9 going on 19...

elisabeth age 2!

and now...

it's hard to believe my baby girl's 9 years old! she's so tall, she looks like she could be pushing 11. people mistake her for being older quite a bit. she's wearing size 12 jeans and size 7 1/2 shoes (women's sizes)! elisabeth is just growing up before my eyes, and i can't slow it down no matter how much i want to! she's pretty cool and fun to hang around with, loves girly fashion stuff, but not too frufru. she decided to try to do something with her hair and her pencils while doing homework, and it turned out pretty cute! now she does this all of the time! she's always loved posing for pictures and showing off. she also has a really big heart and wants to please everyone. she helps with her baby brother, likes to help in the kitchen, and will clean the whole house by herself...just don't ask her to clean her room! at this point in time, she wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up...and a "nature girl" (taking care of the planet and the animals). it's pretty cool that she helps us remember to bring the reusable grocery bags, recycle stuff, and wants to grow things.

for her b'day this year we let her friend kristina spend the night, and the three of us went to the mall. they got bff necklaces and initial earrings, and we ate some giant chocolate chip cookies while walking around. they even got to see a high school girl (her mom's a friend and wanted my opinion) trying on prom dresses and play around with the glamorous dresses themselves. as "fashion" oriented as they are, they think skimpy bikinis on build-a-bears are gross, put up their hands as blinders when walking past victoria's secret, and told my friend's daughter that her dress was cut too low in the front! good girls! :) she's growing up fast, but hopefully some of the values i witnessed at the mall will continue on through the "fun" teen years...

...happy 9th b'day elisabeth, i hope it's an amazing year for you!

(updated...on 3/3) we went to texas roadhouse for her b'day dinner, here's a pic...

still organizing...

schoolwork this time.

i just sat down with one of my handy-dandy notebooks and wrote out all of my assignments for the rest of the semester. i can't believe the semester is more than 1/3 of the way over now, and there's so much i need to do! i'm a bit behind on a couple of classes, one of them i'm way behind on because they didn't give me access to it on blackboard until the end of the 4th week, then i had to wait to get the book on cd from the professor. so yay, i get to play catch-up now...fun.

i'm taking a test today and doing an article analysis for one class, need to do a book critique and chapter quiz for another class, need to do a report on art & science in culture in another, do a research article review in yet another class, have to do four chapter summaries in a class in which i'm behind, and all of the catch-up stuff for the class i've just gotten all of the resources for. that's all that's due this week (or prior to this week). the first one listed has to be done today, everything else by friday. it will most likely be saturday or sunday for some of the stuff though. but if i can get it all caught up by the end of sunday, i'll be happy with that progress, then i'll be on top of it all and won't have anything late after that. seven classes...it's a LOT of work. i wish i could have my degree at the end of the semester to show for it all, but unfortunately i have one class left to take this summer. (hopefully i can start on it a week or two early and finish it a month or so early, we'll see.)

hopefully the "mail fairy" will come and bring my financial aid check today too. money is just killing us right now (or actually, lack of it)! if it doesn't come today, i'm going to scream! they were supposedly processing it on 2/3, and supposedly they have 10 days to get the checks out after the funds are released...they were a bit late in that one, don't you think? i'm not thrilled with their financial aid disbursement practices, they've been late every semester for me, and it seems like they get later and later each time. oh well, it will be over soon-ish, right?

i'm hoping to get all of this done so i can try to work on things that i need/want to do around here. i have a dresser half painted, but need to get pulls for it (need the money to come first). once it's painted, along with the bookcase, they'll both go in my room. then i need to paint the armoire for thad's nursery. once they're all out of the way, we can go pick up our treadmill that our friends are giving us for free! i so need to start working out, and once a treadmill is here, there will be no excuse. i can't wait! (hopefully all of this will happen by the end of the weekend, including jerry picking up the treadmill.)

heading back into the books now...

exhausted and didn't do squat...

today! yesterday i took nick to the allergist, jerry met us there and brought the boys home. then i took elisabeth to her appointment. it was an exhausting day. i also did three assignments for school, and we went to elisabeth's end of season soccer team party at amicci's pizza.

today? nada, nothing. i woke up with a killer headache (had it all day yesterday too). i ended up going back to sleep with thad for most of the morning. i still haven't done much of anything today besides loading the dishwasher. i have a lot of school stuff that needs done, but there's always tomorrow...and i have a test tomorrow too.

going to bed super early (for me) tonight. (anything before 11 is early!) good night!

creative stuff...

i've been trying to get things organized around the house so that i can focus on things i "want" to do, without being distracted by all of the things that need done. two things i want to do more: workout and create stuff so in order to do that i have to clean out the garage so i can finally set up our home gym area (need a treadmill and a few more free weights for the weight machine), and get the master bedroom better organized so i can set up a better work space for sewing and crafting (no, not my first choice of locations, but it's all i've got for now). in order to do either one of these, the first thing that needs to be done is to paint a dresser and bookcase i found that someone set on the curb for "free". they will go in our room and probably hold sewing stuff. i also need to paint the armoire for the baby's nursery, and then organize the rest of the garage.

