bits & pieces

I thought it might be fun to take a break from epic photo updates and just share some snippets of news instead.  Here are a few fun facts about our lives these days:

• First of all, happy first day of 4^th year at UVA and happy 21^st birthday to my amazing, beautiful, and brilliant sister Emily!  If you get a chance (and you know her, I guess), tell her you love her.

• I feel like poor Bambino #2 never gets mentioned on here, but I am still so very pregnant, folks.  Eighteen weeks tomorrow, meaning I’m well into my 2nd trimester.  “They” say that the 2nd trimester is always the best because you’re not as tired as during your 1st trimester or as enormous as in the last one.  So far I would have to say that sounds about right.  The belly doesn’t show much yet but I have some fun photos to share tomorrow (more about that later in this post) and you might see Baby a little bit in those!

• How cute is this camera?  I saw it yesterday—but not for the first time—on Rockstar Diaries, one of my favorite blogs out there.  I have drooled over Little Sapling Toys before for Lena, and how I’d love to get some of their teethers and toys for our new baby, too!  I’m so smitten for anything wooden.  (Hey, does that rhyme?)

• I think I’m back to my 2012 Book Goal now that all our visitors have left me lonely and twiddling my thumbs for something to do.  Earlier this week I finished The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, both of which were heartwarming and hilarious.  Now on to darker pages in The Devil in the White City.  Have you read it?

• My newest blog crush is The Year of Less in which a hippie mama chronicles her daily endeavors to purge clutter from her life.  It’s kind of amazing how extreme she is (ie. dreadlocks this weekend?!).  But on the less extreme side, she’s an inspiration to me to keep going with a lot of things I’ve been trying to do already, like…
• line drying all our clothing (our dryer sucks up so much energy which = big electricity bills in Italy)
• canceling subscriptions to all catalogues and junk mail
• moving all our bills and bill-paying to an online paperless system
• keeping Lena’s toys to a minimum (ie. buying used toys or generally not buying toys at all)
• read her blog for more great ideas, and visit her other blog (The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking) for more

• I love this knitted toy snake pattern from Purl Soho?  Makes me hope just a little bit that we are having a boy (we find out September 7), but whether we do or don’t, I think Lena and Bambino #2 would enjoy a playful stuff snake for a pet.  My fingers are beginning to get that familiar autumnal itch back to start knitting.

• We borrowed my friend Shannon’s ice cream maker last week and Jess and Sarah made peach and toasted pecan ice cream.  It is to die for.  Makes me want a bowl right now.

• I got a haircut!  Lopped off about 6 inches.  I’m back to “wedding length,” or the length my hair was 2.5 years ago on my wedding day.  (Confession: I haven’t had a serious haircut since, and I only get a haircut about once every 10 months!)  I already feel so much more girly and energetic and don’t feel nearly as weighed down by my heavy, long hair.  It was really long.  Really long.

• The haircut was perfect for our adventures last weekend because we went camping!  Oh wait, no we didn’t.  We just felt like we did because we were so hot, there were so many mosquitoes, and… well, there were so many mosquitoes.  We stayed here and doesn’t it look positively dreamy?  I thought so too!  But the photos fooled me.  More about that tomorrow.