"the napper"

My brother is just one of those types of people that love to take naps. He will take a nap anywhere. As you can see, he found a spot between a table and the couch at my great-aunt's house on Thanksgiving. And he doesn't just take cat naps. They are usually several hours long.

When my brother was elementary school age, he thought it would be fun to take a nap behind the Christmas tree. My mother couldn't find him and got scared and started yelling around the house. My brother didn't hear her. I finally found him up against the wall hidden behind the Christmas tree upstairs.

I don't know where his fascination with odd napping places came from. I guess it is just his adventurous spirit oozing out into sleeping. If I feel like napping somewhere different, I just go to the guest bedroom.

"I will never be the same again"

This is the praise/worship song that ran through my head a few weeks ago. "I will never be the same again, I can never return, I've closed the door." I had confirmed what I suspected--I am pregnant. Two lines appeared on the pregnancy test. Dust and I are thrilled!

We just told our families over Thanksgiving. My parents and brother were totally shocked. I had lead them to believe that it might be awhile before we had kids. I was able to tell my grandparents that they will now be great-grandparents. This is the first grandchild on both sides of our families. This baby will be spoiled!

I am starting my seventh week of pregnancy. I haven't had any morning sickness so far. The baby is due July 15th. We will know whether it is a boy or a girl in January.

So, did I surprise or shock anyone?

non-accommodating individuals

I have been thinking about some of the things that we discussed in Sunday School. We talked about how single people can fall into the trap of being self absorbed and non-accomodating to other people's schedules. Parents have to cater their schedules to take care of their children. Having children takes the focus off of you and onto your child. What got me thinking was some married couples that I know that seem very non-accomodating. Usually in marriage one learns that there is give and take in the relationship. If you love your spouse, you will let them plan an evening to do what they enjoy doing.

I have noticed a pattern in the life of one of my relatives. He hardly ever agrees to something that his spouse wants to do. I can't imagine being that way. If Dust was excited about going someplace, I would make sure that we would be able to do it. When they went on a vacation, the wife told the husband all the places that she wanted to stop at. She wanted him to find them on the map and make sure that they stopped. He didn't even try to locate the places and kept on driving because he wanted to make good time. She was very dissappointed. So, it is possible to be a selfish individual and be married with kids. Maybe the wife needs to do a better job at making her husband realize how selfish he is.

Both of the spouses I am talking about tend to be on the complaining side. They hardly ever have anything nice to say about any meal that you fix for them. If you put grits in front of him, he will say I hate grits. They complain if they don't get to eat at exactly noon for lunch and around five-o-clock for dinner. If the majority of the family wants to watch a tv show and she wants to sit and visit, the family will try to accommodate her.

One of my biggest pet peaves is selfish acting people. If I am around someone being totally selfish, I get so disgusted that I want to puke. I would love to tell them to grow up because they are acting like a child.

another mouse??

Today I noticed my cat sitting outside the door leading into the garage. She never sits in that spot. It got me thinking that she must be smelling a mouse on the other side. I decided to open the door and let her go out into the garage. She started pacing around the trash bags. There was obviously something behind there. Dust moved the bags around to make room for Autum to get behind them. She guarded the trash bags. Maybe the mouse was actually inside the garbage bag like last time. I kept checking on her hoping to find a dead mouse. Nothing.

I decided to turn off the light in the garage. I thought that a mouse would be more likely to come out in the dark. I checked on Autum again and no dead mouse in sight.

I think that I am going to start a ritual. I am going to encourage Autum to go out in the garage on week nights and hunt for varmin. I am always going to make sure that she comes out of the garage though. I had a cat die once when it climbed up and hid underneath/inside our family car. We started the car and left for church. The cat couldn't hold on from wherever she was underneath the car and we ran over her. We had only driven down the street from our house. Very sad.

the little varmint

This morning was trash pick-up day. I always put the garbage out in the garage until pick-up day so it doesn't stink the house up. Also, because Dust has a sensitive nose and I will hear complaining if I don't. I picked the sack up and took it through the living room because I had decided to go out the front door. I should have just pushed the garage door open and gone through that way. I placed the sack on the linoleum entryway and went to get my coat. I thought I heard the trash move and just figured it was settling. I picked up the sack and opened the front door! Aack! There was a mouse! I screamed and opened the screen door and it bolted out the door. It all happened so fast! I can only assume that the mouse came from the garbage sack. It must have ate a hole out of the sack somewhere or climbed through the top hole.

I put the sack at the end of my drive-way. When I was going back into the house, I saw the mouse outside. It was drowning in our sea of leaves trying to make it to the surface. It pressed up against the outside wall of the house. It wanted back in! No way! I was worried when I opened the garage door to leave for work. I thought the mouse might try to run back in. There might be other mice in our garage!

How funny that gigi is having a mouse experience also.

Thanksgiving and Macy's parade

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week! After the snow today, though, I am getting in the mood for the holidays. My favorite part of Thanksgiving as a child, and also now, is the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.

