Picture Care

I am really bad about pictures. I love to take them, but they sit on my memory card for a long time and then on my computer. From there I eventually get them over to my desktop and after that they get organized into folders including one for pictures I want to print. So far, I haven't printed any pictures of my kids. (I've been taking digital pictures of my kids since Luke was about 7 months old, so there are A LOT of pictures waiting in line.) I have backed them up with CDs, but I don't know where they are and there are several that have been missed.

Our desktop is on the verge of crashing and so I made a backup of my files from it. I put them on a 4 GB jump drive (thanks to my MIL) and then I uploaded 525 of them to the Internet! It feels really good to have them in a place that they most likely won't get erased, burned, drenched or any other horrible thing that happens to pictures.

For now, my goal is to upload all of the pictures that I have of our kids. Later I'll print them and put them into some kind of album. I'm really not into scrapbooking, so they'll hopefully end up in an album where they can actually be enjoyed, rather than on a disk!

Goodbye President Gordon B. Hinckley

At the passing of President Hinckley, I wanted to say goodbye and share a few thoughts with all of you.

President Hinckley has always seemed like "my" prophet. He is the man I remember as the leader during my teen years. I have always loved him and his sense of humor. I will miss that.

I have always believed in prophets, but when right after we sustained him as prophet, seer and revelator, we sang "We Thank Thee, Oh God, For a Prophet". As I sang and looked at President Hinckley on the screen, I received a sure testimony that he was the prophet of God! I knew it and I knew that I always would.

President Hinckley has done so much for the Church throughout his long life. He has served in many callings and since he was prophet he has done a lot of good. He has helped get "Mormons" in the news in a good way. He has been a driving force to build so many temples. He had the Conference Center built. He has been a strong advocate of good relations between all religions and people of the world. He was involved in giving us "The Family: A Proclamation to the World".

I know I missed a ton of things that he did in his life. These are just things that stick out to me. If you want to know more, go check out the news article on lds.org that is about his death. There are also links there about his life and accomplishments.

He will be missed!

***For those of you that are not LDS, you are welcome to check out information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at lds.org or mormon.org.

Organized Kids' Room

I did a lot yesterday! (Which probably accounts for my headache!)

I cleaned and organized the kids' room. I should have taken pictures, but I had started before I thought of it and I just wanted to get it done.

I sorted, organized and threw away a lot of toys! I threw out a garbage bag full of broken and junkie toys! It felt so good! My kids have carpet again! It is so nice.

Now I just need a shelf or other system to keep it all organized!

(I am also getting better at keeping the dishes and laundry done and put away! I decided to always have an empty clean laundry basket at the end of the day. Even if I leave laundry in the dryer for the next day, it seems that the real problem is that I let unfolded laundry touch the basket. It forms some kind of bond and gets stuck there for weeks. If I don't let that happen, I don't have a problem.)

Pregnant-Fine vs. Normal-Fine

My SIL emailed me back the other day and she commented that there ought to be a difference when someone asks you how you are, when you are pregnant.

There's feeling good and then there's being pregnant and feeling good. When you aren't pregnant, you can be just fine, but when you are pregnant it is kind of in degrees and you are usually dealing with some kind of baby-related ailment.

Like right now, I'm not really tired or nauseous, but I am trying to get rid of a headache. I'm feeling pretty good, but not great.

Sidenote: Isn't it funny that when you're pregnant and you can't or don't want to take a lot of medicines, you feel more frustrated? A cold or something always seems worse when you can't take something for it. (Even if you wouldn't have taken anything not pregnant!) I guess I just want my Independence!

I have a dream...

We are public school advocates! There are problems with the system, but I firmly believe that most of the problems with the schools are actually societal problems that the public schools have no power to change.

I love Luke's kindergarten teacher. She is so great with the kids and does a wonderful job! I help in class one day a week, so I get to see some of this first hand. Luke has learned so much and loves school!

On Tuesday, he came home with this drawing:



It says, "I have a dream that people will share everything."

This got us into a discussion about Martin Luther King, Jr. We asked Luke what he knew about him. He had learned quite a bit. We were able to talk about intolerance and how it was really ridiculous for there to be differences in law and customs due to the color of a person's skin. It was really neat to get to talk to him about this!

