Evolution of A Table and Chairs

I'm on a roll with all the before-and-afters, can you tell?  Here is a project that taught us both a lot.  We both learned to do things we'd never done before.  We'll start with the very first before.  Well - ok, not true.  The very first before would be a six-year-old picture of a big cross-section of a tree.  I don't have the real picture, but it was honestly not far from this:

It came from - you got it - a yard sale.  Only I think it was more like $10.  It was the same yard sale where Dustan found the aforementioned checkered mirror (and the Paul Revere teapot we've used ever since).

The cross section of the tree was laquered a really tacky honey-colored and shellacked like a million times.  Why would you spend good yard sale cash on something like that?  It looked like something that might hang in a hunting lodge donned with moose antlers.  Or something a hillbilly gift store would stick clock hands on and sell for $59.99 right beside the clocks made of out skillsaw blades that have been airbrushed with Bob Ross cabin scenes.  Is anyone following this?  It was bad.  It was reeeeal bad, and I couldn't see the value of it.  But I'm pretty sure I'm the one who came up with the idea to not only sand the junks out of it until the real wood returned, but to also cut it into a rectangle for a dining tabletop.  So Dustan did, and that's how we ate for the first years of marriage.  He built white legs onto it and I added some white chairs.  It looked like this:

Then when our friends Tee and Christoph moved, they sold everything at a....yeah.  And we scored three tall bar chairs for a total of $30.  (We are serious furniture magnets.  We have never gone to a furniture store and paid full price for anything).  Ever since we moved here, I've been determined to use these bar chairs.  I know they're not the most comfortable, or the most conducive to huge banquet dinners, but when will we ever have another chance in life to make a pub table our dining table? 

So I convinced Dust to build some sweet tall legs for what I now appreciate as a gorgeous, hefty piece of wood with a charming crack, a zillion rings and an old old story to tell.  Who even knows how old.  I mean, you can't buy that at Target!  That's really what I love about all this furniture stuff I've been posting lately.  Underneath the trendiness of paint color and graphics, these are really sturdy pieces that will be in our life forever.  Maybe one day they will have different colors or hardware or whatever, but they're not cheap pieces of crap that we can wear out in five years.  The mirror on that entry piece?  Weighs a freaking TON, and has sweet beveled edges and the original stamp with the name of the guy who made it on the back.  (I painted around it).  I love that!  But these pieces definitely aren't my great-grandfather's hand-carved mahogany china cabinet that's so revered no one will go near it with a paint brush, because that wouldn't really be us either. 

Sweet tall legs:

I was unspeakably impressed with these legs.  I don't really understand what went on to get them like that, but I know that Dust learned to use a tapered jig to accomplish that sweet slant.  And I know that when it was all said and done, this table did not look homemade.  At all.  It kind of looked like...woodworking.  The early stages.

I primed all the wood.  Yes, it's getting painted next.  I don't like white pine.  It looks naked to me.

I'm never sure if priming is necessary, but in this case I didn't have loads of extra paint, so I wanted to stretch it as far as I could and not let the bare wood soak up tons of precious pigment.  But it's such an exhausting, unrewarding step.  And I didn't learn about tinted primer until much later, which is definitely what I would have used in retrospect, and what I reeeeeally wish I had known about when I set out to paint black cabinets over white primer!

Anyway - I knew I wanted my chairs to be bold, vibrant colors, but I had to manage to make them "dirty" enough to not look like they were waiting for a room full of preschoolers.  I knew how to paint something black or white and distress it, letting natural wood show through on the edges, but I'd never done the opposite - painted something a color and then had the distressed part show through darker than the color.  I thought this was the solution:

On the green chair, I experimented by first painting every angle black, thinking that after I painted the entire chair green, I would distress it lightly and the black would show through.  That totally failed.  Instead, even the finest sandpaper took off paint right down to the primer.  If I kept going, it just went to the natural white pine wood and was also too light.

In the end, I figured out the trick.

1) paint your chair whatever color and distress it, like this:

I distressed it heartily (I just use rough grade sandpaper because it gives me more artistic control than a sander, even though it's probably slower and caused my palm to catch fire).

2) Use stain to make your piece come alive.  I used whatever was leftover from the desk project and an old tee shirt.  I'm sure there is stain out there that cleans up with soap and water, but mine was oil-based.  This means a few things.  One, be prepared to clean up your brush with mineral spirits or gas or paint thinner, not just soap - or it won't come clean and you will ruin your brush.  (I'm pretty loyal to my brushes.  They are good to me).  Two, be prepared that your fingernails will also be stained whether you have mineral spirits or not, and you will go to work looking like a mechanic.  And three - yes.  Even though I did this project months and months before I got pregnant, my unborn child is probably still breathing the fumes.

