Bad week. I exercised once. I feel like a cow, and I’ve been huffing and puffing a little bit.

Bleh.

This is the first of many birthday posts this month.

The boy is 2. I can hardly believe it. Of course, he is most definitely ACTING like a 2 year old. Mercy. My sweet, cuddly little guy spends more time screaming at me than anything.

It’s a phase. It’s a phase. It’s a phase.

I called and set up a doctor’s appointment for Monday to see about my arms. I knit a little last night with Hayden, it was ok. I had a hard time concentrating on the lace.

We’re a little late, but we’re here with Health Group. I exercised Mon, Tues, Wed, and Thurs of last week. Ate too much junk.

My pants are tight. I’m really annoyed.

How was your week?

My elbows/arms are killing me. I’m now willing to go to the doctor, but I don’t know when I’ll find the time. Clark and Abby have birthdays this week, and while Clark’s is going to be easy, Abby’s having a dinner party for 10 or so.

In the guitar department, I’m now looking at Taylors. They’re amazingly easy to play, and really well made. They feel good, just holding them. I’m thinking that even when I get my arms fixed, I might as well take it as easy on them as I can to avoid a repeat. A low action guitar should help? They make a cedar and mahogany, grand auditorium that I’m going to try to hunt down today. I like that wood combination, but haven’t tried it in a Taylor yet.

I have a few fun ones. First, here’s Clark in Abby’s old Hayden that he wore on our walk yesterday.

Next, we have my brother recording an acoustic track for “Blackbird” into my computer.

And lastly, one of the two electric guitars that he left for me to play with.

The guy that owns it was going to sell it to my brother for $200, but wants $300 from me. That’s totally lame.

I sang and recorded “April Comes She Will” yesterday. It was cool. I exported two vocal tracks with the guitar into iTunes, but I have 8 tracks of my voice in Garage Band, and when I play them all together, aside from the timing being a little sloppy, it sounds incredibly cool. Like a whole choir of me.

Clark is a little better, but still grumpy. Maybe it’s a reflection of the fact that he’s almost 2. It’s getting extremely old.

My mother-in-law is sick. She thought she’d be better for Easter dinner, but wasn’t, and called on Saturday afternoon to take me up on my offer to host for her. So, Easter wasn’t very relaxing, but it was extremely fun. There were a few times, when I’d pause from bustling about, that I thought I should really get a picture of things like the pretty table surrounded by family in casual conversation, Ray and 5 of his sons hiding 150 plastic eggs in our very small, basement family room for the 9 cousins to find, Nate and his brothers sing/screaming along to “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi, various living room scenes… but I admit, sadly now, that instead I just took a breath and enjoyed the moment.

So I’m taking it easy this morning. The sun is out, briefly I’m sure, and Clark is in a bad mood. He’s a little sick and it’s not the cute, cuddly kind of sick, it’s the grumpy, whining, everything-I-do-is-wrong kind of sick. So I’m feeling a bit self indulgent and wanting to make the day as pleasant for myself as possible. My elbows are s-l-o-w-l-y getting better. I haven’t knit a stitch in over a week. I haven’t practiced my guitar much at all and my lesson is tomorrow so I need to get on that.

On Saturday afternoon, we played around with the equipment that enables us to play and sing and record into Garage Band on the computer. We came up with some very fun, silly songs. I’m going to keep working with it so I can at some point post a song here. I’m not sure how to do that yet.

I really don’t like picture-less posts. I’ll try to do something photo worthy today.

Oh, wait, I found some. I did manage to get pictures of our very first ever egg dyeing session. I had 6 or so dye kits that I’ve bought over the years with the intent to dye eggs with the kids, but we never actually got around to it until this year.

My house is a mess. Mom, don’t look.

And here’s a shot of all the (old enough to hunt eggs anyway) cousins down in the basement with their oh-so-festive grocery bag easter baskets.

You do what you can do. Happy Easter!

Hi! It’s been a few days. My elbows still hurt, though they’re a little better, but I’m probably going to have to break down and see a doctor. My guitar teacher said that it isn’t normal. I’m out of excuses.

This week was up and down. I had a couple of great days, exercised three times, and the rest of the time….

I ate too much food.

But, I can tell that I’m getting stronger physically through my exercises. I’m getting better. I’m at peace with it.

How was your week?

Quite frankly, I’d love to just sit here and type/chat with you. I’m in kind of a relaxed, conversational mood, but I have an hour to get showered, dressed, and the house cleaned up before Nate and I go on our date, and I don’t really have the time.

So I’ll be quick.

I’ve been having fun with music. Nate bought an interface-something-or-other to allow me to plug into the computer and record, so maybe at some point, I’ll be able to post a song and you all can hear me sing!

That’s relatively terrifying to me, but I’m actively trying to overcome this ridiculous fear I have of performing in front of people. I can sing. I know I can. I’m tired of choking when I know others are listening.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to this week. I haven’t tried the interface-something-or-other yet. Probably Monday, once the girls go to school.

I have some cute pictures, though. Veronica loves to cook. I wish I was a better mom and gave her more opportunity. But on Wednesday last week, the older two went off to softball practice, and I thought I’d let Veronica make biscuits.

She’s such a little shrimp. She’s almost 7 and weighs 38 pounds. She uses the stepladder a lot. It permanently resides in the kitchen, to the right of the stove and she pulls it out frequently.

While she was making biscuits, my brother Sam was playing music for us.

Anytime Sam is over, it’s like having a mini concert in the house. He just walks around with it and plays while we’re doing stuff, while we’re talking. It’s fun.

I’m still not knitting. It feels strange, like things aren’t quite right when I can’t knit. My guitar lesson is this afternoon, so I’ll talk to my instructor and see what he thinks. Am I building strength or damaging myself? Is it related to or aggravated by the guitar playing? Is it normal?

KT Tunstall, who is my musical idol, is coming to the Moore Theater in early May. My brother told me about it and we got tickets. I’m so very excited!!! I’m prepared to spend the day in line for good seats so I can get as close as possible and watch her hands. She’s such a great guitar player. She also does the coolest stuff with loop stations.

I want to be her. (Or at least be able to play like that).

Most specifically, Sam’s scarf knitting that’s hurting my arm. I finished it up, (there were only a few inches left and he was anxious) and I hurt a lot more while I was knitting it.

It was a lot of cabling with a yarn that wasn’t very soft and didn’t have a lot of give. I’m hoping that it was the specific knitting of his scarf that did me in. I tried knitting on the big shawl a little yesterday, and it wasn’t comfortable. I guess I need to stop for awhile and keep up the ibuprofen. Guitar seems to be ok, weights are absolutely out.

So the fact that Carol’s latest sock club package arrived a few days ago is just…. not cool.

I mean it’s cool, but it’s not cool. Because I can’t do anything with it in the foreseeable future and it taunts me. Look at that color! Is sooooo pretty.

I ordered over 200 pictures online Friday to scrapbook this year so far, beginning with New Year’s Eve. I’m really excited about it. They should arrive in the next couple of days. I also did an online book through iPhoto about our trip to the cabin. It’s very cool. I don’t know how to balance the two- digital and/or traditional photo albums, but I’m going to mess around with both of them.