The One with the Baby Maned Wolf

My children are on a Go Diego Go (as in Dora the Explorer's cousin Diego) watching stint. They have shows they periodically only want to watch and since we don't have cable they can only watch shows we have on DVD. Well Diego is one of those shows and my kids just love it. I mean they sit on the couch and yell the answers to Diego's questions at the TV (in English and sometimes Spanish mind you)... it is pretty funny to witness.

So today's episode was titled Baby Maned Wolf and it was all about how the littlest baby wolf left its mommy and oh no Diego had to rescue it. When all was said and done the wolf pup is safe back home with its mommy and siblings. Great job animal rescuers!

It is now time for us to get ready to go... as I turn off the TV Eliann asks me, "Mommy can I pretend to be the baby maned wolf?" Let me tell you what this really means in Eliann's world of pretend: Mommy can I pick an outfit to wear that most resembles a manned wolf as we get ready to go? So I say, "Sure but what does a baby maned wolf look like?" She responds, "Well its kind of brown and furry." So I let her go show me what she thinks would best resemble a baby maned wolf. She pulls out a heavy and somewhat furry looking winter coat which is of course totally inappropriate as its like 80 degrees outside and we are heading to the park to run around.

"Eliann it is too hot outside to wear that."

"Oh... but mommy I really want to look like a baby maned wolf."

"Well you said that a maned wolf is brown (as I start looking through the brown section of her hanged closet clothes for a brown outfit mommy would approve). How about this? It is brown and has a sparkly necklace (I through in the sparkle comment to distract her because she likes sparkles on her clothes)."

"Mommy (in a totally frustrated voice) Do you think a baby maned wolf would have a sparkly necklace on?"

"Well it might if I adopted it and bought it a sparkly collar to wear."

"So the necklace is really a collar?"

"Yes!"

"Okay Mommy! I will need to put white leggings on underneath it because maned wolfs have white fur that comes up their legs."

"Okay Eliann."

The conversations I have to have with my little lady daily just crack me up. Oh and when she was all done getting dressed she hands me this black cord looking thing and she says "Can you help me put this on?" I was like "What is this?" She says "Its to put on my collar so you can take me for a walk." A quick veto of that idea and we were off to our play date at the park.


This is the outfit she agreed to wear. Haha... all that talk about a baby maned wolf for this outfit?! Yes that is how I have to talk to my daughter on a daily basis in order to get her to comply quickly. Here comes David right behind her too... he is wearing buzz pajama pants, a buzz shirt and a Super Why cape... no he did not go to that park wearing that.

The One with the "Martha Stewart" Syndrome

As I have made plans to attend a craft show later today or as my friend put it... "a little "handmade boutique" (fancy name for "craft show", because it's nicer/more upscale than a craft show, if that makes sense?)"... I found this section of a book I am reading in my quiet time this morning all the more funny and encouraging (perhaps it will speak to you too):

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The "Martha Stewart" Syndrome

Because we all have friends in our lives who seem to have a knack for creating a wonderful atmosphere around them, we sometimes think we must also have that same ability or we've failed. A friend with two small toddlers at home emailed me this letter to help us both lighten up a bit on our own expectations:

A Letter from Martha Stewart!

Monday, 9:00am

Hi, Sandy:

This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself to tell you what I have been up to. Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun. I hand painted it in gold leaf, got out my loom, and made a blanket in peaches and mauves. Then, to make the sled complete, I made a white horse to pull it from some DNA I just had sitting around my craft room. By then it was time to start making the place mats and napkins for my 20 breakfast guests. I'm serving the old standard Stewart 12-course breakfast, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I didn't have time to make the table and chairs this morning; I used the ones I had on hand. Before I moved the table into the dining room, I decided to add just a touch of the holidays. So I repainted the room in pinks and stenciled gold stars on the ceiling.

Then, while the homemade bread was rising, I took the antique candle molds and made the dishes to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay, which you can get in almost any Hungarian craft store. Well, I must run. I need to finish the buttonholes for the dress I'm wearing for breakfast...

