5'

i went for a pregnancy massage today at lunch. my legs have been SO SORE lately, and i've been getting leg cramps in the night. i wanted to have an hour massage after work, but there wasn't an appointment available so i took a half-hour lunch spot. since it was just a short appointment, she just worked on my legs rather than my sore abdomen too, which is ok because my legs feel great!! i've booked an hour massage for two weeks from now. i THINK it's covered, or at least particially covered through my benefits at work, but i have to double check.

life changes seem to come in waves. right now seems to be a very wavy time. there are changes at work, changes at next, friends graduating, friends getting jobs, friends looking for new jobs, friends buying houses, friends moving cities, and me (other people's friend) having a baby. it's kind of crazy - all these changes. i kind of wonder a little bit if the waves will ever settle or just keep on coming.

i microwaved a peanut butter cup today. i don't like cold chocolate. i was careful, i didn't want to over do it. just 5 seconds here and 5 seconds there.

you think i usually wearing the pants,
just 'cause i rarely wear a dress.

did you ever have 'donut days' at school when you were a kid? we did. i wish today was donut day.

tokens

i finished the marriage plot. it was really good. it was, without a doubt, the least predictable book i have ever read. even as i read the last page, i had no idea how it was going to end. refreshing!

since i spend tuesday evenings getting stuff done around the house, i really wanted to finish the shelf unit (we had a few small elements to finish) and get all the tools and wood put away. before b left for work, i asked him "do you think i could finish the shelf unit by myself?". i didn't hear his response fully, since he was in the other room, but it was clear that he felt it was a two person job. but as i looked around the house to find the most urgent task, i kept going back to the kitchen, and concluded that i'd give it a go. all it required was some measuring, some sawing, some drilling. all things i'm capable of - although, i'm not the best sawer. so i set to work. somehow i did manage to slice the top of one of my fingers while sawing, and started bleeding. but i'm pretty sure it was a wood splinter that nicked me because that finger was no where near the blade. as i sat out front, sawing wood at 8 months pregnant, charles drove by and offered me some help. but i'm someone who likes to persevere when i believe i'm capable at the task at hand, so i declined his kind offer. for the most part things went well. i did initially screw the wrong pieces together and had to undo my work, but it just made drilling the second time easier since the holes were pre-drilled. i did manage to get it finished, and it was nice to get all the tools and supplies out of that space.

following that, i did a week's worth of dishes :S lame, i know, but we've been preoccupied with other things that dishes started piling up. by the end of the evening, the floor was still covered in dirty little paw prints, BUT the kitchen was very orderly. i was quite tired in the end.

we had our latest midwife appointment yesterday. to my delight, my weight is starting to plateau out! i only gained 1 pound in two weeks, which is all baby! hooray! post-baby, i really want to get down to my target weight. i know i can do it, especially since i won't be sitting in a cubicle all the time. it was funny at the appointment because our student midwife commented that we're very "pro-active people" because we're both really informed about pregnancy and birth. that surprised us, since it seems normal to us, but i suppose a lot of folks don't bother learning about the process. i know i've shared a few things with joy that she didn't know about, even after having 4 babies.

we've built these wooden miracles.

unpredictable

lately i've come across several news pieces on two-parent families. the first was an article, the other was a debate. i'm guessing this is a hot topic right now, partly because some jackasses have been spouting out nonsense on national television. the thing that i've noticed (and what bugs me) is the focus seems to be about parenting. the debate seems to be two-parent vs one-parent, and which scenario results in the most successful child. this really angers me because of what's being implied (and overlooked) about the kids. as someone about to have a kid with my partner, yes, i'm happy that we're undertaking child-rearing together. BUT as a person who was raised in a one-parent family, and who's partner was also raised in a one-parent family, i want to give these news people the middle finger and tell them "up yours!!". thanks for telling me that i'm significantly worse off than my two-parent counter-parts. thanks for effectively saying that the hurdles i've had to over come (financially, emotionally, relationally, academically, etc) is not the definition of a "successful" person. i'm not saying that my family scenario was ideal, in fact, it was not, but there's nothing i can do about that, and i'm not going to sit here and let some stranger tell me that i'm a failure because my parents couldn't work out their problems. it's just ridiculous. yes, one-person families are often put kids at a disadvantage, but that does not dictate one's future. there are loads of screwed up two-parent families, the appearance of a 'stable' home doesn't guarantee that the adult-child will take advantage of their advantages. in fact, many take them for granted.

in addition, i resent the use of the word 'stable' to define a two-parent family, because it's not a given. stability is the result of healthy, stable individuals - not of their marital status. this is similar to the perception that a person only becomes "settled" once they're married. my mom used this line on me before, that she wanted to see me "settled" (i'm pretty sure she meant before she died) even though i'd been working consistently at the same job for the last seven years or so (at the time), was maintaining my own home and finances, was debt free and was fortunate enough to have many wonderful friends and no relationship drama. i'm no more settled now than i used to be, the only difference is that i have someone to share experiences with.

it's high-time people change their definitions and embrace the fact that people's lives and families are going to look a little different to how they did in the past. and recognize that there has never been a perfect scenario to begin with.

talking trash like soldiers,
with your friends lined up behind you.

hex key

we had a nice time in ottawa on friday, and were both really happy that we decided to go up there on a weeknight rather than using our day off. it gave us the chance to get lots done around the house. we even vacuumed out the car! the only thing left that we still haven't gotten to is finish the shelf-unit. it just has one more shelf to go on and we have to secure the parts together with the wall. hopefully we'll get to that soon.

we got out stroller at mec and got it all assembled on saturday. it's a chariot-style stroller, but was significantly cheaper than an actual chariot. we're very pleased with it, the only unexpected hiccup is that even with the infant support attachment, it can't be used for babies less than 3 months. which is fine really, because i'd rather carry him in a sling or carrier while he's little anyways.

we also went to ikea and picked up a bunch of small things for around the house. it was a highly productive roadtrip and we did remarkably well for time, except we took the wrong highway on our way home and it took us a half hour to get re-routed :S that's happened to me before, i really have to be careful with that. i think it happened while b and i were debating if the street's name was "moodie" or "moodle".

i'll get my peace of mind in a year or two.

cactus

last night i had a sharp pain in my lower abdomin and since then it's been a little sore. i felt a little worried about the baby afterwards because he wasn't moving much, so at about 4 am, i got up and had some cold juice then lied back down. within minutes he was quite active again :) i called the midwife this morning just to be safe, and they said (the student midwife and the actual midwife) it sounds like i pulled a muscle or ligament, and it's nothing to worry about. so that's good.

believe it or not, we went to a murder mystery last night. we were invited by joy, as it was being hosted by my old youth group leaders AND the parents of brendan's friend becky from highschool. joy actually won! she was the only one who guessed one of the two killers. we had to get all dressed up into costume, i was a lounge singer named 'ruby saphire' and b was 'fredrick lloyd' a (fake) british investor who was trying to woo me :p

count the lipstick stains,
that you get on all my cups.

dichotomy

ok, so since i fell asleep so early last night i woke really early this morning. i woke a little bit around 4:30, but managed to fall asleep again. but by 5:30 i was awake and hungry, so i decided that i might as well get up and go to work (for a 7:00 start). at least it meant i got to leave early.

b and i have decided to drive up to ottawa this evening to go to MEC and ikea. we've changed our plans a few times, and most recently we were going to go tomorrow. but when we were chatting this morning, i said to him "do you want to have a free evening at home tonight, or a free day at home tomorrow" and we both agreed that having a free day at home tomorrow is better.

i figure we might as well take advantage of our freedom while we can. speaking of freedom, part of me feels like i've never gotten used to being free - being able to go wherever i want, whenever i want. it was always a novelty to be able to spontaneously do anything. so in a way, i'm not giving up something, but instead reverting to a former, more natural state. that's not to say there won't be times that i feel frustrated. i suppose that will pertain more to pre-planned things rather than spontaneous things.

a few weeks ago, b and i were looking over the wolfe island line-up and concluded that our baby's first music festival will be a good one! we're definitely still planning on going, i've seen babies there loads of times. realistically, we might have to leave on the 9:00 ferry, but we'll give it a shot and see if we might make it to the end!

i got foresight, i can see,
you'll make a cuckold out of me.

it's 9:00.
since it's too early to go to bed (it's still light out), i'm going to take a nap instead.

underwire

i swept our entire house in 10 minutes last night. maybe even less. i don't know for sure. but i'd never done it before, and it turns out it was really easy! usually i just do one room at a time, or brendan does, but it looks and feels nice to have clean floors in every room.

there are challenges to sharing a room/bed with another person. brendan claims that i snore and i claim that he's started hogging the bed (which is TRUE! i wake up squished between him and the edge). the thing about this whole snoring thing is that i'll just be lying in bed silently - not even sleeping, just lying in pre-sleep, and he'll tell me that i'm snoring. i don't know who's crazy here, because i'm NOT snoring, at least not then. he refuses to imitate it or record me when it's happening. hm, highly suspicious.

