... she could make lists for days ...

its amazing to me how much stuff i get done at work. i make a list of things and i go at it. granted it make take a few days to cross some of those things off the list - i get interrupted and derailed a lot at work - but they get done. by the time i come home from work i am tired and lazy and have lost the motivation to work on my list of things to do at home. i feel triumphant when i actually make a nice dinner! tonight was one of those nights.

i need to make a list of the things i want to get done at home ... i am hoping that will help me kick it into gear and stop being so lazy.

- make baby gift for a friend (must be done before July 9th!)
- finish christmas craft (i know its early but i wanted to do it before the baby comes!)
- paint dresser (need hubby's help and a sunny Saturday)
- hang two frames downstairs
- buy 3 wall-hangers for coat rack
- hang said coat rack
- photograph paper flowers i made for baby girl's room ... to show the blogosphere
- re-pot some of our wedding 'babies' (succulents) that are starting to die one by one
- put away party supplies (from the end of may - i am terrible)
- organize my dresser drawers and sort my clothes into stages (this is to give me more space and to help me get motivated to get back to my wedding size after the birth ... this is a reasonable goal)
- hang our beautiful wedding clock
- organize the under bed storage in both baby's room and our room
- start looking for 8 x 10 frames at Goodwill
- modify my downstairs curtains

the great state of illinois

i have never been to the midwest - i have been as far as Oklahoma but that is considered the Great Plains ... right? anyway, lets just say i have never been to the midwest as an adult and that i have spent most of my traveling time on the US coasts and abroad. lately nate and i had been talking about how living in the midwest or really anywhere would be an adventure. i really would love to live in every part of the country just to see what life is like there. visiting doesn't really cut it. you have to live an everyday life to really get the feel for a place. that is just me. will it happen? who knows! should it happen? who knows! if nate stays teaching at the university level it could happen.

but anyway ... we made our trip out to chicago and normal/bloomington, illinois this last week and had a wonderful time. it was action packed, yet a little bit low key and lazy ... a perfect combination for this lady with swollen feet and ever burgeoning belly. i seriously get noticeably bigger every few days. i feel like fortune cookie has growth spurts and i FEEL it. i FEEL my body stretching and i FEEL noticeably rounder. whoa. but i also started to finally FEEL baby girl move in my belly! just a few days ago (thursday june 16th to be exact) i was spending a lazy morning in my brother's house laying on the sofa when i started to feel a wiggly feeling inside. it happened three more times ... very distinctive movement going on in there. it was magical to say the least. sigh ... it makes the swelling and the labored movements worth it.

i digress (as usual) ... we did so much on our trip before that happened ... here were the highlights (a long list mostly for my remembrance - all images stolen from sara soelberg's blog because the nate and bethany soelbergs are not awesome about taking pictures ... we will have to work on this before baby is born) :

• spent the night in seattle at the gleason's (some of the friendliest, most generous people i know) in prep for our early morning flight to chicago with my parents.
• this trip was the first flight nate and i have taken since our honeymoon in sept 2009.
• this was the first trip by flight that nate and i have taken with my parents ... we all really enjoyed it and i predict more occasions in the future.
• flew into chicago o'hare airport for the first time (for me)
• experienced their heat wave first hand, which was not so bad since we have been innundated with rain in oregon.
• met up with joe (nate's brother) and went back to his house (which his family had just moved into the week before ... we are such courteous visitors) and saw sara, libby, and jenna for the first time since last summer! so so fun!
• spent the next day at the Museum of Science and Industry with sara and the girls (joe had just started his new job) and explored space, the "smart" house (misnomer if you ask me ... we decided it should have been called the "recycled" house - which in my book is great), and an actual U-boat, and watched a cool tornado I-Max movie.
• other highlights of the Museum day included poor jenna getting car sick and tossing her cookies in a the only thing we could find to give her - a fabric bag! word up - fabric bags are not good barf bags - go figure - but that's what we had on hand. she was a trooper and of course felt much better once she had done that and we were out of the car. another bonus to this episode is that i got to see sara in action ... she is a quick and resourceful mom and i was taking notes big time.
• toured around Downer's Grove ... the cute suburb that the joe soelberg family live in and we fell in love. i could totally live there. cute houses on tree-lined streets ... where do i sign?
  

• the village is quite and quaint with a main street to make my little heart pitter patter. just a few short blocks from their house is the train to commute into the city (but not loud at all), the tivoli theater with $4 movies and $1 bowling in the basement - as shown here:

• there is also a library a short walk down main street which we visited with the girls and stopped in to grab a donut at a local bakery. while eating said donut we sat out along the street and listened to the oldies they were playing from speakers atop the old brick buildings. i loved it.
• we also spent a day in chicago walking the miracle mile and seeing the sights. needless to say we caught the bus whenever my feet demanded it, but i was pretty impressed with the walking i did. its hard when you know that movement is good for the body but the feet might not be able to do it. sitting for train rides and then walking for long stretches made for some swollen feet but fun was still had at the classic millenium park bean and fountains as well as Ghiradelli's:

• on the way to see steve (another of the soelberg brothers) who was the master of ceremonies at the Chicago Ragnar race we found ourselves in the middle of a "zombie walk" which apparently had no other purpose but to have thousands of people dressed as zombies and walking the streets of chicago. interesting, but really they had no cause? strange.
  

