brr!

the fall has really set in now. this morning it really hit home for me when we woke up to 40F-degree weather (5c), and while i was on the phone with mari in texas i heard her tell zoey that she couldnt wear her sandals because it was too cold outside already - so i asked what was the weather down there. she said it's ALMOST 60F (17c)!

well i guess i am really in for this new england winter bbecasue i am already wearing my biggest houston coats and its not even halloween yet! but it is beautiful though.. the trees and bushes are all putting on their peacock feathers. in my backyard park theres this tree that is so orange it wont quit - like a lit-up jack-o-lantern, and near it is an enormous bush whose top leaves are the brightest scarlet.. gotta get out there with the camera.

so im pulling out all my soup recipes these cold days. my new favorite is a baked winter squash soup. my old standby - yellow bell pepper soup came back, but this time with carrots and potatoes too. next up is last years' root vegetable stew, and my mouth is drooling already just thinking about making it later today or tomorrow... the lentils are soaking as we speak. so i was thinking about posting these recipes up on the blog - if i get a minute or two later this week.

lucas schedule is starting to stabilise now around a 1-nap-a-day schedule after a huge "awkward phase" ... when you never knew what to expect. so now i get almost an hour and a half every day after our early lunch to get online.. read... and piddle around the house.

i cant believe i'm

shopping for a double buggy!

apples and stairs

we went on an apple-picking trip with our new friend nikki (a good friend of connie's)and afterwards we came back to our place and made delicious apple pies! oh. and some dinner too//. it really was an afterthought. hehe

we got our washer & dryer delivered monday (!!!!)

also monday in an effort to run to the phone (the delivery guy) i slipped and bounced on my butt down three or four stairs. ugh. everythings okay, just a little sore.

my advice for the week: do not attempt to hurry down any stairs while pregnant (because the belly makes your center of gravity shift) wearing big powder blue fuzzy slippers and not holding the handrail . duh.

slow but started

ph posted 10 pix of lucas with his beloved basketball on lucaspix, just to get something up for you hungry bugs... and dont forget to go see the youtube vids ph put up on his blog, its pretty cute stuff.
my dad and sister left now, and my house is back to being quiet and a little lonely... especially now that hubbub of moving is largely settled, i feel like their departure marks the beginning of some new phase. huh? oh well - best not dwell on it, just keep puttin one foot in front of the other.. and soon enough the holidays will have past and then i'll give birth, and the hubbub will be at a new all-time high again.
a good friend matt turner told me once over a lonestar beer that he had come to realize that "life is what happens in between the high spots".. i think about him, and what he said, and take great comfort in the lulls now.. just regular life happenng here. and the slowness is sometimes nice.
oh, and i saw rebecca novak for about 10 minutes the other day, she was passing through cambridge driving her grandma around, and so we got to chat a bit on the sidewalk in front of my house. it was nice to chat. although it would have been great if we'd had more time to really catch up. i guess next time.

fall-ing into place

fall has already settled in here, and it's 65F here today... im working on the laptop these days.. yup, the sturdy ol laptop we got from manu a hundred years ago.. its slow, and low on memory, and i always manage to hit typos and move the cursor inadvertently with the free-flying whisk of my left thumb on the touch pad & then using a dial-up conx... its not quick work is waht im trying to get at, but i guess its appropriate to take the long explanation for such a long process in the first place...! so until we figure out what we're going to do about a phone JACK in the OFFICE .. at least im connected. so here i am, now, what was i saying?

oh yeah. we are mostly moved in and unpacked now.. and our place is really starting to feel like ahome now, we got art on the walls, and the requisite 4 boxes whose contents we are unsure what to do with yet... and my dad and sister are coming for a visit next week (arriving tomorrow).

lucas is 16 months old, cuter than ever.. if you need proof, and are missing the pictures because we have been super pre-occupied.. then go see astrobleme where philippe loaded up a couple of youtube videos. i promise we'l get back to uploading those lucaspix soon.. and hope you understand that moving internationally with a 1-year-old, while pregnant just takes some time!

that said, heres the preggy updates: i am 23 weeks, due feb 5. and i am 36.5 inches around (93cm) so my belly now officially precedes my bosom now... and it;s a girl this time (yay fun!) i am having virtually NO preggy side effects... uh, except i go to bed early, hehee. and my literary side is acting up, where i get all interested in "catching up" and finishing a book in 3-5 days. just finished orwells 1984... pretty sad stuff! and augusten burroughs running with scissors i laughed out loud between stunned jaw drops.