Michael and Jaspenelle

The cherry on my cowpie…

With my luck today I am afraid to even boil water, the kettle will probably explode. If I go outside I bet a monkey will attack me!

Seriously, what is up with today? Nothing has gone right. I slept like crap last night and when I did doze off I had delirious nightmares and this sciatic thing is hanging on like a tick and I have the worse case of heartburn ever and my customers were horrible and some random guy tried to touch my stomach (my oversized work coat no longer seems to hide the baby belly or the guy had creepy pregnant homing instincts.)

But the cherry on all this is when I went to get an extra key cut for the mail box today I realized that I had lost my bank card.

Oh joy, I loved facing phone tree hell to get that canceled.

Meh.

Spring Fever

I have a buttermilk cinnamon raisin loaf in the oven right now and I can hardly wait for it to be done cooking. Oh my gosh it smells sooo incredibly good! T-25 minutes…

It is a glorious day outside, 45F! I have the windows cracked to let some of the fresh air goodness in. My patio windchime caught my eye this morning, the central glass piece was positively glowing in the midmorning sun. Spring fever has hit strongly and I feel the overwhelming urge to to indulge my nesting instincts, the equinox is only 22 days away! However, I promised to take it easy until this sciatic thing eases up, so sitting down I am.

Still, it is nearly impossible to stay put with all this gorgeous sunny day energy filtering into my home. I really want to get outside and garden (though it is wayyy to early in the season for that, this warm up cycle is just a tease) so I have tried to content myself with planning what I am going to do with our patio, (which is 3/4 concrete, 1/4 dirt.)

The dirt portion looks especially dejected right now, the snow has mostly melted off it revealing the few miscellaneous and mostly useless plastic pots I have out there. I see this area of our home as the biggest challenge, the soil is horrid - I can hardly call it soil. It is compact and full of gravel. It also receives very little sunlight during the day because our proximity to the next row of townhouse. Maybe 2/3 hours of morning sun and then 1.5 hours of partial shade on either side of that, so 5 hours of workable light, maybe 6… So it will most certainly be shade garden as well as very simple this year with the main focus on improving the soil. Can we say compost? Perhaps I will seed it will some prairie legumes (like Purple Prairie Clover) which fix nitrogen in the soil (improve soil quality.) I would love to grow some kind of shade loving vine on the wooden fence, not sure how much my neighbors would love me though if it turned out to be a prolific grower… I am not very well versed in shade plants (I have always been more of a vegetable gardener) so this is all a unique challenge.

As for the rest of the patio, 3 feet of the other side is taken up my Michael and my bicycles and a storage shelf, leaving about 7 square feet of concrete in the middle. Long and short term plans here remain very simple, a kettle grill, a small patio set (probably from a thrift store, I will know it when I see it!) and a few container plants.

Garden space has always been very important to me. I hate the hard edges of the city and even though Spokane is pretty green, I still feel that I am a million miles away from Mother Earth sometimes. Even the smallest gardens help me reconnect and as I nurture them, in return they nurture my soul.

Butt Nerve Update

So I am more or less certain that butt nerve pain is sciatic nerve pain. Why? Because you all said so! And my childbirth class teacher said so, and the lady who works in surgery in our class said so and my Aunt Ruth said so! Actually the lady who works in surgery said a physiotherapist would be great at helping me with the pain, and since that is what my aunt is, I figure she should doubly know! (Unfortunately she is in Ontario and I am in Washington State - a little bit of a commute to get some family treatment…) I do want to thank everyone (pregnant or not!) who gave me their input, I always feel better knowing what is going on and that a particular pain, in the ass no less! (no pun intended…) has a purpose. I read it will probably stick around for a week or two … woopee … but it is almost certainly nothing serious, just really ouchy and annoying and I shouldn’t do anything that hurts.

Not that I am a master of the realm of taking it easy but I promise to try.

I think I figured out what triggered this too, it started a three days ago now, and three days ago I switched from my snow boots to my (overly well broken in/glued together) sneakers. I think that my sneakers are not giving me any support (not too surprising they have no arch and are from goodwill…) I was going to switch back to my snow boots today to see if there was a difference but the zipper broke on them (why Universe? WHY!?) so I am just going to have to get new sneakers it seems. That’s okay.

The stabbing shooting pain is still there of course but my super cushy slippers help lots and my aunt gave me a couple links with some stretches to do for it (omg I love tailor stretching, it feels sooo good!) Maybe I will get a balancing ball and see if that helps (am I allowed to bounce around the house with it?) After trying some of the stretches I can walk around my home without much discomfort which is fantastic! The stairs are another matter though, damn swingy hips!

Happy thoughts though, beyond belly and baby love and setting aside aches and pains, I would like to venture into the realms of pregnant vanity for just a moment to tell you all about this one marvelous change my body has made.

Cleavage.

Oh my gosh! I have breasts with cleavage.

Total and absolute awesomeness.

Friggin OUCH!

I have this pain that has been developing for a couple days in my butt/leg area. It seems to start deep in my left butt cheek and when I walk more then a few steps it radiates like a piercing fire down to my knee area along the outside of my leg. It is excruciating! Pelvic rocking seems to relieve it slightly but basically every position (sitting, standing, walking) is aggravating to some level.

I was at the doctor’s yesterday and I sugguested it might be ligament pain since my pelvic bones are stretching to make room for le bebe and she said such pain is normal. Today it hurts more and differently then ligament pain though and I am thinking it may have something to do with that butt nerve (sciatic nerve?) I don’t consider myself a wimp when it comes to pain, but this is seriously kicking my butt! Literally!

I’m about to see if a warm bath with help ease it but has anyone else (who has been pregnant) experienced this variety of pain?