When it rains, it pours...

It's rained. And rained. And rained some more around here lately. And that's just been the stuff we got off of Tropical Storm Erin. I am very thankful Dean won't be heading our way. I'm sure we'll still feel the backlash of it though. Houston seems to hold up a special magnet to draw storms our way. My grandfather always jokes about the rainy weather down here since they came to visit last year, about how we need an ark to get around. Usually the rain doesn't faze us anymore, but the constant downpours have been a definite frustration.

The rain wouldn't have been such a bother if other things hadn't been happening, too. At least one of the fuel injectors have gone bad on my car. The car rattles, throbs, fights you, and groans at an idle and when you try to accelerate. I had noticed a slight hesitation when I accelerated for the past week or two, but Friday, in the middle of really bad traffic in a really awful downpour, it decided to show its true colors. With all my childhood memories of car troubles and their consequences, I was ready to cry. Natalee heard a few words she should never repeat, to say the least. Thankfully, Matt was able to get the car to settle down a little bit by putting a higher grade gasoline and some fuel injector cleaner into the tank. It doesn't make such a racket now, but it still hums, making sure we don't forget to take it in to the mechanic. Unfortunately, this is something we've had a problem with before. We had one of the fuel injectors replaced with a brand new one this past spring. It makes us wonder if maybe they didn't do a very good job replacing it, or if they didn't replace it with a new one, like we paid them to do. I called up the same mechanic today, hinting at the fact that we brought the car in before for the same problem. They said they couldn't get us in till Wednesday or Thursday. Wonderful, since we're supposed to be heading up to Fort Worth on Thursday. Matt has already taken Friday off as a personal day.

Because of our car troubles now, and because the last few times we've driven up to Fort Worth has caused us car trouble, I asked my dad to rent us a car. Matt and I both felt pretty awkward about it, but Dad has offered to rent us a vehicle before for the trip up there. It would be nice to not have to worry about car troubles for at least one of our trips. Plus money is really tight for us right now, with the semi-annual insurance payment due next month, however much it'll cost to get the car fixed this time around, our anniversary, my birthday, Matt's and Natalee's birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all coming up. If we did manage to get the car fixed in time to drive up to Fort Worth, it'd really hurt us if something started acting up in the car once we got there, or once we got home, which has happened a lot recently with these trips. We've been staying afloat lately because Matt's been working as much overtime as he can, and we have a little money saved in case of emergency, but it's not very much. And we have my student loan payments and we've been putting money into Natalee's 529 for college every month and Mom's not always regular about paying the credit card... so we really don't have much leeway financially, especially right now with all these future spendings looming. I've even told Matt not to get me anything for my birthday or our anniversary. Right now we can't afford it.

Normally, all this wouldn't get me down much. The car is acting better for the time being, so maybe it won't be as bad as last time we had to take it in to the mechanic. And although money is tight, it almost always is, and I always look forward to the excitement of fall and winter holidays. But I started getting sick Thursday after babysitting my four year old cousin. I thought it was just something I ate, until I started getting really bad cramps Friday night (inconveniently, when the car started acting up). Saturday and Sunday I was taking regular doses of Peptobismal Max and Immodium AD and ibuprofen for the really bad joint pain in my hips and knees, and my GI tract was completely out of whack. I'm feeling better today, thankfully, but my stomach is still very sensitive and sore, and my hips still ache. I think I had some kind of virus that hit my intestines hard for a few days. I'm doing a lot better, but I haven't exactly felt chipper with everything going on.

To top it all off, the ceiling in the bathroom started dripping last night, and Natalee woke up at four a.m., I'm guessing because of gas or her four teeth coming in bothering her. I'm really hoping this doesn't mean she'll be waking up in the middle of the night on a regular basis again. I'm hoping it was a one night thing, and the repairman will be able to fix the leak no problem.

On the bright side of things, Matt has glasses now to help with his bad vision and is pretty healthy. Natalee is in good health aside from the teething pain. She's absolutely wonderful. She loves to go in her room and sit down at the little table that I stacked all her books on and go through them, looking at the pictures, pretending to read them to herself. Everything is "what's that?" from her. She always wants to know about colors and shapes and letters and numbers. She likes to run up and give you hugs and kisses sometimes. She loves to color in the bathtub with her bath crayons and fling bubbles all over or smear them on the tiles. She pretends to talk on the phone, with her little fist as the phone. She's so silly and sweet and smart and adorable. And she's all ours, Matt's and mine. Now that's a happy thought.

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades...

July has been a pretty good month for us. Nothing catastrophic happened that I can remember off the top of my head, always a good sign. And a few good things happened, like the last Harry Potter book came out, our friend Brent stayed with us for a few days, and we got to visit a lot of our friends and family at the beginning of the month.

Matt's mom is doing well, all things considered. She's looking down the home stretch regarding the end of her chemotherapy. Thereafter, she'll have to start taking chemical injections. We really haven't heard anything about how those affect you. Hopefully they won't be as bad as the chemo, which has left her very fatigued lately. A lot of her friends have rallied around her lately, offering to accompany or drive her to her treatments, visiting and taking her shopping and out to have fun, baking goodies, sending cards or calling to check on her, in an effort to keep her in good spirits. It pains Matt and me that we can't be there to help more right now, but we are very, very thankful for those who have helped out and just loved Mom so much. It has really made a difference in how these treatments have affected her and Dad.

