States of Unions, and other things.

Well, the baby slept through the night. Or didn't cry long enough to wake anyone up.

Of course, that doesn't mean none of my other children didn't get up about 2:30 in the morning, grumpy and wanting to sleep in my bed.

* * *

I watched part of the State of the Union last night, and listened to part of it. I will say this about the State of the Union:

1 - I always love it when they announce the President.

2 - Speaker of the House, John Boehner kept making faces that said "well, I'm being circumspect and not rude, but I really don't agree with the President on any of these things and I'd like you to know that. Aren't I subtle?"

3 - I'm not a fan of Nancy Pelosi, but at least she always looked fairly gracious up there on the stand, even in the Bush years. I chalk it up to her being a woman. Which may be unfair to Mr. Boehner, but there it is.

4- When I watch the State of the Union address I am constantly reminded of lines from The West Wing, which I then try and quote to Ben.

5 - The Response to the State of the Union always, always bugs me. I don't care who you are, if you are Republican or Democrat, it feels like a "getting in the last word" kind of thing in a whiney kind of way. Seriously. Let the President do his Constitutional duty and be done with it. The End.

* * *

Tonight is a big game for BYU basketball. It should be fun to watch. In prep for the big game our local newspaper has been printing a full size poster of Jimmer Fredette. My 17 year old sister has it on her door. I like Jimmer Fredette. He seems like a nice guy and shoots three's like they're going out of style. Fortunately they are not going out of style, because he's not the only player on the team with a good outside shot. Seriously. It will be fun to watch.

* * *

I know it's a completely unoriginal feeling, but I'd like a little more time and money, because oh the things I could do...mostly stuff around the house. I have plans. Also, a little more energy, but with the baby sleeping through the night, well, I'll be getting there.

And with that full circle, I'll say see ya until the next time.

Just when you think you know what you're talking about

I moved the crib out of our room and downstairs into "the boys' room" yesterday. We now officially have a room dedicated to the boys and to the girls. My baby, at seven months, had hit a phase of waking up repeatedly at night and not going back to sleep. Some of this I attributed to recent illness, colds, and teething. But also due to the fact that he thinks Ben and I are great and he wants to hang out with us instead of going sleeping.

I decided, with my maternal wisdom, that as soon as his second top tooth pushed through his sensitive gum that the baby would move in with his brother, downstairs, where I might be able to hear him cry, but more able to resist the magnetic pull that your crying baby has on you at 3 in the morning. And yesterday, after a ridiculous night of waking and waking again (because, we are so great, right?) I decided it was The Day.

And then he was grumpy all day. And didn't nap too well. And only at bedtime did I notice that he has not been working to get out just his two top teeth, but four top teeth, at the same time. And then I felt bad. Because of course you wake up crying in the middle of the night for that!

Still, I put him to bed downstairs. I rocked him back to sleep once before I went to bed. I fed him at 3:30 am when Ben brought him to me and then after letting him cry for 40 minutes and wake up my other son, I went down and let him spit up all his recent feeding down my back and then let him lie in bed with his brother and I for a few minutes before putting him back to sleep. He fussed for 15 seconds and then conked out. And I slept a little bit after that. But I had crazy dreams, and not very pleasant ones at that.

But it's progress anyway. Although my bedroom feels a little bit empty.

Musings. {And darn good ones, too.}

Yesterday evening I came down with some sort of stomach bug that made me feel ill, in fact not just "feel" but "be" ill. (Do those quotation marks make sense?) And though my stomach felt somewhat delicate this morning, I avoided breakfast and went to church and then came home and drank an Izze, which is what one should do with a delicate stomach.

And now, evening once more upon us, I am hanging out on my bed. My baby seems to have caught a cold AGAIN and is coughing in his sleep. I am, as you may well imagine, unhappy about this turn of events. I have been waiting for his top teeth to finally puncture through his little gum so that he can stop waking up so many times at night and so I can move him downstairs to his brother's room. Of course, this entire paragraph, save the first sentence, is a rather lengthy aside because the whole point of telling you that it is evening once more is not to inform you about the health of my baby, but to point out that other than my sleeping baby, I am the only one here at home.

Ben took the kids off to Sunday dinner at my parent's house, which was nice of him. We go almost every week, and I quite enjoy it (who doesn't like going home? I know some of you don't, but I do, so don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question.)

But back to my aside, I have been wondering if perhaps my baby is upset, not because he is teething, but because he has an earache. He, as pointed out earlier, has been beset by many nose-clogging colds, and I wonder if I should take him to the doctor. But I don't want to pay the co-pay for no reason. Does that make me, not an awful, but perhaps an irresponsible mother?

Perhaps I need to haul out the humidifier tonight for him anyway. Babies with colds make me so sad.

And now back from my continued aside, and perhaps onto another: I went to part of the Altitude Design Summit and has a jolly time. And essentially told people that my blog was on hiatus. And then I had to ask myself: on hiatus from what? because I have been posting. And I think it's because I have been posting without any attempt at regularity, and because at one time I really was posting with readers in mind, and these days it is very much more for myself. Not that I don't love anyone who reads here, I do love you! It's just that in my mind I plan on having a more concrete direction for the blog, but am not acting on it at the moment, and there fore am on hiatus, even though I am posting. Plus, I am not a design blogger. But let me say this, I have a post coming about the whole event, which was fun, and the more philosophical musings it induced in me.

Also: I've been thinking about the definition of help meet, and what that entails. No feminist rantings to come on that one, maybe just definitions.

Also: Sad baby is awake. And I think he wants a bath.

So: Cheerio!

