Day 101 Jan.26 2011

busy busy BUSY day today.

i didn't do anything today that i expected to.  but the things i did do, were the things i have been avoiding. so in the end it was good.

all of the clothes that do not fit caitlin and that i'd like to keep are in a box which is labeled and stacked neatly in the garage.

all of the clothes that do not fit caitlin and i don't want to keep are in bags ready to be donated.

all of the clothes that do not fit libby are in bags ready to be donated.

all of the clothes i wore whilst pregnant are in a box, labeled nicely and stacked next to bug's box of clothes.

all of the winter wear-hats, gloves, scarfs are matched and boxed (labeled of course) and you guessed it-stacked neatly in the garage.

-the list goes on-

all of my sewing/fabric supplies: have their own tote and are now residing in said tote.

all of my knitting supplies have moved in together.

my painting, stamping, drawing supplies = collected, sorted, tote-ed.

it's incredible.  sometimes i think i would find great pleasure in making nesting dolls for a living.  i would stack them all together into their neat nesting-ness and then sort them by color and put them in totes that are labeled and stacked neatly next to each other waiting patiently for someone to come and search through them to find the specific nesting doll they were looking for...

apparently my ocd is showing through just a bit tonight...

Day 100 Jan.25 2011

what you see below is one of my most favorite small child toys.  what i love about it, is that it's mounted on the wall.  and the fact that it has a cutesy city painted on it with little vehicles you can "drive" around the "town"...

bug spent a good amount of her time playing with this toy this afternoon.  6 adults and 5 babies all under the age of 11 months were packed into the small "watch-your-kids-while-you-run-on-the-treadmill" room because it was too cold to play on the swings.  but we found that no one had to get up to keep an eye on their child, there was always an adult in arms reach, it was a really relaxing time! 

the entertaining part was when caitlin approached chase (the only boy in the group) and "danced" enough to make him smile and giggle at her, she then started pulling her shirt off...why she did this, i will never know...lets hope this is a phase she will QUICKLY grow out of...

Day 99 Jan.24 2011

rain rain go away...

another day of constant rain.  i'm impressed by the clouds here in the deep south.  i thought weather here would be like georgia, or florida, where the rain dents cars and sweeps away small children, but only for 20 min in the afternoon.  nope, not here in good ole lousy-ana.  here it rains constant and steady for 24 hours.  heavy enough that the front of you will be uncomfortably damp when you enter a building.  the persistence of these rain clouds is ridiculous and highly unnecessary...

that has nothing to do with what made me smile today.  go figure.

i love fresh and clean and crisp and sharp.  those are words that can melt my heart, especially when you're talking about a living space, or a kitchen, i get giddy if it's a kitchen you're talking about...anyway, enough of that...i helped monica move a futon out of her daugher's room in order to make room for the crib that arrived today.  abi is going to use the crib for the next 3-6 months until her little brother moves out of monica's room.  abi's been i a rigged toddler bed-rigged to keep her in it.  it stresses out monica knowing abi could escape and hurt herself, so the arrival of this crib is a big deal in the conger/haggerty household.  so after we sorted out clothes that don't fit abigail and stuff she will never use, we moved the futon into my garage (i'm storing/borrowing it until they want it back or we move, whatever happens first).  we then treated ourselves to lunch at the PX, some minor shopping, and then we picked up the crib from walmart.  the next feat we accomplished we are both very proud of, we should have buttons we can wear around, like the "I Voted" stickers...

we assembled the crib in under an hour.  we had two hungry, attention starved, teething infants locked in the room with us and we managed to put this crib together all by our selves!  not only did we figure out the picture-only-instructions (that we decided could have been drawn much differently), but it is sturdy and abigail loves it.  i can't even begin to explain how much of a burden is now lifted off of monica's shoulders...and i'm just so happy i got to help with the process :)

Day 98 Jan.23 2011

i warned you. i'm food driven.

this was my mid morning snack.  remember i don't like snack food.  my snacks = meals.

what you see below is ravioli with tomato, garlic, olive oil, and spinach.  the sad thing is it took me 15 min to cook, and about 4 min to eat...i could have stretched out the eating, but i was SOOOO hungry.  the first bite was really really hot though, as i'm sure you can see :)

Day 97 Jan.22 2011

this is a warning:

the next few posts may be very heavily food related.  for some reason all i want to do is eat.  being hungry has never bothered me.  i know some people that can't function if they are hungry, they can't even sleep if they have a rumbly in their tumbly...

i on the other hand could go 6 hours into the start of my day and forget that i haven't eaten breakfast and it's now 2 hours past lunch...but lately, all of my daily actions have been driven by hunger or cravings.  i won't list off what i've eaten, i'll just say that the 6 month along pregnant lady i "live" with is really impressed at how much food i've eaten today...

i also don't snack, ever.  snack food has never been satisfying to me, if i'm hungry, i eat a meal-that's just my thought process.  a snack never tides me over.  but tonight, instead of baking an entire spaghetti squash at 9:30 at night, i settled for the fire roasted wheat-thin sticks.  they at least allowed me to sleep :)

Day 96 Jan.21 2011

i've been feeling a little unraveled lately.  not sure why.  i realized after sitting down and writing a few letters yesterday that i had to look in 3 different places for addresses when i went to mail the letters...this is not acceptable in my life.

