Books

I think that books are so, so important for kids. They can teach them so many things educationally, but they also help them to learn about pretend and exploring their imaginations. I have well over 100 kids books, I started collecting/buying them when I was in my teens while I was working at preschools and in the school districts (I knew I'd have kids eventually!) Maddie goes through phases where she isn't into books and won't sit still through a couple pages let alone an entire book. But then randomly she'll jump into a phase where she is ALL about books, they are all over the house, she has at least one in her arms at all times and she constantly wants to be read to. I have no idea if this is normal and if other kids go through phases like this.....it seems to me that other kids like to be read to....all the time, but I could very well be wrong.

Anyway, right now she is in one of her major book phases. It's nice for me because I LOVE reading, and even more, I love snuggling up with my girl and reading to her. The only issue that I have is that she wants to have me read the same books over and over and over again. I try and introduce new ones, but unless I read the new one first, she doesn't want to have anything to do with it.....she will push it aside and tell me she wants Corduroy, or her wild animals book. After a few times reading a new book, she will start to like it and let me throw it into the rotation, but in the mean time, I get to the point where I have 5 or 6 of her books memorized. Right now her most favorite book is I Love You As Much.... by Laura Krauss Melmed. It is a fantastic book and I honestly could read it over and over again and not get bored of it. The illustrations look like water color paintings and they are beautiful. And I never get tired of Maddie asking for "Lu you much." She loves all the animals (she's really into animals right now) but her favorite is the piture of the mama and baby at the end. Sometimes I walk in on her when she is supposed to be napping and she'll have the book open to that last page with the mama and baby and she's just looking at it......I wish she could tell me what she is thinking when she looks at it. I went to a childrren's consignment sale today and got some clothes and shoes and a doll that has buttons and zippers and laces and of course some new (used) books one of which is Animal Lullabies by Pam Conrad and I am really excited to see if she'll like it. It's another beautifully illustrated book.

Do you have any children's books that your kids adore and you would recommend?

Clemmons State Forest

This is a mushroom......doesn't it look like a flower?

These are weird mushrooms from above and up close.....it almost looks like coral

It's been almost a week since we went to Clemmons State Forest, but it has taken me that long to go through the pictures I took since there was almost 100 of them.....gotta love digital! It was such a beautiful place to be, I couldn't help but feel happy. I am looking forward to going back in the next couple of weeks because I think that it will be GORGEOUS with the changing of the leaves. It has still been humid here off and on, and it was truly amazing to see the mushroom growth all over the forest, I had not seen anything like it! It really is amazing how much beauty there is in the state, and it's just around the corner, not miles and miles away, or up in the mountains. I am lucky to have these views.

Three Years

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary......we have been married for three years, and for the second year in a row we both completely forgot about it!!! I hope that Dan is happy that I'm not one of those women who make a huge deal out of him forgetting important dates, cause I'm just as guilty. Whats up with that though? Seriously?!?! Why can't we seem to remember our anniversary? Needless to say we did not do anything to celebrate, Dan worked yesterday, Charlotte was crabby and didn't want to go to sleep and I went to bed early. My lovely brother was the one who called and reminded me and then I informed Dan while he was doing the dishes after dinner. We had a good chuckle and wished that we had some cake or something. mmm.....cake. I can't believe that it has been 3 years already, and at the same time SO much has happened that it seems like we've been married a lot longer than that!

We have plans to go out next Wednesday the 8th to see Zac Brown Band live in Raleigh which I am super excited about, so maybe we'll go to a fancy shmancy restaurant before hand to celebrate our anniversary. For my loyal myspace readers, you've already seen me post this video, but for those who haven't seen it, this band is awesome! Enjoy!

October 2008

• Subscribe to my blog!!

  Current mood:awake

  Do you enjoy reading my blog? Can't get enough of these little faces? (me neither)
  
  Do you wish you knew when I had a new entry posted? I bet you do!! lol You can now subscribe to my blog and get emails at your personal email address when I post new ones....how easy and convenient is that?? Very. Just go to my blog Finding Joy look below the "about me" section to your right and there is a place to fill in your email address and subscribe. I don't believe that you will get junk email or anything, so what do you have to lose? Not a thing!
  
  Cheers.
  
  
  
  
• Oct 7, 2008

  blog

  Current mood:tired

  I've tried to post for the last couple of days but for some reason myspace hates me.
  
  I've had another blog since January of this year.  Mostly it was used so that my family who is not on myspace could read my blogs and see the new pictures I had of Maddie and then Charlotte.  I stopped blogging there in May because it got annoying having to post everything twice and the two or so people who used to read that blog stopped since there was nothing to read, but I recently started blogging there again.  I know this is confusing. 
  
  Anyway......I have been testing the waters with my old/new blog and thinking about keeping it private or only viewable to a few, but I've changed my mind.  I may indeed change it again and actually make it private, but for now it is public and if you want to keep up to date with me/us you can.
  
  I'm sorry if it seems like I haven't been myself recently, but I haven't been myself recently.  lol 
  
  Oki doki.  Here's the link: http://geetabean.blogspot.com/
  
  
  
  
  
• Oct 2, 2008

  Goodbye myspace

  Current mood:blah

  I think that I am going to delete my myspace account.  I'm not really on that often and there are like 5 people who are actually active.  I'm not going to delete for a couple weeks so that I can get contact info. from people so we can keep in touch, but expect me to disappear soon-ish.
  
  If you'd like to keep in touch and swap info. just message me and we can exchange email addresses and what not.
  
  Hope to hear from you!

Seriously?!?!?!

