Tomorrow Steve is going back to work. It's going to seem weird after having him home for ten days. I will have to think of something really fun for Emma and I to do because I know she will be missing her papa.

I am pretty much the worst exerciser there ever was. For a long time, Emma and I went on daily walks, but we stopped that awhile ago and I can't seem to get back into the habit. Starting tomorrow, we are walking! It will have to be early or late, because the heat during most of the day is pretty much unbearable.

I have been cooking huge batches of beans every day. I bought a bunch of different kinds, and I'm freezing them in two-cup portions in order to avoid using canned beans anymore. Today was black beans, tomorrow, garbanzos. Our house smells very beany.

We are back. Our camping/float trip was pretty great. As soon as we got there, Steve went in to pay. He came out and told us he signed us up for the 8.5 mile float. I was thinking "EIGHT and a HALF miles?! There is no way the kid and the dogs are going to be content in a canoe for that long." Apparently I underestimated them because we ended up floating 13 miles (We got to our take-out point and thought that couldn't have really been 8.5 miles, so we kept going. Oops!) and we all had a great time. We tied a little chair up in the canoe, and Emma actually slept in there for an hour or two. We saw tons of cool birds, a beaver, and literally hundreds of turtles. Also, luckily, no snakes. We're hoping to go again in August. Before then, however, we need to buy a new tent. We found out at 6:00 a.m. Friday morning that our tent is not waterproof. It's an old hand-me-down from Steve's mom, and the large number of cigarette burn holes in it probably didn't help. When we woke up to (in) the rain, we dashed to the car to go out to breakfast. When we returned, the rain had stopped, but there were about three inches of standing water in our tent. I don't know if our pillows will ever dry out.

We are about to embark on a camping trip during which we will take one two-year-old and two dogs on a seven mile canoe trip. I hope we don't regret it.

So today I put Emma in her new bed once she had fallen asleep for her nap. Everything was going great for about an hour, when suddenly I heard a huge THUD! The poor girl had rolled over and tumbled out onto the hardwood floor. She was pretty shaken, but got over it before too long. I hope we have more success with the new bed in the future.

Too late to type anymore, so good night!

Steve was not a fan of the trundle bed idea. He said when it gets too crowded, that means it's time for someone to move out. He doesn't think we need to do that until we have another baby, though. However, I think moving out will be a LONG process, so we made the first big step today. We moved almost everything out of Emma's mini-room to make room for her new big girl bed. Apparently the crib wasn't a complete and total waste of money after all. I'll probably start putting her in there for naps for now, just so she can get accustomed to waking up in there.













As for the basement, here is Emma's new playroom













and here is my new playroom. Ugly, but functional.

Steve is taking off work this week and we are doing fun projects around the house. We have moved basically everything out of Emma's closet-sized room in the interest of making space for a toddler bed. Everything went into the basement, which I spent hours clearing out and organizing today. There is a really big room in our basement, which has now been converted - one half into a playroom, and the other half into a (!!!) craft room. It's pretty ugly down there, with old fake wood paneling for the walls and super ugly old linoleum, but it will do for now. I'm pretty stoked about the "new" rooms we added. Steve is also planning to paint the bathroom and the kitchen this week. We painted our kitchen green awhile ago, and it's not our favorite. We meant to choose something that would look cheerful, but what we got was a little more intense than we had planned. You might call it "neon". So we're covering that up with a soft yellow, and are glad we won't have to wear sunglasses in the kitchen anymore.

While we were on vacation at the lake, my dad harrassed me about buying fluorescent light bulbs. We bought some today, and I really wish I had known about these long ago. They are a little more expensive than regular bulbs (six 60-watt for $10, or four 100-watt for $10), but are guaranteed to last at least seven years. Additionally, they are way more energy efficient. Apparently each light bulb you replace will save you like $36 a year or something. According to my dad, you can't afford not to switch! I was worried about the light they would give off, but it's okay. In the room with the light, there is no noticeable difference. When looking at that room from down the hall, I noticed a little fluorescenty glow, but it was really not bad at all.

I have exciting news! Well, it's exciting for me at least. I'm taking a quilting class! It is going to be on Wednesday nights for five weeks throughout August. At the end of those five weeks, I should be a quilting guru. I'm pretty sure I could learn own my own, but the idea of five nights out by myself is too good to pass up! And if I have to spend those nights with a bunch of old ladies to accomplish that, so be it.

I know I said I wasn't going to sew anymore for awhile, but I desperately needed a little bag to carry my knitting stuff around. I made this one tonight and it should work perfectly. I also need to make a purse, because I hate my current one so much that it's almost painful for me to take it anywhere. It's served me well for about a year and a half but suddenly I'm sick to death of it. So anyway, I need to whip up some sort of bag to use instead.

