It has been a busy, but fun week.

I recently had a birthday, so I am now officially 30!  It’s kind of a strange milestone, but I feel like I’m ready for my thirties.

I also bought a new camera with some birthday money (plus some).  I have really been wanting a good camera for some time.  For a long time, I was fine with the camera on my phone, but after baby B was born, I wanted to be able to take better pictures of him.  My phone seemed like it did better with landscapes than baby pictures.

I have spent the last few days playing with my new camera and trying to figure out what it’s capable of.  I have a lot to learn about all of it’s settings still, but I am determined to really learn how to use it.

In other exciting news, my mom came and stayed with B for a night so S and I could get away.  I missed B a little, but mostly it felt amazing!  This is the first time I’ve been away from him for the night.

S and I had a great time.  We stayed in downtown Santa Fe, walked around a bit, did some window shopping, ate at a couple of amazing Mexican restaurants (The Shed and Tia Sophia’s- both highly recommended).

Here’s a few of my first pictures with the new camera:

Santa Fe

Click on a thumbnail to view the larger version

Then the next day we took off into the woods for a hike.  We went up the Pecos River and it was very gorgeous.  Lots of tall trees, some Aspens just starting to change to yellow, moss covering the rocks and fallen logs, wild flowers, and some gurgly streams that we hiked along.

The campground at the trail-head had these really cool little shelters with fireplaces built in.  It’s the first time I’ve seen something like this at a campground and they looked awesome.

At one point, the stream disappeared into a cave and then re-emerged down a bit lower.  We had fun finding the cave and then looking for where the stream came out again.  There were supposed to be some other caves up in the area, but we never found them.

The whole area was so gorgeous and our hike was pretty much perfect.  (We did run into a large, unleashed dog on the trail.  While it’s owner was busy assuring us that it was friendly, the dog was running towards us with a deep, menacing growl.)  It felt great to get some sunshine and fresh air.  Here’s a few last pictures from me experimenting a bit with the new camera:

Pecos Wilderness

Click on a thumbnail to view the larger version

The post N things of the week – #16 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I have exciting news this week!  We have a contract on a house and are planning on moving in two or three weeks!!  I love the house and the area that it’s in is gorgeous.  And it comes with a playground for the little guy!

It is basically my dream home.  It’s in the forest and super close to biking and hiking trails in the National Forest.  It’s basically in the middle of nowhere.  There are other houses close by and one little locally owned store that sells a few groceries.  Otherwise, there is nothing.  There is no gas station or post office.

It’s also only about 20 minutes out of Albuquerque, so when the need for civilization strikes, there is a city nearby.  I feel like the combination of being out in nature and yet being close to a city is ideal.  It is the sort of location I’ve long craved.

I have to admit though that I won’t quite relax until I have the keys in my hand.

I am so excited to be moving on to this next phase.

Moderate Minimalism

Preparing to move does mean that I am forced to think about all of my stuff.  I am trying to start packing now to be able to sort through things as much as possible.  I do not want to move things that I don’t need or want.

I realize that minimalism for me may be an unattainable goal.  It may be more accurate to say that I’m a recovering hoarder!  I do find that keeping some of the principles of minimalism in mind and working towards it really does help me a lot.

For example, I just sorted through all of my books.  This is the third or fourth time I’ve culled my book collection since encountering minimalism.  The first time I probably got rid of 40% or so.  This time, I’d say I put about 30% of them in the pile to get rid of.  (Of course, my book collection somehow grows in between the times I sort through it.)

The remainder still filled several small boxes.  The thing is that I have this mindset where I try to be aware of the things that I’m ready to let go of.  Instead of keeping all books because I love books, I have this feeling about some of them that I’m just ready to pass them on to somebody that will love them more.

The things is that I feel like I’m approaching the right amount of stuff for me.  I still have quite a bit of stuff, but I’m not buried in crap.

When I go on walks, sometimes people have their garage doors open.  It’s amazing how many of their garages are just filled with stuff!  Boxes and stacks and shelves and furniture and kid stuff and bikes and even God probably does not know what all else.  There is no possible way a go-cart would fit inside, much less a car.

