Friday, November 30, 2007

Brainless

I've long held to the belief that your (ok, at least "my") I.Q. drops by about half with every pregnancy. I usually regain half of that after having the baby, but I'm not so sure it's returning this time.

I went to Town last weekend for two very important reasons. One, to reclaim my Green Death that was left with my in-laws after Thanksgiving (if you wish, I could post the recipe...). The other was to get a great deal on interfacing at the fabric store. Well, we went to the fabric store first, where the interfacing was all bought out. Figures. I bought buttons and notions instead. And then came straight home.

Oops.

Do you know what it costs to go to town and back these days? Even with my nice Camry? Of course, I went back the next day for the Green Death. Death should make it's own carbon footprint, right?

A couple weeks ago I ordered this book from Vision Forum, among some other things. Last Monday, to get in on the free shipping, I apparently forgot it was on order and I bought it again. When I opened the UPS shipment on Tuesday morning I had to make a desperate call to Customer Service to edit my order. Good heavens.

A few days ago I was ready to install some grommets on the Christmas Presents, and discovered that all I had on hand was one silver grommet and one gold. That was just not going to work. I kicked myself a dozen times for buying everything BUT grommets last weekend at the fabric store. To say nothing of my previous trips there of late. Yesterday's errands took me back to the fabric store, to buy the things once-and-for-all. At least I still had my 40% off coupon. I installed the grommets last night, and they look so nice. When I reached into another bag to get the last item to finish it, out fell a brand new package of grommets. That I bought 2 weeks ago. Sheesh.

At least I still have my receipt.

Wish I had my brain.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Giveaway!

Doug Phillips and Vision Forum are sponsoring a giveaway at inashoe.com to help get word out about the FREE SHIPPING Vision Forum is offering until Midnight tonight

Help spread the word on your website or blog then leave a comment at Life in a Shoe by 10pm today to enter!

Good Luck!

Diaper Covers!

I haven't posted much information about my current projects because, well, it's the Christmas Season, and there is a possibility (albeit slight) that some gift recipients are current readers of this blog, and I don't want to spoil the surprise! I guess that doesn't do my readers much good, huh, to know they aren't likely getting any gifts? :)



Something I have been working on here and there are some larger diaper covers. I only technically bought the 8-15 lb range or so, and she's probably 14+ right now, so we've been using some of my homemade ones.



It's not too hard really; I have all the crazy fabric required for these things, and making an pattern off an existing cover is pretty easy.



Here are some I've completed:

I made these while waiting for her, so they're the I think it's a boy colors...


Oooo look! Laundry tabs!
I made a couple autumn-themed covers. SO fashionable! This one was based on Bummis Super Whisper Wrap, with fold-over-elastic to edge most of it.

Here's another Bummis copy; (enlarged) one of my holiday themed covers. It's the deluxe version, lined with a layer of crushed Panne. It's also turned-and-topstitched. This offers protection against any PUL-skin contact, but working with that panne stuff was horrific. So slippery! Next time I'll need to work it differently, I think.



So, that's a bit of what I've done this past month in the sewing room. Perhaps I'll spend January doing a show-and-tell-all...

Monday, November 26, 2007

Unbelieveable?

This article should scare the crooks politicians in Washington into dealing with the border. I don't suppose it will though.

Here are the highlights:

"...sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base..."

"...the [Mexican drug] cartel's assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the border into the U.S."

"A number of the Afghans and Iraqis are already in a safe house in Texas..."

"About 12,000 persons work at the fort and many have their families on base."


I don't know whether to be angry that this is so easily done, or grateful that the plan was discovered in time.

Birthday Tribute

Today is my little brother's birthday. I loathe to realize that though he is "littler," he is now 28. Or will be as of 5:15 p.m. or so.

We refer to him as "Munchkin" around here, and today we'd like to commemorate his day by listing some wonderful attributes about him.

When Munchkin was a munchkin, he was so helpful.


