30 days is confusing me!

I am trying to keep up with the 30 days of me by pre-writing the posts by a few days, but man, it is confusing me to no end!  I have to open 3 or 4 tabs, one to see the edit posts list to know what date to publish it on, one to see the list of topics, one for the new post, and one for any uploads I might need to do.  Weesh!  So if something posts out of order, that's why!

Today was another great day for Karina talking.  She said "Pop" during Musikgarten class, she was really active in the class too.  She is still saying the /t/ and /p/ sounds.  Plus, this morning Bill was asking her all these animal sounds and she made sounds I've never taught her.  She made a pig sound, a rooster, and several others.  It makes me think that she's got the knowledge up there, but she is so stubborn, she won't let it out til we ask for it!  Little turkey.  Hm.  I wonder if she knows that sound?

30 Days of Me: Day 6 – 20 of my favorite things

I am excluding the obvious child, family, and friends.  That would just take up the whole list and be boring!

1. chocolate, especially plain M&Ms
2. stamps (rubber stamps to make cards) and paper
3. roses
4. anything pink
5. shopping (including on Etsy!!)
6. hot tea (Lipton or any general English breakfast type) with sugar and milk.  Mmmmmmm
7. adorable children's clothes (I love the stuff on Etsy, and at Gymboree and Carter's)
8. shoes
9.purses (especially the Miche bag!)
10. dogs and horses and animals in general
11. making things--sewing, crafting, scrapbooking, cardmaking, etc.
12. children--I'm a teacher after all!
13. dishes.  I am always drawn to the dishware section of stores like TJMaxx, Marshalls, and Ross
14. boxes.  I love little or big fancy boxes, made of anything, wood, paper, ceramic...I just like them.
15. Lemon cooler-type cookies, which are SO hard to find
16. velvet.  Anything velvet.  It is so hard to go into JoAnn's Fabric store and NOT buy velvet...but then I just bring it home and put it in a box in my closet because I don't want to use it for something...that would be "wasting" it!
17. antique stuff and antique stores
18. yard sales
19. consignment and thrift stores
20. giving presents on Christmas. 

Speech today was great!

I am so proud of my girl today.  This was only our second day of speech, because of course we've both been sick for a week with the world's worst cold.  (We are both *still* getting over it.) So our therapist starts the usual stuff, playing and trying things to get her to talk and make sounds, and Karina is pretty hesitant.  One thing is that we have always told Karina, "Say ___" which I don't know is necessarily the best or right way, but we've done that.  Our therapist doesn't do this.  I sometimes wonder if Karina understands that she wants her to copy the sounds she's making.  So today, I mentioned it, and I started chiming in and telling Karina to make these sounds or say the words. 

For background, the basic things Karina says are "bye bye", "mama", "da" for daddy, and lots of "ba" sounds for everything else.  Today, she made the /p/ sound, the /t/ sound, tried to say "down" and tried to say "move"!!  This is so great!  Then tonight, she made the sound of the owl, which has a vowel sound that either has been hard for her to say, or which she is resistant to saying.  (I'm not sure if that sentence even remotely makes grammatical sense, but I am so happy about her speech progress that I don't even care!).

I think speech is going to work out great, and I continue to hope that once the ball starts rolling, we won't be able to stop it!

30 Days of Me: Day 5: My Favorite quote

I have so many!  My newest favorite is "You were made perfectly to be loved--and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you my whole life long."  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beautiful, and even though she intended it for her lover, it is too perfect to describe a mother's love.

