Books

Here is a list of books I’ve read so far this year. (Some are chapter books I read with the kids and some are books I’ve technically “listened” to via audiobook.)

2019 books

1. Food: A Love Story – Jim Gaffigan

2. The Tipping Point – Malcom Gladwell

3. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy – Jeanne Birdsall

4. Little House in the Big Woods – Laura Ingalls Wilder

5. Farmer Boy – Laura Ingalls Wilder

6. David & Goliath – Malcom Gladwell

7. Penderwicks on Gardam Street – Jeanne Birdsall

8. Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

9. Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

10. On the Banks of Plumb Creek – Laura Ingalls Wilder

11. Origin – Dan Brown

12. The Life You’ve Always Wanted – John Ortberg

13. Frog & Toad – Arnold Lobel

14. Henry Huggins & the paper route – Beverly Cleary

15. The First Consperacy – Brad Meltzer

16. Mary Poppins – PJ Trappers

17. A Cricket in Times square – George Selden

18. Memory of Light – Robert Jordon

19. On the Shores of Silver Lake – Laura Ingalls Wilder

20. The long winter – Laura Ingalls Wilder

21. Little town in the prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

22. These Happy Golden Years – Laura Ingalls Wilder

23. The First Four Years – Laura Ingalls Wilder

24. Becoming Mrs. Lewis – Patti Callahan

25. The Inklings – Humphrey Carpenter

26. On Reading Well -Karen Swallow Prior

27. Gray Mountain – John Gresham

28. Penderwicks 3 – Jeanne Birdsall

29. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

30. Little Men – Louisa May Alcott

31. Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster

32. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle -Betty MacDonald

33. Wait Until Next Year -Doris Kearns Goodwin

34. Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH – Robert C. O’Brien

35. Light in the Attic – Shel Silverstein

36. Henry Huggins Clubhouse – Beverly Cleary

37. Peace Like a River – Leif Enger

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These days

It’s been a while since my last post so I thought I’d do an update on what we are doing these days.

*We started preschool last week. By pre-school, I mean me take 30 mins – an hour, about 3 days a week to do some intentional play, reading, and crafts. Now that E will be two next week, both boys get to participate. Mostly this has resulted in E throwing fits when I put the colors away because he wants to keep going. 

*Z and I started “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons”. He’s really interested in reading. I’ve modified the lessons a little and told him we will do 10, and then he can decide if he wants to keep going. A lot of research shows it’s most helpful to many kids to not start formal, structured learning until they are 6 or 7. Generally, I agree with this research, which is why “pre-school” is pretty casual in our house and I’m not pushing the reading lessons all that hard (thus the letting him decide if we go past 10). [He won’t start kinder until fall of 2019. We have tons of time.]

*Baby girl is set to arrive in 8 weeks.

*We moved E into a big boy bed on Z’s room. So that is a new challenge.

*This summer has been tight between work slowing down and OB bills, but we have hopefully made it past the most difficult period. Work is picking back up and my OB pre-pay plan has likely been met.

*With the help of some birthday money gifts from family, daddy built the summer birthday boys a sandbox. We’ve been having fun with that. (Sand everywhere! Hose downs before coming back in the house.) 

*As we approach being in our new house for almost a year, we’ve finally gotten around to selling some things. Vases, chairs, shelves, dishes, and such. Stuff we didn’t have time to sell before we moved last year. That’s been both a challenge (taking pictures, writing up descriptions, determining prices, and posting online) and a relief (cleaning up clutter, making space, and having a little extra cash).

One Year

One year ago today, my heart stopped for 20 minutes. Isn’t that crazy?!? On average the heart stoppage time for having a pulmonary valve implant is 45 minutes. A heart can go 3-4 hours on “pause” for transplants.

I’m very thankful for my less than average stoppage time. I credit it to not having the typical brain fog that often follows open heart surgery. I’m also extremely grateful that the Creator of the universe allowed his creation to understand the human body so well as to be able to have the knowledge and skill to do heart surgery. And I’m grateful I was created at this period in time, where I could live a full, mostly healthy life.

