I am useful

After yesterday’s post, I think you all might be thinking that I think I have a miserable existence. While I will admit that I could really use a short vacation from the monatony of daily routine, I know that I wouldn’t want things to be any different around here.

I believe that I am doing what is right for me and my family, for right now. It may not be right for us next year or the year after… or maybe it will. I can say with certainty that what is right for us may not be right for other families. We are somewhat different from other families as a result of John-Paul’s job. It can be a lot to work around… some of which I blog about, and a lot of which I don’t.

As for my usefullness… I think that I got my need to be useful out on that futon last night. I think I really needed to do something that had a start and an end and that wouldn’t need to be repeated. It felt good to accomplish something that had a visible result.

John-Paul says that this purchase I made yesterday was useful. I don’t know about that, but I did save us some money. I went to a scratch-and-dent type store yesterday (someplace that I do NOT frequent enough!) and bought all of the above for $12.50. Each box of cereal was $1.25, the powerbars were 5 for $1 the food coloring was $1 (not sure what regular price is though), and the Polaner all fruit (big jars!) were $1.75 each.

I also picked up my CSA veggies yesterday.  I got green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, cucumbers, bell peppers, couliflower, and broccoli.  I also picked fresh mint for the kids to chew on, but didn’t have time to get any flowers or herbs.

The good news is that my seven lonely green beans that I grew will now have company, and we won’t have to figure out how to divide them up.   ;)

The Stubborn Post

Sometimes (not too terribly often) I can be ridiculously stubborn. Today was one of those days.

Rosie and her brother enjoying the new basement futon

I have been feeling a bit useless, lately. I do a bunch of things (dishes, cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping), that when looked at as individual tasks, make me wonder what the heck I am really contributing in life. There are moms out there that work full time AND accomplish all the same things that I do. And their children will turn out just fine. Who knows? Maybe their kids will even turn out better than mine. And when I think that way, I am left wondering, “why do I bother”?

Our culture does not value these things that I do in my daily life. Our culture values cold, hard, money. And the things that we can buy with that money. I am sometimes very harshly reminded of that when I enter into money discussions with working moms. I simply do not have enough money saved for my retirement… (per them… not me), and we simply don’t make enough money to live a nice live. I disagree… but it sure does make me stop in my tracks and wonder… why do I stay home. Am I jeopardizing my financial future? Would life be better if I brought in a sizable second income? Would I be a more useful person? Would I be more valued?

So… these are the thoughts floating around in my head for the last few weeks.

Today, we picked up a futon we had ordered a few weeks ago.

I was annoyed enough that we were getting a futon. Originally, we were going to get new sofas for upstairs, and put the upstairs sofas in the basement. But, we decided to spend our sofa money on a pellet stove, so… no new sofas.

Anyway… we got home, put the boxes in the basement and John-Paul had to go to work. I (very stubbornly) decided that I NEEDED to put the futon together immediately. Forget fixing dinner for the kids. Oh, no. It was much more important to bark at them to be quiet while I tried to decipher the wordless diagragm that was clear as mud in showing how to assemble the darn thing.

And when John-Paul (very kindly) said that he would do it first thing in the morning… what did I do? I barked at HIM to be quiet that I could do it.

I just needed to feel useful.

And I was.

But, if feeling useful means having no patience for children that are singing and being goofy because it interupts my thinking, and being useful means being short with my husband who is trying to be helpful, then perhaps, just maybe, I’ll settle for being useless for while longer.

The “I’m stuck in a rut” post

My babies are growing up fast. Oops. I mean Violet Flutterbottom’s babies are growing up so fast. :)

I think flight may be in creeping up on us pretty fast. They are spending increasingly more and more time spreading their wings and stretching up their bodies. And I promise, there are three. The third one hid when I opened the door to take the picture.

Next: my dog’s favorite hobby (other than sleeping)…

He spends countless hours just staring down the road. We are not certain, but we think he may be staring at a neighbor’s house where a dog lives. We do not have a wireless fence holding him in, and there is no chain attached to him. What a good boy Rocky is. Sometimes he does wander a little farther down the driveway to stare, but comes as soon as we call him.

Truthfully, I think he needs a cat to keep him company. One that loves dogs and will snuggle up to him.

The kids agree.

John-Paul does not.

Finally, my green beans are just about ready to be picked. All seven of them. :)

Through rain and hail, I come to you.

It is 1:30 am. I can not go to sleep quite yet. I forgot to mention yesterday that while today was John-Paul’s day off, I actually had to go to work.  As luck would have it, he got home very late.  Or… very early this morning, depending on one’s perspective, essentially turning his last 10 hour day into a 13 hour day.   So, then he slept all morning.   And, since I was up for the day at the wee hours of the morning (the birds were chirping, but there was no light) when he got home and inadvertantly woke me up, and I knew I had to work tonight, I then took a nap.  Then, I left for work.

Yay.  Fun day.

