Fun with Hormones!

I've had the kickiest baby for the past couple of days. It is awesome! I suppose "kicky" isn't really the right word because it still doesn't feel like a kick, exactly, more like a flutter, but the flutters are definitely getting more intense and consistent. I think Penn should be able to feel him/her from the outside any day now. If I'm alone when I feel the flutters I always use the sensation as an excuse to talk to the baby for a bit. I feel a little ridiculous talking to my stomach, but the baby's hearing is beginning to develop and I know it is good for him/her to hear my voice talking in "baby" tones and it's good for me to start getting used to narrating my day to a little person.  At this point I mostly just tell him/her how much fun we're going to have together if s/he will just stay put until March. Penn mostly tells him/her about how terrible the Eagles are playing right now but how they'll be much better in the future.

I just found out that one of my friends in the department is pregnant. I noticed she was drinking Sprite with dinner tonight and returned a pizza when the chef put blue cheese on it, so of course my pregnancy police radar went off immediately. I texted her afterwards and asked if she was pregnant, admitting that I knew how nosy and obnoxious I was being and telling her to just ignore me if she wanted to, but she called me back right away to say that yes, she's pregnant.  She's due exactly 2 months after I am. I'm excited to have a local mom friend! (I actually have a lot of mom friends, but the ones with babies are all long distance and with the exception of my cousin all of my mom friends here have kids that are at least 3 already.) I really, really hope her pregnancy goes well. She and her husband struggled to get pregnant. They had already been trying for over a year when I got pregnant, and she was very gracious when I announced my pregnancy but I felt bad because I knew it probably hurt her to hear my news. She was going to start fertility treatments this month but she got pregnant on her own just as she began to arrange the treatment. I'm happy for her and keeping my fingers crossed, both because I just want her to have the baby I know she so badly wants and because selfishly I'd like someone nearby who is going through the same infant parenting stages that I am. Also selfishly, I'm glad that I was the one who got pregnant first. I like this woman and she means well, but she can be a bit of a know-it-all at times and I feel like she's less likely to spout off the unwanted advice if I'm the one with more experience (9 whole weeks more experience but, you know, good enough).

On another pregnancy-related note, pregnancy hormones are wacky. Most days I feel like my normal self, but sometimes it's very apparent that there are some pretty intense hormones at work. Like the time I burst into tears at a music festival because I'd waited in line for food for an hour and the concession stand was out of nacho cheese (and when I say "tears" I mean gulping, heaving sobs; people were staring, it was humiliating), or the time Penn was making fun of a magazine I was reading and I was trying to defend myself and I was getting annoyed except that the mocking things he was saying were actually really funny so I ended up crying and laughing at the same time. On more than one occasion in this pregnancy poor Penn has looked at me in utter confusion and said, "Wait, are you crying? Why are you crying? I don't understand, what happened?" After the second or third time this happened he just put his hand on my knee and calmly said, "I guess sometimes you just need to cry, huh?" Exactly.  So, yeah, 95% of the time I feel normal and 3% of the time I just need to cry about nothing for a quick second. The other 2% of the time I'm full of righteous anger at all of the women who post on my internet birth board about how getting the flu vaccine will give you the flu or how the only way to be a good mother is to give birth to your baby in a kiddie pool in your kitchen, let your husband sever the umbilical cord with his teeth, and then fry and eat the placenta.  I can get on board with a lot of hippie nonsense (ask my husband, he calls me a hippie almost daily!) but it infuriates me how ill-educated some of these women are and how they spout off these nonsensical conspiracy theories about doctors and hospitals and modern medicine. [Incidentally, I am not against home births. A home birth is decidedly NOT for me--I actually find the routine and security of a hospital soothing and want to at least have the option of an anesthesiologist with an epidural nearby--but I respect that it is the best choice for some people. But the people who act like it is the be-all-end-all-only-path-to-a-fulfilling-motherhood-experience piss me off to no end. I hold back and don't actually respond to the crazy posts--other sane people do that for me--but it really makes me angry.]
So, yeah, anyway, today my pregnancy hormones manifested themselves in the oddest way yet. I happened upon a song I hadn't heard in years, Sujan Stevens "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" and I got kind of emotional listening to it, and then I decided I wanted to listen to Mumford and Sons' "Timshel" for the dozenth time this week, which has been making me tear up ever since I first heard it. And then I was like, "Hey, listening to these sad songs is kind of cathartic and nice, I should make a playlist of songs that are good to cry to!" and then I was like, "What in the world is wrong with you, what kind of person purposely makes a playlist of songs that make her feel weepy?" And then I went back to writing my dissertation, which was what I was supposed to be doing at the time, but ever since this afternoon I've been thinking of songs that I would put on my hypothetical "I Need a Good Cry" playlist. Here's what I've come up with so far in addition to the two songs listed above:
1. Hallelujah by just about anybody who has ever covered it. That one is a good downer.
2.  Love Lockdown by Kanye West
3. Hurt, Johnny Cash's version
4.  What Goes Around Comes Around by Justin Timberlake
5. One by U2
6. By Your Side by Sade (I don't know why this one makes me teary, but it does)
7.  Jerusalem, the hymn (only certain arrangements, and I have no idea why, and I realize this is effectively the British national anthem so anyone from the UK will find this particularly bizarre)

Anyway, I know there are some other really good ones that I am forgetting. Give me suggestions, because my next step is a perusal of all of the soundtracks from the various seasons of the OC. That show was amazing at coming up with the most melodramatic sappy indie music.