Love, Martha

I don't know who wrote this original caricature of Martha, but the author understood the "Martha Stewart" syndrome oh high expectations we all experience...The bigger question is: Why do we, as women, feel bad about ourselves when we see a woman using her God-given gifts and talents well? Why do we sometimes feel that if we are not doing the same thing in the same way, we must be a failure? Why do some of us fall into a pattern of jealousy or, worse, apathy, if our life isn't what we see in others' lives? Decide to decide that you will not fall prey to the negative but rather choose to make some positive changes to gain the life you have always dreamed of, or, better yet, the one God has dreamed up for you!

(A couple of pages later Farrel gives an really good answer to a question you may be thinking about right about now: what is the life God dreamed up for me? how do I know what He thinks is significant for me to be doing?)

We Are More than a Resume

... A significant woman bases her identity on who God says she is, and she is committed to do nothing more and nothing less than what her identity demands. In other words, as I line up my thoughts to Gods thoughts about me, I will become a woman He can use. When I see my self through His eyes, I realize my value. I am nothing more than a woman saved by His grace, but I am nothing less than a new creation.

When I see myself through God's eyes, I realize His plan for me is found only in obedience. I am nothing more than a servant and am nothing less than an ambassador. I'm not the master, so I don't make up the rules. There is one God, and it's not me! All that He requires from a servant is obedience- there is nothing more I can add. Being an ambassador opens up opportunities. The more God can trust me, the He will entrust to me. So anything less than obedience means I risk missing out on precious pieces of His plan for me.

When I see myself through God's eyes, I realize my calling and that He has a unique place for me. If I am driven to do more than my calling, then I'm not being the me God designed. If I am so busy trying to be someone else, then who is being me? If in fear I do less than my calling, I miss out on the adventure of being me. Nothing more and nothing less will gain God's applause for me. Decide to make the decision: God, I will be whom You created me to be. Nothing more, nothing less, than being the best possible unique me! I am deciding to line my life up with Your view of me. I choose a connection with You so I can connect to what You have for me.

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I was encouraged reading these words this morning so I thought I would share them... I literally laughed out loud again as I typed that Martha letter on here. The passage came out of the first chapter of The 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make: Finding Your Place in God's Plan by Pam Farrel (I am sure many of you have heard of this book if not already read it) but it has been sitting on my bookshelf for what seems like forever and I finally brought it down to read. The emphasis above was my own.

This is the most you'll see me looking like Martha Stewart (at least in the kitchen). This was at Thanksgiving last year and that is my dad in the background helping me out with dinner.

The One with the For Sale?! Sign

So what in the world is going on? Why does it look like we are selling our house? I am warning this is a long note about what is going on… but it is very thorough in answering any questions you may have about the situation… and if it doesn’t by the time you are done feel free to ask and we will share more with you.

We realize that this may be a shock for some of you… especially if you were involved in any of the process that it took to get us into our current house only a year and a half ago. It’s crazy we know but here is what is going on:

As you may know when we finished college we moved down to San Diego (where Brian was from) and lived with Brian’s parents for eighteen months so that we could save money to buy our own house. Well the plan worked and in January 2009 Brian and I became homeowners in Lakeside, CA (East County San Diego) only ten minutes from where we had been living with his parents. We absolutely scored with the house we got and have spent a year and a half since then turning it into a home that we love. So why would we be considering selling our home?

When we lived with Brian’s parents, I befriended one of his parents neighbors and found out that he was only living there to take care of his mother house because she was older, had Alzheimer’s and was living in an assisted living facility for the time being. In the many conversations I had with the man I found out that if and when his mother passed her house would have to be sold in order to settle her will. Brian and I joked when we heard this news that if the house went on the market we would try to buy it. Why not? We’d be next to his parents whom we get a long with great, we’d be right up the street (literally) from our church (where I now work) and the community we spend so much time at, plus we’d have access to Brian’s parents pool without having the scare of our children in our own backyard or the maintenance (lol). As far as we could tell it was a win-win all around. The only problem was that back then we couldn’t afford to live in that neighborhood and the house wasn’t for sale yet. So instead we found our great place in Lakeside and moved in.

