I forgot to complain about two pregnancy symptoms yesterday.
1. My teeth hurt! I feel like I can't even thoroughly chew my food because they hurt. I can't wait to go to the dentist and get them cleaned after the baby gets here. It's recommended that you go during pregnancy, but I am so nauseated, I'm not letting anyone put their hands in my mouth. I'm just brushing and flossing a lot while I wait.
2. My wrists and elbows hurt! Pregnancy often makes carpal tunnel syndrome a lot worse, and mine is bad enough to begin with. For an example of how bad it is now, Jason got himself a new rifle on Black Friday and I was holding it, looking at the cool sight on it, and my elbow wore out after about 30 seconds. I just couldn't hold up the gun any longer. Youch!
I finished a book today:
#47: Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris. This is Harper Connelly mystery, and as usual, Harper "listens" to a dead person's bones and discovers the cause of death and then gets into trouble because of it. BUT in this episode, this stranger's death relates back to Harper's own family secrets. Entertaining as usual, and I didn't even notice any glaring problems with the writing or technical elements of the story. Good job, Charlaine! (FYI, I say that name in the most horrible southern accent!)
Do you have your Christmas tree up yet? I put ours up last weekend. I even have most of my presents wrapped. I always like to decorate, shop, and wrap early. I love Christmas. I hate shopping in crowds. I think it's so fun to have gifts under the tree. And this year in particular, I know I won't be able to concentrate much on people other than my new baby and my own little family. So I had to get it done early, or maybe not do it at all.
I still have a couple strands of lights to put up when I have the energy. I have about 100 things I'd like to do right now, but I don't have it in me. They will just have to wait!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Still Pregnant! Plus some books
Well, y'all, I'm 38 weeks along now and my little girl can't come soon enough! Oh, we're crowded! My poor leg is so pained from muscles and ligaments loosening up and moving into the wrong places and putting weird pressure on something where my inner thigh muscle and hamstring meet my groin. Sometimes it makes me cry to walk around the house. Sometimes my leg won't respond when I try to make it walk around. Sometimes it just hurts but still works. I can't wait for that to stop! It should stop pretty quickly after the baby is born and my body stops flooding itself with Relastin, the hormone that makes your muscles relax.
I'm also THRILLED at the thought of heartburn going away!! And the thought of sleeping as long as the baby will let me without waking up choking on vomit!! I think that problem might be known as GERD.
Jason's excited for me to stop snoring so much and so loudly. I also drool in my sleep. The insides of your nose swell up and then sometimes you have to breathe through your mouth, and you have to sleep on your side when you're pregnant, and you make extra saliva, but I don't remember why, and add it up together and it means lots of drool.
I can't wait to meet this girl! Who is she? What's she going to be like? What's she going to like? What will she look like? What will her voice sound like? We'll find out pretty soon.
Okay, some more books that I've read this year:
#38: Find Me, a mystery by Carol O'Connell. I like the protagonist, Kathy Mallory. She's pretty much a sociopathic cop and badass. In this one, we learn about how she was orphaned and why she has been calling hundreds of phone numbers and freaking out the women who answer by saying, "It's Kathy. I'm lost." She also tracks a serial killer who finds victims along Route 66.
#39: The Man Who Cast Two Shadows by Carol O'Connell. Another Mallory novel. Pretty fun.
#40: World Without End by Ken Follet. This is the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth. Each book is over 1,000 pages long, so I recommend getting them on your Kindle if you have one. If you are pregnant, it is surprisingly difficult to read giant books because it's not comfortable to prop them up on your stomach. This one takes place in the same locations as Pillars, but it's 200 years later. Some of the characters are descendants of those in Pillars. I think this one is just as good. It's a little different in that it doesn't immediately establish the good vs. evil dichotomy. There are people we don't like, but I didn't hate anyone right off the bat like in Pillars. It's an engaging, satisfying read.
I've read the following books on my Kindle, which Jason got me for my birthday this year. I really like it, but I know I will continue to read paper books, too. Huge books would be nicer on the Kindle. Books with pictures are better on paper. Books that you want to flip back and forth through are better on paper. And sometimes price will be the deciding factor. Most books are $9.99 on Kindle, but sometimes you find paper books much cheaper than that. Anyway, here's what I read:
#41: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The old fashioned language in this one made me slow down and enjoy it more. It was fun, and pretty exciting.
#42: Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. This was a cute, fun little mystery. Written in 1967, it has some funny stereotypes about the difference in attitude between Americans and British. Also funny: the American's idioms and catch phrases.
