express yourself

Blog News!

2007-08-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

I've moved my blog over to typepad, which has some pretty cool features, so please visit me there! There will be lots of musings and photos centered around handmade things, food/cooking, family life, as well as lots of ideas, quotes, tutorials, and other fun things.

I've also started a new blog for our store, The Weed Patch, so please visit me there too! I'll be announcing store products for sale, events we're having, Country Village news and events, as well as photos, recipes, and musings with a focus on country life.

Technorati

2007-08-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

This week I purchased Somerset Studio's newest special publication called Artful Blogging. If you love browing blogs for visual eyecandy and a peek into the lives of kindred spirits, you'll enjoy this magazine. I understand it is going to be quarterly. I recognized about a third of the artists featured - its fun reading about why they started a blog, and what it has done for their lives.

In the back of the magazine, they give you some blogging tips and tricks, many of which I was familiar with. I hadn't heard of Technorati, has anyone else? Apparently it is a search engine that specializes in blogs, so you can post your own blog in there, and search for other people's. I've just created a Technorati Profile. I don't really know what that means yet, but I guess I'll find out.

More Encyclopedia of Me Meme to come...I may not have all 26 letters done by my birthday, but that's OK. I'd rather have it late and genuine than on time and rushed/not really thought through.

B is for Ball, Birthday, and Benjamin

2007-08-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

This has been a pleasant week so far - a good mix of productivity at home and at the store, one-on-one time with Ben, some visits with friends, and some artsy stuff done too. I always forget day to day what I've done, and thus can't recall what progress I've made on my to do list, so consequently I've started keeping a weekly to do list - each weekend I write up a list of things to complete during the following week. Sometimes in the morning each day I'll highlight what I'd like to get done that day, to help keep me focused, but I mostly like to keep things open because with the store, a baby, and the nature of life in general, you never know what kind of a schedule you'll have.

I love lists. I love to cross things off a list, even if it is "take a shower." The list for this week had a little bit of everything, like take a walk, vacuum, enter products onto The Weed Patch's website, crochet some flowers, play with Ben, cook dinner, etc. B is for Ball, because I crocheted Ben a ball to play with (see photo above). It is just plain Red Heart verigated rainbow yarn I have leftover with something else, but it crocheted up into a really nice big ball. It has a bell inside to give a little jingle, and I didn't fill it too full, so then he can grasp it. Earlier this week I had picked up the unfinished project to move it out of my way, when I noticed his eyes following it. He really stared at it! So, I finished it right then and there and gave it to him to play with. He grabbed it and put it in his mouth (well, not the WHOLE thing, as it is the size of a pummelo).

B is also for Benjamin, of course. I couldn't possibly do a B entry without including him. What kind of mom would I be?

This is Ben having a bath in our kitchen sink, about a week ago or so. I think these are all a week or two old.

This is him chillin' with Grandma at the family reunion two weeks ago. He does that a lot. Just chillin'.

He attended his first birthday party this last Saturday. Our goddaughter Elise turned two this last Friday, and there was a big fat party for her - with a Curious George Theme. Andy describes the party rather accurately and amusingly, so I'll let him tell the tale.

It occurred to me at the party that within a few years, if things go on as currently planned, our casual get-togethers with our two best friends are going to be just like that - a dozen children running around to keep track of. As there were about that many children at this party, and all under kindergarden age, it gave me a little taste of reality. I liked it, fortunately, but whew! Am I going to be tired. And BUFF.

But happy. :)

A is for Armadillo

2007-08-14T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well, A is for Alphabet. I love the alphabet - what a great invention! Symbols that stand for certain sounds, that when you put them together in a myriad of ways, you can communicate with people. How cool is that? I wouldn't be able to blog otherwise, let alone share in the knowledge of peole I'd never met, except for whatever memorized stories had been passed down from generation to generation.

This alphabet card is part of a set that I received as a baby gift for Ben. I love them! The illustrator is Melissa Sweet - she does darling works that mix fabric collage with watercolor. I especially love how broad the animals for each letter are. C isn't for Cat, but for Camel; D isn't for Dog, but for Dragonfly. How fun is that?

