Y’all, I’m A Finalist!

Dear Diary,

I’m a finalist!! I can’t even believe it. Let me set the stage in case you forgot, Diary. I was nominated late last year for Best Diarist for the 2008 Weblog Awards. There were plenty of people nominated in that category. I’m sure the managers of the Weblog Awards had a tough time deciding who would actually become finalists in that category. I wasn’t holding my breath because, remember?, I wasn’t really sure what a diarist was and if I qualified. I mean, I write about daily life and chronicle the good, the bad and the ugly. I even write about some stuff that shouldn’t be shared. I guess that’s why I’m a finalist–my blog is truly like a diary. I wonder if I’ll look back in a couple years and just cringe at what I’m writing to you, Diary. 

You wouldn’t believe my excitement when I found out I was one of the final nominees. I squealed, jumped up and down like a teenage girl, and even peed my pants a little (after all, I am no longer a teenage girl and have birthed two big babies).

The thing I’m a little curious about though, Diary, is how Dooce got into this category? I don’t remember seeing her nominated for Best Diarist. Shouldn’t she be in the Best Blogger of All Time category? Or Best Blogger Who Doesn’t Accept Comments category? Overall I’m one of ten in the running. What do you think, Diary? Will my readers vote for me? Will they tell their friends to vote for me? Should I bribe them?

Diary, how can I get out the vote…you know, for myself? I’m not saying that my self esteem as a blogger will be affected at all… I wouldn’t lie to you, Diary. Voting begins Monday, 05 January and ends on the 12th. Here are some other things I found out. I think my readers would need to know these:

  • You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.
  • After voting in an individual poll you will be locked out from voting again in that poll (on the computer you voted from) for 24 hours.
  • Each poll has its own separate 24 hour lockout control. Voting in, for example, Best Diarist will not lock you out of voting in other categories.

Here’s hoping for the best!

AND!!! If you’re inclined to vote on other categories I’ve got one for you: Snapshots Of My Life is nominated in the Best Photo Blog category. She’s an amazing photographer and I know her IRL.

Of Attitudes and diapers: both poopy

So, you know Ashlyn’s tendency towards being strong willed. Sometimes her attitude is downright sh… crappy. Today her diaper was full of it as well.

To be fair we have been on the go for the past couple of days. And we have been busy. Physical stuff like walking, hiking, running, geocaching. Her sleep hasn’t been able to keep up and it started affecting her attitude last night. So, this story really starts last night.

We went to some friends’ house for dinner. Almost immediately she becomes whiny and clingy. They even feed her some of her favorite food: mac and cheese, raisins, crackers, pears… This should have placated her. No. She’s whiny through dinner so much so that our conversation halts continuously for me to try to beg and plead with her to just eat her food. Please! I wasn’t even using my nice-mommy-in-public voice. She wants down. Not a chance in a house that’s fit for a newborn, not a toddler who’s movements tend to be described as a kangaroo on crack.

We’re smart parents though and take our pack-n-play with us wherever we go. We may have a toddler, but that’s not going to cramp our style… I think. We did get asked, “so…you’re staying in a hotel tonight right?” We explained that if she didn’t go to sleep at that very moment somebody was going to lose an eyeball. The rest of the night was enjoyable. Until we got to the hotel room and it was actually time for her to sleep for the night.  It wasn’t enjoyable anymore for a couple more hours.

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This morning she woke up in a happy mood and we even went swimming. All was perfect for our lunch date with my step sister. Until we got to the restaurant. We should have known that not feeding her breakfast wasn’t going to make for a happy child. Did we become idiots for the morning?

We didn’t even make it into the restaurant before the fussiness began. And then when we sat down we could do nothing to either a) make her happy or b) make her eat. The only thing she would pick at was banana pudding and biscuits. At this point I didn’t care, I just wanted her to shut up. Piling her plate even higher with pudding and biscuits didn’t help.

Old women would pass the table on their way to the buffet and play peek a boo with her, which would make her smile for all of 2.6 seconds. I was too embarrassed to look around the room to see what other diners were thinking.

AND THEN. To make matters worse…she gets quiet…and starts straining…and making funny faces. And the smell begins to waft into the air. How far? I don’t know, I don’t care. I just want to get out by this point. The waitress is nice enough to bring the check but then she forgets that we exist. I try to stare her down, the only time I look away from our table, but she avoids us for the next eternity. The smell? I don’t know. She’s talking to a table about how to get to Atlanta. People, I’ll give you our navigational system, just give us back our waitress. I even try to pay at the front but get rejected there too. By the time the waitress finishes with us my head is spinning, literally, from fumes and frustration, and all I can think about is where am I going to change this diaper?