...when cloudy was the weather

It's a beautiful morning, overcast and cold with the rain working, carelessly at the moment, to rid the lawn of the remaining snow. Through the space between the bare branches of the trees there are wispy clouds and streaks of a pale blue sky peeking out.

On the not so poetic side of life is my three year-old, a child in need of a bath because she smells like over-used pull-ups: a reminder to me that, indeed, it is time for (more) potty training, or that at the least I should remember to change her pull-ups before she goes to bed. I have found that in motherhood there is always room to err and err again. Thank goodness for water.

In any case, there is a bold statement in scripture, that "men are, that they might have joy." And though it doesn't take a rainy misty day sitting by the window with a poetry book in hand for me to know this, I feel it this morning with a conviction inside. Man is, that he might have joy.

It has been a while, I concede, since I have stopped to really look at the picture outside my window. I am glad I woke early this morning to do it. And I wonder, how often do we choose to close the door to that joy? The joy that is our birthright.

In the slow coming of my new year's resolutions I resolve to live this one: to not sell my birthright for a mess of pottage, or anything else, for that matter.

image found here.

It's Winter Break! Again!

No school today for Teacher Comp Day. Or something. No school Monday, either: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I know! I thought we just had a winter break, but apparently we need more. Two weeks back at school is more than enough for all of us here. And we are glad there is another break.

Well, not really. Two more days where I must think about entertaining my kids. And my oldest is grounded from the Wii until tomorrow. So we are going swimming in the dead of winter, instead. Not outside, of course. And I'd really prefer not to, but we are, and it should be good and blah, blah, blah, blah. We're kicking off the Winter Blues from the inside out. Let me hear you say yeah! {Yeah!}

In other news: I plan on spending a lot of money at Ikea in the near future. Because I like Ikea.

{Hey, Ikea! I'll write nice things about you if you give me a nice discount on bookshelves!}

So there you have it. Welcome to the weekend, just a little bit early.

pj's forever. and ever.

I am still in my pajamas. I did bathe this morning. Early, too. Too early to get dressed in normal clothes after. But let's face it: I am a pajama person. It's just where I fall along the spectrum of things. Although part of it may have to do with a post-partum body and it's sneaky, flabby ways. That said, today as I was going through some clothes (it's time for the semi-annual good will drop-off) I discovered I could fit into a pair of pants I had absolutely no expectations for, so that was exciting.

I will change into said pair of pants when I got out to dinner tonight for my sister's birthday. She will be there, too, of course. I don't go out to eat for birthdays just at random. Although that would be kind of a funny thing to do. Hey, it was your birthday yesterday! I went to Macaroni Grill in celebration! What did you do? Actually, I probably wouldn't go to Macaroni Grill. But that's beside the point.

The real question is, while I am out to dinner, what is the rest of my family going to eat? Pasta? Pizza? Hmm. I will sit here in my pajamas while I figure this out. The End.

Life Goes On

Well, it's the seventh already. Where does a week go? 1 down, 51 to go. But who's counting?

This year on New Year's Eve my dad handed everyone who was over at my parent's house a paper on which to write predictions for the new year. I have been informed that in at least two predictions I am pregnant at the end of the year. To which predictions I have simply one response. Ha.

My responses were generic and boring because at a certain point, one's brain doesn't function like it should. Maybe because I have learned that life is unpredictable and some of the wishes we hold most dear for ourselves and others seem so precious and fragile at times, I couldn't even put them out there to glimmer in the sunlight. Que sera sera.

But January seems like a clean and hopeful month. It is nice to pull down all of the holiday decor and clean out a few cabinets. When I get over this cold that has me beat at the moment I plan to get some big things done. I have an Ikea list a mile long. I'm just waiting for the energy to match it.

And also, today I need to pay the bills. Thanks for the reminder.

Welcome to the First Day of the Rest of...you know

I am sitting in my bed on the new sheets my MIL gave us for Christmas. I really like these sheets. The only problem with them is that they interact badly with my new chenille sweater from Target (I love Target). I have little gray threads everywhere on the sheets. My sweater sheds. But I'll get a lint roller out later this morning and take care of it, so there's that.

Today the girls are back at school and I kind of think of this day as the real first day of the new year; the day when life isn't a holiday any more and you have to get back into the swing of things and you want people around you to say "my! what swing!" or something.

I had hopes of getting up and cleaning the bathroom, but the baby is sick and he spent the night with me in bed which means I slept only sort of and my back muscles are sore. Which means that this new year's thing about getting up and going and going and going, is happening in a more slow manner than I wanted. At the same time I think to myself, isn't it all arbitrary anyway?

Here's the deal: I have resolutions I'd like to have, resolutions that have to do with writing and a new blog design, and decorating my house and tiling my bathroom, and painting and praying and reading my scriptures and reading other things, and for finishing up potty training and making wholesome delicious meals that I have planned in advance!

And thinking of all of those makes me tired. Or maybe that was because the baby slept with me in my bed. Or maybe what it says is that my resolutions need to be about getting to bed on time, eating right, and exercising.

In any case, it's time to feed the baby and maybe throw in a load of laundry. I might take the tree down today, but I might not. And if today isn't a good enough bang to the beginning of the year, well, there's always tomorrow.

2011

How do I feel about a year that starts on a Saturday?

Pretty good, actually. Saturdays are generally days with things to do, but lots of options. Errands to run, home improvements to make, groceries to buy. But if you don't want to do any of those things you can do something else. Like watch football, or play football, or the piano. On Saturday instead of regular cereal for breakfast your dad or husband makes you waffles or pancakes or crepes. Or, like today, French toast!

Yep, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about a year that starts on a Saturday.

Happy New Year, All.