if you come over for dinner, i promise not to serve broccoli normandy

When I was in seventh grade, my class went on a field trip.  On the ride back to school, the boys in the back of the bus got a hold of the first aid kit and blew up the rubber gloves like balloons.

When our teacher discovered the glove balloons, she taped them to the chalkboard and told us we all had to stay at school until the offenders came clean.  My classmates didn't seem concerned about the prospect of staying past dismissal, but I was not happy because I was lieutenant of the safety patrol, and the rest of the school relied on me and my neon orange safety belt and official lieutenant badge to make it through dismissal.

Fun fact, lieutenant of the safety patrol was the one and only position I've ever run for in my whole life.  

That's right.  I ran and was elected to be lieutenant of the St. David School safety patrol.  Make no mistake, I didn't run for captain.  Too much responsibility.  Put me second in command and I'm a happy girl.

Anyway, it didn't take long until the culprits came clean and admitted to their role in blowing up the rubber gloves.

I tell that story because I got home from work today, sat down, and could not believe my eyes when I saw the situation south of my knees.

Yikes.

My feet looked just like those rubber glove balloons.  Round and puffy with my poor vienna sausage toes sticking off the end.  I've never had well defined calves, but everything from my knee to my toes had the same circumference, and the spot where my ankles used to be was replaced with rolls.  My feet even jiggled when I walked. 

There are a lot of perks to having a best friend experience pregnancy at the same time as you, so I texted Michelle to tell her about my feet because I knew she could empathize.  "Send me a pic!" she said.  Michelle is a nurse so I figured she would tell me if the situation appeared medically alarming, so I put my pride aside and sent her a photo.  She texted back that Jessica Simpson had the worst swollen pregnant feet ever.  

I went about my lounging and my phone rang about an hour later.  It was Michelle. "No seriously, how bad are your feet really?" she said. 

"You saw the pic!" I told her.  "

WAIT, THOSE WERE YOUR FEET?" she said.

She thought I had googled a photo of Jessica Simpson's feet and sent that.

Oh no.  Nope.  Sad to say I'm the proud owner of those giant Flintstone feet.

And that's why for the last three hours I've been sitting in the recliner with two bags of frozen broccoli normandy on my feet.

Well, that's not completely true.  I did get up once to go upstairs and when I got there, I launched into a diatribe for poor, unsuspecting Matt about how unfair it is that the electrical outlet on my side of the bed has all of the community items, like the lamp and the sleep number bed and the fan and IT IS SO UNFAIR THAT I HAVE TO UNPLUG SOMETHING IF I WANT TO CHARGE MY PHONE AND WHY AM I IN CHARGE OF ALL THE COMMUNITY ITEMS ON MY SIDE WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING ON YOUR SIDE BUT YOUR PHONE CHARGER?

I'm going to blame the state of my feet and the electrical outlet outburst on the 90 degree weather and the end of a very long week.  I'm so glad that tomorrow is Friday.  We don't have any big plans for the weekend, but I think I may go buy an extension cord.  

And ice packs.

And some new frozen vegetables.

so sunday wasn't our best day

People have asked me if I've had any pregnancy cravings yet, and I don't really think I have, but I have been an exceptionally big fan of fruit.  Grapes, cherries, apples, and strawberries have been my staples, but I got a watermelon at the store on Sunday afternoon and by last night I had eaten THE ENTIRE WATERMELON. 

All by myself. 

In three days.

In addition to the watermelon, I also got green bell peppers and white nectarines at the store.  When I got to the register, the cashier was a teenage boy, probably about 16 or so.  He picked up the nectarines and punched in the number on the sticker.  Then he did a double take at the bag filled with red fruit.  "Are these really white nectarines?" he asked.  "Yep, they are," I said.

"Weird," he shrugged, "they sure don't look white to me."

I explained that the fruit inside is white, hence the name, and  I thought about how proud Matt would be because he comes from a long line of men in the produce business.  I am not joking. His grandfather made a career of owning his very own produce business, and when he retired Matt's dad ran the business for many years. 

While Matt doesn't work in the produce world himself, he carries on the family tradition by intensely analyzing every fruit and vegetable we buy.  When we go food shopping together I immediately hightail it straight to dairy so I am not seen with him as he heartily slaps and smacks the melons and sniffs all of the pineapples until he is on the verge of passing out.