i'm just so tired of only focusing on schoolwork and housework, but finding it impossible to get better organized. i started on nick's room, did the family room yesterday, and am now working on the master bedroom and garage somewhat simultaneously. once my work area is set up, then the front room (living/dining rooms) can be free of my "crafty junk".

there are so many projects i have that need to be done, but with it being so chaotic, nothing ever gets finished, even if i get started. one thing that just popped up on my crafty/thrifty radar is this really cool, simple and cheap
scented diffuser.

hopefully soon i'll be organized and can start really posting great stuff to my creative blog and showing progress on my transition to healthy.

tote, journal and heat relaxer giveaway...

check out this giveaway and enter...it's full of amazingly beautiful items!!!

good luck!

pecan chocolate chip tea cookies...

...dipped in milk=breakfast of champions!!!

i was stressed yesterday, and yes, i gave in to my habit of stress-eating...i made chocolate chip cookies, but i found an awesome recipe that was just amazing. you make these to-die-for tea cookies. you can make them plain, or add different flavorings or spices, or different additives (such as pecans, chocolate chips, etc.) to change them up. i added a dash of cinnamon, vanilla, pecans and choco chips...they are absolutely y.u.m.!!!

the cookie dough was great, they melt-in-your-mouth fresh from the oven, and they make a great breakfast when dipped in milk too! the perfect all-around cookie! try them, you'll see...

okay, back to my regularly scheduled school work...

i don't want to go...

the more i've thought about it, the more i do not want to go to kansas this summer. i haven't seen my brothers in 6 years, or my nieces and nephews, so i would love to see them of course. but since i'm on leave, money is really tight and i honestly don't know how we'll be able to swing a trip out there at all. on top of that, nick now needs sinus surgery (yes, again) because of his allergies. kansas in june = wheat harvest + johnson grass...not a good equation for a kid with bad allergies, especially after surgery. so we'll see.

i've started looking for a job of some kind, but with taking 7 college classes and dealing with a baby and older kids too, that's going to be really hard. i need to make a certain amount if i do go to work to make it worth my time, otherwise, there's no need to bother. we'll see there too.

i wish i could just snap my fingers and fix everything that is not going well around here, but i can't. so i don't dwell on it all and figure it will all turn out okay in the end...even though the end isn't in sight at times.

it's 3 a.m. i just folded a bunch of laundry, filled the dryer and re-filled the washer. i have school assignments to do, i need to clean the house for the sitter for today, and i need to go back to sleep. i think i'll go back to bed for a couple of hours and then get up and do the quick-clean for the sitter's arrival. i do need sleep...

okay, enough for my middle-of-the-night ramblings, i doubt they make a lot of sense!

crazy clean-up...

it wasn't my plan to start with the room i'm in today, but due to certain "issues" regarding the occupant of the room, it was necessary. the tv and ipod dock were the first to go. the phone and ipod will be confiscated this afternoon. to say we're lowering the boom would be putting it lightly.

i'm tired of having to babysit kids with their homework and it's going to stop, because it's taking away from things i need to do with my own schoolwork, housework, leisure time, and things i "want" to do like sewing/knitting (which get pushed to the side because i have other pressing things that i "have" to do first).

my plan for housework stuff today was to do laundry and work on getting EVERYTHING put away properly. but plans change, so it's clean out this room and lower the boom (rhymes!). laundry will still be washed, but probably won't get put away unfortunately.

i also need to focus on some school work (majorly and soon) because soccer tournaments and doctor's appointments have been getting in the way and i need to get some stuff done today too.

kid #2's room is next...

otters, and geese, and ducks, oh my!

today was the weirdest day as far as wildlife is concerned in my neighborhood. i live in a subdivision, which is full of "waterfront" lots, because we have several man-made lakes (aka retention ponds) because of the phosphate mine that used to be here and the digging that they did for it. anyway, it was definitely a "wild" day...

first off, when i let the dog out to do his "business" this morning, there were probably 50 cattle egrets sitting on the bank of the lake behind our house. luckily rocky decided to listen to me, rather than trying to make some new "friends." we see these birds all of the time, but not normally in such large numbers.

about an hour later, as i was driving nick to school, three otters ran across the road at a spot where there is a lake on each side of the road (so for them it was a straight shot from one lake to the other, just a street and a couple of sidewalks in the way). i actually pulled up on the grass on the left side of the street so we could see over the bank and take a gander...they were swimming and diving under water, looking just as you would expect otters to be, playful and having fun...kind of made me think of a few kids cutting school to go swimming.

