Hello Summer

This summer I would absolutely love to :

1. sit by a pool with my feet dangling in
2. have a facial
3. eat dinner outside on our patio
4. nap on a blanket in a park under a tree
5. sit around our fire pit with friends
6. go on a road trip with Mr. Hands and KT dog
7. trim the lemon tree
8. spruce up the garden with some new plants
9. power wash the patio on a super hot day
10. enjoy Thursday Night Live in downtown
11. continue our tradition of seeing free Shakespeare in the Park--this year the play is Macbeth
12. make ice cream
13. grill as often as possible
14. enjoy the weekly food trucks coming to the apartment complex down the street
15. work on some quilts
16. sew stuff with my mom
17. see lots of friends at our anniversary barbecue
18. make jam
19. can tomatoes
20. spend a day playing on the beach and relaxing at the Half Moon Bay Brewery
21. meet Joshua, my cousin's baby, which makes him my first cousin once removed. I've got 6 of those!
22. go to the craft fairs held down town (one already, one more in September!)
23. ride bikes to downtown in the evenings
24. get the tiling in the kitchen and landings all done
25. get the ball rolling on the window replacement (I feel that this item is going to be one of those that rolls over from list to list)
26. camp with Brigetta--this experience must include pie!
27. hike in an open space--Sanborn? Pulgas Ridge? Arastadero? 
28. see Monsters University
29. read: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman; Singing School, by Robert Pinsky; Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell; And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini
30. go to China
31. meet the person who will join our family, whom I will cherish, and who is already so celebrated by our families and friends
32. return from China a family of three

So long, May

A recap:

1. Turns out, Simon's foot was injured. It swole up and then wept gooey puss. I forced antibiotics into his mouth with a syringe everyday for a week. He's all better. 
   
2. I dug out the giant lavender shrub purchased erroneously and replaced it with a dwarf lavender shrub. The giant shrub will live in my parents' garden.
3. The trip to Mistral and Belize was cancelled. While sad, it is actually A Very Good Thing. Or at least A Step in the Direction I Think is Wise. 
4. A road trip to Palm Springs is being considered in its place.
5. Tile for the floor of the kitchen and entry has been chosen and ordered.
6. I took Bart into San Francisco to have my hair cut at a beauty school. Maggie trimmed off 4 inches and then went to work on the epic chore of blow drying my hair straight. I made an appointment with her for the Really Big Cut in June.  Here's my arty photo from my trip back down the peninsula.
   
7. Mr. Hands and I had our first excursion to a Gigantic Baby Stuff Emporium. This was overwhelming! And also instructive. We have navigated some of the ins and outs of baby carriers and car seats and gliders.  
8. Mr. Hands put together the crib. It's in an alcove in our room for now. I expect we'll move it around to see where it needs to be. It may never be used. Who knows? But it's there so we have options. At this point, we just have to make the choices that feel right for us and our situation, and go with the flow when the time comes. And man, is an assembled but empty crib a powerful symbol of where we're at in the process right now. 
   
9. We now have the rocking chair that Mr. Hands' mom used to soothe him to sleep. It came from a church in Warren, Arkansas. It was used in the nursery there. It has a squeak, which Mr. Hands' mom swears is the magic that helped Mr. Hands calm down and drift off to sleep. No other rocker would ever work. We've put it in the baby's room and for now we've put our collection of Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls and quilts from our own childhoods there. Occasionally Simon makes himself at home. 
   
10. I attended shower to celebrate a friend's upcoming birth and gifted the giant floor pillow I had made for her little one. It is in the upper right corner of the rocking chair picture. It was the last pillow and I was excited to send it on its way. 
11. But in a fit of generosity, I promised the friend who hosted the shower that I would make her daughter a pillow this summer.
12. That means our child will have a pillow after all. This makes Mr. Hands and my mother ridiculously pleased, because they thought I was being mean for not making one in the first place.
13. After agonizing over fabric choices, I picked the fabric for the pillow.
14. But I still have not finished the robot quilt or the baby quilt.
15. Mr. Hands and I went with some friends to see the new Star Trek movie, which I enjoyed. It made me smile to see what is quite possibly the entire fleet of Google bikes outside the theater. Shall we say, this is a photo of only one shore of the sea of bikes there that day.
    
16. Mr. Hands and I have been planning and preparing for a barbecue to celebrate our 11th anniversary. 
17. I decided to have cloth napkins and make them all myself. I purchased loads of fabric at a sale and have  been sewing each evening ever since. If I knew what a tedious and slow process it was going to be, I'd like to think I would not have embarked on this fool's project. But probably.
18. Thanks to Pinterest, I learned of a cheater method that makes the napkin hemming go a bit quicker. I can now crank out 10 napkins in the time it took me to make 6 or 7 before. So, yay! 
19. We went to the early summer Mountain View Art & Wine festival with Rae, Brigetta & Malin.
20. While there, I saw this sign in a shop and fell deeply in like with it. Mr. Hands bought it for me as a surprise. Hanging it on the wall has been...problematic. 
    
21. We helped Rae move some of her collectibles into her new apartment & I drove her to Gilroy so she could take her written driving test. 
22. We spent a weekend circling the Bay Area and Sonoma County in order to visit my parents and Mr. Hands' mom within 24 hours. 
23. My cousin Christine delivered her son Joshua on May 26. Two weeks after his due date!
    
24. My nephews turned 12 and 10! 
25. We also celebrated the birthdays of my dad, my God sister, and our good friend Brandon. May is a popular month for birthdays around here.
26. We cleaned out the closets.
27. I did not get the ball rolling on window replacement. 
28. Mr. Hands tidied the garage so I can park my car in there again.
29. I made this. Twice.
30. Our friends kicked off this year's grilling season with a cook out at their house over the Memorial Day weekend.
31. I had my first Jello shot in 20 years at a friend's housewarming party. See you in another 20 years, Jello shot.