Once upon a time, that was my garage (minus the kid stuff because that was before I had a kid).  Now, I do have shelves along one wall of the garage and sometimes I feel like I have entirely too much crap on them.  But it’s all sort of organized and the car fits in there too!

Now when I walk past those over-flowing garages, I feel this smug sort of moral superiority that only strikes when past me can relate to whomever present me is feeling morally superior to.

Baby B is still the cutest thing ever!

B is definitely becoming a little boy instead of a baby.  He is curious and on-the-go all the time.  He has a funny lopsided army crawl but he can really get around!  He wants to explore everything.

It is so amazing to watch.  He’s a happy guy and it’s contagious.  He laughs a lot, sometimes at things that I have no clue why they’re funny.  Then I laugh too just because he is laughing.

He brings so much joy into my life!

I have to admit that sometimes he strikes me as a very strange creature.  He might be crying on moment and then suddenly be happy again just because I hand him a spoon.  I am pretty sure that a spoon would not make me happy if I was having a melt-down.

Also, he is not to be trusted.

The post N things of the week – #15 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

The last week has been filled with lots of great stuff for me!  Here’s a few of the highlights.

Going to the gym (almost) daily

I have been going to the gym pretty much every day for the last two weeks.  I’d gotten in a slump about it in December because I was sick for several weeks and then I just never got back to it.  I decided that it was time to either use my membership or cancel it.  There is nothing like the guilt of an unused gym membership.  Working out every day has been great.  Even if I just put in half an hour I feel so much better afterward.

I have lots of ideas about how I’d rather be active outside hiking and biking.  I do fit in some hiking these days.  The truth of it is though that on a daily basis, it is easier to make it to the gym.  It’s two minutes away, has  a great child care center and is a nice facility.  Plus I have no excuse not to go on days when the weather is bad.

Baked oatmeal

My culinary accomplishment for the week was trying out baked oatmeal.  I found the recipe for it in the newspaper and instead of just clipping it and saving it for later, I actually just made it right then.  It had little apple pieces and raisins in it that made it absolutely delicious.  It calls for a small amount of maple syrup and I had just enough left to make the recipe.  I think the apples and raisins made it sweet enough that I’ll try an entirely sugar-free version next.

Baby B

Baby B is 8 months old now!  He is turning from a baby into a little boy.  He babbles all day long, which is just adorable.  He rolls or slithers all over the floor and can now get up on his hands and knees.  Crawling is imminent.  He can feed himself small chunks of bread or cheese and prefers this to waiting for me to spoon feed him.  He is adorable and fun.  I feel so lucky to have him in my life.  Also, he’s happy the majority of the time which is something I am perpetually grateful for.

And… I love his hairdo!  It just does this… not that I spend any time trying to change it.

Taking care of the things I have

I have been trying to sort through some of my stuff and ditch more stuff that I don’t need.  This process seems to be a some-what continual one.  Also, I want to take care of and enjoy the stuff that I do have.  Part of getting rid of the stuff that I don’t need is to make more time and space for the things that I love.

Sorting through stuff from my Grandma

My grandma was a bit of a pack-rat.  Rather than renting storage units, she bought a whole storage unit complex under the guise of an investment.  It was in part an investment, but there were several of the units packed with her stuff.  A lot of it was nice stuff, but it was unorganized and mixed in with not-so-nice stuff.  After she died, I spent a lot of time helping my mom go through the storage units.

This was one of the experiences that has really impacted how I think about things and how I want my approach to it to be.  There was so much nice stuff in there that my grandma didn’t even get to enjoy because the task of sorting through it all was too overwhelming for her to tackle.

Anyway, almost ten years later, I still had a box of stuff from my grandma that I had never sorted through.  It had a couple of those little storage boxes with a zillion little drawers.  They had paper clips and disintegrated rubber bands mixed in with cool old trinkets and jewelry.

It seemed like a bit of a task to sort through it all, but also, the whole box just seemed so much like my grandma exactly as it was.  Cool things and mostly useless things all jumbled up together.  Leaving it as it was meant that it was just a box that sat in my closet.  I couldn’t really enjoy any of the stuff.

