Did I Mention This?

So our neighbors moved out a month or so ago. The ones to our back. The ones that like to party. The ones that are a little sketchy. Their house was on the market for a while, but then it no longer is, and no one has moved in, so I'm guessing it was a bit of an unfortunate situation that they have left, which stinks for them, because they were nice people. So yeah, they are gone. So we'll see how long it is before someone moves into that house. I'd imagine that it is not very nice inside, or so I have heard from a different neighbor. I just don't imagine that you spend a lot of time cleaning up after yourself if you have been evicted.
Oh well, I need to go and hide some presents and then I can go to bed. Yea!

Spreading the Holiday Cheer

So today I had to go to the post office. I know, yikes! But as if that were not enough, I had to go in a "wintry mix" and bring both of my kids. I also forgot the small stroller, so I had to heft out the big double one. So we make a run for it and get to the post office, and the outer lobby is totally full. But this guy helped hold the door open for me, and then took pity on me and asked if I wanted his space in line. So I graciously accepted, and he went to take my space in line, at the back, like 5 people back or so. Of course, they could not get more than one person working the desk at a time, so the line took FOREVER to move at first. I think we stood there for a good 15 minutes before the line moved at all, and then it moved more steadily. Nate and Graham were little angels for the most part, but then when we got to the front of the line both of them started to get antsy. So today I am grateful for the nice young man who gave me his spot in line, because it turned out to be the exact length that my children could handle the post office today. Merry Christmas to you random stranger.

Twilight

Well, my friends and I went to see the movie last night. It was of course a Monday night, the only school night for the kids in this county this week, so no one was there. I thought some parts were kind of annoying, but on the whole it was a good movie. I was especially anxious to see the Meadow scene since I'd heard so many terrible things about it. Hello Sand Art. I'm excited that they are going to make the next one. Some people have said they need to get on with it so that the actors don't age, but let's face it. They didn't start with 12 year olds, so the aging that any of these actors do is going to be easily covered with make up. The Jacob character on the other hand... we'll that's going to be a problem. It'll be interesting to see how they do that. It seems to me that Edward was supposed to be pretty tall too, and he wasn't that tall in the movie. We'll see. So yeah, good movie. Go see it if you have not already.
In other news, is anyone else really annoyed that Harry Potter is not coming out until July now?!

Are ya kidding me?

So Dish Network was very prompt at getting us a new receiver. We got it set up, and shipped our old one back, and life was back to normal for 4 days, aside from Nate still from time to time mentioning that he can't watch Wallace and Grommit. Then came this morning. I turn on the tv and the same problem has occurred. I call Tech support, and they are going to send us a new receiver. If I have the same problem next Wednesday again, well, I'm going to march down to the dish network office and demand answers! It just seems kind of fishy for it to be a coincidence, ya know what I mean?

Life's annoyances

Does anyone know how to get super glue off of fingertips?
On the other hand, don't thieves usually put superglue on their fingertips so that they don't leave prints? This could have possibilities...

My New Weight Loss Plan

So, after I ran my 5K, I pretty much stopped running. Jesse was getting ready for his half marathon, and so he was taking all of the running time, and well, I just really don't enjoy running THAT much. So I gained back all of the weight I had lost and more. So just recently I started running again when I saw that I had reached my heaviest non-pregnancy weight. My new plan was not to lose x amount of weight, it was not to run in such and such a race. I do still have those goals, but my new immediate goal is to lose one pound a week. That's it. That's all I have to do in order to achieve my goal. So far I lost 2 lbs the first week, and 3 lbs this week. (So the next 3 weeks are free since I'm already up 3 lbs. )
I figure that the Baltimore Running festival is a year away, so if I can keep this up for a year, I can lose 50 lbs while training for the (half) marathon. So there you have it. All I need to do is keep losing 1 lb. I found that it is actually quite motivating. I can still have the occasional treat, but it does keep me thinking, if I eat this, is this what will push me over my 1 lb weight loss. If I don't run today, will it keep me from losing the weight. I'm hoping that I'm still 10 lbs away from plateauing, but in all reality, I am only 4 lbs away from the point that I always have trouble going under, and that motivates me even more. The last 10 lbs came on quickly and recently, so those will the the first to come off, but the next 40 lbs have been there for many years, so I'm really going to have to work on those. We'll see. Hopefully by having this goal in mind I will keep things in check this holiday season.
Speaking of Holiday Season, and weight loss, the only nice thing about Christmas coming right after Halloween is over is that the Christmas candies are already out. Yesterday I went to the grocery store, and they had candy cane Hershey's Kisses out. Those are the best Hershey's Kisses in creation, followed closely by the coconut ones that come out at Easter. It was bliss to find them. I can start nice and early this year.

Technology

So 20 years down the road some things are going to be very different around here, and our kids will never be able to comprehend how hard we have it these days.
For instance, they will not be able to comprehend having to have actual discs to listen to music or watch movies. They will not know the heartache of having to learn to refold a map. (and read it on your own.) I think mostly thought, it's going to be television that will be different. They will not know about having to wait patiently for your favorite show to be on, and then actually being in front of the tv at that specific time. I think that "on demand" is the future of television, and it's going to change how we watch tv, and what we watch. I think that out of all of the advances in television, the most life changing one has been the invention of the DVR, or TiVo if you will. It's one of those things that once you have it, you do not know how you ever lived without it. Nate has had this luxury his entire television viewing life. He doesn't really understand when I tell him that he has to watch a certain thing at a certain time. Or when he wants to watch an episode of Curious George that was on yesterday, but we didn't record it, it's hard for him to understand that he can't watch it again. It changes the way that you view things too. I think that it is turning us into a very inattentive society. Think about it, how many times have you been listening to the radio, or watching a movie in the theater, and you missed something, and wanted to rewind? It happens to me all of the time. That is because I can rewind live tv.
Well, it is because I COULD rewind live tv. This morning I was sadly informed that my dvr has died. Apparently there is no hope for it. Now, fortunately for me, since it is a dvr, and owned by Dish Network, and the such, they will just ship me out a new one free of charge. BUT IT WILL TAKE 3-5 DAYS!!! Oh, the humanity of it all. How will I survive? Mostly it's sad because Nate has been asking to watch a movie that was recorded on the dvr, and now he'll never have that movie again. (Ok, so that is maybe a little dramatic, but you get the picture.)
So there is my sad story. Mostly it'll be a pain because Nate will continue to ask to watch things again and I'll have to say no. (Ok, so it's only a pain because of the whining, I guess it does have it's upsides.)

ps. Before you send me your condolences, and the such, I guess I should mention that I do still have the ability to watch live tv. It's just the dvr features that are broken.

