Girls' Night Out

A much needed girls' night out, I might add.


I went out Thursday night with my good girlfriends from college, Miranda, Kiesha, and Annie. Annie's birthday was Friday, so we celebrated by treating her to dinner and drinks at Eclipse Di Luna and then to see Wicked at the Fox.



We ran late getting to the theater, so Miranda and I let Kiesha and Annie out on Peachtree and went and parked the car. We didn't want Annie to miss any of the show, it being her birthday treat. If you get there after the show starts, they make you wait ten minutes before you can enter. So, we parked the car, oh, about 5 blocks away. Not too bad.



Unless you had just worked out the day before for the first time in about 2 years and were incredibly, incredibly sore and you had to run - literally run the 5 blocks to the Fox in high heels. And then once you finally make it to the Fox and go in you realize that you are sitting in the very last row. THE VERY LAST ROW. You wouldn't mind that you were in the very last row, unless it meant that you had to climb, say, about 6 flights of stairs and then once actually entering the theater climb a couple more unusually steep and shallow flights of stairs before arriving at your seat.



Yeah, that would have made it bad.



Needless to say, I was worthless all day yesterday. I felt like an 80 year old woman. I hobbled everywhere I went. Every time I sat down I had to bend at the knees and slowly lower myself before falling to the seat. It's not all from the exercise soreness, though. My knees are pretty much shot. Someone said that breastfeeding does that to you - makes you ache all over. Which I do, but my knees are by far the worst. Sitting in that tight space at the Fox that night, not being able to straighten my legs for 2 hours (I was able to get up and hobble around at intermission), did not help their condition in the slightest.



So, I guess the point is, I got to go out and have a nice, enjoyable evening with my girlfriends, but I couldn't escape the fact that I am now a mom and a woman pushing 30 who needs to exercise more.

No Words Needed

Daytona Beach or Bust

Jeff (my other brother) has officially moved to Daytona Beach, Florida. He has been talking about making the move for a while now, and this weekend marks the first days of Florida residency for him. He packed up his couch, a few clothes, some food, his guitars and his dog and took off yesterday morning. Greg drove him down while I sat in his front yard and sold the rest of his belongings in a yard sale.

Why? You ask. Well, to make a long story short, he was growing more and more unhappy here in Douglasville. He was unmotivated and feeling "stuck," which is understandable considering we were born and raised here, and his only time out of this town was the one year he was in Statesboro at Georgia Southern. So, he decided that the beach is where he wants to try a fresh start. He wants to attend Embry Riddle starting next Spring or possibly Fall. Jeff is an incredibly smart guy and has become increasingly interested in science and physics, so this should be right up his alley.

I wish him all the best, I hope he finds what he is looking for, and I hope he has room in his floor, because he has just made Daytona Beach the vacation spot for us.

Little Greggie

This post is for my brother, Greg. It's not going to be long, and most of you won't understand what it's about, but that's okay. I don't even really know why I'm posting anything here. It's not like I can't tell him how I feel, because I can and I do. But I just felt compelled to say something here about how much I love him and hate what he is going through.

I can't tell you how many times Mama has said, "Greg has a heart of gold."

He does.

He is very opinionated and in most cases very abrasive and harsh with his words (what he calls "passionate" comes across as him being a jerk). He is, unfortunatley, a pessimist and a very cynical person.

BUT - he will do anyhing for the people that he cares about.

This is such a tiny little example, but he was over at our house tonight. I was sitting down to eat my pizza and realized that Josh brought me a Diet Coke from the basement refrigerator instead of the Classic Coca-Cola that I wanted. I expressed my disappointment and asked if he would get me one since I didn't have shoes on and didn't want to go into the basement with bare feet. He said, halfway jokingly, "No, get Greg to go get you one." He totally did not really mean for Greg to go get me a Coke, but Greg was already up and on his way to the basement door as soon as that comment came out of Josh's mouth. Greg didn't even think twice about it. He wasn't even eating pizza with us. He was just over, hanging out, talking with us.

I know that is such a minor little thing that he did for me, but that's just the way he is. He will do anything for you.

And to see him going through such a hard, hard time in his life is painful to me. I wish I could snap my fingers and make everything okay for him. Everything will be okay, but it's going to take a while for it to get there.

I love you, Greg, and I can't wait for the day that you are truly happy again.

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away!

It started raining last night and has not stopped this morning. The weather has been so nice over the last few weeks; we have been loving it! Not only because it it feels so wonderful, but because it is a heck of a break on our power and gas bills! A much needed break, let me tell you.

Anyway, so we have been keeping the windows open all day and at night, too. Bennett woke up this morning about 6am wanting his morning nursing. After this, he usually will go back to sleep for an hour and a half or two hours (which means I get to snooze a little longer, too.) This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock - it was 9:49am! Bennett was still sleeping! It wasn't until after I got up, got dressed and got my teeth brushed and face washed that he started stirring. Thank you, rain! Bennett is going to be like his Mama and Grandma and LOVE the rain.

Also due to the rain is the way his hair looks today. Moisture equals curly hair - also just like his Mama.

"Alright, leaf. I know you're going to taste bad, and you're probably going to make me choke, meaning Mama is going to rush over here and turn me upside down and stick her finger in my mouth and fish you out, making me cry and scream and wish I hadn't done that. But, here we go!"

The Money Pit

As I promised, here are some pictures of what I like to call "The Money Pit." For any of you who haven't seen that movie, it's worth a watch. Early Tom Hanks hilarity.




