Sometimes you just have to revel in the absurdity that is pregnancy. I mean, really...how many times in your life are encouraged to gain 25-35 pounds (give or take a pound or two...or ten) in less then a year, eat (almost) anything you want, wear enormous clothes, waddle around feeling like a whale and be told the entire time how ADORABLE you are!
Tonight I had a one of those moments where you stop and look at yourself and think, "if I weren't pregnant, this would be completely unacceptable!" After a long day of jury selection and a quick trip to the doctor to confirm that, yes, I am indeed having Braxton Hicks contractions, I came home and collapsed on the Aerobed. Again, the only piece of furniture we have in our apartment. The high today was about 30 degrees, with the winds howling around 30 miles an hour. Kids, it was cold. I pulled on the biggest, most comfortable, most unflattering pair of yoga pants I own, and curled up under the down comforter for a nap.
I woke up about an hour later starving, and mentally assessed the food options in the apartment. With no working stove or oven, no toaster, no microwave, no dishes or pots or pans, I was limited to peanut butter & jelly or a turkey sandwich. Mmm...turkey sandwich. Then I realized that I couldn't possibly eat a turkey sandwich without Cheetos. There was absolutely no way on the planet I could eat anything without Cheetos. I needed Cheetos, and I needed them now. Who cares that it's 8:30 at night and 20 degrees outside? Who cares that I'm practically in my pajamas? So, I got up, and pulled on one of Kevin's sweaters (he's currently in Detroit, or he might have succeeded in talking me out of this madness...might) and my tennis shoes, wrapped myself in coats, scarves, and gloves, and walked the 2 blocks down to the local market for Cheetos.
And did they have Cheetos? Noooooooo. They had Cheetos Puffs, which are CLEARLY not Cheetos. And when you want Cheetos, Cheetos Puffs are NOT going to cut it.
So I walked 5 more blocks to a Rite Aid, where not only did I find Cheetos, but they were ON SALE! My persistence is rewarded!
I happily walked all the way home with my 2 bags of Cheetos (for $3.00), and had the world's best turkey sandwich with all the Cheetos my little heart desired. And as I'm sitting here on the Aerobed, eating my turkey sandwich off of a paper towel because we have no plates, munching Cheetos from the bag, and reading my Food & Wine magazine about places I can't travel, wine I can't drink, and food I can't cook (did I mention my pots & pans are in a box in storage??), I was struck by the ridiculousness that is pregnancy. It is truly 10 months of temporary insanity. And the entire world is your accomplice.
Well, I'm off to Jury Duty tomorrow, where I will be serving my civic duty as one of 8 jurors in a automobile/pedestrian collision trial. Could be interesting...but probably not. I'll let you know.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
Camping out...New York style
Ok, so the week after we came home from Montreal, I hit the house packing hard-core! I ordered boxes from a great website that I would highly recommend to anyone getting ready to move. You can buy inexpensive, high quality, used cardboard boxes, and they'll ship them to you in about 2 days for free!
But, I digress.
I spent the entire week following Montreal packing all our worldly possessions. It was brutally exhausting. It's just an overall more complicated and taxing process when you're 7 months pregnant. But the light at the end of the tunnel...by Friday it would all be over and we would be in our new home! Ok, well, that dream came crashing halt on Tuesday evening. Here's the short story...
Back in September Kevin happened to mention to a friend from work that we were looking for a new apartment...something with 2 bedrooms, and a little more space, roughly in our same neighborhood. Well, come to find out, Kevin's friend was in the process of purchasing an apartment that he was then going to turn around and rent out. It was all too perfect to be coincidence, and we have been breathlessly thanking God for giving us more then we ever hoped for in a new apartment ever since! As so often happens when you're dealing with management companies, banks and attorneys, the closing process on the apartment has taken longer then originally anticipated. So, on that Tuesday, we found out that they still hadn't closed on the apartment, and until they did, we could not "officially" move in. However, we definitely had to be out of our old place, as there were people moving in the very day we moved out!
Needless to say, after several long days of packing chaos, this did not go over so well with the little mama. Sweet Kevin came home with a dozen roses that night, knowing I had very well been pushed over the edge. (And all our vases were packed, so the gorgeous pink roses graced our mantle in my blender!)
