20 Years Ago...

I stole this off Jacinda's blog. I could REALLY confuse everyone and just use her answers, but I decided to come up with my own. Here's what I was doing...

20 years ago (1988)

I was a senior at Beaumont Christian High School in Beaumont, TX. I was thinking about breaking up with the guy I had been dating since 10th grade, and I finally did in December. What else was going on in October? Let's see -- at school, we seniors were probably getting ready for the senior spook house at the annual fall fest. I had big hair, and not just at Halloween. And I was a brunette. But not for long.

10 years ago (1998)

In October 1998, Chad and I were living in Abilene and I was gradually coming out of my bout with hyperemesis during my pregnancy with Julia. What a NIGHTMARE. I was also fighting to get my strength back up to pull off ACU's Homecoming, which I was in charge of. It all came together with the help of Kelly and all the other wonderful students on my steering committee. Oh, and after a summer of me staying in the hospital way beyond my sick leave, Chad (who was in grad school) and I were completely BROKE. No savings and sometimes, no income. We made it through somehow and welcomed a sweet baby girl into our family a few months later.

5 years ago (2003)

We had been in Baytown, TX for three years. Chad was a youth minister and I was taking Julia to preschool and writing for The Baytown Sun. That was a rough year -- by October, I had had two miscarriages and was about to have a third. What was up with my reproductive system? Soon Jenna would be on her way, though, and then I would get out of the baby-making business FOR GOOD. Despite that difficult year, I still have sweet memories of Julia as a four-year-old and of our family being active with our church and community.

1 year ago (2007)

Now we're in Arkansas! Julia was in third grade and Jenna was in preschool. I was writing for magazines by then, which, guess what? Pay a WHOLE LOT BETTER than newspapers. So goodbye, newspaper writing... nice knowin' ya! We were also busy with church/youth group stuff and enjoying fall in Arkansas, which is always lovely. The girls were gearing up for Halloween (Julia was Hannah Montana...someone she wouldn't be caught dead dressing up as now).

yesterday (October 8, 2008)

I weeded out clothes to donate to charity, went to my weekly Bible study, went to lunch with friends, managed to lose our cat, and went to Refuge where I spoke to the teens about finding value in others.

today (October 9, 2008)

Secured the cell phone number of our neighbor, who is in Florida, because I could hear a cat meowing in her garage and I was convinced it was ours. She gave me her garage code and when I opened the door, it was ANOTHER cat. Not ours, not the neighbor's, just some random cat. Weird. Chad and I took Jenna to preschool and I'm lining up interviews and doing research for my next deadline.

tomorrow (October 10, 2008)

Friday. I really have NO CLUE what we're doing tomorrow. I guess finding the cat would be good.

Out of the mouths of... something

The other day, Julia's friend marched up to me and said, "Julia said you were pregnant five times!"

That threw me for a second because I thought she meant Julia said "My mom is pregnant" five times.

"Oh," I said, after I figured out what she meant. "Yeah, I was pregnant five times but three of the babies died."

"That is just CREEPY!" she said.

"Well, they're called miscarriages and they're actually fairly common," I told her.

"That is so WEIRD!" she said.

I was so stunned by this conversation that it wasn't until she stomped away and moved on to something else that I realized I probably should have said something about how rude it was for her to talk to me that way. I know she's only nine, but at nine I knew what a miscarriage was and I certainly knew not to charge up to someone who had experienced one (or three) and act like that.

The whole thing put me in a funk for the rest of the day.

Anyway. We're still going strong with the Grocery Game. I haven't paid for toilet paper since I started four weeks ago. Here's one of my latest bargains. The AirWick FreshMatic Ultra Automatic Spray usually sells for $11.99 at Kroger. They went on sale for $5.99 last week, and I got a $5-off coupon in the paper that day. So I got it for 99 cents! I got apple cinnamon and it makes the house smell all harvesty. The only thing is how LOUD it is. We don't really notice it during the day, but at night when the house is quiet, it sounds like someone is sneezing in the hallway every time it goes off. Scared me to death the first time it happened. Now we turn it off before going to bed. Anyway, I've been able to buy what we need for the week and stockpile stuff and I'm still spending a lot less than I did before. I used to spend $130 a week on groceries and now it's more like $70. I spent a little more than that this week because I had duplicate coupons and decided to stock up on a few things. We won't be buying deodorant until halfway through 2009 and we have more cereal than Jerry Seinfeld.