Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Burning Man!
This was just truly lovely to watch.
Hooray!

Long Time No See!

Hi Friends!

Not sure if anybody reads this anymore, but I figured I'd stop in and say hello, even though this blog has been at the bottom of my proverbial toybox for a while. Lots of new wonderful things going on in our house as always!

• Dyed my hairs pank!
• I'm friggin' 6 months pregnant? What?
• We just got a new-to-us 4 door Corolla! BALLIN'.
• My little monkey is 19 months old this week.

There's nothing monumental about NINETEEN months, but it is really exciting and crazy that he'll be two in May and that his little sib will be born just a month before then! I am in crazy-amounts of denial that I'm actually having another baby in just a few short months. Technically December goes by in a blink, and it's so full of nutso family stuff that I feel like that means in just 3 months my life will be radically altered once again. Transitioning to two babies who will both be in diapers? Amazing. I'm up for the challenge though!!!

I love being responsible for more rather than less. It keeps me from the LAZINESS MONSTER. Also keeping me from the laziness monster: the VANITY MONSTER! This pank hair needs lotsa upkeep.

Pshh.

Top 10 Reasons Why I Don't Update My Blog (ala David Letterman)

Drumroll please!

10. Too busy doing absolutely nothing wasting my life on facebook.

9. Was driven mad by shopping at Target when we don't have a fitting pair of foot-y pajamas for the boy only to be remidned as soon as we got home that I could have asked at least 10 other people for handmedowns.

8. Trying to leave the house more often since it's not even winter yet and we're turning into big fat lazy bears.

7. I've been fiddling around with my new Pinterest account! Weeee!

6. I've been researching which certifying agency to go through for childbirth education so that I can hustle my way into teaching from home a few times a month rather than being stuck with no clients and lots of bills!

5. Intimidated by the regularity of other bloggers' work ethics.

4. Looking up tres adorbz Halloween costumes online though it is unlikely we will do anything imaginative before the 31st. I'm a dream-for-a-month-then-scramble kind of Halloween costume maker.

3. Way too busy planning my post-baby workout regimen and tattoo plans (see, #7)

2. Lazy.

and the number one reason that I don't update this blog very often ---

1. I am so accustomed to the privacy, ease, and openness of Livejournal, that using a public blog seems akin to standing in the middle of the street yellin' to e'rybody 'bout my business. For the past 10 years I have written very candidly to people that I already know. It's just such a different beast, public blogging. Oh well...

If Wishes and Buts Were Clusters of Nuts...

So I realized lately that I've been thinking of a lot of things that I want.
I have not been much of a "thing" person most of my life, and here I am, making this long list of awesome things that might possibly make my life a bit better... Let's just presuppose that you already know property with a small house with a big kitchen and a teepee is at the top of the list already mmk?

• a hammock. YES. the perfect nap-time essential. stick a baby in it. perfect for crusty visitors you don't trust on your good sheets.
• nail polish. in every color ever. and remover that doesn't make my hands feel like they're on fire*. Also, I'd like some precision applicators so I can paint pretty things on my nails.
• a pair o' Tom's for the spring. Because I buy shoes for the season ahead, and I already got my rad Vintage boots for the fall, and my crap-tastic but still holding winter boots (ONE MORE YEAR! ONE MORE YEAR!)
• a jean jacket. and one that has a classy fit, none of this puffy too-big-in-the-arms thrift store business. If it doesn't fit, don't buy it folks!
• a new manual camera. I love my ol' Canon TX. So...old. So...without a lightmeter even. But honestly, the problem with it now is that I have to wrastle with it to get the door open on the back, and it's caused some serious problems. Especially during shoots. God....

I don't really have a long list here, there are other, larger, more grandiose and annoyingly domestic things that I'd like (portable dishewasher, portable washer/dryer combo for the kitchen since we're about to have two in cloth diapers and our shared-basement laundry don't get nothin' clean), but those things are small potatoes in comparison with nail polish.

I mean, a girl's got priorities.

*I have highly-sensitive hands and can't touch cardboard, old paper, or hot laundry out of the dryer. It's like nails on a chalk board. My skin actually peels off. At it's worst, my hands are itchy and red and terrible looking. It's just awful!

Ahhhh, Community...

I have been thinking about community a lot lately. I grew up needing to be around people all the time, traveling in small herds consisting of whoever I spent any time with. I love introducing people to each other and I love being in a room with many people that I love very much.

That being said, it has come as a great surprise to me that I live in an insanely insular nuclear family situation, and spend much of my time alone with my toddler. This is a shocking life-development for me quite frankly, and I don't like it. Over the past 4 years my honey and I have repeatedly talked about finding work or school programs to attend in other states or in other parts of the world, and yet here we are, in Chicago, not quite ready to plant our roots down in this nutrient-lacking soil, but not entirely sure what else to do with ourselves. It's such a challenge to feel like I shouldn't make choices that bring me closer to other people, in fear that I will be leaving shortly, when we are clearly stuck here for quite a while! It's kept us from some amazing friendships with awesome people and for that I'm feeling truly just awful!

So thankfully, knowing that we'll be here for a little while, I'm trying to work toward building community wherever I can. I'm very interested in hosting free lectures on a variety of subjects surrounding women's health, pregnancy, natural childbirth, and art therapy, if I am able to work with a few different co-facilitators. I am going to be sitting in on some childbirth education classes in the upcoming months, taking notes and thinking about how I'd like to organize future classes when we *do* actually move.

Right now our little family is all sick with an ugly change-of-season cold. Hopefully things will change soon, and we can get back to autumnal baking: I'm talkin' allll things pumpkin, Mmm mmmm mmm.


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An Accidental Ode to Mexican Food and an Update Proper

I think I'm in the clear y'all. Ive been wanting food again. Hooray!

And not just any food, but the world's finest food. MEXICAN FOOD. I don't really care about many other kinds of food, Mexican food takes the cake. Or the flan, or whatever. When I was in India, I daydreamed about burritos, I imagined the crunch of corn tortilla chips and the perfect culmination of flavors in guacamole. Lentils, rice, chickpeas, curries, all completely delicious foods, but without even the option of Mexican food, there was clearly a void in my life. A taco-shaped hole if you will.

And don't get me wrong, we were living near an old French fort--there were pizzerias all over, I could get Nutella crepes just about every day if I wanted. I had options, just not options of the Mexican variety. I cannot stress to you how lost I felt without it, lol. The first thing I ate when we got back to the States was a massive avocado burrito, and it was heavenly!

I've been admiring my Steven's toy-camera shots today, sipping blueberry rooisbos and enjoying guava juice, and slowly digesting the poblano dinner I ordered at our local 24 hours Taqueria (have I mentioned it?! *SQUEEEEEEE*!) The little man is sleeping, and when he wakes up, we might go swimming.

We are FINALLY having our Mouse Man visit tonight, he's going to scope out the joint and tell our landlord how awesome of a job it's going to be for him to run the twenty billion mice out of our walls. I really hope it's not that many. I just want them to relocate before winter. Maybe to another country, or a wilderness preserve where they keep lots of snakes.

I am really craving pumpkin and oats.

I think that means I've got a job to do.

Happy Monday folks, this week is going to be GREAT!

Pardon my Terrible Phone Photo of a Scan of my Uterus but...

Please enjoy gazing at my wee little bellymonkey, who is waving at you and taunting you to guess his or her gender, 2 months early. Mwuhaha.