We ended up going to the coast for the weekend, and we had a great time. My dad had $250 in free play for the Beau, so we used that and won $550 with it! So, our whole weekend plus some was paid for.

I love the coast. Donald and I had intended on moving there, but then came the hurricane and, well, that was the end of that. The last time we spent any time on the coast was January 2005, right before Lauren was born. There's been some progress rebuilding since then, but not as much as I was expecting. Many houses have been rebuilt, but there are still many, many FEMA trailers. The beaches are mainly open, but the water is very dirty. The thing that makes me said, however, is seeing all the little trailers on the beach that are sales offices for the new condos that are being built. The coast used to be such a quaint, spunky place and I fear that all these new sparkling condos will take that away.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the beach.

Lauren crawled up and down the beach chasing the seagulls. She wanted to pet one so badly!

Daddy and Rooster sharing some important info.


Sitting on the pile of sand mama made.

Well I think "winter" is over. Today it is 80 degrees. Yesterday was a sublime 75. I can talk trash about Mississippi all day, but I must say I love the winters! There's nothing like wearing short sleeves in February. I think its supposed to get back into the 60s next week. Boohoo :o)

Lauren and I went to storytime at our local library this morning. I've been meaning to take her for a while, but really never got around to it. It was fun! The girl who ran it was awesome - she is perfect for the job. She really should be a kindergarten teacher because she'd be wonderful at it. I met some other moms and Peeler got to "play" with other babies. She loves other kids. I'm going to try to take her every week now.

I'm auctioning off all of my leftover inventory from last year right now. The auction ends tonight, and I will be so glad to get it out of my house!

Oooh...I have no motivation. To do anything.

I was supposed to finish this class by the end of the month. Not going to happen. I really wanted to finish my work for the term before the cruise in April, but that's probably not going to happen either. Blech.

I'm supposed to be making charts in PowerPoint for one of my projects, and I've given up because I can't get it to label the freakin' axes. I'll make Donald do it for me tomorrow. He's good at that crap.

Speaking of Donald, he wants to go to the coast this weekend to go metal detecting. I'd be totally cool with that if we could afford to get a hotel room for Saturday, but we can't, and it's a really long drive for just a day. I told him if we get our tax refund by then we can go, otherwise it'll have to wait.

My house is a disaster. I've got inventory strung everywhere, clothes all over the floor, and the table piled with crap. It's driving me nuts. I need a housekeeper, a nanny, and a personal assistant. Sad. Very sad.

The monkey and I were messing around yesterday, and I happened to take two of the cutest pictures of her yet.

She does this funny sniff like a rabbit thingy and its so funny. I caught her doing it.

She's such a ham.

Happy Copernicus Day!!!

Today is Copernicus' birthday! He was the astronomer who first theorized that the Sun was the center of the solar system, rather than the Earth.

Me shoes

These are the shoes I'm mouring over. Belk had them up to a size 8.5, but I have Peggy Hill feet, so of course they didn't have my size. Waah. I figured I could find them on eBay, but nope. I found them on some other websites, but I'm not paying $40 for them when they were on clearance at Belk for $12. Call me cheap.

Well, we didn't get much accomplished this weekend. Friday night just set the mood. My dad called me around 8:30, with news that an ambulance was on the way to take him to the hospital. He was feeling dizzy and lightheaded and knew something was wrong, and didn't think he could drive himself there. He turned up being dehydrated, and after 4 Liters of IV fluid, he was feeling much better. When he was home, the doctor upped his blood pressure medicine, and it contains a diuretic, and he wasn't taking in enough fluid. They kept him a few hours, and he's fine now. Made me worry though!!

Saturday we were planning on taking Lauren to the pet store to look at the animals, but she passed out in her stroller on the way there. We ended up stopping at Target and spending money, of course. I hate Target. We also went to Belk and I found a few things for the cruise for cheap, so that was good. Also found a pair of awesome Rocket Dogs, but they didn't have my size. I cried a little inside.

Today we just lounged around. Did our weekly swim tonight, and chatted with a professor from Tougaloo College that lives in our complex. Also got the laundry put away, which is a bigger accomplishment that it sounds.

I just realized this is excruciatingly boring. Enough now.

Americans are Idiots

This video makes me so sad.

Our week in Pictures

We went to the Natural History Museum last weekend and had a great time. Rooster loved watching the fish. I think she would have stayed all day if we would have let her.





I just wanna grab one so bad!!

Riding the frog

And petting the bear...

Here, kitty kitty....

Yes, this is a skull.

Three things:

What is up with smocked dresses and the South? Before moving here, I'd never even seen or heard of the things. I guess all the little girlies wear them to church or something and the mommies think they're adorable. I personally think they're ugly (the dresses, not the girlies). And jon-jons! Those are horrible. I can almost imagine a little boy growing up to want to kill his mother for putting in something so horrific. I dunno, I guess I'm just a damn Yankee.

