The Good, the Really Good, and the Should Have Been Expected Bad.

First, the Good news- the angiogram showed no blockages, no heart damage. The cardiologist said, and this is a quote, "his heart looks fantastic. I wish I had his heart."  No stent. They were able to go through his wrist for the angio instead of the groin and he was released last night.

Second, the Really Good- the positive stress test last week was a false positive. He heart is no worse off than it was  years ago, he did not have a heart attack, etc. His cholesterol is fine, seems the problem will be mostly hypertension. (I wish we weren't going to have to pay a billion dollars (after insurance) to find this out, but YAY.  Yes, it's a warning, yes Mike is taking it, please, no more lectures to him (OR ME.) Good grief people, we KNOW.

Last, the Should Have Been Expected Bad- between last night when he came back to the hotel, and this morning when I drove us 3 hours home, I got sick. I feel like total crap. I took a 3 hour nap and woke up feel much the same, like crap. Hey! Mike's healthy? you held it together for a week and shuttled patients and kids around? Great job. Here, let's break your immune system now. Blergh.  Not sure yet if I'll be back tomorrow for Random Friday or not.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and thoughts, it was greatly appreciated by us both.

Update on the heart patient

Mike was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon under order to REST all weekend. While his natural inclination would be to go to work, someone hid his truck keys. And her car keys. Whoops!

My mom group friends kept my kids for a while Friday morning so I could visit, and my husband's brother's wife's sister watched the kids on Friday afternoon so I could go spring him. Today my brand new friend JoAnn brought us dinner.

We have no more details on what happened or why, but hopefully Monday afternoon we will know more. There is not a cardiologist in Pierre (if you needed more proof of how small this town is), so the doctor here has to consult with Mike's doctor from Rapid city.

And unrelated but also upsetting, last night I dropped my phone and shattered the screen. That turned out to be my breaking point and I completely fell apart. With any luck it'll be repaired on Monday. It still works, but I can't shove it in my pocket or anything.

And that's where we are now!

This is why I didn't blog today.

1. I took my children to the park this morning, because I could always blog during naptime. (We met my new friend there. The Bug terrorized a group of kids from a daycare while the Princess stood at the top of the slide and didn't go down. It was fun for everyone.)
2. While at the park I had the thought that if my house only stayed clean ALL THE TIME, we could go to the park guilt free every day. (Well, every day that I could stand it.) (Did I mention we went to the park yesterday too?)
3. So when we got home I flew around and swapped laundry and did the dishes and fed the kids and took out the garbage and then when the Princess went down for her nap I collapsed at the laptop from all that exertion.
4. Which is when the Bug insisted that I "play" Risk with him. (He makes up his own rules.)(I was only allowed to be the "girl colors". I chose yellow.)
5. Ok, so then I was gonna blog. I was. But first I followed this link to a great post on organization. 
6. That led me to renew my dedication to tracking my blogging on Google Calendars, so I made a new calendar. (It's called "Blogging" cause I'm creative like that.)(I made it pink.)
7. I "played" another 30 seconds of Risk with the Bug.
8. Then I discovered (again) that your (my) (an) iPhone doesn't default to showing more than one Google Calendar.
9. Much googling led me to these instructions for syncing all your Google Calendars to iCal, so I did that, and WAHOO! they all showed up. Eventually.
10. While I was waiting, I played another few minutes of Risk. ("Played")
11. But the colors didn't match, so I had to fix that before I could blog. (Blogging is orange now.)
12. And then it was time to wake up the Princess to go get the Pirate from school, so you get this picture instead.

Doesn't it make you want to be on a boat? (That's the Missouri River on the other side of that big tree.)

