Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What I am into this month (October)


The leaves are hinting at change.

October! Oh, October. Nominally my favorite month, you were long and grueling and terrible and good all at once this year. My very last full month ever without kids. Weird.

Oh, for those of you who are curious, I did mostly finish packing my bags for the hospital, complete with clothes for me to wear on the trip home. I discovered that I'm too clever by half and had already packed the bag with shampoo and things (I keep my usual overnight bag stocked with essentials to make packing for short trips easier), and so I decided I might as well finish the job. Plus, the DDH informed me that I'm simply not allowed to die, so I guess I won't.

Anyway, here's the monthly roundup:

On My Nightstand: My favorite this month was a long novel split into two long books, Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis. Time-traveling World War II historical fiction. The awesomeness cannot be overstated.

Want to Read: Basically, you could wander over to Sheila's blog The Deliberate Reader, look at the list of books in her 31 Days of Nonfiction series, and count all of those on my want-to-read list. If you don't follow that blog, you should. Unless your to-read list is plenty long enough already, in which case, avoid it like the plague, because her reviews will make you want to read the books--more importantly, they'll tell you whether or not you actually would enjoy the book.

TV Show Worth Watching: Hi, fellow Once Upon a Time fans. Can we agree that this season is already levels better than the first? I think we can. Are you following along with Megan's weekly discussions over at SortaCrunchy? I tend to write novels about the episodes in the comments section, heh.

All the other usual favorites are back. Oh, a rec for fans of British comedy: Spy, starring Darren Boyd. The first episode of Season Two just came out and again, already loads better than the first. Another comedy the DDH and I are enjoying right now is Go On. If you watched any Olympic coverage at all, you remember the millions of annoying commercials for this show. Well, the commercials worked, we decided to check it out, and imagine our astonishment when it turns out to actually be pretty good!

Movies I've Seen (in or out of a theater): No movies this month. Someone told me we should take advantage of our last opportunity to go see a movie together for many months to come, but sitting in those seats is just so darn uncomfortable right now.

In My Ears: Mumford & Sons Babel. I really ought to branch out more, but let's face it, I'm pulling out the Christmas carols in 23 days and that will be that until January 6.

What I'm looking forward to next month: I think this is obvious. Before the month is out, we will have a T-Rex outside the womb. I'm looking forward to meeting the little guy. Also, frankly, to not having to go to this job anymore.

Goal Progress: I posted some goals for the new year, and I figured these monthly wrap-up posts would be a good chance to check my progress throughout 2012.

The Budget: The looking-forward-to-not-working-here anymore thing is great. The not-getting-paid-anymore thing is not so great. We had to re-enroll in the benefits stuff for the DDH's job, and now I'm depressed.

The Garden: While my college roommate was in town for the shower, we weeded half of it.

Food: I am on a fast food/junk food roll, unfortunately. The problem is, by the time I get home from work, I have energy for one task. That task can be whatever thing needs to be done to prepare for T-Rex or clean the house or take care of the critters, or it can be "make dinner." "Make dinner" loses over and over.

The Craft Room: I think every room downstairs except the craft room now looks amazing. The craft room and the master bedroom need help now. Clearly, I will never actually have all the rooms of my house clean and organized at once.

How was your October? What are you looking forward to in November?
Here come the colors!
 
I'll admit I'll miss my pretty office window view. It relly can't be beat.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Donkeys, Dogs, and Worst Case Scenarios

The dogs and I dressed up for Trunk or Treat at our church Sunday evening:

Mary on the road to Bethlehem with her
donkey and a stray sheep.
Jayne made an astonishingly patient donkey. He not only did not attempt to remove his blanket, but he stood nicely at the DDH's side, stretching out his head for the kids to pet but not jumping up and attacking them with friendliness. Everybody loved him.

In the alternate universe where I have lots of free time, I am getting him his therapy dog certification so he can heal people through the power of animal awesomeness.

In the real universe, he's going to waste all that talent playing fetch at home.

