Oh, Hello.

I feel like I've been in a fog for a few months which has finally broken: last week was Conference.

We left for Grapevine (near Dallas) last Saturday, where we lived in a hotel without leaving (or even going outside) for the week. I did go out the first evening to a BBQ place but the hotel is more than walking distance away from most everything so I tried to stand outside for a few minutes here and there but it was always hot and muggy so it didn't happen very often. We set up the registration area and then worked it all week, tore it down and packed everything, and came home last night. There were mechanical issues on the last leg of our flight (a cute little prop plane from Seattle) so we had to de-plane and get on a new one, which delayed us almost two hours, and by the time we were finally driving home from work (where the shuttle dropped us), I had a good cry. It felt so nice to be back in my own bed.

It's always weird to be away for a whole week in the spring. I mowed the grass shortly before we left and it's all overgrown. The cherry tree and one of the pears started flowering and the other pear leafed out. There are blooms on our new apple tree, which hopefully means we'll get apples. It feels like things woke up while we were gone, like I walked into the movie theater ten minutes after the movie started.

The weekend before we left (two weekends ago now), one of my best friends came down to visit and we took Linus to the overgrown military base (WWII-era) which is now a wildlife refuge-slash-hunting area-slash-park, and walked around for a couple of hours. On Monday I noticed a couple of itchy bumps on my arm, which I didn't think anything of, and then the next Monday (over a week since I'd been at the camp) another area of my arm suddenly erupted in huge weepy blisters. Poison oak! The accountant was able to use the car to do a bank deposit so I begged him to stop at Walgreen's and pick something up for me - I wasn't itchy (thank goodness) but it stung a bit, and the bright red, oozing blisters on my dominant forearm were really gross-looking and I felt bad for the people I was helping at the registration desk. He brought me back Ivarest, which is the color of Calamine lotion (i.e. "skin-colored" but really not) and helped sooth the burning and dry out the blisters (not totally; I still had to walk around with a tissue in my pocket to dab at my arm several times a day). Today I'm doing more more homeopathic remedies (mixing water and baking soda, soaking a gauze pad in it and covering my arm with that for ten minutes at a time) and trying to get the four days' layers of Ivarest off. My poor arm is still bright red and the blisters are huge, but I can tell it's starting to get a little better (or at least not getting worse).

Now that Conference is over, it's time to switch gears to the next big thing: Ivy's arrival. Cory is still recovering from the week by spending most of the day in bed (it's his birthday too), but maybe tomorrow we will sit down and write out our list of to-do's. It's not just Ivy-related stuff, we've spent the last few months doing the bare minimum so we need to do things like clean the car and get the oil changed. I also need to clean the house - next weekend is my first baby shower and the next day my mom and aunt are going to come play in the nursery with me. I also bought stuff to make padsicles but the witch hazel I bought has alcohol in it and apparently that's bad so I have to go get another brand. I really ought to separate this list into "must do" and "want to do" list 'cause I bet I won't get it all done.

Monday I'm getting my teeth cleaned, Tuesday I have an OB appointment, and Wednesday we have another ultrasound. Ivy has been getting more active in the last several days, which is awesome, and even when I'm experiencing hormonal sadness it just takes a little poke from her and I feel better. I'm starting to get nervous and excited about her arrival.

And now to work on laundry. How can we fill our hamper once a week when we're home, but three times the week of Conference? Good grief.