I voted

I did my civic duty and voted today. I did it after spending the day at my mom's house, so I figured that by the time I got there at 6pm the lines would be out the door. As it turns out, even though I live in the second largest city in Maryland, I still live in the boondocks, and there are no lines out here. I didn't stand in line for even a second. I guess I'm up for a boring evening of waiting for the results to come in. Maybe I'll go to bed early. It'll be midnight out here before all of the polls even close, and that's past my bedtime, so what's the point. I'll turn on the news in the morning.

Project Recap

Ok, so the past week has been a very busy one. It seems that I have been working on projects left and right, but I finally finished them all. The biggest thing that I have been working on was the proton pack for Jesse's Ghostbuster costume. The one that came with the costume was a blow up thing, and it looked pretty lame. So he gathered some images from the internet and I thought that I could make a fairly decent representation with some boxes, toilet paper tubes papier mache and duct tape. It took a lot of thinking about how to get things to work together, and at the end of the day, I probably should not have even bothered with the papier mache and just stuck with the duct tape, but it all worked out ok. There are some parts that don't stay together well, like where the hose for the blaster attaches to the base, but it does pretty well. After it was all finished, I cut some slits in the back and stuffed a child carrier backpack into it. That was actually the hardest part of the whole thing.

Another project was this pinata. This was also a papier mache project. It was a huge hit. Nate helped make the face, and that is why the nose is on top of the eyes. We made this for a party at Nate's friends house. It was actually a great party and pretty much all of Nate's friends were there, and more importantly, pretty much all of my friends were there. Now that most of the kids are in preschool it has been really hard to get a large group of us together. The kids loved to hit the pinata, but I made it a little bit too strong, and it took forever to break it. I guess that's better that it breaking on the first hit though. I've never made one before though, so I had no idea how thick to make it.This is the wall hanging that I managed to finish. Jana gave me the pattern and the star hanger for my birthday this year, and I finally managed to get it done a few days before Halloween. She also gave me a pattern for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas, we'll see how fast those get done.And lastly, this is the quilt that we made for Colleen. This is just the top, Jana is going to quilt it on her mega quilter. Something like this ought to take her like half an hour. Colleen had a little baby boy a few weeks ago, and in the tradition of my quilting group, we made the baby a quilt. I sure hope that right now is not when Colleen decides to start reading my blog.

So on top of all of those things, I have done a little baking for the Witch's Tea Party that Jana had on Halloween Night. It was a lot of fun to just sit there and invite people up for a nice little treat.

Next month I have some holiday sewing to do, both as gifts and I got this kit to make this really cool Christmas Tree hanging. But no proton packs to make, so that makes life a lot easier.

I missed it!

So this past week I celebrated my one year anniversary in the blogging world. It came and went without me even noticing it. I should have had a party or cake or something. Oh well.
I have been quite busy this week. I have been working on many different projects, and it has been keeping me quite busy. The main one that I have been working on this week is making a proton pack for Jesse's Ghostbuster Halloween costume. I've actually put a lot of work into it. I think I may be almost finished. I just have to figure out how to make it into a backpack. I may make an opening and place a backpack inside of the structure. I still have lots of spray painting to do.
I also have been working on a pumpkin pinata. We have a Halloween party to go to for Nate's playgroup, and I am going to bring a pinata. How fun. I saw one at the party store, but then I thought that I could make one for cheaper. (And so far all I've spent is less than a buck on orange crepe paper, everything else I've had at the house.) I still need to let the top dry and then figure out how to connect it securely to the top, and more importantly get some strings in it that will not break when you make it hold the full pinata.
I also have a quilted Halloween banner that I want to make. My friend Jana gave me the pattern and cute hanger for my birthday, and I have the fabric, I just have to make it.
I also want to make a ghost costume for Nate. He picked out a race car driver costume earlier this week, but now, it true Nate fashion will have nothing to do with it. Some kids you can't get them to take their costumes off. I can't get my kid in anything that is not normal clothes. Oh well.
I have already finished a Halloween pillowcase. I made it for Nate, but in true Nate fashion, he will have nothing to do with it since it is not his normal Thomas pillowcase. Oh well, it's on my bed now. Fortunately we have an odd number of pillows on our bed.
So that's what we've been up to. As soon as I'm done with it all, and have a second to breathe, I'll post pictures of all of the finished products. I have to be done with the proton pack and ghost costume by Tuesday night, and I have to be finished with the pinata by Wednesday afternoon. The other banner, well, that's just a wish, but the later it gets, the less time I'll have to hang it up.

Crazy Mrs Louise

So, every time I say or think that, I always am reminded of Beauty and the Beast, where LaFou says "Crazy old Maurice, he's always good for a laugh."
But anyway, on to my story. So when we first moved in, we were warned about Louise. She is harmless, but into everyone's business. I was warned about her looking into your windows. Well, it took her 10 months, but she finally got around to looking into our windows. Mostly she comes up onto our deck and looks into the sliding glass window. She likes to see if Nate is there. Every time she does it, it scares the snot out of me. One time I was putting Graham down, and I came downstairs and she was at the door. All I saw out of the corner of my eye was someone on my deck at our door. She does it all the time now, like, at least once a day, and every time- scares me. When she did it on Saturday it scared Jesse. I am thinking that I need to leave the blinds closed, but then she may ring the doorbell. She has done that before, just to see if we are home.
Oh well, we may move soon anyway. The landlady is raising the rent, and we're still deciding if we want to pay that much. On to the eternal search for a place to rent. We'd move next to Jesse's work, but then we'd have to register our cars in Virginia, and we don't think that either car would pass inspection, so that may be more expensive than it's worth. OH well. We'll keep you posted.

How did I miss this?!

So I just found out that yesterday was international talk like a pirate day? What a sad thought that I missed it. Do you know how often I would have said argh matey! if I had known? Oh well, mark it on the calendar for next year.

In other news, Jesse was canoeing with the scouts yesterday, so I was all alone last night, so Jana came over and we watched Made of Honor. It was a cute movie, and only just a little unrealistic that Patrick Dempsey was supposed to be in his early thirties.

Problem Solved

So if you ask anyone on the street the major downside of Harry and David truffles, they will without fail respond that it is that they do not sell just the mint truffles by themselves. It is universally acknowledged to be the only downside to the heavenly confections.
So come with me on the journey to Costco last night. I noticed that right next to the Halloween costume aisle they had the Christmas chocolates out. It is my favorite time of the year, so I walked down the aisle and checked out what they had to offer this year. And then I see it, a large tube of Harry and David truffles- Harry and David MINT truffles. The whole tube is dark and milk mint truffles. It was as if my unwritten letter to Harry and David themselves had been magically read. What a glorious discovery it was.

I Did It!

Well, I did it. I ran my race today, and it wasn't so bad.

Here is what I saw on my run:

1. rain

2. a lot of people passing me

3. rain

4. A Cow farm (It smelled great)

5. rain

6. more people passing me

7. The Cow farm again (smelled just as good the second time around)

8. rain

9. A dead bird (sad, and gross)

10. rain

11. My little boy cheering me on (yea!)

12. rain

13. my Husband cheering me on

14. the finish line!!!

