Rantings from a sleepy brain

I hate coming up with a title for each of my blog posts. Especially if I don't have a specific topic. Also, it's hard to coming up with good ideas after three glasses of wine. I think the really good ideas start flowing at around four glasses, but since I want to be semi-lucid tomorrow, I'll just settle with bad ideas.

Jason's off riding his bike in Dallas somewhere. I don't really know anything about it except that I'm at home watching the baby and three dogs. The day time is hard, but it's actually kind of nice at night. When he's here, I have to stop at one glass of wine, because I get "too sleepy" with more than that. So what! I'm going to bed at ten, and I will get 9 hours of sleep, and it will be amazing. All that being said, it is rather quiet, and I've triple checked to make sure the doors are deadbolted. I might let Otter sleep in the living room by the front door instead of locking her in her crate tonight.

We had a great time over Easter. Auri had fun hunting her 5 eggs (that was all her attention span allowed for). Other than her busting my lip with a rocking chair, which resulted in a huge, yet-to-heal ulcer on the inside of my mouth, we had a lot of fun.

In two weeks, we'll be on an airplane, desperate to get off (or dreaming peacefully on sleeping pills). I've been printing out documents, organizing our schedule, and trying to figure out exactly *what* we're going to do once we actually get there. So far, no real plans. We have luggage now, and money pouches, and electrical outlet adapters, so I think we're logistically set for travel! Very excited :)

I still plan to go on my morning run, which I've been very good about. Auri and Otter both enjoy it, and I'm already seeing results. Just wait until the temperature gets above 85 in the morning, and I'm sure it will taper off quickly.

11 minutes until bed time!

Heart Attack version 2.0

So, about half an hour ago, I was doing some much needed damage control to the piles of clothes growing in both my room and Auri's room, while Auri happily and quietly hung out in the book corner, sorting through and 'reading' her books to herself.

A little while later, I noticed that she was being *very* quiet. In fact, it was so quiet, the windchimes outside sounded much louder than usual. At that point, I put two and two together, panicked, and ran out into the hallway to see the front door wide open and Auri nowhere to be seen. I sprinted outside, and found Auri had dragged her blankie outside, and was playing in our driveway between the two cars parked there.  I scooped her up, and she's now playing on the floor right in front of me, with both the front and back door locked tightly.

We have a problem with our front door. When it's humid, it sometimes doesn't latch all the way if you don't slam it, and when it's windy, the wind blows the unlatched door open. Today, is it humid, and windy, and that's how my baby escaped. You hear those stories of people finding babies just hanging out in the middle of the street, and think "How could their parents have let that happen?" I was right there with you, but then I became one of those parents. I can now say, it's pretty easy for that to happen, really quickly. I will definitely be more alert when she gets too quiet.

In other, less heart-stopping news, we signed a lease for our new house in August! It's a big 3/2 off of Deacon, in a more family neighborhood than we're in right now. It's got a huge backyard, and a 2 car garage. Unfortunately, Jason wasn't able to see it with me, so he doesn't actually know what our new house looks like on the inside. The reason is: When I went to view it with the Realtor, she was showing it to two other groups of people that also seemed interested, so I snatched up an application, and turned it in about two hours later. While we were there filling out more paperwork, our agent answered the phone, and was like "No I'm sorry, that property is no longer available as of now". So, we were cutting it close, but I beat them to the finish line. Ha! So looking forward to our new home :)

Google street view of our new house

Satellite view of house

Birthdays, weddings, and other events

Shame on me! It's been two weeks? It really is true. The older you get, the faster time flies by you.

Since my last entry, our little bit turned one year old!

She went from this:

To this:

And this:

To this:

We didn't really do anything special that day, other than going to PetSmart and looking at birds and kitties, which are always a favorite. She still whined and pooped and napped and made a mess just like every other day, and I chased her around, cleaning and pacifying her, just like every other day. Still, she seems to really like her sandbox she got for her big day (even though it's a nightmare to get all the sand out of all of her crevices).

Last weekend, we invested in a jogging stroller. It's been difficult in the past for us to both get a run in during the morning, with us taking turns watching Auri, while the other goes out. So, we got a proper jogging stroller, and all four of us are able to go on a run in the morning together. It's been a lot of fun, and we've done pretty well at getting in a few runs a week. I sold our old one on craigslist, and have been endlessly pleased with our new addition.

None of the houses we've looked at have panned out, or looked too promising. They've either been leased already, been too dumpy, too expensive, or both. Still, I continue my search for a semi-decent home with a garage and a backyard, that doesn't make me want to cry when I see the rent.

Our most recent adventure was to Austin, to get Bryan and Laura married off. Success! We had an awesome time at the rehearsal dinner, hosted by Buddy and Debbie, on a really cool party boat on Lake Travis. Lots of grilling, family time, great margaritas, and even swimming off the water slide (the water was 65 degrees!). The wedding itself was breathtaking. I feel so blessed that we were able to be a part of it, and stand next to them as they made their vows of everlasting love and devotion. It is a testament to them that I actually cried during the wedding. I never cry at weddings, and have never understood why people do (until now, I guess).

I've now also confirmed, as a cold-hard fact, that all people care about is whether Auri is with me or not. Not a single "Hi Emily! How are you?" Forget that. The first thing out of people's mouths is "Where is Auri? Where is the baby?" Even from people I barely know. I should have worn a sign around my neck saying "Sorry, the baby isn't with me." But, despite that realization, it was a fantastically fun weekend, and all my love and thanks goes out to my other sister-in-law, Laura Browning, for taking care of Auri all weekend. You are a super hero!

Our current project (which Jason is working on right now, that wonderful man), is to sell both his BMW M3, and our Toyota Sequoia. We decided that we certainly don't need three cars, and he never drives his car anymore, and the Sequoia is just way more vehicle than we need right now. The end goal is to sell those two, and replace them with a minivan. I know. I balked at the idea at first too, but they are just so incredibly functional and practical. Sliding doors? Why is this not a widespread feature on all cars? We could virtually eliminate dinging each others doors in parking lots if everyone had sliding doors. We were playing with the idea of a Mazda5, which is a small minivan (a microvan, if you will).

Cute, huh?