Well at the end of June this year Brian’s parents were out waking their dog when they bumped into the neighbor outside. They got to chit-chatting and they asked him how his mother was doing. Turns out she had passed away in February. We hadn’t heard. He also shared that had he had his act together he would have had the house on the market already.

Hmm. Well what do we do with that information? Do we try and see if we can even afford to get the house? Do we leave the home we had created and start again from scratch? Well we’ve been praying about it for a while and we thought there would be no harm in simply gathering information about what we can afford and how much his house might sell for. So we have been talking to the agent who helped us purchase our current home and it turns out that because Brian has had two raises since the last time we purchased and the market is still really low we can afford to purchase that house! Well really we qualify on a loan that our real estate agent thinks we would need if the house sells at the price she is estimating it will sell for.

So do we go for it? Well a lot of doors still have to be opened before we could realistically be purchasing this new house… including the fact that we would have to sell our current home. So that is where we are. We have decided that we would like to try and purchase the new house which means we have to sell our current house in order to have enough of a down payment to qualify for a good loan.

The reason you have seen pictures online about the updates we are doing to our current home is because our agent seems to think we could get anywhere from between $- $$ for our house. I asked her what we have to do to guarantee we get $$ for our house versus just $? So she suggested a whole bunch of things and that is why we are working on updating our current house.

We need all the $$ we can get because the new house we want to buy will need a lot of work. Someone said to us “Yay! You guys will be able to afford your dream home.” I was quick to reply “No, no. Not our dream home… our dream location.” The new house is really outdated- by that I mean every wall (and I mean every wall) is wallpapered and almost the entire house is carpeted (even the bathrooms) just to give you two examples. The problem isn’t necessarily the outdatedness but more of the fact that the neighbor who lived there these last four years smoked a pipe inside all the live long day! So that wall paper and carpet will have to go in order for us to get the smoky feel out of the house (which will be a must with our young children in tow). That is just one of the immediate things that will have to get taken care of that is why it is important we have as much $$ as we can to move in with.

There is honestly no losing here for us. We love our current house and quite honestly are still recovering from all the work we had to put into it just last year. However, in the long run we don’t love the neighborhood for when our kids are older. Plus we love the idea of having a little ministry hub right up the street from our church if we do get the new house and we are right next to family.

Okay so that is the 411 with us potentially selling the house. So we are only selling in order to get that house. If we don’t get that house we will not be selling (that is the plan as of now). Things you can pray for:

• God’s perfect plan and timing with this whole situation. If it is not his will for our family to get this new house and have to move then we pray that it will be made very clear to us.

• Pray that Brian and I don’t get too antsy over this whole situation. The new house we want isn’t even on the market yet (we know it will have to be soon because the house has to sell within a year of his mothers passing in order for it to go into her estate to be distributed for her will). The reason have listed our current house now is because our real estate agent advised us to. We need to have our end in order so that we can be ready to submit an offer when the new house does list.

• Pray that God bring us the great buyers so we are able to get our asking price. The market has slowed a bit in our house’s price range so we are praying people will still be there to want to buy our house!

• Pray that we would be honoring God with our decisions and that we are willing to use whatever house we end up with for His glory.

Thanks so much for reading all this and we will keep you posted!

Cal Poly SLO Freshman Year

CAL POLY SAN LUIS OBISPO

I remember college like it was yesterday... probably because it was. I graduated from Cal Poly a year ago with a degree, a husband and a child. This was not the way my parents had dropped me off at college three years prior, but that story is a long one that will surely span all of my posts. I want this post, however, to be a memorial to my first year of college.
This is a picture of me and my lovely roommates: Mollie and Caitlin on our first day of class. I can remember loving them almost instantly. We spent most of the summer before college trying to investigate each other. We wanted to be sure we would not be getting the roommates from h***. I had sent each of them a giant questionnaire (100sh questions in all) about who they were, what they liked, what their sleeping patterns were... all sorts of odds and ends about them and yet in the midst of all the emailing we somehow forgot to include any pictures of ourselves. This made arriving at college the first day all the more elusive.

