Smooth(ie) Operator.

Ezra has always LOVED his fruit. Bananas, strawberries, applesauce... he could eat them all day long if I let him. But about two weeks ago, he refused to eat his morning banana- and since that morning this kid has refused to eat a SINGLE bite of fruit (except for the spoonful or two of organic applesauce I tricked him into eating a few days ago). He was distracted by something and I shoved two bites in his mouth before he realized what happened and started spitting it out. Niiiice.

At first, I wasn't too concerned about it. I just kept giving him the fruit with his meals. And then I kept throwing the fruit out after every meal. After two weeks of this, I was starting to get frustrated. I began trying to come up with sneaky ways to trick him into eating fruit again. (Should I sneak it into his PB&J? His quesedilla?? Uck.) Nothing was working.

And then I finally pulled my head out of my arse (after TWO LOOONG WEEKS) and put some fruit in a blender with some soy milk and made the kid a smoothie.

Float like a buddafly, sting like a beeeee.

Now I just need to figure out how to make vegetables look good.

(I think he's convinced that all vegetables are, in reality, nothing more than toe jam.)

Gravitational Pull.

No matter how relieved I am every evening at 8:00 when Ezra is tucked into his little bed- all comfy and cozy and sound asleep... no matter how much I've been looking forward to a quiet house and a good book... no matter how batty he's driven me during the course of the day... there is a gravitational pull that appears in the hallway by his door that I can't explain or deny once he's finally drifted off to his dreamy dreams. Every single night.

I get caught in it's force each night around 11:00, and my hand finds its own way to his little misshapen doorknob; the one with the chipped gold plating and that feels like it's made of tin and maybe I could crush it in my hand if I really wanted to.

I slowly open the door... and this is the part that gets me everytime... because all of the frustrations and worries and regrets and "NO. Ezra? Ezra what did I just say? Mommy said NO!'s", they stay on the other side of the door as I tiptoe across his carpet and think about how the moonlight coming through his blinds looks so... so... organized in its straight little rows on the floor.

I breathe deeply because, at this time of night, his is the most peaceful room in the house and it feels almost sacred. So, I breathe it in a little to get some of it into my lungs. My heart is always excited as I crawl into that little bed next to him and check his legs to make sure he's not too cold and I re-adjust his covers and place all THREE HUNDRED of his 'must-have bed toys' on the ground so that he isn't tossing and turning on little metal tractors and monster trucks all night long.

I brush the hair away from the nape of his neck and swoop it away from his eyes, and then I lean in next to his ear and whisper a weighty "I love you" that I almost wish he were awake to hear... just so he could understand how the words are so deep, they come from way down by my toes.

He smells like baby soap... I still buy the 'Johnson's Baby Wash' because that's baby smell in a bottle, aaaand I'll take 40 truckloads of it please and thankyouverymuch. If there's ever a shortage of 'Johnson's Baby Wash' in the stores, I don't want to be caught unprepared. It's the only link I have left to the days when he was new and I was afraid of breaking him if I held him wrong.

Then, I practically have to pull myself away from the very same boy I spend every other waking hour of my day with... quietly retracing my steps and then shutting the door behind me again with such care and respect that you'd think the room's contents were as fragile as a little paper kite.

Timothy Arthur.

Some Things I've Learned from My Doodad:
1. Don't sweat the small stuff!

2. Loyalty.

3. How to be a hard worker. (Not that I am one at all, but he sure is- and I definitely want to be more like him in that area.)

4. To keep my eyes on the big picture.

5. To take good care of the things I've been given.

6. How to NOT BE A PACK-RAT.

7. To roll with the punches and do what needs to be done.

8. To take risks in life and try new things without letting the unknown hold me back.

9. How to give good advice and see challenges from every angle before making a rash decision.

10. Integrity.

Happy Birthday, DooDad!
We love you and can't wait to see you!!!!

Because There Was Nothing Else To Do.

Jaxon Arthur.

Some Things I've Learned from my big brother Jaxon:
1. Compassion.

