Our Christmas Season So Far...

A recap of our Christmas Season in pictures. They are mostly all phone pictures, hence the poor quality. However, I have to document this stuff because without the blog I wouldn't be able to remember hardly anything from the last 5 years of my life.

Balboa Park Christmas Festival with friends

Balboa Park has some really gorgeous buildings. If I had a nice camera and actual artistic talent then I could prove it with pictures, but this will have to do.

SeaWorld has a snow area the month of December. The kids all LOVE it. We've gone a few times just for the snow.

San Diego's version of Temple Square. 

Yes, Taft has a mohawk/strip of hair down the middle of his head. It started out as a joke but then we left it like that for over a week. Doesn't he look like he would get into all kinds of trouble? I felt like he was naughtier with this haircut.

Christmas Party with friends from our ward and neighborhood. This was the same night as Seth's work party. We were going to try to make both, but in the end we just decided to do the one. We had a great time and Taft played with our friends train table for 2 1/2 hours straight.

Ward Christmas Party. The primary did a Nativity play and it was sooooo adorable. Taft was sad he couldn't be a sheep. He'll be in nursery for a full year more, bummer! That's Taft's friend as the star. When he saw her he said "Sadie's a Starfish!!"

Taft and the second Santa Claus of the season. Obviously, he's a little unsure about Santa. I think he knows he's supposed to like Santa but isn't sure why.  He's been very consistent in telling Santa and others that he wants a helicopter for Christmas.

And Luke....well he hated Santa.

Boat Parade in San Diego Bay (sad picture I know. Doesn't look like much of  a parade does it?)

Zoo Lights at San Diego Zoo

Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting on Orange Ave. Yeah, the boys are wearing pjs. It was kinda late and cold.

Santa arrives at Ferry Landing. Taft with "Puckerman" hair cut (Glee fans?)

Christmas outfits, Sunday before Christmas. Grammie and Pop, your Christmas money bought them each a toy, but also these outfits. The first time I dressed them the exact same. I loved it!

I actually think Taft was trying to be nice here. Brothers....

Tree Lighting on Orange

More Zoo Lights

I love the small community feel of Coronado, especially for the holidays. At the beginning of December Santa rode across the bay to Coronado on a ferry. Later that night there was a light parade and Santa rode down Orange on a firetruck and lit the Christmas tree. It all had a very small, town feel and I loved it. 

I'm surprised we've fit in as much as we have because Seth's has a very busy work schedule this month. We weren't sure he was going to get Christmas off, but he does! He's been at work since yesterday around 6:30 a.m. and won't get home until about noon today, but at least he'll be home for Christmas Eve festivities and all day Christmas.  

I posted this to Facebook, but I think it's worth re-writing here. Yesterday while baking cookies: 

Taft: "What are you making Mom?"

Me: "Cookies!"

Taft: "OH! I LOVE cookies!"

Me: "I'm making some for Santa because he's coming TOMORROW night!"

Taft: "Ah man, I don't WIKE Santa Cwaus ANY. MORE."

(eats a cookie)

Taft: "I don't WIKE Santa Cwaus."

He also went on to say that he didn't like reindeer, decorations, or presents. Then, he broke a snow globe on the kitchen floor (on accident). I don't know if Taft is really advanced for his age and knows the Santa thing is just smoke and mirrors, or if he's the Grinch. 

Despite the warm-ish weather, lack of snow, and presence of palm trees, it does feel like Christmas. I'm so excited for Christmas morning. Santa told me what he's giving Taft and I think he's going to loooove it.

Also, I love that Christmas is on a Sunday. I'm really looking forward to hearing the story of the Savior's birth and singing Christmas hymns. It's such a better way to spend Christmas as opposed to staying in pajamas until 4 and eating nothing but chocolate and cinnamon rolls all day.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! 

