You Capture - Animals

Tracking Chipmunks

Maximus and Lady are watching a chipmunk in the grass outside just below the open window. Lizzie is joining the party.

This is my first link up with I Should Be Folding Laundry's You Capture. There are various circles that do a photo every day, or have more specific categories or more technical photographers, but those are not for me. Besides, who in the world can't relate to a title like "I Should Be Folding Laundry"? I don't know this girl yet, but I think we would be friends.

pictures, just for fun

I'm using a post to dump some of the various pictures I've put in my signature on my WTE forum.



Here are "the kids" before Lizzie showed up.



When it all started....




This was when she was itty bitty.







And here she was still tiny, but not quite as tiny.


Look at her grow!



At Christmas time




six months old here




birth to 3 months



Liz 4 to 7 months



Liz 8 to 11 months



12 months old

Seriously, how do you do it?

I have had one of those weeks ... admittedly, for a few weeks. One of those weeks in which nothing gets done. OK, truth be told, I did a lot of playing Farmville, and playing "throw the ball to Mama," and wanting nothing more than to sit on the couch with a cup of coffee and my new Runner's World magazine. (Yeah, forget that running business--I haven't done anything that qualifies as exercise in a full 15 days.)

Now, fortunately I have managed to keep dinner on the table every day except one (plus a time or two when we have gone to get a meal), and all our bills are paid. And our clothes are clean. And mostly put away (except for the baby's, but since it's hard to put them away when she's awake, and when she's asleep I don't want to go in her room to put them away, the clean clothes live in the hamper in the living room for a few days).

But the table ... well, do you want to see what the kitchen table looks like?

Yikes. We just push everything over at dinner time to eat off of one half of it.

And the living room:

Those are gift bags (top left) from the end of February when we did our family birthday lunch. And Sam's t-shirt(s) on the couch. And the baby laundry on the chair. And the mail on the piano bench... because there isn't any more room on the kitchen table. And cedar chips to go in the dog house outside - then why are they inside still? And the toys...... Sigh. These are small pictures, so you can't see too much in detail.

But the bathrooms have gone too long. Really, there will be no picture necessary.

So, how do you do it?
How do you keep things up? Do you budget your time? Do you say "no ____ until I finish ____"? Or maybe you have children who are done with teething and no longer eat leaves when you're not looking? Perhaps you actually have people come to your house regularly, so you have motivation more than once a month, to keep things picked up.
Of course, why would I try to pretend I keep a nice clean house for company, when I just put pictures of my disaster area online for the world to see?

Do you have secrets to keeping your sanity? Or do you have weeks like this, too?

The past week, however, has had some milestones:
On Saturday Sam, Lizzie and I went with Jessa to the vet's office, and only Sam, Lizzie, and I came back. After 14 years, Jessa had her 3rd strike, and we had to put her to sleep. It was sad, but it was the right time, and I had a peace about it. It has actually been a huge relief to us to not have to take care of her anymore. Though of course I miss seeing her around the house, sleeping like a log, and I keep thinking I can throw the odd table scrap to her, but then she's not there. Lizzie kept looking for her for about a day - Jessa used to always follow me into the room whenever I went to pick Lizzie up from a nap or go for a diaper change. So every time Liz looked down, there was the old yellow dog. She's stopped looking now.

On the brighter side, Lizzie popped 2 teeth in one day, so now she has 5! Two on the bottom, and three on the top. The top ones are slowly coming down more. I wish I could get a picture of them, but that would require her to hold still while I hold the camera, which is not a skill set we have mastered yet. Now that she can bite down into things, she loves to take her Cheerios and put them in her mouth just to hear them crunch between her front teeth. She also spent several days testing the sound her teeth made when she crunched or ground them together. I am glad that's stopped for the most part. Terrible noise.

Lizzie now throws the ball. She's actually pretty good at it!


She also dances to music or a beat. Here is a short video:



Please excuse the misspelling of the word helicopter. I don't know where the spelling brain cell went.

Isn't she fun? I do love having her around! The fun of watching her learn, play and understand is probably a fair trade for the chaos that sometimes surrounds us. Though I do hope that before long we'll have less chaos and just as much fun.

