Sparrow's blog

Regulars may have noticed I haven't been posting much in a while. That's because 3 months ago, on Feb. 15, 2007, my husband and I welcomed a new addition to our family.

Just back from a weeklong trip to San Diego, which was great fun for me, anyway. My husband had to go on business and I went along, so I got to go have fun while he worked. I took the harbor tour and saw sea lions (I think?) and big Navy ships. Also a dinner cruise with my husband that was very nice (and he got to see big Navy ships and the cruise ship's radar display, which he enjoyed very much). And I went to the zoo, which was very, very big, and quite mazelike in places. If you go, I recommend buying the additional ticket for the zoo buses, particularly if you have children or people with limited mobility with you. Caught a cold on the plane, unfortunately, but it was really only bad for one day.

There are the usual things, like how my garden's growing (well) and how much I need to do (a lot). I've been doing a lot of babysitting for friends and family lately, too, which is fun. The big news, though, is that I'm 13 weeks pregnant with our first child, so it's about time to tell everyone.

Just because I feel like it...

Tonight I had one of those nice holiday moments. I was putting lights on my Christmas tree, drinking hot chocolate, and listening to some wonderful Christmas music. I thought I'd share some of my favorites:

I'm really swamped.

We went to visit my parents in Kansas for Thanksgiving, but it wasn't quite the usual Thanksgiving break. My maternal grandmother died a couple of years ago and the estate is finally being dealt with, so my parents had storage lockers full of furniture and other things that needed to be sorted through. I went out the Sunday before and my husband followed on Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were for sorting, Wednesday we picked up the truck and loaded the piano, Thursday was Thanksgiving (and a little sorting), Friday we loaded the truck, and Saturday and Sunday we drove home. We got in late Sunday night after driving in rain and heavy traffic...and got the truck stuck in our driveway. I knew we should've rented a smaller one! Our driveway slopes up steeply from the road and levels out farther up, and the truck was just too long. The bar the trailer hitch was attached to dug into the asphalt and buried itself so well we couldn't back up. Couldn't go forward because the bumper wouldn't clear. We had to call a truck tow truck to come and lift us up so we could back out. (My husband said we'd paid the stupid tax for a while!) Fortunately, our neighbor's driveway is much shallower and we were able to park there overnight. Monday morning movers came and helped us unload. Thankfully the truck wasn't all that full and it took them less than three hours. We cleaned out the truck, returned it, picked up my car from the airport, ate dinner out, and collapsed. Whew!

So I'm at the end of my planned-and-bought meals (and then some, really), and my husband is already saying "I'm hungry!" which means I need to think quick. I had one meal left to make, but I didn't think he'd like it very much since he's not too fond of fish.

Or at least, I hope the seeds start.

We had a nice sunny morning today, so I went outside and played in the dirt. I bought some heirloom tomato seeds (the variety pack from http://www.heirloomtomatoes.bizland.com/ ) in the hopes of growing some of the more unusual tomatoes in my backyard vegetable garden this year. Nothing like homegrown tomatoes! I've never tried to start them from seed, though, so this could be interesting. I usually have a way of killing indoor plants. (I think it's because outdoor plants still get rained on if I forget to water them.) At any rate, I planted 3 seeds each of 8 different kinds of tomatoes in their own little peat pots for 24 in all, now sitting under a grow lamp in a guest bedroom away from the cats.