hopeful springiness

i think i blog like i talk on the phone. once a month (or so) and with too much to say (especially when helped along by excessive amounts of sugar or caffeine). i'm attempting to remedy this pattern in weeks/months to come. hey, phone answerers (not that i'd call myself one, but i hope to), get excited. :) it's the cookies n cream keeping me up this particular evening, so i thought i'd share some thoughts as of late.

jeremy called joseph "homeschool" tonight, i think as a play on homeslice or homie. it was pretty amazing. joseph isn't actually homeschooled. he's not even two. thinking about it though (another post, obviously). he does, however, know some letters these days. for example, mama starts with EHHM. and dada starts with DEEE. and drew. uncle drew starts with D (so i heard at lunch this afternoon). we went to visit sarah and drew in dc and DOO has been a particular favorite around these parts both before and after the trip.

i felt the baby inside of me distinctly move for the first time tonight. oh, i'm pregnant. i think you knew. if not, i'm pregnant! anyway, i was trying to tell the difference between my heart beating and what i thought was the baby and sort of willed the child to move if it was them (they're inside of me, they can hear my thoughts, right?), and right then there was this little boop right under my hand. there is a real human being developing inside of me. a baby. i still don't understand, but he or she is making themselves known, and i'm excited. we should be getting a little peek at the little one pretty soon here, i think in a couple of weeks or so. jeremy and i talked through fears of the potential overwhelmingness (overwhelmingness?) of two children. there was the long conversation and the short summation conversation. the short conversation went me: "i'm not actually that concerned about having two kids. people have two kids all the time, right?" jeremy: "right."

spring is here. i'm glad. spring, nice job. i like you. our yard is going to be a wonderful place to be this spring. already joseph has discovered the gravel of the parking area and how fun it is to pick up handfuls of it and drop them into bushes. i wonder how many joseph-handfuls of gravel it will take to make any sort of dent in the parking area..probably quite a few. i'm envisioning a lawn chair for mama and a baby pool/sandbox for the grassy spot in the backyard very soon. until the pool/sandbox, the gravel will be transported and there are many, many parks to be frequented. i'm not opposed to a daily picnic lunch.

hmmm, besides all of this, i was seriously tempted to make this recipe two nights in a row. that's a good sign, huh?

gingery peanut noodles with chicken -- total time: 20 minutes serves 4
in a blender, blend together:
1 cup water
1/2 cup peanut butter (went with a little more)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
and 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

toss with:
8 ounces cooked spaghetti
1 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken (will cook my own chicken in the future, not that i wasn't verrrry thankful for the rotisserie chicken)
1 sliced red bell pepper
1/2 english (went non-english, cheaper) cucumber, cut into strips
and 2 sliced scallions

so. good.
try it.

goodnight, friends! :)

actual falling asleep thoughts of note

dear spencer the rotweiller in the apartment below me,
just because you're getting bigger, it doesn't mean your bark has to get louder. okay, yes, i realize it probably does.

dear rachel my new hairstylist,
i believe a would-you-rather my husband concocted having to do with a hairstylist who compassionately bases hairstyles on personalities vs. a human windmill may have inspired me to share personal details of my life that i would not have otherwise volunteered during a hair goal discussion. i am, however, pleased with the results. thank you.

dear low-quality music that i'm pretty sure is low-quality but i don't actually think is bad,
i like you. a lot. here's lookin' at you, mmm-bop. you too, ashlee simpson. no, seriously.

dear almost-asleep-but-not-actually-asleep mode,
you're not too bad.

loooooooove,
jessie

hmm

i had this funny day where i kept thinking in writing, if that makes sense. so, i made a list, attempting to turn these thoughts into words, except they wouldn't be blog-words until at least 8 pm, because my family's laptop goes to and fro with jeremy during the day. then i got to thinking about how words were written down before computers, and i promise, the first thing i thought of was jane eyre, how the author of jane eyre (charlotte bronte :) ), hand-wrote jane eyre. right? it was a small thought but a good one. it did not, however, inspire me to first write out this entry by hand. anyway,

here's the list:

to blog:

about trains

parade book

being new

pretending it's spring vs. accepting it's winter

whimsy

settling in

herb garden

joseph's anger as expressed by low keys on the piano - so appropriate and understandable

here are the thoughts inspired now as i look at the list:

