Get thee away from me, germs

It's been a while since I last posted items from the Williams-Sonoma catalog that I'd like to have ... September 20th, to be exact. The last item on the list that day was the No-touch Soap Dispenser, and it was a real humdinger.

I'd all but forgotten about it (and by "forgotten about it," I mean I'd added it to the list I keep in my planner of things I'd like to have, but had sort of mentally written it off as a luxury I'd never ask for) when the UPS man rang my doorbell on Tuesday.

"What could that be? Everything I ordered for Christmas got here in plenty of time. I'm not expecting anything else."

I noticed that the return address was Brookstone, and even though my name was in the "To" field of the label, I honestly couldn't think of a reason I'd be receiving this package.

I opened it up, and there was a note on the packing slip that identified the sender as my good friend Melanie ... Melanie, at whose home we spent Dec. 19th for her Christmas party, and who'd said that she would give me my gift later.

Aha! LATER HAS ARRIVED!

Inside the box was this beauty:



ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I literally couldn't open the box quickly enough. I grabbed my good-enough-for-yesterday-but-all-of-a-sudden-not-good-enough-for-today Softsoap dispenser from the kitchen sink and immediately started the Great Softsoap Transfer of '09.



I set the soap dispensing level on the back to the lowest setting, and then I sat it on the ledge behind my stainless steel sink. CRASH. Too wide. It fell in. I moved it to the side of the sink.



GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH. This is a game-changer, folks.


(It's battery-operated ... that cord you see back there is to my can opener, which totally wrecked me the other night. Blog post to follow soon ... if you follow me on Twitter, you already have a clue.)

(Also, my hands are of average size. They are not G-I-A-N-T hands, like they appear in these pictures.)

I have no idea how much this thing costs, but it's my goal in 2010 to have one at each sink in the house. I'M IN LOVE.

Born on an ottoman, no crib for a bed

I regularly read a blog titled Little Green Notebook, authored by an interior designer named Jenny.

Along with the rest of her readers, I've been happily anticipating the birth of her third daughter, and as of Christmas week she was a week overdue.

Well, little Evie came into the world on Christmas Eve in quite a dramatic way, and if you're up for reading an amazing story, click on over!

Congratulations to the Little Green Notebook family!

Mistakes I'm afraid I'm making

- Putting too much emphasis on having a clean house instead of allowing the chaos

- Not putting enough emphasis on having a clean house, allowing chaos to reign

- Photographing events at the expense of being able to fully participate in them

- Not taking pictures of the really fun things we do (what if my kids end up with as bad a memory as I have and don't remember things we don't have pictures of?)

- Occasionally bribing my kids with treats or small toys to get them to behave well

-Occasionally skipping events or avoiding destinations because I'm afraid my kids won't behave well

- Not being patient enough with my kids, snapping at them quickly when they don't obey

- Being too permissive with my kids when they don't obey the first time, giving them second chances to do the right thing

Are they really mistakes? I don't know. If I don't pick up all the crap that collects on the floors of my house, we could trip and fall, or Jake could choke on something small. And if I don't ask (nag?) my kids to do it, they'll grow up thinking someone else will always do it for them.

But what about the women in a later stage of life than I'm in who always say, "I wish I'd just let the clutter go and enjoyed my kids more when they were little. Now they're married and off on their own, and I'd do anything to go back and do it differently." I'm PRETTY SURE I won't be one of those women who wishes they'd just left the Matchbox cars and Army men all over the floor, but I suppose you never know.

Are you afraid something you're doing today will be regrettable in hindsight?

My VRD was a success

Do you ever need a vacation after your vacation? I ALWAYS DO.

About six years ago, I implemented a personal vacation system in which I always add a VRD -- Vacation Recovery Day -- on the end of any vacation I take. The VRD is usually the Monday following a long weekend or week on the road, and today was indeed a scheduled VRD.

Typically I use a VRD to do several things: laundry, laundry and laundry. Today, though, I used it to undecorate the Christmas tree and the house, as well as try to catch up on a little scrapbooking. Emphasis on TRY.

My day began with actually being able to fall back asleep after hugging the boys goodbye this morning, which was unexpected and welcome. About an hour later, I was awakened by squirrels in the attic, which we thought we'd banished back in the summer when they chewed through our air conditioning electrical system. THEY'RE BACK. That was not a nice thing to wake up to.

I spent the next couple of hours on the computer. All that Internet surfing and catching up on blogs yielded surprisingly few tangible results. Other people's blogs aren't folding my laundry, fer sure.

Next I got to work taking down my Christmas decorations. I have an easy system for the garland:



I've found that when the next year rolls around, it's easiest to go up in the attic and grab these labeled bags, rip right into them and throw them away. Disposable storage for the garland. Gotta love it.

