the eternal struggle for balance

You know how I get sick when I do too much and my little introverted soul doesn't get enough quiet time? Well, it turns out that Rose has inherited this special trait from me.

We just got home from a long morning in the ER. Rose has had a mild fever all week, but it spiked to 105.2 this morning!!! The doctor was able to rule out a lot based on her clear chest x-rays, her normal ears and throat, and her lack of a rash or appearance of being in pain. She's had a UTI / kidney infection before, so that turns out to be the leading theory - either that or something viral. We tried four different ways to get a urine sample to confirm, but nothing worked. (We just ended up traumatizing her! It was awful.) So eventually the ER doc just decided to give her an antiobiotic in case it's a UTI, and told us to come back if her fever lasts more than 2 additional days, if she gets dehydrated, or if we can't control her temp with ibuprofen. Sigh. She just fell asleep, and I hope she takes a long nap after her difficult morning. Needless to say, we're not going on our first family camping trip this weekend! I think we're all going to enjoy a nice weekend of relaxation at home instead.

State Fair!

We took Rose to the State Fair today. She pretty much thought it was the coolest place ever! Where else can you...

...eat cheesecurds for first breakfast?

Followed by apple pie with cinnamon ice cream for second breakfast?

And then do lots and lots of people-watching, see a free concert by the Okee Dokee Brothers, look at lots of exhibits (blue ribbons!), and then pass out before even getting to the animals (or eating lunch)?

And then wake up 90 minutes later for geese and rabbits and sheep and pigs and cows?!?

(For the record, Rose LOVED the cows the best.)

And where can Daddy get multiple flights of beer?

And where can Mommy can take lots of goofy cell phone pictures (since she brought her fancy camera, but left the memory card at home - d'oh!)?

Answer: Only at the great Minnesota get together!!!

We'll see if this becomes an annual tradition for us, given how much fun we all had. We were pretty tired by the time we got home (six hours in glaring sun and humid, 90-something degree heat will take it out of ya!), but that didn't stop Mike from making an amazing dinner of lake trout, fried zucchini, garlic bread, and corn on the cob. Rose really got into eating if off the cob. :)

I'm exhausted and off to bed. Have a great week, everyone!

Happy Friday!

16 months!

16 months old!  Time with Rose just gets more and more fun every day. Right now she LOVES playing in the dirt (way more than I would have expected a daughter of mine to enjoy such things!).  :) She also loves bringing me handfuls of dirt. Ha!

a quick recap

Here's a quick recap which should explain why I haven't had time to post many updates recently!

Sun 8/4 - my last blog post about a lovely weekend
Mon 8/5 - so busy that I had to work extra long hours in the evening at home
Tues 8/6 - my throat started to scratch
Wed 8/7 - left work after about 3 hours - weakness, chills, fever, and general misery
Thurs 8/8 - another sick day
Fri 8/9 - still sick, but we headed up to North Dakota. After 8 hours of driving, we made it to Mike's grandparents'! (photos below)
Sat 8/10 - I was starting to feel human
Sun 8/11 - my first day without a nap in almost a week
Mon 8/12 - the 8-hr drive back to Mpls - Rose did a great job in the car both directions
Tues 8/13 - my mom was in town so Mike and I had an early anniversary date night at Republic (yum!) . Also, Rose had her first "transition day" into the Toddler Room!!!
Wed 8/14 - Mike started working on our new patio
Thurs 8/15 - our official 10-year anniversay
Fri 8/16 - our second anniversary dinner at Butcher and the Boar (double yum! and ouch to the pocketbook!)
Sat 8/17 - Mike finished the patio and I spent most of the day with Mitra and Dotty!!
Sun 8/18 - got caught up on errands - whew!

Whew is right! Here are the photos from our ND trip. (Note that I felt so sick most of the time that I pretty much just took pictures on Sunday when we visited the farm.)

There were BIG tractors at the farm!

Rose was a little uncertain of them at first.

There were also really big things to climb up!

We all took a turn.

One felt like a superhero atop the world!

ND is so flat that we could see FOREVER.

We climbed in the cab of every tractor.

Rose eventually started to enjoy it!

The tractors were huge.

Rose also loved playing in the yard.

Do you think these two might be related? ;)

We visited the one non-flat part of the area: Pembina Gorge.

It was surprisingly hilly - and lovely.

A great time was had by all!

With that, I need my beauty rest! I'd rather not get sick again, so it's early to bed for me. Have a great week, everyone!

Patio!!!

Mike installed a new front patio for us. I love it!!! We decided it was his anniversary present to me, and I would make him a quilt in return. Now I just have to finish the quilt (I just bought fabric this afternoon) sometime before our eleventh anniversary ;)

weekend review

Rose just fell asleep, so I decided to take a moment to be thankful for the lovely weekend we had. Here were some highlights:
* leaving work of Friday with no "homework" for the weekend!
* making banana rhubarb muffins, chocolate zucchini bread, savory zucchini pie, chocolate zucchini muffins with vanilla frosting, and zucchini cheese pancakes
* going for a short family bike ride Saturday afternoon
* seeing my friend Dotty and her kids for a walk around Lake of the Isles on Saturday morning
* going to the MN Zoo for "family time" on Sunday morning
* running into Aryn at the lake on Saturday and Dotty at the zoo on Sunday
* getting to quilt for 2.5 hours while Rose napped on Saturday
* talking to my parents on the phone last night
* sleeping in until 7am on Saturday
* eating Mike's amazing Sunday night supper - and seeing Rose gobble it up as well!
* seeing Rose "speak" in a sentence for the first time! (she combined the signs for "more" and "milk" to ask for "more milk"!)