Ben also has an alphabet quilt, courtesy of his aunty Holly, which I unfortunately haven't been able to hang yet. I knew she was makingme a quilt, but had not expected this - it just amazed me. She appliqued one object for every letter of the alphabet, with Dick & Jane and ABC fabric quilt blocks making up the rest. Some of the letters are what you'd normally expect, such as A for apple and B for ball. But with other letters she was even more creative. I found N is for Night, and Z is for Zipper to be among the most unexpected. A nod to the guys was T for Trogdor, a Homestar Runner character that they like, and Y is for MX + B (which is a mathmatic formula that eqals Y, which you probably recall fom high school). W is for Weed Patch, our store, and she appliqued our logo. I love this quilt. What a gift!

This is a letter A that I started in pen and colored pencil - I was going to do a whole alphabet, until I realized how long this A was going to take and I gave up for other things. I would love to do an alphabet book, in felt, like a touch and feel book, for Ben. I saw something like what I'm thinking on Flickr once, but now I can't find it at all. Oh well.

Encyclopedia of Daily Life

2007-08-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have gotten a little behind in reading the blogs I enjoy keeping up with, and today I read a lovely blog from Bella Dia, who shared a wonderful idea for a series of postings. She calls it Encyclopedia of Me Meme - I have no idea what Me Meme is, so I'm just calling it an encyclopedia of daily life. Here's how she explains it: Starting tomorrow, August 1st, I'm going to make a post each day of the month beginning with 'A is for...' and on the 26th day, 'Z is for...' My posts will be different random topics that somehow relate to my life and at the end I should have something similar to Amy Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. "

I think this sounds just wonderful! I love questions and prompts like this, I always write better that way. I'm afflicted with this awful problem where I think of all kinds of interesting things when I'm out and about, no where near a writing instrument, but when I get to the computer or journal, I can't think of anything useful to say whatsoever. Or, if I can think of something interesting to say, I can't think of how to write it, so I sit there and stare at the screen or blank page. That's why some of my favorite books are those where the author has written about topics I think about, and I spend the whole time pointing in my head and saying "yes, I know exactly what you mean!"

So I'm really looking forward to this, although I'm hoping I can commit to it. Normally I wouldn't worry about it, and would just write as it comes to me, but she started this on August 1st and my birthday is on the 26th, so if I keep up that means I'll have a whole alphabet of life to look back on. I am also afflicted with a remarkably poor long-term memory (when it comes to my life experiences - I can remember numbers and what products we sold at the store two years ago, and things like that, relatively well. But I couldn't tell you what my childhood lunch box was, or what trips we took every summer as a family. Sheesh!), which is why I took up journaling, and now blogging, in the first place.

I don't really know what A is going to be tomorrow, or what any of the other letters are going to be, but I'll just go with the flow and see what happens. Let me know if you are participating, I'd like to read what other people are doing. Its not too late to join in!

I like this guy.

2007-08-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

"In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running." - Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder

Breakfast in Tub

2007-08-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

I had a nice morning today. Well, at first it wasn't so nice - I kinda feel like I'm coming down with something, and I did something rotten to my neck because I can hardly move it. So I took a bath to see if I could loosen it up a bit. Aaaaahhhhhh.... I haven't taken a bath since before I had Ben. (Well, I've bathed, I just haven't taken a bath. So, here I am in this gloriously yummy water, complete with orange and peppermint essential oil, when Chris brings me my favorite tea, then proceeds to make me breakfast and bring it to me in the tub. He hands me this mess of eggs and veggies, which really didn't look all that good, but it was GOOD. Really good. He just brings it in, and says he hopes it tastes good, then "oh, and I took photos for your blog." That was the best part, it cracked me up. Now he's taking photos for my blog. I love it.

It's kind of hard for me to remember to take photographs of my life, which is especially unfortunate as I never seem to remember much of anything unless I have photos to remind me. Blogging has been a wonderful way for me to start taking more photos. So has having a baby.

We've been pretty busy around here, but pleasantly so. We're starting our most difficult and exhausting, but fun time of year - converting the store to fall! Within about two weeks we should have all the fall stuff out, and it is so much fun. I don't know what it is about September and pretty much the rest of the year - it's like a universally loved season. I really enjoyed spring this year. And I am thoroughly enjoying summer. But autumn....oooo, I can't wait...

