the price you pay for monkeying around (and other weekend thoughts).

I was trying to get Reed upstairs this morning so he could get dressed, and was following him up our steep stairs. He was three (steep) steps in front of me, and quickly turned around and launched himself onto me. Rather than bringing us both down the stairs on my back, I caught him. In the process of this, I wanked my back. My lower back. I thought it was okay, but as the day has progressed, I'm clearly not okay. I'm on the heating pad now with Motrin and Tylenol coursing through my veins, but yeah, this sucks. Of course it happens on the weekend before the Citywide Garage Sale *and* our Kentucky Derby Party. When I had nothing better to do, you know.

A few weeks ago, there was an obituary in the Strib for a this young woman. A couple weeks later, the CribSheets blog posted this letter from Matt, her widowed husband. I've been following his blog since then, and trying to fathom the life that he is now learning to live. Today's article in the Strib was touching, as expected. I really have no other words. His blog is here.

I got an email today from one of our old neighbors, with a link to the new house that they're buying. They are expecting their second child this summer and I'm sure they're feeling the space crunch of their smaller house. Chad bought the house before he met Carrie, so I'm certain that he never thought ahead to a wife and two children. This is the second set of neighbors that I've heard from in the past two weeks with an announcement that they are moving. We all moved in around the same time when it was a very new development, and we were the first to leave. It was sad when we moved, but it seems really sad now to think about the fact that the Original Bonnie Lane Gang is breaking up even more. Criselda and Brian are off to Geneva, Switzerland in about a month, and Chad and Carrie are moving to another house in the same suburb.

Alex and I finally had our anniversary dinner date last night. We went to Broder's Pasta Bar. It was randomly chosen off of Mpls Magazine's Best of list. The food was good, service was very good, but the wait was insane. They don't take reservations, but do take call-aheads. We called about an hour before we planned to arrive, and we still had to wait a good 45 minutes after we arrived. I enjoyed it, no doubt - we seldom get a meal where we're not dealing with Reed - but the wait to be seated offset my enjoyment of our meal. I was hungry when we arrived; starving when we were finally seated. We ordered dessert to take with us, and my chocolate orange tart was to die for. Seriously. The best part of the meal, by far.

And finally, we woke up to three inches of snow yesterday. I didn't take pictures because I can't possibly stand to take any more snow pictures, but yes, three inches of snow on April 26. It was almost gone by late afternoon, but it was still enough to make me want to get back in bed and hide under the covers for the rest of the day.