We do non-baby related things too!

Josh has been painting some furniture for me, and I wanted to show you some pictures of his handiwork, but I always forget to take pictures when I get home, so I'm giving up and writing anyways. He really has done a very good job--he made me a headboard for our bed (he took a picket fence and painted it barn red--it's very cute!) and he painted our desk green (he's going to stencil flowers on it for me too). It pays to have a handy husband. We realized that the only two pieces of furniture we own that we paid more than $100 for are our couch and our bed. Of course, we haven't bought curtains yet either (probably because they will cost us more than $100--are you sensing a trend here?).

It was a beautiful day here last Saturday so we went on a spur of the moment hiking trip at Percy Warner park. Everybody was there with their labradors, german shepherds, and golden retrievers. Yes, Percy Warner park is no place for yappy dogs. Josh said when we were through with the 3 (?) mile hike that I can now tell people that I hiked a 600 ft peak while I was 6 months pregnant wearing flip flops. I don't think I'll brag about the flip flops. That was an accident--I didn't know we were going to be hiking, so I didn't put on sneakers--and I started to regret my choice of footwear about halfway through.

And because I seem to enjoy writing three paragraphs at a time, here's some more news for you. I've had to cut back on the amount of news I read. I started paying alot more attention to current events when I started working, because I had the time and I was always sitting at the computer with internet access. Unfortunately, this hasn't exactly been good for me. Really, not everyone can handle being well informed. The more and more I know about what's going on in the world, the more pessimistic I get. Then, one day I read an article about some Russian scholar who said predicted the U.S. would fall apart by 2010 and Russia and China would become the new world powers. Now, every piece of bad news I read is just more evidence that we're all going to hell in a handbasket and pretty soon Russia will take over and no one will have clean towels anymore.*

It's a good thing I didn't marry a politician, because I am going to have to find some other way to fight the culture war--a way that doesn't involve me needing to know very much about current events and public policy. I know! I will have more than two children and I won't put any of them in public school. Yes, that will do for a start at least.

In the meantime--why doesn't anyone write about good news anymore? It's all death, dying, and despair. Journalists must be very unhappy people.

*I don't know how in my mind communism became equated with dirty towels. You can hazard a guess if you want to, but I think it might be safer to leave that one untouched.

3 Months Left!

I can hardly believe I'm on the last leg of the journey now. I'm encountering new obstacles and new blessings the bigger I get. I can no longer comfortably (or safely) shave my own legs. Josh offered to step in and help, but we're both pretty busy, so I'm wearing a lot of pants these days. Sitting in a folding chair is torture, which makes listening in sunday school much more difficult. On the other hand, Josh has become a very sweet mother hen: he does most of the housework at night and makes me lay on the couch and rest. For some reason I fight him on this almost every night--maybe the hormones are making me irrational. It's also fun to be pregnant enough so strangers notice. I get lots of attention now when I go out in public. And no, no one has touched my belly or told me their labor horror stories--that's probably why I'm still enjoying the attention so much.

Josh and I went to our first childbirth class last week. Most of the people in the class are yuppie couples who work for Vanderbilt (apparently it's a fluke that so many Vandy employees signed up for the same class). There was one hippie couple--he was a former wrestler and she looked like her clothes could have been made from hemp (I'm sure it was a natural fiber). The highlight of the class was the lady who said that the most wonderful thing about being pregnant was "the power of creation." I guess for her pregnancy is the ultimate power trip. There was one couple that was nice and down to earth, of course, Josh already knew them from work. "Ms. Cecil" (she is not even 30) teaches 5th grade at West End.

And...we registered for gifts. I'm very proud of how we did on our registry. We tried very hard to make sure it wasn't very long, and also had a wide variety of prices featured. Baby stuff is so expensive, if you're not careful you can end up with a registry where there aren't any presents under $50, and I'm not exagerrating. Whether we get any presents or not, I think just the act of registering for stuff is fun and special. One of the best parts of being pregnant (I think) is getting to plan for the baby. Josh may have a different opinion next week when we organize his things to make room for Emmie's clothes. Poor guy--he is already outnumbered and our baby girl isn't even here yet! He's very excited I know, but I'm not sure what he's going to do with two women in the house.