More crafty inspiration (but again, not from me)

2007-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'm capitalizing on my friend's blog today, partly because I'm running out the door and don't have any photos of things handy, but mostly because I just LOVE the crafty things she's posted today. Like me, she has one child, but hers is running around, can get into things, and I imagine takes more time to look after than it does for me with Ben. Nevertheless, she has several crafty artsy projects she has finished and is working on. I'm encouraged. I'm also inspired to sew. Again.

Anyway, check it out!

Baby Craft Inspiration

2007-08-07T13:10:00.001-07:00

Baby Craft Inspiration
Originally uploaded by rusteddragonfly

I browsed around Flickr this morning and found some inspiring photos of baby crafts that I thought I'd share. Don't you just want to sew now? I do.

New Flickr!

2007-08-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have a Flickr gallery!

Back again

2007-08-05T23:12:00.001-07:00

We are back from the family reunion. It was an extremely pleasant time, as usual, and thankfully not too hot this year. It seems that people tend to dread their family reunions (at least that is what I hear most often from folks), but we look forward to our annual get-together with great anticipation. Although my family is rather large (extended family in the 3 digits somewhere), there weren't as many people in attendance this year. Sadly, this is due to a number of health issues. I hadn't realized just how many of my family are down for one reason or another. An aunt is likely soon to pass away due to complications from failed kidneys, a young cousin is fighting a brain tumor for I think the third time, and another cousin currently occupying a nursing home bed for 6 weeks awaiting a second hip replacement. Last year one of my sweet uncles, the first of his generation, passed away from Alzheimer's (and now an aunt is showing signs of it also), and the year before that a cousin lost her battle with lung cancer. Another aunt is currently dealing with a body that won't process any nutrients from the food she eats and is thus very very weak and frail.

I always thought of us as such healthy folk, with little to no complaints or major stresses in our lives. Now, as I tally them up, it hits me that we are going through a lot right now. Family is so important to me - I can't imagine not having all my aunts and uncles and cousins. I often lament the fact that I was born the last of my generation, and thus came in to things with everyone already advanced in age. I won't get to enjoy them as long, and my children may or may not remember most of them. And they have so much to teach us.

I have been asked on many occasions, since I had Ben, how many children we plan on having. A rather person question, but I haven't minded answering. We always said we'd start with one and see how that went, then go from there. We've never been parents before, we had no idea what it was like, so how would we know how many kids we'd want to have? Now that we have Ben, Chris' answer to that question has lately been 12. Of course I have no intention of bearing that many children, but I most definitely want more than one. I love the idea of being surrounded with family - I'd like my kids to experience what its been like for me to enjoy such a large extended family. So, God willing, if we are able to (physically, financially, and of course mentally!), we'd like several. Although, I've never had to care for more than one child at a time, so I guess we'll move on to two, and again go from there. :)

So, not that anyone is really interested in that much detail about how many kids I want to have, but that's just part of what I got to thinking about when musing over my weekend. I really just intended to pop in for a quick hello before heading off to bed. My brother and sister-in-law are watching Ben for the day tomorrow, so I'll have several hours to myself to get our house back in order, and hopefully get a few more things in my shop.

Nighty night for now...

My Store!

2007-08-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

I have opened a store on Etsy!

I'm leaving for our family reunion, so will not be posting for a couple of days - enjoy your weekend!

Happy at Home

2007-07-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

My time at home on maternity leave has whizzed by so far. Today Benjamin is 10 weeks old, so I'm halfway through my leave time. It is interesting how different I am at home than I am at work (at least, how different I feel). I've been puzzled by this for the five years since I first noticed it. It occurred to me the other day when I was taking a walk outside how good I feel when I'm not indoors. Everything about me inside brightens up, my brain is more awake, and I think and see things more, and...I'm just...happier! Maybe that is what is effecting me at work? Until I got my job at the hospital, I had spent every day of my life with a significant portion of my time spent outside. In every school I've been to, I had to go outside to walk from class to class - elementery school, high school, and college. We lived about 12 miles outside of town on 10 acres in the country, so there was always stuff we had or wanted to do outside.

