I got a hair cut!!!

Okay this may not be as exciting as it sounds, but it's rare for me to get them. If you have seen my hair lately you will understand how bad I need one, but I just can't figure out the time to do things for myself. I get a weekly dinner out with friends, and I feel guilty if I take more than that. I also dread doing it because I never know the person who is going to cut it and I just get nervous they won't do what I want. I also hate sitting there with virtually nothing to do. Well tonight was better than some. I got there and kinda told him what I wanted (shorter and easy to care for). He chopped some off before even washing my hair I think he said pre-cut I dunno. Anyway we went to wash it, and this is one of those things I like but I don't. I like someone massaging my head, I don't like when the chair and the sink and my head don't fit right. Tonight it was all comfortable, I actually got to enjoy my little head massage, all while watching a strange ad/runway show. I was actually not thinking about the hair washing but the strange things happening on the tv. Then it was time for the cut. He seemed to know what he was doing, he asked some more questions, he commented 100 times on how much hair I had. He said some things I agreed to but have no idea what he said. Finally he was done and I am semi-happy at the moment. He straightened my hair, which I like, but I am not sure if it will look good not being straightened (goodbye sleeping til Joy wakes up). We will have to wait and see. In the mean time, it does look good at the moment. The rest of me does not look so good I think I forgot my Claritin last night grrr, I hate it when I forget it, I suffer for days! Anyway I will see if Rob will take pictures and if so I will scrutinize them to not find one I like and then that will be the end of that thought. It's the thought that counts right?

Plagiarized Blog

Okay I was curious today about a friend's blog history so I went back in time 2 years to see what she was blogging about at the time. I continued to read for 2 more "months" then had to go help Rob with more of the yard work (the last bush next to the house is gone!! No more attack bushes! Anyway in January '06 about 3 months in to her blogging experience she wrote the following. Yes I am stealing it from you Michelle cause I love it! I agree with every word and like she says if you don't like it you can unbookmark me now. I didn't want to just put a post because some people (my Mom) I know would not be able to follow the link, that and I could not get just that one entry to come up to link to. So here is my plagiarized blog for today! My comments are in purple!

From Michelle THEY OUTNUMBER US NOW
i've done some searching today, and for the life of me i can't find any site that explains the "rules" of blogging. what are the grammar requirements? how long or short should a blog be?? what can you post?? what should you post?? do you know if you are "blogworthy"? I never actually searched for the rules, but sounds like something I would do if I started blogging for a reason other than updating family & friends.

in no order, here are some insights into me & my blogging. (but for those who know me the first should come at no surprise)

i was NOT a english major in school, nor did well in the required grammar class i took; i barely scraped by with a 70. my blogging will reflect that. if you are a grammar whiz, un-bookmark my blog - i promise i'll disappoint you. I am with you there Michelle, but I cheated and took regular English instead of the honors English so I could do better than a 70.

a big reason i blog is to get out feelings my three year-old and my almost two year-old just can't understand. most days they are the only two people i talk to, and not to slight them, but they just don't get what i'm saying sometimes. forgive me (not really) if i do post something i'm feeling that day about losing my only sibling, my brother (50 days ago today). honestly i'm pretty messed up about it, so i us MY online diary to express myself. My reason to blog started as an update for friends and family, it's slowly becoming my journal of life.

i may post twenty random thoughts without one of them being funny. and if they happen to be funny, kudos to the way i typed it out, because most of the time nothing i post is intended to make you laugh. i don't post to be funny - if you only want to read posts that make you laugh, don't expect my blog to fulfill you in that way. Ditto!

also, i'm not trying to impress anyone - even my fellow bloggers on my links list. i'm certainly not trying to lure others in to reading my blog with my creative writing skills - i ain't got any. i know after a while, my "link friends" will stop reading & commenting. one day our blogging fun will end, and i'm cool with that. in reality, i blog to procrastinate my time away. the time i spend blogging should in reality be spent on cleaning my house, or spending time with my kids. so in other words, i know someday my blogging will stop abruptly - probably when i kick out this third kid.... i'm not posting to have lots of people i don't know read my blog. if i bore you, let this be the last post you read. but honestly, i don't think i've lost my audience - stacy and bufkin are still reading.... Michelle I am glad you continue to blog, sometimes I wish for more updates than you give me, and if anyone (Geneva) ever wants more updates from me just give me a poke, I have just forgotten or feel nothing is exciting enough to blog on. I am working on not caring, but that part is a little against my nature. I care, but I am enjoying my more random blogs more than my strictly Joy updates of the beginning.

