So, I'm suddenly back on a Nora Roberts kick (don't judge me, Alicia and I used to trade her books back and forth all through high school), and I'm reading the first in the Bride Quartet series. I'm not too terribly far into it, but it's all about these 4 friends who own and run a wedding venue business thing. There's the photographer, the food girl, the florist/decorator, and the planner/keep everything together-er. And reading this book, while sitting inside a building with no windows on a beautiful spring day just makes me keep screaming in my head that I'm wasting my life...
I LOVE to do ALL of those things. I may not be a great photographer, yet, but I enjoy it. I'm big into the crafty, decoraty stuff. I love planning things. And for Pete's sake (whoever the junk Pete is) I went to school to do the baking/food stuff! But instead, I'm stuck here. Now don't get me wrong, there are upsides to this job. It's easy. It pays money (not good money, but I guess any money is good money). And if I need of in a moments notice to take Nigel to the doctor, they don't even bat an eye at it.
Yes, I do feel so much better emotionally and whatnot after my spur of the moment stay-at-home vacation last week, but overall I'm still not where I want to be in my life. There are so many things that I'd rather do! So many places I'd rather be. So many other pieces of paper that I'd rather stare at all day, than this stinkin manilla colored application...
I just feel like my talents are being wasted.
And yes, I would like some cheese with this whine :)
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Spring Fever
Spring is in the air, and I've got the fever! I am just in a cooking, cleaning, organizing, declutering, crafting, making my life better all around mood and I'm loving it! I was feeling pretty down, and gloomy, and just plain grouchy, and then Ms. Brenda gave me an idea. Last Tuesday we were talking about how terribly awful my house was and how I didn't have the time (er, make the time) or energy (yes, I know that it's because I'm just plain lazy) to do anything about it. Ms. Brenda said that when her house would get that way she used to just take a few days off of work and do something about it. Genius!! I took off Thursday and Friday of last week and did just that! It was so wonderful! I'm usually already off on Wednesdays anyways, so I had a 5 day weekend, and it was just what the doctor ordered!
Wednesday morning we spent the morning all of us together and Nic and I started on the living room... The main thing that we did was to pull the couch out and really clean under and behind it. I'm ashamed at how much that was needed. Funny part is that our couch is sunfaded on the back from being in front of the window :) Then that afternoon while Nic went to school/work Nigel and I ran some errands... I don't know what it is about running errands just Nigel and I that makes me feel like the stay at home mom that I so long to be... I know that it's weird, but it just does. All of my stay at home mom friends are always talking about all of the things that they do with their children and all of the errands they run and rooms that they clean and I just envy them so!
Thursday, Nic and I had a date day. I know that one of my biggest complaints is that I feel like I don't get to spend enough time with Nigel, but I need more time with Nic, too. So much of the time I feel like we're just "Mommy and Daddy" and we've lost "Nic and Liz", so it was wonderful to have a day of just that. We didn't even go out there for lunch, we just went to Bernie's and enjoyed each others company. We spent the morning reorganizing and cleaning the living room... I swear we're going to wear out my poor vacuum cleaner before we're done!! Then we went to lunch, came home and spent some more time together, then took a trip to Walmart... Just the 2 of us!! I'd forgotten how much easier that is :) Now don't get me wrong, I love Nigel more than life itself, but I really and truly thoroughly enjoyed the time just the two of us. We need to do that far more often. We never really had to WORK at our relationship before Nigel, and now that he's here, we're having to do more work, but it is well worth it. If we can't be a good Nic and Liz then we can't be a good Mommy and Daddy. Plus, it made it that much sweeter to go pick up our little one that evening, and spend the evening with him.
