today

sometimes when i think about my life, i feel like i'm spinning.

and when i think about the phrase "think about my life" i am reminded of my sister, megan, asking one of her middle school students to think about his life and then him actually doing it and the face megan makes imitating what a middle schooler thinking about his life looks like.

the other night, i was making a grocery list, and i looked over to see joseph rolling to get to a stack of books and his carseat. i instinctively said "joooseph" and as the word came out of my mouth, i had to say it again, marvelling at the fact that the little baby rolling around (we've gone mobile, people) is my son and his name is joseph.

i remember my friend, jess, saying that she tried really hard to cherish specific moments with her son, finn, and i've found myself doing the same thing at times with j.bourne. following last night's dinner, jeremy, joseph, and i played with his infant-sized royals hat for about twenty minutes. it was so wonderful. i think that after a whole day with the babe, sometimes i figure time with dad and only dad is a must for both of us, but i realized in the twenty minutes of hat-on-dad, hat-on-joseph, hat-on-mom, peek-a-boo, repeat that it's pretty fun for the three of us to hang out too.

today's goal and prayer is to spend today joyfully and not at any point have the "ahhh... why did i go on facebook??" feeling. so far so good. i woke up at 6:45 to little boy making happy noises, enjoyed a cup of coffee after fasting from coffee and sugar yesterday (didn't realize i was that addicted..), played a bit, ironed a shirt, put the boy down for his first nap, started some diaper laundry, read john 8:1-11 (um, amazing), folded laundry, played some more with sweet boy, put him down for nap number 2, took a shower, and well.. here i am.

we're running low on v5's and burt's bees. at the same time. it's a tough life i lead. i intend to fix this very soon.

i'm working on new year's resolutions. thus far, i resolve to eliminate hurry, read complete books, and make an intentional list of crafts that i want to do and do them. i should probably stop there, now that i read the growing list. oh, and i'm going to try to write here more often. maybe every week if you're lucky.

i think i just realized that i have ended my type two spaces after a period habit. thank you very much, jeremy. it feels good.

i'm hearing some awake noises from the other room.. i love this life. have i said that?

and i--
i changed out of the black sweatpants and the shirt that joseph spit up on a few hours ago
and that has made all the difference.

contrary to popular belief, if you ignore something long enough, it will not in fact go away.

this includes 18 dirty cloth diapers and a mediacom modem from 2006.

and all of the stuff that's still in the basement of our old house on again street.

oops.

just do it (yourself)

did i mention i made a leaf mobile?

i did.

and i realize that although the leaf mobile is pretty cool in itself, the reason that i was/am so excited about it is that i made it. i can't tell you how many do-it-yourself projects i have looked at since discovering my all-time favorite makes my brain explode with overwhelming too much to handle amazing ideas website, design*sponge, but i can tell you how many i have actually done: two.

the first was inspired by this clever way to reuse security envelopes. i opted to cut out whales from the envelopes and made them into garland for my sister's birthday with the words "have a whale of a birthday" at the end of the chain of whales. it took me at least two of joseph's naps to cut out all of the whales, which i remember actually turned out to be a really fun use of time. also, the extra whales have become magnets on my fridge. jeremy and i realized recently that families should have magnets on their fridge. so now we do. whale magnets.

and, of course, the second do-it-yourself project was the leaf mobile. actually, now that i look at the original project again, mine is like five of what they suggested all linked together. oops. i think it took me an hour to put it together after having the leaves and branches in my home for a good two weeks and a couple of to-do lists mentioning the mobile assembly. okay, fine, i'll post a picture. i mean, it's not like i haven't been secretly wanting to post a picture the whole time anyway. :)

so there you have it.

the leaf mobile.

and a peak into the linneman dining room. we framed some pictures of joseph before his dedication open house so that our home would look settled in. not that i have to substantiate myself or the picture of me with my son that you can see in the background of this leaf mobile picture.

and the tea set, a wedding present from miss sarah linneman, has been a fun way for me to attempt to have our table/home decor possess some femininity. usually there are stacks of books in the corner of the table you see pictured. the tea set is intended to offset the books and obtain a balanced feel of both a man and a woman live in this home.

but anyway.

i was thinking today that if it brings me this much joy to make little things such as whale garland/magnets and leaf mobiles, i should do it more often. my next project is wine bottle vases. maybe. i just saw the word hack saw in the instructions. i don't want to get too ambitious, although i do have two bottles collected for this project already.

in other news, jeremy, joe bourne, and i returned from a trip to louisville, kentucky early this morning. very early this morning. both joseph and i slept the entire drive home while jeremy drove and conversed with the other two guys in the car. yep, four adults and one baby in a honda accord for six hours. it can be done. we originally expected this trip to be the finishing yes on a decision to move to louisville for jeremy to complete seminary at southern, but it's not looking that way as of right now. we may just continue living in columbia until God calls us to india, but that's another conversation/post altogether. i'll let you know. :)

november thus far

so,

-my hands smell like joseph's burt's bees baby bees wash
-chocolate chip ice cream with a cookie dough ball mixed into it sounds delicious
-jeremy is eating donut holes and just asked if it was okay
-life is better with ten inches less hair
-i just witnessed my husband close a carton of donut holes, open it up, sneak another one, and close it again. and i don't think he knows i saw it all happen :)
-fun-size halloween candy is actually pretty fun
-i should probably consume less sugar in life
-hmm
-i made a leaf mobile last night
-for the first time in marriage, i emptied the dryer of clean clothes and immediately folded them
-i do think that existence is just that much more enjoyable when you drink coffee because when you get to take it with you in the morning to drop off your husband at work, it's just so fun to have your coffee with you
-i think that's all
-love

i had a dream last night that jeremy, joseph, and i were on the run. i'm not really sure why, but i think it had something to do with the protestant reformation. i do know that at one point in the dream, jeremy discarded joseph's carseat off the side of a mountain, said we wouldn't need it anymore where we were going, and for the rest of the dream had joseph on his back in the moby wrap. we ended up in colorado.

joseph had 5, count 'em, 5 dirty diapers this morning. like before noon. seriously. three were poopy. annnnd they were all cloth diapers! it's working out pretty well so far. my studfest husband installed a sprayer that's attached to our toilet to wash them off. and it feels good to not be throwing something away each time the little kicky boy is up on the changing table. okay, i promise.. that's the last i talk about the diapers. it's just that lately when people ask me how i'm doing/what's going on with me, i'm really tempted to tell them about cloth diapers. sometimes i give in. they're just really cute and really cheap (in the long run, of course), and just so environmentally friendly. okay, now that was officially the last time i talk about the diapers.

in other news, i added some super masculine decor to jbl's nursery. he's been taking naps in there, so i figured some manliness could help out that effort a bit. he now has a wall that is adorned by a clothesline (i love clothesline decor. a lot.) his royals hat, a royals world series championship penant, some blue baby shoes, and a movie poster from the bourne ultimatum. in this poster, jason bourne may or may not be carrying a pretty dangerous looking gun. we'll just have to explain it to joseph when he's older. i wonder how it will go explaining his middle name to him when he's not old enough to see any of the movies yet..

yes. yes, my life does in fact revolve around my son.

