Final Countdown--For real this time

Ok so really we are getting new floors. For real on tuesday. Our downstairs has been emptied, and everything is ready. Super excited to see what things look like. Here's hoping it all works out!

The Blessedness of Sleep and the Mystery of the Waffle

Everette returned yesterday evening and he even got in at a decent hour (9:45). So after a two nights of not going to bed until 3 AM I finally got some rest. It is strange how four years ago I actually slept better with Everette was gone and I got the whole bed to myself. Now I am used to sharing the bed and it seems strange when he is gone and the house is empty. Needless to say I slept hard. It was wonderful.

Ok new subject. There are 10 waffles in a box and when I make Everette waffles-I make him two. HOwever there is always only 1 waffle left in the box. How can this be?

Jonathan and the terrible horrible no good very bad day

So it started off innocent enough. Jonathan woke up at 8 and got in bed with me for a bottle and some cuddle time, that slipped into his morning nap. He had his six month check-up today at noon. Which ordinarily is a good time. However for some reason his morning nap didn't quite last as long as usual so he was up at 9:45 AM. He laid there happily as I got ready. Then we went downstairs for some rice cereal. Yummy! So we were off to the DR. unfortunately it was about this time that Jonathan missing nap began to catch up with him. He was a little fussy-but I was confident that he would doze on the way to the Doctor. He didn't. We didn't have to wait too long to get back to the examining room. Which is worse because it makes you think that you will be seeing the doctor soon. This is not true. They like to make little babies strip down to their diaper and hang out in the chilly exam room for a long time before the Dr. comes in. So we waited. Jonathan began to rub his eyes and fuss. But I was able to distract him with different things to keep him happy enough. But by the time the doctor came in we were reaching the end of our rope. As soon as the Dr placed her cold hands on his naked body he began to wail. Really wail. He calmed down a little, but it was clear he had reached his limits. Unfortunately we still had to get our shots. So as we waited for the nurse, I laid a blanket on the exam table and laid Jonathan on top of it. He was so far gone, I had to physically restrain his hands(to keep him from rubbing his face, and knocking his pacifier out-making him cry all over). The dr. also said he had some fluid in his ears ( I am dreading what that might lead to). So Jonathan finally went to sleep on the exam table, when five minutes later the nurse walked in (with three needles). As you can imagine that is not a great way to wake up. And genius mom A. forgot to bring baby Tylenol and B. didn't bring his car seat in-so she had to carry him screaming out to the car and THEN strap him into the car seat. Needless to say-he was upset. In fact it was the most upset I have EVER seen him. He was crying so hard he was almost hyper ventilating-talk about a helpless feeling as a mom. Of course as soon as I turned the car on he fell asleep, but for a good 30 mins afterward he made those hiccupy sighing noises-you know what I am talking about.

On a more positive note
Jonathan weighs 18 lbs and 1 oz ( guessed 18 even and thoroughly impressed the nurse)
he is 27 inches long.
He is above the 50th percentile in height and weight and above the 75th percentile in head circumference-hmm imagine that!

Late Nights

For the record this is the third night in a row that I am up late and everyone else is sleeping. I am not thrilled. Two nights ago I thought it was some late-in-the-day caffeine (which it could have been). But it does not explain day two and day three.

Today was pretty fun. Jonathan slept late... which means mommy and daddy got to sleep late, 9:15, Yay! We went to breakfast and then to Menards-of course. Everette has decided to move his workshop into the basement. Due largely to the fact that one of the reasons we bought this house was because it had a three car garage and he wanted to put his truck in the garage. We have lived here since June and it still sits outside. For the record when we moved in I told him to put his truck in the third garage and his workshop in the middle. But he did not listen. So nine months later Everette is building a workbench in the basement (obviously the neck was not strong enough to turn the head this time). The project was a smashing success! Here is how we define success: No one was injured (not even a minor injury), the project was finished, the workbench seems to be holding, there were no fights, and most impressively....... only ONE trip to the hardware store!!!!! We can't even put up a Christmas Tree with one trip to the hardware store--LOOONG story that most of you know.
Can someone explain to me the miraculous powers of the television? Jonathan was kind of cranky today, as a result of his nap schedule being altered. On top of that Everette needed my help doing a few things so Jonathan had to play on a blanket alone-which he can usually do. It seemed like he was whining every 5 minutes. Until about 6:15 when Everette came up to take a break and turned on the basketball games. Then Jonathan laid on his blanket mesmerized by the TV. He was happy until 7:45 when I took him up for his bath. It was ridiculous!

