Mr. Baby is still on the inside. But I have a feeling he’ll be here in the next couple of days. I’m not sure why. Just a feeling. I really want to stick close to home and I feel kinda weird both mentally and physically. Contractions are still irregular and not very strong. I don’t notice most of them; the ones I do notice make me feel a little queasy and are accompanied by a mild menstrual-cramp-like feeling. They don’t last for more than a minute or so, maybe ten times a day that I notice.

None of that makes it seem like labor is imminent. I guess it’ll happen when it happens. I’m finding myself not so freaked out by the idea that it could happen any minute, like I was 3 or 4 days ago, and now I wish that my body would just get on with it. Doc and I went for a walk this morning because I felt like I had abundant energy and walking is supposedly good for helping Mr. Baby descend into position, but almost as soon as we left the house I felt exhausted and my back began to hurt kinda badly.

This afternoon I am sitting in the Comfy Chair in the living room with my laptop, a quilt, and a stripey cat on my lap. I had a piece of homemade (by mom!) lemon pie and a Coke just now, and I’m watching Star Wars on DVD. Later I thought that I might go down to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters, if Uncle Owen will let me.

We are missing a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at Kathryn’s house today, and I’m sad about that. But again, I am having that weird feeling of wanting to stay at home and I think that I ought to listen to it.

Happy Anniversary to Doc!! 9 years today. It hasn’t seemed like nearly that long, and at the same time it feels like we’ve been together all our lives. I’m really really lucky; I realize this more and more every day.

So, in the spirit of the day, some things I am thankful for: Doc. My cats. My baby. My parents and brothers. Wonderful, funny, creative friends. Lemon meringue pie. Star Wars. Lovely autumn weather. Great co-workers. iPhones. The president-elect. Turkey-shaped calzones. Bacon. Caramel. Books. Art. Yoga. Being happy and content with my life.

Halloween photos are up on Doc’s Flickr account! Yay!

Once again, the first cold front of the fall season has come through on (or within a few days of) my birthday! I am so very happy. A break from the oppressive summer heat is the best present I could ask for.

On Saturday we got some rain from Hurricane Ike (for those of you wondering: no, we did not have lots of wind, we did not lose power, we did not lose phone service, and we only got about 2″ of rain over 24 hours) and so it was rather wet and humid near the end of last week.

Yesterday was sunny, dry, and rather pleasant, temperature-wise. Today was absolutely amazing. Again, sunny and dry, and the high temperature reached maybe 78 or so. Right now it’s in the mid-60s and we have all the windows in the house open.

Also, the light changed this weekend. It’s taken on that goldeny fall hue, and the blazingly white summer washout light is gone. Somehow it’s easier to see. Things seem prettier.

I had a really nice birthday weekend. Doc took me out Saturday night to a yummy family-style Italian restaurant, and we met some friends there. No wine with my meal, but only 11 more weeks to go on the moratorium (actually I don’t crave wine anymore so it’s much easier these days). We stuffed ourselves and then came back to our house, where we had coffee and cake, good conversation, and played some “Pain” on the PS3. I had a great time with good friends and good food. Maybe that’s the point of life: good friends and good food.

One of my favorite gifts from Doc is a book called “Hello Cupcake.” When it’s our turn to bake cupcakes for our son’s class, they will be the best damn cupcakes ever!

Maybe a boy child won’t really want these particular cupcakes for class, but I think they’re beautiful:

And probably the cutest cupcakes EVER…

Part one in my multi-part interactive online artwork series, cleverly entitled Random Stuff That I’ve Scanned From Old Boxes Of Papers And Photos. The interactive part comes in when you leave comments. :)

These first two photos are from Christmas 1992, Ginger’s 21st birthday party. I can only assume we celebrated with alcohol earlier in the evening, because we came home to her mom’s house and decided that it would be a GREAT idea to decorate the Christmas tree with socks and bras. Allllll kinds of bras and socks. I think they were all Ginger’s dainty things…. or maybe we each contributed some, I can’t remember. Her mom knew that we were all “artsy” types and was cool with having her tree decorated unconventionally.

This tree decoration was only topped by one Christmas when Ginger and I shared an apartment, when we made terribly naughty gingerbread people out of salt dough and hung them on our tree. Too bad I don’t have any photos of that.

Ginger, Bonnie and myself wearing some of the tree ornaments. Apparently this was before I discovered the  magic of eyebrow plucking, and letting my hair go naturally curly.

