The lyf so short

This applies until further notice.
Found via tuxedo_elf.


I guess it's sort of amusing in hindsight, when you consider that about halfway through this pregnancy the gyn was worried that Offspring might come out too early, having gotten himself into the starting position already. And my mother-in-law has been saying "I bet he comes earlier" for about five weeks now. (Jörg was born five weeks premature, so I guess that's where she got that idea...)

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Was at the hospital for yet another CTG. (Just so the insurance companies have to pay for these things, German maternity protection "highly recommends" that you should go and have these check-ups done every second day after your due date. As the gynaecologist only works Monday-Friday, that means weekend appointments at the hospital.) This time it was particularly unspectacular except for that one moment when Offspring apparently worked himself up to such excitement that he set off the CTG machine's alarms with his heartrate... but only very irregular contractions, and only few of the stronger sort. Portio still closed, too. And the bloody midwife at the hospital was rather ungentle while trying to find that out! I get that you have short fingers, woman, but you don't have to ram them up my tender nether regions to make up for the lack of length with momentum! :(


After checking with the doctor, she told us that if Offspring didn't decide to come out by Thursday night, I was to come to be induced on Friday. ("Early. As early as 8 am.") No particular reason. Which translates to: Dear patient, we want to be done before the weekend, so could you please be there on Friday morning, kthx.
Yeeeeah. Unless anything the gyn finds during the next check-ups (every other day :P) indicates a need to get the kid out of there quickly, I won't be doing them that favour. Because this time I am their meal ticket, so they can damn well wait till my body and my kid decide they're ready, whether that's at some convenient time or Saturday night at 11 pm! I mean, I do understand needing to "encourage" the child to come out if there's a problem with the placenta or umbilical cord, or not enough amniotic fluid, or if it's getting too big, or some other trouble. As long as none of that is given, however, let's let nature have its course, shall we? *grumble*

We've been waiting for rain all through the past two weeks. The garden needed it; I couldn't even weed because the earth was baked so hard (our soil is very loamy) and I refuse to waste drinking water on soaking earth for weeding; and the rest of the environment kind of needed it too. The weather forecast has been promising rain for every day ever since last Sunday.

It's been pretty cold for a week, though not as cold as up in the north, where they actually had frost. In June. (Cold (though usually not frost) in mid-June is, before anyone panics and cries ZOMG GLOBAL WARMING/ FIMBULWINTER/ WE HAVE KILLED THE PLANET/ THE WORLD IS GOING TO END yet again, a natural phenomenon that has been observed ever since they started writing the weather down, even though it surprises people again and again - but then people also act surprised when there's like, winter in November. Or winter in March. But I digress).
So: Cold. But dry. No rain.

Now this weekend we'd planned to continue the pigsty renovation. We've made some good headway - the Eastern wall is dug out completely, and it has been smoothed and repaired and even partially been covered with tar. I made a pit in the corner for the pump pipe (in case it rains too much for the normal drainage system that we're also building just now, we can put an immersion pump into the pump pipe to get the surplus water out), which was a major pain in the rear end and various other body parts, because of course the rock in the corners is not slate like most of the rest but Blaustein (which is not the same as bluestone and I couldn't find the English name of the bloody rock - EDIT: grey limestone, thanks, cowboy_r). Grey limestone is less yielding than slate.
A lot less yielding.
And in a ditch corner you cannot use a pickaxe. Unless of course you want the whole wall to come tumbling down, which I assure you you don't, especially when you're standing where said wall would land. It was also a Sunday, so we couldn't use a jackhammer (because, loud machinery = unhappy neighbours or stupid hikers that call the police on you because you are being noisy on a Sunday).
So instead I chopped at the lovely grey limestone with hammer and chisel.
(Next person to say something about "Waaah, Nerdanel was a MUCH STRONGER WOMAN CHARACTER before CRJT went and made her ONLY a sculptress!" in my hearing - because apparently sculpting is totally stereotypically soft and womanly, oh yes - will have me chisel their eye out throw great amounts of grey limestone at them. I can haz muscles of steel from chopping at grey limestone. And grey limestone is nowhere near as hard to work as marble. Just sayin'. But I digress again.)

