Three Dog Life

Every year I have the debate about whether to do Christmas cards.  I hate doing them, but always feel badly if I don't.  Each year I get fewer and fewer cards, so maybe everyone else feels the same way I do (or perhaps I'm simply alienating more and more people every year!)   While it is nice to get the cards, I have to admit they sit on our entertainment center until December 26th and then get thrown away.  And I am pretty sure folks do the same with mine.  Think of all the trees that could be saved if everyone sent electronic cards rather than paper....

Riley amazes me every day - I'm still not sure if he is that smart or if I'm just easily amazed....  We gave him a bath on Saturday, we've been doing it in the kitchen sink and we leave the water running over his legs.  This time he realized the water was there, and like everything he sees, he tried to grab it.  The look on his face was priceless when his hand went right through the water.  A combination of surprise, curiosity and frustration as he kept trying to grab the water with no success - it still makes me smile just to think about it!

Every so often I wonder what year I am living in.  Supposedly women account for close to 50% of law school graduates.  So how come almost every time I walk into a deposition, the court reporter and I are the only women in the room?  All the attorneys are always men. It's like I'm living in the 1950's.  It's not that I think I am treated any differently because I am female, but it always puzzles me that the world I work in is still so male dominated even after all this time.

So how exactly does this happen in the space of 10 minutes?  I still can't figure out how he got his arm out...

Riley

While the first 25 or so pounds of baby weight came off without too much work, those last 10 pounds are clinging like a wet t-shirt!  So I signed up for "boot camp lite" at the gym.  After one false start - silly me thinking I could get up and go at 6am after being up half the night with a small child...and then a bout with the flu, I am finally back on track.  I went on Saturday and again today and I'm getting killed!  My arms were still aching from Saturday when I got there tonight!  Things that used to be easy for me are now very difficult, and the stuff that used to be hard is now impossible.  The worst is the stomach exercises... I used to be really good at the stomach stuff, but now, courtesy of my c-section, it's like they didn't sew my stomach muscles back together!  They just don't work.  Nothing more depressing than folks 15 years older than you lifting twice as much for twice as long!

I've finally begun to recover from the second bout of flu this month, and have to admit there's nothing like finally starting to feel better, but still being able to sit back and relax under the guise of recovering.  So far my day has involved:

So we are finally redoing our backyard a year after it got trashed by the windstorm caused by hurricane Ike.  I spent a lot of time with the landscaper going over the plans, asking questions and trying to make sure everything was covered. We decide to re-do the patio and retaining wall but to wait until spring to do the landscaping/planting work.  I even got them to agree to put back the sections of fence they have to take down around the back yard at the end of each day so that we can let our dogs out.  So last week they bring in a backhoe to tear out the collapsed retaining wall and patio - here's what our yard looks like now:

So those of you who knew me in a past life know that I was a huge heavy metal /glam rock junkie in the 80's and that I had a major Motley Crue obsession.   My husband finds this very hard to believe, but also hilarious, especially since he isn't much for such music. I always wanted to go see them live, but never got the chance.