Yukie is an 11 monther

Yukie is what we call him now. Not yucky, yukie. Like Lukie but with a Y. That's what Taft calls him and  now we do too. Yukie finally had too teeth cut through the gum. I was starting to worry that he didn't have any teeth in his mouth.  He's starting to cruise along furniture a bit, will take steps while holding his hands, can regular crawl, but still prefers his super speedy army crawl. He loves to climb the stairs at the playground. He's becoming more interested in things Taft is doing. It's kind of a struggle because Luke is too little to understand to not take things from others and Taft is just learning how to share. There's a lot of crying going on at our house. Although I feel like just in the past week they are starting to play more and more together and Lukie has been crying less.  Lukie no longer eats baby food and seriously likes just about everything we give him. The only things he hasn't really liked are animal crackers and these baby arrowroot cookie things...so maybe he didn't inherit my sweet tooth? He still wakes up multiple times at night but we haven't really tried anything to get him to stop. I'm hoping when we make the switch to cow's milk and a bottle later this month that we can kick this habit. He doesn't love being held by other people. I think he's more of a mama's boy, but he's showing more interest in Seth.  Lukie loves bath time and had fun splashing in the baby pool in Palm Springs. Lukie still has his moments, but he's pretty good at going with the flow. I guess he has to because Taft is still running the show around here. Lukie is babbling more and it's starting to sound more like he's talking. It's pretty cute. I'm so sad this baby year is almost over! Although, I am looking forward for my two boys to be able to start playing together more and more.

Herway Sibling Christmas Thing

Last year Seth's siblings decided that instead of doing the usual Christmas gift exchange, that we'd pool the money that would be spent on each other to help provide a better Christmas to someone in need. Seth's older brother and his family were in charge of overseeing how the money was spent last year and this year it was our turn. I'm blogging about it so the Herway's can hear/read about what we did with it this year.

Originally, I wanted to spend the money to dinners to give to the homeless. San Diego, as you've probably heard, has a crazy huge homeless population. I envisioned us making a delicious homemade meal, boxing it up in individual sized aluminum take-out containers (like Cafe Rio) and taking them downtown and passing them out. I ran this idea by a friend to see if she thought it was stupid/unsafe to walk around downtown passing out food with little kids in tow. She told me that a couple of years ago some people either got arrested or fined for giving homemade food to the homeless. Apparently it's against the law! That's one of the dumbest things I've heard in my life.

We then got in touch with the Relief Society president in our ward to see if there was a family in our ward we could help out. Maybe provide food for a Christmas meal or something. Our ward takes in a pretty poor area and there are a lot of needy families. She told us our ward just likes to donate gift cards to the families and they can get what they need.

I looked for some other ideas and eventually settled on buying gifts for families staying at the YWCA. In addition to other programs which focus efforts on eliminating racism and empowering women the YWCA provides a Women and Children's center for victims of domestic violence. They also provide housing for homeless families when available. By the time I called the center most of the women and children had received everything they had requested but the YWCA said they were still in need of items for the fathers.

I think Seth and Taft look so much alike in this picture

The boys were a huge help

Taft thought all the dads might want their own Padres pillow pet

And Spiderman mask

And Lukie stayed happy devouring a box of chocolate Teddy Grahams

Monday night for FHE we headed to the temple to see the Christmas lights and then went to Target to pick out some things for the YWCA. Their list also highly recommended gift cards...but that's boring. We picked out a few other things on the list: NFL/MLB/NBA t-shirts, socks, and hair clippers. We also bought 4 gift cards. 2 for the YWCA and 2 for us. Just kidding, the other 2 were for families from our ward.

Tuesday the little boys and I dropped off the things at the YWCA. Tonight is our ward Christmas party and we'll turn in the other gift cards then.

When I was younger my family helped provide some Christmas gifts for a family staying at the homeless shelter in Salt Lake. We got to meet the family we bought the gifts for. The family was just a mom, a young boy, and a baby girl. I remember we bought the baby girl a dress from babyGap and I thought it was the cutest. I remember walking back to the room they stayed in. I probably was only 9 or 10 at the time and I still remember it. I wish we could have met the people we were able to help this Christmas. I'm glad we've started this tradition! Jake and Mel, you're up next!

I Didn't Take Any Pictures of Any of The Things I'm Going to Tell You About

1. Thanksgiving. Seth had the day off. We weren't positive he'd have it off, so we were very glad he did. We spent it with our friends from our ward, who just live a couple of blocks from us. It was fun and delicious, but I screwed up Seth's one request, Sweet Potato Casserole. I kinda knew I put too much butter in, but then I thought, "Is there really such a thing as too much better?" Yep. There is.

