Other people are doing this on their blogs and it seems like a nice way to look back over the year. Here’s the first paragraph of the first post for each month of 2009.
The Internet has its uses, but as a tool for diagnosing disease, it often does more harm than good. The world is full of hypochondriacs who cannot resist the temptation to Google their symptoms, ever searching for some dire disease with which to be afflicted. It only takes minutes to convince themselves that they have a brain tumor, or MS, or God knows what. I should know. I am a recovering hypochondriac.
My Faithful Reader asked me today if I was happy with the name we had given our cat, Peeps. I said I was. Just a few hours later, she let out the most beautiful peep I had ever heard, so adorable and welcoming, that I just had to pick her up and hug her. Yes, Peeps is the perfect name for her.
My Faithful Reader said a nice thing to me the other day. After managing to rent both empty apartments in our building, he told me that it was all because of me. I had insisted on moving, even though I knew it meant living in an unfinished house, and I worked hard to get our stuff packed up. Then, in a strange twist of fate, our move helped rent the other apartment, because a neighbor saw us moving and knew someone who needed an apartment.
Yesterday I went to the doctor for my monthly prenatal visit, which this time included the dreaded glucose test. It was a simple test, no trigonometry required. All I had to do was pound down the drink, which tasted like a super-sweet version of Sprite, sit around for an hour, then let them suck a little blood out of my arm.
People sometimes ask us if we have taken any classes to prepare for childbirth, so I tell them about the all-day childbirth class we attended a couple of weeks ago. They want to know if it was helpful, and I tell them it was because it forced Faithful Reader to give me back massages and it also taught him more respect for the physical difficulties arising from pregnancy. One of the things the teacher said is that the cardiovascular strain of pregnancy is equivalent to climbing a small mountain every day. It has become a running joke in our house. Any time I feel tired or don’t want to do something, I say, “Hey, I climbed a mountain today!”
I’ve never believed that tripe about virtue being its own reward. To me, one of the saddest things about this world is that if you don’t get things done, eventually someone will come along and tell you what a lazy and/or incompetent ass you are, but getting things done usually doesn’t earn you so much as a thank you. There’s always criticism and rarely approbation. That’s why we have to make our own rewards.
I was right. I was in labor. Later that morning, after the pain had become unbearable and I finally managed to get my sleepy husband out of bed, we went back to the hospital. Our son was born on that Thursday afternoon, which may have been the only sunny day in June.
Now that the weather has finally turned warm, we have begun to use the ceiling fans in the bedrooms of our new house. It should come as no surprise to us, given the house’s previous owners, that the fans are all wired a little differently. The one in our bedroom is operated by remote only. There is a wall switch right next to the door that ought to control it but doesn’t. In fact, the switch doesn’t control anything. In my office, the wall switch controls the fan light, but not the fan itself, which is controlled by a pull. In the nursery, neither fan nor light will work if the wall switch is in the off position, but each is individually controlled with its own pull. This house is full of inconsistencies!
Today was my first day of work since the baby was born. Thank God I decided to ease my way back to work by doing a couple months of part-time days. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have made it. Even four hours seemed like a lot, but I have to admit that it felt good to do something that wasn’t baby-related for a change.
September is over, but it deserves mention as a lovely month in both form and content. It was made of gorgeous late-summer and early-fall days. It was filled with fun things like campfires, family get-togethers, a visit to a farm, and birthdays.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I am grateful for my blog.
Sometimes when I’m sitting in front of the computer and feeling bored, I’ll read through all of my posts for a particular category, tag, or month. I suppose rereading my own blog posts might be a form of narcissism, but it reminds me of the good times and makes me feel happy about my life.
Total blog neglect—it ought to be a crime. It isn’t, though, so I won’t be hauled before a judge right now, at least not for that. They might try to get me for admitting to a love a snow, since most people hate snow and give me dirty looks every time I talk about how great it is. This morning, we are at the tail end of the so-called Blizzard of 2009. It’s not very blizzardy here and the snow totals are not spectacular (10.5 inches at TF Green at last count), but D.C. got well over a foot. Lucky? Perhaps, but word is that they’re unable to manage such large quantities of snow, so I do not envy those southerners their extra inches of the pretty white stuff.
