The Signs of Genius

Wow, it sure has been a long time since I last posted. There's a number of reasons for that. It began because all I was really thinking about and focusing on was being pregnant and we weren't ready for a public disclosure of that yet. I guess I got in the "habit" of not posting and time just ticked on by.

I have lots to say now and I've thought of several good posts in the past several weeks. Somehow I never made it here to post them though. I'll work on that and see how things go.

This picture is what happens when my honeypot starts to get creative with ink. It happens a couple times a year, in various rooms in our home. Pretty fun, huh?

In other news, I'm due in 8 weeks now. I feel huge but several folks have said that I'm not that big. (And I love them for that!) She's been moving so much. Sometimes it's really uncomfortable. She was head down (Left Occiput Anterior), which is the perfect birthing position, for the past several weeks. She flipped head up on Wednesday. Hopefully she'll flip again because right now she's in breech and my midwife won't deliver her at home. I've got 8 weeks to convince her to move around. Wish me luck!

Craft Time in the Air!

It all started with my honeypot losing his home made hat (from last year) and then later asking for some crochet instructions. And now he has one completed hat, made by me (seen in the picture on his head); and another hat that is almost done, made by him (seen in his hands). Note the start of his dinosaur fins. He inspired me to pick up a craft that I haven't really been doing much of lately.

A couple days after this instructional request was his first ever craft night. Which happened to fall on his 31st birthday. The craft night had a very good turnout, was fun and very crafty!

Last night we stayed at home and crafted some more. I finished off some semi-curtains and have been crocheting all weekend long. (You can see our new semi-curtains behind my honeypot on the right of the window.) We've been doing more projects around the house lately. It's nice and cozy.

My trip to New Zealand was great fun and I intend to do everything I can to have another trip soon. (That would be probably a year or so with work vacation limitations and all.) Basically everywhere in NZ is scenic. Everywhere. The people are friendly, it's very organized, and they have tons of amazing hikes all over the place. Even though the island is relatively small, there is a very large variety of ecosystems and terrain types there. It's amazing!
Pictures here.

Burning Man and Back to Work

Punkinpie and I just got back from Burning Man. I had a good time even though the weather was bad. There were several really severe storms (60 mph winds! that lasted hours) and at one point it even rained. The last time I saw rain out there was in 2001.

Other than that, it was interesting to note how much of the novelty wore off. I got out and explored just as much as I wanted to, but it seemed like a lot less than past years. I suppose some of that could be caused by just how blazing hot it was out there. But at night I also wasn't as active as I remember being in the past too. I think part of that had to do with just how tired I was from my 'real' life. I basically arrived at bm with a sleep deficit, and I caught up out there. It was so nice to sleep, even it it was in a camping situation.

A couple things that I really love about bm is the creativity and do-it-yourself attitude out there. There are so many creative projects and art installations. It's really inspiring. I also really enjoy camping with a group. It's cool to see how everyone works together and make it all work.

We got home on Monday around 7am after leaving the event around 6pm the previous evening. It was slow getting out because of the backup at the gate (~2+ hours), and then the two lane road to interstate 80 is always really slow with the large amount of traffic. That took us another 2 or so hours. Then we stopped in Reno for dinner and were so tired driving through the pass that we pulled over and slept.

I really wish I had the time to stay through Monday or later like we used to. For one thing it's so much faster to get out because you don't have to deal with the thousands of people leaving, trying to make it to work. I guess on the other hand staying while everybody is packing gets old because there's so much extra dust in the air due to the cars driving around. This year was an especially dusty year with the storms and such.

Today at work was really nice because I was so much calmer. I had gotten away from a lot of the stress and had that just-back-from-a-vacation mellowness. I hope I can keep that going for a while. Lucky for me, the big gnarly project that we're in the midst of is doing well, and is completely on schedule for the launch next week. That's really nice too.

(They said the population at bm this year was over 48,000)