We officially left Chicagoland on Thursday. It was so strange to see our empty house.

We ate lunch in our house but didn't have any chairs, so Liam had to dine on the kitchen counter.

We're in Billings, MT, now. We had very long days on Thursday and Friday; in both cases we didn't get to our hotel until after 11 p.m. This means that Liam didn't get much sleep, and it also means that I didn't have a chance to blog. But today we actually got to our destination before dark. *gasp!*

Overall, things have gone pretty well. We had a fairly tense drive to Minneapolis in the dark on Thursday, with a tremendous downpour making it difficult to see the road. Other than that, our drives have been pretty uneventful. Our car is doing just fine, aside from a hole in the muffler that makes it sound like we're trying unsuccessfully to trick out a Mazda 626. :) We use a tape adapter so we can listen to the music on our MP3 players through our car's stereo, but the tape player stopped working about 15 minutes into the first leg of our journey on Thursday. Plus, the car's antenna is broken, so we don't get radio reception. Thankfully, we had borrowed a long book on CD (Jane Eyre) from the library, and we've been enjoying listening to that. Steve has never read Jane Eyre, and it's been so many years since I have that it's really new for both of us. Liam and Jackson also seem riveted by the tale.

We got to see our friends Julie and Dennis (and their three kids) in St. Paul, but I'm kicking myself for not taking any photos! Here in Billings, we've had the privilege of spending some time with our friends Jan and Tim (and their two kids--see photos below), as well as our good friend Scott.

The drive from Bismarck, ND, to Billings today was beautiful. We passed through flat farmland, rolling hills, buttes, the Painted Canyon, and craggy hills. Once we got into Montana, our route took us along the Yellowstone River most of the way to Billings. We can see snow-covered mountains in the far distance from our hotel window here.

We ate lunch today in Glendive, MT, which, according to our friend Scott, is the smallest media market in the country. They have their own TV channel, which is basically run by one guy. We ate at one of probably two restaurants in the town--a Pizza Hut in a strip mall, with Jackson barking at us from the car the whole time. (Don't worry, he had plenty of shade and ventilation.)

Liam is doing great with the long drives. He gets bored and irritated at times, of course, but he really is handling it remarkably well. He doesn't sleep much in the car, though; he'll fall asleep, but he won't sleep for nearly as long as he would in his crib. This means that he's not getting good naps, on top of getting so little sleep at night. From now on, though, our driving days should be shorter, so hopefully he'll be able to have a better routine.

Jackson is traveling like a champ. He sleeps contentedly on the back seat next to Liam's car seat every day, strapped into his own safety belt.

Jackson has gotten much better about hotels too--no pacing or whining anymore. He had fun looking out the window of our fifth-story hotel room in Bismarck from his perch atop the air conditioner.

We're on to Yellowstone tomorrow!

We took this photo today; it should give you an idea of the vast distances and sparse population of Montana:

(As you've probably guessed, Miles is a street name.)

This'll be a short one; hopefully I'll have a chance to write more tomorrow/today (it's 1:15 am). Steve just got back to the hotel from cleaning our house. He is absolutely exhausted, understandably. Come to think of it, so am I, but it seems pretty unfair for me to complain when he spent the last five hours cleaning, and I spent them hanging out with Monaca and then watching David Letterman, Conan, and part of Dr. Phil (hey--the pickins were slim, okay?!).

Movin' out

So, the packers/movers came today. It's been a stressful couple of days getting ready for them to come; I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that it's hard when you're waiting till the last possible moment to take down paintings, etc., so that your house looks good for realtor showings. Last night (or should I say this morning?) we got to bed after 3 am. (Side note: Our house has not sold yet. Sigh. We'd appreciate prayers about this.)

We are in Aurora until Thursday morning, but we're staying in a hotel here for the next two nights, since we don't really have furniture, dishes, etc. available in our house anymore. Thankfully, Steve's company is paying for hotels.

I'm sitting in our hotel suite right now, with Jackson unwillingly at my feet and Liam sleeping in the bedroom. Our poor pooch is so nervous and unsure about what's going on. He's whining continually, particularly because Steve left to go help the movers get stuff out of our attic. Jackson just doesn't understand what's going on, poor guy. I actually had to attach his leash to the table so that he would stop scratching at the door. Here's a photo:

"Sharon Lamb, in The Secret Lives of Girls, says the two most important prohibitions for girls, entering the twenty-first century, are against sex and aggression. For women, exhibiting either kind of behavior--sexual or aggressive--is a potentially dangerous transgression. It can be seen as reneging on the promise that, according to Dana Crowley Jack in Behind the Mask, extends chivalric protections to women in exchange for their agreeing to be gentle, nurturing, and submissive. To be caught desiring either is to be caught eating forbidden fruit. And the repercussion is to be not only cast out but recast, positioned as something other than purely feminine, at once deprived of and liberated from a certain social compact."

- Without Apology, by Leah Hager Cohen

"If I were to die from eating something fattening, it would be bacon."

- Steve Taylor

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

- Middlemarch, by George Eliot

"Love is like malaria--once it's under your skin, it's never really gone."

-Australian guy on "Crossing Jordan"

Weird photo

Okay, I invariably get to a point where I'm pretty confident in my technical abilities and my knowledge of blogging, and then something like this happens. Look to the left. Can anyone help me figure out why my photo is all squished, even though it looks fine on my blogger dashboard? And can you tell me how I can fix it?

Yet another quote

"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

- Albert Einstein

Dancing dogs

Yes, I'm a crazy dog person.

More quotes

"The mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it."

-Middlemarch, by George Eliot

"Femininity is not the thing I hate once a month, it is not a collection of fatty deposits, not a style of clothing, or an overabundance of specific hormones. Femininity is a part of my essence, or philosophically speaking, my soul. Femininity is who I am, not merely what I do."

-Ruby Slippers, by Jonalyn Grace Fincher

Literary quotes

Here are a couple quotes that struck me as I was reading this week:

“He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.”

–Nelly Dean, in reference to Joseph (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë)

“[Marriage] is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.”

–Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Library voice

The close tie between patriotism and Christianity

Butt out

I have never before agreed so much with Tyra Banks. Check this out:

February in Santa Cruz, CA (my birthplace)

Grrr . . . Minor rant: While I love most things about this template, I hate how it automatically capitalizes every word in the title of a post. The editor in me cringes!

Testing my patience

I was disappointed to read the following on a Christian crisis-pregnancy-center Web site. It's a test entitled "Am I going to heaven?" Most disappointing of all is probably the last part of the test.

Am I going to heaven?

It's not very encouraging that I'm surprised by this.

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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I am

I am sleepy.

I want ice cream.

I have long second toes.

I wish I could fall asleep.

I hate it when my son gets shots.

I fear disappointing people.

I hear my son crying in the monitor.

I search for poop stains on baby clothes.

I wonder if I’m a better person than I was five years ago.

I regret saying vindictive things.

I love seeing my son smile at me in the morning.

I ache to go home again.

I think ½ cup is a ridiculous serving size for ice cream.

I always position toilet paper rolls with the paper coming over the top.

I usually correct typos I find in books.

I am not kidding.

I dance in smarty pants.

I sing without realizing it.

I never eat just ½ cup of ice cream.

I rarely lose things (famous last words).

I cry when I share details about my life (even fairly superficial ones) in groups.

I am not always good at giving people grace.

I lose weight when I get pregnant.

I'm confused by people who are purposely and randomly cruel.

I need to clean the bathrooms.



Now it's your turn!

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