I made it to the Y today... treadmilled for 30 minutes whilst Brynn wailed. Hopefully we're building endurance and not just breaking her spirit. Toby also expressed his emotions at a healthy volume for a while... next week I'm bringing headphones (earbuds, actually) to plug into the treadmill. UNLESS I choose to go to "Body Blast" aerobics or water aerobics... but they're like an hour long and I don't know if my clarklings can handle being dropped off that long. We shall see.

I received a really gorgeous bouquet last night... red carnations and a few roses and other red flowers... it's so vibrant and bright. I love it. I love flowers. I bought the boys heart balloons and one of them (the balloons) escaped today while we were out. We thought it was a lost cause but it got snagged in a low tree and I was able to rescue it. :)

So now Toby is sharing his opinion of naptime in a determined, passionate and persistent manner. Too bad. The MOG is about to leave for the house o' prayer with R2, and Bean and I will have an hour or two to ourselves at home.

So there you go, there's the update. Much love to all my family and friends and even rodents and mutants out there in the blogpshere. Happy Valentines!

bright
smiles and blue eyes

brynn means hopeful, you know
you remind me every day

deep
my heart aches over you
tiny one, my baby girl

you bring joy
in countless ways
and you aren't even trying

you are beauty and song
we celebrate you
with kisses and nicknames
and the ocassional piledrive from a brother

feminine
your rosebud lips and dainty charm
tiny fingers and fingernails always reaching

happy 1st year, let's have a hundred more
mommy

Now, yesterday I didn't post till 4 something... and those are some cute videos. So if you haven't, go and watch the vids.
My goal today was, if everyone was awake by the time R1 had to leave for class, we would throw our pajama-ed selves into the van and drop him off, so's we could have the van, see? And wouldn'tcha know it, it worked. So we came back home and ate breakfast and did 4000 diapers and so on and then we went to the Y. Now, we started getting billed for our Y membership on the 1st. But until today, I hadn't gone up there. (the childcare is from 8-noon, and it hadn't worked out) So today, off we went. It was a breezy 42 degrees in my garage, and so I forgot my jacket. Unfortunately, the parking is terrible at the Y, and did I mention it was NINETEEN degrees outside of my garage. All the kids were dressed for the Arctic, but I was not so fortunate. So back here to wrestle with the stroller and over here for this kid and over here for these two, and then waaaaaaaay across the parking lot and up the sidewalk, to the North Pole. And of course there are no automatic doors (for a community organization, Y's are notoriously NOT handicapped accessible). So finally we got in and I don't know if I have EVER been that cold.

I put the little people in Child Watch, which appears to be exactly that. Two women casually watching as children do stuff. Toby was all for it. I made it 15 minutes on the treadmill before Bean lost it and could not be consoled. Next time (tomorrow?) I might try some kind of class with her there by me in her carseat. Or something. I also tried a bike which I had to completely WUSS out on because it was so hard.

But I am proud of myself because I finally went. Now to keep going.

I am also posting some new pictures over here.





there are two more videos to go here. myspace was linking to yukky stuff so I have to try to host them elsewhere.

Today I cleaned the garage. Ho-hum, you might say, so what? A box or two, a shovel.

Uh. NO. Maybe you missed the video tour of my house. I moved A LOT of boxes, and a refrigerator. The MOG called me She-Ra. Thank ya, thank ya verr much.

Unfortunately, I misjudged how much room we needed for the ol' new minivan. So I wil have to do a little more shuffling to accomplish our final goal: be able to close the garage WITH the van inside.

Ah, controversy gets the blog hopping. I love it. Carry on, anonymous rabble-rousers!

And it's Friday, so hit me with your suggestions for my creative writing topic... I'll pick one for next week, probably not on Monday.

In the news: Romney has suspended his campaign. This is a surprise to me. As far as what's going to happen now, who knows. It looks like McCain will take the nomination and maybe take Huck on as a VP. Still not voting for him. I wish Rush would run but he says he can't take the pay cut.

---

I'm awfully boring today. I've tried to blog on a couple of topics, and it's like, zzzzzzzz.....

Uh, how about this.... assuming that Valentine's Day is a woman's holiday. (I know not everyone assumes that, but enough do) So, making that assumption, what would be a good holiday for guys? SuperBowl maybe...

I love politics, but I hate conflict. Here's the thing. I am right. And if you're not willing to concede that, insta-conflict. Joking. Mostly.

