Testing, testing...

So I'm trying out another blog, since I write so prolifically on this one. This new blog is cleverly titled "Anna's," and will be a forum mostly for myself to help me catalog all the lovely fabric prints and yarns that I would like to...own, I guess? I'm a terrible blogger, but I suppose that practice makes perfect. Or if not perfect, at the least interesting, hopefully. And if I pick up a few interested readers along the way, great.

My photography skills are...limited, so most of the photos will be stolen from the internet. But I'm not too worried, especially since I'm not selling anything. The long hours spent reading other people's blogs has finally paid off, and I'm able to blog fluently about things that I'm interested in.

I guess the new blog will be good practice for..something else. It's a something else that I've kicked around in my head for a good three years, and it's starting to need a more serious outlet than my journal. I'm hoping hoping hoping and praying that maybe it means a little organization and solidification of ideas is going to produce some momentum. We'll see. At any rate, please pardon the awkward first posts since I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm just trying it out.

Visit my new blog!

Springtime

The weather here in Phoenix is totally amazing right now! It's sunny and breezy and lovely, although slightly dusty. I've finally purchased (with my tax refund, thank you IRS) a lovely new patio furniture set from IKEA (where, if you know me well, I get ALL of my furniture). Ilse and I have been enjoying lunch and dinner out there almost every night, though not breakfast because it's still a little chilly - 50 degrees. My family in Minnesota/Wisconsin would snort at my wimpiness, but alas I am acclimated.


I do feel slightly selfish because as soon as the kids are down for a nap, I abandon all responsibility (paying bills, cleaning, etc etc) to dash outside and hang out. By myself. It's fabulous. The best part is that David will be here in a few days, and we can all be outside together and do nothing.

I was telling my mother Sandy today that it feels so good to be where we are now. Reading over this blog can be painful for me when I realize all the incredible ups and downs this little family has experienced in the last 3+ years. So it's important for me to share with my THREE readers how much my life has changed, for the better. My day to day life is pretty much the same as it always has been, but the one thing missing, the enormous, stifling weight of being completely and utterly out of money without a good job, makes all the difference. Where I felt held down and trapped, I now feel endless possibility. And the best part is that it doesn't matter what we do or where we end up, it's going to be an exciting adventure!

The only good thing about going through difficult times, and making it, is that I'm so much more confident now about what I can handle, because, even though I say it myself, I can probably handle anything now. :)

the car my son Zeke was born in (10/4/11)

homeostasis

I don't usually blog in my own blog, but I feel like writing. Plus a friend suggested to me the other day that I should start one. Little did she know that I maintain a THRIVING blog with TWO followers. So anyway here I am.

My life is only now sort of stable - My son was born, Ilse is growing up, my dogs are getting old and fat, my cat goes outside at night now, and David is doing well in his new job - over the road trucking. It's really hard to have him gone all the time, but we're working for a better tomorrow, today! and so we just deal with it. I've dropped a lot of the meaningless things I used to do to make other people happy - like serving on the Theology and Worship Committee for the Grand Canyon Presbytery, but am quickly acquiring new meaningless things to do to make other people happy.

I've decided just now to clean the house and kick my own ass in gear to do the things I really enjoy: creating beautiful things for myself and my family, ie sewing, crocheting, knitting, and cooking. Well, not really that last one. I threw that in to make myself sound more interesting and well-rounded. I don't ONLY want to be a crazy craft lady...

At any rate, my life is slowly becoming more even and predictably-scheduled, but I have that unsettled feeling one gets when a big life change is about to happen. I don't know what it is yet, but it's probably well on it's way.

Zeke's Birthday Story

A lot of people have been wondering what exactly happened on the morning of October 4th when Zeke was born, so I decided the most time-efficient way of doing this was to write and share it via Facebook.

Monday the 3rd of October was a totally normal day. I think we went grocery shopping, cleaned house, I made dinner, and Ilse went off to bed around 8 pm. David and I decided to watch a movie, so we settled into the couch. After we finished the movie (Deathly Hallows pt 1), we decided to watch pt 2 (thank you, Russian bootleggers) since it was only 10:30 pm or so.

Around about 11:15 pm, in the middle of the movie, I realized I was getting quite a few contractions, so I started timing them. They were about 2-3 minutes apart, which I thought must be wrong since I wasn't in any pain. I had pretty strong contractions throughout my pregnancy, and these were not much different, just closer together, so I figured it wasn't labor. Finally I started feeling a little ill, so I laid down on the bed to try to relax.

