Create Beauty Daily

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T11:52:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas!

[Living across the street from Santa--who's willing to make house calls on Christmas Eve, his busiest day of the year!--is pretty sweet.]

Two Months--A Letter to My Sweet Girl

2011-12-14T23:59:00.001-05:00

Sweet Baby Girl,

You're two months old today. The time since you arrived has absolutely flown by. You're probably going to be sick of adults saying that; I certainly remember being a kid and all the boring old adults saying how time flies and I just thought, "What are you talking about? It's forever until Christmas!" Now that I'm your mamma I understand all those boring old adults, because boy is time flying.

Right from the very beginning you've made it clear that you're the one in charge around here. We'd planned to have a natural, intervention-free water birth, but after I'd labored for several hours my midwife discovered you were upside-down! Well, actually, babies are supposed to be upside-down, so you were really right-side up and wrong-side down. Either way, it was off to the hospital and the operating room for us, and you were delivered by Cesarean section at 9:40 p.m. on Friday, October 14th.

And boy were you mad. The anesthesiologist told Daddy to stand up and get his camera ready, so he got this photo of you as soon as you were born. You were wailing and hollering and it just broke my heart to know you were here but you were on the other side of the room screaming and there was nothing I could do about it. So close but yet so far! I kept saying, "Mamma's right here, baby, I love you," and the nurses thought I was crazy but I didn't care.

The first couple days in the hospital were pretty tough, but not because of you, sweet girl. I was trying to wrap my head & heart around the way you were born, the nurses kept waking us up to check on us, and I was really sore from the surgery, but your Daddy saved the day (and the night!) and was such a wonderful daddy right from the beginning, holding you so you and I could sleep. You didn't like to sleep in the bassinet; even though it was in the room with us that wasn't close enough for you and I don't blame you one bit, it wasn't close enough for me, either. Your daddy or I held you just about every moment, except when the nurses took you to weigh you and check you out.

Feeding you the first couple days was hard, too; I really, really wanted to be able to feed you but it wasn't easy for either of us and both of us cried a lot. Different people kept giving me all difference pieces of advice and nothing was working, so finally in desperation I just did what my mamma instincts told me to do and you latched right on and ate. Your daddy cheered and I cried in relief that I could give you what you needed.

For a while I needed about four hands to feed you (thank goodness your Daddy or your great aunt Susan helped out), but I just kept telling you that we'd figure it out together, and we did; things got so much easier every week and now we're such a team that I barely have to think about it, we just do it. It makes me so happy that I can do this for us.

Your Great Aunt Susan was here for the first week after you were born, and then she left and your Grandma Sally came for two weeks. They took care of things around the house and cooking so that your daddy and I could just focus on you, and that was so nice. We had so much to learn but we caught on pretty quickly, I think. We learned that you liked to sleep with me or Daddy and also took naps with some of our family and friends who came to visit, but don't like to sleep by yourself. You didn't really cry unless you were hungry or needed to be changed or if we tried to put you down and you got lonely, and sometimes when you got horrible hiccups that shook your whole little self. When you got hungry you were starving and I had about ten seconds to feed you or you'd really start to wail. Your daddy's a bit like this so we aren't very surprised.

You were only two weeks old for your first Halloween, but we still dressed you up and took you over to a couple neighbors' houses to say hi. A few years ago, before we even knew you were on the way, I was shopping after Halloween and found newborn costumes on sale at Old Navy. I knew the chances of having a newborn at Halloween were slim, but I bought two anyway (one girl, one boy) because they were such a good deal. I'm so glad that you're here and you got to use the girl costume I bought for you before I even knew you'd arrive, like it was meant to be.

After Grandma Sally had filled our freezer full of meals, she and Grandpa Spud had to fly home to Oregon, but we had more visitors coming. Mamma's friend, your Aunty Lisa and her mom, Grandma Linda, came to visit, and you had good naps on them and they argued good-naturedly about who got to hold you. The next week Mamma's sister, your Aunty Tauni, came to visit. She works with babies in her job as a nurse and she loved kissing your head since she doesn't get to kiss the babies at work. Time just flew and you got bigger and older right before our eyes.

You started holding your head up early on and your Daddy was just so proud of you, he'd shout to me, "Look, Mommy, look what our daughter's doing all by herself!"

You started smiling at us, too, which was simply amazing. At first it was just in little flashes so I couldn't get a photo, but this is the closest I got. Seeing you smile, though... I can't tell you how happy it made me! Since you were born all I've wanted is for you to be healthy and happy, so seeing you smile and know you were happy was so good for my mamma heart. The very first time you smiled at me I was so excited, but I was afraid to tell your daddy because I didn't want him to be sad he missed it. Well, before I could tell him you gave him a big smile, too, the same day! You smile an awful lot on the changing table. (When I posted a photo from your newborn photo session my friend Ryley called you "sleepy squishy nakee Nora" and now we give you "nakee time" when we change you sometimes. You really like nakee time and smile a lot!)

One day I dressed you and your outfit was too small! I couldn't do the top snap and your shoulders stuck out. I was so happy that you were growing but I also cried at how quickly you were growing up... yes, I'm a silly mamma. Someday you'll understand, sweet girl.

Even though you were clearly growing, because of our early struggles with breastfeeding I was still worried whether or not you were gaining enough weight. So I was so happy and relieved when we had an appointment with the midwife and discovered that you're gaining weight like a champ--hooray for mamma milks!

You started getting more and more expressive, making funny faces and watching our faces and being more interactive. You recognize me and Daddy... you calm down more for me but you make more faces and smile more at Daddy since he's so silly and fun.

You attended your first bonfire at the neighbors', and bundled up in your cute pink bear outfit you were the star of the show. Everyone on our street has been so excited for your arrival and they all love holding you, you were passed around and fell asleep in several peoples' arms.

Your Papa Don and Grandma Jo arrived for a visit and they had so much fun with you. You're really smiling a lot now and one day when we brought you in from the car Daddy was making you smile so much that I even had a chance to grab my camera!

I love watching all the faces you make and the way you look at me.

Now you're two months old and I know that I'll blink and it will be three months instead of just two, so lately I'm spending lots of time just trying to soak you up and enjoy who you are right now. And who you are is pretty darn awesome.

You're still a super amazing baby. You still cry mainly when you're hungry or need to be changed, or sometimes when you get the hiccups. You still like to be held to sleep, and in the past week or two you've started fighting sleep during the daytime, like you don't want to miss anything. You fuss and cry even after I've fed and changed you, so I put you in the ring sling and bounce and rock until you give in and fall fast asleep curled up against me, and then you have a nice long nap. When you're hungry and I'm not right there to feed you immediately you make your body super straight like a plank and cry. At night you sleep against me or Daddy until we go up to bed, then you nurse and go back to sleep until between 2 and 3 o'clock usually. We sleep for a while longer, nurse again, and sleep again. During the week when Daddy's at work we usually sleep until 8 or 9 o'clock, and sometimes on the weekends we sleep a little later.

You're not super crazy about the car, so I plan our trips for just after I've fed you and I try to keep our trips short. At each location I take you out of your seat to give you a break and I wear you in the ring sling or in the Ergo, you love both of them. Sometimes when we're in the car you sleep, but sometimes, even when I've just changed and fed you, you cry cry cry. When you cry really hard, which we almost never let you do except in the car when I can't pick you up, you make a little sound like a sheep. It's so sad and so cute all at the same time.

You're a very slow waker-upper, just like I am. When you start to wake up you fuss and squeak and generally seem very annoyed with the state of affairs. I just hold you and rock or bounce or caress you and let you gradually come back into yourself. Sometimes at night after I nurse you and you fall asleep, I lie there and just stare at you and sniff and kiss your sweet head and marvel at the wonder that is you.

I'm how old, Mamma?

When you were first born everyone said that you look just like your Daddy. They still say that, but now people are saying that certain features look like me. I'm so excited to watch you change and see who you grow into and what you'll look like.

About to sneeze!

By the time you're old enough to read this you'll probably have heard this thousands of times and you'll roll your eyes and say, "Yeah, Mamma, I know," but baby girl, we wanted and waited for you for sooooo long, and you, my sweet girl, were worth the wait. You're the best thing I've ever done and being your mamma is my favorite thing in the world. I love to watch Daddy be your daddy and listen to him talk to you, he's so wildly crazy about you and it makes me fall more and more in love with him.

It's only and already been two months, and so far the three of us, you and your Daddy and I, are a great team. We promise to keep learning and growing and trying and teaching and--most of all--loving you. If there is one thing I want you to always know and never question, sweet Nora Jane, it's that you have been so very, very wanted and loved even before you were born. We're so excited to see who you become and what you do and what your passions are, but no matter what--no matter what--we will always, always love you more than words can say.

Love,
Mamma

Sleepy Squishy Nakee Nora

2011-10-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

Shey came out yesterday to take newborn photos of Nora. Shey's amazing; so patient and calm and lovely and made us all feel so comfortable. Oh, and she takes pretty good photos, too.

Seriously, I might have started bawling when I opened the link and saw the above photo.

I also might have squeaked out, "That's my baby!"

I mean, look at those squishy lips! [Headband by Harper and Eden on Etsy.]

And her daddy's hair!

And you cannot believe how soft her skin is; I rub her back sometimes while she breastfeeds and this photo makes me want to go wake her up so I can touch her back right now.

Stop it with this hat, ohmygoshIcan'thandleit! The pink and her skin and oh my stinkin' heck, it's all too perfectly beautiful.

Even through the lack of sleep and figuring out a newborn, she has brought such contentment to us. Our family.

Shey, thank you so very much for capturing our precious Nora and our now family of three.
I'll treasure these images always.

[Shey posted these images on her blog and gave me permission to use them here.
The title of this post is thanks to a tweet from my friend Ryley.]

She

2011-10-16T18:24:00.008-04:00

She arrived on Friday, October 14th, at 9:40 p.m.

She has ten perfect tiny fingers (long fingers, with long nail beds like her mamma)

and ten perfect little toes (long toes like her daddy!).

She weighed 8 pounds 5 oz and is 20 inches long.

She is named Nora Jane.

And she is so very, very, very loved.

Awaiting Our Little Pumpkin

2011-10-07T09:21:00.021-04:00

As I'm sure you know, I loooove being pregnant. As you may or may not know, I don't really like being photographed; I'm very uncomfortable in front of a camera. Several years ago I realized that the more uncomfortable I feel being photographed the more awkward I look in photos (funny how that works, huh?). Since I did want some good photos of me--and Lord, please, less awkward ones--I adopted a "fake it 'til you make it" approach to being photographed. I just act like I'm comfortable and the photos turn out a lot better, even if the back of my mind is telling me that I look like a huge dork, why am I standing next to the fanciest person in this group shot, please don't let her post this to Facebook (etc. etc. etc.). And that's just when I'm hanging out with friends! So you can imagine how I might feel when I book and pay for someone to photograph me. Oh, Lordy, the pressure!

But I really wanted this time in our lives to be documented. I love my huge belly and everything it means. So Jason took the day off yesterday and we drove up to Maryland to meet the lovely Shey of Shey Marin Photography so she could photograph ~~my ever-increasing baby bump~~ this amazing, blessed time in our lives. I gave myself about fourteen pep-talks in the days and hours beforehand, and we actually had fun! Shey was great to work with and I was able to relax and just enjoy what was happening--that my long-awaited, much-loved pregnancy was being captured on film (okay, in pixels, whatever) on a gorgeous fall day with my wonderful and adoring husband, just shortly before we meet our precious little bundle of joy.

And, you guys? The sneak-peek results? Oh my goodness.

Thank you so much, Shey, for these photographs. I can't begin to tell you what they mean to me.

[Shey posted these images on her blog and gave me permission to use them here.]

38 Week Update

2011-10-04T17:15:00.000-04:00

How Far along?
38 weeks (and one day)!!! Last Sunday night (a week ago) when I went to bed I told Jason, "When we wake up we'll have a fully-cooked baby!" Technically, anyway; I'm happy to continue to gestate until she's ready. :) It's crazy to me that her estimated due date is less than two weeks away. I have a feeling that she'll be a week late, though, so no hurry. (Although remind me I said this in three weeks when I'm whining that I want her ouuuut.)

Size of the baby?
According to my weekly e-mail from BabyCenter, Bebe Girl's 6.8 pounds and over 19.5 inches long.

Any new symptoms?
Things are pretty much the same since my last update. My hips and lower back hurt a lot most of the time, although I saw the chiropractor yesterday and he did some muscle/ligament work on me as well as an adjustment, so I'm feeling a lot better today than I did all last week. It's better for me to keep moving a little bit; when I sit for too long and then get up the waddle is ridiculous, I feel like Tweedle Dee (or Tweedle Dum, I suppose).

What are you craving?
It's a good thing that Jason's home so I'm (we're) cooking healthy meals, because my appetite is pretty minimal these days. I'm eating enough and eating plenty of healthy foods, but I'm doing it much more for Bebe than I am for myself at this point.

Baby Bump?
Just a little bit. :)

Movement?
Bebe is getting so strong! She's getting big and running out of room so when she's stretching around it's pretty crazy the way she makes my belly move. She jabs her foot into (out of?) the right side of my belly and I have to adjust my position and sit up extra straight and massage it to try to get it back in a little bit or it's uncomfortable.

Nesting?
We're getting a lot done around the house and my To Do list is still a mile long. We ordered blinds for a lot of the windows in the house (which we've been wanting to do anyway), we cleaned out the basement storage area and got a deep freezer (hooray!!!), we set up the pack & play we received at my baby shower last weekend, my fancy glider and ottoman arrived and are set up in the living room. I worked on a couple fun projects for Bebe's nursery and washed all her little bitty clothes. I vacuumed pretty much constantly. The crib is now scheduled to be here after Bebe's due date, thanks a lot, Target. Oh, well. I'm trying to focus on one thing at a time and prioritize my To Do list because even if Bebe is two weeks late (please no) I still won't have time to get everything done. This is Classic Cameron, Queen of Overambitious To Do Lists (a title shared with @exlibris), so no big surprise!

Sleeping well?
The weather here has cooled down a bit which is awesome, I'm not sweating all the time now, just at night (pregnancy hormones increase at night, didja know that?). Last night Jason was cold so he kept cuddling up next to me in bed, chasing me all the way to the edge until I had about 18" of bed and my knees were hanging off the edge and I'd sweated through my tank top. So, yeah, I'll be getting him an extra blanket on his side of the bed tonight!

I'm waking up A LOT during the night. Three or four times to use the bathroom, plus every time I roll over or need to adjust my position or just because it's 2 a.m. and why shouldn't we be awake for no reason until 4 a.m.? Most nights I wake up at least once per hour and have at least an hour of laying-wide-awake. I'm not particularly exhausted, though, so it's not too bad.

Buy anything for the baby this week?
We bought a lot of things for the house but not a lot for Bebe specifically, just a few clothes to fill in the gaps of what I didn't have for her. I need to order the few baby things I need/want and don't have yet. We were gifted with a lot since my last update; in addition to the shower hosted by my lovely neighbors, I've received several surprise gifts from people, and my book club had a surprise baby shower for me at our meeting! I've been overwhelmed with how excited so many people are for us, it's so touching to me (especially since I generally assume that I like people more than they like me, hello, self-esteem, how are you?).

What are you enjoying the most/least about being pregnant this week?
Last Friday was pretty rough; my hips & lower back were really killing me (and my chiropractor was closed for the weekend), so little things that popped up just felt a lot harder to deal with. By the time Jason got home from his all-day project I was crumbling. His response, though, made it all worth it; he was amazing and didn't make me feel like I was being ridiculous, just calmed me down and centered me and soothed me, physically and mentally, and made me laugh and feel like I'm doing a great job being pregnant and he's proud of me. It was exactly what I needed and gave me a glimpse into what he'll do for me in labor. I'm going to need him so much and this was proof that he'll be there for me the way I'll need him to be--that's priceless.

I'm reading a lot and I'm really enjoying learning lots of cool facts about pregnancy, childbirth, and new parenthood. I'm also getting occasionally rather fired up at how misinformed we as women/we as a(n American) culture are about a lot of it, but that's another post for another day. I'm just so grateful that Jason and I are educating ourselves so we can make informed decisions no matter how things go with Bebe's birth.

I'm also enjoying all the big surprised smiles I'm getting from people out in public!

What are you looking forward to?
Tomorrow I'm getting a belly cast done, and Thursday we're getting maternity photos! I'm nervous about the photos because I'm a total dork, but I'm also excited for them. I'm anxious to finish this post so I can go try on a bunch of clothes and figure out what I'm going to bring to wear. Tomorrow I'm going to collect/buy some props I want to use in our session (a pink ribbon tied around my belly, baby blocks that spell out bebe or girl, a little pumpkin, pretty white fabric) and maybe buy an article or two of clothing to supplement since I don't have a ton of fall maternity clothes.

It's so strange to think that she could be here in three days or three weeks, we just have no idea. And yes, we're getting used to the idea that we have no control over our lives anymore, it's all Bebe from here on out!

You Wrap Your Arms Around Me and I'm Home

2011-09-25T12:01:00.001-04:00

So, remember how Jason was gone for 8 weeks from mid-April to mid-June? And how when he came back I said he wouldn't leave again?

Oh, wait, I didn't say that.

Because he was home for just 6 weeks and then he left again on July 27th for 7.5 more weeks.

He got home last Friday (a week ago). Woooohoooooooooo!!

In my previous post about him being gone I might have seemed, to some people, a little, "Eh, big deal, my husband was just gone for eight weeks, whatever." Let me assure you that it was not easy breezy beautiful covergirl, either that first time or this time. Sometimes it sucked a lot.

Like when I woke up coughing bile and ran to the bathroom to puke in the middle of the night, and then had to go back to bed by myself without so much as a half-asleep shoulder rub in consolation.

Like when I did the math and figured out that, including the three weeks of training he had to do, he'd be gone for 45% of my pregnancy. Forty-five percent. That's a lot, y'all.

Like when my car broke down. Because naturally, if your nice, reliable car is going to suddenly break down with no warning whatsoever, and you're 7.5 months pregnant and your husband is halfway around the world, it's going to happen at 4:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon before Labor Day Weekend. I didn't even cry, y'all. Not even a little bit. Because I was laughing, because of course this is when it would happen. [All the military/ex-military/traveling husbands wives out there know that a husband's leaving is a sign to the universe that crazy shit is supposed to go wrong.]

Like when Bebe Girl was making my whole stomach move in waves and I had to reach for the video camera instead of calling Jason over to see it.

Like when I woke up to water damage on our master bathroom ceiling after it rained 4+ inches in 24 hours and roads all over were closed due to flooding and people were tubing down main highways, and I had to somehow get my car from the auto shop to the dealership an hour away (not counting traffic and flooding road closures), and then I got the crib I ordered and it was broken and exactly how am I supposed to get this huge 59-pound box to a UPS place to return it, and oh, I can't do that anyway because even after four separate phone calls and two+ hours on the phone with Target they still can't manage to send me my return shipping label. Yay, happy Friday to me! That was probably the very worst day; I missed him so much I ached.

