thanks

i love craig's list. (apparently this is my week to post about loves)
but seriously, craig's list has been amazing to me. it is, after all, where we have gotten jC's crib, car seats (yep, infant car seat and big boy car seat), stroller, bumbo, high chair, and the glider and ottoman i use in his room. so what is there not to love? really good condition baby items for much less than buying them new. thus allowing me to not feel quite as guilty when i buy a new skirt or a pair of shoes.
right now we are looking for a baby backpack carrier. you know, for all the hiking we do. i have a specific one in mind, and it hasn't been easy because apparently everyone else has decided they want one too. but as i've searched for one, it's reminded me of the other reason why i love craig's list. humor.
yes, that's right, humor. because of posts like this:

Graco BABY Stroller -- GREAT for parts /strength training - $5

Baby Stroller in good condition -- BUT -- it's missing the rear wheels.
This stroller would be great AS-IS for pushing your kid around while increasing the strength of your hands, arms, legs, and back muscles. Since it is missing the rear wheels but still has the front wheels, you would be able to push the stroller around while supporting the weight of back end of the stroller and thereby increasing your strength.
If that doesn't appeal to you, then it is a great parts stroller. You can cannibalize this stroller for parts to replace on another stroller or custom make your own stroller.
If it had the rear wheels it would be one hand steering, but as it is, you need two hands and arms, or one really strong one, depending on the weight of your kid.

thank you craig's list. thank you for appealing not only to the bargain shopper side of me, but also the part of me that likes a good laugh.

i hate to say it

i'm in love. some people may think i'm crazy but i love me an old dilapidated building/house. any and all of them. love love love love love!

since i moved here to northern virginia in 2000 i've seen this old prison that was built in the early 1900s. for years now, as it lay empty, a part of me was willing to get a criminal record for breaking and entering so i could check this place out. but i never talked myself into it. i was excited though, when i found out it was being transformed into an art center. it opened up last september and today i went with a friend to check it out.

amazing! the artists were great, and it was so fun to watch them working. but i have to admit that for me, the most fun part was peeking through the windows and holes in doors to see parts of the buildings that haven't been revamped yet.

and now that part of me that's willing to get a criminal recoard for breaking and entering is back, because i'd love to go back into those old buildings and really check them out.

cha' cha' changin'

since the dawn of our marriage, juC and i have had a headboard-less bed.

but today we made like adults and finally got one. one that i love. the amazing thing is i NEVER make the bed. but with this new headboard, it makes it look like i do.

when in rome

i'm not much of a soda drinker (or pop as some people choose to call it) i definitely wasn't always that way. i used to drink it every day. sometimes several times a day. but now water is my friend.

but every now and again, i get that hankerin' for a nice cold soda. (or pop as some people say) which happened earlier this week. so monday, when i found myself out and about at 2 and i still hadn't had lunch, i headed to wendys and decided to get a soda (or pop as some people call it)

for a split second i had to think about what size to order.

a small would be...too small. two sips and it would be gone and it wouldn't fulfill my craving. a large would...very obviously be too large. i don't want to drown in my soda (or pop as some people refer to it as) so medium was obviously the logical choice.

but holy hannah!! when did medium get so large?! when did medium become the new large?! if that was a medium, what does the large look like?!

no wonder there are so many unhealthy people in america. we can get a bucket of soda (or pop if you wish) for a little over a buck.

i'm sure it has nothing to do with the food that we order at these places too. (in my defense i did get a salad) (ignore the fried greasy chicken nuggets i got) (and in my defense, i rarely eat fast food) (and by rarely i mean, it takes an hour to get to sonic, so i have to limit myself)

yowza

nothing like starting your day with part of a tree on your two family cars. (yes, juC's car is hidden on the other side of mine)
there was no damage, except a small dent on juC's hood, so i laughed a lot about it. and am still laughing a lot about it.
the verizon man is here though. installing our fios so we can have dvr and faster internet. our lives, as we know it, will never be the same again once we get dvr. nothing can bring me down today.
except juC just called a few minutes ago to say he locked his keys in his car. that is a bit of a bummer. but whatever....we're getting dvr.

look at me! look at me!