Next on my list was a more complicated task. I have always been fond of my non-disposable ornament storage boxes. That is, until one year I accidentally separated all the tops from each of the three levels of bottoms that they came with, thinking that because they are all identical, they would be interchangeable. FALSE. FALSEHOOD OF THE HIGHEST MAGNITUDE.

Once separated and put back together in a different order, they ceased to seal correctly. And if one were to lift the boxes above one's head to store them in the attic between Christmases, one would be knocked senseless when the bottom two levels of said boxes came unhinged and crashed down on one's head. (I would like to say that having this happen one time taught me a lesson, but apparently I am a little stubborn and it had to happen more than once. Perhaps three or four times.)

So TODAY -- my glorious Christmas VRD -- was my day to remedy this situation. I spent over an hour trying all of the boxes in various combinations. (Each box has four parts: one lid and three compartments.) I had to find a way to fit All Six Sets (SIX.) together so that they wouldn't fall apart when shaken. I was finally successful.

Then I labeled each top with a letter A through F and each of the corresponding bottoms with 1-2-3, as such:



Now next year when I get them all out, I can spread them out willy-nilly but will always be able to tell what bottoms go with what tops so that I can spare myself any concussions in 2010. At least, that's the goal.



ARE YOU STILL READING? If you are, I'm impressed.

I rewarded myself for this Job Well Done with a couple of hours of scrapbooking before everyone got home.



I had to work all the way back in August, when we spent a weekend in Marietta and Nathaniel lost his first tooth right before school started.


I got caught up to Christmas in Jake's scrapbook and up to September in Nathaniel's. If I just had one more day to work on them, I could get caught up in Nathaniel's and move on to Nick's ...

And guess what. I am so good at anticipating my own needs that I scheduled a SECOND VRD for tomorrow. So I don't go back to work until Wednesday.

That sound you just heard was a very self-satisfied sigh.

It was a very merry weekend around here

I'm trying to get my act together, seriously. Although I've only been away from the blog for a couple of days, it feels like much longer than that. The task that lies ahead of me seems so large (recapping Christmas), and yet I know that not that much is required ... I don't know why it feels overwhelming!

Side note: I am writing this post on my new MacBook. I LOVE it, and it's been fun this weekend discovering all of its Hidden Powers. The hidden powers, they are positively yummy.

OK, I'm diving in.

You know, The Big Deal on Christmas morning was the announcement of our upcoming Disney vacation with my parents and sister. I wanted to capture the "reveal" on video ...



The boys are really excited about it! They've been talking about it almost non-stop, and yesterday we watched the DVD Disney sent that gives you an overview of the parks. The boys got more and more excited every time they saw a neat roller coaster or exhibit. The countdown has begun ... they keep asking if we can go "tomorrow" or "next week" ... they don't want to have to wait a month to go. It really IS going to be so much fun!

After the Disney reveal, we moved on to stockings and opening gifts. The big boys were really taken with their new sleeping bags, which will be wonderfully warm when they go on their next Cub Scout overnight camping trip. They immediately wrapped themselves up in them to test them out:


Nick also got a build-your-own light saber kit that has interchangeable glowy thingies in it so it can glow red, green or blue. They played with it so much in the first 24 hours that the batteries died.



Scout was with us the entire morning, watching us from the comfort of his perch on the couch.


He was interested in the wrapping and tissue paper, but mostly he just likes to be in the room with us now. (He used to be much more independent, when Ellie was alive, but now he's more needy -- which is fine with me.)

Jake loved the Little Einsteins Rocket that we gave him, as well as his Little Einsteins laptop from G-daddy and his Aunt Debbie and Uncle Gerry. He and Mop played with it for a while as the rest of us continued opening our gifts.



Here's my dad ("Pop" to the boys) holding up his iTunes gift cards and snack-size Almond Joys.



Pop gave Mop a beautiful rustic clock, perfect for their mountain house in North Carolina.



After all of the gifts were finally unwrapped (we had an abundance ... way too many considering that Disney was supposed to be our gift!), the boys settled in to play their new soccer game on their PSPs. And I'm glad I took pictures of them on Christmas Eve in their PJs, because they were only in them for about 10 minutes on Christmas morning before they put on their new Bakugan T-shirts (from their stockings) and then transitioned to Obi-Wan and Anakin costumes (from Halloween).



Dad didn't have his laptop with him and I was taking the picture, so we're short two laptops in this picture. I should have propped Jakey up there with his Einsteins laptop to bump up our people-to-laptop ratio!



But we are loving having the new sectional sofa, which gave us lots more room for people to crowd around and watch TV and chat. It's nice to have a seat for everyone in the den!