we've built these wooden miracles

cologne

one of the girls in prenatal class had her baby on the weekend. he was 3 weeks early! quite unusual for a first baby. i woke up this morning from a dream in which i was hoping our baby comes early too. i don't THINK i want our guy to come early, i'll still be working at that time, but at the same time, it's nice thinking we could meet him early.

as part of his job, brendan does a lot of grocery shopping. he buys large quantities of food to feed gathering place guests of approximately 80-90 people, so he's always looking for sale prices and going to national grocers. we've noticed that no frills appears has lower prices than food basics, and i've been contemplating making the switch. yesterday b tells me "licks burgers are on sale at no frills for $4.99". since licks burgers are our favourite, and they're usually $6.99, i decided this was a good opportunity to try out no frills. i stopped at the west-end store on the way home. while i was there i thought about how much joy and i hated that store when it first opened. it was this big yellow box in what used to be a nice undeveloped spot. oh how we resented 'gord and kim'. anyways, i'd give my shopping experience there a 6 out of 10. while it's not a high score, one of the main reasons is because it's unfamiliar to me and it took me longer because i frequently got lost. other strikes against it is that since it's in the west-end i'm more likely to bump into colleagues (one of my favourite parts of living downtown is that i never bump into people i know from work, which helps me maintain a healthy mental distance from my work day), i'm also more likely to bump into people i recognize from highschool. the store is also much bigger than food basics, which is both a pro and a con. the fact that it's bigger means it has more variety and great supply, but it also means it takes much longer to walk from end to end, which eats up my time. no frills seems much more warehousey than food basics, BUT it has PC brand stuff. so basically, i'm pretty undecided at this point.

i've been reading this really great novel lately. it's called "the marriage plot". i first heard of it when i was in berlin and was watching one of two english news channels - the author was a guest on the program and he read a portion from the book. it was so exquisitely beautiful that i was immediately intrigued. i've found it easy to read in long stretches. even when i think to myself "just one more page" i just keep reading. it's nice to have an easy read. it's especially nice reading a novel for a change, since i've been reading other stuff lately. a marriage plot is apparently a type of book - i.e. emma, and sense & sensibility, and the pride & the prejudice, middlemarch, etc etc. you know, back when a lady's only ambition was to get married. i don't exactly know why the author named it that, other than the fact that one of the main characters is an english lit major. anyways, i highly recommend it.

how do i clap with these two hands?

gerbera

you know... i've had a particularly good weekend. can't say why exactly, i've just enjoyed it.

today, andrew, shannon, brendan and i planted our sophomore 'garden of eat-in'. it's turned out really nice, with a nice mix of veggies and flowers. i'm looking forward to seeing to grow and flourish.

planting the garden took significantly less time than prepping and wedding it, which took about 12 hours compared to the 2 hours of planting. one of my favourite parts of being outside in the garden is chatting with our neighbours. it's a nice opportunity to engage with them. i don't suppose we'd ever really chat with them if it wasn't for the garden.

that we might mend our rift from your creation.

square

yesterday afternoon i started feeling super sick and couldn't concentrate because i was nauseous and burning up. i think it was either the alfafa sprouts on my sandwich or my prenatal vitamin. i mostly slept for the rest of the afternoon, pekoe joined me on the bed. since i've been getting overheated a lot lately, especially in my cube, i borrowed a small fan from my mom to keep on my desk and that made a huge difference today.

we had our last prenatal class last night. it was fun. we really enjoyed the whole 7 week program. everyone was quite nice and we'll have a class reunion in august after all the babies are born. when i got home, i added all the girls as friends on facebook. i see the class as a networking opportunity with other women at the same stage as me, and hope that we'll stay in touch. it turns out that one of them is friends with joanne, or at least they're facebook friends. so that's neat! as part of our last session, we had a write a card to ourselves that donna will mail to us 3 weeks after the baby is born. it's interesting writing to my future self. i wonder if i'll appreciate the encouragement or not.

i'm glad that we didn't plant our garden on monday since there was a frost warning last night. our plan is to plant on sunday afternoon. we just need to get the other side of the garden prepped tomorrow. we'd hoped to get that all finished on monday, but it took much longer than we expected. i can't wait til june. for some reason it's feeling a little like may is dragging. i'm looking forward to flipping the calendar.

this puzzle always fits.

miscalculation

with our 3rd wedding anniversary coming up in june, i've been brainstorming ideas. for our first anniversary we went to the cove in westport, and we really liked that. the second year we went to see a play in stratford and stayed with jill. since our anniversary is 2 weeks from our baby's due date, i'd rather stay close-ish to home and westport seems a little far away. initially i'd picked the general wolfe on wolfe island, it's close and we could actually walk there, but it feels like we're away from k-town. but the pictures on the website look like their rooms have not been updated in 20 years, and the trip advisor reviews i read confirm my suspicions that it's pretty basic. so then i came up with the gananoque inn, because i've heard great things about them, and started thinking about getting a 1000 island boat cruise package. but b doesn't want to go to gan, it turns out he has negative associations with that town.

does anyone have any other suggestions? some place nice, local, and reasonably priced??

we've moved the kitty litter box back down to the basement. i tried to do a through cleaning down there and even bleached the floors. hopefully the kitties are back on track with their poop box and will no longer take to creative alternatives.

if there's one thing that irritates me about life, it's when people feel exempt from following procedures, making an effort, contributing to society because they think they're somehow above it. this extends to include when people refuse to recycle or conserve energy because they seem to think their small consumption doesn't impact the big picture. ugh. (i had someone tell me that they would've applied for my job, but were turned off by the whole 'submit a resume' aspect. sheesh! give me a break...)

these things happen all the time.

oil

lately i've been feeling keenly aware of my baby's presence. i've noticed that it no longer feels accurate to say "when the baby comes" because he's already here. he's present and i feel connected to him. i often greet him in the mornings ("good morning to you too!") when i feel him for the first time each day, and sometimes his movements are so silly that it makes me laugh. he's part of my life even though i haven't seen his face. sometimes i have to remind myself that no one else gets to experience him in the way i do and for everyone else they're waiting to meet him and hold him. i'm excited to see his face, and to have his little hand wrap around my finger, but it won't be our beginning because our relationship and connection has already started. everywhere i go, he goes. there's only a few couple of inches between him and the rest of the world. we've already had good times together and i feel like part of me will miss this when he's born.

penny finally accepted our job offer today. phew! she's going to start on june 10.

well i should get started on my tuesday night chores.

you know what your baby's been doing.

vibrate

after working in the yard all day, b and i are pooped. we arrived home again from dinner out, and fell asleep – me while reading on the couch, him straight up napping on the bed. feeling tired from a hard days work is the best kind of tired.

we have the first half of the garden prepped and ready for planting flowers and veggies next weekend. the other half will need to be done on saturday. working out in the garden at 7 months pregnant is a challenge, but i did ok. i was thinking of the last time we worked on the garden – we were preparing it for winter. that was the day we found out we were going to have a baby :)

the ladies at work through me a baby shower on friday at lunch. it was really fun and we were given some nice gifts – mostly things on our limited registry, but some little outfits too. it was very thoughtful of them, and i appreciated it a lot.

i have 6 weeks left of work, but we don't have a new person hired yet. we've offered the job to someone, but she hasn't accepted yet, and i have a feeling she's going to say no. part of me wishes we'd offered the job to someone under-qualified because at least then they'd jump at accepting it and would be so grateful that they'd be willing to overlook the intimidating parts. i hope everything works out.

no hard feelings – no harm done.

recorder

we had our first interview last evening with tandy (the woman from queen's conducting a study on new parents). it was really neat and interesting, she asked good questions. it'll be interesting to see how our opinions and approaches change in the next six months. it turns out we were the first people she interviewed! i'm going to share the study details with our classmates at prenatal class in case they're interested in participating.

over the course of our interview, there were a few re-occurring themes that kept coming up:
• many of our decisions are made through observing others and learning from other people's experiences (mostly through conversations)
• many significant decisions were made naturally without the need to do a lot of research because they fit best with our life-approach (breastfeeding, cloth-diapers)
• we're very frugal people, and undesirable financial expenses have a large impact on our decisions
• brendan and i are very like-minded
• we're compatible because we respect each other - i value/appreciate brendan's simplicity, and he trusts my judgement when i make recommendations (i make recommendations that fit with his desire for simplicity, and he supports my creative ideas)
• we believe in a big picture approach to parenting - making decisions that have long-term benefits rather than just short-term easy/fast solutions
• we tend to be counter-cultural. not that we do it on purpose, but our decisions have to make sense to us, and not be the result of social norms
• we're also keeping our options open, recognizing that we're entering uncharted territory for us, and we don't know how things will unfold (so-and-so is the wildcard!)

all-in-all, it was a positive experience. i think we have a better understanding of ourselves as people, as partners and as parents.

when the right time comes,
i'll be what you've grown to hate.

windy

we built our kitchen shelf unit! i'm very pleased. we worked very well together and assembly went smoothly. we got all the wood cut at rona, so we just had to screw it all together. it's nice having a custom shelf unit, because it will suit our needs perfectly. i've never designed a piece of furniture before. andrew gave us some very helpful coaching, i don't think we could've done it without him. i was telling b that it doesn't quite look like what i imagined, but that's because i see it as a dark brown unit in my head, and it's a light beige in real life. i can't stain it right now, so i'll just have to wait it out or get used to this subtle difference.

