This is community

We've had an amazing community group this year - we've been able to share a lot with each other, and had really great discussions (even better than normal, maybe), and really gotten to know each other. It's been really really good. I think it was a pretty unlikely mix of people, but God brought us all together and built us into a community, which is so perfect. Bryan and I are sad that it's over - we will certainly miss the group! We've enjoyed having our home filled with so much conversation and laughter every Monday night!

The group surprised us last night with a baby gift - which was really awesome and eased some of my anxiety. Here's Charlie, our guinea pig, testing it out:


Thanks so much you guys! You're the best. We've loved every minute... thanks for sharing this time with us!

Happy Anniversary, Babe

Yesterday marked our seventh anniversary, and I just can't let it go by without mentioning, at least briefly, how incredibly blessed I am to have Bryan in my life. He is the most amazing friend, the best partner, and I know he's going to be a great father. He is an incredible head of our family. He keeps me grounded even though I am sometimes a bit crazy. He makes me laugh, and then he makes fun of my laugh, which makes me laugh even harder. Sometimes I look at him and really just fall in love all over again. He's really a beautiful man, and the last seven years have been amazing. I look forward to another seventy.

Last day of school, part II

Meg thought I needed a new picture to go along with the picture I posted yesterday from my first day of school. So here's me on my last day of school ever! Oh, the joys of Landgdell North:


It was a busy day - class, running about a million errands, and then studying for a while before the 3L BBQ (catered by RedBones!! Yumm!!). And I didn't sleep well the night before, because I had the worst heartburn of my life. Anyway by 2:00 I could barely keep my eyes open so Meg & I headed to the beanbag bridge, and I crashed while she studied:



So now I guess all that's left are two exams. And then I'm done. Until the bar exam. And then I'm really done. Unless we move to another state, and then I'll have to take another bar exam. And then I'll be done. :)

Last day of school

I'm feeling mixed emotions about the last day of school.

On the one hand, I'm soooo ready to be done - so ready to move on with my life, to begin using all this knowledge I've attempted to cram into my head. On the other hand, it's going to be really strange. I can barely remember my first day of school - I always think of it in terms of this photograph, taken just before my mother took the curlers out of my hair and got me into my frilly dress to meet the bus:

And now, that long journey is over. Twenty years. 80% of my life. Basically all of my life that I can remember.

And yet, I'm poised at such an interesting place. I'm about to be a mother, and in six short years or so I'll be taking the curlers out of my own daughter's hair, putting her in her own frilly dress. It really seems lately like all of the looking backward I've been doing (and it feels like I've been doing a lot) leads me to look forward. I remember bits of my childhood and think about Eden experiencing those same things. I can't wait to have Granny let her go through her jewelry box, to have Mema let her put makeup on, to have her cuddle with her daddy on the couch and watch TV, maybe to give her grandpa a foot massage. I can't wait to read to her, to have her "read" to me, and discover together the magic of words. And I can't wait till her first day of school. The really weird thing is thinking about her last day of school. When will that be? What will she be? Where will she be? Who will she be?

Heh - sorry for the twisted path this post has taken. It's sort of how my mind wanders these days. See, this post was supposed to be all about nostalgia for the days of my past, and especially about how law school has been both strange and totally normal, both quick and ridiculously slow, both incredibly hard and such a breeze, all at the same time. But I have baby on the brain. Get used to it, I guess. :) This little one is pretty much all I have room for in there. Everything loops back to her. And I love it.

Last night

Yesterday was the second-annual "Super Bowl" bowling tournament for Young Life Cambridge, a youth outreach organization that Bryan and I volunteer for. We were supposed to show up at the bowling alley at 5, the event started at 6. Bryan was supposed to give a speech. We never made it.

We had a busy morning, and then ran some errands in the early afternoon. About 2:45 I started having contractions. They started out about 15 minutes apart but by the end of the hour they were coming every 7-10 minutes. I called the doctor, he said to lie down and drink some water, give it a couple of hours, and call him back if I was still having 4-5 or more an hour. Well, they kept speeding up, coming between every 3 and 7 minutes. So I called him back and we headed to the hospital. Mind you, we had no bag packed yet (I keep meaning to get it packed but it is still so early...) and we still have no carseat! We don't even have a blanket for little Eden yet. And the nursery furniture is far from finished. (These were all the things running though my mind - we're not ready yet!!). So I directed Bryan (between gulps of water) and he packed us a bag just in case we ended up staying, we called Meg so she could be on notice and prepared to make phone calls and come to our place to stay with Nino, and we headed to the hospital, probably about half an hour after the Super Bowl started, with me still having contractions very regularly.

