Mother Blessing

"You have been my friend,"

replied Charlotte.

"That in itself

is a tremendous thing."

-E.B.White

Amazing friends and family are interchangeable.  It's hard to tell the two apart at times.  I've been blessed with friends and family who support me, love me and choose to honour me (and the monster who is about to make its entrance to this world) with good thoughts, prayers, wishes and meditation, all part of a ceremony called a "Mother Blessing".  

As part of the ceremony, each person brought or sent a bead.  This is quite the beaut of a necklace sporting everything from Snoopy to Tiger's Eye, plastic baubles, shells from India and semi-precious stones of different meanings.  It will be close by when I go into labour as a reminder of all those who are part of my web of support (à la Charlotte).

The dress, by the way, comes from my 10-year-old Indian salesman.  Little did I realize it was zeroing right in on the reason for the ceremony.  Mom, Darce and Amanda were none-too-slow to recognize this.  Steve just called me gorgeous.  Truth prevails in both cases.

When pressed for time, insert image

What lies beneath... 

and within...

Ice on the lake, holes in the house. 

New bedroom windows installed, house zipped up. 

Spanakopita break.  That's what every contractor gets, right? 

Brüder.

Mann.

Seestahs and gas mask (and work pants that fit).

Painted Bedroom 1. 

Needs flooring, closet doors, closet shelves and rods, trim, baseboards and the right door. 

 But it's done.

Kitchen to bedrooms.  Are you on this fridge?  (Every item is a person).

We love pink.  Bits.

Goodbye, spare room.  Hello, dining space.

28 weeks.  Today marks 32.  Essentially, just under 2 months to go. 

Monster will arrive at full reno time.  We'll do our best to not lose him in the insulation.

(She wrote him!  What's she saying?)

Baby in French is masculine.  Is that a patriarchal-type thing?

Borealiso Beautiful

From Steve's collection.  Poplar and birch at their mossy, lichen-covered best.

Lady Dunnigan's Book of Pressed Gargoyles

When I first saw this photo, I thought it was a mistake; a smear on a microscope slide.  Look closer, though, and it's reminiscent of Lady Cottington's Book of Pressed Fairies.  No boobs and butts in this photo.  (Like lascivious fairies).  My suspicions of monster are confirmed with this proof: baby's squished facial features.  We're having a gargoyle!  Long pointy ear leaves it open to interpretation.

Bloomin' Spring

This is what springtime blooms looks like in The Pas.

I love my work jeans.  Unfortunately, they no longer work for me.

Primary Pieds

A parade of primary-coloured shoes hypocritically picked their way through Winnipeg's slush and saturated streets.  Hypocritically only because these same styles of shoes (and girls) get laughed at when they can't switch up their favourite footwear to accommodate the weather.  But for a night on the town, celebrating one of our best girls, you gotta pull all the stops and primp to the best of your capabilities, foul winds, rains and sludge be damned.

Pick a colour, any colour.  Mix em up and you get great results.

Petits pieds

One of our French immersion teachers in The Pas is from Africa.  You meet a lot of French-speaking folk from different countries when you teach in French in Canada, especially when you sit on provincial committees.  (toot toot).  They bring a whole new perspective to teaching, a whole new voice to the French that I learned in school and later in travel and work, a whole new view of your hometown, home life, home geography.

So when Elisabeth found out that I was pregnant, she exclaimed, "Tu as des petits pieds!"  Apparently, "enceinte" (pregnant) was a slightly taboo word that could attract the evil eye when speaking of young girls.  They skirted that issue by talking about having "little feet" when a woman was in an interesting situation.

Alors, voici mes petits pieds.  The ultrasound pics reveal a lot of spinal cord in one, top of a round head in another, but never that full lateral view.  Other than this.  Petits pieds portant du plaisir palpitant.