while we were at rona, i had a flash of horror when thinking of wood. we decided on spruce. as i sat there waiting for brendan, i got thinking about spruce. what did spruce look like? and i was reminded of the big blue spruce we had on our lawn when i was growing up. i felt momentarily horrified - lumber vegetarianism - and decided it was better to not think about what it used to be :S

melodie connected me with a study at queen's for first time parents. they want to interview us 3 times (1 time pre-baby, 2 times post-baby) about decision-making and what consumer products we've selected. i really like studies, and i'm happy to participate, but it also strikes me funny since we have very few consumer products. apparently melodie told the lady that we'll be an interesting case since our place is small. i'm ok with being the anomaly couple :)

i've started drinking red raspberry leaf tea, i heard about it at prenatal class. the box calls it a 'uterine tonic', saying it helps in child birth preparation. i quite like it. it tastes very rooty or twiggy. the box says to have 3 to 4 cups a day, but i'm a little worried that drinking that much of it might make me go into labour early. so i'm planning on just having one cup a day until i'm 36 weeks, then up my intake.

we've seen your capabilities.

coins

in my quest to maximize our space by making better use of space, i got thinking about under-bed storage. now, the problem i've found with under-bed storage is that it's a bit of a tight squeeze and things tend to get stuck under there. so i thought to myself "there must be a way of raising a bed to make it taller", then did a google search. at first i was looking for new bed legs or something, but i came across these pylon shaped bed raisers that have a square in the top to put the wheels into. this seemed quite ingenious so i ordered them right away (only $10 on amazon!). i was expecting them to arrive on tuesday, but it turns out i accidentally ordered next day delivery and they arrived yesterday. i wasn't sure if i'd manage to lift the bed myself (since b was at work), but i was excited and wanted to surprise brendan, so i worked diligently to lift each corner onto the pylon. and now... our bed is 6" taller! it's awesome! not only do we have ample storage space under our bed, but it seems so much more luxurious! whenever i stay at hotels the beds are way taller than our bed at home. i'm not exactly sure if those beds are unusually high or if ours is just unusually low. i've noticed that now our bed is higher that the bed skirt isn't dragging on the ground but hangs as it was designed to. i'm extremely pleased, especially since it's a bit of a surprise (i wasn't expecting to find such a great solution!). man, i get a great deal of satisfaction from home improvements. i especially enjoy the challenge of a small home.

what i really need to do is be more ruthless with our basement. i have a bad habit of holding onto things just in case they come in handy later - because they usually do eventually! at least upstairs i'm learning to not fill every empty space with something.

it's amazing how draining talking can be. i had the main candidate for my job come in to the office for a bit of a tour, and i just felt pooped afterwards! i needed a few hours of solitude afterwards to hit my energy reset button.

i'm gonna raise the stakes.

AWESOME!

my grandparents lived in england. and every time they came to visit my grandma's ankles would swell up into giant balls. this is one of my most distinct memories of her, because i'd never seen anything like that before. so i'm not really surprised that my ankles are starting to swell, i imagine i have some kind of puffy ankle pre-disposition. i've been told that drinking lots of water helps, so i'll give that a try. for a while there, i was drinking a LOT of water, but now i drink milk and juice, so i'm consuming less water. having puffy ankles aren't uncomfortable, and i don't mind that it looks funny, but i have some special boots that i want to still fit in. you see, i have these boots, i call them 'my birthing boots' because they make squatting very easy and when i wear them i feel like i could squat for a long long time. so for the last few years i've been planning to give birth in them so i can squat. anyways, i've got to keep my feet at a normal size or that won't work.

i had another productive tuesday night. i've decided to reserve tuesday evenings for alone-time at home completing important tasks. last night i installed a second high-shelf in the closet. i'm very pleased it makes the closest more functional and homey. i also spent a great deal of time planning our new shelf-unit for the kitchen. under andrew's tutelage, i've designed a custom shelf unit for our kitchen. after discussing it with andrew we had the basic structure figured out, but i needed to plan how many shelves it would have, and the spacing between them. i'm SUPER excited, it's gonna look so good and be super useful. we're going to build it on saturday. i hope it goes well! it'll be a good team-building project for me and b. sometimes when we build stuff together it can get stressful because i make a lot of assumptions, and b doesn't think like i do. i'm sure it'll be a exercise to help prepare us for the early days of parenting.

in general, i'm really in home-improvement mode. as i mentally prepare to share our space with another person, i've been really intentional about using our space more effectively. and while i'm at it, i've also been addressing other of items that i left as interim solutions. the kitchen shelf unit is one, but another is window coverings. we've had some vertical blinds on the front door since we moved in. they're ok, but not great. we've also had a spring-roller room darkening blind in the bedroom, which always falls down. so today we're having proper custom blinds installed. woo-hoo! it's kind of funny that i'm excited about blinds, but it's going to be a big improvement AND i like accomplishing things. b says i'm nesting, and that might be part of it. but i think true nesting doesn't kick-in until early labour.

you're the only light.

songbook

i have 8 weeks left of work before my maternity leave starts. it's pretty crazy! i have mixed feelings about that. part of me is really looking forward to having an extended break from my work routine (clock-watching, bagged lunches), another part of me is excited to think that in 8 weeks time, we'll be that much closer to meeting our baby, and a third part of me feels reluctant because i'll be leaving a place and space where i feel really comfortable and confident. i know what i'm doing when i'm at work, i know my place and have, over time, carved out a role that is valued and appreciated by others. i'll soon find myself in completely unknown territory, without years of experience to give me confidence, overwhelmed by intense emotions and physical exhaustion, with a tiny little person dictating much of my time. all i can really do, is set my expectations very low, and brace myself for a steep learning curve. thankfully, i know it will get better as the days and weeks go by. we'll find our rhythm and i'll learn a trick or two to keep up my sleeve. i'm a firm believer that the most challenging things in life can also be the most rewarding.

i had a dream about our boy recently. he was a toddler and he had dark brown eyes like me, and wavy shoulder-length hair.

some things they never last.

libre

we think pekoe has diabetes. i didn't even realize that was possible in cats, but we've been noticing a few unusual new behaviours and traits about him lately, and they're all symptoms of feline diabetes. oh, our little koe-koe, he's a good boy. i don't think we'll take him to the vet. we'll just keep watch to see if these symptoms persist, and if they do, we'll change his diet. he doesn't seem to be in pain or discomfort at all, just super thirsty and losing weight. my belief is, that since knowing for sure won't actually change anything (we won't decide to give him insulin injects every day), there's no sense in getting him tested.  interestingly enough, that's something we've talked about at prenatal class with informed decision-making - in regards to getting tests done. if the results won't impact the outcome, then don't bother with the tests. pekoe will live out his natural life, with or without diabetes, in our company. i don't think he'd expect anything else. it seems one key thing we can do is switch him over to a high protein, wet food diet (kibble has more carbohydrates). i'm sure he'll be fine, and that we have many years together ahead of us :)

yesterday was the international day of midwives, and megan arranged a community sing in the park. the song was recorded (video), and will be posted online later. one of the midwives suggested that they record my baby's heartbeat using the doppler and that can be cut into the video. so mico ran to get her doppler and we stood in the park listening to our boy's heart a-beating. it was pretty cool :)

you take the future and leave me with the past.

grain

i had high hopes for accomplishing things tonight, but i just feel wiped and kind overheated. maybe i'm low in iron or something. or maybe it's just that it's friday.

we got the results from our last ultrasound yesterday, and my placenta has moved out of the way, so that's good! good job, placenta!!

i'm so happy that spring has arrived. shannon and i had a visit out at the picnic table yesterday and for a time i sat there alone. it reminded of how much i love the sounds of summer. it's such a tactile season, something for all the senses. i know it's not summer yet, but 21 degrees is actually pretty ideal summer weather. i'm thankful for winter too. it's a tough season, but it makes summer that much better. luckily, my winter jacket made it through the season and i was able to put it away just as it wasn't fitting anymore.

i'm excited to have the whole summer off. i plan to go barefoot as much as i can. i'd also like to get my hands dirty in the garden a lot. if little so-and-so is late, i'll just putter in the garden, pulling weeds and stuff. speaking of our garden, all sorts of random things have sprouted. daffodills and what appears to be tigerlillies. i don't really know where they came from since they didn't exist last year and we didn't plant them. since it was such a late spring, it's shocking that it's almost garden time. our neighbour andrea has a ton of plants already growing from seed. she said she started a while ago. she's a natural gardener, i'm too impressed to be envious.

of all the spring afternoons in bare,
could it have been anybody else.

penicillin

when we were in greece, we took the city bus. i don't usually take city buses in unfamilar cities, because the stops are less clear and the routes seem random. BUT we'd been given very clear instructions from our hotel desk person, and our stop was the very last one. in preparation for the bus, i got the kris kross song "i missed the bus" stuck in my head. when i mentioned that to brendan, i realized that he's too young to know who kris kross is (it sounded weird explaining that they were 13 year old rappers when i was in grade 6, and they always wore their pants backwards). now, don't get me wrong, brendan's age by no means limits his musical knowledge. but random, pop-culture fads, like kris kross, don't usually belong in his mental music library. anyways, i mention this because before greece, i hadn't thought about kris kross in several decades. so i was surprised when i opened google news today to learn that one of the chris's from kris kross had died, and that even at age 34, he was still wearing his pants backwards (although, i was more surprised that this was international news, than the fact that a former child rapper had died from a drug overdose).