i have some other posts i'm working on but i'm just being too much of a perfectionist to publish them just yet. one is on personal branding and my over-developed thoughts on how we portray/define/brand ourselves in this age. the other is on coffee and how addicted i've become to it. but i draw in references to a tree grows in brooklyn so, i mean, it's not just about coffee.

in other news,

we had some friends over for dinner tonight. thai chicken pizza. two of the friends were my sisters, who happen to be friends as well. the others were dustin and ben. i heard once that dustin's first words when he met ben were "what in the world?" which seems appropriate. these four fine folks are some of our best friends and also huge supporters of jeremy's work with karis. so we made them some pizza and hung out around the kitchen table. it was really fun.

we have purchased a hearty supply of cloth diapers and will begin that adventure when they are delivered this week. gulp. :) no, it will be good, for sure. and a lot less money/landfill space in the long run. i've been meaning to order the diapers for weeks now, and we finally sat down and picked out all of the colors and quantities and shipping preferences and such on saturday. it's pretty hilarious to make a purchase of this sort and at the end of the whole purchasing process realize that the end result is that we now have cloth contraptions with which to catch and contain joseph's poop. you know? i guess it has to happen somehow so it might as well be adorable versatile invincible bumgenius diapers.

i can always tell when i haven't had enough jessie-time when painting my nails seems like a really big deal. except i guess it always does. and sometimes i expect people to notice the ever-so-light pink shade that now graces my fingertips as if it's a really big deal. similarly, i trimmed my bangs on saturday, just about an inch or so, and expected somebody to say something until i realized that i have side bangs and they are always behind my ear. but seriously, i almost said "guess what? i trimmed my bangs.." to amy and kate when i met up with them that morning. but i didn't.

i did, however, tell jeremy about trimming my bangs. poor guy. i think i'm going to make the tagline for this blog "where my words go when jeremy has used all of his." lots of my posts are actually thoughts that i begin to develop during dinner conversation with my sweet husband and then, to his knowledge, complete within the confines of that conversation. except then i end up with these unpublished posts that are the remaining thoughts that go beyond the socially acceptable length of "so i was thinking.." talk that i actually have on the subject we've only partly discussed.

also,

i think i'm going to start reading sports illustrated as an investment into knowing my husband better. and because i just found out last night that michael jordan, although appearing in space jam as what one would describe as "a nice dad," is in fact quite arrogant. i've thought for the past 15 or so years that he was a genuinely nice guy who impressively has not let being the best basketball player in the world go to his head. oops.

pursuing joy in love

as i read the love chapter of desiring God with baby joseph bourne asleep on my chest, i found myself thinking about, of all things, my motor scooter boots.

jeremy and i were in chicago for a long weekend away, remaining true to our one week of vacation with family and one week of vacation by ourselves rule. we trudged through rain turning into snow and landed in the j.crew on michigan avenue.

i have many times eyed the wellies featured in each j.crew catalogue that arrives at/invades my home, and i have many times known with certainty that to spend $60 on a pair of rainboots is not something i will/am able to do.

it must have been one of their rare sale days. plaid wellies for $29.99. solid-colored wellies for $29.99.

blue with pink motor scooters all over them? $15.99.

i asked the sales attendant to help me check the size on the boots just out of reach on a high shelf. she frowned and went to get a ladder.

a nearby father with his daughter, who was also in the market for boots, reached up and handed them to me while frowns-a-lot fetched the ladder, noting that they were in fact the size 8 i was looking for. and, i discovered, with the additional discount taken at the register, $12.

beautiful.

i wore my motor scooter boots the rest of the time we were in chicago, noting with great satisfaction that i could walk through every puddle without fear as their waterproof motor scooter glory reached all the way up to my knees. my motor scooter boots quickly became one of my favorite possessions, if not my favorite, and appropriately, the story i told about our trip to chicago was of finding motor scooter boots at j.crew for $12.

i should note here that jeremy had a similar experience with a dunkin' donuts to-go mug that cost only $1.99, including the coffee that filled it, and looks so remarkably similar to a disposable paper to-go cup, that he has more than once had to rescue it from the karis trash bag as it was being taken out to the dumpster.

so we like these items. a lot.

my thoughts this morning stopped on the boots as i recalled this past Christmas and my family's gift exchange. a few years ago, my family began drawing names. last year, i drew my sister, rachel. as i pondered what to give my sweet, sixteen-year-old sister, i thought of my motor scooter boots. i wanted so badly to show rachel how much i love her in Christmas gift form, and as i gazed with loving eyes upon my motor scooter boots, i knew what to give her.

i didn't want to just give rachel something that i thought she would like. i wanted to give her the fullness of joy i found in my motor scooter boots - the joy of spotting them on the top shelf, the joy of having them be the perfect size, the joy of having them be $12 marked down from $15.99 marked down from $60, the joy of wearing them through the streets of chicago in vacation-mode happiness, the joy of the tiny pink motor scooters all over them - all of this i wanted to give to rachel. with a high school musical-inspired puppet show video to go along with it.

my exact reasoning was something to the extent of: "i want to give rachel the thing that makes me the happiest. i find so much joy in these boots that the best way for me to show her how much i love her is to give them to her and hope that she too will share in this joy and therefore know my love."

so i found some wellies for rachel. green boots with blue polka dots. not exactly motor scooters and not exactly $12, but still the idea was there, the joy was there, and i was giving them to her.

she loved them. i loved watching her open them. the video was kind of weird.

as i pondered pursuing joy in love, it led me to pursuing joy in giving boots, and how really, these two concepts (with the exception of boots not exactly being the same thing as love) are quite similar. at the risk of coming to a rushed conclusion as to how similar they actually are, i will leave my thoughts at this for today.

more to come.

love.

my, how the time flies

part of me [a lot of me] wishes that i would stop hearing:

"it goes by so fast.." sighhhh

i mean, i know it goes by fast, so fast, you know? but what if, just if, we actually have an idea that it's supposed to go by slower than it does and our remarking at how quickly time goes by is actually our rebellion against changing times and how quickly they seem to occur? what if it doesn't actually go by so fast? and what is it? okay, i'll give you that. it is time. i mean, obviously.

maybe this is just a new mother panicking because i found myself taking in all of the tiny bundle that joseph is as he slept, knowing that it is going to go by so fast, and at the same time knowing that i don't really want it to stay the same as it is forever but what if sometimes i do just a little?

when jeremy and i started dating, i was pretty concerned by the amount that i liked him [dare i say loved?] and how, given a lifetime of say, 85 years, i wasn't sure i was going to have enough time with him. i'm still not. and now we've added this perfect little boy to our lives - am i going to have enough time with him? to what extent will the speed at which this time goes by affect if it's enough? it seems that if i could just stop thinking about how "fast it goes," perhaps i'd be more likely to allow joseph to have some joseph-time to himself without his mom always around.

but he's just so stinking cute and i really do love how he curls up on his left side and clasps his hands together under his chin while he sleeps.

sigh.

not that big of a sigh as in sighhhh, where did the time go? but more just sigh.


in other news, i purchased two stems of baby's breath in my first non-social outing with joseph to hyvee. and now i have glass jars with baby's breath in my home and they look so pretty.

