Ta-Da!!!!!

It's a post! And an awesome new blog look! The first one that I've actually REALLY, TRULY loved since I started the blog. It's the perfect mix of rustic and girly. *Happy Sigh*

Also, as I sat in Starbucks last night, able to think in the blissful quiet.......I managed to finally merge my blog and gmail account.

Blogger has also made some great upgrades to their features, and that pretty much completes my happy blogging experience.

Now I can just sit down and post.....ANYTIME. No toggling between google accounts. It's a novel thing.

I often wish there was a feature that let me connect my brain (wirelessly, of course) to blogger. Then I could compose posts easily while washing my dishes. Which is when all of my truly deep thinking occurs for some reason. It just never seems to make it onto the blog.

You'll notice that I also have cool new tabs at the top of the blog. Most of the pages are still blank, but they'll fill up as I have time :)

Check out the tab labeled "Never Miss A Post". Not that I think you lie in bed at night worried that you might miss a post from me. But I realize that my posts get so random that you grow tired of checking my blog. There's a link there to put my feed into your blog reader (if you don't use one, you should - they're awesome little tools!). And there's also an option to subscribe via email. Yah! Now you don't have to lie awake at night. Or be annoyed at me. Or miss out on my life ('cause THAT would of course be the ultimate tragedy.....hahahahahah...ahem).

Also, a note to all of my FB friends. I'm planning, after this post, on stopping my blogposts from feeding into Facebook (if I can remember how to do that!). It feels a bit obnoxious when my blogposts come across my Facebook feed, since they're generally like 500 pages long and I realize that, really? Nobody cares!!!! So, if you're among the 3 people who enjoy these rambling updates, then go here and subscribe via reader or email. Otherwise you can now commence being grateful that you'll never be plagued by useless details of my life again. Yah!

Oh, and if I actually have any readers left, go ahead, make my day. Comment on this post and threaten me with strange and weird punishments if I don't continue to post. Or just say Hi. That works too.

A random post in which I tell you how to get free stuff and make a random announcement

 

No. I’m not pregnant. That is NOT the random announcement. In case you were wondering. Not like anyone else has been. While I enjoy this whole baby-having thing immensely, I’m pretty sure that if I produced a new deduction in 2008, 2009, AND 2010, I’d be flagged for audit. And that just doesn’t sound fun. Back to the post.

I’ve recently come across something that makes me immensely happy. Almost as happy as baby-having. The sad thing is….I’ve known about it for SO LONG. And I haven’t taken advantage of it until now. Maybe because I was skeptical, or lazy, or….I’m not sure. But I’ve recently discovered that it is SO worth it.

Now this would be the place for me to write something flowery about how beautiful life is, taking time out to enjoy it, blah, blah blah. But that’s not actually what I’ve discovered. It’s a bit more mercenary.

FREE AMAZON GIFT CARDS!!!!!!!!!

No gimmick. No joke. Don’t have to do ANYTHING out of the ordinary.

Ladies and Gentlemen (yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of men reading this blog). May I introduce you to…..

SWAGBUCKS!!!!

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Maybe you’ve seen your friend’s annoying FB posts on it. Maybe you’ve thought it was an addictive form of online gambling, a strange multi-level company,  or a cult (okay, so maybe that’d be close….free stuff is addictive ;)

But here’s the deal. Register. Use the SB search engine (powered by Google, and available as a toolbar, on the SB webpage, or as a FireFox search option). RANDOMLY get awarded “Swagbucks” in $10 increments. On any given search, you may get nothing. Or you may get 10 SB, or 50 SB, or if it’s Friday, something really crazy like 100 SB.

Your Swagbucks (SB) build up in a nice little pile, and you can redeem them for all sorts of nice things in the SB online store. My favorite being the $5 amazon gift card. It costs 450 SB. I’ve earned one in 2 weeks time. And NO, I have NOT had to sit in front of my computer doing random searches all day long. I’ve just used it for normal web browsing. If I’m headed to bloglines, I no longer type the bloglines address in my browser. I type “bloglines” in my SB search box and access it through the search. Do the math. That’s approx. $120 Amazon Giftcards per YEAR. Without doing anything different from your daily activities. Needless to say I highly recommend it.

