Evening Walks

Our little routine is pretty loose right now, but we seem to have an evening one fairly well mapped out. Bryan gets home from work and we all lounge around on our bed, enjoying the chance to unwind all together. Then, he either takes the dogs and O for a run/bike ride, or we decide it's too hot and that can wait until later. If that's the case, we take O and go for some sort of outing - lately it's been looking for fishing holes for Bryan when the evening gets cooler. It's fun to pack up the car and head out for a drive - there is something about Indiana in the early summer evening that is so beautiful - the way it looks, even the way it smells. Reminds me a lot of early summer in Pennsylvania. Last night we drove down to the little river by our house - the White Lick, and Bryan fished while I strolled with O. The peonies out here in Indiana bloom every summer like crazy - there's so many of them, they just fall over themselves. One of these falls I'll get it together enough to plant some at our house...

One Month In..

Week 4 is upon us. I'm still pretty tired, and still feel pretty desperate when I'm up with her in the middle of the night and NOTHING will prompt her to sleep, but good moments are outweighing the bad i think, and we're sort of flirting with an attempt at a routine, so these things are all happy bullet points to hold on to.. I get down way to easy (this has always been the case, not just a baby -related syndrome), and have to constantly remind myself that all is not lost, the world isn't ending, and that this too shall pass (whatever "this" happens to be). ironically, i know that i love this little newborn olive, and that i love the cuddly, small stage that she is in, and that she won't be this small again.. its that balance again - trying to find it is always a challenge.

bryan's parents were out this past week, and how nice it was to have them here - we did NOTHING besides look at olive and keep strange hours - grandma and grandpa helping out with late night rocking and shooshing. olive is lucky to have such a great set of grandparents from both sides - all of whom are happy to hop on a plane and come and visit us, hold her when she's doing the mysterious baby fussing, and get her to sleep only the way grandparents know how..

i think summer has arrived in indy - we've started closing up the house during the day, eating large amounts of ice cream and Popsicles, and listening to milo do some non-stop panting at night. I've got two books open at the moment - both great ones for early summer: Botany of Desire (sent for Bryan from my mom, but I've stolen it for the moment) and Half-Magic, a book my dad read to me during the summers when I was younger..

Today has been lazy, but I'm still not sure how it's almost 5pm already. I'm not sure how moms do anything - how do you have energy to do anything? our biggest activity today was a walk around the block - laundry is done but not put away (about 4 loads), dishes dirty, dogs not walked...

First Day Home By Ourselves

So today is our first day officially home by ourselves - big deal for us! So far, Olive and I are both intact and doing okay. We didn't have much of a schedule - i find the goal for these first days is to shoot for low standards and then be happy when we successfully complete them! Today we've put away laundry, straightened up a little, and took a trip to the doctor, where we tested my blood pressure - 120/77! So much lower than it has been the past few weeks - this is great news. Now we're just waiting for Bryan to get home to have a quiet evening - maybe I'll sneak a quick nap in beforehand..

Olive is sleeping peacefully now, napping on our spare bed/couch like the princess and the pea. .

welcome Olive Magdalena Fine

born April 27th, 2010 @ 8.22pm

6 lbs., 5 oz 19.5 inches long

Full day ahead of us

Yesterday we attacked our Saturday with gusto, with me up on the roof cleaning out the gutters and bryan piecing together our guest bathroom. everything here in indiana (maybe the entire midwest) grows so quickly! Our yard must be mowed at least once a week, though it would probably benefit from two times, and the gutters! Wow - i had no idea vegitation could grow like that - we had been a little lax during the winter, and then when a big storm came, a big gust put tons of leaves and debris in them and all of a sudden we had more growth in the gutters than in the garden.

Speaking of our garden, i think we're going to forgo planting our main one this summer, which is kind of sad - we both look forward to the fresh veggies so much, but this year Bryan tried to start ours early from seed and they were doing great until they had two run ins with puppy Delilah and then got rain soaked when we moved them outside. I guess we'll redouble our efforts for next year.

Yesterday we had planned on having some friends over for a bbq, and we scurried around, cleaning, dusting, arranging this and that - only to decide to go to their house at the last second :) Okay by us really, the clean house was a treat to come home to.

Now I'm up and going to work for a little bit on class preparation and Bryan is in the next room, enjoying the sunny morning by sleeping. .

Sunday Morning

Got on up and on the road early this morning for a run - did about 3 miles, which isn't a ton, but it felt good and i dont think either i or the doggies wanted to run much more in the heat. Summer running is tricky here - Bryan doesn't mind running in the warm weather, but it kills me so i have to try and get up early to beat the sunshine. Doggies did good - only 2 barks along the way - one at a man on a bicycle (delilah) and one at a man running towards us (delilah). Now they chewing on ice cubes and trying to cool down.

My agenda today looks like errands, and some work, and then i must watch federer and nadal in the french open final - those two are great. seriously - what a rivalry.

Slow Saturday

Saturday here and somehow its already become the evening. I had such big plans for today - clean the house, do laundry, and mainly to work on my classes that i will be teaching in the fall. sadly, nothing but laundry got done today - i was so lazy! We've been having extremely strange weather out here lately, so i will partially blame that - when i woke up this morning and until about 2.30 this afternoon, it was pouring so hard our road in front of the house was covered. But now its beautiful outside, and the sunshine and the dogs seem to be begging me to stop being a couch potato. Maybe its because June is our slow month - we've got visitors all through July and then a trip home in August planned, then the day we get back its back to work and classes right away.. maybe im just cherishing this down time while i have it??

Bryan's in new york for the weekend - actually new york and boston. he's got such a good adventure planned - New York for the Belmont Stakes race, then catching the chinatown bus to Boston to see the Mariners play the Red Sox, and then to a sports bar to participate in the home town buzz while the celtics play the lakers. He's with the same buddies that he went to an AirSupply concert with this last February, so he'll probably have some good stories to tell when he gets back.

i made a list the other day of all the things that are "on my plate" - sometimes when i do this it makes me feel less stressed: after writing them down, i dont need to keep them in my head anymore. I really want to learn to manage stress better, and how to keep my expectations and what i think others think better under control. Anyway, it seems like I've got several things sort of looming in front of me, that i really want to be good, manageable experiences, and I'm trying to come up with ways of going about them that ensure that. Does that make any sense at all?

Here's a quick catch up about what we've been up to since the middle of winter:
*Visited bryans family in san jose and loved every minute of it - it felt so good to have california sunshine on me!
*Ran in the Saint Pattys Day Dash in seattle with my family!
* Bryan and I our first 1/2 marathon in May, with both of us finishing in better times than we had thought - we're now signed up for another one in October and in the process of trying to find bicycles to do some biking events.
*most exciting of all, bryan and i got engaged in april! he proposed on my birthday and we're thinking aug 09 for the day. farther away then we both wanted, but think its the most do-able short of just going to city hall. right now we're busy trying to find a place where we'll be pronounced mr. and mrs. it seems hard to believe that i even just wrote that - that we'll be man and wife!such excitement.. and all the years in front of us. ..