LizaWasHere

I installed a new stats counter on the blog on Friday night, after reading about how much fun Jen and Travis were having with it on their blogs. It took approximately 3 minutes, including the fact that their directions for typepad didn’t really work (I posted it in the template ‘description’ instead of typelists, and it works much better).

Wow! There is so much info out there that can be tracked, it’s a little creepy. But SO interesting!

I had readers from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Australia yesterday!!! And 5 from Italy!

Credit for that has to go to another blog I’ve recently started reading, My So Called Lesbian Life. In the last few days, she’s generated more hits to my blog than searches by students trying to cheat on book reports.

We had a super-productive day yesterday, scoring a new baby bathtub for $4, from Craig’s List, dealing with the ginormous pile of mail that was threatening to take over the front room, discovering my new favorite dessert, and seeing "Good Night, and Good Luck." What a great movie! Go see it, go see it now. Great acting, great cinematography, great plot, with intriguing sub-plots.

We now have almost everything on our "things to buy before the baby comes" list — the only substantial thing I haven’t got yet is a changing table/dresser to replace the wobbly one currently in the baby’s room.

There are a few other small things, but I think all or almost all of them will be available at the lactation consulting office at the hospital. And since they provide their services for free, I’m happy to spend money there to keep them up and running.

Fruit & Veg Count, 1/7: Err. None. At all. In fact, while I didn’t drink any jello yesterday, I may have had even more sugar than the days that I did. (Yes, that’s days. I drank the cherry jello on Friday night.)

The carmel cake from Southern Sweets was so good that I ate a slice which normally would have been a full serving for both of us, with maybe half a serving left over. All Jill got was one bite. And that, with a glass of milk, was my dinner. Three bites in, I told Jill that I wanted this for my birthday cake this year.

I have lots of "small thoughts" for today, in no particular order.

• Earlier this week I had a flattering Internet experience that I feel a little funny about blogging about. I’ve been enjoying the "connect the dots" world of LinkedIn since one of my colleagues persuaded me to join earlier this year, but for me, the experience has been more ‘fun curiousity’ than ‘professional networking.

  Until the charming email from the currently-coolest-brand-name-Internet-company’s recruiter arrived earlier this week.

  It was the kind of invitation that I had to fantasize about, but after enjoying the daydream (including the "I wonder if they’d pay enough for us to actually enjoy life in the Bay Area?" part), the facts "I’m having a baby in 4 months and Jill just moved down here in June!" brought me back to reality.

  I sent back a nice note saying that I was flattered by their interest but not interested in changing jobs — or regions of the country! — at this time. I can’t even imagine taking on another big change right now. But wow was it flattering to be asked to dance.

• Lil Smudge is getting a lot kickier. I’ve spent most of my life vaguely dissociated from physical reality — absorbed in a book, a conversation, or whatever I’m thinking about at the moment. So all this physical stuff is jarring on so many levels, and the action keeps me from being able to ignore it.

  My prenatal yoga class* has added an interesting layer to all of that.

  Over the last few years, I’ve come to ‘get it’ that I have a thing about being supposed to know how to do "this" — whatever "this" is. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s just a thing I do.

  In most of life, I’ve learned how  catch when I’m doing it and laugh at myself.

  In the physical realm, not so much. I suspect that’s why the last few times I’ve tried to start exercising, I’ve made it about 3 weeks and then given up or gotten hurt. (I believe in the power of subconcious sabotage. Sometimes an accident is just an accident, but sometimes it fits into a pattern.)

  My point is that this prenatal yoga class has been incredibly confronting for me. I know I’m not as good at this stuff as the other people in the class, and I hate that feeling. It brings up that thing I do.  

  So yesterday, I did a new thing I’ve been learning to do to handle myself and the situation when I catch myself doing that thing I do. I busted myself to the instructor after class. We talked about how much I was resisting her corrections in class, and how confronted I was. I think it helped her too, so she knew it wasn’t personal or anything she was doing wrong.

  And now I have a friendly ally who will help and support me getting physically ready for Smudge to be born, and who will be able to remind me that I’m doing this because of a commitment that’s bigger than me.

• Fruit & Veg Count, 10/26: 1 banana. The downside of prenatal yoga is that I can’t eat dinner before, and I don’t get home until about 8 pm. At that point, I want the fastest, most filling dinner option available. Jill made pierogies, and I inhaled more of them than I planned.
• God, I hope someone senior in Dick Cheney’s office gets indicted today.

  And was anyone surprised to hear Jeb Bush ‘take complete responsibility’ for problems getting water/ice/food to survivors of Hurricane Wilma? W can’t blame the locals in the gulf coast but not in Florida, so Jeb has to be the fall guy for FEMA failures there. Speaking of government "actions" that hopefully will lead to people being indicted at some point.

* The prenatal class is not ‘hot yoga,’ in case anyone was worried.