I'm young and free and feeling fresh

Today was Monday, and Mondays for me aren't usually bad. Most of the time I feel highly productive on Mondays and today was no exception. I got a lot of work done, saw my mom a couple times, and at the end of the day opted out of Blizzards in exchange for homemade berry smoothies. So no feelings of guilt there.

My mom had back surgery last week, fusing multiple vertebrae together. Hopefully this alleviates a lot of the back pain she's suffered with for the last decade or so, but there was a metal plate installed in her back so I think feeling good is going to be just a little slow going. Keep Darla in your prayers, dear readers, as she deserves to start having a life again

On an internal note I'm starting to feel much harder kicks these days. I told Thad that this kid is getting strong and he made a "no duh, consider who his father is" comment. I can't say I disagree with him, but I was expecting that any man-child of mine would be a milque-toast. Yeah, look it up, it's a real word.

This coming weekend I have Sunday and Monday off, so I think we're planning to get our garden put in and as a reward for our efforts we're smoking RIBS. Last August Thad and I smoked a couple racks of ribs on our grill and his friend Jason has not quit talking about them. Honestly, they were quite freaking good, which is due to the amazing dry rub recipe I got from the Paupered Chef. I'd link it, but I'm lazy. I'm super excited at the prospect of these ribs, so if we end up following through on this plan there will be pictures to drool over.

In other news, the basement project is coming along. Thad is still mudding corners and edging, and once this is finished he will texture it with his dad's texture gun. We're probably going to go carpet shopping with our measurements and look at a nice piece of remnant carpet, or a couple pieces if we have to put it in as a two part deal. I told him the deadline for it being ready for guests is the end of June. His brother gets married on 7/3 so we're going to need to get it ready so we have two guest rooms to offer family that comes to town.

Elora has been officially diaper/pull up free for an entire week. She's going in the potty full time, and has not had a single night time accident. The day care provider has 3 year olds that are still not potty trained, so the fact that Elora is not even 2 1/2 is pretty awesome. She calls everything "pooping". She's even gone potty at Famous Dave's and Walmart, and I'm so happy to be done with diapers. Now she has an assortment of really cute little panties.

So now I'm working on getting her to quit telling me "NO" when I tell her to do something. She'll get it eventually, when she goes to her room EVERY TIME she does it. This is the age to break that habit before she gets older and thinks that it's ok to tell mama you aren't going to do what she tells you. I'd hate to see me come unleashed on her as a teenager, a la Darla, so it's better for her that we nip it in the bud.

Well, Elora has been wanting her father every night to snuggle with, but tonight apparently Her Majesty is requesting an audience with me. I'm going to go snuggle and head to bed. If I don't post again until after Memorial Day I hope everyone had a great weekend!