Project 333: Winter Capsule 2016 Recap

Hi everyone!

We’re nearing the end of March.  Bring on spring!  As you know, I put together my first Project 333 capsule wardrobe just over a month ago.   If you’re just joining me, Project 333 is an online challenge that requires you to choose only thirty-three items of clothing, including accessories, to wear over three months.  If you follow the website’s timelines, you will know that the “winter” capsule period runs from January to March.  I didn’t start until late February, so I’ve been wearing my capsule (which you can read about here) for only about a month.  In that time I’ve found that the website’s timelines don’t really make sense for Colorado weather, so I’ll be changing it up for my next capsule (more to come on that).  I also found myself glad that I only committed to this capsule for one month because I kind of sucked at it this first time!

I’m on spring break right now, so I’m using my extra time to go ahead and switch out my winter capsule for my spring one.  When it’s complete, I’ll share, but in the meantime, here’s a recap of my first ever Project 333 capsule experience.

I didn’t use a bunch of the stuff I included.

My Target tank top fits me well, but it just didn’t get warm enough to wear it as a stand-alone, and it doesn’t really go with the oversize cardigan.  It went well under the poncho, but I think I only wore them once.  I guess I really was overly optimistic about needing it in March.

The gray tank from the Gap is totally cool.  It makes my body look nice because of the round cut at the bottom.  However, the arm holes are so big that they show my bra underneath.  If I can find at least one bra that won’t show, I’ll keep it for my spring capsule, but if not, I don’t see the point.

What was I thinking including two belts?  I rarely wore my jeans, and you don’t belt yoga pants.  I didn’t include any skirts or dresses, so what did I think I was going to use belts for?  They never got worn.

Short sleeves are best to pair with bracelets, and I wore my long-sleeved tees more than anything else, so my little silver one didn’t get much use.  

I only wore my poncho once, and even then I took it off halfway through the day because it just wasn’t comfortable.  I couldn’t move well in it.  Even before Project 333 I didn’t wear it that often, so it’s on its way to the Disabled American Veteran’s thrift.

I made a couple of swaps.

It became pretty evident right away that I wouldn’t need three cold-weather hats.  I swapped the gray and black cloche for a straw cloche for warmer days.  I also spent a few days wearing a bandana over unwashed hair, but found I didn’t really like the look and abandoned it.

The brown leather bag is beautiful, but it was too much to carry when added to the diaper bag.  I moved everything into my Vera Bradley mini-backpack which is much lighter-weight and easier to carry.

And I filled the “Ummmm” category.

I knew I would need space to add something I had forgotten.  Silly me, I forgot sandal weather!  The most wonderful thing after a winter of wool socks and boots is sandal weather.  We start to get it in March here in Colorado, and I take advantage of it  as soon as I can.  I added my burgundy Gizeh Birkenstocks to the mix the first chance I got.

I also sported my opal necklace pretty often because I love it.  

So that left me with…how many items?  It depends on how you count them.  If you count everything I wore, including swaps counted individually, I used thirty-eight items total.  Now, if you count swaps together with the original piece as one, I used thirty-four items total.  Finally, if you count only items I wore more than once, I used twenty-eight items.

Stay tuned for my spring capsule coming up in April.  Thanks for reading!

Book Review: It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell

When I started this blog, I meant it to be a diary of sorts, of my experience as a mother, with a hint of "How To" for fellow mommas who wanted to get the real scoop from someone else who hadn't a clue what she was doing!  I started with only posts about my pregnancy, my preferred baby products, and strategies I employ while taking care of Alice in hopes that my trial and error approach to mothering would eliminate some of the "error" part for someone else.

But here's the thing: being a momma isn't just about what you do with your baby.  I was shocked at how it weaved itself into every part of who I am and made me into a completely different, yet completely unchanged person (aww man, I'm getting deep again!).  That's why I've felt like my participation in Project 333 is a fitting topic for blogging, and why I thought I'd try a book review series out as well!

A wonderful writer friend of mine recently gave me the following advice: "Don't underestimate the value in the simplicity of publishing your thoughts."  It was her way of gently telling me my work was over-edited to the point of diminishing my voice.  If you know me, you know that my perfectionism has plagued me when I have discovered typos or spelling errors in this blog in the past, so this advice was extremely difficult to swallow.  However, I'm keeping an open mind, and trying my book review series as chatty, unstructured pieces for practice.  What you read has only been looked over by me once!  Raw, right?!

