1. I got a tetanus shot this week and my arm still hurts like crazy, so I spent most of yesterday on the couch.

2. Watched Eurovision through the magic of the internet. I'm always amazed that the streaming works so well, given how many people must be using it, whereas the much more U.S.-based mlb.tv never seems to work at all. Anyway, great show.

3. Today I am going hiking up a very small mountain. I think I need to get something more suitable for hiking than blue jeans.

1. Feeling a little ripped off this Mother's Day. It's my first without my mom, so that's tough, plus I am 39 weeks pregnant and a little extra emotional. Add to that that I'm pretty much watching my 19 month old alone all day and I'm just feeling bummed and a bit unappreciated.

2. C section scheduled for Wednesday unless I go into labor before it, and I'm feeling nervous. A woman on my birth month message board just died from a blood clot 5 days after her c section.

3. Trying to be more positive; I have so much for which I am so grateful. But these hormones are fierce.

≡ Click to see image ≡
1. I just visited my 5 yr old daughter. I gave her a 1/4 guitar. (it had to be pink). And I gave her a necklace. (hey, I don't get to see her for 6 weeks. So yes I spoil her a bit with gifts). We watched her favourite movie (Frozen). It's strange to see a 5 yr old so taken up with romantic attachment. I only grew up with a brother. And we'd make retching noises when a movie ventured into kissing stuff. Going through hardship and powering through for a girl: awesome. But we were rather hazy on what the ending would be like. I have mixed feelings about that focus on romantic partners so early in life. But Disney very deftly danced around that in the movie. Clever people.
When I had to leave because my 3 hrs were up I didn't close the door because I didn't want her to see me choke up. I don't think she heard the strangled quality to my voice when I said "dag liefje".

2. I told my colleagues that I know americans that watch Eurovision. They were astounded. :-)

3. I'm practising my soprano saxophone. It's amazing how much knowledge you easily gather through internet forums on what types of saxophone are good, mouthpieces, good playing technique etc (embouchure!). I played the saxophone as a teenager and had a shitty saxophone and shitty technique even though I had a teacher! I'm so envious of kids growing up with the internet.
There's something addictive in looking for 2nd hand saxophones. I'm looking either for a japanese tenor or an old french-american one. As cheap as possible. Since I'm trying to combat my gear lust. I don't want to be the typical middle aged guy with an expensive professional music instrument that doesn't match his skills.

4. I've discovered the tv series Silicon Valley. The way they off handedly present hilarious details reminds me of Veep or Arrested Development.

Oh and amro sterkte with the delivery!

1. Daughter and her partner are visiting for the weekend. We went out to her favorite ramen place for lunch yesterday, then to the U of O Art Museum, which currently has some pretty neat stuff, including a Van Gogh. Daughter's GF is an art major so she really liked a lot of it. Win.

2. Then last night for some reason Daughter dug out a lot of old VHS home movies which I had not seen in years and years. I had totally forgotten a lot of the stuff on them, but it was fun. The GF seemed to be into it, also.

3. I have been doing a lot of HIIT workouts on top of volleyball, usually on the same morning because that is just how the gym schedule is. My cardiovascular system, muscles, and waistline love this. My joints, not so much. I overdid it on Friday and have been paying for it all weekend.

Best of luck, amro. C Sections are surgery, but they are also pretty routine.

1. Last week was such a bad week. (I was out of wakey pills, so my medicine routine was all fucky, but that's no excuse.) I skipped 3 days of work, Shimmy Mob, and my dance class. I'm really hoping this week is better.

2. I've been feeling really lost and out of sorts, spiritually. I really need to schedule a time in my day/week to really spend some quality time nurturing that part of myself.

