Anniversaries and Randomness

Two years on the 26th... craziness. Bob got me a big bunch of gerbera daisies. (awww!) And we met for lunch. Otherwise, it was a quiet day.

And, proving my dear Dad wrong, the 27th marks three years of working at the lab. Therefore, my retirement is vested and I get 6hrs of annual leave per pay period. Ha! He didn't think I'd make it. *grin*

Dale and Meg and Maria came for supper Wednesday night before church. I have been sadly remiss in attempts at hospitality lately, so I was glad they could come.

Do bent pages in the hymn books and bibles at church bother anybody else? I always fix them.

Tolstoy is awesome.

Blessings.

Easter

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!

It was a busy weekend... I worked Friday, and then we went to Good Friday services... and I begged for Pinkies on the way home. Bob is so nice. hehe.

Saturday I cleaned the house, and did laundry, and made food, and planted a few seeds, and was very productive in general. I'm ready for it to dry out a little bit so I can plant the rest of my garden box and maybe even get some flowers! I have a few tulips and bluebells but they look rather bedraggled. That evening we went to the cabin with all the Beutels for Easter.

I honestly can't remember the last time we were in W-ton on a Sunday. It's been a loooong time. Pathetic, I know, but stuff just kept coming up! It was great to see the W-ton girls, we were all home for Easter. And my most favoritest thing about W-ton; everybody standing up to sing 'Christ the Lord is Risen Today' at the end of the service. So it was good to be there, although, I got really tired of people asking how I'm feeling. Um. I don't have a disease, I'm not ill, and I'm not sure why you need to know that. *sigh* I'm afraid that one of these days I'm going to reach my limit and say something really impolite and disrespectful. (I was complaining later that afternoon and my mother has already informed me that people just want me to know that they care and it's not all about me. But, but, I don't see people asking you odd questions and commenting about your figure! *grin*)

We spent the afternoon checking out the baby chicks and picking flowers and shooting things. The chicks are starting to get a few wing feathers so we were just in time before they get ugly. You know that awkward adolescent stage... chickens have a bad one... hehe. The boys were wandering around shooting at birds and any thing else that moved. I got to try out Dad's euthanasia plan on an already dead bird so I for sure wouldn't miss. I'm such a risk taker.

The whole family came out for supper... much good food. And amusing conversation. And over sharing. Certain of my aunts (who shall remain nameless) were discussing hot flashes in the kitchen... and Bob made a crack about it.... which sent Shelly and I into peals, yea, even gales of laughter. Good times. One of Clayton's friends joined us for the evening, not sure what he thought of us all! (Although, I think G and G approved of him, watch out MKW, KRL, and ALK! hahahaha) Hooray for Easter, and Grandma's ham, and Pearline's bread, and Freida Buns, and leftovers!

Blessings.

When I see the blood

I will pass, I will pass over you.

We celebrated Passover last night. Sort of. Not exactly a Seder, but I made passoverish foods and set the table with candles and china... and Bob read Exodus 12. This year I broiled the cute little lamb chops with herbs and spices and they were much better than last year. And the potato and leek casserole was good. We had deviled eggs and saltines (they're kosher and I can't find matzah at Kroger) and watermelon and romaine lettuce and grape juice. It was good, and I'm excited about eating the leftovers for lunch. Even though you're not supposed to have leftovers or carry them out of your house. Eh, o well, we're under the new covenant right? hehe.

Maybe someday we'll do the full Seder. I think it would be cool. I read a great article on Christians celebrating passover here. And a Messianic Passover Seder here, and how the passover is all about Christ here. But I maybe wouldn't serve lamb to more than just us two, it's expensive!

After supper we ventured into the great outdoors to mow the lawn. Hooray for living in town where people care what your grass looks like. My job was picking up sticks. And providing moral support and paper towels while Bob changed the oil and tried to get the mower started for the first time this year. Kerry took a break from working on a leaky drain next door and cleaned the spark plug and fiddled with it for a while. (He said it was more fun than plumbing...) They got it working and Bob got the front yard mowed before it got dark and started raining... nobody sees the back yard and it's mostly weeds that thrive in the shade anyway....hehe. Can't say I'm too sad- we have so many violets and I hate mowing them while they're blooming.