This is one of my favorite photos ever taken of myself, at Tyler State Park. I think that I am trying not to throw up due to the liter of wine I drank the previous evening.

Dear baby Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster: 
Please make my belly look this good again some day. And let me appreciate it that time around.
Thank you. 
Love,
Katy

Aww. My old driver’s license. I looked so young!! I suppose that’s because I was.  Note the fancy eyeliner and blood red lipstick. I do believe I am wearing a Cure shirt.

One of my best friends when I was little was a boy named Jesse. He was the grandson of my grandma’s next-door neighbor/best friend, Fran. Fran’s family and my family might as well have been blood relatives, we were so close. I only saw Jesse in the summers when I would get to visit Grandma for a month or so. We had all kinds of fun driving his go-kart, building hammocks, exploring the woods, swimming in the sound, setting off fireworks, and building crab traps (and taking out the leaky rowboat to set them, and actually catching crabs!) (not in THAT way, we were like 8 years old, get your mind out of the gutter!). During the school year we’d write each other letters, often in “secret code” so my little brothers couldn’t decipher them. Our secret codes were like a=1, b=2, c=3 and so on, but we sure thought we were being clever! You can click the letter below for a larger, more legible version.

Oh. My. God. We looked so YOUNG! This is me, Margret, and Kathryn on Earth Day 1991. We were 18. What the hell did I do to my hair? Good lord.

December has been an eventful month but I haven’t been posting much. I extend my apologies to my two readers (who perhaps didn’t even notice that I’ve been MIA, or perhaps were waiting with baited breath for my next genius missive).

In early December Doc and I went to Boston so I could go to the Web Design World conference (which turned out to be about 70% fantastic, which is a great ratio for a conference) and spend a couple of days with my brother Bob. We had a great time, in part because it was so cold and snowy. The city was decked out in twinkly colored Christmas lights that looked so pretty with the snowy scenery.

The first day that we spent with Bob, we’d planned to go to the science museum and aquarium but they both closed early because it was snowing. I thought that northerners could still function in the snow, but apparently not! We spent a long afternoon riding the subway around to our various destinations only to find out that they’d already closed down. Then when we got back to the car at the train stop a mile from Bob’s apartment in Somerville, it took us about 90 minutes to get home due to incredible non-moving traffic. We ate pizza for dinner and Bob and Doc played Rock Band for a while.

Luckily Boston has a great snowplow system, so by the next morning the streets were clear enough that we were able to get ourselves down to the aquarium.

I wish we’d had more time to spend with Bob, but we had to leave the next morning. It was a lot of fun, though.

Over Christmas, we visited Doc’s mom and grandmother and great-aunt and brother and sisters and their families in Derby (near Wichita), Kansas. That was a heck of a lot more people than I’m used to being around, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Doc’s grandma Rose and great-aunt Pat are in their late 80s but sharp as tacks and very up-to-date on what’s going on in the world. It was great seeing them again, and we plan to come visit more often now that they’re closer to us than they were in Idaho for all those years. All our nieces and nephews (most of whom are in their teens, and there’s about ten or so of them) got into a snowball fight on Christmas day with some of the moms and dads in the backyard. Doc got some great photography of people in mid-throw or mid-being-hit. He avoided getting into the fight until the very end by claiming “hey, don’t hit the guy with the camera, please”… but then threw a snowball at his sister on the way in. Sigh… brothers!

It snowed throughout the midwest the night before we drove to Kansas so by the time we reached the Kansas border everything was pretty well blanketed with snow. The residential streets in Derby hadn’t been cleared and so the driving was a bit iffy. On the way home on the 26th it had started snowing again but we didn’t have any trouble driving this time. We stopped at a restaurant in Arcadia, Oklahoma, called Pops 66. It has really interesting future-modern architecture and 500+ different types of bottled soda. Neato.

For Christmas Doc and I went a little lighter than normal with the gifts, by choice. He gave me some really nice things though, including some balsamic vinegar, bamboo cooking spoons, and this gorgeous Le Creuset cast-iron skillet. I adore it. I can barely lift it, it’s so heavy!! And the enamel is droolworthy bright beautiful red.

