I can’t wait until she’s big enough to actually get outside and play.  Right now I have to keep her in her stroller shaded from the sun, but it won’t be long before I can slather her up in sunscreen and throw her in her baby splash pool.  I foresee us spending a lot of time outside this summer.

This warm weather also has me wanting to do two things…get myself in shape for bikini season and clean.  The cleaning will have to wait since I have a ton of work to do and errands to run, but I have no problem working in 5-10 minutes of workout time here and there.  I was just looking at fatburner.org, and I was yet again contemplating whether or not I should throw some kind of diet pill in with my routine. I know I can’t do it right now, but once I’m done with breastfeeding I do want to have all the facts already so I can choose which one I want to use.

Of course this weather reminds me that if I get my butt off the couch and exercise I probably won’t need any diet pill help anyway. Pushing that almost 14lb baby around the yard in circles burns a good bit of calories on it’s on. Just carrying her around is doing plenty of that for me, and building muscle, too. My arms look better than they have in years!

The temperature in the house is about 68. I know that’s not cold to most people (my hubby included), but I’m one of those people that can get goose bumps when it’s 80 degrees. I’m just not designed for colder weather, and having one of those electric fireplaces would be perfect for me. I could heat up the bedroom while I sit here working. I know I can do that with one of my little electric floor heaters, but it’s just not as pretty to look at! Plus sometimes when I’m working any noise is distracting to me including the whirring sound coming from the heater. My aunt has one of the fireplaces, and it’s super quiet. I may just have to see if I can convince Hubby to buy one…maybe this summer when you know all that type of stuff goes on sale.

We walked down to the pasture to see the cows, and she made her little bird lips and ooh sounds when one walked up to the fence. Then we went next door and walked up and down my grandparents’ driveway a few times. I think last summer we figured it up and found out 18 trips down the driveway equal roughly a mile. Elliana giggled and grinned every time we passed one of the cows that had wandered up to that side of the pasture. I’d say she had a pretty good time.

Now she’s sitting in her swing playing with the frog my aunt gave her for Valentine’s Day, and I’m off to get myself dressed. My mother-in-law offered to babysit tonight so we can have a little bit of alone time. We took Elliana with us to our Valentine’s Day and Hubby’s Birthday festivities, so it will be nice to have a little Mommy/Daddy alone time.

Top that with all the stress of trying to make sure the bills get paid this week.  It’s time to deal with that outrageous power bill we got last month.  I just hope the next one isn’t as outrageous because I don’t know how we’re going to afford two huge ones. Sigh. Maybe I should get a job that has something to do with power so I can get something back out of what I’m putting in! Hmm. I could get a energy auditor certification.

All we’re hearing is how we’ve all used so much extra power with the cold snaps we’ve been having, but it still doesn’t make since to me how Blue Ridge is charging $300-700 on most power bills while Duke Power raised their bills $30 making the average bill $100-150.  Just why is Blue Ridge so much more expensive?  You’d think with all this money they’re making from us someone has to be banking! If only we had a choice over which company to use, but we know that’s impossible.

We did get a good bit of snow, well for what we consider a good bit.  We ended up with about 3 1/2-4″ of the really good fluffy stuff…the good kind you make snowmen and snowballs out of.  I was thankful we didn’t have any of the normal ice that ruins it, and we didn’t have to worry about losing our power this time.

We did build a nice sized snowman, and we did a little sledding before it mostly melted away.  There’s still a little bit out there we’ve been letting the dog play in.  Of course now I’m ready for it to melt away, but I doubt that’s going to happen.  Now we’re supposed to get more tonight, and I’m not too happy about that.

The mountains are supposed to get 3-5″, and that means all the subdivisions with construction will shut down.  The subdivision Hubby is working in right now won’t even let them in the gate if they get most than a dusting of snow.  Hubby has missed a lot of work this Winter because of that, and that means I’m finding myself constantly robbing Peter t pay Paul, and that totally sucks.

Yep, I’m definitely ready for Spring to arrive now.