I am really pleased with how my portrait of our home turned out. It's called "Merritt's House" and will most likely hang in his room after being displayed in the gallery next month.

When you become pregnant or even just consider it, it's difficult not to think about the way your body will change during the process. It's intimidating and scary and if you rigidly follow books like "The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy" (I don't) then it is just one horrific bodily experience after another.

With the exception of a few minor adjustments I had to make early on, being pregnant has made me feel more beautiful than I ever felt in my life. And I had a pretty sweet physique beforehand so I had a lot to lose. We'll see how I feel after this is over...of course many of the changes that you are supposed to worry about are the ones that show up after you have given birth...but if it's anything like what I've experienced so far then I'm not worried.

I've been really lucky because I have people around me who wanted to record my pregnancy artistically. Lia did two lovely watercolors of me and Christi took a roll of incredible black and white photos. I suspect that these representations will become only more treasured by me over the years.

I love the Italian Vanity Fair cover that Monica Belluci did recently. She says it was to protest the law in Italy that prevents unmarried women from utilizing science-assisted fertilization. I think it's just a gorgeous picture:



And this photo was one that I saw early in my pregnancy of Asia Argento, one of my favorite actresses. I found it really inspiring at the time and still do:

Doing my time at the gallery on Saturday I brought all my painting supplies and began my portrait of our house.  The show starts this weekend and I was hoping to finish it that day but it was a lot more complicated than I expected.  All those squares and angles.  I got irritated and decided that my painting career is nearing the end.  I threw away my pallette.  Once I got the painting home and looked at it for a few days I realized that I like it.  And maybe I have a few more good paintings in me until I give up.  So now I have to go back and retrieve my pallette out of the trash.   

Both Andy and I have long suspected that we have some type of non-European ancestry, due to certain clues in our family history and appearance.  But as I've been doing geneaological research here and there, I have discovered that uncovering evidence and information regarding this type of thing is virtually impossible.  For one thing, I suspect it's not something that the older generations readily passed down.  So the prejudices of the past hinder our chances of knowing who we really are, unfortunately.  There is new technology out there but I hope that in the future these things become more reliable.       

This weekend I'm making homemade pesto (my basil is ready for harvest), blueberry muffins, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

Everyone cringes when I mention I am spending my last trimester in the Florida summer but frankly I'd probably do it again.  If only for the delicious fresh fruits and vegetables you get this time of year--I feel like the baby is getting an incredibly healthy diet.  Also it's nice to be able to float weightless in the pool and ocean when you are this fat. 

Andy wants to see I Robot.  I'm not that into it.  I think seeing mediocre films "for the effects" has stopped being a good enough reason for me to go to the theater.  I'd rather see Fahrenheit 9/11 but he doesn't want to be bummed out by it.  But we are both stoked to see The Village.

I'm really into this new band that our friend Andy turned us on to: Kings of Leon.They are three brothers and a first cousin from Tennessee and their music is all over the place.  It's so nice hear something new and exciting and non-mainstream, since we are not in the music scene down here we don't get the exposure to bands like this enough.   

Last night I went to Old Navy and the sales were phenomenal.  Everything that was marked down already was less at the register and the things that weren't marked down were discounted too.  I got six pairs baby socks, six pairs maternity thong underwear, cute sandals, white maternity capri pants, maternity denim sundress, and a size large bikini all for $63!!!      

 

My friendly local herbalist sent this helpful list of the top twenty antioxidant-rich foods:

20. Gala apples
19. Plums
18. Black beans (dried)
17. Russet potatoes (cooked)
16. Black plums
15. Sweet cherries
14. Pecans
13. Granny Smith apples
12. Red delicious apples
11. Strawberries
10. Raspberries
9. Prunes
8. Blackberries
7. Artichokes (cooked)
6. Cranberries
5. Blueberries (cultivated)
4. Pinto beans
3. Red kidney beans
2. Blueberries (wild)
And the number one antioxidant-rich food:
1. Small red beans (dried)
Small red beans! Who knew? The small red bean looks like a kidney bean
- same color and shape - except that it's (you guessed it) smaller.
It's sometimes identified as a Mexican red bean, but it's grown only
in Washington, Idaho, and Alberta, Canada.

