Because waiting for babies is boring...

I've decided to move my blog. I've been okay/semi-happy/whatever w/ blogger, but decided I needed to do some cleaning house anyway and why not get a shiny new wordpress blog? So I did. And I'm 38 1/2 weeks pregnant, so I know no one will get upset w/ me for it.

So, from now on, if you want to read new and exciting things from me, go to:

http://jamiemcq.wordpress.com/

Bookmark it, update your feed reader, comment often. I think this blog will stay here, but I also imported all the posts I've made to the new blog... so it's the same but different.

A good book and a bad book.

This week, I decided to step out of my typical genre and try some recommended books, both of which are kind of action/adventure/non-realistic. The first was Dan Brown's newest book, The Lost Symbol. I'm kind of so-so on Dan in general. I like the overarching themes of his books, that they get me thinking about stuff and I like that they're quick and snappy reads that keep the pages turning, but usually walk away thinking it was just okay, not like a life-altering experience. It is sort of funny though that some (er...most) chapters are like 2 pages long. So I can read 50 pages and be like, "OMG, I just read 30 chapters!" Like a 3rd grader.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this book was my favorite of the 3 Robert Langdon Dan Brown books. I really enjoyed the fact that it talked about American history and the Masons and took place in Washington. It was interesting, and honestly, made me appreciate the Masons a little more. I thought I'd come away thinking they were a weird secret society, but I feel like it was a pro-Masonic point of view. I mean, still a little odd, but you know, not like sacrificing virgins creepy or anything like that. Observation: the bad guy in this was WAAAY worse and WAAAY more creepy than the bad guy in the other books. Of course, like w/ all the Dan Brown books I've read it was very plot driven which is annoying at times, and the characters say the cheeeesiest lines sometimes, but it got the job done. 2 days, flew by. :)

The next book I picked up was One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. I give this one a thumbs down with a farting sound. I mean, I *guess* I can see how some ppl get sucked in to the series (there are a bunch of them now), but I just wasn't drawn in at all by the characters or writing. The writing was very mediocre, it felt like I could have done this (not saying I'm "that good" but saying the writing was "that not good"). And Stephanie Plum, the "heroine" was a giant moron who I had no positive feelings about. So, I finished it today and shrugged, oh well. In the process, I realized that Scott knows a song that uses the line One for the Money and I do not. This might be the first time that has ever happened... Weird.


And next I have a new book (well, new from paperbackswap) called The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. I hope I don't become a vegetarian after this...that would be inconvenient.

And I've now switched to Goodreads.com, instead of shelfari, for my online book reviewing and cataloging needs. It's an important decision every nerd mus make for herself, but I find this site to be way more kickass than shelfari. :)

2009 in Review

I know it's not technically over yet (heck, we could even have a baby picture this year...), but I just love looking back over the pictures of the year so here are a few favorite memory-inducing pictures. It's kind of fun because it's our last childless year... next year all of our memories will involve Quiglet.

In January, I met Bill Clinton! IDK why it's not showing my edited and cleaned up pic, but you get the drift. He was *thisclose*. And I have a pic of me and him but it's not digital therefore doesn't exist on the blog bc I'm too lazy to figure out the scanner.


This is a funny one to me, we had a snow day for the Inauguration in NC. It was a great day of lounging around and watching history on our crappy old TV. And this picture will surely show how technology has changed in the years to come.
And then later that Spring...we became homeowners! (And later that year Scott took a chainsaw to the ivy on that tree... and then a mower to the ivy on the ground. lol!)

And then a month or so later, I did this! The Philly 10 miler

And then the next day, I did this.

Then Scott got his PhD a week later and I was a terrible, unsupportive wife and have NO pictures of him in his cap and gown or otherwise indicating his accomplishment pictorally. We do have a diploma on the wall, and he does make a point of having a fit when we receive mail that is NOT addressed to Dr. Scott. "Who's "MISTER" McQ????" So, consider this rambling paragraph my acknowledgement that he did it and it was a big deal.

Let's see... then Ashley and Rob got hitched! I was soooo wasted at their wedding (lol).

We don't have a ton of exciting pictures from later that year (mainly bc we just hung around), but we did make 2 trips to PA in the fall - the first was for Sophie's 1st birthday party! She's super cute these days, and they're all coming to visit in January!!!! Hooray! But that's 2010, which is not the focus of this post.
In October, we celebrated our 3 year anniversary :) We always take a pic of ourselves on our anny, so here it is!
Then, before we knew it, it was Christmas! And we got a REAL tree this year for the first time ever, which was so fun. I know the popular thing these days is going fake, but I've never had a real tree since I've been an independent grown-up so it was so fun to have the house smell like pine and vaccum every day. ;)

We'll see what else this year brings... we're hoping for calm and mild days of Jamie & Scott time! Though there's always the possibility of Monkey coming early, I'd love to have a 2010 baby. It just makes her age easier to calculate, you know?

