Married to the Empire

New Blog

2012-12-29T22:08:00.001-06:00

Blogger says I've reached my limit of free posting. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin for this blog. I'd wrestled for a while with what to do with it, as the title is no longer relevant to my life. After much deliberation, I've decided to simply start a new blog. Fresh start. Feel free to come read over at The Oklahoma Texan.

Hospitality and the New House

2012-11-08T11:31:00.000-06:00

Before we moved, we had a wish list of things we wanted in a new house. Number one, of course, was no foundation problems! But a few other things were a laundry room (rather than a closet, like I had in Texas), a dining room big enough to hold our oversized table, and a large enough home to be able to host groups. I'd always been a bit troubled that we rarely had people over, including our youth group, in part because seating people at our table meant rearranging the dining room and the living room. It was such a major hassle.

We actually prayed for these things, and God gave us what we asked for. Now it's my turn to follow through.

Our table fits beautifully in our dining room. It can seat up to 10 people, and wouldn't you know, our small group at our new church has 10 people in it. We hosted the group last night, and the only furniture I had to move was chairs. Even better is that we have so much space in this new house that we can set up several card tables, as well, if needed. God has blessed us abundantly, and I'm thrilled to be able to actually open my home without it causing too much stress or physical labor.

We've let the youth minister know that our home is available if it's ever needed for Disciple Now or whatever. He mentioned a progressive dinner at Christmas, so I'll be sure to remind him that we're willing to host that if he needs homes. It's exciting to finally have a home we enjoy opening to others.

First Birthday Party

2012-09-23T21:47:00.000-05:00

Because we're in a new place and don't know very many people, I was determined to make Alex's first birthday something special. I planned a little party, and we only invited my parents, who had planned to come in from Texas, and the neighbors behind us, as we get together occasionally with the kids.

Unfortunately, only the neighbors were able to come, as my daddy wound up having unexpected heart surgery the week before Alex's birthday. (He's recovering just fine, thankfully.)

This may be the only birthday I make a bunch of handmade stuff (of course, I say that, but who knows?), but again, I felt like I really needed to make this special. And yes, I fully acknowledge that this was for me mostly, as Alex won't remember a thing. However, he'll be able to look back at pictures someday and know that his mama cared enough to make sure his first birthday was a Big Deal.

Alex adores our cats. (The feeling isn't mutual.) Since that's what he's most into, I decided to throw him a kitty party with a black-and-white color scheme in honor of Ninja's and Doogie's fur colors.

I used my DeNami Designs cat stamps make the invitations and cupcake toppers. The jars of black-and-white candy with pumpkins made into cats were inspired by the cover of an All You magazine that I saw. I made a special little cat shirt for the Birthday Boy to wear at his party.

The Birthday Boy upon waking up

Doogie cupcakes

Ninja cupcakes

It may have been a small party, but it was a good one. Happy First Birthday, my sweet boy!

A Year in Review

2012-09-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

Today was Alex's birthday. It's been a wonderful year with our surprise baby boy!

Lately... (with a whole lot of rambling)

2012-09-06T23:44:00.000-05:00

I feel as if I should have a label at the top of the page that reads, "This blog is nearly abandoned." Like a warning label or something. I blame Facebook. It's so much easier to post a pile of pictures there or use the camera on my iPod to quickly throw up a picture with a funny little one-liner, like the one I did of Ninja recently sitting in the high chair, complaining that the baby gets food when he sits there, while Ninja only gets his picture taken. Yeah...

Part of it is simply the act of Motherhood. I'm old and tired and have a very young and active small person to keep alive. I can't even blame the move anymore. The house is mostly put together, although there are still pictures hanging out in my hallway upstairs, rather than hanging on walls. And the baby is almost ready to be moved into a proper nursery. Truthfully, the baby is ready; it's the room that we're waiting on. Steven finally has it properly textured and painted, and he even replaced all the outlets and switches. Fresh and clean. We're just in the process of putting up some of the things on the walls. I expect poor Alex will finally get moved in over the weekend. I say poor Alex because the last time he had a proper nursery, he was 6 months old. He'll be a year old in 2 weeks.

Wow. We've lived here 5 months now. We finally got around to trading in our Texas driver's licenses for Oklahoma ones this week. While this really needed to be done for a lot of reasons, I'd been dragging my heels as long as possible. But with a presidential election coming up, and my preference for one ~~buffoon~~ politician over another, I had to finally move on this in order to be able to vote. But it was a sad day, especially as I didn't even get to keep my Texas license. And it actually had my one and only good picture ever placed on a driver's license! (I still cringe when I think of the horrible profile picture on my license when I was 16. It was taken right before a drill team practice in the Texas summer heat, so I wasn't looking pretty. I got my license, drove all by myself to practice, then locked my keys in my car. My mom was not happy when she came and bailed me out of that pickle.)

Alex is teething again. Fun times. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) One tooth finally busted through, so I'm expecting 3 others to follow soon. I hope. Please, God, please. I have probably the most good-natured baby on the planet, but teething makes him something like the Hulk. "Don't make me get teeth. You won't like me when I'm teething." And with that, I just revealed my age, as I grew up watching Bill Bixby play the Hulk on TV. This just points back at my previous statement of being old and tired. (Seriously, God has a strange sense of humor to give a woman who can't get pregnant a baby when she's nearly 40. No wonder Sarah laughed when God said she'd have a baby! I have to wonder how tired she was as she ran around after little Isaac!)

Ninja is calming down. A lot. All the songs I've made up about him are no longer true, as they're about how naughty he is and how he steals food. Ever since we started supplementing the renal diet he eats along with Doogie, who is the reason they eat that way, with what we call "treat food" (it's Wellness wet food), he stopped trolling for food. More or less. He's still hopeful, but he doesn't lie in wait anymore for the moment you get up and leave your plate (stupidly) unattended. Now he hangs out under the high chair and hopes for something good. Alex likes to help him out. He's discovered that if he drops Cheerios, Ninja sometimes smacks them around the room. It's great entertainment for the two of them, but it means finding food in strange places for me.

