32 weeks

everything is the same, except bigger. we had another perfect prenatal yesterday and the baby and i seem very healthy.

i got a new dress, and i'm so much more comfortable in it than in pants.

65 days, or thereabouts, to go

i know all anyone is interested in right now is this pregnancy and this baby...so here ya go. :D

27 weeks

this is from a week and a half ago, but you get the idea. i had a prenatal a couple days before this picture, and i'm healthy as can be, with low blood pressure, and a very active baby.

i'm so tired of people asking what we're having. a baby. other than that, i don't know, and i won't until i deliver him or her into my or latt's hands.

simple pleasures and salamander hunting

me and latt's 6th anniversary was a few days ago. he got off early from the nursery he's working at, and the rain stopped around the same time he got off. he came home to me and rowan and jack and we got suited up in boots and slickers and headed off to explore the spring-fed creek that comes down labyrinth mountain to terra. it gets prettier and wilder as you go, and since we've been having so much rain of late everything was so clean and cool and the water was just rushing along. the boulders got bigger and mossier as we went, and the sense of being in a magical place got stronger and stronger. my favorite spot we've gotten to so far runs past these enormous columns of rocks, with caves and everything. it's a very special, very powerful, very quiet place. last time i hiked those big rocks, i found an ancient bucket wedged in between a tree so old it was one contiguous carpet of moss and grey, weathered ironwood and a boulder bigger than a tank. i picked it up and peered behind me at the spring, seeing, perhaps only because i wanted to see it so badly, the old trail, and the girl upon it, in a beeline to a deep hole in the stream where the water must have been sweet and clear and cold.

by the time we trekked back down the stream a couple hours later, we had collected five species of salamanders, and eight specimens, from under rotting logs and creek rocks. we took the home and read our field guides and terrarium books, figuring out that we have a cave salamander, a dark-sided salamander, a lead-phase southern red-backed salamander, and one we haven't exactly figured out yet. we also had some type of brook salamanders that are more aquatic, and latt took them back that night to their stream. we added them to the terrarium where the serendipitous spotted salamander already resides (serendipitous because during our last flood, i opened the front door and found it literally on my doorjam, under the heavy steel door, but fine). we've been learning about their needs and their preferred habitat, and we'll be learning from them and enjoying them. the best pets i ever had were a troupe of california newts, with their sweet muppet-y faces and their benevolence to each other as they dove and swam. the ones we have now can live up to 20 years, and are a delight to watch.

i am blessed that my kids, and my husband, share with me this kind of deep love of wild places, and waterways, and the beauty of these woods. northwest arkansas is a treasure for many reasons, but its preponderance of salamanders has pushed it over the edge of amazingly cool to us all.

and it was a perfect anniversary gift to me.

dovetail--gratitude #8

i love when things fit together well, right. especially when it's pure serendipity that they do so. there's a particular delight i have in the moment--click--when everything slides into place like it never belonged anywhere more truly.

today was a perfect example of a dovetail. that's why i'm so tardy getting this entry up--i've been having a wonderful time all day, working in the studio on stained glass with latt. i have never been able to work so long with him or so productively. the fates smiled on us today though--jackson was here, and he and rowan watched jumanji and just hung out upstairs while we worked for about two hours in the middle of the day, and after bedtime we went back down for another couple. but what a four hours!

we started out the day productively with me seeing a very pregnant woman's torso, in profile, in a piece of glass that had curved lines throughout. latt cut her out of the glass for me, and we worked together to create a piece of glass around her that would do her justice. here she is in the rough. pinks and greens and clear glass. when we saw how well that worked, i thought she would be perfect for sale as a mother's day item. dh agreed and we both got excited. immediately we set to making more just like her, using her profile as a template. by the time we came upstairs to fix lunch, we had four similar pieces in various stages of completion!

tonight when we went back down we were just as productive...latt foiled the pieces from earlier, and i put together two more. then he made some improvements to them and made the cuts needed to make it all fit together perfectly. just like our day together. want to see a slideshow that shows us moving through the day and our various creations? i took pictures as i went once i realized our work was definitely what i was thankful for today.

today not only did so many pieces of glass go together seamlessly--but so did my life and my work. and my life and my love. everything dovetailed so very perfectly. that is a damn good day. and i'd be crazy not to be full of gratitude for it.

gratitude #7--catching fireflies and the act of creation

there is something so satisfying about learning, and having success at, a new skill. i can really sense my homo habilis roots when i'm taking on a new craft and it actually comes out well. i've dyed my fifth skein of yarn, another big licorice twist one, and i'm finally feeling like it's good enough to sell. :squeee:

this one is "catching fireflies"--it's dyed in the inky deep blue and the silvery blue of the night sky, just past twilight when the other colors recede--which is when the fireflies come out! there's the light and dark greens of the backyards and fields i ran in as a child with my little jar, holes carefully poked in the lid, and of course the flare orange glow of the the little creatures' beacons. i adored catching fireflies and i swear, there is something about learning a new craft that makes me feel just as inspired, as happy--as grateful. because it is somehow the same--the desire to capture something shiny, something difficult to hold. a new ability, particularly one that feeds your soul and looks pretty, is like that moment --AHA! I GOT IT!--when you manage to keep still for a moment something fragile and fleeting. like the fireflies i caught as a child, my creations are especially precious to me, because--not in spite of--the fact that after i admire them, briefly, i let them go.

