The Ouisers were out of town again last weekend. For a wedding. What can I say? We're popular wedding guests. This week's wedding was in Memphis, which meant that S finally got to meet the Memphis peeps. Unfortunately, she managed to have some nasty poopers while we were gone, but I think things turned out just fine.

She made a new friend. She had a blast playing with H, and she showed it by kissing him about a dozen times. Seriously, kid, don't give away the farm. Here are a few pictures...I don't really have time to write today. I've got to do some research on why my beans aren't growing.

Have a great hump day, peeps.

M and S checking out the church.

Pre-breakfast snack in the hotel room.

Showing off her new disgusting habit. That could've been a great picture.

Splashing in a puddle.

Questionable moral character?

Loving the polar bears. She got super excited every time they swam by.

ralph? ralph nader?

Nope. Not Ralph Nader. Just ralph. As in puke. As in vomitrocious. As in the stomach bug that hit the P family. I won't gross you out with the details, but S picked it up from my wonderful brother last weekend while we were away, and she gave it to me and M in turn. She spent most of Monday puking on us, but she was fine in 24 hours, as was I yesterday. I suspect M will be back to normal around 8pm. I will tell you that S's enormous breakfast puke on Monday smelled like a smoothie as the kid had eaten a banana and a couple of handfuls of blueberries and strawberries. Gross observation, I know. It was pleasant, though, as far as puke goes.

Moving on. Vomit just isn't as interesting as it was in third grade.

Welcome back to the blogosphere, L. I wholeheartedly await your wittiness on a regular basis.

Oh, I have a new favorite thing. White Vinegar in the washing machine. We've been using dryer balls in lieu of any type of fabric softener for several months now. The clothes from the dryer were coming out a smidgen too staticky, and the clothes from the drying rack were too stiff. Enter white vinegar. Our clothes are now softer, less staticky, and I don't feel the need to beat the clothes from the drying rack with a stick to make them soft enough to wear. I highly recommend it. Here's a link...

Lastly, the Ps are heading to Memphis tomorrow for a wedding. It's a quick trip, but it will be nice. S hasn't really met any of our Memphis "family," so we're looking forward to the shocked looks we'll get when people realize how friggin' huge she is. We're going to take her to the zoo Sunday morning before we head home, so she can see the polar bears. Really, M and I just love the polar bears. Hopefully, S will be entertained.

Alright, I can hear Otis gnawing on something in the other room. I'm out. Have a great weekend, peeps. Oh, but what the crap is going on at Wimbledon? I mean, on the men's side nobody really cares about the upsets. Everybody knows it's going to be Federer/Nadal again. But, ladies, come on. If I have to see a Williams sister in the finals (or, God forbid, both Williams sisters), I may have to boycott next year's tournament. Now I really am out.

hunka, hunka burnin' love

So, M and I spent the weekend in Canandaigua, NY for Scarlet Lily's wedding. Gorgeous. Perfect. Wouldn't change a thing about it. Well, almost. Seems the reception was a bit of a fire hazard. The tables at the reception were very pretty, and there were lots of votives around the centerpieces. Unfortunately, the folks at our table can't be trusted with open flames. Somehow (and I really don't know how), as the wedding party was being introduced and were entering, a wedding program that was at our table went up in flames. Not smoking, people. Burning. It was across the table from me, but the guys sitting there were trying to pat it out with more paper, which wasn't working because we're talking about legitimate flames. Someone finally had the good sense to throw their water onto our little campfire, which left our table in a haze of stinky smoke and a puddle and one now blackened napkin that was also used in the original attempts to "blot" the fire. It was a mess.

At least one other table had the same thing happen during dinner, so we didn't feel like the only table of ten morons in the room. And, lucky for us, we were able to open a door behind our table to let the smell out before the entire room started holding their noses and staring scornfully at the idiots at the "60s and 70s Table."

Other than that little incident, everything was just perfect, though M and I are both happy to be home as we were missing S a lot. He hasn't gotten to see her yet as our flight was delayed and we didn't get in before she went to bed. Bummer. Here are some pics from the weekend. I'm out, peeps.

The view.

The bride and her ladies.

The perfect storm.

Mr. Ouiser, Mr. Feathernester, and M

Sweetest thing ever.

The remains.

The welcome wagon and all of her teeth.

a happy daddy's day

Let's start by saying that it was a great Father's Day in the Ouiser household. I hope all the daddies out there had great days, too.

Now back it up to last week. I think I forgot to mention that S puked all over me last week. That was on Tuesday. It was pretty uneventful, and I thought maybe she'd just eaten something that disagreed with her or that she'd gotten really upset and too hot when she wanted me to get her up from her nap. Whatever the cause, it was legitimate vomit, and it was all over me, one of the porch swings, and the front porch itself. She felt better afterward, though. Then she started getting some nasty eye boogers and a few sniffles, and then she had bags under her eyes and big blue circles. Then Friday, the snot arrived. By the bucketload. When she woke up Saturday morning with her eyes all but crusted shut and dried yellowish gray mucus all over her face, we decided to take her into the doctor's office. It's the first time the kid has ever been to the doctor for anything other than a check-up, so it was weird. She is on antibiotics for the first time in her life, and it seems to be working, which is a good thing as M and I are headed to NY for Scarlet Lily's wedding this weekend.

Her ailment, however, nearly messed up our daddy's day plans. We got M a membership to the Nashville Zoo as a gift. S and I took him to Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and donuts (duh) yesterday morning, and then we headed to Nashville. We had a really nice morning. We got there at 9 just as the zoo opened, so it wasn't hot or crowded. Unfortunately, S was a bit if a zombie, though she did perk up when she got to the petting zoo. She petted a goat, and then continued to say "GOOOOAT" and "animals more" for about fifteen minutes. She didn't last long after that, which foiled my plan to take M to Baja Burrito for lunch on the way home, but that's okay. I made him popovers for lunch, which were his only request for the weekend, so that worked out nicely. Then we took his dad to Cracker Barrel for dinner (the man ate so much that he put us to shame). On the way to dinner, we passed the Renaissance Center, and S started screaming "ball" over and over. Click here to see why. M found it totally hysterical.

Anyway, that's our weekend in a very tiny nutshell. It was actually a great weekend despite the sickness as we got to spend a lot of time together doing very little. Now it's back to normal...

Here are a few pics. You can tell the poor kid was totally out of it at the end. As M and I look quite happy despite that fact, you may choose to question our parenting skills. We probably deserve it.

the sunshine festival

Or, The Sonnenschein Festival, which is it's proper German name apparently. (Um, peeps, what's German for "festival?")