Doogie is just Doogie. Sweet, quiet, sleeps a lot these days. I made a deal with him. He's okay with the baby living here, but he wants said baby to leave him alone. So, I promised that I would never make him be touched by Alex. We use Ninja for all cat-petting practice. I figure Doogie is old, sick, and he's been through hell and back in the past year-and-a-half with all the change we've brought into his life. He's earned the privilege of being left alone.

Speaking of the cats and the baby, we're having a kitty-themed birthday party for Alex. Everything will be black and white, in honor of Ninja and Doogie. Alex so adores his cats. Just wish the feeling was mutual.

And with that, I'll leave you with a random photo of my child enjoying bubbles (right before I mopped the floors, because there's no other way I'd ever blow soapy bubbles in my house):

Scouting Out the Thrift Stores

2012-08-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

I started thrift shopping as an occasional hobby years ago. I had my favorite stores in Texas. I've had to look for new places here in Oklahoma. I've visited the Goodwill in town on the recommendation of my neighbor from housing at The Voice of the Martyrs. She said they have a great clothing selection. She wasn't wrong. However, in all honesty, I don't have the patience to look for clothing. The Goodwill here seems to be mostly clothing, and maybe if I had time to myself (meaning, without a baby in tow), I'd enjoy looking for some gems for myself. But with an active baby who doesn't like sitting still in an unmoving stroller while his mama stands and stares at clothing racks, it's a no-go for now.

There's a store here that's open only on Tuesdays, so I checked it out a couple of months ago. The room I started in didn't look promising, as it was mostly broken furniture and old junk that I couldn't see anyone having a use for. It's going to take a lot of imagination for someone to come up with a reason to take a lot of that stuff home. But I kept going and found a room with housewares, fabric, greeting cards, collectibles, and various other bits and bobs. I found myself repeatedly going back to look at a pair of sconces. Finally, I figured that $7 was a small price to pay for something new for my dining room walls, and if I wound up not liking them when I got home, no big loss.

Turns out, I love them, and so does my husband.

Also, in that store, I found these notecards:

There's a reason I bought notecards from Norway. Years ago, I lived in Stavanger, Norway. In fact, the only reason I'd even heard of Bartlesville, OK was because I'd gone to school in Norway with a bunch of kids who were from Bartlesville. (It's a big oil town, and oil is the reason we were all in Norway.) At 25 cents for 4 notecards, I considered it a steal.

I found another store because it had a coupon in one of those around-the-town-type magazines that show up in the mail. When I went in for a look-see, I found the cutest little rocker for $25. I didn't buy it then, but I took a few days to think about it. When I was still really wanting it, I went back for it. Seeing as my coupon was for $5-off $25 or more, I got the chair for $20.

It definitely needs some TLC. If Howards's Restore-a-Finish doesn't do the trick, I'll paint the wood. I have fabric to recover the seat. Initially, I bought the chair for Alex's room, but once I got it home, I realized it would make a perfect little chair to put by a bookcase for a reading area. It's fun to have a living room now that's big enough to need a bit more furniture and to have various zones. I have big plans for my home, but it'll take a few years for everything to come to fruition. It's a work in progress.

Homeless

2012-07-25T11:40:00.001-05:00

We have a beautiful new house in Oklahoma. We're settling in and making our house a happy home. And yet, in some ways we're still homeless.

I'm talking about church.

After being members of the same church for over a decade, it's been hard to pick up and try to find a new church home. Nothing has been just right. We want a mix of people passionate for God, active community service and missions emphasis, good music, solid teaching, and friendly, welcoming arms.

If churches are living out their faith actively, that shouldn't be a tall order. And yet, we're finding that it is.

One church would have been perfect for us. It pretty much fit the bill, except we couldn't come to terms with their style of worship. The word style isn't quite right here, but I'm not sure what else to use. We're lifelong Baptists, and this was a pentecostal church. Long story how we ended up there, but it's really a great church. We just couldn't get comfortable with people speaking in tongues (without an interpreter, as the bible says there should be) and practically having seizures in the front of the church, then falling over backwards. I'm sure those folks are quite sincere in their faith, but I just don't understand it.

Another church had a fantastic Sunday school and friendly people, but the church service was dead. Absolutely dead. Even their kids' VBS presentation lacked any energy. I had the impression that the Spirit wasn't there, and this church would not be a partner to us in cultivating a love for the Lord in our son.

Yet another church had a friendly, family feel to it. We liked that. The pastor obviously shepherds his congregation and has a true heart for the Lord. But the Sunday school class that best fit our needs was just awful. The teacher doesn't have the gift of teaching, unfortunately, and the whole class was checked out. The music was dreadful. I was passionately involved in the music ministry in our church in Texas, and I just couldn't see getting involved in this one. I tried to overlook it, but I just can't.

While I think we've found our church, we're still not certain. Music is amazing, teaching is not just good, but intellectual (that's becoming more and more unusual these days), the nursery is great for Alex, they're actively involved in the community and missions, but... the only people who talk to us when we go there are Steven's coworkers and our neighbors. They have no Sunday morning classes to get to know people, so we'll have to join a small group before we really get a feel for whether or not this is the place for us. Except, small groups shut down for the summer. *sigh* I know that churches have trouble keeping stuff staffed when folks are on vacation, and leaders need a break once in a while, but I do wish churches would see what a bind this puts visitors in.

I've been sick, so I stayed home with Alex on Sunday morning. When Steven got home, I asked about church. He said the service was good. But when I asked if anyone talked to him, he said that only folks he spoke to first talked to him. Ouch. There's something very wrong with that picture.

More and more, I'm realizing that the verses in the bible about hospitality aren't simply referring to offering food or a place to stay or otherwise opening one's home. Church is also home, so Christians should be welcoming strangers into that house, too. If you see visitors at your church on Sunday, please talk to them. Make them feel welcomed. Chances are, your church isn't the first they've visited, and they're growing weary of the search. I know that most folks are probably not meaning to be unwelcoming; they're absorbed in their own lives and just not thinking. I've been guilty of that myself in my own church back home. But being on the other side has really opened my eyes. I can't help but wonder how many folks have entered a church seeking God and have turned away simply because they weren't made to feel welcomed.

