Monday Morning Bullet Points

• We're home from a whirl-wind vacation, spending a few days with Daniel's brother and his wife.

• I am not convinced that a "dry pail" (for diapers) stinks less than a wet pail. I tried a dry pail last week with a loose lid on top. Whew-wee, the ammonia like odors that wafted out threatened to singe my nose-hairs! I used mostly cloth diapers while we were gone, chucking the dirty ones into a plastic grocery bag, that too is emanating terrible, nose-hair-singeing odors.

• I haven't gone out to look at my garden since we got home, but the squash and zucchini plants in the kitchen grew 5-6" while we were gone!

• Our cats have fleas. Our cats are all outside, but the fleas jump onto us and come inside. GRRR. I need to try and treat the kittens (and adults) again and hopefully the mama cat won't lick it off this time.

• More rain is on it's way! The sky is getting darker and it's very rumbly. I should probably get off here and grab a few more things from the car before the skies open up.

• The highchair fits in the dishwasher. It's in there because Susannah threw up in it three whole times yesterday. I don't know why, though.

• Typing one more bullet point meant it's raining now. On my garden =D Yay!!!
  

Tuesday Afternoon Blog Fodder

• In gardening this year I am rediscovering muscles I forgot I had. Many nights Tylenol or Ibuprofen is my BFF. Because if I don't take any I just lie awake aching and tossing and turning trying to get comfortable.

• I must be getting old. I don't like getting old. I like being about 21 or 2 or 3, instead of being 26. And a half. *crosses eyes and sticks out tongue* It's all in how old you FEEL, right? In that case, most nights I feel about 75.

• My garden is coming along quite nicely, though! I can't wait to do an update post later this week :)

• We got our tax refund. A very hefty one. We might need to have more kids.

• No, I'm not pregnant.
  

• I don't recommend having kids just for the sake of keeping more of your money. You should only have kids if you really WANT kids.

• I haven't gotten any further in my spring cleaning since I finished the kitchen. I thought about doing the bathroom this afternoon. Thought.

• The addition is coming along ve. ry. slow. ly. I'm not sure if Daniel's work is going to have a slow time this spring... it seems like it jumped from winter-busy to summer-busy. But busy is not a bad thing. Unless you want to work on the addition :)

• It all boils down to time and money, and you can't have both at the same time.

• I have lots of stuff I want to blog about but this'll have to do for now.
  

• I need to go get some meat outa the freezer for supper, and get started on that.

Wednesday Morning Randomness

We made the switch to all wireless phones to save about $40-$50 a month. When we first moved here we had terrible cell phone service in the house, but then they put a tower in just a mile or two from here and now we have service all the time. Plus most of the people I talk to most frequently are "in" so I won't be using minutes most of the time :) Moving to wireless meant that yesterday we were without Internet while everything was straightened out. I didn't realize how much I rely on the Internet for social interaction! Maybe I need to unplug every once in a while.

*****

Our camera bit the dirt, er, sand. Somehow I had a little bit of sand in my coat pocket, and when I put the camera in my coat pocket the two mixed. Sand got down in the lens cracks. Not good. Daniel tried to get it out. I tried to vacuum it out. Daniel tried to take the camera apart but that wasn't working. We started to consider our options: Getting the camera fixed vs. buying a new one. Monday I spent a large portion of the afternoon finding local places that even repair cameras, and then getting estimates. Estimates were at least 1/2 of what we paid for the camera 6 years ago and would take several weeks, so we decided to replace. More time on the Internet :) Say hello to my new friend:

Photo Source

A Nikon Coolpix P100. I have been longing and desiring for a Nikon DSLR 300, but spending that much wasn't prudent or wise at this time. So we went middle of the road. And we discussed what dollar amount we would spend BEFORE we decided. This one has more bells and whistles than our old camera, and already I'm liking what I've figured out so far. I have a LOT of reading, experimenting, learning and practicing to do, but somehow I don't think I'll mind :) (And this camera came with a lens cap - no more sand accidents!)

*****

Monday late afternoon I heard teeny, tiny mewing coming from Susannah's room. Uh-oh. Did she really?! She didn't. She did. She did?? She did!! Our mama cat, Chubby, had her 5 little kittens underneath Susannah's dresser. We knew she was about ready to pop, but Daniel was guessing later this week. I highly suspected that she was going to do her best to have them indoors, but I really hoped she would find a nice cozy place down in our shed or in the carport that she liked better. Haha, the joke's on me!

Less than 24 hrs. old

The fun thing is that they are right in Susannah's line of sight when she's (awake) in her crib. The amazing thing is Chubby's dedication to her babies! She did not leave them once from the time they were born (Mon. afternoon) until Tuesday morning. And that was to run outside quick, get a bite to eat and then she went back to them. Now she'll go outside for a little longer, but when she comes back in, she RUNS into Susannah's room to her babies. I feel a little badly that we will be getting her "fixed" after the kittens are weaned - she's such a good mama cat! - but we can't keep running a baby factory.

*****

On the laundry front, except for cloth diapers, we've entered the season of drying all the clothes in the dryer. Daniel's allergies are starting up already. He sneezed probably 10 times this morning. On the cloth diaper front, I'm getting along pretty good, I think! I figured out that I need to change Susannah a little more often, but aside from the 1st major flood, we haven't experienced any leaks. I only have enough diapers for 2 1/2 days, though, so I think I'll be getting some more.

