Lady David

I would like to say first that I got David's permission to write this post. Granted, he was deeply involved in some nerd game on the iPad, so he might not have been listening too closely, but still, he said, "Sure, that's fine."

I would like to say secondly that anybody who knows David knows what a great guy he is. I'm not just saying that casually like, "Oh, he's such a great guy." No, he's really amazing. He is an incredible husband and father. Watching him with the girls melts my heart every time. They hear his keys at the door at the end of the day, look at me–their eyes lighting up, the biggest smiles on their faces showing all their teeth and the funny spaces in between where teeth haven't appeared yet–then look at the door and scream, "DA!!!! DA-deee!!" Every single day when he comes home, he gives me a break and lets me get housework done or just sit outside on the patio for a few minutes. He feeds the girls supper and bathes them most nights. He gets their beds ready. He helps clean up the bathroom. On the weekends, he lets me go out shopping or run errands just so I can get out of the house by myself while he stays with the girls. If I'm working late at night on freelance, he'll come by and give me a back rub. He makes me anything I want to eat. He takes such good care of us. He treats me so much better than I deserve to be treated. Really. I have it good. I have it very, very good. I love him so much.

And now I'm about to make fun of him. Just remember how much I love you, sweetie pie puddin' bear.

Y'all know I've talked about David's cooking before. He is an amazing cook and he loves to try anything. I'll be flipping through a magazine and say, "Oh, that looks yummy," and he'll say, "Let's make it!" I don't think I'm a bad cook, I just don't necessarily want to do it all the time. I do love to bake, though. And I love for us to cook something together. And when we have time, we'll make meals together, usually on the weekends, and I love doing that. David is a recipe follower. I'm more of a "I like this ingredient, so let's double it" kind of cooker. I know recipes are there for a reason, but it's O-KAY if a little extra vanilla slips into the cake batter. (I generally triple the vanilla.) Oh, no, not for David. "Oh, gosh, we have to throw it all out! It's ruined!" And, David is a back-seat cooker. I'll be whipping up some eggs for a souffle and hear this nervous breathing right over my shoulder.

"David, what do you want?"

"Well, I just think maybe if you used the whisk attachment, it'll make them flu-"

"No."

"Okay, I just...maybe...if you-"

"NO!"

He means well, he really does. But, you cook how you want to cook and I'll cook how I want to cook. I haven't killed anybody with my cooking yet. After one such back-seat cooking incident, I endearingly dubbed him "Lady David." It was for his own good. So, now, whenever I can tell he's dying to give me some advice on how to properly sift dry ingredients, I gently say, "Not now, Lady David. Get back to seasoning your steak."

And if you've been around David, you've heard him make at least one "a woman's place" joke. Let me clarify first by saying that David is not chauvinistic in any form or fashion. He is very respectful of women. He does, however, think it's hilarious to make "a woman's place" jokes. We've all gotten accustomed to it now and just ignore him. And I deter him from making the jokes too often by making Lady David jokes of my own. "Hey, Lady David, why don't you get in the kitchen and scramble me some eggs. Bring me a Sprite while you're at it."

We have a very loving relationship...really.

All that to say...I now have some new ammo for my "Lady David" rants. This past weekend, I ran some errands in town. I try to avoid Wal-Mart if at all possible, but sometimes they're the only ones who have what you need and sometimes you don't want to spend $45 on a set of hedge clippers. (Wal-Mart had them for $10). So, I ran to Wal-Mart. I regretted it as soon as I walked inside. There were SOOOOO MANY PEOPLE. It made me think of the Dwight K. Schrute quote, "We need a new plague." And then I thought, "That's selfish of me. And somewhat self-harming, because what if I got the plague, too." Still, there were too many people. I needed some stuff for the patio and I needed some loofahs for the shower. I always try to find David a "man loofah" because he whines about the frilly white ones I sometimes get. I was trapped between a Mom with three kids in her cart trying to pick out toothbrushes and two men blocking the entire aisle with their carts just chit-chatting about fish. FISH. Who cares about fish, move your cart! I see near me those sea sponges. You know what I'm talking about? On the tag it stated "voted best beauty and bath product by Allure magazine." Well, if Allure likes it, it must be awesome, right? My fear of being crushed alive by an inundating wave of Wal-Mart patrons was growing stronger, so I grabbed two sponges and darted to the registers.

