not the weightiest matters

at 25 weeks

• total weight increase: 07.4 lb

the more things change

• sleeping with 4 pillows, 3 of them king sized; cannot sleep without them; would fight a chicken to protect my pillows

the less things change

• had – at one point* – expected stretch marks by this time (was fairly small and taut before, have expanded SO MUCH); none yet (*I've since learned that women pregnant and Paleo often get none)

25-27 weeks

remarkable

• (my brother-in-law En) “So how far along are you now? Third trimester? Because you look like it.”

• (our neighbor) “You must be growing by the minute!”

• (my Bjorn) “Your bellybutton is disappearing.” and “You don't look pregnant from behind.”

• (my doula) “Some women just don't put on as much weight [in pregnancy]. Your body just isn't preparing for famine, that's all.”

at 29 weeks

• total weight increase: 11.6 lb • fundal height: 29.5 cm • fasting blood glucose level: 74

new

• Never before has wearing a bra felt so comfortable. Got measured by the local professional for a new one: 34C. (Previously 32B.) 

now

• can't wash the dog (can no longer lean over the utility sink without significant straining)

at 31 weeks

• total weight increase: 13.6 lb

Subvital Statistix

at 21 weeks

• total weight increase: 4.2 lb (3.2%) • fundal height: 21.0 cm • baby heart bpm: 150 • blood pressure: 101/60

at 22 weeks

now can't

• sleep on stomach

can yet

• put socks (and shoes) on while standing up (with some awkwardness, though) • get from the floor to standing using only my feet • poop like a champion • wash dog while standing at the utility sink

at 23 weeks

• total weight increase: 6.0 lb (4.5%) • fundal height: 23.5 cm • blood pressure: 104/64

Gung Hay!

The Chinese New Year is absurdly significant to me. I love turning the leaf, reckoning a new year; and of feasts movable and immovable, I favor the movable. I used to live next to Seattle's “Chinatown”, the ID, and I have pungent memories of firecracker holiday hubbub. Dragons dancing. Street food, calling extra rats. I feel some sort of cosmic hum at the exchange of red envelopes around good ol' bloody ol' St Valentine's Day. January is mostly dead, but February starts to quicken. 

This is the time to live. Again.

Tons of Caucasians love to discuss their Chinese Zodiac signs while breaking fortune cookies. I can tell you the sign of most of my relations. There is soon to be one more.

Archer Dog
and
Scaley Ox
To Have
and
To Hold
Baby Sheep:

Announcing the Gestation of Crabby Lambykins
•

EDD 11 July 2015

How Do You Rate | How Do They?

I received a piece of mail from my gas&electric company. (I handle the household billings.) I get e-statements so I was apprehensive about official snail mail from them. It turned out to be a paper congratulating me / reporting on my low energy usage. According to their little graph, over the last two months we used 4% less power than the top 20% most efficient neighbors. (“Neighbors” are “occupied, nearby” houses “similar in size to yours” which “have both electricity and natural gas service.”) We rated a "Great :) :)”.

Is this awesome?

__ yes

__ NO

Precious and Few | Seek After These Things

I have given up my meta-stress. It has been about six weeks now.

I might have expected to feel triumph, or arrival, or having overcome. Yet I don't; I don't feel that being this way calls for extra celebration. It is its own reward.

How many things are truly that? Rather, which other things are?

RE: TLA .COMs

My favorite site in the whole world wide web is Mark's Daily Apple. Some other sites I enjoy: a certain webcomic, and Mr. Money Mustache; the personal sites of people I love; Goodreads. When I use the Internet, I still site-check my comic, my fam/friends' blogs, and Goodreads. But MDA is the only site I really miss reading.

(If you read MDA, you don't need MMM. MMM is just a tiny, money-focused slice of how to build a beautiful life. MDA is the whole enchilada. I have derived a few things of great value from MMM. Nevertheless, I don't miss it since ditching the Internet. Maybe I've become so much more BadAss than Mr. BadAssity himself that I've outgrown it. ;)

XTC, Season Cycle

Bjorn and I wintered our house in the fall. We moved couches in to our kitchen area and made a hearth-centered home. The kitchen adjoins a little living space with a gas fireplace. My cooking generates much warmth. We have drapes (sewn to fit by Bjorn's ma) in the kitchen doorways to keep the heat in. We set the heat low in the rest of the house. We don sweaters, wool socks, hats indoors.

We did not move our bed into the kitchen. I shiver at night while we get into bed.
   In the winter, it is well to shiver, if it is cold, no?
   So. I shiver, then cozy up. I have Bjorn, and the dog, but now I have ALSO the hot, plush caress of microfleece sheets. J'adore!

2014: Triple Goodnesses

in chronological order

• I figured out that my body can't tolerate the least bit of dairy, and I have been sleeping through the night scratch-free since Passover. (I have now a strong fondness for Passover.) I have had ZERO eczema flare-ups since then. This, after 2+ years of utterly unremitting urticaria and atopia. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

• I retired.

• My sis [Mona], brother-in-law, niece, and nephew moved right into my neighborhood.

These grand events make my life — day-to-day, night-to-night — peaceful, rich, and gladsome.