That’s what we should rename this blog, Poopy Team.  Because frankly, baby poo is all I talk about any more.

So this morning we woke to a few inches of snow, dropping temps and a mean wind, and promptly decided to both work from home.  But then our internets broke, making it so we couldn’t actually work.  Nate got on the phone with the tech people, who put him on hold and promised him a very long wait.  I was chilling with Isla on the couch, when suddenly she unleashed a monster poo.  Now at the time, she was only wearing a tiny, thin little contour diaper, for reasons you’re probably not interested in.  I had her sitting on top of another prefold diaper, just in case there was a poo incident.  At least… I thought I had her on top of the second diaper.  But wouldn’t you know, I sure didn’t.  And all that poo (and there was a lot, about 2 days’ worth) came shooting right out the side of her diaper ALLLLLLL OVER ME.  Nate put his phone down with the hold music on speaker phone and scooped Isla up to deal with her diaper situation.  I attempted to contain the poo explosion on me with another diaper and started slowly making my way to the bathroom, but of course that was the moment someone picked up Nate’s call.  Somehow I managed to get his phone to him before they hung up on us, and not leave a trail of baby poo all through the house.  Half an hour later, all poo had been dealt with, and our internets was again working, though not because of the super un-helpful tech people.  

The thing about being covered in poo by 9am is, your day can only get better.

In other news, Isla rolled over yesterday, from back to tummy.  None of this rolling from tummy to back first stuff for her.  She does what she wants.  And immediately after that achievement, she seemed to decide that big girls who can roll over require more constant entertainment.  No more hanging out happily in her swing, thank you very much, and the mirror ball thing that used to be so fascinating is now so last week.  Rolling Over Isla prefers to be very involved in whatever you’re doing, unless whatever you’re doing is B-O-R-I-N-G, in which case her various toys might be cool for about 5 minutes each, or you could sing her a song and do a little dance, but your dance had better be good.  But this is how it goes.  Any time we start to get a groove, she’s like “oh you think you’ve got me figured out, eh?  Sounds like it’s time for me to bust out a whole new bag of tricks.”  Well I say bring it baby.  Let’s see what you got.

But first, the big news.  Bruno graduated from Doggy Obedience Level II Sunday evening!  Awww.  He can now (sometimes) do all of the following:  sit or lay down and stay while we do whatever the heck we want and make as much of a ruckus as we want, or when someone comes to the door, walk right past huge distractions (dogs, food) while keeping his attention on us, come to us past a huge distraction, sit and look at us while we greet another person with a dog, and more.  The point of this class was mostly to teach him to do things he already knows how to do in a distracted environment, and to ignore distractions when we want him to, which is pretty freaking hard for our dog friend. 

For him to really get it down Nate and I now have to make it a point to take him into lots of distracting environments just to train him.  That has so not been my favorite thing to do – something about an 85 pound dog pulling your arm off and completely ignoring you…  But now that he’s already come so far and we have a new understanding of how to work with him in those situations I feel more inspired.  Plus, the better he’s able to behave in those situations, the more places we’ll get to take him!  It’s funny though, I think because of his size he has to be so much better behaved, because you can’t just yank him around like a little yappy dog. 

And now for my new favorite things.  Thing #1:  our new citrus juicer.  The last time we made homemade ginger ale, I hand squeezed like 30 lemons and limes and then couldn’t open my hands for a week.  I vowed to get some sort of device for the next time.  So we recently picked up this hot little number at one of our favorite stores to browse in, Kitchen Window.  Nate drools over all the pots and pans, I stare at all the different kinds of cupcake sprinkles, and we both sample as many different kinds of gourmet chocolate as possible until they are ready to kick us out.  Anyway, I tend to prefer non-electric appliances when it’s reasonable, both for the reduced energy consumption and the gratification of using your own muscle power.  So amidst all the crazy expensive electric citrus juicers was this bright orange "Retro Hand Juicer", for something like $25!!  We snagged it and have used it almost every day since!  It’s so unbelievably easy and efficient.  We’ve been drinking fresh squeezed grapefruit juice in the morning, and putting fresh squeezed lemon juice in tabouli and hummus, and I can’t wait to make a new keg of ginger ale knowing how much easier it will be! 

Thing #2:  our new spice rack.  We cook a lot (and by we I mean Nate, let’s be real).  We have 1 spice rack above our stove but still had lots more that couldn’t fit in there.  So we got this one, also at Kitchen Window, and Nate hung it in the little window nook.  And then he got these wee little hooks for measuring spoons and bottle openers (of which we have many).  It makes my brain feel more organized just looking at it. 

Thing #3: this mint plant.  Lime mint to be exact.  We dug it out of our garden at the end of the season last year and put it in a little pot in our kitchen.  And then kind of forgot about it.  I mean we watered it and stuff, but never really used it.  It got real leggy and kinda weird.  But then I all of a sudden like had a hankering for some fresh lime in a drink – mandarin vodka and soda water with fresh lime mint – very summer.  But sometimes you need that when it’s -10 degrees outside!  We’ve also been putting it in our salads lately and I’m convinced this little plant is singlehandedly fending off the February Minnesota winter blues!

Speaking of which, I have to be outside all day tomorrow for work.  Do you know what the weather forecast is for 9 a.m., the time I meet the first group?  -9 degrees, but feel like -26 with windchill.  I hate tomorrow so much already.  No amount of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice or fresh lime mint can help me. 

So I realized I have been kind of hating winter.  Winter is so long here that even for fans like me, the thrill of the cold crisp air and the beauty of ice crystals and snow flakes fades after awhile, and then you need things like broomball and snowshoeing to see you through.  Well we haven’t gotten any good snow for like 2 months, and el tonsillectomy caused me to remove myself from the Grim Sweepers for the season.  Everybody wants to be a Sweeper (duh), and I didn’t want to take up a spot on the team just in the hopes of getting well enough in time to get a few games in. 

