What magazines do you read?

I've been a subscriber to Real Simple for about three years. I got my first Real Simple four years ago, when Clint and I were getting ready to take our first turn hosting Thanksgiving. That first issue was a big help to me that year; I saved it and put it in with the fall decorations to refer to in future years. After I realized that I was picking up a magazine nearly monthly, I got a subscription. And I was happy with it for quite a while. But the last few months, I've enjoyed my subscription less and less. So I've decided not to renew it.

My problem is that I like having a subscription to something, and I can't decide what that should be. So I'm looking for suggestions; what magazines do you like?

How could I have missed this all my life?

I just found out that November is Peanut Butter Lover's Month. I think I count as a peanut butter lover; most days, my breakfast is a peanut butter sandwich. Sometimes I switch things up and make a mix of peanut butter, oatmeal, and banana. I can make it through the day without peanut butter, but I can't think of the last time I made it through a week without some sort of fix. I'm mostly a Jif girl, but in a pinch I'll take what I can get.

I told Clint a few months ago that one of my favorite times of the year is the candy season solely for the Reese's specialty candies--the pumpkins for Halloween, the trees for Christmas, the hearts for Valentine's Day, and finally the eggs for Easter. Regular Reese's are delicious, but the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate in the specialty items is nearly divine.

So today, I'm thankful for peanut butter, and Reese's of all varieties, and finally knowing that November is Peanut Butter Lover's Month.

I am a Georgia voter

Sometimes, I think back on my 18-year-old self and smile. I started college life as an International Politics major. My vague plan was to do something like join the United Nations to promote peace and save the world. My very first political science professor was so adamant that war was inevitable that I ended up changing my major to Comparative Literature. I can't decide if I would be a different person today if I had stuck with my original plan, or if I would have abandoned political science at some point anyway.

At this point, election season exhausts me and makes me grateful that we very rarely watch broadcast television--watching our shows on Hulu means we miss the negative adds. I think we made it through this election without a single robo-call, and while we did get several flyers in the mail from candidates, I shredded all of them without looking at them. I know there are strong feelings on all sides of the issues; I just wish we could discuss them without being so negative and hateful so much of the time.

Today I'm grateful for: The men and women who are willing to run for office and serve our country in the political arena; the chance I have to vote and to have my small say in how I think things should go; and mostly, the end of this election season.

Sweet November

Ah, November--one of my favorite months, for the cooler weather, for Thanksgiving and my birthday, for the family time and good food. And, for the fourth year, for the daily (or close to it) blog posts throughout the month.

A bit of Memoir Monday to get the month started. Clint and I spent the Fourth of July weekend on the Alabama coast at the wedding of his high school friend and college roommate, Ben. We drove down Thursday, July 1 to spend some time at the coast and to be in town for the rehearsal low country boil Friday night. Thursday ended up being a busy day--the morning started early when I dropped Clint off at work and headed for an appointment with the fertility clinic. This was the day of reckoning for the third try of our fertility treatment. I was convinced that this try would also be unsuccessful and was looking ahead to the next procedure, but Nurse D said she had a good feeling about it. Unfortunately, my veins didn't have a good feeling about cooperating with the blood draw, and it took several tries to get the needed sample. After the appointment, I headed home to finish packing for the trip and to get a nap in before the drive to the Gulf. My nap was interrupted by the call from Nurse D where I expected she would say the fertility treatment hadn't worked. I was so surprised by the news that we were pregnant that I said, "You're kidding!" Sweet Nurse D replied, "I don't kid about this." Even on the phone, I could hear the smile in her voice. I was so excited at our good news that I didn't wait to tell Clint in person--as soon as I got off with Nurse D, I called and told him that my sushi eating days were on hold. It took him a minute to compute the good news, and the shock in his voice made me wish I had waited to tell him about the baby in person.

At the wedding weekend, I was taken by surprise when someone asked if we had children. It was the first time we had been asked that question since finding out our good news, and my voice and face gave everything away when I said, "No ... not yet." We also told the groom and his parents and the excitement they felt for us is a sweet memory. The picture above is from the rehearsal dinner, and was the first picture taken of the two of us as parents-to-be.

My thankful moment today: I am so grateful for this healthy baby boy. And for the love and support we have felt since finding out our good news from family and friends.

Skies of blue

After a damp and warm beginning to the week, we have sunshine and cooler temperatures today. Clint and I are planning on enjoying the weekend in North Georgia and looking forward to leaf-peeping and fall weather.

The ultrasound this afternoon went well. It was amazing to see things we could recognize--head, hands, feet, spine. The baby is healthy and growing well. We're excited to welcome our baby boy in the spring.

Week 21, no update

There was a comment requesting information as to this baby's gender. Unfortunately, the ultrasound that was scheduled for last Friday was postponed to this Friday, so we have no updates. At this point, even days are "he" days and odd days are "she" days. It's only half as confusing as it sounds. :) I promise to update with the ultrasound results by Sunday at the latest.

