I thought one of my favorite Nat King Cole Songs was the perfect title for this post. You see, my life is peppered with funny moments of people thinking I look much younger than I am. It used to be really annoying, as I wanted to look mature and hip. My mom said, “You’ll appreciate it one day!” Well, lately I’m starting to appreciate it! So I guess that means I really am getting older (oh no)! But I figured, these incidents make great stories, and I really need to keep a running list of them. So here they are:

My mom tells the story of a man coming up to me at a picnic one day, and he says, “How old are you, 5?” Deeply offended, I respond “I’m in third grade, and I can READ!”

On the day of my senior prom I went with my mom to get my nails done. The manicurist says, “This sure is a special treat for such a young girl, not many 12 year olds get taken to have a manicure!” I was mortified. Here I am, hoping to look super hot on prom night, and she thinks I’m 12… Great.

It’s the summer of my junior year in college and I’m home on break. I go to the grocery store with my mom and wait next to her as she checks out. The manager rings us up and says to me, “It sure is nice that you’re helping your mom do the grocery shopping.” Yes, I say. “Maybe some day when you have your drivers license, you can do the shopping for her!” My mom about falls over laughing and asks him how old he thinks I am. “Oh, she can’t be more than 13!” I am in shock. My mom tells him, “She’s 22 and will graduate college next year!” His eyes bugged out of his head but I could tell he felt really bad. Geesh, get me outta this store already!

I’m 26 and working as a designer at OneCreative. All alone at the office one day, the UPS man drops a package off. When I go to sign for it, he hesitates and asks, “Is there someone else here who can sign for this package?” No, I say. Why can’t I sign for it? “Oh, you have to be 18 years or older,” he responds. What? I start laughing. I tell him how old I am and he does not believe me. I show him my wedding ring, tell him I’m 26, pay a mortgage, etc. He still does not believe me and won’t let me sign for the package. It’s not until I’m about to whip out my driver’s license that he concedes, although still skeptic… like his job is on the line if he gets caught letting a kid sign their name on this box. I can’t believe this! My bosses and I have a good laugh over it when they get back to the office.

It’s the weekend of our 5 year wedding anniversary, and Mark and I are vacationing in Scottsdale, AZ. We can’t find our way out of the hotel lobby and to the pools outside, so a concierge comes to help us out. He told us all about the 9 different pools and where they were located. He then described the “Mother of Pearl” pool with it’s fancy shell walls. But as he was talking about this particular pool, he got a funny look on his face, slowed his speech and said, “Well, the Mother of Pearl pool is really a pool for the adults, because they like to swim laps and be undisturbed, but any other pool you want to swim in is quite nice…. We’re thinking, are you kidding me!? Here I am, standing next to my hubby and looking pretty pregnant in my bathing suit, and he thinks we’re trouble-making teens! We decide to give him a break and laugh ourselves silly out at the pool.

That night, we’re dining out at Roy’s when the manager comes over to check on us. He asks if we’re celebrating anything special. “Why yes, it’s our 5 year wedding anniversary!” Mark says. The manager’s eyes bug out. “Five years! What, did you get married right out of high school!? You don’t look old enough to be married that long!” He about died with shock when we told him I was turning 30 this year.

The next morning Mark and I are filling out paperwork, about to have a fabulous massage. The girl sees I’m wanting a prenatal massage and asks if I’ve ever had one. “No” I say. “Oh, is this your first pregnancy?” she asks. I tell her, “Actually, it’s my third.” Shock ensues. She can’t believe it and thinks I look way to young to even be at child-bearing age.

So, I just laugh, and try to be thankful that I don’t look as old or older than I am! Because I know soon enough the gray hairs will come in and give it all away, and then people will be giving me the senior discount without even asking me how old I am. Hey, at least it makes for good stories!

There are a few other weblogs I check out every day… mostly other women from around the country, writing about their delights (the Lord, their husband and children, and other simple joys of life). This week I came across a lovely quote on one of their pages. The more I read over it and ponder it, the more I love it. So I thought I would share it with you:

“Stay at home my heart and rest, homekeeping hearts are happiest.” ~ Longfellow

I feel like this is ringing true in my heart more with each passing year. Keeping my house as a delightful and comfortable haven for my family and friends, where things are in order, towels and sheets are clean, a good meal is baking in the oven… is somehow more enjoyable with passing time. Not that it’s perfect. I don’t want a perfect place, but a place where we can relax because work has been done. It’s not always fun to clean and run the household. And things definitely slide when I have morning sickness all day long. But when I start my day with prayer, put on a praise CD and am diligent to work around the house there is a surge of joy in my heart. I can meditate on a scripture verse and teach Samuel how to help as he follows me around the house. The Lord strengthens me to do the unfun things and it ends up being a blessing to my family. How cool is that? (Strange how loafing around makes one feel gross and tired, but working energizes you)! I can’t wait until my second trimester begins and I start to feel better, because I have a lot I want to do! My heart is happiest at home.

