Every day goes by

I'm chugging along on Christmas crafts. To do: one woven scarf, one mitten (not actually for Christmas, just to avoid my child freezing her fingers off), several ornaments. Also cookies, etc. I'm looking forward to the holidays. I don't know why. Maybe because I'll have to make myself clean the house again. Mom and Dad coming to visit in three weeks is also good for that.

Life is straightening out quite a bit now that I'm into the second trimester. I haven't felt the baby move yet, but I'm okay with that. I'm regaining some foods, including chocolate, and now that it's citrus season I feel able to face the kitchen with reasonable fortitude. We've finally caught up on the dishes and laundry, and I'm working on crafting again, and even critting. No writing. I want to finish the Shoelace rewrite by the time the baby comes, but it isn't looking good.

Carol, her friend Charlotte, and I are working on a secret craft project. I'm not sure how secret we're making it--it's not like it's anything illicit, just blue-sky-ish for three busy moms--but that's part of the fun. Anyway, it will involve craft days and financial calculations and should be tons of fun, even if it doesn't work out, just like the Book Club Eric and I used to talk about. Pretty dreams are nice things. I'm starting to realize that's all they are. I'm really not very ambitious. Lazy? I'm not sure. Busy? Am I on the nineteenth story? Is that bad?

Matters of state

Well, hello again. I've just recently closed down another blog, the garden one, so maybe I'll be able to remember to turn to this one. So far it's mostly been the baby blog and my worknotes (e-mails to myself).

Let's see. Important news: I am pregnant again. Go ahead, ask me if it was planned. I'm due April 26, and have just given up job-hunting because I couldn't in good conscience accept a job and then go on maternity leave five or fewer months earlier. I hate this, but there it is. Eric is a stay-at-home dad, teaching a class at a local community college and doing online tutoring at night, and it's working out well except that I need a new computer (or at least a new OS, but the new computer would be really nice too) and we don't make enough disposable income that I'm comfortable getting one. It's going on the Christmas list. Chloë is doing very well; she can walk and say "up" and "Dada" and can point to various body parts, and gives marvelous hugs. I'm alternately excited and scared of having a second one. We're just growing into this nice family. Nevertheless.

I finished my most recent craft project, a quilt for my new niece (born last Sunday, I shipped it today, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been). Currently in progress:

-a baby sweater for Chloë, nearly finished
-a kitty hat for Chloë's cousin's Halloween costume, nearly started
-designs for Christmas stockings for all of us
-various attempts at making fleece hats and mittens for Chloë for the winter

Chloë's already outgrowing the baby blanket I made her, and she'll be moving to a toddler bed next summer anyway, so I'm contemplating a big-girl quilt for her. Also one for the new baby. No ideas yet on either.

And I've started the Shoelace revision. Rewrite, rather. I've been doing some research and some thinking and have, I hope, a much better background and outline. Currently I'm some 3500 words in, mostly new. I joined the Novel Club, a quarterly novel-critiquing group, on FMwriters, and I'd like to have this finished to submit by March. Ideally I'd say December, but I know that's not going to happen.

My current plan: finish the above craft projects, start on the quilts, do this quarter's crit early, and plod through Shoelace. I've been taking my lunch hour at work to either craft or write, since if I don't I just end up working through, and that's been helpful. It's also been nice that Chloë has become more independent, and importantly very regular in her sleeping habits, so I have a little time every day to work--not much, but some. So that's the plan. (Rule the world/you and me/Any day--I watched Dr. Horrible twice this weekend, and now I want to keep watching it so I can acquire the music and not just keep singing the same phrases to myself.)

All about late pregnancy

I'm up late because we're touring a pediatrician's office tomorrow morning and I'm going in to work afterward. Actually, I'm up late because I'm often up late these days, and I'm going into work afterward hoping not to get yelled at because I didn't get a chance to ask permission to do this so I just left a message on my boss's voicemail at about nine o'clock this evening. I do not think he'll yell at me. He doesn't yell. And he's lenient about letting us come in late or leave early for medical reasons and I do not abuse this. And I'm nine months pregnant. And I probably sounded distressed on the phone and maybe he'll think something's up with the pregnancy and will be extra understanding. I think I said "I have a doctor's appointment," which is technically true, but I don't remember for sure.

