Shhh.....be buhry buhry quiet, I'm hunting houses

So it's official, three years after marriage and two years after our first child we are finally going to buy a HOUSE!

I know most people will say that it's no big deal that it has taken us this long . "Everyone's life unfolds at different speeds" and "things happen for  reason" yadda yadda. But seriously, apartment living has been a serious anxiety point for me for the past two years, starting probably about six months after we brought Emily home.

My anxiety regarding apartment living probably all boils down to my overwhelming desire to "plant roots" in a very permanent way. In my amateur psychiatrist opinion, I think my  childhood experience of moving so often has created this desire in me. Now please do not get me wrong, I had a FANTASTIC childhood, and I firmly believe that I would not be nearly as close to my parents and brother if we had lived in one place my whole childhood. Moving every couple of years forced us together in a very intimate way. My mom was my best friend and my mother, and still is to this day. She's always the first one I tell anything to but there has always been this nagging desire to have a permanent place to call home. Because of this, my Meme's house, where I lived for 4 years during college will always be home to me, that is the closest up to this point that I have had a permanent residence.

A good example of  an anxiety trigger regarding this subject is the simple question, "Where are you from?" Those of you who grew up in the south know that when someone asks that question. They are not asking where do you currently live, but where do you call home? where did you grow up? Who is your family? Often in the south, once you answer that question it is followed by, "I have family in that area, are you related to the Smiths who live there?"

Consequently, "Where are you from?" is my least favorite "getting to know you" question. As long as I can remember my answer has been, "I'm not from anywhere, I"m a military brat", which is often followed by a swift "ooohh" to which to conversation falls completely dead. I know, great way to get to know people, right?

So needless to say I'm over the moon we are going to look at homes again now that we have overcome our previous barriers. It's funny when I tell people, they want to know "where are you looking?", and "what type of house are you interested in?". Of course, me being my brutally blunt and honest personality replies, "I just want four walls with roof over it that is not connected to anyone else's house". Which is completely true at this point, we could live in a hut in South Africa and I would be ECSTATIC. - Yes I know, overly dramatic, but then again when am I NOT overly dramatic?

So I will be keeping everyone posted on the updates regarding this little adventure. Needless to say I am on pins and needles. Luckily we have a GREAT realtors, I feel like we are in wonderful hands.

TTFN! :)

Tea for two and Two for tea

Today is Emily's second birthday. I'm sure if your a mother I don't have to try and explain how time truly flies by. It's a wonder what she has accomplished in just one year, I remember wishing she would walk on her last birthday. Now I  can't run fast enough to keep up with her.

I have been thinking about how to approach this post and I have decided to go with the letter format. Taking a nod from my good friend Sarah Denley's monthly letters to her children. I won't even attempt monthly because I would never make it on time, but let's hope I can try a yearly birthday letter. Or at least this year anyways...

This is Em and Me at her birthday dinner at Mellow Mushroom. 

Dear Emily,

You are two years old today. It is amazing to me to watch you grow into your own little person. Independent is the word I would use to describe you. Everything you do now you want to do on your own with out any interference from Mommy, Daddy or anyone else for that matter. You are quick to let us know that you did not want or need our help. It is cute but I have to admit I often find myself frustrated with your new found assertive nature. But I know you are just trying to learn and grow so I try my hardest to give you your space.

You are talking so much more, even though "no" is still your favorite word. As you daddy says you have a negative vocabulary, including the phrases "stop it" and "go away". Not to say that you don't use many other words or phrases you just seem to favor those three in particular. Lately you have been using whole sentences which is simply amazing to me. A few weeks ago you told me "I drop the color mommy" and I was simply mesmerized. Since only a few days before you would simply point and whine if you dropped something.

You have also become quite possessive of things and people. Everything belongs to you including Mommy, Daddy and Darby. You have told me many times " My Darby" , "My Daddy" or "My Mommy" but to be fair you do distinguish things that are not yours. An example would be when you told Darby "No Darby, that Mommy's juice" when he tried to sniff my glass of tea the other day.

You are so inquisitive and want to know how things work. It is wonderful to see how you mind works.

On the negative side I believe we have let you watch too much television. You sort of become a scary zombie child when I turn it on. You don't move or talk or anything, just watch the television "glued in". You have even started asking for shows by name, "Mommy, I watch my Elmo" which worries me a bit that I have over done it on the television. So I limit you to one or two shows all day, usually just one episode of Sesame Street,  which you don't seem to mind at all . I give myself a little bit of credit since they are at least educational shows, but I still hold a lot of guilt over how much television you are exposed to.  If the television is not on you just go play with your toys. I probably should have limited your viewing time a long time ago but it seems to be working out just fine now.