But, most of the time, I had a pretty positive attitude. We chose this, after all. And when people said, "It must suck to have him gone while you're pregnant," I honestly replied, "It's not fun, but it's a lot better than if he were gone and I still wasn't pregnant!" [I can't tell you how true this is and how grateful I am to be pregnant, even with him gone.]

And it wasn't all bad; since he was gone during the hottest, most humid and miserable month in Virginia, I took the opportunity to escape to Oregon & Washington for three weeks in August. I got to enjoy the glorious weather, eat at my favorite Oregon places, go to my home church and sit between my grandparents with a hymnal on my belly, eat the fruits & veggies from my mom's & aunt's gardens (and beef raised by my uncle!), visit and photograph the county fair I went to every year while I was growing up, and delight every time I came around a bend in the road and saw a mountain in the distance, welcoming me home. I got to hang out with and visit family, attend a family reunion, see high school friends and college friends and friends I haven't seen for years and years, shop for maternity and nursing clothes with my mom, attend my niece's sixth birthday party and help her learn how to weave potholders, hang out with my BFF Kellie and finally meet her little girl in person instead of just Skype, hang out with my BFF Lisa, meet a Twitter friend in real life, figure out and make a silk ring sling with my aunt, and have not one but two baby showers! I wouldn't have done all of that if Jason were home, and it was all lovely and I'm so glad I got to do it before Bebe arrives.

Jason and I got to video chat nearly every day (sometimes twice while I was in Oregon and the time zone difference was longer), and he could call me on the phone if I had to be away from home/my computer during our normal chat times. This video chat bonding time was so important and meaningful to me that about a week after he got home the first time I actually missed him, because we were so busy getting things done that we weren't just sitting and talking face-to-face for a half hour or more every day like we had been while he was gone!

Now he's back (again) and he gets to see Bebe Girl move my belly around like crazy and feel how strong she is, how her right foot pokes out the right side of my belly like she's trying to make a break for it and I have to rub it until she tucks it back in a little bit. He gets to be woken up when I get up to pee four times a night, and sleep with his hand on my belly, and rub my shoulder when I wake up coughing from bile in my throat. He gets to fetch me water and ice packs and help me make dinner and assemble high chairs and pack-n-plays.

He's back, and he's right where he should be.

I love this photo so hard.

He left at 28 weeks 2 days and came home at 35 weeks 4 days. I didn't change much while he was gone. ;)

And this time I'm very, very, very happy to say: he's not leaving again.

Special thanks to all the family and friends and neighbors who helped me through Jason's absence, whether it was checking up on me or watering our plants while I was gone or driving me to and from the airport or listening to me and lending me your shoulder or distracting me with hilarious stories and Twitter conversations. I'm so glad I didn't have to do it without you. xoxoxoxoxo

36 Week Update

2011-09-21T12:20:00.000-04:00

How Far along?
36 weeks (and 2 days)!

Size of the baby?
According to my weekly e-mail from BabyCenter, Bebe Girl's almost 6 pounds and 18.5 inches long.

Any new symptoms?
Is being unable to bend over while sitting down a symptom? Because I totally have that. Also, my hips are getting wonky (very descriptive, huh?). I have to be careful how I sit and for how long; I love sitting cross-legged and it's comfortable while I'm doing it, but then my hips will hurt later (so I stopped doing that, obviously). I'm seeing the chiropractor every week to ten days at least. I have to take frequent breaks when I'm doing things because I get tired really easily, so even on days I have a lot to do I try to switch off between doing active things (like organizing) with more inactive things (like writing thank you notes). When I'm really, really tired and/or my hips hurt I definitely have a waddle. I don't think that I necessarily waddle *all* the time, but yesterday at Marshall's an employee told me that I'm "getting my walk on" and the way she said it made me think she was saying I do the pregnant-lady walk. Nice. So maybe I do. Hrmph.

I'm hot almost all the time now, which is such a switch from my normal always-cold self. Jason usually freezes me out when we're driving and now it's the reverse, and I have just a sheet on at night with the ceiling fan on and I still wake up soaked in sweat, while he's cozied up under the quilt. Our electric bill last month was the most it's ever been because MOAR AIR CONDITIONING.

It's not a new symptom, but I realized that I never mentioned that I have linea nigra (the dark vertical line that 3/4 of all pregnant women get on their bellies). It's kind of funny because when you look at it close up it just looks like I have some freckles, but when you look at it from a little ways away it's totally a line. It's light and it runs the whole distance of my belly, from my pubic bone to just under my boobs. It doesn't bother me at all (I know some women hate it), I think it's kind of cool and just another sign that oh my gosh, look at me, I'm a pregnant lady!

What are you craving?
Ice cream! And barbecue potato chips, which I indulged and I think is gone now. And fruit, but only certain fruit and certain ways. If you cleaned and cut up a gallon of strawberries for me I might eat the whole thing, but the idea of cleaning and cutting them up myself makes me want to die and/or puke. WEIRD. I also bought a half-gallon of organic chocolate milk yesterday, which was a major craving for me at the beginning of my pregnancy so it's kind of funny to have it again.

Baby Bump?
Totally not at all. :)

And just to shake things up, here's a front view!

Movement?
In my last update I said that she was starting the "Alien" phase of making my stomach move but you couldn't really see it from the outside. Uh, yeah, that's changed! It's crazy how much she makes my stomach move--sometimes it catches me by surprise and stops me in my tracks. I'm writing this post now because she's moving so much that I couldn't stand to get up and move on to the rest of my To Do list, I just wanted to keep sitting here and paying attention to her. :) [And yes, I can pay attention to her while I'm typing because my laptop is on what's left of my lap, and she's in, well, what's not left of my lap!]

Nesting?
Well, this past weekend I emptied out all the bathroom cabinets, purged stuff, and organized the rest into drawers that I labeled with the label maker I haven't used in at least six years, does that answer the question? I also sorted all of the baby clothes (both new and hand-me-downs) we've received and have them in bins in her closet, organized by type and size, I freecycled stuff I've been meaning to get rid of, and I arranged for a donation truck to come pick stuff up today.

The fun nesting stuff I want to do (decorate the nursery!!) is being put on hold a bit, because I'm having issues with Target; when I opened the crib they shipped me it was broken, and getting a replacement has been entirely too much of a pain in the ass. [And when I say that I mean that it's really ridiculous, not just that I'm 8 months pregnant and being all hormonal. We're talking 4+ hours on the phone over 6 phone calls and I still have no idea when they're shipping my replacement.] I really want the crib not because she'll be sleeping in it right away (she'll be in a co-sleeper bassinet attached to our bed, which is already here and set up thank you Amazon) but because I want to figure out where stuff is going in the nursery and decorate it; I don't want to commit to hanging anything and putting holes in our freshly-painted walls until I know I like the layout of things. I'm keeping perspective and I know that it doesn't matter, she will be safe and loved (oh so very loved) and who cares if her nursery's not ready when she arrives? It's just fun and I want to make up her crib and hang her mobile and all of that. :)

Sleeping well?
Yes! I started taking Maalox every night at bedtime and I can sleep laying down again! I'm also napping again sometimes in the afternoons. [I wrote this last night and then, of course, slept like crap, waking up with bad heartburn and ended up sleeping sitting up and getting a crick in my neck. Oh well.]

Buy anything for the baby this week?
Two weeks ago I ordered the crib, a highchair, and a swing (okay, two swings, but I plan to return one!). I ordered the co-sleeper Sunday and it's already here (thank you, Amazon Prime!) and Jason assembled it so we'll just hook it to the bed a little later on. There are a few more things that I'm anxious to have but I have a baby shower this Saturday so I'm going to wait. :)

What are you enjoying the most/least about being pregnant this week?
I still love being pregnant, but I'm starting to see how women can get sick of it. It's not for sissies, that's for sure! Most days are great, but I've had a couple days where I've pushed myself too much and then been so sore and tired that I just wanted to cry. As long as I take it easy(ish) I feel great, and luckily I have that luxury since I set my own hours and work at home and don't have any other kiddos yet. My hat is off to all the women who work full time up to delivery, and/or are chasing after toddlers!

I'm really enjoying having Jason home (more on that in an upcoming post). He's really amazing and helps me all the time with any little thing I need, whether it's refilling my water glass or assembling the co-sleeper as soon as it arrives or just listening as I walk & talk through something, trying to figure out how I'm going to organize or accomplish something. My very favorite words are, "What can I do to help you, Love?" He had the last couple days off work so we got a lot done and got lots of quality time, too. He's really being great and it's so awesome to feel totally on the same page and part of a team, it gives me a lot of confidence that we'll deal with parenthood as a team, even if (when!) we're exhausted and don't know what to do.

What are you looking forward to?
If anyone posts comments like, "Oh, you just wait, silly woman!" I will ~~stab you~~ think you're a big inconsiderate jerkface loser, but I'm really looking forward to experiencing birth. Truly. I don't think it will be easy (AT ALL), but I do think that it will be amazing. Thinking about it all--Jason supporting me and helping me through this awesome, transformative, greatest physical challenge of my life, seeing our baby girl for the first time (and seeing Jason see her, ohmyword), feeling her skin-to-skin, breastfeeding for the first time--oh, well, I just cry from happiness and gratitude that I will get to experience it all (no matter how it all happens).

34 Week Update

2011-09-05T21:57:00.001-04:00

How Far along?
34 weeks. :) I cannot believe how quickly it's going.

Size of the baby?
According to my weekly e-mail from BabyCenter, Bebe Girl's about 4 3/4 pounds (the size of an average cantaloupe) and almost 18 inches long.

Any new symptoms?
I've been having a little bit of heartburn for the past month or so, but started taking papaya enzymes and digestive enzymes and that pretty much took care of the problem. Until this past week. I've been waking up with bile in my throat, coughing and even once threw up in my mouth and had to leap out of bed (I'm sure it would've been a hilarious site to see, me leaping out of bed) to run to the bathroom. It's not really fun.

I was also having more swelling in my hands and feet, but after taking some time to rest this past week after my crazy insane schedule the previous week, things appear to be back on track and I'm able to wear my wedding ring again sometimes. Hooray! :)

And in the interest of full disclosure, I'll also admit that my legs? Are getting not pretty. I haven't been working out as much as I was because my hips are often out of alignment so I've been trying to take it easy, but oy. Oh, well. This doesn't really bother me a whole lot, but it's happening so I thought I'd mention it.

What are you craving?
I haven't really been having any cravings lately, except when someone on Twitter mentions something sweet (I blame Megan Boley for the jelly donut I still want a week after she mentioned it). I've also been craving Coke, but that might just be because 1) I'm tired and want caffeine, and 2) I feel like it would help with the acid grossness, even though I know that it's an acid and eats pennies and cleans toilets and all that, please don't tell me, I'm smart and I already know. For the record, I haven't actually been drinking Cokes, just craving them.

Baby Bump?
Yes. :)

Movement?
Yes, oh my word, it's awesome. I started feeling something at about 14 weeks, but because it didn't match any of the normal descriptions (butterfly flutters, popcorn popping) I wasn't sure if I was really feeling the baby move or just some other weird my-body-is-changing things. It felt like a change in pressure, as if the baby were flipping around and it was moving the amniotic fluid and I could feel the pressure change. Then when Jason came home she started kicking in very obvious ways. I'd been anxious for her to start moving; I should've known she was just waiting for Daddy to come home and get her all ramped up (this theme will continue for the next many years, I expect!).

She's doing new things now, which is so stinkin' cool. She's entering the "alien" phase where she's making my stomach undulate in waves as she moves around and stretches... it's not obvious yet, you wouldn't notice it from the outside, but you could feel it if I let you put your hand on my belly, and I can see it sometimes with my special top-down view of my belly. :) I totally, totally love it. :) She's doing it right now as I type this.

Gender?
Girl! I waited until 22 weeks to have my ultrasound because I wanted Jason to be there when I found out (even though I was dying to know, those extra couple of weeks felt like forever!). He came home on a Friday and our appointment was on the following Tuesday morning. The ultrasound tech did some initial measuring and monitoring--my favorite part was seeing the four chambers of the heart pumping away, so cool!--and then asked us if we wanted to find out the gender. I expected her to point up to the screen and say something like, "Well, you see that right there? That's [fill in girl or boy parts]!" Instead, she asked if we wanted to know the gender, we said yes, and she blurted out in a flat, monotone, loud voice, "GIRL." Looking back it was pretty funny but at the time it was kind of startling and felt anticlimactic! Then we went and had breakfast at IHOP and called our family members, and went to Target to buy a pink onesie so we could take this photo.

Nesting?
I'm anxious to get the nursery set up and do some projects in the house, but I'm normally motivated by deadlines anyway, so this just feels like normal deadline-approaching energy more than nesting. I've had a few moments that felt like nesting, like when Jason sanded our wood stairs and wood dust was ev.er.y.wh.e.re... I vacuumed (and wiped down the outside of the vacuum, a la Monica Gellar) and wiped down the walls and banisters and dusted and cleaned every.single.surface in our house. I'm actually hoping to be hit by the nesting bug, my To Do list is a mile long and I could use the extra energy! :)

Sleeping well?
I've been sleeping really, really well for almost all of my pregnancy until this past week. The heartburn/acid reflux is really tough... one night I woke up just 45 minutes after I'd gone to sleep, and the acid burning in my throat was so bad that I was awake for another 45 minutes, downing Tums and papaya enzymes and eating a banana and drinking water, just trying to get the burning to stop. Not fun. So I commandeered most of the pillows in the house and set up my pillow fortress and slept sitting up completely. I know this happens to a lot of pregnant women, but it just kind of surprises me how suddenly it came on. On Saturday night I slept like a champ; on Sunday night I woke up puking bile.

On Wednesday morning when I woke up I came downstairs and started the (decaf) coffee pot in a total haze; before it finished brewing I did the math and realized that in the six hours I'd been "sleeping," I was completely awake at least six times. The previous few nights had been the same. No wonder I was exhausted. Having a positive attitude has really helped me throughout this pregnancy ("I don't mind waking up in the middle of the night, it isn't that bad!") but sometimes it apparently makes me a little dim (sleep deprivation is real, yo). ;) So I left the coffee untouched in the pot and went back to bed (sitting up); I slept for two straight hours and woke up feeling like a new woman. Since then I've slept sitting up every night and while I still wake up several times a night to pee and have occasional bouts of acid, it's not as bad as it was.

I told Jason, "Oh, it's just preparing me for nighttime feedings and being exhausted when the baby comes," and he said, "That's dumb. What do you need to be prepared for? Not sleeping sucks, there, you're prepared." HA!

Buy anything for the baby this week?
We've been gifted with some amazing things and I still have another baby shower or two coming up, so I'm trying not to buy much right now. I have received a couple of lovely presents in the mail, though! :)

What are you enjoying the most/least about being pregnant this week?
You read the middle-of-the-night bile/choking thing, right? So that's what I'm enjoying the least, obviously. My favorite part is the way she moves now, how she's normally pretty chill but always starts moving when she hears Jason's voice, and how I can feel the bumps of her body and try to guess which parts are which/where.

What are you looking forward to?
I'm interested to see if Bebe Girl acts at all similarly on the outside as she does on the inside. I'm excited to see Jason hold her and rock and bounce and soothe her (and get wrapped right around her teeny, tiny finger). I'm looking forward to finding her name (and trying not to worry about not having one for her yet). I'm really excited to sniff her head and kiss the bottoms of her tiny feet and see what she looks like and take photos of her and figure out breastfeeding and a thousand other little moments, only some of which I can even imagine right now.

Today I went to see The Help with some friends, and the relationship between Aibileen and Mae Mobley just made me bawl. The way she greeted her after naps, kissed her when she cried, and told her that she is kind, she is smart, she is important... oh my goodness, I'm so looking forward to that.

Surprises Amidst Life-ness

2011-08-10T15:30:00.000-04:00

I still remember sitting in my friend's dorm room, talking about her trip to Europe over the summer. I couldn't believe how blasé she was about it. I mean, Europe! "Wasn't it amazing?" She said that sure, it was cool to see the sights, and kind of shrugged.

Growing up in a small, rural town on the West Coast, only rich people--you know, like in movies--traveled to Europe. I had my hopes but didn't think I'd ever really make it over there, so I couldn't believe that her mind hadn't been completely blown by the experience.

Flash forward eight years, and I'm married and flying to Europe for the first time. To live there. I wish I would've had a blog or kept a journal back then; I can't imagine exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I do remember wandering around Venice for the first time, winding through the tiny alleys, when suddenly, unexpectedly, we popped out into St. Mark's Square. I was unprepared and became so overwhelmed that I started crying and made Jason retreat with me, back into the alleys, until I could collect and mentally prepare myself for the moment.

When we went back into the square, I breathed it all in and tried to commit it to memory, this feeling of being in a new and amazing place for the first time, a place I wasn't sure I'd ever get to be and yet, somehow, seemingly miraculously, was.

Living in Italy is vastly different (in both very good and very challenging ways) than flying over and touring for two weeks, and I quickly began to understand (at least a bit) my friend's attitude.

When you daydream about sitting at an outdoor cafe sipping cappuccino, everything, of course, is perfect. But in reality, even at that outdoor cafe with your cappuccino, you've got jet-lag, or you've been walking for hours and your feet hurt and you're cursing yourself for bringing your cute shoes instead of your practical, comfortable shoes, or it's hot and you're sweaty and why is there no air conditioning anywhere, or you're annoyed with your traveling companion(s), or you're hungry, or you're frustrated that nobody seems to understand your attempts at the language, or you got an e-mail from a friend back home who's in crisis and you're distracted thinking about it.... you know, life-ness. Those everyday, mundane human concerns it's all-too-easy to get caught up in, whether you're at home or on the other side of the world; hunger, thirst, exhaustion, annoyance, discomfort, worry--oh, how they follow us, wherever we go.

Which isn't to say, of course, that you can't still have your moment, sipping your cappuccino and gazing around at how Italian everything is, how different from your normal life, how amazing it is to be here... you just have to pay more attention, working harder to listen through all the noise.

I love being pregnant. I've wanted to be here, in this series-of-moments, for oh-so-long and wasn't sure I'd ever get to be. And I've been lucky [knock-knock-knocking on wood] and am having a wonderful pregnancy. I'm trying to commit to memory these amazing moments as they happen, to slow down and breathe them in. I'm not sure I'll get to be pregnant again (although I'm already hoping I will be), so I'm trying to enjoy it as much as anyone possibly can.

Yet, life-ness happens. Exhaustion, hunger, worry, preoccupation, discomfort; they take up residence in the forefront of our brains so it's harder to see--or just easier to miss--the bigger, more amazing picture.

