Riley and Avery

Well, I got my car sort of fixed, at least the alignment and oil change. The window will cost $430 to fix. Yeah, not gonna happen. The mechanic just couldn't believe that it didn't happen in an accident. He said that it was so mangled inside the door, that Rudi slamming it was the last straw, not solely responsible. I bet that it was in a accident before we bought it and they took the cheap route and fixed the outer door and left the inside messed up. I should pull a carfax report, just to see if I'm right. Not that I could do anything about it now.

We went to the town of Monument yesterday, which is only about 10 miles outside of the Springs. Rudi really liked it, and seemed to really want to move there when we are ready to buy a house. It's supposedly an up-and-coming town, so we'll see. I'm not sure I want to trade a town that already up-and-came for a town that's up-and-coming. Attractive little houses in a quiet little setting in the foothills, though. Pretty nice. All I care about is the schools. I really like Colorado Springs, although it is sprawling and a lack of zoning can make for some ugly areas, the view of Pike's Peak can't be beat. And there's a freakin' public montessori school that I have my heart set on the girls attending. So, it remains to be seen. We're talking years off, so no sense even thinking about it now.

So I'm looking forward to my first NINO meeting on Friday. It'll be a lot of fun, I hope. I'm planning on attending both the north and south meeting, so I'll be going twice a month. It's nice that they're on Fridays. LLL meets on Thursdays, so Riley can't go because she's in school and it conflicts with picking Riley up from school. There are a couple other LLL groups here, but they meet in Tuesdays and that would pose the same problem. Of course, if I start sending Riley five days a week next year, the NINO meetings will be out too, unless we go right after school and arrive just a little late. Again, we'll see...I'm planning on bringing the vegan spiced oatmeal cookies that I made for Riley's birthday party at school, but I'm going to double the recipe and freeze some so that we can have a relatively healthy treat whenever we want.

Speaking of oatmeal cookies, I went to Wild Oats Market to get the oatmeal (six cups worth) and dried cranberries (2 cups worth) and when I go to check out, another employee tells me that the cashier just left to go to the bathroom and she just let me have the stuff. Total score! I instantly regreted getting the $7 per pound cranberries and wish that I had tried the $20 per pound goji berries that I've been meaning to try, but they are just too expensive. They're supposed to be like a super-berry, more nutritious than any other fruit.

My neck is still killing me, but now it's my shoulder and back too. I even sprung for a heating pad (which Riley calls a lily pad) and it really doesn't seems to be helping at all. I think that laying in a certain unmoving way so that I can accomidate the heating pad makes my muscles worse. It's hopeless. I can't pick the children up without pain, can't nurse without pain, and when I do nurse, I can't even look down at Avery to see if she's sleeping yet or not. And I can't take the kids to the park, pushing a swing is out of the question, as is lifting Avery up to the top of a slide. Oh, this totally sucks. I thought it was getting better yesterday, but I woke up this morning even worse than before. All I can do is let the kids run around outside in the yard and hope that they get enough fresh air and excersize that way.

Oh, the photos are done uploading so I can stop blabbing...