Aimless/Update/Random

So, the semester's over! I'm officially done until August, when I have to take 1 class. And I'll finish up the following spring w/ my final project class and be the Master. I'm excited, it's a good arrangement that allows me lots of time to be w/ Monkey in the first year and a half and also keep my brain alive and functioning. :)

And I'm 36 weeks. I should get this out there right now, I'm not good at waiting. And there's also this trend in my family and among my friends where babies seems to take their good ole time (comfortable uteruses must run in the family), so I've been basically assuming that I'll also go late. I figure if I set the bar up there maybe it won't be as hard? IDK. But it's also difficult to look at the calendar this month and be like "Yes, any of those days could be her birth-day. Or none of those days." I don't do well w/ this uncertainty. Oh, the other thing that doesn't help is people telling me their "early labor" stories. Like "oh, I had my baby at 35 weeks!!!" Good for you.

My plan WAS to read all the Harry Potter series in my waiting month. I read the first two so far, and it's fine. I Loved them the first time, but you know, I didn't know what happened at the end. It's slightly less enthralling this time. I'll still get to the others, but it's not like I'm devouring them at the rate and intensity I'd hoped I would. I was hoping it'd be the magic bullet that kind of made December fly by and all the sudden - I'm in labor!? Oh, I was so naive when I thought up this plan.

So now I'm pretty aimless actually. I don't have a ton of energy to go out and do social things and things I *should* do (read: clean the bathroom) but don't really have a lot of fun things to fill the time and make not doing the above things okay. I need a good book. Oh, and I realize I should be enjoying this, and some days I am, I'm just kind of bored.

I don't have an updated belly pic... I don't really think much has changed since the last one. I am looking pregnant now, but I'm still amazed at how not-giant I am. It's a good thing, the past few weeks have been very uncomf and I can only imagine what ppl who look like I do now when they're like 6 months feel at the end. I'm even kind of hoping I don't get any bigger. We'll see about that (*cough* Christmas Cookies *cough*)

Happy December!

How is it December already!? Yikes!! And at the same time... mmmmmm Christmas cookies.

Well, we've been busy busy. Here's my latest belly pic:
I'm now 34 1/2 weeks... and showin' like a mother. (haha, I'm glad I make myself laugh.) Little Quiglet's kicks have gotten WAY more intense over the past week or so. I still can say I don't *mind*... I generally like it because it's comforting to know she's in there and moving/growing/doing what she's supposed to be doing. Scott got to SEE movement this week, which is hilarious. It's like my body has been possessed. Which it kind of has... but anyway.

I've been finishing up my semester and nesting like crazy. I've washed all of her clothes and put the little darling things in the big dresser. I've organized a lot, though the crib still is kind of full of random stuff... we figure it won't be full of baby for a few more months.

Here's what the nursery looks like at the moment! We've rearranged it, bought a glider and generally filled it up a lot more since I last posted pictures of it.



Oh, and did I mention her bookshelf? Thank you, showers! I love all of the special books we have to start out with, and that each one has a close friend/family member's note to Quiglet. Though surely when she's like 4, she'll be like "Who's this Quiglet character?"

Her Fearful Symmetry

The new Audrey Niffeneger book! It was so exciting, I totally love Time Traveler's Wife and was understandably excited to read here newest. And she took for-ever to write it so my hopes were a little on the high side

So, how would I describe it? I think I'll go w/ my sister's words on this... It was "effed up". It just WAS though. Not meaning it was necessarily awful or too weird, but it was just very different. And I'd say maybe a step further to the science fiction world than TTW was. But I still gave it 4 stars on Shelfari. I'm generous w/ stars though.

The plot follows these weird twins who are "mirror twins", meaning their insides and appearances were not identical but like reversed from each other. Apparently that's a real thing (though very rare.) They're kind of creepy. And their mom is a twin as well, and the beginning of the book is the mother's twin dying. Then the mother's twin, Elspeth, offers the younger twins, Julia and Valentina, her flat in London to come live for a year. Cool, free apartment, right? Except, oh yeah, she's haunting it. But apparently the creepy twins are cool with it.

There's way too much to overview much else ... and I know I'm making it sound lame. But it really was interesting and different from a normal genre I'd read. I love her writing, however weird the plot was. The characters were fully realized and the story moved along pretty well. I'd recommend it for sure, with the caveat that it's "effed up."

Can I still do book reviews on this thing?

*Testing*

Ahem. So, I just finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It was a very up and down book - it started out AWESOME, and I was getting all ahead of myself, with "this is my favorite book" type thoughts. Then there was this long drawn out mid-section that just kept putting me to sleep (well, that or the baby... it's a toss up) and the ending was very good though!

Though, I have to say, a large part of my enjoyment of this book was the fact that it was drawn from the story of Hamlet, which I knew going into it. I haven't read Hamlet in a good 10 years (yikes, really? Senior year was 10 years ago?) so I could not have told you the story prior to reading this. But random themes and events did come back to me and with the help of wikipedia I recalled ;). You know, madness, ghosts, poison. And it was kind of a good distance to have from it. I'm not a Shakespeare enthusiast, but I do enjoy those plays more than most. I could easily see that Claude was Claudius, and Trudy was Gertrude. Wow, I'm like a brainiac. Sign me up for mensa.

