Dreaming of Home in New England...

Ten Things Tuesday

2012-01-03T08:40:00.000-05:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile Since I Last Posted a Ten Things Tuesday (let's be honest here...)

1. On Christmas, my dad gave Ainslie a new outfit and she, without any prompting, turned around and gave him a hug and a kiss and said "Thank you" in her little Ainslie way. It was probably the best present he got, too.

2. The cookbook that my sister gave me: "Cooking from the Farmer's Market". It has amazing recipes, descriptions of different produce, even rare ones, instructions on how to pick out and use aforementioned produce, and photos so beautiful that it has now replaced my first edition of "The Art of French Cooking" on the countertop display stand.

3. My new project! I was down in the dumps one night and decided that I need something that's Mine. Something that has nothing to do with being a mom or being a wife or being a student. Something that I can do regularly, that's fun and makes me giggle. Something I've been wanting to do for awhile. So, I am now an Independent Beauty Consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics. It might sound out of character or tacky, but it's really neither; I've said for years that in an alternate life I'd love to be a makeup artist, and this is something fun and girly that will also help me feel like I'm contributing financially to our family, which has been driving me nuts lately. I'm SO excited, and I already made my first sale, thanks to my fabulous sister!

4. Speaking of my fabulous sister, our family Christmas last Friday was AWESOME. Alli and Ainslie were really cute together, following each other around and playing. Gifts were exchanged, cookies were baked, nieces were cuddled. It was everything a family Christmas should be and totally made up for being so sick on real Christmas.

5. Kip scheduled Lasik surgery for himself on February 3rd, which means that he can move to the next step of becoming a state trooper! All I want for my birthday is him to move here, so I'm crossing my fingers that they'll hire him for April.

6. Before he starts a new job, though, we've got a date to keep; Mom and Dad gave us an all expenses paid trip to a resort in Texas for Christmas! They'll watch Ainslie for a couple days so we can go away and not have to be serving sippy cups and singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" all day.

7. Speaking of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", Ainslie sings a super cute version, including hand movements.

8. And speaking of Super Cute, you haven't seen Super Cute until you've seen my daughter playing with two kittens. Seriously, it was an overload of cuteness. I can't even describe how cute it was. If you are Facebook friends with me, you're privileged enough to see the photo I posted for posterity.

9. The box of Christmas cheer and letters that I got from Kasey.

10. I'm still psyched about my car and the car starter that it now contains. Still.

The River House New Year's Eve

2012-01-01T20:26:00.001-05:00

Shannon greeted me at the door jumping up and down as if I were the one in charge of bringing the party instead of just myself and a mumbled excuse that I couldn't find a liquor store on the way.

"Yay!!! You're here!!!"

"Yeah, sorry I'm early, my parents wanted me to get on the road before the sun set and the temperatures dropped, but the roads are actually fine" I told her as I dropped my overnight bag and took off my shoes, surveying her parents' log cabin in the middle of Nowhere.

"No problem, Paul's here too. Want a breadstick?"

After what was possibly the worst Christmas on record (read: HORRIBLE stomach flu), I was ready for a New Year's Eve that was worthy of all the hype. Mom and Dad were kind enough to take Ainslie for the night so I could actually go out and feel my age. For years I've read Facebook invitations to my friend Shannon's New Year's Eve parties, and for years I've been unable to attend due to traveling or having just had a baby or some other good, but still disappointing excuse. But this year was different; this year I was finally going and I. was. psyched.

I walked into the living room and plopped down on the couch next to our friend Paul, who I've known just as long as Shannon: 13 years. The people making their way up to the cabin, affectionately referred to as The River House, were my oldest friends, a quality that makes my affection for them grow every time I see them simply because of their duration in my life. They also have the benefit of being extremely cool people whose coolness did not peak in high school, unlike most of the people who we all envied at the time. Blame it on moving so much growing up, but having friends that I've known for more than half my life is a REALLY big deal to me. I couldn't wait to see them.

Within a few hours, the breadsticks were replaced by pizza, a significant dent was starting to appear in the stack of Coors Light cans in the fridge, and The River House was full of friends who, apart from having known each other for so long, had relatively little else in common; Paul is an environmental engineering consultant based in New York City while Stacey is in Boston working the only job she could find after finishing Teach for America, Shannon is in medical school in Australia while Janie is getting ready for her wedding and reevaluating whether she wants to be a teacher, a small business owner or a baker. And then there's me: in grad school for Theology and a full time mom with a husband still in Alaska. We made a motley crew, but over the course about five hours, one raging game of Thumper, lots of commentary on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve, and a two hour-long dance party starting at midnight, those differences mattered even less than they did to begin with. We were simply oldest friends, dancing to N'SYNC songs that we still knew every word to (even the guys) and reminiscing about old teachers and acquaintances from middle school.

Somewhere in between "Since U Been Gone" and "Backstreet's Back", I lost my voice from singing so loud, got tired, and sat on the couch next to Stacey, one of the four girls who asked me to sit with them at lunch on my very first day of school in New Hampshire. We leaned against each other to stay awake and watched our friends' terrible dancing skills across the living room, probably both thinking the same exact thing: "I'm exhausted, but my friends rule."

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T20:30:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

(and happy 400th blog post!)

Ten Things Tuesday

2011-12-23T19:53:00.002-05:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Having the automatic car starter Kip got me for Christmas installed. Best. Gift. EVER.

2. Sunday night, Kip went down to his brother's house to watch the Pats game and Ainslie and I had a girls' night. The highlight: we turned off all the lights in the living room except for the Christmas tree and sat on the couch looking at how pretty it was in the dark. Apparently it was very romantic, because Ainslie leaned over and gave me a kiss and then thought me saying "Mwah!" was hilarious; we spent the next five minutes giving each other kisses with the "Mwah"s getting more and more exaggerated and laughing harder and harder in between each one.

3. One of my oldest friends, Shannon, came over to visit yesterday and it was so great!

4. My in-laws came over on Tuesday for a big family Christmas before Kip went back to Juneau, and it went really well! I didn't stress getting everything ready that morning, the food was good, and the cleanup wasn't too terrible thanks to my sister-in-law doing the dishes for me.

5. During aforementioned readying of the food for Tuesday Christmas, my mother-in-law fell asleep on our couch, which I counted as a wonderful sign that my home was comfortable enough for her to feel that comfortable.

6. Ainslie got to hang out in the toddler room at daycare, where she got to see her BFF, Tripp, who moved up to the toddler room about a month ago. They were clearly exhilarated to see each other!

7. This video, thanks to Kip:

8. Kip's and my getaway on Monday night. It was nice to be able to have dinner and sleep in without worrying about being woken up by Ainslie.

9. Kip and I watched "The Sound of Music" and declared that we are going to learn how to do the Laendler dance that Maria and Georg do in the ball scene. I'm psyched.

10. We found out last week that Kip can do Lasik surgery, which means that he's one step closer to getting a job with the State Troopers!

Coming Clean

2011-12-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

Even though I'm not technically on winter break from school yet, since I have one pesky paper standing between me and it, I've already started my resolution to get back into blogging. And last week, when I did, it felt REALLY good. I redesigned and re-titled, I've started having that glorious stream of consciousness, never-ending blog post soliloquy going on in the back of my head again, and I've been going back through old posts to label them for my spiffy new label cloud. In all this process, though, I stumbled onto something I think I've known for ages, but which I now realize is a much bigger factor than I'd previously thought: I really miss Barry.

Barry's "An Explorer's View of Life" was the first blog I ever followed, and while I never followed it (or him) in a creepy, stalkerish way, he was very much the blogger that I wanted to become. We never met, and we never talked save for a few traded comments and emails, but we built this strange, blog-based relationship that left me (and my blog) with a big, Barry-shaped hole after he died last summer.

And then Tessa, at "An Aerial Armadillo" followed him last December.

And then I just didn't really feel like writing anymore.

I can't believe I didn't realize the connection before, but going back through old posts I realized that those two people and their blogs really touched my heart in a special way. They were part of the original gang in the Friday Photo Shoot-Outs, they did the Willow Manor Ball, and they shared a unique zest for life that I would love to emulate, and that I'd like to think that I did emulate for awhile. Lest I descend into thinking that their departures are solely responsible for my waning interest in writing, I have to remind myself (and apparently anyone who's reading this) that between Barry's death in July and Tessa's in December came September 2010, the Lost Month in which I was in early labor the. entire. friggin. time. And then there was October 2010, the Second Lost Month in which Ainslie was born and we were in the NICU for the rest of the majority of the month. Over the past 14 months since then, I've looked back on Facebook posts and on here, and I've realized two things:

1) I'm a ridiculously positive person

2) That positivity gets in the way of the truth sometimes

And the truth is this: as much as I tried to shrug it off and focus on the positive in public (or semi-public social networking situations), last Fall was hell. Ainslie almost died. I almost died. And I've been fighting all the emotional turmoil (my euphemism of choice, since PTSD sounds too clinical and trendy to me) that's come from that ever since. When I started this blog back in 2007, I vowed not to let it turn into my high school-era LiveJournal (ooo, remember those?) where I just whined a lot about not having a boyfriend or being popular--you know, the Stuff That's Really Important in high school. But there is a middle ground between being whiny and being truthful. And I would like to start being more truthful here.

Barry and Tessa both took life by the horns and enjoyed every little experience, including (if it's at all possible) their terminal diseases. I don't have a terminal disease; I just had an experience that could act as a terminal disease to my spirit. But I don't want it to. So here I am, writing again, and I will go back to my blogging roots, in the spirit of Barry and Tessa, and take life by the horns including the good and the bad. And I will write about both this time.

Ten Things Tuesday (Yeah, It's Been Awhile)

2011-12-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

Ten Things That Have Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. How long my class applauded for my teacher last Thursday after our last lecture. It was nice to be in a class that appreciated our professor enough to actually show it. North Park was great, but all the non-majors who were in my mandatory classes just to fulfill a Gen-Ed requirement really brought the morale down.

2. Our Christmas tree in general--taking Ainslie to get our first family tree (last year was too complicated to get one), Kip and me getting through putting it up with nary an argument (which I hear is a really big deal in some marriages but has never proved to be a problem for us), decorating it together a few nights ago with our growing collection of ornaments and handmade garlands that I whipped together from old paper bags (some of which were from Panera, which lent a nice tan and red color scheme).

3. Ainslie's level of excitement when it comes to taking baths. She isn't too jazzed about having her hair washed, but she loves her bath toys and the whole process so much that when Kip had the shower turned on last night after his evening run and was putzing around while it warmed up, Ainslie ran (as much as a toddler can run) into the bathroom, emptied the contents of her bucket of bath toys into the tub, and stood at the side of the tub wiggling up and down trying to take off her shirt until I obliged and let her sit in the tub while the warm water came down from the shower head. Water coming from a height confused her a bit, but she eventually threw herself through the deluge in search of the one bath toy that (ironically) requires a tub full of water to be of any use. It was super cute.

4. How happy Kip was after that aforementioned evening run.

5. Our mini Christmas this morning. Kip has to go back to Juneau on the 21st, so we celebrated today, on the feast day of St. Lucia. It was a perfectly low-key morning involving a very modest number of gifts, a very unmodest amount of cinnamon rolls, and just enough Christmas movies.

6. I hate it when people do this, but I am just so excited about what Kip gave me for Christmas that I have to shout it from the rooftops: the Adele Live at Royal Albert Hall DVD (which I am watching right now with great joy and longing for England) and an automatic car starter that will be installed on Friday. No more running downstairs to warm up the car and then praying that nobody steals it while I'm getting Ainslie up in the early mornings I go to school! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!! My man's THE man.

7. The way Ainslie has started running down the hall in our apartment for the sole purpose of being chased, belly laughing the whole way.

8. Lunch on Saturday with my sister-in-law. It was a great girls' day!

9. The debate Kip and I got into on the T on the way back from school last Thursday over the changes in the Mass liturgy. I'm pretty sure the people around us wanted to kill us, but it was super fun.

10. I missed class last Tuesday because Ainslie was sick and Kip had a job interview, and two of my classmates sent me emails saying they missed me! It made me feel good :) I have friends, yay!

I've Actually Googled This, Too

2011-12-10T20:05:00.001-05:00

My newest home design obsession (and I use that word completely seriously) is somehow finding a card catalog. Yeah, you read that correctly. A Card. Catalog. Like, the type that we used to flip through in elementary school (or middle school, or high school, or college, depending on how old you are) to find books in the library...hypothetically in my case, of course, since by the time I finally figured out how to use the darn thing, it'd been replaced by a computer search system.

^ That kind of card catalog

In an ideal world, I would use it as a credenza-type piece of furniture, pretty much as pictured above. In a beyond-ideal world, I would use it in my spiffy craft room as a way to store all my little crafty doodads and it would be glorious.

2011-12-08T21:19:00.001-05:00

Introducing: Dreaming of Home in New England...

My three resolutions for my Winter Break from school stand thus:

1. Get back into blogging

2. Read a non-academic book just for fun

3. Start taking photos again

3a. Find the cord to upload said photos to my computer to help with Resolution #1

I've been trying to think of a proper blog title now that I have a real apartment and official stuff like that here. But it doesn't feel right giving the blog an official, geographically related title when Kip isn't here yet. He's still working on getting a job out here, with varying levels of success, so while my address is in New Hampshire, my heart and my home are still split between here and Alaska. I'm looking forward to when he gets a job and moves here, we'll settle down and buy a house and be all domestic (at which point I'm sure I'll have some sort of identity crisis and start another Etsy store or dedicate myself to international travel again or get into a new random hobby, like glass etching). So, until that happens, I'm Dreaming of Home in New England..., with another nifty little ellipsis in the title that looks toward the future this time instead of to the past.

Here's to new beginnings that are 95% started...

2011-09-30T14:26:00.000-04:00

Well, that was an eventful month.

This morning sees me sitting on our new porch, wild berry tea in hand, some laundry drying as I type and my baby sound asleep a few doors down the hall. Almost as soon as Ainslie and I got to New Hampshire, I realized that um, she's eleven months old. Which freaks me out for a few reasons:

1. She's ELEVEN. MONTHS. OLD. That's only one month away from 12 months, which is a year.

1a. That was when we first got here. Now, her birthday is less than a week away. Aaaaah!

2. She gets into absolutely everything, which I try to encourage as much as possible without being reckless. How is she supposed to learn about the world by sitting in a little bubble of baby-proofedness all the time?

3. The aforementioned two points would have made living with the friend we were supposed to live with a constant chorus of, "Ainslie, don't touch that please. Don't touch that either. Here, come sit in this box and don't touch anything."

A solo apartment was just easier. So, in a whirlwind two days, I found one. And it's awesome. It's the perfect size, in a nice neighborhood that I feel safe in, and I can paint the walls! So I have, and it is glorious.

The only downside to my own personal Taj Mahal: spiders.

My mom noticed them first, mentioning to me one day that there were a few on the outside of the front door. Then I noticed them. Then I noticed one on my living room carpet. Then I noticed a spider bite on Ainslie's leg and declared WAR. I went to the property manager and asked to have the doorway sprayed, which I realized didn't happen when the spiders came back after three days. Then I decided it was REALLY WAR. Upon finding one spidering around in the entryway, I squashed it under my shoe and tossed its little spider body out onto the landing, Mexican drug cartel-style, as a warning to the others. And ever since this formal declaration of my intentions to wipe them off the face of the earth (or at least my doorway), I've been worried that they're going to launch a counteroffensive, working through the night to spin one of those super powerful webs in front of my door so that I can't get out in the morning, or at the very least walk into it and spend the next year with the heeby jeebies.

Now the only thing that would make my palace complete is my stuff. Which is still in Alaska, or somewhere in Nebraska, or maybe sitting in a warehouse at some random moving company down the street I don't know, the movers won't tell me anything. More about that later.

So Long Juneau, Sweet Home Chicago

2011-08-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

I'd forgotten how wonderful the silence on the El as it crosses the canal between Merchandise Mart and Washington/Wells can be. It's eerie, as every person on the train stops checking their phones and reading their Kindles to look up at the skyline, turning around to catch a glimpse of the other bridges before the train car is engulfed in a jungle of concrete pillars and windows facing office cubicles once again. Of course, I also forgot how creepy it is when somebody or another causes a ruckus on the train shortly thereafter, as was the case yesterday as Ainslie and I rode the brown line to see the Bean (get it? I took my Bean to see the Bean! Photos ensued) and hang out with Mary, Sarah, and Sarah's twin boys Johnny (who is Ainslie's new boyfriend) and Emmet. The aforementioned ruckus happened when a guy wearing a Nikon hat and sporting a large camera with a telescoping lens started taking pictures on the train and a woman a few seats down from him didn't want her photo taken (along with everyone else on the train...let's just say Ainslie was quickly covered by a blanket and Mama Bear was ready to pounce), and Nikon guy wasn't too happy with that. Gosh, I've missed the ups and downs of Chicago.

Kasey and Matt's wedding on Saturday was lovely. Ainslie was very interested in singing along with the Gregorian Chant choir, which meant that we spent the entire wedding in the back of the church keeping her quiet, with the exception of when Matt and Kasey walked down the aisle at the end, which we felt merited Ainslie's squeals of joy for the happy couple. I held her as she wiggled and clapped at them as they approached her. Too cute in my opinion (and, as Ainslie's godmother, I'm pretty sure Kasey would agree). Seeing everyone again was surreal since most of us are now married, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I'll ever quite get over the feeling that I'm entirely too young to be living the life I am. The next day, we joined the new Mr. and Mrs. Rose for my first ever Latin mass at St. John Cantius church, which was really interesting. Kip and I pulled off the most amazing transfer of a sleeping baby ever to happen in a Communion line, and I felt extremely Marian taking Communion kneeling at the rail, with my head covered, holding a sleeping baby. How very Catholic of me.

We've been staying in Kasey and Matt's apartment while they're on vacation, and it's been a fun few days of sightseeing, taking Ainslie to the Shedd Aquarium (she loved the jellyfish), and generally partaking of as many trips to Julius Meinl as possible. Kip left to go back to work in Juneau on Tuesday afternoon, but Monday night contained what I have officially minted the nicest family dinner we've ever had. We sat in the newly opened back garden at Tre Kronor and ate amazing Swedish food while the breeze blew away most of the bugs and rustled the leaves in the trees overhead and the grasses in the garden beside us. Ainslie topped off the night by clapping for us (a skill she'd learned only a few days before) and charming everyone else in a twenty foot radius. I was pleasantly surprised when our bill came with three Anna's cookies, a tradition I'd thought they'd forgone (Ellen, they're apparently still doing it for dinner at least!).

To say that I'm less than super psyched about being separated from Kip for the foreseeable future is a severe understatement. I deal with it by alternating between denial and sadness. Once he has a job in New Hampshire he'll move out too, but we haven't gotten any leads yet. I know we made the decision to do this as a family--the financial aid offered at BC was too good to turn down and wasn't guaranteed if I deferred, it's the best thing for the family for him to go from one job right to another, blah blah blah--but it still sucks. We're planning on getting into a schedule of Skyping, emailing and sending letters so hopefully that will help. As he put it, "Some of our best years were long distance. Years! We can do this!" For now, I'm trying to keep busy and enjoy Chicago and its hot weather before we continue on to New Hampshire next week. Ainslie has dealt with the heat remarkably well considering where she was born and the fact that she's never experienced it before for any length of time. And I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well, too--this morning we took a walk to a restaurant that doesn't allow strollers, and it was too hot for the Ergo carrier, so I just took the lightweight scarf that I'd used to cover my hair at church on Sunday, tied a knot in the end, and used it as a sling to great success. Maybe being in the Lower 48 makes me more resourceful, but I think maybe I should credit that to Alaska. So long, Juneau, it's been swell.

