Yay · Me!

Today would have been week 20 if I were still pregnant. :( I'm doing okay. I think I'm still having some cognitive dissonance - this isn't something that fits with the life story I thought I had. I always knew it didn't make sense, but whenever I looked at my life it was quite clear how good I had things. Nothing really horrible ever happened to me or my immediate family. I wanted it to stay that way, but I was always a bit worried that I hadn't had my fair share of suffering yet. *shrug* Guess that's how it goes.

Physically I'm doing very well, except for weight. I gained 14 pounds in the 14 weeks of the pregnancy, and I managed to lose four by the middle of last week, but this week I think I've gained about 7 back. :P I thought I did better than usual at the event - most events I stuff myself nonstop. We'll see, it might be just water retention. I know it would be good anyway for me to drop all the weight at once, but it's still frustrating to see my little Wii Fit graph going up instead of down.

It's been six weeks, I can go give blood now. Maybe tomorrow, the weekend seems busy. They have been trying desperately to get people to donate, they say there's an emergency need for blood.

Got another CSA pickup this week. We got green garlic, green onions, a bigger bunch of radishes, a bunch of parsley and one of cilantro, and some broccoli rabe. We made a great big bowl of guacamole yesterday - I put too much lemon in but it was still not bad. Then for dinner we went out to our garden and picked a salad. It was a very healthy day. I'm thinking about making creamed spinach for dinner and throwing in the parsley and radish greens and maybe even the broccoli rabe, who knows. The biggest benefit from the CSA so far is getting me to cook, and to cook imaginative things. The cheese and vegetable soup from two weeks ago was excellent, even though it bore little resemblance to the recipe by the time I was done. I need to think of more stuff that's freezable, though, the fridge is full.

First off, I just want to note that SAM has put himself to sleep for his nap for the third day in a row. This is only the fourth through sixth time he's done that since we've been in this house, so it's pretty amazing. Of course, he did it with the aid of a giant piece of gingerbread house, which is not the sort of thing I really want to encourage in bed (or at all), but that will be gone soon. :)

Hmm, just got an email from the blood center (http://www.medicblood.org/). They are completely out of O+ blood, and have an emergency shortage of O-. I don't have those types, but it reminded me that I can't give again for quite some time. *sigh*

In baby news, I'm working on drinking water. I haven't been good about that for a long time, so I'm trying to start up again. I managed seven glasses yesterday, I think I can probably make it to the full eight today. :) If I can just get back into the habit of bringing a drink to the computer (and actually refilling it once it's empty), I'll be doing pretty well.

Someone has secretly subscribed me to Better Homes and Gardens, like a magazine ninja. It is rather odd - I'm tempted to view it as a hint from someone that they think my house is too dirty. :P But it was probably just someone being nice. :) I rather suspect my mom, but she's not admitting anything.

Looks like I haven't posted in a while. Just busy, I guess.

SAM did just fine with the chicken pox. They didn't seem to phase him a bit during Christmas. The night after Christmas he didn't sleep well because he got itchy, but that was the only time we had a problem. Really, we've had worse colds. So that's nice to have out of the way. :)

I managed to give blood earlier in the month. They had to test my iron four times, but I made it on the last try. Yay!

Also several weeks ago, I got to call 911 for the first time. 8/ We had bought a coffee table on craigslist (I love craigslist these days - the table is a little "distressed", but for $25 it's excellent, and we don't have to worry about putting our feet on it) and were meeting the seller at a gas station. As we were getting ready to put it in our car, there was a screech and a crash, then a continued screeching, and we looked over at the intersection to see a car drive up onto the grass. It kept going fairly quickly, with its front bumper hanging off, and I thought it was a hit and run. It swerved around on the grass, then went into the gas station exit and hit a jeep that was sitting there - and kept going. It did a big circle, hit a couple more cars, and finally came to a stop in a parking lot on the other side of the road. Luckily, no one was hurt. I heard that the driver's brakes had gone out. Anyway, I called 911 because I seemed to be the first person with a cell phone, and after we'd all determined that everyone was okay, we left. It was pretty crazy.