I get wrapped up in computer work or a project or [something/whatever] and my brain is fully occupied, thinking about formulas in Excel or my To Do list or how I can combine two different ring sling tutorial patterns to make exactly what I want (I have a bit of a tendency to become, shall we say, mentally immersed). And, wheels still turning in my brain, I walk into the bathroom and am greeted by a belly--a big, beautiful, pregnant belly--in the mirror...

or

I'm walking in downtown Portland, my hips hurting, wondering if I should find a chiropractor while I'm visiting here, and I catch someone looking at me and my belly and smiling...

or

I'm wading through e-mail and she suddenly kicks...

or

I'm getting dressed after a shower and see my bare belly in the mirror on the headboard...

....and I fall in love all over again.

I hate to admit it, but sometimes when I lived in Italy I was annoyed that life-ness got in the way of how I thought things would/could/should be.

Now, I'm so grateful for this life-ness that temporarily steals me away, allowing me to rediscover my joy and amazement and gratitude, over and over and over again in a thousand unexpected ways.

Tie-Dye Dude Gets It

2011-07-29T10:32:00.008-04:00

99 cent onesie

I stood, awkwardly, waiting for the Salvation Army cashier to wrap up the dishes I was buying. The guy behind me in line had only one item.

"I'm sorry you have to wait for me, I'd've let you go ahead of me if you'd been here before she started ringing me up."

"It's okay, I'm not in a hurry."

He was thin and scruffy, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and a crazy, unkempt beard. I could imagine him riding his bicycle around town all day and selling interesting weird things at street fairs.

Holding up the shorts he was going to buy he said, "I finally found a pair that fits me! It's hard to find ones that fit, they're all different."

"Oh, women's clothing is even harder, I have 4 different sizes in my closet that all fit. Well, they did before, anyway," with a little laugh and a gesture to show that "before" meant "before I was pregnant."

I stood, swaying slowly side to side, one hand on my belly, waiting for my purchases so I could go about my day, already thinking about where I needed to go next.

"Is the baby bothering you?"

Snapping back, "Hmm?"

"The baby, is it bothering you?" He looks down to my stomach and I realize he means because I've been rubbing my belly.

"Oh, no. [pause] I just like..." and I trail off, unsure of what to say, taking my bags from the cashier now.

"Falling in love?"

Thank you, Tie-Dye Dude. Yes, precisely.

28 Weeks--Part 2, Cravings

2011-07-26T07:30:00.001-04:00

One day, this was breakfast. Don't judge. Jonathan told me that putting bacon on my mashed potatoes made them more breakfasty. It certainly made them more delicious.

One night at about 14-15 weeks Lori mentioned corn-dogs on Facebook, and wouldn't you know that at 8 pm on a Sunday night I found myself driving to not one but two convenience stores (that's where I used to buy them as a kid) and finally ended up in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. I hadn't had a corn-dog in so long that I didn't even know you could buy them in the grocery store! Of course they only come in a box of 16; thanks a lot for mentioning corn-dogs, Lori! ;)

I can't believe I don't have a picture of the corn-dogs. It must've been the shame of buying and eating corn-dogs that prevented me from taking a photo of them. This photo, however, shows what happens when a pregnant lady goes to the store for Caesar salad. See it there in the back right?

Very early on (8-12 weeks) I had a few cravings that hit me hard but then passed once I gave in: deep fried dill pickles, which I had to Google to find locally and Jason kindly accompanied me clear across town for dinner to have; a cheeseburger with only and exactly bacon, avocado, and mayo on it; quiche, even though eggs sounded disgusting; waffles topped with berry compote and whipped cream, which I tried to avoid because Jason was gone and I didn't want to go to IHOP by myself, but it was all I could think about for three days so I finally gave in and made it at home.

For a few weeks very early I couldn't get enough chocolate milk. After that came a grape juice phase. I had a week of root beer float cravings, too. Then I had a serious Slurpee jones; it had been probably a dozen years since I'd had a Slurpee in normal, not-vacationing-in-Florida-visiting-Lori life, but for a while I couldn't get enough. I finally gave in and bought a Magic Bullet to make healthier versions at home, and now--naturally--the weather's cooled down a bit and I'm not craving them anymore. But I expect that will change when things heat up again. **It has heated back up and I'm not craving Slurpees. I've used the Magic Bullet only twice.**

The weirdest thing for me is that I now have a huge sweet tooth. Before, if given the option of almost any dessert or a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy I'd choose the salty carbs every time; the thought of eating a lot of icing on a piece of cake made me sick to my stomach. Now? I love and crave sweets. Megan said the same thing happened to her, and she went back to normal after she delivered her sweet Benton. So we'll see!

It's somewhat ironic that I'm ending this post this morning with three photos of sweets because I have my glucose tolerance test today so I'm avoiding sweets. Which naturally makes me want to have doughnuts and sweet tea for breakfast (neither of which I even have in the house, although I suppose I could make sweet tea. But I won't).

I'll post the final part of this tomorrow--with more baby bump photos! Assuming I take them today. *cough*

28 Weeks--Part 1

2011-07-25T07:20:00.012-04:00

Some other bloggers do weekly updates on their pregnancy--stats, symptoms, cravings, baby purchases, etc. Since this is the first time I'm doing this "pregnancy status report," I'm including past information as well (so it's long and I'm breaking it up into several posts). I realize this is boring information for most people, especially if you've been pregnant so this is all old hat to you or you have no interest in having a baby, but I want to document and remember these things--and what's a blog for if not that? I hope to continue to do these at least every other week--I wish I'd started right away, at the time I felt like I'd always remember every detail but of course I'm already forgetting. Better late than never. :) Also, I almost went around the house taking photos of relevant items like Tums and my body pillow just to have some photos in this post, but then I remembered I have 8 zillion things to do and you all know what Tums look like. So, long on words and short on photos, sorry!

How Far along? 28 weeks! That's 70% of the way! THIRD TRIMESTER, BABY!! :)

Size of the baby? The average size listed in books & etc is about 15 inches from head to heel, and 2 and a quarter pounds.

Any new symptoms? The very first "symptom" I had was a major shift in sleeping patterns. Normally I'm a total night owl and love to sleep in, but suddenly I was falling asleep on the couch at 8 pm and waking up--I mean, WIDE AWAKE--at 4 am. Even if we had something planned and I managed to keep myself awake until 10 pm, I'd still wake up at 3:30 or 4 am. This has varied a bit since then, and I'm not waking up that early, but 6 am is still pretty normal for me these days, even on days when we've stayed up the night before and I don't have anything I need to get up for. And when I'm tired it's not just like I'm tired, it's like I'm a mama grizzly bear that's been hit with a tranquilizer dart--I practically can't even talk coherently, and it's all I can do to get upstairs, take out my contacts, brush my teeth, and change my clothes before falling into bed. Now I try to go to bed way before I get that tired, but early on when I wasn't used to it yet Jason had to help me up to bed a few times.

I didn't really ever suffer morning sickness, I just had a very touchy stomach and I only wanted to eat carbs (and carbs and more carbs and more more more carbs). I almost never eat cereal for breakfast but I went through five boxes in the first few months, not to mention potatoes, popcorn, crackers, etc, etc, etc. I only threw up a couple of times and both were right after I'd taken my prenatal vitamin. I discovered that I can take it at night even on an empty stomach and it doesn't bother me, but taking it in the morning was a recipe for disaster. I also have a very strong gag reflex now, and made myself throw up once by brushing my tongue exactly like I always have. Fun!

For a few weeks I felt like a superhero whose superpower was smelling; I could smell flowers from across the room, and when Jason worked on his motorcycle in the garage I could smell oil and gasoline in the entire house. I wouldn't let Jason cook eggs because I could smell them all day. Pre-pregnancy I ate eggs for breakfast almost every morning, but as soon as I got pregnant (and I knew almost immediately) they became, well... let's just say unappetizing. For a while, just thinking about them or seeing them on TV made me sick to my stomach. I've eaten them a few times since, but for the most part I avoid them, and I don't even have any in the house.

I was pretty much exhausted for the first four months or so, and took naps almost every day for a while. On the days I didn't take a nap I had to at least have an hour of rest in the afternoon where I wasn't doing anything--no internet, no reading, no TV even. I found what I call the "in-between," when I'd lay down to take a nap and just lay there, feeling awake and thinking about things but happy to be laying down with my eyes closed... and then I'd wake up in a big puddle of drool, so obviously I'd actually been sleeping... I think? My energy came (is coming?) back slowly--some women say they wake up one day and feel like their old selves again, full of energy, but that didn't happen with me. Some days I'm still tired, not like I didn't get enough sleep but just like my body's telling me to rest. I listen, and I still take a nap about once a week.

"Baby brain" struck early. I remember I was making two little matching mini-scrapbooks, one for Jason and one for me, and I was trying to decide which colors to use that best represent each of us. I chose turquoise for mine (which I love and use for all my Create Beauty Daily packaging), but couldn't decide at all for Jason's. I thought about it for a couple days--red for his Ducati? blue for his eyes and because the color looks so good on him?--until I finally just asked him. He looked at me with a "Seriously?" expression, and it suddenly hit me--duh, ORANGE. He's a third-generation Oregon State (Beavers) alum and when I do laundry I often have an entire load of oranges. His closet is filled with orange. He avoids forest green--especially when it's with yellow--because those are the colors of the rival University of Oregon (Ducks). Orange is so obviously the color choice for Jason that this was the first and is the perfect example to me of just how powerful baby brain can be. Now I write everything down because I know I'll never remember it like I used to be able to. I'm an excellent speller but I'll have a complete mental block about how to spell something or, worse, just totally misspell words while I'm typing without even noticing it until hours later (so please forgive the inevitable typos here). And I have occasional pure-baby-brain moments. I used to be smart, I swear.

My skin has changed, too. Early on I got small breakouts on my upper back/neck/shoulders (but nowhere else--weird). A lot of my moles are puffy now, or even puffier than they were before... I've had them looked at and it's fine, just a normal reaction due to hormonal changes. I've developed little pink & red spider-veins all up & down my arms & hands and a few on my chest, one or two on my face. I'm not sure if it's because I'm older and care less, or because Jason tells me I'm beautiful at least once a day, or just because I'm so thrilled to be pregnant, but they don't bother me at all, even the ones on my face. Even if they don't go away after delivery. Oh well. On the bright side, my skin is a lot less oily than it usually is!

I don't want to go into detail here, but let's just say that there are a lot of normal changes that might happen to a woman's breasts ~~and nipples~~ when she gets pregnant and YEP, I have those. Jason's joke is that he can shape his hand like he's palming a basketball and it will fit on my body in a great many places these days. Curves, I have 'em (and he loves 'em).

I've had a few issues with my feet & ankles swelling (edema), but I have it fairly under control. I try to put my feet up whenever I'm sitting down; I wear socks and tennis shoes or Converse instead of flip-flops when I'm out and about (thanks to Chiara for the tip); I drink an obscene amount of water; I wear compression socks at night if I have any swelling at all that day (thanks to my neighbor Maren for giving me the socks, formerly part of her son's Pilgrim costume for a school performance, ha!).

I'm so thankful for my neti pot because I have what about 30% of pregnant women suffer; "rhinitis of pregnancy." Basically it means that I feel stuffed-up all the time, even though I can't blow my nose because there's nothing much in there, just swollen mucous membranes. No big deal, just kind of annoying sometimes to be such a mouth-breather, ha ha, and it means I snore sometimes at night.

Of course I knew that pregnant women have to pee a lot, but it surprised me to discover that this happens (or can happen) early as a result of hormonal changes (plus I was drinking a lot more water). From very early on I was awake at least once in the middle of the night, which was very, very unusual for me--I almost never had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night before. I still remember waking up and walking to the bathroom in the dark, with my hand on my (mostly-flat) belly and a huge smile on my face. I never minded getting out of bed in the middle of the night because that meant that things were going well, I was still pregnant, Hello, baby in my belly, I love you, please please stay. I honestly loved and treasured every single early symptom... just thinking and writing about those first middle-of-the-night bathroom trips is bringing tears to my eyes. I'm so grateful. Now I'm waking up between one and four times a night to go to the bathroom. And I still don't mind.

For about the first 5 months I felt even more emotionally and hormonally balanced than I usually do. I'm still pretty calm and rational most of the time, but it catches up to me every once in a while now for the past couple weeks. Did you know that when pregnant, a woman creates about the same amount of estrogen that she normally produces in an entire month during her normal cycle... every. single. DAY!?! I mean, think of the last time that you had a PMS-y day or two... and then figure that you have more hormones than that rushing through your bloodstream every day when you're pregnant. It's kind of mind-boggling, actually. So I suppose it's only normal that every once in a while that catches up to me and I cry for nearly no reason or suddenly feel that everything is URGENT OMG! When it's happening I know that it's happening, I know that it's hormonal, I know that it's not rational, and yet this knowledge makes not one tiny bit of difference in the way that I'm feeling. I'm beginning to learn that I need to not talk on the phone, or e-mail, or basically communicate with anyone other than Jason or my best friend from high school, Lisa; they're the only ones I can talk to without hearing judgement seeping through their words. And feeling judged only makes it ten times worse. [Judgement and unsolicited bossy "advice" are a hot topic for me lately, but that's a whole different post.] For the most part, though, and 97% of the time, I feel great and wonderful and oh-so-happy (and I'm learning to deal better with the other 3%). **I started writing part of this series of posts a few weeks ago and things have already changed again, I feel more like I did the first 5 months and the hormonal craziness has almost completely dropped off. Knocking on wood.**

The most recent weird "symptom" was when I drank a ton of water one day a few weeks ago (okay, I drink a ton of water every day, but I drank an asinine amount that day) and my belly button was sticking out more than usual. When I pushed on it it made weird gurgling, bubbling sounds like there was air trapped in my belly button and I'd squish it out when I pressed on it. Jason could hear it, too. Crazy.

Oh, and heartburn? Yes. I carry peppermint Tums with me at all times and have three bottles spread throughout the house.

I've been going through my old tweets to remind myself of when things happened and I'm glad I have these "notes" to jog my memory. A couple things I forgot to mention: I had some crazy, crazy dreams, especially early on. I had a few nights where I woke up with total night-sweats, I had to completely change clothes and the sheets were so wet that Jason woke up and thought I'd wet the bed! Apparently I had a lot of headaches in months 2-4, I tweeted about it several times. I also had really, really bad allergies for a while (which I don't usually have) and I do remember that quite well.

This post is all about symptoms, so if it sounds like I'm complaining then let me state for the record: I love being pregnant. I loooooove it. I hope I get to do it again, but in case I don't I'm trying to savor every moment, every kick, every moment of exhaustion that reminds me I'm growing a baby. I can already tell I'm going to miss being pregnant (but then I will have a new squishy baby to love on, squeeee!). Jason told me last night, out of the blue as I was walking into the kitchen, "We need to get you pregnant again, you look so good pregnant." If that doesn't make a pregnant woman want to have four more babies I don't know what will.

Come back tomorrow for a post about cravings and more! With photos! :) Oh, and if you got this far, I love you. xoxo

8 Weeks

2011-06-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

The photo on the left was taken April 13th, when I was 13 weeks 2 days pregnant. It's been my Facebook profile photo since then so if we're Facebook friends you've probably seen it. The photo on the right was taken last Monday on June 13th, when I was 22 weeks along.

Both were taken in the upstairs landing of our house, in a big mirror propped against the wall (our bedroom doors are closed behind us). I was wearing the same tank top and yoga capris in both photos. The biggest difference between the two is that in the one on the left, I'm about to drive Jason to the airport to fly far away for work, and in the one on the right, he'd only recently come home. He was gone for 8 weeks (and two days, but who's counting?) (I was totally counting.).

I didn't post online that he was gone because a) I'm pregnant and ~~paranoid~~ cautious, ~~b) it's not too hard to find out where I live,~~ c) I watch too many crime & forensics shows, d) I have a very active imagination, e) all of the above.

But I'm very [very very very very very] happy to have him home now; absence makes the heart grow fonder may be cliche but it's really so true. I keep wanting to post things about how glad I am that he's back and experiencing this pregnancy with me, so I figured I should explain that he was gone. :)

The opportunity for Jason to work on this big project overseas came up at the end of last year, and for several reasons we decided that he should take it. My biggest worry about him being gone was that we'd miss two cycles for trying to conceive; I joked that he could go if he got me pregnant before he left. He kept his end of that bargain, so I had to keep mine. :)

All in all, 8 weeks apart wasn't too bad. I'm a pretty independent person anyway, so the first week he was gone just felt like vacation--cereal for dinner! laundry just once a week! the whole bed to myself! the kitchen counter stays clean! The second week was the hardest; one morning I woke up and realized that I hadn't had any physical contact with anyone for nine days, and I just cried and cried, practically aching from touch deprivation. And then I put on my big girl panties and booked myself a 90-minute prenatal massage, guilt-free.

Luckily, Jason and I were able to video-chat nearly every day and we talked on the phone most of the days we couldn't video. I kept myself so busy (with my artist workshop, visiting friends, and prepping for and attending jewelry shows) that the time flew by and I didn't even get to tackle the home projects I wanted to work on while he was gone. He used to be military, so it's not like we haven't done this before (for much, much longer). And we've been married for 11 years now (and best friends for 13), so our communication skills are pretty darn good; we've worked hard at it and I'm proud of where + how + who we are together. That helped a lot.

He had a ~~great~~ fine time, got some great experience, met some great people ~~(and a couple dirtbags~~), and he's glad to be back. Since he's been home Bebe Girl has started moving like crazy. He felt her move last week (while we were watching My Cousin Vinny of all things) and then yesterday he saw her move, from across the room--she was kicking and one part of my belly kept bulging out. WILD. Awesome. Amazing. Beautiful.

I'm so glad he's home.

It's a....

2011-06-14T19:19:00.004-04:00

girl!!!

Which Gender is Bebe Yates?

2011-06-13T19:36:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd do a gender poll just for fun. :) If there's a reason you think it's one or the other, please comment and let me know!

Half-Baked

2011-05-30T20:18:00.007-04:00

When I first saw those two pink lines, I wasn't overwhelmed with a feeling of, "This is it, we're having a baby!" I was happy, naturally, and excited, but it was a cautious optimism. When I told Jason, he said something to the effect of it being "the first step," and I knew exactly what he meant. For us, getting pregnant was one little step towards actually having a baby.

I wonder what it would be like to be in ignorant bliss when you find out you're pregnant; to just assume with your whole heart and mind that two pink lines will equal a baby in about nine months. Of course I'll never know, because I've known the heartbreak of loss. I have friends who've experienced heartbreak in ways I hope I can never truly comprehend and come through the other side (with happy, healthy babies now in their arms, or on the way); they've served as such wonderful support throughout this journey, but knowing the tragic things that happened to them, far along in their pregnancies, is sobering to say the least. I take nothing for granted.

As I was journaling in those first few days, three words kept popping up so I made them my mantra... "Be positive, calm, and hopeful." Some days I think I said it a thousand times. My mind would drift and I'd pull it back to where I knew it should be, where and how I should be for both myself and the baby; positive, calm, and hopeful.

Still, as joyful as I was, it felt like I was waiting for things to come crashing down around me (again). I went to the bathroom many more times a day than I needed to, just to check that I wasn't bleeding. Every twinge made me stop in my tracks, waiting to see if it would turn into cramps, as I willed my abdominal muscles to relax and concentrated on providing a safe and welcoming place for our baby to be and grow.

