Roundup

A plethora of random recent facts about life generally:

1. I've lost 11.5 pounds as of Tuesday! That's so awesome, I can't even tell you. I'm fitting into clothes I haven't worn since before I got pregnant with Caetlin. It's opened up a whole new (huge!) segment of my wardrobe to me; somehow I now have far too many clothes than I can wear. I'm due for a good closet cleaning and rearranging just to figure out what are my "fat" clothes, what can I wear now, what can I wear if I lose the planned additional 10 pounds, what I no longer like, etc. One fantastic effect of losing this weight is that my boobs are smaller than they have been since I was in college. Caetlin and then the weight had inflated them a cup size and a half, and now they are back to a manageable size, especially for button-down shirts.

2. Garden update- I haven't yet put up pictures of the plants in the ground, but I can report that, to my surprise, nothing has died yet that went into the bed in the ground. The basil is thriving, and it smells awesome. We have blossoms on one of the pepper plants and two of the tomato plants, so hopefully we'll actually have a harvest! I'm even pleased to report that the pepper plant that Caetlin stepped on and broke the stem of the day I planted it seems to have made a full recovery and has put on new growth (I just kind of propped the broken stem together with dirt, and hoped for the best). The two mint plants that were to be potted separately haven't fared as well, I'm afraid. They dried out more quickly than the plants in the ground, and my extra watering efforts didn't do much to help them. I finally got them in a nice big pot a couple of days ago, and to my surprise, the hardier of the mint plants seems to be dying as a result of the transplant, while the spearmint that I had given up for lost seems to have put on some new growth. You never know. Still, so far the garden appears to be a success.

3. I played in a softball league for the firm last night. We got absolutely killed, I'm sad to say, but I acquitted myself about as well as everyone else who played, and better than some. I made a couple of plays, though not quite as well as I wish I had, and the couple of plays I flubbed weren't awful. We all played terribly as a team, so while no one would consider me a ringer, in the field I think I'm actually an asset. My only time at bat I got a decent hit, though I was thrown out at first. It was a bad pitch that I shouldn't have swung at, but I hate standing there to be walked (or worse, strike out with the bat on my shoulder!). We were at a disadvantage last night, and I imagine most upcoming games will be the same, in that the teams can be co-ed, but don't have to be. So we fielded three or four women, against all men. It's hard to say how much that hurt us; none of us played all that well. But I had a great time, and it was a nice way to spend the evening. Bruce was at some dinner or other, but he'll come out and play next week.

4. Things have picked up at work again (I seriously should be working right now instead of doing this). Hooray! Sadly, it seems as if it is feast or famine around here, though, in that I foresee a couple of late nights and early mornings and some work over the weekend coming.

5. Caetlin seems to be going through some kind of language growth spurt, and apparently she's talking up a storm at her Kindermusik camp that she's going to all week. She's somehow sounding much more like a little kid lately. I think it's the addition of "no" as a staple in her vocabulary, but it's (mostly) not your average toddler, "NO!" She's very matter-of-fact about it. I wish I could convey the businesslike way she tells me no. It's very deceiving, too, because you never know if she actually means it, but it always sounds like she means it because it's so blunt and lacking in theatrics.

That's about it around here. Posting to be probably non-existent until next week, I'm afraid, unless something really momentous happens. I can't even think what that might be.