No baby yet. Sorry to disappoint.

The Weekend Update

I realize it's Tuesday, but I feel like I should mention our wonderful weekend. On Friday we had dinner at the Charlesworth residence (and it was so yummy, thank you!), and afterward we got our first taste of the Wii. Ok, maybe Clark has played it before, but I certainly haven't. And I must say, it was much more fun than I thought it would be. I bowled. And I liked it. If you know me, you know this is fairly amazing. I do not enjoy bowling. For some reason it's way better when you are at home, and you don't actually have to touch the ball, or wear someone else's shoes. In fact, I had so much fun that I wouldn't be dead set against buying a Wii ourselves. Again, this is amazing. Of course, I don't think we will, I just can't justify spending the money, but the mere fact that I would consider purchasing a gaming system is fairly incredible. Clark made a deal with Wombsly that if she came out on Saturday, he'd buy her a Wii. I guess she's not as excited about it as we are.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference, which was excellent as usual. I love being taught and inspired by the general authorities, and I'm so glad we get to hear from them twice a year. And the Solemn Assembly was an incredible experience. President Monson is an incredible man, and already a wonderful prophet.

In honor of conference, we decided to make aebleskivers! We got the special aebleskiver pan for our wedding, and we've never used it, so I decided the time had come to rectify that. They were pretty tasty, although they didn't look anything like the picture on wikipedia. We also got a puzzle to keep our hands busy while our ears were listening. And we finally finished it last night! Clark did most of the work. I helped with the edges, some of the sky, and some of the final pieces. I just get so overwhelmed when there are 800 pieces that all look the same, so I waited until there were fewer pieces. But in any event, it's done, and here's the finished product:


I also went to the doctor already this week. Twice. ("A gazillion times," says Clark). Yeah, it's only Tuesday. I went in on Monday, and Wombsly had moved back down, and I was back in the 90% effaced category, but still no dilation. But at least we had moved forward instead of backward. Then she nearly failed the NST, so Dr. Fagnant did an ultrasound to make sure things were alright. He couldn't find anything wrong with her, but he was still a bit nervous, so I went back in today for yet another checkup. The NST went much better today. He did another ultrasound, and things still looked good (she got a 10/10!). And I'm still nice and effaced, but still not dilated at all. My due date is tomorrow. That would be a great day for her to be born, nice and punctual. But we'll just have to see. I go back to the doctor on Thursday. Hopefully some progress is made by then. Clark has been pretty frustrated that she isn't here yet. All day on Sunday he kept saying, "Just come out and play! Come out and play!" He then told me that he didn't know if he could make it to April 16. I guess I'm not the only impatient one.

Trusty Balloon

The other day I went into the bathroom to discover a visitor.
The little balloon that won't give up! It's from my baby shower in St George that was on February 9. Two months old and still going strong! It lives in Wombsly's room, but somehow it migrated to the bathroom. It made me chuckle to see it hanging over the toilet. Here's a video of the journey (would you look at that, I've got video on the blog!):

Weekly Quote 4/7/08

"Her child was a girl, a small bald-headed mite, ugly as a hairless monkey and absurdly like Frank. No one except the doting father could see anything beautiful about her, but the neighbors were charitable enough to say that all ugly babies turned out pretty, eventually."

This was from Gone With the Wind. I thought it was funny. Sad, but funny. New quote up!

Doctor Visit 4/4/08

I feel like all I do is go to the doctor these days. Not that I'm complaining, but it's probably not the most entertaining blog fodder. Oh well, you're the ones reading it, not me.

Today's appointment was pretty. . . boring. Had another NST. Looks great. Registered a few contractions, but nothing painful. Heart looks great. No major swelling. Lungs sound good. Baby looks good. Except for the fact that the little sneak moved back up. How ridiculous is that! She was so low in my pelvis last week, and this week it's like she never dropped! And apparently I am now 50% effaced instead of 80%. And absolutely no dilation at all. It is somewhat disappointing, but I still have in my head that she probably won't be here until April 16, so I'm doing alright mentally. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to have her here before then, though. I guess we'll just do some more waiting. *Sigh.*

What do you think, should Clark take me on a date tonight?

That's my Dad!

As it turns out, my Dad was on the radio today!!! If you'd rather just read what he said, here you go. He's a church historian, so he was interviewed about the upcoming Solemn Assembly. I didn't hear it, I just heard about it after the fact. And he is having a TV interview as well! So be on the lookout for that on the noon news, those few of you who are home at noon, and have read my blog by then.

Gone With the Wind

Yesterday was a momentous day. I finally, finally, finished Gone With the Wind. Would you like to know when I started reading this hefty novel? August 2007. Right about when we first found out I was pregnant. It has been quite the saga, and I'm not just talking about Scarlett and Rhett. Alongside the many intricacies of their tale has been the saga of my reading this book.

I checked it out from the library in August because it's one of the Great American Novels and I needed a good summer read. I really had no idea how long it was until I actually had it in my hands. And even then I thought, "Surely this book isn't really over 900 pages. Surely there is an introduction, a preface, some sort of commentary that takes up a lot of space." But no. The copy I own has 960 pages. The last page is About the Author. The first 24 pages are all the Preface, Title Page, etc. That's 934 pages of content, 934 pages of solid book. That's a lot of book.

So I hunkered down for the long read. Unfortunately, I then began puking my guts out, and had a really hard time concentrating on anything. But I persevered! The book came due at the library. I renewed! But alas! I ran out of renewals on the book, and it had to go back. It was a sad day. And so I decided to ask for the book for Christmas. Then I wouldn't have to worry about library late fees. And I got it! (Thank you, Jessica!) I was back on track.

And then another book that I had requested from the library months earlier was on hold for me. So I had to read that one. I mean, I owned Gone With the Wind, right? There would be time. This happened a few times. Until finally I decided that it could be put off no longer, and I simply had to finish this book before Wombsly arrived, I just had to! Luckily, I had plenty of doctor's visits to help me on this quest, I don't think I could have done it without all that time spent waiting.

OK, so now that I've told you all about reading the book, let me say that I really enjoyed this book. Even though it took me 9 months to read it. It gave me a greater appreciation for the Southern point of view, and I learned a lot about the Reconstruction Era. It's really a book about people, and what drives them, which I find fascinating. There is a quote from an interview with Margaret Mitchell in 1936 that I think sums up the book pretty well. She was asked what Gone With the Wind was about:

"If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."

Well said, Ms. Mitchell. Well said.

Alternate Spelling

Yesterday someone asked me what we were going to name our baby, and I told her either Julia or Ella. She asked, "How would you spell Julia?" (I, of course, answered, "The normal way.") But it got me to thinking, how else would you spell it? Clark and I were discussing it this morning, and we came up with a couple of great alternate spellings. First: Joule-ia, like the unit of energy. I thought that was fitting for a nerd like Clark. And then Clark busted out the best spelling ever:

Dgiuleighah

Yes, that rhymes with Goolia. Can you imagine?

"Please spell your name."

"D-g-i-u-l-e-i-g-h-a-h B-l-o-c-k-b-u-r-g-e-r."

Poor kid.