Every day that things stayed the same felt like a tiny step taken.

Because of our history of loss & infertility, I had early ultrasounds. At six weeks we saw that the baby was implanted where it was supposed to be, and I breathed a little sigh of relief. Another step closer.

At seven weeks, we saw a tiny flicker-flicker-flicker and heard the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a heartbeat. Amazing, and another big step closer.

At nine weeks, the baby was continuing to grow as he/she should and my blood tests were a-okay and I was put on the normal pregnant lady schedule for appointments, as opposed to the "we'd better keep an eye on this one" schedule. One more step.

At thirteen weeks I had my first trimester screening, where they do a more advanced ultrasound to measure certain things and gauge the risk for chromosomal abnormalities. Bebe got rave reviews and was determined very low risk; my blood test came back the following week and moved Bebe's risk down to very, very low risk. Two more steps!

Gradually, I'm feeling more and more like things will actually work out and we'll have a baby in October; it almost feels too good to be true. I'm finding that less and less I'm qualifying things with, "assuming everything continues to go well," and instead I'm just assuming that everything will continue to go well. It's a peaceful feeling.

And now. Now, I'm 20 weeks. Halfway there. The bun in the oven is half-baked. There's still a long way to go (which will fly by), and every once in a while I still need to remind myself to be positive, calm, and hopeful. But 20 weeks feels like a big step closer.

It's definitely a big something, anyway. :)

Does this mean I'm "carrying high"? It certainly doesn't feel like it could get any higher.

Look, I managed to take a full-length photo of myself with my DSLR! (Here's an out-take from this photo session that shows how awful I am at this game. And is kind of hilarious. Maybe just to me.)

I realize that it kind of looks like I'm arching my lower back to push out my butt and belly, but I assure you, that's my actual ass. And belly for that matter.

We have our second trimester screening on June 14th, and I am so excited to see Bebe again on the fancy ultrasound. Hopefully, in addition to being healthy and passing all the tests, so to speak, he or she will feel like sharing and we'll get to find out whether Bebe is a he or a she. I'm excited to share that moment with Jason, to experience the wave of emotions that will come with either answer, and to maybe be surprised by what I/we feel. I'm excited to be able to use a single pronoun when referring to Bebe! There's so much I'm excited for. :)

Thank you for all the support here and on Twitter and Facebook and by e-mail; I can't tell you what it's meant to me. Now, let's have 20 more weeks or so, shall we?

A Different Ending (Just One More Thing)

2011-03-08T12:21:00.007-05:00

[This is the final "bonus" post of a series of catch-up blog posts covering the past year I've spent not-blogging. Here are all the links for the previous posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6. And if you want to know why this is such a big deal, please read this post.]

She had just one more thing to add...

[Our due date is October 17th.]

A Different Ending (Part 6)

2011-03-06T17:00:00.001-05:00

[This is the 6th and final part of a series of catch-up blog posts covering the past year I've spent not-blogging. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here, Part 4 can be found here, and Part 5 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued....

She decided to choose One Little Word like she's done before. Two years ago she chose Cultivate, and she considered just using that again because there is so much she wants to get done this year, so much she wants to work on and so many projects she wants to do. But it didn't feel quite right.

She thought long and hard about it, and tried many words on for size but none fit very well. She wanted a word that signified the process of {something}, because she is very much in the process of so much in her life. In a season of flux.

She's kind of in love with Brené Brown and her books and TED talks and this post on her blog and the whole philosophy of being enough just as you are, not when you lose ten pounds or earn your degree or find an eye cream that actually works or learn French or get married or move into a bigger house [or get pregnant or have a baby]--you are enough right now. [This. Very. Minute.] She is not quite there yet, but she wants to be, she is trying and striving towards believing that she is enough and whole and complete just as she is. That she is a whole and complete woman, whether or not she is able to bear children. That she and her husband are a whole and complete family, whether or not they have children (not to mention however and whenever and from wherever children arrive). She is in the process of trying to feel like that complete person, just as she is, so there is only one word for her this year.

[It also conveniently encapsulates all of the home and art and life projects she wants to work into completion this year.]

She started running with her husband again (much needed after the gluttony of the holidays). [She feels it necessary to tell you that her husband runs much, much faster than she does, but he slows down to run with her because it is such amazing quality time for them.] She even found, buried in her basket of gloves in the hall closet, the pair of gloves that she used to run in in high school, a zillion years ago. Her high school colors were green and ~~gold~~ yellow so she bought two pairs and cross-matched them (because that was cool in the early 90's--shut up). She has no idea how this pair followed her from high school to college to Las Vegas to Ohio to Oregon to Italy to Virginia throughout 17 years, but there they were right in the place all her other pairs of gloves live. [She wishes the rest of her life and home were organized so well.]

She was still in Hibernation Mode and was trying to take it easy on herself, so whenever she got the urge to forget the To Do list for an hour or a day and play with paper and glue and paints and inks, she did.

She found berry garlands marked 90% off at JoAnn's and decided that red berries were perfectly suited to winter and Valentine's Day and she made wreaths for the front door and the pantry door. [She just accidentally typed "panty door" and couldn't stop laughing for several seconds, imagining just what that would be.]

She accepted a job getting two little girls off to school every weekday morning. One day they had a 2-hour delay due to snow, so she brought over crafts for them to do together. Much later that day she found gold glitter stuck to her favorite black sweater and, to her surprise because she is very careful about things getting on her, it made her ridiculously, inexplicably happy. She felt it was a sign from the universe that she would feel this precise kind of happiness again, and that gave her a distinct feeling of what she can only describe as Peace.

She went on a date with her husband, concluded with a trip to Total Wine where they spent most of the $100 gift card she won for being their 1000th "Like" on Facebook. [Social media FTW!]

They had a new water heater installed and it has a remote control. This is impossibly fancy to her, that she can stand in her upstairs bathroom and request, from the water heater in the basement, an exact temperature of water for her shower or bath and then that's what comes out of her taps. It's like the future has arrived. [And it's in her bathroom.]

[She is thankful that she finds wonder in small things.]

She met up with her ~~Wine and~~ Cheese Club, perhaps her favorite "club membership" and definitely the "meetings" she most refuses to ever miss (although the three other "members" are amazing and will reschedule until all four of them can attend, so missing is not really an issue).

She wore indigo and violet wool socks, just because they made her happy.

She was kind of addicted to shopping at Marshall's and buying fancy foods there.

She loves olives.

One day, out of nowhere, she decided to try to clean the inside of the oven door. There were long drippy streaks of milk inside the glass from a day long ago when she spilled milk (she didn't cry over it) across the counter and the stove and it dripped down inside the oven door. Not on the inside of the door like when you open the oven, but the inside in between the two panes of glass.

She was completely shocked to find that it's the easiest thing in the world to take apart and clean, and she wondered why she hadn't done it ages and ages ago. She decided that next time something seemed like it would be a huge pain, she'd just go ahead and try it because maybe it was just as simple as two screws on an oven door.

She took an online class and the class was encouraged to think of the negative mantras they tell themselves and to come up with new mantras. She journaled about it (as they were encouraged to do) and when she re-read what she'd written the same three words kept popping up over and over. So she adopted her new mantra, "Be positive, calm, and hopeful," and she said it to herself about seventy-thirteen times per day when sneaky fears would pop into her mind (which happens a lot). It helped, a lot. [It's still helping a lot.]

It snowed and snowed, but luckily not like it did last year. This snowman was the highlight of her day one day, though. Thanks, neighbors!

She and her husband went out for tapas with Danny and Sophie and Erin and John, and then across the street to an Irish bar. [She is past the age where people jostling her about in a bar is okay with her.]

Fisheye lens + flash in a dark bar = vignetting ~~and Danny's eyes closed~~.

She bought herself flowers, and she discovered that her camera has an entire set of filters that she didn't know about.

She became addicted to Dexter.

She watched her amaryllis (which she bought at Marshall's) bloom, and bloom, and bloom, and bloom.

She took self-portraits in her guest bathroom. [All of her online photos were years old and she felt they represented the Then Her instead of the Now Her. And so very much has happened between Then and Now, she's not quite the same person.]

Smiling into a mirror and taking photos of herself was kind of a big deal for her.

She had brunch with a friend she hadn't seen for seven years, back when they both lived in Ohio.

She used her Silhouette to cut all different shapes and colors of paper hearts, and she strung them across her kitchen because she thought it would be awesome (and it was).

She took joy in the first early signs of Spring.

Her husband indulged her craving for ~~not cooking~~ Mexican food one night.

She and her husband decided this is the year for the completion of some projects--big & small--in the house. He replaced a ceiling fan. She spent time organizing her basement (her fabric cabinet is shown below). He ripped up the ~~nasty~~ carpeting on the stairs and landing to see just how much of a pain it will be to put in hardwoods. [Verdict: DIY-able but a total pain.]

[She is tempted to just fix them up a bit and paint them like this, instead.]

She made a shadowbox full of a rainbow of paper flowers, just because she felt like it.

She has lived in the DC area for three and a half years and she finally went to Five Guys for the first time. [Thanks to @MeganBoley and @Tristina_Wright talking about bacon cheeseburgers all the ding-dang live-long day on Twitter that day.]

She ordered silver chains and charms for a jewelry show she has coming up soon (and for Mother's Day and her Inspired even in May, which will be here before she knows it). It cost ~~almost a thousand dollars~~ a crap-ton of money, and when it arrived it all came packaged inside a sandwich-sized zipper bag. Not even close to full, either. She tried not to have a heart attack and reminded herself that you have to spend money to make money (and she prayed and crossed her fingers).

She went out for a fancy dinner with her husband, and the men at the next table sounded like Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard. She marveled again how she is living on the edge, the very boundary between Washington DC and The North, and people who sound like Boss Hogg and The South (she is aware that not all people from The South sound like Boss Hogg). It is a weird, weird place to live sometimes. Fascinating, to be sure; but weird, too.

She [re-]learned that she should stay true to what she wants to do, and doing things just because people ask her to and she wants to be accommodating does not always work out. It's okay to say, "Let me think about it (or try it out) and get back to you with my answer." She will try to remember this lesson.

She caught up on her blog and looked at photos from the past year and is amazed at just how fast time has passed. She felt vulnerable and unsure but practiced authenticity and just putting herself out there, and hoped that kind souls would find her and accept her as she is. They (you!) did and do and are.

She is so, so very glad to be back.

A Different Ending (Part 5)

2011-03-05T11:00:00.007-05:00

[This is Part 5 of a series of 6 (I think). Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here, and Part 4 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued....

When she flew home from Orlando it felt exactly like someone had flipped a switch from summer to fall. She loves fall. Fall colors, and turtlenecks and sweaters and knee-high boots and corduroy and tweed. But especially fall colors.

Driving in the rain one day, she saw her favorite license plate ever. She is somewhat of a license plate connoisseur and her previous favorite had held the record for many years, so this was kind of a big deal. She pulled out her handheld camera and snapped without looking, hoping for a decent shot.

She says this several times a trip when she has to drive any distance here in Northern Virginia. "OhmuhGahd goooooooooooo!"

She and her husband decided to give their German friends, Danny and Sophie, an American experience by taking them to a corn maze.

As it turns out, Danny and Sophie had already been to that exact corn maze a few weeks before, but they all had fun anyway.

Afterward they went ~~wine drinking~~ wine tasting at a local winery and had even more fun.

She celebrated Thanksgiving with her husband at Danny and Sophie's house, and they all ate way too much food ~~and drank a little too much wine and beer~~.

They played Wii, she fell in love with a Snuggie, they played Loaded Questions, and they laughed A LOT.

A few weeks later they went to a Christmas Market hosted by the German Military (for whom Danny works). It was great and made them miss European Christmas Markets so very much.

She continued making jewelry-jewelry-jewelry just as fast as she could.

Christ in the Center custom necklace.

She came out with some new designs.

She fulfilled custom orders and made ready-made pieces for her show stock.

Stamped & oxidized, before polishing & finishing.

She purchased a table at a brand-new Christmas Bazaar hosted by a local private school. She was still fairly nervous since this was really her first season doing shows, but she did really, really well, and was so happy and proud of herself for all her hard work. She loved connecting with everyone who loved her work, and it made her heart glad.

She showed for the first time, too, at a very cool show called Chick's Picks, where Hillary turns her home into a very very cool store for three days at a time. Artists bring their work and Hillary sets it all up in her house like an amazing boutique and women come in droves to shop. Because this artist features custom work, she was asked to come and take custom orders for one of the three days. Her table was in a corner in the basement. She had a lot of fun talking to customers

and shopping. And even though she was in a corner in the basement, she did very well.

Between the custom orders from her shows and from Etsy, she was working between 14 and 17 hours per day, 7 days per week, for the first two weeks of December.

She was glad and grateful for the business, but she was tired.

With the last of her orders dropped at the post office on the way to the airport, she and her husband were once again traveling to--where else?--Oregon.

They flew Delta because they ~~are idiots~~ ~~haven't learned their lesson~~ ~~are masochists~~ had some miles they could put towards the tickets. It took them a long time, but eventually they made it to Oregon, where everything seemed better because her mom had made butter cookies.

But it wasn't time to relax, no, not for her, not by a long shot! She was hosting two days of Open House jewelry shows at her parents'! She got to see a lot of old friends and somehow, magically, people trickled in and trickled out so it was never crazy and never dead and she got to chat and fulfill custom orders while people waited. It was kind of perfect!

That night she went on a double-date with her husband and his cousin Brad and his wife Ingrid. They went out for Peruvian food for dinner, and then they went to see an awesome taping of Live Wire, a Portland live-audience radio show. It was a tremendous amount of fun and made her want to live in Portland because it is such a cool city.

Even though it was less than a week before Christmas, she was still fulfilling last-minute custom orders because ~~she's a sucker~~ she's super nice and loves her customers. She took over her parents' dining table [and kept waiting for her dad to throw a fit but he never did].

Somehow, she managed to write their Christmas letter [it was not as good as in previous years and she wanted to rewrite it as soon as she finished it, but instead she just hit print and stopped thinking about it, mostly, except it kind of still bugs her] and got it copied and folded and stuffed and stamped and dropped them all in the mail.

The next day she headed into Portland to meet up with her husband (who'd spent the previous few days with his family) and go to their favorite Portland places. They had lunch at Kells

and they shopped at the Portland Saturday Market's "Festival of the Last Minute," where she bought some gorgeous handmade glass beads. Then they headed up to the very best bookstore in the world, and then over to Deschutes Brewery. [She would very much like to hear you all attempt to pronounce Deschutes.]

Pretty soon it was time to go to the home of Jenny (her husband's cousin-ish), where there was a big family reunion of their generation of cousin-ishes (maybe second cousins? Third? Second-once-removed? She cannot recall, can never remember, will not ask again).

[It was very fun and everyone is very nice, but she is an introvert and at a certain point would have very much liked to go play Legos with the kids in the other room. She may or may not have spent ten minutes hiding out in the bathroom, tweeting with friends on her phone.]

The next day she went wine tasting to many wineries with some of her husband's family.

The following day was a mostly quiet day at her in-laws' home, and she spent it catching up online and recharging and making earrings from some of the handmade beads she just bought at Saturday Market.

She decided she liked them so much that she called the artist (they had exchanged information) and set up a time to come buy more beads the next day, on Christmas Eve morning! She bought a lot more beads and hopes the glass artist sets up her online wholesale site like she's intending.

Then they went over to her parents' house for their annual Christmas Eve party. Somehow she managed to not take a single photo of the gathering! But she enjoyed her parents' homemade clam chowder, and the barbecued salmon that her dad caught and cleaned and cooked, and all of the other yummy treats her family enjoys every year on Christmas Eve. [It never feels like Christmas Eve to her without homemade clam chowder.] And she visited with cousins, and met her cousin's fiancé, and hung out with her favorite aunt (who used to live in Northern Virginia and now lives in Oregon), and missed her sister's family (who can almost never come home at Christmas because she's a nurse and her husband's a pastor).

Later that evening after everyone else left, her family exchanged presents. Her husband gave her a very cool fisheye lens, so of course she had to test it out right away.

Those are her purple-pajama'd knees at the bottom of the photo.

Then, like most photography buffs who get a new lens, she ~~over-~~used it on everything, including breakfast the next morning. This breakfast is called Froobles, and it is a family thing and tradition and kind of weird but also awesome. She had it every Christmas and every Easter (and some other times, too) when she was growing up, and having it on Christmas morning at her parents' house makes her happy in a place deep inside, in a tucked-away spot in her heart reserved for reliving family traditions.

After breakfast they got ready and headed over to her husband's aunt and uncle's house for their big family gathering. She was put in charge of the salad.

She kind of loves this photo.

Everyone ate and then she took a photo of the table because they wanted to see how wide-angle the lens was.

After lunch everyone plays games until dinner, and after dinner everyone plays more games. Mexican Train is very popular. [She feels it necessary to say that they did not make up the name.]

As is Pinochle. She tries to make sure she's not standing around when they are trying to put together a game. [She's not very good and they are serious about their games; she doesn't like to let her partner down.]

While the grownups are playing games, all of the kiddos hang out and run around and play in the middle of the floor.

At some point, all of the middle generation of cousins and significant others might actually be in the same place at the same time, and everyone is rounded up for the annual group photo. Getting everyone to look at the same camera at the same time is like herding cats; she supposes that they are all actually in the photo is miracle enough.

The gaming continues and continues. This year they played a card game one of the cousins invented, and it was totally fun. Then she took advantage of the family sauna, and then showered and changed into pajamas and slippers (since her luggage was in the car). Properly ~~buzzed and~~ relaxed, her introvert self fell asleep in a back bedroom. She was woken up around midnight to drive home to her in-laws' house, where she exchanged gifts with her husband's parents and sister ~~in a semi-zombie-like state~~.

The next morning when she woke up and got ready to head over to another aunt's house for their annual Ladies' Tea, she realized that she left all of her jewelry and her only shoes in the changing room outside the sauna. Whoooooops. Luckily that aunt hadn't left her house yet and brought everything with her to the Tea. In the meantime, she wore her slippers.

The Ladies' Tea was lovely, as it always is. They ate delicious fancy cheese and pear sandwiches, and cranberry scones with lemon curd, and curried chicken and pasta salad, and drank fancy teas, and sampled fancy desserts.

They all exchanged small gifts, and chatted & chatted & chatted. It's always a highlight of Christmastime.

The next day she re-packed suitcases, and packed boxes full of whatever didn't fit (which was a lot) and mailed them to herself, because it was time to leave home (where she's from) and fly home (where she lives).

They had quite an adventure getting home because, after all, they did fly Delta ~~which might possibly be run by the devil's minions~~. She will not recount it here, but suffice it to say that 1) by the time they arrived home they had a collection of twenty-six different boarding passes (not all used, of course) to get them back and forth across the country, and 2) the priority mail box she shipped herself almost beat them home. [And then they signed up for a different credit card rewards program because they are just done-done-done with Delta.]

