No longer a baby...

My daughter is no longer a baby, even if we continue to call her "Baby Kate". She doesn't walk, she RUNS. She doesn't babble, she screams. She's not an infant, she's a toddler. Sigh.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Tom Cruise tried to ruin the day, but in the end, The Connors came out married, again! :-)





Liz, anytime you need a personal assistant, I have experience and a great resume. LOVE YOU!

10 more days...

until my baby girl is ONE. The last 12 months have flown by. I can't believe that a year ago this week, I was still working, very pregnant and would cry at school every time someone would say "Oh, are you still here?"

My friend Ross took Kate's pictures for her first birthday and they came out so good! Here are a few of my favorites...

Time to make a quilt...

Okay, so I'm starting to really enjoy sewing. I mean, I love it. I love to pick out colors, pick out patterns and be able to say, YES, I made that. I MADE THAT. I've been making my pillows for about a year now, started making dresses for Kate this spring and now I'm entering the world of quilting. I'm so excited about my first project, which was inspired by this blog.

Hayley met me at JoAnns to get the quilting supplies that I needed...I can't believe I was sewing for a YEAR without a rotary cutter! My god! This is amazing! AND it's PINK! Hayley showed me a couple different ones, but I chose this one because of the safety features. The blade pops out and pops back in with the press of a button. With small ones around, I knew this was the best choice.

I had read about a technique for sewing together the pieces where you just keep sewing and leave a small amount of thread in between each set, and it worked great! You can see my pieces behind the machine here...

Here are my pieces (22 rectangles) all sewn together. This was before I went upstairs to iron them. I think the colors look great! Last night I sewed together two more lenghts of 22 rectangles and I have two more to go. Then I just have to piece together with white in between. Also, I have no idea what it means to baste, quilt and bind, but that's what google is for!

God Fearing

I was reading a mommy-blog this morning and she was talking about her sister. I don't have a sister, nor do I have what I would call a very close relationship with my older brother and my my younger brother is still in college and we don't see him much, but man, I love that kid. Her post intrigued me, until she described her sister and I couldn't stop thinking about it after that. She described her sister as, "one of the nicest, most understanding and forgiving, God fearing, relaxed people I know." The "God Fearing" part just struck a chord with me.

I was raised catholic and have baptised my children in the catholic faith, but I wouldn't be what you would call a "good catholic girl." I had pre-marital sex (oh my!), lie and swear quite frequently (no, shit?) , don't take my children to church (gasp!), don't say grace before dinner (Rubba, dub, dub, thanks for the grub!), don't have my children say prayers before bed (now you want me to read a book and say a prayer? I've got to watch Glee at some point here.) and take the Lord's name in vain (Jesus!). But, let's get back to the God Fearing thing.

God Fearing...why is this considered a positive trait? Should I fear God, my creator? Should I live my life thinking that my choices are going to anger God to the point where he's going to be mad at me and I should fear his reaction?

I make thousands of choices and decisions per day. As a teacher alone, I answer 1,500 questions. It's not as simple as it sounds. For example, "Can I go to the bathroom?" The answer to this question is a simple yes or no, but the impact on the child is far from simple. I have to take into account, did I just let this person leave the room for something? Will they miss something important while they are gone? Did a friend of their's from another classroom walk by and that's why they want to go? Thousands of choices and decisions that I am held accountable by myself, my students, their parents, my principal and now also God? Should I fear that God wanted me to let little Johnny use the bathroom during his math test??

If I am God fearing, should I be authority fearing? Since God is seen as an authority figure, should I fear all authoritative figures? When I first began teaching, I was fearful of my principal. She was not supportive and caring. When she walked into my classroom, I froze, got beat-red and by the end of my two years there would break out in hives whenever she would talk to me, look at me or email me. Is this the kind of fear I should have for God?

As a catholic we are taught to fear authority. Do what the priest says, or you'll go to hell. Vote how the Bishop tells you to vote, or you'll GO TO HELL. Pray everyday, go to church every week, get married only once, don't have sex before you're married, read the bible, respect your elders, Go to CCD, give money to the church out of your paycheck even if you're on food stamps, be pro-life, don't use contraceptives, don't use the Lord's name in vain, don't ask questions or YOU'LL GO TO HELL.

What kind of God is like that?

Not my God.

I am a very spiritual and religious person, but I don't fear God. Do you?

glee

This makes me want to go back to high school, start a glee club and sing my heart out.

Last Week (in pictures)

My best friend came to visit from Ireland last week and she planned her visit perfectly! (I think that because her plan included three days in Maine with ME!) hehe.

She arrived Tuesday, her mom brought her up, and stayed until Thursday. Thursday night was her surprise bridal shower/pizza party and it was my job to get her there on time (I failed). The drive down was quite hilarious, and after quite a few laughs we decided to take out the camera. We were stuck in traffic most of the time, so don't worry, I wasn't driving very fast while taking these pictures. When you're stuck in traffic, you see quite a few strange things. It may only for funny to us, but I'm going to share them with you anyway.

Here's a car we saw. Do you think they could fit any more bikes on the back? No? Maybe that's why they decided to put one on the roof.

Seriously, guy. It's August and we're in a heat wave, or did you not notice? It was so hot this week that my eye lids were sweaty, yet this guy had a plow on the front of his truck. He's ready for a blizzard!

Justin Timberlake cures everything. Here we are making the iPod dock work in Nik's car. We had to stuff Nik's work id behind the iPod so that it wouldn't make this God-awful noise. Or right, and we didn't break Nik's speaker either. It was already broken. I said, IT WAS ALREADY BROKEN. Right???

Here I am waiting in traffic with baited breath to find the one Robert Pattinson, aka Edward Cullen. That's right! We saw him while we were stuck in traffic in a very nice Toyota Camry. We decided to stalk him and try to take his picture...

Success!

Oh wait, maybe that wasn't him...here's a closer look.

Part Two coming soon...