Back to reality

It seems like forever since the last time I posted. At Christmastime last year we didn't even have an Internet connection at home and I still managed more regular blogs than this year. I just haven't been in front of the computer much.

We went to Atlanta for a few days after Christmas and visited Dad's family. The day after we got back Mom and Dad got a call that Grandma had fallen and it wasn't looking good, so they headed back down. We stayed here since we had just gotten to see her. In the past five days she's gone from unresponsive and on a ventilator in the terminal unit to breathing on her own and eating and talking in a regular room. Quite the fighting spirit for an 88-year-old. (For a fuller, more eloquent version of this story, click here.) Mom and Dad are still there but may be coming back today.

We had the most low-key New Year's Eve ever -- pizza and movies ("Mamma Mia" and "Baby Mama," both pretty good) by ourselves at home. Neither of us felt much like going out, and there wasn't a coordinated plan anyway -- everyone seemed to be doing their own thing (or nothing). We did watch the ball drop and whose idea was it to let Dick Clark keep doing the countdown? Not to be mean, but he seemed more dead than alive. It was painful to watch.

Last night the whole Matt's guys crowd (those in North Carolina, anyway) came over. Originally we were going to have them over for a New Year's Eve party but a couple of people had work conflicts so this worked out better. It was such a great time! I LOVE that whole group. It's so weird to think that three years ago there wasn't a kid in the bunch and six months from now there will be eight of them. Of course I didn't take a single picture. Unfortunately at the end of the night I got a killer headache and even though Maegan and Lee spent the night I couldn't stay up and chat like I'd have liked to.

For my entire first trimester I didn't have a single headache, which is SO unusual for me -- I usually get headaches if I'm too hungry, dehydrated, tired -- almost anything will do it. And now suddenly for the past week I've had a mild headache almost every day, not enough to complain about or even mention, but it's there. And then last night it was really bad, and it still isn't gone this morning, although it's much better. I wonder if this could be related to my newly lax policy on caffeine, but I've also read headaches can hit in the second trimester, so maybe that's just my luck.

This morning we woke up late and decided to skip church rather than scrambling to get ready, etc. Definitely the right decision for today. We got to eat a good breakfast and then we listened to a Tim Keller sermon while still in our pajamas -- fantastic. Not a replacement for church, but perfect for this morning.