Ok, I'm a bad person

It has been a whole month since I posted to the blog. The big reason for my being so dilatory - I'm pregnant again, and barfing up a storm. This pregnancy was, umm, a major surprise for us, wasn't supposed to be an option any more, but we're very pleased despite the shock, and also despite the fact that this is putting a big crimp in my teaching plans for next year. But we wanted more kids, just had decided we'd had our share biologically, and would adopt.

I'm pleased, at any rate, when I'm not herking. I *hate* early pregnancy (not that wild about late pregnancy either). I get sufficiently ill that I've been hospitalized for dehydration or put on medication more than once. This time I managed to avoid it, but it has been tough to do much of anything. Ok, enough whining about vomitfest.

In other news - Eli is back to horseback riding, and loving every minute of it. We're having an unusual dry spell in April, and I'm actually going to get to plant something before Pesach! We leave for NYC, the annual pilgrimage to Grandma, the Museum of Natural History, and malaysian restaurants. I'm looking forward to it, but it always makes me nervous to leave my garden.

Our first batch of chicks were chilled during shipping, and we lost all but 13 of them. I think I need to stop getting chicks early in the season - they do better when it is warm. I wanted to up our fall egg production by having some hens just coming into production during the fall off, but I'm not sure it was worth it. Obviously, they'll be replaced, but this time not until May. I'm finally getting banties! I had a couple of cochin bantams I got at a livestock auction, but this time I'm getting a bunch of silkies to set the eggs.

More geese arrive in May as well. And I think we're finally going to try and acquire dairy goats in the fall - we're travelling a lot this summer because of family things (sister's wedding, Grandfather's unveiling, family bar mitzvah) so we just can't quite manage a daily care thing. But I will be happier when our supply of home grown milk is more reliable than the current "barter if they've got extra" system allows for. Our goose is laying, and I'm planning on turning the eggs into decorations for family gifts, in my copious spare time.

In other news, since my sole contribution to the household economy next year will be a little online teaching, a few freelance articles and our garden production, I've decided to write fiction. Or rather, I've been writing fiction for years, but never as a for-profit activity. But after reading a fair bit of dreck recently, I've been inspired to actually write for publication, rather than the amusement of my friends. I might even post my first bits here, if I can get up the nerve to be mocked.

I'm trying to get Eric to do the same. I'm convinced there's a comparatively untapped market for boy(ish) children's fiction of competence. By which I mean things in the Heinlein children's fiction/Tom Swift/Jean Craighead George tradition, in which young boys and girls manage to do fairly remarkable things, the details of which, and theory behind them are explained, both engagingly and clearly. I loved those books as a child - I remember how strongly fascinated I was by the description, in _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ of the process (inaccurate to modern science, but still) of rehabbing a space suit and making it space worthy, or how much I wanted to go live in a tree and tan skins in oak stumps as in _My Side of the Mountain_. Eric's best qualities as a writer are that he is concise, and he makes everything accessible and comprehensible. We routinely get stopped on the street or in restaurants by former students of his who say, "you were the only physics professor I ever understood," or "you were the best teacher I ever had." I'd like to see his gift for clarity shown to a larger audience.

Ok, enough rambling. I promise, I'll be back with an oil related rant, bit of my dissertation, or some other inanity much sooner. But the peepers are peeping, the potatoes need chitting, and I still haven't had dinner.

Cheers,

Sharon