(realize that what you are about to read is coming from a person that does all of these things)

i've been thinking a lot about "status updates" these days. with websites like facebook, twitter, blogs, and instant messangers that allow you to put status updates or things about you, we are always up to date on every little detail of everyone. it's funny to me that we use multiple functions to publish our status. just to make sure no one misses out on what's up with us, and all in an effort to be hip.

our world has quickly changed into one where everyone wants everyone to know what's going on with them (kind of, i'll get to that in a moment) but they don't want to actually talk to people to inform them. that would take too much effort? do we all really need to know who is eating a piece of cake at what time? do we all really need to know that someone just rang your doorbell? gone are the days of making phone calls to announce pregnancies, now are the days of twittering about it. and no longer do we call people to check in on them, we just post comments on their status when they updated us to let us know that things aren't going so well.

now back to the "everyone wants everyone to know what's going on with them....kind of". i love the cryptic updates. you know the ones. the ones that say things like "i knew something bad was going to happen." or "i'm so excited about the next week!" but that's all they give you. if you want to know what bad or good thing happened you have to ask. they want the satisfaction of knowing someone cared enough to ask.

it all kills me. it kills me that i'm so completely a part of it. it kills me that our world is one that rarely uses phone calls and visits anymore, but relies on text messages and status updates. (i could do a whole other posts about cell phones) i know some people say it's about convienance and being able to let multiple people know things all at once. but why does everything have to be convienant? doesn't it mean more people people put forth effort?

really people...is this how we want to live our lives?
ok, i'm done. i'm gonna go twitter now to let everyone know i blogged.

hip=hard

as you may know, i'm on a quest for ultimate hip-ness. which explains why i joined a gym. cause all the hip kids are doing it. but to reach ultimate hip-ness i had to go a step further, and hire a personal trainer. and by "hire a personal trainer" i mean "personal trainer sessions are free for the month of may." so my friend and i set up a session for tonight at 8 pm. one problem. one very serious problem. one horrible mistake made by me.
tonight...at 8 pm....is the season premier....of the best-show-ever! (and i dont get dvr until next week!)


take a lot back at last seasons sneak peak to remember some of the grea times.


i can't believe i'm going to miss it. being hip is hard

when spotaneity meets unpreparedness

all last week i knew that the battery on my camera was low. but i kept procrastinating charging the battery. you know...because plugging the battery into the charger then plugging the charger into the wall takes a whole lot of effort and time that i'm clearly too busy for.

which ended in regret when saturday juC took us for a random drive and we ended up at the national cathedral. i'd never been there before and i couldn't believe how big it is! and i was glad that my camera was still working...for the time being.

and i couldn't believe it when we went inside and the worker dude was all "there is a wedding in progress right now so.." (i think he's going to say we cant go in the chapel, but much to my surprise he said...) "so you have to go through the side door and you aren't allowed to take pictures."

it was so fun watching some random person get married along with the 100 other strangers that were standing in the back with us. the size of the chapel (is that what they call it?) was INSANE!

we also went up to the top floor, where it was pointed out that we could see the washington d.c. temple in the distance. my camera was still working so i took some pictures of it. see it?

yeah, i didnt either at first. but here it's circled. see?

yeah, me either.

after walking around a little more we went back outside, and were scouting out a place i could set my camera to take a picture of the family with the cathedral in the background. that's when regret set in. as i set the timer, we posed for a picture, it took this....

and then the battery died.

sweet.