So, the summary would be this: The Sawtelles have this dog breeding business where they aim to breed dogs that aren't purebred or anything, but good companion dogs. I think that's kind of neat... and that part of the story was really interesting. The dogs were so central to the story (in fact, I'm pretty sure Almondine was Ophelia?), and were almost given a voice. The Sawtelles had one son, Edgar, who was mute, though he could still hear. That was another interesting angle. Edgar's dad, Gar, dies inexplicably and Gar's ghost appears to Edgar saying it was Claude (Gar's brother) who did it. Is your HS Shakespeare reading coming back to you at all? Drama and tragedy ensue.

The writing was awesome, the characters were really interesting. I liked that in this book we get some explanation into Trudy's thought process. I remember in Hamlet being totally let down by how lame the female characters were... all 2 of them.

I recommend it... I kind of wished I'd been holed up somewhere during that middle portion with nothing else to do so I could have just motored through. So if you find yourself holed up somewhere for a few days (snowstorm? IDK) this would be a good time!

It's Fall in our 'hood

So, the leaves of our "mature landscaping" are coming down in earnest now. We knew it would suck... but it has eclipsed our wildest dreams :)

Scott spent all weekend outside doing manly things like raking, picking up pinecones (he counted 511 in our backyard) and blowing leaves with a wussy electric leaf blower (contrasted to the super manly gas-powered kind.) And now, it's raining... woohoo. That brings down more leaves. Not sure if this pic (out the window of our house) does it justice, but we have like a fortress of leaves along the curb. As does the entire neighborhood. There's a big leaf-sucker truck that comes twice in the next 2 months to remove them, I'm pretty excited to see that. Maybe I'm a 10-year old boy?

Yup, looks like we've done nothing. Awesome.

Also this weekend, Scott put up a clothesline for me! I feel so dorky and domestic getting SO excited about this, but it truly will save us on our power bill and will make our clothes & sheets smell lovely. I even figured out where to find clothespins... (at Target, by the Laundry drying racks & the like.) Bonus - $1.54 for 50! Oh, and since I mentioned it's raining, and probably will be for most of the week due to Ida, I don't think I'll get to test it out for a while.

See it, out there in the corner? It actually gets some sunlight too, so maybe I can bleach out stains. :)

30 Weeks and Workout Update

Welp, Happy 30 weeks to me. The Big 3-0! Whoa.

Oh, and BOO! :)


I totally love swimming - I must say that it is by far the superior exercise for preggos. I am no longer running - I did my last run around 25/26 weeks. I'm quite happy I made it so far. Why did I stop? I just felt like it was too hard. *shrug* All along I told myself I'd do it as long as it was fun and I felt like I was getting something positive out of it. The most difficult part was that every time I'd run I would HAVE to take a nap that day... logistically that is just a little inconvenient, right? Plus, I realized the pace I was going was no faster than a brisk walk and, well, walking is cool too! I do miss it a lot though, and am really excited to get my groove back in the spring :)

So swimming twice a week is my new favorite workout. The most beautiful thing about it is that I jump in and stretch out a little and honestly *forget I'm pregnant*! It's quite nice, actually, seeing how it feels like it's encroaching more and more on day to day life. Things like, you know, putting shoes on and picking something up off the floor... But in the pool not very much has changed. I can still swim at a pretty respectable clip and get my heartrate up to a good zone. And smoke people swimming in the lanes beside me (chumps.)

Oh, and also - go phillies! :)

Last trip to PA: Baby Shower Time!

This past weekend we made our FINAL journey to Elizabethtown until APRIL! Wow, does that sound far away! Though this trip was hard (mainly, on me and my back), we know the next one might just be harder. :)

The main event this weekend was Quiglet's Baby Shower. It was a blast, my friends and family did a fabulous job making it a special and fun event. I can't figure out how to rip the pics off of Kodak, but here's the gallery.

We did a "Green" Shower, which I was really excited about because though I do love opening presents, the overwhelmingness of opening so many at a shower (I know, what a whiner) and the wastefulness of it made the idea of a shower w/ no wrapping paper really appealing. And it was fun, to me it was no less special!

Another awesome thing the shower planners did was ask everyone to bring a book in place of a card. Scott and I had such a fun time looking through all of the books we got to start Quiglet's library. :) It's special because of course we have our own favorite books but it was neat to see others' favorites. And who knows what baby girl will like!

This is her closet, Pre-Shower:

With the combination of ridiculous Old Navy sales and consignment sales, my mom and I have outfitted this kid for the first year. Though, I will say, most of this stuff is "cute" stuff rather than "functional" stuff... at the shower we got a bunch of sleeping items and loungewear (lol), which we definitely needed!