I have lots of stuff floating around in my head, so I’m just sticking with a brain dump post for today!  Sleeping, potty training, and Christmas gifts have all been big thoughts in my head over the last couple of days.

• Ambien = miracle drug.  Seriously!  I have been having so much trouble sleeping.  Even if I fall asleep easily, the slightest thing wakes me up and then I can’t get back to sleep.  I’ve been a walking zombie lately because I’m getting maybe 5-6 hours a night, but it’s not uninterrupted.  So my absolutely wonderful ob/gyn gave me a prescription to help me sleep and I got 8+ hours last night…in a row!  I feel like a new woman.
• My toddler is wearing Elmo underwear with a diaper over it.  He insisted on underwear this morning and has even tried to use the potty a couple of times.  No luck there, but the one accident he did have made him very unhappy.  I had to run out for a little while and he refused to change into a diaper, so I improvised by putting it on over his underwear.  So far, so good!  I’m going to buy him some more underwear and possibly some plastic pants tonight.  And I have a feeling there will be some more underwear in his stocking come Christmas morning…it would be fabulous to have him potty trained before January 20!
• Speaking of Christmas, it’s going to be necessarily slim this year, but we bought the first Christmas gift yesterday.  My youngest son is getting a Cabbage Patch Kid newborn.  He has been stealing his big brother’s baby for weeks now and nursing it and playing with it, so I thought I’d get him his own.  Like him, it is a little boy with blond hair and it has a brightly colored outfit rather than something pastel or girly.  I was thrilled to find it at Walmart yesterday and even more thrilled with the price…only $16.88!  That will serve as his big present and the rest will be smaller stuff…a new toothbrush, underwear, and maybe a DVD or 2 featuring his favorite character, Mickey Mouse.
• My oldest is harder.  It’s getting difficult to find gifts under $20 for him.  I am leaning toward a used Wii game if I can find something at GameStop he’d like.  Otherwise his list looks a lot like his little brother’s…toothbrush, underwear, and maybe the Wall-E DVD.  They’ll both get gifts from other family members, so I feel like this is a good (albeit shorter than in years past!) list.
• As for me, I want a million things as usual and likely won’t get any of them.  I tend to have expensive desires!  Since we’re not giving many gifts this year, I’m not expecting much, if anything.  (Let this serve as a warning…if you’re not my kids or a husband, you won’t be getting anything from me this year.  I’m sorry!  Even the husband is a toss-up.)  Honestly, the best gift will be here in January.  I really couldn’t ask for more than that…

Yes, my absences are more and more frequent these days.  October has always been a crazy month at my house.  We have 3 birthdays, the fall weather often lures us to outside activities, and it seems to be the last month before the holidays really kick into high gear so we always over-schedule ourselves in an effort to avoid the November and December craziness.  Add to that a pregnancy that has been “unpredictable,”  a bad cold, my husband being out of the house a lot more than he was over the last several months, and you get a mama who has spread herself WAY too thin.

The computer has been just about the last thing on my mind most days.  I’ve been falling asleep the minute I sit down so I’ve tried to avoid sitting in the hopes I’d actually manage to stay awake for the important stuff that *must* be done.  It took me 3 tries to get through the RedBox movie we rented the other night…not because it was bad, but because I couldn’t keep my eyes open!  FWIW, we loved the concept and rented another one today with a promo code.  With any luck I’ll manage to get through it tonight so we don’t have to pay for it.

So as my absences have become longer and more frequent, I’m hoping that is coming to an end soon.  November is almost here and it does seem like this little girl is going to stay put at least for a couple more months, even if she (or rather, my uterus) continues to act like she won’t.  I still haven’t fallen in love with the laptop, but am determined to give it another chance for this very reason…I figure if I can get used to using it in bed or in the living room, I’m more likely to spend some time on the computer every night.  If I can just stay awake long enough to have a coherent thought, that is!

A friend emailed this one to me but I thought it would be more interesting on my blog.

Look around, grab the closest book, and open to a random page.  Pick a sentence and share it.

Since I have 3 books sitting on my desk, I’m going to share a line from all 3.

