by "popular" (read: my mother's) demand:

Our home from October-January was cozy, to say the least. Mr. mira and I agreed that it would be a great place to camp out in if we were on a road trip, but I'm glad I'm not spending my 9 months there, that's for sure. I think I'd get stuck in the bathroom, and I KNOW I wouldn't fit in the kitchen, especially if mr. mira wanted to look in the fridge for anything. BUT, it was a home, and it was free. Living with his sis and bro (and his sis) and our neice and nephew for about 6 weeks was...a learning experience...as well. I won't tell you what we all learned. ha ha.

This is the first thing you saw from the "front" (read: only) door when you looked to the right: Our bedroom. The two tall cupboards had closet rods in them, but we chose instead to shove some shelving into the space to accomodate a few more shirts. The bed lifted up on hinges pretty easily, and we stored all of our shoes underneath, along with other random items that we didn't want to look at on any given day.










Then, as you look ahead into the trailer from the "front" door, we see the "kitchen." Yeah. food was stored in the upper cupboard, the cat's litter box was in the lower cupboard, and the bare essentials of bake/cookware were in the cupboard to the left of the door (visible in the next pic). I'm amazed that we didn't eat out every. single. day. One consolation: the full size fridge. Our neighbors, who had the fancy trailers with a pull-out section and 4 bunks, only had a 3/4 size fridge. neener, neener.


From the bedroom door into the rest of the trailer, we see the aforementioned full sized fridge and pots-n-pans cupboard (the tv was on top of this), the living room couch (read: SIL and BIL's pull-out bed), the dining room table (read: school table for the niece and nephew and later the computer desk). Both seats had storage underneath for all of the kids school stuff and toys, and the table could come down and make a bed, if need be (need never be'd for us, so to speak). The armoire where E and J kept all their clothes was quite nice, if you opened the door, the mirror's reflection gave the impression that the trailer was twice as big. really.
Immediately behind that (along the right wall) is the bathroom sink, complete with a medicine cabinet and tiny lower shelf for various and sundry toiletries.
Through the door at the end of the trailer is the "bathroom" (read: stink room). It was big enough for the toilet, which you can see the top of, and the half-sized shower, which you cannot see. The only floor space was in front of the toilet. no joke.
Along the left wall in the back (behind the table) is the 2 bunks where JT, T, and Bekah slept. After all of our esteemed guests left, D stored his guitars on the top bunk and I put canned goods on a shoe rack on the bottom bunk. There was also room under the bottom bunk, but it was a pain to get to, so we didn't use it.
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I thought you had to be smart to be in the military

I recently I bought a new pair of boots and this is what I found in the box















honestly, I remember taking some sort of aptitude test before signing papers.
oh well.

local coverage of the storm

(mom-you could make this into a link if you want...)

this is our local station's summary of the destruction on the MS gulf coast. There are a bunch of links, the first two are the before and after video that really help give some perspective.

before and after

bloodsuckers

There are many kinds of bloodsuckers. Today, I present to you the top three, in order of annoyance.

#3
"These flies are ferocious biters with a seemingly unsationable thirst for blood...The bite is generally painless, but usually results in a small flat red spot that within 12 hours becomes excruciatingly itchy... Scratching No-see-um bites can double the length of time they require to disappear and can lead to infected sores."
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-see-um)

I may never go to E (sis-in-law)'s again.





#2

"As the larval flea progresses in its development, the tapeworm inside it is also progressing in development. By the time the flea is an adult, the tapeworm is ready to infect a dog or cat...
Inside the host’s stomach, the flea’s body is digested away and the young tapeworm is released. It finds a nice spot to attach and the life cycle begins again. It takes 3 weeks from the time the flea is swallowed to the time tapeworm segments appear on the pet’s rear end or stool." (The Tapeworm Page)

The dog had fleas. The cat now has fleas. And a tapeworm. Lovely. He really really hopes we never give him a bath again.

#1

"Citibank understands the financial challenges you may face after college ends. Therefore, we offer four repayment plans to make managing your monthly budget a little easier." (http://studentloan.citibank.com/slcsite/fr_r_pla.htm)

Definitely the thirstiest bloodsucker of all. grr.

Psalm 16

Keep me safe, O God,
I've run for dear life to you.
I say to God, "Be my Lord!"
Without You, nothing makes sense.

And these God-chosen lives all around-
what splendid friends they make!

Don't just go shopping for a god.
Gods are not for sale.
I swear I'll never treat god-names
like brand names.

My choice is You, God, first and only.
And now I find I'm Your choice!
You set me up with a house and yard.
And then You made me Your heir!

The wise counsel God gives when I'm awake
is confirmed by my sleeping heart.
Day and night I'll stick with God;
I've gota good thing going and I'm not letting go.

I'm happy from the inside out,
and from the outside in, I'm firmly formed.
You canceled my ticket to hell-
that's not my destination!

Now You've got my feet on the life path,
all radient from the shining of Your face.
Ever since You took my hand,
I'm on the right way.

(King David, CEV)

I'm trying to make a habit of reading to the baby every day, ostensibly for his benefit. In reality, I'm finding it just as much to my benefit to read out loud what was written so many years ago. Once I get over to the unit, I'll add some of the classical authors to my repertoire, but for now I'm sticking with the Bible. Grandma gave me the _Message_ for Christmas (thanks!) and I am loving it. It kind of feels like I'd imagine a people group who has never had the scriptures in their own language feels when they can read and understand for the first time God's words to them. It's not quite the same, since I've grown up with bibles in the english language, but this version really does makes me pay attention to what I'm reading instead of skimming words I've skimmed many times before (always a good thing, hehe).

I can't even begin to point out how many of those verses made me stop and go "hmm." Suffice to say, "I've gota good thing going and I'm not letting go."

too bad you can't put smells on the internet;

so this is eddie, the chocolate lab I had for a week. She smelled.so I bathed her
twice

she did some disgusting things on my floor, more than twice. And she was just a little too hyper for me. Of course I didn't realize this until after I gave her to my buddy across the street. That dog needed a little more than a single wide trailer to get her puppyish enthusiasm out. plus she ate E's flipflop.well, overall she was a good dog and we are sad to see her go, but try to move a cat, a dog, a brand new baby, and me to italy... E wasn't having it, so I guess we'll stick with the cat, who bye the way is having an official name change..... Spaz.he won't notice; he doesn't come when he's called anyway.

alertness in the womb

interesting article, if you are so inclined. (3 pages)

G for Goofy?

finally!

I have a bump big enough to show through clothes, lol. Behold the product of 20 weeks time.

Oh, and here's a link to a really neat view of how a baby develops, and how the mom's guts squish to make room for baby. slide the bar back and forth, it's strangely amusing.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday I had to squish my belly in order to see the scale. I don't know why I bother, I'm pretty sure it's broken, but the fact remains.
Today I found out that babies flying with Airtran must be at least 14 days old. Hmm. I hope that fits in with the other dates we have to abide by...
Tomorrow marks 20 weeks, which makes me half-way there. yay!