Top Ten Tuesday: Love Edition

First of all, thank you for all your kind words in regards to my pregnancy. I am feeling so very blessed (and a bit less nauseated.) Life is good.

I've been debating different ideas for Top Ten Tuesday topics, but was just inspired by a phone call from a good friend. I just found out he's engaged. He was engaged once before, but it didn't work out. Now he's found a wonderful person who really appreciates him and he's found someone he truly adores and respects. It's so exciting to hear about two people who are truly happy together. They're both a little older. She's been married before. He's been engaged. But now, at the right time, they've found the right people and they are truly happy. This friend is a truly wonderful person and I'm so happy that he is happy.

Anyway, my friend has inspired this week's Top Ten Tuesday topic:

Top Ten Things I Believe About Love

10. There is someone out there for everyone.

9. Often you find love when you stop looking for it.

8. Often you find love where you least expect it.

7. When the time is right, you will find the person you are meant to be with.

6. We have to love the wrong people in order to be in the right place when the right person comes along.

5. The "wrong ones" just help you appreciate the "right one."

4. If you love someone, you will treat them with respect even during a fight.

3. Love at first sight doesn't exist; you can't truly LOVE someone until you truly know them.

2. Love grows stronger over time.

1. Love isn't easy, but it is truly worth the work.

Hope you are all having a love-filled week. Sorry for another picture-less post. I promise some Little Man eye candy soon. Have a good one!

A Little Hearbeat

Today I heard the little pitter-pat of my newest baby's heartbeat. I'm 11 weeks pregnant. I've been extremely sick (thus my total lack of blogging/knitting/etc.). However, today made it all worth it. I'm having another baby. I hope he or she is as wonderful as my Little Man. It's hard to imagine. I am so very blessed.

Top Ten Tuesday: Late Night Edition

Somehow it's Tuesday again already. For various reasons, I have had a lot of restless, awake-a-lot nights. As I've been lying in bed, I've been spending a lot of time thinking and sometimes I even use my extra time to have little conversations with God about life and what not. Most recently, I've been talking to him a lot about Little Man and about my nephews and nieces. I have such high hopes for them all despite the crazy world we live in. So this week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is



Top Ten Things I Hope for My Children (I hope to have at least one more.)



10. I hope they will be financially responsible.



9. I hope they will have a good work ethic.



8. I hope they will find a career that they are passionate about and truly enjoy.



7. I hope they will enjoy nature, books, time with their family, music and crafts.



6. I hope they will be more athletic than me or at least not as scared to try.



5. I hope they will find true love.



4. I hope they will grow up to be confident in themselves.



3. I hope they will grow up to be both caring and kind.



2. I hope they will always treat others with respect.



1. I hope they will always know how very loved they are.



Hope you are all having a great week. Happy Fall! If you're a parent or just love a good blog post, you must read Julie's latest. She touches my heart everytime.

The Adventures of Little Man

It's been a fun week with my little man. First, we got to go to the zoo with one of our friends who has a zoo membership. We spent most of our time in the rainforest and Little Man had tons of fun checking out the animals.

Crocodile and turtles
Monkeys

Orangutan

Up Close and Personal

Then we had Halloween where Little Man wore his sheep or "Baa" costume as he likes to call it. Since we were outside, he finally decided that it was okay to keep his hood on. I knitted the sweater (a modified Wallaby made from Homespun with ears and a tail). The ears and tail were inspired by this softie pattern from Fuzzy Mitten. My sister sewed the fleece pants.

Little Man enjoyed handing out candy to all the big kids on the street.

Today I tried to get Little Man to put Halloween stickers on a card for my mom as a thank you gift for the fun Halloween books she sent him. He decided it would be more fun to put most of them on his arm. It was really adorable. He was SO proud of himself.Anyway, I hope you all had a great and fun holiday if you celebrate Halloween. Otherwise, I hope you're just having a great week. Happy candy eating, everyone!

Not a lot of knitting, but some good reading

I've been back in reading mode recently and have read three decent books in a row. It's been a while since that's happened. Mainly because I get my books from the library when I'm with Little Man who is either pulling everything in reach off the shelves or ready to get back to the children's section. So I'm usually just grabbing random books based on their cover or title without even glancing at the description. Doesn't always work out so well. But recently, we've been having some good luck. Anyway, three enjoyable books--so I thought I'd take a moment and write a quick blurb about each.