another thought on how long someone reads a blog/has a blog. a few years ago, about 15 girls from the BSU years of 1993-1997 participated in a yahoo group. we loved the group. we had tons of interesting conversations. well, sadly, members of the group stopped posting and it died. may p31ladies rest in peace. we are joyful though - most of the girls who were a part of p31ladies blog now!!!! Can someone please convince more of my friends to blog, I do enjoy reading them so much!

so, here's what i believe blogs should be about: any darn thing you want it to be about. please blog about things that are not funny, grammatically incorrect or just plain dumb. tell me about the things you are struggling about in your walk with the Lord - because trust me, i'm going to tell you. tell me about the stupid kids who live next door to you & how fun it is to be a homeowner. tell me about how ticked off you are your car is a broke-down mess. or, tell me how exciting it is to watch your six month-old get up on all fours and rock back and forth. know that i'm there with you; i've been in the working world and know how stupid people are; i've had a car i wish i could have traded in - and odds are i've just finished cleaning up poop that leaked out of ethan's diaper, or have just sneaked in to watch my kids peacefully sleep. Here you go Michelle, I am very frustrated with my car, and the fact that their is no chance in sight of getting a new one short of going back to work full time. I don't want to do that because I want to be with Joy, but that is a huge frustration in my life right now. I see so much I want and we need, that we can't take care of because I choose to stay home. I don't see this struggle with some other families and it feels a little lonely at times. That is my struggle at this moment. That and stupid people at the grocery store. Luckily Joy keeps most of her poop in her diaper, although I think she is back on the slightly constipated side (the little balls of poop!) She drinks juice every morning and eats fruit all day! What can I do to help this!

so anyway, there are no rules i've found. blog away about what you are all about. Thank you Michelle, you put it very nicely! You can look forward to my quest to find a grocery store that does not upset me.

Oh and for randomness I have an appointment at a hair salon on Tuesday at 8:00 YEAH I am getting a hair cut!!!!!

My Grocery Store Rant

I am one of those people who choose their grocery store by location. I want to go to the store closest to me, and unless that store has a bad smell, sticky floors or some other very obvious reason not to go there I go there regularly.
My current grocery store is the Kroger that if I was crazy enough I could walk to, and probably get home with the ice cream still frozen on a mild temperature day. I also liked the store when I first started going there. The HEB down the road, which I have only been to once. I was not impressed by, no reason just really didn't want to be there, why go twice as far for the same stuff?
With that said let me tell you the things I don't like about my grocery store:

• It doesn't carry YoBaby yogurt the yogurt I want for my child, because it is whole milk yogurt and no added sugar.
  
• It also does not carry the new "snackable" lunchables, which are the right size for an easy Joy lunch.
  
• My bags each week weigh a ton. You think I am exaggerating? They have on more than one occasion decided to put the half gallon of milk with the gallon of milk. Sobe's which are made of glass and about 4 is a good bag of them, they will put 6-8.
  
• The bags have mixed content. Frozen items will go with canned goods. Canned goods will go with dairy things. Meats will go with fruit (that one weirded me out and I washed the fruit 10 times better than usual!). In general when I come home I never know what I will find in what bag. So those days when I am in a hurry to just get the cold stuff in the fridge or freezer I must go through EVERY bag to be sure nothing frozen is with a pantry item. No quick glances because I will and have missed items that way. That is my biggest pet peeve with the store.
  
• I am also no longer fond of the employees they have I can't recall the last time one has started a friendly conversation with me while they check out my groceries or whatever. I am lucky if they even talk to me at all. I think last night all the girls said was do you have a Kroger card.