Friday, we didn't get as much done, but we sure did have fun. I had to deliver a Scentsy order to Miranda who works at Protective Life Insurance up at Brookwood, so we all loaded up in my car and headed up there. Well, while we were in the area we HAD to go to the new Toys R Us in the Summit! We needed to exchange some screen protectors for Nic's DSi XL, so while we were there we might as well look around a little bit. We spent and hour and a half in that store!!! My goodness! But we had fun, and got some things that we needed. I feel like for his entire life (you know the past 10 months) that I have been perpetually behind in sock sizes for Nigel. I'll get bigger socks, and they're already too small! Frustrating! They were having a sale on socks and so I finally got some that really and truly do fit him... Thank goodness! We also got him a new pair of brown shoes, since he'd grown out of his boots :( And had some fun taking pictures of him in hats and sunglasses :)
Wednesday morning we spent the morning all of us together and Nic and I started on the living room... The main thing that we did was to pull the couch out and really clean under and behind it. I'm ashamed at how much that was needed. Funny part is that our couch is sunfaded on the back from being in front of the window :) Then that afternoon while Nic went to school/work Nigel and I ran some errands... I don't know what it is about running errands just Nigel and I that makes me feel like the stay at home mom that I so long to be... I know that it's weird, but it just does. All of my stay at home mom friends are always talking about all of the things that they do with their children and all of the errands they run and rooms that they clean and I just envy them so!
Thursday, Nic and I had a date day. I know that one of my biggest complaints is that I feel like I don't get to spend enough time with Nigel, but I need more time with Nic, too. So much of the time I feel like we're just "Mommy and Daddy" and we've lost "Nic and Liz", so it was wonderful to have a day of just that. We didn't even go out there for lunch, we just went to Bernie's and enjoyed each others company. We spent the morning reorganizing and cleaning the living room... I swear we're going to wear out my poor vacuum cleaner before we're done!! Then we went to lunch, came home and spent some more time together, then took a trip to Walmart... Just the 2 of us!! I'd forgotten how much easier that is :) Now don't get me wrong, I love Nigel more than life itself, but I really and truly thoroughly enjoyed the time just the two of us. We need to do that far more often. We never really had to WORK at our relationship before Nigel, and now that he's here, we're having to do more work, but it is well worth it. If we can't be a good Nic and Liz then we can't be a good Mommy and Daddy. Plus, it made it that much sweeter to go pick up our little one that evening, and spend the evening with him.
Friday, we didn't get as much done, but we sure did have fun. I had to deliver a Scentsy order to Miranda who works at Protective Life Insurance up at Brookwood, so we all loaded up in my car and headed up there. Well, while we were in the area we HAD to go to the new Toys R Us in the Summit! We needed to exchange some screen protectors for Nic's DSi XL, so while we were there we might as well look around a little bit. We spent and hour and a half in that store!!! My goodness! But we had fun, and got some things that we needed. I feel like for his entire life (you know the past 10 months) that I have been perpetually behind in sock sizes for Nigel. I'll get bigger socks, and they're already too small! Frustrating! They were having a sale on socks and so I finally got some that really and truly do fit him... Thank goodness! We also got him a new pair of brown shoes, since he'd grown out of his boots :( And had some fun taking pictures of him in hats and sunglasses :)
Friday evening Nic went with Josh to see Star Wars Ep. 1 in 3D... Again... And Nigel and I were going to have an evening just the 2 of us, but Mom and Granny ended up coming over for dinner... But we sure did like the White Chicken Enchilladas that I got the recipe for off of pinterest :)
Saturday was a day filled with my new hobbies! A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't know if I was any good because I primarily take pictures of Nigel and ANYBODY could take good pictures of that cutie, so I had to talk someone else in to letting me take pictures of them. My step-sister, Katie, is knocked up, so I talked her into letting me take her maternity photos :) I think they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. They're no Bethany Odom photos, but I think they're pretty good... I would like a better camera, though (the one that I have that was a birthday present from Nic a few years ago is great, but I would prefer one with manual focus... If anyone was wondering what to get me when they win the lottery :D ).
Here's just a preview of them and the rest can be found on my facebook page:
Miranda has agreed to let me take her and Danny's engagement pictures... eventually :)
After Katie and Baby Abby's photoshoot, we loaded up the car and drove to Rainbow... City that is :) Alright, enough with the random Beverly Hillbillies humor... For Bekah's Scentsy party... My very first in home party. I think that it went pretty well, and we definitely enjoyed getting to hang out with Blake, Rebekah, and Baby David for the afternoon :)
Last night I must have been bitten by the fever bug again, because I had to make myself go to bed shortly after midnight because I was reorganizing our bedroom and didn't want to stop!