also, melissa and dustin are driving to florida and were going to borrow our accord for the amazing gas mileage we boasted about after driving to gulf shores and back. they left this morning only to find themselves about 20 minutes east on i-70 in a vehicle with amazing gas mileage but an only sometimes reliable stereo system. i guess in our enthusiasm over stopping just twice to fill 'er up, we neglected to mention that you've got to be driving for a minimum of an hour to get the cd player to warm up and even then, the chances of a cd playing are slim. and stereo warm up time starts over no matter how quickly you were in and out of the gas station. so they drove back and switched cars. i love that.

my birth story includes father of the bride part II

it's true.

two and a half weeks from the day baby joseph was born, i am very much wanting to record every detail of his arrival. i'm working on a new blog - i suppose linking it here is unveiling it, huh? i think i'll post the birth story there as it's pretty essential to the new stage of life i'm in.

jeremy is making egg sandwiches for lunch.
after somewhat of a tough night with the little guy, actually just a tough morning i suppose (little jbl was constipated and making grunts that are surprisingly loud considering his size 6 from until around 10 am), my sweet husband took our babe and read aloud from the word to him while i slept.
i awoke around 10 to jeremy and babe both in different shirts (i guess joseph figured things out on himself and his dad) and enjoyed a morning of cereal, a banana, psalm 107, and coffee with 2% milk and sugar in my favorite teal mug with japanese flowers while from the desk area i heard jeremy and joseph discussing missions in south korea: "hey, are you falling asleep? i know this is a lot for you to be hearing.. i know it's hard to hear about all of this, but we gotta fight for these people.."
the egg sandwiches smell really good.
joseph is swaddled and sleeping off the morning's stress.

i really like this day.

joseph bourne linneman

the babe is here.













joseph bourne linneman.

and here's a picture of grandma wolf for good measure:

aren't more babes supposed to be born when there's a full moon?
oh, i hope... :)

c is for cookie (that's good enough for me)

june 19th? (last post)
how long ago was that?? (oh, 13 days to be exact; subject to change for exact time of posting)

since we've (or i guess i've) last spoken, i have:
a. changed my expected babe entering the outside womb world date from july 1st to july 4th and maybe july 14th just so the babe knows that he/she can come whenever he's/she's ready (it's just that i don't want him/her to feel any pressure - it's going to be a pretty big change for the little guy/girl, and i know how i feel about change.)
b. perhaps exhausted my limeade addiction (i've had the last of a jug sitting in the fridge for a couple of days)
c. joined twitter (http://twitter.com/jessicalinneman)
d. begun reading the power of one (verrrry good)
e. baked chocolate chip cookies (also verrrry good)
f. set up a vibrantly colored nursery with the help of grandma dawn and grandpa terry (my family used last names for grandparents - like grandma mcdonnell, who is actually now known by a few of us as grandma bill - but i think i like first names better.. you?)
g. walked a lot (it's what you do when you're secretly and publicly via facebook status wanting to have a fourth of july babe)
h. continued to wash and dry away any evidence of dirty laundry in the linneman home (and also continued to delay folding said laundry)
i. decided on a hot dog with ketchup and mustard for fourth of july (it's my favorite holiday mostly for the hot dog supply and the fireworks and the beautiful ahhh.. summer feelings that abound on the fourth) (oh, and because i love the USA)
j. read the power of one at the pool (and mistaken a little girl asking if i was sunburned as asking if i had sideburns.. no, i do not.)
k. attempted and enjoyed more of desiring God (and actually recalled truths gained from slower reading and translated them into my own words through real life situations)
l. yep, have consumed another java chip frappuccino (and not a lite one. mmm.)
m. realized that i will have a child exactly (if not before) one year from the date i began the position as executive director of mustard seed
n. thoroughly enjoyed hearing about megan's (what's wrong with you why aren't you dating anyone you need to get into online dating influenced) st. charles life by sporadic phone conversation
o. experienced a significant downward shift in belly height (where did space below my ribs come from?)
p. decided to continue this through the entire alphabet even though i don't know exactly what else has occurred that is letter-worthy (how old-school xanga does this list feel?)
q. really really enjoyed hearing jeremy's thoughts on applebee's (ask him)
r. eaten falafel on the outdoor deck of international cafe with sister bear (originally tasted falafel with sister bear in athens, greece.. and i think decided on a 2 1/2 month engagement in the same meal)
s. been a little afraid of the whole giving birth thing (just a little)
t. continued to play phone tag with jamie about to get married pizzle pestien about to become fisher (july 10 in colorado!)
u. ur2sweet2b4gotten
v. spent an entire afternoon with kate (fun fact: kate was my sister's randomly assigned freshman roommate and is now close to being if not in fact my sister)
w. called my parents more regularly (and received calls from them more regularly)
x. dreamt about lakota coffee house (i don't know)
y. made my bed everyday (usually right when i wake up.. but today it's still yet to be made)
z. admitted that yes, my life at this point is in fact completely wrapped up in expecting a baby any day now (and i'm reallllly excited about that!)

:

ironic: i set out to find the closest mailbox (extend-a-chute mailbox that is.. have we talked about extend-a-chutes?) to our new home in hopes of getting an earlier start to our stack of support letters and thank you cards only to discover i was three minutes past the 3:30 pick-up of the closest non-post office mailbox. so i drove the extra five minutes to the downtown post office and on my way back passed the other mailbox, the one minute from home mailbox, being emptied at 3:45 by the mailperson. sigh.

idea: i think we're going to have turkey sandwiches or wraps with potato wedges for dinner tonight. i. love. potato. wedges. and the mounds of ketchup that go along with them. i'm going to preheat the oven right now.

kind of weird: on my way back into the apartment, i noticed one of our neighbors sunbathing on their balcony. this wouldn't be that weird except that the pool is approximately 50 feet away. seriously. how hot would you be sunbathing on concrete in this horrible heat? and what would convince you that moving your sunbathing location to the pool where you will have both a sunbathing chair and large amount of cool refreshing water at once, both things that are not provided on your balcony, would be too much effort?

other thought: i think i've started waddling.
correction: i think i've started noticing that i walk with a slight waddle to my step. i'm sure this waddling has been happening for some time. it's probably good that i have just now noticed it.

assignment for the day: we/i really need to make a decision regarding our babe's future car and other transportation. as in, if i go into labor tonight, we're technically not allowed to take the little guy/gal home from the hospital because we are still without a car seat. or stroller. or travel system. that's where i'm stuck - do i want a travel system? when will i use a travel system? what will life with a babe look like? and that's where i am.. i can't make a decision on a car seat because i don't know what babe life looks like. i mean, i have an idea, but really, how can you really know?

oi: these potato wedges are going to be amazing. and i haven't even started making them yet. i just know.

accomplishment: i walked for 2 hours today!

question: do you prefer to spell out numbers or use the numerical symbols for them? ur2sweet2b4gotten.

i have to go: either wedge potatoes or research car seats. both equally enjoyable but one ends up with TONS of ketchup.

hmmmmmmmmm..........

i think i'm going to read.