In this, the first edition of my book reviews, I'll be discussing an audiobook I just finished called, It Was Me All Along, by Andie Mitchell.   The book is a memoir written by a young woman who lived with obesity her whole life, then finally lost one hundred thirty-five pounds in her early twenties.  Her struggles are difficult to read, especially in the beginning of the book, but she has a way of putting her experiences down in words that made me want to keep listening.

The book details her weight gain throughout childhood in direct relation to traumatic experiences, her weight loss in college even through a study abroad in Rome, and her eventual peace-making with food in early adulthood.

Her struggle with disordered eating hit close to home for me (a topic I'm sure I will eventually cover), and inspired me to check in yet again with my relationship with food and drink.  It made me reassess my definition of healthy eating again, and though I made few, if any, changes after having done the same thing countless times before, it's always nice to have new affirmation that I am not the only person dealing with my particular choice of issues.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever dealt with body image struggles, or anyone who enjoys a secular biography heavy with descriptive detail that paints a vivid picture in your mind.  Overall, I would put my stamp of approval on this book.

Please let me know what you think about a new book review series, and thanks, as always for reading!

Fantasy Versus Reality

Scene:

A woman and her husband make the decision to have a baby.  They begin talking and planning and fantasizing, knowing exactly how they want everything to go.

“I’ll never get frustrated with our little angel.”

“I know!  I’ll always put her down when she’s sleepy, but not asleep.  We wouldn’t want her to be unable to self-soothe…”

Then, just over ten months later:

“Take her!  I can’t handle it!”
“I’ll give her a boob.  That’ll put her to sleep!”

Sound familiar?  This is exactly how things are going for us!  I think we need to cut ourselves a little slack when it comes to the fantasy parenthood we planned.  New parents have no idea how things are going to go, no matter how many books they’ve read on the subject.  This has been a difficult lesson for me to learn.  What follows is an account of the fantasies Dan and I had before Alice came along versus the reality we live in now.  

“I’ll never deviate from the recommended diet while I’m pregnant.  That way I’ll never get morning sickness, lose energy, or have trouble at all!”

Right.  Though my morning sickness was manageable, only sending me running for the bathroom a handful of times, I didn’t have much of an appetite.  I especially didn’t have an appetite for the large amounts of dairy and protein recommended by WAPF (my chosen diet).  All I wanted was bread and crackers, and that’s pretty much all I ate!  Forget about fish and vegetables; I wanted nothing to do with them.  My energy waned to nothing, and I struggled in many areas.  Why?  BECAUSE I WAS PREGNANT.  No shame in that.  I didn’t do anything dangerous for the baby, and we all came out of it just fine.

“I’ll never get an epidural.  It’s only one day of pain.  I can handle it.”

One day.  Ha!  I labored for thirty-five hours, three of them on pitocin.  After twenty-two, I’d had enough.  I wanted those drugs!  You know what?  I’m proud of myself and everything, but that epidural was the best thing in the world, and I’d do it again!

“IF I give my baby a pacifier AT ALL, I’ll wait at at least six weeks so that I don’t ruin her latch.”

Just shy of two weeks postpartum, I sat crying in my grandmother’s wooden rocker.  Dan had run out to the store and Alice had been screaming for I-don’t-know-how-long for no reason that I could find.  Less than five feet away sat a clean, beautiful, plastic pacifier.  I told myself it wasn’t worth it.  I told myself I could rock her to sleep and it would be alright.  I told myself that Dan would be home soon to help.  To no avail.  I needed respite.  The nuk was suddenly in my hand, and as I looked down into that crunchy, purple face, I knew I would lose this battle.  In popped the pacifier, and silence reigned.  Her relieved blue eyes fluttered closed behind long lashes; mine sobbed fat tears.  I just knew she’d never nurse again!  Right.  When feeding time came around, she latched right on and went to town.  Turns out she was harder to ruin than I thought she would be.

“I’ll never nurse the baby to sleep, it’ll create bad habits.”

Nothing to say about this.  I do it all the time.  It works.  Maybe I’ll regret it later.

“The baby will certainly never sleep in our bed.  That co-sleeping thing is weird.”

