Thoughts & Photos

A lot of random thoughts for this post today - things that have happened in the past week and things I'm thinking about.  And photos. 

1. It has been pretty cool here in Denver for the past several days.  Like 40s and 50s with lots of rain over the weekend.  Everybody in Denver seems to be complaining, but I think it is a nice respite from the heat and humidity.  And I've missed rain a lot.  I love rain - always have! It probably rained more this last weekend than I've seen all together since we moved here almost a year ago.  It reminded me of home and I loved it! I just wish that it wasn't also associated with thunder and lightning (Denver is perpetually in a state of thunderstorms during the summer, I've come to gather), because I would have put Johnny in his frog boots and took him puddle jumping.  Just for the fun of it.  I'm hoping it rains again soon so we can.  It is still pretty cool outside, but sunny.  Which is fine with me, because I prefer 60s and 70s to the 80s and high 90s that we get here almost every day.  

2. Friday night after a long day of Johnny being a brat, I was checking something on my laptop when something possessed my child to pick up my glass of water off of the coffee table and pour it all over me and partly on my computer.  This was a full glass of water and it soaked me entirely on my upper half and the fact that it got onto our newer Macbook put me in shock and then got me screaming.  I wiped off as much of it as I could and it didn't look like much actually got on the computer keyboard at all.  It was still working and everything but the mouse was acting a little funny, so we shut it down and spent the weekend drying out the battery and hoping that our monster of a child had not ruined our $1300 laptop.  Johnny was prancing and laughing after he dumped the water on me.  Needless to say, he spent a good chunk of time in timeout.  Luckily, we tried out our computer Sunday night and all is well! 

3. I have been in a scapbooking mood lately, and have gotten lots of pages done.  I realized that I haven't actually done much scrapbooking since the summer Johnny turned one, and he is almost three, so I definitely need to start scrapbooking more often.  I have lots of memories to document and photos to highlight.  I'm rather enjoying myself too!  I do a little bit here and there throughout the day while Johnny plays or naps, but mostly at night after he has gone to sleep.  I need to learn to pace myself though, because last night I stayed up until 3am scrapbooking and now I'm exhausted and have a headache.  I just get into these zones of creativity and I can't quite get myself to stop until I get the page I want.  Johnny enjoyed looking through the older scrapbook pages I've made as well as his baby book that I've actually managed to keep up-to-date with photos, information, and even artwork he has done. 


4.  John has a new job and today is his first day of training!  The job is in the deli at a Whole Foods grocery store.  He still works at the library, but that is only a few hours every week.  He used to have a research job that he did from home online and made his own hours but the company ran out of funding for his particular job in late February.  He's been trying to find another job since then, but it has been hard to find a job in Denver.  Even minimum wage jobs are competitive.  Luckily he was able to get this job though, and he is pretty excited about it.  We really like Whole Foods and shop there for some of our organic and natural food (I shop at seven different stores to get the best price on different organic foods), and apparently employees get a 20% discount on all items, excluding vitamins and gift cards.  John gets a card for it and I get a card for it, which is nice since I am the one who does all of the shopping.  When John worked at Safeway we got a 10% off discount on Safeway brand items, and he only got that after he worked for Safeway for a while, so this is pretty exciting to have this discount right away.  This should help us reduce our grocery costs of organic and natural foods a bit more, which will be a huge help.  Most exciting that he found this job because it is a job he is excited about and we really need the money.  We weren't really planning to have that research job end when it did and we have bills to pay.  This job is somewhat of a relief and has lifted some of the burden off of our shoulders.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful opportunity!