He's funny:

He has lovely blue eyes:

He's talented in piano:

And art:

(Here's proof:)

He's athletic:

Well-balanced:

And flexible:

We love you Munchkin! You're my favorite brother! Have a wonderful and awesome birthday.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

"Day 3" Cookies

Don't they look delicious? They're egg-, dairy-, and wheat-free. They'd be better with chocolate, but oh, well. Chocolate is not a day 3 item, and all my chocolate chips have dairy elements. I hope Hubby loves them anyway.

The recipe follows, but I kinda made it up, so be forewarned.

Mix:

1 1/4 c. peanut butter (I used organic, that is runnier than conventional stuff with nasty corn syrup and evil trans fat)

1/4 c. or less coconut oil (you could use butter)

3 eggs (I used egg substitute - weird stuff)

1-2 c. honey (I used closer to 1, and added a dash of stevia. Sugar would probably work)

some salt, maybe?


Then add and mix:

2 t. baking soda

Add and mix:

4 1/2 c. rolled oats

1/2 c. oat flour (i.e. rolled oats that have been in the food processor)

Because it seemed a bit ... weak (slouching down the bowl sides), I added a bit more of the powdered egg substitute, which is mostly potato flour. If you used the sugar, and 'stiffer' peanut butter, you might not need the oat flour, even.

I cooked them 10 minutes at 350.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

I Agree!

This article is about a woman who had her tubes tied to save the planet, and another whose boyfriend had a vasectomy for the same purpose.

After reading about them, I wholeheartedly agree.

The world would be far worse off if these types reproduced.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Too Funny

This is an email I received promoting Glenn Beck's new book, An Inconvenient Book. Apparently he's at #6 on Amazon.com and has learned from the politicians to attack your opponents if you run out of things to say about yourself. He did well.

If there's one thing I've learned from politicians it's that when you're out of good things to say about yourself, just start bashing your opponents. So now that my book has been released (and I'm out of things to say about it), it's time to take down my competitors. As I write this, An Inconvenient Book sits at #6 on the Amazon bestseller list. Here's a look at the drivel ahead of us:

#1 - You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual For Extending Your Warranty (You) by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz There are a few big problems with this book. First, this book has two colons and three versions of the word "you" in the title alone. It sounds like it was written by a fourth grader. Second, isn't Mehmet Oz the doctor on Oprah who inexplicably shows up to her TV studio wearing hospital scrubs, like he's about to perform an emergency appendectomy? You want advice from that guy? Here's my pledge to you: no more than one colon, and no surgical scrubs. Ever.

#2 - The Pillars of the Earth (Deluxe Edition) (Oprah's Book Club) by Ken Follett It's 973 pages. 973. Did you hear me? NINE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THREE!

#3 - Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld Here's a "simple secret" to get your kids to eat vegetables: make them. I just saved you $14.97.

#4 - The Birds in My Life by The Supreme Master Ching Hai I can actually relate to this one because I have a bird in my life too; it's called a turkey. And it's delicious. But beyond that, I cannot fathom how an out of stock book about birds is beating me. I'm solving global warming, poverty and illegal immigration, yet people still care more about Polly wanting a freakin' cracker?? Is it because the author is a "Supreme Master" and I'm not? Because if that's all it takes then I'm enrolling in Supreme Mastering class Monday morning and I'll stamp "Supremer Master Glenn Beck" right on the cover of the paperback.

#5 - The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet Where have I heard about this book before? Oh yea, it's already on the list! Hey Follet; do you really need to hog two spots? And Oprah--if you want your fans to still have enough time to watch your show, send them my way instead. I've got 100% more solutions than Follet in just 1/3 of the pages.

In summary, if you buy all of the books in front of mine then you'd learn how to make you a better you, how to communicate with birds, and how to secretly feed your kids vegetables; but what good is any of that if Islamic extremists kill us all because my book is stuck at #6?? Please, I don't want to sound overdramatic, but (and you need your best "Hereos" voiceover impression here): Buy my book; save the world.

Sincerely, (And not at all bitter or jealous)
Glenn Beck

That cracks me up.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Paint Problems

[Note: A fun discussion of various diet/health issues is included in the comments section of this post.]

