We started our kitchen renovation a couple nights ago! I’m so happy its not a real reno, though. Not the kind where everything is covered in drywall dust for a month or two anyway. We’re just adding cabinets. Before you see the pictures, keep in mind that Home Depot didn’t have the doors to all the cabinets we bought, so only one of them has doors, but we’re working on it. Also, the picture makes that chunk of our kitchen look messy. It’s all the pictures on the fridge that make it look that way. Its not that messy at all.

So here goes! Before…And after!…Huge difference, right? We had decent cabinets before but I am so excited for more space! I don’t know why we didn’t think of this way sooner.

So while I’m super excited to have a big reorganizing day, I think it won’t be today. I”m still feeling pretty rough, and not super motivated. Plus, I’m only home until mid-afternoon, so that cuts it close. Most likely I’d make a huge mess and not have time to rearrange it 🙂 Not that I’ve ever done that before. I think I’ll write it out a little. I know that seems dumb, but it works better in my head if I can write it down. It will save me the trouble of organizing a cupboard and then deciding to move it somewhere else because something else would fit there better. Anyone else? Or am I just alone in my OCD? The “O” stands for “organize,” by the way. Either way, I’ll try to plan it out this afternoon.

Maybe after a nap. If I can breathe.

So yesterday I was experiencing the beginnings of a cold, right? Well, lucky me, it progressed really quickly and was in full swing by last night. I had a super hot bath before bed to clear my head and nose in hopes of a longer, better sleep. Should work, right?

Wrong. I woke up countless times in the night with a runny nose, a cough caught in my throat, or just general soreness. I’m not sure why I’m so sore this time around, but I am just achy with this cold! Maybe because I’m so overdue for one. Either way, I’m feeling awful this morning. There are tons of little balled up tissues floating around my bed, my mouth tastes like…sick, I guess. Not sure what else to call it, but I’m sure you all know what that tastes like. My jaw is killing me and my head hurts.

All my random symptoms aside, I woke up to Dekker crying instead of chatting. It gave way pretty quick and he fell back to sleep, but it was kind of a rude awakening. However, it woke me up from a terribly vivid dream that Brady and I were divorcing. I don’t even know why, but in the dream, the break up was amicable, and I was helping him pack up and leave our home. Partway through the dream, we realized he hadn’t worked out a place to  stay. So I offered for him to stay in one of our spare bedrooms in the basement, which be accepted. He left, and I tried to fall asleep alone, which I couldn’t do! So (again, in my dream) I went downstairs and tried to reopen the subject or our divorce, saying that it was s silly, we just needed to work stuff out, and would he please just come upstairs with me? Of course, my body chose that moment to wake up, and I woke up in an empty bed. Brady was already at work, and I knew that, since I woke up a bit when he left, but this dream was after that. I was so upset and hurt, until I figured it out. But it took a while. My head is so foggy today, and it took a little longer to clear (partially, anyway) than I’d have liked it to. Clarification: Brady and I are still very much together and very much in love, and we plan to remain that way until death do us part.

So now I wonder how to be a sick mommy. My boy is obviously awake, but luckily he loves his crib and is still happy, so I don’t have to feel too guilty about still being in bed. With his teething, he’s a lot more cuddly. And twitchy. He won’t sit on the floor and play by himself without tons of encouragement. I can do that, but I can’t kiss him like crazy and play with him and chuck him around with full )or any) energy. I’m just not here enough, you know?

Could be a challenging day. Hope he forgives me in advance for all the mistakes I’ll make.

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a half-plugged nose. Yuck.

Remember how I said I love fall? Well, I love the pumpkin spice lattes, the chunky sweaters, and the breeze. I DO NOT love the segue into winter.

