For those of you who are really bored

Three Things

Three names I go by:

1. Giordi

2. Mrs. Yunge

3. Geebs

Three jobs I've had:

1. Teacher

2. State Park worker

3. Babysitter

Three places I've lived:

1. Prosser

2. Nampa

3. Burlington

Three favorite drinks:

1. Water (yep, I'm that boring)

2. Mojitos

3. Iced tea

Three television shows I watch:

1. The Office

2. Jeopardy

3. Ugly Betty

Three of my favorite foods:

1. frozen chocolate chips

2. Stir-fry with lots of veggies

3. raspberries

Three of my favorite restaurants:

1. Buenos Aires Grille

2. Burlington Cafe

3. Arby's

Three things I couldn't live without:

1. lotion

2. clean towels

3. cell phone

Three things I can't stand:

1. using a dirty/wet hand towel

2. people/things sitting on my unmade bed

3. poor table manners

Three things I'm decent at:

1. cooking

2. teaching

3. napping

Three things I'm looking forward to this weekend:

1. my parents' visit

2. getting our back handrail up

3. Beth preaching at church again

Three things I'm addicted to:

1. chocolate

2. my husband

3. Facebook (Ugghhh! I hate that I said that.)

Really?

Sometimes I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

And then I have days like yesterday and I remember that I'm not tough enough.

I brought Jack into the bathroom with me like I usually do to take a shower. I get the garbage out of reach, bring some toys in (although he prefers to play peek-a-boo with the shower curtain and play with tampons), and close the door to prevent escape. We were both doing our thing and I closed my eyes for the ten seconds it takes me to rinse out the conditioner and when I opened them, there is my darling boy standing in the tub with me. In his pajamas. Awesome. He stealthily climbed into my shower fully clothed and diapered. So I had to strip him down and finish my shower with him screaming at me to hold him, as he doesn't really like being in the shower.

After I got both of us dried off and myself wrapped up in a robe that doesn't fit (more on that later), I took him to his room to get dressed. Upon completion, I started picking up stray objects only to turn around and see him standing on the rocking chair knowing that any second he'd fall and kill himself. So I get him down and continue my cleaning and when I turn around again, he's digging in the dirty diaper pail. Gross.

After we get that all sorted out, I shut his bedroom door and took him into the living room to play with his toys while I attempted to put myself together. I came out after a few minutes and noticed he was eating something. A stray Cheerio or graham cracker, you ask? No, it was orange and rather stringy. That's when I realize that he's been chewing on our old orange chair that needs to be reupholstered desperately.

Are you kidding me? All of this happened in a fifteen minute time span and I'm running around in a robe that keeps falling off my shoulders and won't stay tied. (There's an image you wanted in your head.) It was like having twins and a puppy at the same time.

We eventually get out the door, because, as my mom advised I "just needed to get into to public. I'll be nicer to him in public." We went to the library for a little play group. It was our first time attending and I didn't know what to expect. There really wasn't much to it, just other moms and their little kids. Jack was the only boy. Consequently, he was the only kid who didn't sit nicely by his mama and play gently. Oh, no. He was the screeching kid running at full hilt who was throwing little plastic balls all over the place. That's my little gentleman. He actually wasn't being naughty, just energetic.

But then he saw it. A stroller that wasn't his. A stroller he could easily climb. Did I mention he's a climber? Yeah, he climbs everything. So for a while, I let him climb the thing. He wasn't hurting anything, mostly just sitting in the seat. Then he decided to stand up. Not okay. So I pulled him off of it over and over again. Every time he squealed and ran right back to it. Then I tried facing it toward the wall and dropping the tray to make it more difficult to climb into it. No good. He just crawled right over that tray and screamed some more when I dragged him off of it. So charming.

It was one of those times when you feel that all the other moms are wondering why I can't get control of my obnoxious child and why I let him act like such a brat. But that's the thing, he's not a brat. He gets lots of loving, firm and consistent discipline. He's almost always well-behaved. But if there is something to climb, dang it, he's going to climb it. End of story.

So, to all you stay-at-home moms, nice work. I really look up to you. And you deserve a break once in a while. And contrary to what you may be thinking, I really do love my little terror fiercely. He's great fun. He just drives me nuts sometimes.

