My latest read is A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder–How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place. I’m about halfway through it. The writing is not exemplary, which is too bad, since it does make some good arguments against our society’s illogical bias towards over-organization. I’m still not fond of my crammed drawers or messy desks, both at home and at work, but I’m pretty sure spending more time alphabetizing, labeling, and container-izing is not going to solve anything. If anything has helped it’s Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space, which I’d read last year. I came away from that book convinced that less really is more, and I’ve been slowly but surely making headway against my packrat tendencies.

The best weapon I’ve found so far is to avoid shopping and bringing more things into the house. Whenever I do go shopping, I tend to buy too many things, whether it’s the jumbo bag of onions or yet another V-neck T that I do not need, just because it’s on sale. When I give a shopping list to Kevin and ask him to go to the store, on the other hand, he tends to come home with only what was on the list. Judging by our credit card bills, this strategy has already kept a few hundred dollars worth of stuff out of our house this year, so I think it’s one worth continuing. Since I do not actually like shopping, it won’t even feel like I’m depriving myself of anything.

Categories: reading, shopping
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For a good part of last year we kept finding other people’s dog droppings on our lawn or driveway every week or two. Finally about a month ago I got fed up. Instead of cleaning up the droppings, I grabbed a broom and swung furiously until they all ended up in the middle of the street, and I asked Kevin to do the same if he should see more. I wanted to send a clear message to the perpetrators, that if I should ever catch them in the act, I will take my broom to both them and their stupid dogs.

Then this morning Kevin caught sight of more dog droppings, except they were in our neighbor’s driveway on the other side of the street. I should go lend the neighbors my broom.

My doctor’s office called with some bad news. My one-hour glucose tolerance test came back a little high, so I’ll have to take the three-hour test to make sure I don’t have pregnancy-onset diabetes. For the uninitiated, the three-hour test goes something like this: I’ll have to follow a stupid diet for a few days, fast the night before the test, then drive to the hospital first thing in the morning through evil traffic, drink a nasty glucose solution, and try not to vomit or black out while they take several samples of my blood over the course of three long hours, leaving scary track marks all over my arms that make the coworkers wonder.

I had to take this test the previous two times I was pregnant, so now I’m three for three. Maybe the epidurals have done strange things to my memory, but I do believe this test is worse than giving birth.

Categories: pregnancy
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I’m now 26 weeks, +13 pounds, 2 pounds less than a few days ago. Not sure what happened, maybe I’m retaining less water? Anyway, I’ve got about 13 weeks left. I can’t wait. I’m tired of people looking at my belly instead of my face while talking to me.

We had a busy weekend. Went shopping for a few things Friday night for Alex’s birthday party on Saturday, which went better than I had expected. I’d rent a party facility again, even if I weren’t pregnant and my back weren’t killing me.

In fact, I’m already planning something similar for Ana’s party next month. I’ll be a month closer to my due date and all the happier for not having to deal with all that cooking and cleaning.

Sunday we went to a lovely baby shower for friends who are having a girl. Most of the women I know who are pregnant are also having girls. Fortunately I do have one friend who is definitely having a boy. Yay, someone to take all of Alex’s old baby clothes off my hands!

Yesterday I woke up with a horrendous pain in my abdomen. Baby girl had turned during the night, and she proceeded to take all morning to wiggle into a different position. Meanwhile I gritted my teeth in pain as she shoved either her feet or her head against my stomach.

Unfortunately, all this took place during my glucose tolerance test. The drink was as disgusting as I remembered. Hopefully my blood test comes back okay and I won’t have to go through the three hour test like I did with both Alex and Ana. Just thinking about the needles fills me with dread.

After the glucose test we looked at couches in preparation for turning our study into a coffee house. We didn’t buy one, but we saw several that would work.

Then I got a hair cut. Alex wondered why. He liked my hair the way it was. (Long.) I thought that was very sweet of him to say.

Then we went home and I helped Ana walk on Kevin’s back. She’s the perfect weight for working out the kinks, as long as she doesn’t jump.

I had other things to say but I can’t remember what. Blame it on my pregnant brain.

Categories: kids and parenting, pregnancy, shopping
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My HMO has a wellness program that pays members a lot of money for participating. When I first heard about it last year, I didn’t bother signing up, thinking the time commitment would be prohibitive. But yesterday I changed my mind. The requirements turned out to be simpler than I thought. All I had to do was fill out a health assessment (already done!) and then participate in three different health education programs via their website.

My health assessment is a boring read, no surprise there, seeing as I’ve been on my best behavior due to being pregnant. Thanks to my walking buddy I’ve even been getting plenty of exercise. The only criticism the website had for me was that I didn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, but that’s mainly because I haven’t been eating much, period. I can’t eat as much per meal as I used to because of the baby butting up against my stomach, so ideally I should be eating 6 small meals a day, but seriously, who has the time to eat that often?

I shrugged. Oh well, I’m just doing this for the financial incentive anyway, I thought. But today at lunch I avoided the burger and fries and picked up a tuna sandwich and orange juice instead. Go Hawthorne effect

Tonight, while watching Kevin play Animal Crossing…

Alex: Wanna know what would make this game more exciting?

Kevin: What?

Alex: Earthquakes and fires.

Categories: kids and parenting, pregnancy, toys
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Last night I finished reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, a chronological series of essays on consumer culture, globalization, and their environmental costs, coupled with the author’s personal challenge of not buying anything beyond the necessities for an entire year. I didn’t necessarily agree with everything she said in her analyses, but I found her personal journey inspirational. While archiving our blog entries from last year, I came across an entry in which I asked whether it was possible to live within a culture without totally buying into it. I feel like this book is helping me answer that question, at least for myself.

Monday I attended the first awards assembly of the year at Alex’s school. This one was just for the Kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders. Each teacher picked a handful of students from his/her class, and as the child went up, the teacher would explain which one of three reasons they were receiving the award: high academic achievement, most improvement, or good citizenship.

When Alex went up, his teacher said that she chose him for his award not only because he’s a good student, but also because he’s always helping classmates when they’re working in the computer lab. I was really proud of him. (But I didn’t cry!!!)

The assembly also included a presentation about the philanthropic project everyone at Alex’s school is undertaking for the next few months — collecting pennies to help a tiny school in Kenya build a library. I’ve always wondered about the six degrees aspects of these projects, and this time I wasn’t left hanging. Apparently, the son of the school’s founder works for our school district!

I appreciate these projects because while I agree parents should have primary responsibility for teaching their kids about morality, kids do spend an awful lot of time at school, and I like the tone they set for how the kids should behave towards each other. I also like the emphasis on pennies vs. checks with lots of zeros because it makes kids feel like no good deed is too small.

That night, Ana took on the herculean task of picking all of the pennies out of Kevin’s change bucket. She managed to fill up that entire pickle jar with pennies! But I doubt that would be enough to buy a single book for this library, let alone dry wall and roofing material. I think we’ll have to supplement with nickels.

Categories: kids and parenting, reading
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