{"id":5439,"date":"2010-04-13T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=5439"},"modified":"2013-06-11T07:30:31","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T13:30:31","slug":"82-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/82-things\/","title":{"rendered":"82 things"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Joshua Tree? | Photo by Jonathan Blundell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In case you’ve missed some of the latest happenings — here’s a list of 82…
\n<\/p>\n

    \n

    We’re expecting…<\/h3>\n
  1. TWINS!<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. I can’t wait to see the next ultrasound – we’ll be roughly 12 weeks into the pregnancy by then.<\/li>\n
  3. Realizing we’re finally pregnant after two years of trying is odd. It’s hard to wrap our minds around<\/a> — and it’s hard to get super excited — there’s always the thought that something could go wrong at any second.<\/li>\n
  4. We’re going to have two babies — at once! And two 2-year-olds, and two 13-year-olds and two 16-year olds… and two college students… at the same time!<\/li>\n
  5. And no, I don’t know if I would prefer two boys and two girls or one of each. I’m going to be thrilled with whatever God blesses us with.<\/li>\n
  6. And yes, we like to do things the hard way around Casa de Blundell.<\/li>\n

    Moving…<\/h3>\n
  7. We sold our house! We’ll we think… as of last Thursday it’s officially under contract.<\/li>\n
  8. The buyer’s home inspector will be making a visit\/inspection today.<\/li>\n
  9. We’re keeping our fingers crossed they don’t find anything wrong.<\/li>\n
  10. If all goes as planned we’ll close on May 6th on our current home and hopefully on the new home as well.<\/li>\n
  11. We’ll have until 5 p.m. on May 8th to be out of our current home.<\/li>\n
  12. That’s not much time!<\/li>\n
  13. Once we move, we’ll only have to paint three sides of our backyard fence – our neighbor took it upon himself to paint our fence along the side next to him.<\/li>\n
  14. I really want to be upset with him — but I guess I’ll look at it as a gift.<\/li>\n
  15. We’re also going to have to sod our backyard.<\/li>\n
  16. We’ll also have to start the whole process of landscaping all over again.<\/li>\n
  17. I feel like we just did that somewhere else.<\/li>\n
  18. While I really enjoy living in Red Oak – I’m looking forward to the opportunities awaiting in Forney.<\/li>\n
  19. I’ve already been talking with someone about starting a new Wednesday men’s breakfast group in Forney or Mesquite.<\/li>\n
  20. I’ve also talked with a couple friends about starting a new Laundry Love<\/a> in the area as well.<\/li>\n
  21. We’ll be a lot closer to family — all our immediate family (aka babysitters) will be within in 15 miles of our new home.<\/li>\n
  22. We’re taking a HUGE hit on the sale of our house.<\/li>\n
  23. It really ticks me off — but it’s just a sign of the times.<\/li>\n
  24. Unfortunately that means we’ll have to put off a couple other things we talked about doing this year…<\/li>\n
  25. …like replacing my truck with something newer with more interior room<\/li>\n
  26. …having sinus surgery and\/or pillar implants<\/li>\n

    Celebrations…<\/h3>\n
  27. Laurie’s birthday is Friday the 16th.<\/li>\n
  28. On Friday we’ll be celebrating the 4th anniversary of her 25th birthday.<\/li>\n
  29. We’re planning a lunch with family at her favorite place – California Pizza Kitchen this weekend.<\/li>\n
  30. Sunday, Laurie and I will be sharing our story at encounter<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  31. If everything goes as planned you can watch it live online at live.encounterthis.com<\/a> (10:30 CST).<\/li>\n
  32. Our three-year anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks – April 28th.<\/li>\n
  33. I’m really looking forward to celebrating it with Laurie.<\/li>\n
  34. No — I’m not thinking what you’re thinking.<\/li>\n

