Overdue.

So here I am.  Another three and a half months have passed since a blog post.  Things have just been so busy that I can't keep up! It's funny, though, that I manage to keep up with reading the blogs I follow..... something's fishy there!

I can't believe we are already into the month of Thanksgiving, cold weather, Christmas trees going up, and lights on the house.  I love, love, LOVE this time of year.  I can hardly stand the wait to put up our Christmas tree.  It will be interesting to see how it goes this year, though, as we have an 18 month old in our house who may like the tree a little too much.  I hope she can learn to just look and leave it alone.  She's pretty good about stuff like that, so who knows. We are also going to re-arrange our living room to accommodate our Christmas tree this year.  We usually put it right in the middle of our picture windows.... but.... the four-legged friend in our house likes to spend most of her days looking out that window, thus pushing and turning the tree with each delicate (NOT!) pass near the tree to get to said window.  It about makes my heart stop every time, so this year, we're going to eliminate the problem!

Where Have I Been All My Life?!

So clearly my blogging skills have taken a back seat.... again!  I thought I was doing better at blogging more regularly, but not so.  It's funny, because I still read the blogs I follow regularly (like daily or more!), and I think to myself each time I'm looking at the dashboard "I should write something..... but I can't think of anything.  Eh, I'll do it later."  Yup.  Now is later!

So, today is my husband's and my five year wedding anniversary.  It seems like just yesterday that we got married.  Yet, when I think about our wedding -- our actual ceremony, the reception, the dance -- it seems like longer than that.  Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing.  It's just all that planning and waiting seems like a lifetime ago. 

I was thinking today about the anniversaries we've shared thus far...

The first year, we went back to the Wisconsin Dells to the same water park we had been to on our honeymoon.  SO FUN! 

The second year we went to Sioux Falls for shopping and eating. 

Our third anniversary was spent on a trip to Rapid City to go to a Taylor Swift concert (bless my husband's heart).  I'm not so sure Tyler was into TayTay (yep, that's what we call her at our house!), but when we got to Rapid and saw that our seats were FRONT ROW (!!!!!!), he seemed to have more fun.  Then when TayTay grabbed my hand (EEEEEEPPPPPPP!!!!!), I cried, and I think I realized he actually was having a fab time!  We had just gotten possession of our house (Tyler's grandpa's house that we bought), and had been painting, moving, painting, moving, painting, moving, moving, moving the week before we went.  This trip was a welcomed break!

Our fourth anniversary was spent just hanging out at our house.  Lydia was only about 2 1/2 months old, so it was easy to just hang out! 

Today we have again just been around the house.  It's been kind of nice to just hang.  We planned to go on a bike ride tonight, but as I type this and look out the window, I see that the sky is darn-near black, I'm hearing thunder, and I'm pretty sure it's raining/going to rain soon.  I'm not Lance Armstrong.  I don't love biking that much and I don't like the weather that much to ride IN IT! Haha!  I'm literally taking a rain check!

Ruby's Runaway Recap

Last weekend was our town's annual celebration, Farley Fest.  Each year, the town hosts an arts and crafts fair, a car show, windmill tours, a concert, and a fireworks show, among other events.  Previously, the fireworks and concert were held on the same night, but last year, they switched the fireworks to the night before the concert. 

Lydia was just a month and a half old last year at Farley Fest.  I remember standing in our dining room, holding her while she cried, and being sad that the first fireworks she was seeing in her lifetime were hampered by her crying.  AND there were 9,000,000 mosquitoes!  UGH!

Anyhow...... flash forward to this year.  In the days leading up to Farley Fest this year, the people who shoot the fireworks kept doing test shots.  They did them like every half hour on Friday.  It was kind of a pain, because it made our dog kind of nervous.  Friday night came and it was a beautiful night -- very little wind, not too hot, not too cold, and a clear enough sky to see the fireworks shoot up.  Tyler and I decided to start a fire in our fire pit and by the time it was going, another test shot had gone up.  It woke Lydia up.  Instead of fighting to get her back to sleep, I brought her outside, thinking she could go to bed a little later than normal.  After all, it is summer, the fireworks would be loud, and we could sleep in the next morning if need be.  We enjoyed sitting by the fire (Lydia was entranced... I don't think she's ever seen anything bigger than a candle flame!) for a while and then realized that the fireworks would soon be starting.  I had handed Lydia over to Tyler so she could sit on his lap for a while and he handed her back just as the fireworks were starting, so he could hold on to Ruby's collar.  At one point while watching the fire, I said "Let's just keep Ruby out with us and see how she does with the fireworks." 