as brendan re-strung his guitar last night, i sat by the open window reading random parts of our prenatal class booklet to him. this led to a conversation about our due date. often i remark to people about how i'd like the baby to be born between the 12th and the 20th, and he was concerned that i won't be flexible enough if he doesn't come in that ideal week. truthfully, i mostly mention it since people like to ask us about the baby and pregnancy, and i don't find there's a lot to discuss. "it's a boy, he's getting bigger, i'm doing well..." then i've pretty much run out of things to say, so i talk about the due date or whatever. i KNOW that babies come when they are good and ready, and i know that he'll probably be at least a week late. sure, i have a preference (after nancy can start holidays and before my mom and sister leave town for their summer vacation), but i'm not naive enough to count on it. i suppose sometimes i say things to fill gaps in conversation.

does anyone know a handyman? we have a small job in the attic that needs doing before we get it insulated. apparently its a simple (but dirty) job and would only take about 3 hours. i'd ask andrew, but i don't think he has time. b is busy, plus doesn't like doing stuff like that. i'm pregnant and shannon has other skills. so i think we need an outsider.

in springtime, i was standing.

stutter

i overheard some baby-boomers at work complaining about a possible wind-farm going in down the road from us. they were outraged (and kind of entitled because no one had asked their opinion). i too had been upset to see that a large forested area had been clear-cut, but in part because i assumed they were putting in a subdivision. i feel better about wind-turbines, at least they have a positive impact on society and the wild life can still live in that space. it made me wonder about our opposing perspectives. do the majority of baby-boomers hate wind-turbines (actually, they called them wind-mills) while the majority of my generation (i guess i'm a gen-xer) are pro-turbines? is it that some people (especially older generations) hate change? some claim that wind-turbines are ugly, but people said that about the eiffel tower when it was first built. personally, i can't think of any better use of that space (with the exception of leaving it in it's natural state)

it's not hard to grow,
when you know that you just don't know.

toni braxton hicks

since i made the decision to wrap up my time at KGH (the program coordinator was very supportive and encouraging. she said i'm welcome to come back any time), i found myself with an opportunity to get some much needed work done around the house. brendan still needed the car by 4:15 to go to work in napanee, so i was home by 4:30 and set to work. i had 4 hours before brendan would return.

lately, i've been hearing of a few women painting furniture while pregnant, and i thought "i want to paint too!". i really enjoy painting and i've had a few projects that i've had to leave for brendan or for a later date because i was under the impression i couldn't paint. but after hearing about other pregnant painters, i looked into it and found that latex/arcylic paint is fine because there's almost no fumes and it's water soluble. so last evening i started painting the baby's dresser/cupboard. it was super relaxing. i don't really have any painting close that fit right now, so i just wore an old shirt and no pants. as i painted i listened to damien rice, and found his album to be very soothing and ideal for painting. i should be able to finish up tonight. it looks really nice. i chose an semi-gloss olive green colour, it goes nicely with the rest of our room.

as each coat dried, i also... hung the new curtain rod in our bedroom, cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, did a load of laundry, unpacked from phoenix, washed the dishes and watched an episode of how i met your mother. b was SUPER impressed when he got home. SO impressed that he made me a sandwich :) it felt like a really worthwhile use of my time. i think it helps that i started early and didn't have to stop for supper. i was pretty pooped afterwards. i'm excited about what i might get accomplished tonight :D

i've been wondering... is there a difference between being loving and having feelings of love? like, a person can feel love without behaving in a loving manner, and vise-versa, right?

why do you sing hallelujah
if it means nothing to you.

nile

i feel like my work schedule is starting to get a little hairy. usually i can handle my workload quite well, at a comfortable pace. but i have A LOT to do right now and very little time left. i really want to see a number of things through to completion before my mat leave, but realistically, that won't happen. besides, there still needs to be some work for the new person to do. i'm starting to think i need to wrap up my volunteer work at KGH. while it doesn't interfere with my work life very much, i feel that work is going to take a lot out of me in the coming weeks and that won't leave me with much resolve left for my hospital visits. it's bittersweet i guess, but a change i've been anticipating, plus one that will probably be beneficial. i will miss bumping into melissa on kidd 9 each week.

another recent change was living room. last night we had our last group study/discussion. it was a really special time that i'm super grateful for. next week we're getting together for a cinco de mayo party followed by nacho libre. it should be fun.

every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

watermelon(s)

well, i'm home now. the journey home was ok, i nearly missed my connecting flight to ktown, but the fact that i didn't (because they delayed it twice) made for a happy ending.

thankfully i was traveling with two colleagues who are both very experienced travelers (they travel many times a year with work), so i knew that if we missed our flight they would help show me what to do. for the chunk of time that i thought i'd miss the flight, i tried not to worry, knowing it would all work out somehow. that said, i really needed to be back in ktown this morning because we had our first interviews with potential candidates for my maternity cover. on my way into work i felt a little nervous. i'd never interviewed someone for a job before, and it's been almost 10 years since i myself was interviewed. so how it worked was that i was in the room, and emma was on speaker-phone. she asked general job interview questions and i asked graphic design specific questions. we've now interviewed two (and have one more on monday) with very similar levels of experience, but quite different personalities. part of me says "go with your gut", but another part of me feels that it's unprofessional of me to chose based on who i can more easily see myself enjoying a conversation with. BUT interpersonal relationships are a big part of work dynamics, AND i have to work closely with this person for the month of june. so maybe it's fair to pick based on instinct.

i finally got the chance to talk with frank about the applicants. i was actually kind of avoiding the subject since i know his wanted his son to apply (but i don't think he ever got around to it – which tells me something about his interest level). anyways, for the first 5 minutes of our conversation, as i filled him in on the latest developments, he looked a little like his heart had fallen and he was trying to set aside his feels of disappointment as we talked. he asked if he could read over the resumes, and came back about 15 minutes later significantly more upbeat. right away he told me "i think your instincts are right on" and was super positive about the candidate that i'm leaning towards. that was pretty affirming, especially since i'd already concluded that i thought they'd get along quite well. where with the other one, i can't see them connecting at all.

this whole thing is really quite interesting. it's surprising the broad scope of new experiences that come with having a baby. i suppose it's never just the baby.

we should shine a light on,

a light on.

mist

hoo, i just signed little so-and-so up for daycare. i got him on the waiting list at 4 different places, but i really want him to go to 'something special', which is just around the corner from us, and his cousin audrey goes there. i actually got him on the waiting list at SS back in january, but the city has introduced this new centralized daycare registration program, so i got an email from SS saying i had to register again via that site and they'll update my wait-list date to reflect the january date. since i was already at it, i threw in 'frontenac club', because i know skye used to go there and bren speaks highly of them, and the 'YMCA' because that's where caleb, liam and now erin went/go. it's right up the street from my dad's apartment. and 'gently rocking horse', which i think is the queen's daycare and it seems to be reputable. i haven't ruled out the possibility of home care with someone we know, we just don't need to arrange that way in advance. it's funny because back when i worked at a daycare (the same daycare that b went to), i always felt sorry for the daycare children. but brendan has really positive memories of his time in daycare, and it's shown me that even though it's different to what i experienced with a stay-at-home mom, it's a good option. and the kids turn out perfectly well adjusted. besides, i'm pretty sure that brendan built his super strong immune system during his years in daycare.

well! i was not expecting to write all about that!

my work in arizona is pretty much all wrapped up now and i fly home tomorrow. it's been a positive experience and i think i surprised myself. i've been enjoying spending my spare time at the pool and watching tv. i've started to get a nice tan, which i'm sure will fade almost instantly.

i've been thinking about birth and science fiction's depiction of the future. it seems both are greatly impacted by film and television. the keynote speaker at this event the other day, pointed out that in the 1940s and 1950s, the future was always depicted as a utopian society, and now a days it's always shown as a dystopian. his theory is that a healthy, peaceful and harmonious future makes for a boring plot, and blames the need to 'make things interesting' in film for a very bleak representation of the future. i think the same is true about birth, and i've heard this many times before - that movies and tv always make birth seem frantic, rapid and dangerous with women begging for pain killers. it's interesting to me that scientists, similarly to midwives and other birth attendants, are frustrated by this negative reality being shaped by entertainers.

hm! weird, the music playing in the lobby is dido! how bizarre! i haven't heard her in a decade! on that note, i'll conclude with this....

i won't go
i won't sleep
i can't breathe
until you're resting here with me.

