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Advice From Charli #362

September 30, 2008 at 4:16 am | In The Mundane, self awareness | 3 Comments
Tags: advice, hick-ups, personal grooming, shaving

If you get the hick-ups whilst shaving in the shower? Quit shaving. Just step away from the razor and wear pants that day. My *ehem* bikini area will never be the same.

What My Husband Did This Weekend

September 22, 2008 at 5:36 pm | In family | 6 Comments
Tags: Cherokee, haircut, husband, Jeremy, mo-hawk

Speaking of the hubs, want to know what he did this weekend? Not really? Too bad.

Suddenly that 1/16th Cherokee is obvious in him. At least he gave up on growing his hair and facial hair out so that we would all be strip searched the next time we travel because of his obvious Lebanese ancestry. I made him boom “I pity da fool” about a hundred times yesterday before I realized that he was part Cherokee which would be more fitting of the look and gave him his Native American name “Flatulent Jeremy”.

Regardless, my husband does look a little intimidating when he shaves his head and is sporting facial hair. So here’s the Jeremy I know and love:

I love how the bathroom light bounces off of his bald head. It’s so shiny. And for new readers that haven’t seen what he normally looks like:

I’ve not been embarrassed by my husband often in our over 7 years together. However. I refuse to be seen in public with him until the hawk is gone. Also? He had the best thick soft hair. It was just long enough to run my fingers through. Now? My hand just kind of sticks to his dome.

This Is… What I Want to be When I Grow Up

September 21, 2008 at 7:39 pm | In this is... | 3 Comments
Tags: this is..., when I grow up, marriage

I’ve joined in the fun with Three Buttons and decided to give “This is” a try. This week I am phoning it in with a poor quality scanned photograph. I’ll do better next week. Call me a romantic. but when I grow up I want to be as happy to be married to my husband as I was on this day, the day we were married:

Staying In

September 19, 2008 at 3:50 pm | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

We are one of the lucky few who already have power back on. And I feel guilty about it. I can hear generators roaring away in the neighborhood next to ours. Crowds gather at the gas station every day all day. Many people don’t have water either. And here I am sitting in my home enjoying all the modern conveniences that I normally have.

I haven’t left the house since Monday. I don’t want to fill up my car with gas when there are so many people in line waiting to fill their gas cans up to run their generators. Stations are only letting them fill up one can at a time. Fights have broken out at the local gas station. Police are there to monitor everyone to help insure that they are on their best behavior.

We’re running awfully low on food, so I may have to go down to the closest grocery store today. Hopefully they have more cold foods available. When the hubs went Monday, there weren’t much refrigerated goods to be had. He grabbed milk and meat and that has been what got us through this week so far.

I have plenty of dried goods- cans upon cans and boxes upon boxes of non-perishable items. But a family needs butter. And fresh fruits and vegetables. Oh, and maybe some chicken?

I am becoming more and more impatient for life to return to normal. We had such a great little schedule going. It feels weird being cooped up all week. The house is pretty darn clean, that’s for sure! I’ve been sewing and crafting with Hali. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t gone totally stir crazy. But I suppose we have some practice at staying home all week. I’ve spent some time in the past few years since Hali was born without my own car.

Fall is officially upon us in just a few days. It has taken some restraint for me to not put up all my fall home decor items. Come Monday? I will be showing no such restraint. I LOVE fall. I love it. My favorite season. We have been blessed with a cool front this weeks as well. It is never this cool here in September. It’s amazing. Such a blessing to all those who are still without power.

And that concludes my ramblings for today.

We’re Fine

September 16, 2008 at 11:00 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
Tags: disaster, hurricane, Ike, scary, Texas

I hate to sound like a drama queen, but that was SCARY! Sitting in your house being afraid that your windows are about to shatter or that a tree is going to fall on you is not a fun feeling.

Our area was hit hard, even as far inland as we are. Only a little flooding around creeks and low lying intersections occurred, but we are a heavily wooded area. Which is the main problem around here. Trees are laying on houses. Trees fell on vehicles, smashing them. There are trees laying on power lines, and trees blocking the roads.

Luckily, that is all being cleared away. As soon as it was safe, guys were outside with their chainsaws, cutting up trees so that they could be pulled out of the way. Everyone was out in the street, being more neighborly than they ever had been previously, I’m sure. Everyone came together to help each other out.

We were so blessed. Our home is fine. Our yard is a mess, but it is nothing in comparison to others. The top of one of our pine trees came off and landed in the back yard, several yards from the house.

We drove around the neighborhood the day after the storm and it was devastating to look at. No one around here has ever experienced such a disaster. It’s overwhelming to say the least.

I have so much to say about the hurricane and the effects of it, but Ike was big and took his time, and so shall I. There is a lot to write about.

Maybe Not Spared This Time

September 11, 2008 at 9:39 pm | In Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: hurricane, Ike, Texas

Well, it is looking like we will be hit this time. Ike is headed our way. We aren’t evacuating. We’re staying put. We’re just going to hunker down and weather out the storm. I’ve got plenty of supplies to last us well over a week if needs be. If the power goes out (and it probably will) then we will be heading over to my in-laws who have a generator. We sure need one of those! Ugh. I am just really REALLY not looking forward to this.

We are far enough inland that we should be fine. I doubt we’ll be flooded (much). I think the main concern with us is the wind and the possibility of tornadoes that hurricanes bring. We live in a heavily wooded area, so I hope our tall pine trees stay strong and hold up!

I’m still hoping that we won’t be hit hard and that the power won’t be off for very long. I’m trying to stay positive here and think positive. Hey, there is a good thing about all of this! Jeremy can’t work if there is no power! So we’ll get more time this weekend and next week with him than we would otherwise! Still. Days and days at the in-laws (but with Jeremy), versus normal life where Jeremy works all the time? I’ll take normal life 100% of the time, thanks.