Once I started working at the hospital seven years, I spent every day all day indoors. Being inside all day long, especially when I can't even see through a window, makes me feel like I'm very slowly dying - kind of like a flower wilting due to insufficient water and sunshine intake. Whenever I feel down, I always feel significantly better almost immediately upon walking out the door, no matter the weather. It just feels right.

I must admit that the thought of going back to work really does not thrill me. It's not the work, or the people - I do enjoy it, for what it is - but the whole corporate life, being inside all day, looking at numbers and figures, just does not appeal to me. It is not my passion. It makes me feel like I am missing life instead of living it. It is interesting to me how much women have shunned, some quite emphatically, the stay-at-home lifestyle. Our mothers worked so hard to make it into the "man's" corportate world, to be considered as equals in all ways including the workplace, to be seen as more than "just" a housewife and mother. This subject comes back relatively often in my conversations with my great friend Holly. We love being mothers, wives, and homemakers. I love to spend time with my family, care for my son, be helpmate to my husband, clean the house, cook delicious meals (or try), create beautiful things for the home or as gifts for loved ones, and everything that goes along with all this. I even enjoy laundering and folding my son's little outfits. We eat healthy homecooked meals, spend more time with our family and friends, get more exercise and fresh air, and are more involved in each other's lives. I love this. It makes me feel alive. Now, why haven't I felt this way for the last 7 years in my job? Do I have a bad attitude about my job? Do I need to make better use of my time, be more organized, work harder, or make better choices day-to-day? Or was this job really only meant to be temporary?

All people are made deliciously different. Which is wonderful. It is the spice of life. Some people want to work full-time in a job and setting like mine. But right now, I just can't imagine wanting to do that. And I guess that makes me feel guilty sometimes, like "not everyone gets the priviledge of staying at home to work as a wife and mom, somebody has to work at these places so they can run properly and provide the services the community needs, so I should just work and be grateful about it." But then I think that perhaps some people do not find what I do all day very appealing either. Let's see, today I have done several loads of laundry, washed our dishes, fed and changed my son multiple times, cooked dinner, picked up the house, wrote thank you notes, fed the cat, said hello to a neighbor, taken Ben for a walk outside, and a number of other related tasks. I was on my feet for probably 11 out of the 12 hours of the day. My own meals, personal hygene, and other needs went on hold, as my son's came first. Many folks might find this to be a completely dull life. But I absolutely love it. It makes me happy. It makes me feel at home, that I'm doing what I was made to do. Home, God, family, and creating are my passion. So why do I feel so guilty about it? Its like if I'm happy, then I must be not be doing what I should be doing, because toiling to earn a living shouldn't be fun - treating myself, playing, is fun. Not being productive. Work and fun are mutually exclusive, right?

My heart knows this is emphatically untrue, but my head is having a hard time with it. I seem to be one of those people that is only happy when they are miserable, because I tend to make things so darn difficult. Silly me! I see this is something I'll have to think and write on more over time.

Enter the strawberry. Don't ask me why in the world a jar shaped like a strawberry the size of a soccer ball appeals to me, but when I saw it, I knew it belonged in my kitchen. I don't collect strawberries, and didn't particulally need a cookie jar. But the thing just makes me happy. Every time I see it in my kitchen, it makes me smile. Happily, the price was within my budget, so I purchaed it. And now it is in my kitchen and makes me smile every day. That's all. And I'll just leave it at that!

Except of course for the usual photo of Ben.

Sigh. I am happy.

Rainy Day

2007-07-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh...it is raining. We here at the Tindall home love the rain - especially after all this hot, humid, muggy weather. I never used to love rain until I met Chris, who REALLY loves it. There's just something about it. All my senses seem to be heighted during and after a rainfall - all the smells seem more fragrant, all the colors seem brighter, that sort of thing. Its like the rain washes all the dust off everything and leaves it glistening. And since no one likes to be out in the rain, it is always so still, with the just the pleasant white noise of the drops saying "pitter patter, pitter patter" (except a lot faster than that). We like to get in our car and take a drive with Loreena McKennitt playing, and talk about our dreams and the things we love.

