We don’t generally leave town and go on an actual vacation trip in the summer. I think the last time we did that was when we took Erin & Rhi to Las Vegas in the spring of 2000 or 2001. Before that, it was our trip from Colorado to here, to visit my family. This summer, at the end of August, we’re taking a trip to Iowa, to celebrate a birthday. I’ve never been to Iowa & I haven’t met most of the people I’ll be meeting. I’m pretty nervous, but I’m also excited about it at the time. At any rate, I’m been trying to find some good vacation deals ever since we agreed to go. I’m not sure how we’re getting there, exactly, but unless we take our little RV, we’ll need a place to stay.

I don’t even know what hotels there are in that town, or if we’re going to have to travel every day or what. I probably ought to try to find that stuff out, shouldn’t I? It would probably help me with my planning and all of that, and then I won’t be nearly as stressed out about it.

I watch a lot of those home improvement & decorating shows on TV, I’ll bet a lot of you do, too. While I’m watching them, I see a lot of really great items that I’d love to use when I have a home of my own, but I don’t always know where they buy such awesome things. I really love those great indoor wall fountains and I’ve even seen them in offices and restaurants where I live, but until I did a web search on them & indoor waterfalls, I never knew how many varieties there are, are how affordable they really are.

There are so many choices out there, and a huge range of prices, so really, if you’ve always believed that you’d never be able to afford something like that, you really ought to check out the links I posted up there, because they fit just about every decorating budget. If you aren’t quite ready to commit to a full-scale wall fountain or waterfall, they even have very nice desktop fountains at both sites, too. I found a couple that I’d really love to have & I’m thinking about getting one after I finish stocking my booth and all of that for the summer.

If you get one, let me know, I’d love to hear about your experiences & what you got!

Little Cerridwen Louise Brinton was born at 10:45pm on March 20, 2008. She weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces & was 20 inches long. She’s a very pretty little girl and her mommy & daddy are very proud. We went up to the hospital yesterday afternoon to see her & visit with Mark & Sarah. I was a long and tiring labor, but Sarah was recovering nicely. She was very tired and sore, but she seemed to be in good spirits and thrilled to be a new mommy. We’ll get to see her again this afternoon, as will the rest of our group who didn’t make it up to the hospital yesterday.

I’ve been thinking about getting one of those vehicle tracking systems for the XTerra, so that we can play GeoCaching and that sort of thing. I think it would be a lot of fun, and it might make it easier to find our way around when we want to get out & about on the weekends this spring and summer. We plan to do about as much camping and getting away as we can afford this year, just because Troy needs to get as far away from his job as he can at times.

We will be taking an actual trip out of the state at the end of August, but we’ll be in the HHR for that one. We’re going to Iowa to Troy’s family reunion. I’m pretty nervous about it already, because I haven’t met so many people in his family. I’ll be ok, because I’ll have him by my side & I do so much better when I have his moral support. I’m also pretty excited, because I like seeing new places and doing new things. I think we’re going to have fun.

Living in a home with a teen girl and a husband that both have to get ready to go in the mornings at the same time has, at times, been fairly trying. Troy gets up at 6:00, showers, shaves and gets ready, I run in there at 6:20 to use the bathroom & brush my teeth, then Rhi is in there in 6:25 or 6:30 to shower, get dressed, do her hair & makeup and all of that. At times I’ve thought it would be nice to have a tankless water heater, just so we could all have showers in the morning, but I know our landlord would never spring for something like that & I’m not putting something like that in a rental.

This is the first place we’ve lived in for a long time that only had one bathroom. The last two places had two & we got spoiled by them. It was really hard to adjust when we moved in here & I think Troy still has trouble with it, at times. I grew up in a house with only one & me & my dad were getting ready at the same time, too. We had a pretty good system worked out, he would go in, do his thing & on his way out, he’d knock on my door & wake me up, so I could get started. (I was awake, I would just doze while I was waiting for him) By the time I was in 11th grade, his schedule had changed & I got it all to myself in the mornings, which was a nice change for me.

