Still rockin'

What with the nervous breakdown, house decorating, and visit from my FANTABULOUS sister, there's been no time for posting this week.

Of course, since no one updates their blogs anyway, I don't much feel guilty.

I got K. a Father/pregnany book and am slightly regretting it... "you're not supposed to take hot baths" "you can't have any brie" "my book SAID you'd be clingier" but mostly it's really sweet to hear him getting all this baby-on-the-way knowledge.

Speaking of K., he's away! On a boys' vacation! He headed off in the early afternoon for a 3-day fishing trip on the Gulf with THIRTEEN other guys, on average about thirty years older than him. I last heard from him when they'd arrived in the Walmart at Biloxi, where they were stocking up on you guessed it, beer. Watching K. and these grown men compare tackle boxes, confer over line weights, and practice casting in a backyard made it awfully hard to begrudge him a weekend away. Wish him big fish.

Besides-- my sister is here! And S. is driving in from Birmingham tomorrow, so wild times will be had, my friends. Right after I take a nap.

Baby update: Went to the doctor, heart still beating.

Confessions

Background: after K/ called me a roly-poly crazy person (or something like that) and I thwacked him for calling me roly-poly, he pointed out that I sometimes get upset at the wrong part of his insults.

Then:

Me: Sometimes I wish that Shadow and Dido would die so I could get the new, flea-free, non-shedding, non-crazy dogs that are my REAL pets.

K.: That's terrible.

ME: When we have teenagers, I'm going to turn to you and say that I wish we could start over and have our real children instead of these pimply monsters.

K.: And then I'll turn to the children and say that I wished I could start over with my real wife instead of this pimply monster.

Me: I'm not VERY pimply. (And I'm NOT!)

Pause.

Nor am I a monster!

A very good Wednesday

I dreamed last night that I gave borth to FIVE babies at once (all healthy, thank Heaven) (wait? Why am I thanking Heaven?!?!) but K. wasn't there because he was assisting our pregnant friend in HER labour and I was all like "she's got her own husband, what the heck is wrong with you?"

Babies are kind of all I think about these days. I've never looked forward so much to doctor's visits (next one next Tuesday! whee!)

In other news: it finally rained here, which I thank God for. We've had less than half of the normal rain so far this year and summers are traditionally dry.

The Board of Aldermen voted the Main Street project K. and I are involved with into next year's fiscal budget, which means we can exist and get to work.

And most excitingly, K. and his new helper started working together last night. C. is a college kid with a lot of practical know-how, who showed up on time, worked hard, and thinks he's getting paid well. I am so thankful that K. will have someone to help him with the building-- since I've turned out to be pretty much unwilling and useless. But it's exciting to see the building emerging from all the crap piled into/onto it over the years.

So, down here southernly, most all is well.

pregnant ponderings

So far, I've puked once, taken a few naps, and not lost my baby. (Keep your fingers crossed.) This makes me a lucky pregnant person, as compared to women who spntaneously vomit at all hours of the night, etc.

So being pregnant hasn't impacted me hugely in a physical way; instead, it's more like early spring-- change is small, incremental-- except this.

I'm easier on myself.

When I look down the pike-- we live in a rented house, I'm drafting a book I dearly hope will jumpstart some kind of novelist career, we're having our first baby, and it's a fact that I myself am like a two yearold child when tired-- I can see that there's a lot of stuff heading our way.

So far, instead of continuously freaking out, I've slowed down a little. I lie down after lunch if I need to; I tell my husband he has to take a walk with me before he goes to work on his building; I'm going to suck it up and pay the library for the book I.Cannot.Find (sorry, sweetie!). I want to be with K. more, as if I'm storing up our together-time against the coming infant-months like some kind of love squirrel. Before, there was a maximum I had to get done each day; now, there's a minimum.*

If I had to compare it to something, I'd say I can see that there's a long tiring hectic few years in front of us-- especially when you consider we want more than one child-- and so I'm pacing myself like a long-distance runner, because I don't want to race through the coming time, frantic about how much more I need to be doing.


*This is not to say I am advocating lazy cows, because we all know how I feel about 1: dirty houses 2: uncared-for pets 3: "i wanna be a novelist but i just can't find the time to sit down and write" and 4: blowing off professional obligations. So there.*

For your Friday

Here at Chateau de K&A, all is well. Mom's in town for a visit, so I've been busy entertaining her in the afternoons...when she's not being squired around by a Mississippian she seems to have enchanted. We're going to hitup Greenwood, Mississippi, this afternoon, and I'm excited to tour a new town.

