Temporary? Insanity

Nowhere is it written that I have to write about my summer vacation. Vacations are lovely that way. You come home and start settling back into the old routine and when people ask questions you’re allowed, even expected, to generalize. Somehow, the weather, or the traveling conditions get talked about but actual EVENTS tend to be skimmed over.


I? Am not a skimmer. You, however, have permission to skim to the end of this post because it has the potential to be as boring as a vacation photo slideshow.


Thursday: We drove to Vancouver. The drive was hot despite the air conditioning but I only passed out once (highway driving puts me to sleep – hence why when I drive alone I spend the entirety of my trip belting out showtunes and songs from Disney soundtracks at the top of my lungs. Better than caffeine. Really.). When we arrived at the clinic where we were having the ultrasound done we learned that they’d lost the paperwork. They’d lost it two weeks ago, but hadn’t thought to inform us of the fact. Guess what they don’t do without paperwork? Yup. Ultrasounds. So Neil, with his phenomenal doctory powers, called up our local hospital and got the ER doc to fax a requisition down. I was grinning ear-to-ear at that point and having cave womanish feelings of Pride-in-My-Man. It was all I could do not to pound on my chest and make loud whooping noises to draw attention to his awesomeness.


The ultrasound, as you may have read in a previous post, blessed us with the knowledge of the baby’s gender. We’re now rehearsing funny responses to people’s congratulations/condolences on us having another girl. I’ll probably put up a poll next week asking which are your favourites. The ultrasound also revealed that the baby is much, much smaller than expected. About 3-4 weeks smaller. Meaning I may have been briefly pregnant, then not, then pregnant again, and actually not be due till Christmas instead of the end of November as originally thought. A couple days after the ultrasound people at church asked how far along I was and I had a hard time not wailing, “I don’t knooooow!” at them. I do not like not knowing what’s going on in my own body! Harumph!


Friday: We went to see Les Miserables Friday night with my sister and some old friends. It was amazing! I got a bit tired towards the end though and leaned my head on Neil’s shoulder. I even let out a wee little yawn, and my gum plopped down onto his arm. Fortunately I was able to extricate it from his arm hair with little lasting damage.


Saturday: We drove to Seattle and visited one of my happy places, the Seattle Temple where we were married. I love the feeling of peace in the Temple. Sweet balm to the troubled soul. I wish I could feel that way always.



And then we visited one of my favouritest people in the world, Lucy and her sweet husband and daughter, who watched (very politely, and with minimal expressions of horror) as I gorged myself on Olive Garden breadsticks dipped in Alfredo Sauce. Mmm…


Once back at my parents, where we presented them with a Cheesecake Factory Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake to say thank you and sorry for the stress and trauma inflicted on them by our wee ones (they CLAIM it was a lovely day – but they’re nice like that), we unpacked the loot from our shopping trip and I began reading. Four books over the course of two days, actually. I picked them out of the bookstore shopping bag at random and adored every single one of them in a different way. Reviews coming soon. And hopefully some sleep…


Sunday and Monday: Lovely restful days visiting with family, reading, enjoying my parents new deck and the light breeze billowing up from the ocean (dispelling some small portion of the cloud of heat enveloping us), and also reading. My parents’ yard is heaven to our girls and they played contentedly out there for hours. Oh how I’m yearning to have a fenced yard some day!
Instead of fencing though, we bought a set of new living room furniture to replace the hideous built in sectional in our living room (the one with the pastel geometrically patterned fabric from the 80′s). This? Was an impulse buy. The result of one of those Well-Why-Don’t-We-Just-Take-a-Look-and-Get-Some-Ideas conversations. Lack of self-control is mutual in our relationship, apparently.


Tuesday: That’d be today. We drove home after stopping in at Costco and stocking up on such necessities as fruit leather, gummie bear vitamins, and cranberry almond cookies. I don’t like living two and a half hours from the nearest Costco, but I do like owning my own home so for the sake of our finances it’s probably just as well. Remember the aforementioned lack of self-control? Ah-yup. And apparently that lack translates into the physical realm as well, because my body went seriously loopy on the drive back home. The highway driving knocked me out a grand total of three times, AND when we stopped to do a touristy visit to a little riverside town with a tram system I just about fainted in the tram car (on the way down), waiting in line for a stall in the woman’s bathroom, whilst walking around the fudge shop, on the suspension bridge over the river, again in the tram car (on the way up), and also on the short hike back to where we’d parked (wearing my very pretty but very impractical leather wedge heeled sandals – owie). I managed to stay conscious every time the swirling black spots of doom encroached upon my vision, but it was a near thing EVERY time.


And THEN, I came home and wrote a 1000 word blog post about it all while my legs slowly cramped up in an increasingly painful fashion. As you may have noticed, this is not a post of great depth or insight, but it does hit home one key point that I think I’ll remember for a long time to come…


I am such a schmuck sometimes.