I woke up this morning and it was a bit dark in the house. So I decided to pull the blinds open and start my morning. Alas! When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, it might as well be a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer! Because it snowed! Again! I can’t believe it. It was very pretty to look at, but my goodness, here it is the end of March already. Where’s spring? The pretty blue skies and breezes? Our irises haven’t bloomed yet, which is amazing. But at least all the snow melting will help the grass turn green again.

It was a pretty big week for us here. I experimented with making my own baby food. I bought some yummy organic goodies at Wild Oats, and whirled veggies around in my mini food processer. It’s amazing how much money you save when you make your own baby food! One serving in a jar costs an average of fifty cents, or I can make Samuel 24 servings for about a dollar fifty. And now I have nutritious baby food without any added preservatives, salt, or sugar. I just poured it into an ice cube tray, and I have perfect little servings that defrost in a second. Voila!
So we started with yellow summer squash. I was delighted to see that he really liked it! He didn’t even make a funny face, like, “This isn’t rice cereal!” So that’s awesome. The next veggie on our list is carrots. Yeah baby. Our friends bought us a whole book of the Baby Blues comic strips, which has been so much fun to read. I think I’ll put this on my list of baby shower gifts to give.

Outside of making baby food, I’m also filling my time by going back to work a little bit. The girl I trained to replace me has left, and so I’m helping out a couple days a week for a few hours to help with the overflow. Probaby just until they can hire someone again. But it’s been really fun interacting with my friends at the OC and digging into InDesign and all the awesome Adobe applications. I love my Mac.

I’m sitting in my hotel room right now thinking about the awesome, fun night I had with two friends from project. I’m currently in Dallas, TX, on a business trip, taking a class from Mark Minasi on Active Directory for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (fascinating stuff, by the way). But of course, that pails in comparison to the good time I had with Andy and Jody.

Andy and Jody were friends that Renée and I met while in Orlando. At the time, they hardly knew each other, even though they both went to the same school. However, shortly after project finished, they began dating and eventually got married on the same day that Renée and I got married. They are now expecting their first child. It has been four years since I’ve seen either of them, and a reunion was long-past due. Thankfully, they were available for some hang-out time.

We started off at an awesome burrito place that I’ve already forgotten the name of, but it reminds me a lot of Chipotle’s in Denver–kind of a make-your-own-burrito place. We enjoyed catching up and laughing while eating our huge burritos and some chips and queso (which were quite tasty, Ren). Andy and Jody took me over to his office to pick up their other car and show me around the office, which was a lot of fun (Andy and I had some geek talk–good stuff).

Andy then took me over to their house and showed me around. They’ve got a great house that will house a new addition quite fine! Heidi, their dog, was quite glad to see a visitor but was annoyed at Andy’s response of moving her outside while the guest was around. It’s quite amazing how much grass they have and how big the yard is! Wow, if my lawn/yard was like that, I’d be paying a lot to a) live there b) water it! But it sure would be nice to have something that big to play games in!

Andy and Jody drove me back to my hotel room after quite the fun night and now I am packing to go back to Albuquerque. I have to call the shuttle service in the morning to arrange to pick me up to get to the airport on time, but thankfully my flight isn’t until later evening, which should give me plenty of time to hang out at the aeropuerto.

Andy and Jody, thanks again for dinner and the awesome time tonight. I really enjoyed seeing you both and wish you the best with your baby! Both Renée and I are so excited for you and hope that you decide to move to Albuquerque soon. (Pictures coming soon, by the way.)

In the next three weeks, the baby willl go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling its weight and adding inches to its length. Its lower limbs are much more developed now. Its heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day. (By the end of my pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of its scalp has begun, though its hair isn’t recognizable yet. Although closed, its eyes are moving (slowly), and it has even started growing toenails.

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This crazy New Mexico weather. This weekend was beautiful. Today it’s stinkin’ cold outside and raining. I wish it would just make up its mind!

Work has been absolutely crazy. Last week was one of the busiest weeks in my history at STC, which included (but is not limited to) a six-hour meeting, a 10th anniversary celebration event, an inventors’ award ceremony, a board meeting, and lots of construction around our building. I’m glad that week is over; this week has been much better, but I’m ready to take another weekend. I’m sick of trying to come up with scripts for automated installations of Windows XP. Sigh.

I’ve been reading through some old entries and reminiscing about all the things I wrote about. I remember starting this website after a visit to Denver Christmas Conference. I remember writing about all of my adventures with Renée before we were married. I realize that I’ve kind of gotten away from the random nature that this “blog” used to be, but today I want to return to it! Well, not exactly, but I’m going to actually “rant” for a little while (remember when this site was Mark’s Rants and Raves?).

