I've been contemplating this for a while, but it hasn't been a priority. I'm months away from my quarter century birthday. I have a 5 month old. I have a career (of sorts). Time for an adult blog, as opposed to one named after my favorite condiment. From now on, my thoughts about life, love, God, motherhood, Mexico, mission work, and whatever other ( Read more... )

There was another killing today. A guy was murdered this morning about a block from the Madero church. When the federales chased down the killers, they opened machine gun fire on a busy street near a school! One more person died. Baby Paulina's family was there and had to run behind some shelter to escape the whizzing bullets. I guess the famous ( Read more... )

While everyone and their mother are worried about Hurricane Ike, I am experiencing my first Tropical Depression since moving to Mazatlan. Mazatlan rarely gets hurricanes. In fact 2 summers ago, Mazatlan got hit twice after we had already gone back to Illinois. Those were the first hurricane level storms in 25 years or something like that. So, I'm ( Read more... )

Ethan changes so often! That's the exciting challenge about being a mom. For example, about every 2 weeks or so, he decides that he doesn't like his current fall asleep method. That usually throws off our schedule and fills my life with frustration until I figure out his newest preferred method. We've had a rough couple days... well, actually sleep ( Read more... )

They show the weird sports. I didn't even know trampoline jumping was in the olympics! Or indoor bicycle racing. The strangest by far was sitting at a little taco stand the other night while 4 Mexican guys were glued to the screen watching the finals of men's power walking...

 I just finished an outstanding book called The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs. It's about this agnostic guy who tries to follow every single rule in the Bible. It's witty and touching. You should read it. Here's one of my favorite parts:

“You’re dressed queer,” he snarls. “Why you dressed so queer.” I have on my usual fringes, and, for good ( Read more... )

Ethan turns 4 months old today. I'm not sure if this feeling ever goes away, probably when kids turn 13... but I still spend time in disbelief just watching him sleep, amazed that this little person came from me. Today, I was just walking past the bed where he was napping, and caught my breath to see those little hands. Wow. So intricate, so ( Read more... )

I'm mad at walmart, b/c their stupid website had a dumb bug that deleted the photo album I made. I decided I want to archive all the pictures on my computer (with our camera, they take up a lot of space), and for $18 you can make a digital photo album, which walmart will print and deliver to your door. So I made 1 and loved it. Then I tried a ( Read more... )

I learned a lot over the last 7 days.

It started Monday. A close friend really painfully chewed me out for a completely unintentional offense. Lesson learned: Even relationships that seem strong may be quickly severed or injured. Although it seems totally unfair to me, it's going to take a long time for that person to trust me again. And there isn't ( Read more... )

Ethan and I have been having such great evening walks! Last night we followed our street until it ended. We live on the far eastern edge of Mazatlan, and the whole town is squished between mountains and sea. So, the mountains begin with rolling hills almost in our backyard. Anyway, our street is paved for a few blocks to the east, then turns into ( Read more... )