Lil Miss is 7 months!

Lil Miss turned 7 months old recently.  She is such a sweet, happy girl.  She has her unhappy moments, but that is usually because I have not been quick to feed her at her normal times. I take advantage of her good nature, I guess. 

She just recently began sitting up on her own.  There are a few tragic falls every now and then (with a LOUD thud), but she loves her new vantage point on life. 

She loves her jumpy seat and goes nuts in it.

She loves Puffs, as did Happy when he was younger.  They buy me some very precious moments during the mealtime insanity.

She definitely shows a preference for me over everyone else and always has her eyes on me.  She usually cries if I leave the room. 

She is started to express quite a dislike for the bottle.  Thankfully, though, she eats solids when the bottle is not going to be an acceptable option for her and I am not available to nurse her.

She likes to laugh at me making silly faces and sounds.  She is pretty quick to laugh, just as Happy was at this age.  Well, he still is.  

She is starting to "clap" to music.  It is so cute to watch.

She adores Happy and he can do no wrong in her eyes.  He can even fall on her and she rarely will make a fuss.  Happy also adores her and is so sweet to her.  He likes to look after her and always wants to know her whereabouts. 

What a precious addition you are to our family, Lil Miss!

Underwear Blowing in the Wind

Yes. Hello.

Long time, no?

I have been knee-high in potty training.

Both literally and figuratively.

And our dryer broke.

Which is perfect timing considering I am doing a lot of laundry with the potty training shenanigans.

Have I mentioned I also do cloth diapers with Lil Miss?

And that the Hubs prefers to go to work with clean clothes? Or, to be more specific, clothes that are both clean AND dry?

The irony of it all is that I purchased a new washer and dryer for us last week.  Because I knew we were on borrowed time with our current ones. But the washer and dryer were not in stock.  No worries, I said, we can wait a week.

(HA!)

Even (un)funnier is that I got a call from the appliance store on Thursday saying that the dryer was in stock but the washer was not. I could choose to go ahead and have them deliver the dryer and then bring the washer at a later time or just do it all at once.  I decided to wait and do it all at once. Dude on phone said, "Cool. Got it."

Then, an hour later, another call came from the appliance store saying that they would be delivering my dryer Friday. I told the lady about the conversation I had an hour prior. She said, "Oh, ok, then go with that first conversation. They must be right."

Then, on Friday morn, I got a call from the delivery guy saying he was running early and could he swing by now(?!) to deliver. I told him I didn't want the dryer and washer delivered separately.

(I mean, why destroy the laundry room for one delivery just to do it a few days later?! Right?)

(HA.)

So, basically, I had to shove my dryer back at them until the washer was in stock.  Refuse it, even.

Friday night, the dryer officially broke.  Oh, the irony.

So, we are kickin' it old school here and drying the clothes on a clothesline.

Except that we have no clothesline.

Just lawn furniture.  

And toys.

Classy, I know.

Happy thought it was pretty cool that his "po-wease caaar" had an extra snazzy roof.

There is always a silver lining!

oh.my.word. (oh, and also, CHOCOLATE!)

You know how the simplest things can take the longest?

Well, my mom's birthday is this week.  She is a big fan of both pictures and cards.  So, I wanted to make her a customized card with pics of the grandkids.  Similar to the one I did for my dad.

You know, the one where he was only interested in pictures of his cats, not pictures of the grandkids.

He's a total nut.

I won't go into the horribly boring details, but basically, the 3 minute card has taken over an hour and a half and is not done.

On a website that specializes in making this super quick and easy.

I have done online support chat two different times with this online card company. For a 3 minute card!  And it is still not resolved.

The gist of it was that I did not have the "proper" internet browser. So I downloaded that.  Then, believe it or not, the browser was too new of a version!? And you can't download an older version to install it.  Then, I did not have the most updated Flash player.  So I downloaded that.  And it still didn't work.

I tried another, older, slower computer.  It worked on that.  But, because it is slower, it has frozen on the preview part while I type this blog post on my computer that now has the "proper" internet browser and upgraded Flash.

I finally hit cancel just now to end all of our misery.

I am a graphic designer and Hubs is a IT Computer guy.  If anyone should be able to handle this project and any technical challenges it presents in a snap, it would be us.  This just shows how frustratingly difficult this website is. And somehow Dad's card was able to be done a few months ago on the same computer without batting an eyelash. (???)

I hope my mom appreciates her card if she ever gets it!

---

On an entirely different note, my sweet precious friend, who lives in southern Africa, commented about my chocolate insanity stash.  She has been in her current location for about 4 years or so (without a return to the states) and mentioned that the only chocolate item she recognizes were the toll house morsels.

