what's up weekly. (In which I share some NEWS!, and then some other news.)

Hey kids, it's me! I bet you thought that I was dead!  (Name the movie and finish the lyric!)

But while I didn't fall over and break my leg or get a hemorrhage in my head, I do have a valid excuse:  I have spent most of the last three weeks on hold with Customer Service at Shark, and the remainder of the time I've been pregnant.

YES! You read that right, and this is a weird way to announce it, but one of the reasons I've been incommunicado lately is because I don't have much energy after lying around on the couch like a sack of potatoes, and also trying to find someone at Shark Industries who understands both vacuum problems and English.  It's been a trying time.

I'm sixteen weeks now (due May 22), and starting to feel better most of the time.  This really hasn't been a bad pregnancy compared to the others - minimal barfing (though, being pregnant at the age of 37 after having had eight previous babies, barfing also involves peeing my pants, so it's less frequent but more complicated this time around), and a bit more ability to function on a basic level.  I have been really tired and was basically narcoleptic for a while, was more prone to carsickness than I've ever been, and I could NOT NOT NOT stand the smell of other people's breath.  I was able to keep down certain foods like jalapeno poppers, fish sticks and Wendy's breaded chicken sandwiches.  I have NOT been able to keep down chocolate, beef, tomatoes, or wine. I was drinking about 2 quarts of raw milk a day for a while, and as milk weighs eight pounds per gallon and I didn't seem to be burning any of it off, you can imagine I've packed on much more weight, much more quickly than usual.

Many afternoons early on involved cancelling school so I could do this.

But like I said, I'm finally starting to feel normal.  After a long stretch of not being able to stomach meat, I suddenly craved a steak, ate it (and then a subsequent one the next day), and have felt a million times better ever since.  My stomach is still a little sensitive but it's manageable, and I would like to highlight the fact that I haven't had Wendy's in nearly two weeks.  I felt the baby move for the first time this past week, which is always reassuring once I stop feeling sick - it's nice to have an indication that things are still going well.

SO. Anyway.  That's been the major news around here.  We just started telling people last weekend.  The kids were all so thrilled (the big kids had suspected; Penelope said, "I knew it! You were so grouchy for so long!"), and Laurelai specifically is very excited that we'll be having another homebirth. I still haven't found a midwife or established care anywhere, but I've at least started gathering references.

Okay, let me move along to other news.  A couple of weekends ago, the weather was gorgeous and a friend of ours from church had people out to help them harvest some of their crops.  They're growing meat birds and eggs for folks at church, and are looking to expand their operation to pork and milk cows soon.  (You may remember when I told you about going out there to butcher meat chickens a few months ago.)  To keep feed costs down, and therefore everyone's meat costs, they're growing a lot of their own feed, but they needed help bringing it in and threshing it.  So we headed out there for the day.

Here, we're working on removing sunflower seeds from the dried flower heads.

Then the kids put them through this blower system to get rid of the chaff.  Juni was such a hard, cheerful worker.  She stayed at her post all morning, scooping cleaned seeds into a bucket.

Penelope oversaw the winnowing operation.  She also worked really hard and stayed super diligent.

I only have photos of the girls.  The boys were out in the field helping to harvest the sunflowers, milo and corn.

The next week was the week of Thanksgiving and we were on break, AND I was finally starting to feel good again, so I took the first few days to tackle the hovel I had allowed our house to become.  I washed every wall, every door, all the big windows (on the inside; I did not climb a huge ladder while pregnant), all the baseboards, all the floors.  I washed all the bedding, all the couch linens.  I cleaned the cabinets.  We raked the yard.  I got completely caught up on laundry.  (In fact, I did so much cleaning all of a sudden that the city contacted us to tell us we must have a water leak.)  It was marvelous. And do you know, that all only took two days.  This house is so incredibly easy to clean - I'm pretty sure the person who chose all the finishes planned on retiring and growing old in this house, and everything is so low maintenance.  I just kept thanking God while I cleaned for what a good house he brought us.

Unfortunately, while I was vacuuming the basement, my vacuum died yet again.  This stupid piece of crap has been giving me hell since I bought it a year ago.  I had already called customer service once, so I called again.  This time, they told me they'd send a replacement in 3-5 business days, but I would have to destroy my current vacuum before they'd send it.  On video call (for proof), I severed the power cord.  One week later, I got an email that the new vacuum was cancelled.  So then I sat for half an hour waiting on customer service again, and finally got another one shipped, but this time it will take up to ten business days to arrive.  Which means I will likely be out a vacuum for nearly a month... and there are pine needles EVERYWHERE because we have not one, but two live trees in my house at this moment.

Here I am, trying fruitlessly to sweep pine needles out of my carpet with a broom.

Yes, we went and got our trees.  First, we went to Home Depot the day before Thanksgiving so I could buy more wall cleaner and just happened to look at the trees.  My goodness, they were so fresh and beautiful - I normally don't buy them until a week or two after Thanksgiving, but apparently I've been missing out.  So we bought our basement tree that day.  Then over the weekend, we went to a local tree farm to find our big tree for the living room.

Atticus, sawing the bottom of the Home Depot tree.

IT IS A BEAST.

It's eleven feet tall, which is what I wanted.  That part didn't surprise me.  But I didn't realize just how WIDE it was when we saw it out there - out of context, next to other trees, it's hard to really gauge size.  My first clue that it was perhaps a mite large was when the employee kept making comments about how this is, like, a really big tree.  My next clue was when seven people had to work together to get it to fit through the netting ring.  My next clue was when it got wedged in the van as we were trying to get it in there and we couldn't get the back door closed.  The final clue was when we actually got it inside and unnetted and were like, this is, like, a really big tree.

SO. MUCH. SHOVING. was happening here.

Juni found Santa!  Juni LOVES Santa, which is funny because we don't do Santa at our house and she knows he isn't real, but that doesn't stop her from expressing unadulterated joy anytime she sees him.

But no matter!  The kids have like 700 billion and a trillion 300 million ornaments, so it was the perfect size in the end.

The kids named it Tree Beard, but I secretly call it The Elephant In the Room.

And I suppose the only other major news I need to report on is Thanksgiving itself.  We went up to Iowa and had dinner at my sister and brother-in-law's studio, where there was enough room for all of us.  My grandpa was there, and my parents, and my sister's family, and us - eighteen people in all.  It was a perfect space for it.

Some coloring of pictures, some picking of noses.

Lolo made her classic salad.

And Penelope made her famous cranberry sauce, served in my great grandmother's crystal.

Atticus, the baby whisperer.

 I don't know what I'm so animated about here.  Probably about how electric car batteries are produced by child slaves.  Or about permissible Christian burial practices.  Or about how taxation is immoral.  I'm that Thanksgiving guest.

Everyone seems to be having a good time in spite of my mouthy presence, so that's good.

Four generations in one photo!

The next morning, the kids did a little crafting with my mom, and we headed home in the afternoon.  And of course, once we got home, the house was somehow trashed again already, even though I had just cleaned it and we weren't even home.  How does this happen?!  Well, oh well.  I'm glad for good, productive work to keep me busy, and for the energy to actually do it.

Today I will be grocery shopping for the first time in five weeks, and hopefully starting to get some Christmas presents ordered, so wish me luck - I have a full day ahead!