At least we have tomorrow.  Oops.  Nope.  We have to got to an 8 year old’s birthday party.  Oy… and they are saying to expect 90 degrees tomorrow.

So, anyway, (yes… this is me rambling… remember, it is late and I am tired), I worked until midnight.  Then, I had to drive the long drive home.  I saw on the news (remember we don’t have any local news in these parts) that Albany, NY was getting hit with a wicked thunderstorm… very (I mean very) strong wind gusts, possibly penny-sized hail, cloud to ground lightening.   I kept watching to see when it might hit these parts, but of COURSE they never said.  Because they don’t care about us silly Vermonters.

So, I tried to predict when it might hit based on how it seemed to be travelling in NY.  My patient’s mom was up and ready to take over (the poor thing had no night nurse tonight), so I headed out 10 minutes early, figuring I would beat the storm home, since it hadn’t even hit there yet.

I was wrong.  Really wrong.  This was in the top three storms I have ever driven through.  The very worst was once when I was driving home from a friend’s house in Burlington (several hours away) in a snow storm.  It was so bad that I wanted to go back to her house and wait it out, but I couldn’t see well enough to find her house.  So I drove home.  Very, very slowly.

The second worst storm was last winter when I had to drive home from work in a snow storm and had ZERO visibility.  It took me a long time to get home.

Tonight was rain.  I did not know that rain could be so scary to drive in.  I had near zero visibility.  The wind was horrible.  There was hail.  There was lightening hitting the ground in front of me.   I hydroplaned once.  I think this is probably the most scared I have ever been while driving in a storm.

And THAT is why I am awake.  I am still waiting for my blood pressure to go back to normal.  :)

In the meantime, I leave you with some pictures of the Flutterbottom family.  That is mom with the three babies.    Or… maybe dad.  You pick.

The babies are growing in leaps and bounds.  Today they were practising reaching the entire bodies up, not just their necks and beaks.  And we saw some wings.  They feathers are still in the pin-feather stage, so flight won’t be happened quite yet.

Did I ever mention that I used to have a bird?  Actually, I had two, but the one I had the longest I got when I was 15 and he did four years ago.  I love birds.  :)

hilarious

I’m sure I am late to the game (so to speak) but have you seen the Ravelry Games Group? I was just browsing a couple (because after listening to my daughter cry about she couldn’t fall asleep, I deserve a mindless break from parenting) and this one is too funny: Ravelry Rumours.

edited:  I don’t dare post on Ravelry Rumours, because people often don’t get me when I joke or use sarcasm.  Even my own husband, whom I have known for 15 years.  People think I am serious, and then they think I am just plain mean.  So… I don’t dare.  I might get kicked off Ravelry.  :)

I have to say, it certainly gave me a chuckle or two. Which, I really needed. After feeling nastoligic for old friends, I joined one of those social networking sites, and then felt even more nostalgic after reconnecting with a couple old college friends. It is positively amazing how fast time goes by when you have kids. There is one friend (one of my roommates) that I used to see about once a year, and now it has been three years. How did that happen!!

The Flutterbottom family is doing well. I have pictures, but am feeling too lazy to download them, crop them, upload them, and then link to them. Plus… do you really care to see pictures of three freaky-looking baby birds? They certainly keep the kids entertained. We are especially happy to see Mr. Flutterbottom contributing to the care of his family. There are just too many deadbeat dads these days. It’s refreshing to see one who is able to stick it out for the whole (few weeks) it takes to raise a brood of young birdies.

okie-dokie. ’nuff writing for me.

Wait. Today is Thursday.

What am I thankful for….

thinking…

thinking…

still thinking…

It’s coming…

Okay. I am thankful that as of today, John-Paul will be done with ten hour day for the next few months. Scheduled ten hour days, anyway. His typical nine hour days can sneak up on us an become ten, twelve, or even sixteen hour days. That’s not fun.

Anyway. Ten hour days. Just about over. And just in time. By the end of the weeks of ten hour days, we are just so exhausted and craving each other (get your mind out of the gutter — wait. It’s okay. Put it back in.). I do so love that man. I especially love it when he is home and not so much tired. :)

edited: I just remember (whilst thinking of my college roommate) that I had a plant in my dorm room that I named Sylvia Plant. Get it? Give me a break. I was 18 and thought it was clever.

We have a baby!!!

Violet Flutterbottom is a mom.

There are at least two little baby robins, but the nest is too high to see how many more there might be.

Congratulations Violet. We are very happy for you and Mr. Flutterbottom.

