Anna Be.

Did you know the "most haunted hotel in America" is in San Antonio?  I wonder if Nick would take me there on a little ghost hunt. There are also plenty of haunted houses in our beloved Cape Cod!  I think I will stick to reading about them and pass on visiting! This one should provoke some nostalgia for my fellow Alabamians...  Remember  13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey? If not, time travel back to your childhood, and read some proper ghost stories.

This is what my dining room table looked like for about a week. Then the book stack doubled (how did that happen???), and I finally cleared it all off. Nick thinks I'm weird for using the dining table as an office when I have an actual office upstairs. I'm proud to say my real office is finally decluttered and unpacked enough to be in usable condition! And the family room upstairs is pretty well decked out with kid activities, so Mamie is occupied when I do want to work in my office. Now I am trying to gradually reduce the amount of stuff I have permanently parked on the table. However, I'm leaving up the decorations from our birthdays in September because it's still cute that Mamie comes in here saying "Party!" (Yes, I said "in here" because I'm writing this post at the dining room table. Gradual. Transition.)

(Let's take a fun look back at what I wrote about in my journal exactly one year ago....) October 22, 2014 Still awake.  Thinking mostly about tomorrow's first visit to the gym. It is so hard for me to relax about things when I am unfamiliar and don’t know what to expect.  What will probably happen: everyone will be nice, Mamie will have fun and not even miss me, the yoga teacher will be welcoming and the class will be small and moderately paced.   I will leave feeling happy and probably tired from being up this late.   Stupid coffee at 5 pm!!! Yeah, in case you didn't guess, Mamie loved the gym day care from the first minute, yoga was great, and everyone was nice. This flashback to a year ago coupled with my worries about whether I can handle a second baby have made me realize something big. If you peaked in on any moment in my life, you would probably find me worrying about something that turned out OK, if not great. Lesson: Stop being so traumat...

It could be because I'm so weak, both physically and emotionally. That's why I tell myself I'm afraid of having a second baby. I found the first year of motherhood so unfathomably difficult, I fill to the brim with self-doubt when I imagine adding a second child to the equation. These are just 10 of the undermining excuses my my anxiety comes up with when I think about a second pregnancy: School is expensive.  Tuition for two kids costs  twice  as much. Like, If kids are crops and school is soil and money is fertilizer... I'm confused by my own analogy. I’m old.  I thought I was old when I first got pregnant at 37, but now I'm 40. Being pregnant was fun and easy back then, three whole years ago, but now? Who knows what might fall apart. If a pregnancy is officially "geriatric" at 35, am I seriously playing with fate at 40? And I keep getting older; I might be 41 before this theoretical baby is born! I only have two arms.  Logic could console...

Austin is just a little over an hour away, so it's no big deal to run up there for an afternoon. Whether we stay for a few hours or a few days (like we did last week while Nick attended a conference), we tend to keep to a routine of places to shop and eat. 1. Book People   Could this be the best book store in the country? Easily. I say this with authority, because I am a book store tourist. (I would put used book stores in a separate category.) I've been to Powell's, I've been to The Strand. I still put this one at the top because its scope is thorough without being overwhelming.  Also, great periodicals, children's section, author events, and coffee shop. 2. 24 Diner There is plenty of good food in Austin, but we go here every trip. Maybe because it's right across the street from Book People? At first, yes, but I think we would go back even if it were out of the way. Their motto should be "Never Not Good Food." Chicken and waffles if you fe...

This week we are in Austin, and I decided to try something radical: I didn't bring a single book with me. That's right, I traveled and brought zero books.  (We've been here 7 hours, and I've already bought two, but that's immaterial.) Sharing a hotel room with Mamie means lights are out by 8 p.m., but I can read eBooks in the dark! Because, you know, migraines. Starting to think maybe we are supposed to eat a spoonful of dirt every so often. Extremists! They say it's good, so why not?

It started in January. The doctors said, "If you want us to build you another sciencebaby, you have to stop being diabetic. Go!" I appreciate a challenge, and I was determined. I started seeing my endocrinologist monthly,  taking more medication each time, acquiring a continuous glucose monitor, living a model diabetic lifestyle. I thought a few months, no big deal, I can do this. Every month's test results were a disappointment. I didn't have bad  test results, mind you. My labs were always marked "Excellent" -- by diabetic standards. Regardless, I was chasing a unicorn, trying to meet an unattainable standard, be cured of a disease that doesn't just go away when you ask it to. That means nine months of neurotic attention to blood sugar readings, food, exercise.  Nine months of recurrent guilt for not being able to meet the goal. Today I had another appointment with the endocrinologist. I've worried about it all week, wanted to cry from ...

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This is the phase in my half-marathon training when I start to have vague, pit-of-stomach doubts about whether I will be able to do it. Time telescopes and miles stretch so they are at least three miles long each. I mentioned my training to the doctor a few weeks ago with a reluctant and doubtful tone. "I'm still running? Training for a half-marathon? But like, I don't know."  "When is the race?" "December?"  "So three months away."   "Oh my god you're right, I have three months. It felt so much closer."  "And you only need to be able to run 6-7 miles before the race."   "I can do 6 miles, I do that now! And I still have three months!"  See how powerful the irrational mind can be? I forgot the actual facts of my training program, lost perspective on time and distance, and totally tricked myself into thinking I couldn't do this. My conversation with the doctor really helped me rec...