i'm here!

don't fret, mon chers, all is well! I'm fine, LL is fine (and the size of a fig!)

Trouble is, since my house is located in an area where we still use tin cans attached with string to communicate, I blog at work. And at times, like the past weeks and for the foreseeable future, I am so busy that I just can't take out time to write a post.

I suppose I could write at home, and then just post at work, but let's face it: I'm lucky if I can get out of the car after work before I begin dozing off.

So, until the albatross of a catalog is done, I won't be posting much. Not to fear, all is well.

In the meantime, I charge you to leave comments with other fun and amusing and time-sucking places to visit on the web to keep each other entertained. I volunteer:

whedonesque: Joss the way we like it
Admittedly, of niche interest, but at least Lizzie will understand!

HE LOOKS LIKE.... The Morbid Game of Psychoanalyzing Strangers in Pictures

Or, go download something by my new favorite, Arcade Fire. Or something by my old favorite, David Byrne. Or (again with the niche) this amazing Phish show.

file under: miscellaneous

I've been ruminating all day on how to describe hearing the baby's heartbeat yesterday. And what I've come up with is that it's just not possible. Well, not possible for me, anyway. My powers of description just utterly fail. Or maybe it's like trying to describe the first time you ride a bike without training wheels, or what a heart attack feels like. Words just fail. So, I heard my baby's heartbeat. And I can't wait to hear it again.

In other news, Pompyland has been notified of the imminent arrival. Hurrah for the end of secrecy!

Today is the third day in a row where I don't feel like throwing up every other minute. Please oh please oh please let this be the end.

Mosquitoes can indeed penetrate the bottom of one's foot.

Flintstones chewable vitamins are a perfectly acceptable substitute for nasty prenatal vitamins until such time as my stomach can accept them again.

JBQ are leaving on Friday. I am saddened.

When stepped upon on a dark porch, fresh peach cores feel very much like rodent insides. But they're not. The rodents are left on the bedroom carpet, windowsill, or comforter, and not on the porch.

It's time to pick raspberries.

I am giving up on maintaining the following vegetables: parsley, chard, parsnips, soybeans, bush beans, potatoes and carrots. It's just not possible to keep up with the weed removal.



And last but not least, I give you an excerpt from today most memorable conversation:

me: Everything went great yesterday, so I'll going to start telling people at work about the baby today.



MIL: oh, oh, how wonderful. Then everyone will be swarming me.

lola, aglow

here, a baby, there, a baby

Apparently, pregnancies can be mildly contagious! That, or practically every married person I know shares my biological clock timing.

I've just found out that my cousin Lorraine in Ireland is pregnant with her first, and due two months before I am! This is good. I really love her and her husband Paul. They'll make fantastic parents. I have to admit, though, that I am more than a little jealous of her maternity allowances on the Emerald Isle. Lorraine is a teacher in Dublin, and she'll work until her delivery. Then she gets nine months of leave, not having to return until the following September. Geez. I'll be lucky to get a full 12 weeks. Yay for Lorraine!

And then this morning, I got word that my dear friend mmphh is going to have her second baby a month after me! I am so happy for her and mmphh. It will be so much fun to compare notes and since she's already gone through this once, I'm going to pepper her with questions. The only thing is, she lives in mmphh which is far away from me. Grrr. Also, she's one of my best friends from mmphh and that brings our foursome's baby tally to a whopping SIX. Incredible. Whooee! Since I'm not positive I should be blogging about it until she tells me its ok, I've muffled the joyful news in order to protect the parties involved.

It's happening already. I'm becoming baby-obsessed. Must. keep. control. It helps that I haven't yet told the people at work. Although I can't wait to stop pretending that I feel fine. I just wanna go to bed.

I keep forgetting to bring my camera out to the garden, and for this, I apologize. Things are going a little wild, but tomatoes and peppers and most beans will be a success. I have, however, discovered about a bajillion Colorado Potato beetle larvae feasting on my potato plants. They need to be controlled, but organically, which means I concoct some weird tea or hand pick the little buggers off. With bucket in hand, I went down yesterday to begin the picking, but there I discovered that the local birds are having a kegger in the potato patch and beetles are the hors d'oeuvre. I love nature! I think, in a few days, I'll have considerably less beetles to worry over.