So you may not be hearing from me after tomorrow for a few days. I hope it isn’t the case, but it sure looks like it. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.

My First Award

September 11, 2008 at 4:44 am | In Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Lucky me, I’ve been awarded my very first blog award!

Thanks to Mommy Lounge!

And now I am passing it along to a few of my very favorite blogs:

The Sky is Pink- Lera is thebest thrifter there is and I am super jealous of her pyrex collection.

Thornberry- I wish I could sew and crochet half as well as she does.

Balancing Everything- I know poor Jessica probably can’t step too far away from her infamous bowl to accept her award, but I love her and her bloggy goodness. No matter where she’s blogging at.

Loralees Looney Tunes- Loralee is well, Loralee. I just think she rocks. Nuff said.

Pass along the goodness please!

Button Bulletin Board (say that three times fast)

September 8, 2008 at 2:16 pm | In Craftin' With Hali, Crafty, For Hali, Home Decor | 3 Comments
Tags: bulletin board, buttons, cork board, craft, paint, pink

I love buttons. Hali loves buttons. We love buttons. Big ones small ones new ones old ones. Our love of buttons is almost an obsession. Want to make us happy? Give us a bag full of buttons to sort through and organize by color. We will surely do any craft you can come up with that involves buttons.

I’d been stockpiling my pink buttons just for Hali. I wanted to do a fun button craft just for her. Something for her room. Then I realized she didn’t have a bulletin board/cork board. Awesome!

So I had her choose a pink paint from my stash of acrylics. Unfortunately she chose to go with a horrible Pepto Bismal Pink that was posing as Fuchsia. That pretty much sealed the deal. I masked the cork off with tape and paper then let her paint away.

After that dried we started gluing buttons on. We just used regular ol’ Elmer’s glue. I helped with the top and the bottom because I am OCD that way and had to have them somewhat symmetrical. After that she was one her own. Painting, gluing, AND buttons all in the same day? Hali was in HEAVEN!

A close up:

We screwed one of those tea cup hooks that have a metal catch at the tip so that nothing can easily slide off into the wall. I hot glued (though I probably should have stapled or nailed or something) a length of pink polka dotted ribbon to the back of the board and hung it up. I chose to put it down low within her reach so that she could actually use it.

Hali was so pleased to have a place to put her mementos and such! She immediately started gathering a few things up and put them on her new board.

And what did she put them up with? Why fabric covered money pushpins! Never heard of these before? Neither had I! That’s why I am calling them that. Or perhaps they should have some cool name, like “fat money pins” (fabric- attached- to=f.a.t.). Wow. I am just getting cooler by the minute here.

I cut out small circles from scrap fabric, centered various coins on them, hot glued around the edges, pinched the edges of the fabric up around the back of the coin, and glued on the tack to the remaining exposed coin.

The Time Old Navy Made Me Cry

September 5, 2008 at 3:35 pm | In The Mundane, adventures with Hali, family, self awareness | 2 Comments
Tags: childhood, Hali, motherhood

Somehow I signed up to have Old Navy e-mail me their store adds. I clicked on the ad this morning. It was for a sale on baby clothes. Baby clothes. For newborns all the way up through size 5T. My four year old daughter? Is a size 6 now.

I don’t even get to shop for her in the same part of the store anymore. She is firmly insisting on continually growing. My tall lanky little girl is not so little anymore. She’s always been in the highest percentile for height.

So here I am. I have a preschooler. I have a big girl. She rarely lets me refer to her as even “my baby” anymore. We are going through this whole new, take-it-to-the-next-level independent stage. She doesn’t want to hold my hand. She doesn’t want to ride in the grocery cart anymore- she wants to walk beside it. Cuddles are few and far between.

All these dang milestones. Now I am just all the more determined to enjoy this last year at home we have together. I knew she wouldn’t be my baby girl forever, and it is exciting to see her growing up, I just wish it didn’t manage to jab me in the heart every single time there is irrefutable proof that my baby girl isn’t a baby anymore.

Introverted No Longer

September 4, 2008 at 6:07 am | In self awareness | No Comments

I have always been quite introverted. Growing up, I wasn’t the popular girl surrounded by admirers. Then again, I was also smart enough not to be one of those admirers. I maybe had a couple of good friends, and another handful of more casual friends. Living in a very small town meant that I knew everyone at school and they all knew me. But honestly? There were more than a few years at school when I didn’t have any good friends. I would sit at lunch with someone I sort of knew and who was at least willing to tolerate me.

Putting myself out there has just never been something that I was good at. And the times that I did work up the nerve to do it? Weren’t always the best experiences. Even as an adult, I have been sincerely surprised by other adults’ behavior towards new comers.

When we recently moved back to a town that I had previously grown to love, I was excited. I had an easy time in that area making actual friends. I knew that a couple of them had left the area and that it was much changed, but I knew I would be happy with the area.

I looked at moving a town area as a chance to reinvent myself in a way. I decided that I would fight that introverted shy side of me and gather up my courage. I was going to put myself out there. Make it known that I was here. I spoke up in church. Chatted up anyone and everyone who came my way. And low and behold I had made myself some friends.

It didn’t actually kill me to call up a few women just to say hi, or even invite them over for a play date. And having adult conversation with someone not related to you? Awesome. It doesn’t hurt that Hali gets to play and socialize right there with me when I get together with other moms. In fact, it makes me feel better- I had been feeling pretty guilty about not having many friends with children her age to play with. As an only child, it’s pretty important for her to have kids to play with.

Previously, when I’d take one of those personality quizzes that you find all over the place, I would always answer that after getting together with a group of people, I feel tired. Now, I feel energized. It’s crazy. I’ve changed.

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