Yep, the cast came off last week! I am amazed by the motions I am still unable to accomplish. For instance, while holding my elbows stiff, my left hand can rotate from palm up to palm down via wrist movement. Right hand, nope. Second, when in a praying hands position, left arm can be straight out bent at the wrist while my right wrist will not allow the arm to reach more than a 60 degree angle. Exercises I am doing just make me more sore and achy and I have yet to see much improvement. Hopefully that is not a permanent thing?
Reese is getting into everything. She can stand for several seconds without assistance and walks one handed behind her push-cart. Walking is just around the corner, I believe. Still no teeth! Jude doesn’t allow me much sleep – he is quite a night-time romper. I hope this is a sign that externally he will be quite a peaceful little boy. 
Joseph works hard as always. I went with a friend last night to the South Metro Young Republicans meeting (a friend of mine is the treasurer of this brand new group) to hear Karen Handel, candidate for governor and current Secretary of State. I was much impressed. I think I will vote for her.
Summer always brings out the relaxed and more calm side of me. Typically I tend to be a slightly spastic, half-crazed fiend around the house – cleaning, decluttering, organizing, trying to get everything moved/touched/trifled with…. Summer weather like we’ve been having the past few days (breezy, sunny, blue skied high 70’s) puts me into a more mellow and probably more enjoyable to those around me mood.
Top Things I Will Be SO Grateful To Return To Post Cast:
- Journaling – I sorely miss my two-three times weekly romp through the pages of my life.
I’ve managed to scribble unintelligibly about 3 times since my wrist broke…. 
Typing – Currently my typing consists of holding my right shoulder up in the air at a strange angle to type out 2/3 my normal speed. Before that, I was reduced to 1/2 speed by typing with one left finger.- Thorough decluttering of the baby’s and guest room closets, the kitchen cabinets and the file cabinet. Hey, I said I am more mellow, not completely devoid of my decluttering/organizing streak.
Things That Having a Cast (and nothing to do) Has Made Me Want to Get Done:
- Garden – I plan this year to create a couple raised beds out of boards (which I HOPE to find somehow on Craigslist…) to begin planting a small garden next spring. This also means I need to get my compost pile container set up (of which I’ve had the materials to do so for a year….)
- Paint the gutters – They’re chipping white off onto a brownish color. Ugh. Also they need to be cleaned out…sigh.
- Canning – which also entails getting up at 7:30 to get to the local farmers market in town to get fruits and vegetables to can (until I have a garden!).
- Grinding my own flour – yeah, we’ll see.
- Planting the grass seed in the backyard.
So there you have it.
Reese is definitely teething. I’ve felt it coming on for a few weeks, but this week it’s obviously happening. Double the drool, tired/sleepy and my usually happy baby is very cranky and prone to crying inconsolably. Poor thing – she doesn’t want to eat much and she had a slight fever last night. She looks so miserable! I wish I could poke her teeth through fast so she could feel better sooner. Sigh….
I got fed up with Apple’s Pages program (equivalent to Word SUPPOSEDLY) not showing the styles of the fonts without you selecting text and selecting a font. In Word, the name of the font is in that style making it convenient to see what you’re getting! So I typed out the name to every Apple font in it’s font so that I have a future reference for all the fonts. Small progress in life, but progress nonetheless.
Found a new and interesting blog today. Several links off of it to others were also fruitful. I wish I could so vociferously and succinctly blog as such others are able to do. Alas, I just have too much talk in me and not enough say. I also started a BabyFit profile. I have a hard time getting in all the food I’m supposed to be eating. Eating for two? I can’t eat what I normally do – it’s as if my stomach shrinks into the small corner allowed it by kicking, rolling and flopping baby Jude. Breakfast was a mango and a container of raspberries; lunch was 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast and 3 pieces of turkey bacon. With a handful of animal crackers and a yogurt I’m not even 1/2 way to my suggested daily intake of calories. Ugh. Supper of spaghetti probably won’t get me there either. I should be eating a small cow, a large garden and the eggs of an entire henhouse supposedly.
Saturday my best friend is coming over – it’s been awhile since we’ve seen each other and longer since we’ve hung out, so I’m really looking forward to it! She lives in Griffin (too far away).
Sunday our church is having a professional organist playing before church and a farewell supper event for the current organist who is retiring after what seems to be 40+ years. I’m taking bean salad and raspberry pound cake trifle. They said 2 salads, 1 fruit and 1 vegetable – I don’t know if Trifle counts. But it’s fruit right? 
