Sometimes I like living in Texas. When I can step outside with my family for brisk walk in the evening without feeling like poultry on the rotisserie, it seems downright inhabitable.

November is the month that finally gives some relief to the insane heat and humidity. The air conditioner isn’t laboring, rattling and groaning through the day, and sometimes I get to wear slippers instead of flip-flops around the house (squeal!). Now if only the mosquitoes would die off when it drops below 70, and we got just a little bit of snow (more than once ever 5 years) it would almost be perfect — at least from November through February.

Marker on natural canvas. The artist’s work is also being displayed on select Maytag and Frigidaire appliances across the country.

Em, surprised and delighted, to Mr. Husband: “Daddy, did you hear that? MY BUTT BURPED!”

Hey, you, pop out of that there feed reader and check out the brand new no-frills layout. (Some might call it an Emperor’s New Clothes kind of look; I prefer to use the term “minimalist”.) Yep, this poor abandoned blog (PAB) finally got some attention in the form of a makeover — something I’ve only been meaning to do since I purchased this domain well over a year ago. At this rate, I will be regularly adding new content in a matter of mere months. Hoooooo-boy, hold on to your swiveling desk-chairs!

Bonus announcement: ohbecareful has spawned a brand new baby-blog, which you can see on the right in all of its bawling newborn glory. It’s really just a new category masquerading as a little sidebar blog. The topic: politics.

I know, I know. Who wants to talk about politics and current events and the like? Not me, that’s who. But I’m doing it anyway, for reasons I will explain in a future post.

But fear not! If you don’t want to hear my thoughts on Health Care Reform or the importance of preserving and defending our Constitution, you don’t have to (and not just because this is the internet and you don’t need my permission to click away). The politically-related posts excerpted in the sidebar will not show up in the regular feed, so skipping them should be a piece of cake.

And if you want to read the posts, you can either click on the side/mini/baby/little/faker-blog links when you happen to be in the neighborhood or you can subscribe to the feed here. UPDATE: Never mind. It was supposed to work this way but it went and showed up in the main feed anyway — the rotten stinker — so for now I’ve put it in a time-out from all RSS feeds (including the separate one I set up just for that category). Someday, when I feel like spending another hour banging my head on the keyboard, I’ll try to fix it. Sorry!

Your choice.

Isn’t it nice to have options? I think so too.

P.S. Let me know if anything in the new layout looks strangely deformed or out-of-place, and I will apply my CSS/PHP-numb brain to the task of making it worse with my coding ineptitude fixing it. Thanks!

Elizabeth Esther is hosting The Saturday Evening Blog Post, a monthly event where readers share their favorite post from the previous month. I chose my hastily composed “bedtime prayer” from September, because, um, it was the only post from September. Yes, it holds the coveted position of favorite by default.

Now go check out the other posts, and add one of your own!

Jules of Enjoying the Story was kind enough to give me this award a while ago, even though I’ve been a most derelict blogger. Thanks, Jules!

*clearing throat*

Now for the important rules that always accompany memes and awards.

In accepting this award, I need to do the following:
1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award.
2) Share “ten honest things” about myself.
3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.
4) Tell those 7 people that they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving

Ten Honest Things:

1. There is semi-crusted milk in my hair as I write this. How it got there is less important than how it’s going to smell in a couple of hours, and I hope that I have a chance to take a shower before finding out.

2. Hello, my name is Jamie, and I am a recovering pack-rat. (This is not in any way related to the milk in my hair. Honest!)

3. I have a terrible sense of direction. When Mr. Husband and I were dating long-distance, I drove from Florida to visit him at his school in Texas. When it was time to drive back, it took me an hour to just find my way out of the Texas A&M campus. (And technically, I didn’t even find my own way out — Mr. Husband gave me detailed, idiot-proof directions. Things haven’t changed much since then.)

