Sun!

Last weekend was rainy.

Very rainy.

It rained all weekend and we got to know new parts of central Jersey because the canal overflowed onto the road and part of our route to church was flooded.

This week, though, has been beautiful! I've gone walking with John three out of the last four days. (And I only stayed in one of the days because I was so engrossed in my book on tape that organizing the closet seemed like a good idea. It was a good book!)

I learned that there was a grocery store and small strip mall about 1.5 miles from our apartment and decided to walk there with John to mail a parcel and to buy some fruit and milk at the grocery store. The only difficulty was to be getting past the railroad tracks, but I figured I could use the handicapped access area at the railway station to cross them. The only problem? It was flooded from the weekend. Ah well. I'm a strong young woman and carrying a stroller up and down a flight of stairs isn't that bad. Thankfully, there are gentlemen in New Jersey and one helped me carry my stroller laden with fruit and milk back up the stairs after my shopping trip (yeah, I wasn't thinking). Although the store is a bit of a trek, I am very thankful to have a neighborhood grocery store so that I can get purposeful exercise. :-)

Settling in...

What a beautiful week this has been!

On Monday, John smiled at me for the first time and has been doing so multiple times daily since.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were marked by sunny skies and temperatures up into the 60s! For the first time since fall, I went out on long walks, one on each day. I had to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Now, we're back to more typical weather with a flood watch in effect all weekend.

People ask me if we have settled into a routine. Each time I think we've settled into a routine, for example, after John has been napping at the same times each day for three days, something changes and we begin in on a "new" routine. The only things that seem to have stayed the same for more than a few days is an evening wake-time lasting about 5 hours and a morning awakening with the sun. I tried putting John down for a nap during the evening wake-time since I read that babies get "overtired" after being awake for too long, but he's never fallen asleep so I gave it up. Anyways, he's usually quite happy-awake in the evening and not cranky, so it seems not to bother him.

I took John into see my old co-workers yesterday and left with a company-logo laptop carrier to use as a diaper bag! God really blessed me with the company I worked for before John's birth. John slept the entire time, waking up with hungry screams as I carried him from the building to the car. Two other people at the company brought their children to lunch yesterday, making for a very pleasant visit.

Dan is busy studying for generals now. We see God's providence in the time at which John was born - Dan was able to take a break from his project and a bit of a break from classes without any negative consequences but generals were far enough off to not need to be seriously studied for yet. Now both generals studying and Dan's project are in full swing and life has become much more busy for Dan.

Dan and I are currently reading through Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to Death." It is making me rethink what the purpose of being "well-informed" is. Why do we learn all sorts of un-actionable facts and news-items? I haven't come to any concrete conclusions, but for the time being have minimized reading of news to the most major things.