Category: Home Life

1. I’m embarrassed by how many posts could start with, “As I was eating donuts and drinking Dr. Pepper, I was thinking about…”.

2. I am completely hooked on “The Big Bang Theory”. Especially while eating donuts and drinking Dr. Pepper.

3. I daily question whether I’ll be smart enough to keep up with Callie Grace while homeschooling her. During preschool.

4. Callie has asked me three times today to help her because she “made a huge mess”. She was not exaggerating.

5. I sometimes think that God intends for me to participate in foreign missions. And then I remember that when I see two ants in my house I’m certain the house is infested and I consider moving. I’m not cut out for roughing it.

6. Justus told me again today that he was vacuuming for Jesus.

7. Justus: Can I have a banana? Me: We don’t have any bananas. Justus: Why? Me: (the sound of crickets chirping). Justus: Can I have yogurt? Me: We don’t have any yogurt. Justus: Why? (You can see where this is going…)

8. Lately I’ve been spending all of my free time trying to organize myself so that I can have more free time.

9. I am so ready to decorate for Easter that it’s killing me to wait!

10. I love hearing my husband preach more than I can possibly express, and that I get to be under his teaching three times a week is doing phenomenal things for my walk with Christ.

After having two babies and experiencing two pregnancies, I thought I had this pregnancy thing down. So, not so much. Here are a few things I’ve learned in the last few weeks:

1. Throwing up has become such a common occurrence that neither Callie nor Justus find anything strange about it. In fact, Callie makes her baby doll throw up now, which is a little distressing…. 🙂

2. Kidney stones and infections are never any fun, but throw them into your first trimester and they become particularly nightmarish….

3. Playing the pregnancy card while at the emergency room is awesome!

4. Just because I know I’m crying due to my crazy hormones doesn’t seem to help my crazy hormones.

5. You cannot avoid smells. They are everywhere. Yesterday at Walmart they were selling Turkey Legs (?!) outside and I almost lost it.

6. The only thing that sounds even remotely good to eat is Chicken Quesadillas from Qdoba. How blessed am I that there is a Qdoba in Evergreen?

7. I’m convinced I need to buy a new baby swing for baby number three. Sorry Philip.

8. Philip has taken over cleaning, cooking (okay fine, he’s always been the cook), getting up with the kids, and changing diapers. Despite going through two pregnancies with me already, he’s still as patient, caring, and thoughtful as ever.

9. My children have never watched as much Dora, Diego, LeapFrog, and Barney as they have in the past few weeks. They think it’s awesome!

10. My memory has turned to mush. Not good. Did I pull up the sides of Justus’s crib? Did I call/email the people I needed to or did I just think about doing it? What do I need from the store? Seriously, I’m going to be an idiot by the time this baby is born. (Please no sarcastic comments, my crazy emotions can’t take it! :))

On a different note, I think Justus is left-handed, Callie Grace can count to twenty, Justus can entertain himself cleaning for hours, Callie knows how to get her way by telling you “That will make me feel better” after requesting something, and I’ve discovered the joys of the Knifty Knitter. So, life is very busy and fun and nauseating, and i wouldn’t change anything if I could. Well, maybe I would take away all the smells. :).

I officially decorated for Easter yesterday, and while I’m happy that Easter comes late this year, thus hopefully bringing good weather that befits pretty Easter dresses, it was difficult to wait so long to decorate. Last year Philip stated that he felt certain this was the Easter Bunny’s secret residence, and this year is no different, and I haven’t even made an Easter trip to Hobby Lobby yet!

I’m trying to immerse myself in this season, focusing on the death and resurrection of Christ. It’s sad and extremely revealing to me how easily I’m distracted, and how easily I come up with excuses for why I don’t follow through with my commitment to one hour of time spent with God. I even have a book that is broken up into forty days and has journal questions and ideas for prayers in each chapter! When I’m pregnant, I like to use pregnancy as an excuse for many things (I find it to be a handy excuse, and one that I think I’ve earned, considering all that comes along with pregnancy!), but I cannot use it for not coming to God daily, hourly, with my prayers, my praise and my devotion.

My dear friend Nita reminded me yesterday what an awesome responsibility we have to our children when we consider that their souls are eternal, meaning that a part of them will exist forever. Well, crap. That is a huge responsibility, and one that I’m certain God does not take lightly, so neither should I. I don’t mean to, of course, but I do, especially when looking after their eternal souls gets in the way of something I want to do. And this is just another reason why I have to run to God every day, every minute.

So what are you reading for Lent, or to prepare yourself for Easter?

On a different note, I had to give Justus a bottle with chocolate milk in it tonight, because I drank all of the milk. With my Oreos. I also ate an entire canister of Pringles. And I barely made it through my two hour bible study this morning at church because I was so hungry I thought I was was going to lose it. This does not bode well, since I’m only a few weeks along. And also because there are three other people in this house who need to eat! Nita made me dinner on Monday, and it was this special rice and chicken, and I sort of forced her to make it again for me last night. She made an extra large portion so I could have leftovers for a few meals. It’s all gone. It might already be time for someone to stage an intervention….

I hope everyone is happy and well and ready to enjoy their weekend!

