Timely

Between that last “I sad.” post and today so much has happened.

“Oh really, Terry? Soooo much that you couldn’t find the words or the time to post? Really?”

Um… yeah. I always say that I really need to get better at that, but I never seem to. I need to set a blogging alarm.

Things that happened:

1) I graduated from Coldtowne! I’m bonafide now. It’s kind of surreal. It’s a feeling reminiscent of graduating from college where I’m all, “What now?” Pairing the timing up with taking a break from for maternity leave means I’ll have a longer than usual break, but hopefully I’ll be able to jump back in before I forget everything I’ve learned from the past 15 months. Daniel is really supportive of me getting back into it as soon as I’m healed and the brand! new! baby! craziness has settled into a nice routine.

The last show with Sixty Second to Sweatpants was awesome. For those of you who haven’t seen us (pretty much everyone), it’s Morgan and I, Brad and Alex. Morgan and I are both pregnant. So part of the hilarity (in my mind) is the stage picture of two pregnant women and two guys on stage. For the last show the guys came out with pillows under their shirts. Our Ouija conjured up person was Marilyn Monroe, portrayed by Brad. Hilarity.

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It’s a tradition at CT that one of your instructors says something about you before you get your diploma. Mine was from Ratliff and instead of being funny and taking the piss, it was really sincere and genuine. That really meant a lot. I don’t know that I would have stuck with the program if it wasn’t for him and the inspiration he imbued.

This pic is from the official Coldtowne Flickr page.

CTGrad Ratliff

2. SXSWi. Holy shit that was EXHAUSTING. For real. I’ve taken part in SXSW for almost as long as I’ve been living in Austin and this was the first year I felt unprepared physically to handle it. I really took for granted the toll that being seven months pregnant would have on the experience. All the walking, standing, walking, standing was way too much for me. Sad face, man. Sad face.

But I performed in this and it was awesome:

3. RADIOHEAD! We were maybe 15 people back from the stage. It was glorious and amazing and exhausting. The baby kicked enough for me to know he was into it, too.

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I’m 30 weeks along now. When I told my doctor that I exchanged my first-trimester worry that I’d lose the baby with my third-trimester worry that I’m going to go into labor early, she said I only have four more weeks to worry about that. After 34 weeks they don’t stop pre-term labor b/c the risks of the medicine outweigh the risks of the labor that that point. So, yay only four more weeks of worry?

belly

After SXSWi, I have bigger plans for this blog. You know, like I have every year? But this year I’m going to make the changes I’m always talking about. You’ll see.

womp

I’m having good days and bad days, more bad than good lately. (And by lately, I mostly mean this week.) In my head mentally, more than physically, which is weird and not something I’m accustomed to.

I’m accustomed to physical pain and discomfort. The brain surgery and the recovery made me and physical pain close, close friends. I know how to handle pain. The headaches are worse, but I expected them to be. Being pregnant makes it more difficult to manage without pain pills, but I’m managing it.

I’m slower now. Moving around is more deliberate in all the usual ways pregnancy makes moving deliberate, and in some bonus ways I didn’t expect. Pregnancy carpel tunnel in my wrists and ridiculous foot/leg pain makes typing and walking difficult sometimes.

So that’s that, body-wise. Mentally, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve always been, what’s the word… plucky? Happy is my default. Seriously. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I’ve had things come up (as we all do in life) to make me sad, but I’ve rarely been in so deep that my toes couldn’t touch the bottom. Lately I’m finding myself crying for no reason, staying in bed under a cloud of funk I can’t see through and pretending to be happy when I’m very clearly not. It’s not 24/7. Which is good. It’s not something I don’t think I can handle. It’s just very present right now. Today.

It’s probably hormones. It’s probably one of those things I haven’t gotten to in all the pregnancy books I still need to read. But it sucks.

Desktop

Corrin over at Oh Hey, What’s Up? just wrote a post about what our desks look like. Since mine at home is currently being used as a catch-all for Christmas presents, random baby things and quite possibly a winning lottery ticket, you get to see what I stare at every day at work.

I recently traded in my desk chair for a comfy chair with an ottoman (it’s the pregnancy chair, and it gets passed around from expectant mom to expectant mom) so I snapped a triage of what my workspace looks like from the comfort of it.

Now, mind you, I JUST cleaned it up. I’m posting it here mostly so that Corrin shakes her head in my general direction.

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What does YOURS look like?

CRACKTASTIC.

So this week my plan is to write a three-part series on why the hell my head hurts so damn much (and why it seems to be getting worse). I’d like to get it all written and published this week, but I’m also not going to pretend like I have that kind of energy.

But here’s a neat little list of things that I’m enjoying the hell out of lately:

Pinterest.

    It’s a little crack-like in its ability to time suck.

Cracked.comThis link here about combining In Rainbows and OK Computer to make the ultimate album that Radiohead meant to to be listened to together but made TEN YEARS APART. It’s kind of mind-blowing. (And lest you think I actually went through the trouble to make this happen in my earcans, you’re wrong. I’ve just been thinking about how cool it is.)

W.E.L.D.E.R. — Which is a word-building game that, like everything else in this post, can only be described as crack-like in its awesomeness. Download! Play!

Clementines. I CAN’T STOP EATING THESE. It’s not even a joke, y’all. If there’s a disease opposite scurvy, I’d have it.

And finally, I saw this today on mashable.com and I can watch it forever and laugh all day. ALL DAY.

guitar

What’s been cracklin’ in your life lately?

