Coupons

We bought the Entertainment Book last year and I realized that it's about to expire and there's plenty of good coupons still in it. I obviously can't use them all before November 1 so here's what I got. FB me or leave a message here if you want any of these.

Bowling: 2 for 1

20th century bowl

Park Bowl

Mt Baker Lanes

Golf: 2 for 1

Homestead Farms

Sudden Valley

North Bellingham

Food:

Neiner Neiner Weiner 2 for 1

Dairy Queen (various 2 for 1)

Baskin Robbins (various 2 for 1)

Orange Julius (various 2 for 1)

Big Foot Java (2 for 1)

Cruisin' Coffee (2 for 1)

Bostons (various)

Dominos (various)

Cold Stone Creamery (various)

Arby's (various)

McDonalds (various)

Clothes/Services:

Petsmart ($10 off groom/train/board)

Aeropostale ($10 off $50 purchase)

Hollywood Video (2 for 1)

Blockbuster (2 for 1)

Lane Bryant ($10 off $50 purchase)

True Value (20% off purchase <$100)

Sherwin Williams (various)

Little Conversations

As Hudson has been growing and developing his little (or big, whichever you prefer) personality, I've been laughing more and more! He is just so surprising to me... it's wonderful to watch him express how he feels about life. And yesterday holds one of my favorite Hudson moments EVER so far.

Just so you have some background, this is Hudson with his friend Teagan. I met Teagan's Mom, Hailey in birth class and we swam together a few times a week in the last miserable months of pregnancy. So these two have been acquainted for quite a long time... practically their whole lives! Anyway, so we walk together now that the little bubs are on the outside!

For the most part, it's just been those two minding their sweet business in their own strollers, napping or looking around as we walked over the past months. But yesterday something new and so cute happened!!!

Hailey and I were talking and holding our babies and all of a sudden we noticed that they were having their own little conversation. They noticed each other! And they were relating... I can't even begin to do justice to this with words. It was so amazing, hilarious, precious, lovely, sweet, funny... pick a good word and yes, it was that too! Teagan did a little cough and Hudson burst into giggles... apparently this is funny. Then they'd get so excited and both look away shyly. Hudson hasn't really been around other babies his age other than Teagan so this is brand new and WONDERFUL! I loved every second of it!

Needless to say, I can't wait for them to play together again. I'm sure I'll be blathering about it again on my blog!

Short Stories

Once upon a time... Oh, nevermind. Let's just start with this.

1. Hudson is moving like a little locomotive around my house now. Today I pulled out my outlet covers and hid as many cords and wires as I could. Deeter added some additional charm to his routine to attract Hudson his way. Let's just say it's working. And I need to give Deeter a bath.

2. My house is in decline. Or rather, it's not very clean. I don't mind messy because that's an easy fix. People can understand that or forgive it. But dirty is... it's just dirty. This is a problem for 2 reasons. I don't like a dirty house. I also don't feel like cleaning it. Two problems. I am one of them. And I guess maybe I'm the other one too. I do make part of the mess. But so does Luke. He's a really great one to blame for things like this so I'll be one problem. He can be the other one. That's more like it!

3. Did I mention I'm going to see Jack Johnson on Friday night? Oh, yup. I did just the other day. It's just very exciting for me!

4. Who loves fall? Or Autumn or whatever you like to call it? I LOVE FALL!!!! I love the apple orchards and pumpkins and soups and stews and cookies and whatever else sounds super good for fall! Apple crisp! Let's give a shout out to the desserts of fall! Yum! Falling leaves! Sigh. Weather changing, good books, hot drinks and cozy blankets. Sweaters!!! I love sweaters, hence, another reason to love fall. I could go on for another 200-300 words. It might get boring though so I'll stop now.

5. Luke just drove up our driveway so I'm going to end this and eat lunch with him!

Have a nice day.

Focus

On this Saturday...

It is SO deliciously gorgeous outside. The wind is blowing, the sun is shining and I just finished sitting in the backyard with Hudson for a bit. I could sit out there all day. I might when Hudson is down for another nap!

I ate pumpkin pancakes this morning. They were good.

And despite these really good things and how good life is... Really, it is. I mean that for all of us who live in North America. I'll explain below. Despite all of this, I'm in such a funk today. Like, a really big one. I can usually get myself out of these things but today I'm totally stuck and it's frustrating me. I'm not a nice person to be around right now. Luke has just discovered this. On the phone. I bet he's turning around and heading back to wherever he just was!

Anyway, back to what I was complaining about... I know the key to getting out of this is thankfulness. I think that when you focus on what there is to be thankful for, it's difficult to focus on anything else because to focus means to direct your attention at something. You can't really "focus" on two things at the same time. So thankfulness is a good place to start.