Now I can overlook most of these things. I go to Target for the food I can't find at the grocery store. I no longer live in an upstairs apartment so the heavy bags are not as detrimental as they use to be. The rude employees, they are everywhere so I guess sometimes you just have to hire these people, but they could at least try and train them to be nicer!

On top of all this I went grocery shopping after putting Joy to bed last night. I get there (7:45 on a Saturday) and first thing they don't have many carts in the store. If I had been thinking I would have gotten a gallon of milk and left to try again another day. So their is one line of carts I wait while the woman in front of me gets her cart. I was standing at a polite distance but anyone who looked would have known I was next in line. So she has her cart and this couple comes up and walks within two feet of me and gets their cart! HEY I WAS WAITING PATIENTLY! (Did I mention I was already in a mood?) Whatever, I hope their cart has a bad wheel, and move on to get my cart. I meander through the cheese and deli section, and get to the cooler with the berries. Joy loves berries and I like to get her some fresh fruit so I was aiming for blue berries. The same couple was standing with their cart blocking the entire cooler! Grrr, finally enough space to get the blueberries and go. Onward, no other major issues, the shopping is going okay, the TV's in the aisles baffle me, they could have spent that money on something like product research and asking me what I want in the store. I get to the baby aisle, I don't need anything but to go up the aisle to get to the dairy cheese case. I notice a fallen wet floor sign and as I get closer notice a yellow liquid puddled what would have been under it. I will let you guess what you think it was I am pretty sure I know (it's the baby aisle, you know diapers etc.) A little grossed out by the fact that no one seems to be around taking care of this immediately I keep going. The next happening was a mother and son team are shopping together. The son is about 13 in my guess and they both have carts. Neither looks full enough to warrant this but whatever. That is until the completely block my path to the aisle I am headed to. I did a little thumb twiddling until they finally noticed and moved on. Next I encountered a child skating around the store on those annoying skate shoes. She is pretty adept but is cutting people off left and right. I finally found the parent, it was a dad with his 2 kids (the girl and a younger boy) shopping alone, and obviously with a list mom made. The girl was the errand runner for all the missed items and dad and the boy were in a race car by the way the dad was driving (in fun for the boy, which I actually found cute). Anyway I finally finish my shopping and I go to check out. This is where I encountered friendly the cashier. No hello, no how are you, no did you find everything you were looking for, just when she was done in a somewhat rude tone do you have your Kroger card? I felt like she was reprimanding me for not having it out, and putting her out for having to even say that to me. Don't think that she was not capable of speaking due to some laryngitis or something, because she was constantly talking even answered the phone at her station to talk about a previous customer with whoever called. I leave the store without a goodbye. I was cold, I was tired and I am thinking of going twice as far down the road to check out the HEB. Maybe they can say hello. Problem is I get a discount on my gas for shopping at Kroger, is it worth the $0.10 a gallon?

Pictures, because I know why you really read my blog...

Okay here it is the reason why you came pictures of my Joy.

Let sleeping dogs and babies lie. But occasionally take their picture cause it's just so cute!

Remember this? Well here's the before....

And here it is with Giant baby in the middle of the village.

She did like the Noah's ark the best that day, she does love her animals!

The birds are allowed to be on top, but not the giraffe as Dad found out later.

See I really did some of the work in the yard! Be proud of me. (I don't think these pictures do it custice but can you see the 6in wall of dirt? It's now at the level of the sidewalk. Oh and we need gutters along there if we are serious about planting it! Ugh another cost!

Those dern railroad ties that started it all!

After Rob and I were wearing hats in the yard Joy decided to wear Daddy's hat. She will also now wear her birthday crown.

My little reader's library of books! She loves to bring a book to you and read. I have put a 3 book limit on bedtime. Usually one fun book and 2 night night books.

She is such a big girl reading and rocking herself at night!

Okay really what happened is she needed milk and so I put her in the chair while I went to get it and I came back to this cuteness! That's my Joy!

And so ends another blog of Joy. Enjoy!