Right away they hooked me up to the fetal monitor and the contraction monitor thing. We got to listen to Eden's heartbeat (and hiccups) while the machine spewed out squiggily lines on a long strip of paper. We quickly learned what those lines were as I contracted and one of the lines became a series of hills. That was comforting - I wasn't imagining these contractions - they were real. What they meant, though, was the remaining question.

The doctor (the one we had yet to meet from the practice - we have an appointment with him next week) did a whole bunch of tests, checked me, and decided that I was not in labor. They kept me for 4 hours so they could check me again just to make sure nothing was progressing (nothing changed except I slept a little and the hills became more wave-like) and then they sent me home, at about midnight. We don't know what caused the contractions but we know that they were happening, regularly. The doctor seems to think I might just be one of those lucky few for whom Braxton-Hicks contractions feel an awful lot like the real thing.

So now the only orders I'm under are to call if it happens like that again (I'm still having contractions now even as I type this but they're further apart now) or if I show any other signs of labor. Basically, watch and wait. And hope and pray that Eden decides the outside world can wait at least another 4 weeks. We want her here, but we want her healthy. We'd appreciate your prayer on that front as well.

We're Moved!! Finally!!

We're here! Yay!! We're so happy to finally be in our new, grown-up apartment! We had a great moving day on Saturday. We had many friends show up to help us move (several of whom had just helped either J&K or G&K move in the morning). It was really great to see the community come together like that to help these three families get all of our boxes and furniture from one place to another! And we were blessed with great weather during the actual moving period. It started to rain when we'd finished, but not until then. And we got everything moved in so quickly that dinner wasn't ready (we ordered Subway for our wonderful movers). Everyone stayed and watched the Sox game (thank goodness we'd already gotten our cable hooked up!) and helped us unpack a bit until dinner arrived.

I was exhausted at the end of the day - I'm sure we all were - but it was great to see the community exhibiting God's love in such a real and practical way! Thanks!!

We're moving. For real this time. Seriously.

We got out of the old new lease, with some compensation from the landlord for our trouble, which was good. Not as much as we wanted, and probably deserved, and probably could have gotten, but whatever. We got out, which is the most important thing.

And we signed a new lease yesterday. I couldn't post about it before then because I was so scared to jinx it. But we are moving on Saturday! As in, in three days! I've been packing like crazy for the last two days, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm ignoring the fact that finals are just a couple of weeks away. I don't have space in my brain for studying right now. And I only have two classes to study for, one of which is going to be pretty easy. So I'm focusing on getting our junk to the new place. And avoiding even reading for Admin.

The new place is a bit smaller (it's only a 2-bedroom) but it's also really nice - it's only about 3 years old (which means no lead!!). And there's a little area on our private (2nd floor) landing where we can put a desk, so that's going to work for an office I think. I don't have a picture of that though. The landlord is really nice - he seems really reasonable and nice, and he lives right downstairs (NOT in China). Yahoo!

OK here it goes. The exterior of the house (as seen from Google Maps). We're on the third floor:


Living room (with a gas fireplace!! Yipeee!):


Kitchen and a bit of the dining room (it's an open floor plan; the dining room is on the right of the picture - you can see the light fixture - and the living room is off to the left):


The front bedroom (our room). This door leads to the balcony at the front of the house, and the window to the right is slanted with the roof, but opens up like a dormer. It's hard to explain:


The view from the balcony. You can see Boston in the middle of the picture, just barely:


The back bedroom (Eden's room). Better picture of the "dormer" windows. The bottom half opens up to be vertical, and the top half opens up to be horizontal:


Bathroom. Notice the 6 foot jacuzzi tub. Yep, I am totally taking advantage of that ASAP. Finally a tub I can fit The Belly into, without what I call "Eden Island"! (Don't worry, I'll take a short and lukewarm bath):


Washer and Dryer!! Which we don't have to pay to operate!! On the third floor!! So exciting!!

Anyway, we'll still have plenty of space for visitors, so don't let the lack of a third bedroom deter you from paying us a visit. I'm sure come June you'll have all the reason you need, but think about that jacuzzi tub... :)

I have no idea what's going on

This whole apartment situation is about to make me scream. Out loud. Seriously.