Reese got taken to the pool for the first time last Saturday. She LOVED it. In her little raft floaty thing she could touch the bottom of the kiddie pool and was walking all over it, splashing and giggling up a storm. It was so much fun I didn’t notice myself getting burnt to a dull crisp. I might peel a little (usually don’t) and it is STILL sore in some places. Ugh!
It will be fun to do this all summer.
Joseph and I very much enjoyed a cheap and relaxing trip to the Guntersville area for our second anniversary. A free visit to a spectacular waterfalls, a $6 trip to another and a $10 trip to the best caverns we’ve ever seen. Plus our BOGO free night at an older but respectable enough B&B.
A few highlights from the trip:
Then there was the long drive to and from Ohio, and a few days in the oven there. My grandmother is about to be 90 and her circulation and temperature gauge is NOT normal. It was 87 outside, 90 inside…not only is the only AC from a window unit, she thinks it’s too cold to turn it on AND wants to turn on the heat to ward off the cold. It can be rough. Reese did pretty well though, better than she did when she was 3 weeks old there! She was a little cranky on the way up but the trip home was bearable. In all, we made it! My 97 year old grandfather was able to come home to the house from the nursing home and he thought Reese was “somethin’ else.”
Nothing on this earth is sweeter to me than the marriage I have with my husband. He is truly my very best friend, my confidant, my treasure, my sweetheart, my guardian, protector and knight. Even through the little stresses and bumps life brings, nothing can really be that bad when we have our three-fold cord (God, him and me).
Thus it is my joy to celebrate a second year has passed that saw our love united and our selves became truly as one. Which reminds me that we’re only about a month away from marking seven years as a definite point of realization that we were to be as such.
Joe and I are leaving Reese with my mom (and Aberdeen) here at the house and heading to Lake Guntersville, AL, four hours away for a BOGO B&B deal I obtained via herbal tea rebate last year. In typical fashion, we wait until the week before it expires to use it.
We intend to hike twice (once around the lake and once to see a nearby waterfall), enjoy lake views from our second story porch and eat at two restaurants to keep up with the “two” theme. Haha. Photos to follow. Bon voyage to us!
Yesterday I painted the wood railing lining the side of our carport. It had been poorly done to begin with, which was apparently a long time ago (see below).
Once I finished the slightly more tedious than first imagined task of one handed (left handed no less) painting, the finished result was quite pleasant.
I am now looking forward to the continuation of this project. Tomorrow will bring washing and drying the floor and painting it with grey outdoor porch paint. I also have a white garden bell to hang, a clothesline contraption to mount, a bug lightbulb to install and mosquito netting to turn into privacy wisps. (I would say curtains if one could imagine mosquito netting being a privacy curtain…….see? Doesn’t really work, does it? Even with a good imagination. Anne would agree.)
Then we’ll move our hand-me-down patio furniture and my “push present” swing (some like diamonds, others outdoor swings) and our little summer haven will be complete!
UPDATE: May 14
I washed and painted the floor. Wow. I disrecommend pregnant 1 armed people attempting this task. My legs and bag were shaking when I finally finished!
Before:
And after:
We met up with Joseph’s parents and grandmother after church for lunch. We attempted first Smokey Bones that had a “moms eat free” deal – but with a 2+ hour wait to be seated plus an hour to be served our meal, we headed to Red Lobster instead where they had a 30 minute wait. I’ve never actually been there, so it was a new experience. I don’t like or eat lobster, shrimp, crab, shellfish or pretty much anything but fish in the “seafood” class of culinaria. But my trout was tasty enough and I could definitely eat their biscuits to an inevitably scale-tipping habitual basis.
On to a different bit of news: yesterday was our ultrasound of course! We are to expect a baby boy in September!!!!!!!! Jude Quincy Arenton Darnell is on his healthy way. A great Mothers Day gift! This is his face, with an arm up next to his head.
Reese just got her nightly bath and bottle of goaty milk and is in her bed. 
Joe and I had a long day and are about to head to our own. Nite!
And no money. haha! My car’s tires were more than losing their tread, they were….shall we say, worn to smooth-faced rubber nubs? So 4 new tires were in order – thank goodness for Statham’s Tires in Rockmart – they charge a third of what most shops do and do a better job of it! Joe’s car was running on brakes
that were shreds of metal – I was told they weren’t even safe to drive home without being fixed. The dealership had quoted me $390 a few weeks ago. Statham’s charged $190. I also took a trip to Marietta to get a new key for my car. Before and After:
Reese has been enjoying her Grandpa visiting. He plays with her toys with her and watches Baby Einstein with her. :-)
She also got to watch a bunny in the yard this evening, while she was enjoying her Goldfish.