Kaylee hid behind my legs most of the evening but tremblingly allowed several toddlers pat her head. This bodes well for her interactions with T-Rex. I hope. She also tried to kill the DCE's little Bichon Frise dog, but that dog probably had it coming. It was probably making fun of her sheep costume, since it already looks like a sheep, and Kaylee was clearly a beagle with some spiderweb wrapped around her head.

The other dog is at my MIL's house, though whether this arrangement is temporary or permanent I'm not sure.

Two weeks left until the due date! There's a lot left to do but I simply can't muster up any sense of urgency about any of it. I can't muster up much of anything that requires energy right now. The DDH cleaned half the garage yesterday (a herculean feat, I assure you). I fell asleep while folding socks. That tells you something.

I started packing a bag for the hospital on Saturday. I have a little list of recommended items that the hospital gave me. Going down the list in random order, I put in three T-Rex outfit choices, a toothbrush, some CDs (the DDH gave the go-ahead on the Christmas music!). Then I got to the bullet point "Important phone numbers."

"What do they mean by that?" I asked the DDH. "I think this list predates cell phones."

"You might want to write a few of the numbers down anyway," he said. "Just in case something happens."

I think by "in case something happens" he meant "our cell phone batteries die." My mind, however, jumped immediately to, "in case I die." So I wrote down our parents' numbers, the number for our church, and that of our elder. Because, clearly, if I die, the DDH will probably sit there in shock and possibly never inform anyone, but probably the church has a little protocol for walking people through funeral arrangements or whatever and I bet Don would come over and make sure the DDH continued to feed himself for at least the first few days.

By that point, I had decided that obviously I was going to die while in the hospital and so there was no point in packing shampoo or clothes for the trip home and I might as well go do something else, like watch an episode of Castle.

So I did.

The end.

Friday, October 26, 2012

I am the animal whisperer.

Animals are swarming to our house.

Monday night, I went outside because Jayne was barking his Serious Business bark. He was lunging at the end of his lead toward the corner of the backyard by the shed. I looked that way and saw two glowing green eyes staring back at me. Creepy.

I fetched a flashlight and shone it in the direction of the eyes. Turned out they belonged to a little dog, who for some reason had invaded our yard and was just chilling in the corner out of Jayne's reach. So I brought Jayne inside and then coaxed the dog to me and brought her inside, too.

Anybody want this little dog?

We don't really need a third dog. Especially a dog who jumps chain link fences and is crazy hyper. But we have yet to find her owners, and the DDH is getting suspiciously attached to her.

Then last night, I was taking the trash out when a fox dashed out of our yard and across the street. A real, live, honest-to-goodness fox.

(I know what you're thinking--this is like the squirrel story, isn't it? NO. It really was a fox. Our neighbors have a bright light in their front yard and I got a good look at it. Hmph.)

We don't live in the boonies, or even a suburb on the edge of town. Our house was built in the fifties. We're in the middle of the city. But there was a fox, just hanging out. Probably hunting for possums, because did I tell you about the times (plural, as in, more than once) possums have invaded our kitchen? Yeah.

Maybe it's more that all of Tulsa is the boonies....

ANYWAY. Then I was taking out more trash, and this little orange cat dashed up from across the street. He rolled on his back and I pet him a couple times. Then he tried to follow me into the house, because apparently he's the stupidest cat ever and wants to waltz into a house with three dogs in it.

I don't know who hung out the "All Animals Welcome Here" sign, but this is getting extreme.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Wir machen jetzt eine kleine Pause.

I way overdid it this past week/weekend.

Work has been simply heinous. Seriously. I was fired last week, then unfired, but still subjected to a week of emotional torture. So here I am, patiently biding my time until T-Rex is born, and then we'll be evaluating our long-term options.

So between that and frantically turning the house from a construction zone into a habitable and hospitable abode for three guests, family and friends in town and baby showers and all of that, I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

A few pics from the baby shower to tide you over until I can summon the energy to write an actual post:

Pretend I'm not in this picture, because I look awful.
But look how happy the DDH is!