We've been doing really well following our meal plan. I still haven't filled out past March, but I know that I'll get to it. We're enjoying eating at home more, and given that we live in the sticks, not only is it saving us money, but it's actually giving us more time in the evenings, because we're not having to drive somewhere! And we're enjoying all of the new recipes that I've collected from Pinterest and the Girls Night Out that I went to at the end of February!
I had an absolutely wonderful weekend, and feel so wonderful and refreshed. I feel like my old self again. I'm tired of being the bitter, angry, cranky person that I allowed myself to become over the last several months, and am enjoying the return of Liz, and the "spring" that I've got back in my step.
Friday, February 24, 2012
This is the rut that will not end...
...Yes it goes on and on my friends...
So I feel like I'm in the rut that will not end. It's making me cranky. And depressed. And lazy. And just generally less than optimal... Or even acceptable.
I have got to snap out of it! I feel like all I do is go to work, come home, and do nothing. I have been getting back in the habbit of cooking lately... And if you look at how messy my kitchen is, you can tell. Fortunately, we're having leftovers for dinner tonight, because there's not a clean dish in the kitchen. Okay, well maybe a clean glass or two, and possibly a saucer, but that's about it.
We had gotten in to a terrible rut during my first 2 trimesters of pregnancy, but then last February we went to Lectureship at Freed-Hardeman and came home new, revitalized, and feeling good and ready to conquer the world... Which was good because it appeared that the world lived in what was to become Nigel's room, and Nigel was coming and needed a place to go...
So we got off of our bohonkus' and got to work... And it felt great!!!
But then Nigel came along, and I had to go back to work, and life got in the way... And mommy got lazy!
I don't know what really started it, but I'm unhappy with it and I'm not going to keep letting it keep me down (or at least I'm going to try)!!
I'm unhappy with my job, but given that Nigel tends to get fussy when he's not fed, I guess that mommy's job is something that I'm just going to have to get over for now, and learn to be happy in spite of it. I've recently started selling Scentsy, and I L.O.V.E. it! It gives me some me time, some organizing time, some creative time, and I love for the house to smell good! I'm getting back in to meal planning, because it really does take a load off to not have to endure the 4 o'clock "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't know. What do you want for dinner?" I really hate that!
But last night I was laying on the couch at 8:45 dead tired and ready to go to sleep, and completely unhappy with the fact that I'd barely gotten anything done. The house is a mess, I had just gotten in a Scentsy order that I need to sift through, I have countless books that I want read, and I hadn't even gotten through March in my meal planning for a year endevour. I had way to much too do to be going to sleep at 8:45... So I finished the month of March... and went to sleep!! How lazy!?
But today, as I sit at that job that i'm less than fond of, I've decided to get over it (the rut that is). Stop spending my evenings on the couch and do the things that I love! If I can't be happy at work, I might as well be happy at home!
Forget Lamb Chops! This is the rut that is ending... TODAY!
So I feel like I'm in the rut that will not end. It's making me cranky. And depressed. And lazy. And just generally less than optimal... Or even acceptable.
I have got to snap out of it! I feel like all I do is go to work, come home, and do nothing. I have been getting back in the habbit of cooking lately... And if you look at how messy my kitchen is, you can tell. Fortunately, we're having leftovers for dinner tonight, because there's not a clean dish in the kitchen. Okay, well maybe a clean glass or two, and possibly a saucer, but that's about it.
We had gotten in to a terrible rut during my first 2 trimesters of pregnancy, but then last February we went to Lectureship at Freed-Hardeman and came home new, revitalized, and feeling good and ready to conquer the world... Which was good because it appeared that the world lived in what was to become Nigel's room, and Nigel was coming and needed a place to go...
So we got off of our bohonkus' and got to work... And it felt great!!!
But then Nigel came along, and I had to go back to work, and life got in the way... And mommy got lazy!
I don't know what really started it, but I'm unhappy with it and I'm not going to keep letting it keep me down (or at least I'm going to try)!!
