It was one of those March days...

... when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens

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We've been busy this Spring! Here's a quick rundown for my following friends & fam.

We've added to our family:

Sahara is officially ours! This dog is fantastic. She listens good, stays out of stuff, and she's sweet. A bit of a clinger, but that might just be a new-house phase. We love her already. :)

We've climbed our new tree. I love this tree. It's so neat looking.


Unfortunately it's a diseased tree and the top might have to go before it falls on the house. I flat-out refuse to make it a stump. Still works for climbing!


We visited a friend's house that's being built. Climbed a giant pile of dirt.


And a pile of rocks. The house is gorgeous so far! I love half-built houses, they smell so good. And I like to see what hides behind walls.


We went bowling for preschool. I was still dying from the P90X workout. Thankfully only the kids bowled, and I didn't have to embarrass myself sharing a ball with a 5 year old.

He beat Mom's average and looked good doin' it!


I used a bunch of scraps to make myself a new Spring messenger bag. I used all my favorite green and blue fabrics, with a touch of red-orange thrown in. Turned out perfect and the pattern is perfected!! I may have to make another of these to list on my quickly-emptying Etsy!

And least, but definitely not least... actually the best part of our week... we finally met baby Leni! Leni is world's sweetest, most beautiful baby girl, the daughter of my very best friend. David was so great with her. He even held her 3 times, covered her in kisses, and was a bit of a baby hog at times! He did not let me forget he wants a baby sister.

~~~More Soon!~~~

Day 2 -- P90X

What a way to end a Monday. Kicking my own ass in the basement to my very first P90X workout DVD. Day 1 = Chest & Back. Aside from my complete lack of ability to even do a modified push-up, I managed to do half of this workout using resistance bands. It looked much easier than my hardcore hubby's real military push-ups on the floor. He was grunting and groaning and not giving in. I did 35 minutes of the workout with the bands and said "Screw this shit, I won't even be able to lift a bowling ball tomorrow when I go with my kid's preschool class. I need to stop." So I stopped. And yesterday morning I woke up thinking "Did someone try to rip my arms off in my sleep?"

I hate chest and back exercises. I thought they were my least favorite. After a mild bitch-fest on Facebook about how I didn't want to do that and how I'd rather create some buns of steel on my backside, my friend Damon suggested Disc 2- Plyometrics, telling me it's much more my style. Damon have we met? In the 20+ yrs I've known you did you have some warped idea that I like to try to kill myself through exercise? Good god, P90X are you trying to take me out?!

Mistake #1 was telling my husband to start without me and I'd be right down. I missed 5 minutes of the warm up and raced through my stretches.

Mistake #2 was pushing myself through exercises that literally made me fall on my ass. The P90X guy stresses the importance of stopping when you need to. Make it burn but don't go too far. I promise you P90X guy, I will do this next time.

Mistake #3 was to sleep on the couch. I do this most nights since my husband works 3rd shift, my bedroom is a never-ending mess, and I just prefer the couch.

When I woke up this morning unable to move I instantly regretted all the choices I made last night. What have I done to my back? How didn't I hurt my back with the Chest & Back workout, and I did hurt it with Plyometrics? If anyone wants to bump me off, today's the day to do it. I couldn't get away from you if I tried. I'm resisting getting up to get my boy a bowl of cereal. I've tried as well as I could to put Icy Hot on this very localized back injury (extremely hard to do when you can't move ANYTHING) and popped a few ibuprofen (the strongest med in my house unfortunately) and I think I will be useless on the couch all day. I do have a lunch date that I refuse to miss and some fruit to buy for my girl's night tonight, then I'm refusing to move.

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I'm full of it already. I think I'll have to remind my husband that taking the trash out is a man's job. (His words not mine, I'm just going along with this chauvinistic bullshit so I don't have to take out the trash, clean the gutters, or mow the lawn.) Enter garbage truck #1, which is thankfully always earlier than my own, so I can race outside with my own herbie curbie before my truck gets there. Every one of my close neighbors uses a different trash service. My kid is in garbage truck heaven. I'm in more of a I-will-beat-your-ass-Dave-if-you-forget-this-next-week mood. Also, Planet you are welcome, I lugged down both full recycling bins also.

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It's too early for this much bitching. Besides that, I'm pre-coffee. Never a good thing. I'll end this with an OWWWWWW.

New Packaging!

I Heart Ipanema opens soon!! I spent most of the weekend packaging things and saying "OMG I made this much stuff?!?!" This is what I decided on for my magnet sets:



Simple and clean looking, so I'm happy. I did a similar thing with my Pocket Mirrors:

Everything looks so neat. And it cost me less than 3 cents each for packaging - can't beat that!! I still have Ninja Pants and Flex Frame Pouches to make and then I'm all set!! My Pillow Cubes are tagged and look fabulous (I'll get a pic soon!) and my Coaster Sets look wonderful as well.

The Kalamazoo Gazette came to do their interview last week too. I can't remember if I blogged it, but I don't think I did. I hope I didn't sound too nerdy. I'm pretty sure I referred to myself as a fabric snob. No one should ask me things and then just let me endlessly talk.

WOOF!

We went to the Kalamazoo Animal Rescue event this morning to see the dogs up for adoption! We haven't been in this house for a month yet, and we've only had the new gate up for a day. I didn't think this was happening so soon!

Look at that big eared cutie! We did some pre-KAR event research to see what animals would be there and instantly loved Sahara from the pictures and description. She's a 2-ish year old lab/ husky/ sharpei mix and she's just the sweetest!

I can't help but be nervous. I haven't had a dog since I lived at home 10 yrs ago. My BFF had a couple rottweilers living with us briefly, but they weren't mine. They also made me nervous. I remember when my son was a baby and he left me thinking that babies really are like puppies. They both do a lot of eating, sleeping, farting, and noise-making. I'm excited. And nervous.

Her foster parents say she's their favorite foster dog yet. I'd wonder if they say that to every potential new home for every animal, but the process to just get this dog is crazy. Soon we will be interviewed to see if we are the right family for Sahara. Then someone will come over and see where we live to make sure we aren't animal hoarders or something. Then a few more things that I can't remember. Eventually, a few hundred dollars later and we'll be dog owners!! I'm curious to see how she is at our house as opposed to the busy Petco environment this morning. That dog is strong! She dragged me sniffing her way around this store for a while. I sense a new dog-walking workout in my future...