Completed My 30th Trip Around The Sun

Yep. Today's my 30th birthday. I'm ok with it. Harper woke up crying this morning (very unusual) and was kind of cranky until I dropped her off at baby school which reminded me that today is just another day.

But, I will say that I have given more retrospective thought to this birthday than others in the past. For the most part, I'm ok with where I am in life. I don't feel old. I still feel about 25 despite the fact that I go to bed much earlier and have gained about 10 pounds since then. I like my life. I like my husband and I like my daughter. I like my family and my friends. I like my job. I like that I haven't given up on trying to better myself. But, I will say that there is a part of me that looks back over the years and wishes I could have gotten more out of them. I wish I could go back and re-do college. I wasted a lot of time and missed a lot of opportunities. I wish I could go back and spend more time with grandmas and grandpas that aren't around anymore. I wish I never would have owned a hair crimper. But, nobody gets a do-over. So I guess I need to make the next 30 years count for more so I don't look back when I'm 60 and think that I wasted my time. Ok, enough introspection.

At the risk of my mom killing me, I thought I'd share this picture from 30 years ago. I was not an easy delivery. 30+ house of labor that culminated in an emergency C-section. Not fun. But, it looks like she forgave me.

Here's one from a couple months later. It reminds me of this picture.

And finally, here's one from my 10th birthday sleepover. Yeah, I rocked the side pony tail and had a NKOTB poster over my bed. What's it to ya? The girl on the far right just had her first baby about a month ago. How time flies...

Anyway, to close out this post I thought I'd leave you with something fun. This story ran on NPR yesterday. It's about a book that compiled 6 word memoirs (a 6 word phrase that describes your life) from famous people. You can read/listen to the NPR story here. Today I think my 6 word memoir would be Still trying to figure it out. What would yours be?

4 Things That Are On My Mind This Morning

• I'm doing ok at keeping to my running schedule. I may miss a day here or there, but for the most part, I'm sticking to it. My knees and shins are starting to hurt. Hopefully, I'll just toughen up and get over it.
• There has been a lot of (unnecessary?) nakedness in the gym locker room lately. I'm not sure why. It weirds me out a little.
• I love my kiddo. She's pretty much awesome.
• I'm not very good at sharing my feelings. I had to do a lot of sharing first thing this morning. It wore me out.

Icy Roads and Panties

Not much to say today (I know, I know. I don't have much to say most days. No laughing please.)

• Yesterday, I had to wait a good 15 minutes for this lady to maneuver her car out of the middle of the road. Some good Samaritans who lived in a nearby house came out to help her. I have a feeling that she probably ended up in a ditch somewhere else. It was not pretty.

• There are a couple words and phrases in the English language that I very much dislike. They include panties, tramp (as in tramp on the gas), moist, and eat on it (as in we will eat on these leftovers for a few days). I know there are others, but I must have selectively blocked them from my memory. Do you have any words or phrases that you don't like?

Baby School Life

I love Harper's baby school. She loves it too which makes me love it even more. At the end of every month, her teachers post all of the pictures they have taken to Kodak Gallery. It's great because I can see what Harper has been up to (as opposed to just reading about it on her daily reports). Here are some of the activities that happened last month.

The class has been practicing yoga every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Harper loves it and will bust it out at home sometimes.

The class also gets to try lots of different foods. Here, they are trying pomegranate!

Feel Good Friday

Here are a couple things that make me happy today.

1. It's a Harper's moon tonight. If you forget what a Harper's moon is, click here. In fact, it's a very special Harper's moon tonight. It will be the biggest, brightest full moon of the year. It will seem 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a normal full moon do to the elliptical orbit of the moon around the earth. You can read more about that here.

2. Venus Williams ruffled some feathers at the Australian Open the other day when she wore this outfit. She designed it herself - including the flesh-colored undergarment. I think it's funny. Yes, I am about 10 years old.

The One and Only Thing I'll Probably Post About Haiti

I know I'm way behind on commenting on the earthquake. Until now, I didn't really feel like I had anything to add to the conversation. I still don't have much to add, but I read an interesting story online yesterday. It was about how ESPN fired Paul Shirley for a blog article that he wrote about Haiti. You can read the controversial article here. You should read it. It's thought provoking. It will probably make some of you mad. I can understand that. I disagree with some of the things he said too. However, I think he makes two interesting points (-points that I then expanded in my own head. Much of what is written below is my commentary, not what he actually said in his article. Just so we're clear.)

The first is about how we can't just throw money at problems like this. Haiti is going to require transformation changes to every aspect of it's existence in order to move forward. Haiti has bigger(?) problems than the devastation caused by the earthquake. Morally, spiritually, economically, relationally, educationally, environmentally, you name it, Haiti needs help with it. What I take away from this is how are we (the rest of the world, the Church, etc.) going to help the people of Haiti make the transformational changes in these areas. Money up front helps. But, in the long run, the whole philosophy of their culture is going to have to change in order to make any measurable improvements to their well being. How can we (I) help with that?

The second thing that resonated with me is that we need to focus a lot of attention/prayer on the children of Haiti. Kidnapping and human trafficking can abound in situations where the infrastructure has completely collapsed and parents are separated from their kids. While the earthquake brought destruction and death, the result of a child being kidnapped and sold into slavery is the real hell on earth in my opinion. Click here to learn more about the problem and how you can help (I realize that this site allows you to make a donation and that I just said we need to do more than just give money. I'm ok with the contradiction.)

Of Batteries and Babies

It's been an eventful last 2 days.

To begin, my car wouldn't start after work on Monday. My battery was dead. I must have bumped an overhead light getting Harper out of the car and it was on all day and drained the battery. Not really a big deal in and of itself. However, I stayed later than I usually do at work and only had 20 minutes to get over to Harper's baby school before it closed. Not the best time frame to try to find someone to jump your car. Luckily, one of my co-workers had jumper cables. But, when we went to connect the cables, we couldn't find the battery in my car. I know it sounds silly, but it's true. To my credit, there were some complicating factors such as a dark parking garage and the fact that I was stressed about getting to baby school in time. And, the battery in my car is not in an obvious place. Here, see for yourself. This isn't a picture of my car, but it's the same model and year. Can you find the battery (in the dark and under stress)?

It's not obvious, is it? It's hiding under the nondescript black cover thing in the very back.

In the process of looking for the battery, I accidently broke off a corner of the engine cover thing. Rob was not happy.

Anyway, we finally got the car started (which took several attempts - making us think that it may be a more serious problem than just the battery. But I said a prayer on the last attempt and it started.). Needless to say, I was a little late to pick Harper up. But I called them when I discovered that my car was dead to let them know I was probably gong to be late and they were fine with it (I love Harper's baby school).

The next bit of excitement came when I picked Harper up. Her teacher told me that she was running a temperature. She started getting some congestion on Sunday, but it wasn't anything serious. Just typical baby school induced crud. But by Monday night, she had a fever of 102. So, yesterday, I took her to the doctor and stayed home with her the rest of the day. No ear infection and her lungs are clear. Just a virus of some sort. Good news, all things considered. She's a little better today, but still not well enough to go back to school. Our friends, Laurie and Ed, volunteered to hang out with her so that I could go to work. So awesome. Harper loves them and I know she will have a good day.

The morals of this story are:

1. pray on the first attempt, not the last one

2. try to be more gentle with engine covers to avoid your husband's wrath

3. be thankful for friends who like your kid almost as much as you do and who are willing to hang out with her even when she's sick

The end.