Seriously, tomorrow is the first of August

And about 80% of the people whom I internet-stalk/keep up with (K. laughs at me for referring to my "friend" in France, who has no idea I exist) have not updated. That gives me the freedom to talk about whatever I please.

1st. The Trip
The beach was as expected, with the exception of the bloody pawprints on the door; my mother's dog did not take kindly to being left in a bedroom on our one evening in town when there was a thunderstorm, and he tried his damnedest to get out of the room, ergo costing mom a whole lot of moolah. But the bloody pawprints tickled me, they really did.

On our way back, K. and I began Our New Method of Traveling.

K. hates spending money, and isn't so good at enjoying the trip; he always wants to get straight to the destination. This means that when we travel across America, we stay in budget motels conveniently located off the interstate, eat in gas stations, or a cracker barrel if I throw an absolute fit.

But this is changing, a wee bit.

Saturday night, we reached our goal of Conyers, Georgia, desirable as a location only because it's about 30 miles outside Atlanta, and we were planning to hit the Atlanta Trader Joe's in the morning and didn't want to pay Atlanta hotel rates. So we stopped, got a room in a chain hotel off the interstate, and then, while K. showered, I took advantage of the free wireless to google the town's history.

Turns out even Conyers has a past, and after I'd told K/ about it, we got directions to the old town of Conyers, which turned out to be about a half-mile from all the interstate sludge. We parked behind some beautiful old brick buildings and promptly ran into...an Elvis impersonator. "Good evening," he said, and we good-eveninged him back. He drove a white SUV, which matched the jump suit.

After walking down an alley and following our ears, we came upon a darling little street that was blocked off for a block party; locals stood talking, eighties music played, and it was all very cute, especially in front of buildings like these (this pic was taken the following am, on Sunday, when all good Southerners are in church):



We ate at a supremely good (and cheap!) Thai restaurant, right there, very happy that we'd passed by the Cracker Barrel. It was a truly nice time, and we could have so easily not had it.

2nd. The Baby

I ain't posting tomorrow, so here's your update: the kid's alive! I went to the doctor this afternoon and heard its heartbeat; it kept moving, so she was sliding the cold listening-thingie all over my stomach, trying to keep up with it. I can't feel the baby move yet, but the doctor said that she'd be surprised if I could; my official freak-out date about that is 23 weeks, so not for another whole month.

We find out the baby's gender at the next appt, and I cannot wait. That appt was to be August 21st, but K. and I just realized he has yet another business trip planned, so we're hoping we can bump it up a day. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, here's a picture of my not-so-svelte self:



I'm kind of nekkid-pregnant now, meaning my belly is sticking way out, but it still kinda fits under normal clothes, so you can't tell unless I'm...you know.

Still, happy 19 weeks to the bebe. We're still trucking.

We're back!

K. with Eliza and their "castle"; me.

Long post to follow.

We'll be back July 30th

We are going to the beach; we leave today, arrive tomorrow, and I haven't packed a thing. The hosue was beautiful when K. gone home, and now it's like a damn tornado....but I digress.

Me, the two beasties that K. loves, and K. himself are going to the beach-- along with 3 other dogs, both my aunts and their hubbies, my mom, my sister, my cousin, and perhaps my very grumpy grandfather and step-grandma, if they ever make up their DARN minds. We're all staying in the same house. We may not make it back alive. Yesterday, mom said "I'm bringing bourbon." Me: "And what am I supposed to do? I'm not ALLOWED to drink."

On the upside, I can always pull the I'm-pregnant card.

Wish us luck!

I woke up to the door opening at 6.45 am...

And sweetie was home!

Poor man killed eight hours in Las Vegas before leaving on a red-eye flight that put him into Memphis at 5 in the morning. He's sleeping, and I am so.so.so glad he's home.

Baby Day

Alas, the baby is not a sweet potato; at 17 weeks, it's more like a large onion. 5 ounces/5 inches with cartilage hardening to bone. Not much else news this week.

It has officially been confirmed to me that I do not look pregnant; "just kind of poochy," said my social engagement of last night, who is sporting a near-full-grown baby-in-the-belly herself.

I figure it's because of my remarkable ab muscles.

I have also not felt the baby move to my knoweldge. Why to my knowledge? Well, apparently the first movements (felt between 16-20 weeks) can feel like bubbles, butterflies, or...gas.

Still not sick; still not thinking labour will be the worst experience of my life; still feeling like me, ergo frustrating the woman who came up to me and told me about her co-worker's 50-hour-labour.

We'll reach the beach by Saturday. Aloha!

I have had a killer day (novel quota, an interview, 2 articles, proofs to the Fed-Ex, and now a social engagement), but:

Look at the ducks! The baby ducks!

Interviewed an organic gardener this morning and she had baby ducks!

Pregnancy update

From now on, Wednesday will be Baby day, since it's the day that I turn from one week to the next week, which means I get to tune into my pregnancy web caldendar and see what the baby's doing now (you wouldn't believe this kid! 2 weeks ago its intestines moved into its stomach!).