I'm unhappy with my job, but given that Nigel tends to get fussy when he's not fed, I guess that mommy's job is something that I'm just going to have to get over for now, and learn to be happy in spite of it. I've recently started selling Scentsy, and I L.O.V.E. it! It gives me some me time, some organizing time, some creative time, and I love for the house to smell good! I'm getting back in to meal planning, because it really does take a load off to not have to endure the 4 o'clock "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't know. What do you want for dinner?" I really hate that!
But last night I was laying on the couch at 8:45 dead tired and ready to go to sleep, and completely unhappy with the fact that I'd barely gotten anything done. The house is a mess, I had just gotten in a Scentsy order that I need to sift through, I have countless books that I want read, and I hadn't even gotten through March in my meal planning for a year endevour. I had way to much too do to be going to sleep at 8:45... So I finished the month of March... and went to sleep!! How lazy!?
But today, as I sit at that job that i'm less than fond of, I've decided to get over it (the rut that is). Stop spending my evenings on the couch and do the things that I love! If I can't be happy at work, I might as well be happy at home!
Forget Lamb Chops! This is the rut that is ending... TODAY!
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Adventures in Thanksgiving
Growing up, Thanksgiving and the entire holiday season were always fun, but we never really had any big traditions (at least not any that were big enough for me to remember). When mom and I were living in Florida and I was old enough, I always kind of took it upon myself to cook Thanksgiving dinner... One year that sticks out in my mind was the year that I trapped myself in the kitchen using my t.v. to barricade myself, and cooked Thanksgiving dinner while watching the Buffy marathon. But there wasn't really anything that we did every year, and had to do for the sake of tradition. So when Nic (who is very tradition oriented, and has since rubbed off on me) and I started dating, mom and I just kind of adopted his family's holiday traditions.
The first few years went pretty well, but it just didn't feel like the holidays. Then in 2007 I figured out what it was... I wasn't cooking! Why on earth wasn't I cooking? So Nic's mom and I decided to adopt a new tradition; now instead of everybody bringing a little bit, she and I cook everything ourselves. Now cooking for 20+ people has always been somewhat chaotic, but the past 2 years it has gotten a little more difficult... Last year, I was knocked up by my preacher (Nic's a preacher, don't freak out!) and could barely keep my eyes open, and then after cooking all day, I was too nauseous to actually eat much of it. This year, our little bundle of joy was outside of the womb for Thanksgiving, which if nothing else made me feel a lot better physically. Knowing that I had a 6 1/2 month old baby to take care of this year kind of made me worry about how all of the cooking was going to go. Given that I was responsible for half of the dishes that the 20+ people were going to be devouring, I knew that I had to figure something out. We decided that this year we would just have everything assembled and ready to throw in the oven and then on to the table... At least that was the plan. When we got over to Nic's parents house on the morning of Thanksgiving, I had pretty much everything ready to go, all I had to do was mix up the bread (I always make Challah... and if when reading this you didn't make a sound in your head like you were hocking a loogie, then you didn't pronounce it properly), put my pie in the dish, and bake everything off... Nic's mom, however, had decided that most of her stuff couldn't be assembled in advance for one reason or another, so she had to do pretty much everything that day (with the exception of the dressing, which was ready to go in the oven).
So we're already off to a slower start than we'd planned, when I discovered that I'd left the eggs for my Challah at our house, and that his mom didn't have enough eggs for her stuff and mine... Oops! Wonderful Nic comes to my rescue and runs (well, okay he drove) back to the house to get them... Fortunately we live 10 minutes away or he would have just been going to the store. I thought that I was doing okay on time for everything, so I just kind of spent most of the morning chilling out, playing with Nigel and watching the parade... By the time I get around to mixing my bread so that it can proof (fancy bread making term for rising) I realize that "uh-oh, the bread takes longer than I remembered!" My bad! Other than that, and spilling corn casserole all over the bottom of the oven, there weren't really any catastrophies. All of the food made it to the table (even though some of it was late), no body was taken to jail for killing her in-laws, and we all went home fat and happy, and went to bed early so that we could get up and go shopping for Black Friday!