15. rain

And here are some of the things that I learned while running today.

1. It's not too bad to run in the rain, but totally important to have a hat.

2. I CAN do it, and run pretty much the whole way. I only walked for like 50m at the water station at the half way point.

3. 5 year olds can kick my trash.

4. It is very important to go potty before you start running. Especially if you have given birth twice. We'll just say it's a good thing it was raining today and leave it at that.

5. Nothing lifts your spirits like a smiling soaking wet 3 year old cheering for you.

6. When you take a shower and start out wet, you feel entirely too wet by the end of the shower.

So there you have it. It wasn't raining that hard, just steadily. It was nice and cool though. I ran it in about 38 min which is much faster than my goal time of "finish." It's a nice starting point that should not be too bad to work from. So yea for me! And thanks to my family and Father in Law for coming out in the rain to see me run.

Now it's off to my High School Reunion.

Plus....

To top it all off, we could be meeting hurricane Hanna on Saturday. So I could be running in the remnants of a hurricane in addition to being sick and having a bad knee. Fun Times.

Bad timing

So I have my race this Saturday. Unfortunately last Saturday I went running with my new shoes (I love them) but my knee had been hurting before I left, and then it really started to hurt after I got back. (My feet on the other hand, were feeling lovely.) So all afternoon on Saturday and Sunday and Monday I was limping around because my knee hurt so badly. So my legs are feeling better by now, but another complication has come up. on Sunday I awoke with a cold. So now I feel miserable. I don't know what I'll do come Saturday if I still feel this rotten. I guess that I could walk it and still do ok. It's not that long.
In other news, last Saturday Jesse ran 10 miles. So he's well on his way to doing the half marathon. Good for him.

I'm committed

No, the inevitable has not happened, I have not been sent to the loony bin. Instead I signed up to run the Frederick Fair's 5K. It is in just over 2 weeks. And there are no refunds. It will be my first race in 10 years. The last time I raced was the turkey trot my freshman year at college that Mary talked me into running. Today I did just under 3 miles. I know that I'll at least be able to finish it, and I should be able to run most of it. I'd like to be able to run the whole thing. We'll see.

No More Pain

Ok, so not so much NO more pain, but today I did 2 easy miles, and it was my calves that hurt, not my knees. So I figure it's a good thing when my muscles hurt, and not my joints. So I'm sure that all of you are really tired of reading about each time I go running, but well, right now, that is the most exciting thing in my life. Plus, it gives me a bit of accountability. So if one day I stop writing about about running, all of you need to start asking me if I've given up. One day I'll have to get creative about it due to the cold, and I don't want to take the kids out in the cold, much less me run in the cold. Oh well.

Oh, the pain

Ok, so yesterday I tried to do a speed work interval run. By the end of the work out (yes, all of 10 minutes of it) I was limping as I ran. Not an uncommon thing these days. I'm thinking that perhaps I am over-training or something. Or, I'm just fat and this is what happens when you put too much weight on your knees. Anyway, I'm hobbling around, and today when we tried to run it was just comical. Jesse looked back at me after he took over stroller duty, and he decided right there that perhaps we should walk the rest of the way.
BUT... I am not done. I am going to take it easy, perhaps ice my knee every night or something, I don't really know the rules for this stuff. I just know that I cannot give up this early in the game, I just need to change the game a little bit. In case it is not painfully obvious to the rest of you, pretty much after the first week I decided that I will never be ready for the half marathon in October, so I'll have plenty of time to get into shape so that I can train for that. Who knows, maybe I'll go all out and do the marathon next year.
Of course, Jesse plans to do the half marathon this year, and then wants to do a spring marathon, and then do the JFK 50 in the fall. But that's ok, Colleen said that she would try not to get pregnant again, and she would run it with me next year. What a good friend she is.
So there you have it, I can hardly walk up and down the stairs, but I am not deterred. I still plan to have regular exercise in my life.

Keep on Running

So this past week has been difficult for running. There have been a lot of last minute things added to my schedule, and that has made finding time to run difficult. Then on Monday I tried to run, and Graham screamed the entire time, so that run was cut short and was more frustrating than fulfilling. But today I went out again without the kids. At first it felt like I was starting from scratch it hurt so much, but I ran through it, and it got better. The second lap I ran a little faster, and did a few sprints at the end, but through most of it I was kind of limping as I ran. I'm trying to find that fine line between training to strengthen my body and not over training to hurt my body... It's always a fun place to be. So I'm still here running. I'm not great yet, but well, I'm still trying and that is what is important.

New Quilts

So, as Jana requested (ages ago) here are pictures of the quilt that I made for my friend Dessi's new baby. I recently helped her make her first quilts- 2 twin size quilts for her twins. (What a first project!) Anyway, it took about a year to complete, and she was saying that she wanted to make a quilt for the baby, but was thinking that her husband would not be too happy if she started another quilt. So I stepped up to the plate. It turned out super cute. All of the pinwheels are little flappy things, so that's fun. Plus, I'm getting pretty good at my free motion quilting.

This other one I made a while ago, with some fat quarters I had lying around. I just got around to photographing it today. I think I may try to sell it. Anyone interested? :)

Demoralizing

So there you are running along. You are approaching the end of your first mile. Here comes one of the most beastly hills on your path. It is still at least 85* and quite humid at 7pm. Sweat is pouring down your face making your eyes sting. So you start up the hill. You WILL beat this hill. No walking! When a little voice from the stroller you are pushing says: "I wanna go fast mommy!" Not, I wanna go fastER, put he just plain thinks we ought to get to FAST. Kids.
But I did 3 miles today! In addition to the 2 miles I walked yesterday I'm already up to 5 miles! Tomorrow is a well deserved day off.

One week down

Well, I did it, I made it through my first week as a runner. I logged 9.5 miles this week of running or walking. At this rate, it would take me a week and a half to run a half marathon. :)
I think I can keep going next week. I'm still a little motivated. Next week I want to run in the double digits. I've decided that even though I am slow and I need to walk, that I can call myself a runner because when I want to stop, I keep on going; when I feel like I cannot go any farther, I push myself to do it anyway.

Getting a little more sore

We ran again last night. It was ok. I didn't feel as good after this run as I did the night before. I think that is because we ran a longer hill than is here in my neighborhood. Also, the kids were with us, and Nate isn't so fond of this. He wanted to go and play at the park more than he wanted to ride in the stroller. Also, he thinks that he should be able to run as well, so he never really wants to run. We did ok though. I think that today will just be a walk, and then on Saturday we will try a longer run. We'll see how I'm feeling. I hope that it only takes another week or so for my body to get used to this and stop being so sore all of the time. In the morning I can hardly walk down the stairs. A bit scary when you think that I am carrying Graham, and well, we all know how good I am at going down stairs...

I did it!