5. The past couple of weeks have seemed to be an explosion of talking for Johnny.  He has known a lot of words and could do simple sentences for a long time now (ie: "dank oo" = thank you, "ay oo" = I love you, "ess you" = Bless you, "peeze" = please, "I cute", etc. etc.), but he has been stubborn and unmotivated to actually use his words as his primary form of communication.  At home he'll talk when he wants to, and he's always very polite when he wants something or hears us sneeze or something.  But when we went out into public he would clam up and wouldn't talk at all.  And at home we couldn't get him to say words on any consistent fashion.  He just didn't care.  I really think he believes he is a dinosaur, because he has been resorting to growls and dinosaur noises.   

But over the past couple of weeks he has been saying all sorts of short sentences and words and talking.  He still only does it when he wants to, but it seems to be a lot more frequently.  I'm really hoping this means that he is starting to move out of his comfort zone with talking and will start using it as his primary communication. :)  A couple of days ago he actually said "dinosaur" and it was the cutest little thing.  He pronounces it "dine -eh- sturr" and we got it on video.  He has the cutest little voice when he says it and he says it in an excited voice every time.  I ask him to say it at least ten times an hour and he always does. :)  He has also progressed from "mama" to "mommy" sometimes and from "nana" to "na-nana" for banana. :)  Plus all the other things he has been saying but it has been hard to keep up with - "Spide-ah-man" was a new one from last night when John was watching the first Spiderman movie.  He also heard me say "Oh man" and "Oh my gosh" recently and he says them all the time now when he is exasperated or frustrated.  Super cute.  I am so proud of our little boy!  I love his little language that he speaks all the time, but it will be nice to understand him too. :)

6.  We have had two playdates since we got home from our trip to Nevada.  One was the morning after we got home at EB Rains park and the other one was Friday at my friend Jenny's house with some of my mom friends and their kids.  It was one of the stormy days, so perfect day for an indoor playdate.  We should have some other playdates going on in the near future, one of which will be going to Rocky Mountain National Park with my friend Jenny and her kids on Friday, I think.  Should be fun! I just wish we lived in a house with a yard instead of an apartment...I mean, we love our apartment and all and we got really lucky with how nice it is, but it would be nice to have a yard for Johnny to play in without having to get all packed up to go to a park.  I could have water toys and other toys for him to play with, and we could have friends over for playdates.  I will probably have them over for playdates at our apartment too, but it isn't as fun for the kids during the summer if there isn't a yard to play in too.  I don't know, I guess I just am tired of living in apartments.  But we're only in this apartment for one more year and then maybe we'll be able to rent a house wherever we move to next.

7. Speaking of where we'll move next...that is just one big headache.  After John is done with his Master's degree here, we'll be moving to wherever I decide to go for mine.  It is sort of a big issue because I want to go to a Jesuit university for grad school, and there are only a few on the west coast, only two in the northwest, and only one of them offers a Master's degree in Theology.  That would be GU where I got my B.A. back home.  I'm definitely applying there for grad school and then I'll probably be applying to another program in Berkeley, CA.  I'm not sure if I'll apply anywhere else.  I kind of want to apply to Georgetown in Washington D.C. because it is such an awesome program, but it is so competitive to get in and I'm not really sure I want to move to D.C. for any amount of time.  I already miss home too much and I don't think I could do east coast.  Although my best friend Katherine lives there.  I do miss her, but I'd much rather visit her than live there.  

I don't know how I'm going to choose between the school in CA and the one in Spokane though...On the one hand, it would be nice to get my M.A. from a new school and I don't think CA would be a bad place to live (it is in the San Francisco Bay area).  Also John would have more career and job opportunities there.  But on the other hand, I love GU and the faculty in the program I'm in, and I know that I would have a good experience there for my degree.  I'm just not sure how well it will look on my resume to say that I went to the same school for both degrees?  And will I get to stay in Spokane to work on a phD from another school, or will I have to move in two years anyway?  Plus all of our family is there and we miss them a lot.  I would love for Johnny to start school in that area and be near family.  It is also WAY cheaper to live in Spokane than in Berkeley: we could rent a 3 or 4 room Victorian house on the South Hill in Spokane for a little more than we pay for a two bedroom apartment in Denver right now, but we would pay almost twice what we pay right now for a two bedroom apartment in CA, and it wouldn't be a great apartment.  Don't even think about renting a house in CA, unless John gets an amazing job.  The only cons for Spokane are my fears about going to the same school for my Master's degree and the fact that John might not be able to find a job there, which means he might have to get a job in Seattle or Portland and live there for most of the week working and then drive back to Spokane on the weekends.  I'm really not into that idea.  I don't think that would be very good for our marriage either or for my stress level - how would I manage Johnny, a household, and working on a grad degree by myself for most of the week?  Maybe John would be able to find a good job, but who knows.  I guess I could consider a non-Jesuit Catholic college and that might broaden it by one or two schools, but I don't really want to do that.  

