Save a place for me, I'll be there soon.

I heard a song today by Matthew West, called "Save a Place For Me."

Six years and some change ago I lost a friend in an auto accident, his name was Kyle. There is zero doubt in my mind that he changed my life.

The day after an incident my freshman year of highschool, I got to talk to him for what seemed like the first time. I was heartbroken, I was broken beyond repair, and I was contemplating leaving this world, because it was too much for me to handle.

I was 14 and I was sexually molested by someone I trusted, by someone that I looked up to, by a teacher of mine at the time, by someone who didn't know that he would shatter my world into a million pieces. He had no idea that I would still be trying to repair my life almost 10 years later.

I remember the conversation between myself and my dear friend, just like it was yesterday. We hadn't talked in a long time, but he still assured me that he was there for me. He told me that I was worth more than I knew, my life was going to be more, as long as I gave it a chance. Before we talked that night, I was ready to show my ass to the world, give everyone the middle finger, and say peace out.

Today...I'm alive. Most days I'm happy.

If I had left this earth 8 years ago...I wouldn't have my son. I wouldn't have a smart ass husband. I wouldn't be living in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, but its alright. I'm not alone in it anymore. Save a place for me buddy, I'll be there to hang out soon enough.

You have a terrible infestation of cockroaches.

Well, we got into the Fort Riley area this past Sunday, the 17th.

The first house we looked at was in a terrible neighborhood. I was scared I would get shot for looking at someone wrong.

The second house...I was really excited about. It was a 5b/2ba, in a very nice part of town. The owner told us that the last tenants had trashed it...and they had, which we saw when we looked inside. Holes in doors, shattered windows, it all needed to be repainted. We decided that they would keep working on the house if we moved in, and just work around us. I saw a few bugs, but didn't think it was going to be a serious problem. I spoke to the owner and told him that in order for us to move in, he had to hire a professional carpet cleaning service (since you have to clean between tenants anyway) and a pest control company. Orkin came by that house earlier today while I was helping paint some..she said she wouldn't even let Ivan in the house if he was her child, because the roaches were so bad! I had NO IDEA. I saw a few dead ones, and one or two live ones, figured we could spray for them ourselves. Nope, she said it was 100x worse than we thought, and it would be a week minimum before we should move in, and that we should really wait longer. The A/C was busted, the garage door had a window shattered, it was a total disaster. One more big problem...the owner is now wanting for us to pay him a total of $240 to cover the carpet cleaning and Orkin treatments! Yeah, both of those needed to be done before anyone would even think of moving in, and it's not like he's going to reimburse us for the work that we did! Sometimes I hate that I'm such a giving person! I wasted my time helping this guy out and then he wants to come back to us and bend us over! Yeah, I think not.

Good news? I found another house...it's much nicer than those two, in a new neighborhood, and I'm feeling great. We're going to wait to sign any kind of lease, so hopefully everything works out, since it's a 9-12mo wait to get into post housing!

These past few days have been so stressful for me! While the movers were here, I won't lie, I smoked a few clove cigarettes. I was close to having panic attacks every single day, and I can't take my anti-anxiety meds while breastfeeding Ivan. (For the record, we've been going strong for almost a year! Yay!!) So I indulged. I figured they weren't as bad as regular tobacco. I'm still wanting some with all the stress I've been dealing with the past few days, but I'm trying to stay away from them.

That should be all for now! It's almost 10pm here in our new timezone, and Ivan has just now fallen asleep. He's still getting used to the time change, since it's only almost 8 in WA!

You all know I love comments!!

Seriously, you need to water your grass.

My old landlord, Sharon, came to show our Lacey, WA house about a week before we moved out. Apparently I hadn't been watering my grass enough...it was 100% dead. She didn't supply the hose and the water, so I'm not going to water it. Last I checked, every other house in the neighborhood had grass just as dead as mine! Funny thing about it, a lot of them watered their grass...and it was still dead.

On our trip from WA to KS, we passed a stretch of land that was all dead, except for a house on top of the hill that had very very very green grass around it. I wasn't really paying attention because I was driving, but I said something about how pretty the grass was. Wanna know what Luke said??

"See that house on top of the hill with the green grass? Sharon lives there."

I wasn't expecting that at all, and couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard.

Blinky, I will run you over.

A few weeks ago while turning left, across traffic, into Win-co..I almost ran over a paraplegic. I wasn't doing it to be mean, I wasn't doing it on purpose, but everyone with common sense knows that when you're crossing the road with either the red hand or the green walking guy...YOU DON'T CROSS WHEN YOU HAVE THE RED HAND!!!!