Thank the Good Lord for Coffee

This morning started too early. But it started, so who am I to complain? Besides, I have my coffee, so that helps.
And I just found this link, which leads to a "Read the Whole Bible in 2010" passage all lined up for you, so maybe I'll start that. Sure, we're 3 months in, but there's never a better time to start than now, right? And I am glad to have found it, because I need somewhere else to focus for a few minutes.

So why did the day start so early? Well, the good news is that Lizzie slept from about 7:30 PM until 5:30 AM. That was wonderful. And she is still asleep, and it's a little after 8 AM now.

The not so good news is that from the time I woke up with Lizzie, Jessa (the 14 year old, mostly blind, mostly lame, completely deaf Lab I've had since I was 15) needed to go outside. There was an urgency, because yesterday she left an unwelcome deposit on the carpet, which Sam cleaned up. This morning, by the time I put Lizzie back in bed, and disarmed the alarm, Jessa was already squatting. So between 6 and 7 AM, she was outside while I scrubbed the carpet with a half-functioning SpotBot. (The SpotBot, by the way, is probably one of the best $120 investments we've ever made, even if the only part of it that works anymore is the manual hose attachment.) And then after I cleaned the carpet, I had to scrub the dog's behind. If it's not one dirty behind, it's another, right?

We had already decided after yesterday's floor fiasco that we're on a 3-strikes-and-you're-out policy as it relates to Jessa. Well, that's 2.

OK, on to other things, because this has been somewhat depressing.

Last night, before watching the baby episode of The Office (which made both Sam and I laugh quite hard, and remember how tiny Elizabeth was when she was born), I got on the treadmill. I've been working through (sort of) the "Couch to 5K" program, and have gotten through week 3. I did week 4's first day, which involves 2 intervals of jogging for half a mile. I am pleased to say that I did it! Granted, it was a slow jog, but I sure did it!

Then we were up pretty late, working and talking through some stresses that we both were feeling. Like until nearly 1 AM. So, we haven't had much sleep. I think I'll take a nap sometime today.

Sam is getting Lizzie up now; she just started stirring, and since he's going to leave in a few minutes, this is his opportunity to spend a little time with her before this evening. I convinced him to change her diaper, too. He's a good daddy.

Oh, and I just heard her say "Mama" through the monitor! I don't know if she's actually saying "Mama" so much as saying what she always does when she gets her diaper changed. And puts Cheerios in her mouth. But I might be able to claim she's talking about me!

Here is a picture of Her Royal Cuteness:


In exciting other news, my mom, Meg Moseley, has just signed a contract and sold her novel to Waterbrook/Random House! You can read her blog here. This has been a long and sometimes seemingly unrewarding journey for her, but after about 13 years, she has finally been offered a book deal! Congratulations, Mom!

40 weeks, 5 days, and counting

It's been raining over Atlanta yesterday and today, and I'm watching Lady dance around in the muddy back yard. She chased a squirrel or chipmunk into a stack of firewood and she is desperately trying to coax it out to play with her. She doesn't really understand that they don't want to play chase with her. But she is eternally hopeful. Lady will stay outside for a long time because I only want to clean her up once this morning.

Jessa wants to go outside, but she was just out an hour ago, and can't possibly need to go out again. She will go to my parents' house whenever we make our run to the hospital. We will probably take her tonight or tomorrow anyways, just because we know we will need to take her soon enough, and it will be so much simpler if she's already dropped off, than to make a stop "on the way".

As the official update, at my appointment yesterday I was 1.5 cm dilated (which is an improvement), still only about half-way effaced, but her head had moved down yet another cm to be at -1 station. So in 4 days I had made some progress, thank the Lord! While they were in there, they stripped my membranes, which did get me going with some more frequent, but still not painful, contractions and a little bit of minor spotting. I've taken to commanding my cervix to soften in Jesus' name, because if anybody can do anything about it, He can.

Barring a trip to the hospital this weekend, Monday at 5 AM, I have instructions to call Labor & Delivery and come in for an induction at 6 (or whenever they say they'll have room for me). Our bags are packed and they are actually already in the truck, with the installed car seat. Along with the case of Gatorade that I got at Costco a couple of days ago and never bothered to get out of the truck.

Supposedly the same thing that the moon does to the oceans when it's full, it also does to a woman's bag of waters when they're ready to go into labor, so perhaps this Sunday, which happens to be a full moon, we'll see some action. Either way, we will be holding our little girl by the end of Monday. I can't think of a better way to start the summer!

