So much time, so little to do

I've not posted in a couple of days, and now I have a herd of things galloping about in my head, demanding to be described. Things about...

• new hobbies (knitting)
• how irritated I am with neighbor's barking dogs (extremely, but that really is a whole post on its own, given the history involved)
• the fun I've had and money I've spent on decorating the living room (tons on both counts)
• how well Jet is healing from his procedure (very)
• my new adventure in cutting calories (two days in a row, I've been under my goal - yay!)
• more cute phrases for the Toddler Dictionary
• other little things that would make great blog fodder had I nothing else to say

So, saddle up and prepare to follow my thoughts as we attempt to round them up into some semblance of order.


You know what they say about pictures and words, so let's start here:

I found this book at my mom's house last week. I think it belonged to one of my sisters. After reading post after post of Barb knitting totally adorable things, I decided to just go for it. I read the book (self-proclaimed nerd, here - everything I do begins with a book) and ventured to Hobby Lobby to purchase necessary items for every knitter's first project - the scarf.

The first attempt yielded a too-small gauge, but was good for practice. On the next trip to Hobby Lobby, I got bigger yarn AND bigger needles. Still not quite right, but still practicing. A lot.

I'm hoping to have the scarf done for my niece's 11th birthday, which is at the end of October. Three months. Think I can make it? I dunno. I'm visiting my grandparents next week, and Granny told me to bring my things so she could help me.

At any rate, it's fun. I enjoy it because, unlike my other hobby (reading), I don't block out the world.

Next:

This is the yummy fabric that I bought to make valances for my living room and kitchen windows. (Actually, my mom took pity on me and my living room, which is currently a study in neutrals - white walls and brown furniture. Every. single. piece. of our furniture is BROWN.) I had picked up a swatch of this fabric over a year ago (maybe even more than that), before we were even ready to buy a house, and have been drooling over its $27.99/yard yumminess ever since.

I've found this project to be like the Mouse and Cookie story. First, I wanted to make valances, which required two trips to Hobby Lobby for fabric and batting (they were out of the fabric the first time), and one to Home Depot for boards and various hardware.

Mom was generous and told me about this great rug she'd found for my sister's apartment at Wal-Mart. She also gave me money to buy it, so first I went to Wal-Mart and got a rug (slightly different from Beez's rug, but similar).

During the trip to Home Depot, I realized that I really wanted sheers to put on the windows, and I'd better go ahead and get the rods to do that because once those valances are up, it'll be impossible to hang sheers behind them. So I decided which rods I needed and picked those up.

My dad accompanied me (and Jet) to Wal-Mart and Home Depot, and then helped me cut the boards to size in his shop/driveway. In the process, sticky pine sawdust (Texas snow) coated my car. So, we washed my car.

This morning, I spread out the rug and compared it to the fabric. Not quite right. Wonder if Target has rugs? I know they have sheers! Jet and I loaded up and went to Target.

But first, I went to the jewelers and dropped off my ring so it would be ready before I leave town next week. While I was at it, I took my pearl earrings to be re-glued (the pearl fell of of one of the posts) and had them solder my wedding band to the ring. Should be ready by Tuesday.

At Target, we first made the obligatory stop at the Starbucks. (Mom, I felt your pain today - the THREE people behind the counter took 12 minutes to get my iced chai together. No steaming or brewing required! Just pump the chai in, fill it up with skim milk and add ice. TWELVE MINUTES.)

Next, the curtains. Jet was being his normal, active three-year-old self, so I peppered the walk with various forms of "stop that, get up off the floor, walk, don't touch, let go, put it down" and a hefty dose of "why can't you just ACT NORMAL" thrown in for good measure. All of that became unnecessary in the curtain aisle because we could hear some OTHER little boy in the next aisle pitching a wall-eyed fit and his mother telling him that he was "not getting a toy" and they were "leaving RIGHT!! NOW!!"

He stood very still right next to me while we listened to three or four minutes of this. (That was nice, because I could browse sheers in peace for a bit.) Then he solemnly looked up at me and slowly said, "I get a toy because I beed good, right?" I'm not above bribery, so I told him that he would if he didn't pitch a fit like that little boy.

Found the sheers. Next: rugs! I found the perfect rug. I called mom to see if she could come to Target because I needed reassurance that it really was the rug I wanted. I'd been burned before. Unfortunately, she was unavailable -- working. I'd forgotten that some people have to do that during the summer. :)

I forged ahead and loaded up the rug, with a matching small one for the kitchen just in case. In case of.... umm... spills. Yeah, that's it. Spills.