However, once I started experiencing serious dread every day at dog-walking time just because I SOOOOO didn’t want to go outside, I realized I was in desperate need of some winter fun.  So I decided to go to broomball practice and see how it went.  I had been working on getting myself back in shape, riding our elliptical, jogging little bits with Bruno, so I felt ready.  I thought, I’ll just play goalie, take it easy, it’ll be fun.  It wasn’t fun.  It was terrible. 

I should have seen it coming when I was flooded with sheer terror just walking from the car to the ice.  But at that point I was already committed.  I let 3 goals in a row go past me, and I felt like I just stood there and watched them.  Tears welled up in my eyes and it was all I could do to not have a total meltdown.  Nate, having knocked in 2 of those goals, came up to me to see how I was doing, saw the tears, heard me say "Idon’tlikethisI’mnothavingfunIwannagohome!" and realized he needed to switch teams.  Smart boy.  I took a moment to breathe and reflect, and realized that if I let 3 goals go in, started crying, and went home, I would be THE BIGGEST LOSER EVER.  So I rallied.  Second half was better, and finally we got to go home.  And then I cried. 

I realized with shock that I was terrified of blood shooting out of my throat.  I logically know that I’m out of that window and no longer at risk of that happening again.  But the illogical part of me can’t stop seeing it and thinking it’s happening.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spit into a sink or on the sidewalk, just to check.  But it wasn’t until that practice that I realized it.  So Nate and I talked about it a bunch, and I did a good bit of thinking on it, because I was pretty freaked out about being that freaked out.

And then Tuesday’s Sweepers game came.  They were going to be short girls, so they had asked a girl from our buddy team, the Skraelings, to play, and Nate had asked a girl from his Walker team.  But that afternoon she told him stuff had come up and she’d rather not play.  Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping, the wind was increasing, and we were heading for a roughly -10 degree, windy night, with windchills at about -35. 

Sierra had been frantically chatting Nate and I throughout the day, saying things like, "They’re totally going to cancel it, right?  I mean this is insane!", and " I don’t understand why I am the only one freaking out about this!!!"  It was suddenly very clear to me.  Either Sierra was going to bail and the Sweepers would be really short on girls, or she was going to go and face one of her greatest fears (being outside in subzero weather), and the Sweepers would still be a little short.  Either way, how could I not go? 

Sierra did not bail, and her courage gave me the inspiration I needed to face my own fears.  I had to get out there too.  So we went, we froze, we lost.  My heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest the whole time, but that probably just helped me stay warm!  In spite of letting in a few goals, I felt like I did ok overall, and was absolutely ecstatic at the end of it, because I DID IT.  I felt like myself again. 

I’ve had a few frighteningly realistic nightmares over the last few weeks involving lots of blood in my mouth, most recently Friday night.  So Saturday morning I went to broomball practice again, and made it a point to only spend about half my time in the goal, and the other half running around on the ice.  I needed to drill it into my brain that I am physically fine, not in quite as good of shape as I was pre-tonsillectomy, but fine.  Now I just need my mind to catch up with my body. 

(If you haven’t already, you HAVE to click on that picture of Cody.  It’s amazing!  Everyone looked some version of that by the end of the game, it was pretty crazy.)

Whoa!  They’ve really upgraded this BWCA since the last time I was here!  Wireless internet and all! 

Ok, fine… so we’re not technically in the BWCA.  We had a wonderful first day of our honeymoon Monday, a nice drive with some fun stops, including a little jaunt down Honeymoon Trail!  We had some sunshine and warmish temps.  We got to the outfitter mid-afternoon, got situated, and set up camp at a campground right on Sawbill Lake, our put-in point for the BWCA.  We took a growler of beer from Fitger’s Brewhouse that my brother Dean had given us along with leftover food from the wedding and found a great spot for a picnic down by the lake. 

That evening we read the weather report printed by the outfitters and were not excited.  A couple of hours after we went to bed, the rain started coming down and the winds really kicked up, to the point where I was a little worried about getting squished by a falling tree.  In the morning we got our canoe, had a heck of a time getting it packed in the wind and rain, and put in.  We then spent the next half hour getting tossed about by 35 mile an hour wind gusts, soaked by waves, and utterly exhausted.  We fought valiantly and got about a third of a mile before having to pull to the shore.  We rested for a bit and decided to try to make another go at it, but this time we went nowhere, literally.  We managed to get out and decided to re-evaluate. 

We realized we weren’t going to get anywhere that day, and didn’t really want to waste a day just hanging out at the campsite.  And the weather report for the rest of the week was not looking much better – rain at some point almost every day, temps below freezing at night, wind, thunderstorms… and we decided that was not how we wanted to spend our honeymoon.  So feeling sad, traumatized, and exhausted, we took our canoe back, loaded up our gear, and hit the road, headed for Ely!  We spent last night at a lodge recovering in the hot tub, eating some of the tons and tons of camp food we had packed, and making a new plan.  Oh, and I all of a sudden like got a big fat cold, which made us a little extra glad to have made this decision and to not be portaging and paddling in the rain, unable to find dry wood to make a fire at night. 

We decided to spend another day and night in Ely, and so last night we got the most sleep we’ve had in months!  We visited the super-cool International Wolf Center today and did a little bit of exploring and hanging out, and for me, a lot of sniffling and sneezing.  Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Scenic State Park and staying at a cabin for a couple of nights.  Then on to Duluth according to the original plan.

We can’t help but be a little sad that we’re not having the trip we had envisioned, but we are still having a blast, and so excited just to have this time to hang out together and relive the glory and wonder that was our wedding!