No other way

Well, I couldn't ever get that video to upload, I think it was too big. So I just put it on my You Tube account. Here is a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncpGbK7QjzI

Last night as I got ready for bed I got to thinking- why do I always get hungry at the wrong time? It's like my body knows "hey, it is a totally inappropriate time to eat, so lets set that tummy to growling." It's very annoying. Also, why is the phrase "clean as a whistle" used when something is clean? I don't know about your whistle, but my whistle is covered in not only my spit, but the spit of a 4 year old AU kid with an affinity to whistles, little fingerprints, and dirt. Not exactly my definition of clean.

Long day is over

You know that Norah Jones song- The Long is Over? That was totally today. It wasn't bad, just long after being gone all weekend. Our kindergarten performance was tonight, and my kiddos have been working really hard on it. They were so cute! But going back up to school two hours after you leave is not ideal when you have only the cutest baby in the world waiting on you! I did get a lot accomplished during my "down time" though- I got a new cell phone! I love it and I feel so.......professional? I don't know exactly to label the feeling but it's great! I also got supplies to make Luke's birthday invitations. Aaahhhh! I am no where near ready for my baby to turn one. :( Contrary to popular belief it is not cheaper to make your own invitations, but they will be MUCH cuter than the premade ones I had seen. But the biggest news of all, Cody maybe has an interview at a hospital! If he managed to score this job it would be a huge answered pray to replacing my paycheck when it piddles out in August. All I ask, no, all I BEG is that EVERYONE get down on their knees and petition our Father to bless us in this way. I am convinced that our financial situation will work out and we will be okay, and it is so exciting that this could be it. If it's not though, it's not the end of the world. The answer is still out there.

I didn't get to say much about our trip this weekend. It was fun and beautiful, and my darling son showed off his new trick a whole bunch. This video just about sums it up (and at the end of it I do a spin around so that you can see the beautiful river we were at!). *Edit* I tried to add the video last night and it took so long to upload I finally went to bed. This morning it said there was an error and it couldn't be processed. boo. Maybe I'll try again this afternoon to add it.

Home Alone

Who let the cable company run episodes of Law and Order while ladies are home alone? *sigh* I have come to realize the two factors do not mix well in my home. Last night I had this terrible dream and I woke up at 2:30 convinced something was going to go wrong, or at the very least I wouldn't be sleeping anymore that night due to an over active imagination turning every bug sound into a burglar. I knew I shouldn't have watched that last episode of SVU right before I went to bed. Buuuuuut, 20 minutes later I was sound asleep and past the drama. If I can make it through tonight I will be golden! Tomorrow Luke and I are leaving with Mom, Dad, and Ashley to go to a lake cabin in Oklahoma. Family vacay anyone? Cody will be getting back on Saturday, so he will just miss us. Just one more reason for me to be ecstatic about this trip he's on. If anyone cares, I talked to him tonight and he's still alive.

Does this uneasy feeling about staying alone in your own house go away as you get older? When you are a child, it never occurs to you that Mom might be a little insecure to be staying home while Dad is gone. You just assume that there is a grown up there so everything will be okay. Is this a secret no one bothers to tell you? Like grown ups don't really like all the vegetables either, or scary movies are still scary? Will I grow past all of this stuff when I'm older, or will I be 60 and still hate it when I have to sleep in my own house alone. Do men feel this way when their wives go out of town? Probably not. I do have a deep sense of pride though, knowing that I got through this entire week alone. I know that, if for what ever reason, I had to do this alone I am strong enough to make it. Not only make it, but be productive and do more than just survive. I managed to take care of my baby and get everything done at school, and this was a ridiculously busy week. Could I do it by myself? Absolutely. Do I want to? Nah- it sure is nice to have someone else to change the millionth stinky diaper when I really don't want to, or have someone to talk to over dinner, or hug me when I really need it.