2. How to be accepting of everyone.

3. How to form my own opinions about things and not just believe whatever I'm being told.

4. What good music is.

5. How to make people laugh.

6. Sensitivity to other's feelings and opinions.

7. Rockin' fashion.

8. Thrift store shopping.

9. How to remain an individual and not lose my identity by trying to look and act like the crowd.

10. How to see the good in everyone.


Happy Birthday, Jaxie-poo!
You have always been an inspiration to me!

Memorial Day @ the Lake House!

ethan and ezra on their personal water taxi.


our friend don's brave roof jumping stunt.
(it was much more graceful once he was up there.)



cutest thing on earth.


the boys relaxing poolside


steve of the grill


see these little swim shorts he's wearing? They are vintage and I got them at the goodwill for 50 cents. Im going to make him wear them until he's 10 years old because they are just THAT CUTE... mwah!


After eating and playing games and diving in the pool, a few of us went on another golf cart ride. Only this time, instead of it being pitch black outside with nothing but a dim flashlight to light our path, it was pouring rain. Good times.

Hope your weekend was just as fantabulous!

The View from His Shoes.

Chris has been down and out the last couple of days, and he can't quite place his finger on the why. As a woman, I often have these down times where I have no idea what's going on inside my head and heart, but I just know that I'm sad and no amount of "what's wrongs?" are going to pull the answer out of me. I've never really seen Chris this way before, though. Feeling blue and full of shrugs.

It is so hard as a wife to not let your moods and emotions get tangled up in things that aren't about you in the first place. Like, the first couple of days after the funk set in were horrible because I immediatley took his bummed-outedness as a sign that he didn't want to be around me and that he thought I was a complete dolt and a subpar mommy. This was (obviously) ridiculous and not the case at all, but hey! I went there anyways! My head took the mopes and ran away with them into the extreme left field. (OK... let's say I was standing in the ballpark parking lot by the time I stopped running.)

Consequentially, I have been moping around these parts as well- sustaining the silence and letting my mind wander with thoughts of insecurity and anger.

It only took me three days or so to finally ask him what was wrong, and once I realized his sorrow wasn't a personal attack on me, then I was finally able to GET IT. Maybe he needs some cheering up... some random acts of kindness... some leading questions from the heart. Maybe, just maybe, my immediate defensive strategies aren't helping but are in fact (gasp!) making things worse.

I remember one of our premarital books asking a question along the lines of "Do you let your fiancee's moods dictate your own?"

I searched inward and quietly pondered for a moment and then wrote something to the effect of "Do monkeys fling poo?"

(loosley translated into A RESOUNDING YES.)

That got me thinking... Is it really even possible to keep MY moods entirely seperate from his?

This makes sense in some aspects- like, if he's just being a grumpy face for a silly reason, (usually brought on by hunger in our case), I shouldn't let it ruin my whole day.

But what about when the person you're living with is in a real funk and they can't figure out why? Am I supposed to remain cheerful while he's sad? Something about that just seems harsh, and maybe.. a little Stepford Wife-ish. (*shudder* and then *gag* from memories of HOW TERRIBLE THAT MOVIE WAS.)

I think this question is (like most every question in life) all about finding the balance. Empathy is a lot different than personally taking on someone's troubles as your own.

It means you really feel for them and you offer a shoulder to lean on and you put yourself in their shoes.

It doesn't mean, however, that you then go and put on their whole entire outfit as well.

So, here I am... a wife trying to stand in her husband's shoes without toppling over herself.

And from this precarious position, I'm realizing that this man unflinchingly carries a lot of responsibility on his shoulders.

His shoes be big.

And Then The Light Pours In.

This motherhood thing is like a big, fat, terrifying roller coaster- with its ups and downs and loopty loops- and the whole thing feels so out-of-control, but, the reality is that it's not. There is a tangible track that's been laid and the car follows where it is told to go. And it's bumpy and scary but also exhilarating and enlivening as long as you're trusting the design of the thing.

And, after talking to my own concerned mother last night, I realized that the ride doesn't end when your kid turns 18 and moves out of the house. My mom still worries about me and my precious brothers. She still wonders if there were things she could have done better. She still prays and prays that we will be happy and healthy and safe. Hearing her tell me that she is still on the roller coaster was, in some strange way, a comfort to me.

