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.

interview

ARGH!!!!

i just read in the news that b.b. king is playing at bluesfest in ottawa this year. b.b. king is one of brendan's biggest music heros - he sure gives eric clapton a run for his money. i remember brendan once saying to me "everyone associates me with eric clapton, but all i've ever wanted to was to sound like b.b. king". so anyways, when i read this, i thought to myself "i wonder if there's any way we can swing this...". but when i went to the bluesfest site, i discovered that b.b. is playing on OUR BABY'S DUE DATE! ARGH!!! now, i realize that the chances of him being born on time is slim, but it seems unwise for us to drive up to ottawa for a concert when i could go into labour at any time. oh well. i guess this is part of our life changes - can't just go to any old concert once little so-and-so arrives, even if its to see a blues legend.

when i was sick last week i watched shawshank redemption. at one point red talks about prisoners becoming institutionalized - at first they hate the walls that keep them in, but they get used to them, and eventually they need them. this morning i was very frazzled on my way into work, one thing after another ended up being more complicated then expected. but eventually i made it into work and got settled in my 8x8 blue cube. i felt all my tension and discouragement start to melt away. i realized that there's something soothing about that prison cell of mine. i used to hate those walls, but now they soothe me. funny how that is. i don't even know when that change happened. i guess i just got used to them and they bring me comfort. i noticed it when i got back from berlin too, it felt good being back in my pod. i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

all i've even known is out here.

evil department store

i realized something this weekend, i couldn't care less about the oscars. i used to. when i was a teen, i found it very exciting. but now, it holds very little interest for me. i don't know if it's because it seems trivial or if i've grown tried of "the academy" over looking my favourite films of the year, but i had no interest watching it or even reading the results in the news.

shannon came with me to my midwife appointment today. brendan had a test so he couldn't come, so she came in his place. heather confirmed that everything from the ultrasound looks good, so that's great news. and when she listened to his heart beat we could hear him flipping over and moving constantly. heather actually said she's never hear such an active baby before. on the way into work i started wondering what that means. my dad told me the other day that active babies are usually boys, but i'm skeptical of that logic. i've known active babies (outside the womb) who have grown into very active (even hyperactive) adults, and i worried that our active in utero baby is a sign of an overly active baby/person later. so i googled it to find out what the ole internet said. i recognize it as a pool of experiences, not proven facts. from what i read, one woman said her doctor said it's no indication of the baby after birth, and another woman said that an active baby is a happy baby because all their needs are being met. this made me VERY happy. i like thinking of my content little baby playing without a care in the world.

on saturday, i walked up to giant tiger. while i was feeling impatient a 20 minute walk up princess seemed unappealing, i decided i'd do it anyways. use some 'active transport' as it's called. last week while i was sick i'd been watching jane eyre, and it struck me that she'd take these long walks to mail a letter. i don't do anything that takes a long time, much less exercise. but while i was on my walk (aka jane eyre style exercise), i felt so pleased that i wasn't just being lazy at home, but instead was out and about. now that the winter weather is starting to break, i'm hoping/planning to do more walking, especially at lunch time.

today when i checked the weather in athens it showed 16 degrees. PERFECT!

smote the water with a two by four.

dowager

it's amazing the things people tell me now that i'm pregnant. they all open up about their own experiences, health issues and losses. it's really quite lovely. i like hearing parts of people's stories and getting a glimpse into their lives.

now that we know the sex of our baby, brendan and i have started talking about him using his name. just when talking to each other though. we're going to keep his name a secret til he's born. i always like hearing what name was picked once a baby has arrived. it's a nice surprise for friends and families. i really like having a name for this tiny person. brendan and i often talk wonder what things he'll like and if he'll grow a beard someday.

i got my first credit card when i was about aged 20. since then i've been slowly acquiring points. i think i get 1 point for every 2 dollars i charge to credit. a few times i've thought about using my points, but i don't have nearly enough to cover the cost of a flight, and the merchandise i can afford is greatly marked up compared to the retail value. BUT i had a great idea. i realized that i can use my points to book a hotel in athens. so i punched in the dates we're going to be there, and was able to book our last 2 nights in greece at the crowne plaza hotel! so fancy! it's the kind of place i'd stay at while on a business trip, but i'd never pay my own money to stay at there. other bonus of using our points is that it saves us money since we don't have to pay for those nights :D i'm super pleased, and this feels like a good use of those saved up points i've been sitting on.

lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die.

keys

this evening, as i rested in hopes of recovering from this cold sooner than later, i watched dazed and confused. i don't know exactly how many times i've seen that film, probably 6, but it wasn't until this time that i noticed that the sponsor of the freshman's baseball team was "mcknight auto" and this was printed on the back of their jersey's. too funny.

i also watched jane eyre and had a massive nap.

last night i slept terribly because the sinuses in my jaw really hurt and this kept me awake. today i've discovered that i can soothe this a little with a hot water bottle.

despite being sick, i did go to my ultrasound appointment. i've been waiting a month for that appointment and nothing was gonna stop me from going. it was really great to see our baby formed so perfectly. he moved around so much that it made it difficult for the technician to take all the photos she needed. it was a very thorough overview of his body and internal organs. sometimes it was tricky to know what we were looking at, but the technician label each important part, which was very helpful. i feel more peace of mind now, reassurance is always good. it was also nice to know that there was just one. i'm half way through already! in general, i'd say we feel that we know this little person better, more intimately. it was a nice little rendezvous that will tie us over til mid-july.

now i feel the wind blow,
outside my door.

redemption

i stayed home from work sick today.

i had a really great long weekend, but last night around dinner time it was clear that i'd developed a cold. on friday i noticed some rattling in my lungs. on saturday, my throat started hurting. on sunday, i started coughing up mucus and was woken in the night with a painfully sore throat. so the addition on sneezing and congestion wasn't a huge surprise. just annoying. i was in rough shape this morning, but seem to be improving. i'm hoping to be back to work tomorrow.

speaking of tomorrow, we're scheduled for our ultrasound at 8:30! i'm pretty excited. i can't wait to see this little person. we're going to find out the sex. here's your chance for last minute guesses!!!

for the past few family day weekends, we've gone on road trips – quebec city in 2011, and cleveland in 2012. we'd planned to go to philadelphia this year, but since we're going to greece in 2 weeks, we decided to stay at home. instead we did work around the house. installed shelves in our bedroom, bought a large tuperware-type bin for blanket storage, and bought a cupboard from the habitat for humanity restore. we were inspired by the cupboard in andrew and shannon's bedroom, which they use for clothing storage, and decided to get a cupboard for our baby's stuff instead of a dresser that would take up floor space. we went and just looked a few weeks ago and found some in the $20-30 range, but the one we got was $15! it needs some love. we're going to sand it down and paint it. when i say 'we' i mean i will be the creative director and b will do all the work. they're too many instructions for how to paint when pregnant, so b said he'd just do it. i like doing things like that, so i'll be sad to miss out, but i appreciate that he can do it and i'm sure he'll do a great job.

our house is small, but when we did a survey of each room on saturday, we found there's quite a bit of space that is not well utilized. it's good to know we have some wiggle room with space.

shannon lent me a number of movies to watch while i'm sick. i just watched 'the best exotic marigold hotel'. when it first came to the theatre's my mom really wanted to see it. i think it was partly because it's british, and partly about people in their golden years like her. she's actually just heading off on an exotic adventure herself. she's going to south africa! a librarian friend of hers has been setting up libraries in different african countries in recent years. this friend has invited her to come along many times, but my mom keeps turning her down. well... i guess this time the timing was right because she's been wanting to go on a trip and the opportunity arose, so she took it! it was interesting talking with her yesterday, because my mom is the one who taught me to travel. all my life she's been traveling back and forth to the UK and she taught me the ropes. but now the tables have turned and i'm telling her "make sure you ask if your bags will be checked all the way through or if you have to transfer them yourself" and "do you have a money belt?" and "a 15 hour flight isn't too bad. you'll be ok". as much as i felt wary of her initial consideration of this trip, i'm proud of her for making a bold move and taking part in an adventure. i think it will do her good.