The Post I've Been Avoiding

I said in my last post that I'd explain my (very) prolonged absence from the blogging world. I wish I wouldn't have because then I wouldn't have to try to put to words all this stuff that's been swimming in my head and heart. And also Sarah Culver wouldn't be bugging me to post again. But I did say that so here it goes:

I gave up blogging for Lent. I know what you're thinking: Lent ended months ago. It's time to get back in the saddle. But the whole process didn't quite work the way I intended. I wanted to have this beautiful spiritual experience wherein my abstaining from blogging and all other social-network type things would give me the chance to really draw closer to God and become wrapped up in Him. It didn't work that way.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't rejected my faith and become some sort of demon-worshipping heathen who sacrifices small animals, but it just wasn't what I wanted. Of course, it's my fault. Instead of taking my normal blogging time to hang out with Jesus and really dive into the Word, I found other things to do. There were always laundry or dishes or Office episodes just calling my name. And those voices seemed to be louder than His. At least, I chose to listen to those voices more often.

I did try sometimes and I don't know about you, but I've never been a great pray-er. You know how there are some people who seem to just melt into prayer as if it's totally natural to them, as if it's what they were meant to do? I'm not one of them. I know I'm meant for constant communication with my God but sometimes my mind just drifts and eventually I'm planning the next week's math lessons or making a mental grocery list. So needless to say, I was pretty discouraged when Lent ended and wasn't looking forward to the prospect of explaining my absence from my blogging. But I also know that part of really sinking into communication with God is being honest. This is a start.

Nate and I recently took a class at church about Wesley's Three Simple Rules (how Nazarene are we?? I'm almost embarrassed!) This class really challenged me. The rules aren't simple at all: Do no harm, Do good, and Stay in love with God. If you really start thinking about them, it can get your head spinning. I mean, how do you never do any harm? What if it's unintentional? What if you think you're doing good and actually doing harm? What about corporate harm? Yikes!

So we finally got to the Stay in Love with God part and I have to admit, this didn't excite me as much initially. I tend to shy away from the really personal parts of Christianity. I love discussing how to be a Christian in community and what it truly means to show love to all, even non-Christians or those we don't agree with. I have a terrible tendency to get all wrapped up in the politics and socio-economic facets of it. Terrible. That's not what it's about, really.

When we started talking about different acts of devotion like worship, prayer, communion, fellowship, etc I saw things differently, especially prayer. I realized that I don't have to do those long, drawn out, churchy prayers. I don't have to use a formula. I can just be and if I drift, God still loves me. I also learned a new way to keep myself in focus: I say over and over again "Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy" and instead of praying words for every situation, I pray mercy over all these situations through images. It's so simple and yet so transforming. Praying for mercy in all circumstances truly changes my motives. I'm praying for God's will and grace in all.

This isn't to say that I've got the whole praying thing figured out. I'm still working on it and there are lots of times that I have to force myself to put everything else aside and just spend time with my Creator. 'Cause I need His mercy too.

New Faves

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I've been MIA. I'll 'splain later. 

But for now, I just have to let you all in on my newest obsession. For those of you who don't know this about me, I have a tendency to go through "phases." These phases can involve all kinds of things: foods I eat over and over again (Cheerios was a big one when I was pregnant. I've also eaten yogurt and fresh berries like it's going out of style), shoes, different types of clothes (cotton peasant skirts, anyone?), and websites. I get this obsessive side from my dad. My brother, Cade, has it in him too. I think it drives my mom nuts.

Well, these new obsession are websites. Oh, dear, I could spend all day on both. The first is Overstock.com. I know what some of you are thinking: "Umm...hello, Giordi? Welcome to 2005. Where have you been?"  And the answer is: I don't know. I mean, I had heard about it but never meandered over. The other day there was an add for it while I was checking the news and since I had nothing better to do, I meandered. 

Wow. All that wonderful furniture and bedding. All those shoes. I could literally spend hours just looking. I don't need to buy anything. I'm happy just to look and dream. 