And that's all the "exciting" stuff that's been going on lately :) Time has flown by this morning and while the laundry has been going, I haven't gotten very far with other stuff. Gotta keep movin'!

English Assignment Comment?

I don't think I have EVER had so many spam comments on one post (that made it through the spam filter) as I have been getting on my Goals for 2011 post!! That title must be a hot one in the spammers search engines because I have been getting at least 1 spam comment each day, from "Anonymous". Thankfully not asking "wanna buy some drugs?" like another post kept getting repeatedly! The comment I got this morning though, takes the cake as far as wordiness, fine use of adjectives, and overall being well written, I thought. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone had written it as an English assignment!

It read as follows:

"Considerably, the blog post is actually the greatest on this worthy topic. I concur with your decisions and will thirstily look forward to your approaching updates. Saying thanks will not be adequate, for the phenomenal lucidity in your writing. I will at once grab your feeds to stay informed of any updates. Delightful work and much success in your business endeavors! Have a nice day."

Too bad it's just a spam comment, otherwise I might give it an A+!

Friday Evening Randomness

• I love my Kitchen Aid Electric Hand Mixer. It's so quiet! I'd never used one before, but hated (thoroughly, downright, refused to use it hated) my jet-engine other one and figured you couldn't go too wrong with the Kitchen Aid name. So I put it on my Christmas List and got one! Yay!
  
  
• I just put the first pan of Coconut Oatmeal Cookies in the oven. And no, I didn't use the mixer. I just used elbow grease and a spoon.
  
  
• It is getting very cold tonight. And supposed to stay very cold for several days. Brr. But I hung laundry outside today and I think it dried all the way. I need to check it because it was too cold to tell if it was dry or damp when I brought it in.
  
  
• I wonder if chef's silently critique restaurant food when they go out to eat (ie, take their wives on a date)?
  
  
• We had our first weekly business meeting tonight. I think it was a good thing we should continue.
  
  
• Daniel is being thrifty - he has a bunch of short 2x4's that had been used before (so they have nails in them), and they are just right for blocking between the floor joists. So instead of paying for and using more 2x4s just to cut into little pieces, he's out pounding out nails right now.
  
  
• And that's all I came up with in the time I had to peck out some blog fodder :P
  

Bullet Points

Just quickly, I want to share a few things this morning. Nothing deep or profound, I just feel like posting some of the random stuff flying around my head :)

• We had a great visit with my sister, Rachel, and her husband, Ted, on Saturday. Times like that I wish we lived closer to my sisters!!!

• Susannah turned 8 months old last Thursday!! (I need to do a post about that.)

• Chocolate Chips are on sale this week. I am thinking about ignoring what is probably an un-healthy ingredients list and getting extra coupons (they don't expire until Marh 2011).

• Daniel's uncle tuned our piano and worked on the action in the middle C section. It is much, MUCH better (even the other tuner wasn't able to or didn't fix that!) and now it reminds me so much of my parent's big upright. I loooove it!

• I need to start vacuuming the floor more often. Or I could just let Susannah keep doing it with her clothes ;)

• I bought our first Christmas gift last week. And only have about 1,763 to go... I need to get busy!

• I *heart* Swagbucks!! I have been stockpiling $5 Amazon.com gift cards (I'll have $45 worth after my next "order" comes in) and have been tossing around ideas for what I want/need/should spend them on. Christmas gifts? Shoes (I need new Reeboks terribly bad)? Splurge?
  

• I think I've decided what I want to use my Swagbucks Amazon GC's for... or at least towards. One of these. I have my eye on the NutriMill, which costs a pretty penny... which is why it's easy to think I'll contribute my Amazon $$ towards it to lessen the OOP :) I'll probably wait a bit to collect a few more GC's. Maybe after the New Year... or maybe Cyber-Monday??

• I need to go feed Susannah her breakfast - time has flown! Goodness gracious!
  

God vs. Blogging

I have posts floating around in my head (that I really should write down at least the main gist of) that I really want to sit down and write.

But.

I heard something from the Relevant'10 Conference the other day that is keeping me from it.

(I'm keepin' it real here, folks.)

No, I didn't attend Relevant. Now I wish I had taken time to learn more about what it was (going to be) and go. It was in PENNSYLVANIA of all places! Just a few hours drive and I could've met and fellowshipped with so many of the ladies that have inspired and encouraged me in my walk with the Lord, my role as Daniel's wife, my role as Susannah's mama, and of course saving money ;) I think I would like to go next year. How I did hear what I heard was from about the last 20 minutes of Crystal Paine's speech streaming live.

Those last 20 minutes were jam packed with bullet points that hit you "right there" and you know she has dug into your "real" life and is speaking right.at.you. I wish I could've heard the whole thing. Of every session. (Then again, I might have come away so full of bullet holes that there wouldn't be anything left...)

Ok, so enough beating around the bush. What did she say?

"If you don't have time for God you don't have time to blog."

And with that, I'd best get my behind off-a here. Because I haven't specifically spent time with my God yet today.

Awesome Friends

Photo Source

I've been thinking lately how blessed I am to be able to have my best friends. I feel like I can share pretty much anything with them. In fact, I talk to them sometimes about stuff I wouldn't dream of telling anyone else! Maybe it's the fact that they don't know anyone else that I know that makes me feel comfortable with them like that, Ha!

The strange thing...