give us life,
give us vision,
give us love.

endodentist

i fell asleep on the couch last night at 8, then had a glorious 10 hour sleep. it was great. i dunno if this is what all those moms have been talking about when referring to fatigue from pregnancy, but i like it!

in keeping with our valentine's tradition, b and i exchanged lists, then ate cupcakes. it was very special. i was certain that i wouldn't cry this time, but i did. i started crying on the first line. i thought after when, as we hugged on the couch, that that little tradition makes me feel more connected and loved then going out for dinner, flowers, candies, or any other typical valentine's treat. i'm thankful that it's so simple but so meaningful.

so brendan and i booked our trip to greece. we leave on monday, march 4 and arrive back in TO on friday, march 15, but we'll stay over night there and drive home the next day. i'm very excited because i've been wanting to go to greece for years and years. i just hope the weather is good, but i'm sure it'll be better than here in march. it turns out brendan was kind of relieved that istanbul was out of the question. it just keeps things much more simple in his head to stay in one country. we're flying into athens, going up to thessaloniki, stopping at mount olympus, heading over to meteora and stopping at ancient delphi on our way back to athens. a few people have mentioned "troubles in greece" lately, which is weird because i follow the news quite closely and i haven't seen or heard of any trouble in greece. i know they're on the brink of bankruptcy, but that's old news. when we went to ireland back in 2011, it was march and the weather was pretty ideal. so i'm optimistic that we'll have a great vacation.

now i'm crossing my fingers, cause nothing else helps.

pancake

today's ash wednesday.
this year for lent, brendan and i are giving up red meat. orginally i'd planned to give up all meat, except fish, and brendan was interested in participating with me. but since i'm "in the family way", brendan didn't want me to give up my current main source of protein. so instead, we're giving up red meat. i think that will be productive enough. we're not actually big meat eaters to begin with. it drives up one's grocery bill, so we keep meat to a minimum. that said, knowing that you're intentionally staying away from something is far more challenging than simply overlooking that option.

we're in the process of trying to plan our trip to greece+turkey. it's been a real headache and i'm disappointed that we didn't buy tickets before the prices went up. i was starting to think maybe it's best to just fly in and out of one city (it's cheaper than flying in one and out another), when i decided to google how much it costs and how long it takes to take the train from athens to istanbul. by doing so, i discovered that all international trains in and out of greece have been cancelled due to their poor economic state. while you'd think i'd be disappointed by this, i'm actually really happy that the decision was made for us, and now we know for sure that we'll just stay in greece. i'm sure there will be loads of wonderful things to do there.

i've pretty much recovered from my fall yesterday. less sore and tender. and the baby has been moving all about. such a little so-and-so. i'm just headed to yoga class, i'm sure that will help with my tender muscles.

it feels like you will be here real soon.

djembe

when i was a teenager, i was a big fan of the beatles anthology documentaries. i remember they told a story of when ringo wanted to quit the band, and he went around to the homes of the other three beatles to say "i'm thinking about quitting the band. the three of you are really close, and i feel like an outsider" and every single one of them told him "i thought i was the outsider. i felt like you three were all close and i was left out". the reality is, no matter who we are or who the people around us are, from time to time we all feel like misfits. we all feel like everyone else belongs and we're the outsider. and while i empathize with that, as a misfit myself, it ultimately comes down to whether or not we are going to isolate ourselves and fixate on our feelings of inadequacy/aloneness, OR are we going to recognize that common thread in all of us, and allow some room for grace and peace. people can only 'make' us feel othered as much as we allow ourselves to be othered. its how we respond to those marginalized feelings that decides the outcome. we're never alone in our aloneness. don't let yourself believe otherwise.

as i left the house this morning for work, at 6:30 am, i slipped on the sidewalk and had a hard fall on the ground. i've never completely wiped out like that before. usually i catch myself and regain my balance. i banged my elbow and shoulders, and jarred my neck. i picked myself up and went back inside to wake my sleeping husband with my yelps and tears. while the fall hurt, it startled me more than anything. i felt worried about little so-and-so. this is probably one of the biggest adjustments to being a mom in the making. that my first concern is someone else and that little person is depending on me. when i cross busy streets, when i'm walking alone at night, when i'm driving or walking in bad weather, i'm always thinking... "my baby!". i know that eventually, my physical risk won't be his/her physical risk, but the risks will be different. slipping and falling with a babe in arms would be much worse. anyways, i called my midwife just to be sure that there's nothing to worry about, and heather was very reassuring. there was no direct blow to my belly, or even to my lower back. so other than dealing with the aches and pains from my fall, things seem to be fine. plus, i think i just felt the baby move, so that's good :)

we found the ground,
and that damage was done.

cigarette

i've come to a conclusion. i like guy-romance movies - the nick hornby type of films. the garden states, the elizabethtowns, the liberal arts. guy romance novels are far more realistic and quirky than simplistic girl rom-coms (sorry rachel!). although, my only complaint about guy-romance movies is that usually, and perhaps this isn't even a complaint rather than an observation about gender acceptability. the guy is usually a complete basket-case and over the course of the film and the relationship with a stable, yet quirky girl, he matures and develops. truthfully, i really love that story arch, but what bugs me about it is if the gender roles were reversed and the girl was a basket-case, i wouldn't enjoy it half as much. so my complaint is actually why is it that troubled/lost/confused guys are more acceptable than their girl counter-parts?

i finally finished 'how to be a woman' and i really enjoyed it. now i've moved on to 'world war z'. while i'm not a zombie-person (one who is fascinated by zombie culture), i do enjoy a good book about zombies. it's an interesting premise. it's possible that i enjoy books that make me think, more than i like books that make me feel. i like art and music that makes me feel. i like movies that make me think AND feel.

so what if you catch me, where would we land?

wayfare

you know what i find annoying? that there's very little to say about good experiences, but oodles of things to say about bad experiences.

let me give you a (somewhat silly) example (but still very accurate):
b was telling me about beyonce's performance at the superbowl. he said she totally nailed it, and as a result comedy shows had nothing to make fun of. had she totally blown it or made a fool of herself they would've eaten her alive. but a good performance merits little more than "that was great", end of discussion.

i think this might be connected to our culture of complaining. when people don't have anything else to say, they criticize or exaggerate short-comings to keep a conversation going. i don't know if this is partly connected to what the listeners are waiting to hear. i remember going to birthfest with rach years ago and the women were saying that they're embarrassed to tell people when their birth went well, because people expect this long horrendous story. and to simply say it was a great experience and everything went well, is a short summary to share. people don't know what to do with positive news.

anyway, i got back on friday evening. thankfully my travels were barely impacted by the weather. i think most of the connecting flights after i arrived were cancelled. the train was pretty packed since many who were supposed fly to toronto from montreal took the train instead. i'm really glad that we were able to land and that via didn't cancelled its service because i just really wanted to be home. i was super tired and kept sighing/exhaling loudly.

well i should go. i need to hop in the shower.

i ride the train and i ride it after dark.

blargh!

Sent from my iPod

checkpoint

tonight is my last night in Berlin. it's been a great week. tonight I did a bunch of touristy things and enjoyed a long walk around the city and a delicious dinner. I wish I had more time, but what can you do, huh?