Have a blessed Good Friday!

Elevensies

Pretty sure I'm turning into a Hobbit. I eat breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon snack, after work snack, supper, bedtime snack....

Haven't taken up pipe-weed yet.

Blessings.

Easter Eggs

So I love dying Easter eggs. It's so much fun. And they're so pretty. Bob humored me last year and helped... but... this year we went over to Rustin and Sharon's to dye them with Grace. She was much more enthusiastic about it. *grin*

Maybe not quite as coordinated.... that is green dye all over the table.... hehe.

Bob kept Eden entertained. He did put one egg in the dye, just for the picture. *grin*

And the finished product.... so springy. Sadly, I already used half of them to make breakfast casserole. Which was/is good, but not nearly so pretty.

Saturday I finally got the house all clean. It feels so nice... it's crazy how fast it gets dusty. And then we went to Communion.

We also spent the weekend trying to discourage some robins from building a nest on our window AC. Um... that would not be a good place for your eggs, Mrs. Robin. We knocked it down 3 or 4 times, and they kept coming back. Bob finally made a pyramid thing out of cardboard to set out on top of it so there is no place for them to even land. Hopefully they'll be done with nest building by the time we actually need to use it! I would prefer not to smell birds when it's 90 degrees outside...

Blessings.

I got better

I've been trying to lay low though. It's hard when my house is so dirty. And it's so nice outside and I want to go out and plant things. I'm hoping it doesn't get cold again... :)

We went for a walk last night. It was lovely out. I love spring. And I love not feeling sick.

Otherwise, pretty quiet, which I love. Blessings.

Oh, the flu, it mkes me so blue

Going on day three... ick.

*sigh* so much for never getting sick.

Monday was a good day.... I went over to Meg's to sew for the evening. It was good for my soul.

And then I started coughing Tuesday night and woke up with the full blown fever/cough/stuffy nose flu on Wednesday. Hooray. So I've been spending most of my time in bed or on the couch. Poor Bob. He's been so great, from bringing home supper on Wednesday, to taking off early today and bringing me ice cream and 'Tangled' (which is really cute). Hopefully he stays healthy.

Tylenol cold is my new best friend. Don't worry, I did call the Doc this morning....

Hopefully I'll get better this weekend so I don't have to miss more work.... although... if they don't make the midnight deadline to pass a budget.... Latest word is they could push it back three days. Do they leave their brains at home when they go to Washington?

I've very much appreciated all the encouragement and empathy- it's nice to know I'm not the only crazy one who has ever dealt with these feelings. *grin* And I'm feeling ten times better about everything just from writing it down...

Blessings.

Sooo...

According to Great Grandma Metzger, I currently have one foot in the grave.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Bob's excited. Me, well, excited is not exactly the word I would use. It's good, it's right, it's not at all a surprise. But, I'm not excited. More like vacillating between sheer terror and resignation.

I'm not naive about what this will require of me physically, spiritually, emotionally.

I don't even like babies... and yet, I'm less worried about that than other things. That will come.

Change is very stressful for me. New things are very stressful for me. Will I actually be able to handle it?

I like my privacy. And boundaries. And that's pretty much out the window... church was rather awful on Sunday (as much as I love and appreciate everybody who congratulated and encouraged me!). I still felt like I had to play a part and act like everyone expects me to. Put on a mask. I kind of just wanted to hide in the bathroom and cry and wish that no one knew and I could be left alone. I know I can't live under a rock, but oh, I wanted to Sunday.

I dread hearing the same crass, rude, and tasteless comments directed at me that make me cringe when they're said about others. 'Wow, she looks ready to pop.' 'She's really gotten huge.' (For the record, I will say something equally nasty back. or just cry. hm, yeah, probably just cry. :P ) I don't like people touching me. I'm told I have that to look forward to also.

