dear moving,
you feel real now.

dear major life change,
we meet again.

dear conley road hyvee,
i'm really going to miss you.

dear pantene pro-v curling mousse,
do you have a friend that doesn't contain isobutane?

dear trail mix,
you're good.

love,
jessie

handsomes

happy fourth

courtesy of design*sponge

i just looked up from facebook to see a stop-in-your-tracks, have-to-go-outside sunset. immediate thought: "you mean.. that was happening out there? how did i.. wait, whose page am i even on???"

i walked outside, stood barefoot in the grass, and looked and looked at it. it was one of those skies that makes you think "that looks like a painting" but then, i guess the paintings are inspired by those skies.

i went back inside, poured a cup of decaf coffee that my darling husband prepared for us, and took it with a book and the baby monitor back outside to sit on our camp chairs and watch the sky.

then, the most hilarious adorable thing happened. our neighbors upstairs, the ones who stomp down the stairs with such enthusiasm that we always know when they're leaving for the day, clamoured down the stairs. well, the guy did. then he ran back up. then two sets flip flops ran down the stairs. so loud. seriously. seeing only their shadows, i heard the guy go, "see, look at that. isn't that amazing?" (shadows indicate hug happening) "oh, i love you sweetie. did you have a good friday?" (more hugging and the girl indicating that she may know i'm sitting there and feels awkward about their moment being overheard)

stinking cute. :)

favorites

swaggggger wagon

it's just that..

every time i try to blog, i end up eating ice cream.

seriously.

i might like ice cream better than wedontneednopizza.blogger.com. no, i do; i do like it better. especially moose tracks ice cream.

i think i'm in a blogging slump. how to get out? what to do?

must eat ice cream.

lovely

why i enjoy reading joseph's books aloud to him (and sometimes forget i'm supposed to be reading them aloud and read them to myself silently until i realize he's squirming out of my lap):

"One day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeous were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted." - christopher robin throws pooh a party by a.a. milne

"one; wakes up in the hay. two; say hello to the day. three; meet up with a moo. four; have so much to do. five; and more on the way. how many came out to play? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. here on the farm, it's a wonderful day!" - curious baby counting book (annnnd that was from memory)

"but the Big Strong Engine bellowed: 'i am a Freight Engine. i have just pulled a big train loaded with big machines over the mountain. these machines print books and newspapers for grown-ups to read. i am a very important engine indeed. i won't pull the likes of you!' and the Freight Engine puffed off indignantly to the roundhouse." - the little engine that could by watty piper

i'm also reading pride and prejudice, but mostly to myself unless jeremy allows me to read aloud to him. and i love it. i do. i just spent most of the post-joseph-bedtime time of this evening reading it. a favorite exerpt following a speech by mr. collins:

"and with a bow to mr. darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. many stared--many smiled; but no one looked more amused than mr. bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended mr. collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a half-whisper to lady lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man."

and we are led to those who help us most to grow

it appears that joseph is actually going to grow up.

i'm not sure if i really didn't think this was going to happen or if it's just hitting me with more certainty these days.

but he's going to grow up.

what's interesting about the "they grow up so fast" thing is that this is in fact a logical reality. joseph is in fact growing up. fast. nothing else in my life is as short-lived as many of joseph's developmental stages. i mean, a month - tops - he felt like a newborn. now he's seven months old. he has facial expressions. he says "va-va-va-va" with raised eyebrows and eyes squinty. he stands up holding onto the side of the laundry basket. when i rock him, a lot of the time he arches his back and stretches his neck back until i put him in his bed where he falls asleep on his own.

and the time between birth and sleeping most of the day away to needing to be rocked to sleep to doing it better by himself? seven months. seven months.

tonight jeremy put the boy in his fleece dog pajamas and when he brought him out to get me for our bedtime story, prayer, night-night daddy routine, i'm not kidding you, joseph had a look of pride on his face. he smiled in this "mom, look at my pajamas that dad and i got on me all by ourselves" way. i could have cried. in fact, i almost did, but as my eyes were starting to fill up with happy tears, jeremy looked at joseph and said "what's going on?" as in "why is mom starting to cry at the sight of you in your dog pajamas with the patch that says bow-wow and the dog faces on the footies?" so i got a hold of myself.