All that to say, the stain is what took my preschool colors and made them robust and jewel-toned, gave them dimension and a little grit.  Really, it made these colors sing.  I let a lot of stain soak into the raw corners and angles I had distressed bare, and it had this effect:

Ok, but wait - that's not all stain.  The last step is

3) dip your brush in black paint, shake it off really good until it's almost like dry-brush, and knock all the edges gently.  I also used this generously all over the chair.  I used it to make a sort of "butt print" in the seat of the chair, and to give the rest of the flat surfaces some character.  Fake, instant character. 

You could definitely go overboard on this kind of finish, but these chairs are all I have in my house like it.  For now.  :)

And I'm okay to stick with just this because IT TOOK FOREVER to do.  Pretty much all of it.  All of it took forever...

 

 

You wanna know what's my last step for the "dining room?"  Painting a version of this:

on that empty squash-colored canvas in the corner.

Now I'm beginning to know what it's like to update your blog regularly and have a life, too.  You go to bed when the house is dark and depressing.  You're still up, hunched over your laptop, while the dog and the man are tucked down cosy, and will wake up happier than you.

It's okay because this isn't regular for me.  I hate staring at a computer all day and then coming home to keep staring at it some more.  Besides, tonight I went with Linds and Nikki to a real salon and had my hair cut.  It was called The Vine.  Their logo is a girl with crazy hair sprouting from her head, and the place is overgrown in vines on the outside and painted green with cool art and lots of buzz on the inside.  We all three took the same picture and got radically different cuts.  It was a blast.  I don't look quite so Amish anymore.  She styled it with a curling iron and her fingers, and told me I looked "sultry."  Somehow that word doesn't quite fit with the massive belly/heavy saddled walk I've got going on.  But I'll take it.

I'm sultry AND I finally got around to posting about my beloved kitchen table and chairs!

My Favorite Before & After

This is one of my faves.  Why?  Because I still remember the day Dust brought this heinous checkered mirror home.  Another $5 yard sale find.  It sat and sat and sat in our storage room.  It survived the move.  And finally the lightbulb went off.  Dustan built a bench with storage onto the mirror, and I added the hooks from another piece and gave it some painterly love.  Seriously, what would we do without this big guy greeting us every time we walk in the door?

 

 

Also included in this before and after is our door.  I could do a whole post on the stages it went through as well - but I will spare you the details.  Just know there was much decision making, until it finally ended up this color, what Ben Moore calls Sorrell.  Love it!

My Revamped Desk and Chair

It's been a while since I've shared some projects, so I decided to dip into my "moving in" archives and pull up some of the stuff I did when we first got to Wisconsin.

We'll start with our desk that weighs 700 pounds.  Take the drawers out and it might be 650.  Anything so solid just cannot be abandoned in a move.  And isn't that the maddening part of moving?  When you show up to help someone move in or out, you should go ahead and prepare your heart that all the pre-fab IKEA shelves have been tossed, but the family hand-carved piano organ will need your attention.  Along with the 400-pound leather couch that your neighbors have had for years that you put on top of your Passat wagon and then hoist to the upstairs loft using come-alongs made out of webbing.

But hey, it worked out, didn't it?  Nick...do you read my blog?

This 700-pound desk cost us $5 at a yard sale.

I stained it.  It took eleven days to dry.

This is exactly how this project went down (and I know because I just found the email thanks to Gmail's insane search engine):  I emailed my sis a picture of this desk and said WHAT TO DO.  She wrote back "My first reaction to the desk is to leave the wood dark and paint the drawers grass green with a white bird sitting on a branch on one of the drawers."

I don't really come up with anything.  I just poke around in creative places and then imitate.

My first green was wrong.  It was anemic and minty and I hated it. 

 

 
These 2 photos were my bird-on-branch inspiration.  Thanks, internet.

I got the color of the drawers right the second time around with a rich, seventies kind of green.  Also, I wanted my bird a little fatter.

To find a chair like this, poke around in a rich neighborhood with bricked streets on trash day.

At first, I was sorta almost kinda tempted to sand this guy and stain him and leave him wood.  Then I looked again at that tedious scrolling harp.  And I thought again of my infatuation with Ben Moore's Venetian Gold.

I love you, Venetian Gold.

 

It's really not a sunshine yellow, contrary to the wet-paint kind of flash my camera gives off.  It's more old.  Like this:

The End!