• we ended the chicago day with chicago pizza ... super yum! deep-dish-delish is what i say!
  

then off we went to the south to a small city of Normal, Illinois. it was also delightful with delightful people we love there. my brother and his family moved there last january and braved their first mid-west winter. their new found friends swore that this winter was worse than usual ... those former North Hollywood-ites are hoping that's true. they just moved into new house they just bought and it is AMAZING. a beautiful beautiful home i would not mind calling my own ... and this is a big deal because its a new house (only 3 years old) and my preference is towards old houses.

located next to Bloomington, Illinois, there are quaint downtown areas with historic districts and old homes to make me swoon. there are also beautiful tree-lined streets and two Universities in this little neck of the world. its the biggest thing between St. Louis and Chicago. here are some highlights of this part of the trip:

• drove around to view the historic districts and gawk at all the lovely old homes with porches and gabled roofs and even turrets on some!
• helped do some unpacking and organizing in the house - they let us come visit even though they had just moved into the house a week before!
• played with the kids and held the baby - ADORABLE - when he would let us (he's kinda a momma's boy)
• went to State Farm Park and rode water slides and the lazy river (okay nate rode water slides with the kids and I floated the lazy river and sat on a chair with my feet in the awesome water feature filled kitty pool ... it was awesome)
• had ice cream at State Farm Park and got a little bit of a sunburn (oh so welcome tho ... we are sooo sun deprived in the pacific nw ... at least were were until this week!)
• went to Nauvoo, Illinois and saw the temple and it is beautiful and magestic ... next time i would like to go in and do a session with my hubby.
  
• went to Nauvoo and took a wagon ride through the historic town of Nauvoo (i really want to go back one year for the pageant and stay a day or two).
• made a list of all the things i would like to see in Nauvoo next time when i am not almost 6 months pregnant with swollen feet
• saw a cute kids play about life in Nauvoo
• learned how to be a cooper and make a water tight barrel
• learned how to make rope and bread and weave a Nauvoo rug
• had yummy food in an old timey shop
• took a "short cut" through a few farms on the way to Carthage to see Carthage jail where Joseph Smith was martyred ... the whole scenario and the film depiction of what happens makes more sense to me now that i have seen the location.
• the town of Carthage really is a beautiful community.

its funny that now that i am a little bit older ... mostly because i have found the person i want to spend eternity with .... and also because i soon will become a mother ... i am a bit nostalgic for a small town life i have never known. i have always been enthralled by the big city and the offerings of a metropolis. but as i grow up i realize that i am really just a home-body that pushes myself to go out and do all the fun things around. i am happy to hang out with the ones i love.

the vacation was wonderful and i am so glad we did it.

random happenings

• We had a great weekend doing stuff around the house and enjoying an unstructured Saturday. Fun happenings included:

• weeded our "patch of land" (back patio) and planted three dahlia plants
• bbq with some of our favorite people
• had kebabs at said bbq
• also had s'mores at said bbq
• wore maternity shorts for the first time
• ate lots of watermelon and cantaloupe
• finished making paper flowers for fortune cookie's room (pictures to come)
• made korean food with one of Nate's students
• ate strawberry's and cool whip
• made travel plans for our trip to Chicago (we leave tomorrow night! woot woot)

• My feet have already begun to swell periodically through the day ... but now my hands have followed suit ... especially since the temperature has gotten more enjoyable (read - warmer) ... i knew this day would come ... but so soon?
• Due to said swelling i thought it might be a good idea to take off my wedding ring before we take a plane to Chicago and back this week. Call me crazy but i don't think the altitude will help my swelling.
  

Remove wedding ring = good idea

Remove wedding ring in the AM while puffy (even after a shower) = not a good idea

• As a result of trying to twist and lotion and floss and ice and everything else that google suggested to get a stuck ring off your finger ... my finger became dangerously swollen ... the nice people at SKIES jewelers ended up cutting it off ... needless to say this day has not been awesome. (yes it was my grandmother's ring and yes it can be fixed and no damage was done to the diamonds or the setting, the band was simply snipped and spread for my finger to slide right out. just one more milestone or marker for me to use after the baby is born i guess ... get my swelling and weight down to wedding ring size)

• i am really really starting to understand the physical sacrifice of bearing a child ... and i am only halfway through pregnancy ... reality is harsh ... yet i still feel lucky.

