Guess what?

Hi! I have been boring you with my meanderings for one year today!
And also...this has been such a great summer! I could never have any other job because I need to have the freetime to eat sweetcorn, swing on a hammock, read, swim, get pedicures...aahhh. What a rough life. AND! If you like to make fun of famous people like I do, check out this website.

More than just shamelessly fishing for comments...

So, what boys names do you like? I just know we are having a boy because there are about five girls names that we love but seem to be stuck for a boy. One of my favorite hobbies this summer (and, who am I kidding, for the last several years) has been to peruse the social security administration baby names website to get ideas. Only, because I like old fashioned names I have been looking in the twenties and thirties for ideas. Anyway, I'm still kind of stuck, so feel free to post some suggestions.

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Dad!

(This is actually my dad and Jen. I am the one

for whom the crib is being painted.)

A bit of insomnia for the early bird this morning, so I thought I'd catch you up on what I've been reading. So I tried to be all literary and read this year's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, March by Geraldine Brooks. And instead I just didn't read for several days. I am going to try again, but for now I am returning to chick lit and popular fiction that so easily helps me escape when I get home from work. One recent read was Julia Glass' The Whole World Over. (You may remember Julia Glass if you read Three Junes.) I enjoyed Ms. Glass' most recent novel, although the end deals a bit with September 11th, which made me not want to read it, I must admit. However, the characters are really engaging and I think she writes about the difficulties and rewards of marriage pretty well. I also just finished an old one from Elizabeth Berg, What We Keep. It's about mothers, sisters and daughters and reevaluating events from the past that you believed in your core to have happened one way; only to look back with the benefit of experience to realize you might be wrong. I think it also makes you think about how easy it is to blame your parents for things when they are simply other human beings trying to get it right too.

Greetings, Earthlings...

Thelonius says hi!

They must be raindrops...fallin' from my ey-eyes...

A weird thing about pregnancy is all the irrational crying. In my first trimester it was rather pathetic how easily I could cry tears of joy, sadness, frustration, etc. I actually cried after the National Geographic Geography Bee. (Oh, that little nerdy kid is so brave! & from Illinois!) And forget watching Extreme Home Makeover, which makes me cry on a normal day, but while pregnant I would sob.

Lately it has been much better, but today I had bad customer service while grocery shopping and literally cried the whole way home from the store. Logical Nora was sitting there like, "you big cry baby, knock it off." But it didn't matter I just was so sad about this big mean Dominick's manager. Oh yeah, and I cried during Superman...I mean when he saves Lois, her husband and kid from the sinking ship...come on! It makes a girl afraid to venture out in public. If a teacher cries in a high school classroom she is done for...
Enough sharing for today.

Happy Independence Day

So I have been out of town and just got back. (Before that we had out-of-town visitors) so I haven't posted. Here's what's new in fun and easy to read bullet style:

• Went to Taste of Chicago & The Aquarium. Dolphins are pretty.
• Saw the Disney Channel phenomenom High School Musical and secretly enjoyed it although it is a Grease knock-off and the songs aren't as good. I also saw Superman which I liked more than I thought, but at two hours and thirty-four minutes, I had to take more bathroom breaks than I care to recount.
• Lost my cell phone somewhere, I can check voice mails, but that is it on the mobile for a few days, 'kay?
• Had much fun with the in-laws and got to check out Lake Michigan from the Western side and the Eastern side in a span of two days. Kinda cool.
• Start summer school tomorrow. Feel sorry for me?

Anyway, I am having a delightful summer and am enjoying my second trimester way more than the first. I will post a week nineteen picture in the next few days.