So, nobody else ever does this sort of thing out of the blue during what has been a normal, happy week, do they? I can definitely chalk this one up to wacky pregnancy hormones, right? [Also, please don't worry about my sanity, I promise it really has been a normal, happy week (month, year). I'll take curative action if listening to weepy music becomes more than a fun recreational pastime.]

Priorities

I'm not sure how I'm ever going to finish my dissertation. I didn't get to work on it at all this week. I had a ton of editing to do for my assistantship (I am the assistant editor on an academic journal) so that took up all of the time this week when I wasn't teaching my university course or tutoring SAT students. I suppose I could have worked on it for an hour or two every day but then I wouldn't have had a single "me" second in my entire day, and that just seems crazy, especially right now when I know that for the sake of my health and my baby's I need to be sure I get a little bit of downtime and exercise every day.
I really have been prioritizing the dissertation lately. I make an effort to work on it for a few hours every day and aim for 20 hours a week, but in a week like this one, it just wasn't possible. I hope to have my first two chapters completed--at least in draft form--by the 15th and then I need to basically complete a chapter every four weeks after that if I want to be done before the baby arrives. I keep telling myself it will be worth all the hard work right now to be able to enjoy my baby without the dissertation hanging over my head, but I get so overwhelmed sometimes that I can't imagine the work will ever get done in time. I am determined to finish this degree. I didn't spend 4 years of my life working toward this to give up on it now. Yet I resent the amount of my interests and quality time with friends and family that I am having to temporarily give up to finish this project. I know that's what it's going to take, though. I once read or heard someone say that s/he finished the dissertation six months after deciding it was the most important thing in his/her life, but it's only now really hitting me that I am seriously going to have to sacrifice a lot to get this done.
I also need to work past my fear of writing and just get stuff down on paper. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't even have to be good. I just need to get pages in to my advisor so I can start getting feedback. I don't enjoy writing in the same way I enjoy reading and researching, but it's time to bite the bullet and make myself write every single day.
I keep trying to think ahead to the spring when I will no longer have this project hanging over my head. I know the sense of accomplishment will feel fantastic, and I know as I raise my family and continue down my career path I'll feel a sense of fulfillment and pride that I earned my PhD. I just wish that dream of the future was as consistently motivating as I would like it to be.

On another note, I had a doctor appointment yesterday. The baby seems to be doing great. I laid down on the exam table and the doctor said, "Let's listen to the baby...It's a little early for you to be feeling movement." I said, "Actually, I think I have been feeling movement for a couple of weeks, I feel little flutters sometimes." She said, "Well, maybe that's the baby," and then she put the doppler on my stomach and the instant she did, I mean the very second, she heard the baby's heartbeat loud and clear. She looked surprised and said, "Oh, your baby is right there!" Apparently s/he is floating around toward the front of my body, high and far forward in my uterus, which explains why I've been able to feel her/him for three weeks now. Lucky me! I feel the flutters several times a day now, usually for several minutes at a time. S/he still isn't strong enough to be felt from the outside, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm feeling my little one (in fact s/he is fluttering away in there right now!). The doctor said I can call the perinatologist and make the appointment for my anatomy scan for three weeks from now. Penn and I can't wait for that appointment, mostly because we should be able to tell if the baby is a boy or girl if s/he cooperates and is in a good position. I can't believe I'm already almost halfway through this pregnancy. We have so much to do to prepare!

The dissertation is the main thing I need to do to prepare, though. I need to tell myself that if the baby sleeps in a dresser drawer for the first few weeks that's okay as long as his/her mom is finished with the big project and has time to devote to baby care. I really need to make myself finish this work.

I'm Pregnant!!

Yes, I said it, and it's true! I'm pregnant! I suppose I could have thought up a clever post in which I gradually built up to the announcement that I'm pregnant, but after almost twelve weeks of knowing about my pregnancy and thinking about it constantly but not wanting to say anything here, I think I can be forgiven for just blurting it out now that I am into the second trimester.

Truthfully, this is the last place I've shared the news, and I can't imagine I'm sharing it with many who didn't already know from my Facebook announcement last week or from personal interactions anyway, but there it is. If all goes well I'll be having a baby in March. Well, hopefully in March. My due date is early enough in the month that there's a possibility that it could be a February baby, but I've already had many conversations with the fetus about how s/he needs to stay in there until his/her due date because I have a dissertation to finish and defend before I give birth.

I think I've been having all of the normal reactions. I'm 80% thrilled and excited and happy as can be. This was a very planned pregnancy, so I can't say that I'm shocked or surprised. Since it's a planned pregnancy, Penn and I talked a lot about parenting before we even started trying to conceive, and I feel like I got a lot of fears and worries out of my system before I went off the Pill, which is a very good thing since there is a distinct feeling that there is no turning back now! I am about 15% worried that something could still go wrong with the pregnancy or the baby and 5% anxious about all of the changes that I know are coming our way, but mostly I'm just really, really happy. I have wanted to be a mother for such a long time, and I'm grateful to be having this experience.

