Marrying Young

I've been reading this post from Nancy Wilson on marrying young (not teen, but not waiting till 35 either.) Love it, and especially enjoyed the comments, lots from of women who married young and don't regret it. Yeah, financially it is probably tougher to marry young instead of waiting until you have lots of savings, a very good job, etc. But this quote from Brandy's comment just hits the nail on the head for me- "some parents would rather their child struggle with sexual temptation than have any financial struggles."

Is it better to have young Christians struggling with sexual temptations while getting all their financial ducks in a row, or to encourage getting married younger and provide support for that?

When we got married, we were overwhelmed with the generosity of our church family- from a shower that mostly equipped the kitchen, to the people who asked us if we could use the furniture they were getting rid of (yes! yes! yes!), to the huge generosity of our families (who gave liberally in working on our house, as well as in helping us to equip it).

We don't drive fancy cars, have the latest gadgets, or vacation anywhere exotic. But we're getting to share these years, and I wouldn't trade this for the world.

Us, dancing at our reception and being madly in love. :) Photo taken by Sarie, I think... all I know is I stole it off Facebook and I love it!

Red Wine on a White Tablecloth

... an inevitable casualty of our cups running over. ;-) Actually, it was a small child *ahem!* whodunnit, as they say.

Any success stories on getting out red wine? What should I try? I've got it soaking in the washer now. Of course, things being what they are, the washer had to get unloaded for that to happen, but really that is just a bonus because otherwise it would've gotten overlooked over the weekend no doubt, which is just gross.

#WhenTwitterWasDown

A pro-Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial of service attack that led to the site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive.

The blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia) had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News.

"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can."

- CNET article here

Kind of fascinating backstory to the Twitter outage today.

Perspective

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

-G.K. Chesterton, in What's Wrong with the World

Zucchini!

This is a zucchini "apple" crisp recipe that I made recently. :) This wasn't the recipe I used last year (couldn' t find it), and this one is slightly more "involved", but still a great recipe. One caveat- if you are using large zucchini, you may want to add one more step, and scrape out the seeds before slicing... since they are the only way anyone could know they're not eating apple crisp! ;-)

Somewhere in my recipes I also have a zucchini chocolate chip cookie recipe I'll post in the next few weeks. I'm sure I'll be making both those recipes, as well as the standard zucchini bread and muffins, a lot this summer, since we have a few zucchini plants out in the garden, and so far they're doing well.

Mother and children...

(Image from The Graphics Fairy, here)

Thinking about having this printed this out and framing it for the nursery... not sure how best to get frame-able quality though... maybe take it in to the photo center & have it printed?

What size shoe do YOU wear?

Do you wear a size 6 shoe? I wish I did! I think these shoes look really cute, but unfortunately shopping online clearance (these are at J.C. Penney's) does have its drawbacks... you can't always get what you want (in your size)... I'll keep looking. :-)

I'm loving...

- This cd, by Elizabeth Mitchell. Some friends gave this to us after Miriam was born, and it has definitely been a big hit! Nathan loves it, I like it (and don't mind listening to it all day long!), it is fun and playful without being trite or being that tinny type of kid music. LOVE it!


- My ring sling! Perfect for walks, hanging laundry, and just generally being hands free with a baby. Last night after the rain, it was nice and cool, so after dinner when Miriam was getting a bit fussy (as she is wont to do around the 8 o'clock hour!) I popped her in and she and Mama took a walk. I realized that it was the first time I'd taken her on a walk down our road... the road that I'd walked so many times trying to get labor started, as the days past my "due date" crept along (little did I know that the "due guess" was several weeks off- SO glad my midwife counseled that the baby would come when the baby was ready!). I'd also walked that road several times while in labor, trying to keep it moving (little did I know it was progressing nicely, I just wasn't feeling much discomfort so I figured it had stalled)! If you have a baby, and are without a ring sling (woe! woe!) then you can pop along over to Nature's Child, where they're giving away a beautiful Sakura Bloom Ring sling and Aden and Anais Swaddling Blankets!


If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.
- Johnny Carson

Ouch!

I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her.
- Rodney Dangerfield

So true... I frequently have to do the verbal equivalent of sitting on my hands, because really, Micah doesn't need to come home at night and be subjected to hours of me recounting what occurred to me while hanging clothes, what the cat did today, or how annoying it was when there was nothing but junk mail in the box!

Possibilities...

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.
- Douglas Adams

Liquid Kitty

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

My Days These Days..

People ask me what my days look like. I think I've finally figured out the honest answer to that, and it is, I have no idea.

I frequently look back at the end of the day and it is a blur of diaper changes, baths, hauling Nathan down from the chairs, tables, benches, stairs, beds, and sofas he climbs, nursing, naps, giggles, messes, making food, washing laundry, dishes, to-do lists that grow instead of shrink, half finished projects, more nursing, diapers, naps, and tears (usually, just the babies, but sometimes mama too). In the few minutes since I sat down to write this, baby monitor next to me as they sleep upstairs (6.36 AM), I've realized that I don't remember if I paid the electric bill this month (if I didn't it's late), I've looked in the stack of mail and discovered my husband's paycheck (which should've been deposited), and I've thought I should go put the dishes away/hang clothes/clean the office for the company coming this weekend/find the missing vaccuum part/find the electric bill.

I ought to keep a diary for a day, jotting down each thing as it happens, but since I haven't journaled much since Miriam's birth I don't see that happening any time soon.

...

Since starting this, I've fed Nathan breakfast, nursed M, taken a load of laundry off the line, hung a load of laundry on the line, started another load in the washer, downed two glasses of water, given Nathan and Miriam baths, confirmed that I did indeed pay the electric bill, and put Nathan down for a nap. It has been a good morning. Nathan toddling around outside picking clover blossoms as I hang laundry. Miriam smiling back at me. Nathan putting his head on Miriam's feet to 'hug' her as she nurses. Green grass blowing in the wind. Nathan's glee at splashing in the tub.

I'm not going to try to polish this all up because then, frankly, it won't ever get posted... dishes need washed, floors need swept, and I need to get going because they're both asleep! :-)