Also, I discovered that thin yoga pants are no match for voracious mosquitoes. They, ummm, attacked my bottom, which is making it considerably less pleasant to sit in my chair at work today.

bonfire of the daddies

raves and rants

Last night, Glenn and I braved the hordes of mosquitoes to harvest half a bushel basket of basil. This is one of my favorite moments as a gardener. The basil is rocking out, and now all those nights of starting seeds in the late winter begin to seem worth it. We only take the top half of the plants, in order to encourage larger, bushier plants further down the road.
Basil and tomato salad
Basil PESTO!
Grilled chicken with basil
dried basil
basil foccaccia
Of course, my sensitive tummy doesn't want any of these things at the moment. But I'm going on the assumption that someday, it will.

So, onto the next topic of discussion. Yesterday, I had my first experience with irrational, mind-bending cravings. It was brutal. The result? Erm, 4 dozen bagels from H&H Bagels in NYC are being overnighted to me via Fedex. I thought it was a reasonable reaction. You don't agree? So here I am, patiently waiting for my Priority Overnight package to arrive. As of 12:21 pm, it still ain't here. So, I succumb to the siren call of the tracking number. I knew I should just wait it out, but...bagels!!!

Let's take a look at the results.

So, ummm, you're telling me that my package left the Tri-State area to take a quick jaunt to Tennessee? What the hell for??? Fine, I understand this whole hub setup, so whatev. I'll get over it.

Then, my bagels are sent to Londonderry, NH, and then onto Lebanon, NH. Fine so far. Lebanon is only 21 miles from me.

Then, apparently, my bagels were quashed from the delivery run they were out on and went back to Londonderry WHICH IS 110 MILES FROM HERE. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR THE CRANKY PREGNANT WOMAN. I WANT A BAGEL. PRONTO. And not some piece of bread shaped into a ring and foisted upon the uneducated masses of New England by the local bagel shop or grocery store. These are not bagels. They are not even designer imposters. They are rolls. They are bread with toppings. They are not bagels.

pant pant

If you do not recognize a difference between actual bagels and the things called bagels in the other 95% of the country, or if you simply don't care, please disregard this post and go about your business. And if you think I'm just nuts, then please do not ever bring up the subject of crab cakes in my presence. That is all.

Happy 5th of July

Editor's Note: This post was delayed due to Blogger upload snafus.

I love the Fourth. It's my dad's birthday, so we usually wind up having a big ole party, which my mother does really well. This year, fourteen family members and four dogs spent the weekend at their house, and (mostly) had a blast. We got to announce about the baby, which was so exciting, and I got lots of sympathy for feeling so yuck. We went swimming in the Resevoir, rode the Alpine slide in Stowe, went to the farmers' market, and barbecued every night. We watched the fireworks in Burlington from the roof of the building where my dad works. They're getting pretty spiffy. I love the sparkly ones.

Some dipshit brought his dog out onto the roof, and the poor creature went bananas when the fireworks started. It had a complete breakdown, broke away, looked like it was going to run off the roof at any second. Ugh. So when he finally caught the dog, does he take it away? No! He tries to wrestle it into calmness and watch the fireworks. After twenty minutes, when he finally left, all the people on the roof applauded. It reminded me of all those poor creatures whose people dragged them to Phish shows and tied them to cars or who let them roam or run away. There were dozens of dogs roaming the fields during Coventry. It made me so mad.

Here I am showing off the afghan to the Knitting Grandmother. All her children (my mother included) think I am out of my skull to actually want to knit. They don't understand the addiction, but everyone wants a (bag, blanket, fill-in-the-project here).

I'll leave you now with this last picture. That's my husband under there, who valiantly tried to stay awake past 9pm every night. I found him asleep like this a couple hours later. That is Nora's giant reindeer. Discuss amongst yourselves.