So I’ve started the process of organizing it all.  I’ve emptied out all of the drawers, tossed the obvious trash, grouped the paper clips and safety pins together, put all the earrings together in another box, untangled the dozens of chains and necklaces, and sorted out other piles of various miscellaneous things.

At times, this process has felt overwhelming.  A little box has exploded to take up much more space.  There was so much crammed in there!

I am grateful that I’ve been working on my own brand of ‘moderate minimalism’ for a while.  At one point, I would have wanted to keep everything for sentimental value!  (A couple of tops to salt shakers that I certainly don’t own, earrings with no mates, a single candle, and jewelry that is not remotely my style.)

Now, I am very sure that I need to keep my very favorite items, and pass the rest on to the rest of my family to pick through or get rid of.

I am so looking forward to the end of the project when I have a small box of cool things I love that I can really enjoy!

My violin

Along these same line, I have a couple of violins that I hadn’t played in many years.  The bows needed to be re-haired, so I actually couldn’t play them.  I brought them both to a violin repair shop.  One of them had some other issues and the shop suggested that the repairs wouldn’t be worth it.  The other one, I had them fix up for me.

Now, I am actually able to play it.  Well, the violin is playable anyway.  I was never particularly talented at it and years of not playing haven’t helped.  I did manage to squeak out Twinkle Twinkle Little Start for baby B though.

It’s work having things and really taking care of them right.  And something like my violin not only wants taken care of, it wants to be played!  It is so much more rewarding to properly care for a few items than to have tons of stuff lying around neglected and unused.

The post N things of the week – #14 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I’ve been staying busy the last few months.  I suppose that’s no surprise with baby B in the picture and my tendency towards lots of different interests.  Here’s a snapshot of some of what I’ve been up to lately.

Riding the tram

Last month, I took a family member up the Sandia Peak Tram.  I’ve been up it a few times, and yet I still forget just how cool it is!  The tram is a very cool feat of engineering in addition to just being a fun ride with spectacular views.  One of these days, maybe I’ll get a whole post written on it.  For now, I’ll settle for sharing another picture and mentioning that if you’re ever in the Albuquerque area you should check it out.  In my opinion, it is one of the coolest things Albuquerque has to offer.

Programming

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working on learning Android programming.  By ‘free time’, I mean an hour or two in the evenings after baby B goes to bed and before I’m too exhausted to do any more.  After a couple of months of working on it, I’m really starting to see some progress!  I wrote a whole post about that you can check out if you haven’t already.

Visiting Family

Baby B and I went to go visit my parents for a few days.  S got a break.  The grandparents were thrilled to have time with B.  B was mostly happy with a change of scenery… And the trip left me totally exhausted!

OK, I exaggerate a little.  I liked seeing everybody too.

Reading Michael Pollan

I’ve been reading a couple of Michael Pollan books recently.  He has several books, but the two I’ve started with are In Defense of Food and Cooked.

I’ve been listening to Cooked as an audiobook.  It’s a fascinating book about his journey to learn how to cook.  He spends time learning from some of the best cooks but also dives into the cultural implications of cooking.  The book is divided into four sections – fire, water, earth and air or barbecue, cooking in pots, fermentation, and bread.  I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s been interesting and thought-provoking.

In Defense of Food discusses the rise of the food industry and ‘edible food-like substances’ and why we should go back to eating real food.  Many of the concepts are not new to me, but Pollan puts it in a way that just really seems to hit home.  It’s inspired me to think about cooking a bit more.

Baking Bread

Speaking of cooking, I’ve baked bread a few times recently. Despite my above mention of Michael Pollan books, I was actually inspired by S’s mom to get back to baking my own bread.

I first learned to bake bread around the time I was about 15 or 16 from a book my mom got me called The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown.  The detailed instructions were enough to make my first try a success.  I would definitely recommend it to anybody looking to bake bread- even (or especially) if they have absolutely no experience.

Something about the whole process just feels so special.  There’s the time spent kneading the dough.  The feel of the flour and the sense of being really connected to the endeavor.  There is also the time spent waiting for the dough to rise.  The anticipation as the fresh baked-bread aroma starts to permeate through the house.

It’s something that I thoroughly enjoy and it’s nice to really know all of the ingredients that go into my food.