Well, last night was a running night. Jesse had a thing at work, so he was not able to leave until 6, which meant that we could not go running together since there was no way that Graham was going to be able to stay awake until 7:30. So Jesse sent me running by myself. So I thought that I wanted to see if I could jog an entire mile. There is a loop that my house is on that is .9 mile. So I set out, and I did it! And not only did I jog the entire loop without walking, I went for a second loop. I had no intention of jogging the entire second loop, but when I got to the hill where I thought I was going to walk, I thought, you know, I could run a little bit more, it's not like I'm on my death bed. And then when I got to the top I was about at the end, but then it was down hill, and it's easy to run when you're going down hill, so I kept on running, and then I was practically home, so I just pushed a little further. So I ran about 2 miles last night without stopping or walking. I was so proud of myself. And it only took me like 20 min. I don't know for sure how long it took because I forgot to time myself, but all the same, not too bad considering I don't think I have run 2 continuous miles in the past 8 years. Of course last night it was about 15 degrees cooler than it was on Monday night, and than it will be for the next month. That helped A LOT! So we'll see there could just be a runner in my after all.
Today my biggest complaint is that my back hurts, but I think I'm going to have to deal with that for a while longer. I have a lot of extra weight that I am carting around and that strains a back. I'll have to sit in the massage chair every day for a bit.
Also, for those of you runners, or ex-runners or wanna be runners, or people who just like to read a motivational sports story, the thing that gave me the desire to push through and run the whole way was reading the book, Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes. It's a pretty good book, and you should check it out. It really makes you think about the limits of your body and perhaps that you are being a little bit wimpy.

An Altercation

Ok, so today I did something I am ashamed of. I lost my temper with a child who vandalized my satellite dish. He was just a kid, maybe 5 or so, but I yelled at him, asking him who his parents were, and that they were going to have to pay for it, other things that I should not have put on a 5 year old. As it turned out the mother was near by. So she started yelling at me for yelling at her kid, and we went back and forth for a while, and pretty much I came away feeling awful, but all pumped up at the same time.
The problem was that this kid had like, hung on the arm of our dish, and had broken it, so the whole thing is going to have to be replaced, and I was thinking of what that was going to cost me. So I went in and called the police so that I could file a report. I didn't even know who this girl was. But she had been talking to my neighbors behind me, so I talked to them, and apologized for being such an obnoxious brat in public, and they were talking to me about how she is a bit of a bad parent, and on and on, and how I didn't need to apologize to them.
The thing is that my friends were here for quilting, so Colleen got in her car and followed her home, so that we could find out where she lived, and then I got more info from my neighbors. Then when I was out there taking a picture she came back and we had a civilized conversation where I apologized profusely for the completely inappropriate way in which I had acted. Anyway, it kind of ended better, but I had already called the police, so yeah. They came, and took a report. This way in case I needed to take an action later on, it would be ok.
Of course, the moron that I am, we don't have renter's insurance. It has always been on my to-do list, but never got done. You can be assured that tomorrow I'll be on the phone with State Farm. I called Dish, and they were going to send someone out, and it was going to cost me upwards of $300. And $99 of that was just for the visit. So I called these other people, who Dish contracts out to anyway, and had come out to fix our reception a few other times, and they were going to do the whole thing, visit and equipment, for $100. Plus, they were going to be here earlier.
Anyway, it's the first time I've ever done that, and I feel bad about it, and totally embarrassed. On the other hand, it made for quite an exciting quilting night. Jesse is at a movie today, so he's going to be excited when he gets home and sees that. I sent him a pic message. THe movie should be getting out any minute now...

Running for Non-Runners

Ok, so at BYU, there is this class called Swimming for Non-Swimmers. I always thought it was a bit of a humorous title for a class, but none the less, knew that I belonged in that class. I never did take it though. I think of it though as I start the next goal in my life, and that is to finally do something about all of the weight that I have gained. Jesse and I are finally putting good use to the jogging stroller; we are going to start running together.
When I graduated from college some 6 years ago I was a nice size 7. It was great. I really enjoyed looking at my flat stomach in the mirror, and well, I was happy about my body. 5 years of marriage and 2 babies later, I am tipping the scales at a tidy size 14. Yikes! How did I ever let it get this bad? (Well, the answer to that is that I am a world champion at being lazy.) I always think, I need to start a diet and start exercising. I even joined the YMCA for a while a few years ago. But money gets tight and so a family gym membership is not in the budget this year, so what is a mother of 2 supposed to do? Graham is still quite needy and has not mastered the art of self entertainment for more than a few minutes at a time. I got the jogging stroller, but then Graham started waking up early and taking an early nap, and Nate started waking up late. So these days Nate is just waking up when Graham is ready for his nap. I know, all weak excuses.
But then Jesse and I decided that we were going to run together when he gets home from work. It is by far not an ideal situation, but it's just about our only option.
The only problem is that I am what I would call a non-runner. It's not that I have never been a runner before, but I don't know that even when I was a "runner," I was actually a "runner." I ran cross country and track in High School, and that was ok. I wasn't really any good at it. Then when I was a freshman in college I had a great roommate who was always up for a run. Mary and I would go running regularly at 11pm or later. But then by Sophomore year we only got together a few times to run, even though we only lived 3 doors apart. And then I just kind of stopped running. I was still active, I would walk to and from campus a few times a day, and stuff like that, but that was the end of my running career.
Then I had Nate and well, running was just not an option for me, my body had forgotten it, and rebelled. I was officially a non-runner. When we joined the Y, I did the bike and the elliptical, not the treadmill. And that brings us to today.
So today was day 1. I was supposed to have quilting tonight, but it got moved to tomorrow night, so we moved our first day up to today from Wednesday. I was a little worried. I told Jesse that he had to run with me, no matter how many times I needed to stop and walk. On my previous attempts I came nowhere close to running a mile. I walked most of the way. Today, however, was different. I had found what I lacked before, a running partner. Just having someone there to witness me being a wimp was enough to motivate me. Today went much better than I had anticipated. We kept a slow easy pace, and I was able to run for much longer and farther than I had ever done before. We did well enough that Jesse talked about signing up for the half marathon this fall. The initial goal is to be in good enough shape to run the Baltimore half marathon next October. Maybe if thing go really well to run the marathon. I mean, what better way is there to get into shape than by training for a marathon? So I don't know about this year, I guess we'll have to see how long it is before I can do a mile without stopping.
So here I am, thrown into a sport I used to semi-enjoy, because let's face it, the only reason I did CC and Track was because it was a family tradition, and no one got cut from the team. We'll see where this takes me. Perhaps it will be easier than I think, and I'll be able to run a half marathon in 3 months. Crazier things have happened. At the very least, I can hope to get into a healthier lifestyle, and maybe lose a few pounds.

Correction

It was the neighbors behind us that called the police about our door being open. I talked to him today and he told me how his wife was very concerned about our door being open. Well, how nice of them. I never said they weren't nice people.

