Good News

I apparently one day prematurely lost hope in the computer.  It's paralysis has become slight quirks that are only the slightest bit annoying!  I'm feeling so happy about this.  (And the less than 30 seconds it took me to type this post.)

Oh and thanks on informing me of different ways to dispose of computers.  I do still have another computer to get rid of, so all of your comments are still very helpful.

Thanks for ways to make this computer still work too.  By the time I got any of those comments, it was already working better, but I'll keep them in mind for any repeat situations for sure!

Our family and friends are awesome (yeah you)!  

Compliment

I got paid a wonderful compliment! A nice lady in church paid me this through Vidalia (isn't it funny how we adults communicate through children, especially ones that can't talk?)

She told Vidalia that if you she can grow up with Melissa's beauty and my sense of humor she'll be all set. Well, Melissa is beautiful that's obvious, is it possible someone could fail to notice how strikingly gorgeous she is?

But me having a noticeable sense of humor, that I was unaware of. I know that I do in fact laugh. I did not know that it was anything noticeable. I love humor! It is based on a feeling of security and if properly used can affirm a sense of well-being and peace. Humor truly is our best friend.

Aren't compliments great? And especially great is when I can take an insult as a compliment. Insults are just an invitation for me to consider what the person said and reaffirm the truth.

So all, if you're thinking something nice about someone that just might give them a boost and build their confidence, say it! That's the kind of world I want to live in. :)

Bad News

The good news is that this bad news does not invalidate any of the good news I've told you.

The bad news is that it took me 3 minutes to type that last sentence.  :(

A couple days ago Vidalia poured milk into this laptop (it is our only one that connects to the internet).

Good news is it survived.  Bad news is not without some very annoying paralysis, like hitting each key several times until it responds how you expect.  I guess we'll be getting a new computer sooner than I was planning.

Updates currently on hold.

Oh, and does anyone know the proper way to dispose of a computer?

Mudslinging

Before I saw this ad, Ron Paul had my vote without reservation.  I was under the impression that he didn't feel the need to dirty his campaign like the rest of them with mudslinging.  

My question to everybody is this: Is mudslinging truly necessary to elect our leaders?  

I submit that it is not.  

Why can't each candidate simply state what he has to offer rather than trying to say that he is simply the least corrupt of the bunch.  This type of campaigning can give fuel to an argument against free elections.  An argument that might state that it divides the people.

Any thoughts on this are welcome.

If I ever run for office, I will refuse to engage in this kind of activity, even if it cost me the election.

Come the major election in November, President Obama will have all of his campaign work done because whoever the Republican candidate turns out to be will already have had a large volume of attacks from other republicans.  This kind of campaigning makes me more inclined to seriously consider a third party candidate.

Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSVi45vfA6o

Vidalia's Recent Obsessions

Lately Vidalia has been obsessed with headbands and dolls and not getting out of her crib when she's done napping.  I put my hands out to her to pick her up and she points to the dolls on the floor and grunts and says "Da da da!" until I put them in the crib for her.  Then she hugs them and kisses them and holds them on her shoulder.  I really don't know exactly where she learned this.  We only interact with other children at church (for the most part) and only once have we watched a little baby at our house and he was quite content to not be held most of the time.  Anyhow, she suddenly loves dolls.  It just kind of shows me that some gender things are in fact inborn.  We didn't push dolls on her.  She plays with stereotypical boy things too, but some things she does are just girly and for no reason I can see.

Headbands she doesn't particularly like to keep on her head, except that she loves to pick out a headband and have me put it on her head.  She then immediately picks another and I put that on her head and then another and another etc. until we get close to having no more head bands.  So funny of her.  She looks silly and I think she knows too.  I've showed her in the mirror and she just laughs and then pulls them off.  She's such a funny girl.  Oh, and since we're talking about cribs, she still likes to pick up her blankets and hand them to us (or throw them on the floor) before getting out of bed, though when she plays in her crib before getting out, she often forgets.

Disclaimer: I know some of these pictures are just terrible.  I used my phone and she wouldn't stay still.  You know how it goes, right?

The Rounds

I'm super excited to move, so I've been packing up what I can.  (It also looks like I will have 1 day to get everything moved and cleaned.  Then I'm off to Utah for a visit, so I'm trying to be prepared for that day.  It's gonna be busy.)

It's Winter and the water melts into our garage, so I pack boxes and then decide where I can start stacking them.  

Apparently these three boxes are the perfect climbing boxes for Vidalia, so several times each day she does her rounds, up one side, down the other.  Occasionally stopping at the top to read a book or drink her milk and always to point to things and try to convince me to get them for her.

(Sorry about the blurry pictures.  They're from my phone.)

Little Lambs and Eager Beavers

One of Ryan's co-workers has been inviting us to bring Vidalia to her church (Seventh Day Adventist) for an age appropriate Bible Study Group for quite a while now.  It's called Little Lambs and Eager Beavers.  Apparently girls are lambs and boy are beavers.  Who knew?  We finally made it this week.

Vidalia had a lot of fun.  There were three other kids there and they were all 2 or 3.  The other kids liked Vidalia and she liked them too.  One of the boys was super cute to her.  He walked up to me and said, "I think the baby wants to come color by me."  I told him he was right and that's exactly what Vidalia did.  And by exactly, well, Vidalia doesn't get coloring.  Sometimes I think it's more that it's not interesting to her.  She'll do a little bit of scribbling, but what she would rather do is take the crayons out and put them back in over and over again.

