What's up

My blog has really fallen by the wayside lately. Life has been busy and I have not had much time or energy to write too much. When I have had the chance to write it seems that my thoughts have been a little too personal to share on the big old scary internet...so...that's what's up. I will hopefully update more frequently again soon.
In the meantime, here are some random thoughts.

~Madison has been with us for about 2 weeks now. I (insert heart) having her here. We've had such a great time just hanging out, talking, and biking. We've ridden our bikes like maniacs...at least 12 miles every time we go out, and we've gone out 3-4 times per week. One day we did 26 miles, but that is before the sun went into humid heat blower mode. Last night we added a new adventure to our biking journies. Madison needed a little extra encouragement to hit the trail, so I bribed her by saying that we could take some bread to feed to the geese when we went by the lagoon on our way home. Little did I know that there are now signs everywhere that ask that the poor geese not be fed--due to the large amout of excrement and unsanitary conditions. Nice. Well, the sign didn't say anything about not feeding the ducks in the creek, so it happened to be their lucky day. We found this momma and cute little baby and were feeding them small pieces of bread when Maddie turned around and saw that a whole busload of geese had crossed the parking lot to take advantage of the bread. They looked like they could become a little aggressive, so we hopped on our bikes and took off, leaving the bewildered ducks behind.
After about 50 feet Madison told me that my tire was hissing, and sure enough, I had a leak. It was flat in no time. 3 1/2 miles from home. We pulled into the driveway just as darkness fell. Madison riding her bike and me pushing mine. Go figure.
~I have become a total clutz. I don't get it. I have dropped a chair on my foot, a shelf bracket through my right big toenail, left the ice cream on the counter for more than 2 hours twice (not the same ice cream, obviously), and spilled a half of glass of soda onto my neutral carpet, got it cleaned up and then spilled the other half. Nice. So cool.
~We're leaving tomorrow to go to the Wisconsin Dells with my parents and sister's family. I'm pretty excited. Anna warned my sis tonight that when we're on vacation she would still love her, but would be spending most of her time with me. I can't wait.

That's all I've got. Hope everyone's summers are going well....

Chat with a 4 year old about a dead bunny.

Tomorrow my mom, sister, 3 nieces, and Madison are coming to our house for a few days. We're going to have a garage sale and (hopefully) get rid of a lot of stuff. I called my sis tonight to touch base with her and make sure that she didn't have any last minute questions. As we were talking my niece, Anna, who just turned 4 could be heard in the background. "I want to talk to Missy. I want to talk to her RIGHT NOW." I told my sister that I better talk to her for a little bit. Here's how the conversation went.
"Hi, Anna. How are you tonight?" (In my sweetest talking to a little friend voice)

"Um, Missy, I am coming to your house tomorrow and I heard that we might play a game."

"Oh really? We should play a game, that would be lots of fun, but we're going to have a garage sale and might need someone to sell Lemonade. Do you know anyone who knows how to sell lemonade?"

"YES! I can do it! And maybe Adlynn (a cousin from the other side of her family) could help me! And what was your bunny's name...the one that is dead?"

"Um, the bunny that died was named Daisy. Dixie (the other rabbit) can't wait to see you, Anna." (Subtle attempt to focus on life, not death)

"I remember when Daisy died. Why did she die again?"

"Daisy got very sick and we had to take her to the bunny doctor, the doctor said that she was going to die and it made me sad. Dixie was sad too, but right now, she is just excited to see you" (a little dramatization...the only thing she isreally excited to see is food) "Are you excited to come to my house? (attempt to change subject).

"Where IS Daisy, anyway?"

(thinking...in a USPS box buried under our tree...) "Well, I suppose that she is hopping around in Bunny heaven somewhere"

"With Jesus?"

"Yep, probably.....so, Anna, what game do you want to play tomorrow?"

And CLICK. She was gone.

Needing some color

Craig has redeemed himself. He did not answer his phone because he had it on vibrate mode in his pocket. He was walking to the bar 2 miles away at midnight in a strange town to pick up his coworker who had taken the shared rental car and was too wasted to drive home. What a guy! I can assure you that I would not be walking anywhere at night by myself. Craig did change his travel schedule so that he will be home tomorrow. Yippee! I can't wait, but am going to delight in my last night of restful sleep tonight. :(

Today I went to Lowe's to pick out paint. I have been pondering the idea of painting both the kitchen and the family room for a while and finally decided that it was time to talk colors. I was thinking "Blade of Grass Green" for the family room. It is, well, the color of a blade of grass. I think that it will look nice--kind of creating unity between the indoors and the outdoors. As for the kitchen...I like the way that the dining room turned out so much that I want to bring some of that into the kitchen. I'm thinking the same creamy wall color for the soffits and walls. There is very limited wall space in this kitchen--it is all cabinets or windows. I'd like to do an accent wall above the table. So far, I am tinkering with the same color as the curtains in the dining room...kind of a reddish rust color. I currently have a sample color taped to the wall, but I think that I would need about 5,342 more to cover the entire space. I so cannot picture what it will look like from one of those tiny squares.