Saturday morning, the Ouiser peeps headed out on a long journey to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Hohenwald, TN to attend The Sunshine Festival. The drive was an hour and fifteen minutes, which I knew was a little beyond S's hour-long tolerance for sitting still. She did, of course, fuss a lot on the way there. She then fussed a lot on the hour and fifteen minute drive home that began thirty minutes after we got there. The festival was a total bust. I should've known better. It was supposed to be some sort of hippie/sustainable living shendig, so we thought there might be something interesting. Not so much, really. Plus we sent two-and-a-half hours worth of emissions into the atmosphere trying to get there to be green. Duh. I feel like I need to start buying carbon credits for these kinds of boneheaded moves.

Anyway, we unloaded S from the car upon arriving in lovely downtown Hohenwald, and she flat out refused to go into the stroller, which we knew was coming as she'd been strapped into the carseat for so long. So, M carried her through the 90+ degree heat. We got to watch some old dudes carry in the flags for the presentation of colors as we made it there as soon as the festivities began, and we got to hear a little bluegrass , and we got to see a little girl clogging on a sheet of plywood. Poor kid probably melted in the heat as she had hair down to her butt and was wearing jeans.

We did talk to some people who run a business that insulates homes with straw, which we will be interested in when the time comes to build our farmhouse. No use right now, though. We got some information on the Elephant Sanctuary, and The Farm School tried to recruit S. Then we met Sam, the guy who co-founded a pretty cool little organization called CoolPeopleCare. He gave S a sticker, which she wore all day. We bought a book from him, and some local honey to try to help out the local beekeepers...and work naturally on M's ever-worsening allergies. Then we headed back to the car. I don't count the trip as a rousing success. It was at least something different, though, and we were all together and relaxed-ish. Next time we're looking for a family outing on a Saturday morning, we're heading to the Farmers Market. I love that place, but there just aren't enough vendors set up during the week to make the trip worthwhile. We need Saturday produce trips.

Anyway, I'm just rambling. I will tell you that one of the pointers in today's Ideal Bite was about fast food, and it relates to one of my biggest pet peeves. Taking too many napkins/ketchups/fire taco sauces/whatever. M and I are seriously anal about only taking two napkins if we're out. Even now that we have S. We'll get up and get more if we really, really have to, but it's such a total waste. Know what happens to those unused napkins? They get tossed. It drives me nuts. Same with those stupid packets. And plastic cutlery. I picked up Blizzards one night for me and M, and I refused plastic spoons, and you would've thought I asked the girl to just put the ice cream directly into my cupped hands for the drive home. I am guessing I'm the first person at the DC Dairy Queen to refuse the red plastic spoons. (Wow, two posts in two days talking about DQ. Nice.) Anyway, only take what you need people. I know it takes more effort to only take one napkin, but it's worth it. The other thing was- get out of your car instead of sitting in a drive thru. I am hereby resolving never to sit in a drive-thru again. If I require fast food, which I rarely do, I will haul my butt out of the car to get it. Sonic is an exception, though, as we always turn the car off while we wait for roller-skating carhops to bring us our heart attacks in sandwich form.

I have to stop now. I have legitimate things to do. Have a great Thursday, peeps. That is, if you actually stuck with this insanely boring post. Sorry for wasting the minutes off of your life.

hot eats, cool treats

We took S to Dairy Queen Friday after dinner. It was a hit. I thought you'd like to see for yourselves.

stick a fork in me

What's been happening in the P household? Hmmm...

Potty-training has been abandoned. S was completely stressed out. She's not ready, and that's okay.


M nearly had dinner come out of his nose last night because S has learned a new word. The word is "fork," but S can't really pronounce R's. I'm guessing you can figure out what "fork" comes out sounding like. She said it about thirty times in rapid succession at dinner last night, and M's face was bright red as he tried not to burst into fits of tears from the laughter. It was pretty funny.

S and I are still attempting to recover from potty training, so we've been totally low key. We've spent most of the past 24 hours dancing to the new Motown mix I made for her...and swinging on the porch swings...and eating grapes, which are her new favorite food. I think they kicked strawberries from the top spot simply because she can say grapes. Or, "gapes". Like I said, no "R's."

I would really, really love some chocolate chip cookies right now.

I am super excited about Barack Obama, and I think he should choose me as his running mate.

I'm going to bed. I really only posted so I'd remember the fork thing. I'm out. Sleep tight, little twiddlebugs.

m's shot at 12,000 words

Since I was already called out for not posting about my man Barack today (you know who you are), here's a shout out to all my Democrat peeps. Thank goodness...now let's go clobber us some John McCain. I feel like we should all start yelling in unison or something. Chanting, anyone??

Now, M just sat down and made his mosaic. Here you go. Can anyone guess the one word he used to describe himself? Classic.

a big day and a lot of pee

One. It's looking like a big day for our boy Barack. I'd be much more giddy if it wasn't for...

Two. A lot of pee. Lots and lots of pee. S has been telling us recently when she has pooped, and it's becoming easier to tell when she's doing number one or two, so we've decided to give the whole potty training thing a whirl. I am not someone who is expecting miracles. I know that 16 months is early, but she's showing some interest, so I thought I might as well try before I miss the early window and am stuck washing diapers for another year or so. (Though I am prepared for that and am fine with it...)

Anyway, we've been talking about the potty more lately, and I've had her sit on it a few times. Yesterday, she yanked on her diaper and said, "poop." So, we headed upstairs, but there was no poop in her diaper. She said, "no,' when I asked her if she needed to sit on the potty, so I put her diaper back on and let her play. She promptly took the diaper off, walked into the bathroom, looked inside her potty (then decided against it), crawled into her old duck bathtub, and peed. She looked pretty impressed with herself if I'm being honest. I told her how good she was for telling mommy that she had to go, but I let her know that she needed to pee in the potty not the tub. Moving on to this morning.

S hadn't pooped when she woke up, so I stripped her diaper off and we headed to the bathroom. She got the look, so I sat her on the potty...AND SHE POOPED! In the potty. Like a big girl. Then she stood up, looked at it, said, "shoo. Yuck," and walked away. It was great.