Before-ish:

After:

The Most Intimidating Box in the World

This year Dustan and I bought a CSA share at a local farm in Oak Creek.  You can read about it here, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

It was a funny thing, that white box.

Most people would love a box of organic vegetables spilling onto their counter. 

We dreaded this white box like The Plague.  First of all, pickup was every Wednesday before 7pm at a house near us in Racine.  It was the biggest feat of the week.  We could not get that box.  If it's any indication of how we'll be as parents, little Bearcub Balkcom will be that kid after school making small talk with the teacher, sneakers on concrete, waiting on his ride.

Me: Hey wait, isn't it Wednesday?
Dustan: Ahhhh dangit.

When we first talked this decision over, we were both on board, because we have hoped to start our own CSA at some point in the future.  Not just a passing whim, but a LOT of late nights in bed talking over what it would mean to have our own farm as a job.  We've thought through everything, from the coolest root cellar to the design of the garden to the massive harvest parties we would throw every year under lanterns with guitars and dogs and babies and butternut squash soup in thick mugs.  It was only logical that before we could start a CSA, we should test out the other end - the customer end.  So it was a no-brainer.

Theeeeeeen, I got pregnant, and the veggies started coming right in the middle of the first trimester.  The first trimester was like one of those cats that rub up around your ankle all coy and calm, and you think 'Hey, I might actually like this cat!'  And then right when you reach out to pet it, it turns around and sinks its claws into the fatty part of your palm, and suddenly you hate all cats everywhere.  Yeah, that's what the beginning of pregnancy was for me.  Except what I suddenly hated was vegetables.  All I could imagine eating when I got pregnant was trailer trash food, to mitigate the "morning" sickness that hit worst at night.  Pizza, corn dogs, cheeseburgers, sausage biscuits from McDonald's, frozen stuff that gets greasy when you cook it.  All the worst, artery-clogging, immune system-destroying goodness on the planet.  Bacon, doughnuts, italian sausage, cheese cheese cheese.

Not only did I not want vegetables, I didn't cook.  Period.  This was not the time for me to Google "kohlrabi" and figure out how to use it before it went bad in my crisper (which it did).  I can't even tell you how much money I spent grabbing takeout and random slices of mushroom pizza at 3pm in downtown Milwaukee (but it was a lot). So these boxes would come, and Dustan would pull out the little sheet of recipes they came with and he'd make something.  And at first, this worked.

Confetti Potatoes

That is quite beautiful, isn't it?

Roasted chicken with beets, red onion, summer squash, apples, carrots and turnips

Penne lisce with summer squash, some other squash, carrot and tomato marinara and parm

But after a bit, the endless mystery vegetables became quite a burden.  I gave a lot of them away.  Some of them wilted and I threw them away.  What a dismal, wasteful failure I was!  We both were!  It was a good lesson learned.  I don't think we have any business starting a farm.  We paid a lot of money to give away turnips this year, and it left a really bad taste in our mouth.  CSA's are awesome, but this one just kind of slapped us around and we didn't do with it what we should have.

Now I'm in the glory days of being prego, looking round but feeling great.  I eat vegetables now, don't worry.  I actually prefer fresh cooking, because all that crap I ate at first is now associated with the rolling nausea I thankfully don't have at all anymore.  But that very last veggie pickup?  Was aaaawesome.  We're both so glad that White Box isn't here to sit in judgement of us anymore.  (Even though there are 3 lingering turnips in my fridge...does anybody want them?)

P.s.  I'm blogging again because I'm back to work 3 days a week instead of full-time.  I have no idea how people keep up (quality) blogging while working and having a balanced life.  It totally eludes me.

The Seven Year Itch

Today Dustan and I have been married for seven whole years. Seven years! That's a long time. I remember back when we were engaged. We were convinced the Apocalypse would come before September 13, 2003 and we would never get to leave a party together and go home and crawl into bed and say things like "You were my favorite person in the room."

But here we are. 2010 and many moons later. Sometimes I can't wrap my mind around how good it is to live life with Dust, to say each morning before he leaves for work "Don't go, Hus." We get to wake up together and take a big bite out of each day, the most tangible gift of God to me on a regular basis. We've been doing that for seven years...and it's still fun. Don't get me wrong, we have insanely routine days, filled with more oil changes, late movie fees and unwashed dishes than you can imagine. It's just that Dustan is THE most buoyant person on the whole planet, so life is always good. And nothing is ever too bad. Not "Hey Dust, I accidentally spent $261 at the grocery store" or "Um, I locked my keys in the car...and you're in Milwaukee." Not even "I hit a stoplight. IT FELL ON OUR CAR."