That night, I was in the shower and squirted some bath wash on my fancy new Allure-approved sponge. I started at my shoulders.....aaahhhhh, nice. This sucker felt awesome! It had texture on it, so it was great for exfoliation. You know in Narnia's Voyage of the Dawn Treader (in the book, not the movie) when Aslan is ripping through Eustace's dragon skin, tearing off each layer at a time, each one hurting more than the other, but feeling good because he's free of that burden. My new sponge was like that. I felt so clean and fresh. I got out of the shower, put some lotion on. I was radioactive. You could have gotten a tan off of how much my skin was glowing. That sounds snobby, but you know when your skin looks its best and you look in the mirror, point and wink at yourself and say, "Hey, lookin' goooood." I was so happy with that sponge. I felt great!

David took his shower next. I'm reading in bed. I hear the shower stop. I hear David brush his teeth. He opens the bathroom doors and declares, "That new sponge you got really hurts. It hurts my skin. It hurt to take a bath with it."

I query, "What do you mean it hurts? I liked it."

He responds, "Well, it just wasn't comfortable. It was like bathing with a volcanic rock."

Of course, my Mom's side of the family aggravation gene kicks in and I say, "Aww...gosh. I'm sorry, sweetie. If I had known you had wittle baby skin, I would have stopped by The Baby Skin Store and gotten you a loofah made out of swan feathers and angel whispers."

He furrows his brow (not unlike the way Piper Lee [his mini-me] furrows hers), grunts "Shut up," and turns off the lights while. I'm. still. reading. Can you believe that? Hmph! The nerve of Lady David.

Perspective

First of all, no, Little Tikes did not come after me and ask me to remove the post about the Happiness ball. Little Tikes can't touch me! (Just kidding, LT, I think your products are great.) Blogger was having some "technical issues" last week and removed the posts created in the last few days and then reposted them. Weird, right? David and I have been watching Chuck (adorable show) and now I've got Big Brother paranoia. Anyways.

So, week before last, I mentioned how it was my Week O' Perspective. Let me explain...

Remember when I was whining because my computer monitor went out? We bought that stupid thing almost three years ago. For what we paid for it, I intended on it lasting until I was 109. It's an Apple Cinema Display and you know they're proud of their stuff. Apple...love 'em, hate 'em. Apparently, those displays just going out like that are a common occurrence. You would have expected a recall, but Apple doesn't do those (unless one of their products spontaneously combusts or something). If your warranty or Apple Care is up, you're outta luck. And I knew we'd be stuck paying $400 for a 16-year old computer genius to fix our monitor in 20 minutes. And I'm a "it's the principle of the thing" kind of person. I'm not going to pay $400 to fix something I already spent a lot more than that on.

Okay, I'm veering away from my point. POINT IS...it's a stupid monitor. For $160, I can get the EXACT SAME THING (different brand) at Best Buy. But, I was "soooooo distraught" Monday before last over this piece of technology failing me. I went to see if David's monitor (he has a PC...booooorrriiiinnngg...oh, sorry. I'm kind of a computer snob) was compatible. Alas, it was not. Why? Because Apple makes their computers so only Apple crap will work with them. All Apple people are snobs, I realize that. So, I got my laptop and hooked my external hard drives and tablet up to that. Blegh. I hate doing that.

I'm sitting there, with a working laptop, all flustered because I spent 30 minutes doing all of that when 30 minutes of the girls being good is 3o minutes I can get work done. Then, one of the kids, I can't remember which one, comes to the gate and gives me the doofiest grin and laugh and then this look that seemed to say, "Mom...perspective." And I think, Mother of pearl, I am a moron. People lost EVERYthing last week in tornadoes and I'm whining about a completely replaceable piece of equipment. I shook my head in disbelief of myself.

For the past few months, the girls have been getting up at 5:30-5:45 a.m. There's nothing wrong, they're just done sleeping. You people whose kids sleep until 8:00, I don't know what you're giving them, but if you could send some my way, that'd be awes. It might have something to do with their bedtime, which is at 7:30 p.m. We used to put them down at 6:30 p.m. and they'd sleep until 6:30 a.m. So, I guess they're just growing up and require less sleep. They're always happy in the morning, so that's all the sleep they need I s'pose. It is a little exhausting, though. And sometimes I find myself saying, "For the love, babies, sleep later!"

During my Perspective Week, I was following Roger's tweets about Sterling. Y'all remember Sterling? The sweet 5-year old (now 6) who was having brain surgery for a tumor that had been causing consistent seizures. That week, Sterling was having his fifth brain surgery (FIFTH!) to insert these grids in his brain so doctors could map which areas were causing the seizures. (Isn't medical technology amazing? SO thankful for doctors and modern medicine.) Following this surgery, Sterling was scheduled to have another surgery to remove these grids, resect the brain tissues causing the seizures and remove the rest of the tumor. It was an incredibly risky surgery. I mean, he's 6 years old. SIX. YEARS. OLD.