I’ve had the whole week of Christmas off, and I don’t go back to work until January 3. This week I’m taking it easy, trying to get a little exercise in, watching movies, hanging out with Doc. Saturday we went to Six Flags with Brittney and Chris. I could only go on two rollercoasters this year; I just didn’t feel up to going on some of the bigger rides. It was really crowded at the park, much moreso than in previous years. Wait times in line for the rides seemed about as long as they are in the summer. We had a nasty dinner experience too: we waited in line at a little kiosk with the “Papa John’s Pizza” label on it, but I can tell you definitively that the pizza was NOT Papa John’s quality. It was some of the nastiest pizza I have had in recent memory. For $7 per slice I would at least expect the cheese to be completely melted, but it wasn’t. I could only eat half of it. I complained at the guest services desk that they were misleading people by putting a brand name label on disgusting sub-par crappy foodservice pizza.

But, that icky food experience got made up for a little while later. We ran across a kiosk run by some grandmotherly type ladies with crockpots who sold baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted corn, cocoa, hot cider, and OMIGOD cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven with frosting ladled on out of a crockpot. I loves me a grandma with a crockpot of warm icing!!

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and I am perfectly content that we are staying in tonight and maybe watching some movies and ordering pizza. I’m not sure that any of our friends are having parties this year, and we’re not either. We’ve hosted NYE parties in the past, but after hosting Halloween and Thanksgiving and then being out of town so much in December, we just didn’t feel up to it this year.

Happy 2008 to everyone! It’s going to be an exciting year!

Thanksgiving went well! We have way too much food left over, as usual. Anyone want some stuffing or mashed potatoes?

Doc’s turkey was awesome; it keeps getting better every year (this coming from someone who doesn’t even really like turkey!). He had to leave it in the oven a full hour longer than he planned, in order to get the temperature up to that minimum safety level (170 degrees F). Not sure why that was; perhaps our 25 year old oven is not working quite right. But most of our guests arrived shortly before it was done, so the timing worked out pretty well in the end.

I have a ton of wine (thanks dad!) left over along with about a cubic meter of stuffing. That ought to get me through the next few days quite nicely :)

Besides the fact that our food seemed to be a hit, the highlight of the evening for me was playing a few lively games of Catch Phrase Music Edition, where you have to get your teammates to say the title of a song that appears in the little device’s window, without saying any of the words in the title or revealing the artist. It took us a while to get into the groove but once we warmed up to it, we had a lot of fun. Bob was trying to get his team (Brittney and Chris) to say the word “from” by telling them “on a Christmas package, not ‘to,’ but …” and Brittney yelled, “NOT TOO EXPENSIVE!” That just cracked me up. Also, “A Gravy Kind of Love” is CLOSE to the name of the Phil Collins song, and appropriate for this holiday, but not quite right.

Today I did nothing but sleep, read, eat, and nap. A few other things like showering and writing a little, too. But really and truly this was a lazy lazy day. It helps that the temperature didn’t even hit 50 today… cold grey weather makes me want to snuggle under a blanket all day. Also, it snowed yesterday! On Thanksgiving! In Texas! It didn’t last long, and turned into sleet after a few minutes, but still, it was pretty cool. We had a fire going all day, and had to turn on the heater upstairs.

Wow, sometimes a week goes by and I haven’t posted, and I don’t know how that happens. I just lose days at a time. Weird.

My brother Bob has been in town for a few days, which has been fun. We went to trivia at Trinity Hall on Sunday night. The questions were really tough this week, and we met our goal to come in Not Last. Third from last is pretty respectable, isn’t it?!

I took today off work and spent pretty much the whole day cooking! It was tiring, but fun. I made:

• Apricot-cranberry chutney
• Tossed field greens salad with sliced honeycrisp apples, grape tomatoes, gorgonzola and croutons
• Creamy balsamic vinaigrette
• Apple pie (with extra filling going into little flaky puffpastry shells)
• Pumpkin pie
• Chex mix
• Sage rolls (turned out absolutely awful; completely tasteless and mealy. I threw them away)
• Focaccia bread with sun-dried tomatoes (as a replacement for the nasty rolls)
• Mashed potatoes with cream cheese, butter, garlic and chives
• Bacon (to put on the mashed potatoes and green beans tomorrow)
• Two quarts of mint iced tea
• Hash-brown casserole (for tonight’s dinner)

Tomorrow, I am making sausage-cranberry dressing in the morning, and Doc cooks his turkey in the afternoon. Right before we eat I will sauté green beans in butter and some of the bacon I cooked today.