When she arrived home she did what she usually does after a Christmas in Oregon. She slipped into hibernation/recharge mode, and once she had quiet and time to think, she lamented ~~and beat herself up for~~ her fierce introversion, which becomes a problem sooner or later every Christmas. She laments that she is physically-mentally-emotionally-psychologically unable to keep up with the scheduling demands and socializing and huge groups of people, but she is a people pleaser and her very extroverted husband loves it, so she tries and sooner or later her brain is totally overwhelmed and can't take one more thing, and she snaps.

She does not like to snap, but it happens, and then she is embarrassed and frustrated and she doesn't know how to stop the cycle. She imagines what people think of her when they see her snap, and she wants to fold in on herself. Sometimes she get angry, because she tries to plan ahead, she makes requests for her needs (and they are needs, not wants) to be accommodated, to leave at a certain time... but in the thrill of the party it's "one more game" or "one more drink" or "ten more minutes" (which turns into hours). So she feels neglected and dismissed and misunderstood and angry.

She wonders if it will ever be different, or if it will always be this way. She feels frustrated and sad, and she wants Christmas to be wonderful and relaxing and not stressful. She wonders if this is delusional, if anyone experiences a not-stressful Christmas. She feels ridiculous and ashamed that she is loved by so many people that it is too many (or just too many all at once) for her and she feels selfish for needing and wanting to be loved in a different way. She vows to do things differently next year, to take care of herself better, although she's not sure how; she knows something's gotta give but she doesn't know what.

She tries to cut herself some slack and accept herself the way she is. She sinks happily, lovingly, deeper into her annual much-needed, post-Christmas hibernation.

At some point in early January she turns on the CD player in her bathroom as she steps into the shower, and Christmas music--leftover from before her trip--starts to play. She realizes, suddenly in a tidal wave that hits her smack in the face and rains down hard over her, that in her busy-ness, her preparing so many gifts of jewelry for other people to give, her checking Christmas things off her never-ending To Do lists, her working whenever she was awake and never taking a minute to stop and breathe, she never once felt the Christmas Spirit, not for a moment. She cries in the shower, and she makes a vow.

Somehow, somehow, somehow, next Christmas, things will be different.

A Different Ending (Part 4)

2011-03-03T19:45:00.002-05:00

[This is Part 4 of a series of I'm not sure how many yet. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, and Part 3 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued...

When she got back from Oregon (again), daily life got back to mostly normal (whatever that means). She continued her volunteer position with her sorority alumnae association, keeping track of members and creating a Directory.

She went to the chiropractor every two weeks (because have you seen her spine?).

She went to the Korean Spa once a month or so because ~~she had Groupons for it~~ she loooooooves it and it makes her happy.

It's a naked spa so the only place she could take a photo was in the empty bathroom.

She explored Virginia and went wine tasting.

She kept up on her book club...

... and her other book club.

She happily attended "~~Wine and~~ Cheese Club" with three great friends

Three of these hands belong to Andrea, Elizabeth, and BJ.

and hung out with friends from the Avon Walk

With Robyn & Lindsay.

and her alumnae association

With HeidiAnne & Cortney.

and her neighborhood.

She started running again, with her dear sweet husband, and they talked and talked

Yes, that is a running skirt.

and fell even more in love and had fun no matter what they were doing, even brushing their teeth.

She was also very busy making jewelry, lots and lots of jewelry, because she was offered the chance to set up a table at a local high-end salon. It happened to be on her birthday.

It was a lot of work to prepare for, and it went okay, but not really well enough to justify sitting at a table for eight hours on her birthday. This made her sad. So her husband took her out for a nice dinner, and just when things were starting to look up for her and her smile was coming back, she somehow managed to bump over an empty glass, and in attempting to catch it she knocked both the glass and a ginormous bottle of Crystal hot sauce onto the tile floor, shattering the glass and the hot sauce.

Everyone looked at her. Everyone. [She doesn't like everyone looking at her.]

So she burst into tears and started laughing and said, "And it's my birthday!"

Nice people came and talked to her and the crying decreased and the laughing increased and she drank dark beer and coffee with Bailey's and ate crème brûlée

and then went into the bar and a couple people bought her shots of chilled Patrón (her first time but not her last) and all was right with the world, for that night.

But the truth was that she wasn't really sad about the eight birthday hours spent sitting at a table, or the broken hot sauce splattered all over the tile, or the people (who turned out to be quite nice, after all) all looking at her.

What she was really sad about was that she was now that number, that number that is in all the books and all the articles and all the everything that had haunted her and served as her goal for so long now.

She was 35. And not pregnant.

So, she took it easy on herself the next day. She did whatever she wanted, and that afternoon what she wanted was to take a 3+ hours long, hot hot hot bath, and text her husband whenever she needed more wine or ice water and he would bring it right up with a smile and a kiss. And that's exactly what happened.

And slowly she convinced herself that whether she had gotten pregnant at 34 years and 9 months or would get pregnant at 35 years and 3 months, it was just numbers. Nothing magically happened to her on that birthday that made her more or less likely to get pregnant than she was the month before or the month after.

She breathed a little easier and her heart felt a little lighter.

The next day, Friday, her husband had off of work, so they went into DC to go to the zoo.

She had a lot of fun, and smiled and laughed a lot.

Then she packed her bags and headed to Orlando! This trip was her birthday present. She knew that she would be sad about her birthday so she booked a trip to see the friend she always has a blast with, who would take her mind off of 35andnotpregnant.

Their time together ~~sometimes~~ ~~often~~ ~~usually~~ always involves drinking

At Lori's "Book Club."

and eating junk food, so they got right on that like they usually do.

She hadn't had a slurpee for about twelve years.

This time, unlike their other visits together, her friend's husband and three boys were home. So in addition to eating and drinking together, they did things like baking cupcakes and volunteering in a third grade classroom to do the Halloween craft. She had forgotten how LOUD third grade is.

These are totally organic.

She even got to work in the concession stand for a football game, while her friend was busy being the Team Mom.

After the game the team went out to eat, and she got fried pickles. She loves fried pickles. And good beer. She loves good beer, too.

Later that night she went out for Girls' Night with her friend's best friends (now her friends, too).

With Lori, Anke, and Allison.

They ate tapas and drank wine and beer

and then went across the street to a dessert place. The other ladies told such funny stories about their lives and kids and husbands

that by the time the plate looked like this

she was completely unaware of her ovaries and any longings they might have.

[Although that might have been the ~~alcohol~~ sugar talking.]

In any event, she got exactly what she came to Orlando for. And she loved her friend for it.

And then she flew home. Again.

To be continued....

A Different Ending (Part 3)

2011-03-02T13:20:00.000-05:00

[This is Part 3 of a series of I'm not sure how many yet. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued...

She had ordered her Bridesmaid dress back in March, and when it arrived she discovered--not very much to her surprise-- that it was too small. So immediately upon returning home from Oregon she launched Operation: Fit Into The ~~Damn~~ Dress. She did the South Beach Diet and ate very healthily

and was everyday up at the gym workin' on her fitness. A few weeks before she'd been walking down the stairs in her house wearing a cute long skirt, carrying a basket of laundry, and tripped on the front of her skirt and almost bit it. She caught herself, but at the expense of her IT Band. And yes, she recognized the irony that she'd been running for months and a trip on the stairs caused her injury. She's kind of a klutz, if by kind of you mean she runs into stationary objects like door frames and bed posts on a regular basis. So she couldn't run and was confined to the recumbent bike, which was boring but at least she could read for the hour she was on it every day.

And soon--much sooner than she actually needed to--she fit into the ~~damn~~ dress! She almost threw herself a party.

Instead of throwing herself a party, she put all her energy into helping her best friend plan a big party (called a wedding reception). She taught herself how to make these tissue paper poofs (which now hang in one of her guest bedrooms)...

...and she made cute rhinestone shirts for the flower girl and a little baby cousin...

...and a bracelet, necklace, and matching earrings (not pictured) for the awesome Grandma of the Bride...

(In progress.)

...and gifts from the bride to her mother and future mother-in-law...

...and programs for the wedding ceremony.

Then, she packed up the shirts and the jewelry and the programs and the guest book (which she did not get a photo of, silly her) and the spools and spools of ribbon she'd ordered and the folded pink tissue paper unpoofed poofs and her bridesmaid dress, and she headed back to Oregon.

She and her husband were greeted with a seafood feed at his parents' house, with lots of family there (it's almost always lots of family when her husband's family gets together).

[Her in-laws caught & generously shared all of the seafood. Yes, caught, like with a boat and crab pots and shrimp pots and digging clams and oysters. They know how to do it out in Oregon.] YUM.

And then it was wedding-wedding-wedding time. She'd flown in a week early so she could help out before the wedding, and that's just what she did. She got very used to this lovely view and this lovely old oak tree at the end of the driveway.

She helped clean out a greenhouse and prepare it for the reception, she took notes and kept To Do lists and reminded people of things, and she ran errands and went shopping for the bride & groom's house and the groomsmen's gifts.

She generally tried to just help out and do whatever needed to be done, including making centerpieces for the rehearsal dinner. She does not particularly consider herself a skilled flower-arranger, but she thinks she did a pretty good job.

The week flew by and suddenly it was the day before the wedding and all of the ladies in the wedding party were together getting pedicures.

She's wearing the pink & red Tevas.

And then she spent the rest of day poofing the poofs and hanging them in the reception space. Thank God she got some help from two other bridesmaids because 25 poofs is a lot, y'all.

She kissed her friend good night and prayed that she would sleep well, and she went home to get some sleep herself. And when they all woke up, it was The Big Day.

All the girls got ready together so there was lots of make-upping (making-up?)

and hair-doing.

And her friend looked gorgeous. I mean, really.

She made these earrings to match the bride's vintage necklace.

The wedding went off without a hitch and soon the bride and groom were being whisked off to the par-tay in a very cool car.

Everyone had a blast dancing under the poofs (and Chinese lanterns) on the cool checkerboard floor.

And they were all treated to a glorious sunset over the farm.

It was a gorgeous day, a gorgeous wedding, and she is so glad that she could be there to help her friend. They've been friends for over--gasp!--20 years and she just could not be happier for her friend and her new husband (of whom she heartily approves).

And the next day she crashed, hard. Helping to put on a wedding is not for the weak, she thinks.

After catching up on sleep and rest, she went out to breakfast the next day at her grandpa's favorite place. [And when she says "favorite" she means that the owner of the restaurant was a pallbearer in her grandpa's funeral and the restaurant has a memorial for him on their wall.] After a month of South Beach and no carbs, she ate biscuits and gravy and bacon. And it was good.

Then she and her husband drove down to spend some time with her grandma and (other) grandpa. She has a cool grandma and grandpa.

Her husband drove her all over the back roads where her soul filled up with as much Oregon as she could take in, and he stopped by the side of the road so she could take his photo with one of his favorite things, hops. :)

And then they flew back to Virginia, again.

To be continued...

A Different Ending (Part 2)

2011-02-28T17:36:00.013-05:00

[This is Part 2 of a series of I'm not sure how many yet. Part 1 can be found here I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued from Part 1...

Just as she felt like she was getting back to "regular" (read: not depressed) life, she got some sad, sad news. Her grandpa died, rather suddenly and unexpectedly, although thankfully her dad and uncle were there with him when he passed; this comforted her greatly. So she flew right across the country, home to Oregon, for his funeral.

And she took photos, because sometimes it is easier for her to have something else to focus on besides just the sad sad sadness. [She sometimes feels like a sponge that soaks up the emotions of the people around her and becomes overwhelmed with it all.]

She smiled and cried and laughed when she learned this was the hymn to be sung at the memorial service, because her grandpa loved and lived flowers. His entire backyard was a big flower garden, and he'd deliver bouquets of dahlias (pictured blurily in the background) all over town.

As sad as she was, though, she couldn't dwell too much on her sadness, because her nieces were also there and they are kind of live-in-the-moment, stay-on-your-toes-Aunty girls. So she helped them pick raspberries from their grandma's bushes in the backyard for their breakfast,

and she watched them play in the sprinkler in the afternoon.

Because she so rarely gets to be with her sister, her brother-in-law, and her own husband all at the same time (it had been years), her parents volunteered to hang out with the lovely kiddos the whole following day so the four of them could have adult siblings+spouses time in Portland.

It just so happened the the male members of this foursome really appreciate good beer, and Portland, Oregon, has really good beers on offer. So they headed out on a Beer Quest.

They drove all over town and tried a bunch of different beers.

She killed time while the boys shopped in beer stores the way she shops in art supply stores.

She found a very cool backwards painting on the wall of a bathroom, which appears the proper direction when seen in the mirror, and she fell even more in love with this brewery for having it.

And she laughed, a lot. She needed that, a lot.

She drove around with her husband, and appreciated the gorgeousness and "I am home"-ness of Oregon, from the views and the soft sunshine

to the flowers planted in her parents' front yard

and her aunt and uncles' garden.

She watched her aunt show her nieces how to dig potatoes, and remembered her grandma teaching her the same things oh so many years ago.

She really enjoyed the many bounties of Oregon in the summer and it made her heart glad.

Including, yes, her very favorite Pacific Northwest fresh, local, sustainable "fast food" place. [She might have eaten here for many meals.]

She hung out with family a lot. Her cousin invited them over for a pool party, which her nieces loved.

She visited her grandma, grandpa, and aunt, and finally got an (albeit very silly) photo of the four redheads in the family. :)

Aunt, Sister, Grandma, her.

Her unexpected trip home to Oregon happened to coincide with a bridal shower for her best friend, so she got to attend it and fulfill some Bridesmaid duty.

She sipped on yummy pretty drinks (and ate yummy food), and wrote down who gave which gifts, and took a photo of her bestie with her mom and grandma... three generations of the ass-kickin'est ladies you ever met.

[Since she didn't know she'd be able to attend this shower she had already made and sent a gift, pictured below.]

She soaked up all the time with her nieces that she could, including going to the park (the same park she used to play so many years ago, although the play structures are much cooler now)...

... and going to Enchanted Forest with them. It was still as much fun as she remembered from when she was a kid (and it hadn't changed nearly as much as the park had).

She ran through the Crooked House with them,

but she let them go into the Rabbit Hole on their own.

And then, just like that, her trip was over, and she had to say her sad goodbyes and fly home.

Leaving Oregon.

[For like a minute.]

To be continued....

A Different Ending (Part 1)

2011-02-26T18:38:00.003-05:00

[I wrote this entire post in July of last year but didn't ever publish it because life happened (or, more specifically, a death happened) and then I had even more to catch up on, which will come in later posts. Hopefully soonish.]

Once upon a time there was a girl who blogged.

One day she finished writing a blog post, and it was the longest and most difficult post she'd ever written. Nervous and afraid, she hit "Publish" and was soon overwhelmed with the most amazing support she'd ever, ever known.

And no one ever heard from her again.

That story sucks.

Let's try again...

Once upon a time there was a girl who blogged.

One day she finished writing a blog post, and it was the longest and most difficult post she'd ever written. Nervous and afraid, she hit "Publish" and was soon overwhelmed with the most amazing support she'd ever, ever known.

Five days later, in the midst of processing all these new feelings and figuring out how to respond to all the amazing and personal and supportive comments and e-mails she received, she walked downstairs into the basement to blog and stepped into a puddle of water. In the carpet. [From a broken and flowing and flowing and flowing water heater.]

It could have been a lot worse. It was a really stressful couple of days and the timing was lousy, but could have been a lot worse. But she couldn't dwell on it too long, because she had a lot to do; she was preparing for a trip!

All the stress was forgotten when she and her husband arrived in Puerto Rico and realized that this was the view from their hotel room!

In Puerto Rico they hiked in a rain-forest...

... up a mountain...

... spotted the gorgeous (green!!!) bird that was chirping back and forth overhead...

... and found beauty in ordinary things.

She tried the local cuisine...

... and wondered why in the world she had to wait until age 34 to have spiced meat wrapped in mashed potatoes and then deep fried.

[I mean, really. There might not be a more perfect food for her.]

She explored Old San Juan...

... until she felt broken down and battered by the hot hot sun...

... and was forced to stop for some refreshment. It was the right thing to do.

She went night kayaking to a bio-luminescent bay...

... and took photos upside-down over her head...

... and handed a stranger her camera to take a photo...

... [right before she hurried back to the hotel to take a shower because she was secretly kind of freaked out about the microscopic bio-luminescent creatures that were splashed all over her].

She made friends at the hotel pool (and made him practically purr)...

... and walked on the beach...

... and celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary, wondering both where the time has gone and how--and who!--she ever was without him.

And then she had to come home.

[For like a minute.]

She had to go shopping (she hates shopping).

Because she (and her husband) turned right around and flew to New Orleans ~~after getting stuck overnight in Memphis~~!

Where she attended a welcome dinner in the French Quarter, a Bridal Shower Tea at a fancy hotel, a Bachelorette party [in a place--she's not kidding--called Cooter Brown's]...

... and a gorgeous wedding and reception...

... and a Bayou Brunch...

... where she finally got a photo of all six of the cousins together.

And then she flew home. Again.

[For like a minute. Again.]

She appreciated Spring in her own yard...

... and on her street...

... and in D.C....

... where she felt very fancy indeed going to happy hour in The District like a real live Grown-Up.

She made and mailed out Mother's Day orders...

...and designed a necklace for an artist workshop and took pre-orders and pounded out orders like a crazy (but very grateful) person.

Then she packed up some art supplies and drove south to North Carolina and Inspired Artist Workshop, where she got gloriously messy hanging out with friends and...

... playing with painted mosaics...

... and watercolor crayons...

... and fun paper for making art journals with Pam Garrison...

... and crazy fun experimental mini-books with the absolutely adorable CD Muckosky...

... and melted beeswax with Suze Weinberg...

... and rainbows of paint...

...and ~~teaching people how to make jewelry~~ beads for a fun necklace...

... and even a new sculpture material. [The lady she was supposed to make freaked her out so she made a tree, instead, even though she was told not to. Because she's a rebel like that.]

*cough crappy cell phone photo cough*

Then.

Then, she came home.

And sat still for the first time in [how many photos now?] a long time.

And she realized that she was very sad; very, very sad. [She just hadn't really realized because she'd been so busy.]

So, she took it easy on herself. She cut herself a lot of slack and tried to be gentle with herself, like she'd be with a good friend. She read books and took long, long, hot, hot baths and reset her standards to ~~Low~~ Easily Attainable.

And still. She was really, really sad.

So, she started doing all the things They say are mood elevators. And she called a counselor.

And slowly, slowly. Oh. so. slowly.

She started feeling. Better.

Somewhere along the way, and kind of much to her own surprise, she became a runner.

[She sincerely believes the running played a big part in feeling better.]

She started creating again, including invitations for a Kentucky Derby-themed bridal shower...

... and a plain canvas bag she got at Inspired...

... she even got out the sewing machine!

[She is now in love with ruffles.]

And she made some new jewelry... like the Act Love Walk necklace...