Lists

2011-08-03T16:07:00.000-04:00

I'm a list person. I make lists. So here are the two lists i have been keeping as of late, mostly beause i need one or the other of them depending on the moment.

Things I Will Miss About Juneau:
-ridiculously easily accessible hiking
-being near the water
-friends, so many of them
-Katy Rice...she deserves her own unique bullet point
-the separation from mainstream American ridiculousness (ex: i really heard none of the craziness surrounding Michael Jackson's death)
-the laidbackness of it all
-the yarn/fabric shops

**note: these are subject to revision and in no particular order**

Things I Will Not Miss About Juneau:
-the rain
-lack of diverse shopping (you really don't know how much you appreciate Old Navy until you live somewhere where you literally cannot buy anything quality--not that Old Navy is super quality--in your size)
-driving past the birth center all the time
-lack of ability to pursue theological interests
-distance from family and friends
-how weird it is to everyone when you dress nicely
-lack of local, fresh produce
-the skanky bars on Front Street

2011-07-28T05:54:00.001-04:00

If, when I get old, I lose my memory and people and places fade from my mind, I want one of the few memories I keep to be this one.

This afternoon, I played with Ainslie in our living room, tossing her in the air over and over again to hear her laugh. Up she'd go, screaming with joy, and just as her ascent reached its zenith, she'd look up at the world around her, past me to see what lay beyond, smiling at all of it in her new, higher and momentary perch on the air. I caught her and tossed her up again and again, until my arms were tired and I was out of breath, at which time simply stopping our fun seemed anticlimactic, so I wrapped her legs around my waist and put my arms behind her back and spun in place. Without missing a beat, Ainslie leaned back onto my arms and let her hands fly free, throwing her head back as well, closing her eyes and smiling a smile that I recognized from the times I've been completely in a moment, closing my eyes to try to remember it forever.

And I was completely blown away by this.

She was so beautiful there, that smile, trusting me to hold onto her, her arms stretched wide and her hair sticking straight up with the force of our spin. I got too dizzy and we both collapsed onto the floor looking at each other and giggling, out of breath from our fun. And she looked at me like I was exactly what she'd imagined me to be while she was waiting to be born, wondering who was connected to the heartbeat she constantly heard.

Even if Ainslie grows up to be the first female president or finds a cure for the common cold or invents the first biodegradable soda can, this is how I want to remember her when I'm old and gray.

Ainslie + Tillamook = BFFs

2011-07-16T03:10:00.000-04:00

Lately in our house it's been Ainslie and Tillamook, Tillamook and Ainslie taking on the world together. It's almost like they were meant for each other (in a non-creepy, completely platonic way), except for that whole he's a cat thing. It started pretty early in Ainslie's life--she'd see him and smile. And then she started laughing whenever she saw him. And then she wanted to pet him. For awhile, he rebuffed her advances, but eventually he gave in to her charms (who could blame him, really?) and now they are the absolute best of friends. I think it's because they find the same things utterly fascinating:

-They open kitchen cabinet doors and drawers together.

-They are fascinated with running water.

-They love balloons (although I suspect that Tillamook just likes popping them with his claws).

-They can't get enough of Ainslie's square mirror--Ainslie likes looking in it, and Tillamook likes chasing the light reflection it throws onto the wall.

-I had to cover the electrical outlets to keep Tillamook from electrocuting his whiskers before Ainslie got the idea from him and started poking at the outlet covers.

-They'll sit together for 15 minutes at a time while Ainslie turns the pages of our DVD binder, occasionally looking at each other as if to say "I don't get why the adults don't understand how incredibly amazing this sound is!"

-They both constantly crawl over to my basket of yarn and disturb its contents.

-They fight over Tillamook's toys (and by "fight" I mean that Ainslie waits until Tillamook isn't around, then swipes his foam ball, blue puff dangler toy and the orange fluffy mouse with the bell on its tail until I take them away and tell her that he doesn't want to share and yes, that's quite rude of him).

-They can't wait for me to open packages whenever we get them (I have a photo of the two of them climbing over a box from my mom, trying to see what's inside).

Tillamook has taken to sleeping in the corner of Ainslie's room or on her changing table (when I'm feeling gracious) during the day, and on more than one occasion, I've found him waiting outside her door after I put her to bed. He sits on the side of the tub when she takes a bath. And it's not just a one way street of affection--I kid you not, Ainslie has literally gone from screaming at the top of her lungs to laughing because Tillamook walked in the room, yawned, and stretched out on the floor. And as if all this weren't enough, today I realized that, as she kept looking from him to me and babbling, she was really saying, "Gee-eee, Gee-eee", which I suspect is her "I can't make the 'T' or 'K' sounds" way of trying to say "Kitty".

It's enough to warm your heart and turn you into a cat person, really.

Juneau in 30 Days

2011-07-11T08:56:00.001-04:00

A soundtrack for this post:

It's here. Thirty days left until I leave Juneau.

Do I want to talk about it? No.

Am I happy about it? Yes and no.

But let it be resolved that while I am still here I will make the best of it, I will enjoy it, and I will squeeze everything I can out of this fair city of ours before I kick the Juneau bucket in a month. Because I absolutely refuse to look back on this experience and say, "I lived in Alaska for three-ish years and I didn't _________ ?!?!?!?"

My Alaska Bucket List:

Drive to the Glacier to pick up the International Year of Forests posters.
Hike as much as possible. Trails to include: West Glacier Loop, Gastineau Meadows, Perseverance, finally summit Mount Roberts (for real this time) and possibly a chunk or all of Mount Juneau
Pick out a Tlingit paddle with Kip
Photograph, photograph, photograph! Especially make sure to shoot the mine ruins past Sandy Beach
Go camping
Actually see a whale breach--I've seen one spout, I've seen a fluke, but I've never seen one breach
Kayak at the Shrine
Restaurants to make one last run to: Tracy's Crab Shack, the Sandpiper, Empanada Dorada
Put together a box of Alaskan goodness for Ainslie when she gets older, so she can learn more about where she was born
Send smoked salmon to Dr. Zelle
Pick blueberries (THIS YEAR I WILL FIND THEM!!!!!!!!)
Walk the Airport Trail the whole way
Have matching kuspuks made for me and Ainslie
Swim in the glacier runoff (but only if we have a significant stretch of warm days)
Go gold panning with Sarah Morin

All of this in addition to normal moving type things and seeing friends as much as I can, etc. It was actually kind of nice to sit for awhile and think of things I'd like to do in Alaska, because really....I've already done the vast majority of it. If I had to sit and make a list of all the cool things I've done here that I wanted to, it would be much longer. Regrets? I only have one: I wish I'd been able to take Ainslie for a walk in Anchorage before we left in October; the trees on the trail by the university looked really neat, but it just wasn't possible.

Snoopy Guests

2011-07-09T04:47:00.000-04:00

Good gracious, I just spent a solid 45 minutes laughing so hard I cried at the comment threads on this article. "When your friends come over, what's your panic object?" the author asks, "The thing you hope they don't find, because it'll mean no end to merciless teasing?" The responses are like Post Secret, only not secret or anonymous. And the sheer amount of people who are terrorized by their cats cracks me up, because I live in mortal fear of anyone dropping by unannounced on the day that the cat box really really needs to be emptied (like today, so please give us 24 hours please).

I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. That felt good.

An Afternoon of Summer

2011-07-08T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Downside: When Kip isn't home from work by 3:30 am, I instinctively get nervous, wake up and stay up until he gets home.

The Upside: all our dishes are clean now.

The Down-Downside: Ainslie doesn't care how many hours I'm up in the middle of the night, she still wakes up at 8 (or 9:30....or 10:30....okay maybe it's not all that consistent).

The Up-Upside: I found my blogging motivation somewhere between the sudsy water and the blinking time on the clock. Yay!

Last night was glorious. After a dreary morning in which literally everybody I know (or at least everybody whose number is still on my phone after The Great iPhone-Meets-Water Incident of 2011) had other plans and left me stranded, plan-less and itching for some interaction with anyone who can put together two-syllable words, the Sun decided to hang out with me. I took Ainslie for a walk that was intended to be a lot longer than it was, but was none the less enjoyable for it--I ended up getting waylaid by several friends sitting out in their front yards with glasses of wine basking in the sunlight.

I've just realized that, in Juneau, we all start to resemble cats when it's sunny; we don't necessarily do anything in the sunlight, we just lay in it, hoping to get warm. Peculiar.

Ainslie and I ended up taking a nice long stroll through the Flats, stopping to look at our favorite houses and smelling our favorite gardens. It was as if all the flowers in Juneau had been waiting for this one day to let their scents go, like they'd all been holding onto it in a big, flowery practical joke. "Haha, the humans don't even notice that they don't smell us, just wait until the first warm day in weeks and then they'll realize what they've been missing!"

The entire town smelled like a potpourri satchel.

It was awesome.

Then, in a moment of divine providence, one of the friends whose number I couldn't recover on my phone called and invited me to sit in the sun in her front yard (we're all cats, remember?) with her and her daughter and I gleefully accepted, practically running over to her house (and running into another friend on the way). We sat the girls in the grass, Ainslie ate her first fistful of dirt, and I got a bit of a burn on my forearms. It was nice to have an afternoon of summer.

This Commercial Makes Me Cry....Every. Single. Time.

2011-06-10T02:04:00.000-04:00

Seriously, waterworks. I would consider doing this, except I'm pretty sure that by the time Ainslie is old enough to read all of it, technology will have progressed so fast as to make email obsolete.

So it's sticking to the old-fashioned paper journal I've been keeping for her since I was pregnant.

Old school never goes out of style.

An Open Letter to the Person Who Stole My Chocolate Chex Mix

2011-05-10T20:09:00.000-04:00

Dear Sir or Madam:

First of all, let me say that I can't blame you. Chocolate chex mix is one of life's most distinct pleasures; I am quite sure that the manna from heaven of which the Hebrew Bible speaks is, in fact, this most delectable of snacks. Call it what you may--chocolate chex mix, puppy chow--it is de-lish. The crunch of the chex with the sweetness of the chocolate, balanced by a hint of peanut butter and a touch of powdered sugar...who can resist it? And so I can understand the temptation of swiping a bag that you so happen to find in your travels. But you didn't just so happen to find this bag, did you? Indeed, it was placed in a very specific compartment of a very specific device. You didn't stumble across it on the sidewalk or find it at the bus stop. Oh no, Chex Mix Thief, you went through my stroller to find it.

Really? A stroller? Unless you watched us from afar and noted that my daughter is about a year too young to enjoy said snack, you couldn't have known that you weren't literally stealing candy from a baby. But since I'm still breastfeeding, you kind of did steal candy from a baby, so shame on you! I hope you're proud of yourself. Perhaps you knew all of that and wanted to ensure that I--and therefore Ainslie--had the best nutrition available. That's probably why you left the apple untouched. How thoughtful.

I suppose my waistline should thank you for saving me from a few hundred empty calories, and I hope that you enjoyed it for me. Hopefully you don't have a peanut allergy and if you do, then I suppose you got your comeuppance. Either way, I will think twice before leaving anything in my stroller the next time I carry my daughter into the downtown bookstore for a new bedtime story. Or at least next time I'll only leave the healthy stuff.

Bon Appetit,

Cindy

A Solution!

2011-05-05T15:49:00.000-04:00

I remember back in the day when my dad would sit at the head of the dinner table, look over to my sister and me and say with a grin, "After dinner, I think I will surf the net". Visions of my dad on our front lawn, literally surfing on a volleyball net confused me. I had no idea what the Internet was, much like most of the rest of the world.

All this to say that I just set up a mobile hotspot on my phone so that anywhere it is, so also is there wireless.

Which means I can blog to my little heart's content now.

The times, they are a changin'.

Holy.......COW!!!

2011-04-12T02:10:00.000-04:00

Andrew,

Thanks for your email. After discussing it with my husband, we've decided that I'd be delighted to accept your offer of admission to the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry for the Fall Semester. I'll be sending in my deposit later this week!

Moving across the continent is an incredibly daunting prospect, but there's not another program I'd rather do it for! Thanks for all your help through this process! I'll see you in September!

Pax Christi,

Cindy

Oy, ve. This is scary.

I guess this means my blog title has to change again, eh?

Impromptu Hiatus

2011-04-06T22:10:00.001-04:00

Well, that was quite the hiatus.

Please excuse the absence. Life got in the way. Since I last wrote, a plethora of happenings have, well happened. Ainslie rolled over to much fanfare, and then I stopped writing for so long that she rolled over the other way, from the other side, and also learned how to sit up. She's furiously (literally) working on a few teeth and is quite the talker these days. (I figured I should post again before she enters college.) We had Ainslie's baptism, which was a fantastic day. We flew to Anchorage for her NICU follow-up, which went well, then trooped onward through Chicago (where we surprised Kasey and heard some epic words of wisdom from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware) and into New Hampshire, where we found out that I was accepted to Boston College. Then back to rainy old Juneau just in time to move into a new, bigger apartment whose depths and nooks and crannies have been keeping me busy ever since, and whose lack of Internet access has kept me silent. Ainslie and I discovered "A Prairie Home Companion" on Sunday afternoons on NPR and have established a new Sabbath tradition. Tillamook has declared eternal warfare on the mobile hanging above Ainslie's crib and passionately attacks it every chance he gets, which has resulted in the door to Ainslie's room being constantly closed and lots of "KITTY, NO!!!!"s being shouted down the hall if it's left open on accident. Kip has been working night shift again, much to my chagrin, and I took on another concert with the Juneau Symphony this past weekend. Right on schedule, I went through one of my quarterly Julia Child obsession phases, this one being more fruitful than the last several as I actually got the nerve to cook some of her dishes instead of just read them and found her method of scrambling eggs to be a revelation. (There has been a lot of butter in our household lately.) Thanks to the Forbeses, the three of us discovered the absolute joy that the movie "Tangled" is.

And now it's Spring. Flowers are poking their first little shoots up out of the brown earth, Juneaunians are raking their lawns free of the pebbles left there by retreating snowbanks, and I excitedly ran into the apartment a few days ago declaring to Kip, "You can smell low tide!!! It has to be warm to smell low tide!!!!" Ainslie and I have rediscovered her stroller and take as many walks as possible on days when it's sunny. I'm trying to figure out a remedy to the "No Internet at the New Apartment" thing. Ideas include scheduling a ton of posts ahead of time when I can get to the library, and befriending whoever owns the password-protected "Yellow Cat Wireless" network. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but for now I'm stealing as many moments as I can to read "A Year in Provence", maybe take a nap, and write a few posts while I can. Something's better than nothing, right?

Ahh, the Good Old Days

2011-02-14T11:37:00.000-05:00

It's a long story, but here's the reader's digest version:

1. Sarah Morin sent me a message on Facebook

2. The random photo album that Facebook selected to be in the right column during said message was Kasey's from when we went to Grant Park when Obama was elected

3. Sarah didn't know that about me until last Monday, when it was randomly brought up, so...

4. I sent her a link to the (blindly optimistic, ahem) post I wrote from that night and then found

5. This gem of a post that I'd forgotten about (the post, not the moment because it really was one of the most awkward of my life). Do read. It cracked. me. up.

In the Shadow of the NICU

2011-02-10T04:10:00.000-05:00

First of all, Ainslie is doing so incredibly awesome. She laughs and smiles and explores and is so interested in having adventures and seeing people that she often refuses to take naps unless I lay down with her in a dark room and convince her that I'm not having any fun without her and therefore it's okay to take a nap.

But I'm still living in the shadow of the NICU.

It's not that I'm not gradually coming to terms with everything, it's just that sometimes, especially at night and especially when I'm alone, my mind wanders back there. And tonight, as Kip and Ainslie are asleep in the next room and I'm up checking Facebook for no good reason, that's where my mind is. I could still walk through that ward blindfolded: past the sinks to scrub in, past the refrigerator where we put my milk for Ainslie's feeding tube and bottles, to her isolette (the second in a row of many, on the left side of the room), on the surprisingly dirty floor, across from the nurse's table, next to the spot on the counter where they let us put her Piglet blanket and the book we read to her every night before we left. The smell of soap and medical plastics and every once in awhile the whiff of a dirty diaper. The sounds of a dozen different alarms going off for a dozen different reasons--medication injectors finishing, O2 levels going too low, monitors coming unplugged--and the tiniest little cries coming from the beds of every other baby there, since they were all preemies except for Ainslie.

I didn't write about it at the time for a lot of reasons. I was exhausted. We were busy. And I just didn't know how to explain it all, how it felt to feel like a visitor at your child's bedside. How it felt to have the nurse be the authority on your child's behavior and schedule instead of you, to never get five seconds truly alone, and to have all your first-time parenting mistakes witnessed by baby care professionals with monitors and clipboards and charts. I know it should be assumed, but I'm going to say it anyways: the NICU is hard. And no amount of "Oh, but she's okay now, focus on that!" changes that. And we get the joy of going back to Anchorage next week for Ainslie's follow up with the NICU doctors. Fab.

My Honey's Losing His Wisdom Today

2011-02-03T11:36:00.000-05:00

We already knew that, based on the amount of complaining, Kip needed to get his wisdom teeth out soon.

On Monday when his jaw started hurting too, we found out he needed them out soon.

Like, this morning.

Eeek.

So today I am dropping Ainslie off at Mary's house for a few hours and swinging by the grocery store for puree-able foods and Percocet (woo!) while Kip's in surgery. Luckily, we haven't even taken the shrink wrap off the Blu Ray version of "The Pacific" that he got for Christmas, so I'm thinking we're all going to be learning a lot about WWII according to HBO in the next few days. Kip is also looking forward to pain medication-driven games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Edition. I'm thinking it'll probably be even more ridiculous than average.

Oh, and we just got THE MOST AMAZING box of Julius Meinl tea in the mail. Literally a box...like, a wooden box with the Julius Meinl logo on it full of Julius Meinl tea. I'm taking hosting Tina's baby shower tea as an opportunity to stock up on things that I've always wanted, like a tea chest and a three-tiered dessert display. I'm thinking that there's nothing a nice brew from Julius Meinl can't fix here, even a husband with chipmunk cheeks and four less teeth than before.

Ten Things Tuesday

2011-01-25T15:24:00.000-05:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Big happenings in the land of parenthood: we made the switch to cloth diapers last week and it's gone surprisingly well. The highlight? The look on Kip's face when I dunked our first soiled diaper in the toilet to get the, er, soil off.

2. THE EMPANADA PLACE IN THE NEW BUS DEPOT IS AMAZING. I'm trying to finagle as many lunch dates there as I can.

3. I went to my very first Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Friday with Steph and it was lovely. We sat there with Jesus and decompressed.

4. The picture frame we got in the mail from Kasey and Matt. Also, the fact that all the lovely cookies and peppermint bark they made for us were just so excited to get to Alaska that they launched themselves out of their cookie tin and sprinkled themselves jubilantly around the box. It was a festive opening, to say the least. Crumbs don't have calories, right?!?

5. My latest home decorating ideas. Best one as of late: the guest room will have a pale, green-gray color on the walls and everything else will be white, with splashes of color throughout (I'm thinking particularly of some purple hydrangeas and the photo of the flower vendor I took in Norway)

6. Symphony rehearsal is really coming together. We've even had a few of "those" moments...you know the ones where you realize this is why you started playing music in the first place? They make me feel alive.

7. I submitted my applications to Loyola and Boston College. Gulp.

8. I have a campus visit for Boston College scheduled in March and I'm SO excited to go. I'm resisting the urge to buy new shoes from Shoefly for the occasion.