Another plus...(a blessing in disguise of sorts) our floor refinishing has been postponed a week. The contracter has a big job that will take all week so he is coming a week from Monday. HOw is this a plus? 1. Everette will be in town next week-relieiving me of hte stress of having to be here, with a baby alone with strangers in my house and the stress of making sure everything is done right, and dealing with any problems that might come up. 2. we don't have to move our furniture out this weekend, giving me all of next week to prepare. 3.Everette will be in town next week-relieiving me of hte stress of having to be here, with a baby alone with strangers in my house and the stress of making sure everything is done right, and dealing with any problems that might come up. 4. Did I mention Everette will be home?

The other great thing is that it all happened because the contracter can't do it. Not as a result of me saying, "I don't want to do this while you are gone-I am REALLY nervous about it." and Everette saying, " you'll do fine, don't be such a weenie" Yay!

Final Countdown

So some of you know that due to water damage in our kitchen we are getting new floors in the whole downstairs. The floor came in last week and we are just waiting for a few trim pieces to come in. Hopefully Monday-that's what they said. This means we will be getting new floors VERY SOON! Here is why I am excited about it. When we bought this house the carpets were pretty bad. But we figured with a dog, a new baby, and a giant mud hole for a backyard, new carpets would be a waste. However they have definitely taken a turn for the worse, and on top of that Max (as you well know by now) loves to chew-specifically his toys and little pieces of paper. The debris of his chewing episodes lie all over our living/family room. These pieces of rubber and the like will not be sucked up with the vacuum. It requires (almost daily-if I was anal about it) for me to get down on my hands and knees and pick up the teeny tiny pieces all over the carpet. So my genius brain came up with the idea of putting hardwood-of sorts, all over the downstairs and getting some cheaper area rugs while we wait for our grass and our kids to grow. This makes me very excited! This means now I can sweep most of the debris up with a broom! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How to Super Charge your SuperGeek

So apparently if you a great way to revv up your husband the SuperGeek (you know what I mean) is to use the term "opensource" in your blog. Who knew.
On a completely different and totally unrelated note... I went to Kokomo today. I went to visit the school where I worked last year. I must admit that I was a little bit nervous. There are only a couple of people I have kept in touch with, and I was there for such a short time (compounded by the fact that I was there every other day) that I was sure no one would remember me or in fact care to see me. It actually turned out to be quite fun! I had a great time catching up with people, and it wasn't awkward at all. There were even a few students who remembered me. I came, we visited, we ate...triple chocolate meltdown at Applebee's-delicious (amy you know you wish that you had one), and we went home. Totally fun. Jonathan was charming and adorable and practically perfect. This plus Bible study, plus dinner with Grant, plus Maundy Thursday Service made for a long, exhausting, but pretty great day!

I am still alive!

Hello! I am still here. Please don't stop reading! Allow me to explain where I have been. Grab a snack, use the bathroom, get comfy... it is going to be a long one, but I have pictures!

Pictures... cursed pictures!
I am fortunate to generally avoid the technology woes that so many experience... why, because I married a geek. Some people marry for beauty, some for brains... I married for both (I totally think geeks are cute!). Everette does a marvelous job of pro actively keeping our computer troubles to a minimum--but even SuperGeek can only do so much. In the past week plus, here is what I have encountered--brace yourself for geek-talk. The hosting service that Everette uses for our domain name (home for my email address... and the majority of my family) physically moved the location of their servers. I mean unplugged their computers, put them in a van and drove them to another place. If any of you know this family... you can imagine, life without email is nearly apocalyptic. It was not pretty.
So I tried to make the most of this time and finish (finally after three long months) our church directory. Our church decided to make a pictorial directory, and I (niavely) volunteered to take the pictures. This was the easy part. The tricky part was uploading onto the web directory. Here is where I will omit details for the sake of time and your attention span, but let's just say it was tedious, redundant, confusing and required Everette to rewrite code for the opensource directory (sorry more geek talk).
Several points during this ordeal I paused to write a blog post, because I had these adorably cute pictures from My sister-in-law of Jonathan and his cousin Emily. However... stupid stupid blogger site wouldn't let me post!! I kept clicking and clicking and clicking and no pop-up to upload pictures. I was very annoyed, but not deterred. I sat down one day with Jonathan on my lap and decided to let Jonathan bang on the keyboard and send everyone a message. And oh so stereotypically he whacked something and my post disappeared... and of course, the automatic save function was not working so it was gone, and I had totally lost heart.
So now... today, my email is finally working, the directory is done, and miraculously the upload photo button is working and all my troubles are gone! Thus, ending my week long silence. Look out world, here I come!
On a positive note, we got our voucher for our TV digital tuner which led to the purchase of an antennae, but on the plus side we can get FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, Live 18 doppler, and coming soon... PBS!!
A teazer to keep you coming back....tomorrow I go to my old school to see my old co-workers... and next week people come to rip out our floor and put in the new one.. and oh yeah.. Everette starts his new job and will be in New Jersey most of the week.



