20 Weeks and Still Growing

I’m at my 20th week of this pregnancy and we’re off to an ultrasound picture today.  It is exciting but also a bit scary.  Since it’s the first time we will see a picture, we will also find out if anything is our of the ordinary in terms of the baby’s development so being a person who worries, I’m a little worried we’ll find out something’s terribly wrong.  But when I think about it more objectively, there have been no signs that something is wrong so it will likely be just fine.  It will be pretty amazing (and a bit strange) to see our little one inside me.  It’s  a bit like alien invasion!.. but hopefully a little cuter and more familiar looking.

 

14-Week Hump

It’s been 14 weeks since we became pregnant and I’m beginning to show!  With a bit of a hump, dressing creatively has been a challenge (especially since not everyone knows I’m pregnant yet).  But after Thanksgiving, everyone should know and I will be able to show off my bump with pride.  It’s pretty amazing to watch my body change so drastically and so quickly, though it’s also a bit unnerving.

 

How do people go back to school?

Ugh.  How do they do it?  How do those folks go back to school to get a masters, a doctorate, or a few of each?!  I used to think I could be a professional student but now here I am, at the beginning of my masters program and I’m wondering how I’ll ever be able to get through it!  The homework, the frustrating assignments, the added difficulty of taking classes independently and online… I’m not sure how to make it work successfully!

My mentor was telling me about a student who was able to finish all her classes (that should have taken 3-5 years) in a matter of months!  How does someone find that type of stamina and motivation!  After three hours, I’m beat!  I just hope that I can make it through to the end.  I have to remember that the goal is to become a teacher and that all of these requirements are just hoops to jump through.

 

Mmm… Corn on the Cobb

We discovered our dog loves corn on the cob.  He eats it whole!  We were cleaning out our garden and pulled our few sad corn stocks up and Moki jumped at the opportunity to chow down on some not-quite-ready corn cobs.  He is a mild mannered dog but when I had that corn in my hand, he nearly bit my fingers trying to get it away from me.  He must be a vegetarian at heart.

 

Baby Kale In the Making!

We just found out that we are pregnant!  We’re about 10 weeks along and things sound like they’re going fine.  It’s amazing what the human body can do.  As anxious as I am about getting things under way, our doctor has indicated that she will not see us until the end of our first trimester!  They say this is normal but it makes me nervous.  I’ve never done this before.  But I do have to remember that women around the world have babies (who are healthy) without any pre-natal care at all.  So with my good peasant stock, I should be a healthy and sound baby making machine.

We announced it to the grandparents to be the other night with a dinner and t-shirts that said, “Great dads get promoted to grandpa” and “A grandmother’s love never fades.”  It took them by surprise and now they’re out there telling as many people as will listen to them.  It was exciting and quite a happy event but of course, in my drama-filled family, there had to be a tinge of negativity.

Around the same time my husband and I got pregnant, my brother (whose only 20) was told he would be a father by a one-night-stand he had this summer.  Needless to say, my dad has been bogged down with the pressure and fears surrounding this un-planned pregnancy with him.  I know it’s a big deal, especially seeing that he doesn’t have a stable income, but it was still a bit of a bummer.

I can’t say I’m super suprised that something like this would happen, but it was just another reminder that things have been a bit crazy and up in the air since my mom died.  She would have loved being a grandma and would have been so comforting during these past few weeks with all my questions and concerns.  But I know she’s checking in on me and it wouldn’t surprise me a whole lot if she didn’t have something to do with my ability to conceive on the first try.

But life goes on and I’m excited about starting a family.  Thus far, I’m not crazy about the pregnancy part but I hope to soak it all it (even the unahppy parts) as much as I can.

 

What a week!

Why is it that a family vacation is not a vacation away from family but spent with family? That doesn’t seem like much of a vacation to me. Seriously, I don’t know about you but it seems that every time I go on a family vacation, I come home feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation. Why can’t our society accommodate having two types of vacation: family and self?

After the past 6 months that have been so intense, I NEEDED to have a self-type vacation. Our family “vacation” was supposed to be spent at a family wedding on a beautiful island (destination wedding) and a nice camping/biking trip after (with just my husband and I). Instead, we spent a few days in the hospital with my dad (away from our family doctors and home town and country for that matter), we missed the wedding, it poured rain and we camped near some folks who didn’t understand what quiet time was. In the end, we bagged the whole trip and came home early. Now we’re off to work and school again and I can’t seem to remember having the vacation I planed and was looking forward to for the past 6 months!

Not that I don’t love my family, but this trip was ridiculous! Not to mention way more expensive than it was supposed to be for a number of reasons (don’t worry, I’ll spare the details).

And besides, now we have a reall excuse to have a real vacation in the next few months and not with family.

 

Dreaming of Big Machines

I finished my brother’s quilt binding and decided to title it, “Dreaming of Big Machines.”  The woman who I have quilt some of the tops I do had insights about my brother based on the two themes of the quilt and I think they were very accurate.  He’s a hard worker who has high dreams.  “Dreaming of Big Machines” seems a very appropriate title.

Once it was completed, one of my quilting friends suggested I enter it in the county fair.  I did and it won a blue ribbon!  It’s the first time I’ve ever entered a quilt or ever even considered entering a quilt anywhere so it’s sort of fun I did so well so early in my quilting life. The funny thing was that I didn’t realize it was an actual competition when I entered it. I just liked the idea of sharing it with people. I am anxious to hear what the judges comments were and will post them once I hear about it. Yeay!

* If you want to see what quilt I am talking about it’s in a posting below called, “The Brother’s Quilt.”

 

Family Redefined

How does one go about re-defining their place in a family when someone dies? I’m struggling with figuring out my new role without my mom but am hoping that with intentional effort, I can find a comfortable, healthy way to be a part of my family in its new form.

It’s strange how we all do our own grieving and how it is so different for everyone. I recently had a visit with a friend whose parent also died, but nearly 10 years ago. Still dealing with grief and closure, I wondered how long it would take before I felt less raw about everything. Already I am able to go back to day-to-day life, but sometimes it hits me (and I’ve heard that never goes away).

We hope to place my mom’s ashes in the next year or so (weather permitting as she wants to be scattered on the side of a high mountain) and perhaps that will provide some closure as well. In the mean time, I hope to figure out how to find my place in our new family.

 

The best bug bite I’ve ever had

It’s neat to think that I am following a family tradition. I can’t say that there has been many generations of my family who have quilted, but I know all my aunts on my mom’s side love quilting and sewing so there’s something there for sure. Furthermore, I think I’m the only niece who sews!

My aunts say I’ve been bitten by the quilting bug. The women at the quilting store say so too. It’s the best bug bite I’ve ever had! Here’s pictures of my latest bug bite!

 

Blessings Disguised as Dissapointment

Surprisingly and not so surprisingly, my brother was honorably discharged from boot camp and the Navy yesterday.  They have him diagnosed as depressed and he’s too much of a liability because he has a heart condition (that is still not clear or understood completely).  So he’s coming home.  It’s an event that is filled with a mix of emotions.  On the one hand, I’m so grateful that he’s not being sent to Afghanistan or Iraq.  On the other hand, he really could have gained skills in the Navy.

More than that, it’s hard to see someone you love fall down so many times.  He didn’t even last a full week of boot camp which means he got the “tear down” portion of the training without the benefit of the “building up” portion that comes at the end.  It makes me sick to think of how he’s feeling right now.  How do you help someone who falls down so often and seems to have a hard time learning from his mistakes?  Not only does it make him feel stuck, it makes all of those who love him feel helpless.