whew!

(Updates here and here.)

where have I been hiding?? I could tell you, but that would take a lot of space and probably wouldn't be extremely interesting. Instead, let's do a quick recap of my May so far:

I spent a weekend in WA for a bridal shower and to visit with Amanda (and family). It was a half-rainy half-beautiful weekend, and I was able to enjoy it Benjamin-free! Don't get me wrong, it's really really fun to drive 4 hours in a car with an almost-toddler, and then to keep him up way past bedtimes and completely disrupt his routine. Also, I love introducing him to new people and watching what breakable objects he can find in their houses. Still, it was nice to be able to leave him with Corey and spend the time with 85% of my thoughts for myself.

beautiful flowers at her dad's house

people always ask if we're sisters. NO idea where that comes from. ;-)

scratching.

The following week was birthday-week for Benjamin and the start of summer classes for me. I like that summer session only lasts 8 weeks, and I like that I'm completely free for July and August, but two 5-10pm classes on subsequent nights is killing me. Especially since I generally fall asleep by 9:30 (after collapsing into bed by 8:30) and thus require caffeine to stay awake and alert until 10 -- which usually means I'm up past midnight on class-nights, reorganizing my spices and trying to burn off my energy. It's OK, we're 2 weeks in and I only have a month and a half to go!

Amanda came down to visit with us in the latter half of birthday-week, and we spent some time relaxing, visiting, and generally decompressing. She was the second visitor to Benjamin's swim class, and he was a perfect little champ. Yay! On Benjamin's birthday weekend, I had a one-time two-day ALL-day meeting for one of my classes, and that pretty much sucked. I really enjoy the subject, and it's with one of my favorite professors, but 4:30-9:30 Friday followed by 8-6 Saturday is just cruel. (Thankfully he let us out early on Saturday!)

We celebrated Benjamin's birthday on Saturday, with a casual barbecue and general meet-up of friends. Naturally, the sun went away for the entire event, but we had a great time cramming into the house and generally creating organized chaos. Feel free to read all about it!

Mother's day was lovely and deserves it's own recognition, so I'll work on that later ;-)


This past weekend my parents came up to visit, and even though we had 3 full days with them it was too short of a trip. We had hot hot hot weather and were able to go swimming a few times, plus we visited the zoo and managed to watch the new Narnia movie (so fun!)

Umm... I think that's my May so far. This week I'm working on a few projects for my classes (the other drawback to truncated terms -- everything is due quickly!) and trying to recover before June, which promises to be crazy as well (due less to visitors and more to classes ending/a bachelorette party/a bridal shower/a wedding/etc)

My thoughts exactly, buddy.