I'll write more tomorrow, but I'm tried and I need to get ready for my early morning flight.

good night!

Sent from my iPod

library

today at lunch I ate sauerkraut and bratwurst. it was very German of me. while it looked like a large heavy meal I thought "when in Deutschland..."

I'm sitting in my hotel lobby where I finally figure out how to access free wifi. across the lobby from where I'm sitting is a cigarette vending machine. they take a fairly liberal view of most things it seems. there is a VERY strong bike culture in Germany, but no one wears a helmet.

this morning as I got caught up on my work emails I felt a new sensation in my abdomen. I stopped what I was doing to concentrate and a moment later ther was another sensation - that could be described as popcorn like. I FELT THE BABY MOVE FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!! one of the neatest things about having a baby is that the person I instantly and instinctively wanted to call and tell right away also happens to be the same person who is the baby's daddy and equally invested in this person. i like sharing this experience with the person I'm most attached to in the whole world.

last night I slept straight thru the night, which I'm mighty pleased about. I'm gonna go write postcards, read my book and watch some world news.

I hope all is well with you, wherever you are.


Sent from my iPod

scandic

well... I made it back to the hotel safely, after enduring another adventure at dinner. it's too long to write right now, but involved a restaurant that would take credit cards after I'd given my last ten euros to the taxi driver to get back to my neighbourhood, and me sitting with a nice non-english speaking German couple who took pity on me. hahaha. with some time between then and now I can laugh at my gong-show of a day.

today went much better and I'm very happy. still almost no access to the Internet, but just enough to check in.

Emma and I are just heading out for dinner then will go up the Berlin tv tower (the tallest structure in Europe - google it).

my new work mates are very nice and it was a productive day.

I hope you're well!! I'm going to login to the pay-as-you-go Internet at the hotel tonight. yesterday I thought 4 euros an hour was too expensive, but I've changed my mind. I'll just charge it to the room.

ok talk to you again soon!!

Sent from my iPod

circle

I'm in Berlin. currently standing beside a woman's washroom in Starbucks because it's the only place I can access wifi. I'm doing ok, except I accidentally took the wrong hop-on hop-off bus so I didn't have a route map. the tour part was good, I saw everything I wanted. the bad thing is that I got on at stop 5, which means I should've gotten off at stop 5, but the tour bus stopped for the night at stop1 - 4 stops from mine. so I'm kind of lost and stranded in Berlin. I think I'll be ok. if worst comes to worst, I can take a taxi back to the hotel. a lot less people speak English than I expected. I haven't heard from my husband, or anyone else for that matter since leaving on the train yesterday. if it's not too much to ask, could you be in touch regularly? I'm pretty isolated and hearing from home would be comforting. I'm ok but don't want to feel along the next 5 days. especially since my hotel room doesn't have wifi.

I'll write more later. the bus tour was good except my camera battery died half way through - our new camera from a full lithium battery. not cool and I have no way of charging it. but I suppose it doesn't matter since I also discovered that the memory card is missing. I suspect it's still in my computer at home and was not put back last time it was used. so in general it's been a day of successes and disappoints.

Berlin is very pretty though.

Sent from my iPod

sunrise

in my experience, the worst part of having a partner is having someone you miss when you go away from them. i'm leaving tomorrow for berlin, and i was feeling super excited until i got thinking about saying goodbye to brendan. BUT i'm committed to not letting that ruin my time. i'll be back in less than a week and we're going to skype. i should make the most of it, right? i'm sure i'll have a great time, and brendan will be fine on his own.

tomorrow i take the 9:00 train to montreal, then a bus to the airport, then a plan to zurich, then another plane to berlin. it'll be a long journey, but it'll be fun. i love the journey part of every trip. this one will be particularly good since i'm traveling business class the whole way. i really like business class on the train. it's so comfortable and the food is delicious and free! i'm not exactly sure what business class is like on a plane. i think the seats are slightly bigger, and i've heard the food is better (and i quite like plane food to start with). it's too bad that i can't take advantage of the free alcoholic drinks. i had a virgin strawberry daiquiri at marilyn's retirement party last night. it was delicious, but not cheaper, as i would've expected. it seems they charged me for the alcohol they didn't include.

tell me something... what are probiotics? because i'm pretty sure they're making my yogurt less good tasting. or at least giving it an undesirable texture.

i checked the weather in berlin for the next week and it ranges between 0 and 5ºC, which is an improvement to the biting wind that hurt my face while out for errands this afternoon.

since i had the day off, brendan was able to take the car to his placement and come home at lunch time. i made us some lunch. i realized that i'd totally forgotten to use the kale that i bought last week :S so i made us tomato soup and kale chips. they turned out pretty well, but i've realized that i really don't enjoy it when my food has a strong olive oil taste. olive oil seems to be the most aggressive of the oils. i think i'll give it another try sometime, but use a more subtle oil or maybe even melted butter.

i still have more things to do (like find our european socket adapter), so i should get on with it. good news! i found my missing address book! yay! i wasn't even looking for it.

every place i go, i'll think of you.

voodoo

january has been a really full month. i've had a lot of meetings to  go to (mostly next stuff), and often times i have more than one commitment an evening - on occassion i've had 3 places to be. but i've gotten through. i'm hopeful that february will be better. later this evening i'm going to marilyn's retirement dinner at minos. i'd originally invited brendan along and thought it would be fun since we didn't have a work christmas party this year and he'd get an opportunity to get to know my colleagues better. but since so many people are coming to the dinner, they're having a set menu and it's going to cost $37!! i'm sure it will be good, but not as good as free work dinners :S needless to say, brendan isn't coming anymore. sometimes when i feel like i have another long evening ahead of me, i get the pleasant reminder that i get to take tomorrow off in lieu of traveling all day saturday. then a long evening of small talk and speeches seems easy and enjoyable.

looking over the things to do in berlin, i got the distinct feeling that i do not have enough time to explore that city. it's unfortunate that i'll be there when it's winter. when i spent a week in montreal with work, i did almost all the top sites, but that was in may.

the power just cutout for a second and i lost half of my entry.

it seems in today's culture, people feel comfortable to complain a lot. long gone are the days when people suffered in silence when presenting a facade that everything is hunky-dory. and while i appreciate that people are being more real, i think openly complaining without balancing out experiences with positivity, leads to a really toxic, unfair environment. at least it does for me. i find that i start emphasizing the negative in greater proportions when surrounded by negative people. i know there's always good to be found when we're ready to see it, so i don't like hearing people complain without speaking to the positive as well. the other evening, david and sue were telling us what a delight it is waking with your firstborn in the night - that it's hard, but also very special. i wish more people spoke that way, because i suspect that d+s are right. maybe they can say that with 20-20 hindsight, considering their firstborn is nearly 40. but i think that's the benefit of having older friends who can help keep perspective on the big picture and remind us that some experiences are fleeting and need to be savored.

hm! maybe it's a good thing that i lost half of my original entry, because that came out much clearer the second time i wrote it.

i am in love,
and it's starting to show.

vivid

someone offhandedly referred to me as "the ultimate planner" the other day. it really bugged me. i remember once when driving with beckie, i told her she was a conservative driver and she got all mad. i think this is the same type of remark. while i didn't mean it in a negative way (beckie is a much more careful driver than i was at that time), the word conservative had negative connotations in her mind. i'm not sure if it was the word ultimate or planner that disappointed me, maybe the word ultimate in association with planner. i suppose it was really just a question of feeling misunderstood. while i come up with plans, they're more just like ideas. i dream up ideas about this and that. it's fun! but they are by no means fixed plans. all the planners i know develop itineraries for their vacations with times and scheduled activities. that seems like no fun to me. instead i use my ideas as goals to work toward, and will change these life goals as i go. i think this is a good approach, because i've found i don't get anything done without some forward thinking. i'm also thankful that when we were considering our house, i thought about what we could do with the space when we have kids some day. i came up with all sorts of wacky scenarios, and a few good ones. i'm glad, because otherwise i might be in a little bit of a panic "where are we going to put this thing!?!"