speaking of ganders... later in the morning, once elisabeth left for the bus, thad and i left to run a couple of pressing errands and get some groceries. in the exact.same.spot. there were 5-6 geese crossing the road. two of them are gray and the rest are white. they showed up in the fall, so i'm assuming they're "snow birds". they left the same lake the otters left and were heading toward the same place where the otters entered the water. weirdest thing!

and as if that weren't strange enough, as i was still driving out to run those errands, i drove through the roundabout and was leaving our subdivision when lo and behold two mallard ducks (a male and a female) were crossing my lane and heading toward the median. they actually kind of freaked out and weren't sure what to do, so i stopped as quickly as i could so they could just go on their merry way, which they did. (i'm pretty sure they're "snow birds" too, we don't normally see ducks and geese in our neighborhood in the summer.)

on the way home from the errand/grocery run, in the same place where i saw the otters and geese, there were sandhill cranes. now that's not very unusual here because these gigantic birds walk around all the time, digging their beaks into the ground for food, leaving lovely holes in your yard as they do. they are normally seen in pairs, because they stay with one mate for life, and sometimes they have a baby or two who tag along, but it's too early in the season for babies at the moment. what was unusual about this particular sighting is that there were six sandhill cranes in one spot. i have never in my life seen this many just hanging out together, and i've lived in florida for a total of ten years (eight in our current town). it was pretty amazing.

so today was just that, amazing. seeing all of these creatures "hanging out in the 'hood"...i think God was trying to show me something, or at least trying to get me to open up my eyes a little bit more. i think they've been a bit preoccupied with other things to notice His stuff and He was doing what He could to get me to pay a bit of attention...i guess it worked, because now i'm on the lookout for some amazing things. wonder what He's got going on next? i have some ideas, but it may be much more amazing than i could ever even fathom. (thanks for the view God!)

book giveaway

a recent blog find is having a cute book giveaway. the book looks like it has great illustrations and an amazing message about dreaming. check it out!

valentine's...

it's 2:30 a.m., i should be in bed, i know...but i'm not.

we were able to go out on a "date" this evening because elisabeth went to the relay for life fundraiser night at school (movie night) and nick went to a party. we did have the baby, and we really only had a 2 hour window because of how the start/end times fell for the kids' activities.

we decided to head to our new mall, the shoppes at wiregrass, and attempted to try out the grillsmith, but even though the wait wasn't bad, we decided it would be cutting things too close for picking up elisabeth from the school event. so we headed to cosi cafe to try it out. i had their duo deal and ordered a "grilled chicken t.b.m." sandwich with their signature salad and a side of baby carrots, while jerry ordered the "turkey light" sandwich with the "tomato basil aurora" soup. i went up and purchased one of their oversized, 6" chocolate chip cookies for us to share for dessert...yum! all of it was really good and the atmosphere was pretty cool too. we chose to sit at a high top, but they had this really cool "big comfy couch" that was about 10-12 feet long that accommodated two tables' worth of space. if the kids were with us, i'm sure we would have opted to sit there. i definitely want to try it out again soon and try the "four cheese and fig melt" which has brie, cheddar, swiss and provolone with fig spread inside one of their flat breads.

i'm sure we'll head to grillsmith to try it out soon, but this made for a nice quick evening dinner since time was limited. we walked around the shopping area for just a bit and stepped into pottery barn to peruse the merchandise before heading out.

we enjoyed our evening, elisabeth had a blast hanging out with friends at the school afterhours, and nick went to his party then hung out at a friend's house until 1:00 a.m. (the time i picked him up because jerry and i both dozed off and didn't get there at midnight like we'd planned). if it weren't for the soccer tournament this weekend, nick would've spent the night, but he still got to hang out with the guys for awhile anyway.

"a nice time was had by all"...

14 years ago today...

nick's 3rd b'day...

i was in the hospital in orlando, fl snuggling with my first new baby boy. wow, i can hardly believe it has been that long since i became a mommy! what's even harder to imagine is all of the things that life has brought in those 14 years. a lot of changes and a lot of tough times, but a lot of great times too. one of these days i'll get my scanner going and upload some great pics of when he was little and we'll take a little "walk down memory lane" (much to his chagrin, i'm sure!)...