We hope that the next few weeks are filled with endless days of joyful parenting. Your babies will be grown before you know it. :)

Other news…

Our dog thinks we should take him out more. (Oh, and see that box on the front seat? It has been in and out of the car waiting to be mailed for too many days. It is first on my list for tomorrow):

I finished John-Paul’s socks (but have yet to convince him to model wool socks in the summer heat), and am just lacking a zipper on a baby sweater:

The last few weeks have been filled with some pretty amazing hard rainfalls. Rain that comes down so hard and for so long that the lawn simply can not absorb it. Fun stuff. Last week, the rain came out of nowhere (okay, maybe I could have checked the weather report) and completely drenched the clothes I had out to dry. I ended up spinning them through the washing machine again and then hanging them on racks inside.

And finally, there has been lots of snuggling.

With daddy:

And with Mama:

someday I’ll miss this / Thankful Thursday

Rosie: “mama… mamaaaa… what are you doin’?!” (as she pounds on the bathroom door)

Me: ” What do you think I am doing?”

Rosie: “goin’ to the bafroom?”

Me: “yup”

Rosie: “But whaaat are you do-ing?”

Me: “I told you, I am going to the bathroom”

Rosie: “But are you doin’ pee or poopie?”

Me: “It doesn’t really matter. Just let me do it, please.”

Rosie: “Mama!!! Look down. Do you see my fingers under the door?”

———————

I am thankful that I can laugh, knowing that someday I might actually be lonely while I go to the bathroom. :)

I did it

I didn’t chicken out! Despite getting only 1.5 hours of sleep (thanks to an astounding case of insomnia) I did not back out of the 5K yesterday. Here I am, in the home stretch. Don’t you love how I look like I am running SO fast? Well, I was, but only at that moment. Once I came around the bend and saw the finish line, there was nothing holding me back. I sort of felt bad for that woman beside me that was just barely keeping it together, chugging along at a solid 10 minute mile pace.

My unofficial time (because apparently they only timed the first three through the finish line) was 29 minutes, 47 seconds. Not too bad on practically no sleep. Also, I had no clue where a good place in the pack was to start, and I ended up starting way too far back. I literally stood still for a few moments after the race started, and then had to run to the start, and then I spent about 1/2 mile passing people that I should have started in front of. So, I feel happy knowing that I not only ran in the time I had hoped for, but am confident that I could have done it faster.

So overall, I am very pleased. My main goal was to run the race. I did. I am very proud of myself. I was hoping for around 30 minutes, and I did it. Yeah!

Really, though, the very best part of it all was that I got to spend time with Liz. I have known Liz for almost ten years (we used to work together before I moved to Vermont).

It had been far, far too long since we had gotten together. A long time ago (as in, mostly before I had two kids) we used to get together every few months for a day of haircuts and shopping. We used to make a point of seeing each other, and we have been way too lax about that. It had actually been a year and a half since we saw each other. Very sad.

Liz and her husband stayed overnight before the race, and I have to admit that I was really, really sad to see them go. It had been so long since I had gotten to spend time with a good friend (more months and months and months than I care to count). And I don’t mean other moms that I hang out with at the park because our kids are the same age. I mean the kind that are special in ways that you can’t even put into words. I have very, very few friends like that, and currently have none that even reside in my state.

So, thank you Liz, for running with me and visiting!

Pre-race thoughts

You might recall me mentioning that I will be running in a race soon. In fact, that time has almost arrived. Currently, it is 9:30 Wednesday night. I am running in a 5K at 9:30 Friday morning. 36 hours left to go.

I’m not sure what I was thinking. I am so not ready. I have been really sluggish lately. When I am rested, I run great. When I am tired (which I am… should I tell you about the craziness of John-Paul’s job this week?) I can barely manage to keep myself upright.

Also, I am a bit nervous about running in a large group. I don’t like crowds. AT ALL. I actually get panicky in crowds. I usually cope by walking away from crowds (like crowds in check-out lines in stores, for example). In this case, I will actually be actively working to run with the crowd. ‘Cause it probably won’t go over very well if I run away from the crowd. ;)

So, my goal (because I have to set goals, being me, and all) (and by the way, do you like my excessive use of parentheses?) is to run the 5K in 30 minutes. That is just under a 10 minute mile pace. It is also about 4-5 minutes slower than I could run that distance last summer. (I told you I am not ready!). The real achievement for me though, will be just to finish this race.

What I am really excited about, though is that my friend Liz (Kis*knit) will be running with me! Liz’s husband will be there, but I think we will be eating his dust. Sadly, this will not be a double-date sort of race thing, since John-Paul sprained his ankle a while ago and is still trying not to overdo it. He will be on the sidelines with the kids, cheering us on and taking pictures.

And it gets better. Liz and her husband will be staying here tomorrow night! It has been a really long time since we have been able to get together, and I am so excited. I am also nervous that my children will either keep them awake or wake them up way too early. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my kids don’t act like the crazy little demons that I know they can be.

Oh! And, John-Paul took the night off because they will be here, which makes me a lot less stressed, since the race is in the morning and he has been getting in really, really, really (really, really, really) late from work each night this week. I am so pleased that he will be home to help calm my nerves the night before, and that he will be up in the morning and not getting up five minutes before we have to leave.