The bathrooms are small and have no baby changing station, which should be illegal by the way. I don’t care how true to the time period you’re trying to be. It’s raining outside so changing her in the truck with the tailgate open isn’t the greatest option either. Oh, and it’s cold. However, we choose to escape the restaurant. Let her deal with the cold. I am so glad that Du stepped in to help. Have I mentioned that he’s the greatest man in the world? This was a two person diaper let’s just say. And it got on her shirt. And the truck. And the wipes container. And up her back. And it’s the kind that doesn’t liked to be wiped off. Did I mention it was cold and raining? I’m still glad I was outside though in our own little cold world. Can you imagine what would have happened had I tried to do this by myself on the nice little couch in the women’s restroom? I think I would have actually cried.

We make our escape after dumping the bio-hazardous bomb into one of the restaurant’s back trash cans. I’m sorry to the waiter that has to empty that. There was no way we could keep that in the truck with us, even with the scented little bags we have to hide smells like that in.

We’re back home now and she’s asleep in her own bed. Lord willing she’ll catch up on all the sleep that she’s missed the last four days and let us sleep in…until at least 7:30…

New Year’s Plans

Resolutions are never adhered to are they? They’re broken within the first month. That’s such a let down and an immediate feeling of failure. So I’m not making resolutions this year…I’m making plans to do some things. Plans are more flexible. They can change, they can be enhanced. They can even be dumped if something better comes along.

So here are my plans for the new year. May they not be as tentative as resolutions tend to be.

  1. Get in shape. Isn’t that on everyone’s list? I’ve known for a while I can’t just sit around the house and eat chocolate (as all SAHMs do) and live to be 100. As long as God is going to allow me to live on this earth I want it to be a fit and healthy life. I’ve now got in my flabby little possession the Wii Fit and the Jillian Michael’s workout video/game/torture session. With these two at my disposal I should be able to be active everyday without even going outside…a bigger goal in my life than I had previously thought.Actually, I’ve enjoyed the outside activity we’ve been doing the last couple of days. Maybe I should add to my plans getting outside with the girls more.

    I do have an end date for when I want this extra flab to be gone from my body. My cousin is getting married on the beach in April. I don’t have to wear a bikini to the wedding, but I’m sure I’m going to want to wear shorts or some type of bathing suit while we’re down there. On that note, please let it be good and hot and beautiful while we’re down there, God. So, by my poor math calculations I have almost exactly 109 days to tighten up those thighs, abs and under arms… Anyone want to hold me accountable?

  2. Get closer to God. For months now I’ve been feeling like my prayer life/time with God is lacking. What prevents me from spending time with Him? Priorities…which translate to staying up too late, getting busy with the kids and personal things, you know the drill. Changing priorities is one of the hardest things for anyone to do, that’s why resolutions fail–people aren’t really willing to change their habits.I’m planning on getting closer to God this year. Spending more alone time with Him. Praying more. Doing more consistent Bible study. Doing His will more than my own. That’s what He wants. I can only be blessed by doing His will.
  3. Get organized. I’ve also been feeling lately that my home, my family, and my hobbies have not been the highest importance lately. I attribute that to not being organized. Ever since we moved (and probably before that) I have been in a reacting mode instead of a proactive one. I need to make at least one list a day consisting of what I want to get done that day. This will allow me to be in charge of my day instead of reacting all the time. I’ve been feeling out of control for too long. Am I an idiot for waiting this long? It’s that part of me that has to begin things at a beginning. I might as well wait until the beginning of the new year to start being organized, right? (snort).

Can my life be more peaceful, organized and healthy in 2009? Only time will tell. I hope each one of you makes plans for 2009, and that they’re not just wishful thinking. Maybe we can encourage each other along this year to make our lives better.

OH! And submit your best post from this past two weeks to Best Posts of the Week.

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Christmas In Paris

Noël à Paris

This year on Christmas Eve we went to our church’s candlelight service and sang songs and read the birth story of Jesus. Ten years ago we were attempting to celebrate the birth of Christ at Notre Dame in Paris.

