Salt and Pickles

I still can’t stop myself from going through piles of watermelon & nectarines every day. I just scarf it down. 

I had an appointment with my midwife this week (I hit 24 weeks yesterday) and I’ve lost another 3 lbs since my last appointment. I find this funny, because I can feel the solid dense weight that is growing in my belly. The rest of me, however, seems to be carving itself away. I think it’s because I don’t snack. I don’t want butter (my biggest weakness). I barely crave animal protein. I mostly subsist on pre-natals, stone fruit, smoothies, salads and fish.  

This morning I made  scrambled eggs with basil & parmesan. I ate two bites and then gobbled my way through the bowl of sliced fruit. I did have one slice of freshly baked bread with cherry/apricot jam on it. Delicious. 

I’m trying to keep to my chores and lists, but it’s easy to suddenly find that I’m depressed and grouchy because I fell off the wagon and haven’t really done anything but sit on my butt for two days. Being a stay at home person is , in some ways, harder than I expected. Mainly because I have to police myself, i guess.

;The squiggle is wiggling and kicking with great constancy. Hans has only managed to feel her a few times, though. I adore the feeling of laying on my side in bed and feeling her kick at the bed. (we know our next ultrasound could change the pronoun… but for now it’s just easier to say ‘her’ based on the anatomy scan)

It’s almost my boy’s birthday. I got him lots of little goodies and we’re having a bonfire party. I’m thinking about trying to make grilled pizzas with from-scratch dough. We’ll see how gung ho i stay on the idea as the week goes on.

one nice thing about the constant (3x a week!) farmers markets has been that I’ve cooked most nights. sometimes just a glorious salad, sometimes fresh local caught fish with another glorious salad. I love farmers markets and I love summer. I’m realizing now that I’m eating this good, I’m going to be very very sad when the summer fruits and veggies are gone. 

our kitty is pretty sick. He has chronic diarrhea and it’s not cure-able, just treatable. only problem is, none of the treatments have worked yet. Basically we are giving it a last go.. and in 2 weeks if treatments still aren’t working, we may have to let him go. We’re very sad yet in mild denial. He’s only 4 and we’re very much hoping his body gets into the groove of things from his diet and medicines and he starts gaining weight again and pooping solid. The poor lethargic puppy (he’s always acted more like a dog than a cat) 

So, I’m (as mentioned before) no longer employed.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. I’ve had a lot of grandiose plans.. from hanging out with friends who are also at home, to organizing and cleaning the house (lots of declutter) in preparation for the baby, crafting, cooking healthy meals and maybe even packing hans some yummy lunches in our Mr. Bento.

But now that I”m at home, I’m finding myself online a lot. I look around our truly messy and cluttery (which i kept putting off because.. hey, i’d be home soon and be able to have true time to devote to tackling it) house. It’s really cluttery and really messy and has piles here and there and everywhere. and it’s actually just pissing me off and overwhelming me so i don’t get much of anything done at all. and then i’m in a bad mood.
and i’m not doing any crafting or cooking because I want the house in a reasonable state first.

argh. I wish i just knew how to get started. (i know the answer is “just start”)

I haven’t thrown up in 5 whole days!! without Zofran! this is very exciting.

Also, I’ve felt like cooking lately. I’ve cooked at least 4 times in the past few weeks and that’s a huge improvement over the first 3 months of pregnancy. Not only have I cooked, but I’ve wanted to eat the outcome. 

Tonight I made a savory tart with grapes on it from The Splendid Table How To Eat Supper. It was on puff pastry (i got the good stuff, made with butter) with greens, onions, mushrooms (my own addition), grapes, asiago w/ cream, and chives. delicious. We ate all of it and most of that ended up in Hans’ belly, so he’s feeling a tad bit illin’. 

I’ve been reading up a storm on my kindle.. and researching cloth diapers because we’ve decided to go that road.

I gave notice at work a few weeks ago and I’m DAMN excited to be having approx 4 months off before the baby comes. OMG, i can’t wait. 