Baby B

And last, but surely not least, I’ve been spending a lot of time with B.  He is now 7 months old!  He can roll all over the house.  He can sit unsupported, at least for a little while.  He eats lots of real foods- mushed banana and pear, applesauce, blended cooked carrots, mashed sweet potato and more.

He has become grabby- reaching for things off the table when he sits on my lap, and one day grabbing a bag of Doritos while I was holding him in line at Subway.  Gone are the days when I could go shopping without him wanting things!  He is curious- always watching and playing with everything.

He is mostly happy and very good natured.  Every day he’s closer to being a little boy and farther from being a baby.  But for now, he’s still my little baby.

The post N things of the week – #13 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Driving the digger!!

I’d like to say that my favorite part of the Thanksgiving holiday was good food and good company.  But it wasn’t.  It was getting to drive the Bobcat at my dad’s house.  I have always wanted to drive construction equipment.  I’m not interested in it for a job I don’t think.  I just want to play a bit.

I had a blast getting to drive this thing around a bit and scoop some dirt.  I narrowly missed knocking my dad’s head off with the bucket, but he dived out of the way.  Note to readers: stand back if you’re ever around when I’m operating heavy equipment.

Baby B even had his chance in the driver’s seat!

Baby slept through the night!

After a busy day visiting family on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, baby B slept from nine at night until six-thirty in the morning.  I was so ridiculously pleased that he slept through the night!  He has not done a repeat performance since then and I’m not holding my breath.  Still, it is progress.  I am so glad that the sleep thing is improving… for him.  (I, on the other hand, have developed a bit of insomnia.  It’s quite torturous.)

Casa Blanca Inn and Suites

This year, lots of family came to visit my parents for Thanksgiving.  Since both their houses had company, my mom was nice enough to get us a room at this cute little B and B in Farmington.  It was a great place to stay.  Thank you mom!

Miscellaneous

I’ve been otherwise occupied trying to cook and eat lots of healthy food (and eating cheesecake in between), going to the gym, working, reading, writing and just enjoying my time with Baby B.  Some days I feel like I struggle with the whole balance thing.  It was a challenge before baby B came along.  Now, it sometimes feels like an impossibility.

Oh, and I’ve been enjoying the fall weather.  I love seeing the leaves change color! If I over-think it, it’s sad because I know they’re all going to fall off and it will be cold, dark, and wintery soon. I waste so much time worrying about the future that it’s ridiculous. This week, the leaves are gorgeous!

I also applied for a Grow with Google developer scholarship recently.  I try to avoid committing to a lot of things because I know I just don’t need to increase my sense of overwhelm.  This one I just went for.  When I look back at my life, one of my regrets is not learning to do more programming.  I can’t change the past, but I can start learning now.  Who knows if I’ll get the scholarship or not, but I figured it was worth applying.  I think it could be a great opportunity.

Anyway, I am off for another slice of cheesecake and then bed!

The post N things of the week – #12 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Baby is three months old!

To be precise, he’s three months, one week and one day old.  Every week is different with him.  He is changing and developing at such a rapid pace.  I’ve decided that I really like the stage he’s at right now.  He is awake and aware more.  He smiles.  He still likes to snuggle a lot.  He’s started sleeping for longer stretches.  If I leave him in a spot, he’s still in the same spot when I come back.

He’s a talker.  He will lie on his playmat and make happy noises for hours.  OK, hours is an exaggeration, but it feels like it sometimes.  I feel so blessed to have such a good-natured baby.

When I found out I was pregnant, I swore that this wouldn’t become a mommy blog.  Now that I have baby B, he seems to be the center of my universe.  All of the recent pictures are of him.  Most of this post is going to be about him.  I know that it won’t always be like that though.  I am slowly starting to work some of my other passions and responsibilities back into my life.

Making going places a routine

One thing that I’m proud of myself for is all of the things I have gone and done with baby.  S an I have taken him on two road trips, one of which involved camping.  I’ve made a huge effort to get out and do things.  Within a day or two of getting home from the hospital, I had him in the stroller for walks.  I’ve made it a habit to get out on a walk with him at least a few times a week.