Pregnancy has already been such an adventure, and I'm only 15 weeks into the trip. Here are some things that they (meaning everyone I know who has ever experienced a pregnancy) did not make clear enough about pregnancy, and therefore I learned for myself only after I got pregnant:

1) That phrase "a bun in the oven" is not just figurative. I feel like I am literally baking this baby. I learned from charting my basal body temperature while trying to get pregnant that my normal body temperature upon waking is in the reptilian 96.8-97.2 degree range. During the second half of the cycle when my progesterone is up, it's around 97.6. Now that I'm pregnant, it's not unusual for me to wake up with a temperature of 98.4 freaking degrees (and yes, I'm supposed to stop temping now that I'm pregnant and I mostly have, but it was kind of addictive for me). A temperature rise of a degree and a half may not seem like much, but let me tell you, it is noticeable. It is noticeable to me, it is noticeable to my poor husband as I thrash around in bed all night and flail my arms around trying to cool off, and it is noticeable to the cat, who has now decided he prefers my chest to Penn's. I'm just grateful that it's the early part of my pregnancy that coincided with summer heat waves, because I can't imagine how unbearable summer+increased body temperature+30 extra pounds would be.

2) Morning sickness is not just a morning thing, which, to be fair, I did know before getting pregnant, but why do we as a culture persist in referring to it as morning sickness when that is so inaccurate? Yes, I wake up queasy some mornings, but the worst time for me is almost always the afternoon and sometimes late at night. And there's sort of a general icky feeling that persists all day. I'm one of the lucky ones and haven't actually thrown up yet*, but my body has now developed a pleasant habit: one minute I'm standing in the kitchen pulling out some eggs to hard boil and the next I'm dry heaving my way into our pink bathroom. The sensation that I am going to vomit comes out of nowhere, is what I'm saying. I'm used to having several minutes of, "Oh god, this is going to be bad," and plenty of time to find a bathroom or pull over or whatever before I actually start retching, but not in pregnancy. Now its like, "Let me just hit send on this e-mail OH LORD WAIT, GONNA YACK." I hope this stays as dry heaving and not actual puking, or I am going to be in trouble.**
*Not true anymore. I started a draft of this post during week 6. Week 6 I was queasy all the damn time. Week 7 I felt awesome, barely even remembered that I was pregnant. Week 8 the queasiness returned with a vengeance and I actually threw up twice. Penn was proud that our embryo is strong enough to make me sick. I told him that was not the proper reaction.
**And then things changed again. Sometime during my 10th week the not-so-morning sickness went away pretty much entirely and I've been feeling great ever since. Lucky me!

3) It's entirely possible, even likely, that you will want to take a nap at 1:00 in the afternoon, even if you didn't get out of bed until 9:30. I'm not quite as tired now that I'm into the second trimester, but I still need a nap a few times a week.

4) One of the things the body does the instant it becomes pregnant is slow down the digestive works. Apparently my body now wants food to sit in my intestines for as long as possible in order to suck out every single nutrient to benefit the little parasite in my uterus. All that food just sitting there (GROSS) develops a lot of gas. This means that for the first time ever in my life I can burp! Seriously, I was never much of a burper before, and if I did manage to eke one out it was all tiny and pathetic. But now I can practically out-belch my husband! This is the one pregnancy symptom I actually enjoy, because for years now Penn has been leaning in toward my ear and whispering, "Guess what?" and then belching loudly, and I was never able to reciprocate. But now I can! Muahahahahahaha.

5) Feeling the baby begin to move is almost indescribable and utterly amazing. I wasn't expecting to be able to feel movement until 18-20 weeks because everything I read in my pregnancy books and online said first time moms don't usually recognize the fetal movements until they start to get obvious. But last week at the end of my 13th week I was lying in bed reading and I felt a tiny "pop." It felt a bit like a popcorn kernel popping in my abdomen: brief, tiny, over as soon as I noticed it. From then on I felt that popcorn feeling once or twice a day. After several days of this I stopped thinking that I was crazy and told Penn that I thought I was feeling the baby. A few nights ago we tried an experiment. I read that the baby can "hear" in a primitive way right now by sensing vibrations, so Penn decided to play his drums to see if he could get a reaction. He sat down and started playing and I stood in the room with him, and as he played I felt the baby flutter several times very distinctly. That's when I became positive I really was feeling the baby. Now that I know what I'm looking for, the movement is becoming obvious. I feel him/her several times a day now, sometimes for just a split second, sometimes for a few minutes at a time. Earlier this evening there was a ten minute period during which I felt the tiny ripples almost constantly. It tickles! I can't wait until the ripples and pops begin to feel like actual kicks and I can have that daily reassurance that s/he is okay. I really want Penn to be able to feel the baby move, too.

6) Watching your own baby on an ultrasound is the most fascinating thing in the world. There is just nothing like it. Every little movement you see is fascinating. At my first ultrasound the baby was just a tiny flickering heartbeat and I couldn't really see much, just enough to know that the baby was alive and in the right place. At the second ultrasound, though, my baby looked like an actual baby and was upside down slowly waving his/her little arms. The doctor said, "Oh, the baby is waving at you. Hi mom!" and I suddenly teared up and couldn't do anything but smile. The third ultrasound was the big first trimester screening and it was a glorious half hour at a special facility with a big flat screen TV mounted on the wall above the exam table so I could easily watch the baby fist pumping and arching his/her back and curling away from the ultrasound probe. I suddenly understand why people want to talk about their kids 24/7. As it turns out, it's apparently human nature to be completely obsessed with your own offspring. I know my baby isn't doing anything particularly remarkable or fascinating, but it feels that way to me. I'm still scared to get completely attached to this little one, but s/he is starting to feel very real.