It’s been raining a lot lately! I’m anxious for it to subside a little. I like rain when I have nothing to do, but errands run in the rain are not pleasant. (Especially with Reese getting all wet!)
Joe and I spent Saturday afternoon walking around Town Center Mall and then met up with friends (Jennie and Linsay) for a discount deal at Medieval Times. Neither of them have been, so it was a new experience – which is always fun to take a part in. It’s rare to get a 1/2 price deal there so we jumped at the chance – it is definitely worth 1/2 the price (the regular price is a bit steep). We walked around Discover Mills Mall twice – it is pretty cool and very diverse, with a stuffed wildlife entrenched Bass Pro, Egyptian, Moroccan, Oriental and Nubian stores…and the various assortment of regular stores like Ross (attached to a mall??), Books-A-Million and a carousel circled by scenes of Venice in the food court. Anyway, it was jolly fun. Sunday after church I went to a friend’s baby shower.
Reese’s Grandpa came into town last night, after several weeks on the truck trying to get home for a few days. Aberdeen was also thrilled to see him. And Reese turned 9 months old!
The approaching addition of a second child causes a realization that we are really and truly a part of that wonderful institution known as a FAMILY. Hence, we begin this endeavor to keep you updated with our most current status in life as frequently as possible!
Reese is two days from being the ripe old age of 9 months! She decided to pick up a few hobbies and past times the past few weeks:
Speed-crawling, standing up, getting tangled up in stuff and getting into everything within 4 feet of her reach.
Paper (of any variety) is currently a choice delicacy and bumped heads, scraped fingers and bruises are becoming colorful additions to her body on a regular basis. On a good note: these are learning bumps, scrapes and bruises. She does not (yet) appear to have inherited her mother’s clumsiness and lack of average motor skills. Her current lexicon includes such words as “da-da,” “duh” (usually not used in the same breath with da-da….), “maaammmmm” (which I hope refers to me) and “Aber” which we figure is the shortened version of Aberdeen. “Five” also came out one day when Baby Einstein said it first, and there are a lot of gurgles, squeaks and coos as well. In all, she is an extremely happy and fun baby to have around!
Baby #2 will get name recognition VERY soon – May 9 actually! We are always happy to put a name to a kicking, squirming inner-baby and are thankful for that bit of technology! (Thank you, Dr. Robert Rines!) On May 9, we will hopefully know whether we’re to expect Jude Quincy Arenton or Grey Serenity Allison! In the meantime, this one has been very nice to mommy and has not given her a bit of the normal pregnancy woes in all 19 weeks!
Joseph continues to work hard as the creative web designer and content manager for American Vision. He puts his whole heart into it, and if I do say so, he is marvelously talented at what he does. In spare time, he is helping his brother with a children’s book and writing his own personal blog. When the book project is complete, he plans to finish up his Rainbow training to begin distributing one of the most marvelous products we’ve ever encountered! We catch our moments together as much as we can, and spend many enjoyable evenings strolling around the Avenue and sitting in Barnes and Noble.
As for me (Liz) – I had to stop working my part-time hours at AV when I took a tumble over a box when I lost my balance turning on a ceiling fan (no, I was not standing on it, I just lost my balance and fell). The broken wrist that ensued couldn’t be set in the ER (after 5 hours of waiting) because of pregnancy. They referred us to Pinnacle and since a family friend of Joseph’s works at a Pinnacle, we begged to get in to see him. He was unable to set it because I started to hyperventilate, thus contracting all muscles, because of the pain when he started to mess with it. Hence, we had to have it set in surgery while I was under General Anesthesia. Yes, we are getting plenty of medical bills now to thoroughly wallpaper a small house. 
However, even if we had insurance, we would still be under the outrageously high deductible so it would have been out of pocket anyway. It all works out in the end, thankfully – if we didn’t believe in a sovereign God life would be pretty depressing! So a week after it broke it was set and within 2 days, little pain is left and I just have to get used to life with 1 hand for 6 weeks! That is the hardest part. My mom is here helping out with Reese til I am back to normal and can actually DO stuff again!
So there is our lives this week! Check back again soon!