Today Steve took Emma to the shoe store with him so I could take a much needed nap. I was so happy, and surprised, because he is not usually into running errands with Emma. "Do you know how much longer it takes to do everything when Emma is along?" he says. No, no I don't. Really. I have NO idea. It's not like I take her with me everywhere I go. Oh, wait...yes I do.

What is the deal? I went to bed two hours ago, and after laying there for over an hour, I was still wide awake so I just went ahead and got up again. I'm going to be suffering tomorrow.

We need a bigger bed. A king size would be nice, but something even bigger would be ideal. I know another family who has a king and queen mattress on the floor all together. The mom sewed a bedspread to cover it all and their family sleeps on the whole thing together. Now THAT'S what we need. Unfortunately, our bedroom is so tiny that we probably don't even have room for a king. Poo. Our bed is so crowded now that I don't know what we're going to do when we ever have another baby. Every night I try to move around and get comfortable, only to find out that I'm completely sandwiched in on all sides by random legs, arms, bellies, and tails. I'm sure at this point most normal people would be thinking, "Duh. Get the dogs and the kid out of your bed." But I don't want to do that at all. Our dogs would be so lonely on the floor, and I like being close to Emma all night. I think having our whole family in one bed is really good for us. So back to square one...how can we just have more space? Like, so we're close together but not on top of one another. Hey - what about a trundle bed? I wonder if one would fit under our bed. Then we could have it up at night, but hidden away under the bed during the day. After a quick search, I can't find just the bottom part anywhere, but we could get something like this and just use the bottom now and save the regular top part for later. At some point we'll probably need another bed, anyway. I can't wait to tell Steve! Oh, I hope this works!

Steve is about to complete his fifth year with his firm, so as a little reward he got to select a prize from list of about thirty random things. Most of the stuff was like watches and fancy vases for which we have absolutely no use, but they did have this cookware set. We decided to get that, so now I'm happy that I can finally throw out my Teflon pots and pans.

About three years ago, before we ever lived in this house, Steve told his mom and step-dad that they could store a bunch of stuff in our garage. They brought it over and what it really was was a ton of trash. Seriously no one else would have thought twice about throwing all this stuff in the garbage. A big old rotted desk with only three legs, two big rusty file cabinets missing most of their drawers, some massive old plastic hose thing with a bunch of gaping holes in it, you get the idea. So we drug all that crap to this house when we moved and it's been taking up a lot of space in our basement ever since. Every time I see it, which is multiple times every day, it annoys me. After much nagging from me, today Steve finally asked his mom when they were coming to get their stuff. Her answer was basically never. She said they'd get it as soon as they build a garage, which means never. She said a lot of other things in the conversation that just drove me absolutely crazy, but I won't go into all that.

Now that it's almost 3:00, I'm going to stop this random rambling and try to get some sleep.

A storm came through last night and dropped the temperature from a stifling 100 degrees to a much more manageable 80 degrees. To celebrate, I was planning on taking Emma to Deanna Rose or blueberry picking. However, Steve decided to take off work today so I think we are just going to lay around the house and enjoy each other's company. He bought Emma a Play-Doh set last night and it's a huge hit. I'm glad it's keeping her happily busy for so long, and especially glad that so far we have managed to avoid any Play-Doh getting smashed into the carpet.

Yesterday I bought a big bag of dog food, but left it in my backseat overnight. This morning when I got in the car, I saw that something had actually gotten inside my car (the windows were open), ripped open the bag, and spread dog food everywhere. Lovely. My car reeks of dog food now.

Emma gets really upset lately if we give anything away, or leave something of ours somewhere. The morning we left Steve's car at the mechanics was pretty tragic for her. Yesterday I didn't get the mail out in time, so I brought it to the post office. When I dropped it in the big mailbox there, she started to cry and whimper "see mail again". She has such a problem letting things go, so I knew there was going to be trouble when we dropped off the dogs for haircuts this morning. She was heartbroken as we walked out to the car afterwards. We stopped at the store and the only thing that would make her feel better was a big red pepper. I let her start eating it in the store, and she eagerly finished it when we got home. Several people stopped to comment on her eating it, but they were probably really thinking "What a weirdo that kid is!".








She is doing this cute thing lately where she'll say, "Tell you a joke, mommy." When I ask her what joke, she'll say, "Pigs say meow!" or some such other incorrect animal noise, and giggle uncontrollably at her wittiness. What a goofy kid.

Oh, and here is the pattern I used for the skirt.

