just a few things

Today we traveled to Auburn for our nephew's 2nd birthday celebration. If you ask him to tell you his name, he says "two". This kid is a hoot. He can pitch a baseball better than most 6 year olds. He won't be needing the tee in tee-ball. Probably his mom and dad should get him on a team. tomorrow.

Our other nephew will be turning 2 in a couple of weeks. He loves Buzz and Woody. His mom and I had an interesting dialogue about how we would never have matched up the 22 inch stuffed Woody doll to play with the hard plastic Buzz sized 6 inches smaller. They just don't go. But, they do.

We have kids who are much older than the sweet little nephews. 12 going on 45 and 9 almost 21. You know how that works, right? That's not to say that our munchkins aren't sweet. They are. We just have to be more intentional about noticing the sweetness. And praise it, and pray for more.

Lest you be misled into thinking we are young, I should disclose the fact that we have 2 adult nephews and they each have a wife and 2 kids. These things happen when your husband's mother has 5 kids all spread out and the oldest gets married and has offspring while the baby (my husband) is still in elementary school. This is normal, I am sure of it. And the nephews (nearly aged 30) relish every opportunity to say "Brant, tell Great-Aunt Layla thank you for the (whatever)" Nice.

My brain is all tangled in knots tonight, so let me just make a little list of where we've been and what we've done.

Friday and Saturday : our yearly journey to the Windy City

hotness freaking hotness! our dear old Honda wagon has given up on even trying to keep us cool, so we made the entire trip with the windows down.

good trip

great memories

2 hour tour on double-decker boat down the chicago river and out into lake michigan

rain on the boat

drunken stupidity on the boat (not us, we don't need beer for that)

lovely skyline

trek back into the city when we could have been driving home

wonderful husband hunts down a cupcake bakery for me YUM

Wow-E-Wow! $4 cupcake

stop at super-target

discovered a new neighborhood to investigate: Lincoln Park

trying to convince husband we should do a 1 month house swap with some nice unsuspecting family in Lincoln Park

Smoque BBQ. maximum occupancy 45. they were cutting it close. might have something to do with all the busboys lurking in wait to sanitize the tables.

more on the chicago trip later.

now for a confession

i've been reading trash

well, in my opinion, trash

see, i am a book snob

i hate nicholas sparks books. read one a long time ago. ick. was dragged on a girls night out to see "the notebook" (the Village was playing in the next theatre over, I should have just sneaked in there).

will not read danielle steele or harlequin romance novels. disgusting!

so what am i doing reading Pretty Little Liars? I don't know. except to say that they just suck you in and leave you wanting to read more about secrets, excruciatingly expensive accessories, and psycho blondes. I blame the ABC family network. (what kind of family are they promoting?) They made the book series into shows. I have nothing to say for myself other than it started with a momentary lapse of reason and has blossomed into a disgusting obsession.

someone better throw me a latte and a jane austen novel before i lose my sense of propriety!

next time...

c.s. lewis collection at wheaton college museum

how chloe has selected nearly all of her birthday gifts

and

why jacob has a $50 backpack

So I should be writing a rough draft?

Oops. I just read some nice lady's blog and she was going on about how she NEVER post on the fly, as in, she usually has a process of brainstorming, pre-writing, editing, and all those great elements necessary for good writing. Oh.

See, all this time I have been operating under the impression that the blog world was exempt from the rules and mechanics of writing. Well, not completely exempt because most of us probably don't appreciate typos and misplaced apostrophes when reading our favorite crafty-blog.

Well shame on me. I always write on the fly. And when I say always, what I really mean is "when this nut-ball actually wanders away from lurking on other people's blogs to write her own post".

Now that I have that off my chest...

WHAT I AM THANKFUL FOR TODAY

I need to share some really exciting news. A friend found me. A friend I had not seen or spoken to in 30 years. Wait, how OLD am I? Now I am sounding like someone's granny. So this friend, Heather found me through a post I left on thecottagenest.blogspot.com. (By the way, pop over to her blog and take a peek at all her lovely ideas for creating a lovely cottage dwelling.) So, anyway, the way I understand it, Heather saw my comment on Jen's blog, thought it might be me, then proceeded to stalk me and my family/friends on Facebook before sending me an email. I have never been so happy to be stalked! Before I leak out any more of this gripping saga, I need to chat with Heather about doing a guest post over here. Maybe she can bring some sense and clarity to my mish-mash of writing and help me tell this story in a way that makes sense.