We’ve been to mom and baby yoga a few times, to some mommy meetups, to the library, to Costco, to the gym, out to eat, on some hikes and probably some other places that aren’t coming to mind at the moment.  At first, it took more effort.  I’m glad I put that effort in though because it’s becoming easier and easier.

It has taken a little trial and error to figure out how to incorporate baby into my activities.  Mom and baby yoga ended up being a lot more baby than yoga.  I’ve found that’s not really for me.  I prefer dropping him off at the childcare at the gym for an hour and going to an adults-only yoga class.

Childcare

Speaking of childcare, it’s been a revolutionary thing in my life lately.  For the first couple of months, S and I didn’t leave baby B with anybody else.  I didn’t want to take him to the childcare at the gym because I didn’t want him to get sick.  It also took a while to get breastfeeding down well enough that I felt comfortable trying to leave him with a bottle.  I love my time with baby B, but the 24-hour nature of it was just exhausting.

In the last few weeks, he’s spent a couple of days with his aunt.  This month, I added him onto my gym membership so I can drop him off when I go workout.  For a small hourly fee, I can also drop him off there and leave the premises.  Even a few hours to myself make me feel so much better.  I get a chance to catch up on work calls, take a quick nap, or do whatever else.  S gets a break too.

I’d like to say that it breaks my heart to leave him.  Maybe this will sound bad, but it really doesn’t.  I’m just so excited to get time to take care of other stuff.  It helps that I really trust the people that I leave him with; I wouldn’t do it otherwise.  I figure it’s good for him to get a change of scenery for a few hours and to start meeting more new people and other kids.  I know it’s good for him to have a mom that gets a break sometimes.

I’m really looking forward to continuing to find a bit more balance between baby and the rest of my life.  I still want B to be my first priority.  I want to make the most of this time with him as a baby because I know it’s precious.  I also want to keep my sanity.

Sleep

Sleep with baby B has recently gotten much easier.  Now that he’s a big boy of three months, I no longer baby him quite so much.  The routine used to be walking him around, reading stories, nursing, snuggling, walking him around again, and nursing again until he finally fell asleep only to have him wake up when as soon as I lay him down and then handing him off to S who would repeat the whole thing minus the nursing.

Now, I put him in his cute footy-PJ’s, S and I read to him, he gets a bedtime snack, and then I lay him down and leave him.  Sometimes he’ll fuss for a few minutes, but it never takes long until he’s out.  I have to wonder if all our previous efforts to get him to sleep were really just keeping him awake.  I know that he may also have just matured enough to sleep better at this point.

The other super nice thing is that he now sleeps for 5-7 hours for the first stretch most nights instead of waking up every 1-3 hours like a newborn.  It feels heavenly.

Writing

I have been making an effort to get back to writing more.  With baby B going to bed by himself, I now have an hour or two in the evenings free.  This week, I’ve been taking advantage of that to spend some time writing.  It feels so nice. Hopefully I’ll have some more writing to share here over the next few weeks.

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’.  I have seen it quoted in other places a few times, so when I came across it at the library I thought I’d give it a chance.  It has been a good read so far and has given me a little extra motivation to write more.  It’s been interesting to learn more about his writing process.

Lettuce Plants

My lettuce plants are still clinging on to dear life.  They are not, however, growing very much.  Perhaps I’ll try to get another picture of them for my next post… that is, if they’re still alive then.

The post N things of the week – #11 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Baby is 7 weeks old!

In some ways that time has flown by, in other ways it has just crawled.  (The times that crawl are mostly those in the middle of the night when I really wish I was sleeping.)  Much of the time, I would just like to stop time.  He is so perfect and I just don’t want him to change… but he keeps getting bigger and I know that won’t stop for a long time.  There are also times when I’m very excited for him to get bigger.  I find myself wanting to show him things and share things with him that he just doesn’t care at all about yet- like the little toad in the back yard, or the bunnies on our walks.

Return to routine

Or perhaps it’s more of making a whole new routine.  In any event, I’ve been trying to figure out how to go from 24/7 focus on baby to getting some other things worked back into my life.  I’m slowly finding a little more balance and sanity in my life as a mom. I love the time spent with baby, but it’s nice to make it to the gym once in a while.

