Midnight Blog

My hours haven't been this strange since I worked on Ditch Day! It is 5 am in the morning and I've been up for about an hour and a half.

I'm in the last month of pregnancy and the number one piece of advice I've been getting from veteran moms is to "get your sleep now because you won't be getting it later." I guess, for them, the exhaustion of motherhood made them forget the sleeplessness of late pregnancy. Oh well. For me, this sleeplessness only started in the last week and, after a few nights of bad sleep, I finally decided that it was better to get up and do something than to just toss and turn for two or more hours in bed. A few nights ago I read the whole time, tonight I knit and got caught up with (some) e-mail, cleaning out my in-box from over 500 to under 300 messages.

I started going crazy about 2-3 weeks ago when a few co-workers started saying their good-byes just in case they wouldn't be seeing me anymore. At that point, baby's due date was still about 7 weeks off and I was planning on continuing work for over a month. Additionally, I went from getting practically no comments about "my condition" to 2-3 are-you-readys per day. The are-you-readys have tapered as people have come to know the answer and no longer feel inclined to ask; my fear at being asked has subsided dramatically. Dan and I have been really blessed, having been gifted, in the last four days, with basically everything we think we need and then some. I still need to buy some diaper covers, but we've recieved a port-a-crib (for when baby is in our room), plenty of sheets, clothes, onesies galore, car seat/travel system ... even a glider and ottoman!!! Things are still pretty chaotic in what will be baby's room, but there is a lot of comfort in knowing that at this point, we'd legally be allowed to bring baby home from the hospital because we have an infant car seat.

Dan and I moved about 1.5 miles about 6 weeks ago. (E-mail if you'd like our new address.) We moved from graduate student housing to a privately-owned second floor of a house. The new apartment is on a busy street, but the positives far outweigh the business of the street. As mentioned above, we have a second bedroom, but in addition, each room is close to twice as big as those in the university-owned apartment. Not only that, but our rent (even when including that we'll be paying electricity, which was included in the university rent) is slightly less than the stated rate for university housing. I'm not sure why Princeton is charging the rates it is, but I do understand why it is struggling with a housing surplus. I think the trustees (who set the rates on the apartment we moved from) aren't quite as wise as they believe themselves to be.

I'm about 2 months into savingdinner.com. I didn't sign up for the Menu-Mailer, but bought the book instead (I like the flexibility and that I could buy the book on a Saturday on my way to the grocery store instead of having to wait for the Wednesday mailer to come out). Saving dinner basically works by giving 6 days worth of dinner main dish recipes and side dish suggestions along with a grocery list for each week. The book has 4 seasons with 8 weeks worth of menus per season. Dan really likes it because now I fix meals with well-matched side dishes and have a much better attitude about cooking. (Before, I didn't mind cooking but had a hard time coming up with supper ideas.) For me, the unexpected side-effect has been that because I don't worry about dinner, I can feel free to learn new recipes and enjoy reading cookbooks, thus increasing my cooking skills and preparing myself for successfully cooking good dinners without someone else planning them for me. If you have as hard of a time meal planning as I do, I thoroughly recommend this!

I'm starting to nod off again - maybe I can get in 2 hours of sleep before work!