My Job

It's official I told my boss I won't return to my current job next year. I don't think this was a complete surprise because I just don't fit in with the crowd of teachers they have there. I don't want to say anything against the program since it is my church, however it's just not the one for Joy and I. I don't know if I am being a bit of a snob since I got my education in Connecticut and therefore have many of those Yankee ideas in my head. However, they seemed to do it right. They followed the research and well Texas just seems far behind. I was in a preschool in CT where they tried for and got their National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accreditation. This is a big deal if you are ever looking for childcare outside of home care then I recommend NAEYC accredited centers. I am now spoiled by this and believe all centers especially where I take my daughter should live up to this standard. I also like a little more communication about things, like at the beginning of the year letting me know what goes on and then updating if it changes. My two biggest complaints are they allow Joy to watch TV (something she does not do at home) and they give her a morning snack (again not at home). I also did not know about either of these things. I found out about the snack by looking in the window randomly. I first believed it was just that my looking in randomly found them eating snack randomly because some kid didn't have breakfast that day. I know I am naive. The TV just blows my mind, I see no reason to have a TV on for these kids. The crazy thing is when I mentioned one day that my child was watching tv with the 2's, the director was more concerned with the 2's watching it than Joy. I know I read too much and I follow what I read, some of it's a little crazy but the no TV for under 2 is something I really like, and have adhered to in my house. However, the policy of the PDO is that the kids under 2 are allowed to watch the Baby Einstein videos whenever, where the rest of the kids aren't allowed to watch anything other than the Christian ones. Now I am not complaining about the content just the fact that I DON"T WANT HER TO WATCH TV! Is that really so hard, it's in practically every parenting book you read these days no tv for under 2, and limited after that. *sigh* Okay I am done now before I say more than I want to. You may like the center I work at, you may think it's the best in the area. If it is I am disappointed in the area's PDO options. I do have my loyalty issues and most likely won't go to another PDO in the area. I may try the one right by my neighborhood, but not this week.
I am thinking of looking into a 2 day thing and doing sub work in the public schools in this area. I think I can handle 2 days now to find the right person or center for those 2 days!

My Baby Story...

If you haven't figured it out already I have become an avid blog reader. I enjoy reading other people's blogs specifically the ones that I now have links to on the side. Well on one of these sites the woman has offered a contest for baby stories. I know my story is nothing compared to the ones she has been posting, but it's my story and I want to share.
I found out I was pregnant pretty much as soon as I could. We used the ovulation pee sticks for the first time and I was anxious to know. I managed to keep it a secret long enough to buy Rob a little card that I have no memory of what it said, but something to the effect of you're gonna be a daddy. Then we waited 3 months to tell anyone else. We told them at my Mom's b-day party at my house by setting up place cards for everyone with their name from the baby's perspective. It took a minute for my mom to realize that she was the Grandmother and Grandmother was the Great-Grandmother. It did work and it was exciting.
Fast forward 6 more month. Rob and I had taken every baby class available and applicable to us from our hospital. Then about 2 weeks before our last class we learn baby is breech. We kept the sex a secret so we could get all our stuff neutral since I want more than one and really want one of each. I researched all the ways to turn the baby and decided for the baby's health and my sanity the best option was to pray the baby turned, and opt for the c-section. This was a disappointment as I am a little weird and was looking forward to labor (which I wanted without drugs). 2 Ultrasounds later, (which really tested our not wanting to know) the baby was still breech. So the c-section was scheduled for Wednesday Sept 20th at 8am. Everyone in the family tells their bosses, and schedules to come spend the day that day. The baby had other plans. Monday the 18th, I HAD to clean the house it had to be clean I mopped, I swept, I vacuumed, I almost cleaned the tubs! Around 11:00 Rob and I were laying in bed and well that feels odd. Let me get up and go to the bathroom. Next thing Rob hears "Umm honey, I think my water broke." I think he said something to the effect of really I was almost asleep. Then he went into first time Daddy mode. I kept trying to finish packing (it was scheduled so I had waited to pack). We finally got everything we thought we needed, we had called the doctor and off we went to the hospital. Somewhere in there I stopped for a second and told Rob "I think that was a contraction" (his now favorite quote). He then diligently got out his watch and started timing them. What I didn't tell him is I was only telling him about every other one.
We left home Rob ran a light and two minutes later we were at the hospital, we went to the 2nd floor. I told the ladies I was scheduled for pre-op at 8:00 the next morning because the baby was breech. I got into a room they hooked me up. I signed my life away. A nice man with a big needle came in. I met the not so friendly doctor. I got wheeled into the operating room. A blanket was placed across my neck. For some this is not a big deal, I can't stand things on my neck! It was killing me to have that there, but I was too nice to tell anyone and I knew Rob would be there in a minute. Rob finally came and I told him he fixed it best he could. They finished drugging me and the surgery began.
I can hear them talking and they apparently have half the baby out but something was stuck. It took what seemed like forever to get the baby out. They kept saying turn this way no, hold on, I got it, no how about now, wow, this baby's really in there. Yeah thanks I know I could feel the head in my ribs the past month! Is the baby okay!??!?!?!? Finally I hear so Dad you want to tell Mom what it is. Now in my head I was thinking why didn't you just tell me hurry tell me the baby is okay and if it's a boy or a girl. My husband then says it's Joy Katherine! I smile and strain to see her. I don't know if I said anything I just want to see her. I can now hear her, she has good lungs!
After the initial stuff Rob brought her to see me, I smiled I wanted to hold her so bad, but I was still laying like they were going to crucify me after this. They whisked her away to the nursery and Rob went too. I went back to the room and waited. When Rob came back I wanted to know where she was, she was warming and would be there any minute. We waited. We waited, we waited. Finally they are ready to move me from the labor and delivery room to the other side. Joy was also ready at that time. We move and then we get her. She's perfect.