Of these friends, every single one of them I've become friends with either through Facebook or Blogging. One I've never even met IRL (in real life). But I love them and have come to consider them almost like sisters. I share with them, pray for them, cry with them, laugh with them, and wish I lived next door to each of them (I don't think that would ever be likely as we all live in different states!). They're the kind that I wouldn't care if they came over when my floor is knee-deep with clutter, the toilet is growing pink stuff (*ahem*), or I hadn't showered yet. Well, ok, I would care, but not as much :P

When I think about what great friends they are, I wonder... would we be as good of friends if we'd started out knowing each other in real life? If we saw each other in the grocery store every week, would we have taken the time to say "hi" and get to know each other, or would we have said "dude, she's nothing like me" and left it at that? Because, granted, we really ARE different from each other in a lot of ways. But somehow we have so much in common that I rarely see the differences.

Now I just need to gather up the guts to call them once in a while for a phone chat! Several times I think I'd like to talk to so-and-so, but can't get up the nerve, even though we have each other's phone numbers (well, I think I do... I might not have 1 or 2) and have said "call me!"

I've been working on this post for several days and still can't figure out how to end it. So, I'll just say, I love you guys! You know who you are :)

Getting Into a Routine

It hardly seems like it was more than yesterday when I was still pregnant with Susannah. But instead it's been a whole 3 weeks, almost 4. As I told someone the other day, the days have been fast but the hours long. Thankfully the hours aren't seeming as "long" now that she is nursing faster and it doesn't take as much effort to wake her up and keep her awake to nurse - wooohooooo!!!!

I think we've settled into a pretty good routine with Susannah, and now that she's eating faster I get to sleep more :) And since I get to sleep more, I feel more human when I'm awake :) And since I feel more human it means I feel more like doing things around the house that Daniel's had to do the past month.

All that said, I hope to start working my way around the house again this week. Last week I did a couple things here and there, mostly unloading/loading the dishwasher a time or two. This week I hope to get back into the laundry routine (poor Daniel had to wear the saddest undershirt to church because it was the only clean one, and it was one that was on it's way to the trash!) and stay on top of the kitchen.

My sister made TEN loaves of bread for us, so I won't have to jump back onto the bread-making wagon as soon as I thought I was going to have to (and buying bread was starting to look good...).
The meals from our Sunday School class were great - they got us through a good 2 weeks, and yesterday we picked up several more meals from my MOPS group. They should get us through this week, but I may do a little cooking this week to ease myself back into cooking and stretch the MOPS meals out a little bit. Hmm, but that would mean I'd have to go grocery shopping, so we'll see :P

I still enjoy several naps each day, usually in the mornings and early afternoon. I hope to start going to bed earlier (a simple matter of DOING it!) so I can feel more awake in the mornings and then do my napping in the afternoons. We'll see. Right now I crash into bed about 5am (after the 4am feeding) and the alarm for Daniel goes off about 1 hour later. I'm so out of it that I haven't been getting up and making his breakfasts and lunches yet, and that's something I really want to get back to doing soon. It's a little way I can show my love for him, and it's important to me to do it, though I know he knows I still love him when I don't do it :)

Right now I need to go get dressed for the day (evening? it's 4:10pm) and figure out what we're gonna eat for supper. Then I may tackle the mish-mash of clean laundry that needs folded and put away before it consumes the laundry room.

Happy for Spring

The weather has just been wonderful the past several days. Warm and springy. Perfect weather to be outside - hanging laundry, playing in the garden, walking, or whatever. Come to think of it, I haven't stepped foot outside since... last Wednesday. I like to think about the things I could be doing if I wasn't spending so much time behind closed eye-lids :)

We have opened the windows a couple days, and the fresh air and the sounds are really nice to smell and hear. This morning it POURED, and I mean POURED, rain for a while. I wondered if we needed to start teaching Susannah how to swim. But then the sky cleared up and the sun came out and it's been a beautiful day since!

The reports are that the peas are not up yet. I think Mom was the last one to the garden, on Saturday when she was here for a short visit. I'm eager to have them come up. I thought they were 90 days to maturity, but they are 63 days... hmm, that means I'll be picking peas when Susannah is 2 months old - I hope we have our routines down pat and are all sleeping through the nights by then. Picking peas can be interesting, not to mention time consuming when you're the lone pea-sheller.

Well, I need to figure out what I'm gonna do next - I need to either wake and feed Susannah or take a nap until time for her to eat. I need to go study the clock and think about it. My brain wave-length is about 1-inch long lately and my short-term memory is nowhere to be found. I've heard that it comes back eventually :)

Bullet Points (Random Blog Post)

~ I think the nursery is about as done-done as it will get before the baby comes. I still need to vacuum the floor, but the baby's not going to be on the floor right away anyway.

~ I don't have my bag packed yet. I have a lot of the odds and ends stuff (camera, charger, etc.) gathered together in a (gift) bag, and have a detailed list written out of everything that does need to go.

~ I think I will become a cheese snob when we are living like no one else. Kroger brand cheese just isn't as good as Kraft. And our stockpile of Kraft American Cheese was depleted last week :(

~ I think I'll also become and Orange Juice snob and buy really yummy Orange Juice. With lots of pulp.

~ I really want to get in the garden and plant peas. If Daniel wasn't working today I think I would beg and plead for him to till up at least enough of it for the pea rows.

~ If I wasn't waiting on the edge of my seat for the baby to be born, I'd go out there and till it myself. On the other hand, that might get labor started...

~ I've been sleeping really good the last couple nights. Yay!