2. Lukie and I took a quick trip to Utah for my cousin, Katie's wedding. It was a cold but beautiful day and the couple looked gorgeous and happy. I was glad to go because I got to see my parents, siblings, grandma, and Lam cousins. We even squeezed in a mini-Bluth reunion dinner after the wedding so it was fun to see some of those cousins too. Oh! and I was able to visit one of my sis-in-laws late one night and my sisters came too because they borderline worship her. (It's true Lara) OH! And I had an early b-day celebration with my fam. My sister got me TOMS which combined with my California drivers license makes me a true California resident. My parents and brother got me painting supplies, because surprise! I'm going to try to pick up another hobby that probably will go the same way my sewing streak went. But I'm excited about it and maybe I'll become a master painter. It could happen.

3. When Seth and Taft picked Lukie and me up from the airport we headed straight to Palm Springs for a mini-vacay. Seth has this whole week off so we went for a change of scenery, some laps around the Lazy River, and a good extra warm dose of Vitamin D. The rest of Seth's week off includes: beginning of Christmas festivities, a date night, installing new flooring in our kitchen (heaven help us), and then starting Monday Seth is back to the grind.

November 17, 2006

Guess who got married 5 years ago today? We did. It was a really great day. I've said a number of times that I want to re-do the day because I had so much fun, and it's still true. Who doesn't want to get dressed up, eat good food, party your pants off, be with friends and family, and be super over-the-top happy because you just married the bomb dot com?

It's been five years and I still think Seth is the bomb dot com. I really do feel lucky every day that we got married. I just gave a lesson in Young Women about marriage standards. The lesson suggested to talk about writing a list of qualities the girls would like in a future spouse. While I am generally anti-list when it comes to choosing a spouse (because I think people go a little overboard and have crazy-impossible-unacheivable requirements) and told them to make sure their list wasn't a description of a perfect person (because doi, they don't exist), but someone who'd be perfect for them. Someone who could complement them in the areas where they have weaknesses. Seth is absolutely perfect for me. I'm going to pat our marriage on the back and say that I think we balance each other out quite nicely actually. I probably shouldn't admit it, but I really am proud of our marriage. I feel like we really are happy and I feel like that's okay to be proud of.

In the past 5 years we have:

Lived in 3 states
Moved 4 times
Bought 1 condo
Sold 1 car
Had 2 babies
Graduated from college (me)
Graduated from medical school (him)
Traveled to lots of places, both home and abroad


And since this post is already all about us, check out the sappy montage I made. If you want to tug at Seth's heartstrings, all you gotta do is put together some pictures set to music. Gets him every time.

Bye Bye Binky

Well it's about dang time. Is that what you were thinking? We finally got Taft off his binky. It's kind of sad to me though. He's now a kid. No diapers, no binky. We took him to Toys R Us to trade in his binkies for a new Buzz toy.

He has asked about his binkies a few times, but overall has not been experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

In other news, Taft has been trying to diversify his talents and interests recently. 

Firefighting

Practicing Medicine




Song Writing

p.s. All our videos are so dark because we live in a cave. Just FYI.

Lukie Pookie is Ten Months

Luke's is 10 1/2 month now. If it's possible, he keeps getting cuter. These days Luke likes to crawl on everything and anything. He's still doing the army/belly crawl which is making for very dirty clothes. We go to the park a lot and he always squirms and cries until I let him down and crawl free. As much as I want him to stay my baby, it'd be nice if he would start walking soon. It's clear that he doesn't want me hold him all day and if he's not interested in snuggling then I would prefer he walk. He's been pulling himself up on everything but hasn't decided to start cruising yet.

He likes to play with whatever Taft is playing with vice versa. Luke isn't very interested in many age appropriate toys and prefers Taft's cars and non-toy items like remotes, cords, batteries, etc.

Luke takes two 2-hr naps each day and sleeps from 7:30 to 7:00, usually with a couple of wake ups at night. I don't think he really needs to nurse anymore, but I know it will put him back to sleep so I do it. It needs to stop though.  But, I do like that I get to snuggle with him. Sometimes Luke sleeps with his bum in the air and it's the cutest. When Taft was a baby we put him in a sleep sack at night. Luke HATES the sleep sack so I always worry about him being cold. Luke is nursed before bed and sleeps with a binky, but other than that doesn't need anything specific to sleep.

Luke can EAT. I'm not sure he has tasted something he didn't like. He still doesn't have teeth, but I've been giving him more table foods that he can mash with his gums. He seems to really like Veggie Sticks, broccoli, bananas, and strawberries. He has had a sippy cup a few times, but hasn't really shown interest in it.