I saw this guy stop because he had the hand, and then look because there wasn't anyone turning at that very moment, and then he decided to start crossing. Cue me turning left across traffic, risking life and limb to get to Win-co, and to my house. He stops in the middle of the road, causing me to stop in the middle of traffic. He looks at me like "WTF are you doing, crazy lady?!" and kind of nods me on...so I start to go, and then he starts going again! I was having a very bad day to start with, so from the safety of my own car, with the windows up, I yelled at him. I said something along the lines of....
"You don't cross with the red freaking hand! Everyone with a brain knows this! I almost ran over your stupid self, because you went when there was the hand. You only go when you have the green guy!! I don't care if you can't even blink by yourself, but you don't go when you have the hand!!!!"

Definitely not one of my proudest moments.

4 days!

We have something important coming up. The movers will be here in 4 days, and then we will be on our way to Ft. Riley, KS!!! Yippie!

That means I'll only be a 12 hour drive away from my family, instead of a 5 day drive.

And in other news: I adopted another dog. She's a Spanish/English Mastiff mix, and her name is Daisy. At only 11 weeks old, she's already 30 lbs and half the size of Luke's 2 yr old English Bulldog, Wrinkles...and she weighs more than my almost 1 year old. She's gonna be big, folks!

Pregnant....again?

No, just kidding.

Actually, I'm just asking everyone to pray for a friend's son.

Christin over at http://babyboybryant.blogspot.com/ is a great mother, and a wonderful woman. Her son, Cohen, has been through a lot in his short little life, and yesterday he had his heel cords clipped, adenoids removed and a broncoscopy. From what I hear, he's doing as well as can be expected right now- he's such a little trooper! I've never met him (living on opposite sides of the country and all) but I know he's a doll!

Thanks guys, I know she'll appreciate it!

And no, I'm seriously not pregnant. Not for a long time.

Construction engineer for hire!

Tonight, in a fight for my life- I came out on top. Against a baby gate.

Ivan has been keeping me on my toes, between crawling from one end of the house to the other, stopping in the kitchen to play in the dog's water, and then starting up again.

Tonight I went to Target in search of the perfect gate. I was armed with a gift card from my parents, research that I did before going, and a happy baby.

I didn't want one of the short wooden ones, because they're too much to mess with every time Wrinkles wants to go out, and it's a pain to close them while holding a baby. I found a Munchkin brand gate that sold for 50.99, which was great..because I had a $50 gift card. That gate didn't work. Online it said it extended up to 52" which I liked, because our doorway opening is 46". It only extends to 35" or so, without extensions. They didn't sell the needed extensions at the store, so I had to go to plan B. I ended up getting a different Munchkin gate- the extra tall and extra wide.

I liked my second choice more so than my first, but I had to pay $30 out of pocket. Not a big deal, but having it be free would be better.

I got home and started putting the gate together..and it almost killed me, to say the least. I now have a headache, and am exhausted. I won't try installing anything like that again by myself..especially when I'm wrangling a 10 month old and a dog.

Shuffle Day 2

If you didn't see, I started doing the Sleep Lady Shuffle last night. I gave in around 1am, and had pretty much decided that I was going to wait until Monday night to start it again.

After a long fun filled day of driving and parades, we got home and managed to get Ivan in bed by 3pm for a nap. He fell asleep on his own with us shh-ing him and patting the mattress by 340 or so, but only stayed asleep for 10-15 minutes.

Tonight we had people over to bbq and have a fire, and he started getting fussy, so I got him to fall asleep around 8, but then he still only stayed asleep long enough for me to get outside and get comfortable.

Once he started acting tired again (around 930 or so) I brought him back in, sang the military version of "You Are My Sunshine" a few times through and laid him down. He was IRATE. It's now 1110 pm and he's been asleep for about 15 minutes. He wasn't upset the whole time, but couldn't get comfortable, and would lie down, sit up, stand up, sit down, lie down, whine, wiggle, sit up, and repeat a million times. He tried to get my attention a few times by reaching through the slats of the crib and pulling my hair of grabbing for whatever part of my body was close.

I'm hoping tonight goes better than last night because I'm exhausted.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take, my sunshine, away.

I know you're tired, my darling baby.
It's time to close up, your little eyes.
It's off to dreamland, your pillow's waiting
Now its off, to bed-dy by.

Your Daddy loves you, but he's a soldier.
He'll have to go off, to fight the war.
But he'll be home soon, this I assure you.
Each day he loves, you more, and more.