It is nice to watch you imagination, you play with your toys and talk to them. Sometimes I wonder what little stories you must have created. You also really enjoy books, one of your favorites is The Nose Book which is a little Dr. Seuss book you got for Christmas. You like for Mommy and Daddy to read it or sometimes you will "read" by yourself, pointing out all of the animals in the books. That is one of my favorite things that you do.

Daddy and I love to read books so we hope that you will love them as much as we do. This year has been so wonderful watching you grow and learn. I cannot wait to see the what wonderful things this next year holds for us.

Love always,
Mommy (and Daddy)

These are a few from Em's Birthday Dinner, Drinking from a big girl cup, Pouting because we took her big girl cup away after she spilled and enjoying her birthday pizza, respectively. 

We also took Emily to eat pizza at Mellow Mushroom on her birthday as a little treat to commemorate the actual day of her birth. We have planned a party with cake for Saturday on the coast at Meme's house.

You catch more flies with honey, than vinegar

Let's all take a moment and think about how times we've heard that phrase in our lives? I'm guessing quite a few, I have to admit I most often hear it as a comment on my current attitude. Basically a mom way of saying if you were nicer you might have gotten your way.

Luckily when I heard it today it was a description of my behavior, but a compliment as I was already being "honey" and not "vinegar".

That being said I really really dislike confrontation, to the point that I pretty much avoid it at all costs. Today I referred to myself as a "weenie" in this regard. I just really can't handle confrontation, and even worse to think I may have caused the issue to begin with. I will admit I have gotten better as I've gotten older but for the most part I am still a big "weenie".

Today was a perfect example. We live in a small apartment that is in an older building which often can leave a lot to be desired in a home. We have always had issues since we moved into the unit, in fact that day we moved in I found a leak where rain water was seeping into the wall. They did fix that but now I have this gorgeous water design on my bedroom wall.

Friday we came home to a flooded dining room floor, and yes the dining room is carpeted. So this was not the first time this had happened to us, we knew exactly what was causing our aquatic themed dinner. The drip pan for the hot water heater also collects the condensation drainage for the A/C. Well the drain gets clogged with dust of something and the pan fills up, overflows and then floods the apartment floors.

I had just had it. We found this on a Friday @ 5pm which means we get to wait all weekend to talk to someone in charge about these issues. The poor little maintenance guy who barely speaks english came and dried out the floor as best he could and left us with a floor fan to finish the job.

Well the apartment absolutely reeked after that, like a stale mildew/mold smell. No matter of febreeze could fix this smell. The longer I waited to speak to management the more upset I got. Like I said this has happened to us before, several times and each time no real permanent fixes have been offered up.

I looked up the corporate office's telephone number and called them. I was given an email address to the regional vice president of Heritage properties. I sent her a very lengthy email voicing my complaints and concerns and my demands I guess you would say, I read it like 20 times and then I clicked send.

Oh my goodness, my wimpy side lost it after that. I had a full blown anxiety attack once I realized what I had done in my moment of anger. I worried myself sick for about 45 minutes until she responded to me and there was no complaints or issues, just "Ok ma'am, I apologize, we will get this fixed ASAP." I was floored that she didn't argue back with me or make excuses. It was wonderful. They came and starting working on the apartment this afternoon and she called me to keep me informed as to the plan and their progress in solving our problem.

It is kind of ironic because I was really kicking myself for not being more "vinegar" in this situation and telling the property manager where she could stick it. I'm not sure why but I'm almost a little jealous of those who can "tell someone off", I honestly don't think I ever could.

Conviction

So lately a lot of things have been on mind, in fact I'd even say I've been convicted.

One of the most evident is that I have been convicted to once again try and get this blog going. I really have a problem with telling myself , "I'll do that tomorrow..." whatever it may be. Although I'll admit it's usually the things that require physical exhertion, like exercise or house work. I think if I just stick to blogging and really put myself out there I will feel more accountable for the promises I make to myself. I guess I feel like the invisible readers who may see this would be disappointed if they didn't one day read that I did in fact start a regular exercise regimen or whatever I promised myself I would do "one day".

I even have the "one day" list in a draft to be posted soon so everyone can see.

So here I am revamping this blog. I have taken a much more personal turn with the theme if you cannot tell by my decor and new name. I think people often get tired of hearing my long banter but it does me good to get it our there, even if "there" is cyberspace and some random stranger reads this, it won't really matter as long as the thoughts and ideas get out of my head. I've found I sleep much better getting all these thoughts out, so hopefully I can stick this. I am counting on all those who actually know me and read this to help a little, for those of you who know me best, consistency is not my best feature especially when it comes to starting something new.

And for my English major husband, grammar and writing are also not my strong suit. So you will see tons of comma splices', subject verb disagreement and various other horrible writing errors. Please be kind and overlook, thanks in advance.

