Swiss Cheese Soul

It's 2:30 in the morning and I haven't slept a wink. I believe I am suffering from a Swiss Cheese Soul at the moment. You must know what I mean. When you're soul has taken a lot of hits during the day, and you're the one who has poked out most of the holes. Allow me to illustrate -

Hole #1:

I wrote my "To-Do-Before-Baby-Arrives" list and am totally overwhelmed with how I am supposed to redecorate, contact every long lost friend, and dust my basement in the next 21 days. And yes, I am partially serious. The dry wall men came today and did a fine job of hanging the walls downstairs. However, they did not hang plastic to protect the rest of the area. In the process we developed a lovely coat of fine white powder on everything from laundry room to wreaths, not to mention however much will move in upstairs with us.

But wait! That's not a very good example. Let me try again to explain SCS...

Hole #2:

I emotionally barfed over friends today while revealing a tad bit too much of how I was feeling at the moment about one or twenty or so situations.

Hole #3:

Ah yes, here's a big one -- I spontaneously handed over my quasi loved-hated position of leading my Sunday School class in the heat of a discussion. This ultimately should be a relief, but I am feeling more like I gave my puppy away. Will it miss me? Will I ever see it again? Pathetic!!

Holes #4, 5, 6 & 7:

My belly is so big it almost hurts to turn over in bed, my feet feel dry and no amount of lotion is helping, everyone in the WORLD is sleeping but me, and we have no more ice cream!!!!!!!!

Guess who is the center of her universe at moment and apparently has her fingers in a few holes?

Lord, please shine Your light through these goofy holes and fix what I have poked out. Better to be a window with your character shining through than just a blob of stink'n smelly cheese.

Dad's Stuff and the Dreaded Basement

I can count on one hand the number of friends who have actually been in our basement. It's usually under tight security and off limits for fear someone may suggest us to that TV show about hoarders. With our baby making the big debut in mere weeks, my husband and I have grown a few wild hairs! The craziness has driven me to finally clear out stuff, and the few hairs you might find on him have caused a giddy momentum which will end in the form of a playroom. (Are those angels I hear singing?!)

I remember thinking I was the bomb riding behind my dad on this.

Just picture little Kristin with knee socks & a long pony tail flying in the wind!

You are going to think I am nuts, but my dad's 1977 Yamaha motorcycle has been sitting in our unfinished basement for nearly 12 years. I know it's rather pathetic, but I couldn't junk the thing and I actually thought my sister and I might make a few tens if we sold it. As an executor of Dad's estate or even more likely, the proud owner of a once empty basement, I took in this childhood memento and "project" of my dad's thinking it would find a new home soon. I never dreamed I would get so used to it that it would not even register on my radar when I scanned the basement. Makes me wonder what else I intentionally overlook in my life?? Hmm... Another topic for another day. All this to say our friend David has HAPPILY adopted my daddy's motorcycle! Yay!! No tens in hand, but Dad would be happy and I can now rest in peace. (I know my highly organized friends are rolling in their graves!) Haha -- OK, I'll stop.

My sister also spent Saturday afternoon with me pouring through boxes marked with our names or "Dad". We purposefully avoided this job due to the tremendous amount of papers to go through -- boxes and boxes. It's been easier to avoid than tackle. However, enough time has passed that finding my dad's infamous "to-do" lists in his handwriting, calendars, awards, certificates, information on our childhood homes, etc. was actually fun! We even found dozens of our homemade cards we had created for him. To top off the treasure hunt, glazed ceramic bowls carefully engraved with our elementary school pencils surfaced after years of being shrouded in newspaper. My dad was so sweet to keep those on his dresser all the time they were in his possession! We sorted through boxes of books, found my sister's childhood diaries (talk about a HOOT!!), but the most tender part was finding Dad's pipes. Amazing how a smell can open the flood gates. The aroma of Captain Black's pipe tobacco brought back a ton of memories from camping trips to sitting on the front porch with him.

The hours spent sorting and pitching, sighing and laughing were a good thing for Aimee and I to do together, especially during Father's Day weekend. It even made all the storing worth the procrastination!

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Happy Father's Day!

Mommy, Caroline Grace, Jackson, and "Sandwich" love you so much, Daddy!

We are thankful for you!


"Sandwich" was nicknamed by the kids about 4 months ago when the baby was the size of a sandwich!
We don't know if it's a PB&J or turkey & cheese just yet.
We'll find out in 30 days -- July 20th!

Here is one of my favorite love letters: http://www.fathersloveletter.com/video.html

My Life and My Men

I had two dates today! Nope. It's not my birthday or even my anniversary, and they did not include my mom, thank you very much.

Date #1:
After my youngest boyfriend and I hit the specialty stores in the metropolis of Fork Union, he suggested we have tacos for lunch. Voila! There we were moments later looking at one another eyeball to eyeball in our cowboy themed booth just the two of us. I taught him how to handle his taco and eat over his plate, and he taught me that he can count to 5 in Spanish! Who knew?! Mucho gracias, Dora! My little Jackaroo and I need to get out more often.