Control

I'm beginning to feel a little more in control of my life and house. I think the months of extreme exhaustion are gone...at least until the third trimester. I better use the energy while I have it. When I was so tired all the time, I did the bare minimum and it has showed in our house. But now, the dishes are done, the laundry is on its way and I can move on to deeper cleaning.

I need to get our house ready to sell and we need to get packed to move before this baby is born. (Why is it that we have chosen to move during or just after every baby??) I have big organizing plans. I have been trying to do at least one organizing project everyday. They are mostly little things, but I want to get organized for us and for moving. I've started a donation box again and I have started to throw things away! I used to keep everything, but I try not to anymore. I don't see a point in carrying around things that have no sentimental value and aren't used!

My projects are things like taking the horizontal books and papers off of the shelves, sorting through drawers, cleaning up all of the toys and throwing out broken or junkie ones, sorting through old clothes (I have clothes that I haven't worn in years, and some I shouldn't be wearing still!). I hope to continue this feeling of order and control over my home rather than feeling controlled by my stuff!

-10 Degrees

I think I'll be staying inside as much as I can. That's just too cold for me. I like cool/cold weather, but that is just ridiculous. Below about 20 degrees is my limit! Negative 10 is WAY too cold.

I wish I could just stay inside, but Freckles needs to go out and the Luke would like to come home from school. At least I don't have to drive carpool today.

I hope you are able to stay warm!

Amaryllis

I keep thinking that I don't have enough pictures on here. It really comes down to the fact that I don't get them off of my camera and edited very often.

I received this amaryllis as a gift at Christmas! I love to get live plants as gifts! Cut flowers just wilt and die. If I can keep it alive a plant can last for years! I also love the challenge of trying to get an amaryllis to bloom a second time.



I took this picture to show how tall the flower stalk is. I guess it is still kind of relative, since Belle is little.

Speaking of keeping plants alive. I am usually really good at this, but I have a plant that I got some really poor potting soil for and it has just suffered. The soil clumped together and it couldn't get and keep water as it needed to. It was a jade plant and it was huge and beautiful! After that soil, it drooped and looked awful! I have several starts from it, so I decided to get rid of it. I took several weeks or maybe months to finally dump it. I just couldn't bring myself to do it! I didn't want to kill that plant. Now that I have, I feel bad. I feel guilty for killing that poor plant!! (I learned not to buy cheap potting soil!)

Energy!

I woke up a bit tired, yesterday, but I had so much energy and I actually used it for good!

I made a family home evening-in-a-jar. I found it on this great site! It is for the nights when you want to have a family activity to study the gospel, but you really haven't planned or just don't have a lot of time. You pull out a little slip of paper and it has a song, scriptures and things to discuss. I love it. I'm hoping that we do better now that I have some more help.

I also ran the dishwasher twice. Yes, my kitchen was a mess. The second time it wasn't completely full, but I knew after dinner it would be over-full, so I wanted to run it again to keep the kitchen clean. I don't know why, but I don't like to unload the dishwasher. I do a lot better at scraping off the dishes and loading it. You'd think that handling the clean dishes would be more appealing. I don't get it. Every time I walk into the kitchen since I cleaned it, I just love that it is clean and neat! I need to keep it this way!

I sorted a ton of paper clutter and recycled most of it! We were terrible at keeping stuff around that we don't need or want. I'm getting better at this, though. I have gotten to a point that I don't want to keep useless things around just because they are there and could maybe, someday be useful. It is pointless and clutters up our lives and house. I just have to dig out of the mess that was created before we changed this outlook.

I put away some laundry. I didn't get it all put away. I have the same problem with laundry that I do with dishes. I just don't seem to get it put away. If I take laundry right out of the dryer, fold it and put it away, I do fine. Otherwise, it sits there in the basket for a while.


**Mormon Share is a great site. I am always on the lookout for good clip art, and they have some neat stuff so that I don't have to reuse the stuff on my newsletters. They also have lots of stuff for lessons, FHE and activities! I have only known about it for a short time and it really like it, so far!

Chocolate

I don't want to alarm anyone, so before you read on, make sure you are sitting down. Oh, wait, you probably are, since you're at a computer.

Okay, now that you aren't going to fall over with shock I'll admit to my strangeness.

When I was 7 or 8 I voluntarily decided to stop eating chocolate. I know, what was I thinking? Well, I was a bit fanatical as a child and I had learned that chocolate had caffeine in it. (I've since learned that it isn't actual caffeine, just similar.) I didn't want to have any caffeine, since my church discouraged it. So, even though the rest of my family ate it, I refused.