Micah 6:8: "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

... and the Infinity necklace...

...and the Eclipse earrings...

She celebrated her husband's birthday by going hiking with him, and she tried not to freak out when he did this...

He's holding up three fingers on one hand and five on the other. The big 35.

... while she herself stuck to less precipitous heights...

... and enjoyed the gorgeous weather...

... and dozens of beautiful butterflies.

To be continued...

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Lightness

2010-03-12T21:06:00.003-05:00

{Photo taken in Northern Italy, about a mile from our house.}

Whoa.

I'm still overwhelmed by the amazing--and I mean amazing--response to my last post.

After I posted it, Jason whisked me off to dinner. Out of the house, away from the computer, so I couldn't sit here and obsessively check for comments. Talking about other things, eating spicy Thai food and drinking amazing wine, so that I was too distracted and enjoying myself too much to wonder if anyone was commenting, what they were saying.

I shouldn't have worried. :)

(But the dinner was nice.) :)

The most amazing thing to me is how everyone keeps telling me how strong I was/am to write it down, put it out there. And the whole reason I wrote it is because I felt so weak that I couldn't go on anymore carrying the burden alone! So that was a very real gift that I received, the chance to see myself through other peoples' eyes for a moment. Very real and very unexpected and so very, very needed. Thank you.

The second most amazing thing is all the personal e-mails I've received. Women who have gone through this. Who are going though this. Who never told anyone how long it took them to get their baby, and how painful and expensive it was. Who swore me to secrecy because people still don't know. Who thanked me for putting what is in their heads and in their hearts into words.

Wow. Amazing.

I feel incredibly honored that people have shared with me, and I'm overwhelmed by people who've thanked me. I want to say, "You're thanking me? No no no, you have that backwards, I'm thanking you!"

I've been so overwhelmed, actually, that I'm still processing it all; I haven't responded to everyone's e-mails, I haven't called everyone back. I will try.

But it's hard to want to sit in front of the computer or talk on the phone, because finally, finally, finally... I actually feel like getting up off the couch. And doing stuff. Cleaning. Tackling my To Do list. Running errands, which I did all morning with Jason.

Today I actually, out of the blue, thought of a new jewelry design.

After three months of barely touching my workstation, this is a major victory; I'd actually even considered closing my Etsy shop altogether.

I feel lighter. I feel free-er. :) I feel like a normal person again, a person approximating myself.

And you all gave--are giving!--me this. Lightness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Setting It Down

2010-03-10T09:59:00.027-05:00

When we first started this journey, our secret was a tiny pebble of Hope; I loved carrying it around, knowing it was always there, full of possibility and potential.

Every month, the pebble grew. It was still Hope, but it was gradually coated in layers of Disappointment. Sadness. What-ifs. Frustration.

And then, Loss. With Loss came Sorrow and Fear, and the tiny pebble of Hope was further buried, deep inside a boulder.

And still, I carried it alone, hiding it from almost everyone we know, everyone we love. [Jason carried it, too, but not nearly as much as I did, and in different ways.]

I'm not good at asking for help; I'm not good at showing what I perceive to be faults.

And, frankly, I didn't want to deal with other people's questions and advice. It's just like one of my favorite prints from StoryPeople:

"Most people she never tells about the tightrope because she doesn't want to listen to their helpful comments from the ground."

I have friends who have carried this burden before me and I thought I was learning from their mistakes, avoiding the problems they complained of, by keeping our secret and carrying this burden alone. I didn't want to hear the "helpful" comments from the people on the ground, people who hadn't walked this same tightrope and carried this same burden but were all too willing to tell me how to do it.

But every month our burden continued to grow, bigger and heavier, with new layers of Hurt. Heartache. Guilt. Dejection. Impatience. Sorrow. Shame. Despair. Confusion. And yes, even Jealousy, and Envy, and Bitterness, though I fought those most of all.

And lately, it feels like too much to bear alone. I'm sad, and I'm tired of pretending that I'm not (or making up ridiculous excuses for my sadness). I'm tired of lying about why I can't or won't or don't want to do something, just so we can keep this burden to ourselves. I'm walking around doubled over under this weight, and all I can see is the ground in front of me. I'm missing the sunshine, and the rainbows, and my friends' smiling faces.

So, the time has come: I'm setting this burden down.

I know that by setting it down it won't go away; it will still be here. But my hope is that setting it down will cause little cracks to develop; our friends and family will come and lay their eyes upon our burden, and their Kindness and Love and Compassion and Understanding will seep into the cracks and expand, like ice breaking up asphalt, like tree roots breaking up a sidewalk. My hope is that together we'll be able to break this boulder into pieces and let that tiny pebble of Hope see the light of day again.

Some people will walk away; they don't need or want any more troubles in their lives, or they won't know how to handle it. A few people will even scurry off, uncomfortable, and avoid us. But some of our friends and family will bend down and pick up a piece, and they will help us carry our burden. Some already have.

And now, moving from metaphor to actual words, I'm stuck, caught, with a lump in my throat, crying and afraid.

{Deep breath...}

For as long as I can remember, since early in my childhood, I've wanted to be a mother. And like most women, I assumed that when we decided it was time to start our family, my pregnancy would just happen, like it does for millions of women every month. (And until then, I took great care to make sure that it didn't. :))

And then we decided it was time.

But it didn't just happen.

For months

and months

and months,

it didn't happen.

Until finally, last June, it did! And we rejoiced, and eagerly awaited the day we could "safely" announce our joy to the world.

But then... in late July, with Jason 3000 miles away and mostly out of cell phone range... well, it un-happened.

Today, March 10th, 2010, would have been my due date.

The doctors told us it was a good sign that I had gotten pregnant, and we hung onto Hope and the stories I'd heard about women who got pregnant again soon after a miscarriage.

But it still didn't happen.

And we still didn't want to tell anyone. Every month was a new chance, full of Hope. We decided that when it did happen we'd tell our story, revealing our journey to show how long we'd waited and how happy and grateful we were. But every month was a new chance, too, for renewed Heartache.

In January, my body started showing the exact same early signs that it had last June when I was pregnant. I was hopeful and cautious and excited and nervous, waiting to see if it was really happening this time. And then I started bleeding and cramping, and having the exact same signs I had last July. And I grieved all over again.

I had some tests run, and there were confusing results. So I grieved this loss just as I did the previous loss, but I had an added side of confusion and doubt throw in for good measure.

And since this mysterious loss, I've suffered more. The burden has felt heavier. I've felt sadder. That pebble of Hope feels far, far away.

And while I'm--of course!--joyful for my friends who are announcing their pregnancies and births, a voice inside my head taunts, "Not you not you not you not you still not you." Lately, this chant has become a drum-beat, seemingly always present; in the past ten days alone I've received word of two new pregnancies and four new babies, with three more babies expected any day. And with every announcement, I text Jason, "Life's not fair," so he knows to skip the "How was your day?" when he comes home and just hug me instead.

When I realized today, this day that could have been so very different, was approaching, I talked to Jason and we decided:

This burden is too heavy to carry on my own, so I'm setting it down.

To answer some of the questions I'm sure people will have:

Yes, we've started the infertility testing and process. Our insurance requires a certain number of months without achieving pregnancy before we're declared "infertile"; because of the pregnancy and miscarriage last July, the clock got reset. We're not waiting for it this time, even if it means paying for testing and etc ourselves (and there are certain things insurance wouldn't pay for anyway). Tests have been done and are scheduled to be done and we're doing what we need to be doing.

No, this is not going to turn into Infertility Blog. Jason and I are still fairly private people; we won't be talking about it a lot to most people. I most likely will not be sharing a lot on here. I'm not too sure yet; I'm still getting used to the idea of people knowing. But I can't imagine that I will ever feel compelled to share Jason's sperm count or the status of my Fallopian tubes on this blog. It's nothing against anyone who does that, at all... it's just that, like I said, Jason and I are pretty private about personal stuff. If & when I do talk about it, there is a 99% chance that it will be about my feelings about the process.

No, I'm not telling how long we've been trying. Whenever someone asks how long and they get an answer, I feel that it helps them to file that person away in their mind, somewhere between, "Oh, that's not long, she shouldn't be worried yet," and "Oh, it's probably hopeless, then." I don't want to be filed away. As my friend Andrea said, "All that matters is that you want this and haven't been able to achieve it, and that is devastating."

Yes, I know that things will work out the way they're supposed to. I know that one way or another I will be a mother if I'm meant to be (and I believe I am).

No, our marriage has not suffered one tiny bit through this process. Jason has been amazing and I feel that we are stronger than we've ever, ever been. We are partners and a team and best friends. I feel incredibly lucky to be married to him, and he says the same thing about me... although I find it hard to believe on the days he comes home to a weepy wife and a disaster of a house. :)

Yes, it's hard sometimes. Even while I'm happy for them, friends announcing pregnancies and births can be hard. So can going to Target and walking past the baby aisle, watching TV, watching a movie with a pregnancy or miscarriage (I bawled in Up), going grocery shopping and seeing a very pregnant woman or a new baby, hearing a song on the radio... pretty much any little thing can be hard. But sometimes it's not, sometimes I stroll through Target hoping for some sweet deals on clearance items in the paper goods section, without a passing glance at strollers and onesies. Sometimes I laugh at birth control ads and how worried I used to be if I was a couple hours late taking a pill, ha! Sometimes I'll see a tiny terror in the grocery store and think, "Maybe it's not such a bad thing I'm not dealing with that quite yet." Sometimes I'll stay in bed reading until noon, or take a three-hour long bath, just because that is a luxury I'm still afforded (even if it costs a lot). And hearing that a friend is pregnant or had a healthy baby, after a struggle to get pregnant, fills me with hope. So yes, sometimes it's really hard, and sometimes it's not. I'm pretty good at looking on the bright side (even if I would trade it in in a second).

Yes, you can help. Pray for us if you pray. Think of us. Send me cards and presents. I'm kidding about that last one (mostly). :) Let me know you're thinking about me. Give me the benefit of the doubt when I forget to get back to you about something, or I'm moody, or I don't want to do something, or when I have one ~~or three~~ too many glasses of wine. Hug me and tell me that you love me.

Because I know that some people won't know how to handle this or what to do, I've talked to a few friends who have struggled with infertility and put together a list of Please Do's and Don'ts as a guide.

Please do continue to talk to me about normal, everyday stuff. Please don't think that because I'm dealing with this I don't want to hear about how your boss is a jerk or you got stuck in traffic or whatever. Distraction is good. :) I'm still your friend and I still want to know what's going on in your life.

Please do ask me how I'm doing; even if I don't feel like talking about it it will mean a lot to me that you asked and were willing to listen. (And please don't ask if you're not willing to listen.)

Please do be honest with me. Saying, "I don't know what to say, but I'm sorry you're going through this," is fine. Perfect, even. I don't expect you to know what to say.

Please don't ask questions like, "Any news?" or "So, are you pregnant yet?" Trust me, if/when I'm pregnant and it's safe to share the news, I will shout it from the rooftops! Don't ask me, I'll tell you.

Please don't tell me to relax. I guarantee you that while this process is, can be, has been stressful, I'm also relaxed a lot of the time; I'm taking good care of myself (even at the expense of my business, housework, etc). I'm thrilled for you that you were able to get pregnant after having a couple of cocktails on vacation, or having a massage; that doesn't mean I can. Trust me.

Please don't give me "helpful comments from the ground." Meaning: if you haven't walked this tightrope, please don't give me advice. Everyone knows someone who "had trouble" getting pregnant, and the miracle diet/magic elixir/sexual position/herbal supplement/etc that helped them to get pregnant. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but I'm 98% sure that I don't want to hear it. [If you've truly walked in my shoes and have suggestions, that's different.]

Please don't say, "Just call me Fertile Myrtle!" or "He can just look at me from across the room and knock me up!" That's an amazing blessing for you, but you might as well just punch me in the gut when you say it, because that's what it feels like to hear someone take their fertility so much for granted. Please do be aware of the impact that what you're saying can have on other people; just because you don't know someone's trying doesn't mean they aren't.

Please don't feel guilty for anything you might have said to me in the past. Please do be mindful in the future (around me and others).

Please don't be afraid to tell me if you're pregnant (or just gave birth). I have infertile friends whose friends would come to them tearfully, apologetically, to announce that they were pregnant. Pregnancy is a miracle and a blessing, and I'm your friend; you shouldn't be afraid to tell me about your joy. But please do appreciate the blessing you've been given and know how lucky you are, especially if it happened without a struggle. And please do understand if all I can manage is, "I'm so happy for you," before my eyes fill with tears and my throat clenches up. I am happy for you, truly. It's just hard.

Please do invite me to your baby shower (or Christening, or child's birthday party, etc) if you would normally invite me; I would love to know you were thinking of me and would hate to find out about it and feel excluded. But please don't be upset if I decline to come, and please don't try to cajole me into attending.

Please do remember that I'm still me; I still love to read and make art and eat carbs and take photos, and I still dislike licorice, inconsiderate people, sports on TV, and "angry" music. I still prefer smaller gatherings and intimate conversations to large parties and being the center of attention. My favorite chocolate is still dark with chili peppers and cinnamon, and if given the choice between a bowl of homemade mashed potatoes and gravy or a piece of almost any dessert, I'd still choose the mashed potatoes every time. I still love organizing and I still hate cleaning. I still long to be graceful and I still run into the foot-board and door frames all the freakin' time. I'm still me. I'm just me who wants to have a baby and hasn't yet, and that's changed me in some ways, yes. Infertility is a part of me; it's not all of me.

Please do give us whatever love, support, compassion, understanding, and sensitivity you can, now and throughout this process.

I set my burden down. Here it is.

{Exhale...}

Project 365, Weeks 9 & 10

2010-03-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

As always, click on the photos to see them larger and read the journaling.

Thanks for looking!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Cheese Makes Everything Better

2010-03-05T23:59:00.001-05:00

It's been a rough week. Tonight I got to go hang out with some girlfriends and eat ridiculous amounts of fancy cheese and drink some wine, and it was just what the doctor ordered.

Thanks, ladies, for helping me process some things, and for listening, and for being my friends. :)

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Miracles

2010-02-26T23:59:00.012-05:00

It's a crazy world we live in these days, what with Facebook and Twitter and blogs. Less than two years ago when I first went to Inspired Artist Workshop, I met two women who were best friends via their blogs. They'd been best friends for quite a while, talked on the phone all the time, but the first time they met in person was that weekend. Honestly, I had a hard time not looking at them like they had three heads apiece; I thought the whole idea was completely nuts. [The fact that they turned out to be not very nice certainly didn't help matters.]

Soon after that I started this blog, and I opened a Twitter account so that my donors could follow along with me as I texted in updates about my Avon Walk. Both were great ways to stay in contact with my friends and family.

Later that year I opened my Etsy shop. Customers found me on Etsy and went to my blog; friends followed my tweets and saw when I posed new items on Etsy; people saw my comments on other peoples' blogs and came over to my blog, or to the shop; my friends posted my Etsy items on their Facebook profiles so their friends found me, too. It all got very interconnected very quickly.

And I began to understand how people who've never met in real life can be such wonderful friends.

Since I work from home, Twitter is my equivalent to the proverbial water cooler. And reading peoples' blog posts is often the equivalent of an intimate chat over lunch. Except I can do it in my pajamas, without leaving the house. And if you're thinking, "Well, it's not really a conversation because it's one-sided, since you're just reading their blog," then let me tell you that it's not one-sided. Many times I've left a blog comment and the author writes back to me, and we have an e-mail exchange back and forth. Someone will tweet about their child being sick; others of us will respond with sympathy and concern, and later ask her how her baby's doing. Someone will share good news, and others of us will rejoice and congratulate her. We read each others' blogs and share in each others' daily ups and downs on Twitter. In short, we become invested in each others' lives, no matter how wacky it sounds.

And through this crazy internet world I've come into contact with several beautiful women who have suffered the worst kind of loss; losing a child. Sara lost Joel. Arianne lost Mabel. And two years ago today, Beth lost James and Jake.

After reading Beth's lovely post today I've been reflecting on what a miracle it is to have a healthy baby (and how too many people take that miracle for granted).

So of course the only photo I could post today for Favorite {Photo} Friday is my sister's second little miracle, Lily Grace. [For the record, my sister is a NICU Nurse and does not take her miracles for granted.] Lily just turned two; I took this photo when she was baptised at three months old in 2008.

Be grateful for your miracles, friends, and hug them tight. :)

Oh, and the good news is that both Beth and Sara are pregnant again!

Project 365, Week 8

2010-02-23T12:00:00.001-05:00

This year is flying by; I can't believe we just finished week 8!

We had a great time at the crop this past weekend, and I did finish some pages. I'll share those later, since the day after I get back from a trip (which is today) is always "Introvert Recovery Day" around here. I'm holed up, unpacking and decompressing and generally hiding out and trying to recharge my emotional/psychological batteries.

Thanks for looking!
[As always, click on the photo if you'd like to see it BIGGER to read the journaling.]

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Stargazer Lilies

2010-02-19T00:01:00.002-05:00

If it were possible to get drunk from smelling flowers...

... I'd be soooo wasted this week.

Today I'm driving to Virginia Beach for a scrapbooking crop. If you're not a scrapbooker, a crop is where a bunch of scrapbookers get together in a huge room and all scrapbook together. It's kind of a weird concept but it's totally fun. I've been prepping for weeks now, printing photos, choosing papers and embellishments. I'm meeting some friends there so it should be a great weekend, and I hope to get some pages done to add to the scrapbooks.

Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law, Jo!! Hope you have a great day!

Project 365, Weeks 6 & 7

2010-02-16T23:59:00.000-05:00

This whole snow-snow-snow thing has put me into a kind of holding pattern--I'm losing track of days and falling even further behind than I usually do! We had just an inch or so more last night and I'm really hoping that is the last snow we see this winter. Well, the last fresh snow, anyway; the rest of it will be around for months, piled up 10 feet high as it is in every parking lot around! I'm really glad I decided to take this year off of the Avon Walk, considering all the sidewalks are buried from the snow plows and 10 miles on a treadmill is not fun.

Anyway. Back to catching up. Here are Weeks 6 and 7 of my Project 365:

I didn't plan it this way, but it's kind of funny to have these two in the same post. Week 6 was FULL of snow and cold, and by Week 7 (even though it was still snowing) I was craving COLOR, obviously!

I'm still having a lot of fun doing these, and I still work on them every day or every other day. I'm a lot faster at it now. I also think it won't be too many more weeks until I start making my own, new template designs (that still coordinate with the other ones).

And I had a thought--if you like this project and want to play along but you didn't start on January 1st and (like me) like to start at the beginning of things, not partway through, then how about you start on the first day of Spring? You could do just a Days of Spring project, or you could keep doing Days of Summer, Days of Fall, Days of Winter. Mark your calendar to start taking photos on March 20th!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Winter Olympics, Torino 2006

2010-02-12T23:59:00.006-05:00

Man, I love the Olympics.

