for himself. Could I use it for something else? No. It expired on Saturday.

Stupid Depression. Now he's stealing money, too. I bet he and High Blood Pressure went on a shopping spree.

old friends...

2008-11-14T21:27:00.006-05:00

I've had two old friends come and visit recently. Usually, I enjoy catching up with old friends. We talk about things we're doing, rehash what madness we may have shared in the past, glance at the future.

But not this time.

This time, I'm not happy to see these old friends. They're both kinda sneaky. Gliding in like mist through a crack in the wall. That imperceptible presence just outside of my line of sight. These friends like to linger. I guess they like me. I should be flattered, right?

I'm not. I wish they'd go be someone else's old friend.

I first met Depression in 2003. That friend managed to stay around a while - almost a year in fact - before I kicked him out of my house. He tried to come back again in 2005 but I was much better than him that time. He only lingered a few weeks. He got clever, though. He found ways to sneak in to my life without me even knowing he was there. It wasn't until a conversation with a good friend that I realized that Depression had moved into our spare bedroom. I was too busy looking the other way to notice. So, at the advice of said friend, I went to see the doctor this week, hoping to find a way to make Depression move out.

That's when my other old friend showed up.

Her name is High Blood Pressure and she really is a sneaky bitch. I bet she's pissed at Depression, though, because now her cover is blown. I first met High Blood Pressure when I was pregnant with Little Man. She was persistent and refused to go away. She didn't bring along her other preeclampsia friends, just her own bad self. She even managed to force the doctors into delivering our son six weeks early and then started a knock-down drag-out fight with the doctors forcing them to bring out the big guns - the Magnesium Sulphate drip.

Yeah, High Blood Pressure is an evil bitch.

She managed to live in the spare bedroom of my life until after Little Man was about 6 or 8 months old, then she left. Sometime in the last 6 months, she's decided to move back in.

I suppose I should be thankful to Depression, though, because without him, I would never have known she was there. I stopped checking for her after she had disappeared for months and doctor's visits over the last two years turned up nothing. She was gone. Needless to say, I'm now on to them both.

Excuse me while I go draw up an eviction notice.

Welcome to China

2008-11-14T08:08:00.006-05:00

I have another guest post and I'm very excited to share it. I found this blogger - or more accurately, I think she found me - just recently, so I haven't been able to explore as much of her blog as I'd like. (Just so you know, it's hard to catch up on blogs when there's so many out there to read! I had 56 new posts in my reader this morning!).

She writes about many things, particularly writing, travel and her experiences in China. What's so amazing to me about her is that she packed up and left her country just a few months after college and moved to China. Most of us pack up and move to another city or state but she moved to another country. Now THAT is stepping out of your comfort zone! She is a teacher by profession but is also exploring her Chinese heritage and writing. Her name is Kate and I hope you'll take time to visit her blog, Live Out of the Box. Her tagline is "write, travel and think beyond," and she certainly does.

* * * * * *

photo by ernop.

She looked down on me as if I was nothing but a pesky mosquito in her large encompassing world. She held out her hand and said something.

The words rang in my hand. Alien sounds. Fleeting notes of melodies I couldn’t grasp. I opened my mouth but no words came out that she could understand.

Suddenly she started screaming obscenities at me, lashing out with unbridled rage, shouting with such a fury and passion that went unnoticed by all the passengers in the bus.

Welcome to China.

I had gotten on a crowded bus. It was my first month in this wild country. I was soaking up every experience and adjusting to the fact that I’m an expat. To me everything was all new and great and nothing could go wrong.

Until the moment came when the bus conductor almost threatened to kill me.

Or at least that’s what I understood from the tone of her voice.

I felt so helpless. The language I came so much to depend on was of no use here. I had not yet learned the survival street skills needed to get out of this situation. I hastily gave her the correct fare and hoped that would satisfy her.

The people in the bus looked at me with a mixture of curiosity, incredulity and pity. They along with that conductor, naturally assumed I was one of them because of my Asian looks. Not one of them had the common sense to talk to me in English or tell off the conductor.

My cheeks were flaming because they were looking at me as if I was the stupidest person in the vehicle.

Who’s this Chinese that doesn’t know how to speak Chinese?

What an ignoramus!

Can’t even speak Mandarin.

She must be from the far outskirts of the countryside.

It was so unfair! They don’t even know me. They don’t even know half the truth. I had these concepts about these people being educated and supposed to know the outside world. Boy, did that give me a reality check. Have you ever had moments when you just felt so small, like a speck of dust? Like the whole world is judging you on a false assumption and you can’t even put up some sort of defense? That’s how I felt back then.

While I was nursing these open wounds, apparently the conductor felt she wasn’t through with me. No! While I was minding my own business she came back –spit foaming around her mouth like a mad dog. She screamed at me and pointed at me with twice her original fury and once again I was the center of humiliating attention. Whatever pride I had as a person was stripped away. I was treated like an animal.

So what did I do against this person who treated me like a four letter that starts with s?

I gave her more money.

Why didn’t I retaliate? Because I wasn’t that strong then. I wasn’t raised to shout back at people (apparently it’s common courtesy here). This was the first time this has ever happened to me and the first time I ever suffered culture shock, and a cruel one at that.

Shaking, I called my friend and said a lot of things. Many I won’t repeat because they were a string of dirty words so foul that came pouring out of me from my rage and anger at the unfairness of it all. I made sure to raise my voice so that everyone would get to hear it, so that everyone would know that I wasn’t one of them and that I was a foreigner and I don’t speak a word of Chinese! That they were all making a big mistake. I made sure to have eye contact with that conductor while talking but she avoided it in obstinate embarrassment.

A few months later, I realized the reason why the conductor was so mad at me was because she had asked me how many persons was I paying for (I think it was clear to anyone who would be looking that I had nobody sitting beside me) and that I was unable to answer her.

Try letting that sink in.

For all the products it distributes around the world, China is still a closed country. Many people here are ignorant even those in the big cities. Probably because most of the residents came from the poor countryside, bringing with them their hard to break habits that they think are still applicable to civilization. They get carsick. They puke in the bus and on the roads. They take a dump in big swanky malls and I should tell you, they don’t do this in the bathrooms. They allow their children to pee on the floor in the arrival section of the airport under the public eye of all those arriving from other countries (and I’ve seen this happen in Beijing). Spitting, cutting in line and hitting others whether by bike or if they’re in a hurry with not a word of apology are all part of their common culture. Whatever heritage they had was wiped out during the Cultural Revolution and the sad truth is that most of them don’t know that. The government doesn’t want them to.

They have no idea that so many of their fellowmen immigrated abroad and have a new life of their own in other countries. They’d be shocked to find out that these immigrants’ children don’t even speak Chinese. They don’t know that Southeast Asians look similar to them. Most of them have never even seen a foreigner before let alone another Asian so how else would they know that I’m one?

There are still a lot of things they don’t know.

And I’m still learning about that.

books, books, books

2008-11-12T07:12:00.003-05:00

photo by emilywjones

Yesterday was one of my days to volunteer at Monkey's school. Our library services about 1000 children and, of course, the teachers for those children. It is an "open door" library, meaning that students can come to the library any time during school hours, at the discretion of the teacher. This is in addition to the classes coming to the library for their Specials throughout the day. Needless to say, it gets very busy.

Parent volunteers are a huge part of the library. I think on any given day there are about 10-12 moms and dads that come to help the librarians during the school day. I usually go for two hours in the morning, about twice a month. Mostly, what I do is shelve books and sometimes check out books for the students. Often, the brightest part of my morning is seeing last year's classmates of Monkey. I'm not ashamed to say I had favorites. Sometimes, I'll even see Monkey come in. She never knows I'm there and I'll just observe her. Then I just can't stand her not knowing, so I'll go and sit next to her and wait for her to acknowledge me. It's pretty neat surprising her that way.

But yesterday, the librarians asked me to do a different job. One that I hadn't done before, but it was one they had saved just for me.

I'm not sure how often our library gets new books, but when they arrive, the new books need to be checked over for publishing errors; is it bound properly, are the pages all there, did any of the text get cut off. Then they have to be "broken in." This is simply pressing a few of the pages open so that the book is easier for the children to open and read. Who knew, right?