You know the phrase "No news is good news"? Not for Dust. He loves news. He loves action. Something is always better than nothing. That's why when our car gets towed during a snow emergency and we have to trudge to the police station at ten o'clock at night in the snow and it's snowing even harder, he says to me "Hey, shake it off."  How many times have you said that to me?  Suddenly we are running in the orange lamplight and our emergency turns into a secret giggling party because everything is going to be okay. No surprise that the two curly-headed old women working the night shift are now smiling at him, saying yes we'll call the cops and take you to the impound lot. He drums on the desk and says "Yeah, baby!" They're giggling now, and I want to clarify to them that he didn't just call you baby, but whatever.

Living with an adventurer, through and through, isn't always convenient. In fact, it puts me in the position of saying very stodgy grown-up things all the time. That's dangerous. We don't have time. That won't fit in our car. What if that doesn't work? Well, the cool thing is, it usually does work. Fabulously well. Dust is the king of flying by the seat of your pants, rolling with the punches, going with the flow - you know, all those sayings and more. It undoes me and teaches me at the same time. If we end up as that couple that totes their baby around to every swimming hole and fancy restaurant, it will be because of him.

Another totally bearable thing. Dustan is a rabid, ravenous, tireless worker. He works so hard - at everything! I don't even care that he makes me look aimless, because I end up getting canoe racks, cutting boards and custom shelving out of his energetic lifestyle. He demands way too little sleep from his body, and if a table saw or a new business idea is involved, you're looking at 2am. Easy. He rarely starts a project he doesn't finish. (Seriously. Do you know how many homemade Christmas presents I've started that still consist of a pile including a cool photo, a paper napkin, an amazing quote and a Mason jar?) One thing I've learned is that this kind of drive produces a certain amount of decisiveness that I'm now totally addicted to. When Dustan says, "I think we should quit our jobs this time next year and hike the Appalachian Trail" or "We need a money market thingamajig" or "There is no way we are getting another dog," I'm pretty much just along for the ride. (But I've been putting a lot of pressure on the second dog issue). I never think about the fact that there must be husbands out there who sit on the same worn chair, day after day, and stare at streams of dust mites in the sun. If Dustan did a little bit of that, it would probably make me happy. I like to sit and stare.

Sometimes I wonder if it will always be this good. Year Number Seven is supposed to be hard. The Seven Year Itch might hit us. Ok, maybe not that kind of Itch (because Marilyn isn't around to tempt anyone in a white windblown dress). What I mean is, we are expecting a little crybaby, a little milk-hungry baby, a little poo-poo machine. Maybe that baby will pop out and smile out us, and I will sit in a rocking chair like a goddess and Dustan will bring me cabbage leaves on a silver plate. We will sing "Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea..." in perfect harmony, and our baby won't cry. Maybe the carseat will lock into place without a hitch, the stroller will never collapse on our ankles and we will never get tangled in the Moby wrap. But... we might get itchy this year.

We might look back on days of camping and hiking and late night marathons of Alias and The Office and thumb our noses at the new loneliness that parenthood brings, him in one corner of the city making money and me in the other folding tiny onesies. All I know is, so far, it has been blindingly good. This past week we spent some long and savory days by the lake in the woods with our Mad River Explorer, the trusty Hubba Hubba, my brand new beach cruiser and his old clunker, and that ol' Baba Gurl. When the day woke us up with rain, Dustan said "Get in the car, we're going to find some indoor waterslides." (And we did).

Here's to 7 years, you.

Thank you for loving my friends.

Thank you for listening to the Holy Spirit. It's contagious.

Thank you for being a lavish tipper.

On that note, thanks for never, ever, ever being a tightwad. It's more attractive than you know.

Thanks for liking other people so much. It's why we have friends in the first place.

All day long I make a list of things I plan to tell you.  It's the one thing that makes me most sad that Mom doesn't have Dad anymore.  I know she did that.

Sometimes I see you pick up other people's litter. That's so hot.

Thank you for surprising me with Trail six years ago. She is my dark star.

You pick up amazing pottery and say "You could make that, Bets." That's really precious. (I couldn't).

Thank you for loving to laugh, to smile, and to talk, talk, talk. We have so much fun together.

You can take the dog out of the city, but you better bring her blanket.