It gets better! If you sign up and love it, you can tell your friends about it. And if they sign up through your referral link, YOU get a matching SB for EVERY SB they earn, up to 1000. That’s 2 more free Amazon gift cards. Yup. Awesome.

Why did I avoid this for so long? Because I thought it looked like a cheesy scheme. Because I thought I’d get spammed. Because I thought they would want my credit card number. Because it seemed too good to be true. I’m pleased to report, after careful investigation, that NONE of the above concerns are valid. Swagbucks is paid for by advertising. Just like the free blog your reading this on. Or the free bloglines/google reader you’re using to read this.

Obviously, if you sign up with the cute little banner ad above, or at this link, I’ll get extra SB for referring you. You won’t miss out on anything. But, if you happen to NOT use my link, I’ll still like you. Actually I’ll never know. But HOWEVER you sign up, I promise you, it’s totally worth it. I know several people who used SB to pay for Christmas last year. Others save for Ipods, Cameras, even computers (I don’t have that kind of patience….that person must have had a LOT of friends they got started on Swagbucks).

How’s that for a pitiful little sales pitch? Okay, actually, I forgot about the referral thing until very recently. As in when I was mentioning it to a friend, and suddenly realized I could profit from my niceness. I would have told you about swagbucks anyway. Really. 

As I prepared to hit the “post” button, my husband arrived home with 10 baby chicks. The ensuing antics of my 19 month old were so priceless, I think I just vowed to use my swagbucks to get a video camera. Now off to stop her from offering every baby toy we own to the chicks. I have succeeded in convincing her that they can’t wear her PJ’s. Or Lilly’s.

How NOT to have a blog……

 

Hello? Anybody out there? Anybody at all?

Betcha thought I was never going to post again, didn’t you? I admit it. I’m a total looser as far as my blog is concerned. What can I say? Life happened.

At last posting, 2009 had just started. Ah, January, the month that was to be amazing. It was, in case you were wondering.

See, we moved into a nice farmhouse 2 weeks after Abby was born. I don’t recommend the timeframe. At. All. But, when you’ve been looking for a house for 3 months and everything you’ve looked at that’s available in your area frightens you, you do funny things. Especially when you happen upon a lovely rental, in your price range. One with new paint, new carpet, and a GORGEOUS landscape around you. You take it. And you move.

Then 2 weeks later you do a wedding cake. Because you’re crazy. And you really, really, really love your midwife, even if she is getting married and leaving you.

 

After this great event, you try to get your house setup. Except because you’ve been living in a travel trailer, you have lots of stuff and no furniture. Because all of your furniture is attached to your old house. This setting up takes a great deal of time.  Especially if your infant then develops nursing problems that threaten to label her FTT. 6 weeks of your life. Gone. And you don’t even get to sleep during them. Then come the holidays.

Those are fun.

Mostly.

But THEN….come January. In January, you are amazing. Your house stays clean most of the time. You start to wade through the mountains of dirty clothes, you dig out from underneath the piles of boxes.

Life is good.

You tell your newfound friend, who has a 2, 3, and 4 year old, how excited you are with this new organized phase in your life. The little smart alech laughs at you and says “yeah, whenever I feel in control of life, 2 pink lines seem to follow close behind.”  “Not all of us have the genetics of a bunny rabbit” you smart back.

And a few weeks later when you’re experiencing those pink lines, you conveniently leave town the same day so that you won’t have to listen to her snide remarks. Thanks to your husband’s winter employer, you get the trip of a lifetime. You spend 3 weeks on the East coast seeing old friends.

You even get to introduce your daughter to her Great-Grandaddy.

Upon arriving back home, you find yourself (thankfully) feeling good, but oh. so. tired. You spend the next 3 months of your life sleeping, and feeding your 6 month old. Your house starts to look like a barn again. Bummer.

The baby does all she can to help with the house, but falls a bit short. No pun intended.

Then, one day, you get your energy back. Just in time for you and your man to make a career-altering decision. Flight School. Not the kind for potential airline pilots, but the kind for CROPDUSTERS. Strangely enough, you’ve heard your husband talk about how great this is for so long, that you’re not even afraid for his safety. You’d just like him to shut up and find something new to talk about. (totally kidding by the way…about the shutting up part).