9. Our afternoon on Friday: Kip did some business at the bank downtown while I carried Ainslie around (it was warm enough!) and got some drinking chocolate from Pie in the Sky and then bought some flowers from The Plant People to spruce up our apartment since it's been so grey and rainy lately. The drinking chocolate was tasty to the extreme and the flowers are divine. Button mums, gerber daisies, forsythia and the most gorgeous pink and orange snapdragons. I love the people at The Plant People.

10. Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. Oh my.

Home Dreams

2011-01-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

I've lately become completely obsessed with the concept of "home". Could you tell? I don't know if it was brought about by Ainslie's arrival or just becoming aware that we've outgrown Juneau in every way possible, but I'm itching to go back home to New England and hunker down for, well, ever.

Ever since we were dating (and probably even before that, just separately) Kip and I have dreamed of buying an old farmhouse on a few acres and renovating it. It's been an idea that's taken hold of us, keeping us up at night with ideas and plans and scenario-rehearsing. Kip wants wooded land, the kind that he can make walking trails in, where he can go for a hike and not leave our tidy little world. I dream of a little clearing behind the house where I can plant a tiny orchard, just big enough for Ainslie and I to walk through in the afternoons, where I can spot a perfectly ripe apple and reach up and pick it, wiping it on my shirt sleeve before handing it down to Ainslie, who relishes its sweetness and giggles at the juice running down her chin. I want to invite our family and friends over for a day when all the fruit is ripe and enjoy a harvest together, tossing our homegrown produce into baskets and walking up to the house together where the kitchen quickly becomes steamy and crowded with baking pies and cooking preserves and the people making them all, and then we all have a big dinner together, and Kip and I thank everyone for their help and send them home with the literal fruits of their labor. We want the creaky floors and the drafty windows that we're always cursing in a house that has seen so many more tenants than just us, a house that we have to get to know, and vice versa.

Hopefully we'll get there soon. In the meantime, we dream.

Ten Things Tuesday

2011-01-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Kip made an epic cleanup of our room. Seriously, if it were in a commercial, it'd make that "ding!" sound and sparkle. When he showed me, I walked around and grinned like a fool for about five minutes.

2. Weird thing to smile about, but sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying: it was so cold last week that the windchill during our 60 mph gusts of wind was -30 degrees. My hair froze in the parking lot at the Merchant's Wharf. And it wasn't even wet.

3. Thursday, after having breakfast with Father Thomas and Sarah Search 'n Rescue at the Sandpiper, Kip, Ainslie and I promptly jumped back into bed to warm ourselves up after the freezing trip home (see #2). Tillamook joined us and we all had a nice, warm family nap at ten in the morning.

4. I pried open the box of too-big-now-but-eventually-Ainslie-will-grow-into-them clothes that I'd set aside only to find that the vast majority of them fit her now. It was like going shopping in my own home, except I didn't have to spend any money!

5. Finding out I can have my blog printed (see post below)

6. Planning Tina's baby shower. I'm probably having a little too much fun with it!

7. Watching Ainslie find her feet for the first time. She was so proud of herself!

8. Our entire day yesterday: we woke up, had breakfast and then played two games of Catan, three games of Sorry, did assorted responsible things throughout, and ended the day by watching "Despicable Me" for the second day in a row because it was that good.

9. The handwarmer mug that Kip got me for Christmas. I use it pretty much everyday.

10. Would it be bad to say that Kip's broken big toe made me smile? It's not that I enjoy his pain, I just like that it meant that he had to stay home from work for two days, so we basically got a six day weekend as a family. That made me smile.

I Never Do This...

2011-01-17T03:08:00.000-05:00

...but I found two amazing websites that I feel deserve mention.

Amazing Website #1: Mixbook.com I really wish I'd found this website while we were planning our wedding, or when I was making Ainslie's birth announcement but oh, ho ho am I going to make up for lost time now! It's the only website I've ever found that prints completely customizable stationery at a super reasonable price. I found it while looking for invitations for my sister-in-law Tina's baby shower and oh boy. I'm in love. Just wait until Christmas next year. Or come to think of it, I might have to make up a holiday just so I can make cards to send. Anyone fancy a resurrection of Farch from the good 'ol college days?

Amazing Website #2: Blog2Print. Just when I'd started thinking that I should probably print out this blog before some catastrophic Internet freak-out ruins the last three years of my work, I found Blog2Print. For the low, low price of $151.96 I could have my entire 350+ page blog turned into a book. First of all, holy cow I wrote over 350 pages worth of stuff? Second, that's less than 50 cents a page, so it's not so bad. Third, that's still too much for me to do it but I found a way to make it work! "...Just Alaska" wasn't always "...Just Alaska", so I think I'll print out different (smaller and therefore cheaper) volumes based on the blog's different titles as I can afford them. It makes me really happy to think of having them on our bookshelf and Ainslie wandering in some day asking what they are. I'm excited to be able to show her that I actually have had a pretty interesting life.

Ex-Boyfriends and Midwives

2011-01-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

It seems that I can't just have a drama-free orchestral experience.

So there I stand, eating a peanut butter granola bar during the break in our first symphony rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, when I see some movement out of the corner of my eye. I look over to see who has entered the room as I take a bite of said granola bar and promptly choke on it: it's one of my former midwives. Awkward.

Now, it's not like I haven't seen the midwives out and about around town before; alas, I've run into this one (and two others) at the grocery store. I don't imagine that they all constantly live at the Birth Center, humming around their little baby-shaped hive like little worker birthing bumble bees (although that does form quite an interesting mental picture). And I like this midwife quite a bit. We got along in the whole prenatal process. She was there at Bean's Birth Day Attempt #1. She wasn't in any way involved in Bean's Birth Day Attempt #3, so no hard feelings there. She has fabulous hair that I've always secretly been fascinated by. And she is the only midwife to date that has actually seen Ainslie. I like this woman, and I want to be her friend in an elementary school, kicking-the-ground-while-asking-if-I-can-play-with-you-at-recess kind of way. The problem is that, along with a cloud of Earth Mama Fabulousity, she also brings with her all the memories and ideas of what could've been when it came to Ainslie's birth, and what actually did happen. For the better part of ten months, I had this picture in my mind of what it would be like to finally meet our little Bean: we'd be at the Birth Center, and I'd push and push and push and they'd tell me the baby was coming and then she'd be there and they'd hand her to me and Kip and I would cry with joy and say, "It's Ainslie!" and she'd be crying and cold and generally pissed that she'd just been squeezed into the world, but we'd be a family and we'd all crawl into bed together and cuddle until we'd go home a few hours later, where we'd embark upon the adventures of parenthood and the midwives would come visit the next day to check in on us and congratulate us on such a beautiful baby who entered the world in such a beautiful way.

Obviously, this isn't what happened. We cried with fear instead and didn't get to cuddle as a family for the better part of three weeks while she lay in an isolette in the NICU and it took two and a half months for me to even be able to sit up on my own because of all the pushing and exhaustion and major surgery and she is a beautiful baby (even the NICU nurses said so) but she didn't enter the world in such a beautiful way. And seeing that midwife again brought all of those would-be memories and "did that really happen?" experiences back. And I get to experience that again twice a week for the next month. Hooray.

So I choked on my granola bar, went over and said hi while trying to seem chipper and avoiding eye contact, and spent the next rehearsal glancing over at the oboe section every three seconds just like I did in my college symphony rehearsals when my trumpet-playing ex-boyfriend who hated my guts would attend rehearsals and give me the stink eye during breaks, casting a giant cloud of awkwardness over the whole experience.

On the plus side, I was secretly very proud of the fact that she caught me eating a peanut butter granola bar, since it's just so very high in protein.

I'm a Woman Obsessed

2011-01-13T10:06:00.001-05:00

My latest home furnishing fantasies:

This hanging on the wall above...

This bench, which has a cushion on top of it made out of...

this fabric.

(and there are a bunch of pillows in various fabrics to lean on that also live on the bench, which will sit on one side of a matching dining room table, with the more traditional chairs on the other side)

Now, just to decide what should go into the cubbies in the shelf--the awesome handwarmer mugs that Kip got me for Christmas? And assorted teas? Or maybe our everyday dishes for easy access? I'm thinking that we should put the giant canvas print of one of our wedding photos on top of the shelf, with the jar that holds my bouquet next to it.

And they said I'd be all nesty when I was pregnant.

Ba! That was about cleaning the floor four times a day; this is about putting together a home.

Ten Things Tuesday: Resurrected.....Again

2011-01-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

It has come to my attention that I haven't done a Ten Things Tuesday since Ainslie was born. I justify this by referencing my sleeping habits since then, unreliable Internet access through the late Fall and early Winter, and the Debbie Downer circumstance that I don't necessarily always smile as much as I used to since all the stress of......everything in my life. But that's when we truly need a list of things that made us smile, no? I'm working on it.

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week (or three months, you know):

1. How much Ainslie enjoys her diaper changes. Seriously, she kicks and smiles and laughs and has a ball! Either she really enjoys personal hygiene or she really enjoys being naked---one of these is a family trait, the other isn't. I'll leave you to imagine which is which.

2. The idea of crocheting myself a sweater. I just might do it.

3. Spending close to the entire day with Father Thomas yesterday. He's back in town for a priest's meeting and I ferried him around on all his errands after picking him up at the airport. Awkward "Oh, he's not my husband despite the fact that we're both wearing rings and he's carrying around my baby. Haven't you noticed the Roman collar?" explanations abounded.

4. I had a fabulous hair day a few days ago. It was down. It was long. It was almost frizz-free. I felt like a WOMAN again, not just a mom!

5. Ikea daydreams. Seriously, it's a little pathetic how much I've furnished our hypothetical future home.

6. Casey and Tina (my brother- and sister-in-law) are having a baby girl and we're so excited!!!!! As Kip put it to Casey, "I like to establish the gender by having Ainslie wear a bow, but after that you can put her in anything you want!" Keep back, ladies, he's taken.

7. Planning Tina's baby shower--it's been super fun.

8. The sun has shone for three days now and it's not supposed to be cloudy again until Saturday. I'm planning on taking my camera out to Twin Lakes at some point before then and taking pictures of people skating on the orange ice (not to be confused with yellow snow....it's orange because it reflects the sun)

9. Super guilty pleasure smile: the new season of "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" premieres in twelve days. I'm terrible.

10. Coffee with Stephanie. I always leave that house feeling so holy and ready to be a wife and mother. It's intoxicating.

The Occasionally Obligatory "Holy Crap, I Live in Alaska!" Post

2011-01-10T10:05:00.001-05:00

Every once in awhile I stop what I'm doing and realize:

Holy crap, I live in Alaska!

The moment happens spontaneously and in seemingly random places that have included:

1. Biking back from the grocery store

2. The frozen yogurt place downtown

3. Driving down the road

4. Sitting on the couch staring into nothingness

5. The yarn shop, with a skein of Tree Hugger's Wife yarn in my hand (which, by the way, is the most amazing yarn I've ever worked with and you should check it out here)

I'm told by fellow Juneau-imports that it's not an uncommon experience to have these moments of revelation, and I sort of feel bad for born-and-raised local Alaskans (Living in Alaska Lesson #1: there is a HUGE and nearly unforgivable difference between calling yourself a "local" and a "native") because I doubt they have these sudden moments of awe mixed with insanity--because that's really what living here inspires: a simultaneous mixture of "wow, that mountain is so pretty", "I hate that mountain because it stands in the way of a road getting out of here" and "Hmm, maybe I should get a new pair of Extra Tuffs to wear so I can hike that mountain and then go out to dinner afterwards". I'm thankful for the isolation because it makes possible things like never stepping foot inside a Babies R Us in my life (that store totally freaks me out, even...and maybe more so...with a child) but I curse it when I could really use a Target nearby. Or a Jamba Juice. Or heck, even just fresh produce.

The people here, accordingly, tend to be a little of what my Dad would call the "crunchy granola" type, and I love it. I think I will probably be classified as the "crunchy granola" type if/when we move back to New England, unless people there have relaxed by a factor of about a billion since we left (unlikely). I sometimes stand in awe of the true masters of the "crunchy granola" lifestyle here in Juneau, the people who shop at Rainbow Foods and take part in the bread co-op and wear their Extra Tuffs with skirts or suits and play folk instruments like the fiddle (not to be confused with a violin, ahem). Take, for example, the principal flutist in the Juneau Symphony. She intrigues me. She's a fantastic musician, and from what I've observed from my observation post in the string section, a fantastic person as well. She's one of those rare people who is completely content with herself and doesn't care what others dictate as fashionable or pretty, and she's made all the more beautiful for it. She's the perfect mix of Earth Mama and practiced musician with long, greying hair that has no product whatsoever in it pulled back so she can read her music without interruption from a stray strand. She has no wrinkles. Seriously. I'm 23 and I have more wrinkles than this woman. I fancy that it comes from a life lived in a cabin next to a stream of the freshest water in the world and wearing homespun wool skirts on a daily basis. In reality she probably lives in a condo on Douglas Island and clothing shops at Fred Meyer, but I hold to my fantasy!

I know that someday I'll be somewhere else and someone will come over to visit some afternoon and see a piece of art or a photo or a piece of pottery and say, "How unique, where is that from?" and I'll say "Oh, we used to live in Alaska" and I'll look back wistfully at the adventure of it all and lament that I didn't take better advantage of it while I had the chance. But for now, I'll curse the 18 hours of darkness and ridiculously expensive housing market and continue dropping whatever I'm doing on an occasional basis to realize once again, "Holy crap, I live in Alaska!" And maybe go for a hike this afternoon with Father Thomas when he comes to visit.

For Tessa

2011-01-03T07:25:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I have an uncanny attraction to terminally ill bloggers. I choose to believe that it's because they, faced with death, write with more beauty and truth and appreciation for life. Tessa, of "An Aerial Armadillo" was art. I don't even say she was an "artist", even though she was, she was art itself! Everything she saw--a plant, an experience, a mug in her kitchen--was full of color and joy and dance and she allowed those things to sink into her like water into a sponge; they sunk in so much that, reaching her saturation point, she oozed art out of her very essence. No moment, no trivial object or day was without wonder in her eyes, and she wrote about it.

I was lucky enough to win a piece of her own artwork from her, a print called "Dance, Mama, Dance!". At the moment, it sits atop the cabinet in our bathroom, adding some color and joy to the most mundane room in our apartment. I think she'd enjoy knowing that. I found out about her passing yesterday and today I think I'll take my camera out no matter the weather and make some art of my own. See color in Juneau's dreary skies. And dance. For Tessa.

Of Christmas, Homecomings and IKEA

2011-01-01T16:19:00.000-05:00

It's not that I didn't think about blogging over the past three and a half weeks. I did--I sat down and tried to write several times, but I couldn't think of anything to say. There's just been so much happening:
we had a flawless flight with a two-month-old
I felt more at home in a house I'd never been to than I often do in my own apartment
sunny mornings in Texas made way to even sunnier afternoons
Ainslie figured out how to use her hands and her voice and has been singing us the sweetest songs my ears have ever beheld
doctor's offices, doctor's visits, doctor's procedures that I never want to go through with Ainslie again
we had Christmas with Kip's family in Seattle
we took our first Mommy-Daddy date (and saw "Harry Potter" a month after everyone else)
and now, back to Juneau where Epiphany celebrations, a cluttered apartment, and a slightly impulsive application to Boston College await me

I'm sure that years from now, Kip and I will be sitting on a similar couch to the one I'm on now and I'll put my head on his shoulder and say, "Our little girl is getting married today" and all of this medical nonsense will seem far away and painless and easy. For now, I'm focusing on the one-and-a-half-sided conversations that Ainslie and I have been having ("Aaaaeeeeeegooooooaahhhh" "Oh, really?" "Uhhhhhgggahhhhhhhhh" "And what else did the octopus say?") and fantasizing about our Ikea-furnished home of the hopefully not too distant future.

Specifically, I dream about this ginormous leaf mounted over Ainslie's crib in her "outdoors brought in"-themed room. I have big dreams for a reading nook too.

I also imagine what I'll put in and on this side table, placed against a wall in the kitchen. Lately it's been cloth napkins and cutlery in the drawers, brightly colored ceramic mixing bowls on top, and toys for Ainslie to play with while I cook on the bottom shelf--tupperware bowls and spoons and dried pasta and cloth renditions of fruits and vegetables so she can "cook", too. I have yet to decide what photo I'll hang above it. I have big plans to choose a set of my photos to have printed on pulled canvas to hang on the walls.

Maybe this one of the rowhouses in Stavanger, Norway. To remind us of travel and family.

Joy to the World

2010-12-24T01:32:00.001-05:00

Things I Absolutely Must Do Tonight

2010-12-07T02:08:00.000-05:00

-clean off the table

-finish wrapping presents

-laundry

-clean the toilet

-address and stamp thank you notes

-put together box for Kasey and Matt

-write notes for the Bible study I'm teaching on the basic historical-cultural exegesis of Matthew in two days

-compile medical bills that must be paid before we leave for Texas on Thursday

-straighten up the living room for Ainslie's physical therapist appointment tomorrow

-take out the trash

And guess who has no interest in sleeping and only wants to be held by Mommy while Papa's at work? I'll give you a hint, it starts with "Ai" and ends with "nslie". La vida. Loca.

(Also, notice how "waste time blogging" isn't on the list.)

Turkey Day

2010-12-07T01:58:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving was a joy, a symphony of smells in my tiny, steamy kitchen. "It's a matriarch's holiday," I thought to myself with probably a little too much smugness as I puttered from one kitchen surface to the next, the sole cook for my hungry little family. I had woken up that morning at four to feed Ainslie and found myself actually disappointed (for once) that the local(-ish, Juneau doesn't have a local news station) channel actually paid attention to the four-hour time difference between here and the East coast and scheduled the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade at 9am Pacific Time instead of Eastern. I would have to wait a few more hours for my favorite part of Thanksgiving. And wait (impatiently) I did, but soon enough Kip, Ainslie and I were sitting on the couch in our pajamas eating cinnamon rolls and critiquing (and I use that term loosely...it was more like Kip criticizing and me defending) the pre-parade entertainment. And the world was right.

For the first time ever, I made cranberry sauce from scratch. Why I thought it was going to be difficult, I have no idea. Turns out it was actually easier than opening the can of jellied sauce I'd bought just in case mine didn't work (and I'm not making that up, do you know how hard it is to be left handed and try to use a right handed can opener?). I had a few pears lying around that were about to go bad and conveniently found a recipe variation for cranberry sauce with pears and ginger, so I gave it a try. The result? Delish!

Homemade Cranberry Sauce with Pears and Ginger

1 bag fresh cranberries, picked through

2 ripe pears, cored peeled and diced

1 Tbsp ground ginger

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

Combine the sugar, ginger and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to ensure the sugar and ginger dissolve. Add the cranberries and pears, stir and reduce heat to a simmer. Lean over the pot and take a good, deep sniff. Allow the mixture to simmer until the cranberries begin to pop (or until you begin to salivate, it happens around the same time), cook until slightly thickened then turn off heat. Cool and serve at room temperature if you can resist eating it until then.

It. smelled. divine.

Per the deal that Kip and I made on Thanksgiving Eve, as soon as the parade was over, he got to watch football. He took the opportunity to tutor Ainslie on the finer points of the game while I set to work in the kitchen.

Eventually, after six hours of cooking, one mid-afternoon phone call to Mom ("Well, when this morning did you put the turkey in the oven?" "I haven't yet" ::long pause:: "And when were you planning on eating?"), and three guests (including one on-duty officer who refused my appetizers but wanted to see the score of the Cowboys game) later, Kip and John (one of the aforementioned guests) stood over our turkey scratching their heads. They eventually figured out how to carve it about seven minutes before I dropped the crescent roll I'd been transferring to a basket and cried, "Oh no! We forgot to take a picture of Ainslie next to the turkey!" They decided that there had been greater tragedies in the world and set back to their task while I swore up and down that we couldn't forget to do it at Christmas.

