"...an enjoyable afternoon."

We had a picnic at Table Rock Dam on Memorial Day. The weather was perfect and the mist from the rushing water kept it cool for an enjoyable afternoon.

Several Ride the Ducks tour boats drove by while we were there and we heard one of the tour guides say that the dam is releasing about 500,000 gallons of water per second.

Piggy-back ride.

 

In the shade.

This afternoon also included a successful nursing in public session (I'm so proud).

"...my tornado paranoia..."

I had an odd dream last night. I think I'm going to have to get one of those dream interpretation books to figure it out.

I was in a museum in Small Town, USA (I don't think Small Town actually has a museum, but in my dream it does) with P.B., Branflake, my parents, and my sister. We were watching a live feed video of the town and watched as a tornado formed and hit a small apartment complex near the Bird House. I left Branflake with my sister and dad then P.B., my mother, and I left the museum to check out the damage and to drive by the Bird House to see if it was hit. 

While we were out on the road another tornado formed and we took a road that led us out into farm land in order to avoid it (I don't know if the direction makes a difference or not, but I had a distinct feeling that we were east of town). I don't think we were exactly chasing storms, but we kept driving around in the flat farm land and tornadoes were forming all around us. 

Once a tornado was about to cross our path on the road and P.B. would have driven us right into it if I hadn't told him to stop. I remember thinking to myself that the timing of that stop was just in time.

We took a right onto another country road and ahead (south) of us three dark cyclones formed and began to twist around each other. I got out my camera and started taking video. We quickly realized the triclone was heading for us and turned around and began driving away, but we weren't fast enough and the storm was upon us. 

Dirt was swirling everywhere in the air and all I was breathing was dirt so I had to keep spitting to get it out of my nose and mouth. And then it was over. We'd survived. 

We started driving back, but there was a traffic jam on the road leading into town so we got out and walked. The weather was still horrible, the sky was dark and had a greenish tinge. We walked through a gypsy camp (WTF). There was a creepy old toothless lady trying to sell something to me. We realized they were in danger since they only had tents to take shelter in so we led them to the police station.

After leading the gypsies to safety we went back to the museum. My sister and my dad ran out to meet us. Dad was holding Branflake and he looked so skinny, like we'd been gone for days and he hadn't eaten and it dawned on me that when we left them at the museum I hadn't left anything for Branflake to eat while we were gone. I took him from my dad and was holding him and crying and apologizing when P.B. woke me up.

Most of this probably just stems from my tornado paranoia, but I might look it up out of curiosity.

"Duct tape. Gas cans."

I've been watching the Casey Anthony trial this week. I just leave it streaming and listen throughout the day. I'll admit, I actually know very little about the case, even though it happened in Orlando, where I grew up. At the time it was too sad and the news stresses me out enough as it is so I avoided it. Now that the trial has begun, I'm trying remain objective while I watch it and trying to put myself in the shoes of a member of the jury.

My thoughts so far:

• Damn, that girl went to Target a lot.

• If Caylee truly did accidentally drown, why the cover-up? Pool drownings are so common in Florida - Casey and/or George had to know that consequences for an accidental drowning are minimal and charges are rarely filed. Andplusalso why did it take so many years for the defense to claim this if it were really the case?

• I have the same Forever21 dress that she's wearing today and I'm mad that I'll think of Casey Anthony whenever I look at it now.

• Not to discredit any true victims of sexual abuse, but I'm having a hard time swallowing the defense's allegations regarding the abuse from her father and brother. It seems like a last-ditch effort to garner some pity in this case.

• Considering that Jose Baez accused George Anthony of sexually abusing his daughter and covering up his granddaughter's death in front of the whole world just days before, it's surprising that George's "You're badgering me" back and forth with Baez didn't boil over.

• Is she wearing a Bumpit?

• Baez reminds me of a Baldwin playing a lawyer role. He's obnoxious.

• Judge Perry strikes me as a no B.S. kind of guy. I like him.

• While part of me is wondering if they (they being George Anthony or Simon Birch) truly believed they were smelling a decomposing body, why didn't they call the police? Another part of me thinks that they didn't call the police because they didn't want to believe it and were trying to explain it away in their minds, especially since they saw a garbage bag in the trunk, which would be the more logical conclusion. I mean, if I smelled something really bad and then saw a garbage bag I would automatically assume that the garbage was causing the source of the odor. I've also had moments when I'd smell something and not immediately be able to place it and only later does my memory make a connection.

• Duct tape. Gas cans. Duct Tape. Gas Cans. DUCT TAPE. GAS CANS! Fucking duct tape and gas cans! Christalmighty.

• Melissa England's testimony that Casey said "Oh my god, I'm such a good liar" = WOW

• She probably bought clothes all the time because she wasn't doing laundry. Ew.

• George Anthony really seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand he wants justice for his dead granddaughter, on the other, his daughter is facing death.

• To Baez: Not everyone checks their mail every single fricking day. I haven't checked mine all week.

• Seems like Baez is acting as prosecutor in a different case.