A Postful of Good Linkage

There's this project that's been in the works for ages. To be honest, it makes me very tired to think of making something like this happen. Ryan wasn't too tired. He set himself on fire with a good idea, and that idea turned into action. He decided to have people who make good music get together and make some good music for a children's album. Then he would sell that album and all the money would go towards raising awareness for the rare genetic disease his stepson has. (Just explaining it makes my energy leak out one ear). But, the fire is still burning. It's quite amazing that all the wheels kept turning until a real live album was actually churned out. It's called "Do Fun Stuff" and it's actually purchasable on iTunes right now.

The coolest part is: the songs are not annoying!

The disease (disease? disorder?) that Ryan's stepson, the Littlest Buddy, has is called SMS, or Smith Magenis Syndrome. I had never heard of it before I started reading Pacing the Panic Room. All I know is I started reading and fell in love with LB and got greedy for pictures and stories about him. Then everything about SMS unfolded. That's the whole point of Ryan's children's album. Maybe some people will start by liking good music and end up knowing about SMS. Now I know, and I'm telling you, and on top of that - I want a birthday cake shaped like a whale.

If you want to know more about this whole thing, here you go.

If you want to support research for SMS by buying the album, right here.

Or if you just want to spy on a family full of characters too cool for life, go.

Or you can lose yourself in this unrelated old school magic.

This blog is not all about SMS or kids or raising money, even though it seems to be covered up with that right now. That's because one, the album just launched and two, LB is getting ready to retire from the Panic Room. Ryan decided to stop blogging about his kids when they turn six. So here's a farewell to LB (an introduction to him for many of you), and a soundtrack featuring one of the songs off his benefit album, all in one. LB, in his little black-framed glasses, kills me. And when Cole walks her fingers up his arm, he's precious. It makes me go all gooey inside.


So Long I'm Six from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.

I think Ryan's decision to curtail publishing his son's life on the internet is solid and full of respect. And it might also mean that he will show us more of her.

Fresh Out

Two days ago I was hating myself for not having texting in my plan.  Because waaaay over in Tennessee little Clara Lou was born, and she was there in all her blonde-haired glory making those tiny squeaking noises in a glass bed, but I couldn't see her because we aren't texters, and we don't get videos from our friends on our phones. Or pictures from our sisters after their babies are born.**

And, duuuuude.  I was really missing out.

Is it even fair for a kid to have such good hair, hours out of the womb?  I thought it was supposed to be all greasy and cotton candy-like. 

Look at that pout face!  Later this month I'm flying to Knoxville to see her, bite her face, and rifle through all her baby clothes.  She's the first baby in our family!  We already love her so much.

**That's right, Sis.  I linked to your blog, who's been sleeping ever-so-soundly for years.  I even poked around at Rilo Kiley and Feist, and I think may have disturbed her because she yawned at me.  Maybe it's time to shake that thing to life again with some pictures of your nursery and your baby as she grows.  And stories about giving birth and the first time June steps on her head.

Cheese and Fruit

Several days ago I was emailing my friend Jess, saying how I really don't care what my kid is like - as long as he or she isn't too serious, knows how to have a conversation with adults, and has an appreciation for good cheese.  That last part I wasn't even thinking about, it just came out.  Little did I know, I was about to meet The Coolest Kid in the Whole World and he would prove my own point back to me.

It started when I got a call from good ol' Williamsburg.  It was my friend Jen saying she and Matt were coming through the area on their way to a big airshow in Osh Kosh, and would we want to hang out, maybe grab dinner?  That turned into yes! and then they were going to be spending the night and bringing their baby Ian, fifteen months old.  Matt is a commercial airline pilot (and Ian, by necessity, is quite a Road Warrior we later learned) and they go where the wind takes them when they get the chance.  The night before they came, Dustan and I were in the guest room setting up a Pack n' Play we had borrowed for little Ian to crash out in.  Thaaaaaat was interesting.  It's the first time I've ever set up a Pack n' Play and this is what I learned.  There are rules for such assembly.  Rules that must be obeyed.  If you don't read the directions and follow them, someone's baby is getting a leg snapped off at the knee.  After the ninth "Why...aren't....the sides....LOCKING??" we decided to read the secret manual.  We got told by a Pack n' Play.  And afterwards, our eyes met, mirroring the vacant feeling of having been mastered by baby gear.  It sucked, and I'm not looking forward to that happening again.

I was sitting on the couch thinking a little bit later and started hollering my thoughts back towards the bedroom for Dustan to hear.  "I hope that little baby likes us!"  Pause.  "I mean, I hope he's a good boy.  I hope he's not a monster."  Another pause.  "Because I know Matt and Jen are cool...but what if they don't make him mind, and he pulls Trail's ears and stuff?"  Now I'm not waiting for a response.  "Cause you know how sometimes kids mess their parents up, no matter how cool they were at the beginning.  And what if the music keeps him up all night?  Did you tell them we're above a bar?" 


