Jill

"If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." - Kurt Vonnegut

Last night was wonderful.

After dinner and pottying and bath, I brought Cal into our room and laid him on the bed for some nursing. I wasn't sure if it was bedtime nursing as he'd been staying up later lately.

He laid down happily and nursed nicely. Then he rolled a round a few times - sometimes away, sometimes nearer. We smiled and giggled at each other. He'd snuggle up to me spoon-style as the little spoon, then would pop up into a crawl position and grin at me. I gently patted or rubbed his back and smoothed his hair and talked softly about how I loved my little boy.

Eventually one of the spoon snuggles turned into him falling asleep.

It was lovely.

He's growing up and showing his independence - not nursing to sleep, rolling away from me, but smiling to make sure it was OK.

It was a wonderful evening, so I thought I'd share it.

In home improvement updates:
I decided I'd try to paint the wall above the window the same color as the bottom of the other walls - "Pressed Linen," I believe it's called. We'll call it an "accent" wall. Tim scrunched his nose up a bit when he first saw it, but I assured him that if we don't like it, it's only paint and we can repaint it. "We've got more than enough paint" I tell him.

So then, last night I decided to start painting some of the stripes the "Urban Gold" color. I was standing on a chair to paint the top of the wall and on the last stripe on one wall, I went to sit on the chair from my standing position and lean against the back of the chair to get to the lower portion. FYI: when planning on doing this, please ensure that the chair back is actually behind you and not to your left. I ended up falling backwards into the bathroom counter and spilled a bunch of paint on myself, the chair, the floor and a little splatter on the wall. Yes, yes. I rule. I know. I figured that was enough painting for one evening.

In work updates:
I just sent off the second version of an enhanced report I've been working on. I had sent off the first version yesterday to the customer and she had noticed I needed to add in functionality for the custom report options. This is by far the most code I've written in years - not counting the piddly JCLs I used to write at Nahan. And it's in C/SQL combined code which I've never written before. I feel so accomplished right now. I even made sure that the report header was updated. Response from my customer:

It worked this time.
This is gonna save me hours. Thank you so much!!!
Tina

She's one of my favorite customers. She's demanding and has an ever growing list of requests, but if you send her stuff to test, she'll test the crap out of it and send back excellent feedback in a timely manner.

In donation updates:
I've got some very generous friends, family and co-workers. I'm at 95% of my goal! That's just fricken awesome. Now if I can just convince Jody to have Jackson's fifth birthday party late enough in the day that I can still go... (the walk starts at 10am and she was saying that that she thought she'd have his party that day)

Also, her brother is hilarious. He suggested that the theme this year should be "Jackson 5". Can you imagine everyone in afro wigs?! Sylla said he might try to grow his hair out for his own natural afro. :)

Things that make me happy:
When two of my best friends are truly in love (not with each other!) and happy and can see futures for themselves they did not see just three or four years ago.

Because all you really want is for your friends to be happy and for others to realize, too, just how great they really are.

Oh my goodness. I am literally crying and the cat doesn't quite know what to think.

Two things just happened:

1. My cell phone rang and it was my co-worker Missy. A little surprising, as she left work very early today because her mother was having an emergency angioplasty surgery. She called to let me know that she missed me last week and she really appreciated the hug I gave her today just before she left. That really made me feel good.
2. After I hung up with her, I noticed I had a text message from thetim. He's engaged! So of course I had to call him and congratulate him. It's really wonderful news. He's a completely stronger, happier, and more confident person ever since princess_nicci entered his life. I'm just so excited and happy for them!

That's all I got. :)

This NPR story made me think of viksin.

Jacked from verucagonff

Reasons why I believe I won the jackpot in the husband lottery:

1. This weekend, he got his motorcycle back and looked ever so dreamy and studly with the motorcycle jacket I bought him and slightly tousled helmet hair
2. Then he took me for a half-block bike ride and didn't make fun of me too much for panic-giggling in his ear and saying "I wasn't attached to anything!"
3. He had Monday and Tuesday off this week and painted the whole kitchen. He even tore down his beloved "wall of weed" wall paper and painted there, too. He even did a double coat!
4. Tuesday, he then bribed Gary and Bryan into helping he fetch our new stove from Menards and removed the old stove and installed the new one. And our new range hood.
5. Wednesday, he went with me to a co-worker's birthday party/boss's new promotion party and hung out with us.
6. Today, I get home to steak on the grill, corn on the cob on the grill, and roasted buttery garlic potatoes, carrots and onions on the grill.

Note: This list is not entire. It is only the most recent awesomeness that has occurred in the past five days.

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and 74 degrees out and I got a sun burn... Today it is cold and looks like it is going to snow.

Yesterday, the illustrious Miss Jody Mae dropped my birthday present off while I was at work. It was a lilac bush! Lilacs are my most favoritest flower and my best friend and maid of honor gave me a whole plant of them!

Jilly are loved.