It was 1998 and my mother was visiting us in Germany for the holidays. We decided to go to Paris for a couple of days. One of the many things we wanted to do while there was go to Midnight Mass at Notre Dame. Can you imagine!? We toured around Paris all day with the intention of heading over to Notre Dame after dinner. Why we didn’t think that every other tourist and their mothers would be doing the same thing, I don’t know.

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I don’t remember what time we actually showed up on the grounds of Notre Dame, but we were not the first ones in line (I must have been off my game what with all the magique of gay Pairee). We weren’t even three of the first one hundred…or five hundred in line. It was packed. The square in front of the church, that is usually busy during the day but definitely manageable, was now impassable due to thousands of people and what had to be miles of chains snaking the thousands of people.

Lines zigged and zagged and the front of the church was a small dot to us–the light coming from the open door barely making its way to our eyes in the darkness. We stood around for a while maybe hoping that we would somehow make it in. Oh, and it was cold. Paris isn’t warm on Christmas like Alabama is. As time crept on we realized that there was no way we were making it in for hymns or Bible readings that night, and we were just standing in the cold for nothing. I can’t remember what we did after that. I’m sure it had something to do with hotel rooms and warm feather beds, and croissants in the morning.

I wish my memory of the details was better. I also wish we had had a digital camera. Not many pictures exist from our four years in Europe. Not as many as I’d like anyway. I remember the feeling of being in Paris for Christmas though. Even more magical than Christmas or Paris by themselves. Add the two together et c’était vraiment un joyeux Noël.

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Joyeux Noël! (Merry Christmas!)

Benefit # 3716

There are many benefits to homeschooling, as you can see by the title of this post. One that we’re taking advantage of this week is the ability to go on vacation and still count your child present at school.

It’s so nice to be able to get away whenever the family schedule allows it, whether “outside school” is actually in session or not. It’s also great to be able to get school work done while you’re away so it isn’t left piling up and waiting for you when you get back.

My intentions were to bring Reagan’s school work with us so we could seamlessly work in her specific texts. That didn’t happen though. We were trying to leave so quickly that not only were school books left behind, some unmentionables were left behind as well (and I’m not going to mention whose they were…but they weren’t mine…ahem).

This is where the internet comes in. I googled “math worksheets” and quickly found a site that allowed me to create very specific worksheets for her. I googled “french worksheets” and found coloring pages for Christmas words in French. I googled “logic problems” and found tons of websites that had logic problems with varying degrees of difficulty.

People who are more resourceful and creative might even get by without the internet. I could have taken Reagan outside and found some cool math lesson to do with acorns and ants, which would have segued into science as well. My creativity doesn’t extend past reading a sewing pattern so the internet is what works for us.

So, while we’re lounging around this morning waiting to have lunch with our family members who aren’t so fortunate to have these days off, Reagan is getting a little bit of school work done. And we’re counting her present for one more day of school.

Excuses, Excuses

Hello? Is this thing on? I haven’t blogged since earlier this week and I’m wondering if I’ll still know how to do it correctly. Since when did the holidays become busy times?

My reasons are many and varied, but I’ll let the pictures do most of the ‘splainin’. Don’t roll your eyes.

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First of all, I wasn’t even at home. We were in Warm Springs, Georgia enjoying time with family, going through the Callaway Gardens Fantasy In Lights and eating fried candy bars…

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It’s a Milky Way…or a Three Musketeers. I don’t really remember. I went into sugar shock almost immediately after this photo…or about ten minutes later after 95% of the thing was ingested. It’s a good thing too because I would have surely sunk into hypothermia had my blood sugar level not spiked, speeding up my heart rate and making me warmer (not really, but you get the idea). Here’s what it looked like inside

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Y’all that is sweet, sugary goodness right there. I don’t want my candy bars any other way from now on. I need a Fry Daddy.

Then we got back home and I had to kick it into overdrive to make this:

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It needed to match this:

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The top dress is Ashlyn’s and the bottom Reagan’s. Reagan’s dress has her monogram across the bodice, maybe you can see it. It will have a belt made of Santa fur. Ashlyn’s won’t have a chance to be monogrammed as my machine broke last week and I can’t see a time in the near future (let’s see…four days) when I’m going to be able to drive it over two hours only to be forced to leave it for two weeks anyway. Don’t worry, the dresses will be put on live kids in the near future. And I will bore you with more photos.

Along with schooling, holiday get togethering, Christmas card addressing, toddler chasing, cleaning up after the toddler chasing…blogging just wasn’t happening. Thanks for understanding.