One day at a time.

This is my mantra right now. When necessary, it is shortened to “one hour at a time” or “one minute at a time.”

As you might guess, there is very little crafting activity going on right now. And very little housecleaning, for that matter. There is, however, lots and lots of frenzied thinking about food — of both the “what can I possibly eat right now?” and “why on earth did I eat that?” variety. I really appreciate all of the suggestions you gave me regarding things to eat, but I’m having a small problem in that something rarely tastes good for more than one or two days in a row. Lemonade was delicious for a few days last week, but now I have no interest in it. Ditto french fries, salad, cranberry juice, and biscuits. I am giving ginger ale another try, but it completely lost its appeal for quite a while.

In short, I am running out of things to eat. And this creates a problem when I know that I will probaby feel a little better if I eat something. On the plus side, I have finally started throwing up. It may sound strange, but this is a rather big relief: I know that it doesn’t make you feel a whole lot better, but it is infinitely more satisfying than gagging over and over again, which has been the story of my life for the last few weeks.

I’m sorry to have nothing to post about besides pregnancy, but this has been the biggest subject of my thoughts lately. I am proud to day that I haven’t missed a day of school yet. If I can manage to get to school (the hardest part), I usually find that teaching consumes so much of my attention that I don’t have a lot to spare to think about how I am feeling. On the down side, I still feel crummy enough that I don’t think that I am the best teacher right now. But, a teacher giving 75% still accomplishes more than a substitute, right? (Or so I keep telling myself…)

Husband has been very supportive in all this and hasn’t minded at all that I have taken up semi-permanent residence on the couch. He encouraged me last night with two things that I thought I would pass along. First, pregnancy-suffering is real suffering that can be offered up to the Lord. For every hour that I feel nauseated, I can ask God to take it and transform it into something else: my healthy baby. Second, I am discovering for myself how women will be saved through childbearing. I’ve been to churches where this was kind of controversial, but I take great hope in the idea that, as I don’t use it as an excuse for self-pity or complaining, the current unpleasantness is working to sanctify me from the inside out.

Finally, no matter how I may feel that this is never going to end, I am so grateful that there is a distant finish line in sight. My mother has warned me that, on her side of the family, the second trimester tends to be no better than the first. But even if this is the case, there is no way that I am going to be morning sick after the baby is born. Right??

The love life of a certain papillon.

I finished one more softie (a dotted swiss pig) but want to make him a companion (a mouse, perhaps?) before taking a photo. He is kind of lumpy but makes up for it with lovely tactile qualities and a nice curly tail. Other than that, however, I don’t have a lot of stories to tell that don’t involve nausea, trying to control children with paintbrushes, and learning how to use the school’s online grading system.

But as I was pondering my lack of news I remembered that there is a furry and silent member of Chez Gibbs with her own small set of trials and tribulations. So in the interest of being fair to The Beans, I thought I would take a few paragraphs to share some of the momentous occasions in the life of A Dog Who Was Dragged By Her Owners To Florida.

The first thing about FL to affect the dog was the fact that it is hot. The last couple of weeks have been surprisingly cool, but before that it was pretty consistently in the upper 70s or 80s by 9 am. A few weeks after we moved here, I had a short-lived habit of taking the dog for a 25-minute walk every morning after husband left for work. The problem was that we seldom left the apartment before 8:00 am and by then it was already on the verge of being too hot for the Sabina. She was pretty chipper when we started, but by the time we finished our loop her tongue was lolling, her tail dragging, and I looked like I ought to be reported to the SPCA for dragging the poor creature on a nine mile hike. This combined with the general lack of sidewalks (= fear of being run over + lots of mud when it rains) means that we haven’t resumed our walks since then, and I have a sneaking suspicion that our out-of-shape canine doesn’t mind at all.

The next trial to affect her life has been the presence of fleas around our apartment complex. This is a continuing saga that annoys me, husband, and the dog to no end. Now, up until we moved to Pensacola, The Beans had little or no experience with fleas. She is a very prim and proper dog who prefers walking on freshly mown grass to bouncing through the weeds on the side of the road and I don’t mind this at all since she has picked up far fewer ticks and burrs as a result. The fleas, however, must live in close vicinity to our door as she keeps coming inside with more and more and scratching her poor itchy pink skin until it scabs over. After the first occurrence we dutifully bathed her in a flea shampoo which made her reek for five days. Unfortunately, it seemed to have no affect whatsoever on the little black beasts and the smell scared me as being so strong it was potentially bad for Baby. So, one $10 bottle of shampoo later we are looking for another solution. I think I’m going to try to find a pet store version of Advantix, since I seem to remember that working on our other family dog in the past. Until then, however, she has a new nickname: Li’l Fleazy. I think it has a nice rapper-esque ring to it.

Lest you think that Pensacola has been completely bad for the dog, however, I am pleased to tell you that Sabina has found a new little beau only a few doors down from our apartment. He is a gray miniature poodle named Pepi who is, strangely enough, the second dog named Pepi who has had a crush on her (the first, a chihuahua in our last apartment, was extremely amorous but– alas! –his affections were not returned). Pepi’s owner carries a jangly set of keys whenever she goes out and as soon as Sabina hears the sound she perks up and starts to whine. Since she is not usually very social, I try to go out of our way to allow them to sniff noses even though Pepi’s liking for Bean is in no way carried over to myself (he showed me a fine set of teeth the last time we met).

Now, Sabina is very very keen on Pepi and I thought that he had the hots for her as well until an incident a few weeks ago made me think that perhaps he is a little more indifferent. I was chatting with Pepi’s owner while the two dogs frolicked outside when I turned to see Pepi raising his leg and Bean, true to her nature, going in for the sniff. It appears that this is not what Pepi had in mind, however, and Bean pulled back just in time to avoid a stream of urine hitting her little black nose.

Poor Fleazy. Sometimes your lover wants to sniff, but other times he just might pee on you.