We had the best dinner tonight. I made whole wheat pizza crust and put pesto, garlic, spinach, tomatoes, chicken, and cheese on it. It was quite possibly the best pizza I have ever eaten. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it - too bad we ate it all or I'd be scrounging around in the fridge right now for another piece. Ooh - I just thought of something. We also made yummy pumpkin scones today so I will go have one of those!

I sewed another skirt. A couple weeks ago I decided I wanted to start wearing more skirts because they are so nice and breezy and just summery. I've sewn three (two are probably fit to wear in public, the other not fit to wear even at home) and now I'm tired of sewing skirts. Plus, whenever I'm sewing, I always feel like it's cutting into my knitting time. So no more sewing for me for awhile, at least not until I start on my quilt.

The library problem is solved. Today we went in there and they removed the $167 in charges, which they said were the result of a computer glitch. Whew!

Emma is into a licking stage. My shoulders are always covered in slobber due to her licking them when I'm carrying her. Our living room windows are always covered in food chunks due to her licking them while she's eating. Gross. I'm hoping this phase is short-lived.

Today Emma and I went to the thrift store for a little shopping. There are long racks of clothes that make up aisles from one side of the store to the other. While I browsed, Emma played under the racks, hiding in the clothes. At one point I noticed that she had gone all the way to the other side of the rack. I walked over to the next aisle to get her, but she was nowhere to be found. I called her name as I walked by all the aisles, searching for her. No Emma. Getting a little more nervous, I crouched down and looked under all the clothes in each aisle. Nothing. I went over to look in the toy section, then the purses, then the furniture. Still no Emma. I was feeling a little panicked at this point, and people were starting to stare at me as I was running around calling for her. It had probably been four minutes since I'd seen her, but it felt like forever. I convinced myself that someone had snatched her up and carried her out of the store. I found an employee, and decsribed Emma for her. Some of the customers stopped to witness my frantic blathering, and they asked me more questions about her appearance, dress, etc. Someone announced over the speaker that a little two year old girl was lost and asked that everyone please look for her. A minute later, a man came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He led me to a corner of the store and pointed behind a big shelf full of toys. There was Emma, happily playing, and completely unaware that her mother was about to have a heart attack. As soon as I saw her I started crying and I think I scared her because she started crying when I ran over to her. Now that I think back on it, it probably wasn't that big of a deal because, really, how far could she have gone? At the time, though, I was too scared to think rationally. I'm never letting her out of my sight again.

As of now, our calendar for this whole week is empty. I'm looking forward to days with nothing to do but play around the house. However, it is insanely hot so the playing will probably take place inside the house. We bought Candy Land at the thrift store today and I can see several hundred games of that in my near future.

So this morning I got on the library's website to see if the books I'd requested had come in. Since I'd checked yesterday, my account suddenly had accumulated $14 worth of fines for 14 books that were apparently due back May 21, but that we'd actually returned months ago. I called to investigate, and the woman with whom I spoke informed me that there was a block on my card now, but she'd check the shelf to see if the books were there. Three of the books were found on the shelf, but that means I still have $11 worth of fines, and therefore still a block on my card. Pretty lame, considering I have three books there waiting for me that I will not be able to check out, and I'll have to wait and request them again when this mix-up is unmixed. And what happens if they don't find the books? I'm not going to pay for books that I don't have. Hopefully I will not be relegated to a lifetime of library delinquency because of these eleven missing children's books.

I don't wear any jewelry, ever, except for my wedding ring, but Emma managed to find an old box of rings, earrings, etc. that I used to wear. She has been wearing them nonstop, and I'm dreading the day she realizes that ears actually need to have holes in them for earrings to be worn. I had to wait until I was twelve to get my ears pierced; I'm not sure if I'll make her do the same. At least she is happy with this for now.













I have stayed up way too late sewing a skirt. The worst part about that is, I totally overestimated the amount of fabric to use, and now all I have is a poofy, mushroomy-type thing that does not even deserve a picture on this blog. Tomorrow, maybe, if I can salvage it.

We are planning on going camping/floating in a couple weeks and I can't decide where to go. I think a slow river would be best, and also a raft would safer and more conducive to floating with a toddler. However, I remember taking a raft one time on a floating trip when I was a kid. My brother, my two cousins, and I were in it and it was soooooooooooooooooo slow. The rest of our families (in canoes) reached the end point hours before us, and by the time we arrived we were practically ready to drown each other and ourselves out of sheer frustration over a way-too-long day on the river. So, to avoid that this time, maybe we should choose a faster river? I don't know.

Working on the log cabin quilt has inspired me to knit more blankets. I got a great book, 200 Knitted Blocks, from the library and it's definitely going on my must-buy list. Right now I have four blankets on the needles. If only there were more hours in a day, I might ever actually finish one of them.