And personally I have so much to be thankful for. But as a population of people, we have SO much to be thankful for. I've been thinking about this a lot lately since we had a guest speaker at our church named Harold Eberle a couple of weeks ago. He spends A LOT of time in Africa and the Middle East and shared with our church about what's going on in those areas of the world. It's sort of like... we know it's bad but we really don't know. Really.

Like, 1 in 6 people sleep on dirt, in the ENTIRE world. No blanket, no mattress. Or... Harold goes into churches where there are SO many widows and orphans due to war, barely surviving... it's completely normal to have large amounts of people missing limbs from war. Whole countries of women who have been ravaged by untold horrors I won't even go into... it's heartbreaking. Did you know that if you live in North America, even if you are the poorest person in this area of the world, you're quite rich compared to 98% of the ENTIRE world. Welfare? Social Security? Food Banks? Not even on the spectrum of most people's existence.

Again, thankfulness.

For safety, for my mattress, my fridge with good food in it. Ha, my fridge. And beyond those very basic things, my husband, my son, my wonderful family and friends... focus, focus, focus.

If you understand cameras and f-stop, when you have your camera set to a low f-stop like f1.8, your point of focus is very small. The lense is only focused on a very small point instead of being open to take in the whole picture. Like this photo below. I think that I get like that when I'm stuck. I focus on one thing so intensely and forget the rest of the picture. It's blurry. Even the good stuff.

The most amazing thing is that as I've been writing this, my focus has been changing and I'm feeling my feet start to move. Away from where I've been sitting today, in a funk and into thankfulness. I am feeling better already. It doesn't change the things I'm frustrated about but it changes my perspective on those things.

Because what is reality really... but perspective.

If you want to hear Harold Eberle's message, go to the website below and play the message titled "Look at the Birds"

http://houseofbread.podbean.com/

The Conflict

Oh angst.

It's 8:53pm and I really want to be upstairs, taking a bath, starting a new book and I feel this terrible obligation to write a blog post. I have been a lame blogger lately. I even have time these days. But I'll think about writing something and then not. And then think of about 86 different things I could be writing about and then not.

Angst. Blogger angst.

I kind of laugh the guffawing kind when I think of "teenage angst" because we all know what this means and what it looks like but really, I like the word angst too. It has a nice ring to it. Hudson has the baby variety from time to time and I guess we can all get it. Anyway, now that I'm totally off topic... from whatever it is that I'm writing about...

Oh yes, avoiding blogging.

I think today I will write about fruit flies.

If I could invent a product that would instantly KILL all fruit flies within a 20 foot radius, I would. But I'm not really an inventor. I'm more like the brains behind the inventor. I come up with the problem for an inventor to fix. Like killing all the fruit flies in my kitchen. They will even be gone for a couple of days and then I put a SINGLE banana on the counter and they come out in droves. I guess I could just claim it's talent but really this is getting ridiculous. I can't take it anymore.

In other news...

We're going to see Jack Johnson in concert in Vancouver on October 1st. YAY! I haven't been to a BIG concert in a few years (like 20K+ ppl)... guess what the last one was? You'll never guess. Il Divo. Yup, those Italian guys that sing sappy love songs with a live orchestra. I took my Mom! It was actually a really great show and totally entertaining... all these 50-60 year old women swooning and screaming for these tall, dark, handsome men. My mom and I laughed and laughed. I think she was secretly swooning as well but I'm pretty confident she'd never admit it.

Just in case you were wondering what would make all those Moms/Grandmas get all screaming like it's the Backstreet Boys. This is it folks.

Anyway, back to Jack Johnson. It's going to be great! It'll be a really good reason to get dressed up, put some make-up on and go on a good, long date with Luke. And then we'll sing along with thousands of other people we don't know to Jack's music. His concerts apparently turn into sing-a-longs. I like it already! I bought these tickets for Luke's first ever Father's Day and it was probably the best gift I've bought him in years... just because Jack is his favorite musician. Ever. He knows all the lyrics.

And that's it for tonight. Time to go start a good (hopefully) book and look forward to a great weekend with my guys. And maybe I'll blog again. Because after the first paragraph, which feels like pulling teeth to me, I'm actually enjoying myself.

:-)

Cut short

I was going to blog today. And continue every day or almost. But Hudson is crying upstairs and I don't know if I have it in me to blog while I listen to him struggle to fall back to sleep.

So this will count for my blog.

I know, it's so informative and exciting.

But at least I can only move up from here.

Oh, and the reason for the long absence: vacation. But I'm back now.