Ode to a Clothesline

Well, hello world! Here I am typing away for what somehow feels like the first "real" time in my new house. The office where I will be rattling off my posts is a real place with our big desk all moved in and the computery types all humming away with their cords sashaying in writhing company behind them. The room has a door to shut when A works from home and there is even a closet where we can hide papers and electric bits we don't want the children to find! We will someday have a little loveseat here so that A and I can snuggle while we watch Instant Netflix movies at night after we put the kids down and we are also searching for a swank metal filing system to hold all our important papery bits but for now its the desk, the chair I'm sitting on and a lot of dreams. But, it will be a fine place to write...dreamy places are the best for writing.

I never really meant to go on about the office. It just happened. What I really meant to tell you all about was my new clothesline!!!! YAY!!!!!

Four cheers for A who got all handy this weekend and cleaned a gutter, mowed the lawn and hung my clothesline for me. I am so very happy, and wow did he please me when he did all that stuff for me. I would have been forever doing them myself.

It is deluxe to have my own line for hanging out clothes in the summer when there is still the occasional hot breeze and loads of sunshine to freshen all the baby things I'm planning to pin up. I think I looked out the window about five times an hour today just to make sure my first load of wash was indeed still out there flapping, picturesquely in the wind. Twenty shades of fabulous. Nothing less.

Now I need to make or buy at an estate sale a pretty old peg bag for my clothespins....and uh...buy more because I didn't get enough to do a whole line of clothes. Heh.

One of the most exciting things about buying an old house is all the little quirky bits you discover as you live in the home. I have to admit this is also one of the "too exciting" bits occasionally. In our dear house for example, the dryer is not vented to the outdoors, it just blows directly into the basement which means: 

1. The basement is often the hottest part of the house.

2. There are wads of lint coating the wall behind the dryer and all the floor and floating about waiting to leap into our lungs! Yay!

3.The basement is extremely humid...not good for basements anyhow as they tend to get moldy but especially bad if you're trying to dry your clothes. They never get dry.

Did I mention that I love my new clothesline?

A Typical Homebirth Midwife Appointment

Today a photo-journalism style post covering our latest midwife visit. We homebirth, (at least we aim at homebirths) and so these our photos of my regular appointments with our assistant midwife at the office where they see all their clients. The 35 week visit will be in our home to go over supply checklists, make sure the midwives know how to get to our home smoothly and touch base about all the mechanics of how we will lay out the birthing care in our particular home space. But, for now, its simple blood pressure checking, baby feeling and heartbeat listening as well as a lot of chatty conversation about pregnancy, birth, babies and the female body.

Blood pressure...looked just great! (Ru squeezed the bulb for the midwife)

Boys looking on

Pull away shot of the whole lovely "clinic" room where

our practice sees all clients. So pretty and warm and open. 

(small bathroom and waiting room just out of the frame

to the right)

Up the shirt and down the skirt to find the belly under it all

Midwife, feeling the baby...nice size, good reactive movement, and yes, head down!

 

Listening to that heartbeat, clear and strong

Ru, playing cars at our feet.

This is the sort of thing the boys do during most of the appointment

The midwives have the best toys!

I listen to Baby, very clear and strong.

Ru has a go...

....and Dee too...getting tips from the midwife about what he's supposed to be hearing, "Bum bum bum!"

And finally the Daddy/photographer takes a break to listen to his youngest child drum away.

Good times. So, that's what happens at a typical midwife appointment. Minus the part where we sit at the desk together and chat and laugh which isn't nearly so interesting in photos. Thanks for coming along!