Grace in Small Things, December 15, 2011

1. Good OB appointment today. Doctor said everything looks great. Going from once a month visits to twice a month, which is fine with me...the more often I get a peek into what's going on in there, the better

2. Our new crib got delivered today and my husband dropped EVERYTHING to put it together right away. He's so psyched about all this...love it

3. Work is really, really, really slow right now, which scares me a little (although it shouldn't...December is always slow, and I just signed a solid contract with my biggest client for next year). Even though it sucks to be billing so little, I do appreciate all the free time I have to do baby and holiday stuff (and sleep during the day since I'm not sleeping much at night...)

4. My husband finished his semester at school today! Yay! Only one left...I am sooooo happy about that. Him going back to school hasn't been too hard on us (especially since he has the GI Bill), but it's going to be really great to have it done, too

5. Reading Harry Potter and REALLY enjoying it. Am I the only one on the planet who's had a hard time getting into Harry Potter books? I've started and not finished the first one several times. But right now for some reason it's clicking and I'm getting so into it. It's the perfect easy thing for me to be reading right now, and I love that a big stack of sequels awaits...

XOXO

What I've Been Reading

Hi Everyone!

It's been a long time since I've done a post like this, so I have a bit of a stack. Trying to figure out what to read next...insomnia is an issue these days and I need something fun and engaging, not too heavy for the middle of the night. And suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Thank you! :)

But anyway, back to what I've been reading over the past several months (from the bottom of the stack to the top):

• I Love Your Style, Amanda Brooks--I actually read this on bed rest after my FET way back in July, and it was the perfect, light read for then. The pictures are wonderful. Highly recommended if you like this kind of thing
• When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads, Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlin--Obviously, only of interest if you're in the same boat I am, but I have found this book indispensible, especially as far as eating/weight gain guidelines and how to be careful and not overexert yourself (with exercise, travel, running around being an overachiever, etc). What this book had to say were things I needed to hear. It seems like so much out there is just opinion/what is currently in vogue...the recommendations in this book are based on solid medical research and thus I am very comfortable with them...I feel like my pregnancy is/is going to be so much healthier because of this book
• Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Erie--I cannot begin to describe all the ways I love this book. It's about a young boy in a wealthy family around the time Castro came to power and his memories of that time (it's memoir, not fiction). The stories and the historical significance make it such an amazing read. The way it is constructed is also really unusual and I really liked it...it's readable just for the style alone. It was a little slow getting started, but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down...
• The Tender Bar, J. R. Moehringer--Another memoir and a very engaging read. About a boyhood on Long Island, a boy whose father had abandoned him, was living with his mom and extended family. One of my favorite parts was when he's 9 or 10 and he and his mom move out of state and he gets sent back to live with Grandma and Grandpa for the summer. His uncle also lives in the house, and he (the uncle) and his alcoholic friends from the bar start taking him (the kid) to the beach, and it just seems like the kind of situation where something bad is going to happen...I mean all these low-lifes can't be good for this young boy, right? But they are...they take really good care of him, watch over him and teach him things and become like a real family to him. There is sometimes love and kindness in the most unexpected places...
• Swamplandia!, Karen Russell--A story about a girl whose mother dies, leaving her and her brother and sister and dad with an alligator farm/attraction. Loved the weirdness of this book, and sometimes the language was beautiful and amazing, but overall did not like it as much as I wanted to. I read this right after The Tender Bar, and towards the end is the same sort of situation in terms of when it starts all you can think are bad things are going to happen--where the young girl goes off with a strange man into the swamp and I kept thinking oh, this can't be good and it wasn't...I was hoping I was wrong, but nope...
• The Road to Coorain, Jill Ker Conway--Another memoir (I'm loving memoirs right now), this one about a girl growing up in the Australian outback and then in Sydney. I really liked this book. Somewhere in the middle her brother is suddenly killed...I didn't know that was part of the book, and it was interesting to see how she handled it...it wasn't easy for her just like it hasn't been easy for me...
• The Immortal Life on Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot--This is a book about a line of cells called HeLa that has been used for medical research for decades. The cells were taken from a woman who was not informed of the fact and not compensated. Interesting read
• Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann--Oh, how I love this book. It's the story of a bunch of New Yorkers whose lives are all intertwined, about love and loss. I couldn't put it down. It starts with an event that really happened that I'd never heard of before, a man walking on a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center back in the early '70s. So interesting to read something about the World Trade Center that didn't have to do with 9/11. There is also a documentary about this guy called Man on Wire that's really good (although I pretty much love all documentaries...will watch one on almost any topic)...in the documentary one of the coolest things was...you know, the police of course, were trying to get this guy off the tightrope, but one of them, interviewed later, he was essentially saying, you know, I had to get him off there, that was my job, but what he was doing was so incredible, I sure didn't want to...
• The Blind Assain, Margaret Atwood--Really wanted to like this book. Really tried to get into it. Got to page 48 and then just could not make myself pick it up after that. Finally gave up. It's the only book in my stack that I didn't read, which has to be some kind of record...I am the queen of starting books and not finishing them

Have any of you read any of these? What did you think?

