Triduum

Fun fact: Holy Thursday is also called Maundy Thursday, so if you hear people use that term that is what they are referring to.

Tomorrow is the start of the Triduum, the holiest weekend of the entire Church year. It is also, besides Christmas Day, my personal favorite religious holiday that Catholics celebrate. Everyone is so prepared for it, that's really what it is about. Holy Thursday we commemorate the washing of the disciple's feet and the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist. We leave with the anticipation of the passion, which we celebrate when we come back on Good Friday. Venerating the cross used to make me nervous as a child, but today I appreciate the chance to show, with the rest of the faithful, my reverence for the cross of Christ. Everyone leaves on Friday in a state of quiet recollection. It is almost a sorrowful silence, yet there is the knowledge that with the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday comes the resurrection. The Easter celebration is always really joyful of course which makes it that much better. Plus, I always celebrate the Triduum with my family which I really enjoy. Although sometimes the little kids can get a little crazy. So I'm really looking forward to the next few days, plenty of time with my family during a really amazing holy week. We always dye eggs after Good Friday service too and there are usually a ton of people, so it should be a crazy but hopefully meaningful weekend.

Happy Triduum and Easter to everyone!

The (Almost) Never Ending Scratch-Off

This is the story of my 13 scratch-offs.

A couple of months ago Eric and I bought a $1 scratch-off at a gas station. That ticket won $1. We didn't cash it in for a few weeks, but when we did we got another ticket. That one also won $1. So the next time we had a chance we got another ticket. This one won $2. We figured it still wasn't a big enough win to be worth getting the cash, so we got 2 more $1 scratch-offs. One lost, the other won another $2. We got another two $1 tickets, one of which won $6, the other of which won $12. So now we had $18. We were a little curious to see how far it could go, so we took $15 in cash and got another three $1 tickets. Two lost, one won $3. We got another three tickets, all of which lost this time. So, with our $1 scratch-off, we won another $12 worth of scratch-offs and $15 in cash. This was all over a two-month period of time, just getting new tickets with the old ones whenever we remembered. I have never been this lucky with scratch-offs in my life, and I probably never will be again.

Moodiness

Sometimes I feel like I am a teenager again with my pregnancy mood swings. Unfortunately though it feels like they are usually the negative emotions with not a lot of "up" moods. So I guess instead of a swing that goes up and down it would be one that swings side to side between a range of negative emotions. I'm sure I'm not the only pregnant woman to feel like I only have the crappy effects of pregnancy without the good ones, but sometimes that's how it seems. Why can't hormones affect you in a positive way? It's not all bad, don't get me wrong. The second trimester has been better than the first in terms of how I feel, I'm not quite as tired, and not usually sick (no morning sickness anyway), as long as I stay away from smelly people and cigarette smoke, those have been terrible. So those problems are minor, although there are still some days where I just want to crash for the whole afternoon or I get a little queasy. Overall though it's mostly just moodiness, which is affected by my stress level since I am crazy busy with school and work and starting to apply for jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I like being pregnant, I love knowing that in 5 months I'm going to be a mom and Eric will be a dad. It's hard to make it real sometimes though when all I feel is cranky or tired or emotional and I'm still not showing very much and the baby just started moving recently so I don't feel it that often. It's more abstract right now. Once the baby starts moving a lot and I can feel it more, and when we get to see it on the ultrasound and see that it actually looks human (rather than a peanut, which is how the first ultrasound looked), and find out if it's a boy or a girl, then I think it will be more real. I'm looking forward to that, and so is Eric. Only a few more weeks, April 12th. It seems like a really long time because we thought we would find out earlier than we actually get to, plus people ask us about it all the time. That is the next big thing to happen in the pregnancy. Well, that and getting fatter. I'm actually looking forward to getting more of a stomach, it feels so unreal and I think having a bigger belly will make it more realistic and exciting. Only a pregnant woman would be this excited to gain weight! So, negative parts aside (and they are relatively minor afterall), there is a lot of amazing things going on, with the baby moving occasionally, and there is a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. No matter what I say or if I complain, I am really excited to be pregnant and looking forward to being a parent!

Baby Updates

Exciting baby news going on today/recently. Over the weekend I felt the baby move for the first time. It was a little weird of a feeling but completely amazing. I'm looking forward to feeling it more since I've only felt it a few times in the past couple of days. It will take some getting used to, just learning how to recognize the feeling of the baby's movements.

The other exciting thing is the due date is 5 months from today. Doubtfully that will be the actual day the baby comes, but I am amazed at how far along I am, especially since I'm not really showing yet. I'm starting too a little bit, and some of my pants are getting tighter (I no longer have to wear a belt with any of my pants) but I won't be in maternity clothes for a few weeks yet. Pants will come first, but I won't have to worry about shirts for awhile, even though I have been fortunate enough to receive some from family and friends. I did buy a pair of pants and capris at Motherhood Maternity over the weekend. I'll share that story another time perhaps. For now, I just wanted to get this blog going again, and to give it a fresh look. Not all of my posts will be about the baby, but since that is the biggest thing in my life right now a good number of them will be!