We be jammin'

Here is evidence of my jam-making experience. I have no idea how it turned out yet,
and I didn't follow the recipe like I was supposed to, but hopefully it worked anyway. I guess you're supposed to cook the fruit first, then add pectin, cook, then sugar. I added everything at once and stirred. Hopefully it will be spectacular. I'll know tomorrow, I think.

Also, we did a 2.062 mile run today. I wish I would have taken a picture of Anne Marie. She was completely in pink, including onesie, socks, pants, hat and coat. I put a blue Nuk in her mouth for variety.

Also, completely off-topic, here's a photo of my mom's harvest bounty.

Lack of sleep

This weekend, Anne Marie got her first bad cold. She's had the sniffles before, but nothing like this. She was up all night long, literally. Friday night we put her to bed at about 10 p.m., and we were in her room soothing her every 10 minutes until 7:30 a.m. Finally, we put her in our bed at 7:30 a.m., where she slept for two hours. She was absolutely miserable.

All night long, I was dreading that cry I knew I would hear. When she first came home, I dreaded that cry too, but mostly because I wasn't getting any sleep. This time, I never thought about my missed sleep. Instead, I was just heartbroken over my stuffy-nosed baby.

In the end, Anne Marie is just fine. She missed a day of Water Babies, but she was just fine in time for her day at college today. It's amazing, though, how much you can hurt when someone else hurts.

Life at work

On weeks like this, I miss being in the office full time. It's not because I miss the adult contact. In fact, at work, I rarely get real adult contact anyway. :)

Today, my morning started off fairly normally, with a meeting that was supposed to be about the next day's paper, but rapidly went downhill until it was all jokes that only reporters and photographers who have seen plenty of destruction would understand. It ended when someone walks by and says, "It's birthday cake day in the breakroom."

Later in the day, a reporter comes up and asks me if we can use the word "vaginally" in the paper, as in a baby was delivered vaginally. I told him I thought it was fine, but my cubicle friend and city editor said vagina was a dirty word, and he should say "delivered naturally." The reporter then started singing "vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina" to help desensitize his co-workers to the word. As I left, ad people were trying to explain to one of our copy editors that he couldn't say he was a 10th degree black belt in his employee of the month ad because he definitely wasn't, and he couldn't just add the words, "self-taught" and make it OK.

It's weird, but I kind of thrive on it. It's amazing, but a lot of work gets done in that place. My co-workers are some of the hardest-working people I know. I do miss them when I'm working from home. And I definitely miss the people who've left recently. And, because these blogs look so much better with pictures, here's a photo of my former cubicle-buddy Greg on the first day I got my camera.

run

Anne Marie and I finally got out for a run today. 1.6066 miles. Unlucky? Perhaps.

The problem with both parents parenting

Let me start by saying I absolutely love how much Matt parents his daughter (as all dads should, but many don't). But on many days, like yesterday, her life is split. SHe gets day care on Mondays. On Tuesdays, it's Matt all morning, me all afternoon and evening. Wednesdays she gets me, Thursdays and Fridays are split, then Saturday and Sunday, it's "mama day." Matt and I really never see each other, but Anne Marie gets to see plenty of us both, and we can still work and go to school. Most of the time, it works like a charm. We see each other, swap kisses, tell each other what's happening, then head off.

But sometimes, things get lost in the shuffle. Yesterday, I got home from work around 12:30 p.m. to make the switch (Matt works from 1-10). Alex was at the house, fresh from a job interview (which he got, by the way- Uncle Alex will soon be in Pocatello). Alex, Anne Marie and I went to lunch to celebrate, then went to look at apartments. Anne Marie got super fussy around 5 or so, but didn't seem to want to nap. I had no idea why my normally happy baby was so angry. Off and on, she was happy, but basically, it was a fuss-fest. About 9 p.m., I got her to sleep. When Matt got home at 10:30, I found out she didn't nap the entire day. Matt didn't worry about her morning nap, because he figured she'd sleep in the afternoon. I didn't think it was that weird that she didn't take a nap in the afternoon because I figured she'd slept in the morning.

She sure made up for the loss, though. She slept for more than 12 hours!

I know this story isn't too exciting, but I had nothing else. More excitement later!

My harvest

From harvest bounty

From harvest bounty

This is what I got out of my garden today. If you walked by it, you wouldn't think anything useful was growing there. I don't do anything with the weeds unless I can see them actively choking my vegetables. The tomatoes are all volunteers. I had tons of them last year, and the thought of eating them made me want to hurl (tomatoes were my worst pregnancy aversion), so I just let them go, then tilled them under. Now there are tons of tomaties again- I just hope they turn red soon. Time is running out.

The plums are from our tree. I'm dedicated to learning the art of jam-making.

Finally did it

I didn't get out yesterday- the monsoon didn't stop until I had to go to work. So this morning, I got up and went for it. Rosa and I ended up going 1.3259 miles (I pretty much love that gmaps website. You jcan't get any more exact). It's not much, but it's a good start. Perhaps tomorrow we'll go 1.42158 miles. I also saw lots of people with strollers walking around the park. Rosa has an excellent time, although she wished it was the mountains. Here's a photo of where she wanted to go:

It's been awhile

It's been awhile, but I'm back. Hopefully, I'll get better at blogging. I think I should add it to my list of daily routines.

Another thing I should add: exercise. It's been 9 months since I've exercised regularly. The end came with the required bedrest last January, and, although I've made some half-hearted attempts, my exercise has been limited to the occasional 11 p.m. workout and short Sunday hikes through the mountains. So last night I decided that today I would start running again. Then this morning I woke up to a monsoon. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. We just don't get rain that doesn't stop.

I used to always run in the rain before, but this time I'm not sure how Miss Priss will like it. But we're going to flip the cover on her stroller and go for it. Alex showed me a pretty awesome Web site awhile back, http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/, so I can map our route.

We're starting slow- 1.21 miles, but I'll let you know how it goes. Here's our route (we go around the park twice). http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1292475