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have show hospitality to angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:1-2)

How To Create a Loyal Customer

2012-07-13T17:48:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned before that I'm struggling here in Bartlesville to find a grocery store I really like. One is too expensive (although I like it a lot), one is kind of yucky and has a poor selection, and one is just too far away to make a regular place.

And then there's ALDI.

I'd read for years on various blogs that ALDI is great for saving money and has good-quality items, even if it's inexpensive and bare bones. So when we moved here, I gave it a try. Truthfully, if I hadn't read so much online about how great the store is, I likely wouldn't have given it a second try. On first glance, it doesn't look very worth one's while. But I dove in and started trying things.

I like it. I like it a lot, actually. Here are a couple of reasons:

If you'll notice the little circle to the right in the first picture, you'll see that it says, "No MSG." The second pic shows candy with all-natural food coloring, meaning no Red 40 dye. MSG and Red 40 are both migraine triggers. When shopping cheaper stores, one doesn't expect to find products without chemicals, and yet, ALDI has tons of products that I can eat. That's huge for me, especially considering I'd often pay twice the price of the above pictured for all-natural licorice at Sprouts or Whole Foods.

I don't find a huge taste difference in ALDI's products from name brand. Their corn chips aren't a dead ringer for Fritos, but it's pretty darned close. Their version of Cheez-its? No difference in taste whatsoever. And yes, my husband and I compared.

Okay, their paper towels are lousy. Just saying.

But here's what really made me a loyal customer: they actually respond to complaints and do something about them. A couple of weeks ago I went to the store, and I was frustrated that I couldn't access any carts with non-broken baby straps. If you're not aware, ALDI chains their carts together, and you have to pay a quarter to get one out. You get your quarter back when you return your cart. I have no problem with that system. I had a problem with the fact that the few carts I could see with non-broken straps were way back in the cart queue, and I would have had to have a pile of quarters out and no baby in my arms to pull out cart after cart to get to one of them.

I held onto Alex, who wants to move constantly these days, while I shopped. But I needed both hands to unload my cart. I couldn't hold onto him while I did that. While I unloaded, my kid nearly fell out of the cart twice. Had I not been watching him closely and been quick to catch him, the result could have been tragic. I left the store extremely angry.

As soon as I got home, I sent an email to ALDI about the situation and just let them know that while I like the store, I couldn't continue shopping there as it was unsafe for my baby. I expected a form letter back, at the most. Instead, I received a phone call the very next day from someone at corporate. She apologized for the situation with the straps and assured me that she had straps that she was sending to the Bartlesville store that week, so the next time I went in, I should be able to strap Alex in.

Wow.

And you know what? I went back today, and sure enough, every cart had brand-new baby straps on it. Alex was safely secured, and we were able to shop without incident.

That is how you make a loyal customer. Add me to the legion of bloggers who love ALDI.

Feathering the Nest

2012-06-26T21:38:00.000-05:00

Things are finally unpacked enough that I can start decorating. We've still got to put up curtains and paint a bunch of stuff, but that's farther down the road. (Well, the curtains can be done now, as we finally have curtains and curtain rods, but it's a matter of time and priorities.) In the meantime, I've had a chance to get a few things on the walls and the built-in shelves in the living room.

These are hanging over the couch. I've had them for nearly 2 years and never got them up in the old house. New house, new decor--finally!

Self explanatory

I've never had so many flat surfaces to do stuff with. I had to go to Hobby Lobby to buy a few tall things to fill the space. I also pulled out the Mod Podge to finish a project I'd started probably a year or more ago. It's the D monogram in the upper left.

It's not all done, of course. There's still the pile of pictures sitting at the top of the stairs:

And Alex is still in his dreary temporary room (the previous owner chose the most unhappy shade of taupe for all the rooms) and sharing space with my craft-room overflow:

But blessedly, we're closer to getting him into his own room. My parents were here last week, and my dad removed all the painted-over wallpaper and repaired the torn up spots in the walls:

Now we just need to do some sanding, some other minor repairs, then paint. I'm looking forward to having Alex back in a sunny, happy-looking room.

And of course, there's still my disaster of a craft room:

In my defense, it hasn't been a priority. It's also my office space, so I've been having to sort, shred, and file three-months worth of paperwork. My former shredder died a screeching death before we moved, and I decided to wait to buy a new one until we were in Oklahoma. So paperwork piled for a few months, in part because I just didn't have time to deal with it. Nightmare. But it's slowly being taken care of, and I hope to have this space finished (minus painting) by the end of the week.

Then there's our newest item for the living room:

The baby cage! This thing has made my life so much easier! I can set Alex down and get stuff done, knowing that he's safe and secure. He enjoys it, too, as no one is pulling him off of things and telling him no. And the cats adore it, as it means no one is speed-crawling after them! It's a win-win for every member of this household.

Would you believe he's 9 months old already?!

I'm Starting to Like It Here

2012-06-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

I was pretty homesick when we moved here and lived in VOM housing. But after we moved into our own home with our own things (and our pets!), the feeling passed. More and more, Oklahoma is becoming home. I've made peace with the fact that I have to drive an hour to Tulsa to do any real shopping. I'm still fighting an internal battle when it comes to grocery stores, as I have yet to find one that I love, but I'm learning to be content with the situation. (And I've learned that just as all the frugal bloggers have been saying, ALDI is a pretty decent grocery store.)

I'm still not unpacked completely. We've been in the house just over a month now, but the daily-ness of life (cooking, cleaning, laundry), along with taking care of baby, means I have little time for unpacking and putting things away. I naively thought this would be the faster part of the process of moving, but I also didn't anticipate my kid crawling the second we moved in. Everything is harder with a baby.

Alex isn't even in his own room yet. Well, he's by himself in a room upstairs, but technically, that's going to be the guest room. His nursery has walls covered in painted wallpaper. Steven tried to get it all off before we moved in, but there just wasn't time. And after moving in, his priority has been to clear all the boxes and stuff from the garage. We live in Tornado Alley, and we'd like to protect our cars from bad weather by being able to park in the garage.