Today, I am 16 weeks preggers. The baby is now the size of an avocado; considering that we were in the kidney bean stage for a while, it's nice to be moving through the fruit ranks. I think sweet potato is next, but I might be jumping the gun.

My belly's pooching out, but I *still* don't look very pregnant. Which is kind of a bummer, because we're going to the beach with my family for a week next Friday and I wanted my tummy to be all huge in between my bikini. Man, I love me some bikinis. They make me feel like I'm four and running around nekkid.

I've been having intense dreams, which everone talks about, but they don't seem especially mystical. And I've always slept like I was thrown into the bottom of a well, so really, I don't think I feel much different, other than the fact I now feel guilty whenever I sleep on my back and waves of hunger that make me nearly nauseous descend with no warning every few hours.

K. is now forbidden sugar. I told him that I was having a hard time avoiding sweets, and I'd been fantasizing about chocolate ice cream. We went to Sonic THE NEXT DAY and he blithely ordered a large choclate milkshake. He is now *sweet*less (and you really don't want to know the reason I'm avoiding sugar, but let me just assure you that if I could, I would eat as much sugar as I could stuff into my body like most pregnant women, so perhaps the fact that my body has stopped handling it is really a good thing. Other than my bloated belly, I think the rest of me is actually thinner since the doc laid down the kibosh.).

In the beginning, I thought we were having a boy, but now-- no idea. I call it The Baby in my head, and it is genderless, which-- as someone told me that mothers "know" about the child's gender, means that I now worry that it is a hermaphrodite. This does not worry me as much as it might, because being preggers means that I am so INUNDATED with entirely legitimate things to worry about that the hermaphrodite thing is about #44, right after # 43: the baby's room is carpeted and therefore its lungs could be damaged because hardwoods are better and #45: how long should we wait until baby #2, considering I want my last child to be out of the house by the time I turn 50 but 18 months between means I only get 9 months off before getting pregant again but 24 months means that Baby #1 will hate Baby #2...

I think I have to go eat something.

Because I'm Better than You

Now that I'm nearly blind from writing a tricky article about a hurricane katrina refugee/speech therapist/art promoter, I thought I'd post in the hopes that pretty much everyone I know would get off their bloggers' duff and tell me how they are.

That being said, I'm cheating with pictures.

Me, my sister, and my newest obsession (handrolling avocado rolls since sushi in this place is so darn expensive):



And a shot of my proud and sunburnt husband when he arrived home, fish in hand:



Happy Tuesday chickies!

Yesterday, I won at Scrabble

And yet, it was not the highlight of my Sunday. Such a nice day: church, cherries, Scrubs, Scrabble, a long nap after the vegetable soup made me nearly comatose (something about eating these days makes me so tired), TWO baths, a dog walk, and grilled chicken and corn on the barbeque I finally convinced K. to drop $20 on.

A great day, and much-needed, considering my sweetheart will be living it up yet again in Vegas next Saturday to next Thursday.

We finished it off in the dark bedroom, lying side by side under soft cotton on plumped pillows, talking-- YES, talking-- intently about The State of America.

Being involved with this small town has made me wonder about the future of small towns in America. I hate to see so many gentrifying themselves with coffee bars and over-priced antiques, hoping to become the latest get-away destination for urban people with money, but that seems to be the only viable alternative other than 1. being a University town or 2. dying. Because the people who used to support small towns were farmers and then industry/factory workers, and we now eat food from other coutries and agricultural giants and use things made in other nations.

K. said, well our town is still alive, and I agree. It has a hardware store, a local newspaper, a video rental, a lumberyard, a drugstore, and a grocery store-- all locally owned and operated, although all have their competitors (mostly in Oxford).

But there's also still one plant here, a place that makes carburators, and if it closed-- how many of those businesses would survive?

K. thinks-- and I agree-- that we have always chosen technology over what's actually good for people. There is more stuff in the world than ever before, but somehow, bluecollar America isn't making it. Which is why our colleges are filled to bursting, and the competition for liberal arts majors is so intense.

I wonder what will happen.

Why don't I get any of the GOOD celebrities?

First, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were married on the same day (albeit a year earlier) than K. and I. That's right, we share an anniverary-- or did, since they've since divorced.

And now? Now that I'm expecting our first baby and wander around in jersey dresses with a slight bump showing, guess who is doing the same?

Not Heidi Klum.

Not Cate Blanchette, or Mandy Moore, but...

Nicole Ritchie.

It's very sad.

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!!!!!!

Happy Friday

K. and I stayed up until 1 in the morning watching season 2 of Scrubs and eating crackers and cheese last night. WIld times, my friends, wild times. We've both been a bit cranky, a bit on edge, a bit going-through-the-motions, and I think we are more than ready for our week in Vermont. We leave next Wednesday. We haven't left Mississippi since... January (with the exception of my overnighter in Birmingham), and I can't wait.

In other news, it's been delightfully chilly at night, Shadow waited to vomit this morning until we let her outside (this is a first), and we ate some of our own lettuce! Those are the good things.

Have a wonderful Friday chickies.