I'm a facebook junkie.

Serious junkie. So many old friends. So much friendly gossip. So many pictures. I love it. Even my 83 year old grandmother is on it. It's become a way to communicate and truthfully, somewhat addictive.

Anyway, here's another list, a sort of viral facebook list but it was so much to create and even more fun to read others. The theme is 25 random things about you. You should try it!

1. I feel blessed knowing my little daughter is growing in my belly. I can’t wait to meet her!
2. When I moved to San Francisco in 2001 I had $800 for the entire move. I remember sleeping in my car in a Safeway parking lot. It sucked, but I ended up living there for 3 years and loving it. (San Francisco. Not Safeway)
3. I really, really, really hate listening to people chew. I’m such a freak about this. When I was a kid I had a hard time sitting at the table for dinner. This hasn’t really changed much, I’ve just found ways to deal with it.
4. I gave Van Morrison a massage when I worked as a massage therapist in California. I never would have recognized him when I met him.
5. I’ve learned how to be a pretty good hula hooper and believe at the end of a truly fun festival I’ll have bruises all along my midsection from excessive hooping.
6. I used to try out for the basketball team in junior high. They made me the manager. I attribute this to my deeply ingrained fear of participating in organized sports.
7. Sometimes I forget where I am and bust into my Maine accent. This includes responding to words that end in "er" with "I hardly even know her". For example, "chowda? I hardly even knowha!". People get this in Maine. In Denver, not so much.
8. My little girl will be named after my grandmother, whom I love and respect deeply.
9. Once I backpacked the last hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail by myself. I’ll never forget that feeling of being dropped off in the middle of nowhere.
10. I can get really bitchy about the t.v. If there’s nothing on that I want to watch then I absolutely hate having to listen to it. This really annoys Mike. “Can’t you turn that down a little more???”
11. I work as a hospice nurse, and though it may be weird to love being with people when they die, I find the experience humbling and rewarding beyond words. I’m so happy to have found this career.
12. I was fat in college and it sucked.
13. I’m a blogger.
14. Happiness is when my new Martha Stewart Living magazine comes in the mail.
15. I joined the Cherry Creek Chorale, a local community chorus where I think I’m the youngest person by a couple of decades. The choir director made me second soprano and I hate it. I miss alto. I’m going to try to be alto for the next concert.
16. I've lived in Maine, Florida, California and Colorado.
17. I have a lot of fun singing and writing songs on the guitar.
18. When I was a junior in high school I got extremely drunk before a school dance and was caught puking in the bathroom. My mom had to come get me and I was suspended for 3 days and kicked out of all my extracurricular activities. Total afterschool special.
19. At thanksgiving and Christmasses I get a lot of slack for making “christmas casserole”. Christmas casserole is when you scrape all the leftovers into a big bag and mush it all together and eat it. It sounds gross but it’s awesome!
20. Mike can school me with any sport that we do together. EXCEPT cycling. Then he eats my dust (and I love that!)
21. My dad died 4 years ago and I really miss him. Mike reminds me a lot of my dad and I think that’s cool.
22. I love smells. Good smells. I burn essential oils every single day because they can make any atmosphere great. But I hate bad breath. I absolutely, positively do not like bad breath. And it sucks when my patients have it and I have to get right in their face. That really, really sucks.
23. I love that my boobs are getting bigger because I’m pregnant. Finally! (I know. They go away)
24. I’m a sore loser. I really do hate losing. If I suck at something I’d just as soon not be doing it. Lame, I know.
25. I am not a religious person, but I kind of miss going to church. I’d like my daughter to experience a really great church community like I did. It really was awesome.

strangers

Today was so, so nice. Made me long for warm summer nights sipping wine on the porch.

Another great thing today...the baby is officially viable, meaning her life could possibly be saved should she have to be born now. Which of course is less than ideal but it's a major threshhold to get over when you're walking this pregnancy road.

I'm trying to notice my reactions with strangers when I'm out walking Jackie. I often keep walking without acknowledging the person walking by, and I really don't feel good about that. Lately I've been consciously trying to make eye contact and smile with the person I'm passing. Sometimes it takes them off guard, but I like to think that even if the pass happens and they don't smile back, they are smiling after, or at least inside.

There are a lot of everyday occurences that go by unnoticed, or unappreciated. The person checking out your bags, the neighbor getting into their car the same time as you in the morning, the stranger at the other end of the line. In small ways we all affect each other. It's nice to give myself a reminder of this. I need that reminder from time to time.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

When the storms come in and the frost is near
I always know I have you here,
your clean warm water as I dunk my head
makes me forget all things said.
You can not disturb me when I'm in such bliss
I never knew love could be like this.
Oh bathtub of mine, my faithful friend
The perfect finish to any day's end.


What???? You know you feel the same way!

tiny little clothes

We spent the weekend trying to create our nursery. I loved every second of hanging up the clothes. Little teeny tiny clothes. Our little teeny tiny girl.

I can't wait to meet her.

I got nuthin.

I'm growing dull. I'm sitting in front of this computer and usually I have a myriad of events or ideas that I want to write about it, but today, this week, nuthin. Because there's nothing really exciting about working all week, or becoming obsessed with knitting, or taking many naps. Routine has found its way into my life. Somehow it snuck in.

