Cold Therapy

It's here. The dreaded first cold (and hopefully only) of winter. And it's going around - praying I don't pass it along to Caleb or Rob, or anyone else for that matter.

So I spent much of the past weekend sneaking naps here and there, gargling with warm salt water, and spitting out mucus, and taking some tylenol for that nasal pressure headache that accompanies my colds. Gross, I know, but that's real life. I am also trying my best to stay hydrated. Lots of orange juice (empty starbucks cup is the evidence) and drinking green tea (antioxidants!). Haven't had a sip of coffee this week, and I miss it, but when I'm sick, drinking coffee just doesn't appeal to me very much. Kind of like all my morning sickness last winter, I suppose.

My goal for the weekend was to get down all my Christmas decorations and get the house in order, but none of that really happened. Oh well. There's always this coming weekend. And a 3-day weekend to boot! Yay!

New Beginnings

A new year brings reminders of new beginnings. A time to start doing things right, learn something new, kick old habits, change things around a bit. Change is something that has never bothered me, and in fact, I have to admit that for the most part, I like change. So the changes brought by the new beginnings of a new year are always welcomed with open arms. 2011 was a year of major changes in both my immediate and extended family. We began 2011 with the anticipation of our first child who was due to be born in August (we found out we were expecting the day before Christmas Eve so hadn't lived with the idea long in 2010). Then, just a few days later, my grandfather on my mom's side of the family passed away. The hope of a new baby helped to ease our pain and that of our family members. In July, my grandfather on my dad's side of the family also passed away, more suddenly. My dad is an only child, so my sister and I are the only grandchildren on that side, which made that side of the family very tight-knit. In six short months, I went from having four living grandparents to two. My dad lost his job in March, and in this economy, was blessed to find another one just a few weeks later. Two weeks ago, he was laid off again. In August, Caleb was born and after such grieving and adjusting earlier in the year, there was so much joy and more adjusting. So needless to say, 2011 was a pretty big year for us. I am looking forward to many firsts for Caleb in 2012, but hopefully fewer BIG changes. And maybe it will mean that I can blog more.

On to the obligatory resolutions. Change that. GOALS.

I've never been very good at sticking with any of my "new year's resolutions" but maybe by thinking of them as goals instead of resolutions, they'll stick.

Learn how to play my guitar. Last year, Rob taught himself how to play my guitar and consequentially, he was gifted a new acoustic for Christmas (from his parents, but it was my idea!). I got my guitar for Christmas when I was a teenager and was never able to teach myself how to play. Rob's parents and siblings can all play, so he had some good and free lessons. So, now two guitars reside at our house, and it is much easier to learn by playing while watching someone else also play, so one of my goals this year is to learn from Rob! So far, I am pretty good at E Minor. I've got a ways to go...

Blog more. I do enjoy writing and keeping an account of what is going on in our life, projects we have and complete (or don't complete), places we visit and just thoughts of mine in general. I just really need to make more of a point to actually get my thoughts into a post.

Organize the basement and garage. We have so much JUNK. :) Clutter accumulates easily at our house. It's pretty embarrassing. People give us things they think we might need and we say, sure, we could use it. But never do. Time to weed through and donate what we don't use. After all, one person's trash is another's treasure. Why not share the love?

I have other things that I also want to accomplish this year, but I want to be able to actually meet some of my goals. Maybe a monthly "projects" list would help. So maybe another goal is making those to ensure that some things get done - things that I need to do, but also things that I want to do... like going to market and sewing and making/freezing a bunch of baby food for when Caleb's ready to eat his veggies & fruits and reading the Anne of Green Gables series (1912 pages on my Kindle - so far I'm 2% of the way through).

Return to Work

This week was my first week back to work. I have never felt so many mixed emotions in my life! I had pre-separation anxiety, worrying that Caleb would know that I was gone, not take the bottles of milk that I had pumped, cry the whole entire day and not survive. Because, for goodness sake, he's survived only because he has been cared for constantly by his mom and if she were not there, the thriving would cease! Now I know this sounds ridiculous, and as I am typing this all out, I realize even more just how crazy it sounds, but these were the thoughts that I had. Not to mention the concern about whether or not I would be able to pump enough while away from him to sustain him for the next day, what work would be like once I returned, how I would get ready in the morning, pack my lunch, feed Caleb once, get him ready for the day, get to work on time, etc.

Thankfully, my sister had off this week from her job as a Christian school teacher in Maryland, and she offered to come stay with him. Caleb was able to remain in his normal environment and this allowed me to be able to get into more of a morning routine before adding in morning/evening transportation to and from the babysitter's house.  I was welcomed back with open arms to work (thanks to my wonderful, supportive co-workers) and everything went pretty seamlessly with the transition. I am so thankful! I cried a few times leaving in the morning, and on my way to work, but after that was able to keep it together. I got some texts throughout the day of a happy and healthy little boy. Isn't he so cute!? Tummy time, sitting on the big bed, and even holding his own bottle. 

Clearly, I had a MUCH harder day than Caleb. I am glad to be back at work, and have realized through talking with a friend that by working, I am providing for him in different ways. Of course I still miss him all the time, and would rather be at home cuddling and giggling together, but for now, that's just not going to work for our family. We'll see how it goes! And thankfully, Christmas vacation is just around the corner...