Been Sick, Blech

Karina and I have been sick for almost a week.  Last Monday, I noticed at our playgroup she wasn't as excited and rambunctious as usual, and figured she was just getting used to it, or a little overwhelmed.  That night, she woke up at 1130 crying, and I just knew.  Then that whole day she was miserable, stuffiest nose I have ever experienced in my life poor baby.  I took her to the doctor on Wednesday morning and she had the start of an ear infection (caught early though, yay!) and a very bad cold.  By that day, I realized she had given it to me.  By Thursday, I was msierable, too, and Karina was only a little better.  Fortunately, Bill was home from Chicago by that time, and I slept late all weekend.  Finally today I felt better.  I've been monitoring myself to make sure it's not going into bronchitis (which I used to get kind of a lot) but so far, so good.  Karina's doing much better, but still has the stuffy nose.  She's on antibiotics for the rest of this week and goes back next Tuesday to get her ears rechecked. 

Playgroup is great, but I'll be glad when this catch-every-germ phase is over!

30 Days of Me: Day 4: My Favorite book

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.  Hands down the best book ever written.

30 Days of Me: Day 3: My Favorite TV program

Well, my real favorite is off the air.  Alias was the all-time best show ever.  Now I just watch HGTV mostly, plus I like The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.

30 Days of Me: Day 2: My Favorite Movie

Oh, I have a list.  They include, in no particular order, after the first one:

The Wedding Singer
The Burbs
The X-Men movies (yes, really)
Aladdin
The Emperor's New Groove
Anastasia
Innerspace
Avatar
Star Trek

30 Days of Me: Day 1: My Favorite Song

This is hard.  My favorite song?  It changes.  I like a lot of songs.  I love almost anything by Tom Petty.  Oh, here's one:  I really love Fleetwood Mac's version of "Landslide".  That is a wonderful song!

I also like a song called "Can't Find a Better Man" because it reminds me of my freshman year in college.  I changed some of the words to make a joke song about a guy who kept coming by our room to talk to us, but who was very, very strange.  I can't tell you the words because that would invade his privacy!

More about the Etsy shop Bloom Creations

This is the packaging that my beautiful hair clips came in!  I have never gotten anything that was packaged so cute!  I didn't want to open them.  BloomCreations on Etsy has some of the prettiest hair clips I've seen.  And when they got here, they were even prettier in person.  I mean they are so gorgeous.  I got two silky flower clips with tiny sequins and faux pearls, and another one that was done with a quilling technique.  If you are ever browsing Etsy, or if you are in the market for some little girl hair clips, I highly recommend this shop. 

I didn't get paid to say any of this.  It's just what I think and it's all my own personal opinion.  I didn't get any kind of compensation.  I just like the shop and the items I bought. 

30 Days of Me Sounds Interesting...

I saw this posted on Simply Stacie's blog and it looks kind of fun and interesting.  However, I don't do blog hops, so I'm not linking up.  I am not trying to build a huge following, because I don't do reviews and stuff, I just blog for fun.  This sounds fun so I think I will do it.  Here are the topics:
Day 1 – your favorite song
Day 2 – your favorite movie
Day 3 – your favorite television program
Day 4 – your favorite book
Day 5 – your favorite quote
Day 6 – 20 of my favorite things
Day 7 – a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 – a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 – a photo you took
Day 10 – a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 – a photo of you recently
Day 12 – something you are OCD about
Day 13 – a fictional book
Day 14 – a non-fictional book
Day 15 – your dream house
Day 16 – a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 – an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 – your wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 – a talent of yours
Day 20 – a hobby of yours
Day 21 – a recipe
Day 22 – a website
Day 23 – a youtube video (sorry, but you won't be getting one of these)
Day 24 – where I live
Day 25 – your day, in great detail
Day 26 – your week, in great detail
Day 27 – my worst habit
Day 28 – what’s in my handbag/purse
Day 29 – hopes,dreams, plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 – a dream for the future beyond the next year

Amazing Sight!

The other day, I was sitting at the table with Karina eating lunch, when I looked out the window, and there in my neighbor's yard across the street, sat this bird.  It was eyeing a squirrel that was hanging out on his porch, and I ran for my camera.  I followed this bird as it chased the squirrel (who did escape) from my neighbor's yard, to the fence, to my fence, to the backyard fence.  It was amazing!  Sorry the shots are blurry.  I zoomed in so you could actually see the bird, but my camera doesn't take distance shots very well.  I had to zoom so it wasn't just a camouflaged blob!