So as the season of Lent is upon us I have been struggling on what I will commit to forgo for 40 days. I will tell you a little bit about what I decided but not everything. For you see I decided not to tell anyone what I am really doing for lent. This is probably a huge thing for me, because I cannot keep a secret or a thought to myself even if I was threatened with death.  Which I can tell you I already haven't kept this part of my vow since I told Karissa the other night. So I guess my new goal is to keep it to one person, see what I mean about consistency?

So back to the plan. I decide this year instead of "giving up" something, I was going to purposefully add something to my everyday life. No, blogging is not the thing I added, but once I added that one thing I became convicted to add another thing, and then another. It's very empowering to see yourself achieve these things that you constantly make excuses as to why you couldn't do them previously.

I also decided that I wanted to observe the "no meat on Friday" tradition of Lent. Now we are Methodist in denomination and that tradition is respected but not expected of our faith. There was no real faith based reason as to why I wanted to do this, I simply just wanted to experience it since I have never done it before. A little strange I guess, but I do find that I focus more on Christ and what His Passion really meant for me. Just to be clear, there is little to no sacrifice in eating fish on Fridays since I would eat fish every single day of the week for all three meals a day if I could. In fact, I think I did that when we were in the keys, this last time. Oddly enough, it seems to be doing the job it was meant for, although I have to admit that I have wanted a greasy cheeseburger a time or two. Poor Zachery has graciously agreed to join me in this dedication, so it's no meat in the Robert's home on Fridays until Easter. Then I'm assuming we will have steak to celebrate, :)

Will keep you posted on  my progress!

A Night of Laughter & Song

We went to this show at Christ United Methodist Church on Thursday March 1 2012.

For those of you who haven't been or who missed it. You missed a really great opportunity. Warren Barfield was a special guest as well, all three of them were great!

Warren started us off, you may or may not recognize his song "Love is Not a Fight" which I have added to my blog player, but it is also here in this video.

He is really a great artist, and also really a funny story teller. In addition to this tour, he has just completed a series of appearances with Kirk Cameron for the Love is Worth Fighting For - Marriage Tour. If you haven't read The Love Dare or seen the movie Fireproof, you owe it to yourself and your marriage. It will truly change your life and your spouse's life! But please don't think if your single it doesn't apply to you, I think the lessons learned are universal to all relationships in our lives.

Now I will admit there are times in the movie where the acting can fall into the "campy" category. But no matter what the message rings true and I really think it is worth your time.

Warren also talked about a cause that is close to his heart. He is spokesperson for Food for the Hungry and their sponsor a child program. As he said for the cost of  eating at Applebee's one time you can sponsor a child for a month. The stories he told about the poverty and disparity he has seen and how blessed we truly are here in America, it spoke to me.

While I'd like to say I signed up right away, I did not. I have talked to Zach about it, and I do really want to help, but no we have not gotten there yet. I hope we can commit to sponsor a child soon. I have it on my list and I will complete it! On another topic completely I am going to make "the list" a page on my blog to hold myself more accountable to my goals.

Natalie Grant performed next. Her voice truly is a git from God. She sang a couple of my favorite songs that night, but my absolute favorite of her songs (right now anyways). Is titled "Your Great Name".

Everytime I hear this song, I turn it up and sing along. Often in my car or office I sing along and have a praise a worship moment. Sometimes a song just comes along that truly strikes you and you feel closer to God when you sing aloud to him. For me this is that song. When we sang this song with Natalie the other night I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room. It was if no one was there but me and God, and Natalie of course since I wan't the one hitting those high notes, :) . It brought me to tears, it was truly a beautiful performance.

What I loved about Natalie was that even though she was in a room of over 200 people she was very down to earth and personable. She shared some very personal stories of her and her husband's struggle with fertility and pregnancy. She also shared her joys of her ever growing family, she used her experience to minister to the women there and to express her compassion for those going through those things she has been through. It made me respect her even more as an artist, because you could truly tell that she gave all the glory to God, always.

Finally was Chonda Pierce. Oh my goodness was she hilarious! She  had me laughing so hard I could not breathe at times. I wish I could remember some of the stories well enough to recount them to you. But it would lose something in the translation, and it's probably copyrighted or something. If you've never seen her stand up, give her a try. She's out of the box that's for sure, but then again what comedian isn't?

I really wanted to embed a video of some of her routine, but i couldn't find a good one on YouTube, but if you click on her name it's linked to her website and they have some really funny clips of her on there.

Overall the show was just great. Granted we got home at like 11 and I had to go to work the next day. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself and would gladly go again.
I'd like to attend more shows like this one, I had so much fun! :)

Btw, if you didn't notice the insane amount of links and video embeds, yes I have finally learned how to do that! LOL .