Then came the inevitable silence for ten minutes as we all ate, followed by a group staring contest with all the dirty dishes. The dishes won big time, and they sat in dirty splendor on the counter all evening while Kip, Ainslie and I collapsed on the couch in a family tryptophan coma and the neighbors down the street lit a wood fire that made the entire neighborhood smell like home.

The End.

On Advent

2010-12-03T17:22:00.000-05:00

"If we are tempted to grumble about a culture that has forgotten Christ, then perhaps we are beginning to sense the longing of the prophets [for Christ before He came in the first Christmas]."

-Scott Hahn, from the chapter on Advent in "Signs of Life"

Oxford Folders

2010-12-01T03:57:00.000-05:00

I attempted to clean our room today and stumbled upon an old friend: Oxford University. In going through a box of old-ish clothes, I also found my folders of notes and photos and info sheets from the summer program I attended at Christ Church, Oxford in 2008, waaaaaaay back in the beginning of this blog, when it was called "Bolaskoxfordia" and I was globetrotting for the summer catching parasites in Bolivia, knowledge in Oxford, and falling deeper in love in Alaska. It was interesting, like seeing the remnants of an old relationship.

The Oxford folders were worn on the sides from being stuffed in my frame pack while I was traveling, and then taking up residence with me at school and moving with me to Alaska...they were too important to me to pack up with the rest of the books I knew I wouldn't need in between college and grad school, and so I took them with me to Juneau knowing full well that I'd never use them. When I picked them up this afternoon, feeling their smooth surfaces, I instantly missed it. The feeling I had while I was there that I was part of something important, the optimism I had that I'd be back for grad school, the adventure of traveling internationally by myself (and the subsequent shock when I realized how lonely that was). Gosh, those folders even smelled like nearly a millennium of academic excellence. I could've guessed at the time that I'd be married a year after that, but I never thought that two years later I'd be staying at home, still in Juneau, hanging out with my cat and waiting on the birth of my first child. At the time, I was discontentedly happy to be sitting through an afternoon class on the connections between postmodern philosophy, Trinitarian theology and wisdom literature, Skyping with Kip at night, and lugging my frame pack across High Street to catch a bus to London, cussing out the wet cobblestones as my flip-flopped feet slipped on every other one. I was sad to be so far away from Kip and completely overwhelmed at the subject matter of what I was learning, but I loved every minute of it. And I miss it. It's not that I don't love my life now, but I do miss having something more complex to think about than diapers and dishes. Just a thought.

The Moment I Realized How Ridiculous My Life Is:

2010-11-30T01:32:00.000-05:00

Kip was sleeping.

I was considering a nap when Ainslie woke up crying and hungry.

And then the cat puked on the floor.

Hooray.

I'm a Professional Nap-Putter-Downer

2010-11-23T17:28:00.000-05:00

Forget Pilates, I have found a new endurance sport: putting Ainslie down for a nap. Scoff not, it's an epic endeavor requiring skill, patience, and precise timing...kind of like marksmanship. Only harder, because a slip of the finger could result in hours of disastrous crying instead of a missed target. (Okay, maybe it's not hours of crying, but it is annoying to have to start the whole process over again after an unfortunate pacifier incident)

The process proceeds thus:

Ainslie is up and chipper, staring around at the world in wonder

She gets hungry. I feed her. She falls asleep in the process.

I wait for the opportune moment, a predator of Zzzzs

Her mouth hangs open. I make my move, carrying her to where she'll sleep

Hark, she stirs! I move quickly, trying to arrange her with the stealth of a ninja

She wiggles around and starts to flutter her eyes open. I pull out the big guns: the pacifier.

She suckles the pacifier, content with the world (and perhaps completely aware of how she now has me captive for the next five minutes)

I stand waiting, still as a statue, holding the pacifier in her mouth

Her sucking slows down. I move my hand away.

The pacifier hangs out of her mouth, James Dean-style. I wait for this most important moment coming up.

Her breathing slows, she is officially asleep!

I gently lift the pacifier off of her bottom lip and pray for mercy; this is the moment where it all could unravel...

...and from there it's a real life version of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. Either I took the pacifier away too early and she wakes up, forcing me to start the whole process over again, or if I'm lucky she stays asleep. Before I learned the error of my ways, I would leave the pacifier with her, which resulted in several instances where it fell from its precarious perch onto the crib mattress with just enough oomph to scare her awake. Disaster.

But like all sports, this one allows me to reap certain benefits. Oh no, it's not washboard abs (ugh, I'll address that in another post), but potentially a few hours of free time to do dishes and work on Christmas gifts. To the victor go the spoils!

GRE, It's Fine By Me

2010-11-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

If nothing else, my experience with the GRE taught me two things:

1. I'd forgotten how quickly number 2 pencils wear down.

2. Watching the "John Adams" miniseries was the best thing that ever happened to my vocabulary. Had it not been for Paul Giamatti's excellent portrayal, I never would have been able to complete the analogies for words like "vicissitude".

After finishing the four-hour long test, I was welcomed back into reality by a barrage (oooo, GRE word) of picture texts from Kip which thoroughly documented the trip that he and Ainslie took to Costco in my absence. I basically stood in the testing room grinning like a fool at my phone while my fellow test takers shuffled around me, wondering who the crazy lady was.

In all honesty, it wasn't all that bad. Sure, I ended my first analytical essay in the middle of a sentence because I ran out of time (leave 'em wanting more, I say!). Sure, I frantically filled in the last few ovals in random order for both the math sections because I sat staring dumbfoundedly at the geometry questions for too long (you know it's bad when you remember not understanding it in high school either). But I took the darn test, and in six weeks, I'll know how I did. And so will Boston College (ack), Yale (double ack), Notre Dame (triple ack), and Catholic Theological Union (actually not ack-worthy, but only because they don't need the scores). No need to freak out.....really.

Going Through the Big D, (do mean Dallas)

2010-11-19T23:53:00.001-05:00

It's official.

We have plane tickets.

T-minus 20 days until Kip, Ainslie and I get on the big silver bird and head down to Texas to see (in order): my family, the Sun, and a fancy schmancy doctor with a long, difficult to spell title who will hopefully tell us that Ainslie is the picture of health and developmental normalcy. It's a trip that's coming none too soon, since it's been about six months since I've traveled outside of the state, which means that that old itch to pack my bags and go somewhere exotic is coming back. Not that Dallas is all that exotic, but it is about 30 degrees warmer than here, so I'll take it.

In a dream world, Kip and I would pack up Ainslie in our Moby wrap, stuff a few belongings and our camera into a backpack, and trek around India for a few weeks, then maybe Amsterdam. Those are my two travel fantasies as of late. They're purely fantasies because they would require several things happening:

1. Kip would have to get over his idea of India being dirty and a place he never wants to visit

1a. I would have to suddenly start liking Indian food (but I'm sure it's much better in the actual

country than the place in Lombard, Illinois where I had some)

2. Juneau would have to suddenly decide that crime is overrated and give Kip a month or two off

3. Society would have to start running on a bartering system where money is irrelevant and unnecessary

As it stands, our credit card is sort of, kind of close to being close to maxed out with all the tickets we just bought for this trip and another in February to Anchorage for Ainslie's checkup with the doctor there, so India and Amsterdam will have to wait. In the meantime, I'm watching a lot of random shows on the Travel Channel. And not studying for the GRE, which is about twelve hours (ack) away. Instead, I'm working on Christmas presents, doing a lot of dishes, and trying to catch up on cleaning around the house...when I'm not hanging out with Miss Ainslie (who, incidentally, has added smiling, laughing and the ability to rock a mean case of cradle cap to her repertoire of tricks). Maybe she'll be able to backpack around India and Amsterdam when she's older and send her old mom a postcard. Or maybe I'll go with her. I'll work on liking Indian food until then. For now--Texas.

Normalcy

2010-11-13T09:05:00.003-05:00

Things are beginning to feel more like what my sister described as “whatever version of normal the three of you decide works”.

Inspired by the Giada DiLauretis/Bobby Flay vs. Rachael Ray/Mario Batali Iron Chef battle (it was epic!), I cooked dinner for the first time in ages. Chicken marinated in balsamic vinegar over couscous and grilled red peppers. Kip, who was shocked he liked couscous so much, ate all of the tupperware I packed for him to take to work AND the leftovers I’d been planning to use for dinner the next day. Victory!!!

Sister Marie called and asked if I’d be willing to present a lecture on the gospel of Matthew at the church’s new Bible study sometime soon. I’ve been celebating/preparing by unearthing my old copy of Burridge’s “Four Gospels, One Jesus?” and reminding myself why that is the single best book I’ve ever read on the subject. Lest I’d become worried that my exegetical muscles had atrophied (which I had), I’ve been feeling that old academic tickle come back--the one that bears a striking resemblance to the way that Kip made me feel when we worked together at camp; my heart beats a little faster, my face gets a little red, I’m overcome by a curious urge to giggle. In short, I feel like a giddy little schoolgirl, but instead of a boy I’m completely infatuated with studying the Word. It feels SO good.

Also, I cleaned our floor for the first time with the new Rubbermaid dohickey that my mom got me while she was here--the one that’s just like a Swiffer Wet Jet but infinitely awesomer because it has reusable cleaning pads instead of disposable ones and a cleaning solution container that you can put your own solutions into--and it rocked my world. And now I’m staying up way too late blogging. See? Normalcy.

Retreat

2010-11-09T16:50:00.000-05:00

Ainslie and I have started reading together while she's awake and staring around the room. I love "Goodnight, Moon" and "Bumble Bee" just as much as the next person, but by golly if I have to recite one more stanza of rhymed iambic pentameter about barnyard animals, I am going to lose it.

So we've been reading theology, because it makes me happy. And Ainslie's happy when Mama's happy. Our favorite quote from the section on Retreat in Scott Hahn's "Signs of Life":

"Though still I saw through a glass darkly,

I saw things as a whole for the first time with

a delight, a joy, an excitement, which is hard to describe.

This is what I expected when I became a Catholic.

This is what all my reading had led me to expect

in the way of teaching and guidance in the spiritual life.

I came away with what I can only consider to be

an increased knowledge of the supernatural life,

the feeling that I had grown in faith, hope and charity,

that I had been fed the strong meat of the Gospel

and was now prepared to run the race,

to journey onward with that food which would sustain me for forty days in any wilderness.

I felt prepared for deserts and underground tunnels,

for the dark night of the senses and of the soul.

And I knew too that this strong light would dim with the ensuing months

and that the next year I would again have to make the retreat,

to adjust my vision to the blazing truth which was set before us,

to get things into perspective once again."

-Dorothy Day

Life Is Now Comprised Of...

2010-11-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Peapod cuteness

Saying the offices with Ainslie during her mealtimes

Lots of naps

Lots and LOTS of smelly diapers

And celebratory One Month Birthday cupcakes

(she was much more excited about the cupcake than she looks in this photo)

Also: about a thousand pounds of laundry a day, way too many diapers for not enough storage space, stolen moments to study for the GRE or finish homework, space heater wars, a slowly growing motivation to cook for ourselves, constant dirty dishes, lots of college football, professional football, European football, football of any type, Christmas card scheming planning, very occasional showers, and so much pink that it looks like a cotton candy factory exploded in our apartment.

Plus, Kip just informed me that "Keeping Up With the Kardashians", my absolute worst guilty pleasure (even worse than "Gossip Girl", shame, shame) is on Netflix Instant. Oh, dear me. This might be added to the list. And that could be bad.

Remember, Remember It's Finally November!

2010-11-01T15:30:00.001-04:00

Oh, how times have changed. I used to hate dreary November weather, but today I'm welcoming the seeping rain and gusting winds. It's a perfectly blustery day in exotic Juneau, and Ainslie and I are staying at home celebrating with perfect joy. We're celebrating All Saints' Day, of course, by telling her about our favorite saints proper (St. Joseph, St. Perpetua, Sankta Lucia, St. Damien of Molokai) but also by telling her stories about the saints in her own family, the relatives long gone who lived exemplary Christian lives. The Forbes family, my new favorite friends in Juneau, inspired and encouraged me to put up Christmas lights in celebration of feast days and cover everything we could think of with Nutella. Because nothing says "Celebration!" like Nutella. Our celebration also includes a soundtrack of Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Queen (the xylophone version of "Killer Queen" really is something to behold). Oh yeah, some babies listen to Mozart, mine listens to classic 70's rock in reworked lullaby form. Mommy might spring for the Rockabye Baby Beatles album next. Or maybe Bob Marley. We'll see.

On the inside, I'm also celebrating the fact that it's November 1st, which is exciting for two reasons:

1. November 1st means the official start of the holiday season. I am the type of person who would normally start playing Christmas carols today, but I'm holding back. I'm sipping warm apple cider in my favorite slippers (you know, the Scandinavian-looking ones that are falling apart at the seams because I love them so much) instead.

2. November 1st also means that it's, well, November. Which means NOT October. I've loved Autumn my entire life, especially October, but this October blew chunks. So good riddance, October! You can take your crappy birth experiences and hospitals and way too many medical emergencies and hide in shame until next year! Only good things will happen in November! We welcome it with much festivity!

Welcome, November. You rock.

Home Sweet Home

2010-10-24T16:04:00.001-04:00

Blogosphere beware: I've figured out how to type with one arm and nurse Ainslie with the other. The fact that I have a pretty respectable one-handed typing speed only helps this phenomenon of parenthood. So here we are on the couch, Ainslie and me. She woke up cold (the biggest post-NICU battle we've had to fight: realizing that the NICU was practically a sauna and trying to keep her warm enough in our not so sauna-y apartment) and hungry, so I brought her to the living room, popped some cinnamon rolls in the oven for me and Kip (which I've decided is to be our new Sunday morning tradition), and set up in the sunlight that's streaming through the window and onto the couch.

She's never felt the sunlight on her face before.

I am LOVING sharing this experience with her.

Obviously, we are home. The trip was an adventure of epic proportions, and it was totally worth the hassle of carrying a two-week-old baby with assorted two-week-old baby accessories through the Anchorage airport if only to watch the looks of horror on the faces of the two young TSA guys who had to do a liquids check on the breastmilk in Ainslie's diaper bag. It was absolutely priceless. She didn't utter a peep on the plane (thanks in part, I'm sure, to a phenobarbital-induced nap) and in fact handled the entire flight much better than the three year old a few rows in front of us. ::Tear:: I'm so proud.

Something interesting happened on our way home, though. We were putting ourselves back together past security, still snickering at the TSA guys' ookiness around perfectly natural bodily fluids ("And this is formula?" asked the agent, peering into the cooler. "No, it's breastmilk" I say as the color drains from his face and he reaches for a pair of latex gloves with undue haste) when a blonde woman who'd been staring at Ainslie from across the terminal approached us. "Are you the Cheshire family?" she asked.

Kip and I looked at each other, raising eyebrows. "Uh, yes"

She looked down at Ainslie and back at us, "You probably don't remember me, but I was in the room when your daughter was born. I've been so worried about her and we've all been wondering how she's been doing. I was at the hospital in Anchorage for the past few days doing some work and I meant to stop by and see how she was doing, but I never got the chance. I don't think I ever caught what you decided to name her."

We grinned at her and chatted for a minute, giving her such obvious updates as, "Well, we're on the way home!"and "She's doing pretty well!" I blame our lack of skill in the art of conversation on sleep deprivation and the utter shock of meeting this woman at the airport of all places (although I shouldn't have been--in Alaska, you can't go to an airport without seeing at least two people you know...we saw our second acquaintance at the gate). Her presence was just such a tangible reminder of all the people who have touched us through this catastrophe, a number that is, if all the people who told us they're praying and asked their churches to pray really did so, literally in the hundreds. The amount of kindness and generosity shown to us by friends and family and even complete strangers, the donated money and meals and prayers and flowers and stuffed animals with notes of encouragement, has been humbling and uplifting at the same time. We're forever changed by it.

So here's the conclusion: Ainslie was sent up to Anchorage because of the meconium in her lungs at birth. She stayed because the doctors realized that she also needed treatment for head trauma from the labor (to put it lightly--I couldn't make a list of all the problems if I tried). But now she's home. She has my nose and Kip's hair and has proven to me that the quirky faces people make have to be genetic, because she has given me the "I'm thinking really hard about something" scowl that Kip makes and the "Are you serious?" eyebrow raise that I do about a million times now. She's doing much better than she was three weeks ago, and we have about a dozen doctor's appointments and occupational therapist's numbers and neonatologist checkups to make sure that she continues to do well in the next few months.

I came to a realization as I hung up all our "Congratulations on your new arrival!" cards this morning. Well, I came to two realizations: First, that running around cleaning my entire apartment at five in the morning while the baby and my husband are both finally sleeping felt refreshingly normal and glorious; Second, that this is our time to celebrate. Three weeks ago, Kip didn't get the chance to pass out "It's a Girl" cigars because he was on a MediVac flight. I didn't get to hold our baby and read her the blessing we'd wanted to and bond with this little person I'd been growing for (at that point) ten and a half months. Ainslie wasn't well enough to be held until she was two days old, and I didn't even meet her until the fourth day. But now that we're home, we can be a family. We can bond and play and hold her nonstop, pass out cigars or candy bars or whatever it is that people pass out these days in celebration of a birth, put up an obnoxious amount of pink balloons in front of the house to announce to all passers-by that we are the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl. I like that. Ainslie and I are celebrating this revelation with a sunny nursing session, while the cinnamon rolls burn because I don't want to disturb her to go get them out of the oven. Later today the three of us are planning on going for a walk in the sunshine before it gets cloudy again, and then we'll bring her to the night service at church. It's good now. We're home.

Bean's Birth Day: Third Time's the Charm

2010-10-13T16:22:00.000-04:00

I looked at the upside down face and found the grey eyes peeking out from between the blue mask and cap. "I. Love. You." The anethesiologist laughed, "So I suppose it's working?"

"Mmmhmm", I nodded, closing my eyes and enjoying the tingly feeling spreading all over my body. It had been about 35 and a half hours since I first felt the contractions that wouldn't stop; 40 since I drank a castor oil shake in desperation to get labor started. A few minutes later, I was numb to the world and Kip was sitting at my head as I lay spread eagle on the operating table, staring at the giant blue curtain erected to keep me from getting up close and personal with my inside organs.

"What do you think it is?" Kip asked, looking dapper in his white scrubs.

"I think it's a boy still, what about you?"

"I really, really don't know"

The surgical team chatted away about changes to the union contract and weekend plans as they casually cut into me. One of them looked at Kip, "Do you want to see?" Kip nodded. "Alright, just let me know if you feel faint or something. We can't have you passing out on the floor." He stood up and peeked over the curtain.

"What's it look like?" I asked.

"Um, it's really bloody" he responded, not looking the least bit phased. "Here it comes!"

"Right now?"

"Yeah, they're pulling it out! It's........it's a girl!" He walked back over and took my hand, "It's a girl, it's Ainslie!"

Tears ran down my cheeks and onto the oxygen tubes running across my face, "A girl?" I squeaked, my voice grainy from hours of grunting and yelling and pushing.

"We have a little girl."

"It's Ainslie." We smiled at each other, my tingly feeling having nothing to do with the spinal block now, and then I realized something was missing. "Wait, why isn't she crying?" I asked. Kip looked over the curtain and back at me, "Oh, they're just getting some stuff out of her nose and mouth, it's okay."