Thursday before last I did my regular errands. Actually my main errand was to stock up on the previously-blogged chocolate. Those Ghirardelli chips are $1.50 at least until January! This could be very dangerous. In any case, after my errands, I returned home, and realized it was likely the last nice weather we would be having for a long, loooonnngggg time. You may have noticed my sadly-un-updated To Do List on my sidebar which has included "paint the hallway" and "finish refinishing dining table" for just ever. If I was going to paint without poisoning all our brains but also without freezing us to death, it had to be right then. So I went into the garage and searched for the paint. I had finally found the clear finish for the table (which had brought that project to a halt last summer), so I thought I'd just need to touch up it's paint (which was also the paint I intended to use for the hallway) before applying the clear finish.

It didn't work out that way.

The paint I found had a "Home Depot" sticker on it, and I was sure I hadn't shopped there in ages, outside of the desperate trip at 9 months pregnant for shower plumbing. But it was the only possibility. It was the right color. It was still mostly full. So I pried the lid off it (I assumed Hubby had left it outdoors to rust along the edges at some point) and set to work. I did a really great job. I covered up all the smudges, pen marks, finger prints, and just everything. I touched up the table paint so I could put the clear coat on the next day. But as it dried, it didn't look dry. I looked closer, and saw that it was semi-gloss. I was sure the table paint had been satin. And then I turned around and saw a nice, new, mostly-full bucket of Valspar satin finish paint sitting in the pantry. *sigh*

The next day I hauled the table to the porch and put the right color over the wrong color, and then the clear stuff over that. I couldn't drag the hallway to the porch, and it was too cold to vent the house.

So now my hallway is shiny.

As is one section of kitchen wall around the corner.

I'm not so sure I like it, but I'll have to wait until spring to change it. Maybe by then I won't mind as much?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Hard Pill to Swallow

I've had a couple questions lately, in real life and via email, about what I think about hormonal contraceptives. While I remain undecided in the larger, grander debate concerning contraception (at all) for married Christians, I DO have a pretty solid opinion on the pill, patch, nuva-ring, things like that - hereafter collectively referred to as The Pill.

Most people have it figured out that I don't like "artificial" things, nor "chemical" things, and certainly I won't put in my body artificial chemicals. But aside from that generality, there are very specific problems with The Pill. We've all heard the commercials that state that "hormonal contraceptives increase your risk of blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and death." Yay, sounds like good stuff to me! I know of two young women (one in her early twenties) who have had strokes due to this stuff. Not good.

A good portion of what makes up The Pill are pseudo-estrogens. Too much estrogen is not a good thing, and I don't mean that as a joke. Living with that added to your body increases other risks, like breast cancer, among others. Ask any breast cancer survivor if they're allowed to touch birth control pills - or even soy (which is evil) for that matter. Estrogen feeds breast cancer cells.

Now they're finding an increase in arterial plaque and heart disease with Pill usage.

Does that give you an idea that I'm not into The Pill? Those are all very important medical and health-related reasons, but they're not the only reasons. Some reasons are aesthetic (at the very least). The 'annoying' side effects of decreased libido and increased weight. One could argue that pregnancy increases weight as well, but c'mon. :)

Beyond health and aesthetics (as though they weren't enough), I'm personally unwilling to take on the moral risks associated with The Pill. Years ago when I looked into it, I'd heard "rumors" of The Pill possibly causing early abortions. I was skeptical, so I asked my ob/gyn about it, who happens to be a good man, religious and with position in his church. I was completely surprised to hear him say, "I don't know." (Was I the first Christian patient to ask that???) However, unlike most other doctors I've dealt with, he didn't stop there. He left the exam room, found some Pills, and took out a 3-foot long information sheet in tiny print to read. Bless his heart, he read and read. There in black and white, put there by it's manufacturer, the last few lines confirmed it. The Pill is designed to prevent pregnancy in 3 ways:
  1. Preventing ovulation by hormonal manipulations
  2. Thickening mucus as to compromise sperm motility
  3. Making the uterine wall inhospitable to a fertilized egg, thereby preventing implantation

That was enough for me. A (healthy) fertilized egg is supposed to be a baby, eventually, and I couldn't justify even the tiniest chance that I could be responsible for that.

