Porcelain Sky

After one of the coldest springs in a long time, we're finally around the bend - it's Spring.

For us, that means putting our garden.  This year, though, was different since we had to start from scratch instead of just working with a garden with great soil, but a host of weeds all ready and waiting to pop up. 

This year though, we had to first convert the by-law required 6 inches of pea gravel that was laid down for the slides and swings used by the family daycare that used to be here.  We were able to give much of the pea gravel away to friends who filled in walkways or potholes.  C. then spent hours sifting through the remaining gravel/sand mixture and we were left with some very, very sandy soil.  We weren't surprised by this.  Though we live above the 200 year flood plan marker, much of our city is in a river valley.  We were able to get some decent soil for cheap and then got some mushroom manure from a fund raiser to help feed the dirt.  It's not as lovely as the soil at our old house, but we figure we'll just add more and more compost and fertilizer as we go.   And, as I alluded to, it does have the wonderful quality of having no weed seeds in it...yet.

Fruit Salad

Currently taking root:

• salad greens
  
• spinach
• beets
• snap peas
• carrots
• bush beans
• kohlrabi
  
• radishes
• onions
• cilantro
• basil

On the same outing, we also picked up and then planted some raspberry canes and since they're suckers, we should build up a nice little patch in a few years.  We also are trying something new: watermelon.  We're too cool a climate to start it from seed, but C. picked up the seedling on a whim and we'll see how it goes!  We also planted some pepper seedlings and next week will get some heirloom tomato seedlings from a co-worker.  She has seeds brought sent over from her husband's family in Poland and I'm looking forward to using seed that that doesn't have a patent!

Now, we wait.

Ah!  Something I can write about that doesn't require too much thought, but is about a favourite thing: lists of books.  (Actually reading said books is a close second ;)

Below is a list of the 106 books most likely to languish, unread, on the bookshelves of people who only want to seem cultured and well-read. If you want to play along: 

bold the titles you've read on your own,

underline the ones you had to read for school,

italicize the ones you started but didn't finish,

bold and italicize the ones you hated,

bold and underline those you'd recommend

strike through those you'd like to/plan to read

[*I'm not going to mention ones I actually hated.  There are very few, though I will make some comments as we go.  And as to recommending - I'll just asterix those I loved in particular.]

Let the List begin

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Catch-22

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wuthering Heights

The Similalliron

Life of Pi : a novel

The Name of the Rose

Ulysses

Don Quixote

The Odyssey

Moby Dick 

Pride and Prejudice*

Jane Eyre*

A Tale of Two Cities*

The Brothers Karamazov

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies

War and Peace

Vanity Fair - The thing with this one, is that I got the point within the first 150 pages and spent the rest of the time wishing Thackery would just kill everyone off already!

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Illiad

Emma

The Blind Assassin

The Kite Runner

Mrs. Dalloway

Great Expectations

American Gods

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Atlas Shrugged

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Memoirs of a Geisha*

Middlesex

Quicksilver

Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales - Excerpts

The Historian: a novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Love in the Time of Cholera

Brave New World

The Fountainhead

Foucault’s Pendulum

Middlemarch

Frankenstein

The Count of Monte Cristo

Dracula

A Clockwork Orange

Anansi Boys

The Once and Future King

The Grapes of Wrath

The Poisonwood Bible : a novel

1984

Angels & Demons

The Inferno

The Satanic Verses

Sense and Sensibility

The Picture of Dorian Gray*

Mansfield Park

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

To the Lighthouse

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Oliver Twist

Gulliver's Travels

Les Misérables

The Corrections

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Dune

The Prince

The Sound and the Fury

A People's History of the United States: 1492-present

Angela’s Ashes : a memoir

Cryptonomicon

Neverwhere

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Dubliners

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Beloved

Slaughterhouse Five

The Scarlet Letter

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Mists of Avalon

Oryx and Crake : a novel

Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed

Cloud Atlas

The Confusion

Lolita - A tough one for me, not so much the writing, but the content.

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

The Catcher in the Rye

On the Road

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values

The Aeneid

Watership Down

Gravity's Rainbow

The Hobbit

In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

White Teeth

Treasure Island

David Copperfield

The Three Musketeers

I've really wanted to just go and eat a lot these days.  Especially sweets.  This kicked in shortly after my doctor told me I'd gained a bit too much this last month and should cut back on the starches (potatoes, breads, pasta, etc.) to about half of what I normally eat and then eat whole grain when I do.  Now, I know that's good advice anytime, but it still got to me.  I vacillate from being annoyed with my doctor to concerned about my health and that of the babe's. 

See, I thought I was doing ok for weight gain this pregnancy - in fact, the 9 lbs he's concerned about is the only weight I've gained at 24 weeks so far.  (Unfortunately, I gained it all in 4 weeks!)  Now, this could just be a quirk of the scale and circumstances (ex. - unusally low at last weigh in and higher at this one) or, it could point to gestational diabetes - eek!  I have my glucose screen test in another 2 weeks and in the meantime, I'm trying to be happy with fruit and veggies. 

So how do I deal with the maddening desire to walk into my kitchen and back myself a batch of biscuits!

Go enjoy your ice cream and cookies for me, people!

