"Chewbacca, stop chasing the dog"

That is at the top of the list of phrases I never thought I'd say. Chewbacca is infatuated with the dog. He will actually chase him around the house. Casey gets up and moves, Chewbacca follows him. He purrs and rubs up against Casey. The dog is much less than impressed with this and possibly thinks that Chewy's purring is growling. That's how Casey answers him. That doesn't deter Chewy, though. He continues to chase him. Sometimes running and attacking from above; sometimes sauntering and sneaking up from the back. Sigh. Chewbacca the dog chasing cat. Silly fuzzball.

I hate Michigan

grrrrr This state drives me absofreakinglutely insane. If you've never been to Michigan, you probably have no idea what "Michigan Turn" means. I have a hard time explaining it without a lot of really bad words, so I searched for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left If that page makes any sense to you, congratulations! You could go to Michigan. The funny thing is, the intersection on the bottom of the page is the one I was in today. Really. Grand Haven at 31 and Robbins Rd. What that picture doesn't show is that a bit farther down on Robbins Rd. is a turn into Meijer. I had to go to the Meijer gas station for a mystery shop today. I had to go to the bank ATM first, which is a bit farther down Robbins. So I executed the Michigan turn. Hey, I've been living here nearly a year. I can read road signs. Still don't understand the people that do that left turn when they have a red light, but hey. It's Michigan. When I came back, I figured I could just turn left onto the road to Meijer. No. I couldn't. Prohibited.

So I got to go through the intersection again. And since you can't turn left onto 31, that meant not only sitting at the red light to go through the intersection, but then to do a U-turn in the car dealership parking lot and wait for traffic to clear out so I could get back onto the road. That was 1 full red light. Then I sat there through a second red light waiting in line for the intersection. You'll be happy to know that you can actually go straight through the intersection. That meant I got to avoid the Michigan turn that time. Of course, by the time I got up to the intersection (seriously, I was like 5 car lengths away from the intersection) I was first in line to sit and wait for red light number THREE. I did manage to get through. Finally.

Then I headed home. I was already going ot be almost a half hour late picking the kids up from a birthday party. The mom had said it kind of ended at 4, but they'd be there so the kids were welcome to stay longer if I had more errands to do. But still, I did want to get them near 4. So, going through Grand Haven, there was quite a bit of traffic. Then it stopped. Dead stopped. Why? Oh, because of the freaking DRAWBRIDGE! Seriously. Not only did I get stuck in the intersection from HELL for over 15 minutes, I got to wait another 20ish for the drawbridge.

Thankfully, the parents didn't mind, they just kind of laughed.

Next time I hope to move to a normal state. Maybe Arkansas.

Pictures

The restart worked, so I can upload pictures. Yay! Here are a few of Emmie:

She's quite the active little thing. She and Cadence were playing with a little plastic ball this morning. It was so cute. Cadence was looking at it and then Emmie would intercept it and bat it across the room. Cadence was getting a bit upset with her. lol

And just because I have the memory card in and the uploading is working, I'll put a few more in here:

Cadence was helping me with the flashlight. It's so dark in our living room, I was using it for some backlighting while I recorded with our camcorder (which I love except for the fact that there's no light on it.)

Here's the kids on the S.S. Badger coming back from Wisconsin last week. Tevin screamed bloody murder when we got on the boat. Samantha had decided to ask "what happens if the boat sinks?" on the way to the boat. Tevin was convinced that the boat was going to sink. I had to drag him up the stairs kicking and screaming. He was screaming "the boat's going to sink! We're all going to die! I don't wanna die!" Yeah, that was fun. By the time we took off, though, he had met Devin. She's the childrens' director. She promised to read them stories and showed him where the playroom was. I am so thankful for her. I don't think I could have handled 4 hours of him screaming and miserable. Now he wants to go back on it.

I'm going backwards chronologically, so now I'm back to the zoo in Oshkosh the day before we left. This is the face Cadence made every time she saw an animal. I believe this was at the Elk exhibit.