This weekend we’re headed to Carmel to spend mom’s day with my mom. and then we’ll come back for dinner for mom’s day with H’s mom. busy busy. 

Now that the vomityness is gone, the doppler is the only proof I have i’m pregnant. I haven’t gained any weight (and in fact lost some at first) due to said vomityness.   

I am totally going to go read now. I’m a fireball of exciting times! 

Do you remember the Scholastic Book Club? I loved that thing. I loved the bookstore more, of course. But when I was truly into the book club, I lived in a town that was devoid of a bookstore. (horrors. no bagels either). So I’d spend a whole weekend with the catalog, reading descriptions and figuring out what i wanted. I was usually allowed to get around 10 books.
I’d make my order, and then I’d wait.. and wait… and wait.. but the day those books came was so good. like the best birthday good. christmas morning good. new pads of paper and fresh sharpened pencils good. i have a really good secret good.
Well now I’m waiting for the Kindle I just ordered today. And the anticipation is feeling very Scholastic Book Club.
I was going to wait to buy , but when I told hans i needed to go to the bookstore again because I’d already finished the 1200 pages worth of books I had bought on sunday, he said “we need to get you that Kindle and not a moment too soon” (because they tend to be a little less, at least, than teh actual books. and many are only $3.99 or $4.99. yay)

of course I could go to more used bookstores, but… i’m not always that patient.

besides. gadget lust!

two days til ultrasound. I’m antsy and worried that my lining won’t be up to snuff. please, uterus. have a nice fluffy bloodiness. thanks.

I’ve been cooking every night this week, and then packing my leftovers into my Mr. Bento. I feel very healthy and productive. go me. Go Mr. Bento. tonight we had fusilli with garlicky sausages & wilted greens (chard).. from Alice Waters’ latest cookbook. very yum and simple.

Today on BART there was a woman sitting in seats diagonally across from me. She was wearing a beautifully tailored suit, a red and yellow scarf fashionably tossed around her neck, gold glinting glasses and sparkling jewelry. She was quite lovely and polished. She was working on some spreadsheets, bent over with concentration. I tend to people watch a lot on trains. I forget that people can see me watching them. very solipsistic of me. anyway.. as i was watching her, i noticed that her jaw was working overtime. She was chewing and chewing and chewing at a piece of gum. It made my jaws watch just to watch her.

I hate gum. It is ugly. it makes people look stupid .. their jaw working up and down over and over and over.
ugh. i hate gum. i hate the sound of the chewing. I hate the look of the chewing. hate. This is something I should probably deal with, since most kids like bubble gum. (maybe i can avoid their ever even finding out about the existence of gum?)

People who wait until a train comes and then just go straight to the door, completely ignoring the fact that there was a queue.

on a larger scale, I’ve realized my mother raised me into a conflicted snob. My mom was a luddite my entire years growing up. She spent her time thusly: teaching english, hiking/backpacking/rock climbing/running, cooking very wholesome from-scratch meals, gardening, reading literature (never bubblegum books for her), sewing me handmade stuffed animals and occasionally clothes, keeping a very clean house, taking me to ballet/puppet shows/festivals/etc, taking baths, always waking up early, living life fully.

We had one small black & white tv that I was allowed to watch a few hours a week on. They watched MASH and that was about it. As i grew older I was allowed a little more TV but not much. I bought my first computer in 1994 when I was 24.

So, this is the issue now. I find that I have a negative view of any time suck/passing that is not industrious/productive/creative/active or literary. My husband loves video games, and I (underneath somewhere) struggle with this sometimes because I see it as a negative time suck. (I don’t struggle with them because of loss of time with him. He’s very good at spending time with me and balancing all that … although we’ll fall into habits where we will spend less time together due to our interests, but if i ask.. he’s right there). I curl my lip. I inwardly scoff. This is bad enough. snobby and snotty.