my favorite picture of him as a little boy is when we were on a pastor's retreat at snowshoe, wv in august. the retreat was over and we were heading home and decided to take a detour to summit lake and look around a bit. there was an old hand pump water well right in the middle of the area between the lake and parking lot and we decided to show nick how it works. you pump the handle, wait, then the water comes out. he saw this happen a couple of times and would try to get a drink of the water but it would stop before he could get any. he decided to put his head up there to get a drink as jerry was pumping it, and he ended up soaked. i got a picture of it just as the water was coming down on his head! (i just remembered...this is the summer the "macarena" came out and we were watching something about it on the tv in the room at snowshoe...that's where we learned the dance. haha)

some of my favorite memories of when he was little is how much he loved super heroes. he could climb like spiderman through the hallway at his grandma's house. he would climb up the wall at the living room end of the hall until he was at least 4-5 feet up the wall, then he would climb the length of the hall at that height! one time he thought he was superman and wanted to try to fly off the 4th level of a parking garage...luckily i figured out why he wanted to look over the edge! another time he insisted he needed his superman pajamas to be in his diaper bag at church (because i wouldn't let him wear it to church)...when i went to pick him up the lady in the nursery had let him put the shirt on, cape and all, and he took off running around the church grounds with his arms out the sides, cape blowing in the wind and yelling "i'm superman, i'm superman!" as he was weaving in and out between the church members...good times!

now he's 14, he still makes me laugh on a daily basis, and he gives me at least three hugs every night before he finally makes it into his room to go to bed. he is turning into such a great guy, not that i ever doubted he would, but it makes me so satisfied to see how he is turning out. through all of the changes, tough times and all, he is amazing!

i'll close this post with an essay he wrote for school this week:

Changing Diversity
by Nick Bolt


“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”
– C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis’ outlook is that of which we should all strive to emulate. We better our selves, change ourselves, or else we will become gangrenous. However, we must take small steps, because you cannot aim above your resources and ability. Things must be immediately attainable with ability to serve in the future. For me, it is getting a college education so I can better serve my community. I then can go into the work field and support my views with tangible monetary backing. I can encourage better recycling programs and suggest new ways to make cleaner power. My voice could back lessons that are more diverse in the classroom, so that students can learn about different social groups for more than just a month at a time.

Indeed a college degree helps one’s chances of positively impacting their community, but there are different levels. Monetarily contributing to certain causes with income gained through your college education. A degree isn’t always necessary, many people create new charities and projects that unfortunately rely on donations. Though seldom successfully combined, a person who manages to back their own cause can succeed more than the latter examples. Personally, I hope to enter the field of Biomedical Engineering, a lucrative career path where I could sustain my own projects and help to better the state of Florida.

For instance, I would like to see more eco-friendly energy sources of power. A great addition to a “green” source of power would be a way to recycle simultaneously. With processes that can turn landfills into methane energy, it is definitely possible.

Eventually I would also like to see more, maybe organize, assorted themes in subjects like American and World History. Instead of focusing on African American views during certain events in history for a single month, show them more often through the whole of a curriculum. These short periods seem overly pandering and sometimes malodorous. By incorporating these concepts into everyday lessons, students can have an open view of events in the world and our country. While parents may continually instill their passively biased views, eventually broad-minded outlooks of future generations will abolish these dauntingly narrow-minded ideals.

In brief, my plans to better our state and my community are rooted in various areas, though all stem from one main obstacle, higher education. My hopes of alternative recycling-based electricity and diverse historical views in textbooks could be fulfilled by anyone with the determination to do so. To like-minded people who wish for such high goals, I would urge them to heed the words of Mother Teresa, a forerunner in diversity around the world, “Do not wait for leaders: do it alone, person to person.”

sick and tired...

literally. i started getting a scratchy throat on monday and now i'm in a full-blown cold of some kind on thursday, this stinks! i've been running a fever off and on for a couple days, my nose is stuffed up on the right side, my right eye has been running like a faucet all day, and my right ear is stopped up so it sounds like i have my finger stuck in my ear. i made it to the chiropractor yesterday, so i feel much better where my back and neck are concerned, it helped so so much to get an adjustment!

so i missed both of my days of doing my practicum work this week and will have to convince my sitter to stay over a few times to make up for it. if i can pull it off without missing any more days, i can have my hours done by the end of march. it would be great to be finished early to give myself the extra time to focus on the other six classes i'm taking.

i've decided that i need to be more organized and utilize better time management skills (that's kind of obvious when you consider a 5 month-old baby, 21 credit hours of college classes, marriage, an elementary school-aged daughter, and a teen-aged son...and then look at my house). so once i get past this week's worth of schoolwork, i am going to sit down and make a schedule for myself to stick to. i know with kids things will come up to change the schedule, but if i have a basic schedule for the the days i'm home and stick to it, i could probably actually have time to do things i "want" to do like sewing and knitting, among other things. so i'll check in next week and let you know how i'm doing. if you have any tips or suggestions, feel free to share! my "priority" is to finish the knitted diaper covers for my photographer friend laura at toddlerazzi. then i will focus on finishing the nursery (yes, he's 5 months old) and the next "project" is re-doing nick's room. somewhere in there i need to finish sewing the burp cloths for mister slobbers, and his set of cloth diapers too. i guess those are kind of at the top of the list also.

okay, off to take some medicine and work on school stuff...