Ok, so I'm in the bathroom blowing my hair when they get here and when I come out, there's Matt and Jen and Ian.  Immediately it was awesome.  I knew they hadn't been ruined by their kid.  They were happy with him, but not overly.  Jen put him on the bar in the kitchen and he said, "Blueberries," and started cramming his face full of blueberries.  We greeted each other and Ian just knelt there, eating busily.  He looked up at me and caught my eye and said "Camera."  He had big brown eyes and a shaggy mop of hair.  I thought of Fievel on The American Tale.

Jen was telling us he eats everything.  She gave him salmon sushi and he devoured it and wanted more.  She calls it her 'expensive experiement.'  Now I'm kinda eyeballing this kid because he just got way more interesting.  Jen points to one of the cheeses on the tray and goes "Ian, what's this?"  I was totally unprepared for his response.  He looks at it and goes "Ha..varti."

Really, Ian?  I was like (to Dustan) "See?" and then (to God) "Jesus, please let our kid be this cool!" and then (to Jen) "Does this mean I need to get my Ph.D in physics?"  Because...she, um, has that, and is a rocket scientist for NASA.  So maybe that's why her fifteen-month-old has so many words in his bank.  Either way, I was totally charmed.

But speaking of the whole fifteen-month-old thing, remember that one time I was busting on mom's for speaking in a weird time warp language?  I get it now.  I'm in the Club.  Because today, I'm 12 weeks pregnant.  In real-people terms, that means three months.  But in preggo terms, it means I'm starting to leave my first trimester and enter my second trimester.  Hopefully, I will also leave behind the gags and the pukes and the cravings and the interminable wasteland that the first trimester has been.  I'm not 10 weeks, I'm not 11 weeks, definitely NOT 13 weeks, so...that's how it goes.  I can't tell you I'm three months pregnant because even though that means everything to you, it means nothing to me.  12 weeks means my Blueberry is going to Fruit Graduation today and becoming a lime!  She's already gone from blueberry to grape to strawberry to kumquat to fig, according to my updates from Babycenter.  And that's why every time I read those updates, I really really really want a smoothie.  (Except today, when she becomes a lime, and I can only think of that Corona billboard).

That's my fruit news, in other fruit news - like what kind of fruit, Sis?  Pineapple?  Watermelon?  (cringing)  Sis is about to have a real live baby.  Check out her dreamy baby shower.

Starts with "BL" and rhymes with "thud"

Two days ago changed my life.  You'll never believe what I did.   

I gave blood without crying, passing out, or needing a large woman in scrubs to wave smelling salts in front of my nose.  Smelling salts?  Yup - ammonia is called that in the real world, not just in Anne of Green Gables.  When The Deed was done, I looked over and saw my FOUR tubes of blood and right there on the tray beside my arm were two little packets labeled: Smelling Salts.  Now, if I had seen those packets before I had given blood, be assured they would have worked such mental magic on me, I would have passed out immediately.  Or had a panic attack thinking It's this bad. It's so bad I will need to be revived with something pungent. She's expecting this. Just give in to the fear, Betsy.

I tried to give blood in high school.  Not get my blood drawn - no.  Tried to actually give blood away in the form of a charitable donation, like a pint or something, to anybody out there (excluding Jehovah's Witnesses) who might need a blood transfusion.  What ensued was laughable.  I started by eating a king-sized Rice Crispy Treat, the kind in bright blue foil.  (Those things are delicious!) Then my friend Andrea gave me a pep-talk and I sat down in a chair and a nurse told me she needed to prick me for a drop a blood to get a sample and would I prefer her to prick my fingertip or my earlobe?  I chose the earlobe.  I know, I know, why did I do that?  So close to the brain and the central nervous system, but it seemed less painful and out of sight.  Besides - a drop!  A single drop of blood.  So she pricks me and starts to milk my earlobe like it's the udder of a cow.  I remember this moment with the kind of clarity that only comes as a result of trying really hard not to remember something.  She asked "Have you had sex with anybody from Nigeria over the age of 17?"  I didn't know which part of that question to focus in on.  No, no...no.  I couldn't focus at all.  Then she says "You have a very nice resting heartrate, do you exercise often?"  And I said sweetly, "I run cross country." That was supposed to mean:  I'm freakin' invincible!  I'm strong and healthy and have a resting heartrate of 60!  I eat bananas for breakfast and there's nothing that you in your scrubs can find out about me that isn't medically satisfactory!  (Pride comes before...)

