Weekly Musings

These two things...


make me feel very happy and spring-like.  I bought them on Sunday, and I've used the candle every day, and I think worn the necklace every day too.  I'm pretty sure the necklace does NOT match at least half of the things I wore it with, but like I said..it makes me feel spring-like, and I'm in the mood to feel spring-like.

I failed...
So big...so majorly...in my parenting this week.  As you well know, I've been ALL about "Love and Logic" lately, and ALL about letting Gunnar experience the consequences of his choices, etc etc etc.  Now I know I'm not going to be a perfect parent, and I know just because I'm reading the book, and trying really hard to implement what I'm learning, doesn't mean I'm going to implement it 100% of the time.  I know I should give myself some grace, but.....Gunnar and I had an incident occur at Target that, had I witnessed another mother doing what I did, I would (shamefully) have instantly judged her, and in my head thought "she needs to go read a good parenting book, because she clearly doesn't know what she's doing".  So every time we go to Target (which is OFTEN) Gunnar asks to go look at "Cars" stuff and "Toy Story" stuff.  Not to buy, just to look.  I always let him, and I always tell him "five minutes of looking, and that's all".  He's usually good with that arrangement.  This week, we started with the Cars stuff, and the plan was to move on to the Toy Story stuff a few minutes later.  After browsing on the Cars aisle for a few minutes, I told him it was time to move on, if he wanted to have time to look at the next aisle, too.  He pitched a fit.  As in,  went absolutely crazy.  Ape s**t, if you will.  I've never seen the likes of it, and judging by how other people were looking at me, neither had they.  So, I calmly told him, because of the way he was acting, we would not be able to look at Toy Story stuff, and would instead have to leave.  He then moved up a level from "crazy" to "demon-possessed".  I stuck to my guns. We left the toy section, and worked our way towards the checkout. I had  willpower like you've never seen.  People probably thought I was kidnapping him or something, based on his rageful roars and freakish screams, but I didn't care.  I was not backing down.  And I didn't...for about three minutes.  Then, I pulled our cart over, asked him to please calm down, and...........(covering my face in shame as I write this) told him that if he did, we could go back and look at the Toy Story stuff.  What?!????!????!????  Who AM I?  Surely not the girl that has been touting the merits of "Love and Logic" for months now.  Surely not the girl who sometimes secretly feels so high and mighty when witnessing other moms be so "weak", while all the while vowing NEVER to do the same.  Ugggggggggghhhhhhhh. Ok, so i think I needed that dose of humility, so maybe it was a good thing.  I SWEAR it's not going to happen again any time soon, though.

Vegan...
I KIND of am, again.  Seriously, "kind of".  I had the distinct UNpleasure of viewing some VERY NON-flattering pictures of me from the Capitol 10K last weekend (pictures that not a SOUL will ever see, unless my dad breaks his promise to me, and decides to go public with them, in which case I may disown myself from him).  These pictures made me aware that I SERIOUSLY just cannot allow myself to eat the way I've been eating since December. The "way" being anything and everything in my sight, in portion sizes only suitable for someone in some sort of eating competition.  I've learned that I absolutely need to set boundaries of some sort for myself...if I just say, "I'm going to try to eat better", but don't define what "better" means, I tend to just run wild with it (in a bad way).  So, I'm allowing myself SEVEN non-vegan meals a week, and the rest of the time, it's vegan.  So I could do one non-vegan meal every day, or save them all up for the weekend, or whatever I want.  "Flexibility within set boundaries."  That's my philosophy for just about everything.  So...this week went pretty well, AND I lost 3 pounds!  I think I'm going to do another blog post with some vegan recipes that I've found to actually be REALLY good.  Not just tolerable, not just a hair above disgusting, but actually good.  Because believe it or not...I've actually found a few.

Georgetown Easter Egg Hunt...

(Good pictures, Lance.  You might should consider being a photographer on the side)......

Look What I Found!

So my Organizing Project Of The Week this week is our entertainment center.  I'm trying to make some sense of all the random DVD's, CD's, empty DVD boxes, etc in there (basically, Gunnar has wreaked havoc on the entire thing).  Anyway, I came across the DVD that Nason's mom made us to show at our wedding shower.  Unfortunately, I could NOT figure out how to get the entire DVD on here, which is what I really wanted to do. Also unfortunately, the two clips I MOST wanted (the one where Nason proposed to me, and the the slide show with pictures of all our friends) will NOT show up either.  Grrrrrrr.  I did manage to get these three clips to work though, and they're kind of fun.  Well at least for me, a lover of walks down memory lane.  In the event that I get the clip to work with pictures of all our friends back in the day...watch out!  I WILL link it to Facebook, and you WILL be tagged : )

Some Musings on the Week...

Monday....Nason and I are back to having Monday-night "meetings".  Really, it's just planned out, quality time, where we're not allowed to look at phones, computers, ipads, ipods, or TV.  We actually have to talk to each other.  Remarkable!  And.....the TV DOES come on eventually, because after all, Monday nights are Batchelor  nights, and heaven forbid I miss that.  I love our Monday nights together though.  Wine is most definitely a part of it, and it is just so wonderful and refreshing to be able to have an actual meaningful, COMPLETE conversation, with the guy that I love.  I think I like the "complete" part even more than the "meaningful" part. Being able to spit out MULTIPLE sentences at once without getting interrupted by a certain little voice saying "mama" is just divine...I don't even care WHAT we're talking about

One Reason I Love Nason....he can always be counted on to say what's on his mind, and say it without beating around the bush.  He had lunch with some guy this week, and somehow the topic of church, God, and Jesus came up.  Nason starts describing to him the relationship between God, and us.  Nason doesn't go all "spiritual" on him, or "church talk-ish".  He says this: "Dude, it's like a loving husband, and a wife who is a cheating whore.      Every day the husband comes home from work, and find his wife sleeping with some new dude.  God is the husband,  and we ALL are the cheating whores.  God keeps pursuing us and loving us and coming after us over and over, even though all we do all the time is "cheat" on him by constantly pursuing and loving other things more than Him."  To which the guy responded, "Hmmm.  That's good.  I've never heard anyone put it that way."  I'm sure he hasn't!!!  Ha ha.  I love it though!  What a wise and funny guy 'ole Nasie Cat is.  

I made......yet ANOTHER super delicious recipe off of Pinterest.  Icebox Cake.  Look it up.  I don't feel like fiddling around and figuring out how to link it to this post, but trust me...it was GOOD.  

I found out....some really fun news.  No, I'm not pregnant.  And don't you worry about what the news is.  When this blog is ready to share it with the world, it will.  

I am SO excited BECAUSE....Little Benjamin Looper is FINALLY coming home!!  Whoo hoo!!!! Wanna see how cute he is?  Look!

If you don't know the Looper's, and haven't followed their story, Ben was born about 9 weeks early, with some heart complications, but he is A-Ok now..healthy, happy, and getting chubbier every day...and I am so excited he gets to go live at home with his wonderful Mommy and Daddy now, and get out of that dang NICU!!!!

I Should Be.... folding laundry, and running 2 miles right now, instead of blogging.  It is FREEZING outside though, and windy, and downright miserable, so whether or not the running happens, remains to be seen.  I have no excuse for not doing the laundry though, so off I go......