Maternity clothes and movement, 19 weeks

I've been amazed at the challenge it has been to find maternity clothes. The few stores that sell maternity clothes in person often have pitiful selections in both size and variety. There are a few online-only options, but I've been hesitant to buy much without being able to try them on first. ON the other hand, I've mostly had luck with the things I have ordered. The one exception is the jacket that arrived yesterday; when I went to put it on, the lining on the right arm had been sewn in wrong making it nearly impossible to try on the jacket. (Customer service was helpful when I called today and said they would fully reimburse me.) I think I've finally got the essentials, as well as some helpful extras, for the next few months, but it has been an adventure. I'm grateful that I made it almost to twenty weeks before I really needed to wear anything besides my pre-pregnancy clothes.

The descriptions of the first feelings of movement are pretty vague, but I'm beginning to understand why--it's a really hard feeling to describe. For a while, I was convinced that I wouldn't know what movement felt like for several more weeks; I'm really good at talking myself in--or out--of almost anything. But Monday night, just after I got in bed, I felt several pops in a row in the same place. The only way I can describe it is like the muscle pops you can sometimes get after a workout, or the sound a car makes after you park and walk away for a few minutes. (Is this just an older car thing? Come to think about it, I haven't heard that noise for a while ...). I've felt the same popping sensation several times since then, and it's fun to think that it's our baby.

Only one week (and a few hours) before our ultrasound. I'm still completely unsure if the baby is a boy or a girl; some days I say "he" and some days I say "she." I'll let you know the results, and then we can all start brainstorming names for Clint to veto.

Week 18

Today was my monthly doctor's appointment, and everything is going fine. We heard the heartbeat (which still sounds like a washing machine to me) and even heard a few movements, although I have yet to identify any feelings as such. Our twenty week ultrasound is scheduled for two week from Friday, and we're looking forward to (hopefully) finding the baby's gender then and starting our negotiation of names.

Thank you all for your kind words and congratulations. It's been fun to share the news with friends and family far and wide. Another use of technology for which I am grateful.

Three

Three years ago this week we sold our first home and moved into our lovely home. The selling and buying and moving was the usual chaotic adventure, complete with cross-county drives and nights sleeping in the kitchen (old house) or the living room (new house) on our mattresses. Three months later, as the house became home and we settled into our new routines, I took the last pill in the month-long pack and with a mix of wonder and nerves through the empty pack into the trash. At a doctor's appointment earlier that summer, I was told that based on my history, I shouldn't have any problems getting pregnant. I made plans for our baby to be the next Ricker baby, grandchild #3 on that side of the family.

Things didn't work out as expected, and my sisters-in-law had #3, #4, and #5. And while I was excited for them and loved the new nieces and nephew, it was hard to be patient for my turn. Sometimes, it was even hard to believe I would get a turn.

Earlier this year, we started fertility treatments. We were told we had three tries with one procedure and if that didn't work, we could try a more complicated, expensive procedure for three tries. At the end of our first try, we were in Utah for my brother's and my sister's graduations, and I had the perfect plan to tell my family the good news. But there wasn't any good news to share that month, or the next. We started the third try with little hope, expecting we would end up trying the more complicated, expensive procedure once before our insurance ran out. But three months ago, sweet Nurse D from the clinic called with the good news we didn't expect.

I'm seventeen weeks pregnant today. We become a family of three in March.

How do you browse?

I'm out of books to read (or more precisely, books I want to read) at home, so yesterday I went to the library. You know me, I am a librarian, I love libraries, I was sure I would find something I wanted to read. So I wandered in and looked at the display of new books. Not finding anything there, I went to a computer to look up a book I had heard about. It isn't carried at our branch, and it is checked out of every other branch in the library system. So I decided to browse through the fiction section and pick out a couple of books to take home. And I feel like I looked at the spine of every book in the section and found .... nothing. Really. In the whole fiction section of my branch library, I picked up nothing, checked out nothing, and left with nothing. I felt kind of ridiculous since all the books there are free and I could have brought home any one I wanted. Today, I'm blaming it on a loss of ability to browse. When I was a teenager volunteering at the public library, I used to take care of half of my shelf-reading duties just by checking books out. Most of them I didn't read, but the idea was that they would (hopefully) be put back in the right place when I returned them.

So, friends, can you help me out? What books have you read lately that you enjoyed? Any that you recommend I check out of the library?

Pixies, gnomes, and missing things

I think our house has a gnome or a pixie. I'm not sure of the correct term (which I should probably figure out before I upset it ...) but it moved in sometime last week. We have been loosing things that shouldn't be lost but cannot be found. Yesterday, I opened a new bed frame as part of getting ready for a family visit. I could have sworn the casters fell out into a laundry basket I had near by. But I have been through that laundry basket several times and they are not there. I've also been through a bag of trash and a bag of cardboard to recycle and it is not there, either. This morning, we lost the dust pan somewhere in the garage. Really shouldn't be that hard to find--there aren't that many places to hide--but it has disappeared. And a few weeks ago my crochet hook vanished. Not cool since I'm trying to finish a baby blanket for a friend. October seems far away now, but this blanket is going to take a while. And those are just the things I know are missing!

So, any ideas on how I can get the pixie to return our missing things? Especially without upsetting it?