#43: Room by Emma Donoghue. In this novel, a young woman was kidnapped at age 19 and held by a wacko, locked in a room for 7 years. She bore his child, Jack, who tells us this story at age 5. It's really interesting -- she tried to make it seem like life was okay there, and that is was normal for them to be locked in the room. How else could she raise her son? But when he turns 5, she decides it might be time to try to get out. He doesn't even know that Outside is real, so it's quite a big upset in his life. If you can stand to read a whole novel in child-speak, it's definitely worth checking out.
#44: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This novel takes place in the early 1900s in Wisconsin. A country businessman advertises for a new wife, and a woman comes to him, but it's not who he expected. There are a few twists and turns and a surprising amount of sex. It was okay.
#45: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I don't want to share too much plot, but there is a teenage Nigerian girl and a middle-aged British woman. They meet once in Nigeria and then again in London a couple years later. I will tell you that something horrible happens, but the victim does not feel sorry for herself. She says something like, "celebrate my scars because it means I'm alive and I healed." It's good.
#46: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. This one's pretty fun. He goes room by room in an old British house, telling us all sorts of facts about architecture, vermin, industrialization, fashion, surgery, landscaping, and sewage, among other things.
Okay, I'm all caught up on finished books. I'm still in the middle of lots of other books, including several about babies. I may only finish 52 this year, or one per week. It's quite a difference from last year.
I'm also THRILLED at the thought of heartburn going away!! And the thought of sleeping as long as the baby will let me without waking up choking on vomit!! I think that problem might be known as GERD.
Jason's excited for me to stop snoring so much and so loudly. I also drool in my sleep. The insides of your nose swell up and then sometimes you have to breathe through your mouth, and you have to sleep on your side when you're pregnant, and you make extra saliva, but I don't remember why, and add it up together and it means lots of drool.
I can't wait to meet this girl! Who is she? What's she going to be like? What's she going to like? What will she look like? What will her voice sound like? We'll find out pretty soon.
Okay, some more books that I've read this year:
#38: Find Me, a mystery by Carol O'Connell. I like the protagonist, Kathy Mallory. She's pretty much a sociopathic cop and badass. In this one, we learn about how she was orphaned and why she has been calling hundreds of phone numbers and freaking out the women who answer by saying, "It's Kathy. I'm lost." She also tracks a serial killer who finds victims along Route 66.
#39: The Man Who Cast Two Shadows by Carol O'Connell. Another Mallory novel. Pretty fun.
#40: World Without End by Ken Follet. This is the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth. Each book is over 1,000 pages long, so I recommend getting them on your Kindle if you have one. If you are pregnant, it is surprisingly difficult to read giant books because it's not comfortable to prop them up on your stomach. This one takes place in the same locations as Pillars, but it's 200 years later. Some of the characters are descendants of those in Pillars. I think this one is just as good. It's a little different in that it doesn't immediately establish the good vs. evil dichotomy. There are people we don't like, but I didn't hate anyone right off the bat like in Pillars. It's an engaging, satisfying read.
I've read the following books on my Kindle, which Jason got me for my birthday this year. I really like it, but I know I will continue to read paper books, too. Huge books would be nicer on the Kindle. Books with pictures are better on paper. Books that you want to flip back and forth through are better on paper. And sometimes price will be the deciding factor. Most books are $9.99 on Kindle, but sometimes you find paper books much cheaper than that. Anyway, here's what I read:
#41: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The old fashioned language in this one made me slow down and enjoy it more. It was fun, and pretty exciting.
#42: Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. This was a cute, fun little mystery. Written in 1967, it has some funny stereotypes about the difference in attitude between Americans and British. Also funny: the American's idioms and catch phrases.
#43: Room by Emma Donoghue. In this novel, a young woman was kidnapped at age 19 and held by a wacko, locked in a room for 7 years. She bore his child, Jack, who tells us this story at age 5. It's really interesting -- she tried to make it seem like life was okay there, and that is was normal for them to be locked in the room. How else could she raise her son? But when he turns 5, she decides it might be time to try to get out. He doesn't even know that Outside is real, so it's quite a big upset in his life. If you can stand to read a whole novel in child-speak, it's definitely worth checking out.
#44: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This novel takes place in the early 1900s in Wisconsin. A country businessman advertises for a new wife, and a woman comes to him, but it's not who he expected. There are a few twists and turns and a surprising amount of sex. It was okay.
#45: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I don't want to share too much plot, but there is a teenage Nigerian girl and a middle-aged British woman. They meet once in Nigeria and then again in London a couple years later. I will tell you that something horrible happens, but the victim does not feel sorry for herself. She says something like, "celebrate my scars because it means I'm alive and I healed." It's good.
#46: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. This one's pretty fun. He goes room by room in an old British house, telling us all sorts of facts about architecture, vermin, industrialization, fashion, surgery, landscaping, and sewage, among other things.
Okay, I'm all caught up on finished books. I'm still in the middle of lots of other books, including several about babies. I may only finish 52 this year, or one per week. It's quite a difference from last year.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Books #32 - 37
Hello, friends!