My first morning after walk of shame.

:sigh:

Last night was a long night.

Read my last post, and you'll see what we tried to do..The key word being TRIED.

I put Ivan in his bed around 907, and he fell asleep around 940ish. He woke back up at 1040, and was back asleep by 1125...and then woke up again at 130. I tried to get him back asleep for about 5 minutes.

I gave up after those 5 minutes, picked him up, and took him back to bed with me. He woke up a few times after that wanting to nurse, which woke me up, and I got about 4 hours of total sleep last night.

I'm assuming tonight will be worse since I gave up halfway.
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The Sleep Lady Shuffle, night 1.

Ivan is 10 months old today, and he's asleep in his crib at night for the second time in his whole life.

He's always either been in the pack and play next to our bed (for the first month or two of his life) and in our bed since.

I've looked at ways and different methods to get him in his own bed for the past few weeks and finally came across "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West. In short- you sit by the crib at night, gently shh-ing, patting the mattress, but not picking up baby and putting them to sleep how you usually do. The purpose of the whole thing is for them to be able to soothe themselves back to sleep at the start of the night, and whenever they wake up in the middle of the night.

Ivan has been waking up a few times at night and wanting to nurse back to sleep, as well as nursing to sleep at the start of the night, which is taking a major toll on me. He's also started crawling around a little bit at night, trying to get super comfortable, and usually ends up headbutting either Luke or myself.

Tonight after his bath and one final nursing session around 845, he started looking sleepy and trying to fall asleep with me feeding him. I laid him down at 907. He was up and down and sitting and standing and crying and screaming, doing everything he could to get me to pick him up. I picked him up 2 or 3 times, and laid him down 3 times. He finally fell asleep at 945 or so, and I sat in his room until 1002, when I was sure that he was asleep. I'm supposed to continue this every time he wakes up tonight..which will make for a long night. I'm really hoping and praying that he stays asleep for awhile because I'm EXHAUSTED.

Whew...Lets hope that this isn't too terribly awful. The first "part" of the shuffle lasts 2-3 nights when I'm right next to his bed, then 2-3 more nights when I'm halfway across the room, and so on and so forth, until he's able to put himself to sleep at night without me.

I'm really going to miss his snuggles at night, but it's time to turn our once marital bed- turned family bed- back into a marital bed.

From Seattle to Charlotte, Nashville, and all the way back.

I'm not going to give a full account of our vacation, but I'll say it was fun! I will give you some of the highlights, though. (And part of it is me being mad. I've included a name that I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to just because of how upset I am at this person. If I ever get an apology I'll remove it, but until then- you deserve it.)

Wednesday 11 May- Ivan slept on the redeye flight from Seattle to Dallas to Charlotte. He only got fussy once, because he reached for a lady who walked by that looked like me..she didn't notice him at all, and he broke down.

Saturday 14 May: Luke turned 27 (he's such an old man!!) and we had the Cabarrus Co. MS 5k. Our team Brown N Friends raised almost $1000.

Tuesday 17 May: We drive overnight from Charlotte to Murfreesboro. This was such a long drive..Ivan was alright for the majority of it, but it was a fight to get him to fall asleep in his car seat. We got to Murfreesboro around 230am. We finally fall back asleep, and wake up to cicadas.

Wednesday-Saturday: My brother graduates, we have a graduation party for him, I drop my wedding dress off to be cut up into a million pieces, and many other things.

Sunday 22 May: Church in the morning at Crescent Church of Christ. This was probably the worst part of the trip for me. It's not that I don't like the church, because I really do enjoy going there, and I enjoy the people. However- one person in particular made it hell for me. Not only did I always go out of my way to be nice to this old witch, but I was always nice to her daughter (who I have nothing against.)
Luke and I are taking Ivan to class, and I pass her setting up her Sunday school class. She looked at me like she didn't recognize me after I said hi to her. I passed through her room to get to the cradle roll room and Luke is standing in front of her when she says "I didn't recognize her- she's gotten fat!"

I've battled with my weight since Ivan has been born. I can't do any dramatic diets because I'm nursing him, and his needs come before mine right now. Yes, I would love to be skinny again. Yes, I would love to lose the extra 30 lbs that I'm toting around, but I can't. I've tried. Thanks anyway for your concern over my weight. You're looking pretty old and weathered yourself. Piss off.

