Two-timer

An Elvis clock whose hips swung with each second tick-tock hung on the wall of my bedroom in Jr. High. I love(d) that clock, as well as all things Elvis. I have even been known to profess my love for the iconic rock-star, pre-white jumpsuit days, on several occasions. His music is just about my favorite. And although a little rusty, I think I might still be able to conjure up my infamous impersonation.

Lately, my head has been turned by another man...enters Johnny Cash. His drawl will be keeping me company today as I scrub every surface I can get my hands on. You know it's got to be good when even the titles seem to fit.

The censored version.

I've been censored. And I'm torn because I should really keep the good karma flowing, and yet I'm being totally egged on by the cackling of my sister in the background. Even a happy medium has been known to tick some people off. They need to get a life.

Seriously people? We all know how I feel about pious, pretentious, prudes who think that by slamming and criticizing they are lifting people up to the heights that they think they have attained when really they are just making an ass of themselves, being incredibly rude, not to mention totally un-Christlike. Oh, you didn't know I felt that way? Now you do. See here for the discussion. If she ruffles feathers, I think I would blow them straight off their chicken butts.

When in doubt go bullet style...

• We went swimming tonight and I scared myself by what I thought was climbing out of my bathing suit. Tarantulas that would frighten Bear Grylls. Let's just say summer was a long time ago and it's going to take a tree hedger to get things back in shape. Which reminds me...the girl who sold us our La-Z-Boy today was Brazilian.
• My stress has been relieved. Literally. If you didn't get the memo on that you either aren't on my A-list or I decided to protect you from things you just shouldn't know about a person. I should be more ashamed that my A-list included more than one phone call. Tough ta-tas.
• Which reminds me again...I am back to wanting a boob job. I cycle through wanting one, not wanting one, off and on throughout the year. I think it's seasonal. Something about having to fill (or not fill) the afore mentioned bathing suit.

Hmmm...what else can I tell you that will keep you even more awake tonight or give you (more) nightmares? I can't think of anything else right now, but if you can't look me straight in the eye this week I'll know you've read this post. Which is the last thing that reminds me...that's got to be the most annoying thing about the whole C-Jane controversy- people who threaten to quit reading, but don't. If you don't like how people are playing the game, pick up your toys and go home.

When I said "hit and miss" I meant mostly miss. Talk amongst yourselves until I get back. Or grab a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and come help me.

It's gonna be hit and miss around here for a few days. Just thought you should know.

Lingo

Every occupation has it's lingo. The home buying process has it too. I don't understand (or care to) most of it. I just want to know how much it's going to cost me. Blah, blah, blah...how much, when, and where do I sign?

I received an e-mail last night from our loan officer with a whole lot of blah, blah, blah and a "Yippie!"

Yippie is pretty universal. I understand yippie! So is hallelujah and praise be!

For example... My sister is here for two weeks. Hallelujah!

One of the many things that makes my head explode.

I don't watch the show. Never have. Don't know anything about them, but they've now made it to my blog. I've even started a special category for 'Things that make my head explode!'

"This afternoon, Kate filed for divorce. Our kids are still my number one priority. I love them and want to make sure they stay happy, healthy and safe. My job is being the best, most supportive and loving father that I can be to my kids, and not being married to Kate doesn't change that," he said in the statement." - John Gosselin of John and Kate Plus 8

Two words- BULL-SHIT!

Not being married to their mother will most definitely change the kind of father you can/are to your kids. What planet are people from that they think they can just one-two switch-aroo spouses and the kids aren't affected?

Here's a novel thought people...If your kids are your number one priority, then make your marriage a priority. Then your kids can have the benefit of being raised in a loving two-parent home. Or don't, and we can watch society go to hell in a handbasket with nothing to do with Prop 8. Don't even get me started on the hypocrisy of 'Prop 8 will destroy society, but we can ignore heterosexual divorce rates'...

...Now looking for a remedy for my exploding head... I swear, sometimes steam is going to come out with the swears.

Me and my big mouth have been on our best behavior.

Can't say why. I think it's just too hot to get all worked up. And I'm trying to spread good karma love around until we close the house. It can't last, though.

I virtually re-decorated the family room that I don't yet own. This is nice and zen like. Maybe if my house looked like this I would be a more calm and Zen-like person.

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

It's all about the Papa.

My husband's request when Scrunch was learning to coo and babble was that he not be called "Dad", "Daddy" or "Da-da." I still don't totally understand why. I don't usually ask much on things like that. He rarely asks for anything, so I oblige. And I know he has his reasons.