Card envelope and wrapping paper handmade by the
DDH's aunt, who is disgustingly crafty.

Me with the hostesses, my MIL and
step-sister-in-law.

The DDH and I with our haul.
So many little baby clothes. So many little baby clothes with DINOSAURS on them.

He'll be very well-dressed. But really, I still need a carseat....


(The title translates, "We're taking a small break now." One of the coordinators of my study abroad program, a charming older British woman, said this all the time: for rest stops on bus trips, during orientation classes, whatever. Just imagine a high-pitched older woman's voice saying it in impeccable yet distinctively British-accented German. You can't possibly imagine it correctly. It was awesome.)

Friday, October 19, 2012

I am in need of an eye exam.

I have a story to tell you.

Yesterday, the dear DDH invited me to join him and some coworkers for lunch at a restaurant near my office.

This was awesome, because I never go out for lunch with people and I love that the DDH does and also I enjoyed eating fried chicken and potato chips with dip that clearly has crack as one of the main ingredients, it's so addictive.

But that's not the story.

This is the story:

I was walking back through the neighborhood to my car, enjoying the beautiful fall day--sunny, 68, breezy.

As I was walking, I saw a little dog walk down to the edge of a yard and look out over the sidewalk.

"OMG," I squealed inside my head. "That is the tiiiiiiiniest adorable poodle ever! It's like a cross between a poodle and a chihuahua maybe, with its tiny fluffy head and neck and smooth little body and stubby little legs. Squee!"

I took a few more steps, watching the poodle, admiring its miniscule adorableness.

Then it moved in a strange and unpoodlelike way.

"WTF is wrong with that dog?!" I said (luckily only in my head).

A few more steps.

The poodle scampered away.

Because it wasn't a poodle. Or a chihuaha. Or even a dog.

It was a freaking squirrel, y'all.

The "poodle's" fluffy head and neck were actually the squirrel's tail, and its smooth body was a squirrel's body, and its tiny chihuahua legs were actually squirrel legs.

This is an old, tree-filled neighborhood in midtown Tulsa. There are millions of squirrels everywhere. Why on earth, upon seeing a small brown animal, did I think it was an impossibly tiny poodle-chihuahua cross that probably does not even exist instead of a perfectly normal common brown squirrel?

Clearly I need new glasses.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Nursery Update

Y'all.

YOU. ALL.

Look!



I can't even tell you how happy I am with this room. It's all refinished and stained and painted and ready for the furniture and decorations.

The crib should theoretically be here by the end of the week. It better be, since my dad's supposed to help the DDH put it together when my parents are in town this weekend. My mom only ordered it last Wednesday, though, so we'll see. Nothing like the last minute....

The baby shower is on Saturday so we'll get all the bedding and curtains and things we picked out that my MIL bought us. I can't wait to see what it looks like all put together.

I've even stashed away all the T-Rex clothes we already have in the closet:

Tiiiiny little baby clothes!

Somewhat bigger baby clothes, sorted and labeled.
Everything else in this house is secondhand and inherited and mish-mashed together with no forethought. I'm living with a hideous hunter green accent wall in the living room (right when you open the front door. Right in a room that's dark to begin with. UGH) and yellow plaid wallpaper in the kitchen and ugly, odd-sized cabinets that nothing fits in properly. The rest of the house is still gross Berber carpet and looks-dirty-even-right-after-mopping linoleum and mint green tile.

But THIS ROOM is just how I want it. And it makes me so happy.

I can't believe what an amazing job the DDH did, and all by himself. I didn't even pretend to help do anything. Oh, I held the fan blades for him while he screwed them back in, and at one point I helped dust some things. But I don't think that counts, compared to all the sanding (by HAND) and staining and taping and painting and everything else he did. He's amazing. ^_^

Thursday, October 11, 2012

I am busy (busy, dreadfully busy).