I'm not planning on going back to work. It's been a while since I've been wholly dependant on somebody else. Bob has even said that I don't really need him... I have a good job... I can take care of myself. I don't think my identity is tied up in my job. I don't think, but how will I feel when it's gone? It's going to be an adjustment, and not an easy one.

I mourned college life, I mourned singleness, I'm mourning being a newlywed. I don't want to go back, but I've loved every stage and it will never be the same again.

I can't deal with gushing... and when people say they're soooo excited, I just kinda don't understand. What are you excited about? That I have to deal with all this? I know they're just thinking about the good, about how they'll get to hold a baby once in a while. But I have to deal with both the bad and the good, work through everything before and after, every day. And that's not really exciting or pleasant to think about.

Anyways, and in light of all that.... I'd rather have your prayers than your congratulations or excitement... much more useful. :) Don't worry, I'm really not unhappy. I'm quite content and peaceful. Just realistic. And I think too much.

And I don't want to hear any birthing stories! Spare me please! *grin*

When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61:2

Happy Birthday

to Bob. Last Friday... he's so old now. :P

We didn't do anything super exciting. Thursday night we went out for pre-birthday pizza at Firehouse. Just because we like Firehouse and it never disappoints.

Friday was a quiet day. Ha! The carpet layers showed up at 6am to lay carpet next door. O.my.goodness. I was under the impression that carpet laying was rather passive... I was not aware that it involved hammering and loud thumps and banging and dropping of heavy objects and the shaking of floors and walls. Now I know. We only had one picture fall off the wall and it didn't break. :)

We took the day off with the idea that we could go do something fun with a long weekend... yeah... Bob couldn't really think of anything and it was his birthday so I didn't want to make him do something I wanted to do. So we didn't go anywhere. Oh well, I needed a day off since the next federal holiday isn't until Memorial day. *grin*

I picked up a whole freezer full of meat from the farm. Hooray! My freezer is full of raw flesh! They got a side of beef and a pig to split so it took awhile to haul it all in from the van and then sort it out. And Dan showed up in the middle of it all with fresh liver sausage. Which, I love and which thing Bob hates. tsk. So sad. No appreciation for the finer things in life.

And then I came home and cooked up a storm. Cake and frosting for Bob and an attempt at Chicken Lo Mein and Crab Rangoon. They were both good, but they didn't taste quite like at a restaurant. It was kind of fun to try it once, I don't like Chinese at all enough to try very often...

Saturday we went out to Bob's parent's and took a walk through the woods before supper. It was so pretty out. Bob wants to live in the woods someday... I prefer the prairie. I need to see the horizon or I feel claustrophobic... and I don't like ticks and bugs all the creatures that come with the woods. Anyway. It can be spring now, please.

Sunday... well... I'm not ready to talk about Sunday... And today it's back to work... huzzah. Blessings.

Book Fair

My favorite part of school... that and the Scholastic book orders. :)

I ate lunch with Dalaysia yesterday and they had the book fair all set up. It was fun to wander through and look at all the books. There were parents in charge, and one of their kids came through wanting to buy a book. So funny. The kid wanted to get a "Captain Underpants" book, the dad said he could only spend his money on a 'real' book. I shouldn't have laughed, but it amused me... It was pretty tempting to buy a book, but, alas, I refrained.

Dalaysia turned 10! She was excited about the cupcakes she brought to school, and the cake she got at home. And she like the singing card I got her. :)

Good times. I'm kind of sad that we can't be lunch buddies next year when she goes to middle school.

Blessings.

Busy Busy

So last week was fairly busy. I even skipped out on one thing because I didn't want to be gone 5 nights in a row. Thursday night I went to Gab and Brian's shower... hooray for showers. :P It was good to see them. And Natalie was there, which was exciting since I never see her anymore. And then I went home and got to do something fun- help fish wires! Kerry was working on putting our new water heater in and was getting really tired of going up and down through the 1'x2' crawlspace access. So I got to help feed the wires down through the wall, and managed to not electrocute myself.