So, even if it's a little "Little House on the Prairie" he goes by Papa. If you ask Scrunch where her daddy is she'll just stare at you. But she knows exactly who her Papa is.

Today is all about Papa. Scrunch is all about her Papa every day. And I am all about a man who wants to be good at being Scrunch's Papa.

Elephants

There is a great white elephant in my living room. For two weeks I have tiptoed around it. Blogging about nothing, pretending I'm not thinking about it, seeing it, wishing it will stay.

It would be such a loss if I didn't write this down and it became someone's story. Not to mention it goes completely against my nature to pretend that nothing's going on, even when nothing really is.

Two weeks ago today, while sitting in the Costco parking lot, my phone rang. I knew I recognized the number, but not so well that I answered it right away. As I pushed the answer button I knew immediately who it was without even hearing his voice.

There was the howdy-dos and his of every normal catching-up conversation and then we get to the good part... this is where we go verbatim- for potential posterity's sake.

"So the reason I'm calling...well...I...see...there is a birthmom who is looking for a couple and you guys fit...and I'm wondering if I can send her your old profile...that is unless you can send me some new pictures...."

Totally shocked and dumbfounded, my response- "Um.. this is totally from left field...totally not what we were planning for... but how do I say no to something like that?"

There was more to the conversation, but only a little. And nothing since. I went home and we wrote a new letter and forwarded pictures updating our profile. And that has been that. It is how these things work.

Thankfully, only a few days later I went the first Families Supporting Adoption play group. Instantly among friends and with women who get it, get me- I spilled my secret. The conversation turned in and out of our kids, our birthmoms, the process, life, where to buy little girl capris-all the essential stuff. During the course of the afternoon one of them said...

"You know... God knows what he's doing. He knows how to pick the perfect trials for me. I like to be in control. And with adoption you're anything but in control."

She could be my sister. At least I know that when I see them again next there will be no need to explain if there is or isn't a baby. They understand. These elephants may disappear one day without a trace or they could turn out to be your son.

Ten things I did today rather than pack.

1. Knit a cowl
2. Got squirted by a watergun
3. Designed an "Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" puppet
4. Bought hanging baskets for the almost mine front porch
5. Made The Best Spinach Salad Ever
6. Planned a summer's worth of extended reading activities
7. Priced sod
8. Folded diapers
9. Organized Scrunch's toys
10. Blew bubbles until I thought I'd pass out

Tomorrow I'll be too tired to pack. That's what Mondays are for.

Happy Dance!

The plan is to move in a little over a week. I have packed one box. One. And we're going away this weekend. You might be thinking I should get a move on, but I'm not. I am thrilled beyond measure to announce (so thrilled I blog it. That's how you know it's got to be good.)....

For the first move in our marriage I have hired movers! Praise be! I am doing the Happy Dance. If you're unfamiliar with the Happy Dance, it is very similar to the Pee pee Dance. Kind of like the Cha Cha-cha is to the Rumba.

We've moved a lot. Nine times in six years. And we're not military. I figure I've earned it.

One. Two. Cha-cha-cha.

One.

two.

cha-cha-cha

My kid is more criminal than your kid.

I hate myself right now. The batteries in the camera are dead. DEAD and Scrunch is up WAY past her bedtime picking the lock to our bedroom with a bobby pin. No joke. I told you she was a genius. Perhaps I should be concerned. I will go charge the batteries and maybe next week I can watch her jam a door with my credit card.

She makes my life so easy.

Me to Scrunch, "Would you like a nap?"

"Yesh"

"Ok"

And down she goes. Does that mean I have to listen to her when she says "Nooooo."?

What is the world coming to?

Headlines on Yahoo! news...

"10 Highest Paid Actors" with a picture of Will Smith's good lookin' mug next to it. Now, I'm not complaining about that. But...

In much smaller font, "North Korea Warns of Nuclear War".

Is it just me, or is that a big 'ole neon sign of priorities being way out of wack!?!?!

Now, back to burying my head in the sand and staring and that good lookin' dude.

Love thy Neighbor

Like most apartments, ours definitely lacks storage space. Space of any sort if we're going to be really honest. So our patio is not a relaxing spot to sip tea, but a make shift garage. But one where we store things that no one would want to steal. It's on the ground floor and well... people have a tendency to help themselves to things not locked down. That is not what our neighbors do.

I don't really know the neighbors. And quite frankly, nor do I want to. If I knew them I might have to feel bad about the Coonhound that resides with us. As of this moment, I don't feel bad. Because here's what I do know.