For the past few months, Emma has been nursing SO much. I can't figure it out. For a long time she never asked to nurse out in public, but now we can't go anywhere without nursing. When we're at home, it's non-stop nursing. There is no distracting her, ever. Steve pointed out that the marathon nursing began right around when we night weaned (which we still struggle with sometimes), so I guess she's still adjusting. I hope she gets through it soon because, honestly, I'm pretty tired of all this nursing.

Too sleepy to write any more...

We are back from our great vacation. It was way fun, but as always, it's nice to be back home. After being gone for five days, I've come back to many blog updates to read, lots of email, and almost 500 new posts on my AP board. I like to read all that stuff, but there is no way I can do it so I'm resigning myself to the fact that I'll just have to skip most of it. Boo hoo.

I'm off to knit and enjoy the thunderstorm raging outside, but first a couple pictures from the trip:

Here is the little swimmer looking cute, as always.



















Dude, wakeboarding is SO hard. After many, many attempts, I finally managed to get up on the board and this was the best picture anyone could take?!?!

I started sewing the bedroom curtains, but didn't finish because I think the fabric blends too much with the wall. I love the fabric, though, so I have to think of something else to do with it. Sewing curtains doesn't sound like much fun to me right now, anyway, so it looks like our bedroom will be curtainless for awhile longer. I am, however, in skirt-sewing mode. I sewed this one yesterday and today while Emma napped. The fabric is from curtains I found at Goodwill because I didn't want to try it out on good fabric without knowing for sure I could sew in a zipper. Apparently I can, so I'll probably be churning out some more skirts in the near future.

I'm also working on this log cabin blanket, which I'm enjoying. For some reason I get a blister on my pinkie when I knit it for too long, so that slows down the process a bit. I'm not sure how big it's going to be eventually - I guess we'll see how soon I get tired of knitting it.













Tomorrow Ems and I are heading to Table Rock Lake with my family. We'll be back Tuesday. Toodles!

Last year Steve's car started acting weird. He often had trouble starting it, and it would just randomly die on the highway sometimes. Not good. So we took it in to get it fixed, paid $1000, and it still did the exact thing when we got it back. Argh. Luckily, a few weeks later it seemed to stop on it's own. Well, it started doing it again so we took it to another place last Friday. They've been trying to figure out what's wrong this whole time. It's been a big nuisance, because with Steve off work for five days, we've been driving around a lot. I usually love driving around in his car because I can knit, but for the past week we've been taking my car. He won't drive when we're in my car, hence, lots of lost knitting time. Yesterday morning we all had to get up at the crack of dawn to drive him to work and neither Emma nor I ever recovered from it and were extremely cranky for the rest of the day. This morning I told him to just take my car and go, which means Emma and I are stranded here. The good news is that the car is supposed to be finished today, and also that it's only going to cost $272. We were worried about shelling out another $1000, but $272 is much more manageable. I don't know how families do it with only one car - it's a pain in the butt!

Tonight FIL and his girlfriend took Emma, Steve, and I to the Royals game. Great, right? We love baseball games, the Royals won, the fireworks afterwards were great, and all was good. Until the ride home. We were all riding in the girlfriend's car, driven by Steve's dad. On the highway, suddenly I heard someone honking a super long mad-sounding honk, and Steve's dad starts ranting about changing lanes or something. Some guy in another SUV passes us on the right and glares at us as he goes by. FIL says "two can play at this game, buddy" and he gets in the other lane and starts following the guy SO, SO, SO closely. We were barreling down the highway with mere inches between us and another car. Just as I yelled at him to stop it, the other guy slammed on his brakes. FIL of course had to slam on our brakes hard to avoid crashing into him, and we all flew forward in the car. Emma's carseat pitched forward as well. I was so furious that I started crying. How dare he risk my baby's life because of some stupid, petty, immature road rage?

Gah! I just had this whole long post typed out, then suddenly one of those lovely boxes popped up and told me that, "Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close," and I lost the whole thing. Stupid computer. I'm way too tired to type it all again.

Some pictures from the zoo yesterday...

We've been having a wonderful couple of days. Steve was off work yesterday, and he really wanted to go see Superman Returns. I didn't want to see it at all, but we made a deal that if we could go to the quilt store and the yarn store in the morning - and he would watch Ems while I browsed - then we'd go see the movie. Emma, of course, was tired of the movie after about 25 minutes so she and I spent the rest of the time playing in the car. Not the most fun ever, but better than watching Superman.

Today we were planning on taking Emma to the zoo, but we didn't leave soon enough and ended up going to Loose Park instead. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. Afterwards we went to Barnes and Noble, where I got Denyse Schmidt Quilts, because I've been wanting it SO badly and the library is taking much too long to get it to me.

Tomorrow, the zoo!