This is us on the island (actually a peninsula) by my parents' house. Somewhere on a memory card I have pictures of the eagles that live there, but I don't know where that card is. Cadence is getting way too big to be in the Snugli, but it's impossible to bring a stroller on the island and we'd sent the back carrier home with Matt.

And this is my artistic masterpiece. We got Cadence's 1 year pictures done and Matt wanted a 10x13 because we have that of the other 2. When we were at Ikea (I *heart* Ikea) I got a huge frame that would fit all of them in it. It's not perfect, but a trip to Hobby Lobby for an 84 cent posterboard completed the look.

I'm in love

I never imagined I'd say this, but I am completely in love with this little black kitten. She's really playful but also SO loveable. We have been letting her run around the living room when we're in here. She still goes in her cage if we're sleeping/gone/not in the room, but otherwise we have been keeping her out to run around. Casey and she are getting used to each other. There's not nearly as much sniffing and hissing. She even pounced Casey for the first time today. heehee When she wants to relax, she jumps up by us and settles in. Right now she's purring on my chest. I had to take a break from typing because she wanted to be pet, but now she's nearly asleep so I'm allowed to do something else. It's so adorable to watch her and Cadence play together. They get along so well and Cadence really is very gentle with her.

I would add some pictures, but the site and/or my computer are not allowing me. Maybe tomorrow after a restart.

And my other love is another fluffy little kitten. We decided that since Sam is being very "mine mine mine" about Emmie, we'd get the other 2 a kitten too. *If* we found one that we liked. Well, I went to see the lady with the other rescue yesterday and fell in love. She is the sweetest 10 week old little Maine Coon. She was kind of the runt of the litter and wasn't eating, so she's been coddled quite a bit. The owner said she figures she'll be ready in a week or so, and if we want her then we can get her. I'm calling back next Wednesday. I'm so excited to be getting another little fluffball. A long haired one with color. :) I hope they play together nice. I think they both have kind of the same temperment and have both been quite extensively handled by humans. Shasta's gonna be even more upset, but I'm sure she'll get over it. I didn't even see her today. She hung out in the front room all day. Not the first time she's done that and I'm sure it won't be the last.

The kids are sleeping out in the living room tonight. I just hope Emmie doesn't keep them awake all night with her mewing. When the movie's done and it's quiet she'll probably calm down. I hope to be finished sanding the basement by then, but if that's to happen I should probably start.

Warning: Interaction may be hazardous to your sanity

Some people really should have a warning sign on them. For example, the old witch at the Humane Society. We went back on Monday to look at Bernie the St. Bernard. We brought Casey to see if they'd get along. They did, by the way. Beautifully. Bernie wanted to play, Casey wanted to sniff the whole yard and let all other dogs know that he had been there. But for the most part Casey ignored him. There was no aggression, not that I expected any. Puppies are generally pretty trusting, and Casey's never met a dog he didn't like. So, we put in an application for him.

I was a bit concerned that they would deny us based on us surrendering Baxter. I explained in great detail the circumstances surrounding the surrender. In the end, though, that didn't matter. I called later in the day and was told that she wouldn't give him to us because...get this...we live in the city. She wants him to go to someone on a country lot with "lots of room for him." I had done extensive research, as I do with most things. I had found out that since St. Bernards aren't overly active indoors, they will do fine in even an apartment with a small yard. This is providing that their owners take them for long walks at LEAST 2-3 times a week. Basically, by looking for a country home, this idiot at the Humane Society is looking for someone who will stick him outside and figure that's enough exercise for him. They won't walk him and he will end up with severe health problems. Not to mention that he is sitting at the Humane Society getting older. He's not being housebroken or socialized. He's sitting in his own filth on concrete being "cared for" by a complete idiot, a few people without personalities, and possibly 1 or 2 volunteers with a brain. Unfortunately, I believe at least one of those brains works primarily in the cat room.

