September

Our birthing class started, I had a wonderful baby shower, found a lot of baby furniture by stalking craigslist 24/7, and joined a small book/Bible study. Steve started p90x and a men's group at church that meets at 6:30 AM! (ouch!!)

All that is great, and the baby continues to be fine, but I've been really tired and overwhelmed. I'm already at home all the time, but pressuring myself to accomplish a lot, so much that I've started to freak out again whenever anyone wants me to eat lunch with them, meet for coffee or be their friend. (Does anyone else understand this, by the way? It seems like so many other people have plenty of room and energy in their lives for lunches and new friends, and here I am, a stay-at-home wife, and I hyperventilate if someone asks me to coffee.) Anyway...

So, Steve suggested I take a day off of sorts. Just hearing him suggest a no-pressure, order-a-pizza-for-lunch, paint-your-nails and watch-too-much-Mad-Men kind of day really felt good. (He really suggested all that!) I even bought paintnolish for the occasion:


Don't judge me, they were buy one get one free. (which is good, cause Butter of London is usually like $14 a bottle! It lasted really well though and I've been wanting some forever!)

My day off was a week ago and now I've started sleeping way better. Sometimes I even wake up in the morning to say goodbye to Steve and then find myself waking up again around lunchtime! Still have a big list to do, but now I feel like I can actually do it.

So... I can never tell if these sort of updates are too boring for blogs or not. I have a hunch they are. But I will say that I am about to post pictures of a bunch of stuff I've been doing, so maybe that will make up for this.

baby's room

I walked to Urban Outfitters from our hotel in San Diego and got this to hang on the wall in the baby's room! I love it so much! Here's a tiny picture. You have to go to the link to really see it...



Steve thinks it's mildly creepy, but understands why I like it. I think he just can't imagine it all together with the other things that will be in there, and it would be sort of creepy if it were the only decoration or something. That being said, if that's what Steve thinks, then I can only imagine the invective it will invite from people we know who have less imagination than he does. Some of my nursery ideas bring out that reaction, it seems.

Anyway, I'm in love with it and it makes me so happy! I'll probably hang it over the piano, since that's going to be a part of his room for a while.

Am I not normal?

Steve and I had a great time in San Diego this week! It was about 35 to 40 degrees cooler than our typical weather in Austin, and we simply ATE UP being able to go outside!! (I also ate a bunch of lobster every day, and chocolate chip pancakes.)

Anyway, I finally checked my email this afternoon after a week of not being able to, and I read the most horrifying, stupid email ever from the preggers club thingy I'm part of. It's a club of sorts for people in the same stage of pregnancy as you, so you can go online and see what questions everyone has, etc. It's a great way to get help and advice and know what's normal, but this last email was kind of freakish. It was entitled "12 Things You Miss While You're Pregnant." Here are some of the things people said they missed:

Wine
Sushi
Deli meat
Unpasteurized cheeses
Cookie dough
Eggs under easy (EEWW!)
Coffee

Aside from the fact that I will NEVER eat an egg that is not cooked to the consistency of concrete, I've consumed ALL of the things on this list in the last 24 hours! Except the cookie dough, that's been almost a week ago. But there's still some in my fridge! Well, and I've mostly only eaten cooked sushi.

We went to a 5-star restaurant last night and I had a glass of red wine with dinner. We ate lunch yesterday at a fabulously darling gourmet sandwich place in La Jolla and, you guessed it, I had a sandwich! And mac & cheese, and strawberry rhubarb pie.

I drank a latte this morning with my chocolate chip pancakes. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't decaf either. And as far as unpasteurized cheeses, well, I eat those every time I go by the cheese sample place in the grocery store. In fact, I've come to not believe in pasteurized dairy products of any sort anymore, but that's a post for another day.

Anyway, what the heck?! All of these testimonials of what people aren't eating during pregnancy should totally freak me out, and they do a little, but to be honest, I think I'm fine. I make a conscious decision before eating anything I eat, which I always did anyway, and, well, I'm okay with that. But I'm sort of freaked out that I'm not freaked out. Maybe I should write this on the message board, although I would hate to see what all those people would tell me is going to happen to my baby.

unique birthday card

My friend Amy, who is spending the next few months in Spain, sent me an email of fun pictures for my birthday; just things that make me happy! I wanted to share them:






This next one's funny, because right before Amy left for Spain we had a whole conversation about something that had reminded me of these lines:

"Ahem, are you wearing the Ch-"
"The Chanel boots? Yeah, I am."



When she lived in Austin, Amy and I were always doing the next new thing to our nails together.





Thanks, Amy!! :)

Languages, dreams and...another post?!

I guess when it rains, it pours, even with blog posts.

I have more energy now that all plans difficult, dreadful or busy for the summer are pretty much over. Now is the best part, because I feel good and can finally be at home and focus on our life a little bit. I have nothing to look forward to for a while except my birthday tomorrow and our trip to San Diego in a few weeks. Life is good!

I had a strange little dream. I have mentioned before that I am having the ridiculous problem of not working on any language right now because I cannot decide on one. It's between German, French and Spanish, since I have varying degrees of semi-proficiency in each of those already.

Anyway, this must be really bothering me since I dreamed about it! In my dream, I was walking down the halls of some place that seemed like a high school. I looked in the window of a classroom in what I somehow understood to be a sort of language department, and the teacher motioned me inside. She was giving a test and wondered if I would like to take it, just for fun. Would I!?

The kids were already busy working on their tests, so I quietly thanked the teacher and sat down at one of the tables to begin. I was to translate some sentences into English. When I looked at them though, all the verbs had German verb stems but were conjugated with French verb-endings! I think all the other words were just German. In the dream I was totally stumped about how to translate any of them, and I woke up before I realized that it would still all go into English just fine! I loved that dream, and woke up feeling that I had narrowed it down to German and French. I'll save Spanish until my friend gets back from nannying in Spain, later this fall.

But still, which to choose?

Blogger Question

For the past several months, my links, over there ---> cannot be edited. An error code comes up every time I try to click on the little editing icon. I can't add any links or change the ones that are there. Does anyone know what is going on??? I tried asking the discussion blog thingy about the error code, but they had never seen it...

Thanks! :)

gratefully happy.

I don't want this to turn into a venting-only blog, even though I am glad that it can serve that purpose sometimes. (and perhaps this summer has required more venting than usual.)

Anyhow, the world is so beautiful and I am sometimes in awe that I am allowed to notice it!

It rained yesterday and was CLOUDY ALL DAY the day before!

I have a healthy baby in my tummy and I feel fine!

It is almost my birthday.

My husband loves me and is very reasonable and kind.

Our dog is the best dog ever.

I went to a clothing swap and I now have CLOTHES!

I love my Kincey.

The piano is TUNED!

Because of my kind and patient husband, my Mimi's chandelier now hangs above our pale mint green dining room table. It reminds me every day of the influence of beauty and fun and creativity that the Lord let Mimi have in my life because she let the Lord have influence in hers.

I might get new crayons soon. A box of 120!

I've gone from zero knitting skills to being able to knit dishcloths and scarves in one week!

We are doing quite well on our house-organizing projects as the summer progresses.

I am so grateful for the Lord's kindness, and how He uses even the ugly things of life to create beauty in us. What a wonderful God! The true Maker of fairy tales!