Swwwwimming!

Last night I went to the pool at Scott's work for the first time. It was fun, I got all giddy and excited being back in the humid, chlorinated arena. I was smiling a lot, and people probably thought I was a little crazy. Swimming has been very touch and go for me since quitting in college, it's always depressing bc I can't help but think how we used to swim 4000 yards a day, 5 days a week or whatever. And then I swim like 1500 and I'm like, I'm old. And then the depression comes. But anyway, I'm trying to approach it differently now, like not think about what I'm doing in respect to what I used to do? Maybe it's far enough in my past now it doesn't seem like a good comparison.

So last night, I swam for about 15 min until they had to clear the pool for thunder. (sigh) I know the drill, but c'mon!

But I got my butt back there today, and I must say that today, I kicked ass at swimming. I felt great. I took breaks when I needed to keep from overdoing it. But I nailed it. I also created kind of a fun and interesting workout which I'm going to post so I can do it again sometime:

Swimming workout 1
Total: 2150 yds
250 yd warm up
10 x 100 - broken (swim 75, rest 10 sec swim 25, rest 20.) Here's the crackhead part - I rotated btwn free, backstroke and breaststroke to keep it fun.
100 easy
300 kick (w/ a board)
6x 50 (with the first 25 sprint, and second 25 recovery.) I alternated back and free.
200 warm down

I can't believe it - but I swam for about an hour. I truly had a blast too.

Revolutionary Road, etc.

So, reading this summer hasn't been what I hoped it'd be. I hate how *life* gets in the way of reading, it's just not fair. Anyway, I am currently reading The Pillars of the Earth. If you've never seen this book in person, just envision 3 or 4 inches. Got that? Ok, that's what the spine width is. It's 936 pages. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome and I certainly couldn't deal with that many pages of a book I wasn't loving. But sometimes I just get so physically TIRED of holding it. And I wonder if it's too heavy to set on my stomach? And if I can skip the gym that day bc of the arm workout I'm getting while reading. And then I have to reread that page bc I am daydreaming.



But my GOAL is to finish that book up in the coming week, and then revisit Time Traveler's Wife. And then go cry my eyes out at the movie. I get SO excited when I see a preview, and Scott makes fun of me so much because whenever it is on TV, I make him stop talking and I drop everything and watch. I don't even do that when the TV show we're watching comes back on. I have seriously unrealistic expectations for this movie adaptation.

Now... Revolutionary Road (by Richard Yates). I finished this about a month ago and have so many mixed feelings I don't know where to start. First off... a lot of messed up and just generally ugly people in this book. BUT, that's life, right? Not everyone is worth hanging out with. That said, Frank and April Wheeler? No thanks, I would not spend any amount of time w/ them.

I will say, I think my new favorite time period is the late 50's and the 60's. I think it is a totally interesting time period with all of the changes going on in the country culturally. And the generation of folks that were raising kids at the time are even more interesting to me (hi Nanny, Nana and Pop-Pop!) And this is the reason this book (and Mad Men - Season Premiere on Aug 16 - AMC! Woohoo) interested me so much. It was such a convergence of changing times and traditional expectations. And I like the clothes and hairstyles. And it's funny how they smoked like...everywhere.

So the book. Right. I can't honestly recommend it to anyone, bc when you recommend something , someone will think of you if they hate it. And I think a lot of ppl might not like this book. It's not *pleasant* at all. It's a dark, dark book about a couple (Leo & Kate) who are kind of jerks to each other. They are conniving and mean to one another and unrealistic in their expectations. But again, to my original point, some ppl are like that. And there's no reason not to write a book about them. The book takes off when April pitches the idea of them dropping everything in their traditional suburban lives and moving to Paris as a family. Drama ensues.

I have the movie in my Netflix cue. Scott, I know you don't read the blog, but you probably will hate it. :)

The countdown is on!

We find out on August 12th if Baby McQ is a boy or a girl! I put a little poll in the sidebar - what do you all think? This is a really scientific method, I know.

If anyone has any old wives' tale questions in which the answers will determine your poll response, I'll probably answer them.

Oh, and PS: I'm not voting. :)

3 pictures + 3 stories

A Tale of Lots of Yardwork
This weekend we did lots of yardwork. We're both very sore. This is all of our yardwaste bags. Scott decided to declare war on the ivy... which, if you've seen our yard, is a pretty insane declaration. But he fought hard and is prepared to do so for many, many months to come. It's on, Ivy.