Anyway, back to the cashier.  He said, "Okay, I trust you."  (As if I would try to commit some sort of tricky nectarine switcharoo).   "You know, I don't really know much about produce.  I don't eat many fruits and vegetables, and my mom does our food shopping."

And then he keyed in the green bell peppers, and looked at me and said with all the seriousness in the world, "What do you think would happen if you got a job naming produce, but you were color blind?"

Listen, I did my very best to keep a straight, serious face, but I'm not sure how successful I was.  I managed to tell him I didn't know if that would be a very good job for someone who is colorblind, and he agreed.

It reminded me of the time I was in high school, and I asked my family what would happen if an all  boys school decided to perform Annie as their annual musical.   That was at LEAST 16 years ago and I have yet to live it down. 

Later Sunday evening Matt and I were sitting on the patio.  A big storm passed through, but as the skies cleared, I heard the owls hooting with enthusiasm.

"Wow," I said to Matt, "that storm really brought out the owls."

"What?" he said.

"The owls! Don't you hear them all woo woo-ing?"

"Well I hear that sound," he said, "but those are mourning doves."

Well.  I have been living an ornithological lie for 30 years.  I pulled up a YouTube video hanging onto a sliver of hope that a video of a mourning dove would prove Matt wrong, but it didn't.

After my world was turned upside down, we went inside for some ice cream. 

"Wait until you see what kind of concoction I make tonight," Matt said, and then proudly announced  "I'm making a neopolitan!"

"But we don't have strawberry ice cream," I said.

"So? My neopolitan is going to be chocolate chip cookie dough, peanut butter cup, and vanilla."

And it was then that Matt learned he too had been living a lie for 30 years, except his was in the dairy department. He thought neopolitan just meant three flavors of ice cream in one bowl.  Any three.

I wished we could have invited the grocery store cashier over for a neopolitan and some nectarines.  I guarantee the three of us could have solved some major world problems. 

Or maybe not.

But I do guarantee Matt would have picked the three best nectarines in the produce section.

anyone want a free chicken?

Well it's the second time in two weeks that I'm writing a post that centers around the bathroom habits of animals.  Rest assured that no one is more disturbed by this turn of events than I am.  First it was Pearl, and now, chickens.

Let me back up.  A few weeks ago, we got four new baby chicks.  They were a day old when we got them and as adorable and tiny and cuddly as anything can possibly be.  We played with them for a while, and then got them all settled into their luxury living quarters, aka a big Rubbermaid container in our garage.  We plugged in their heat lamp to keep them at a balmy 95 degrees, and shut the door.  

 I had off the next day so I stayed up a little bit later than usual, and before I headed up to bed at about 11:30, I peeked into the garage to check on the chicks, only to see that their heat lamp had burned out and they were all piled on top of one another, shivering their little tail feathers off.  

Naturally, I did what any farmer does in this situation.  I went upstairs and woke Matt up, and he drove his F-150 to the 24 hour Walmart just like our forefathers.

In the meantime, I brought the Rubbermaid into the family room.  I parked it next to a space heater and filled a container with hot water so they could gather around it.  

While the chicks and I had our midnight bonding time, I decided to name them Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy after the Little Women, four of my other favorite chicks.

Eventually Matt came home with a new heat lamp and we turned their Rubbermaid into a sauna once again, but we did decide to leave them in the family room because it's still cold at night here and the garage gets very chilly.  

And now two weeks later, the chickens still live in our family room.  They are entertaining to watch, and are living up to their names.  Meg is firm but calm.  Jo is wild and slightly aggressive.  Beth hangs back and observes.  Amy likes to be the center of attention and I even caught her the other night sleeping with a clothespin on her beak to make it extra pointy.

Just kidding about that last part.

Anyway, I left the house around 8:30 yesterday for some meetings.  I got home at about 2:30, and went straight upstairs to my office to finish a few things.  I shut 'er down around 4:30, and headed outside to bring in the trashcans since it was trash day.  I went downstairs so I could go out through the garage door, and it was the first time I'd gone downstairs, and therefore the first time I'd seen the chicks, all day.

And do you know what greeted me when I walked down the steps?

A sight I won't soon forget.

Jo was sitting OUTSIDE OF THE CONTAINER.  And there was chicken poop ALL OVER THE RUG.

That's a guilty looking chicken if I ever saw one.