Just for fun, here are a couple pictures of Sam and I as babies, which I just received and/or scanned:

It's raining miscellaneous thoughts

It's raining outside today. And it rained yesterday.
And it will rain tomorrow. The dogs are not happy about it, and neither are we, since we have to take them out in the rain and wipe them off when they come back in. I know, having been in a drought for the last many, many months has spoiled us from having to deal with it being wet outside.

I think Oreos should definitely be named a necessary food group.

Sam is watching U-571 across the room.

I just discovered that there was a spaghetti sauce splatter on the 'o' and the '.' on my keyboard. While I wiped it off, it said ooooooooooooooooooooo........................

We used coupons for a free bagel at Einstein Bro's again today; yay for free delicious breakfast!

We're trying to teach Lady not to bother us at the table while we're eating (or doing anything else for that matter). It's a battle of our wills and our patience.

You're probably going to think I'm really dumb after reading my random thoughts.

Sam just called Lady, so she jumped over the back of the couch because it was easier to go over it than to go around it, apparently. We laugh at her too often when we need to correct her. She's hilarious and cute, even when she's less than obedient. We'll be hopeless when we have a little girl. Sam especially.

I was really good yesterday and had a great workout, but I had slept funny on my right arm or shoulder, and the exercise must have aggravated it. I'm feeling it today.

Home group tonight... We've been given the homework of reading Ecclesiastes and talking about it tonight. It may have been sort of an odd choice, but I think it's pretty good for a group of young adults (we're mainly in the 20-40 range, so I guess now we're just adults?) to read and look at the wisdom in it. And sort out what is "meaningless".

Now Lady is fixated on a squirrel on the back deck. She and Max are stalking it through the window. I swear they were separated at birth - either this cat it part greyhound, or this dog is part Siamese.

I've spent far too much time on the computer the last few days so I need to find something else to do when I'm trying to take it easy. Sitting doesn't help my fat ankles or my back.

Next week my mom and I are going to tackle the front yard, and plant some low-maintenance plants to sort of beautify the front of the house. Since I can't bring flowers into the house without their being chewed up and regurgitated by our favorite cats, I want to try to have flowers outside where I can see them when I go out the front door. We'll see if I actually get around to planting them and if they survive very long. But hey, it's a nice thought.

Mylo/Lady

We have a new family member as of Sunday!

Saturday afternoon Sam and I hit Petsmart to see who was available for adoption and ran into a couple who was trying to adopt out their greyhound mix. We were immediately drawn to this dog, and after talking with the couple and hanging out with the dog for a bit, we got their phone number, talked about it, and arranged to adopt this pretty little lady.

She has been fitting in perfectly with the household - she is gentle with Jessa (who needs gentleness, since she apparently pulled a muscle this weekend and is moving very slowly), and she just wants to be friends with the cats. Her energy level is pretty low, until she gets outside, when she loves to run and chase and scout for squirrels.

The couple who had her before did all the hard work of training her, so we are enjoying simply having to enforce our rules, such as "off" the couch and chairs and bed, and no licking the dishes in the dishwasher, etc.

We keep being amazed at how well she is fitting in, and are constantly saying to each other how cute and how elegant she is. We never imagined that we'd be so impressed by a greyhound, but she is great!

Nesting

It's hit.

Prior to the last few weeks, I had no idea the amount of work a prego can get done when the inspiration strikes. I have a feeling the house is going to be cleaner than it has ever been within three months. And my guess is that it will probably never be as clean again.

Within the month of February, other than the general maintenance of the house and laundry, etc., I have accomplished the following projects:

* Cleaning and organizing the wet bar, which had been a catch-all (sort of a very large scale junk drawer) since the day we got a key to the place. Now it has potential to be used as storage (in the cupboards below) and a wet bar - or at least as an attractive part of the house, instead of pretending it's not there. I have visions of some shelves on the back wall, on which artwork or photos can be displayed.

* Cleaning the walls of what we have affectionately dubbed "earshot". Our orange cat had an ear infection which lasted for months, and part of the fun of said infection was that when he would shake his head, often there would be stuff flung in every direction. It landed on walls, furniture, doors, you name it. It was pretty nasty, but a losing battle until the infection was cleared up.

