20 February 2015

Seven Quick Takes

Seven very quick takes tonight, joining the party at This Ain't the Lyceum.

I
Surely the second-trimester energy surge can't be gone by 23 weeks. I am exhausted. Constantly. And Little Bear is either also tired or is picking up on my tiredness and saying to himself, "Mama doesn't have the energy to make me behave, so let's see how much I can get away with!" Trying to deal with which makes me even more tired... Maybe that's not fair; he's a great kid most of the time, but lately when he does act out, it's been more overt and overwhelming than usual. We're still waiting on his top two-year molars, so maybe that fun is beginning?

II 
I don't understand the 40 bags for 40 days thing. I mean, I understand the idea; you take one bag of stuff out of the house (donate/get rid of) for each day of Lent, physically decluttering the house alongside our spiritual decluttering. But I don't understand where people come up with 40 bags of stuff. I love decluttering, so the idea was really appealing, but then I thought about it and walked around the house, and I don't think I could find anywhere near that amount of stuff without, I don't know, paring us all down to minimalist wardrobes and getting rid of all the clothes I have saved for the new baby. Maybe the fact that I just said "I love decluttering" should have been a clue that it wouldn't work for me... I don't think I ever go to the used bookstore without bringing some books to trade in for credit, or to the thrift store without a bag of clothes or household goods that we don't need or use. BUT, this time around I'm more confident in my "babies really don't need much stuff" stance, and I now have a pretty good idea how much clothing Little Bear actually wore/wears between laundry days. There's a part of me that does still say "but what if we need that?" for all three pairs of not-quite-identical overalls, so going through the kid-clothes-boxes would probably be a good way of making myself say "no, we don't need that" along with "Lord, I trust you" this Lent.

III
Maternity support belts. I'd never heard of them until yesterday, and it sounds like a gimicky piece of unnecessary "stuff" that women have survived pregnancy without for thousands of years... But my chiropractor said she thought that wearing one would really help my sciatica. Everything goes back into place easily when I get adjusted, and then it just as easily slides back out; apparently my left leg was a full inch longer than my right this week. She thought that using a maternity support belt would help keep things in place longer. Anyone have experience using one? If you had sciatica, did it help?

IV
Our jeep spent this week in the shop, and now has a very shiny new rear door and lots of new underpinnings that we can't see but I'm sure are worth whatever the other people's insurance had to pay to have it fixed. It's been a month today since we were hit; I'm so glad that at least the physical damages have been taken care of! The other people's insurance has not yet done anything that I can see toward paying for my ER visit and ultrasound after the accident, but now our auto insurance is involved (we tried so hard to not involve them, since we weren't at fault and we really didn't want them deciding to up our premiums), so maybe they will be able to get the other insurance to hurry up.

V
Driving a rental all week definitely cemented some key characteristics of our next vehicle, whenever our jeep finally dies. Basically, we want not-a-2014-Jeep-Patriot: it needs to be something higher off the ground, with a bigger engine, heavier, no hatchback, more carrying space... a crew cab pickup was mentioned as a possibility, as was (jokingly, at least for many years) a 12-passenger van. It was discouraging paying attention to other vehicles around town and noticing how low to the ground so many SUVs are anymore; it was scary being so low! You can't see over snowbanks, or sometimes even where the edges of the road are.

VI
Tonight's supper was supposed to be tuna noodle casserole (or tuna tetrazzini, if you want to be fancy-sounding). I cooked the pasta this morning and stuck it in the fridge, knowing that we'd be out from 11:30ish until 5 and wanting to have a head start on supper. I over-did things this afternoon, though, and standing over the stove making a white sauce just did not sound like something I could do, so I took advantage of the chilled noodles to quickly turn supper into a tuna pasta salad with frozen peas and a diced tomato. I'd used tri-color rotini, so it was very pretty! And simple, of course. I love pasta salads, because they can be all-in-one meals: the starch (pasta), the protein (tuna), the veggies (peas and tomato). Better yet, it's cheap: it came out to less than $5 for a full meal with enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

VII
On Tuesday morning, I brought the groceries into the kitchen and then went down the hall to grab something. Little Bear had everything unpacked by the time I got back. 



Canned beans and tomatoes were on sale for just 59 cents... Just in time for Lent! And for tower-building, apparently.

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