Hello! I’m tired, and I appear to have contracted a vicious form of heartburn from hell. How one manages to get heartburn from a bland dinner of toast and milk, I’ll never know, but I’m 99% sure that those of you reading this blog don’t want to hear about all my bodily functions gone awry. So let me talk about something else that’s gone awry: Housework, or a lack thereof.

Up until an hour or so ago, there was a pile of laundry at the foot of our stairs that was large enough to rival the Washington Monument. It had been sitting there blocking the door to the coat closet for, oh, about a week. Any time I wanted to get up or down the stairs, I’d have to do this strange semi-acrobatic swinging leap over the gargantuan pile of shirts, towels, and bedsheets. This morning made for a particularly fun stunt, as I tried to both clear Laundry Mountain AND navigate around the fresh pile of cat vomit on the second stair riser–thanks, Nala! At least she didn’t vomit in the clothes, right?

But back to the laundry. Need a clean shirt? Here’s a shovel, start digging. There’s a reason we don’t buy clothes that wrinkle easily. Frankly, I’m just proud of myself for doing that much laundry–getting it up three flights of stairs from the basement to the bedroom is the icing on the cake. Let’s just say I was leaving it there because I wanted to admire my handiwork, acrobatic leaps and all.

Or how about this: until recently, our kitchen had come to resemble the scene of a natural disaster. Dishes, dishes, dishes–overflowing from the sink, onto the counters, the oven, and basically every available surface except, you know, in the cupboards where they belong. For a while I was forced to prepare my morning toast while holding the toaster in one hand and the butter knife in the other. I wish I could say the dishes in question were as clean as the laundry, but then I’d be lying. No, these dishes were far from clean. The kitchen had begun to smell like an old wet towel, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we were growing some alien species of mold in the sink.

Next on the list, we have the eight giant bags of bottles laying on the back porch, waiting patiently for someone to take them to the recycling center. I’m pretty sure the homeowner’s association wouldn’t approve. And I won’t tell you where the garbage bag of old cat litter currently resides (certainly not in the garbage can, there’s no room left, hah-hah), because then you’d never come to my house and sit down on our one lonely plastic porch chair. *ahem*

This basically sums up the condition of our lives right now. Chaotic. Somewhat uncomfortable. A bit smelly. But what I’m coming to realize is, this is a situation we’re going to find ourselves in more and more often in the coming months, years, and probably even decades. I need to become OK with that, or else I’ll drive myself crazy trying to fight it. Life is messy.

So here’s to airing our dirty laundry, even when it’s clean. Surely I’m not the only person whose home is not the pristine vision of perfection that I (scramble to) make it out to be when company (or Mom–hi Mom!) comes to visit. And I can only hope that when our baby is born, DHS doesn’t catch wind of this entry and come knocking on our door when we’re in the midst of Laundry Mountain and Alien Sink Mold: The Sequel.

Thankfully I speak in the past tense, because my wonderful husband tackled both the kitchen and the laundry pile while I was enjoying my evening walk. But I document it here to prove a point! Although now the raging heartburn and exhaustion has made me forget what my point might have been… maybe I didn’t have one, except to say, “Hi. See why I’m not blogging much? Forgive me.”

I can’t keep this secret any longer, dear Internets. Here goes:

My new super-awesome project is not so much my project as it is a collaboration between Mr. Tim and myself. And it’s not so much a project as it is a lifetime commitment.

It’s the reason I can barf up the spaghetti I had for lunch and not three seconds later think, “Ooh, I want a Rice Krispies treat,” or, “I could really go for something deep fat fried and smothered in cheese.” It’s the reason I’ve totally neglected this blog over the last few weeks, because I don’t want to do anything but sleep.

Yes, it’s that kind of project… one of the baby-makin’ variety. It’s exhausting, overwhelming, and all-consuming… it goes without saying that T & I are thrilled, scared, and all other manner of emotions typically associated with new parents-to-be.