Monday 23 May- we're supposed to be going home. American Airlines from Nashville to Chicago. The flight is pretty uneventful, even though it got delayed a bit leaving. We finally land in Chicago and sit at the gate for an hour..this causes us to miss our connection to Seattle. We tried rebooking with AA, but the earliest they would get us out would be Wednesday PM. No way. Mom luckily found a flight for us from Chicago to Vegas to Seattle yesterday morning. American wouldn't tell me about it because it had us flying Alaskan. Dealing with American made me want to shoot myself, and I will NEVER fly with them again.

Tuesday 24 May- Wednesday 25 May: I'm still pissed that Anne Lester called me fat. Honey, remember that Karma sucks, and will come back to get you!

That's all from our vacation- I'm still exhausted and I need to go do laundry! Have a great week!

Blog followers....

So..all of you who follow my blog and don't leave comments- please take a moment to do so. Thanks :)

MS walk 2011- please donate!

Hi everyone, I know it's been awhile since I've posted- things are still crazy at the Brown house! Luke, Ivan, and I are going to Charlotte, NC and Nashville, TN in a couple of weeks.

On 14 May (Luke's birthday) we'll be walking in a MS walk! Luke's mom has MS, aka Multiple Sclerosis. We're raising money for the cause, and would love if you could help us out! You can donate via paypal, straight from your bank account, and with your credit/debit card. Thanks!

Long time, no see!

It's been over a month since I last posted. Not only has it been crazy in my house, but life in general has been nuts.

I was recently featured over on another blog, for Meet a MilSpouse Monday. There's a button over on the right hand side that you can click on, to learn more about my little family. Our date was 28 March- go check us out!

In less than two months we'll be out on the East coast for a week, and then we're headed to the Nashville area to see my little brother graduate. Not only is my LITTLE BROTHER graduating, he's also turning 18 in just a few short days. Where did time go? I remember being mean to him when we were younger. I've contemplated buying him his first tattoo for his birthday...but I think mom would kill me.

I've got my fair share of tattoos (and I used to have lots of piercings too..) but I've taken out the majority of my piercings now. I love all of my tattoos, and I will never regret them...but I did get my lip pierced this past weekend. (Sorry Mom!!!) I won't have it for forever, because like with most piercings I get, they're just a phase I go through. This one is really fun though, and I think I'll like it lots more when it's healed up. It didn't hurt at all, even though I bled like crazy!

I'm also getting very excited about the upcoming PCS to Kansas. We have right at 6 months left in good ole WA, and I'm so ready to get out of here! It'll be nice to not have to constantly deal with the rain.

That's about all I have to say right now, and with Ivan crying and Luke looking at me like he wants me to take babyface, I'll be signing off..hopefully it doesn't take me another month to update again! Love ya!

Infidelity, best friends, and learning to forgive.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
 
Okay, so this is going to be a touchy subject for some. Others will want to give advice, and others will say "leave and don't look back."

Some people feel that emotional cheating is not the same to physical cheating. I believe that cheating is cheating, no ifs ands or buts. I have a friend who is going through a similar situation right now. I don't know the details, and I don't need to..but I know that it hurts. Noone knows the full details to the situation that my husband and I are in except for us and God, and no one needs to.

I no longer have a best friend who can help me through things that might happen. I'm pretty much on my own out here and it's rough. I've made it for 1.5 years on my own, though..so I know that I underestimated myself when we moved out here. Things have come up that I've had to deal with, and things have come up that I couldn't deal with alone, but had to anyway. I miss having friends.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this, but I want to touch on the subject of forgiveness right quick. Something happened with me 6 years ago that was traumatizing, to say the least. I hospital jumped for a couple of years, trying to find help, and trying to learn to let go..but I never found comfort. I always thought that I had forgiven and moved on, but it still haunted my dreams. I still had panic attacks all the time and I still cried for no reason. I saw the man who had hurt me one night, and I forgave him. I don't know why, and I don't know how, but I did. I still hurt all the time, but I'm not angry at him anymore.

Forgiveness is something that you must learn to do. If you've never really been hurt then I don't believe that it's that hard..but when your trust has been broken time and time again, that's when it's harder to do. It gets to the point that you don't want to forgive because you get tired of getting taken advantage of. You start staying angry at whoever hurt you..but when you're able to let it all go- it's so freeing.

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free."

February 24 is the day!

They love each other!

Things that make life easier?

If things can make my life a little bit easier, I'm all for it.

Are you good at cleaning? That's great, come help me straighten up my house!
Are you Dora the Explorer? You get on my nerves, but you keep my son happy so that I can write this blog!
Are you a CUPCAKE MAKER?!?! Come home to me!