You just never really think about how the oh so important chocolate landscape changes so quickly, do you?

(And just for the record?  I am not normally this obsessed with food.  Nursing a baby makes me hungry and all crazy like. For chocolate and brussels sprouts. And broccoli.)

(And I also didn't realize how much chocolate I got until I was heading to the cash register.)

(And it was too late to care.)

(I assumed if the check out person was a lady, she would understand.)

(Did I mention we are potty training?)

Moving on...
I just want to tell Katie what she may need to stock up on when she visits the states.

1. Pretzel M&M's. A staple. Just like rice. Or milk. But much more necessary.

2. Chocolate Cheerios.  For when you want chocolate for breakfast but want to feign eating a normal breakfast. Yes, they are heart healthy. In more ways than one.

3.  Nestle Tollhouse Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter. See explanation in #2. Just add the precious morsels to oatmeal and a banana. But don't let the 2 year old see what you are up to.

4. Fiber One Peanut and Chocolate Brownie-ness. Word on the weight watching street that these are yummy. They are not the real thing, but they will do for less caloric intake.

5. Hershey Kisses Cookies and Cream.  Because it is sheer brilliance.

6. Hershey Kisses Dark Chocolate.  Because it is good for your heart, right?  Something about dark chocolate being good for you.  (I am sure someone just like me devised that study.)

7. Bliss Dark Chocolate.  Another word on the street item. Have yet to try them.

And, for the record, I only have opened 3 of the bags.  In less than 24 hours.

Hoarding Chocolate,
'licious

Mmm... Chocolate

Just got back from the store.  I seemed to have gotten a lot of chocolate.

I wish I had an adequate defense, but I do not.

Words-Healing or Destructive?

So, it has been a tough last couple of weeks for me.

Most recently, I somehow managed to really hurt my back and neck to the point that I couldn't do anything without great pain. You know when you are in pain, your tolerance level for other things in life is greatly reduced.

Needless to say, I've been on the edge a good bit.

There is this annual Folk Art show that my mom and I go to each year and thoroughly enjoy. It is one of the creative and inspirational highlights of the year for me.

As much as I love going, I was not looking forward to it this year because of my neck and back pain. You kind of need to be able to move your neck to view the art. I was tired. I was spent emotionally. But I was hoping to be energized by going. It is (almost) always fun to talk to the artists.

Mom and I had been at the show for only about 15 minutes when I had a really awkward encounter with one of the artists. She was rude and harsh with her words. I don't care to get into the details of it, but trust me. Harsh.

The interesting thing was that she had this absolutely beautiful painting that I was admiring, ironically entitled "Glory to God." It could have possibly been one of the best paintings at the show in terms of skill and technique. But the interaction with her made her painting now very unattractive to me.

Mom and I walked around a little stunned for a few minutes and eventually ended up at the booth of one of my favorite artists. I have never spoken to this artist that I admire so because she is usually busy talking with others and I am a bit intimidated by her talent. But, on this day, she was free and struck up a conversation with us. We talked to her for probably 15-20 minutes, which is a lot of her time when she is attempting to sell paintings and answer questions about them to all the patrons.

She was so kind and friendly and gentle. Quite the contrast from the encounter with the other artist.

Her kindness to me (and Mom) was healing, encouraging, and renewing. Life giving.

And her paintings that I already loved so much? All the more lovely now that I had such a sweet encounter with her. Exquisite, even.

After those two drastically different encounters, I thought so much of the power of our words to heal or destroy others. 

I honestly hope and pray that I may not destroy anyone with my words, but only encourage them. They are, after all, a powerful thing.  

'licious

The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18 

Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

Fess Up Friday...on Saturday

or Slacker Saturday, right Maranimal?



Be sure to visit Kira's blog to check out other Fess Ups. I particularly appreciated her honest and poignant Fess Up this week.

So, I don't have a lot of time as I am in the throes of potty training (Well, not me. Happy is. Surely you knew what i meant), but I wanted to post some quick funnies/moments of desperation as of late.

One morning recently, I was leaving the house to go to a friend's house. Naturally it is challenging to get myself and the kids ready, all in one piece.

Something felt a bit off in the ear region as I was leaving our neighborhood.

Do you see it?  I have two earrings in one earring hold.  A silver and a brown one.  Lovely.

---

On another note, Lil Miss has been fighting the whole nap thing lately. Again. 

She screams but is not hungry or wet or anything. She just doesn't want to nap. I let her cry for a little while, but once I notice it starting to wake up Happy, I go in and try to help her settle down.  

On this particular day, she was inconsolable. And my patience was tested. Greatly.

