Daniel and I have recently decided that we have a new way to rank favorite restaurants. It's really simple: Good = waiters smile when they see the carseat and discretely pour me new water when I nurse. Bad= waiters stick us at the worst table when they see carseat and stay away from us like we have the plague.

Now, in our current hometown and economic level we can't afford much in the way of restaurants. Here they are either WAY too expensive or WAY too cheap (as in a Hotdog stand) or they are pasta (and too expensive at that, I don't pay for pasta). So it's not like we have a lot of choice ANYWAY! But we do feel that the pricepoint we are at is child-friendly. We aren't talking 5 stars or anything....especially for a three month old...I mean she's quiet unless she's hungry and if she's hungry....I got that taken care of:)

However, we are now down to three. Granted they are all FABULOUS. The staff is accommodating, the food amazing, and the pricepoints tolerable........but we sometimes laugh at our choices.

We simply go: Greek? Sushi? Thai? and that's it.

There aren't a lot of nursing moms out there with me. So far in the three months that we've had the little one I have as yet to have seen ONE OTHER MOTHER breastfeeding in public. I can't be the ONLY one but sometimes I feel like I am making some sort of statement instead of simply feeding my hungry child.

But then again, children are some sort of statement -that is something I am still getting used to. The presence of a child immediately affects how people think about you and what they assume you think about the world. And what you do with that child becomes even more of a statement.

So I'll stand by this one. Breastfeeding in public -go for it!

(and if a restaurant makes you feel uncomfortable with the baby....never go back!)

Public vs. Private

I think something that all creative people struggle with is balancing their private life with their public life. And most of the time we talk about how hard it is to find the time and space for creativity.

But there is another tension that we don't talk about as much and this is the tension between keeping the private, private and keeping the public, public.

This is probably something that fiction or maybe memoir writers struggle the most with. How tempting it is to put that conversation down you heard at the coffee shop into a novel...how wonderful is it to work out your family's drama in a book, or to live in your imaginary dream life (and maybe even give it all a happy ending). But of course, aunt ____ might not want her secrets spilled in a novel and your dad doesn't want to read about your fantasies either!

Still this tension is carried through to other kinds of writing as well. This dissertation doesn't spring from a made up interest. I am interested in childhood as a concept which affects life. And I'm interested in it in a very public way. I think for far too long children have remained an aspect of the private and we haven't given childhood a chance to speak in the public arena. Of course, however, when one makes childhood public there is a host of other issues -we have to start talking about the rights of children and how to protect them in that space. We have a responsibility to act as well once we regard childhood as a public concept.

And yet, childhood is also intimately personal and private. And should remain so. It is one of the reasons why I am putting less pictures of Fiona up on the web -she deserves a chance to make herSELF known, and not through the eyes of her momma. And I also, have to learn to write this dissertation without resorting to sharing all the details, hopes, dreams, pains of my own childhood. I have to keep it all balanced as I write. I have to decide what is of interest to me and only me and what should interest others.

In any case, this is something that challenges my writing (when I do find time to do it). How shall I balance the private and public? How shall I share with the world? How does the world share itself with me?

When its too hot to think

So we have the air conditioner on. But it's still stuffy in the house. And humid.

Window units just don't feel like central air. They don't work. They simply keep you sane. But you can't cook inside with them on. You can't drink a cup of tea. You can't sleep with a blanket. You simply can sit and listen to them hum. You can't watch tv because they are too loud and you can't hear yourself think.

If it wasn't for the wee one we would just sweat it out and at least hear the night crickets...but its just a tad bit cooler with them on, so we sweat.

She's asleep. Daddy's asleep. The dog and cat are asleep. And I'm awake. It's just not comfortable. So I came downstairs to write, to think, to read a bit of Heidegger before bed. And I realized that Heidegger is just too much when it is too hot. He makes my head hot.

So I poured some old wine over some ice cubes with a lemon twist. It's like a bad sangria...and I sewed some pants that needed hemming. And now I'm back on the computer. And I'm thinking.

I'm thinking its a bit too hot to think...but I have to use this time, when I'm relaxed and the house (except for the hum of the window units) is quiet.

Blissfully quiet.

Ok Mr. Heidegger, whatz ya got?