The other I found in a  home decor magazine. It's called sproost.com and the basic idea is that you take a short style quiz by looking at various rooms to determine what your aesthetic is. Brilliant! It's so fun, I've done it twice. So then when you're finished, it tells you what your style combination is (mine is Vintage Modern/Contemporary with a hint of Cottage Chic) and how you can decorate accordingly. They also give you some ideas of things to buy you might like, and let me tell you, they were spot-on with me. Of course, that doesn't mean you need to buy anything, and I certainly won't at those prices but it's fun to look anyway. And it's nice to have a direction to head when decorating. I always feel so scattered and this helps me focus a little.

So, if you've got a few minutes, you should head on over to these sites. Way fun. Total waste of time.

Sicko

Thursday wasn't a good day.

It didn't start off so badly. It was pretty normal, actually. But around 1:00 I got a call  at school from Jack's babysitter who told me that he had thrown up, seemed to have a fever, and just wasn't being himself. Great.

Luckily, I could get a sub in quickly and I picked him up by 1:30. He already had a weight check appointment later that day but I called the doctor's office to see if they could get him in any earlier and if he could see a real doctor.  They were so helpful and they squeezed him in about an hour earlier than he would have been. So the two of us went home for a while to wait until it was time to go. Jack slept most of the time and the rest of the time he just lay on my shoulder. He really wasn't feeling well at all.

About twenty minutes before our appointment, I got the boy all loaded up in the car, grabbed the purse and diaper bag and reached for my keys that are always in my purse. 

Hmmm... no keys.

They were in the house. The locked house. The locked house that has no spare hidden anywhere for such an occasion. It's a good thing I didn't lock the car earlier so at least we could sit in the car while we waited for the locksmith to come rescue us. As we were waiting, I called the doctor's office to let them know we'd be a little late. The locksmith people assured me that someone would be over within five to ten minutes and they didn't lie.

The only problem was that in the short time we had to wait, Jack started fussing in his car seat so I picked him up to cuddle him for a while. That's when it came. All the food the child has ever eaten came spewing out of his mouth and onto both of us. It was smelly. It was slimy. It was completely disgusting.

So here we are, sitting in the car, covered in baby vomit, locked  out of our own house, and late for an appointment. The locksmith eventually gets here (hallelujah!) and promptly lets us in. I apologized for the smell and in all his nineteen-year-old superiority says, "Yeah, you've got something on your pants." Thanks, dude.

So we get in the house, change (Jack into his pajamas and me out of my dry-clean only work clothes. Bummer.) and hit the road. By this time, we're about 45 minutes late, which means we could have made the first appointment beautifully. They are still gracious enough to fit us in somewhere and we find out the Jack is gaining weight but that he's got some bug that we just have to wait out. We did make it home without  incident, though.

I thought that this would just be a quick little thing, but he's still been acting sick. He threw up a few times yesterday and is still acting like he feels terrible this morning, which is why I'm home now. Poor kid. Hopefully we can take care of it. And hopefully we can do so without anymore major puking incidents. We'll see.

Snow day

Jack is sitting in a sled his grandpa rigged up. He doesn't seem too excited about it.

The dogs attacked Nik and I as we were making snow angels.

Notice Jack's white-trash boots. We didn't have anything else and I guess they worked just fine.

Just in case you were wondering, last week was the best week ever, educationally speaking. Because of the snow, we had a two-hour delay on Monday, a one-hour delay on Tuesday, and no school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Does it get any better than that??

Today, we finally got with the program and went outside to play in the snow. After running all over town, we met Nate's sister and brother-in-law, Nikolai and Brad, and their daughter, Cherith, at Beau and Beth's house. All of us, minus Beau due to some major issues at the church (I'll just tell you that the front doors were frozen shut and you can use your imagination with the rest), walked up to the golf course to do a little sledding.

We didn't actually sled much because the kiddos were cold and Beth had some work to do, but the walk was beautiful and well worth it. If the snow sticks around, I'd like to go back up next week too. It looks like I'll get the chance since we've got over a foot of snow on the ground and currently it's blowing about a million miles an hour and snowing like crazy. I feel like I live at the north pole.

Here are some pictures of our day.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

It's snowing like crazy out there today. 

Which means both Nate and I got a snow day. Yea! I just love those. It's still snowing at our house, although it's raining in Mount Vernon. Weird. 

But the forecast is for more snow and freezing temperatures so that should make the roads nice and slick for tomorrow.

 Maybe no school again?

Doesn't hurt my feelings.