This weekend we went out of town for my brother-in-law's wedding.  I likely write about that another day, but for now, I wanted to chronicle a cute-thing-Gus-said.  [Bear in mind, this sounds much cuter if you can imagine the not-so-perfect enunciation of a toddler.]

On the trip home he slept very little, which was too bad because he'd been up until 11:30 the night before.  He kept whining and asking to be let "out!"  Eventually, we started singing songs.  A favourite of his is 'Eensy Weensy Spider,' complete with actions.  I sang it through a few times; sometimes Chris would do the actions (one handed, as he was driving) and Gus would join in where he could.  Finally, it was my turn.  I was taking my time with the song and doing some exaggerated actions and when that short ditty was finished, Jonas pipes up: "Good job.  Good job, Mummy."

Yep, I can a do a mean eensy-weensy spider!  And should be just praised for it!

I know we're not the only ones, but still: WHAT IS WITH SNOW IN APRIL???

Especially considering the area I live in is considered semi-arid desert!  We woke up to the 4th sub-zero (below freezing) day in a row this morning.  C. was going to buy and plant us a fruit tree this weekend.  He decided he didn't much fancy the idea of digging in the freezing cold.

This pregnancy is happening during the same seasons as last round, but I find I still can't get into my spring gear yet, so it's been a lot of jean-wearing at work.  One day, the sun will come.

Gus has been talking a lot these days.  He's been stringing words together, 2 or 3 at a time, too.   This is great most times.  What gets tricky is when he's obviously trying to tell us something and we just can't decipher it.  Not that most people could understand 'sunglasses' when he says it anyway. :)

We have a busy week ahead: my brother-in-law is getting married on Sunday and both C. and Gus are in the wedding.  We'll be leaving town Thursday night for a few days.  In the meantime, there's laundry, marking, and making sure that black dress I bought last month still makes me look good!

Oh, and the ultrasound went very well.  I happened to arrive early and managed to get into my appointment 15 minutes early, too!  Things went pretty smoothly.  Babe was moving around a bit so it took sometime to get measurements, but at the end s/he put on a great show: we got to see the mouth open and close and lots of hand and arm movement around the face.  We were able to ascertain knuckles, ribs, spine, heartbeat and even cute little bum cheeks!  (No, we have no idea the sex, and we didn't ask and I don't think the tech would tell us anyway.)
For your viewing pleasure - Kidlet #2:

Ultrasound1

Ultrasound2

Happy Monday, all!

Weekend Musts:

- Finish preparing lessons for Sunday School tomorrow.
- Complete marking: poetry and business letters.
- Take in diaper laundry drying outside.
- Sleep.
- Pray.  (Really, I'm too busy not to.)

Weekend Maybes:

- Continue to escape real life by reading Lord of the Rings (the Battle of Helm's Deep has just finished).
- Walk.
- Do more laundry.
- Make paneer.
- Enjoy the sunshine.

Weekend Lyric In My Head (in a good way)

You've got to open your heart
And disbelieve the lie.

Spit out that bitter seed.

          - Jonathan Inc.

Today is Wednesday and I have the day off.  Officially, it is a sick day for me and that's the truth as I have nowhere else to designate my doctor appointed medical appointment today: Our 20 week ultrasound!  Of course, the visit itself probably doesn't mean I need to take all the day off, but it is smack in the middle of my day and last time I went in, I waited over 1 1/2 hours before my appointment even began.  I just don't want to have the stress of wondering what I'll do just in case I can't make it to my last class of the day.

I was feeling a little pleased with myself as I got dressed: I was able to pull on the jeans I bought in September without any trouble.  While I'm definitely getting my belly, this is a testament to the pounds lost before I got pregnant in December and for that I'm thankful.  Losing weight after Gus was born was a struggle.  It took me some time to just 'get over it'.  I decided I'm not going to go into focused weight-loss until we've decided all is done in the kidlet department.  In the meantime, my body just isn't my own, so I'm going to try not to get to worked up over it.

I pulled out my pregnancy clothes last weekend, to see what fits and what doesn't.  I'm very glad that I'm pregnant through the same seasons as before (in fact, Kidlet #2 is due 2 weeks after Gus's second birthday), so all my summer stuff will still apply. 

And now that I have a boy grabbing at my pants yelling "Mummee!" I should be off.  Happy Wednesday, all!

... there's always my kid!

DSCF2700

DSC00331

I feel like I'm living my life between naps and early bedtimes these days.  Sleep is a good thing when you are pregnant.  I have yet to discover any of that 'typical' energy that shows up in the second trimester.  And last night, I dashed to bed at 9 when I felt a scratchy throat coming on... and sure enough, I'm up this morning with a sore throat and achy back, neck and a headache.  The typical MO for my colds.  So it was back to a nap this afternoon.  Living life in between trying to fit in naps is starting to wear on me.  I'm finding it tough to get stuff done... even the bare minimum.  And the thing is, I still have 5 months of this pregnancy thing, so some energy best be coming along soon.

On the upside, Spring Break was just that - a break.  I didn't think about work, I slept a lot (like sleeping in like a log until 9:30am.  I normally can't get away with that!) and thoroughly enjoyed visiting with friends, family, not cooking and spending some extra time with my kid and husband.  Gus learned a new word: "out!"  As in, get me out of this carseat!  He's found this word has wide application. 

Speaking of Gus, he's back form the park.