Our neighbors are lazy. Lazy good for nothin's if you ask me. They have a little rat of a dog. For a long time we didn't even know they had a rat dog because they never take the said dog out to do it's business. But even rat dogs pee and poop. They let it go on their porch. They actually do store crap on their porch.

As I sat down this evening to the computer, I heard an unusual sound. The sound of water dripping quite heavily, but it couldn't be rain. Could it? Um, no. That would be the sound of the water dripping from above while the neighbors clean the crap off their porch- directly onto mine and my not-quite-so crappy crap.

Somebody walk their cat next to our window right now! I'd like to un-leash the fury of Coonhound hell on my neighbors. After all, I don't know them, don't want to, and what I do know makes me all that more excited to move in two weeks.

What to do when you have too much to do.

From Nevernotknitting- LegWarmies

Whisper Cardigan- Interweave Knits Spring 2009

Jaywalker Socks- Grumperina

Somehow this does not look like packing.

Read between the lines.

Last night-

Fellow knitter- "Are you stressed?"
Me (kind of laughing)- "Um, yes"
Fellow knitter- "Yeah, I read your blog. I can usually read between the lines, and I think you might be stressed."

Yes, OK people. I am stressed. Raise your hand if you are not stressed? What? No takers? (And if you do have your hand up, realize I hate you right now!) Stress is normal. It is a normal response to life's circumstances sometimes. And even though I KNOW THAT EVERYTHING WILL WORK OUT LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO, right now I'm still a little stressed.

My friend recently told her husband, "the next time the Mayor buys a house she doesn't think she'll do it on fertility meds." To which his response was somewhere along the lines of "Holy Shit!" (His words, not mine.) But thank you for understanding. Add to that a completely unexpected phone call from our caseworker, a new role at work and my plate is a little full at the moment. The cardiac work up a couple of weeks ago might have been my body's way of telling me to chill out, or it might be something to stress about. Which came first? The chicken or the egg. Life or stress? Or was it stress then life?

Considering I have yet to have a breakdown in public, I have (as of right now) not cussed anybody out (out loud), and my marriage is not on the rocks, I think I'm handling things very well. I do admit to sleeping on the couch last night, but it's because my couch is very comfortable. More comfortable than my bed.

Stress is normal. I can do stress. What I don't do is laundry. If you'd like to be a real help don't tell me not to stress, come help fold this mountain.

If I link something three times you should go read it.

The first time I read this, I cried. And cried. Then I read it to my husband. Twice. Scrunch was still new and I must have been completely overwhelmed by the idea that I was now a mommy. It completely captured what I felt like I had been missing. Everything I had looked forward to.

As I drove to the park today and then home again to change into swimming suits when I found out the fountains were on, I remembered it. You should go read it.

I want to read it every day. Because this, this is exactly what I pictured being a mom was about.

My head is swimming with things I could blog about. House stuff. Adoption stuff. Mom stuff. Just about any and all stuff. But the biggest and most overwhelming thought right now is,

Good gracious they are a good looking couple!

Ready or not, there she goes!

She walked right past us, down the hall, and into the classroom. I blinked, and when I didn't see her anymore my heart started to race and then I heard, "she's in here!" Apparently, she heard the other kids and then helped herself to the toys after waving "hi" in some poor sniffling little girl's face. Two months early, my kid took herself to nursery. Three hour church is much more fun now with toys, snacks, and don't forget kids her size. If I thought I was distracted before, trying to keep her entertained during Sunday School, it was nothing compared to today.

I resisted the urge to check on her every five minutes. Husband only caved three times. Three different times he got up and went to peek in the window.

She did great.
We did not.

It's true what they say, you blink and they're gone.

Another Letter

Sometimes you need a nudge in the right direction. Other times you need a cattle prod. I got my swift kick in the butt this morning. So, I sat down to write this- another letter.

Dear Birth mommy/daddy,

We pride ourselves on being honest, so I honestly have to tell you that this is one of the hardest letters we've ever written. What we really want to say is, “pick us!” “pick us!” “pick us!” I don't see that going over very well, though. The beauty of the situation is that no matter what we say, we truly believe that there is a force and a love greater than we can begin to comprehend when it comes to adoption. We know that the decisions you face are gigantic and hold long lasting consequences. There are also tremendous blessings that come through the same process. We can vouch that it has blessed our lives. Hands down probably the greatest blessing we've ever been given has been the blessing of raising our daughter, Kensley. We are excited at the thought of parenting another little boy or girl. We feel like our kids are the lucky ones. Because of adoption, they get even more people to love them. It is important for us to raise our children with the knowledge that they were adopted because they were loved. We love them, but also that the decision to place is a choice made in love and that is something to admire and feel special about.