That said, I'm confused that the whole "Emergency Birth Control, Plan B, Morning-After Pill" detractors (which of course, I'm one) aren't equally up-in-arms over The Pill - to say nothing of IUDs (intra-uterine-devices). IUDs work ONE way, and that's to kill-off that already-fertilized egg (see line-of-defense #3 for The Pill, above). I know a dear Christian woman who used one for years, and was quite upset when she learned what was happening. She hadn't questioned it, and no doctor bothered to fill her in. I know other Christian girls using them, because they're "too undisciplined" for any other method of birth control. I can only assume they have no idea what they're doing.

So - in case you also were wondering (hm, not likely, eh?), now you can scratch from your list "What does EllaJac think about hormonal contraceptives?"

Sunday, November 18, 2007

No Accountin' Fer Cattle, I Guess...

We woke up the other morning, peered out the second-story window, and witnessed an uninvited visitor to our property. A very tastey-looking large bovine was standing in the middle of our field of dead grass. He was a red hereford, I think. Likely visiting from the North, which of course is the line of neighbors I don't know well (the rear of our properties meet, but it's all field/pasture) and who also aren't listed in the phone book. Every time some daggum interlopers of God's creatures visit, it's from that direction. The one neighbor I knew to call had a busy phone line.

It's not like I'm unwilling to share some grass, really. It's just that, well, the grass in the pasture is long since dead, because we are very lazy poor irrigators. But our lawn is green (automatic sprinklers, of course). And our fences faulty. Our new fancy neighbors have even greener grass, and they have no fences at all. So I loaded 3 kids in carseats and drove around the mile (like around-the-block, but bigger) and started knocking on doors. Mr. Smith (busy-phone-line) wasn't home. Right. Neither was his neighbor, Mr. Johnson. Real names for once, I swear. Mrs. Wright pointed across the street and said the cows belonged to the accountant in that office (that's an office?), and he leases from Smith and Johnson.

I found the accountant, told him my dilemma, and he said he'd drive over and see if it was his cow. Most of his are black, but he had a couple reds (those redheads are always trouble). Sure enough, it was his, and he set about walking through the field to steer the rebellious steer in the right direction. It didn't work, and that middle-aged-ish, desk-type guy had to put it in high gear to chase after his beef. In the meantime, it got some other neighboring cows all riled up, and they were all running along the wrong fence line; the hereford, the other neighbor's angus, and the accountant. (See figger 1)

He finally got it in the general direction of the northern boundary, where he slowed considerably. (See figger 2)



The steer stood with tail held high, rear to the fence, deciding his options. He finally turned and went to the fence. I was nursing the baby by this time and didn't have the camera, but I had the view. The accountant got his second wind, seeing his cow was almost home, and he started waving his arms, jumping, whoopin' and hollerin', and going towards the cow, who finally bullied his way through the barbed wire to his rightful place. The accountant was all done in, I guess, because he didn't even check the fence or shore it up at all. Just turned and drug himself back to his rig.

Part of me wants to feel bad for the guy, having to chase all over tarnation to take care of business, but then again, he should check his fence before he puts trouble-makin' cows in the field. Plus, I hear he has some dogs...

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Ebay!

Wow, I did it! I have two auctions going on right now at ebay. It was tricky, but not as tricky as that dumb turkey in the header.

If you'd like to see them (and bid - they're cheap!) they're here and here.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Back in Production, Kinda...

Since about the first of November, we've had eggs! I am very excited. I've had a hard time with the thought of buying eggs from a *cough* store. We have still just the 3 hens, as I'm just not able to brood chicks this winter (let alone raise pigs), what with brooding my own little chick. The two "old" hens (turned 1 in late October) quit laying around the time we penned them up again, which was a couple months ago at least. The one surviving pullet we bought was *ahem* supposed to begin production in September. I'm glad so very grateful that *I* won the race to see who could "produce" first! I believe it is she who is laying a nice brown egg nearly every day. They're small, but my recipes for cookies healthy food don't require a lot.

