Happy 4 Months til the 4th of JULY!

I haven’t written a new entry in so long – but it’s not because nothing hilarious has happened (I feel like my life is a comedy show minus the laugh track)…it’s because I have had the worst case of writers block. EVER.

I don’t know about anyone else but I am so OVER the cold weather. I’m tired of being freezing all the livelong day. I notice that at this time of year, every year, I start looking for jobs in warm places…southern California, Arizona, Hawaii…it is my thing. I do it every. single. winter. Because let’s face it, winter in Portland SUCKS. It’s cold, it’s wet, it rains every hour of every day…LAME-O. But I woke up this morning with a new attitude! Why? Because when I thought about the date, March 4th, I not only thought of my friend Morgan (Happy Birthday, Dillhole!:) but I also realized that just FOUR SHORT MONTHS from right now we will be celebrating the 4th of July. I will be wearing flip-flops, hanging out on my deck with a cold beverage, smelling bar-b-que and eating homemade ice cream. I will continue to think about this in order to get myself through the day and try not to focus too much on the fact that I can’t feel my feet.

Joshy's own song lyrics...Post #1

"Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere! Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is BORED!"

Pardon Me, That Was My Shoe Farting...

Everyone has their favorite pair of comfortable shoes. My favorites to wear to work were a sensible pair of black Clarkes that my mom had given me. I loved them so much that I wore the soles right off of them – seriously…for several days last week I couldn’t figure out what this “clicking” sound was when I walked. My husband grabbed my shoe and turned it over so I could see the bottom. “Hello???” he laughed, “Don’t you ever look at the bottom of your shoes??” There, to my dismay, was the culprit of the clicking…a ginormous hole in the bottom of my right shoe, and all of the metal “guts” of the shoe exposed. Bummer.

So I broke down and headed to Macy’s to find a new pair. After trying on a few choices, I settled on another pair of cute but comfortable, sensible (and not cheap!) Franco Sartos. I’m not trying to win a beauty contest with these shoes or anything, but I want something that can look good with dress pants or jeans and that are comfortable enough to wear every day in the pouring down Portland rain during the fall and winter months. I found this pair fast and was excited to wear them and not have to listen to the clicking…

What could be worse than clicking shoes, you might ask? Farting shoes. Yes, people, apparently it is a widespread problem. I wore my new shoes for the first time yesterday and to my horror the left shoe expressed its, er, flatulence, LOUDLY, with every single step I took. Holy crap, this was embarrassing. Forced to explain my situation to every passerby I found myself saying, “Do you hear that?” (like they couldn’t) “That’s my shoe, I swear.”

I took off the shoe, tried stretching out the top, thought maybe it was because the leather wasn’t broken in yet. Nothing seemed to help.

I hit the internet to find a solution. Just so you know, there are entire web forums dedicated to farting shoes and what to do about them. It seems to be a very common occurrence – in fact, everyone I talked to about my “problem” yesterday said they had at least one pair of farting shoes. Nice. Comforting to know I am not alone. Some people even resort to throwing their farting shoes away! (If you really care, I solved the problem by putting on socks today…voila! No more noises! Although this kind of misses the whole point of having expensive buttery leather next to my feet…)

So…moral of the story: it happens to many, so you need not hang your head in shame. If the shoe farts, wear it.

Katie-isms - Post #4

Out of the blue the other day, Katie asks her grandmother, "Nonnie? Would you ever eat bull balls?"

That's our girl!

Panda Express

Snuggled under the covers in bed last night, I was reading my nightly three books to Joshua when I began reading a familiar one we had looked at together the night before about panda bears.

“Oh, here’s the panda book, Joshy,” I said as he nodded with a huge smile on his face. This kid loves animals – any and all animals – and he loves to learn facts about different creatures so we spend a lot of time discussing where animals live, what they eat, what sounds they make, etc. I read the first couple of pages about our panda friend and decided to ask Josh a couple of things about what he already knew about pandas.

“Joshy,” I turned to him, “do you remember where pandas live?”

“Panda lives in China,” he answers, matter-of-factly.

I beam at my three-year-old’s amazing wisdom. He is, I'm sure, the smartest child on the face of this earth. “You’re right! Pandas live in China!” I turn the page and see Mr. panda chewing on the all-too-familiar stick of bamboo. “And what do pandas eat, babe? Do you remember?”

Joshy looks at me, eyes bright, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah!” He exclaims, “Panda eats Chinese food!”

Aw, my little pal…you always make me smile...

Happy Birthday Bubs!