That's when I definitely decided to give this thing a real, honest-to-goodness try. We'll be spending a lot of time in the house for a couple of days I think. We're going to try the "Naked and $75" approach. I did buy her some training panties this morning...plus some flushable wipes and her own hand soap. I put some of the training panties on her when we got home and she peed everywhere in her seat during lunch. I thought it wasn't so bad...until I noticed pee dripping out of the chair half an hour later. Awesome. I then proceeded to roll up the new rug in the living room, which she thought was a super fun game. She has since peed in the floor twice, and the first time was a bit traumatic. I was in the kitchen. She was playing on the rolled up rug (climbing up, scooting off. rinse and repeat). I heard a pretty loud thud, which was immediately followed by some seriously pissed off screaming. She had peed in the floor then slipped in it trying to get to the rug. So, there she was laying naked in the floor, screaming, covered in pee. I picked her up (thereby soaking myself in pee), and held her, and explained what had happened. I sat her in her little rocking chair and asked her to stay there while I cleaned up. She decided to follow me, but it didn't end well. She slipped in the puddle again, making herself infinitely more angry. I did finally get the pee all cleaned up...and the girl calmed down.

She started playing again...then she crawled into her rocking chair with a book. Then she started whining. She was, of course, peeing in her chair. I picked her up, while she was peeing, and sat her on her potty (because it is totally sitting in the living room). This time she stayed right where I put her. I think she was afraid of falling again. I cleaned up the floor for the second time in about 45 minutes, and let her stay on the potty for a bit.

I think it's wearing her out. She was so tired at the end of all that, she basically just fell into my arms. She's napping now, but I realize that this is going to be really difficult for her (and the washing machine, which is currently full of pee-soaked towels). I think she's doing pretty well, though. She's whining now as she starts to pee...not just after, and that has to be considered a step in the right direction.

Anyway, I know that the success of this little experiment depends totally on her wanting to do this, so I've just got my fingers crossed, and I'm ready to shelve the whole thing if it doesn't work, but it can't hurt to try. Any advice from all of you mama-veterans is greatly, greatly appreciated.

I'm out, peeps. I am in desperate need of a shower.

this mosaic is worth 12,000 words

Since I lack the wherewithal to create my own post these days, I jumped on Feathernester's bandwagon. See her post here to figure out what this is all about.
Happy Monday, peeps.

mallrats

S had a great time running around the Bicentennial Mall this morning. For those of you not in the know, which should be about 98% of you, the Nashville Farmer's Market sits just down the hill from the state capitol building. In 1996, the state built the Bicentennial Mall (aka Bicentennial State Park) to honor...you guessed it...the state's 200th birthday. The market sits right alongside the mall, which is great for giving you a place to walk around and enjoy the sunshine. TMI?

Either way, S and I played on the mall for awhile after procuring a few quarts of locally-grown berries and some bean plants. Then we had lunch from Jamaica Way, a little cafe at the market. Holy Moly. It was good. S and I had barbecued portobello mushrooms, sweet potatoes with pineapple, green beans, and a johnny cake. I have never liked mushrooms. Ever. I would eat these suckers every single day. I will now be trying all kinds of portobello mushroom dishes. Consider that a warning, M. For the record, the sweet potato/pineapple combination was a little too sweet. I wouldn't recommend that, though S would vehemently disagree as she gobbled them up.

I'm out. S should be waking up any minute.

munchkin updates

So, I've mostly been ridiculing my house on my blog lately, and letting everyone know how much I am not accomplishing, so I thought I'd take a break from all the negativity to give some updates on S. Enjoy:

• She has four molars, which are great traps for her unsalted pretzels (Snyders makes them if anyone is interested.)
• She can officially climb onto furniture. (She started climbing into rocking chairs about a week ago, but she made it onto the couch on her own yesterday as she was trying desperately to get to Feathernester's iced coffee.)
• She can say Elmo, and she does every single time she sees him. (aka: constantly when we are in stores as that little booger is everywhere.)
• She is talking a lot. Her favorite words are daddy, mama, Lily, Abbe (my cousin), bananas, apple, read, and open.
• She slept in a cloth diaper for the first time last night, she's been awake and whining since 5:30. Cloth diapers may stay daytime diapers.
• I can't seem to interest her in saying Obama. I don't think she's interested in politics.
• She loves to dance.
• She loves to walk on her tiptoes and on her knees.
• She strolls her dolls around in a play stroller and feeds them things from her kitchen.
• She gets pissed if she tries to feed you (play food or real food) and you refuse.
• She'll tell you what she's doing wrong. (Like not sitting on her bottom on the sofa.)
• She is wearing size 18-24M clothes on a good day. We're already sporting some 2T's. She's not even 16M yet. She is a big, healthy baby.
• Strawberries are her official new favorite food. Her face is pretty much constantly stained red.
  

While there is a lot more than that going on with the munchkin these days, that's all I really feel like typing. I did get Little Pea and Little Hoot yesterday, and I am in love with both books. I highly recommend them.

I'm out, peeps. S and I are going to the farmer's market in Nashville this morning as she has eaten us out of fruit since Friday's grocery trip, and I know that strawberries have made their debut at the market per their newsletter last week. We're all over that one!! Besides, my granddaddy wants me to pick up TWO HUNDRED red sweet potato plants if they have them. I'm not entirely sure where he thinks I'd put 200 plants, but I'll get him a few dozen if they've got them.

needing a bigger bubble

Oh, where to begin? I had three goals this weekend. Three. Get my new blueberry bushes and the rosebush into the ground. Get the porch swings off the floor of the porch. Get the ball rolling on the building of our deck by meeting with some company called Decks Unlimited. A fourth goal was added at the last minute: address 200 wedding invitations in brown ink that must be found at an obscure art supply store in downtown Nashville. My goals were not met. The bushes are still in their plastic containers on the back stoop. The swings are still sitting on the porch despite M and Mr. Feathernester's best efforts. Decks Unlimited never showed up. Never called.

The wedding invitations, however, are safely at the FedEx drop. Go figure. I achieved someone else's goal. That's neither here nor there.

The porch swings are proving to be quite an issue. Our entire house got new siding in the remodel, and the porch ceiling is no exception. The old wooden ceiling just got covered. That creates a problem when you're trying to find a support to hold up two five-foot porch swings. A major problem. Plus, we have no access to the space above the porch, so M and D are really stumped. An answer must be found, though. It just must. I mean, read my stupid Ouiser profile. My lifelong ambition is to be old on a porch swing. One of the reasons I fell in love with this house when I saw it was the porch. I know that M realizes that begging Charlotte Hardware to take the swings back isn't really an option. I know that he knows that this is important to me. I just hope there's an answer that doesn't involve ripping out the ceiling of the front porch. Any ideas??

Beyond the porch swing, we continue to have bathroom issues, and I am afraid that I may be found guilty of aggravated assault if the contractor doesn't properly finish my bathroom tomorrow. I am seriously about to snap. M is not far behind.

