hannah ananas

Well, I actually accomplished much today, specifically hassle-type stuff. So, that’s good. It doesn’t quite feel like I accomplished all that much. I just feel utterly drained and exhausted, and it looks like we have more stuff taking up space. However, after some sorting and organizing (and a few more deliveries), things will make loads more sense and be rather well prepared for the arrival of this baby. I made some real headway today, and that is a good thing.

Hopefully, at the next appointment in two weeks, all will look good to the midwife, and we’ll be able even to return some of the stuff I got today. I wasn’t sure which was best for towel and sheet options, so I got two totally different versions for each, and she can let me know what makes the most sense when she is here and sees them all.

A friend is coming tomorrow morning to take a look at things and see what is important still for me to get done here before the baby arrives. I’m nervous, because much is still unfinished, including the quilts I’m making that are strewn about the living room and all the clean laundry sitting out there and our outfits that I have yet to wash up from RenFest (so can’t put away yet)…. However, this was when she could come by, so this is how it’s going… I don’t love it, but it will be an entirely honest portrayal of my mental state at present. So, yeah… haha

Anyway, I’m wiped. Goodnight.

God, make us well, please, and keep my family and me safe and whole. Thank you for this baby and this marriage and this home and the love of friends. Thank you for your love. Help me to eat well and effectively the next days and weeks, please, that I nourish myself and the baby well. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

Well, I just added a boatload of stuff to my checklist tonight. I’m hoping to accomplish several of the items tomorrow, actually, as they are simple and take lower effort levels. However, we shall see how the day goes.

I also think I will be adding loads more in the next day or few. It is my sort of finalized list of things for before the baby comes out. So, even the annoying things I’ve avoided need to start getting handled now. I think most of them need to be done before Christmas, even, just so I can breathe at Christmas and afterward for a bit. And then I can spend some effort on the want-to-do items at that point, if I still wish to do so. For now, though, I have a whole load of must-dos. So, getting to work on those for real tomorrow.

Thank you, God, for our home and for my brain and for our family. Please, make me and the baby and my husband well and keep us safe. Help my husband learn and study well for his tests and to pass his upcoming test this week. Thank you for this baby. Keep it in there until the sixth of January, please. Naturally, I prefer the 11th of January. Your will be done. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

I discovered some years ago that, when I clip my nails, I clench my teeth quite tightly just as I squeeze down the clippers on each nail. This was not to my liking, mostly due to the fact that I felt it probably wasn’t very good for my teeth, their alignment, or my jaw and head. So, I worked to make a positive change. To this day, when I clip my nails, I intentionally open my jaw, though with my lips closed, every time I clip my nails. I usually press my tongue very gently against my top teeth and the roof of my mouth – more like I rest it against the teeth than press it, and push against the roof of my mouth – and pull my lower jaw back just a bit to make sure it doesn’t casually clamp closed on me. My tongue is, is that position, actively preventing my lower jaw from closing. I still end up tightening the muscles around my jaw while I cut the nails, but it isn’t as intense as when left unattended while cutting, and I don’t have to worry about messing with my teeth over time.

But I do feel slightly crazy every time I have to do this. Does anyone else have to do something like this? Or, rather, doesn’t anyone else unconsciously and automatically clench his or her teeth while clipping nails? I don’t know if I’ll ever remember to ask anyone, but I certainly hope others have gone through this oddity, too. I’m very curious as to how and why it would have developed in the first place…

Post-a-day 2024

I continued my progress on the quilts tonight. I accomplished much. One of them has the entire front finished now. The second is only a few inches from being finished on the front. And the third has a few feet of border and the colored corners to add into it. But I ran out of back thread suddenly, so I stopped for the night sooner than I had wanted. I would have liked to have finished the fronts of all three quilts. But it went this way, so I accept the earlier bedtime with gratitude and ease.

I have to get more thread tomorrow, and likely ought to go ahead and get the backings for each quilt, since that will be next after I finish everything with the fronts.

I do, however, need to iron the fronts and then wash them and wash the backings before I connects the fronts to the backs. But the sewing is getting very close to being finished for the fronts. Yippee!

Still undetermined as to whether I will ask to use the industrial machine of someone I know. It would help immensely, to be sure… I will see how the idea of asking her about it feels.

For now, sweet dreams and goodnight.

Oh! My mom watched Die Hard with us tonight. It’s a seasonal film for us. For me, mostly so because it is ridiculous to be a Christmas movie. But it is a rather well done film and is quite entertaining as a whole, so I do actually enjoy it. We watched it the other night. My mom has mentioned it several times from having heard people debating its Christmas ties lately, so I encouraged her to watch it this evening when she was over but realized it was the middle of rush hour when she was starting to get ready to leave. My husband agreed that it would be a much better way to spend her time than sitting in traffic. She accepted, and we all enjoyed the film together. (Yes, she actually enjoyed it.)

She didn’t think it’s a Christmas movie, but acknowledges that the Christmas music within it creates a seasonal flare of sorts. Haha

Anyway, goodnight!

