Drinking lake water, baby bump

It is a fortunate thing that when I am feeling a little sad/angry/frustrated or similar, I am currently at a point in my life when it is not possible for me to continue feeling that way for very long. I finished my grading, submitted grades for the semester, and for the most part I am done with all of this for quite a while (with the exception of students emailing because they think their grades are unfair, and similar straggling annoyances). After finishing this last Tuesday for the most part, spilling a bit into Wednesday morning, everything felt a bit better.

On Wednesday night we had a date night – we went out for sushi and then to see a performance by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I had a late meeting that day, so for dinner we picked a restaurant that was convenient and that in many ways doesn't seem all that nice (it is across the street from campus, sort of caters to students, you order at the counter) but which actually has food that is like what I expect at a decent sushi restaurant. We went there quite a while ago, and I had forgotten that I liked it, so it was pleasing to rediscover it. The ballet was also quite good – the performers come from all over the world to be part of this professional company, and although they don't come to Regina very often, it is nice to know that we have the opportunity to see a performance of this caliber at least once a year or so.

We also put a medicine cabinet up in the bathroom, did some rearranging, and ended up cleaning out and throwing away lots of things (like expired cold medicine and the like). Putting up the medicine cabinet took the better part of a day, and Jeff said it is the "most handy thing [he has] ever done." But once it was done it was extremely satisfying to finally have a home for things that have been cluttering up the bathroom counter and residing in drawers in a very un-organized way. We are trying to take care of things like this now, because chances are it will get much more difficult once the baby comes, and thinking ahead a year or so from that date we need to make sure that things like medication are securely stored and not accessible to toddlers. So strangely enough we put up a medicine cabinet in preparation for the baby.

I was dismayed the other day to notice that our tap water tasted and smelled like water from a lake or pond. After doing some investigating (news story here), I found out that our water would always taste this way in the spring/summer/fall if it weren't for a filtration system used by the city water. There was an early algae bloom in the lake that supplies our water, so they did not have the filtration system online yet, and our water will probably smell and taste like algae/pond water for several weeks. It is apparently perfectly safe, but is quite disconcerting. Jeff says we have to just pretend like we're camping, but I am finding that I'm not drinking enough water. We are using our Brita water filter, which does help, but doesn't get rid of the taste completely. So Jeff is out grocery shopping right now and he is buying lots of other drinks for me.

Lastly, I will leave you with a photo taken today:

I felt like a few days ago my belly kind of popped out, making me look dramatically more pregnant. But then I thought today that my belly looked small, and I started to worry a bit. Was the baby somehow shrinking? So I had Jeff take this picture, and he said "now do you feel like you're big enough?" And after looking at the photo, I do indeed. It is a strange thing how I go back and forth between feeling huge and feeling too small. I don't know if this is a thing that other pregnant women experience, but there is a part of me that can't wait until my belly is so large that there is no question about whether I am pregnant or just eating too many cookies. I know that I will probably regret looking forward to that stage, as of course that is also when things become much more uncomfortable, but right now that is what I want. I don't think am quite there yet, but getting close :-)