So, yeah. No dog for us. I have no desire to look for another one right now. Someday I will be able to get my dream dog. Until then, we will have our 1 dog and 2 cats. Yep, 2 cats. After we found out that we couldn't get Bernie, Sam and I went in search of a kitten. Since I will not be getting an animal from the Humane Society run by the moron, we went to Petco and PetSmart, where some local rescues have cats. We didn't really find any that appealed to us there, but we did get the number of a vet clinic that had a little black kitten. Her (cat) mom had abandoned her and her brother when they were born and she has been hand raised and bottle fed since she was a day old. She's a sweetheart. We filled out the application and the girl who raised her (Tiffany) said she'd call our vet in the morning to make sure our pets are up to date on their shots and stuff and then if we wanted her the next day we could have her.

We got a call yesterday and were told we could have her if we wanted. I checked with Sam to make sure she was 100% sure this was the kitten she wanted. She said yes, so we went to get her. Emmie now resides in the big dog crate in our living room. She's not a big fan of Casey. Shasta doesn't like her. At all. She avoids the living room and if she does decide to come in here, she stands at the doorway and hisses, growls, and screams. I really hope that gets better.

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to explore the option of getting a second kitten. Sam's being kind of bratty, not letting Tevin do anything with "HER kitten". Maybe if we got a second kitten then a) they would play together and leave Shasta alone once we release them from the cage and b) Tevin and Cadence could have "their" kitten. We'll see. Another rescue finally called me back yesterday while we were gone getting Emmie. Maybe I'll call her back and see if she has any tiny kittens. Preferrably not black. It's hard to see the little stinker when she's hiding.

Our trip to the Humane Society

So, a few weeks ago Sam's dog Baxter ran away for the second time. The first time was 2 days before we left for Europe. We got him back that time. This time, however, we didn't intercept the people who found him before they took him to animal control. I had to go to animal control to get him back. However, they wanted $130! $45 to get him back and then EIGHTY FIVE DOLLARS for a "late licensing fee". I had NO idea we had to license our dogs. I looked for info when we moved here and couldn't find anything. Since in Wisconsin it's all dictated by municipalities, I checked with the township that we live in. There was absolutely nothing, so I assumed that we didn't have to. Well, apparently the county dictates it here. And if you don't license them before March, there is a $75 late fee.

Now, if it had been Casey, I would have shelled out the money without blinking an eye. But Baxter...couldn't do it. He had been getting progressively worse. He's deaf and has cataracts. He loved the kids, at least the 2 older ones. Whenever Cadence got anywhere near him, he got very aggressive. I tried to work with him, but he wasn't budging on the matter. Fine one second then enter Cadence and he was baring teeth and nipping. We obviously watch her closely when she's around any of the animals, but we can not have a dog that hates her, doesn't respect us on the matter, and is pretty untrainable.

So, we surrendered him. I cried for a full half hour before making the final decision. I was so upset. Not because I would miss him (I'm so embarrassed to admit that I was happy to have him gone. I hope he found a good family) but because he was Samantha's dog. She was SOOOO upset. I called Matt, and my brother, and my mom...I just needed validation that I was doing the right thing, I guess. In the end I haven't regretted it. In the phone call to my mom, though, she told Sam that we'd get her a kitten.

We were getting ready to go to Wisconsin for 3 weeks, so we told her we'd look when we got back. While in Wisconsin, I was still doing research, though. I found some cute kittens at the Harbor Humane Society about a half hour south of here. I put in an application on Thursday and then called to see if they'd gotten it and if we could come see kittens this weekend. I was told that they were denying our application because we had surrendered an animal in the last year. I was really upset. Did they not care WHY we surrendered him? He was threatening our baby. We tried to work though it. It didn't work. They put me through to someone that I could appeal the decision with. Her voicemail said "...I'll call you back when I have the time." Um, yeah. I didn't see that call coming back soon but left the message anyway.