But I also look down on myself. I read a lot of literature, ,but I also like trashier books (hell, sometimes i even like a good bodice ripper). We haven’t watched TV in a few years, but I want it back and when we have it I know i’ll watch it. I take lots of baths. I surf the internet A LOT. I avoid being creative, and I only cook a few times a week. I spend much of my outside-of-work (and probably inside-of-work) time doing very superficial time sucks. Things that are easy and occupy my attention so that I don’t have to do anything.
The thing is, I know inside that this is ok, but at the same time i don’t FEEL that it is ok. To be a successful worthy human, I seem to feel that people need to be like my mother. This seems to be a deeply ingrained belief. DEEPLY. i can never convince myself fully that it’s wrong. I’m not sure how to deal with that, when I like the internet. I like watching 7 seasons of Buffy in 2 months. I like drinking red wine, singing karaoke with friends, and reading a trashy book.

I do know that If i get old and what i look back on in my life is a lot of tv watching, internet surfing and bath taking.. I will be sad. So, on some level I’m right. I need to make sure that I’m creating a life that I’m proud of. But at the same time, it’s not bad that my husband likes to exert his energy and creativity in video games. and this is something I’m going to have to approach with myself when we have kids. Kids like to do fun simple things like play video games or watch the occasional tv show.

but as is obvious by many of the links on my blogroll, I also want to be the sort of mama who has that simple industrious waldorfy lifestyle for her kids.

and i want to stop being such a snob about the things people do (including me) to fill their time.
My mother now, i realize.. is addicted to being busy. She runs every day, she does lesson plans all night, she never (or rarely) takes a few hours for herself to just fill her time with lazy time. with mindless fun. She’s not actually the bastion of health that I have revered her to be.

ah. it all comes back to that thing they call ‘balance’. the biggest struggle of my life.

Nothing IVF related in this entry because: blah blah blah waiting waiting. two estrogen patches instead of one, but still. blah blah.

Last night in bed, Hans and I came up with my new title for when I quit working and stay at home. I will be one of the following: DOE (Domestic Operations Engineer), CDO (Chief of Domestic Operations), DOM (Domestic Operations Manager) , DDO (Director of Domestic Operations). which one do you think has the most pizazz?

I have other plans for that time besides, you know.. domestic operatioins. (like potentially being a Doula and starting a very small event planning biz for those looking for a non-cookie cutter event.) but I think I’ll feel less resentful if i have a fancy title, when the crappy stuff comes up. I wonder when I get to hire my first employee?

I had been getting headaches and body aches all last week. I realized the reason was because my body felt that it needed to start forming itself to naturally fit the curve of my couch. Like memory foam. It found being upright uncomfortable and thus achey. This is a sign that I was spending too much time on my back with my feet over the arm rest, re-reading books I’ve read 3 times before and eating popcorn with too much butter. not good. not good at all.

So, this weekend we had friends over. We played games, drank drinks, laughed, peeked in on the hippie dance jam and were scared away, and went to bed late. It was great. I slept in late late and saturday was mosty a wash (we went to a birthday party but I didn’t know anybody and was .. well… bored. although the food was awesome: balogna & american cheese sammiches with the crusts cut off, hot dogs, bean dip, nachos with velveeta, a big popcorn machine, brownies. when I was a kid i wanted balogna on every birthday, because I was never allowed it at any other time).

Sunday, however, made up for it all. Miss Mani came over and picked me up and we went to La Note for brunch. I love that place. big bowls of cafe au lait (i gave up coffee nearly a year ago, but in a place like La Note.. you make an exception), fluffy slow cooked eggs, home made jam in their oatmeal raspberry pancakes. It’s french brunch perfection.

When we were done we went up into Tilden Park and walked around the lake. It’s an easy not-so-long walk, but we took some side trails and inhaled the fresh air, the smell of water, and were amazed by the 45,000 ducks (no really, i swear) that were swimming around making a quacky racket. also, it’s hard to be depressed when there are happy dogs frolicking in a lake.

