Yay · Me!

Very stuffy and sick-feeling today. This is not the best thing to have at the first four-day in so long. Plus, everyone else seems to have it too! I hereby decree that everyone must be healthy and non-infectious by 8 PM tomorrow at the latest. So it is written, so shall it be. :P

Hmm, I was going to post this last week and didn't, I shall post anyway. :)

I can feel the baby moving, for about a week now! :) Last time I couldn't until about 16 weeks, but second babies are easier.

KG was soggy, but fun! :) I had really good intentions to get my yurtchi stuff done right away this time, but it hasn't happened yet. Too much other stuff going on. The deadline will make me do it.

Mostly this week I've been trying to get naps, doing my Wii Fit exercises, and gardening. Stuff is sprouting, even my Israeli tomatoes, yay! I finally got the new front flowerbeds all ready for planting. Now I just have to make one on the side yard. I was considering waiting until next year for that one, but my back one is pretty much full already, once I plant a few more herbs and transplant the tomatoes. I need to get some oregano. I think I'll put the carrots in the side yard this time, I can make sure to dig the ground extra deep for them, instead of having to redig the old bed. Last time they hit the layer of clay about six inches down and became mutant carrots. :) Going to try again with the bell peppers and turnips, too - I think they need really frequent watering. Maybe if I start them indoors they'll do better.

Mowing will start tomorrow, it is sadness. Mowing is dumb. This year I want to leave a patch of grass unmown, so maybe the rabbit will have her babies there, instead of in the middle of where we walk every day. :)

SAM and I, and probably hoshiadam, all got a cold from somewhere this week. :P SAM's cough sounds pretty icky, but I think he was feeling somewhat better today. Yesterday was the roughest day for me too, maybe we're all on the mend.

Update from the present: I think we are mostly over the cold, except now my mom has it and is miserable. :(

I got a bunch of plants from wayferny, huzzah, and have gotten most of them planted, but there are still a few more. I think I even know where I want to put almost all of them.

I got my yurtchi stuff done but still need to do checkout, eek!

Well, I think my touch of morning sickness is getting somewhat better. It's hard to tell, though, because now I have another cold. I think I got this one from my mom. Bleh. :P

Spring is still fighting for ascendancy here, despite the chance of snow later this week. My peonies are sprouting, and even a couple of my daylilies. My pepper- and lemon mint is growing again too, and most of the trees have buds. :) It's very exciting. I'm hoping all the things I planted last fall made it through the winter, or at least most of them.

We planted SAM's little planting kit last week, and a few of his cucumbers are sprouting. No sign of carrot activity yet. I really need to get my planting started, I want lots of vegetables this year. At least I've gone through the CSA schedule, so I can perhaps avoid overlapping what they send me, but I still need to get my seeds out and start things growing.

In weight news, I hit 150! Yay! That was my secondary goal. I wasn't sure how doable it was. Now, if I could lose four more pounds, that would bring me to 30 pounds lost, which would be nice, but I think I'll be lucky if I can just hold steady with the holidays coming up. We'll see.

My ankle was a lot less stiff yesterday, so I finally got outside and finished up my gardening. I planted 10 plants - I still need to mulch a lot of stuff, but at least everything is in the ground. I also harvested all the dill that had grown up wild in the bed from the seeds of the one I planted, and dried it. I kept a little fresh in water on the windowsill for the rest of the week, but after that it will be gone. I harvested my basil too. Just in time. Everything froze last night - even some of my cold-weather greens weren't looking too happy this morning. I may need to use all the pac choi before we leave. Not sure if the broccoli rabe is going to make it either, or the lettuce. But the rest of it looked okay. I picked all the tomatoes a while back. It is sad to compare the way they taste when they ripen in a bag with the way they taste fresh off the plant. Eating non-local food, I think we forget what we're missing (if we ever had the chance to find out in the first place).

