Amazima

I have to share. The Tennessean Sunday paper had an article on a young woman from Brentwood, Tennessee who after her senior year, in between high school and college, decided to take some time off to go to Africa and help in an orphanage.  While there she saw such a huge need that she decided to move to Uganda, adopt THIRTEEN orphan girls, and start and international nonprofit ministry to feed hundreds more! I've copied the link if you would like to read the article yourself.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111009/NEWS01/310090063/At-22-woman-mom-13-Ugandan-children



Since I read that article I found her blog http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ 
and have just continued to be humbled and astounded by the life of this amazing woman of God.  I've wept and smiled and continued to be oh so humbled as I have read her honest and open "Journey".  I couldn't keep something this life changing and eye opening to myself.

In Brief

The motorcycles is gone! Hurray!  The guy came back on Saturday and told Vance he was working construction down in Columbia. They were spending the nights there and with no ride he couldn't get back until Saturday.  He told us he'd pick the bike up that afternoon.  It was more like Sunday afternoon, but at least he got it.  Oh, and it was a bike he borrowed.  What a mess!

I've got projects galore going on! I will try to update with pictures later.  Right now I'm off to paint the bathroom.

Closet Cleanse

Several weeks ago I saw a news story about how to simplify my life by cleaning out my closet.  Shortly after I read an article about getting rid of 75% of my clothes.
I was inspired. For some time I dreaded folding and putting away my clothes or trying to hang anything in my closet.  The reason was NOTHING fit! It became a shoving act to smash one more hanger into my closet and to close my dresser drawers.  So I started to sort.
This is before.

 Me with a dorky smile posing in front of my mess.
 
 Vanna White has nothing on me!  Notice the dresser drawer of t-shirts filled to the top.

The rules of the sort were to get rid of anything that:
I hadn't worn in 12 months or more.
Was ripped or stained.
Didn't fit.
I didn't love and feel good about when I put on.
Or didn't fall within the category of my personal style,
And that didn't flatter my body type.

I counted when I was done.  I was just shy of 100 pieces of clothing to get rid of!


Vance got inspired too, and sorted out some of his clothes he never wore.  This whole pile isn't his.  It is just a few of his shirts piled on top of my clothes.
 

 My closet after.  Can you hear my hangers sighing in relief because they can now breathe?

 My dresser drawer after.

I didn't succeed in getting rid of 75% of my clothes. It was probably closer to only 50%.  It actually feels like a wonderful accomplishment.  The article claimed that it would be easier to pick out outfits and that I would feel like I had more to wear rather than less.  I can honestly say this is true.  It is so much easier to get dressed when I know that anything I pull out of my closet is ready to wear and makes me look good. The items that didn't make the cut are now waiting to be sold in the up-coming Mile Long Yard Sale.  I can't wait. I plan on using some of the money I get back to buy a few items of clothes that I've always wanted, but never splurged on, and by splurge I mean $20-$30 dollar items. When it comes to clothes I'm all about the sales racks.

Up and at 'em

First a shout out to my baby sister who turned 26 yesterday!  Happy Birthday Little Chickie!

Story of the day:
Little Vance to me this morning- I'm going to get certified for CPR at work by watching videos on the internet.
Me- That's wonderful!  (Long pause as many thoughts run through my head. Mostly I'm thinking, gee great! Now his work is giving him an excuse to make out with his girlfriend at work, while they 'practice' CPR.)
Finally I say- Your shirt is on backwards. I'm not sure how I feel about you saving lives with your clothes on backwards.
He laughs and I do a mental, 'sigh'...

Follow up on news from yesterday:
Turns out in the state of Tennessee an abandoned vehicle is a royal pain in the butt! After much research it looks like the best way to deal with this is to directly contact the owner.  Sounds great, but we don't know who he is. We do have his bike and the license plate number, but the only official way to run his plate is by reporting his vehicle as abandoned to the police. Then, according to TN law, the police will tell us to pay to have it towed off of our property at which point the system takes over and it is out of our hands. Lovely.
After a brief search on Craigslist I find out this Kawasaki is the lower end of the bikes and a used one like this one can be purchased for about $1200, if it runs. This one does not. So in a nut shell it is cheaper for him to abandon the bike on our property and make us deal with it.

Official countdown:  13 days until my parents come to visit!

Pictures of the day:
Blake peeled off a whole bunch of Thomas the Train stickers and stuck them to himself. ( =
We ran some errands after and I was still finding stickers stuck to him, and somehow to me too.

Daily Update

Thought for the day: Did I write Christmas "thank you" notes?

Sad fact of the day: I don't remember.

Story of the day: Tuesday morning a guy knocks on our front door.  His motorcycle has broken down and his boss is coming to pick him up.  Could he park it in our driveway for the day?
Me- Yeah, that's fine. Anything to hurry him along as I was still in my pj's minus makeup and bra.
It is now day three of the motorcycle being parked at our house with no sign of its owner. Does that make it ours?

Gratuitous family vacation picture of the day:

Lesson learned from this photo: Always bring spare contact lenses on vacation.

Closing thoughts: Bye, Bye!

Birthday Boys!

August is THE Birthday month in our house. I say, why spread things out when you can cram all the fun into a couple days and party repeatedly.

We started with Vance's birthday- "Happy Birthday!"

I would have posted that on facebook because I am well aware that is the new official way to tell your spouse Happy Birthday, but I was on hiatus from facebook and he never check his.

Blake was having a very good time.

To good in fact. He had to blow out Dad's birthday candle too.