~ I have a little nail-polish left on my big toes. The rest of them have all worn off and I haven't repainted. I don't think that'll happen anytime soon.

~ I've been enjoying taking walks again. It's so nice to get some exercise and fresh air!!

~ I absolutely love the two ladies at our church who have adopted me. I have the best "Mom" and "Grandma" ever! And the fun thing is that they can't wait to meet their grandbaby/great-grandbaby! They are praying for us and that means a lot to me.

~ Daniel's work has been really slow this week. He's working all day today, though, at his company's booth at the local Home & Garden Show. It kinda stinks, though, because...

~ 6 years ago today was the best day in my entire life :)

Happy Anniversary, My Daniel!!!

A Different Kind of Weekend

Wow, this past weekend was all wonky. I'm glad it's finally Monday and hopefully things will get back to some sort of system and order :)

Daniel was on call over the weekend (he and another guy traded) and was out pretty late Friday night, and had two calls to go on Saturday. Saturday evening we had dinner with his parents and were up late visiting.

About 4am Sunday morning I woke up very suddenly (the kind where you are wide awake RIGHT NOW), realizing Daniel wasn't in the bed. That's really unusual. I immediately called out, asking if he was ok (I saw the night-light on in the bathroom). At the same time I jumped up to go check on him. It ended up that his right ear was hurting so badly that it woke him up and he was in the bathroom trying to get relief with some warm water. He spent the rest of the night (morning) on the couch and I didn't sleep much of a wink because I knew he was in pain and because it was just strange to not have him in bed with me.

We slept in and did not go to Sunday School or church. We were both worn out from the middle of the night escapade and Daniel's ear was still bothering him. You know how men are - when they don't feel good, you just leave them alone and don't pester them - at least that's how Daniel is ;) I suggested that I thought it might be an ear infection and that he might go to Patient First (our "open 365 days/year urgent care" place). Of course he wanted to wait it out and hope that it would get better on it's own. He did take Tylenol (he almost never takes pain meds, so I knew he was really uncomfortable) and slept ALL morning. I didn't want to clang and crash around in the house, so I spent the morning quietly cleaning off the desk and resting.

He spent most of the afternoon dozing off and on, and in the evening we watched a couple movies and he fell asleep again. He woke up when I was going to bed and took more (regular)Tylenol and spent the night on the couch. This morning he called in to work to say he didn't think he could work today (they do not have off for MLK Day), took Extra Strength Tylenol, slept some more and is finally off to Patient First. He said that yesterday his equilibrium was off, so I'm really suspecting some type of ear or inner-ear infection. Hopefully he will be able to get some relief and start to feel better soon!

In the mean-time, I'm enjoying getting back into the routine of things for the week. I enjoyed the lazy day Saturday and Sunday, but I'm also enjoying doing my housework. It is a really nice day here - the sky is clear and it's probably close to 50°, perfect for line-drying the laundry!! Which reminds me... the washer is finished and I need to go hang out the 2nd load :)

Goodbye, 2009

This will be my last post for 2009. The next one will be in 2010. Two-thousand ten. Or twenty-ten. Or two-oh-one-oh. I haven't searched to see if there's a "correct" way to say this coming year's number. It looks more like twenty-ten to me. If it was money, though, it would certainly be two-thousand ten, but it would also be followed by a decimal and preceded by this thing: $.

A couple quick bullet points for 2009:

~ We got pregnant! Probably Definitely the most life-changing, exciting thing in 2009 for us.

~ We took one of our dream vacations when we drove cross-country to Wyoming. We didn't make it to the west coast, or up to Maine (2 places we really want to go!), but we covered a lot of miles and it was fun! Except for the morning sickness on the way back, but whatever.

~ The spring-time was a serious time of trusting the Lord to provide our every need, and you know what? He really does! So often we take everything for granted. When the household income for a month gets down to what you're used to getting in one week, well, the trust-meter shoots way up.

~ I've made so many new friends through blogging this past year, it has been wonderful! I learn new things from you guys every day it seems.

~ We tried to sell our house and buy another house that would have allowed us to be 100% debt free. I still don't understand the "why's," but it was obviously not the thing for us to do when each way we tried to go through that door, it kept slamming in our faces. I think my nose was bruised for a couple weeks. From time to time I still think of how beautiful that old house was...

~ We decided to add on instead! We haven't gotten to stage that involves all the government red tape yet, but we should be able to get our ideas to the blueprint man soon after the New Year. That means I need to finalize where I want windows (We have them pretty figured out, I just want to make sure that it will look ok from outside the house and not like some hodge-podge, didn't-think-about-it-until-too-late kind of job. And start seriously thinking where and how I want light fixtures and switches. Groan. I am very excited, but I am also a very visual person and it's hard for me to sit there and go "yeah, this kind of lighting here, that kind there, and yup, we're good."

We have a very exciting new year coming up for us. We have a lot on our plate, and I hope we can manage it all! I have some posts in mind for once this weekend is over (another Christmas get together) where I'll share different things about what our new year looks like for us.

Since my mini-blogging break will be over New Year's Day,

Happy New Year!!!!

Been Thinkin'

About changing my blog name. A couple weeks ago I signed up for Twitter. I signed up to follow #oamc (OnceAMonthCooking), which always sounds like a bunch of fun. It's basically a day where a lot of people cook and bake "together," all in their own kitchens, but visiting all day long with updates, questions, "hey, howsitgoing's" and whatnot via Twitter. Some blog about it, some Facebook about it, some do all three. And some people chat on #oamc even when it's not the specific cooking/baking day.