He babbles all the time. He can still be fussy at times, but I think he needs to to get attention every now and then because Taft seems to take up quite a bit of my attention at times. His newest trick is clapping (not for attention, just to be cute).

We love this boy and I can't believe he's almost one year old. I've had friends say they really don't care much for the first year. I agree that it's a lot of work with nursing, getting them on a sleep schedule, special foods, etc. It's only a year though and I think that first year goes too fast.  I do look forward to the next stages, but I will so miss the little baby stage.

Only a face this good looking can pull off this hair-do

Random Pictures

A Flying Dragon. When he starts slowing down he tells me his wings are broken.

Too cute for words.

Taft loves hats. He has worn this hat to death and it barely fits his 90th percentile head anymore but insists on wearing it. He calls it his cowboy hat.

Can now stand in his crib!

Possibly the best part of our SeaWorld passes. This area is for kids Taft's height and younger. Lukie can crawl all around and not get hurt or dirty.

Taft was in time out in this picture....but this look on his face looks so much like my brother.  

All is well again with Elmo and Grover at SeaWorld.

Hallow's Eve

Pumpkin carving and our Ghetto-fabulous Halloween decor 

The final product. Our creativity is unbelievable.

T-Rex Dinosaur!!!!! RAAAAAAAA!

Wanna see me kick a wall?

Trick or Treating in the luxury of your own stroller

The day after Halloween I bought costumes half-off for dress ups. Taft was in heaven as a firefighter and later as a superhero.

Mid-flight

We Heart Visitors

Last weekend our friends from our Spokane year, The Petersons, came to San Diego. Seth and Mike bonded last year over their irrational, emotional, die-hard devotion to BYU sports. Seth's phone keeps track of the number of texts between him and other people. There are more texts between Seth and Mike, than Seth and me. The Peterson's had us over to their house for every BYU football and basketball game.  We've missed spending BYU game day with them. It was lots of fun getting to know their family and we're glad they stopped to visit us during their San Diego vacay. We spent one day at the beach with them and had them over for the BYU game and dinner. I didn't take any pictures other than of the kiddos watching a movie on our bed during the game. They live in Phoenix now and have their very own pool so there is a real good chance we'll be visiting them soon.

I just enlarged this and noticed Taft is TOTALLY giving me the bird! Rude. Oh and he has a slight obsession with band-aids.

This past weekend, Seth's good friend Luke Hayes and his wife Reagan and their two boys came to San Diego for the weekend. They live in L.A. and had been wanting to take their kids to SeaWorld and visit us of course. Seth and Luke (not to be confused with Lukie) have been friends since undergrad (so like over 10 years or something). We went to dinner with the Hayes' Friday night and had plans to meet them at SeaWorld the next morning but the dumb hospital had to page Seth at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning and ruined all our plans for the entire day. Later Saturday Taft and I ate our depressed feelings through candy and frozen yogurt. It helped a little.

Luke. Seth. Missy

It was a great weekend for the Hayes' to be in town because Seth and Luke's long time friend, Missy, was also in town so we all got together for dinner Saturday evening. Missy is a fantastic cook and offered to make us all dinner the next night. I was absolutely relieved when she offered because I was a little stressed about making dinner for a professional trained chef. I mean, I do make pretty awesome tuna sandwiches, but Sunday dinners usually call for something a little fancier. I should also mention, that Reagan is a interior designer and has her own gorgeous furniture line. So Missy is a wonderful cook, Reagan is a stylish designer, and I.....make good snickerdoodles and sewed some pillows once.

Missy. Me. Reagan

It's been so much fun living in a place that people like to visit. I think we've seen more friends and family in the four months we've lived here than we did the entire year in Spokane. (Not that I blame anyone) We've had lots of fun visiting with friends and family...Keep coming!!

Luke, Reagan....you made the blog. ;)

Taft at 2 1/2

Ever since Taft was born Seth has looked forward to the toddler stage---beginning to talk, imaginations, rough housing-and Taft has lived up to Seth's expectations. Taft makes us laugh every day and I want to remember these things about him.