I love the hope, the struggle, the passion the athletes must have. I love the human-interest stories that give me the athletes' back stories and make me feel for and better know who they are and what they're about and the battles they've faced. I love the commercials, especially this one, this one, and this one--I cry every time! I mean Dan Jansen, sitting on the ice, head in his hands? You can just feel his heartbreak. The Zhangs, trying that throw again after disaster? The pain in her face, the concern in his; her courage to try it again is triumphant in and of itself. And all those young athletes--the possibility, the potential, the hope, the years of work ahead, leading to triumph or to anguish, determined in a split second. Oh my word, pass the tissues, please!

In 2006, when the Winter Olympics were in Torino, Italy, Jason and I lived about five hours away. So of course we had to go!

Here's us, up at the Freestyle Aerials competition. We never did get to see it because they had to move it to another day due to the snow (there's a whole other story here, but that will have to wait for another day), but we had a lot of fun waiting around and talking to people. :) The jump ramps are up behind us to the right of me in the photo.

We also saw a Short Track speed skating event, and a Skeleton event (like Luge except they go down head-first on their stomachs instead of feet-first on their backs). It was great to be there and experience the Olympic Spirit in person, and I'd love to be able to go to another Olympics someday. But I did miss a lot, since we were there instead of watching it all on TV (and there, tickets were expensive and/or sold out). We didn't get to watch the Opening Ceremonies, or any other events besides the ones we attended... but what I missed most were the human-interest stories. I love hearing about peoples' stories. I suppose that's why I like scrapbooking; when I look at other people's pages the first thing I do is read the journaling. So I'm really looking forward to hearing all the stories this year. The interviews, the profiles, the sagas--bring them on, I've got the tissues ready!

And I loved watching the Opening Ceremonies tonight. LOVED it. I loved learning about different aspects of Canada; I loved the whales and the beat poet and even the weird Celtic Punks. I especially loved the Parade of Nations. I cheered for all the countries I've been to and love, like Czech Republic and South Korea, Slovakia and Belgium. I cheered for all the countries who have only one or two or a handful of athletes. I love that they must know that they don't have a very good shot at a medal, but being there and experiencing it all and doing their best is enough; I love their hope and I love their pride. I cheered for Italy, and I cried, remembering our time there and missing it so much, and remembering Daniele walking with his fellow Italian athletes two years ago in Beijing.

And I cheered, of course, for the United States most of all; for Apolo Ohno and Lindsey Vonn, for Shaun White and Bode Miller, and for all of the athletes we'll come to know over the next two weeks.

Enjoy the Olympics and have a great weekend!

Snowmageddon Continued

2010-02-11T09:27:00.011-05:00

I posted photos from last Friday, but it kept snowing through Saturday, and then we had another storm on Tuesday & Wednesday, so I'm finally getting around to posting the Saturday photos! What a week. What a winter!

Here's our patio set and grill on our deck. There was no wind on Saturday so the snow just piled up on top of everything, so the stool in front looks like a big white-capped mushroom!

I took this photo to show the top-heavy, snow-laden trees leaning over our deck in the back, and only noticed afterward the snow-covered wind-chimes; that really shows how little wind there was if the snow could build up like that on wind-chimes!

Our birdies may not be able to bathe but instead of a bath they now have a large, puffy, white cake. Or pillow?

We kept shoveling throughout the day and all the neighbors worked together. Here's our neighbor Steve helping Jason shovel our driveway.

We love our neighbors! Notice how high the snow is piled up to the left of Steve... it's hard to tell but at the height (just in front of the large bush in the background) it's as tall (or just taller than) his shoulders!

I went out into the front yard to check the snow level. 22" of new snow so far at this point, and 27.5" if I punched through the ice left from the previous snow and went down to the ground.

Here's our house, taken from Steve and Roxanne's house across the street.

The trees were getting so overloaded with snow that a lot of them fell. Our neighbor two houses down had one land on the house and roll off onto the deck.

And turning around 180*, here are two trees down in our next-door neighbor's yard.

I don't think the garbage man will take the garbage like this. And the mail man will soon have a hard time finding that mailbox in the back!

Jason and Steve did a good job on the driveway (even though it kept snowing and built up again by the time I took this photo).

Our poor little trees in the back were so weighed down with snow they were bent over double!

So we shook them all off and they stood up proud and thankful! :)

The power was out so I killed some time outside shoveling the little bit of snow in the driveway.

I came back inside for a bit to take care of a few things. Here's a view onto our back deck:

Jason decided to shovel out part of the deck so he could get to the grill so we could cook dinner (we have an awesome glass-top stove that is a lot less awesome when there's no power).

For dinner we made maple-chipotle glazed chicken, mixed grilled peppers, and baked sweet potatoes. Pretty darn good for having no power, huh? Jason is a grill master (and I am a planning and idea and prep master, if I do say so!). :)

Then we headed out to Brian and Marlene's driveway to meet all the neighbors.

I love this one with Jason and Brian in profile. :)

While we all sat outside around the fire, talking to (and over, lol!) one another, the porch lights suddenly came on and we all let out a huge whooping CHEER! It was so awesome! We were all so excited to have heat in the house overnight! A lot of people left at that point to head home and sort things out (and turn the heat up, lol!). I used the camera flash on the final few left; here's Brian, Jason, Steve, Howard, and my dear and fellow female holdout, Maren.

Then I went home and took a HOT shower, blow-dried (blew dry?) my hair (a choir of angels sang Hallelujah), put on comfy pajamas, plugged things in to charge, and crawled happily into bed. Ahhhhh.

Snowmageddon

2010-02-06T12:31:00.014-05:00

The power keeps going on and off but people have been asking to see photos so I'll put up a couple here quickly while I can. These were all taken last night.

The view from our porch:

Jason started shoveling the driveway when we had about 6.5". He's down there somewhere, I think!

My turn to shovel. I love my very warm cute snow outfit and my awesome red very warm Sorel boots!

By the time we finished shoveling the driveway, the mailbox was almost buried:

And I needed to sit down for a break!

Our neighbor Brian and I made snow angels in the middle of the cul-de-sac! Here's mine:

By the time we shoveled everyone's driveways we were up to 10" of accumulation so we went back and shoveled them all again.

Then we headed back inside to the warmth...

...where we suitably rewarded ourselves for our hard work.

Yummmm.

Random fact/thoughts in list form because I'm rather scattered right now:

The power went off during the night so we woke up to a cold house.
Trees are falling down all over the neighborhood because of the weight of the snow; I'm just hoping none of the trees land on and damage any of our houses.
When Jason walked to the back yard to check out our trees, the snow came up to his thighs!
The power came back on but it's going in and out. A couple of our neighbors have generators so we'll be fine.
There's a TON of snow outside but I'm not sure how much because I've been inside cooking while we had power. Jason's outside shoveling and as soon as I post this I'm going to go join him.
Jason had his cell phone in his pocket while he shoveled last night and it must have gotten wet because today it won't turn on. I have it in a jar of rice, which I've heard sometimes works to draw out the moisture. In the meantime, don't bother calling his cell phone. :)
I have my cell phone charged but I'm trying not to use it too much, and I'm keeping it on the charger whenever we have power!
We have awesome neighbors who are all like our family so we'll take care of each other, so don't worry about us! :)

And speaking of that, they're all shoveling so I should go join them (and take some more photos)! If we continue to have power I'll post more photos later.

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Snow Men

2010-02-05T23:59:00.003-05:00

We went out to shovel the driveway in the snow, because it's easier to shovel 6 inches at a time than to wait until it stops snowing and then try to shovel out through 24-30" or whatever they're predicting. Of course we turned it into a neighborhood party. Here's the men!

Mark, Jason, Steve (aka Santa) and Brian. Love our neighbors!!

Have a good, safe, and warm weekend!

GOventures--Invisible

2010-02-02T20:00:00.004-05:00

Today's prompt word in the GOventures challenge was INVISIBLE.

A lot of things came to mind, but the biggest thing was the INVISIBLE fears that we all hold deep in our hearts. I thought about how to make them invisible while still making art about them--tricky, tricky! That's why this is such a great prompt. :)

First, I took a Sharpie and a small, 6x6" canvas and wrote down all my secret fears. Here I've blurred it out, 'cause they're secrets, duh.

Then I squirted on some paint and I painted right over it. When I envisioned this project I thought, "Oh, how symbolic, painting over my fears," but I have to say that it actually felt pretty cathartic, as cheesy as it sounds!

I turned on my Silhouette cutting machine (I soooo love this thing!) and used it to cut out a font I had on my computer. I cut it out of vinyl so that it acted as a sticker and stuck to the canvas (once the paint was dry, of course).

Then I used a Ranger Dabber to paint in the word. I carefully peeled off the mask while the paint was still wet and then let it dry.

So here we have it. My secret fears, hidden behind the mask of hope that I (at least try to) project to the world. An unexpected thing happened while I was making this, which I love; after I wrote down my fears and painted it, the canvas got turned around and I wasn't sure which way it had been facing when I wrote on it. So I just had to forge ahead, not knowing which end was up when it came to my fears, only using HOPE as my guide. :)

Project 365, Week 5

2010-02-02T12:00:00.004-05:00

Remember how last week I mentioned that the template I used wasn't even? Well, I looked at the rest of the templates and none of them are even. All the photo sizes are completely different; sure, everything lines up in a grid, but why aren't they even and balanced? Totally annoying. Do not ask me how my house can be a disaster but this uneven grid thing makes me crazy, because I don't know. What I do know is that when I used to run track and cross country, I'd make up math problems to do while I ran. Who does that? Apparently my OCD hit the part of my brain that's in charge of math, and missed the part of my brain that's in charge of housekeeping. Alas!

Anyway, once I realized that all the templates were wrong, of course I had to go in and fix them. The crazy part is that I LOVE that stuff. Meticulous work with numbers? Oh, so awesome! I can totally zone out. So last Thursday I fixed all four double-page spread templates.

This is the fifth template (counting the single page I did as a title page), so now I'll just rotate back through them unless/until I get bored and decide to make my own templates from scratch.

Helpful Blogger Hint: If you ever want to scroll through all the posts about a particular topic, click on the corresponding label at the bottom of the post. This post is labeled Project 365 and Scrapbooking, so if you click on Project 365 then you'll see all my posts with that label. Same for my Favorite {Photo} Friday posts, etc.

I'm really impressed that I made it through an entire month without forgetting to take a photo even a single day! I'm really glad I'm doing this, it's so fun and I know it will be great to look back on at the end of the year. Are you playing along yet?

GOventures--Wander

2010-02-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

I follow Kal's blog and Elise's blog, so when they got together to do GOventures, I thought I'd play along. The idea is that they have a word prompt each day this week, and you can interpret it however you'd like, in any way, shape, or form. The point is just to THINK and MAKE ART. I can get on board with that!

Today's word is WANDER, and of course when I think of that I think of all the traveling we did while we lived in Europe. A while back I found this ugly wall hanging at Ross for like $2, so I bought it and brought it home and peeled off the ugly art and then collaged onto it. I glued down some vintage dictionary pages, and then used a Heidi Swapp mask of the world to paint on top of it (NOT as easy as it sounds!!). I really like the way it turned out, except I wish I would have Glimmer Misted the dictionary pages before I put down the mask and painted, so the land parts would be all shimmery.

Anyway, today I took a photo so I could upload it to the GOventures Flickr group. Here it is!

A straight-on shot seemed too boring so this is the one I uploaded. :)

Feel free to play along and/or join and/or check out the Flickr group! It's fun to see everyone's interpretations!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--I See The Moon and The Moon Sees Me

2010-01-29T23:59:00.003-05:00

This has been a rough week. I mean, a really, really rough week. Monday started out incredibly well with a dinner with some friends; I got some much-needed face-to-face conversation with women and it was amazing. But everything slid downhill fast fast fast after that. I'm fine; I'll be fine. I'm not dying, Jason and I are as strong as ever. But I'm not going to say any more than that, except to ask that if you have any spare prayers or positive thoughts laying around, I could really use some sent my way. Thank you.

Tonight was the Wolf Moon, as I just learned thanks to Twitter, so I put on some gloves and grabbed my tripod and took my camera out onto the back deck.

I'm still learning photographic tricks and I'm still learning my camera, but I'm pretty happy with this one, all things considered! And by "all things" I mean that my tripod was balanced on three different objects and I was perched on a stool and it was freezing cold out and I had gloves on and couldn't see any of the buttons on my camera so I kept pressing the wrong ones. LOL!

We're supposed to get a bunch of snow tomorrow so we're cuddled in hoping to stay warm, and the fridge is stocked ! Have a great weekend!

Project 365, Week 4

2010-01-25T15:32:00.005-05:00

I'm still totally loving this whole Project 365 thing! (As always, click on the photo if you want to see it much larger and read the journaling. Then click back to this post, please!)

This project is definitely teaching me some things. This week I learned that I need to get out more, and that I eat a lot of fruit and like photographing it. :) I also learned that just because you design and sell Photoshop templates online, that doesn't mean you know how to do math. I'm sure you can't notice it on here, but the two middle photos and journaling spots (the coffee mug and the dead rose) are slightly thinner than the others. In fact, all of the strips are slightly different widths. This kind of thing totally annoys me; I mean, can't you do the math and make all the strips the same? It would be really easy to do! So easy, in fact, that I'm considering redoing this template before I use it again, just so all the strips are even. Yes, I know, I'm a tad ~~anal~~ detail-oriented; it's quite charming once you get to know me. :)

In case you're wondering, I usually upload photos and add them to the template every day or at least every other day; I don't want to ever feel like I have to "catch up" because then I will just say, "Aw, screw it!" and I'll stop doing the whole thing and just have some random unfinished album with a few weeks of these layouts, hanging over my head as yet another sign that I don't finish everything I start. And we don't want that! :) It usually takes me about ten minutes per day to upload photos, fix them if need be, add them to the template, and write out my journaling. Towards the end of the week I start choosing the colors for the journaling spots based on the colors in the photos, and that can take ten minutes or an hour depending on how I'm feeling and how much free time I have and whether or not Jason is watching football. Then when I'm all done with each week, it takes me about ten minutes to save the file as a jpg, upload it to Costco, order two prints, and then re-size the original image for posting here. So, all told, it takes me about an hour and a half per week I guess. That sounds like a lot! I think I could do it faster, but I enjoy the process so I like to take my time.

Thanks for looking, and let me know if you have any questions!

Favotre {Photo} Friday--Grandpa Earl

2010-01-22T23:59:00.006-05:00

Today was kind of a rough day, emotionally. The kind of day where you have a complete hormonal meltdown in the kitchen and have to sit down in the middle of the floor. Jason was awesome and eased me out of it, and then just as I was coming back into my normal self, I happened to look at my perpetual/special dates calendar and saw that today is my Grandpa's birthday.

And then I started crying again.

My grandpa's been gone for many years now, but I still get choked up every time I think of him, because I just miss him so damn much.

So I started digging through my boxes of photos, looking for an old photo of my grandpa on his favorite horse, when he was so young and handsome and looked kind of like Roy Rogers. My aunt had the original scanned in and gave me a copy of it not too long after he died. But I couldn't find it, so I started crying again.

So instead, I'm going to show you two other photos that my aunt gave me. Several years ago she took all the photos that my mom had sent her while my sister and I were growing up, and she put them all into albums for us. Which is so awesome! Anyway, here we go:

I love that he's wearing the party hat. :) I'm the one in the back apparently trying to figure out how to operate a party horn.

Here I'm younger, obviously. I still remember that stuffed animal, it had a music box inside that would play when you wound up a key sticking out of its hip. :)

I love how engaged he is with us/me in both of these photos.

I love how this past Christmas, at home in Oregon, we talked about him and retold a couple of his many, many, many stories. He was such an amazing storyteller. I want to capture some of these stories, put them on paper, while I still remember and have family to help me remember what I've already forgotten.

But now, I'm emotionally spent. I'm cried out. So instead, I'll just tell a short story that always makes me smile to remember.

When I was in college I was home for a summer break. Grandpa was over and I was heading out to meet a boy (I don't even remember who and of course it doesn't matter). As I was walking out the door, Grandpa yelled,

"Be good!

And if you can't be good, be careful!

And if you can't be careful, name it after me!"

Quite a sense of humor, my Grandpa Earl had. Love you and miss you sooooo much, Grandpa.

Project 365, Week 3 & a How-To

2010-01-19T12:00:00.003-05:00

I'm really loving this Project 365 thing! Here's Week 3 (click on any of the photos to see them larger):

This week I did what I did for Week 1, pulling the colors out of the photos to use as the journaling and title spots. This layout had an extra spot for journaling so I used a little clip art that says Brrrrrr (I think I got it from Scrap-N-Fonts). I also used a "dingbat" font called CK Where It's At to do the little arrows pointing to which photo goes with the journaling. Other than that I stuck with the same font and basic pattern as with the previous two weeks.

I'm also loving how easy it is to upload these to Costco and get prints! I thought I'd quickly show how I'm doing it and why. Costco offers many prints sizes, two of which are 12x12" and 12x18", and both of these two sizes are $2.99 each. I want this big photo, shown above, to be 12x24" overall, or two 12x12" pages, so that it will fit into my scrapbook. But when printers print photos, a little bit of the outside edge is cut off. Since I have such a skinny little white strip in the middle of these two pages, if I had them printed just as two 12x12s, that little white strip would probably be cut off from the edges of both sides and it would look odd when I put the two pages together. So I have them printed as 12x18s and cut them myself; it's the same price and I know what I'll be getting! I just upload the complete "page spread" to Costco.com, and then I order a 12x18" print twice... once cropped all the way over to the left, and once cropped all the way over to the right. So I end up with this:

You can see that I end up with 6" of overlap on both sides. Now I just need to cut them down to fit into my album. Using my trusty Fiskars trimmer, first I line up the top so that the cutting blade is in the middle of that white strip.

Then I move the trimmer blade (without cutting!) down to the bottom of the page to double-check the alignment to make sure that it will cut through the middle of the white line all the way from top to bottom.

Once I get it aligned then I just trim right through it and end up with a 12x12" page and a 6x12" scrap.

Do the same thing for the other piece. Make sure you line up the line where you want to cut, don't trust the ruler.

Measure twice, cut once. :) Double-check the bottom, too--I always have to rearrange the photo to make sure it's lined up properly.

Then cut!

Now I have two 12x12" pages that look just like my original 12x24" page spread!

Slide them into the album's page protectors and voilà!

Then I cut up my scraps and put the photos into my scrapbooking photo storage, in case I want to scrap about any of the individual photos.

Here's the Title Page/Week 1 in the album:

And here's Week 2.