To sign up for Twitter I had to come up with a "screen name." I tried a ton of combinations and variations of my blog name, My Country Cupboard, but every one I tried was either already taken or too long. I ended up choosing HomeHomemade. (If you care to follow me on Twitter, you can find me under @HomeHomemade)

I thought it was a clever name. Everybody has a "home." Not everybody has a "homemade home." A lot of people do lots of home-makey things, but then there are those that homemaking is their #1 focus. Some homemakers do it with store bought frozen, prepackaged meals, store bought mixes, doughs, fillings, precooked meats, soup from cans (gross. Just sayin'), etc. But I'm a homemade kinda girl. I can't say that I never use mixes, or never wish I could pop a Stauffer's lasagna or a frozen pizza in the oven because I don't want to feel like cooking. But overall, I prefer good, old-fashioned, from-scratch, home-making. I don't sew all of my clothes, or even make my own laundry soap right now. I use my dishwasher like it's not going to be here tomorrow. But in all things general, I prefer the non-fru-fru, country, homemade, simpler way of life.

And I hope that comes through here at my blog. What I've been thinking about lately (sorry, I kinda took a really long rabbit trail to get to the punch-line) has been my blog title. I'm thinking about changing it from My Country Cupboard to Home Homemade. Not that my cupboards are any less country, or that I spend less time in them - they certainly aren't and I certainly don't! - but my blog doesn't focus solely on all things kitchen. I think the general overall themes of my posts are more "the whole home." I wonder how many times I can get the "h" sound in here? I wouldn't change the location of the blog, it would still be the same "blog," it would just have a different title.

So... that's what I've been thinkin' about. I haven't decided yet. Do y'all have any thoughts?

Welcome, Winter :)

I know winter officially started a couple weeks ago, but just recently has it started to feel like winter - and only a few days at that. One morning this week it was 34°, the next day the high was 70°. Gotta love Virginia weather!

Today it's snowing! I'm so tickled :) On this side of the mountain we do not get snow nearly as much as we do where I grew up, so any and all snow is welcome at my house! Late this morning we were out getting wire and switchboxes for a project Daniel is working on today, and on our way home we stopped at a U-Cut place and got our Christmas Tree! We were driving home from that and the closer we got to home, the more the VERY COLD rain was becoming snow. It's sticking a little bit, but it's snowing for sure :)

While we were eating breakfast this morning, my sister called to tell me that Paul (my 3yo. nephew) was so excited that the snow Aunt Mini (me) had prayed for was at his house!! I thought that was really cute. I don't remember specifically praying for snow, but I guess he somehow knew that I was really wanting some (I wonder if he secretly follows me on Facebook... :P ).

We are once again enjoying a full day at home with nowhere to go. We did get a later start on our errends and projects than I'd kinda hoped to, but hey, it's Saturday! Right now I have bread started in the KitchenAid and I know we'll enjoy fresh, hot slices of that when it's done baking. We will put up our tree sometime this evening, but I don't know if we'll get as far as decorating it. Daniel's projects are ones that kinda have to be done start-finish all at once, and we can work on the tree a little here and there next week if we need to.

Thursday and Friday just didn't turn out the way I had envisioned them, so I hope to do the main cleaning that I would have done those days, today. I'd better go check on my bread... I don't want the yeast to get out of hand before I get all the other ingredients mixed in!

Happy Snowy, Saturday Evening!!! I have some Christmas music playing (Charlotte Church's "Dream A Dream") and I might need to mix up a mug of hot chocolate to sip on while I work :)

Being A Grown-Up

is hard. Our November is on the verge of insane, with something going on at least 1 of the days of ev.er.y single weekend (not counting church twice on Sundays). Throw in grocery trips, Dr. appointments, MOPs meetings, Bible Studies, Wed night choir practice, all the obligatory things to attend for Thanksgiving (yes, I do want to attend some of them, I very well might opt out of any "extra" events), and November is gone in one big *POOF.*

I've known that our December was likely to be just as busy but really hoped not. Our church's Christmas Choir Concert, Sunday School social, this, that and all the other stuff. Some of them are very important to me, other's I'm obligated to, and other's ... I wish could happen at a less busy time of year.

Today looking at the calendar and trying to figure out when it would suit our calendar to have Daniel's family's Christmas, I realize how very, very, very full December really is going to be. The end of this year is going to be just like July & August were for us... gone every single stinkin' weekend, with a ton more in-between things going on. I really want to sit down and cry.

Growing up, in December - yes, it was different than the other months of the year - but we didn't have umpteen million gajillion different kind of things we had to go to. We had Christmas Day (at home) and Christmas in PA (the one we travelled for). That was it. Maybe I just didn't realize it so much, but it seems like now there are more things that I have to prepare for - be it gifts, food, cleaning, etc. - and I really just want to have a relaxing December. I loooove December. I really do. For me December is all about Christmas. Christ AND the gifts! And instead it's become all about staying sane, squeezing in 1 more function, going 1 more place, planning 1 more dish or menu, and trying to keep one step ahead so I won't end up buried under a pile of whatever.

Maybe I'm selfish to want "what I want and no more." I'm sure to other people that my "no more" is their "what they want," which means to be nice I need to attend and do my part for whatever it is so that they can have a nice December and Christmas, too.

I still haven't given up the idea of becoming a Hermit.