3. Next week my ACA application is due and I haven't started it. Oops. And then I go camping. Yay! Beer in the woods!

danf, I think van Gogh paintings (especially the later ones) are something special to see for real. Generally I'm rather lukewarm about seeing paintings in person. Often high resolution photographs are a much better, undistracted experience. But for me van Gogh is the exception. I don't know whether it has to do with the colour or the texture or...
If you're interested in van Gogh I can recommend visiting the Netherlands. The collection in Amsterdam and the one in the Kröller-Müller museum are the biggest and second biggest in the world...

1. It's been a lovely weekend! The weather has been so nice, THIS is what I need from now on. We were out and about yesterday, and same today. I do have a group paper to finish up by tomorrow night, though, so I'll have to jump on that once Oliver takes his nap. Last class of the semester tomororw night! Than done with school until after Memorial Day (and our holiday weekend trip to Sesame Place).

2. Stynxno is all done with schoolwork, seminary graduation Wednesday! His family comes to town on Tuesday night. He has his first church job interview later this month.

3. We signed on a rental house in NJ on Friday. I'm excited to be living in a house! I'm excited to be able to do a few projects; first up, painting the wood paneling in the family room & the peeling garage door, and sprucing up the yard.

Yay for the good things going on with people!

1. Weekend has been pretty good. Husband has had to work all weekend with a conference so there has been a lot of kiddo-Mama time. Although Saturday morning she had girl scouts, so I sat in a cafe for 2 hours and read. Lovely.

2. this morning I ran a 4 mile race with a personal best time (9.02 minute miles) and then husband dropped kiddo off en route to work, and she ran in a kids race. Then she took me for cupcakes (which she paid for, with her easter money) for mother's day. Then we went to the Mets game. Left at the end of the 8th inning as it looked like they were about to lose, and apparently that was enough of an impetus for them to tie it up for extra innings and ultimately win.

3. Heading out tonight to watch GoT at a bar with a friend. Nice way to end the weekend.

I worked this weekend per usual. Managed to almost catch up on laundry too.

I've been busting butt all week to spruce up Mom's house: getting neglected spring yard cleaning done and planting a few seasonal flowers in preparation for bringing her home for a visit Sunday afternoon.

She wasn't eager to spend as much time at home as I expected since she didn't feel too spry today, but at least she was able to see her kitty and have a glass of champagne. I am thankful since it could have been a very different mother's day had her illness and surgery turned out badly.

Hi all! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, amro. I totally get the embittered -- but my Mom is dead -- feeling about M's Day, and it was even worse when it was followed by Father's Day right after my dad's death, but I promise that eventually that does get better.

Seconding jouke that Van Gogh in person is incredibly powerful, and that the Netherlands' Van Gogh museums are wonderful.

Our weekend:

1. Ran 12 miles -- last long run before half marathon next weekend -- yesterday, and it was tough. Nothing like 9 minute miles for me! Sore today but pleased with myself for getting it done. My dog came along for the first 6 miles -- then I dropped him off as I think 12 miles is too much for a pup -- and he had a blast.

2. We went to see Captain America last night, accompanied by appropriate popcorn crunching. A fun summer movie plus I completely agree with the message that peace and security is never worth the loss of freedom.

3. Today I'm doing laundry and catching up on financial inputting, and also spent a few wasted hours doing another jigsaw puzzle on my Ipad app. I LOVE jigsaw puzzles.

1) My hub traveled for work all last week and got back late Friday night. Kid missed him a lot; so did I.

2) It felt like I never stopped all week; up before 6, get ready for work and get the kid ready for school, take him to school, work all day, pick up kid, spend time playing with him, scrounge up something for dinner, get kid to bed, throw in a load of laundry, collapse. Do it again x5.

3) Time to make the donuts again tomorrow but we had such a beautiful weekend. Yard work, grocery shopping, chores, but also time to read a book outside and admire everything blooming in the yard. Then dinner tonight at my sister's house which was fun. They cooked steelhead trout on the grill which looked like salmon but tasted much more delicate. I brought home some for lunch tomorrow. I wish I had one more day off from work.