@ my b.c.

last night i attended my very first ever book club meeting. it was actually a first for the 7 of us that were there for our newly formed group. i felt hip. i felt with it. i felt in with the in crowd.
so what if we only spent at the most 45 minutes discussing the book, then a few hours telling stories that were t.m.i. (too much information) that's the best part about it.
now, back to the book. a girl named zippy is the story of a girl growing up in the small town of mooreland, indiana. as i mentioned before i was hooked with in the first 10 pages. the book made me cry in the beginning, and i was laughing a lot through out the rest. i love that it's written in the voice of a young child. nothing beats the observations and exaggerations of a child! and because i know i can't do it any justice, here is an excerpt from a chapter called 'hair':

"Somehow my first wig and my first really excellent pair of slippers arrived simultaneously.

Now my hair, my actual human hair which grows out of my head, was slow in coming. I was bald until I was nearly three. My head was also strangely crooked, and it happened that the little patches of wispy bird hair I did have grew only in the dents. Also my eyes were excessively large and decidedly close together. When my mother first saw me in the hospital she looked up with tears in her eyes and said to my father, "I'll love her and protect her anyway."

When my hair finally did come in, when I was three, it did so with a vengeance: thick and sprouty and curly. And not those lovely loopy curls only ungrateful men get; it was more like fourteen thousand cowlicks. In fact, left to its own devices, my head looks like a big hair alarm going off.

We tried a variety of hairstyles in those early years. The really short haircut (the Pixie, as it was then called) was my favorite, and coincidentally, the most hideous. Many large, predatory birds believed I was asking for a date. I especially liked that style because I imagined it excused me from any form of personal hygiene, which I detested. I was so opposed to bathing that I used to have a little laughing reaction every time a certain man in town walked by and said hello to me and I had to respond with "Hi, Gene."

After a year as a Pixie, my sister decided what my hair needed was "weight." Melinda executed all the haircutting ideas in our house and, in fact, cut off the tip of my earlobe one summer afternoon because she was distracted by As the World Turns.

The weight we added to my hair made me look like a fuzzy bush, a bush gone vague. I decided to take the scissors to it myself, and had just gotten started when my dad brought home my new wig, which he had won in a card game. I can imagine that some eight-year-olds would see an implied message in the gift of a wig; all I saw was hair, long and straight and mahogany colored, like the tail of a horse. It wasn't actually a wig--it was called a "fall," and it attached to the middle of my head by a comb, and then fell down my back.

Now because it was a fall and not a wig, there was a problem with all that front part, like the bang part, and those side areas that swooped up into little points, but I decided to take what I could get. I had never before shown any interest in my physical self--my sister swore I had no pride--so when I asked her for bobby pins to help hold my new hair on, she gave them to me without so much as a snicker.

I was admiring myself in the bathroom mirror when Melinda came in and asked me, a bit sheepishly, if I wanted her old house slippers. She had outgrown them, and had never really liked them anyway. I turned and looked at her suspiciously, thinking this was surely a trap, but she was genuine.

I wore my new hair into her bedroom. Her room was painted the color of the best sky, and next to her bed she had a wicker chair and on the chair was a homemade, stuffed clown. It was a very benevolent-looking thing, but once when she was away at a friend's house I snuck into her bed and it began talking to me in the dark, so I kept a wide berth.

Without ceremony, she gave me the slippers. They were made of the most fabulous, long, fake fur, and when worn, made the human foot look like a pink, oval biscuit. The fur kind of sprouted up off the top of the slippers and hung down to the floor. They made a delicious little snicking sound as I walked, too. I remember no house slippers before or after this pair.

Yes, I had beautiful long hair, and yes, I had beautiful slippers, but I was still myself, and there was only one thing I could think to do to keep from bursting. I decided to go play rodeo on my bicycle with the purple banana seat and the sissy bars. It was my stallion, and we had been down a dusty road or two. As I climbed on and started speeding down the street, I could feel my sister's newfound respect fading like an old star, but I couldn't stop. I turned the corner of Charles and Jefferson as if nothing could touch me--I rode faster and faster. As I rode past the Kizers' house, where all the mangy foster children lived, one of them shouted, "Nice wig!" And I yelled back, my face bent close to the handlebars, "It's my real hair!" And then another block up, Ruth Kennedy shouted did I know I was wearing my slippers, and I yelled, "They're my actual feet!" And it was a long time before I went back home."

