Beers, Busyness, and Babies

It’s been a busy spring. So much to do, so little time to write about it. I had a fantastic birthday full of friends, food and yummy martinis. I am loving the pay increase, which has allowed me to feed my one true addiction—shopping. You would not believe the obscene amount of money I have dropped on clothes this month. But now it’s time to buckle down, assess my finances and figure out what the hell I’m doing.

I went camping two weeks ago with my crew from the HMB. It was so much fun! I collected a few bruises this trip, but nothing like the ones from last year. RyanG was my trusty canoe buddy and it worked well. He even sang to me (he has a fantastic voice). Everything was great except for the fact that the two of us combined weigh about 200 pounds while most of our guy friends exceed that poundage on their own. Needless to say we did a lot of back paddling and sometimes stopped on sandbars to wait for others to catch up with us, but that just gave us the opportunity to drink more. I couldn’t believe how cold it got at night this year. I was shivering in my little tent. I had three blankets and my sleeping bag and was still cold. My nose was normally the only thing that wasn’t covered by fabric. But the days on the river were beautiful. We didn’t argue, and no one got too drunk. I managed to pick a fight with some dudes passing by in a canoe. They started it by making fun of my light-weight, kick-ass (completely heterosexual) canoe buddy. But they were two guys canoeing together with a radio which was playing “Amazed” by Lonestar. They were asking to be mocked. Unfortunately my sassiness earned me a dunk in the river, but it was worth it to see the look on the one guy’s face when I shot him right in the mouth with a water gun. Ah, canoeing. Such a peaceful activity…

Speaking of river craft, Rachel, my sister-in-law and I are going to do a day of kayak training on Gray’s Lake in Des Moines in July. I can’t wait! And I found out that my friend Dave has a kayak I can use here in Iowa City (until I save up and buy my own). So it looks like I’ll be adding that to my list of things to do. Maybe I can talk my brother into renting some when we go up to visit Mom and Dad this summer.

I’ve been fighting a cold this week. Not fun. Normally I just need a day of sleep and I’m good to go, but this thing is tenacious. I’m starting to wonder if it’s the flu. Whatever it is, I hope it’s gone by tomorrow. This weekend I’m doing a YogaFit certification at North Dodge in order to become a yoga instructor. I’m also walking/running/dragging myself in Relay for Life. So from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be in yoga training. For some crazy reason I volunteered to walk the morning shift for Relay for Life. So from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Sunday I will be out walking around a track. I just hope I’m still alive on Monday. Right now, all I want to do is go home, put on my pajamas, pop in a movie and curl up on my couch. (God, I love that couch.)As soon as 5:00 rolls around, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.

Over the past few weeks I’ve found out that 10 of my friends are expecting babies. That’s one baby shy of filling the Hawkeye’s O-line. (Or enough for an excellent Ten Man team…too bad the band doesn’t really do that anymore…) I’m happy for them, but I’m a bit overwhelmed. That’s a lot of babies. And they’re all due between September and December. I guess it makes sense, since a lot of them got married around the same time, too. So in honor of the babies and their mommies and daddies, I went and saw “Knocked Up.” I thought it would be a fitting tribute. My god, that movie was so hilarious. I guess I appreciated it so much because I’ve know a lot of guys like Ben (the main character, slovenly but sweetly played by Seth Rogan) who just didn’t quite have it together but were okay with that. And then something unexpected (like a baby or Katherine Heigl) comes along and then things change. That seems to be how life works. And it was refreshing to see a movie portray that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally psyched for Transformers, too…I just think it’s important to appreciate both babies and robots in disguise. Both are more than meets the eye.