We transitioned Alice to her nursery after one month.  It went well!  It was tiring to nurse or change her, however, because she had to be deeply asleep before she would let me leave her alone to go back to bed.  The process of unswaddling, nursing, changing, re-swaddling, and soothing all the way to sleep took about an hour each time.  At three to four times a night, I was losing a lot of sleep.  No problem...until I went back to work.  

I couldn’t function.  Dan and I discussed it and decided it wouldn’t hurt her to sleep in the bassinet a little while longer.  It was such a relief to me, and I was happy with it, until we got the stomach flu.  I was terrified that she would throw up and aspirate, so I brought her into the bed with us, “just this once.”  The ease of nursing was shocking!  She still sleeps with us to this day.  Even Dan was supportive when he saw what a difference it was making in my life.  He wasn’t married to a zombie anymore.  We plan to slowly transition her back to the nursery when I finish work, but for now this arrangement is perfect.  Plus, it’s actually nice to have her tiny body snuggling up against my side while we sleep.

I could go on and on, but the point is this: you never know what parenting will be like until you’re in the thick of it.  It’s okay not to fit the ideal you set up before Baby was born.  In fact, I daresay it’s part of the fun!  The key is to go with the flow, and to give your baby the most love you possibly can.  

Having a baby changed my mind

I never felt called to be a mother.  I was like most teens in saying that I'd never have kids, and people nodded, smirking, and told me,

"Wait until you grow up.  You'll change your mind."

"Grown up" and in college, motherhood still held no appeal.  I was studying French, and wanted to use it to travel the world.  Kids didn't fit into that picture at all.  People still nodded, smirking, and said,

"Wait until you get married.  You'll change your mind."

Dan entered the picture when I was twenty-four.  We both had a mind for overseas missions, but I frankly confessed that children were not on the agenda.  If he chose to marry me, he chose not to have children.  He took his time making the decision, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't a deal-breaker.  We were open about our choice, and people nodded, smirking, and said,

"Wait until you're settled into you marriage, you'll change your mind."

Our wedding was nothing special, but our marriage was (and still is, come to think of it) peaceful, happy, and loving.  Sure, we hit our snags and bumps, but we worked well together.  We moved into a beautiful apartment in a standard suburb and found a church home.  I struggled to learn to cook, Dan struggled to eat enough not to starve.  Our family seemed complete with just the three of us: Dan, Leslie, and Jesus holding them together.  A baby wasn't necessary.  The nodding and irritating smirking continued as people argued,

"Wait until you have a little more money and space, you'll change your mind."

Work picked up for Dan, and I was promoted.  Even so, renting the apartment became too costly to make sense.  We found a sizable house to rent from family and moved in.  I never did "change my mind."  Babies were still only to be cuddled and snuggled, then handed back to their mothers as they fussed.  Kids were fun, but I had other fun things in my life.  I still saw myself traveling the world, free as a bird, never setting down real roots.

But I began to feel troubled.  God had started whispering to me.  I needed to find a job that offered benefits so that I could have better medical coverage.  Though I loved my job at the middle school, I began searching for something full-time and benefitted.  I was a shoe-in for several I interviewed for, but was passed over again and again.  Finally, a friend heard of a job at a charter and advised me to apply.

I barely interviewed.  The job was handed to me for no real merit of my own.  I knew it must have been God's work, but I wasn't sure why.  That was alright, though, because He was whispering again.  This time, He was asking me to do something much more difficult than leaving even a really enjoyable job.  I wasn't willing to listen.  I told myself it was my clock ticking.  I reminded myself of all my reasons not to do it.  But it was no use.  The message, though quiet and undemanding, was clear:

All the plans you have for yourself are good and well-intentioned, but they are not MY plans for you.

I chose not to speak to my wonderful husband about the message I heard on the wind.  In fact, I wanted so badly for it to go away, I didn't even talk to Jesus about it, but I now knew why he had bidden me to find a job with medical coverage.  I was going to need it if I chose to answer this new call.

Dan and I went though more turmoil in our marriage that summer than we ever had, but we stuck together, and came out of the strife stronger than ever.  All throughout that time, God persisted in His coaxing.