You can see that we did have chicken wire over the top of the container, but Jo had managed to make her great escape and left of her day of adventure all over our family room rug.  

TYPICAL JO.

Do you know how many times baby chicks poop every day?  I can tell you, it's A LOT.  

I wanted to cry.  And I'll be honest, for a few seconds I actually thought about turning around and going upstairs and pretending like I didn't see a thing, and let Farmer Matt discover the situation for himself when he got home. 

But I ended up putting Jo back in the box, and then I sprayed the whole carpet with a liberal dose of carpet cleaner, donned some gloves, and scrubbed my heart and my frustrations out.

I got it cleaned up, but I have the day off tomorrow so I am going to do another round of scrubbing just for peace of mind.  

I'm trying to find the silver lining here, and I will say that after a long winter of mud and snow and a house renovation, the rug needed a deep cleaning anyway.  

And I need chocolate.

obviously matt's going to be the parent who helps with the science homework

Well here I am to write about something that happened two weeks ago.  But if feels like a big deal and in 15 years I might want to look back and remember that day.  This blog has come in handy for historical documentation so many times.  Just this week Matt pondered how old our chickens were when we put them outside in the coop a few years ago and in just an instant I was able to pull up the blog post I wrote about it and tell him the date.

So anyway, way back on March 29th, we had my anatomy ultrasound.  

The ultrasound wasn't until 3:15, but Matt and I both took the entire day off work, and were still up at the crack of dawn because BIG DAY.  Matt spread lawn food on the grass, I cleaned the bathrooms, we went to the courthouse so Matt could pick up a permit, we went to the furniture store to pick up our new dining table set, and we went to Ollie's to buy a rug.  All before lunchtime.  After lunch we just aimlessly wandered around the house and the yard and killed time until the clock fiiiiiiiinally struck 2:40 and we headed for the hospital.  

The ultrasound took about 45 minutes and the baby looked perfect, coming in at about 10 ounces and 10 inches.  

A perfect 10.  

During the ultrasound, the tech asked if we had any questions and here is where Matt and  I differ.  He asked if the scientific purpose of the gel was to assist with the transmission of the ultrasound waves.

I asked if the umbilical cord connected the baby's belly button to my belly button.  

Actually I waited until the tech left the room for a minute to show the doctor the ultrasound results, and I just floated that question out to Matt and THANK GOODNESS I WAITED UNTIL WE WERE ALONE.  He said, "Well that is an absolutely ridiculous question."

Also, the answer to it is NO.

The tech came back in, told us the doctor said the baby looks perfect, and we asked her if she could tell us the gender.  Based on my question above, it should come as no surprise to you that I have always assumed that I will have a baby girl, because I am a girl.  I understand that biologically if that were true, the human race wouldn't be long for this world.  But in my head, I always figured, I'm a girl, I'll have a girl.

So imagine my surprise when the tech moved the wand around a little bit, studied the screen, and said, "It looks like you're having a boy!"  

A baby boy.  

We are thrilled.  We told our families and then went out to dinner to celebrate.  We also took our first family selfie.

While we were at dinner we talked all about HIM and what our life will look like with a son.  We really have zero idea what we're in for but Matt has three brothers and proclaimed confidently that he knows EVERY SINGLE THING there is to know about raising boys.  I'm writing that statement down to memorialize it so that I can pull up this blog post when that boy is inconsolable at 4 a.m. or drives the car into the side of the garage or fails music listening class in college, not that either of his parents have ever done those things.

We finished up the baby registry this week, so that was fun.  I gave it a final once over this morning and look what I found.  

Looks like Matt had been adding some things of his own.

I know he already knows everything about raising boys, but I hope he knows that he won't be able to use that for about 17 years.

show us your books: april edition

Well just like that it's time again for Show Us Your Books with Steph and Jana.  I have four to share this month!

First up is Go Ask Ali by Ali Wentworth.  