Speaking of which... We've loved going shopping on Black Friday for several years. We're pretty sure that we've got it figured out just right. For the most part, we're not really going with the intention of trampling innocent old ladies (although are the old ladies really all that innocent?) in order to get the best deals on the toys and electronics. We just like to go for the fun of it. We go to the mall first while everyone else is at Wal-mart and then we switch... By the time we actually make it to Wal-mart, all of the chaos has pretty much calmed down... So given our love of Black Friday shopping (of course it's TRADITION!), we wanted to share said tradition with our bouncing baby boy. We were just about to head off to the mall about 4 o'clock that morning when said bouncing baby boy decided to wake up... The horror movie music definitely played in my head at this point. Was he going to go back to sleep? Was he going to be cranky all day? Was he going to nap while we were shopping? Was he going to think that waking up at 4 in the morning was an acceptable thing? All of these questions ran through my mind when I saw him sitting wide awake and smiling in his car seat.
Okay, I'm back (did you notice that I was missing for a few weeks?)
Nigel, for the most part, has always been a pretty good car rider (I'm trying to block out the trip back from my dads in August), so I wasn't too worried about how he was going to do on the ride up to the mall... I actually figured that he'd just go on back to sleep, like he usually does on any extended ride. Apparently he knew all of the Black Friday excitement that was to come his way, and he couldn't bring himself to go back to sleep. Fortunately, though, he just chilled in the back listening to Christmas music most of the way (I did have to climb back there for a few minutes to give him a bottle, but that wasn't too terribly difficult).
Not too long in to our shopping trip I could tell that he was working on an "uh-oh." I knew that one of the bathrooms in one of the department stores was really nice, so I decided to just wait to change him until we got to that bathroom instead of fighting the crowd in the bathroom in the food court with the oddly placed changing table that extends long ways instead of sideways and seems to bend down a little bit further than I'm comfortable with. We found a few cute things in Children's place that were on a pretty good sale, so I got in line and Nic took Nigel out of the store. On their way out, Nigel fell asleep. Well, I sure wasn't going to wake him up to change his diaper now! (Call me a bad mommy all you want, but not purposefully waking your child up at 5 o'clock in the morning just to change a diaper is about survival, people!) I ended up deciding that the two items that I'd found in Children's Place weren't worth the 3 hour line that I was going to have to wait in to buy them (he was probably going to grow out of them before I even got through the line), so I put them back, and we continued on our journey through the Galleria.
We make it down to JCPenney, by which time Nigel has woken up again, so I decided to go ahead and change him, in hopes that their bathroom was the fabulously wonderful bathroom that I knew existed in one of the department stores (it was not, but it wasn't too bad, so we stayed). I decided to only take the little diaper changing kit instead of the whole huge bag that weighs nearly as much as he does. I get in the bathroom (I swear the sign on the door said "Women's") and see urinals... Weird! Apparently, JCPenney figured that most of the Black Friday shoppers were going to be female, so they designated both bathrooms for women and sent the men to the back of the Customer Service department to use the restroom. After getting over seeing the urinals, I pull down the changing table and get to work... Poor Baby Nigel. I unsnap the legs of his romper to discover POOP-ACOPLYPSE!!!!!! I'm not even kidding you! There was so much poop! I'm pretty sure normal adults don't poop that much! And the worst part was that there was more poop on his leg and in his romper than there actually was in his diaper! Of course the good news in all of this was that I had forgotten to refill the wipe container and there were only 2 wipes left. TWO!! I use two wipes at a time to clean up a normal poop, let along POOP-ACOLYPSE!!!!! Fortunately, one of the cleaning ladies was in there cleaning the restroom, and she came to my rescue handing me wet paper towels and getting me a trash bag to put his romper in. Now if you'll remember I only brought the diaper changing kit... This didn't include a change of clothes. So after getting him cleaned up (if I could have, I probably would have given him a bath right there in the sink, it was so nasty) I carried my naked (well, he had on a diaper) baby out to the luggage department of JCPenney (I swear I'm not getting paid for how many times I say their name), to get him dressed.