Two liberations

Lately I have not been turning on my laptop in the living room, but have just used the desktop in the computer room to check email and facebook. I must say it's been oddly liberating not having the option of compulsively checking my various accounts every thirty seconds. I am actually down to once every hour or so! For me personally that is a huge accomplishment- I am one of those sad people that know the instant my inbox has received something or someone has updated their status. Sad really. All this empty time on my hands has got me to thinking. Why is it when we are feeling blue for a season of life, do we always forget about the things that make us smile? I heard one of my new favorite songs on Ellen today (yes, I DVR that show. I love it, okay!?) and I decided to get up and dance to it. I totally forgot how much I love to dance! It also kind of inspired me to do something about the flab I call a gut. There was also this beautiful super model on Ellen, which also may have had something to do with the inspiration. If she can look like that, why can't I? Oh yes, that's right.....I love to eat and don't get paid to workout. That's why. I did three crunches two days ago and was so proud of myself I ate two scoops of ice cream. Yummmm. It's this buttered pecan flavor I just got.

Anyway, back to the topic of odd liberation's, all the shows I enjoy are ending for the season and once again I have a slight release from the pressure of loving too many shows and not having enough time to really enjoy them all. Yes, I can DVR, and I do, but then once you have so many recorded shows you have to find time to watch them all. Why not just take the time when it comes on and be done with it? Hmm. It sounds like I need a break from t.v. and internet. Nah. That would be to easy.

Gone

Whelp, Cody left today. Apparently no amount of pouting can keep a boy from the highway when it is calling out. I know that this week will fly by, due to excessive busyness from school and Luke, but when you are at the front end staring down 5 long days of single parenthood and a job that's *sigh*......it seems like an eternity. And just so that this day doesn't seem too depressing, here's what I found my kid doing today while I was touching up my makeup before church. I come into the living room and at first I can't find him. I think to myself...."I KNOW I left him in here and all the exits are blocked off." Then I hear banging and I look in the dining room and all I see is:

So I call out "Luuuuuke, what are you doing?" (he was banging on the window at our neighbor's house, of course) and out pops this:

Silly little booger! Anyway, I'm pretty sure he was back there licking the window. It's the new thing to do. And before anyone comments, yes, I do put pants on my child. It's just that when we are at home the jeans don't usually go back on after a diaper change until we leave the house again. So when you see him pantsless like this you know that he's clean. :)

He can hear!

My baby is all fixed up! And when I say baby, I mean Luke, and when I say all fixed up, I mean he got his tubes today. What a champ he was. Of course I had prepared myself for the absolute worst but things turned out smooooooooooth sailing. He didn't fuss because of hunger and he didn't get scared of the super loud fire alarm. That's right. I said fire alarm. We leave the house this morning at 6:45, which gave us an hour to get there. Turns out we needed that hour, because my darling Cody chose to take the route through 3 different towns and we got caught at all but two lights. I am not exaggerating. (but I will give him props- it turns out 183 had a wreck on it so we would have never made it the way I wanted to go) We arrive exactly on time, which if you know me means I was totally stressed out for fear of being late, and we waltzed through the office door into a CROWDED lobby. Apparently this is the time of year to get tubes. I start to fill out the paper work when the fire alarm starts going off. What? What in the world? All the adults in the room just started looking at each other. Do we leave? Is this for real? Do you smell smoke? Which snot nosed kid was it that pulled the lever? (Obviously every parent was thinking it's not my kid, because everyone else has a snot nosed kid, not them. Including me. Luke is always perfect. :) We were all paused, hoping for a nurse to either direct us to leave or tell us it was a drill and we could stay. The nurses didn't play along. After a minute we all shrugged our shoulders, grabbed our kids, and moseyed outside. Three minutes later we were told we could come back in, although the lights were still flashing. So everyone just filed back in without a word and the flow of kids becoming patients continued without a blip. Very odd. About 45 minutes later Luke got called back and within 20 minutes I had a groggy, hungry, tubed up little boy back in my arms. It felt good to hug him. Pretty soon after that we got to leave, so we all went to Chick-fil-A for breakfast (it was only 10:15) and Cody and I sat and watched an episode of Flight of the Concords on Cody's laptop while we ate and Luke chilled in his car seat. All in all, it was a good experience and I am so thankful Luke is finally on the mend!