At once endearing and hilarious, thoughtful and far-fetched, this third collection offers Ali at her wisest and wittiest as she delivers tips, pointers, and quips on a host of life’s conundrums and sticky situations, including the funny, sometimes embarrassing yet unforgettable situations that have shaped her inimitable world view as a wife, mother, actress, comedian, and all around bon vivant. Thoroughly entertaining, Go Ask Ali is packed with thoughts and musings from "the girlfriend you want to have a glass of wine with, the one who makes you laugh because she sees the funny and the absurd in everything"

I read Ali Wentorth's book Happily Ali After last year, and I HOWLED with laughter.  This one was fine, but wasn't nearly as laugh out loud funny.  She does have a funny take on things, which I love.  Ali Wentworth is married to George Stephanopoulos and whether or not you agree with his political opinions, he sounds like a great husband.  A lot of comedians use their marriage and their spouse as the butt of mean-spirited jokes which I think is a real bummer. Even when Ali is writing funny stories about her husband or her marriage, it's good-natured and respectful, and I really enjoyed that.  And that's not fake news.

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Next up, One Day In December.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away.

Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

I have been on the library waiting list for so long that I'd forgotten I even requested this book until I got the text message that it was ready for pick-up.  I started one night after dinner and before I knew it I was up way past my bedtime weighing the pros and cons of staying up until I finished the entire thing.  I ended up reading it over the course of a few days, but I was constantly looking for ten minutes here or there where I could get a chapter or two in.  I got totally sucked into the story from the very beginning, and I really liked the characters.  I didn't always agree with the decisions that they made, and it sure made me glad my love life was never even close to being this complicated, but I'd recommend it for sure.

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The third book of the month was Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies.

J. B. West, chief usher of the White House, directed the operations and maintenance of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—and coordinated its daily life—at the request of the president and his family. He directed state functions; planned parties, weddings and funerals, gardens and playgrounds, and extensive renovations; and, with a large staff, supervised every activity in the presidential home. For twenty-eight years, first as assistant to the chief usher, then as chief usher, he witnessed national crises and triumphs, and interacted daily with six consecutive presidents and first ladies, as well as their parents, children and grandchildren, and houseguests—including friends, relatives, and heads of state.

 

This was my favorite book this month.  Sarah recommended it years ago and I've been waiting and waiting for my library system to get it and they finally did.  It's written by the man who was chief usher at the White House from 1941 to 1969. I LOVED it. He writes about the first ladies, and shares little stories about them, their quirks, personalities, and their interactions with staff and the presidents.  He goes into detail about preparing for state dinners, and changing the White House over when administrations changed, about hosting guests in the residence and the first ladies' favorite hobbies and foods, and their involvement in the daily workings of the White House and the presidency. It was fascinating. It wasn't at all political, as the author said, he didn't respect one person or party more than another, he respected the office of the President of the United States. I feel like an insider now on the inner workings of the White House. Highly recommend this one!

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The final book I read was The Elephant in the Room,

The government definition of obesity is a body mass index of 30 or more. My BMI is 60.7. My shirts are size XXXXXXL, which the big-and-tall stores shorten to 6X. I’m 6-foot-1, or 73 inches tall. My waist is 60 inches around. I’m nearly a sphere.

Those are the numbers. This is how it feels…

So begins The Elephant in the Room, Tommy Tomlinson’s remarkably intimate and insightful memoir of his life as a fat man. When he was almost fifty years old, Tomlinson weighed an astonishing—and dangerous—460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, unable to climb a flight of stairs without having to catch his breath, or travel on an airplane without buying two seats. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. But nothing worked, and every time he tried to make a change, it didn’t go the way he planned—in fact, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to change.

In The Elephant in the Room, Tomlinson chronicles his lifelong battle with weight in a voice that combines the urgency of Roxane Gay’s Hunger with the intimacy of Rick Bragg’s All Over but the Shoutin’. He also hits the road to meet other members of the plus-sized tribe in an attempt to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point. From buying a FitBit and setting exercise goals to contemplating the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, America’s “capital of food porn,” and modifying his own diet, Tomlinson brings us along on a candid and sometimes brutal look at the everyday experience of being constantly aware of your size. Over the course of the book, he confronts these issues head-on and chronicles the practical steps he has to take—big and small—to lose weight by the end.

I picked this up after I read about it on Michelle's blog.  It's written by a columnist who has struggled with obesity his entire life.  While his isn't a struggle I've had personal experience with, I found his story compelling. I LOVED his writing style. It was easy to read but he wrote with a lot of emotion and his writing was so genuine, honest, and vulnerable. He loves his family so much and wrote about them all so kindly. Michelle said she felt a lot of compassion when she read this and wanted to hug him, and I concur. 