Everything after that was pretty tame. We finished going through the mall. Dined at Chic-Fil-A in Alabaster. Went to Walmart. Went home for a brief resting period before tackling the tree. We got the tree up, and lit, and got Nic's Star Wars and Star Trek talking Hallmark ornaments on (with no cussing this year!!), and that was about all that we had time for before heading back out to our traditional Black Friday evening shopping with Josh.
It was while we were out this second time that Nigel started coughing... And he was coughing, and coughing, and coughing. The poor little guy. When he would start coughing he would just look at me like, "Mommy, why is this happening to me?" "Why does this hurt?" He was so dang pittiful! My poor little guy was sick for the first time, and I didn't know what to do to make him feel better. Fortunately, I have my go-to Baby Guru, Alicia. She told me that I needed to squirt salty water up his nose, stick a rubber thing up there and suck out everything except for his brain... Easier said than done. He Did. Not. Like. This. At. All!
Needless to say, we spent the rest of the weekend at the house, trying to get him feeling better. We had the Iron Bowl to keep us occupied on Saturday, and Baby Nigel and I stayed home from church on Sunday. It was that Sunday that I discovered that singing the chorus to "Man Eater" calms him down... I still sing it to him whenever he's upset, and it still works! I don't know what it is about the chorus to that song, but I sure am glad that Runaway Bride was on that morning (they play the song in that movie, in case you were thoroughly confused)!
Overall, I would say that Thanksgiving 2011 made for some memories! Great food, fun times with family, Poop-Acolypse, Nigel's first cold, and the discovery of "Man Eater." Two months later and I'm still looking back on it and smiling. I'm just hoping that next year he keeps his poop in his diaper... Have I said "poop" too many times? :)
The first few years went pretty well, but it just didn't feel like the holidays. Then in 2007 I figured out what it was... I wasn't cooking! Why on earth wasn't I cooking? So Nic's mom and I decided to adopt a new tradition; now instead of everybody bringing a little bit, she and I cook everything ourselves. Now cooking for 20+ people has always been somewhat chaotic, but the past 2 years it has gotten a little more difficult... Last year, I was knocked up by my preacher (Nic's a preacher, don't freak out!) and could barely keep my eyes open, and then after cooking all day, I was too nauseous to actually eat much of it. This year, our little bundle of joy was outside of the womb for Thanksgiving, which if nothing else made me feel a lot better physically. Knowing that I had a 6 1/2 month old baby to take care of this year kind of made me worry about how all of the cooking was going to go. Given that I was responsible for half of the dishes that the 20+ people were going to be devouring, I knew that I had to figure something out. We decided that this year we would just have everything assembled and ready to throw in the oven and then on to the table... At least that was the plan. When we got over to Nic's parents house on the morning of Thanksgiving, I had pretty much everything ready to go, all I had to do was mix up the bread (I always make Challah... and if when reading this you didn't make a sound in your head like you were hocking a loogie, then you didn't pronounce it properly), put my pie in the dish, and bake everything off... Nic's mom, however, had decided that most of her stuff couldn't be assembled in advance for one reason or another, so she had to do pretty much everything that day (with the exception of the dressing, which was ready to go in the oven).
So we're already off to a slower start than we'd planned, when I discovered that I'd left the eggs for my Challah at our house, and that his mom didn't have enough eggs for her stuff and mine... Oops! Wonderful Nic comes to my rescue and runs (well, okay he drove) back to the house to get them... Fortunately we live 10 minutes away or he would have just been going to the store. I thought that I was doing okay on time for everything, so I just kind of spent most of the morning chilling out, playing with Nigel and watching the parade... By the time I get around to mixing my bread so that it can proof (fancy bread making term for rising) I realize that "uh-oh, the bread takes longer than I remembered!" My bad! Other than that, and spilling corn casserole all over the bottom of the oven, there weren't really any catastrophies. All of the food made it to the table (even though some of it was late), no body was taken to jail for killing her in-laws, and we all went home fat and happy, and went to bed early so that we could get up and go shopping for Black Friday!
