unpredictable

first up: giveaway winner!
i loved reading everyone’s comments yesterday — so much fun to hear what kinds of different things you would do with a custom planner! our lucky winner is #11 . . .

and the gift card [it’s actually an e-gift card that i will have sent via email] goes to danielle!

danielle, i emailed you this AM! i hope you enjoy, and i’d love to hear about your custom creation.

any moment now . . . or later
since officially reaching term, i’ve been struggling with the idea that my life could change drastically in an instant. current commitments could be wiped away [or at least postponed for ~12 weeks!]. after all, you never know . . . maybe my water will break after my workout this morning. plenty of people have their babies at 37-and-change weeks, right?

. . . and at the same time, plenty [more] do not. i could be looking at almost 4 more weeks of work and um, growing and just so much more WAITING, all the while with the same uneasy feeling of the unknown. after last’s weeks appointment [36 weeks], i left hopeful — after all, i was 1 cm dilated! that sounded like progress, right? but this week at the OB the wizened head of the perinatology department refused to even check. “it’s not going to make a difference, after all,” he said. “you’ll go when the baby is ready and when it happens, you’ll know.”

i was so annoyed! but mostly because i knew he was right. i was just clinging to something that would give me an inkling of when i could pencil “GIVE BIRTH TO BABY” in my planner. [or at least my mental planner! even i’m not crazy enough to write something like that down!].

even if i have carefully marked out the weeks
perhaps it’s practice
an woman in her 50s started chatting me up on the elevator yesterday [of note, this bump is the best conversation piece i’ve ever worn]. when i told her i was feeling impatient, she looked disappointed and told me that i had it wrong — i should be savoring the whole experience, because on looking back it will seem like such a special and fleeting time. she looked somewhat wistful as she reminisced about her first pregnancy 27 years ago [her ‘kids’ are now adults at 27 and 23].

and like the OB, she was right. there’s no rush right now! i’m not even uncomfortable, really. my work schedule is not that demanding. and the thing is?

life is about to become a million times more unpredictable than it ever has been before.

and i will deal with it. i will embrace the chaos. and even though i know it will be a huge challenge, i believe that at least part of me will love it.

so why not start now? i can still enjoy life even if i don’t know what lays ahead in the next month / week / day / minute. i can focus on getting things as ready as possible at work without obsessing about what-if scenarios.

making at least some progress!
just like i wrote during my last 2 week wait:

i truly do not want to live life in a countdown! i will acknowledge some of my unrealistic expectations and “shoulds” and “if only” thoughts, and just be okay with what is, today.

yeah, i just quoted myself. what can i say? i believe in what i wrote that day — and i just needed to read [and write] it again.

2 in 1
a friend came over for an impromptu dinner last night — a nice wednesday surprise! i knew the chicken i bought would be a thin stretch between three people, so i ended up making two recipes [one has been originally planned for tonight!]. luckily, this easy chicken parmigiana and spinach penne actually seemed to make sense together.

i left out the ricotta because the plate looked cheesy enough with the melted fresh mozzarella. and after i finished, i realized that perhaps 2-in-1 isn’t a bad way to cook in general — this way, there’s only one major cleanup and we can enjoy pasta leftovers tonight with a minimum of effort.