dream houses and flat chests

I never had Barbie dolls when I was growing up. I played with my friends' dolls and such, but never had one of my own. My mom wanted to make sure I had a good self-esteem and didn't want the Barbie body-image to get to me. I'm sure she had other reasons too. (Sorry Mom, my body image and self-esteem are pretty bad but I'm still with you on the Barbie thing.) I had lots of Skipper dolls -- Barbie's flat-chested cousin, maybe? -- and Flower Kids and Cabbage Patch kids and every My Little Pony accessory known to man...or woman, but no stick-figure Barbie. And, except for one or two occasions, it didn't seem to bother me.

My favorite accessory to all of my dolls and toys was the pink dream house for My Little Pony. I move into my new dream house a week from today. One week. Whew - I am so excited! My mom is excited too because she finally gets to rid her attic of old toys like, well, Skipper. Skipper and I go way back and share the curse of flat-chestedness, but we'll walk into that new house together....Only she'll be at the bottom of a box somewhere and I'll be holding the hands of the two most important boys in my life. Let the fun begin...or, shall I say, continue!

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Come on in, the ice is nice!

You could literally host the Olympics on our driveway right now. Curling, the interesting sport that it is, could easily be held right next to our house. The ice that covers it is laughable - it's a huge danger zone and you risk your very life every time you step out of our side door. We're snowed in through our back door and we can't use our front door because the steps are painted and you'd break your neck with just one step.

I love the Mentalist. I know that came out of nowhere but I'm watching the adorable Simon Baker right now. Second random topic of the day: I need a makeover. I'm banking on winning a free makeover at my mom's group next month. I don't play the lottery and I've got a slim shot at winning but a girl can dream, can't she? No more writing for now...need to concentrate on my big girl show for the day.

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monsterous surprise!

my husband surprised me by coming home a day and a half early from his business trip. yahoo! the greatest part is that he surprised me at work by showing up and bringing monster too. i was so surprised that i got a little dizzy.

so after marathon works days for both of us and a very tired little man who hit the bed hard tonight, we snuggled in for a long winter's night on the couch. i took the middle, tim got the right side...both with our work laptops sitting on our laps. we couldn't have been more settled not to move for the next several hours UNTIL (bumm bumm bummmm) we saw the tv remote sitting neatly on the shelf. and clearly out of reach for the both of us. we both saw it and realized it at the same time. guess who got up to retrieve it? yep, and i've never used so much energy in my life to walk 2.5 steps for something. how sad, sad, sad is that.

today, some of my student workers were discussing in depth what they were giving up for lent. this conversation lasted 8-10 minutes or so. there was a short break in their conversation and then one of them said, 'what is lent anyway'? snot nearly flew out of my nose, i laughed so hard. (isn't it hard to stop laughing when you really need to? or to conceal it completely?) thank goodness my phone rang as my laughter nearly erupted and i was snapped back to reality. if it means nothing to you, why do it? i'm talking about anything in life, including religion. i just feel like less and less people think for themselves these days. maybe it's always been this way but i'm actually seeing it now. i'm not saying i'm not guilty of the same thing sometimes. just noting something.

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Dread and Brilliance

It's nearly time for my husband to leave on another business trip and I'm secretly and quietly starting to dread it. Tomorrow, I'll show outward signs of dreading it and then come Monday, the whole world will know of my sadness. Wahhhhh! The first few hours are the saddest...and then I morph into survival-mode momma. I've got some stressful days at work ahead and it's days like that, that cause me to worry for a split-second that I forgot to put my pants on as I'm taking my coat off at work. Does anyone else have that thought come into their mind at odd times during the day?

 Switching subjects completely, let's talk music. I was listening to a CD my husband made me back in College - back when he was still trying to impress me : ) Every song brought back a flood of memories and I laughed out loud pretty much the whole time I listened to it. We were such babies back then. Wow - how time flies. That is so cliche, and yet so true.

My sister made a CD for me a few months back, and then a very close friend of mine gave one to me last week...both of which made my day. I can't think of a more fun, personal and thoughtful gift than someone putting music together with you in mind. Brilliant! Thanks, girlies!!! I love my new tunes - now if I can only get TJ to let me listen to them when he's in the car (which is 99% of the time). Then the world would turn a little bit more smoothly.   : )

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Series of Fortunate Events

Unfortunately, when things start happening like crazy around here - it makes for great content to write about, but no time to do it in! My mental notepad doesn't have a backup drive and I end up forgetting half of what I was going to write about. So here I am, trying to be a scavenger and fill it all in.

Our household has been insanely busy as of late. Our neighbors must think lovely thoughts about us as we pull into and out of our driveway about 80 times...before noon each day. Or something like that. It's times like these that life literally gets in the way of housework and I start playing games like "stack the dishes" and "guess who hates to dust". I'm not at all complaining about how busy we've been. Just stating. This past week has been a very happy busy, actually. We've just bought ourselves a house.

Oh yes -- and not just any house. My dream house! I can't even begin to describe the series of fortunate events that has led up to this. So much waiting, and worrying, and wondering, and asking, and telling and worrying and thinking and well, yes, more worrying. But praying and believing really took over my insides and I knew there was only so much my husband and I could do. We had to let God do what He does best...and He changed the way I look at many things. God used so many people to help us; to give us signs of "c'mon, it's gonna happen! just be patient". Oh we definitely felt tested and confused, but there were so many times when a little miracle hit me in the face from time to time and I had to laugh. I had to laugh because it was so evident that God was in it. And thank goodness He was. So this past Monday we found out we got the house. (Sigh) I can't believe it. It is SO exciting to be going home.

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Tim Tebow & Washington Post

It's no secret that I'm pro-life with every fiber of my being...and while I'm not usually the one to bring up the subject, you'll never find me wavering about the subject. I take the horrific act of abortion very personally and, unfortunately, I get very emotional about it. I'd love to be the calm person who can debate it, but I get to upset. Sad...then mad and my whole insides get fired up. Whew - that's all I can say about it right now!

I bring this up because my sister passed along a cool article to me today. It's about a specific ad during the Super Bowl featuring Tim Tebow. I'm definitely not a fan of Florida at all because I love those Buckeyes, I definitely appreciate Tim Tebow and his strength of character.

Please take a few minutes to read this article written by a pro-choice sports columnist at the Washington Post. She has some great points...and I appreciate her honest commentary about the ad Tim will be in during the Super Bowl.

Ciao friends!

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Thanks, Shaq!

I'm not on Twitter because it's just too much! However, my husband is addicted and he just read me Shaq's latest 'tweet'. Until now, my favorite palendrome was the word 'racecar'. But, thanks to Shaq, it's become the phrase 'was it a cat i saw'. Okay, take a second to read it backward and then pat yourself on the back. Cool, huh! It's the little things.   :  ) 

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