Crazy is normal for me

Lots of stuff floating around in my head recently - some of those items, in no particular order:

1. A House of Our Own: we put an offer on a house. Offer was accepted. Loan application well on its way. Closing date set.
OhgawdIfeellikeI'mgoingtovomit

2. My cousin's send-off party is Saturday. He's going to join the ranks of the United States Marine Corps. Military service is common in our family, but hasn't come up in our generation. He's the first. My little cousin...well, not so little anymore. I don't think my brain can process this properly. He's old enough? Seriously?! It seems like just yesterday we were watching Barney together.
Againwiththevommyfeeling


Here he is with his sister in '96 or so. I'd show you a pic of him now, but he'd probably stop speaking to me if he knew I posted it on my blog. So, I'm using my favorite one of them as kids. Muhahahaha!

3. I had a very rare snowball of anxiety clobber me a couple weeks ago that I couldn't shake before bed (oddly, not related to either of the items mentioned above).

Lesstalkylessvommyplease

* * * * *

I have this weird thing going on with a few of my toes. After ruling out poor shoe choice and bug bites, I turned to my trusty intarwebz to see what this could be. It left me with more questions than answers. ShankRabbit is convinced I have "the gout" (said in a very crotchety, old-man voice). Thanks for making me feel SO much younger, dear husband.

I'm convinced my second toes are protesting any and all shoes. They are the longest of the bunch - why do they have to be scrunched while the other toes get ample space to move around? Equal rights for ALL TOES!

...

...

Wow. I started this post talking about my moments of crazy and end with anthropomorphizing my toes.

This would be a good place to stop before any more crazy comes out.

(Let's hope the next month brings better topics of discussion)

It's starts early

I have a more meaningful post in the works about my experience the last 3 months, but it still needs some tweaking (a.k.a. I got a little long winded). Instead, I want to share a couple of funny tidbits from ShankRabbit during this time.

#1. This was one of his Facebook status messages:
There's so much of me that I see in her. Yet she thinks she can get away with using my tricks. I don't think so, sweetcheeks. Now go eat your toast or I'll throw you in the snow.

#2. An excerpt from an IM chat we were having. I really don't know how to set this up other than saying she's my kid - through and through.
-----
ShankRabbit:
I sit down with Peanut this morning in front of the open fridge
and I pull out the juice pitcher and the milk.
"Peanut... which one would you like... milk or juice?"
....
....
(.... = baby decisions)
"ju"
Okay...
As i'm putting the milk back, "no no no no..... mill"
um... okay... "you want milk?"
"OKAY!"
as i'm putting the juice back, "no no no no.... ju"
Grrr
"so you want juice?.. not milk? just juice?"
....
"ju. OKAY!"
So I'm putting the milk back and she smiles at me... "no no no .... mill"
So i said to her, "look... keep this up and I'm mixing them... then who will be smiling? huh? daddy will, that's who."
She looks at me with her frowny face... "no. mill."
and she let me put the juice back and pour her milk.
The end

I'm baaaaack!

I'm finally shaking the lazy dust off from the holidays. My last day at work was the 28th and I was as lazy as I could be* until this past Monday. ShankRabbit threw a curve ball at me on Friday when he got such a bad headache that he spent all day and night Friday and most of Saturday holed up in our room with the shades drawn and the door shut.
He rarely gets headaches - and never had a migraine before - so I am ordering him to the doctor (under the guise of him needing a physical anyway. If it was an appointment just for this headache he would never go).

* * * * *

It's official - we will be (hopefully**) buying our first home in a couple months. I've been looking at houses online for months now, but this is the real deal. You know, with loan people and real estate agents and such.

So...wish us luck!

* * * * *

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Peanut is continuing to grow like a weed - both physically and developmentally. My favorite at the moment: she grabs my hand and says " 'mon...go walk?" [translation: C'mon. Let's go for a walk] and leads me to whatever she wants at the moment. 90% of the time it's for a cookie or cracker. Ah, she's so my child.

* * * * *

We're supposed to get 6-10 inches of snow on Thursday. I don't have much money to offer, but I'd be willing to make some awesome baked goods for anyone that would like to shovel / snow blow our driveway for me (ShankRabbit will not be here to do it). Any takers?

* * * * *

Time for coffee, y'all. I'm not making any promises, but I'm hoping my blog posts become a regular thing again. Wouldn't that be nice?
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* - I'm the mom of a toddler. "Lazy" doesn't have the same definition as it did when I was single.
** - I'm sure things will go as planned, but I don't like to assume...lest Fate punches me in the face.

Children's books

- Part two in my series of favorite things -
(Tangent: Why does Julie Andrews sing about whiskers on kittens? I never understood how that could be a favorite thing...I mean, they're just whiskers. Other animals have them as well. ((sigh)) The pointless things that occupy my brain)

Everyone has a favorite children's book or author. Sometimes from our own childhood, other times from what we read our children.
This post highlights a current favorite in our household (and has been for almost a year now). The pidgeon books by Mo Willems.