"Okay"

What I didn't know was that my husband, my Superman who had just seen me through 35 hours of drug-free labor with nary a complaint, who'd held my hand or my supported my back through over 10 hours of pushing, who held me in the car on the way from the Birth Center to the hospital when we realized that was the safer place to be, who watched my lips and ears turn blue as my oxygen level dropped along with my kidney and liver function and who watched me wheeled into the C-section, still pushing as they lifted me onto the table, was now watching our little girl having CPR performed on her tiny little body.

Ainslie Jessica was born at 8:01am on October 5, 2010, weighing 8 lbs, 11 oz, measuring 21 inches long. The doctor's notes say it only took 30 seconds of resuscitation for her lungs to clear enough to force a breath, but it felt like 30 years. One of the doctors doubts she felt a pulse when she was pulled out; another says it was faint, but there. Either way, she was not a healthy or happy newborn. They didn't even stop to show her to me before they whisked her to a side room and continued rescue measures. Kip ran between the two of us, trying to calm me, then over to see how Ainslie was faring. He was there when she first opened her eyes, and eventually I heard a faint cry from the next room.

The rest is fog to me; I vaguely remember being wheeled to the recovery room and asking how Ainslie was, Kip coming into the room and giving me updates before running back to the nursery where she was under an oxygen hood and constant observation, waiting for the weather outside to clear enough to be airlifted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Anchorage. The nurses took photos of Ainslie, printed them out, and brought them to my room so I could see what she looked like. Even more vague are the few moments I got with her before she was transported to Anchorage--the flight team brought her to me in a travel incubator, and I could barely see her through the access armholes in the side. I was able to reach through and touch her chest for about three minutes before they took her and Kip to the plane; I wasn't healthy enough to be airlifted with her.

It's been more than a week, and now I'm in Anchorage with Kip and Ainslie, who is still in the level 3 NICU. She improves every day but, well, we're still here. Two days after she was born, Kip was able to hold her for the first time and she loved it! Now that I've been able to rejoin them, we go over every day and hold her and talk to her. We dream about taking walks at home and dressing her in her own clothes. Poor little girl, she looks around at all the tubes and machinery and then at me as if to say, "Really? I was supposed to come out of my warm little womb for all of this?" She probably thinks this world blows. I can't wait to show her that it doesn't.

Bean's Birth Day, Take Two

2010-10-02T21:19:00.000-04:00

This baby is just far too comfortable where it is. Our second attempt at meeting Bean for the first time started Thursday morning when my now twice-weekly fetal monitoring session (which started when Bean and I went overdue a week ago) didn't show the results Becca, the midwife I saw that morning, would have liked to have seen. Either Bean was just a totally sleepy baby who didn't want to wake up enough to raise his or her heartbeat, or it's showing signs of malnourishment because the placenta is getting too old to properly function. I was sent from the Birth Center to the hospital for an ultrasound to check Bean's amniotic fluid levels, which would give us an idea as to the health of the placenta. An hour and a whole bunch of blue goop on my belly later, Bean's amniotic fluid level was dubbed too low and we were told that I'd have to be induced that night. "Go home, eat a really good meal, pack up your stuff, and I'll call you when we decide which midwife will meet you at the hospital", Becca told me over the phone. We were sad we wouldn't get to have Bean at the Birth Center, but excited to finally be able to meet our baby!

So we went home.

We had a really good meal.

We repacked our stuff.

Becca called an hour or so later, we went through registration, were shown to our labor and delivery room, and met the nurse...who promptly told us that they were having a staffing issue and wouldn't induce me because they didn't have enough nurses.

I could get into how upset Kip and I were, how we were made to feel like every other mother and baby were more important than us, how angry the situation made us, how let down we felt, but at this point it would just be dredging up bitterness. And that's not what any of us need right now. We'll be writing a letter to the hospital for sure, but I'm choosing not to rant here.

We were moved to another room outside of the maternity ward and kept through the night with the nurses monitoring the baby every four hours. We had another ultrasound in the morning to see that the amniotic fluid, while still not in the "normal" range, was high enough to let me go back to the Birth Center. I was let go in the afternoon with orders to have another ultrasound on Monday to recheck the amniotic fluid and to stay on bedrest until the baby's born, which will now be Wednesday at the latest because we're overdue enough to schedule an induction for that day....which they'll do if they don't still have "staffing issues". Ugh.

So, bedrest. It means that the next few days will consist of me spending 20 out of 24 hours with my feet above my hips and my back at "no more than a 45-degree angle", and drinking lots of water. I think I'll deal with it with:

A few good movies

A TON of crocheting with all the yarn I have laying around

Finishing my grad school applications

And studying for the GRE that I'm taking in November

You know, all those things that I've been really meaning to do for awhile now and now have the time for since I'm couch surfing indefinitely.

The one bright side to our whole adventure at the hospital: we got to see the baby's face on the ultrasound and it's SO adorable...it's all squished because there's so little room left in there, so Bean looks like it's thinking really hard about something. I just hope it doesn't stay like that, or else Bean will look like a pug. I'm pretty confident that Bean's squishy face syndrome is temporary though, since it smiled during the ultrasound and therefore proved a) that it really is the most adorable baby not yet in the world and b) it can stop pushing out its lips for a few seconds.

Snail Mail Is So Retro Chic

2010-09-27T14:40:00.000-04:00

Take ten minutes: brew a cup of tea and read Tessa's latest post on writing notes instead of emails. It's iconic and classic and--as most of Tessa's ideas are--simplistically encouraging (this is the woman who, after all, makes raising thousands of dollars for African relief look and sound easy). I also enjoy the fact that she encourages old fashioned, paper and pen correspondence on a blog without shaking a fist at the blogosphere and denouncing its usefulness.

Basically, I think Tessa's wonderful and I'm so glad she's feeling well enough again to post!

Today Is Official "Talk to An Overdue Pregnant Lady About Something Other than Being Overdue" Day, Didn't You Hear?

2010-09-26T14:28:00.000-04:00

It's September 26th and it's official. Any way you cut it, no matter which due date you take (the 20th or the 26th), I am due. Or rather, Bean is due. Okay: any way you cut it, Bean is supposed to be here. But just the fact that I'm still calling it "Bean" and not the wonderfully gender appropriate names we picked out months and months (and maybe at this point years) ago, means that it's not. And I have completely mixed emotions about that.

On the one hand, I'm frustrated. I'm tired of people seeing me on the street, jaws on the pavement, exclaiming, "Haven't you had that baby yet?" Well, do you see an infant in my arms? Obviously we both know the answer to that question. I'm tired of getting on the phone and hearing, "You should really tell that baby it's time to come out" from practically everyone who calls, as if I actually had a say in the process. I have tried literally everything that people have told me to--different foods and exercises and walks and teas and herbs and assorted other ridiculous techniques that supposedly get labor going. Except castor oil. I don't think treating my digestive system like the clogged pipe in the bathroom is really the best solution here.

I feel like overnight, my pregnant state went from "Blessed Miracle" to "Overdue Inconvenience" to the rest of the world.

And they're not even the ones who have to deal with the swollen feet! (Although they do have to deal with me dealing with swollen feet, which I acknowledge I've been a bit whiny about.)

And then, on the brutally honest other hand, I'm not frustrated and I'm kind of okay with being pregnant for a little bit longer. I know, very VERY deep down, that Bean just isn't ready for one reason or another yet and that's why it hasn't sent out that "I'm ready to be born" hormone. I also recognize that sleeping in until nine or ten (or, let's be honest, eleven) will be a distant memory in a week or so. I know I'll miss feeling Bean kick from inside (although I won't miss the roundhouse kicks to the ribs on my right side), and the idea of having the two of us be in two separate rooms does freak me out a bit. Kip and I made a decision last night that whenever someone gives me grief about still being pregnant, I will hear it as what they're really trying to say:

"I care about you and I really want to see your beautiful child! I'm getting impatient, but I know it's not your fault that it hasn't arrived yet. Please ignore any further comments from me regarding your weight, the validity of the contractions you've been feeling, the rapidly approaching date of the baptism, the fact that Natalie is moving out of Juneau at the end of the week, and the gestational period of elephants."

In conclusion, and in completely unrelated news, our recent stretch of sunny weather has officially given way to regular crappy Juneau rain, but also to an unmistakably Fall-ish feeling. I dug our Fall decorations out of the closet and I'm having a good time craving all things cinnamon and apple-y. Last night's culinary victory: homemade peach cobbler. Oh my goodness, was it amazing! Maybe today I'll make something with oatmeal.

In the Past Seven Days, My Life Has Included:

2010-09-21T18:27:00.000-04:00

-increasingly crisp fall weather

-a kitten who just can't seem to cuddle enough

-lots of hanging out with Mom

-the most frantic cleaning I've ever done in my life (except maybe the day before college graduation, and that's because our apartment was a pit....oh gosh, was it disgusting)

-a baby who just is far too comfortable in utero to be bothered with being born

-crafting.

-a husband who I'm happy to say I'm still so completely in love with

-fall decorations around the house

-tea

-"John Adams"

Eventually I'll post about it, but for now I'm just trying to relax and enjoy it.

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-09-14T12:57:00.000-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. The signs that it's truly Autumn in Southeast Alaska: changing leaves, crisper feeling air, a sun that travels so low in the sky that it constantly looks like it's about 3:30 in the afternoon (I LOVE that warm sort of light!), and winter constellations hanging low in the longer-lasting night sky. I realized the last of these signs around 4:45 this morning when I got up to pee (shocker, right?) and realized in a fit of goosebumps that I'd forgotten to close the window in the living room before bed. I stood on the couch (necessary to close aforementioned window) and stared at Orion, the only winter constellation I know, hoping to see the Northern Lights since it was still pitch black outside, excepting the stars and the neighbor's porch light. Two months ago, the sun would have been well up by that time.

2. I know it was on last week's list, but it's still making me smile: my mom is a genius who suggested tying Tillamook's harness to the clothesline so he can wander at will outside without running away. It's diffused a lot of kitten-owner battles in our household.

3. The cleaning fest we had on Friday. The apartment looks incredible.

4. The orange and red sunflowers Mom got for me after my last prenatal appointment showed I'm really not much further along in the dilation department than I was two weeks ago. The sunflowers helped take me from totally bummed to only slightly dejected.

5. My masseuse (don't judge, our insurance pays for massages if a doctor prescribes them and I'm taking full advantage of that!) gave me a hug after my last appointment while we were pointing out our favorite awkward baby photos on the bulletin board in the hallway of the Birth Center. (The winner was the one where a woman, surrounded by her family, was at the crowning stage of birth.....crowning! Do we really need photographic evidence of that? In a public place? NO!)

6. Father Thomas also decided last week that he needed to upgrade to an iPhone 4, which means that if I don't have Bean before he leaves this week, we can do a video call just like in the commercials!

7. I made a trifle for dessert on Saturday and it was glorious--angel food cake, homemade whipped cream, organic peaches, nectarines, pluots and apples! Yum!

8. The thank you note we got from two-year-old Nolan Warnaca: "Thank you so much for coming to my birthday and for the cool castle. I can't wait to build it. P.S. I can't wait to be your son's friend, or date your daughter! -Sir Nolan"

9. Tillamook's new habit of sitting on the retaining wall by our back stairs. It's cute.

10. The amount of bonding we've been doing with our landlords ever since my mom started staying in their spare bedroom. They're so great!

Raging Maternal Hormones = YouTube Sob Fest 2010

2010-09-12T17:15:00.002-04:00

Confession time: I rarely read through the sentimental emails that people send me about friendship or motherhood or whatever the warm fuzzy thought of the day is, but I decided that this video was worth watching when a friend sent me an email yesterday asking how Bean and I were doing.

I lost it at "She will have your eyes".

Can I PLEASE have this baby soon????

How Samsung, Ryan and His Pointy Shoes Turned Me Into an iPhone Addict

2010-09-11T17:03:00.000-04:00

Hello, my name is Cindy and I have a problem.

After years of fighting it, swearing I wouldn't, vowing to stay out of the trend and swim against the current, I did it.

I got an iPhone 4.

And I like it a little too much.

And, in true "person with a problem" form, I am blaming it on someone else: Samsung.

It really is Samsung's fault for making crappy phones that stop working after ten months, conveniently losing all touch screen capabilities, messaging capabilities, the ability to receive most calls, and sounding like the caller is down a tunnel in the calls that do come through. It just makes other phones (that actually work) seem so much cooler. The problems with my (now former) phone had actually been happening off and on for a few months, but every time I went to bring it in to AT&T it was miraculously healed, like that sore throat that you finally present to the doctor on the day it decides to feel fantastic again. This week, however, it was mission critical. The phone stopped working and I sped off to the store, ready to throw it at them and (politely) request a new phone with some longevity.

I didn't want to get an iPhone 4. I did want to get the regular old iPhone3G. I didn't need anything fancy, just a phone that I knew would last more than a year (and the iPhone is the only one that I've seen last for awhile). "Well," said Ryan, the kind clerk with shoes that were far too pointy in the toes for the mostly non-fashionable Juneau population, "we don't have any iPhone3s anymore; everyone wants the 4."

"How long would it take to order one?" I asked, absentmindedly stroking my still baby-filled belly.

"Five to ten business days," said the pointy-shoed fashionisto (it was really distracting me).

"Well, I'm supposed to be having a baby in five to ten business days and I really need a phone that works."

"Hmm," he said, glancing down at my belly, "Let's see what we can do..."

A few keystrokes, one bequeathed upgrade from Kip, and a stranger who came over solely to ask "You're due any day now, aren't you?" and touch my belly (without asking) later, Ryan and his pointy shoes brought me a new phone (with a new purple cover too, because apparently it drops calls without one...I think this is a grand conspiracy between Apple and the phone-cover-maker-people). It's beautiful and techie and has lots of great apps and is easy to use and all that worries me because I went home and played with it for hours.

Too many hours.

And this is in complete contradiction to my "People who spend too much time on their smartphones care more about their little piece of technology than the living, breathing human sitting next to them" philosophy.

We'll see how this turns out.

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-09-07T17:49:00.002-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week (and I'm trying to make them non-baby-related):

1. MY DAD CAME TO VISIT AFTER THE FALSE ALARM WITH BEAN!!!! I walked out of my prenatal appointment on Friday only to see him in a rocking chair at the Birth Center. I was completely floored. He's never been to Alaska before, and he could only stay for the weekend, but it was so nice to have him there, even if I still didn't have Bean.

2. Not any less exciting or important, but Mom flew out to help us too! It's only not number one because I knew she was coming. So far, I think we've racked up about 15 miles of walking around Juneau in an attempt to start active labor (unsuccessfully), but I've enjoyed the walks and talks with her nonetheless.

3. Mom brought Panera bread and bagels with her, which I've been craving for about two months now.

4. In a stroke of genius, we realized that if we tie Tillamook's harness to the clothesline, he can roam around outside and I don't have to sit on the stairs and make sure he doesn't run away. I enjoy this newfound freedom almost as much as he does.

5. I'm probably 95% finished with reorganizing the library at the Cathedral. Yay!

6. The icon of Theotokos that Father Thomas brought back for me from the state fair in Anchorage. He had been up there for a conference during The Big Bean Scare last week and was given the icon by an Orthodox priest to give to me. It makes me smile (obviously, it's on this list).

7. The giant bag of basil that came in our produce box this week. Guess who's making pesto tonight?

8. 65-degree weather this week. This is what we didn't get all summer!

9. Getting up super early this morning to have breakfast with Kip. Who cares if we were both half asleep, it was nice to get some time together!

10. Dropping off more aprons at Homespun Mercantile, which I've been meaning to do for months now.

An Update

2010-09-04T08:48:00.039-04:00

I've been in early labor since early Monday morning, a ticking time bomb (I'm even all round and bomb-shaped), waiting for these interspersed contractions to turn into active labor. "Let me at the pain of regular contractions!" I say, "I can take it, just let me try!" But no dice. The pain is ignoring the gauntlet I've thrown to the ground. It has also ignored all the walking I've been doing, the bouncing up and down, the spicy food, and the red raspberry leaf tea I've downed in quantities sufficient enough to bring any other woman in the world into full-fledged labor long ago. I've tried every myth I've ever heard of for inducing labor except castor oil--a girl needs to keep some semblance of dignity, you know. I've tried getting everything super ready for going to the Birth Center so I'm not subconsciously putting off active labor because I don't feel ready. The house is clean. The nursery is stocked. Kip's and my shoes are by the door. But the contractions still come and go, despite all of my hard work at welcoming them.

Lorna, one of my midwives, told Kip on Friday that it'll probably be only a week--maybe two--until Bean is born, but despite her assurances, I think it's official:

I'm going to be pregnant forever.

Seriously.

Bean's Birth Day, Take One

2010-09-02T00:46:00.003-04:00

Well, first of all, Hoonah happened. Kip's phone rang at 12:17 Sunday morning, followed by the sound of a few grunted "uh huh"s and a flurry of activity. He was out of the house by 12:20, off to negotiate a man out of his barricaded house in Hoonah, a nearby village. It wasn't the average crisis negotiation/SWAT team call-out--before barricading himself, the man had ambushed and killed two police officers. I didn't hear much news until three the next afternoon, when police dispatch called to let me know that the standoff would take a few days and to pack a care package with Kip's personal effects to be boated out to the remote village.

How's that for a stressful situation to induce labor?

Contractions started at 3 am on Monday.

The suspect surrendered several hours later and Kip got back just in time for me to go to the Birth Center to have the contractions checked that night.

The next morning, my water broke (supposedly...keep reading).

We went to the Birth Center again, thinking we'd leave with a baby.

We were really excited for awhile.

Bean was coming!

Kip decided he had some labor pains, too.

(On a related note, he was the best birth partner ever and his support skills were amazing)

So we waited for a few hours.

And then a few turned into 12.

And then 18.

And then edged closer to 24, which is the cutoff for transport to the hospital after a broken water (something about risk of infection).

So we went up to the hospital.

And they said, "Um, well did your water really break?" and generally made me feel like an idiot who didn't know what she was doing.

And they did some tests.

And then they sent us home.

Without a baby.

Although I did get to eat some dinner after they determined they weren't inducing me.

I was really excited about that.

So there are three options as to what happened:

1. My water never broke to begin with and I was just a crazy pregnant lady who peed herself

2. The water broke only slightly and then resealed itself

3. It was what they call a "forebag" break (think about what would happen if you took a water balloon and twisted it into two sections, then broke just one of the sections)

Either way, no baby. The doctor did another ultrasound before we left to make sure that Bean is okay, and we decided that we'd ruin the surprise and see if Bean is a boy or a girl. It would be a sort of consolation prize for all the effort, you know? Well, it's a.......baby who has his or her legs crossed and folded over the goods!

So, in summary: No baby. No time frame for when said baby will really decide to arrive. No gender.

We're crushed and exhausted in every possible way, but there is a silver lining: now we still have a chance at having Bean at the Birth Center instead of the hospital, and my mom is flying up tomorrow, which is really great because after all of this frustration and disappointment, I really need my mommy.

I'm Too SxE For Your Party

2010-08-22T14:19:00.001-04:00

It has recently come to my attention that there's a new trend among the kids these days. Cue me feeling really old because I can legitimately use that phrase now..."the kids these days". It's called being "straight edge", and according to my friend Natalie it's been around on the West Coast for years, but this is the first time I've ever heard of it. Supposedly, whereas "emo" kids are classified by wearing dark clothes, bangs in their heavily-lined eyes, and listening to emo bands, and "scene" kids are emo kids with designer clothes, the "straight edge" (abbreviated SxE) crowd is classified by the following:

1. No alcohol

2. No illegal drugs

3. No promiscuity

4. Listening to "straight edge" bands like Minor Threat.

And this is the new cool thing.

