Taking the Scenic Route

You know what one of the cool things about being married to a programmer is?  I casually mentioned last night that I wish there was a way to put my quote collection on my blog.  Five minutes later he tells me to get my email.  He wrote a quick program and, those of you that come to my site instead of just getting the emails will notice that the right column has a random quote on it.  It gives a new quote when you refresh too.  Neato!

While I took a nap this afternoon, Zach kept the kids entertained with water play in the back yard.  It was sunny and warm, but since they are both dealing with colds, he put warm water in the tubs so he didn’t have to worry about them getting too chilly. 

In the bad news department, since the pictures were taken, Zora gained a goose egg in the middle of her forehead courtesy of the coffee table, being tired, and being a bit off balance from her cold.  We actually ended up calling the doctor (well, Zach had to call because I lost my voice from my cold) to make sure we were evaluating the situation correctly.  It looks like she is just fine, albeit grumpy, from the ordeal.

Since we both have memberships, it seemed like a great way to spend a few hours this afternoon.

Zane was thrilled.

Zane was especially excited to see the new Penguin exhibit.  Penguins are his favorite animals right now because he still loves the “Tacky the Penguin” books.  The new exhibit features Humboldt penguins, a small warm water penguin (I didn’t know there were warm weather penguins before I started hearing about he exhibit).  It was neat, but it was smaller than I was expecting after all they hype.  The penguins themselves were smaller too. 

In the jungle, the mighty jungle…

the girls held hands for a while,  très cute!

Tunnel under the water where you can see giant fish swim by.

The bird was not supposed to be there and a zookeeper came by to retrieve him as we got ready to move on.  Zane was pretty impressed.

Leaving the Orangutans, there is a statue of an Orangutans that totally captivated Zora for some reason.  She stood there, pointing, showing her Italian blood with many dramatic arm movements as she was telling me a story of some kind.    It was so cute, and so earnest, and I would have loved to have understood her.

I really hate having to go back into ’spend no money’ mode.  Especially when I see sales on things we were wanting.  lol.  Gymboree had a great sale last weekend, and you could even get Gymbucks and I had to just drool at a distance at that new red gingham line and the apple dot bloomers and shirt.  *sigh* 

A little more important though, we are really starting to look at bikes.  Zane is working on riding a regular bike in OT and finally getting it.  We even live near a good bike trail, but right now nobody in our family has bikes.  We also need to get him decent mattresses (his was the cheapest available and feels like you are sleeping on a cardboard box…he keeps trying to sleep in Zora’s bed)  and a bed that either is a loft bed that we can make an enclosure underneath (what I think would be the best for him), or a tent of some kind above his bed or in his room someplace.  The thing is, it needs to be able to get super dark for him, so I will probably have to custom make something with room darkening, really opaque material.  That is why he keeps going into our closet…dark, quiet and cool in there.  He needs to have a space that Zora can’t come and disturb him though and there is no way to do that in our closet because it is connected to Zora’s room and there isn’t a door.  Go figure…one of the reasons I like this place is because we get so much more light in all the rooms, but I guess he needs to be able to retreat to a more cave like place sometimes.

I can’t spend a dime on anything that isn’t an absolute neccessity right now, even the food budget is back to nothing right now.  I had some ramen noodles that were packed away for supper tonight.  Back to mom and dad eating crap so we can make sure the kids eat healthy.  It shouldn’t last long, but it is frustrating. 

Trying not to worry.  It is just not a position I ever expected to be in again, especially not this soon.  Paying for the teeth stuff really knocked us back hard, and we still owe a lot.  We are having to suspend the rest of the work for now because we met the cap on the dental insurance and we don’t have the money to do it out of pocket right now.  I know that there is a great job out there that Zach will thrive in while he finishes up his thesis, but it is really hard to have faith that it will be a normal part of our routine soon.  Patience has never been my strongest trait, although God certainly has given me lots of lessons in it through my life.

On the good side, rent is paid until the end of June, and our bills have been either ahead or on time for all of our utilities, so we have a little bit of breathing room…not much, but we aren’t getting cut off notices.  There is still time for a relatively smooth transition into a new job.

In other news, Zora got my cold.  I feel like I am living in a sea of snot right now between my own chapped nose, and now her.  At least it is just snot, because there are grosser body fluids to be dealing with.  I just hope she is able to get better sleep than I have.  She hasn’t gotten to the coughing stage yet.  I am hoping she will skip that part.