A Judgement

I try not to judge mothers. Motherhood is challenging and however one gets through the day with the child safe and happy, I'm all for it. That may mean that some mothers stay at home with their children all day long and do nothing but cuddle with them. It may mean that another mother goes on mommy and me trips all week long to Yoga, to Swimming, To Music. For some mothers it may mean handing the baby over to Daddy as soon as he comes home from work.
And for some mothers it means scooping the child up as soon as she gets home from work and giving her a nanny a big hug as well. And for some it means hiring a nanny so that she can up to her home office and write her article or finish her artwork or file a legal complaint.
And for some mothers it means hiring a cook or a housekeeper so that she feels sane. Whatever works.
For me, it means trying to juggle a lot of that myself and cuddle as much as possible!

HOWEVER... and I realize that this is an opinion:

I do not understand how a mother can hire a housekeeper, a nanny, a gardener, a cook, and a driver and still consider herself A STAY AT HOME MOM. Yes, she can consider herself stay at home...but a stay at home MOM! You do have to do SOME parenting at SOME point during the say.....I continue with the conversation that sparked this recent judgement:

Fiona and I often walk up to the nearby Starbucks when the thermometer goes above 86 (that seems to be our house breaking point).

Yesterday, FATHER"S DAY, we overheard some lovely dressed woman coming back from YOGA class. They were lamenting about how they didn't have the TIME to find a new housekeeper and driver for their young children. I put some of the conversation down here:

"I mean, last week, I had to skip both Yoga and Cardio to schedule two different interviews. And I was planning to go to the summer house in Vermont next week, you know, a week without the stress of the children, but I think that if I can't find a driver I just won't be able to go!"
The woman next to her replied, "I know, it takes so much time, and you really have to be careful about who you let DRIVE YOUR CHILDREN!" (my bold face)
She continued, "I had to fire my last housekeeper because she was getting her PhD and I really think that she put more effort into that work than my house."

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!

Fiona and I had to leave and brave the elements before mommy whipped out her sarcasm in a public place which currently employs the breadwinner of the house.

Seriously, parent as you will....but if you decide to have a child...please spend at least a few moments a day with them!

Work

I read this blog called, dig this chick, thanks for the recommendation KB. I like it. I like her pictures, I like that she has her business and considers herself a working mom at home. She recently posted an entry about how her house is never picked up, she always has 8000 things going at once. So she decided to post pictures of how her life/job/kids/home all mesh together. Her pics are better but here's my entry:



A pile of laundry, a cooing baby, a computer cord, my cereal bowl, and a bathtowel from trying to dry my hair that never got put away.

In any case, I've been going back and forth about thinking that parenting is a job and how I also have another job of writing this dang dissertation (I need a name for that thing!).

I think however, that I'm going to come down on the side that parenting is not a job. GASP! Can I dare say this, just after the night where I accused (wrongfully) Daniel of not pulling his weight? (he so does, I was just exhausted and the little one just wanted to lay on mommy and make her hot and it really didn't make sense for her to cry for mommy while I went to Home Depot and dropped off a propane tank too heavy for me to lift, so he went out and I stayed in and whined a bit with her)

ANYWAY, I DIGRESS.

But it can't be a job. It can't be about divvying up chores and sides and mornings. I've been trying to squeeze in writing time between Fiona time and it wasn't working because it made Fiona a chore. It made parenting a job-something to get paid for.

But we aren't paid for it. Writing is the job. Parenting is my life (or at least an aspect of it). I'm still not sure how it all fits together. But I do know that I can't squeeze her in or squeeze in writing. It has to be about having a job (writing) and then coming home or coming back to my life, a new one, this parenting one, but MY LIFE.

And it means I can't accuse anyone of not "doing" something because I can't make a chart out of it. I can't manage it. I can't simply hire an employee to do it for me. It's not a job.

Oh yeah...I'm 30!

I just wanted to say that this marks blogging for me for one year! Which means I'm 30. Wow.

I just read this letter I wrote to a scholarship committee for undergrad at Transy (side note: Daniel and I just cleaned out a BUNCH of papers that we had been lugging around for 7 years...lots of recycling opportunities).