Send some happy house thoughts our way if you've got any. Feathernester, you're excused from this request, and if I've got any excess happy house thoughts, I'll send them your way.

Oh, I would like to give a green shout out to G. He's harvesting rainwater. Without a hundred dollar barrel. Way to be green...and still have some green.
I'm out, peeps.

put it in a friggin' bubble

So, my friend A in Lexington taught me this lovely little phrase, "put it in a bubble, and let it go." As in, quit whining/complaining/moping/obsessing over whatever is bothering you. Just let it go. M even makes me do hand motions. Several of you have seen me do this.

I am not so good at it. In fact, I am the type of person to let things fester.

Fester, fester, fester. Rot, rot, rot. (Anyone out there seen French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline?)

What's all this about, you ask. The stupid ticket I got a couple of hours ago. Rolling through a stop sign. Really, I'm sure I probably did pull a stoptional. But, really? I'm tooling around in my hybrid with my adorable child safely buckled into her carseat and my Aunt Mel smiling politely beside me heading to friggin' Kmart on a Wednesday. I'm being pleasant...answering all of Mr. Police Officer's questions about how my hybrid vehicle works...explaining that I actually get better city mileage than highway...blah, blah. I was prepared for him to bring me the ticket. Okay, I get that I disobeyed the laws of the traffic gods. I'm thinking something in the neighborhood of fifty bucks. Maybe sixty. Definitely not $137. I guess I now know how the City of Dickson stays afloat in these times of financial want.

Anyway, I'm growing more and more annoyed at the situation every minute. I just told M about it on the phone, and as I explained that I could probably get it dismissed in court or by going to traffic school, he calmly just said, "or you could just pay it." God bless my husband. While the recalcitrant twenty-something in me wants to do everything in my power to keep that 137 bucks in my bank account, the mature mama in me knows that my husband is probably right. Besides, writing the check is sort of like letting go of the bubble.

We'll see if I can.

I'm out. I'm going to alphabetize and arrange all of our CDs into the case I bought at Kmart.

sticker shock

So, the continued greening of the Ouiser family is forcing the continued de-greening of the Ouiser family's bank accounts. I realized last week that I buy organic milk but all our other dairy products were still just the conventional stuff. What's up with that? So, the only cheese I bought at the grocery store this week was organic string cheese for M and S. We've still got cheese here that has to be eaten before I can really start switching us over. Just so you know, I must be really committed to greening things up around here (hubby, too) because we are tight-wads. Seriously. I paid the extra money for the cheese, but I just couldn't bite the bullet this time and spring for the organic butter. Baby steps...I'm not ready for $5 butter. I felt pretty good about our little grocery trip, though, as our small town Kroger has expanded its crazy hippie section, so I can now buy our recycled toilet paper, 7th Generation baby wipes, and all of our cleaning products right here in town. No internet orders. No special trips to Nashville. Okay, that's not entirely true, I will still use Method floor cleaners, and I still have to get those from somewhere other than here. Maybe Lowe's will expand their Method selection beyond hand soaps. A green girl can dream, right?

Beyond that, it's been a busy week full of poop here. S has basically had major intestinal distress since I got home from New York. She spent most of the past week on the BRAT diet, and we let her have regular food yesterday, which led to the largest blowout to date. Poor kid woke up this morning soaked in poop. Not covered, soaked. She had a very thorough bath at 7am. Now sweet L is sick, too, so I can't imagine there will be a lot of Ouier/Feathernester hanging out this weekend. Fingers crossed for poop and puke free weekends here in DC.

I'm out, peeps. I'm going to handwash some plastic containers because the Ouisers no longer put plastic in the dishwasher because I don't want to leech BPA into the water supply and cause genetic mutations in fish. I have to stop watching National Geographic shows. And, for the record, we're still trying to phase plastics out altogether to really eliminate the problem. In fact, I ordered Sigg bottles yesterday. I love the one I got for myself. M's is also crazy awesome...though decidedly more conservative than mine. Ha.
Have a great weekend.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: S's face when she finally climbed into the rocking chair on her own

Sound: new Jack Johnson

Smell: Burt's Bees baby lotion

Touch: S sleeping on my chest

Taste: cranberry oatmeal cookies I just made

mid-day pick-me-up

Scarlet Lily posed the brilliant question recently: if you could have any job in the world (even a made-up one) what would it be? I was, as usual, completely indecisive, leaving a handful of options in the comment section. Mostly, I couldn't commit to one answer because I was incapable of settling on a made-up vocation, choosing instead to list every conceivable real job I might want. Either way, my made-up occupation was "professional chiller-outer." Huh? I know. I described it as having musicians play gigs in my backyard, so I could chill out and drink wine or beer all afternoon while enjoying live tunes. The number one musician that I'd like to have playing in my backyard is Jack Johnson. While he's not exactly my favorite musician, I think that he is definitely chilling out material, and he's pretty easy on the eyes, too. So...to sum it all up, I thought some of you might need a little mid-day pick me up.

Here it is.
Now imagine that you're in my backyard, sipping a nice, cold Shiner Bock, enjoying the breezy, sunny afternoon. I don't know about you, but my imagination is pretty much in heaven right now.

happy old timers day

In most civilized parts of the world, the first Saturday in May is Derby Day. Not here. Today is Old Timers Day, and the Ouiser clan was out in full force with the Feather Nester peeps for the parade this morning. Here are some pictures from the festivities. I've got some really good pictures of Feather Nester's family, too, but I thought she might want to share those...

Happy First Saturday of May...whether you're celebrating the ponies or the geriatrics.

I think D went across the street 3 times for sausage biscuits.

The crowd.

Playing with padre.

Walking down Main Street with Aunt Mel.

Watching the parade. She loved the horses.

The Ouiser peeps.

one sense friday

This is Old Timer's Weekend in DC. (It's the local festival...because every small town in the south has a festival.) The church across the street is barbecuing chickens and selling them over the weekend to benefit Relay for Life. So, S and I got home from my daddy's this afternoon to the unbelievably delicious smell of barbecue chicken. It is so mind-numbingly glorious that it reminds me of Memphis when you're walking down the alley to The Rendezvous (once you get up-wind of the dumpster). It's like heaven is in the churchyard across the street.

In honor of the heavenly aroma, I declare this ONE SENSE FRIDAY. My other senses can't even come up with anything adequately comparable this week.