I wonder if John-Paul and Liz’s husband will mind if we knit tomorrow night…

Wish me luck (and Liz, too). Maybe, if I am not feeling too shy about wearing my running clothes, I will even let share a few pictures with you. :)

CSA week 3

Before I forget…

I checked my Mr. Rebates account today, and there was a note that the minimum payment threshold for rebate checks is now only $10 (it used to be $25). That’s an even better reason to sign up for Mr. Rebates!

Today was the third pickup at my CSA (community supported agriculture). The variety of vegetables is starting to increase, and this week we were allowed to take the equivelent of 9 points. The first two weeks we were allowed 8 points each, and I believe the allowed points will go up as the season progresses.

This week, I took:

2 bunches of broccoli (2 points)
1 bunch of head lettuce (1 point)
a dozen eggs (2 points)
3 pounds of summer squash (3 points)
1 bunch of some weird long onion things (1 point)

I also picked flowers, scallions, and basil (pick your own flowers and herbs from the garden are not included in the points and you take whatever you like).

And, I used $14 of my $20 of prepared food credits to buy a package of cumin infused sesame crackers, a bag of granola, and 4 veggie burgers.

Not bad. It’s actually hard to imagine that when summer is in full swing I will actually be getting more!

Here is my garden. Do you like it?

I am really sad that we didn’t get a garden in this year. After all the leaves came in, we realized that the only spot in the entire yard that was sunny enough for a garden was on the side next to the fence (the view in the picture is from the front of the house facing towards the back). Our ground is really, really rocky (and sandy, I think). This spot needs a lot of work before it will be ready for even a raised bed garden. My hope is to get it ready by the fall and then be able to plant in the spring.

In the meantime, I am growing a few (literally, two or three!) geen beans in some planter boxes. Most of my plants ended up dying because I had no place to put them. Oh well.

We have a bird roosting on eggs outside our front door. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but we didn’t realize it until too late, and I’m not messing with it now.

The kids played in their little pool over the weekend (in between thunder storms…sigh). I love pictures like this (seriously… take a look at the picture I am currently using for my banner header) I love how Rosie is always SO intently interested in whatever her brother is doing. Awesome stuff. I love watching the kids play together.

Rosie just came to me and said, “mama… um… mama…. I was… um… mama. I was trying to feed my baby pasta, but she won’t eat it”. I looked at her and realized that she had stuck wads of her pasta in her baby doll’s mouth. And she was SO sad that the doll wasn’t eating it.

Is it bad that I feel strong urges to have another baby in situations like this? Is it wrong to want another baby so MY baby can get to experience the joys of a younger sibling? She would get such a joy out of helping out with a younger sibling. But, I think we can all agree THAT is not a good reason to have a baby. :)

Picnik and headers

If you read me at my site (as opposed to a feed reader) you know that I have taken a liking to updating my header rather often. (what can I say… some people like to rearrange furniture. Mine’s too heavy, okay?).

I discovered Picnik a few months ago, and love it. You can crop, resize, add text, and best of all, there are all sorts of neat filters you can apply. Sure, you could buy fancy photo-editing software, buy why do that when you can use Picnik for free? Oh, and did I mention you can link it directly to your Flickr so your Flickr photos open right up in Picnik?

Go check it out.

The rest of that last post + more

Wow! When I wrote that last post, I thought that I would be updating again in a day or so. Instead, it has been a week! Time really does seem to be flying lately.

When I last left you, I told you about our visit to a revolutionary war re-enactment. Afterwards, we decided to take advantage of a once-a-year-only opportunity to get free admission to state parks (we always forget to take advantage of it each year). We stopped by a lake that we (and be “we”, I mean “I”) had been meaning to check out, and were surprised to see it practically empty on a 90 degree day!

Of course, we hadn’t brought swimming gear, since it was spur-of-the-moment, and we had no interest in baking in the sun on a boat, so we let the kids play around for a while and then made a vow to come back on a different day to rent a boat when it was perhaps not quite so likely that we be burned to a crisp while on the lake. (And did I just write an entire paragraph that was one sentence? Bad me).

The lake is small-ish, but very pretty.

The kids were having fun watching the tadpoles.

John-Paul took this picture of Rosie and I.  It is one of my favorites. I love her expression, and I love our matching braids (her request… don’t you just love little girls?!). I think this is one that I will always keep close to my heart.

This picture is at the farm where we get our vegetables (from the CSA that we bought a share in). Our first pick up was the 17th. We got a dozen eggs, spinach, salad greens, bok choy and… oops. Sadly, I can’t remember what else. The second week (this past week), I got kohlrabi, cauliflower, salad greens, garlic scapes, head lettuce. I feel like there was something else… but apparently am just simply losing all my memory tonight.

Anyway, we are enjoying our fresh veggies, and are looking forward to a few weeks from now when there will be even more varieties to choose from. I especially love that we can take what we want, and it is not a pre-packed box.