yes, we use a meal menu to plan out our meals, but that's mostly because it saves money and because when we don't have the menu we sit there asking each other "i dunno, what do you feel like?". and to be fair, we sometimes do that when we plan the menu, but at least in that case we're not starving with no food in the house. the menu is very decisive when we're in need of some decision making, but can also be completely disregarded in favour of something else.

the unfortunate thing is that there's no right or wrong way, so i don't really appreciate being assessed and labelled. especially when the label doesn't fit properly.

in my book 'how to be a woman', caitlin makes a really strong case about the root of sexism. she said it's not about sex at all, but rather it's about winners and losers. and that men have traditionally seen women as the losers, and themselves as winners. gay men seem to also fit in the loser category in the minds of traditional men. i think caitlin's completely right in this assessment, and it seems more prominent in men who are competitive and get their esteem from winning, dominating or from feeling powerful. it's sad and frustrating. when facing guys like that, i'm generally at a loss for words and afterwards wish i'd spoken up. i just don't know what to say that would be helpful or productive. on the other hand, i feel encouraged because this should be a pretty easy social construct to discontinue, which is probably why this mindset is becoming less common.

out on the farthest edge,
there in the silence you were there.

whisper

well... i think i've made a decision about my daylight spare time in berlin. joy was telling me yesterday that the berlin wall is traced throughout the city by bricks that were installed in the ground where it once stood. so i think i'll be able to get a good idea of it's presence. plus, i think the remaining wall segments at the east side gallery are pretty vandalized. so i'll just take the hop-on, hop-off tour. she said the jewish history museum was awesome. i don't know if i'll ever make it to berlin with brendan someday, but i feel like that's the kind of think i'd want to do with him since he's a big admirer of jewish culture. so i might just put that one off for a later date. i'm sure that someday, maybe when we're getting old and past the choose-your-own-adventure style of holiday planning, that we'd take a european tour to many different cities on a bus.

i'm in the process of making a stuffed animal for so-and-so. it's a little rabbit that i've named after the protagonist in 'watership down' - hazel-rah. i've finished the head and body, and am currently working on the arms and feet. it's pretty super cute and i'm very pleased. since our place is small, and little babies don't actually play with stuffed animals, this will be little so-and-so's only stuffed animal until he/she is bigger and he/she has a room of his/her own. it's funny because people tend to make a face when i tell them this will be the baby's only stuffed animal (for a while), but they seem to understand once i explain it to them. we're definitely not out to deprive our baby or gift-block baby-lovers. i just think it's sensible to be realistic about how much space we actually have to work with. it's 510 square feet!

we inherited a bunch of baby gear from gene yesterday, which we really appreciated. seeing baby stuff in our living room made this change very real. i suppose it would be prudent of me to start figuring out where to keep stuff and perhaps move a few existing things around.

on saturday i tried to clean the cat pee out of my backpack. in the process i found a hole on the bottom of the bag that i don't actually know where it came from. when everything was all said and done, it still smelled. i think because it's a backpack with all sorts of crevasses and curves, it didn't work that well. had it been a suitcase, as the instructions were intended for, it probably would've been more effective since there wouldn't be hiding spots. so i bit the bullet and bought a new bag from mec. i read a great review of it, it wasn't expensive and i like that it comes with a day pack. while i was at it, i orded a big pod backpack that i've been eyeing for a while to use as a diaper/baby things bag. i'm pleased because i got free shipping! i don't suspect it will arrive before this saturday, but i can use the suitcase my dad's friend wayne passed on to me - "wayne's suitcase" as i like to call it. it's small, but expandable, so i think it'll be fine for 6 days in berlin. i'll pack light and bring my day pack as my carry-on if i need more space. i just have to make sure there's room for the beer i'll buy for brendan on the return trip. airplanes won't let you bring bottles in your carry-on, so it has to go in my luggage.

things i need to do before saturday are... get some euros from moneymart and learn basic phrases in german. danke very much ;)

is it getting better?
or do you feel the same?

wings

in recent months, my mom and i have started meeting for lunch. she lives close to my work, so i take an extended lunch and we have a visit. these are quickly becoming some of my favourite times with her and i'm very thankful for these one-on-one visits. today we had a good chat about becoming parents, and i asked her specifically about what changes she experienced. she wasn't exactly sure at first since she felt they were probably more apparent to others than herself. the more we chatted the more things came to her mind. she said that you almost instantly mature, almost over night. and that life takes on new meaning as your priorities change. she said there's also things like hormones that come into play. she was really encouraging though; she thinks i'll do just fine and that i have a good man to help me :)

oh! it's kind of old news now, but it's confirmed that i'm going to berlin. i leave next saturday - february 2 - and return the following friday - february 8. i'll take the train to montreal, then fly (business class!!) to zurich, then fly to berlin. i'll arrive sunday morning around 9 am, then have the rest of the day for sleeping and exploring. there's two main things i'd like to do while in berlin 1) the hop-on, hop-off bus, and 2) visit the berlin wall. i've always been fascinated by the berlin wall. maybe because its fall was a big event that took place just as i was becoming aware of the world beyond my own life. but it's also significant to me because i have peers, one coworker in particular, from berlin, and it's mindboggling to me that someone my own age grew up with that as her reality. so i think i'd be remiss if i didn't take a short S-Bahn ride to the remains (that are now called 'east side gallery'). i'm also excited to have turkish food there. michel tells me that berlin is the best place to get turkish food. i'll give it a try there, then compare it to the turkish food i'll eat when in turkey in march.

have you ever seen the documentary 'the cove'? i got it from the library. it was about the dolphin slaughter in japan. it's super sad, and i'm glad they made that documentary to expose it. but there was part of me that felt like i wished as much passion and risk went into saving children from human trafficking and modern slavery. i suppose the irony about the dolphin trade is that someday, all these fisherman who are killing dolphins, will probably die or go crazy from mercury poisoning.

i think it's that i feel more confused
by the deal love has shown me.

chase

i don't know if it's the cold cold weather, or the fact that i have two full laundry baskets filled with clean clothes that need to be put away, but every morning lately, i get up, look in my drawers and have a really hard time deciding what to wear. in 'how to be a woman' she makes the case that women chose clothes that tell a story about who they are. and when they don't have anything to wear its because they don't have anything to reflect the story they want to tell. and while i get that to a point, there are days like today, and all the other days lately, where i just want something that is warm and comfortable. i've GOT to put those baskets of clothes away TODAY! putting away laundry or clean dishes are my two least favourite household tasks.

after my last yoga class, i came to the conclusion that there's no good way to wear your hair in a yoga class. one way or another, it hinders your practice. i gave it some thought and have tentatively concluded that short hair or braids are probably the best scenario. i think i'll try a braid for next week. there are some parts to yoga that i enjoy more than others. in general i like the really relaxing stuff, and don't really enjoy precarious balancing. plus, anything that puts lots of weight on my arms and makes them shake under the pressure is not cool.

you might remember that i recently concluded that i should just floss my teeth and stop not flossing. that lasted about 2 days before i started to forget again. it seems ironic that although i have a really good memory for facts, stories and people interactions, i'm really forgetful about other stuff - like tasks, chores or negative interactions. maybe things that interest me less or maybe i block them out. it occurred to me lately that i might experience changes to my brain functions as a result of pregnancy and mom-hood. the moms around me are always talking about 'baby brain' or less focused thought patterns. retaining and absorbing information is one of the main ways i experience life, i sure hope i don't lose my steal trap. my grandma always had a great memory, even in her 90s, and i think i take after her, so maybe i'll be ok.