... i waaant that

i think that title is from napoleon dynamite. still not sure how i feel about quoting it.

buuuuuut, i really really want this..

















for the babe. and maybe me? matching mom and babe shirts? of course, if the babe is a boy, we can update this to a masculine type bird shirt. not that bird shirts aren't gender neutral. i mean, they can be. but jeremy has expressed some pretty strong feelings regarding a son of his in a shirt like this. which is understandable. i mean, those are ruffly sleeves. totally girly.

new addition to the linneman household: snoring. oops. jeremy made his way to the couch halfway through last night. i'm wondering if it was actually the snoring that did it.. or the oversized body pillow decked out in a pretty cute bird body pillow cover that has now joined us for the remaining nights of pregnant sleep ahead. i suppose the pillow does automatically make his half of the bed a new one-third or maybe even one-fourth of the bed. oi.

meal planning and unpacking and swimming ahead.. oh my!

happy friday, friends!

breakthrough

"how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
- annie dillard

it's day two of week two of stay-at-home wife/soon-to-be mom life. and with day two comes this realization: if i envision and desire my life to be of a certain richness and fullness, what i do each day will directly affect how closely my life resembles that vision. or, if i don't want my life to be 75% checking email/silly pursuit of pleasure in ultimately unsatisfying activities and 25% human interaction/reading/walking/what i actually want to do, an individual day shouldn't look that way. i must add that i don't really like the word pleasure but used it because i'm talking about more than happiness, excitement, stimulation.. more the seeking of joy and deep well-being. does that make sense?

i'm going to make my mom a cd and send it in the mail to her.
i'm going to call jamie whose voice i haven't heard since sarah's wedding 3 months ago.
i'm going to read the books that i have wanted to read for years.

more importantly, i'm going to structure my days in a way that truly reflects the way i want my life to be structured.

last week at our weekly community group, i shared that i sense in this stage of pre-babe post-work life an anticipation for what God will do with this time. this morning i realized that there are certain ways for me to willingly crush/shmoosh/snuff this feeling of anticipation, namely allowing worry and anxiety to creep into my thoughts and pretending that compulsively seeking satisfaction in less-than satisfying pursuits is in fact satisfying. and/or floating through a day that had potential in a way that makes it lifeless.

i'm praying that i would discover this other better no-limits-hold-em (wait, that's poker) way to go about each day. and i don't think it necessarily involves facebook. at least not more than once a day. but that's more of an in-practice guideline rather than larger philosophy guideline.. which is what i'm talking about - the little things that make up the big thing! so the amount of facebook time does in fact matter. it matters a lot. and i want to consider that and remember that and decide based on that.

in desiring God (which i am finallllly going to read), john piper quotes c.s. lewis in his sermon, the weight of glory:
"indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too week. we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. we are far too easily pleased."

i deeply desire to discover and mean to find out what this means in my day-to-day and larger life. i can't really at this point even give you a summary of what i think i'm going to find. i'll just have to let you know.

also, i realized today that in a very short time, our lives are going to be filled with baby things, becoming toddler things, becoming kid things, etc. our shower now contains our shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and face wash. it will soon have bath toys. we will soon have kid-friendly toothpaste. we will soon have a baby. very soon.

i'm so excited.

love.

beauty

up
baby linneman's handmade bird mobile and quilt
my wedding ring
farmers market flowers in a lemonade pitcher
the new baby smell
bomb pops

home sweet homes homey homeslice home

so.. we've [finally almost completely] moved!

we still have some lingering ew-why-did-we-ever-let-this-into-our-house-in-the-first-place items in the old gingerbread house, but other than that, we're officially into our new home. and by officially into, i really mean oi, there's a lot to unpack and i hope that i can get it unpacked in the next couple of weeks before we add another human to this new home.

i really really like our new place. i really really like the white walls. i really really really like that i am pretty sure there are zero, count 'em, zero living creatures for us to meet. i really really stillllll like our shower curtain! annnnnnd we got our washer and dryer back! sigh. laundry. in a good, no need to go down to the scary basement to wash it in the 1970s washer and dryer way. :)

since ending my quest to spread awareness of fair trade with the world, i have acquired 40 open hours a week! i have filled these hours with walks at the park, glasses of simply limeade, time transcribing thoughts and prayers by v5 into my journal, newfound knowledge of God through 2 samuel and psalms, coffee in my lovely aqua with flowers mug, a sparkling clean bathroom and kitchen at the old homestead, and a tan on only the front half of me. today i'll add a viewing of up in 3d to the mix!

anyway, how are you?

it's such a perfect day

think i was a bit giddy tonight at the bbq because i have just two. days. left.
(at work)

but you know, i'm a very balanced individual. it's not like that's the only thing i've been thinking about.

jeremy has been the main guardian of our ipod (affectionately referred to as the i.p.) since we got it last year using target gift cards. i think because of this, i have yet to really bond with the most recent coldplay cd. buuuuut they released a live cd last week, and because we're back to sharing a car for a bit (or at least until my parking pass is done on friday), i've been listening to "strawberry swing" almost every time i'm in the car. and i like it.

we're moving this weekend. i can't wait. 'twill be so nice to have a bedroom and restroom on the same level. and ann told me that she's never seen a mouse at broadway village.

i feel like we're on the verge of something big. i mean, yes, obviously we are about to have some major life changes occurring.. but it's more than that, you know? tonight we went over to get some moving boxes from the worleys and talked to melissa and dustin from their back patio (meliss and daughstey live right above the worleys) and i got this wonderful summmmmmertiiiiiiime and the livin' is easy and suddenly we're going to have neighbors we can talk to and ahh i'm almost done working and oh man, life is going to be great feeling. all at once.

so i'm excited.
it's going to be good.

i'll let you know how it goes.

a change would do me good

we hired the new manager today.
training is in a week - my last tuesday at the seed.

the babe has been moving so much at night. tonight s/he pressed on my belly button until it almost hurt! it's really really fun to look down and see a huge bulge moving from one side to the other. even more fun to put my hand on my belly to try and guess if it's an arm or a leg that i feel like i can almost hold.

so crazy.

we're going to kansas city this weekend. i love that it's tuesday and the weekend is my next thought, not what the rest of the work week holds. it will be so good to be with the linnemans for a sunday-monday. i can't wait to show them how much the babe (and his/her mom) has grown.

thennnnnnnn
it's tuesday-friday at work.
i suppose some packing is in order somewhere in there as well.
saturday yard sale and the gaskin wedding.
sunday birthday celebration for my handsome husband (i'm hoping for flatbranch for the 3rd time this month).
monday move.
and beyond? i believe it's called nesting. and/or experiencing large amounts of change all at once and seeing how it goes.

ms. right sciatic is feeling much better, thank you.. once i realized that it may actually be something that sticks around for a while, i learned to deal a little better. birth is going to be nothin' after this. :)

hope all y'all are doing splendidly.

time out

it's monday!

annnnnd it's beautiful.

i am currently:

wearing a dress

admiring photos from spring 2009

thinking about a java chip frappuccino (but that's pretty constant)

resting

you?

p.s. i love this: "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns." psalm 46:4-5

lotta babes

~

announcing
the arrival

of

miss daisy may mcdonnell

born may 13, 2009
2:19 am
6 lbs 14 oz
19 inches

sweet second baby girl to proud parents
jeffrey charles & amy lynn mcdonnell

new lifelong playmate and friend to proud big sister
ally rose mcdonnell

~

just lately

hey summer, where ya been?

