First, re: life and pregnancy:
Twenty-six weeks along, and feeling good. At my last visit the OB said my weight gain and measurements are "perfect", which (unfortunately) is pretty much the only adjective my brain will accept. I know I'm not working out as much as I should, but a) I'm also getting over the Death Cold; b) when there's road salt everywhere, the dogs can't have long walks because they get the salt in their paws (we drove them to the beach the other day and they got some good running with Berowne, though); and c) I'm still trying to figure out a new exercise schedule now that I live with someone whose work hours are roughly the same as mine. Claudio would get home from work two to three hours after I did, so exercising when I got home from work was something I could do in privacy, and after twelve years of 5-6 p.m. being The Exercise Hour, changing that is proving really, really challenging. I'm going to have to figure it out at some point if I want to get back into shape post-baby, so this is a project.
But despite that, and probably because I'm avoiding the scale at home, I feel good. I'm wearing fitted maternity tops and enjoying the belly, which is definite but not huge (my navel's still an innie), and my skin - finally! - is better than it's ever been. The promised glow! There it is! (Having said that, I will wake up tomorrow with all the zits.) I actually like looking at myself in the mirror. My energy's good, when I don't have a cold; my appetite's more or less leveled out, so that I'm no longer starving any time I'm not actually shoving food into my mouth; and the silver lining of every food giving me heartburn is that I don't have to restrict myself to sad bland meals, I just accept that I will need antacids after each one. (My cereal gives me heartburn. After any dinner, whether spicy or bland, I have the magma belches. It's just what food does now, apparently.) I'm even having fun with the baby registry, although to register for anything with puppies or dinosaurs on it you have to be willing to put stuff labeled "baby boy" on a registry for a baby girl. Not surprising, and not going to deter me, but disappointing.
They say the second trimester is the cute phase of the pregnancy. I only have two weeks left in mine, but I always was a late bloomer. Hopefully I will continue to feel good about myself, at least until I start waddling.
As far as books go:
White Nights, by Ann Cleeves. A murder-mystery set in the Shetlands, which focuses less on the crime and more on the atmospherics of the place. I liked it, though it was slow-moving and not a page-turner in the sense of not being able to wait for the resolution. I felt like the resolution could come in its own sweet time and that was okay.
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, by Peter Godwin. Godwin's a reporter who grew up in Zimbabwe, and this book is more reportage about the Mugabe dictatorship than a memoir, for the most part. I found it fascinating and well-written, and at the end when it starts being about having aging parents, it was fairly devastating.
Dead and Buried, by Barbara Hambly. Her series, about a free black man living in 1830's New Orleans, continues to be good, though the books are getting shorter and less detailed. Perhaps that is inevitable in a long-running series.
Shoot Don't Shoot, by J.A. Jance. Easy little mystery for a Sunday afternoon's reading.
The Beast, by Faye Kellerman. Talk of phoning it in. Very difficult to distinguish from the last three or four books in the series.
Black and Blue, by Ian Rankin. Mmm, incredibly dark Scottish police procedurals! Just what a girl needs.
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