We saw Matt's parents, of course, while we were visiting the beginning of the month. We spent July 4th with Eric, Pam, and Kaitlyn, and some of Pam's family at her house. It was really a neat experience, because this was Natalee's first real Independence Day (since last year she was too young to enjoy anything), and Matt and I hadn't done anything to celebrate the 4th in a few years. Pam's daughter Kaitlyn worked at her dad's firework stand for several days preceding the 4th, and so got a lot of fireworks as payment. Plus I think Eric and Pam bought quite a few too. So we got to watch Matt and Eric light off fireworks and watch the fireworks being shot off over the lake in the distance. Natalee at first was a little stunned by all the noise and light and smoke, but she was having fun and pointing out the explosions to everybody by the end. But she enjoyed playing with Kaitlyn, who's ten, and her friend, the most. She even left my lap halfway through the fireworks to go to Kaitlyn's. It was really special to sit and watch fireworks with Natalee and enjoy the holiday with friends.

Natalee and I also spent a day with Kara and Jennifer, and got to visit with Dad and Brenda a little bit at the end of the day. It's hard adjusting to the idea of Jennifer driving her own car. I still slip up once in a while and call Natalee Jennifer, since Jenn was my baby when she was little. We had a good time running all over the Lake Dallas area with them, meeting Kara's long time boyfriend Trevor, getting my haircut, eating ice cream at Coldstone's, chatting at their house. I know it's been a while now since we lived in the same house, but I still miss my sisters and wish that we lived a lot closer.

We attended Brent's birthday party and visited with Brent and Rachel, Pam and Eric, Tamara and Michael Quick, and some of Brent's family. And Natalee got to run amok with a herd of little kids around her age in a house full of toys. We also got to see Brad and my family a few times over at my grandparents', once just to eat lunch and the second time at the obligatory family get together with lots of family photos. Brad seemed a little tense from stress lately, but I think being home with the family helped give him back some confidence. It's hard to imagine Brad being down for long. He's still my buff, cocky, sensitive firefighter brother, and I'm very proud of him and what he's done with his life.

Since then, things have been pretty easy going. Matt's had to work a lot of overtime, since two of his co-workers' wives were due to give birth this month and another co-worker resigned. Natalee's had three or four teeth coming in, which has thrown a knot into our schedule. If she doesn't take a good nap, she doesn't sleep well at night, and neither do I as consequence. And if she doesn't sleep well at night, she usually won't take a good nap the next day. It's been frustrating, but Matt and I've re-adjusted to giving Natalee something for the teething pain, just letting her fuss at times, and knowing when and how to catch back up on missed sleep.

Brent came to stay with us a few days this past week while he took one of his exams in downtown Houston for becoming a doctor. This one involved visiting with 12 professional fake patients, spending no more than 15 minutes with each, and diagnosing their 'medical problem' while being watched by a review board on camera. It sounded pretty frustrating to do within the time limits, but I've got faith that Brent handled it well. Matt was glad to see him, even if it was during his work week. As Matt described it, we're pretty insular here at home, so company is always a good thing. We also got to meet Brent downtown with one of our old friends, Sam, from college. Sam was Matt's RA in Eppright for a few years, and was one of the groomsmen in Brent's wedding. It was good to see him again, but a little bittersweet as well. We don't have as many things to connect on as we used to, since Sam's a successful career-focused guy without the responsibilities of a family. And Matt and I . . . pretty much focus and depend on and support our family unit. It made me miss the kinship we once had in college with our college buddies, where we were all young and silly and somewhat smart (some more than others) and with the same sort of moral code and willing to have fun. We've had to grow up since then. Maybe it's just me. Brent has a family and still connects pretty well with Sam, and I think Matt would fit in if he had a little more free time just to hang out and visit. But as for me, what can I discuss that has any relevance for someone with a business world career and no real home ties? Harry Potter and Aggie sports was about it. *wry smile* C'est la vie.

As for me this past month, I've mostly been dealing with the changes in Natalee's nap and bedtime routine, scrubbing floors and wiping down cabinets for company, and trying to find a recipe I liked for banana bread. I'll try to post it at the end of this. I think I finally found one, after some trial and error, that is moist and sweet and nutty and good. And, I got glasses this past weekend. I've been having headaches for months now, usually right around the time I lay Natalee down for her nap, and I sit down, drink my one caffeinated beverage for the day and read. For a while now, I thought the headaches were a result of the caffeine. And then I had headaches while I stayed up at night to read Harry Potter, when I hadn't had a soda in hours. That tipped me off that I needed to have my eyes checked. My eyes aren't bad. I don't technically need glasses. But I have an astigmatism in my left eye that gives me eyestrain and headaches, especially in dim light. Bad news when I'm a readaholic, try to keep the lights off as much as possible during the day, and with all the funky, cloudy weather this summer, there hasn't been much sunlight to light up the apartment. I don't have a problem if I'm in a very well-lit area or I'm outside in broad daylight, so let's say when I'm driving during the day, I don't need them. But pretty much anytime, anywhere else, they help a lot. They've sharpened my vision some, and I haven't had a headache since I got them, except when I take them off for long periods of time in the apartment. So, hurray! I'm just crossing my fingers that Matt'll go get his eyes checked, now that he knows what to do and where to go from me. His eyes are much worse than mine.

So, all in all, July hasn't been bad. Hopefully August will go as well.

Banana Bread

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk (this helps keep it moist)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.

2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.

3. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days. [From bettycrocker.com]