Because my mom is a mommying PRO after raising three kids successfully into adulthood. If anyone should have this thing figured out, it's her! And yet, she doesn't. She still finds the ride as bumpy and thrilling as when she first got on. So, I know that these feelings I have are normal, and I know that I will never reach a place in life where I can say "Oh, Okay.. now I get it! I've got this mommying thing DOWN!" and be able to click on the cruise control button. In some way, I think that just accepting the fact that it's never going to be easy or perfect is a huge step in the right direction for me.

To be honest, I think I believed that being a mom would work out like most everything else in my life: I would sail right through it without too much effort on my part. I would get an 'A' on the test without even having to study. (the story of my life in high school.) Most things in life have just seemed to "work out" for me, and this is the first time I've had to really lay my life down for someone else. Someone who is two and can't even communicate what he needs/wants me to do for him. And I think I have been subconsciously waiting for it to get better, to get easier- and in doing so I just keep setting myself up for disappointment... setting my hopes on a naive expectation, when I should have been spending more time embracing the character God has been trying to form in me.

I am wanting to look into some part-time work... something to get me out of the house a couple of days a week so that I can have more of a balance in my life. So that I can be excited about being a mom again. I think this is important because, like my mom says, your kids can definitely tell when you aren't excited about what you're doing at home. It would be good for both of us.

Looking for a job and arranging for childcare seem like huge obstacles to me right now. I have a tendency to become completely overwhelmed when faced with picking up the phone and calling... well... anyone. Doctors, friends, babysitters, movie theatres for dang's sake. I don't know why I'm like this, but its crippling and it has kept me from balancing out my life. I'm going to need to get over this fear if I have any hope of getting out of the house. And to tell you the truth, I really don't know if I can do it. But I'm going to try.

After sharing my heart in my last post, I felt a weight lift off of me. And your wonderful encouragements and prayers and "Amens!" made me feel less alone. Prior to my last post, I felt as if I had been crouching in a fall-out shelter, just waiting for the end-all explosion- when in reality, it was a nice Spring day outside and I'd crawled in there on my own and shut the door and single-handedly convinced myself the end was near. After allowing myself to be honest and share how I was feeling, the door opened, and the crisis I'd created was suddenly no where to be found. So, thanks for your help. Thanks for listening and not judging.

I'm learning that communication is powerful. Our minds get ahold of things and distort and twist them before we can even bat an eyelash. The only thing that can set things right and get everything out on the table is communication. Are you feeling frustrated with your job or your spouse or a friend? Are you feeling alone or jumbled or depressed? Sit down and talk about it. Be honest. You'll feel so much better after you do.

The door will finally swing open, and the fresh air will do you good.

Mother Doubt.

I've been arm-wrestling that part of my brain again this week- The one that seems to intermittently take over and crowd out all the good that I know is in there.

This post is honest and I don't apologize for it, although I do wish that I could be the kind of person who didn't feel the need for posts like this... the kind of person who didn't know thoughts like mine on a regular, cyclical basis. If I could stop these feelings I would, but they are ceaseless (like waves), and sharing parts of them with you is only in the hope that my words won't fall on unemphatic ears. That some of my struggle will hit someone out there like a ton of bricks because they know what it's like and they suddenly don't feel so lost anymore.

I'd like to say that I know I'm a good mother. I can say with all honesty that I know I look like a good mother, but anything beyond that catches on my lips. No, it doesn't even get as far as my lips... it stops long before my throat, even. My very heart questions it.

I feel this way because I honestly don't know if I'm alone in feeling this way. I feel like I'm the only one who has these thoughts of doubt and rage and fear. I'm becoming more sure that I'm alone in teetering on the brink, and everyone else is a good enough mother to never even see the edge.

I love my son. He is wonderful and none of this has to do with him. But there are days when I honestly question my decision to become a mother. Days when I think about how it was before he was born and I pine for them. I don't mean this flippantly. These feelings are gut-wrenching and they occur too often.

I want to be the kind of mom that doesn't wish for the old so much. I want to be the kind of mom that doesn't feel the anger well up so quickly that she's jerking her son's arm before she even knows what's happened. I want to be the kind of mom that never sees that look in her child's eyes- the one that instantly makes me sob with shame and fear.

