Pandora

I love Pandora Radio. I particularly love The Judds Radio on Pandora. Nothing takes me back to elementary school mornings getting ready for school, listening to the country station with my mom, than The Judds Radio. (Although my favorite song from that time of my life is Sammy Kershaw's "Cadillac Style," which I have yet to hear on The Judds Radio.) My favorite song by The Judds is "Rockin' with the Rhythm of the Rain," hands down. They don't play that one much either, but I heard it on the real radio on the way to work the other day. They play some Dixie Chicks, Tanya Tucker, Pam Tillis, and Allison Krauss. They play George Strait, too, but he seems a little out of place here. It really is quite a good mix of female country artists from the 80s and 90s. Check it out!

Thanksgiving - not early, but daily

To state the obvious, I haven't been blogging lately. When I've been at the computer in the past 2.5 months, I've either 1) been at work (working), or 2) been pecking at the keyboard with one hand and juggling a baby in the other, which makes for some really slooow blogging. My train of thought just doesn't want to wait for the one hand to keep up - I need both to effectively blog.

So here I am, just before 10pm, baby in bed, hubby at work, and lunches waiting to be made. Oh yeah, and laundry to be folded. I also thought I'd work out tonight. Had that thought just about every night for the past few days, and it hasn't happened yet.

So much to do, so little time. And so much to be thankful for. My life is very full. I have a husband who adores me. The sweetest, smartest, most handsome man I know chose ME. Wow! He makes life so wonderful. I don't do the greatest job letting him know how much he is appreciated. And loved. Boy oh boy, is he loved.

And then there's our little girl. What a blessing. I thought tonight we should have named her Joy. Because that's what she is. I think we're becoming buddies, too - now that I'm not totally blurry to her little baby eyes!

I have a great job, a lovely home, a healthy body. Am I bragging? Not at all. God deserves the praise and glory for all that I have. I don't have time to blog all that often, but why complain? I have more than I deserve, and the lack of time is proof of every blessing. If a blog post is a prayer, let this one be a prayer of thanksgiving.

New jeans

Remember waaay back when my postpartum wardrobe consisted of 2 pairs of shorts, one skirt, and a pair of khakis?

That was yesterday.

Today, I'm the proud owner of TWO (2) new pairs of jeans. They fit! A special thanks to Shelby who went with me to shop. And thanks to Old Navy who had jeans for sale at a whopping $19 a pair.

That = 2 pairs of jeans for < 1 pair at any other store we went to. I like that math!

If I were to call Dave Ramsey

Shelby & I started Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover this month, and I'm proud to announce that I'm credit card free as of this afternoon. Moving one step closer to being debt free, I called each of the credit card companies and requested the cancellation of each account. I then proceeded to perform my own "plasectomy," as Dave fondly refers to the shredding of your credit cards. I've seen other people make "DEBT FREE" mosaics out of the plastic pieces, so I thought I'd make my own to hang on the refrigerator as motivation to continue our quest towards financial peace.

Tonight, listening to Dave's radio show podcast, I began my creation with a piece of copy paper and krazy glue - the only adhesive I could find around the house. (Josie hasn't been back-to-school shopping for the Elmer's just yet.) I set up my work station on the kitchen counter, merrily gluing my once-upon-a-time debt to the copy paper. When I tried to shift the paper to get a better angle for gluing, I found the paper STUCK TO THE COUNTERTOP (rather, the NEW COUNTERTOP), as the glue bled completely through the paper. Oh crap. Denying that the glue had already set, I first tried to pry the tiny (and sharp-edged) plastic pieces from the kitchen counter with my fingernail, but had to resort to a water/sponge/brillo pad/knife edge combination to ultimately remove all of the little pieces of credit card from the countertop. Luckily I had only glued the D-E-B in DEBT FREE, and I was able to remove 100% of the plastic. The paper is another story. I now admit, after an hour of scrubbing, that the glue has in fact set and the brown countertop is now white in a few places from the remaining paper.

Now the question is - do I call Dave to tell him what happened? That my recently found disdain for credit increased exponentially when I glued my past debt to the kitchen counter? Let this be a lesson, folks. Just because you don't have any credit card debt doesn't mean you're done doing silly things. Be careful!

The Bird

I have a few tricks to get Josie to sleep through the night. The most important is to swaddle her tightly so her arms are pinned at her sides. Think "papoose." It takes a certain skillful technique to wrap her so that she can't escape. If she's able to get her arms out, she'll inevitably whack herself in the head and wake up. The other night, we went in to check on her and found her arms out, but she hadn't started flailing yet and thus hadn't started crying. It was almost as if she had gotten loose and said "screw you guys, I got out." If an infant could flip you the bird, I think Josie's done it.