I would blog...

...but my head hurts too bad to think, so I think I'll go soak in the tub and try not to cry.

Short Entry!

I'm determined to keep this entry short. Not sure how exactly to do that, but I will try nonetheless.

Yesterday morning I woke up absolutely sure that it was Wednesday. I don't know why, exactly... I just did. So I spent the morning depressed because Quinn had left before I had awakened, and wasn't gonna be back until noon, then would have all of 45 minutes to leave for work.

At noon he wasn't home.

I double checked the school schedule. Yep. Wednesdays his last class was out by 11:30.

At 12:30 he wasn't home.

My phone is dead, so whoever is running around carries his phone... so I didn't have a phone.

At 12:45 I was starting to panic. He had 15 minutes to be at work, he should have been home 40 minutes earlier, I was absolutely helpless as far as contacting him to make sure he was okay goes.

I started calculating how badly he could be hurt if he were in an accident. (The roads weren't the greatest) I was expecting his best friend to come to the door at any second to tell me he was in the hospital. I laughed at myself and said that I was being hyper emotional 'cause I'm all hormonal from being pregnant.

1 o'clock. Still no Quinn. Trying not to cry, even though I had no real reason *to* cry.

1:15 he bounced in the front door, perfectly happy and normal. I pretended I was fine, and asked if he needed anything ironed to get him off to work.

He looked at me really funny.

"Why on earth would I go to work today?"

"Are you taking a sick day?"

"It's Tuesday."

I felt really stupid.

Really really stupid.

Oh well. Life happens.

Just a few reasons...

...that I love him.

He's a thinker. He'd rather read a book on E.Coli then watch a movie, and he'd rather sit on the bed and tell me all about it then play a video game or run around with his friends. He'd rather spend 2 hours digging through a book store than going to watch a movie. He loves to learn, and the more information is packed into a book, the more he loves it. He loves school. He gets giddy about his microbiology class. He has a million ideas and plans about projects and lessons he's gonna help our children through. His dream house is practically a public library...but only for us.


He is selflessly servant-hearted. Countless times in the last 8 months he's been up in the middle of the night to move the humidifier or get a warm cloth for my chest and hot tea to sooth the random little coughs I get. He's sat for hours holding a cold cloth on my forehead when migraines have kept me from being able to sleep.  I had almost a page in this category, but I want people to actually read this post, not look at it and go "holy crud, really?" and skip to the bottom...

He's a dreamer. Completely poetic at heart, yet thoroughly realistic in every day life. A day doesn't go by without some wild, beautiful, impossible idea falling out of his mouth. We talk through them, building them up, discussing ways to make them happen, then laugh them away, but oh, how much fun it is...


He adores me, and everything he says and does reflects that. He'll sit and watch me when I'm writing or reading, and when I look up his eyes light up as mine meet them and he mouths "I love you." He'll get home from work or class and if I'm asleep he'll come wake me up with kisses on my neck and cheek and nose. He has pet names for me, multiple ones, but nothing takes my breath away like when he says my name. He gives up chances to be with his friends and brother because he wants to be with me.

He loves being with me.

Genuinely loves it..

<3 <3 <3 <3

He's all about being outside. Books are his first love, but anything outdoors is a close second. We spent the summer and fall hiking, canoeing, camping, boating, eating take-out at city parks, taking long walks at midnight. The only thing I love more than nature (besides my Jesus, of course) is Quinn, and the two of them combined just makes me all melty and happy inside. Heck, we even got married outside. We honeymooned at the cabin spending every day hiking and in the boat and wandering up and down the river. Even though it's winter we still walk every time it's warm enough, and last time we had a day over 40 we went to the cabin and spent the afternoon walking along the river bank.

Sides, he'll eat *anything,* which makes it really easy to make him happy... 
------

I could continue in the same format, but while I love saying it, I'm sure people can only bear so much of my rambling gushyness.

------

Yesterday we got up to go to church,  got ready, ate some breakfast, left the house...