I'm sitting here at the computer with Ben on my lap and the cat at my feet. One thing I'm discovering about being a wife and a mom is how much demand is placed on my attention. In the last year I've gone from one person (husband), to three people (husband, baby, psycho-cat) needing me to pay attention to them. Someone always needs or wants something. Now I am not complaining at all, as I love the fact that I have three different personalities that love me and want to be around me and need things from me - some people don't have anyone. I just find it interesting how different my life is - how I think, what I do, my priorities, even how I talk have all changed, and are all geared around the juggling of priorities: baby, husband, cat, self. I'm starting to believe that to be a wife and mom you need a degree in office coordination, time management, housekeeping, counseling, event planning, cooking, and multitasking to name a few. Not to mention a boat load of patience! Every day is an adventure. It is challenging at times, but I am taking such joy in my son. It is so important to have an attitude of joy, or you miss out on so much in life. I may be juggling 50 things at once, Ben may be sitting in my lap filling his pants, but when he look up at me and gives me his big toothless grin and a gurgly giggle, everything is perfect.

Trinkets and Treasures

2007-07-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

Day number 2 in my first official week as full-time wife and mom and everything that goes along with that. We had a lovely day, full of feeding, playing, and cleaning. I don't mean that to sound as sarcastic as it does in print - really, it was a very nice day. See, while caring for Ben, I am also attempting to tackle the unpacking from a month long road trip, plus finding homes for the fifty trillion wonderful gifts we received from a couple baby showers. Ben received all really nice thoughtful gifts, but then you get it all home and realize once you've cut off the tags, washed all the clothes, broken down the boxes, and saved all the ribbons, you have to then put all the stuff away, which of course means rearranging everything else to make homes for all the new stuff. A lot of work, but kind of fun too. I still think I've made a bigger mess than I've cleaned up, but I suppose it is always worse before it is better.

So what do I do when I have piles and piles of stuff accumulated on every possible surface? I hang a shelf. Then arrange pretty things on it. I find the whole house environment, as well as my day spent tackling it, is rather worthwhile when at the end of it you have something lovely to look at. My mother-in-law picked up this shelf at a garage sale for $5, then my mom refinished it. It is hanging in the kitchen right at eye level when you walk in the back door, and has a few of my treasures on it.

The top shelf has some of the Portmerion dishes I picked up from the factory where they make it in England, a place called Stoke-on-Trent (I'm sure I butchered the spelling). They have a shop full of "seconds," where if one little tendril of one little leaf isn't perfectly straight, they mark it down considerably. They had some marked down even more with flaws that were more noticable - those they send to America, as they say we don't know any better. And usually we don't. Anyway, the second shelf has a few of my peach lustre Fire King cups and saucers. Don't ask me where I picked up a liking for this set, but it struck my fancy about a year ago. I had a mind to pick up some black dishes then have a festive set to work with in the fall. The bottom shelf has three pink depression tumblers I got on sale at an antique store during our recent (well, only) trip to Fort Collins, CO. I don't even collect Depression glass, but they were SO pretty on their shelf, they looked like they belonged on a cover of a magazine - like on a white wicker table and chair set out in the garden with a pitcher of pink lemonade with fresh mint inside. The cup and saucer is the Autumn pattern of Royal Daulton's Brambly Hedge - the illustrations look just like Beatrix Potter, but I don't think they're related at all. I absolutely love it. This cup I found for $10 at the Goodwill, of all places. Then the covered glass dish thingy was a gift from my mom - I threw her a tea party last year for her birthday, where she and a bunch of her friends drove up and when antiquing for the day while I prepared their meal. She came home with this for me, which I typically keep full of some kind of candy.

So that's the story behind my shelf. I'm not sure that anyone really cares what each item on my shelf is or where it comes from, but it felt good to tell it anyway. I only arranged all that stuff on here because I thought it looked good, but as I got to writing about it, I realized each piece has a personal story and memory. I tend to not like decorations for the simple sake of decorations, I like them to mean something to me in some way. I didn't think I was being that meaningful when I put the shelf together, but now that I think about it, there's a lot of memories on there. Maybe that will inspire me in some way tomorrow when I start tackling the dishes with a sink whose hot water nozzle won't turn off (if you can even get it on in the first place). Again. Sigh.

