ROADKILL

Is disgusting.

A Word About Oprah

So there I was today, walking through Whole Foods trying to escape the four walls of my house that seem to be closing in on me, the blistering heat, boredom and maybe get a few free fruit samples along the way, when I come face to face with the magazine racks. I briefly peruse the covers consisting of  all the usual garbage….and then…there’s “O”. It’s not that I have never seen this magazine before, come on, it’s everywhere, but for some reason, it struck a wrong cord with me today and ticked me off. This magazines motto is “Live your best life with O”. Unbelievable. Quite honestly, I think it’s despicable that her magazine makes such a bold claim and that so many American Women actually believe that Opera is their best shot at a happy life. How egotistical and arrogant do you really have to be to 1. Create a magazine which you NAME AFTER YOURSELF!  2. Make every month’s cover shot a picture of yourself! and then 3. Claim that YOU are the secret to unlocking peoples happiness! Okay, I don’t want to get into any cat fights about this woman, as they ALWAYS seem to erupt any time her name comes up. I know she’s “done so many wonderful things” and “she really cares about people” and “she donated x amount of money to this charity and that charity” and blah, blah, blah…I wonder how much of that she’s done anonymously. That would be interesting to know.

Anyways, after reflecting on the nerve that was struck I got to thinking about what the real issue is here. The real problem is the church. How sad is it and how detached have Christians become from society (or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe we’re too attached to society and our present culture) that people have nowhere better to turn for answers and guidance than to Opera. And it’s not too difficult to imagine how that must make Jesus feel…

Half Way There and Solids Too!

Addison officially turned six months old yesterday (the 21st) and I reluctantly began the adventure of starting her on solids. I had planned on waiting for her thrust reflux to dissapear and watching for her to cues to begin…I just didn’t think she’d be cuing me at 5 months! So I waited another month, just to be SURE, and finally at 26 weeks decided it was time to try. I was secretly hoping she’d spit everything out and tell me in that way that she wasn’t ready. No such luck. I started her off on about a TBSP of avocado all mashed up and mixed with some breastmilk and the little stinker ate the whole lot! For all my hesitation about starting her on solids, I was surprisingly excited and enthusiastic about her great accomplishment! Not to mention the fact that her hysterically funny faces were well worth it!!

Let’s see…some other big new things for Miss Addison would be:

1. Sitting up for the past month or so all on her own and quite well

2. She’s now graduated from her sling to her stroller for our daily morning/evening walks

3. Sitting in her highchair instead of lying on her “bouncy” when we’re in the kitchen and on the rare occassions I actually set her down;)

4. Her first “swimming lessons” in the pool AND lake have happened in the last week or so

There’s so much more. This little girl is just so amazing and has become the light and center of my whole world. Though motherhood has proven to have it’s tougher than tough moments and is full of endless sacrifices and life rearrangements, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Every day just gets better and better. I can’t believe she’s half way through her first year! !

how was your afternoon?

here is how my day went, hopefully yours ended better than mine:

got up at 0530 to go to work, worked 8 hours and left at 1400.  i forgot to mention that i ride my bike to work, so by 1400, there was a nice little thunderstorm downpour occurring.  i learned on my ride home that you shouldn’t keep your mouth open when riding on wet streets.  the water that is spinning off of the front tire has a direct hole-in-one chance for your mouth.  note to self:  wet streets do not taste good.

got home, soaking wet.  changed and talked with jenn for a while.  the rain stopped and since i was home early, i thought that i’d go for a quick mountain bike ride (thinking that it was still somewhat cool from the rain and everything was wet so the dust wouldn’t be bad).  i got dressed and left.  half way up huffacre hill, the rain starts again.  i don’t mind this time because i chose to ride in the weather and the funky taste of street isn’t in my mouth.  now the ride i do is about 5 or so miles and takes me about 35 minutes to complete.  i finished my awesome ride and was coming home.

i was trying to get across double R blvd, which can be tricky with late afternoon traffic.  after waiting about 2 minutes for a break in traffic, i decided that i’d ride the 0.25 mile down the street to the traffic light, cross and continue home.  as i was thinking about this, i was semi-stopped on my bike, doing a little balancing act on the sidewalk.  right as i decided to go to the traffic light, i jammed on the pedels and took off like a bat outta hell.  and all hell broke loose….

because i was stopped and then jammed on the pedels, my back tire somehow broke traction.  i quickly recovered from that as i started to pedel again.  as i started again, my back tire locked up on me and i started to slide down the wet sidewalk going about 7mph.  as my back tire started to sweep out to the left, i started to go down.  instead of going down, i corrected and gave myself a push off of a fence that surrounds some really nice apartments.  after the push, the tire locked back up, i mashed the brakes, throw myself off of my seat and i landed on the center bar of the bike, directly on the family jewels, pressed against the apartment fence.

i get off of the bike, get away from the fence and do a check check to make sure i can reproduce again and notice that my back tire is no longer firmly attached to my frame.  i guess during my ride through the hills, the little lever that keeps the tire on the frame came loose.  so here i am, in the pouring rain, my back tire isn’t attached to my bike anymore, my chain is all jacked up and i’m worried if i can reproduce again.  after trying to get the back tire back on the frame, with the messed up chain, for about 5 minutes, i finally decided that i’ll just carry the damn thing home; it is less than a mile…

so i threw the bike on my back, completely ignoring the fact that i more than likely have at lease 1 cracked rib.  so now my chest and groin hurt and to top it off, my ipod is playing a crappy song.  so i throw the bike over the other shoulder and walk the 0.75 miles home with the bike over 1 shoulder and the back tire in the other hand.