The rest of the time between then and now (basically about two weeks, at this point!) has been spent being busy, busy, busy with the kids. I spent several days in a row taking the kids out almost all day to the park and to play with friends. This always presents a huge challenge to me. I love spending the time that way with the kids, but it is extremely draining, because I end up being the parent that is with them all morning, all day, and all night long, because of John-Paul’s schedule. So, I am up with them, get them out all day, come home, do dinner, clean up and bedtime, laundry and other chores, go to bed and then do it again. I typically spend several days doing this, and then hit burn-out. Not to mention I end up really missing John-Paul’s company.

I have yet to come up with a good balance in this area. I do so love getting out with the kids, especially since it means socialization for me (something which I did practically none of this winter!). But, I also need to make sure that I am not doing it to the point of exhaustion for me.

Hopefully, we will be able to find a balance that works for all of us. We live in such a great place for summer fun, and there is really very little time in the summer! I think that I just try to hard to pack in the fun, since I know that once winter hits again, it will be endless days where it is hard to get together with other people (I actually have a friend that lives on a mountain and my car can’t even make it down her road!).

And now, I am off to put the little stinker know as Rosie back to bed. ;)

Last week, part I

Wow… time sure does fly when you keep busy and are having fun. I am breaking up the last week into 2 posts. I will try, try, try to get my second post done tomorrow. But, tomorrow I have to pick up the house (it’s not too bad, really) because my mom comes on Tuesday, make lasagna for my family and another family, make a meal for me to eat (’cause I eat neither cheese nor meat…), and run errands in about five stores, and then wrap up the day by working 5-11pm. Fun, fun.

Okay. Here goes.

1. Actually, this first thing is a little older. I forgot to tell you that Rosie had her last day of preschool a little over a week ago. It was a little sad, because she won’t be back in the fall, since she will be spending the next two years at a preschool in our town.

Rosie swinging with her “best friend”. They love each other so much, and were always hugging and kissing and chatting together. This was an important relationship for Rosie, since all of her other friends are boys!

2. You might recall that last Saturday (not yesterday, but waaaaay back last weekend) was our 11 year anniversary. We originally had planned to spend the day together doing fun things with the kids, but then found out unexpectedly that our neighbor would be able to babysit for us. (Anyone besides us find that it is hard to get teenagers to babysit despite paying them $7 or $8 an hour? Teens are so busy!). So instead, we spent the afternoon picking up and cleaning (because we really enjoy coming home after a date and having absolutely nothing to do).

Since we have very few pictures of us together, we put the camera on the dashboard of the minivan and put it on autotimer. Not too bad, but I was a bit too close. My head is actually quite a bit smaller than John-Paul’s.

We were super-excited to be able to have some time together, and decided to go to a little coffee shop type place. I got a Soy Tazo Chai with lots of foamy soy milk, and some sort of hummus wrap. Yummy. John-Paul got iced coffee and a big honkin’ piece of chocolate cake.

Sadly, they kicked us out a 7pm (the website said it closed at 9pm), so we just walked around town for a while, and sat on a bench and reminisced about how we started dating, and our early years together. Then, the thunder and rain came, so we drove around for about a half hour before heading home. And the best part? Both kids were sound asleep when we got home at 8:30 (or was it 9?). There is simply nothing like coming home at night to a clean house and sleeping children.

3. So the next day, we decided to take the kids out like we had planned the day before.

First, we headed out to see a revolutionary war reenactment. It is something we say we are going to go to every year, and then always forget about. Personally, I am not really too into the whole “pretend to kill people” thing, but there was a speaker who explained everything that was going on, and I actually learned quite a bit. We are a bit of dorky-history-loving-documentary-watching family, so it was a good way to spend a few hours.

The colonial army (this was a small scale reenactment)

The reenactors (is that what you call them?) actually stayed in these tents. I am told they kept out the rain, but not the bugs.

The British army won the battle that day

We thought about seeing if we could buy these. They seem like a good deterrent to bad behavior, no?

Of course, punishing Rosie that way just wouldn’t be fun for me, since holding her is sort of uncomfortable.

And of course, there is a spinning wheel. Because, how could a knitter not take a picture of a spinning wheel?

Wow. That was a lot. I think I will save the rest of Sunday and the rest of the week for my next post. There will not be nearly as many pictures next time!

a race

What?  Another post five seconds after my last one?

What does this mean?  Could it be that my dear friend Liz will be joining me in my first ever (since high school) race?

And that we will be seeing each other for the first time since Rhinebeck ‘06?  (how pathetic is that?)

Did I dream that you just sent me that email?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I don’t know about you, but I do NOT do well on very little sleep. Back when I was a teenager, I would stay up until 2am (I had horrible insomnia) and then get up at 5:30, go for a run and then go to school. These days, I can’t even fathom living like that! I would be a wreck.