I am tired most of the day and I feel bored with the mall and the barnes & noble and the raging allergies I deal with every time I try to take Ezra outside. I feel like a failure on so many levels. I mean, most moms I know are ready and excited to have another baby by this point... I feel like something is wrong with me because the thought of another baby (most days) is too overwhelming to even day-dream about. It fills me with fear and anxiety.

The thing that would always help me through this re-occurring fog in the past was remembering back to before I was pregnant- back when I felt that God spoke clearly to me and asked me to have this child for Him. I was excited about what God was asking me to do, even though I'd never really wanted to be a mom up until that point. I said 'yes' out of obedience (and the joy of being asked), and I trusted that God would give me everything I needed to raise this child in the way He would want me to.

So what do you do when you begin to question the Voice that you heard?

"What if I heard wrong?"

I know that God will still provide for me, but the doubts! They suffocate!

Ezra is so amazing. I know that this can't be WRONG. I know that he is RIGHT. But what if I never am the mother that he deserves?

What if he needs more? More than I can ever give?

These questions are the screaming in my gut.

Dream-Altering Bedding.

Do you remember how I told you I was buying some new bedding? We've had it for about two weeks now and I love my new bedding with the force of one thousand tornados. Everynight, I peel back the covers and slip into my bed and have dreams of cloud hopping with Snuggle Bear... that creep-tastic creature from the old fabric softener commercials.

Who knew that a higher threadcount on your sheets could alter your very dreams?? The first night that I had these sheets, I took Shannon's advice and shaved my legs rigt before I crawled into bed. Then Chris couldn't sleep for over two hours as I proceeded to (long-windedly) tell him about how wonderful it felt to have new sheets and CAN YOU BELIEVE THESE NEW SHEETS? I slept wonderfully- and he did as well after I finally fell asleep and shut my yapper.

Here's some pics of the new bedding:




Dreeeeeamy, no?

Time Is Swift.

The little boy in his room says "Woo! Woo!"
and still the train chugs on...

For about two years now, Chris and I have not had a house phone. We've been relying entirely on our cell phones ever since we moved out to Oklahoma from California. This set-up would work wonderfully excepting for the fact that one of us never remembers to turn their phone ON or even remembers to take their phone with them when they leave the house. Let me also just say that the one responsible for this phone deficiency is also the one in the relationship who checks their voicemail roughly ONCE A MONTH. (Alright... it's ME.) Since communication is most decidedly a two-way street, Chris has found himself frustrated and worried on many occasions because he simply cannot get ahold of me.

Now, add to all of this that our cell phones don't get reception in our new house, and you're pretty much up to speed with how things have been going the last few months.

Sooo... yesterday we had a land line installed.

We then dug around in boxes looking for our old 'land phone' for a good part of the day. Chris finally found it in the garage, and he set it out for me to hook up as he headed back to work for the afternoon. I hooked the phone up in the kitchen and made a few calls (perfectly CLEAR calls, mind you!) and messed with some of the phone settings before I noticed the blinking '2' on the answering machine's display.

My heart skipped a little beat.

I realized that these were old messages- 2 messages saved on our phone from that emotionally charged day in time when we took one last look at our tiny one bedroom apartment in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California, and then closed the door on it for good. Ezra was five months old.

And we had no idea what we were doing.

The tiny whisper in our hearts ("oklahoma?") had been loud enough, God enough for us to be suddenly trading in our apartment keys for the keys to a leaky, squeaky U-haul... a U-haul that was headed to a state that we'd never been in but for a short visit three months prior... one that didn't hold a single familiar face except for the lone face of our dear friend Joel.

I excitedly pushed the button on the answering machine.

First Message: Joel. Telling us he'd bought tickets to fly to Reno and help us with the rest of the move from there.
Instantly I remembered Chris and Joel jumping into the frigid Truckee River in the middle of the night in Reno- the very night before they left for Oklahoma in the U-haul truck together.
I remembered the nervous questions, the nervous laughter, and the moments when Chris and I would be staring blankly into each other's faces- minds elsewhere... minds churning on the 'what-ifs?' until we were snapped back into reality and didn't know how long we'd been sitting like that, staring right through one another.
I remember watching the U-haul pull out of my parent's driveway as I wrestled with the knot in my throat and the knot in my stomach at the same time. The knots won, but the fight was never fair- it was two against one.