Yesterday was my day to sit down and break in new books. There's something special about opening a new book. Those fresh, crisp pages, brightly colored illustrations, bold text bouncing along, carrying the story through. I can't even begin to tell you all the books I looked through, but the librarians busted me more than once giggling to myself.

There was Petunia, the goose that learned that wisdom comes from reading a book, not carrying it around (she blew up the barnyard!).

The Three Billy Goats Gruff - remember that? It brought back a memory of mine from elementary school of making paper bag puppets and putting on a puppet show. Our class rooms had half-doors, so we went in the hallway and used the bottom half of the door as our stage. But I can't remember if I had a goat or the troll.

And there's The Three Silly Girls Grub and The Armadillos Tough (I think), which were based from the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

I creeped my way through spider books, laughed at a giraffe with a tongue up its nose, lingered over beautiful watercolor illustrations of a coral reef.

I read about Lou Gehrig, JFK and Jefferson.

I learned why the Jolly Roger is called that. (Oh, he was a jolly old pirate!)

I giggled over a dog that got a kitten that "if he ignored it, it would go away."

I saw pumpkins and apples and Christmas and variations of the Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I spent two hours immersed in books and I loved every bit of it. The Librarian joked that I owed her one, because I was doing one of their favorite things. I think she was right.

where's the love, man?

2008-11-11T07:28:00.004-05:00

[knock knock] Anyone home? Hey, Kool-Aid? Are you there? Where is she? Anyone know where Kool-Aid is?

I have been wallowing in self-pity, that's where. See, Trey is out of town and I'm left to do all the work two parents normally are able to share. It's not like he hasn't traveled for work before. It's not like I haven't done the "single parent" thing before. I've done it several times over the course of the last 6 years. No, many times. More than I care to remember.

Sometimes it's a weekend, sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's two weeks, but every time it gets harder.

Maybe it's the age of the kids. 6 and just-about 3. They keep me busy; they keep the house messy - oh, wait, no that's me. But they help keep it messy. And I'm forever trying to negotiate peace treaties. After this, I think I could help the Israelites and the Palestinians strike a permanent peace accord - surely that would be easier than getting those two siblings to get along.

I'm wallowing in self-pity because I can. Poor-poor me. I really shouldn't be, though. There are others who are worse off than me, for sure. I have a roof over my head, food in the kitchen and a car to get me where I need to go. Also, I have friends that love me and are willing to help. Why is it so hard to ask for help? A dear friend and I were talking on Saturday and she told me "When you don't ask for help, you rob someone of the opportunity to help you."

When you don't ask for help, you rob someone of the opportunity to help you.

Strong statement, that. Yeah, I have smart friends. I should listen to them.

So, I'm asking for help. Accountability from some of you readers out there. Have I cleaned the computer desk yet? How about picked up the toys? More importantly, have I read to Little Man today or is he plopped in front of the one-eyed babysitter? Have I played Little Pet Shop with Monkey today? Or helped her with her homework? What about those leaves that are scattered like so many thoughts out in the front yard?

Imagine how happy those kids would be if I raked up a great big pile for them to play in.

Imagine how much fun it'll be for me to watch those kids scatter the leaves that I worked so hard to put in a pile for them.

They might actually get along... for about 5 minutes until one jumps in the pile before the other one and a fight ensues because the pile is no longer there and there are no more leaves to jump in because big sister or little brother spread them all out again and now there's just no more fun to be had even though there are a bazillion trillion leaves out there that just need to be scooped back up and tossed into the air.

I think I should head to Israel.

yet another...

2008-11-09T13:36:00.005-05:00

Giveaway! This time, it's a REALLY cool Thermal shirt from PeaceLoveMom. I personally like the "Grateful Mom" shirt because I'm a Deadhead at heart :).

This was from the PeaceLoveMom website, but I pulled it from IslandLife where it was posted with the giveaway.

We believe in motherhood.

Mothers have a unique style. We believe that motherhood does not define us, but that we define it.

Mothers are heart and soul.

Isn't that a pretty cool message? I thought so. Anyway, check out the giveaway here.

Good luck!

Christmas giveaways

2008-11-08T09:07:00.004-05:00

At 5 Minutes for Mom, they're doing lots of different giveaways for Christmas. You can either click on the button in my sidebar or follow this link for these really cool Multiples Mommy t-shirts (Hey Sis-in-law! Check them out!) from Multiple Moms Rock.

Keep checking back for more giveaways all November long.

Oh, pickles!

2008-11-08T07:37:00.002-05:00

Houston, we have a problem.

My coffee maker broke this morning.

Tragedy has struck.

How am I to get through the day?

I don't have a "coffee maker" envelope.

Oh, man.....

What about tomorrow?

You are crazy!

2008-11-06T16:55:00.009-05:00

Yippee! Another guest post this week! This is from Ryan Detzel. I found his blog over the summer when a friend of mine was talking about Pastor Ryan on The Pioneer Woman. See, one of his many interests is cooking and he did a guest post recipe on her site. Well, I figured a pastor with tattoos should have some interesting things to say so I visited his blog, this is reverb..., and I haven't been disappointed yet.

Not only does he write honestly and openly about his family, his church and other randomographies (plus a whole lot more!), he also takes amazing, crazy, really cool pictures. I'm so excited to introduce Ryan Detzel.

* * * * * * * * *

photo by detzelpretzel

Have you ever felt like you were nuts? Like you just don't fit, or maybe everyone else doesn't fit?

That's because you're crazy. Just as crazy as everyone else, but a different flavor, and crazy still.

We all have this thing inside of us that causes us to think, move, and be different than everyone else. We were made that way. And so there are some things that just feel natural to us. There are some things that feel so natural to us that we wonder how in the world all these other people don't have the same feelings/insights/thoughts/wants/desires/passions/et cetera. What might feel like common sense to you is hard to grasp for another.

And that's because you're crazy.

You were made with very specific gifts, talents, and abilities inside of you. You think a fingerprint is unique? Try the whole human being. Now that's unique.

And in all that uniqueness; we still have a desire to be a part of a bigger something-or-other. There is a want and a need to belong...a yearning to be connected.

And that's because you're crazy. To the world's standards at least. Because people are afraid. People don't often like to admit that they've submitted to mediocrity. It's easy to say no to community and no to your destiny when you've already said yes to the status quo.

But maybe you are crazy. Maybe you're just crazy enough to swim upstream and find the deeper waters. Maybe you're just crazy enough to say yes to the greatness you've been called to. Maybe you're just crazy enough to trust as if you couldn't get hurt. Maybe you're just crazy enough to be a fool for glory rather than straight-laced for the crowd.

Maybe you're just crazy enough to take off your mask and be the person you've always known you were supposed to be.

election day

2008-11-05T21:03:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, instead of staying home and obsessing over an election that I have no control over (I'm sure my vote was canceled out by someone else, but at least I voted), the kids and I headed out to the mountains for the day. I love living close to mountains!

Here are a few of the 150+ shots I took yesterday. Yes, I know I have a problem with taking a lot of pictures! In no particular order, here are a few to share with you.

Who knew there would be snow here in early November? Enough to make snowmen? Very cute...

A shot as we were coming down the mountain. It was a wonderful day for a hike.

I carried Little Man on my back for the two hikes we did yesterday. I didn't really like the idea of him traipsing down the side of a really big hill. He was much heaver at almost-3 years old than he was at almost-2 years old. Funny how they grow...

Another shot taken from the top...

A view with the late afternoon sun across the range.

We headed to a waterfall first. It took us maybe an hour to get to these. And then my batteries started crapping out on me. I was not very happy. There was even a nice lady there willing to take my picture with the kids (I'm always behind the camera) and there just wasn't enough battery life. So, guess who gets to go to the visitor center to pay a premium for cheap batteries that lasted about 24 hours? I wasn't about to go without batteries, though, because then I would have missed all the awesome shots going to and hiking up the mountain.

Being at the visitor center worked out, though, because they had a small museum and a movie theater with a short film that taught about where we were hiking. Monkey found it interesting and, dare I say it, may have learned something! Little Man, on the other hand, was much more interested in seeing how fast his mommy's reflexes were when he darted through the doors to the lobby. Watching mom freak out is way more entertaining.

On the road again....

I love fall. These pictures came out much better than my previously overexposed pictures from our hike a couple of weeks ago.