well it might be cold outside, but it's not too cold for me.

attach

i'm pretty sure, that if i was to design a pair of winter gloves, that i would put a lot of insulation around the thumb.

so guess what?!? i bought some kale at the grocery store last night :D b and i are having falafal this week, and i figured we could make kale chips to have with our wraps. i watched a little video online of how to make kale chips, and it looks super easy. i'm looking for to this!

i've heard the same glass tiger song on the radio in the last few days. it seems strange since glass tiger doesn't get a lot of radio time these days. it makes me wonder what ever happened to allen frew. joy was a big glass tiger fan when i was 8 years old. and since i was younger, i just liked the same bands as her and had crushes on the same celebrities. i really didn't know anything about him or even what he looked like, only that joy liked him so he must be good.

we got some notices in the mail last night that there were packages at the post office. one was addressed to brendan lorimer and the other to lori lorimer. hahahaha. anyways, b somehow concluded both packages were for him and set out to collect them. before he left i said "i hope the lori lorimer one is for me, i just feel like getting a package". he came back about a half hour later with one package that was for me. his was not yet available. so i opened said package, which was from the one and only jill nafziger, and found a totally awesome hooded scarf! and not only that... the hood has kitten ears!!! i LOVE it. it's perfect for my jacket too because too bulky of a scarf doesn't fit well. getting a fun package in the mail makes me want to send a care package myself, and perhaps start a chain effect of sending friends packages in the same box over and over. i really need to write and thank jill. i hope i get the chance to do that before she reads this :)

hearing a stranger cough incessently is perhaps one of the most annoying sounds i can think of.

you love, love, love when you know i can't love.

cherry

i wore my snowpants to work this morning. it felt silly since there's only tiny patches of snow in a few random places, but i knew it would be cold and my new maternity pants are not very wind resistant. the right side zipped up all the way, but the left side just made it to my hip. it doesn't matter though, my coat covered the opening. they were crazy warm.

on saturday, b and i went to the banff film festival at duncan mcarthur hall. beforehand he'd asked me how many people are usually there (it sells out every year). i guesstimated 300, but when we got there, they announced there were 700 people!! it was really great as usual. i was very excited because it's been 4 years since i last got to go, and it was brendan's very first time. i've been very curious what b would think of it and he really enjoyed it :D it was a really great selection and my favourite two were... the feature film that was 44 minutes long about two best mates from australia who walked to the south pole and back over something like 84 days. it was pretty crazy, but also very beatiful. i'm very convinced that all the hardest adventures are also the most beautiful and enriching. the other that i really liked was one called "the gimp monkeys" about a trio of amputees who were rock climbers. in general i think the banff film festival is a great showcase of the human spirit. i always feel very inspired and motivated by that event. although i felt less new inspiration since i'm already embarking in a new and great adventure with my best mate.

while on facebook, i came across a post a shared by a friend from highschool. it was a letter written by a mom to her pregnant, pre-child self. it was very interesting. i think what i got out of it the most was some perspective on pregnancy. up until recently, i've had a great interest in pregnancy and birth, and like other girls i know, would often feel like i wasn't interested in the baby, but just the birth experience. and while b and i decided we wanted to have a baby, it's becoming more and more real that at the other end of this pregnancy, there's going to be a little pink helpless baby, and it would be prudent for me to spend time investigating things like... how to bathe a baby, how to swaddle a baby, how to feed a baby, how to effectively use cloth diapers. that said, i want to be careful with any specifics like 'what to do' parenting guides. i'm just looking for a general user guide for day to day beginners. for parenting stuff, i prefer philosophies rather than specific instructions. i've heard before that reading all the latest parenting books doesn't necessarily make you a better parent, but it's a good indication that you want to be a good parent. so i'll do some reading, but try to remember that there's no one way to be a good parent, and nothing is guaranteed to work perfectly - a lot will depend on little so-and-so. in the next 6 months, i'll try to read one birth book (birthing from within) and one parenting book (hold on to your kids). i'm a slow reader, so i hope i can get through them both. i'm still working on 'how to be a woman', but i got 'hold on to your kids' from the library on saturday. so i might need to start that sooner than later.

i have this thing that i don't want to write about the baby or my pregnancy too much. partly because i don't want this to turn into some kind of mom-blog (not that there's anything wrong with mom-blogs, but it's just not what pspd has been over the years and not how i see myself). but mostly because i feel that as a person, i'm multi-layered, and i want to continue to see myself as a complex person with many different interests. but for now, since pregnancy is a short and unique circumstance (a journey of sorts), it seems reasonable that i'll write about it often in one way or another. in itself, pregnancy is a multifaceted experience.

i want to sail on the sky so blue.

__ out

i love blood red oranges.
they look like sunsets
and have a sour taste.
they might be my favourite kind of oranges.

i got a triple papercut on one of my knuckles today.
three at the same time,
all side by side.
this was not a good day for me and paper.

i'm not one to follow sports.
but i do enjoy a good human-interest story about athletes.
brendan teases me because that's my favourite part of the olympics,
and it's prone to making me cry.
so all this so say... i really don't get lance armstrong.
i don't understand why someone would want to cheat themselves.

it reminds me of something i learned in a parenting video we watched the other day.
it's called 'unconditional parenting' (and i suggest it).
the man makes a strong case that we must teach children why something is wrong,
rather than just teaching them that they will be punished if caught.
lance armstrong seems like a good example of someone who believed something is only wrong if they're caught.

i've got to say...
i'm sure that parenting is going to be the hardest thing i'll ever do.
but i have no doubts that will be very interesting - very exposing.
and i'm kind of looking forward to as a new adventure.
i'm sure it will be equal parts challenging and rewarding.
like all the best parts of life.

i will tell her my old stories,
like they were just born.

there

megan once told me that the best pregnancy advise she was given was to smile and say thank you. pregnancy and weddings (and i suspect parenting a baby) seems to be the main areas where people give unsolicited advise all the time. some of the advise will be very helpful and appreciated, while other times it will be way off base and even inappropriate. i kind of feel like i don't want to get into big long discussions with well-meaning people about things that aren't any of their business - such as where and how i give birth. so i'm going to take the advise of megan's advisor. case in point... when i arrived into work this morning after our second prenatal appointment with our midwife, one of the ladies asked me excitedly "who's your obstetrician?", so i explained that i have a midwife. she had a few questions about that and i was able to fill in some of her gaps in knowledge by explaining that yes, midwives can manage births in hospitals and can manage pain (the midwives in kingston can now manage births even when an epidural administered). she must have jumped to a few conclusions because she started explaining to me how it's so much better to give birth in a hospital just in case you need a caesarean. i'd already concluded that it's not worth explaining to my colleagues that i'm planning a home birth - they'll just worry. they'll find out after the baby is born. so i just listened to my colleague talk and tell me what's what as i smiled and listened.

to our delight, we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again! this time, it was slower this time because the baby is bigger. it's in a healthy range and sounded good and strong. it makes me so proud of that little so-and-so, growing all big and stuff.

mico also had the results of my bloodwork and it turns out that i don't have any STDs :p not a surprise, but always nice to know.  hooray!!

with the plans arranged for my (still slightly tenative) trip to berlin settled, i'm now needing to book travel and accomodations for a conference in phoenix in april! i REALLY want brendan to come with me, and am hoping to use aeroplan miles to fly him there. we'd take an extra day or so for a trip up the the grand canyon. that's another reason why i want him to come. i don't expect that we'll be in that area very often, and we've talked before about visiting the grand canyon. i think that would be amazing. among some of the coolest things to do in north america. it turns out that hotels are crazy cheap in phoenix and we could stay at a comfort inn for 33 bux a night. so there are exciting things ahead - in more ways than one!