i get home, snap a photo (too good of a story to pass up), take off all of my biking things and get out of my wet clothes.  i come back down stairs and notice that something doesn’t feel right: my wedding ring is gone.  oh CRAP. i just rode ~5 miles through the hills, wrecked and then walked home; i’m never going to find it.

i rip through all of my biking gear, hoping that it fell off when i took everything off.  nope.  CRAP.  i jumped in the truck and go back to the place where i was trying to figure skate with a bike on a wet side-walk and start to grid out the area.  you learn how to do this hunting.  after about 20 seconds of looking, there my ring is, sitting in the wet grass, on the other side of the fence, saying ‘hi’ to me.  THANK YOU.

now this apt complex is nice.  nice strong fence (i know, i just ran into it), key-card access.  the type of place that jason bourne would have trouble getting into.  CRAP.  but then i look to my left and notice that a car just went through the gate.  i start running and make it through.  awesome, now i’m trespassing.  i run over, grab my ring, put it on my finger (dirt and all), give it a kiss and yelled at it for running away from me. then i jumped the fence and ran back to the truck.

with 20-20 hindsight, i guess i should have worn my biking gloves with full fingers; not the 1/2 fingers.  when my hands get cold or wet, my ring slips off quit easily.  so after riding in the rain for about 25 minutes, my hands where wet.  i guess when i pushed off of the fence, my ring decided that it had had enough,  jumped ship and let me ride it out on my own.

so that was my afternoon, hopefully yours was better.

lm

as you grow, ‘wants’ evolve

when i was 5, i wanted a tractor.

7 = a baseball bat.

13 = a mountain bike.

18 = to go to college.

22 = push myself to do a triathlon

23 = to place well in a triathlon

24 = run a marathon

25 = a perfect wife

26 = a healthy, beautiful baby

now you ask yourself, what in the world would a 27-year-old want now?

 

BOOM:  http://www.dpmsinc.com/firearms/firearm.aspx?id=16

this is what we have come to…

The other day, I was driving someplace.  I can’t remember where I was going or what I was doing.  But this image has been etched in my head:

2 men were walking toward each other on the sidewalk.  Men, not boys, not punk teenagers, men.  As both men approached each other, neither one of them looked up.  They passed each other and went on with their day.

I must have been driving pretty fast because as I passed the men, they passed each other, and then I was gone.  After about a week of letting this roll around in my head, I realized that I have a problem with this situation; here’s the problem.  Now-a-days, it is ‘okay’ for 2 people to pass each other on the street and to not acknowlegde one another:  not a wave, a dude-nod (quick upperward movement of the head) or a ‘hi’.  There is something wrong with this.

Strangers are strangers but people are still people, even if you pass them on the street.  Have some self-respect and confidence in yourself and at least acknowledge another the other person.  Hold your head up and at least say ‘hi.’  Even if the other person blows you off and doesn’t say anything, at least you tried to reach out to that person, just to say ‘hi.’

Who knows, you may make someone’s day by just smiling and saying ‘hi.’

Mommy Buffet: Open for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner…

And everything else in between! Addison must be going through a growth spurt, she’s nursing ALL the time!!

Technology’s hard…

Well, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to post pictures of Addison on this blog other than just uploading them in the occasional post. However, as usual, technology has me beat on this one – I can’t figure it out. So I give up. Here are some new pictures of my beautiful baby:)

On My Mind Today: Teeth and Jesus

My little baby girl is 14 weeks old as of yesterday. I can’t believe it. She’s been so amazing to watch as she grows and learns new things every day. I am constantly saying how blessed we are to have such a wonderful baby! She sleeps all night long, though right next to me so we can enjoy her two nightly feedings snuggling together and neither one of us has to fully wake up or feel sleep deprived the next morning. She smiles and coos at anyone willing to glance her way (which is everyone, of course!) immediately making friends everywhere we go. She’s become so much more aware of the people and things around her, it’s so fun to imagine the world through her eyes! Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, everything for the first time. I can see the wonder and awe on her face every time we go into the grocery store, target, a new house, or even OUR house! It’s just so much fun!

Well, it has been at least…until YESTERDAY! She had a horrible afternoon/evening and I swear it’s because she’s teething. I’ve heard that it’s too early by some people and that it’s not from other’s and I know that I had my first tooth by 4 months. So, today I finally went in and got her some homeopathic medicine that’s supposed to help. Poor kid.

So that’s been the main thing on my mind….but my mom and I were talking about what a phenomenal thing it was for Jesus to go from being God of the Universe to willingly humbling himself to the satus of a completely helpless inept human baby. Then, of course, I started thinking about what that would mean…for GOD not to be able to do the simplest of things. Forget walking and talking, what about motor skills and vision? Being able to do nothing but lay there, stairing at the ceiling and flailing his arms…not the typical picture I have of Jesus. And what about Mary?? What was it like being a mother to a perfect baby? Do perfect babies cry? My immediate response would be, of course, it’s their only form of communication to let “big people” know what they need. What about when he was going through something like teething? Of course it still hurt him, it’s obvious to any fool that Jesus was not spared pain in his life on earth. But did he cry? Would that be considered a “complaining” cry? Or would he be subject to not understanding anything but the pain currently being felt like my little baby? Hmmmm…..having kids does everything for developing new questions and very little in the way of answering.

Back to my first question about Mary – what would it be like to be a mother to a PERFECT baby? child? teen? And why in the world would you ever have another…

A quick tip…

If you are planning on putting wallpaper up, don’t. If you’re planning on stripping wall paper off of a wall…it would be easier just to tear down the wall and start from scratch.