Currently...

1. At our newborn care class.  I think I know how to hold this baby now  2. Bradley's steam punk accessory explosion  3. Bradley has the hang of it too  4. Making burp cloths   5. First snow!  6. I got my official mail in ballot. Voting is exciting!   7. Chenille explosion   8. Mitt Romney killing a small forrest in my mailbox   9. I love fall.

Loving: The weather! Who doesn't love fall? This summer was so hot and miserable that I will gladly take 60 and 70 degree weather.  I still have my own personal furnace going on so I haven't really pulled out too many socks or cozy blankets but it has been nice to pull out all my cardigans.

Reading: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.  I picked up this book this summer but just never got to reading it.  It is a big book at over 800 pages but I think it is really good historical story of the building of a cathedral in the 12th century and the character development is really well done.  I dig it.

Watching: Fall shows are finally here! I just finished watching the season finale of Project Runway today (not sure how I feel about the outcome) and I am excited for the next all stars season.  I have also been watching Boardwalk Empire, Survivor, New Girl, and Bradley makes me watch the Walking Dead every week.

Thinking About: Christmas. Ya I said it.  I am excited and terrified of it this year.  I just don't know what it is going to look like with a tiny baby and I am wondering how in the world we are going to pull off Christmas shopping.  I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be getting gift cards or gifts ordered directly from Amazon.  It is also blowing my mind that I am going to have a child to christmas shop for! It is a weird thought.  Not that she is even going to know what is going on but it is just so unfathomable that I am going to have a baby to enjoy the holidays with!

Anticipating: This is a really easy answer.  I'm just going to do with the birth of my first baby.  This might sound terrible but I have no birth plan.  I have an idea of my preferences like I know I want my own pillow and music but that is about it.  Otherwise epidural...no epidural...c-section...I don't know.  I am just going to go with the flow at the time.  Our good friend is going to be our doula so I figure she will be able to help when the time comes.

Listening: I know I have said this before but I will get a song or two stuck in my head and then listen to it till it is dead in the ground.  Last week it was Sufjan Steven's Casimir Pulaski Day and the past few days I have been listening to Peter Bjorn and John's Tomorrow Has to Wait

Working On: This is just downright sad to admit but I am in between projects right now. I just finished up making a few more burp cloths for little lady.  Sadly I just don't have a whole lot of energy right now to do a lot.  Tomorrow we are picking up 30lbs of apples for a school fundraiser.  I have a lot of juicing ahead of me since I am going to turn the majority of it into hard cider.  Nothing more classy than a 9 month pregnant lady making hooch!

Wishing: I didn't live in a political swing state right now. The political adds on TV and mail have become really bad.  I dread going to the mailbox to see how many pieces of paper either candidate has decided to shove in my mailbox to see if it will change my mind about them.  Some are sooo incredibly ridiculous too.  My favorite so far was yesterday we got an anti Obama flyer with a picture of Obama next to the soviet hammer and sickle.  Are people really influenced by this stuff?

Pregnancy Weeks 13-16

F ya second trimester! I love you! Things have been going really well in the land of pregnancy.  I feel like I have entered that happy time some pregnant women love.  For one I am actually looking pregnant.  I feel like people are no longer looking at me and asking themselves "Is she fat or is she pregnant?".  Secondly, I feel really good with the exception of a few aches and pains from my expanding belly and hips. The biggest symptom I am having in hunger! I am always hungry. It has been interesting to say the least.  I have been counting calories and watching what I put in my mouth since I was 16 so letting go of that is actually liberating.  I have been very careful to make sure it is not all the cookies and brownies that I have been craving.  I try to save those for the end of the day as a treat to myself and the babe.  The strangest craving for me has been meat. Before I was pregnant I was only eating chicken and fish a few times a week.  Now I want red meat every day.  I am just going with it. To me it just means my body needs protein.  I'll take the red meat back out when I am not pregnant.  Over the past week I have been feeling the babe move.  It is a strange feeling and I was skeptical at first but really I don't know what else it could be.  It almost feels like flutters or something poking at your insides.  I am excited for Bradley to start feeling the baby kick from the outside.  He has been the best partner in this I could have asked for.  He talks to my belly, makes me snacks, and is so forgiving of my up and down moods.  He also likes to tell everyone that I am pregnant. It is so fun to see him so excited. I am still thinking girl but now I am only 80% sure. There is just this inkling in the back that it is a boy.  We find out next month so as long as it is not a dinosaur we are good.

Pregnancy Weeks 8-12

So here is the second part of my 1st trimester weekly updates.  From now on I will just go to updating weekly on this good stuff! Just a fair warning there are some gross bodily functions in here. I am quickly learning that when you are pregnant all modesty is out the window. We started taking belly pics around week 10 and have been trying to take them on Saturdays to stay consistent.