I'm not sure when I'm going to learn to stop overscheduling myself. But some things just can't be helped.

Friday, the DDH's coworkers threw him a wonderful baby shower. I got to put faces to a bunch of names (not that I can guarantee that I'll remember either). The DDH loves working there; we'll both be sad when they make him move.

We hit up the state fair again Friday night, stuffed ourselves with more junk food, pet ALL OF THE RABBITS and a bunch of goats and a WALLABY and things, and watched a super awesome fire-spinning show. Yay fairs!

Petting a wallaby.

Disapproving rabbit does not approve.
Saturday managed to be quite productive, as you can see:

Brown is done!

Taped.

We took the blades off the fan to make it easier to paint
the ceiling.

The DDH takes all the credit for that. I went to the farmer's market and made pumpkin gingersnap oatmeal and cleaned the kitchen.

Saturday afternoon we attended a beautiful wedding for one of my college friends. And stuffed ourselves on more food. Then I bought pinking shears and turned two t-shirts into wipes while watching Breaking Bad, because nothing says preparing for baby like a show about meth cooks.

Wedding cake and Mario Mushroom groom's-cupcakes.
Sunday after church we were incredibly productive, and the nursery now looks like this:


First coat of blue on the walls done.

Exclamation point!

Again, that's all the DDH's work. I was trying to clean up the office, which is now the office/second guest bedroom, since the second guest bedroom is now the nursery. I made progress, but nobody would admire any pictures of the room in its current state. So.

I also turned another t-shirt into yet more cloth wipes, and discovered that I had bruised my hand with Saturday's cutting. Ow.

We went out to dinner with some friends who were in town from Maryland. It was a lot of fun, though it brought home the fact that most of our friends have moved away and we don't really have people to just hang out with anymore. Sigh.

After that was a couples' wedding shower for an old college friend, the highlight of which was getting to see a different old college friend who had just flown in from Japan, where he now lives (I told you all our friends moved away).

Anyway. That is sort of our schedule from now until the baby comes, I think: lots and lots of work to do at home and lots and lots of other obligations. Doctor's appointment and hospital tour were Monday (doctor's appointments every Monday here on out!), church stuff Wednesday, a different church thing tonight, work AND a wedding Saturday, etc., etc., etc. And I have so much to do that I decided that I needed to start getting up earlier, so I'm getting less sleep right when I'm exhausted anyway. I suppose I'll have two months to lounge around and nap once T-Rex gets here. Right? Oh dear.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I am dressed (don't ask much more of me)!

I have realized that I am not going to last another five weeks (technically--*gulp*--4.5) without buying some maternity tops. The few I've borrowed are a) mostly summery and b) size small, which means that they're not really effective maternity tops at this point, or won't be for much longer. Because while I love everyone who calls me "tiny" and "skinny," I am not and never will be a size small.

Anyway.

Shirt and cardi: Old Navy; pants: Kohl's;
jewelry: WalMart.
I quite liked this outfit. But all of my regular shirts...they're getting to be skintight around that baby belly and it's just not attractive.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the shirt is gray and the camisole is baby blue, which is one of my favorite color combinations.

Shirt: Old Navy; pants: Kohl's.
This shirt, too, though cut quite loosely through the middle (I tended to belt it before to help emphasize my waist since it was so drapey), is clearly getting to be too. tight.

Top: borrowed or consignment, I forget;
skirt: positively ancient. Like, middle school
ancient.
I attended a volunteer appreciation dinner with the DDH for a program he's involved with at work and needed to try and look relatively formal at the last minute. This is precisely the type of shirt that I often bought when I was younger because in theory it looks nice, but in practice it's quite unflattering. It's more flattering when you're actually pregnant (and this one is actually a maternity top and not just an empire waist), but pairing it with this skirt was a terrible idea. I felt so frumpy and weird.

Also, it's that polyester stuff that doesn't breathe at all and blech.

