Oh Autumn, where are thou?

This post won't really be about my looking forward to Autumn (though, really Autumn, what's taking you so long?!), but it seemed as good a title as any. Actually, I'll just give a little update and maybe emote a little.

So we are now 19 weeks along, and this baby's movement is subdued so far. Am I expecting too much? I don't know. I've just heard too many miscarriage stories lately (really bad ones where the mom had to be induced to deliver a 20 week stillborn), I have some terrific friends who are unable to have babies, and as usual there is a part of me that expects something to go wrong. Still, we'll keep praying, doing our check-ups, and then it's just trust. And faith.

On the home front, we have had to spend exorbitant amounts of money in the last few weeks, and it has been ouchy. I shouldn't complain. We're fine. But on a week when we were expecting the fencing guys to start demolishing our old fence and some of the pillars (an expensive enough job), our water heater died. It was gross and wet (the carpet has the stains to remind us). We had it replaced on that Monday, only to discover that our garage door had finally really cracked and would no longer close. That was replaced on Wednesday. Ironically, the fence demolitioners/installers had truck issues that week and did not start until the following week. The demo-ing and replacing took about a week and a half, with a few absent days there where we wondered where the heck our guys were. It was finally finished sometime last week, and it looks pretty good. There were a few things that needed/need retouching, and now we will see how soon everything is fully resolved and the final bill is tallied. This has been interesting. David and I really don't know what the customer service standard typically is for this kind of work, but this job has been lame. My favorite bit of lameness is when, on the final day of installation, the younger installer (without consulting with his superior, I believe) found a hole in a slat and messily patched it up. When we saw the "patch" and had no idea what it was, it was among a few things David insisted on discussing with the installer. He came, saw the patch, repatched it before telling David, and offered a $25 discount on the job. Now, friends, while we do not want to unnecessarily chuck our money away, when we are already spending $7300 on a job (no joke - this one has been a searing fortune), saving $25 for accepting an ugly patch-job on a brand new fence didn't seem to make sense. David and I kept thinking how much more intelligent and cost effective it would've been to discuss this "patch it or replace it" issue BEFORE they "finished" the job, and we could have said, "No, we ordered a brand new fence, please get us a whole slat,". Give me a break!!! So we are still a work in progress with the fence.

By the way, I love my husband. He was respectful but firm, and though we're happy to have the old fence gone and be near the end, I will not be recommending All-American Vinyl to anyone soon. (So tell your friends!!!)

I read a disturbing book last week which I want to unrecommend to friends. It's called Year of Wonders. It's about a village hit by the plague. It's gruesome, depressing, and then at the end the main characters behave completely contrary to their own natures. Beware friends!!!

There's really not much else to tell. Sophie is loving 2nd grade, Aidan is loving preschool, and Ian is ridiculously adorable and yet driving me slightly mad. He gets into absolutely everything, and the poor dude has like 3 or 4 messy diapers a day. What a tragedy to be someone so bad-smelling!!

And I'm still me. Last night a friend and I had a wonderful chance to attend a workshop at the Orem "Best in Music" with Don Ripplinger. I haven't done a lot of workshops, so I was a little surprised when it was just him introducing us to great choral music which we sight-sang for an hour. My voice was tired at the end of the night, but my heart was full and I found myself misty, yet humbled about my relationship with music. It has blessed my life and I hope to continue to still grow as a musician. But music is a truly enormous beast, and none of us will conquer it entirely in our lifetimes (I won't even come 1/1,000,000,000th of the way in mine), and for some reason that made me melancholy last night. I reminisced with David about a few years ago when I saw Delora Zijack, one of the world's premiere mezzo-sopranos in opera, and how I pretty much wept every time she opened her mouth. She was so amazing - flawless voice and technique. I thought, "This is what someone can become if they marry themselves to the music!!" It was a mixed bag of emotions. I felt similarly about my wonderful experience of performing with Jennifer Welch-Babbidge, who is now local and focusing mostly on her family, but who at one time was a regular principle at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Wow! She is also amazing - glorious soprano and a set of lungs that puts me in my place! (And really, my lungs have been good to me so far...) It's all so amazing.

And yet, I don't regret the course I've taken and am on. I just sat there having a little moment of pregnancy melancholy when I thought of the music I need to learn, the piano skills I need to obtain, the plays I need to read, the languages and history I ache to study, etc. Shorthand, speed-reading, cooking, fitness, liguistics, theatre, music, literature, history - I want to tackle it all!!! And then there are the Mommying skills I want learn better - time/home management, sewing, food-storage, etc. And most importantly, the personal skills I need desperately to work on - like praying more, talking less and listening more, being a supportive wife and mother, and being a better friend. Wow!!!

Okay, no depression. Really, I'm good. After a few tears last night and a talk with David ("I'm going to cry. Could you hold me for a minute?"), I dragged myself upstairs, read the scriptures on my Palm lying down (still pretty darn queasy at bedtime), and then wasted 20 minutes surfing the net where I stumbled on a really lame website by and for bitter ex-mormons. These folk were pretty miserable, and I thought to myself, "I really don't have much to be depressed about." We're good.