The words I use...

Sarah sent me a cool link... this online program called "Wordle" actually generates a map of all the words you use on your site in their relative weightings... larger words appear more, smaller words appear less. Pretty cool.

Glad to see Ethan and Sarah are two of the biggest words on there... although I AM surprised I don't see BEER anywhere! :-)



(click for a larger version)

Ma and Pa Re

Mom and Dad are coming tomorrow! We can't wait! It's been 3-4 months since we've seen them, and this visit will be a little longer AND over a weekend, so I'll actually get to spend more time with them than just the evenings! Last time they came it rained almost the whole time as well, so hopefully we'll be able to do some things outside this time!

In other news...

I rescued a little white dog yesterday... she was very cute, and very friendly, but had no leash and no dog tag. Nada. We live one house in from a busy street, and this doggie wouldn't have had a chance if she decided to take a stroll a bit past our yard...

So I scooped her up and Ethan and I trekked off down the street looking for the owner. Asked about a half-dozen people and nobody knew who she belonged to. Great.
So I headed home, put the doggie in the backyard and went inside to tell Sarah. After an attempt to get her to drink something (she didn't), we all set off down the street again, this time with the doggie on a leash. I was not about to give her another 30-minute-long "free ride". Luckily the first person we asked on the street saw the dog and said "Oh, yeah... she's mine..." Nice. Glad you were so concerned.

Time to blog again

Things have died down at work recently, as we're in between projects, so I decided it would be a good time to blog while having lunch. I am quite the multi-tasker.

Ethan scares me.

Seriously.

I think his brain might explode if he continues learning at this pace.

You may laugh, but it really does concern me that he's getting so intelligent -- it's going to be difficult for his teachers (once he starts going to school) to challenge him since he's already doing things that 4 and 5 year-olds are learning. His most recent accomplishment is that he pretty much can write ALL of his letters by himself, and now he's starting to write words. I've even seen him sound out words that peopls asked him to write and then come up with the letters that matched the sounds and then write them down. Are you kidding me?

He learns SO quickly -- in most cases, we give him something and after 3 or 4 tries, he pretty much has it down. I was planning on surprising "Pop" the other day by getting E to learn how to sing "Take me out to the ballgame". I figured I'd give him a week or so.

He learned it in ONE night.

So Mom and Dad are coming in a week! WE are super excited here, and are already thinking of ways we can spend the time together! This time we're not doing anything special at church, and they're able to come over a weekend instead of during the week, so I'll have much more time to spend with them... which is way cooler! I'm glad that Ethan will be able to spend more time with them, and even though our webcam sessions are great, a camera can't give a HUG!

Still struggling through finances. I put this out there not as a request for help but more of a way to honestly document my feelings and not hide from it. Sarah and I really don't spend money on frivolous things or things for ourselves -- it's more about spending money on "life" things... bills, house, etc... and there isn't ANYTHING left over at the end. We've tried everything short of something MAJOR like selling a car or something... but even selling the Van would put us in a hole cause we owe about $8K more on it than it's worth... if not more. We can't refinance to take advantage of low interest rates cause we don't have enough built up in equity to qualify. Even the extra money I'm making from web design clients and hosting ends up being spent on groceries and things.

I struggle with the idea of taking a second job cause I know it will really run me down, and I don't want to spend even more time away from the family, but it's getting to that point where I might just need to do it for a while to help dig us out and build our reserves back up again. Sarah is also looking into opps for employment, but having Ethan at home, needing to find and pay for childcare, and really needing weekends off for church really digs into most of the employment options (read: "retail") that would really fit our schedule. She's looking into AVON at this point and we may go that route... it seems like it might be a better alternative than PartyLite considering our home situation and schedule. Please say a prayer for us as we continue working through it all.

Ok - work calls. Thank goodness for Fridays and early dismissal at 3pm!