• As a mother myself, I  don't see how a "good mother" as the defense is trying to make Casey out to be, could go out partying, dancing, drinking, shopping, living "the good life" if her daughter was dead, or even missing. What "good mother" wouldn't report her child missing for a month?

• Seeing and hearing all of these references to Orlando makes me homesick.

• Susan Smith cried too:

This girl is clearly a liar, appears to be at least a little bit crazy, but I don't know if she's a murderer.

The whole thing is fishy, but reasonable doubt remains at this point.

"...one step ahead..."

I kinda-sorta got P.B. to talk about emotions and stuff last night. It all started when we had a disagreement over some insurance stuff while on the phone yesterday afternoon.

When he got home from work there was a very large elephant in the room. What started out as a discussion quickly turned into a heated debate, which resulted in some profanity and then me taking the baby out of the room and refusing to argue in front of him. Not our finest of moments, but it's been awhile so I guess we were overdue. Later on I put Branflake to bed and we resolved everything.

Not being in the mood for makeup sex I decided to talk about how "off" I've been feeling since giving birth. Which is totally true, by the way. Of course, being motivated by some potential nooky, P.B. was happy to talk to me about how I was feeling to help me feel better.

We're not one of those couples that only got married because we got pregnant. We were considering a Spring 2012 wedding and working our way though 1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married when we found out I was pregnant.

We didn't really have any time to figure ourselves out as a married couple before we had to figure ourselves out as parents. P.B. said that maybe we need to stop looking at it as  a setback and instead think of it as being one step ahead of everyone else.

Maybe he's right.

"...enjoy a funnel cake."

The weather cleared up just enough this weekend for us to spend a beautiful afternoon downtown for the crawdad festival. We only went for a couple of hours, enough time to walk around, eat some crawdads, listen to some live music, and enjoy a funnel cake.

Don't mind the muddy water, we've had a lot of rain lately.

Hello mud bug.

Dancing.

"...a deadly storm could just sneak up on my home at any time..."

Our weather radio has been going ballistic for the last twenty-four hours or so. Peanut Butter has lost his shit at least a dozen times over it. Every time we get a flash flood, severe thunderstorm, or tornado warning for our area the radio shrieks and P.B. starts yelling, "I hate that fucking thing! Why do we need that thing? I'm going to throw it out!!!" and on and on and on.

I don't know what's worse though, having the weather radio screech at us multiple times a day or having my mother call and text multiple times a day to tell us what her weather radio is telling her, which is the same thing our weather radio is telling us, despite having told her on numerous occasions that we have our own weather radio - that we purchased on her insistence. (Could I have used the term 'weather radio' any more times in that monster of a run-on sentence?) My poor mother, I know she means well, but damn, redundancy irritates me to no end.

I don't even really hear the radio anymore.

I mean, I do, I let it go off for eight seconds before it switches over to the robotic voice that describes the warning we've been put under. I listen, then I go about my business, happy to know I at least have something that will give me a heads up if I need to take cover. It just doesn't bother me.

In all honesty, I wish we didn't need it, but this is the downfall of living in a rural area of Tornado Alley. We don't get tornado sirens on a mountain road. Being a Floridian who is used to getting several days notice of an upcoming hurricane, it's very hard for me to accept the fact that a deadly storm could just sneak up on my home at any time and destroy everything. The weather radio is my peace of mind.

Obviously, we're okay here in the Orchard house. I'm admittedly quite shaken up over the tornado that ripped through Joplin yesterday. I can't even begin to imagine the horror of living through such a powerful force of nature. Of course my thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been affected by that storm.

"...pregnant again!"

Overall the inspection went well.

The inspector said that if it were his daughter buying the house he would have no problem with her moving right in as long as a couple of the things on his report were fixed in the near future.

The things that stood out were:

There are no GFCI outlets in the house. The house was built before it was necessary to have them for a home to be up to code and have not been updated.

Additional caulking needs to be applied around the chimney. The roof is only about a year old and we're assuming that the current homeowner has a warranty on the roof work.

There is a wood support beam in the crawlspace that has direct contact with the ground so it's currently a potential way in for termites. The inspector said that he doesn't even know why the beam is there as it doesn't appear necessary, but because it is there there should be at least four inches of concrete between the ground and the beam.

The inspector also suggested having something such as concrete or roofing paper put down in the crawlspace so it's not just a dirt floor.

The wooden steps leading from the deck to the backyard are visibly loose and warped.

We've decided to ask for everything to be repaired and go from there.

In other news, I've been lazy around the house for the last few days. The weather has been dreary and gray and my mood has been just as cloudy.

I even got sick out of the blue on Wednesday night after dinner. P.B. was all "Oh My God, you're pregnant again! It figures this would happen right before we buy a house. Wahhh."

Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little about his reaction to my sudden illness. But not by much.

Anyway, I peed on a stick the next morning and got a big fat negative. The strangest thing about it was that I actually felt the tiniest tinge of sadness about it (but that quickly changed when Branflake woke up screaming his dear little head off).

I really hope this weather changes for the better tomorrow. I am really looking forward to checking out the festival in the town we're moving to and don't want to be rained out. Plus this dreariness is really wearing me down. I've never been so depressed over the weather before.