ANYWAY

In that letter I said that I wanted (mind you that I wanted to do all this before I was 30)

-discover a cure for heart disease
-save wild dolphins
-earn a degree in biology
-live in a foreign country
-have a family

1 out of 5 isn't bad, right? (and please don't laugh at the cliches, I grew up in suburban Ohio -I'm lucky to have survived with any imagination whatsoever and I credit that to my parents who forced me outside to play).

It is so very funny how our "so called bucket lists" change as we grow....I do still want to live in a foreign land though -one with health care, vacation days, and access to good wine!

In any case this is all really a lead into a priority that I always had but never really understood the practical consequences of until experiencing them. I've always believed -without understanding- simply intuiting- that there is a place for being a woman who has a family, who falls in love, who giggles in dresses but who also thinks and does things.

Which means it's not about whether one works at home cleaning the laundry or writing a dissertation or whether one goes to an office. For me, it is about how one's doing and thinking and children and dressing and giggling are all part of a person who has to -for her sanity- make sense of it as one person, one human being.

It's not a project that one can check of a list. Feminism can't be achieved -it is a life long journey- a practice.

Back to Work

Hello Fragment 54!

Back to work. Fiona and I left you at 2 weeks because...well, Fiona decided that life was more important than a blog. But now she's almost 9 weeks old, practically grown up (or at least grown out of her newborn clothes) :)

I can't imagine only having had 6 weeks to learn how to do this thing called, parenthood and specifically for me, mommyhood. At that point I was just finally feeling recovered physcially, we were just starting to go to bed at a regular time, and there wasn't even a glimmer of routine to our days.

It amazes me that children and parents aren't afforded more together time in our society. We place so much emphasis on our children getting a good education, finding the right home in the right place, making sure that they hang out with the 'proper' people....but childhood itself isn't prioritized in our country. We simply are making sure that our children progress quickly into adulthood which means, at 6 weeks, forcing moms back into the workforce, forcing 6 -week babies into a childcare routine, and forget about what we do to daddies...who are forced back to work before the baby has barely opened her eyes (so he gets baby time when mommy is exhausted, baby is tired of mommy, and daddy is stressed from work)!

Instead of finding a place for childhood routines in our lives we are forced to put childhood into our economic routines of livelihood.

Last week I was stressed. Fiona doesn't take a bottle, refuses a pacifier, and (last week) was just barely pushing 3 hours between feedings). I was so overwhelmed because I just felt that at 7 weeks she should be doing all this stuff....I mean, what if I were forced to leave the house to go out for work.....

And then I snapped out of it (after some hours/days of worrying on some phone calls)... Because I am lucky, I don't have to go away to work...my work is here, writing. So, I took away the bottles and made the pacifier simply an option. I focused on pushing her a bit between feedings (because its good for her) but we followed her naptime schedule.

And lo and behold, this week we are onto a routine. Not every day and not perfect and there has definitely been some screaming and crying (and not only by the baby) But she's happy. And believe it or not, I worked on the freaking dissertation....and I'm happy. We go on walks in the morning, we sweat it out under the air conditioner and do yoga in the afternoon. I write when she is playing by herself. I check email and blog when she needs me to entertain her.

(the dog is getting a little bit ignored...I'm not perfect yet...and Daniel still comes home to a messy house and sometimes little in the way of dinner...but that's getting better)

But gosh we are so darn lucky....because we are going back to work on our own terms....and not some arbitrary 6 weeks decided by government committee.

Now, if only daddy could join us!

Fiona is Two Weeks Old- ALREADY!

Counting

If I had to sum up pregnancy with one word it would be

counting.

OH I know, it should probably be something more about growth or development or even something virtuous like patience or moderation. And, yes, it

is all these things. One might even call it an education. Actually, I wo

uld call it an education -of self, of other, of the cosmos.

But truly what it comes down to is counting. Months, Weeks, Days,

Hours, Minutes. Kicks, Hugs, Smiles. Centimeters, Calories, Pounds. Onesies, Diapers, Washcloths. Bank Accounts, Bills, Insurance Premiums. Tears -oh the tears. Belly laughs. Number of Miles traveled by moms and grandmoms. Miles to the Hospital. Breaths. Beats in a Yoga Pose. Contractions. Thank You Notes. Receiving Blankets.
Trips to the Bathroom in One Freaking Hour. The Clock ticking at 3 in the morning when the rest of the house is asleep.

