Happy (belated) New Year! Many apologies for not adding much to the blog-verse in 2017. My excuse: I was too bus adding some adorable-ness to the world at large = I made a baby girl instead of writing. Basically I was either too nauseous, too tired, or too busy taking care of my boys with the little oomph I had to spare for most of the year. Julianna was born in October and then it was the holiday season; not a great time to try picking up blogging again.
But now we are a month into 2018 and I'm ready to get back at it.
In getting the juices flowing, I've redesigned the look and direction of the blog (hope you like it) and read some of my old posts to remember what my voice sounds like (when I'm saying more than, "Share with your brother," or "Please let the baby sleep!)
Looking back at my post last year to ring in the new year I saw that I had been proud of completing a mini bucket list to prepare for my 25th birthday. The idea behind that was that 25 is my favorite number and I wanted it to be a banner year. I'd say I succeeded; 2017 was a pretty good year. In my brain it is divided into Pregnant or Not Pregnant and Nauseous or Not Nauseous.
In January I was Not Yet Pregnant and I experienced my first foot zoning session. (It's so nice being a massage therapist and being able to exchange. I'm also open to bartering.) It was quite validating to be told that my energies were generally good and that I was clearing some generational patterns.
I found out I was Pregnant in February and had a brief Not Nauseous period to enjoy getting excited and start hoping it was a girl this time.
Then the Nauseous time began. Instead of being just a first trimester thing, it was more of a first half sort of thing. And it was worse this time than it was with my two boys. That was my first clue that it was either a girl or twins. My cousin gave birth to twins at the beginning of the year, so that really did feel like a possibility. It was quite a relief to see only one Jelly Bean in the first ultrasound.
Despite being Nauseous, I managed to get my little massage business set up again and continue practicing. Massage actually proved a decent distraction. This is also my second pregnancy where I ended up doing some serious singing. With Jon it was being in the back-up choir for a production of The Pirates of Penzance with the University Choir at BYU-I. This time it was a community choir Easter production of Handel's Messiah. The performance was towards the end of the overall Nauseous stretch, but I did finally cave in and ask for a Zofran prescription because I wasn't taking any chances of having to miss the performance, and my last minute solo. It worked so we will remember to get that at the beginning in future rounds.
The highlight of the Not Nauseous term was our summer trip. It wasn't as involved as our month-long road trip in 2016, which was nice. We took a train over to Denver to see Charles' brother and a train museum that was featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. Plus there was small petting zoo. Overall, it was a win-win. The boys had fun (trains... enough said) and they were pretty well-behaved the whole time. The train was a great idea. We didn't have to keep the boys in car seats so they were able to wiggle a bit and stretch out better for sleeping purposes. I'd highly recommend it as a mode of log-distance travel. We need more trains.
And then October came to end the Pregnant round and Julianna was born! Yeah for having a little girl. I was hoping she'd come while I was still 25. She cut it close. Her birthday is 10/10 and mine is 10/19.
I've joked with the nurses at her appointments that maybe I should have named her Mary Poppins because I think she is Practically Perfect in Every Way :) She does everything she is supposed to although I'm starting to create a theory that each new baby grows faster than the last. She will be 4 months in about a week and I just had to switch her clothes to the 6-9 months size. But she has a smile to match. My little angel.
To end this reminiscing, I'd like to just mention that my only official "resolution" for 2017 was to read more. Period. I listen to plenty of audio books, but I desired a return to the written page. I'll say that I succeeded in reading more than I have in a while. I finished a series (although it took most of the year).
This year I am expanding on that decision and have tasked myself with a reading list of some of the Classics. I took a Facebook quiz last year that revealed how many "classics" I had read. I felt I needed to add the stories that have been made into movies I've seen to get a decent score. That was humbling. So to give myself a bit of an ego boost I sifted through our shelves to find some of the titles that I have missed. I managed to fill an entire shelf.
So far I have finished The Picture of Dorian Gray which I had started back when I was weaning David. I felt I had to start there because I am a self-proclaimed Finisher. Now I am reading The Iliad. I recently watched the Myths and Monsters series on Netflix which referenced several stories from Homer. They were already on my list, but watching the show bumped them up in my time line. I think I'll kind go at this list in a chronological-ish order.
Hopefully 2018 will be filled with both reading and writing (but not necessarily great amounts of 'rithmetic).