Neighbors Revisited

Ok, so I have blogged quite a bit about my neighbors here. Today I want to take the opportunity to update you on the goings on of our neighborhood.

First of all, our neighbors right next door to us are moving by the end of the summer. We are quite sad about that since they have been great neighbors.

Second, the people here really are quite nice to each other. For instance, on Saturday I was draining Nate's pool, which is like a 50 gallon thing. So there was a lot of water, and it was draining for at least an hour. During that time, our neighbors behind us (the ones who like to party and have a foul mouth,) and the neighbors next to us (the ones who are moving) both came over to let us know that we had water running from our deck. So how considerate.

Also, we went camping this past weekend, and me, being the space cadet that I am, forgot to close the door. I didn't forget to lock the door, but I did forget to close it. I wasn't sure that Jesse had his keys, so I didn't close it, and then we drove off without looking back. (Which is of course weird, because as we got into the car to pull out we were looking right at the open door, but just didn't notice it.) Anyway, when we got back on Saturday afternoon we found a note inside of our door saying that our neighbors were concerned that we had left our door open, so the police came by and locked it. It was probably Mrs. Louise, the old lady who lives to the other side of us, and is kind of a neighborhood watch. She I'm sure noticed that we were packing up, and then noticed that my car was gone, and then as she repeatedly went out to make sure that he car was locked, noticed our wide open door. She is observant like that. When I'm gone for the morning she always asks me where I have been, and when I leave she asks me where I'm going. She's nice, but in the early stages of Alzheimer's I believe. So we do have neighbors who are concerned for our well being.

Of course, there is always the other side. Mrs. Louise, whereas she is very nice and friendly, is a bit of a crazy driver. I guess there have been incidences. Well, we had one of those on Friday as we were packing up our car.



Yes, she knocked over the first section of our fence. I didn't see it, but Jesse was looking out the door as it happened. Apparently, she hit it, and paused for a second, and then just kept on driving. I haven't seen her since it happened, so we'll see what she says next time we see her. I'm just glad that I don't have to deal with it. I called my landlady, and she kind of laughed about it. She used to live in this house, so she is familiar with Mrs. Louise and all of her crazy antics.
Oh well, so this one goes out to all of the neighbors. Thanks for the concern, and keep on being crazy. It gives me something to blog about.

Project time

I made a quilt for Enrichment this month. We were having a service auction where we could bid for things that people had made or things they could do for us. I made this cute quilt. I needed practice doing a meandering stitch on my machine, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I think it turned out just fine.

Potty talk

Ok, so readers be warned, this post is all about the bathroom.
So this morning we went to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie. Which BTW, is pretty good. The only complaint that I really have, aside from ***SPOILER ALERT**** the whole alien thing ***END SPOILER ALERT*** is that the entire second half of the movie has water noises in it. This is unfortunate if you happen to have to use the bathroom.
So that brings me to the end of the movie. I went to use the restroom after the movie was over, and there were lids on the toilets. Which, in a normal restroom you would not expect any of the lids to ever be down. However, these were automatic flushing toilets. So the sensor will only go off if you close the lid. I immediately saw this as being the best idea to ever come to the public restroom. There are several problems that I can see are eliminated by employing this idea. First of all, the toilet will not flush until you are ready for it to. Always a plus. Also, those auto flushers are pretty powerful, so there is always a considerable amount of spray, and that is also eliminated. I feel pretty strongly about putting the lid down when you flush in any situation. When you flush the toilet it sprays teeny tiny little toilet waters all over the place- think about that the next time you brush your teeth. Anyway, here is a public restroom where I do not have to feel like I was covered in poo water by the time I exited the stall. So yeah, that only leaves the problem of the jerks who do not close the lid and cannot figure out why the toilet is not flushing.
Anyway, sorry of the nature of this post. But, it's my blog, so that's my right.

TV time

So here is the best quote I have heard on a tv show in a long time:
"I am polymerized tree sap, and you are an inorganic adhesive. So whatever projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns on its original trajectory and adheres to you."
- Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory"

More complaining

Ok, so as you know, I have some interesting neighbors. Now that the nice weather has arrived, we spend a lot more time outside, and so do our neighbors. Especially in the evening. We play in our back yard, and they sit out on their front porch. That is a common thing to do around here, just sit on your front porch. I can understand people who live downtown doing that, because there are always cars driving by, and probably interesting things happening. However, for all intents and purposes, we live on a court. And like a court without the circle. It's really just a shared driveway. Really, not much goes on down here. Anyway, our backyard borders their front yard.
So there have been several times as we have been outside or as we have had the door open that we can hear them talking. One day, and I don't think I'll forget this one in a while, I was inside and I heard one of my neighbors cleaning out her car, and her 5 year old was with her, and she started yelling at her kid, and she said at one point, "you'd better watch your (and at this point she inserted an unpleasant word) mouth." So it's a big case of do as I say, not as I do over there.
Anyway, as we were playing tonight, our neighbor had a visitor, and she and he were sitting on their porch talking, and talking rather loudly (They are of the talk loud enough so that everyone within a mile radius can hear you variety.) Anyway, so she is using some very unpleasant language, like really bad stuff, and using a lot of it. To give you an idea, within just a few minutes, I was thrown straight into an R rated movie. Now, I don't want to hear that stuff, but I especially don't want my 3 year old to hear that stuff. He repeats just about everything. Anyway. I just am sad that common courtesy has exited from society these days. So I guess that's just one of the fun things about living in this neighborhood. Oh well. Life goes on.

Chaps my hide

So today I was driving by my local fire station. This is the same station that I bought a Christmas tree from last year. It was a little more expensive than I had wanted it to be, but I figured that it went to a good cause, so it would be ok.
Today I found out what that "good cause" was.
Was it a new fire truck which literally costs a million dollars? Was it new gear for the fighters, which costs $100,000 per fighter? Was it new tools? Was it for training for the fighters?
Close.
It was for a new sign in the front entrance. You know, with those television screens like you see in sports arenas- on both sides! This sign is probably the nicest one in the city now. It has the one at the mall beat by a zillion miles.
So seriously- this is what you are going to use my money for?
Now, I like giving to charity. It makes me feel good. I wish I had more money so that I could do more. However, I also feel like I want to stipulate where my money goes to. Has anyone seen Stranger than Fiction. Where the Maggie Gyllenhaal character only wants to pay taxes if they go to the things she agrees with? I kind of feel that same way, except that I pay all of my taxes. But I don't want to give to BYU these days because I want all of my money to go to scholarships, not to building new sports plexes. Ok, they could use my money to make the buildings up to the new earthquake codes too. But not new sports buildings that affect the people who only see college as a segue to professional sports.
So I guess that makes me only a sort of good person. I'll give, but only if I can be judgemental about the things that they do with my money. BUt isn't that kind of my right? If I had stock in a company I would get a say in what they did with the company wouldn't I? (Once again, I am getting this information from a movie- Mr Deeds. I'm in a movie mood today aren't I?)
So that's it. I just wanted to complain about how the fire station used my money, and say that next year we will not be buying our Christmas tree from them.