Yes, Counting. And as Daniel and I (and I think the entire rest of the worl

d) await a new birthday (sometime in the next 19 days) I post a little bit of a picture count in celebration of week 37...full term!

The Winds of March

Today it's cold outside and very gray. And yet the crocus have bloomed, the forsythia is a burst of yellow in the back and the daffodils are peeking their pointy heads out. My strawberry plants survived the winter and are rising above the leaf bed in the garden. My lavender is turning green and there are blooms on the pachysandra.

This is March. The month where the wind blows cold but the sun beats down warm and the sky changes each and everyday.

It has also been the month where I have experienced the most up and down period of this pregnancy.

I was hospitalized 3 weeks ago for severe contractions coming every 2 minutes apart. So the staff did everything they possibly could to keep the baby stable and in. They were completely successful and we came home safe but exhausted. I was in a lot of pain and very weak so my mother has come to take care of me which has allowed Daniel a chance to breathe and myself a chance to recover.

But now, it's week 36 and next week we all start wishing the baby out! I feel like the last 3 weeks have simply been one large pendulum on which I have had no choice but to hang on and swing. Nothing tragic happened, nothing horrible and yet I have a sense of loss. This loss has nothing to do with grief so I don't want to over dramatize it or ask for sympathy but I feel that it is important to mark.

Because 3 weeks ago I was charging ahead on my dissertation, I was writing every morning, commuting to the city for my job, swimming, trying to stay energized. And now, I find myself weak after a walk around the park (mom takes me for a walk every day to keep my legs and back strong), I fall asleep after a round of yoga (I'm still hoping for a natural birth so I want to keep limber) and I ache after the simplest of tasks.

I slept through most of week 34 and I think that's where the lack lays still.

Somehow in that week of recovery I found myself in a new position...one where the baby and I were not any longer in a battle of wills of which desire, need, or emotion would win the day but one in which the baby wins -every day, hands down, no question, I'm not even in the race anymore.

And I know -that this is part of parenting- that children take precedence and run your life and all the thousands of things that everyone since I've announced we are having a child has wanted to tell me "oh the trauma of having children!!"

But I'm not writing about the surprise at the feeling. I am trying to find a way to describe the feeling -not to overcome it but to understand it, to feel it fully. Right now, I still find myself lacking words, lacking the emotions even.

Also it is not enough to complain about it -this lack of control, of personal space -what do "we" do with it once it has possessed us.

I can't believe that it is enough to simply make it a cliche, "children run your life". Instead, as a part of the human condition -as a part of the familial condition we have a choice in our response to it.

And I ask as the March winds blow colder-what will mine be?

Love in Feb.

Daniel and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We never have. Okay, scratch that...we don't celebrate Valentine's day together....My mother loves Valentine's day and always sends a card and a box of homemade Valentine cookies...and Daniel and I eat them UP! We love them and we always love our card. In fact, the cookies were so good this year I didn't remember to take a picture of them all laid out until they were all gone! Thanks mom!

This is just to say that although Valentine's day came and went for us this year as it does every year, we had a most magical month full of love. My dear lady friends from NYC and NJ threw a fabulous shower for me and reminded me that even here, in this cold state far from old friends and family we are surrounded by people who care. I've had people walk me to the subway in the freezing sleet/slush/snow making sure that I do not fall on my butt. I've had offers for friends to watch Pascal if we have to run to the hospital quickly. It is SO VERY good to feel loved.

The baby has shown me some love too. She now kicks for some favorite songs and books and she seems to have figured out that her momma is in pain if she lays her head into my round ligament. My new favorite move is feeling her kick when I'm swimming on my back. It's like we are both saying, "we love love love the water! and the water loves us back!"

Daniel, of course, cannot stay still so he has tirelessly created the nursery/office henceforth known as the noffice. This has been a labor of love. His favorite books went away and then he let me PAINT one of his bookshelves!!! He fixed up a wardrobe for the baby (I'm not sure that there was any love shed on the doors..they were a pain). He's put up the crib, assembled the high chair, and then last night of all things he finished the floor to our bedroom so now the entire upstairs has a new clean splinter free floor.