The "lowlight" of the weekend was definitely the children's puppet show that we tried to attend at the zoo this morning. As soon as the lights went down and the hostess came out dressed as a hawk, it was all over - Rose SCREAMED bloody murder and wouldn't stop until we left. I felt so bad for scaring her! I guess we'll wait a bit before we try that again.

I didn't take any still pictures this weekend, but I did take a couple videos. I'll upload them as soon as I can. Hope you all had a lovely weekend as well! :)

#13

If any of you followed my old blog, you probably remember that about once a year I get to "brag" about a new quilt that I've created. Well, it's been about 2 years since my last bragging post, but I guess that's what happens when you finally get pregnant and then adjust to having a baby! So, without further ado, here's a brief retrospective of my work, before the big "reveal" of my latest quilt at the end :)

NUMBER ONE
7/07 - Fractured Pinwheels (for the Burmen)

NUMBER TWO
12/07 - Roman Fence (for Gramma Larson)

NUMBER THREE
5/08 - Log Cabin (for my parents)

NUMBER FOUR
9/08 - 30s throw (for my friend Ryan's baby)

NUMBER FIVE
12/08 - Stars and Stripes (for Jack and Marsha)

NUMBER SIX
12/09 - scrap quilt (for our living room)

NUMBER SEVEN
5/10 - Hug and Kiss (for the Failors)

NUMBER EIGHT
12/10 - Amish quilt (for Anne)

NUMBER NINE
12/10 - Corner Stars (for my boss Joan)

NUMBER TEN
1/11 - another 30s throw (for my friend Megan's baby)

NUMBER ELEVEN
9/11 -Nature Studies Nine Patch (for Mitra)

NUMBER TWELVE
3/12 - I don't remember the name of the design! (for Rose)

NUMBER THIRTEEN
7/13 - Christmas Cactus (for my office at work)

P.S. If you're reading this blog, you're most likely on my list of people to give a quilt to! :)

last weekend

Mike and I wanted to make one more trip up to the cabin before the end of summer, so a few weeks ago we picked the last weekend in July. We figured it would be a great time for swimming, fishing, and boating. Well, it turned out that Mother Nature had a different idea! With highs in the 50s (!) each day, it instead ended up being a great weekend for eating, learning to crawl down the stairs, and riding a tricycle in the basement. :)

Mike is planning to bring Rose up again later this month (when he's between classes), so let's hope they have better weather next time!

Well child visit (15 mo)

Rose is still growing right on track! (We had her 15-month doctor's appointment on Monday.) She has definitely learned to associate the doctor's office with pain, however - getting cathed during her kidney infection will do that! - and having 3 vaccines and a blood draw today certainly didn't help the matter. Poor girl. Good thing she only has a couple more shots at 18months and then she'll be DONE for awhile!

Two months
weight:  12# 6.4 oz (85th %ile)
height:   23.5"  (86th %ile)
head:    15.5" (66th %ile)

Four months
weight:  15# 10oz (86th %ile)
height:   26"  (95th %ile)
head:    16.75"  (85th %ile)

Six months
weight:  17# 7oz (78th %ile)
height:   27.25"  (93rd %ile)
head:    17"   (72nd %ile)

Nine months
weight:  19# 9.6oz (65th %ile)
height:   28.75"  (87th %ile)
head:    17.5"   (66th %ile)

Twelve months
weight:  20# 9.6oz (61th %ile)
height:   30.5"  (89th %ile)
head:    17.75"   (55th %ile)


Fifteen months
weight:  23# (70th %ile)
height:   32.25"  (91st %ile)
head:    18.25"   (67th %ile)

In other news, I'm hard at work on BALANCE again. It seems like a pretty constant theme in my life, especially in the last year or so. And every time I think I've addressed it, I must get complacent or something because it comes right back up again!

Recently work has been taking over my life. I love my job for so many reasons, but I don't love the fact that I get about 20 emails per hour, that all my peers are checking emails at all hours of night and day (so it feels like the expectation that everyone do so), and my "to do" list is never ending.

Monday I left work an hour early for Rose's doctor's appointment, so of course it was fine that I was sending emails for about an hour and a half at night after Rose went to bed. The struggle I'm having is about all the other days that I'm at work by 6:30 or 6:45am, I'm seeing clients or in meetings every hour until 4pm, and I still come home with a laundry list of things that need to be done before the next day.

I'm building more "admin" time into my schedule, so I'll actually have time to do the work that comes up in the meetings.  I'm optimistic that will help once it eventually goes into effect. I'm also trying to be gentle with myself since I haven't exercised in about a month and I haven't had any time for quilting/baking/blogging either - yet I also know how important it is to do those things!

If only there were more hours in the day - or if only I could get by with fewer hours of sleep each night! Sadly, I have to accept that I NEED eight hours of sleep per night, or else I get sick within a couple weeks. So how do I get my sleep, and also meet my other needs, such as hobbies and exercise? Because I'm learning that those truly are needs - I can't just work and do the basics at home (groceries, dinner together), but I also NEED time to turn my mind off and relax.

I think I'm going to turn my work email off on my phone. While I like having it constantly available, it also ends up creating more work for me since I read the email once on my phone, then have to read it a second time when I finally get to a computer to type out a response (I hate typing on my phone, and my phone is also not letting me send any reply emails for some reason). Hopefully the combination of that and the built-in admin time at work will allow me to do some hobbies after Rose goes to bed (instead of more work), which will then help me sleep more restfully, which will then allow me to actually exercise in the morning (instead of sleeping in or obsessing about emails already), which will then have additional positive effects going forward.

Sigh. All I want to do is be healthy and balanced for myself, AND to set a good example for Rose.

At least Rose makes sure I slow down each night to savor milk cuddles and bath time. :)