On Saturday I tried to get some pictures of the boys with my sister ... Jake wasn't really in a photogenic sort of mood. He was on the move constantly!



I ultimately gave up on trying to get a good picture on the front porch, and we moved to the backyard. The big boys got right to work getting sweaty, running around and treating the slide as though it was a mountain to climb.



I adore their new shirts, which I got from 3Ts and me, an etsy shop I love. (She also did their pumpkin shirts around Thanksgiving.)



We snapped a few shots of me and my sister, Sarah Ellen ...



And I finally got one of most of our crew out on the swings, where Jake was moderately happy. (Note to self: Have swingset pressure-washed.)



It was a big, exciting weekend with more material rewards than we could possibly deserve, and more relational blessings than I can count. The saving grace when we said our goodbyes is that we know we're only a month away from seeing everyone again ... next time in Orlando!

ORLANDO HAS NO IDEA WHAT'S COMING.

I haven't died

Just wanted to let you know that I'm still here! I'm working on the Christmas wrap-up but am having a few "technical issues."

Hopefully I'll have it up later today.

Merry Christmas, one and all!

There are many things in our house that signify Christmas Eve, such as stuffing the stockings and making sweet potato casserole for the next day. But NOTHING says Christmas Eve around here quite like Christmas Eve PJs, a tradition started when Nathaniel was a baby.

Every Christmas Eve, the boys get to wear a set of coordinating PJs for the first time. They love them and look forward to being surprised with them every year.

Last night was no exception. When the PJs were brought out, there was much celebration and pushing and shoving to see who could get theirs on first. THAT is the Christmas Spirit at its finest, no?

I snapped a few shots before they unwillingly went off to bed ... they wanted to stay up All Night Long, but those PJs HAVE to be put to good use. IN A BED.

Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope that this morning you reflect on the holiest of the holies ... the one who gave His life for us. As I look at my smiling boys' faces, I cannot imagine any of them going through what Jesus did to save us from our sins. He is indeed the reason for the season.

Love to all!

'And God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.'

I have had one of the modern world's most pressing fears on my mind for several months: I have been operating day by day, minute by minute, under the assumption that eight years' worth of data and photos could be lost forever.

Why have I been experiencing this crippling fear? Because of this:

And this:

Internet, I have been experiencing the Blue Screen(s) of Death (DID YOU KNOW THERE'S MORE THAN ONE?) for months on end. BSODs that appear with no warning, in the middle of checking my e-mail, writing blog posts, uploading pictures, even overnight while I'm slumbering peacefully in bed and not touching a single key on my keyboard.

And then within the past week, I got a NEW BSOD -- well, it's not blue, but it showed up the same way, rudely, with no warning, and shut me the heck down. But at least it did it in a cutesy way:

"Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs." RECOVERING THEM? WHEN DID I LOSE THEM?

It's been a nightmare. There have been several nights when I worked on a blog post only to lose it completely. I migrated from writing them directly in Blogger to writing them in Word, thinking I'd have a better chance of recovering my work if it crashed mid-post. FALSE. All I could think of when I lost a post was, "BUT THOSE THREE PEOPLE ARE COUNTING ON HAVING A POST TO READ WHILE THEY DRINK THEIR COFFEE TOMORROW MORNING." And so I'd start over again. Because I love you three so much.

I've probably never mentioned it before today, but I used to be a Mac girl. I worked on Macs in college and my first personal-use computer was Apple's first color laptop, the PowerBook 180c. It was a beaut. I loved it and ran it into the ground. We were a Mac family until we had to replace one of the last ones we had (a Centris 650, maybe? I'm showing my age.) We went with a PC primarily for financial reasons (HELLO, APPLE. YOU ARE PRICEY.), and although I hated making the transition at the time, I eventually got used to it.

But this month marks a new season of life. This week I got an early Christmas present. It came in an unassuming brown box.



When I opened the box, I saw a handle. A handle! Squee!



The handle was for a cute little cardboard briefcase containing this:

In a beautiful, shiny, silver finish.

And when I booted her up, I saw my old friend The Apple Minus a Bite pop up.

It's been a looooong time, friend. Good to see you again. PARTICULARLY nice to see you when you're dwarfing my old monitor. You go ON with your bad portable self, Apple.

It welcomed me in like 19 languages. This was the tail end of the English "welcome."

The flat keys on the keyboard will take some getting used to, but I think I'm going to love it.

The only thing I'm not crazy about is the way my watchband scrapes the surface of the laptop while I'm typing. So far, no scratches. But if you've been reading this blog for any length of time at all, YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE SCRATCHES WOULD DO TO ME.