Week 8
Time is flying! This week was much better than last! I actually feel healthier and by the end of the week some of the morning sickness is fading and my energy levels are returning. I am actually starting to "look" pregnant. There is no more sucking in my stomach and hiding my growing waste line. We have decided to announce it to everyone at 10 weeks. It is becoming increasingly harder to hide it. I have had to be reclusive which hasn't been too hard since I generally haven't felt good but I am starting to feel guilty about it. I want to see my friends and I want them to know. We had our 8 week appointment with our OB, Dr. Stern, this week. They tried to look for the heart beat with the Doppler thingy but they couldn't hear it yet. I was super excited to hear it but it didn't worry me that they couldn't find it. It’s not like I am 90lbs here people.

Week 9 and 10
These two weeks have just kind of mushed themselves together. Thankfully a lot of the gross 1st trimester symptoms are going away. My pooping is back to normal (hallelujah!) the morning sickness is much less although it still likes to pop up from time to time, and my energy levels are slowly getting back to normal. At the start of week 10 we announced to everyone that we were pregnant. It was so nice to finally tell everyone instead of trying to hide it. Now I have a reason to not come to your stupid drunken event. Sorry friends. It’s just not fun for me when I can't participate. Towards the middle of week 10 my full on baby bump arrived. I have a full on rounded belly. It’s not big but it is there. I have noticed people staring at my belly and then staring at me. Some rando even approached me and asked me if I was expecting. Good thing I was or I might have punched her. I have been dreaming of Blue Jays a lot. Is it a sign? I don't know. This week I am feeling boy. At the end of week 10 we went back to the doctor to try and here the heartbeat again. No luck. The nurse said my uterus was right under my pubic bone and about to move above it. The placenta was also in the way but luckily they picked up the placenta pumping blood so I can only assume all is well. I can't let myself freak out or I will. I am good at that. We have another appointment at the end of week 11 to try again. If they can't find it I will get an ultra sound (I am secretly wishing to a healthy baby and an ultra sound). We decided not to do any 1st trimester screening. We figure if the baby has a disability so what? It’s not going to cause us to terminate the pregnancy. This baby could be missing an arm and that just means it gets a cool robotic laser arm in my mind.

Week 11
Spring is definitely here! The lilacs starting blooming this week which always make me feel happy and hopeful. This week started off a little rocky with some pressure and aching in my pelvic area (sorry…TMI) which resulted in a trip to the OB’s and a bladder infection.  Now that we have for the most part let the cat out of the bag week 11 was filled with telling more people and seeing their happy faces. The best part about this week was it was topped off by hearing baby's heart beat for the first time at 178 bpm. I am starting to feel almost back to normal but I still get a little barfy in the mornings but it goes away quickly. I have been craving oreos and ice cream all week but I have been trying to hold off as long as a can. Baby actually looks like a human and not a reptile and it is crazy to think there is a little guy or gal floating around in there.

Week 12
This this took fooorevvvver! The kids  are getting really antsy at school and this week I broke up a water fight and a clay fight. Such fun (insert sarcastic voice). According to some pregnancy websites I am in the last week of the 1st trimester and according to one of my books I am in the 1st week of my 2nd trimester. I am going to ride it out and say this is the last of my 1st trimester. I am pretty much back to my normal self I just get tired really easy. I went at with my good girlfriends at the beginning of this week and it was interesting to not enjoy an adult beverage while everyone else is. I wasn't sure if it was going to be the same but I still found myself laughing hysterically and my cheeks hurt the next day. It makes me grateful to have such good friends. We got to hear Baby's heartbeat again at the end of the week. It put a big ‘ol warm and fuzzy smile on my face. This week my appetite has slowed down and I have had some stomach pains here and there from all the rearranging that is going on. Sleeping is also becoming a little more challenging.  My sides have become the only comfortable way to sleep and I still have my 1am or 3am wakeup call from my bladder. I am 98% sure it is a girl now. I started a few baby items here and there.  It is really hard to hold off!

Reverse Graffiti

Holy crap. Tomorrow is April. WTF? How did that happen? The last few weeks have included a sinus infection (I know. I have them all the time.), standardized tests and gearing up for the crazy spring art show season at work, an early spring has made it's appearance in Colorado and trees are budding out and the forsythia's and dafodils are blooming, and some new household projects started.  I have a month left of my graduate classes for this semester.  These past few weeks I have really been enjoying my contemporary art class.  At first I was a little unsure espeically when we were looking at upside down tanks that some rando was calling art but over time it has really changed my perception of current art.  This week we are discussing street art.  My inner Martha Stewart does a little freak out when I see street art.  I like things clean and tidy.  I totally appreciate it but it really contradicts my desire to live in a clean and controlled environment. However I was totally draw to the Reverse Graffiti.  Street Artist Moose makes wooden stencils, places them against a dirty wall and then pressure washed the wall leaving the shapes of the stencil.  What and awesome impact! People probably didn't even notice how dirty the wall was to begin with.

Thank You 28!

So the end of my 28th year is coming to an end and I am venturing into 29 on Tuesday.  Honestly this past year has been by far one of the best.  Words can't express how grateful I am to the Universe for taking care of me. Almost a year ago we were renting a house I hated. I think that house represented a lot more for me than just it was a crappy house in a crappy location.  I think it was more about how unhappy I was at where I was at in life.  I felt like I was supposed to be somewhere different overall but in retrospect I was exactly where I needed to be at that time. 

