RazNoggle

So we move into this house and my wonderful dryer that my in-laws got us for our wedding wouldn’t work because it was a gas hook up. The dryer is electric. So anyway, no big deal there’s a clothes line outside. Hmmmm…. I don’t especially like to hang up clothes, the jeans and towels always feel like cardboard and sand paper. But I could deal with it because I knew it was temporary. My pa-in-law said that he could wire it up for the dryer, and I knew he could too, because if ever there was a handy man, it’s him! You should have seen what he did with the “shed” in their old house in Colorado!! Anyhow, a few weekends ago he finally had a chance to do it, and I don’t envy him the task, because he had to crawl under the house! If it had been me, I’d be hanging out clothes till my dying day, no thanks! He even saw where a snake had crawled right where he was going! Ugh! I digress, he got it hooked up, and it worked like a gem. The problem now is that the dumb dryer won’t DRY! It really doesn’t get very hot in there, and it takes 2 hours or more to dry one load. This is not the dryer I remember it to be. I think Stu’s going to look into the voltage or something, I don’t have a clue… my unhelpful suggestion was, “maybe there’s a switch or something inside it.” Duh! Oh well, there’s always the line I suppose.

Ho Ho Ho! I’m ready for Christmas! Stuart and I got some stuff for our families this summer to start out, but that’s not really REAL Christmas shopping. Last weekend we were in Albuquerque, and I got wrapping paper, ribbon, and PRESENTS!!! Yep, I knew what I wanted to get Stu, but had to be in town to get it. Where we live, all country and everything, we don’t have much to chose from, BUT I finally had the chance to get it and I got it!! I can’t tell you what “it” is because you might blab, or worse Stu might even read it himself. Anyway, I also shopped for lights for the tree, which will be a REAL tree, and got some gifts for Qade. I can tell you what Qade’s are, cause he can’t read, and even if you told him he wouldn’t get it. I got him a collection of Baby Einstein DVD’s and after I picked those up I was walking past the kid books and of course I had to at least LOOK, and lo and behold there was a collection of Beatrix Potter books!! Ack! All little hard bound stories, from Peter Rabbit to Miss Moppet nicely put together in a little box. Do you think I could just pass that up? Well, I didn’t. I think we may get one more gift for Qade because one of the traditions that we had in our house growing up is something I’d like to carry over. We had lots of symbolism (wooooo) in our holiday celebrations. We’d always talk about how the tree was to remind us of the cross, the lights were to remind us of how we are the light of the world, the star, of course the shekinah glory, and our parents would get each of us kids 3 gifts, and that was to remind us of the gifts of the magi. We got other gifts from grandparents and brothers and such, so we were never felt like we were getting jipped, but it was cool just to make it more special in a way. So, this year, Qade’s first Christmas, I’m going to talk to him about the tree, and the star and the lights of the world. I know he won’t remember, but I will!!

The other night Stuart, Qade and I went to town and ate dinner at Applebee’s yummy-yummy! Actually Qade didn’t eat, he just kept us company and provided the entertainment. His biggest stunt was puking all over Daddy on his way to the bathroom to be changed. I was happy that I was busy with my chocolate mousse at that point. But anyway, that’s not really what this post is about. We were heading home and it’s a 45 min drive, so we got petrol and some cappuccino for the road. Stuart got French Vanilla, a good stand by, but I was feeling adventurous so I got something Vanilla Rush! Woo-hoo!! It had cinnamon in it though, and I don’t care for that in drinks so I was slightly disappointed, but I drank it anyway. I wasn’t sure what the “rush” part was, but figured it must be the spice. Well I got Qade home and ready for bed, and all cleaned up from his puking party, and I was beat! Sooooo tired, it had been a long day and I really felt like I was still recovering from being sick myself. I gladly took myself to bed, ya know it’s one of those times where the thing that makes you the happiest is just the thought of closing your eyes with your head on your pillow knowing that you’ll be asleep in seconds. Ha!! Not to be, oh no! My eye lids wouldn’t even stay closed!! Here I was dead tired, and no sleep was coming near me! I finally got up and wrote some e-mail and whatnot. I hate it when this happens! Finally I went back to bed and eventually to sleep. I just couldn’t figure out what in the world was wrong with me till sometime the next day when I finally realized what the “rush” was in the not all that great cappuccino that I had was. Grrrrr… if you’re going to pay for a drink with sleep, it should at least taste good!

My hubby is teaching me how to post pictures on her “all by myself” so this is just a test run, but lucky you all get to see if I can succeed! With my amazing man with me I know I shall!

This is a cool pic of a double rainbow that was right out our back door.

Well, all the baby stuff tells ya that you can start your baby on a sippy cup at 6 months. So dutiful mommy that I am I started introducing it around that time. However, Qade is not so interested in drinking out of a sippy right now. I recently had a conversation with one of my friends who said she had to finally just quit the bottle “cold turkey” with her baby. I’m not ready to do that with Bub-ba, just yet, so instead I’m quitting! No biggie. Sometimes I’ve noticed that he’s not quite ready for something and I give it a while and *bam* he’s got it. So I’m taking a break from sippy cup pushing and we’ll leave it at that till at least after Christmas. By then, I think, he will be more than capable of handling the cup and at nearly 9 months I’ll be ready to fight the battle. Who knows though, it might be a surprise and he’ll just take to it like a fish to water. It could happen!

Did I tell you the story about our electricity? Well it’s been a week or so now, but sometime while we were at the couple’s retreat a really big oak tree blew down right onto the power line and poll. It totally took out the meeter and everything. The power company came out and chopped up the tree and put the line back up, but apparently we were responsible to get an electrician to come put up the meeter and connect everything. We find all this out on Sunday night after getting back from working at the retreat. It’s getting dark and we are franticly trying to see if anything is salvageable in the freezer. I threw out one and a half big bags of food. Tsk tsk! Anyway we were fortunate to be able to stay with Stu’s grandparents who don’t live far from here. Stuart had to start work the following day at the school, and meantime was trying to figure out what to do about the power. The company kept giving us the run around and it looked like it was going to be a days if not weeks long process. It helps you know somebody who knows somebody, ya know? To make a long story shorter the electrician we found knew a guy at the power company and he worked it out so that we got past some of the ridiculous red tape. We left that week on Thursday for the rally, and that Friday the power came back on. Hurrray!!!!