Updatin’

I’m here! I’m here I’m here I’m here! The meeting can start now! Oh shit, you’ve already started. Well anyway, I’m here. Insert excuses about work being SO BUSY and I was out of town and anyway, now I’m not busy and I am back in town, so I’m here! (I’m here I’m here I’m here!)

I’m not sure where we last left off with LG. Was she being a tyrant and methodically breaking down everyone who stood in her way of total world domination? Well, then not much has changed.

She breaks you down through systematic adorableness. It’s quite effective.

Oh! But she walks now! Well. At school. She walks at school; when we drop her off or pick her up and she thinks we’re not there, she walks around like it’s no big. And then at home, she’s back to her usual: Walk? Walk who?

She was actually walking right before this picture was taken.

That said, she does walk herself up the stairs to bedtime, turning around every step to say “BUH-BYE!” and wave at me or Chris.

Not waving, had just woken up, but looking quite adorable regardless.

The doctor said she should be saying about six words by now, which is…Bullshit, yes? Listen, she talks a lot, but I don’t speak LG, so I’m not sure what she’s ever actually SAYING. (Except “BUH-BYE!” — she’s pretty clear with that one.)

Was mostly saying, “Wheeeee!,” which I think translates to, “I like to go fast!”

She signs a lot, mostly “more” and “eat” (SHOCKER) and last night we were reading books and I read, “milk” and she did the sign for milk and then I read, “shoe” and she lifted up her be-footie-pajamaed foot. SHE IS A GENIUS DON’T TELL ME DIFFERENTLY.

A cute genius.

She gives kisses and she does the kissing sound and everything: MUAH! and it’s very cute. Also not open-mouthed anymore, so that’s much more pleasant (and decent.)

You know I don’t give kisses. How dare you spread such LIES.

She shakes her head for everything. “Do you want a banana?” *shake shake shake* *swiftly grabs the banana* so I don’t think she knows what head-shaking means, which I think means we should start nodding our heads a lot. Hey, we’ll be the most compliant-looking family ever! *nod nod nod*

Well this has taken a turn for the embarrassing, thanks Mom.

Now let’s talk about me, shall we? I’ve decided to run another half-marathon, although I’m tackling it as thought it were my first because the last time I ran one was five years ago and that seems like a long time to still be holding the half-marathon torch. Anyway, Holly and I are running it together and it’s almost a month away and I’ve only run five miles at a time and I should probably start training. Or something, I don’t know, man. Sometimes I wonder why I decide to do what I do and then talk friends into it who keep me ACCOUNTABLE and shit.

I realized just now I never updated you on The Garden, Year Three. I took a few pictures (criminally, none with the nice camera and none recently.) Well, my cucumbers (lemon and regular) were off the chain, but only about one in every five were good, so I’m not sure what that’s about. (Soil, type of cucumber? I don’t know.)

My squash, of which I planted FOUR different varieties, was shit. Total shit. I maybe harvested a pound of squash the entire season and squash are some dense fuckers, so you know I really failed in the squash department.

Tomatoes, however, were (are still!) absolutely gorgeous, (thank you Elizabeth.) We turned about about a million pounds of them into marinara sauce, which we froze, and which we shall enjoy this fall and winter with some pasta and a hunk of bread (it’s not weird to plan your meals months in advance NO YOU SHU–)

I just finished reading Gone Girl and I liked it (I’ve read a lot of differing thoughts, though — what did you think?), but now I’m at a loss for what to read. We have a lot of books at home, but looking at the bookshelf this morning, it seemed like a lot of Stephen King and Robert Crais and eh, I feel like something different. But, I plan to get a library card this weekend, so ALL THE BOOKS WILL BE AT MY DISPOSAL. AND FOR FREE! What do you recommend?

I mentioned we were out of town — we were in Seattle for Chris’s friend Chris’s wedding. It was so much fun being there, seeing family, hanging out downtown ALONE SANS BABY!, and while I’ll be forever partial to my California skies, I have to admit, the northwest gives pretty good sky, too.

So that’s what’s going on with ME. What about YOU?