3 weeks, make that 2 weeks and 4 days, not counting the last saturday, left to go.
and then, is it summer?
it's non-employed jessie in the month of june so yes.. probably summer.

i'm a summer person; did i mention that, wedontneednopizza friends? it's true.

annnnnnyway.. i've been enjoying life, pre-summer life.

and today i lost my balance (center of gravity must be off or something.....) and successfully bumped into a journal/books shelf, sending books toppling over and a (luckily very light-weight) lamp onto my head.
and jeremy has a new job!
and i'm going to uprise tomorrow morn!
and this morning God gave me the most lovely realization about the state of mind in which i have been starting each of my mornings and how a change in that could change so much more.
and usually right around now each night, the babe stretches his/her appendages to make my belly visibly.. well, whatever word you would give to watching waves that are coming from under your skin.
and what's crazy is that the same little babe that's in there moving right now is going to be the one that joins the out of womb world come july.
and i can't wait!

off to stretch my right sciatic nerve. oh, baby.

a bunch of babes just walked by.
as my sweet would remark: "babes! wearing appropriately small clothing!"
they were each carrying a flower.
one of them looked through the door.
i explained fair trade to her in 1.3 seconds.
through the closed door much less.
then i hired her as the new manager.
not sure i'm authorized to make that decision.
just did.

ahem.

i LOVE air conditioning.

i think i may be facing a day alone at the store.
but.. we have air conditioning. and it's on.

ahhhhh...

surprise surprise

i bought some hyvee rice krispies tonight.
along with the discounted 2-man chinese dinner.. $9.99, are they out of their miiiind??

the dinner was delicious. we sit corners in the linneman fam and my poor sweet husband and i both seemed to be having trouble not just staring straight ahead of us rather than slightly to the side to see each other. it was that kind of day for both of us i suppose - jeremy blames greek and i blame sitting all day under the super hot lights at the seed. (sidenote: i turned on the air conditioning this afternoon after noting the thermostat read 82.)

after dinner, j.s. went to the office to work on greek some more and i enjoyed a lovely conversation with my mother-in-law (love that dawn knew my top choice in cribs by name and shared my affection for the espresso finish) followed by another lovely conversation with my sister, rachel (also love that rachel wore my prom dress to her prom this weekend and told me i was old, oh, and a mom, for not knowing about the song "love story" by taylor swift).

there is a baby shower for babe linn this coming sunday and i can't seem to figure out if i'm supposed to know about it. my family loves surprises and even though it's pretty obvious from the "oh, mannn... we all have to go to grandpa bill's birthday this weekend.. will you be in town?" a couple weeks ahead of time, it's still kind of fun to pretend to be surprised. pretty sure i carried on about not having annnny idea all the way to thank you notes one time. megan asked me a couple of days ago if i could come in town on sunday to help clean the basement so i should probably be there.

so, i'll be in st. charles on sunday.. "cleaning the basement" or wait, "looking at amy & jeff's new bathtub" no, sorry, "cleaning jeff & amy's basement" or something. :)

love.

oh, monday.

today is beautiful.

today is:
awaking to natural light in our treehouse loft of a room
spending time with the Lord in my morning spot on the futon
enjoying a wheat bagel with cream cheese
hitting the trail with j.s. linneman
talking with my best friend
listening best when i'm breathless from the intense hills we're conquering
stocking the pantry and fridge with gerbes finds
planning tilapia with bread crumbs and tomatoes
finishing the secret life of bees (second time)
discussing baby names and feeling the babe move
hoping the babe will move to which one he/she likes best
dunking half of a sugar donut in milk
saving the other half for later
gearing up for the first softball game of the season
dropping jeremy off for warm-ups
sneaking to starbucks for the frappuccino i've been
thinking about all week
typing about it all in -ing fashion

now this. this is living.

april shower curtains

i told the babe that i would be really really happy if he was a boy.

just to put that out there.

i mean, i did have a dream in which the babe was a girl, but that can't mean that i'm all oh, it's a girl for sure so much that i would make the potential junior boy linneman feel sad when he reads his mom's blog from when he was in the womb. not that he'll be reading for a while. or maybe he will. weird, what if s/he did read this?

anyway, today i prayed that i would be really productive at work. and i was! it felt really good. i am down to six weeks and one day. and that's actually the first real countdown that i've done.

i have some herbs that i planted in soup cans that are on our windowsill and i thought about taking a picture of them to be like you girls, jess and natalie, but then i realized that they may actually be dead. um. so. i guess i'll see if they grow any more before a picture is taken. annnnnd i had a dream about them growing. not that they actually did. my thought life must be picking up again.. dreaming about herbs growing to take a picture of them.

i gave jeremy a haircut tonight. so fresh and so clean clean. sometimes in the middle of these haircuts i just want to throw in the towel and start paying for them again. it's a lot of pressure to cut somebody's hair, you know? and i'm thinking that it does in fact take longer than the 10-15 minutes we've come to assume each haircut time allotment should be. but he's mine and i love him. so i should do everything i can to protect him from the hands of well-meaning but usually thoroughly-scalping sportsclips stylists.

i keep trying to think of some other news that i can say "in other news..." about, but it looks like there might not actually be any other news. hmm.. oh! we have a new shower curtain. blue and green vertical stripes. i realllly like it and have mentioned liking it so much a few times. jeremy said that he thinks about it so much that it's almost like there are four of us in the family now.

well, goodnight then :)

mom and daughter shopping.
spitting image.
both wearing scarves with sparkle in them.
little girl wearing a dress and silver shoes.
dancing on her way out the door.

is it okay that after that i really really (really?) want a girl?

lunchie breakie. or don't tell my heart, my achey breaky heart.

this morning the exterminator came back.
all the traps that had enough poison to last a year were empty.

i told him that we'd been finding turquoise droppings, to which he replied enthusiastically, "oh, you have? that's good."

he refilled the poison but didn't clean up the droppings.. why did i think he'd do that? why do i think that it's anyone but my responsibility to clean up after these terrors?

my favorite of his words: "evidently, you had quite a population."

also, jeremy and i have vowed to not discuss our mouse issues with friends who have just joined us for dinner. it's just not nice.

somewhat awkward situation happening as i type: the bench outside our open door at the store has been full all day. there's a girl with sunglasses sitting on the ground beside it. she's looking directly into the store. but i can't see her eyes. is she looking at me? was that actual or imagined eye contact? what should i do? i have a habit of looking when i see movement, which means that every time somebody walks by the store.. yep. potential eye contact again with the sitting girl. oi. this could go on all day.

i'm having barbeque chicken pizza for dinner. can't wait.

bday

yesterday was my birthday.
twenty-five.

i believe belated happy birthdays are in order. just kidding. :)

the entire day i had two things going through my mind, both different expressions of it being my birthday.

the first was my grandma mcd, who jeremy sometimes calls grandma bill because he met her i think at her wedding when she married grandpa bill, saying "today is my birthday." but not just saying "today is my birthday." a long time ago, i went with my family to celebrate her birthday at applebee's and when the servers all gathered around her and rapped/chanted "today is your birthday!... happy, happy birthday!..." with room in between for people to repeat their words, grandma mcd actually said to herself in this really quiet voice "today is my birthday" and they continued to yell/chant at her before singing "happy, happy birthday from all of us to you. we're glad it is your birthday so we sing this song to you.. hey!" it was pretty amazing. i'm pretty sure i think about it every birthday i have.

