Sorry about the silence

Okay.  That was a long silence.  We’ve had a couple of crazy weeks around here.  Camping last weekend was fun and not nearly as stressful as I thought it might be.  Got home Sunday afternoon, unpacked all the junk then worked all day Mon and Tues (my dear, dear husband tackled all the laundry from the weekend).  Tuesday night my mom got here, then I spent all day Wednesday running around like a mad woman trying to get ready to go to a conference in Indiana.  We finally left for the conference around 4:30 (an hour later than I wanted to leave) and arrived at our destination around 9:00.  Had a great time staying with some old friends and the conference was good too.  By the afternoon of the second day, I was tired of sitting and listening so I shopped while Conrad stayed till the end.  I spent the remainder my birthday money. . .I got new mugs which I’m really happy about.  Now, when it’s my turn to host Friday morning coffee with my friends I can serve them coffee out of decent mugs.  There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have been too happy about getting mugs for my birthday but those days are gone and now I’m really happy for fresh household things.

Gotta catch up on my email and I want to read some stories to my very snuggly baby.

Laundry Day

Today I am working on catching up with the laundry (by the way, I don’t think you can ever actually catch up on laundry, unless you insist that everyone, including yourself, is naked on laundry day. . .just a thought).

Here’s a few random tidbits from the last week:

1.  I had a 10 minute conversation with Lydia yesterday and the whole time I was talking with her I thought she was Bryn.  That is the weirdest feeling!!!

2.  My brother, sister and I (and our spouses) are brainstorming about a trip to New York City this spring.   Does anyone have any advice for planning a trip like this?  What should we see, what should we skip?

3.  Why, oh why, don’t people bring salads to potlucks?

4.  Someday I would like to live in Italy for maybe a year or so.

5.  What the heck was OJ Simpson THINKING???

6.  I am already sick of politics and it’s not even election year.

7.  We are going camping this weekend with our church (normally I hate camping. . .I mean I really hate it, but this is more like dormitory style buildings and meals are being provided so I can handle it).

8.  Dryer is dinging. . .off to fold clothes.

Friday’s headlines:

My husband is sitting in another chair in the same room as I am typing.  He saw me pull up my blog page and he said, “Is that gonna be about me?”  I started laughing. . . He’s a little paranoid, don’t you think?

My aunt and uncle from Michigan are staying with us this weekend while they take my “little” cousin Carla to Rosedale.  I can’t believe she’s old enough to go to RBC!  She told me she’s nervous about taking Philosophy with Eric Kouns.  I wanted to reassure her and tell her it won’t be that bad, but that’s a flat out lie.  So instead, I said, “Carla, dear, I think you have good reason to fear that class.”  Might as well be honest, that’s what I always say.

I had several neighborhood moms here for coffee and banana bread this morning.  We used to get together almost every Friday morning but the summer got crazy and we went almost 2 months without getting together.  It was good to catch up with everyone.  My one friend just found out her husband will spend most of 2008 in Kuwait (he’s in the army).  He leaves in October for stateside training then will head to Kuwait in February and be there at least 10 months.  She has 2 little girls at home (ages 3 and 5).  I can’t imagine.  She got teary eyed just talking about it today.  Wow.

Time to put Ellie to bed.  Let me leave you with a song I just learned from B and L (sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”):

Y-E-L-L-O-W spells yellow.  Y-E-L-L-O-W spells yellow.  Like the early morning sun when the day has just begun, Y-E-L-L-O-W spells yellow.

Verse 2

Daffodils and baby ducks are yellow.  Lemonade and scrambled eggs are yellow.  And that happy face that’s yellow, oh, he’s such a happy fellow, Y-E-L-L-O-W spells yellow.