I've done a lot of driving around town. Mostly it's been because I was trying to get a baby to go to sleep. I never had to drive him to get him to sleep until we moved here. The chaos we've been living in has made it harder on him, although we've done our best to keep to his schedule and make things normal for him. But in driving around, I've found a lot of stuff, including parks. Alex sat in a swing for the first time on Memorial Day.

Last night we went to a park that's just crawling with ducks and geese. (It was a little gross, as we had to wipe down the wheels of the stroller before putting in the car. Bird poop. Ick.)

And I've been enjoying the wildlife in our own backyard.

We even have fireflies here! Best backyard EVER.

We also have the most amazing neighbors. Alex came down with a nasty virus last week, then 3 days later, I caught it. I was able to get Alex in with a pediatrician who had been recommended to me, but I wasn't as lucky with a doctor for me. The physician who was recommended wasn't taking new patients. However, when I went next door to ask my neighbor for a recommendation, she got on the phone and personally called that doctor and got me an appointment. Turns out, she used to work for her. (My neighbor is a nurse.) Amazing! Our new neighborhood is great. I think I'll be pretty happy here.

And on another positive note, we haven't been to the vet in a while!

Poor Ninja Cat

2012-05-20T17:26:00.000-05:00

I posted that we weren't having any more problems with Ninja going potty outside his litterbox. Except, we were. I just hadn't discovered it yet. He got our dirty laundry again.

Even though I was 99% certain this was a behavioral issue, I took him to the vet to be checked for a bladder infection. Better to err on the side of caution. The vet even agreed that it sounded behavioral. We did put these cats through a month of hell, after all.

Poor Ninja had to stay overnight at the vet's office, as he had nothing in his bladder when I brought him in. It broke my heart to leave him there, as he was so scared. But I'm so glad I did because when the vet called the next morning with test results, they were positive for UTI.

My Ninja was sick and just letting us know he didn't feel well by going potty in the wrong places.

As weird as this may sound, I was actually very happy to hear he had a bladder infection. That can be easily treated, which will then stop the behavior. If he was acting out from stress, well, that would have been a much more difficult thing to fix.

He's been on an antibiotic for 3 days now, and he's obviously feeling better already.

FrankenKitty

2012-05-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

Last week was a little rough. Alex was teething, which made him uncharacteristically cranky. Then, we noticed that Doogie, who has had a lump on his back for a while, had a big sore on that lump. I made a vet appointment for him and prayed like mad that my baby wouldn't scream through the whole thing.

The vet examined Doogie and took a little sample of the lump, which she looked at under the microscope. It was a tumor. Because he was being so good (which really meant that he was simply frozen in terror), she opted to remove it right then with a local anesthetic. He was whisked to the back, and Alex and I headed to the front. Alex did start crying, but he blessedly waited until we were out in the lobby waiting for Doogie's surgery to be done. I consider that an answered prayer, as I just didn't want him screaming while we were in the exam room. Doogie was freaked out enough without the baby adding to his stress!

Doogie came back looking like this:

It was a pretty big tumor, so it's going to be a pretty big scar. It's all stapled together instead of stitched because the vet said that cats don't tend to mess with staples like they do stitches. Sure enough, Doogie has left it alone. He doesn't seem bothered by it at all, which is wonderful! I just wish we could say the same for Ninja...

The day after Doogie's procedure, I was sorting clothes to wash, and Steven's things were all wet. Soaking wet. And stinky. I realized that someone had been going potty in Steven's hamper. *sigh* I am so over doing stinky, urine-soaked laundry! I did more than enough when we had Calvin.

It got worse. I could smell poop in the living room. After 30 minutes of playing hunt-the-poo, I found it in a box. One of the moving boxes that was opened but not unpacked. ARG!!!

We weren't 100% sure of the culprit, but we were pretty certain it was Ninja. That was confirmed when I caught him doing his business in the aforementioned box. He was jumpy and skittish all day long, and he wouldn't come when called. In fact, he'd run away if I tried to pet him. Apparently, bringing Doogie home sliced and stapled was the final straw in Ninja's month of stress. It pushed him over the edge, and he finally acted out.

I guess we can consider ourselves lucky if it took all that (packing the old house, emptying the house, 6-hour car ride, living with strangers, living in an empty house, carpet replaced, appliances delivered, furniture moved in, brother having surgery) before anyone acted out. We did throw a lot of scary new stuff at those poor cats in a short amount of time! However, after a week of a cranky baby, a house full of unpacked boxes, a sick pet, and a pet making colossal messes, I cried quite a bit that day. I'd hit my breaking point, too.

Thankfully, Ninja was back to normal and going potty in his box again the next day. No problems since. And in the meantime, we've been calling Doogie FrankenKitty and FrankenDoog. He does look like a bit like Frankenstein, don't you think? Poor baby. He's such a trooper.

Oh, and that tumor? Benign!

Settling In

2012-05-15T21:39:00.000-05:00

We finally moved into our house on May 4th. Last night was the first time I'd even opened my computer since moving in. We've been a tad busy.

Mere days after moving in, just as the house was a complete minefield of boxes and mess, Alex started crawling. Really crawling. He'd taken a few tentative moves before, but he never got far. Nope, he waited until he was in dangerous territory to start trucking it. So, instead of getting things unpacked, I've mostly been keeping my baby safe.

Steven kept pushing for a babysitter for a night out. That sounded great, as I was starting to get punchy after nearly a month of me and baby 24/7. I love him, but I need a break once in a while. However, I said there was no way I was letting a teenager in to watch him while the house wasn't safe (again, those boxes everywhere). So, Steven started moving some stuff out of the living room that we knew we wouldn't get to for a little while (like all the boxes of pictures for the walls). Then, when friends came into town for the weekend, they pitched in to get the living room unpacked. I deemed the room safe enough for me to feel comfortable leaving Alex with someone while we all went out.

