Family Musings

I saw this on a blog I have in my reader and like Fee, thought it would be fun to share with all of you. 10 Things I liked as a teenager that I really don’t care for now Tight-rolling my jeans Frosted hair Big Bows in my hair Scrunchies Wearing 2 pairs of socks (different colors of course) D&G velcro bracelets Blue eye liner NKOTB (She's my candy-girl...) Country Music Staying up all night long 10 things I didn’t like as a teenager that I do like now Sour cream Guacamole Biographies The idea of having my own kids Being uncool (I embrace my uncoolness now!) Bruce Listening to sermons on cd while I drive NPR Really spicy food Only having a few friends 10 things that I didn't like as a teen and still don’t like Cats Clothes shopping Liberals who are "tolerant" of everything but me Bad movies Guinea Pigs (sorry Harry) Raw broccoli Divorce Being embarrased in public Televangelists Authority 10 things I liked as a teen and still do Christian Pop Music Dancing Sweet Tea ...

Whew! I finally got caught up with responding to my comments for November. Sorry to took so long. (That apology is mostly for Rebecca since she is the only one who regularly comments on my blog.) I really want to try and leave comments for other people on their blogs too, but it is just barely enough to find time to read their blogs, let alone think of something insightful to share. I am trying to keep a commitment to myself to post at least 4 times a week. And I mean real posts, posts that are worth reading . I think at least one of those posts should have pictures too. Because, let's be honest, most of you 4 people who read my blog really just want updates on Charlotte Moon and endure the rest of my musings for the excitement of the pictures. I do have some pictures too. And some commentary to go along with them. First up, is this photo of a stainless steel sponge basket we saw at Lowe's. The price tag for this ~4"x4" basket is actually $146.08! No, that is not a ty...

After our Bible study on Sunday morning... I had a flash of inspiration. I was thinking about interpreting scripture so that I may apply it to my life and it occured to me that it was kind of like putting on moisturizer. Let's say you are in a hurry one day to get ready. In your haste to apply your moisturizer you grab the bottle and start slathering it all over. A short while later, you look down and see that your have large orange splotches and streaks all over and your palms are also orange. What happened? I'll tell you - you rushed your application! You forgot to read the bottle and only now do you realize that you grabbed your sunless tanner instead of your regular moisturizer. This can happen when we study the Bible too. If we read a passage of scripture and immediately begin trying to apply it to our lives, we can miss the important part and end up with a problem on our hands. Take Romans 6:1 for example. If one reads that quickly and without caution, one could end up r...

Okay, I haven’t lost the lovin’ feeling, but I have misplaced my bloggin’ feeling recently. I have lots of ideas about things to write about, but the time to do so just never materializes. In the few days before Thanksgiving, Charlotte was up every two hours overnight and I had a horrible cough. Then, when we were out of town for the holiday, she slept like an angel and only wanted to nurse every 4 hours. You could almost set a clock by her! Now that we are home again, we are back to every 2 hours… Strange. I was home by 2:30 or so last night and put Charlotte down for bed around 7:45. In those ~5 hours, I must have had her latched on for 2 ½! I don’t mind spending the time with her, but it kills my productivity. FlyLady would not be happy with my piles of paper right now! I’ll try to post some pictures from the holiday soon. But before I do, I want to give a shout out to my little brother and his wife Michelle. They did a wonderful job hosting us while we stayed at their place and our...

Why we honor the name of Charlotte Moon Charlotte “Lottie” Moon was born in 1840 to a wealthy Virginia family. Her mother encouraged her education and although it was unusual for a woman of her time, Lottie learned eight languages and earned a Master of Arts. Lottie’s intelligence and sense of humor attracted the attention of a Harvard professor who asked her to marry him. But Lottie turned down marriage and spent her life as a missionary to the Chinese people. Single women were not usually sent as missionaries, but Lottie believed there was no barrier too great for God. She found financial support from Baptist women in Virginia and she moved to China. She served through three wars. During the Boxer Rebellion, she disguised herself as a Chinese man and snuck behind enemy lines so she could minister to suffering people. Later, during the Chinese Revolution, she took on duties as a hospital administrator when she found a local hospital had been abandoned by fleeing doctors. Lottie spent ...

Charlotte has finally figured out that she has toes. Yep folks, our little girl now knows what those things on the end of her legs are for. They are for pulling and tugging and playing with and pretty soon I am sure she will decide they are for putting in her mouth! By the way, this is the last day she will wear this adorable, organic cotton outfit... it is too small. I couldn't even button the top button this morning! She's growing up so fast!