4. I used to have a life. Now, instead of unwinding at the end of a long day, I try to keep up with current events via reliable news sites and blogs.
< sarcasm > You know, for fun! < / sarcasm >

5. Crocs are ugly. Hey, just being honest.

6. After going through the painful process of choosing and purchasing a new cell phone this morning, I realized that my husband and I are among the last of our kind. Someday soon, we will have to leave civilized society and found The Order of Cell-Phone Users Who Don’t Use Their Phones to Text, Watch TV, Record Videos, or Update Their Facebook Status.

7. The government is taxing my patience. This shouldn’t surprise me, since it already taxes everything else.

8. Shopping is one of my least favorite things to do. I ♥ Amazon, my shop-from-the-plump-seat-of-my-lazy-rear-end enabler.

9. Going to the dentist scares me. Yes, I am a weenie.

10. I’m glad this is #10, because I’m kind of tired of writing about myself. Are you breathing a sigh of relief that it’s over, too? Well, good news! I’m going to send you away now, to visit bloggers who are more insightful and/or entertaining than I am:

Here are 7 blogs I enjoy, all of whom have probably already received this award but are getting it again anyway:

The Picket Fence
Half-Pint House
Minnesota Mom
Four Squares
Books and Bairns
Supratentorial
Amy’s Humble Musings

Now I lay her down to sleep,
I pray she will not make a peep,
But close her eyes and rest her head,
And, just this once, remain in bed.

But if, instead, she stays awake,
I pray thee, Lord, my head not ache;
And when I hear a pitter-patter,
Lord, help me not to be mad at her.

Amen

Mr. Husband and I went to see comedian Tim Hawkins for our anniversary in July. (more…)

Last year, when Em was ready to make the transition to a “big girl” bed, we decided she would inherit Calvin’s bedroom set and he would be upgraded to a brand new loft bed.

There are many wonderful benefits to having a loft bed in a 7-year-old’s room. For example:

1) It frees up a lot of floor space, making even a small room feel, well, roomier. This is advantageous because there is more carpeted square-footage upon which to scatter one’s action figures, Legos, and puzzles.

2) When you are seven, there are only two words that adequately describe what it is to have to shimmy up a ladder to get into your bed; to be able to peep over the side and look down at anyone entering your domicile from a perspective that makes them appear tiny and insignificant, like ants; and to sleep mere inches from the ceiling: IT ROCKS.

However, it does have a few noteworthy disadvantages, which I thought I would list here for parents who may be considering the purchase of a bed with an aerial view for their own child:

1) Changing the bedding is a pain. Even if your child does a passable job of changing the bedding on a regular, floor-level bed, they may find their skills severely hampered when asked to perform this same task in their loft bed — as our son did.

There is a possibility that, at least for a time, you will be the one who has to lumber up to the top rung of the ladder, causing the entire loft to creak and shift under the weight of your non-Peter Pan-like body as you peel back the layers of bedding; you will probably strain something as you try to reach the furthest corner of the bed without having to climb all the way into it; then you will have to repeat the entire process when the bedding has been laundered and must be snugly re-fit onto the mattress.

You will often forget that the loft bed needs to be re-made until moments before your son’s bedtime, and will find yourself panting and groaning and sweating to make the bed ready while your son bounces around the room below like a gazelle on speed, gleefully happy that you cannot send him to bed until your arduous task is completed.

2) If your child comes down with the stomach virus in the middle of the night, the bed and bedding will be sprayed with sick as the he sits up in bed and belatedly tries to direct his vomit over the side railing (for reasons that can only be attributed to self-preservation). When the sick hits the floor from a greater height, the splatter area will be extensive enough to include not only a wide swath of the carpet below, but also the recliner that fits so nicely beneath the space-saving loft. Midnight clean-up will require a wet vac, a heavy duty washing machine, and a Hazmat suit.

3) Changing bedding that is heavy and dripping with sick is not only a pain, it may cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (I will be watching Mr. Husband carefully for symptoms.)

