Taking a bit of a break

I'm taking a short break from blogging to spend time with family and think about the direction(s) I want to take this blog in during the new year. I'll be back in a few days!

Brrrrr.... it's cold!

Poor doggies. Their water dish keeps freezing over, and every few hours I go outside, dump out the ice block, and fill it up again. It's very cold outside. No fights to get the kids to wear gloves and keep their hoods up today!

New Resolution

More of this, and less of that deliciously sinful fudge. I'm going to get serious about exercising and getting back in shape again. Yes, I'm doing this now, three days before Christmas and all of its associated gluttony. ;)

Fudge

This is some sort of conspiracy. I'm trying to be good and eat a minimal amount of junk food, and yet I've received two gifts of fudge - yummy, good, homemade stuff - in the last few days. Can't let good fudge go to waste, can I? I have to try a little bit so I can be truthful when I say how delicious it was in my thank you notes, right?

I can share it with Hubs, Big Girl, and Two, of course, but they've received even more sweets themselves - and Christmas isn't even here yet!

What a week!

This week has been so busy with all kinds of pre-holiday activities, health issues, and more. Two and Big Girl both missed a day of school while Two had a short-lived stomach bug (didn't want to chance sending in Big Girl in case she had it too). They both enjoyed class parties on Wednesday, and tomorrow they'll both be singing in the preschool Christmas musical performance. I'm really looking forward to seeing that - this will be Two's first time singing for an audience, and I'm interested to see how he reacts.

This morning I had a kidney stone. Could have done without that early Christmas gift. Fortunately it moved along at a quick pace, so I'm feeling much better.

And then tonight, Hubs and I get to enjoy a holiday party! The kids will stay with their grandparents while we go. It's been so long since we've had any adult time, gone anywhere without the kids, and it will be nice to enjoy conversation without the interruptions to "stop hitting your sister" and "leave your brother alone."

I just saw a preview for an episode of Rachel Ray in which couples go to a hypnotist to see if the hypnotist can fix an annoying habit that drives the spouse crazy. They showed a man who left dirty laundry piled all over the house, and the wife who hated picking up after him. I wonder if a hypnotist would be a useful approach to get Hubs to clean the house while I sit on the sofa and read? Without any complaints or grumbling from Hubs while he works, of course. Yeah, it wouldn't be nice or fair of me, but it's still a strangely appealing idea...

Baby Fever

I think I have a mild-to-moderate case of baby fever. Big Girl asked for a baby sister for Christmas, and I thought, "Oh. That's not a bad idea." And then I just watched a video that one of my college roommates posted online, of her daughter rolling over for the first time, and with that the baby fever really kicked in. On an intellectual level, I know that I get incredibly sick when I'm pregnant, and I feel nauseated and wretched for the entire nine months, and yet... babies! So cute! So sweet! And I've thought for a long time that our family isn't necessarily complete at this point. With everything going on in our lives right now, the timing isn't good at all, so I guess I'll tuck this away and revisit the idea in a few months. And I'll try to keep my baby fever to myself, at least for a little while.

On a related note: I wonder if men every really get baby fever in the way that women do? Hubs didn't really get interested in the kids until they started interacting with him. Before that, he cared for them and spent time with them, but once they started to give back in terms of attention, conversation, etc. - he was hooked. That's when they became really cool to him, in ways that I hadn't observed before.

Ow.

I did something very, very bad to my back on Wednesday. I'm blaming Two, who's certainly big and strong enough that I don't need to be picking him up all the time. I think packing up the items left from the church Ten Thousand Villages sale was a contributing factor as well. Anyway, I've been miserable. I can barely walk, and I wince when I do. Fortunately my doctor took pity on me and gave me some meds when I went to see him yesterday. His explanation of how I did it and how the muscles in my back are so much easier to injure made a lot of sense, but at present I'm a little too woozy to recap. Maybe later. Sitting up to type starts to hurt more and more, the longer I do it.