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That's it for me this month! I love to read everyone's book posts with my library website open in another tab so I can make my requests! What do you recommend?

i feel like these two photos sum up my philosophy on excercise

I opened my email today to find this, an email from the Map My Run app congratulating me on having the app for four years.  

Well, the promise of seeing all that I've accomplished was too great a temptation to ignore.  So I kept scrolling down to see my stats.  Get ready...

8 workouts.

In four years.

An average of 2.5 miles once every six months.

And I know the app is called Map My Run but I most certainly assure you that I did not run one time during any of those many workouts.  If they had an app called Map My Neighborhood Stroll, I would have downloaded that.

I can't wait to see where I'll be in four more years!  For now, I'm off to make a bowl of ice cream.  I think the walk to the kitchen is at least 45 steps.  I should map that run.

when nature calls in the middle of petsmart. alternately titled: i am never getting a dog

It's been a while since I've mentioned my mom and dad's dog, Pearl. 

Pearl is two now. She is like a dog from a movie with a personality I really cannot accurately describe in words, but let's just say that when I imagine what goes on in Pearl's mind, it is ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!

Pearl is an English Springer Spaniel.  She's a beautiful dog, super smart and very strong.

I feel like I'm writing her profile for a dating website.  She likes long walks on the beach and romantic comedies.

Pearl also has anxiety and when I fed her dinner tonight I had to squeeze five drops of hemp oil onto her Purina.  She loves to find treasures.  She almost always brings a treasure home from a walk.  She's not picky.  It could be a napkin, a glove, a plastic bag, a rock.  Whatever she can find on the sidewalk.  One time my parents let her out into the backyard and she proudly pranced back to the door with a frozen rabbit in her mouth.  

Pearl is crazy about my mom.  But she is OBSESSED with my dad.  He works from home so the two of them spend a lot of time together, and she wants to be on top of him at all times.  Literally.  I was at their house one time and he couldn't even tie his shoes because she was sitting on his feet.  

She isn't supposed to go upstairs, but if she knows someone is up there and she is downstairs, her heart breaks and she lets you know it.  There was a time when my mom, in order to go upstairs in peace, put Pearl in the kitchen and then walked out the garage door so Pearl would think she was leaving the house.  And then she walked around the house, came back in the front door, which was out of Pearl's line of vision, and snuck upstairs.  

My mom is sick today, and my dad was out of town for work.  My mom dropped Pearl off at doggy day camp this morning and I offered to go pick her up this afternoon.  Pearl LOVES doggy day camp.  She loves it so much that she was banned from puppy playtime for about a year because, get this, TOO FRIENDLY.  She didn't pick up on the social cues the other dogs gave when they didn't want to play with her anymore.  They would try to send the message that they weren't interested in playing but NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED.  And then nevertheless she got sent to solitary confinement until she could mature.

She was recently allowed to rejoin puppy playtime and so far she's managed to control herself.

When I got to Petsmart to pick Pearl up, the woman working said "Have you ever seen her in action during playtime?"  I told I hadn't and she said, "She's really matured a lot.  We had to pull her out for a while but she's gotten a lot better.  Although she does get time outs eventually."  

And at that moment I heard the sound of a dog slamming itself against the door, and turns out it was Pearl.  She was ALL CAPS SO EXCITED!!!!

I don't know if she thinks she's going on some grand adventure as opposed to home, but she gets so excited to go anywhere.  She practically strangles herself on her leash.  One time my dad dropped her off at doggy daycamp and they didn't want to let her in because they said it sounded like she had kennel cough.  My dad tried to tell them it was just that she was straining herself on her leash, and then took her to the vet for the official diagnosis of  strained larynx due to excessive leash excitement.

Anyway, the man escorting Pearl handed over the reins (or leash, but really, she needs reins) and said, "She had a great day.  No time outs.  Three urinations.  No bowel movements."

For a second I thought I time traveled ahead a year and was picking my actual child up from daycare as opposed to old Pearl from Petsmart.

As I led her to the door, she smelled every single shelf we passed, jumped on two people, and then.

Then.

Then we got about fifteen feet from the front door. Right in front of the registers, where there were two lines of people staring straight at us.

And nature called.

Pearl squatted right down to do her business.  And by business, I mean we could now put the bowel movement count for the day at one.  Also, I don't want to get too graphic here, but she's not a stationary squatter. No.  She walks and goes, leaving a smelly trail in her wake.  