...But we were home less than an hour later. We got to the first church we'd been wanting to visit, but they're a group that started as a home church and now they meet at the S Lake Boathouse 3 weeks a month. Just so happened that the boathouse was booked for the day yesterday, so they were meeting in their other location. So we decided to go to one others on our list. Before we could get there I had my head between my knees, so carsick that I couldn't breathe deep cause I was sure I was gonna puke. Yay.

Quinn brought me home.

It's actually been a pretty big problem for me lately. If I'm not driving I get sick sooo easily. I really hate it, but it's how it is... 

30 minutes later, after laying on the couch and letting myself reset, I was good to go, but it was too late, so we made lunch and watched Nascar. hehe. I hate Nascar.

A couple hours later we headed down to B-son. I drove. Went to the outlets for a little while but it was so cold that we couldn't bear much. Went to Motherhood and Dress Barn and Van Heusen. Got Quinn a new sweater and a new dress shirt. Didn't get me anything 'cause I've been spending enough time shopping craigslist and eBay that I can't stand to spend even $15 on a single item. lol. Sad, huh?

Headed from there to Daddy H's man cave (Quinn's drove...I didn't want to navigate Branson's insanely stupid routes anymore) where the five kids were spending the weekend. Hung out for a couple hours. I spent the first 30 minutes laying on the kids' bed watching Nick and Eli play lego StarWars while I tried to recover from letting Quinn drive for 10 minutes. (He's not a bad driver at all...but B's hills and curves are bad enough that it only took 10 to have me go down again) 

Those two handle disputes so differently from my siblings. Nick kept using the character Eli needed, so instead of the "if you don't stop it then I'm gonna ask Mom to ground you!" or "play right or you're gonna have to quit" that my brothers would have used he said "Nick, if you don't stop it then I'm gonna quit and you'll have to play by yourself!"   My brothers would have been like "fine. Quit then." and enjoyed having full control of the console, but no... Nick straightened up for a while under that threat, then a few minutes later when he started acting up again, Eli just quietly put his controller down and walked away. It took five minutes for Nick to be bored with playing alone and go to ind his brother and beg. Totally cracked me up.

-------

Around 6 we headed out, taking Tim with us so he could meet his ride in S-field. The snow was coming down hard at that point. I was hungry, but didn't want to eat-in anywhere and did want to get home, so we drove through Wendy's.  I wanted fries, but Wendy's fries are nasty, so my man did something he had never done before and got my wrap at Wendy's then drove across the street to a different restaurant (McD's) for my fries. So sweet of him. <3

Took almost 2 hours to accomplish the normally 40 min drive back to S-field. The roads were completely unsalted because the snow wasn't supposed to come until morning, so the first layer melted when it hit, but then froze over. The hwy was white. The streets in town were white. People were sliding every where and the Police Department was on emergency alert due to the number of wrecks. Yuck.

It made for a really cozy evening though! I had wanted a stress/mess free evening, so I got cold-cut supplies and chips and veggies and we rented a movie. (I even got dills, which I hate, but he appreciated. hee) I decorated just the coffee table and we snuggled in for the evening. It was wonderful. 4 hours straight with no phone calls or texts, no studying, no computers, no blogs or facebooks or email accounts. Just cozy blankets and Olympics and "You've Got Mail" and yummy food. Absolutely one of my favorite evenings ever.

This morning I slept in and he ran out for an hour to get coffee with his bff. He was home before I woke up. I got up and made a pot of chili 'cause he was bragging about my last pot at work and the girls all asked for some for today, which is a "food day."  (corporate pot luck. How nasty does it get?)  He's got a nasty cold, so he was pretty miserable heading out, but the morning was cozy with the chili simmering away and us sitting on the couch with or tea and the snow outside and the doves playing on our porch rail.

I'm happy. Life is so beautiful. The snow is coming down fast, if not thick, and Quinn's favorite songs are playing. My feet are wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, I have a cute mug full of honey and chamomile.  I'm in super comfy maternity pants that I don't have to rubber band or wear obscenely low to button, thanks to Becca, and I'm snacking on a Reese's heart that Quinn gave me last night... *happy sigh*

God bless. Enjoy today. It's really beautiful, even if it is cold.

