Mail.

Seemingly everyone except for me knows the saying for the United States Postal Service. It goes something like this...

Through wind and rain, snow and sleet....

I say everyone because everyone I tell that we've only gotten mail once in the last week starts reciting this slogan. Granted, we have gotten a lot of snow. Eight-and-a-half inches last Thursday, 5 inches on Saturday, 10 inches overnight Saturday into Sunday, and a few inches on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. But we don't have 30+ inches of snow on the ground, it has warmed up a bit in between snows. I've seen small front wheel drive cars make it up the hill out of our condo (some of them with the help of Glenn's shovel). So, come on US Postal Service...its Christmas week! Make a little extra effort. For god's sake park and the top of our little hill and walk the damn mail down (I saw UPS drivers doing this on the news).

My mother-in-law is bugging me daily to know if we've gotten our package yet. No, we still haven't gotten any mail. My Christmas card collection on the closet door is a little bare, but I'm sure a ton will show up whenever the mailman finally decides he might be able to make it down our little hill.

Anyway, I'm just a bit disappointed and sort of glad I never knew the USPS slogan because obviously it doesn't hold true.

She bit me!

Ugh, Beanie bit me! Not on accident while nursing, but outright I-am-mad bit me! She was reaching over to turn off the computer (one thing I hate about the desktop is that we have the tower or whatever-you-call-it on the floor) and I told her no and picked her up. Little stinker leaned over and bit my hand that was holding her! She has never been a biter, and I hope this isn't the start of it.

******

Her canine teeth are coming in and she is just cranky as hell. The other night we went to my aunt and uncle's for dinner and she had the biggest meltdown I have ever witnessed. It was ridiculous. She also wants to nurse a ton and it is driving me a bit mad. I know her teeth hurt and we are hold up in the house because of the weather, but yesterday she wanted to nurse nonstop! Usually she can be distracted if I know she isn't really hungry and just wants to nurse because she's bored, but lately there's been no dissuading her. I'm not ready to wean her yet (and obviously she has no intention of self-weaning any time soon), but I would like for her to go back to somewhat of a schedule. I'm tossing around the idea of starting to give her cow's milk too. I'm sure she won't take to it much in the beginning, but it might be good for her to have some while I'm at work. I don't know, I keep going back and forth on it.

******

I can't believe xmas is less than a week away. Holy moly! I need to get around to perfecting the house as everyone is coming over to celebrate here. I've kind of let my daily cleaning ritual fall by the wayside since the house isn't on the market anymore. I'd better get back into it though; if Glenn gets a job lined up for after he's laid off we'd like to put our house back on the market as soon as possible.

SNOW!

Oh man, we got about 8 1/2 inches of snow today. That is ALOT for around here!! Basically shut everything. Luckily Glenn got home from downtown just before they shut down the highway by our house. Parts of all the major interstates have been shut down also. Crazy!


***Holy cow! I just looked outside and its snowing AGAIN***

Anyway, I know I usually don't post too many pics on here (mostly bc it is a public blog and I keep a private one for that...if I know you and you don't have access just let me know) but I thought I'd share some pics of our snow :)

This morning, before all the snow had fallen




Glenn's car, which has sat idle for the last week or so as he's been driving the RAV4

Its C-O-L-D!!!

Yes, I am aware that it gets much colder in other parts of the country but I am freezing my tail off! Yesterday we had the heat turned up quite high, a fire in the fireplace and I was still shivering! Beanie's hands are even more icicle-ish than usual. And now they are calling for more snow tomorrow, again on the weekend, and saying that the cold could stick around past Christmas. Brrrrr!!

Time to break out some hot cocoa and marshmallows I think!

Blogs I read and love

Check it out. I put some links to blogs I regularly read on the left toolbar. The toolbar? Is that what its called? I don't know...anyways, check them out :)

Bye bye laptop

I did it. I finally set up the desktop computer. Its just going to have to do because the laptop seems to have officially crapped out. It will be harder to get online, not in the actual sense, but because my online time usually is in the evenings after both Glenn and Beanie have gone to bed. Well, now the computer is in the master bedroom which isn't exactly conducive for me wasting hours on end at night. Maybe this is for the better? I keep saying I should start reading at night, so maybe now I actually will.

Beanie loves dogs. LOVES. We just got back from my aunt and uncle's house and my cousin had just arrived home from college with her chocolate lab. As soon as the lab came in the house Beanie's eyes lit up and she had the hugest grin ever. My cousin, Glenn, Beanie and the dog went outside to play with a tennis ball. Oh my goodness, you could hear shrieks of delight and laughter all the way in the house. She was having so much fun. I wish I had my camera with me because there was just no way you couldn't smile ear to ear watching how much fun she was having.

I guess we know what's on Beanie's list. Too bad we don't have a yard yet, otherwise I think Santa might be bringing a dog for Christmas.

And in regards to my previous blog

The weird icon thingy is gone. Now I am sure I am going marbles. What the heck?

You know you woke up early...

...when I turned on the TV so Beanie could watch it a bit while I enjoyed a much needed cup of coffee and Nick at Nite was on. Ugh! So much for sleeping in today. As if I really ever sleep in, but I was looking forward to sleeping in until closer to 7am at least.