The last few nights Charlotte has wanted to nurse every couple of hours. On Sunday morning, around 4 am, I looked over at her and actually asked her, though my sleepiness, if she was in league with the Devil to keep me from church that day! Does that make me a bad mommy?

I don't really expect that most of you who read my blog will be interested in a video on thrift store shopping. However, I thought it would be neat to point out myth #3. I have a few items in my wardrobe that were thrifted and no one knows which ones they are. It is my fun little secret!

I've added a few new pictures... check out the progress of our home !

Make a slide show, scrapbook or ecard

I thought long and hard about what to talk about in my 100th post and couldn't come up with anything that was funny, elegant, or insightful enough. So this is it. Now we return to you regularly scheduled blogging program.

Isn’t funny how you can know a song forever and then hear it one morning and be struck by it in a completely different way? I was listening to the song “Fingerprint of God” in the car this morning on my way to drop Charlotte off at day care. I have known this song for a long time and was blithely singing the lyrics when we arrived. I kept humming the chorus to myself as I walked around to get Charlotte . When I saw her, I started singing the chorus to her (no snide comments about my singing now!) and as I sang these lyrics and looked into her eyes she gave me a smile filled with so much delight it near broke my heart. She is the fingerprint of God and there is no other baby just like her. She is a “living breathing priceless work of art.” I have many works of art on my walls, some of it super cheap and some of it kind of pricey (which still might be cheap by some people’s standards), but none of it is as breathtaking as my daughter. I’ve said before how I am capable of staring at her...

It makes me sad to read an article like this . So many women miss out on the joys of breastfeeding because of perceived obstacles that can be overcome with just a little bit of effort. I get that the mother working at a fast food restaurant may not be able to pump on her 15-min break as easily as I can on my 2 ½ hour planning break, but even that obstacle can be overcome if the mother is willing. I have to applaud the Regency (where I delivered) for having great support with 2 lactation consultants on-site. However, they lose points in my book for the sheer volume of formula they sent me home with, even though they knew I was planning to breastfeed exclusively. I am sure I came home with about 30 single-serve bottles and another 4 cans of powdered formula. Oh and I think there were 2 packages of single-serve formula in glass bottles as well. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to establish our breastfeeding dyad. I did have sore nipples and some cracking because Charlotte took a ...

Yep! That's right. Sweet, little, darling Charlotte gave her Mommy and Daddy the gift that keeps on giving - her virus. I woke up Saturday morning with awful, horrible stomach cramps and by the end of the day her daddy had them too. I spent most of the day laying down and sleeping. Daddy was a super-trooper and took care of Charlotte all day. I didn't change a single diaper Saturday. I was so dizzy I was scared to pick her up to do anything with her. Fortunately, around 9 pm, relief came for both of us, but not in any way that you would want me to describe to you (think cookies). Now though, on Sunday evening, we are all feeling better though we don't have any appetite. I think I ate less than 1,000 calories today. Not good for keeping up my milk production, but I think one day like this won't be the end of the world. I'll be keeping a close eye on that this week. In more fun news... I was telling my mom tonight about Charlotte being all grabby lately. This is a new...

From Like Merchant Ships : As we swept up the crumbs in the post-party quiet, Christy wondered if more bloggers are introverts than extroverts. If so, are the most popular bloggers also the extroverts among us? Or do you think the Internet enables even the shyest to adopt a more outgoing personality? I'm a little behind on adding my comment to the 'coffee' but if you read my post below I have a good excuse. I really don't think introverts or extroverts are attracted to blogging in greater numbers than the other. Personally, I'm an extrovert ( ESTJ ) and blog in part because I like the feedback and attention I get from family and friends. Of course, I also blog to keep a record of Charlotte's life for her to enjoy reading some day. There are so many stories from my own childhood I don't know and am only just learning. For example, my mom and I just got off the phone and as we were discussing Charlotte's trip to the ER my mom told me I was in the hospita...

They don't put a spot for this in the baby books. But if they did... we'd have our entry as of last night. Charlotte and I went for a lovely photo session yesterday afternoon and then decided to visit a friend's house for a little party. Just as we were getting ready to go, Charlotte decided to leave the contents of her stomach for our hostess. (Who, coincidentally, had been dealing with her own sick baby.) Once we got her all cleaned up and out of her now yucky dress, we tried again. About 5 feet from the door, she said, "Wait Mommy, I have more to leave behind." So I cleaned her up again then soothed her so we could make our journey home. I called Daddy who was driving home from a training session and told him about his sick little girl. Once I pulled into the driveway I heard a familiar sound. Yep, Charlotte was heaving and leaving more 'gifts' behind. I could hardly get her out of the car and into the house due to my extreme nervousness. She has thrown...