I’m also trying to figure out how to effectively integrate him into my life so he can come along for the things  I love.  We’ve started doing ‘mom and baby yoga’ twice a month.  It turns out to be more ‘baby’ than ‘yoga’, but is a nice chance to get out of the house.  Little guy recently got a bouncy seat he can be in and that has helped a ton!  I can actually set him down while eating dinner or doing a bit of work.

Lettuce plants

Two of my little lettuce plants are actually still alive!  They have not, however, really grown.  They are like little midget plants.  One of the reasons why I picked lettuce is because I thought it was supposed to grow relatively quickly.  Probably I am still doing something wrong.  I’m not sure how long they will continue to live as I do struggle a bit to remember to water them as the baby is pretty much all-consuming.  If they do survive, it will be a long time before they’re big enough to make salad for more than just Hoppy.

And… I started writing that about my little lettuce plants when I started this post a couple weeks ago.  In the mean time, things have taken a turn for the worse.  One of them now has little black spots and a dead leaf and has probably started it’s slow decent into death.  The other one has leaves that are starting to die at the tips and with my vast experience with killing plants, I’m pretty sure that’s a sign of what’s to come.  At least of what’s to come for the lettuce plant- I hate to end things on a sad note when everything else is going so well and I have such a cute happy little guy in my life.

The post N things of the week – #10 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

OK, this week there is really only one thing on my mind.

My son was born August 2nd, weighing in at 6 pounds, 11 ounces.  I am completely enamored.  To me, he is the cutest little guy ever.  I simply cannot express how much I love this little guy.

The last couple of weeks have been very full.  I am fairly sleep deprived, but incredibly happy.  Already the time seems to be going too quickly.  I just want to hold on to things exactly as they are.  I love him exactly as he is- all of the little body parts, little fingers and toes and his little ear that has a little crinkle.  I feel as though I could just sit and hold him forever and be content.  I don’t want him to grow up, even though I’m excited for all of the cool things that lie ahead.

It seems as though I do not have enough time for getting the things done that I want… like posting about his birth.  Once his needs are met and I spend a bit of extra time snuggling him and I get a bare minimum amount of sleep there are precious few hours left in the day.  We’ve had a fair bit of company wanting to meet him which has been both good and a bit exhausting.  Hopefully we’ll find just a little more time to rest, recuperate and catch up on a few things I want to do like taking more pictures while he’s still all tiny.  And then maybe we’ll find more time to catch up on chores and other things.  Not to mention my job.  Most likely, things will continue to feel chaotic and crazy, but perhaps each day I’ll make a little time for these things.

In the mean time, here’s a few of the best pictures that I have managed to take.

Cutest little guy ever!

Click on a thumbnail to view the larger version

The post N things of the week- Baby is here! appeared first on Live Hoppy.

1 to 6  weeks

My official due date is August 21 (also the day of the total solar eclipse that is happening).  95% of babies don’t come on their due dates and in fact, it seems quite silly to put a specific date on it when in reality there is a range of 5 weeks when baby is likely to actually be born.   The uncertainty of this is really starting to settle in for me as I try to plan out my life for the near future.  I can prepare but I really can’t plan all that much.  Baby could show up as soon as July 31… or he could wait until the end of August.  (Or he could show up even earlier but then he’d be considered premature.)

The excitement is building for me.  The baby’s room actually has stuff in it now and the little outfits, the cradle, the stroller, the package of tiny diapers all make it seem more real.  Yeah, I find myself thinking that these itty-bitty diapers are cute and then wonder what has happened to me.  It feels almost nostalgic in a sense, but that word seems to refer to the past… this is more like pre-notstalgia with a strong dose of anticipation.

Things have really come together and I feel like I actually have the necessities for bringing a baby home.  A few months ago, I had absolutely nothing.  Most of the credit goes to family and friends that have helped me out.  It’s really amazing how many people have shown their support.  This kid already has things from so many different people!  I am so grateful to everybody that has contributed.

So many cute baby things!