Our dining room table is a mess right now, due to a box of awesomeness that arrived from M and a baby present from a coworker that both came today. Admittedly the dining room table is often a mess, because Eric's mom always used their dining table as a "put everything down here and shove it into rough piles when you need more horizontal surface area" space and I haven't broken him of the same habit--and, worse, I think I'm starting to pick it up from him. "Thank goodness you're still here!" my coworker had said, and then, when she was leaving, "Thanks for holding off until I got this to you." She was appalled to hear that my doctor will probably wait at least a week beyond my due date to suggest induction.

In other news, there's a huge beetle under a glass on my kitchen floor. I heard something knocking around down there after Eric had left for his weekly gaming night and when I went down, all I found was this gigantic beetle flopping about on its back. I considered a broom, then put the glass over it and considered cardboard to scoop it up; then I decided I would let it die and see what it was before I got rid of it. Also I didn't want to bend over again.

Waiting, waiting

Eric didn't get that job, and is waiting on the results of another interview. They were supposed to call him Wednesday or Thursday, so I'm not hopeful. He does have a very good prospect of part-time teaching at the university, so that's something, but we finally pulled the last of his teaching stuff out of his car yesterday and he got very sad at the prospect of not using it again (even if he does get this job, he probably won't have a classroom of his own). He's been sad a lot. So have I, due to stress and pregnancy hormones, though we mostly do a good job of alternating so one of us is available to handle the other. I guess that's a marriage.

I'm about two scenes away from finishing Shoelace but haven't done it, partly because I'm working on nonfiction writing and the baby bumper, partly because I just plain don't want to work on it. Even though I'm in the middle of the climax. It's very strange. But I must finish it before the baby comes so I can ignore it in good conscience; ignoring it is bothering me now. Maybe this week.

I've gotten to the hard bit of pregnancy, where I can't sleep well and my body aches and people I barely know keep asking me the same four questions (Are you excited? When are you due? Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Do you have names picked out?--though somebody varied it the other day with "Did you really want a girl, or did you not care about the sex?" and I had to stop myself from saying "Actually, we really wanted a boy and hate the idea of a girl; we're not sure whether we're going to keep her"). I'm told this is nature's way of reconciling the new mother to a completely new life (not to mention labor) by making anything preferable to staying pregnant. I'm not sure I've reached that point yet, but I can see it coming. And of course maternity leave will be lovely, assuming the sleep deprivation doesn't send me (or Eric) into psychosis.

Gah. I'm depressing myself and I really don't mean to. I'm doing a lot of waiting lately, so I kind of feel my entire life is on hold, which is never a good feeling, but it's not that bad really. I probably need to do more and worry less--which I imagine is almost always good advice.

Self-determination

I'm feeling very restless and dissatisfied. Partly because I took an unintended nap and therefore had less time to do things today than I intended, partly because I didn't want to do the things anyway and was therefore secretly glad for the nap, partly because how can I be secretly anything when all I'm doing is talking to myself in my head? The mind is a strange place to live.

However, we made dinner, and I dug up the part of the garden that needs digging up, and some laundry is folded, and I will get some writing done before I go to bed. Probably also some reading or quilt binding, because my feet are a bit puffy-looking and I should put them up. My new gauge for how to spend my evening is the circumference of my ankles. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than by trying to hide my perfectly audible thoughts from myself.

Trying to relax

Blechh. My calves hurt (three charley horses last night--Eric said, "How is that possible when you only have two legs?") and I'm tired and there's a baby bubbling around in my internal organs. The last bit isn't so bad, except sometimes I wish I could make it stop, and the middle one is a good tired; I went out and worked in the garden and the yard a bit, and that makes me happy. Eric was going to mow the lawn, but his shoulder injury from an old car accident flared up again yesterday (possibly triggered by an irritating episode with his mother and her computer) so he's taking it easy. I'm trying to, too. We went to our first childbirth class on Thursday and I walked out of it crying because the relaxation exercise had triggered a whole bunch of unhappiness I hadn't realized I was carrying around. Eric said, "Apparently neither of us are real good at the relaxing thing," but we're giving it a try.