God, thank you for the love and the family and our home today, especially. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. Keep our home safe, too, please, and always. Thank you for everything you offer to us. Help us to pursue and fulfill your will in our lives. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

I am making these quilts for my dad (for his grandkids). He wants to give them to my sister’s kids for Christmas. My kid won’t be out here yet, so I’m not really working on that one. I cut and backed the panels, but haven’t put it together or figured out fabrics even. For the other three, however, I got the fabrics yesterday and started putting them together. No, two days ago. Tonight, I sat down to out the actual quilts together, versus just side pieces on the t-shirt panels. They are t-shirt quilts, by the way. Anyway, I worked on them tonight.

I worked way too late on the quilts, but two of them are 90% put together now. Just need to finish the border pieces and corners of them. The third is about 50% together…Actually, 70% on that third one. Forgot I already did the full columns. Just need to attach the columns to one another and finish borders.

After that, I just have to go pick and buy the backing and stitch it to the fronts. Yay.

Okay, goodnight. 3:49 is too late these days. Goodnight.

Post-a-day 2024

Is that how it’s written? I’m not sure, but I think so. I also have no desire to look it up, so we are just rolling with it…

Okay, I looked it up. No hyphen after all, but the letters were correct: Braxton Hicks.

Tonight, I experienced my first known Braxton Hicks contraction. For those not in the know already, it’s supposedly a sort of preparatory contraction that the uterus does well in advance of actual labor and contractions. I think they help sort some things out, possibly including encouraging the baby to get into the right position for birth. (Because those inversions I have been doing aren’t fun enough. :P)

Whatever the case, I had my first known one tonight(!). I say it that way, because the midwife said I might not notice their happening, so they may have happened already and been happening for quite some time, I’m guessing at a lesser degree.

Tonight, I was starting to walk toward the bathroom (to use it, of course), when I felt what seemed at first like the baby stretching out, but ended up covering too much surface area to make sense. I paused and paid attention. It was like the baby was sideways, but also completely flat against my skin… I touched my belly and knew almost instantly what it was. The entire belly was rock solid in a clench. I even had my husband feel it and tap on it to share the experience. Goofy, perhaps, but I didn’t care. We’re in this together, whether he likes it or not. Haha 😛

Anyway, it was cool and weird. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t comfortable, to be sure. It also almost made me pee myself, because, as I mentioned, I had been already on my way to use the bathroom and very much needed to go. Fortunately, I held it together and made it to the bathroom without accident.

I did, of course, send the midwife a message, proclaiming what had just happened. I have been kind of on the lookout for them, so I guess I was relieved to have found one (versus just wondering if they’d been happening in secret and I actually wasn’t much aware of what was going on in my body [which would have been harder to believe, given how crazy aware I seem to be all the time already, and especially during this pregnancy]).

Anyway, so, that happened. Good thing, I think. Though, I’ll hold for the midwife’s comment to conclude anything.

At that, goodnight!

God, make us well, please, and keep us safe. Thank you for our home and our family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

It is cold again, and I am very grateful. It got warm for a day and a half, and it was too much for me, somehow. Pregnancy – this time around, at least – is not a fan of warm weather; only cold weather.

God, help me and the baby and my husband to be well, please, and keep us safe. Thank you for our home. Please, keep it safe, too. Bring our baby out to us easily and naturally on January 11, if it be your will. Our baby girl. 🙂 In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

I now have what is called linea negra. Literally, it means “black line”. It, however, is not black. It’s actually pretty much exactly turmeric colored. But it is a line. And a circle.

So, it’s the whole of my belly button, and then a straight line descending from the navel several inches. It looks like I colored myself with turmeric paste. I forgot to get a good photo in the daylight, and today was really overcast, so the photo I do have is kind of subtle, but still totally noticeable. Nonetheless, enjoy the view of this oddity that apparently is totally normal during pregnancy and completely safe. But also very weird.

Post-a-day 2024

Sometimes, I forget that I’m not just tired and feeling unwell but that I’m pregnant. Until I stand up and start heading to the bathroom, I have these odd and almost-peaceful moments of just feeling kind of crappy. This is a bonus, because with them comes the background expectation that the crappy feeling will be gone within a few days at most, as with any typical winter weather cold or illness.

However, as I totter towards the bathroom and suddenly feel my massive belly protruding before me, it re-registers for me that I am not simply dealing with a winter cold, but am pregnant. And the feelings will not go away in the next 24-48 hours.

::sigh

Also, I am on the brink of another small mental breakdown. Tonight, as I was putting on my hydration oils for my belly and breasts, I saw that the early stretch marks have suddenly appeared all around my breasts, not just on the two original spots from a couple weeks ago. I think I have not let it settle fully into my mind. If I had, I am sure I would be bawling. I know they’re okay to have and they’re marking something wonderful and amazing. But I also only recently have gotten to be that woman I have always longed to be, the sexy, gorgeous, sweet, loving, and totally fit woman who has a “You’re welcome” body. Let alone to be able to share that with someone directly. My brain is already starting to process my being the changed, stretched, unfit, slightly miserable mom whose husband now finds other young and fit women much more attractive than she, though he is still grateful for all that she does and for the children that they have together.

It’s a whole drama I never understood suddenly making sense in my head as my body is beginning to do these things that remove me from the physical person I worked so hard for so long to become.

Anyway… rough emotional time to come shortly for that one, to be sure.

God, help me to heal wholly, please. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us and our home safe. Thank you for this life. Heal my scars, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024

Just because we don’t like what true data tells us doesn’t make it untrue information.

Seriously.

Post-a-day 2024