A Love Story

So I don't recall the first time I ever had a Harry and David Truffle. I do recall when I fell in love with them. It was last summer. My mom had some at her house and I had a few, and decided that out of all of the vice foods you can have, (is that a valid phrase?) this is one of the best. I was at the time living with my in-laws, and about to go crazy. So one day my sister in law and I were at the outlets and we decided to stop by Harry and David. They had truffles on sale, so I picked up a few bags. The sales lady mentioned that they freeze really well, and I said, freeze them? Are you crazy? Aside from the fact that I was pregnant, and starting my latest phase of stress eating, (which has lasted almost a year now- yikes!) I was a little concerned that if they got put into the freezer where I was living, they would be eaten by someone other than me. It's not that I mind sharing food, it's just that these are well, Harry and David Truffles. I grudgingly shared them with Jesse with a firm warning that if he ate more than one at a time they would be hidden from him. These are not the kind of food that you snack on. This is not like when I grab a handful of Hershey's kisses to eat while watching tv (can anyone guess why I have put on so much weight in the past 5 years?) These are to be savored. Just last night I had one, and then Jesse offered me something else to eat, and I turned him down because I still had the glorious taste of truffle in my mouth and was not ready to end that.
So anyway, we went up to the outlets this past weekend, and stopped by good old H&D, and picked up a few bags of truffles. (One of them did make it into the freezer this time.) And there you have it, my love affair continues. They stay upstairs, because I'll be honest, these days I feel like stress eating all day long. Mint ones are my favorite, and I am always saddened by the fact that they do not sell bags of just mint ones, however, the mixed bag that has mint in it makes all of them taste a little minty. So that is nice.
So your homework assignment is to go and procure yourself a Harry and David Truffle if you have never had one. It always leads to good times.

Lizzie

So yesterday we came home from church to find that Lizzie had left us a little surprise. As it turned out, Jesse had left the door to the storage room closed last night which is where her littler box is, so she could not get to it. As a result she had to do her business elsewhere. However, smart cat that she is, do you know where she picked to be her make-shift litter box? Our bathroom, right in front of the toilet. What a smart cat. If only the lid was up... Meet the Parents anyone....?

Duckie curtains

So a month or so ago I decided that I really needed curtains in the baby's room. I would rock him in the middle of the day, and the sun would shine right through the blinds and into his eyes. After shopping around I figured that with the coupon I had, I could buy the fabric and make the curtains for much cheaper than I could buy them pre-made for. Also, they would be a cuter fabric than what I could buy. So I went to my local quilt shop where I had a coupon for 50% off one cut of fabric. That was a pretty good deal for me since I wanted to buy 8 yards of fabric. I went to JoAnn's and I bought some backing fabric (once again using a 40% off coupon) and then I got to work.
I have decided the curtains are not fun to make at all. They turned out ok, and looking at them from a distance they are fine. It's only when you look closely that you notice that one panel is longer than the other, the side hemming is a little crooked, etc. etc.
But I was proud of myself. I had never attempted curtains before, and lined ones was a pretty ambitious way to start.
So that was a while ago. I just now got the pictures up.
In other news, Nate has been falling out of bed lately. It's unfortunate because we just moved his bed to the other side of the room, so the side of the bed where he is used to having a wall now is just empty. It's a good thing it's not a long fall. So now we either need to turn his bed around, or we need to put a rail up. I'll let you know how things pan out.

Just so you know

Just so you know, when you come to my house, you have to be really careful when walking down the stairs. Yes, I'm a dork, I fell down the stairs again last night. Not carying anything, not doing anything tricky, just plain old walking down the stairs. Apparently I need to get down, turn around and go down backwards on my hands and knees as going down forward is not a skill I have mastered yet.
On a happier note- Nate has not started singing along to the heavy metal music that goes along with Jesse's video game that Nate likes to play. Yea.

sisters

So my sister is in town, and she has her kids with her. One day I was talking to her 4 year old daughter, and I said, "did you know that when we were little, your mommy was really mean to me all of the time?" And she thought about this for a minute, and then she said, "oh, so you were sisters then?"
That is a girl who does not need a little sister.

Memory Lane

Well, since Katie and Mary have reminded me of the walk by, and then Maris did her blog about favorite childhood memories, I have decided that it is time to reminisce.
Freshman year we had a lot of good times. We were 6 strangers put together by chance, but stayed together by choice. (Ok, we didn't actually stay together as roommates- but we did stay friends.) One of the best things that we did freshman year, aside from pull down our pants in front of missionaries, was the walk by. I don't remember how it started or why we thought of doing it, so you who will remember will have to help me out on the details that I am foggy on. But it was a Sunday afternoon, and there was nothing else to do, so we thought we would start calling random numbers in the BYU directory and see who we found. We only called numbers that we knew were in boys dorms. I guess we wanted to see these guys without actually having to meet them, so we asked them to walk by our window. Our big kitchen window looked out onto one of the main roads, and there was a grassy spot by it, so it was pretty perfect. So we called probably half a dozen guys and scheduled them to walk by. And that's it, we just wanted them to walk by our window.
Some of them came prepared with songs and what not. I guess when we were done with them we called out the window and dismissed them. We sat with the lights out in our kitchen peeking through the blinds at those people who had showed up. One group was singing to us while the rest of our ward started walking by headed to ward prayer. So of course, the whole ward, even the bishopric knew that we were the home of the walk by.
Anyway, this does no justice. It's hard to tell a good story when your kids are distracting you.
So one more story for this time. This came junior year. We hung out all of the time with this one apartment of boys, and they were kind of our standing weekend plans. One day however, they decided that they wanted to take dates out. So they were all gone one night, leaving us high and dry. So we decided it was prank time. We got someone who worked in the office to let us into their apartment. We went to the laundry room and got some lost and found clothes and we stuffed them with newspaper and made people. They had blown up rubber gloves for hands, balloons with glued on yarn for hair. We then positioned them so that they were making out on the couches in the boys apartment. We had I think 2 couples. We put on some great disco make out music, and put up a bunch of decorations. I think we even had a disco ball up and streamers. We put up a sign that said welcome to the love shack. We were really hoping that the guys would bring their dates back to the apartment. I don't know if they ever did though.
We did get caught though. One of the guys did not go on the dates with them, and he came home while we were in his apartment decorating. He thought it was funny though, so he kept quiet for us. The guys of course knew that it was us that had done it and it was all fun and games. But that is certainly one Friday night out of my life that was not wasted.
So there are some memories. I figure that these blogs are an imprint in the world, and a pretty easy way to record what my life has been like. I always liked hearing the crazy things that my mom did while she was in college, because it reminds me that she did silly things that you would never do if you were not in college, just like I did. So maybe in the years to come (especially if I ever have a girl) I can share some of my favorite memories that will remind her that she has a legacy of doing stupid silly things while in college. So it's just a little diversion from the norm, but you get what you pay for.