Changes

Do you ever get that feeling like your life is right on the brink of a major over haul? I feel like mine is, and it is scary, exciting, exhausting, and stressful all at the same time. Tomorrow my baby gets tubes in his ears, and while I am confident that everything will go fine, I dread the thought of putting my perfect baby boy on a table while he's starving to breath in some gas that he could potentially have a reaction to. I can't wait for all of this ear business to be behind us! And then the next day Cody is leaving for a whole week, leaving me on full baby duty for 7 days. Yikes! I rely on him to do so much! I guess mostly the stress is coming from school drawing to a close. After three years of teaching, I have quit. All I've ever wanted to be was a teacher, and now for various reasons I'm not sure if my life will ever lead me back to the profession. Everyone keeps asking "What are you going to do?" .....*pause*.......I don't know. I.......don't.........know. I have absolutely no idea where my road is going. I have not a single clue how God is going to use me in the coming months and years. I almost feel like those floundering college kids you see who have to drop out or keep taking stupid courses because they have no clue which major to pick. Who am I kidding? I am that person, just 5 years later and with a degree. Does anyone have a better insight on my life than I do? I have full peace that God will take care of us and lead me by the hand the path He has already laid out for me, I just have to whisper to myself "Breath. You don't have to have all the answers right now." My extreme type-A personality drives me to have everything figured out and organized ridiculously far in advanced, and I know God doesn't give me the answers just so I will get frustrated and be forced to trust His process. Anyone on the same road? We can walk side by side as God takes us on the next adventure. Put your sunglasses on people and grab a snack, Jesus is about to take us places.

Sleep

Why is it that every morning I drag myself out from under the covers thinking "good grief, I need to go to bed earlier" and yet every night I put off going to bed solely for the fact that I just don't want to get up and turn the TV off. My procrastination for getting in bed is exactly the same as when I hit snooze every morning for 45 minutes. How do I break the cycle? Is there ever a perfect time to go to bed so that you wake up feeling refreshed yet not like a grandma for going to bed so early? The ironic thing is that I'm sitting here yawning- not brushing my teeth and climbing into that wonderfully soft bed.

Mother's Day

What a great day it has been! I have to admit, I was a little worried about how it started out. Cody climbed into bed at 5:00 this morning and I thought "Great. He's going to get 2 hours of sleep and be a horrible grump today. ARRRGG!" But he really pulled through for me. When I went through the living room to go make my coffee this morning I saw my present- a digital frame! Cody had spent the entire night fixing all the pictures on it, carefully going through hundreds and hundreds that we have taken since Luke's been born and picked out the very best, fixed the red eyes, and put them on the frame. It was running when I walked in. I love it! Then-get ready for the random event of the day- as we were getting in the car to go to church (on time for once! We had to be because we are teaching Luke's cradle roll class this month and the teachers should be there before the students. Duh) I found a snake in the garage! Yikes! After church we got to see some friends I haven't seen in a while, which is always lovely. Then Cody let me pick where I wanted to eat lunch, so I picked Rockfish. I love that place, and they have the best bread pudding (which I got to have :). Next we ran home and changed and then the three of us went to the Dallas zoo. Luke's first zoo trip! We met up with some of my belly-buddy friends that I was pregnant with and our babies had a great time. What is more fitting than spending Mother's Day with the people who I became a mother with? And the cherry on top- Cody was very sweet about the whole thing, he didn't complain once. Thank you sweet Jesus for granting me a beautiful baby and a caring husband that bless my life completely.

