Hi there! I’m back after taking a longer than intended break. Part of this is due to my having hyperemesis gravidarum in addition to being pregnant, which I will talking about more on the blog soon. One of the side effects is going through periods of exhaustion, even when the nausea and vomiting is successfully controlled by medicine. Apparently, when combined with travel and heat indexes of over 100 degrees F, that equates to one tired woman. I honestly thought I’d handle it better, but in this pregnancy I’m learning that basically everything I knew about my body is wrong – or better stated: I have no idea how I will handle something until after I’ve tried it. I’m sure that’s true for most first-time moms, however.
So over the past couple of weeks, I traveled twice – once for work, once for pleasure. The work trip was pretty boring. Except that while I was away I got this beautiful, soft, snuggly yarn to make a blanket for the upcoming baby.

Yarn for the baby’s blanket!
The more exciting trip was Breyerfest, which is all about horses, horses, and more horses. Although there was a huge push to buy lots and lots of beautiful model horses and all the other horse-related paraphernalia, my sisters and I (mostly) resisted and found all the fun free stuff instead.

We debated and bickered over what to take with us if we were pioneers at the International Museum of the Horse – final results!
And a huge thanks to one of my best and oldest friends for driving the younger sister ten-plus hours so that she could attend this event. She (the sister) is really the whole reason we even went. She loves horses more than I did at that age, and collects Breyer models.

My little sister and a cool horse statue.
The first day was museum site-seeing, horse-petting, watching several horse shows in an arena, and getting our free Breyer models autographed (everyone who bought a 3-day pass got a free horse – yay!)

Panoramic Scene from International Museum of the Horse

Pretty Fresian Stallion – one of our favorite breeds of horse!
The second day we spent almost entirely at a model-showing competition. My sister got two honorable mentions, which isn’t too shabby for a first-timer. The next day we spent driving home in a lot of crazy traffic and the rain. We were so ready to be in our own beds. No pictures came out of that drive.
During that horse weekend, my husband and a bunch of our friends moved our entire house from old to new. The new house is decidedly smaller. And we had a bunch of family already over, and my parents came up to visit for a baby shower the following weekend. It was ca-raz-y crowded. But we got the kitchen and books unpacked (priorities, people, priorities), had a great shower, spent quality time with family, and got to collapse and rest this past week. No, I did not feel highly motivated to unpack even more boxes. Yes, I still had the old house to clean. But, the bathroom got unpacked anyway, I sorted out excess things to give away or sell, and the old house got scrubbed. We are officially moved. Thank goodness!
Even though I didn’t make it onto social media much or the blog at all, I was thinking about it a lot. I’ve got some great ideas (I think!) for the blog and Facebook and all moving forward, and I’m excited to get back into the swing of things. I’m changing up the post schedule and types somewhat, but you’ll still see posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Also check out the “About” page – I’ve updated it to give you a better idea of what will be going on and how the blog’s focus has changed. Don’t worry, it is still about homemaking for today! I’m excited about the changes, though, and I think you will be too!
*My apologies for getting this post up so late today. There is something amiss with our internet, causing it to disconnect, delay, and otherwise make a two-minute process take ridiculously long. Hopefully my brilliant engineer of a husband will have it sorted soon!