Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Whew!! Glad that's over.

This week started Brian's 12-hour days for this outage. It's not really that much different than what he was working, except now it's required. He still leaves very early in the morning and doesn't get home until the girls are eating supper. By the time he does get home, I usually have some Brian-encouraged activity to go to anyway so we just pass each other in the evenings until I get home again.

Last night when I got home, the pastor and associate pastor were standing in my living room, which was not company ready, by the way. The upstairs was in much better shape since I dusted and vacuumed up there yesterday, but hadn't gotten to the downstairs yet. They were here to talk to Brian, not give the house a white glove inspection. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Can you believe they didn't even call first? What is that all about?

Things are still going well at the gym. In the past month, I've lost 11 pounds, and about 5 inches overall which makes me feel very good and very proud of myself. I am well on my way to getting to where I want to be which makes me very happy. Someone asked how I am able to stay motivated and I believe it has everything in the world to do with my trainer. She has a vested interest in how well I do and I really feel like she cares about me. When I told her how I'd gone 10 minutes on the elliptical (consecutively--an all time record for me), she gave me a huge hug and told me that she was so proud of me. When she and I work together, she's taking time away from her family to devote to me, so if I do things halfway, I'm stealing from her family and mine and that helps keep me motivated. Not to mention, I love how I feel. I really love it (this sounds sick), when I come home and I am sore...that tells me it's all working. I make Brian feel my muscles and I pretend like he's very impressed and not just obliging me.

Darcy had her first birthday last week and we didn't really do the best job of celebrating it. We've just had a ton of prior commitments going on that made it nearly impossible. I'm going to make a cake today so we can sit down as a family and celebrate it. We gave her some gifts the other day and of course, Lily is completely fascinated by them. Isn't that the way it always goes? I end up feeling like the worst mother in the world because Darcy always seems to get the short end of the stick, compared to her sister. For Lily's first birthday, we had a big party with lots of people and food. Lily lived the first 6 months of her life, in her bed, in her room, in our house. Darcy lived the first six months of her life, in 3 different places in a tiny bassenette until she exceeded the weight limit. Darcy is definitely the most well-adjusted, easily adaptable child of the two. She has no problem at all with change and she has the best disposition of any baby I've seen. But she knows her own mind and doesn't want or need your help, thank you very much. I thought she'd be walking by now, chasing Lily, but Lily stays pretty close to her so Darcy doesn't have to go very far. I feel certain that she will walk when she's good and ready and not a second before. Just like Lily did.