Which got me thinking, I must have been born about ten years too late, because back in my day, this was called being LAME. Or Christian. Or a prude. And I was thoroughly chastised for it by the "popular" crowd in high school. The times, they're-a changin'.

Come to think of it, by the standards listed above, you could call most pregnant woman "straight edge". So really, I'm hip and with it. Even if I'm about eight years older than any of the teenyboppers who follow the trend. Or would they not be called teenyboppers now? I'm so confused.

Ten-ish Things Thursday

2010-08-19T15:21:00.001-04:00

Okay, okay, it's Thursday not Tuesday. And in all honesty, until a few good pieces of news happened within the past two days, I wasn't even going to post a "Ten Things [fill in arbitrary day of the week where I actually remember to do the post]" this week because it was a wretched seven days; Father Thomas called last Wednesday night to let me and Kip know that he's been reassigned to Petersburg and Wrangell, effective September 17th, nine days before his godchild is due.

No sugarcoating, I'm heartbroken. And I'm not ready to blog about it yet, if ever.

But there have been blessings! So I'm listing them, even if I couldn't think of ten.

A Few Things That Have Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Going out on the town with Natalie on Friday. Sure, it was only for 45 minutes and sure, I drank cranberry juice, but it was still nice to actually feel 23 years old again.

2. The amount of halibut and Coho salmon that Kip caught on Saturday. We are officially set for the winter. My man provides!

3. Two words: moving furniture. Our apartment looks amazing.

4. Finding out on Tuesday that Father Thomas and Father Pat agreed to switch churches for a weekend in October so that FT can come back for Bean's baptism! This is huge.

5. OffbeatMama published the article I submitted...five days earlier than they said they would! Check it out here.

6. The box that my mom and sister sent to us, and specifically the letter that my niece, Alli wrote to Bean. I read it out loud so Bean could hear.

7. Finally, more than a year later, sending wedding albums to my parents and the in-laws.

8. The adventure Kip and I went on over the weekend: we drove out to the end of the road on Douglas Island and then walked the path out to the sunny beach. Followed by a lunch at Tracy's Crab Shack, it was glorious.

First Babies May Be Late, But Apparently First Article Publications Are Early

2010-08-18T22:01:00.000-04:00

After perhaps the World's Most Productive Day (in the past six months at least), Kip tucked me into the couch tonight after our crock pot apricot chicken dinner (told you it was productive) and before his post-dinner run. I putzed around the internet for awhile and, on a whim, ended up at OffbeatMama.com. I was completely unprepared to see my face (and belly) first thing when the page loaded, but there it was---they published the article I'd submitted five days early!

"I'm gonna put it out there: as unlikely as I thought it would be, I actually LIKE my stretch marks. They're a statement of my baby's growth. They're sort of a nice shade of pink. And they make it look like I got into a scratch fight with a wolverine in the name of motherhood. It wasn't an easy road to feeling this way, which is precisely why I feel like I should share the experience."

Check out the rest of the article here.

Maybe this means that Bean will be early, too!

Bean's First Laundry Day

2010-08-16T17:57:00.002-04:00

Come on, go ahead and tell me this isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen hanging over a stairwell.

I embarked on Bean's first laundry day today, since we're actually close enough to Bean Day to necessitate clean baby clothes and blankets.

It was very exciting.

Tillamook kept guard, making sure no harm came to Bean's wardrobe.

I'm a little, teeny, tiny bit afraid that someone who is in dire need of newborn to three-month, non-gender-specific baby clothes will somehow wander around the back of our house, happen upon this hanging miracle and declare, "Jackpot!" before stealing it all. It's a fear that I also experience when I leave my cart unattended in the aisle of the grocery store. In all reality, I think the only foe I have to worry about is our grumpy UPS man, who probably wouldn't think it's cute and mumble something about a falling hazard, but who cares what he thinks anyways? I'll just sic Tillamook on him.

Let's Get This Show on the Road!

2010-08-12T13:33:00.000-04:00

In complete honesty, I have enjoyed being pregnant these past eight and half months, but there are parts of me that are really ready to be not pregnant anymore. Is that bad?

I made a list.

Things I Am Looking Forward To Regarding Not Being Pregnant Anymore:

-We get to meet Bean! Is it possible to miss someone you've never met? Because that's what I feel like during mundane activities almost every day: "Gosh, going to the grocery store/taking a walk/ laying on the couch being lazy/(fill in the blank as appropriate) would have been so much cooler if Bean were here to do it with us."

-Clothes--Bean's AND mine. We get to choose gender-specific clothes for Bean (not that we're super into pink fluffy everything for girls and blue trucks for boys, but it would be nice to know if I can get that cute dress I saw on Zulily or not), and I get to wear my old tried-and-true pre-maternity clothes again (eventually) because everybody in the entire world seems to find cuter/better fitting maternity clothes than me. And it's starting to get frustrating.

-Taking photos of Bean. Nonstop.

-Finally being able to refer to Bean by his or her real name that we picked out, which I have been maddeningly NOT sharing here because my parents read this blog and they don't want to know the names until the baby's born.

-Not having to take a zillion supplements anymore. Just a multivitamin and some vitamin D will do, thank you.

-Fewer trips to the bathroom. Hallelujah!

-Being able to sleep on my back again. I think I'm going to do nothing but sleep on my back for months and months after Bean is born (well, when I can actually catch some Zs, that is)

On the negative side, I think I will actually miss my baby bump. I can't really express how exactly at the moment, but I have the feeling being able to see my feet again will be a tiny disappointment. And I'm sure that having to let Bean out of my sight, much less out of my personal space bubble, will be minorly traumatic.

But let's focus on the positive! Six weeks to go!

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-08-10T12:34:00.003-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Week:

1. Our entire anniversary weekend, the extent to which I blogged about it (scroll down), and the way that Kip and I have both been giddily happy about the whole thing.

2. Watching Kip finish his first triathlon! I told him I'd do it with him next year. Um, yeah, let's see about that....

3. Having the midwives teach me how to poke around my belly and feel different parts of Bean! I got to feel his/her head (it was about four inches wide!!!!!!!) and his/her back. I already knew where arms and legs were, since Bean makes those (painfully) obvious about every hour or so.

4. Successfully training Tillamook for at least a day: He jumped into Bean's crib because he thought he had no other way out of the windowsill, so I sprayed him with a water bottle until he got the message that he should have found another way out. Ten minutes later, he found himself stuck in the windowsill again and guess what he did? He jumped over the bookshelf instead! And then he did it again later in the day! I don't know if I'm proud of myself or him, but the fact of the matter is that he wouldn't jump in the crib because he knew he'd get wet, and that, folks, is what I call successful training.....we'll just see if he remembers today.

5. The sleep-inducing tincture that I got from the midwives. I've been enjoying reading "John Adams" late into the night when I can't sleep, thinking about how legions of third-trimester mothers-to-be are going through the same thing, but seriously, insomnia gets old after about, um, twenty minutes. I don't even care that the tincture is all herby and kind of weird tasting.

6. Here's a shocker: it's raining. Why does that make me smile? Because at least the weather committed to something. Yesterday it was all sunny and beautiful for five minutes and then cloudy and dreary, and then sunny again, and then cloudy again and it really freaked me out. Today it's just one of those rains where you know you'll stay inside, read, and have soup for lunch.

7. Our invitations for Bean's baptism came in the mail. I'm a TOTAL sucker for stationery.

8. Finishing the giant jar of dehydrated strawberries from last fall when I went through my dehydrating food phase. Sure, the intent was to use them over the winter (you know, when you can't find them in the grocery store), but I only recently realized the pure and simple culinary joy that is dehydrated strawberries over honey-nut Cheerios in the morning. Plus, I feel like the dehydrating food phase was officially good for something now.

9. Realizing that having Bean in a month or so means that I don't have to take so many supplements anymore. I'm pretty much done with feeling like my grandma every morning with the prenatal and the vitamin D and the omega-3s and the iron...and the...and the.....

10. Last, but not least, BIG NEWS! (Drum roll, please) That article I submitted to OffbeatMama.com?

It's being published on August 23rd!!!!!!!!

Which makes me a pretty legitimate writer, I think.

And that's been making me smile ever since I found out.

Like this ---> :-D

Anniversary Weekend Wonderfulness, Part 2

2010-08-09T11:46:00.003-04:00

The adventure continued...

...with a waffle breakfast and a celebratory Blessing Cup.

And then we went out to the Shrine of St. Therese and renewed our vows at the regular Sunday service. It was beautiful. Kip and I got to pull the ropes to ring the church bell since it was our special day, and I'm pretty sure our five-year-old selves would have enjoyed it no less than we did in our twenties. We laughed and rang it for awhile, simply because we could, enjoying the sound echoing against the water outside and the beach rocks that form the chapel's walls. Father Thomas invited us up to the front of the sanctuary after the homily and, in true FT fashion, joked, "Obviously, they really need to get married!" upon observing my round physique. Everybody except for the old lady sitting behind our friend, Natalie, got the joke (especially after FT explained that a year ago, he'd been in New Hampshire performing our wedding) and laughed. The Old Lady Sitting Behind Natalie? Apparently she let out a chorus of tsk, tsks and said "What a shame!" over and over again, missing the correction.

We've chosen to find it hilarious.

Finally getting to say our vows and have our rings blessed again in the place we would've gotten married if it weren't for about 3,000 pesky miles and about a hundred relatives was...well, there aren't really any words for it. We loved it. After the vows and the blessing, Kip was invited to kiss the bride again (that's me!) and then we helped Father Thomas serve communion (Old Lady Sitting Behind Natalie blew past me...maybe she doesn't drink the wine, but I doubt that was the reason). After the service, as we stood on the steps outside, Sarah Powers' dad (of the Sarah and James wedding on Saturday) came over and offered me Sarah's bouquet, which he had found sitting at the bottom of the cross outside the chapel. I was honored to accept it.

We got to wear jeans because it's Juneau and gosh, everybody here values comfort far over fashion. It was definitely a perk.

Since my bouquet was silk (and since I really didn't fancy the idea of Kip going up my skirt in front of family and friends to retrieve a garter), we didn't do the bouquet or garter toss at our wedding, but I got my chance a year later! Kip and Natalie vied for position!

And Natalie was ultimately victorious!

Only 364 more days until next year! I can't wait.

A Year or Two Ago Today...

2010-08-08T12:42:00.000-04:00

Two Years Ago Today...

This guy:

Brought me here:

And asked me to do this:

Which We Did One Year Ago Today:

And I've been feeling like this about the whole thing ever since:

Thank you, Kip, for being the best sing-along-to-the-radio-in-the-car, go-out-and-get-me-Fruity-Pebbles-when-I'm-having-a-craving, forces-me-to-try-new-things-that-I-end-up-loving, always-loves-me-for-who-I-really-am, inspires-me-everyday friend and husband a girl could ask for. And for always letting me blog about you. You are my heart, forever.

Anniversary Weekend Wonderfulness

2010-08-07T23:12:00.008-04:00

Kip and I have been having a hoot of an anniversary weekend! One day simply isn't enough to celebrate our love, so a full weekend it is! So far, it's been everything an anniversary celebration should be--lots of relaxing, lots of simply enjoying life with each other, and lots of yummy food (because I'm eight months pregnant, and food is a very big part of my life right now).

I surprised Kip yesterday with a stay at Pearson's Pond, the type of bed and breakfast where you feel a whoosh of calm as soon as you open the door and step in. The owners knew our stay was in celebration of our anniversary, so they left chocolates and sparkling cider (non-alcoholic, how sweet) in our room. Lucky for us, it stopped raining long enough in the evening to light a campfire and make some s'mores in the midst of the garden, which still smelled like rain and had that really great drippy look that gardens get after they've been thoroughly soaked.

After finally dragging ourselves out of our room in the morning (seriously, Zen monasteries aren't as peaceful as this place...it's impossible to convince yourself to do anything productive, including get out of your super comfortable canopy bed in the morning to visit the super peaceful bathroom with its fluffy robes and happy smelling toiletries), we took off for the JPD triathlon.

That's right, folks, my husband competed in a triathlon after blissing out at a B&B.

I can't decide if it was the perfect preparation for such a grueling feat or the absolute worst preparation. Either way, he did a great job, and I really enjoyed cheering him on through the event.

Feeling confident before the race

10 laps in the pool down, now just a 10-mile bike ride and a 5K run to go!

He's off!

I drove out to the halfway point of the bike ride and cheered him and the rest of the triathletes on (while I sat and ate snacks...some of them may or may not have been offended)

Following an unfortunate "Where's my iPod?" experience, Kip was a bit behind after the biking leg. He transitioned into the running phase (now happily with music) in record time.

Sarah Hieb was the first place finisher!

How fitting that they crossed police tape at the finish line.

That's my man! I'm SO proud of him!

And the guy on the left is the guy that beat my man by about twenty seconds, oh well.

Fist pumps abounded in celebration

And he was kind enough to share some victory sweat with me and Bean.

The 2010 JPD Triathletes!

Then, as if a short vacation and a triathlon weren't enough to get done in 36 hours, we drove out to the Shrine for Sarah and James' wedding this afternoon. It was beautiful. Now we're both ready for a nap.

Tomorrow is our real anniversary, and we have no plans other than to renew our vows at the weekly mass at the Shrine. I can't wait.

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-08-03T11:06:00.001-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Week:

1. Hearing my landlord tell me that he hears Kip and I laughing from our apartment above his house. How beautiful is it that the sound drifting down isn't argument or mundane shuffling around, but laughter? It really made me feel good.

2. Hearing that one of my good friends up here is pregnant! She's due in February and I'm sooooooooo excited for playdates!

3. The sun shone again today and I got stuff done. This is rare.

4. Bean has been incredibly active the past few days: the other night, I had my hand on my belly while I was falling asleep and realized that Bean was rubbing its hand against mine; he or she kicked Tillamook off my belly a few days after that; and today, I officially had my first experience with a limb sticking out of the my side...I think it was a leg.

5. This photo, which was taken at my brother- and sister-in-law's wedding last June. Tina is publishing a series of wedding planning articles on The Examiner, and she included this really great photo of us in her article on bridesmaids' duties.

6. Finally getting up enough courage to write and submit an article of my own to OffbeatMama.com. I'll post it here when I hear back from them about whether it's being published or not!

7. Looking forward to Kip's and my first anniversary on Sunday. He has another officer covering for him at work, and we're making plans on how to celebrate!

8. Seeing Erin's reaction to the hippo stuffed animal I crocheted for her daughter, who is due a week before Bean. She loved it! I'm quite proud of me and my crafting skills.

9. Homemade Strawberry Lemonade. It was totally worth finding all the microscopic cuts on my hands when I juiced the lemons.

10. Kip bought a toy for Bean: a stuffed Coastie! Coastie is the Coast Guard Auxiliary's mascot, and it's basically a Coast Guard cutter ship with eyes that tells kids about water safety. It's unbelievably geeky, and we both love it.

Friday Photo Shoot-Out: Things Barry Made Me Think Of

2010-07-31T00:45:00.003-04:00

This is a very special Friday Photo Shoot-Out. Its topic, "Things Barry Made Me Think Of", was suggested by NanU as a tribute to one of the original Friday Photo Shoot-Outers and blog friend to all, Barry. His recent passing has been a huge loss for all of us, but I think this is a fantastic way to honor him. He'd be bashful about it, but very, very honored.

A word of explanation on my interpretation: adventure. Literally, that's the word. I thought about this theme for awhile, careful to respect the difference between "Things That Make Me Think of Barry" (anything to do with Canada, dogs of all shapes and sizes, the cancer treatment center in town, wonderful elderly gentlemen, laughter, Scotland...) and our theme. Barry made me think of a lot during his years of blogging, but what he made me think of most was adventure. Everything was an adventure to him, especially if it involved getting out of doors with his dog, Lindsay. And so, in honor of Barry, I took an adventure this week that I'd been meaning to for a long time: I put on my galoshes, grabbed my camera and sloshed around the tidal flats from which the Gastineau Channel recedes during high tides. If only I'd had an English Springer Spaniel to accompany me!

Here are my photos of my adventure for Barry:

Ten Things...Thursday (again)

2010-07-29T18:50:00.002-04:00

I didn't forget this time, I was just too lazy to do it. Many thanks to Christina, whose kind reminder inspired me today :)

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Meeting Father Scott at church on Saturday--he and Kip had been pretty close right when he and I started dating, but I never got to meet Father Scott because he was sent to Sitka before I came to Juneau. It was exciting to finally put a face to the name.

2. Pretty much the most generous week of my life: Kip's parents brought up the new Jeep (you know, the one with such superfluous items as room for a car seat and, um, airbags) for us and it was loaded with baby swag from them, my mom and sister. To say it was touching would be a vast understatement.

3. Finally getting a haircut again. Let's put it this way--I hadn't had one since I've been pregnant.

4. Realizing that I'll be eight months pregnant on Saturday. It resulted in the face from Munch's "The Scream" as well as a smile.

5. Natalie came back to Juneau! And she's leaving again next week...but she promised she'd stay for awhile after that.

6. The glider that was part of aforementioned baby swag. It's glorious and I have the feeling Bean and I will spend many, many hours in it.

7. The copy of McCullough's "John Adams" that I got at the library in an attempt to combat third trimester insomnia. It's wonderful to read and is doing an equally wonderful job getting me to sleep at night.

8. Cherries in our produce box this week.

9. Three days of sunshine!!!!!!!!!!!

10. The Shirley Temple that I had at dinner a few nights ago. It was nice to drink something pretty again, and I happily didn't feel like a twelve year old like I'd expected.

Norway

2010-07-26T07:57:00.001-04:00

Finally! Photos of my trip to Norway with my Aunt Verna!

Click to enlarge (I suggest clicking twice and then scrolling down)

Things That Have Made Me Happy the Past Few Days

2010-07-24T13:10:00.000-04:00

Just because it's not Tuesday, it doesn't mean I can't make a cheery list of things that have made me happy as of late. I had to send these out into the universe:

This post on Tessa's blog--a bloggy friend sent her an Aerial Armadillo of her own! It makes me so happy because:

1) That is a fantastic little guy!

2) Tessa's description of her English husband's reaction to their new pet was priceless

3) I've been thinking of and praying for Tessa ever since she wrote a post a few weeks ago about her recent downturn in health (and, in my opinion, how beautifully and gracefully she's dealing with it)

The habit Tillamook's gotten into of curling into a ball next to me during the wee hours of the morning. There are few things sweeter than waking up in the morning to a loving husband on one side, a purring kitten on the other, and seeing your baby's crib all set up at the end of the bed. Potential downside: I have to pee as soon as I get up (thank you, seven-month-pregnant bladder), and being sandwiched between two really cute sleeping mammals is a difficult situation to wiggle out of unnoticed.
All the crafting that I've been getting done. This week features flannel and terry cloth burp cloths that I'm quite proud of, more scarves, and aprons for the mercantile.
Our childbirthing class tomorrow! We're getting so close! YAY!

That is all :)

Friday Photo Shoot-Out: Shoes & Feet

2010-07-23T15:17:00.004-04:00

Shoes, omigah shoes. I am SO glad that JarieLyn suggested "Shoes and Feet" for this week's topic because, let's face it....I love shoes. I love wearing them. I love looking at them. I love photographing them. So kick up your feet and enjoy these shots of shoes and one very special pair of feet. :)

If you want to know more about the wonderful My Town Friday Photo Shoot-Out, click the link in my sidebar!

We have many different types of shoes in Alaska:

Shoes that are boots...

Shoes that are cute...

Shoes that stand on snow!

And in Southeast Alaska, home is where your galoshes sit waiting for you by the door!