My top ten random thoughts for today:

1. Why does Dora the Explorer yell at me all the time? At first I didn’t take this personally, but now I’m beginning to, probably because…

2. My hormones are wack. (Do people say “wack” anymore?). I’ve only known that I’m pregnant for 3 days, and my emotions are all over the place. My hormones have also caused…

3. Terrible, terrible morning sickness. Well, really it can only be called morning sickness if my hormones are aware that it’s always morning somewhere, because I’ve been sick constantly for the last two days. It’s not been pretty. It’s never pretty when you throw up so much that it starts coming out of your nose. I know, I over-shared on that one, but it’s the truth.

4. Justus likes to participate in whatever activity I’m involved in, so this morning, as I’m leaning over the bathroom sink throwing up my pancakes, Justus pulled up his step-stool next to me and tried to throw up too. Precious or creepy, you decide.

5. Lent begins today, so I’m giving up soda, which works out quite well as far as timing goes, since I should give it up during pregnancy. I’m keeping my chai tea latte though. No one can take that away from me. Except for Starbucks. But that, I’m certain, would be considered an act of terrorism.

6. Philip takes everything in stride. A wife who can’t stop throwing up and who hasn’t slept in two days, a 1 year old who is teething, an incredible amount of work to do, a phone that doesn’t stop ringing, a 2 year old who attaches herself to daddy as soon as he walks in the door – none of these things phase him or frustrate him. He even made me the wonderful pancakes this morning, which were so sadly discarded shortly after consumption.

7. It’s vitally important to have close friends who love you enough to make you laugh in between being violently ill, and who aren’t afraid to say, “Dude, you look rough”. Just keeping it real. 🙂

8. My excitement over this pregnancy keeps me from being able to concentrate on anything else! Also, I do love having such a great excuse as for why I can’t remember the date, my phone number, the year Justus was born (I gave the doctor the wrong year), etc.

9. Philip just this week purchased something called a Roku, which allows us to have internet on our TV, which means I can now watch TV shows and movies from Netflix immediately on my TV. Seriously, the timing could not have been better, since there is still nothing good on TV at 3am.

10. Let the naming begin! I’ve already chosen a girl name, which Philip agreed to surprisingly fast, but a boy name – well, we all remember the Jedidiah fiasco.

There’s my top ten for the day. I’d be interested to hear Philip’s. Perhaps I’ll challenge him to it when he gets home. His blog is www.philipmeade.com.

I love my husband. I know that’s not news to anyone, and it’s quite normal for a wife to love her husband, but Philip is so incredibly special, there’s no work involved in loving him, living with him, sharing my life with him. So every year when his birthday roles around, I try to think of something special I can do to celebrate. The problem in the past few years has been that time rushes on me so quickly, I’ve got the two babies I’m trying to take care of, and this time of the year always seems inordinately busy, and this year has been no exception. I tried to plan an overnight trip last week, but due to extenuating circumstances, that didn’t happen. I tried to find time to get down the mountain to buy his birthday present, but due to scheduling conflicts and bad weather, that also hasn’t happened. So, irritated with myself at this point that I fear once again I won’t do his birthday justice, I decide to at least make sure we can go out to eat on his birthday. So I find a babysitter who’s willing to watch a one year old and a two year old (thanks Rhonda!), plan where we’re going, plan what to wear, and I have everything set for dinner tonight. Only one problem.

Today is not Philip’s birthday. My bad. I thought today was February 11. It’s not. It’s February 10. How could this happen, you ask? Actually, you would only ask that if you didn’t know me. If you do know me, you know exactly how this happened. Even with my excellent planner that I daily put into use, I still am off. At least I’m only off by a day, right?

Oh well. At least we’ll have a nice time tonight. The night before his birthday. Maybe I’ll make this a tradition. 🙂

You know the saying, “You can take the girl out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the girl”? I’m finding it to be so very true. It’s interesting how, when you’re in a certain culture, things seem so normal that in other cultures aren’t. So here is my list of things that make me still a Southern girl. Or maybe make me part of a huge, loving and crazy family. Either way, there’s no escaping it:

1. I put make-up on to go to the grocery store. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood.

2. I want my hair blonde. Not the natural kind that is so popular out here, I want the kind that is perfectly obvious it’s not my natural color.

3. I love having parties, and keep trying to come up with reasons to have people over to my house.

4. When I hear country music, I get all soft and mushy. Even though I don’t listen to country music.

5. When I hear the National Anthem, I get all soft and mushy too.

6. Few things are more important than making people feel completely comfortable in my home. Those few things will never include making people take their shoes off, or keeping kids out of any room because they might mess up the furniture. I’m not saying this is a good thing, or that you shouldn’t take care of your possessions. This is just my own thing, coming I think more from my family than my geography.

7. I’m still sold on the idea that most things can be solved over a cup of tea, hot or cold. But if it’s iced tea, it must be sweet. And if it’s sweet, it must have been made sweet from the beginning.

8. My one-year-old is running around like a madman, but still not wearing shoes. And my response? Oh well.

9. Yes sir, no sir, thank you, please, you’re welcome. All incredibly important words in my vocabulary, and therefore, in the vocabulary of my kids.

10. Church occurs three times a week: Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday evenings. And Sunday school is not optional.

These are just a few, I’m sure there are many more. I’m also certain that a lot of these things are held dear in other places besides the south, but since I’m southern born and bred, it’s all I really know.

Am I missing any, my Southern girls that are also transplants?