Several times in fact.

He was practicing for his birthday. 

As usual baby is growing up way to fast.  I wanted a picture of him first thing in the morning on his second birthday so he pretended to be asleep in Mom and Dad's bed. He's getting pretty good at fake snoring and pretending to sleep. If I didn't know better this picture could fool me. He actually slept really well all night in his own bed.  Probably because the day before he turned two we drove all day trying to get home from Panama City Beach.  We were all tired and glad to see our own beds again.  He is usually a little, early bird but on his birthday he actually slept until 8 in the morning!

Pre-party festivities, some people play pin the tail on the donkey, or waste money on a real pinata.  We have sword fights with the cardboard rolls from the wrapping paper.

Our other sword fighter also was celebrating a birthday.  Happy Birthday Shane!

All that practice blowing out candles paid off.  Shane did help too.

We had to re-light all the candles on the cupcakes for Blake to blow out three times.

And then on to opening presents.

With a quick time out for another puff or two just in case there were more candles that needed to be blown out.

The cupcake recipe is a really delicious one that I got from a friend, with cream cheese and chocolate chips in the center of each cupcake.  Blake wasn't as impressed.

After I put the cupcakes up Blake went back to the more important business of opening the rest of his gifts.

He'd received a lot of cards and several gifts in the mail. Always fun to open because I get to be surprised too. He got a fun little pretend laptop from Great-Granny and Great-Grandpa.

Meanwhile Shane and Dad worked on setting up the first gift Blake opened.

The inspiration (or desperation) behind Blake getting a mini trampoline for his birthday really came from every time we go over to the Manning's house Blake insists he jump on their big trampoline.  Sometimes we can't get him off of it, or if we do there is a lot of crying involved.  So I'm hoping he'll be placated with a little trampoline.  (Sounds a bit desperate I know.)

He loves to bounce, and bounce.

And bounce.

We didn't forget Shane.  He got a new wallet from little Vance, a burner for DVD's and CD's for his computer and a promise of a guided fishing tour.

We managed somehow to cram three birthday's into August, plus a quick trip to Florida.  Amazingly August is gone, Blake is two and time keeps flying by! Oh, and this weekend were having the "official" birthday party for Blake.  Coming soon: Blake's Birthday Party Take Two.

Birthday Boy Loves Suprises!

I'm way behind as usual. After a quick trip down to Florida I started back with college classes on Saturday. Unfortunately already having a paper due has pushed back all my plans to work on pictures and a blog about our vacation and Blake turning two!

So here is just a couple fun shots. Blake got a surprise present delivered today and it is a BIG hit! Blake is grasping the idea of mail.  He loves packages even if they aren't for him.  

Blake wondering, what's in the box?

 Ah ha! He's spotted Thomas the Train in the box!

 

The yell of excitement!

 

 The hurry it up yell, MAMA! He's not at a very patient stage in his life.

 Dad came home in the middle of the assembly process and helped us finish quickly.

 Blake's feet reach the petals, but he can't quite reach to make it all the way around yet.

 That does not stop him from scooting around!

 He loves it. We've already had several other toys tied behind it that Blake insists he needs to tow.  It's a huge hit and he's a happy little boy!

Thanks Aunt Jamie and Mimi and Pa for the great gift! Huge thank you to everyone else who sent cards and birthday wishes!!!  We've loved getting each and every one in the mail.  Just makes Blake and I's day.

Count Down

My baby boy is getting ready to turn two! How can this be?  Here's just a small sample of his "2" year old pictures.  Since he's constantly in motion it was quite a challenge.  I noticed a lot of blurry feet and hands. 
These are my favorites and there are more photos to come as the countdown to the big day continues.

Sold!

Yesterday we sold our sailboat! Bet you thought I was kidding when I asked if anyone wanted to buy a boat. I'm happy. Vance is happy. I think it is going to a good home. It will have its very own boat slip and be on the water every day. I'm sure our boat will be happy.

The fun part about the whole thing is I googled the name of the guy who e-mailed us about our Craigslist ad before we gave him directions to our house. The news has had several stories lately about people getting held up and robbed from posting Craigslist ads and I wanted to make sure he didn't show up on TBI's most wanted list. He didn't. Brad Tursi did however show up all over the internet as an up and coming singer/songwriter for country music, and as the former lead guitarist for Army of Me. Sadly I was totally ignorant because at this time of my life if it isn't a Wiggles song or some children's song I don't know it. He even brought a guitar along just in case we wanted to swap his guitar for our boat. I have a feeling someday we are going to wish we had a guitar autographed by him.

Ahoy Matey

We finally managed to go sailing over the weekend. I think the last time Vance and I went was when I was pregnant with Blake. We've taken Blake out on the fishing boat, but this was his first time sailing. It was another HOT day and the wind was so-so. Vance still does not love trying to sail on Tennessee lakes. The wind is too intermittent and frequently changes direction in all the channels. 

Blake started out none too enthusiastic, but once we were underway he mellowed out. He likes to wave at the camera.

After a couple hours on the water Vance dropped Blake and I off at the dock and motored back out so I could get some pictures of the South Coast on the water.  Blake passed the time throwing rocks in the water. That's actually the boat in the background.

Overall it was a fun day. However, we've reached some conclusions. First it is really tough setting up a sailboat with an almost 2 year old running around/away, crying and otherwise "helping". Second it takes way to much work to sail in Tennessee, and we think we'll stick with our super-easy to handle and set up fishing boat until Blake is older. So anyone want to buy a boat? ( =