This weekend we are celebrating our “baby’s” 3rd birthday. I am just feeling so thankful for my little guy I feel the need to write about him. Our older two children were born so close together (14 months apart) and in a way I feel like I didn’t get to enjoy them one-on-one as babies, because they really were both babies at the same time! As they got older, I had that gnawing feeling that I just wasn’t done yet – it sounds weird, but I just knew there was somebody missing from our family. I told my husband that I really felt we were supposed to have another boy named Josh…I know, weird, right? After finally talking him into the idea we decided to give it a go…and what do you know, we had a boy and named him Joshua.:)

The first thing I remember about Joshy was the way he was so alert and looking around the room with wonder from the moment the nurse handed him to me in the hospital. He wasn’t crying…it was like he was just in awe of his surroundings. He looked all around and then his eyes met mine. “Well, there you are,” I told him. “I knew you were supposed to be here.” At that moment, our family finally felt complete…there was no question in my mind. I am done now, I thought, my family is all here. What peace that feeling is, I really can’t describe it.

Every day for the last three years I have been so thankful for my littlest pal. “Thankful” doesn’t even seem like an adequate word to use. I joke that he keeps me young…because there is nothing I love more than to just hang out and be silly with him. Joshy loves animals, especially elephants, and we visit the zoo together at least twice a month. He is a natural entertainer and puts on shows where he sings his heart out and then immediately asks his audience for applause. Josh is always caring about others and when he sees someone always asks how they are doing or how their dog is doing. He makes me belly-laugh every day. His favorite musical artists are Lady Gaga and Johnny Cash. Seriously. He asks me to play “Poker Face” and then “Ring of Fire” on the IPod every single day…then spends the rest of the day calling me “Mama Poker-face, Mamamama” and singing into his microphone “…and it burns, burns, burns…the ring of fire…the ring of fire.” Did I mention he makes me belly-laugh every single day?

So, to God I say thank you. Thank you for giving me this amazing little human being to take care of. To Joshy, I say thank you for being my little Bubba, my sweet friend, for changing me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be changed, for making me laugh, for fish-kisses and head-butts, for your big squeezing hugs and for loving me and making me feel important always. Happy Birthday, my big three-year-old boy. I knew you were supposed to be here.

Dear Grandma

This week marks the year anniversary of my Grandma being "Promoted to Glory." So much has happened in the past year - both good and bad - in a way it seems hard to believe it's been a year already, but in another way it seems like a lifetime ago. I thought it would be fitting to post the letter I wrote to her for her memorial service last year. I really miss her, but know I will see her again someday:)

May 2009

Dear Grandma,

We love you and we all miss you so much already. I struggled with how to begin this tribute and then it occurred to me…I needed to just write you a letter and thank you for everything you did for us and everything we learned from you as your grandchildren.

Thank you for showing us love and the importance of family.

Thank you for being such a strong woman, and raising your daughters to be such strong women, so they could raise us to be strong individuals.

Thank you for making the most fabulous marionberry pie, raspberry jam, and creamed onions that anyone could ever make. No matter how hard we will try, we know that our versions will pale in comparison.

Thank you for taking care of us on days that we were home sick from school and for bringing things over to share with us on those days to get our minds off feeling so bad.

Thank you for Saturday hamburger night.

Thank you for teaching us that everything and anything could be fixed with the help of the tattered, little red screwdriver kept in the kitchen drawer…and I mean anything.

Thank you for all of the music programs, graduations, birthday parties and other events you attended for every single one of us.

Thank you for all the years we attended the “Ladies and Lassies” brunch together for Mother’s Day at Temple. Mother’s Day is definitely going to be different this year.

Thank you for always having homemade cookies and for always giving us a baggie of them for the long ride home from Black Butte.

Speaking of Black Butte, thank you for teaching us patience by serving us just one pancake at a time for breakfast.

Thank you for teaching us the ABC’s by way of the spice wallpaper in the kitchen…”C” is for Coriander, Cumin, Celery Salt…

Thank you for having us over for sleepovers when we were kids and waking us up by saying “well don’t YOU have a good in America” if we slept in late.

Thank you for always walking us out when we’d leave your house. Whether it was walking us to our car and waving until we were no longer in sight…or later on, walking us to the elevator in your apartment. That made an impression on me. I loved you so much for that.

Thank you for our late-night phone conversations after I was an adult. If I felt like talking to someone at 11:00 at night, I always knew you would be up to answer the call.

Thank you for teaching us to love the Lord and to look to Him for strength. I am especially thankful for that this week as we all look to Him for peace.

I know I speak for all of the grandkids when I say I feel so blessed to have known you for my whole life. My life was better because of you, because of the love you gave us and for the lessons you taught us. Thank you, for showing us we had “a good in America”…

Love, Kristin