The next account is exactly how about 3 minutes of our lives went:

Fireworks start.
Lydie cries.
Tyler gets up and says "Ruby. Ruby.  RUBY." 
Tyler buzzes her shock collar. 
Tyler walks around our house looking for her.
I finally realize he's not joking and he can't find Ruby.
Lydie and I get up and start looking.
Ruby cannot be found.
Tyler presses Ruby's shock collar one more time and says "She's out of range of the collar to work." 
O.M.G.

So, I race inside to call Home Again, the company that we have Ruby micro-chipped through.  We thought it was a tracking system.  When I called, the woman informed me "It's not a GPS, Ma'am.  Your calling us will allow us to make a poster that will be delivered to all the shelters, rescues, veterinary offices, etc. in your area. The poster will have Ruby's information and a picture of her on it."  A POSTER!?!?! HELLO! I could have done that myself! Whatever. So I say "okay," hang up, and head outside to keep looking.  Tyler took Lydia with him in the car to drive around and look for Ruby, I stayed close to home in case she came back and walked around our neighborhood on foot.  Mind you, by this time, it's like 11:00 p.m. and pitch dark.

Time out for me to describe our area:  We live on THEE northernmost street in our town.  One house north of us is sided on the north side by a farm with lots of trees.  Beyond that, it's out in the country.  OY!  And again, pitch black, People.  

Okay, so I'm out looking and looking for Ruby, calling her name, and trying to find her with a flashlight.  Most of our neighbors were out (which was a good thing, as they could say "yay" or "nay" to having seen Ruby).  Most of the town was out too at the fireworks.... the problem with that is they were all in the park south of our house watching the fireworks that were shot off from across the lake we live on.  Ruby was definitely trying to get AWAY from the noise, so going south into all of the people where she may have been found seemed like an impossibility!  Before leaving home, I called our radio station to have them announce at the fireworks that Ruby was missing.  Then I realized that the phone number on her collar is definitely our OLD phone number that was in service a year ago... we got a new phone number last November to save money through our provider... OH NO!  I also called our local police station/sheriff's office to alert them of Ruby's disappearance and put a message on my facebook that she was missing.

So, I finally call Tyler and ask if he's had any luck. No luck.  He was coming home.  All the while of looking for Ruby, I realized that this was, in fact, my fault.  I had told Tyler to keep her outside.  She took off like a bolt of lightning when she left and we knew she had to be a long way from home.  It made me so sad to think of our poor puppy.... barely two years old....alone at night....scared from the noise... was she hurt?.... was she killed?.....was she trying to get home and couldn't find her way?.... what if she was hurt, but dying slowly, all by herself, scared in a big, dark night... the guilt of all of this about pushed me over the edge.  It was like our first baby had been ripped away from us and she was all alone. And it was my. fault.

I decided then and there that I would stay out all night waiting for her to come back.  Tyler finally convinced me to come inside, but it was the longest, sleepless night I've ever had.  I kept thinking I was hearing Ruby scratching at our front door. Or crying. Or barking.  I was SO SO SO sad!  And Tyler was sad too.... he's spent so much time training Ruby to hunt, teaching her to stay in our yard (which she does faithfully!), and playing with her throwing the retriever in the lake behind our house.  I knew it was breaking his heart that she was gone.  We each kept getting up throughout the night to see if Ruby was back or not. She never was.

By 6:30 Saturday morning, my  mom sent me an e-mail telling me to call her ASAP.  When I called her, she was very upset that Ruby hadn't come back yet and that I hadn't called Friday night to have them come help look for her.  Really, there probably wasn't anything to be done Friday night, as Ruby is a speed racer and could have been to Canada by the time we even hopped in our car.  My mom told me that she, my dad, my brother, and my grandma were coming to help find Ruby. She also told me that she was going to call their town's radio stations, as they project to our town and all the surrounding areas.  Someone was bound to find her.