I've always been curious about what it would feel like to be pregnant. So far, it is even more intense and exciting than I imagined it would be, and yet more natural than I ever thought it could feel, too. I can only hope that I will be lucky enough to sustain this pregnancy until it results in a healthy baby to bring home, and that parenting will feel just as intense and natural.

Actual Conversation I Just Had With a Bank Representative

This is copied and pasted from a conversation I just had with a representative from my bank (that will not be named, because she DID eventually solve my problem). SO ABSURD:

R: Hello. Thank you for being a valued customer. My name is R and I'm delighted to assist you with your online access. To begin with, may I have your full name and zip code please?

You: Full Name and zipcode

R: Thank you, A

R: How may I assist you today?

You: I'd like to log in to view my credit card account but I can't remember my username

R: I understand that you are trying to access your credit card online and forgot the user name.

R: I would be happy to assist you with your Online Banking after a successful verification.

R: Please give me some time to locate your profile.

You: okay, thanks

R: You're Welcome!

R: A, thank you for your patience.

R: Could you please provide the last four digits of the card that you are trying to view ?

You: there are two of them

You: [number]

You: the other is [number]

R: Thank you.

R: Could you please provide me the exact name as printed on the card?

You: [Full name]

R: I have tried with that name and could not locate your profile.

R: Is there any other zip code for you?

You: i used to be [maiden name]

You: and the zip used to be [old zip]

You: but on both of these cards now it's [married name], and the zip should be [current zip]

R: Thank you for the information.

R: To protect the security of your accounts may I please ask you a few questions to verify?

You: yes

R: Thank you for giving me the permission to verify you.

R: Could you please confirm the credit limit on your credit card ending with ####?

You: i don't know it off the top of my head

R: That's alright! I can ask you another question.

R: Could you please confirm the current balance on the card ####?

You: it should be really low

You: under $50

R: Please provide the exact amount.

You: i don't know

You: that's why i am trying to log in online

You: so i can see how much is currently charged on each card

R: That's alright! I can ask you another question.

R: Could you please confirm the date and the amount of your last payment on your credit card ####?

You: probably about six months ago

You: i hadn't used it in a long time until i just used it the other day

You: hence why i have forgotten my login name to be able to view the information about it online

R: That's alright! I can ask you another question.

R: Please provide the last charge transaction on your credit card ####? please provide the amount and date.

You: you don't understand, i can't answer any of these questions because i don't have a billing statement right now

You: and i can't log in to my account online

You: i'd be happy to answer any of my security questions

You: mother's maiden name, stuff like that

You: but i don't know any details of the card right now, that's exactly why i am trying to log in

R: I can understand your situation. However, we do not have access to your security questions as they are confidential.

You: is there anything you can ask me to verify that doesn't have to do with amounts charged or paid on the card?

You: as i said, i haven't used it in a really long time

You: not since february of 20111

R: Could you please provide the credit card number and zip code?

At that point I was like "YES!" and she finally started asking me questions I could actually answer about the credit card number and expiration date and stuff like that. Seriously, was that a ridiculous conversation or what? If I'm trying to log in and view information about my account online, doesn't it make sense that I wouldn't know the information off the top of my head?!

Ugh.

Well, that was a fun detour this morning. Back to the dissertation.

Leaving on a Jet Plane Again

I swore I had already written here at least once this month, but apparently I have not actually posted anything. I'm working on a post that is not ready to post just yet, but apparently I haven't come up with anything else worthwhile to report.

I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow for a ten-day work project. I keep forgetting that I'm going on the trip. Or rather, not forgetting, since for the past three weeks I've been prepping my team for this project, but not really preparing mentally. A lot of the practical trip-planning tasks were taken care of in the spring, and I have a manager whom I've tasked with figuring out all of the little things I'd normally worry about like how we're getting from the airport to our flat and what we all need to pack in addition to the basics (she made a specific list), where exactly we need to be and when for work, and what we should do for fun. This delegating stuff is pretty nice! I'm not good at it normally, but it has been easy in this case because a) she is incredibly responsible and b) I have been feeling incredibly lazy this summer so I'm just trying to do the bare minimum possible to keep my life on the right track.
I don't have to be at the airport until 2:00 tomorrow, so I plan to pack in the morning. I DO have the handy-dandy packing list, so I am hoping packing will go quickly. If I forget anything it's not a big deal, really (provided the thing I forget is not my passport or my credit card). I'm going to Scotland, not, like, sub-Saharan Africa.
I am excited about the trip, though. It can't possibly beat the last time I was in Scotland (when I got engaged!) but I'm hoping it will be a successful trip. Plus it's only 60 degrees there right now and I can't wait to feel cool!