These past few days have been a huge reminder to me about why it is I need good sleep. I’m sure I have mentioned this before… Rosie does not sleep well (and my son has night terrors, which is a treat. They involve screaming and sleepwalking), and is up several times a night. When I get up with her, I am a horrible wreck the next day.

This has been a really, really busy week for us, so I was feeling tired to begin with, and the night before last, I was up with her three times, and then I was up for the day at 6am (my son usually takes her downstairs and reads to her or gets her breakfast, but this day, for whatever reason, I had to get up).

I am always telling John-Paul that I am just not myself when I am short on sleep. I am literally the complete opposite of my normal self. (As opposed to John-Paul who is essentially the same on less sleep… perhaps a big more impatient than usual).

If I had blogged yesterday, I would have told you all about how I can’t stand John-Paul, how he is selfish and irritating, and mean, and about a hundred other things that were making me wonder why I even was married to the guy (poor John-Paul).

Last night, he got up with Rosie.

Today, I am happy, pleasant, patient, organized, motivated, energized, and most of all… I am certain that while John-Paul actually is a bear to live with (he is like a cantankerous, obstinent old man), I actually AM crazy about him and enjoy him very much.

It’s like my family is living with their very own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. :)

It has been a crazy busy week. I am hoping to post a quick recap over the weekend, and then my mom will be visiting for a few days, so I won’t be blogging. But… then I will be having a blog contest to give my poor little boy a blog name! It will involve yarn, for sure. :)

Flag Day

John-Paul loves that I blog. He enjoys reading my posts and always loves to hear what you all have to say in the comments. I love hearing him laugh over the things that I wrote that I hoped would make him laugh. Sometimes, I even think that he gets to see a little bit more of me than he otherwise would (mostly because, being a guy, he tends to tune out when I talk, so he misses out on a lot…).

Today is a special day for us (yes, again). Since it has been just two days since I bored you all shared a bit about how we started dating, I asked John-Paul if he wanted to step in and be a guest blogger.

To be honest, I thought he would say no. (Though, he did write once before).

Not only did he say that he would, but he took time out of his busy work schedule to get it done on time! And boy, oh boy, what he wrote just made me cry. Here it is (and it is all him… no edits):

In honor of a very special day, I have been given the opportunity to step in and make a contribution to Kristina’s blog. If you happen to know me, or can read between the lines of previous posts, you may be aware that I am pretty opinionated, and just a tad blunt. Hence, I am typically forbidden to provide actual comments for the world to see. So, this is a “Big Deal.” Now that has been clarified……Happy Flag Day!!!!!!!

(Ok, maybe there are other reasons she doesn’t want me to comment.)

Seriously, Flag Day is a big day, because on Flag Day eleven years ago (Are those kids really us? What happened to my thick head of hair?) Kristina said “I do” and one of the three best days of my entire life occurred. (The other two being the births of the two awesome kids you may have seen from time to time – I’m not going to pick which one of the three is tops.)

After eleven years (we’ve been “together” fifteen – Holy Cow!) I am still amazed to be so lucky to have such a wonderful person as my wife. She won’t admit it – usually – but she is out of my league. She is going to hate this part (too bad) but she is beautiful, funny, patient, extremely intelligent, and probably 1000 other wonderful things I don’t have time (work, work, work…) to list. If you haven’t caught on, she also has a little bit of what I’ll call MacGyver-ism. She can literally teach herself to do (successfully) just about anything that she sets her mind to. Very cool.

So, to wrap this all up, Kristina thanks for letting me share your blog. I hope you don’t edit this too much. And thank you for sharing your life with me. You are an amazingly awesome person; you are my everything. Happy Anniversary!!!!!!

Kristina & John-Paul (looking very tired after a looong day!)
June 14, 1997

grocery list

I just spent about 40 minutes going through the grocery store fliers for this upcoming week and writing out my grocery list. Since I am getting a bunch of good deals using online coupons, I thought that I would share and maybe save someone else some money, too.

At Shaws:

• Chex mix is on sale for $1.00 each. I got 2 $1.00 coupons here, and 2 $.65 coupons here. The $.65 coupons will be doubled, and Shaws will double it over the cost of the product, so I will actually make $.60 that I can use on other items I purchase, if I use both coupons. Since Chex mix is not really something we eat very often, I will only buy it if it is dated pretty far into the future, so we can use it at parties.
• Near East rice pilaf and couscous are on sale for $1.00 each. I got 2 $.50 coupons here. Again, Shaws will double them, making each box free.
• Shaws has an in-flier coupon for a free box of quaker simple harvest bars when you buy 2 tropicana 89 ounce orange juice. The orange juice is on sale for $3.99 and I have a coupon for $2.00 or 2. Shaws also has an online coupon here for $1.00 off 2, which is still a good deal. I also have a $1.00 coupon for the simple harvest bars, but I am pretty sure that they won’t let me combine the store coupon with the manufacturer coupon, in this case.
• Shaws is also having a deal where you get a coupon for a free gallon of milk of you buy 5 participating boxes of cereal. The cereal are on sale for 2 each. Depending on what coupons I have and what I can find in the coupon machines at the store for Cheerios and Kix, I may do this deal.

