Whoops! Technical difficulties.There’s a new look around here, if you can’t see it hit refresh while holding down your Shift key. Or empty your cache. Both should work.

Not sure this is the permanent look yet, but it’s a step in any other direction then where I was … which wasn’t bad, just … not right. So we’re trying something new.

I’m also trying to get my reader to stop sucking for those of you who subscribe to it, although I’m pretty sure there are multiple reader feeds so not every one is experiencing this issue … if I’m confusing the crap out of you, please skip this part.

We also have Sponsors now!! Yay! That’s really exciting. I’ll be adding a few more in the next week or so. I’m extremely excited to be embarking on this part of the journey. If you’re a company interested in sponsoring this website please contact me and I’ll send out a media kit with appropriate information.

Here’s the basics:

I’m interested in creating opportunities for my audience, who also happen to be my friends. Whether or not I know them by name. I’m passionate about living out loud, being authentic and saying yes as often as possible. I don’t own pets, I do have kids – we drive a minivan, I garden. You decide what that means to you and then throw it to the wind and partner with me to make the world a little bit sweeter.

I’m totally in.

Alrighty, for my “Jodi” jar I have:

Groceries
Menu Plan
Bathrooms
Organize photos
Floors
Balance checkbook
Laundry
Balance budget
Work on photo book for kids
Organize some files
Clean a closet
Reformat 10 posts (has to do with this website)

I’ll probably add to this jar as I figure out things I should be doing on a more frequent basis. The plan is that I’ll draw 3 every morning and knock them out through out the day. Today I chose “Balance checkbook”, “Clean a closet” and “Reformat 10 posts”.

I’ve balanced the check book, so far.

When I finish a task I reuse the “idea” and put it back in to the jar for another day. No telling what I’ll pick or if I’ll be doing the same thing three days in a row. But my floors and laundry could always use that … so I’m just going to go with it.

Rules for the jar are:
I must do what it says.
I cannot ignore other, more pertinent, responsibilities to complete a task.
I cannot ignore my children.

There you have it! What would have in your Task Jar?

This photo was taken weeks before we decided to start adding to our family. It was in August of 2009. We took our little fam to Grand Haven for lunch and a walk on the pier – I remember getting a beer and sitting there thinking how perfect life was. Sitting outside on a deck eating with the people who meant the most to me.

Our little girl. Our world. In a pink dress and barefoot, she cascaded the rocks on the pier, always looking for something else to climb. Another mountain to over take. A challenge to over come.

I think back to this day often, actually. I knew in my heart that we were spending one of the last weekends as the three of us before a fourth became a reality in my womb. I knew, in the bottom of my gut, in all of my instincts that this weekend was for all of us. For Aaron and I to remember how sweet it is. For Jessica to remember how much fun it is. For me to know how peaceful my life really is.

We’ll never forget those years with “just her”. We wouldn’t trade that time for anything and we wouldn’t redo it or decide to not move forward and build a bigger foundation in our family.

Before we knew it – her bare-feet were tangled and touching his.

And then we could breathe. We could exhale. We didn’t know we were holding our breath, trying to hold on to every moment and every feeling. Trying to touch our souls and reach for that moment.

I don’t know if we’re complete, yet. But I know we’re lucky. We are so damn lucky.

I can’t sleep and have been shocked at what I’m finding in the early hours of a Wednesday.

Sadness shrouded in joy. And other things, too.

I just read this and think you should too. Leah is amazing and I never knew any of this about her – I only knew that she was part of this, behind it when a friend nudged me to submit something … and so I did.

This is not what I submitted – it’s something I tried to write but couldn’t figure out how to make it work and now, after reading her story and re reading my rejected one … I’m ready to tell you.

I wrote this April 30, 2010

On May 5th we will be celebrating my son’s second birthday. It’s hard to imagine our life before he was with us but I know my daughter, now 5 1/2, remembers me being pregnant. She remembers how special it was to be the only one and now knows how special it is to be one of two. I have guilt about having more kids, more than her, more than them. Right now life is so wonderful and easy yet difficult and tiring and so unwilling to bend. She sees me love him while I’m scolding her, she sees me hold him while I can’t touch her at all. I wonder if she sees me loving her, too.

To Jessica:

People suspect this, I’m sure, but 6 years later how about we let out this little secret? The one I told you while tucking you in not long after Oliver was born. When you were feeling down and I was feeling unconnected to you and wanted nothing more than to hold your heart ever so gently so you wouldn’t be hurt any more. We told everyone that your sex, as a newborn, was a surprise on the day you were born but it wasn’t. We were preparing for a girl all along, we were preparing for you. Your name changed in the delivery room and I’m so glad we did that, you’re every part a Jessica Ranae and not at all an Onalee. You’re fierce in every way. Dramatic and theatrical. You are magnificent.

I painted a window to put in your nursery before you were born and on it said “Sweet Baby, You are a breath of Heaven” and I would whisper that to you in my belly and then in your ear while you nursed and before you went to bed every night when your dad and I would fight over who got to hold you just one more time.