Our potluck ate out at One World on Friday night. Such good food. I didn't try anything new or adventurous this time... and Bob wouldn't try any humus. *tsk* boys. It's been awhile since everybody could come to potluck, so that was great fun. And then we had to go home and break into our house because we locked ourselves out. It's a little bit scary how easy it is to do...

Saturday was pretty quiet. I cleaned. And tried to rid our upstairs of the musty smell that's been hanging around since we had the plumbing access panel open. Ugh. And then we went over to Mike and Katie's for supper with Trent and Heather and Ryan and Brittany. We played catch phrase and apples to apples... fun times.

My second cousin Amber got married in Congerville on Sunday, so we went there at noon. I haven't been there in ages. And Bob said he had never been there. (What? Seriously, sometimes, ok, all the time, I think Tremont is such a bubble! *grin*) It was good to be there again and see some of my old friends and classmates... and the wedding was nice too. And then we went home and crashed for the rest of the evening. Hooray for being lazy!

Blessings.

I love the smell of paint in the morning

Or not the smell of paint- we used no VOC, deodorizing paint. That stuff's pretty amazing; we could barely smell it!

Saturday morning I got up bright and early and went next door to help them paint. It's looking ten times better over there already. I love painting, and it was twice as fun because there was no furniture to move and no carpet to drip on. Glorious. Yes, I know I'm weird. I get it honest though... ask Mom what she did when Dad went to Haiti for a week... hehe. The girls that are moving in picked some really cool colors... made me want to repaint something, so it's probably a good thing that I got it out of my system.

Sprout was helping lay new wood laminate flooring in the kitchen- so pretty, and so easy! Bob is not convinced that we should try it on our side. :) Someday.

I was using a roller most of the day (and was covered with white spots from the ceiling and brown from the walls...) and woke up Sunday with very, very sore legs. It hurt so bad to sit down and to stand and to kneel in church. Woe is me. It is a good excuse to use the elevator at work though... hmm...

Otherwise it was a pretty quiet weekend. They're going to be installing a new water heater in the closet under our stairs so I had to clean that out. And find new places to put things. Yikes. I found some wedding gifts that I had forgotten about, which was exciting, but they might have to go away. Since I haven't used them in two years, they clearly aren't necessary for life and I have no where to put them. And I have no idea where to put our luggage which fit perfectly all the way at the back under the bottom steps. *sigh* How can our house be so full already!?

Anyway. Fun times.
Blessings.

Green

And not for St Patrick's day... green for growing things! Last night some ladies (and men!) from church did a presentation called "Harvest of Gold." It was all about gardens and orchards and canning and freezing. Seriously, so great. I felt like I was back in Hort 106, only this was ten times more fun.

We learned all about when to plant vegetables, and how to prune fruit trees, and how to take care of tomatoes, and store produce.... and then they did canning and freezing demonstrations. I loved it. I'd never seen a pressure canner in use before, so that was interesting. I still don't think I'll ever use one, I'm afraid of pressure no matter how many safety features they have... I hate having to do pressurized reactions at work, scares me half to death.

So now I have my very own Ball Blue Book. It's actually kind of sad how excited I am/ was about all of this... Maybe it's just because it's March and I'm ready for spring and for things to be nice and green again, because when I'm doing green beans at 10pm in July I'm sure my enthusiasm will not be quite so high. *grin*

Blessings.

In the ghetto...

...in the ghettoooo..... haha... I blame my parents for all of the random 70's songs that I know.... anyway, hooray for feeling like we're living in the ghetto. Our next door neighbor moved out. She had two dogs that were home alone in the house all day while she was at work... yeah... unsupervised animals in the house... bad idea. Anyway, our favorite landlords have been hard at work cleaning up that side.

She left a lot of stuff. And see all those rolls of carpet and carpet pad? They reek. Kerry and Rustin spent most of Saturday morning scraping unglued carpet pad off the floors.... because they were saturated with animal urine. Ugh. SO nasty.

