Bah.

I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I think I'll move to Australia.

Three Short Lists

Three Ways in Which Today Feels Very Much Like a Monday:

1. I woke up with a headache. Consequently, I'm finding it harder than usual to concentrate.
2. It's President's Day, but most of Indiana does not observe the holiday with a day off from work.
   
3. My wardrobe options are getting smaller as I get too big for my normal clothes, but am still too small for maternity clothes.

Three Things I Did Over the Weekend:

1. Visited and ate fondue with our friends, the Paulsen's.
2. Made soft pretzels for the first time -- they turned out delicious, especially when dipped in my honey mustard sauce concoction.
   
3. Took a nap. Or two.
   

Three Things that Will Keep Me Busy This Week:

1. Attend the play, Jane Eyre, with Blake.
2. Help chaperon the youth temple trip to Columbus.
3. Go to the dentist.
   

It Moves!

After paying close attention to it for the last few days, I think I've finally been able to pinpoint that oft-recurring little fluttering feeling deep inside my gut.

And judging by the movement felt just this morning, our baby is certainly an active one. No wonder it has such a fast little bird-like heartbeat.

There are no words to describe how amazing this is to me -- and believe me, I've consulted a thesaurus. There just are no words.

Day 2

Here are some photos of the aftermath of our little blizzard. Brace yourselves....there's a lot of snow.

This is what we saw after we forced our door open early this morning:

The front of our apartment. For dramatic effect, see here for the summertime contrast.

Looking out to the parking lot.

The front porch. That snow is about waist deep on us.

Until about 9:00 this morning we didn't own a snow shovel. There was no need for us to own one because our apartment complex management took care of snow removal. Unfortunately, their snow blowers can only do so much in snow this deep, and they also don't dig out parked cars. The university officially closed for the day, canceling all classes and shutting down all unnecessary offices. So, with a little time on our hands, and a dire need to become owners of a snow shovel we walked to a nearby shopping center to buy one.

This field was much more serene-looking before we had to trudge through it.

Here I am, bundled up and happy to have made it to the road.

And here are Blake's frozen solid blue jeans. Seriously...they were hard as rock. Don't let that sun fool you...it's bitterly cold outside today. I think we're expected to reach a high of 11 degrees with wind chills around -10.

Here's another road. So far, in the places we've seen, they've only been able to plow one lane's worth of road. It's better than nothing, though.

Once we got home, we set about to dig out our car. Because if we didn't, it would be going absolutely nowhere pretty fast:

Yikes. It was completely buried.

It took a while to finally free the car. But I'm glad we did it when we did because otherwise the snow would have frozen and then we'd be in trouble.

All told, we received, I heard (and judged by our sidewalk) about 18 inches of actual snow and snow drifts up to 6 feet high. Now we're just celebrating the fact that we can in fact get out of our house by staying inside where it's warm. But I have to say... it's kind of fun to have been able to experience a real Midwestern blizzard during our time living out here. It's been absolutely fascinating to watch and definitely something to marvel at. This doesn't mean, however, that I'm crossing my fingers for another one any time soon. One's enough. Especially if we're going to get that "early Spring" the groundhog predicted.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

The Blizzard of '07?

Remember how last Wednesday I said that I considered six inches of snow to be A LOT of snow? Well, I just wanted to let you know that I've changed my mind. And in a minute you'll understand why.

In 1978 an enormous blizzard buried Indiana under an average of 20 inches of snow and brought wind gusts in excess of 35 miles an hour which created snow drifts 10-20 feet high. Even though it was 29 years go, Hoosiers here still talk about "the Blizzard of '78" like it happened yesterday. Everyone has their own version of the storm and memories of how it affected them. It was jotted down in the books as the worst winter storm on record in Indiana history, and since then there apparently haven't been many storms that have come close to competing with it.

Until, perhaps, today.