I don't know what the old girls' problem is. I read that they might molt after a year of production, but they only produced about 6 months or so. They stopped laying after the massacre, but only for a day or two, and that was entirely understandable. They laid for a few days after penning them in. Maybe they're mad about their captivity.

I sure am happy for these eggs though. Goldie is producing those nice orange-y yolks that I've become snobbish about accustomed to. So I give thanks!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Gobble Gobble

I have the header figured out!

What do you think?

I hope you're impressed, because you don't even want to know how much time I wasted worked on getting it to fit right.

Yes, I took the picture. He might've been last Christmas Dinner. Or he could've been the one (half) responsible for my still-broken counter.

But no, Tom won't be a permanent fixture. I thought he was appropriate for the month. Maybe I'll put a new picture up each month. Maybe not. We'll see.

I'm nothing if not non-committal, you know. Is that a double negative? A triple? In any case, it annoys me when people say something (as though they intend it - maybe they do) and then don't follow through. And because I know you'll be waiting with bated breath on the first of December if I say I will put up a new picture, I want to be clear that I don't know exactly what my life will look like on that day, and there is a possibility that my intention won't come to fruition. I would hate to cause offense.

Now, how many of you hate it when people commit to nothing and have to clarify every statement?

It's All Her Fault...

What is it with chocolate? How did the northern hemisphere survive before merchant ships carried it up here?

I used to only prefer milk chocolate.

But since August, my willpower has been slowly consumed by the darker stuff. I might've mentioned the 72 oz bag of nestle semi-sweet morsels that disappeared in less than 2 weeks. I DID make some cookies with part of it, and I did share a few of those cookies. It's not like I ate them ALL.

Kendra has this lovely site, with great ideas for managing your little ones and your life. I have browsed her "organization" tag and gotten some good ideas. However, please use caution. There are other than "good" ideas lurking there. Some very sinister ideas, actually. I liked her idea of the laundry room changing-station. I didn't even intend to follow her last little suggestion. It's not like a changing station has the most sanitary activities, you know.


But alas...



My laundry room is also my pantry...








And it just happened.

And now it's 60% cacao bittersweet stuff. On sale for $1.50/bag.


"What? She needs changed? Oh, I'll take her. No, it's no problem at all. Really."

I blame her.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

ooOOOooo...

In case you aren't sure, that's pronounced, "ooo-OOO'-ooo..." As in, "wow, isn't THAT amazing?"

Isn't it?

My new look. Well, the look is pretty much the same, but the arrangement of the look is mighty fine.

I tried to add a nice November-ish photo to the header, but the darn thing took up the whole screen, and stretched far off into the netherworld beyond the right side of my cute little parchment paper here. Not very cool. Someday perhaps I"ll figure out how to fix that. Or maybe I'll just put the monstrosity on here for kicks.

Do you like the photo to the left? That's something I'll try to update every day or two... Gotta keep my THREE (yes, we're increasing exponentially around here!) readers coming back, ya know. And another effort at that: Stay tuned for the day in which I manage to restart the computer and thereby enable it to recognize my camera and transfer a pile of pics! At that point, I'll have fodder for some great project posts, evidence of Kendra's bad influence, and proof of a CPA gone wild.

And people think this place is boring...

Friday, November 09, 2007

Quotable

I ran across this quote a while back, attributed to Doug Phillips, founder and head-boss-guy of Vision Forum. I haven't heard/seen him say/write it, but it certainly falls within his belief system, and I think it bears some reflecting on.



The Bible calls debt a curse and children a blessing; but in our culture, we apply for a curse and reject blessings. Something is wrong with this picture." ~ Doug Phillips



I have never actually thought of it this way.


Have you?

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

The 10-20-30 Meme

Does anyone know what "Meme" is? Leave a comment, if you do.

Anyways, I wasn't exactly tagged for this, but Jess of Making Home said I could do this, so I will. I get to tell you what I was doing ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. So here goes... I'll start with the oldest and work my way forward in time.

