Mike and I had a brief conversation yesterday about inconsiderate people. People that are just oblivious and insensitive to the people around them. (The kick-off to this conversation was regarding those who leave food in the fridge at the office and let it ROT, or leave their dirty dishes in the sink for days or weeks on end.)

Mike seems to run into inconsiderate people pretty often, so he was ready with a great example that had occurred just that day at the grocery store. The woman in front of him in line was chatting on her cell phone while waiting for the cashier to ring up her cart full of groceries. When the cashier finished scanning the last item (and not a moment sooner) the woman got off the phone and started digging in her purse to find her wallet. Note I said she started digging in her purse. I know what I would have been thinking had I been in Mike’s place, and you may be thinking it too… could she not have taken care of that while the cashier was ringing up the groceries? Mike was thinking that too but he actually put it into words:

He raised his hands, fanned out his fingers and waved them around and exclaimed to the woman, “Surprise! You have to pay!”

I guess the cashier just about peed his pants trying not to laugh, but the woman just ignored Mike. As if she did not hear him. Inconsiderate, I tell ya.

I know I tend to keep coming back to this subject, but I just LOVE decluttering. When I run out of areas to declutter at my house, I ought to become a Clutter Coach and go help other people declutter their homes. Clutter Coach - I like the sound of that!

I just filled up the trunk of my car with more crap to donate. I know I could collect all this stuff and have one big garage sale and make some money, but I just don’t have that kind of energy. But of course I still get some money back when I write it off on my tax return.

For me decluttering is more than just getting rid of crap. It runs much deeper. It’s been a long, emotional process over the years but as I go through it I am forced to evaluate what is truly important to me. What do I value in life? Everyone puts different values on different things. You have to know what you truly value, or you’ll end up trying to hold on to memories or things that just don’t mean as much to you. Not only that but those things end of covering up and choking out room for the things that really are important to you, both literally and figuratively.

Take Luke’s toys for example. I’m ready to purge many of his toys. There are so many, and he only really enjoys 15% of them. The rest inevitably stay tucked away and hidden. He plays with books and balls. And tools. Sometimes trucks. The rest only hold his attention for very short periods of time, and he rarely goes back to them.

There is one key reason I hold on to things. I discovered it just a couple years ago but it has served me well ever since. I place memories on objects. Then I fear that if I purge the object, the memory will go with it. I have many keepsakes from my trip to Israel when I was 17. I also kept a lot of things that remind me of my two grandmothers who both passed away during my senior year of high school. I have slowly been getting rid of those things because I simply do not have the room and they were collecting dust anyway. You can say something is important to you but if it’s just sitting in a box collecting dust then I say, “prove it”. It is difficult each time I purge a sentimental item but it gets easier as I see that even as the objects are out of my house, I still remember those people and places just as well. In fact, my memory improves because my brain is not cluttered up from being surround by crap!

Decluttering has filtered into our financial habits as well. When wandering around a store, I find the temptation to purchase things is not nearly as strong as it used to be. When the temptation comes, I think about where I might put that, and would I really use it? Those two questions usually squash the temptation right there. Now that’s not to say we don’t buy stuff anymore. It’s just that now we put more thought into what we do buy, and it’s much easier to decide what we really want to buy. Marketing and advertising can make you think you want all sorts of things. But when you line them up with your values, most fall short. We are contemplating the purchase of a flat screen tv for our living room. It will be a big purchase (that we will save up and pay cash for, of course) that seems frivolous to me at first thought, but then I realize that we spend so much family time in our living room that the tv would not be a wasted purchase. We have a tv in the living room now but it’s very old and big and takes up a lot of space. It sits in an entertainment hutch - an empty entertainment hutch. It has numerous shelves and cupboards but they are all empty. (We have a toddler, you know.) We enjoy watching movies and baseball games as a family, and since we are adding one more kid to the mix, I say “why not?” So you see I’m not opposed to spending money, I’m just a lot more focused about it now.

Another great benefit to this process for me relates to cleanliness. I am not a naturally clean person. I hate cleaning. I used to dread it. But I don’t dread it anymore (well, I still dread cleaning bathrooms, but thankfully Mike doesn’t mind it too much). The reason I don’t dread it like I used to is because of this: You can’t clean clutter! I learned that from the Flylady, and it stuck with me. It is so true. The worst part of cleaning for me was having to move all my crap around to clean behind it, under it, over it, etc. Once that problem was eliminated, cleaning became a breeze! It takes so much less time and sweat. As a side note, my husband is not employed right now and he takes care of our son during the day. He also cleans, cooks, washes the dishes. We’ve always shared household duties but he’s picked up so much more since being at home. I didn’t have to do any persuading to get him to do it either. The story would have much different had we still lived in a house full of Mindy’s crap. He would have been tortured trying to clean around someone else’s stuff. Now the house is mostly clutter-free. We have a few spaces that still need work but we’ve come a long way, baby!

On the heels of our joyous news about the healthy baby girl in my belly, I received sad news just this morning. My Grandpa Morris passed away. I wrote about him being ill last October, and now eight months later (almost to the day) he is finally at peace. Shortly after that visit in October with my mom and siblings, Mike and I made a separate trek up to see him with Luke. He so enjoyed seeing Luke - how can a happy toddler not just bring joy to your heart? Grandpa read him a book and had little toddler conversations with him. I am a bit sad I didn’t take pictures but I am glad that we got to spend that extra time with him.

What I expressed back in October still stands: I was not terribly close to my Grandpa Morris, but I have realized that I loved him more dearly than I knew. He was loving, generous, and thoughtful. He had the gift of hospitality and he truly enjoyed being surrounded by family.