(bearwife! We are running half marathons the same weekend! I will be running nowhere near 9 minute miles for the half... I left it all out there today)

1. Went shopping at Macy's (they had a big one-day sale) with Jon today and got him a nice suit and accessories for his sister's wedding in two weeks. It's a black suit, alla Reservoir Dogs. "They'll think you're the limo driver," I teased him, but really he looks very handsome. The slaesman was enough to make me believe in angels, he was so wonderful. It was like having our own personal shopper. Now if only either of us can figure out how to tie a tie.

2. I have to administer a city test to my students this week that will count as 20% of my overall teacher evaluation. No stakes for students, high stakes for me (I am allowed to count the test in their grade, however, which should provide some extra motivation -- I'll only count it as bonus credit, so it can help their grade, but not hurt it, but they don't need to know that). One essay, 20%. I have to interrupt our class books/regular curriculum to prep them and administer the test. My juniors have already passed their state Regents, most with 80 or better, and just completed their AP Literature exam. Can we say superfluous? Ah, well. Pearson's gotta pad its bottom line some more, and the DOE's gotta root out all those "ineffective" teachers damaging our children's future. Sigh. And we teachers get to wield the hatchet, grading each others' students' essays (with the so-called preassessment, we graded our own -- yeah). They really haven't thought all this through. I think, with our new contract, there may be some other options.

3. Sent mom chocolate covered strawberries and a Teddy bear from Edible Arrangements for Mother's Day. She loved it. Jon and I visited her last weekend, when Jon had a day off, and my brothers were with her today. I'll go up to CT next weekend, on Saturday. Sundays are tough travel days (4+ hour round trip), with work the next day. She sounded very happy on the phone, though. She's at a new Assisted Living place and seems to like it. The other one was nice, too, but this one's even nicer -- bigger apartment, and better food, she says.

It went by way fast, mostly because I tried to go without my chocolate coffee. So it was kind of a blur.

Saturday I started packing all the books. I'm up to "book box 10" in the inventory app, and there's still hundreds to go. My husband just does not like to get rid of books.

Older Boy is in the kid choir at church, so we went to the service and had a great time.

After church I fell asleep in my recliner. But the kids kept doing their chores, which was nice.

Hope you're doing better, amro. (hugs)

(gaspode! Where is your race? (I'm at the Portland Rock n' Roll) I do not believe I have ever hit 9 minute mile, so my running baseball cap remains doffed to you!)

Amro, I'm feeling some of that anxiety a little more myself. We were at a birthday party on Saturday (roller rink, where neither of us were skating and I had to limit my pizza intake, booooo) and met a very nice fellow preggo who was about to go in for an induction on Tuesday... because her previous pregnancy ended in a stillbirth at 7 months. (I'm 27 weeks today.) But she seemed really positive right then, and there were two other new babies there who were doing just great. So... here we go.

This weekend we spent soooooo much money. My joke is that anything is permissible as long as it's for the baaaaaybeeeee, so next up is an infant Jagermeister machine :P We went to the aforementioned birthday party and then bought a new TV, upgrading 18" in the process. Our original TV was kind of fritzing out anyway, but I was glad I could help make that purchase happen because it was one of the few "thank you for being a stunningly amazing husband" tokens I could think of :P

And our new Dyson vacuum arrived earlier in the week. Wheeeee!

So yesterday we finally took the two-hour drive down to Ikea for nursery furniture. It was so humid that we were pretty wiped by the drive itself, so we slogged through and then Manly Husband, Strong Like Bull managed to get all six 50-pound-plus flat packs upstairs when we got home. He did all that while recovering from what may have been an attack of The Gout, so I am glad he made it through.

And then I put one of them together, even though he told me to leave it alone, because oh man do I love assembling Ikea furniture... but this one wanted me to actually MEASURE how the counter piece fit, and I was all "Yeah, I'll do that tomorrow or whatever." Check back in a few weeks on that one.

I blistered my heels so bad on my hike that I'm having difficulty walking. Owie.