    Blogging…<\/h3>\n
  35. I’m also coming up on the five year anniversary of my blog — April 30th.<\/li>\n
  36. I’m working on a new theme and look to kick off year six.<\/li>\n
  37. I started my blog on Blogger<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  38. And moved to Casadeblundell.com and WordPress in 2007.<\/li>\n
  39. Since starting my initial blog in 2005, I also blogged about my trip to Nigeria<\/a><\/li>\n
  40. …started the podcast<\/a><\/li>\n
  41. …the encounter blog<\/span><\/li>\n
  42. …the Red Oak Laundry Love blog<\/a><\/li>\n
  43. …and We Live Simply<\/a>.<\/li>\n

    We Live Simply…<\/h3>\n
  44. Writing about my journey on We Live Simply has been a great practice and help for me.<\/li>\n
  45. It’s helping me focus on simplifying my life and thinking outside the box.<\/li>\n
  46. I’m not a simpleton by nature.<\/li>\n
  47. I must learn to live simply because I tend to horde and complicate life.<\/li>\n
  48. Since starting We Live Simply I’ve purged 35+ books…<\/li>\n
  49. …50+ CDs<\/li>\n
  50. …19 DVDs<\/li>\n
  51. …two bags of clothes<\/li>\n
  52. …and a number of other odds and ends.<\/li>\n
  53. They’ll be more things purged<\/a> for sure by the end of the month.<\/li>\n
  54. I’ve also worked to limit distractions by limiting my e-mail usage…<\/li>\n
  55. …I only check my e-mail first thing in the morning and then at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. (and maybe once or twice in the evening)<\/li>\n
  56. I also typically leave the e-mail app on my phone turned off.<\/li>\n
  57. I’m secretly hoping to inspire my dad to simplify things as well.<\/li>\n

    The novel…<\/h3>\n
  58. The sales of my novel<\/a> have dropped off.<\/li>\n
  59. After a decent start, I’m only selling one or two a month now.<\/li>\n
  60. I’ve started working on an audio version of the book.<\/li>\n
  61. I’m realizing just how time consuming that is.<\/li>\n
  62. I’m going to need to sell a lot more books with twins on the way.<\/li>\n
  63. I’m thinking through a couple possible ideas for Nanowrimo 2010.<\/li>\n
  64. Of course with twins coming in October or November — that may be completely out of the question.<\/li>\n

    Other books you should read…<\/h3>\n
  65. Kevin Hendricks novel, The Least of These<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  66. Kevin’s new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters<\/li>\n
  67. You can pre-order Addition by Adoption<\/a> now through April 20th.<\/li>\n
  68. A portion of the proceeds will go to build a clean water well in Ethiopia through charity:water<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  69. simplify<\/a> by Joshua Becker<\/li>\n
  70. A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life<\/a> by Leo Babauta<\/li>\n
  71. The Divine Commodity<\/a> by Skye Jethani<\/li>\n

    Other odds and ends…<\/h3>\n
  72. As of tonight — I’m challenging myself — that when I’m working on my computer at night, once the battery has less than 20 minutes left – I immediately turn it off and go to bed.<\/li>\n
  73. In the past I usually plugged it back in and got a second wind for both my computer and myself.<\/li>\n
  74. I want to put a stop to that.<\/li>\n
  75. My battery currently shows 1 hour left — or 30% remaining.<\/li>\n
  76. I hope I’m in bed before it reaches 20 minutes left tonight.<\/li>\n
  77. I’ve also been challenging myself to eat better and slow down when I eat.<\/li>\n
  78. The best trick I’ve found so far is to put my fork and knife down between each bite.<\/li>\n
  79. Taking a drink of water between each bite is also a big help.<\/li>\n
  80. I still catch myself halfway through a meal eating way to fast.<\/li>\n
  81. By eating better I hope to lose some more weight.<\/li>\n
  82. I’d like to think that if I can lose some more weight, my snoring will correct itself on it’s own.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So there’s my<\/em> random list of 82 things. What’s on yours<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In case you’ve missed some of the latest happenings — here’s a list of 82…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[3485,422,3486,1912,3487,4651,3469,2905],"class_list":["post-5439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-82-things","tag-blogs","tag-catchup","tag-happenings","tag-moving","tag-reflections","tag-twins","tag-we-live-simply"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-1pJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10737,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions\/10737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}