It's 3:15am and I can't sleep. I'm visiting my parents and heading home tomorrow. I fell asleep for probably 1-2 hours and haven't been able to fall back to sleep for the last 2. Blah. So, I did a little shopping online and now I decided to blog about nothing because I really don't have anything important to say.

2 things:

1. If everything goes as planned, we should be closing on our houses tomorrow, which frees us up to move on THURSDAY!!! Yippee! Pray that the $$$ comes through from the lady buying our house since we can't buy ours without her money.

2. My son is genius. At a ripe age of 21 months he's a puzzle whizz. He can not only do the little puzzles that have a specific hole for each piece, he can do a map of the United States. It's a wooden one, but each state doesn't have it's own hole. Hard to explain, so I'll have to take a picture for you soon. He can do it all by himself.

Maybe I can fall asleep now? We'll see.

Note to self: Don't take 2 1/2 hour naps ending at 5pm from now on :-)

I've been packing my little heart out today and boy is it a lot of work. It feels like no matter how much I pack, I still have so much to do! I'm down to 4 days left before I really need to have everything packed up and done, but it feels like I could work as hard as I did today and still have it take another full year! I'm sure that's not entirely true, but there's still so much to do none-the-less. Molly is going to come help me on Friday and she'll be a huge help. I think we'll pack up the kitchen then since I'll be gone over the weekend and won't really need dishes to cook in or anything and Kyle can hold his own with a pot or two and some paper dishes. I knew I dreaded the day we moved out of this house because of all the stuff we've accumulated and I have to say that that's exactly my feelings right now as moving day looms. Dread. Thankfully, our realty company is hiring movers to move us, so we don't have to do any of the heavy lifting ourselves. Yippee!

Off to pack some more...

 Someone made an observation about me yesterday.  They joked about how long it took me to respond when the waitor asked me if I wanted a refill of Sprite.  I have found myself doing this in lots of areas, not just the trivial things.  People ask me if I can do something and I hesitate.  Its come to the point where its almost ever question people ask me, I stop and evaluate it to give as true of an answer as I can.

Now, I'm not sure how great that is.  People like someone who is decisive - who can make a decision on the spot and run with it.  But now before I answer I evaluate how it will affect me, how it will affect others, and why the person is asking in the first place.  I've always been a very introspective kind of person, and I hope I'm not delving into the world of craziness.  The biggest problem I think is that when I am "stalling" to think, people think that I am reluctant to say yes.  But I like to think that I am just taking the time to make sure I'm giving you an answer that I thought through well and that you can trust is true.

What do you think?  Do you ever find yourself doing this?  Any way that I can think about these questions without putting people off?

Or is it so late?

I received a call from our Realtor today and we might be signing papers on our houses next Friday! Which means we'd get our keys on Tuesday and could move the weekend before Thanksgiving. I should have more information on Monday, but that's what it's sounding like. Yippee for moving into my cute new house!

On the garage sale front, I feel like we had a very successful day! We were open from 9-1 and were busy almost the whole time. We'll be open again tomorrow for 4 hours and at Noon and everything is 50% off, I want it all gone gone gone! I love purging.

 The election this year seemed to be huge.  More people turned out than they have for a long time. People felt like there was a huge shift this year.  In fact, I read a few articles talking about how the shift has gone from Republicans holding a strong grip on America to people embracing more of the democratic ideals.  Funny that in the last recession, Reagan talked about less government, and now Obama talks about more.

But regardless of who you voted for.  Regardless of who you wanted to win.  Regardless of how you feel about Obama, whether optomistic or pessimistic or somewhere in between, there is a gut reaction that is going on through conservatives that is making me sick.

I have heard/read accusations of terrible things against the president elect, and worse - some of the accusations that people have made about people who voted for Obama - especially because of the moral areas.  The reactions have been harsh, mean, and almost in a panic.

If there is one thing I have learned over the years (and I know some of you have many more than me, but I humbly put my idea before you), I have seen that government cannot create morality.  Each individual does.  And as individuals, we create majorities which determines what we as a nation generally believe.

For instance, during the prohibition days, laws outlawing alcohol did little to stop it. And I look at Bush, who was the most vocally pro-life president ever - and abortions still went up in our nation, and nothing really changed over those 8 years in regards to this issue.  He also stood against gay marriage, but it seems like things moved backwards in that issue as well for him.

I struggled a lot with this election.  I learned a lot.   And of all the things I heard Obama talk about, the thing that impressed me the most was what he said at the summit of faith conference where he and McCain answered questions at Saddleback Church in So. Cal.  The issue was brought up about abortion.  He was asked when he thought a fetus was a person.  His answer did not agree with mine, but he quickly turned the topic to something different.  He talked about transcending the lines of pro-life and pro-choice and finding a solution that will help to lower the abortions and save the lives of children in our country.  To me, I think pro-life and pro-choice have both lost.  They have become so polar opposite that neither will ever completely win over.

I don't know if it is false, but this gave me hope that Obama might actually help the abortion issue while Bush was unable.  Who knows...just don't panic so much.  Enjoy the ride and trust that God is in control!

It's 50 degrees outside and rainy and I'm having a moving sale tomorrow and Saturday. I have to say, it feels great to purge my life of stuff, lots of stuff we've accumulated and stashed in our 4 1/2 years of marriage. We are downsizing a bit with our move, so I have a bit of small furniture to pass on as well as clothes and little"things" that need to find a new home. Luckily, we have a big garage to have the sale in, so everything will stay nice and dry. I also put an classified ad in the paper to draw people out of their nice warm homes. I made some awesome fluorescent pink signs to put out at the street (rain proofed them as much as possible). It's a lot of work! After work Kyle will be home to help to set up some tables and move some stuff around. Hopefully, I'm ready, because ready or not, I'm sure I'll have people busting down my door at 9am.

Actually, just one little monkey, but he's so cute!

We went trick or treating at our neighbors house and Maddox got a sucker and seemed pleasantly content, so we left it at that. Then, he and I went to a wedding at our church (Kyle has a middle school retreat this weekend) and he was SO good the entire time, I couldn't believe it, and he was still dressed like a monkey, so cute.

Here's a 21 weeks belly pic of me taken yesterday, I think the picture makes me look humungo giganto, today I feel much smaller, what's up with that!?! The picture underneath was me at 20 weeks with Maddox. Like I said, though...the picture taken yesterday I think is a weird angle or something because I'm not that big. I'm going to make Kyle take another one on Sunday :-) The picture does show how much higher I'm carrying Juliette, though. Weird.

This is Kyle dressed up like Mr. Rogers. I didn't dress up, I'm a party pooper, well, actually I tried fitting into my poodle skirt for a party last weekend and was all bummed because it didn't fit over my thighs. Kyle asked me when the last time I wore it was and I told him probably when I was like 13 or 14 and he didn't say anything in response. Apparently, I'm not the same size any more :-(