Yesterday we came back to Michigan. This morning I woke up and decided that I would take a trip to our local Humane Society. We had visited them just before going to Wisconsin and they had some really cute kittens that weren't quite ready. I found out that those kittens hadn't made it. :( There was another adorable little fluffy orange guy that I really liked, though. Not love, but enough to call Matt and tell him to bring the kids. They came over and nobody seemed really enthused about him. He was very loud and frisky and not Siamese, which apparently is a deal-breaker for Matt. Sicne I don't particularly want a Siamese, I was worried we'd never get through that problem. We decided to just keep looking. There are a lot of places to adopt kittens. I actually had e-mailed someone from Craigslist Thursday about her kittens and hadn't heard back.

So we were leaving. To get to and from the cat room, you have to walk through the very stinky, sad, LOUD room of barking dogs. I hadn't even looked at the dogs on my way through and really wasn't this time. Then I glanced over and saw HIM.

HE is a St. Bernard puppy. OMG! He is about 11 weeks old and aDORABLE! I expected Matt to say "yeah, good for you. He's going to be huge." But, after 10 years he still has some surprises in him. He was as impressed as me. He bent over to say hi. This is the sweetest puppy in the world. Really. He's so calm and the only time he barked was when Matt stopped petting him and he wanted him to continue. lol His intake form said he's good with kids. What the HELL was this little (um, yeah, not so little I guess) guy doing at the Humane Society? We asked the lady about him and he said his owners gave him up because they just didn't want him. Say what? Okay, so he needs to be housebroken. He was 7 weeks when he came in. What 7 week old *is* housebroken? Really. It took us probably 2-3 weeks to fully potty train Casey. And that was working with him all the time.

They were closing down for the day, but we asked when they open on Monday. 11am. Okay, we'll be there. She said we could come in Monday and play with him in the yard and then if we wanted we could fill out an application. We'd know by the end of Monday if it was approved.

Matt and I obsessed over this dog all. day. long. Every time one of us was quiet, the other knew what we were thinking about. At one point I said "so what would you name him?" Matt laughed and said I was going to think it was sick. I told him to just say it. "Bernie." I burst out laughing. That is exactly what my mind had been calling him. Bernie the kitty. haha

Matt is currently cleaning like mad to make room for him. We still have the crate set up from when Chico the Chihuahua came to visit us awhile back. We were talking about whether St. Bernards do "fetch" earlier and magically Cadence found a tennis ball and started throwing it. Fate? hmmm

All things happen for a reason, yes? We went looking for a kitten and found a SAINT BERNARD. This is the one dog I always said I *will* own. A puppy. At the Humane Society. That we wouldn't have even been visiting had it not been for the mean Humane Society lady rejecting our application and not calling back. And an extra bit of irony? The lady with the kittens on Craigslist e-mailed me back this afternoon. Had she e-mailed yesterday or this morning, I probably wouldn't have even gone to the Humane Society.

So, yeah. On our trip to the humane society we found the dog of my dreams. Bernie the Kitty. Now I just hope they approve us and we get him. I'm in love already. :)

Our European Vacation

Alright, it's officially been over a month since we've been home from Europe. Luckily, we decided to keep up with some notes each day. Matt actually took over the writing of the notes after day 1, since he seemed to have more time while I was planning or calling the kids. I'm going to make an attempt to actually get those edited, posted, and add pictures. I'll likely do it a day or 2 at a time. Maybe each city separate. So I guess this would be a "stay tuned" because I am officially working on it. :)

While you're waiting, though, here's a bit of pre-trip for you. No pictures to add, just words.

I suppose all good trips start with the pre-trip planning. Trust me; there was a LOT of pre-trip planning involved in this vacation. While I had intentions of documenting everything from the beginning, that didn’t end up happening. I would bore my friends and family with every detail, however for some reason I didn’t think to start typing a “trip report” of sorts. Better late than never, though, right? (This is the procrastinator’s law. Being president of Procrastinator’s Anonymous, I’m very familiar with it.)

