If you’re new around these parts, this monthly series is an exercise in brevity as I try (sometimes not very hard) to summarize each day of our month in one sentence. (Also, I’ve been taking a picture of my daughter every day since she was born, and this is a GREAT place for me to share several of those!). Although I’ve almost always included the photo at the top of its corresponding day, the daily captions of what we did and the photos often do not match. (Just to clarify!)
Thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Jo for the post idea!
Thursday 3/1 – I went to my book club on this night (which was supposed to be the night before but had to be changed due to scheduling conflicts). Originally, the new date and time for book club for this year were going to be incompatible with my schedule (because they were always going to fall on nights when Matt was gone), but after talking it over, we switched the dates slightly so that I could make it. Considering that I LOVE going to my book club (and am wondering why it took me until I was 31 to join one!), this made me a happy girl, indeed.
Friday 3/2 – I had a bit of a stressful day because I found out that our tax return is under review because of an error I made, which was frustrating. To unwind a bit, I had this night be my once-a-week t.v. night, and Matt and I played one of our favorite two-player card games while catching up on the latest Fixer Upper.
Saturday 3/3 – We took our monthly trip to Sam’s Club, where we had our usual family treat together of eating lunch there afterwards. We also watched Coco, which we’d recently purchased (but hadn’t watched yet) for a late Valentine’s Day surprise for Raven. How is it that while everyone seemed to tell us how amazing it was, NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL US IT WOULD MAKE US BAWL OUR EYES OUT?!
Sunday 3/4 – We thought we’d have an easier time teaching our Primary class on this day because there were only 3 kids (instead of the usual 7-8), but we were wrong—3 kids are PLENTY enough to stir up some mischief and craziness. (Maybe they were paying us back for not being there last week?)
Monday 3/5 – After we had family night and put Raven down, Matt and I spent the rest of the night brainstorming clues for a scavenger hunt he was hoping to do at the scouting event he had to run this week. When your husband’s the Cub Scoutmaster, it’s sometimes like you’re BOTH the Cub Scoutmaster.
Tuesday 3/6 – I went to my exercise class like usual, leaving Matt to his own devices to prep for the next day’s Scout pack meeting.
Wednesday 3/7 – Matt was stressing out about the pack meeting he had to run this night for Scouts, so I offered to type up a bunch of the stuff for the scavenger hunt he’d planned, which took up my afternoon. We all went over to the church as soon as he got home to help him set everything up, and it sounded like everything went amazingly well! Another successful pack meeting in the books!
Thursday 3/8 – After so many nights in a row working on Scouting stuff, it was nice to both take a breather and just use my one t.v. night a week to catch up on shows and eat the leftover cookies Matt had brought home from the activity the night before.
Friday 3/9 – We had our monthly get-together with our friends (this time to celebrate our friend Katie’s birthday), which consisted of eating some of the best pizza we’ve literally ever had (and homemade, too!). I love having these monthly events to look forward to!
Saturday 3/10 – Raven had a random fever with no other obvious symptoms we could see, so we kept the day pretty simple. I still made my exercise class in the morning though, and thanks to the sunny weather, we did make it out for a long family walk in the sunshine, which was much appreciated.
Sunday 3/11 – I had a total meltdown at church that was largely pregnancy-hormone-related, but that was still a bit embarrassing. (I’m not one to get overly emotional during pregnancy—I’m pretty even-keeled—but I did have one epic meltdown while pregnant with Raven too, so fingers crossed this is the only one this pregnancy, too.) The day rounded out nicely though with visits down south to see both of our families (we do a monthly family party on my side to celebrate all the birthdays that month, and we always stop by to see Matt’s folks after).
Monday 3/12 – Raven’s fever seemed to have gone away and she seemed to be feeling better, so I took her to storytime at the library as usual. This turned out to be a mistake, as she had an epic meltdown as we left and for about an hour after, and sure enough, when I checked her forehead, she seemed to be running one again. After a long nap, however, she was feeling a lot better and was able to thoroughly enjoy decorating cupcakes for our family night activity.
Tuesday 3/13 – I had a (super) quick doctor’s appointment in the morning to check that Baby Boy is doing fine (which he is, though he’s sitting suuuuper low, which explains my bladder and back issues), followed up by a grocery store trip. Our afternoon and dinner plans got thrown aside when we discovered that the car Matt drives to work every day needs a $500 repair (ugh), necessitating that Raven and I drive out to go pick him up from work. We didn’t have $650 worth of car repairs and service (since we got the oil changed in both cars) in the budget for March, but here we are. Thank goodness for emergency funds!
Wednesday 3/14 – Although Raven’s fever left, she then started coughing quite a bit, so we laid low this day and mostly stayed inside. Matt had his usual evening full of Scouting activities, so I took advantage of the time to myself to work on some genealogy.
Thursday 3/15 – In the evening, I went to a Relief Society activity at my church (Relief Society is the worldwide women’s organization for my faith that meets for one hour every Sunday, out of our 3-hour Sunday church block time). It was all about getting to know each other (as we’ve had a lot of people move in over the past year, including us!) and building a stronger sisterhood, and it was just a lot of fun. Total bonus that I found a couple people who were willing to enthusiastically discuss books with me for about 45 minutes after!