the second expression was simply "it's my.. BIRTHday! it's my birthday, it's my birthday." from the saturday night live parody of oprah's favorite things birthday ediiiiiition. if you haven't seen it, it's the one where oprah talks about all of the famous people who like her favorite things, particularly, these amazing MACaroons that salma hayek just loves.

so anyway. it was my birthday, and i'm now officially 25 years and one day old.

in other news, realsimple came in the mail today, so i think i'm going to go read it. i don't think being in front of a cash register computer and now this one all day can be good for me. or the babe. soon to change.

the joy of joy

thoughts as of lately:

if i am to fight for joy in the morning, i must do this intentionally. so i should probably wake up for the purpose of something other than oh-no-i-need-to-retype-ms-tax-forms or wait-wasn't-i-supposed-to-make-sample-crafts-for-c-group or the-coffee-won't-taste-as-good-if-i-don't-get-up-to-drink-it-now. (conveniently, i didn't have to retype the taxes, a sample craft can wait until after i'm actually awake, and our new & improved coffee maker allows me to make one cup at a time, all while never burning or cooking the coffee on a hot plate but keeping it toasty in a thermal carafe. and it has a permanent filter, not that it's a big deal or anything.)

that was the big thought. in addition:

feeling the babe move is wonderful.

i don't know how much i actually care for o magazine.

i'm so proud of jeremy. and i love that he makes lists on white computer paper and that sometimes i read them when he's not home.. it's like a peek into his brain.

my bird shirts will one day fit again. same with my st. charles ymca t-shirt i've been borrowing from sarah for 3 years and my mustard seed not sure i ever paid for you t-shirt.

jeremy is fork lift certified in missouri. and alaska. fun fact.

making a list is like soooo much better than keeping eight lists in my head at once. and than carrying around a bunch of cds.

i'm turning a quarter of a century soon.

one of the best parts of my day is when i realize that a chocolate bar is unsellable. and thus must be eaten by employees of the store.

it's weird that i'm not going to work there anymore.

we have mice still. one in the kitchen, another in the bathroom. might be the same mouse but i doubt it.

oh, wow.

note regarding above link: please disregard profanity and use of the Lord's name in vain. this article had me silently and at times audibly laughing throughout its entirety.

spring/lunch break

i feel so accomplished.

it seems my time is a lot more productive when i make a list. and today, strangely, my accomplishments thus far weren't even on the list. maybe the action of making a list is enough in itself to motivate me and the things i need to do just happen and somehow it's 12:57 and all of the worthless packing materials are purged and the worthwhile are organized and my brain is that much clearer.

oh, and it's spring break in columbia meaning i have also been motivated to take the liberty of playing the (gasp) taylor swift pandora station. yes, it looks like rascal flatts is in fact mustard seed friendly this week. but probably not next week. sometimes store music just gets so old, you know?

also, i just witnessed a granddaughter-grandmother shopping trip. visions of dawn and our little girl/boy walking in and out of little stores. although i don't actually think that baby daddy would be big on a grandma-grandson shopping trip.

when we were driving home from kansas city, i was looking at a march of dimes brochure that had a picture of a little girl around 3 years old with glasses. jeremy asked me if our daughter had to get glasses, if i would get her trendy dark rimmed glasses and a pair for myself to match just so she wouldn't feel so self-conscious about them. i think i would. and that thought makes me so stinking excited. i mean, not that i am super pumped about the possibility that our kids could have vision problems (might i add that my vision is actually perfect.. it's true), but i guess it's more of the role a mom would play in a situation like that.

so anyway, back to work. lunch is over. happy wednesday!

the new babe

baby ian thomas has arrived.
(!!!!!!)

some reminiscing in an attempt to understand the babe inside of ann that is now outside of her:

it was this summer when ann announced that she was pregnant. finn was yet to be born and the three of us were sitting on jessica's couches. i remember ann seeming really happy but in a very detached state of reality about the babe now rapidly developing inside. jess was super super excited, having done a bit of the pregnancy thing herself, and i was doing this thing where my voice gets kind of high-pitched in hopes of conveying exactly just how happy i am and at the same time i know i was hoping that soon i'd be sharing similar news with them.

and then ann grew. and she had to work while growing and wanted to be done and we counted down days until she'd finally clock out and we walked and talked pregnancy nutrition and showered her nesting-style and talked through parenting techniques and practiced pre-natal yoga and gave into shakespeare's cravings (for the babes) at the mustard seed front desk and he grew and she grew.

this past friday ann, jess, and i shared coffee and the ever-amaaazing sausage biscuits we love at uprise, and knew i should have brought a camera to capture something from that day, but then again, when do i bring my camera and how to take a picture of the last time i thought i'd see ann pregnant and jess with finn and me and the babe all at the same time anyway?

and now he's here! he's here and they can hold him and they're at home. it's taking lots and lots of willpower not to drive over there. not now (i mean, it's 10:07, babies gotta sleep) and of course we'll wait until a drop-by is suggested, but oh, to see baby ian and proud mom & dad daugherty. sigh. can't wait!

good thing we're making dinner on mondayyyy :)

cats choose you

i took a walk this morning and saw a playful cat jumping at something in a yard as i walked by. i had the thought that i would probably want a cat like that, if i were to ever have a cat. a while ago somebody told me that when a person goes to adopt/purchase a cat, the surest way to get one you'll like is to let it choose you. i almost feel that this is reason enough for me to never get a cat, but maybe it's just some hidden insecurity that no cat would ever choose me. or that the cat that would choose me would be a loser cat. the thing is, i have been chosen by cats. it's just usually as the target of angry cat aggression.

jeremy's sister, sarah, has a cat named frances. even from the time that frances was a helpless little kitten, she chose me as the family member that she was going to swat at from under the bed while cuddling up next to everyone else. maybe she could tell that i'm not original linneman blood. last year at Christmas, i was in our room at the linneman's house in kc and was getting ready for bed. i had brushed my teeth, washed my face (okay, i probably hadn't washed my face because i actually don't really wash my face every night - is that weird?), or not washed my face, put on pajamas, and was walking toward the bed when frances struck. she had been in this room with me for nearly 20 minutes, just waiting under the bed for me to approach it so that she could attack.

i've also been chosen by a stray cat that likes to sit on our front porch and move at the absolute last second before i put my foot on the first step. then the little terror doesn't even run away but merely sits in the bushes right next to the front porch until it can reassume its position in front of my house when i've gone inside. i've had to dodge it multiple times for trips in and out of the house unloading groceries.

in addition, multiple cats from various stages in my life have nearly attacked me much to the delight and surprise of their owners who usually just laugh it off and say how she allllways jumps from one couch to the other and lands right behind your head, and even though it looked like she was coming right for me, she just wanted to be in the sun.

i was talking to a volunteer this morning about the mice problem we have in our sweet little cottage and an eavesdropping customer suggested i get a cat. strangely, i somehow withheld all that i have just shared with you about my relationships with cats, which is very odd because i had been consciously thinking about cats pretty much all morning. she said that the smell of cats is enough to keep mice away. she said it was the most natural way. we had an exterminator come yesterday and put out traps with poison that will make the mice crazy and cause them to run out of the house and die outdoors rather than in our walls. that probably would have offended her so i kept that to myself as well.