I think over the past year I have grown up quite a bit and learned some very important core lessons about life.  

Don't fight the Universe!

I have always been such a big believer that things are meant to work out the way they are supposed to and I feel like this year I stopped fighting that (as much).  I am such a planner.  And although my planning hasn't been chucked out the window I have learned when it is out of control and when it is a good thing.

Unnecessary stress is not worth your time and energy.  Seriously! This year at work we were asked to start teaching 6 classes instead of 5 without any extra pay.  At first I was pissed and so were a lot of other teachers.  Our union even filed a lawsuit.  Then I stopped caring and paying attention.  It wasn't serving me and really those kids in my 6th class don't know any different.  They came to learn (most of them).  I am adaptable and I adapted and I have been busy but much happier since I stopped caring and started focusing on what is important to me. 

Other people’s action/weird behaviors are not always because of you or directed at you (even though it feels like it).  And when people have these crazy behaviors now you know what to expect. 

This has been an interesting lesson and it is one that one of my best friends, Rachel, has always said.  When people do weird things they are just setting the expectation of what you can expect out of them.  Now I probably see students/people doing weird things more than non-teachers do but I know there has been times where I am out in public and someone is rude to me or someone does something that I think is totally ridiculous or dangerous.  Instead of getting mad or hurt I just know what to expect of them now.  It is 99% likely that it is not me, its just how they are. 

Big Events:

We bought a house and I spent a lot of time happily painting and decorating
I started my master's program which is keeping me busy but I really am enjoying it
I learned just recently that part of my tuition would be paid back by my employer. F ya! 
We made the scary transition of Bradley leaving his cush job and moving to a job working with two close friends. Due to this we have financially been much more comfortable
We traveled a bunch together
I have been making art consistently which is something I haven't done for almost 6 years.
Bradley and I strengthened our communication skills and have been making a stronger effort to connect and spend quality time with each other

I am content on my birthday....which is weird.  I have a history of crying on my birthday. I think it has to do with this time of year and looking back at the past year and generally being unhappy with where I am at.   This year I am so excited to see what the next year brings.  I have a feeling that this trend of gratefulness and content will continue. And if for some reason challenging things come my way, as they usually do, I think I am emotionally much more equipped to handle them.

Sorry Blog

Sorry blog.  I have been a little negligent lately.  I know I have said this before but for some reason this is always the first thing to get pushed to the back of the line.  I will try to be better. Here is a few things that have been going on lately.

 

 

 

Two nights of parent teacher conferences.  It is always interesting.  I like to refer to it as a love fest.  I tell the parents how much I love there kids and the parents tell me how much their kids love me. 

Trip to Disneyland....I mean Ikea.  Its an hour an a half drive so it always feels like a special occasion.

Grad school still kicking my butt. Lots of reading, writing and drawing going on.

Sewing a lot for Bradley and my Halloween costume. 

First big snow of the year.  Sadly it took all the fall leaves with it. 

Zombie crawl with friends. We got to dress up and then go to local buisness' for free item and drinks.  It was a lot of fun
Finding some me time by giving myself weekly manicures

Lots of snuggle time with the cats.  I am pretty sure they are just using us for our warm bodies.
I am really excited for next weekend when Bradley and I venture to the mountains for the weekend to celebrate 8 years of being together.  We always make a bigger deal out of our first date anniversary than we do our wedding anniversary.  

Weekend Update

  
  

Fabric for Halloween costumes.  I guess that means I need to start sewing** Not sure if I should be offended by Art Teacher Barbie or not. Apparently all we like to do is paint pictures of flowers and cats** My good friends Allison wearing my new birdcage veil** Charcoal drawing is messy.  Currently grad school is kicking my ass** Early morning drawing time outside with my drawing class** Super adorable Rachel and Aubrey 


Every time I am pretty sure that life can't get any busier it does. I don't think anyone told me when I was a kid how fast life is going to speed up when you become an adult.  This morning I spent some extra time laying in bed gazing out the window and enjoying the stillness of the early morning.  Today I have to finish a drawing, start another one, go back and pick up the thread I forgot at the fabric store yesterday, go to the grocery store and if the weather clears we were talking about going to the pumpkin patch.  The house cleaning is just going to be ignored and I am perfectly okay with that.  I have been making sure to take a few minutes here and there to just sit and I have been spending some time just listening to music which I probably haven't done since I was a teenager.  Here are some songs from my fall playlist


Loving this song and video for Cruel by St. Vincent.  I think she might be my new favorite artist.

Do You Like My Buns?

Happy Sunday!  Or what is left of it.  I somehow managed to be super productive today in the getting things done/cooking/generally being awesome department.  I had my grocery shopping done by 9:30, lunch with friends, hanging out with the husband, laundry, wrestling with my duvet cover (does anyone else hate putting those things on?) and a full Indian inspired meal for dinner.

Like I mentioned earlier spring break was full of doing a bunch of projects I have been meaning to get to.  I thought I would share the brioche and the reversible tea towel I made this past week.  I will have to share my modified brioche recipe.  If you have never had it is amazingly flaky and good it just has a frightening amount of butter in it....like 3 sticks of butter...ya.