Everybody knows that if you buy fabric for valances and rugs and sheers, then you might need... throw pillows for the couch? Of COURSE I need throw pillows for the couch! Picked up four -- two in red and two in sage green. And some cup towels. I briefly considered an apron, but thought it might be carrying things a bit too far.

By this time, Jet has had enough, so we head to the check-out where he picks a happy treat. I paid for everything, after picking my jaw up off the floor from the shock of the total, and carted everything to my car. I managed to successfully wedge a 5'x8' rug into my four-door Saturn Ion.

At home, the sage green pillows are too dark with my BROWN couch, but they'll have to wait to be returned until after Jet's lunch and nap. I get him down and staple batting and fabric on four valances, and batting on the fifth before my staple gun gives out. I needed about 10 more staples from the dumb thing, but it has up and died on me.

After Jet's nap, I wedge the OLD rug into my car to return it to Wal-Mart and pick up a new staple gun. Then we go BACK to Target to exchange the sage green pillows for gold-ish ones, where I successfully resist the temptation to buy even more STUFF. (Purses and shoes and clothes, oh my!)

Back at home, again, Knight confirms my belief that the old staple gun really is dead (he takes it apart first, though), and informs me that the staples I have are too big for the new staple gun. *sigh*

I cannot stomach another trip, so he stopped on his way home from worship team rehearsal at church. I loooooooove this man.

I hope to have pictures of the finished product on Sunday!

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Delicate matters, part deux

Jet had his little procedure today, and he's doing well this evening. I'll post more tomorrow, I hope, but since he stomped on my laptop and cracked the screen, I'm relying on Knight's generosity with regards to his own laptop in order to post. :) He's a pretty generous guy, that Knight, but he may need it at work tomorrow.

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Technology Schmechnology and Messes

Color me irritated. I figured out how to do the "Read More" thing and now it's messing everything up. Okay, so KNIGHT helped me figure it out. Anyway, it was working great and now it's not and I'm mildy irritated because he's out of town until tomorrow. :) You can still read the entire post if you click the title of the individual posts.

A friend of ours got some free tickets to Promise Keepers this weekend, so Knight went with him. I think it's awesome that he's going. In the past when he's gone, he comes back really on fire. I've been praying that some of that will be contagious for me.

Yesterday, my sister came over and played with Jet. His room was a mess before they came, and it was trashed by the time we got ready to put him to bed (totally not my sister's fault!). Since he gets up in the night to come to our bed, I try to clear a path for him so he doesn't trip over stuff. Last night though, there wasn't even space to do that. I couldn't see carpet anywhere. So, we cleaned up. He does a great job helping, especially if it's something that delays bedtime. :)

This morning, on the way to the bathroom, I looked in his room, having temporarily forgotten that we cleaned. I was pleasantly surprised and mentioned it to Jet. "Hey, look! Your room is all clean!". He remembered, too. "Yeah, mommy, we cleaned up!"

After the potty, he wandered in his room and said, "I'm gonna make a MESS!" He proceeded to grab a few toys and throw them in the middle of the floor.

Supressing a laugh at his boy-ness (!!), I had a short discussion about how we can get out toys to play with them, but not just to mess up his room. If he wasn't going to play with it, he needed to put it back in the toy box. He tilted his head and kind of looked at me funny, but said "Okay, Mommy."

I suppose throwing the toys in the middle of the floor with the express purpose of making a mess may be considered "playing" with the toys in the mind of my three-year-old son. :)

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Delicate matters

Jet has been having... um... boy problems. He's been telling me that his "pee-nit" hurts. Often. And I'm sure that someday he'll appreciate that I've told the internets about his pee-nit. If it wasn't for him, though, I wouldn't ever have anything interesting to write about. Such is the price of being an adorable little boy. :)

I originally thought it was related to swimming. He started complaining about it a few days into the swim lessons. Maybe the chemicals in the pool? Swim diapers? Potty training? Who knew?

I wish it were that easy.

You see, we never really talked about whether or not to have him circumcised. I had read all over the internet the pros and cons about it (because everything we read on the internet is gospel, donchaknow!?!?). I don't have one, so I figured we should just let the boy be. I guess Knight felt the same - I can't really remember -- and when Jet's doctor came to our hospital room after he was born, we politely said, no, thank you to the circumcision. I did ask his opinion, and he sort of shrugged and said it really was a personal preference.