I. Was. Mortified.  

I had to ask the cashier if she had anything I could use to clean up and she handed me a plastic bag and roll of paper towels.  While I knelt down to clean it up, Pearl was back to her normal looney toon self, running circles around me and bouncing amongst her many piles of...evidence.  

I got it cleaned up, and one of us had our tail between our legs as we walked out of that store and here's a hint, IT WASN'T PEARL.

So, the moral of the story is that I hope Pearl's new family finds her as charming as we did.

Just kidding.  I brought her home, fed her dinner, squeezed her hemp oil on her dinner to help with her stress and anxiety and really considered taking some for myself.

A small glimpse of guilt.

I really could have used it because I drove to my own house expecting peace and calmness, only to find Matt on the back stoop with a chicken submerged in a five gallon bucket of warm water as he tried to alleviate her situation of being egg bound.

Please don't ask me for details on that.  I can't even talk about it.

And guess what's coming to our house tomorrow?  Four baby chicks.

Just call me the reluctant Dr. Doolittle.

show us your books - march

Well since I've finally returned from falling off the face of the earth, I'm excited to share book posts with Steph and Jana again!

The first book I read was Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.  I've been on the waiting list for a long time and it was finally my turn.  I was hooked immediately and this was most definitely a page-turner, and extremely thought-provoking.  As a paralegal I find stories about trials and courtrooms fascinating, so I loved this book for that aspect as well.

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

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Next up was another library wait list book, Where the Crawdads Sing.  I think I'm the last person in the world to read it and I loved it just as much as I hoped it would.  Thanks to a snow day and a late night I read this one in 48 hours.  First of all, the writing was absolutely beautiful. It was almost poetic.  The descriptions of the back bays and marshes where the story is set were so vivid that it was almost like the setting was it's very own character in the story.  And the story was fantastic.  I had a few theories bout the ending but the actual ending threw me for a loop!  This book also also features a trial, which my legal mind loved.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.

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I also read The Woman in Cabin 10.  Sometimes I'm in the mood for a good thriller, and this hit the spot.  Although I went into it thinking it was going to be about a cabin in the woods, and it was about a cabin on a cruise ship, I still enjoyed it.  It didn't hold a candle to the writing in Crawdads, but it passed time on a rainy weekend just fine.  Again, I was SHOCKED at the ending.  I need to just stop trying to guess how books will end.

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

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And because the first three books I read were on the more intense side of things, I decided to even things out a bit with an Elin Hilderbrand.  If you're looking to read a fantastic book that will change your life, don't pick this up.  If you're looking to read a light novel set on Nantucket (of course) with several love stories, a wedding that almost isn't, a widower, a secret relationship, an affair, high school sweethearts, a perfect couple, and a groomsman going into anaphalctic shock at the rehearsal dinner from a previously undiscovered shellfish allergy (don't worry he's fine) then this is the book for you.

The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a happy occasion: a wedding that will unite their two families. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event -- but in reality, things are falling apart.

While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed. Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in Beautiful Day -- into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments.

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What did your read this month?  I'm always looking for suggestions to add to my library request list!

all i'm saying is, the dining room better be finished by august

For eight years, I've written hundreds of posts on this blog about absolutely nothing.  I thought maybe I'd finally run out of ways to make my mundane life seems humorous and worth writing and reading about, and that it might be time to hanging up the proverbial blogging hat.

And then things got interesting around here and I finally have some material again.

We are in the midst of another home renovation, this time the dining room.  The progress is, not fast.  Matt and I are one week away from our fifth wedding anniversary, and if we don't make it, it will be because of this dining room.

We have four baby chicks arriving on March 26th.

And oh yeah, I'm having a baby.

Oh baby Darling is set to arrive on or about August 17th.  I know you're not supposed to share your birthday wishes, but when I blew out my 30th birthday candles on August 18th, I wished this would be the year, and now I'm due the day before I turn 31.