where will she go, does she really know?

math

can you suggest a good alternative to hairspray? a product that is not greasey and provides definition? something that is air-travel safe?

this morning i gave my hair a good spray, then threw-up from inhaling the exhaust. not fun.

since brendan's in this new routine he gets up at the same time as me in the mornings. i like this, but it makes me go slower because i end up chatting with him. today we noticed that the little ceramic heater we use in the washroom wasn't working and both stood there fiddling with it. i have a feeling it's because i unintentionally got water all over it a few days ago :S turning it on while i was in the shower was not something i fully thought thru.

at the beginning of autumn, i decided that i would let my armpit hair grow out over the winter to see how i like it. it was interesting and i didn't mind it exactly. sometimes i would mindlessly tug on it. but when it came to wearing short-sleeves i was always self-conscious. not because i fear judgement, or think it looks bad, it just feels incredibly private. i don't want anyone to see my natural armpits! how embarrassing! they'd turned into some kind of mini armpit crotches or something. i felt i should keep my arms down in the same way that i feel i should cross my legs when wearing a shirt. not for public viewing! so a number of weeks ago i concluded that natural pits were not for me. i enjoy not shaving, i think women who have natural pits are totally the bomb, but i'm not ready for unshaved pits myself. maybe someday, but not now. my hairy legs i really like, but that might be because they're not dissimilar from my hair arms. that's a positive association, unlike the idea of armpit crotches. so i shaved this morning. i would've done it back when i made the decision a few weeks ago, but i'd discovered that the razer that i'd left in the shower had gone all rusty and i'm overdue for my tetnus shot. so now my pits are freed from the yoke of my own oppression and no longer have to hide in the shadows. it feels nice.

maybe unshaved armpits is the kind of thing one needs to try a few times before it fits.

the google doodle really made me mad today. i don't understand it and kept expecting it to be linked to something. now every time i see it, it feels like it's taunting me. how can a doodle be smarter than me?!?!?

if it seems like i'm dreaming don't wake me.

baa

i was thinking as i drove home from work... that elton john has a lot of good songs. i like his songs. they're very poetic. i understand this is because of his lyricist. i like his lyrics. i'm tempted to buy an elton john album. maybe a greatest hits album.

i was also thinking today that i should floss more often. flossing is one of those things that i know i should do more, but just don't. so maybe instead of having it hanging over my head as a 'should', i can just do it. my mouth would be in good shape and my dentist would be pleased with me. for some reason, the only time i think to floss is when i'm in my cubicle. and i'm pretty sure that's ones of those things that should be done in privacy or at least the washroom. every once and a while i can hear someone clipping their nails in the cubicle and it really grosses me out. i really shouldn't have double standards.

it's official! i have a bump. someone at work noticed it and commented today, so it's not my imagination! i have a baby bump!

wake me up when you're home.

galvanizing

yesterday i suggested to b that we just swing by the maternity outlet store to take a look. with my trip to berlin coming up i need some professional-looking yet comfortable pants to wear. and most likely, i'll be 3 weeks bigger in 3 weeks. so we ventured down to the king's cross outlet box stores hoping to find some deals. i did end up finding a pair of pants that i thought were on sale (turns out they weren't) and i tried them on. in the change room was this strap on 7 month belly. so after finding the pants fit well and comfortably i tried on the belly with it. it was CRAZY! both b and i were startled and kind of giddy, and together silently giggled behind the change room curtain so the staff lady wouldn't hear us. she clearly really liked working at a maternity store and there was part of me who didn't want to fuel her enthusiasm – especially in regards to my pregnancy. in my new super comfy maternity pants, it's clear that i have a bump, which is super exciting! sometimes now that the nausea has passed it's easy to feel not pregnant, so a small bump helps reassure me. the pants are SO comfortable that i think i'll probably wear them most of the time. unfortunately, they were about 3 inches too long, so i had to drop them off at stich it today for hemming and i won't have them with me the next 3 days. but it's better to do it now when i can still fit into other clothes.

remember how i mentioned that my mom had a boyfriend that i felt a bit reluctant about? well she broke up with him yesterday. yay! i'm very pleased. not so much about the break-up, but the fact that she has a new lease on life and assurance that she has other options. she's thinking about moving closer into ktown and living near to friends. i'm really proud of her. i know there are good things ahead and i'm thankful she thinks so too.

when i got my ipod this past september i was really disappointed that it didn't come with a genius because i really like that feature! but i've discovered that after my latest OS upgrade i now have genius on my ipod! hooray!

half of my heart is a shotgun wedding to a bride with a paper ring.

madam/sir

let me do the math... it's 2013 now and back in... 2006(?) i was first invited to go to berlin. yes, i think it was 2006. so it's been 5 years.

BUT good news!!! my travel has been approved for a trip to berlin (i assume a week long) the first week in february. i have two new colleagues starting so we're having a team meeting. i'm really glad because in person meetings are always the best way of getting to know each other. i just have to get a letter from my midwives to confirm that i'm well and healthy enough to fly. the head of HR doesn't want to risk being accused of 'making' me travel if i'm unfit.

i guess this means i need to get around to de-stinkafying my backpack after that cat pee incident. it fell pretty far down on my to-do list. i'm hoping it's not too late to salvage it.

i have a feeling that it may be extra hard being away from b during this stage in life, but we'll be fine. i just hope i don't feel the baby kick for the first time while we're apart.

you're a golden beam breaking into the ocean deep.

games

every once and a while, i'll have an experience, conversation, interaction that is so deeply unsettling for me that it sticks to me for days like an awful stench everywhere i go. and it's still there when i wake up each morning. it's troubling. at yoga the other day, when i was supposed to be lying on the floor quieting my mind, my thoughts were consumed my a currently ongoing situation of someone i know. which is disappointing. it's totally a boundaries thing between me and others involved. there's a difference between sharing your burdens and SHARING your burdens. it reminds me of a drowning person who sees the lifeguard as some kind of floatation device and ends up climbing on top of said lifeguard and drowning them in the process. no doubt i'm part of the problem, being burdened by another person's troubles when i shouldn't. but sometimes other people just try to spread their crap around as much as possible so it's not just on them. currently, it's reaching the point that the person is simply deflecting every encouraging word and empowering action i offer in my attempt to establish boundaries. when a person isn't willing to help themselves than i really can't help them either. i'm not offering her what she wants, and i'm not willing to offer what she does want. so i think we're at an impasse.

when i was a teenager, my friends and i used to write each other these long long letters. along with these letters certain friends would write out the lyrics of songs. i'm not exactly sure why, because reading songs isn't really that fun. one printed me out the lyrics of the soul asylum song 'misery'. my mom was never a snooper, she felt she could stumble across something she didn't want to know, but she did somehow come across these lyrics. i think i left them out in the dining room. anyways, she was deeply concerned about me. i knew at the time that it wasn't a big deal - i didn't print out those lyrics and i definitely didn't write them (maybe she thought i did). and even if i did, it seems like healthy way of dealing with inner turmoil.  i've heard of other parents freaking out over printed lyrics as well, which is probably just a misunderstanding or question of looking at the wrong clues. i think this is a two-fold issue. 1) my mom likes songs that are literal and make sense. for example, she prefers the earlier beatles stuff over their later stuff. 2) i don't think my mom knew about or understood teen angst. this is kind of funny/odd to me, because teen angst and melodrama is a defining part of those teen years, i don't really know how one wouldn't know about that. i wonder if teen angst bypasses certain people.

