She Give Me Fever

Memorial Day came and went, with a visit from Gramma Goose, Grampa PhD, AKA, and Mr Ben to replicate the Memorial Day visit of last year.

Except this time, Kiddokabiddo was OUTSIDE my womb, and I didn't have to call Mom back down three days later when I gave birth!

We had a pretty relaxing time: tons of MEMORIAL DAY food like hot dogs, burgers, steaks, baked beans, chips, and the first summer pie of the season, BLUEBERRY PEACH. Mmmmm. Dad and Ben hauled my blanket chest upstairs to our bedroom, we hung framed pictures, and Mom & Kate & I planted and trimmed shrubbery. Pretty low-key, considering that last year was a fiesta of light installation, outlet replacements, major planting, and dozens of sundry other tasks. We'd only been there for 2 weeks, ok?

Vee had been complaining of a "special" sore throat that "only he gets," so imagine how I was NOT surprised when I woke up with my own "special" sore throat on Saturday morning, accompanied by an annoying half-cough. IT WAS A FULL-ON COLD, and the only kind of cold I get--a summer cold. I don't get sick all freaking winter long, and yet, without fail, I ALWAYS get a summer cold, generally around Memorial Day. And no, it's not allergies.

Last night, however, the "special" sickness made its way to poor little Kiddo, who woke up at 2:30am with a 102 fever. My little Kiddo didn't let it get her down, but she was BURNING UP as I nursed her back to sleep.

And then I COULD NOT get back to sleep because I kept hearing:

This is the first time she's been sick, and although she's not showing any other signs of anything, I feel so bad for her. ALMOST ONE FULL YEAR with nothing other than baby jaundice!

Vee took her in for her one year appointment yesterday and she got her second round of Pc and HiB shots, and I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK THERE IS MORE TO THIS FEVER than just the "special" cold, but I can't prove it.

THIS IS NOT A PROMISING SELL FOR FUTURE VACCINATIONS FOR MY LITTLEBY!

Season Shift

This whole season-shift from semi-warm and mostly sunny to HOT HOT HOT and BLAZING RAYS FROM 9AM-8PM is making me nostalgic. For SUMMER memories, all of them years old, and they smack me in my tracks when I'm trying to go about my normal day, sweeping up Cheerios spilled by the Kiddo or going for a walk.

I have alternately needed to remember:

• The three-week-long summer trip my family took in summer 98, driving from Indiana to Oregon and back again, doing everything from visiting Prairie Dog Town to camping in Rocky Mountain National Park to trying to see Mount Rushmore through the thick fog (we failed at that)
• The summer I spent in drivers ed and the feeling that I was either old or insane, being allowed in the drivers seat of a car, in utter control
• Walking around the huge old conifers at Avery Park (Corvallis), the immense age and weight of them, and watching the tubers floating downstream at the levee
• My 22nd birthday in Iowa City and finally getting to spend my birthDAY with friends, eating pizza at a bar I'd never been to and never went back to, playing volleyball at a dorm none of us had ever lived in, and feeling the kind of friend-love you only really appreciate when you're three weeks away from moving to THE REST OF YOUR LIFE and the gravity of what you're leaving hits you
  

It's only natural, I think, that as you enter a new season, you can't HELP but remember the seasons of the years before you. It doesn't make it any easier. THE NOSTALGIC CRAB IN ME, FRAUGHT WITH LONGING FOR MY MEMORIES!

Is it just my astrological bent, or do you feel it too?

Home Show: Ultimate Home Show

Back from my week-long computer hiatus; I got my May Seventeen blog up at last, my Google Reader is exploding and needs to be caught up, but while I was gone, a momentous anniversary passed me by.

It's been over one year now since Vee and I moved back to our beloved prairie city, and over one year now since we've been homeowners.

