Mish Mash

Sorry. This is fragmented, just like my brain lately. Thank you for indulging me. ; )

• We have Julianna's orthodontic evaluation tomorrow. Cross your fingers and toes, throw salt over your shoulder, if you don't mind, say a little prayer that we can find a way to afford the treatment she needs. Man! When did life get so expensive? I'm not only stressed about paying for it, I'm also dreading putting her through it, I know she needs it, that's been pounded into my head for years now, I'm just not looking forward to the rough days she has ahead. Yes, I've been through it before with Rebekah, I know it won't always be terrible, but let's face it, there are days when having braces is pretty rough.
• Yay! for blogging. Last week I sold an ad, completely out of the blue and unexpected, that paid for some of the new battery Mark's car needed. Today, I got an email invitation for a VIP visit to an old-time Ohio festival. It's the first time anything like that has ever happened. Very exciting! Now, if only Blogger would consider me worthy enough for their ads.
• Sometimes I really wonder where the person is I used to be. Now, I think I'm about 90% stress and worry. Christmas is looming and it's really stressing me out. We'd be almost able to meet our bills without that, instead I'm looking over our budget daily, sometimes hourly, trying to figure out how we're going to do it. Exhausting.
• In a completely contradictory note, Julianna is over-the-moon at the news she's going to be a mouse in her dance studio's production of The Nutcracker. I vow not to ruin it by worrying about money, how I'm going to get her to rehearsals/performances, and how she's going to feel if I miss some performances because I have to work. My working is not easy on Julianna, she acutely wishes I could be the Mommy that's there for everything and volunteers in her classroom and at the school. Still, I'm pushing all that aside and am going to love every minute of sharing as much as I can of this special time in her life.
• My facebook friends have seen this already. It's a What Would You Do moment...Julianna asked me if the Daniel story from the bible is true. Wow did I struggle with that one. I guess I don't believe in most of the Old Testament stories as being literally true, more like figuratively teaching us something, but I certainly don't want to confuse her with that. It's confusing enough for me. Finally, after stalling for time, I lamely said, "it's in the bible, right?". To which she replied that it's awfully hard to believe it's true. Yeah, I agree. What would you do? What would you say? How do you handle things like this. Keep in mind she's 7.
• I miss Rebekah!!! Something terrible. It's different than it was with Jason. I must say it's easier to handle sans pregnancy hormones (I was 7 months pregnant when Jason went to college for the first time. Isn't it odd, I was pregnant, unknown to me, when I went to college, I was pregnant 18 years later when I took that baby to college. That's our life, lol.) I miss her all the time. She'll be home in 11 days, but who's counting? Me!!!
• Everyone should have kids as widely spaced as ours. We were lucky enough to have Jason babysit Saturday while Mark and I got some much needed time alone together. Awesome. Quite the wonderful gift. Of course, we watched Matt & Lily Friday night for them. It's nice trading off. The kids have lots of fun, the grown ups get some grown up time. Win=win. We liked it so much while the kids were at Sunday School Sunday we snuck out to have coffee together. Make time when we can is going to be our new mantra.
• Monday's going to be our soup or salad night. It seems to be the way to go with our wicked Monday night schedule. Tonight was Southwestern Chicken Salad. Yum!
• What's up with Brother and Sisters? I watched last night, but I wasn't any happier with it than I was with the season finale last year. It's as if they've decided they didn't like the series anymore so they've torn up all the cards and started over...and not in a good way. I'll give it a bit more time, but not much.
  

Well, I'm tired and Dancing With the Stars is heating up. I've never watched it before, but tonight, it's fun. Thanks for listening. :)