Bound to find her.... all night long, I kept thinking those horrible thoughts about her being lost, hurt, killed, etc., but I also had hope that someone would find her.  I was praying someone would find her.  And alive, not dead. 

As I hung up from talking with my mom, I realized I had new voice mail messages.  I listened to one: "Um. Yeah. I just seen [sic] (I would never use grammar like that) your dog four miles north on the highway."  Awesome.  Thanks for the really detailed message, Lady. BUT that meant someone had seen her alive!  Then I listened to the second message:  "Hi. My name is Jerid.  I am at mile marker 179, north of town, on the highway.  I can see your dog, but she won't come to me.  She seems scared.  Call me back when you can."  HALLELUJAH!!  I called him back and we RACED north of town to find her.  When we got to where the man was, he said "She saw me, looked back, and took off running east. I'll go back to the northern dirt road from here, you go to the southern dirt road from here and we'll cut her off."  So we did that, but our dirt road never came.  We were almost back into town when Jerid called back and said "She's headed back towards the highway."  We turned around and raced BACK out of town.  We came up over a hill, saw Jerid's car coming towards us, and RUBY BARRELING down the highway!!!!  She saw our car and came RUNNING!!! I jumped out of the car, ran over to her, and she came right to me!  She was wet.  She was dirty.  She was tired. Hungry. Thirsty.  BUT HOME!!!!

She ended up being four miles north of home.  We'll never know how far she went throughout the night, though. 

I think next year she'll stay inside for fireworks.... Oh, Ruby.....

Summer Titles.

So, I've been on summer vacation for almost a month now.  I can't believe a whole month is gone from my precious vacation! It always goes way too fast!

When I thought about the things I wanted to do on my vacation this year, I knew I wanted to challenge myself to read one book per week.  I'm doing pretty good so far.  I've read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld, and have started "The Four Ms. Bradwells" by Meg Waite Clayton.  All have been good.  The MWC book is a little hard to get into, but I think I remember thinking that about the first book I read by her called "The Wednesday Sisters."  I have to decide what I'm going to read next.... I have so many books that I've bought over the years and haven't gotten around to reading yet.  I have a Kindle, but I think for the summer, I'll put it on the shelf to get some of the paper books I have read.  I hope this is a tradition I can carry out throughout the year!

Sweet Summah-time!

So.  One week down.  I've been on summer vacation for exactly one week today.  This week has gone SO fast! I'm afraid I'll blink and it will be August and we'll be back in school.  EEEKKK! I'm NOT ready!  I love my job.  I love the kids.  I love teaching English and Literature. Bbbuuuuuuutttttt... I LOVE summer too!  I call myself "Summer Girl" so much that my husband calls me that too!

Lydia has gone to daycare each day since Monday this week.  At first I felt guilty about taking her while I was sitting at home doing.... well....whatever I feel like.  I got over the guilt fast!  I needed a little Mommy Vaca and I DO have flex account money that has to be spent... so to daycare she goes! 

So far this week, I've expanded my garden, read, watched TV, done a few craft projects, picked up the house, watered flowers, had lunch with a dear friend, and basically whatever else I've felt "moved" to do! Haha!  I've had a great time so far and could get used to this "Summer Girl" business! 

Hello Hiatus!

So... my plan to write one blog a week hasn't gone so well.  Life has been so busy lately!  Maybe my goal should be one blog per month...maybe THAT'S what I meant to say when I started this blogging deal and said I'd do it once a week?

Anyhow.... so much has happened since I last blogged.  Let's recap:  Husband has pneumonia.  Daughter has RSV.  Husband is hospitalized.  This mom's losing her mind.  Husband heals.  Husband starts coaching track.  Daughter has double pink eye.  Husband's pneumonia comes back. Daughter has double ear infection. End scene.

Okay, so that was the fast-forward version, but I think you get the hint.  We (or should I say, the rest of my family) hasn't been the healthiest this spring.  Darn public places sharing ickies! 