Message Two: From our precious friend Skylana. Her voice hit my ear just like an old, well-loved song that I hadn't heard in years (but once knew all the words to) might have. It was like a comfy, cozy blanket being squeezed out of my answering machine speakers as she told me how much she loved me and how badly she wanted to see me before I left for Oklahoma. Hearing her voice made me realize how quickly things change, how swift time really is. She's a wife now. A mother now. And part of me feels so sad to have missed all of that. It somehow makes these past two years feel like decades.

There are times like these when I miss my sweet friends in California. I miss my family in Nevada. I miss that tiny town tucked in the rolling coastal hills. These voices on my answering machine are snippets of my old life trapped in time- now played back in the kitchen of my very first house while a two year old is running laps around the coffee table with no pants on.

But this is what makes life so exciting and so worth living, yes? In another few years I could be reminiscing about Oklahoma while living on a boat floating about in the Arctic or while looking out into my backyard which also just happens to be a emerald green field in Ireland somewhere... (why not?) I could be living among the poor in Atlanta or enjoying a sunset over the Puget Sound. Or I could still be sitting RIGHT HERE, at my desk in wonderful Oklahoma.

God is alluringly unpredictable.

I want a life full of unknowns. I want a life that is full of reminiscing! Full of remembering! Full of room for fond memories! I don't want to live in fear of the 'What-Ifs'... to let the 'What-Ifs' back me into a corner and steal my precious time.

Time is swift. And sometimes it takes an old dusty answering machine to wake me up to the present-- to the brimming now that is already passing so quickly.

Lake House Livin'

The Girly Glam Slumber Party Fiesta of 2007 was a blast, and it felt so good to do something that wasn't reeking of DAILY ROUTINE and mundane-ness. We stopped at a little Hillbilly Cafe on the way up there to eat dinner and it was... very... provincial... very rustic. I had me sum chikin fryed steak after I was told that the fried chicken would take 30 minutes to cook by the very unenthusiastic waitress. (Who, by the way, looked like maybe she had just taken a dunk in the deep fryer herself. Greeeazy.)

It was a fun dining experience and my food was really quite yummy and I was able to eat most of it before we discovered a smelly puddle of mystery liquid under our table and I became officially grossed out. Thankfully I had placed my purse on the chair next to me so it did not get soggy, but others were not so lucky.



The house was 1970's FABULOUS and once we arrived, we discovered that "everyone bring snacks" magically translated to "Cookies and Popcorn" for all who were present. A couple of us hopped onto the golf cart and took a spin around the neighborhood in the pitch dark with no headlights to speak of. We (ok, I) was scared of the barking dogs and the thoughts of future headlines saying something like "Four Oakie Girls Missing After Headlight-less Golf Cart Joy Ride Turns Into Unexpected Dip In the Lake", so we turned back after we got too far into the creepy woods. (Always a thinker, I am!)

are you SURE about this, Amy?

Hey! It was dear life I was hanging on for!

NightRiders.

The rest of the evening was spent reading cheesy poetry from a poetry book for the 'Very Married'. Judging by the pictures in this book, you qualify as 'very married' when you hit the dapper age of 85. Wine was poured freely only after we spent twenty minutes trying to open the bottle with the busted corkscrew we found in the drawer. I think the corkscrew was quite a bit older than any of the lovely people pictured in the 'Very Married' Poetry Book... it had seen better days. We eventually conquered the wine, however, and much dancing ensued.

Mostly by me.

We all went to bed late and woke up the next morning and had a yummy breakfast and good conversations. Then I drove myself home with 'Continuum' blasting through my speakers and my windows rolled down. Because, you know, I'm badass like that.

Note to Self: Free-Lovin' Windows Down Drive = Most Massive Allergy Attack Ever Recorded.

I am now back to the routine of mommying- which includes tightly sealed car windows on our drives to the bookstore and to Gymboree.

Watch out! Wild Child coming through.

pretty much sums it up.

Music In My Soul.

I'm sure you can all relate to this on some level or another: I have been in a musical slump for a veeerrrry loooonggg timmeee.