I *heart* being creative

So today after Luke's appointment I went to Hobby Lobby to see what kind of John Deere scrap booking stuff there was to make my own invitations for his first birthday that's coming up (yikes! my baby!). I was sorely disappointed with the variety and thinking I was going to have to go home empty handed, which I hate to do from that store. Then I remembered the coasters I had previously mentioned! So since my baby was still being fabulous, I wandered over to the fabric section and of course I found some great stuff. I just love material! Anyway, I bought all the stuff and when I got home I began creating. See pictures below for before and after. :)

What else happened to me today? I got hysterically lost trying to get to Luke's appointment 2 minutes out of Lewisville and it took me 45 minutes to get there. It was not a pretty picture and I am just thanking my sweet Jesus that my husband still loves me after he had to pick up those pieces. Later, when I was picking up Luke's (hopefully last!) antibiotic, I saw a SWAT truck. On Kirkpatrick! I almost stopped and looked around for the movie cameras because I couldn't imagine there needing to be another reason for a SWAT truck in lowly little Flower Mound.

Just now I was trying to put said precious baby to bed and like a good mother I was holding him and walking to the kitchen to wash off a nasty pacifier before I put him to bed. Luke had left his sippy cup in the middle of the floor and OF COURSE my foot found it and we went flying across the room and banged into the wall- the whole time I was terrified we would go crashing down and the newspaper would read tomorrow "Mother kills baby by crushing him under falling body weight". Luckily I save the kid, but sacrificed my toe. Stay tuned tomorrow to see what the full extent of damage is. Right now it's just numb. :(

P.S.- The sky just turned a nasty shade of peachy grey. Very foreboding.

Coasters: before

Coasters: After

This day....

This day was a doozy! But now it's over and I can get in bed and sleep my troubles away. Well, I can sleep them away until 6:30 tomorrow morning when I have to get up. Today there was a ladybug on the inside of my car's passenger window. Trying to be the good soul that I am, I rolled down the window so that she (because ladybugs are always a "she" right?) could fly away. But it didn't occur to me that she was way far down on the window, and when I rolled it down I rolled the ladybug into the window's motor. Oops. Goodnight everybody!

Dissapointment

You know those people that preachers are always talking about- the ones who are secretly terrible Christians who look down their noses at everyone? I always thought those people didn't really exist except for in point driving purposes as perfect examples during a sermon. Until I met one one day. The kind of person who in all honesty thinks they are living the perfect Christian life. Dressed conservatively all the time. Religiously abstains from alcohol. Attends church 3 times a week. Except. Except for every word uttered from their lips is dripping with judgment, everything from a benign "The temperature will be hot today" to the malignant "What do YOU think?" Except for when every glance your way is secretly a magnet for which to draw in your worst flaws and use them against you. Except for when you thought genuine concern was really fodder for the gossip mill. I am amazed that these people can truly believe they are living a life for Christ when every "fruit of the spirit" within them comes across as soured rot left on the ground to long. I beg my dear Lord, please protect my heart, soul, and spirit from becoming one of them.

Total bummer

Well Diary, I just found out my SAHM status for this week has been cut short. Alas, the gods of the school district have decided not to smile on us anymore, but frown with a mouth that says "you must return early". So Thursday I will be back to the job that pays me money and back to counting down the days until I can do the job that doesn't pay me money. The job I really want to do. Although, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get another job that pays money, because aparently no one is willing to pay the mortage just for being a mom. Also, today I found some coasters I really liked. They were these red and white ones silkscreened onto soapstones. But I didn't get them because I know within a week the two boys who live at my house would break them. Anyone know of cute nonbreakable coasters? Maybe this summer I could try to make some.

First of all...

Dear Diary,

Maybe if I start out like this, I will be more successful than the actual diaries I've tried to keep in the past. Usually I start out strong and then two weeks later the diary goes down in a flame of glory. So, we'll see. Today I organized our bedroom closet. Wait- scratch that- I organized MY side of the bedroom closet. There is no way I'm touching Cody's side of the closet. He actually cleaned the top of his side last week, and it has inspired me to purge my side and organize it back the way it used to be (you know, all geeky-like where the colors are put together). The criteria for discarding an article of clothing was if I had not worn it since high school I had to throw it out. How sad is that? The worst part of all, is there is now quiet a nice pile on the bedroom floor of perfectly usable shirts that I will let sit there with the intention of taking them to Goodwill until I get so tired of looking at them I will throw everything away. *sigh* What's that saying about a paved road to somewhere?

Love,
LC