I even played around with the lighting some...

Just another pretty shot of the fall color in the mountains.

It was much nicer to commune with nature than to listen to talking heads all day.

Halloween

2008-11-02T16:04:00.007-05:00

Well, I don't normally post pictures of my kids, but since they're all incognito, I thought it might be ok this time around. Aren't they cute!

We went with Little Man's buddy, WB. Their neighborhood is ideal for chasing after candy. They had lots of energy starting out. After about the 10th or 12th house, the energy waned a bit.

Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!

This was the haul that Little Man brought in after we called it quits after the 15th or 20th house or so. Monkey continued on to about 5 more houses. Her bucket was overflowing...

The sugar-induced drunkeness began shortly thereafter. We left WB's 'hood and headed to another friend's house where they were having a bonfire and s'mores. I didn't get any pictures because by then I was exhausted and just wanted to sit by the fire. We didn't even get home until about 9:45 or so and the kids went straight to bed - face paint and all.

All in all, it was a good night.

Daylight savings

2008-11-02T06:58:00.004-05:00

Ahhh.... daylight savings time. It's the two times a year that we actually have "control" over time. In the spring, we get to spring forward and skip an hour. As if our days weren't short enough as it is. In the fall we get to fall back and trick our bodies into thinking they get an extra hour of sleep.

Next year, I'm just going to bed an hour earlier.

The puppy (who is crated in our room at night) usually is a great sleeper - except for the snoring, but I can get past that. He picked this morning, at about 4am, to wake up and whine that soft but high-pitched whine that slices through your subconscious like splinters under the fingernail. I do my best to ignore him and manage to drift off to sleep again. If there's one thing he's learned in his relatively short time here, it's that whining will not get him out of the crate now that I know he's able to control his bladder for the entire night.

The children don't understand what daylight savings is. Monkey will sleep late, if you can call 7:00 late, but Little Man follows a different drummer. At 6:30 am (and this is before I turned back my clocks, so that makes it 5:30 am), Little Man comes climbing on my bed and uses my prone body as a guide to crawl to the top of the bed - as if falling off my body will dump him into a deep abyss. Once he reaches the pillows, he finally climbs off and asks to be covered up and lays still for a little while.

Have you seen The Lion King? Remember the scene where Simba gets up and plays with his sleeping parents trying to wake them up by crawling all over them and talking to them when they OBVIOUSLY don't want to be woken up? Does Simba stop? No. Does Little Man? No.

Just as I thought he was drifting off, he becomes one with Simba and starts crawling all over the bed and talking about breakfast. Things like cereal and waffles and such.

"Let's go back to sleep."

"But I'm really, really hungry."

Damn his cuteness.

So yes, I'm up at my "normal" weekend wake-up time of 6:30am despite the fact that I was supposed to get an extra hour of sleep. Making pancakes from scratch because I'm out of my mix. At least there's coffee.

Yeah, next year, I'll just go to bed at 9:00 to get that extra hour of sleep.

(I'll be posting a Halloween post once I get my pictures downloaded from the camera. I know I'm a little late, but that's how I roll.)

A Rebirth

2008-10-30T18:58:00.008-04:00

I said before that I'm jumping in, after checking the water first, with guest posts. I ambushed someone in the comments section of my post talking about wanting to ask people but wasn't sure if I could. This particular blogger I found through comments on WriterDad's blog. Come to think of it, I've found lots of great blogs through comments there.

His name is Scott Carver and he's a recovering alcoholic and speaks very openly about his life on his blog, The Ever-Changing Thought. I'm thankful that he accepted my challenge of putting together a guest post.

I hope you enjoy and please leave your thoughts with us.

* * * * * * * * * *

photo by foxypar4

When I turned the steering wheel to the right and saw the the campus, the arch over the driveway, a lump of nerves jumped into my throat. They didn't really just go away either. It's as if they sat there spinning around and around. Yet, I knew, this was my second chance, my final chance, and I tried to swallow them away, squeezing my throat muscles hoping to choke them off. Didn't work out so well. It was a tough knot. They were persistent. I just had to learn quickly how to live with them.

I had many chances to turn around. Drive away. Go back. But what was back? Looking through the rear-view mirror of my life, back was a train wreck, the scene of a horrible accident, death and destruction, a hellish scene with pain and moaning and torture. A spot in the road where there seemed to be no God. No one there to help me in my struggles. Yeah, I immediately looked to the present and forced myself into a parking spot.

I had a few minutes to spare. I wasn't sure what to do. I sat in my vehicle, luggage in the back. Going through every failure, every triumph, every miserable moment of my life. Now, though, it was the last chance I would get to use my cell for a couple of weeks, so, I called my dad.

Told him I had made it. Immediately cried to him how scared I was. How sorry I was. How I wish someone would have came with me. All while failing miserably to choke back the tears, fend off the crying. I was a mess. But I could go back.

It was time. The next step. The beginning of the birthing pains. The beginning of 2 of the most wonderful, spirit filled, annoying, painful, upsetting, happy 2 weeks of my life. Over those 2 weeks, I experienced every emotion times 10. But I could go back.

March 10^th. I was at the end of my re-birth. The final day. I could see the light. It was time. Time to leave the safety of the scariest place I had ever seen. Leave the darkness behind. Leave my new friends behind. Left to wonder if they could make it, who would be back, would I be back, was I ready?

“Scott, it's time.”, there as someone with me now. A voice of someone inside. Not someone. Something. Something strong, without fear. I was letting him go with me. He was on my shoulder as I gathered my things. All the while letting me know that he was going to be here, and I would never be alone.

I made my way from my room with my things, to check myself out. Scared stiff. I'm not going to lie. I had to go back into the world. But he was going with me.I said my goodbyes to my new friends. We cried, wished each other luck. I said my goodbyes to the school pastor, who helped my find my new friend. I said goodbye to my old self as I had left a part of me there.

The final stage of birth now. The head is visible. The light is ever more clear. With both hands on the wheel, shaking, that bundle of nerves has made it's way back. I took a deep breathe, turned the key, and said “Let's do this.”

Leaving the campus, on the side of the arch facing the campus was the words, ever so elegantly written. So powerful, so fulfilling. The words were.

LET GO AND LET GOD

I drove under and heard the voice say,“Yes, that's right. Let Go, and Let Me.” I was reborn into this world that day. I made it home, passing bars and convenience stores. I could hear the devil in those places, begging me to come in. “Come on Scott, just one won't hurt.” Then my God said “Move On.”

And I did. I'm so glad I didn't go back.

here I go again...

2008-10-30T07:47:00.005-04:00

photo by Renee Oakenfull, also viewable at urbanpulse.com,

Yes, I'm bragging again. If I can't brag on my children, why have them, right? Monkey's teacher, MrsM and I had our conference Tuesday, as you no doubt saw in my absolutely hectic schedule for that day.

Actually, let me go back in history a bit. In kindergarten, Monkey tracked right along with the majority of her class. She had a wonderful teacher and was learning at a pace that I was very comfortable with. By the end of the year she started reading on her own and was finishing chapter books (Magic Tree House, to be specific) before school was over. I love that she loves reading. Fast forward through the summer to first grade.

She's doing very well. MrsM sends home daily reports in Monkey's folder and everything is good. Only once in a while is there a note on behavior, usually relating to talking. Monkey's nothing if not social. Gee, I wonder where she gets that from? The work she brings home has very few, if any, mistakes. I'm starting to wonder is she really that bright or is the work really that easy? Then comes home a particular handwriting/grammer/spelling test. Under "comments," which is reserved for the teacher, Monkey had written "this is boring." God love the honesty of a child.

So, I start to wonder where exactly is she in the class? Is she being challenged? Is she too bored? What can we do? Trey is a big supporter of homeschooling for lots of reasons which I won't get into here. I haven't been. Not because I don't believe in it, but because I still have faith in public schools, I'm not organized enough and the fact that I'm not a teacher. I don't have that gift. I have friends who homeschool and it works for them. But I don't think it's for me.

