Yesterday I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock going off.  Normally I wake up to the sound of “Mommy, get me out!”, so you know something was different about today.  I rolled out of bed, hit the shower, dressed, did my makeup and hair and then went to…. work. 

Yeah, Wednesday was my last day as a SAHM for a while.  An opportunity fell into my lap and I am really excited about it.  My title is Temporary Finance Administrator.  The temporary part is because I’m filling in for someone who is on personal leave.  Might be 6 months, might be 2 years, who knows.  It’s a 6 mile commute, which is awesome in a city as big as Houston where it’s completely common to have an hour commute;  part-time, so it will coordinate nicely with D’s preschool and my plan to get another degree or Master’s;  I already know and like everyone I work with.   And it will look good on my resume, which after 3 years out of the workforce needed a little help.   I couldn’t be happier. 

I was actually a little cautious with blogging about it.  We’ve had two years of just about everything possible going wrong in our lives and to have something good happen so quickly is a bit of a shock.   Maybe we are turning a corner now.  Gosh I hope so.

Just a quick post to dispel the rumors that I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. No, no. Still here and trying very hard to find my sanity. I’ve not been successful.

Currently, we are enjoying a surprise visit from my father-in-law. I think he was escaping from all the crappy weather in Oklahoma! Then, of course, will be the Lost finale. But I hope to be back by next week. Stay tuned!

And since I hate to have a post without a picture, here’s Miss D with her favorite toy, the iPod Touch. It’s freaky to me how well she can operate that thing. She can play games I would never have dreamed she could master at only 2 1/2.

Almost exactly 3 years ago, I started this blog. Little did I know that 8 months and one day later I’d be in the hospital giving birth and this would become basically a mommy blog (Happy 28 months Daphne!). What a completely insane 3 years it’s been. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Welcome to retro week here at E.L.M. Why retro? Well, I have been digging in a few old boxes and found some fun things to blog about. Stay tuned…

You might notice some of my photos missing, mainly pics of Daph. I’m in the process of changing most of my Flickr photos so only my contacts marked as Friends and Family can see them, and will need to update the individual links on each post. Yeah, that might take a while. Anyway, friends, family and loyal blog readers… if you haven’t already, make sure and create a free Flickr account and add me as a contact so I can reciprocate.

We found out yesterday that my sister and her husband will be welcoming a baby boy in November. I think everyone in the family is pretty excited to meet the first grandson/nephew. And of course, my baby crafting/shopping urges are kicking into high gear. But, what do you make for a boy?

So, my crafty readers, point me in the direction of good baby boy crafts… clothing, toys, etc. I could only think of one crafty blogger (Homemade by Jill) with baby boy items. And did you see the tie and vest onesies from Jessie Rivers featured in one of her posts. Ahhhhh, the cuteness!!:

And since my sister will be registering soon, what are your must-have baby items? Here are some of mine:

– Changing table. I know this is always at the top of everyone’s “Do Not Buy” list, but I love my changing table. We still use it.
– Babywearing stuff. I have two pouch slings, two ring slings, a mei tai and an Ergo. I think if I had to do it over again, I’d have a Moby wrap for when the baby is little, and the Ergo. I LOVED being able to put Daphne in the BabyHawk or Ergo and have my hands free to do other things.
– Miracle Blanket. Daphne was a little baby Houdini and could bust out of just about any swaddle. And she didn’t like her arms tucked in. But, I still preferred the Miracle Blanket over the SwaddleMe or just using a receiving blanket. Here’s Daphers at 3 weeks old in her Miracle Blanket:

– Kirkland wipes (Costco). This isn’t helpful for my sister, since she’s planning on cloth diapering, but Daphne never had a problem with these irritating her skin.
– Pedipeds. Don’t know about the boys shoes, but I loved these on Daphne. I absolutely hated Robeez.
– The Children’s Place stretchies (zip up PJs). Love these. I’ve heard great things about Hanna Andersson pajamas too and might try those for Daphne this year.
– IKEA Antilop high chair and long sleeved bibs. Both awesome and cheap, cheap.

And here are a few things I hated, or Daphne hated:

– Bumbo seat. I’m glad I got this at a garage sale for $5 because Daphne HATED IT!
– Medela Pump in Style. This is another weird one for me to hate, since everyone loves it. I had better luck with the Avent Isis manual pump. Not that Daphne ever took a bottle. I’m sure if I was working full time and needed an electric pump I would have learned to love the Medela.
– Those weird baby gown pajama things. I had a family member get Daphne at least 10. Totally hated those.