Last night, my husband bought me a cupcake maker...and I'm in love.
I usually enjoy making everything from scratch, and beating the eggs and batter by hand or with my wonderful KitchenAid. I like the waiting that you have to endure while the cakes are in the oven, and then I enjoy savoring them once they're cooled and frosted.
But this new appliance that has made its way into my kitchen has me feeling like a kid again. Not only can you make cupcakes in it, you can make tarts, pies, cheesecakes, you name it- you can probably make it in it. Know what else is awesome? It only took 7 minutes to cook a full batch of corn muffins, when it usually takes 20ish in the oven, plus 10 minutes to preheat. So 7 minutes, or 30?

This morning I made corn bread muffins, just to be able to use it!

After 7 long minutes...(and I actually left them in a little bit too long..)

After 7 long minutes...(and I actually left them in a little bit too long..)

Earlier in the day Luke graduated..congrats to hubby on his degree!

We also had another big milestone that was met with flying colors..6 months of breastfeeding! If it hadn't been for Luke, Ivan would probably be eating formula today. I wanted to give up after the first week. It hurt, we weren't very good at it, and it was making me exhausted! But on Feb 3, I hit my 6 month mark. I figure Ivan can nurse until he's 2 if he wants it. That might change when he gets older- he might go beyond 2 years, or he might self wean before then. Either way, I'm pretty stinking proud.

Well, today was a long day to say the least. It was a good day, just a long one.

This morning we went to a gun show in Puyallup. I finally settled on the Tanfoglio Witness 10mm. I went between it and a Beretta for quite awhile, but finally made up my mind. After all of the deliberation, we found out that they don't take plastic...and we couldn't use it as a debit card at an ATM. Maybe later on this week we'll be able to look at some of the shops around here, and see what they have as well.

Tonight we went to Olive Garden. This is usually our go-to restaurant, as the service is usually decent, and it's just where we always go. Kind of like some people have "their song," this is the same thing. Let me start out by saying that I've worked in my share of restaurants, so I know about being a server, working crazy shifts, everything.
We got there and had to wait almost 30 minutes. Fine. They were busy, I can understand that, as it's 630pm...but there are empty tables all around, as there is no server for them. Why wouldn't you have a full wait staff in the middle of the dinner rush?
So, we get seated and Ivan is fussy. This really doesn't bother me, as I come equipped with two milk making pacifiers. Pretty cool, huh? Anyways, as I'm calming Ivan down, our server comes over and lets us know that she'll be right back over in two minutes. She holds up one finger. She then realizes that she said two minutes, and is holding up only one..She gives a confused look, and then holds up two. She comes back, and says something about giving us more time, and then disappears for 10 minutes..then comes back again, and asks if we want water or something. Luke gets his food..eats everything and I still don't know where mine is. I easily waited 20 more minutes for it to show up...after I had to ask another server for it.
After all of this, our original waitress brought us our check. It was $114. Takes her another 10 minutes to fix this.

I'm very upset, very frustrated, and want to leave.

We end up tipping a guy who wasn't our server, but that took care of us when our incompetent server couldn't. She got $1.30 and he got $5.

That's what happens when you give crappy service and your tip-o-meter starts going down. At least I didn't leave her a note like I did the last bad waiter that we had.

Somewhere, over the rainbow...

Well, Luke got orders...we're moving to Kansas, baby!

I won't lie, I was upset at first...I mean, it's Kansas. But the more I think about it, the more excited I get! I don't like that the high there yesterday was 18, and I don't like how people keep telling me that there is nothing there..but they have thunderstorms! And they have tornadoes, and it'll hopefully be the "small town" feeling that I love so much.

Maybe I should get a head start on making friends, since it took me over a year to really click with anyone here. Either way, the idea of moving to Ft. Riley is really growing on me. I'll then be within a 12 hour drive of my family (instead of 5 day), and maybe I'll get to see them more than once a year! Maybe I'll even make a special trip for Christmas.

Luke also has TDY in Monfreakingtana at the end of March. He leaves on my 21st birthday. Can you tell I'm NOT excited about this? I started out upset, and then I got mad, and now I just don't care. I might fly to see my family in TN, or I might just stay home and celebrate alone. I'm leaning towards just staying here, because it will cost extra to put Wrinkles up for the week that the two of us would be gone. I mean, I could always just go out with Ivan and get myself a dessert and a glass of wine, right? That could be fun.