my friend, ann, reminded me today that the goal of parenting is to raise babies into what will eventually be adults. we want them to grow up. i mean, it would be pretty weird to not want them to grow up. this is what i have to keep in mind when i feel the "no-it's-going-too-fast-what-happened-to-your-newborn-smell" panic creeping in. because yes, joseph did start out with the best smell in the world, and yes, he is going to grow up fast. the point/challenge/please-God-help-me-to is to shepherd him during this growing up. for just a little while will it be up to me to nurture him in this way.

and yet, sweet boy, who is tonight apparently going to disprove my sappy look-at-him-all-grown-up-and-falling-asleep-on-his-own-ness, was making noises from his room and had managed to get himself all turned around in his crib when i went in to check on him right before this paragraph.

so, for now, i suppose he is still a baby. okay, good. :)

an excerpt from my reading: suburban nation

"it bears repeating: we shape our cities and then our cities shape us. the choice is ours whether we build subdivisions that debase the human spirit or neighborhoods that nurture sociability and bring out the best in our nature. the techniques for achieving the latter are well known, and available to all who wish to make places worth caring about."

dear reading,

you have proven to be quite more enjoyable than facebook, and for that you should be very proud of yourself. i have enjoyed you these past few weeks and hope to continue you for the rest of my life. thank you for introducing me to thoughts i have never thought. i am so excited to further develop these thoughts and add to them thoughts on countless subjects including, but not limited to, cities and the cause of suburban sprawl, what mothers do and what they say about it, and gospel community as it could really exist, as i continue you.

love,
jessie

teaching joseph to sleep

i secretly kind of love that joseph will try really hard to fall asleep on his own and be just about there but still squirming a bit for about 15 minutes and then fall asleep within seconds when i go in and pick him up.

usually.

when it does happen this way, it is one of the sweetest moments as a mother that i experience.

the other is when he's looking at me and not yet smiling and his eyebrows go down and his lips form a smile at the same time. those eyebrows. sigh. what am i going to do with this handsome boy?

currently:

making
falafel. and tzatziki. well, i'm going to make these. for dinner tonight. it's about time. i think i started craving falafel in mid-december. i attempted to purchase falafel at a restaurant only to discover, according to our server, that it's not actually a greek food. even though i ate it in greece and have since thought that it was greek. but it's not. so, the greek restaurant on broadway, felini, does not serve falafel. just so you know. but i'm making it tonight! i'm excited. and so hungry.

praying
for the Lord to expand my horizons. i find myself so often thinking "there has to be something else i could be thinking about.." as i'm stuck in a mental rut of relational worry or confusing littleness of thought. i just want to think about bigger things. more significant things. i'm thankful that God is "not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 corinthians 14:33).

reading
a book sarah gave me for Christmas, extremely loud and incredibly close. this is the most unique book i have ever read. it's enough to make me feel crazy at times. but i'm halfway through. and i like it. i think. it's really really interesting, a story of a boy who loses his father in the september 11th attacks and goes on a quest to discover the meaning behind a key he finds in his father's closet. and more than that, but that's the concise summary. some of the pages don't even have words on them. others have pictures. it's good. i'll let you know when i'm done. because, it's 2010, and i read entire books now.

feeling
pretty relieved to not have a Christmas tree up anymore. does anyone else ever find themselves letting out a big sigh of "finally, back to normal" when the holidays are over? i took the lights off the tree, took it outside (realizing as i was just about to put my foot on the outside ground that i was not wearing shoes and snow from last night has gathered on our welcome mat), and vacuumed away the evidence. all while wearing joseph in the ergo carrier, might i add. it's nice to not have a tree in our home. mostly because jeremy and i were both allergic to it, but also because it's nice for it to be january and winter and snowing and all that those things are without Christmas. does this make me a scrooge? hope not.

enjoying
this day. it snowed so much last night. and i have really enjoyed watching the light snow be swirled over the heavier snow each time the wind blows. two cups of coffee this morning and joseph taking three naps so far haven't hurt either. i spent half of the third one resting next to him and thinking and the second half typing this entry that i began composing during the first half. oh, fractions.

hope you have a wonderful thursday.

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.