In other news, work on the original-music CD has slowed to a crawl. Lead-Guitarist seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. At least, however, he's left me the digital deck so I can get used to working with it, but I never seem to have the time. It's very frustrating. I guess I'll just keep trying to poke around with it and hope Lead Guitarist reappears at some point.

Other random bits: we bought bunk-beds for the girls a couple of weeks ago. I'm beginning to want their room for myself. :-) The beds, combined with their new sheets, look very cozy and leave them lots of room to play. Now we just have to buy some proper blinds for the room, as the girls are getting to the age where they need some actual privacy, not to mention they'll have to share that room with the baby, who'll need the light shut out during nap times...

Speaking of the baby, Poli is approaching the 6-month point of her pregnancy and is doing great. She's as active and happy as ever, and a true light in my life. I think we both quietly remind ourselves how lucky we are that she's not experiencing a miserable pregnancy or has to stay bed-ridden for months at a time... knock on wood.

It does seem, however, that Poli worries that I'm not excited about the baby. I look at it in two ways: One, I refuse to let myself fall into the same baby-obsessive state all new parents get into, and that I got into after my girls were born. While I am happy and think about the baby a lot, I also try to temper that with the realization that in order for everything to work out OK, I need to stay balanced. Having a baby will be just one, albeit very important, facet of a happy life that Poli, our kids (including the girls) and I will spend together. Maybe this is unclear - I'm not sure it makes sense when I phrase it the way I am; basically, it's just about, and always is about, balance, and I hope I can maintain that. But yeah, having a baby on the way, when you're with someone you love, is pretty damned cool.

The second thing is that I have to admit I'm a little worried (hey, it's what I do) about financial and logistical matters. It's not like we have a lot of money or space to work with, and now we've got to have a home that can accommodate 5, or even 6 people, essentially on one (my) income. It ain't gonna be easy.

On a completely different note, I don't think I ever mentioned anything about the Celtic band's *first* gig, on St-Paddy's weekend. I guess cf described it, so at least it's on record as actually having taken place. Basically we showed up, did our thing, played nervously but worked hard and were greatly appreciated by the drunk-out-of-their-minds St-Paddy's day crowd. Somebody hit on my pregnant wife, some other people seemed to be hitting on Mystie and Scottish Legs (who were in attendance), and one big girl nearly took us all out by careening across the stage in the middle of "Home for a Rest."

The woman running the place gave us a "breakfast bonus" on top of our promised pay, and we didn't get heckled or have things thrown at us, so I guess we done alright. Maybe we'll even be back next year.

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