Turns out, Steven was pushing the babysitter idea so hard because that was his Mother's Day gift to me. He figured I could use some baby-free time. Oh, the irony! The gift was perfect, especially as it also meant removing a towering source of stress, which was a living room filled with boxes that I just never seemed to have time to unpack. Moving with a baby is hard stuff!

The cats were beside themselves with joy that first night we spent in the house with them. They were so excited that they kept flying around the bedroom and bouncing on the bed. I finally kicked them out because we couldn't sleep. That was pointless because they both cried outside the door, and Ninja kept sticking his paw under, grabbing the bottom of the door, and pulling. *bam bam bam bam bam* All... night... long.

I think they missed us.

We're just glad to finally have our family back together and to be in our own home with our own stuff. It no longer feels like we're on a weird vacation. I'm doing some real cooking again. I'm doing laundry whenever I want again. (VOM had very strict rules about the hours residents could do laundry. Those rules made me nuts!) And Alex is back in his nice, soft, cotton diapers again.

Life is mostly back to normal.

Baby Crafting

2012-05-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

This is all pretty old, but I realized I'd never put it up on the blog. I had some fun making some onesies for Alex and a special little girl named Mara, who was born to a friend I used to sing with at church.

For the first two, I used transfer paper that goes through the printer, then you iron it on. Pretty simple stuff.

Our little future Stormtrooper

When someone posted on FB a picture of a shirt with this saying, Mara's mommy said she wanted one. So, I made one for her baby shower. I hand-stitched a simple little bow to make it look more girly.

For the next onesie, I used my Sizzix. I ironed some fusible stuff (the name escapes me right now) to the back of the fabric, cut it out with my Sizzix, then ironed it onto the onesie. Easy peasy.

So nice to get to make pink stuff!

And finally, a card to go with Mara's gift. (She got some other stuff, too, including a wooden teether in the shape of a bird and some homemade burp cloths.)

I used DeNami stamps on the card, as well as a Martha Stewart edge punch. You know I love me some Martha! And DeNami is my favorite stamp company. It's a fairly basic card, but I've found that my papercrafting time is minimal with a baby in the house. I think I made that at 11pm, if that tells you anything.

A Little Piece of Home

2012-05-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have felt as if we're on a very bizarre vacation. Our cats are here, but we still don't live with them. We have a house, but it's empty. We live in an apartment, but it's not our stuff. Just... odd.

It makes me want to go home. Home, as in Texas. Where I no longer have a house. But it's all been so surreal, it feels as if I should still have a house back there that's just waiting for us to return.

Just when I was feeling especially lonely and homesick, my husband came home for lunch with the news that he'd run into a group of older folks who were in the VOM gift shop, and they said they knew me and my family. One lady was telling him tales of my grandfather showing up for church in his pajamas!

Turns out, a group of senior adults were visiting and volunteering at VOM, having come from the church I was born into. My parents met and were married there. We moved away when I was a baby, but we came back when I was 14, so I actually had memories of many of these folks.

They invited us to a barbeque, and it was so wonderful to see my fellow Texans who know my family. Like a little taste of home, just at the very moment that I needed it. And my sweet Alex was thrilled to have all those grandmothers wanting to love all over him. I think he's been feeling the loneliness of no longer having an entourage at church. When we visit churches, no one knows him, and yes, he's noticed.

This is Alex, me, and Mrs. Teer. My parents met in the Sunday school class that Mr. and Mrs. Teer taught.

Alex is being held by Anita, who was my 10th grade Sunday school teacher.

The whole group from Plymouth Park Baptist Church

Again, God came through in a remarkable way, one in which I would never have expected. Just when I was desperate for home, He brought it to me. Such an incredible blessing!

Fixing Up the House

2012-04-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

While we've closed on our house already, we haven't moved in. It was filthy, the carpets are nasty, and appliances won't be delivered until next week. (The guy who bought our old house wanted the appliances, and as the washer and dryer were 16 and the fridge was 13 and didn't match the new kitchen anyway, we were fine with letting him have them.) So, Steven works during the day at VOM, and I go to the new house when I can and do some cleaning and love on the cats until Alex says he's had enough. Steven goes over in the evenings to do some work of his own.

For example, while prepping Alex's room for painting, Steven discovered that there was painted-over wallpaper in there. He started pulling it off and found messed up drywall. It's turned into a full-blown project that has him frustrated.

The nice thing is, he can mess up the carpet all he wants, as that's being replaced on May 2nd. It's really gross, and the house smells funky, in large part due to the nasty carpet. I genuinely don't understand how people can stain a carpet so badly. But it was a rental before we bought it, and I'm learning that people just don't take care of stuff when they don't own it.

My kitchen needed some TLC. The cabinets are nice, but they're 32 years old and a bit banged up. I cleaned them, then discovered that my furniture feeder actually made it with my cleaning supplies slated for apartment living. I was so excited to find that! I rubbed that in, and I'm hoping the cabinets will drink that up. When my Howard's Restore-a-Finish comes out of storage, I'll go over everything to make it look prettier.

Isn't that diamond checkerboard floor fabulous?! I fell in love with it when we looked at the house. It's even my shade of green!

I'm planning to paint my kitchen and the breakfast room behind it, which will by my crafting space, a soft, pale, cheery shade of pink. My husband is not happy about that decision, as he doesn't share my love of pink, but the kitchen is my space. If I have to live in a house full of boys (even the cats are boys!), then I should get to have a little pink somewhere. Besides, it'll look very nice with that green floor.

I went on a cleaning warpath. The house was given to us in filthy condition, which irritated me more and more as I worked. I mean, I had a baby and a ton of packing to do, and I still managed to clean my house for the new owner! This guy had his renters move out a month before we took possession, and he cleaned nothing. *sigh* I'm not one to use antibacterial cleaners (the surfactants in regular cleaners are typically enough to remove dirt and germs and don't contribute to the creation of Super Bugs), but I was finding myself a bit skeeved by the filth in this house. (There was urine all over the toilet seat in the master bath, for crying out loud! Who does that?!) I bought a big ol' bottle of Mr. Clean and went to town. I'd say that you can eat off my floors now, but the cats danced in the fireplace after I'd mopped, and there's now soot scattered around.

