A Streak of Bad Luck

The month of August has provided a streak of bad luck for the Carter's. Not life altering bad luck, just little things here and there that make me wonder if I somehow pissed off karma. So when Emma found a four leaf clover on Saturday you can imagine how excited I was. Finally, a stroke of luckiness had found its way into our lives. But, apparently, karma does not believe in superstition because we have since had another week of misfortune. Perhaps it takes a week to set in? The good luck that is. I will test superstition by playing the lottery this evening. In the meantime, we have our health if not our wealth and we are very lucky to have a lucky little girl like Emma.

Catch Up!

A mama tomato, a daddy tomato and a baby tomato are walking. The baby falls behind. The daddy tomato goes back, squishes the baby and says "Catch up!"

Ha ha, very funny. Thank you Pulp Fiction for bringing that joke into my life.

I am playing catch up though. D&E are visiting Grandma up North. Dan's mom Grandma, not to be confused with my mom, Grandma fa fa away. I thought I could clean the house, get some sewing done, even watch a movie that I know Dan has no interest in seeing. Alas, these things did not come to pass. Instead, I went to work. At work. For 8 whole hours. On a Saturday. And now. I blog. Priorities you know.

Here are some new pictures of Emma. Why? Because I am a bad daughter(in-law) and never mail photos to the respective Grandma's. Did I mention that I worked, on a Saturday? Who has time to send pictures? Although, Walgreen's certainly has the right idea. Maybe I will upload said photos and send them to the nearest Walgreen's for pick up. What do you think Grandma(s)? Please post your reply in the comments section of this blog. Welcome to the new millennium. Conversation via comments.

How Cookies Led Me To God

One night, about a year ago, I was searching for some information on cookies. I was thinking about starting a cookie business making specialty cookies. I was researching recipes for these delectable little treats when Google lead me Oh Happy Day which in turn lead me to "The Nie Nie Dialogues". In my curiosity, I read a little bit about a woman and her family and found myself wanting to read more. I delved into the archives and got to know an amazing, fantastic, unbelievably remarkable family that extended beyond the girl whose blog I was reading. Not two days later, two young boys in white shirts and ties came to my door asking if they could talk to me about the Book of Mormon. I invited them back for dinner so they could discuss the Book of Mormon with myself, my husband and my then three year old daughter. They came by, every Wednesday for a month eventually introducing me to some ladies from The Relief Society. I made fast friends with these ladies who treated me as if we had known each other all our lives. I attended Church and was amazed at the bond that seemed to be formed between these people and God. I wasn't exactly sure what had come in to my life, but I was excited about it and ready to explore it with an open mind and heart.

When I shared with my mother my newfound joy, my mood was immediately deflated when she said, "If you become a Mormon, I will disown you!" The words were said with such vehemence and hatred. I knew she was not joking. My family apparently has a long history with the Mormon religion that has not always been a positive relationship. We had never attended church as a family, God had never been a part of our daily lives. I had a small children's bible where I learned about Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah etc. They were just stories to me and we never prayed or said blessings over anything.

Over the next few months, I stayed involved in the Church. I was still excited about my new "family" and eager to learn more about this sect of people who essentially lived their religion as opposed to attending worship once a week and the occasional church sponsored activity. I opened up a door of communication with my mother regarding the religion. It was then, at this time in my life, she told me of the deep ties my family history has with Mormonism. Back to my great grandfather. She disassociated herself from the Church before I was born, for reasons only she could explain or know, only to marry a man who was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. My parents were never active members in that church, however, my stepfather's family also had very early ties to the Mormon history. My mother and I had long theological conversations about the Bible, God and religions in general and I learned a great deal about my genealogy and history that I may have never known were the words of the Book of Mormon not brought to my doorstep.

I still struggle with knowing God, it's hard to blow off thirty three years of conditioning, but there are facets of my life that have improved from the direct impact the Church has had on my life. I think that I am willing to explore things that the Church has to offer and to allow Emma the opportunity to learn and grow within the Church as well as though the knowledge that I have to offer.

All Things Aside

So, not being incredibly adept at all things HTML, I have changed my web banner. I am none too fond, but here it will stay until I can come up with something more my style. That could take weeks, perhaps months. I just can't bring myself to pay someone to do it for me, although, that seems like the most reasonable thing to do, then I could have something that says "la carter" and not "HTML challenged". Do you know how to create fashionable pretty web banners?

Today is Labor Day holiday so Emma is home with me. I haven't figured out just what we are going to do with all this time on our hands. Personally, I would like to catch up on dishes, laundry and vacuuming. I keep thinking to myself that it will only be a few years until Emma wants to go outside with her friends or roll to the mall without her mom, so all the household chores will be put on hold while we take advantage of the beautiful, almost fall weather, by taking a bike ride.

Speaking of almost fall, my most favorite of favorite seasons, I find myself saying goodbye to summer with joy and enthusiasm. It has been long, and hot, and humid. I relish the cooler evenings and crispy air. Yes, I said crispy, as opposed to crisp because fall says to me crispy, and that's just the way it is.

Have a great holiday!

A Post A Day In August

Here it is already, August first and I promised a post a day. I almost forgot. Right now, Emma is crying because she was running around like a wild child and fell. She hurt her pinky toe, on her left foot, it really hurts she says as she stands behind me. Real time people.

I took the day off from work so that Emma and I could spend the day together. We had some waffles, went to the water park and now, we are going to take a nap because mama's whooped.

I can't imagine having more children, I think I would be in a constant state of zombieism. Yes, I totally just made that word up.

I can see Emma walking down the hallway from my computer nekki (naked) with her blue blankie. I guess she's whooped too!

And So, Here We Are

Life is hard. I suppose it wouldn't be life if everything was super peachy keen all the time. Most of my upbringing included this mantra., "Life is not fair and life is not easy, get used to it."

I question, why isn't life fair? Why isn't it easy? Why are we faced with challenges on a day to day basis and to whom to we turn for support?

I have never been a "God Fearing" woman. It's never easy to have faith in that which does not make itself present. My parents never raised me with God and this led me to question every motive.

I suppose I am simply sitting here asking myself the age old question, "What is the meaning of life?"

Do tell. I am dying to know.

New Job

I started a new job on Monday with the same company. Since I am plainly not a good salesperson, I quite literally sucked at originiating. I really thought I would be great at it, I thought wrong. An opening presented itself at another branch and I swiped it. The deal is great though because I can still collect the duckets on the loans I originate myself. In the meantime, I am doing all kinds of mundane administrative work. It has been almost a year since I had any type of structured schedule to begin with, so this whole 9-5 thing is killing me, but to top it all off, the manager I am working for is not very good at communication like things. He asks me to do things under the assumption I know what he's talking about. He says, "Call so and so and tell them this or that about this project."

Okay, umm, where can I find so and so's number, and what exactly is going on this this or that, and what project are you talking about? I have been here two days dude, bring me up to speed. Sheesh. It's a far cry from the independence I enjoyed just one week ago where I was the boss!

Sometimes, life is just a bitch like that.