We had a good Christmas. It was interesting to be the ones hosting, instead of traveling to other family's houses. It was a whole different kind of stress, but we had a good time. SAM got a kitchen and some other fun stuff. The books I need to read can still be measured by the foot. :)

New Year's was also good. We spent the evening assembling hoshiadam's new work bench. :)

I let most of my dragons die because I forgot about them... :( Oh well. One of them grew up. :)

In weight news, I gained four pounds over Christmas, and then lost three of them last week. :)

When we got back from Thanksgiving, SAM had been sleeping for so long in strange beds that I figured he might not mind switching to a big bed. So we cleared the junk off of hoshiadam's old twin bed, and he was excited to try it. He went back to his baby bed now and then as the weeks went on, when he felt like it (sometimes in the middle of the night), but it was a fairly painless transition. While we were putting away the Christmas stuff, I asked him if he wanted to take his toddler bed down so that we'd have room to pull out the hide-a-bed that's under the twin bed. He liked that idea, so now his toddler bed is put away in the garage, and he's fully transitioned to a big bed. :) Yay.

Sadly, he's not been napping well for the past week or two. :( He may be giving it up. He seems to do fairly okay in the evenings, and he's been sleeping through the night sometimes and sleeping later in the morning, so I can't really complain. But naps are still really nice for me. :)

That should be enough randomness for today. :)

Troublesome afternoon yesterday. Suffice it to say that when I finally made it to the giving-blood place and waiting 40 minutes for them to get to me, my hematocrit was 34. :P That's the lowest it's ever been, and I'm always borderline to donate. Apparently losing weight meant losing iron too. I shall have to be better about remembering my vitamins.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. If I looked correctly, we have three boy stripy kittens and one girl black kitten. :)

We had a great time at the beach, a great time at the party, and now we're back home and I'm still trying to catch up. :) So I'll post more later.

I greatly feared the scale after the vacation, since I stuffed myself without reservation at every opportunity. Mmmm, seafood and homeade ice cream (not together)... And indeed, when I came back I had gained seven pounds. *sigh* But as of last night I had lost it all again, huzzah. :) I was hoping it wasn't real.

I have so many pictures to upload I don't even want to get started. :)

I am assuming no one wants to go give blood with me this weekend? All my giving-blood buddies have moved away, sigh...

Last week I lost the two pounds I had gained the week before, plus two more, yay. I was proud that I managed it with my parents in town and all the going out to eat. That means I've lost ten pounds! Six to go!

We have baby birds! The song sparrows have gone (though I think I spotted one full-grown and still pestering its parent to be fed), but we have house wrens in the bluebird house and the gourd too. The wren house is still rejected, oh well. And there may be another nest in one of the bushes. We also may have another litter of baby rabbits on the way. The last two days when I have gone outside, the mother rabbit has gone bolting across the yard from next to the house. I think she's hanging out in the patch of grass that we left tall, hoping that if she had more babies she would pick that spot instead of the middle of the yard.

( Adventures in boating. )

Saturday morning we went all around looking at garage sales and the new farmer's market. It was a very nice little outing. I had never been a big fan of garage sales before, but a few weeks ago I suddenly realized that I could get stuff I needed for super cheap, if I happened to be lucky and come across the right item. And it's like recycling! :) And then we went and saw Wall-E, which was a great movie! I was surprised at how good it was! :)

We went to Bloomsday in the afternoon (plant fair at the UT gardens). It was neat, SAM stopped at the bug exhibit and didn't go anywhere else. :) Now that I have seen how nice the UT gardens are, we'll have to go back.