I've tried to remain vigilant about my writing but I took a break over the last week to create some nursery art. I love these little owls, I saw them online for 45 dollars a piece and then once I enlarged the picture I said....I CAN DO THAT! So I broke out the paint, the collage paper and some glue and I think they turned out okay! And I think the frames were a dollar, I painted them with leftover primer and the paper ran me about 5 bucks...so I just saved around 120 dollars! And I LOVE saying that!

I sit here in the Feb.'s last hurrah of a snowstorm and await the spring (which I also love and feel I shall adore it doubly this year).

Love to all,

Stephanie

A Letter

Dear _____________:

Don't:
give me horror stories about your labor (does it look like I need stories of pain)
give me advice about raising children (did I ask for it)
tell me parenting is difficult (did I say to you that it looked easy)
tell me to work my ass off for the next 10 weeks (does it look like I'm not?)
ask me my weight (unless you want me to ask me yours)
tell me that I look huge for my 'month' or small for my 'month' or anything for my 'month'
touch my belly.

Do:
give up your sit on the subway for me
tell me to hang in there
ask me how I'm feeling
share the last piece of chocolate cake with me
ask me if I need anything
walk a bit slower when I'm walking next to you
offer a hand over an icy patch of sidewalk.

All the best,

Stephanie.

Production

This is a rather mundane post...it simply tells some goings on...but that is Jan. right, a time for staying in and getting stuff done, keeping warm, and apparently a good time for growing a big belly.

So I thought this week I'd post some pics of the growing belly over the past month! We are nearing week 30! Daniel looks at me sometimes and goes....oh my goodness what week is it? And really, we just have to get to 40?

Late December

Jan. 18

Jan. 29

But that's still really 2.5 months, right? RIGHT?

The baby kicks harder every day. She seems to like Daniel's voice and usually kicks for him after he talks to her for a while. She still really likes the train and this month's trick was freaking Daniel out by sticking a body part way out so much that you could trace its outline. I think it's pretty cool when she does this but Daniel says its a little freaky.

My glucose screening was all good so I'm not at risk for diabetes and my belly was growing just fine. I'm no longer posting my weight because let's just say, I'm still doing JUST FINE in that area.

It does amaze me that I can literally gain this much weight and still be moderately upright and active....(I'm not running marathons but I can still swim fairly fast and still touch my toes and do downward dog in Yoga) and really, although I whine about it, it TRULY IS amazing because for most of my life I heard comments like, "oh you will have really hard births" and "are you sure you are healthy" and "you might have to try really hard to have children" and stuff about short, skinny girls not being childbearing types. Now, I still might have a hard birth (can't predict those things) but I think the human body is really remarkable in its ability to adapt and create and nurture and produce.

Daniel has started work on the nursery. Our books went away this weekend to the attic (well some of them). We managed to make room for two bookcases and had a good time choosing which books should 'stay out'. I needed a fair amount of philosophy books out and Daniel went with poetry and his favorite philosophy books. I think some classic fiction, some of our best children's books, and the nature writing stayed out as well.

Otherwise, I've been writing!!!!! I have three papers due by Sat.the 11th. The big one is the qualifying paper and that is finally to the editing stage. I can't believe I'm finished with it...it now feels like I can be productive and be pregnant....but that may simply be that I feel deadlines approaching! I have another paper due that is the rough draft of my next stage of my dissertation (remember I said there were three writing stages). And I'm speaking at a conference on Sat., so that is more of a talk than a paper but I have to polish that one a lot as well.

So, I turn in the qual. paper. I turn in a rough draft of this next stage. Both of those get critiqued and edited. I have a few months to edit and clean up the rough draft of stage 2 and then I defend that publicly. Once that is done, I have the go ahead to write the dissertation. That puts me at finishing Fall 2011, but I can search for jobs before then if some become available to search for!

This thing called a dissertation

The activity quilt made by mom for the little one.


So, I wanted to thank ya'll (that's for my Southern kin) for the rest of you, (you all), for sending me pushes to write. I haven't written all that much all week but I did write a lot today and I am still writing today (simply taking a mini break to put this down).