Have I mentioned how LARGE the screen is? I'm officially in lurve. My cousin Harry who works at the Apple store urged me to consider a smaller screen if I really needed portability, and that's a great point. I really thought hard about it. BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SCREEN?

Ultimately I decided to go with the 17-inch because portability is really only an issue for me when we travel to the beach or at the holidays. OR TO DISNEY, for example. But it's not like I'm going to be carrying it around every day, so I opted for this model.

I'm so happy I did. Harry came over to get it all set up for me, and he did a great job. (Hi, Harry! Thanks so much, Harry!) He also got roped into a few MarioKart races with these three while he was here:

Long story longer, I think I'm gonna love it. Fa-la-la-la-lahhhh, la la la LAH!

I hate change, except for this one

It's the end of an era, for me ... it's been 18 months or so since I started my blog, and I decided that I needed to make a change to the blog's look and feel that more accurately represents who I am these days.

I still love stripes, and my favorite color is still brown (OF COURSE, NATURALLY, FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN) ... but I started feeling like the old banner had gotten a little "heavy," and I really wanted something a little more streamlined, something fresh as we enjoy the holidays and enter the new year.

I'm a little surprised, though, at how sad I am to say goodbye to the first Grass Stains banner.

It welcomed my very first readers to the site. It told people my first priorities in life, even without words. The stripes made me happy. The pictures of the boys reminded me of my blessings.

But they're getting older, and they've changed a lot in the last 18 months. And while I could have just switched out the old pictures and not made any other changes, I decided to ask Danielle to do a little more than that. I really wanted three columns so I didn't have to scroll halfway to heaven and back to find a category in the right column anymore. I was ready for a new typeface or two, and I also wanted to have more than three pictures showcased at the top.

So this is what the wonderful Design Girl did for me, and I love it. Thanks, Danielle, for the new look of Grass Stains! And thank you all for coming back every day to see what's going on with us. Here's to another 18 months of drivel! (OH, SORRY. I meant, Here's to another 18 months of ENTERTAINING drivel!)

Ruminations, because they make me laugh

Ohhhh, I just can't tell you how much I look forward to visiting Ruminations a couple of times a week. That site just cracks me up. Here are some of my recent favorites, in no particular order:

- In light of recent events, I find myself oddly comforted by the fact that whether or not you get cheated on has absolutely nothing to do with how hot you are.

- Missing a phone call from an unknown number is better than a good murder mystery.

- Ever caught yourself letting your mind wonder in a restaurant? Why is that guy eating by himself? Does he have any friends? Did he kill his friends? Did he kill my server?

- I feel like I'm in a NASCAR pit crew when the boss comes around and I have 3 seconds to look busy. Facebook, closed! ESPN, closed! Excel, maximize! Look like you're reading a work email, check! I'm a terrible employee...

- I'll make microwaveable popcorn right after I buy it but for some reason I usually don’t see it again until I'm foraging through my pantry like a starved rodent when I have no snacks & suddenly it appears like a mirage.

- I can never understand why some bands like to end a song with loud, obnoxious amplifier feedback. It's like being told a story then at the end someone screams into your ears at the top of their lungs for no reason.

- Nothing's worse than suddenly realizing mid-conversation that you've been setup to ask you something you don't want to do & you aren't prepared with an excuse.

- Nothing makes you feel more owned than getting cut off in traffic.

- Writing an ampersand makes me feel like I'm trying to draw a picture with the opposite hand.

- Why aren't dimmer switches standard in home bathrooms? I can't be the only person frying my pupils out in the middle of the night when nature calls.

- If it’s inappropriate to lick the plate at a seven course $200 a person restaurant, then give me more food, Frenchie. I could’ve had Chipotle.

- Frightening though it may be, the raw egg argument is never going to stop me from eating cookie dough.

- Units of volume would be much easier to conceptualize if they were based on the Solo cup.

18-month-old comparison

Nathaniel

Nicholas

Jake

And now, just for fun ...

A beautiful thing

The nonprofit Wreaths Across America organization was established in 1992 when the Worcester Wreath Co. began placing wreaths on the headstones of America’s veterans at Arlington National Cemetery.



By last year, similar ceremonies were taking place in more than 300 locations across the nation, plus two dozen overseas cemeteries. More than 60,000 volunteers participated and more than 100,000 wreaths were placed on veterans’ graves in 2008.

The event is held each year on the second Saturday of December, and I think it's a beautiful way to acknowledge all that our servicemen and women have sacrificed for us, including being away from their families holiday, after holiday, after holiday.

Thank you to my friend Dwight, our friend Jenny's husband Jeff, my dad, and all of my dad's "EMS Boys," to all who have served our country and come home, and to all who served and never made it back. It is an honor and a privilege to know you all.

Merry Christmas and may God bless you richly in the new year!