I didn't eat any chocolate (unless you count the time that my loving brother shoved some through my teeth just for fun--I don't) until I was in high school. The funniest thing is that I got said chocolate from a seminary (early morning scripture class) teacher. As I got answers correct, the chocolate was thrown at me--literally. I debated whether I should eat it and later in the day I did.

I was hooked! I eat chocolate for a while and then (I don't remember why.) I tried to stop eating it. It was so hard. As a kid, I didn't have any trouble abstaining, but after I'd had some later in life, I couldn't stop eating it. I was addicted.

It actually made me think (in a small way) about addiction. If you never taste alcohol, drugs, cigarettes or anything else that people become addicted to, you aren't tempted by them. Once you have tried them, it is so much harder to stop.

I now eat chocolate, but I still don't like chocolate cake or ice cream. I think it just isn't chocolaty enough for me. I want rich, creamy milk chocolate!!!

We Heard a Heartbeat!

I'm really not trying to turn this into a pregnancy blog, but with the trouble we've had getting another baby here, every step forward is wonderful!

I had an OB appointment, yesterday and we were able to hear our baby's heartbeat. It is such a reassuring sound! I always love it when I can feel movement all the time, it helps me not to worry so much! We took the kids along. Luke always loved to hear Belle's heartbeat, so we thought that would be fun.

Belle is actually excited, now, too! Before she really didn't want the baby to come. Now, she is all excited that she got to hear it! I think as it becomes more real, her two-yr-old brain will start to be a little more on board as well.

The heart rate was 150 beats per minute. Apparently the Old Wives think that means it's a girl as well! In looking that up, I found a funny site that has lots of folklore about whether you are carrying a boy or girl!

At What Point?

At what point is it okay to say "No"?

I don't want to complain about my leader, but she keeps asking for too much! I am the only one of the group who still has kids at home and they seem to forget that. I want to serve, but there is a point that my family has to come first! I think she's frustrated at me, because I told her that I can't come at 5 tomorrow night just to have another meeting at 6:15.

When I have said that I felt like I was overwhelmed, she acted really strangely to me and I don't want that. I just want her to realize that we don't need so many meetings. We had about a two hour meeting last Tuesday, then we spent two hours last night doing interviews with the sisters. We have some kind of meeting tomorrow night and she wants to "touch base" before that meeting. It is driving me crazy!

Chinese Gender Calculator

According to how old I am and the month of conception, I should be having a girl!

Wow, that was random, and I should be doing something more productive.... I'm too tired for that!

Snow, Snow Everywhere, but Not a Drop to Drink

So it is snowing quite a bit, so the roads are slick and wet. I've shoveled twice today, and it was shoveled last night as well. It is still really coming down. I think we've already gotten more than they predicted! It should be fun to play in, but right now it is just a pain to drive in and clean up.

AND, we don't have water. They shut it off for a nearby leak. I have a little bit for hand washing, but that is about it. They don't know what the problem is, so it could be a while. This should make for an interesting day and a lot of clean up tomorrow. And just when we were on a roll of keeping the dishes clean. You see, for some reason, I don't like to empty the dishwasher. I'll scrape the dishes, put them in, but after it has run, I don't like to have to put them away. It drives Aaron nuts. But, we have both been better at keeping it all clean, so it is nice, right now. They are already piling up without water to wash them in. Too bad I can't just wash them in the snow!

Charity Crochet

A few days ago, I found Krochet Krystal. She created the pattern for this afghan square. I thought it was beautiful, and I'd like to use it. Well, she is a really neat woman who has created this interesting pattern and asks that if you download it, you send her at least one square that she can use to make afghans to donate to her local hospitals! They turn out beautifully! It is a fun pattern that isn't too hard to figure out if you just do exactly as she says. She also offers lots of pictures, a tutorial and email help if you need it.

(I didn't put the border on mine, since it was just to see if I could figure out her pattern. Now it is a potholder since it isn't the right colors to send to her.)

My Favorite Pregnancy Attire

So, it isn't officially made for pregnancy, but I just love my sarong! I bought it long before I was pregnant, because I liked it, but it made being pregnant so much more comfortable. I had a friend who wore one when she was pregnant and I tried it out.