I wanted to first say, no one needs to truly edit my drafts.... that was just a turn of phrase....I really need motivation and encouragement more than editing at this point. I'm not quite there yet. And secondly, that this is only the first of 3 stages of the dissertation, it's a long process, so don't expect finished pages by April, simply step 1 of 3 will be finished. But, like pregnancy, one step at a time!

But lastly, I thought, that I would share, along with pictures of my fabulous baby shower given to me by Kathy and Mom, the beginning of my crazy dissertation idea...it actually started almost 2 years ago, but this was my first draft, a long, long time ago.

And this is also my way of saying how wonderful it was to see all of you and receive your love and gifts for Daniel and our little one. We truly appreciated it and seeing you, even for the short time that it was.
Some of the neighbors!
A wonderful group of gals from Transy days!
Some ole friends!
Some of the fabulous onesies made by everyone!!! There are a lot more pics on the Picasa site, just click over the pictures on the left and you can find the shower album.


......(written Fall 08)... I recently attended a baby shower for one of my college friends. Due to circumstances of time and space this shower was one of the first times that I had seen her since graduating. Yet, when the invite came I made the trip without hesitation. Most of our other friends attended as well and they also had not seen each other very often during in these quickly passing years of the twenties where love and career seem to take precedence above all else. So what was it then, about a baby shower, which if you have never been, is not really an amazing amount of fun, that made us all stop our lives and take time to visit and renew our friendships with one another? Of course, during the shower, while eating too sweet cake and sipping on strange non-alcoholic versions of cocktails, and nodding to great-aunts who seemed confused at the number of guests and young women in the room, we all lamented that we all only saw each other when a child was born and of course, as things would have it, we still only see each other when a child is born.

While eating that too sweet cake and watching my friend try and smile as she opened one present after another, I had the thought that there was something magical about an expectant mother that we cannot ignore as women. And this is why even as a modern feminist I feel that baby shower and a wedding shower should be for women by women. But then I recognized that there may be something also about the expectant mother that we cannot ignore as a society.

There is a story about the child that we tell ourselves and it begins here, where we sit around and expect, where we focus on an expanding women, where we turn her body into that which something attends. There is hope there and there is also fear but mainly there is expectation and the knowledge that surprise surrounds the women’s body.

But what happens to this story? This expectant beginning? What happens when all the presents have been put away, the visitors have returned to their states, and the mother has given birth?

The child has been born, the surprise has occurred and surprise turns to growth.

Figuring out the child, this thing that comes from surprise is important to figuring out the person but not psychologically, not because we look at childhood to uncover our past, but because we look at the child in order to figure out what it means to be human. We must look at childhood because otherwise we neglect what it means to be a human that grows and changes and is the one thing that cannot be encapsulated in this strange world......

So this is where my dissertation began and now I'm the pregnant expanding woman thankful to all the women who surrounded me with love and hope just a few weeks ago. And I'm the pregnant woman trying to write something real in the next two months.



Thank you again for all the inspiration and love,

Stephanie

Please Help

I read this article yesterday on how new moms are often overworked, stressed, tired beyond all belief and that all of their family and friends know it!

And the article said that it isn't that family and friends want new moms to be overworked, stressed, and tired beyond all belief but that there are two communication mistakes that happen.

The first is that the family and friends say, "Please tell me what you need and I'll be happy to come over/cook/clean/hold the baby while you take a shower."

And the second is that the new mom says, "Ok. But then waits for her friends and family members to show up."

And what happens is that family and friends show up but since the mom doesn't ask for anything they assume she's fine. And since the family and friends don't offer anything specific she puts on tea and tries to find a clean t-shirt.

The article advised that new moms have to say, "Please help. I need a meal cooked on Tuesday and since I had a C-section and can't go up or down stairs I need either someone to go buy me 7 pairs of underwear in ladies size x or do some laundry for me."

And that friends and family should simply come over, not expect tea and just do one thing around the house, without asking, without complaining, or you know, rearranging the china cabinet because you would prefer that they showcase the vase you bought them last year.

I think I'm guilty on both accounts. I rarely ask for the help I really need and I have known a few new mommies where I simply offered help, not realizing that this just creates a new obligation for the new mom.

I think this is behavior we have learned in our society where families live very separately from one another and friends are met through formal social networks like education and careers so that we don't feel comfortable simply assuming what someone needs. And in our capitalist based society if "I do something for you" it means "you have to do something for me" which means we shy away from asking for favors.

