Cold Spaghetti

It gives telling insight into the state of our domestic challenges when I say that this photo is something to which we can be proud! It documents *huge* improvements and many, many weeks of hard labor.

Stats: Fabulous everything; negative on antibodies (I’m Rh negative), opted to skip rhogam; weight same as last appointment 2 weeks ago.

Position: Kate is head down, although she still has decent wiggle room to spin should she choose to totally freak her mother out. She seems to prefer the right side, which means that my belly is somewhat poofed out on one side on close inspection.

Belly: I feel slight strain and burning on my skin on the top right when she pushes outward and the sensation is interesting.

Birth preparation: Vicki (our midwife extraordinaire) gave instructions for what to start to prepare. Checked out *beautiful* birthing room with awesome birthing tub (this could be a water birth!), birthing balls, chairs, great queen-size bed, and just about every home comfort. Met with a Bradley instructor to brush up on our training. Watched a few birth tapes (squatting and water birth).

Overall feeling: Getting excited and nervous… so much to do in what could be so little time!

I posted earlier about the saga with our stolen water meter cover, seeing them selling on ebay, and the events that followed. A new twist was added last Friday afternoon, when we discovered that the gapping hole in our garden was covered… by an original water meter cover. It is very rusty; so much so that it takes a little bit of work to recognize that it is an original. We bet that it must have come from a flooded area. But how did it get to us? The sewage and water board does not have a reputation for speedy service for these types of fixes and when they do, the cover is replaced with a plain model. Could it be that someone in the office found this one and decided to send it our way as a thank-you? We have no idea. What we do know is that we intend on cleaning it up, scrubbing off the rust, and enlisting the help of a neighbor talented at welding to help us attach a chain to keep it from walking away. We are really touched and our spirits raised. An anonymous good dead can inspire magic in the heart.

Thank you, water meter fairies!

Yesterday, we got some mail. An even bigger surprise: it contained something that isn’t a first class mailer… a magazine! September’s Consumer Reports (sent to us for the past few years by the in-laws). This is a sign that the pre-Katrina mail backlog may finally be getting sorted out of Texas?

In my “freeze state” waiting for my committee chair to get back from parts beyond, I’ve made some headway in the house. (Note: This is not nesting; I’m much crazier when nesting actually happens.) Acheivements include: getting the area rugs cleaned, securing an estimate for refinishing one of our clawfoot tubs, using Craig’s List to find a friendly local willing to share his table saw, learning how to sew/hem sheers for our front doors, finishing and hanging said curtains on one of the doors, scrubbing the stove to fine detail, finding early b-day presents for Mom and Mom-in-law, and creating a stack of paintings with Will.

Paul, despite working an astounding 17 hours over the weekend to bail out others’ lack of planning, managed to get his study moved into Will’s old room, install recessed lights in the old study (he’s done over 30 in the house now), organize the outbuilding and install the cabinets that we found in the house at closing, install lights to the outbuilding to facilitate working out there in the evenings, discover and start to unearth a lost patio, start a planting bed retention wall, and build a little levee to prevent next door’s runoff from compromising our foundation piers.

Way to go, us!

While working to fix the drainage problem and unsightly fence construction from our neighbor’s yard, he happened upon an ancient patio. (Okay, maybe “ancient” is stretching it, but it’s purty darn old.) We know it has been there at least as long as the house (100+ years) but have no idea what purpose it served. The bricks are in two patterns with a drainage channel between them. Was it part of a service road that may have possibly existed behind the houses? A driveway to an old house that we’ve been told used to exist in the backs of these properties and burned down sometime before 1950? We haven’t a clue. Paul has more pictures and discussion of his ongoing excavation on his blog (no, really, he does!)

We have noticed that Will routinely skips the number “four” when he counts. What is most interesting about this is that he does it in both languages (english and spanish) counting “one, two, three, five” and “uno, dos, tres, cinco.”

And so we wonder, what does the kid have against the number four?

Paul is singing silly songs to Will while dressing him for bed.

And Will says, “Daddy music bad.”