Last night, I mentioned to Brady that my throat was a little scratchy, and we got to talking about colds and sickness. I get colds pretty often, a few good ones a year. Brady usually gets one. However, Dekker probably got three or four colds in his first six months, and so did we. However, we’ve all been sickness free for about a half a year (minus that one time we ate spoiled yogurt *shudders*)! I guess it’s only fair then. I mean, I’m due for a cold. But no, it isn’t fair!! Because of course my boys will get sick too. Brady will recover in two days, because he always does. Dekker will take a little longer but he’ll sleep it off, as he does with everything else. And then me. I’ll carry the dang thing for at least a solid week. Or one scenario we’ve seen a few times is I’ll get sick, and as its starting to fade, the boys pick it up, and then I actually re-catch it!!! I know I sound selfish and pouty, but just let me be a suck for a few minutes, ok?

I think Dekker and I will both be babies today. If anyone wants to bring us coffee or soup or cookies or love or all of the above, we’re here all day. Whining, probably.

So the reason I haven’t posted anything yet today was because my hopes were high. Sometimes, high hopes are scary to make public until you know they’re going to happen. I’m sure you can understand that. But they’re going to!!! So I’ll share.

So today, we bought a few new wall cabinets for our kitchen. We’re not replacing anything, we’re just adding. There are no cabinets above our fridge or microwave, and we have some empty wall to fill. Everyone wants more cabinets, right? We planned it all our yesterday and went to purchase them today. Of course, Home Depot didn’t have the right cabinet doors for one of the cabinets, so we’ll have to wait until they get more in. And we also are looking for a small pantry unit type of thing to go in the corner by our stove. We found what we’re looking for at Walmart, but again, out of stock. So we’ll concentrate on what we have right now! Brady has assembled the cabinet boxes and hopefully they’ll go up in the next day or two. Then I get to organize my little heart out! I had a crazy cupboard/pantry organization day mere months ago and everything is already in shambles. Hopefully more space to spread out will do the trick.

On a completely different note, today while we waited at Walmart, we had Dekker hanging upside-down, tickling him like crazy, when we found yet another new tooth. He’s been pushing eight teeth in the recent past, and in the last two weeks, he’s cut three! Two molars and todays eye tooth. Anyone with babies knows that we are officially heroes for having survived the last two weeks. My favorite part of teething is probably the teething chart I use to record these milestones on. Cute little cartoon guys make everything better.

Planning for Christmas. I know I mentioned several posts ago that I was hoping to make a list of people who I wanted to give Christmas gifts to, and what the gifts might be. So I did. I made a list of people like my husband, son, and brother in law since I pulled his name for our family Christmas. A couple close friends, and that was the end of my list. I will be very honest and tell you that instead of coming up for gift ideas for them, I started writing down things that I want for Christmas! A little selfish, I know. I’m usually more ahead of the game. When someone points out something that they’d like someday, I write it down. By Christmas, I could by for any member of my family. Not this year. Stumped.

And then yesterday, I was looking around our church and realized how many people have come out of the woodwork to really show us love this year. Lots! As in, probably fifteen couples! So now, we bake. Or make jam. Or something. Because I want to be able to give gifts to everyone! So I made my mondo list of people (I didn’t even count them, I thought it might be overwhelming) and then made a mondo list of homemade gift ideas. You know how other’s people Christmas sweets or “dainties” always taste a little different than you wish they did? They’re just not exactly what you’re used to? Well thats fine, but I want the ones from us to be really good!!! I asked Brady what he thinks would be yummy as gifts, and he said things like jamjams, or ginger snaps. I can honestly say, I’m not sure I’ve ever made either of those! I usually hang out in the land of sugar cookies and fudge. But I can expand my horizon, I just may be making a lot of trial and error desserts leading up to Christmas! Hopefully saying that clarifies that no, I’m not going to start baking and freezing in September and gifting it out two months later. I said I wanted everything to taste good, remember?

So. My list of things to bake is kind of huge. But the ones I for sure want to try are these special swirly sugar cookies, shortbread, some kind of white chocolate (maybe candy cane?) fudge, jamjams for the hubs, and gingersnaps. There should be no shortage of desserts the next few months!