Back to Blogging!

Well, it's been about a year since I have blogged. And a lot has happened in the past year. I have missed chronicling important events in my life and the life of my family, and so I am back to the blogosphere, now writing as a MOM. 

I am hoping for this blog to become a space where I can record both the milestones and the mundane occurrences in the life of our family. I hope for it to be a place where you can laugh, perhaps gain inspiration, or just catch up with us!

Thanks for reading!

Gettin' Dirty With It

We gave our flowerbeds a full 365 days (plus more, since that year started at the end of November, there really wasn't much we could do outside other than shovel anyhow) to show us their stuff before deciding to work on getting rid of shrubs, trees and plants that weren't really our taste.  It was a good idea to do this, so we could see what bloomed when, what color the blooms were, and what we just couldn't stand.  The previous homeowner really liked her plants, and because she was older, probably grew to not be able to care for them like they needed. Many of the plants have been reproducing like crazy (iris, day lilies, daffodils) and others are just overgrown and need to be reeled in BIG TIME! I am all for the "natural" approach to gardening, you know - like English cottage style, if it is done well, but right now, I just want to clean things up and transplant some of what we already have back into the garden and go from there. Start from scratch, so to speak. And actually be able to see what is planted and mulch around them...

Our first nice spring day was last Saturday, and the re-landscaping mayhem began! There was a bed in the back that needed to be regraded away from the house (so that water flowed away from the foundation instead of toward it) - so this was the first project we tackled. We took all the plants out of the bed and dug up grass so that we could till, add soil and peat moss, and make it level before mulching. We decided that we would do this, and then replant.

Part of this planning involved a trip to our local garden center, Achin' Back (love the clever name!) for the first time. I like local nurseries, and have always wanted to stop by this one.  AB is family-owned small business, and their staff have been so helpful so far in our past two visits. If you're in the Chester County area, check them out!

One of the services they offer, in addition to great advice for problem areas, is landscape design. For free. We met Matt, our new friend at AB (hopefully he doesn't get tired of us and our silly questions), on our first visit and he explained that if we took pictures of our house and brought them in, he could help us to design our vision, help us select plants that would work in certain locations around our house, etc. After getting the basic idea for what we have and where we'd like to be at the end of our project (with a new patio outback and moving the front walk and front flower bed, widening and reshaping beds, etc.), Matt walked us around and showed us different plants and trees and figured out what looked best and fit with our tastes.

Here's the preliminary sketch Matt made:

And my updated color version that includes other trees, etc. that we already have and are planning to keep and use:

And so you can get an idea of what some of the plants are (and to help us remember what we ended up choosing - for now at least), I have included some pictures of the new plants/trees we're planning to plant!

What are your thoughts on our picks so far? What's your preference between the Weeping Redbud and the Snow Fountain Cherry?

Be back soon with our "in-progress" pictures.

Have you read what I've read? (to the tune of Do You Hear What I Hear)

Have you seen the application going around on Facebook, asking you to identify whether or not you have read more than 6 of the 100 books listed below by BBC? I don't really do Facebook apps, but was interested in looking at the list to see which books I have read, to see if I read more than the average person. The books I have read in my lifetime are marked in bold below.

image from penguinbooks.com

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

21 out of 100. Not too shabby I suppose, although I am sure there are many of you who have read way more than that. There are some that I did not bold because I have read parts of these books but not the whole thing. Others I have seen in the film form, but that does not count, because we all know that the book is always better than the movie. And I actually own others of these books that I have not yet read. A few years ago, my goal in the New Year (some would call this a resolution) was to read 50 books. With this list and the unread books on my bookshelf as inspiration (a la  Jules' unread library), I am thinking that I just might have to come up with some sort of reading program for myself for 2011.

Are there any books on this 100 best-loved novels list that you've read and would recommend to me? Or have read and would advise me to not waste my time on?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I think Christmas really is the most wonderful time of year. As I write this post, I am listening to Christmas music, my house smells like a fresh balsam tree (thanks to Bath & Body Works and their wallflower, you'd never know we have an artificial tree), and the lights on the tree and mantle are a-sparkling.

Most of my present-purchasing is finished. I've started sending Christmas cards to loved ones. And in the midst of the chaos that comes along with the kitchen renovation, our home is mostly decorated - this year inside and out (with a 36" lit wreath on the bay window and some lights on our bushes out front).

Of course, I still have a few final touches on the decorating, and one or two gifts to buy and most of them to wrap. But I feel like the planning and energy to get ahead this year has really paid off. I always enjoy Christmas. I love Christmas. But some years, I feel like I get so caught up in the commercialism and busyness that I forget to treasure and ponder the (as cheesy as it might sound) real reason we celebrate this holiday. This year, I find myself cherishing the celebration of Advent and praising God that he made Himself flesh and dwelt among us, the light of the world coming into the darkness (John 1) so that He could live a perfect life and one day go to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we may have fellowship with Him and eternal life. The mystery of Christmas.

Christmas this year has been a time of real reflection for me personally, through the Advent readings of Scripture and Christmas music/lyrics. I hope that it will be for you as well.