Happy Weekending, folks. I'm out.

biz's beat of the day

So S is a rapper now. Our new favorite show to watch (correction: the children's show that I like to watch) is Yo Gabba Gabba! We occasionally caught it in Lexington, but a combination of one-nap-a-day and the blessed central time zone means we get to see it most days now. I like it because there is lots and lots of dancing, which S loves, and we get to parade around the living room acting silly right before lunch. Anyway, the show was somehow developed by Biz Markie, and there is a segment called "Biz's Beat of the Day," which strangely enough is not part of the program every day despite the moniker. Today, I was rapping right along with Biz (go ahead and create your mental picture, and go ahead and laugh, too). Then S walked away making some random noises that I slowly realized were her attempts at rapping along. It was hysterical. Completely and utterly hysterical.

Of course, she has been increasingly funny lately as her vocabulary continues to expand. I guess we're approaching that time when she'll start picking up something like a dozen words every day. We aren't there yet, but she is trying to say almost every word she hears now. We spend hours every day looking through magazines and naming things, and the girls at the nursery at the gym think it's great fun to think of words for her to say. She's going to be talking my ear off pretty soon. She's also started mimicking a lot of the things we do. Like...pulling weeds. M and I were pulling weeds in the backyard after dinner last evening, and we throw the weeds into a big box (because what the bejesus are we supposed to do with them??) after we pull them. I started noticing that S was walking back and forth to the box a lot, so I started watching her, and I realized that she was carrying little fistfuls of grass to the box and throwing them in. It was great. She also cleans and throws things into the garbage can now (poor kid can't reach the recycle bins), so she's picking up on a lot of things that we do around here. It's really fun to watch.

Beyond the adventures of S, I'm still sitting on all of the plants for my garden. Our dirt is in such bad shape that I can't really take care of the prep work alone, so I'll have to wait until M and I have some time to work on it together. My tomato plants are starting to scream for some space to grow, but they'll be alright a little longer. My basil, which I have to start from seed because we require a lot of basil, is coming up nicely, and I have about thirty plants coming up in the little peat pods. It makes me so happy. Especially when I see the $6 price tag on the basil pesto at the store. We've been having spinach pesto lately, though, so we won't be headed to the poor house just yet. Don't worry. I also found this super great website today. I'm looking forward to checking it out a bit more.

Alright, I'm out. I promised my uncle that I would make him whole wheat pizza dough today, and I need to get the show on the road. Here are some new pictures of the girl. Later, peeps.

what a picture is worth

I'm packing it up and heading north for the weekend. I know, heading north! Whoever heard of such insanity? Scarlet Lily's last night of debauchery (aka her bachelorette party) is Saturday night in New York, so Feather Nester and I are flying out in the morning for a weekend of babylessness that I can barely even wrap my brain around. So, I'm out for a few days.

I thought I'd leave you some pictures of S to enjoy. Pictures are really all you need to get a pretty accurate idea of what life is like around here these days.

Happy weekending, peeps. Keep your eyes on the gossip columns this weekend. You never know, I might run into Clooney...

Picking flowers or pulling weeds? You decide.

Guess who really likes chocolate chip cookies?

The stew clearly needed carrots.

S would totally fail her health inspection. Totally.

no fly zone

It was 5:45 this morning when M came into the bedroom with the news.

"I'm pretty sure there's a bird in the backyard. I could barely get Otis to come in. I think it's still alive, but it's dark, and I can't find it."

Awesome. Really, really awesome. Happy Monday. What is the deal? Is all of our green-ness luring birds to us to die? I mean, are they all flying around in the sky, thinking, "the P family doesn't use chemicals on their lawn, I want to go on to seriously greener pastures??" Why are none of you reassuring me that there are dead birds in your yards half a dozen times a year? I very sincerely doubt that Otis is such a stealth hunter that he's actually snagging all these poor things.

Just the same, at 6:30, I was outside, traipsing around in the cold, wet grass looking for a possibly still-alive bird. And I found it. Of course I found it. It wouldn't be my life if I hadn't found it. So, it was still breathing, though it was no longer flailing about, so Ouiser the farm girl had to make a reappearance. Luckily, I had a shovel handy this time to smack it with. (Gross, I know.) Then I bagged the sucker up and threw it in the garbage. All in all, it was about a four minute gig. I'm getting a smidge too efficient at this. It's alarming.

Beyond the apparent avian flu that hovers over our family, things are going well here. We're still working on getting settled in, but it's getting better. S is loving the warm weather. Loving it. She wants to be outside every second that she's awake. We bought her a sand table, which we finally filled yesterday, and she loved it...though she did eat a lot of sand. She thinks that shovels are spoons, and I think she was really, really confused. It was fun, though. And much to M's chagrin, she has decided that it's super fun to blow dandelions.

Okay, she's waking up. I'm out, peeps.

riders on the storm

Remember that one time when Val Kilmer was hot? You know the time. The time he starred in The Doors. Anyway...

The storm.

We had some lovely thunderstorms tear through last night. I slept like a baby. My baby slept like a baby. M got up at one point to watch the Weather Channel. As Feathernester and I had planned a trip to the Nashville Farmer's Market for this morning, I was not happy when I awoke to steadily falling rain. Alas, the skies had cleared by the time I got out of the shower, and I checked the radar...all looked good. Clearly, the radar map was zoomed in too close to Dickson. We'd been at the farmer's market about 15 minutes, drooling over plants for our gardens, when I got a text message. I don't get a lot of those, so I was curious. It was from M.

"R U 2 safe," was the message. Okay, we are not 15. We rarely use abbreviations in our few and far between text messages. We're old school. Or at least we're old. In normal situations, the message would've read, "are you two safe? i love you."

"What's going on?" I thought to myself as I dialed M. Apparently, tornadoes were touching down in Dickson County and he was afraid we were sitting under piles of rubble. Luckily, we weren't even around for it. At that point, I did notice some pretty ominous clouds looming nearby, so we were forced to cut our little field trip short. Oh, well. All the Ouisers and Feathernesters are safe and sound...and we are now enjoying some really gorgeous weather. 65 degrees and sunny. Really, really lovely. It would be better without the mud, but I'll take what I can get.