It’s about time, right? I mean, I probably ate the equivalent of two entire birthday cakes in August by myself! I haven’t had cake in about two weeks now! Better get back on that.

I’m feeling very positive today. The sun is out and even though its not especially warm, its nice. I do love fall. Even though I love the heat of summer, and I dread the cold of winter, autumn is a really nice go-between. And spring is a genuine relief that winter is over. Pros and cons.

One thing I’ve been looking forward to is fall clothing. I won’t go on a crazy “fashion” rant, because I don’t really pay attention. I like boots and hats. Last year I was still laughing at people who wore leggings, but I will be the first to admit that I was wrong. I looove them! I bought some really nice ones at Sirens this year. I know. Sirens. Not my favorite store at all, but the leggings are so comfy and warm. Paired with my long sweater, boots, and slouchy hat, I was nice and warm, and if I do say so myself, cute. I actually had someone I don’t often chat with make a point to seek my out to compliment me. I need to remember to do that more. Makes a person feel really good.

We lead worship in church this morning. I enjoyed it more than usual this Sunday. Often, I lead or participate from the piano. It is not always easy to see the congregation from there, or hear anyone around me. But today, I lead from an acoustic guitar, with Brady on a djembe and our friend Ken on bass. Everyone really joined in and praised with us in song. It felt wonderful. I haven’t heard the congregation sing like that in a while. Maybe it was just how the sound was set up, but I’m choosing to believe that people enjoyed the songs and felt God moving this morning.

Now we’re home, feeding Dekker and ourselves. I think we’ll take the afternoon to be comfy and lazy after waking up so early. Then to dishes, and hopefully making some kind of dessert. My parents are coming home from Wetaskiwin this afternoon/evening and are stopping by for supper. It will be nice to catch up. My dad has only been gone this weekend but my mom has been gone for almost two weeks. It feels like its been months. I love my family.

Yesterday was an awesome day! We had a nice supper with friends and then lead worship with another great friend at our church for a group of bible school students. Lots of the other reasons are posted in the previous post, which got record views in record time yesterday! Thanks for reading. I wish I knew who you all were. And who my readers are from the states. Is there anyone who reads regularly who doesn’t know me personally? I would love to know, but not many of you are quick to comment. Which is fine, by the way! I guess that’s just the mystery of blogging.

Today has been wonderful so far. Brady and I woke up before Dekker and watched a movie in bed. From there, we had breakfast with Dekker. He has recently been quite fidgety while he eats, smacking the spoon around and throwing food everywhere. Today, he ate sooo well! The road to solid food has been long for us, but for breakfast today, Dekker had Cheerios, yogurt, peaches, a little bit of egg, and milk. No fuss whatsoever. I love seeing that progress. We brought him downstairs and played for a good hour before he was ready for bed. Ok, side note. No, we don’t banish the kid downstairs where he gets no sunlight to be mean or anything. Its our only carpet in the house and its easier for him to pull up on the couches and walk along them. Our laminate flooring makes for a lot of wipeouts and head bumps.

Since Dekker has gone to bed, we’ve doen a bit of laundry and are in the process of coming up with lunch. We’ll watch “Lost” over lunch (and probably for a bit after that) before we get a couple more things done. Only a couple.

We want to practice music for Sunday morning, and want to reorganize a bit in the kitchen. We have a big snack cupboard in our kitchen, and yet all of Dekker’s food and fruit cups are in the pantry. I’m thinking we should switch that up. Hide the snacks so they’re not as readily available, and have Dekker’s food somewhere easier to access. Makes sense to me! If we have extra energy, maybe we’ll reorganize the freezer too, considering the seventy-odd pounds of beef that have been added in the recent past have nowhere to go. Also importantly, we need to throw out the ancient, freezer burnt things, and making sure all things are in their respective families. I know, it sounds a little neurotic, but if there are three frozen pizzas together and one more on the other side of the freezer, the loner will never get eaten, right? (Please, keep it to yourself, those of you who wouldn’t dream of eating frozen pizza. We’re not perfect.)

