Woe is me, first-world style

Our dishwasher is broken.

(Pause for melancholy violin music...fade out....)

Ugh. I have a hard enough time keeping this place clean as it is! We would run that thing at least once a day, usually twice a day. It's gonna be quite a while before we can afford a "new" one. I'm trying to stay positive. Maybe this will save us a little bit on our water bill...??? Argh.

What better cure for the blues than watching a baby dance? This is Raina dancing to her Yo Gabba Gabba music. She's also singing along, saying "dance" out loud and then mouthing some of the other words. This vid doesn't do her justice...it's pretty toned down from what she normally does (shoulder shakes, butt drops, body wiggles, spins) but you get the picture.

Actually, it's been a while since I've posted vids, so here's a couple more for the grandparents to smile at...

Here she is with Fozzie Bear...

Here she is at the zoo...

And here she is at a banjo concert...

On the mommy/daddy front, daddy is taking banjo lessons every Thursday evening. I've given up my dreams of getting my hands on a free piano and have now added a used full-size, weighted-key, piano-ish keyboard to my Christmas list. In the end, that makes more sense anyways...volume control, ya know. If I do ever get one, though, I will have my own night of lessons, as well. Speaking of lessons, it's looking good that I'll be taking those cake decorating classes in September. I'm going out tomorrow night to price out the supplies. They only want $27 for 4 weeks of classes, but I don't have a solid idea of what the cost is for everything I'm required to buy. If it's "reasonable," I'll register on the first of the month and have class every Wednesday evening for 2 hours.

I had my first trimester screening yesterday. Ultrasound and blood work. Everything looked okay, but part of the screening also includes yet another ultrasound and panel of blood work in another month or so. I'm already up to 3 ultrasounds! Pregnancy-wise, I'm struggling with nausea. It's at its worst when I'm trying to sleep, though I did have almost an entire day of it over the weekend... hardly ate anything. Chris is totally bummed about my cravings this time around. With Raina, it was steak. I've never been a fan of steak, so I never eat it much...but when pregnant with Raina, we were eating steaks more than once a week. Chris was in heaven! This time around, I'm really not feeling the meat thing. Chicken is especially revolting, unless it's in something creamy or it's fried. Steak doesn't do it for me either. I'm cool with tofu and maybe ground beef, but mostly it's pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches...and junk food, of course.

I'm guesstimating this pregnancy to end at 220. I'm telling myself that I'm okay with that! Bootcamp, bootcamp, bootcamp!!!