I have been working consistently on my dissertation lately, which feels really good. For a while I was telling myself that I just had to work on it for 15 hours a week somehow, but that wasn't working because I kept putting it off and rarely reached my 15 hours. For the past couple of weeks I've been trying something new: I look at my schedule of appointments and commitments for the week and then I schedule in 20 hours of dissertation work at specific times on my Google calendar. It doesn't always work still because things come up or take longer than planned. Today, for example, I had to finish making the syllabus for my fall class so that I can have the secretary print it while I am out of town (classes start right after I get back from Scotland), and that ended up taking far longer than expected, so I will have to do dissertation work tonight instead. Still, I am determined to stick to my schedule from now on because this thing needs to get DONE.

I can't believe it's already almost the fall again, but I'm so excited about it. I have big plans for this school year, and I feel more inspired than ever before to wrestle my dissertation into submission. The summer has been good, but working on my summer projects has been tiring. I'm looking forward to the school year starting because, oddly enough, I think it is actually going to be a little more low-key than the summer. Here's hoping, anyway. I'll at least have a consistent routine, and I won't be boiling hot all the time. Oh, and I'll have a steady paycheck again. All of those are good things.

The Nerve!

Last night I had to go drive into the city for a work project. I had to unload a bunch of stuff from the truck and so I pulled into a valet lot (where I wasn't allowed to park), unloaded all the stuff, and carried it to the doorstep of the building where it needed to go, all the while wondering where the heck I was going to park my truck for the duration of the project since for some reason all of the metered spots were full even at 8 PM on a Wednesday. As I was standing there unloading stuff I saw my friend G getting out of her car, which she'd parked in a driveway across the street. I said, "Is it okay to leave your car there?" and she said, "Yeah, the attendant at the parking lot next door told me I could park there for $5." I said, "Sweet, then I'll move my truck over there to park, too!"
So I drove into the parking lot across the street, which was full, assuming that the lot attendant would direct me to the driveway where he'd just directed G. I also assumed he'd charge me $5. That's a reasonable assumption, right? Instead, our conversation went like this:
Parking Lot Attendant: You want parking?
Me: Yes please.
PLA: You can back into spot six.
["Spot six" was not so much a spot as a dirt patch in an alley with the number six spray-painted on the building wall above it. I dutifully backed into spot six, though, since my options were limited.]
PLA: That's ten dollars.
Me: Oh, I thought parking was five dollars.
PLA: Didn't you see the sign?
Me: I didn't see a sign. I just thought parking was five dollars because you just charged my friend five dollars to park.
PLA: [looks embarrassed] Oh...your friend?
Me: Yeah, my friend. She drives that blue car there. She said you just charged her five dollars. That's why I came over here to park.
PLA: That's because she is not parked in the lot.
Me: Okay, but I'm not really parked in the lot, either.
PLA: This is the lot.
Me: If you say so. So, can I park where she parked and pay five dollars instead of parking in the lot and paying ten dollars?
PLA: No, I was doing her a favor.
Me: But you won't do me a favor?...Is that what you're saying?
PLA: Parking is normally twenty dollars.
Me: Whatever.

I paid him the ten dollars. As I said, my options were limited and I was running late. Still, I can't believe he had the audacity to charge me ten bucks even though he had to admit to my face that he had done a favor for another stranger but wouldn't do the same for me. Jerk.

Lazy

I'm having the laziest day today. I slept until 11 and haven't really moved off the couch since then (it's 5:00 now). I did manage to do a bit of laundry, but that's about it. I guess I'm allowed to be lazy today since we had guests all weekend and were running around. Penn's mom visited--unfortunately providing no new fodder for the blog--and my cousin and aunt happened to be passing through town on a long road trip to move my cousin from California to Maine for school, so they stayed here with us for a couple of nights to break up their trip. We had a full house, but it went well and I had a nice visit with everyone.

I feel blocked in terms of blogging right now. There are two big things on my mind lately. One of them is my major summer projects. I don't like to talk too much about my career here because I feel like it is just generally not a good idea, so I can't really write about the two big projects that are taking up most of my time these days. The second thing is something I'm not willing to blog about yet, either, until I have more information, but it's something I'm thinking about all the time. So with my mind on those two things pretty much all day every day but no way to write about them in detail here, I've been avoiding blogging. Sorry! I think both of these mental blocks should be out of the way once the summer is over, though, so stay tuned (assuming you didn't just give up on me completely ages ago when I decided that two posts per month is sufficient).

Other than that, I can't seem to make other things in my life feel worthy of a blog post. Penn and I are doing great and enjoying life together, and while I feel blessed to have a happy and peaceful and sexy and predictable-in-a-good-way marriage, descriptions of my pleasant relationship don't exactly make for scintillating reading. There have been no reports of major new family drama lately. Penn and I have been homebodies for the past couple of weekends so there is no new social excitement to talk about. I continue to slog through the dissertation. I've started having horrible anxiety dreams about the whole process, but at least that is inspiring me to work on it more often. It's the time of the summer when I give up going outdoors and lounge in the A/C waiting for October.

So, yeah. I'll be back when I have something at least somewhat interesting to report. I'm going back to Scotland in a month, so there is that to look forward to. It's a work trip, though, so I worry it may be more stressful than fun. I hope I'm able to relax and enjoy it.