I actually had an interesting thought about the ‘reorganizing the freezer project.’ I saw on Pinterest once that someone suggested writing what laundry shouldn’t be dried on the dryer with a whiteboard marker. Completely genius, in my opinion. Would it work the same on the freezer? I mean, I could write everything that’s in the freezer on the freezer, and then if we used it, I’d wipe it off. So we’d always know what was in there, without having to dig! Would it work?

I guess the worst case scenario would be just buying a whiteboard…

Some may find this post shallow. But I want to thank God for everything, even the things I don’t need. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Yesterday, I spent several hours grinding up beef with my friend, Melissa. I hate touching raw meat, but I was sooo brave (haha) and took on the job of cutting off the nasty hard chunks of fat before we put it through the grinder. I really enjoyed it! Some good time hanging out over coffee and…raw beef, and on top of that, ended up with 3 lbs of beautiful stewing beef and 26 individually wrapped pounds of ground beef. As I brought them to our big chest freezer downstairs, I caught myself being momentarily annoyed with how little space I had in my freezer for the meat. Who do I think I am?!?! I’m am so blessed to have a freezer full of soups, bread, desserts, juice, ice cream, freezies, cream cheese, sauces, and who knows what else! Shame on me.

For some reason, I became very overwhelmed later that afternoon. I called Brady in tears at 4:00pm, asking when he’d be home. He surprised me by saying he was actually all packed up and on his way. When he got home, he wrapped me in a blanket on the couch in front of the tv, and proceeded to clean the kitchen up from our beefagrindza (extravaganza?). He also made supper, and then took care of our sore, fevering baby for the rest of the evening. When sick baby was in bed, Brady ran a bubble bath and we had a nice soak before bed, like always. As in, always! Ladies, I get candles and a bubble bath every night. Very blessed.

This morning, I woke up feeling much more refreshed. I was going to take my dad to the Greyhound at 10:30 so I had set my alarm so I’d have time to get washed up myself, then get Dekker’s stuff for a day away from home, and then get Dekker up, dressed, and fed. I also had no idea how fevered he would still be, so that was a wild card. However, I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm went off, which was perfect. I hate waking up to an alarm and am totally out of practice with it. I woke up when my body was rested enough, which was refreshing. I took my time getting ready, then packed Dekker’s stuff. Pretty sure I actually remembered everything! When I got him up, his fever was completely gone. Thanks Lord! His teeth are really doing a number on him but he was in good high spirits and ate his breakfast without fussing. We picked up my dad, grabbed a coffee, and dropped him off. I decided to make a quick Walmart run for a few things we finished up, like his yogurt and cottage cheese cups. Did anyone know Walmart is having a HUGE anniversary sale?! Ya. They are. I went for two things and came out with a cart full of groceries, snacks, things I needed, and things I didn’t need. I’ve known since I was a child that God would take care of me, and I would always have what I needed, according to His plan. Sometimes I’m still floored that He’ll also give me things that I want, even if they’re not necessary. Like two nail polishes for $3. Yes!

I finished putting the groceries into my car and went to start it so there would be some air for when I put Dekker inside, when I saw a couple of men walking past. They looked at Dekker, and then at me, and one of them said “I think you forgot something in your cart.” I had a good laugh and mentioned something witty about him being the most important purchase of the day. They stood next to the cart and chatted with him for a few seconds. “Hello buddy! Are you having a nice day? Its so beautiful outside in the sun!” I was very touched by that. I talk to Dekker like that a lot, but sometimes I feel like people think its strange. I loved seeing other people engaging him in conversation. He loves it, and responded well. Thank you Lord, for a social baby.