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| This is Nic's grandmother's bread bowl... There is a picture of Nic sitting up in it when he was little, so while she was down for Thanksgiving, we decided to take a picture of Nigel sitting in it, too. |
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| Nigel enjoyed his Thanksgiving feast as well... His bib says "Everybody is thankful for me." So true! |
Speaking of which... We've loved going shopping on Black Friday for several years. We're pretty sure that we've got it figured out just right. For the most part, we're not really going with the intention of trampling innocent old ladies (although are the old ladies really all that innocent?) in order to get the best deals on the toys and electronics. We just like to go for the fun of it. We go to the mall first while everyone else is at Wal-mart and then we switch... By the time we actually make it to Wal-mart, all of the chaos has pretty much calmed down... So given our love of Black Friday shopping (of course it's TRADITION!), we wanted to share said tradition with our bouncing baby boy. We were just about to head off to the mall about 4 o'clock that morning when said bouncing baby boy decided to wake up... The horror movie music definitely played in my head at this point. Was he going to go back to sleep? Was he going to be cranky all day? Was he going to nap while we were shopping? Was he going to think that waking up at 4 in the morning was an acceptable thing? All of these questions ran through my mind when I saw him sitting wide awake and smiling in his car seat.
Okay, I'm back (did you notice that I was missing for a few weeks?)
Nigel, for the most part, has always been a pretty good car rider (I'm trying to block out the trip back from my dads in August), so I wasn't too worried about how he was going to do on the ride up to the mall... I actually figured that he'd just go on back to sleep, like he usually does on any extended ride. Apparently he knew all of the Black Friday excitement that was to come his way, and he couldn't bring himself to go back to sleep. Fortunately, though, he just chilled in the back listening to Christmas music most of the way (I did have to climb back there for a few minutes to give him a bottle, but that wasn't too terribly difficult).
Not too long in to our shopping trip I could tell that he was working on an "uh-oh." I knew that one of the bathrooms in one of the department stores was really nice, so I decided to just wait to change him until we got to that bathroom instead of fighting the crowd in the bathroom in the food court with the oddly placed changing table that extends long ways instead of sideways and seems to bend down a little bit further than I'm comfortable with. We found a few cute things in Children's place that were on a pretty good sale, so I got in line and Nic took Nigel out of the store. On their way out, Nigel fell asleep. Well, I sure wasn't going to wake him up to change his diaper now! (Call me a bad mommy all you want, but not purposefully waking your child up at 5 o'clock in the morning just to change a diaper is about survival, people!) I ended up deciding that the two items that I'd found in Children's Place weren't worth the 3 hour line that I was going to have to wait in to buy them (he was probably going to grow out of them before I even got through the line), so I put them back, and we continued on our journey through the Galleria.
We make it down to JCPenney, by which time Nigel has woken up again, so I decided to go ahead and change him, in hopes that their bathroom was the fabulously wonderful bathroom that I knew existed in one of the department stores (it was not, but it wasn't too bad, so we stayed). I decided to only take the little diaper changing kit instead of the whole huge bag that weighs nearly as much as he does. I get in the bathroom (I swear the sign on the door said "Women's") and see urinals... Weird! Apparently, JCPenney figured that most of the Black Friday shoppers were going to be female, so they designated both bathrooms for women and sent the men to the back of the Customer Service department to use the restroom. After getting over seeing the urinals, I pull down the changing table and get to work... Poor Baby Nigel. I unsnap the legs of his romper to discover POOP-ACOPLYPSE!!!!!! I'm not even kidding you! There was so much poop! I'm pretty sure normal adults don't poop that much! And the worst part was that there was more poop on his leg and in his romper than there actually was in his diaper! Of course the good news in all of this was that I had forgotten to refill the wipe container and there were only 2 wipes left. TWO!! I use two wipes at a time to clean up a normal poop, let along POOP-ACOLYPSE!!!!! Fortunately, one of the cleaning ladies was in there cleaning the restroom, and she came to my rescue handing me wet paper towels and getting me a trash bag to put his romper in. Now if you'll remember I only brought the diaper changing kit... This didn't include a change of clothes. So after getting him cleaned up (if I could have, I probably would have given him a bath right there in the sink, it was so nasty) I carried my naked (well, he had on a diaper) baby out to the luggage department of JCPenney (I swear I'm not getting paid for how many times I say their name), to get him dressed.
