Odds & Ends

Nate left this morning to go to St. Louis to meet our new vicar (can you believe the seminary gives him a vicar?) and I am already bored. My house is picked up, the dishes are done, the laundry is in a good place, I have no work for Arlene, and my kids are in bed. I am thoroughly looking forward to The Bachelor tonight, but that's a whole other post.

So here are a few things in my world today:

1) I bought this new scrapbooking software. Tamara--I know, I can't compare to the scrapbooking goddess that you are, but I have to do something with the 5500 pictures on my computer. If I can't get my act together to get into this digital scrapbooking thing where you arrange pictures on templates (or create your own--but I'll probably stick with the templates) then I'll just have to resign myself to being okay just printing out pictures to put in albums. I REALLY want to be a crafty scrapbooker, but I am not. I hate crafts. I was so happy when our MOPS group banned crafts. That's just me. But I want to have a good record of our kids and our life together. I want to at least have albums, scrapbooks would be great even if they are faker digital ones.

2) The Bay Area has lots and lots of homeless people. It is very common to have a homeless person on all four medians at a busy intersection asking for food or money. When I take Jenna to preschool, there is this one guy who is ALWAYS at the median in the left hand turn lane right before her school. I always feel awful because I have no food to give him. (I don't give money usually, because I'm not comfortable with that). Every day, I see him and look around my car to see if I have anything to give him. I always figure that he doesn't want Goldfish crumbs, so I try to remember to bring some food from home. I never remember. But today I did. And he wasn't there. I even packed him a whole roll of Oreos. Oh well, I'll try again soon.

3) I've been feeling a bit isolated lately and am so happy that I get to go to my grandma's 94th birthday party in May. I hate not being able to get in the car and go to family functions. But I am really happy to be able to go to this one. It's been over a year since I've seen her and last time I talked to her on the phone she told me that she hoped she would see me before she dies. I have to go and want to go, she's my grandma, and I love her.

4) I was so proud of Jenna today. In the car, "Livin' On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi came on, and she said, "Mommy, I know this song and I love it. What's that guy's name? Jon Jovi?" So proud . . . So proud.

5) We just discovered Skype. It's awesome and free.