Calorie Count?

Ha. Last night Mom and I were discussing my calorie intake. I gave her a run-down of pretty much everything that I'd eat over the last 4 days and my eat-junk-food-all-day-'cause-it's-our-day-off-day she guessed that I almost hit 2000 calories.

Today I kept track of every little thing I ate and hit 1511. Scary.

_^_^_^_^_


So the rental wasn't gonna happen. The appliances and heat system were so outdated that you had to wonder if they hadn't been there when the first settlers came to Springfield. He showed us a second house too, that had massive amounts of potential, but the same issues with out of date appliances, edgy bathroom fixtures, drafty windows... though it would be well worth buying, the landlord was obviously into doing as little as possible to get people moved into his houses and paying him as much as he could squeeze out of them.  Not exactly the kinda guy you want to depend on for your keeping your AC and water lines going.

'Sides. We got out the lease paper and we can't move until the first of July without paying the apartment complex to let us. So we're jumping the gun even worse than we thought.

************

Monday I got snowed out of teaching the kiddos, so yesterday afternoon I headed out to the farm to work Rachel and Jonnah through their Federation pieces. I picked up GI Joe on the way out and after dinner Daniel, Micah, Mom and I started it together. I was planing on leaving by 8:30-45, but about 8:50 I looked at the clock and the movie was so close to my favorite scene (the super suits in Paris) so I stuck around 'til the scene was over. Meant that I left closer to 9:20 than 8:30. Sigh. So it goes, history shows... family time must be drawn out...

They loved the movie.

<><><><><><><>

Orchestra today, didn't head out until after 4. Ran to E Glenstone to pick up the first piece of my Valentine's Day plan, got home at 5:03 with exactly 35 minutes until my hungry man came in, and no dinner plan. I just started throwing things into the skillet, and it turned out great. Probably *my* favorite meal this week, though I'm not sure what he thought of it. Started with bacon. Pulled it out, wiped the skillet clean, threw in fresh broccoli and carrots and a few green onions. Kept digging around, found some Uncle Ben's wild rice with mushrooms, got that going, pulled the practically freeze dried corn and the bottom of a bag of frozen green beans out and threw those in. Worchester, salt and pepper, crumbled the bacon in and let it cook 'til the beans were tender.

The rice was still crunchy when he got home, but it wasn't too noticeable when you ate it mixed with the veggies.

I would eat more of it if there were any left.

-^-^-^-^-^-

Cleaned the living room and dining room and headed to Chase to catch his 15 minute evening break. Drove through Taco Bell on the way home for a burrito and got a Strawberry Frutista Freeze instead. I wished I had gotten a burrito.

I'm hungry again.


Signing out. We're watching the Olympic Games' opening ceremony. So far I'm only impressed with the effects, not the speeches or performers.

I'm making up a chili recipe....

How scary is that? I've never made chili before in my entire life, but in general I know it consists of a chili/tomato base, onions, beef, beans... so I'm giving it a shot. I'm cheating, and using a McCormick hot chili seasoning packet... I hope nobody hates me for that...

Every recipe I looked at said to use kidney beans, but I got black beans and red pintos too.. I'm wishing I hadn't gotten any kidney beans 'cause I like my chili to be all little chunks, and the kidney beans are huge.


(be proud of me. I'm sitting here with a bowl full of celery, carrot and bell pepper slices instead of the raspberry jello that's sitting in the fridge calling my name over and over...and over....and over...)

Just realized I'm out of canned tomato sauce. I have a pile of tomatoes in the fridge...I think I'll try chopping and cooking them down. I know from enough years of canning homemade sauce and salsa that you're supposed to dump them in boiling water until the skin splits, then peel and puree them, but I'm gonna go all "earthy" and leave the skins.

It's chili...it can't be too chunky... right?

