Tucker and the Sand Cricket

Tucker, our darling kitty (now technically a cat), is a mighty hunter of bugs. He stalks flies, spiders, crickets, and just about any other bug that manages to make its way into the house. Among his favorite bugs are sand crickets (a terrible mutant creature that's not really a cricket at all but looks like the worst possible cross between a large spider and a grasshopper). Anyway, a few days ago I found a sand cricket in my closet, and, using a bug-killing stratgey borrowed from my brother, I grabbed the dust-buster and vacuumed up the mutant creature. I set the dust-buster on the floor in the bathroom and promptly forgot about the whole episode. The next evening, I heard strange noises coming from the bathroom. When I went to check things out, I found Tucker pushing the dust-buster all around the bathroom floor, trying to figure out how to get to the still-alive sand cricket. When he decided that the cricket was stuck, he pulled back the area rug in front of the sink and attempted to hide the entire dust-buster under the rug. (Tucker has always stashed things under the little bathroom and kitchen rugs; it's not unusual for me to find coins, kitty treats, elastic hair ties,and bug parts under the little kitchen and bathroom rugs.) Anyway, he wasn't able to make the dust-buster disappear, but the whole thing was quite amusing....

Weather Warnings

With all of the crazy weather that we've been having in the Midwest this summer, this made me laugh....

Normal Pants and Stretch Marks

First, the good news: I'm back in my normal pants again. Actually, I've been back in normal pants for about a week and a half now. I can't quite fit into my "skinny jeans" yet, but most of my pants fit relatively well. I'm not back to my pre-pregnancy weight yet, but I'm getting closer -- less than 10 pounds away. Also, I have now regained feeling in all of my fingers. (The tips of the fingers in my right hand had been numb for most of the past month. It's really nice to be able to button clothes and address envelopes without any pain or difficulty again.)

And, the bad news: I now have stretch marks on my tummy. While this really shouldn't come as any surprise, it does. I didn't have any stretch marks on my baby belly while I was pregnant, but now that I'm back to a relatively normal size I have yucky looking stretch marks on my tummy. Something just seems wrong about this whole thing....

Baby Lily (Part 2)

Here's the promised baby picture. This one was taken while we were still in the hospital, but it's our favorite picture of her so far. In general, everything is going well. Daddy is proud of his little princess, and baby is happy and healthy. Mommy isn't as sleep-deprived as she excepted to be, but is still fatter than she had expected. (If baby weighed almost 9 pounds at birth, how is it I managed to come home from the hospital only 10 pounds lighter than when I went in? Something just doesn't seem right here....)

Baby Lily

Baby Lily has arrived. (Actually, she arrived a few days ago.) We came home from the hospital today, and I'll try to post a picture or two soon....

Renaissance Festival & Sunburn; Onions and Mosquitoes

Jimmy and I took a little trip to the annual Renaissance Festival at the Castle in Muskogee today. It's fairly well-known event, even though I'd never been before. (I'd been to the one in Kansas City, but never the one in Muskogee.) Anyway, we went and spent several hours walking around and looking at everything. We admired the period costumes, and decided that if we're going to go back next year we need to dress up. (I do have a Renaissance outfit, but it's in a box way up at the top of my closet; also, I'm pretty sure the corset wouldn't fit right now anyway. We'll either have to buy or make something for Jimmy before next year.) We had turkey legs for lunch and contemplated getting a funnel cake, but we were too full from the turkey legs. The event was a lot of fun even though I ended up with a mild sunburn (very mild -- only the tops of my shoulders and my nose are a tad pink) and slightly sore legs and ankles.

Later this evening I spent some time working on my garden. Given the circumstances, I'm not being very ambitious this year. I'm doing most of the garden in pots. So far I have 2 pots of tomatoes and 1 each of basil, peppermint, oregano, cilantro, and rosemary. I have 1 empty pot left, and I think I'll plant a bell pepper plant in it. This evening I cleared a little spot in the yard for my onion patch. I had hoped to get the onions planted today, but that didn't quite happen. The mosquitoes outside were trying to carry me away, so I gave up on the onion patch for the evening. I guess I'll try to get out there and finish it sometime tomorrow....

