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!

december

so.

i. am. pregnant. [with child] [craving shakespeare's quite constantly] [averaging 10-12 hours of sleep a night] and pregnant.

oh, junior. or junebug. love. :)

annnnnnd.. i love these shoes. a lot. they're for babes.

in other news, i am very seriously considering the release of a jessie christmas mix version 3.0. i know i have promised this in years past and not followed through, but i think i can make it happen this year. plus, a few years ago, my friend/brother-in-law, dustin, made me about 35 color "it's a mcdonnell christmas" cd covers with a hand-drawn picture of 37 cambrian way. you can't let things like that sit in a kinko's envelope forever.

also, i have been reading through the book of john. i have been daily amazed by Jesus' words of how we are not of this world. i guess i kind of thought that it wasn't that big of a deal to be of this world, but have been testing this to see what my life looks like to live as if i'm not.

last night i had the beautiful opportunity to watch you've got mail. even knowing the end of this movie, i still just love when brinkley runs ahead and joe fox walks around the corner to find shopgirl with her too cute hair waiting for him in her dress and cardigan. tears. and i think that watching a movie might be the healthiest way to end a week of work. i can tell because it so energized me that i was still very much awake blasting "just wanna be with you" from cough-hsm3-cough when jeremy got home around 10:30. bedtime's been around 9-9:30 these days so that was big.

i'm off to plan a christmas present/presentation. step into christmas; the admission is free.

long time no see

haven't been here in a while.

well, sometimes i look around and pretend like i have loads of posts and memories on here.. (r.i.p. thisshouldmakeyouthinkimcool) but then i just end up realizing that i haven't said anything in a while.

oh.
i found a dead snake in our basement.
it was about a week ago.
old news.

i just gave jeremy a hair cut.
now we're going to eat ice cream.
and watch hitch.

we don't need no pizza.. plenty of food there.

a horse of a different color

i just want to tell somebody.
i'm not actually sure what i want to tell but that's how i feel - drawn here to write something.

this is kind of new - i am trying to correctly capitalize my emails now. i'm not sure when it will carry over to here.

things are actually kind of hard right now. what's funny is that i changed that sentence from "really" to "pretty" to "kind of" hard. so i guess in reality it's really "really."

good ol', well, new, mustard seed is getting a lot of face time these days. it's been overwhelming but then overwhelming becomes 15 volunteers on a thursday night and one big wall painted a deep green daisy color so overwhelming becomes less breakdown and more good.

and i'm thinking about rejoining facebook.

i think i'm going to call my little sister back from two days ago. she got a car i hear. i love her.

weird

i can read all of my posts on this in one page.
where did all the words go?

i have about 8 minutes until i start my workday. 8-5, lunch/talk on the phone so rushed lunch eating for 1 hour, end the day trying to end thinking about the day. working from home has been tough but it's going to get better when i'm at the store and not the kitchen table.

funny that this is what i first think to write when all of the time i've been off work i've been avoiding talking about work. but here it is, the first thing i mention in my 8 minutes of writing.

i found an antique fan at itchy's stop & scratch flea market. i love it. it doesn't really work for very long but if i plug it in and spin the blades a bit, it will work for a while.

God has surpised me in a very sweet way this week - i stood only a week ago at the kitchen sink, which is red, by the way, and wondered if i have friends, if i am a friend to anyone, if i even know how to be a friend, much less a good friend. and then he just threw all these friends at me at once. thanks.

7:56.. 7:57..

i'm learning. growing. typing about it all...

happy thursday.