----------------------------

Going to look at a rental house tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about it. We've been driving by lists and lists of them for the last two weeks. We can't move until May, so unless someone is willing to accept a deposit now and hold the house for three months then it's not gonna do much good, but we have "the bug."   Once Quinn is out of school we'll be looking into buying 5-10 acres in the country, but for the next 3 years we'll be staying in town.

For the most part, anything in the price range we're wanting is either on the wrong end of town, flat out crappy, or a duplex. We're really wanting a single house so that we don't have to worry about our baby fussing at 2am with neighbors on the other side of the wall, and so that we can stay put for 3 years straight.

This house is in a cute, clean, quiet neighborhood, is even less expensive then we were expecting to be paying, is clean and bright, has a garage, a big yard, and when I talked to the landlord today I *loved* him. He sounded just like a dear friend of ours from when I was a little girl. Had the nice, kinda growly twang that the "natives" have around here. :D  He said the house was "not much to look at (agreed, it's very plain, though not ugly) but sure was dandy inside" and wants to make sure we're the right family for it. I'm supposed to call him back this evening to set up a specific time to tour the little place. I'll try and take some pictures if it looks like we'll be putting a deposit down.


And one of the best parts? We'll get to get our whippie.

We're sold on the idea of a whippet. Or, a "35mph couch potato." hehe. They sound like the perfect pet for our family. Gentle and patient with kiddos, super quiet inside, short haired... 25-30 pounds of gorgeous.  They come in a thousand different color combinations, but we like either the brindle and white (like in the pictures) or fawn and white.

Don't know exactly where we're going to get one, as there seems to be a massive shortage of breeders in the S-field area... but we'll manage. If we kind find one young enough to adapt to us and our baby through a rescue then it won't be hard to get one transported to the area, but for the most part the rescue dogs are from abusive homes and old enough to be unpredictable, so I doubt we travel that road.

Anyway, back to the kitchen. I need to get tomatoes chopped and simmering if I'm gonna have this stuff done in an hour and a half.

I'm sitting here eating a red delicious apple and feeling so proud of myself for eating something healthy...

Nevermind that I'm frying potatoes in butter and making shredded bbq beef on white bread for dinner...

And that I just ate half a package of strawberry jello...

I was always so sure that I would eat extra healthy when I was pregnant, just 'cause I could. I've been a salad junkie for years, being thrilled at the idea of a platefull of greens and tomatos with some chicken and cheese as an entire meal. I've always snacked on fruit slices or veggies when we've had them around, and yet...

Salads gag me. I can still order one at a restaurant and enjoy every bite, but any salad here at the house is rebelling against my basic abilities, such as chewing and swallowing, within three or four bites.

I did eat a pile of celery sticks dipped in peanut butter yesterday.

Taking down the Christmas cards and taping up Quinn's birthday cards this evening. He turned 25 last week. A Quarter of a century. Seems so old, but it's soooo young.

Birdie's nose is bleeding again. She'll be spending every night by the humidifier in the bed room from now on. She's decided to adopt a second perch recently. She loves the chain on the hanging Tiffany in the dining room. I've been trying to convince her to spend more time there and less time in front of the heater vent in her normal spot; on the rod over the sliding doors.

 

Quinn took the last two hours of the evening off so that he could study tonight for his test Monday morning, so we're gonna head downtown for some coffee (okay, so chai tea or a smoothie for me...) at about 8. It'll be so nice. Today has practically been a day off. We were up by 9, out the door by 10:30, he didn't go into work until 1 and will be home by 8! Such a wonderful time... 

This morning we went for coffee and bagels at Fog City Coffee. We'd never been in there, so we didn't really know what to expect. The barista was sleepy and bored when we showed up, but her customer service was impeccable and she made the yummiest, richest chocolate raspberry cappuccino I have ever tasted. Quinn was thrilled with his "Fog Lifter" and my cinnamon raisin bagle with Philidelphia cream cheese was perfect. I have a feeling that we'll be going back.