At Price Chopper:

• John-Paul needs more coffee creamer. There is a $1.00 coupons here (this coupon is refreshed every couple of months). PC will double coupons up to and including $1.00. I was able to print two coupons, so I will use one this week and pay about $.69. I will save the other coupon for when the creamer goes on sale for $2.00 and then get it for free.
• yoplait whips yogurt is on sale for $.50. There is a coupon here for $.60 off three, and I was able to print it twice. PC will double my coupons, and I will get 6 yogurts (they are 4 oz) for $.10 each. I normally pay $.44 cents each 8 ounce PC brand yogurt, so this is definitely a savings.

These are just some of the savings that I came up with this morning. I have others using regular coupons, and others that I may get, depending on how things work out in the store. Also, I haven’t seen the CVS flier yet to know if I will be stopping there this week. I already checked the Rite Aid flier and there is nothing that I am interested in.

Oh, and my CSA starts up next week, so I will be gettting some farm fresh organic eggs and veggies. They said to expect lots of salad greens this first week, including spinach and box choy. We are super-big spinach lovers and I have been looking forward to trying bok choy. And then next week there should be broccoli (we LOVE broccoli!) and a few other things. I’ll keep you posted!

15 years

John-Paul and I went on our first date 15 years ago today. Fifteen years! That hardly seems possible.

Because, I am only 25, you know. ;)

But seriously, we were just kids (though, really, I wasn’t ten) when we started dating. I would argue that we were even still kids when we got married four years later! We have both grown up and changed SO much in the past fifteen years. I think that our younger selves would hardly recognize the grown-up, parent people that we have become. Being me (and thus unable to be objective), I can’t speak for how I have turned out, but I can surely tell you that John-Paul has grown into an amazing man. Not perfect. Not even close. ;) But amazing, nonetheless.

John-Paul and I, 2005 (dating for 2 years)

I want to recount our story of how we started dating, and tell you about those first few months. But I don’t think I could possibly summarize it all in one post.

Do I tell you about the very first time he ever spoke to me? I remember that moment like it was yesterday (John-Paul does not…). I remember what I was wearing, where we were. He was impressed by my ability to write an entire essay in Spanish. He pointed out a spot on my jeans where I had spilled some bleach. So romantic. :) But that wasn’t when we started dating. That was months and months later.

Maybe I should mention his friend Christian (who later became one of my closest friends) that I went to the Junior/Senior prom with (I was a junior, he and John-Paul were seniors). And how John-Paul ended up riding in the car with Christian and I the next day to Riverside (which is now a Six Flags park), in Massachusetts. That was sort of the start of it all.

Or the boy that I was originally supposed to go to the prom with (I think of him as “Dude” or “Rat Boy”… the first because he said, “dude” way too much and Christian sort of starting using it to refer to him to spare me the agony/annoyance of hearing his real name (Kevin) and the second because my sister said he looked like a rat). If it hadn’t been for Rat Boy, maybe I never would have even started dating John-Paul. Because if I had gone to the prom with Rat Boy, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Christian, etc, etc. And if my friend Danielle’s phone line had not crossed with her neighbor’s phone line while we were talking, I wouldn’t have heard Rat Boy’s grand scheme to totally ditch me and not show up to bring me to the prom.

Or maybe I should tell you about how the boy that I crushed on for about three years straight was actually the one that set me me up to go the prom with Christian. How ironic that even HE played a role in our story. I always thought he did it partly because he felt bad for not liking me back. :)

Then there was the time that Christian, John-Paul and I sat in the hallway during our end-of-the-year honors awards ceremony and just talked and talked. We did our honor society thing (inducting new members) and then left to hang out. I’m not even sure if we bothered to go back and get our honor roll awards. That was a fun night. Mostly because I spent all of it gets oodles of positive attention from two of the finest boys I had ever met (to this day, they both retain that status). It was that night that I knew that John-Paul was going to call me.

But, it took him a few weeks to do it. He says that he was waiting for Christian to ask me out and finally got tired of waiting and ended up asking Christian for my phone number.

I remember that when he called, I had a feeling like, “what took you so long”. I was normally SO shy, and would normally hardly even speak, but when John-Paul called, I think I never stopped talking.

And then he asked me to go out with him on a date. I (being shy and socially awkward) sort of hemmed and hawed and tried to say no. He (in an oddly bold move) said, “okay then. I’ll pick you up at 6:30 on Saturday”.

We went for pizza and a movie. I noticed how much different our walks were. Mine was sort of a smooth, even glide. His involved much more up and down movement. He wore a green shirt (I came across it once after we were married and saved it with my other momentos… yes, I am a dork) and jeans.