22

i was halfway finished writing an entry on my ipod when i accidentally
hit 'paste' and everything i'd written was gone with no option to undo
:S so now i'm on a hotel computer.

basically, i'd talked about the two stingy airlines i'd flown here
with (one not serving food, and the other charging 8 bucks for
in-flight entertainment AND charging for food - i really hate united
airlines - i had a sprite and a december 2012 magazine to get me
through a 4 hour flight). and i talked about how going to american
customs in toronto almost made me miss my plane and i had to run
through the airport to get to my gate in time for them to make their
final boarding call. as i boarded the plane i got a little teary-eyed
because i know there were others behind me still stuck in security and
i was grateful that have made it. other than that, it was an
uneventful trip.

my hotel is in mesa, which is part of the greater phoenix area. it
seems that there's nothing to do around here - no museums or
restaurants. i'll probably just eat at the hotel restaurant for all my
meals. this morning i had the breakfast buffet, tomorrow, i think i'll
have waffles!

i spent time swimming and 'sun tanning' by the pool. that's probably
how i'll spend my time since it's pretty relaxing. when i say 'sun
tanning' i mean, sitting in the warm sun reading with sunscreen on. it
felt a little funny being in my bikini with my pregnancy belly. i'm
pretty sure everything just thought i had an oddly shaped body. i kept
patting my tummy because that seems to be the universal "i'm pregnant"
symbol.

one thing i've noticed (or at least it's my interpretation) about
traveling pregnant is that people look at me kind of judgmentally or
with pity. it's like they're wondering where the father of my baby is.
i'm sure not one of them have considered the possibility that i'm
happily married and traveling on business. shesh!

i suppose it doesn't sound like i'm working much. but the exhibition
starts this evening, and this afternoon i'm 'supervising' the
assembling of exhibition booth. they don't need me to stand around
watching, so i pop in from time to time to see if they have any
questions. i think i'll head back over there soon.

it's much easier writing on a computer rather than an ipod. i'll do
this again tomorrow.

protein

i'm leaving for phoenix today. i got to have yesterday off in lieu of traveling on the weekend, which was nice. brendan had the afternoon off, so we went to the lone star for lunch and enjoyed hanging out in the afternoon. we needed that time together, he's been working a lot on weekends lately, so i haven't had much time with him.

i think i'm ready for my trip. everything is packed, and i just want to put away the laundry that has been on the racks since last saturday :S i had a weird experience this morning. out of the blue i felt kind of sick to my stomach and suddenly threw up my breakfast. i felt ok again afterwards, although i was all hot and sweaty. very strange. i think it was probably my prenatal vitamins, but i took them with food, so that's really weird. i hope that was an isolated incident.

last night, shannon, andrew, brendan and i all went over to scarlete and sachil's place for a bollywood film night. it was a good movie, although very long. it was 3.25 hours! it was really fun! they borrowed a projector and set their couches up in rows. very cool :)

so if someone can see me now, let them see you.

express

i keep seeing flocks of wild turkeys on my way to and from millhaven lately. it's quite amusing. they're huge and brown. when i really think about it, i realize that i've never really seen a turkey in real life before, so seeing wild turkeys during my regular routine is rather remarkable.

last night i visited a 95 year old man at the hospital. he was surprisingly agile.

in the past few weeks, i've been hearing about recent grads who are actually getting jobs in their fields. it's so encouraging! first b, then jill, and now mj. like seriously, i've never heard of this before, what a nice change! in fact, these three people haven't even had their graduation yet. actually, joy had her first teaching job before her convocation, and i thought that was unique, but i guess sometimes it does happen!

i've been thinking about hair styles lately. i recall a conversation with rach about how women often cut their hair after they have a baby. rachel's theory is that they're subconsciously exercising their ability to control something in a time when almost everything is outside of their control. that makes good sense to me. when i was an angsty teenager, i would frequently want to change my hair or shave my head or dye it, and it's quite likely that i was because conflicted by external factors. i'm surprised that i'm already toying with the idea of changing my hair in preparation of this life change. i think there's a few reasons:

1) i want something light and practical. when i was 10 years old, my best friend's mom had a baby. he was unplanned, but ended up being a delight. his name was eddie and i really bonded with him. after his parents names, my name was the first he learned to say :) before eddie, i'd never really been around a baby, and i learned a lot about what babies are like. haha, i'm just realizing that it was a really really long time before i held him for the first time, but afterwards i found i enjoyed it and i held him a lot. it's funny how that hasn't really changed - my discomfort with holding unfamiliar babies. anyway... my point is, i remember eddie used to grab and hold on to my hair a lot, and i could understand why moms usually had short hair. now, i'm not thinking about cutting it SHORT, but just shorter. the question i have is will having shoulder length hair be easier to deal with, or will it always fall in my eyes or be too short to pull back into a ponytail?

2) i'd kinda like a new cut to go with my new beginning. the last time i had shorter hair and was growing it out, i really didn't like the awkward just-past-my-collar-bone length. i find it very unappealing. all this said, i feel that i've learned quite a bit about styling my hair since the last time it was shorter, and i feel confident that i could make it more interesting this time around.

thoughts?

oh... further to my last entry...
i read in 'birthing from within' that weight gaining restrictions were created in the 1800s when rickets was common. they found that by keeping the baby small, it would increase the infant survival rate during the birth process. while rickets is pretty much non-existant now, they haven't changed the policy on pregnancy weight gain. being able to put this in context is helpful. and i appreciated marlene and rachel's encouragement, which helped put things in perspective. i think as long as i'm exercising and eating well, i'm not going to worry about specific pounds.

you were in my arms, but you were out of reach

vote

i bought some new shoes on saturday. they were my special tax return treat. as i considered this purchase, i realized that i often buy shoes with my tax return - my rubber boots, my hi-tops, and now my keens. i've been eyeing keens for quite some time. they're a good quality casual lace-up shoe that can still be worn to work. i really dithered back and forth about this decision. i have a number of mediocre shoes already - lower quality, very casual, wear on occasion shoes, but nothing as versatile as a keen-type of shoe. in this in between type of weather, boots are too much, but sandals are quite enough. so i made the decision to proceed. it's been a while since i got new footwear that is neither a boot or a sandal. i think the last proper shoe i bought were my merrells in 2009, which are such high quality that they don't need to be broken in. i recall being told "if your merrells are hurting your feet, something is wrong". all this to say... i'd totally forgotten the discomfort of new shoes. i really like them, but my left foot is killing me. today, when i took off my shoe to apply a bandaid to my ankle, i noticed that the inside of the heel had a little blood mark (and when i say little, i mean the size of a dime). the funny thing is that i don't recall seeing blood on my sock at any point, so i don't know if this happened recently or a few days ago. all this said, i'm optimistic that my foot will soon adapt to it's new shoe environment. i'm slightly amused by this because i can see brendan's influence. every summer he wears his sandals through the bleeding until his foot makes fresh calluses. it's gross and painful to watch, but i have a new appreciation for the logic.

i'm going to phoenix this saturday on a business trip. there's tradeshow and i'm responsible for the exhibition booth. i've been watching the weather and it seems to be in the mid-30s with a low of mid-20s. i've never experienced a dry heat before, so that should be very interesting. for some reason, traveling within the continent sans b feels less difficult. i found it really hard being in berlin without him, but phoenix is closer and they speak english. i'm hoping to visit some museums in my free time and use the outdoor pool!

after my last midwife appointment, i knew that i've been gaining too much weight. but today, i read on my ipregnant app that "by now, you should have gained 11 pounds" :S i've gained closer to 30. in my defense, i gain weight quite easily. however... i haven't been watching my intake very closely and i didn't exercise much over the winter months. i'm hoping that now that its spring and i've started walking every day again, and i'm more mindful of my intake, that my weight gain will plateau as baby's weight increases. he's now the size of a head of cauliflower!

the good old days, the honest man;
the restless heart, the promised land.

parasailing

my belly button is slowly disappearing.

lately i've been thinking a lot about my friend david (ferrence) who died this past fall. i still miss him a lot. part of me feels like if i got to see him and tell him how much i miss him than i wouldn't miss him so much. sometimes when i drive home, past the nunnery, i see people walking on the sidewalk and i half expect to see him walking there in his blue shorts and gray t-shirt. then i'd honk at him and he'd wave back.  oh well. frank told me after david died that he thought david knew how much i enjoyed his company. that helps. i guess that's the second best thing to getting to say goodbye.

speaking of nunneries... i've been enjoying mother teresea's book. i've been thinking a little more about catholicism. for some reason i feel that if someone sees that book on my desk and mistakes me for a catholic i'd be ok with that. people seem more comfortable with catholics than they do with evangelicals (i realize that when i say 'people', i might just mean me, i can't speak for everyone). i suspect its because they generally do their own thing and don't hassle others to join the faith. i've never known someone to feel defensive, threatened or get their back up around a catholic.

you always were, always will be, a friend of mine.

down

brendan and i had our first prenatal class tonight. i was very pleased to discover that brendan knew one of the girls – she'd the daughter of one of nancy's best friends – and i've heard a lot about her. it turns out they also know my dad. her husband's grandpa is a good friend of his, and they all know each other through queen's football. pretty neat! i was hoping to make some other mom friends through the class, so i'm pleased to already have one in the making.