A little later I had a very strong, long contraction that really worried me ( in regards to the baby's health ), so we decided to head down to the hospital to make sure everything was ok, and if not, try to induce since my Doctor told me I was dilated at 4cm (almost ready for labor). David called Sandy, my mother, and she got ready to come down. By this point I quickly began feeling very uncomfortable, and told David to tell Sandy to hurry! That phone call was around midnight.

I knew it was true labor now, because the contractions were very strong, and I couldn't talk through them anymore, so I began pacing while David got our bags ready. Probably about 2 minutes after we'd spoken to Sandy, my water broke. I was pretty uncomfortable (and sweaty :-P) so I wrapped a towel around myself and had David help me into the car. Once he was back inside, I had a real contraction that made me yell (I still can't believe I didn't freak out the neighbors!). I realized that the baby's head was crowning.

I bellowed at David to hurry it up, and that we were going to have to leave before Sandy got to the house. But Ilse was fast asleep and she was on her way, so we hopped in the car and sped towards St. Joes on the I-17. There were two more pretty nasty contractions, in which I probably scared David out of his wits since I sounded like a deranged animal, and he floored it, weaving around traffic.

I had one last third contraction in the car, and pushed, and little Zeke's head popped out! Whoops, we didn't make it to the hospital. I pushed one more time, and caught my own baby in my arms, and pulled him up onto my chest. Poor David was having an anxiety attack, probably, and we made it to the Thomas Rd off-ramp (2 miles away from our house), and pulled into the McDonalds or whatever is there by that overpass. David pulled out his phone to dial 911, in case there was something wrong with the baby. He told me later that he was so shaken up he couldn't dial the numbers. He kept mashing other numbers instead, like 812, or something. Finally he got a hold of the medics, and by then it was clear that little Zeke was ok: he was breathing and making little sounds and moving around. Total time of discomfort - 45m-1hr; Total time of really nasty discomfort - 15m

The ambulance was right around the corner, so they arrived in about 1 1/2 minutes. They estimated the time of delivery to be about 12:08 am. We were loaded into the ambulance (little guy was still attached via umbilical cord) to an audience of unwanted onlookers ( I wasn't wearing anything but a tank top and a towel - with my name monogrammed on it ). The medics assessed his apgar score to be 7, then 8, which is perfectly healthy, cut the umbilical cord, and hooked me up to an IV. We left quickly for Good Sam hospital, while David drove quickly back to the house to make sure Sandy was ok - it was probably a little bit of a shock to find the house empty when she got there.

All in all, everything turned out great - a quick, drug-free labor, a healthy baby boy, and the experience of delivering my own baby, in a car! Going 85 miles an hour! The only downside was I didn't get to see my doctor, and David had to clean up what looked like a crime scene in the front seat. We only stayed in the hospital one day, and we were back home.

As I'm writing this, little Zeke is 9 days old and sleeping on my chest peacefully. He is the best baby, and Ilse is the best big sister! We are all doing very very well, of which I am extremely thankful!

Blech

Right now I just feel like writing. No one reads this blog anyway, so technically I could say whatever the hell I wanted. I think posting it on the internet just makes me pay closer attention to grammar and spelling anyway. I saw a post on pinterest.com that said "I'm silently judging your grammar right now" or something like that. It's pretty much what I do constantly. I should be a copy editor or something.

It seems crazy that in 10 weeks (more or less) I'll be giving birth to my second baby, little David Ezekiel. We'll be calling him Zeke, which is my grandfather's nickname. We can't wait to meet him and see what he's like. The only deal is that things are SO HARD right now for us. Why do these crises always happen during pregnancies? Alas, it's just the way it is.

The whole family is at a low point right now, so hopefully we'll all muck through and be OK in the end.

trying out colour lovers

In the Kitchen

I'm making a few dishes for the First Friday crowd. I hope there's a big turnout, because I'm busting my proverbial balls: I had a shitty day, it's not even close to being over, and while I was typing this sentence, the rice pudding boiled over.
I love being prepared so that everything runs smoothly in the morning, but I sure do hate prepping. It seems to take forever. I look down and suddenly 45 minutes have sped by. Maybe if I didn't spend so much time blogging, I'd get done faster...
I love being back at Tart, but I do remember having these days before. They're inevitable and they suck, and you just have to deal with them.