Well, that's what I thought before. Then I started thinking that if Monkey isn't being challenged, then maybe I should consider homeschooling. So the idea starts stirring around for a week before I even mention it to Trey. Why wait? Because I didn't want the big, fat "I was right!" from him (before you get all upset and think he's "that guy," understand that we have a running joke between us about who's right and wrong, and, well, we all know I'm always right). So we converse about it. We talk about things like enrichment programs, co-ops, umbrella schools and whatever else. Then he added that if we do this, to help relieve my household burdens, we could have someone come clean the house. Woo-hoo! Sign me up! Have I mentioned that I loathe cleaning?

But I digress.

All of that had been discussed pre-conference as a "what if?" So conference time comes and MrsM goes over Monkey's reports. She's above average in several areas. She's one of the strongest readers in the class. Then she asks me if I think Monkey could handle being challenged more? YES! MrsM has a plan for challenging the students in her class that are needing it. Thank you! The last thing I want is for Monkey to be bored at school. Sure, she has fun with her friends and doing all the "specials" like music, art and PE, but I want her learning, too, not floating. I don't want her to get lost in the shuffle of all the other students.

I'm not ditching the homeschooling idea just yet. I'll hang on to it and wait and see how her years at school progress. I hope we continue to have teachers like MrsM who are willing to think outside the box to challenge our little Monkey. Teaching is a gift and I admire those who do it. There's just something special about a good teacher and I'm thankful that Monkey has had such good teachers in her short career as a student.

PS: Yay! My 100th post! Who-da thunk it?

Question of the day

2008-10-29T13:05:00.001-04:00

Why, oh why, isn't there a DO NOT CALL list for politicians??

just another day...

2008-10-28T07:11:00.005-04:00

Another busy day is on tap. Little Man has preschool from 9-2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so these are the days I try and schedule my volunteering at Monkey's school, go to the grocery store, breathe. Well, naturally, being the overachiever that I am, I overbooked myself for today.

Let's see... Here's a snapshot of my day:

8:45 leave house

8:46 return to house because I forgot something (I ALWAYS forget something)

8:55-9:00 drop off Little Man

9:05 head to Monkey's school to set up the Fall Festival signs out by the street and decorate them. I'm hoping that those who offered to help will be there. With help it should take maybe an hour

9:30-11:30 volunteer in Monkey's library (see the problem? How am I supposed to be decorating and shelving books at the same time?)

11:45-1:45 eat lunch, run to the grocery store, take groceries home, finish decorating signs if no one shows up at 9 to help

1:55 pick up Little Man

2:05 go sit in the car line for Monkey and wait for school dismissal at 2:35. I like this because it gives me a chance to catch up on reading. I'm re-reading The Shack right now. Phenomenal book.

2:35 the children dismiss and the line starts to crawl forward.

2:45 head home

3:00 rush Monkey to do her chores, check my emails and Google reader

3:19 leave the house for Girl Scouts

3:20 return to house for whatever I forgot

3:30 drop Monkey off at Girl Scouts

3:40 Parent/Teacher conference with Monkey's teacher

4:00 go to chiropractor

4:10 - 5:00 go home to do my chores - dishes, laundry, pick up the house - that's such an odd phrase, isn't it? I mean we don't actually pick up the house, do we? We pick up things lying around the house, so why say... oh - sorry, where was I? Oh crap! I'm late!

5:10 pick up Monkey from Girl Scouts

5:30 dinner, probably meet my cousins at Chick-fil-A for Family Night since I didn't have time to cook anything at home.

6:45 or so, leave to go home

7:00 start baths

7:30 bed time

7:45 crash out on the couch and watch mindless TV since I'm too frazzled to even think about my Disciple homework.

I have to remind myself sometimes that I volunteered for this gig. I'm a stay-at-home-mom, remember? Although there really isn't much staying at home...

wheee.... this is fun!

2008-10-27T15:33:00.003-04:00

I'm so excited! I got brave and emailed a few of the people on my list for guest blogging. Well, actually, one I ambushed in the comments section, but he's kind enough to still do one. I heard back from another that he would do it, too, but I haven't yet heard from the other two women I emailed.

The fear of rejection is hard to suppress, so having two out of four say yes feels pretty good.

Stay tuned...

the wheels are turning

2008-10-25T23:15:00.004-04:00

I have a thought. It's been bouncing around in the empty space between my ears for a while. It has to do with this blog. I know I don't have a lot of regular readers outside immediate family and some friends, but I do know there are a few out there that come by once in a while to read.

I think that's really cool. I love looking at my statcounter and seeing the different places people come in from. I like to try and guess who they are, too. Now, I know that there's no way to know who is visiting me from where, but I still like to play that game. Did the blog writer from blog A visit me today? Are they from Florida? I can't remember... That kind of thing. Several have left comments, which I love because then I know who is reading and what they think. Sure, there are a lot that just hit on my blog with a search and bounce away again, never to return, but that's ok. It's still one more spot on my map.

I never made any pretense that this blog would turn into one of those that had huge readerships. I'm not doing this for money, my main focus is still for the family and friends that want to know what's going on with us. However, the more I read blogs, the more interesting people I "meet" and I want to invite them over to my little space in the blogosphere.

It's like when you meet people at a social gathering or event. There are those you meet that are nice and you shake hands and say "nice to meet you" but then you move on. And then there are those that you meet that for whatever reason, you just keep talking to them. They have that ... something ... that you want to be a part of and you want to introduce them to your friends. I've seen a lot of blogs like this. I read them regularly and I want others to read them too.

So, back to my thought. I want to have "guest posts". But it's really weird to ask someone you don't "know" to come write something for your own blog. At least it is for me. I've already asked one and she said she would, but she's busy (I know how THAT is!) and it hasn't worked out just yet. I'm still excited about it and look forward to making it work.

I have a list in my head of who I want to ask. Some have done guest posts before and others I don't think have, but I hope to ask them. I want to ask them. One of these days I'll step out of my comfort zone and ask but until then...

...any volunteers?

A neat idea...

2008-10-25T18:51:00.002-04:00

I was twittering around and got wind of this idea to give under-appreciated blogs more readers. I think it's a great idea so I'm linking Chuck Westbrook's blog to mine. You can read his idea for yourself here. I don't really know that a bunch of readers will be interested in my everyday life - I'm no Dooce or Pioneer Woman - but I like the idea of finding other blogs to read.

Spread the love, baby....

Quote of the day

2008-10-25T13:10:00.004-04:00

Grant me patience to deal with my blessings.

parental bribery

2008-10-24T16:53:00.004-04:00

photo by jerine

Today I took the kids to get their flu shots. Actually, Monkey was a few months overdue for her 6-year well child checkup so we needed to get that done, too. What?? We've been busy!

First, let me tell you that last year, when Monkey had to have her shot, I had to hold her down kicking and screaming. Little Man was with me and a nurse had to carry him out of the room because Monkey was making such a fuss.

I was not a happy camper.

This year, I talked to Monkey and talked and talked about it. About how she needed to be a big girl and set an example for Little Man. She needed to put her on big girl panties and suck it up.

Ok, I didn't say it quite like that, but she knew my meaning.

Have you ever taken a puppy to the vet to get shots? They crumble up a bunch of treats for the pup to eat and while it's eating, the vet gives it the shots. The puppy has no idea what happened. Monkey went with me when our puppy had to have shots and I explained what they were doing with the treats. He didn't even flinch. This was back in July or so.

Apparently, this stuck with her. Just as we were getting ready to leave the house, she asked if we could take some of our chocolate covered pretzels for her to eat to distract her from getting the shot.

Uh... sure!

Let me tell you, it worked. I didn't think it would because Monkey didn't want to pull her arm out of the sleeve and started pushing the nurse away and getting upset. The nurse reminded her of her pretzels and as soon as Monkey took a bite, the nurse popped the syringe. I swear to you, Monkey actually giggled! Giggled that a trick that works on a puppy actually worked on her.

Hey, whatever gets it done, right, people?

On the way home, she tells me it didn't even hurt. After explaining (again) why she needed one in the first place, she tells me she's glad she got her flu shot. Amazing!

Oh, for those of you who wondered, "What about Little Man?", he got his shot first, in the leg, and he didn't like it. He cried until he got a pretzel of his own. Then he simmered down a bit.