Jessica, I see through your ploys to get attention. I know how unfair it is be the oldest although I, myself, am a youngest. How difficult we can be as parents, how easy you really are as a child. I’m so sorry you feel the need to quit or be smaller than you really are to get us to notice you. I haven’t done a very good job of yelling from the top of my lungs that you are noticed. You are loved. God, how you are loved. We really are alike even though I lay awake at night worrying that you’re going to grow up resenting me, hating me. I hope you don’t do the same. This past week I witnessed a live birth that resulted in an adoption and the emotions in that delivery room were nothing short of a marathon from ecstasy straight to hell.

Tonight, I’ll hold you a little longer. I’ll play with you a little longer. We’ll ride bikes past bedtime and go on walks instead of naps and I’ll give up breathing just so you know how much I love you. It’s true, I push you, but Jessica, you keep me going.

Love,
Mom

Wow. I just had a whirlwind weekend where Gleek Retreat really happened.

For a quick look you can see some photos. I’ll write more in depth about everything over the next couple of weeks and scatter them here and there.

I was on a panel on Sunday about how to incorporate other forms of media into your blog and this was my introduction:

(it’s a 5 min video, warning)

And then after everyone went home Stacey and I cleaned up and I headed home to see my favorite small people.

And wow. They make me happy.

It’s good to be home.

I said I would post today and I have 43 minutes to make good on my word.

Hi.

Tomorrow will be controlled by nothing but a list of things to do, of expectations, of excitement. It’ll be fueled by coffee and sheer adrenaline. I’ll be working harder because I know my kids are waiting for me, because I know people are depending on me, because I respect and enjoy the company of my partner in this crime of blogging conferences.

Then Saturday will be here, before I even know it and then will come crashing down on me. Months of work and millions of emails later – we’ll be done.

And I’ll pick myself back up, excited for tomorrow. A little quieter for a while after all that talking, blogging, tweeting … all that planning. A little less for a little more.

I’m so excited.

I’m so nervous.

I’m so ready.

I love twitter most of the time. There are days when I don’t even get on it though but it’s so helpful when you have a quick question (or annoying if you think bloggers on twitter are just spam, but you be quiet).

So, I love to ANSWER the questions people are asking – and mostly the ones about food. Like, what are you having for dinner tonight, I’m stuck! And, Are strawberries mushy with baking all the time?

For some reason my go-to answer with the dinner question is always = MAKE CHILI! Chili is easy! Friends are generally looking for something simple to make, last minute.

It’s kind of ridiculous though because Chili isn’t my go-to recipe at home when we’re in a bind. I love to eat Chili though, so maybe thats why I think everyone else should make it all the time.

What’s your go-to on a hectic night?

Recently, and I begrudgingly admit this, our go-to is eating out. TERRIBLE. For the budget, for the health, for the allergies. But, it is what it is right now and soon I’ll be back to menu planning and blogging about my food adventures (among others).

If we’re against eating out again we always have eggs in the house and tend to just have Brinner even though my husband is not, has never been and will never be a fan of Brinner.

I know, you’re telling me!

So I used to be on antidepressants. At age 14 I was diagnosed with clinical depression, which is a tall order being 14. Do I believe it? Yea.

I haven’t been on anything since that one time I went back on them after my daughter’s first birthday – 4 1/2 years ago.

And it’s been fine, actually. Every once in a while I think … huh? This is getting in the way of my life, I should work on this. So I do. I write, or exercise or create something.

Then it hit me today as I was reading comments on the facebook page – this website is my Zoloft. The community of this website, the friends I’ve made – the joy I get from hearing about what you’re doing … it lightens my heart. Every day.

And I have a pretty heavy heart.

I am kind of intense and it bothers me. Really bothers me. Some times I have to sit my husband down and apologize because I know that I couldn’t live with another me. Anxiety, crippling insecurities. You guys, I’m human.

But THANK YOU, from the very deepest bottom of that very heavy heart, for loving me and not even knowing it.

I like you!

The winners of the TWO Etsy giftcards (sponsored by me) are …

Dah dah dah duh!

and

Congratulations Katie and Meghan!

You should see an email from me later today.

**Edited July 18, 2010 to cross off items I either won’t get around to (because we sold the home in which I wanted to organize) or have already done.

Things I want to do, not necessarily this weekend, but soon:

• Make my own vanilla.
• Plan some landscaping (a) (b)
• Mess around with Google SketchUp
• Reorganize a few things around the house. Summer/Winter clothes for example. Also drawers, files and the necessary evil of under-the-bed storage.
• Print some current photos of the family, update the frames.
• Browse Bed Bath and Beyond, I’ve got store credit and want to use it. I get by in my kitchen with so little, so walking into that store is so very overwhelming, yet I could use a new cookie sheet and possibly a platter or cake stand. Ideas?
• Re-tile the main floor fireplace hearth.

Tomorrow? I do not want to cook but I’ll probably want to bake. I’d love a massage but a bath will do and more than anything, I just want to have a day full of my husband and our kids, walking or talking. Hiking, maybe biking. Doing nothing or doing too much to fit into one day. I just want them.