"Oh Marilla, Such a Jonah Day"

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you're taking a ride on Anne Shirley's rollercoaster? Yesterday was one for me, and they so rarely happen that it caught me by surprise when at 3pm I was on the verge of tears from frustration. Yes, I do cry a lot these days...and normally its over puppies, sad stories and movies, but today it would have been a,"I want to smash a lot of things" kind of cry. It didn't start out that way. It was a good morning, one of those rare Arizona snow days.

The view from my kitchen window...before the night's worth of snow had fallen!

Monday afternoon it began snowing and it continued through the night, beautiful and cold. By 0430 am Fort Huachuca's post page on Facebook announced a late start at 10am and PWOC was cancelled. I've been going to PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) since the "semester" started in January. Its my first experience with them, at Fort Knox my day at the pregnancy center conflicted with their meeting times. Now that we're here and I have more free time, I really wanted to be involved in a womens' study and meet fellow Christian army wives in our short stay at Huachuca. I'm so glad I did, we are working through a study by Jerry Bridges on "Respectable Sins" at the moment, and with the dozen women in my small group its been just so good to read, have to think through and deal honestly with the questions he brings up. Wow, you'd think I'd be even more sanctified than normal since I'm in Bible study, and not have bad days, right? Haha!
In the morning, I processed 10 lbs of London Broil. I've been finding it at our Safeway on a tremendous sale every couple of weeks, 2.50 a lb if you buy it in bulk so the last time I exuberantly purchased 20 lbs of meat....only to realize that I MUST process and divide it into meal portions....quickly! It is a wonderful meat though, very lean and scorned by sophisticated chefs as a lousy tough poor man's choice. I love it! I found an excellent rub recipe, Sweet and Spicy London Broil and with a little experimenting got it to a point where after it "settled" for the 10 minutes tented with foil the interior was a delicate pink, perfectly done. I ended up broiling mine (we have a gas oven)  for 7-8 minutes on each side as opposed to the 6 mentioned so its something you may need to adjust slightly based on your oven/broiler. I line my pan with aluminum foil and then I have almost NO cleanup. Its great.

Possible combinations arranged, meat beaten with an ice pick, water bottle at hand to continue "hydrating" :)

I also played around with various marinades....I have one with soy sauce, brown sugar and garlic (its the Cadi Vance special :)) one with lemon slices, brown sugar, vinegar and lots of pepper, a 3rd mixture of vinegar, mustard, orange juice and then a hot and spicy one with Lou's favorite sauce, the "rooster sauce" found in the Asian food aisle, soy sauce, garlic, onion, and a little honey. I also made a chili pepper/cocoa mixture for the first time, so I was excited to get it all done before lunch and still feel human!

Love to see the progress in meal planning....even though it can feel like a lot of work at the time!

 I started having those Braxton-Hicks again after I finished washing several loads of laundry and I thought to myself,"I'm overdoing it, I should lie down" but I wanted to finish all my little "goals" for the day so I stubbornly kept moving. I think I'm having them based on what I've read and hear from friends, but sometimes its hard to know. I do know that when they start, my lower back aches unbearably in the same area where I had a back injury in high school....so it can be very tiring.
Goals....Valentines is tomorrow...and this is where I had my "moment". I had carefully packaged and weighed the boxes I planned to send my beautiful nieces and nephews (all 18 of them!) to figure out what would be the most economical way to send their candy and granola. Candy, because I remember the excitement as a kid when I got candy from Grandma for Valentines and Halloween, granola because I didn't want to only rot their teeth on the holidays! I have been dehydrating strawberries for the past several weeks with great success and combined them with our family recipe for granola out of  From God's Natural Storehouse cookbook. Not only delicious but healthy....relatively speaking. :) Priority vs. priority flat rate vs. Regional Rate A boxes....I got it all figured out, the boxes packed and sealed to the max...labels printed with the correct addresses and they were ready to send, Voila! Lou offered to take them to the post office but I told him it would just take me "a couple minutes" and I didn't want to make him late for class, so off I went...also I had a rendezvous to purchase some burlap from a local Sierra Vista woman. I arrived to the post office and stood in line for 20 minutes, somehow there were 20 people waiting...which is a rare thing. Got to the window and stacked my boxes, breathing a sigh of relief that I still had 10 minutes' grace time! The postal worker looked at the boxes and said,"Oh, we don't mail these anymore...we  can only send them based on weight...and these will run you around $18 apiece." Ackkkkk! I'm never a huge fan of mailing boxes but I had carefully researched my options and decided the "Regional Rate A" were the best choice...less costly than flat rate even though they were being sent to the furthest zones from AZ for the most part. She casually said,"Well, you can just slip them into flat rate mailers and re-address them, that shouldn't take long." I'm not sure why today it seemed the end of the world...maybe it was my swelling feet, hurting back, the fact that I'd spent all that time at home packing and re-packing stuff into boxes that would work best...or that I was supposed to meet someone in 10 minutes who was a 5 minute drive away...and had stood in line 20 minutes prior to this, but it was a huge deal inside. I had many things I wished to say that could not and should not be said. I amaze myself sometimes with how uncharitable I can be inside...while maintaining a semblance of composure on the outside. I'm a good hypocrite! Reading Bridges' book is making me more aware of those moments when I want to jump up and down and shout, and how God is still hard at work in my life...and that's a really good thing! So, I took the boxes back out to the car since I was out of time, slowly began backing out of my parking spot only to have the woman beside me also start backing out, unaware that I was halfway behind her....in fact she would have backed into me but I managed to honk my horn! Long story short, I purchased the burlap, ran back to the post office, relabeled, taped and repackaged the boxes...stood in line and shipped them...and they should be there by Valentines. It all sounds so simple and uncomplicated when I type it out, and downright silly to be angry. And it is. Its funny how little things can affect me so much at times. I wonder if some of it is hormones and yet I suspect that a great deal of it is my sin nature. I'm thankful that God is much more patient with me than I am with people at times!
I have to say that my day ended with a lovely little surprise, my mom sent me a text that sent me into tears with the words "long distance baby shower" and this photo attached.

Awwww....love this pretty stuff!

I had been talking to her earlier about needing to find more 0-3 month baby clothing before Anjuli arrives and she took it upon herself to put together this beautiful layette for me. My mom has amazing baby clothing shopping "skills"! I can't wait to see our little girl wearing all this lovely pink girly clothing....and of course I'm a huge fan of the little sailor dress. :) I'm 33 weeks today and feeling more and more "bigger" each day.

Lou took me to the gym for several swimming lessons and the feeling in the water is wonderful, weightless compared to my norm. I am finally learning how to swim, its good to get over my fear of drowning.....because prior to this Lou said that my only goal in water seemed to be "not to drown" instead of actually propelling myself effectively towards the opposite end of the pool. He is a very patient instructor. :)
Lou is almost finished with the changing table/dresser he built-just putting some last coats of paint on the drawers.

The humble beginnings...it will have 3 large side mounted drawers and the top is built to drop the pad inside, as well as hold diaper wipes, etc.

1st coated and sitting outside our kitchen door so the oil based paint fumes won't fill the house!

Next he's going to start the "crib project", and he says its none too soon.....time is flying by and she'll be here! We're having a little photo session on Sunday afternoon with a local photographer, and I made these little things to incorporate into one or several of the photos.

We're having them taken in a canyon nearby with some excellent views of the mountains so it will be a fun time, I'm sure! Can't wait to share them with you all!