1.  The Bible. My new Bible is a devotional Bible for women.  I’m trying to read a little every day, so it’s never far away.  (If you’re curious, it’s the NLT “sanctuary” version.  Available at Amazon, just click the picture.)  I didn’t really pick a random page because I keep my book mark in one place.  This is the verse I try to live by:

“Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.” (Corinthians I 13:13)

I think that applies to everything in life, not just personal relationships.  I also like that it focuses on hope.  I like hope!

2.  The HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible. A different kind of Bible, I guess!  I use this one quite a bit when working on websites.  It’s indispensable!  Not very interesting, though…

“You have at your disposal a handful of pseudo-classes to match attributes of elements in your document.”  (Page 370)

Frankly I have not the first clue what that means.  Something to do with CSS.  I’m sure it’s very useful for the more advanced users, but it’s not something I’ve ever bothered with.  Moving on…

3.  The PhotoShop Elements 5 Book for Digital Photographers. Another boring one, but very useful.  I am embarrassed to admit this, but it fell open to a page that I’ll swear up and down I’ve NEVER used on a photo of me.  AHEM…on to the quote.

“This is an incredibly popular technique because it consistently works so well, and because just about everyone would like to look about 10 to 15 pounds thinner.” (Page 261)

Make me 50 pounds thinner and I might be happy.  But seriously, useful stuff so that you don’t want to puke when you look at a picture of yourself!  (Not that I’ve ever used it, of course!)

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So there you have it.  Random (or not so?) quotes from the 3 books closest to me.  What book is sitting on your desk?  What does it have to say?  If you do this one, leave me a comment and let me know.  It’s kind of an interesting peek at people’s interests!  Now if I’d been laying on the bed, you’d have a completely different list because that’s where I keep my fiction.  Maybe I’ll do that one tomorrow!

I had a class in Pittsboro this afternoon and was gone most of the afternoon.  Thank God for small favors, because my husband found a snake in the house while I was gone.  I am absolutely terrified of snakes, venomous or not.  I know they do good things, but I really can NOT get past the fact that they are *snakes.*  It’s one of my many, many irrational hangups.  Just call me Indiana Jones, I guess!  Except perhaps without all of the adventure and coolness…

So when I got home and my husband told me there was one INSIDE OUR HOUSE (why yes, I AM shouting!) I was completely freaked.  And then I was eternally grateful when he told me it was currently dead and outside.  He said he walked through the living room and it was relaxing on our hardwood floor.  Just laying there, like it owned the place!  He told the kids not to come out of their room under any circumstances and chased it outside where he killed it.  Yes, I know it was one of God’s creatures.  The moment it entered my house that ceased to matter.

I am relatively sure it was a very harmless garter snake.  I found this handy dandy tool to identify NC snakes and provided the info and that was one of the options.  One of the pictures looked very similar to our visitor so I’m hopeful.  But I’m sharing the picture here to get other opinions.  So if you’re a snake-o-phobe like me (I’m sorry, I know there is a real word but I have a toddler in my lap and can’t look it up) don’t scroll down any farther.

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OK…here it is!

I have finally gotten my hands on a laptop (thanks to my brother…it’s really for the business, but I had to get it connected and set up!) and I’m laying in my bed, watching the DVRed episode of Pushing Daisies that I taped while I was visiting my mom last week.  (What is up with Chuck’s “silky intimates?”  Who wears stuff like that on a normal basis?)

This is not quite as comfy as I expected it to be…the computer is sitting on my belly, resting on my knees and Violet apparently doesn’t like it.  Laptop users, if you use it in bed, how do you get comfortable???  I can’t lay on my belly right now, though I think that must be the key.  Maybe I need a little folding lap desk or something?  I was so excited about this and it’s just not what I expected it to be.  I hope it’s just due to my belly making positioning difficult!

I spent several days at my mom’s and missed a lot of stuff in Sanford, including the logo unveiling.  I’m sad about that, but have peeked at it online and think it looks great!  I can’t wait to catch up on the newspapers tomorrow.  While there, my mom had my husband do some work for her which she paid him for, as well as giving us money & some other things we needed (like shoes for me!) for our birthdays.  It was a great visit…we had a small family party for my oldest son’s birthday and she bought some clothes for Violet.  We had a lot of fun shopping for baby girl clothes together!  My brother also loaned us this laptop until we’re on our feet enough to buy our own.  It’s not the newest or fanciest thing out there but it should do what we need it to do.  I feel so blessed to have family who are willing and able to help us in these small but important ways right now!