It's a slow process, but the house is coming together.

The Cats Are Back!

2012-04-25T23:01:00.000-05:00

I got a bit stressed and upset last week. Lots of tears were involved. In a nutshell, the cats were distressed by their circumstances, Doogie was dehydrated and had lost a pound in only 3-4 weeks (that's a lot of weight for a cat to lose), and Ninja wouldn't come see me when I went to visit. Additionally, I was lonely and homesick. All of that together had me a mess.

An email went out to friends, as I was very worried about the cats and not sure what to do. I asked for prayer for the situation, for Doogie's health, and for my peace of mind. And the very next day, God answered in the most unexpected way: our realtor called and said we were closing on our new house a full week early. As in, the very next day.

The distressing visit with the cats was Wednesday, the realtor called Thursday, we had our house Friday, we had our cats back on Saturday morning. Oh, yeah! I love how our God cares about the littlest things, such as my sweet cats!

They were pretty freaked out by the new house. Who can blame them? We'd thrown them into chaos, starting with the packing of our old house, and the changes just kept coming in new and dramatic ways. They had deemed the bedroom of the girl who was officially caring for them during their time away from us as their safe room. They found the locational equivalent in the new house right away, and there they stayed for 36 hours, refusing to come down and be with us.

But it didn't take them too long to realize that they were safe, it was just us, and nothing was happening, other than some heavy-duty cleaning of the place.

It also didn't take long for them to discover the fireplace.

See that black thingy in front of the fireplace? We arrived at the house yesterday to find that flat on the floor. A few minutes later, Steven brought the guilty party to me. And no, it wasn't our Naughty Ninja! It was Doogie, all covered in soot. It shows well on his pretty white fur. If you look at the picture below, you can see soot on his paw.

The undersides of all his white paws are now gray, and his neck is gray now, too. And lest you think Ninja is totally innocent, we found sooty pawprints on the kitchen counter, directly underneath an open cabinet. Only Ninja knows how to open stuff.

My boys are back!

Displaced Texan

2012-04-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

I'm now officially a displaced Texas. We moved to Oklahoma last Wednesday. Not everything went smoothly with the move, but we made it here just fine, and that's what matters. We don't close on our house until later in the month, so for the time being, we're living in a 2-bedroom apartment on the campus of The Voice of the Martyrs. We're very blessed to have this option of free housing, but I'll confess that I'm finding it frustrating at times.

Doogie and Ninja are living with another family for the time being. It's very hard being separated from them, but at least they're not having to stay in a kennel. We visited them on Saturday night, and while they're very confused and still a bit frightened of the changes, they're adjusting and doing relatively well. Doogie is unfortunately dehydrated, so I've made an appointment for him with a local vet for Wednesday afternoon for a subcutaneous IV.

Can I just say how very hard it was to leave our amazing vet behind in Texas? The whole office was at the front to say good-bye when I stopped in to pick up the cats' medical records. The vet teared up, which I have to admit, made me feel good. I like knowing that we were valued clients. She truly cares about my furry boys, which is why she's been our vet all these years. I asked her to move to Oklahoma, but alas, she's staying put in Texas.

I've always lived in big cities, so Bartlesville is an adjustment, for sure. I spent Monday searching for Graco Pack N Play sheets. I've not been happy with generic sheets, and we need more, as Alex is using his Pack N Play for a crib right now. There were none to be had in town, so I had to drive to Tulsa today to buy some. That was an adventure, as I was born without a sense of direction. Mapquest gave me directions to a Toys R Us in some scary part of town, even though I'd searched for Babies R Us. I'd hoped to explore Tulsa a bit, but there was really nothing else in that area, and I had a screaming headache, so we drove straight home. But hey, I found my way there and back, and I only got a little lost, so it was a huge success for me!

We Got the House!

2012-03-28T21:44:00.000-05:00

Just a little addition to yesterday's post.

Photo credit: Realtor.com

Big Announcement: We're Moving!

2012-03-27T19:29:00.000-05:00

I feel as if I've been sitting on this information forever, as our story starts here, on our trip to The Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, OK last May. VOM was kind enough to lend us passes to Woolaroc, which is an animal sanctuary and museum, but we had no way to get them back, as VOM would be closed for the weekend. A man whose family had been volunteering at VOM for 6 months was having a barbeque to say good-bye to everyone there, as they were leaving the next week to go home. He was kind enough to invite us to his barbeque and offer to return the Woolaroc passes for us.

That barbeque wound up changing the course of our lives.

Steven was chatting with an IT guy at VOM, who told him he should consider working there. Then, the guy flipping burgers, another VOM worker, asked Steven what he does for a living. Steven said he's a .Net developer. The burger flipper (I think his name was Thomas) said, "Mike just told us 3 weeks ago to start praying for a .Net developer!" Apparently, VOM doesn't advertise their jobs; they pray for the right people to come along.

Mike wasn't at the barbeque, so Thomas invited us to church with him the next morning so that we could meet him. Steven and Mike exchanged contact info, then we left to drive home.

Many months later... VOM's board approved the developer position, Steven was contacted, interviewed, and hired! You'd think that would be the end of the story right there, but it's really just starting, as we had some very specific prayer needs along the way, and so far, every single one has been answered.

I had certain things in mind that Bartlesville has to have for us to live there. Mostly specialists for our various medical needs, and they're all there. I want to do Classical Conversations for schooling with Alex. A church we visited a few weeks ago there is where it's held, and the CC director was pointed out to me.

We needed our house to sell. Our nightmare house. The one with a bajillion cracks everywhere because the danged foundation has never been totally stabilized. We told God that if he wants us in Bartlesville, he's going to have to work a miracle.

He did.

We wound up having to do something called an "Investor Special." In other words, an investor buys the house with cash, as-is. It's priced below market, then he comes in, fixes it up, and typically either flips it or rents it out. Our house was on the market less than 2 days when we had an offer. The guy wanted it so much that he didn't even work it into the contract that he has a certain number of days to back out. Zero. And get this: He's a foundation guy. He wasn't fazed by our nightmare house! We close on our house April 8th. And yes, we're walking away with money because even though we're selling low, we've lived here long enough to have plenty of equity.

