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.