Click on a thumbnail to view the larger version

I’ve been busy trying to make sure that everything is ready.  It’s probably going to be a case of hurry up and wait but I want to be prepared in case he comes on the early side of his allotted time frame.  The thing is I can buy the things, wash and fold the little outfits, and install the car seat.  But I know that there is nothing that will make me ready.  I don’t really think anybody is ever ready to be a parent.  It’s one of those things that you just have to learn (or make up) as you go.

There’s some uncertainty and some nervousness and some fears, but mostly I’m excited… and ready to not be pregnant anymore.

Cat is still missing

Trip is still missing and at this point I’m just not optimistic.  It’s plain sad.  All these things remind me of her.  I feel guilt like there was something I should have done differently, only really there is nothing I would have done different.  Not much else to say on that topic.

Lettuce plants

I have finally gotten some lettuce seeds to sprout, but they’re not growing very fast and not looking very lettucey.  Still, I will keep trying.  I want so much to be a plant person.  It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to get things to grow, but I just don’t seem to do well with plants.  I dream of a nice garden, but darn it, I’d settle for some healthy looking potted plants.  Even just one.

House listed for sale

I finally have my house in Socorro listed for sale.  It feels good to have it ready to sell.  Moving has been a long process and it feels all the more exhausting to do it while pregnant.  I mentioned moving at a prenatal yoga class and the instructor mentioned that moving goes hand-in-hand with having babies.  The thing about being around other pregnant ladies is that it makes me a little less special and I have to tough it up a little.  I’m not the first pregnant lady to move and I could just get over the self-pity.  Anyway, it’s nice to have the house listed… I’d hoped to have it sold by now, but things don’t always go by my time frame.  Progress at whatever speed is a positive thing.

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One of my two cats went missing.  This is not the first time this has happened since I moved to Albuquerque, but this is the first time that I haven’t found her again within a day or two.  I still have hopes that she’ll turn back up- I’ve put up signs around the neighborhood and she does have a microchip so if anybody takes her to the humane society they’ll be able to identify her as mine.  She’s also a very friendly cat so it’s quite possible she could find somebody new to take her in.  Still, it’s just very sad.

Tripping Hazard

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House repairs

I’ve been working on getting my house in Socorro ready to sell.  It will, of course, look nicer when I go to sell it than at any point while I’ve been living there.  It is still gratifying to be completing these things that I’ve had in mind for some time.

One thing I always enjoy is learning new skills or discovering how to use a new tool.  I don’t consider myself to be very good in the physical world, by which I mean at things like home repairs, mechanical things, manipulating physical objects and things like say, parallel parking.  I’m much more comfortable with words, formulas and ideas.

Since it’s and area of challenge for me, I’m much more pleased with myself when I manage to tackle a physical problem.  Over the last few years, I’ve developed a liking for such tasks- trying more home repairs, car repairs and RV repairs.  I’ve gotten a lot better at such things too.

This week I was extremely pleased to make a nifty trick I saw on a YouTube video work.  My house has wood laminate flooring, but in a couple of places, gaps had developed between the ends of the floor boards.  I got a funny tool with suction cups on it that I think is for carrying glass around and a big rubber hammer.  I vacuumed the dirt out of the crack, attached the suction cups to the floor board and whacked the side of them a few times with the rubber hammer.

Lettuce plants and salad

I planted some lettuce in a couple of pots, but so far I don’t have much to show for it.  There is one little green thing that has just sprouted in one of the pots, but I’m not sure it’s actually one of my lettuce seeds.  I’m determined to keep trying until I get the knack for it.  I’ve never been very good with plants, and while I feel like I must somehow be jinxed, that really doesn’t seem particularly logical.  Surely if I keep at it, I can make something grow.

I’ve also been trying to grow my own sprouts, but haven’t quite got the right amount of seeds to start with figured out.  The first time I used too many and ended up with a very over-crowded jar of sprouts.  The second time, I cut back a bit too much and ended up with a small little cluster of sprouts at the bottom of the jar.  Hopefully I’ve about narrowed it down to what the right amount is and will give it another go soon.

I’ve still been making lots of salads, albeit with store-bought lettuce.  My favorite concoction this week was a bacon-feta-apple-walnut salad.  Next time, I’ll probably try it without the bacon though.  It sort of over-powered everything else.

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