Fast forward a few weeks. For some reason, we changed our minds. Okay, I probably changed our minds (the Royal "Our"). I'd had a horrible kidney infection after Jet was born, so I'd been seeing a urologist. I asked him the circumcision question in passing, and he gave me all the reasons why we should have it done. He said it didn't really matter when boys are young, but there are all sorts of issues that (ahem) arise as men age that can be avoided if they had just been circumcised.

My urologist referred us to the pediatric urologist in his group, who said he figured Jet was still little enough to have the procedure done in the office. So my mom and I took him in (Knight was working) at six weeks old. Dr. Snipthetip sent me back to the waiting area, which was just as well, because I was enough of a wreck in the waiting room. I probably would have been yelling worse than Jet if I'd stayed in the room.

After about five minutes, Nurse Snipthetip (no relation) motioned to me to come back to the room. Dr. Snipthetip informed me that Jet was already "too big" for the instrument that they use. They discovered this after they had strapped him down to the table, numbed him up, and retracted the foreskin.

I felt like the worst mother E.V.E.R., both for letting them do all of this to my sweet, innocent baby, without actually accomplishing the mission, and because my first thought upon hearing about the problem was, "Well, Knight will be proud to hear that his son was too big."

The only way for him to be circumcised at this point was to take him to surgery. That thought was too scary for a six-week-old baby, especially for an elective proceudre. Dr. Snipthetip told me just to leave things alone down there and it would take care if itself.

So, here we are, three years later, and he'll have to be circumcised. I don't know for sure if it was Dr. Snipthetip's fault after not being able to complete the procedure the first time around. Anyway, I'm hoping we can have it done ASAP, both to relieve the discomfort Jet is experiencing and to just get it over with, already.

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Art

I'm so very not creative, artistically speaking. That's why people like this guy totally impress me.

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I'm so glad that God qualifies the called...

...and doesn't just wait until we're qualified to call us.

Our church does Backyard Bible Clubs instead of Vacation Bible School. For the BYBC, the youth break up into teams and learn a set of curriculum. Then they go to various places in town, assemble a bunch of kids from the neighborhood, and love on them and play games and teach them the curriculum for four days. This year, they are doing two, two-and-a-half hour clubs each day (in the past, they've done up to four, one-and-a-half hour clubs everyday). It sounds fairly simple as I write it, but it's really not. The youth have been preparing for this week since May, and the whole church gets involved in one way or another.

Last year, I helped my mom cook two meals a day for 65+ people. That was actually kind of neat; I've had 25 or so years of practice in the kitchen with my mom . We work well together. Plus, it was fun to spend time with my mom.

This year, they're doing things a bit differently, so they don't need people in the kitchen full-time. So, I was hit up to go to the Spanish-speaking club and help translate for the youth. (See, Dad! I DO use that major, at least once a year!) I speak textbook-Spanish. It's great, but I feel like I sound like a dweeb. Ever met someone from a foreign country who only learned English in class? They speak differently - kind of stilted, difficult to understand at times. I'm a bit slow at first, but can catch on quickly when I'm using the language. For example, we go to Mexico to shop sometimes... it comes in handy, there. I've been known to translate a bit for people in stores or at the pharmacy or a restaurant or whatever. It's also handy for eavesdropping. :)

This situation is different, though. It's kids. Little kids, as in 6-10 years old. I have never felt so stupid as when listening to a 6-year-old rattle off a question in a language in which I struggle so hard to communicate the basics. You know how sometimes kids have their own words for things? Yeah, throw in some of those and a ton of slang while you're at it, and I feel like a total moron because I'm trying to talk to a little kid, for pete's sake, and he's looking at me like I grew a third eyeball in the middle of my face.

Oh yeah, and there's the added stress of holy-crap-what-if-I-mess-up-and-tell-this-kid-that-God-is-a-cow or some other such nonsense. Maybe that's what the Bible refers to when it talks about the Holy Spirit as an intercessor. I don't really think so, in fact, I'm pretty sure that's referring to a prayer, but ... I'm sure He's working hard as I trip through explaining the gospel to these adorable children. Fortunately, I'm not the only translator. We also have this wonderful woman from our church who's a native speaker. That helps a ton, because I can always turn to her and ask, ?Como se dice fill-in-the-blank?.

You know what, though? It's amazing what has happened to me in the last couple of days. By merely making myself available to God, and telling Him that I'm willing to be used, I'm more at peace, despite the blows to my pride. It's very difficult to put into words...