And then, to add insult to injury, while they were working on Saturday they discovered that the boiler for the radiators is kaput. (We had noticed that our upstairs was noticeably colder than downstairs, defying the laws of thermodynamics...) Bob and I have decided, K and K probably have too, that whoever designed and built the duplex had to have been on crack. The boiler is in the 4ft crawlspace under the house. There are only two small openings big enough for one person to get down there. They had to have built the house around it, which means replacing or repairing it is going to be awful. We have resolved never to own rental property...

On a cheerier note, a few of my crocus bulbs have survived the proliferation of rodents in our yard. I love spring.

So other than waking up to the sounds of carpet removal and various other loud crashes and thumping, Saturday was a pretty quiet day. Bob decided to dissect my old laptop...

He was having way too much fun.

Jakey came over for a little bit to play games with Bob.

Sunday morning came waaay to early. Besides the time change, Bob's parents served lunch at church and we went early to help. *ugh* I hate time changes and early mornings. It was a good thing I was working or I probably would have fallen asleep. :) At least we got to bring home leftovers... yay for donuts.

Blessings.

My goal in life

Not to be a superfluous women. :) This is from Jo's Boy's:

One day a brisk discussion arose concerning careers for women. Mrs. Jo had read something on the subject and asked each of the dozen girls sitting about the room, what she intended to do on leaving college. The answers were as usual: "I shall teach, help mother, study medicine, art," etc.; but nearly all ended with: "Till I marry."
"But if you don't marry, what then?" asked Mrs. Jo, feeling like a girl again as she listened to the answers, and watched the thoughtful, gay, or eager faces.
"Be old maids, I suppose. Horrid, but inevitable, since there are so many superfluous women," answered a lively lass, too pretty to fear single blessedness unless she chose it.
"It is well to consider that fact, and fit yourselves to be useful, not superfluous women. That class, by the way, is largely made up of widows, I find; so don't consider it a slur on maidenhood."

*grin* I love Louisa May Alcott.

happiness

Nothing makes the hard work of last summer more worth it than biting into a sweet, juicy, canned peach on a drizzly, dreary, March day. Pure. Heaven.

The Old Folks at Home

Friday night was the annual Koch soup supper. Lots of good food and pies. They usually have some games to play and Bob and I won the trivia game. It was a list of twenty American authors and we had to match them up with their famous work and with their picture. We got all the books easily, but the pictures.... yikes. We guessed a lot. There's really no way to tell the difference between two bearded old men dressed circa 1850's, it could easily be Whitman or Melville or Emerson. Emily Dickinson was more obviously the young, pensive looking one... and Poe's picture is just iconic. Go us.

We switched our phone/internet provider and we had to be up bright and early on Saturday to let the technician in. I guess it was worth not sleeping in, it's cheaper and so far it's faster even when both of us are online. And then I cleaned and was lazy all afternoon. We went to testimonies in the evening... always a blessing.

On Sunday, church was pretty full for the baptism. I waited a table... second shift... on the men's side.... yikes. :) Between filling glasses for boys that drained them as soon as I turned around, and finding sandwiches, and clearing, Candi and I were running like crazy. Fun fun. I just loove waiting tables. :) It's good for me, right?

My mom's birthday was yesterday so we went over there for the evening. And we went to Busy Corner for supper. I haven't been there in years, and I must say I haven't really missed it. haha... it's good food, but I prefer a little bit more anonymity when dining out. Seriously, I went to HS with our waitress and we could have easily had a singing with the rest of the patrons... *grin* And my parents spent too much time in Florida because we heard a lot of "oh look, there's so and so." Sounded so much like G and G... hehe.

Oh, and we have a two week reprieve on the budget issue. I'm glad I'm still working, but seriously, pass a balanced budget already! Anyway.

Blessings.