Past projects

So it's project recap time. This first picrture is one of the valentines that I made for Nate's valentine party. We were having a little party for the kids in conjunction with one of their birthday's. The emails were flying around about celebrating V-Day, and putting out valentines for all the kids, and some of the other mom's were complaining a little bit. Well, it has long been the joke in my group that I am a bit of an over achiever. It started when one day when we were still a new group that I mentioned at night Nate only ate on one side, so I pumped the other side while he was eating. Well, they were all amazed at that, but the only reason I had said anything was because I had heard the idea from someone else at the group. So then they found out that I quilt, and they joked that I would quilt while I was nursing, and there soon became a long list of things that I did while nursing. (ps, I tried the quilting while nursing thing, just to see how it would work, and it doesn't.)
So here I am nursing again, and the jokes have started again. So Amy makes a comment that she is sure that I am going to make some quilted valentines while I am nursing. And that got me thinking, wouldn't it be hilarious if I actually showed up with quilted valentines? It wouldn't be so hard to do, just fold some fabric in half, I can quilt on my machine, and I even have a free motion foot, so I could do more than just straight lines. I cut some hearts out with my sizzix die cutter, and voila! Quilted valentines.

This one is a placemat that I made for my mom for her birthday. I got the idea from my friend Jana, who makes cute placemats, and I looked at them and thought, I could do that. Plus, each week when I go to my mom's house she has out these old woven placemats that are coming apart at the corners, so I figure she could use some new ones. When we celebrated her birthday I didn't have them all done. I had just decided to make them earlier that week, so by the time Saturday rolled around I was finishing binding the first one that morning. So she opened it up, and it was ONE placemat, and of course what do you do with only one? But I promised her that more would come.

Also, that morning I had wrapped the gift, and Nate saw it on the table, and he of course wanted to open it because it wants to open all gifts. I went to take the wrapping paper upstairs, and I thought, if I leave that on the table, he will probably open it, but I still left it on the table. Sure enough, as I was feeding Graham a few minutes later, I start to hear a rip rip from the other room. I just taped it back together and gave it to mom anyway. I figured it gave it character.

I've been tagged

Ok, for the first time in my blogging history I have been tagged. It's a reading thing. It's a good thing I read.
Here are the instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3.Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people

The last book that I read was Harry Potter #7, and that was pretty close.
Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at one another.
"A surprise apparently! You were not aware then that Dumbledore had left you anything?"
"A-all of us?" said Ron. "Me and Hermione too?"

As for who I tag, I don't know about 5, but I do tag Jana, cause she always has some sort of fun book that she is reading.
Plus, she introduced me to a very funny blog today: stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
Check it out. It's hilarious. it's free, so you get more than you pay for.

More on my neighbors

Ok, so one of my favorite past times is to watch out my dining room window. Not much really goes on out there. I do look out onto the parking lot of the naughty kids school, and a week or so ago an am-blance came to the school and I wondered if someone had smuggled in like a shiv or something.
My neighbors also are unusually active for it being the middle of the day, and there are always people coming and going. These are the ones that I'm pretty sure do drugs in their shed, yet must be ok people due to the decorations that sometimes appear at their front door.
So today I was watching out my window and these two skinny white kids show up. It seemed like they were expected, but they seemed awfully out of place. They were wearing pseudo-suits, and carying books. They seriously looked like impostor missionaries. Anyway, as they show up and were trying to get in the door I had a movie moment. It was one of those moments where you want to scream to the screen- Don't go in there! They did go in (and I have to say, they kind of looked surprised that they got in.) and I suppose they are ok. I never saw them exit, but it's more of a hobby than a full time job, so I wasn't really paying that much attention to watch for them to leave.
Anyway, it all just felt a little Rear Window-ish. But now it's time to go and put the crazy one to bed, so it's a little scary today, but you get what you pay for.

Happy Shrove Tuesday

Well, I am not Catholic, but I sure do love it when Shrove Tuesday comes along. Today was a little bittersweet. I love to have donuts on this festive holiday, but today I was reminded of a very sad even that happened a year ago this month.
Jesse and I were planning on going to his parents house that day, and we were leaving town sometime mid-afternoon, and we saw a large plume of dark smoke from down the street. It was such that we knew at once that a large building was on fire, and it looked like it was coming from this little shopping center that had several stores that we had gone to. As we were leaving town we commented that we hoped that it was not that particular shopping center.
That night on the news we saw that it was indeed the shopping center down the street from us. It was the place where we went to Quizno's and most importantly, it was the place that we went to Dunkin' Donuts.
The Dunkin' Donuts had burned down.
It was the saddest day ever.
And so here I was today, faced with the desire to obtain some Dunkin' Donuts, and instead of going 1/4 mile down the road (I can see the empty burned out shell of the shopping center from our new house.) I had to go half-way through town to get some. It wasn't so much the drive that was bad, it was just the sorrow of losing something like a good friend that got to me.
So there you have it, a bittersweet day for us. We are excited for the day that they rebuild the shopping center. It has been almost a year, and it is still just a frame. Oh well, I guess I'll survive until then, and it's probably nice not to have the temptation that close. So that's it, it's not the key to universal happiness but you get what you pay for.

Update

Well, here is a little update on my fall yesterday. After it happened, pretty much my whole body hurt. I hit just about every appendage I had. Today I am not as sore as I thought I would be, but my neck hurts a lot. When I fell my head flew back, and I hit the back of my head on a stair. My bum hurts a lot too. The most annoying part was that I woke up this morning with vertigo. It's much better this afternoon though. Anyway, I guess that's it. I'm just in a bit of pain today.
On a completely different subject. Lizzie is not a cat to come and sit on your lap. In fact, she has not done that in over a year. Right now, as I have a computer on my lap, she decided that it would be a good time to come and start being a lap cat. Silly cat. Oh well, you get what you pay for. (And we didn't pay for her.)

Am I a Freak?

Ok, so the obvious answer to that question is, yes, I am. However, I will tell you the reason of the day.

So I was lying on the floor with Graham one day, and he was lying on one of his quilts. As I get down to take some pictures of him I see this stray thread on his quilt, and my first thought was- how cool, that thread is a perfect ampersand. My second thought was- if I take a picture of that, I can write about it in my blog. So there you have it. You probably have to click on the photo in order to see it big enough to actually see the thread, but well, what can I say, the ampersand is my favorite symbol. So I know, it's a bit random, but you get what you pay for.