Mops, Vintage Easter Dresses, Spiritual Memoirs

• I mopped the floors this week. Yes, it's big enough news to open a post with it. I kinda hate my mop though ("Wonder", yeah right). What kind of mop do you use?
• The Princess is full on toddler. She talks so much, asks for things, says please, plays with her brothers, watches tv (ahem.Bad mommy.) And she's so stinking cute. But if she doesn't learn to eat in the evenings I'm trading her in for a nice pair of boots. (She does not eat, therefore, she does not sleep.)
• I have both a pattern, and the fabric, for what might be her Easter dress. I have 37 days? 40? Something like that, left in which to make it. It may not be her Easter dress because I also have this vintage, 30 year old, smocked dress my grandmother made. If I do make it, I'll do the version with the sash, with a bright pink sash. (please ignore the photo quality, it was a quick snap to show my mom and I'm too lazy to retake it.)
• If you don't pay attention, the Princess with go try to take her own bath. See?
• I'm been planning some changes to my Etsy shop, I'm sure ya'll are all hanging on eagerly to hear them.

What I Read This Week:

• I read some new stuff this week!
• 
  Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods by Jennifer Reese. Literally just finished. Highly recommended. There is some question about if I will be required to buy the library a new copy, so I might have my own soon!
• 
  Tempt Me at Twilight (Hathaways, Book 3) by Lisa Kleypas. I was in the mood for romance. About 4 chapters in.
• 
  Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life by Lauren E. Winner. This is a re-read, barely started.
• 
  Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong. On hold while my BFF gets a copy.

How to make a pot of coffee.

A sample of my life.

• Hey, I need to make coffee!
• Walk into kitchen.
• Notice cabinet is open.
• Start to shut cabinet, but realize dishes need to be unloaded.
• Open dishwasher.
• Remove one item.
• Realize that the cabinet it goes into has been demolished by the Princess.
• Sit on the floor to straighten cabinet.
• Since I'm on the floor anyway, put away the stuff in the adjoining cabinet, since it's also on the floor.
• Stand up and remember the coffee. Take out old grounds.
• Trip over open dishwasher on the way to the garbage.
• Toss grounds.
• Return to open dishwasher
• Take out silverware basket, but realize that there is too much laundry on the bar to put it by the drawer.
• Put away a couple stacks of laundry to make room.
• While putting laundry away, realize that it would save time if you took the dirty laundry back to the laundry room with you.
• Collect dirty laundry.
• Restrain from swapping laundry, since you just made room for silverware on the counter.
• Put away silverware! (Even tho this is the Pirate's job. He does it if he's home.)
• (fast forward another 10 minutes...)
• Make coffee!!

Now. Did you realize what I left out of that story?

The Pirate. The Bug. The Princess. Bo Peep.

It NEVER goes as smoothly as that.

Random Friday: No beach today.

• We've been to the lake every day since Saturday. We're taking today off to recover. It's a lot of fun, but there's not a lot of relaxing. I need to stay home and let me kids be unattended in their room for a day.
• Six days on the lake and only I am sunburned. The kids are not. I win the mom prize.
• This morning, I cleaned poop off the floor of every room of this apartment, EXCEPT the bathrooms. I'd like to let someone else be mom for a while, k?
• The Princess has forgotten how to put herself back to sleep. She wakes up every 60-90 minutes. All. Night. Long. I am tired.
• The hexes are coming along, thanks for asking. I'm not putting any pressure on myself to finish quickly. I'm still looking for a nice ticker type thing to add to my sidebar, but meanwhile I'm at 74 hexes made, out of that I've done 6 flowers and of those six I've made 1 into the full ring.
• Mom is still here, she leaves a week from today. I've gotten a lot less done than I expected with her here. We have had some terrific yard sale luck though, I've been trying to photograph some of it to share with you.

Books Read this Week:

• Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)
  Almost done, still enjoying it.
• Just Like Heaven
   by Julia Quinn. As seen in the picture at the top. Classic Quinn.

(So I don't mind the new blogger screen, but where is my handy Amazon sidebar search box thingy???)

How was your week? What's new? What are you dong this weekend?

I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Wordless Wednesday, the Beach!

I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Planning my first summer vacation, from the mom side

As the title would suggest, this is my first summer vacation from the mom side of things. Yes, there have been other summers in my kid's lives, but I always worked and they were in year round daycare. This is the first time we've had a summer break to plan for and I know that if we don't have a routine in place that we will all be unhappy within a week or two.  We didn't ever have a routine when I was a kid, beyond "get up and go out on the boat." (Yes, nearly every day.) We talked a bit about it as a family and I've been fine tuning it in my head and now I'm going to turn it over to you for suggestions. Here's what I'm thinking so far, and please, help me out, this is my first time!

