Tuna Rain

Yesterday in a moment of mommy laziness, I dumped a pile of pasta salad on munchkin's plate and added some canned tuna to it in an effort to make it a more substantial dinner. While I put away the rest of the tuna, the child seizes the opportunity to fling tuna everywhere. The cats swarmed the kitchen, racing around, bumping into one another, knowing that any moment this glorious rain could come to an end. I couldn't stop laughing. Sarah couldn't stop laughing. And Gus, who usually gets yelled at for throwing food...was more than a little confused.

A Perfectly Normal Tuesday

While they are much funnier, I figured all my posts shouldn't revolve around how exhausting and humiliating being constantly outsmarted by a one year old is...

Today was one of my less hectic days...

We woke up and ate breakfast without incident. I spent some time in prayer thanking God for that. We drove to Valparaiso to hit the DMV (or BMV, even the web-site isn't sure which it is) to change my driver's license, registration and plates to the new address. I drove the same 1 mile stretch of Hwy 30 at least 12 times looking for the elusive-apparently-not-clearly-marked DMV/BMV while being serenaded by screams of outrage over having play time interrupted with meaningless adult errands. I found out the paperwork I brought was not sufficient (I would have thought that the mortgage paperwork would have been good enough coupled with a piece of mail with the new address, but I was wrong). We drove back home and Gus fell asleep as I pulled in the neighborhood. Lovely.

I let him sleep in the car while I packed a bag and a lunch for the beach. Our friends showed up and off we went to the beach. We got out of the car at the beach 10 miles from the house, all seven of us clad in some version of wishful thinking summer attire (to be fair, it was seventy degrees in my driveway). The beach felt like a balmy 50 degrees with a brisk wind. Within a minute of hitting the sand, Gus's teeth are chattering. I dig out an extra T-shirt for him and we eat a sandy lunch of salami, cheese and broccoli We let the kids play for a little under an hour before group misery over-rode the objections of the one child wearing enough clothing.

I brushed as much sand out of my car as possible, plunked the kid in the bathtub where he happily splashed for almost an hour. Once his fingers and toes had gone from blue to pink to white and shriveled, I dressed him and all but tossed him in the crib for a nap. I walked across the hall and collapsed on the bed. In the midst of reaming myself out for not taking advantage of nap time to get housework done, I got a much needed nap.

When the baby woke up, we went for a really long walk around the neighborhood, then Gus got out of the stroller and took off down the street pushing the stroller. We took the long walk again with him pushing the stroller the whole time. Then came a trip to CVS just for chocolate. When we got home I nuked a hot dog for him and he offered me a bag of marshmallows as an acceptable dinner alternative. After a parental talking to (and hiding the bag of marshmallows) he ate or fed to the cats most of the hot dog and tried to eat a spider for dessert. We cuddled and read several partial stories and then he went to bed.

This was a great day, considering what the last couple months have been like and I'm still exhausted. Maybe it isn't him, maybe I'm just getting old.

December

December already... The really great thing about new year's resolutions is that if you aren't organized enough to remember where you put them, you can tell yourself you accomplished all of them.

Usually December is my last ditch effort to accomplish those things on my January list. Since I cannot find the January list of resolutions, I consulted the list that I made in May when we found out we were going to have a baby. So far, the only thing not done on the list in making diapers for the baby. Every part of our house has been tackled and decluttered, with the exception of the Army paperwork, which scares me. All of our half finished home improvement projects are done and the guest room has been modified for the baby. So December's projects include two baby quilts, roughly sixty cloth diapers and a pretentious, multi-course Christmas dinner.

We are not travelling this year, so my best friend and her hubby are coming up for the holiday. After chatting last night, we decided to have a really pretentious dinner with china and courses and everything, since it will be the last chance to do it without babies underfoot. This is going to be so much fun... This is somewhat of a departure from my family's Christmas pot of Chili tradition. All I know about the menu so far is we are having a cheese course, and we are not having ham. I am experimenting with homemade gelato recipes and trying to come up with some good deserts that don't have chocolate, coconut or nuts in them...maybe cannolis?