One of the things we've been struggling with lately is budgeting. We went though the period of absolutely no money because Knight was looking for a job (God took care of us, though, through odd jobs for Knight and the generosity of my family). Then he got a contract (hallelujah!) and the first couple of paychecks gave us this kind of heady feeling of Hey! We have some money! Yay! and maybe we let go of a little control and spent a bit too much. So then we were back to broke. In the last week or two, though, we've come back around and are better.

I've still struggled with contentment, though. Maybe part of this peaceful feeling has been brought about by a realization that I am grateful for what God has blessed us with, after working with these kids in a poorer part of town.

Maybe it's also a letting go of pride as I struggle to communicate with these kids. I'm not all that all by myself. The only way I can be the best I can be is to let God work through me. It's so freeing to come to that realization. Again. To just let go of my ridiculous expectations in the various areas of my life, and remember that God will provide. All He needs from me is surrender.

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Clause and wines

Earlier today, I showed Jet how to use the remote to "clause" his DVD while he went potty.

This evening, he had to go potty and picked up the remote. I was curious to see if he would remember which button to push to pause it. He remembered, but he didn't quite point the remote in the right direction the first time, so it didn't work.

For his second try, he pushed the fast forward button, which is just below the pause button. I instructed him to push the play button, and then the pause button. He figured it out, and then proudly told his daddy, "I pushed the trinangle button, and the button with the two little wines!!!"

Yes, I could do with two little wines, myself. :)

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Hero

On a trip to Mexico a few months ago, my mom brought back a wooden top for Jet. It consists of a wooden handle, the spinning top, and a black shoestring. Jet and Knight played with it for several days in a row on the the kitchen floor whilst I was attempting to cook dinner. Soon, though, it was relegated to the toy box.

Today, though, Jet rediscovered it. However, the plastic thing had come off of one end of the shoelace, making it frayed and impossible to thread through the hole on the spinning top.

So Jet did what any intelligent young man would do. He brought it to Daddy, Fixer-of-All-Things-Broken.

J, holding up frayed end of shoestring: Daddy, the stick came off of it

K, pointing to the other end of the shoestring on the ground: There's a stick on the other end.

J, turning in complete circles, looking everywhere but the end of the shoestring: Where?

K: Bring it here.

J,toddling over to Daddy and holding up string: OK.

K, lifting the string so that the end with the stick is dangling at Jet's eye-level: Here, this end.

J, eyes wide: *slow, audible, astonished intake of breath* Woahhhhhhhhh.... That's awesome...

If only it would stay that easy... to set his world to rights and be his forever hero. I imagine, though, that Daddy will always be his hero, even when it's not cool to say it out loud.

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Tinkerbell

My littlest sister has started her very own blog. *sniff* She's growing up so fast! I remember like it was yesterday, changing those iddy widdy diapers... *sniff*...

OK. Over it. I think.

Anyway, on one of her posts, my other sister questioned her nickname of Beezneez. I would like to refer her here.

It would seem that she is now the odd girl out, being the only sister wifoub a blog. :)

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Ring Bling

I went to a different jeweler today about the reaction I've had to my wedding ring. Remember that my doctor diagnosed me with a nickel allergy? Remember that I went to see another jeweler who basically told me that there wasn't much he could do? We were ready to see how much it might cost to get the diamonds reset into something that wouldn't, oh, I don't know, cause my skin to blister up and bleed.

Well, Mr. NewJeweler figured out the problem, after informing me that yellow gold does not have nickel in it. "They" (has anyone ever actually met "them"?) only blend nickel with gold to turn white gold into yellow gold. My ring, being yellow gold, doesn't actually have nickel in it... or it shouldn't.

This jeweler actually spent some time looking at the ring with his little eye-thingy. He went through a few minutes of examining and hmmming and ohhhhing while I resisted the urge to chunk my very adorable but very active and curious son through the front plate-glass window of the store and into the street. Getting Jet to stop touching things!! was harder than nailing jell-o to a tree, but perhaps not quite as difficult as herding cats.

Mr. NewJeweler told me that the part of the ring that had the I Love You cut out of it was actually white gold, which had nickel in it. The light bulb went off in my head -- this would explain why I was having the reaction only on the top of my finger instead of all the way around it. So, he said he should be able to cut that part out and it would stop bothering me. He doesn't think it will affect the stability of the ring, but he can fill it in with yellow gold if it looks like it will. Best case scenario: twenty-five smackers and I get to wear my wedding ring again! Yay! Worst case: about $100, depending on how much gold costs at the hour he decides to fill it in. Still not bad, considering we were looking at resetting the diamonds in platinum for around $1200.

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