One month!!

Ahhh!!  How is it possible that I have (theoretically) one month left of pregnancy??  My due date is 3/31, not that I expect this guy to arrive on that day, of course.  I guess he could come early if he follows the example of my brother and me.  But my guess is that he's going to be late, simply because he's been measuring a bit small since the very beginning, so I suspect he might want to cook a bit longer.  :)

This past weekend was my baby shower, and it was fantastic!!  I am so thankful for my wonderful family and friends.  I am very lucky and blessed to know these women.  As I suspected, the attendees were by and large my fabulous Gamma Phi sisters, who mean the world to me.

To coordinate with the panda nursery (which should be photo-ready very soon!!) the shower had a panda theme.  I had so much fun!  I only wish that I were more photogenic, hehe.  

Yay, another panda for the collection!  Hehe.  The cake tasted even better than it looked, if that's possible.

One of the few pics of me opening gifts when I don't have a terribly awkward expression on my face.  :)

Preparing to stab the cake!

Gamma Phi Beta <3

Thank you so much to everyone who attended the shower, and to everyone who sent a gift.  Baby Jonathan will be very well cared for, cozy and comfy, whenever he does decide to make his grand appearance.  

Construction project

The hubster and I are DIYers somewhat by default.  Neither of us has the skill/patience/knowledge to do major work on our house ourselves.  But we are very fortunate that my dad and my uncle have a lot of experience building houses and doing major renovation work on existing structures.  A couple years ago we started work on our unfinished basement.  So far we've only done one room, a study, but hope to eventually finish the rest of it, with a full bathroom, family room, exercise room, storage room and laundry room.

We also built a large shed outdoors when we first moved here, since there is no garage and we needed some place to put tools and equipment.

Our current project is ripping up all the existing carpet in our house and installing new laminate floors.  (Five years and two or three dogs at any time can really do a number on carpets!)  At first we had considered refinishing the hardwood underneath, but we found it to be in much worse condition than we had hoped, and installing new floors was going to be both more cost-efficient and more aesthetically pleasing.  Thus, the new floors.

Over the past couple days the men-folk have finished the hallway and the nursery, with the exception of the floor trim pieces that will be cut and installed tomorrow.  Then we'll move all the nursery furniture back, move out the furniture from our spare bedroom, rip up the carpet in that room, and start again.  :)  I'm absolutely loving the new floors!!!  I'm so thankful to have family with the kind of skills that make things like this possible on a budget.  Can't wait to see the finished product.  :)  In the mean time, here are some pics in progress.

New floor compared to the underlying hardwood.  The existing hardwood has a lot of surface damage, as well as being warped in some places, so it looks like some of the pieces would actually have to be replaced.  Not good, and definitely not cheap.

Old carpet, old hardwood underneath the carpet, and the new floors.  I think the new floors are a pretty nice improvement!

Embrace the Gray

In light of the debate surrounding the whole Komen/Planned Parenthood thing, I was "inspired" to read the Donum Vitae, to get a better feel for the full extent of the pro-life argument.  According to this text, I violated the rights and physical integrity of my baby who is due in 8 weeks, by virtue of the fact that he exists.  The fact that he exists is something for which the law should provide legal sanctions against me.  The Donum Vitae further states that my state's civil legislature should ensure that the morally illicit act that was the creation of this baby is prohibited by law.  In other words, not only should abortion be illegal, but so should IVF.  And if IVF were illegal, I would not be almost 32 weeks pregnant.

The Donum Vitae is a text that was written by Pope Benedict XVI in 1987 when he was a Cardinal.  A more recent text, the Dignitas Personae, was written in 2008, and affirms the statements found within the Donum Vitae.  According to the Dignitas Personae, the medical procedure that is required for my husband and I to ever have a biological child of our own is "intrinsically illicit."

This is what I mean when I talk about gray area.  The world is not black and white.  It is gray.  Just because I have a huge issue with the Donum Vitae, doesn't mean that I hold it against my friends who are Catholic and who believe in the teachings of the current Pope.  He may think that I have done something morally illicit by becoming pregnant in this manner, but that doesn't mean I think he's a bad person or everything else that he says or does is wrong.  Nor do I think that everyone who supports the Catholic church is bad, solely because their moral code may be different than mine.  But, theoretically, every single person who has ever tithed to the Catholic church has supported the notion that I should not be pregnant right now.

If I followed the Komen Foundation's lead, I would have to ignore all of the good things that the Catholic church does, and only focus on the fact that the current Pope, and thereby the church itself, thinks that my soon-to-be child should not exist.  I would not be able to be friends with anyone who supports the Catholic church financially.

But I believe that life is gray.  I believe that the world is gray.  I am thankful that it is gray, because a black and white world would be a very uncomfortable world to live in.

Embrace the gray.

(For anyone interested in the Donum Vitae, you can find it here.  The Dignitas Personae can be found here.)