 

While we were there someone came in with no clue what she wanted, but through suggestions and questions she was taken from a generic "latte" to a custom flavored drink before she knew what had happened. She paid, dropped a tip in the jar, and sipped her drink on the way out the door. She stopped in her tracks, looked at her steaming cup with a funny expression and released a delighted sigh. 

 

That's how a coffee shop is supposed to work. 

 

Signing out for now. I want to blitz the house before my evening disappears.

 

God bless!

Hear the sound of hearts returning to You, we turn to You
In Your Kingdom broken lives are made new, You make us new
'Cause when we see You, we find strength to face the day
In Your Presence all our fears are washed away, washed away

Hosanna, hosanna!
You are the God Who saves us, worthy of all our praises
Hosanna, hosanna!
Come have Your way among us
We welcome You here, Lord Jesus

Silly, Fickle Skies.

We had snow this morning.

Then rain.

Then more snow. 

Then sleet 

Now it's snowing again.

I think the clouds are desperately trying to get away from winter, but can't quite accomplish it.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

I got Mom's pot pie recipe from her. It's out of a little Pilsbury Magazine/cookbook that we've had for ages, and it's the best pot pie in the world. I believe it with all my heart. You make a butter, flour, margarine and dry mustard paste, add milk to it, let that thicken, then fill it with mixed veggies, cubed chicken and cheddar cheese. Pour it into a baking dish, cut pie crust into strips to lay over it, and it's a masterpiece for the tongue. Much akin to what Bach's Partita No 3 in E is for the ears. 

Just perfect.

-*-*-*-

I'm exhausted. Can't wait to do this with two little kids who need my full attention 20 hours a day. <3  I feel like a wimp thinking of all the mothers who have gone be for me, but then I just figure I should enjoy being pregnant at a stage where I have 14 hours a day to sleep... 

Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in
Like waves of sweet fire, you're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in
And carry you over to a new morning

PARENTAL GUIDANCE ADVISED

(NOTE: this blog entry was all happy and what not, but I got on a roll... if you're a child living at home, please have a parent read this entry before you do.)

Sometimes the only reason I write is because I lack the motivation to do anything else.

Like now.

^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^

It's snowing again, which is absolutely lovely. As long as it has to be winter, it needs to be very much wintery. Last week's snow was melted off enough for the world to begin to look sadly desolate and mud-bathed, like a baby bird that's fallen out of it's nest. I don't care how much you may like birds, chicks are just butt ugly, and once they're muddy they're beyond being even slightly compelling or touchable. Ew. BUT, we're about to get our gorgeous white coat on again, and hopefully it'll stick around until some of our beautiful spring feathers have grown...

Seems there's a blogging trend that's been started. I'd think that I was just jumping on the bandwagon, but since I have  Joannarenae.blogspot.com and three live.spaces.com's that have been retired, I can convince myself that, even though I've only recently picked it up again, it is a habit that has been ingrained in my conscience being since I was about 14.

Made chocolate chip cookies last night so Q could munch while he studied... ended up that we munched while we finished a movie that we had cut off for the sake of studying several nights ago.  The cookies were to die for. I have a reputation for my choco chip cookies, and I could just give away my two little secrets that make all the difference in the world, but I think I'll hang onto them... just 'cause I can. ;)

The movie itself was very interesting. It was a 2003 Angelina Jolie movie that was dedicated to the humanitarian rescue workers that have been working independently of the UN and other major corporations for the last 30+ years. We don't have a language guardian, so we ended up muting Clive Owen's character throughout the majority of the film, as he had an excessively filthy mouth, but we still managed to enjoy it. It was achingly intense, full of starving children and mothers getting murdered and so on, but it did a fantastic job portraying some of the devastating and desperate situations that people live in. It didn't have a bunch of the typical anti-military hate stuff that humanitarians tend to use (watch Avatar, you'll know what I mean) but the bare, raw facts were there. 

