Two Things We Grew This Year

From October 2007

And both weigh about 15 pounds this year!

Yes, the pumpkins that I thought I killed over the summer produced two big ones after all. This is one of the two, the other is on the porch. I can't bring myself to carve them.....

Abby will Trick-Or-Treat at a couple of houses tonight, but I am reserving the right to sample the candy on her behalf.

Baby Got Book

This is hillarious and you internets will apreciate it for it's humor more than my co-workers!



Thoughts?

No. Seriously. No.

Why is it that the President thinks that we should underfund health care for children that need it but continue to pour money into the war(s)?

My points -
1 - "Homeland Security" should in some shape or form focus on the land that is home. We are still fighting for someone else's homeland.

2 - I keep being threatened on TV and in print by Bush and his support staff about the SuperBugs that will wipe out masses, but flu shots, though finally back in stock, still cost money to everyone.

3 - Shouldn't we do everything we can to protect the young people, the ones with vulnerable immune systems.

The reason Bush gave for not fully funding the SCHIP program is that the money is for low income children, and that some middle-income families would take advantage of it. Oh, okay, so we are going to spend an extra hundred thousand treating a child that may be able to afford it themselves. Spend it!

I don't know if it's because of where we live in relation to the heart of politics, but I am finding myself being drawn into more political conversations now than ever before. I don't see it getting any quieter in the forseeable future.

The good thing, I think, is that people are talking. I know that I'm talking more now than in previous stages of my life. A friend of mine has directed me to an important website that seeks to facilitate these conversations.

http://www.howimvoting.org/

Talk people. Talk.

Creating a Greener Life

Okay - I missed the official Blog Action Day about being green, but I was caught off guard when Sarahlynn calls us "greener" than their family. There are certainly greener families than ours, but I would say that we're not doing too terribly right now.

It made me realize that we do some things that are normal, and a couple of out-of-the-norm things to shrink our footprint on the environment.

The easiest of the things that we have done is replaced burned out bulbs with the energy efficient versions available everywhere now. We bought in quantity at Sam's Club bulbs in various sizes a while back. The one thing that is a drag about this "easy" project - finding dimmable compact florescent bulbs. I've seen them on TV, but can't find them in stores. (Any suggestions would be great!)

An out-of-the-box thing that we do is harvest our rain water. When it rains. The nice thing is that by storing it, we have still held on to water from the last storm, a whopping (and record) 35 days ago!

We do not clean the water for drinking or anything, but we collect rain water in a barrel as it comes from our front downspout. We use this water for our birdbath and to water plants and pumpkins around the yard. We spent $50 for the barrel, and have probably saved $35 on one year's water bills. By that math we will have paid for it outright within two summers.

We got ours locally from Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center. There are online outlets that carry them, but we like what AEOEC does to get theirs. First off, they recycle the barrels from the local Pepsi plant for their projects. Secondly, the barrels are then crafted by students as they learn about the environment and things that they can do to protect it for the future. Very cool. Secretly, Anny's dream job is to create curriculum for a center like this. She had an incredible experience working at an Environmental Ed place in Tennessee a few years back.

What we don't do yet, but we are investigating:

Create a front lawn that requires less water to begin with. There is no shade out there, so whatever is out there bakes in the summer.

Cloth diapers. We're just waiting for the daycare to say yes. Apparently they have never had the request before. Hmm.

So - what are you doing for the environment? What do you wish you could be doing? What else should we be doing? I would love comments on this one.

Published? No, but Acknowledged!

http://www.parenthacks.com/2007/10/halloween-hack-.html

We submitted our Pumpkin Carving Secret to ParentHacks and she used it today!

ParentHacks is a website that solicits and posts ideas that are non-traditional but work briliantly in solving common parenting issues. Check them out!

Also, feel free to comment on their post about how briliant my idea is so that I feel better about myself. Your call, just an idea....

Baptism Weekend!

This post has been posted on both blogs, you're not losing your mind!

Everything went swimmingly! Anny and I snipped at each other twice, but aside from that the weekend could not have gone better, and for that we are thankful.

I picked up Anny's brother and family mid-morning from the airport and headed directly to destination number one: Wendy's! There are none left around their house, so whenever they go places that have Wendy's, a stop must be made. (I learned of this in July on our drive to Iowa as well.)

The Parent-In-Laws started their trip on a sour note, but made the most of a couple of days off of school. When they got to the airport they found out that their flight to Denver had been canceled completely. The next flight had only 3 available seats, so there was little to no chance they would fly out Friday. Their logical next step? Get gas and drive to Denver! It's only a four-and-a-half hour drive. They got in a bit later, but would not have missed this weekend for anything.

On Saturday we had a pre-baptism party to celebrate because a lot of folks were heading home pretty quickly either by car or airplane. We had a ton of family and friends over, and Abby was awake for part of it. She slept hard this weekend, so we think we might be growth-spurting again. We received some very thoughtful gifts and are once again finding ourselves overwhelmed by the generosity of others.

The baptism on Sunday was very nice. Abby was a little fussy as our pastor set things up (prayer, congregational questions) but once we handed her over, she was very calm and content. We had practiced putting water on Abby's head so that she was not caught completely off guard and freaked out. It would have been okay if she did, but it was better that she didn't.

When we were not with large groups of people, we spent a lot of quality time with Anny's family with a very relaxed theme. We intentionally did not schedule anything for our time since we had a four year old and two infants to work with. We tried a new restaurant on Sunday since our go-to restaurant closed in June. High marks from all of us!

Monday morning I took the Parent-In-Laws to the airport for their flight/drive home. Just us "kids" hung out until lunch time and we made a quick trip to Ikea! They don't have one in their city and had never been. I know they are looking at remodeling at least a bathroom and there are a ton of deals to be had.

It was a wonderful weekend and we both realize how blessed we are to have that many people that care about us.

Kidney Update!

I guess it's been two weeks since I saw my nephrologist, but between Abby, Anny and I all taking turns being sick I have not updated you all on my kidneys.

He immediately gave me the bad news that I have gained 7 pounds instead of losing weight as he requested. When I told him that we have a three month old at home, he understood (a little) and told me that I need to lose weight before my next visit.

My protein levels are down to a manageable range. Protein spillage is the way that we can figure out how my kidneys are actually doing.

Most of my other levels are in the normal range. NORMAL (!) range, not just manageable. Potassium, phosphorus, blah blah blah. I focused on the fact that I'm the healthiest (internally) that I have been in more than five years.

He did have concern that my cholesterol is too low. Dangerously too low. That meant taking me off of one of my drugs! I have to have blood work done in a couple of weeks to be sure that my cholesterol does not jump back up, but he doesn't see that as too big of a concern.

I celebrated with a steak. :o)

So, news is good news! I agree with him that I need to drop some weight, and have for a long time. If you read previous posts you will realize that I weighed in at 185 before I got sick, but jumped to 265 in a matter of two months (less really). I have never gotten back down to 185, and that is just a pipe dream. If I could get down to 210 and stay at 210 I would be happy. (For the record, I'm not at 265 now, but I'm not far off) I can't do any fad-that-work diets like the one that worked so well for Anny because they all rely on protein overload, which increases potassium for some reason.

It will work out eventually, especially if I work out.

And that's my kidney update for the fall of 2007. I go back in six months.....