Helene goes to a private Christian based preschool.

There are a few things you should know before you read this post.
Number one: We are a religious family. We go to Church every Sunday. (Okay… almost every Sunday.)
Number two: Just cuz I happen to be religious doesn’t mean that I am devoid of a healthy sense of humor. (read: That I find inappropriate things funny.)

Now for the funny.
I took Helene to preschool this morning and as I was walking to the classroom, through the preschool’s playground, I saw a HUGE piece of chalk-art (read: erasable graffiti) that immediately caught my attention and caused me to laugh out. loud and almost grab my cell phone to get a picture of it.
Seriously.

Right there on the sidewalk someone had written in ginormous letters, “Suck It”.

Appropriate for a preschool sidewalk? Nope.
A tad disturbing for a preschool sidewalk? Yep.
But a little bit funny at 9am?
Ummmmm. (Well I had a good laugh about it…)

I didn’t take a picture because I am not devoid of appropriate feelings…..
Plus, by the time I picked her up the preschool staff had washed away the inappropriate art.
(Just like I knew they would.)

I’ve always liked to read.
But recently my “like” has turned to what could be termed, “love”, or, “obsession”.
(And in turn I could be described as “bookish” or “nerdy” or “geeky”…)
If I don’t have something to read I feel a tad lost, as if I have nothing to do. Which is certainly a weird feeling to have since I DO have other things to do (ie: laundry, dishes, sleeping, etc)… but still. If I have no book that I am currently reading, I do feel a strong void. Luckily, however, I really don’t have that problem often. I would say that over the last year I have read more books than I have read in the last five years.

I told you.
I love it now.
And I credit that with coming across many books in a row that I have LOVED.
I can often be found wandering the house while reading a book… (Simon has gotten more than one photo of this odd habit of mine.)

So, why am I blithering on and on about reading?
Because I have a fun game for you to play!
The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. Of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six. According to some other bloggers, they encourage us to:

*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE.
*Put an asterisk (*) next to those that you hated. (I added this one… because there are a few on this list that I could. not. stand.)

I encourage YOU to do the same, and then come back here and let me know you’ve done it so I can check out YOUR list. Of the 100 books, I have read 29. Not bad, if I do say so myself… but I am sure most of you have read more than I have.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte *
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ~currently reading
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Alright. Now go play my game, come back here to let me know you’ve done it and I’ll link to your list here.
And if you don’t play, I’m just gonna assume that you are illiterate.
~wink wink~

The List Of The Literates!
1. Michelle
2. Marcia
3. Amy
4. Jill

I made wheat bread. I won’t elaborate on the experience except to say that I am no good at making wheat bread. Just look.

Sorry there aren’t more pictures this week… What can I say? I was busy. I launched a small business website and have been designing stuff for Holly’s Grady. (His website, birth announcement, baby shower invite, etc…) Oh. And I’ve been being my former crafty self for the little guy as well…. (No baby can have enough blankets. And I’ve been crocheting and quilting my heart out for the sake of his warmth. Pictures to come. I promise!)

Now if I could only get my iPod working I’d be set for a great weekend…..

The Best Week EVER!
(Not kidding. Not exaggerating.)
This is a long Friday Wrap, but it’s got tons of pictures as well… so try to endure to the end!

I’m an Aunt! Again! Ten kids now call me “Aunt Kelly”. HOLYMOLY! But more importantly than my Aunt status, Holly and her Bubba are PARENTS! After battling infertility and finally deciding to adopt, Holly and Brad were blessed with a baby boy early this morning. His name is Grady Floyd and he is absolutely one of the most gorgeous newborns I have laid eyes on.

I am beyond happy for Holly and Brad. I got the phone call that he was born this morning at about 4am. I think I was on the phone with Holly for all of ten minutes and when we got off the phone I promptly began to cry. And I’ve been crying on and off ALL. DAY. LONG. I don’t know how to adequately describe what I’m feeling. Saying that I am “overjoyed” seems a bit of an understatement. Tyson, the kids and I were able to go to the hospital tonight to meet Grady and the minute I saw him being held by his mother, my Sister and one of my best friends, I couldn’t keep the tears checked. I was just SO happy to see my Sister, who has wanted and waited for this baby for such a long time, holding her son and looking every bit like a brand-new Mother. I was able to meet Grady’s birthmom, Rachel, and I will forever be grateful that I was able to hug her and thank her for giving Holly and Brad such a priceless gift that will bless their lives eternally. She truly is a great lady. And now I’m going to inundate you with a bunch a baby cuteness….

I just have to put in here that Simon and Helene are very excited about Baby Grady. (Each in their own way, of course.) Simon was fearless about the little guy and held him in his lap right off the bat.