Getting Caught Up

This week has been a "ketchup" week. Finally a week that didn't have anything extra going on until this morning when I had my Tapestry Bible Study at church (we're doing Angela Thomas' A Beautiful Offering).

I made a to-do list either the night before or the morning of each day, and worked on it. I didn't go gung-ho as much as I could have, and didn't get everything done each day, but enough that this evening I feel good about what I've gotten done. The main parts of the house look a lot better!!

One battle this week was ANTS. For some reason they decided on Monday, right after I'd swept and washed the kitchen floor, that they needed to move in. Like usual I put out Terro stations (using scraps of paper), which in turn does attract more ants, but they're supposed to eat it, carry it back to the nest, feed it to the rest of the family and they all die. Or that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. I think this is the 2nd time this year I've had ants in the kitchen. Usually it's not a huge deal (yes, annoying and aggravating) and by day 2 they're pretty much gone. Well, not this time! They drank probably a good 2/3 of my little bottle of Terro over 3 days. They would sleep at night, so I'd get up in the morning and think "Yes! They're gone!" only to look later to find them trekking back in the door for more Terro.

The afternoon of day 3 I'd finally had enough. As much as I did NOT want to have to re-wash the kitchen floor again so soon (I'm realizing that it's not as easy when you're pregnant!), I pulled out the can of Raid and went to town on them. It worked. And I got back down on my hands and knees and washed only THAT part of the kitchen floor. I've only seen 1 or 2 ants since then but I think they are ones that are a bit lost, wondering where everyone is. Otherwise, there has been no new sign of the ants coming back! When I sprayed the Raid, I went outside and sprayed as much of their "path" to the house and back door as I could see, so I should've "got 'em good!" I don't mind ants, I know they have a purpose (eating dead things, aerating the ground, etc) and in general are a "good" insects, but I do have a problem when they start to invade my human bubble.

Also this week I'm happy to say that I provided a thought-out, cooked meal for us each night (as opposed to a last minute scramble to make something)! I used my crockpot twice and loved it. I think I use it more in the winter than in the summer, I don't know why. This morning I put together this recipe in the crockpot before I left for Bible Study, and when I got home shortly after noon I realized I could've waited until I got home. The chicken was already done so I left it on Warm until supper time. It was very good!!

I'm also tickled pink that the house is clean enough that when my MIL called to say she wanted to drop something off after work this evening, I felt comfortable asking "can you come for supper?" Not to make my house sound like a pig-pen (it was getting close to it) but her "dirty house" is always cleaner then my "dirty house." Haha. I even scrubbed the whole bathroom today! It was tricky scrubbing the bathtub, but I managed and it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be.

I still have a lot of catching up I need to do, but hopefully next week the overall house will be easier to maintain and I can spend more time catching up on the extra things. Like the checkbook, cleaning out the freezers, etc.

Oh, tonight I also hemmed a pair of jeans! It was the pair that I bought online a couple weeks ago. They were too long but so comfortable. I put them on again this afternoon to make sure I REALLY wanted to keep them before I pulled off the tags and cut the legs shorter. Daniel says one leg is about 1/4" shorter than the other one, but he wouldn't notice it if he didn't know it. That's a little strange since I cut 2 3/4" off each leg, but I'm happy it's that small of an amount and they didn't wind up as high-water pants or terribly crooked lengths :) (And, if I simply hike up the long side then it should be even, right? :P )

Tonight is the first COLD night for our area, it's supposed to get down below freezing. Nights like tonight make me very thankful for a warm house, warm clothes and a warm bed to sleep in :)

Good Things / Bad Things

Maybe I'll start off with the bad and get it out of the way.

Kroger and Walmart do not seem to carry Tapioca. At least the 2 stores I was in did not reveal any on their shelves. Or I was totally looking in the wrong place, but I really think it would be in the baking goods aisle... around where the Jell-O and stuff is. I NEED tapioca. I'm making 3 apple pies today. Like, TO-DAY today, and will be off on a search for some tapioca before I make them. If I have to go hunt down a tapioca tree and pull off the tapioca berries myself. Ok, I really have no idea where tapioca comes from; probably not from tapioca berries grown on trees...

I spent most of yesterday afternoon walking around Costco and Kroger (a Kroger I'd never been in, so I didn't know the layout and was back and forth all over the store getting what I needed). When I got home, I had just enough time to unload the groceries, put the cold stuff away, load up some other stuff to take to church, and head off to 2.5 hrs. of choir practice (normally one 1.5, but we had some extra stuff to practice for Missions Conference). On the way home I had to stop at WalMart to get "the rest of the stuff" - like frozen peas, because Costco does not carry frozen peas. What?!?! And tapioca.

