Mid-Day of Next Day Update

Today is certainly more restful than yesterday was, but it has still been eventful.

Returning and picking up vehicles this morning went much smoother than what I did yesterday. The guy at Firestone found the source of the stink, and it wasn't the tires. A plastic Wal-Mart bag was melted to the tailpipe. I don't know how it got there, and we'll just have to live with the smell until the plastic burns off. It was actually very fortunate that the bag caused a smell because it drew attention to our threadbare tires. And while the guys were putting on the tires, they saw that we'll need new front brakes in 3,000-5,000 miles, around the time our car reaches 100,000 miles. I don't know anything about maintaining cars, so nothing short of a big stink would have gotten my attention and caused me to look for problems.

When I looked on Facebook this morning, I saw that Emily, a mom friend of mine, had her baby yesterday. Emily's daughter Charlotte is a month or two month younger than Lucy. When Lucy woke up, I was able to show her pictures of "friend Char" and her new baby brother. The first photo was of the baby in the hospital bassinet. Lucy's response was "Me hold baby." She was also interested in the photo of Charlotte meeting the baby and a bit impressed by the idea of big sisters getting gifts. She seems to really be getting into the baby thing.

I feel sore today after my big walk yesterday. Even the soles of my feet are sore. I'll have to keep an eye on the feet so that I can prevent my plantar fasciitis from flaring up. I'm resting and stretching. The pool felt really good today. The water supported me while I stretched in ways that I couldn't out of the water. Emmie seemed to appreciate the stretching, too.

I hope to get a nap this evening and a good night of sleep tonight. And maybe tomorrow will be even less eventful.

Happy Holidays

Our Christmas-New Year visits with family have been good.  The nephews and nieces are lots of fun.  And it was good to spend time with Grandma, parents, and siblings.

I don't have a lot more to report right now.  I've checked out grammar teaching books from Inter-Library Loan and am planning for next semester. And as most people do this time of year, I'm thinking about how to make 2011 better than 2010 was.  I feel totally unoriginal that weight loss and organization are high on my list of things to work on, but maybe I'll come up with creative and successful solutions this time.

A Busy July So Far

It's been a busy two weeks since I last posted.  We went on vacation to Missouri and spent time with family.  We especially enjoyed time with the nieces and nephews.

When we got back, Matt's parents stayed with us a few days.  On Wednesday, we went to Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, which is about half an hour away.  We also went to the Lincoln museum in Hodginville.  I learned that Mary Todd Lincoln, who was from Lexington, had siblings who fought for the Confederacy.  I plan to look for books to learn more about this.  Her home in Lexington can be toured, and Jefferson Davis's birthplace is also in Kentucky.  If we check out those sites and the nearby Civil War battlefield, we could put together a historic tour for visiting family.  Grandma would love it.

Matt's parents left early this morning, and this evening I had a job interview at a church that needs a part-time secretary.  As soon as I got home, I changed into my swimming suit and went to water aerobics.  A few minutes after I left, they called to (essentially) offer me the job.  They're going to recommend me at a business meeting in early August.  As long as things go as expected, I'll be employed in August.  I'm still waiting to hear about adjunct teaching at the university.

Now I'm ready for bed.

An Emotionally Tough Weekend Survived

Most of the time I'm OK, but it's really sad to be reminded that Neil was going to be here and isn't.  While on vacation, I remembered that I had planned to take Neil swimming for the first time while in Tennessee and that I was going to take advantage of the many outlet malls to buy clothes for him.  Then my family went to the Wilmoth family reunion without me.  I had planned to take Neil to meet his extended family, and I couldn't stand to go without him this year.  The reunion began on the day Neil would have been two months old.  I had realized while reading child development books several months ago that he would be two months old by the time we started travelling and that he might have gotten to the "social smile" stage by then.  I was hoping he'd smile at everyone and make a good impression.  Then Sunday was Father's Day.  I had been looking forward to Father's Day more than Mother's Day.  I started thinking about presents for Matt in March.  And when we got home on Sunday, there was a message that Kaitlyn had been born.  I was very happy that she had arrived safely, but it was sad to be reminded that Neil was supposed to have cousins two months older and two months younger than him.  Now the cousins are here, and he isn't.