Tops: Old Navy; jeans: Kohl's.
I wore this outfit to our Saturday childbirth class. Other than the fact that the camisole is really too tight, and these maternity jeans are unnecessarily uncomfortable and kind of don't fit (I've learned I should not have bought any pants with that sort of thick half panel. It doesn't fit me right now that I'm bigger, segments me like an ugly worm, and is uncomfortable. Blah), I love this outfit.

So in other words, I like the color and style, just the clothes don't fit.

Sigh.

Top: borrowed; pants: Kohl's.
This outfit is tragic. Tragic, because it's adorable and I love the top.

Except the friend I borrowed maternity clothes from wears a small. And the armholes on this shirt sliced through my skin because it was juuuuuuust too small through the shoulders and ribcage.

Ow.

But it fit fantastically around the giant T-Rex belly!

I just can't win.

Shirt: When in doubt, guess Old Navy;
pants: Kohl's.
I can never decide if I love or hate this shirt and its weird sleeves. I loved them when I bought it. Every time I wear it I change my mind. Either way, it's getting to small for the T-Rex belly. Le sigh.

Oh, my new arm sweaters came in handy when wearing that shirt, though.

Overshirt: borrowed; cami: Old Navy;
pants: Kohl's
Last but not least, quite a reasonable outfit here. I like layers. I wish a maternity camisole didn't cost upwards of seventeen freaking dollars so I could get several to wear for the next few weeks. Because it's getting to the point where you can see the outline of my belly button and exactly where the support panels on the maternity pants end and it's just depressing.

I need to go through my sweaters this week to see which are baggy enough to wear. If I have a couple, maybe I can get away with just a long-sleeved t-shirt type thing or two. And some nursing camisoles, since I can use those afterward, too.

Blah! I was so proud of myself, not really buying anything new, clotheswise, and just making my normal wardrobe work for me through this pregnancy. But I am not getting any smaller and I still have a month to go. I'll try to stay away from anything too terribly season specific, but with my luck it'll be July or something next time I'm this huge :-)

What are y'all wearing these days? How do you dress for that final ginormous stage of pregnancy?


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I am a little squirrely.

I am a list-maker and a planner.

I'm not always a very good follow-througher.

The lists help, though. My brain is filled with little squirrels, all apparently hyped up on crack cocaine, darting around and shouting loudly in tiny squirrel voices about all the things I need to do.

Squirrels in a crack den.*
There's a Do the Dishes Squirrel and a Feed the Dogs Squirrel and a Clean the Rabbit Cage Squirrel and a whole big messy pile of Laundry Squirrels. There are Dinner Plans Squirrels and Vacuuming Squirrels mixed in with Reorganize All of the Kitchen Cabinets Squirrels and Rearrange All the Furniture in the Office Squirrels and Stuff To Do For Work Squirrels and every kind of project, idea, inspiration, or chore squirrel imaginable.

If I leave the squirrels in my head, their frantic scrabbling on the inside of my brain paralyzes me. The only squirrel I can hear over the din is the quiet Veg Out In Front of the TV Squirrel, who I think smokes pot instead of snorting crack, or something, because he's very mellow and speaks in a low, slow voice that provides a nice contrast to all his chattering brethren.

ANYWAY.

I have learned that I can trap the squirrels and get them out of my head by writing them down. So I make To Do Lists. EPIC To Do Lists. Pages and pages of to do lists filled with idea squirrels.

The problem is that usually my mind becomes overwhelmingly squirrely and in desperate need of a To Do List intervention while I'm at work. So I trap all the squirrels in an epic To Do List or three typed into a Google Drive document.

Then I'm left with all this antsy squirrel energy and I can't do anything about it.

So I start organizing my To Do Lists. I separate tasks by category (usually room in my house) and break them down into all their component parts. The Organize the Office Squirrel has a litter of little squirrels called Clear Off the Desk and File Papers and Hang Pictures. The Laundry Squirrels have many babies: Wash Darks, Dry Darks, Fold Darks, Put Away Darks, Wash Jeans, Dry Jeans, Fold Jeans, Put Away Jeans, etc.