-The majority of the time he is pretending he is something/someone else:T-Rex Dinosaur, Flynn Rider (from Tangled), Lizard, Dragon, Firefighter, and Woody are his most common personas. He sometimes calls me "Punzel", as in Rapunzel from Tangled, calls Lukie "Pasqual" also from Tangled, and Seth "Buzz".  Taft is much easier to work with if you play along with him and call him by whatever it is he's going by that minute. For example, if it's time to brush teeth and you say, "Come on Hippo, I need to brush those big teeth" it will be 300% easier than it would be if you were to say "Taft, let's brush teeth". There have been times when I am fighting so hard to get him out the door and as soon as I call him T-Rex or Dragon or something he does a 180 and is totally ready to go. Also, if he calls you "Dragon" or "T-Rex" or whatever it means he wants you to call him that too.

-He will do just about anything for fruit snacks.

-He loves cereal. Tonight he told me his favorite food is cake and his favorite breakfast is "waffs" (waffles) and favorite dinner is "macincheese". His diet isn't very good, but he will eat broccoli, carrots, and peas and likes quite a few different fruits. He has to be starving to eat his dinner and most nights cries a little and tells me dinner is "yucky". His favorite drink is probably milk. We pretty much just give him water and milk anyway. Although, he chugs soda when he gets it (which isn't very often).

-He really likes to be read to and loves the library. However, at the moment he is turning into a bit of a tv show/movie monster. He will ask for  shows all day long. I feel bad because we have to be home for two naps a day for Luke, so I've had to start getting more creative with filling our at home time. His favorite shows are, but not limited to: anything Barney, anything Thomas, some Strawberry Shortcake movie that he calls "Candy Butterfly", Toy Story 3, Tangled, and occasionally Sesame Street and the Backyardigans.

-He went through a phase of running away from me at the park and not listening when I told him to stop, but I feel like he's gotten better. He likes the park as long as he finds friends to play with and race. He LOVES to run. He likes to sit in the baby swings and hold his arms out and act likes he's flying.

-His favorite toys are trains and cars.

-At the end of Toy Story 3, Buzz and Jessie dance to latin music. Taft was watching it one day and that part was on. I started dancing and told Taft to come dance with me. He said, "That's not dancing Heidi."

-Seth was singing the Katy Perry song that goes "...there's a party in my head..." and Taft sang "There's a party in my pants."

-Since we've been working on potty training, Taft gets a lot of cheerleading when he's in the process of....you know. Lately he's been returning the favor. ;)

-When Taft is getting dressed he'll ask me to sing the "Firefighter Song" which is something we learned from- surprise!-Barney. Basically it goes "Hurry, hurry put your boots on. Hurry, hurry, put your (blank) on" etc. He gets dressed much faster this way.

-And drumroll please....HE POOPS IN THE POTTY!!!! (cue Hallelujah chorus)

-Doesn't have a lot of respect for authority- or at least for my authority. When ever I try to discipline or ask him to stop doing something he says, "No, YOU stop it MOM." or "No WAY Mom"

-Gives really great hugs and kisses.

(We have some really great videos, but they are all on  Seth's phone so we need to figure out how to get them off)

Toast, it's so unexpected.

The other night I was driving a 13 year old girl home from Young Women's. She was talking about how she needs to raise money for a school trip to D.C. She mentioned that her school was going to have a bake sale and she thought she'd make something to sell there.

Me: "That's a good idea, what do you think you'll make?"
Girl: "I was thinking toast."
Me: "Toast?"
Girl: "Yeah, like I'll have butter and jam of course."
Me: "I'm happy to help you make cookies or something. Cookies can be super quick and easy."
Girl: "Nah. Toast is just so unexpected, ya know?"

I came home and told Seth and we laughed about it for a while. I really need to try to talk her into something else and make sure she doesn't go to her bake sale armed only with some Wonderbread, a toaster, and some Smucker's jam. It would be super sad to see her at her stand, no one buying toast.

We also had this conversation in the car:

C: "I usually go to bed around 8 every night and then wake up at 1:00 in the morning to get things situated, and then I go back to bed"
Me: "Situated?"
D (C's sister): "Yeah, she gets dressed, makes her lunch, gets her backpack ready..."
Me: "Why don't you just do that before you go to bed, or wake up earlier in the morning?"
C: "Well, I used to always fall asleep at 8 and then my cat would jump on me at exactly 1:00 in the morning. I guess my body just got used to it. I adapt really well."

