Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

I've been finding myself noticing a lot of little happy things lately, but then falling into long periods of GRUMP in between, mainly because of the heat and the fact that my belly is now so big and hard that things like trimming my toenails or shaving my legs have become arduous tasks requiring painful contortion and muscle cramps. But overall, I know (in mah head!) that things are good right now, so I thought I'd just document that here. So I can refer to it the next time I get huffy and exasperated because my belly button has popped out and every time the baby's limbs move over my navel area it hurts in the weirdest, most irritating way but that's not exactly something that elicits the same sympathy that, say, back pain or contractions would. Um, anyways! On to the happy things list!

-My mom found a set of five really nice deck chairs, all fully reclining, plus two footrests and a glass-topped table, for twenty five dollars at a yard sale! That's twenty five dollars for the whole set, you guys! And she GAVE IT TO US! So now our deck has something on it besides an eye-gouging assortment of plastic toys! And I have somewhere to lay in the sun with my feet up!

-My mom also bought me, as an early baby gift, the Arm's Reach mini cosleeper that I have been eyeballing ever since Eli was born. (Sorry no link- for some reason I couldn't get their website to come up.) I am so, so pleased about this thing, you guys. It is such a nice neutral color and will look so... unobtrusive, I guess is the word, in whatever room it happens to be used in. Not to mention it's so COMPACT and PRACTICAL and also so unfussy. What is it with most bassinets being so dang frilly? I mean, I like me some fanciness and am hardly a modern decor type person, but even I have a problem with most of the bassinets I see.

-My heartburn, which was bothering me on a daily basis for months, has only been popping up occasionally the last few weeks. Unfortunately this is probably because the baby seems to have "dropped" already, which is obviously not on the happy list, but it's still nice not to be in pain after every meal.

-My hips have also been remarkably painless and cooperative lately. I DID throw my back out today lifting Eli into a shopping cart, but it still hurts way less than the hip/sciatic thing does.

-Our enormous backyard has a sizable portion that was fenced off in a big square, but the fence was kind of rickety and unstained and we have never really done anything with the inside of it other than to store firewood, except one year when we halfheartedly tended a veggie garden in part of it. This summer it's been TOTALLY ignored and was basically an overgrown weed garden until last week, when Jim ripped all the weeds out by hand and then began taking the fence itself down. All that's left now is the posts, which will certainly be a pain to dig out but oh my gosh, I am so excited for how much it's opening up the yard! There's still some clearing out of brush-type stuff to be done, and then some grass seed planting of course, so it won't really look nice until next year. But I'm just excited to have something being done with it, since we obviously didn't need to have that area fenced off. We kept thinking we were going to do all this elaborate stuff (gardening, fountains, kids' play area, etc.) but the facts are: 1. The kids already have tons of play area with the deck and the yard, and 2. We are not elaborate landscape/gardening type of people. All we really want is a big yard to play ball in. So more grassy area and less maintenance is better for us.

-I recently found a really cool piece of art for our living room. I'd been wanting something a little more colorful and lot less ornate on this particular wall for awhile, but I couldn't find anything at all I liked that wouldn't require completely redecorating the rest of the room. Which I DID NOT want to do. So I bought it as an early birthday present... for myself, and changed a couple of other little things. Voila! More color, less formality. But not drastically different or requiring new furniture or paint color or anything crazy. Success!

-I think we may have hit upon a name for the baby that we both feel solid about. At least I do, more than I did about any of the other ideas. It's actually a name we talked about a lot for Eli, and it's always been a probable candidate as a middle name for this current boy. Can anyone guess what it is, and why I originally felt iffy about using it as a first name for this baby?