Bathroom Talk

Charlie just came out of the bathroom announcing, "Download complete."

Apparently, it's toilet humor day. We have a new dual-flush toilet with two buttons. they symbols are one water drop for a lower-volume flush and two buttons for the higher-volume flush.

Melody just ran out of the bathroom, looking worried. "Mom, I just pushed the one-drop button for a two-drop load."

"Did everything go down?"

She nodded.

"Then don't worry about it."

Sigh of relief. Back to her Legos.

Charlie Theology

Charlie is on a mission to get baptized, "Before I turn to the evil side."

Because, as you well know, this is inevitable. One of the trickier parts of being a seven year old boy, really, that impending slide towards darkness.

There is one problem, though. "I am just a little guy and the baptizin' water is deep and I would drown before I got finished."

His solution? To drink 2 nutrition/protein shakes a day so he can grow quickly, before it is too late.

***

So today, in the McDonald's drive-thru, Charlie is offended by the offering of Spiderman toys for boys and instead opts for the Paul Frank designed little journal that is pink and purple and decorated with a sock monkey.

Charlie had decided earlier in the day that he needs a scrapbook for the pictures he draws of pigs and had made a rough attempt at stapling some pages together after school. The timing of receiving this treasure could not have been more perfect. After much analysis of Paul Frank's inexplicable penchant for sock monkey art, that he did indeed got paid for making it and that his name emblazoned upon it is a sign of designership and not ownership, Charlie determines that the notebook will work for his scrapbook and declares that he will write in it in pen so that it can last forever and be an ancient treasure.

"Yes, Charlie," I agree. "It will be an ancient treasure someday."

"Someday? What day?"

"Some day in the future, a thousand years from now, it will be an ancient treasure. But it has to be 'ancient' before it can be an 'ancient treasure'."

"So, what day will that be?" he demands.

"Um, March 9th, 2114."

Don't mock my math here. I'm driving and tired.

"Twenty-ONE fourteen? Shouldn't that be, errr, twenty-fourteen?"

"Yeah, but it will be a thousand years in the future. March 9, 2014 has already happened." I realize my error. "Wait, make that 3014. There was a place value error there."

Charlie starts to talk about what a cherished document his ancient treasure will be and his voice begins to break with sadness. "Even the sock monkey is sad about this."

None of us can figure out why Charlie is sad, until Dixie finally touches upon the idea that Charlie will not be able to take it to heaven with him ("There is not enough overlap," he explains) and this makes him sad.

Dixie offers, "If you die before me, I'll make sure to put it in the box with your body."

Charlie declares to me, "I'm probably going to die not long after you die, because there will be no one to remind me to go to the store for food and so I probably won't live very long after you."

After a few minutes spent vowing to make sure that all the people who know Charlie know that this sacred and future ancient document need to go to heaven with him, he realizes that his body doesn't go to heaven just his soul.

He makes us promise to tape it to his soul when he dies.

Melody starts to comment that this could take a lot of tape and perhaps also get messy, so I shoot her the look of death.

"We are taping it to his soul when he dies," I insist. "Don't give him any more ideas. Just tape."

Proposal Story

I was asked yesterday how he proposed an realized I'd never put the story here:

I came home from work with a horrible sinus headache and fell asleep on the couch. He came over after work and looked disappointed that we weren't going out. I took a second dose of meds and told him to give me an hour. I napped it off and got ready.

We shared a meal at Red Lobster. Then, we went to a tiny Austin coffee shop so far off the beaten path that you have to drive down the railroad tracks to get there. There is no street. We got drinks and sat on the floor because the 20 seats in the place were all full. There was an 8-piece musical group playing and they took up about 20% of the seating area. The eclectic music featured both a trombone and a theremin. 

Then we walked down the train tracks to the historical outdoor plaza that is beautifully restored. Fountains and vines on archways and a gazebos. I sang a couple of arias and we danced to the music in our heads. I sang a couple of John Denver songs. But it was cold--November--and I needed to go back in. 

We were on our way back and I got to the line "I'll love you more than anybody can" and he dropped on one knee. "Gretchen, I love you more than anybody in the world. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?"

I jumped and squealed and clapped and said YES!! and he said, "Okay, wait right here!"

I stood there, awkwardly, while he ran back to the car to get the ring (which was in with the gun) and ran back, dropped to his knee and said the same word again. "Gretchen, I love you more than anybody in the world. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?"

My answer had not changed, so he put the 1920s white gold and diamond ring on my finger and I kissed him a lot! We walked back and announced to the crowd that we were engaged. 

Left and went to HEB to buy a bottle of wine. He grabbed a small bouquet of sad carnations from the black bucket by the checkout stand. Checked out two minutes before alcohol sales were done for the night. Went back to my apartment and called our parents. Fell back asleep on the couch after a third dose of sinus meds. 

Next project!

So, this is an awkward space in my living  room. 

Made all the more awkward because the heater does not work. 

I got these chairs at a garage sale for $10 each. 

And it has worked for us. When I have a friend over for coffee, that is often where we end up. 

But now, it is time for the heater to go. We will expand the hole and build in a bookshelf. 

