Letting Go

I'm having a little midnight venting session.

You may or may not know that it takes a lot, a whole lot, to rile up this phlegmatic girl. Let me tell you, though, that when the right buttons are pushed, I can go from un-riled to riled in about 0.6 seconds.

I can't, or actually won't, go into too much detail here - it isn't really the time or place for it - but suffice it to say that it involves someone that basically did not follow through on their word on something that could have been a pretty big deal for us, and in the process handled it all very, very badly, and was pretty nasty about the entire thing. (oooh....now there's a major run-on sentence for you).

When Ricardo came home from church tonight and told me the story, my wifely indignation shot up through the roof. How dare they treat him like that?? I sputtered. I raved. I was hoppin' mad. And, if you look at the circumstances, I suppose I had every right to be. It was, in every regard, totally unfair.

By the way - hubby doesn't need me to fight his battles for him. He does just fine on his own. But...that's my man you're messing with here!

So I spent the evening stewing about it, and then I went to bed. And I felt it gnawing away in the pit of my stomach, that awful twisted feeling that won't let you rest and makes you feel worse by the second.

So I have to let it go. But if I'm being honest, there is a part of me that just doesn't want to. What I really want to do is scream and holler a little bit, throw a grown-up fit, maybe run to whoever will listen and say, "Do you know what just happened?"

In the grand scheme of things, it is such a small little thing, and I realize that. Does it hurt? Well, sure, but it doesn't come close to some of the intense things that so many are dealing with.

So I'm not pretending it doesn't hurt. Instead, I am acknowledging that what was done wasn't right, and then I am just handing it to the Lord. Who knows...maybe this is His way of protecting us from something on down the line.

Forgiveness...easy to talk about, hard to do.

But in some bloggy cathartic way, just getting it out has made me feel better.

10 on the 10th: Bookworm

Meredith at Life at 7000 Feet, who, incidentally, is one of my favorite bloggers, is hosting a new carnival, "10 on the 10th". Meaning, we list 10 of basically anything we want on the 10th of each month.

And since I'm sort of on a book kick right now, it was easy for me to pick which 10 things I wanted to post.

I am super indecisive, so it would be impossible for me to say that these 10 books are my all-time favorites. Some of them are old standbys that I've read 16 times, and some I just discovered.

This goes without saying, right? Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I am sad to say I don't own this book, but as soon as I find a good deal at Half.com, I am snatching this one up for my own little library.

The Wedding, Nicholas Sparks. It took me awhile to get into it, but by the end I was loving it. Why do his books always make me cry? I seriously wanted to go and renew my vows when I finished reading this.

A Voice in the Wind, Francine Rivers. This falls under the "I've read it 16 times" category. Compelling. Fantastic writing. And the best part is, there are two more books in the series, so if you're like me and hate for the story to end, you can stretch it out a little longer.

Anne of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery. Classic. I think I love Anne so much because she is completely different from me. Free-spirited. Adventurous. Daring. I am more like Diana, I suppose. And I know the books are technically written for a younger audience, but they have never lost their appeal to me.

My Sisters Keeper, Jodi Picoult. Ok, this one was a little weird. I love Picoult's writing style because her books are not nice and neat, but they draw you in. Because of that, because the endings are never tied up in a neat little package at the end, it always leaves me feeling a little, I don't know, conflicted, maybe? But I still liked it...I think.

Vienna Prelude, Brock and Bodie Thoene. I cannot begin to express how much I love this series. Whenever we go on a road trip, I grab one of these books. It doesn't matter that I've read them over and over and that I know what's going to happen...they are just that good. One of my all time favorite series.

At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon. When I asked for book suggestions a few weeks back, Elizabeth recommended this. Oh, I'm so glad she did - I loved it! I'm working on the rest of the series now. I opened it up and was immediately transported to a tiny North Carolina town.

Uncharted, Angela Hunt. Oh, wow. This might be one of my new favorites. Honestly, I didn't think I was going to like it for about the first third of the book, but I kept plugging away. And then at the end, I was totally blown away. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. If you haven't already, you need to read it!

In My Father's House, Brock and Bodie Thoene. What can I say - I love the Thoenes. My second favorite series from them, set during WW1/The Great Depression era. Good stuff.

Ever After, Karen Kingsbury. You know I have to throw in a Kingsbury book, right? I've only read this book once, and I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to read it again, because it was such a tear-jerker. I literally had to wait until my hubby went to bed before I could finish it, because I sat there and bawled my eyes out. I would read a page, stop and cry for awhile, and then read another page. A very exhausting experience, let me tell you.

There you have it - 10 books that have made an impression on me.

Thanks to Mer for hosting - go visit her if you'd like to join in!

Flowers are for picking, right?

My hubby has talked about planting a fruit tree ever since we were married. He had visions of bushel upon heaping bushel full of fruit, straight from our own yard.