Lydia Claire is one year old today.  It's been a very nostalgic week for me.  I remember (to the minute usually) what I was doing a year ago.  Last night I kept thinking about how we had gotten the phone call to go to the hospital to have Lydia.  I wasn't scheduled to be induced until 12 hours later, but we got to go in early.  So we left here in fog as thick as butter and drove to our hospital 45 miles away.  When Tyler's alarm went off this morning at 6:30, I thought "one year ago right now, my water broke!".  And the time comparisons have continued all day.  At 12:09, the exact moment LC entered the world one year ago, I took her picture with the date AND time stamp on on my camera.  I know. Corny, right?  But... she is my first baby and she's getting so big and I want to remember every SECOND with her! 

It's strange because all year, I had times where I would wish for her to be one year old.  Now that it's here, I could live without it.  Anyhow, Girlfriend is in her crib napping (a new development... thank you daycare!).  She has started napping in her crib instead of being held (she sleeps fine in her crib at nighttime), but only if she's swaddled.  It's kind of funny to see this big girl (although she's quite petite!) swaddled up in her crib.  Say it with me though: "WHATEVER WORKS!" 

We are off to make patio stones with her little foot and hand prints in them when she wakes up.  I've been planning this for weeks.  Here's hoping I know what the heck I'm doing!

Drum Roll Please.....

We have FINALLY figured out what's going on with my husband.  Lydia's RSV is under control (I should say, it's *been* under control, considering she's never acted like anything's wrong!).  Anyhow, when I took Tyler to the doctor on Tuesday, the doctor put in an order for a Z-pack medicine that we could pick up Thursday/Friday if he just wasn't feeling better.  He wasn't.  So yesterday (Thursday), I picked it up and he took the dosage of it yesterday at 2:30.  By 8:00 last night, he was having such stomach pain and was just generally uncomfortable, so I took him to the ER in our town.  They found nothing, still, to be wrong with him. Said it was still viral, still nothing to be done. Still, still, still. 

Today, his fever was up and down up and down again.  I told him I thought we needed to get him looked at again, but this time in Watertown (where we both grew up).  So, I called the office, they had an opening at 3:45, I packed an overnight bag for us each (just in case!), loaded the dog up, and away we went.  The doctor quickly found that Tyler has a severe case of pneumonia. So severe that he's been hospitalized.  Good thing our parents all live in Watertown! Lydia and I are at my parent's house.

When we were driving, the wind was blowing about 9000 miles per hour.  I went into the clinic with no coat on.  When I came out of the hospital after Tyler's admission (the hospital is attached to the clinic), it was raining and then snowing lightly by the time I got in my car.  By the time I got to my parent's house about 6 blocks later, it was SNOWING snowing.  This was at about 5:15. My dad and brother left to go to a Boy Scout camp at 5:45.  They made it 20 miles south of town and had to turn around and come back.  The 14 miles took them 1 1/2 hours.  I drove across town to buy diapers and I couldn't even see the car 10 feet in front of me.

Good thing we brought the dog and our clothes along... the interstate is now closed to get home! Hopefully tomorrow's a little less eventful than the days in the past week... maybe?

Giving Up Sleep for Lent.

I jokingly (or was it???) wrote on my facebook status that I have given up sleep for Lent. Now, I'm not Catholic, so the practice of giving things up for Lent is not something I normally do.  It's not that I couldn't do it, I just have never done it.  Anyhow, this year really could be the year I give up something and right about now that something feels like sleep.

Sunday my husband started to not feel well.  I thought he was just tired or had a little cold or something.  By the time we went to bed Monday night, he had a temperature of 102 degrees.  I felt bad, but thought, again, it was no big deal -- just a cold, maybe a bug, or something.  We are on day four of him having a temperature of 100 + degrees.  His temperature breaks, goes down a little, but then ends up right around 100 multiple times a day.  He has missed four of four days of school this week.  When will he get better?

