We were born and raised in a summer haze

*More accurately, breastfeeding was hard for me. But I found some comfort googling "breastfeeding is hard" & reading the results before dawn during that first month or two, and now maybe someone else will too.

Like labor and delivery, breastfeeding is one of those skills that you can't practice ahead of time. The classes and books and websites make it sound fairly straightforward, like if you take all the right steps you'll automatically have success. Sure, the process is simple and natural. That doesn't mean it's easy, and it certainly wasn't for me.

( Fun milk info! Plus baby photos! )
Good luck!

Confession: I am a recovering packrat. In elementary school my parents went to Parent Teacher Night and found my desk stuffed with acorns and rocks. Around the same age I cried when we left the beach without a big stick I’d been playing with. I’ve always had a bad habit of keeping things I might use someday, just in case. Even now I have to make Carlos throw out my holey socks because I feel bad for them, since they served their roles honorably and admirably but are being rewarded by going to the dump.

Despite all of that history, over the past few years I’ve become a wannabe and in-progress minimalist. Here’s how I did it.

( Why, How, etc )

Problem Areas
I still have a ways to go, especially in these areas:
- Oh Baby. Having a baby means the future is even more unpredictable than before and thus we need more items than usual to cover multiple contingencies. My changing size and shape means I need to have a range of sizes for regular clothes, undergarments, and even shoes! I have no idea what size or shape I will be after the baby so it’s hard to know when I’ve definitively grown out of something. Then there’s the baby’s stuff! Even though we’re trying to be minimalists there too, the baby will get everything dirty quickly so we need a lot of clothes/linens. Plus we have no idea how big it will be when so we’re starting out with a range of clothes in an attempt to cover all our bases (and the baby’s ass). We've been able to fit almost all the baby stuff in its room, but the stuff that used to be in there has to go somewhere, which means uncluttering an entire room’s worth of stuff from the house in total.
- Sentimental/Family Things. I still hold on to more than I probably should here, but I’m working on it. I am slowly internalizing Peter Walsh’s idea that objects themselves don’t hold memories. Memories stay in my head whether I keep the object or not. I’m not opposed to all sentimental things - the pearl ring that my grandfather gave Gram for her 40th birthday and she gave to me when I was younger with a note to remember her when I wear it is staying forever. But I could probably get rid of my dad’s super 80s sweatshirt even though it reminds me of being a kid. And I might not need to keep the tickets from every movie Carlos and I saw together in high school.
- Beautiful-Or-Geeky-Yet-Useless Things. I have lots of pretty things that don’t do much besides look pretty while collecting dust. Some pretty things I have don’t even get displayed! In this area my focus has been on non-attachment, telling myself it’s enough to appreciate and admire lovely things without needing to possess them. I also want basically every awesome nerd thing I see on the internet (UNICORN HOODIE PLEASE BE MINE). I keep trying to tell myself that my inherent nerdiness is quite obvious and doesn’t need to be proved with objects. Except I might be able to justify a TARDIS beach towel...
- Text. This post is ironically long for being about minimalism.

We still have a lot of stuff to get rid of, but I’m really proud of how much we’ve done and I’m excited to get rid of more!

Yes, since we have been married for more than 2 seconds, we are having a baby as is legally and socially required! (That last part is sarcasm. A lot of sarcasm. Almost an infinite amount of sarcasm.)

TL;DR version: I am almost halfway through and due on November 29. We aren’t sure if we want to find out ahead of time if it’s a boy or a girl. We are excited and I am also a bit scared!




From back around 11 weeks

( Details below, hopefully nothing gross! )

If you have any suggestions for things to buy, let me know. I don’t see any point to repeating other people’s research so I’m mostly going to steal all my friends’ ideas/decisions. And if you have non-scary/non-gross stories to share about having kids I’d love to hear them! (Note: all birth stories are scary to me so far, sorry.)

This is incredibly late! Unfortunately, my mom spent the first two weeks of March in the hospital with an intestinal infection. I spent a lot of those two weeks going back and forth to the hospital, plus I stayed over a few nights. That has really messed March up and pushed back this post. Here’s the February report - March is going to be such a failure it may not be worth posting.
( Uncluttering and photography were good, everything else was not so great )

A friend of mine told me she does birthday resolutions instead of New Year’s resolutions, and I loved the idea so I’m stealing it (my birthday was at the beginning of the month).  I also feel like have all these boxes to check off before the completely arbitrary deadline of turning 30 next year OMG.  I think my resolutions in the past have been a little vague so I’m trying to make these easier to follow and track (kind of like 6 Changes, which didn’t go so well).