do car tires become slightly flatter in cold weather? because at least one of my tires is looking a bit low and i don't know why.

they're setting fire to the oceans.

specialist

for the last 4 years, i've been trying to go to the banff film festival world tour. i used to go to that event every year and i love it a great deal. it inspires me a lot. 3 years ago (four? 2010), i missed it because we went to see rock plaza central's last live concert in toronto instead. the following year i was too slow in buying tickets and it was sold out (so i 'made' brendan watch the first three twilight movies back to back. which almost single handedly ruined the twilight book series for me), last year it fell on a sunday so i couldn't go because of living room. but this year. THIS YEAR it's on a saturday and we have our tickets. we're all set. b has never been and doesn't fully understand why i love this event so much. no matter, he'll need to experience for himself and draw his own conclusions. it's still a week from this saturday, but i'm excited.

yoga yesterday was SO GOOD! it's been far too long since i did yoga and i really loved it. the poses came really naturally to me as though i'd done them recently. i talked to the instructor, who was really nice, in her 60s and had some kind of accent that i couldn't peg, and she said 'if something doesn't feel right, don't do it'. since i'm not very big, not even showing exactly, it was easy and comfortable to do everything. last night was the free trial night, and starting next week is a paid 10 week session. i think i'll sign up, then after the 10 weeks (which should take me up til our trip in march), i'll start an actual prenatal class. yogi master jackie (this title is less amusing to me than my previous 'yogi master dennis') said that prenatal classes do specific things to help prepare for childbirth, and i think i want to get in on that action. i spent the rest of the evening feeling good in my body and went home to gobble down one of my favourite dinners cooked for me by my favourite household cook :)

i threw up this morning before work. it was kind of gross and funny at the same time because i'd had a glass of tomato juice so when i threw up it was all red and looked like blood :S

you can soothe my mind with your silence.

non-bleached

as luck (or something) would have it.... there's a yoga class starting today at work after the end of the day. i'd tentatively planned to go to this if i could talk with the instructor about if it's possible to modify the instructions for me. when i looked over the release form today, i found it did have a section for pregnant mothers. i asked the organizer about it and she doesn't think it'll be a problem for the instructor to adapt the positions for me, because she's taken her class before and there was a pregnant woman who attended. so that's good. it's pretty convenient and it's cheaper than any other yoga place in town (minus the 'by donation ones'). i'm excited. i haven't done yoga in several years, and mianh tells me that pregnancy hormones makes a girl really flexible. excellent! my regular flexibility leaves much to be desired.

i meet such interesting people at the hospital when i do my visits there. last night i visited nine people. i have a selection of standard questions that i use to generate conversation. such like....
- have you had many visitors today? (which segways into their family and friends)
- are you from kingston originally? (which can lead the conversation either way.... either if not 'what brought you to kingston?' and if yes 'what highschool did you go to?)
- what do you like to do with your time when you're not in hospital? (gets us talking about hobbies and interests)
- do you live on your own? where do you live?
- what did you do for work when you were younger?
- did you come from a large family?
- have you been sleeping ok at night? how do you find the food?

i've found that people are quite happy to talk about their lives and sometimes i can really see them light up when they talk about things/people they really care about. it's fun! yesterday i met a perfectly nice woman, but every question i asked her was kind of a dead-end. i've never had someone willing to talk before who was impossible to generate conversation with. no family, from kingston, lives alone. i seriously had nothing to work with. oh well. she was still nice. another women i met was telling me about her about her workplace when she had babies. afterwards i figured out that this was during the 1960s - so the 'madmen' era, which made it all make sense. first of all, as soon as you started showing you had to quit your job. then six weeks after the baby was born, you could reapply for your job and if your employer liked you he'd hire you back. sheesh! that's terrible! just awful. she was pretty matter of fact about it. while i could tell it bugged her, she still had a 'that's just the way it was' attitude.

sometimes i forget how much i like certain foods. for example, brendan and i are crazy about eating salted peanuts (we're seriously hooked). but when we run out, if i forget to buy some for a couple weeks they're totally off my radar. and grapefruit! shannon gave me a grapefruit last month. before that i hadn't had a grapefruit in years, but since then i've started eating grapefruit for snacks! this happens often. it seems i'm selectively forgetful. i often forget things i say moments after saying them while an argument with b is in progress. it makes him mental. anyways, i'm looking forward to my grapefruit snack.

you will pull strange gifts from the heart of the trees.

mesh

well... i've just made the decision to try kale during the month of january. it's kind of out of season, but i'm sure i can get it at the grocery store. i've heard kale chips are good and easy. and beckie just suggested kale in a quiche. sounds yummy.

i've been reading the 'how to be a woman' book. my current chapter is about 'fat'. she makes a very interesting observation about societies intolerance of fat vs societies tolerance of drug use by celebrities. she asks how keith richards would be seen had he been addicted to food instead of heroin. very very intriguing.

last night i was ridiculously productive around the house. in addition to doing dishes, i did the laundry, put summer clothes downstairs/brought winter clothes upstairs, and scooped the litter box. hm, now that i see that in writing it seems more like just regular household activities rather than a huge accomplishment. but believe me, as someone who doesn't tend to use her free time voluntarily cleaning her own home, this was a big step forward. i really want to develop some good household habits before july. to do this, i'm trying to adapt the 30 day cleaning schedule into something that works for me. or rather, i'm trying to adopt the principle of a little bit per day. and when i find myself waiting for supper and am already caught up with everything on facebook, i might as well do something i'll be glad i did later instead of wasting a half-hour playing solitaire on my ipod. right? of course right.

when should one start prenatal yoga classes?

i'm going to go eat a grapefruit now.

take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship.

finally!

well... i think it's time to write about my latest news. now that we've told our families, close friends, next church community and facebook... it's time to share about our baby.

brendan and i are having a baby! the due date is july 14. i'm currently in my 14th week and have started feeling somewhat normal again. i was pretty nauseous for the second and third month, and between boxing day and this past friday i was vomiting quite frequently. i'd caught a cold/flu, so my already sensitive gag-reflex was off the charts with all my coughing. but i haven't thrown up in 3 days, so i take this as a good sign. i've been hearing a lot of horror stories of women throwing up for many many months. just yesterday, a friend told me she threw up every day for seven months! ugh! what a nightmare! i'm thankful i didn't have it as bad as kate middleton :p

i've noticed that after i tell people the news, they usually look to my belly to find signs of a bump. but i'm not really showing yet. in my underwear it looks to me that around my belly button i'm jutting out further. and in my clothes i look thick around the middle. but neither seem like a baby bump, but rather that i've put on some weight. the baby is still down low, which just confirms my feeling that my jutting out tummy is just fat, but i've been told it's not.

another thing i've noticed is that the same few questions come up once we get past the due date and how far along we are. so let me take some time to address those...

1) were you trying? to that i always say "well, kind of". we took a "let's just see what happens" approach.

2) were you trying long? no, not really, about a month and a half.

3) how long have you known? well, i was pretty sure i was pregnant before my missed period and we had to wait the 2 weeks to take a test. we talked about it and decided that we wanted to tell our families when they were all together for christmas. and since we couldn't tell next til after we told our family, we decided to just wait til the new year before making it public. that gave us 2 months to process this change and talk together about how we were feeling. it's a pretty big deal and we cherished having it just to ourselves for a little while. although, i did tell rach, jill and mianh (my midwives/birth counsel). and muirgy. muirgy overheard me talking with rach.