Lydia has had a little bit of a cough, runny nose, and a little congestion for probably about a week now.  She did get a tooth last weekend, and these are her normal teething symptoms, so I didn't really think much of it.  She has been running a little fever her and there, but again, I thought it was teething.  I picked her up from daycare yesterday and her daycare mom said she had a fever again and her chest seemed rattley.  I thought to myself "The clinic is only two blocks away from daycare.  I'm going to go see if they have anyone who can listen to her chest."  There was a little boy with croup at daycare last week and who knows what else she shares with her friends at daycare.  I took her over to the clinic and they tested her for influenza and RSV.  The influenza test was negative; the RSV test was positive.  My baby has RSV!  I was so scared they were going to hospitalize her.  For now, we have escaped the hospital stay, as she's over six months old.  However, if she gets worse, she'll have to go to the hospital. So, out of five school days this week, I'll have missed three and a half. Good thing I have sick time! 

We are supposed to go to Sioux Falls this weekend to meet up with college friends.  We've had this weekend planned since last summer.  We have a motel room and it's literally been the only thing getting me through this week: knowing that we get to "get outta Dodge."  Our plans to go have been canceled.  We don't get to go and it makes me so SO sad! We haven't been out of town (except to run to Watertown for the day every once in a while) since we went Christmas shopping for a day in Sioux Falls before Thanksgiving.  After this weekend, I have next weekend open and then I have oral interp. meets every Saturday until April 16.  Tyler coaches track starting the week after next.  I'd love to go to Sioux Falls just for the day next Saturday, but it's state basketball.  That causes a mess.  Everything gets so busy and full that driving in town, eating at a restaurant, and shopping at the mall are not so much fun.  That blows that idea. 

Well, the baby's crying (surprise), the kitchen needs picking up (typical), and this Momma needs to get her butt in gear (ugh).  Until next time blog-owers (that's blog followers, duh)!

290.

290.  That's how many days old Lydia is today.  Saying you have a 290 day old baby doesn't seem as much as saying a 9 and one half month old baby.  9 1/2 months?! Where has this time gone?!

I'm sitting in our living room, watching her play today.  Tyler's at basketball practice.  It's his last before the team's first district game tomorrow. Anyhow, I'm watching this baby, my little baby, pull herself up to stand on the dog, stand by her "Learn and Groove" table, talk to herself, page through her book, crawl all over, and empty out her toy bin again. And again. And again.  Sometimes I have to just take a minute, clear her blanket off, putting everything back in the bin, because I just can't take the chaos of the toys... say it with me now: O.C.D.

I can't believe how all of a sudden, her development is taking off.  We have a calendar that my bestie gave me for Christmas 2009.  It's one that comes with milestone stickers for firsts, holidays, special times, number of months old, etc.  I've taken the liberty of writing my own stuff in (because, hello, I'm her mom... duh!) like the day she woke up to see her first snowfall.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that I put about 90% of the stickers on one week.  One week.  In one week's time (actually about 4 days), Lydia started waving bye-bye, clapping, crawling, pulling up to standing, turned 9 months old, went to a check-up, had her first Valentine's Day, and got her third tooth.  Ho-ly cow. Where's my baby gone to?

Just the other night, I was poking around in her mouth (which makes her mad, but again. I. am. the. mom., kid.), and I found her fourth tooth.  We have this habit of getting two teeth at a time, but about 10 - 13 days apart.  In October, Lydia got her first tooth.  Eleven days later, she got her second tooth.  Then we worked. And worked. And worked for the third tooth.  Lots of drool, next to no sleep, some fevers here and there, and many crabby days later, we got a third tooth.  On Valentine's Day.  What a romantic that girl is! Anyhow, Friday, February 25, I felt a fourth tooth.  On top this time.  OH NO! As I explained to my husband, big kids have top teeth.  Not my gummy smiled, no toothed little baby.

We've started talking birthday party plans for LC's first birthday.  It's hard to believe that my baby will be a whole year old.  Just a year ago, I was pregnant (obviously), but it is wierd to think about the things we were able to do a year ago without our Little.  It's also strange to think about all the things we were planning for our Little and she hadn't used anything we had purchased; everything was so new and...anticipatory. 