Date #2:
You know you are (a) in a rural area, (b) desperate to get out, and (c) a parent in need of romance when you and your sweetie eagerly head to the Ruritan Lodge to hear a dentist speak, and you call it a date night. Picture the scene -- little concrete building, old fan from the '40s whirring in the background, ancient newspaper articles framed along the wall... The secret life of a lodge! Donald and I had the best time laughing at ourselves! The dentist is actually a dear friend and a significant number of beloveds from church are members of this Lodge, thus the invitation. Our friend Jay did a beautiful job presenting his practice and I'm really inspired by all the Ruritans do for our community. It was wonderful and thankfully, we didn't have to wear moose horns to get in. Donald and I nudged knees under the table, I had the company of the county's most handsome elderly men, all with a free ham dinner ta-boot! Always fun to feel like you've stepped into a novel of some kind.

SURPRISE! I've had over a year's hiatus and I have to admit I have not missed blogging. What I have missed is looking back on the past year and remembering all those precious details and highlights that fade all too quickly to the back of my mind. I can see where keeping a blog is a personal gift to moi, so I am trying desperately to get back into the groove of digital memory keeping.

It's funny how heart felt conversations can turn resistance around pretty quickly. I was sharing some serious convictions with good friends about how blogging can portray the facade of a perfect life. I am certainly guilty of putting my best out there and leaving the junk behind. I suppose that would be the point! If I kept an old fashioned album my sticky pages would not be holding the photo ops from my worst days. So that gave me some freedom to start up again. But, then I realized I only became a touch sensitive or maybe even competitive, thus my "convictions", when I spent too much time reading complete strangers' blogs and measuring myself to them. Oh Nelly!! I was allowing this trap to rob me from a personal joy. What a sucker! I do confess to enjoying my friends' blogs when I take a moment to indulge, but that's because I enjoy my friends and know their hearts. Anyhow, I am getting sidetracked...

So I have given myself some reasonable goals for diving in once again, mainly to stay on top of archiving our memories and capture this very important upcoming season in our lives. I also knew I was ready to write again when I couldn't sleep due to all the lists and comments and stories I wanted to record just from that week.

Ready, set... I'm jumping in!

Snow Day!

Today was such a blast!! We woke up to a good 9 inches of frozen fluff outside! I love the silence and brightness that fills our home when we get a good snowfall. The kind that makes you think you're living in a cloud. To make our day complete, my darling stayed home from work to play with us, and get this, stayed outside almost 2 hours longer than the kids and I to finish his snow tunnel. We did all sorts of snowy day things like make hot chocolate with too many mini-marshmallows. D made chocolate chip cookies too. (Is he the best or what?) Jacks and I had fun walking in the snowplow tracks on the road. Miss Caro made snow angels and did experiments with measuring the snowfall. (Can't help it; I'm a teacher...)
The highlight though =drum roll= was my SNOW ICE CREAM! Whoo-hoo! I am still so excited about it! Now, my Moms Club friends will be thinking, "Seriously," because we have had so many of these recipes float through our posts for years, but my little people and I have never taken the plunge. So today was the day, and friends, if you need a recipe this is THE one! If you can get past the mashed potato look to them and think in terms of eggnog, you may be in line to be just as delighted as me! The Snow Ice Cream Recipe

2½ cups milk

2 beaten eggs

1 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Cook until a slight custard is formed and then cool.

Pour the custard over one gallon of fresh, clean snow and stir until thick.

Side Note:

This is an excellent way to squeeze in the all important life lesson on yellow snow.

Jack Jumps Over His 2nd Candlestick!

The line every parent has in their handbook is, "It goes by so fast!" There are some days this could be meant as a polite encouragement to hang in there, but on days like today it is more of a lament. Two years ago this day our little guy arrived with lungs singing as clear as the truth ringing through that phrase. I admit, those all too familiar words are causing my joy to sting a bit this evening. Today was one of those treasured days I would love to capture. I was extra aware of how my little baby boy has somehow slipped into little dude-hood. As I cleaned the bright red, lipstick polka dots he added to our blase tan couch this morning, I tried to remember him like this...

And later in the afternoon as I scrubbed his very fancy signature a la Sharpie Marker from our floor, last year's birthday-cake-smeared smile came to mind...

My friends and I were saying there is something to this "terrible two" phenomena. It is "terrible to" see a momma sweating the small stuff and forgetting this is what little boys are made of, because time does seem to fly. The poem that comes to mind says something about "puppy dog tails"and "snails," which is a detail I never really cared for, but shouldn't the author have found a way to include the word graffiti?! Oh! And how could one forget cars, trucks, planes, helicopters, boats.... To me, my little boy's complete fascination and awe of anything with wheels blows my mind.

I am truly amazed that he can correctly identify every motorized sound in our little part of the universe. So of course, to make his day complete I wanted to give my little darling his very own dump truck birthday cake. Voila!

Humbly, I apologize for the envy my very sophisticated, state of the art Caterpillar centerpiece may cause. Maybe we should legislate to ensure that every tot has his own collection of construction trucks construed with glitter and bling for special celebrations. =Oops. Momentary slip.=

I may remember Jackson's 2nd birthday not as the truck birthday, but more like the sports gear birthday! Another fun reminder: Bye-bye stacking rings and hello balls! (I had no idea baseballs come in all sorts of sizes!) He was so tickled!

Grammy and Grandma are two of my favs who like to remind me of "how fast" our babes grow. There are so many exciting moments ahead!! But I would still like to put a bookmark in time every now and then.

Last night's family birthday party for our little dude would be a great place to revisit once in a while. Or today, a one of a kind strand of moments smooshed between newly decorated furniture and flooring. (Albeit, they are one of a kind now, just like my little guy!)

Happy 2nd birthday, precious Jackson.

Your silly mommy loves you so!