Wednesday morning, I awoke with a new found sense of peace from God. I began to see our situation for blessing that it was. God was handing us a gift, and if we weren't careful, we were going to miss it. We had to be out by Friday, and our stuff was going to be moved into storage. Which left us with 2 suitcases and our Aerobed on the floor of our new apartment as "guests" of our friends (who no longer live in this apartment -- it's just a big empty space). So after an exhausting week of packing and moving, God was giving us an entire weekend of...nothing. No television, no internet, no boxes to unpack, to pictures to hang...absolutely nothing. We realized that it was perhaps our last chance to have a totally unstructured, unencumbered weekend to do anything or nothing at all. It was bliss! We slept in, explored restaurants in our new neighborhood, went to a movie, went shopping, met friends for brunch, went to bed early, marveled at the leaves changing in Central Park, marveled at the sheer size of our cavernous new apartment, rested, and were blessedly restored.
It is now 2 1/2 weeks later, and we are still on our Aerobed with our 2 suitcases...but the end may very well be in sight! We are told that closing should go through this week, and we may actually get to spend this weekend moving in. We are so excited about it! But more then anything, we are astonished and grateful for the way God has provided for us over the last few months. We are humbled by his regard for us, his loving consideration, the tender way he meets our needs, and the generous way he gives us more then we could hope to ask for. We are also learning to look at our situations through the eyes of Job, who endured more then we can imagine, and still said, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."
But, I digress.
I spent the entire week following Montreal packing all our worldly possessions. It was brutally exhausting. It's just an overall more complicated and taxing process when you're 7 months pregnant. But the light at the end of the tunnel...by Friday it would all be over and we would be in our new home! Ok, well, that dream came crashing halt on Tuesday evening. Here's the short story...
Back in September Kevin happened to mention to a friend from work that we were looking for a new apartment...something with 2 bedrooms, and a little more space, roughly in our same neighborhood. Well, come to find out, Kevin's friend was in the process of purchasing an apartment that he was then going to turn around and rent out. It was all too perfect to be coincidence, and we have been breathlessly thanking God for giving us more then we ever hoped for in a new apartment ever since! As so often happens when you're dealing with management companies, banks and attorneys, the closing process on the apartment has taken longer then originally anticipated. So, on that Tuesday, we found out that they still hadn't closed on the apartment, and until they did, we could not "officially" move in. However, we definitely had to be out of our old place, as there were people moving in the very day we moved out!
Needless to say, after several long days of packing chaos, this did not go over so well with the little mama. Sweet Kevin came home with a dozen roses that night, knowing I had very well been pushed over the edge. (And all our vases were packed, so the gorgeous pink roses graced our mantle in my blender!)
Wednesday morning, I awoke with a new found sense of peace from God. I began to see our situation for blessing that it was. God was handing us a gift, and if we weren't careful, we were going to miss it. We had to be out by Friday, and our stuff was going to be moved into storage. Which left us with 2 suitcases and our Aerobed on the floor of our new apartment as "guests" of our friends (who no longer live in this apartment -- it's just a big empty space). So after an exhausting week of packing and moving, God was giving us an entire weekend of...nothing. No television, no internet, no boxes to unpack, to pictures to hang...absolutely nothing. We realized that it was perhaps our last chance to have a totally unstructured, unencumbered weekend to do anything or nothing at all. It was bliss! We slept in, explored restaurants in our new neighborhood, went to a movie, went shopping, met friends for brunch, went to bed early, marveled at the leaves changing in Central Park, marveled at the sheer size of our cavernous new apartment, rested, and were blessedly restored.
It is now 2 1/2 weeks later, and we are still on our Aerobed with our 2 suitcases...but the end may very well be in sight! We are told that closing should go through this week, and we may actually get to spend this weekend moving in. We are so excited about it! But more then anything, we are astonished and grateful for the way God has provided for us over the last few months. We are humbled by his regard for us, his loving consideration, the tender way he meets our needs, and the generous way he gives us more then we could hope to ask for. We are also learning to look at our situations through the eyes of Job, who endured more then we can imagine, and still said, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."
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