I guess that's how I feel about her birthday.  While I'm sad for her first year to be over, I'm anticipatory.  I'm anxious to see what Lydie looks like as a walking big girl.  I'll always long for her baby, newborn, curled-up, wrinkley days, but I know they won't come back.  Memories are a wonderful piece to this life (so are photographs!) and I have so many from when she was little.  I don't think I'll ever tire of talking about her delivery, our trip home from the hospital, how my parents came up with a meal (and many frozen meals) when we first arrived home, the first time we took Lydia for a walk in her travel system, the way the train barriers came down as we were crossing them to take Lydia back to her first doctor's appointment, the fact that Lydia pee'd on her newly-daddied Daddy at our newborn photo session, the waiting and waiting and waiting we did trying to catch her rolling over on our video camera, or any of the other memories from these past 290 days.  So, Miss LC, here's to 290 more days, times infinity.

P.S. - I suppose I should include a disclaimer on this blog.  In the next 75 days of Lydia's first year, the blogs I write about my little baby may (okay, will) become increasingly sappy.  Again, I'm her mom.  We tend to do that.

Broken.

Sometimes it feels like nothing goes right in life.  Sometimes it feels like everything is broken.  The car is falling apart.  The bank account is broke[n]. The heart is busted.  Whoever said "when it rains it pours" was right.  Amen, Sister...or Brother.  Is there really a domino effect about when things happen?  One after another after another after another? 

Right now I'm in a funk.  I wake up. Go to school.  Come home. Go to bed.  {Insert occasional sleep here. Only when Lydia sleeps.} Wake up and do it all over again.  Sometimes in life everything seems so mundane.  Maybe it's the weather.  The fact that it's been below zero every day for what seems like forever.  Maybe it's the snow.  We've gotten a ton this year.  Whatever it is, I hope something changes soon.  Maybe it will be a little change, maybe big.  Who knows. 

This is a test for my new signature.  I love adding gadgets, pictures, and fun things to my blog.  Today, I added a hit counter and now I created this signature for myself.  Now if I can remember to use it.....haha!

Resolution-schmesolution

Did I make a New Year's resolution this year, you ask?  Why, no, I did not.  Sometimes I feel like it would be a great idea; most of the time I don't even have enough will-power to think about what I would/could want to "resolve."

After contemplating how another New Year's Eve has come and gone, I got to thinking about what really makes a new year.  New years start all the time in my life and what is it that makes us all feel like January 1 is THE day to resolve, change, and start over? In my life, my new years include...

January 1: The obv.

February 12: This is the day I wait for.  All. Year. Long. (just ask my husband).  This is the day I celebrate my birth, the start of another year older, and another new adventure. 

May 1:  The day I celebrate the start of another year of "engaged bliss" to my (now) husband.  On May Day 2005, I was given instructions to a park in our college town, guided out onto a dock, and asked to be a wife. 

May 6:  Though just 5 days after one of the happiest days of my life, May 6, 2005 has been the saddest of my life to date and it marks the start of another year without him.  It not only has been the saddest of days I've ever known, but it has also led to the most pain I've ever felt.  This is the day I lost one of my confidants, friends, and mentors: my Grandpa.

May 13:  2011 will be the first year of annual celebration of this day for our little family.  On this day in 2010, our little Lydia joined our family.  At 12:09 p.m., we'll celebrate the start of Lydia's second year of living.

July 16: In 2002 on this date, I met my best friend.  This date in 2011 will mark the start of our ninth (NINTH?!?!) year of knowing each other.

July 22:  This date holds double meaning.  This year will mark our ninth year of dating; it also marks our fifth wedding anniversary.  The start of this fifth year of marriage has to mean something great is in store for us.  Not only did we make it past the "newlywed" stage, we're also half-way to a decade of wedded bliss!

Sometime in August each year:  Every year, I begin a new school year.  As a teacher, it's just as new and fresh as it was as a student.  The start of each new school year is marked with new students, oftentimes new classes, and new challenges. 

Even though January 1 marks a new year on the calendar, all of these other dates throughout the year which start new years for me more define me than the first does.  What makes a new year?  I think a new year is marked by those dates in each person's life which define and start the person anew. 

So, I guess if I change my mind about the whole "let's make a resolution" game, I have a few other chances throughout the year!