Hot days grew shorter, giving way to an indian summer.  I could ignore it no longer.  I knew I had to bring up the message with my husband.  Knowing confessing out loud would make it real; make me have to do something about it, I was terrified.  Dan arrived home from work, and before he even had his shoes off, I blurted,

"God has been speaking to me, and I need to talk to you about it."

Dan answered with his usual calm surety, "He's been telling you to have a baby?"

I went and got a glass of wine.

Now that my instructions were out in the open, I felt better.  My husband and I prayed over the situation, and came to the conclusion that we would start "trying" with the new year.  I came off of oral contraceptive in November, began eating nourishing, good-for-fertility food in December, and began tracking my cycle on New Year's Eve.

One month.  That's how long it took us to get Alice.  A miracle we took as God's confirmation that we had made the right decision.

My pregnancy was uneventful, and you can read my birth story here.  But those are their own stories.  This one has another reason to be told.  You see, as soon as our little Alice arrived, I was at home in my true calling from God.  Being a momma to her is so clearly what I am supposed to do, I barely recall the person I was before.  I guess He knew what was best better than I did.  It's like He's God or something!

I always hated the smirks and the nods, and I still seethe at the I-told-you-sos.  So I hope this will set the record straight.  I didn't change my mind about having a baby, having a baby changed my mind.

Deeper Decluttering: More than STUFF

If you’ve been reading lately, you know that I’ve been feeling a little buried by STUFF.  We recently moved, and lost about a thousand square feet of living space.  This prompted me to begin a major decluttering initiative, but I had an epiphany this week.  Bear with me as I try to express what I realized.

As I remove items from my space to be stored and “shopped” later, donated, or trashed, I keep asking myself, “Does this item enhance my life in some way?”  For example, I am donating a perfectly good jewelry box because I just don’t have use for it.  It isn’t doing me any good, so I decided to let it go so that maybe someone else could enjoy it.  In packing the jewelry box and similar items into the DONATE box, I’m feeling lighter already.

My realization was I was in dire need of asking the same question of many of my habits.  Believe you, me, this has been much more difficult than culling material goods!  Much prayer is required!  Still, as I go, I expect to find even greater satisfaction in discontinuing bad habits than I do in clearing my physical space.  Here are some practices that have to change:

Losing time to Facebook

Why is Facebook so addictive?!  Here’s the story.  I turn on my phone to check my bank balance and see that I have Facebook notifications.  I click the big blue F to see what’s happening.  I lose an hour scrolling through the feed.  I totally forget to check my balance.  A few hours later, I remember that I still need to do that, so I turn on my phone.  I see that I have Facebook notifications…  You get the idea.  

The question is, “Is looking at my Facebook feed for hours a day enhancing my life?” No, but keeping in touch with friends and family that I don’t necessarily see or talk to all the time is an enhancement.  So what to do?  After thought and prayer, I landed on the decision to take the Facebook app off my phone.  I didn’t close my account or anything, and I can still check it when I’m on my computer, but there is no more constant buzzing of notifications or clicking on the F to kill time.  If I want to entertain myself on my phone while waiting for an appointment or something, I can still choose Kindle or Pinterest which I did deem life-enhancing, Kindle just because reading is almost always a smart use of time, and Pinterest because I use it mostly to do useful things like plan meals for my family.

Buh bye hours lost to the scroll.

Standing on the scale

What?!  I no longer weight 120lbs?!  What do you mean I’m not twenty-three and childless anymore?  Ever had these silly thoughts while standing on the bathroom scale?  Me neither!  Ha.

I know my body is changing for the better as I eat healthfully, work hard in karate, and generally take care of it.  No need to see the number on the scale.  I never feel positive and light after looking at it.  I know I’m strong and healthy.  My body just MADE A HUMAN.  Now, it’s creating food for that little human that provides for all her nutritional needs.  How flippin’ cool is that?  All these are positive thoughts that I’m blessed to have in abundance.  No need to mar that beauty with the negativity of a number on a scale.

Plus, one of the guys from karate called me a “brick house” the other day, and I kind of like the idea.  I’m mighty, mighty!  I’m letting it all hang out!

Blow drying my hair

It sucks.  It’s sweaty.  It’s time consuming.  My hair turns out the same either way.  I hate it.  I’m not doing it anymore.  I might even say…it blows.  