The only decent thing about these get-ups are that when I find them in the thrifts, I can sell them to all those yuppie-southern-belle mommies out there for a pretty penny. Hehehe.

Second, and related to First: Why must little girls have HUGE hair bows? Again, must be a southern thing because I've never seen such craziness in my life. The combination of smocking and bowing is enough to drive me batty.

Third, and most importantly: Every time I'm in the Wal-Mart parking lot, I want to jump out of my car and beat somebody. People will wait for someone else's parking spot for the longest time, backing up traffic through the rows. This drives me nuts. Monday I had to run to WM to get some junk, and I wasn't half-way up the row walking back to my car, and some idiot was following me waiting for my spot. I didn't even have a good spot! There was another spot open literally three slots up from me, but this idiot waited for me to move so she didn't have to walk the extra ten feet! I knew what the lady was doing as soon as I saw her, so I purposely took my time putting my bags in the trunk, buckling in Lauren, and opening my soda. It had to have taken me a good 3-4 minutes. And she just sat there, waiting for me to back out. All the while, of course, there's a line of cars backed up behind her who can't get through because she's too lazy to walk the extra ten feet. OOOOOhhh this pizzes me off. It ticks me off even more when I'm stuck behind one of these bimbos. Seriously, I've never seen people do this before. Even in Wisconsin when it's 10 degrees below zero, people just find a spot and deal with it. Or at least keep driving around until a spot closeby opens up. But NEVER, just sit and wait.

*Stepping off soapbox now*

I started this new job thing with Brainfuse.com doing online tutoring. My first sessions were today and it was fun! I'm a little worried about doing it with Lauren at home, since I really need to concentrate on my students, but today it worked out okay. She slept the first hour and a half, and then when she woke up I had tons of goodies out to keep her busy. I did four-one hour sessions today, but only two of the students showed up. At least I get paid for waiting! If it works out, I'm considering hiring a mother's helper to come play with Lauren in the afternoons while I work. I just don't know how much I'd be able to pay. What would be reasonable for playing with a one-year old while mama is still there from 2-5:30 Tue-Friday? $50-60 a week? I have no idea what real daycare costs LOL.

Here are some pictures of Lauren "entertaining" herself while I was working today.

My dad is back in California now, and I'm so jealous! For this contract he is in Santa Barbara and is living in a condo right on the beach! I would really like to get out to visit him this spring, but with the cruise and all, I don't think we can afford it. Maybe he'll take another contract there and I can go this summer.

Lauren really bonded with grandpa over the last week. For the first nine months of her life, she did not like him at all. If he even looked at her, she would burst out in tears. She loved her grampy this time, though. I'm glad she was asleep when we dropped him off at the airport because I think she would have cried when he went "bye-bye"!

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of them together, so I don't have any to post! Silly mama.

Updates

My mom is going to be fine. Her scan showed that two minor vessels off of her carotid artery are 85% blocked, but they are going to try to get that cleared up with drug therapy. Her doc said that 99.9% of the time they are successful doing it that way. All of her other vessels and arteries are 100% clear, which is great news considering our gene pool. Doc said that she should be feeling better very soon.

Peeler and the pacifier are no more. The pacifier just kinda....disappeared...and I honestly have no idea what happened to it. This house eats things, I swear. Anyway, she never even noticed it was gone, so whatever. I'm glad that phase was short-lived.

Dad is home from California and is leaving again on Thursday already. We've had some...interesting....moments. He decided to go out on Saturday night in his leather get-up. Yeah. He did babysit for us on Friday night, though, which was AWESOME, because Donald and I got to go to Olive Garden and a movie.

Mmmm....other than that, not much is going on. I have a few things I want to blog about when I get the time, but who knows when that will be.

The Mommy High and Withdrawl

Somedays things just go right. Lauren is in a good mood, I am in a good mood, and we connect. Yesterday was one of those days. I was experiencing a "mommy high".

Yesterday Lauren was the baby I love to love. I love her everyday, of course, but there are some days when I just look at her and melt. I've been teaching her body parts lately (thanks for the suggestion, Kelly!), and for the past week she's been getting them right around 50% of the time. Yesteday, every time I asked her she'd grin and point to the right part. She was so giggly and cuddly yesterday. We chased bubbles, ate pizza, and read books. I loved being her mommy and was on a mommy high.

Today was the complete opposite. I couldn't do anything to make the girl happy. She woke me up two hours early and was then naughty all day long - grabbing, hitting, throwing tantrums, etc. By dinner time, I was ready to put her outside for the night. I was having mommy high withdrawls. I simply could not wait for her to go to bed so I could regain some sanity.

I hope Lauren gives this mommy some good drugs tomorrow so I can have more mommy high. Withdrawl sucks and the kid never gives in!