Inventory

The past couple weeks have been wonderful, pregnancy-wise. I am officially off call and minus the occasional evening heartburn, I feel great. I start my third trimester this week and I have gained a total of two pounds. Baby is moving around so much and he or she is now aware of outside sounds (like the piano) and cold or sweet foods I eat, since these tend to make the baby move right away.

The baby's room is coming together. The crib and mattress are set up and Louis and I have been talking about how we want to decorate the walls.

I've been doing tons of pleasure reading at night, staying up as late as I want, so I've finished a ton of books. During the day, I've been getting lots of errands done and crossing lots of items off our nesting/to do list. I am really enjoying this time.

One of my projects is taking an inventory of my life. Literally, I've been putting together a list of items to include in my will, but as I've been cleaning up, I have also come across some cool things I had forgotten about. I found a binder full of assignments and papers from my time at Mills. My official GPA there was a 3.08. Darn those chemistry and calculus classes! If not for some of the pre-med courses, I would have had at least a 3.8. Oh, if only I had had a mentor! As I read back through my transcripts and notes from school, I wished I had known who to talk to about college. I was the very first person in my family to even enroll in college, so everything from the application process to choosing classes to declaring a major to graduating on time was a much harder process than it could have been. Oh, the what ifs of life.

As I sorted through my old papers, I wondered which stuff would interest the baby once he or she is grown. I hope my child takes up my interest of (or least respect for) family history, since I have binders full of notes and photos of our ancestors. I wonder what our child will think about me, my interests, my work, my past? Hopefully I've condensed my belongings enough that he or she will be able to learn about what I was like without being burdened by mounds of stuff to sort through, just in case I'm not around.

I have loved this process of clearing out the extra or unnecessary clutter from my life and home. I've filled up the entire recycling bin once already and I still have more to sort through. Except for Louis' desk, I am thoroughly pleased with how the office looks now. It's so much more organized and every time I walk in, it feels peaceful.

I don't know why I have such a strong desire to stay home and get things organized. When does this nesting urge end, anyway?