Just another banner parenting day - full of threats and bribery.

cats, love 'em or hate 'em

2008-10-23T19:23:00.008-04:00

Don't we have cute cats? They're brother and sister and have an interesting life story. I used to work at an animal hospital and these two were left at our door one morning, in a box. Later that day, the boys that found them called to make sure they were ok. Apparently there were originally three kittens found by three boys in a park. They each took one home, but only one was allowed to keep his. The other two boys weren't able to. I don't know if the story is true, but I liked it just the same. They stayed with us (at the clinic) for several months, in a large cage in our waiting room, hoping for an adopting family.

I felt really bad for these cute bundles of energy that couldn't really run around and play. During closing hours, whoever was working at the desk would sometimes let them out to run around, but it just wasn't enough. Trey got tired of hearing me talk about them and said something along the lines of "Fine, if it will shut you up, bring them home for the weekend."

They never left.

Sneaky, aren't I?

This one is the brother. He's fat. And innocent looking.

Don't let that fool you, though...

See those glowing eyes? He has an evil streak for sure (and no, it's not just the reflection from my flash).

"what, who me? Not me." He decided to use Little Man's bed as a litter box today.

I know it was him because he's the only one who has litter box issues.

So, at 6:30pm, an hour before bed time, I'm having to wash sheets and blankets so Little Man won't have to sleep on Disney Princess sheets. Good thing the mattress liner is plastic.

Just look at that nonchalance. How dare he have the audacity to clean himself.

I'm a twit

2008-10-23T14:14:00.007-04:00

yeah, I did it. I joined twitter. As if I don't have enough to distract myself with. I'm not entirely sure how long this will last since I won't be using my cell phone for updates, but I wanted to see what it was all about.

So, if you're interested, or just bored and looking for something to do, my twitter link is on the sidebar.

******

I'm updating this to say that I'm not so sure I'm going to keep up with the twitter. Yeah, I know, how flaky am I to give it about an hour or so to try it out, but I just don't see that my life is interesting enough to warrant a twitter account. After an hour, I couldn't really come up with anything more than I'm worthlessly spending the entire day at home, on the computer. I still have the account, but I'm not leaving the badge on my blog. And since I don't have a cool new iPhone to keep it up while I'm out and about, I just don't see the point for me.

If you decide you must go looking for me over there, try Kool_Aid16.

gourmet apples and a shout out

2008-10-23T08:56:00.005-04:00

I did something fun with the kids last night. Monkey and I had been talking about this for a while and finally I got a round tuit. Ok, I didn't really get a "round tuit" but you know what I'm talking about.

As some of you may know/remember, I used to sell Pampered Chef. One of the theme shows we had a couple of years ago was making gourmet apples. I have to say this was the most fun and most messy show I had ever done.

So, last night we made gourmet candy apples. This is more than just dipping an apple in melted caramel. This is a production. Oh sure, we did start with dipping an apple in caramel, but there were two kinds of cookies to crumble and two kinds of chocolate to melt. This was no "simple" thing.

First things first. We coated the apples in caramel and put them in the refrigerator for about an hour or so. Wait, I missed something. Monkey helped melt the caramel. She had a very important job: stirring the caramel constantly. But I couldn't leave Little Man out! I put peanut butter fudge crackers in one ziplock bag and oreo cookies in another bag. Little Man's job was to crush the cookies inside the bag with his fist. He beat those cookies into submission, I tell you! Actually, I had to help him a little. His small fist could only do so much damage. We set the bags aside for later.

Fast forward to after the apples sit for a while. I melted two different kinds of chocolate - light and dark. I had intended to use white chocolate, but the bag I bought I had used to make chocolate covered pretzels and when I tried to buy more, Wally World was out.

We coated the apples, first one half, then the other, with the different kinds of chocolate. Monkey then took her apple and sprinkled cookie crumbs all around. I did the apples for Little Man, Trey and me. We let them sit for a while so the chocolate could harden, then cut them up for dessert.

Just so you know, if you try this yourself, use a tart apple like Granny Smith. We used Red Delicious which made it too sweet. Even Monkey said it was too sweet for her. You read me right. My daughter, who has a bigger sweet tooth than I (as if that was even possible) said her apple was too sweet and that she wanted to save the rest for another day.

Did you know that people will pay upwards of $20 for a gourmet apple like we made? Crazy, isn't it? Well, ours aren't pretty, but with a little time and effort, these could make great gifts and you can make several for less than $20 total.

If you're interested in more detailed instruction, just leave a comment. If you're like me and just want to wing it - go for it!

On a different note, I want to give a shout out to my dear friends, Runner Girl and Mom of 4. They are running in their first marathon this weekend: The Marine marathon in DC. They've been diligently training and supporting each other all summer long and I am so proud of them! I've done a marathon - the first Rock N Roll marathon in San Diego, 1998 - and if I can do it, I know they can! Prayers for them for safe travels to DC and a good run on Sunday. I'll be with you in spirit, friends!

photos are back!

2008-10-22T08:46:00.004-04:00

I finally had some time today to play around with Photoshop and get watermarks on some of the pictures I took yesterday in the mountains.

I really like Photoshop, although I'm still learning how to use it. I think I need to pick up a Photoshop for Mac for Dummies book. While I'm at it, I should get a Using the Pentax k100D for Dummies. It was a beautiful sunny day yesterday, but not too sunny because of a few clouds, and I still over-exposed I don't know how many shots.

Well, here are a few of the decent ones.

This was the cabin we "hiked" to. It was only about o.5 miles from where we parked the car and it took about an hour and a half to do the round trip. Good thing we didn't go to the waterfalls that were 2.5 miles.

Just a tree in a field...

The only reason this shot isn't more overexposed than it is is because of the overhanging branches. The other shots I took the mountains are barely visible.

And a river runs through it....

Really tall, over exposed trees.... I like the angle of this one, though. It's a neat perspective.

The same river runs through it....

I took a whole series of this little spot in the river. I was playing with the shutter speed, trying to get that soft look of the water flowing. This one was the best of the bunch. I imagine it would work better if I took pictures of an actual waterfall and not a tiny rapid.

There are old churches where we went yesterday; 200+ years old. I like playing with the light coming in windows and took several shots of this, too. I couldn't quite capture the image the way I wanted to, though. I have another series of shots I tried taking in a different church yesterday, but those were just worthless... Good thing the camera is digital.

I really like the peek of fall color through this window.

More fall color...

One of the few decent landscape shots from yesterday...

I just liked this one.

a new series

2008-10-21T06:51:00.004-04:00

photo by mK B.

I'm starting a new series with my blog. It won't be on a particular day, since I'm too disorganized to even maintain something like Wednesday in Review or Frugal Friday, they'll just pop up every now and then, sneaking up on you when you least expect it. Kinda like when you're reaching for your drink, expecting sweet tea (yes, we pre-sweeten our tea down here, y'all) and drinking Dr. Pepper instead. It makes your mind and your mouth come to a screeching halt and wonder - what the hell?

So, back to my series... I'm calling it Random Rants and it'll coincide with Random Musings, which I've sorta started, I just haven't gone back and edited some labels for those yet.

Yesterday, I took the kids out to a local park. I love where we live, we have a great park system in place and on any given day, I have about 4 parks within about an 8 mile radius that I can take the kids to. Love that. Apparently, so do a lot of other people because it was really crowded. I'm guessing that since it's fall and days are getting colder, on the days that it is nice, crowded parks are a given. That's fine by me because it gives the kids a lot of other kids to play with and I always end up running into someone I know.

The thing that gets me, though, is the apathy of some moms. I'm not quite sure why, but they just seem to have lost that caring feeling when it comes to what their children are doing. I saw a group of young boys, all about 4-6 years old, playing with Star Wars light sabers. Sure, that's not so bad. Kinda funny actually. But then they started beating on a small tree. Now, I know that I get teased for being a tree-hugger sometimes, but what was bothering me more about this is that there were younger children, about 2 years old and including Little Man, that were playing not far away and the older boys were trying to knock down branches. One little boy kept walking under the same tree and even though his mom kept telling him not to, that he might get hit, the moms of the other boys never told them to stop or move elsewhere.

Then one boy climbed the tree and started breaking limbs off for the boys to use for fighting.

I wanted so bad to say something, but I didn't. I'm not sure why I didn't. I mean, I know boys will be boys, but sometimes, that's just an excuse for bad behavior. There's a difference between playing rough and being disrespectful. What I saw was the boys being disrespectful to another's property and risking injury to another child. The tree wasn't theirs, the park wasn't their yard, yet they saw fit to tear up a tree for their own five minutes of fun and they didn't seem to notice or care that there were younger children around that could get hurt. The mom of the boy climbing the tree told him, passively, I might add, to stop and get down, but he didn't really listen. Oh, he did eventually come down, but it was after the one branch he was trying to tear off was too big for him to do so.