now go out and get yourself a girl named zippy, and read it, then start a book club, and have them read it, and then talk about it...so you can be just as hip as i am.

to give or not to give

i love to give. really, i do. i love when someone i know has a birthday because it gives me an excuse to give them something. not because i expect something from them in return later on, but because it truly makes me feel good. i love Christmas not because of getting gifts but because i enjoy getting things for people and hoping that it makes them happy to receive it. i even like to celebrate half birthdays because it gives me an extra excuse for giving. and a joy of blogging is having giveaways to allow me to give people something just for fun.

so last night, as i sat on the couch, enjoying my new hobby of crocheting (see below picture of my first/current throw/blanket project) i thought "i should have a giveaway and let someone win a crocheted something from me."

i thought about how fun it would be to let the person pick their own colors and what they wanted. a baby blanket. a throw. a somewhat small yet very useful blanket. a scarf.

and then i thought what if no one enters? what if everyone thinks my crocheting is lame? and then i thought maybe it was a completely crazy idea.

and then i thought maybe i should just ask the people what they think.

so....what do you think?

busy bee

there are a few things that have begun to occupy my time these days.

there is of course the obvious, that occupies a good majority of my time. whoever thinks that being a stay at home mom is easy has obviously never been a stay at home mom.

the next thing that's been occupying a lot of my time is my new hobby.my friend megan taught me how to crochet. a craft i never expected to take up. it's addicting. and my plan is to make a throw to spice up our living room with some color. unfortunately i did a couple of rows before realizing i was making a mistake. luckily i dont plan on entering it into any crocheting competitions, nor do i plan on having a master crochet-er inspect it, so it's going to stay as is.

and the other time occupier as of today is a book. yes, after a very long book sabbatical, i'm reading "a girl named zippy". only because someone actually thought i was cool enough to invite me to join their newly formed book club.

i'm only on page 20 and i'm hooked! truth be told i was hooked by page 7.


something that's been occupying my time that i still can't believe is the gym.

never did i want to join a gym. never. in fact when people talked about joining a gym, or their gym membership, i'd say never. but then i had a baby. and i needed the gym. not just for my body, but for my sanity. and i'm not going to lie to you, i'm glad i did. and once again i've learned to "never say never."


and the last but most definitely not least occupier of my time (aside from the obvious laundry, cleaning*, beautifying of self) is of course my dear sweet husband.

(too lazy to flip picture)

when i think back to all of the guys i dated, i think about how lucky i am that he's the one that i married! he makes things fun. he makes things entertaining. (except when he treats me like he's my older brother) he treats me so well and when he occupies my time he does his best to make it fun for the both of us.

the end-ish.

*even though my house isn't technically "clean" i do clean on occasion.

tell your aunt louise, tell anyone you please

(to hear more about juC's birthday adventures, click HERE)

time: 6 a.m.
place: little jC's bedroom
setting: his early morning feeding so that he'll sleep until 8
music: my achy breaky heart by billy ray

wait...what?? why am i sitting there at 6 in the morning with "don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart, i just don't think he'd understand." running through my head?

i seriusly want to know.

its the little things

anyone who knows my husband knows that he doesn't like being the center of attention. and by that i mean, he likes it, but is really good at acting like he doesn't. and he's so genuine about acting like he doesn't like it that his face turns really red, and he doesn't know what to say. i love it.
so imagine my joy and his horror when we went down to s.c. for the weekend, and went out to eat with my family friday night at his favorite joint, and there was a balloon artist there. imagine my joy and his horror when we saw said balloon artist with a teenage girl, making her a HUGE birthday balloon hat, then taking her around the place telling everyone "it's her birthday!" and imagine my joy and his horror when said balloon artist came into the room where our reserved table was and (i) saw my dad slipping him some cash monies. imagine my joy and his horror when after making balloon animals for my nieces and nephews we heard said balloon artist say "so i hear it's your birthday..." to juC.