Hitting the high points of the planning, I’ll start at the beginning. It was actually over a year ago that a friend of mine said she was going on a Disney cruise for her 5th anniversary this March. The thought of going on a cruise to celebrate our 10th anniversary was too tempting to resist. I asked if she minded if we crashed the cruise. She thought it was a great idea. So a 4 day Disney cruise it was. I booked it and put the $400 deposit down last spring. After I had Cadence in June, I was talking to her about the cruise and she said that she hadn’t wanted to tell me, what with me being a fragile and irrational pregnant woman, but they were cancelling the cruise due to budget constraints. I was bummed, but okay with that. Matt and I started to choose other dates to travel. We had been going on the cruise that departed the day before their actual anniversary, but it was a more expensive week. We started looking at dates. But being a procrastinator, I didn’t act on anything. In August, my “sister” Mariana came for our 10th class reunion. Mariana was our foreign exchange student from Brazil our senior year of high school. We got to know each other and became very good friends, so when she needed a home for the third part of the year, I begged my parents to volunteer and they said yes. Ta da! Instant sister/very best friend. We haven’t seen much over the years, but she is still one of the people I love most in this world. She is now living in Birmingham, UK with her husband Alessandro. Unfortunately, Ale got stuck in Brazil in August when he was supposed to be coming to the US with her. I was pretty upset that we didn’t get to meet him. One night Mariana and I were talking and she said I should come to Europe instead of going on the cruise. The idea was planted and it was just up to convincing Matt. His only stipulations were that he wouldn’t have to drive and that he could see castles. Easy enough.

Then the planning started. 6 months of planning. It felt a lot like “hurry up and wait”. I was trying to figure out all the details, we had to get the dates down, and then had to make sure we could afford it. I wanted to try to hit as many places as we could. I was aware that we weren’t going to see all of the sights in every place, and that was fine with me. We really wanted to hit the biggies. We wanted to hit London, Paris, Rome, and then Barcelona since I’d been to Spain but not that far north. I did tons of research. I kept my eyes on plane fare. With Mariana’s help, I looked into packages to take Eurostar to Paris. Luckily, the plane tickets we booked with British Airways included a FREE 2 night hotel stay. I was thrilled about that and chose a nice hotel in Rome for our free stay. I’m glad I did, or we might not have gone to Rome. Really, I didn’t expect to fall in love with it and as the money started to run out, I would have called that off. I could go into all the details of planning the trip, but I won’t bore everyone. I will just say that eventually everything did get booked, we had passports, and we had secured my mom to watch the kids for the 2 weeks. We had a couple thousand dollars invested into tickets, our plane tickets and hotel rooms were booked, and we were going to Europe!

Loyal dog, crazy owner

When we got our dog Casey about 6 1/2 years ago, we saw potential. His tiny puppy face was so adorable. He was sleepy and so sweet when we went to the farm to pick him out. His father is a pure bread Siberian Husky and his mom is a black lab mix that wandered into the yard and hooked up with the crazy Husky. The puppies that resulted were interesting. There was one white one that looked just like his daddy, a chubby black boy, 2 mixed color girls, and Casey. He looks the most like his sisters. I guess I would have preferred a girl, but they were both spoken for. The owners were planning to keep the white one, as they were getting rid of the dad and keeping the mom. That left us with the roly black one and the little guy that was sleeping in the box. We woke up the little guy and he was the only one that didn't chew on Matt's shoe. lol They were only 6 1/2 weeks old, but the owners assured us that they were weaned and fine to go on their merry ways. We chose the sleepy guy and paid a $75 adoption fee. As we let him say goodbye to his family, his mom jumped up, put her paws on Matt's shoulders, and gave him a lick on the cheek. She then gave an affectionate nudge to her first son to leave the nest, and walked back to her other babies. That should have been our first indication. We soon discovered that he was sleeping because he had been terrorizing the whole place the entire day.

