Life Goes Back to Normal (Mostly)

It is SO nice to feel mostly normal again. A bit more clunky on my feet, perhaps, and as I walk around I think, "Her belly thrust pugnaciously before her" (and I realize that with a 10oz baby inside, I have another 8lbs of baby weight to add, so I haven't really begun to grow yet). It seems a very literary thought to cheer me in my reduced maneuverability. (What does it mean to have a pugnacious belly? I don't really know.)

I am getting through the accumulated debris that has clogged my desk and floor and coffee table and life for the the past four months. The three little white ropes were Phil's, and they go to summer cow fencing. The bottle caps were saved as a memory of fun treats with Dad, but those memories will live on in the boys' hearts, as the caps are in the trash. I came across some Valentine's Day candy bars, and the boys were gratified.

Phil finally finished up the engineering work on the last day that it was in the 70s. Now we're in the 90s, and since we had had only a few scattered hot days thus far, and mostly those were indoor days for him, I think he feels he is melting away.

I went to check the bees (they are still not building in their supers for some reason), and then pulled some garlic scapes from my much overgrown garlic patch (so overgrown, indeed, that I couldn't see the garlic for the weeds!). I was out for about a half hour, and thought, "This really isn't terribly bad. This heat is manageable." And then I stepped inside to our 76 degree climate controlled space and realized just how hot I was. And a half hour is not all day.

It is too bad that we couldn't plan everything precisely perfectly. In retrospect, to be able to get the engineering done when the weather was too cold and then too rainy, and to have been able to work outside the last month ... that would have been ideal. But the engineering projects weren't good to go in the cold and rainy weather, so my wish is not a failure to plan so much as a pipe dream of perfect efficiency.

As I feel better, I remember more about efficiency. There is something very soothing about feeling so sick you don't care about anything except survival. More energy and physical well-being also gives room for questions such as: is it worth my time to milk twice a day, since I often just give Elle the entire milking? That one definitely threw me yesterday, as I tried to rid my refrigerator of gallons of older milk. I finally decided I would give it to Einstein, give it to Elle, anything to just clear some space.

But that meant cleaning jars, heating milk on the stove (but not too hot lest it curdle and clog the milk bucket!), and generally driving myself crazy.

When sick, I tried to just do the next thing. Now that I feel better, the question becomes What is the next thing? And that is harder to answer.