Another One for the Files

Penn and I did some home improvements last week. We tried to wrestle some rogue grape and raspberry vines onto trellises, Penn replaced the house's shoddy screen doors, and then since we ended up having to repaint one of the new screen doors (long story) we decided to just do all of the exterior painting we had been wanting to do since we moved in. The shutters and main doors on the house were a blue/grey shade that was okay, but the paint job was poor and the color was just sort of...dull. So after a day of deliberation that included taping six paint samples to the side of our house and looking at them at different times of day to see how they looked in different light, we finally decided on a color called "Geranium Leaf." So our shutters and doors are now green. I love the color, I think it makes our house stand out from the others in the neighborhood, most of which have black, grey, or brown shutters. Boring.

Penn's mother, though, had a different opinion. We posted pictures on Facebook and she saw them but didn't make a comment, which I figured meant she Did Not Approve. Sure enough, when she was on the phone with Penn the other day he asked her what she thought of the new paint job. Her response?

"It looks like a black people house now."

What on earth does that mean? Too bright? Too unusual? I have no idea, but it was clear from her expression that having a "black people house" is not a good thing. Way to be vague AND employ racial stereotypes! Oh, my mother-in-law.
On our walk to lunch today I challenged Penn to help me pick out "black people houses" since (GASP!) approximately 30% of the homes in our neighborhood are owned by African-Americans [in a very literal sense, there are a few first-generation Ethiopian-American families on our block]. Oddly enough, from what we could tell by our neighbors out and about this morning, most of the "black people houses" had the standard black or beige shutters. Maybe she meant to tell us that it looks like a "Mexican people house"? Haha.

Would you like a visual? Here's our side door:



The color looks brighter in this picture than it does in real life, but I happen to really like it. I just like color in general. One of the reasons I'm excited about owning a house is that I can experiment with paint colors. When I was about 13 my mom let me choose the paint color for my bedroom and I chose a bright yellow color. My favorite street in the city has townhouses painted every color of the rainbow. If the interior of this house hadn't just been painted a month before we moved in and it didn't seem like a waste to redo it so quickly, I'd have already painted each room of my home a different shade. So, yeah, to each her own!

Inaugural $h*t my Mother-in-Law Says Post

Penn's mother is an interesting character. She has had a rather topsy-turvy life and, as a result, she has developed some very strong opinions. Strong and, um, unusual opinions. Opinions that she likes to pass along to Penn and now to me, oftentimes to our complete bafflement and bemusement. In other words, she is the queen of giving advice or providing examples that make Penn and I go, "Who says that!?!?" later on when we've hung up the phone or are on our way home in the car. I try to attribute positive intentions to her sometimes-bizarre reactions and advice. I think she was disappointed many, many times in life and doesn't want us to get our hopes up only to have them crushed. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

In addition to these well-intentioned but (in our opinion) usually misguided pieces of advice, she also has a tendency to look on the dark side. She's the definition of a glass half-empty person. I can't think of a single time when we told her a good thing and she simply had a happy reaction. She ALWAYS has to look for the most negative possibility. Always. Remember the time I wrote about driving across a creek and my mom's reaction ("Oh, a river!") contrasted with Penn's mom's reaction ("All I see is mud.")? Yeah. She has a tendency to immediately assume the worst and then tell us about how bad it could be. Penn's mom is a textbook pessimist, to the point that it is comical.

I'm not writing this to bitch about my mother-in-law. In fact, you should know that I like her a lot, even though our personalities are very different. No, I'm writing this because some of the stuff she says is just too good NOT to document.
So today I'm beginning what I anticipate will be an ongoing series: $h*t my Mother-in-Law Says. Feel free to laugh along (or perhaps wonder whether such things are really appropriate things to say to your son and daughter-in-law; offended is not the correct attitude because we take it all with a grain of salt, but feel free to think, "Really?!" We do!).
P.S.-This game is going to make family gatherings so much fun!
P.P.S.-Many of these are conversations that took place between Penn and his mother, so I was not actually present at the time. She doesn't say all of these wacky things in front of me...yet.

Five minutes into my first conversation EVER with my mother-in-law-t0-be:
Penn's Mom: I've been married three times. The first time I was too young. The second time it was really good...until it wasn't. And the third time, well, we've been married twelve years and it has been hard the entire time. At this point I'm basically just hoping to outlive him."
Me: Oh. Well...okay.

Her reaction to the engagement:
Penn: I'm going to ask *A* to marry me!
Penn's Mom: Is she pregnant?
[I know she genuinely likes me and she seems quite happy about our marriage. Do you see what I mean about pessimistic?!]

Wedding planning:

"Everyone buys you gifts the first time. The second time most people don't bother to get you anything. The third time you get married, nobody even comes."

"Nobody is going to eat any of these things." [Initial reaction to the rehearsal dinner menu. Incidentally, people ate ALL of those things.]

"So what are you going to do with all of these books when nobody takes them home?" [We used books as table decorations/wedding favors. They were all taken home by our guests on the night of the wedding and I am happy to report that we received tons of compliments on the idea. Friends have since started a book club based on the books we gave to our wedding guests.]

Home Buying:

Penn: We close on the house tomorrow! I bought a bottle of champagne and we plan to go over to the house and drink it after closing.
Penn's Mom: Well, THAT's going to backfire!