In case you don't know, Josh and I purchased a house up the street from us back in September of last year. It is literally up the street from us; 5 houses up, to be exact. We enjoyed renovating our own house and have always talked about doing another one, so when this opportunity arose, we took it. We got it for a really good price. We knew it was in pretty bad condition, but we didn't know how bad it actually was. See for yourself:



This is the dining room. You can see how dirty the walls were and where this man had tons of crap hanging on them. Josh pulled 38 hooks out of the ceiling of another room. There were 4 or 5 layers of glass shelves in the hallway with stuff on them. This man was a collecter of EVERYTHING. Apparently you could hardly walk through the house, he had so much stuff.



Okay, what's up with these weird shower stall/closet combos? We had one of these in our house. Where our washer and dryer are now, it used to be one of these weird things. I don't get it. Anyway, this was in their master bedroom. It's no longer there, needless to say.


You can kind of see the toilet in this *disgusting* teeny tiny bathroom in the previous picture. We didn't even know this was there when we bought the house, because when we went through the house, this, along with two other rooms were completely blocked by CRAP. He couldn't even open the door to show us the rooms because they were either so full of stuff or they were blocked by stuff. Crazy. That should have been a sign.



This is one of the rooms that was so full that he couldn't open the door.



And this was the other. These people were living in this house. Can you believe that? The freakin' roof was caving in! To top it all off, this man is a retired roofer. Seriously, fix that #%@*.

So, this is what Josh and Steve have been doing for the last year. This is what is going to be on the tour of homes in about 3 months. Wish us luck! Like I said before, we are almost ready for the sheet rock, so all that nastiness is gone. They pretty much just took the back of the house off and built it back. There was so much termite and water damage that it couldn't be salvaged. So, that's why it's our money pit. We have had to spend so much more than we expected. But I still don't think we regret it. This street is so terrific, and it is a good house - at least it will be when we're done with it. We're excited about it.

General Update

I haven't taken the time to give a general update on our family in a while, so here we go.

First things first, of course. Bennett is as wonderful as ever. I take that back. He is more wonderful than ever. He is the happiest baby ever; we are so lucky! He really is just so laid back and content - all the time (I promise it's true, Lauren! :) I hate that one of your only extended experiences with him was that awful episode at the beach. That was abnormal, for sure). He is now crawling around at lightning speed, but he only crawls as far as he needs to in order to pull up on something. All he wants to do is stand. He can let go for just a second before either falling or grabbing back onto the table, couch, your leg, whatever it was that he pulled up on. We have been helping him practice walking, and he can take a couple steps if he can stay still long enough to catch his balance. He just gets so excited that he winds up leaning forward and falling into your arms. He loves this game.




We're trying more and more finger foods, but he's not very open to most of them. He'll eat Cheerios and wheat bread all day long if you'll let him, but he doesn't care much about the diced carrots, pears, peaches, etc. He enjoys broccoli florets, but I have to put them in his mouth. Why is it that he'll pick up anything - ANYTHING - off the floor and stick it straight into his mouth (leaves, paper, lint), but he won't put a carrot or a pear in there? Maybe I should start putting it on the floor. There's an idea! He will eat the occasional piece of cheddar cheese, so we're getting there. He just still prefers to be spoon fed. I guess that's okay for now. I do take that opportunity to mix some super healthy stuff into his food like kale, spinach, and flax seeds, so I won't complain too much.



Josh is doing well. He is enjoying his job most days, but he still has his stressful moments. It's pretty hard for him to relax, since when he's not working for Hilti he's up at the green house (which thankfully, won't be green much longer) working. We are down to the bare bones of the house now and need to get our electrical, plumbing, and framing inspections done so we can start insulating and putting up sheet rock. Then we'll put in all the bathroom fixtures, tile the showers, install the kitchen cabinets and countertops, sand and refinish the floors, do the trim work, and paint. We do have a deadline, now, so that's good. We work better with a deadline. The house is going to be on the Douglasville Historic District Christmas Tour of Homes, which is the first Saturday in December. So we have to have it finished by then. It won't be furnished, of course, because we're planning on renting it, but we're planning to decorate the mantles and put a decorated table in the middle of each room that will have framed photos of our progress in that room. I'll post some before and after photos of our progress so far in a separate post.

As far as me, I'm pretty good too. Life is good. My only complaint right now is that I ache, ache, ache. My entire body HURTS. I know I need to exercise and that would help, but I just don't right now. I plan to start soon (I know you've heard that before). When I wake up in the morning it's physically hard for me to get out of bed. My back, neck, shoulders, and knees all ache so badly. I stretch a little, and after a while it gets better (all but my knees), but then around 8pm I start feeling it again, big time. This has become the accepted routine. I have heard that after you stop breastfeeding, this will stop. Let's hope there is some truth to that!

Which brings up another thing I've been thinking about lately.

But let me first say that, yes, I do have the occasional drink and I'm still breastfeeding. This picture is from my class reunion in August, so I had more than a couple that night, but that is not the norm. I am definitely careful about it, and I happen to believe that a little bit won't hurt him. Okay, now that that's been said, I continue:

I'm beginning to stress out about weaning Bennett from the breast. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do it. I've already started trying to give him a sippy cup of breast milk at his lunch time feeding rather than nursing him, but he's not digging it. I mean, he'll take the cup and drink the milk, but he still wants to be nursed, too. Most days I'm able to distract him with a video or something until it's time for his nap, at which time he gets nursed again, so I guess we're doing okay. I just worry that I'm always going to have a little boy lying across my lap nursing. I don't want to be that woman who is still nursing her 8 year old! I'm sure this is a fear of all (or at least most) nursing moms, so I guess I shouldn't get too worked up. But I have heard horror stories of children not accepting the cow's milk once they turn 1 and the mom has to keep pumping her milk. I don't want to do that! I want to be done with it soon, and done with this bodily pain! Boy, has this whole process been a ride. A great ride overall, but a ride, none the less.

Anyway, as a whole, the Gibson crew is great. I hope everyone else is doing as well as we are!