Wine

Oh boy this is difficult!  Wine is arguably my favorite consumable in the whole world.  I love it more than butter.  More than cream cheese.  Yes, even more than chocolate!  One of my beloved pastimes is sitting at my mother’s kitchen table with a glass of wine and a snack, chatting about the day.  I.  Love.  My.  Wine.

Alas, when I really get down to it, it is not only not enhancing my life, it’s preventing me from other things that might.  My innocent glass of wine at mom’s dehydrates me a bit, making it necessary for me to scramble to catch up on water to keep my milk supply up.  The dehydration also makes it more difficult to push myself the way I’d like in karate classes.  Plus, it contributes, in part, to the fact that wine is seriously fattening, and though I’m not standing on the scale, I certainly don’t need the extra weight challenge.  No fun.

Finally, that simple indulgence renders me lethargic and sleepy.  When I get home, I’m much less productive, and I fall asleep much quicker than needed.  Not only does this cut my limited quality time with Dan short, but it also causes major stress.  You see, I have things that absolutely have to get done in order to start the next day.  If I can’t get it done at night because of the wine sleepies, I have to get it done in the morning as I’m trying to get ready for work, and there’s already enough to do at that time.

I surely won’t give it up completely, but putting wine back into the “special occasion treat” category will let it go back to being a life enhancement.  It’ll stop being a roadblock and start being a lovely luxury that I can look forward to, and that sounds life-enhancing to me!

P.S. I’ll still stop at Mom’s for some popcorn and chatting while skipping the grape juice (:

Trying to get breastmilk stains out of my clothes.

Impossible.  Waste of time.

Venting, trash-talking, and negative conversation

...but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. -James 3:8

Man!  This is the hardest for me.  Your red-head stereotypes are true!  I have a short temper and I’ll tell you all about it.  I’m quick to judge and slow to empathize.  Ugh!  This is hard to admit.  

However, there was a time that I broke the habit for a while.  It’s kind of a long story, but the short version is that I used to work in the King Soopers deli.  The staff was mostly female, and the tongue lashing between them was harsh.  I joined in to fit in… and quickly found myself hated for what I said about others.

When I left the job to work at a middle school, I was pretty gun shy when it came to talking at all.  The thing was, I really wanted to make friends.  So, each time I found myself making a judgement, I tried to find something positive to say out loud about the person or situation I was judging.  The practice made me a more positive person in general and, you know what?  I did make friends.  In fact, I still maintain some of those quality friendships even though I left the school a couple of years ago.

I’m not the type of person who seeks to be liked all the time.  I am what I am, an you can take it or leave it, thank-you-very-much.  But I, myself, feel so much better when my tongue is tamed and doing good, not evil.

Some things made the cut

I seriously considered getting rid of a few other habits, but decided they were worth keeping.  I already talked about Pinterest, but the other social media outlet I kept was Instagram.  It doesn’t suck me in like Facebook, and I can choose to share my photos to Facebook through it.  This lets me continue to share baby pictures with friends and family without the feed suck.

Sugar does almost all the same things as wine (see above) but I’m choosing to keep it for now.  I actually would like to see it go eventually, but I don’t feel capable of putting in the extra willpower to say no to wine and sugar all at once.

YouTube.  Oh, YouTube.  I can waste hours with the always-popular automatic video load at the end of each offering.  Do I need to know everything about travelling light?  Considering the small amount of travel we do, probably not.  Is watching “My Year of Empties” videos necessary?  Nope.  But I think it’s fun, and it occupies my brain during pumping and nursing sometimes, so I kept it.

I feel the same way about Netflix as I do about YouTube.  Dan and I also use it to watch tv or movies since we don’t have cable.  It stays.

Thanks for bearing with me through a long post.  I felt like it was important to share some of the deeper decluttering I’m doing because it is just as real as packing up the STUFF and trashing it.  What have you given up?  Why did you choose to let it go?  Leave your comments below, I’d love to read about your journey as well.

Rough Time

Mommas, sometimes times are rough.  We’ve all been there.  I was there the last couple of weeks.  Alice started getting a cold, which messed up the way she nursed, which led to mastitis for me.  This must have compromised my immune system (and it doesn’t help that I suck snot directly out of her face with the Nosefrida), because before I knew it, I was battling that cold.  It turned nasty fast, and I quarantined us to the bedroom, but not before I exposed my mom and grandma.