Since One year ago:

HEALTH
My health has been great. After the initial healing time, I’ve had more energy and have been able to bounce back better from full, exhausting days or lots of time spent out in the heat.

HOME
Because of such a surprisingly easy and quick recovery, I was bored and started looking at houses. This resulted in us listing our town home to sell. Because of our location and price point, we received 7 offers in 4 days. We found a new home (that we LOVE!) that met our needs and even checked off some hard to find wants (my large kitchen!). Within 4 months of heart surgery, with the help of many family and friends, we moved.

ADDING ON
With cardiologist approval, we found out at the beginning of this year we are expecting our third child. We couldn’t be more thrilled to add to our family. And as I suppose is normal, this third pregnancy is flying by. I can’t believe we are already at 18 weeks.

FINANCES
We are very fortunate to not owe on any of the heart surgery medical bills. We have been sticking with Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and the only debt we have is on our new house. We’ve been working really hard on not buying items we really would love but just don’t have the funds for right now (like a new grill) and God has surprised us with some fun stories of perfect used items that “fell into our lap” with very minimal expense. (Like our “new to us” grill. Free from a neighbor two streets down. We just had to buy a couple of small replacement parts.)

OTHER ADVENTURES
*A week after moving in, we “crashed” the national night out block party a street over
*We participated in our new city’s Trash Bash, our little family picking up trash on 3 streets and allies near our home.
*I found an amazing facebook group dedicated to women with CHD. It’s the first time I’ve ever “met” anyone born with a similar heart condition
*We participated in the neighborhood spring fling party, winning 2 of the 5 raffle prizes (I finally have a porch swing!). The party also included the ribbon cutting for the new butterfly park so the boys each got to release a butterfly
*We completed a 16 week marriage enrichment class
*Our oldest son had eye surgery to correct his crossed eyes
*I’ve been able to read at least 1 new book each month since we moved. I love reading, but when our oldest was born, I put that hobby on the shelf.

It’s been a busy year. It’s been a fun year. It’s been a surreal year.

We are looking forward to another full, fun year, with many, many more heart healthy years to follow.

An Interesting New Project

This is not a Budget related post – it more of an ARG post.  Though – it’s not quite that either.

Some friends of mine are working on a new project, which has encouraged us to have an ’emergency budget meeting’ and back our first kickstarter project.

Ok – I guess it IS a budget related post. 🙂

Anyway, in the past I’ve blogged about friends who made a feature film (Between Notes). These same friends are launching another new project – and the Kickstarter runs for another 12 days.  If you like Stories, Technology, Creativity, Storytelling, Real-life interaction, and trying to push the boundaries on how we use media to tell narratives, I’d recommend you check it out.

It’s setting is London – on the closing day of the Opening Olympics. It’s told through an App & serialized content (first of which drops on Aug 12 – the literal last day of the Olympics).  It follows the life of 7 characters.  Title: Seven Poets and the Assassin’s Secret.

Find out more here.

2 months

so… the posts become more spread out. 🙂

Today, on our second month anniversary, I can happily report that thank you notes have all been written. *phew!*

Also, not sure if how much I’ve mentioned this, but at the end of last year, I transitioned to a new position at work. I’m now a Web Developer. It’s been a challenge (and occasionally, easy), but also fun.

This last week I’ve been making huge progress forward in learning and working with PHP. We had a training class (where I got 100% on the worksheet) and a practice project. The practice project is not completely done, but it did give me an opportunity to use “Pennies for Debra” as my ‘client’. (The current count by the way is 9252.)

Other than that, I’m busy looking forward to the Mariner’s baseball season starting. Less than a month until Pitchers and catchers report.

Lastly, no, I haven’t finished War & Peace yet. I did however start reading book 13 in the Wheel of Time series.

OH. one more thing – don’t forget the Shamrock Shake. It’s almost that season again. Please contact McDonalds and help us get the Shake in Texas.

ouch… it’s been a while

So. the streak of life being busy, blogging being non-existent continues.

I needed to check in to say “Pennies for Debra” is still going strong. The current count is 7450. So yep, nearly $75 of ‘free money.’