He did NOT kiss me goodnight. He says I ran out of the car before he was even in park.

Our second date was June 23. He did kiss me that night. ;)

We went on dates that whole summer. But he was NOT my boyfriend.

Or so I would tell people.

By the fall, I was saying he was my boyfriend. Over time, he turned into my best friend.

And other than the time I broke up with him for about five hours (he had been visiting me at college and had to drive the 4.5 hour car ride home crushed that I had broken up with him! Poor boy!), we have been together ever since. We were far apart the year I was away at college, and then together all the time when I transferred home and we went to college together.

I can honestly say that I never thought I would marry someone that I started dating at age 17. And, I can’t exactly say that I would want my daughter to do it (nor would I EVER want my children to get marriend at 21!). There was a LOT of growing up and thankfully, we managed to grow up together, and not apart. I do believe that I am a better person because of him.

It’s like that Rod Stewart song:

You’re in my heart, you’re in my soul
You’ll be my breath, should I grow old
You are my lover, you’re my best friend
You’re in my soul

I simply can not imagine my life without him.

Nor do I want to.

—————-
addendum: I had a really, really hard time finding pictures of John-Paul and I! I have only a few from our dating years (I KNOW my mil has some, though) and probably less than five over the years we have been married. The last picture I could find of just the two of us was from when I was pregnant with Rosie four years ago!

Thankful Thursday

Yes, it is still Wednesday… but tomorrow is a special day and deserves a special post dedicated just to the specialness of the day. So, I am bringing you this week’s edition of Thankful Thursday a day early.

1. I am thankful that the storm pretty much passed us by yesterday. We did get some rain (which we desperately needed), but no scary winds, no hail, and no tornado.

2. We got an oil delivery yesterday. I am thankful that I only had to pay $2.64 a gallon. It was our last delivery on last year’s prebuy program. I got 158 gallons for $417.65. Today’s current rates are around $4.50 a gallon, so in a sense, I saved almost $300. this is me looking at the “upside” of things. :)

3. I am thankful that Rosie is old enough to finally play real games with her brother! They played memory twice (which was a nice break for me) and she only screamed once because he wouldn’t give her his pair that had flowers on them. To be fair to him, he would have traded with her to keep the numbers of pairs even, but she was unwilling to part with the bananas, the bear, or any of her other pairs.

4. I am thankful that John-Paul’s work schedule is finally getting back to “normal”. While his version of normal is still NOT normal for everyone else, it will still be a relief after these past few months. He spent time away almost every single month for the past five months, his entire schedule was turned upside down and backwards for weeks at a time, and we are ALL tired and cranky from it. I am especially thankful that he will not be spending a week or two in Arizona for training like he thought he might have to.

5. I am working a bit more than usual this month (just the way it worked out). I just realized today that my next paycheck will a little over $400. I am thankful to be getting $400 that was previously unbudgeted (I don’t include my money in the budget, since sometimes I don’t even work at all - in fact, I may have just increased my year to date pay by almost 50%). I will be using it to pay for my weekend at a spa, including a facial, a mani/pedi, and a massage. Just kidding. I am not sure what we will do with it yet… either adding it to underfunded budget categories, or maybe to the money we are saving to buy a second car (the goal is cash only, no loan).

6. I am especially (and most) thankful that Rosie’s brother is about to go to bed. You know that little saying, “there was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of forehead. And when she was good she was very, very good; and when she was bad she was horrid” ? Well. That is my little boy. 98% of the time is he good. Today, it is all about the horrid. Oh. boy. I am off to calm to storms.

crazy weather

I just got in the house and had a message from a friend asking what I thought about the tornado warnings.

um…. tornado warnings?

I guess I should turn on the tv or radio now and then.

Not that it would matter much. I recall a time… about five years ago… that there was a tornado warning in the NY Capital District (Albany) area. I should probably mention here that Bennington (possibly a large chunk of Vermont?) can either get Albany news or Burlington Vermont new. Burlington is about three hours from Bennington, while the “Albany area” is right across the border (Albany itself is one hour away, but the “viewing” area is about five minutes away”.

We were having some seriously nasty weather. Albany had a tornado warning. Nowhere, not on any of the channels did they mention a tornado warning for Bennington County (because tornados know to stop at state lines, right?). I didn’t believe it, because the winds we were having were pretty nasty. So, I got the basement ready and watched on the news as the storm got closer and closer on the map. All of a sudden, they said, “the storm is out of our viewing area!” and TURNED OFF THE WEATHER WATCH to go back to regular programming. I went down to the basement because it was at that moment hitting Bennington country and I didn’t care that they had never put a tornado warning on Bennington county.

Guess what? A tornado touched down right in Beninnington, about a 1/2 mile from the house I lived in.

So that is my tornado story. Hopefully, it will remain my ONLY tornado story. But, just in case, I will be prepared. :)