- I am stronger than I thought.
- I wish travel was free and that I had more time.
- I like crisp fall evenings when there’s a glow over everything before dark settles in.
- I can not wait until we are in our new amazing house!
- I hope to find a little of the elusive balance in the upcoming months.
- I think I can.
- I was worried that I wouldn’t be a good mom. I know that I am. Now I’m worried about balancing it all. I will figure it out though. Or, we will figure it out rather.
More Fill in the Blank Friday over here.
Grabbed this from Bookish Penguin (thanks, Candice!)
Five Things I’m Grateful For (in no particular order, not even subconscious)
- Dave for tons of stuff even though he probably doesn’t realize I’m grateful
- An awesome daughter – yeah, she rocks. Ask her dad.
- My family for giving us a place to live for three months (not to mention a bunch of other stuff)
- Finding (and moving into in two weeks! Woo!) a perfect house to live in. It’s gorgeous and fun and just amazing. Can’t wait! (Oh, did I mention skylights in the bedroom and a door to the deck from the bedroom?)
- More family for taking care of our dogs for the past two and a half months and two more weeks. Wow, they are in great hands and are lucky to have interim families to take care of them (and so are we).
Four Things I Can’t Stop Thinking About
- Getting my body back in shape
- Our new kick-ass house
- Balancing motherhood, loverhood, and work
- My site redesign
Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week
- Finish building the temporary Married to a Chef page
- 2 more workouts (it’s already Thursday night)
- A date
Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About
- Balance
- Relationships
One Random Thing
Our new house has one of those crazy cool bowl sinks in the bathroom (not to mention skylights!) and it makes it feel like we’re moving into a house from a magazine.
1. Blogging is something that I love doing but that I’ve been doing crappily for a while (working on that). I have been better at working on a blog that’s not my own though.
2. A current fashion trend I wish I was brave enough to wear knee high heel boots but I fear for my life.
3. My greatest accomplishment in life thus far is giving birth (physically) tied with becoming a mom.
4. If I had to choose between a mountain or a beach vacation I’d choose the beach for sure. Can’t think of many things better than relaxing on the beach, listening to the waves crash on shore, going in and out of wakefulness… and the ocean at night with big cups of wine. Mmmm. Love.
5. A talent I wish I had is mind reading. Hands down. 
6. A talent I do have is designing pretty things.
7. This week was filled with too many mornings starting before 8am.
Thanks, Candice!
Okay, so I’m actually pretty anti-gun, but that is totally beside the point. Oh, and no, my kids cannot play with guns. Wait, missing the point again, and I don’t have kids. Well, I have one – is it actually a kid yet or is it still considered a fetus until it’s out of the womb and breathing? That’s probably a question for science and religion to duke out. I digress. I did wake up about ten minutes ago from a very long and deep sleep nap (okay, kids, I drooled! I don’t drool!) so that’s my excuse. And wait, why wasn’t I taking naps throughout the whole pregnancy?! I thought I disliked them but that felt absolutely incredible.
Back to my point. I have been given a happy award (thanks, Candice!) by someone who I grew up with and went to slumber parties with and embraced the wonderful 80s with! We went our separate ways at some point during the tumultuous period of junior high (my guess? is that right?) and completely lost touch years and years ago. This makes it that much cooler that in the past few months we have reconnected as adults (as two adult women who are both about to making the life-altering shift to motherhood).
The rule after receiving this award is to list 10 things that make you happy and pass the award to 10 other people. Hmmmm. I may only award one or two. We’ll see.
- First day of spring weather (short sleeves, sun, windows open)
- Spending a full day with Dave with no distractions (yes, these will be few and far between in a few days)
- Finishing a project and actually loving it
- Anticipating time as our new family of three
- Chilling with Darwin, the wonder dog (yes, I’m biased)
- Waking up to the sound of crickets on hot, sultry summer days where the only thing on the agenda is lazing
- Cold beer and a plate of fries after a long, hard hike
- Girls nights with ice cold martinis and great conversation
- Reading a great book, the kind that you can’t put down, the kind that you stay up reading until 1am even though you have to work in the morning
- Summer days and nights complete with grilling and time outside – porch time makes it perfect
I could keep going, but I’m stopping at 10 because I love following the rules (okay, no, not really). And I’m passing this on to Kerilyn.
Wow, the first week of this year is a jam-packed one! On the agenda:
- First birthing class (I have no idea what to expect but I know that the class is a mix of all different ideas and methods so I’m looking forward to that!)
- Infant CPR class (I don’t even know regular CPR so this will be good!)
- Client lunch
- Client phone conference
- Baby kicking like crazy – it’s starting to feel a little like Alien – these sudden body parts (as yet unidentifiable) jutting out of my belly! Very weird.
- Balance
- Page for M2C (a secret project)
Let’s get started!
Like I said, unfortunately this Halloween is a dud which sucks because it’s one of my favorite holidays, especially since it lacks the generic holiday drama.