Just so I'm not leaving you hanging, the surgery went amazingly well, the doctors removed 10-12% of Sterling's brain, they resected the affected areas, and got ALL of the tumor. He's at home with his family recovering and doing well. His vision is slightly impaired on his left side, I believe, but doctors think once some more swelling goes down, that might improve. And Sterling is seizure free. Whaaa whaaaaaaat! During all of his surgeries, they draw the Superman symbol on his hospital gown with "Joshua 1:9" written under it. After this last surgery, the nurses came out and told Roger they looked that Scripture up. That tweet had me ending up in a pool of tears. A 6-year old, lying completely vulnerable on an operating room table–his family waiting, trusting, praying, hoping–witnessing to hospital staff. Humbling. What I have done like that lately?

So, back to my "babies wake up so early" comment. During Roger's tweets, he also updated us with information about tornado victims. They had to move Sterling from the PICU to make room for incoming children who had been injured during the storms. A lot of kids were too young to tell people who they were. Some kids didn't know where their parents were. One little boy, 10 years old, was brought in alone. Broken bones everywhere. He was in a lot of pain, so they sedated him. The staff found out that both his parents and little sister had been killed in the tornado. He hadn't been told yet. And here I am grumbling about "having" to get up at 5:30 a.m. to change diapers and pass out cups of milk. I should be honored to have that privilege. My babies...my family, is safe. I'm grateful for Roger allowing God to use him to speak to me through a social network called Twitter.

And the twins are now standing at the gate, holding out their cups for more goldfish crackers saying, "Sna-sna-sna" (snack) and shaking their heads "yes". Oh, my little Olivers. Gosh, I'm blessed.

I love my job. I honestly couldn't ask for a more perfect work experience. My job stresses me out. Those who...whom...who....whooooo-m I work with know that 50% of the stress is my own doing, because I'm a little bit crazy, but the other 50% is cuz y'all know how much we have to do. And I love it. I really, really, really do. Last week, I got to draw a dragon blowing fire into a hot air balloon (in a good way, he was helping keep it up) for a t-shirt. Also, Christina, can I have one?! I get asked pretty frequently why I'm still working now that I've got kids. This is a question asked regularly by people I don't know well, which is kind of weird to me. One lady, I'm totally not kidding, said to me (paraphrasing), "I just think, as a mother, it's our responsibility to sacrifice some things so we can stay and raise our children at home." ?????? Yeah, I know, right. Let me clarify by saying that I think stay-at-home moms are awesome. I have no issue with that whatsoever. I know several stay-at-home moms and they are amazing women, mothers and wives. But this lady was implying that those of us who do choose to continue to work are lesser moms because we're being "selfish". I kind of didn't know what to say. I'm not great with that kind of stuff. I'd also like to add that her young daughter and son in the shopping cart were brats. Heh.

I know I have a very special situation in which I can work and stay home with my kids. And I do not take that for granted. (I take air-conditioning for granted, which I will never do again [it went out on us last week for a day].) I do realize just how blessed I am to work with a place that allows me to do that. I know that's very rare indeed. I enjoy my work. I feel like I get to be a small part of something that makes a difference. It is an honor to work with those people. They are my friends. Even though they don't have fried crab claws, I feel very close to them and I hope they know how much they mean to me.

I don't know what the future holds for us. But for now, I'm so happy I have my job. I want to keep working. I enjoy contributing financially. And I don't feel like I'm being selfish or neglecting my kids. I know I'm a good Mom. When the every day work stresses start up, I'm taking that as a reminder that I'm a very small part of something big and satan will do what he can to attack me. I will never take my job for granted. I know there are others out there looking for jobs and David and I are very fortunate.

I've complained about the size of our closets. "We have too much stuff and not enough storage!" There are people out there scouring through the rubble that once was their house...just trying to find a few baby pictures or heirlooms or anything.

I've put the girls in their cribs with books and shut the door for just 20 minutes of peace and quiet while I finished a project. There are women out there desperate to be a mother...already a mother, just without a child in their arms yet. God blessed us with two at once. Why would He ever pick me for that honor?

I am the lowest of the lows.

I'm grateful for my Week O' Perspective. As ridiculously cheesy as it sounds, the world seems different to me. Not in an arrogant "oh, I'm so enlightened" way, but a "Ruth, you've been an idiot" way.

Funny how God uses a tornado, Firebeard and his son Sterling, and a dragon breathing fire into a hot air balloon to knock some sense into you.

Happiness

Happiness. Where does it come from? How do you get it? You'll be surprised to find out...

