3.0

If you've seen us in person recently, you may have heard our news.  Most everyone who knows heard it from Elsie, who has been telling even strangers.  Few have heard from me, because I'm an odd duck like that.  I'm not sure why, but I've never really liked to talk about it, not for the first two, not for this one. It's a need-to-know kind of thing with me.  So, I told my family, my close friends, my immediate coworkers and my boss.  There are still people I know that I *should* tell but I haven't yet for various and sundry reasons.  Can't I just send a Christmas card next year with an extra person in it and they can draw their own conclusions?  No?

People who know keep asking me how I'm feeling, and I start talking about school--being exhausted by the calendar and ready for a break--and they look at me like I'm crazy because they were obviously asking about the pregnancy and I started talking about something else.  Because that's what I do.

We did make it to the ultrasound appointment this last week and it was confirmed that there is only one healthy baby in there who will make an appearance sometime around the beginning of May.

This particular child holds a special place in my heart because I was the third child.  Just like with the last one (Oscar), we will meet this baby before we find out his/her sex and before giving him/her a name.  We are excited to meet this one, though I think we have conveniently forgotten what it's like to have a baby in the house.

Also, I am not mentioning this on FB and would appreciate if you would be so kind as to respect this, too.  I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'm going to shut down FB for good soon.  To much of a time waster with too much to do.

So, anyway, that's our news!

Cheers!

Camouflage Christmas

Eli has been in the National Guard for a little over three years now, and this fall has been the first time that we have made it up to see what it is that he's doing when he's dressed up in camouflage on the weekends.  In August, I had a professional development session in Guntersville and stopped in to Fort M to visit.  When we went to a wedding in Mississippi in November, we drove through so that Eli could do one day of drill.  That's the weekend we were having so much car trouble.

Then, this past weekend, the kids and I went up to participate in the family activities, which included a Santa Claus in combat boots.  :)

December 2013 Debt Update

I feel like I've fallen off the wagon, but at the same time we are making great strides. I'll let you hear it from Eli, something he wrote to me in an e-mail this week after making a chunky payment:

I feel like we're fighting the mini-boss at the midway point in the last dungeon, and every month his health meter goes down just a tiny--but noticeable--bit. Once we kill the mini-boss, we can corral our resources to destroy the Beast Mortgage...

 I guess this makes us like the Super Mario Brothers!
Fourth 10K Chunk, started 9/24/13     Fundraising Thermometer Oh, and did I mention that this last little bit of student loans is under $20,000???  Now that's something to get excited about. Cheers!