we ended up choosing a class with childbirth kingston. there were a lot to choose from, but as the instructor mentioned tonight, birth and parenting is full of decision making, so i guess i need to get used to it. i'm happy with what we chose. they meet in the basement of the midwives clinic and it's just a block away from here. the instructor is actually a retired midwife and there were a good number of other participants who are using midwives. it was an interesting mix of people and everyone seemed quite nice. at one point we split into men and women's groups to brainstorm different pregnancy discomforts, and afterwards brendan and i swapped notes on the tone of each group. it seems the some of the guys felt a lot of obligation to complain about their old ladies, and many of the women seemed to delight in naming all their discomforts as though it was a way of fitting in. i think both are cultural behaviours and not reflections on the character of the people. it's just something i'm aware of because i don't want to be an overly enthusiastic complainer. from the list that we created of pregnancy discomforts, i'm grateful to say i've only experienced 1/3 of them, and in general i feel that i've been having a good pregnancy.

we have a little bit of homework to work through before next week. it's mostly just exploring our attitudes around different aspects of birth to uncover fear. reading over the sheet i felt pretty comfortable and i was reminded that it's very empowering to be familiar and informed about pregnancy and birth in advance. i'm especially grateful to have been at two births, it really demystifies the whole experience.

i was hoping that one day you'd be next to me or at least somewhere near.

lined paper

i drove past st lawrence college yesterday on my way to my volunteer shift at KGH. the sign was advertising a conversational french class. i'm really bad at languages, and had a pretty negative experience learning french growing up. but for some reason seeing a sign for 'conversational' french seemed much less daunting and i started daydreaming about taking that class. its obviously not something i'd have time to do in the near future, but maybe something to try out in a few years. from time to time i get inspired to do something i never thought would be an activity i'd try out. i find it very exciting, it's like cracking something open that is crackable and things come out. an egg? a pinata? this analogy is going nowhere...

on every other wednesday, we do something called "together tuesdays" with andrew and shannon to share a meal together. it's exactly as it sounds, only it happens on a wednesday.

it's funny to me that when people mention new aerospace contracts awarded to BBD that i really couldn't care less. i'm not meaning to be rude in my disinterest, but aerospace is like having an older, overachieving, more glamourous sibling who steals the spotlight even though your own achievements are worthwhile and have merit. besides sharing parents and a name, we have no other connection. i'm not complaining, it's cool to be part of a company who makes national and international headlines, but this won't impact my division at all, other than the fact that our share price will go up a little.

my sinus condition is drastically improving. i'm super thankful. i still need a breathe right strip at night, but during the day i feel pretty normal. i could even breathe through my nose when i did yoga yesterday.

whenever something's free, usually then you're not.

chortle

our kitties have developed odd litter box practices - mostly they're not using it, in favour of the floor space just outside the box. we have no idea why this is happening, but most likely they're not just peeing where they now smell a pee scent. needless to say, we're super annoyed at them and have revoked their basement privileges. they usually access the basement through a cat door, but thankfully the door comes with a lock. we've moved the litter box back up into the bathroom so we can hopefully retrain them on their litter box etiquette. both of them spent the night scratching at their basement door trying to get it to open. they're pretty mad about it, and honey was giving us the cold shoulder this morning.

so it turns out i need to have another ultrasound because in the last one my placenta was too close to my cervix. usually when a placenta is low, it moves higher as the uterus grows, but if it doesn't, it can cause complications and risks on the big day. i've kind of gone back and forth on this - feeling concerned and feeling peaceful. right now i feel peaceful. i was reading about it recently and came across roughly 10 causes for this condition, and i didn't fit ANY of the risk factors (substance use, age, previous pregnancies, etc). which gives me hope that my placenta is normal and that my last ultrasound is outdated. having to consider this though, gave me the chance to consider my feelings about this birth. i've always known my preferences and simply hadn't given much thought to the alternative (how would i feel if my preferences weren't an option). i've concluded that it's very important to me to push this baby out myself. birth is something i want to accomplish rather than be something done to me. accomplishing things is very valuable to sense of endurance. i feel greatly empowered by enduring and completing things - especially hard things, and i know birth will equip me for the challenge of life with a newborn.

it was kind of a funny weekend. saturday i found myself feeling surprisingly at loose ends and kind of lonely. i knew i felt bored and restless while brendan was busy with his own things, and i wasn't able to identify that i felt lonely so i was just crabby. then sunday was very full, so full that there were two functions that we had to skip completely because we had other commitments. in a lot of ways, those two days couldn't have been more different.

i used to tango
but that, that was then.

amp

this year for lent brendan and i gave up eating red meat. i gave up eating meat back in 2009, but i found this time much harder. last time i felt content not eating meat and felt i could've gone on much longer. this time, i was eagerly anticipating the end of lent. we found it particularly difficult in greece finding food we could eat. it's nice having fewer restrictions. yesterday as i walked home from my volunteer shift at KGH, i was tempted to stop at a hot dog stand, until i remembered that hot dogs is a pregnancy ban, not a lent ban. i'll have to wait a while yet til i can have a hot dog and a beer.

i like that leif vollebekk talks about trains, riding trains, and train stations in at least 3 songs on his latest album :)

yesterday i received two packages in the mail. the first was mother teresa's memoir called 'come be my light'. i suppose it's not ACTUALLY a memoir, but rather a compilation of her personal writings, but it feels more memoir-y than a biography. mother teresa has always been a very interesting woman to me and i'm keen to learn more about her. especially after b told me, that day we walked the paths at meteora, that people were astonished after she died to discover that she'd struggled with doubt her whole life. that just makes her more real to me.

the other package i received was a prenatal yoga dvd. i've tried a few different ones online, but found them hard to get into, but i can see now that part of that was my fault. i don't think i took them seriously enough. with this new dvd, i was able to play it on the tv, which gave me more room for my yoga practice. i watched it through once while i ate dinner (b was at work), so that i was familiar with the positions and would be less distracted. then i put on proper yoga clothes (the first time i tried yoga at home, i just wore jeans, which doesn't work) and turned off the lights. i had a really nice time! i think the intensity of yoga on the dvd is perfect for me. i'm not a new yogi, but i'm kind of a lazy yogi. i like the positions that are comfortable and relaxing more than the positions that challenge me and strain my body. the only difficulty i had was that i'm still so congested that it was super hard to do proper breathing techniques. i read today that this kind of sinus congestion is very common in pregnancy, and i'm losing hope that it will go away before july. but i have a midwife appointment tomorrow, so i'll ask heather about it then.

by 9:50 last night i was super tired and my legs were all jerky, so i headed to bed. i don't even remember when brendan joined me. apparently i was talking in my sleep about sandwiches. hahahaha. i really do have an obsession with sandwiches.

she leaned into talk and leaned in to listen.

vitamin c

i've found this easter weekend particularly reviving. walking the labyrinth on friday night, revealed wounds and new paths. it's kind of a shame that we have to wait a whole year before next easter.

the sunrise service by the water was once again beautiful, and the sun arrived right on time. it surprises us every year that it doesn't fail to come up.

my whole family is sick, so they ended up cancelling our easter gathering. this left us with a pot of 12 potatoes and no other food in the house. so brendan invited the cardiffs for a mashed potato lunch where we sat around talking about family dynamics, prison, weddings and the new pope. they in turn invited us to their place for their easter dinner. it turned into a cardiff-lorimer marathon hangout, which was really fun.

shannon, who was feeling nostalgic about her catholic roots, wanted to go to evening mass, so we all went along. i'd never been to a catholic mass before, nor have i ever been in st. mary's cathedral, so it was very interesting and felt somewhat elicit (no doubt my evangelical parents would frown on this with deep disapproval). i don't know if i'd like it all the time, but it was a neat experience and i'd go again. the four of us crammed into a tiny pew (shanno, then b, then andrew, then me) and tried our best to follow along. i'm pretty sure we exposed ourselves as outsiders since we sang with more gusto than the other congregants, but didn't know when to cross ourselves, kneel, etc., AND we just sat there squished together when the faithful went up for communion. my least favourite part was having to breathe in all that strong incense (it made it hard to breathe) and my favourite part was when the priest went around and splashed us all with holy water as a reminder of our baptism. in the baptist tradition i grew up with, you did it once and that was it. i like the idea that it's something to be reminded of regularly. andrew and i were both excited when we felt the drip of water hit us. thankfully i only got the giggles once when i was trying to sing a song i didn't know and kept messing up the words. many of the rituals were mysterious to me, and i was curious about what was going to happen next. when the homily began, i expected to be bored, but i wasn't at all. it was a good little message and i liked how he talked about what pope francis was up to cleaning the feet of the muslim girls on good friday. i'd never really considered how global catholicism is compared to protestantism, which has no central leader or central location. no doubt if i'd grown up with that tradition i wouldn't have found it as engaging. it's interesting to me that my mom moonlights as a pentecostal because it's the exact opposite of what she grew up with, and i could easily be lured into moonlighting as a catholic because it's the opposite of what i grew up with. just goes to show that people are drawn to the unfamiliar.

after mass, we stopped at shoppers so i could buy some candy. as brendan and i watched arrested development, i started to cough (i have this sinus infection and i couldn't breath properly), then threw up all over the floor. just as we finished cleaning it up, i found that i couldn't breath again and threw up once more. the second time it was worse and my foot was right in the centre of it. b handed me some paper towel to wipe my foot but i used to it blow my nose so i could breathe again. it was a crummy and bizarre way to wrap up the easter weekend.