More pics to come. 

Christmas Eve

Ten years ago tonight I was nine months pregnant. I was sore and miserable, waddling and tired. It was my first Christmas to not be at my parents' house and the house seemed so empty with only Dowlan and I (and my belly). 

It was the only year of all twelve I attended my church in Austin that I was there for candlelight service. As I stood there, holding my candle and trying to get enough air into my body to sing, I had a thought: at least I don't have to go anywhere on a donkey.

Ever ridden a donkey? It's almost exactly nothing like riding a horse. Their backs aren't wide and flat--they poke up in the middle like the roof of a house with a bony ridge that is unforgiving on your nethers with every jostle. As they gift their weight with every step, you get shifted too. 

At nine months pregnant, my nethers and I could barely handle a car ride across town. I can only imagine what it would have been like to go with no road, no gps, no tilting seat, no hotel reserved, no Sonic drink and no idea why God chose your unmarried teenaged self to give birth to the savior of the world. 

Tonight I sang at the front of a different church in a different city. It's been seven years since I was last nine months pregnant. My husband and friend dealt with overstimulated boy, hardcore cool girl and grumpy girl from the pews while I tried to not cough into the microphone. As we sang the words, "Baby Jesus, don't cry," I heard all the sweet babies in the audience crying and their mamas shushing and calming them. 

I wanted to reassure them that baby Jesus made a whole heap of racket in that stinky, drafty barn and that their baby was just fine. Just like I wanted someone to reassure me that my baby boy was just fine as he shouted out his own (unique) answers in the children's sermon and then, with gusto, circumnavigated the children singing their songs. 

I'm pretty sure that if anyone at our church has ever wondered, "Hm, now I wonder why Gretchen looks tired all the time?" that they now have their answer. Because the truth is that I am exhausted. Preparing for Christmas and surgery and travel in the same week is whelming and, on top of that, we stepped up the gift schedule by a day and I simply was not finished with the quilt I was making Dixie. After staying up quite late last night finishing and late tonight Santa-ing, I still have to pack my self for the hospital and my children for trips to see all the grandmas this week. And I am tired and sore and exhausted. 

But. 

No donkey. I don't have to go anywhere on a donkey. 

And, suddenly, the glass is more than half full. 

It's a disease, I tell you

So we got all my sewing stuff out of the playroom and this meant that the playroom had to be organized. 

This is the corner where all my sewing stuff was. All those white cabinets were along this wall:

Dixie is glad to have a gymnastics space. 

And I'm glad to have it all clean. Anyone who has seen this room before is in awe. Not done, yet.  Really looking forward to finishing off all this:

I didn't know that was a part

"You elbowed me in the PopTart."

~Melody Anne

Shrine to Temple

After another day's work;

That's the storage side. The missing drawer is having it's face re-glued. 

Here are my cutting and sewing tables. They're different heights for comfort. 

Look! See that window?

Here's what I have left to put away. Not bad, considering. 

I have also learned that Buddy Temple and I attended the same college, The University of Texas. He and his wife, a former educator and Member of the UT Board of Regents, currently reside in Lufkin, TX. He lost the May primary to Mark White, who went on to unseat incumbent Bill Clements. Buddy got 402,693 (30.54%) of the primary vote and declined a runoff primary. This was the end of his political career. 

Mark White, incidentally, was a one-termer who was not reelected due to overly conservative policies, a weak economy and poor connection with minority voters. My brother remembers him only as the 'stupid governor who banned recess' thereby making elementary school a miserable six years, two years longer than White held his gubernatorial throne. White also publicly opposed Texas A&M leaving the Big XII for the SEC, a move I refer to as 'taking our toys and leaving the playground and ruining Thanksgiving for all of The Great State of Texas for years to come.'

And a happy Thanksgiving Day to you all, even though we didn't get to beat the Aggies. 

Barn renovations

Our 82 year old farmhouse has a 30+ year old 25x20 barn in the back. It's divided into a front work section and a back storage section.  We don't know exactly what year it was built, but I do know that Buddy Temple lost his bid for Texas governor in 1982.  

This is pertinent, as his campaign signs were used as drywall. 

Is what the back section looked like last summer. 

It contains things that either don't fit in our house or don't fit us anymore. 

Or things we simply did not care enough to deal with. 

At the moment, it now looks like this:

Big brother, daddy and all. 

By the end of the weekend, it should have a window there and a real door here. 

Because we will be throwing in shelving, work tables, an A/C unit and all my sewing and craft things. 

Woo hoo!

Before pics

I'm already about 20 lbs down, but I don't really have any pics I can dig up, so here are my before pics. 

We don't really have a big mirror in our house, I figured I'd take advantage of the motel bathroom mirror while Dowlan grabs the cart. 

We are at WhoFest and our geeky selves are in heaven. 

But I digress. According to the doctor's scale, this is me at 253 lbs. My Wii Fit Balance Board, the only scale in my house currently working, says I am 261. 

Surgery got pushed back until right after Christmas. I'm relieved--it's going to take fewer sick days and make for better holidays this way