The GOOD News!

Yes, we do have good news here, too. Sometimes I just get mired down in the not good, especially when it just keeps going. Right now Slipshod is very sick, has had the flu since Friday (he even went so far as to come home early from work with a fever) and since then has been glued to the couch making moaning noises - but the girls and I are well, and there are other good things going on around our house/in our lives.

1) Last Friday I went to Sweet Pea's school for a parent-teacher conference (they were doing them with all the parents - this is the second conference we've had this year, which is nice). Slipshod would have been with me if he hadn't been feeling so under the weather, so it was just The Bug and I who went. Sweet Pea played over at the neighbors' house while we were gone, and the teachers were so very sweet and accommodating with The Bug - gave her a doll and some other things to play with, took the scissors away from her when I didn't notice she was holding some, etc. ANYway - Sweet Pea's teachers said that they just love having her in class and are very happy that she will be back with them next year (she's in a 3-5-year-old room and will be turning 5 this summer). They said that while she does do some of the adademic "works" in the classroom, she is most drawn to art and practical life, which is works like undressing and dressing dolls, sweeping with a whisk broom and dust pan, pouring, spraying water on the windows & squeegeeing them off, etc. She does venture into the language area and do some of the works there, like matching pictures of words that have the same sounds, etc. They said that they can tell from things she says and does that she is getting the academics at home and that she is capable of grasping and doing most of the works in the room, but those mentioned above are what they have seen her doing and/or helped her with.

They say that Sweet Pea still prefers to work alone and that she sometimes sits and simply observes the other children, then starts to do something else by herself. She does not participate of her own initiative in group discussions but if they ask her a question she will answer them readily enough. She is gaining social skills and is more often approaching some of the other children on the playground to see if she can play with them or if they will play with her, which is good to hear. The teachers say that she most often hangs out with them and speaks to them in near-whispers. They are trying to teach her to speak up and encouraging her to engage with the other kids more. Over all the teachers say that Sweet Pea is doing very well and since they have seen so much social growth in her during the first half of the school year, they hope that by summer, or maybe next year, she will be a little more talkative during group discussions, etc.

2) Since the new year began I have unpacked several boxes! Really - several! I am very excited about this, especially since I have already freecycled a large, packed-to-the-gills moving box of toys, and have more boxes of clothes and children's kitchen items ready to send away as well. I love seeing the spaces the unpacked boxes are leaving in our overcrowded garage, and adore the idea that the next time we move (no plans for this, I'm just sayin'), we'll have less stuff to take with us! I don't know if it's a dream we can realize, but I also have happy thoughts of perhaps one day being able to put our cars in the garage. Can you imagine?

3) I've lost a bunch of weight! It's actually been kind of a surprise to me, especially since the pounds just keep disappearing, but hey, I'll take it! Simply by stopping my midnight-every-night snack of ice cream (yes, I'm serious, it was every night, and they were big bowls full, too), I lost 10 pounds in 6 weeks. Since then I have mysteriously lost 6 more pounds. Currently, speaking in numbers alone, that leaves me with zero "baby weight" from The Bug, and even down two pounds from what I weighed when I got pregnant with her - only 7 pounds heavier than when I became pregnant the first time - and I had gotten fit before I got pregnant the first time!

Of course, the number on the scale is only part of the story. While I love watching that number go down, the fact remains that I am soft and squishy and untoned all over, and my belly is a stretched-out pillow of an abdomen. So obviously, I want to start exercising again to tone up what is there, and maybe even lose a few more pounds in the process. I wouldn't complain if the number on the scale kept going down for a while. Hee. Slipshod and my neighbor friend and some family members have noticed and made comments here and there about how I looked like I had lost weight, which is the only thing that got me on the scale in the first place. I wasn't noticing, so I'm glad they did, because having weight loss actually occurring is a REALLY good kick in the pants to get fit again!

And of course, besides wanting to be healthier and all that, I really want to look better in the pictures we take this summer than I did in last year's summer pictures. Call me vain; there it is. I'm even planning to buy (and, more importantly, wear) GIRL shoes this summer, with the help of my shoe-addicted girly-girl neighbor friend. I need help with that sort of thing because I've never had an ounce of fashion sense myself.

4) If you have known us long enough and tend to remember this sort of thing (or have heard me griping about it enough times), you may know that in 1998, Slipshod bought a 1970 Corvette Stingray, intending to learn about cars by fixing it up. And that said car then sat in our garage, almost untouched, in San Jose until... well, until this very day.

Well, a year and a half ago we rented out that house and Slipshod told the tenants, one of whom is a good friend of ours, that we would have the 'Vette out of there by two months after they moved in. That was September 2006... and like I said, the durn thing is still taking up half of the garage.

Well, our friend-tenant just happens to work for EBay and gets really motivated about stuff all the time, so he has run several ideas by us for how to get rid of the car. Two days ago he said, "hey, why don't you just put it up on EBay?" and Slipshod agreed, so he washed the car inside the garage, took a slew of pictures of it, got the particulars about the car over the phone yesterday from Slipshod, and wrote up a big, shiny EBay post for it.

Today? It's sold. There was no auction, because some guy from New York saw the post last night, called our friend about it today, and agreed to pay the "buy it now" price, which - get this - IS WHAT WE PAID FOR IT WHEN WE BOUGHT IT. I NEVER dreamed we'd even get 10% back of what we paid for that car. It was in crappy shape when we bought it, but we were able to drive that car home when we bought it. Since then all the tires have gone flat and the thing doesn't even start. It's a mess. A tear-it-down-to-the-frame fixer-upper. So, I'm loving not only our friend/tenant, but also the buyer! And yes, we did give our tenant friend a break on his rent for helping us in such a huge way. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! I can't believe that car will finally be out of our lives and their garage. WAHOO!!


There you go - that's some good stuff, no? I'm feeling really good about all of it. It has also helped my mood that the girls have now been healthy for AN ENTIRE WEEK, and during that week it has been sunny outside. Sun helps my mood a lot. And because of the sun and warmth, we have spent more time outside, playing with all the little neighbor boys (there is another little girl besides ours in the neighborhood but we never see her).

I hope that you are all doing well, and hope to get more of a chance to check more blogs this week!