We're havin' a heat wave . . .

Ugh. The weather this summer just seems to be in extremes . . . either it's pouring down rain, and cold, or it's super hot and humid. We haven't had much in between. But at least today it's breezy, so that does help to ease the humidity. However, with this kind of weather I don't feel like doing much in the house, so unfortunately I haven't blessed my home today as much as I had hoped to! I still have a sink full of dishes to wash. I've just got to buckle down and do it . . .

We had a nice weekend. We didn't get a lot done at the house on Saturday, but Jim did a few things and I was able to spend some time cleaning and straightening up. I vacuumed most of the floors, trying to get rid of weeks' worth of dust and dirt. At least I got things looking a little neater in there, for a while anyway! It's hard to keep anything looking neat when it is still a construction zone! :) The carpet guy came to measure our bedroom, too, so now we have the ball rolling on that, and hopefully they will be able to install it fairly soon. Our maple countertop arrived today, so probably Jim can install that, as soon as we finish painting the kitchen.

We really enjoyed the church services yesterday. It seems every message we've heard since starting to attend Trinity has really challenged and encouraged us, and yesterday was no different. The pastor's messages are just really practical, and seem to hit us with right what we need to hear at the time. I also started going to a new Sunday School class yesterday, taught by the pastor's wife. It was really good! Their summer format is divided up into 4 week sessions, so yesterday was the start of the 2nd 4 weeks. The first 4 weeks, I went to another ladies' class, called "Women Encouraging Women." This session is called "Wisdom for the Weaker Vessel" and it was really neat to see how it went right along with all I've been reading in "Created to be His Help Meet." I had to wonder if the pastor's wife had been reading it, too! At any rate, I can tell that these principles must all be things that I especially need to hear right now.

I've gone a little more public with my blog; a couple other blogs have links to it now, and I have links to them, as well. I don't know whether this has significantly increased my readership or not . . . I doubt it . . . but we will see. I'm hoping to begin doing some of the affiliate programs that are available online, as a way of using my blog to make a little extra money. In order to make that happen, I know I'll have to have more traffic on here, too. Hopefully it'll work out . . . at least it doesn't cost anything to try! :)

I'm excited that I figured out (following the way my brother-in-law installed my links code for me) how to make another heading ("Other Blogs") in my sidebar. I'm pretty sure I will never be an expert in HTML code, but I feel like I took another teeny baby step in learning! Again, if anyone else has a blog they want to me to link to, let me know! And as always, I would love to hear from whoever is reading this . . . you don't have to be registered on Blogger to post, so it's really easy!

This week I'm planning to work really hard on getting Sam back to sleep at night without him getting up to nurse. We really need to break this habit! After 16 months, it is way past time--I'm tired of not getting an uninterrupted night's sleep. Last night he woke up around 3, and I had gotten him back to sleep within about 15-20 min. He definitely wasn't happy with me, but he did give in a lot faster than he ever has before when I've tried this. We'll see how it goes tonight. After his 3 am waking, he didn't get up again till almost 6:30, when I brought him in bed with us till about 7. If he would just sleep straight through till 6:30 every morning, I would be completely happy with that!! Here's a picture Jim took of Sam and me sometime last week when we were snoozing together after Jim got up. I think the way Sam is lying there is so funny! He looks so long in this picture, too.


Sam's newest joy in the food department is crackers--both graham crackers and wheat thins. I think he would happily eat them all day! He's also really enjoying his cup with a straw--he would rather use that than a sippy cup. He's getting so he drinks quite a bit of water now, which I'm glad about, since it's so good for him. Also I like keeping him hydrated on these hot days! Tomorrow we are planning another beach day, which should be a nice change of pace. Since the last time we went, I bought a sun shelter thing at Walmart, so hopefully he can take a nap under that if he falls asleep. If tomorrow is anything like today, it should be a good day for the beach.