Anyhow, they had a little lesson, a couple little activities, and then just played a lot.  They had a giant horse and all the kids took turns riding it.  It was super fun for them.  They gave us a schedule.  Perhaps we'll go back again sometime.

We like to make sure that when people invite us to things that are not part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that we attend.  (Unless it interferes with ours, of course.)  I feel the same way about literature as well.  When I give someone a Book of Mormon, I give it to them because I honestly care about them.  I want them to read it and come to know what I know.  To know how much they are worth and the amazing plan that Heavenly Father has created for us and made possible for us through Jesus Christ.  I really expect people to take me seriously about religion, so I do the same with others and their religions.  (The only exceptions being: I will not participate with anything that conflicts with my morals and values or makes me feel creepy and any literature or talk that is anti-anything is never taken seriously by me.  If you want to convince me that something is good, show it to me, don't try to prove to me that it is better than everything else.  If it is better than everything else, it will do that for itself.) 

The end of my religious Saga.

The Day It Snowed Two Feet

These pictures were taken before there was 2 feet.  We got 1 foot over night and another foot throughout the day.  I only took pictures in the morning.  Why?  I do not know, but that is indeed what happened.  Still, can you imagine our surprise.  There was no snow the day before.  The two days before that were reaching 70.  Then we wake up one morning to this.  If this is our whole Winter, then I'm in love with this Winter.

Brilliant Ideas: Climbing in the Cupboard

Sponge Curlers

One night I handed V the bag of sponge curlers and she was amused with pulling them out of the bag and putting them back in for so long.  It was amazing!  And enabled me to do this.

Sadly she had pulled every last one out before I got her out of bed in the morning.  We'll try again when she has more hair.

The Mall

If you don't know already, in this family we are super suckers for the word free.  It sometimes leads us to do things or go places we wouldn't normally.  On one such occasion (2 weeks ago) we ended up at the mall, since Panda Express was giving away free chicken and the only Panda Express in Lincoln seems to be at the mall.  (This is a downtown mall, not to be confused with the outdoor mall that's super super close to us.)  Ryan didn't know what to do/think at first.  He though bleh of the mall and yay of free chicken, so we did enter the mall and we did have free chicken for lunch.

We were later walking through the mall when we found an area of those ride on feed us coins for kids areas.  You know what I'm talking about?  If you don't, you will.  Do you think Vidalia liked it?

And she played so hard that this happened on the way to the grocery store.

And I'm a bigger fan of samples at stores than ever.  They keep her so entertained and then the groceries remain in the cart and when she does sit in the seat, she's not wiggling out every 5 seconds and turning around to throw things to the floor.  And then I sometimes don't need to feed her lunch because she already ate a piece of bread, and some crackers, and some fruit, and some cheese, and some sausage, and some cookies, etc.  That and as I mentioned before, everything is better when it's free.

Weather Update

We've been having some really interesting (and amazingly lovely) weather here this winter.  Pretty much, I've been in love with it.  On Monday, it was in the 70s.  As I have already mentioned, we went to the park and it was swarming with people dressed in summer attire.  The next two days were also lets take walks, play outside, go to the park days as well.

Notice: Short sleeves, capris, and boots (only because I felt bad about her bare feet).  She pulled them off and I stuck them in the back of the stroller.  So really capris and boots.  That's how we've been rolling this Winter.  

Yesterday it rained and rained and rained.  The whole day.  Apparently it's important to the farmers that it rains around here.  I can deal with that.

Last night at midnight, it was still raining.

This morning we woke up and, well, lets just say we were snowed-in and running late.

Don't be fooled that this doesn't look like a lot of snow.  Notice how much of the mail boxes you can see.  I think I took this picture around 10:30 this morning.  I happen to know the walk had been shoveled twice.  Someday when I upload the few pictures I took with the camera (if they're any good) I'll show what it was really like.  Let's just say there was 13 inches of snow at 10 am.  We went out and played.  We got Vidalia all bundled up, walked outside and stuck her in the a giant snow pile.  She seemed to think it was funny at first.  Ryan needed to be at work at 11, so we pulled out the shovel to start moving snow from behind the car.  That's when I thought to myself, "This is dangerous.  Why is he going to work?"  I convinced him it was a bad day to work.  He made some calls and that was that. He was feeling a little guilty about it at first, but it helped to find out that all of his TR co-workers had also called in and nobody was running groups today.  It must have been a really boring day for the patients at the LRC.  As for us though, we did so many fun things.  We cleaned and played with the baby and did dishes and watched part of a debate (and came to the conclusion that we can pretty much predict what all the candidates will say after how many of the debates we've seen) and played in the snow.

We tried to take Vidalia sledding...on the pilates mat, since we don't have a sled.  She thought it was fun at first, but inevitably after a few seconds she would fall over.  We tried to sled in our backyard, but the snow was so deep (at least 2 feet by this time) that it just wasn't working.  We remembered we owned inner tubes, but by the time it was blown up, Vidalia was done.  This was her first snow experience.  Success!  She liked it.  She's also just one, so playing wasn't as long as Ry and I would have liked.

Lessons from this Saturday...

• It's so fun to have Ryan home on a Saturday just because that I almost wish this had not happened.
• If there is only one or two good snow storms each winter and they're not long-lived then Winter and I might get along (like this year) or maybe I should just move.
• It's a thousand times easier to actually get things picked up and cleaned and put-away with Ryan's help.