My {Almost} Provincial Life

32 Weeks Pregnant

I am nearing the end of my pregnancy, I only have eight weeks left, give or take a week. This is a different time in a pregnant woman’s life. Reflection and realization take over. Things become calm. Tiredness returns, though not much can satisfy this need, as I am wildly uncomfortable. I had a bad pregnancy day yesterday. There was a peculiar cramping in my back and into my hips. I was actually feeling this for a few hours. During a part of that time, I was under the ultrasound at my doctor’s office. He didn’t say anything about it. I had been overextending my body lately, and knew that that was what the pain was in reference to.

Before We Moved In

After I Removed the Old Plants

My garden has been a place of genuine enjoyment lately. Sure all I have done is moved the unwanted, untended plants and branches from the trees and ground to bags and piles that now litter my yard. I am going to need a trailer to take things to the Green Waste Facility, though I don’t know what I am going to do with the branches. I fear the time I have to get at the overgrown ivy pulled up. I am, however, looking forward to going to the nursery and picking out my vegetables for the season. As much as I can, I am going to try to operate a real kitchen garden.

Enjoying My Sewing Materials

I am almost done with the new baby’s quilt. It is actually so much more work than I could ever have anticipated. It is relaxing and therapeutic, but a lot of work. I keep thinking that I am going to finish it when I begin working on it for the day, and get no where close to it. Mae loves to help with it. She insists on climbing up a chair next to me and touching, grabbing, handing, and messing with everything I am currently working on. I used to let her sit on my lap, but a while ago, she reached out to the needle as it was in motion, so that was the end of that. I need to make the new baby’s bedding as well, but I have a fear that I won’t be able to get to it before she is born.

Mae loves the outdoors. We can hardly go a day without a walk, picnic, or just soaking up the sun. The part of my yard with the greenhouse and orchard is fenced off, so when I work back there, I just need to put the dog and the babe in there, and close the gate. It is monumentally convenient  Except while I was in the thick of it, I didn’t realize that Mae was curious as to what dirt tasted like. Unfortunately, I think she liked it. We will see how I tackle that fun new behavior.

I really love where I live. It makes staying at home all day enjoyable. This home was designed for a stay-at-home mother. My old house was designed for… to be sold. I had a nightmare about the people who bought our house; It weighs on my conscience to have loaded the home onto someone else. I really grew to dislike the architecture and design of my old home. It felt fake at the end. It felt like a poorly planned rectangle built with fake materials, made with a facade that was only meant to project a message that there was a house behind it, as though they couldn’t just make a house. I remember crying about it. I remember when Mae fell down the stairs in the split-entry design, and I could have just died right there. That was the moment that really projected me to sell. I could deal with its flaws for the most part, but not at the expense of my child. The yard was unusable, despite four springs I poured all my time, money, and energy to transform into a real yard. The land is unusable, the design is thoughtless, and the materials used to build it were all ideas of real materials fudged to work just OK. It isn’t a place to raise children. Where I live now is a place to raise a family. It is place to feel God in the earth, love in the home, and grow like the human beings were always meant to grow.

Spring is here, and I am happy everyday to live where I live.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This last year I was extremely motivated to start a genuine garden. Even with my brown thumb, even with my poor watering, even with the drought summer – I still produced quite a bit and was able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Well, we are moving, and leaving my garden boxes and peach tree to be tended by someone new. For some reason, the universe decided that I needed another chance to revive my brown thumb into maybe a shade of green, because the house we are moving into next week is fully equipped with a small orchard and a greenhouse. Because of the snow, and the fact that I didn’t bring my snow shoes and excavating equipment, I only saw a photo from Google Earth of what was happening back there. It has been warming up lately, so when we stopped by the place to shovel out the driveway for our move this week, I trekked back there, and boy was I surprised.

It was like walking to the secret garden.

I walked through an archway in the fence that is intertwined with grape vines. Upon entering the orchard I found three fruit trees in serious need of a heavy handed pruning: two apple trees and a pear tree. To my right, is the greenhouse. There are six grow boxes filled with untended plants from the fall. The boxes are all set up for irrigation and an in-ground sprinkler system. The back of the greenhouse is heavy with a wall of ivy. The cabbage could have been harvested not too long ago if someone was living there. It is like a little spot of heaven. I am both intimidated and inspired. My baby is due in May, and May is the biggest time of the year for a place like this. I hope I can tend it sufficiently. It is too beautiful to not.

 

Moving On

I am beside myself with emotions. We were in contract three days after placing our home on the market. The couple buying our home is perfect for it. They are so sweet and young, a regular bright-eyed and bushy tailed type. My neighborhood will be good to them, and visa versa.

