What Would You Take?

On the way to lunch Paul and I were talking about an Air Force family, stationed in Colorado Springs (which is where we are trying to go next year) who were out of town for the day and returned home to find they had no home. Their home and car had been destroyed by the fire raging through CO right now. This is a picture of their street.

And we started talking about how, while it's devastating, they are blessed to be a military family because the AF will help them, their squadron will help (and are already collecting funds and gift cards as I write), and how they probably have good insurance, and of course and most important that they are alive and healthy. Paul was saying how if the fire was started in a natural way your insurance won't necessarily cover it because it's a natural disaster. How could you possibly start over without insurance? Terrifying.

Anyways, we talked about what we would grab if we had to evacuate our home and it really got me thinking.

We decided we'd get Emma (duh), the dogs, Emma's lovie (Paul said he'd run back into a burning building for that lol), the computers because our pictures are on them, the cd's with the rest of the pictures, his dad's American flag from his funeral, his and his dad's basic training books, a suitcase with some clothes, some autographed football stuff (Paul, not me), some of Em's toys from her crib so she can have familiar things, and my memory boxes that have cards from clients and things from dating Paul. Looking around right now I realize that there's nothing that can't be replaced as long as we are together.

People have such strong ties to their homes. The items in a home represent so many things-memories, success, hard work, family, but at the end of the day they are just things. Being safe and healthy is what's most important.

And I wonder, if you had to evacuate, what would you grab?

The Mystery of the Missing Pad

So if you've breastfed then you know about nursing shields or pads. If you haven't or don't know it's basically a round pad you wear inside of your bra to soak up leaking milk.

When I was nursing I suddenly came up short one nursing pad. I figured it was static clinging to something else I had washed and it would turn up eventually.

I spent last fall in Florida for 3+ months having never found the missing pad and sort of forgot about it.

So the other day I was folding laundry and mixed in with the clean clothes was the missing pad!

How many hundreds of loads of laundry had I done since mid February when I stopped nursing? How many hundreds of loads since the pad went missing? Where the heck did this thing come from? Is there a black hole in my dryer and it's back from the great beyond?

It's a mystery I will probably never solve.

Horrifying

So this weekend my cousins drove up from DC to visit. I am the old lady in the club and may have to go to bed as soon as I post this. Lordy I'm tired!

Friday night we hung out at home, eating pizza, and watching a movie. I know you're probably thinking they drove 10 hours for pizza and a movie???

Saturday we got up and decided to drive to a local winery for a wine tasting. The wines were surprisingly good minus the apple brandy Devon tried. I thought my lips were on fire. It was straight alcohol. Thankfully Kathryn had a pear something liquor we could use as a chaser.

After many tastes of wine and a delicious lunch we went to get pedicures. The woman sitting on my left asked if we were there for a wedding party and I said no, cousins visiting.

She then looked at me and said, "When is your baby due?" Um, excuse me!!!!!

I wasn't sure how I should respond seeing that I'M NOT PREGNANT!!! So I said, "16 months ago."

I. Was. Horrified! Horrified! I mean I knew I had gained some weight...

In the midst of my pedi, Grandma Foot in Mouth got up and left and a new woman sat down. She said,"You look like Minnie Mouse with your red toes and polka dot flip flops." sigh...

Of course the baby cousin Kait wanted to stop at Wet Seal and looking around I realized that the style of clothes that were popular when I was growing up are now popular again. How did I get so old??? Let's not even talk about the fact that I couldn't fit my right thigh into something from Wet Seal.

To say I felt like crying when we left the mall would be an accurate statement.

Saturday night was board games, wine, and Chris Pine (This Means War is hilarious! And ya know Chris Pine). I really know how to show out of towners a good time!

And this morning I made sausage gravy from scratch for the first time and it was pretty tasty.

Luckily Em has recovered from hand, foot, and mouth and I've recovered from my ear infection so back to working out this week. No excuses! I gotta get rid of my pregnant looking belly. Yikes!