Whew! First off, another new to me Voyager episode. Cool. Plus baby is still taking a nap from her busy so far day, so I can have a few minutes to post.

This weekend was busy! Friday Morella and I went to the Mall for the first time. Then Saturday we had a visitor! Jen stopped by in the evening and met Morella. We had some homemade cherry coffee cake and she watched without batting an eye when Morella threw a fit about going to bed. Boy was she mad! She would howl in the room for her 10 minutes and then when we would bring her out she'd blink a few times, eyes rimmed with red and then look at Jen and bust out a big ol' raspberry and smile. Eventually she did go to sleep and we were left with what to do with the evening. Suddenly we has the last minute idea to go to the Inferno!

I haven't been there in ages. I only went once last year for one day of Reverence and before that it was the previous year before New Year's. Jen hadn't planned on going so we needed to go shopping to find something for her to wear. It was glorious to wander around Target and Kohl's looking at clothes, drinking a half caf and overall take my time just perusing. Ultimately I didn't find anything I liked clothes wise and almost walked out empty handed but then remembered -- underwear. Friends, I discovered last year when I was looking for a new bra to wear during the pregnancy that there are modern day girdles! I stood in the aisle of JC Penny at the time and lifted my jaw off the ground in fascination and excitement. No more big old lady panties hiked up to chin in order to smooth out the bulges, I could just slip on one of these little beauties and enjoy looking 15 pounds slimmer without all the discomfort and constant adjusting. Now was my chance to finally make a dream come true!

I splurged and bought two pieces. One is a slimming tank with built in bra that is perfect for controlling the back fat. The other is a classic girdle that slims and holds from the top of my hips to my rib cage letting me wear my own underwear (which is totally worth it for the sake of using the John). I thought it was funny later on at the club because several of the women there were wearing corsets on the outside. Ahh, it's it great getting old? Those young whippersnappers with their underoos out for the whole world to see and then there is me preferring to look thinner without having the whole world see how it's done. ;) Now the hard part is going to be resisting the temptation to find reasons to wear either of them on a daily basis.

I ended up staying until bar time and gave Jen and her husband a ride back to the their hotel afterwards. They stayed at the Holiday Inn over by the clinic I take Morella and so I decided to be brave and take the fast way home since it was 2.45 in the morning. It didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would, I did find my way home and I was struck by what a lonely sensation it was to drive in a car out in the middle of night by myself. Anyway, Tim told me the next day that I was on the right track except I should have turned towards the Rockford exit on to the interenstate or whatever. At the time I thought "I don't want to go to Rockford." Tim later said "It's not a wormhole Laura. It doesn't take you right there."

Ha ha whoops.

Sunday was rough because I didn't get enough sleep and was just overtired. When I don't have enough sleep I get cranky and irritable. We decided to go and buy a stove and then do some more couch shopping. At the end of the day we got the stove but no couch, at least not yet. We decided to employ the haggling tactics of a master -- Laima before moving ahead with anything. That evening I took a nap, and woke up to hearing Tim visit in the living room with Christian who is in town looking for apartments because he and the lady friend are moving back come this fall! Cool. That two hour nap I took was heavenly! I felt SO much better and was able to function completely again. It really puts into question how much I really want to have late nights while I am still pumping.

Monday, my friend Lowen came over and met Morella for the first time. She brought her an adorable plush froggie that Morella buried her head in right away. It's super soft and and cuddely! After Morella got up from her nap and had something to eat we headed over to Java Cat for some grown up lunch. I had never had lunch there and was surprised by how reasonably priced their lunch special was! It sure beats the pants off Cool Beans. Morella had a great time and was good for most of the time we were there. She got a little cranky an hour and half later but I think that was because she needed a diaper change. But we were done by then anyway.

Today, I needed to go the post office to send a package to my friend who is having a baby next month. It was a rather large box so I was really torn about how I was going to do this. If I wait until Tim got home and drove there I risked not having it done because I was lazy. There was no way I could have carried the box and the baby carrier. What I ended up doing was wearing Morella in the infantino carrier (cooler temperature wise and it sort of has a wind block than the moby) and then carried the box in. Man was it packed there! I had completely forgotten that it was tax day and that that many people really did wait until the last minute. Morella charmed everyone though with her bright open eyes and smile. She was just drinking it all in. A woman with a baby was behind me and I peeked over to see what looked like a premie. I mean this babies face was skeletal! I asked her how much he weighed at birth and she said 8 pounds 6 ounces...I was shocked! Morella never looked that corpse like...and the kicker was this baby was two months old! Maybe I've already forgotten how small 8 week old babies are. I mean Morella seemed huge to me after that.

After we left the post office I popped over to Woodman's to do some grocery shopping. I put Morella in the carrier again and wore her as we did our shopping. I can't tell you how many people stopped to smile or say hello to Morella while we were shopping. She talked a few times and overall was much better behaved than just being in the car seat carrier. When I was done she was clearly tired though. I checked out, pampered myself with two magazines and got drive up. We came home I gave her a bottle that she sucked down and put her in the bedroom for a nap. She cried for about 5 - 7 minutes and then crashed.

Oh I forgot the most important part about today! We got our new stove! It's installed and beautiful. I can't wait to try it out. I even bought a chicken today so I could roast it...but I forgot that Tim had dinner plans with Christian today so I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow. When the took the old stove out to the truck the dude has pulled the door and it came right off. He told the woman help that and she said "Yeah that was one of their complaints." You see, now we have a stove with a door that closes! There have been several close calls where I almost got burned just by getting to close to the oven when it was on.

Uh. This is pretty long and not very witty. I had envisioned several bits of this post over the past few days and crafted much funnier versions in my head. Too bad I waited too long to write it down, because now it's one long blah blah blah.