Busy much?

I have been buried in a mountain of "to do" lists this past couple of weeks and although I make progress it seems the mountain of things to do just keeps getting bigger. I have classes to teach, my house seems to take on water every time it rains hard, I've got a toddler to chase after, feed, teach things to, help go tinkle 20,000 times a day and so on. I know I'm blessed by God but if He blesses me any more I may need hospitalization soon. Yes, I'm in a slightly grumpy mood but only because I'm exhausted and getting sick too. :( BOO!

On the flip side, if you asked me how life is and I wasn't in a grumpy mood I would tell you how they really are. Life is great! I have the smartest, sweetest little boy running around keeping me busy, God is helping us in our efforts to spread His word here, my wonderful MIL just arrived for a week and a half visit (bringing lots of goodies including Dr. Pepper) and Clint's aunt will be arriving in just a couple days. It is great to feel loved and that people would come all this way to see us.

A lot of the things I have been working on have been home improvement projects. I'm so glad God blessed me with an easy going husband who makes me stop and breath every now and then because I apparently have a very big OCD streak in me that is always longing for everything to have it's own place and I have not yet achieved that in my house so I'm still not satisfied. We have come a long way though. I worked hard to get things organized before Rhonda, my MIL, came and this is the stack I ended up with that still need places to go.

Not too bad. Unfortunately  it seems the stack is slowly reproducing. Hopefully I'll tackle  this soon or at least move it off the table so we can eat at the table. *sigh* So much to do.

On a happier note... check out this epically adorable picture of my son enjoying some Halloween stickers Rhonda got for him.


Feel free to stop for a few moments to take it all in.


I've also been working on several crafty sort of things. I've got Cross stitch projects, learning tools for Andrew, painting projects, sewing projects and I've been doing a bit of reading on photography for beginners because we just got a really nice camera on Ebay for super cheap and I'm excited to learn how to take dramatically better pictures.

If you are reading please leave a comment! I've made it so that someone can comment even if they don't have an account on here. I would love to hear about what kind of crafts you guys are working on.

I'm in love!

So I was checking out my mom's cousin's etsy site the other day and found this.

I absolutely love this idea. I have always liked the idea of birthstone rings/jewelry but not the fact that you can't add a stone for a child/grandchild born later. But the idea for stack-able rings is just great! I told Clint he has to get me something like this in the future. I just love this! Andrew is Garnet and Clint is Sapphire so those two go great together for sure.

A few of my favorite things...

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

I'm sure this picture is a favorite to many people and I definitely have no knowledge about art whatsoever but this picture just mesmerizes me. My favorite part is the moon which just makes me smile looking at it. I love the way it is painted with little strokes of color that all work together kind of like a mosaic to make this gorgeous picture. It makes me happy. I suppose it is kind of like all the blessings God gives us that make our lives so beautiful. I just need to stop critiquing the individual strokes and see the masterpiece He has made for me.

An out of diaper experience

All parents long for the time when they can kiss diapers goodbye. I did not think that time would come so soon with Andrew but apparently my genuis/super handsome/sweet tempered (albeit stubborn just like his momma) son is also quick to learn about the potty. A few weeks back I recieved an email from Baby Center.com with this link. I read about potty training in 3 days and decided that I'd give it a try. I figured if Andrew could be concerend about one droplet of juice on the floor so much so that he asks mommy and daddy for a rag in increasingly alarmed tones and drag me to the door when he's ready to go home then he can certainly tell me when he needs to tinkle. So a week ago we began the 3 day torture experiment. So armed with a mop, and some serious patience I battled against a naked 20 month old for three straight days. At first there was tinkle (yes, we call it tinkle) EVERYWHERE! But by the second day we were already having several successes. And yes, I stooped down to bribery on day two but one skittle per tinkle isn't really a lot and besides that, he was quizzed on his colors at the same time so it's educational too. Right?

Apparently, there is something about being home for period of time with a naked baby and his loaded bladder that can drive a mommy nuts because I almost had a meltdown. (I think Clint would say that I DID actually have said meltdown but what does he know? Ok so maybe a little meltdown.) We survived though and Andrew has done an incredible job! We had a couple of accidents after the first 3 initial days but we have been accident free for over 48 hours now. Our statistics are better than I could have dreamed lastweek. I think I should mention that we are by no means night time potty trained yet. I have him sleeping in a diaper. I imagine we will let this potty habit really sink in before we mix things up even more. We had our second evening out tonight after daddy's class to get some groceries and we didn't have any accidents so I think we're doing great! It was so worth the stress of this week just to have him day trained. It never occured to me while I was dreaming about having children or pregnant that, one day, I could ever be THIS excited about tinkle or poop! Thank you God for blessing me with such a great kid and thank you mom and dad for potty training me because if you hadn't that could be a bit awkward for me now.

220 Outlet?

Ok so I've been keeping up with a few blogs lately and decided maybe I should start one for all the stuff I don't get to share with people in our monthly reports and such. Theres a lot going on in our lives that is not directly related to our work but I'd still love to share with many of our family and friends. So this here is my outlet for those things. I decided on the name "220 Outlet" for three reasons: 1) because this is my outlet, 2) we live in the Philippines where all electrical outlets are 220 and 3) I'm just random like that. :)

So here we go! I hope this blog doesn't come as a shock to anyone. (Get it? Shock? Outlet?)

PS. Thanks to my wonderful tech-savvy hubby who helped me set this up and made my super cute logo up there ^^^^^^