Now seriously, Kool Aid, ranting over a tree? Yes. I believe it's setting a pattern with children. If you allow random destruction of property, be it a tree, a yard, a rock, where is the line drawn? At what point do you teach your child that respect for a building or even a person is different than respecting something in nature? Respect is respect, right? Are we not called to be stewards of the earth? I'm sure this rant could very easily go into a political/environmental debate about all things outdoors, but to me, the bottom line is teaching respect and responsibility.

They were just having fun, Kool Aid. Sure they were, they were having great fun. But they were also risking hurting a smaller child that was walking underneath the tree.

I love climbing trees. I did it a lot as a young child, climbing an old oak tree in my yard several stories high (and scaring my poor mom all the time). I did it in college. There was a great magnolia on the lawn of the art school at my university that I climbed. Luckily, I never got hurt, nor did anyone get hurt around me. Monkey loves to climb trees, too, and while it worries me sometimes, I still let her do it if it's a good tree to climb. I saw another child in a different, bigger tree, but he was just hanging out and part of me envied that.

My point is this. I try and teach Monkey to be respectful. Not having respect for all things, in my mind, leads to things like vandalism, inconsiderate behavior, thinking only of oneself, hate, intolerance, destruction. Yeah, it's a little thing, tearing branches off a tree, but if every day a child tore branches off that tree, soon there would be no branches on that tree. No shade to offer parents or children to have a picnic under. No place for a bird to build a nest. And to get scientific for a brief second, one less tree to take in carbon dioxide and let off oxygen.

Call me a tree-hugger, that's fine. I'm not going to go sit in a forest and cry out to dead trees, (and just on a side note, that video makes me almost ashamed to be from NC - almost) but I am going to teach my children that we are stewards of the earth, and while we do need to harvest trees, we also need to plant trees and protect national and state parks.

I'm also going to teach them responsibility. If they're rough-housing around other children, they need to be aware and responsible enough that another child won't get hurt.

Now I'm off to take the kids to the mountains to "respect" the fall foliage.

Respect and responsibility. What are you teaching your children?

date night

2008-10-19T13:16:00.004-04:00

Wow, it's been a busy few days, hasn't it? First off, I don't have any neat anecdotal stories about the children. They've been pretty typical kids this week, so nothing funny to blog about there.

Trey and I celebrated 9 years of marriage this week, though, and that's pretty big! We had tickets to see Ray LaMontagne on Friday night, downtown. Trey had the wonderful idea, at about noon on Friday, to get a hotel room and have a mini-vacation before he heads out of town.

Have you ever tried to be spontaneous with a 6 and almost-3 year old?

We had a babysitter lined up already, which almost never happens for me. Usually something comes up and the babysitter falls through. Just my luck, right? However, the idea of getting away with my husband, even for a night, is appealing enough to call my cousin to see if they could keep the kids overnight.

Unfortunately, my cousin was gone fishing and his wife was alone with their two kids. I'm certainly not going to ask her to take care of our two also. I don't know how moms of four can do it.

So, I called two other friends to see if one could take Little Man and the other could take Monkey. Let me just say, I have wonderful friends. Our sudden imposition on their weekend plans allowed for us to have a night with just the two of us, for the first time since Little Man was born. Sounds pretty selfish, now that I type it. Needless to say, we are in debt to them. I'm sure I'll have their children over for a sleepover sometime in the near future - although probably not at the same time.

I absolutely hated calling the babysitter and canceling on such short notice, but when I explained what we were trying to do and why, she was totally understanding. I'll be calling her again soon to help out while Trey is gone.

I won't bore you with the details of our evening. We went to dinner, relaxed and people watched. The place where we ate had patio seating and it was just cool enough to enjoy it. There are some interesting people that come to downtown on a Friday night. The concert was great, although between every song - and I mean EVERY song - people were yelling and whistling and yelling out songs. You know, that's fine sometimes - I've done it, too, if it's a particularly rocking song, but EVERY time? That starts to cut in on others' enjoyment.

All in all, it was a great evening out. Something that we hope to do again before another three years is up.

Conversations with a two year old

2008-10-15T13:30:00.003-04:00

"I'm stinky"

"Do you have a stinky diaper?"

"No."

"Let's go change"

"K"

"Ewww, you're stinky!"

"I got BIG poop!"

"Yeah, you do"

Points to the dirty diaper "Look, a mountain!"

Yeah, this is my life.

Losing my chi to Barbie

2008-10-12T07:43:00.007-04:00

photo by luisvilla

Yesterday, Monkey and I started a project. Actually, I started the project in my head some time ago and began working on it last week. We're moving our full sized guest bed into her room and her twin bed into Little Man's room. However, she has a LOT of ~~junk~~ toys in her room so first we must clean her room.

Have I mentioned before that I hate cleaning?

The first thing we tackled was her book shelf. I wish we had done this before the consignment sale because she cleared off easily half her books. Naturally, I'll be saving some of them for Little Man because he loves books, too, but there were several that we'll be putting in the next sale, which is unfortunately not until the spring.

Then we moved on to discuss her Polly Pockets, My Little Ponies and Little Pet Shop toys. She still plays with some, but agreed to let a few others go. Next came the Barbies.

I had no idea just how many Barbies and accessories we had.

Something to remember, people, is that I saved many of my Barbie toys and clothes from my own childhood, Monkey has had generous grandparents, gifts from Mommy and Daddy and a really cool yardsale score from a couple of years ago. We have lots of dolls and clothes.

So we started sorting them.

And sorting them.

She's keeping all the Disney Princess ones and the fairy ones and her Hannah Montana ones. But the furniture, most of the clothes and just about all of the accessories are going. Oh, didn't I mention the furniture? That was the yard sale score from a couple of years ago. I found a box of what I thought was Barbie furniture, but turned out to be Sandi furniture from the late 70's early 80's I'm guessing. Complete with the necessary accessories, like dishes, pots, pans, even the bathroom sink and tub. I was so excited, brought them home to Monkey and set them up. She played, I swear to you, alone in her room quietly for the entire day, breaking only for lunch. Just that one day alone made the purchase worth it.

I'm having a twinge of heartburn getting rid of these things, but we just don't have the room around here to store enough Barbie furniture to furnish a 5 room house. They've been crammed in a box in her closet for a year and a half and I need that space.

So because her room is full of ~~junk~~ toys, we moved to the living room to stage our sorting. My chi is all out of whack because there's stuff EVERYWHERE. I dream of having a Jeannie to wrinkle her nose and make it all go bye-bye.

And the sad thing is that since I haven't finished the project, I can't even finish the post because there's nothing more to report.

Tune in tomorrow to see if my chi survives...

Keeping up with the little men

2008-10-10T07:28:00.005-04:00

Where have I been, you're probably asking yourself right now. I've been busy. I've taking on an additional two year old, who just so happens to have the same name as Little Man, so it's been a little busy around here.

LM and LM2 are quite cute together. They're cousins, actually. His daddy and I are cousins, so that makes LM and LM2 1st cousins, once removed. Or is it 2nd cousins? Actually, they're not even blood related because my cousin's daddy and my daddy are step brothers from my granddaddy's second marriage.

Confused yet?

Other than having to use full names around the house when trying to get one or the other's attention, it hasn't been all that bad. They get along pretty well together. Unlike LM and his other friend WB - remember him? They share a birthday? When they get together, they behave like siblings, poking and teasing, taking toys from each other just for fun and putting them where the other can't get it. There's a lot of screaming and yelling going on. You know, sibling stuff. Stuff I wouldn't know about because I'm an only child. We call LM and WB Forrest and Bubba. One of the nursery workers at our church call them "two wild and crazy guys!" They're just that kind of pair.

(If you ever really want to laugh, check out some of the old SNL skits - they rock!)

So anyway, I've been taking care of LM2 during the day since Wednesday. His mom runs a daycare and they've been closed for staff training so she asked me to help out. We trade babysitting often, so it was a no-brainer. Plus, it gives LM someone to play with!