1. we pulled up to a stop sign on sunday morning, running a tad late for church, and the railroad crossing guards started blinking and coming down. i consider this one of the best parts of my neighborhood, that at any given time, one can be caught behind a train on their way to wherever they were going, and regardless of how late or just on time they were going to be, the train will set that back about 4-7 minutes. or, if you are joseph sitting in the middle of the back seat, it's one of the most anticipated moments of the week, the railroad crossing guards that we see in books, act out with the train set, note with "ding-ding-ding-ding" at every sight of a yellow x sign, these guards are actually moving before your very eyes. and. there's about to be a train. i wonder how many 19-month-old little boys living in train-obsessed 19-month-old land get this opportunity every day. and for me, the train was a welcome you-cannot-get-there-on-time-if-you-try pause. i liked it.

2. parade. it's one of my favorite library books ever.

3. being new. eh. another time. (it's hard, though.)

4. this morning i couldn't stop trying to decide if i was going to pretend it's an early, cold start to spring in february or accept the fact that it's still winter. then it started snowing, making success at the non-reality early-spring invention very difficult to achieve.

5. whimsy. joseph's room is all whimsy. i like what donald miller's friend, bob, says about whimsy: "...it's that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks." hmm.. it's better within the context of the paragraph.

6. settling in is difficult for me because i keep pretending that i don't need to, as if i'm going to be going back to something else that i'm already settled into. i'll talk about that another time too. yes, i'm probably avoiding difficult subjects.

7. joseph and i planted an herb garden sent to us by his grammie. i can't wait until we get to see little green sprouts coming out of the soil. oh spring, please come soon. little herbs, can you help spring to come soon?

8. oh man. the best for last. this morning, joseph got really frustrated with his train set. sometimes he can't figure out how to get the engine with magnetic cars through the tunnel by pushing gently, so a lot of the time, the train comes apart in the middle of the tunnel or goes off the track. or, in this morning's case, a car or two comes apart and he makes his own little train wreck in frustration. after the train wreck, he was still really upset, so he stood up, marched over to the piano, lifted the cover off the keys, and (staring at me) banged on the lowest notes. i was actually really impressed because it struck me as such an appropriate expression of trainwreck-induced anger. it was realllly funny.

alright. the end of my writing/thinking for the day.

unfolded laundry and partial side bangs

the post-holiday routine seems to have officially settled in. it's nice. it's snowy. i like it. our home feels like a home. and home.

we have new couches. two trips to the cincinatti ikea. one as a family and one just my studfest husband. i just realized i've already mentioned the couches. i suppose they're that big of a deal.

joseph has been pretending he's a baby. if i've talked to you on the phone recently, i've probably mentioned it because it just seems so crazy to me that this little guy can not only pretend, but keep up the act for most of an afternoon. he crawls around our apartment, grabs onto my leg as if he can't actually stand, and says "night-night" and lies down on a blanket. it's amazing.

he also likes to pretend he's a cat. and a kitten. two separate animals, mind you. the kitten says "meow-meow" and touches your face, and the cat (who joined me at the grocery store this afternoon) says "hhhhheeeh!" and puts both hands up in a ree-errr motion.

annnnyway, i feel like there was more to tell, but really, some of my stories start to feel kind of silly once i type them out, so delete-delete-delete..

some pictures from the past week:

snow day

(rejoice and) be glad at blue dog bakery

our delicious muffin and coffee date all on a tray at blue dog

life is (hmm...) good. nice? sweet? contenting? it's good. i like it.

tgif

i'd write more, but it's not tuesday (first of all), annnnnd my husband just assembled our new loveseat and coffee table and we're going to eat ice cream and watch lost.

we drove to ikea yesterday afternoon and made some purchases we've been planning for years.

and the best part is that there is a gigantic box in our living room that's going to become a fort as soon as sweet boy wakes up in the morn. i'm excited.

i would post some pictures, but they're all of joseph. i can take other pictures of other subjects, but they're just not as cute. it's a new years resolution. along with being super-organized, which, surprisingly works pretty well if my mentality is "put this item where it goes." anyway.

alright fine, one picture of joseph. :)

friiiiiiiday night. lost and ice cream. this is livin.

a touch of spring in january