my belly's getting bigger and it's not just from all the cookies!

My belly is burgeoning!

Now that I'm in the "club", I can't help but be amazed at pregnant ladies' bellies. It seems everyone carries their babies differently and start showing at such different times. My friend Sarah is now 30 weeks pregnant and only now can people definitely say that she is pregnant. My other friend Laura is due the day before me and though she's a bit of a thing, has a massive belly! I think I'm about right in the middle, which the middle right now means not being able to button up any of my normal jeans, constant use of my "bella band", and even investing in some full panels (which I'm not quite ready for but by God they're comfortable)!

I'm really glad to be pregnant for the holidays and winter...the early darkness matches my moods and energy levels. But the sweets are just getting to be too much! Of course I spent the day aiding to the gluttony by making my grandmother's cookies. Hard as I try they just never come out like I remember.

You gotta love those haystack cookies!
Happy holidays everyone!

joys

Christmas is almost here!
Here are some of my joys of the seasons.
- the snow on the ground, my growing belly, watching Ellen and cracking up, incense, the smell of pine, walking into a room with a good humidifier, buying Christmas presents, nestling in for the night, Christmas music, Ceramics in the City, clementines, great neighbors, lit up houses, laughing with Mike, the power of my dirt devil, and sweaters.

maybe it's because it's christmastime

Denver is frozen tonight, with temperatures to get to -15 degrees!
This is a night to be thankful for our homes.

Today I did something I hadn't done in a while. I went to church with my neighbor, Jessica. And you know the funny thing...I loved it! I grew up going to a Methodist church, and that experience offered so much richness to my childhood. My mom and I always sung in the choir and were real active in our church community. And that's what it was for me...a community. I missed it.

Going to church is something I stopped doing years ago, mostly because I don't really buy into it anymore. My faith developed outside of the church. It developed as I discovered my love of hiking and going into nature. It was in this environment that I felt the most holy. And this is not something I got out of a church. I don't believe in every word of the bible. I appreciate its message and its stories, but I don't believe I'm going to heaven because I accept Christ. This just doesn't make sense to me. The world is too vast for such an isolated ideology.

Yet the world is so beautiful, and full of so much mystery, that I do believe in something. What it is I can't tell you. I just know that I can tap into it when I'm in beautiful surroundings, or when I share a smile with a stranger, or when I think about this life growing inside of me. There are unexplainable miracles that occur everyday and I don't think there is a denomination of Christianity that can contain it.

Yet I loved my experience today. I listened to the beautiful choir sing John Rutter's "Gloria" and it gave me chills. I loved every second of singing out of the hymnal and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many nice people afterwards in the dining hall. It was all of the elements of church that fill me up. It makes me inclined to return, to be able offer the same richness to my daughter. My faith does not lie in the church's doctorine. But there is a faith. I'm not sure if the two can merge, but I am entertaining the idea.

perspectives

My favorite patient will die any day now. He is 86. His wife is 85. They just celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary. She tends to him all day, changes his diapers, puts cool towels on his skin, watches the man that she loves, that gave her 3 children, slowly fade away. Her house is full of their life together. Rich memories of love, of children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, christmases. Soon she will live there alone.

There are things I learn in this job every day. Often they are nursing related, but beyond that I learn about people. I watch husbands and wives take care of each other as they get ready to die, watch their grief, their anger, their frustrations. People are capable of rising to such incredible heights when life says that they must, and they inspire and move me. These perspectives help put priorities into perspective. How can I go into the home of a dying patriarch and a grieving family and stew over the clutch that just went out on my truck? It trivializes all of this. This line of work is a constant reminder of how fragile life it, and how important love is.

At this moment I am utterly filled with love. Mike and I learned tonight that the little baby inside my belly is a little girl. And this information overwhelms me. This little kicking baby that is growing so fast is my daughter. My daughter.

Life is just full of so, so much.

Love comes in many forms.

Without love, life just wouldn't be much fun.

(ssshhh...she's addicted!)

There have been times when I've thought to call a family meeting to organize an intervention for my Mom. You see, she's an addict. A cold, hard addict. And her addiction can, at times, take over her life. She becomes lost in it. She can't see straight. Hours will go by before she realizes she

can't.

stop.

knitting.

You see, my mom's a knit-a-holic. And we've really all come to accept it, and we love her for and despite this infatuation with the needles and yarn. We know she's helpless to her inner knitting beast. But at least she's good. I mean the woman can knit the pants right on anyone!

I never had an inner knitting beast though God knows my mom has tried to find it. And then, one day, I woke up and I felt the urge. I had to knit! I went to a drugstore and bought all my materials. I was armed with previous attempts of knitting education from Mom and a youtube video on how to knit. And by golly while I never! The day finally came...

I knit something!

Sure it's full of holes and mistakes, but maybe somewhere beneath all of the squelching there really is a knitting beast, just waiting to be released!