In my neighbor's yard across the street.  The squirrel scampered up this tree.  I think this was a young hawk.  He wasn't having much success with his ground-level tactics.

Now the squirrel made a run for it before the hawk left, so he beelined it into this crepe myrtle and the hawk came and sat on the fence.  Then the squirrel started across the street.

And the hawk took off after him again.

He landed on the fence between my yard and the neighbor's.  My fence is the dark brown one.

On the fence looking for the squirrel.

 He flew to the back corner of the yard where the three fences meet.

 Then he just sat there for a while, thinking.

He kept hopping from one fence to the other, around and around the pole.  He did not catch the squirrel, so I guess he was trying to figure out a new scheme!  It was really awesome to see him so close, though!

Sleepy Girl

Karina has been sick and she slept in my bed this morning.  I got this shot of her and had to share.  Sorry it's so dark; I didn't want to wake her.

That is her little Lambkin there she's snuggling with.

Etsy Shop

Here's a great Etsy shop for unique hair accessories for little girls.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloomCreations

Some really beautiful things there.


She ships fast too and has good customer service.  I bought a couple clips today and they have already shipped!

My Personal Therapy and Venting Session

I think I've posted a little about my friend Danise who has been having some serious health problems since being rear-ended over two years ago.  She has been getting worse instead of better, with one thing after another going wrong.  From constant excruciating pain, to numbness, weight loss which was later determined to be caused by Celiac's disease--the disease, which runs in her family, was triggered by the stress she's been under--to the most recent issue, loss of vision.

She went to a neuro-opthalmologist and he did brain surgery last week to try to get her brain and eyes to communicate more effectively.  They knew it was going to be a difficult surgery, but didn't know how long her recovery was going to be.  I have been calling her every day and leaving her messages because I knew she couldn't call or talk to me yet.  Today, she called me and I was finally able to talk to her.  She said the phone happened to be right next to her, and just called the last person who called, and it happened to be me, luckily.  What does she tell me?  Things are getting worse still. She said it didn't go as planned (shocker), she's having trouble talking (her hubby tells her she makes no sense, gibberish half the time, when she thinks she's making sense she's not), she is still having trouble seeing, and she's been walking into things because she doesn't see what's really there. 

It is a giant mess.  I am tired of the bad news, I want my friend back to normal.  I want her to be healthy and happy and not in pain.  I want her to be able to see her kids grow up.  I am so frustrated.  I keep hoping and hoping, that something--anything--will finally go right, but no.  Everything just keeps getting worse and worse.  It is so ridiculous.  She is so discouraged and so depressed, (which is understandable) and I do what I can to be strong and support her, but I'm hurting too because I can't make her better.

The other thing that's going on is with my mom.  Her best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer a while back (I can't remember how long ago) and now it's in her bones.  Mom said they're just "maintaining".  So I guess it means things are very bad and they are essentially trying to keep her alive as long as possible.  Mom and I went to her oldest daughter's wedding this weekend.  I haven't seen her in so long, but she looked pretty good.  I think my mom's worried that she'll die soon.  It's scary.  My mom is such an introvert and has a very small group of friends (kind of like me).  So here's my mom, with her best friend trying to live, and mine trying to live well, and it all just sucks.

I had to do this post for myself.  I just needed to see it all in writing and have a little personal therapy session.  I really miss Danise (the healthy one).

Go right now (or as soon as possible) and call your best friend and tell her (or him) that you love her (or him) because you might need her (or him) someday or vice versa.  I never knew that I would spend so many years of my friendship being Danise's support system, and I'm not sorry--I just wish I didn't have to because I wish she was healthy. I miss talking to her about other things besides whether or not she's in pain today, or what the latest news from the doctor is, or what's going wrong now.  I just want to be able to talk to her about normal stuff without this bad, stupid crap hanging over us all the time.