drive-by

Just cruising by since it's been so long. The fetus continues to gestate, although she could make her grand entrance (or exit, depending on perspective) any day now. We continue to be textbooky in our progression.

I've decided that this will be the kid journal so that friends and relatives can peek in on our silly little postnatal lives. I'm sure it will be a hoot for all (except me, as I'm sure I'll be exposing my embarassing mamma goofs here more often than not). For blogging purposes, our daughter's name shall be Gaz (actually, that's one of the nicknames she's acquired so far). There will probably be pictures, too. We're having a keen time with our new digital camera, but we have yet to attempt to move pictures from the camera to the computer, so please don't hold your breath. We're notoriously slow about anything involving the computer these days.

The past few months I've given up Aztec dance, at first because I found myself with a lot of freelance work to do (We'd still go to dance, but I'd sit on the sidelines and copyedit while Mark danced for the lot of us), and eventually because my legs don't bend so well when they're swollen to roughly twice their normal size. We've just touched base with our compadres this weekend, though, and judging by how hard it was not to dance along with them even in my bloated and lumpy shape, I'll be back to that as soon as Gaz is out and the doctor gives me the all clear for hopping about again. For those who lack similar perspective, I can honestly say that dancing in the full heat of summer for an hour or two at a pop is much more taxing than simply being pregnant in the summer. So don't cry for me, Argentina; I continue to hold up reasonably well.

The novel has also been back-burnered in favor of knitting and an endless search for the quintessential banana bread recipe. I finished a shawl I started last year (for myself) and I've nearly done with the second chenille hat for Gaz. The first one is much too large for a newborn and I found some other chenille in one of my many yarn bags, so I started another. After this I may just go back to being a lazy bum, though, as I've managed to strain one particular muscle in my arm with the knitting. Don't ask how, I'm really not sure. I can tell you that it definitely doesn't feel all that great. And I'm not sure what my deal is with banana bread all of a sudden. Even the brick that was my first attempt at the stuff didn't taste bad, so long as there was a lot of coffee on hand to help wash down the unbearable dryness of it. Always check to make sure you've got enough all-purpose flour, because whole wheat is just mean in banana bread. At least the way I made it.