Made in Richmond

“You can put these away because I don’t want to.”

I’m still laughing because I’m awesome.

This is Kellan, the second fruit of my cousin’s loins. He’s two months old tomorrow. I know, I was slightly miffed that I had to wait two months to get a picture, but I’m assuming she spent the time blowing raspberries on his smooshy cheeks.

P.S. I just realized that he kind of already looks like a frat boy. A wonderfully cute and very smart frat boy, but one nonetheless. Oh, well. A first-cousin-once-removed’s love has no bounds.

Friday:  Gym.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.  Shower.  Off to Sam’s for Allison’s surprise going away party (she knew she was going away, not about the party).  Home to bed late.

Saturday:  Slept until I woke up.  Gym.  Off to Barnes and Noble to buy Harry Potter.  Stopped at Target to get a baby gate (for the dogs, not for a baby).  Spectacular afternoon in bed reading.  Shower and off to Ipanema to meet friends (while the dogs spent their first time out of their crates while we weren’t home, wrangled into the hallway with said baby gate-they did very well thank you!) Stopped at 7-11 to get ice cream.  Home to bed late again.

Sunday:  Lunch with mother-in-law.  Went to Lowes to buy various gardening needs.  Off to church.  Met college friends at Starlite for half-off-appetizer-Sunday.  Home to do laundry, eat ice cream, watch Big Love, and go to bed.

This is why I love my husband:

Gone are the Game Cube, Xbox, NES, and other evidence of a college guy’s apartment. I am so happy.

I was at the gym today, doing my required 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill while watching CNN on the built in TV (seriously, the cardio wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for those blessed screens).  Anyway, they did a brief coverage of the British Open which from what I gathered is being help in Scotland.  Well, that did it for me.  I actually started tearing up and sniffling right there.  And I totally didn’t care.

Allow me to give you some back story.  Our friends James and Jennifer have been planning to go to Scotland as missionaries for a while.  The whole time they’ve been raising support, I completely understood that, yes, someday they would be going and that they would be gone for 2 years.  They are very close to having 100% of their support which means they’ll be heading off probably at the beginning of September.

I knew all of this.  But, for some reason, seeing footage of Tiger Woods struggling against the wind in Scotland made me really get that they are going to be gone and that we are going to spend two years without them.  Yes, they’ll be back for a wedding and hopefully we’ll get to go see them at some point, but we won’t get to see them at least once a week like we do now - like we have for the past 2ish years.  It just made me very sad.

At the same time, I was (and still am) glad to feel that way.   I feel like a lot of people get so caught up in their jobs and the trappings of life that they don’t ever get truly invested in the lives of other people.  We are invested in James and Jennifer and in all of our friends.  We want to see them do well, we pray for them, we love them totally and completely.   They are so wrapped up in who we are that to imagine going through part of our life without any one of them is very difficult to do.

This fall will be the start of a lot of changes for us.  James and Jennifer will be gone.  MattWhite will be gone off and on.  Other things will be different.  But, everything is expected to settled back down in 2009 - for everyone.  I doubt that is a coincidence.  It seems so far away, but when you think about it, in grown-up time, it’s nothing.  I hope I can remind myself of that when I realize that these people aren’t within arms reach for a while.

First, let me start by saying that I am incredibly grateful that this is the only (seriously, the one and only) complaint I have about my new job.

With that, allow me to share some numbers with you. The seat of an office chair is typically about 20 inches deep (believe me, I’ve researched this). Meanwhile, the distance from my rear end and where my knee bends is approximately 14 inches. If I sit with my back resting completely against the chair, the my knees cannot bend and my feet don’t touch the floor. If I rest my feet on the floor, I have almost 1/2 a foot between my body and the back of my chair. So, throughout the day I must choose to either have numb legs or a crippled back. Something tells me that the chair won’t be shrinking anytime soon, so I need to figure something out.

Any suggestions?

*UPDATE*

Upon reading this, my boss came to me and insisted that I figure out which chair was most comfortable for me.  I had a new chair in about an hour.  The power of the Internets, friends.

Ross, Justin, Susan, and I have embarked upon a new fiction project.  In response to the good feedback from This most recent unpleasantness: A zombie epic in ten, a new series started earlier this week.   We are calling it “Gifted  & Talented” and it should prove to be good fun.  Here’s the posting schedule FYI:

Monday: Ross

Tuesday: Justin

Wednesday: A brief pause for you to collect yourself

Thursday: Valerie (go there and get a prize of pure, delicious horror)

Friday: Susan

Check it out and enjoy!

This post is brought to you by links, links, and more links.com

Jake’s been off doing important things again. Go here to read his account of life in the Peruvian Amazon Basin.  Seriously, seeing Jake’s work really makes you question what you do with your day.

Jake, thanks again for bringing to light to a part of our world that we know so little about.

I think the weight goal has been reached.  I weighed myself at the gym tonight.  As of 8:45 this evening (after  pretty hefty dinner and much fluid consumption throughout the day) I weighed 124.4 lbs.  I’m estimating that if I were to weigh myself in the morning sans clothes, that would probably put me at about 123.5 lbs., which is lower than I was originally shooting for.  If my estimate is correct, that would put the grand weight loss total at…..

16.5 lbs!!!!

OMG that’s pretty insane.  Seriously, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  The first few weeks were so frustrating because my metabolism was still nonexistent thanks to two years of a chemically-produced sedentary existence.  But thanks to Gold’s Gym, Sprout, and much encouragement from some very supportive people, my body finally woke up and I started seeing results.

Before I started losing the weight, I didn’t feel like me at all.  Now I’m finally comfortable in my body again.  Now, I’m just going to focus on maintaining and staying toned.  Honestly, all I really want is to maybe have arms as amazing as this lady’s (don’t ask her to flex because she won’t - just trust me on this).

Friday: Gym right after work.  Picked up Ross and then got Sticky Rice To-Go-Go.  Watched a little TV and puttered.

Saturday:  Slept late for the first time in forever.  Got a haircut.  Went to the gym.  Spent the evening by myself.  Bed kind of late.

Sunday:  Served lunch at Loaves and Fishes (apparently it was delicious).  Home to rest for about an hour.  Off to church.  Taco Bell Sunday dinner while watching Big Love.  So exhausted.  Bed early tonight?