A Day with Ben

2007-07-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

So today was my first day home alone with Ben, just the two of us all morning and afternoon. A successful day, I think - I managed to get dressed and washed before he woke up. Unfortunately, I only got so far as thinking about my breakfast when he was ready for his, but oh well. An hour of feeding, dressing, changing, playing, changing, and feeding later, he was down for a nap. The photo is of His Cuteness sometime between a feeding and changing. I tried to get a shot of his smile, but each time I gave up and snapped a photo, he'd smile, only to stop when I tried to take another shot. Take my word for it, he smiles and is adorable.

It was an interesting day. See, I'm not quite sure how much around the house one can get done during the day when caring for an infant, especially one pretty much too young to entertain itself. It's amazing all the different ways you can multitask, like pumping breastmilk while mixing up a cake, that sort of thing. All Ben has done today is eat! I don't know if it's the heat or he's hitting a growth spurt, but it has been "food - food NOW" all day long.

However, I still managed to get a bunch of this pig sty cleaned up. I have a half finished project started in every room of the house, but hey, at least they're started! I also was able to cook a whole meal for dinner - I made a chicken pita sandwich from this month's issue of Cooking Light, which was very good but you might find a little dry if you are used to mayo on your sandwiches (Chris doesn't bother to eat a sandwich without a inch or two of miracle whip, but he loved this sandwich, so I guess it isn't missing anything). Made the roasted corn relish off the cover of the June magazine too, although I didn't have a grill at the time so I just pan fried the corn, roasted the Anaheim chile on the broiler, then added the tomato, lime juice, cilantro, etc. Very yummy, but Chris thought was a little too spicy for him. We topped it off with fresh peaches and raspberry, and a good 'ol Betty Crocker yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I think I could have made leather sandwiches and cardboard cake and it would have tasted good to us, as we're so desperate for home cooking after being on the road for 4 weeks.

He's arrived!

2007-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

Pictures are up! www.thetindallfamily.com

A friend just shared this quote with me. Normally I think such quotes and sayings are sweet, but a little too sugary for my tastes. However, now that I have a child of my own, I see that these aren't romantic exaggerations made to help us feel all warm and squishy inside, but exact representations of the experience of new parenthood.

"I loved him intimately, sight unseen. Yet when he lay on my chest for the first time, part of me felt as if someone had given me a Martian baby to raise, or a Martian puppy. And I had no owner's manual, no energy, no clue as to what I was supposed to do.

The other part of me felt as though I were holding my own soul.

Now, all these years later, this pretty much says it."

--Ann Lamott

Welcome Benjamin Michael Tindall

2007-05-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

Chris is writing this, as Janene is so tired she can't function, and Benjamin is sleeping on her at the moment....OH - We have a baby boy!

Benjamin Michael Tindall was born at 4:51 am on Sunday, May 20th.
He weighed in at 9lbs 5oz, and was 20" long.

Janene went into labor at 3am on Saturday morning. We were admitted to the hospital around 3pm. Janene's total labor was 23 hours - plus 3 hours of solid pushing every 2-3 minutes. At the end of this ordeal the Drs decided that this guy just wasn't going to come out without a c-section. So off to the OR it was, and a C-Section was performed. Really amazingly quick.

Since then, we've been at the hospital; Janene developed a fever (it hit 102.8 at one point) that got her onto antibiotics. Benjamin has a touch of jaundice, but is doing fine otherwise.

Today (22nd) was a very tough day - he was in a lot of pain, as all of his systems are still coming online (wow - I'm a nerd...). He's had some stomach cramps that kept him from being comfortable most of the day.

Anyway, we'll be posting photos on www.thetindallfamily.com as soon as we can - I was going to do that tonight, but the hospital limits what I can do through their wireless connection, and I can't get in to any of my admin stuff. So tomorrow night it will hopefully be.

Speaking of tomorrow, we'll probably be headed home tomorrow at some point. Please don't just drop in on us, at least until we give the ok for that - we would LOVE to see everyone, but we need to pre-approve it via phone to make sure timing is ok. So call Chris' cell and we'll set a time to hang out! :)

On a side note, since Janene has had a C-Section, we will not be that mobile for a while, as she needs to heal. Chris will be sticking pretty much right at home for at least 2 weeks, as Janene can't do much (she can do some, but overdoing it would be...BAD.)