Did you use a silly pen name and live to regret it? What would you do differently, if you were starting your blog all over again? I can proudly say I had no silly names for my first blog. What I did have was a really boring name - Jenn's Journal. I just couldn't think of anything more unique that that. In my defense, most of the blood was rushing to my belly for little Baby Sabin so that didn't leave many resources for my brain! As a matter of fact, I'm still using that excuse... my friend Angela calls it ''Baby Brain" and says I can use it as an excuse as long as I am a mother. Honestly, I don't think I would do anything differently in my start to blogging. I'm happy with the way my blog has turned out and the ways it continues to grow and change with me. I have been considering privacy issues recently in regards to my photos and names though. That is one reason I added my Creative Commons license at the bottom of my blog. But, since my blog is rea...

Since I don't have many real life friends who blog (okay, none really), I decided to make some blog friends by participating in an on-line coffee party. Today, the conversation turned to who reads our blogs. Does your husband read your blog? Does your family know about it? If so, does it cause problems or keep you real? My husband does read my blog. As a matter of fact, he usually proofs my posts for me. By that I mean, when I am done with a post that I think is grammatically perfect with no typos I announce that I am done and he is the first to read it. Then, he lets me know what I missed so I can really perfect for the rest of the world. This is important because I am an English teacher and need to have as few mistakes as possible in order to maintain my reliability. :-) My family knows about it also. I figured since I call my blog Family Musings it would be a good idea to let them in on my bloggy ideas. Also, one of the reasons I originally started blogging was to help my fami...

I had a Maya Angelou moment today in class. A few weeks ago, before I came back to teaching, my students read an except from Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . In it, the main young, female character (Maya) has the opportunity to carry the groceries home of a well-respected elder woman (Mrs. Flowers) in her community. While there, Mrs. Flowers reads to Maya from Tale of Two Cities ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."). Maya can hardly speak when the older woman is done reading because the words sound completely different coming from Mrs. Flowers' mouth than from the page. This is when Maya begins a love relationship with books and words. Now, I don't think I inspired any love relationships, but I did show my students the power of good reading. While reading the diary entry Forest Fire, by Anais Nin, I stopped and asked them all to find a phase or sentence that vividly described the fire. There are several extremely vivid examples in...

I'm going to try something new this week and participate in a meme called Menu Planning Monday. It is part of my quest to bring more order to our life, which I can really use right now. You can learn more about it by clicking the button below. Here's our menu for the week: Monday - Church Supper (yeah, somone else cooks and cleans for us!) Tuesday - Turkey Burgers w/ frozen veggies Wednesday - Shrimp Scampi (from MGFK ) Thursday - Soup and Sandwiches (thanks Grocery Game ) Friday - Chicken Sausage over Pasta and veggies with Parm cheese Breakfast is almost always cereal and fruit Lunches will be leftovers or homemade lunchables

Grumpy & Grandma came to hang out with us today. Grandma won't usually let us take her picture but we got this cute shot of him and Charlotte. I promised to share it with him here. Grumpy, click on the picture for a larger version you can save to your hard drive. Oh, and the Sabin Dome site was updated again today! I'm on a roll... I added 2 pictures that Bruce took this morning while he was showing the dome off to Grumpy.

Being the first time mom that I am, I came back today to share another video of my stunningly amazing daughter, not just demonstrating that she can roll over, but that she is ambidextrous when it comes to flipping from her tummy to her back. Allow her to demontsrate: And she got to sit in her Bumbo tonight. Yes, this is the same product that was recently recalled, and no, I am not returning mine. Seriously, why would a parent put their child in one of these on a high surface? In addition to the warning on the box, there is this little thing called common sense...

Charlotte has shoes for months to come due to a GREAT sale I found online at Darling Shoes . You can enter coupon code city85 and get 85% off your total order... not just clearance prices! Here's what Charlotte got: · 1 of : Girl Gear - Sz 2 · 1 of : Lil' Princess Pack - Sz 4 (inc the black & pink pairs) · 1 of : Skaters - Navy - Sz 1 · 1 of : Teeny Tiny Tennis Shoes - Lime Green - Sz 3 When I measured her feet to see what size she is now, they only went about 3/4 of the way to the size 1 mark!