None of our other travel plans are related to Neil, so I don't expect anything to be quite as tough as this weekend was.  Our July 4th trip to Missouri will be a little tough--going back to where Neil is buried and spending time with Aiden and Kaitlyn--but having one tough trip under my belt will give me confidence that I'll survive again.  The next emotional hurdles I foresee are not having to worry about coordinating Matt's and my fall schedules around a baby, October when he would have been six months old and would have worn the cute lion outfit I got on clearance after last Halloween (and my annual pelvic exam at the OBs office is then), probably Christmas and New Year's because that's when he started moving and I started getting to know him last year, and definitely next April.

I'm up way too late right now after a pretty productive day, including blogging a much happier post about my vacation.  Plenty of rest and consistent medication are necessary for my emotional and physical well-being.  So off to bed.

A Busy Week for Me and My Garden

Last week we were on vacation in Sevierville, Tennessee.  We have no pictures of our trip to Dollywood because the camera would have been a pain to keep up with, but we do have photos of a few other activities.

On Tuesday, we went to an educational activity center called Wonder Works.  Some of the most fun activities--dancing for two different camera systems that alter the images--weren't photographed, but the bubble lab gave us some great photos.  And we like the picture of me in the space suit.  More photos are on my Picasa site.

On Friday night Matt and I went to dinner with Ashley.  Sevierville is the hometown of Dolly Parton; a statue of her is in front of the courthouse.  Ashley is a big fan of Dolly Parton, so we went to the courthouse to have our pictures taken with Dolly.  Then we ate at an Asian buffet with sushi and hibachi.  Then we went to the world's largest "as seen on TV" store.  I think they figure "largest" by store size and not number of "as seen on TV" items.  We didn't buy any TV items (I counted at least 11 that I already own), but we got an octopus and a hedgehog for our unusual stuffed animal collection.  After we got back to the condo, Ashley, Grandma and I put on face masks.  It was hard to keep from smiling and making the mask slide down our faces.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to Knoxville to shop at used bookstores.  The best was McKay, which is a used book, movie and music superstore.  We thought we were in the wrong parking lot when we arrived because it was so busy.  We've never seen a bookstore so big or popular.  We also went to a used music and movie store that had fun refrigerator magnets and toys.  Matt got a set of four literary finger puppets, including Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens.  He uses such things to decorate his office at school and as show and tell for his classes.

We stopped at Carpe Librum (love the name!) and didn't buy anything, but they had a big piece of paper in the bathroom on which people had written favorite restaurants.  We asked the people working at the store about the restaurants and chose King Tut's.  They had told us the food is delicious and it's an experience.  They weren't joking.  We arrived at the tiny Egyptian restaurant after parking in an empty lot and discovered it was almost full because of an engagement party being held there.  We were seated by Moe, the owner.  He took our drink orders and filled two vases with Matt's Dr Pepper and my water.  He handed us menus, saying "I highly recommend the Greek salad and an Egyptian sampler to share."  We browsed the menu anyway and saw that by the Greek salad it says something like "Moe highly recommends it." :)  So we followed his recommendations and had a super meal.  I think we'd eat there every day if we could.  The Greek salad was covered with feta cheese and herbs.  The hummus and grape leaves and falafel and all the things I didn't recognize were yummy.  Moe took a music request from the groom-to-be and blared reggae-style Christmas music, which everyone sang along to even if they, like Moe, only knew the fa-la-las of Deck the Halls.  The groom was also allowed to wear the pharaoh headdress while slow dancing to the Christmas music with his fiancee.  Matt wore the headdress later, and I took his picture.  The walls are covered with bumper stickers, colorful lights and a stoplight.  Moe offered to do a magic trick if all three of the guys next to us ordered dessert, but one guy was too full.  I almost bought him dessert just so I could see the magic trick.  We got baklava for dessert, and left happy.