• From the time we get up until breakfast: free time for kids and mamas. This means I'll surf the internet mixed in with a little cleaning and my coffee, same as always. If it ever warms up I plan to sit on the porch for a lot of this, but it was 40F out there this morning, so not today!
• Breakfast. The Bug and I have had a fairly loose breakfast plan. I want to have a time where we all sit down and eat and talk about the day. I'd like to get them to "help" plan lunch and an activity for the day, including looking up the weather to see what activity is suitable.
• Mornings. The Princess takes a nice solid morning nap lately. The boys will need to play with each other, with minimal help from me during this nap. This is crucial, because it's the best time for me to get paying work done. I am hoping that with a few days practice and a definite activity in the afternoon that they will learn to cooperate.
• Lunch. As soon as little girl wakes up, we'll make lunch and get it eaten. I'm hoping to teach them to clean up they living areas while I make lunch, but we'll see how well that goes.
• Activity. Finally, the thing we picked out to do! Yay! I've been trying to think of all the parks and nature walks and other free things to do in town. Some of them will be things we stay home for (and suggestions are welcome!) but I think leaving the house once a day will be good for us. We do have one great park (and one crappy park) within walking distance.
• Late afternoon, free time. The Princess likes a short afternoon nap. I'd like to be home for that so that I can hopefully get a little more work in.   Boys can play or whatever they want. We'll have a snack.
• Dinner. And, more importantly, Daddy comes home! (I think this is the best part of the Bug's day.)

I'm not planning the part of the day after dinner, because it'll depend on  Mike, but I'm hoping we can go walk by the river or go fishing after dinner or other fun things. Also, Mike and I are both hoping to start jogging soon (Mike once he gets around to it, ahem, and me once I stop coughing), so that will happen in the wee hours of the morning.  He'll go, then I'll go while he showers and gets ready for work. More on this later.

My mom will be here for much of June and we have a little bit of traveling planned, so this routine will be flexible, but I really hope that if they know what to expect that our days will go better.


I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Monster cupcakes

The monster cupcakes turned out awfully cute, even with the Bug's help!  He really enjoyed helping me make the eyes, especially the part where someone had to eat the reject side of the oreo.

They did turn out to look more like a Jim Henson muppet than a scary monster, but the Pirate didn't notice and the Bug (thankfully!) didn't point it out in front of him.

We had enough left over to deliver them to all the nearby neighbors, which was good since we had a very loud weekend in our small apartment.


I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Eating together as a family and The Family Dinner by Laurie David

When I was growing up we ate dinner at the table with the family at 6:00pm every night. EVERY night. All five of us ate dinner together every night. At 6:00. Did I emphasize the family dinner, every night enough yet? The only exception was if the whole family was at baseball practice, which was only for a few years.  Sometimes we had dinner on the river (one day I will post about this) but it was still family dinner, at 6:00, or as close to six as possible given that we were on the river. I don't think I can stress it hard enough that Dinner Was At Six. Our family had a cowbell outside the front door that was rung when it was time for dinner and you were expected to hear it, no exceptions.  I don't want to romanticize my childhood (some of those dinners were downright unpleasant!) but I do love traditions and rituals, and  family dinner falls into both those categories for me.


Now that I have my own family, I have this strong feeling that we should be having dinner every night as a family as well. And usually we do, but it's nothing like the dinner we had growing up. For example, there aren't as many rules (drink all your milk before asking to be excused, for example) and drink choice is not mandated (as a child, our choice was milk. Wait, one thing is not a choice!). Ours is a bit more relaxed, we prep our plates in the kitchen and no one is every required to eat all their food, so long as they are behaved and polite at the table. We do require them to ask to be excused and to return their plates to the kitchen and push their chairs in when they are done (and return their trays to the upright position.)  Some things are the same: no hats at the table, no tv, no wandering off and coming back, you still have to ask to be excused.

