an email my mom sent to me...


Chocolate Calories

A good piece of chocolate has about 200 calories. As I enjoy
two servings per night, and a few more on weekends, I
consume 3,500 calories of chocolate in a week, which equals
one pound of weight per week.

Therefore...

In the last 3 1/2 years, I have had a chocolate caloric
intake of about 180 pounds. I weigh only 165 pounds, so
without chocolate, I would have wasted away to nothing about three months ago!

I owe my life to chocolate.

holy crap. we just sold our house.

brief updatage

so chuck got home safe and sound this past monday morning. it was a glorious day! i took the day off work so we were able to lounge around the house together doing absolutely nothing except be in the same house together :). rachel was all about some daddy lovin'!

our house was officially put on the market last friday night, and by this afternoon it will have shown 7 times! i don't think we have any bites yet, but i'm just encouraged that info on our house is clearly easy to find. also seth, our realtor, said a house usually shows on average once every 2 weeks! so he's pretty impressed. it's not easy keeping the house clean at all times, but it's pretty nice when everything's all neatly put away. i should log some of these habits away for future use.

thursday was rachel's second birthday! your child's birthday is definitely a different experience than your own b/c on my birthday i just think "hooray it's my birthday!" on rachel's i could really only think "so 2 years ago i was probably throwing up... 2 years ago i was doubled over in excruciating pain... 2 years ago i was pushing..." definitely a different spin on things :). wednesday night we had present time with gramma and pa-pa. we got her a cabbage patch doll that was come with us everywhere we've gone ever since :). i never exactly got around to planning a birthday party (i blame hormones and severe exhaustion) so i'm going to bake some brownies today, put birthday candles in them, and take them to our small group dinner tonight where everyone can sing happy birthday and i can take pictures and pretend like i threw my child a party. hopefully rachel won't mind. i mean, i don't remember my second birthday party. do you?

so chuck has abandoned me to go to indonesia...

just kidding :). but he is leading a trip there for our church now. he left last thursday night and he doesn't get back until this coming monday morning. i don't like not having my husband around. i basically cried from thursday night to monday morning... think that's pathetic? well i'm pregnant. still think i'm pathetic? bite me. i realized yesterday that i hadn't checked the mail since he left... b/c he always checks it! man, i've got to do everything around here now! every time rachel hears an airplane she starts talking about daddy, and she'll take my phone and pretend to talk to him. it's pretty darn precious. but monday definitely can't get here soon enough...

in other news, we're selling our house. our house payment went up and medical bills are on the way, so we're saying goodbye to house-owning and hello to seminary housing-renting for a little while. i've been super busy de-cluttering our entire house (which was no easy job, especially when you tire as easily as i do these days) b/c a photographer is coming tomorrow to take pictures and put them online. i'm currently taking a cleaning break b/c my back is aching and i'm short of breath from vacuuming all the rooms. i accomplish things much slower when i'm great with child. so now we'll have to forever keep the house clean and presentable in case someone wants to come wander around in it and perhaps (hopefully) buy it. i'm kind of excited about moving though. we've been here 2 1/2 years and i feel like i need a fresh start.

so that's the news. i'm clean and lonely and greatly anticipating 6:30am monday morning when chuck walks through the front door.

long time, no picture

weeks 15 and 19