ANYWAY, what I was meaning to say, in the past weeks we've made so much headway that we finally ordered the gravel to fill up the ditch on the Eastern side. 20 tons of gravel. That'll be dropped in our yard on Tuesday. And all we needed to do this weekend was prepare the Southern wall as far as possible: digging, cleaning, plasterwork---
Guess what happened?
Did I hear "it rained"? That's right! It rained! Mightily, too! Repeatedly! Both on Saturday and on Sunday! Guess what you can't do when it's raining? That's right, digging, cleaning, plasterwork...

So, virtually no work done. But we'll have 20 tons of gravel on Tuesday. In the middle of our yard.
To make things better, the tenant has finally told us when he's going to move, and of course it's the coming 2-4 weekend. He has been told that he should let us know well in advance - because there'd be the whole gravel thing at some point, and you cannot drive a moving van into our yard when there's 20 tons of gravel lying around. FOUR DAYS isn't well in advance. Especially on a Saturday evening when you can no longer call the gravel pit and tell them to wait another week after all.

There was some housework done instead, and we sawed some part of the wood that cluttered up our shed. We probably have firewood for the next five years now. Which, energy crisis and all, is not so bad. Jörg finally installed the exhaust hood for the kitchen (he's been meaning to do this for two years now), we did some preliminary spring-cleaning and sorted through some stuff.
And of course we voted in the European election (ZOMG HOW EXCITING >_>).

Still feeling kinda unproductive.

On the plus side, we were invited to a brunch by fuchs, kaneda and eliathanis, which was veeery delicious (including such perverted delights as tomatoes pickled in fennel and aniseed), so thank you folks a lot, that saved the day! :)

Good grief, only two and a half weeks left. Aaaaaah!

I got the first Christmas cards today - thank you so much, nimielle and etoilepb!
(I did not yet dare to check whether there really is a cocoa bag in there, nimielle. There is, isn't there? :D)

Speaking of cards (and this goes to all of you): If you'd like one from me and haven't signed up yet, here's where you can do so. As stated there, please let me know your holiday of choice if it's not Christmas, because I'll gladly wish you a happy Whatever It Is You Celebrate At The End Of The Year but I fail at keeping track of just what people celebrate. Sorry!

Do NOT leave your address in the comments to this here post, please, because unlike in the linked post, comments here are NOT screened.

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In other news, I had a kind of minor lumbago* yesterday (while on the toilet, too, which is a great place to temporarily think that you won't be able to move, like, ever again). I AM TOO YOUNG FOR THAT SHIT. I mean, a lumbago at 25? If I had no back muscles at all, perhaps, but I'm not that out of shape!
By now the unbearable jabbing sensation whenever I move has kind of given way to a constant annoying but bearable pain, so I can walk around and do stuff as long as I don't exaggerate. This is the "minor" part.

Also have a majorly sore throat and suspect it may actually have been the violent coughing that caused the bloody lumbago in the first place. It certainly caused the strained ribs. (Strained ribs from coughing, wtf.)
Why is this happening? I feel so betrayed. I am the woman of the notoriously iron health. I DO NOT DO SERIOUS ILLNESS. Let's remember that, body, ok?

Have a presentation to do tomorrow. Hoh joy.

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*The German term, "Hexenschuss" or "Albschuss" is way more fun. It means "witch's shot" or "elf shot" because apparently in the olden days people thought the pain came from some kind of invisible arrow (which is precisely what it feels like, so there). BLOODY ELVES.² I didn't think my fanfiction was that bad.

²Actually in that book on Anglo-Saxon Magic that I copied in the university library there was a ritual against elf-shot, so the English apparently used the same term until they started stealing words from the Latin.