Wasn't he just too adorable? Who could say no to that face? Oh, yeah. The people whose shoes, rocking chair, and camcorder cable he decided to chew on. We said no a lot that first year. He was great at staying in the yard for awhile. Then he started wandering a bit. We had to tie him up. Unfortunately, he is a husky. He likes to run. He did that a LOT until rather recently. When we moved to Chilton when he was a bit over a year old, I vividly remember watching a lady walking down the road with a pretty dog following right behind her as if on a leash. Except that he wasn't on a leash. And it was our dog! We met a lot of neighbors with "I'm sorry, he likes to run. He's friendly, just kind of dumb. Could you, um, grab his collar please? Thanks!" He was great with the cat, since we had her a couple years before we got him. He was kind of raised by her. They're practically the same color and get along rather well. This is them back about 5 years when we lived in Chilton (I had somehow not had the date on my camera set right, so ignore that date in the corner. It was 2004.)

In those eyes we always saw the love and loyalty. He has food allergies and itches and/or gets the runs if he eats the wrong things. He doesn't do fetch. He does do tug. He loves to play tug. With ropes, socks, tennis balls...yeah, he's odd. He likes to be vacuumed, which happens quite frequently during the shedding seasons since he sheds a LOT. And he is phenomenal with the kids. He doesn't tug hard with them, he tolerates them climbing on him to a point, and I truly believe that if any of his family were in trouble he would do what dogs do to help us.

One of his quirks has always been bedtime. He likes to go to bed by about 10pm. However, very rarely will be go to sleep if anyone is not in their beds. He will sit and stare at us or lay next to us and sigh if we're not going to bed when he wants. He has grown to a rather chunky 89 pounds and doesn't get walked enough. He's never turned down a walk, but I know that after midnight he thinks I'm crazy if I try to take him for a walk with me. And that brings us to tonight and the title of this entry.

I am up to a 40 pound weight loss and very excited about that. I have let my diet slip a lot more lately, simply because I've discovered that I can make some concessions and still lose. Exercise is a key component to that working, though. Today I had a horrible migraine and after Samantha's softball game I didn't feel like cooking so we ate at Pizza Ranch. I did well at first. A large salad, some fruit, and a piece of chicken. Then it went downhill. A yummy piece of pepperoni pizza, 4 breadsticks, and a piece of dessert pizza left me feeling really guilty. When Matt went to bed at midnight, I tried but couldn't sleep. At 12:45 I decided that since it's around 70 degrees out and I love the peace of nighttime, I wanted to take a walk. It's generally agreed that when I go walking after dark I should take the dog with me. Well, the dog and my cell phone. I was laying in bed with Matt and Casey was happily snoozing next to the bed. I got up and casually said "Casey, do you want to go for a walk?" At the word "walk" his ears naturally perk up. He lifted his head and his eyes said "oh, yeah right. You're going to walk? Now?" I got up and he cautiously rose to see if I was serious. I got out socks and he cocked his head as if to ask me. When I got my tennis shoes, he was practically smiling. He was awake and ready to go. He stood by me while I got ready and I think if he had thumbs he would have put his leash on himself. I grabbed my cell phone, MP3 player, a flashlight, and we headed out.

We set a good pace. He's become quite the good walker. I use a 4 foot leash and he walks next to me so nicely it barely tugs. I heard him start breathing harder about 10 minutes in. At 15 minutes he was giving me the "alright, is anyone else really warm?" look. At 20 minutes his tongue was lolled out to the side and I noticed him falling behind me just the slightest bit. We got back to our road after 25 minutes. I expected him to be rushing to get to our yard since he was breathing like he'd just run a marathon. In his defense, it was rainy today and it's still quite humid out. But really. Out of shape much, Dog? We got home at the 30 minute mark and to his credit I will say that as we came up the driveway he gave me the "what? I can keep going. Let's go some more" look. Since I happen to like the dog and don't want to give him a heart attack, I declined and we came inside. We have been home nearly an hour at this point and he's STILL panting hard next to me. But giving me the look asking if we're going to go out more, or if we can go to bed now.

It's as if I can see in his eyes what he's thinking. "Seriously, crazy human. I do love to walk, but could you do it at a normal time? Maybe during the daylight? I mean, if you need a flashlight it's probably too dark." I love my dog and I love that he's so loyal and wonderful. But I do need to get him in shape. I wonder if he'd get used to 1am walks if we did it every night.