Bean even has a pair waiting for him or her

Closed-toed shoes are the norm year-round, whether you're at a lake...

...or hanging out with friends on the porch at home.

Occasionally, it gets warm enough to wear open-toed shoes and stumble around the tidal flats.

And I get really excited that, with proper positioning, I can see my feet past my belly once again!

The most wonderful pair of feet in Juneau: the two little blobs on the right side of the black mass--those are my baby's feet!!! They are VERY good at kicking.

See you next week for a special theme in tribute to Barry, one of the original Friday Photo Shoot-Outers: "Things Barry Made Me Think Of".

An Explorer's View of Death

2010-07-22T16:17:00.003-04:00

He was the first blogger I ever followed. I'd been looking for a blog to read, to enjoy, to get inspiration for life and writing from, and when I saw "An Explorer's View of Life" as Blogger's featured blog almost two years ago, I knew I'd found someone who was worth reading. Barry was funny and eloquent and humble and, as his title suggested, a wonderful explorer who saw life through a different point of view. His Friday Photo Shoot Outs were insightful and witty; his posts about his dog, Lindsay, carried almost as much life as the adventurous dog herself; and when he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in March of last year, he approached it with vigor, not fear.

He took his diagnosis as an invitation to a duel, not a death sentence. He fought the cancer with all the surgeries and radiation and chemo that the doctors had prescribed, but also with vitamins and meditation and tai chi and good humor. The duel between Barry and Cancer was an epic one, in which Cancer fought dirty and Barry retorted with a gentlemanly charm and honor that left Cancer looking like a petty fool, pathetic and lowly. "An Explorer's View of Life" began to take on Barry's new view of death as well--and it wasn't a fearful one. It was, in typical Barry style, nothing more or less than a new adventure.

So when I read the news of Barry's death this morning, I wasn't struck with an immediate sense of despair or hopelessness. Sadness, yes. Loss, certainly. But not bitterness at Cancer's supposed victory. I think his wife, Linda, put it best in her post announcing the news:

"Barry did not loose his battle with cancer today. The cancer is dead and gone forever now. Barry however, will always live on in our hearts.

I consider Barry a hero, not a person who has lost anything. "

Barry Edward Fraser

April 3, 1943 to July 20, 2010

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-07-20T13:51:00.003-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Father Thomas is back! Most people feel pretty apathetic about their local priest, but he's seriously one of my best buddies, and an entire month without his antics was a month without sunshine.....literally as well as figuratively.

2. That being said, the sun shone yesterday. Coincidence? I think not. I even got to wear flip flops.

3. The Frozen Yogurt place that opened up a mere half mile walk from our apartment. It makes me smile because:

a) FroYo is delicious and somewhat more nutritious than ice cream, and therefore way more justifiable

b) It operates on a pay-by-the-ounce system, which means that you actually get what you pay for, be it a tiny dollop with one sprinkle or an entire mountain of frozen yogurty goodness

c) It is living proof that a local business with the right attitude can thrive in Juneau

4. Thinking about what my day would be like if Bean were around (well, outside of my anatomy, I mean). It was fun imagining what a walk to and from the store would be like. I imagined lots of toothless smiles and confused looks when the wind blew.

5. The "waddle" that Kip and I went on when he got home from work on Sunday. Apparently we don't go on walks anymore because walking has gone the way of the dodo in my life, along with seeing my feet and sleeping in a comfortable position.

6. The nursing cover that I sewed in about an hour. It's adorable and has a strip of terry cloth on the bottom for easy clean ups. I'm psyched!

7. The chocolate cake that I baked at midnight in a craving/heartburn attack/insomnia-driven stupor

8. The amount of motivation I felt yesterday.

9. The Jeep stroller that Tina and Casey sent us! It's big pimpin' and if Bean doesn't absolutely love it, I'm going to start wondering who switched it at birth. There's a baby-sized steering wheel in the front. How can you not love that?

10. Three words: newborn-sized diapers. I've been cooing over them for a full week now and they're not getting any less adorable.

Don't Freak Out, It's Fake Blood....

2010-07-18T16:51:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago, Kip and I were victims!

Not of anything sinister, though, we took part in an emergency situation drill at Bartlett Regional Hospital. Basically, we got to get all fake-bloodied up and walk into the ER along with 35 other "tour bus crash victims" and see how they handled it. Plus we got a free barbeque afterwards.

I was crash victim #25, who sustained a 3-inch head laceration and bruising. It took forever to get the red corn syrup out of my hair, but I still hold that I got the best treatment out of all the volunteers because of the whole being extremely pregnant thing. They wheeled me up to the OB-GYN ward and gave me juice while everyone else sat in the hallways of the ER watching the madness. Kip, who "sustained" only chest pain, kind of got the short end of the stick, but I did offer to share my juice, so he can't complain too terribly much.

Friday Photo Shoot-Out: Transitions

2010-07-16T04:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm really back this time. With so much travel, Heather's visit, and epic third trimester exhaustion setting in, I haven't been doing much other than laying on the couch when I have a free minute but I was determined to participate in the MTFPSO once again, so I pulled a few photos from Heather's visit and from a recent trip to Ketchikan for today! Yay!

This week's theme, suggested by Redlan over at Redlan's Web of Arts, is "Transitions". For more info on the Friday Photo Shoot-Out and the gang, click on the "I'm With the Gang" photo in my sidebar.

Transitions in Alaska have mainly to do with water...

...it transitions from high altitudes to lower ones...

(check out the teeny tiny people standing at the base of this waterfall, btw)

...and it transitions from ice to water to nourishing plant life.

There have been a lot of transitions for the native peoples of Alaska:

And here, an eagle transitions from air to land:

Ten Things Tuesday, In Prose and Photo

2010-07-13T22:49:00.006-04:00

I feel too much like actually writing a post instead of just writing a list, so my Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week will occur in prose and photo. Because I feel like it. And if you can't do what you want on your own blog, then where can you?

(1) Heather and I had a good laugh over putting Tillamook in a harness this week. It was suggested by our vet because he gets sort of obnoxious when the weather's nice and he wishes he could be an outdoor cat, but since we live on a busy road and eagles would consider him a tasty appetizer, being an outdoor cat is out of the question. The vet suggested putting him on a harness and leash when he wants to go outside so we have a happy cat who isn't flat as a pancake.

Yes, I now walk my cat.

Sort of--it's more like I stand on the stairs holding the leash while he sniffs the flowers on the stairs and occasionally eyes the woodpile in the neighbor's yard.

When I first put the harness around him, Heather and I sat laughing for about ten minutes while he tried to figure out how to get out of it, forgot about its existence, moved in such a way that he saw that it was on him, remembered that he should be upset about this, and then tried to wiggle out of it again. He's gotten used to it now, as evidenced by the above photo in which he was taking a nap in his new favorite accessory. I think we should put a bow tie on it, to snazz it up a bit.

Also making me smile is the legion of crafting projects I've taken on in a nesting fury, including:

(2) The felt jellyfish I'm making to hang along with an orca and a salmon above Bean's crib (here, it's in the middle of being embroidered before I add some tentacles);

(3) The absolute cutest hat EVER;

(4) Washcloths, burpcloths, and a scarf for a friend made out of the most fabulous yarn ever...check it out at A Tree Hugger's Wife on Etsy. These yarns are dyed so amazingly, they're art in and of themselves. I am lucky enough to live in the same town as the weaver, so I bought it at Skeins instead of ordering it online (a rarity!);

(5)....and a shadowbox full of JPD stuff for Kip. No photos yet, but I might take one when I'm done.

(That's all for crafts.)

(6) This is probably a little lame and non-"cool, accomplished blogger" of me, but I'm going to put it on here anyways: an acquaintance/friend of mine from college who I consider to lead the coolest life ever (wonderful Christian marriage, beautifully artistic apartment, a fantastic writer and artist, I could go on...) recently commented and said she loves my blog. She loves(!) my blog! It made me feel really good. :)

(7) This bib, which I found downtown at Annie Kaill's and immediately fell in love with (as much as a person can love a bib, at least). I vowed to return to get it later. A friend miraculously agreed (without knowing of my vow) and gave it to me on Saturday at the baby shower. It's so fun and quirky that I hung it on Bean's little bulletin board because I like looking at it. You, too, can enjoy it--the woman who made it also has an Etsy shop: Home Made Pretty.

(8) My mom and dad sent us the crib we registered for, and I was so excited when it arrived today....until I opened the box and realized that Babies R Us sent the wrong one. It was disappointing, but I'm still excited to get the right one and put it together.

(9) Bean has taken to stuffing him/herself underneath my ribs lately, which doesn't exactly make me smile since it sort of hurts, but I think it should count anyways. Also, I had a really vivid dream last night that it was born and it was a boy! He looked just like Kip, except he had my eyes and the same unibrow as my dad. And he was HUGE. I'm hoping that part doesn't ring true...I mean, fat babies are cute and all that, but this was a little extreme.

(10) Kip, Heather, and I realized that, with proper practice, we could pay for Bean's college tuition by becoming the next YouTube wonder. How, you ask? Eight words: Tillamook. Laser Pointer. Miley Cyrus. "Can't Be Tamed".

Lazy, Not Quite Hazy Days of Summer

2010-07-08T19:11:00.003-04:00

It's the kind of summer day in Juneau where a glance out of the window rewards you with a view of trees so green against a sky so blue they look like pieces of fabric laid next to one another on a quilt. Even the float planes, shuttling tourists to and fro along the Channel, sound lazy and content. Yesterday was our first sunny day in two weeks or so, and was therefore accompanied by the usual "first sunny day in awhile" jitters of an entire town who felt it necessary to get all their outdoor plans finished in one day while the good weather lasted. But today Juneau relaxed, having gotten its chores done yesterday. It took a walk or skipped out on work. It hung its laundry out to dry in the sun. It finally wore the sundress it's been saving for months, letting its skin enjoy the feel of the sun and 70-degree air.

Today, I woke to Tillamook arranging himself in the sill of our open bedroom window, a position he had no intention of leaving for the majority of the day. Kip was at work, and Heather came over for a quick breakfast before we headed to the Birth Center for a tour (she's training to be a doula) and my now-fortnightly appointment. Bean's growth was declared to be 'perfect' and we celebrated with a slow breakfast at the Sandpiper. Later, the breeze poking its head through our living room window whispered, "A nap!", and we both took its suggestion. The afternoon might include a hike up Mt. Roberts or galoshing around the tidal flats. Or maybe those will be tomorrow; the weather is supposed to hold out for a few more days before we all cover ourselves back up with moss and trade our Tevas for Extra Tuffs once more.

When Pregnancy and Real Life Meet, or Why I'm Insanely Glad There's Not a Babies R Us in Juneau, Part 2

2010-07-07T11:37:00.000-04:00

Part 2

Superfluous (usually plastic) baby crap. It was a fear that hadn't inundated Real Life until I started experiencing Pregnancy Life.

Behind "Omg we're pregnant", "Really??????", and "You know you're still going to grad school, right?", "Oh goodness, we're going to get stuck with all sorts of superfluous (usually plastic) baby crap now, aren't we?" was approximately the fourth thing that echoed against the bathroom walls when the pink plus sign appeared on the supposedly most technological thing I will ever pee on. (Side Note: I kind of want to go find a molecular collider or something of that sort at CERN and pee on that, just to prove the kind people at Clear Blue Easy wrong.)

It's not that I'm ungrateful for any potential plastic baby-related gifts that might be coming our way, and I realize the danger of blogging about this four days before our baby shower, it's just that it seems to me that babies need few things: a place to sleep, a place to poo, a way to get fed, items to keep it warm. And pretty much everything past that is gravy. We don't need a contraption to warm the baby wipes (I think the sooner my kid learns how to deal with a chilly bottom for a few seconds, the better--we do live in Alaska, after all), we don't need fifty rattles (one will do, and maybe a spare for car trips--I am a rational woman, thank you) or a hundred hanging crib toys or plastic safety covers for absolutely every surface of the house (would I really be the same woman I am today if I didn't have that dent running down my forehead from running into a door when I was six? No.) And until I read this article, I felt that the mere idea of a baby bath tub was laughable (although now I'm seriously considering taking up a friend on her offer to lend us hers).

I suppose it boils down to a few things:

1. I am easily stressed by superfluous amounts of clutter in my living space.

2. Plastic kind of freaks me out--it's fake, it's non biodegradable, and every six months we find out that it causes cancer.

3. We live in an incredibly small apartment.

Therefore, superfluous amounts of plastic things in aforementioned small apartment cannot possibly ever produce good in my life. So for the past seven months, I have been tortured with visions of aisles upon aisles of sleep positioners and "discovery stations" and non-PVC or non-BPA or non-LMNOP bottles that all say they're the safest. But I have learned how to cope. I've picked my battles--we will probably have a set of plastic bottles at some point for sanity and safety (you know, once Bean gets into that "I can throw things!" phase), and I'm achieving a Zen-like state about that. For the first time, I have become insanely thankful for Juneau's isolatedness--there is not a Babies R Us for literally a thousand miles, and I love it. And we have thoughtfully chosen what to include in our (purposefully small) registries: glass bottles, cloth diapers, a Boppy pillow (because I hung out with my newborn niece for three weeks and holy crap was that thing useful), local toys from our family members so that we can show Bean a cow and say, "Moo! This is a cow, they have lots of those in Texas, where Grammy and Grampa live!" so it knows that just because family isn't around, they haven't forgotten about him or her. (And so Bean can know what a cow is. There just aren't any in Juneau. Seriously, there is a risk that this kid will be the only one in kindergarten in the Lower 48 who knows what a narwhal is but is lost when it comes to farm animals.)

And if we get a ton of battery operated, plastic toys on Saturday and when Bean arrives in September, then I will smile and be thankful. Because as much as plastic freaks me out, I have some really great friends who are the perfect remedy to that.

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-07-06T11:13:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it's been a week already, but...

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Heather's been here for a week already, and she's staying a week more. And that makes me happy.

2. Our baby shower is on Saturday and I am so excited to be around a bunch of terrific ladies for an entire afternoon! It's kind of rare to get a big group together these days. Plus, somebody bought the crib off our registry and that is HUGE.

3. It's trash day. I don't think I've ever blogged about it, but I feel about trash day how other people feel about New Year's; I just get to have that feeling of starting anew every week. It's quite the deal.

4. The salmonberry yarn that I bought with Heather at Skeins. It's literally the most beautiful textile product I have ever seen, and I smell a new vice. Check out the artisan's store on Etsy: A Tree Hugger's Wife

5. Actually getting into consistently crafting again, now that I've been reunited with my best crafting buddy. An unbelievably cute crocheted elephant has been the highlight thus far.

6. The prenatal yoga DVDs I ordered. They're super spiffy.

7. My baby belly! It's gotten so big because the baby is so big! And I still don't look like a whale (contrary to Kip's teasing when I get stuck in couches). If it ever gets to be nice weather again, I'll go outside and take some photos.

8. The Fourth of July parade. Sure, it was raining and in the 50's and absolutely dismal outside, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fun getting hit by candy and making Kip laugh as he marched with the JPD Honor Guard! Plus, there was the Juneau perennial favorite: meat on a stick. Seriously, these people go gaga for street food. It's a little strange, in a fun way.

9. The flowers that I got from The Plant People shop to celebrate Heather's arrival. They're pink and yellow and orange and fabulous, plus the shop lady told me I was definitely having a boy and that I should believe her because she's never been wrong, and neither was her mother. Wouldn't you be convinced? This was after I took about a minute to catch my breath when I stumbled in the door because I had to walk up a hill to get there. She just thought I was really out of shape until I turned to the side, then she made her boy prophecy.

10. The box of Cocoa Puffs that also contained a really sweet card that Kip brought me after I was Mrs. Cranky-Cravingpants one morning and the first words out of my mouth were, "Cocoa Puffs." He's the best husband ever.

Ten Things TUESDAY!

2010-06-29T14:56:00.005-04:00

I remembered! I'm so proud of myself!

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This (Past Four Days or So):

1. Remembering that it was Ten Things Tuesday and not Ten Things Thursday

2. Heather is arriving TONIGHT!

3. The running commentary that Kip and I kept during the US vs Ghana game that had nothing to do with the game, but everything to do with the fact that the cameramen kept showing reaction shots of Bill Clinton, who was watching it. Our commentary involved a lot of breathy, Southern drawled comments ("Well heeeeeeey, that wasn't a very good pass. And I know about good passes, aha...ha.......ha....")

4. Alli's first birthday, which was on Sunday. I can't believe she's already a year old!

5. It getting sunny enough to make sun tea and hang out some laundry. Yay!

6. Kip's excursion after work last night: he ran to his old bachelor apartment on Douglas Island, got his bike out of storage, and rode it back.

7. The way our apartment looks as of late thanks to my slightly obsessive cleaning. Who doesn't sweep their floors twice a day? Or maybe three times. Okay, possibly four but they're hardwood, we have a shedding cat, and the nesting hormones are really in full effect these days, okay?

8. Finally bringing a bunch of furniture we don't need down to our landlords (again, thanks to my slightly obsessive cleaning).

9. The game plan that Kip and I made last night for Heather's visit. It may or may not include several drives out to the Shrine, a trip to Skeins (the local yarn shop), and a culinary tour of Juneau including the Hot Bite, Tracy's Crab Shack, and the Thane Salmon Bake (mmmmmmmmmm!)

10. Playing my cello again in preparation for a wedding gig on Friday.

When Pregnancy and Real Life Meet, or Why I'm Insanely Glad There's Not a Babies R Us in Juneau, Part 1

2010-06-29T13:47:00.004-04:00

It's not that I thought pregnancy wouldn't jive with some aspects of my regular, pre-baby life, it's just that I didn't think it would necessarily influence every single one of them. Take, for example, my comment to Kip as we watched the Nigerian and Greek national teams take the field for a recent World Cup game:

"Hey, I bet they're all uncircumcised."

...

I rest my case. When in the world, other than the week that your midwife springs about a thousand statistics about the downfalls of circumcision on you in the name of being "fully informed", does one EVER associate soccer with "the cut"?

Never, that's when.

It had been a heck of a week. On top of realizing that we were drastically beyond the halfway point between "Why am I so emotional and where the heck is Mother Nature's monthly gift?" and "Omg there's a baby lying there and it's ours", Kip and I also became more intimate than we ever thought possible with one of our midwives when, in the course of an hour, we spoke in depth about the pros and cons of circumcision and she mimed breastfeeding (still fully clothed, lest you think it was that intimate). I should have known, as we exited the Birth Center wide-eyed and a little shell shocked that afternoon, that there would be no going back. Pregnancy Life and Real Life were on a collision course.

Of course, I'd been experiencing a merging of Pregnancy Life and Real Life for several months at that point. But it was in a cushy and cute sort of way: I noticed babies more; I realized I had a justification for looking at the cute onesies on sale at Fred Meyer; I lost the ability to wear pants without some sort of elastic in the band. All these, with one great exception, were relatively welcome and anticipated changes in my psyche, showing an identity shift from "Cindy" to "Cindy and Bean". I never dreamed I would one day draw a parallel between competitive world soccer and the be-foreskinned status of international footballers. And the day that happened, I realized Pregnancy Life had left Los Angeles traveling 65 mph while Real Life had left New York at 45 mph, and that they had triumphantly collided somewhere around the Red Lobster in Kokomo, Indiana.

But what is this aforementioned "one great exception"?

What is the one aspect of Pregnancy Life that had wiggled its way indelibly into my world like an unwelcome family member intent on squatting in your living room for as long as possible?

It is something which I will blog about in a second installment.

And it's called Superfluous (Usually Plastic) Baby Crap.