30 years ago...
Wow... That number looms so large! I was probably kicking my mother and making her generally uncomfortable. She was about 2 months from her (my?) due date, and we already discussed how she dealt with the discomforts of pregnancy...

20 years ago...
Let's see, 1987, I was not quite 10. My parents had been divorced for a good 7 years or so, and I lived with my younger brother, my mom (who was handicapped) and Frank, her short, somewhat balding but funloving boyfriend. Well, he might not have lived there full time that year, but he was around quite a bit. We lived in the house my grandparents bought in 1949. I would have been in fourth grade. As always, I hated school. I also "enjoyed" the gifted/talented education program, but it wasn't fun like Jess's. One day per week (Tuesday, it was), all the G/T kids from the city were bussed to a single school (which actually was the school for handicapped and retarded kids.. hm..). I excelled academically, but had no real friends at school. I was too poor for some, too smart for others, and probably just generally weird. In my heart I loved the Lord like my dad (who was a pastor, but lived 10 hours away and I only saw during summer) and stepmom, but didn't feel like I could express it around my mom or grandmother (yes, the notorious Gi-gi), or the neighbor lady who kindly took my brother and I to a Unitarian church each Sunday. I loved reading, and spending time with our friends who lived across town. I am still close to their entire family to this day.

10 years ago...
1997... I was a junior at a private Christian university, after only a year. I'd spent the last year or so of high school going to college and got a 'head start', if you will. I was studying elementary education, and I remember one professor asking the class what they planned to do with their education. It being a Christian university, about half the class desired to teach at Christian schools, 'who were in need of well-educated teachers.' The other half wanted to 'be a witness in the public school system'. I said, "I want to homeschool my kids." Ha! I'm sure that wasn't a common goal at most $23,000/year (at that time) instutitions. I was crying out to God on a daily basis for ... something. I felt as though I were hollering into an echo chamber. My prayer was usually, "God, here I am, this is the direction I'm going because I don't see you leading anywhere else.. Okay God? Until you change my direction, I guess I'll do this, okay? ... Can you hear me?..." My heart wasn't in college, or education or career. It just wanted a home and family. I disguised that desire with an outward show of "wanting to be a missionary." God hadn't really opened many doors, but I thought that would be a more 'acceptable' desire. Besides, I could have my own mud hut...

Like Jess, I'll just put it out there that if you want, "consider yourself tagged," and do this yourself. Leave a comment so I can read it, if you do!

Post script: God did give me that major change in direction, about 7 months later... Thank you, Lord!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Does It Get Any Cuter Than This?

*sigh* ... I don't think so.

Well, Duh!

I had one of those moments the other day. Last Thursday Baby and I had our 6-week checkup and weigh-in with the midwife. Five weeks, 6 1/2 days, to be more accurate, but who's counting? Baby was 22 1/2 inches (up from 21" at birth) and tipped the scales at 13 lbs, 1 oz. I wonder if I manufacture cream or something...

Anyways, I was asking the midwife about her thoughts on vaccines and such. She reaffirmed my plan to do a "delayed schedule" of sorts, and I'm not going to worry about it for a year or two or so. I casually mentioned my astonishment when I started looking into them, and especially the routine practice of giving Hepatitis B vaccines to babies at birth. Her return comment was the "well duh!" moment for me, because I'd never linked it in my mind, but it makes perfect sense.

Here's the thing: Newborn's livers/gallbladders are just beginning to work. Hepatitis is a disease of the liver. Vaccines are dead or debilitated viruses that let our bodies manufacture antibodies so in case we get the "real thing," we are ahead of the game. So, introducing a liver-disease virus might affect the liver (especially a newborn's!). When the liver can't do it's job well, what happens? Jaundice! How many babies do you know who had to be wrapped in bilirubin blankets early in life? My girls didn't have that problem, but I know plenty of others who did.

I wonder if they had the Hep B vaccine at birth? I wonder if newborn jaundice could be avoided if we were a little slower to vaccinate them against an STD? I wonder why I never thought of this before?

Monday, November 05, 2007

You're Sorry?

I am right now paying the bills online. Well, I am right now blogging about it, but you know what I mean.