This weekend we intend to unload the bookcases in the office so that we can replace them with the bigger bookcases in the nursery, and make ice cream. Lemon ice cream. Yummy yummy lemon ice cream. I also intend to make another batch of chai, if there's enough cream left. I made some this past week just because I felt like it, and I think I'm getting close to a good recipe. I'd like to have someone else to get a second opinion (Eric's no good because he doesn't like chai), though I'm not sure why when it's my taste I'm trying to cater to. I think. Anyway, books and ice cream ahead. What could be more relaxing than that?

Grumpy pregnant lady

I was a total grumpy pregnant lady last night, caused partly by wearing maternity clothes to work (they were fairly comfortable physically but not at all psychically. I have issues, I know) and exacerbated by a last-minute all-evening babysitting gig for the eleven-year-old stepsister-in-law for no good reason (and the two-year-old niece for a good reason, but only for a couple of hours and we'd agreed to that earlier) and annoying dogs at the mothers' house. I'm not a dog person anyway, and slobbery tongues and noses all over my pants and hands just as I was finally sitting down to the dinner I had to argue to be allowed to prepare even though everyone else was hungry and wanted what I suggested did not make me any more so.

Ahem. I really am slightly better this morning, though not a lot.

Today Eric has promised to mow the lawn and build a bookcase. I do not actually believe he'll get both of these things done, but I hope to be wrong. We bought three bookcases from Target a couple of weeks ago for the purpose of moving the library out of what'll now be the baby's room while still leaving a couple of small bookcases for the baby's stuff (not to mention her own books--she only has five or six at the moment, aside from the kids' books that I still consider mine, but that will change). Our dream house will have a dedicated library with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. (And a secret passage.) In the meantime, we're lining the dining room with cheap bookcases. If we ever get them built. There's also a corn syrup slick in the pantry to clean up, and a mouse to poison or track down and shoot, and a whole bunch of other work to be done. Part of my grumpiness last night (and this morning) was also due to the neverending messiness and dirtiness of the kitchen and the house in general. Why are we homeowners? Arrgh.

To be honest, I think I'm disgruntled because I don't think I should have to be the one to work. Or rather, not the only one to work. Not twice in two years. Not when the house isn't any cleaner or better kept than when we were both working. Eric said on the way home from Penguicon that he was wondering whether he shouldn't just stay home with the baby next school year (and maybe teach lab part-time at the university) instead of getting a job. We need to talk more about this--it would be nice if it doesn't drive him crazy and we can afford it, but I wonder if he's really considering it because he's afraid of not finding a job, or of being dismissed a third time if he does--but I'm feeling all kinds of unattractive things when I think about it. I want to be the one to stay home. I didn't have to worry so much about money when I was unmarried. I do all this emotional caretaking already, I don't see why I have to be the sole breadwinner and the household manager too. I want someone to lean on, not someone to support. I'm a woman and a wife and I'm not supposed to have to do everything.

I hate that I feel this way. It's really not that bad; I’m just disgruntled and tired and anxious, and also the baby's hiccups resonate in my bones and I have to go take a glucose test and I still can't eat much cheese so mealtimes are difficult. (Not because I can't cook without cheese, but because our shared meals often involve it, especially in the winter, so if we want to eat something together there's a limited selection to choose from and if we decide to eat separately Eric invariably says he'll just have some chicken nuggets/a ham steak/Testosteroni/a banana and a cookie, and he's lost seven pounds since February so I really want him to eat better than that. And if I suggest making something that I won't eat he protests, like with dinner last night. I'm glad summer's coming, and that we can get to the farmer's market this Saturday.) I'm going to skip the glucose test today--I have no appointment; I just need to show up at the lab sometime this week--and go talk to Eric before I start yelling at him, which I don't want to do. And maybe bake some bread. That might make me feel better.