By this time my brain powers were waning, and my hips and legs were really letting me know that they exist. All I wanted to do was find what I needed, check out, and go sit down in the car so I could drive home and crawl in bed. We parked at the one entrance of Walmart, and of course went in that entrance. After checking out, we walked down to that set of doors to find that when we walk up to them, they didn't open. Neither of us could figure out why. Daniel decided to manually open them. Out of no-where this big, barking voice starts command-style-not-quite-bellowing at us "THE DOOOOORS AAAARRRRRE CLOOOOOSSSSSED". Daniel points out to Mr. Appeared-out-of-nowhere Security Dude that there is no sign posted, nothing indicating that this set of doors closes at any point. Again, "THE DOOOORS AAARRRRRREEE CLOOOOOSSSSED SIR, YOU MAY NOT GO OUT HERE." Daniel says "You mean I gotta walk all the way down to the other end, and walk back up to this end to my car, just to get out?" "THE DOOOORS CLOOOOOSE AT TEN O'CLOCK, SIR, YOU MAY NOT GO OUT THESE DOOOOOORS." I'm ready to bite this guys head off and chew it up. Or sit down and bawl. More like both. I remembered that not 5 minutes earlier I explained to the cashier (who never acknowledged us other than noticing our large purchase of frozen peas) that I was doing some cooking for church and decided it would be kinda bad to be a church-lady one minute and a mad-hornet-cannibal the next, so I clamped my teeth shut and set off for the other entrance. Of course then the security dude tries to play dumb/nice and says "They're supposed to put up a sign. I just work here."

I managed to get out to the car (walking the length of WalMart twice just to do it) and was glad Daniel was driving in his work van. Neither of us was very happy with the security dude, his personality, or the seemingly ridiculous and not posted policy about the doors. I chalked my crazy emotions up to the whole day, not being able to find what I needed, and the mean security guy, and being pregnant on top of it all. And the tears started flowing. I wanted to sit down and bawl, so I did (glad that I didn't have to explain all the hormones/emotions to Daniel). And then I wished I'd pulled my wild card and given that guy a piece or two of my mind, something like "Sir, I'm 21 weeks pregnant, my hips and legs are killing me, your store did not have 1/2 of what I came in here to get, I'm tired, and you're going to make me walk x, y and z to get to my car?!!?" He really was being a smart-___, I was just a customer (a pregnant one!) wanting to get to my car.

Ok. On to the good.

Yesterday my package arrived!! Woohoo!!! I opened it up and tried on all the clothes. 2 black skirts (I ordered 3) fit!!! The white blouse fits!!! The dress.... fits, but we don't have a full-length mirror and Daniel said I looked better in a black skirt & white blouse than in the dress. He also (finally) said that for $40 I should send it back because it doesn't fit/look quite good enough to merit the $40. It feels kinda trash-baggy on me, so I wondered about that. I'm glad I was able to finally pull that out of him. LOL. The denim skirt was too hip-huggy (the 3rd black skirt was the same way), and the jeans! Oh, the darling, wonderful jeans!!! They fit like a charm!! I was so excited! Granted, they are about 3" too long, but a pair of scissors and a couple minutes on the sewing machine (if I can remember where it's packed) can fix that. Why don't they make non-maternity jeans as comfortable and so easy fitting? I don't know.

And the second good: I slept good again last night for the 2nd night in a row! It was a shorter night, and it took a while and some Tylenol (for the hips and legs) for me to be able to go to sleep, but once I was sleeping I slept really well.

Today my #1 goal is to load up the dishwasher and get it going, then start up the clothes-washer. After that, my have-to's for the day are to hunt down some tapioca, make 3 apple pies, 3 cherry pies and 3 batches of rolls (72). I also hope to squeeze in a trip to the chiropractor and hopefully get everything straightened back out again.

So, I'm gonna put on some happy music, and get started!! Toodle-ooo! :)

(Oh - another good thing! I bought new batteries for our cordless phones, so hopefully if you call me I'll actually be able to answer instead of the phone dying in my hand when I push the answer button.)

What Should I Write?

I feel like the only blog content I've been posting lately has been my weekly grocery buys. Blech. That gets old after a while. I mean, I love to read the blogs that have new posts every day or two!!! I have done that in the past, I guess I'm just going through a really long bloggy-blah or something.

Some things that are going on around here lately that I've thought about posting but just haven't gotten around to it:

Adding on to the house. We haven't started, we don't have holes or stacks of lumber in our yard, but we do have some ideas on paper and are seriously moving in that direction. I'm eager to get things really rolling (blueprints, estimates, permits, and eventually the actual "doing") so hopefully alot of the initial and major banging and clanging can be done BEFORE Georgie-Porgy arrives and would be sleeping in the bedroom that will be very adjacent to the construction. My ideal goal is to have whatever we do completely finished and moved into by the end of 2010. I think that's reasonable, don't you?

In the budget/finance department, we're hoping to refinance very soon. Right now we are in a 5 year ARM that ends next fall, I think. That could be bad, depending on where rates are at the time. Right now we have a pretty decent rate, but hopefully we'll get something a percent or two lower, and have it locked in for the whole life. Daniel wants to figure up how much the addition is going to cost before we refinance so we know what kind of $$ we have or don't have to work with. We have a very nice nest egg hidden away for the addition which we are hoping will cover quite a bit of it, but probably not all of it, depending on prices and how frou-frou we do things (and we are not frou-frou people by any means!).

I have volunteered to be the coordinator for a ministry our church has. "We" (our pastor and youth pastor) are working with a local, inner-city, high-school football team that is just a couple blocks from church. They have a chapel service with them on Thursdays, and then on Friday before their games we provide them with a good, filling meal. I volunteered to coordinate the meal part :) If you know me at all, you know 2 things: I love making good food, and I love organizing and planning. Oh, and a 3rd thing would be that fixing and planning food for large crowds doesn't intimidate me one bit (it does alot of people, I'm learning!). The meals need to serve 40 people and I'm pretty excited :) This past Friday was the first time I'd helped with it at all (some other ladies had come up with the meal, I was just helping) and it was pretty amazing to see the guys' reaction to getting good food. They're the kind of people who probably don't get more than Twinkies and sodas for meals on a daily basis. In talking with our pastor, he's shared with me some of the impact that this ministry has had on these kids' lives, it's almost like they've done a 180. It is so amazing what sharing God's love can do!! I'm excited to be a part of the ministry these guys' hearts (and stomachs!).