We haven’t heard anything about the imminent baby since last night. We were told at around 10 or so that “things were progressing normally,” and nothing since. I’m thinking she probably had her in the night sometime & when Mark gets up & around, he’ll start calling all of the friends & letting them know. I’m curious as to which day she was born on, though, we were sure pulling for yesterday. I do know that their lives will change now, in ways that they won’t even notice in the beginning. I think the changes started for me when I started actually reading the mail I got about about life insurance quotes and seriously considering whether I needed it to take care of my kids if something happened to me. I didn’t notice all of the changes for several years, but my life was never the same after September 20, 1986.

We had a great day yesterday. I went to Dawn’s after I ate lunch and we hung out for awhile, then we went to the store & decided that we’d fix dinner together, so we got everything we needed for that & I called Troy to tell him. Rhi & Justin came back to our house & dyed eggs together, then they Rhi brought my car home & went to spend the night with her friend Nicole. The rest of us hung out, ate dinner, visited and had a pretty terrific time together. We just had an old friend move back to town and it’s been nice getting to know him again and meeting his new wife. I missed him quite a lot.

Sarah’s in labor! Mark just called me to let me know that they just got her checked into the hospital & they’re doing all of the preliminary stuff to get her set up & ready to have a baby. We’re all so excited, they’ve waited a long time for this baby, losing one earlier in their relationship. They were both so nervous & worried when they found out that she was pregnant again, we were happy to get her past those first few months. I’ll probably go up & visit her for a bit after while, just so she’ll know we’re thinking about her.

Well, kind of. Our friend’s Sarah and Mark are expecting a baby & the due date is today. She apparently hasn’t had her yet, since no one has called, so we’re all waiting anxiously for the big event. Dawn, Morgan & I went to her shower last month and she got so many really nice things. I felt like I didn’t get her enough, but I know she appreciated what I did get her. I hope that her family came though with all of the baby furniture they promised her. That stuff gets expensive. I’m noteven sure where we got Rhi’s crib, I think my friend Rich gave it to me, but I’m not for certain.

I think it would be cool if she was born on Thursday, on the spring solstice. I think that’s a perfect birth date for a wee Pagan baby myself.

I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me. There are certain hobbies that I do & I’m pretty good at them, like soapmaking and sewing, but I tend to put them off until the very last, possible minute. I really need to sew myself some garb for faire (oh, that I could afford a bodice made from Kravet fabrics!), I have the fabric sitting in a bag on my dresser & I haven’t even cut it out, yet. It’s not like it’d hard or anything, just a skirt & a peasant top, just about the easier stuff you can sew, but I still keep putting it off. I have to get it done, because I have to cut out walls for our faire encampment & get them sewn & ready to go on. I have so many things to finish, I have to push myself to do them, honestly.

We had a pretty good day yesterday. Erin came by to grab his birth certificate and visited for a couple of minutes. Then he was off to apply at the local Subway franchise. He came back later to drop the BC back off, but I wasn’t in the front of the house & didn’t see him then. Our daughter took off shortly after school to go do whatever it is that she does on the weekends and Troy & I ran out & rented some movies and got something to eat for dinner. We came home, I heated my food up & we watched a couple of movies.

Our daughter popped in for a few seconds to grab a few things she needed for an overnight stay & then she was gone again. I miss Dawn & everyone this weekend (she’s at a memorial service in Salt Lake), but it’s kind of nice to just relax & not feel like we have to be going & doing all the time, too. We have a couple more movies for tonight & I’m looking forward to watching them and just hanging out with Troy. We’re going to grill up some steaks for dinner and just enjoy the evening.

Yay. Another weekend, another bunch of drama can start on Sunday or Monday. I really wish things in our life could just mellow out for a change, you know? It’s mellow for a week and then it goes right back to where it was before that. I can’t really say much more, there are people in my family who read this and then yell at me for having an opinion, so I’ll just stop there. I just know that I honestly and truly need to get all of my friends together and go away. Somewhere somewhat far from here, away from our kids and drama and crap and just relax for a week or so.

I hear that in Branson cabins are going for a pretty good price, and I’ll bet we could manage to get one that we, as a group, could afford to rent together. It’s just convincing everyone and then coordinating all of their works schedules, not to mention the people who still have minor children. Ah. Nevermind. It’ll never happen, but it’s sure nice to dream.