picture's worth a thousand words, it explains why we don't talk.

petting zoo

have you ever felt mad about something (perhaps directed at a loved one), and as you try to explain your hurt and disappointment, you're able to identify what you're actually upset about? and suddenly it's not about the other person's mistake or short-comings. i have to admit, when i'm frustrated i quickly go to "what's wrong with you? normal people do this or that, why can't you do this or that?". sometimes deep-down i don't actually want x or y, but for that conversation i've connected x or y with love.

i've been taking care of my mom since i was 10 years old. i don't know if it was because she needed me to, or because there was no one else to do it. to be fair, my sister shouldered a LOT of this as well. between the two of us, we bore more responsibility than we should have. whether or not i resent this, i can't be certain. it definitely made me the person i am today. i have a great sense of empowerment, and very little sense of helplessness. joy and i have both grown into very capable women. the unfortunate thing about this is that i have very low expectations of my mom, and she has very low expectations of herself. sometimes i wish we had a 'normal' dynamic, where she was the mom and i was the daughter. but what is normal anyways?

i suspect that becoming a mother myself will bring me into uncharted territory with my own mom. the expectations i have of a mother to a new mother is formed mostly on observations of other families. if i expect her to be like other moms, i'm going to be really disappointed. i suppose i need to remember myself as well. just like every other new experience i've had that is hard, i know i can do this (take care of my newborn son). and i can do it without my mom's help. if i'm really honest with myself, there's part of me that feels embarrassed when people ask and i have to tell them that my mom doesn't want to be at the birth, and won't really be around to help much. but i'm not sure if that matters at all, because at the end of the day i don't need x or y. i just need her love and support, and i know she'll do that in her own way.

you shook my hand, wished me luck, said you had to go.

inland

in the three short months that brendan and i were engaged, we went to a show at the mansion with andrew+shannon and ben+meg. leif vollebekk (among others) played that night, and we bought his album. i listened to that album a lot when we were in greece - on my ipod during long bus rides through the greek countryside, or in the bath at the crowne plaza.

since we don't have a bath at the exile, i try to take advantage of bath tubs elsewhere. the night that i took my bath at the crowne plaza, brendan decided to go out to buy some beer at the closest kiosk (they had street kiosks throughout athens and thessaloniki, where you could buy drinks, chocolates, whatever). so i was settled nicely in a bubble bath when he headed out. about 10-15 minutes later he arrived back, having realized he'd left his money in his other pants. after he left the second time, the lights went out in our hotel room. in many european and asian hotels, you have to put your door key into a socket that turns on your electricity. when you leave and take your key, the power goes out. it usually has a few minutes of delay before the electricity is cut after removing the key. so when the power went off, i laid in the tub in complete darkness listening to leif vollebekk play through my pod's speaker. there was nothing i could do. i was wet and couldn't see a thing. i assumed that brendan had accidentally taken the key from the socket (we had two - it turns out it fell out onto the floor, but i didn't know that at the time or else i could have felt around in the dark for it while dripping onto the carpet). thankfully i knew that brendan would be back in about dozen minutes or so, so i just waited in the tub. it was peaceful really. and it made me think about how little so-and-so is immersed in 'water' and darkness all the time.

since it's been 3 years since his last album came out, i started wondering if leif had released another album or if he was going to. before i got the chance to look into that, b discovered that he'd been on Q last week to promote his new album. we bought it and i've been enjoying listening to it today. apparently he was going for an old familiar feeling, and i'm picking up on that. it's quite nostalgic and cozy. the thing i love about his music and lyrics is that they make me feel. feel all sorts of thing. it's good. it's soothing. it's inspiring.

i had a dream i was standing beneath the memphis moon
with william blake painting and crosby crooning.

meridian

i'm currently boiling 4 dozen eggs for the seder supper at next tomorrow night. i find boiling eggs frustratingly difficult. it's hard because there's no way of knowing if the egg is cooked all the way through until you open it, and once it's open you can't cook it longer. i have this awesome little egg timer that cooks with the eggs and tells you when the eggs are ready. but i didn't use it for the first round because i didn't know if it would work with 12 eggs, i only usually do two.

have i mentioned that brendan and i've been watching the prison show 'oz'? it's super hardcore. after the first episode i wasn't sure if i could keep watching it, but i watched another one and slowly became familiar with the characters. some pretty disturbing stuff happens, but oz is apparently the most realistic prison show ever, so i find it more informative than disturbing. living in a prison town, it's helpful to understand what the culture is behind those walls. the only downside is that i dream about it quite frequently. not nightmares or anything scary, just the characters often appear in my dreams. more so than other shows. but maybe that's because i'm pregnant and my dreams are more vivid that usual. although, the vividness of my dreams is pretty normal to me by now. it's funny how we adjust to new normals. sometimes i say to brendan that i don't think i even look pregnant, and he assures me that i do. again, i've probably just grown used to my protruding tummy.

shoot, i've just discovered that the clock in my kitchen is 5 minutes slow. this shouldn't surprise me since i was growing suspicious of that. i always arrive at least 5 minutes late to work, even when i leave ontime. i hate it when that happens – when my clocks slow down. it makes me feel like i've lost 5 minutes of my life.

on the corner of main street
just tryin' to keep it in line.

super

the midwives clinic host a monthly information night on homebirth. since brendan and i would like for our baby to be born at home, we invited our parents to the info session so they could learn more about homebirth. we wanted them to understand what homebirth is and that it's a safe option for low-risk pregnancies. shannon was going to come too, but she's been super sick. so the five of us arrived at seven and found a seat. there were a lot more people there than i'd expected, including several full-term women, which surprised me because i would've thought that if they were considering a homebirth that they would've gotten their info well in advance. but maybe that's just me.

my dad can't hear so well these days, so i think he missed the first speaker completely. then they showed a video that included 4 homebirths - incidentally i'd told my dad that they wouldn't be showing a homebirth when i'd first invited him. i suppose that was an assumption on my part. but he did fine. he seemed the most interested when it came to the part when the midwives showed us all their equipment, he also liked snooping around the clinic looking at everything.

the person sitting beside nancy asked her if she was going to have a homebirth. at first i thought the lady was kidding, but then she asked a number of odd questions so maybe she was serious. who knows!

my mom did alright too. she did conclude that that it didn't appeal to her, but more power to me. it also opened up a few topics, like she asked me why the women didn't just lie on their backs "like i did" when she gave birth. she was pretty receptive to all this new information, so that's good. i think she's just squeamish. she said she'd rather just see the finished product, to which brendan said "you don't want to see how the sausage is made, so to speak".

brendan's life is kind of crazy right now with school and two jobs. i have to admit, there's part of me that feels like this whole job thing is more hassle than it's worth. BUT i'm choosing to remain optimistic that things will get better. school is done in 3 weeks anyways. it's a new experience for me to be the one on the sidelines when my partner is overwhelmed and busy. usually life for my b is smooth and breezy, and it's mine that is heavy and complicated. but he's on a big learning curve right now, i'm sure things will work out.

it seems i have some kind of nasal infection. it's not plesant, but at least it's not a cold.

same old city with a different name.

awkward

i wanted to write all weekend, but whenever i sat down to type my mind went blank and i had nothing to say. hopefully this week i'll get back into the swing of things.

the other day i bought some cloth diapers :) sarah sent me a link to an ad on kijiji for some bummies and other brands that were barely used (the woman preferred a different brand instead). i got around $15 diapers/covers for $80! i'm quite pleased. i'll probably need a few more, since i've been asking around to my cloth diaper using friends and they said it's best to have around 20-24. it's neat that little by little i'm collecting baby things. we only have 3.5 months left til the due date. i'm pretty excited. sometimes i wish it was sooner, and other time it feels too soon and us not ready for this big life change. but i know it'll be fine.

when we were in greece brendan said to me "i'm looking forward to going home and starting our new life together", which was super sweet and reminded me of when he said those exact words on our honeymoon almost 3 years ago. it's neat that even in a marriage/partnership, there's still lots of new beginnings.

b is still getting things sorted out with school. we're hoping that his teachers will let him finish early based on his excellent performance over the last 2 years. it's only 3 more weeks.

last evening at living room a small group of us gathered and enjoyed some long, enriching conversation. i'm really fortunate to have people in my life with whom i can enjoy deep and meaningful conversation. it feels good for my soul.

i slept really poorly last night. i'm not exactly sure if it was my stuffy nose, the fact that i was sleeping propped up or because of insomnia, but i was awake and feeling stressed for about 3 hours. i didn't even know what i was stressed about. nighttime does weird things to the mind, causes anxiety about things that in the light of day are not so bad. as i lay there awake i had a song stuck in my head that i couldn't place and i'm not sure is even a real song. when 6:30 rolled around i was pretty grumpy. it stinks that after a weekend of restful sleep that i'd sleep poorly then have to return to work feeling frazzled and grouchy.

thou rushing wind that art so strong.

kijiji

our first week home from vacation has been very full. it's got brendan and i wondering if this full schedule is effective at all. i dunno i think i need to make some changes starting next week.