Friday 3/16 – Relished the thought of a quiet evening at home and spent lots of time reading and working on genealogy.
Saturday 3/17 – Right after I went to my Zumba class, I noticed that my chest felt really congested and hurt, and I started having this nasty-sounding cough. Well, within hours, I was full-blown sick with who-knows-what, and Matt seemed to be coming down with the same thing.
Sunday 3/18 – We all stayed home from church so we wouldn’t pass The Plague to everyone and attempted to get some rest and relaxation so we would heal up. Well, we were able to get some good naps in, but only Raven seemed to be noticeably healthier.
Monday 3/19 – I still felt pretty crummy but Raven was basically at 100% (considering she’d been sick with whatever we had for over a week before we got it), so I still dragged us both to the library for storytime and just tried not to touch or breathe on anything/anyone.
Tuesday 3/20 – I debated skipping out on my hip hop class because I was still sick, but I’m now at the point in the pregnancy where I’m terrified to miss any workout for fear that I won’t be able to pick it back up again the next week. So I went. And my (also pregnant) instructor wasn’t there—instead, a substitute with a MUCH harder routine in mind was there. I had to modify the majority of the workout, but I was still kind of proud of myself for sticking it through.
Wednesday 3/21 – Our monthly book club meeting! We’d read Christy by Christine Marshall, a book I probably wouldn’t have picked up on my own. While the writing style wasn’t really my cup of tea, I did enjoy the story and I did enjoy the book club discussion/chatting (as always). I feel like joining a book club has been one of the best things I’ve done for myself in a long time!
Thursday 3/22 – Matt had managed to stay on the verge of getting *too* sick all week, but Thursday he finally succumbed to what I’d had all week, so I made one of his favorite dinners (homemade sweet and sour chicken), and we took it really easy after Raven was in bed and let ourselves just catch up on some favorite shows all night.
Friday 3/23 – The day was nice enough that Raven could finally ride the new trike she got for Christmas outside! She was so excited to show off for Daddy when he got home from work, and we spent about a half hour outside enjoying the sunshine and taking a slow walk around our garden, noting what projects we needed/wanted to start on this season.
Saturday 3/24 – Rather than doing a big ward (church congregation) party this quarter like usual, our bishop had us do smaller dinner groups instead, adults only. We were asked to host one of them, and a neighbor graciously took Raven for the night so we could do that. We had five other adults who were able to come, and we had SO much fun just enjoying our meal and shooting the breeze and getting to know each other.
Sunday 3/25 – Debated back and forth about whether we were too sick to go to church (which we probably were, but we didn’t want to have to find a sub for our class), so we went anyway—and I was actually really glad we did. Our Primary class was probably the best they’ve ever been for us, giving me hope that maybe we really ARE making a difference after all.
Monday 3/26 – After weeks of Raven excitedly asking when we were going to decorate eggs, we finally got to the Monday before Easter, when I’d promised Raven that’s what we’d do for family night. And she loved it! Sure, we might have ended up with stains on our fingers for the next several days, but it was a lot of fun (and she loooooved getting to eat the eggs over the next several days, too!).
Tuesday 3/27 – We finally got some nice weather again (and the snow was mostly all melted), so Raven and I took advantage of it and spent the morning doing some yardwork and planting some seeds in the trays I’d bought weeks ago (but which I didn’t want to prep inside because of the mess). I probably would have quit an hour before we did, but Raven was having such a great time “helping Mom” and commenting on what a beautiful day it was that we ended up getting a decent amount done.
Wednesday 3/28 – We spent most of the morning running errands (mostly to close down some old bank accounts because they were going to be converted into ones that would start accruing fees otherwise) and then going to visit Matt at work. We also were able to go on a long family walk before dinner, which felt thrilling after not hardly being able to go on any over the past several months (due to weather).
Thursday 3/29 – Raven got super excited to see that some of our seeds were already (!) sprouting, which was fun. I meant to go to an exercise class that night, but since I STILL was feeling sick (not to mention sore from my class on Tuesday), I sluffed going and stayed home and watched Fixer Upper and ate ice cream instead. (Also, we had an, um, incident with trying to use our pizza stone, which resulted in all our smoke alarms going off and us needing to eat our dinner al fresco (at least it was a warm evening so that we could do so!).)
Friday 3/30 – Matt got off work early and we drove two hours down south to meet with his parents’ financial advisor to see if he would be a good fit for us. We followed the meeting up with dinner at Leatherby’s (our favorite place to eat!) with my parents, which is always a fabulous way to start off a weekend.
Saturday 3/31 – A nonstop day of fun and goodness! We started off by going to an Easter egg hunt with my sister and her kids, then we returned to my in-laws’ to watch General Conference (a conference held twice a year in the LDS church that’s broadcast worldwide). Between sessions of Conference, we had another egg hunt with Matt’s side, along with a huge potluck that even left this pregnant lady feeling like she’d eaten enough to last the next several hours!
And now as we’re into April, we all are FINALLY feeling healthy again (knock on wood), so here’s hoping April brings a lot less sickness to our household!