Without going into detail about my medical history, I didn’t think I could conceive, so obviously this was a huge surprise. I woke up a few weeks ago feeling sick, and a little voice in the back of my head said, “maybe you should take a test….” So I did, and when the results came up, I didn’t believe it. I believe my exact words to my husband were, “Umm, WHY ARE THERE TWO LINES HERE?” Being the wonderful man that he is, he just grinned. A second test proved the first one correct, and it took a trip to my doctor and a third test to convince me that I was, indeed, pregnant.

Holy shit.

The last few weeks have been a fog of morning sickness, exhaustion, and elation. These days, my typical train of thought looks something like this: BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY HOLY SHIT BABY.

I was going to wait to say anything here until I had a better ultrasound picture, but I just couldn’t wait, so you’ll have to look at the pee stick instead. I’m due December 26th… 11 weeks along and counting!

Where the hell have I been, right? Blog? Whatsablog?

I am hard at work on a new and exciting project that I would just love to reveal, but alas, it must wait a little while yet. Of course, this means all I want to talk about is said new and exciting project. Conundrum! (I love that word, conundrum!) Patience is not one of my greater virtues, so in the meantime, Tim gets to listen to me yammer on about this and that and the other. Lucky boy!

I haven’t worked on a photo shoot in so long, I’m starting to feel itchy. We’re already into May (!) and I haven’t made a dent in the 2008 portfolio yet. Ouch. So! I need to get working on some ideas. I have new props and dresses and things from my earlier thrifty endeavors, and the weather is perfect for outdoor shoots, so it’s just a matter of setting things up.

I’m also days (weeks) behind on my blog reading, writing, and commenting. But I thought I’d peek in here to say that all is well and I am still here. What’s new with you?

The other day I took all that extra energy and went out in the woods to play with my camera a bit. You can see more photos at my Flickr! I picked up this Gunne Sax dress at the Goodwill on Friday when I was out with Susan… I have a feeling it will get a lot of use over the coming months. Spring has inspired me!

This evening I spent some time under the deck, sorting through my garden stuff so I’ll be ready to plant flower pots in a few weeks. Yes, She of the Black Thumb will attempt to grow flowers this summer. I managed to do it a few years ago without many problems, and this year I have lots more space to work with.

I’ve been so caught up in other things this week that I almost didn’t realize that between my two shops, I made my 100th sale today! Yay!

Busy weekend! A three-day weekend, even! Hurrah for Patriot’s Day! Note the ample use of exclamation points! (And you thought I was exaggerating?)

Three-day breaks are wonderful, although I’ve reached the point where I’ve done almost everything on my to-do list (save for cleaning, but eh, it’s cleaning) and I have a whole day left to kill. We have no Netflix, I’m between custom orders, and I didn’t arrange for any photo shoots this weekend (d’oh) so I’m kinda floating and trying to figure out what I want to do next. The strange free-ness of time! I’m not used to it! Someone, quick! Give her a stopwatch and a schedule before she hyperventilates!

I hung out with Susan on Friday night for more thrifty good-ness and Mexican food. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have friends? Friends who you can even go out with and talk and stuff? I know it seems I’ve been living under a rock when I say that, but occasionally us rock-people have epiphanies of the obvious sort, and I’m particularly enjoying this one.

On Saturday the weather was so nice that T & I decided to take a day trip to the Ellsworth area for some sun and tasty food at Jordan’s snack bar. They had fresh crab (!) so I got a crab roll that was delicious. It was so tasty that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the night (seriously–I went to bed drooling), so the next day we went grocery shopping and I splurged* on some fresh Maine crab meat. Then I got really brave and tried my hand at homemade crabcakes. The verdict: Tasty! Even better: Mr. Tim does not eat seafood, so they were allll mine! Muwahahahaha!

* Does the word “splurge” conjure up gross mental images for anyone else? Because whenever I hear it, or see it written, I think about puke.  And in current context, that’s just unbelievably wrong.