Joy

Right now I'm feeling rather calm and happy. In the 8 days since we got back from Europe, I've been struggling to get back to life. I came home with a souvenir cold that I'm finally getting over. I had been kind of out of the swing of mothering for 16 days, which I'm embarrassed to admit left me very disoriented when I came home and thought about getting back to the primary caregiver role. My mom was wonderful and stayed until today to help me recoup and re-acclimate. She helped me clean the house and helped us put up sheetrock in the basement. Last night I spent the night with dozens of elementary school girl scouts at the zoo.


And today I got back home and my baby girl was so happy to see me. (she always is, but I never get tired of seeing her happiness.) She was clapping with open hands! Before today it's always just kind of been getting her hands near each other. And even though she was crabby at me, likely due to her first tooth finally trying to make an appearance at 11 months, I felt content. I'm now able to look back and see that I have had some great things happen in the last few weeks. Yes, going to Europe was at the top of the list. But I also got a B in Spanish, so I am finished with college! And as of Friday I am down 28.6 pounds! I'm starting to really see it. I am fitting (well) into shorts from a couple years ago. I no longer look 9 months pregnant at all times. And I can see my cheekbones again! I looked in the mirror tonight and smiled because I felt good. It has been a really. long. time. since that has happened.

Maybe I'm easy to please, because it doesn't seem like much; but I'm sitting in a clean house watching Grey's Anatomy and thinking about my baby clapping, my older kids being relatively well behaved today, never having to go to college again, and not having to buy a larger wardrobe for the summer and I am happy.

Numbers

I'm definitely a numbers person. It's usually centered around money, but I've been thinking this week and there are a lot of significant numbers lately.

29. That would be my age. My birthday was April 5. I'm not sure if next year will seem more "important" or anything seeing that I'm leaving a decade, but this one sure wasn't that impressive. We were at my parents' house. We had to go to a memorial service on Saturday night and then Matt and I went to eat, shopped at Wal-Mart, and hit the casino for a few minutes (see numbers 40 and 30 later) before we went to see my dad play in the band for awhile. Matt had to leave Sunday to get back to work for Monday. I was sad that he didn't stay for my birthday, but there's not a whole lot we can do if we want money coming in. My sister-in-law made AMAZING chocolate cakes which made me really wish I wasn't on a diet. I restrained myself to a piece on Sunday and then a half piece on Monday. I could have probably eaten both 9x13 pans of it and still wanted more.

40. The amount of money we lost at the casino.

30. The time in minutes that it took us to lose said $40. Not a great night for gambling. I'm almost proud of myself, though, as we had another $20 that we brought in as the amount we would be willing to lose. Since we were never up more than a quarter at a time, we decided to cut our losses early.

5. The number of Spanish classes I have left before my final exam. Yikes! I really really really hope I get an A or B in the class, because then I get my degree! I took my oral final exam today and she (the conversational Spanish professor, unfortunately she isn't the professor for the class and doesn't give me my grade) said that I was the best in the class and got a perfect score! Talk about an ego boost.

15. The number of days until we go to Europe. GULP. I don't have anything packed, my house is a disaster, and I still need to shop a bit to figure out what I'm going to wear. I was really hoping to lose a bit more weight before leaving, but I suppose if I really wanted to do that, I would have had the willpower to avoid the pizza, nachos, cake, pie, and various other "bad" things I inhaled last week.

17. The number of pounds I've lost so far. Being the instant gratification person I am, it doesn't seem significant enough, but I'm still very happy that my jeans are looser and I'm feeling much better. Now I just have to get back on track with taking my vitamins and eating (or drinking rather) at regular intervals. 17 down, 82 to go...hmmm that doesn't have the ring to it I was hoping.

There are more numbers floating around in my head, but on this lovely day that my children are at school/sitter, I need to be getting errands run. I lost all day yesterday to a migraine and I now have a migraine hangover, but a mother's work is never done, I guess. Perhaps I will get better at blogging; maybe even adding some entries from our European vacation. I keep thinking that eventually I will have more time; or the perception of more time. Probably not, but it sure is a nice thought.