We did take #1 into consideration when weighing the pros and cons of a loft bed before plunking down our money, schlepping it home, and assembling it in Cal’s room. But I must confess that we didn’t even entertain the possibility of #2, much less understand its cataclysmic nature, until it happened. Last night.

Other than those minor drawbacks, we’re thrilled with the purchase of a loft bed for our son, and give it a hearty, double thumbs-up of recommendation. [Forced, cheerful smiling with lots of exclamation points!!!]

*Alternate post titles:
- “My Husband, My Hero: True Love is Volunteering To Clean It Up”
- “In Which Calvin Again Applies James 1:2 to Having the Stomach Flu”
- “It Will Take Years of Therapy And Healing Before I Can Talk About The Smell, And I Didn’t Even Venture Past the Hallway”

Good news! I’ve finally come to terms with the whole June thing, which means that I can now sit back, relax, and enjoy the rest of the month. So talk freely, friends, and don’t worry about pushing me into the arms of a nervous breakdown by mentioning June in the present tense. I’m not ready to think about July yet, so good thing July is far, far away, huh?

Anyway, hi. How are you? Did your family survive the temperature spikes that broke records all over the US last week? (Things I never thought I’d say in June: “Whew! I’m glad it’s only going to be 98 degrees today!”)

Except for the multiple near-death experiences I had last week when I checked the temperature and found out it was three digits long, our summer has actually been going reasonably well. So far I/we:

- Deleted my Twitter account, because Twitter is stupid, as I suspected it was. (If you happen to use and love Twitter, don’t take that as an insult. It’s not that I think that Tweeting is incompatible with being an intelligent, capable person; I just don’t understand why you’d want to communicate in blips of 140 characters when email and blogging and even the phone are available options. A differing of personal preferences. That’s all.)

- Went to Florida for a week to visit family. The kids loved the beach, but were sadly unable to tunnel to China, which is what they appeared to be trying to do with their collection of flimsy plastic shovels of various size and color. That kind of project probably requires a two week vacation instead of just one.

- Managed to stay alive for 24 hours in my grandparents’ Florida home without air conditioning (their A/C pooped out the day we were driving to see them, which is something I might laugh about someday) (but probably not, because it was 101 degrees the long next day that we spent waiting for an A/C tech to show up). Does that make me eligible for Survivor or WHAT?

- Managed to stay alive for 2 hours in our home after our A/C went out two days after we got back from Florida before we retreated to an air-conditioned hotel room. 2 WHOLE HOURS. I’ll take your stunned silence for awe and admiration. Thankfully, our A/C was fixed this morning, and we only had to sell one of our children to pay for it.

- Read some books.

- Have been able to keep sanity intact through Em’s latest phase, which isn’t so much the “Terrible Two’s” as it is “Two-and-a-half going on Fourteen — With an Attitude.” Example: the most minor, trivial incident will cause her to cry and run away to her bedroom, where she will slam the door only the way that one who has suffered great injustice can. On following this drama in the form of a little girl to her room and cracking open the recently slammed door, you will be greeted by the words, “Just go away!” in the most victimized tone ever adopted by a two-year-old, and those words will be followed by more wailing as she buries her face in her pillow and waves you away. Or screams at you.

Just today at lunch she declared that she doesn’t like people, presumably because it was a person who told her she had to sit the right way in her booster seat and stop pushing the chair back so she didn’t topple over. PEOPLE. DISGUSTING, MEDDLESOME, FUN-KILLING PEOPLE. My sanity is still intact, but my eyes have been in danger of rolling right out of their sockets.

Anyway, I think we have done some other stuff since I last posted, but I can’t think of it right now. I’m far too distracted by a guilty conscience: I was supposed to use this evening to make out a menu plan and grocery list. And clean out the fridge. So I’m going to quick! do those other two things right after I think up a title for this pointless rambling post.