Everybody's Working for the Weekend

The past month and a half have been exhausting - work has been taxing and when I come home, five-ish, I have about five or six hours with Luke and Clementine before I drop off into a dreamless sleep and wake to do it all over again.  I'm tired despite having a baby who sleeps all night almost without fail.  Once in a while she'll wake up at 4, take a bottle, and fall asleep for hours.  (In general, she sleeps from 11 pm to 8 am, wakes to eat, and is back asleep til 10.  We hit the jackpot.  She is a champion sleeper like her mama.)

I find myself working for the weekend.  What to do with these precious weeknight hours?  I miss my hobbies - cooking, reading- and the hobbies I aspire to - learning to sew, playing the piano, gardening.  I am gripped with a desire to split myself into several parts, each fully 'me', but each pursuing an interest/calling:

• Being a homemaker, making organic purees with the food mill, planning meals so that the chicken from one night is used in a new and equally delicious dish the next night (planning to attempt with this new book), and so on.  Composting.  Actually running and managing a household with planning and care.  (This is an interesting editorial on neo-traditionalist households in which mothering is a "demanding, full-time endeavor, requiring [all of their] creativity, energy, and ingenuity.")

• Reading reading reading! journals and books to become a scholar and a worker bee.

• Craft maven extraordinaire making all sorts of wonderful things.  Planting plants.  Sewing little jumpers.  Painting terra cotta planters half neon.  And such.

• Professional Class Taker: ceramics, photo editing, letterpress, conversational Spanish, knife skills and in the sports/fitness categories, tennis lessons and tap dancing and barre and the weightlifting-to-music one (Powerflex at the gym formerly known as Bally's.)

From the Overdue Realizations desk: I will probably never learn to play the piano, or get a master's degree in science writing.  And that is all right.

From the No Pain/No Gain Bureau: inspired by 1) a $25 registration fee Groupon and 2) upcoming Air Force fitness test and 3) daily unpleasant game of 'weight, weight, don't tell me!' with my scale, I am going to start training for the SA Rock and Roll half marathon with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  Looking forward to meeting some new people, raising money for research, having a workout plan with a concrete goal in mind.  AND HITTING YOU UP, DEAR READERS, FOR $$$$$$$$$$

But that's later.  Now is to snuggle with C ... while reading about the recent Pappenings in women's health.

Hope you are having a great week, all!  What are your goals?  How do your alternate selves spend their day?

via

 

Weekend Update

This weekend we went to the botanical garden, a food truck boardwalk, and the nearby art museum.  We had the gardens almost to ourselves, except for a wedding or two- we are now members.  SATX is a near-sidewalk-free city and I've been looking for places to stroll. 

Check out my custom hip bag from Buffalo Blue Designs: it holds a phone + camera + cash/cards and leaves hands free for the wiping of spit-up and re-adjusting of umbrellas:

Cactus graffiti:

Different Texan climes are recreated in a portion of the park - here is the Hill Country log cabin, above the pine woods of east Texas.

The American Lawn exhibit demonstrates examples of traditional, xeriscaped, garden, hill country, and Spanish courtyard lawns.  Usually botanical gardens have exotic flora and to make the typical lawn the focus of an exhibit was just inspired, I thought.  Favorite part.

Hill Country lawn

Cottage gardening, my old foe Swiss chard front and left

After relaxing at home for a bit, we headed to the Boardwalk on Bulverde, a collection of food trucks around a courtyard with picnic tables and a mechanical bull.  Sampled this evening: FRIED GUACAMOLE.

On Sunday we viewed the 'Real/Surreal' exhibition at the McNay, which was fabulous.  Something I learned: even happy baby noises become magnified about 1000x in a cavernous concrete box with only a few other (whispering) patrons.  Finding baby-friendly and parent-engaging places is my new weekend focus...

101 Days of Clementine

Slowly, in front of us, she rolled over on Saturday!  But she doesn't have the hang of it yet:

tonight's attempt:

And she started playing peekaboo this week and the delight on her face just MELTS ME.  I've probably watched this 40 times in the past 20 hours.

She started day care last Monday and it's just great so far.  It's a bilingual early childhood development center so each day she is greeted with an

'Hola, Clementina!'

 

Before day care began my mom was kind enough to leave her life in St Louis to take care of Clementine from ages 6 to 12 weeks.  C got nonstop grandma attention and I was able to spend more quality time with my mom since... Christmas break 2001?  Luke and I sneaked in some date nights.  My mom and I raided Costco.  A great time that I am compressing into a measly, no-justice paragraph.  So a very special This American Wife: This American Daughter edition

 

THANK YOU!

to my magnificent mother.

 

 



 

My mother in law is helping out next month for a few weeks while Luke plays a little festival called

BONNAROO!

with the Flavor Savers. 

 

All so wonderful.  An embarrassment of riches.

 

 





Sun City

From the Sorely Overdue desk:

In March Luke released his first album Sun City

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Listen here, purchase on iTunes, like and share on Facebook!

And to make it even more special, his parents and siblings flew in from Michigan and Virginia to surprise and support him. 

Album release show at 502 Bar:

Ben and Susie

Kristin and Amy

 

sib, sib-in-law, sib, sib-in-law

Matt Cornelison aka Romeo Dance Cheetah aka Uncle Dance Cheetah aka Awesome Videographer flew in to shoot and create these music videos, which are fantastic
Don't Get Carried Away and You Belong to the City Now

Sara and Isaac's kids sent the sweetest letters:

And the clan got to meet Clementine:

So lucky.
Married to the man who is the M&Ms in my trail mix.
Part of a family who loves and shows it.
Have a baby who makes my life a little brighter with each sleepy smile.




 

Busy Bee

13 weeks: so fascinating to watch her move and grasp with so much more intention.

Front porch sittin' with the Busy Bee:

As always, more to follow!  As always, there is never enough time.