World's Most Adorable 9 Month Old

Honestly, how can you not love this face?! Lukie is 9 months now and is ready to explore the world. He is super squirmy, a lightning fast army crawler, and always wants to be on the move. One of Luke's favorite things to do is shut doors, but always ends up shutting himself in a room and gets stuck behind the door when you try to open it. He is a bottomless pit these days and will eat any food that is in front of him. He is starting to feed himself some finger foods and sometimes get so excited to eat that he yells and starts shaking. He still refuses to take a bottle (only 3 more months Mister). I have to say, I didn't get what the big deal was with nursing when Taft was a baby, but that's probably because I had to pump when I went back to work and was relieved when we switched to formula. This time around though I'm glad I was able to nurse, but it sure would be nice to go out on a date without planning it around Luke's schedule. He loves baths but only likes to lay down in the tub, do NOT make him try to sit. He'll throw himself backwards and whack his head on the hard tub. Sometimes he makes a cry face that looks that that old guy from the "bitter beer face" commercials. 

Luke did a great weeklong stretch of sleeping about 11 hours at night, but has decided to wake up once a night again. He likes sleeping on his side and goes down swaddled, but doesn't stay that way for long. Luke and Taft have been playing together. Taft pretends he and Luke are both dogs and they crawl along the floor together. Luke still does not like Taft to get in his face too much or to be man-handled by Taft either. We tell Taft to take it easy, but also tell Lukie he's gotta toughen up. Taft will be bugging him for the next 18 years and vice versa.

Luke is starting to jabber and does those razzing sounds. He also started biting one side of his lip and I think it's the cutest thing. He's still ticklish on just about every inch of his body so it's super easy to get him to laugh. He's starting to get a little shy around strangers and has buried his face in me a few times. (I love that.) He had his check up today and he weighs a little over 20 lbs and is in the average range for weight and height, but his big ol' noggin is still in the 90th percentile.

Yesterday he pulled himself up to standing for the first time and he can now clap a little bit. I hate to jinx it, but his whining might be toning down a little. Here's hoping!

Just Something I've Been Thinking About

(i really, really wish i remembered where i found this)

You guys, I've been working on something revolutionary: Not turning into a psycho, grumpy, cleaning Nazi wife/mom when my house looks like a dump. What's that? That's really not revolutionary? Well it is for me. 

I saw this quote a while back and I've been trying to remember it. I have kids, and I'm going to have even more kids one day (hopefully), and let's face it kids are professional mess-makers and wrecking crews. Whenever I do get my apartment cleaned (yes, all 900 sq. feet of it) it stays clean for about 1.7 seconds. Instead of letting this make me totally un-fun and a cleaning lunatic who makes everyone hold still for an hour just so we can enjoy the cleanliness, I've decided to accept my life of living in a pig sty. Ok, not a pig sty (all of the time) but definitely not an apartment that could be photographed and posted on some blog for all the world to see and make others feel guilty that their house isn't as perfectly decorated, thrifted, crafted, and designed as well as mine.

My Google Reader is out of control with photography/crafting/interior design/cooking/party planning blogs that I am subscribed to and then there's Pinterest (which I do love). I was telling Seth that reading all of these blogs is making me feel like a loser. He basically didn't have any sympathy for me and in a really nice way told me to get a life. :) He reminded me that comparing myself to others (real or fake people (blogs) ) is not good to do at all. Then I listened to President Uchtdorf's talk from the Relief Society broadcast and that made me remember that I actually have a life and a really good one too. I have a real life that consists of days full of playing with kids, bathing kids, feeding kids, trips to the park, trips to the grocery store, trips to the beach, playdates with friends, changing diapers, potty training, dinner making, and pillow-talking. A real life.

I have to remember that the aforementioned blogs I read are people's jobs. They are spending lots of time perfecting each post, publishing only the best pictures, and although they made, photographed, and packaged perfectly shaped and colored macaroons for all their neighbors, they left out the picture of themselves making them in their pajamas, mascara smears under their eyes, and bra-less. (At least that's what I imagine them to look like to make myself feel better). They are professional photographers, professional interior designers, etc. They have put lots of time into perfecting their skill and talents and instead of feeling like a loser because I don't have those talents, I really need to just admire them for their talents and continue working on and cultivating my own. 

The first step here is for me to cool it on the cleanliness of my house. Although, I have to admit, if we have company coming to stay there is still a good chance I might fall back into my old ways. Baby steps.  Seth mentioned earlier this week that our house has been a more enjoyable place to be and that all of us seem happier now that I've loosened my grip on the Windex bottle. Mission accomplished.