I know this will all change once baby comes. But even baby in my belly has changed me. The things I'm interested in, the people I hang out with, the things I can't do (winter in colorado, snowboard with dust), the foods that I eat, the clothes that I wear, my stamina, my nerves. I can't help but wonder if I'll ever go back to the me that I knew, the one that could never stop moving, was never happy with just relaxing. My newest project is cutting out my favorite articles in my Martha Stewart magazines. Hello? Summer?

What will motherhood do to me? Will this blog become a baby blog? Will I become obsessed with my baby? Will I have nothing interesting to say anymore? Silly. I know. I'm excited to be a mom, truly. I love this little baby so darn much I can't even say. But I'm kind of mourning something right now, and I've only just realized that this is occuring. I miss old me. I miss fun , spontaneous Summer that took off every weekend for some cool new adventure. Old Summer never gave knitting a second glance, because it meant sitting still for too long, an impossible task. I'm on hat #3 this week.

And this is okay. I really do get this, this big picture. I'm growing up, becoming a parent, getting older. And I see beauty and fun in this, I swear I do. Life is a cool journey and my scenery is changing.

But I can tell you right now that this baby is going to have a heck of a lot of fun with her mama.

Thank you for finding the words.

Death of a great artist

Andrew Wyeth, 91, has passed away. As a girl who grew up in Maine, I grew up to really appreciate his work. There is a certain something about New England, it's a smell, a touch. The way the ocean air would be filled with salt. The victorian houses with all of their roominess, the way they would become dilapidated. He captured New England living. His images are like looking back through my own memories.

This image here, perhaps his most famous, was called Christina's World. Now I don't know if a relative told me this or I just got it stuck in my head somehow, but I grew up thinking it was a picture of my grandmother's old homestead. Can't you see why I'd think that?

In any case, Andrew Wyeth was a wonderful, wonderful artist. His works will live long after him.

2008 in pictures

January: enjoying a snowy season in Colorado

February: snowed in, Lake Tahoe, CA for Mom's 50th.

March: Getting away from it all to Vegas

April: Loving the spring.

May: graduation

June: Enjoying Colorado via bike.

July: Hiking 14ers.

August: a perfect vacation to Pagosa Springs

September: returning home to Maine

October: long car drives

November: the first visual of our baby

December: domesticating.

2008 was a good year. But you know what? I have a hunch that 2009 is going to be even better!

Success!

After that terribly pathetic first scarf that I actually had the nerve to publish on here, I have to say that I'm pretty happy with this scarf. And thanks to Martha Stewart and a weekend tutorial from my mom, I actually knit a hat! It took me about 4 hours but I bet a super good knitter could breeze through this tutorial. And thanks mom for teaching me how to make a pom pom. Pom poms are beautiful ways to handle your decreasing deficits at the end of the hat! As you can see, Mike got a huge one.


And oh look, here's Mike again. He's reading my first ever bottle of antacids because my newest pregnancy symptom seems to be painful, searing heartburn!

But I digress.

feeling like a winner!

Imagine my surprise when I was toot-toot-tootin along my little truck the other day and I called into KGNU for a prize I didn't even catch and I, like, WON! This has never happened! Turns out I won tickets to see Junior Brown at the Fox in Boulder.

So after a great dinner at The Sink, it was a fun night of good ol' rockabilly! (Mike's favorite)


The little catch that I haven't yet disclosed is that you needed to be a member of KGNU to actually get the tickets, so I ended up paying the $30 to join. So they weren't necessarily free, but I am supporting a great station that I do listen to nearly every single day, and it was a tax write off, PLUS they sent me a free cd. So whatever. I don't care what ya'll say, I'm still saying that I'm a winner! And my conscience can be clear next time they do one of their pledge drives.

Top 5 reasons why this blog rocks

I've been wandering around blogland today and I keep running into LISTS. Apparently the end of the year requires thoughts and insights on the various happenings that have taken place. So because I am feeling so inspired by all of these organized antecdotes and memories, I gotta play too.

Top 5 things that annoy me now that I'm pregnant.
- having the tv on with absoluely nothing interesting to watch.
- listening to people chew when the rest of the room is silent.
- clutter
- Jackie Brown's complete and total exuberance to go for a walk as soon as I walk in the door.
- my own absent-mindedness

Top 5 things I want to do in the next couple of months:
- knit some things for the new baby
- actually use my sewing machine
- join a water aerobics class
- fix the baby's nursery
- get out of town with Mike

Top 5 favorite songs at this current particular moment:
- Long Ride Home: Patti Griffith
- Gianni Schicchi: Puccini
- Heavy Soup: Cornershop
- You Can Close Your Eyes: James Taylor
- Feelin Good: Nina Simone

And lastly, top 5 reason why this blog rocks:
- Because I (usually) get great comments that are so fun to read
- Because it helps me feel more creative
- Because I learn so many cool things from my fellow bloggers
- Because it's mine, all mine..and I get to do whatever I want with it
- Previous entry said, because I say it does!

Happy New Year!

I'm still full from last night's 3 hour dinner. Oh India House...you done me good!

I hope 2009 is insanely wonderful for you!

p.s. I realize the first picture looks a little like a downtown building caught on fire, but in fact, it was fireworks, only shot from the crappy angle that I was at. Check out Kitt's blog if you want to see some much better versions of this cool Denver festivity.