Speaking of local food, I joined a CSA, which I'm very excited about. We went on a farm tour on Saturday, and it looked really good. Everything is organically grown, and the farmer is trying to become more and more earth-friendly, learning new methods to reduce his water usage and such. SAM got to feed the chickens and throw acorns to the pigs, and he tried to feed the dill he picked to the cows, but they were a bit too skittish. The sheep also refused to make friends with him. :) But it was a fun time, there were several other kids there. I think we were the only ones who were warm, too. There was an icy wind blowing, but I'd planned ahead, borrowed hoshiadam's longjohns, and dressed SAM in his woolens. So he was quite happy. My ankle was not pleased with the uneven ground, but the rest of me was mollified by the completely delicious pumpkin bread and muffins they served us. :) Unfortunately I don't think we'll get any of that with the CSA. Now I can't wait for spring! I'll have to take a careful look at their planting schedule, and plot out my own garden so we don't overlap.

More baby bragging now! I was reading SAM his new magazine, and there was a page where he was supposed to build some ramps with blocks to see the difference between a low one or a high one. But he just looked at the picture (which didn't show the results) and said, "If you put a car down a high ramp, it goes fast. If you put it down a low ramp, it goes slow." :) I don't recall talking with him about that sort of thing before - sometimes I just have to ask him, "How did you know that?" Anyway, it was neat. :)

The last kitten is going to new home this afternoon. It's just someone off Craigslist, but he seems okay as far as I've been able to determine. Poor kitten is all snuggled up with his mama right now... :( But he should be happy, it sounds like the people have been preparing to get a cat and getting everything ready. And Mama Kitty didn't ever seemed to notice when the other two kittens left. *shrug* It may be good for him to escape, with the way his big brother is eating his head right now and making him cry...

Must start getting things together soon - we're driving to Texas for Thanksgiving.

(So, I tried to post this, and LJ was down. So this was yesterday. Shortly after writing, I was afflicted with a most horrid stomach bug and spent a less-than-pleasant afternoon. :P But I seemed to get better by suppertime. Now I'm just feeling weak and pitiful, but hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff done. I lost four pounds yesterday, which does bring me to the 30-pounds lost mark, but I don't think that counts. :) SAM seemed to have something going on with his belly too, but thank goodness, no throwing up, and he took himself to the potty each time. I don't think I could have handled accidents yesterday afternoon.)

Still holding steady on weight. Haven't broken the 22-pounds-lost mark yet.

Busy weekend. Visited, went to two plant sales, and went to the circus! At the plant sales I got two Christmas ferns to fill in some empty spots, an oak leaf hydrangea that's very pretty in its fall colors already, and a bunch of cool-weather vegetables. I'm going to put them in the empty spot between my two driveways, it's the most convenient sunny spot we have. There's kale, mustard, red-leaf lettuce, broccoli rabe, pak choi (like bok choy, I assume), kohlrabi, and beets. :)

The circus was lots of fun, as usual. The acts were all the same as far as I could remember, which was a little silly, but SAM really enjoyed it. He got his first elephant ride at intermission, then we took him and his tired daddy home. :) And I got cotton candy, but we avoided getting one of the cheap and hugely overpriced plastic toys they were selling everywhere. SAM didn't even cry for one.

Now we all have colds. :( SAM's made him wake up many times last night. Ugh.

Made fried okra last night. It was an interesting experiment, I don't think I've fried anything like that before. And SAM discovered that okra is actually edible raw. :) I didn't think it would be very good, with all that hair, but it was actually rather sweet and quite edible, if a bit slimy. Once cooked, it turned out very well - SAM had three bowls and then it was gone. :)

I moved the kittens to a box last night also. Mama Kitty wasn't very happy about having her haven pulled apart so I could scrub the carpet, but it was pretty messy back there. I put new paper down and put everything back together again, but she has left the kittens in the new box, so I guess it didn't end up being too objectionable.

Urgh, not feeling well today. Very cold-ish and tired. :( Hopefully it will go away before the event.

Took Mama Kitty to the vet Saturday. I found it weirdly stressful. (Especially considering I used to work for a vet...) The vet had a very abrupt manner, not sure if I liked her much. But anyway, she couldn't tell us a whole lot about when to expect kittens. (Two or three weeks, she says. I was thinking more like a week and a half - we'll see.) She thinks there are three or four kittens. Mama Kitty was very well behaved, while having all sorts of things done to her, poor thing. But now she is ear mite, flea, and worm free, and that is good.