So that's really been the main thing that been keeping me preoccupied and/or asleep for the last three months.  I'm easing back into this blogging thing, so instead of paragraphs and a narrative structure, let's go with bullet points:

- For the better part of December, and all of January, the smell, thought, or sight of most food made me nauseous.  I don't think I will ever eat the following foods again: chicken breast, fried onions, stir-fry, cranberry juice, and eggs.  Which is unfortunate because did you read that part above about how we are getting four new chickens?  The MVP of those weeks was toast with peanut butter and banana.  Sometimes it was the only thing I ate for days.  Since thinking about eating made me sick, I wouldn't eat, and then being hungry would make me feel sick.  Reading made me sick, showering made me sick, sewing made me sick, even driving sometimes made me sick and if a truck that smelled strongly of exhaust passed by me, FORGET IT.  There were lots of mornings that I got out of bed, showered, and got right back in bed thinking WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT A SECOND CHILD?

I think that part is beyond me now because with the exception of the aforementioned list, here is my current motto about food: BRING IT ON. 

Also, it's hard to believe that I only felt crummy for maybe two months tops, because it felt like years.  Longest two months of my life.  To women who are sick for nine whole months, I don't know how you survive.

- I still take a nap almost every evening.  This is how my Fitbit looks.

- I went to the doctor last week and she asked if I had any questions.  I had two, but I only asked one (which was how dangerous is lunch meat REALLY?).  I don't want her to think I am vain so I skipped my second question, which was, "When does the pregnancy glow arrive?" because I have never looked worse in my entire life.  One day my hair is coarse and wiry, and the next it looks like I've doused it with olive oil.  My lips are dry and cracking no matter how much water I drink and Aquaphor I use.  And my skin.  Oh Lord, my skin.  My complexion would never have won any awards, but it's never been worse than it has recently.  Last weekend my three year old niece asked me why I have so many boo boos on my face.  I've heard girls steal your beauty and if that's the case, this baby is a girl and she's going to be Miss America, because I look like nine miles of bad road.

- Is there an old wives tale about which gender steals your brain?  Because mine has teamed up with my beauty and taken a hike.  The other day I went to the Dunkin' Donuts drive thru, ordered my food, got to the window, and when the man told me my total I realized I had nothing with me.  No purse.  No wallet.  No change in my pockets.  All I had was my good looks and as I've mentioned, THOSE AREN'T SO GOOD ANYMORE.  Other things I've forgotten to do: turn of the gas stove burner, turn off the space heater, pay my Macy's bill, take my insurance card with me when I left the pharmacy, and turn my car off before I walk away from it.  More than once.

- I've also been slacking on the household chores, and God bless Matt for not even saying anything when I went to put away laundry and realized he had been fresh out of clean undies for who knows how long, and he said, "It's no problem, I just turned my old pairs inside out and wore them again."  I wish I could say that's the first time in our married life that's happened, but it's not.  But at least this time I have an excuse.

- The other day I googled "how do you care for a newborn?" because it occurred to me that's something we are going to have to do in a few months. Does someone tell you how often to feed them? And bathe them? And change them? And what temperature should their bedroom be?  And how you're supposed to leave the house amidst the whole feeding/napping schedule? I got overwhelmed with the results and figure I'll just call my mom.

- Matt's been googling too, but his searches are far more scientific and not really about things I want to spend lots of time discussing.  Don't talk to me about a water birth.  I want to be on a bed pumped up with as many drugs as they'll give me.  Matt also asks me questions as if I am a baby expert.  I immediately google the question and then nonchalantly respond like OF COURSE I have the knowledge stored in my head of when babies can start eating applesauce, and why they can breathe in fluid right now, but once they're born, can't breathe underwater.

- So far I'm still wearing all my normal clothes, but I'll be honest, I wrestled myself into a pair of dress pants today and I didn't think the buttons were going to hang on until 4:00, but they soldiered on.  Matt said he hoped the hydraulic pressure didn't affect the shape of the baby's head.  THANKS FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT MATT.

- In all honesty, we don't feel that worried or anxious about this whole thing.  Which is unusual because normally, if there's something to worry about, I'll worry.  And even if there's not something to worry about, I'll worry.  We're just happy.  I read the baby's little ears can start to hear this week.  I am glad that what he or she has probably heard so far has been a lot of laughter.  I hope it makes him or her funny, because I love funny people.  And they've also heard some bad singing (I swear I sound just like Carrie Underwood in my head).  I'll just have to make sure that from now on, I whisper when I nag about the speed of the dining room progress.

i guess i shouldn't throw stones at goose flutes, since i'm sitting in a glass house wearing ankle suspenders

Well, hello.

Happy Friday.

I'm in my PJs, enjoying a fire, and listening to the melodic notes of a goose flute.

