You pansy, you.

My Mama is the best gardener in all of the land. Her flowers are always immaculate and the most beautifulest and she knows the name of every plant there is. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Naturally, you would expect her daughters to inherit this trait from her. With such a great resource for gardening and flower-growing at our fingertips, it's no wonder that we all have bright green thumbs as well, even if they are just thumbs in training.

Earlier this fall, my Mama gave us each a hanging basket of pansies because she had purchased too many for her yard. Now that it is spring time again, they are really getting beautiful and growing like weeds. But not weeds, because, well, they're pansies.

So, I thought I'd share pictures of the pansies that each of my sisters and I have been taking care of this winter. They are all so beautiful, do you agree?

Here are mine:

And these are my sister Christy's - right after a rain storm for a little extra photogenic-ness:



And then these are Joy's - still hanging so beautifully by her front door:

At least she's proud of her basket of nothingness! It's like The Emperor's New Clothes; she swears she still sees the most beautiful flowers overflowing from her basket. I do too, Joy. I do too.

A Little Help For Those Who Need It

I've never had a problem with people getting my humor - A.K.A. my sarcasm. I'm not a funny haha kind of gal. I'll never be able to master a story-type joke and I won't be doing stand-up anytime soon. But, I am pretty sarcastic and witty, I think. Seriousness is just not my forté.

When I meet someone with a broken sarcasm meter, we tend to have issues communicating. When I tell them, "Why yes! Of course you should sell everything you own and move into that cardboard box with the entrepreneur living under the bridge!" and they fail to see the sarcasm in my statement, I may lead them astray or even [gasp!] hurt feelings. And that's not my intention at all.

So, when at work today I continuously had to pause my conversation with my dear co-worker Patrick (remember Patrick?), regroup and confirm that yes, that was indeed sarcasm, I realized that I needed to do something about this.

So I made a sarcasm flag for his benefit. & since this one is rather big - 12 inches tall according to it's ruler flagpost - I should probably make a travel version as well for anytime I'm not at my desk. It's for our combined benefit, after all.

Do you have trouble reading my sarcasm as well? Should I also start using a sarcasm font? I'm not that hard to read, am I?

Happy Wednesday! I hope you have a terrible, awful afternoon and you step in dog poop on your way home!
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Baby Supermodel

Yesterday I did a little photo shoot with my brother and his family. You may remember Wyatt from the really Wordy Write-up I Wrote When he Was Welcomed to our family last September. Since then, we've done several little photo shoots together, but I think this one was his best work yet.


Baby Supermodel

Wyatt is just over 6 months old now, and his mommy was hoping for some Easter pictures and some family pictures from this session. Granted, I am no photographer, but I have a nice camera which pretty much does all the work for me. And, I get to spend extra time with this little guy, so who could blame me?

So we took some pictures inside, then we conned his Daddy (my baby brother Colt) into doing some pictures outside. Pictures are not my brother's favorite past time, but hopefully he'll be glad he let me take these one day. It makes me all teary to see my baby brother with his baby. I guess I've forgiven him for jumping in line.

One thing we've done each time we take pictures is to take Wyatt's picture next to one of Colt's old stuffed animals. (Let me let you in on a little secret - it was no trouble at all finding an old stuffed animal of Colt's. His former closet at my parent's house is still full of his childhood stuffed animals that he could never part with. Hope he doesn't kill me for sharing that little fact!)

Anyways, it's crazy to line all the bear pictures up and see how much he's changed in 6 short months.



I took 226 pictures this day, and had the hardest time narrowing it down when I got home. Either I'm getting better at this (doubtful) or this baby is making this easier and easier! He can't help it that he is so cute! But since I didn't want to put them all here and choke my poor readers to death with photo overload (is there really such a thing when there's so much cuteness?), I made a set of the best photos here so you can see more if you wanna. And why wouldn't you wanna?
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Okay, Fine.

Everyone keeps asking me to post a "bump" picture. I'm only 14 weeks, gee golly. How big do you think I am?

But, you have to give the people what the people want. I work for you!

Clearly John doesn't work for you, or else he would have helped me take this self portrait. It's quite hard to take a picture in a mirror I learned. I don't understand how all of the teenaged Facebookers seem to master it so well. And on top of just getting themselves in the frame, they manage a kissy face too! I mean, the teenagers of today are talented.

So anyways. My 14 week picture is below. It's crazy really. I don't feel like I look like I've gained an ounce.


Not bad bumpage for a rolled up wet towel, huh?

Textures

I have a major problem. And I've known it for a long time, but it's getting serious now.

I have a major aversion to funky food textures. I need solidarity, smoothness, and consistency in my food, and chunks and unexpected textures while I'm chewing nearly send me over the edge.

Today, for example, I am force feeding myself some cantaloupe and chanting while I chew "It's for the baby, it's for the baby, it's for the baby." It's not that cantaloupe is so bad, but it's a little squishy for me. And textures mean everything.

Anyways, so I'm chugging along on my bowl of cantaloupe and it's going better than expected. Until, I throw a piece in my mouth that must have been from the outside of the cantaloupe and it's a bit tougher than the rest of it on one side. I nearly lost my cookies, er, cantaloupes.

It makes no sense, I know. When I think about it logically, the outside piece doesn't bother me at all. I mean, the outside piece on a pan of brownies is the best part! But, when I'm chewing along and get to that piece it throws me for a loop and I cannot think logically at this point. My throat says GAG GAG GAG and it won't go down. It must come out, and with this baby inside of me, I end up going one step further and hanging my head over my trash can at my desk for a few minutes. Luckily I was able to get it under control and didn't have my first incident at work.

This is the same reason that I prefer pureed salsa, and chunks of onion are the devil's work. They are so grainy and crunchy and can sneak up on you regardless of which type of food they are in.

So I'm thinking that the only way to get over this is to go with it. You can't argue with a gag reflex, right? And also, I'm thinking that my baby and I are going to have lots in common in a year or so. Both of us will be shopping in the same aisle at the grocery store.

I just pray that my baby isn't picky like me and they only have the desire eat baby food while he/she is actually a baby. (Side note: I don't actually want to eat baby food. But the smooth consistency does sound pretty tempting.)

Anyone else as crazy as me? Have any tips on how to make me normal? (I know that's a lot to ask!) What are your bizarre food issues?
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