Baby Day?

Today was supposedly Baby Day. Still no baby....

The Letter Between 'L' and 'N'

The darling husband's laptop has suffered a bit of an oops, which has resulted in new challenges in typing, working, and surfing the internet. Our desktop is functioning as usual, but the laptop has one large issue: the letter between 'L' and 'N' is no longer operational. The key won't work, and the only other option is to cut-and-paste the letter in when needed. While I didn't think this would be a large issue, I find that I've been surprised by the things that I can't type on the laptop: a plethora of internet addresses, darling husband's general address, the titles of the towns in which we reside and in which I grew up, and several of the logins and passwords that I use regularly for various things online.

Though this post is certainly brief, I have been successful in drafting the entire piece without said letter between 'L' and 'N.' I have, however, had to stretch the vocabulary a bit and think considerably longer than usual to finish this relatively brief post....

At Least it Wasn't a Purple Cow

I was craving an Orange Julius earlier this evening, and since there's no place to buy one where I currently reside, I decided to make one. I assembled all of my ingredients, put them in the blender, pressed the button, and was suddenly wearing about half of the contents of the blender. I'm not precisely sure what happened, but the glass pitcher broke and there was a terrible mess of glass and Orange Julius all over me, the cabinets, and the floor. While cleaning up the sticky mess, two things came to my mind: 1) I needed to mop the floor anyway, and 2) at least it wasn't a Purple Cow.

After I cleaned up the mess, I managed to find the blender that Jimmy and I received as a wedding present last year, and I thus proceeded to make myself another Orange Julius which, just in case you were wondering, tastes wonderful.

My Little Assistant

I got out my sewing machine to do some work today, and I've had a little more assistance than I had imagined. There were several little projects that I had hoped to tackle today, but at this point I'll be satisfied if I just manage to finish the curtains....

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

Okay, I know Cinco de Mayo was yesterday, but today was a better day to celebrate. I had lunch with Jimmy at his work--authentic Mexican food, which was fabulous. I also get to celebrate the end of the semester today. My last day at work was yesterday, so today seemed like to good day to celebrate. I still have some things that I need to work on within the next few days/weeks and over the summer, but yesterday was my last day in the office for a while....

State Governments

So this is what state governments do.... Remind me why we pay state taxes again?

Red Wine and Rootbeer Floats

Red wine and rootbeer floats are the two things that I've been craving lately. (I haven't really had any of the rumored strange pregnancy cravings. Everything that I've wanted to eat has been pretty normal. No "pickles and ice cream" combinations or anything like that.) Early on I wanted popsicles all the time, and then for a while I wanted Arby's roast beef sandwiches. Now I'm finding that there are two things that I want: red wine and rootbeer floats (well, sometimes it's just rootbeer). Given that alcohol consumption is strongly discouraged during pregnancy, I haven't allowed myself to have any red wine. However, rootbeer floats are becoming something commonly seen around the house. (And even though there's quite a bit of sugar in the floats, I'm at least making them with caffeine-free rootbeer.)

D-25 and counting....

Mommys

My mommy, along with two of my sisters, came to visit over this past weekend. Jimmy's mommy's friends hosted a baby shower for me ('cause I'm going to be a mommy soon), and I was excited to have my mommy there for the occasion. Though my mommy and my sisters (who are also mommys) didn't get to stay very long, it was nice to be able to show them the new house and just spend time visiting with them.

Dallas and Dead Presidents

For a little anniversary getaway, Jimmy and I went to Dallas this past weekend. We found very good rates at a fancy hotel, visited the big mall and the neighboring American Girl store (which Jimmy found a little overwhelming), and visited the Sixth Floor Museum. In retrospect, I think it's kinda funny (and interesting, and perhaps a bit morbid) that we visited Ford's Theatre, the place where Lincoln was shot, on our honeymoon and then visited the Sixth Floor Museum (which was formerly the Texas School Book Depository) and the grassy knoll, the place where Kennedy was shot, on our first anniversary. Maybe we'll have to try to make a trip to Buffalo, NY or back to Washington DC to carry on the trend....