About Jenny Jenny is a wife, mother, mam'ma, artist and accountant living and working in western North Carolina.
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Mother and daughter are doing well.
Marc, Milo and I were able to be there for the birth. She was scheduled to be induced on 10/9 at 6:00 am. Real labor didn’t begin until after midnight on 10/10. Elspeth spent about 2 hours pushing (she was a champ; figured out early that the better she did on pushing, the faster she’d be done!) and Dorothy was born at 4:10 am on 10/10. Els had a hard time delivering the placenta; bled quite a bit losing more than a liter. Some fluids, and bit of light-headedness later, she was doing fine. We had to leave, head home, around 9 am. Marc, Milo and I gave Dorothy her first feeding (30 ml of formula since Elspeth wasn’t yet feeling well enough to hold Dorothy).
Dorothy will have a scan today (sinus issue, so they’re checking her kidney’s and hearing since sinuses and kidneys develop at the same time). Her little toes are adorable (each foot has a toe that bends a bit and ends up under the next toe, as if she were crossing her toes while promising to tell the truth).
Beautiful black hair, darker blue eyes. I wonder if she’ll keep them?
The view from across the road, around 2pm today. Lovely, yes???
The view from our front door; a friend noted that it looks like Narnia. :)
Marc has tamed his mountain man beard, and I like it!
We have some clean up to do on it today or tomorrow to whip it into it’s final shape, but this is an adorably good start!!
Okay, my title is probably pretty gross once I hit the topics it covers:
- Warm: we added approximately $325 in K-1 Kerosene to our tank last Thursday and now have heat again. In other warm news, my new pink heated throw (my price: $29 including shipping) is amazing. We received three heated blankets as gifts last year, two of which still work. This one replaces my busted throw. Makes a huge, huge difference in the morning and late at night in our drafty computer alcove!
- Wet: The yard isn’t draining well at all. We need to dig a ditch, place some drainage pipes, and lead the the water off the side yard over the septic tank and down to the culvert where God, and city planning, intended. Yesterday we had the septic tank emptied, and Marc noted that you could hear the water rushing back into the newly empty tank from the saturated yard (“as if you turned on a huge bathtub, that’s how it sounded”).
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In other news, Moira has approximately 235 more operations to complete at school, and 71 days in which to get them. I used to try and go in twice a month to get something done, but that doesn’t work any more with our new rules regarding lunch hours. The students all work on each other to get those operations, but clearly the school will need to step up the advertising for the program if the students are all to finish with the requirements for their licensing met!
…so we’re experimenting with some homemade insulation for our windows. I’ve done one of the two windows in the kitchen so far. We only bought a small package of bubble wrap, so we could see how well it worked. When we can, we’ll pick up a larger package and do the other windows in the house: it took approximately 20′ of 12″ wide bubble wrap to do the one window.
 
Doing the one window took just a few minutes: warm water on a sponge, wipe the inside of the window, leaving it just a little wet. Cut bubble wrap to fit, and press evenly onto the surface of the window. Adjust quickly to fit well. I removed one of them to reposition with no problems. Last year we covered the windows in quilts and heavy fabric; the bubble wrap allows us to have some light in the room while also insulating!
While at target picking up some necessities this weekend, Marc and I saw this nifty looking game: Pentago. This looks like a pretty neat, and simple, two player game. It evidently comes in a four player version as well. The display at Target was well done – a great way to demonstrate the game. If you’re in Target, it’s worth a look!
And finally, I’ve been listening to free webinars online at work lately – but my speakers for some reason don’t work with the webinar program. As a result, I’ve been dialing in and listening on my cell phone. Yes, that’s my phone rubber-banded to my head. I’m thinking maybe I need a new bluetooth devise that’s compatible with my LG Neon. Ha ha! I do pull my office door closed so no one sees me looking so silly at work. (Of course, then I post the photo online, go figure!)
…which is what she really is every single day, of course!
Photos by Nick, a photographer she works with often.
  
It’s been a nice long weekend, but today is back to business. Hoping that Moira and I will hit the gym tonight as well. She had a photo shoot on Sunday immediately on the heels of returning from Johnson City. Here are two of the photos that I liked the best:
Next weekend, in an effort to add some diversity to her portfolio, she’ll be starting a new monthly tradition: working with a favorite photographer and 2 to 3 new models. This also has the advantage of expanding her network of models. For this first week, she’s asked me to be a model (to add some age/weight diversity to her portfolio). I’m excited, glad to help, and nervous. Like my gramma Dorothy (and my dad for that matter), I feel like I don’t know how to smile. Isn’t smiling almost a prerequisite for being photographed? This week’s goal: practice smiling.
A slow weekend, but we headed to the park today to take some photographs. (I locked my keys in the car, ha ha, and then we took pictures while we waited about for someone to come and open our car.)
Marc sat on the cold metal bench and froze while I took pictures. Brrr! Brrrr!
The sun began to set while we were waiting – these trees are on the hill in Jackson Park, Hendersonvillle, NC.
Another attempt at a moon photo – this one is better. Thanks for the tips, dad!
….and inside, too!
The monitor heater is again giving us troubles. I wonder if there’s someone in the area who services them this year (as last year we had an accidental service tech, being as we couldn’t find any one who actually serviced Monitors here).
My guess is we’ll need to plan to replace the heater before next year. This year we’ll limp along, use the one heated blanket that works after a long summer hiatus, and supplement with the electric space heater.
(I’ll try to update with more upbeat information tomorrow.)
This is my first attempt at photographing the moon. My guess is that I need a filter, or a cloudy night, or maybe a not-full moon, in order to improve this.
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