Caitlin admitted that she thought I was the RA because when she arrived I was already busy getting people to help me move the room around. Caitlin was pretty much a sporty blond bombshell exuding California surfer girl to the world. When Mollie arrived she was more exotic and I didn't know what to expect from the girl who listed belly dancer as one of her activities on her questionnaire. For the first couple of hours none of us really spoke other than to pull names to see who would be sleeping where. Once our respected areas were assigned we (and by we I mean each of us with our families in tow) took off on this mad dash to get the room done. We finally settled down and got to spend some time together as we wandered the campus to various events for freshmen. Our parents sadly had to leave and when the dorm room dust settled all that was left was the fertile ground where our roommate bonded friendship would begin.
No one is really sure how it happened, but somehow our dorm room suite became the hub of activity for the Palomar/North Mountain dorms. I would like to think it was because me and the girls were ever so cool (and in part that was true) but it was probably because of the crazy shenanigans we would host at our place. At first we loved that everyone would keep coming over and stopping by just to hang out. Our room was never closed (literally because we wouldn't ever lock it) but anyone was free to stop by and we loved playing host.
It occurred to us after first quarter that we would have crack down on the madness that ensued in our dorm room into the wee hours of the night. There were weeks we would go daily with only three or four hours of sleep because people just wouldn't leave and we wouldn't make them. We finally got smart and by second quarter we were kicking people out. We set a curfew for the room (which I believe was either 10pm or maybe midnight) and we got really strict about it for a while. It was alright though because we were already friends with everyone so no ones feelings were hurt when we would close the door behind them. There are some really good memories from my first year of college. Both Mollie and I switched out of Biology... which was such a process and I remember our hating to have to go see . I also remember our crush on Professor Black from Bio 151. I eventually ended up at Business after considering Theater and she moved onto Journalism. I actually don't remember when Jenny came onto the scene but I remember how she would try to scare people at night with this mask and her and Mollie just thought it was hilarious to jump out people from the bushes. I remember Caitlin and I screaming out loud at the alien in our bathroom that movie night and later finding out it was one of the guys from the other side of the building wearing a Golem mask and robe who escaped through Zita's room which is why we couldn't find him.

I remember Christmas and trying to plan the Palomar Hall Secret Santa exchange and holding the party in the laundry room. I remember all the illegal animals we had... turtles, tad poles, chinchillas and birds (did Marlene have a dog once?). I remember our crush (maybe just mine) on our RA Mike but then seeing him with that boogie out his nose once did him in for me. I remember late nights just the three of us girls talking and once we sang all the songs from the Sound of Music and played I spy with people approaching the room. Plus, speaking of singing... all of our jam sessions to Alanis as we would clean the room and then actually singing You Oughta Know at the Lighthouse. Our room was always either a disaster or spotless because we would go through fazes of dirty and clean... actually the truth was that our room was never too bad because since we were always hosting people we had it pretty well kept and our room layout was by far the coolest and most creative Palomar had ever seen. I remember sleeping out on the hill outside our dorm room. I remember how I basically didn't have a computer all of first year of college because I didn't have a certain cord to get onto the Internet and so I would always use one of the girls computers.

I remember Robin. She was the only one with a car (the car she attempted to teach me how to drive stick shift with out by the agricultural sheep unit) so we either bummed rides off her or rode the bus. She was one of the coolest people I met in college... that crazy bird from Washington whose mom had my birthday. She was our extended roommate and we loved her so. I remember her and all the talks about Casey. I remember her love of music and pictures and the conversations she would carry on with James and Danny about music that were far too cool for me. I remember her colorful wardrobe and wanting to own it.

I remember hiking Bishops peak a number of times. Each time with a different group of friends and different memories. That probably describes my first year college experience. I had lots of different groups of friends to climb all kinds of college peaks with. So much fun is all I remember. Of course I met Brian my first year of college but I will leave a post all to him otherwise we'd be here forever. Lol.