Alright, I've got to go dig my plants out of my car. Have a great weekend, peeps.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY:
Sight: S asleep in the backseat
Sound: "please" from S as she begged for orange juice
Smell: dirt
Touch: S tickling my belly
Taste: breakfast cookies and the fries that Feathernester had at lunch

a hot shower

Is a hot shower too much to ask? Is moving into a house you love, near people you love, in a state that you love too much "good?" Does having all that move you into the "you've got too much good going on to deserve anything else" category? It must. We've lived in shower-hell for three and a half weeks now. I think I mentioned when we first moved in we couldn't use the master shower because the faucet wouldn't work. Then the water heater didn't work properly. And the upstairs shower was apparently made for people without elbows as people with elbows can't possibly bend them to wash their hair without hitting the walls (seriously, showers in RVs are bigger than our upstairs shower). Then we realized that the downstairs shower didn't drain properly so that using it meant that you were constantly standing in an inch of water that you had to attempt to squeegee out when you were done lest you breed mosquitoes in the bathroom. That was weeks ago. Last week, we finally got the tile people to come out to fix the shower bottom...you know, eliminate that pesky standing water-malaria spreading issue. They found that the original tile moron (because he doesn't deserve the title tile "guy") put a screw through one of our pipes, which clearly had to be fixed. Oh, and the water heater crapped out again. Turns out the water heater was hooked up incorrectly. So, the pipe had to be fixed anyway. Upon fixing it, they realized that one of the fittings under the house was wrong. We had no water for six hours last Tuesday. At least I think it was Tuesday. Soooo- the tile situation sat on the backburner that day, and the retiling of the shower lasted through the weekend meaning we were relegated to taking showers in the little people shower. Then the water heater crapped out again. When they came to fix it yesterday, they found another leak under the house, which meant no water for eight hours while they waited on a plumber. While waiting on the plumber, however, they did reattach the shower door, which I did appreciate...even though they lost some of the screws and they have to come fix it because it won't seal properly as it is.

Okay, are you lost yet? Are you running to your bathrooms to thank your shower for always working? Are you thanking your water heater, too? You should.

I was so happy to be back in a warm, draining, full-sized-human shower last night, even though I continually had to turn around and re-shut the door, that I stayed in there for 20 minutes. Environment, be damned. As the shower I had yesterday morning at the gym had been my best shower to date in Tennessee, last night's shower was almost like having died and gone to heaven. Or like having died and come back as George Clooney's pillow. It was great.

Of course, M had a cold-ish shower this morning, so I'm not sure our water heater woes are entirely behind us. It's completely insane...that's not even the end of the list of the plumbing issues. The tiny shower has a leak. The bathtub blew out it's washer and has to have the water cut off unless we're filling the tub. The dishwasher doesn't get anything clean. We're getting there, though. And I still love this house. I love it. I keep having these visions of how great everything will be when everything is done. Oh, I just can't wait.

I hope you're all having a fantastic Thursday. I'm off to put some geraniums into pots before they blow off the front porch in their little plastic tubs. I had planned to re-pot them yesterday, but I didn't have water, remember? It's amazing how many things you can't do without water. Amazing. I don't recommend trying it.

I'm out, peeps.

go. tigers. go.

I fully intend to blog "for real" at some point today. However, life seems to get in the way a lot lately, and I just have to say this one thing before that happens...

GO TIGERS.

My Memphis Tigers are playing for all the marbles. And they aren't playing North Carolina. I am so excited that it's silly. As we watched them play UCLA Saturday night, we sang the fight song so many times that I think S would be more likely to bust out singing, "Go Tigers Go. Go on to victory..." than she would be to sing, "A B C D E F G." While I realize that's not really something to be proud of, it is funny.

Anyway, we'll be pulling for the Tigers with all our might, and as I don't think I know anyone who is a Kansas fan, I'm counting on all of you to pull for them, too...and send them all of your positive energy. (Scarlet Lily, I know that I showed you how to do that!)

Go Tigers. I have to go get the girl.

we'll just see where it goes

I've had lots of posts running through my head the past few days. I just haven't had an opportunity to get to the computer, so who knows what will come out in this post. I'll just start and see where we end up, which is not my style at all for those of you who know me well enough to realize that I always need a plan. Anyway, here we go.

M is out of town for the second week in a row. I finally took advantage of that and made a recipe that I've been clinging to for over a year now. Broccoli with Black Beans and Garlic. Holy easy, and holy yum all at the same time. I served it over brown rice, and I'll gladly email the recipe to anyone who is interested. You can also add red peppers to the mix, but they aren't in season, and all the ones at the store demonstrated that fact quite forcefully.

Speaking of things being in season...I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's really, really good so far. My friend P (you know, the Mosaic guy) gave it to me as a going away gift when we left Kentucky. It isn't really helping my crazy urge to start digging up my yard and filling it with vegetable plants, but that's okay with me. Anyway, it's about a family that moved to a farm in an effort to eat locally. I know you've all read of other people doing the same. It's amazing to me that they are just able to say, "sorry, no fruit until June" (or whenever) to their kids because they can't find it in their county. They are forced to eat only items that are in season because, let's face it, red peppers don't grow in Appalachia in March. It's a really good book, and it makes me think a little harder about the giant container of baby spinach in my fridge. The one that had to be trucked in from California. The upside to the baby spinach problem is that I should be able to get it fairly soon at the farmer's market here, and I'm already wondering if it's too late for me to get some into the ground on my own. I guess we'll see. Gardening is the one activity in my life (besides motherhood) that I go into knowing that I'll have to learn as I go. Plans be damned.

I know that I already make conscious decisions about trying to eat in season. I refused to let S try peaches last summer until the good ones came in. Why get her started on less than the best, right? I also refuse to let her try strawberries until good ones arrive. (Scarlet Lily, the ones I eagerly scooped up at the farmer's market the other day did not fit that bill. Most were ruined by the time I got home!) I understand seasonality with most produce. It explains why I start dreaming of cherries in late April and early May. I am one seriously happy girl when they finally start showing up in June. Seriously. Happy. It explains why my family eats apples in everything in the fall. Somehow, though, seasonality seems to only apply to fruits with us. I mean, am I only supposed to eat salads in the transitional months when I could grow it myself? I guess so. It's a hard pill to swallow, and I somehow doubt that the P family will be going totally local ever. Besides, I dare you to try to deny my daughter her morning banana. I dare you. Stick your tongue to a flagpole dare you.

Enough about that. The stream of thoughts is woefully incomplete.

Besides, it's more important to let you all know that S is getting her one-year molars, and it is not a fun experience. For any of you out there with the this lovely milestone ahead, keep the Tylenol handy. It's just pitiful. Send my girl lots of happy, popsicle-filled thoughts. She needs them right now. One came through yesterday, and as she was actually able to sleep most of the night last night, and I am thinking that maybe, mercifully, the second popped through as well. Fingers crossed.

Alright, I am off. This post is as ridiculously random as I feared it would be. That's all I've got for now, though.