If you think that last part is a joke, you must be new around here.  

The Amazon truck pulled up around dinnertime.  I didn't know we were expecting a package until Matt said, "Oh awesome! I bet that's the goose flute I overnighted!"

On the off chance you're not currently in the market for a goose flute, the going price for one is about twenty dollars.  Since Amazon requires a $35 minimum for one day delivery, Matt needed to add an item to the order, so naturally he bought something else we really need.

A Canada Hammer goose call.

In case your husband doesn't spend Friday evenings practicing all manner of goose calls, let me tell you, they're not quiet.  In fact, Matt just said, "Do you think the neighbors can hear me?"

I think the Canadian goose IN CANADA can probably hear you.

There's nothing like hunting season.

Since our Friday night goings-on aren't all that exciting, I'll share a local weather report.  Yesterday, NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH, we got our first winter storm, which consisted of a few inches of snow, topped off by ice, all falling on untreated roadways which quickly transformed into skating rinks.

My office closed early and I got on the road at 1:30.  I live 14 miles from the office and it took me nearly 3 hours to get home.  I wasn't too happy about sitting in my car for that long,  but I'll admit that I sure was happy to be sitting in a new SUV with four wheel drive as opposed to Old Blue.  

I was also happy about the heated seats.  

The defroster, however, threw me for a loop.  About 45 minutes into the drive, or more appropriately, the sit, my windshield started fogging up.  I figured it was because I was releasing so much hot air between my singing and talking (I called everyone on my favorites list.  Some of them three times-sorry mom).  So I turned the defroster to cold and cranked the AC up, which only did a mediocre job of clearing the windshield, and I was freezing.  Finally I called home (again) and asked my dad what temp the defroster should be on.  "HOT!"  he said.  "You're trying to melt the snow!"

Sure enough, right he was.  As soon as I turned it to warm, the window cleared right up.  And I stopped shivering.

Today's commute was much better.  I made it home in 1/6 of the time it took yesterday, and I was smiling when I walked in the door and kicked off my snowy boots right inside the front door.  That's when Matt said, "WHAT are you wearing?!"

I fought the skinny jeans trend for a long time, because I hate when the ankles of my pants get pushed up as I slide my feet into tall boots.  So, I came up with  solution.  I wear normal ankle socks, and cover them with a pair of knee highs to secure my ankles in place.  Basically, I've created ankle suspenders.  Patent pending.

Anyway, that was the style that I wore today.   

I texted my mom and Emily about it because a few years ago, the three of us we were out and we unexpectedly went shoe shopping.  I tried on a pair of shoes and happened to be sporting my ankle suspenders (patent pending) in the middle of DSW.  If Emily could have chosen one moment in her life to disappear out of sheer embarrassment, I think it would have been then.

I wasn't going to let Matt's fashion judgment ruin a good day.  Not only was it a dream commute, but at work I went to an Adoption Day celebration. I don't share much about work on here because I believe in the separation of work and blog, but I work in the child protective services/foster care/adoption field and the truth is, the majority of days are filled with pretty sad stuff.  It can sometimes feel like weeks or months go by without seeing a happy ending to a case.  

But today, nine children were adopted from the foster care system by five families.  And those children aren't brand new, perfect tiny babies.  They're kids of all ages who have complicated histories and trauma and deep hurts and scars, but now they also have moms and dads and families.  Forever.  I'll never forget the first Adoption Day I went to several years ago, and an older boy was adopted.  He said his main reason for wanting to be adopted wasn't so that he could have a mom and a dad, but so that someday, his future children would have grandparents.

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  Not everyone is meant to adopt!  But there are over 100,000 kids in the US right now waiting to be adopted (and hundreds of thousands more in foster care), and if you have an extra case of diapers at home, I guarantee your local children and youth services agency could use them.  An extra few dollars could sign a child in foster care up for the soccer team.  Or buy them their very own brand new winter jacket.  Or a toy from their Christmas wish list.  And for kids who really do sometimes come into foster care with nothing but the clothes on their backs, what might seem like something small to you and me, can have a huge impact on their life.

Okay.  This got serious so I should share that November is also National Peanut Butter Lovers Month and National Fondue Month, so please celebrate those accordingly!

Finally, if November isn't National Pretty Sunset Month, it should be.  I saw this as I walked out of the office tonight.  It was a good ending to a good day.