Beautiful day today...cicadas buzzing in the yard, blackbirds croaking as they fly over and somewhere, in the swamp beyond us I think I hear a thrush calling. The grass on the lawn is rippled with sun and shade and there's just a light breeze, sometimes it clatters the vertical blinds on the open window.

Ru is nestled down in Uncle Bernard's chair behind me, wrapped in his baby blanket his grandma made him and clutching Rabby. I knew something was off when he woke me up this morning with a soft whimper, "Mommy? Hug!" and I felt his feverish little hands flutter around my neck. So, he's been made a little nest in the chair and I'm giving him extra drinks, a little cambric tea, some elderberry juice and lots of peace and quiet to mend in. Sometimes sickness feels so frustrating...and heaven knows I'm not happy he's feeling under the weather again but, somehow today, I don't mind. Its a good day to be home together, nothing much scheduled, and we have the time for a few extra snuggles. Later in the morning I'll take him out to the wicker loveseat on the patio and let him bask in the fresh air while G wiggles his toes on a blanket and I putter in the garden. We'll make it. This is why you have room for a few lazy July days.

Been thinking about how to get exercise. I know I'm always resolving to do better and announcing some new plan I have to join something or other or start a daily this or that. And  yet...do I do it? I know, I know. But, I really, truly do mean well. I think I'd like to do a daily walk if I could (at least during non-winter time) but, the possibililty of getting any sort of truly exercisy type walking done with two little men in tow is slim. Hmm...should we have a daily dance party? Should I do an exercise video while they nap? Should we go out for a slow meander everyday and call it exercise anyhow and figure the fresh air counts for what we lack? Argh. I do want to be healthy but, I'm not sure how. Anyone have any tips?

Just noticed that there's a downy woodpecker on our sliding glass door...tap, tap, tapping on the metal edging. Must think it looks like a good place for bugs....silly little bird!

The latest reading trend I've decided to dive into is nursing nutrition. You hear so much about what to eat and not eat when you're pregnant, everyone's trying to be super healthy etc. but, you never are given more advice than..."not too much caffiene or alcohol and watch for allergies" when you're breastfeeding....and yet...you continue to be your baby's only source of food for several months and their major source of food for a while beyond that. Seems like there's got to be more to it to me. So, I'm in the middle of reading the above book...which has this ridiculous title making it come off like some sort of fad dieting manual but, truly, its a breastfeeding nutrition book. I'll let you all know if its good.

Just pulled my fresh blueberry pie out of the oven. Yum! We'll be having that after dinner tonight. A had been begging for a blueberry pie (basically the only use he has for blueberries besides throwing them on cereal) and I'd been interested in the idea but avoiding doing it because, what in heavens name would we do with a whole pie? And then today when I was rummaging around in my cupboard I came upon the little pie tin that I got at an estate sale somewhere last year. Just the right size, big enough for two and a toddler but small enough to not mean we'll be eating pie for the rest of the summer.Who'da thunk!?! So, I went to work mixing and dusting and chopping and stirring and now its sitting on the stovetop in all its golden, bubbly wonder. And I will not eat it until A comes home.

We got a nice little rain shower today. Just cooled things off a bit, down to a pleasant 75 degrees. The birds all came out and the tomato plant put out a couple of extra blossoms to celebrate. We have little baby tomatoes now and our frying peppers are also blossoming happily with gobs more buds coming. I think we'll have nice tomatoes and peppers. The nightshade members of my garden survived my neglect.

I just found a brand of eye patch that is supposed to be a lot gentler on baby skin! I'm excited! I ordered a box of them. Its so wretched to tear the current ones off of his delicate eye skin every day. I hate it. He's already upset over having his eye covered but, then, there we are ripping off his top layer of skin to boot. Poor little man. Sometimes it stays red for the rest of the day. And his poor little eye just waters so after the assault. Supposedly, this new brand uses a gentler adhesive that makes removal several times less traumatic. I wonder how much of his hating patching just has to do with the pain of removing the patch at the end. Poor little pirate man!

And now, I need to vacuum our living room rug and throw a load in the dishwasher. Life calls!

I've been running from xanga all morning. Its not that there's nothing to post...its just not all stuff I want to tackle and pin down with words and commas.

For instance, there's the time this weekend when I stood up a friend for a dinner she made for our entire family. Yeah. That stunk. She called me in the middle of the movie I had merrily flitted off to, thinking I had no commitments. I felt awful. Really awful. So awful that I sent her flowers the next day and still haven't called her to talk about the incident. I'm scared and embarrassed. We finished the movie and then went out for dessert but, I spent all of dessert on the phone with my parents getting advice about my social foible and spilling tears and shoulda, woulda, couldas all over the table. Poor A. Some date I was!

I'm still not sure what to do. I was a nincompoop and totally miscalculated the date of our intended family get together, I promised I'd bring things, I asked if they could have dinner extra late just to accommodate our schedule and I'm sure there was the usual barrage of things behind the scenes that I'll never even know about....madly cleaning the house, convincing her husband to have the meal with us, spiffing up her two daughters and making sure they looked just so, using up her precious time home (she's working like a fiend in her field at the moment). ARGH. Blast. I want to call and say..."Look. I suck. Forgive me? I totally want to make it up to you....can we get together again? I really do want to have dinner." But, I keep obsessing about stupid stuff.... Isn't it a bit much to ask her to make dinner all over again? Maybe I should tell her I'll bring the food....but then, we're still asking her to give up a night, clean up her house, organize her kids and talk her husband into particpating. Maybe we should have her over here....and then we eliminate cleaning up the house but, we add a sizeable drive...we're not exactly down the street. So, maybe we should just scratch the casual get together in a home idea and we should foot the bill for dinner at a swank restaurant in their town. Right. Our two kids, their two kids and a swank restaurant. That would totally make it up to her. Blast.

So, what do I do?

Apparently, I sit around paralyzed by paranoia for a few days, blog about it and hope something comes to me. I think what I really need to do is just call her and stumble through figuring something out.

Gosh I hate this though. I'm normally not super organized, everyone who knows me knows that, and I forget things and I'm late to stuff and my house is messy but, I don't screw over my friends. I'm a good friend. I feel all crestfallen about ruining that history. Blech. I guess truly good friends don't ignore issues, do they? They just figure something out.

So, on the list today.

Call my friend.
Go to the farmer's market.
Do a little laundry.
Give Ru a bath.
Have a shower myself.
Go to the farm to pick up our weekly milk.