simple pleasures

• I ate a good steak for dinner last night. I know that one should not consume mass quantities of red meat but by golly, the steak was good. So were the potatoes I ate with it.

• I found a pair of jeans that fits. On the recommendation of a book club friend, Tiffany, I tried Eddie Bauer. They have a new fit for "women with curves". I got my jeans over the weekend and the actually fit and are even a little big. yeah! I've got a pair of pants that aren't stretchy. I'm happy.

• Ross' car is working enough for him to drive, even though it smells a little burny, and I think is still spitting oil out the back exhaust. I think we're going car shopping this weekend. The idea of a new car is a fun one...the idea of visiting dealerships and having a car payment again isn't. Wish us luck.

• Elliott has 4 teeth and I noticed another one popping through this morning. He's just growing so quickly that I think if Ross and I turn around too slowly, we'll miss something and he'll already be 12. At the helmet doctor yesterday, we discovered that Elliott's head has improved another 3 mm to a 7mm differential. The goal is to get his head to 5 mm or less so we've got 4 more weeks of the helmet and hopefully by the beginning of October, we'll be finished.

• In other Elliott news, we discovered a new toy today...the washer and dryer. I'm still trying to catch up on vacation laundry and the boy has been helping me. At one point, the washer and dryer (they're front loaders w/ big windows so he can see them working) were both running at the same time and it looked as if my baby boy was watching a fast paced tennis match. His head was turning and his eyes were darting so quickly that I thought he might explode. He didn't. Instead he just got really excited and threw his arms in the air.

• Cherry diet cokes from Hires. Sometimes, there isn't anything better on a day off from school than Mom and Willie showing up at my door with a drink in hand for me.
  

• It's the fantasy baseball playoffs for the next 3 weeks and this week, Ross has a bye. I'm so happy that it is almost over and that ever time I turn any computer in my house on, I'm not confronted with up-to-the-minute stats. Ross didn't seem to know what to do with himself last night with no updates so he actually sat by me on the couch. Holy cow, I can't tell you the last time that happened.