Jonathan and Emily--oh my cuteness!!!

Everette's got gray hair!

Ok, so he doesn't have gray hair, but he is working for it! What?!?! Everette has a new job! He starts in a few weeks. The name of the company is Gray Hair. They are based out of New Jersey and he will still be working from home. Actually not much has changed... still working from home, still working in the mailing industry, still a chance of travel. But Everette is really excited about the change--and the opportunities that come with it. Gray Hair is a smaller company-which Everette is excited about. One of his old co-workers left last fall to work for Gray Hair and they have kept in touch, and Viola! They had a job that was a great fit for Everette, and they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. The next weeks are full of things to get done. Some of our benefits are changing and that means small details need to be taken care of (my favorite), plus Everette will be trying to wrap things up at his old job and while preparing for his new job which means a fair amount of travel. Mostly we are excited, but a little nervous too!

A love story

Our dog Max, is in love. Now we have several lovely mate choices in our neighborhood. There is a beautiful well-mannered Golder Retriever across the street. A sassy little pug from somewhere in the back and an adorable young puppy that occasionally visits next door. But none of these will do for our Max. He has very high standards. He just won't settle for anything ordinary. But, alas, he has found his true love. He has found life-long companionship in a piece of 2x10 scrap lumber laying around our back yard. Max and his friend are joined at the hip (well, maybe the jaw). Every where Max goes Scrappy is sure to be right there as well. They wander around the back yard together and relax on the front porch. Unfortunately , Max's love isn't allowed in the house, so they must spend some time apart, especially in this inclement weather we have been having. So when it gets too bitterly cold, Max will come to the back door with his wood in his mouth and whine pitifully. When we come to the door and tell him to "leave-it" he reluctantly, but ever-so gently drops his dear friend right outside the back door (literally, keep your eyes out if you ever step onto our back deck), and shuffles inside. Only to immediately lie down in front of the glass and pine for his piece of pine (ha ha). Then as soon as he is warm he begs to go out again (over and over). It is really quite pitiful. Pitiful turns tragic in the morning if the snow has fallen and Scrappy is buried, or worse--frozen to the deck. Panic, and hysteria ensues, as Max tries desperately to rescue his icy damsel. He claws and bites and whines frantically, until Everette takes pity on him and frees it from the deck. Happy again, to be reunited with his soul mate, Max saunters off the deck to frolic in the snow.

Ok. So this is completely true. Of all the toys Max has, this is the one he loves the best. Three other hysterical things are:
1. This piece of wood is larger than Max's head and quite heavy, so heavy in fact, that Max can barely carry it around.
2. Sometimes if he is carrying it by the long end he can't clear the deck steps. So you can sit in the kitchen and watch him repeatedly try to get up onto the deck and bang the wood into the deck steps. Then he stops backs up, drops the wood (long end up still), picks it up (the same way) and tries again.
3. Max loves to play fetch with his giant stick. He will drag it to the back door and whine, and Everette will come out and heave the thing out into the yard (literally it is like throwing shot put), and Max will go bounding after it and lug it back again.

None of this is an exaggeration. I have, more than once, closed the blinds so Max can't stare at it and whine. I wanted to take pictures of the two of them, but the board is currently buried under several inches of snow, thanks to our March Snow storm (I love Indiana). So when the spring comes for real I will post some photos.

From the overflow of the heart-the mouth speaks

Frightening how true this is. And amazing how quickly those words can impact your whole day.
Everette and I had a full weekend, and on top of that all three of us are sick to varying degrees.
After a night of fitful sleep-due to congestion, this morning Jonathan was lying in bed with us. Normally he goes right back to sleep. But today for what ever reason he was awake and noisy. Everette and I were both tired and frustrated that we weren't able to go back to sleep. Everette only had about 30 mins before he had to get up for work, and he asked me to take Jonathan out of the room so he could rest (he also is leaving town this afternoon). Before I could even think, a self-righteous, indignant, arrogant and resounding "No"-came out of my mouth. My first thoughts were-who does he think he is? Why should I have to get up and leave. As soon as it came out-I regretted it. I should get up and leave, because, I could come back later in the day and sleep, and because I would be sleeping there tonight-while he would be up late in meetings and sleeping in a strange bed. So now this is how our day has begun. Everette is grumpy because I was quite rude to him, I feel terrible, selfish, and wanting to rewind the day and start over. THis time I get out of bed with Jonathan, since I wasn't sleeping anyway. Here's hoping we can salvage some of the day before Everette leaves. I hate it when we fight before he leaves. It always seems so stupid an unimportant later.