Right now…

My niece is in the delivery room. Her mother is holding one hand and her husband is holding the other. She’s in pain. So much so that my mother, her grandmother, left the room to catch her breath. Her voice was shaking on the phone. That feeling, that heart-in-your-throat feeling, passed through the phone and I know with absolute certainty she’d do anything to take that pain away. The first-born daughter of her first-born daughter, dealing with all of the anxiety and pain of bringing her own first-born love into this world.

My heart right now is wrenched up so tight in my throat for my sister. She’s always been the strongest one of us three. And she has to take all of that strength and be a pillar for her daughter. Sitting next to her, listening to her little girl cry. She’s no doubt trying to channel all that pain from her daughter’s body from that little hand she’s holding into her big, strong heart. I remember when it was her, bringing Lisa into the world. I was a kid, too young to really get it, but I remember how beautiful and exhausted my big sister was when we were finally allowed in the room. And how thrilled my brother-in-law was. And how peaceful and tiny my niece looked, swaddled up in the nursery.

It doesn’t seem like two and half decades. Not one bit.

And then there’s her husband, Patrick. He’s fresh from Afghanistan, just in time to be a father. Thank god, all the gods, everywhere that he’s here today. His little boy gets born here in a matter of minutes and he gets to be here for it. In times like these, in a world like this, that’s such a blessing.

I’m sending all of them all the strength and hope and love I can muster. I just got a text message from my mother that Lisa is still pushing. She’ll be done soon. Done and exhausted and thrilled and overwhelmed by the beautiful, amazing, newest member of our tribe.

TEEE VEEE

Now that television is back from its winter hiatus, it’s sucking all of my time away again.

Allegedly, this is time I could be spending reading, organizing, cleaning, cooking, doin’ mah nails or … I don’t know, updating this here blog. But I have to admit, lately all I want to do is take my jeans off, get comfy, sit back on my couch with my feet up, eat copious amounts of clementines and do absolutely nothing.

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People who have children are all, “DO EXACTLY THAT. You’ll never be able to do (insert pretty much anything here) again ever in your life.” Which I’m taking as a bit hyperbolic, but what do I know.

This is what’s currently snagging all the memory on my DVR:
Continue reading “TEEE VEEE” »

Treats and Snoozin’, Snoozin’ and Treats

In the last three months of 2011 I only posted here six times. Six.

Those three months held so much collective WHOA that I should have been posting every day. I had a lot to say. Or, rather, I’ve been thinking a lot about an unnerving amount of things. I didn’t turn here, I didn’t write in my livejournal, I didn’t even write in my actual non-virtual journal. I just didn’t write, fullstop.

I have theories about why I haven’t been as accessible in the blogging, but none that I really want to share. The good news is that I’m pretty sure my head is in a good place now and I’m ready to get back in the thick of things.

Oh, and here’s where I just talk about things of the baby variety. Continue reading “Treats and Snoozin’, Snoozin’ and Treats” »

Four months and some change.

I honestly am having a difficult time coping with the insane speed time is flying by. Thanksgiving JUST HAPPENED. Yet somehow I’m leaving for my British Christmas a week from tomorrow. My niece’s baby shower is this weekend. I get to tell the whole world this baby is a girl baby when I have my ultrasound next week. (Okay, so maybe my other half still thinks it’s a boy baby, only ONE OF US can be right.) I’m almost halfway through this cooking phase of parenthood. HALF. WAY. I’ve gotten only 40% of my Christmas shopping done.

All this is happening so incredibly fast I can barely keep up.

I was sick over the past couple of days. While this kind of sick could usually be patched up with a couple of vicodin and a swig of DayQuil and a shot of Pepto, my desire to not want to birth a crack baby meant I had to settle for rest and fluids. REST AND FLUIDS. Like it’s the year 1623. The rest was nice, but I couldn’t DO anything but that. No catching up on bills or writing Christmas cards or online shopping or writing or cleaning the house or organizing or ANYTHING. I did manage to catch up on every Big Bang Theory episode in existence, though. So there’s something.

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I saw The Nutcracker on Friday. And being completely unfamiliar with it (no, really.) I had no idea what I was in for. A friend of mine asked me if I wanted a brief summary before I went in but I decided to go in cold.

Which meant I left completely bewildered at what the hell I had just seen. WHERE WERE ALL THE NUTCRACKERS? What was up with that giant woman? Why go through all plot building that with the weird uncle in the beginning if you were never going to revisit it again?

Oh, okay. LOTS OF DANCING.

Where in the hell did the mice come from? Why were they fighting soldiers? Was this commentary on the French Revolution? (Nope. Wrong musical.)

OH MY GOD THERE’S SO MUCH DANCING.

And then the end? They just straight up JR Ewing-ed that ending with, “Oh hai! Just a dream y’all!”

eye roll

Snarl.

Harmony, Sweet Harmony

So I go and drop an “I’m pregnant!” bomb on my blog and then leave it alone for almost a month. That’s just wrong.

In the past month of high-speed crazy, there’s been a fantastic Thanksgiving, a visit from the British Woodroffe clan, lots of moisturizing, lots of go-go-going and not nearly enough sleep.

It’s been a blast though. I’ve got no complaints about a single thing in this wonderful life. So there’s that.

(Okay, so I can’t fit into anything I own and I’m pretty much living in leggings and big shirts and I can’t sleep on my tummy anymore. I could complain about all that, but … nah.)

I’m off to Dallas with the Woodies for a long weekend. I’m leaving this photo of a page in Brenner’s Minvera’s Wreck that’s a quote from the über-talented Roy Danger here to remind me to live in each moment.

Because that’s all we have in our youth. We can’t use up all our memories now, elsewise what will we have to push us through those golden years?

(There’s a photo I can’t find of Minerva’s Wreck. ABOUT NOSTALGIA.)