Hi.

Well, it's been a LONG time since I last posted. Yup.............a LONG-ASS TIME. So, here's a list of things that have happened to catch you up! (Not necessarily in order of importance.)

1. I sang 3 solos IN PUBLIC. I was the ONLY ONE singing. They all actually went well.

2. I got pregnant at the beginning of September with my first baby. So basically from October until now, I've been a walking mass of hormones and needing about twice as much sleep as I usually get. But things are going well and at week 17, I feel SO MUCH BETTER than I did in the first trimester. I was pret-ty queasy. Like all of the time. So that's cool :)

3. We are about to go on a giant road trip to Albuquerque for the Holidays, and THEN we are stopping in Dallas on the way back to celebrate my Nana's 90th (!!!) birthday. We have some seriously good genes in our family.

4. Phil quit his job back in September (literally one DAY before I got knocked up - haha, after trying for a YEAR, we make a baby right when our income gets cut in half!) It was still totally the right thing to do, though. He has started his own business that is just starting to get off the ground. Plus babies are super cheap, right?!?!

5. We're still eating well. Phil makes all the food. I do all the dishes.

6. We still hate Midwest weather. It SUX. Time to move down South! (I wish)


Life is good.

Neighborliness

Something pretty cool happened last night. I was sitting outside having a snack and reading my book, and one of our new next door neighbors came home and offered me a giant bag of tomatoes from his garden. I thanked him profusely, mostly because I was a little surprised at his generosity (we don't live in the "richest" part of town, and he's a young dude who, like us, is probably living paycheck-to-paycheck.) He said he had a surplus and he would never be able to eat them all, so he'd been giving them away to everyone he could think of. He acted like it was no big deal. Then, not EVEN 5 mintues later, his roommate comes outside with his new puppy and offers us two tennis ball toys to give our dogs. He also said he'd bought a 20-pack of these, so he had two to spare. No big deal either.

I was really touched by this, and I've been trying to figure out why that was. I don't know. I think it's that I like how things like that bring us closer to people with whom we wouldn't otherwise connect. I also like the obvious joy people have when they give. It's nice. And we'll probably give back to them the next time we have a surplus. Pay it forward, man!

Kidz

There is a summer music camp going on at my workplace right now, which is pretty much the only time of year I'm around high school-aged kids. This has caused me to make 4 observations:

• They're not really sure how to talk yet. Most of them either talk way too loud, or they are so painfully shy that they don't talk at all. Also, the loud ones do a LOT of singing that sounds horrible! Today I heard about six of them (girls AND guys) singing a terrible song from a musical, and they had chosen a key that was out of all their ranges!*

• High school kids have a smell. I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad...just kind of "musky." They bring it in here every Summer and it takes a couple of days after they've left for it to go away.

• Every year, there's ALWAYS a kid that works to actively destroy some part of the building. A window will get shattered, or some graffiti will show up, or some other shenanigans will happen. EVERY YEAR.
• There is always someone who barfs. Always gotta have some barf in there.

Wow, this totally makes me sound old and crotchety. It's not that these things really annoy me (except the terrible singing,) it's just interesting to see how these things stay the same year after year.

*OK, those *particular* kids were doing the musical theater camp, but I still think they fall into the I-don't-know-how-to-use-my-voice-yet category.

I Got the Shakes!

So yesterday when I got home from work, I noticed that my right pointer finger and thumb (my mouse-clicking hand) were twitching involuntarily. Uh-oh...

This may be one of many signs that my desk job is getting old. Time for less work and more slacking!!!! Woo! Happy Summer, imaginary blog readers!!

Poop Surprise

So one of our dogs, Beauty, has developed the weirdest phobia...grass. She's decided - only in the summer months - that she hates it and doesn't want to "hang out" on it at all. You can guess what happens when she does her business in backyard. Poop surprise! She's developed this complicated method of straddling the concrete walkway and the grass that doesn't always succeed in hitting the target...so that's cool. (Naat!)

The only explanation we can think of is that grass and summer brings bugs to our yard that seem to love biting her. They don't bite Fritz hardly at all. Beauty has the sweet blood. Another possible explanation is that she's always hated being wet or having any part of her body touch water,* and in summer, grass has a much greater chance of being wet than any other time of year. So she'd rather just avoid the wet feet.

Funny girl! She's got all kinds of personality quirks. We've only just grazed the surface.

*After she takes a drink of water, she literally dries her tongue by licking the first available soft surface -- every time. Usually it's a person's leg or shoe. Some of our guests get pretty confused by this.

It's funny

It's funny...

how quickly moods can fluctuate. when I'm moody.

how little things like certain smells and feelings can trigger the most vivid memories. 

how much getting a good night's sleep can improve my outlook on life.
(ha! I just typed "lice" instead of life. "outlook on lice" -- awesome. )

how time speeds up and then slows down, sometimes when I want it to and sometimes not. most of the time not.

how I take some things for granted. like music. what would the world be like without music? we are so lucky to have that.

how we all have dreams every night but rarely remember them. we have a whole different level of consciousness that we're totally unaware of. that's nuts.

how I get really anxious about meeting someone new or giving a presentation at work, but a week later, can hardly remember doing it at all. let alone care how it went.

farts. farts are just funny.

The Radio at Work Can Read My Mind!

Dudes. I was TOTALLY just trying to remember the title and tune to a song I was humming last night, and it just came on the radio. I'm not making this up. This radio station has magical powers!

For anyone who cares, the song was "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Crofts (1972). Also, I totally love the toy piano in this song. Awesome.