Mom swears I'm starting to show, but K. insists my belly has always been this big. I prefer to think that it has indeed grown. Either way, I'm feeling surpringsly good (aka not pregnant-ey) and I've only taken one nap in the last ten days!

Our garden has...grown. So far, we've learned that we planted WAY too much lettuce, and not enough beans. The corn is starting to form on the stalks, tassels and all, and we've been getting more and more cherry tomatoes coming in, while our big tomatoes are small, green, and growing. The crabgrass is relentless, we harvested all of our turnips, and our carrots are getting there.

Here's a pic:



And happy weekend!

catch up

A short and pleasant weekend. K. and I woke up on Sunday morning, decided to skip church, made blueberry pancakes and bacon and watched Arrested Development, and then-- went back to bed. Woke up at 1 and watched more Arrested Development! How decadent is that???

A busy week ahead; Mom arrives for a week-long visit this evening, I've got some deadlines, and the new novel cometh along. Plus, now that I'm positive I'm pregnant after seeing the darn thing on a screen, I devote entirely too much head space to baby stuff.

I'm anxious for my belly to stick out, so I'll look like I feel. I keep pulling up my shirt and saying "it's bigger, no?" to K., while he shakes his head.

It totally is, though.

The News that my husband has already told everybody in the entire world, including the president of this town's chamber of commerce and our landlords

I'm preggers!

FACTS:

How preggers: 11 weeks

Due date: Dec. 28th

Sex of child: Won't find out until week 20, idiot

Have you gone to an ob/gyn and seen the baby and seen + heard its heart beating: YES! So it's definitely alive!

How many pregnany books have I read: 3 and I'd like more (not including maternity fashion guidebooks)

Have you been sick: SO SO SO SO SICK, by which I mean mildly nauseous and tired for 2 weeks, seems to be gone now, during which I complained unremittingly

And the eternal "was this planned?": by which I respond, wanna make God laugh? Make a plan. Because let me tell you, the minute we thought we might want a baby, there I was peeing on a stick and whipping it out to show K. the minute he got home from work.

P.S. FOR THOSE WHO THINK WE'RE TOO YOUNG:

well, we are.

So we went, and now we're back.

Our cabin wintered Vermont beautifully. Our patron saint, Harry, took some pictures of the cabin decked out with snow among the bare trees, blue mountains startlingly visible beyond it, but alas, they are the old-fashioned non-digital kinds of pics and so you'll have to imagine.

Our cabin began our vacation as a lovely holding pen for dirty lumber and a vacation getaway for mice; when we left, the porch roof was done, our sassy little woodstove was installed, and we'd put down the final floor inside, as well as moving out all the lumber, scrubbing the walls, sweeping out the mousepoop, and making our cabin a cabin and not a construction zone. And-- perhaps most importantly-- we had ourselves a real vacation, complete with fishing, reading, bowls full of cherries, and entirely too many of those Vermont crullers K. loves so much-- not to mention time with his sisters and parents.

The fishing took place over where I used to work, the beautiful small private lake about ten minutes from our cabin, and K's swimming in the small swimming hole that the aforesaid patron saint dug out for us to utilize the ice-cold small stream that trickles under our road. We have a teeny-tiny perfect pond now!

So, here's our photo show:








It's beautiful, no? There are dozens of pictures I haven't shown you, because we are proud as heck of our small powerless cabin in the woods. K. came across me sitting cross-legged in the clearing where we had camped last September, among the new rye grass, just gazing. Whatyou doing? he asked, and I heaved a great dreamy sigh and said, just looking at our cabin.

OUR cabin. We got in a conversation on whether or not we would sell it for five times what we've put into it and the answer is--well, no. It wouldn't be enough money to retire on, and besides-- we never want to build something like this again.

After reading about the Powatan Indians and learning about a Norwegian farmer who is the eighth generation on a family farm, I've been thinking about land, and what it means. I never recognized the American pioneer spirit in me until I learned about people who understand themselves to be temporary, the land permanent; and so while K. and I plant our feet on our Vermont land and say, this is ours, we also try to think about what has been there before, what will be afterwards. The best melding of the two that we can manage.

We're back....

Biggest post in the world promised for this weekend!!!!!!