I have finally been feeling lately that the “acceptance” stage of grief might be cautiously starting to seep into my life. The terrible month of June, and the 5 years that proceeded it, still haunt me sometimes. In the early morning, I must force myself to get out of bed, or else the half-sleep will bring with it fearful dreams and anxiety. I still feel a ball of hurt and anger well up sometimes, but it’s not every day, sometimes not even every week. My thoughtful, caring counselors have been a tremendous source of support and continue to help me through this unavoidable process. My husband has mostly been open and vulnerable, supportive and remorseful. And now I even have a midwife who I can feel comfortable with, who wrote me a thank you card this week and told me what an honor it was to listen to the baby’s heartbeat with me. Made my day.

Others have truly loved me through the road to healing, and sometimes I just shake my head in disbelief at how remarkable it has all played out. Though I still can’t say I’m grateful for all the “bad” that happened, I can at least say that life today is 1,000 times better than life before June. I wouldn’t trade a second of grieving for the chaotic, fearful, resentful years that proceeded it. It was certainly a necessary pain.

While the future is more unknown than ever before, I can feel myself slowly relinquishing the need to know (because, truly, there are no guarantees anyway, no matter how carefully you plan or how hard you wish). And what’s more, I can see myself one day actually believing that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.

So maybe it’s just the peace that comes from a completely unhurried Saturday, or the intoxicating comfort smells of crock pot beef stew and baking pumpkin bread, or the fresh new face we’ll soon see in the White House (ahem-obama-ahem) — but gee whiz, and dare I say it, things seem to be lookin’ up

I had been wanting to try adding a little canned pumpkin to my pancakes and today was the perfect Fall morning to do so! I just did a bit less water to the mix, added about 2-3 tbs of canned pumpkin, a bit of brown sugar and a pinch of cloves/nutmeg/cinnamon. Lil’ E helped mix in ingredients and stir, and then we cooked on the pan (adding chocolate chips of course!) and proceeded to cookie cut them into hearts. Drip a bit of honey over top and wa-la!

Wondering what to do with the 3/4 can of pumpkin I have left – any one got recipes???

I stumbled on these old photos today and thought it would be fun to share –

This is how big I was when I went into labor with Lil’ E:

And this is what it looks like to have a pitocin induced labor/birth without pain meds:

So now for the update:

Yesterday I got to interview my midwife at Alma Midwifery here in Portland. It was such a great experience, as she spent an hour with me (for free), listening and addressing so many of my varied concerns. She even let me listen to the heartbeat, which I wasn’t expecting – it was SO weird. I guess the pregnancy isn’t “real” for me yet. I am due April 18th and am currently about 14 weeks. Being the second time around, I am feeling things a little earlier, so I’m sure I’ll feel some movement in the next few weeks. It’s easy to feel out where the womb is (I even got dehydrated on Monday and had unmistakable braxton-hicks contractions because of it!)

I did a little “birth art”/self-portrait for my counseling assignment tonight, so I’ll end with that picture and let you commiserate on what it all means

So today on the news I saw a thing about this website, Mint.com, that allows you to track all of your accounts and investments, for free. So I signed up, synced our accounts, and put in our budget, and already it is analyzing our spending and sending alerts when we go over a budget line item (via email). What’s great is that you sync investments, student loans, credit card accounts, all in one place – and really quickly because you just select the account and use your login info for that account to bring in the information to Mint. When your checking transactions update, you just select the budget category it falls into (though usually it guesses them, like it knows Hollywood Video is “movies and dvd’s” or Starbucks is “Coffee Shops”).

It’s really embarrassing to never have money for things we most want, (or to pay a bill!), only to log onto my Mint account and see an alert that tells you how much you spent at coffee shops this month! I’ve signed up for a few things like it, such as Quickbooks Online or Microsoft Money software, but I didn’t find either of them as user friendly (or free!).

When we first got married, I had to keep every receipt and try to analyze all of this on my own, making little pie charts in excel, lol! It kept us within our budget but I so don’t have that kind of time anymore. Now I can use Mint to keep track of our transactions and can easily see that indeed we do end up spending too much on stuff, like convenience food.

In tough economic times, a tool like this is a busy mom’s dream come true. (And I swear this is no sales pitch- just my unprompted endorsement!)

This is what happens to your dining table when you get a great deal on apples at the annual Portland Nursery Apple Tasting and then forget to skip your weekly produce bin delivery (and we’ve eaten and given away at least 15 apples prior to this picture)…

The apple tasting was a lot of fun; we loved the live cuban band, Cana Son, and Lil’ E enjoyed painting his pumpkin.

Highlight? Splitting a pulled pork sandwich with apple chutney w/ Hubby for $3. Family fun: priceless.

Check out the videos and picks:

The apple tasting happens again next weekend, so head over to take part in the goodies and family fun!