What else is going on beside that… The Mariners are playing horrible. I’m utterly disappointed. Before the year began I really thought that with their pitching they would be winning more games. I’m sad Cliff Lee had to be traded, and to the Rangers of all teams!?!?!

It’s hot here. My car said 111 degrees yesterday.

I’m currently reading a new Dorothy L. Sayers book. (a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery of course)

I’ve been eating a lot of BBQ. though I haven’t been grilling as much as I wish I were. I did make more beef jerky in the dehydrator (oh yeah! and tomatoes.)

I’ve just finished my annual cardiology check up. All good results. Little to no change over the last three years. So my ‘future heart surgery’ (which is expected, just not on the calendar) is still probably years and years away. All very encouraging news from the doctor.

I’ve been spending more time with people, friends, those important to me. Thus the drop off in blogging.

I’ve been to San Antonio twice since May. Went to Sea World both times. In fact, on the 3rd of July, that’s where we watched fireworks. The wind was blowing in our direction, so at first it was the smoke, then bits of cardboard, then bits of gritty sand/gun powder residue. We held our own for a time, while all of the families with little kids made a mass exodus of our area. Then we too, moved on.

I think those are the things to share from the last two months. It’s been a really great couple of months and as far as I can tell, it will be this way (only growing better) for the next many more. Thanks for stopping by!

28

Yep, I had my birthday. It was a nice quiet event. Opened a few gifts. Then on Wednesday, I went to dinner and bowling with a bunch of friends from work. It was really fun.

Didn’t quite match my personal best of 131 from last year, but not too far off with 113.

We played 1.5 games and I started off each game with a strike in the first frame.

That’s about it from here. OH, yeah, and I am reading a new book series that I absolutely love. The Wheel of Time So far I have read book one and have now started in on book two. As probably expected for me, it is a fantasy series and while it does not match Lord of the Rings in my eyes, there are some great characters and good story line. There are 11 books total with one more being written, so it’s nice that I have so many to look forward to.

And that is the plan for the weekend: to Read.

2 Days

Only two days until The Dark Knight! I bought a copy of Batman Begins. I watched a little yesterday and I am going to finish it tomorrow so it is fresh in my memory for Tuesday.

I read a book this weekend. Twilight. It was ok, but I honestly don’t get the all of the intense excitement surrounding the series. The best part, it is set in Forks Washington. They even mention Mt. Rainier.

I should be:

1. Sleeping. Or at least heading to bed. Its after 10 and I have to get up around 6, but I am not sleepy

2. Cleaning. If I am not going to go to sleep yet, I should do something useful with my time. My room is in need of some straightening up. Plus, I got some laundry done so that should be hung.

3. Reading. I have about 50 pages left in a book I started this weekend. I want to know what happens, but I think the story has slowed down here at the end.

4. Listening. If I listen to some music on my ipod, I could get the cleaning done and then use the ipod music to help me fall asleep.

I'm reading

Currently I am reading “Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. It’s a bit depressing (duh, its set in the ‘depression’) and it REALLY makes me hope this current recession does not turn into a depression.

After this, I think I am going to read “Ender’s Game.” I have been told I would like it. It guess its sci-fi. We’ll see.

I stopped by my old work on Friday. Turned in my aprons, got my last pay check and picked up my last tips. I am so encouraged that I love my new job. The people I work with are fantastic and I really hope that my small little contributions will be valuable and helpful. I finally have “it’s” vs. “its” down! I think I need to go back and re-read all of my past blog entries and find all the the grammatical errors. Just kidding! (I have been told I have Obsessive Compulsive tendencies and I can see why that comment would be made. To a very small degree, it worries me that I might become one of those people who go crazy when people use incorrect grammar. I hope not.)

Other than that. I have been keeping up with the Dark Knight ARG. To my totally sadness, I did not receive a Gotham Times in the mail. 😦 I thought that I would because I voted in the Gotham Election, but I guess I was wrong. Good news though, Harvey Dent won by a landslide! (Do you have comcast????? I hear that they are advertising for “Gotham Tonight.” If you have seen these commercials, that the ARG has come to you.)