as a work at home mom, i've let thousands of colorful creatures out of my hands and into the lives' of others. that's what makes dyeing yarn like this such a delight--it's a lovely, ephemeral thing flying through my life, but it's going to make someone else very very happy. i'm grateful to be able to turn curiosity and a love for color and a desire to learn and do new things into that kind of happiness in others' hands.

library day with the girl who loves stories--gratitude #6

as much as i hate the trip into town--now that we are 15 miles out, it seems interminably long--the lure of our city library is compelling. it's a green built-building, and it's beautiful and huge, and the children's department is amazing and a sensory delight. oh, and they have a great local coffee shop inside, complete with deli fare and the best old-school cheap coffee by the cup in town. what's not to love?

when we get back from the library, rowan is always eager to spread out her take and start in right away on the books, books on tape or cd, or a movie. i'm especially grateful right now for audio books, which let me work and feel almost as good as if another person is reading to her. she;s as quiet and engrossed with these books as with a movie, but they're basically guilt-free for me. :D i like guilt-free--my superego works overtime as it is without any further stimuli.

here's our cream of the crop from the last few days (which included a trip to the big library and our dinky local library, which is pretty good too--a totally different experience, where the librarian knows rowan's name, when i'm due, that we're homeschooling, and who doesn't need my card to check books out for us...she actually knows our names by heart.) these are the ones she and i have really enjoyed, or the ones we're looking forward to especially. she ate dinner while listening to one audiobook, and basking in the splendor of her other choices of books on CD and tape for the next few days. i'm particularly jazzed about roald dahl reading charlie and the chocolate factory and james and the giant peach--he's one of my very favorite authors, age-graded genres be damned. i also look forward to the unabridged jungle book by kipling--i loved those as a child.

my favorite moment of the night happened after supper. rowan is really enjoying this cd book by cornelia funke called igraine the brave, about a young girl who gets the opportunity to become a knight *and* save her family and their castle. she particularly likes the fact that there is an evil character named rowan the heartless in this book. anyway, she was still gnawing on a chicken bone and on a stool right.next.to the stereo, totally enraptured. i'm grateful for moments like this, when she's totally awake and aware about the world around her, taking all of something wholesome and edifying in like a sponge, or a plant's roots uptaking nutrients.

i wish i could make every moment this perfect for her, but i'm glad the ratio of great moments to crapola is pretty high--and grateful that time is on our side.

a real studio--gratitude #5

ever since we've been making a living by our wits (i.e. running a work at home dyeing business) i've envied the studios of other artists in the wah biz world. i saw pictures of joyce/elliebelly's studio and shed real tears about a year ago. i must admit that was a bit melodramatic, but at the time i was feeling especially like we were a ragtag, by-the-skin-our-teeth operation--dh was making stained glass in a corner of the attic that was inhospitably intemperate for five months of the year, and i was dyeing on a spot on the kitchen floor near the back door, between the washing machine and the dinner table and the door to our bedroom. every time a child or the dog needed to go in or outdoors, or someone needed to go in our room, they had to catapult across my mess , and many many bottles of dye were upturned in the process. then i was processing the tie dye in the kitchen sink, which meant moving dirty dishes at the worst of times and forcing food prep to wait on me at the best of times. feeling the depth of the envy i might have for something like this yet?

but that's all behind me now. i am the proud owner--ok renter--of a space that is well-lit, warm, and keeps everything in one place... namely, and most importantly, out of my home proper! our studio is in our building, so we can work while the kids are upstairs without worrying too much, and i must admit that when i go down there i feel like i am leaving the shackles of house-drudgery behind and putting on the gossamer wings of an artist. and it makes me so happy to see dh working on...let's see...either five or six different projects here with glass. the white squares on the big table are glass, and have lights below--so we can put a piece together flat and see how it will look with light coming through. very cool!

the right space can make a huge difference in one's productivity. come to think of it, that's what i'm trying to accomplish with this gratitude exercise over 30 days--get my head right about realizing how lucky i am, an effort i hope will have a real benefit in my life. but even if that doesn't happen, i still have this great studio. i'm not going back to the kitchen floor for anything.

oh, and in case you are wondering--the poster on the wall is inspirational in nature. it's ani difranco, and the text says "up up up goes the spire of the steeple/but god's work isn't done by god, it's done by people". it reminds me that the more i whine and bitch and envy, the less i accomplish--and there is so very much to do in this world.