Dirt

They say that some dirt is good dirt, some dirt is bad dirt, I say dirt is dirt and after today no dirt is good dirt! As a child I did the occasional mud pie and I dug to China (from Abilene where when I hit the red clay I knew something was special!) I have nothing against a little dirt under the fingernails, a little dirt in the lawn, or a little gardening. What I do have is something against too much dirt in the wrong place and being packed together like one of my mud pies! I am sure those of you who know me are wondering when and were I have encountered this dirt, well let me tell the story.
I get bothered by some projects not being done, so in an effort to speed things along I work on them. Now if I really thought about it I would know the project is too big for me, but I try anyway. I am an independent woman and I can do anything I want! Well this project started just that way. I want the planting bed next to my garage to be something other than a weed bed. We have talked about removing the railroad ties and planting it nicely this summer. Well it's warm so I decided to check on the ability of moving the railroad ties. They were fairly easy to move. I managed to get them in only one or two tries. OOPS! Now what! Let me explain I could remove them, but their laying in my lawn was not an option! So next I had to removed the nails holding them together or at least get them apart so their is a chance of the trash guys picking them up. This proved to be where I was in over my head. I needed leverage I could not get with only 2 legs and 2 arms. I approached Rob and asked if he had anything I could use for leverage, he opted to come help me. So the railroad ties are on the curb waiting for Monday trash.
The next part of the project the part where I really was in over my head was the railroad ties were a damn of sorts keeping back allot of dirt. The same dirt that housed many weeds, worms and roots. Lots and lots of roots. You see when we purchased this house the bed we are now working on was filled with very large bushes, VERY LARGE bushes. We got the majority of the bushes out and some of their roots. It has been about half a year since we got the bushes out so some of the roots have decomposed others are still there. So we needed to remove the dirt. Problem 1 we have no wheelbarrow. Problem 2 I am a wimp. Problem 3 where do you put this dirt? Long story short we have 3-4 piles of dirt in various low spots in our back yard. We are praying the weeds don't take over, and the grass will grow again in those locations.
So the state of things now is the front bed next to the garage is ground level with the exception of around the remaining bush and it's root system. The back yard has multiple dirt piles some in good places one just in a place (it's a Joy hill I keep telling myself). If you are ever in need of motivation getting a project started let me know I am great at starting things I get in over my head with so invite me over ask for my help and I will start your project for you. Luckily I am surrounded by friends and family who are great at finishing my projects. Thank you Rob, I love you!