XOXO

What I'm Reading (And the Obsessive 2WW Symptom Watch)

I've read some really good books lately, after not being able to get into much of anything all spring. Here's what I've recently been reading (or in some cases, trying to read):

• Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin. The writing here is just spectacular. And the way the story was put together...sublime. It's about a black boy in Harlem in the early part of last century, flashing back to other adult family members and how they got to be where they got to be. It's also strongly about religion, a theme which I'm not that interested in, but again...the writing was so incredible...once I was done I wanted to start again right away.
• Half a Life, Darin Strauss. This is a memoir by a man who killed one of his classmates in an accident while he was in high school. It's a quick read...I was done within twenty-four hours. Again, incredible writing, and a really interesting construction, with snippets related to the accident told in chronological order but no real narrative like you generally think of books having. It absolutely works, though. This was incredibly sad but incredibly moving to read. The author is so incredibly honest, that's what I love most. It also gave me a solid idea of how to change the ending to something of my own I've written, where I've never really felt like the ending was quite right.
• The Collected Stores of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read this book the summer after my Freshman year in college, when I was on the East coast living with a huge Italian family in New Jersey (one of my friends in the dorm had brought me home with her). A great summer, but talk about a culture shock! Loved the writing and the stories then, but could only get about halfway through this time...funny how things you read touch you differently at different points in your life...I think the characters just feel a little too young and frivilous to me now. One thing I thought was really funny...you know how everyone is saying with the Internet and cable and social media and video games kids/teenagers/young adults these days have no attention span? Well, Fitzgerald was saying the exact same thing about the youth of the 1920s...
• Elvis and Me, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. I love Elvis. I spent a lot of time with my dad's parents growing up and my Grandpa played Elvis for me all the time, so it's such a nostalgic thing for me. This book read like a long US Weekly article...fun! Priscilla was so young when she met Elvis (she was 14, he in his early 20s, I believe). And he had such old-fashioned Southern ideas about a woman's place...that the world revolved around the man and the woman needed to do as she was told. My late father-in-law, whom I adored, by the way, had the same outlook on life...how my progressive, let's-do-everything-together-I-don't-mind-splitting-things-50/50 husband came out of that household, I'll never know
• Letters of E.B. White. These letters are lovely. This is a glimpse into a literary life, and a very egalitarian marriage. I'm only about halfway through...it's a very slow and quite book...I think I'll keep it on my bedside table and read a few letters at a time until I'm finished.

Anyone have any reading recommendations for my next stack of books?

And in other news, since I've decided to embrace obsessing about pregnancy symptoms, here's today's report:

• Oh, Lord, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. So tired. I got a pretty good night's sleep, too. Tired all day, actually, napping again this afternoon...
• Also so thirsty upon waking...but that could easily have been due to the huge hamburger my husband made me for dinner last night... 
• I have kind of this calm feeling that I'm pregnant...with this little undercurrent of knowing that it's certainly possible that I'm not...and I don't want to find out that I'm not...ugh, I am so incredibly tired of dealing with disappointment...

Hope everyone has a lovely Tuesday! :)

XOXO

What I'm (For the Most Part Not) Reading

Hi Everyone!

Today we've got another little installment on what I've been reading (or, more accurately, not reading). Why am I having such a hard time getting into books lately? Is it permanent? Is the fertility stuff weighing too heavily on my mind? Am I too busy and it's hard to sit and relax and read? I don't know, but I used to loooooove reading, and I'm going to keep trying. Maybe some nice warm summer weather and some free time to lounge on our back patio will make a difference.

I'm still on my library kick, which may also be why I'm not making a huge effort to read a book all the way through if it doesn't catch my attention (I didn't pay for it, I don't feel as much of an obligation).

Here's how things went with my current stack of books:

• 29 Gifts, Cami Walker. My mom gave me this book on Mother's Day (how sweet of her is it to give me a gift on that day?) It's the only one in the pile I actually read. The writing/book itself was OK, but what I really liked was the idea behind it...that if you give gifts (doesn't have to be things that cost money) every day it will put you in a place of abundance and gratitude. It's a cool idea to consciously give a gift every day for 29 days...something I'd like to try. Pages read: All.
• Still Life With Chickens, Catherine Goldhammer. The subtitle of this book is 'Starting Over in a House by the Sea,' and, I don't know, I thought it would be about moving somewhere cool and home renovation and finding your way in a new world. But instead...it was about chickens. Which shouldn't have surprised me, granted, but there was way too much chicken for me to keep reading...I just wasn't that interested. Pages read: ~50 and then I skimmed the next 50, but there was no end to the chickens in sight.
• Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky. I thought I'd really like this book, but it ended up being kind of dry. Pages read: 35.
• Stuart: A Life Backwards, Alexander Masters. Really cool writing and a really cool set-up (the narrator is telling someone's [Stuart's] biography, but from when he met Stuart back to Stuart's childhood, so you have to stick around in theory and see what happened to make Stuart so messed up). I'm not sure why I put this down...maybe I just found it depressing reading about someone who was homeless, in and out of prison, had such a hard life, that's what this book was about and I need shiny happy things right now, I think. Pages read: ~100.
• The Carrie Diaries, Candace Bushnell. My BFF recommended this book and I usually love what she recommends, but this I just couldn't get past a certain point. Too frivolous, I think, although I usually don't shy away from frivolous if I'm in the right mood. I will say I read the first few chapters relaxing with a glass of wine and that was nice, but after that first night, could not get into it. Pages read: 144.
• The Women, T.C. Boyle. Didn't even get to this and it's time for my library books to go back...maybe I'll check it out again. Pages read: 0.

As always, reading recommendations are welcome. :)

XO