I think it's really strange there are no AC/DC songs available for download on iTunes.  I really want the one about the girl with the backseat rhythm.  I've also been trying to get an obscure song from Mick Jagger's 80's solo album She's the Boss but that's understandably hard to find.  Today I purchased Animotion's Obsession, Madison Avenue's Don't Call Me Baby, and The Eeels' Mr. E's Beautiful Blues.
 
I finished The Orchid Thief over the weekend, what a wonderful book.  I learned so much about Florida and orchids, two subjects very dear to my heart.  I'm inspired to buy a new orchid and just give up on the one that I've been trying to revitalize for five years.  I also want to do some paintings of orchids, preferably on pottery.
 
My painting instinct has come back all of a sudden.  I sketched out the cat portrait paintings for the baby's room, and today took photos of our house for the project I need to finish before next weekend.  I work better with deadlines.
 
Mary's visit was fun: we ate out every night and the weather was very cooperative, beach on Friday and pool on Saturday.  The ocean was very calm and cool and it felt natural and perfect to float my pregnant belly around in it.  Our friend Rich said he would give Merritt surfing lessons when he turns two.     
 
      

My gallery made the news. For the upcoming show, Aura of Palm Coast, I'm going to finally get around to painting the little portrait of our house I've been meaning to do. It's too hot and I'm too pregnant to do it outdoors so it will have to be from a photo.

Mary gets here this afternoon and stays until Sunday. I took the next day and a half off from work. We will have a good time and eat really well. Andy bought me a beach umbrella yesterday so I can hang with her at the ocean and not pass out from heat exhaustion. The water has gotten very warm and clear so I am looking forward to floating around and giving the baby his first taste of the sea.

I had my doctors appointment yesterday. It's so gratifying to go in there and be told how healthy I am and how great the pregnancy looks. The doctor was amazed that I had no stretch marks (thanks to shea butter as recommended by Pamela Anderson) and that the baby was kicking so strongly already. She alluded to that fact that he might be making me rather uncomfortable with his hard kicks later on.

Is it just me or is Theresa Heinz-Kerry more appealing than any potential first lady ever? There's something about her I really like.

Spotted on a car with Florida plates: California is Overrated.

I've been wondering a lot about scrunchies lately (am I the only one that still wears them in my hair?) so I posted a poll on the Makeupalley message board to see what those fashion and image conscious ladies would say about it. My post:

Scrunchies: Tired or Timeless?
I confess that I wear scrunchies pretty much whenever I put my hair up, unless it's a formal event. They are easier on my hair and just softer and more comfortable in general. But twice now I have noticed that they seem to be thought of as outdated and a sign of bad fashion sense: once on Sex and the City ("No self-respecting New York woman wears a scrunchie!") and then recently on a VH1 special declaring that scrunchies were hopelessly 80's. What does everyone else think?

Their replies. So far I am feeling very outclassed. But then most of these girls also wear a full face of makeup everyday which is not me either.

Something came in the night and lopped off the wilting heads of my few remaining sunflowers. I suspect it was a raccoon. There were no traces left of the flowers. Very mysterious.

I think this nursing tank top would really come in handy. The price is steep though so I'm trying to get one on eBay.

I did the last of my gardening--it's too hot and I just can't bend and overuse my body that much anymore. The pygmy date palm has been moved from the giant terracotta pot into the ground in the north garden. This is its last chance at life, if it doesn't thrive there then I give up. In its place I planted three beautiful purslanes, the flowering succulent plants similar to portulaca that love dryness. If the terracotta pot does not sustain them then it's time for the pot to go. Everything I've ever planted in there has died (I will blame it on the residual negative energy of the ex-boyfriend that gave me the pot). We also put an Italian cypress in the front garden to balance out the left side of the house by adding some height. These are the architecturally cool very tall and skinny evergreen trees you see in the south.

It sounds like we're about to have an afternoon thunderstorm. I hope it's over before I leave for my first night of prenatal yoga class...

There is an article today in Salon about the rising incidences of women choosing elective C-sections to birth their baby. This is the most recent of several articles I have seen about this trend since I've been pregnant. I certainly considered it. It sounds so much easier than labor and delivery and in some ways it is. You know when you're having it, you know how long it will typically take, you don't have to worry about the strain and pain you are putting on your more delicate regions with vaginal delivery which can lead to complications later in life. There are also little things like knowing that the baby's head will come out perfect and round rather than contorted by the birth canal, and also that you rule out the chance of having the cord wrapped around its neck which terrifies me.