I'm just really stressing out about the process of applying for these grad schools and I have no idea what I should choose if I get into both?  It is only a year away when we'll be moving, but it is still so far away for everything to be uncertain and confusing.  

8. A lot of big events are coming up for us.  In July, John and I will celebrate our four year wedding anniversary (wow!) and Johnny will also turn three shortly after (I can't believe my baby is going to be three!!!!!!).  John isn't going to be able to get time off to go to WA this summer for a visit, but we're hoping that Johnny and I will get to make it up there.  With John just getting this job, we're hoping that we'll be getting back on track financially, but it is still up in the air whether or not we'll be able to afford for us to go home for a visit.  I hope we can work it out, because we miss our family and friends, but also because the plan was to have a small birthday party here in Denver for the friends Johnny has here, but have his main birthday party in Spokane with all of our family and friends.  It will be dinosaur themed, naturally. :)  We'll see though.  Regardless, we have some major events coming up that we're really excited about! 

9. Johnny has really been into: 
*playing outside
*books (he is really getting into books lately and loves to sit in his room and just flip through books and read them to himself in his own language or have me read them to him)
*cats (he will chase them in any house he sees them in)
*cheese (he used to love cheese but he has refused to eat it for almost the entire time we have lived in Denver, but he woke up about a week ago with a voracious hunger for cheese, and now I have to cut him off)
*The Tigger Movie (he loves this movie!  he requests it by calling it "big pooh!", which I assume is his name for Winnie the Pooh :)...he calls Tigger -his favorite character- "Tic-grrr", which is very cute; he will bounce his way around the house laughing while he watches it)
*dressing up in costumes and wearing them around the house (he only has two that fit him - a lion and a gator; I'm hoping to make him a cape and maybe find some other costumes, like a dinosaur at yard sales this summer?)
*beanie babies (I collected them when I was around age ten or eleven, and I kept them and Johnny loves to play with all the time, especially the Bald Eagle and Frog - the Bald Eagle is a rare one that shares my birthday too!)
*Curious George (he loves his doll that I got him last summer from a yard sale and carries him everywhere, he loves the cartoon, and John's parents gave him John's old Curious George book collections from when he was younger when we visited a week ago, and he loves those too)
*playdoh (I am going to make some homemade playdoh here soon) and coloring
*dancing (especially with mama)
*and giving kisses to mama all the time :)!

10. I have a confession to make: I'm liking Denver more.  Well, not really Denver per se, but Colorado in general.  Don't get me wrong, there are still a million reasons why I don't like this place, but some things are getting a little bit better.  For one, it is warmer here now and greener in some respects, even if for just a little bit.  Secondly, John, Johnny and I have been getting out more and seeing new places - up in the mountains and new parks, etc.  Probably most important in our recent move to liking it a bit more here is that we have made some friends.  I never expected to make great friends here (not because I wasn't willing, just that it is a new place where I figured it would be difficult to make new friends and meet new people, especially since we were only going to be here two years) and now I know that it is going to be hard to move away from them next summer when we move. I truly have made some great friends here and Johnny gets along great with their children, which is really nice for us.  It is nice getting together for playdates and seeing new things and getting out of the apartment.  So, our time here has gotten better and I actually kind of like it, but by no means will it ever be "home".  The northwest will always be my home and where my heart is, and it is just so much more beautiful. :)  