Even maternity clothes just get uncomfortable at the end of the day (or the end of your pregnancy). A sarong can fit you from pre-pregnancy all the way to delivery. It is light and it feels like you aren't wearing anything. I love it! I have already started wearing it again!

There are tutorials on the web that can teach you how to wear one. I usually just wrap it around my waist or where ever it it comfortable and tie it in a knot.

Mine is made of rayon (I think) but if you want to have one and can't find a place to buy one, especially this time of year, it would be so simple to make. You'd just need some fabric and tie it on. You could serge/sew the edges and you're done!


P.S. This picture is of me 8 months pregnant with Belle.

SMART Habit Saturday

I thought I'd start out well and join in again. I haven't done a new habit in a long time. Between Aaron's masters degree and then being pregnant I haven't had the time or energy to try to start new things. I haven't been able to keep up with the normal stuff.

But, I have been feeling a little better, lately. I want to start getting SMARTer, again. It may take me several weeks to get these down and I think I'll join Lara and do only one thing per month.

This month, I am going to work on exercising. I haven't had the energy to do much working out and I need to start! We just bought a new piece of equipment and since it is still new and fun, I should start now!

So, if you'd like to start becoming a better you, go over to the Lazy Organizer and get started!

Tomatoes

The only things I have craved whilst pregnant are fruits and vegetables, mostly tomatoes. Actually, this is the first time I have craved anything but tomatoes. This time around I have also wanted lots of vegetables in general. I love to go places that have salad bars and pile it on! It is wonderful. I have been eating things that I usually pass up for yummier things!

I love marinara sauce, tomato soup, picante sauce, fresh tomatoes, you name it! With other pregnancies, I'd crave tomatoes, eat some type of them and then be good for a while. This time around, I can't get enough of them! In "normal" life, I like tomato products, but they aren't something I have to have. It's crazy! I'm enjoying it, though!

No pickles and ice cream for me, just give me LOTS of tomatoes!

Online Friends

It is really interesting that it is so easy to feel close to people you only know online. I have thought a lot about this, since I met Aaron online. We feel like we were able to know each other a lot better than many couples when we got married. We still had to get to know each other's habits and in-person selves, but we only had talking, so we were able to learn a lot about how we felt about the world. For some reason it was also easier to say things online than it can be in person.

I think blogging can be the same in a lot of ways. We are able to tell each other things online, that are hard to tell people in person. I can't quite figure it out, but I think when you have something to say, you can just type it and hit "send" or "publish" and it is out there. In real life, you have to look people in the face and gauge how they are feeling as you talk. I think I tend to worry about what they'll think and that isn't as big of a deal online.

In some ways, I feel closer to my readers than my real friends. I wish that we could live closer to each other, so that, now that we know what goes on in each other's heads we could hang out!

(It would probably help if I hung out with my real-life friends more than once a month...)

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you are all enjoying the new year thus far! We are being lazy on our last day of Christmas break. Aaron and Luke both go back to school tomorrow. I will be glad to get to a "normal" but it has been really nice to have Aaron home! (Especially since I wake up tired and need a nap a lot of days.)

We were actually talking about "normal" and that since we've been married, there hasn't been much time that one or both of us has been going to school. We are at a point that neither one of us is going to be going to school at all for a while. It is refreshing.

Okay, so we doing really celebrate New Year's, much. We go to bed at a normal time and hope that our neighbor's parties don't get too loud. We used to set an alarm so that we could have sparkling cider and a kiss at midnight, but now, we'd rather just sleep. We are really morning people, not night owls.

I have, though been thinking about resolutions. I have been mostly thinking about criticism and negativity. I have become very critical of others and I hate it!! I hate that I complain so much and that I talk about people. I am going to stop. I mostly just need to listen to the little voice in my head that tells me to stop, when I start to tell a story or complain about someone.

I want to be especially careful about criticizing my church leaders. We had this lesson a few weeks ago and it really hit me hard. I learned the importance of saying good things about our leaders so that our children would grow up to love them. We need to pray for them and not be critical so that our children can know the love we have for them and so that they can share that love and appreciation.

So, as I was typing this, I realized that I need to stop being critical, but that isn't enough. I need to say good things about those that I am frustrated with. I need to pray for them and I need to pray for understanding and compassion. I don't want my kids to grow up to be cynical and I am tired of the kind of person I have become lately.

Since we are setting up what our new normal is, I want to include changing my heart by being less critical.