I came home and cooked myself a steak and baked yam.. simultaneously broiling up hans a salmon filet & fingerling potatoes. (life became much easier when I realized we didn’t have to eat the same thing, as long as I chose something that took the same amount of time to cook. he doesn’t eat pig or cow.. except, you know.. when that magical bacon animal is to be found. somehow bacon is magic meat that must not come from any animal that’s on his no-no list). Wow that yam (and the steak too, really) was delicious. I’ve been using Alice Water’s Art of Simple Food for ideas this week.

Today i woke up super late (Hans had to work) again. Drank some Kefir.. stuffed down another yam that’d pre-cooked last night. (yum again) and headed over to a friend’s for a day of sewing. I consciously know that a combination of people and creativity (or outdoor activity) is the key to my mental health.. but I still fucking fight it. What is my deal, huh? I don’t know. I figure if I can answer that, a lot of people like me would like to hear about it. The sewing was great, even when i stumbled over it. The company was great too.

tonight was a dinner of egg fettucini with chicken/shiitake cream sauce and a side of green beans. again. yum. and easy.

Now I’m going to go read a sewing book in bed til it falls out of my fingers and I wake up with a book crease-mark in my forehead.

One other observation. I’ve noticed that as Hans gets older (granted, he’s still in his early 30’s, whereas I’m getting closer to 40) he just gets more handsome. He looks manly and handsome. Even with a gut (which is mostly gone, i’ve noticed) he looks good. Me? i look dumpy and my skin is really not cooperating with me at all. I will not age as nicely as him, but.. I blame him because he constantly shares his disgust with makeup, hair product and gives accolades to dumpy tshirts. So, I lounge around in yoga pants, a baggy tshirt and craptacular hair. I am blameless!

Good night. Haircut in imminent future.

wish list for today:
a new GOOD camera
a kindle
tons of new fabric
mad skillz

holy fuck, i forgot how good Ibarra is. I used to have Ibarra made mexican hot chocolate in San Diego all the time.. but it’s increasingly hard to find up here in the bay area. i only once found a restaurant that served it, and they went out of business.
So at the Berkeley Bowl i found blocks of Ibarra (it comes in blocks, rather than powder. .. and you can grate it into hot milk or even just melt chunks of it.. i start out grating it but usually give up and start just cutting bits of it to throw into the heating milk) and the past two nights Hans and I have been enjoying delicious mildly frothy (thank you, whisk) cocoa.

I’m rereading Little Women. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this book as a girl. I still love it, but it’s tempered a little with eye-rolls at the way women are written… but I know it’s a product of its time. What i find interesting is that right up into my teens, I thought it was a perfect example of how young ladies should be. I think it was a self esteem thing.. the little women were all these things I wasn’t. (patient, demure, loving, sedate.. whereas I was moody, impatient, cranky and potty mouthed)

It’s funny how a little ‘fuck’ thrown into a new blog can make me start to feel a bit more like myself. There’s always an awkward first week or two, in finding my voice. No matter how many years i’ve blogged.. a new one always starts out stilted. strangely formal.

So far I haven’t felt any real side effects to my injections. I have been a little sleepier than normal, but otherwise I’ve felt fine. birth control pills, however, turned me into the anti-heather. The last time I took the pill was 1996, i think. The ring and the shot were fine. neither affected me too negatively. The pill turns me into a cranky, unloving wanker head. Hans would try to be affectionate, and I’d just curl in on myself and retreat. I know that can’t feel very good when the person you want to be closest to just wants you to go away. Luckily, within two days of going back off the pill..I was affectionate and playful again. I have to do them in the beginning of an IVF cycle, so I guess we just have to deal with the occasional 2 weeks of anti-heather.

My sock-elephant came dangerously close to being finished,, but the second ear totally crashed my happy. There I was floating high on my janky but cute elephant when the second ear just wouldn’t go on right. I tried 3 tries and then threw her in a sewing box and I’ll give it another try later this week.

under water, with my hearbeat
submerged in warm water
with Hans, just about anywhere
in the kitchen, creating something
with friends, drinking a delicious wine
bed on a saturday morning