kind of on vacation

Kind of on vacation being pretty much the status of my life right now. It's pretty amazing, actually. Last month was all about winding down and also endless work on the raspberries (which paid our rent, so that was good). My right hand started totes falling asleep and refusing to wake up a lot of the time due to excessive pruner wielding, but it is much better now, thank you. Everything is almost wound up for winter, and we've even had a couple of snowfalls already, which has been pretty cool. Maybe more so for Devo than for me, being as he was raised on a snow-free island and basically has a spazz attack of joy when any kind of real winter weather rears its head.

Our landlords have been away lots, so I've been getting out the door first thing to feed the chickens, sheep, and their dog, and let 'em all out. Afternoon is collecting, washing, and weighing eggs, and evening is one last feeding for everyone and making sure they're shut up in their various barns, coops, and houses for the night. It's been relaxing and purposeful, which is a good combo. Nice to not have anyone around for a change as well ... all the guests and other folks around were great, but this is doubleplus restful, which I think we both needed.

Other than that, Devin is doing some work in a friend's greenhouse for a couple of weeks and looking to wrangle up a full time job for the winter, we've been hanging out with pals some, I've been painting the house, going for tons of walks with the dogs, doing lots of pregnancy yoga, and I started doing some online work towards the provincial instructor diploma I'm getting, which will allow me to teach post secondary and be a good expansion for the whole woodworking thang.

The future human baby is healthy and doing well. Had my second trimester ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, and it's looking good, and slightly like a human instead of a weird blob, so that's progress. I'm exactly halfway through the pregnancy (!) and getting a lot more obviously pregnant looking. It's cool to be able to feel the baby move and feel like it's more a for reals thing. I have all my energy back as well, which is incredible. It was driving me absolutely crazy not being able to do much and having this weird body which didn't look or feel like it used, but also didn't look or feel legitimately pregnant. One thing that's been really weird/interesting is noticing how gendered the work Devin and I do has become all of a sudden. It used to be pretty equal ... for every girl task I was better at (cooking) there was one he was better at (sewing), and we both did a lot of building things, growing things, and labour-y stuff. With my current delicate condition, I end up doing an awful lot more traditionally female work (cooking, doing stuff around the house, nurturing animals rather than doing more labour-y jobs) because I can't physically do the lifting and other stuff, and I don't wanna just sit around. I've finally wrapped my head around the fact that I just can't do what I used to for awhile, and am fine with that and with the temporary adjustment of responsiblities, but it's been really interesting to notice how we've dropped into normy-norms gender roles because of actual physical necessity, not because of any deep desire to be a real ladylike lady or totes toughass dude. Funny.

So maybe not too much actual for reals news, but I'm feeling incredibly happy and content and chilled out. Life is damn fine, actually. But people should still send me mail, because then things would be even finer.