Please comment and let us know what worked, or didn’t work, for you.

In honor of our 13th wedding anniversary today (and our 18 year dating anniversary tomorrow), I thought I would dedicate a special song to my husband. And Hon, even though I know you will be mortified at my song choice and you will give me heck about picking out something so cheesy (see how the “sometimes I never want to see you again” part is so applicable? hehe) I hope you get the sentiment. Except for the snow and desert part. I have no idea what they are talking about there. Without further ado, I give you Still The One by Orleans: (music embed here, since I have no idea if you’ll see it in a feed reader)

And Chris, you better be nice to me, otherwise next year I’ll dedicate “You Light Up My Life”, maybe something by the Bee Gees or Barry Manilow (cause I know you love ‘em, haha!), or maybe a hair band power ballad.

Don’t adjust your monitor. I’m redecorating the blog. Bye, bye pink Twitter bird.

I’ve actually been wanting to change things around for a while now. Other people have cute blogs with cute backgrounds, but it seems like I have been limited with the free Wordpress templates I could find. And I know just enough about HTML and CSS to go in and make simple changes (swap out pictures, change colors, add badges and widgets) but anything beyond that results in me Googling error messages until I figure out a fix.

Tonight I just wanted something new, even though I knew I wouldn’t have time to create an elaborate website. So I started out with a free template, Trippygreen, I made a few changes (including creating a new header image from some free digital scrapbooking kits from twopeasinabucket.com) , then when I added my Flickr and Etsy badges to the sidebar I kept getting a parse error message. It took me a little bit to figure out that I had to close out the PHP before adding the Flickr HTML. I should read up on that kind of thing, because I do find it really interesting. I am just too scattered to sit down and do it.

I still need to change some of the text colors, and might fool around with some of the images. Anyway, at least I have more post space for pictures.

We just found out today that Chris’s grandfather passed away. No real details yet, other than he was home alone (his wife passed away last year) and possibly (probably?) died several days ago. Needless to say, Chris is taking the news pretty hard. We will be leaving for Tulsa tomorrow to be with his family and try to help out. If you are the praying type, please keep my husband in your prayers. He has so much stress already and now has lost a grandfather he was close to.

This is going to be a crazy week. Not only do we have to finish packing up the house and get it ready to sell, we are also leaving for Chicago on Friday morning. We fly back Sunday night and leave for Houston Monday morning. I normally don’t mind packing, but with an almost 10 month old it’s nearly impossible to get anything done. I’m very glad the next time we move I’ll have family close by to help out.

It’s funny the things you find when you are packing. For example, I have three candy thermometers. I know, three? I don’t mean to have that many, but once a year at Christmas when I’m making English toffee I can never seem to find one so I buy another. And as many times as I’ve made that recipe I still can’t eyeball it. It turns out burnt to hell or is still grainy if I don’t monitor the temperature. I also found three pairs of scissors while cleaning out my kitchen drawers, which is funny since I can never find scissors. I’m always cutting tags off clothes with a kitchen knife, almost slicing myself in the process. Lately I’ve been using Daphne’s fingernail clippers to cut off tags. At least I always know where those are. That girl has dragon nails. I wonder if it’s normal to have to trim them every other day or so? And I found my lost address book, not that very many of the addresses are current anymore, but at least I can update it now.

And to top off my week we have a plague of gnats in the house. I guess they are coming in from the drains or something. Normally I’d fog the area with Raid, but I really can’t do that with Daphne in the house. I’ve been trying to keep the sink areas clean and dry and block them from coming in. I did get irritated at them in my bathroom and started to spray them with hair spray. It was mildly satisfying to see them drop out of mid air and die. Of course, now I have more hair spray residue than normal on the mirror and walls. So that was not really a great plan.

Currently I’m giving myself a pedi, because if I don’t do it now, I might not have a chance later and since I don’t have any normal (non-sandal or flip flop) shoes to wear to Chicago it really is a must.

And FYI to friends and family- my ancient cell phone finally bit the dust. Chris has been bugging me to get a new phone for ages, but up until now I didn’t think I needed one. I mean, as long as it makes calls and stores at least 10 or 15 numbers what else do I need it for. (Of course, I’m also the same person that buys a car and drives it until it falls apart.) So, call Chris’ cell if you need me.