so whilst i was at the PX, i picked up a handy dandy address book.  best $3 ever!  it's cute and fresh.  my old address book is really worn and tired looking, names and things are scratched out and scribbled over.  and it's really not up to my standards...so i'm in the process of transferring names and address and collecting everything into this one neat little book.  it sometimes scares me how simple these things that make me so happy are...but it's undeniable... :)

Day 95 Jan.20 2011

its been 20 days since we have been back at ft. polk.  and i'm just now reading the christmas cards and other "non-time-sensitive" pieces of mail.  shameful i know...

i decided in order to make up for my inability to read a few letters in a timely manner, i'm going to send notes back to those that sent me something over christmas.  and no, sending me something now just to get a note from me is cheating.  but if you know me well enough and you actually send me a letter in the mail with stories about your life...you'll get a letter back.  i like writing and sending snail mail.

back in the day, sometime in 1994 to be exact my 4th grade teacher had a friend who was teaching english in romania and wanted to know if any of the students in my class wanted a romanian pen-pal.  i raised my hand and about 3 weeks later i got a name and address of a girl in romania who was learning english and wanted to be my friend.  her name: magdalena puposcu.  she is a year older than me and the last time we talked was about 6 months ago.  you do the math on that.  we wrote pretty religiously for years and years.  i would get a letter from her about once a month through grade school, they spaced out a bit more through high school, but we still wrote and sent pictures on a pretty regular basis.  once i left for college-she did at the same time-that was when we started only communicating about once every 3-6 months.  my senior year i got an email from magda who had just learned how to use a computer and email and had her very own email!  we even got to instant message a few times if the time was right.  we are about 6ish hours apart.  i still to this day get an email from her every now and then.  she is currently an accountant in bucharest and has a pretty serious boyfriend.  it warms my heart to know that i have a friend that i was able to grow up with half way around the world all because i took the time to write a letter every now and then :)

Day 94 Jan.19 2011

the first day of total sunshine in a while!!

after waking up in a rush thinking today was thursday and i was late for my 'total body conditioning' class, i came to my senses and changed back into pjs, made some really good coffee and scrambled eggs, invited my roommate over and we watched the kids play together for an hour while we blissfully sipped our morning juice.  ahhhhh. 

our post morning nap consisted of some retail therapy at the PX.  we spent way too much time there, but we didn't over spend or buy anything that wasn't on our list and were still able to get the "therapy" aspect from the trip.  then we snagged a few things from the commissary on our way home.  the haggertys were due for a nap, and caitlin probably was as well, but it was too nice out.  i packed up the stroller and we met some friends at the park.

i discovered how hard it is to squeeze myself into the tunnels and nooks and crannies of a playground castle with slides and ladders...caitlin was a little disappointed i think that her dexterity wasn't quite up to par...

after our perfect does of vitamin d, we promptly came home and crashed, and by we i mean caitlin :)

Day 93 Jan.18 2011

today will forever be known as sleep in day.

i some how managed to ignore my child enough that she fell back to sleep from 0715 to 0920, or she was just quiet and contently playing in her crib during this 2 hour period.  I doubt it was the latter...

either way, i was able to catch up on so MUCH needed sleep.  i find it difficult to get myself to sleep before midnight these days.  i know it's because chad is gone.  just the nature of the beast i suppose. 

we spent the afternoon at the doctor's office, just to check and make sure bug wasn't getting an ear infection, and we learned that she is a large child.  she is 22lbs and 29" long...that puts her in the 74th and 79th percentile respectively. 

as lazy as today was, i never really had an opportunity to snap a picture.  well, i should rephrase that.  i never made an opportunity to snap a picture...i guess i was that lazy :)

Day 92 Jan.17 2011

i am not fan of chaos.  anyone that knows me is aware that i live by prioritized lists, and keep things in a very specific order.  i am a controlled state of being.

and then i had a child


it's only taken me about 10 months to wrangle this child into my controlled state of being.  and i'm very much proud of that.  she lives most of the time with me in my world of routine and order, but we have worked out a pretty good compromise that she is allowed to leave this pristine world to smear snot and peas on my living room walls-so long as she cleans it up.

we're still working on the last part.

today's post isn't about whether or not i've smooshed my 10 month old daughter into the routine of an old woman-and please know, i really have not forbid her to be an infant...i roll on the floor with her and throw blocks at marvin, and blow belly farts until we're both laughing so hard we cry.

today's post is about our trip to the bowling alley on post.  today was MLK Jr. Day, no one had to go to work (except those that are deployed).  mondays are $1 shoe and $1 game day.  so, for me to play one game = $2.  not bad.  everyone knows how cramped all bowling alleys are.  i've always hated the layouts and that the chairs face each other and not the alley and if you are on a lane next to people you don't know, you have to look at them...it's weird.  in short-there is not a lot of room.  well, we had 8 adults and 4 infants on this little excursion.  two of the infants came with strollers, one came with a car seat, and all of them came with diaper bags.  initially i felt like i was the most claustrophobic person and i just stepped into an elevator that was 4 people over the maximum...

but if i have learned anything over the last 10 months it's to let go of that need for order all of the time.  the world does not fall apart if slight chaos ensues...and that's exactly what we had for an hour and a half.  slight chaos.  people passing babies, holding bottles, taking pictures, stepping over each other to take their turn bowling, eating pizza, high fiving...chaos.  and i walked out of the bowling ally feeling more exhausted than i ever have, but in such a good way.  my sides hurt from laughing, and my heart was full to know i had that many people around to enjoy slight chaos with every now and then :)