We would like to tell you about our family. There's John, Yannette, our sixteen-month old daughter Kensley, our dog Jedi, our dog Ani, and cat Chevy. We have been married for almost six years. The first year we brought home the cat, the third our first puppy, the fourth our second puppy, and then not quite two years ago we brought home our daughter Kensley. She might have been the most recent addition, but all our worlds revolve around her. If giving our children a safe loving home where they are doted upon, showered with hugs and kisses, given love and attention is spoiled, then yes- our daughter is spoiled. And it will remain our goal to spoil all our children! Our home is pretty casual in nature and we like to think “the more the merrier”. Our best times are just hanging out with family and friends around good food and maybe a movie, but mainly just good food.

We are both the oldest of three sisters. John was raised in Utah with his sister by his mom and then when he was nine she married Tom, his dad, and had two more little girls. They then moved to California to build a new life! Yannette was raised in Mexico until the age of six with three little sisters all very close in age and then at 12 her parents divorced. When her mom married her Dad, they also moved to California to build a new life! We have decided to make California our home and look forward to raising our family here.

Yannette has a hard time sitting still so she is always working on some knitting, crocheting, or quilting project. She has even been spotted knitting in the car and in the movie theater. John loves to read and fly RC helicopters. He is into learning as much as he can about everything. His job as an electrical engineer is a perfect fit. Yannette is a mom and a nurse. And in that order. Being parents is our number one priority, but we are also blessed to have the opportunity and the flexibility in both our schedules that allows for Yannette to work part time. She works one day a week and John works four. We take the tag-team approach to parenting. It is important to us both that John be as actively involved as possible. We love nothing more than just hanging out together doing just about anything.

Kensley is an active little girl with a lot of energy and lots of words. Her most recent phrase is, “I know.” It sounds weird to describe a fifteen-month old as having a sense of humor, but this kid does. She crack us both up. Not to mention she's just plain adorable. “Outside!” is another favorite word. This is good because we spend a lot of time out there. Going for bike rides, the park, hiking, camping, kayaking, a barbecue- you name it. If it's outside, we're there. Being able to be outside almost year round is one of our favorite things about California. With Kensley talking so much now and constantly picking up new phrases, our ability to speak Spanish may come in handy sooner than we thought. Yannette was raised bilingually and John learned while serving an LDS mission in Mexico. This is just one of the things about each other that just seemed to click when we met.

Should we get to meet you, we would give you a hug and tell you how grateful we are for you. Thank you for your example of love and sacrifice. If we don' get that chance, just know that we still think those things! If you have any questions for us, or would like to get to know us better we are never more than a phone call or e-mail away. We sign all of our letters to our daughter's birth mom with the phrase, “thanks for being you!” and want you to know the same thing.

Thanks for being you!

John, Yannette, and Kensley

Hi!

Required Reading

Please check out this post.

You'll be sorry you missed out if you don't listen to me. It's kind of like the telephone game in blogland, but well worth the effort.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

My vote for the most played out phrase of the decade goes to, "going green". As in "go green" or "I'm going green".

What does that mean anyway? Where does one go to get green? Become green. How do you get green? I don't even get "it".

To me it means spending green on things that are green. That, like, totally makes sense. Cuz the the fibers and everything are, like, totally organic!

Thanks Flickr.

Yes! If you use my logic, you too can somehow justify knitting as "going green". Because somehow if it's you label it "green" it's got to be good, better even, than just plain not green. At any rate, it's all coming in the mail hopefully this week. Maybe the box will be green.

Good old Kermit would have a cow (the second most played out phrase). He'd tell me that "it's not easy being green". Well, I'm not probably not on the list of Kermit's very favorite people anyway.

Come on. Even you have to admit that's pretty green. How much more organic do you get than knit frog guts?

Knitting in Biology 101

Do we even have to address the movie reference? If you didn't know without blinking where it came from, we may have to reconsider our friendship. You will have to come to terms with fact that I have The Princess Bride memorized. That should be easy to deal with compared to knitting amphibians.

Pictures clockwise
Inga hat
Fiona's top
Hemlock Ring Blanket
Little Bubbles
Mitered Square hanging towel
Cabled Wrap
Fetching

Booyah!

I got this dress (originally $120.00) for seven dollars. Granted, I can't wear it for seven months, but still...

And you thought the Mayor lacked patience.