Helene took her time checking him out and trying to come to grips with the fact that Holly and Brad aren’t solely “hers” anymore. But once she thought it through she decided that she could hold him and check him out up close… but just for a few seconds. (And, Grady is yawning in this picture, not crying.)

Helene had her first day of Preschool for the Fall.


True to form, Helene kicked me out as soon as she got her name tag on. You know, I love her independence, but sometimes I wish she were a bit more attached to me.

This week really was a great week. I’ve felt great and I’ve gotten a lot done. This is the first week, since I don’t know when, that I am starting to feel like my old self again. And by “old self”, I mean that I am seeing glimmers of the pre-RSD Kelly. I KNOW! But still. Feeling that good didn’t stop me from being comfortable (read: dressing like a color-blind, pattern-blind, old man) when I was home and had nowhere to go.

You know… instead of seeing a woman who has given up in that picture, I see a woman in an outfit that is all business on the top and all comfort on the bottom. And really, what is the harm in that? (And I mean besides the fact that I have no shame and could care LESS what I wear inside my four walls.)

See? A truly great week!
Babies, alone time, and unashamed comfort!
And I’m still LOVING that the Big Hack is over and that Google loves me again.
Life is good.

I’m off to bed now so I can rest up for a full day of Grady watching tomorrow!

Operation “Free The Nello” has been accomplished.
A success!

Go ahead and Google me.
Go ahead and search me.
Search “Nello“, “Diary of the Nello“.

Yeah.
CLEARED!

Praise to Google!
An innocent woman has gone free!

**UPDATED**
In celebration of my newfound freedom I re-designed my blog.
And, I have a question…
Did you know that if you click on my sidebar titles that the content pops up underneath them?
I’d actually like to know… you know. For user-friendly information….

Yeah.
Thanks for nothin’ bloggers.
My blogiversary, my THIRD blogiversary, came and went without ONE notice.
Yeah. Not one.
And I’ve waited A WHOLE MONTH to tell you about it.

(Alright. Truth be told, I totally forgot until today when I was going through every stinking page on my blog in order to find any posts that were compromised by THE BIG HACK. Yeah. Clicking through the last THREE YEARS OF POSTS reminded me that my blog has been three years old for a whole month…. Nice BlogMother I am, huh?)

Anyway. My REAL reason for being on here AGAIN is to; One. To irritate all of you who only count on me posting once a month. That way when you make the monthly round over here, you are going to have like FIVE posts to read! Two. To tell you about my latest Weepy Mommy Day.

Helene is starting “official” Pre-School tomorrow! YAY! But. (But’s are NEVER good, so beware.) I had to take her to get her physical today, along with a TB test and a single immunization. First of all, my lady was zero percent pleased with the physical itself. That part was done with MUCH drama that I will spare you of. But oh.baby. When the nurse came in to do the immunization procedures, Helene lost her noodle. Not.Kidding. I had to hold the chick down… I was literally holding her in the tightest bear hug possible. The only part of this kid’s body that she could move was her head. And she not only moved it, she THREW that thing AROUND. Namely, however, she threw her head backward so that she was looking straight up into my face while SCREAMING her bloody guts out.

Now, keep in mind that I am a SEASONED mother. I’ve been to these freaking immunization/physical appointments for almost SIX years. And I’ve got TWO kids. So. You would think that I would be IMMUNE to my kids throwing the biggest fits known to man when they get stuck with a needle and injected with BURNING medicine. Well…. That’s what I thought, anyway.

Until. Today.

While screaming directly into my face, Helene managed to BURN my entire being with the most POWERFUL “I HATE YOU” look that I’ve EVER been given.
I’m tellin’ you, this kid’s eyes told me, as if they could speak themselves, that she hated me and wanted nothing more than for me to go. a.way.
And so, what did I do?
I continued to hold her, tried to console her, and then promptly took her out to the car where I called her Dad and started BAWLING MY HEAD OFF.

Me. A Mom of SIX YEARS. A MOM of about FIFTY immunizations (that’s a rough total of how many times my kids have gotten stuck with a needle). Bawling. Crying. Because I felt like a horrible Mother.
I had no clue that my child could HATE me so much.

Ummm. What. Is. Wrong. With. Me?
I should be used to this.
I should be able to brush it off.
But I couldn’t.
And I didn’t.

And after I stopped crying to Tyson I took Helene to a bagel place and sat for about 45 minutes eating toasted bagels with cream cheese. (Our FAVORITE!)
It only took Helene TWENTY-FIVE minutes to talk to me after we sat down.

Not.Kidding.
I timed it.

Cuz I’m THAT pathetic.
And, apparently, THAT bad of a Mother.