I'm also getting another tattoo for my birthday (sorry mom!) It's going to be a sea turtle with Ivan's name/initials in the shell. This is another thing I'm excited about. For awhile I was only having one person do all of my tattoos, but I've also had the guy that does Luke's work do one on me, and this time I'm probably going to have a shop out here, Spider Monkey, do this one. I'm thinking I'll either put it on my shoulder or the back of my calf. I really haven't decided yet. I could always do one calf, and then do the other calf when we have another baby!

Speaking of which, I want another little one! If someone would sponsor us to allow me to adopt a child, I would be forever grateful to you. I really wish that I could make a difference in the life of someone else, but Luke and I can always have another child of our own, and then after they are grown and gone...I could adopt and add on to our family. It might not be what I'm going to be blessed with, but if it's what God wants to give me, then I'm game!

Whatever, dude.

This post is going to be me being frustrated, me being mad at the system, and also me just being confused.

Those of you who know me might know that I've had problems with my knee since I was a freshman in high school. Well, with starting the Couch 2 5k program, the high impact-ness of it has really done a number on making my joints hurt again.

Today was week 2, day 2 for me. Luke and I set off from the house with Ivan in the jogging stroller and I didn't even make it halfway through the first run. My knee has so much pressure inside of it, and it was hurting to even move it. I wanted to continue on, but my wonderful honey thought it would be best if we headed home so that I could rest it a little bit. We got home and I decided that I was going to head to the Walk In Clinic near our house just to see if there was anything that they could do to help me out.
I went by there about 2 months ago because I was so sick that I couldn't breathe and I was just 100% miserable. At that time, the receptionist had me sign a paper saying that I would pay whatever portion Triwest didn't pay. Apparently they had been having problems with insurance paying because people were using an Urgent Care center for their everyday doctor, like when kids needed shots and someone had a cold.

Now for the part that confuses me: You're supposed to go see your normal doctor if you can, because an UC center is for the "I'm hurt/sick and need to be seen now. I can't wait for an appointment next week." WELL, this facility always asks for a referral from your regular doctor..that way Tricare "covers it." WOULDN'T I HAVE MY NORMAL FREAKING DOCTOR TREAT ME INSTEAD? Why in the hell would I wait a week to see my regular doctor to get an unneeded referral to an urgent care? Seriously?

I'm sure none of this makes sense, but I'm so frustrated!

Couch to 5k, Week 2.

Last week I started the C25K program. I wasn't happy that I had to run, but it's starting to grow on me. Yesterday I started week 2, day 1. You have a 5 minute warm-up walk, then alternate between running 90 sec and walking 120 sec, then another 5 minute cool-down walk. I'm not really dying like I was the first week, and I only took a 5 second break, where I walked instead of jogged. 

Ivan doesn't like being in his stroller, which makes it hard for me to get out and run during the day. Yesterday I made it a little over 5 minutes before he started screaming (not just crying, he was SCREAMING). I turned around and came back home, and then we had take 2 today. 

I've also been going to the gym here lately, but I don't really "work out." It's more of a running on the elliptical for 10 minutes before I get frustrated and quit. Then I go walk a mile or so, and then maybe sit in the sauna for another 10 minutes. By the time I'm done, I know that Ivan is probably screaming at home, and that Luke is needing a break. I load back up in the car, and head home, upset with myself for not sucking it up and doing more. I don't use the machines because I don't know how. I hate working out in front of people for this very reason. Maybe if it was me and one other person in the weight room, until I figure out how to use everything...then maybe I would use the machines. For now I'll stick to things that frustrate me, yet I know how to use them. 

Not a lot besides that has been going on out here in WA. I've made another friend (hi kearstie!) but that's about it. However, it's nice to be able to talk to someone else who has a baby that is Ivan's age. Now we just need to get the boys together to play! 

I don't know what having a baby has done to me..but I'll be domesticated in no time. I'm going to try my hand at making dryer balls this weekend. I'm hoping that they help with my cloth diaper problem, but if they don't, it'll at least help cut our electric bill. A big thanks goes out to Jean Van Effen for the wool yarn & roving- I almost sent Luke into work tonight to pick it up so that I could get started already! 

One other thing of importance is coming up...My mother and aunt are going to be here in two weeks! We're going to go to Pike's Place, the Space Needle, we might go to see the troll under the bridge, and we'll probably go shopping at some point. I am EXCITED. As much as I love my sweet angel son, it'll be nice to go out for an hour or two with Luke, and not have to worry about who will hold him first while the other one eats. I'm going to hate leaving him at home..but I know that he'll be in good hands with them.