I brought the idea up with the male doctor at our practice, suspecting he would be the most likely to accept my request for a C-section and he was indeed open to it. He is definitely a science over spirituality guy so he did not see having an elective C-section as any kind of forfeitting of nature. Of course getting insurance companies to pay for it is a whole nother story. But to be realistic, the recovery period for C-sections can be pretty rough and you are in a hospital having cut-wide-open surgery which runs the risk of nasty and life threatening infections.

Andy totally backed up my desire to consider the operation, but he has been cool about everything all along because like he says I'm the one that has to go through it.

Then taking these childbirth classes helped to sway me back to the natural direction. I suspect that many of the women that are electing to have unneccessary C-sections are not taking classes like this (probably no time for it, also pointing to why a scheduled procedure works better for their lifestyle), because you learn from someone like our experienced OB nurse teacher that if you can take it then having a baby vaginally without an epidural is relatively fast, easy, and quite healthy for the mother and baby. That's of course if you are in good shape, know how to make yourself relax, and are willing to get up and move around while you are in labor as opposed to laying on the bed the whole time. Your body is made to take you instinctively through the contractions and the final pushing with increased output of endorphins; but if you paralyze it with the epidural then it slows down and gets confused. She doesn't discourage the epidural by any means, it's just better the later you have it in the labor process. And there is also the option of an IV narcotic like Stadol to take the edge off the pain without having a huge epidural needle stuck into your spine.

My mother who has had four babies, one of them natural and three with the epidural, is a proponent of the epidural. In fact most of the women that have had the epidural are very enthusiastic about it. But then those that birth naturally are not regretting anything either.

So I am just going to be flexible about the whole thing, going with the flow. I will make it clear to the doctors that I am by no means trying to avoid a C-section. If there is at any time any slim possibility that I will need one, I do not want anyone to hesitate. The most dangerous delivery is an emergency C-section after labor and I want to avoid that scenario at all costs. But if all goes well then I will try to go natural for as long as possible, most likely utilizing the narcotic option. But I won't be disappointed if I need the epidural.

I've always thought giving birth naturally would be a huge accomplishment, kind of like the ultimate in extreme sports. And I do still have that wild young girl in me somewhere, that always wanted to challenge the boundaries and experience absolutely everything there was without fear. This would be the time to set her loose.

These are funny: the Pink Five Star Wars parody and Pink Five Strikes Back, the sequel.

A pregnant woman is ten degrees warmer than everyone else. I'm starting to feel it.

The holiday weekend was good, we got to see the fireworks at the beach on Sunday even though it rained most of the time we were there. I think I might have caught a little cold but I'm taking echinacea to ward it off. We saw Spiderman 2 last night, it was entertaining but not as great as the reviews made it seem.

My sister Mary is coming for a visit in two weeks so I'm really looking forward to that. Her birthday was yesterday and the ticket to fly down here is her gift from me.

Three months from now I will most likely be a mother...me: someone's mother. Incredible.

I had a really nice low key birthday yesterday. Calls and cards from loved ones. A great prenatal massage with a new therapist that I will keep seeing indefinitely. Andy got me the Empire Strikes Back collectible glasses to match his Star Wars ones. And at some point we're going to Home Depot so he can buy me things for around the house and garden. This weekend will be somewhat busy though: we're going to be in the Flagler Beach parade tomorrow, riding on the float representing his business network. I've never been in a parade before so it's mildly exciting. Then Sunday we'll be back at the beach celebrating the Fourth with the network people. Flagler has passed an ordinance against unregulated fireworks that day so it won't be quite as apocalyptic as it was last year. Monday I'm off and we have a consultation scheduled with a local pediatrician who has come highly recommended.

Angel was sweet enough to send me several books off of my wish list for my birthday. I've been totally enthralled in Blonde, the part fiction/part fact story of Marilyn Monroe by one of my favorite writers, Joyce Carol Oates. It's one of those books that affects my mood and not always for the better. We all know Marilyn led an extraordinary but difficult life and this book just breaks it down into every dark detail.

A site that I like for its beautiful image galleries, Goodart.org, is now redesigned with an blog. I wish he would post more and check his comments. For instance I would really like to know where to find more about this artist, Steve McNeill:



This illustration reminds me of Andy and myself, except he'd never touch a cigarette.