11. I'm hoping to get plenty of time for crafty things this summer.  I'm trying to learn to sew with a sewing machine and have some projects I want to do with that.  I have really been wanting to sketch Johnny for the longest time and I just need to do it.  I sketched John when we were dating and I really want to sketch Johnny, but always put it off.  There are things I want to make for our apartment, including making a headboard for our bed and perhaps building some things.  I also have some canvas that I want to paint on for Johnny's room.

I'm also hoping to hit some yard sales this summer, because you can always find some really great things at them!  I'm hoping to find some costumes, a wood kid table, and maybe some other things for Johnny...a dresser for him would be nice too...a food dehydrator or a pressure canner for reasonable prices would be terrific too...a freezer maybe? (assuming it was affordable and we could fit it in our dining area)...etc.  It will probably just be little things and some clothes that I get this summer, because it is always a surprise what you find and I don't have very much money to spend, but one can dream. :) I love yard sales! :) 

I wish I had some sort of volunteer position I could spend time at.  I've always had some sort of volunteer activity going on, and I don't right now and it makes me feel bored.  The problem is mainly that I'm not part of a school or a parish that I actually like (and we're still struggling with Johnny and going to church), so it is difficult to find volunteer opportunities I'm suited for and I could do with a toddler.  I think that will be something I work on trying to find this summer so I have something to do for our last year here, especially in the fall and winter, when it is too cold to do much outside.  It would be really nice to have a class or something to do too...like a photography class or a Book or knitting club.  I think the library hosts a knitting club weekly and they have some book clubs, so I think I'll be checking those out.  I'll be busy this summer planning Johnny's birthday party too, since I really enjoy exploring a theme and trying to make it creative. :) Dinosaur theme should be fun! 

Oh!  And we have plans for 4th of July this year!  I was really bummed lately about it because it is my favorite holiday and I've always spent it with family or friends back home, but I thought this year it would just be us in our apartment grilling on our panini grill and then going somewhere to watch fireworks.  However, my friend Jenny actually invited us to her house for a BBQ with her family and other friends.  I'm really excited and Jenny is so awesome for hosting this and inviting us!  I think I'll make my flag pie that I made a couple of years ago. :) 

***I guess those are all my random thoughts for now.  I feel like the blog has lately only been a journal of our activities or of Johnny, so I thought I'd add in some of my thoughts for good measure.  I used to do that a lot more on here, so I guess I'll try to take a moment every now and then to share some of them. :)  Now, for some photos from the last week! Some are from playdates and some are just Johnny around the house being silly. :)  And today is my dad's birthday, so sometime in the next couple of hours, there will be a birthday post for him as well. 

EB Rains - Brayden & Lucas

EB Rains - Lauren

EB Rains - Parker

EB Rains - Johnny

EB Rains - Johnny

 EB Rains - Johnny

 EB Rains - Johnny

 EB Rains - Johnny & Brayden

EB Rains - Lauren and Lucas

EB Rains - Lucas carrying Parker around :)

EB Rains - Brayden

EB Rains - Johnny running the scooter track (apparently I used to run in circles in the park over and over again when I was younger too :))

EB Rains - Lauren and Parker

EB Rains - Johnny feeding his new friend, Mia, cheerios!

EB Rains - New playdate cuties: Aden & Mia!

EB Rains - Johnny

EB Rains - Lauren carrying Parker :)

Jenny's House: all the kids eating pizza for lunch

Johnny and his buddy Lucas - and Batman

Johnny loved Lucas' Batman doll

Parker chowing down on pizza :)

Johnny and Brayden playing together

Home: Johnny the lion

Johnny and Teddy cuddling and singing

Johnny is obsessed with his daddy's computer