I pay all the bills online, whether at the company site, or through my bank. My phone/internet is one I've paid at the company site, and today I'm not impressed. They've complicated things upgraded their security and I don't have the code for it. Apparently that's not a problem, because I can click "skip!" and go right into my account management. How is that more secure? In any case, their bill-pay is messing up, and instead of processing my payment (as the little window claims, for a moment) and issuing my confirmation code, they ignore my payment, and send me back to the informational page where I can click "skip!" again to manage my account. I did it twice, and called customer service to find out if I'd paid once, twice, or not at all.

While on hold, the recorded voice keeping me company uttered (with deeply regretful tones), "I'm very sorry for your wait..." What? A robot/computer feels emotion? I kind of understand the whole "your call is very important to us" (I don't buy it though), because at least it is speaking for the company or it's people, as opposed to uttering it's own sentiments, like my remorseful, albeit digital, friend.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Surprise?

Six Weeks Old!

Friday, November 02, 2007

Reveal?

I've always purposed to be pretty anonymous on this blog. I don't write about local events or politics, I don't advertise my city or state, and no one knows what I look like (unless you already do, of course). Partly because I know People Eating Tastey Animals would read everything with a "hubby" tag and start following my husband as he drives his work truck (with gun rack - gotta love a red state) around during the day.



That and I'm just paranoid about psychos that might see my children. With that in mind, I'm surprised at the number of other bloggers who happily post darling photos of their kiddos. Now, I'd probably not think twice about it if I had well-trained guard dogs, the property encircled with a 12-foot cement wall, and that topped with electrified razor wire. Is that extreme? I don't, however, have these defensive precautions (yet), but I'm thinking about the possibility of posting photos of my angels (you already know what hubby looks like). No names, of course, which is sad, because they're such great names. Perhaps a happy medium can be found in posting older photos?



In case anyone reads this far, what do you think? If you blog, do you post current family photos? Why/why not?

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Super Man

We're not done with this journey, but I've been dying to post a "before and after" post about Hubby's diet. Perhaps it should be "before and during". He's lost in the neighborhood of 50 lbs since last March. He still has 20 or 30 to go, and then maintain that for the rest of his entire life. Which might be tricky, because he loves to eat. It's something he's always been good at. :) And I love to cook and bake (and eat). I'm praying for God to keep us from being idolatrous in our eating. I think it's so easy for us to do.

Anyways, here is a photo of Hubby from October of 2006:




(No, not our house. We keep the un-painted parts outside and only mess up things like expensive countertops)




I know, he's a handsome one, but that's not the point. Compare that with the next one...







(Big Sister's sixth birthday, celebrated September 8th or so. And no, Hubby couldn't have any cake. It was an organic cake mix [I know; sounds like an oxymoron] with wheat in it.)


Now, to be fair, he doesn't always look that gaunt. Maybe it's the lighting. But you can surely see the difference! I casually mentioned to a friend (who hadn't seen him for a long time and didn't even recognize him at first) that he is "half the man he used to be". Really he's still like 5/6 the man he used to be.

But I've had more than one wife say to me, "my husband would NEVER be so disciplined..." He's no saint, mind you. Just yesterday I made him some grand barley-with-egg-substitute pancakes for dinner, and he put PEANUT BUTTER on them! I had another not-quite-submissive moment I'm afraid. "Is that peanut butter? What do you think you're doing??? This is DAY TWO and peanuts are a DAY THREE item! Now I have to remember not to cook with peanut oil tomorrow. If you don't care about the logistics of this diet, why am I making myself crazy over it? It's not like I'm not busy enough, mind you....[blah blah blah blah nag nag nag sigh pray]." I think I'd do better if I could start with the 'pray' part. But really, when you decide you want to live a good, long life (not good and short, like my brother recommends, nor miserable and long, dealing with chronic health issues), you realize you have to start making some serious changes. Having monthly appointments with the naturopath helps with accountability too.

Bottom line; good job Hubby. You might be 5/6 of what you were a year ago, but you're bigger and better in heart and soul. I'm so very, very proud of you.