when we were in meteora we visited some rock-top (i would say mountain-top, but they weren't quite mountains) monasteries. they were amazing. and as usual, when i see the slow-paced, intentional lives of monks, it get me reconsidering my own life. one thing that really inspired me this time was their industriousness. i think most of the time i forget that throughout history people have spent their lives doing daily chores and tasks rather than leisure activities. when i think of the monks, going about their daily routines slowly but productively, it strikes me as a very restful and fulfilling life. so i guess it's got me wondering where i'm going wrong. full schedule doesn't have to equal busy or stressful. it can equal fulfilling and enriching. i guess one difference between me and the monks is that they don't have to juggle a lot of things at once. they don't have people to see or unexpected requests to drive their moms to eye-doctor appointments or two activities taking place at the same time. i guess what it comes down to is that i want to my use of time to be more like the monks. restful and energizing. i suppose it's very typical of me to every so often go "hold the phone... somethings got to change". sadly i haven't found an effective coping method yet.

on monday some of my colleagues were asking about my vacation and i told them about the three places we went (athens, thessaloniki and meteora). the next day the one guy said to me "i bet you're missing the beaches of greece today, huh?". i was really puzzled because we didn't go to any beaches and i didn't say we went to beaches when debriefing to him the day before. when i corrected him, he said "oh, i must have just assumed you went to beaches" and i said "i guess we're just not that kind of vacationers". i guess he felt badly because he came by later to apologize. i don't think i was rude to him, it was just a misunderstanding. it was a very puzzling interaction that still makes me scratch my head a little.

i have some symptoms of a cold, which is really annoying because i just got over a bad cold 3 weeks ago. i'm trying my darnedest to fight it off. i even ate some raw garlic the other day (i'm lucky i didn't throw up afterwards. thankfully there was a jar of honey on the counter so i had a spoonful of that to cleanse my palette). brendan never gets sick, but is also having some cold symptoms. at least he can take some cold medication. i don't want to be sick again, so i'm refusing to let this get the better of me. i wonder what so-and-so feels when i have a big sneeze. that must be weird. although, it can't be that much more strange than living inside another person's body.

there's a weight that's pressing down.

plastic utensils

well... we're back home.

it's hard to debrief a holiday after the fact. it doesn't help that i've been occupied getting caught up on life and haven't had time to write. but maybe i'll create a list of highs and lows at some point to summarize our trip.

in other, no vacation, news... brendan got a job and started yesterday. it's all been kind of crazy and vague, but the details are starting to become more clear. he's the new supervisor at the gathering place, which is a daytime shelter. they offered him the job right before we left for greece, and wanted him to start asap. the problem is that he's not done school til mid-april so there's going to be an overlap. at first we thought his work schedule could accommodate his classes and placement, but it turns out it's a weekday job. we're super happy that he doesn't have to work weekends, although it wouldn't have been the end of the world if he did. we'd manage. but it does complicate stuff with school. we're hoping his teachers will offer a few suggestions or alternatives.

things are good with me. my belly is getting big, and brendan's baby has been moving a lot. sometimes the movements feel nice, other times they feel weird and it's uncomfortable. but i suppose as he gets bigger he'll move around less.

after visiting some amazing monasteries in meteora last week, i felt inspired to be more industrious. i kind of liked the 30-day cleaning schedule that i used a while back, but it didn't work perfectly for me. so instead, i've made a list of chores so that when i have free time – whether a spare 10 minutes or a spare few hours – i can look at the list and choose something that needs doing. otherwise i just don't think to tackle stuff. there's GOT to be a chores system that works for me, so hopefully i'll discover it by trying many different methods. so far this one is working well.

i think i might be developing a new cold. i'm going to go eat some garlic to try to fight it off.

every night my dream's the same.

egnatia

sometimes when I don't write very often, there's too much to say and I don't know where to begin.

we're in thessaloniki now. we took a 5.5 hour train here yesterday from athens. it was a great scenic trip that went by remarkably fast.

we've found that thess (can't be bothered to write out the whole name) is much more modern and cosmopolitan than athens. it has a big city feel where athens felt slow and laid back.

today we explored the city and saw a lot. it's interesting being in Greece, seeing the juxtaposition of history and current issues. we've witnessed two very large demonstrations (a sit in and a march). to say things are hard right now for Greek citizens is probably an understatement. I read in the news the other day that the unemployment rate just dropped to 26%. DROPPED - meaning it used to be higher. all this said, besides the occasional protest and 'crisis prices' sign in a shop window, everything seems relatively normal.

the weather has been pretty good, with warm sun this afternoon. but we did just get caught in the rain on the way back to our hotel.

ooh! one of the highlights of our trip food wise has been freshly squeezed orange juice. at first I thought it was just at this one shop, but it turns out it's every where. it's delicious! it makes me want to squeeze my own juice at home.

well, that's it for now! cya!

Sent from my iPod

victor hugo

we're in greece!

i must say, it felt very surreal when we were on our way here, but now that we've arrived it feels normal (as in not surreal).

we arrived at our hostel at around 4:30 yesterday, had a bit of a rest in our room, then headed out for dinner. it was a long day, on little sleep, but we did well. we had a short stop over in paris, and i could see from the plane that spring had not yet arrived to france. the trees were bare and the grass was brown. BUT thankfully, when we arrived in greece, the grass is green, there are leaves on the trees, and there are flowers in bloom. the weather was great today, mid-teens and sunny. perfect weather for all the walking we did today.

on our first day in athens, we went to the acropolis - probably the main reason we came here and it did not disappoint! it was a really fun day, and i was pleased that i was able to keep up with brendan. i was no more tired or slow than usual, even though i'm 5 months pregnant. we accidentally got off at the wrong metro stop (in general we've been navigating the subway here very well), and decided just to walk the rest of the way. the acropolis is up high on a mountain so we knew we wouldn't miss it even though we didn't exactly know the right direction. it turned out to be a really lovely walk through a charming neighbourhood. the acropolis looked really high up, but felt remarkably easy to climb. we concluded since it was built for walkers to begin with, it was very walker-friendly.

our hostel is nice. not the most attractive neighbourhood, and there's no restaurants close-by, but the hostel itself is great. we have a large balcony and our own washroom. for some reason, they've painted on the wall in really big text "romance in the air" like it's some kind of honeymoon suite. i like that it's missing the word 'is'. it's on the 6th floor, and there's this TINY little elevator, that is the size of a small closet and just barely fits the two of us in it. tonight we cooked ourselves some dinner in the kitchen and used left-overs from our souvlaki lunch :)

we're having a good time and baby is doing well. i kind of want to buy him a souvenir of his first family vacation because he's missing out on all the sites.

tomorrow we're doing a walking tour of the city. i hope we sleep well tonight. we did ok last night, but i woke repeatedly, then woke up tired. when i went to berlin i was ok by day two, so here's hoping i'll experience that tonight too.

hope all is well where you are!

shake

tomorrow brendan and i are going to greece. we're leaving ktown in the morning, and flying out from toronto at 6:55 pm. we'll arrive in paris in the morning, have a short layover there before carrying on to athens. the forecast is ranging between 12ºC to 17ºC. i know that 16 and 17 is nice, but i can't really remember what 12 is like or what kind of clothes one wears in that weather. so i'm taking spring clothes and hoping i guessed correctly.

two exciting things happened this weekend for/with by dear b.

1) i found his first grey hair in his beard!!! i'm SUPER excited about this. i know he's still young, but i've had grey hairs since i was a teenager. i've been waiting for this first grey hair for a long time. at first he didn't believe me that i'd spotted a grey hair, he thought it was just blond, but sure enough, it's GREY! i think he wants to pluck it, but no matter, there will be more.

2) he got a job! a three-quarter time job in his field! he's the new supervisor for the gathering place, and he'll have his own office with a window! i'm super proud of him, and am thankful that he landed a job several months before our baby is born. they say the three most stressful things in life is moving, having a baby and starting a new job. so i'm glad the baby and job won't be happening at the same time. he'll work 30 hours there, and 5 at his other job, making a nice round 35-hour week.

give us life that we can taste.

references

as we go about our everyday lives, we don't always recognize our weakest personality traits. and most times people don't tell you to your face what they are. sometimes it's helpful to have unknown truths about ourselves shown to us. how else can we learn?

i had a long conversation with emma today about this website project we're working on. i made a big mistake by proceeding with irreversible changes before checking with anyone. i just wasn't thinking and i'm pretty regretful about it. i knew i had to take it on the chin when i was reprimanded for it. thankfully i have a good relationship with emma so after my tongue-lashing was finished, we were able to transition into a positive conversation with no hard feelings. as we chatted she told me (very kindly) "sometimes you just jump in with both feet!" and while that was news to me, it feels like a fair assessment. i would definitely describe myself as a rash person at times. as hard at it can be sometimes to admit one's mistakes, it was helpful to have that mirror held up at me. i'm sure the next time i feel an impulse to just dive in, i'll slow myself down a little.

well... my mom is on her way to south africa. she had two suitcases full of books the the library and could barely lift them! i'm not surprised, books are among the heaviest boxes when moving. i really hope she has a good time and that it's a positive experience.

no vaccination for your curse.