The weekend, progress and pregnancy portraits!

Greetings! I hope y'all had truly exceptional weekends! However, let's face it... not every weekend can be truly exceptional, so if your weekend wasn't exceptional, I hope it was, at the very least, pleasant. I was able to effectively pull myself out of my funk on Friday. I appreciate you're letting me vent... it helped tremendously! In addition to unloading into the ether, I spoke with my doctor who cleared up a little bit of confusion and I went back and read this: "The biggest lesson I have learned from the first phase of this experience.... you can not predict, plan, schedule, or manage this experience. As you might imagine, this is a MASSIVE revelation for me... but amazing all the same. For the first time in my life I truly have almost no control of my body, my mind, my emotions, my reactions, or my needs and wants and I can honestly say, I have never been happier. I have never been more relaxed and I have never been so excited to be surprised each and every single day. I'd say so far, this is an amazing introduction to our grandest adventure yet." from an entry I wrote in October, when I unveiled the big news (Our Greatest Adventure). Needless to say, I found that little paragraph to be pretty profound, given the state I was in at the end of last week. In addition, every Thursday I get to go have a non-stress test on Moon Pie. I say "I 'get' to go have..." because a non-stress test consists of me kicking back in a seriously cushy recliner in a private room in the hospital, closing my eyes and listening to Moon Pie's heart beat for about45 minutes. I have to say - there is absolutely nothing in this world more relaxing or soothing than that sound. So by this point I'm pretty much at the "okay, high drama - so you can't have cake.... listen to that beautiful heartbeat, take your medicine, eat a salad and get over yourself,"state.

So, having effectively gotten over myself, I decided to be a little more proactive in finding outlets to keep myself securely away from the downward spiral. I find cooking to be incredibly cathartic, so Friday night, I cooked dinner twice. One very very healthy dinner of lemon roast chicken, a baked sweet potato and a salad (that would be for yours truly) and one very unhealthy dinner of fried country-style steak, mashed potatoes and biscuits for Hunter. I highly recommend kicking off your weekend by frying something while dancing around the kitchen to Elton John and Neil Young. Trust me. Just do it.

SLC Trib & My Two Cents & Shutter Island

Saturday marked day one my subscription to the Salt Lake Tribune. We spent the morning under the covers with coffee and books and the news paper. I subscribed to the Tribune on Thursday after writing my last blog, mainly to give myself a little more writing fodder. I had heard that the SLC legislature is, essentially, off the grid insane and it sounded like it would be a great source for commentary. Turns out, its true... I just need to get a little more organized before I can share with you HOW insane politics actually are out here. I also thought it would be a good way for me (and Hunter by force... i mean by proxy) to become a little more immersed in the goings on/culture of our new home. Well, all I can say is, from an entertainment perspective, the SLC Trib does not disappoint. From a news/culture perspective... I'ma little disturbed... but that brings us full circle to writing fodder... so I guess mission accomplished? Anyway, I laughed and yelled at the paper until almost noon when we went to see Shutter Island. (It was okay - different from what I was expecting and slightly less than what I'm used to from Scorsese. It was more like a watered down Kubrick in my opinion.... but I'm far from a movie critic and it certainly didn't suck. I highly encourage you to form your own opinion on these things).

Spring Fever

Yesterday, spring fever officially hit. Hunter had to work so decided I would rake the back yard. No, we did not rake the back yard in the fall... we waited until spring. My rational for this was that the leaves would rot, fertilize, and moisten our completely miserable and pathetic back yard. Obviously, this is something that I made up to help me sleep at night, but it sounds good, doesn't it? Let me tell you how cute I looked out there trying to keep from just rolling down the hill in what were essentially mismatched pajamas wrestling with a rake and a coffee mug while trying to keep my shirt pulled down over my ever- expanding belly. Super cute. The problem with the above (aside from the fact that I pulled my back and can barely walk today) is that its a slippery slope (both literally and figuratively). Since raking, I have called and set up an appointment to have these two god-awful trees our our back yard hacked as much as humanly possible without cutting them down and I'm hoping that the people coming to do that will bring Edward Scissor Hands with them. We have these 6 rose bushes in our front yard that look like something out of a Tim Burton movie only Sans-Johnny Depp. (For those of you who aren't getting the reference, Johnny Depp kinda completes Tim Burton. Without him, he's often more just scary and deranged - like my rose bushes). I'm also working on getting together with a landscaper this week for some very minor suggestions (I do not need to be implementing a massive landscaping project and birthing a baby at the same time. I do not need to be implementing a massive landscaping project and birthing a baby at the same time... Repeat.) Its our first yard.... we have a serious, serious learning curve and unfortunately not too terribly much to start with. I just need to remember to be patient. If anyone sees me circling the parking lot at Lowes eyeing a pallet of mulch, please just stop me.

Socialization

Last but not least I went to a knitting class yesterday at Blazing Needles. This place is seriously awesome and they are teaching me how to make these!!!! I'm so super pumped. So, I got out of the house, got to be around people, I even broke down and had a couple of thin mints (dude, they were in my face for 3 whole hours!)

Conclusion

All in all it was a much needed, very positive weekend. I feel like I made a lot of personal progress just by accomplishing little things. I think we're all pretty exhausted and are planning a low key week. However, mental health context, it was definitely worth it. It very much helped me put everything back in perspective. I have 7 more weeks (or less) to enjoy this once in life time experience so I'm going to relax and enjoy my weekly 45 minute heart beat concerto, I'm going to enjoy the 15 minutes every night when Hunter reads Moon Pie a story and then bends down to listen to her heartbeat and gets a tiny little punch in the ear. I'm going to enjoy playing guess that protruding body part (so far we've identified head, foot, fist, elbow, knee, bum) and I'm going to remember that this is a truly magical and beautiful experience every single day. On that note, I have included some portraits below. Since some of you are far away and some of you haven't had a chance to really experience this first hand with me, these were taken at our place last weekend by a dear friend and ski-buddy.

Pictures