irony

We had a great weekend! We lost power about 9:30 Friday night for nearly 24 hours. The apartment got fairly cold by Saturday , but the bedroom (which is in the back, middle of the apartment) stayed fairly warm, so long as we kept the door closed. We have city water too, so we didn't have to worry about needing to melt snow to drink. Additionally, we had a full tank of hot water, so we were both able to take shower during the outage. The crummiest part of losing power was not having heat and a place to cook. We cooked on the wood stove at Ben's shop, which was far more fun than either of us could have anticipated. Unfortunately, the shop doesn't hold heat, so we had to huddle around the stove to stay warm. All the same, it was a lot of fun. Ben had such a nice time that he was fairly disappointed when the power came back on.

The baby hasn't arrived yet. I'm still incredibly pregnant. I'm uncomfortable most of the time and I'm having increasingly stronger contractions. So strong, in fact, that I had to pause a couple times in the Target to breathe through a few painful contractions. Ben has taken to asking me, mid-contraction, if the baby is coming. Not charming. I guess he thinks I might forget to tell him that the baby is coming. Either that or he thinks I'm so strong that I would merely need to rest for a minute while I push out a baby in Target.

Anyway, We're not spending our Christmas in Charlotte with Ben's family this year, so we're going to smoke a chicken. We loved smoked food almost as much as we love fried food, so we're both very excited to be eating a smoked chicken this year. I think we'll be having a couple sides, nothing fancy. I don't identify as a Christian so I'm not particularly bummed not to be celebrating in a big way. I'm disappointed for Ben, since it is his favorite holiday, but he seems happy enough to be smoking a chicken and hanging out waiting for the baby.

I defined irony yesterday. Ben and I went to Target to spend the gift cards we received at the baby shower. I recently discovered some new stretch marks on my stomach. I went nine months without any new stretch marks. I was thinking that I might be one of the rare few who end pregnancy with a baby and a saggy tummy, sans stretch mark. Guess not. They're not that bad, I've definitely seen worse. Anyway, these stretch marks have reinforced two facts; this baby might be enormous and I've gained a fair amount of weight. Soooo, I've decided to purchase a scale. I thought it might be nice to be able to keep track of my weight loss after the baby is born. I didn't buy anything fancy, so I'm not going to be keeping track of every half or quarter pound lost. I'm hoping having a scale in the house isn't going to be completely depressing. If so, I think I'll give it away. I don't intend to weigh myself everyday or anything, that's just silly. However, I think I will probably check my weight at least once a week, but only to keep track of post-baby weight loss. Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need some.

Oh! I almost forgot to share the ironic part of this purchase: I also purchased a half gallon of mint-chip ice cream yesterday. Yes, that's right, I purchased a scale and ice cream in the same day.