( LJ and picture memes. )

I lost two more pounds last week, for a total of 18. Yay!

SAM was dry in the daytime from Wednesday until this morning, which was nice. He was dry through two of the nights, too! :)

We all have the cold now. :P I think SAM is starting to get past it, which is good.

Not sure what else I had to say, oh well.

Oh no, sliding back in! Aaaaaaaughh noooooooO!

(I am blaming the lingering cold for my huge tiredness, though the sniffles are all but gone and I have no other symptoms. Things were a bit better yesterday, but so far this morning I am feeling wiped out again. Even just sitting here typing is hard. *shrug* Still have to mow the lawn this afternoon.)

Hmm, looks like privet is an invasive pest species in TN... Guess I should pull it up, it's filling the yard, and it was really bothering hoshiadam's allergies. But I don't know if I can bring myself to cut down the big tree-sized one, even if it is evil.

I feel a little less virus-doomed today. SAM sleeping through the night for three out of the past four nights helped! :) Also, I never put him in a diaper yesterday, and he was dry all day!

Yesterday I noticed the grackles picking up some bread I'd put out for them and dipping it into the birdbath before eating it. :)

The other evening we were hanging out in the backyard for quite a while, with SAM running around. When we were going inside, I noticed a brown lump out in the yard, and when I went closer I saw that it was the rabbit acting like it was hidden in the middle of the grass. We never noticed it. :) I'm not sure if it was the mother, or one of the mostly-grown-up babies. It seemed a little scrawny to be the mom, but it's hard to tell.

SAM did really well when we were at Eclipse. (Thanks wayferny and ikara_fox!) He woke them up far too early the second night, but that's nothing he hasn't done to me before, without the excitement of having DAT around. *rolls eyes* But anyway, since almost every day he asks to go back, I don't think he was traumatized. :)

I may have said this already... But now that we have awesome recycling that takes all plastics, and are putting organic stuff in the compost pile, we have very little trash! This is important, since I still haven't gotten the hang of putting the trash can on the curb before pick-up day.

Last night we closed the windows and started up the air conditioning. I really enjoyed having the house opened up for so long. It was like living outside (plus our gas bill last month was $8). :) When we got back from the event, I couldn't figure out why the house felt weird, until I realized that all the windows were closed so the air wasn't moving. It hasn't been quite so nice for hoshiadam's allergies, poor thing... but next month he has an appointment for allergy drops.

So much to do!

The mother rabbit did come back, yay! I spotted her in the backyard that evening, and she loitered around looking casual for two hours! It got dark then, so I didn't see her actually visit the nest, but the bunnies had fat little bellies the next morning. They stayed in the cardboard shelter I made for several days, then when I checked on them Saturday they went scampering away. Oops... I got too close, I guess - every time before they had not run away when I looked at them. But they were so much faster than they had been, I think they were probably just about ready. Hopefully they are okay.

Felt horrid yesterday, queasy all day. :( It seems better today. That's good, because I have to finish the laundry and mow the lawn and finish printing KG stuff and check tags and buy brews and assorted supplies for the Gondal arsenal and set up the sewing table and sew a tabard and unload the dishwasher and finish making dinner and put up my bird houses and mix the dirt for my garden and and and... Okay, those last two don't have to get done before KG, I guess. I should probably pack up my costuming, though. :)

SAM is doing okay with the pottying. We usually have 0-2 accidents per day. He stayed dry all the way back from the wedding on Saturday (and we didn't even stop once), and through church Sunday. I am not yet in the habit of taking him to the potty when we're out, though, I have to get better at remembering that.

The wedding was lots of fun! And now I really have run out of time for posting. :) Must finish mowing before SAM wakes up. :P

SAM was dry all day yesterday! No accidents, NO wet diapers, even at naptime! Now, this did make me a bit worried that he was dehydrated, but he's been drinking well, and I don't think throwing up twice would really be enough to dehydrate him. So yay!

Poor thing is still not feeling well, though. He had diarrhea this morning (which thank goodness went in the potty), and right now he's just lying on the floor, halfway looking at a book. He fell asleep during the morning, but not deeply enough to actually be put down for a nap. That's usually enough to sabotage the real nap, but maybe today he'll be tired enough to sleep again. I hope so, he needs it. And I wouldn't mind the chance to mix some mortar...