We had to make an emergency trip to Bartlesville to house hunt, as we weren't expecting to sell the house so quickly. We had one day to find a house. Again, we prayed that God would work a miracle and we would find a house we like and that fits our needs in that one day. He answered. We wound up making an offer on the first house we looked at. (We looked at several others, but kept coming back to that one.) We're currently in negotiations with the owner, but we're the only offer he has, so I'm hopeful.

Last problem was our cats. This had me awake at night with knots of worry in my stomach. We're being offered VOM housing until we can get into our permanent residence. The apartments there are great, so no worries. Except... they don't allow pets. We offered to pay for professional carpet cleaning and replacement of anything they think the cats messed up, but no, we're not allowed to have them live with us. I won't lie; I was freaking out. I couldn't bear the thought of long-term boarding. We've had Doogie almost 13 years, and he's been boarded exactly 2 times, and each was only for the day. Never overnight, and never long-term. My heart was breaking over the idea of sticking my babies in a kennel. We prayed. Our friends prayed. And Steven's new boss contacted him and offered to keep our cats. He has no pets and 3 animal-loving daughters. Our babies will be loved and cared for, and we can visit. God is good!

So, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that God is orchestrating this entire move. He wants us in Bartlesville, so we're going. Yes, I'm distressed to leave behind our beloved Texas full of family and friends, our amazing vet, our church family, and frankly, everything else. But we're more excited to see what the Lord has waiting for us in Oklahoma because we know it's going to be good!

Cloth Diapering: In the Trenches

2012-02-20T13:15:00.001-06:00

Alex is wearing a Grovia All-in-One cloth diaper

I decided when I was pregnant that we would cloth diaper our baby. After reading lots of opinions on blogs, along with my own personal preferences for wearing only natural materials, I decided to buy all-in-one diapers (AIOs) with cotton only. No microfiber. No pockets with inserts, as I knew that would annoy me. No velcro, snaps only. So, I settled on two diapers: The Grovia AIO and the bumGenius Elemental One-Size AIO.

I ordered a few diapers a few months before Alex was born. I was enamored with the cute designs on the Grovias, but after comparing them to the BG diapers, I realized that the leg openings on the Grovias were huge compared to the BGs. Steven and I were both skinny children. I was a very thin baby, so I figured that odds were high that our baby would be thin. (I wasn't wrong.) So, although I did order a few more Grovias (couldn't resist the owls! and the airplanes! and the trees!), I ordered far more bumGeniuses.

When Alex finally grew big enough to start wearing his cloth diapers, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. The first few weeks were kind of miserable. He screamed like a banshee the moment he got wet in a cloth diaper. There was one night I changed him 5 times in a 35-minute period. Tiresome. And he couldn't make it through his long nap in the afternoons in cloth.

I'd spent a lot of money on my stash, and I felt like we had to make this work. So, we stuck with it. And you know what? I'm so glad we did!

The diapers seem broken in enough now that a wet one generally doesn't bother him immediately. He can wet it now and still be happy, most of the time. The poopy ones really aren't bad. I find that when he poops in a disposable, the smell is so bad that I sometimes have to change his whole outfit, as the smell permeates the diaper and gets onto his clothes. But that never happens in cloth. It contains any odors quite well. And cleaning it isn't bad at all. I use one of my plastic scrapers from The Clean Team to scrape solids into the toilet. I did find that there is staining if I don't treat the poopy diapers with an enzyme cleaner, so I do spray that on before dropping it into the diaper pail. (You can judge me for this; I don't care. I'm currently using Arm & Hammer's pet cleaner on the poopy diapers. Organic staining is organic staining whether it comes from a baby or a pet. Alex has had no adverse reaction to it.)

Because I'm kind of a laundry nut, I really enjoy washing the diapers. There's something very satisfactory about putting dirty, stinky diapers in the washer and having them come out clean and fresh. I do find that the bumGenius diapers are so thick that they require 2 dryer cycles to dry completely. I would air dry them, but they take too long, and we need to use them before they are dry.

I can't say that we're saving any money with cloth. (If we were planning to have more children, it probably would be a money saver, but Alex will be an only.) Because I have to do a cold water wash, then a hot water wash, then 2 dryer cycles, they use a lot of water and electricity. And, we still use disposables. We use them at night, as he just can't make it that long in cloth. We also use them when we go out. While the church nursery workers are willing to use my cloth diapers, I haven't done that so far because he doesn't have to be changed as often in a disposable. I'm making it easier on them.

We love the bumGenius diapers. Super easy to use. No leaks ever. I can take Alex out of the house in them, and he doesn't cry when he's wet. We're not as happy with the Grovias. Steven refuses to use them. I use them, of course, but I have to be diligent about changing Alex frequently because these diapers leak. They're cute, they're trim, but they're leaky, at least in our experience.

I knew I was finally won over by cloth diapering when I came home from a long youth weekend in which Alex wore disposables the entire time. I was exhausted and I reached first for a disposable, thinking I'd make my life a little easier. Instead, I put it down and grabbed cloth. The soft cotton is nice, and I'm really starting to prefer putting the baby in it. And as he can actually wear his bumGeniuses out and about without screaming, I bit the bullet and ordered a few more today. I think I'm hooked.

Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T15:54:00.000-06:00

I'm sure I've mentioned it here before, but I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. After years of watching other women gripe and whine and moan and issue threats if their significant others didn't jump through the proper hoops they'd set in place, well, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, we do up birthdays big, as well as Christmas, so we don't need another day set aside to give presents. We show our love daily. And when you have a husband who sleeps at the hospital with you every night after you give birth, rather than going home to sleep in a comfortable bed, well, what trinket could top that? I feel sufficiently loved and cherished every day, and I hope my husband can say the same.

Of course, there's also the taint of having spent Valentine's Day 2011 in sadness, as I'd had to call my vet's office that morning to schedule Calvin's Final Appointment. I cried most of the day. Not, exactly a happy memory.