In commemoration, I present to you:

An Exhaustive List of All of Our Home Improvements

Front Yard
planted flowers
installed new door knocker with OUR last name (no longer captive to the previous owners)
massacred insanely overgrown weeds that had grown thick, branch-like stems

Back Yard
put up clothesline
planted four prairie grasses to serve as a "natural fence"
planted lilac bush
installed rain barrel (working on the rain chain)
put out compost bin

Throughout the House
replaced gross taupe light switches, plates, and plugs with white switches/plates/plugs
ripped up cat-powdered "white" carpet and installed bamboo floors (in hall, living room, dining room, and all three bedrooms)
either replaced or painted scarred-up old molding with white
replaced sick cheap-shower-curtain-looking "drapes" in the basement windows with new ones

Dining Room
instantly removed repulsive 20-year-old "lace curtains" which had literally never been cleaned (I swear to you, this was the very first home improvement we made. I was barfing.)
covered chandelier sticks with patterned sleeves
painted awesome dark gray

Kitchen/Breakfast Nook
painted thrilling green
replaced cabinet handles and hinges from brass to smooth nickel-plated
removed stupid outdated "poofs" over windows
FINALLY ditched ugly one-side-carpet-from-the-early-90s, one-side-shower-curtain "sliding door blinds" and replaced with sheer gray striped curtains

Living Room
painted calming gray
removed dumb green sheer curtains
put up prairie flower decal

Hall
painted light gray
put up prairie grass decal

Main Bathroom
repainted MUCH better green and eliminated corny old border
replaced shower curtain
put up birch tree decals
replaced light fixture
installed cabinet
relocated towel bar

Guest Bedroom
painted bold orangish/red

Kiddo's Bedroom
painted soft green
rearranged curtains

Master Bedroom
painted "peach" (which was an utter mistake and looks the same as the yellow they originally had; TURQUOISE is on the horizon and will hopefully be done this week)
took down sick green blinds and replaced with white
installed new fan/light fixture
took down moldy old sliding closet doors

Master Bathroom
painted yellow (again, mistake, but no color fix on the horizon)
installed new light fixture
installed cabinet (can you believe these peeps seriously had no bathroom cabinet space IN EITHER?)

Downstairs Office
painted two walls terracotta
finally removed bordello cafe curtain

Include random fixes to the house in general (new garage door opening system, etc) and we were busy little bees. No, we didn't do ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED ourselves--we had some great helpers.

I LOVE BEING A HOMEOWNER!

Out.

Out of commission for the rest of this week. My gramma, Kiddo's great-gramma, passed away last night. We're headed back up north.

I am so grateful for all the time I got to spend with my gramma, especially these later years, and I am so happy my gramma got to know my baby.


I love you, Gramma. And I miss you.

Mi Vida

Another day, another ducat.

(All apologies to "Mi Vida Loca")

All my plants outside are coming to life, which is thrilling to a black-thumb like myself. I diss the previous owners of this house all the time, but I have to thank whoever it was that planted six kind tulip bulbs (three reddish pink, two dark purple, and one yellow) because I am harvesting them and bringing 'em in. Of course, the yellow tulip bulb washed underneath one of the faux-lilac bushes, so I had to bend the overgrown branches apart to pluck out the bloomed stem.

Always good to plot for erosion!

My black thumb is particularly proud of my REAL lilac bush, planted by my mom almost one solid year ago over Memorial Day weekend as my pregnant ass "supervised," because it is blooming its head off. Up at my parents' house, her lilac bush, carefully tended because it's a transplant from HER parents' house, didn't bloom for three years. AND MINE IS!

I am taking credit, but it has nothing to do with me.

Something that DOES have to do with me: in one short month, I am DECREASING TO HALF-TIME!

Another "I say 'Jump,' my employer asks 'How high?'" scenario, but really it comes down to the fact that I am not taking a reduction in my work load, just in the number of hours I am working. Which means no more scrambling to sit in front of the computer as soon as Kiddo goes down for her nap, only to find that there is nothing to do.

HALF-TIME! I am going from working 1.75x to 1.5x! 10 hours a week is a big deal!

I love my employer, and I love my baby. How did I get it so good?