You find yourself giddy with excitement as he packs to leave….and so sad all at the same time.

 

You get your traditional one-and-only-belly-shot-of-the-whole-pregnancy-because-I’m-a-looser-mom picture taken.

 

During the 3 weeks you have until he comes back for you and the baby, you drag your sisters over to your house. You spend a solid week, cleaning, unpacking, decluttering, and redoing the nursery. You make lots of memories, and your sisters are even still speaking to you when it’s done.

You husband survives his first 3 weeks and returns home to get you. Just in time for the 4th of July. You attend your inlaws 50th wedding anniversary, feeling like something of a party-crasher as your amazing siblings-in-law do an insane amount of work, and YOU only pick up some rental items. And since you get to eat Chick-fil-a while doing so, it doesn’t really feel like work.

 

You spend 2.5 months in Georgia, having lots of adventures too lengthy to blog about here and now.

 

You arrive home 3 weeks before your due-date, and 30 days before your darling new daughter actually arrives.

Lillian Marie Emrich

10:23 PM

Friday, October 30,2009

8 lbs 9 oz

21.5 inches long.

 

 

You miss recording that darling scene when your 1st born meets your 2nd born, because you took the card out of the camera and forgot. You don’t want to talk about it. You settle for lesser quality pictures at a later time.

Your new addition, while she looks like her sister, acts completely different. Probably mostly due to the complex she’s developing because her parents keep calling her “Abby”, even though they KNOW that’s not her name.

Lillian Marie ~ 3 weeks old

Abby Grace ~ 4 weeks old

You travel to see your husband’s brother and his family for Thanksgiving. This involves a trip to Boston, Mass. (Bolton, Mass – to be more exact).

The trip is wonderful…except for one unfortunate fact. Your new addition to the family falls to pieces whenever she has to sleep away from home. This fact repeats itself over the Christmas Holidays, which fortunately only require 2 nights away.

Having started a new tradition of “make a wedding cake with a newborn baby”, you further shoot yourself in the foot by HELPING with the wedding of your one-and-only-favorite-photographer.

Just like that. In your insanity, you participate in the very event which will allow her to leave and go 1500 miles away from you. But, she seems downright giddy about the whole thing, so you’re glad you did it.

(A side note: Bethany is responsible for all of the really, really cute pictures on this post. The professional looking ones. Most of which remain un-blogged. Sob. SO ashamed. But, if it makes her feel any better, I frequently scroll through the on my computer with a huge grin on my face. Generally followed by an emotional breakdown as I am reminded that NO ONE takes pictures like her, and I will be FOREVER dissatisfied with pictures taken by portrait studios. Which is pretty much my only option. What can I say? She’s done my engagement pictures. My wedding pictures. Family pictures. Baby pictures. Isn’t this emotional trauma understandable? And aside from her amazing picture taking abilities, she’s a really sweet, wonderful person. I mean, she likes books and chocolate…..how could anyone NOT love her? :)

January rolls around, and with it – a new laptop loaded with Windows 7. Windows 7 comes with this great thing called Windows Live Writer. You now have no excuse not to blog, as you can compose off-line. And your husband happens to outside after dark freezing his butt off while disassembling a pivot line. This results in the longest blog post ever to be posted in the history of time. With lots of grammatical errors.

 

  You loose the 2 readers you had left because they fell asleep reading your post.

 

But at least you have something to show for the last 90 minutes of your life. Yah for you.

You might be Self Employed AND ADD if.....

You find yourself amazed at the huge volume of beautiful, flowing blogposts about the New Year, Reflections on the Old Year, etc, etc, etc. that your friends have been composing. All the while, all YOU'VE been thinking about is how soon you can get the Balance sheet to the Accountant so he can do your taxes, and you can find out how much money you owe the government, and why doesn't the weather warm up so that we can actually MAKE some money to pay to the government, and that you are REALLY sick of your Christmas tree, and that right there is proof that you are ADD since it wasn't put up until a week before Christmas, and the dog really needs food, and what happened to my visions of a happy organized life that I once had? And further more, will my kitchen floor ever get mopped, my bathroom cleaned, and my clothes put away.