Happy Hump Day, peeps.

getting there

Slowly. Slowly, but surely our house is looking like a house that people live in. I would take some pictures to post, but it's seriously cloudy today, and I want the bright sunshine to help make the house look better in photos. Right now, I need all the help I can get. Maybe with enough sunshine you won't notice the dust bunnies.

Speaking of bunnies, here are a few pictures from Easter. S was doing her very best to make sure we didn't get any good photos, so you'll have to take what you can get.

I hope everyone is having a great week, and I promise to be up and running again soon. Oh, and the Wii is wicked awesome. All of you, go out and get one. Now. Seriously.

she wears short shorts

S has been at my dad's house since yesterday morning. This is the outfit I sent her out in. I realize that she looks like the Crayola factory exploded on her, but I thought she was so cute that I couldn't stop giggling. I'm also including a picture of the concrete truck doing its thing the other day. I thought there might be someone at ToddlerTamer's or MoWask's house that might like that.
Happy Friday, peeps.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: my clean floors
Sound: silence. Otis has been barking a lot.
Smell: coffee, Method Wood for Good floor cleaner
Touch: Moon bounce...I'll explain later
Taste: grilled steak nachos

holy boxes, batman.

So, we're here. Correction: Wii're here. (Meaning we've moved in and acquired a Wii thanks to G!!)

Everything is still a bit of a disaster. We're having all sorts of trouble with the showers, but I'm hoping it's all sorted out by this afternoon. Just know that you should never take hot showers for granted. While I don't think I ever have, I assure you I won't now. Our new driveway was poured on Tuesday, and we keep admiring it from the window. We aren't supposed to drive on it until next Tuesday. Our storage shed will be started tomorrow, and that will be great as we can get all the garage/storage boxes out of the guest room and out of Feathernester's garage. Once that's done, it will seem a lot more like home. I'm not good at living in messiness. I get panicky, and M can attest to the fact that I've been in a wad for about a week now. My kitchen is pretty well put together, though, and that helps. I've even been able to make dinner a few times...though nothing fancy or interesting.

We've also got to figure out the TV situation...we had these great, huge built-ins in the Lexington house, which means we have nowhere to put our TV in the living room here. Right now, our end tables are pushed together and covered with a red gingham sheet, proudly holding up the behemoth boob tube. Our dilemma in finding a suitable TV-holding solution is that we didn't get a flat-panel TV and now we can't find anything big enough to hold the sucker...or strong enough to support the weight. Plus, we have to keep the components away from the munchkin, who likes to push any and all buttons. We've thought about having built-ins done again, but I'm going to check out a furniture store tomorrow before we make any decisions. Unfortunately, we don't really have forever to make this decision as everything else in the family room is on hold until we get this figured out. I guess I'm doing alright if that's my biggest problem, eh?

Anyway, the girl is waking up, and I'm about to cart her to Columbia to spend a couple of days at my dad's. This will be the second time she's spent the night away from us since we got here. Poor kid thinks we're abandoning her. I just want everything to get put away and be safe for her and Otis, and I can't do that with both of them under my feet all the livelong day.

I'm out, peeps. Happy Thursday...and GO TIGERS...I've picked them to win it all!!

going home

The movers will be at our house in a matter of hours. Tonight is our last night in this house. Our first house. S's first home. While I'm sad to leave my little house and all of our friends here, I am so excited to move into our new house and be with our family in Tennessee. S is excited about living near her BFF. So is her daddy. It's going to be a Ouiser-Feathernester party every day. God help our livers.

Anyway, we'll be packing up the computer in a bit, so it's so long from Kentucky. We'll be back in the motherland very, very soon.

I'll leave you with a picture of the littlest hippie in the family. She looks so stinkin' cute today that I just want to keep squeezing her. If she just had enough hair for dreads...and we were the type of people who forgo washing hair in favor of growing dreads...she'd be the perfect hippie baby. I tried to get a shot of her with Otis, who is rocking his Grateful Dead collar, so I could show off my hippie dog, too, but I can't get the two of them near each other and even remotely still. Oh, well. Otis looks like an old stoner anyway...even without the collar.

I'm out, peeps. See you on the flip side.

nothing interesting

Don't ask me why I'm looking at skirts online when I should be playing with my daughter. I don't have a legitimate answer, and I'm not even sitting at the computer...I'm leaning ever-so-uncomfortably over the desk chair. Despite the noticeable discomfort, I'm leaning here, pining over this skirt. Pining. I'm trying to decide if trying to make it would be worth it...or if I'd just get irritated. Maybe it's time to learn to put in zippers.

35 rolls and who are you, anyway?

M wanted me to let you all know that he found 35 rolls of pennies under the bed. That's 1,750 more pennies, plus another glass we found. So, while not likely at 20,000, we're closer. M felt it important that you all know that as he fears he'll be judged by his inability to cash in 20,000 pennies. Something like that. Also, you may be asking yourself why there was a container of 35 rolls of pennies under our bed. I asked the same question. M says he could start chucking them at any would-be burglars. Assuming he remembered they were there, which he didn't because I assure you he'd rather not go back to the little teller girl at the bank with more coins. She already thinks he's lost it. Moving on...

S and Otis are chasing each other right now. I'm a little distracted. It's pretty funny. Where's the camcorder when you need it?

So, who are you? Are you really yourself? If you're some mysterious Ouiser-reader that I've never met and I suddenly met you, would I meet the "real" you? Honestly? M and I had this conversation the other day. I had commented that I wish I could really just be myself all the time. Unapologetically, unabashedly myself. All the time. But, I can't. Or maybe I just won't. Instead, there's "first impression Ouiser" and "real, honest-to-goodness, you've probably already decided that you like me or you don't Ouiser." Does that make sense? I'm always afraid of stepping on someone's toes or offending them. I'm worried that people won't like me because I make some off the cuff comment about George Bush or the war in Iraq or the fact that the country is in the toilet because of the two aforementioned problems. So, I tend to keep most of my beliefs and opinions to myself until I've gotten to know someone. Really it's worked out quite well for me. Morton Mama is one of my best friends, and she's such a goofy republican that we'd likely never have been friends if we'd both gone all-out when we first met. Also, all of my friends at my old office (except dear A) are right-wingers. (Some day you'll realize that you are all misguided. Ha.) I like to give people time to get to know me and love me, then I start hitting them with the fact that I'm a tree-hugging hippie. (Though I do not define hippies as being people who stink of patchouli, smoke copious amounts of weed, or skip bathing. Yuck on all accounts.) Instead, I let them all make fun of me for being a tree hugger, and I slowly infiltrate. For example, K pointed out her recycling bin in the pantry last week, and the non-liberal A told me that she bought reusable grocery bags. Baby steps.