Yesterday we mowed, finally. I got the front and one side done while SAM was napping, then hoshiadam finished the rest when he came home. I really liked the electric mower. Not only is it better for the environment, but I don't have to worry about having enough gas and oil, it isn't as loud, and it doesn't shake me all to pieces as badly. The only problem was that the grass was so very long that some of it just got pushed over instead of getting cut, but we can avoid letting it get this tall again. Hoshiadam had more trouble in the back - there were some spots where the mower temporarily cut out because the grass was too thick, but it made it through in the end.

( Cut for sad bunnies. )

Whew, the boy is sleeping. He needed it pretty badly.

I needed to go to the store today, but the car seat is all disassembled from the washing I had to give it after SAM's disaster yesterday. I may put it back together and get it in the car if I get motivated, but I really don't want to take him anywhere and risk having to clean it again... Maybe tomorrow he'll feel better.

SAM broke his little streak of sleeping through the night at around midnight last night, when I heard him sleepily fussing. I thought he might go back to sleep, but when he didn't I went in and found him trying to sleep on the rug in front of his bed. I got him back to sleep without noticing anything amiss, and he woke up late in the morning, perfectly happy. It wasn't until I started getting him out of his pajamas that I noticed he had some gunk on him. Checked the bed, and yep, he'd thrown up sometime in the night. :( I don't know how I didn't smell it, I guess my nose was more stopped up than I thought. Bleh. He was perfectly happy, so we almost didn't cancel babysitting with DAT, but it's good that we did, because he got sick again on the way home from lunch with hoshiadam. :( I hope he doesn't share.

I planted the new Japanese maple yesterday that I got from wayferny. I was going to take her advice and just plnt it in the existing dirt, but that didn't work out. I went to dig a spot in the front flower bed, and thunk, my shovel wouldn't go into the ground. One thing about this house is that half the yard is covered with landscape fabric - very annoying. So once I had removed an inch or two of mulch and cut away a big swath of irritating plastic, I saw that underneath it was a perfectly flat, unbroken expanse of solid clay. It didn't seem like a very good growing medium for a little tree. :) Anyway, I wanted to plant the tree rather high so it wouldn't be sitting in the runoff from the gutter, so I just broke up the clay a bit, then mixed up some compost and vermiculite on top. I set the tree's little root ball on some of that, so it was just slightly higher than the surrounding ground, and then I covered it up with more of the mixture. Then I covered all of that with the mulch that I had dug out of the way at the beginning. I may put some new mulch on today. And we'll see how the tree does.

The part for our new lawnmower finally arrived, and the mower is all charged up! I go forth to do battle with the forces of lots and lots of tall grass and weeds. Truly, the mettle of the lawnmower will be tested. I hope it doesn't wake SAM up. :P

To all who paint their houses: Let me recommend zero-VOC paint. (VOC = Volatile Organic Compounds, nasty carcinogenic chemicals that seep into the air for years and stink horribly) Not only is it less toxic to you and the environment, but you can actually breathe in your house while painting. It's great, it hardly has a smell at all! And it was only $20 a gallon. I knew that was what I wanted (since they don't sell any of the brands of natural-ingredient paints anywhere in the state that I could find ), but I was afraid it would be hard to find. But no - they had some at Lowes, Olympic Premium was the brand. Huzzah! :)

I am liking the comics that people are posting lately. :) Not that I had a comic shortage, with my... let's see...14 comic sites I check daily, but every little extra bit of funny counts.

We really need to buy a lawnmower. We think we found a kind we want, now I need to call around and find a place that has it. 4-6 weeks shipping is too long, we'll be buried in grass by then.

ARG. Today hoshiadam checked the label on the paint cans. It isn't the color we ordered. No wonder it's darker than we expected. I don't know how we managed not to check that before painting to coats on the entire room. *facepalm*

Absolutely horrid night last night for SAM's sleeping. He has caught a cold from hoshiadam's parents. I'm so tired I can hardly move. *sigh* But no stopping until naptime, too much to do.