The idea is to tame each rambunctious, overwhelming, hard-to-catch squirrel into a tiny bite-sized nibble of a project (I think my metaphor just strayed to the point where I'm now eating drugged squirrels, oops) for me to conquer. And by conquer, I mean "cross of my to-do list with a flourish of vindictive satisfaction."

(And yes, I put things on my list for the sole purpose of being able to have them crossed off already. For instance, I'm making a To Do List for the week, and though it is Tuesday, I wrote down everything I did yesterday and then happily struck through them all. I also always include things that I'll do no matter what, like Go To Work or Meeting, 7 p.m., so that I always have something to feel accomplished about.)

Then I take all those baby squirrels and do a To Do List organized by time frame, assigning squirrels to particular days over the course of a week or weekend, arranged in rough order of importance or when they should be begun (so the Laundry Squirrels always go first because I should always toss a load in the wash before I start anything else so that my washing machine and I can multi-task).

Often, I'll include something like Fifteen Minutes On A Project, when I know I don't have time enough to do a whole task but do have the time to accomplish something. I can grab my lists of thematically organized tasks and work through as many Clean the Office tasks as I get to in fifteen minutes.

The organized lists work great if I still have any of that squirrel energy left when I get home. They don't work as well if I use up all my energy a) organizing my lists of things to do (which happens way too often) or b) doing actual work at work (lame).

My house is a complete wreck right now, and I have a million things to do that may or may not get done (before T-Rex gets here and/or ever). If you looked at my actual life right now, you would pretty much just see chaos.

But if you could see my To Do Lists, you would think I was the Most Awesome and Organized and Put-Together Person Ever In the History of Organized and Put-Together People. Think of me thus and ignore the chaos.

And luckily no one needs to see the squirrels.

*Image source here.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

I am all over the place.

The DDH found a figurine of a Tyrannosaurus Rex breaking out of an egg. It's going to be the cake topper for the cake at the baby shower his office is throwing us. Because it's not just a T-Rex, it's a BABY T-Rex being BORN. Aaaaah, so cute.

Also? The fact that his office throws showers for the "pregnant" dads who work there and not just for the moms. It's such a great idea. He loves working there (and not just because they give him presents) and loves the people he works with. It's a real blessing for one of us to love his job, anyway. ^_^

Is it possible we're going overboard with the dinosaur theme? It's possible. Yeah.

Hey, but look at what happened to the nursery Saturday morning while I was at work:

Paint! The magical hobbit door blends right in now!
And I don't have before or after pictures, but the DDH made miraculous progress on the office last night. We may be able to clear all the extra stuff out of the guest room and once again have two guest rooms by the end of this very week. Which considering we're having a pile of people coming to our house in eighteen or nineteen days and expecting to have somewhere to sleep, would be a good thing.

The fact that he made a bunch of that progress by moving things into my finally!clean craft room is less awesome. But oh well. Priorities, I guess.

We spent all Saturday afternoon and evening at the Tulsa State Fair with the DDH's mom and step-dad. It was incredibly nice to hang out doing something with someone other than just the two of us. Also, I love fairs: fried food and fluffy animals and all that. I may have overdone it on the walking around, though. Ow.

Cake tree of cakes.

Tired cow is tired.
Sunday I took a small friend to a birthday party at this place filled with bouncy things (you know, those inflatable jumpers and races and slides and stuff). It looked like a great deal of fun, actually. But. Oh dear. The chaos. The noise and the disorder and the not-listening and the noise and the grabbing and the rapacious greed and the NOISE. Is it too late to say "just kidding" to this whole parenting thing? Ow.

In other news, it's October. Eek eek eek it's October. Help.