So today I will away with politics. I will talk about Valentines Day. Because I love it.
I am all about present holidays. Birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, etc. I do not care about materialism, consumerism or the American marketing agenda. I just like presents. Imagine my surprise, when, after years of thinking my love language was quality time, discovered that it was actually gifts. So there you go.
So Valentine's Day. It's a bit of a conflict (cursed brain). On one hand, I am such a romantic. I want chocolates and flowers and sweet talk and candlelight and horsedrawn carriages and what-not. But the other hand finds that funny and cheesy and just a little awkward. Probably I need some inner healing or something. Oh, speaking of inner healing, I start going to a new class/home group next week. I think it's kind of an inner healing thing. I might think it's wussy, considering that I've been through Issues of the Heart 3 times. But it's something, and I need to do something.

Back to V-day. Bean's birthday is the day before, and I and the MOG want to buy her all the sweet little presents in the world. No danger of being spoiled here.

When I was 6, I read a book... Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, I don't remember- (I was bi-literate). And somewhere in the story, there was an archaeologist. Probably a couple of dead bodies and getting trapped in something as well, but I digress. I fell in love with the word archaeologist. So, the next few weeks or so, that was the plan. The teacher asked our second grade class what we wanted to be. Nurse, fireman, racecar driver, archaeologist. (I was that last one). I had to spell it for her.

Soon after that, maybe third grade, I decided I would become the first female President. I started by being the class president, every year. (Maybe no one else cared, or maybe I was the candidate of inevitability) I listened to Rush Limbaugh for 3 hours a day during the summer. It was like eating. I swallowed the political process. It was fascinating and exciting and heady. I planned to graduate early, go to law school and then run for President in 2012, my first eligible year. The years went by. I continued thinking and listening and planning and reading all through junior high and my freshman year in high school.

Somewhere in my sophomore year, I decided to 86 the law school plan. It looked boring, really, really boring. And the world of theatre was coming alive to me. I loved it. I loved being on the stage, and taking on characters and memorizing scripts and the whole thing... Also in my sophomore year, I fell in love with a crazy headbanger type that had a passionate heart for youth ministry. As we immersed ourself in youth pastoring (at 17), we became consumed with the heart of God for the young generation. We gave ourselves wholeheartedly to the pursuit of God and the love of our "kids". And all my other ambitions just didn't matter enough, anymore.

Now, in my heart there is still a burning for politics. I still love it, and I don't like where things are heading as a nation. So will I, at some point, enter the political arena? I've given it some thought. Maybe on a local level... maybe someday. On a personal level, learning and listening and voting and affecting legislation... absolutely.

We'll see what God does. I have a couple more years till 2012, anyway. Or is it 2013?

Oh, and I voted for Huckabee.

Not doing the creative writing today... I need to talk politics. Continue to submit ideas, if you want. I'll do it one day this week when God smiles on me and Tobias takes a nap.
Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, and for the first time since I was 18, I'm at a loss. I won't vote for McCain. He supports embryonic stem cell research, which is abortion. I have a couple of friends who have had "snowflakes". These are frozen embryos adopted by infertile couples. I have pictures and life stories of embryos- leftover embryos who were adopted, and carried... they are children. Beautiful, normal children. Embryos are NOT tissue, and they are not expendable. There's a lot in there, and I know for some it's controversial. The fact is, there are tons of frozen embryos in the United States. And they deserve life, just like we do. (if you want more info about embryo adoption and stem cell research, lemme know)
So McCain is OUT.
And Huck... good ol Huck is not doing great. I mean, he's third. Which, all things considered, is still in the race. But lagging enough that a vote for him might be a vote for McCain. So that leaves Romney as the second placer. And really, I don't have big problems with Romney. Except the fact he's a Mormon. That makes me a little nervous. But he's pro-life. And actually, pretty darn conservative.
So that is the quandary. Tomorrow we vote. And I don't know who I'm voting for.

In other news, the underdogs won the Super Bowl. I was actually rooting for the Patriots... I wanted them to make history. But you have to understand, I root for them by looking up from my book at intervals and seeing if "my team" is ahead. So Richy was happy that it was a happening game and in the end the Giants had a big upset and won the whole darn thing.

Anyways, tomorrow go and vote. I'll tell you who I end up voting for in the end...

So here we are at Friday... tomorrow, the MOG has to be at the house o' prayer from 6 to 8 am and then he's off till 6. I might run away to Barnes and Noble... or somewhere... Hot chocolate and books, that is the plan.

Here's a new feature, in which you kickstart me to write creatively. You can suggest a topic. For instance: write about the first memory you can recall... or some such. YOU suggest a topic to ME and then sometime during the week, probably Monday, I write about it. Capisce?

Don't be offended if I never pick your topic. It probably just means your ideas stink.

< snicker >
Actually, if it's something I've never done, i.e. "Tell us about the first time you killed a man.", or something that would be boring, "Tell us about your favorite brand of pencil." (actually, that one's not half bad, but you get the point. No pun intended), then I might not feel like creatively writing about aformentioned caveats.

So ready, set, go!