This morning around 5:30, NPR awoke us with the terrible home-hitting news of the Salt Lake City shooting at Trolley Square. After we came out of our horrified astonishment that something like that could happen anywhere, let alone in SLC, we were aroused out of bed with the exciting news that the winter storm warning placed in effect yesterday had been upgraded to a blizzard warning. In fact, the blizzard had begun about an hour earlier and we were already getting buried underneath several inches of snow. Nearly everything in Muncie and the surrounding areas have been shut down due to the harsh weather -- classes were canceled at the university and even though campus offices were still operating, I decided to play it safe and stay home from work. Which has turned out to be a pretty wise decision. At the last news report we heard, at about 2:00 pm, the snow accumulation had already reached 11 of the predicted 8-14 inches, with snow drifts piling up to 4 feet high. And it's still coming -- with no signs of slowing down. They're telling us now that it won't be too unlikely that by tomorrow morning we'll have around 20 inches of snow and drifts I don't really want to imagine at this point (partly because our car is parked in front of a growing drift).

We've spent a good part of the day glued to the window. The snow and wind gusts are mesmerizing to watch. In fact, I wish you could look out our window right now. It's pretty amazing. Here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse. Most of them were taken about an hour ago:





We're a loooong way away from anything upstate New York has been getting lately. But I personally am wondering just how we're going to get out of our apartment tomorrow.

You should all be pleased to know, though, that I've been fairly productive today. I started and finished a sewing project I've been meaning to get to for a while now. And now we have pillow shams to match the bedspread my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday:

Good Times

A recap of the last few days:

Thursday: Invited to the home of another young married couple in the ward. Ate their pizza. Engaged in pleasant conversation.

Friday: Watched the NBC Thursday night line-up on tape (couldn't watch yesterday; see above). Fast forwarded the commercials. Devoured chocolate oreo malts.

Saturday: Ventured to Edinburgh, Indiana to investigate the factory outlets. Got a little freaked out in the Motherhood Maternity store. Bought from the clearance racks at Gap and Eddie Bauer instead.

Sunday: Took 2 naps and went to bed early. Read a lot. Lounged. Talked to family. Cooked and ate a dinner that required relatively no clean-up. Also ate more chocolate oreo malts.

Big Blizzard Thing

Okay, so it wasn't so much a "blizzard," per say, but it was a lot of snow. A LOT of snow.

Six inches of beautiful, slippery snow falling for nearly 12 straight hours yesterday. People were sliding all over the roads -- enough for officials to close the interstate for several hours -- and our department's assistant dean let everyone go home early to "get ahead of the weather." Only a half an hour early, mind you, but it was something anyway. And, what with it taking nearly 45 minutes to drive what in normal conditions a 10-minute drive, it turned out to be just enough time to get us home at our normal time. It really is a process to drive even short distances in snowy weather -- first you've got to trudge through unshoveled snow to get to the car, then you have to brush all the snow off of the car and scrape the ice off the windows, then drive 10 miles an hour because that's what the car in front of you is doing, then have difficulty getting started again once the light turns green because your traction isn't so good, then you have to get out and brush snow off your window again because you can't see anything. You get the idea. While there's not too much more snow predicted in the coming days, they are telling us to get used to what we've got because, given the fact that the temperatures will not even be close to rising above freezing in the foreseeable future, this snow's not going to melt for a while.

And so we stayed in last night. And we babysat. Which was an adventure like unto driving on snowy, icy roads. All right, so it wasn't that bad, but there was a lot of screaming involved. Turns out little Adeline is a mama's girl and likes to show off her incredible lung capacity for everyone else. So while Blake and I tried calming her with toys, board books, a bottle, fresh diapers, and clean pajamas, she cried and choked on her tears and spit up all over me and screamed. Soon there was nothing more I could do but pull our rocking chair into the bedroom, turn on some music, and just rock her until she wore herself out, found her thumb, and fell asleep. She woke up just before her parents came back to get her, and as soon as she realized they were back, she was all smiles and grins. A little unfair? Maybe. At least Blake and I were both able to come to the solid conclusion that cute babies are indeed capable of inducing headaches, but that even in spite of this, we are still glad to be expecting one of our own.