So, in an effort to begin asking for help. I'd like to ask for some right now, call it my practice for becoming a new momma.

I would like to ask all of you to try and help me stay focused in the next 2 months (that's it because I plan to be finished by the middle of March) on writing my dissertation. I started this blog in an effort to give me another reason to keep my writing focused but its too darned easy to simply talk baby and due dates and pictures of family and new updates on the house.

So if you would take some time every now and again to shoot me an email to

sabs2147@gmail.com

that says, "hey steph, have you taken time to write for at least an hour today?" or "hey, I know its hard to focus when your round ligament hurts, send me a paragraph of what you wrote yesterday and I'll edit if for you" or "if you don't start writing I'll have to come over there"

I would really appreciate it.

Best,

Stephanie

A Kitchen and Bathroom Story

Above is our new kitchen!!! The picture on the left is the main part. The picture on the right bottom is the way our glasses look in the new cabinets and the above right picture is my new "appliance" pantry. There are still some aesthetic things to be figured out, we haven't done baseboards or trim and there are a few cabinet lights to hang. But, we now have a disposal, a place to put ALL the pots, a real pantry next to the refrigerator, a cupboard to store tea and coffee, a refrigerator that fits into its space, an extra kitchen mudroom which doubles as Pascal's door and a place to keep kitchen tools and snacks. Plus it's a beautiful green color and it is INSULATED, and it no longer smells like an old lady and her birds. The stove is still the original as it was in good working condition. So, even though it doesn't quite fit we are okay with keeping it until we HAVE to replace it to sell. Below find the before and after pics I've created (we also redid the bathroom WHICH IS NO LONGER PEPTO BISMO PINK!!!!). To see Daniel hard at work on it all (I supervised most of this from the couch trying not to throw up yogurt) please visit the pictures on the Picasa site!

And really, this was a LABOR of love on Daniel's part, so any WOW comments please be sure to send his way!!!! And also a HUGE shout out to Kevin who helped replace the toilet and was a key and necessary player in most of the renovation!

The old ceiling vs. the new track light ceiling!

The old and the new bathroom!

The new toilet only takes a little bit of water and is FLAPPERLESS! Our old toilet used GALLONS of water and ran for hours!

That curtain was gone a long time ago but we finally got cabinets and painted it a beautiful blue and added a ceiling fan and lights! And a sink that you can fit a BABY into!

Old and New

Old sink meet new sink...No backsplash, meet a backsplash, unusable cupboards which smell like birds meet brand new cabinets!

Ahh, so that's the window we are supposed to be able to use! And look now there is a pantry and the refrigerator fits!

So the pots are all gone and fitted into a cupboard so is the ugly 70s wood paneling and now there is space for pregnant momma in the kitchen!

Nice new floor no more tacky linnoleum!

Juicing!

I've always wanted a juicer. Really, like since before Daniel and I moved to New Jersey. I know that often the juicer becomes another machine in the kitchen that takes up tons of room or gets regulated to the highest most unreachable cupboard.




But I still wanted a juicer!

And I received one from my mom and dad for Christmas. So, coming home to some fantastic oranges sent from Daniel's family along with a some older apples which skins were past their prime I thought, here's my chance...let the juicing begin!

So, the first time wasn't great. I ended up giving Kevin and I severe indigestion because I included too many of the orange peels and used old oranges left from before we went to Ohio.

Take II was much better. In fact it was lovely. The oranges were Honeybells which seem perfect for juicing (they are rather too soft to actually eat...they kindof melt in your mouth when you bite down). And Daniel made french toast while Kevin played 'taste' tester!

It's fun to have someone here to juice for. We had a lovely breakfast this morning which instigated Kevin and Daniel to begin "project Sunday"

-New Toilet Installation
-Tile Backsplash Creation
-Primed Walls in the Kitchen

AWESOME SUNDAY

And I want to say thank you for the juicer! My project in the next week is to learn some veggie juicing techniques so that possibly I'll be able to eat some veggies besides salad greens and potatoes as my belly grows and grows!

And because Daniel planned such a great kitchen I have a PLACE for my juicer! And the expresso machine and the coffee pot and the blender!!!