This coming Friday morning we get to see our little baby again :) We're both so excited. It will be the 20-week ultrasound, and Baby George is going to be a lot bigger than the last time we saw him (or her)!! This would normally be the ultrasound where we would find out if it's a boy or girl, but we've decided that we're not going to purposely find out, but let it be a surprise. BUT we've also decided that if by chance we would find out (if it's glaringly obvious on the ultrasound, or somebody that knows what they're looking at lets it slip), it's not going to be the end of our world - we'd probably just look at each other, grin, and say "cool!!" Haha! My guess is that neither of us will know what to look for on the ultrasound, so we're probably pretty safe there :P
It's hard to imagine that I'm almost 1/2 way through this pregnancy! It seems like things are going so easy right now, and I'm so thankful! All the "how are you feeling" questions are starting to get redundant, but I guess I've probably asked people that very thing my fair share of times, too :P I am feeling very good!! Sleeping has become interesting - some nights I'm super comfortable, other nights I just cannot get comfortable or go to sleep, even though I'm tired as all get out. It seems to go in a 2 "bad" nights, 1 really good night cycle. I need to go to the chiropractor and get some kinks worked out, and see if he has any suggestions. One thing that wakes me up alot is my hips. I don't know if I need to put a pillow between my knees, if it's the weight gain (and I haven't gained that much, either), or just something to live with for another 4 1/2 months, but till the end of the night both of my hips are pretty sore from sleeping on my sides. Getting a new mattress has crossed my mind lately, too, wondering if that might make a difference. Ours is getting a couple lumps in it, and has definite sunken spots where we sleep the most, even though we rotated it the other week (we can't flip it because it's a pillow-top).

As you can see, if I really sit down to blog, content will come out of my finger-tips :) I think this is a good blog-start for the week, so I should get on to a good start in all the other areas of everyday life :) Dishes need done, laundry needs washed and hung out pretty soon if it's going to dry today (it's cool and cloudy), and I need to make bread.

Looking at the Positive

Instead of looking back over the day and thinking "I didn't get anything done", I'm choosing to look at what I did get done. Is there lots of visual improvement? Not so much. But I know what I did, and I'm glad I got that much done!

This afternoon when I got home from MOPS I spent some time outside trying (again) to coax "the other dog" close enough so I could read the tag on his collar. He showed up Thursday afternoon and is quite content to be here - at least he's not making any efforts to go home. Anyway, he belongs to somebody, and appears to be a hunting dog. He's also super skittish and wouldn't come any closer than about 2 feet away from me, and the second I would bat an eyelash or a thought would cross my mind he'd scoot off like a rabbit. I gave up on that after a while and searched through the phone book and white pages for people around here that we thought might have dogs. I tried different numbers, some had no dogs, some suggested people to call, and some had dogs but weren't missing any. I guess if we don't soon have luck with locating his owner I'll have to call the Animal Control so they can catch him and be able to reunite him with his owner, though I hate to take that route if I don't have to. LOL, early this morning Rascal barked for a bit and I heard "the other dog" howling some. When I got up to fix Daniel's breakfast I heard a terrible meowing coming from somewhere outside the kitchen windows. I went outside (it was barely light) and here the dog had treed one of the neighbors cats!! When I went outside the dog was sitting patiently at the bottom of the tree, I guess waiting to show his accomplishment, but immediately scooted off. The cat got down not too long after that.

I did get a load of laundry washed and hung out. I don't know that I'll get it in before I go to bed, it was hung out pretty late in the afternoon and I don't think it was enough time for jeans to dry.

I did make the bed! And supper - oven fried drumsticks and green beans! And mixed up 2 loaves of bread (1 batch of dough) in the bread machine and just put them in the oven! I did take a nap this afternoon, I needed it and felt much better afterwards.

This evening while supper was in the oven Daniel and I were outside talking and measuring. We're moving in the direction of adding on (we decided not to sell at this point) and are trying to get our ideas fleshed out and on the same page. After supper I printed off some graph paper and we spent the rest of the evening idea shooting. We have a basic footprint that we're interested in, and I measured stuff and made "furniture" (flat, not 3-D) out of construction paper to fit the scale of the space on the graph paper. I'm such a visual person I have to SEE things like that in order to know what I think/want. I'm glad we weren't moving real furniture around - we would be sore and stiff from all the "furniture moving" that we did! We finally came up with a furniture arrangement that we both like "the best", but now we don't know where a 1/2 bath fits in that floor layout.

This evening Daniel wondered if there was anything dessertish to nibble on... when the answer was no, he offered to "be the hero" (his words) and bake one of the packages of Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough I bought recently. And so he did :) He was putting them on a cookie sheet and he said "I guess it would probably be better if I used 2 cookie sheets instead of cramming 24 cookies on one, huh?" I love this man :) I know first hand how much he dislikes cooking and baking, so when he does take the notion to do something in the kitchen (other than eat :P ), ahh, I feel the luv :)

All in all, no, I didn't really get great gobs of things done. But we did make good progress on the addition planning, and I did get some things done today :) There is plenty waiting to be done another day, but the world won't fall apart before I get to it.