Guilty as charged

Ok. I wasn't actually charged. I just know I'm guilty of having perfectly good things to blog about and choosing to do different things all together. So, this post is merely to tell myself that life is still moving forward even if I'm not religiously blogging about it. I know, catch up posts are never as good as "in the moment" posts. Too much stuff. Too disjointed. Whatever though.

We had been renting out an electric piano we are keeping for my in-law's and it was returned to us last week. After a year of renting they decided they needed to make a commitment and buy something if their son was going to continue. We pushed down our dresser and set it up in our bedroom so I can have something quiet enough to practice on when Dean is sleeping. It is not a piano, nor does it feel like a piano despite the pedals and weighted keys, but does allow me to practice when I could not otherwise. I am grateful to have it back. I don't know if we'll have room for it when I set the baby up in there, but maybe, just maybe, I will be able to pull something together for my spring recital. It is the first time I'm attempting to learn and perform an entirely new to me piece for a solo performance since...well, I guess since the Miss Navajo County pageant way back in 1999. Brahms' Hungarian Dance no. 5. The song is not extremely difficult except that it has a HUGE left hand range that jumps back and forth with chords that make my hand feel too little. I just have to work on my hand strength and extension and musicality a bit. We'll see if I can pull it together in a month...

It has been hot and oppressively humid (my mom said it was 85% humidity or something) here this week, and I have not liked it one bit. I have gone to bed feeling very sticky almost every night this week. Yesterday the heat broke, we had our windows open and fans blowing, and our temperature in the house was a nice 71*. So much nicer. The temp. started to rise again today, so when it really heats up again this week, I'll have to break out sprinklers or go to a sprinkler park or something. I wish I wasn't so paranoid of playing in our big yard. Darned fire ants. It will be quite nice when the pool opens again on May 23rd. I have a feeling many of our mornings will be spent there instead of the park.

Dean's obsession with the park has been rekindled. He begs every day to go, and regardless of how long we stay, he always wants "mo bahk" or "mo bahp"(more park). He's getting very good at climbing the fake rock wall up to the slides by himself. He won't slide by himself, so if I slide down with him, I am very careful to keep his feet inside mine so we don't hurt his foot again.

I got a whole slew of books to read from my friend Laura. I'm nearly finished with Emily Climbs, and I just got it on Thursday night.

I attempted to work on my unfinished skirt on Friday. I made a little progress, but as I was trying to gather the bottom ruffle, the basting stitches busted so I will have to figure out a different method to gather it. It's just way too much ruffle to pull through the thread I have.

Our garden's starting to look like a garden with everything popping up. We've had tons of rain this week, so that's been helpful. I really hope it does well this year since we got it planted much earlier than the last two years. We have planted:

• 1/2 row watermelons (though I don't have much hope for them)
• 1/2 row cantaloupe
• full row green beans
• pickler and straight eight cucumbers
• 4 tomato plants (I had only planned on two. The first two I got looked like they froze since we had a freakish cold wave in April. I pulled them up and left them on the side of the garden with their root ball still attached. My friend Erin noticed that they were alive and growing on Friday! So I replanted them along side the two replacement plants.)
  
• 2 bell pepper plants
• 1 jalapeno plant
• 1/2 row of yellow squash
• 1/2 row of zucchini
• 3 planter boxes with strawberry plants (I think we have about 7 plants that made it through the cold spell)
  

I had my 28 week check up on Friday and things are looking on track as usual. Gained another 5 lbs. this month, so I'm now up to 147 with a total weight gain to date of 16 lbs. I think by this point I'd gained about 20 with Dean and continued to gain about a lb. a week thereafter. We'll see how this one compares. It was the 1 hour glucose visit, so I had Matt work from home so he could stay with Dean. I can't imagine trying to entertain him for over an hour at my doctor's office. It was a pleasant hour by myself and I spent most of it reading. I'm leaning toward Monday July 27th for my c-section. Four days before Matt's birthday. One week before the due date. We're having a hard time coming up with names we both like.

Matt and I went on our anniversary date last night. Nothing too fancy. Dinner and a movie. (Our annual Olive Garden visit- purely for the salad dressing on my end since I'm not terribly impressed with their entrees, but Matt likes their food better than I do- and X-men: Wolverine.) It's something we never really do, so that was nice. The movie was good and entertaining. I really do like that Dean goes to bed early enough that we could put him down before we left. Nice to not have to mess with a sitter trying to do it. The girl who baby sat for us was our 12 year old neighbor (or R.S. Pres's daughter) and she did it for free! The missionaries challenged their family to do service for 3 people in our neighborhood, so she chose this as one of her opportunities. Cool.

So, all-in-all it was a good week. It went by quickly and it was nice to have a low-key week after our medical craziness last week. However, Matt has had a rash for the last 3 days, and the doctor thinks he's allergic to the antibiotics (sulfa).

The end.