No sweet potatoes this year! There’s not enough popular support for them in the people that I knew for certain were coming to dinner. I like them OK but only when used in a savory dish.

I’m excited about tomorrow, seeing friends and family and eating lots and lots of food… but I’m really sad that mom couldn’t come this year. She’s spending the day with my other brother Mike and her brother John and his family in Seattle.

We had a great time at our Halloween party last Saturday. The turnout was smaller than usual, due to people being out of town or having already made other plans ( :( sniffle) but I really enjoyed it. 

Brett won the apple bobbing contest in an amazing 4 seconds.

Ooh, ooh! Mr. Kotter!

Mary Ann forgot her pie.

Opie and Andy had a rather interesting relationship not shown in the TV show.

Putting lipstick on the pig.

Creepy  little Wednesday Addams.

Racer X ponders the mysteries of the “Magic Nose Goblin” drink.

Kolchak, the Night Stalker

Hot Lips Houlihan

Racer X, Speed Racer, and Trixie

A little something shiny disorder tonight, at Kaboom Town in Addison.

Oooh, how I wish that post title was a typo.

Guess what I got for Christmas? Stomach flu! I actually managed to LOSE weight over the holidays, but in a totally not worth it kind of way.

We have spent the past few days with my parents in Houston, and they have assured us that it will be the last Christmas in that crowded, hot, sweaty, smelly city with nutjob freak drivers and no zoning laws (there is a preschool next door to an oil refinery a few blocks away from my parents’ neighborhood). Of all the places I have lived, Houston is at the bottom of the list. Yes, even Sherman ranks higher. The parents feel the same way and can’t wait to move next year to a cool, sunny city on the ocean.

Mike, Vanessa, and Bob flew in and it was fantastic to see all of them, as usual. I have the greatest brothers and sister-in-law. All very smart, very cool people.

I was having a nice time up until about 6 a.m. Christmas morning when I woke up from a nightmare about being queasy. And it was all downhill from there. The entire day was kind of a blur of crawling back and forth to the bathroom, trying to catch brief snatches of sleep, trying to drink fluids (nope, not even water was agreeing with me), shivering under four blankets, and apologizing to Doc for ruining Christmas. He was being his usual sweet self, checking on me every few minutes, going all over the city to find a store that was open so I could have juice and ginger ale (which I wasn’t even able to drink until the next day), and trying to make me comfortable. Meanwhile, I heaved and whined and shivered and complained and eventually I was able to sleep for a few hours.

My wonderful mom changed her Christmas dinner menu to not include anything strongly scented enough to waft upstairs to my room and make me nauseated, and the whole family elected to postpone opening gifts until the 26th, when I was finally feeling somewhat human again.

Of course, by then my poor dad had the same thing. He felt well enough to emerge for a brief time so we could do a lightning round of gift opening before he needed to go back to bed.

In the spirit of nonmaterialism, my mom promised no gifts this year, except money to help us all travel to Houston to be together for the holidays. But since she makes the rules she apparently can also write loopholes into her structure: SANTA can gave gifts. That sneaky Santa clause.

Since I was a little out of it during the gift opening this year, I wasn’t keeping close tabs on what everyone gave and received. Gift certificates were popular this year amongst us kids. Vanessa gave Mike a certificate for a flying lesson (yes, my brother will be in charge of a plane. Run! Flee!) Bob spent a lot of time shopping at the Discovery Channel store, which is always a great source for gifts. Collectively, we all gave my dad an iPod nano (green) and my mom a new digital camera to replace her 6-year-old Playskool-looking model. Doc gave me two beautiful giant rosemary plants in giant pots, trimmed into pine tree shape. He wanted to get me something that would remind me of us getting married (isn’t that sweet??!!), especially since we don’t know how much longer our one surviving rosemary wedding table centerpiece that we have is going to last. (It is entirely possible that I will inadvertently kill it, as I do not have the gift of the green thumb. I am just now reminded as I am typing this that I forgot to ask Kathryn to water said rosemary plants and our orange tree while we were out of town. Shit.)

