We just had Valentine’s day. Both Joe and I don’t generally don’t do a lot, nor would the budget allow for anything extravagant. I went and visited a friend in the morning, and when I came back Joe had left me this sweet little progression of notes:

There was love music playing too. It was adorable and made my day. We did have coffee cake (which tastes better in the south, so does corn bread: the humidity makes it less crumbly), and made a cheesecake. The cheesecake was almost not to be. Joe and I went to go make it and discovered that graahmn crackers could go rancid. The crust was made with animal crackers instead, and turned out just fine.

My medicaid application finally went through which now means I actually have insurance for my kids. For all those who want socialized medicine, try going through a medicaid application. Lots of waiting in line, calling, and worrying in order to get approved. But I am grateful they have the program, because otherwise I would have no way to insure my children.

Also this is a tip for very pregnant women–wearing comfortable clothes makes you feel ever so much better. Yesterday I put on a pair of pants that just didn’t fit and I hated pregnancy all day. Over-the-belly pants are the only way to go for me right now. I am very large. Still a month to go (more or less).

Peter has discovered the joy of playing in his room with his toys. He would spend hours playing pretend with mostly cars. He’ll say “Mommy this one” and give me a car. We will then spend the next forever playing with the cars. Sometimes I’ll bring in Legos or other toys to break up the long stretches of just cars and Peter asking, “What doing?”  It’s fun, but gets boring pretty quickly too. Joe is actually a little more patient with it than I am.

We put up names for the kid’s room today. Curtis will actually be staying in our room at first, which leaves lot of room in Peter’s room for toys right now. I finally found a cheap rocking chair too; it’s probably the most comfortable seat in the house. Maybe I should use it at the computer instead of the chair I’m in now that is giving me backaches.

I’m tired of pregnancy, but I’m not ready for a baby either. Life is good, really, but I have a lot of worries in my head and it’s hard to just let things be and enjoy myself.

I was bitten by a spring gardening bug at 3:00 in the morning.  I’ve noticed lately that there are signs of spring. Plants are beginning to flower, like flowering cherries and forsythias. My husband brought me home a daffodil one day. It’s a little early, even for a slightly warmer climate than I’m used to, but whatever the calender says, spring is rapidly approaching.

Up until now, I haven’t cared much about the plants around me. I’m surrounded by boring commercial landscapes that are not inspiring. At 3:00 in the morning I started to dream about plants. I wanted to go and find all the plants beginning to bloom and take loads of pictures. I woke up, a little confused about the fact that I had relocated to Georgia and couldn’t go down the road to a neighbor’s garden to find plants in bloom. My mind finally straightened out, but I couldn’t get plants off my mind.

I finally got out of bed and started looking up everything I’ve been ignorning. I looked up some evergreen shrubs, like aucuba and winter daphne, that I’ve noticed on my apartment grounds. I googled where local garden centers are. I subscribed to several local gardening blogs. I reserved a few Dirr books at the library. I normally don’t wake up super early, obsessed with plants, but apparently something in me had been missing gardening. The few glances I’ve seen of spring blooming plants awakened a dormant gardening spirit. It was fun, but now it needs to quiet down so I can sleep.

Have you noticed spring coming?

Hopefully it’s not keeping you awake at night.

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I’ve never loved January/February weather so much. We can go outside almost as much as we want. 

We toured the hospital yesterday. I’m having a baby in six weeks! (more or less) I’m very excited. I moved the crib into our bedroom, and up to baby height. This was actually kind of a pain because the crib was exactly one inch too wide to fit through the door so I had to take it apart and put it back together. But now it is set up and ready for a nice cuddly bundle that will hopefully come soon. 🙂

I finally feel like I’m finally settling into our apartment. The entire living area has pictures up (although some frames still need to be filled). We had a couple of friends over for a while and they’ve left now, allowing Peter to go back into his normal bedroom. And I also paid my first month of regular rent.

I’m enjoying my apartment. I already had to get an appliance repaired. I was cooking a carrot cake in the oven and heard a strange noise. Upon further investigation, it looked like my oven was trying to time travel, with a bright white light coming out of it. Part of the heating element burnt through. Luckily, the carrot cake was saved by the toaster oven, and the oven was repaired in a couple days.

We do have a couple of horrid neighbors that have managed to keep us up at night. One morning I was going about my business and heard a strange noise. I couldn’t decided if it was the wind, an animal, or a baby being horribly mistreated. I opened the window and scared away a cat. There are these two cats that will stare each other down and start this kitty chorus of meows and howls and all sorts of strange cat noises. This can happen in the middle of the night, right outside the bedroom. My husband has contemplated anti-freeze. I think it might be useful to at least have a bucket of rocks we can throw from the patio. The kitty chorus only deserves boos and rotten fruit, but occasionally ends up with a captive audience that would much prefer sleep.