My brother and I loved getting up and watching the parade. I got excited when the Garfield balloon came on the tv screen and I ran and got my Garfield stuffed animals. Other balloons that I liked were Underdog, Snoopy, and most recently SpongeBob. There was a float that had a turkey with eyes that blinked that I always liked. They always highlighted a musical and the performance was boring for a child. During the commercials we would turn the oven light on and watch the turkey. It seems like every year there is a group of kids with white pants and colored gloves that do hand movements. Maybe they were in the happy hands club? : )

Once Santa ended the parade, I knew it was close to time to eat the turkey! It also meant that the Lions football game would be on. My brother would put his Lions jersey and blow-up helmet on and the screaming would begin.

the elderly

I have been thinking about something that I have known for a long time. Elderly people seem to love to talk to me. I have been in buffet lines at restaurants and an elderly person in front of me will turn around and say something to me. Dust has the same thing happen to him. Maybe we have nonassuming friendly faces. Another thing is that I have no problem talking to elderly people. I can usually have a conversation with them and not have any awkward silent moments. I have known some people my age and younger that just don't like or want to talk to people their grandparents' age.

My parents conduct some of the church services at a retirement home that is associated with my church denomination. My brother leads the song service and my father and brother both play trumpet specials. My mother plays the piano. When I was in high school and college I would go and help greet the elderly as they come in the chapel. Again the elderly women and men loved to talk to me and I loved talking to them also. They all had great stories. Occasionally, some of the women wanted me to sit with them. The chapel was connected at the end of the hall of the retirement building. I would sometimes help push them back to their room in their wheelchair.

I almost connect better with people that are older than me. I always have made friends with people that are older than me. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong decade. Maybe I should just realize that God created my personality and that I can minister to the elderly.

feeling old

On Wednesday night, the adult classes were combined with the youth revival service. Our Pastor was joking with us about our age, but he told us that we needed to sit near the back so the youth could have the front pews. The lights were turned out which is a very youth type of thing to do. It did help in focusing your worship though because there was no being distracted by watching people around you. Throughout the service, I just kept feeling old. I have been out of youth group for a long time now. The two people leading worship had to be younger than me. The speaker for the night had to be younger than me also. That is when you know you are old--if the minister for the evening is younger than you. My age group and younger is now the responsible adults in charge of things! That is scary! I know I have been responsible with my life, but that is somehow different than being the "role model in charge."

loser!

Has anyone else typed in the wrong letters for the word verification? I don't know what my problem is! Dust was posting comments just a while ago, and he missed two of the word verifications. The q, p, i, and t are hard for me to pick out. If an r and n are close together it almost looks like an m. I feel like such a loser when I got those wrong. Why do they swirl the letters real close together? Is that really necessary? The point of the whole thing is for a person to manually enter letters to keep spam away. Why make it so difficult for the person? Maybe I need to go back to Kindergarten. Or get better glasses.

hotdogs

For lunch on Saturday, Dust and I tried out the new hotdog place next to the guy's coffee house. It had a cute mom and pop type restaurant feel to it. Besides the huge cutting edge flat screen tv hung on the wall. The vienna beef hotdogs were quality tasting. I did think it was a little overpriced-$3.25 for an average sized hot dog with chili on it. Chips did come with it and drinks were $1.29 extra. I was still hungry after I left the restaurant. I am glad that we tried it out though.

Being at the hotdog restaurant reminded me of my first job. It was at a German hotdog restaurant-the brats were actually imported from Germany. You definately got your money's worth there. The toppings and chili were loaded on heavily that you definately had to eat it with a fork. I worked there with my best friend and we had a blast. On Saturday late afternoons we ran the whole place and locked up by ourselves! Scary! I ran the cash register and took orders and my best friend cooked and made the dogs. We had the same guy customer every Saturday afternoon. He would come in and stare at the menu for ten minutes or longer. We tried not to burst out laughing because he always ordered the same thing! A Heineken beer and a corn dog of all things!

heaters and dirt

Today we had maintenance done on our heater. I was available to be home to let the repairman inside. The repairman came to the door and asked me if Dust was home yet. I told him it was easier for me to be home than Dust. Dust had previously planned on leaving work. He probably thought oh, great I have to explain all of this to a woman. I tried to listen real carefully to everything he told me. He wasn't condescending or anything and didn't make me feel stupid. I got the impression that he wanted me to watch what he was doing. It's hard to know whether standing by a repairman makes them nervous or annoyed. I went back upstairs when he ran the vacuum through the heater. I wrote down everything he told me on a piece of paper so I wouldn't forget to tell Dust.

While we were watching for the heater to kick on, he started cleaning the unit with a rag. I was so embarrassed with how dirty it was. I made a comment about how I needed to clean it better. He said it is hard because the washer and dryer is so close to it. The lint that you find in the lint trap will blow out and cling to the heater. There was a sticker on the unit that was about to fall off and he asked if he could tear it off. Another embarrassing moment. He had to check some numbers or cables or something outside the house and when he came back in he said he didn't want to get the carpet dirty because he had stepped outside. I really didn't care. He stayed on the linoleum entryway and gave me the paperwork. I picked up on the fact that he was a neat freak. I usually don't worry about how clean the house is because I generally think that men, especially repairmen, don't mind dirt. Guess I was wrong this time.