Speaking of, they're both upstairs unsupervised while I type this. Hmmm.... maybe I should go check on them.

dominion

2008-10-05T11:05:00.004-04:00

"I'm probably not going today, since my throat is sore and I feel like I might be getting sick."

"Good, Little Man can stay with you since he's sneezy and snotty and I don't want dirty looks for bringing a sneezy, snotty kid to the nursery."

"But then I won't be able to exercise my dominion over the house, play loud music while I catch up on some things."

Laughs, "you mean you don't have dominion over a two year old?"

Snorts, "I absolutely do not have dominion over a two year old. He is the boss of me."

Super Savings, pt 3

2008-10-04T16:42:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned before, on my last trip to Kroger they said that the meat and produce would be marked down today, starting at 6am. So I drag my tired self out of bed at 5:30 - on a SATURDAY - to go to the store. I get there at 6 and the parking lot is much more full than I would have expected that early in the morning.

Apparently I wasn't the only one they told.

So I grab a cart and head inside to the meat dept. There was nothing left. Well, almost nothing. There was some organic chicken, some of Laura's Lean strip steaks, and the store's all Natural brand strips and ribeyes, you know, the expensive stuff. Which was fine by me because we like the healthier stuff anyway. There were three packages of flank steak left and a big brisket. The brisket alone was about $17.

Then I headed over to the produce. Looking back, I wish I had gotten more fresh zucchini and squash, but I didn't. I got some of the basics like red peppers, potatoes, onions, carrots, a ton of apples and celery. I figured I'd go ahead and chop some, vacuum seal them and toss them in the freezer. By the time I was done shopping, it had been just about 30-40 minutes. Then I had to wait in line. The computers weren't ringing up the meat on sale yet, so we waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently, they had to wait for the sale prices to be downloaded from the main office. After waiting almost an hour people started getting a little testy. They were grabbing bags of ice to keep their meat cold. Finally, someone made the brilliant decision to let the cashiers take the discount manually. My guy was great (I usually go through his line when I'm doing coupons) and he actually rounded down (if it was an $11 steak, he typed in $5) to make his life easier. My wallet liked that.

Anyway, I paid $96 for about $225 worth of food. You gotta love a store that's moving locations.

catching up

2008-10-03T08:25:00.002-04:00

I realized that lately I have not updated stories on the kids. Their grandparents, I'm sure, are not pleased.

Monkey: Last week I got a call from the school nurse. When you have caller ID and you see the school name on the list, your heart stops just a little bit. Just so you know. So, mine did. I answer and Nurse Judy (no, that's not her real name) said that she just wanted to call and let me know that Monkey got stung by a bee. Yes, again. I could hear Monkey in the background. She's a very fragile and dramatic little girl. I think she'll be an actress when she grows up. One of those melodramatic, over-the-top actresses. Think Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Don't get me wrong, I love Jamie Lee Curtis, I think she's fantastic, but you can tell she's grown as an actress since Halloween.

But I digress.

The bee sting. I think what freaked her out the most is that the bee was still stuck to her when she was taken to the nurse. That would freak me out, too. Anyway, I got her on the phone (and only a mother could understand what she was saying between her sobs) but she didn't want to come home. She just wanted me to come look at her. So I did. I asked the nurse if she could put baking soda on it, since it worked so well last time. Then she sent Monkey to the clinic (the nurse's office and the clinic are two different places at our school) until I got there. Luckily I needed to go to her school for something else anyway so it wasn't a big deal. Monkey didn't want to miss out on the Library or Art, so I'm guessing the sting wasn't all that bad.

Little Man: This week, I got the first "he's a handful" type of comment from his preschool teachers. He has a friend and they play and fight and pick at each other like they were brothers. And they're in the same class. I tried warning the teachers the first day I met them, but I don't think they quite understood what I meant until this week. Oh, and Little Man got in trouble for pushing down another, younger child. Just because he was standing, I guess. There were no toys involved or anything. Little Man just pushed him down. Great. Bully in training. They also commented on his temper. He gets really frustrated sometimes and doesn't quite know how to express himself, so he screams and gets mad and throws things. Well, he is two.

None of this is new to me. I do work with him on sharing and being nice and not pushing or taking toys or throwing things or using his words to express himself. I remember this to an extent with Monkey, but Little Man just seems a little more stubborn about it. He goes in time out, the toys are put away, he's asked to give back the toy he takes, sometimes even gets his bottom popped, whatever. And he's like, whatever mom. I know it'll all pass, and he's a sweet, smart little guy, but it's hard being the mom of "that kid," you know?

Maybe I need to re-read Parenting with Love and Logic; I think I need a refresher course. Or better yet, I should read The Strong Willed Child, or Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours.

I think a trip to the library is in order. I need some new ideas... Dear readers, do you have any?

Super Savings, pt 2

2008-10-02T15:14:00.005-04:00

I'm updating because yes, I did go back and get more food. We now can not in any way stuff more food into our freezers, which is a good thing! I also had some time on my hands while I was waiting to pick up Monkey and I think I figured out what I saved with the 1/2 price sale going on. If I did my math right, on the first trip I spent $117 and saved $135. Not too shabby, wouldn't you say? And for my second trip, I spent $18 and saved about $40.

This is the first trip. I wasn't the only one loaded down - there were others just as full as mine and some even had two carts!

This was the second trip. Yes, you do see six tubes of chocolate chip cookie dough - what of it?!

Super savings

2008-10-02T12:20:00.002-04:00

Jumping off of my random musings train for a little while to post about what I've been doing this morning. Shopping! Something I love to do.

Our local Kroger is moving to a new location just across the parking lot on Saturday. Today they had all, and I do mean ALL, their frozen food at 50% off. I have lots of coupons for lots of frozen food. They also have all dairy and sandwich meats, with the exclusion of milk and eggs (can't get crazy now, can we?) at 50 % off. That's cheese, pillsbury dough, bacon, sausage, you name it!

I had a cart FULL of name brand frozen food like eggos, Green Giant, Healthy Choice, name brand and store brand meats and cheese, yogurt, OJ and had matching coupons to go with most of them. We'll be getting a chest freezer in the next day or two because all their meats and produce will be marked off starting Saturday.

I did manage to get all that food in our two side-by-side freezers, but only by taking out all the shelves. I took a picture of my cart with the cell phone, but I have no idea how to move it to the computer. When I do, I'll post it later.

My original total was $177. The frozen food rang up at an automatic discount, so the percentage of savings on my receipt was only 36%. I spent $117. I'm not good at math but probably 75-80% of that total was at 50% off regular price. That's way too many % signs for me to get it right but I know someone who teaches math, and I bet he can solve it for me :). Point being, I have no idea how much I actually saved when taking that 1/2 price sale into account, but I think I did pretty good.

The ripple effect

2008-10-01T20:53:00.006-04:00

photo by Snap®

There's an interesting discussion that has been brewing at another blog that I regularly read. Writer Dad first spoke of an incident he was involved in here, naturally lots of comments followed, then he continued with this post and even more comments followed.

It lead me to question something that was embedded in a comment, although I can't find the exact one, now. That one person cannot bring about change, so why bother?

Seriously? There are plenty of examples in history where one person started something that caught on and brought about change. Jesus, Muhammad, Ghandi, MLK Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Jim Jones and Mother Theresa are all examples that just popped into my head. I'm sure if I were to dig deep in the annals of the internet, I would find dozens upon dozens of names of people who have changed something around them because of their actions or their words - both positive and negative.

What about on the small scale? Have you ever read something or heard something that someone said that caused you to stop and think for a moment? Have you ever had a conversation with someone that caused you to change your views - or at least reconsider them - about something? Maybe you saw a pastor speak at a service and whatever they had to say resonated with you so much that you had to go and do something about it. Suppose you saw someone on the side of the road with a flat and because you helped them change a tire, they were able to get to the hospital to visit a dying friend. You know that homeless person standing there holding a sign on the corner of the intersection? Suppose you gave him/her a bottle of water on a hot day. I have a friend that keeps a case of water bottles in her car for such instances. And parents have unbelievable ripple effects on their children, so many they can't possibly know them all.

The point of all this is that it is absolutely impossible for one person to NOT cause changes in their environment. It's a ripple effect. What I do today will cause changes around me. Maybe it's a small change. Maybe it's a big change. Maybe I'll never know, but when I toss that pebble out there, there will be ripples and they will spread.