And…

We found a house! It is spectacular to say the least. It is what we always wanted. The Saturday after we were under contract, we went driving around in the area we planned on moving – it was in our budget, close to Weber State, and older homes (1950′s and up). However, there was nothing I would put my kids in, let alone my pans and furniture. We didn’t even find one stand alone houses available – they were all multifamily homes. When we went below Harrison (the Mason-Dixon line if you will of Ogden) it nearly made me cry. It’s a lower income area with a lot of houses with couches on the porches and in the summer the lawns are brown (they don’t have secondary water among other factors). We drove home in silence with the fear that we wouldn’t find a place and would need to move to the basement of my in-laws – a scenario I didn’t want to play out. When we got home we started dreaming out loud. We made a virtual list of all the things we wanted in a house. We talked about what we wanted to do in this house, and what it would need to do it. It made us feel better and we went to bed.

The next day before church, I pulled up the Internet to give it one last chance. This time I changed my parameters for max. price and went a tad higher. And there it was. Our home. It fulfilled every thing we talked about the night before. That afternoon, during a huge and heavy snow storm, we drove up the East Bench and met with the landlords. They were late, so Adam shoveled the walk so I could walk around it. I watched him on the porch and he looked like he was home. I wanted to play it cool, but upon entering the little home, I couldn’t hep but gush. To my joy, Adam was the same way. We were not even five feet in and he was saying how beautiful it was and how much he loved and wanted it.

The home and neighbrohood is prewar. Pre-World War II that is. We discovered that the post-war neighbrohood on the other side of the East Bench that we were looking at the day before, is more of the reason we dislike our current home and living situation. Something happened to this country after the war, something to our way of life and our desire for a functional and beautiful architectured home life that is lost and has yet to be found again. In the prewar area, it still lives on as much as it can these days. One itty bitty tiny block to the north of this house is a market/cafe called the Kafe Mercantile. One block east is a park for Mae. One block west is a bus stop to take Adam up the street to campus (no more campus parking!), and three blocks to the south is a community exercise pool for me. The church house we attend is across the street. And if you take a mile walk up the street, you find yourself at the trail-head for the mountain trails – right there! It is a place we can live in, a place designed for people, not cars. Our property has a detached garage for Adam’s art studio, and the back yard has old trees and a full-blown greenhouse. The house has a hard wood floors throughout, and is segmented, like a house should be, instead the horrid “open-floor plan” that for some reason interests people these days. It is exactly what we dreamed of. (And the landlord lowered the price so we could get in without it exceeding our budget too much.)

We move in after we close at the end of the month and I couldn’t be more excited. I have never been more inspired by a little home before.

Dream big, my friends!

The Rhythm

There is a rhythm in my home. I am apprehensive to use the word “routine” since the word itself begs for rebellion as it is inherently boring, unimaginative, and truly mundane. I have a rhythm. It’s like the rocking row of the ocean waves. Have you ever spent all day swimming out in the ocean, and then get land-sickness when things become still? It is that feeling of rhythm I speak about. That back and forth, the rush, the take-away, the calm, over and over, guiding you to and from the shore. I never had much rhythm, or never noticed it, until Mae became a part of it. When she was born, she had no rhythm. She would sleep all day, stay awake until the little hours of the morning, eat all through it, and decide to be loud when it was quiet, playful when it was adult time, and sleepy in the day. Adam and I just kept establishing a rhythm. At night, the blinds are shut and we talked in low voices. We don’t do housework in the evening, we talk and relax. The mornings are productive. We shower, walk the dog, eat, do dishes, vacuum, fold laundry, make the bed. Mae fell into our rhythm so beautifully it was wonderful. She has her moments where she is out of sync, but overall she has become a rhythmical member of this family.

She wakes up at five in the morning for a feeding, which helps Adam get up to go run for his marathon since I am up with the baby. She wakes again at seven or eight, to see her dad off to work I am sure. She eats breakfast, I eat breakfast. I clean up the rooms, make the bed, while she plays in the mirror or watches the sheets float in the air. I run a load of laundry, and by that time, only an hour and a half after she wakes up, she is so tired she pitters out easily to a nice calm nap. I log-in in my office and work, with the baby monitor next to me, or I shower first, depending on if the laundry and or dishes aren’t taking all the hot water. When she wakes up, I change her clothes for the day and we play. This is the time we run errands or I have made plans to see people or made appointments. She loves getting out of the house at this time. She has lunch, and sometime after goes down for her nap, then I have my lunch, garden with the monitor, do some more work, or shower- whatever strikes my fancy. When she wakes up we play. She is usually up now until her sleep at night. We play, make dinner, go on walks, make phone calls. Then around eight, she is good for sleep.