I took the girls to the park this afternoon. We played for while and around 5:30 it was time to go. I got Maddie into the car and gave her some water. I turned on a video because I needed to nurse Charlotte and needed Maddie to not freak out just sitting in the car. I am pretty modest when it comes to nursing.....less so than when I had Maddie mainly because I'm better at it and can do it a lot more discreetly even while in public, but I always prefer to go to the car, or inside a dressing room, or better yet home! Anyway, I needed to do it then since it was getting late, so I hopped into the front seat and started to feed her. The parking spaces to the left and right of me were empty when I started. About 2 minutes into it, I heard a familiar sound......the music from an ice cream truck. Interesting. Then I saw the ice cream truck as it pulled into the parking space to my left. Seriously? Within a minute the ice cream truck was swarmed with kids and parents excited for ice cream......the window and the line were lined up exactly with my side of the car. Crap. So, after Charlotte popped off for the third time, completely exposing me, I decided to call it a day, end the nursing and try as discreetly as I could to get myself all buttoned up. I can not believe that the ice cream man chose the parking spot right next to my window. What are the chances? lol

tired of being

Sometimes I just get really tired of being. I can fill in the blank with a number of things.....I am tired of being tired, I am tired of staying at home, I am tired of living out in the country, I'm tired of tripping on things in my messy house. Sometimes I wish that I could just take off on my own and travel to a secluded beach with white sand and turquoise water and just lay there in silence with the sun baking me. Sometimes I wish that I could turn back the clock and be 6 again, running through the sprinklers in my parent's front yard....before I knew what it was like to have a job, or a car, or bills or responsibility.....when life was simple. When did life become so complicated? I guess that's just part of being an adult, being a parent. Some days I feel so overwhelmed with being a mother that I just wish that I wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I love my girls, LOVE them....so much I often feel like my heart is going to burst because it is so swollen with love, but sometimes I wish I had my freedom. I wish I could sit and read a book uninterrupted all day long, I wish I could shower whenever I felt like it, and hop in the car without my arms full of limbs and baby gear. I get so tired of living the same day over and over and over again. Some days I feel like if I have to give one more bath, or make one more meal, or wipe one more nose, or battle through one more naptime I will explode and little pieces of me will scatter all over Eastern North Carolina. I know this is totally selfish of me and some people are gasping at my confession, but thats the truth....at least on some days. Kids are so all consuming and being a mom is not a part time job, I don't get to clock out after my 8 hours are done, although sometimes I wish that I could.

Today is not one of those days, today I actually feel pretty good. Charlotte slept for 12 hours straight last night with the exception of having to put the paci in once and I got a pretty good nights sleep too. Naps today are another story, but no one has really gotten hurt yet, and there have been no tantrums and no random reasonless crying. Yesterday Dan took a half day and we went to a nearby state forest and went out to dinner which was a nice surprise and change of pace and tomorrow and Tuesday are his days off!! My house is however a disaster and I keep tripping and stubbing my baby toe on random junk all over the floor. Oh, and I have a ridiculously huge amount of laundry to do and have no desire what-so-ever to do it. We are going to visit the park this afternoon and then it will be dinner time and bath time and bedtime and then I will have about 2 hours to myself and then it will be my bedtime and then tomorrow we get to do it all over again! I do realize that the older they get the easier they get and the more you can do with them which breaks up the monotony, but then they start talking back and having an attitude and disliking their parents so it's a toss up really. Oh well. Back to the grindstone.....enjoy the rest of your weekend.

P.S. I apologize for the randomness and all over the place-ness of my blogs, but this is kinda how its going to be for a while anyway. I have a lot floating around in my head and it doesn't always come out of my fingertips in any kind of sensical way. But it does help to get it out, I always feel better after I've blogged.....so please bare with me. roar. (bare, bear, roar.....get it? I know....lame.) lol

Goodbye summer......& other thoughts

I've been waiting for fall since May. I despise North Carolina summers and I start feeling dread around April and start having visions of lovely fall weather around May. Summer always used to be my favorite season, it meant going to the beach and staying outside late, walking out of a movie theater in the evening and not needing a jacket. Summer in North Carolina means staying indoors a lot. It means humidity and 100 degree weather and sweat trickling down your back and pooling near your butt just from walking out to the car and back. North Carolina summers alone make me want to move up north to a state that is less icky during the summer even if it means 6 feet of snow in the winter.....although I'd probably hate that too! lol I guess I just miss Southern California weather. That's pretty much all I miss about California, that and the food and the beach, oh and all my family and friends......I guess I miss more than I thought I did. But there are some good things here, I like the space and the lack of buildings EVERYWHERE. I like seeing the farms and the crops rotate each season, and I like having lots of outside activities to do like hay rides and outdoor concerts and 4th of July parties with HUGE firework displays and our annual ham and yam festival (don't ask! lol) and huge Christmas light displays. I like the crisp air in fall and the vibrant colors of the leaves changing, the days when it snows, even though its usually just once a year and like 1/4 inch of snow, the tulips and daffodils that pop up randomly everywhere every spring. I like that there isn't really any traffic and almost any road you take is scenic. I like that we can travel to a number of different states in the matter of a few hours. I like the trees , the huge towering trees that cover this state. I like that the people here aren't fake, I mean there are exceptions, but generally there aren't breast implants and liposuction and ridiculously expensive designer clothes and Mercedes. There isn't a feeling of people trying to keep up with the Jones'.

Anyway....that was a bit of an unplanned tangent. I'm really glad that summer is finally over.....I've been impatiently awaiting its end. The last couple of days have been cool and in the 70s. Today it was rainy and delicious.....the perfect weather for napping and home made soup. Soon the leaves will start changing color and we will get our sweaters out from the back of our closets. I'm sure that I will have some colorful pictures to share with you. Until then enjoy some scenery pics from my too hot summer!