Age 29 Resolutions
1. Go to bed by 11PM every day.
2. Exercise/physical activity every day.
3. Spend time outside at least once a week.
4. Bird at least twice a month.
5. Blog at least once a month (this includes reading friends’ blogs and catching up on comments).
6. Unclutter at least one day a month.
7. Learn or practice a new photography-related concept or skill every month.
8. Learn Portuguese.
9. Make money at photography.
10. Set up wills already.

So how am I doing for November so far?

1. Not so hot, really.
2. Also not good but I will change!!
3. I’m surprised to recall that I spent several hours outside every weekend this month.  Awesome!
4. Hawk Mountain was once, so I better bird at the Cottage this weekend. ← Quantifiable goals in action! Instead of resolving “I should bird more” and then every weekend saying “I’ll do it next weekend,” now I see that I haven’t met my numerical goal so I better step it up.
5. This is the second post this month!
6. I can’t remember if I’ve uncluttered this month specifically but in the past few I’ve done a lot.  I’ve gotten good at identifying things I don’t want or need, but the problem seems to lie in actually getting this stuff out of the house.
7. Not done.  I guess I could try some HDR stuff at the Cottage?
8. Ugh ok.  Portuguese is HARD.  None of the letters are pronounced the way you expect.  For some sounds I have to consciously think “Ok put your tongue there and your teeth there and don’t do that with your lips” etc etc.  Half of the syllables aren’t even pronounced.  Carlos taught me a few obscenities but he laughs at my accent.  Too bad it’s time to suck it up!  I have Rosetta Stone and I make Carlos talk to me only in Portuguese so it’s an immersion program.  PLUS my new LOTR Blu-rays have a Portuguese audio track - since I have those movies memorized, I won’t even need a translator!
9. Hah no. This is like a mondo beyondo goal- something I really don’t believe I can do but will push myself toward anyway.  Obviously this goal is a little vague but I’ll work out some steps to reach this.  Maybe my November goal could be to come up with the steps to do this?
10. Really needs to be done to prevent custody battles over our sweet Loki - I’m sure everyone would want him if we both died!

I’ll do a status post in a few months and we’ll see how this goes.  You can yell at me if I fail!

One of the most important parts of our wedding (to me) was having pictures to remember it by. So I spent a decent amount of time looking online for a wedding photographer.  I found so many websites that I wished I could fix, but since I can't, I'm making this list instead! Obviously these are just the opinions of one customer, but I am sure other people will back me up on some of them.

Also, this is all assuming you already have a website for your wedding photography business. If you don't, I don't know how you are getting work! Get on the internet!!

1. Go easy on the Flash. Yes, OK, me having an iPhone is my problem, not yours.  But even on my real computer, elaborate transitions between pictures can get really annoying.  If I am trying to run through 100 pictures in an album and it takes 5 seconds just to go from one picture to the next, I am going to get tired and stop.  And in your galleries, don't make me hunt around for the "Next" button by hiding it until I mouse over some magical spot.

2. For the love of God, no auto-playing music! This wasn't cool on Myspace in 2004 and it isn't cool now.  Think of your poor customer!  Maybe I'm watching Doctor Who while I look for a photographer and now there's jazz coming from the TARDIS and it's confusing.  Maybe my cat is on my lap and when I open your page he's startled by the music and runs away and now I'm bleeding.  If you really think your photos need musical enhancement to get the right emotional reaction, have optional music that the viewer can turn on.  Then see how often it actually gets turned on.

3. If you're cagey about your pricing, I assume I can't afford you.  This may be your goal.  If not, at least give me a base price.

4. Need input!  I am nervous about screwing up this important aspect of my wedding.  I will be reassured if you tell me about your experience, why you are a wedding photographer, and what the process will involve.  Answer some FAQs or walk me through an example wedding day from your perspective.  This may just be me, but I like photographers' blogs because I get a sense of them as a person.  I see their photographic skills in non-wedding situations, how actively they are out taking pictures, and if they share articles or tips that show they know what they're doing.

5. This is your resume. No typos, no grammar errors.

The photographer I went with (Edward Underwood) had a very non-annoying website.  Of course I picked him because I liked his pictures, but the website was a plus!

Part 1 (Arrival and Arenal) is here and Part 2 (Monteverde) is here.  More pictures (and fewer words) from this part of the trip are on Picasa here.

Friday, April 9, 2010
Once again we had a long drive, but this time it at least half of it was paved and not so winding.  Our GPS had a tour guide function that told us about things we drove past.  As we drove over the Rio Tarcoles we noticed lots of cars parked by the bridge.  I figured people were fishing but then the GPS told us that everyone had stopped to look at crocodiles!  Of course we pulled over & checked them out ourselves.  Several of them were really, really big.