And then she goes "Ashbrook is a lovely middle name.  Is that a family name?"  And that's when I realized that I was leaning very, very far to the left, out into space, off my chair, away from the nurse who was milking my earlobe, away from everything.  Then I was flat on the ground and she was standing over me.  Do you remember those little slideshow-watching plastic glasses you used to hold up to the light and look through as a kid?  If you clicked the lever down to get to the next slide, it would go black and then the next slide would come up.  This was like clicking the lever slooooooowly down to black.  And the next slide never came up.  I passed out because a nurse pricked my earlobe.  I was wheeled over to the snack table where they gave me sugar cookies and Mountain Dew in a tiny Dixie cup.  Other people were there, replenishing themselves because they'd just reclined in a plastic lawn chair and given half their body weight in blood to help out the sick.  I was just a pathetic sugar cookie moocher.

The next time I had an... incident was when I first went to the gynecologist.  I thought they were just gonna take a look around and say "You can get married now!"  I had no idea they were going to do bloodwork.  But they did, and I was in this teeeeeny tiny room.  The tiniest room in the whole hospital.  In the whole world!  And the walls were white.  The only thing that wasn't white was my nurse Wanda's scrubs.  They were Disney.  Wanda was very, very large and she had a grey crewcut.  Right when they started the bloodwork, I spotted out and buried my face right into her cleavage.  She pushed my forehead up and waved around the smelling salts.  Do you remember those little collapsible toys that you could push the bottom in and the toy would collapse and then you released it and it would pop back up?  Having smelling salts coerce you back to consciousness is like slooooowly collapsing and then Hey Betsy Pop Back Up.

The last tale I will tell (and I have many) was just a few years ago.  Dustan had this bright idea that we were gonna get some kind of special life insurance that we do not even HAVE any more, so right there is enough to make me angry all over again.  Pointless bloodletting!  There's nothing worse.  So I show up to work, because this is where InsuranceMan has agreed that we should do our simple paper-signing.  Dustan had already been talking to InsuranceMan and told him, "My wife has a real problem with the whole blood thing, so, is this gonna be a bloodwork thing?" and this is when LyingMan replied "It's just a finger prick thing."  At the time I was working at a radio station.  Now, this wasn't an uptight place at all.  But it was serious enough to have doors, a conference room, computers and hundreds of thousands of dollars of songs pumping out every second.  We wore jeans, but we also worked like crazy.  So not unusual that when I got there early to "have my finger pricked," other people (like my boss) were already there working.  In comes what I was really hoping would be a plump female wearing scrubs and a gold cross necklace.  Nope.  A man in street clothes with slicked down brown-grey hair.  A polo, too tight.  FakeNurseMan.  I can't stand this man already.  We sit down at the conference table and he puts a rubber strap around my arm.  All my arm hairs pull.  I burst into tears when he asks me to pump my fist.  He looks at Dustan like, "Women are nut jobs" and I literally RUN to the bathroom.  I do all the business I can do in there, and I'm weeping uncontrollably.  Dust comes to get me and was super nice and convincing with shushes and pats, and I go back to the conference room.  I had to leave again (seriously) because I couldn't pull myself together.  This time Dust tries the military approach.  "You are being ridiculous," he tells me.  "You are behaving like a child."  So I go back to the conference room and sit down sheepishly.  I ask if we can go outside and do this because this room is just so SMALL.  FakeNurse says no, but he lets me open a window.  He gets the strap around my arm, I pump it up, I'm strong, I'm powerful, I can do this.  I look at Dustan and start to sing really loud "IN SLEEP HE SANG TO ME, IN DREAMS HE CAME..." and I make him sing with me, the Phantom of the Opera song.  It was so loud my boss comes out of his office.  He just kinda looked around, staring, and then stood quietly by.  When the needle was out, the whole holding-the-cottonball thing made me just as woozy, so I hung my head out the window and resorted to "Then SAY YOU'LL SHARE with me one love one lifetime..."  It was the nuttiest bloodletting of all.  I had no concern for my professional environment, or poor showtunes-sing-along Dusty, or my kind and understanding boss, and definitely not FakeNurse.  I hated him, and we cancelled that dumb insurance.