Ahhh

Yesterday we painted the office. You know you have good friends when you say I'm painting the office this weekend and they ask if they can help. We left the chocolate accent wall and painted over the gold sponge painted walls with a nice taupe. We painted the trim an off white and hung curtains. We cleaned, we rearranged and changed the outlets. It is a completely different room. I worked in the office the entire day today without being distracted by piles of paperwork or anything else. Thank you so much guys! You have given me a peaceful haven to do my work in. I am sure at some point I will get the opportunity to return the favor :)

Looney Bin

Sometimes I think I work at a looney bin. The last week has been an exercise in insanity. We have had new people trying to swallow a tablespoon full of cinnamon in a minute, convinced the new guy that one of the employees had Turret's minus the swearing and had him feeling genuinely sorry for laughing at him, played charades, and had the staff doing shots of energy drinks at the bar. I think I had five energy drinks on Saturday and couldn't stop giggling most of the day. I can only imagine what the customers thought of us. We had so much fun...and now we are all so tired. One more day to go, then I get my day 'off.' I will never be so glad to see a week end. Even now, it is six in the morning and I am too keyed up to sleep. I am never going to get any semblance of a 'normal' schedule.

Super Bowl New Year

I had all these deep thoughts I wanted to share on here...but I didn't write them down right away and they left as quickly as they had come. Yesterday we got everyone together for the Super Bowl. It was a lot of fun. We cooked, we ate, we played video games. Eventually we remembered that we were supposed to be watching football and watched the game. In a way it was bittersweet. We used to do this sort of thing weekly, if not more often. The video games, the food, the fellowship... This felt like a last hurrah of sorts. We could feel those who were missing, but also managed to reconnect with old friends we haven't seen in years. So many of us have hit a new stage in life and outside events have taken their toll on our friendships. Some of us are getting ready to move, have children, finish school, start a new job. Strange that this felt more like New Years than New Years did. So is it the end of an era or were we blissfully ignorant of the finite nature of a good thing? We felt it was amazing that we managed to see friends as often as we did being as we were adults and did all have things like jobs and bills. Did we take it for granted? And is it really so horrible that the only people I see regularly now are my husband and one girlfriend? Better or worse? Maybe change isn't all bad. Either way, it is happening and all I can do is enjoy each stage as it comes and hope that all of them are as good as the last couple have been.

For those of you who are leaving...you will be missed
For those of you who left long ago...you are always in our hearts
For those of you whose lives have gotten hectic...we are here, a fifteen minute drive or a phone call away, we will find time in our own busy schedules to be there for our loved ones.

You Guys are the Best

I want to send out a big thank you to all of our friends and coworkers who stepped in to help us out this week. Ryan and Jon for feeding the cats, Brandi, Katie, Darren, Mark, and Pixie for helping cover my shifts with almost no notice. Jeremy and Tim for helping Rob be able to get up here to be with his dad. And everyone else who has had the family and especially dad in their prayers this week.

Sundays

Sundays are one of my two days off. Other than church and homework, the agenda is pretty much cleared for catching up on my projects (see resolutions). Today's parade of daily adventures includes playing 10,000 with Syra while procrastinating on my projects, blogging while procrastinating on my projects, grocery shopping while procrastinating on projects, playing with Ryan's iPhone while procrastinating on projects (it has an application called iBanjo, fun stuff!). You get the point...pretty much that I would rather do anything else than clean out my closet. It would probably help if I was actually at my house, but having not seen Ryan since a week before Christmas, it is hard to tear myself away.

Other interesting happenings...

Our friend Scott is moving to Chicago...he will be missed and he is providing further motivation for the much speculated move to be to the Chicagoland area. If my parents would just move to Chicago then it would be an ideal location. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that the mild Tennessee weather has spoiled them for the north. I distinctly remember complaints about the Indiana November when they were up for Thanksgiving. Personally, I love winter and this has been a fun one already and we have at least two more months of it. Were it not for winter, I wouldn't be able to appreciate the summer. Mostly I find the heat uncomfortable and tedious, but after a nice cold winter, spring and early summer seem nothing short of miraculous to me. It is very easy to see the hand of God in the changing of the seasons and the life cycles of our planet. I think that is why I hated Alabama so much. There were no seasons, no rebirth, no wonder in the new life, all the seasons just ran into one another with glaring monotony.

Gotta love the tangents...I will be back later to update on whether the desire to procrastinate triumphed over the need to cross things off the list.