But Valentine's Day 2011 also marked the day we found out we were expecting Alex. Something sweet, for sure, although the news was quite shocking, considering we weren't planning on a baby, nor was I supposed to be able to get pregnant.

I expect we'll do small things for Valentine's Day as Alex gets older. I do want him to see the sweet side of the holiday. So, for his first Valentine's Day, we made a little something for Steven.

I suppose it's a little corny and sentimental, but someday, that tiny hand will be bigger than mine, and I expect this will become all the more precious to remember his babyhood.

(For the record, I wanted to add the cats' paw prints to this, but I'm not dumb enough to ink up cats by myself. Doing the baby's hand was hard and messy enough!)

And so we can remember what our boy looked like on his first Valentine's Day, here's a picture:

No outfit can say Happy Valentine's Day like one with a monkey driving a monster truck!

We are truly blessed.

Hospitality

2012-02-06T17:46:00.000-06:00

Hospitality is a spiritual gift. One that I don't seem to possess. Having people over always makes me feel stressed. Part of it is probably because I'm afraid people will stare too hard at my house. We have cracks everywhere from foundation issues and leaks under the house. I hate the wallpaper in my kitchen. I've never taken it down because the same wallpaper was in both bathrooms, and I'm pretty sure the previous owners super-glued it to the walls. Taking it down in the bathrooms was a long, tedious process, as it only came off in tiny bits, no matter what method of removal we tried. I'm not willing to be without my kitchen for days or weeks while we try to peel it off, piece by tiny piece. Then there's the trouble of moving the cats' things to our bedroom and bathroom, moving the baby's swing, picking up all the pieces from around the house that let you know we live here.

But really, those are mostly excuses. I didn't used to think I was a perfectionist, but the older I get, the more I believe I actually am. And because my home will never be perfect, well, I don't much like having people over.

Funny how having a baby has, at least, relaxed me a bit on things. Some of my former youth are home from college and want to stop by? Sure! I have a baby; surely they'll understand if things aren't freshly vacuumed. Someone wants to drop off food? Okay. The kitchen is a wreck, but I have a baby, and I don't always have time to get to things right away. (Truthfully, in that scenario, I truly was embarrassed, but we'd just come off of a really rough week and we'd barely been home, so I had to give myself a little grace on that one.)

A $3 sale sheet purchased at IKEA makes an easy, inexpensive tablecloth for my oddly-sized table.

But what really challenged me was our youth group. And the Super Bowl.

My husband is the (volunteer) youth minister at our church. Youth happens on Sunday nights. Because this is Texas and football is king, we always have a Super Bowl party on Super Bowl Sunday in place of regular youth. At someone else's house. But this year, none of our usual homes were available to host, so Steven was just going to cancel youth last night and let the kids go watch wherever they happened to be invited. The more I thought about that, the more it didn't sit well with me. Admittedly, I hate football, and cancelling youth for a game seemed wrong somehow, even if it was only a football-watching party (not spiritual development) that was being cancelled.

So, I told Steven we could have the party here. In our tiny house. (Most of the folks in our church have very large homes that are great for entertaining. We do not. Our house requires the rearrangement of furniture to house large groups.)

The funny thing is, I felt good about it. Not at all stressed, for once. I was strongly influenced by a book I'm reading right now called Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. (I really recommend it, even though I'm only about 20% of the way through it.) He makes the point that if we're Christians, we're meant to use what we have for God's glory. From that I realized that I should be willing to open my home, whether it's perfect or not.

I think the students had a good time. We had tons of yummy food, and there was a lot of laughing and talking and just enjoying being together. Did anyone comment on the cracks in our walls? Well, yes, one kid did. (I cringe every time that happens.) But really, so what? Yes, our house has had problems. I shouldn't feel ashamed of it. And truthfully, in spite of all its issues, I like my home.

So I guess I can consider this a challenge to myself. How can I better show hospitality to those around me?

Most Difficult Week

2012-01-24T15:41:00.000-06:00

This year hasn't gotten off to a great start. Last week was just plain awful. It started with a phone call on a Friday night at 11:30pm from my father-in-law. We immediately knew it was bad news. Steven's brother passed away unexpectedly. That was just plain shocking and horrifying. Then things got stressful, as people wanted different things for the funeral, and my husband and his siblings had to help mediate.

Next, Alex got his 4-month vaccinations at his check-up. (He's now 14 lbs. 7 oz. and 25.5 inches long.) He broke out in hives, which completely freaked me out. He spent the next 4 days lethargic, feverish, and cranky. Miserable for all of us, especially as he started waking up again in the middle of the night during that time.

And to top it all off, Doogie was diagnosed with cancer. On top of his kidney disease. I cried for hours after I got off the phone with the vet.

Sometimes life really does give us lemons.

But Alex is better now. Doogie stills runs around and gets into slap fights with Ninja. He's really not aware that he's sick, so we're hopeful that we'll have a decent amount of time left with him.

And through it all, God is faithful. If nothing else, we prayed more last week than usual, and that's never a bad thing.

Alex's Uncle Keith loved Batman. We expect Alex will, too.

Doogie and Ninja love to wrestle and fight

The Toxic Zone

2012-01-09T13:54:00.001-06:00

It's not news that our cats don't like the baby. They think he's loud and unpredictable, which are two qualities that cats detest. But I've been getting a laugh out of what we're now calling the Toxic Zone. Here it is:

It's nothing more than a quilt on the floor, but if you look to the upper left, you'll see a basket. We keep blankets in there, and Doogie likes to sleep in it. If he's in his basket, and I put Alex down on his quilt for tummy time, Doogie will hop out and run off. Every single time. Makes me laugh as I'm apologizing to the cat.

But what was even funnier was when I tossed a toy for Ninja (his beloved tab off a jug of milk). He was all excited and poised to race after it... until it landed on Alex's quilt. Ninja just sat there and stared. He wouldn't touch it! I picked it back up, tossed it further away, and Ninja took chase. That quilt is now associated 100% with That Screaming Thing, as we're pretty sure the cats think of him. They want nothing to do with it.

This doesn't bode well for future baby/kitty relations.