4) a variety of questions about afterwards... i'm going to return to work after my year mat leave. while we have no clue what life will be like in 18 months, i feel it's best for me to return to work to keep my options open for down the road. finding my job in the kingston market was very difficult and in the long term i think i'll be grateful to have held on to the job i have. besides that, i'm the primary earner in our home - although, that might change after brendan graduates this spring. ideally, i'd like to work a 4 day week, but i haven't looked into that yet. we'll need some kind of childcare. i'd love a home daycare, but don't really know how to find a good one. if you know of anyone or hear of anyone, please let me know. in the meantime, we're on the waiting list for the daycare up the street from our house, which coincidentally our niece audrey goes to.

5) do you have room for a baby/what will you do for a nursery? well, when we were considering our house, i gave some thought to how it might work when we someday have kids. for the first couple of years, we'll share our room with baby, there's space. i've also developed an idea for a play area that will double as a play-things storage area (with shelves and buckets, etc). we're going to keep baby gear to a minimum, which is good, it will help keep things simple. this is partly out of necessity, and partly a life-style choice. it seems to me that a lot of 'essentials' (like a change table, or a bathtub) are really more of 'nice to haves'. i dunno, women have babies all over the world and they do without all the 'stuff'. i rewatched the movie 'babies' recently, and smiled seeing the other cultures.

6) did you get a midwife/who's your midwife? our midwives are mico and heather. we met with mico just before christmas and we really like her. b felt in awe of her as a midwife and was afraid of saying something stupid in front of her out of nervous admiration. the highlight of the visit was hearing the baby's heartbeat!! it was awesome! and it felt good to know for sure that there really IS a little baby growing inside me.

7) are you going to find out the sex? yes. we gave it some thought, and went back and forth. i ended up deciding that i was ok either way, and we'd do whatever brendan decided. for a little while he didn't want to know, but has since decided that he's like whatever information is available to help prepare us for this little person. i believe we'll have our ultrasound at the end of feb. we probably won't make that super public, but tell people if they ask.

8) are you going to share the name you've picked? nope. we're going to keep that a secret til the big day :)

are there any other questions?

i've got to say, there's a lot about western baby culture that freaks me out and i'm going to try my best to navigate this stage while staying in line with our values. as i mentioned last week, i want to be authentic in 2013 and not become something i'm not. i know that i'll change in unexpected ways, but i'm hoping to change into the mom-version of me, and not someone else entirely. i don't think i'll bother learning all the proper lingo for things. if i call it an "eating chair" instead of a "high chair", i'm ok with that.

this week baby grows to the size of a large shrimp!

i'm ready to go anywhere, i'm ready for to fade
into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
i promise to go under it.

reicenbach

a few months ago at living room, we talked about what types of things we can do to make a different in our city, region and country. letter writing came up in that discussion, and rach really encouraged me to take up my pen. i've written a few letters in the past, but had sort of forgotten about it. with her encouragement, i felt newly inspired to write letters when the need arises. i've been following the 'idle no more' protests in the media, and have felt grave concern over the well-being of chief theresa spence. if the film 'the iron lady' taught me anything, it's that stephen harper is the male version of margaret thatcher - a women who let 10 men die from hunger strikes during the troubles. i was deeply concerned that history would repeat itself. while i know that letters are more effective then emails, i needed to act quick and didn't want to rely on the mail to carry my concerns to parliament hill. the day after i sent my email, i got a response from the PM's people thanking me for my note and letting me know they were going to send it on to the minister of aboriginal affairs as well. i felt encouraged. not that i thought my email would be read by harper, but it was nice to know that it had been received and was being sent to the applicable people. when i read in the news today that harper has indeed agreed to meet with aboriginal leaders, i was quite pleased. while i doubt my letter alone made the difference, i do think that he has probably received many many letters and emails - one was sent from the anglician church just yesterday - and so every letter counts. i'm glad to see he's finally (after 25 days?) agreed to meet. there's hope. i suspect there's still a long road ahead, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

i've also been wanting to write a letter about the planned closure about the kingston penn, but i don't really know what to say. i don't have enough information or statistics to make an argument for it to remain open. i'll have to give this some thought.

every once and am while i develop a desire to be more prompt in dealing with dirty dishes. back in 2007, i decided that i would make myself do my dishes every night before bed. i made it til about halfway through the year when i fell off the wagon and stayed off until now. just goes to show how making myself do something can really backfire. but i'm finding that i want to develop some good habits and dish management seems like a good place to start. i'm going to begin small. i'll wash out my lunch container at work every day so that it's clean and ready for reuse the following day. last night i did dishes while brendan made dinner. which worked pretty well because b was in there anyways (so it's not like i was missing out on something more interesting in the living room) and it saved me having to do chores later in the evening when i was tired. i think i'll try to make a habit of that. doing 6 dishes is way easier than doing 20. am i right?

i want to write more this year. that will be another goal of mine.

silhouetted by the sea,
circled by the circus sands
with all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves.

rockwell

i had to boil my water in the kettle today. it made my tea very hot.

tea doesn't taste right these days and i find that i drink less of it than i want to. it's winter and i want something warm that tastes good and familiar. the cold is making my car stiff and groan. it responds slowly as i guide the steering wheel and the cold seat freezes my bum.

years ago, i read a novel about an author suffering from writer's block. when i read books about novelists, i'm never exactly sure if they're just very uncreative or if they're pooling inspiration from what they know. either way, it was a good book and i enjoyed it thoroughly. weaved throughout it, where writing exercises; 'write about something you've lost, write about something you found, write about something you need, write about something you can live without'. i'm not sure if it was the book, or the writing exercises that captivated me, but it had me sincerely charmed. i'm sitting here trying to think of one of the exercises without finding the book and looking one up.

i seem to recall "write about something you've never done and never will". this one is tricky since it's hard to say with certainty what the future holds, but i suppose it's easier thinking back. for one things, i never went to my highschool prom or formal. i also never went to university or lived in a college residence. i've never smoked a cigarette, i've never pierced my naval and i've never been bungie-jumping. these are all things i'll never will do.

on the other end of the 'never' spectrum are things i've never done that i wish i had done... i've never lived abroad for a chunk of time. i didn't have a close relationship with my grandparents. i haven't got my motorcycle licence. i've never lived on wolfe island. i've never had a pet bird. i've never been downhill skiing. i've never eaten kale.

it's just a shadow you're seein' that he's chasing.

filter

here we are, two days into a new year. i have to admit, we had a lot more snow from the get-go then i would've anticipated for the new year, but it's a welcome change to rain and wet.

i think this will be a good year. i'm curious about where this year will take me. the new places, spaces and experiences. i feel... cautiously optimistic. optimistic because good things are coming, but cautious because i want to hold to those good things loosely until they're more tangible.

it's exciting to think where we might be this time next year....
• brendan's graduating this spring, which will start him off into a new stage of life. he's done so well in school, getting straight A's on yet another report card :) i'm sure this last semester will fly by, but be equally good as the others.
• i MIGHT be going to berlin, and possibly sooner than later. my guess would be at the end of jan or early feb. then in april i should be going to arizona for a conference.
• b and i hope to take our much anticipated trip to greece+istanbul (we've been talking about this for the last 18 months already and keep needing to reschedule it).
• living room will be wrapping up this spring, at least in it's current form under my leadership, and i'm excited for new opportunities and ways of being plugged in at next.
• we'll probably spend a week trailer-camping near mallorytown in august.
• and in the late summer or early fall, we'll get a washing machine installed.

all fun activities and new beginnings aside... i want this to be a year of authenticity.
i wrote a whole paragraph explaining this, and found that it got far my complicated and involved a lot of backpeddling to make sense (which just made it less clear), so i've decided to just leave it at that - a year of authenticity :)

go melt back into night,
everything inside is made of stone.