And since my husband just called and told me not to go out today because it's a solid sheet of ice outside, it must really be bad, because my husband NEVER tells me to stay home because of the weather. Probably because I drive a jeep with 4WD, and, according to the expert himself, I am a reasonably good driver. And the ice makes me feel so relieved because I can now put off until Monday everything I should have done today, errand-wise. Marvelous.

But I still wonder if there is anything I can do to improve focus in my life so that I can think of just one thing at a time, like a man. That last thought is to imply that men only think of one thing at a time. Not that I wish I could spend all my days thinking of a man. Because I would of course choose my favorite man to think about. And that would get me all dreamy eyed and I wouldn't get anything done as I would be lost in my own little world. Then my favorite man would come home and wonder what his favorite wife had done all day. And I might not be his favorite wife anymore. Which would be a bummer since he doesn't have any others to claim the title.

Now, any of my readers that have not removed me from their bloglines because they're frightened are at the very least rolling on the floor laughing at me. And Elizabeth is probably thinking that maybe Alatheia isn't really spastic at all, as I have just brought new meaning to the word. But I have no more time to reflect on whatever this blog post is about (I'm really not sure myself). Because I need to go fix lunch for me and my favorite man. And feed the baby. And the dog. And then plan out next week so that I can achieve a lot of stuff.....If I could get focused ever. Maybe THAT should be my New Years resolution. To focus. But I'm not sure that word is necessarily in the vocabulary of a mom. And certainly not an ADD mom. Is it Courtney?

This is kind of how I feel today.......

I'm just feeling a little typed out. And uninspired. So, after a long blogging run, I'm taking the weekend off. Check back Monday. My house should be clean then, my grocery list made, and hopefully I'll be inspired again.

And, in the meantime, checkout this website for a few laughs, or at least a grin.

You might be a mom if....

you find yourself carefully folding up your 5 day old subway wrapper, and placing it in the diaper bag, because it happens to be your 4 month old's new favorite toy.

Abby and Baxter

My daughter has a very special, furry friend. Who is slightly neurotic. His name is Sam. Ooops. Wrong post. That's tomorrows post. Let's start that over.

His name is Baxter. Baxter is our Border Collie/Lab Mix. Baxter would be different from Buster, our first BC/Lab mix who mysteriously disappeared last year. While he may at times lack tact and self control, he is not by any means lacking in personality. Baxter is one of those good dogs to have around. You know, the kind that you'd expect to pull your child from the pond as they were drowning? The one who woke you up when the house was burning down. Friendly to friends, and ferocious to dangerous types. That kind of Dog.

Abby and Baxter on Rag's BD

The day Abby was born, at 3 AM, Baxter had been kicked outside. Because obviously when you're trying to have a baby in a travel trailer, you get rid of any extra space-robbers. Baxter had been quiet as a mouse (or so I'm told, I was a little distracted and didn't really care if the dog was dead or alive, much as I love him), and was assumed to be asleep.

When Abby was born, she arrived screaming, as do most babies. The instant Baxter heard the sound, he went nuts because he was SURE he had missed something important. He dealt with his feelings of mixed joy and distress by running circles around the trailer at 3 AM barking his fool head off. Abby and Baxter have shared a very special bond ever since.

The day after she was born, her crying greatly concerned Baxter. Eveytime she let out a peep, he would rush over and survey the situation with a worried look on his face.

Baxter wishing he could do something to comfort Abby

We have tried desperately to convey to Baxter that Abby is NOT a Baby-sicle, provided for his slurping enjoyment. But he just can't resist. Sometimes he's just too quick for us. A few times I've turned my back for an instant, then looked upon my darling child to see what appears to be a baby with freshly-washed hair. Washed personally by Baxter himself.

Abby 2.5 Months

There is definitely an element of trust there, as you would think that someone Abby's size would have SOME degree of anxiety over a very large furry object 4 times her size. When she was very little she would just stare calmly and take it all in with wide, inquisitive eyes. Now, it's a very difficult task to even change a diaper with Baxter around, as she cranes her neck and wiggles to get a look at her favorite puppy dog.

Abby, 4 months

I look at the two of them and get visions of a Norman Rockwell type picture. My 3 year old holding out her ice cream cone so the dog can get a good lick. Every kid should have a dog. I have to say, my husband sure knows how to pick em. Even if he is a little neurotic (Baxter, nor Ragnar:).