Tuesday, March 9, 2010

New Blog

Hello,
If you still check here, I finally gave up trying to reconstruct this blog, and have now moved along to here: www.readtheotherday.wordpress.com. It will be mostly about um... stuff I've read! Surprise!

Hopefully I'll be able to make it look pretty. It's hard to get used to a new format, but it does appear to move a little faster than this one when uploading and such. Occasionally I'll have some family news on there, too, but I will mostly stick to books and other things I've read.

Love to you!
Annaberri

Sunday, January 3, 2010

oops. I think I deleted a lot

Just so you know, I did not mean to delete all the comments. If I can get them back, I will, but I just outsmarted myself by messing with the settings and didn't import them. I will attempt later to get them back, since many were valuable to me. They are saved, I think. If you need to log in now to comment, I apologize, but I do find trolling annoying. If you have a disagreeable comment to make, the least you can do is have the balls to tell me who you are.

I like disagreeable characters. I love chatting with them. I just like to know who they are. Common courtesy, dontcha know. You can be disagreeable as long as you use your brain, instead of trolling on purpose, which used to be called bullying. And as we know from elementary school, bullies are cowards.

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2010!!

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Books

I LOVE books.

I know, you are surprised. Very surprised. I'm one of those people who say, "hey, I have a book for that" for practically every problem. I was trying to figure out what to write a book report on, but I'm not sure I can concentrate that long yet, esp. since I'm reading about five books at once again, because Christmas came. Silly Christmas. My mom and dad are no help. :)

My dad got me "Bless Me Father, For I Have Kids" by Susie Lloyd. He got me her first book, too. She has great Catholic mommy humor. Truly great. A way with words.

My husband got me the Pioneer Woman cookbook. It is her blog, only in a book. Tons of pictures, and delightfully simple, yummy, ranch food that is not diet food. GREAT book. She is sooooo funny. You've never seen a cookbook like this!

I'm working through the Story of the World series with Gabe. He begs me to read it every night. Happily, it is as objective as it can really get, being history and all. It's also very good as WORLD history and as a story book. It includes Chinese, African and any other history that is written anywhere. Not just wester civ. Exactly what I needed. Also, she wrote "The Well-Trained Mind" and other books, and that is very educational as well!

A new book to us, but one that comes highly recommended, is "Boundaries". I have a feeling it's a truly great one. Really. It covers relationships with EVERYONE, even your own self. And it covers spiritual warfare, too. It puts problems in perspective: only you can actually solve them, don't blame anyone else. Very correct.

The kids are teaching the two year old to play the wii, and it is going very well. I have to go for now, but I will try to link those paragraphs to amazon for you later.

Happy reading!!

Happy New Year

I figure I've got 3.5 seconds before Gianna would like a word with me. She is six weeks old tomorrow! Wow. That was quick. She sleeps pretty well, but she seems to seriously want time with Daddy when he gets home, which is 11 pm. A bit late, but I'm happy to hand her over and go to sleep til she gets hungry or he gives her back. I think it's hilarious. Not really. But an odd trend for one so young.

Today is the end of a decade. The last time that happened, I was on my way north from LA, with my husband, about three months along with our oldest. We were driving a Saturn SC2 with a cat in it. Said cat is still alive, and now belongs to my sister. SC2 is long gone. Sadly.

This year was quite a year. Really quite a year. Some things I probably should not say too much about, yet strangely enough those were some of the biggest things. Probably the biggest thing, to sum up, was that we got out of debt. All of it. Except the mortgage. Wow. In fact, I just got a letter from HSBC that my dinky little $300 credit card has been cancelled due to lack of use. I was going to do that myself, but oh well, too late now. Grr.... Our credit cards were paid off last year almost to the dollar by our tax refund. We have not touched them since. I've also been such a good girl that my new debit card allows me to withdraw enough in one swoop to fix the car when it breaks. Last time I had to write a check.

Why? Because of Dave Ramsey. We LOVE Dave Ramsey. If he was Catholic, he should be a saint.

