Does anyone even come in here to check on me any more?

Or did you guys pretty much assume that I had finally lost my grip on the edge of the earth and fallen off?

Well, I'm still here and I cannot believe it's been over a month since I've bothered to write any thing. There have been so many times that I've been doing something and started my post in my head, but when it comes down to actually sitting down at my computer, well, apparently that's just a little bit too big of a commitment for me.

We've had a pretty good past month here at Casa Sarah. We've had a couple of get togethers around the house, one a cookout to basically kiss the summer goodbye. I love when an afternoon cookout morphs into something completely different and the last of your guests don't leave until well after midnight! (Oh wait, we had people not leave until the next morning this time!) I think that just shows that folks are really comfortable at our house and that makes me really happy. The other one was supposed to be a girls' day by the pool, but thanks to some rotten weather, it changed into us sitting around drinking daquiris, eating melty-cheesey goodness and watching really bad movies. Such a great time! I neglected my girlfriends for a while after I got married and had Bean, but I'm so glad that I'm reconnecting with this incredible group of women.

Also in the past month, Bean and I took a little trip up to Louisville to see my best friend in the whole-wide-world! Unfortunately we don't get to see her nearly often enough (in fact, it had been over a year between visits this time), but when we get together, it's like no time has past at all. This trip was also a great chance to talk about her upcoming nuptuals! I'm super-excited that she has found such a wonderful guy to spend her life with and that I get to be her matron of honor! Also, Bean is going to be her flower girl! I can't wait to see how cute she's going to look in her little dress. I think it's pretty funny that my friend has no real idea about what she's going to wear for the wedding, but she's already got Bean's outfit picked! Of course, this just means we have to get together again at the beginning of December so we can go wedding dress shopping!

Bean wasn't the best behaved kid during the trip to Kentucky. She seems to be going through a phase and testing all of her boundaries. She has been throwing some pretty major temper tantrums. In fact, one of them lasted about two hours while we were at BFWWW's (Best Friend in the Whole Wide World) house. Fortunately, she's pretty understanding about such things and helped me power through instead of just caving and letting the monkey get her way.

Once we got home from Kentucky, things didn't improve too much for a week or two. Tantrums became a daily occurence and my tactic has been a combination of time-outs and just flat out ignoring her. She seems to be looking for a reaction from me and when I don't give her that reaction, she gets fed up and quits. The biggest face off right now is over me waiting on her hand and foot. She wants me to come upstairs and get her after her naps even though she is more than capable of coming downstairs. I don't mind getting her if she asks me nicely, but she's been DEMANDING that I do what she wants, and I'm just not having that. It was pretty funny one afternoon, she started throwing her hissy fit and refused to get out of her bed unless I carried her "like a baby". This started around 4:00 in the afternoon and lasted until about 6:45 when she finally gave up, apologized for her screaming and came downstairs for her dinner. Well, by the time she got finished with dinner, it was time for a bath and bed. Ooops, she wasted an entire afternoon that she could have been playing!

She has started figuring out that she is going to have a lot more success getting what she wants by being sweet than by screaming her head off, so I hope we've turned a corner and are on our way to my sweet little girl back.

Let's see, what else has been going on this past month? Well, last week I got to go to a very fun event up of the North Shore. Which was a return to McNeedles for Pam's one year anniversary of the opening of the shop. She's been having a sale all month and it culminated with a bit of a party on Wednesday. She had food and even brought in a masseuse to give out 15 minute massages to her guests. I was only planning on popping up for a little while, but ended up staying for about three hours. I had such a great time and really enjoyed getting to spend time with the other women that were up there. As a little bonus treat, there was a yarn rep there as well and he dumped out an ENORMOUS pile of Claudia yarns on the table to Pam to peruse. I really wish I had my camera with me that day, it was so pretty!

I did my best to stimulate the economy in the store that day and came home with some really beautiful yarns. Of course, I'm thinking once again that some grounding is in order, I've been a bit over the top with my purchases again. Oh well, I'll think about that tomorrow, right?

I have one last thing to tell you about from the last month, but it's gonna have to wait for now. It's time to cook dinner!