Here I am hiding in my bed, with a pillow over my head and white noise blaring in my ear to block out some of the agony. I sent a SOS text to Hubs and Maranimal. I was over the edge. I failed the patience test that day.

---

This week, I was stoked a touch excited that it was our last class reminding me how I am neither wise nor discerning as a wife. To be clear, the class is great. I just struggled with it. And I was ready to be finished with it.

Anywho, I was also kind of excited it was the last class because they told us on the first week of class that there were significant prizes (like possible gift cards) for a few of those who did their "secret homework" each week.

Simmer down, people. Secret homework just consisted of trying to be more encouraging to your husband, more respectful, etc. I stuck with the secret homework for the incentive of a possible prize (Oh, yeah!  And also, the appreciation of Hubs. I can't forget that!)

I drove to our last class this past Tuesday only to find a locked door to our classroom.

Apparently the last class was the prior week. The ONE week I skipped.

Did I mention we live about 45 minutes from church? And that we have to practically move heaven and earth in order for Hubs to get home early enough for me to leave to get to class in time? And that it is during peak traffic time? It is no easy feat for me to get to class.

I left for class at 6 pm. I got home at 7:45. All I did was drive there, find the locked classroom, drive back.

Fun times.

Wednesday Hodge-a-ma-podge

Linking up to Joyce again.

Q&A for more kicks and grins.



1. Using what's in your frig right now, what sort of meal would you be able to make for guests who are standing on your front porch this very minute?

Well, I have 4 pounds of raw broccoli in the fridge.  I'm a touch obsessed with green veggies lately.  I would make them roasted broccoli, sauteed garlic tofu, and couscous.  I also have 4 pounds of grapes.  Actually, I think it has dwindled down to a mere 2 pounds.  So, I would include grapes as well.  

We like our fruits and veggies at this house!

2. What is something about yourself that you hope will change but that you know probably never will?

Acne.  Why must a 32 year old deal with such?  And pretty soon I will have wrinkles and acne.  Fun times.  Or maybe I already do?  

3. What is something about yourself you hope never changes?

My love for my husband and kids.  Unless, of course, the love just grows deeper.

4. Do you usually send serious or funny greeting cards? Why?

I am not organized enough for greeting cards.  But, if I was, I would get a funny one and then write a sweet note in it.  

5. Bird watching, shell gathering, star gazing-your choice for whiling away the hours?

Star gazing. Living in a large metropolitan area, the only "stars" I see are planes in the night sky.  The real stars are faint because of all of the suburban sprawl lights.

On the first week of freshman year at college, which was in a small town, I was amazed and dumbfounded by how beautiful the stars were.  I had never really seen anything like that.  It took my breath away.

6. Do you double or triple check things? If so, what?

Yes, the doors at night.  

Also, my graphic design files I make.

Not so fun fact about graphic design files: I worked at my church for a number of years doing graphic design/publishing things. I loved my job and what I did. Our pastor had written a book that he wanted to self-publish.  Previous books he had written had been published through big name Christian publishing firms but he wanted to go a different route with publishing this time.

I was in charge of designing the cover, creating diagrams and illustrations within the book, doing the layout of the text, editing text (along with other people editing), and taking care of all the legal things.  There was a LOT to do and a tight deadline.  

After I had approved all of the final proofs from the printer and was relieved that it was DONE, I realized that there was a simple typo on the back cover of the book.  (satisfaction without the c)  I was mortified, horrified, scared, etc.  We had printed 10,000 copies.  I had to tell my boss.  Who then had to tell the pastor.  The pastor was so unbelievably kind and gracious, as was my boss, but I felt horrible.  And, yes, I had checked and rechecked that back cover at least 30 times.  But, when you look at something so long, you stop seeing it. 

Fortunately, the 10,000 count book supply diminished rather quickly, so we were able to reprint and fix the typo!

7. What's your favorite place for people watching?

Costco.  It is always fun to see what people buy in bulk!  

As a deacon at our church, hubs is in charge of buying grape juice for communion at church.   And we attend a large church, so that's a lot of grape juice, people!  A LOT. I think he is embarrassed to buy grape juice in bulk at Costco as he does get some comments, stares, and questions, but I always tell him how fascinating it is to watch what people buy.  I am not sure that is a comforting word to him, though.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

How do normal people keep kids clothes organized?  I am not talking about type-A people, but people like me who are disorganized and scattered but try not to be.  

Right now, when I come across something that no longer fits a kid, I throw it in a pile in the closet.  But, then I end up with a weird conglomeration of sizes and clothing seasons.  And then I can't remember that some random 6 month outfit really should be stored with the 3 month outfits because it runs small...and on and on. I try to write on a tag with a sharpie what the size really is, but then I still end up confused somehow.