In other other news, ostensibly I joined Pinterest (username SingingPenguin) to help me learn to dress good. I was supposed to use it to help me discover the sorts of looks I like and learn to invest in pieces I will actually wear or learn how to style the pieces I own differently. All the stuff all the fashion blogs and books and things say to use Pinterest for.

That lasted about three days before I turned it into a giant electronic recipe file. I don't even look at anything people post anymore unless it's food. Or maybe a little household tip or craft project. Turns out, pictures of clothes bore me.

Food > fashion every day of the week.

Monday, October 1, 2012

What I am into this month (September).

This is the view from the other side of my building than I
usually post. The smoke comes not from that tall building
but from the other side, as the Tulsa School of
Arts & Sciences burned down.
September has been a rough month. It's been busy, and most of the busyness has been good. But it's been sort of an emotional roller coaster, and a very rough time at work.

Anyway, here's the monthly roundup:

On My Nightstand: I devoured a long chain of novels this month. The most notable is After the Golden Age, by Carrie Vaughn. It's about the daughter of superhero parents who has no powers herself, but really it's about family and self-acceptance and power and all of that. Highly recommend.

Want to Read: I am getting closer to the end of the Luther biography. The problem is that I take it with me places to read and then lose it. Still. Oops.

TV Show Worth Watching: They're slowly coming back! Castle and Bones and Grimm and all the rest--and Once Upon a Time premiered last night. Squee! (Except the DDH has a meeting and I don't know if we'll be able to watch it tonight on Hulu. *cries*)

Movies I've Seen (in or out of a theater): We rented a new Jason Statham movie, Safe, last week. Basically, this movie was designed to show off Jason Statham doing stuff. He gets to drive cars crazily, shoot people, have Epic Fight Scenes, all the fun stuff, and the movie people just didn't worry too much about if the plot tying it together made any sense.

In My Ears: I'm miffed at Amazon. I pre-ordered the new Mumford & Sons album, Babel, expecting to get it, you know, right away, and it didn't get here until Saturday. So all week I had to listen to people going on about how good it is. But. You know, they were right. The weird thing about Mumford & Sons is that I often don't even like their songs the first time I listen to them. But then I hear them again, and then listen again, and suddenly those songs have wormed their way into the very core of my heart. So good.

Links

Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed that intArwebz are full of outgoing introverts chattering away at each other. Tanya Marlow shares her theory.

While I find myself grumbling at stuff on Patheos more frequently than not, this piece speaks to my irritation with doom-and-gloomers of all sides of the political aisle. Dear Christian, if the Thought of Either Romney or Obama Getting Elected Makes You Fearful, Angry, or Depressed, You Have What We Call a Theological Problem.



I seem to have lost my list of other interesting tidbits I collected around the internets this month. I'll be back to edit if I find it.

What I'm looking forward to next month: It was foolish to look forward to fall weather cool enough for sweaters in September, and I failed to drink even one pumpkin spice latte (or pumpkin anything, actually). Perhaps October shall do better. So many things to look forward to this month: two weddings, the baby shower, finishing things up. The last full month before T-Rex arrives (assuming he doesn't arrive pretty early). Halloween! I need to think of something clever for my costume this year. HALP.

Goal Progress: I posted some goals for the new year, and I figured these monthly wrap-up posts would be a good chance to check my progress throughout 2012.

The Budget: We have one, and it's doing okay, even with spending extra on baby things and renovation supplies. Yay.

The Garden: I may or may not contemplate planting more garlic this month or next.

Food: I failed to make dinner even once this week. We had fast food Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and a volunteer appreciation dinner to attend on Thursday, and honestly I don't even remember eating on Friday. I don't know. I'm having issues with hating food again.

The Craft Room: Is still not quite done and labeled, but it's being used for crafts, so what more can you ask for? And the office will need to be at least mostly done in the next couple weeks, since we have four or five people staying at our house for the baby shower, and the office is turning into our second guest room (with the bunk beds). And the nursery! The floors are done. It's looking so good.

The leaves are hinting at change.
How was your September? What are you looking forward to in October?