Keep your eyes on www.thetindallfamily.com, and we'll keep you updated! :)

Chris, Janene, Benjamin

No Baby Yet

2007-05-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

Well, three days overdue, and still no baby. We had an ultrasound yesterday to check to see that the amount of amniotic fluid is still OK (and it is), as well as a non-stress test. They hook you up to a monitor that checks the baby's heart beat, and he has to move a couple times in about 20-30 minutes, and they check to make sure the heart beat rises and falls as it should - that test came out beautifully as well. So, he's doing just fine, and those tests are "good" for about three days.

I myself have been doing pretty OK, up until recently. I still have not felt much in the way of contractions, but on top of the swelling problem I've been having, unfortunately my hip has now made it impossible for me to do much to try to help things along. For those of you that don't know, last week I woke up one morning with severe hip pain. Sitting is fine for the most part, but any pressure I put on my left hip is very painful - bad enough that I can barely dress myself, let alone walk. Its just a result of everything loosening up and moving around in my pelvis, on top of already having a hip problem, so there isn't much to do about it except take some tylenol and give birth. :) We did purchase a yoga ball that I should be able to do some squatting and bouncing on, as that has been said to help things along a bit, so that's nice. Chris has been stellar support, and has pretty much been doing literally everything, down to washing my feet in the shower for me. :)

Otherwise, I still haven't progressed much at all, so if I don't go into labor by Thursday morning (when we have another non-stress test), they'll check me in to the hospital sometime on thursday or friday night, depending on bed availability. At that point they'll administer hormones several times throughout the night to start dialation. The doctor says that has often been enough to bring on labor naturally (that would be nice). But if that doesn't work, then they'll induce with Petocin (which brings on faster, longer, and harder contractions, so at that point I'll probably look in to getting a light epidural). This has a somewhat higher risk of stress to the baby, so they'll watch him very closely. The doctor also mentioned that I am at a slightly higher risk for C-section due to several factors, among them including the fact that I'm overdue, I haven't progressed at all, and the baby is getting pretty big.

So, that's a complete update. Obviously there are some possibilities in there that I'm really not too keen on, but we knew going into this that anything could happen and you just can't predict it. (Although, so far this is following my sister's labors to a T - she had the Petocin, and STILL didn't progress, hence her 30 and 18 hour labors). It is kind of stressful, but I think most of it is just normal emotional ups and downs from hormones and the big Unknown. Besides, if it is just now starting to get truly challenging and difficult to deal with day to day, at 9 months pregnant, then I'm not too bad off!

We'll keep updating as we can - thank you for being patient with me as I disappear for months on end (blog-wise). I hope to blog a bit more regularly soon - I know, I keep saying that, but I really enjoy it and mean to build more of a habit, as soon as we have a bit more routine to our lives again. :)

About the "Man"

2007-02-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

To explain a little about the previous post, the "man" in our lives is our new cat, Rumpus, which we adopted from my sister. Jennifer lives in Long Beach, CA, and has several cats of her own, but when she discovered Rumpus alone out on the streets, clearly neglected and likely abused, she couldn't resist "saving" him, with the exuse that he was for us when we got a house. Well, we live in a house now, so now we have our first pet.

I have to say it has been so much fun. I've spent my whole life with at least 2 pets in the house, and at least 1 was a cat, but Chris has never had what I consider a "real" pet - just "city" pets like hamsters and parakeets. They just don't have the personality and demands of a cat, you know? And what demands! Rumpus has been a very good cat, behavior-wise - doesn't do anything anywhere he isn't supposed to, understands and mostly respects the word no, eats and drinks as he should, barely sheds, and the like. But boy does he LOVE love! He greets us at the door every day we come home, with yowls that go on and on until we pick him up and carrying him around like a toddler. Heaven forbid I take my bath before he's had a good petting and scratching - the world has come apart if I dare to even shut him out of the bathroom! He will wander in and out, walk all around and under the tub, even put his paws up on the rim of the tub to see if there is any conceivable way he can get in there with me.