Actually, I take that back. As awful as the movie was, (it spanned Ethiopia in the 80's and Cambodia and Chechnya in the 90's) they couldn't come close to portraying the real horror. Sunday morning we heard a missionary from Cambodia who had survived the labor camps in the early 90's where he had been held from the age of 7 to the age of 11, had been taken to the US and eventually adopted into a home in Wisconsin.   Several years later, at the age of 16, he returned to the country to help with the mission work there. His stories were graphic on a stomach turning level. Literally. I left the service ready to puke and having a hard time standing up straight. At 7 he was placed in a camp with 1,000 children. They were beaten, starved, beheaded, forced to beat each other to death, forced to fight for the soldier's entertainment, and day after day driven by the truckload to work the rice patties. They felt the blood of their friends splattering their faces and arms as the soldiers laughingly attempted to dismember them with palm branches. They were children.

At 11, he and less than 50 other children were freed by the Vietnamese troops. 

They were all that was left. 

They made their way to a nearby village, where almost a hundred people managed to congregate. They were the only survivors of the 3 labor camps in the vicinity.  At one point, too weak to walk, he sat down by the road. A few minutes later he was approached by a woman who asked his name. When he told her, tears started streaming down her face and she told him that she was his older sister. She had been married and had three children of her own when their village was taken. She and her children had been put in one camp, her husband in another. She was punished for any "misdemeanor" by being forced to watch her starving children be murdered.  Her husband was never seen or heard from again.

The hundred of them tried to make their way to the Thailand border, where they knew there were refugee camps, but to get there they had to cross miles of mine fields. They would walk or crawl in straight lines, and if someone detonated a mine the rest of them would walk over the bodies because they knew the ground there was safe, often with the victims still alive and begging for help, but no one was strong enough to drag their mutilated bodies with them. They were forced to leave them behind, one at a time, until they reached the camp. 

Less than 25 of them arrived alive. 

<*><*>

We hear facts about things like the Srebrenica Massacre in 1995, where 8,000 men were murdered in cold blood and 25-30,000 were "ethnically cleansed." As massive as it sounds, it doesn't sink in, but it horrifies us. About Rowanda, and the Iraqi mass graves where hundreds of thousands of bodies, covered with marks of torture and violent death are piled, nameless and faceless.  We hear them and they are just numbers. Numbers that disgust, that anger, that make some weep... but we keep them from having faces. We keep from feeling responsibility. We hide behind the number, feeling like the watering of our eyes is enough to pay our debt to those who perished. 

The missionary on Sunday brought the genocide to a personal level. A level where he forced your mind to see the faces of his friends and family who were a part of. 

But even then, it was 10 years ago. Surely not today... 

But yes. Today. As it has since the fall of man, it continues. The world was so full of violence that Noah and his family were the only righteous that could be found. The Egyptians murdered hundreds of thousands of children. The Romans massacred entire cultures, and swept through their lands with instances like the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem. "Rachel is weeping for her children..."

The Aztecs were sodomizing and cutting the hearts out of thousands of natives every single day as an offering to their sun god when Cortez arrived in South America. The blood ran in rivers through Mexico city. The blood of those who had never heard the name of Jesus because none had ever gone... 

In the early 1100's, there was the Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople. Estimated 60,000 men, women and children murdered in their homes. 

Mid 1500's- The Cyprus Massacre- 30-50,000 dead.

1890's, 1-3 HUNDRED THOUSAND Armenians hunted down and killed like animals. 

1930's- Japanese in Nanking raping and killing an estimated 260,000

1930's and 40's- over 2.5 MILLION Jews killed. Numbers can't be completed though, because they're done by population paperwork, but thousands upon thousands of unregistered infants were murdered as well. 

1970's-90's- Cambodian Genocide in the labor camps. 2 Million estimated dead.

1980's-2001- over 400,000 Iraqi citizens tortured and murdered

Currently in Darfur, Sudan, villages have been being systematically destroyed for 7 years. Hundreds of thousands are being murdered. Millions are refugees.

What do we do? 

I don't know. Ask yourself. Ask the Lord. What should you do?