after he got his special birthday balloon hat, he was taken around the place, as the man informed everyone that it was his birthday.

i know he loved every minute of it.

and so did i!

love letter

dear hot guy with beard,

i just want you to know, on this day of your birth celebration, that i love you dearly. and i hope this day of your birth celebration was a good one. which, we went and ate at dukes, the best bbq EVER, so it had to be. not to mention the special birthday balloon hat the guy made for you there. i'll post pictures of those soon!

i love you oh so much! you're a great husband. even if you do think you can start limiting me on what i can blog about. happy birthday!

love,

me

my everything

as i mentioned in my cincoversary post, things have been crazy busy for a week now. last wednesday my friend megan and i packed up our babies in her car and headed down to n.c. to visit her grandma. we had a fabulous time shopping for pottery, visiting an old covered bridge, antiquing. and not to mention megan teaching me how to crochet. that's right people, i'm trying to learn how to be crafty. and guess who we ran into while we were down there....

my mom!! so we picked her up and brought her up here to va. and on our way bringing her up to va, we had a happy accident and ran into a sonic. actually, we ran into two, but megan and my mom would only let me stop at the one.

my mom and i have been running around doing all sorts of things! on monday we went to gettysburg.

yesterday, for my cincoversary we went to harpers ferry. nothing says romance like sending your husband off to work then going to a historic site with your mom and baby.

when juC got home from work, it was really awkward because we found out we got eachother the same thing to celebrate.

flowers.

he got me these:

and i got him these:

so awkward. except not. because i got him a flower on this:


isn't that the coolest bonsai ever?! juC has been saying he wants a bonsai tree for a really long time now. so i figured our 2 year anniversary was the perfect time to get him a looooove bonsai!

look at those cute itty bitty flowers. i took a picture of it by my finger to show you just how small they are.

i love our love bonsai...probably more than juC does. cause i'm more girly than he is.

after we exchanged our flowers, and he told me that he hadn't got an anniversary gift for me yet, we posed for a picture...

then we went to the japanese steak house for dinner. ohhhhhhhhh! ahhhhhhhh! and oh so delicious! at dinner, juC informed me of what he'd be getting me for our anniversary. a gps system. how sweet! no really, it is. because in the last several weeks i've had to call him a lot for him to give me directions! i was reminded again of how thoughtful he is. (except....you'll have to wait and see what happens)

after dinner we came home and got little jC ready for bed, then we went out for dessert. it started out well. but it ended like this.but i'm not allowed to tell you why it ended like this, because juC made me promise not to post about it on my blog. seriously, right there in friendly's after we had a conversation about something i'm not allowed to tell you, he then said "and you aren't allowed to blog about this." and i was all "oh, i'm gonna!" and he was all "no, you always post mean things about me." and i was all "nuh uh, i just post the truth. and i haven't signed a contract with you saying i wouldn't post about you." and he was all "well maybe you should right now." and i was all "whatev's!" but, i'll refrain from repeating what he had the nerve to accuse me of! i won't shed any negative light on him. no way, i won't do that!

at any rate, it ended up being a GREAT anniversary. partly because of today. ohhhhh today. ohhhh what a day.

my mom and i headed up to the ribbon outlet i'd been telling her about. while we were there we stopped at an antique shop in a place called funkstown. i kid you not.

and as we were perusing the store, my eyes came across a dresser. a dresser that is just like one my mom owns that i've been begging her for. it was beautiful. they'd refinished it. if only this store wasn't so expensive. so i walked up to it, looked at the price tag, and i couldn't believe my eyes! it was a lot less than i'd expected. i immediately grabbed my cell phone, called juC and told him that i needed a dresser for our anniversary, not a gps system.

isn't it great?!?! i love it! and love my husband for letting me get it! and i love that it cost way less than the $290 that the lady said it started out costing!

the end...of the past week of my life.

wasn't it fabulous?!