Penn: It's *A*'s birthday tomorrow so after we sign the papers for the house I'm taking her out for a nice dinner.
Penn's Mom: So you're taking her to McDonald's, right?
Penn: No. Why would I do that?
Penn's Mom: Because you don't have any money. You're broke from buying a house.

[Uh, okay. If you say so.]

Penn: *A* put most of her savings into buying the house, too.
Penn's Mom: Wow, she must be really invested in this relationship! She's not just going to back out at the drop of a hat.

[You know, because GETTING MARRIED doesn't imply a certain level of investment!]


Miscellaneous life advice, orders, and conversations:
Me: I'm really glad everything is okay and Penn's healthy.
Penn's Mom: Yeah, you don't want to get tied to someone who is sick.
Me: No, it's not that. If he did get really sick that wouldn't change anything between us.
Penn's Mom: You say that now, but let me tell you, if he really was sick that would change everything and you might think you could make it work but you couldn't. You would be better off not getting stuck with that in the first place.

"Grandma isn't doing well. You need to take the time to come and see her before it's too late. Don't call me unless you're volunteering." [From an e-mail sent to the entire family]

Penn's Mom: She's such a backstabber. She walked in and sat next to me at the meeting as if she was my best friend. She was acting chatty like she's my best buddy. And then she wanted to eat lunch together.
Penn: You know, Mom, it is possible she actually likes you and isn't just pretending.
Penn's Mom: Oh god, I hope not!

Penn: We won a trip to Jamaica!
Penn's Mom: That's definitely a scam. It's going to be a time share thing.
Penn: No, it's not, there's no catch. We asked. It's really a free trip.
Penn's Mom: Well, you'll have to pay for something.
Penn: We don't. Everything is included.
Penn's Mom: You'll have to pay for your drinks at least.
Penn: No, we don't. It's all-inclusive.
Penn's Mom: They'll find some way to suck money out of you.
Penn: I told you, we looked into it. It's FREE.
Penn's Mom: No way. There is no way it can be free. They're going to charge you for at least one night.
Penn: Mom, it's a FREE. VACATION.
Penn's Mom: You'll think it's free until you get home, and then you'll get some kind of bill. There's no such thing as a free trip.
Penn: I won it at a travel expo. We did a bunch of research into it to make sure it's not a scam. We just got really lucky.
Penn's Mom: Well, I wouldn't trust that if I were you.
Penn: We trust it, we're going next month.
Penn's Mom: ...Well...even if it does end up being free, when you get there you're going to be bothered by people on the beach trying to sell you stuff!

Penn: Bye Mom.

[Ultimate result: We took a trip to Jamaica last year. It really was free. A year later Penn's Mom is still waiting for God to smite us dead because we've already used up all of our good fortune in life.]

Penn's Mom: I wouldn't go bungee jumping if I was you.
Penn: It will be fun. It's safe. They've had over a million people jump and no one has ever died.
Penn's Mom: That doesn't mean you couldn't be the first.
Penn: I'm not going to be the first person to die on the bungee jump in New Zealand.
Penn's Mom: But you could be.

Penn: *A* is going to have her rehearsals in our backyard.
Penn's Mom: Psh. That's going to run up your water bill, having all of those people hanging out at your house using your toilets all summer.

[This one kills me. Who even thinks about something like that?! Also, I don't know where Penn's mother got the idea that we are very poor and just scraping by, but for whatever reason she persists in believing this.]

Pregnancy [This category is going to get even more ridiculous somehow, I just know it]:
Penn's Mom: Is *A* pregnant yet?
Penn: No.
Penn's Mom: Well, what is taking so long?!
Penn: It hasn't been that long. Don't worry, I will tell you when she's pregnant. She's not pregnant.
Penn's Mom: She sure looked pregnant in your Outer Banks pictures.
Penn: What are you saying? That she looks fat?!
Penn's Mom: No, not that. She just has a look in her eyes. Women can recognize when another woman is pregnant. It's a certain gleam in her eyes. She has that look.
Penn: She's not pregnant yet.
Penn's Mom: Well, then I guess it's just the look of a woman who is being good and fucked.
[Oh. my. god. This one takes the cake so far for being SO INCREDIBLY INAPPROPRIATE. She's talking about her own son's sex life! What the?!?!?!?! Also, assuming I'd been trying to get pregnant since the honeymoon--which is NOT the case--I hardly think six months is "taking so long."]

Stay tuned for more!

And Juuuuuuuune

Life goes on, keeping up a hectic but manageable pace. Everything has felt more pleasant lately. The stuff with Penn's sister is still a mess but, to use a weak analogy, it's no longer like a storm overhead but rather a thundercloud on the horizon. At least, that's the case for me. I think it's healthier that way. I needed some distance, I needed to get back to my normal life and stop obsessing about the life of someone whom I can't control or help. For Penn it seems to come and go in waves, but he also seems to have found some healthy distance, too, so that's good.