All of my old CD's have been played so much that I put them in and then immediately tune them out because the sound of them has become a bit like the mind-killing drone of that frickin' frackin' ice cream truck that parks a few streets over every evening and the CONTINUES TO SIT and play that one ice cream truck song over and over and over again until Chris and I start looking for face masks and heavy objects with which to bludgeon said truck.

"deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!
deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!
deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!
deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!deedle-dee-dee-do!"

I feel as if I have been in this slump since before Ezra was born. I am realizing that this is true because 3 of the CDs in my car disc changer at this very moment are labeled 'Labor Mix 1', 'Labor Mix 2', and 'Labor Mix 5'. Chris lovingly put together about 6 compilation CDs of my most relaxing and enjoyable music for when I was in labor, but we listened to none of them because the room didn't have a CD player and the thought of beautiful music wafting through that labor room was pretty much the VERY LAST THING ON MY MIND when it came down to it. These CDs have made for some great road trip music since then, however. But when you begin to know exactly what song is coming up next on SIX CDs containing 20plus songs each, you know it's about time to move on...

I am delighted to inform you, though, that there has been BREAKTHROUGH! From the most unexpected place imaginable! I feel slightly embarrassed to admit it, but the CD that has made music enjoyable again for me has been none other than John Mayer. I have never ever been a John Mayer fan-- except for my deep, dark, hidden secret crush on his 'Your Body Is A Wonderland' song. It sort of makes me giggle and give Chris "the eyes". You know- the eyes? Nudge nudge wink wink?

Anywho, his new album 'Continuum' hasn't left my stereo for weeks now, and I am officially a music lover again. I heard his song 'Gravity' from that album played once every 4 minutes or so on the radio stations in Reno when I had my unplanned extended vacation there a couple of months ago. And then Laura recommended the whole album so I went out and bought it. It is so good, people.



And then tonight I was reading my friend Flo's blog and she recommended a band called The Weepies and I'm falling in love all over again over here.

Music has been a driving force in my life for as long as I can remember, and I have always wanted to surround Ezra with a rich variety of it as he grows and becomes more confident in who he is. There is nothing like music when it comes to capturing emotion... nothing like SINGING OUT what's about to burst your heart open, or closing your eyes and bobbing your head to a guitar that is somehow able to convey everything you're feeling without a single word. Songs have helped me through difficult times. Songs are still helping me through difficult times. I have always had a very poor memory, but certain songs trigger memories for me that probably would have been lost forever if it weren't for them embedding themselves into music in my brain.

Here are some of my all time favorites...UNAPOLOGETICALLY.
These are the ones I can return to over and over again without weariness:

Anything by Ben Gibbard
Counting Crows
Ray LaMontagne
Patti Griffin
Duke Ellington
The Gloria Record

What are some of your favorites?

dukealicious.

Q & A. (Q & U?)

**edited below to include my ACTUAL EMAIL ADDRESS (imadork)

I've been interviewed by Britt!

What is your favorite accessory or piece of furniture in your home?

This one is easy. That would most definitely be my armoire. I often tell Chris that I would be fine to get rid of everything else in the house if we needed to, but the armoire? I plan to be buried in it when I die. I've said this so many times over the years, that I fear he is beginning to take me seriously. So, if any of you are at my future funeral, don't be alarmed if my armoire is there too. We were given this piece of furniture by a very nice family that Chris did some painting work for. They were going to sell all their old living room furniture, but after they heard Chris and I had just gotten married, they decided they wanted to just give it to us. They gave us our two overstuffed reclining chairs, our armoire, our super nice stereo speakers, and our (old) custom handcrafted couch. Chris did some extra work for them (it was paint related... nothing mafia related, I promise.) and, in return, we got the nicest furniture that we'll probably ever own. Amazing!




2. Who will you cast as Emery Jo in the Emery Jo movie?

Oooooh... I know she's older than me, but I would definitely cast Meg Ryan. If she wasn't down to play the part of an ordinary girl who's idea of excitement and adventure is thrift store shopping, then I would try to get Maggie Gyllenhaal to play me.




3. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the way I've been able to pull my stuff together and learn how to be a mom. There were days in the very beginning, right after Ezra was born, that I REALLY thought I just couldn't do it. There are still days when I think of the years ahead of me and I feel totally overwhelmed as a mom, but Ezra is two now and I'm getting more confident in my mommy skills with everyday that goes by.


4. What is your breakfast of choice?

Every morning I eat a plain Eggo waffle- I just grab it straight out of the toaster and scarf it down. No butter, no syrup, no plate. Then I have a cup of coffee. (technically half milk, half coffee, with some sugar.) That's it for me.



5. What were some of the trends you followed as a pre-teen?

Oh dear lord. I did that thing where I would wear THREE pairs of socks and then roll each layer down separately so that the colors were stacked up on my ankle.

I did that thing where you curl half of your bangs BACK, and half of your bangs FORWARD.

I did that thing where you wear hideous shirts that invite people to breathe on you so that they can watch an already hideous shirt turn even uglier colors.
ahh yes.. life was one big, fat, neon party whenever I had those shirts on...

Now that you've read my interview, you call play along (and I hope you will because I've already thought of some questions I want to ask you)! Here's what you do:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." (If I don't have your email address already, either leave it in the comment or email me at emerybored@aol.com)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Let's (Slumber) Party!

I'm going to a slumber party tonight! At a lake house! With many wonderful girlfriends! Girlfriends who like to talk about husbands and sex and good food! Shebang! I'm so excited to get away, even if just for one evening.

This will be my frist official slumber party since the 9th grade when I stayed at a friend's house with a group of girls and saw on the news that Princess Diana's car crashed and she didn't survive. I remember none of us believed it- we all thought it was fake. Didn't make for much of a giddy slumer party after that... We all went to bed talking about how it just didn't seem like bad stuff could happen to people like Princess Di.

I'm hoping this slumber party will have some redeeming qualities, and to make sure of this fact, I went and bought me some big ol' bottles of wine for us to drink. I plan to stay up late and engage in some deep discussions and possibly even showcase some of my mad floppy dancing skills. The beauty and humor in my dancing has always been my rubber-band arms. I like to flop them wildly while my feet do something else entirely. (Are you picturing it now? Now, just add some goofy head bobbing and some fierce white-man's-overbite you're almost there!)

Ezra has started saying another word, and it has to be one of the STRANGEST first words ever spoken by a toddler. Chris was showing him how to take apart his legos the other day, and while he was pulling the pieces apart he was telling Ezra that it was called 'detatch'. Sooo... now my son says 'DETATCH' and 'CAR and 'BALL' and 'MOON' and 'MALL' and 'MAMA'. I'll try to get video of him saying his new word. It's pretty hilarious.



It seems that Ezra is willing and eager to repeat anything that Chris wants him to say, but when I try to get him to say something, he just looks at me like 'no way in hell, momma.' Perhaps he has trained himself to tune out the nasaly screech that is my voice. I wouldn't blame him for that. Not even a little bit.

I've been cutting back on TV time for Ezra the last few days as well, and it has made a huge difference. We watch PBS in the morning while he munches on a his waffle and I get dressed and ready for the day. I'm trying to limit it to that- with the occasional afternoon movie thrown in. I want it to be more of a treat and less of a part of our daily routine. It's hard work getting him out of a pattern that I should never have let him get into in the first place. It's hard work to put everything else aside (cleaning, websites) and just sit down on his floor with him and pretend to be a flying dinosaur for an hour. It's hard work to get him to sit at the table and eat his food instead of letting him run around and graze at his own pace.

But the rewards have been well worth the effort so far, and he has been a little trooper with the change. And, me? Well, I've been adjusting a bit more slowly and drinking a LOT more coffee.



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It's a Small World Craig'sList Afterall..

Chris and I have never had to pay for a major piece of furniture. Unless, of course, you count the bed- but even that was purchased with Wedding Gift money. Other than that, everything has been given to us. We've bought some minor things: a bookshelf, an ottoman, a hallway table... but nothing major.

That is, until yesterday.

Our couch that we had in the living room was very small and uncomfortable and the fabric was splitting all over it. The stuffing was coming out. Like icky couch guts. I was running out of pillows to use to hide the mess, and well, it was time to do something about it.