Home again, home again

Back from the trip. It went pretty well, except for my getting dizzy and woozy at the airport (causing my traveling companion much concern, though once she realized I was pregnant and not sick I think she felt better, and I took better care in the other airports we visited), and I met a bunch of clients and learned how we do our sales. I was so glad to be home, though--even though I ate better while on the road than I do at home. Our last dinner was at a Ruth's Chris steakhouse, where I had a wonderful tomato-and-onion salad and potatoes Lyonnaise (?) and a chocolate cake with ice cream and caramel sauce. We had to walk around for half an hour afterward just to get comfortable enough to go back to our rooms. I'd like to go back to downtown Ft. Worth, incidentally. It looked like a nice place, and the manager of the restaurant told us about a number of fun things we could have gone and done if we'd had more time.

We visited some friends on Saturday and met their little son, and got a big bag of baby stuff that they'd had donated to them and didn't want (they also received four bathtubs between friends and showers, so we got one). Today we cleaned the house a bit and spent most of the day with Eric's family, which was nice in that our niece was being adorable but annoying in that most of the entertainment involved watching a few of us play the Wii in a room that was too small to contain everybody. Ah well. It was a nice day, overall. It's been a nice break from work; it's been nine days since I was last in the office. I peeked at my work e-mail from home and it doesn't look too bad, for as long as I've been gone, but I'm in no danger of having a slow day tomorrow.

Various weirdness

I woke up crying this morning. I'm pretty sure my hormones shifted during the night, causing me to have a sad dream; I don't know whether the crying was from the dream or the sadness itself, since the urge to cry wouldn't go away for quite a while. This pregnancy thing is weird.

I'm also having an urge to share the dream itself, even though I keep tearing up again when I think about it, and I didn't with Eric because it was about him and he didn't ask when I told him why I was sad and solicited a hug. So here it is:

Eric was dead. The circumstances were confusing, in typical dream-fashion, involving the placement of eight long wooden rods over a monkey-bars-like frame, but it had killed him and I knew that it had been either an accident or suicide, but I wasn't sure which, and not knowing was torturing me. I was then given an opportunity to step into a parallel universe for a short time to try to find out. (Do people who don't read SF have these kinds of SF elements in their dreams?)

I accepted the opportunity and found Eric. He was very happy to see me because in his universe we'd had a big misunderstanding (similar to the one we actually had at the beginning of our relationship) and had just figured things out. In the course of talking about this he mentioned the accident he had almost had, so I knew he hadn't been trying to kill himself. He kept apologizing for the time we'd lost during the misunderstanding and saying that now we had so much ahead of us, and I didn't say otherwise because I didn't want to disrupt his happiness, but I knew that soon I'd have to go back to my own universe where he was dead.

It sounds tame, but it was horrible--though much more coherent than a lot of my dreams, I notice, and I could probably make a good story out of it if I were a different kind of writer. I think I'd like to just try to forget it, however, except maybe to note that while I'm quite sure that I love Eric, it tends to hit me most viscerally when I'm feeling I've lost him (as before during The Situation, when I once told him I was severing communications--I meant to do it for six months but didn't get farther than twenty-four hours). This love thing is weird, too.

This week

This week shall be Home Improvement week. We went to Home Depot to kick it off and got a tub refinishing kit, shelves for the craft room (so that the spare bed can go in there instead of in the nursery), new shelves for the bathtub (because the old one was utter garbage), and foam insulation and screening to, along with plaster we already have, patch up the mouse hole. We shall Improve our House, or at least Keep It From Falling to Bits.

We shall also visit hospitals--my doctor would have us go to Toledo Hospital, which would be fine except Eric's mom got all in a lather about Toledo and got Eric worried about it, so we're touring them, and Bay Park, and Flower (though Eric has to call that one because it's far away and has an annoying name and I wanted him to do at least part of the work since I would have been happy to stick with Toledo Hospital, especially since that means being able to stick with my current doctor). And Eric has a bunch of doctor's appointments that all somehow ended up being this week. It shall be a busy week. Maybe it'll be good for us for a change.

