thursday, sept. 8

it's early on thursday morning. hopefully i can get a few lines written before time to go out to exercise.

school has gone well this week. we now have a for real school room to do our school in now that our outbuilding is complete. we had that building constructed on our property so many years ago (5, 6?) and just now finished it out with electricity, insulation, a/c, etc. i'm not big on making my house look like a school, so i'ts nice to have a place to leave everything once the school day is done. i'll post pics as soon as i can.

Margaret and Samuel started a boxing class at the Y. we had intended for William to take the class with Samuel, but he just wasn't ready. it's rather intense, and a lot of work. i swim with the boys in the indoor pool while they're in their class.

i went to the doc on Tuesday. everything is looking good. baby is growing and blood pressure remains low, but Dr. Love would like me to gain some more weight. surprisingly i'd only gained a pound last month, bringing my total to 19 lbs. gained. i feel like all i do is eat, and lately the diet has consisted of  pizza and burgers, that kind of thing. but i guess the regular exercise burns more than i think, so i need to find a way to get in more calories.

i'm down to the every-two-week dr. visits now. that's exciting!

the wildfires here in central texas are devastating to say the least. it is hard to believe the extent of the destruction. Bastrop is just down the road from Austin. the house i grew up in is on the Travis/Batrop county line, between Austin and Batrop. the last i heard is that nearly 800 homes have burned to the ground in that county alone. the beautiful Bastrop SP was all but destroyed, only about 50 to 100 acres of the 6000 did not burn, though they were able to save the CCC cabins and other structures in the park. Austin has been a shroud of smoke since Sunday, what with those fires out east, the Steiner Ranch fires to the west, and other fires in the north and south. yesterday the smoke was particularly bad. we're praying that some of those tropical storms out in the Atlantic turn into rain for Texas.

i had my last Meals on Wheels route yesterday. i decided to step out at this time because it's hard to keep it up while homeschooling, and also because i'll have to stop once baby gets here anyways. i'll miss those sweet people. the sad part is that i might never see them again, as most are pretty old and frail. once i return they might no longer be with us. or might have been moved to a nursing home.

we've been getting Hazel's nursery set up. the big motivation to get the outbuilding finished was to have a place to put all the kids' toys so we could convert the playroom into a nursery. that done, now i'm in the process of furnishing her room. i bought a futon on craigslist, and we'll put the crib back together as soon as we have the chance. my mom says she wants to get me a rocking chair, which would be wonderful. i have the cool hutch that my dad made for me years ago in there and that will hold her clothes and diapers and double as a changing table once i buy a changing pad. we also put the cedar chest in there, a gift from my parents when i was a teenager. i hope to make a cushion for the top of it so it can serve as another place to sit. i need to buy a new rug for the room. i don't think i'll repaint it, though the room is wedgewood blue. the blue is such a lovely blue, and i painted it not too long ago. girls can have blue rooms, too, can't they? i did when i was a kid.

well, time to hit the trail. hopefully i'll get around to posting some pics in my next post.