Blissfully Unaware of the Chaos the Surrounds Me

Happy, happy birthday . . .

to my sweet nephew, Anders! I cannot believe that you are 11! But I really cannot believe that I haven't seen you since you were only 5! That is just wrong.

It's a darn good thing you're coming to visit us in a couple of weeks. Otherwise I'd have to hop on a plane to Sweden and come and see you ASAP. We're going to cram every minute we can into catching up on those last 5+ years. I am planning a trip for you, Dylan, Nana and I and we'll celebrate your birthday then. Maybe more than once!

Love you, bud. Can't wait to see you!

 P.S., I hope your Mom will cave and let you get a Facebook account. Legal or not. :)

Friday Thought Dump . . .

(I couldn't get it together enough for a real photo dump, so bear with me!)

1. Yesterday went better than I could have imagined. My bosses stood in the trench with me. Every one of them. They did the right thing and in doing so? Took a tremendous amount of pressure off of me.

2. I am feeling frazzled. But lazy. This is a bad combination of emotions and lack of willingness to lesson my own load.

3. I have begun ignoring things. Lots of things. Piles of stuff. (Bills. Laundry. A messy house. Etc.) This ignoring of said important things? Really contributes to feeling overwhelmed as noted in Item 2, above.

4. I got to talk to Lauren for a bit this week. Instead of missing her less, now that she's returned from her honeymoon? I may be missing her a bit more. Sadly.

5. I may have eaten an entire bag of Swedish Fish in the last 48 hours. Not an individual size bag, if you're wondering. A big, meant-to-be-shared or eaten-over-the-course-of-a-month size bag. Whoops. Emotional eating FAIL!

6. I tried to get Halle to eat some squirt cheese. She refused, in case you wondered. (But she will scrape the "cheese" off of cheese crackers and eat it. She'll even scrape that fake cheese off those sad little cracker sandwiches and put it onto Wheat Thins.) But she will not eat squirt cheese. Weirdo.

(Please note that (a), there is no need to refridgerate the squirt cheese and (b), so help me, it's made with REAL cheese! Or something like that!)

7. I can't believe that I'm admitting this on the Internet, but our ***damn kitten gave me ringworm. Dammit.  Although I've been treated? As has everyone/everything/the damn kitten? I'm itchy just thinking about it. Ring. Worm. Ew!

8. If you ever rescue a kitten? Don't carry it around in your sports bra because you think it's funny. Like a tiny, little kitty sling. Because you might end up with ringworm. In your, ahem, "sports bra area". (It's not that funny anymore.)

9. I went to Happy Hour at Crush with my Mom and Auntie last night. Man, we all needed it. Badly. All three glasses of "it"!

10. Dylan is at an unexpected, last-minute sleepover. How corny am I that I miss him? Yes, I am a dork.

How's that for a brain/random thought dump? Now we are going to set up and watch an outdoor movie of Halle's choosing. Likely Tangled. Shocker there, eh?

Happy Friday!

Some Days . . .

you wake up, knowing that it's going to be a fight. Heck, I knew that today was going to be a fight a few weeks ago! 

But, given what some of my friends are walking through (stupid cancer!), I am choosing to take a step back from the drama and ill-mannered folks that sometimes pass through my life. This is nothing compared to cancer. It's just a difficult situation with people who are acting in a difficult manner. Instead of reacting defensively, I'm not going to react at all. In fact, I'm going to neutral. And praying. (A lot.)

I'm praying that the people who hired me, will do their job. I'm praying that I will feel protected and empowered. I'm asking that I not feel thrown under the bus.

We'll see. But I have a 1.5 hour drive to pray. So I'm going in faith. My devotional verses today were:

"We live by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7 and "Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and glory are in his sanctuary." Psalm 96:6

Bring it!

That's our church. Taken from the patio of one of our favorite bars. Amen to Sunday lunches! I may have to end this day there too :)

Tangled Party . . .

was super-fun! (My Swedish Brother in Law says "super" in his cool accent and I am preparing for his visit. After which I will be asked to stop saying "super" as much!)

Anyway . . . 

We were, of course, still setting up for Halle's party just moments before everyone arrived. It never fails. But it was beautiful! It would have been even more awesome if our backyard was done, but the good news was? The four-year-olds could care less! And most of our friends commented on how great the yard was coming along. It was encouraging!

The kiddos had fun. The grown-ups had fun. I stuck to my rule of two hours for a kid party. That is a rule that should never be broken! Needless to say, Halle adored her party. She ran around with all of her adorable Princess friends and had a grand 'ole time! 

Some pics:

I was taking pictures on my Mom's camera for most of the night and don't have those shots yet, but take a moment and look at the bit of beautiful banner hanging above Auntie Karissa and our Shannon's heads . . . Isn't it amazing? I can't wait to put up a better picture of it. My good friend Shannon (different than "our" Shannon) made that for us. She is incredibly talented!

I even managed to finish (kinda) my sad little rag banner. It's shorter than I was planning, but it also took a lot more time than I thought it would! I think I'd like to make one for my office, but I'll definitely pre-cut everything, collect it all in one spot and then work on it over the course of a few TV shows. Trying to do it in the midst of final party details wasn't my best plan ever!

And there it is!

Now we're still trying to catch up on laundry, find places for all of the fabulous new toys that Halle received, write thank-yous and in general, just catch up! (If the dog would stop dragging mud into the house and if the kitten would stop peeing on the floor? That would help. A lot. But I digress :))

All in all, a very fun and over-the-top birthday party!

Hiding ...

In my own backyard.

My husband woke up very frustrated with the kitten and irritated with the morning in general. But we don't have time for that. Not today.

Because it is birthday party go time! Costumes are all arranged. Snacks are purchased. Cake is ready to be picked up at 3:00. Between now and then? Operation hang some lights and hanging lanterns. And banners. Also possibly finishing a rag banner that is a much bigger undertaking than I would have imagined. Whoops.

For the moment, however, I have asked for no one to interrupt me for a moment. (Although the adults in the house have ignored that request, FYI. Not the children.)

Instead of looking at all the work to be done? And yes, there is a lot. As evidenced by the piles of purple and gold that are still in piles around the house:

But seriously, I am instead focusing on how much fun we are going to have today. (Sponsored by Lexapro!) We are going to rock the Tangled/medieval/royalty theme! Seriously, unbelievable costumes are going to make this amaze balls. Amaze! Balls!