Can you honestly say that one person can't bring about changes? In Writer Dad's case, that has yet to be seen. But even if the vandal chooses to just go to a different stop sign instead of quitting altogether, change still occurred and one person caused it. Or maybe someone who witnessed the incident decides that he/she will stand up the next time. Maybe it's just as simple as someone who saw it told it to someone else and that started a chain reaction.

Remember that what you do today can and will cause a ripple effect. Are you tossing a good pebble or a bad pebble and just how big will those ripples be?

Question of the day

2008-09-30T15:10:00.002-04:00

Ok, this is a joke, more than a question, but either way, it's cute.

What did the fish say after he hit a concrete wall?

(keep scrolling if you want to see the answer)

dam!

The golden rule

2008-09-30T07:23:00.005-04:00

My faith in humanity is somewhat restored. Not because the bailout was voted out but because of something that happened in the car line yesterday.

I have a pet peeve. Actually, I have several, but one of them is people cutting in front of me while driving. I noticed it all the time in the mornings last year dropping Monkey off at school. Some parent would be late for work, I'm guessing, so they're in such a hurry they feel they have the right to cut in line. I don't mean just cutting in front of me when I let the person in front of them in, although that bothers me, too, but cutting through the staff parking lot to get towards the front of the line. I mean, all the rest of us have to wait to meander through the line, what makes you so special that you can bypass all the other parents waiting in line?

Whenever that happened last year, I made a point to NOT let that person in if I happened to be near where they would be trying to get in line. Unfortunately, at 7:20 am, there are people nicer than me that would let that better-than-thou parent through the line and their shortcut would then be justified because they made it through the line before everyone else. We're all adults, here, right? If you're running that late then maybe, just maybe, you should get up earlier. Take some responsibility for your own actions and don't be late.

But I digress. Yesterday, I got to Monkey's school a little earlier than usual for pickup. I was the first to show up, so I park in the car line at a spot where I think the first car usually parks. There was one car that parked right behind me right after and since that mom didn't give me the "why don't you pull ahead" look that people give at the station when you stop at the first pump instead of pulling right through, I figured I was ok. I needed to pick up something from the office, so I grab Little Man and walk in. I was inside for about five minutes and when I went back out, there were about 4 or 5 cars behind me and one in front of me. Not farther in front, like they were parking to get something then leaving, but you could tell they passed the other cars, pulled in, then backed up to park in front of me. The driver was still in the car, so I knew they were there for the pick up line.

I really don't care if I'm the first one or not. I'm usually in the first 10-20 cars because I get there early enough to sit in the car and read for about 20-30 minutes before school lets out. Yesterday's timing was a fluke. But it bothered me to no end that someone had the gall to pass other parked cars to position himself as the first car. However, I try and let it go and enjoy my quiet 30 minutes before dismissal (Little Man often naps in the car while we wait).

After a while, though, just a little before dismissal, he starts his car, drives to the end of the circle, parks and walks up to get his child. Huh? After all that work of parking at the head of the line, now you're walking up to get your kid? I don't get it. Oh, just so you know, dear reader, I don't leave my car running while waiting in the car line - another pet peeve of mine. No matter how hot, I'll turn off the motor, roll the windows down and open a door. So, I notice this dad walking towards my passenger side window. He comes up to me and apologizes for parking in front of the line!

Graciously, because I'm a good southern gal and all that, I tell him how nice that is and he really didn't have to and all that. He says that he didn't know I was waiting in the car line (I wasn't in the car when he arrived, remember?) but when he saw me come out with Little Man and wait, he realized that he had cut the line and so wanted to apologize to me because he doesn't want to do things that would bother him if someone had done the same to him. You know, that golden rule?

Really. This truly happened. A total stranger apologized for cutting me off. Granted, we were in parked cars so it's not like we were passing through an intersection where there's no opportunity for apologies, but the fact that he took the time to apologize shattered some pre-conceived notions I had built about his character (he was driving a really big fancy SUV and chatting away on his cell when I walked out of the school. Yes, I'm guilty of stereotyping. Who isn't?).

My faith in humanity is somewhat restored. And it begs the question, when was the last time you took ownership of a wrong you committed, whether perceived or actual? Is there something for which or someone to whom you need to apologize? Is there someone or something you need to forgive? We all do, don't we?

Restore someone else's faith in humanity today.

the internet, part 2

2008-09-26T15:33:00.002-04:00

Ok, you know how yesterday I was critical of the internet? Well, guess what? Today, I love it. Why the sudden change you ask? It's simple.

Pandora.

And Austin City Limits. Live. On my computer.

If it hadn't been for Pandora (I'm an avid user - just another reason to get an iPhone), I would never have known that I could listen to Austin City Limits. Live. On my computer. While I do housework.

And this isn't the watered-down version that's featured on PBS. This is the actual festival, happening in Austin. Right now. Today.

A few years back, Trey called me from ACL. The Dead were there and he wanted me to hear them play. I couldn't, really (sucky cell service), but it's the thought that counts, right? Which leads me to another reason I like the internet (except when it's keeping me from doing housework) is I can look up The Dead's tour schedule for the fall. I found out from a friend today that they're touring again. It's not the same, I'm sure, but it'll still be a fun time.

Get out your tie-dye, people.

sorry

2008-09-26T12:47:00.003-04:00

I want to take a moment to apologize to a commenter. Not because I didn't like what she said - I still don't - but I feel like I shouldn't have blasted her comment the way that I did. Now, I don't know if Lydia has been back to my blog or not, but hopefully she'll see this if and when she does.

I need to remember that at 5:30 am, when I can barely see out of both eyes and haven't yet had at least one cup of coffee, my filters are not in place. Lydia can certainly say that she thinks I'm irresponsible and shouldn't blame my inequities on the internet. True. I am an adult and I shouldn't blame others for my actions.

However, I am pretty certain that I intended my post about the evils of the internet to be funny - poking fun at myself and the internet for being what it is and for my own shortcomings. And I'm pretty certain that, at least for some, it came across that way. I'm sorry if it didn't for others. It was not my intention for it to be interpreted as a serious shifting of blame to the internet for all the things that I should be doing and aren't.

Saying all of this leads me to another point that I'm learning about blogging. Along with the possibility that people will steal pictures, there will be negative comments. Get over it, Kool Aid. So, I'm now enacting my "comments regulations" bit. I've read that blogs should post rules for comments, or some such thing, so here goes.

1. I welcome all visitors and comments, both good and bad; however, if you (the commenter) resort to simple name-calling or drag my friends/family into the comment, it will not be published.

2. If you post a negative comment, you should expect a response from me.

3. If you post a positive comment, you should expect a response from me.

4. If you have an opinion that you don't want publicized, then I suggest you keep it to yourself.

5. Lastly, if you post a comment and don't proofread what you post before hitting the "send/submit/whatever" button, expect to hear from me. Poor proofreading skills are a pet peeve of mine. (and before anyone accuses me of being in a glass house and throwing stones, I have missed errors in my own typing, too, and it's still a pet peeve)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging....

evil

2008-09-25T11:31:00.003-04:00

Did you know that the computer is evil? Not the hellfire-and-brimstone evil, but that subtle whisper of evil. That "I'm just not sure if this is right or not" evil. Or maybe it isn't the computer but the internet. Yeah, that's it. The internet is evil.

"Why post such a thing?" you ask. I know the internet is a great source of information, that it's a global village and all that. You can google something obscure and get fifty-bazillion hits and learn something that you didn't know you needed to know, like do butterflies fart? Go ahead, google it. You know you want to.

No, the internet/computer is evil because procrastinators like me will use it as an excuse to get nothing done. Here I am, home with no children, and I'm hanging out on the computer just because I want to see if I got any email. Checking to see if New Age Bitch responded to my comments or not. Reading other blogs that I have no business reading because I have things I need to do here, like get toys and clothes ready for this really big consignment sale next week, or clean, or figure out what's for dinner. Or I could be out playing with my new telephoto lens that arrived yesterday (thank you Trey - you're my lobster).

At least I made it to the grocery store.

It's a good thing I don't have an iPhone. Then I could be worthlessly doing nothing but internet stuff everywhere!