We currently own:

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!
(I dare you to read this one at bedtime and NOT yawn when the pigeon does)

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!

My one word review of these: hysterical.

There's just something about the way he writes and the emotional expression of the characters that takes the book beyond a kid's story.

Seriously. The next time you are in your local bookstore or library (*ahem* ...we all know how I feel about ours), stop by the children's section and check one of these out.

Perfectly Paper - Handmade Flowers

I hate to put a disclaimer, but I must: I was in no way compensated/persuaded/asked to do this post. I just wanted to share something amazing with my readers, 'k?

A friend of mine from high school recently started her own business, Perfectly Paper - Handmade Flowers. At first I read her description and thought, "oh, paper flowers...whatev," thinking they'd be something like the tissue paper flowers we used to make in school...but then I took a look at her product and my jaw dropped.

Take a look at this photo and tell me I'm wrong.

I have never seen hand-painted paper roses look so realistic in my entire life. I wish she was doing this three years ago so I could have bought my wedding bouquet from her. The whole reason I didn't go with more flowers for my wedding was because of the waste - you spend a ton of money on something that dies a few days later. And you all know how I feel about things that are handmade!

Take a look at her website or her Etsy site. In addition to the amazing flowers you'll see her new line of greeting cards.

(Seriously...what can't this girl do?)

A series...

I will be doing a series of posts of people/places/things that I want to highlight for whatever reason.

Why? Just because. My life is not all that exciting right now (get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, spend a little time with the hubby and kid, kid goes to bed, get stuff ready for the next day, go to sleep) and there just so many other things I want to talk about that have nothing to do with my day-to-day life. This is a blog about randomness, right?

So, here it goes. I will post my first random highlight today...like, in 5 minutes. Ready...set...go!

Dust is a good thing, right?

It comes as no surprise to me that my last post was almost a month ago. The last month has been crazy, lovely, stressful, fun, emotionally trying, tiresome...you know, the usual.

Happenings in our household:

• Lots and lots of sickness for everyone
• Work. Work. And more work.
• Trying to handle the ever-changing mood of Peanut - teeth, major routine change, and missing daddy and mommy create chaos of the unfun variety.
• Doubting decisions one minute, then fulling embracing them the next.
  

I'm hoping to have some Halloween photos posted soon, but the child is having a dance party right now. I never pass up a dance party.

Fall

There is just something so distracting about fall. Once the air starts getting cooler, I think "oh crap winter is almost here!" and I try to spend as much time outside as I can. This chick was not meant for cold weather (but I suck it up because I don't like the creepy-crawlies you guys got in the south. Give me wind chills and snow any day over a bug bigger than a quarter).

And that is why I haven't been around much. Well, that and booking our lives full of weddings, birthdays, garage sales and other commitments. August and September were a blur.

* * * * *
I will be starting work soon.* I am equal parts excited and frantic right now. I feel like there's so much to do before then. Same crazy feeling I get with the onset of fall, except with more sleepless nights and tension headaches.

In an effort to remain in one piece, I'm exercising my organizational skills. I have collected a bunch of slow cooker recipes** so we won't become regular customers of our local restaurants.
Hmm...that comment may lead one to think that I do all the cooking around here. I really don't - ShankRabbit takes on 95% of the cooking duties (voluntarily, mind you. He loves to do it). So really this recipe preparation is to ensure I don't have to cook after getting home from work. And that I can soak up as much Peanut time as I can before she heads to bed less than 2 hours later. Really, it's something I should have been doing eons ago.

* * * * *
My child is fun. Have I mentioned that before? Yes, there are wonderful moments with a baby and yadda yadda yadda...but now she's such a blast! She may have her dramatic moments of life not being fair (hey, if I can't play hopscotch with the DVDs, neither can you!)...but she's so much fun to be around. We have dance parties and color and cuddle and chase each other around the house. And when all is said and done and she's been tucked in for the night, not more than a couple hours goes by where I find I miss her.

How can you not miss this face?


Note: Give the child food and she'll let you do whatever to her hair.


This was taken at our garage sale last weekend. It's the beginning of October and we've already had to break out the winter coats. ShankRabbit, however, was running around in a cordoroy blazer and/or just his t-shirt. And I'm the one that's been getting sick. Grr...



She understands the concept of smiling for pictures. Here she is saying "cheese!"...or in her words "Theeeeeese!" As you can see she's starting to develop her mom's signature "hooknose" smile - hopefully she doesn't actually have a hooknose later in life. It's not pretty.

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* I just got word that A (the lady whose maternity leave I'm covering) went into labor early yesterday morning (30+ days early. Yikes!). I really should be starting work NOW, but since I can't leave the child at home, I have to wait until her official first day of daycare. Could you imagine the absolute brain-chaos I'd be experiencing if I had to start right now?

** I sufficiently scoured the CrockPot Lady's archives for yumminess and I could use a few more ideas. Have any recipes to share?