And now I think I've caught up. I think I'll be going to give blood sometime late next week, if anyone is interested. Also, this Thursday morning I'm going to the zoo. Perhaps I will meet up with people from my forums (I was feeling amazingly social for about five minutes the other day, long enough to post a message about it), or perhaps not, if none of them can make it. If any of you people want to show up, we'll be at Kid's Cove from about 9:30-10. (I know, there are very few Knoxville people on here, but I figure I might as well post.)

( Remember this? KG-hail pictures and Easter and stuff. )

( And a bunch of memes. )

And a quick catch-up from last week, though I've forgotten what happened... We went to see Speed Racer! I had heard a bad review, and rather expected to get motion-sick, but I ended up really enjoying it! It was a fun movie. :) Still waiting for Prince Caspian though. Saturday was a really busy day. I have no idea what we did... Hmm, I guess we must have done a lot of stuff with my parents, but no idea what. I wanted to give blood that day but didn't have time, so I ran out during SAM's nap on Sunday afternoon. (Next time I can go will be after the trip to the beach, just for a note to self.) Yay, my iron was a whole point above the cutoff, instead of being right on the line. I haven't been particularly great about remembering my vitamins, so I'm thinking it was the exercise. Speaking of which, I've been doing a good job staying on my schedule, which is a change from times past. :) All the wedding and such last weekend coupled with eating out with parents and going to movies didn't help me lose any weight, sadly. I gained two pounds one week, but I think I'm back down again now. Still 10 more pounds to lose.

Usually I get tired in the afternoon after giving blood, but this time I never got the chance, I was off and running again. The busy-ness will never end! We had a really good dinner with my parents for Mother's Day, mmm, Melting Pot. My mom had never been before, so that was cool. SAM was not entirely cooperative, but he was at least really good about never trying to get into the cooking stuff. I figured he'd do okay with that, since he never tries to touch the hot table at Japanese steakhouses.

And that's all I can remember. I finally got my blueberry bush planted, along with my alumroots, and I planted some nasturtium seeds in the front flowerbed where nothing was growing.

Yesterday I made it out to the farmer's market, finally! They didn't have a whole lot, it's probably too early in the year. But we got some really tasty strawberries (hmm, I should remember to give SAM some before I devour them all) and some creamed strawberry honey, which I just want to eat with a spoon... :)

My mom brought up a bunch of books of poetry for us, since SAM has been liking it so much. We've read a book of Edward Lear and one of Robert Frost (he didn't seem too impressed by most of them, but made me read "The Road Not Taken" three times), and now we're starting on a Children's Treasury with stories and poems. These seem to have a good number of fairy tales and fables, so I'm glad. I never feel like I'm remembering them quite right when I just tell them to him.

Heh, that phrase came up while playing Lego Star Wars, a silly but fun game. I need to think of some way to make it into a catch phrase, it just seems appropriate. :)

Eewwww, SAM just snuck out of the stairwell chewing on something, with a weird look on his face, and when I asked him what he was eating, he said, "Bug!" Bleh, and he was telling the truth. He spat most of it out for me, though. *sigh*

BTW, most of you are far away, but SAM and DAT's birthday party is Saturday the 19th at DAT's house. :) You're invited, if you're interested in toddler birthdays. :) It will be in the afternoon after naps... That probably means sometime after three. If you plan on coming, please respond here, so wayferny can get a head count. I think we're planning something potluck-ish...

:) Also, does anyone want to give blood tomorrow? It's that time again!

Rltrlarper is coming out to the house tonight to talk about house stuff! Yay! It feels like the process is really getting started.

ETA: Now that I've actually discussed things with wayferny, make that 4:00 for the party. And there will indeed be potluck, and guests are welcome to bring a food instead of a present, the boys have enough toys. :) Food-wise, wayferny will be making meated and meatless chili, with fixin's (whatever those are), and I'll be making cornbread and squash casserole. And cake. And there will be ice cream, since SAM has been asking for it for about six months. And xarcoss, wayferny agrees that you are a slacker. :)