I'm wearing maternity pants, and I may never take them off. :) Special thanks to Kathleen, Megan and Heather for the donations/loaners. I'm pretty stylin'... and also very comfortable. A related thought: All pants could benefit from a stretchy panel. I'm serious. (This pic is a 15 week'er)



If you were wondering why there's cat hair in your Peaches...

We just learned Smarty loves peaches, like catnip style! I went to the Farmers' Market this weekend, a new hobby I think. And look at all the fabulous stuff I got! And Smarty was doing a little photo shoot for me, begging to have her pic taken.

My changing relationship with Running

The day before I found out I was pregnant, I ran ten miles the Philly Broad Street Run. And that's the most hardcore thing I've done "during my pregnancy." :) It has always been a goal of mine to remain active during pregnancy and though it's been hard, I've been able to maintain some level of fitness. Not *nearly* what it used to be, but that's pretty much what they tell you to do.


Running while pregnant seems to be a vastly misunderstood thing. It's okay, and I'm going to do it for as long as I want to and feel good doing it. I realize that at some point the belly will interfere, and I'm down w/ that. But for now I'm still enjoying it, just in a very different way. For instance, last night I ran 2 miles at an average pace of 11:30. It has taken me a few weeks to come to terms w/ these numbers. I kind of had to abandon the way I used to think of the numbers - constantly wanting to get a good pace or go farther - and think of them as merely a gauge that I am putting forth the correct amount of effort and hitting a time threshhold (run for 30 minutes) rather than distance threshhold. It's different. In some ways, it's not as fun, but in others, it's a lot less pressure. I'm just going for a leisurely run with my child. :) The new challenge is getting myself out there!


I've been going to the gym at work too, which is good because, let's be honest, it's hot as crap outside in July here. I've been doing more on the treadmill than I typically like over the past few weeks, but it is helpful because it keeps me at a respectable and advieable pace without requiring much monitoring on my part. And it's climate controlled! I've been doing *some* lifting, but that's not my favorite. But the upside is of all the geeky nerds that work here, very few workout. ;)

I'm going to transition to using the gym at Scott's work in the coming weeks. They have a POOL! I'm kind of excited to start swimming again. Should be fun and it's a highly recommended way for pregnant women to work out.

Back with a Big Post

Well, I've certainly been a bad blogger, haven't I?

here's my excuse:

Hopefully you'll cut me some slack!

Here's some info to get you from A to B. A being "WHAT? Jamie updated her blog, I'm so mad she didn't write for so long." to "Wait, what? She's growing a human?"

Being that I'm getting a bunch of good experience as a technical writer this summer, how about some FAQ's (even though I don't see any FAQ's on IBM's website, so I can assume that it isn't quite a cutting edge technology in tech comm...)?

You're Pregnant?

Yes. Yes I am. And I'm excited too.

What did Scott say?

I think the direct quote from when I got back into bed after peeing on the stick was something like "oooh, good."

When are you due?

I'm due January 8th, 2010. Of course we'd love the tax deduction in 2009, but it'd also be great to get it in '10. That's pretty much the main reason we're doing this. Woohoo, money!

How are you feeling?

Ah, this is popular. While I understand and appreciate the sentiment, I never quite know how to answer it. When I say "Pretty good" or "Okay" I can feel Scott cringe. Some days, I felt like absolute crap, and am not ashamed to say I dug up some of the plastic bags from last year in my pre-reusable bag days as a just-in-case bag for the car ride into work. Yeah. Mornings weren't the best, I'm not going to lie. But it's now the second trimester and everything I've heard about it is true, most the energy returning and nausea vanishing. So, rather than focus on how iffy life was the past two months, let's focus on how excited I am now. And how I can eat fruit and drink water again!!!

Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Will you find out?

Oh heck yes we'll find out! This is one thing we didn't even really discuss, we're both pretty sold on it. We should be able to find out mid-August. I don't have a huge inclination one way or another at this point. I really hope it's a girl ...or a boy. That's all I really want.

So that's the skinny. With the combination of the end of the 1st tri, the coming and going of Ashley's wedding and just a random TOTAL slowdown of weekend events, I hope to dust off the blog and ... you know... blog on it. Our schedule was pretty insane in May and June, but it's minorly hilarious how there's next to nothing planned for most of July & August. I'm really pretty excited about that, quite honestly!