The first was Babyville by Jane Green. I was a little sad when I realized it was set in London because sometimes all the British lingo annoys me, but it didn't end up bothering me at all in this one. Despite the title, this book is a lot more about women, mainly single women, than about babies. I found it entertaining and relate-able. It was a bit unrealistic at times, but I enjoy suspending disbelief and enjoying a little extra happiness. It's definitely a "fluff" book which I was in the mood for so very enjoyable.

The second book I read was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This one was definitely not fluff. It's a memoir. Let me tell you, Jeannette Walls had a very interesting, but not a very easy life. A little disturbing at times, but very well written. The chapters are pretty short and they make you want to just keep reading and reading and reading.

The third book was more fluff--The Cubicle Next Door by Siri L. Mitchell. It's about a blogger. It's the first book I've ever read about a blogger. She's a bit of an oddball, but somehow that made me relate to her even more (well, because I'm a bit of a strange one myself). The guy in the novel is a military guy and even though he doesn't fit the description, I kept picturing him as The Rock. Irrelevant, but somehow it humored me throughout the novel. Anyway, a great little fluffy romance with some food for thought built in for good measure. Very nice read. Again, I couldn't put it down because I'm sucker for romance and I wanted a happy ending.

Anyway, I'm always looking for a good book so if anyone has any suggestions, please pass them on. Happy day, everyone! Hope it's a good one.

I do still knit

I've been a bit of a slacker knitter and blogger recently, but wanted to share one of my recent knits. I wanted to knit little pumpkin hats for my newest nephew and nieces since they are too small for costumes this Halloween. Anyway, I have yet to meet them so I wasn't sure exactly what size to make the hats. So I made up my own preemie pumpkin hat pattern, made three of them and mailed them off to Virginia without taking a picture--oops!

But I just got these pics from my sister-in-law, Shelley.

I think I may have made the hats a touch too small, but they look pretty cute anyway.

Reed, Mary and Madeline

I think they really like them.

Happy almost Halloween, everyone!

Top Ten Tuesday: Remembering Edition

As many of you remember, September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday and September 11th fell on a Tuesday again this year. Oblivious to it, I totally ignored it on the actual anniversary. In fact, it seems all of the blogs I read ignored it this year except this one which happens to be written by an Australian. Interesting, huh? Or maybe sad is a better word? I don't know. I felt kind of bad about it. To be honest, I don't really think about September 11th much. Luckily for me, I didn't really know anyone who died that day. One student I graduated from college with died in NYC. I knew him by name and face, but I didn't REALLY know him. Unfortunately, many many many people were not as lucky as me. They lost their lives on September 11th. They lost their dads, their moms, their sons, their daughters, their brothers and sisters, their husbands or wives. They lost their friends. I can't imagine. Truly, I can't imagine. Anyway, this is a little belated, but it's a topic I was thinking about during my hiatus back in September and I was thinking about it again today so I thought, "why not?". Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is

Top Ten Things I Remember About September 11, 2001

10. I was at work. I was a Director of Education at a Sylvan Learning Center at the time.

9. It was a busy day because we were all supposed to leave the next day to go to Baltimore for the Sylvan annual conference (the first time for most of us to attend.) We were excited because we wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory while we were there.

8. My co-worker's husband called and told her she had to listen to the radio because a plane had run into a building in New York. I remember thinking, "Who does this man think he is telling his wife what she HAS to do?".

7. At first, they weren't sure what was going on. There was talk that it was just a small plane that does tours of that area of New York.

6. Then the second plane hit and everyone was freaking out. We didn't have a tv, but everyone kept watching it on the internet.

5. I couldn't take it all in so I just went back to work. I pretended it wasn't happening. I just went on making lesson plans and getting materials ready for instruction that night.

4. My in-laws and husband kept calling because they were worried about me flying the next day. Needless to say this fear was unfounded as all flights were canceled.

3. At one point, there was a suspicious plane coming towards Cleveland. More panic. The plane rerouted and later crashed. It was United 93.

2. Somewhere in all this chaos, the Pentagon was hit. I remember being worried because although I knew some people in NYC, I knew a LOT in the DC area. Everyone wondered when the horrible chaos was going to stop.

1. We decided to stay open for instruction that night (even though a lot of students canceled) because we wanted to keep some sort of normalcy in the lives of our students. Which is ironic because at the time it seemed like life would never be normal again.

But here it is, 6 years later, and life seems very normal. So normal that most of us rarely think about September 11th and all that happened that day. Most of us don't think about all those innocent people who died or who lost loved ones. I admit, I'm usually one of those people. But I'm trying to be better. So just a little post to remember all of those lives so personally affected that day. My heart goes out to you all.