I got some fantastic news last week. This past semester was supposed to be my last of funding. I can't even begin to fathom how quickly the time has flown by recently, but somehow I have already been at University Land for four years and so my funding is officially up. Earlier this semester, one of my fellow PhD candidates and I co-wrote a letter asking for an additional semester of funding because A) there is a precedent for providing an additional year of funding when needed and B) that additional year of funding is pretty much ALWAYS needed, which is why as of last year they now automatically give incoming students a five-year contract instead of a four-year one. Turns out, not surprisingly, that it's pretty close to impossible to write and defend a dissertation in just one year. Anyway, while there is a precedent for giving additional funding, they certainly don't provide it to everyone, but I really did feel like I was deserving because I aced my coursework and met all of my other benchmarks on time and I really think with one more semester of funding I can finish the dissertation. So we wrote the letter and hoped for the best and, amazingly enough, we pretty much got it! We've been promised assistantships for the fall semester (I'll be teaching a course and editing an academic journal, as I did this past year), and--get this--fellowships for the spring semester! Next spring I'm going to be paid to stay home and finish up my dissertation! I am beyond thrilled about that! There's always the chance that everything could fall through when the official budget is handed down at the beginning of the fiscal year in July, but for now everything is looking really, really good financially. Sigh of relief! (For the record, Penn and I have been saving money for months and we were prepared for me to not have a job in the fall, much less in the spring. We were going to get by on his salary, savings, and my tutoring and freelance work until his promotion and raise in the spring. It would have been tight, but doable. Now, though, it appears that we won't have to pinch our pennies nearly as much. Hooray!)
I now feel extremely compelled to finish my dissertation for graduation in May of next year. I can't let my department down when they have given me this generous additional offer. I plug away at the dissertation every week. I'm about 1/3rd of the way to my goal of having two chapters finished by sometime in July. I figure if I can finish two chapters by July I'll be well on my way to having the whole thing basically done by December. That's my goal right now: finish the bulk of the writing by December, defend as early as possible in the spring semester. I really, really hope my plan works out. I'm worried because my summer is about to ramp up as I begin two major projects, one of which will take me to Scotland for ten days in August. Still, I'm finally feeling inspired about my project again and eager to just be finished with this degree already.

Let's see, other news..."Lurch", the new dog, is still wonderful. I can't believe I waited so long to have two dogs. They are great companions to one another and I love watching them galump around together.
I had a nice Memorial Day weekend. Penn and I took a day trip with another couple to visit some local caverns (breathtaking!) and then hike in a national park. The scenery on the hike was beautiful, but the hike nearly ended up a debacle. Our friend who planned it had sold us on "an easy three to five mile hike." So that's what I prepared for. I was in sneakers rather than hiking boots--not that I own hiking boots, mind you, but I would have purchased some if I had been warned we were doing serious hiking--I ate a PB&J before we set off but brought along only one apple and one protein bar (Penn only had beef jerky), and Penn and I each had only one water bottle. First of all, we looked more closely at the map before we set out and realized that the "three to five mile hike" was going to be more like a "seven to nine mile hike." We decided to set out anyway, though, figuring if we kept up a reasonable pace we could walk that distance by nightfall, even though it was already 2:00 in the afternoon. Ten minutes into our hike we got caught in a sudden downpour. We considered walking back to the car at that point and waiting it out, but we figured (correctly, thankfully) that it would be a passing shower and that the day would probably be clear afterward. That was really the last luck we had. Forty-five minutes later we made it to the first of several waterfalls and as we were admiring it Penn realized that one of our water bottles had leaked all over our backpack and was now empty. So we were down to just one water bottle between us with more than half of the hike left to go. Then everything just took so much longer than we anticipated. The path was very rocky so the going was slow on the downhill, and then the path back to our car was uphill and it was never-ending. Seriously, the last three miles of that hike were the definition of demoralizing. We were just climbing up and up and up this switchback path. All of us were basically just trudging along at that point, puffing and panting and trying not to pay attention to various aches and pains in our bodies. I know the only reason I kept dragging myself along was because I was with three other people and didn't want to seem like the out-of-shape loser. Of course, it turns out everyone else was doing the exact same thing, but peer pressure had a positive effect. We just kept walking and walking, driven by the fact that we really, really wanted to make it back to our car before it got dark and bears* came out. I was having visions of us being in the forest after nightfall, trying to get out by just the light of my cell phone (which I had accidentally left in our backpack for the hike). We eventually did make it out and back to our car, but not before I said to Penn, "When did this hike turn into a death march?!" As it turns out, none of us are out of shape losers. As we drove home that night I looked up our hike on my phone and it was described as a "strenuous downhill climb," only we walked UP that "strenuous downhill," which I think gives me the right to officially describe our hike as "really fucking strenuous." I do feel really accomplished for having made it through!
We also celebrated Memorial Day by going to a baseball game with another couple. It was a million degrees outside. I think I ended up spending $16 on bottled waters to get through the game.
Huh, I realize that neither the hike nor the baseball game actually sound all that pleasant in writing. But it was a fun weekend, I swear!

Sunday we're heading to the Outer Banks to spend a week vacationing with my family. Penn and I rented the house for everyone as a thank you to my parents for paying for our wedding reception. Hopefully it will be a fun trip. I'm so excited to see everyone!

*We saw a bear on the drive home! Two bears, actually, a mama and her cub, sitting right in the middle of the road! Our friend who was driving had to swerve to keep from hitting them and came within about two feet of doing just that. I had never seen a bear in the wild before, much less one that big. It was amazing. I'm just so glad we saw them from our car and not while we were out in the open on our hike.