He lived a very full life and he will be missed by many.

That’s right, folks. We had an ultrasound today and found out we’re having a girl! So now I can stop calling it “it” and we can start mulling over possible names.

In addition to that exciting news, Mike got to feel the baby, I mean her, squirming and worming around for the first time today. She certainly is a mover and shaker!

I don’t stress about money as much as I used to, but occasionally I come away from balancing the checkbook with a crummy feeling in my gut. Not because of the numbers. The numbers look fine. Miraculously, we are doing fine right now. More than fine, really. God is providing for us. Yet still I have this crummy feeling. It’s the control freak inside me screaming, “What’s the plan? What’s gonna happen next? I need to know!” And as much as I scream, God never tells me what’s next. It’s really freakin’ annoying. And the old saying, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future” does not offer any reassurance. I am still human no matter how many times you say that to me. I still want to know!

I have so many variables up in the air right now and it is driving me crazy. But the good news is that it’s only been driving me crazy since yesterday and that crummy feeling will dissipate in a few days. That’s usually how it goes. Oh I’m sure it will come back to haunt me but it never stays for long. Thank God for that. And thank God for providing for us and for NOT telling me what’s coming next. Because if he did, you know I would just have to get my grubby hands in there and muck it up.

It’s week two of Luke sleeping in his new Big Boy Bed. It’s not going as well as we hoped, but I suppose it could be worse. Currently he just doesn’t seem to want to stay in it when we first put him down to sleep. Once he falls asleep he stays asleep and doesn’t get up until morning. It is frustrating and exhausting but I am determined that we will get through this. At first we just tried the Supernanny method of continuing to put him back down - over and over and over again. That doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t have two hours every night to go through that ritual and there has to be a better way.

We have had a bit of success with bribing (I like to call it rewarding). We tell him that if he stays in bed then he will get a treat when he wakes up (the kid loves M&M’s, or as he calls them… num-nums). I’ve also tried to step up his bedtime routine. When he was sleeping in his crib we would clean up toys, brush his teeth, and tell him “good night” and he did fine. But I have to remember that it wasn’t always that way. When he was just a tiny baby I worked very hard to “train” him to go to bed. Now that he is in a different bed I believe we need to retrain him. So the new bedtime routine is a bit longer and more involved. We do all the same things but we’re adding book reading and snuggling and praying and sometimes a little rubbing of the head (he loved that as a baby). I’m hoping all of these things will help him prepare mentally for bedtime and hopefully naptime too. I think a big part of the problem is that when we put him to bed he’s still in “play” mode and that’s making it hard for him to just sit still. The kid loves to sleep so I know we will have success in the end. It’s just going to take some patience and creativity.

Wish us luck and if you have any pointers or empathetic stories to share, please share!

I got this idea from Deanna - you Google “Unfortunately, (your first name)” and see what it comes up with. These were some I found. Some are actually true!

“Unfortunately, Mindy makes no attempt to run fast.” (true)

“Unfortunately, Mindy became obsessed by the preparation for the baby.” (not entirely true)

“Unfortunately, Mindy doesn’t have the self-confidence to deliver a winning performance.” (not true)

“Unfortunately, Mindy is made of 95% fail.” (not true)

“Unfortunately, Mindy also likes beer, eating donuts, watching TV, and sneaking naps before lunch.” (so true)

“Unfortunately, Mindy said, her sister became an unemployed zookeeper because of ‘Survivor.’” (Kari, you still employed?)

“Unfortunately, Mindy was larger than normal.” (will be true soon enough)

“Unfortunately, Mindy happened to be rather fickle and was led astray by her bowling instructor Jaques, leaving Homer with a toddler and a baby he didn’t know. ” (no one was supposed to know)

“Unfortunately, Mindy forgot to flash her cleavage at the security guy.” (sounds like me to forget a thing like that)

“Unfortunatley, Mindy was put to sleep on Wednesday due to epilepsy and her seizures were getting worse, she’s sorely missed.” (fortunately, not true!)

I have been in second trimester lately. Eating great, feeling great, it’s everything I had desperately dreamed of while I was in the throes of first trimester illness. However, I do have ONE issue. I have been having a lot of problems with my sciatic nerve. It’s pinched and it’s causing a persistent sharp pain in my right butt cheek. It also causes numbness and tingling in my legs and feet but that is so minor I don’t notice it much anymore. It’s just that sharp pain that’s driving me crazy. When it gets especially painful I start to feel like Keri Russell’s character in Waitress - “This damn baby is a pain in my ass. Damn baby.” (That’s a fantastic movie by the way, you ought to rent it.) Four months in utero and already giving me grief! What do we have in store with this baby #2? I can only imagine. I suspect he/she will be a bit of a spitfire, based on what it’s put me through so far.

I have employed stretching techniques to help relieve the paint and it does help. I was stretching today after my workout and I must have had a particularly painful look on my face because two women were standing nearby and asked me if I needed help. They had been eyeing me as I stretched, poised to call 911 if necessary.

Ah, the joys of pregnancy.

To quote my sister, who is 7 1/2months pregnant with her third baby: “I don’t remember this much pain.” Amen, sister! How do we so quickly forget? I say it’s God’s little tricky design to keep us procreating. Clever, indeed.

Conversation with my son yesterday:

Me: “Luke, do you want some juice?”

Luke: “Um…. sure!”

He’s been saying this a lot lately. It’s terribly cute. I wonder to myself where he gets this kind of language.

A conversation with my husband later that night:

Me: “A peanut butter and jelly sandwich sounds really good right now.”

Mike: “Do you want me to make you one?”

Me: “Um…. sure!”

Mystery solved.