full speed ahead!

Well, this new year has certainly started off at full speed! I feel like I have hit the ground at a flat-out run, and I'm already starting to lose my breathe.
The conference stuff is progressing rapidly, and I'm getting everything done, but its just so much to do and think about, and I feel like I can't take a second (well, i suppose i can take a second, because I'm here writing this, but this is the only break i'm getting until i go home).
Plus I had doctors appts to make, and wedding appts to make, and its just so much.

In lieu of me having to come up with actual interesting things to say here, please read this from Dooce. Heather always makes me want to be a mommy now, like right this second, and with that piece (her monthly letter to her daughter) even undid all the damage to my female yearning done by Brenna's painful birth story (in three parts, just click the next button at the top of the page). Here is a highlight (of the painful birth):

It made me CRAZY, the contractions took over, and the pain was incredible. I could see the pain in my head (it was in the form of a fence post being knocked down, very crazy). I was screaming to get into the tub! And that's when the nurse said, "how about an epidural?". Casey said, "doesn't she have to be 4 CM for the epidural." I grabbed his arm, and said, "Are you asking a question or making a statement because that sounded like a statement?" He very frighteningly looked at me, then the nurse, and said, "I'm asking a question?".

Which, by the way, leads me to say a big old HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENNA!!!
And here is a highlight of the Heather which undid the painful birth:

You often sing your ABC’s and stop after T because the rest of the song doesn’t interest you. I don’t blame you, after T it’s all down hill and one of the last lines of the song? Hello? “Now I know my ABC’s?” Why do you have to point that out when you just SANG THE WHOLE ALPHABET. If people would pay attention they would come to that conclusion ON THEIR OWN. A few days ago after getting you dressed for the day I asked you to walk with your father to the living room so that I could go Pee-Pee. At first you didn’t want to go, but your father finally convinced you to let me be alone, that sometimes human beings like to be by themselves when they go Pee-Pee. As you walked away I heard you sing, “L-M-N-O-Pee-Pee.”

And this:

Sometimes I see you playing across the room by yourself and I will selfishly interrupt you and ask you if you’d like me to scratch your back. You’ll look up and say, “Scatch!” and walk over and lie belly-down across my lap so that I can scratch your back and the palms of your hands. My mom used to scratch my back just like this, and I used to worry that she would grow tired of it because I wanted her to do it so much. But now I think that she was worried about the same thing, that maybe I would get tired of it because she liked to scratch my back. So I want you to know just in case you ever get worried, I won’t ever get tired of this.

Don't you all just want to pop out babies now, tons of babies with all of their adorable babyness?!
So until I can catch my breathe, all that wonderfulness will just have to do.
Right now I have to go go go go go some more.