A Happy Fourth

Clint and I celebrated this year's Fourth of July at the wedding of a friend in the Gulf Coast of Alabama. Clint and Ben were friends in high school and roommates in college. From the stories I hear, they had a healthy competition that encouraged both of them to be better at whatever task at hand. Ben was teaching English in Africa when we got married, and since his return has lived in another state, so we haven't had many opportunities to see him or his family the last few years. Thankfully, this weekend we got a healthy dose of Ben, his family, and other friends from Clint's youth. One of the nights, as we walked back to the car, I told Clint that my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much during the evening. It really wasn't a complaint, just an appreciation of the friendships Clint has had and a gratitude that I was welcomed into the fold with open arms.

While we were in Alabama, we visited the beach to see the evidence of the oil spill. The experience was a little surreal; we were in the same area two Christmases ago,

and in many ways the area looked the same, with not many more people than were there in December 2008. While we enjoyed not fighting the crowds, it was sad to see so many beach houses vacant or

boarded up. On the beaches, sand has been pushed into berms to keep the oily water off the sand; where the oil has been, black specks the size of quarters look like pebbles but are really tar balls. One of the friends from the wedding, a scientist at heart, mentioned that he had taken some of the oily sand back to his hotel room to try and clean it. He said it took soap and hot water to get the sand clean. In general, the water looked darker than usual, and the sparkle one would expect from the ocean on a bright, sunny day was a beat later than it should have been.

Catching up

First, I took an unannounced, unplanned break from blogging. Then, I was going to do a trip review complete with pictures, but ran into technical problems. So I put it on the list of things to do, contingent on figuring out the technical difficulties. And life stayed busy enough to put off blogging with mild guilt. But tonight I'm crossing things off my to do list to avoid going to the gym, so blogging it is. Here are some of the things we've been up to in the past few months.

• We visited the Fernbank Museum with Clint's brother and sister-in-law and their two girls. It confirmed, again, that there are certain adventures that are more fun with kids involved.
• We celebrated Easter with both of Clint's brothers and their families by hunting for Easter Eggs and grilling. Lately when we've been together with Clint's family, the menfolk end up doing the bulk of the cooking while the women chase the kids and visit. I don't know what they think of the arrangement, but it works for me.
• We visited Utah and explored Moab, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park. We lucked out and were in town during National Park Week and got in the parks for free. We went hiking, biking, driving, rafting, and took plenty of pictures. (Darn the technical difficulties ...).
• While in Utah (and the reason we were there) we saw my brother and sister graduate from BYU with degrees in Law and Accounting, respectively. I hiked the Y for the first time and visited with family and friends. We had lovely family portraits taken and played plenty of Wii Sports Resort. I think wakeboarding was the family favorite.
• We celebrated our five year anniversary with dinner at the Taste of Alpharetta. It was the perfect combination of good food and sampling.
• I painted the laundry room and put up more shelving. It is (and will remain) the only yellow room in the house, and I love it.
• We attended the Dacula Memorial Day Parade with my college roommate and her family and then enjoyed more grilling (this recipe), corn, watermelon, and Amy's strawberry spinach salad. That afternoon, Amy and I looked through my college picture album and reminisced about our days in Canterwood. Since then, I've enjoyed spending more time with Amy and her boys; last week, we toured Mayfield Dairy and cooled off with some of their ice cream. (Hooray for chocolate chip cookie dough!) I'm loving having an old friend close enough to see weekly and will be sad when the summer is over.
• Clint and I attended the Southeast Linux Fest. Some of the talks were interesting, but the best part was because it was a technical conference and most of the attendees were male, there was never a wait for the women's restroom. We also got some fresh South Carolina peaches and strawberries during our visit.

That's certainly not every little thing that's happened the last five months or so, but it's most of the highlights, even without pictures. We're alive and well and trying to stay cool in the Atlanta heat (it feels worse this summer than recent memory). We're looking forward to more time with friends and family and always open to visits, long or short.

A new reading corner

The designation "reading corner" may be redundant in the house of a librarian and compulsive reader since reading happens anywhere and everywhere.

The new reading corner is in the master bedroom. The tree decal was my birthday present this year and a lot more intimidating to put up in thought than practice. The lights were from Ikea, and while I loved the concept, I'm still debating if they work in practice as well as I thought they would. The lamp and bookshelf are also from Ikea (we love Ikea) The futon has been part of Clint's life longer than I have, but fills the space while we search for the perfect piece at the perfect price. My vote is for a chair-and-a-half with an ottoman; Clint has suggested a chaise or a corner chair.

Doesn't it make you want to curl up and get lost in a good book? I've got a pile I'm working on, but if you need a recommendation, consider seeing if your library has Book Lust or More Book Lust by Nancy Pearl (or, if you're local, ask to borrow my copy). Nancy Pearl was a librarian in Seattle before she was made into a Librarian Action Figure and each Book Lust is a collection of recommendations, organized by eclectic topics that makes browsing so much fun. I picked up my copy on a whim at the Midwinter Conference of the American Library Association in Boston last month, and now I wish that I picked up the second volume at the same time.