Of course, sometimes you know that people think just like you from the beginning, and you can start ripping on the president as soon as you meet. That's always fun. Even then, though, you run the risk of taking it one step (or one glass of wine) too far and alienating your would-be new BFFs. So, I go through life pretty much constantly holding back because when I don't I end up with one of my crazy hippie shoes squarely lodged in my mouth. The thing is, I'm not really afraid for people to not like me. It happens. I'm not losing any sleep over it. My fear is that people who would like me, don't give it a shot because of some remark I made, and then I've lost what could've been a friend. Again, am I making any sense here?? I realize that the opposite is true. I know that I've judged people on comments they've made and sworn I could never be around them. I know I've done it. But, I found out pretty quickly what a hotbed of republican love my old office was, and I didn't run screaming from anyone.

Anyway, I'm rambling. There is no great question or revelation from this stream of thought. None. I know that I won't change. I'll still keep my "nice to meet you" face on when I encounter new people. And I'll still use my chipper phone voice even when I'm mad or sad. I'll still do all of those things because it's what you do, right? It's part of living in society. The great trade-off for not being a hermit?? You decide.

I'm out. Super Why is coming on, and I've got a baby to rock out with.

17,047

"What on earth?" you ask.

17,047 pennies. That's what I'm talking about. As I refused to pay someone to move the eight thousand pounds of pennies in our garage, the ones that M had been collecting since he was a zygote, we decided that we had to take them to the bank before we move. So, we (mostly M) spent the past couple of weeks sorting through buckets of pennies, removing the wheat pennies and the super old pennies and the foreign pennies (or whatever they're called in the foreign countries from whence they came). M loaded them up on Wednesday and took them to the bank. He was promptly laughed at for having such an egregious amount of pennies, but he filled out a deposit slip, handed over the fifteen bags and walked away from 31 years of pennies.

The deposit just went through last night, and the final count is 17,047. Plus the glass of pennies that we still have in the living room, full of all those pennies that were just too good to let go of. If we added in the glass of pennies and the foreign pennies, I still don't think we would've made it to the 20,000 mark, and I think M was really hoping for that. Alas, it's $170.47 going into S's Colgate fund. So, that'll buy her one textbook. One down, a boatload to go...and tuition...and room and board...and a bunch of North Face crap. We're going to have to have more than pennies. Can we exchange the $170.47 for euros now??

Have a great Saturday, peeps. M's off to shovel the driveway (um, it's March and there are four inches of snow outside with more to come, what the bejesus?), and I'm going to make the banana cupcakes recommended by MoWask last week. I've got to use up all those frozen bananas I've been hoarding.

it's raining, it's pouring

I. Am. Super. Excited.

I just ordered a rain barrel. While I want two, we thought it best to order one and make sure it goes well before we get a second one. Besides, one might do the trick. I found barrels that were really affordable...with free shipping...here. I can't tell you how excited I am. I'm guessing you know, though, since I've been whining about it for months. Anyway, I'm happy.

We've also picked out a rug for the living room at the new house, but I won't order it until Monday. I've been filling up my aunt's house with shipments of window treatments, and I think she may shoot me if I have an 8x11 rug sent to her house. As the rug could arrive in as little as 5 days, I want to wait and make sure that it can be safely shipped directly to our house. M and I both love the rug, but it puts a super huge kink in my decorating plans. I had planned to build the whole room around my beloved throw pillows and the upholstery on two chairs of M's mom's that I love. Overall, it would be a sort of green and cranberry color scheme (mostly green). Unfortunately, our couch is a little greener than we realized, and it looks horrible against the greens I've tried it against for the window treatments. Plus, we couldn't agree on a rug that would work with that plan. So, new plan. We'll get the rug, then we'll do ivory drapes, and I'll get new pillows. I'll just move the super great throw pillows from the living room into the bonus room upstairs. Problem solved. Now I just have to find the pillows...and figure out the window treatments, so that I can get something that will coordinate for the dining room. So many completely superfluous issues, so little time. Here's the rug that we've picked...which is "eco-friendly"...whatever that means to this company.I'm off, peeps. S and I have a lunch date later, and I need to get things ready to go. Have a great weekend.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: "bungalow blue" in our new bedroom
Sound: S laughing at her echo in the bathroom
Touch: S handshakes
Taste: chocolate chips by the handful
Smell: Origins Smoothing Souffle

i'd rather be beaten

I love being a mom. Love it. Even when I'm annoyed and ready to pull my hair out, I love it. Let's start this post by saying that.

I just saw a picture of someone who was hugely pregnant. And, as I looked at it, I just thought, "I'd rather be beaten than be pregnant again." Everyone says that soon enough, I'll forget how much I disliked being preggers, (I am in awe of those people who enjoy pregnancy...God bless you.) and my love for cuddly babies will make me jump on the "let's have another kiddo" bandwagon. I can say unequivocally that I am nowhere near that point. Nowhere. Not the same ballpark. Not the same continent. Not the same galaxy.

I'm catching a lot of flack from most of my family because I really think I want just the one baby. I know, I know. I felt the collective gasp as you all read that statement. How often do you hear about anyone only wanting one kid? I'm supposed to have 2.5, right? Just like everyone else. I just don't think it's for me. I really don't. Someone once said to me, "Do you feel like the three of you are the Ps? Or do you feel like there is something missing?" I don't feel like we're missing anything (except those darn rain barrels). I feel like this is my family, and I am super happy with my little family. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, right?

I think if we were to decide that the P family needed to expand, I'd like to adopt. For me, I would rather take a child that needs a lot of love and a good home and give him those things than to have another baby, leaving some child somewhere without those things. There's a part of me that feels guilty that I didn't go that route already. It's a very small part because I am in love with every part of my daughter. Even her stinky toes. But, still, I feel like a hypocrite. And all of this is just speculation because I don't want the P family to expand at all. Not even a goldfish. Anyway, for now, I plan to do my part for the planet through population control. It's something.
This is a ridiculous post. And likely TMI. I'm out. I've got boxes to pack.

just a shade under a terabyte

M is a supergeek. Super. Geek. And I love him for it. We're looking for an internal hard drive to store music on, and M asked if I thought we needed the 750 GB deal he found on NewEgg.

"It's just a shade under a terabyte, " he beamed.

Wow. That's a lot of nerdiness for 8am. A lot.

Happy Saturday, peeps. I'm off to less nerd-a-licious pursuits.