I've been doing some reading since I last posted, though nowhere near as much as last year. I got a Kindle for my birthday, which I really like. It's nice to have multiple books in one little contraption. I still love paper books, with their pages and the smell of paper and the cover art and the ability to mark a page and turn back to look at it easily (you can bookmark with the Kindle, but I don't know how yet). Anyway, here are some books I've read recently:
#32: The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. A couple push their luck by having a fifth baby when they already had a perfect family. And there's something different about him -- like he might be a throwback to one of our pre-Homo Sapiens ancestors! When I started feeling our baby kick, and seeing my stomach bulge and ripple, I couldn't help but think of this book, in which the little monster tortures his mom in utero. Since reading this, I saw an episode of the show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" in which a woman's first baby had broken 3 of her ribs while kicking inside her body! The second, surprise baby barely moved at all. No wonder she didn't realize it was in there!
#33: Ben, In the World by Dorris Lessing. This is the sequel to The Fifth Child, in which the little monster heads out on a search for more of his own kind. Poor Ben. He's a little late.
#34: What Makes You Not A Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. I like reading about buddhism because it makes me feel calm and less enchanted by consumerism. But this is my least favorite buddhism book so far. It took me forever to read. I think the others I've read had some fun and humor in them, and this one had none.
#35: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris. I love David Sedaris and his sister, Amy. This is a book of very short stories which star animals. It's illustrated by Ian Falconer. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoy David's stories about his own life, but it's okay. I guess I was expecting the same level of hilarity, but I did not find it here.
#36: The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn. This is a winner! A local newscaster investigates the death of his friend and colleague. But the important thing is that the writing is fantastic. Try this:
"Frank didn't expect much from food, but he thought it shouldn't injure you."
and:
"Sometimes he imagined that he was the last person living after the bomb had dropped, and such thoughts inevitably failed to lift his mood."
#37: The Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver. As long as I can avoid seeing the author's photo (the hair -- oh man, the hair!), I really enjoy these mystery-thrillers starring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. In this one, someone is going to elaborate lengths to frame men for rapes and murders. There is physical evidence planted in their homes -- but how does anyone know what kind of beer, condoms, and shoes they recently bought? It's a pretty decent story about the evil potential of information-gathering companies.
I have a few more to report, and I'll be back soon to do so. Hey, there are lots of ways to define "soon."
I've been doing some reading since I last posted, though nowhere near as much as last year. I got a Kindle for my birthday, which I really like. It's nice to have multiple books in one little contraption. I still love paper books, with their pages and the smell of paper and the cover art and the ability to mark a page and turn back to look at it easily (you can bookmark with the Kindle, but I don't know how yet). Anyway, here are some books I've read recently:
#32: The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. A couple push their luck by having a fifth baby when they already had a perfect family. And there's something different about him -- like he might be a throwback to one of our pre-Homo Sapiens ancestors! When I started feeling our baby kick, and seeing my stomach bulge and ripple, I couldn't help but think of this book, in which the little monster tortures his mom in utero. Since reading this, I saw an episode of the show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" in which a woman's first baby had broken 3 of her ribs while kicking inside her body! The second, surprise baby barely moved at all. No wonder she didn't realize it was in there!
#33: Ben, In the World by Dorris Lessing. This is the sequel to The Fifth Child, in which the little monster heads out on a search for more of his own kind. Poor Ben. He's a little late.
#34: What Makes You Not A Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. I like reading about buddhism because it makes me feel calm and less enchanted by consumerism. But this is my least favorite buddhism book so far. It took me forever to read. I think the others I've read had some fun and humor in them, and this one had none.
#35: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris. I love David Sedaris and his sister, Amy. This is a book of very short stories which star animals. It's illustrated by Ian Falconer. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoy David's stories about his own life, but it's okay. I guess I was expecting the same level of hilarity, but I did not find it here.
#36: The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn. This is a winner! A local newscaster investigates the death of his friend and colleague. But the important thing is that the writing is fantastic. Try this:
"Frank didn't expect much from food, but he thought it shouldn't injure you."
and:
"Sometimes he imagined that he was the last person living after the bomb had dropped, and such thoughts inevitably failed to lift his mood."
#37: The Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver. As long as I can avoid seeing the author's photo (the hair -- oh man, the hair!), I really enjoy these mystery-thrillers starring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. In this one, someone is going to elaborate lengths to frame men for rapes and murders. There is physical evidence planted in their homes -- but how does anyone know what kind of beer, condoms, and shoes they recently bought? It's a pretty decent story about the evil potential of information-gathering companies.
I have a few more to report, and I'll be back soon to do so. Hey, there are lots of ways to define "soon."
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