The other big thing this year is that we had baby #5. Gianna is doing great, and we are happy to have her. She is just beautiful. All the kids adore her. Daddy adores her. It's funny, because at the start of this decade, I was totally panicked about just one, because we had no money. Now, I have five. What happened? A lot. Much of it spiritual, much of it circumstance, but as Obi-Wan Kenobi says in the Star Wars movies, "There is no such thing as coincidence." Coincidence is my personal reason for believing in God. Just the way He speaks to me, I guess.

Will I be having five more children this decade? While physically possible, I don't really think so. But I can't really rule it out, either. I am in my early 30's after all. A new house and van will have to happen, though. Seriously getting tight around here.

Gianna says my time is up. Have a blessed new year, new decade, and get busy turning over a new leaf. It's exciting!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Commercial Break

Yes, the last post was November 25th. I know. I am sorry.

I think I will say that I will be back right after Christmas. I just need to regroup. Took too much on in the home organization department, but when you can't walk in your kids' room anymore, you don't want it that way come Christmas.

So a lot of stuff is gone, a lot is in the carport, and a lot is in the crib. The Christmas cards are bought. The pictures taken. The baptism has occurred and was lovely.

But despite the nagging bloggy thoughts I'm having, I'm going to go balance my checkbook instead. I will be back. I promise.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Introducing Gianna Caeli






Our little girl was born!

Gianna Caeli (chay-lee) was born on Friday night at 7:37 pm at Northwest Hospital. She was 7 lbs 8 oz and 19.5 in. At her first ped. appt she was only 6.15! I have never had a baby this small! However, she is healthy and very cooperative, since she stopped labor just long enough for us to go to the adoptions of Gabe and Josh! Lucky us! She has been a very good baby, doing lots of sleeping and eating, and when she's awake, she just looks around with her great big eyeballs. Hardly a peep! I shall detail a birth story later. I was intrigued to find out what a hospital birth was like after three midwife center water births. I have to say, I like epidurals, even if they are not perfect. There's good and bad for both choices, and I'm just so glad we have so many options where we live!

Thanks for all your prayers, they were very much felt. I just couldn't believe it when the birth was already over in half the time it has taken in the past!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Today's doings and a book report

Today we went to the hospital because some sort of clear liquid went down my legs. But no contractions. So we went to the hospital, and it was nothing much. Thanks to two friends who babysat in roundabout fashion while I watched TLC and the Discovery Channel at the hospital. Wheee! What did I watch? Adoption Story and Baby Story. I watched Dennis Miller until he decided it was fun to make dumb Pope jokes, which I feel are beneath him. Change of channel. One lady in Baby Story had twins at home on the floor, labor happened so fast! SCARY!

There is no labor going on here.

We have been remodeling the kitchen, and it is pretty much done, and it is gorgeous. Will have to post some pics of that.

I was thinking how much I wish I could insert a microchip in my husband's head. That microchip would contain the books I've been reading. He almost never reads what I read, and me telling him what it was just doesn't do it justice at all. It seems this is a common wife complaint. Guys tend to have the attention span only for magazines. Oddly, the sci fi and fantasy books he does read are actually pretty tough reading. And not what I would seek out. I do read them sometimes. We both really like George RR Martin's fantasy series, but he's putting off Dance With Dragons FOREVER, and it's killing me! But that's an example of something we both like.

I thought earlier in this blog that I might change the tack of things somewhat. It might be fun to do book reports. I know Barb wants me to. So far I've only got to recommendations, but I'd like to actually do a sort of book journal, and copy whole paragraphs in here for folks to peruse and reflect upon. I think I shall try.

Rikki's husband came upon a book called Eliminate Chaos, by a local author and home organizer. I have to say, it's by far the best book on the subject I have seen. Before and after pics help, and she just has a lot of really good ideas, along with some ideas on how we got stuck in our big mess anyway.

Here is the book!

I shall be using this book. Happily, my kitchen has been decluttered, because I had to box everything and take it out. Now I shall only put back in what I really use. Hooray! Huzzah! Then I can go after the boy's room. Notice, I am carefullly avoiding my own room, which is too scary to contemplate. We shall not be allowed to move til I conquer this place, though. You'd think that would motivate me, wouldn't you?

Time to go make dinner for the two kids who are home. Two others have gone to a pack meeting with daddy, which I am soooooo thankful for. Thank you honey!!!