Catching Up

Hello my old friend, Blog! It's been entirely too long! So many things... There is a family of owls that is living in the woods behind our house. Nightly, around 8:00, the four of them (sometimes five) come to roost in the big tree in our neighbor's backyard. The long branches extend out over our yard and so the owls are right there, in plain view! They hang out on the ground in our backyard, jump on the lid of the turtle sandbox, drink the water that has collected in the empty kiddie pool and chirp back and forth to one another as they move from here to there. They sit on the wires that go from the telephone pole to our neighbor's house, in the little Bradford Pear tree on the side of their carport, hop around on the roofs of both of our houses, and generally make themselves perfectly known to anyone who cares to notice them. They're funny to watch, too, because when they see us, they don't immediately fly off - they stick around, twisting their heads in unnatural ways and staring at us with their intense eyes. It's quite a show they put on every night. One of these nights I'll have to see if I can get the digital camera out there (when it has batteries that work) and take some still photos. I've managed to get a shaky video of one of them - Hubby says I must have taken videoing lessons from my younger brother. (He's referring to the shaky video my brother took at our wedding - which we both fondly call "The Blair Witch Wedding Video." Sorry Bro, you know I love you!) Ok...enough about owls. I had a jewelry party the other night. I sent out 40 (plus) invitations, both physical and verbal. I had two people show up. My poor jewelry lady. If I had known it would be that small I would have cancelled it and she could have quietly nursed her sore back alone without having company! I probably should have cancelled it anyway as no one seemed all that interested in the first place. I really dislike it when I'm excited about something (a product, a situation, whatever...) and no one else really cares or wants to hear about it. The entire thing was extremely disappointing. I had close friends and family apologize for not being able to come, and they're the only ones who even called to say they weren't coming! The rest said, "Yeah, I'll try to come..." and that was the last I heard. (I wonder what happened to the concept of an RSVP?) It's OK though. I'm not discouraged. I like this jewelry quite enough to keep bugging people to come to the parties I will continue to have. The car situation hasn't changed too much. I finally got my car back on Friday last week and it seems to be running just fine. Now that we've spent so much $$ fixing my car, we're going to try to replace Hubby's wagon. We'll see how that goes. The house situation hasn't changed too much, either. I don't really want to talk about that right now because I might cry for being so frustrated. The kids are doing well. Kiddo is lately refusing to go to sleep ("Mommy, I can't sleep!" or "Mommy, I don't know how to lie down!") and this always seems to escalate into a screaming fit that I can do nothing to fix except let him cry it out. The frustrating thing is that when he pulls this stunt, he usually winds up waking up Little Bit who is already asleep and then we've got TWO screaming babies. Ugh. Little Bit is growing like a weed. She's already rolling over - front to back is easy, back to front is a bit harder, but she can do it. She's teething, too. She spends most of her time gnawing on her hands or fingers or loudly requesting something else to suck on. She's drooling like a fiend and has been a bit fussier than normal. No fever. No real major issues. Just different. She still really likes her food and I can't wait for her doctor's appointment on July 14th to see how much she weighs. I'm guessing 14 lbs...? Then there's work. We're smack in the middle (well, at the end now) of Wellness Week that my friends in HR (AKP...I mean you!) have spent so much time putting together. I think it's going extremely well and I've heard much positive feedback from the folks on the floor. There's a Walking Club that we designed to get people up and moving. I attended a workshop on how to deal with the stress of change and an initial Weight Watchers meeting (yes, I can do Weight Watchers and breast feed, I just need to do it a bit differently to make sure that Little Bit doesn't miss out on anything.) The Weight Watchers meeting was quite inspiring and made me really want to get started. I am hoping there's enough interest to get them to come to our office and do it there. That would be extremely convenient and make me feel more accountable. Also, I found out that I have high cholesterol, and that my BMI is over what it should be. Again...more reason for Weight Watchers! I was not surprised my cholesterol is high, nor that my BMI is elevated - but having it there in front of me, in black and white, was a little distressing. I want to be around for my kids and so now I've got to start committing to something other than those Boston Cream Pies our cafeteria sells and the Coca Cola's. They've got Earth Fare (health food store) out doing demonstrations on healthy cooking. There have been healthy snacks and water floating around the entire week. We've had a massage therapist on site doing chair massage (and no, they didn't even ASK Hubby if he'd do it!!!). The Rush Fitness Center has been on site doing workshops on healthy living and getting people signed up for memberships. We've had smoking cessation workshops. I'm not going to continue...because the girls in HR have absolutely outdone themselves with this and I think they've done a fabulous job. Anyway - I guess I'm done for now. I'm sure I could go on forever. Hope everyone is doing well! TTFN JMS