We had just gotten everything settled on Option #3, getting back into our lease in our current apartment until May 31, canceling the U-Haul, etc. We were just waiting to hear from contractors about timing, and we were even starting to get optimistic, thinking maybe it wouldn't take so long after all. And, even if it did, it's ok - we can have the baby here and then move. No problem.

Then the landlord (LL) emailed me on Tuesday - basically saying they wanted out. It was going to cost them $30K to delead the place, and they most certainly won't be done by the end of May (I'm now questioning whether they will have it done by the end of June), and they don't have the cash to delead and be without rent for that whole time, so they wanted to cut out and give us $500 for our trouble. Seriously - $500. (The broker's fee on that place alone was over one and a half times that). So immediately (as in, right as I finished reading the email), we started looking at other apartments. Because, you know, we're going to need a place to live soon. Luckily, the market is pretty decent for renters at this time of year, so we found a place we really loved right away, and got a verbal agreement on it that night. It's a bit smaller, but it's much nicer, and it's in a much better location for us. The landlord seems super "with it" and reasonable, and he lives just downstairs. Plus it's brand new (which means no lead paint!!). Unfortunately it's also more expensive.

So, being the newly minted negotiator that I am, I emailed the LL back, telling them that while we understand they are in a difficult position, we also understand that the law is clear on this [what I didn't mention is that it's actually illegal in this state to refuse to rent to families with children under 6 because of lead...], and that we're in a tough spot here too. I added up the total cost of them breaking the lease (the difference in rent over the two-year term, the extra broker's fee, the utilities we've already started paying in the new place, the paint we purchased, etc) and then told them we would be willing to settle for significantly less than that - which was more than ten times what they offered. I told them that we can't afford to cancel the lease without that - reiterating that we are both students right now, and we're expecting a baby for goodness sake - and let them know we had a preliminary agreement with another apartment, so we needed an answer ASAP.

I didn't hear from them, so Wednesday I sent another email - please let us know ASAP, preferably in the next 12 hours (the new landlord wanted to finish up by Thursday). No word. Thursday (last night) I sent another email - this was more strongly worded. I said if I didn't hear from them by 8:00 am Friday our time I'd assume they were accepting our offer, and we'd go ahead under that assumption. Unsurprisingly that got their attention. I got an email this morning apologizing for taking so long - basically "we're both traveling on business and haven't been able to hook up to talk about it." OK, thanks for letting me know that when I told you it was pretty urgent.

In the meantime, we have a lease ready to sign at the new place - and we have to sign it or not on Monday evening. I kindly let the LL know that, and asked if they could at least tell us whether they were set on getting out of the lease. I said that way we could move forward on the new place and work out the details later. The response? LL said (as an indirect way to answer my question, I suppose) that they're still talking to contractors. And they're both traveling so it's going to be a couple of days until they can get back to us. There is no sense of urgency here. None at all. And all of my Type-A planning instincts (and my newly discovered maternal instincts to boot) are pretty angry about that.

GRRRRR!!!

At this point I have no idea what is going on. We could be stuck in this lease, we could be moving next weekend into a new apartment (that lease would start on 4/15), or we could be in limbo for who knows how long. Part of me (OK maybe most of me) wants to just give up on this LL and let them figure it out with new tenants - I'm sick of waiting around, being in this state of not knowing what the heck is happening. This LL is going to take FOREVER to get anything done on this apartment!! And the new apartment has definite pluses, in spite of the fact that it's a bit more expensive. What can we do here? I'm so frustrated!!

Sorry for the long, venting post. Usually this is not my style but Bryan is out of town for the weekend, Meg's in the hospital recovering from surgery, and I'm all alone right now in our half-packed apartment fuming about the whole situation. I just wish we could all get on the freaking phone and hash this out like grownups, rather than dancing around each other by email.

GRRRR!!!!

Finally!

Remember that 3L paper I didn't write over Christmas break like I wanted to but finished soon afterward? I just got the grade today. Almost 3 months later (the prof is on sabbatical and the registrar never received it though she turned it in long ago... she re-submitted it...).

I am so glad that's over. AND it was my best grade in law school. My first-ever unqualified vowel here. It feels good. But I'm not getting used to it - I'll be back to sadly qualified bumpy letters in no time, I assure you. :)

Another picture of Eden

As you know, we had an ultrasound on Monday, and of course we got more pictures of our precious baby girl! I just wanted to share one with you! We can't wait to see her in person!!