I'm back, baby(s).

Alright.
So I want to come back to this even though I'm not sure how often I'll be able to.  When last I left you, I was on track with weight loss and had gotten accepted in graduate school.  Lala was getting to the point where she was becoming her own person, who could play for a little bit while I did something that didn't completely revolve around her. I was writing and reading.  I was in a really good place.

Source

And then something happened that really derailed me, in a lot of ways.
I got pregnant again.  The last post that I wrote, I was already pregnant but I didn't know yet.  I was really sick for almost two weeks, but besides simply feeling like crap, I didn't have any other symptoms.  I stopped losing weight.  I started to get really worried.  I hadn't yet gotten a period since Lala had been born and I was on birth control, so pregnancy didn't jump immediately to mind.  But, deep down, I had a feeling.
I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.
I can't fully describe how I felt.  I was devastated and terrified.  I walked out of the bathroom and looked at my husband.  I remember that my hands were shaking and cold.  I didn't have to say it out loud.  I burst into tears.  He held my shoulders but I didn't want to be embraced.  "What are we going to do?"
We had already started preparations to move.  I had been accepted to school and we were set to go.  I was finally experiencing more physical freedom than I had known from Lala but she was still breastfeeding.  I didn't think I could do the exhaustion and the physical symptoms of pregnancy and birth all over again, especially with a baby as young as Lala that I needed to take care of.
It was hard but my husband and I talked a lot and we decided that we were going to go ahead with the move and with school.  I really felt that I needed to go ahead.  I feel like I stalled on my career long enough, and I was really itching for intellectual challenge.
So we packed up and moved back to our alma mater into an expensive not-great apartment in an excellent location in the village and I went back to school.  With a lot of finangling, sooooo much help from our family and friends, a lot of understanding from my professors and a heady mix of determination, organization and insanity, I made it through my first two semesters, giving birth to Lala's sister Mimi a little more than halfway through my second semester.

Lala & Mimi

Now I'm getting ready for my last semester, taking a few summer courses and trying to get back into my groove.  I'm working out and trying to eat better; I'm almost back down to the weight I was when I got pregnant with Mimi (which was about fifteen down from the weight I seem to hover around when I don't pay attention).  I'm trying to get back into writing and read more (for me!).

Thus, this post.  I'm working on my own projects again, though I'm going to try to ease into a little.  Here we go!

Panache

Can I just take a second and tell you how much I love my new Panache sports bra?  Being well-endowed, I have trouble finding a good sports bra, but this thing is amazing.  I was doing jumping jacks in the thing and my butt was bouncing more than my chest.  A revelation!  Hurray!
That is all.  :)

Writing

I want to write again.

God, just writing that makes me nostalgic.  Sometimes I'll get in a good pattern, where I manage to read and blog and work out and spend time with my family and something is still missing.  I think that it's probably writing.  Or maybe roleplaying which serves a lot of the same functions in a slightly different format.
When I'm writing or gaming actively, I find myself less bored and overall in a better mood.  But it's a lot of time investment.  Time is something I simply don't have too much of these days.
But that's probably an excuse.  I don't feel so hot about my writing of late.  The characters floating around my head are all old, their story-lines largely forgotten or incomplete or both, their voices rusty and disused.  I feel awkward at the keyboard, only able to hash out the barest bits of a cliche before I'm too upset/disgusted to continue.
Perhaps I need to do something drastic.  Camp Nanowrimo starts up again in July.  If I get into grad school, that would be one hell of a balancing act.  Moving, momming, working out, eating alright, blogging, working. Mmmmm.  Maybe.

Buddy Cops!

An idea for a d20 game hit me like a bolt in the blue!
For the uninitiated, when I say d20 game, I mean any number of pen-and-paper role-playing games that utilize a 20 sided die in their main mechanics.  In college, Bard and I game with great regularity, and I would love to get back into it.  However, it's a tough sell for people who've never played them before, especially non-nerds, and I have no friends here in the big OH.
Oh, college.  It was so easy to meet people there.  At Big Box, most of the people I work with are old enough to be my grandmother.
Anyway!  Since Bard and I mostly on our own for nerd stuff unless we manage to get online (and both of us online for any sort of uninterrupted time with an infant to care for would have to be some kind of ridiculous miracle) games that we can play by ourselves are great.  The downside is that many genres don't necessarily work with that diminished force.  In fantasy, the four man party is really the ideal.
Enter the buddy-cop scenario!  Two man groups are really best for this type of investigative dynamic, and outside characters can be episodic.  I can think of countless examples across multiple genres from Scully and Mulder to Shawn and Gus  Further, we could take turns making adventures for the other to take the lead in discovering, allowing the writer of the adventure to act in a more supportive role.
I'm thinking either present day or some sort of sci-fi future type of setting.  I'll have to present the idea to Bard when he gets home today.  Perhaps we can talk preliminaries on our walk.

A nearly perfect Sunday

It's raining today: a sort of misty half-hearted rain.  This morning was very dark; the day was very slow to start.  I woke up cranky.  I'm not a Sunday fan.  They feel like a missed opportunity.  The week is over, perhaps it could've been better.  The new week looms.  They feel dreary, simultaneously too short and too long.
I spent my Saturday fairly slothfully so I was determined to actually do something with my time.  I ran laundry, listened to Prairie Home Companion, cleaned up, made meatballs.  I attempted to spend time with Lala, but she was pretty insistent on sleeping and very fussy when awake.
I still wasn't feeling very happy, so I insisted my husband and I take a walk for the first time in a while.  The air was refreshing and it was unseasonably warm.  I started our walk with heavy talk and it didn't get better as we went.  I am discontent.  I wanted to analyze and explore and I wanted my husband to be party to it.  We don't make enough money, we aren't trying hard enough, we haven't figured out where we're going.
I rounded the corner and caught myself.  Why wasn't I happy?  This day had been excellent.  Dinner and a conversation with my sister awaited me.  I realized that I was building up the power of Sunday in my head.  There was no reason to be unfulfilled.
I straightened up a little, I stopped griping about our prospects, and allowed myself to actually be happy for a little while.