In a few minutes, Julia will arrive for the weekend. I hope we're up to having a 2-year-old for 3 days here. I'm feeling just a touch of trepidation, I must say. I was just told that she usually wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning. Yikes! That totally sucks. Good thing Joey and Ed are early morning folks because I just don't see myself jumping out of bed at 6:30 on a Saturday. I'm just so relieved that there is no rain in the forecast for tomorrow because we're spending the day at the pumpkin patch. It's a big event--takes about 45 minutes to get there then there's pony rides, food, a petting zoo, a big country store, a hayride out to the pumpkins, photo ops, and a big corn maze (that she'll love running in!). It's my plan to save my home from her ravages since we're not toddler/preschooler proof anymore. I have put many things up high and barricaded a few things that I want left alone but I couldn't get everything. Wish me luck. (I feel like such a wuss!)

I'm starting to feel lazy. I've been planning to make pillows all week but I haven't done it. I was tied up all day on Wednesday with Amy's photo shoot and it seems like I was busy on Tuesday, too, but that may have been my imagination. But I know I was free Monday and Thursday and I did nothing. Not a damn thing. Criminy! This concerns me because last year, this general feeling of low motivation and malaise is what ushered in my depression that lasted for months. I'm feeling sleepy again and having a hard time rousing myself in the morning. It's clear that I have to change my sleep habits right away or I'll end up in a big morass of sleeping my days away like I did last year. I may talk to my doctor about increasing my dosage of my antidepressant, too. I think the grayness and impending return to standard time is not helping on the depression front. I'll give it a few weeks with a better sleep schedule and see if that helps. If not, I'll give the doc a ring.

I've got a hankering to do some scrapbooking right now but that's impossible. Why is it that when I have the least time or opportunity, I have the strongest desire to scrapbook? I don't get that. I had all day yesterday to myself but all I did was mess around on the computer and then fix dinner. Lame lame lame. I could have scrapbooked to my heart's content. Arrgh!

Russell brought over a basket and a bunch of goodies yesterday for me to arrange into a gift basket for his wife as an anniversary gift for their trip this weekend. I must say, it turned out quite beautiful. I should be a gift basket maker. I'm quite good at it. (That's my less modest side coming out.)

The components for our new computer came yesterday. We don't buy them all put together--Ed buys the pieces he likes and builds them himself so he can get the fastest stuff and have all the parts to his exact specifications. I'm very excited because then our desktop will be screaming fast and stable. The one we have now has some problems that we can't figure out. It's three and a half years old anyway so it's a bit of a dinosaur. The new CD-ROM is a CD burner, too, so that will be fun. We can burn CDs of pictures and videos that we've taken with Joey's camera and send them to the grandparents. I'm sure we'll find lots of other stuff to burn, too. We'll probably get a new color printer sometime soon, too, so we can print out good quality photos. I'm excited to start working with PhotoShop and doing some digital photography stuff for our home use.

I want to get some new camera equipment so I think I need to find some kind of part-time job or something so I can do it. I guess I can wait until I start watching Amy's baby and save that money for a new camera. That's not a bad idea at all, actually. Hmmmm.... I like that. I hadn't even considered that. It will be about 9 months from now but I can wait that long. I've waited this long already. There's no deadline or anything.

I think I need to make a list of my projects and try to assign some dates/deadlines for them so I can actually get them going. I'll never get my house together in time for our big Christmas bash if I don't get cracking now with the pillows and window treatments and painting.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm down a few more pounds? Grand total is 22 lbs. and I've also lost one pants size, almost two. I've been pulling out pants that I haven't worn in 3 or 4 years and it's like going shopping in my own closet. My orange jeans are much too big now, though, and that bums me out because the catalog I ordered them from isn't carrying them for the winter. They just have dark colors like burgundy, forest, black, brown and gray. Who says orange isn't a winter color anyway? I have a few sweatery-type things that I can wear again, too, which I like. There were a few things that got to be too clingy and I didn't like that at all. But now they're ok.

I think that doing more regular exercise will help with the sleepy thing, the depression thing and escalate my weight loss so I'm going to have to do a better job of scheduling that. We've got the treadmill which is fine but I need some other stuff to do, too. I think I'll ride my bike while it's nice enough to ride. I guess any time it's not raining is ok since it doesn't get too cold here. I'm thinking of getting an exercise DVD, too. One of those cardio-funk things that is more dance-y than aerobic-y would be fun. I've seen a few advertised on TV that look like fun. I'll have to see what's available. I'm thinking amazon would be a good place to start?

Well, I'd better go--Julia is due any second and I want to make sure that as much as can be put away is put away before she gets here. Wish me energetic vibes!

--L