• On the bus home from work today there were 6+ people trying to help some teenage girl find Planned Parenthood ... it was especially awesome when she turned to me and asked if i knew where it was ... umm i have no idea ... yes my parenthood was planned, but not by an organization.
• Planned Parenthood ... it sounds like a misnomer or maybe a euphemism ... shouldn't it be Pregnancy Prevention - at least you could keep the double p initials going.
  

just as we suspected

fortune cookie is a ...

girl

i have pretty much known this from the beginning ... which is so funny because since i was 16 years old i have felt that i will have 5 crazy male children that i will have no idea what to do with. but once this little girl started really cooking in my oven i could just tell she was the girl variety. we are beyond excited and feel very very lucky to be anticipating this great blessing ... i mean of course its a blessing already ... but whoa we are overwhelmed by the majesty and miracle of it all and pinch ourselves all the time ... we made a baby! and its still in there! and i think i actually felt it for the first time last night! it felt like a wave inside me! and then we saw her for an hour today and measured her every little tiny body part! she appears healthy and happy and was even playing with the umbilical cord in my womb! it was adorable (strange, i know)! sigh. we are in love ...

the next thing on my mind is how to make a pastel blue, green, and mustard yellow nursery girlie but not cheesy girlie (when i say "nursery" think multi-purpose baby room ... i won't be able to do a full out nursery like i have in my head ... but i will do what i can!) the queen bed is staying in the extra room (at least for the first six months of fortune cookie's life while we have family and friends visiting) and i love love love the Paisley pottery barn duvet i have in there in those exact colors. it was my first (and maybe my last ... you never know) "high end" linen purchase in my life. when i was living/working in DC i splurged and ordered it online. i have no regrets.

i like the idea of going with those colors for fortune cookie's room ... i think they are pretty and fairly gender neutral and then i can throw in pops and punches of girlie things .... like these:

pom poms and paper lanterns above the crib ... love this idea
i am thinking blues and greens with a punch of pink

more pom poms ... but these are made of t-shirt material ...
i like the texture and warmth
(again think pastel blues/greens/yellows and a punch of pink)

But I was also thinking of some oversized flowers in the appropriate colors ...
that would be soo soo soo fun.

eek! i can't wait! my mom and dad fly in tomorrow and we are going to get going on planning and prepping and sewing and crafting and just spending some good days together! yippee!

20 weeks

here it is ... my 20 week progress shot. my mother-in-law likes to guess the gender based on how you are carrying the baby ... what do you think? BOY or GIRL?? we find out on thursday!

the year of the baby

its probably because i myself am with child, but doesn't it seem like there are a lot of pregnant ladies around these days? every tv show i watch has a pregnant lady (either on the show or they are hiding the actresses real pregnancy) and i have lots of friends expecting too. everytime i look on facebook or a blog i see that someone else is expecting.

two thousand eleven ... according to the Chinese Calendar our babies will be the year of the rabbit which means that their sign is yin (as in yin and yang) and their "fixed element" is wood. It also means that rabbits are: "Gracious, good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, shy, astute, compassionate, lucky, flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, stubborn."

Don't you love how it starts with a string of wonderful traits and then hits you with the negatives ... which seem so scary! MOODY! DETACHED! SUPERFICIAL! SELF-INDULGENT! OPPORTUNISTIC! STUBBORN!

And then i look to review my own animal sign to see how much seems to be "accurate" - the way the Chinease calendar works and because i was born before February 12th 1983 i am actually the year of the dog (while most of my fellow 1983-ers are the year of the boar) ... these are the traits it associates with those born in the year of the dog: "Yang; Fixed Element Metal - Honest, intelligent, straightforward, loyal, sense of justice and fair play, attractive, amicable, unpretentious, sociable, open-minded, idealistic, moralistic, practical, affectionate, sensitive, easy going. Can be cynical, lazy, cold, judgmental, pessimistic, worrier, stubborn, quarrelsome."

Whoa. The good and the bad ... i would say it describes me pretty well. Then again i feel like my astrological sign - Capricorn - fits me to a T as well.

Next step ... look at Nate's animal sign and assess my feelings about its "accuracy" from there: Yin, Fixed Element Metal - Acute, neat, meticulous, organized, self-assured, decisive, conservative, critical, perfectionist, alert, zealous, practical, scientific, responsible. Can be over zealous and critical, puritanical, egotistical, abrasive, proud, opinionated, given to empty bravado.

hahahaha ... i would NOT say this accurately describes Nate very well. the only things i think it gets spot on are conservative, alert, practical, scientific, responsible.

But is his astrological sign more accurate? He is a cancer, which means: Loyalty, Dependable, Caring, Adaptable, Responsive, Moody, Clingy, Self-pitying, Oversensitive, Self-absorbed. This seems a little more true to Nate.

Since our little fortune cookie will be born in October that makes him/her a LIBRA ... this is what we might have in store - "Diplomatic and urbane; romantic and charming; easygoing and sociable; idealistic and peaceable; indecisive and changeable; gullible and easily influenced; flirtatious and self-indulgent. "

First things first ... find out if its a SHE or a HE. Only two days!

4 months and counting

for the last few years i have not been much of a big picture taker ... not just of me ... but in general. but i do want to document this pregnancy which requires picture taking ... unflattering pictures taking. sigh. the bummer is my starting state was not ideal. i am trying not to dwell on it (although its hard to have this new body experience while you are already struggling with your existing body) and to enjoy the experience of a life growing inside me.

So here is "before" ... picture taken at 6 weeks.


And here I am at 16 weeks ... packing it on ... already. Its going to be a long summer :)