Heartbeat

At my doctor's appointment yesterday I got to hear the baby's heartbeat again. I love hearing the heartbeat. It's reassuring to know that something is really living and growing in there. Reassuring, but also breathtaking and beautiful. It was much louder this time, I'm assuming because the baby has grown, but it was still just as fast and furious as at previous check-ups. I think my appointments always get scheduled during the baby's play time because, judging by those heartbeats, this is one active kid!

At my next appointment, in a month, we'll talk ultrasound. I am excited for that, and so is Blake. The first time, back in December, that we got to see our little bean of a baby, it was quite the miracle in large part because it was visual proof that the miscarriage I was told to expect wasn't in fact happening. But it was also incredible because we could actually see it. We could watch that heart beating so rapidly as if to tell us, "See? I'm here! And I'm alive!" And it was breathtaking and beautiful.

I'm excited to meet this little person with the heartbeat I love to listen to.

"Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today."

I'm not sure where this cold weather blew in from -- the Arctic? North Dakota? Well, wherever it came from, it's here, and it's having a heyday. Yesterday the temperatures here hovered right around 0 degrees, but bitter 35 mile an hour winds brought the wind chill temperature down to -15. So, so cold. It certainly made for an interesting time trying to run the Saturday errands.

Today's been no different: This morning when I took Blake to church for bishopric meeting, the thermometer in the car read -2, and by the time I joined him at church, the wind was back. I'm surprised that as many people came to church that did because all the local weather forecasters keep telling us to just stay inside next to our heaters until Tuesday when it's supposed to "warm up" to about 12 degrees.

Never fear, though. We've found plenty to keep us busy inside. For example, yesterday we rearranged the furniture in our bedroom and now there's just room enough for a pack-n-play sized crib for the baby. Which is a good thing. Otherwise, it might have had to just sleep in a dresser drawer. I guess it's a good thing that we'll be moving sometime this summer -- two bedrooms are looking more and more to be a real necessity.

A Post of Absolutely No Consequence

I'm itching to write something today, but nothing brilliant is coming to mind. So instead you will get a list of "Haphazard and Odd Thoughts Which Have Recently Flittered Through My Brain."

So. Let the arbitrariness begin!

• It is difficult to get used to a 60 watt light bulb after basking in the glory of a 100 watt light bulb.
• But it makes the adjustment from night to morning a little less startling.
• My front walk is slippery.
• Even though I am a recent and whole-heartedly devoted fan of Emily Kimbrough, I don't think I'll finish the most recent book of hers I picked up (We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood). It just isn't captivating me like her others have.
• And there is nothing wrong with not finishing a book.
• But what to read next?
• Because I'm still on the waiting list for our next book club book (Freakonomics).
• The Office is on tonight. And it's not a rerun. This makes me happy.
• I'm well on my way to drinking my daily water quota. Go me!
  
• There are 92 counties in Indiana. Is it just me, or does this seems like a lot?
  
• I made the bed this morning, like I do every morning. Only this morning I was very tempted to just forget about it.
• I secretly like quite a few Alanis Morissette songs. I'm openly crazy about Natalie Merchant's music.
• When I was in junior high and high school, I was one of those nerds who knew nothing about contemporary music, so when people asked me what genre I liked, I faked it and told them Alternative. Only it took me a few years to realize that Alternative is actually the kind of music I typically don't like.
  
• I've learned today that when people are given the opportunity to complain, they usually take it and run all the way up Mt. Everest with it.
• Ball State's botany pond is frozen over, in case you were wondering.
• I am the founder and coordinator of an online poetry club. February's theme is "poems by a poet laureate."
• The plural of poet laureate is poets laureate.
  
• Handwritten correspondence is a dying art form, and that makes me sad. Maybe I'll pick up the practice again.
• Which reminds me...I need to buy postage stamps this weekend.
• You'd be surprised at how many well-educated adults think a lot is one word.
• This picture is hanging on my office wall. Can you guess which one is my PhotoShop-loving brother?

• Would somebody please stop me before this erratic list gets too out of hand and ----------

(Thanks.)