I left Walmart with a strange feeling of “wow.” I didn’t have to worry for a moment that I couldn’t afford my purchases. I could walk in, pick up awesome deals with the most beautiful baby boy in my cart, go back out to my bright sporty-ish car, and fill my trunk with food, while my son made friends.

So. Next time your fridge or freezer is too full, or you have too much change in your wallet, or you need to put gas in your car, be thankful instead. You have extra food! You have extra money! You have a car! None of these things are needs!  They’re gifts. So say ‘thank you’ and enjoy them while you have them!

Thank you Lord, for everything I have.

Today I will grind beef. Brady and I bought a ton of beef off of our neighbors a little while ago. We now have about 32 lbs of ground beef. But the thing is, they’re not ground up yet! Apparently the butcher who put it all together for them charged a decent amount more to grind it up. So I’ll learn! Well, Melissa knows how and has a meat grinder, so she offered to come over and help me. Yay! Should be fun! And educational.

This will make me feel pretty productive I think! Yesterday I made two batches of apple juice! It was a little weaker than I was bargaining for but still nice and tasty. The apples are very light, so I blame them for part of it. Either way, I had success making about 9 quarts of juice so far, and I still have more apples to go!

Anyway, making the juice made me feel really productive, and home-makerish. I liked it! Now today, I’ll learn to grind meat (and hopefully make a fabulous supper with some of it), and tomorrow is busy too!

Brady and I got asked to help lead singing for a group at our church Friday night. I’m really happy about that, and excited! However, my parents are gone to visit the new baby and they’re our go-to babysitters. Lucky us, some good friends of ours offered so we’re covered! I only had to be stressed about having to ask someone for a day or two.

Either way, with all of this, I’m feeling nice and in the groove of something that I can’t identify. I can’t say “motherhood” because none of this is motherly at all. And I suppose this isn’t “home-making” since part of what I’m excited about has nothing to do with home. Perhaps I’m just feeling a bit more normal than I have in a while. I’m not sure. But its nice. Being busy with things I enjoy.

Besides all of this, my Dekker is not in a fun place. You know why they say molars are the hardest teeth to cut for a baby? Because they cut through in a few different spots. Poor baby son. He’s been pretty off, and sleeping the days away. I’m on board with the sleeping but you know what I mean. He’s often fussy hen he’s awake, and I can only fix it so much. He’s now cut one molar in two places, but has HUGE bumps in seven other tooth spaces. He is pushing way too many teeth at once. I hope he has one awful day and they all come out. Sigh. Don’t we all wish that for our kids?

I’m just relieved he hasn’t noticed the two chicken pox that have developed on his face. At least those don’t bother him! No worries, they’re just from the hot he had a week ago. They’ll fade.

Of all days to wake up at 4:00am for no reason at all, today is not the day I would have ideally chosen.

I’m having a friend over, which I’ve been anticipating. Its always nice to have company! I just wish I could be more rested so I coudl be a better hostess. Luckily she likes me and won’t be judgmental of my ragged appearance or messy house.

Today, I also need to finish off my apple juice. Well, at least the first batch. Its sat on my counter long enough. Its officially time to pour off the juice and…I don’t know what comes next actually. Hopefully I’ll get some of that done in the morning. I should probably pick up the kitchen a bit as well. Dishes are not as out of control as they’ve been in the past but they could definitely use a tidy.

I also need to slice up some stewing beef today. I have about 32 lbs of beef sitting in my kitchen defrosting so that I can cut what I want into chunks and grind the rest up tomorrow. Meat grinding party at my place! Hmm, now that I’m thinking of it, I probably need some ziplocs for tomorrows project. Its not as though I’m making spaghetti sauce for an army…

So I guess all of my chores are kitcheny today. And you’d think that being up so early would be a nice way to get things done without having to rush. Yet I slept so little that I’m almost sick to my stomach. Therefore, I will stay in bed for a little longer, let my body rest a bit more, and then get breakfast and get on with the day. Should be a good one 🙂