For my mom, even a bad cold is no big.  She was a public school teacher, after all!  But my grandma is 90 and can’t handle things like she used to.  She ended up with pleurisy and had to go to the ER.  They couldn’t medically help her as much as she needed, so she’s now hanging out in a care facility until she gets better.  Though Alice and I are on the mend, I’m sad that this happened to my grandma.

So, what do you do?  Try to remember that you still need to take care of yourself, even when you have a tiny someone who needs all your time, effort, and love.  I’ve been sick A LOT since I had Alice, and I’m pretty much over it.  I’m exposed to all kinds of things at the school where I work, so I guess I’ll need to put out more of an effort to stay healthy.  My Nasopure bottle came out of storage for morning nasal rinses, and I brought a canister of salt upstairs to gargle with.  Hopefully doing these things will get rid of the illnesses before they can take root.  

I’ll be diffusing a combination of lavender and lemon at work to purify the air, as well as giving the office a spritz of thieves before I leave to clean it up over night.  To make the surfaces just as clean, I’ll wipe them down with disinfectant daily.

Diet and sleep are always important as well.  I have a hard time choosing only clean, healthy foods, but I’ll do my best, and I’ll always get plenty of water.  Sleep, as you know, is more difficult with a four-month-old.  It helps that she sleeps with us, so I don’t have to get up to nurse.  I just have to prioritize getting into bed on time and do the best I can.

Mostly, I’ll have to make the effort to take care of myself so that I’m able to take care of Alice.  I guess I forget that sometimes, now that I’m a momma.  I know I’m not alone in this!  I hope you found this post an encouragement in that we’re all going through the same things.  Do you have any ideas about how I can keep myself and Alice healthy?  Leave them in the comments below.  Thanks for reading!

15 Weird Facts About Me

I realize that I tell you all about what I do, and I do a lot of unsolicited advice giving and how-tos in this blog, but I haven’t really told you anything about me, so I’m going to do a 15 Weird Facts about Me edition.  It was recommended in a “‘How to Write a Blog” blog, and the questions to answer came from “Light by Coco.” I’m just dork enough to give it a shot.  Anyway, this is me:

• I’ve always kind of wanted a nickname, but I’ve never really had one.  Sometimes my mom calls me “Les.”
• I have a weird habit of making up new lyrics to songs to sing to my baby.  I do this one all the time, from “I’m Sexy and I Know It:”  

When I walk through the park

This is what I see.

Everybody stops and they’re staring at me!

I’ve got little chubber cheeks and I ain’t afraid to show it.

I’m a baby and I know it!

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah!

• I’m terrified of zombies.  I kind of jump into my bed, just in case there’s one wanting to bite me hiding underneath.  I always check the trunk of my car before I get in because I think maybe one is hiding there, waiting to eat Alice.  No kidding!  So scary.
• The song I love but hate to admit that I love it is “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred!
• My biggest pet peeve is entitlement.
• My nervous habit is shrugging my shoulders up to my ears and holding my breath.  I have to remind myself to breathe and relax my shoulders when I’m nervous.  I also pick at my cuticles and have since I was a little kid.
• I sleep on the right side of the bed.  Alice sleeps with us, and she sleeps between me and the wall, because Dan has flying elbow syndrome at night!
• My first stuffed animal was a cartoonish donkey thing, and my mom had me name it when I was only a few months old, so its name was “Ahgoo.”  I also still have my first teddy bear named, “Old Teddy.”
• I don’t often go to Starbucks unless I have a gift card, but I order a grande flat white when I do.
• The beauty rule I break is, I don’t wash my face before bed sometimes.  Then I wake up with mascara under my eyes and look like my greatest fear (see above)!
• I face away from the faucet in the shower.
• My weird body skill is that my elbows bend backward.

• My favorite comfort food is pizza.  Plain cheese, with the thickest crust possible.  Also, cake.
• My go-to exclamation is “O-M Gosh!” or “Dude!”  So sophisticated.
• Right now, since it’s not safe to have blankets when Alice is sleeping with me, I have to dress warmly for bed.  I wear sweatpants and wool socks with one of Dan’s oversized thermals.

Don’t you just feel like you know me now?  Thanks for reading!