"...he will continually be trying to kill himself."

Tomorrow is our home inspection. I hope everything goes okay with it. I feel like it's taken forever to get to this point. But really, it has. We had to make an addendum to our contract to allow the inspection to be pushed back because the guy we wanted to hire was out on vacation last week. Needless to say, I'm eager to get today over with so tomorrow will come faster, but we still have a lot on our plate for today. I need to get paint so I can complete Peanut Butter's latest woodworking masterpiece: a bluebird house for his mother. He builds, I paint; an easy enough arrangement for both of us. Maybe I can talk him into an etsy shop. Doubtful.

Also on the To Do list, we need to pick up shaving cream because P.B. never adds it to my chalkboard so I never remember to get it while I'm shopping, a condolences card for a friend whose grandfather recently passed, and, last, but not least, we have to go to dinner with a bunch of P.B.'s colleagues. All of this with six-month-old Branflake in tow.

Speaking of Branflake, he has decided not to wait until we're moved into the new house before going mobile. Two nights ago he decided that he wanted the laptop so badly that he just had to crawl to it. He's just like his father - shiny technology is always the perfect motivation. He has officially entered the stage where he will continually be trying to kill himself. Of course it's exciting. My baby has reached a new milestone. What mother wouldn't be excited about that? I'm just scared of adjusting to a mobile baby, just when I was getting the hang of this mothering thing, something big changes.

All I wanted to do was sit in the morning sun at my kitchen table and fool around on the internet for awhile, but I'm having a hard time seeing the screen. I'm on a Mac so I don't know how to change any settings. Aren't Macs supposed to be user-friendly? I'm probably missing something, but I can't really ask P.B. right now because he's about to go on a cleaning rampage and I'm just sitting here playing with my Pinterest and blogging. *sigh*

"...chakra and namaste stuff."

I did yoga for the first time in a year and a half this morning.

I don't really get all the chakra and namaste stuff. I have a life philosophy and I suppose that at the very least, the general meaning of namaste fits into that philosophy. Overall, I simply enjoy the peace, quiet, and relaxation that yoga offers. Today was a good morning stretch and I think I'll keep it up when Branflake will let me.

When I was pregnant I had all the best intentions for staying active and that included prenatal yoga classes. If all I needed to do was have intentions I wouldn't be having such a hard time losing the baby weight now. Unfortunately, intentions don't get you very far and after working forty hours a week, plus commuting two hours a day, exercise was the last thing on my mind by the time I dragged my pregnant butt up three flights of stairs to our love nest.

Better late than never, I am going to get myself back into working out and hopefully can get to the weight I was when Peanut Butter and I started dating.

Did I just set a goal for myself? So be it. Okay Blog world, keep me accountable.

"It's going to be very different..."

I rediscovered HGTV last night. I think I'd like to sign up for one of those Design on a Dime-type shows, but I know Peanut Butter would shoot that idea right out of the water. I'm just going to put that thought out of my mind before I give him yet another reason to roll his eyes at my whimsy. Besides, it would be just my luck that I would get a designer that thought it would be a great idea to paint my walls black (like they've done to the poor people in the episode that is currently on in the background).

But that's not going to stop me from watching the shows and stealing ideas for our new home.

I was reflecting on the night we made our offer on the bird house. After completing the paperwork our agent asked us to join her and her granddaughters for dinner. Our agent reminds me of Paula Deen, but with less makeup and no creepy blue colored contacts. She knows several families in each of the neighborhoods we explored, including our future next-door neighbor. I get the feeling that even after this transaction is complete we'll continue to stay in touch with her. I can't help but wonder if this will be the same kind of relationship the Wheelers had with Mrs. Givings in Revolutionary Road.

It's going to be very different living in Small Town, USA.

"...you don't really feel different as an adult..."

After a bit more haggling back and forth we were able to meet in the middle with the seller and are now under contract. It's exciting and nerve-racking.

I asked Peanut Butter if he felt like an adult since we've been doing all these adult things lately; getting married, having a baby, moving across the country for a job, buying a house, etc. He said he feels like a kid who's gotten in over his head. I do too.

When I was a kid I thought adults knew everything and were always confident about their choices, but the older I get, the more I realize that they were just as uncertain about their grown-up decisions as kids are about their choices, it just comes across differently to a child. I suppose Branflake will feel the same way about PB and I as I did about my parents when I was a child. It won't be until he's all grown up that he'll realize that you don't really feel different as an adult, you're just making different choices.

I've been busy for the last 36 hours or so. Home Depot and Lowe's have so many hits from my ISP because of me. I'm researching paint colors, crown moulding, wainscoting, and other various decorating techniques. I have some pretty solid ideas. I know I'm going to have to run them by PB and he'll probably nix most of them and then I'll be back to the drawing board to find something we can both live with, but this is fun.

This morning got online to look at the photos in the listing yet again, but it's been taken down. So for the time being my dreaming and scheming will have to be done via memory.

I guess my next true venture will be packing with an infant that's going to start crawling any day now. The sooner I get moving on that the better.