A Little Tikes inflatable beach ball.

WHAAAAAAT?? Who knew!

I'd say 98% of the packaging for the girls' toys mention something about what the toy teaches or involves..."Shapes, colors, textures, hygiene, independence (yes, independence), etc."

I got the girls a beach ball the other day to play with in the yard. David was blowing it up for them, paused, laughed, turned to me and said, "Well, I'll be. Good thing we got this, otherwise our kids would probably be miserable the rest of their lives."

I think the creators at Little Tikes wanted to put something on their packaging and I mean, a beach ball is a beach ball, right. It's got colors and it's a sphere. But they needed one. more. thing. to put on the wrapper. Hmmm...what should we put on it, guys? Does it teach outdoor play? Nah. Exercise? Nope. Hand-eye coordination? Lame. Thinking...thinking...WAIT. I GOT IT. Happiness! Yeah, yeah, happiness!

Anyways. We thought it was funny. And the girls are pretty happy when they play with it. But then they get mad when the wind blows it away. I think the product may be defective.

Sorry for the short post. I intended on writing a really long one last night, but Gilmore Girls season 3 ended in such a way that I had to watch at least half of the season 4 premiere...so...priorities.

Oh, how did Mom put the flags together backwards? It took us a second, but we figured out what she did. She had them all lined up in order, facing towards her. She flipped them over in place and taped the string to the back, which ended up putting the letters in reverse order. Then, she folded it up neatly so they wouldn't get tangled on the way to the party. So, we never saw them until we hung them up. They are now hanging in Sara (and Bryan's) loft.

Wedding Awesomeness

Y'all, my sistah's married!!

I'm telling you, BEST. PARTY. EVER. It was SOOOOO much fun. No big to-do...just two people in love, in front of God, family, and friends, saying they want to spend the rest of their lives together. It couldn't have been more perfect. Sara looked like an angel. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true.

Late Friday afternoon, I went with Sara and some of her best friends to get our nails did. I've only had one other professional manicure in my life and the experience was...meh. Paid $20 for something I could do myself. But this other place we went to was great. The ambiance was soothing. They had these waterfall walls. I want one in the house. Probably not a good idea with kids, but still. I just got a manicure, because you know me and feet. Blegh. But it came with a hand massage. I felt so pampered. And my nails turned out quite fancy.

Then, we went to decorate! This place, called Ted's Garage, is downtown, and has all of these old and fancy pants cars that people store there. It was awesome! Malinda recommended it and Sara and Bryan fell in love with it immediately.

Sara had this girl on Etsy make a ton of paper flowers for her. Her bouquet was the same, except different shades of blue. The rocks around the bottom are actually glass. Bryan's company is in the lumber industry. When they send trees through this process to burn the bark on the outside, sand underneath the bark falls out, melts together, and forms these beautiful chunks of blue glass. For their first date, Bryan brought Sara a "bouquet of glass" and a pig's foot. Yep. Sara had some of the shards tumbled and made into these beautiful necklaces.

I cut my finger dusting the glass dust off the table. It was a minor medical emergency. Not really. Just a tiny drop of blood that smeared when I closed my hand.

I'm Bryan and Noah is Bro. Gene. The most moving performance came from Sara...as herself. Oscar nomination material, people.

The gals. L to R: Meredith, Heather, Sara, Me, and Kim (O, Canada!)

Saturday morning! Blah, I hate doing my hair. But, I'd do it for my sister. I wanted to do a loose chignon on the side, but after watching 17 different tutorials and breaking 982 bobby pins, I gave up and wore the mess down.

We all met up to hang with Sara as she got her hair did by Ruthanne.

She went through many stages in the process. This is LION stage.

This is WHAT THE HECK stage.

This is 1970's FABULOUSNESS stage.

This is PERFECTION stage.

The artist and her creation. Ha, makes Sara sound like Frankenbride.

I have zero pictures from the rest of the day (except one), because we were eating, dancing, laughing, and wrangling two very fast rugrats. But I know Eric took some AMAZING pictures and I can't wait to see them. I'll share some with you once Sara gets them. The food was incredible. Catered by the Fish Market. They had a sushi bar. And I normally hate sushi, but I tried some...y'all...oh my word. It was so good. Malinda made the cupcakes. Divine. Audry made the wedding cake. Beautiful.

It was an absolutely perfect day and it makes me thrilled beyond words to see my sister so happy with the man of her dreams. I know he is most definitely the one that completes her and it was an honor to get to be a part of their day. So happy for them! I love you both! Bring me back some Tahitian vanilla. Wear sunscreen!

And Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the Moms!! Y'all rock the world. :)

Undies Shower

When God created all, I think He took a moment to mark in His calendar (ha, like He needs a calendar) and dub this week "Ruth's Week O' Perspective," because that is definitely what this week has been for me. In a huge way.

What does "perspective" have to do with the title of his post? Well, it doesn't...other than the fact that perspectively, we all should wear undies. I'll delve into that next week (the perspective part, not the undies part), but since tomorrow my big sis is GITTIN' HITCHED, I thought I'd share with you the pictures from her undies shower. And as I went through the pictures, I realized I had very few pictures of actual people. And that's why I'm not a photo journalist.

We had some fabulous food (I didn't get pictures of all of it, either). I ate entirely too much, but as always, it was worth it.

I made some orange cream cupcakes. This time with a pound cake bottom instead of regular cake. I thought it'd hold up better when I filled it with the cream, but nope. Pound cake crumbles.

Boob cookies. Yes. Quick story behind these...several years ago, we had a work baby shower for a manager at a company I used to work for. He and his wife were expecting a little girl. I volunteered to bring cookies. This is my great-grandmother's tea cake recipe and I make a sugar glaze to go on top, so it kind of makes petit four cookies. I thought it'd be nice to have a pink glaze, because you know, a girl. The glaze had always been kind of a cloudy clear before, if that makes sense. The cookies come out, nice and mounded. I pour the glaze over, a beautiful soft pink. I put a dollop of cream cheese icing on top for decoration. I cover them carefully with aluminum foil that night to let the glaze finish hardening. The next morning, I carried them, still covered with foil, to work. Everybody set their goodies out on the table and when it was time for the shower, the art director went around and uncovered everything. I was at my desk when I heard, "Ha! Who made boob cookies?!" I immediately thought, Oh my word, how inappropriate. This is a baby shower! What a PERV!

Of course, everybody runs up to see these tasteless desserts some freak had brought. I was appalled to realize it was my petit four cookies. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I'M THE PERV!!!! The manager, whose wife was having the baby, ran up and grabbed two, holding them to his chest, while all the guys took pictures with their phones. Awesome. The pink glaze had dried a little more transparent than assumed and the yellow cookie showed through to create a very nice flesh tone. The icing dollop was the perfect finish.

So, I don't make these for baby showers anymore. Unless it's green themed (tried it with blue icing, came out green). But they're perfect for lingerie showers.

Kim's delicious Canadian granola.

Whoever came up with cream cheese, jelly, and crackers...I bow to you.

Linder Pants, sampling the food.

Purty flowers.

The night before, we cut out little triangles and the words SARA AND BRYAN to make a flag banner. Mom put it together. That's all I'm going to say.

We played a game where everybody drew a picture of Sara and Bryan on their 50th wedding anniversary and Sara picked her favorite. Sara, I didn't know Dr. Avery was a leftie! Heh...lefties are so funny.

Malinda won!

We played another game where we asked Sara questions that Bryan had already answered to see how well they matched up. Pretty good! The bonus question helped them out..."What happened in 1814?" They both got it right. So proud of Bry Bry. So, Sara won a bag of stuff they might need for el honeymoon. I blurred it out because I know some younger folks look at the pictures. But, the products rhyme with Shrojan and Hey Bye Helly. She also got some super cute stuff. I hope you packed it all, Sara. Hey, you're getting married tomorrow!!

The Simple Things

Simple things...

A monitor that works. (You're gonna get an earful tomorrow, Apple. New Dell monitor that sweet Hugs picked up for me and soon-to-be-dual-monitor-once-Apple-fixes-my-cinema-display-FO-FREE, you lookin' mighty fine my friend.)

Two hugs and two slobbery kisses for no reason other than just because.

Harper coming to me and matter of factly stating, "Ch...chicky...ch ch cheeeee..." Me asking, "You want some cheese?" A resounding "yes" with the nod of her head.

Easter candy 75% off...Reese's butter cup eggs, come to mama.

A sprinkler on a warm Summer's day.

This means they're up to something...planning...always planning...

Chin, chin, chin, chin, chin...I see five.

Hmmm...a little sharp...

Quiet, quiet please. Hmmm...la la laaaaaa mi mi miiiiiii...still sharp. QUIET. Tuning a spinkler harp is an art. One that requires absolute silence and respect.

Ah yes...*pluck pluck*...perfection. I give you "A Water's Lullaby...in G minor."

The neighborhood kids cowered behind bushes and ran to the safety of their porches when Large Marge walked the streets.

Wh--whaaaah? Li'l ole me? Why I nevah did nuthin' wrong. Why evah would you assume that?

Probably cuz I did it.