I do not want to

I do not want to write. Or order seeds, which needs doing shortly. Or clean, though I'm starting to hate the filthiness of the house more than the act of cleaning. I want to sit, and read, and eat citrus. (Seriously, two or three pieces a day for the past what, month? except when we run out and I haven't gone to the store beforehand.) I'm starting to get over this, but slowly. As a result, baby quilt #1 is behind. Writing is way behind (though I'm rereading Shoelace, and I'm going to send in the first few pages to apply to the Penguicon writing workshop, mainly because I think critiquing other people's work would be really good for me right about now). I'm not even thinking about knitting or spinning except in fitful moments. I can't honestly say for sure whether it's pregnancy or winter doldrums.

But I do seem to be coming out of it, bit by bit. I've got a guest gardening post to write (and my garden blog to update); I've got an article to write about the National Association of Women in Construction; I've done a lot of laundry and some dishes, and pieced some quilt blocks. Next I need to call Bev, to see whether we're going to arrange a girls' weekend out this spring or if I should just invite myself over for a visit, and clear the old interview notes off my desk.

New year, old news

I am tired and irritable about eating. (Only four things never sound gross: oranges, grapefruit, crackers, and toast. Of course I'm tired of those things now.) There are twelve mousetraps around the kitchen; we found a missing trap under the stove (dead mouse included) and caught another one, which I discarded, and immediately heard the scrabbling of another behind the garbage bin, which left us only the one from the Orkin man which hadn't caught any, so we cleaned everything and put out more traps. Nothing yet.

I was supposed to go on a business trip today, but the person I was going with injured her knee shoveling snow (we got about ten inches between Friday and Saturday; another three or so expected tonight) and can't drive, so it was cancelled. Probably a good thing. I'm tired and irritable, as mentioned above, and the house is a mess. And I'd like to make some apple turnovers, since I haven't made a treat for Eric in a while and it actually sounds pretty good to me too.

I'm working on my first of four baby quilts for this year. This one's a fishy theme: a kind-of-checkerboardy watery background with some large and some small fish swimming around. I love my little fish. It would make a great bigger quilt, but I'd never have the patience. This one needs to be done by February 1, so there's another reason to be glad I'm not going on the trip. I have no knitting project at the moment, which feels very weird. I'm going to have to decide on one. I'm considering making my niece some mittens, since she came by the other day (her grandmother decided to dress her up for a walk in the snow and brought her over because she looked so cute bundled up) dressed very warmly except that her tiny mittens were falling off because the cuffs were so short. I might also make myself some socks. Or start on a baby sweater. Or even work on the gloves for Eric that I've been planning to do for over a year. Decisions, decisions.

Ring in the new

Happy 2009! Other than not having done dishes since last year, things are well in my house. --Oh, and not cleaning up the mouse droppings. We caught another one and I'm hoping that was it, but we're keeping the traps out and I'll see if more droppings appear. I don't know why cleaning was so low on my list of things to do when all I had was a single party and a single article to deal with.

Except that's not true. I also had early-pregnancy nausea and tiredness (not to mention abundant food aversions) to deal with. Our IUI worked on the first try and I'm eleven weeks in. I go to the doctor to hear the heartbeat tomorrow. I'm terrified that I'll go and be told that the embryo (now a fetus) died six weeks ago, but I looked that up--it's called a missed abortion or a delayed miscarriage, depending on how scared you are of the word "abortion"--and it's accompanied by loss of pregnancy symptoms, and green vegetables are grossing me out as much as they ever have (which was not at all until a few weeks ago, when I of course had plenty of them in the fridge because up until then I'd had no food aversions and was delighted to be getting my healthy meals in), so that is probably not really likely. My fingers are crossed anyway.

My goals for 2009 are pretty much the same ones as my goals for 2008: work on nonfiction, work on fiction, have a baby, get the house in shape, don't drive myself crazy with crafts. I think I did pretty well in 2008, especially on the nonfiction side. Not as well as I would have liked, but it's probably good for me not to hit all my goals; it means I didn't set them too low.