Today was my last day of work before Christmas. We were going to get off at 3pm. That is, at least, before I had to finish working on our spring newsletter.

You see, I actually had it all finished save for one article before today. But we have one person in the office who operates on a J.I.T. mentality–that is, Just-In-Time. Unfortunately, this makes life horrid for the rest of us, because J.I.T. is completely selfish.

This person was supposed to have not only one but two articles finished for me two weeks ago for this newsletter. As of this afternoon at 1:00pm, only one was done, and not well. So I had to wait until 2:15pm today to get the finished versions–typos, grammar errors, and everything else. I had to await proofreading, fix a lot of stuff myself, and then lay everything out. Of course, as soon as this person submitted his article to me, he just took off for the break, leaving me to fend for myself. I didn’t get out until about 4:00pm. (I was also helping our office manager get things cleaned up.)

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the office staff seem oblivious to this reality. That, or they have just learned to accept it.

Well, in my book, it’s unacceptable. Unfortunately, this time this person’s lack of responsibility caused me to have to stay late into a break and could also cause me to have to come into work one day during the break. I’m going to talk to the boss about this one. Too bad she left before I could.

Phew. That’s off my chest. Now to enjoy the holidays!

Ooo, special guest appearance by my sweetie-pie-pookie-buns wife Renée:

That is unacceptable in my book! No, not the unfortunate tale that you just read about–I’m talking about the ridiculous name mentioned above! Pookie-buns? Hey, it is random though.

In other random news, while my husband is sleeping in tomorrow morning, I will be working. The good news is we’re going out to lunch tomorrow and exchanging Christmas presents. It will be nice to just hang out with my coworkers.

I like-uh do da cha-cha like a sissy girl

I’ve had a lot of fun reminiscing over “Ding, fries are done.” Bruce used to play it every morning to start the workday off; sadly, he is no longer working with us. Sniff.

I guess to end my random blog, I will leave you with a few quotes:

“I’m cute, I’m cute, she thinks I’m cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!” - Rudolph

“That’s a mighty humble Bumble!” - Yukon Cornelius

“It’s not a bad little tree; all it needs is a little love.” - Linus

“Does the innkeeper’s wife have naturally curly hair?” - Curly-haired redhead, friend of Charlie Brown

“I rock… and I roll… all day long!” - King of the large, dark (you know the rest)

Thankfully over (and actually about three weeks back), I joined my colleagues in a tiny conference room in Santa Fe for two days discussing our various roles in the organization, as well as accomplishments and plans for the next year. It actually wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be; we all had a pretty good time. We enjoyed the delectable pleasure of eating awesome food and charging it to the company credit card; I enjoyed the beautiful autumn air and my guitar; we all laughed at a silly game of Apples to Apples.

Although we had a good time, I found out how much we all need to depend on each other, and to rely on each other’s expertise. One of the problems I had at my office when I first started was that although I was the computer support person, if I said no to a particular employee’s request for a computer (or other piece of equipment, or whatever) because it didn’t fit my budget or it didn’t fit our networking plan, that employee would go straight to the president (in our tiny little office) and I would then be forced to order equipment for the user. It was frustrating because I had no authority to make decisions, and no one trusted my judgment on how best to have our computer systems. Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore; however, there are still a few employees that think they know how the computer systems should be run, and are quite adamant about having things their way. I have to bite my tongue a lot and rely on God’s grace because I would like to tell some people some … stuff.

Yeah.

Anywho, Renée and I have now reached the place in our busy schedules where the “busy” has waned considerably. So, we are hanging out and relaxing in the evenings (finally) for a little while until all the holiday madness starts, I’m sure.

Any big Thanksgiving plans?

Last night I was to meet Tim, Jeni, and Renée at Chili’s for a quick bite to eat before heading to Bible study. I had just finished having some electrical work done in my office, and I needed to physically change the circuits our servers were on to a new circuit we had just installed. So I powered both servers down, unplugged them, moved them over to the new circuit, organized all my cords, and powered them back up.

The main server came up just fine.

The secondary server started beeping incessantly at me, but strangely, it was still booting just fine.

I didn’t know that it was the second server that was beeping–I thought it was another piece of equipment we have that beeps occasionally. Finally, piercing the eardrum, the beep identified itself. So I powered down, tried again, still the same thing.

It was 6:00pm (I was supposed to eat dinner at 5:30pm) before I figured out a hard drive went bad in our server. Bad news. Thus, I left frazzled and went to Bible study exhausted; this morning, I was at the office about 6:50am and finally got things fixed. All to the tune of an hour of incessant, loud, beeping. But praise God, it’s all taken care of.

I keep times like this in perspective with the wonderful experiences awaiting you in the men’s bathroom here. There is one man that my coworker and I affectionately call “Captain Loogie.” Every time, without fail. You can fill in the rest (just imagine the grossest loogie-ing you can).