i don't even like cats. why did i just write about cats? who likes cats, anyway?

true.

i woke up this morning with "the voice of truth" by casting crowns in my head. a bit out of nowhere but wonderfully appropriate. besides the killer rock-out "the stone was just the right size to put the giant on the grounnnndd" part that i always have to turn down for fear of somebody outside the car/house hearing it and besides the fact that i actually haven't listened to it since i drove an explorer, the lyrics stick with me:

but the voice of truth tells me a different story
the voice of truth says do not be afraid
the voice of truth says this is for my glory
out of all the voices calling out to me
i will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth

okay, so maybe it's cheesy, whatev. last night at community group, we discussed having a son/daughter view versus an orphan view of ourselves in terms of God. of many significant statements, one that remains on my mind is that if we imagine the Lord's face as anything less than overjoyed when He thinks about us, we have fallen into a performance mindset. i think i very often imagine God having a kind of, well, just an "eh" kind of face or an almost scolding "what are you going to do to make that better?" face when He thinks of me. but overjoyed? rejoicing over me with singing? you mean i don't have to approach Him every morning hoping that what i have to say that day will be approved?

this morning i finished reading hebrews. 13:8 reads "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." this is one of those sentences in the bible that i would typically (and sadly) tend to ignore, fearing that quoting it would come across as too cross-stichy, if you can picture with me these words framed on a wall. but this morning the words were deeply comforting. i realized that the reason i imagine God's face as "eh" is because i think He changes how He sees me every morning. but if my relationship with God is based upon my salvation in Christ, and He's the same yesterday, today, and all days in both directions, God can't see me as anything but His completely loved and completely accepted daughter. and i can/should/need to believe that over my early-morning-fatigue-becomes-anxiety. the voice of truth. wonderfully, there is infinitely more to discover about God and i'm just getting my little taste of it for the day. i'll let you know what else i find out.

sarah and dan's wedding is this weekend. i was at target last monday and decided to buy their present early. i bought them a shower curtain off the registry. i was very proud of myself for making this purchase before the day before the wedding, so i told sarah how excited i was to have the present already. and she replied "if it's anything like the shower gifts, i'm excited!" what's funny is that it is absolutely nothing like the shower gifts which were unique, fair trade items from the store in which i spend 40 hours a week. instead it was a shower curtain, which, i mean, is that still like a shower gift simply by being a gift for use in the shower? i have since decided that i do not want to give her this shower curtain and will instead give her something from the seed that is unique, fair trade, etc., but i can't help but love the irony of "no, it's not like the shower gifts, it is a shower gift."

also, today is the four year anniversary of jeremy and my first date. it was march 12, 2005 and we spent 14 hours together. i'll tell you about it sometime. oh, love. :)

recap

we're back!
annnd burnt.. some of us worse than others.

i, having grown up a mcdonnell and granddaughter of the legendary grandma wolf, who spent 3 months every winter of my childhood in hawaii and i'm pretty sure has never used an ounce of sunscreen in her life but did at one point in my early years suggest some that contained paba, which i think was found to damage dna or something, actually wanted to get burnt so that it wouldn't fade too much before sarah's wedding this weekend. jeremy, however, did not grow up under this influence and i dare say that his skin having not been exposed to summers of repeated innsbrook scorching, felt the burn. friday night was quite a sight as his poor bright red and hot to the touch back turned cool wet washcloths into uncomfortably warm wet washcloths and soaked up aloe vera gel by the glob. i think it's getting better now, but a car ride with no air conditioner probably didn't help. the babe is tan now too.. is that bad? i haven't yet googled "pregnancy and sunburn"..

all in all, vacation was lovely. highlights from our travels include but are not limited to:
- a round trip on only 4 tanks of gas - thank you, wonderful honda accord.
- a room upgrade landing us in a beautiful 9th story pool-view/beach-view room with a balcony
- a mini-fridge in aforementioned amazing hotel room allowing snickers ice cream bars and ben & jerry's
- publix (yeah, i'll link to a grocery store chain), quite possibly the best grocery shopping experience of my life and the greatest generic branding i've ever seen
- awaking to natural light every morn around 7
- an early-morning beach stroll on one such morn followed by breakfast at waffle house followed by a 3-hour nap followed by laying out by the pool. yep.
- fresh catch-of-the-day dinner (or at least fresher than what we'd find in mid-mo) at the gulf shores steamer
- jellyfish! big jellyfish washed up on the beach!
- fool's gold starring matthew mcconaughey & kate hudson (please watch this movie if you get a chance)
- my travel (and life) companion, jeremy s. linneman, in all his vacation-mode glory encouraging 16+ hours of roadtrip conversational bonding (although at one point, after what seemed quite a lengthy conversation, i did resign not to speak but read for a while out of respect for the fact that his simply being in the driver's seat did not mean that i should necessarily use all 10,000 of my daily words before we made it home)
- taking a left out of our resort in search of a nice restaurant and ending up at a sonic 30 minutes away eating a chili-cheese hot dog in a dress
- discovering that perdido beach resort may actually be an old people resort as evidenced by nightly piano players pounding out showtunes on the lobby baby grand surrounded by sweet swing dancing elderlies

and many more highlights that made our pre-babe (although of course the babe was with us and not very happy that the mizzou-oklahoma game was not on espn) vacation very relaxing, refreshing, and rejuvenating.

and upon arriving home late last evening, we discovered upwards of 30 ladybugs/african beetles/terrors needing to be smashed on our bedroom window. and on our pillows. but such is life.

vacation mode

i tried to make chocolate chip pancakes this morning (and somehow before that point in the morning had already snuck a few kc masterpiece bbq chips.. oops) but they didn't work out so well. i didn't have any chocolate chips, just some divine chocolate that i solidified from fondue a couple of weeks ago which i attempted to chop into chip-sized chunks but it mostly just turned into shavings. and since i didn't think of the chocolatizing of the pancakes until two were already made, i have two normal pancakes and one super chocolaty pancake that tastes good but is not very pretty.

we were out of milk or it would have been grape nuts trail mix.

but anyway.

our next-door neighbor came over this morning and in addition to discovering a linneman secret that only a few people have experienced, which is that when we watch movies, we move our futon to the middle of our family room until it's right in front of the television, requested that one of us go over to his house for the next 30 minutes and watch his 3 month old twins sleep. yes please. sleeping babies are about the most calming thing i can think of so i was over there a couple of minutes later staring at a precious set of babes and wondering how it would feel to know there is not only one full human inside of you but two.

i've realized that by the end of the work-week i require a significant amount of winding down. not having this required time until sunday evening, i found myself antsy and somewhat cranky (although i'm sure i don't have the ability to be actually cranky) until i fell asleep on the futon and more or less pressed the jessie-reset button. i think i'll store that in my parental wisdom bank so that in a few years when our son or daughter doesn't know what to do with themselves, i'll just leave them on the couch until they fall asleep and feel better.