Sooooo, I looked on Craig's List and happened to find a microfiber couch for sale that I thought had potential. The asking price was reasonable, and Chris and I decided to email the guy and tell him we were interested. Craig's List is great because it's like free classifieds, and ANYONE IN THE ENTIRE CITY can post something on there. There are thousands of listings.

And that's why I found it so shocking when the guy with the cool couch emailed me back and said "I TOTALLY KNOW YOU GUYS."

How crazy is that?! He is the fiance of a friend of ours from church!

We took it as a sign and bought the couch right then and there. Oh how we love it. We can now BOTH lie on the couch at the same time. I call it the 'Snuggle Couch' and Chris insists that it is the 'Napping Couch'. It is a million times more comfortable than our last couch- and it is quite a bit bigger, so I am slowly adjusting to the size difference. Right now it looks like a piece of cartoon furniture to me because our old couch looks like a piece of dollhouse furniture in comparison. (Remember that Gallagher skit with the huge monster couch? HAHAHA. I used to love Gallagher so very much. Okay, maybe I still do a little bit. Or a lot.)

Did I mention it's microfiber?? Whoever invented microfiber should be crowned King of America. Everything just wipes right off of it! DELIGHTFUL!

Here's a picture!

200th post!

Let's celebrate with some singin' and dancin'!

Arkansas. The Natural State.

Yesterday Chris, Ezra, and I drove East to Arkansas with our friends Joel, Ken, Jamie, and Jacquie in order to play at an evening college church service. It was a very pleasant trip and Ezra was a really good boy the entire time. We played at the college group and talked to some of the kids for a bit and then packed up again for the 3 hour trip home.

On our way back to Oklahoma, we went through the Wendy's drive-thru for dinner. I ordered chicken nuggets but they forgot to give me my sauce, so Chris ran inside to grab me some. (Mind you, we are in Fort Smith, Arkansas... a land unto itself.)

Chris came back out with my saucy-sauce and proceeded to tell us all the funniest story that has ever been told.

He said he went into the restaurant and it was just chaos in there. There was a young kid wiping off the tables with a dingy rag and then slowly wringing the rag out ONTO THE FLOOR. Where is the logic? Behind the counter, there were two teenage girl employees that were giggling and laughing and acting as if their job was as fun as a sugar-coated slumber party. The two giggling teenagers accidentally bumped into each other while they were both holding trays of food and the food spilled out all over the dirty-rag-drenched floor. They both paused, looked at each other, and then started busting up laughing again.

That's when Chris saw the manager of the restaurant spin around from the drive-thru window he was working at. He glared at the girls who were (still!) cracking up. The manager then took a deep breath and was VISIBLY SHAKING as he pointed his finger at his two adolescent employees and hissed, "You two better knock it off THIS INSTANT or I will PUNCH YOU IN THE HEAD, I swear to God!"


This, of course, made the girls laugh even harder and it also almost made me pee my pants when Chris told me the story moments later. Ahh, Arkansas.

(Doesn't that sound EXACTLY like a Saturday Night Live skit?)

As we continued our drive home, the weather started looking a little creepy. Dark clouds. Lots of lightning. Severe weather alerts being issued over the radio. Our friend Dustin texted us and told us to be careful because there were tornadoes East of Oklahoma City. You know, East. As in, WHERE WE WERE.

We just barely missed all of the severe weather and tornadoes and we got home without incident. But about an hour after we got home, the storm showed up at our front door. And it proceeded to stick around all night long. There was DEAFENING thunder and hail and they clocked wind gusts up to 70 mph in my neighborhood. Chris was up most of the night because he couldn't sleep and he kept watching the weather online to make sure nothing was headed our way.

Thankfully, our house weathered the storm really well. The next morning, all the damage we could find was one broken rose bush. Phew!

Remember how I told you we tilled our yards and seeded them? Well, it's only been a couple of weeks since then, and JUST LOOK AT OUR GREEN GRASS! This whole part of the yard used to be mud and crabgrass. How did this happen so fast?!?!





What the heck? We love our yard and it was so much fun to hang out back there at the Cinco De Mayo party we hosted a couple of days ago... Beer. Tacos. Friends. Boccie Ball... Perfection.