It’s a lovely rhythm we have. I can count on it, for the most part. Every day can be different, but as long as we still react in the same rhythm, then Mae is happy, I am happy, and we all enjoy our days.

Gardening and Why I Don’t Like Remember the Titans

Hello, y’all. I have had a bee-last these last couple of days, so I thought I would share.

On Thursday the weather was insanely warm. After I got home from work, my mom and I took Mae for a stroll to the park. Mae can’t quite sit up on her own, but we tried the swing anyway. She gets real calm and alert whenever she tries new things. I know she didn’t hate it otherwise she would have arched her back. We might need to try it out more.

Friday was just what I needed. Firstly, a work meeting was cancelled, so since Adam took the morning off to watch Mae, we got some much needed adult time while Mae napped. Then I went down to Salt Lake and met up with my friend, Crystal, who was in from California. She and I (and Kelsey) have been friends for so long, maybe when we were five? I can’t remember. We ate, walked through Murray park, then ate some more. Pretty much we just need to get together in places that allow conversation. It is nice to catch up with old friends.

That evening Adam and I watched a sports movie, Forever Strong. Of course it must be compared to Remember the Titans since that, I guess, is the best sports movie. I had to interject with my opinion. Adam already knows that I hate that movie, but I thought I would make it even more clear by saying that another reason why I don’t like it is because if you don’t like it you are a racist. For reals. That movie is among the least favorites. Bleh.

That night I went running and Adam loaned me his vest so I didn’t get killed. However, while running in it, I realized another good point to wearing it; I didn’t look like I was running away from committing crimes, I looked legit, cause you know, it is like the official uniform of a runner at night, or a construction worker…

Today has been great. My dad came up to help me with my garden, since the husband has work and school all day. My onions need to be planted this weekend so they can get winterized, so I needed help asap. While he was drilling holes, or whatever men do with those loud powertools, I made a tent for Mae. I have been thinking about this tent for quite some time. I wanted a place that she can be while I garden. It had to be shady, but still allow light, so it feels like outdoors, but not like those canopies at picnics where you actually need to be outside of them to get the full effects of the “shade”. It had to be cool and open and large. I think I nailed it.

My dad went in to play with the babe.

She was nice and cool under there. I even ended up getting her sweater and socks, since the breeze was cool, and she wasn’t getting the sun. We spent a good part of the day out there and at the end of it, I got two grow boxes. One already has the little onions in it. You can see the sprouts a little from the photo. The other box is empty; my artichokes don’t go in until mid to late April. I am going to make a large grow box for the tomatoes and peppers later on.

BTW, I think I have a problem. A snake problem that is. In front of my house, under my porch… Adam is going to need to take care of this. It is a little out of hand. My dad counted 8 in that creepy snake pile…

Life is wonderful. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see what it will bring.

New House

As if having a baby isn’t enough change in my life….

Adam and I have lived in our home for three years now. If y’alls remember, it was a dump to say the least. We worked way too hard when we first bought the place (the moment the papers were signed) to make it into a lovely home. At one point, not even close to it being where we wanted it to be, we got burnt out. We sat with no doors, wires hanging out of the walls, and unpainted trim for like 6 months plus. One tiny project at a time started, but we just were not in the mood. When I got pregnant, we knew it had to end. At least I did, and am I not the neck that turns the head in this family? So we hired some guys from Adam’s work to finish one of the spare bedrooms downstairs; that took for-ev-er. Then, while pregnant, we picked out carpet and started making payments to it. Then, when we found out our tax return might cover this most-wanted project, after all the grown-up stupid stuff of course, I called Barker Glass and we had every single stupid, crappy, moldy, window measured and priced. These windows are godawful. They might as well be open. Our heating bill is terrible. You can feel a cold breeze when you sit next to them. None of them have screens in them (thank you previous owners), most are cracked, all are broken, and all have hard water stains inside the panes and out. We couldn’t afford the whole lot, but we could get a few and that was one glorious day.

This week it all came together. The carpet guy came and installed the carpet in the office. Oh, is is beautiful. The carpet is exactly the kind I wanted. Love love love it.

Isn’t she the most adorable thing you have ever seen?

Then the window guy came and installed some windows (Bay windows, Mae’s Room, and the dining room). I don’t have photos, since they are windows. But I can tell you about them! When I look through the dining room window to outside I cried. I have only ever seen the horses and such through a giant crack, years of grime, and hard water stains galore. It was a beautiful sight. Our home is feeling fantastic. We got an entire extra room! An office! It feels like we got a new house.

I want to keep up this momentum.