Finding inspiration--and holding on

Our budget went out the window last week. It's because I didn't plan--no menu, no blogging about it, no strict rules for myself.

And I discovered something funny. If I'm not accountable to anyone, it's easy to let the rules slip. It seems I'm accountable to you. Brian didn't care. He was all for going out to dinner and spending money all weekend. When we're both feeling weak, it's over. We enable each other.

That's OK. We're starting fresh this week. We'll see how it goes.

And next month we're starting the next phase: spending $2,000 per month on student loan debt. Wish us luck. It's hard when I consider the other things I'd like to do with that money, but when I imagine paying down our student loans until they're PAID OFF, I feel better.

Also, I've been feeling creatively rejuvenated. Brian and I seem to fill our spare time--especially our walks--with discussions about creativity and stories, and it makes me so happy and inspired. I was talking with Brian last week and determined that every spare minute I have should be spent writing my story. He encouraged me to stop writing here if I find it too distracting (which I sometimes do). I think maybe I just need to tone down my obsession with food and budgets and reach an easy pace with it all.

I feel the approaching day of our son's birth in June as an increasing thrill--and deadline.

I want to finish a draft before then. Can I do it? I don't know. I've set these goals for myself before and perhaps I am always too aggressive. It's taken me seven months to get to 140 pages, so can I reach the end by June? I'd like to think so but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment and feelings of failure.

So. 140 pages and climbing. Another writing session tomorrow morning, more nap time throughout the week, a chance to get closer to my goal.

Regardless of that, I'm taking a break and planning out this week's meals based on our Full Circle Farm produce delivery:

1 each Cauliflower
3 each Hass Avocados
1 bunch Green Kale
1 each Cucumbers
1 each Bunched Carrots
6 each Braeburn Apples *
1.5 pounds Baby Red Beets FCF
6 each Navel Oranges
1 each Green Leaf Lettuce
6 each D'anjou Pears *
0.66 pound Shiitake Mushrooms *
1 each Mangos
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
FCF = Grown at Full Circle Farm
* = Grown in the Pacific Northwest

Tuesday:
Lentil-rice pilaf and roasted vegetables. (I love roasted cauliflower.)

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean chili and cornbread.

Friday:
Stir-fried shiitake mushrooms, chicken breast, and kale, with steamed rice.

Saturday:
Handmade rolled quesadillas with chicken, onions, cumin pintos, fresh tomatoes, baby spinach,and guacamole.

Sunday:
Roasted beet and baby spinach salad and salmon OR spinach potato gnocchi. (I'm excited to make the gnocchi--the recipe arrived in our CSA box and it sounds delicious.)

Quiet day

This pregnancy has been one marked more frequently by fatigue, cramping, and spotting. Yesterday night I felt exhausted and crampy and sure enough by the end of the day I was spotting again. Not a lot, but it stresses me out for obvious reasons. Every time it happens I worry--even just a tiny bit--that this is the moment when the beautiful pregnancy is signaling that it's almost over. That said, it helps that this is my fourth or fifth time spotting with this pregnancy, and I can still feel the baby kicking.

I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.

She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.

My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.

These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.

I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.

Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.

100 pages

I just hit the 100-page mark of my story. Wooo! :)

Stretching, with Cookie--and Pictures

Cora just dropped off to sleep after many minutes of babbling and playing with her animals in her crib. Then she repeatedly announced "I'm all done sleeping!" until I went into her room and helped her settle down. This has become a trend the past few days. She waits for me to come in and rub her back until she's asleep. Soon her breathing becomes heavy and I creep out of her room.

Then I open this laptop and sit on the couch, enjoying the sight of our Christmas tree and the trees being buffeted by the wind outside our windows, and I try to get my brain moving. I eat a cookie. Or two. And sign into this blog.

Writing here is much more casual than writing a novel, for obvious reasons of course. I don't have to think about plot, or dialogue, or how to get from place to place. I'm not concerned about geography or personality quirks, or psychological issues. I don't get that hung up on grammar. Instead, I suppose I do a bit of what Cora does: I babble. This is my stretching session, I'm limbering up.

It's also my journal, or has become one. I used to write longhand in a journal every evening. I hope to begin that habit again because this isn't the same. No matter what, I know someone is reading this, and it's inhibiting. I don't feel like I can really go deep, explain my fears or vulnerabilities, the way I worry about the smallest things or can quickly be transported or made happy or upset by memories of moments that happened years ago.

So I decide to start small. Just write. And for the past several days I have started a writing session with the same sense of urgency and hope. Each day I manage to distract myself somehow--checking email, reading the news, checking favorite blogs. Today I made the grave mistake of looking at the Decade in Pictures slideshow featured on msnbc.com. Now I am so emotionally humbled by the images that I can hardly think. Once again I am reminded of the sheltered life we lead here in this house, the security and safety and calm, the daily focus on fostering happiness and love, of the teeny tiny little orb we fill on this rapidly changing planet. I am saddened and confused about how it's possible to be happy when so many are suffering. It goes against a connectedness I used to believe in as a child.