Thanks for looking! :) And it's never too late if you want to start doing a photo-a-day project, nobody says you had to start on January 1! :)

If you don't have the time or the inclination to do digital or traditional scrapbook photos, check out Project Life from Becky Higgins (now distributed by Amazon!). It comes with everything you need to make an album, including page protectors with slots so you just have to slide in a photo, write on one of the including journaling cards, and slide that into the next slot. Perfect for busy moms who want to remember those little moments and funny things your kids say and do but don't have a lot of time. I got it for my sister for Christmas! You don't have to use it to do Project 365 or photo-a-day, you can just use it for any photos you happen to take and want to jot down a little note about! No, I'm not a paid spokesperson, just an advocate for documenting your memories! :)

Favorite {Photo} Friday--The Dance in The Dalles

2010-01-15T18:54:00.010-05:00

Apparently it's "Retro Week" on Facebook, so everyone is posting old photos of themselves. My best friend from high school, Lisa, is here this weekend for a convention and I drove in today to have lunch with her and her mom (who came along since it's a fun convention). So I decided to find an old photo of the two of us, which I'm sure she'll love. If you didn't hear the sarcasm in that, trust me, it's there. :)

The story that goes along with this photo is almost too much to believe. Looking back it seems completely asinine that we even did this, but then again, it was high school; pretty much everything we did in high school was utterly ridiculous! :)

Now, I'll try to keep this as simple as possible, but pay attention, 'kay? So Lisa was friends with a girl named Sarah. Sarah was on the swim team, and in her travels for swim meets she met a boy, whose name I cannot begin to remember, who went to another school about two hours away in a town called The Dalles. Sarah being a teenage girl, of course she liked him even though he lived far away; she probably liked him more because he lived far away, drama being a primary tenet of teenage girlhood. So this boy--let's just call him Brian, to make it easier--asked her to come to a formal dance at his school. Even though he lived two hours away. So she somehow cons her mom into this plan, whereby Sarah will bring Lisa along, and Brian will ask a friend, and it will be a foursome going to the dance. Oh, and Lisa and Sarah would stay overnight at Brian's mom's house, did I mention that part?

At the last minute, Sarah's mom ~~comes to her senses~~ grounds Sarah for something or other, and says she can't go to the dance. And here's where it should have ended, right?

But Lisa and I, being the sweet girls we were, just felt awful for these two boys we'd never even met, suddenly dateless to a big formal dance. I mean, just imagine. Like, how totally, like, embarrassing!!

So we decide that we will come to the rescue, and I will go in Sarah's place. Even though neither Lisa nor I have met either of the boys. Even though it's two hours away in the middle of winter. Even though I don't have a dress and I have to borrow one from our friend Alyson who is much more beautiful and dramatic than me and could actually pull off enormous shoulder poofs.

My mom talks to Brian's mom and is assured that we'll be safe and she won't let Brian sneak into our room in the middle of the night and all that jazz. So, just like that, we pack our bags and our dresses and get ready to drive two hours to go to a dance with some guys we don't even know. Lisa's step-dad John puts the tire chains into the trunk of Lisa's awesome Chevy Cavalier, just in case we need them, and we head out.

When we're almost to The Dalles, we take a wrong exit. And in the process of turning around, someone starts to drive down this enormously huge hill. In the snow. In a Chevy Cavalier. There's a parking lot about halfway down the hill, so I urge her to pull in. But as soon as she turns the wheel, the car slides sideways and the wheels start spinning and we're stuck. So I get out of the car, trying to check out the situation, and Lisa keeps spinning the wheels. And I just start laughing, hysterically. So I'm standing outside in the snow laughing so hard I can barely breathe, and Lisa's inside the car, spinning the wheels and crying and screaming at me, "It's not funny!" This is what friendships are made of, for sure.

The car is at an angle across the road on a hill, so I decide the only thing to do is to drive the rest of the way down the hill so we can get to a flat spot to put on the chains. So we get down the hill, and I ask Lisa how we put on the chains, because John had said that he'd show her.

John only told her. Telling a high school girl something she doesn't want to know and doesn't think she'll need to know is exactly the same as not telling her at all.

But I'm a smart girl, I'm sure I can figure out tire chains, right? In my letterman's jacket and cotton gloves, in the snow?

Let's just say that there was more crying and more laughing by both of us, and NO ONE offered to help us. Eventually I figured it out, with frequent breaks back in the car to warm up my FROZEN hands, and we made it back up the hill. At the top of the hill it turned out that there was a bar, and for some reason a lot of men were sitting outside the bar on benches under an awning. Just as we drove past them, one of the chains came off, so I made Lisa stop the car so I could go back and pick it up. All the men watched me walk back to the chain, pick it up, walk back to the car, put it in the trunk, and get back in the car, while they said not a single word, let alone offering to help. This used to make me really mad, until I realized that they were sitting on benches outside a bar on a Saturday morning in the freezing cold January weather while it snowed; I don't want to say they were mentally deficient, but let's just say that they probably wouldn't have been much help to us anyway!!

Eventually we made it to the correct exit, and met the guys, which was hilarious in its level of awkwardness. We went back to Brian's house and got all gussied up and Brian's mom took our picture!

Then we went to the dance, which was weird and incredibly awkward, because of course everyone at the dance was staring at us like, "Who the heck are they? And where did that blond girl get that ridiculous dress? And why isn't she standing up straight?" Lisa and I kept trading the guys as partners, because Brian's friend (far left) was weird and neither of us wanted to slow dance with him. Eventually we all went back to Brian's mom's house and played this totally fun game called True Colors. Lisa and I looked for it for years afterward and could never find it, but it looks like a re-released version is available on Amazon now! I'm tempted to buy it but of course it wouldn't ever be the same (not to mention that I have a ton of games that we never even play!).

In the end of course I'm glad we went, because this is one of those stories that are such a part of our friendship. But seriously? How nuts!

Happy long weekend!

Project 365, Weeks 1 and 2

2010-01-12T13:44:00.002-05:00

Now that I have a camera that I'm friends with, I decided to join in the Project 365 craze that's been going around the interwebs for a whole bunch of years now. The basic idea is to take a photo every day for 365 days, and at the end of the year you'll have an interesting portrait of your life, in 365 individual moments.

Some people put these into Flickr streams, or have blogs dedicated to their 365 Projects. But because I'm a scrapbooker, of course I decided to do weekly layouts with the photos! Since I'm also becoming friends with Photoshop, I decided to make these digital pages for now; I can do everything on the computer so I can get them done no matter how much of a giant mess my scrap area is. :) I bought a few templates and as the year goes on and I learn more, I may make things fancier with other elements, or make my own templates. Or I may switch and do some physical paper layouts. Or a hybrid of both. Or I might miss a few days or a week and then just give up on the whole thing altogether. :) But for now, it's digital. I want to keep it simple-simple so that it's easy and I keep doing it! :)

I decided to do my weeks from Monday-Sunday. Every Monday I'll work on the previous weeks' layout and then post it here on Tuesdays. That's the goal, anyway! Click on either of the photos to see them BIG (and then use the back button on your browser to come back here).

I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the first week since it was only three days, plus I wanted a title page... but the template set I bought came with a fifth template that isn't listed, and that worked perfectly! I just flipped it on its side and voilà, title page + three days.

I actually did this page after doing the page(s) below. Since it's also the title page for the whole album I didn't want to use just blues for cold January, so I just pulled the colors from the photos. The top teal was picked from the peppermint tea wrappers, the yellow journaling spot from the other tea wrapper, the blue from the speakerphone bar on the phone, and the green from part of the Brussels sprouts. I like this so I'll probably do it more throughout the year.

On the layout for the first full week of January I decided to change all the colors to blues because it's been coooold here. I just randomly chose blues in the color picker in Photoshop; if I did it over again I would choose differently, but hey, it's done! :)

I chose a messy typewriter font because... well, because I like it, basically, and I can imagine using it throughout the entire year. It's called Traveling Typewriter and you can find it here for free.

I also decided to not try to journal about each day in its entirety and just to do a sentence or so about the photo; again, keeping it easy! That way if I get to the end of a crazy week there's no pressure to remember every detail, just something about the photo and its significance (if there is any!).

I'm having these printed at Costco because they print 12x12 for $2.99 and it's very convenient for me (again, EASY), then I'll slide them into a 12x12 album. It's also convenient because I don't have to digitally split the pages on the above 12 x 24" spread... I just upload the original jpg and then order one print cropped all the way to the left, and one print cropped all the way to the right. My first order is actually waiting for me so I'll let you know how they turn out when I pick them up!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Books

2010-01-08T20:45:00.005-05:00

I've mentioned before how much I love books. I also love supporting small businesses, recycling, and getting a good deal. So imagine my sheer and utter disappointment when I drove to my local used bookstore back in December and it wasn't there. Their big sign was gone and there was just no trace of them.

Seriously? I almost cried.

I'm so dependent on used bookstores (that one and online) that when I realized earlier this week that I need to buy a copy of Cry, The Beloved Country for my book club next week, I had a moment of panic. Now that my bookstore was closed, where would I get the book? There wasn't enough time to order it online! [It never even occurred to me to go to Borders or Barnes & Noble!]

So I drug myself into the shower and then threw on some clothes and slapped on some makeup, to leave the house for the first time in a week. I was planning to go to the library to check it out, which I don't like to do for book club because I can't make notes in the margins and dog-ear pages. But before I could do that I had to go to the bank, which meant that I had to drive past the shopping center where the used book store used to be.

And then I saw it. At the opposite end of the shopping center, there it was!! My used bookstore! In a bigger location!

Seriously? I almost cried again, but this time for joy!

And what's even better? I know, I could hardly believe it myself that there could be anything better, but there was: a free books bin outside the front door!

All of these beauties were in it! Essential Keats, a book of short stories set in Oregon (my beloved home state), the B and G volumes of an old World Book encyclopedia, and an old edition of the Merck Manual I can understand. But To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone With The Wind? In hardcover? In any event, I snatched them right up! I also got some other fun falling-apart stuff that I'll use in collage (that's why I got the Merck and the encyclopedias, too).

Oh, and I got Cry, The Beloved Country for $3.28, as well as an Agatha Christie novel for $.81!

****************************************

I still need to do a post on my One Little Word and the necklace I'll be offering for it... I haven't forgotten, just been holed up trying to get well. :)

Have a great weekend! :)

2009 Review

2010-01-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sick and hopped up on cold meds, but wanted to post something about 2009... thanks to Stella for the list! :)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Visited Colorado; we'd driven through it before but I hadn't really seen anything. It's a beautiful state and Jason and I had a hard time leaving!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't really make any specific resolutions, I just had general things I wanted to focus on this past year. In some areas I did a great job, and in other areas I didn't. So I'm refocusing on those areas that still need improvement this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! Kellie had Carli (shown below), Nicole had twin girls, and a TON of my friends are pregnant (two with twins!). And Erin gave birth to Tommy on the stairs in her house, which I'm mentioning because if you haven't read about it before, you really should now, it's hilarious and amazing! And I can't believe I live 3000 miles away from this baby, isn't she adorable? Miss you, Kel, and I can't wait to meet Carli!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My amazing friend Shannon was a Chemo Pal for a little girl named Natasha. I donated to Shannon's runs and triathlons to raise money for Leukemia & Lymphoma, and I followed along with Natasha's CaringBridge site. I never met Natasha but I feel like I knew her, I sent her presents, and I was heartbroken when she lost her battle.

5. What countries did you visit?
None. {Sob!}

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A fitter, healthier, skinnier body; more willpower; a more organized house so I'm comfortable having people over.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
For better or worse, I'm not a big "date" person. I don't really have strong emotional ties to certain dates other than birthdays and anniversaries of immediate family members, and even have a hard time remembering those sometimes! I think of people who have passed (my friend Doug, my Grandpa Earl, my Grandma Evelyn) all the time, and I remember the time of year that they passed, but not the dates. So when I think of things I'll remember about this year, they're not really tied to specific dates. That said:

Most of July of this year is pretty memorable, for both good and bad reasons.
I remember the exact moment that Jen found me at Inspired and I realized that she was as excited to see me as I was to see her (below is a photo of Jen, Aimee, and me at Inspired)!

The whole Miracle on the Hudson thing will stick with me, too, because I happened to have the TV on when it happened, and I was truly terrified for everyone on board; I sat watching and praying and crying and it was almost too good to be true when they announced everyone was safe!
My friend Jilliene in California had brain surgery and I couldn't do anything until I knew she was okay, to the point that I started calling hospitals until I found out where she was, kept calling back until she was out of surgery, and finally talked to her husband! :)
I remember the moment when Jason called me from Georgia and told me "I'm okay, but I wrecked the bike... they're taking me to the ER now."

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing the Avon Walk (photo below, yes, it was pouring rain) and raising $4000 was pretty big, as was meeting my goal to list 30 new items in my Etsy shop in September!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not getting as much done in the house as I wanted.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I think I was sick for the first three months of the year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hrm, this is a tough one. I'll say plane tickets, I bought a lot of those!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Jason was a truly amazing husband this year (photo below); my sister Tauni made a parenting decision that really impressed me and is really helping her family; Jilliene stayed positive and active despite enduring crippling pain and brain surgery and the disappointment of the crippling pain coming back. I don't know how she does it!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Most people on the news, which is why I don't watch! Politicians, celebrities, and the fact that they spend so much time on the media reporting it all. BLEH.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Traveling to visit friends and family, jewelry supplies (although I made that back!), arts & crafts supplies.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Seeing Kellie in Seattle, the Avon Walk, Inspired artist workshop and seeing my friends again, CHA with Lori, seeing my nieces (photo below), my 15-year high school reunion, going on a vacation with Jason, making it out of DC during the big snowstorm!!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Black Eyed Peas' I Got a Feeling.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier I think
b) thinner or fatter? fatter for sure
c) richer or poorer? richer by a smidge

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercising, calling friends, blogging, organizing the house.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Eating!, being annoyed, watching tv, being depressed.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With family at home in Oregon. We spent Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with Jason's family (part of the spread, below).

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Over and over again with Jason... cheesy but true!

22. What was your favorite new TV program?
Glee! I also love The Good Wife, and I became addicted to Criminal Minds even though it's not a new show, it's new to me... same for Bones, I love that show! :)

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Yikes, hate is a very strong word! I don't even think that I dislike anyone this year that I liked last year.

24. What was the best book you read?
I love The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. It's not new but I read it last January and it is amazing.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I love music but I'm so out of it when it comes to who's new and knowing who all the cool bands are. My sister gave me a Brandi Carlisle CD for my birthday, though, and I love it!

26. What did you want and get?
A new camera (below), a new vacuum cleaner, a new mattress; new friends; to travel to visit friends and family.

27. What did you want and not get?
More local friends; to travel abroad; skinny. :)

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
We didn't see that many new movies because we rarely go to the theater, but I loved The Blind Side.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 34 this year. A couple weeks before my birthday we went out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant in DC called Tosca and then went to see our favorite comedian, Mike Birbiglia. It wasn't on my birthday but I always forget that because it felt like a birthday date. On my actual birthday we went to a local Italian restaurant which was more expensive and not as good as Tosca. :) My awesome sister-in-law, Angella, got me gift certificates to Tosca for my birthday and Christmas so I'm excited to go back! :) The photo is not great but it tasted divine; the best Italian food I've had since we've been back.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
[This answer is not suitable for public posting.]

31. Describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Do yoga pants count as a fashion concept? I hit my heaviest weight (ever!) in November and most of the clothes in my closet don't fit, enough said?

32. What kept you sane?
Hope. And talking to trusted friends on the phone/via e-mial/via online chat/via text. And wine. And hot, hot baths. And good books. And making art. And eating, obviously, damnit!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Mark Wahlberg, same as always. :) I mean, c'mon!

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The war.

35. Who did you miss?
My nieces, they're growing up so quickly and I really hate that I'm missing so much. I saw them twice this year and I hope to visit again in the Spring. I also really, really miss all of my artist friends who live all over North America!

36. Who was the best new person you met?
It's kind of a tie. Technically I met Lori in 2008, but we became a lot closer this year and she's one of my best friends now (photo below). And technically I haven't met Erin, but after she ordered a necklace from me we found each other on Twitter and Facebook and our blogs, and through her I found a bunch of other awesome ladies who all live in NW Indiana (NWI) and are on Twitter and have blogs. I feel like they're all new friends even though I haven't actually met any of them, but I'm constantly inspired by them and they make me LAUGH more than anyone else online! Maybe I'll have to make a trip to NWI this year! :) Oh! And when I was in Orlando I met Lori's friend Anke, whom I adore and wish the three of us lived on the same cul-de-sac.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Oh, Lordy. I guess I'll just say that hope springs eternal.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I can't say that it "sums up" the year, but it certainly came to have a lot of meaning to me, even more than it did before. I wanted a necklace for myself so I made it and listed it on Etsy, and it sold, like, immediately--within minutes--to a husband for his wife's birthday. So I made another one and re-listed it, and a woman ordered two matching ones as a very, very special gift for two twin teenage girls who had just lost their older brother; the three of them used to sing this song together, and I put little hearts on the back with the brother's initials. Then I made it again and it encouraged someone to ask me for a custom piece with her special song on it. And people just kept buying it, telling me how special it was and how they were so excited to have it or give it as a gift, which is my favorite thing about my business. Finally I did make myself one to wear, and I wore it all through the holidays. I love it.

Rise up this mornin'

Smile with the risin' sun

Three little birds

Perch by my doorstep

Singin' sweet songs

Of melodies pure and true

Singin' this is my message to you:

Don't worry

About a thing

'Cause

Every little thing

Is gonna be alright

--Three Little Birds, Bob Marley

Favorite {Photo} Friday--SOOC

2010-01-01T23:59:00.005-05:00

I think I'm going to like this new camera, oh yes I do!

I realize that this is not a prize-winning or inspiring photo, but if you'd ever used my old camera you would understand how excellent this is.

This photo is straight out of the camera (SOOC). I didn't have to edit the brightness or contrast or color or anything. And it's of food. Often food will come out looking less-than-appetizing when photographed--that's why they make the food inedible by coating it with sprays and lacquers when they photograph food for magazines!

This is our lunch at the airport when we flew home from Oregon to DC. The Portland airport (PDX) was ranked the best airport in the country by Conde Nast Traveler... for three years in a row! 2006, 2007, and 2008... in 2009 it slipped to second place. Growing up in Oregon I didn't travel by plane a lot, but obviously the airport I spent the most time at was PDX, even if it was just to pick someone up. Remember the time before cell phones and the internet (and the internet on cell phones!) when you had to wait around airports for delayed flights? Ah, childhood. Anyway, PDX was my reference for what airports were all about, so when I grew up and started traveling around, other airports shocked and appalled me with their lack of recycling or their griminess or their waaaaaay overpriced and/or totally mediocre food. Portland rocks. And this meal was no exception; totally delicious salads, onion rings, and dark beer, for reasonable prices, and with excellent service. Imagine!

But back to the subject, I really think I'm going to like this new camera. And I've almost completely gotten used to the redness of it; I don't even say, involuntarily and out loud, "It's RED" like I did for the first three days whenever I saw it. :) I need to put my 50mm 1.4 lens on her and see what we can do then, wheeeee!

I'm getting sick so I'm going to save my "Hooray for 2010" posts for later this week, but they're coming... hopefully, assuming this cold doesn't knock me down and out! I'll also be announcing my One Little Word and a special necklace deal!

Happy New Year!