Louisa May

So I spent some of my Christmas money on books, surprise, surprise. Louisa May Alcott books. I haven't read some of them in years, so it's been really fun to rediscover them. They're great. They've got a lot going for them:

Easy, fun reads? check.
Heavy dose of transcendentalism? check
Syrupy sweetness? check.
Little bit of early feminism? check.
Shameless plugs for Thoreau and Emerson? check and double check.
No prosy, moralistic children (*cough* Elsie Dinsmore *gag*)? check!

Gotta love 'em. Three cheers for the Age of Optimism! haha... and ACS. Anyway, they make me smile a lot. I've got Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, and An Old Fashioned Girl. I'm not quite done rereading, but I think my favorite is still Rose in Bloom. Or Little Men.... it's kind of hard to pick.

As for Elsie, o my goodness. Sorry in advance if you loved her. :) Somebody gave me the first four books when I was in middle school. I didn't like them then. I still don't like them now. (You can read them online on Google books) Besides being a completely unrealistic nine year old crybaby... she ends up marrying her dad's friend who's at least 18 years older than her. Eewww. No thank you. I'll stick with Louisa May.


Blessings.

breathe in

We had a busy weekend... and now I feel like I need a weekend to relax.

Friday evening we kind of invited ourselves along with Greg and Mary and Rustin and Sharon and kids. We went out to eat at Rizzi's, which was really good, and then we went to the Home Show for a little bit. I've never been before so it was kind of interesting to look around. And since we're renting we had a great excuse to just look at things and not listen to every vendor's spiel. *grin* I recognized a lot of people... apparently it was the place to be on Friday night.

We both sang at the funeral on Saturday morning so we had to get up extra early, ugh. But, it was a blessing to be there. And it's one thing that I can do at church, since so many things require time during the day when I'm at work. Although, I am dreading laundry this week... four white shirts... woe is me. hehe. After we sang, Bob really wanted to go to Firehouse Pizza for lunch. Then he made me play a computer racing game that made me feel very, very, dizzy and sick. It was awful. But I got over it. Poor Shelly was left all alone Saturday so she came over and played games and crashed on our couch for the night. Good times.

After church on Sunday we were all comfortable and relaxed and being lazy and Grandma K called... she had decided that Bob needed to come over right away and put his name on something (for someday when they don't need it anymore). Sooo... can't ignore a summons like that, so we went over and she walked us around pointing out plates and knickknacks that he could claim. We went home with a container of chicken salad and the promise of an old butter churn someday. *grin* And then we ate supper and went straight over to Bob's parent's for the rest of the evening. I was tired.

I'm kind of glad February is over, but not really looking forward to March. It's looking full already just with stuff on the church calendar, and then there are family things, aaahh.... deep breath.

Blessings.

politics

Soooo.... congress still hasn't passed a budget for 2010, and the current continuing resolution runs out March 4th at midnight. And they're on recess for President's day this week. (um... and people think gov't employees get lots of holidays...) Which means if they don't get their acts together and fast, there might be a full fledged government shut down as of 12:01am March 5th. And it would be illegal for me to go to work. And I and all of my fellow employees wouldn't get paid. And if it lasted more than a few days we're hearing we may not be paid for not being allowed to go to work. (In 1995 they got back pay for the 27 days of shut down.)

Granted, this wouldn't affect me a whole lot besides boredom because: a. we don't live paycheck to paycheck, b. we've lived off Bob's paycheck since we got married, c. we don't have any payments to worry about (hooray for being debt free!). But most of my coworkers are not so blessed and are really worried.

I do find it annoying though. Besides the fact that the fiscal year starts in OCTOBER and they're only 5 months behind in doing their jobs. And if we're off work for longer than two weeks we can collect unemployment, which probably will cost the government more than passing a budget. Plus all the time it takes to make emergency plans in case they don't pass something in time; somebody has to keep the building heated, and the plants and bugs alive, and keep homeless people from sleeping in the lobby... it would be a mess.

Anyway, so here is my shameless plug for responsible citizenship. The House has two budget related bills that go to the Senate next week. You can contact your Senators through this link. You can contact your Representatives through this link. Tell them you want a responsible budget for this year, and for next year, fast.

Politics... *gag*....
Blessings.