Oops, I did it again

Well, today I fell down the stairs again. This is the 3rd time in about 4 months. This is also by far the worst fall of them all. Thankfully none of the falls have been that bad. Just leave me quite sore. I'm also glad that I am no longer pregnant, so that is not a danger.
The last two falls have occured on my basement steps. I believe they may steeper than a normal flight of steps, but for sure the carpet on them is slippery. My foot slips while walking down them on a regular basis. I am quite excited that we finally got a railing installed, but all the same, when I am carring the laundry basket downstairs, a railing does me no good.
Anyway, I just a little battered today, and I hope it doesn't hang around. I took some of my left over post-partum pain meds, so we'll see how well those work. So that's it, it's not world hunger, but you get what you pay for.

My Christmas Projects

Ok, so I have officially started a new family blog, so this one will have fewer family stories, and will be more my random thoughts. I will also share some of my projects that I have worked on, you know, on account of it being called losing my needles.

This Christmas I found a pattern by Art to Heart called Glad Tidings I think. Anyway, I was attracted to it because it had a pattern for an Advent calendar. I didn't have an advent calendar, and I really wanted one. This one was really cute, and it was a nativity scene to boot. So I was pretty happy about that. I think it turned out pretty cute.

In this pattern book there was also a pattern for a wall hanging called a button up quilt. Obviously because there were buttons and stuff. Anyway, I was totally ambitious this winter, and in addition to having a baby at the start of December, I decided that I was going to make this for myself, and as a Christmas present to my sister in law Heather, since we had her family for Christmas this year, and also one for my mom. I think that they turned out pretty good. (Of course I am going to say that though, since I will probably not post the results of something that I totally messed up on.)


The last thing that I made was a little tiny quilt. I put it on the table, and it was just a tiny nativity quilt.
Anyway, they were actually pretty easy to make, it was all iron-on transfer stuff, so that was nice. Plus, when you make a bunch at once, it really is not that much more effort than making one. So there is my latest project that I have worked on. I think that I may start working on a stocking for Graham. I need to order 2 more so that I can make new ones for Jesse and I so that we can all have matching stockings. I could easily do that by next Christmas. Anyway, when I finish that, I'll let you know. So that's it. My blog has officially taken a turn, and is perhaps more of what I intended it to be, and as always you get what you pay for.

A Memorial Quilt

So, as you can guess from the name of the blog, I like to sew. Most specifically, I like to quilt. It is one of my favorite things to do, and I really wish that I could make a living by doing it. Unfortunately, people are not all that willing to pay what a quilt would be worth.
So in my quilting group, we started to make quilts for everyone who is having a baby. It started a year ago, when Debbie had her baby. That one was a surprise. She didn't know we were doing it. Since then most of the rest of us have had babies (all of us in the quilting group) and we have made quilts for each one.
So about 2 months ago tragedy hit our little play group. Our friend Rebecca delivered a still born at 37 weeks. We had already started a quilt for her, and we didn't know quite what to do with it. We didn't know if she would want to have the reminder or if it would be like a slap in the face: here is a quilt for the baby you will not have. But we thought about her and how she was handeling things, and we decided that she would like to have the quilt. So we finished it, and today we were able to give it to her.
When she hugged me when we gave her the quilt, I don't remember a time when I have been hugged so tightly. I'm just really glad that we gave her this quilt. I think that it is something nice to help her remember how much she loved this little girl that she was never able to have. I feel like I was able to do something extra nice for a friend today, and that made it a really good day. It was sad, yes, but at the same time, it was a moment that I am glad happened.

My new stroller

So now that Graham has come along, I need a double stroller. I have thought a lot about it, and I decided that I wanted the Phil and Ted double stroller. Unfortunately it is $500. So I decided that I needed to think of something else. I just didn't want a full tandem because they are so long, and I didn't want a side by side, because I have heard they can be tricky to get through some doors. So I saw this sit and stand stroller, and i thought I'd try it out. Nate is a little older now, and he is a pretty good little kid. He isn't so much of a flight risk unlike some of my friend's kids who have tried this kind of stroller and not had it work.
So I got a gift card from Target, and I found one that they had. I had to drive all the way out to Hagerstown to get it since the Target in town didn't have it in stock. But, I went and it was on sale, so I ended up only paying about $45 for this double stroller. It is small when it folds up, so it fits into my small car, and basically I love it. I mean, it's a double stroller, so it's big, but I took it for a test run around the block before naps today, and it worked out just fine.
So there is the latest addition to my family. I'm pretty excited that I got it on such a great deal. So it's not much, but this time I got way more than I payed for.

"I'm busy!"

So today I was feeding Graham and Jesse was in charge of Nate, but Jesse wanted to go downstairs. That shouldn't be a big deal since that is where most of Nate's toys are, including the new train table which he loves to play with. But Nate didn't want to go downstairs, he wanted to watch "Cars." So Jesse kept on telling him to come downstairs, finally resorting to his own language and repeating "Nate come!" So Nate gets fed up and yells, "I'm busy!" back in a very exasperated voice.
So then Jesse tried to get him to repeat this feat on video and as soon as the video was rolling when told to come, Nate came. When the video was off and Jesse told him what to say, he would say it. Then the camera ran out of battery life, and Jesse walks downstairs and one last time tells Nate to come, and once again the "I'm busy!" comes out. So it was pretty funny. Our little 2 year old is growing up more every day.
In other news, we had Macaroni Grill for dinner. Yum!! I will be killing myself for getting the cheese stuffed pasta and eating ice cream in a few hours when Graham is up screaming with gas all night, but it sure was good while it lasted. So that's it. It's not brain surgery, (It's not even cross stitch) but you get what you pay for.

Happy New Year

Well, it's been a while, and we did have a good holiday dispite the fact that my presents were not pretty. Let's be honest, it's what's inside that counts. I got many cool new kitchen things. I'm on a silicone kick lately. I got some muffin pans, as well as many kitchen utensils with silicone tips. I am excited to use them. I do have to say that I don't have to do much cooking these days. First the church brought by meals for almost 2 weeks after Graham was born, then my friends brought meals, and then we had the holidays. We got together with the Markhams several times due to family being in town. I even had a friend bring a meal by today. I believe that it is coming to an end though. Unless everyone wants to go on round two. Anyone...?
So yeah, in the next week I'll start cooking again. Since we will be on diets, we will be having a lot of chicken and rice, so I'll get to use my new tongs on the grill pan that I have. Yea!
Graham has decided that he will be awake a bit more, and he really prefers to be held while he is awake. Can you blame him? It is his survival mechinism to make sure he is not forgotten or left behind. He also has decided that he would like to cry most of the evening. So blog time will be a bit more sparce these days.
I do have plans to start a family blog. It will not be searchable from the public, so I will post photos and have more personal stuff on it. So look for that in the next month. If I have your email address, then you should get an email about it when I finally set it up.
Anyway, wanted to let all of my fans know that I am still here and surviving being a mommy to 2. Not much going on here, but you get what you pay for.