Now...the moment of truth. I want to know who of you, my friends, were going to call me and tell me that I absolutely CANNOT paint any part of my house the color of a blade of grass. It was just a trick to see what you all were thinking when I said that. So...leave me some feedback.

In all honesty I have no idea what color to paint the family room. The paneling is staying for now. :( We realized that it would be way too much work to remove it right now...all of the trim would have to be replaced and there is a LOT of freaking trim in this room. I am leaning towards getting rid of the stripe--kind of. I want to use the same color of paint but alternate between semi-gloss and flat to give it a subtle kick. Otherwise, It could look like painted paneling! Pale sage greens and pale blues are catching my eye right now, but I have to be a little careful. I don't want it to look like a nursing home only missing the pink carpet and scent of urine. Perhaps if I go ahead with my projects soon I will post pictures on the blog. I very rarely ever do that.

But for now, I need to go to bed. I have to go back to work tomorrow and would probably have better accuracy with my needles if my eyes are open. Goodnight, virtual world.

All in a day.

I'll probably be blogging more than my norm this week. I am bored. B O R E D. I have oodles of stuff that I could and should be doing, but today was not very fruitful on that front. I am having a garage sale in 3 weeks and am not at all ready. My mom and sister are bringing stuff, too, and I am just a little concerned that they are taking separate vans to accomodate all of their sellables. Oh my. This could get interesting.
Craig is on travel yet again...to Maryland again with some hydraulic line that has a piece of metal on it that he claims is ingenious. I believe him. He is smart and makes things work. When Craig travels I always ask that he call me when he gets back to the hotel for the night. It is now 11:42 PM and I am still waiting for his call. He did let me know that he arrived lately, but it really ticks me off when he doesn't call before bed. It causes my mind to keep me up asking "What if" questions. I hate those. "What if he got lost and is wandering around the streets in a strange town. What if he had another one of those vertigo attacks and became disoriented or passed out. What if he slipped in the shower and is bleeding and they won't find him til morning. What if..." Yet, I know my husband. When he is tired, he stops thinking properly and, quite honestly, about me. He falls asleep and nothing short of an earthquake will wake his slumber. I know that he has to be tired. He went to bed around 10 last night but had to be at the airport by 5 this morning. Yes, that is it. He just fell asleep and probably forgot to take his phone off of silent mode, too. The double whammy side of this is that he will probably call me at 5 AM when he is up starting his day to tell me that he saw all of my missed calls and is sorry...he fell asleep.

I did get to skype with my cousin, Tricia, in Australia tonight which was very nice. Her baby was making faces at me in the webcam and I was making faces back at her--so cute. It is nice to have modern technology that can connect us with people that we love and miss around the world.

Today was also the day that I got my annual evaluation at work. It went very well. I am an "Exceptional Employee." I qualify for the maximum raise....but...we're not getting any raises this year because of the economy, so I just got a good evaluation. Bummer. Praises are nice, but a little extra cash really gets my attention!

Char is also out of town this week, which makes my life a little more boring because I kind of look forward to hearing about the drama in her life a couple of days each week. She said I could call anytime, but she probably didn't mean on day 1.

Tomorrow I get to babysit in the morning for Anna while Molly goes to an appointment. :) I'm looking forward to spending some time with Anna, but am a little concerned because the last time I saw her she came and put her arms up, which I thought meant she wanted me to pick her up. Well, she didn't and made some sounds indicating that she was not pleased followed by a little push away when I set her back down. I'm sure that we'll be fine.

OK, well, I think that I have probably taken up enough of your time for now. I am going to try one more time to call the hubs and then am going to bed! 'Nite all.

Moments that I will never forget

I will never forget the day that Craig returned home for good from Iraq. I'll always remember him walking down the tarmac in uniform looking for me and me trying to push my way to the front of the crowd to get to him. Someone may have ended up with bruises, even. I remember falling into a long embrace and then thinking "Oh my. There were a few people in uniform getting off that plane. Did I get the right one?" I did.

I will never forget the day that Craig came home TDY from Iraq and we met at the airport in Denver. We went to Outback to eat and I just kept staring at him and could not stop smiling--so happy to be together again. I even successfully navigated around an airport to find him. That is not one of my strengths. He was wearing the ugliest jeans that I have ever seen. I coined them his neon jeans and they "disappeared" rather quickly. He needs me and would be a mess without me.

I'll never forget the day I left for college. It was sad. I knew that life had changed forever and I cried all the way to my sister's, where I lived for the first half of my first semester. It turned out to be a great experience, but I have never been good at saying good bye. Even for a short time.