So with this background, when I saw The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time by Laurie David at the library, I knew it had to come home with me. I'm struggling to implement a little bit of ritual into our family life. I know this is my own way of trying to control the unknown in our new life, but whatever the underlying reason, I think we need a little ritual.  The Family Dinner is full of excellent suggestions to get this done. It's got tons of recipes, each of which includes the parts the kids should be capable of doing. David has her own list of rules for the dinner, one of which is water, only water, to drink. Interesting, when I grew up with milk, only milk. There are entire chapters of conversation starters and table games and ways to bring current events into the conversation.  Many of the suggestions are meant for older kids and would be hard to do at my table, but I'd love to own a copy to refer back to when they are a bit older.

I am taking a few of her suggestions and trying to slowly work them into our dinner. Instead of prepping plates in the kitchen, I'm going to start moving some dinner components to the table itself.  I'm trying hard to limit the number of times people get up for something forgotten (David says that no one gets up, at all, until the meal is over. Have it all on the table.) I want to work in some candles, to make it special to eat together. The boys will LOVE that. (Btw, anyone seen my candlesticks since we moved?)  We already force some conversation on the boys ("What was the best part of your day?") but I'd like to start talking a little bit about current events with the Pirate, even if it's something like "did you know that a girl the same age as cousin T sailed around the world? How do you think she did that?"  David suggests newspapers and magazines, and everyone finding something relevant to talk about, which would be great with older kids. This wouldn't work so well with non-readers, but I'm thinking about checking out Guinness World Records 2011 for conversation starters.

I'm curious what your dinner ritual is like. Do you eat as a family? Do you have strict dinner rules? What is the conversation like at your table? Does your family see it as time to spend together or as simply a way to get food in their stomachs? I'd very much like to be able to see that 30 minutes or 45 minutes or hour (ha) as a relaxing, enjoyable time, rather than something to rush through to get to baths and bed time. I'm open to suggestions, what has worked for you? What doesn't? 


I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our wedding anniversary!  We have a tradition of taking a family picture on (or about) this day every year (I apparently sis not post last years!) This year our photographer took 18 shots. The above is the best of the lot. Here is a sampling of the rest...

Actual wedding picture is here.
I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.

Random Friday: Happy Anniversary Edition

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary. We had a very small wedding ceremony with just 8 people in attendance, including the two of us and the minister, so there are very few pictures. We have a small framed copy of this one in our hallway. We have babysitters tonight for both boys, so we're going to go have dinner alone, and not have to pick up a single fork. That, folks, that is romantic right there.

A super sweet book fairy sent me a copy of a book I have badly been wanting (Handmade Home). It was a thoughtful, awesome thing to do, thanks, book fairy.

I have FOURTEEN lip balms in my desk drawer at work. All different. Some are tinted.

I have seen mention of Outlander a dozen times this week. Despite having owned a copy for about 10 years, I've never cracked it open. Perhaps soon? Have you read it?

I have had a few moments of deep thought this week about where I want to be in five years. This is pretty out of character for me, I don't usually plan beyond the next 6 months. When I have it all worked out I'll let you know what I decided. Do you have a 5 years plan? Formal goals? It's unusual for me, but I can see that it would really solidify a few things for us, so I'm going with it.

I'm loving the song Arms of a Woman by Amos Lee. (That's a YouTube link, it's really worth listening to, go now.) (In fact, I just listened to it twice more.)

Shop Update: I had a couple of sales this week (yay!) but haven't found time to replenish. I'm hoping to get some sewing done this weekend. I've done a lot of on paper brainstorming, which is probably as important as actual sewing.

12 years later

This is the last picture I have of my brothers and I. There are rumors that there is another set, but I've never seen them. This was taken in June 21, 1997, at a wedding. I was 22, they were 14 and 16. I had gotten married about 3 months earlier.


These two were taken last week, June 20, 2009. I have two kids and live all the way across the country. They have 6 kids between them and live within minutes of each other, one of them in the home we grew up in.

The first is in the same order.

These are not the most flattering pictures ever taken of me, so hopefully we have a retake sometime before 2021!