Everything after that was pretty tame. We finished going through the mall. Dined at Chic-Fil-A in Alabaster. Went to Walmart. Went home for a brief resting period before tackling the tree. We got the tree up, and lit, and got Nic's Star Wars and Star Trek talking Hallmark ornaments on (with no cussing this year!!), and that was about all that we had time for before heading back out to our traditional Black Friday evening shopping with Josh.
It was while we were out this second time that Nigel started coughing... And he was coughing, and coughing, and coughing. The poor little guy. When he would start coughing he would just look at me like, "Mommy, why is this happening to me?" "Why does this hurt?" He was so dang pittiful! My poor little guy was sick for the first time, and I didn't know what to do to make him feel better. Fortunately, I have my go-to Baby Guru, Alicia. She told me that I needed to squirt salty water up his nose, stick a rubber thing up there and suck out everything except for his brain... Easier said than done. He Did. Not. Like. This. At. All!
Needless to say, we spent the rest of the weekend at the house, trying to get him feeling better. We had the Iron Bowl to keep us occupied on Saturday, and Baby Nigel and I stayed home from church on Sunday. It was that Sunday that I discovered that singing the chorus to "Man Eater" calms him down... I still sing it to him whenever he's upset, and it still works! I don't know what it is about the chorus to that song, but I sure am glad that Runaway Bride was on that morning (they play the song in that movie, in case you were thoroughly confused)!
Overall, I would say that Thanksgiving 2011 made for some memories! Great food, fun times with family, Poop-Acolypse, Nigel's first cold, and the discovery of "Man Eater." Two months later and I'm still looking back on it and smiling. I'm just hoping that next year he keeps his poop in his diaper... Have I said "poop" too many times? :)
Where has the time gone?
So... I know that I have been totally slacking lately on the blog-front... Sorry! A friend of mine got on to me the other day for not having blogged in a while, and I tried to retort with "Well you don't either"... I really should check her blog more often... Oops! She's been blogging like crazy, which makes me want to get back at it. This isn't going to be a massive recap of our past several months, just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten the password to my blogger account, I've just been trying to "work" more at work, which leaves less time for blogging. But in this new year, I'm trying to make sure to make more time for Liz so that Liz can be a better Mommy and Wifey... Blogging about my loves (especially my guys) may not exactly be just about me, but it's something that I love to do, and that's part of the battle.
Some things that you'll be seeing in future blogs:
-Thanksgiving (I actually started that one several weeks ago, but I wasn't feeling it, so I stopped and haven't picked it back up yet)
-My foray in to food hacking
-The entire Christmas Season
-New Years
-Scentsy
-My journey to not be my mothers size (Sorry, mom, you know I love you, but...)
-Trying to figure out what to do with Granny, her house, and getting our finances in check
Next time on "Our Homemade Home"... Adventures in Thanksgiving... Finally :)
Some things that you'll be seeing in future blogs:
-Thanksgiving (I actually started that one several weeks ago, but I wasn't feeling it, so I stopped and haven't picked it back up yet)
-My foray in to food hacking
-The entire Christmas Season
-New Years
-Scentsy
-My journey to not be my mothers size (Sorry, mom, you know I love you, but...)
-Trying to figure out what to do with Granny, her house, and getting our finances in check
Next time on "Our Homemade Home"... Adventures in Thanksgiving... Finally :)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
House For Sale - Lake Front Property!
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| Beautiful view of the lake from the huge front porch! |
3BR/2BA home on Lay Lake in Wilsonville. Hardwood Floors in living room and hallway. Great Room. Extra room that can be used for a media room, den, play room, or even an extra bedroom. Master bedroom with on suite 3-piece bath. Large laundry room. Garage. Workshop. Paved drive. Carport. 2 boat houses. Great for a year round family home, starter home, retirement home, or even a lake house! $225,000 Call Liz at 205-790-1482 for more information or to tour the home!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Photo Card
Polka Dot Christmas Wishes Christmas
Create personalized Christmas cards. at Shutterfly.com.
View the entire collection of cards.
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