* Setting up and beginning to fill a "Costco overstock shelf" in the garage. We go to Costco and buy large amounts of things which somehow must find a home. Finally they have a shelf on which they should belong. Of course, to make room for the shelf, I had to find homes for other things that were haphazardly put there.

* Cleaning the washer and dryer. Well, they were running while I wiped them down with cleaner, but they have been cleansed of 2 years of dust and dripped laundry soap. I also moved some of the random things that landed there into places that make more sense. Not much more, but a little more.

* Reorganizing the small bookshelf between the kitchen/dining and living rooms. It has contained 2 baskets that serve 2 purposes: one is to help hold up the books from flopping over, and the other is to hold the things that land on the table and don't have a more permanent place to live. So years later, the baskets are the permanent places (think junk drawer again). I finally went through them to make sense of the junk. One now holds scratch paper and pens and tape, the other holds ... well, junk. But at least I know what the junk in it is.

* Rearranged the living room furniture to make it easier to watch TV (really important, right?), as well as making some space for another chair and/or a bookshelf.

There are other things, little things that I can't remember right now, that have been huge in the moment that I've completed them, and that have given me those little feelings of accomplishment. One of the most significant things that has helped me be able to move on to these little projects is the creation of my chore list. It's changed the way I view the routine necessities; when I know the things "to do" I can focus on them and check them off. If I miss it one day, or one week, I know I can pick it up again the next time it rolls around on the schedule. Because I can see when I crossed it out, I know how long it's been since I have, say, swept the floor or cleaned the bathroom. And I'm such a geek, I made out whole month-long lists, through the end of the year. Needless to say, in a few months I will need to revamp the schedule, but for now, it is working for me.

Now it's time to get back to reality and get the sheets out of the dryer, and find something to eat.

The Quest for the Perfect Photo

This was just too fun to let it languish in the photo folder on my desktop....

Here's the news...

Well, the biggest news with us that we're expecting!

I am (according to my best estimate) about 8 weeks along.
We found out about 3 weeks ago, about Oct 8.

For about a week before I tested I pretty much "knew" in my heart that I was pregnant, even though I hardly had any evidence to tell me anything for sure, and couldn't test to confirm it yet.

The pregnancy has been an adventure so far. I've been dealing with morning-, afternoon- and night-sickness. Some days are better than others, so I can't say it's all miserable. I'm figuring out what I can and can't eat, and trying to keep appetizing snacks on hand. Appetizing being a changing thing - what was great one day might sound terrible the next.

The hidden blessing in this season is that I have been laid off as of 10/17. This means I don't have to get up early in the morning and keep myself out of the bathroom at work all day, only to come home too exhausted to do anything productive.

The catch is that now I have to go through the unemployment process, looking for and applying to jobs, and trying to figure out what to do for insurance. I've been declared uninsurible, because pregnancy is not covered for new insurance plans, so we either have to cough up nearly $400/month just to keep the same or similar coverage I've had free from my employer, or go through the Medicaid route, which I can't really figure out until my unemployment filing is processed and I can see or show how much I am receiving. It's interessting, that's certain.

Through all of this, while it has been stressful because of all the unknowns, and the change of suddenly being at home and feeling sick, it has been very clear that God knows what He has for us, and we really can't be worried. Also, Sam could hardly be any more kind, flexible, and willing to help me feel more comfortable or keep me fed or help clean up or grill steaks (one of the few things I can still eat with gusto)!

We did manage to adopt out the big dogs, Jacob and Sarah. We are so happy about the family who picked them up last weekend, and they are in love with these dogs. It was also a relief to find out that Jacob's leg pain was not due to hip dysplasia but bad arthritis in one of his knees, which can be controlled by pain meds and less exercise, instead of expensive surgery. Susie, the lady who has taken them in along with her husband, called us on Sunday to tell us how they are doing, that they are happy, and they have each lost at least 20 lbs from the time that we had gotten them in July (they went from 120 and 116 to 105 and 95)!

Sam has only one last semester of school left after this fall semester. That means, Lord willing, he will graduate in May 2009! This semester is a pretty tough one, with 4 classes, and he is barely keeping his head above water, it seems. But the end is in sight!

Jacob & Sarah

We picked up 2 dogs last night, as sort of a foster situation. In other words, we will be happy to let someone adopt them later.... But for now, they live in our yard and seem to be quite happy with this situation.