It is snowing

It is snowing - these big, clunky, slow-falling snowflakes. I think it is a good excuse not to go to the gym. Oh, but I should go to the gym. Maybe later.

I haven't been posting much. I don't know why. I feel less dependent on extracting negative emotions. Was I co-dependent on my blog and my commentors before??

Sometimes I wonder if Triple S and I are codependent. Ok, I have never really understood this term, but Triple S and I like to be together. We like to be around each other. We often talk around lunch time. Well, if it is a psychaological problem, too bad, I like it.

The funny thing is how Triple S reacts to his Saturdays lately. For five years, he worked most Saturdays, at least through noon, sometimes until 3, at the lab. Since I was no longer in grad school, I was rather enjoying NOT working on Saturdays (and most Sunday mornings for that matter). I putzed around the house, cleaned, did laundry, gardened, etc. Basically, most of the house chores that nobody had time to do through the week (considering I usually didn't get home from work until after 7!). On those rare Saturdays when Triple S would stay home, he mostly disrupted my routine and kinda drove me crazy.

Since Triple S started his new fellowship, he doesn't work Saturdays anymore, although sometiems he studies at home. But, now I work on Saturdays (ah, the price you pay to work just two days a week). Recently, he has been getting a bit mopey about Saturday. He usually has a list of chores, goes to the gym, watches soccer (while folding laundry - that's the deal around here!), and generally has what I would think is a perfectly fine putzy kinda lazy Saturday.

See, this is why I wonder if we are totally too dependent on each other.

I am home alone four days a week. And I love it. I work (I really try to work about two to four hours a day when I have projects in). If I don't have a freelance job, I bake, clean the house, sew, scrapbook (for the winter at least - it's all about gardening in the summer), read a book, go to the gym, run errands. Sometimes I do get bored. About 3 in the afternoon, I am ready for Triple S to come home. I don't cry like I used to. I think the pregnancy hormones are having a great effect on me in that regard. And, at nearly two years since Serenity's death, I think the greif has relaxed its grip on me.

A friend recently asked me what I do all day (she being a scientist who still works 7 days a week, albeit at home on the weekends - working no manuscripts, even finishing up a manuscript while visiting family for Christmas). Triple S quickly jumped in with a "She is being pregnant." That's what he sees as my full time job.

And I can't wait for Beanie to be here and take up all my time! I hope to keep my two-days-a-week job, and keep my freelancing going at about the current rate. But I also want my chance to spoil this little girl to pieces.

About two weeks ago, I got my scrapbooking stuff back out. I want to work on Beanie's scrapbook - we've certainly got enough ultrasound pictures to fill-up several pages; although we haven't been taking so many shiny-happy belly shots (That mostly having to do with me looking more fat and less pregnant - that should be changing over soon).

I also got out the scrapbook I started for Serenity. It's got pictures shoved into each page, but I didn't get past making the 2nd and 3rd pages. I want to now. I think I can now. So, I will work on these two books concurrently, although the events in them are a lifetime apart yet so very much intertwined.

And, with today's schedule, I have time to look out my window, watching the snow and the little birds at my mother's day-present bird feeder, to feel the myriad emotions that drift through me, to breathe deeply and calmly, to feel the bean kick and squirm. I have time to just be.

Retail Therapy

Last year, Triple S and I chickened out and skipped the holiday season. We escaped to Mexico and tried to ignore Christmas. It essentially worked, and we found the trip to be restorative and regenerative.

This year, we are here. We went shopping. We bought presents for our sisters and the kids of some friends. Yes, by golly, we even went to toy stores.

People ask us our plans for the holidays. Well, we live here in this big little town all by ourselves. We don't really have any plans. Triple S picked out what he wanted to eat for Christmas Eve dinner; I am working both Thursday and Saturday. We might even go see the new Sherlock Holmes movie (Triple S' favorite fictional character).

Triple S even wanted a tree this year, so out we went on Black Friday and bought an evergreen.

Since we so thoroughly skipped Christmas last year, we didn't have any ornaments for Serenity. I went to Things Remembered online, the only place I could think of that engraves anything, and bought this for 2009:


However, I also really wanted something from Serenity's year of birth. At the same time, I was tooling around on Etsy.

I found this, simple, almost stark, ornament:

from Bugaboo Jewelry and asked her to put a 2008 tag on it. The purple stone is for February.

I also wanted a pea in the pod. I don't know why, I just really like these (I also have a necklace with three 'peas' all picked out on Etsy). I got this ornament:

from CyndesMinis, to recognize all three of the little peas that have been in this pod.

I have also wanted to get a family ring for myself - the object for which I was originally searching on Etsy. I found something simple, and that I can easily add on to, hopefully in March or April 2010:

from BirkaScandinavian. I love the idea of a stacking ring set for a mother's ring (it is NOT like my mother's mother's ring). The red is Triple S' ruby, the purple is Serenity's amethyst, the yellow is my topaz, and the thin blank band is for the miscarriage last fall.

These object make me happy, in a way. There is nothing profound to say about them, but I wanted to share them with you.

I wish you all peace and love this season.

incubating

Ok, it's been more than a month.

I am here. I try to read. Not much to say.

Lots of blog posts in my head that are not getting to the keyboard.

All is going well. This baby seems much more 'assertive' than I remember Serenity being. I feel her kicks and rolls and she moves my tummy. Is this a common thing second time around? Maybe I am just paying more attention; or is it because my muscles are all much more mushy?

Anyway, I just caught up on reading some posts, but I didn't comment too much. I do think of all you ladies quite often, and that gives me strength.

Hope the season is being kind to you...