Ellie is sleeping and I don’t know what to do with myself

The title pretty much captures it all.  My house is clean, the laundry is caught up, dinner for tonight is under control, the groceries are put away.  It’s not that I couldn’t find something to do if I looked hard enough.  It’s that I don’t feel like looking that hard when I know it’s nothing urgent.  This thing about only having one child at home (and  she sleeps for 2-3 hours of the day) is an entirely new thing for me and I’m having trouble with knowing what to do about it.  The last few weeks I’ve used my extra time to catch up on some neglected areas in my house. . .I organized my cupboards, cleaned the laundry room, made lots of food for my freezer (meatballs, beef stew, cookies, bread, etc.), sorted through the girls clothes (put away the summer things and got the fall stuff out), cleaned the garage, organized my storage room, threw away a bunch of junk (Happy Meal toys, random puzzle pieces, etc.).  So now what?  I’m not complaining, mind you.  I’m just saying I’m restless and sometimes I feel a little guilty for not being busy.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve been living my life at break-neck speed for so long that now I don’t know how to handle down time.  Any thoughts?

A Dreary Sunday Morning

It is Sunday morning and I just finished my monthly cinnamon roll and I’m still sipping my weekly cup of Scottish Grogg.  It is pouring rain outside, very dreary, and I’m still in my robe and none of the girls are dressed.  So I probably should be hustling around making everyone presentable for church, but I just don’t feel like it so I thought I’d sit here and blog instead.

I’m very much hoping that this rain cools things down.  This week has been excruciatingly hot. . . in the 90’s every day.  The girls’ school is not air conditioned and their teacher says it is hotter in the building than outside which I can hardly even imagine.  Every day this week the girls came home with their hair wet from sweat, faces bright red and begging for water.  It is pitiful, indeed.

I think I’m raising little health nuts.  I try to cook healthy meals for my kids and provide healthy snacks, but I don’t think I could be accused of being a health nut myself.  This week when I was packing their lunches I showed them their lunch (a sandwich, apple, yogurt, and pretzels) and asked them if they also wanted a cookie.  B responded by saying, “No mommy.  No junk food.”  I was a little surprised but I didn’t argue.  Then on Friday I told them I put a special surprise in their lunch box (individual packages of cheetoes).  That afternoon when I was cleaning out their lunch boxes both of them had opened packages that were nearly full.  I asked them why they didn’t eat it and B said, “I tasted it but it didn’t taste very healthy so I didn’t want it.”  WEIRD!  But fine with me!  I’m not sure if this is just a passing phase or what. . .but I guess I’ll encourage it while I can.

Hmmm.  What else.  I cleaned my basement and laundry room on Monday and it is still clean.  Definitely noteworthy.

Off to face the Sunday morning chaos. . .Can I just confess to you that if I weren’t the pastor’s wife I probably wouldn’t go to church today.  It’s pouring rain, and I just feel like sipping coffee and reading a good book today.  Ah, well.   Maybe this afternoon I’ll have the chance to do that plus watch a little football.  Here’s hoping. . .

A Weird Start to the Day

I was driving B and L to school this morning and I was stopped at a stop sign when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  An SUV was rolling along with the driver side door swung wide open and no one inside of it!  It was the strangest thing to sit there and watch this all unfold.  I could hardly believe my eyes and I didn’t know what to do other than to sit there and watch it.  The SUV went right over top of the stop sign at the opposite corner from where I was sitting, then plowed into a fence and line of bushes before it finally stopped.  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I didn’t feel right about leaving and not reporting what I had just witnessed.  So I grabbed my cell phone, called 911 and told them what happened.  While I was on the phone with them, a guy came meandering along, holding a McDonald’s bag, got into the vehicle and drove away as if nothing happened!  Soon after that an officer came along, I gave him a description of the vehicle, and the man that I saw, told him which direction he drove in, etc.  In the middle of relaying this info, the man came around the corner walking along cool as a cucumber.  I was like, “That’s him!  That’s the guy I saw get into the SUV and drive away!”  The officer was like, “This gentleman right behind me?”  I said, “YES!”  and he said, “Okay.  Thank you mam.  You’re free to go.”  Then I heard the officer say to the man, “You okay, Charles?”  So apparently the cops are on a first name basis with this guy. . .I got to school just as the kids were heading into the building then when I got back to my van my phone rang and it was the 911 center calling to verify some info from me.  So I guess that’s that.  How strange!