Sky King, cats, and tomato season

I'm a bad, bad blogger. I know. Things have been busy! My mom left on Sunday and finally made it home, after a long delay for her connecting flight in DC. She was flying United, and the pilot for that flight hadn't shown up, and they couldn't find him either. They did finally find him, but he was like, an hour away from the airport (although, in DC I imagine you could be 5 miles away from the airport and still be an hour away). I think an alternate pilot ended up showing up and doing it. They finally got into Manch-vegas at 12:45 am, so poor mom didn't get to the house until after 1 am.

We had a lot of fun buying stuff for the nursery. Brian and I had decided that a boy was going to get an airplane theme, so I cashed in all my Pottery Barn gift certificates (from our Citibank Rewards card!) on some cute airplane bedding, and a matching rug.

Aaaand, since they had it, and it was being discontinued, we bought the matching Full/Queen Quilt and pillowshams for the transition to a big boy bed. The airplane theme is especially applicable, because my mom clarified that my dad is not kidding about the whole 'Sky King' thing. I really thought he was just winding me up. So, we're going to have Grandmom (actually, her title hasn't yet been determined) and Sky King... Sky for short.
We also went to an actual Gap Maternity store in Raleigh, where my mom bought me some more clothes, and I got a bathing suit. My current suit is still workable, but we're going to the beach in September for our departmental retreat, and I'm bound to need something different then.
On Saturday, we went to USA Baby and I found a crib I liked on sale. That was a relief, even though we still had plenty of time to order it. I hadn't found anything that I liked.
My mom and I also came up with a good baby name: Studs Chadwick. This name came from a list of English baby names that Brian had printed out for us. I think its a winner! Also suggested has been Chadwick Chadwick, or Chad Chadwick for short. Thats nice, but I think I'm going with Studs. Remember also that in 4th grade I was in love with Steve Studley. If I had married him? Studs Studley.

So, many baby things are taken care of. Thats good, because before the baby comes, I've got two papers to try to get out (one from this lab, one from my PhD which is STILL LYING AROUND!), a grant due, and a review to write. I'm happy to get as much out of the way now as possible. Next up is PAINT.

Speaking of baby, about 2 days ago I felt a definitive baby movement. Yesterday I could feel it again while I was working on the microscope.

Other than that, I've just been busy at work.

Our tomatoes are starting to ripen, which is exciting. The summer tomato season begins! This morning I had my traditional tomato season breakfast of sliced tomato on english muffin with cheese, plus the rest of the tomato with salt and pepper. And I made the traditional tomato season dinner of tomato rice soup (my favorite soup ever!) on Wednesday. And we had the other traditional tomato season dinner while my mom was still here, pasta with tomatoes, basil, garlic and pine nuts.

I knew this was going to happen eventually, given that we've got 4 cats, but we're officially up to a three-cats-in-the-bed total now. Luckily Jasmine still doesn't take up much room. Between us, three cats and my snoogle (allowing me to blissfully sleep on my left side), there's not much room in the bed. Of course, Beamish the Invisi-cat doesn't figure into the 3 cat total.

It is hot here. I know its hot everywhere, but thats not going to stop me from complaining. In the winter though, when I'm not shoveling my driveway? I'll be glad about it. At work, we're all very excited about taking a lunch field trip to the institute across the lake from us, which is rumored to have a way better cafeteria, but this is going to have to wait until a day where we will not spontaneously combust doing so. My poor friend Deb is about 35 weeks pregnant right now, and I do not envy her. In fact, I'm feeling a little bit glad that I didn't get pregnant right away, or else that would have been me.

Still trying to get the ultrasound pics up. We don't have a scanner, and I keep forgetting to get Brian to bring them into work.

We're going on a date tonight to Starlu, which Brian has been to before and like a lot. I've never been there, because we forget about wanting to go there until we're nearby, on our way to Foster's dressed like scientists (i.e. jeans), which is not dressy enough for Starlu. The menu looks good, so I'm excited!