A Few of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things in the world is to share gym time with Seth. We have totally opposite schedules, so it doesn't happen very often. These days sometimes I get to enjoy my second favorite thing though, which is to hear him in the gym as I'm running out the door, singing along to the Eagles at the top of his lungs from the rower. It never fails to make my day.

Last night I discovered a decent recipe for whole wheat/ egg white crepes, too (of course Seth insisted on dessert crepes to go with his healthy ones), and Monday we got up and rode bikes together along the canal before work. If I can manage to grab a half glass of wine with Michelle one night, and Seth and I actually get to sleep in Saturday morning, I'm going to dub this "a few of my favorite things" week. Straight out of the Sound of Music.

Last week was not bad either. We scheduled our 20 week ultrasound a little early by accident (in our working-people attempt to consolidate Walter Reed trips), so we "get" to spend another morning on the 6th floor later this month, but it was still pretty cool to see Baby Nieman moving around. Last time, the heartbeat was the big thrill. This time, we loved seeing her wave her tiny fists (not to mention her healthy organs and solid growth rate.)

I dragged Seth to my office's organization day/ summer farewell shindig (inexplicably and possibly illegally) at the horse track. Seth had a great time betting on horses and drinking beer, and I reminded him probably twelve times that it would be my turn to have fun while he has babysitting duty soon enough. Still, not a bad Friday at the office.

Afterwards, we headed for the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, for the last day of turkey season. Before I met Seth, I'm pretty sure I didn't even know there was a spring turkey season. Now, he had managed to make me feel insanely guilty that I had selected for our anniversary weekend destination one of the only places in Maine you can't shoot turkeys. This was my penance, and I was a reasonably good sport about the ridiculously early wakeup and a day with strangers at a hunting lodge (Seth having "forgotten," suspiciously, that hunting was permitted all day in Pennsylvania instead of ending at noon, which is the norm.) I fished up a leaky paddleboat, though, and went for a nice run in the mountains, so all was not lost.

And Sunday, I got my wish for a day at home, finally! We hadn't been home in so long our backyard was starting to look like a jungle, the laundry was threatening to stage a coup, and my remarkable restraint about the piles of paperwork and hunting paraphernalia that Seth accumulates downstairs at an astounding rate was wearing a little thin. We worked from sunup until long after sundown (well, I took a break for a beautiful run along the Potomac and brunch in Old Town with Rebecca and Steph), and were ridiculously pleased to be able to relax in our no-longer-a- Superfund-site house at the end of it. Sometimes you really do just need a reset day.

Of course, the new week found a film crew tracking dirt into the clean living room and floodlights on until all hours of the night... but Seth got his interview knocked out for Rob's documentary (http://www.nonemoreamerican.com/), so all in all that made us feel pretty accomplished too. Plus it was an excuse to order pizza.

It was a busy week, and I had forgotten that we had planned to celebrate my friend Ranj's last week at work at the White House with an insider tour of the West Wing. Good thing she reminded us, because it was super cool (regular visitors only get to tour the East Wing) and we had a great time.

We don't venture into the city very often, so we took full advantage of the trip and followed up the tour with date night at a Cuban restaurant, where Seth enjoyed the rum and I stuffed myself with truly excellent pineapple guacamole. It's crazy, but we're starting to realize that "just us" date nights have an upcoming expiration date (at least for awhile), so we're enjoying them while we can.

I had to pick this one for "photo of the week." It's me with my earnings from my one-and-only horse betting experience. I stuck with $2 bets, and wound up twenty cents up. I figured Tony would be proud.