Birds on the drive: *Wood Stork, *Northern Jacana

( Click for the SCARLET MACAW ADVENTURE, beaches, and evil monkeys! )

Final Thoughts
- I ended up with 90 lifers!
- I should have learned some Spanish before the trip.  Although many people there speak some English, it would have been helpful.  Carlos tried to get by with Portuguese but there are many words that just aren't the same.
- Driving was OK because Carlos drove and he's used to driving in Portugal.  The roads were potentially very dangerous, though.
- Monteverde was my favorite place, and the only place I think I could live in Costa Rica (everywhere else was way too hot).
- This trip rewired the birding circuits in my brain.  For a week or two after I got home, my heart fluttered every time I saw a bird fly by, thinking it was a potential lifer.  I saw Cardinals and Mourning Doves and our other common birds in a new light - they are pretty enough to be jungle birds.  The trip also reminded me how fun it is to see lifers, so I am searching for them more at home now.
- I wish I had a week at each location instead of a week total.  I wish I had seen a tiger heron and a motmot and a tapir.  I wish I'd gone on a mangrove tour.  I can't wait to go back someday.

Back in April, Carlos and I went to Costa Rica for a week.  We hadn't been on a vacation alone together in years, basically since we bought the house (mortgage = no travelin' money).  Carlos wanted to go somewhere as a Christmas present to me.  Costa Rica had been on my list of places to go for a long time, mainly for the birds, so that's what we went with!  We tried to hit the most famous parts of the country, staying a few days each in Arenal, Monteverde, and Manuel Antonio.  It was a busy trip so I'm going to split it up into three parts beginning with Arenal.  I'll include bird lists - asterisks mean lifers! - with links to articles or pictures about each bird.

More pictures from the entire trip (with fewer stories & explanations) are on Picasa.

Saturday, April 3, 2010
We got in to San Jose in the late afternoon/early evening.  My grandmother was already in Costa Rica, visiting a friend who lives in San Jose, so they were nice enough to come pick us up at the airport and bring us to our hotel!  We stayed at Hotel Aranjuez, which was very nice. After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, my grandmother's friend took us to her church to see an Easter-eve service.  It began with a fire outside the church, which they used to light big church candles.  Everyone inside (including us) had their own candles.  People lit their candles from the church candles, then spread the light to the people around them, who spread it to the people near them, until the church was glowing with candlelight.  It was very pretty! 

After that there was some singing and then apparently they began reading the Bible from the beginning.  It was in Spanish so I had no idea what was going on.  After about half an hour of that with no end in sight we ducked out because I was starving.  We ate at a restaurant where my grandmother's friend had been going for years.  I tried black beans for the first time, they are really good!  Most of the restaurants we saw in San Jose were chain restaurants we have back here in the US.  It was a little odd.  Finally after dinner we went back to our hotel to get ready for lots of driving the next day.

San Jose birds: Great-tailed Grackle (saw these in Arizona a few years ago - no lifers yet!)

Sunday, April 4, 2010
We had breakfast at the hotel in the morning.  The gardens there were lush and beautiful:


I finally started getting some lifers as I ate breakfast. 

Hotel Aranjuez birds: *Rufous-collared Sparrow, *Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, *Clay-colored Robin (Costa Rica's national bird)

( On to Arenal, with many pictures )

The next part is Monteverde, aka birders' mecca!

Hello LJ friends!

I am hoping to write an actual post sometime soon, but meanwhile:

1. I have a Twitter now, it is much more active than my LJ because I only have to think of 140 characters to write at a time. I am @barnswallowkate.  (And if you don't have Twitter you can always add it to an RSS reader if you'd like.)

2. I will have a morning to bird in Sacramento next week while I am on a work trip. Do any of you know a good place to go? I have never been to California so I am hoping for a lot of lifers. Thanks for any help!

3. I have been taking pictures (as always) even thought I haven't gotten them on LJ. I do have them on Picasa:

For the past two years I've shared an office with my friend Ben. Tomorrow morning I have to pack up and move out. I will have to leave two years of singing (that was all him, I sing like a tortured cat), discussing sci-fi TV shows, tea times, Family Guy quotes, complaining about society, baked goods, and Solstice Trees. Ben introduced me to Journey and Bon Jovi and tried his best to get me to like the Beatles. Sure, we can laugh about xkcd over IM, and we'll still have lunch together, but it won't be quite the same.

And then tomorrow night is the Galactica series finale, where I think they are going to kill everyone I like and leave only Gaius Frakking Baltar behind.

I am going to be pretty sad tomorrow :(