On Saturday, we checked out of the condo and stopped in Knoxville again on the way home.  We ate Indian food and went to two Big Lots (a.k.a. The Happiest Place on Earth).  After we had gotten home and unpacked a little, Matt took me to the garden.  It had grown wildly.  I no longer have rows to walk down because of how big the plants were.  My green peas were twice as tall and blossoming.  My green bean plants were growing at least one tiny bean (below and slightly to the right of the flower).  The green onions are almost big enough to use.  I picked enough basil to make pesto sauce for supper.  I've got to go to the garden again tomorrow to pick more for my pasta salad.  We're having friends over tomorrow for a supper of pasta salad with chicken, tomato, basil and feta and some watermelon granita for dessert.

Travels

Last weekend we went to Louisville because Matt had a paper accepted at a conference there.  While we were there, we decided to try out some restaurants and hit some bookstores and used children stores (where you go when you decide that a new child is too expensive).  We had a good time.  I had done quite a bit of research so that we knew what restaurants we wanted to try and where the stores were, and it paid off.  Over two days, we tried Queen of Sheba (Ethiopian), Havana Rumba (Cuban), and J Gumbo.  All were yummy.  We were going to try a Filipino buffet at Sari Sari, but it was closed on Saturday.  I have really missed African food since we moved.  I got a combo platter with a collard green dish, a carrot and cabbage dish, a chili chicken drumstick, a chili lentil dish and a beef and potato stew all served on a huge piece of injira bread.  I didn't care for the chili dishes, but the other stuff was super.  Neil didn't like it so much.  He didn't do his happy meal dance.  He liked the Cuban and gumbo much better.  We'll work on his appreciation of ethnic cuisine after he arrives.  My friend Stacy watches a little boy whose mom put spices like curry in his homemade baby food, and he loved it.  As long as it doesn't add fat, salt or sugar and the baby will eat it, I think "why not?"  It would be great to have a kid who likes to try new flavors.

Shopping for Neil was pretty productive.  He got a baby monitor and a used Bumbo chair.  He also got a Sandra Boynton board book (because I love them) and most of an outfit for possible Christmas pictures.  There are sweater vest outfits on clearance at Walmart right now for $11.  I found the outfit I wanted minus the shirt used for $4.50.  I'd like to get a set from Walmart in the 9-12 month size, then I could use the shirt from that set in Christmas pictures even if it's a little big.  We looked for the monster onesies at Target, but they are no longer in stock, which is disappointing.  I did get him some clothes, including a sweater vest for next Easter, at Goodwill after we got home.  And while we're on the subject of shopping for Neil, thank you to Mom and Dad Oliver and Aunt Arlene for their contribution to the rocker-recliner fund.  Since feeding will occur in the chair, I'm sure it will cause a happy meal dance after he arrives.

This weekend we're taking one last visit to see family before the baby is born.  We'll spend time in southeast Missouri, staying with Grandma and meeting Audrey's baby brother Aiden Michael, on Thursday night and Friday.  Then we'll head to Springfield for a few days to see Matt's family and my sister Ashley, who has discovered single serving Icees that you keep in your freezer.  Woohoo!  She knows me so well. :)  I'll also check out Other Mother's used children's stores while we're in Springfield.  I got some great stuff while we were there at Christmas.  Maybe we can mark a few more things off of Neil's wishlist.

After we get back home, I'll go for my next ultrasound, get some more housework done, install the car seat that's just sitting in our car, finish packing for the hospital, and wait for my baby to arrive.  The next sunny Saturday we get, I want to visit the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, only half an hour away.  And we may make one more trip to Elizabethtown during Spring Break so that we can stock up at Aldi again.  That should keep us occupied but not exhausted as we enjoy our last weeks without children.