which brings me to the vacation mode of this morning. it's monday, which means the store is closed and i am at home, but it's a special monday because tomorrow we leave for gulf shores, alabama. our pre-babe vacation of fun in the weather.com-predicted sun. today is a day for productivity as i am needing to purchase some snacks and non-perishable food items for the trip, get my bridesmaid dress altered, and deposit my paycheck at the bank. being in vacation mode puts a fun spin on what would normally be a dreadful plan of going to gerbes, having some person tack my dress in where it will need to be and figure out how to fit it over the growing babe bump, and spending any amount of time in usbank. but it's vacation!

consider this my attempt to blog more regularly although reporting of today's events thus far may have been better off not posted..

lots of love.

thoughts on living in a gingerbread house / why jeremy is no longer allowed to leave home without me

oh, lunch break.
how i've earned you today.

it's 2:49 and i have worked the entire morn. seriously. new window displays to entice the masses of t/f viewers, directors, wannabes, etc. takes some time, you know? we had some beautiful displays for valentine's day done by callie that conveniently had some divine chocolate that melted but not beyond the point of salvaging. so that was a plus to the new displays. if i'm forcing myself to work my hours, which shouldn't be as hard as it is, then by golly, i'm going to force myself to take a lunch break as well.

so.

have i mentioned that every time jeremy leaves town, a new critter shows its face to me? the first time was absolutely the worst. he was in st. louis. i, being the overly thoughtful wife that i am, thought that nothing would be better for jeremy to return to than an organized basement. about twenty minutes into this chore, i picked up a box labeled "wedding closet" and felt a cold something drape over my arm. i looked down to see a dead snake that had to be five feet long and probably a boa constrictor at that touching my forearm. it was touching me. the dead snake. touching my arm. i dropped the box, took a split-second to compose myself, grabbed our wedding pictures (because if i'm never returning to the basement again, at least i have our wedding pictures?), and ran up the stairs. after a couple of minutes, i realized that i should have made sure the thing was actually dead or i just know it would have made a way into my bed. upon creeping down the stairs with a broom, the little maybe eight inch long snake was still there, dead from a slow and painful starvation caused by crawling over exposed packing tape and getting stuck.

the next time jeremy left town, a tiny mouse showed up under the stove. megan discovered that one while we were eating breakast. we barricaded it and blocked its only exit from under the stove with a trap. dead by the time i got home that night. still dead in the trap when jeremy got home from louisville later that night. i had to give him the chance to be so very manly and take care of me by disposing of it.

yesterday, jeremy had been on his way to kansas city for about an hour when a friend of the deceased stove mouse showed up in my closet. strangely, even though i saw it run from my shoes to the back corner of the endless closet (our bedroom is a finished attic with sloping walls in the closets), neither of us has made any effort to get rid of the thing. maybe we're immune to the critters by now.

slight sidenote but also the reason jeremy will not leave again without me: he's never seen a mouse, never seen a snake, never seen any living creature in this house but the forty ladybugs he killed this weekend. how is that possible?

in other news, we are going to be leaving town together on tuesday, and despite my fear that our home will be hosting a week-long critter fest, i'm pretty excited for a week in gulf shores. pre-babe vaycay, you know? can't. wait.

this t/f film festival energy is amazing. it's cloudy and cold but humid at the same time (thank you, missouri), but everyone downtown is in a great mood. and great moods plus mustard seed equals out of control fair trade sales. down to three more months here. wow, is this a temporary job? strange that it seems like the first real job i've had yet i'll have it for less than a year when all is said and born. july 7. come quick, babe. yes, i feel you. you move a lot.

also, i've decided that i'm going to spell my parents' last name mcdonald from here on out. we'll see how that goes.

happy thursday!

so anyway

i enjoyed cinnamon blueberry muffins and coffee with jess and finn this morning. as i was driving to work (interestingly enough, i was earlier to work than most days even with a morning hang out) i drove straight down university avenue with college students on both sides of the street. although i wish this drive would have taken place on tuesday (or is it wednesday?) so i could have passed my favorite addsheet woman (tell me.. why two d's?), i couldn't help but think about life in 2009 and life before 2009. my life is pretty funny if i think about it. and i do think about it. i guess changed is a better word than funny. i mean, it's not really that funny.

since 2006, i have married jeremy s. linneman and inherited a last name and a 4runner (which strangely no longer has its distinctive snowman dent on the front bumper). i have worked as a barista, teacher, and store manager. i have lived in country club apartments and in a gingerbread house. i have become a godmother, aunt, and former favorite of ally rose mcdonnell. i have made cheeseless thai chicken pizza and french toast in mass quantities. i have painted my nails about4 times total. i have travelled (do you spell travelled with 2 l's? because i do) to chicago and uganda. oh, and turks & caicos. i have purchased pink shoes. i have joined a church. i have begun to drink coffee. i have seen friendships change.

i don't turn in assignments anymore.
there's a guy with long white hair peering in at our window display.
i've started looking pregnant.
(those three things are not necessarily related rather the order in which i thought about them)

so i don't know.
i don't have a profound conclusion. i was just noticing how different my life is from what it was like when i would wait for the light at the intersection of college and university and go to class and you know, all of that stuff that used to happen. and now i'm in a store. it's 10:22 and yesterday we did $3.25 in sales, $3.50 if you count tax, which you shouldn't because i have to send in a check for tax. and sales tax is different than income tax.

i'm really happy with what life looks like today.
baby finn standing on my legs and putting his fists out. his arms are so short that his hands won't touch above his head. or maybe it's that his head is big?

the phone just rang. nobody there. and then a j-student came in and took my picture. and for three of them i didn't smile. what? sometimes i don't want to. it's just for a project anyway.

okay, i have to go to work now.
love.

mommy ponderings

it's funny to work in a store and be around people who are shopping 40 hours a week and then find myself on saturday night and off for the next 60 hours and not needing to be in a store until tuesday and all i keep thinking about how i want to go shopping. alone. on monday. maybe sunday. we'll see.

and i want to have lunch with my mom. for Christmas, i gave her my favorite thing in the whole store. i kind of feel like a little kid - i'm not sure if you'll like this but it's my favorite thing so the most love i can possibly show you is in me giving it to you. they're these two little owls, officially "treetop buhitos." they're already on my mom's windowsill in st. charles.

but i want to have lunch with her in addition to giving her the owls. i see all these mom and daughter duos shopping all the time and having a wonderful time together and i get a bit, well, nostalgic for the shopping trips that we used to have. the first one that comes to mind was back in fourth grade when i had to stay home from school for two days because i had poison sumac all over my face and i just couldn't face my fellow students in that condition. my mom took me to t.j. maxx and bought me this cute red, white, and blue patchwork jacket. i can remember trying on all of these outfits with her and forgetting that my face was huge and scary until i looked in the mirror and saw myself. there's gotta be a life lesson in that story somewhere.

perhaps i will attempt to quench the lunch with mommy and shopping desires in one trip to the preferred outlets of warrenton, missouri. imo's pizza and gap outlet.. mmm-hmm.

i've heard that pregnant women can get super attached to their moms during this stage of pregnancy. i've also heard that wacky dreams are plentiful, and my dream last night of having not one baby but three was pretty wacky. although a couple of weeks ago i had a dream that barack obama gave a speech in my parents' backyard. that was pretty weird.

in other news, i guess my new year's resolution was pretty newsworthy.. ?

happy 2009!