Ten Things Thursday, Um....Again

2010-06-24T16:25:00.002-04:00

Okay, so in my pregnant-brained state, I genuinely thought that this was supposed to happen on Thursday and not Tuesday, so I'm counting this as being on time. I blame you, convenient alliteration!!! Or is it assonance? Either way, I blame it.

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Week:

1. Kip's last week of night shift! I get him back now for the rest of the year! Huzzah!

2. Using a Snuggie for the first and hopefully only time in my life while watching a World Cup game in my landlord's chilly living room. I embraced the tackiness, though, and kept declaring, "It's a blanket with sleeves!" at sporadic intervals.

3. The USA vs. Algeria game yesterday. We are seriously considering naming the baby Landon if it's a boy. What a goal! What a game!

4. HEATHER IS VISITING IN LESS THAN A WEEK!

5. Our visit to Ketchikan over the weekend--we saw the sun, Kip got to feed eagles while fishing, I made a few new friends. It was great.

6. The breakfast that Kip made for me this morning to celebrate the end of night shift.

7. Clearing out a corner in our bedroom for Bean's crib.

8. Finding out that our car situation is all set! Kip's parents are bringing up a new(er) Jeep Grand Cherokee from the Lower 48 in the end of July. They're also bringing the car seat that Becky and Scott are loaning us, and the glider that they're giving us for the baby shower. Basically, we're going from 0% prepared for Bean's arrival to about 85% in the course of a day. I'm thrilled!

9. My most recent musical obsession, because apparently I'm stuck in 1996:

10. Slowly working my way through Norway photos. Posting soon!

Ten Things...Thursday

2010-06-17T08:23:00.000-04:00

A Belated (and oft' put off) Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Fortnight Or So:

(I promise next week I'll get back to a schedule for these things)

1. Finding a frozen pumpkin pie at Fred Meyer after going on a grand search for canned pumpkin during an epic craving.

2. Feeling like an actually pretty good photographer when going through Norway and Chicago photos.

3. I know I say this every week, but Tillamook's antics. It just never ceases to amuse me how easily he entertains himself (and me). Most recent source of amusement: the blue, puffy, feathered, dangling cat toy that I got him in an attempt to keep him out of mischief (namely from jumping onto my back every time I wear a tie-back maternity shirt, which is pretty often). He's taken to dragging it around the apartment and presenting it to us as if it were plunder from a Crusade. We appreciate the thoughtfulness.

4. Potting some flowers and putting them on the stairway up to our apartment entrance. It looks really homey and I can't wait to show them off to Heather when she arrives in THIRTEEN DAYS!!!

5. The increasing frequency with which Kip can feel Bean kicking. It's not a new development for me, but Bean is finally big enough that his/her kicks can be felt from the outside! I'm waiting for the day when Kip gets kicked in the face while up close to my belly talking to Bean. Speaking of...

6. When Bean kicked as soon as Kip started talking to him/her yesterday. :)

7. The sheer amount of reorganizing I've gotten done at the church library.

8. Getting an invitation to the baby shower that Natalie is throwing for us. It's "bean" themed!!!

9. The granola I made tonight. I'm impressed with myself.

10. Our upcoming weekend trip to Ketchikan to see some friends. It'll be the first place in Alaska that I've visited other than Juneau!

a cult of a peaceful welcome, a thousand points of light

2010-06-16T03:32:00.002-04:00

The refrigerator poetry in Kasey and Christina's apartment was eerily truthful: coming home to Chicago for Matthew and Alethea's wedding felt like a cult of a peaceful welcome, a thousand points of light. I'd forgotten what it felt like to really fit in a place. I like Juneau, don't get me wrong, but even a square peg can learn to be comfortable in a reasonably sized round hole, eventually forgetting its angles and awkward geometry in contrast to its surroundings. Being around all my best friends again for a few days, where we could chat about theology, have a few debates about ridiculous topics that normal 23-year-olds don't usually debate, and generally joke around in the way that's possible only with people who are family in all but blood--well, I was in a square hole again, which made going back to circular Juneau pretty painful.

The weekend was a nonstop celebration--of Matthew and Alethea, of friendship, of the Church, of love of all kinds. It was a blast. I took too many photos to post, and definitely too many to post them individually, so click on the collage below for some of my favorites.

Pregnancy Vices

2010-06-16T00:15:00.004-04:00

While perusing one of my new favorite blogs, OffbeatMama, I came across a seriously kickass article, Learning Not to Worry During Pregnancy, in which the author shares her liberation from all the worrying she did in her first trimester. With her no-worrying policy now firmly in effect, she admits to indulging in one diet soda a day, painting her living room with low-VOC (not no-VOC) paint, and enjoying a much happier pregnancy because of it all. Her general level of chill-ness has encouraged me, a natural worrier, to enjoy and admit to a few pregnancy vices of my own. Because really, the human race has been reproducing for millions of years without worrying about the nitrate content of its morning bacon, so should I really be losing sleep over it?

No.

I therefore present the following list of Cindy's Official Pregnancy Vices:

I lay on my back when I'm reading on the couch. Or when I'm trying to get to sleep and the prospect of resting all my body weight on one still bony hip or the other seems unbearable.
On occasion, when I'm trying to get something from the top shelf and nobody else is around, I (carefully) get up on a chair to reach it instead of waiting until Kip gets home.
I had a whole two gulps of my aunt's red wine during my week in Norway. And they were tasty.
I still cuddle with my cat. Once, when it was really, really bad and Kip was in the middle of an 80-hour workweek, I changed the litter box (and then promptly burned my hands washing them, but I still did it!)
When I have bad heartburn, I eat ice cream. And it's not the "no sugar" kind, it's Haagen Dazs.
I have logged about 15,000 miles of high altitude, cross-country flights (such as the trip to Chicago where I took the above photo). I did not get up and walk every hour of those trips. And I'm still going to Ketchikan in two days.
I don't wear gloves and a mask when I clean with Clorox wipes.
I've become a raging fan of "Dexter" thanks to the Instant Netflix streaming option. I'm pretty sure becoming obsessed with a show about a forensic blood splatter specialist who moonlights as a serial killer goes against the "Don't watch any TV or movies that are violent, suspenseful, or stressful" rule, but I love it.
I forget to take my prenatal vitamin on a semi-regular basis, and I still sleep at night.

Now, this doesn't mean that I'm running through the streets of Juneau flinging cat feces to and fro, chain smoking, and eating my fill of bologna, but it does mean that I'm not breaking down crying every time I do something on my list (with the possible exception of the vitamin thing; I live in eternal fear that Bean will be That Awkward Kid who doesn't technically have anything wrong with him but who is unbearably slow and socially awkward because I didn't get enough Vitamin F26 or something like that). And I have taken up many good Pregnancy Vices like drinking superfluous amounts of water, paying far more attention to my nutrition, and taking rapturous amounts of joy in reading articles about prenatal development (Did you know that my baby will soon be able to see the light difference if you shine a flashlight on my belly? THAT'S AMAZING!).

I figure that this new commitment to calming the crap down about the million "What If?"s of pregnancy will just train me for parenthood. For example, I've already come to the realization that 12 minutes of tummy time instead of the recommended 15 does not mean that Child and Family Services should be called to my residence. Progress! Now I'm off to bake some banana bread (with protein powder, of course). And I might just lick the spatula.

Our World Cup Runneth Over

2010-06-12T06:55:00.002-04:00

Every once in awhile, I'm reminded that Kip and I have a habit of doing absolutely ridiculous things. Current example: watching as many World Cup games as possible...including South Korea vs. Greece, which is playing live right now....at 3am Alaskan time.

Hey, he's on night shift and I don't have a job with set hours, so why not? The sun's coming up right about now anyways.

"Welcome to the Parlor", Said the Kitten to the Fly

2010-06-08T17:58:00.004-04:00

"GAH! CAT!!!!!" I yelled, grabbing my magazine and now empty plate.

Tillamook, unconcerned with the be-pizza sauced status of his front left paw, continued towards his prey: a fly so obese that its flight was a minor phenomenon and who must have gotten into the house when I stood in our open doorway this morning talking to our landlady. Through the course of the day, the poor, fat fly got stuck in that most frustrating of insect positions (hitting himself against the screen in the window--so close to freedom, yet so far away!) and cornered by a cat with a severe case of cabin fever and claws weeks overdue for a trim. Normally I would have let the poor fly out, or at least stopped the cat from torturing it, but I was still reeling from Tillamook stepping in my lunch during his chase (which I'm sure was accompanied, in his mind, by the National Geographic theme song). Fears of contracting toxoplasmosis from his paw ran rampant in my mind along with my ex-boyfriend Darrin's Double Dipping Thesis of 2005 ("Well, it's not really that bad, because any part of the dip that touched the previously bitten part of the chip is now touching the chip, and all remaining dip is clean, right?") as I investigated the red paw prints now leading up the back of the couch.

Here I'd like to take a moment and appeal to anyone who knows more about animals than I do: is it possible for cats, even neutered ones, to still go crazy when they would have been in heat had their parts not been removed? Because I'm pretty sure this is the case with Tillamook. Or he recently sold his soul to the Devil. Or was kidnapped and replaced by his evil twin, who runs around the apartment with no consideration for the floor, upholstery, teetering pregnant women who can't see their feet when tripped or sleeping night shift cops and who has manufactured several valiant escape attempts all in the course of one morning.

Or maybe he's just jazzed about the Sun and warm weather. I digress.

Back to the kitten and the fly: having studied the paw prints enough to conclude that any part of my pizza that had come into contact with Tillamook's paw was now rubbed into my couch's slipcover, I continued eating my lunch and watching the Animal Planet episode now taking place before my eyes. Dinner and a show! The fly, clever being, crawled higher and higher on the window screen while my cat, the sillier (and yet theoretically more highly evolved) of the two, proceeded to get both his paws stuck in the screen by way of his aforementioned claws. It was a pathetic sight: he stood up on his hind legs to catch the fly, placing one of his front paws on the screen to steady himself and batting at the fly with the other. When he realized that he couldn't stand any higher because his claws were now stuck in the screen, he would press his other paw against the screen to steady himself while pulling the first paw free, catching the claws of the second paw in the screen in the process. Over and over he went, trying the same solution only to see the same results: paw #1 stuck, paw #2 used for balance, paw #1 freed, paw #2 stuck, paw #1 used for balance....I couldn't help but laugh. Hard. So hard, in fact, that Tillamook turned around to glare at me, both paws now stuck to the screen.

I swear I saw the fly, now standing slightly out of Tillamook's reach, pointing and laughing too as I sat up and unhooked my kitten from his predicament. "Ancient Egyptians used to worship you?" I asked as I placed him back down on the cushions. With an offended meow, he turned around and settled onto the couch, still staring up at the fly, who had finally found a comfortable place to rest at the very top of the window.

Home Sweet Juneau

2010-06-04T16:04:00.002-04:00

After returning to Juneau from literally halfway around the world (Mom and Dad were even nice enough to call and let me know that they looked at a globe, and it would have been way quicker for me to just fly across Asia to Norway than across America and the Atlantic), I have been keeping myself busy (and therefore not blogging, apologies) by:

-catching up on sleep and hydration

-dreading doing the final Great Memory Change of 2010 on Cindy's Computer and therefore putting off uploading photos from Norway and Chicago (today is the day, though!)

-doing searches on Google of pretty much any permutation of "buying", "used car", "negotiating", and "checklist"

-dreading actually going to the dealership with Kip and trying to buy the aforementioned used car, since the Jeep greeted my return by promptly losing its ability to signal its intent to turn. This is in addition to the radio having not worked for a month, the back windshield wiper calling it quits years ago, the brake light taking sporadic vacations, and the parking brake slowly sinking into a life of sloth and laziness. Oh, and it wouldn't fit a baby carseat anyways, so it was just a matter of time.

-training Tillamook to stay away from things he's not supposed to be playing with by spraying him with water in a spray bottle. Now he only has to hear my hand on the plastic to go running. It makes me feel powerful, but evidently not in a scary way, since he still cuddles with me.

-starting work at the church library. I had a minor geek-fest when I found a cache of Peter Kreeft books yesterday. Huzzah!

Plus, it's been nice in Juneau. And there was an epic Pumpkin Pie Craving last night. And we had a fabulous pre-natal appointment yesterday in which we actually started discussing the idea of a baby coming from this pregnancy and what we were going to do about that.

Good times.

I Think My Inner Clock is Syncopated

2010-05-26T06:14:00.003-04:00

I just watched the little upper corner clock on my aunt's MacBook Pro tick from 6:14 to 6:15 am while my internal clock blinked 12:00, 12:00 over again. I woke up about three hours ago after the world's strangest dream about visiting non-existent Juneau nightlife with Kip and crying when I saw people burning a copy of a book by John Paul II. The baby starting kicking really hard in either real life or dream world, and either way it woke me up to a dark room in Pennsylvania and a few too many blankets whose heat probably caused the dream in the first place. It was 9 am Norway time, so my body said, "Why not?" I rolled over and called Kip, tried to sleep a little bit more, finally gave up and got up, went to the bathroom, poured myself a bowl of Honey Smacks, and have been sitting on the recliner watching the Science channel and surfing the Internet ever since. I should be finishing sewing the bridesmaids' gifts for Alethea, but there's time for that after another bathroom break and bowl of cereal (lest I forget that Bean is in constant need of snacks and finds my bladder a particularly cushy place to rest). Besides, the Sun's coming up and the light burning a few feet away is officially unnecessary (which I love).

Norway was incredible. Such a place of beauty and solidness. The people are all confident, but not arrogant; strong, but not overbearing. Okay, maybe they're a little too tall for me, but that only became an issue when my feet couldn't hit the floor in more than one variety of chair. And the land---it makes Alaska look tame and kitschy in comparison. As soon as I get back home (in a week), I will upload the hundreds of photos I took and post some favorites. In the meantime, it's more photo opportunities as I spend a few days with family and then fly to Chicago to see my best friends for Matthew and Alethea's wedding. Then it's home indefinitely, which I'm pretty ready for--I have a nursery to arrange and three tiny months to do it. Ahhh!

To Norvege!

2010-05-17T09:21:00.003-04:00

At the moment, I've traded in the mountains and streams of Juneau for the Amish farms and rolling hills of my childhood (or at least childhood visiting family) in Pennsylvania. But soon I will be trading in even that refreshing view for another one--fjords! My Aunt Verna and I are hopping a plane and making our way to the land of our Andersen ancestors, Norway! So, dear bloggy friends, I will be absent from "...Just Alaska" for two weeks while I am in Just Norway (hehe, get it? It's a blog title pun!). Have fun, and I'll be a posting maniac when I get back.

Cindy

In Retrospect, I Could've Used the Glacier to Ice My Arms

2010-05-14T15:48:00.003-04:00

Today Is Going to be All About:

-playing through my instant Netflix queue while I finishing sewing Alethea's bridesmaids' gifts

-ironing aforementioned gifts and sending them out

-packing for Norway

-staying as hydrated as physically possible (I'm thinking toting around the Camelbak all day is in order)

-and uploading the photos from kayaking at the glacier with Father Thomas yesterday (a trip which left me with such intense arm pain that it woke me up during the night...twice. It was glorious.)

Yoga + Cindy = Comedy Show?

2010-05-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

I have come to the conclusion as of late that I'm just not mature enough to be able to consistently take yoga classes. Examples:

-when Kip and I took one for kicks and giggles on our honeymoon, the instructor yelled at me to "keep your breathing even" because I couldn't control myself after glancing between my knees in the Downward Facing Dog position only to see my husband simultaneously contorted like a pretzel and trying to lift one leg up in the air

-I spent the majority of the prenatal yoga class I took last night with my eyes closed because the view of a handful of very round women trying to balance and stretch in ridiculous ways was too funny for me (although the mental image of my own clumsy poses didn't help matters much)

-I was also unusually amused by the fact that three-quarters of the class left to go to the bathroom at one point or another

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-05-11T19:10:00.003-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. Seeing Bean on our 20 week ultrasound

2. Kip's birthday on Saturday

3. Going kayaking with Father Thomas on Sunday

4. The really pretty duet line that Ty and I played (but which nobody probably heard) at the Mondeverdi Vespers this past weekend

5. Meeting Governor Parnell at the Policeman's Memorial today

6. Bean kicking through the same two or three movements of the Vespers every time I played them...he/she either loved them or hated them, I can't tell

7. Finally backing up my computer so I can upload new photos!

8. Our newest culinary revelation: brie and cheddar grilled cheese

9. Tillamook's newest favorite game: tag. Seriously, he'll just hide under something really obvious, like the shower curtain, until you walk by and then he'll run out, tap you with both his paws and then run away. I tried running after him and doing the same but he didn't seem to quite get it.

10. Thinking of all my friends who graduated on Saturday!

Kip's Birthday

2010-05-10T18:43:00.001-04:00

vs.

Since Kip's last birthday got lost in the abyss of my Baccalaureate and Graduation from good 'ol North Park, I was determined that this year would be a birthday of epic proportions for him. Yes, sir, 27 would eclipse 26 (experientially as well as numerically) if I had anything to do with it. And I think it did. His birthday consisted of:

a giant "Happy Birthday Kip!" sign in the living room

driving downtown for a late lunch at the Twisted Fish

a TON of barbeque-related gifts from yours truly

a quite remarkable backscratcher from my parents (although he claims it doesn't exempt me from back scratching duties)

a four mile run (his, not mine...and he wanted to, so okay)

watching playoff hockey on the big screen at a friend's house

some fantastic barbequed ribs and chicken

a performance of the 1610 Monteverdi Vespers that evening, because the Bach Society asked me to play with them and Kip said the he'd love to hear me play on his birthday so I did it

Happy Belated Birthday, Kip!

I Have Seen...

2010-05-04T18:12:00.005-04:00

I Have Seen:

Fields of fragrant lavender in Tuscany...

...the steeples of Oxford at a cool daybreak...

...the most delicate works of nature...

...the sun slipping below the horizon in Chile...

...And they were all nothing compared to watching my baby play with its fingers and suck its thumb in grainy black and white:

Sometimes I'm Awed By My Best Friend

2010-04-28T01:50:00.002-04:00

Kasey may not think she's all that and a bag of potato chips, but I know different. Not only is she all that...she is the entire potato chip aisle (complete with the little dip tray display things hanging below). Proof? Read this post that she just wrote about one of her students trying to cope with her mom's recent miscarriage.

Yeah, now tell me it isn't true.

Ten Things Tuesday

2010-04-27T20:31:00.002-04:00

Ten Things That Made Me Smile This Past Week:

1. The weather, which is finally warm and sunny enough for me to embark on my most favorite of summertime chores: hanging the laundry outside to dry!

2. My fabulous husband, who woke me up this morning with a box of croissants and a bouquet of flowers.

3. I had some wonderful girl chat with Natalie this afternoon

4. The day of grilling we had on Saturday (see post below)

5. The way that Tillamook stood with his paws up on the windowsill next to the front door and meowed at me the entire time I was hanging up laundry today, as if to say, "The CLOTHES get to go outside and I can't?"

6. Bean kicking the entire way through dinner on Sunday night

7. Our prenatal appointment on Wednesday, in which I got to hear (via the spiffy Doppler thing) Bean kicking away AND its heartbeat again (148 bpm and going strong!)

8. Finally getting my box of stuff from my trip to Maryland and therefore the Ikea grater-tupperware combos that I found for $2.99. You've got to love innovative Swedish design at reasonable prices!

9. Taking a walk with Christine around Twin Lakes on Friday

10. The message thread that Vannae (a friend from college) and I have been composing on Facebook regarding the trials, tribulations, and treasures of being pregnant. It's so nice to have another pregnant friend to talk to!