I will never forget the time that I was mad at my dad and shocked him with a hog buzzer. I was in high school and my friend Jen was there, too. As soon as he reacted to the jolt I knew that it had not been a good idea. That was the one and only time that I really felt that it may be in my best interest to run away and never return. Don't worry, he got me back. Bzzz : thus, "natural" curls.

I'll never forget the day that Craig and I got married. It was wonderful start to finish. Almost 9 years ago. Sheesh!

I'll never forget the night that each of my grandpas died. (not the same night, thank goodness). As said before, I am not good with goodbyes. They were both such loving, family oriented, Godly men. I can't wait to see them again someday!!

I'll never forget the first time that we went in the giant wave pool at WaterWorld in Denver. It was Craig, Madison and I facing a 14 foot wave crested with a wall of people. Madison literally crawled up Craig and held on for dear life while screaming "DADDDDDDYYYY." As soon as it was finished she begged to do it again. I was glad because I thought it was fun.

I'll never forget the day we bought our house. We cleaned and moved in the same day. I love that day.

I'll never forget my 16th birthday and the hokey pokey incident. I'm not going to explain this one in too much detail but, trust me, I will never forget.

I will never forget the day that Craig and I bought our first car. 1997 Accord. Loved that car. Hondas rock. We're now 3 Hondas later and bought our first Toyota. Never had a mechanical problem. Knock on wood.

I'll never forget the day that Kimmi died. I'll forever regret that I was in the bathroom when they wheeled her out of the ambulance and missed the big smile that she reportedly had when she realized that she was home.

I'll never forget the day that Maddie learned to ride her bike. Craig chased her around the parking lot at a local elementary school making sure she didn't fall over. She had no idea how to stop but had "daddy breaks" so all was well.

I'll never forget the time that my cow drug me around the ring at the Iowa State Fair. I've tried to forget, but can't.

I'll never forget the morning after Madison spent the night with us for the first time. "Daddy? Is it up-time yet?" So sweet. I love that girl.

I'll never forget how much work it was to paint the outside of our house and I'll never do it again.

I'll never forget the moment that I learned that my mom had accidently developed our honeymoon pictures and that Craig had unknowingly taken a picture into a mirror in all of his manly glory. Whoops. (The picture was not at all indecent...except for the reflection!)

How family cable has changed my life.

We have had the family cable package for 6 days now. Six glorious days. I am still very much interested in watching every single episode of anything on HGTV, but just tonight started flippin through to find out what else I may be missing. These are some of the changes that I have noticed since this happened in our house.
~I have not watched the news. Not even once. For all I know we have switched our currency to pigs hooves. Wait...do pigs even have hooves? I really don't know! I also have no idea what the weather is supposed to do this week.
~I have suppressed the desire to rip down all of this blasted paneling in my family room and have began selecting paint colors for the "next project."
~I have not gone to bed before 10:30. I used to go to bed at least an hour before that. Sleep sound tempting...maybe after "one more episode."
~The new remote has been mastered. However, I still cannot figure out how to make the VCR work. (yes, we still have a VCR, but how am I supposed to tape one thing while watching another??? It's family cable, not DVR!)

Hmmmm. I'm not so sure that this was a good thing for me, but don't even think about taking my remote away.

My Wonderful Husband

Last weekend Craig and I went to Michigan. We spent 2 whole days together--just him and I. It was wonderful. We took a walk out on the pier on to Lake St. Claire. We shared a Peanut Butter Cup dessert at Uno's. We laughed. We reminisced about the last 11 years together and shared some reveries about where we hoped our future would take us. We dreamed. We cried--well, one of us did anyway! We connected. We loved. We watched poker until midnight. We slept in and we observed a culture much different from our own.

Sometimes it is good to get out of the ordinary. To get away from the life that is overcommitted, over worked, and over scheduled. To bask in simplicity. To reconnect with those we love. The difficult part of this weekend was the trip home. I dropped Craig off at the airport in Kalamazoo...he had to fly to the east coast for work. Although it was nice to have some quiet time in the car to think, pray, and listen to a few tunes I was sad. I missed my husband. Our lovely weekend had come to a screeching halt back into reality. There was work to be done, a house to clean, doctor's appointments to make, a lawn to mow, a family cable package to order :), oil changes that needed to be done, and on and on. But, as I spent Monday on my hands and knees scrubbing floors and woodwork and washing windows I found myself more blessed than ususal. I have a comfortable home, a great relationship with my husband, a beautiful stepdaughter, great friends, and a lot of love in my life. There's so much that I am thankful for....all blessings from God.

As I sit and write this the birds are playfully chirping outside my patio door. My house is a lot cleaner than it was yesterday (but still has a way to go), and my heart is a little more content with life. Ahhh God is good....and so are weekends away.