Demanding as though he is, we are nonetheless really enjoying having him around. It has been an interesting new aspect to our relationship, this business of taking care of a living creature together. We seem to have naturally settled into a pattern of who does what, that so far seems to be working rather smoothly. Although I admit I probably say that because Chris does about 90 percent of the work - pretty much because I can't touch the litter of course, and don't usually have the energy to animate the ball of yarn every time the cat decides he needs to play, which is usually at 10 or 11 pm. Chris really loves it, though, and it has been good practice for us to have another body in the house to worry about. Not like caring for a cat is ANYTHING like caring for a child, but it is still better than nothing. So far the cat is still alive, healthy, and kicking, so I guess we are off to a good start!

P.S. Jennifer named him, we didn't. I have no idea where she got the name.

New man in my life

2007-02-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

Spring news

2007-02-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

Has it really been so long since I've written a blog? A really decent one? Truly? Alas, despite my sincere good intentions to keep updated with my blog, I have failed miserably, when you consider my goal was to update at the very least once a week. So much has happened in the last six months, I hardly know where to begin. The most important bit of news has yet to be officially aired in this blog (and will explain a lot!), which is we are expecting a baby! As of this Saturday I will be 26 weeks pregnant with a little boy we plan to welcome into the world on or around Mother's Day (May 13th). We didn't actually plan that at all, it just worked out nicely that way - we didn't even put two and two together that our due date was Mother's Day until a few months ago. Or at least I didn't, maybe Chris was faster on that than I was. Which wouldn't be at all surprising, because I have completely lost my mind. It feels like it at least! For the first 13 weeks, I was very sick, all day/night, every day, so pretty much every minute of every day was spent at work working, at home trying to eat and sleeping, all the while trying not to throw up (for all you more squeamish readers, I apologize - I'm not very squeamish usually, so I just tend to say what is in my head, which unfortunately doesn't always come out all that "proper."). Thankfully indeed that disappeared not long after the first trimester, so we've been able to enjoy the rest of the pregnancy so far. As of this week, though, I'm starting to really feel big, even though I don't show all that much. I'll have to take a photo and post it - unfortunately, we've taken very few photos of me. I'm pretty sad about that, as those would be really fun to look back on, plus I tend to forget most everything that isn't immortalized in a photo or journal as a reminder. Better late than never, though, so we'll start taking some pictures soon, I hope, now that the weather is nicer and we're out and about more. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes…losing my mind (see?!)... This baby has sapped my brain of it normal ability to process details, analyze information, or remember…anything. Which really sucks when you analyze for a living. Sheesh! I've never written so many sticky notes in my life. Does anyone know what causes Pregnancy Brain, besides the obvious answer (the baby)? I mean, what is it REALLY that makes you lose your mind, and is there a cure for it? Does it come back? We're in real trouble if it doesn't. I do appreciate and understand my own mother a little better now, though. She was pregnant three times.

Anyway, so we are very happy. We're just entering into that anxious phase though, as everything is starting to sink in now that we only have 14 weeks left to go, and my ever-growing belly is a constant reminder of the changes to come. I'm so happy the weather is nice, though - freezing, but beautiful. I don't know how I ever thought I'd want to have a baby in the dead of winter, as we had originally been thinking. I never would have survived the dark dreariness, which in my mind I always enjoy, but in body and spirit it just depresses me. I never know how much until the first sunny days start to appear and I start feeling 1000 times better, and never realized how NOT myself I was being. Lots more energy these days, even though I’m really tired too. If that makes sense.

The View

2006-11-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

This is the view out my window right now:

Christmas Art

2006-11-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

Here's what I did today. FINALLY I have done some art. Will chat more later...

New Halloween Illustration

2006-09-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

I did a sketch this weekend for a new Halloween themed illustration, which will be used on the cover of the October issue of Country Pleasures magazine. We were going to use my pumpkin man, but it turns out that the magazine photo I took him from wasn't actually that of an antique figurine, but a 2003 August Moon design by Lang! It was by complete chance that I discovered this - last weekend I was at Sumner for the second time in my life, and one of the shops had my man sitting right there on the counter. Imagine my suprise! She said it is broken, so she only puts it out as a decoration. Well, that took care of that - no using it in any publication! So I sketched this funny little troup out last night and just finished painting it up today. I'll post a photo of the completed work later this week.

Hope you all had a good weekend - Have a nice night!