Today I felt well enough to travel, so we came home this evening. It’s always nice to get home, no matter how nice a time you are having elsewhere. The kitties all missed us. Our fridge quit working while we were gone so we’ve had to throw away most of our food. It’s always something, isn’t it? Doc knew I was still not feeling well so he undertook the yucky job of sorting and tossing. Do you throw away butter that’s been at about 55 degrees for anywhere from one to four days? I know you do mayonnaise, and formerly frozen vegetables and meats. Also, jars of salsa that have fermented to the point that they’re hissing are probably not edible any longer.

Unless, of course, you want the stomach flu again. Heh.

I’m still exhausted and queasy (have barely eaten since Sunday) but definitely feeling better.

I got all my holiday shopping done today. I realized mid-morning that today was pretty much my only opportunity to do it, due to various commitments over the next 2 weeks. Not to mention, the closer to the 25th it is, the more doses of crazy get added to retail excursions, and I don’t much like shopping as it is.

I was out for 6-1/2 hours (insane!) but surprisingly I still had energy when I got home. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I only spent a tiny portion of those 6-1/2 hours at a mall. Malls are their own special version of hell, especially around the holidays.

Anyway, I had energy enough to bake and decorate sugar cookies for my office holiday party. From scratch, baby. They’re thin and chewy and have peppermint icing. Holy crap, they’re good; as K1 said, “hide-them-from-your-significant-other-good.”

I had planned also to make pasta with meat sauce, garlic baguette slices, and a spinach salad for dinner, but that is going to wait until tomorrow instead.

Yesterday we went with Kim, Brittney, and Chris to Six Flags. Like I’ve said before, winter is the only time of the year to go to amusement parks. I was shocked at how many people were there; I’ve never seen a crowd that big during the winter. The lines for some of the rides were really crazy long. I freakin’ love the Titan. The Spongebob 4-D ride was great too (not that I’m a Spongebob fan, but the seats moved and jolted you around in sync with the film and we got SQUIRTED at one point, it was nutty). We had a great time talking and laughing and drinking hot cocoa. I cannot believe that i paid $11 for a slice of pizza and a medium coke. Park food prices are absolutely insane; so is parking ($15).

Friday night (hey, guess I’m working backwards chronologically with this post) we went to my office’s Level 2 holiday party (the one I am making the cookies for is the Level 3 party — my department; next week is the Level 1 party, hosted by the president of the university) at the division vice president’s house. There were waaaaay too many people there for the size of his house. We made an appearance, ate some appetizers and wine, and then left to go to Times Ten Cellars for a drink and some relaxation (me and Doc, Brittney, Yvonne and Nate, Ben and Chelsea, and Chelsea and Helena). Yvonne had her first glass of wine since she’s been pregnant! (It’s fine to occasionally partake after the 1st trimester). It took her well over an hour to finish that one glass; she says that it’s strange how her body is changing so drastically in response to Le Cheetoh.

Yesterday I picked up my unrepairable sewing machine from the shop (it only sews backwards now! and sadly, cannot be fixed because they don’t make the 35-year-old parts anymore). I got it into the hatchback of the Prius with no problem, but as I scooted it back against the rear seat, a muscle in my mid-back went **TWINGE**. That crazy painful sharp pain that makes it hard to breathe. I tried to stretch it out a little before I got back in the car, and then when I got home I laid down on the heating pad for several hours. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it to Six Flags later that day or not, but it looks like this time is not nearly as bad as it has been before. I did OK at Six Flags (thanks to my good friend Darvocet) and today I hardly feel it at all. I’ve decided to start doing yoga on my own again. I think that the reason my back has been spasming a lot lately is because I’ve let myself go, strengthwise. Yoga will help strengthen my back and stomach muscles and, hopefully, this won’t happen as much anymore.

Today was the day of the White Rock Marathon. I did not participate. I feel all kinds of latent Catholic guilt about that, because I said over and over again that I would do it; in fact, I INSISTED that I was going to find a way to complete it despite my stress fracture. I realized, though, as the weeks went by this fall, that it would be a really really dumb thing to try to do. I would probably end up making my injury worse by keeping my training at that level. And even if I didn’t push myself with the training, if I’d tried to run/walk 13 miles today I know I would have re-injured that leg.

There is always next year. Yvonne says that after she has the baby in May, she’ll want to train for it as well, to get back into shape. I think that it’s a good goal to have and I’m totally supportive of whatever she decides to do, but I also think that she might be so tired from being a mom that she just plain might not have the energy. I plan to train either way, once my leg has a chance to get stronger. I’d like to start training in earnest in March. I hope that’s enough time. We’ll see.