In Review

It's been a while, folks. I haven't had a lot of time to blog. When I did have time I didn't have the heart. I just wanted to sit on the couch and do something mind-numbing to rest my brain and body.

However, my baby just started sleeping through the night (like, completely through the night till 6 or 7 am, not just the medical definition of a 7 hour stretch that means I still have to wake up and feed him at 3 am) and so I feel like a new woman! Suddenly I have energy stores and motivation I haven't seen since 2016.

Since last blogging, my little family

• had a baby, 
• mourned the death of my brother, grandmother, and cousin and attended two of the funerals, 
• all four of us had hospital visits or stays, 
• finally convinced our insurance to pay for thousands of dollars in covered expenses that they inexplicably would not pay for months on end,
• bought a new-to-us car and then spent a lot of time and $$ getting it fixed periodically all summer, 
• endured lots of non-hospitalized illness (usually while out of town, of course), 
• attended four weddings (three out of state), 
• healed from injuries (including a broken nose, sliced finger, herniated disc, and impinged shoulder between us), 
• suffered through an assortment of other good and bad news,
• and probably went through a lot of other crap I can't even remember now.

I can't honestly say it was a bad year because there were so many blessing among the trials and trips. Nothing was as bad as it could have been. Everything could have been SO MUCH WORSE. There were lots of happy things that happened too. It was more a weird year. A crazy year. Not in that "oh life is crazy" way adults use it as an excuse for why they haven't kept in touch, but in a crazy everything-was-actually-extreme kind of way. 

The strain of it all on top of night after night of interrupted sleep was very taxing. I saved my brainpower for parenting and homemaking. I managed stress through sewing and crocheting while binge watching old seasons of Downton Abbey and America's Next Top Model. I didn't want to write down or share my thoughts.

I have a little distance and longer stretches of sleep since the worst of 2017 now and I'm ready to write again. Maybe I'll do catch-up posts. Maybe not. I'd like to share some of the things I've been making and activities we're looking forward to this year. Are personal blogs even still a thing in this era of Facebook and Instagram? Whatever. They are for me. See you around.

At wedding #4, October 2017

Nesting

In case you didn't read to the bottom of the last post, I'm pregnant. Surprise!

In a strictly medical sense, this pregnancy has been very much like the first one. From a personal management perspective, it's been way better. I'm a stay-at-home-mom this time around with the time and space to take care of myself better and it has made a big difference in my emotional, mental, and physical health. In retrospect, I can see I was a mess last time, always stressed out from work and always forgetting to eat and drink water through the day.

One interesting byproduct of improved health this time around is I'm getting nesting urges. This never happened last time, so it was a little weird at first and I'm almost self-conscious about it. There hasn't been a ton for me to prepare for the baby, so the nesting has resulted in a variety of other projects, often baby-related projects for family and friends.

Behold a sampling:

Baby clothes explosion! We were given a ton of clothes for which I am so grateful. It took me a week to sort and organize everything but we're set now for the next 18 months!

I've probably made 150 reusable nursing pads in the last year for friends having babies. Just say no to the disposables, people.

She likes to wear an apron whenever I do. After multiple attempts making a full size apron fit her, I remembered I had a child's apron pattern handy so I whipped this apron out one afternoon.

I'm going one-hour fabric basket crazy! I've made like 5 in the last month. They are the perfect size for a bathroom caddy or a diaper station organizer. Also pictured are towel bibs I made as part of these baby shower gift baskets for first time mom friends.

Every little baby needs a special occasion outfit. I crocheted this for baby's blessing day. Cardigan buttons not shown but added later. I've never crocheted anything more complicated than a fancy wash cloth so I am quite impressed with myself.

Thing that made me cry recently

In no particular order:

• Any athletic event on television that had a dramatic or inspiring outcome particularly American Ninja Warrior and the summer Olympics (including events in swimming, weight lifting, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, track and field, and volleyball)
• Varied events throughout the Harry Potter series as I re-listened to the audio books including Harry playing in and winning his first quidditch cup, recalling in advance while in the shower what happens to Dobby, actually listening about what happens to Dobby, the Battle of Hogwarts
• Being surprised by a harmless snake
• Watching this music video:
• Finding a broken string on my harp and realizing I need to buy and replace all the strings and remembering it's expensive and can't I just put it off? Except they haven't been replaced in like 10 years and they should have been replaced after 3 years. And why have a harp if I'm not going to take care of it. Why do I play the harp again?
• Inspiring commercials from Olympic sponsors
• Thinking about how much I love my husband
• Feeling really sick and being annoyed about it and just wanting to feel fine
• Watching Dance Academy
• Wanting to snuggle with my husband when I crawled in bed but didn't because we can't sleep if we're touching and he needs the sleep before waking up super early to go to work to support our family
• Finding my daughter's bunny and returning it to her so she could nap. She'd been sobbing for 15 minutes because it was missing and when I handed it over (after finding it tucked under her little potty chair in the bathroom) she choked back tears, smiled, and said "Mommy I'm happy! I'm happy!" and cried a little more for joy.

The baby will arrive by Valentine's Day.