But hey, so Monday, right? I had my first baby appointment!  It was great.  Allie, my midwife, was determined to find Blueberry's heartbeat for us and that was awesome.  It sounded busy and frenzied, reminded me of a woman power-walking on an indoor track with pursed lips and sweaty bangs.  Like "I don't know what you're doing here, but I know what I'm doing here."  So we eavesdropped a little bit and then got on with the important stuff.  Like me giving blood without passing out.

I wasn't sure what to expect.  In my estimation, the needle-blood experiences have only gotten worse with time, and this time marked the pinnacle of adulthood.  It's not about you any more, you're a grown-up, making babies and paying parking tickets.  My lady was nothing like Wanda.  She was fit and had snappy brown eyes, a perfectly sleek ponytail, and a very loud talking voice.  Megan.  I knew she was gonna do me right.  Megan didn't mess around.  She had posted loads of pictures of pit bulls dressed in rain coats and tutus and other stuff she'd ripped out of pet calendars to amuse those of us who need amusing while bloodletting.  She told me I had "a nice vein."  Not gonna lie, that almost did me in, but I bit my finger and thought about this van full of handicapped kids I saw on my way there.  How many procedures had they had?  What kind of selfish overblown dramatic sensationalized person was I, who couldn't sit through some painless bleeding for the sake of my very own Blueberry?  For all of you who have a similar problem, I recommend this type of self-loathing to help you along in the process.  The whole: "I'm invincible!  I hiked a big long hike!  I so got this!" kind of pyschology doesn't seem to do the trick.  That's one of the few things I know now that I didn't know in high school.

That and a 10-week-old baby en utero has fingernails!

The I'm-Going-To-Have-A-Baby Post

This is when I tell the internet I'm pregnant.  Pretty fitting, coming on the heels of that last post, huh?  You can only do so much with a hot husband in a workshop filled with Rocket Rockers.  On the way home today I saw a lady walking a very old dog.  I mean, the lady was getting up there herself.  But the dog, which used to be black, was now a splotchy gray.  His legs were skinny and his body was lumpy and I'm almost positive there were big white hairs sprouting out from under his doggie chin.  The lady had on a sun visor (something I forgot even existed) and a ginormous tee shirt with a row of seashells across the front.  One day I'll look like that lady.  (One day I'll look like that dog.)

But not today.  Today the dew is still on the ground, and it's the first baby.  (Maybe - I hardly believe it's real).  We will look back on pictures of ourselves now and say things like "That was before you were born!"  Nothing sags yet (I said yet all you cluckers) and everything is brand new.  My little baby is the size of a grape, and she just outgrew her blueberry status, which is throwing everything off because we had just gotten used to calling her Berry Balkcom.  And yeah, I'm saying "she" because I want a girl.  There are stacks of unread books, a little container of unworn clothes and a baby backpack for hiking that is so new it still smells like plastic.  I look up and see miles and miles of uncharted territory, never before navigated waters, lots of places we've never been to or seen.  We eat a few squares of expensive chocolate and tortilla chips for dinner if we want.  We can't enforce a good bedtime to save our lives.  We feel frazzled if going out of town also requires calling a kennel.  Bless our little hearts, right?

So just a few days ago at work I discover that this guy I work with also co-owns this amazing company called Heritage Foods.  They provide all kinds of well-raised beef, pork, tuna, poultry, chickens and eggs to amazingly rich people by getting it from small local farms all over the Midwest and Virginia.  (Love when my world makes a circle like that).  As I perused the website I couldn't help but be amazed all over again at all the cool things so many cool people are out there doing.  College-quitting, company-starting, jet-setting beatniks who change careers midstream and die with ratty passports.

People that invent things.  That other people actually pay money to use.

People who own major league ball teams, who produce the TV show that millions of people watch, who decide it would be cool if all our jeans tapered at the bottom now.  

People who turn trash into energy for a living (and graciously pick up AT thru-hikers in the meantime).

People who've lived their whole life in a cranberry bog in Nantucket.

People who take a heart or a kidney or a lung out of one body and put it into another one.  And it works.

People who follow their guitar across the whole nation.

People who dive down to the bottom of the sea, have tan feet all year round and never eat anything out of a package.  White fish, mangoes, banana mash.

Those with personal chefs, those with best-selling memoirs, those with unkempt dreds, those who breed labradoodles.

Mountain climbers, zipline riders, horseback herders, hitch-hikers, lollygaggers and chocolatiers.

Anyhow, I just love the variety of things going on around me.  Suddenly I feel like being pregnant fits into the category of amazing things.  Because a teeny tiny blueberry-grape that just grew eyelids and has a microscopic pancreas could very well grow up to be one of these people.  Isn't that a cool thought?