So a couple of years ago he paid a visit to Home Depot, the store that can suck my hubby into its manly vortex faster than anything else, and came home with a little nectarine tree. I think the selling point of this particular tree was that it had 2 knobby little green nectarines on it, so he figured we were guaranteed to at least get something from it that first year. I should probably add that neither of us know the first thing about taking care of a fruit tree, we just stuck it in the ground and hoped that the tree would take over from there and do its thing.

Of course, about 2 days after we planted it, we went to Costco and saw people wheeling around carts with 6 foot nectarine trees, with a ton of nice looking fruit already hanging on the branches.
We looked at them enviously, but our little guy was already in the ground, so what could we do?

Those two little nectarines were all we got that first year. But we figured, surely the next year would be better, the year of the nectarine, the year of pie and fresh cobbler with maybe just a smidge of whipped cream on top. Except, it wasn't. We got nothin'.

But this year! Spring came in a sudden rush in February and everything burst into bloom overnight. Our nectarine tree was covered in gorgeous pink blossoms.

Last week Savannah was outside in the backyard, and I was "supervising", in the most lax manner possible, from inside the house, with the sliding door open so I could holler out occasionally, "What are you doing, baby?"

She was being particularly quiet so I thought it might be prudent to go take a peek.

All I can say is, she's a girl. And girls like flowers, pretty, delicate pink flowers that just beg to be picked.

Notice how the bottom two-thirds is stripped bare. Shows exactly how far she can reach. Once again our crop of nectarines isn't looking so hot.

A few more pictures from this (and last - I'm a slacker) week...







For more 365 pictures, you can head over to Sara's.

Have a great week, y'all!

Miracle

I remember, vividly, every little detail about my hospital stay when I had Savannah.

I remember lying in the bed and counting ceiling tiles as a way to take my mind off of the piggy-back contractions that I was trying to wriggle away from, of falling asleep on the big bouncy ball and having my husband catch me, of almost relenting and begging for an epidural after 14 hours of labor. (Call me crazy, but the thought of a needle IN. MY. SPINE. was worse than just dealing with the pain. I might change my mind if I ever do it again, though. I hear it's just lovely.)

But then all of the torturous pain subsided, and they placed her in my arms. At that point my hospital stay took a decided turn for the better. They wheeled me into my recovery room, and I felt a little like a queen. Completely exhausted and battered, true, but a queen nontheless, with the hospital room my little mini palace. Replete with a hubby to wait on me, nurses at my beck and call, and...cable TV. It was virtually a vacation.

Even the food! I have to tell you, my hopes were certainly not very high. But then they brought me the menu, and I immediately fixated on the steak sandwich as an option. I was won over. It was good, too, and...topped with an onion ring, oh yes, ma'am.

So, all of these memories came back to me today. I stepped into the same hospital to go say hello to a brand new little fellow, a precious baby boy belonging to my best friend Tara.

Come to find out, they have stepped up their amenities even further. They now give massages to mommies, and they are going to offer manicures and pedicures, too. For free.

I'm telling you. Vacation. Almost.

Take a look at this sweet little face and tell me it doesn't melt your heart.

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy. I'm in love.

The year of the scarf

I completely forgot until Sunday afternoon that Rachel's Scarf Carnival was today. Which meant that I raced to Target after church, hoping that they would deliver the cuteness that I was looking for, because I was in desperate need. They did, and I had a gift card, which made it a completely wonderful and painless shopping trip. Then I stopped at Walmart, because I kept hearing people rave about their $5 scarves.

You would think that I would've gotten my post ready to go in the afternoon when I got home. But no. I did not. I waited until my hubby went to bed to snap my pictures because I wasn't so sure I wanted him to witness my scarf photo shoot. Don't look too closely, or you'll see some puffiness lurking around my eyes - all due to the fact that I should have been in bed a few hours ago. But for you, my friends, I will gladly put makeup on at midnight and then snap about 50 pictures of myself. Nothing weird about that.

So right as I was gearing up to stand in front of my time-delay camera, I realized I didn't really know too much about tying scarves. I did watch Big Mama's tutorial when she posted it a few weeks ago, but I didn't practice, which meant I didn't remember much. I googled "How to tie a scarf" and 4 million sites popped up, so I have a feeling I'm not alone.

So here is my attempt. First up, Target scarf. And some funky lighting.

And my $5 bargain. (ooohh, now that I look at it, I see some twistiness and rumpledness. Grrrrr.....)



I have a few other scarves that I meant to show you, but y'all, my face can't take any more smiling and posing, so I'm going to leave it at that.

Rachel, thank you so much for hosting this. I am so excited to have a reason to buy some new scarves, and maybe now I will feel more pulled together.

Now I'm off to wash away my coat of midnight mascara.