The laptop is crashing willy nilly again so my apologies if I can't post. I'd like to throw this thing on the roof!!

What the heck?

How did my blog get some fancy pants little icon? Hmmm....I have all the blogs I follow saved in my favorites. They all have the little Blogger "B" to the left of them in my list. Well, all of the sudden tonight my blog has a fancy pants red icon-y thing next to it. How did that happen? What is going on? I've seen other people have different ones for their blogs, but I assumed it was something you had to do yourself, or have some advanced blog know-how to do. So, what the heck? Does anyone else see this, or am I nuts?

*** okay, totally weird...when I go to my blog through a link from another site I still see the Blogger "b." What is wrong with my computer? Is it possessed? Hmmm, considering the history of this computer it wouldn't completely surprise me. Someone please tell me what is going on! LOL.

Down.

I'm pretty down in the dumps and not much in the mood for writing so this'll likely be quite short. I have to go to training tomorrow morning for work, so my sis is on her way over so she can watch Beanie in the morning until Glenn gets home from work. While I kind of like getting out of the house and having "adult" time every once in awhile, I am really hating my schedule. Seems like I work every one of Glenn's nights off. It really sucks. I guess its just what we have to do right now, but Glenn seems all out of sorts about it as well. All snappy, bummed out, thinking he has to be Superman and do everything. Why not just ask for help if you want/need it? I feel like if I'm working one day and we just have a little bit of family time its better spent together than worrying about whether or not the carpet has been vacuumed. Not that I have that excuse for today, I'm just saying....

Ah, what does Scarlett O'Hara say? After all, tomorrow is another day!

Parental quirks.

Glenn always pokes fun at me because I still cut Beanie's food into really small pieces. Hey, seeing as how the kiddo jams three or four (or a handful) of pieces in her mouth at once I figure the smaller the better. I logically know she doesn't need them cut up so small anymore, but it makes me feel better as I watch her eating habits. So the other day Beanie and I were eating tortilla chips. I know, not the healthiest but she does get them once in a while. Well, come to find out Glenn breaks off the corners of any chips or crackers he gives her. I guess that's his quirk. I know tortilla chips can poke the heck out of your gums (they do mine sometimes), but I'm usually not in the habit of breaking off the corners for her. I told him he can stop giving me a hard time about cutting up her food and I won't mention breaking corners off crackers. Deal made.

Sleepy.

Lol, I'm so sleepy I just published this post without entering any text. Oops. Let's try this again....

Its been a long day. Beanie had an incredibly hard time falling, and staying, asleep last night. I woke up just before 4am for work and worked only my second eight hour shift in 18 months. She didn't nap until I got home from work and then napped for a good 2 1/2 hours (maybe because she got up at 4 and wouldn't really go back to bed for daddy?). Its 7:30, the time when she would usually be winding down to go to bed. She doesn't seem ready to wind down at all. She is signing she wants to nurse though, so maybe I'll give it a go and nurse her in the glider. Wish me luck!

The house is off the market

But not because we sold it :(

Due to some uncertainty with Glenn's job future (which I really can't go into much on here, let's just say lots of rumors of route cuts) we don't feel that we can move forward with selling the house right now. The worst thing that could happen would be getting an offer, making an offer on a new place, and Glenn losing his job while we were in escrow. So, its temporarily off the market. I am pretty bummed about it, but I do know its for the best right now. We can always move forward in the future, and are trying to find ways to maintain pre-approval for our loan.

This same uncertainty is the reason I am back at work. We had decided to give it a go without me working, but now it seems to be a necessity to have a second income. And, you know what, its not half as bad as I thought it would be. Glenn is watching Beanie while I'm gone and, I think, they are having fun most of the time. And perhaps he is realizing just how difficult it is to get things done sometimes. Especially with a seventeen month old attached to your leg, lol!

So I'm trying to stay in the routine of having a nice, beautifully clean house but its a little harder to stay as motivated when people aren't going to be coming through, looking and (hopefully) making offers to buy it. I have realized that I really like having an uber tidy house though and I'm wondering if we really need all that junk we had to put in storage to stage the house.

Let's get this show on the road!

Well, last month I had set out to see if I could blog each day. Obviously I didn't make it too far so
I'm going to try again here in December. I've got enough on my mind lately that it shouldn't be a problem finding something to blog about each day! So, let's go :)

First off, a bit of fluff and then later I'll try to get around to updating about everything...

I've always known I've had an uncanny ability for remembering numbers. When I was the dairy manager I remembered UPCs and order numbers like no tomorrow. Sort of weird, maybe, but it sure made ordering go fast. Well, last Saturday I had my first shift cashiering in over a year. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I remembered almost all the produce codes, and even some of the "weirder" ones like bundles of firewood. I assume my awesome memory will make cashier training a little more than boring this Saturday, but, hey, it'll be an easy eight hours of pay. But then it got me to thinking, just how much knowledge is my brain unable to hang onto because I have hundreds of grocery codes stuck in my head? Logically I know we use a miniscule amount of our actual brain capacity so I'm not really worried about it, but it funny to think about.

On Wednesday I am scheduled to do receiving so we'll see just how much my brain remembers of that! I am looking forward to it, but not looking forward to getting up at 4am, or unloading the truck with the forklift. I think I'm going to have to practice my driving skills before the driver gets there.