Brain dump

I tried to post yesterday, I really did.  But it's getting harder for me to function on Mondays because I'm still teaching my 6am yoga class.  Getting up at 4:50 in the morning is starting to become difficult, especially when I have a small person inside of me thumping me at 3 in the morning going *thump* Peanut butter please! *thumpthump* Peanut butter! *thump* I SAID, get up. and get me. some Peanut. Butter!! *thumpthump*  


It's all I can do to function at work on Mondays.  I will stop teaching in April, which is only 14 more classes.  The pregnancy app on my phone says I have 115 days left, and that's if I go to my due date which is probably not going to happen (although I'm going to get as close as possible.)  We've begun planning baby showers, we've got plans for baby shopping after the first of the year which is less than two weeks away.  My head is starting to spin and all I can think about is that I haven't finished talking about our trip to Key West and I have to respond to my emails.  Seriously - you know how the big stuff overwhelms you and you start to fixate on the little stuff that doesn't matter that much at all?  Yeah, that's me.


Consider this the brain dump - I apologize in advance if I go a little stream-of-conciousness on you.


While in Key West, we visited the Ernest Hemingway house.  Before going in, we stopped at the cafe next door called The Six-Toed Cat.  Drew and I were very confused but we blew it off, figuring it was just a kitschy, Key West kind of name.  Not so!  Apparently, Ernest Hemingway had a thing for six-toed cats and his estate now breeds them.  There are anywhere from 35-40 cats on his property at all times, many of them polydactyl.

I couldn't get much closer because the guide (right, in the house shoes with socks)

was very protective of the cats.

Speaking of the guide, he was very, um, colorful?  Verbose?  Kitschy?  I don't know why that word is stuck in my head.  Anyway, he was entertaining and I enjoyed the tour.  He knew a lot about Hemingway's life and I felt a little pang of sympathy that so many members of his family were touched by depression and suicide.  The poor man really was a tortured artist.  

Hemingway's writing studio - my favorite part of the tour.

I would love to have a space, separate from everyone and everything, 

to just create.  How cool would that be!

After the Hemingway house, we made the short walk to the southernmost point and took the obligatory tourist photo.

Much bigger than I thought it would be

One of these days, I'll take cool pictures like this on purpose.

For now, I'll settle for happy accidents.

Apparently, chickens are the adopted bird of Key West.

Like cows in India, it's illegal to harm roosters or chickens and 

they just roam freely around the island.

If you eat chicken in Key West, it's been brought in from somewhere else.

The trip was great but more importantly, my brain feels a little lighter.  AND it's a great segue to my next part!

So, I read The Bloggess every day and I love her writing.  I love her sense of humor and anyone who can make a living writing is pretty much my hero so I kind of look up to her too.  Guess what?  A couple of weeks ago they adopted a six-toed cat.  I was all how crazy is that?  Ernest Hemingway liked six-toed cats too and I was just at his house!  I didn't know six-toed cats existed before Key West and now they're everywhere!  Random I know, and you're probably nowhere near as impressed as I am with that coincidence but I'm dumping my brain right now.

But then, she did something really important.  Last Wednesday, as a thank you to her readers she offered 20 $30 Amazon giftcards to the first 20 commenters who were going to be short on Christmas or who weren't going to be able to get their children presents and would have to tell them the truth about Santa.  Naturally, the first 20 were gone instantly but the coolest thing happened.  The 21st person asked for help and the 22nd person said they would take care of the 21st person.  Then more people stepped up, offering to help out.  And more and more.

By yesterday evening, over $22,000 in cash had been donated to people in need, in the form of giftcards, deposits into Paypal accounts, and people even donated dolls and doll clothes and one 9th grader was gifted an iPad to give to her mother.  And I got to be a part of it!  I commented, offering to donate and Saturday morning I got my person's email address.  I bought an Amazon giftcard and emailed it, and I've never felt better.  I got to be a part of a movement y'all! Well, Drew and I both did because we have a joint checking account - WE were part of a movement!  

Read the post, read the comments, cry your eyes out and get warm and fuzzy that a regular person did this and regular people responded and know that that's a straight-up Christmas miracle.

We leave tomorrow to go to my parent's house for Christmas and I'm so excited!  We didn't get a tree or anything this year because we're saving it all for next year, and plus I'm too tired to put in the decorating effort - you saw how I went to work last week.  I'm doing good to shower.

Even though the baby will only be um, what, eight months old?  something like that? I've already told Drew that I want to go all out.  I want lights on the house, a Christmas tree on every surface, and we're sending out Christmas cards.  All the ones we've received are displayed prominently on our mantle and it's kind of exciting to think that our Christmas card will be on someone else's mantle next year!  So we're conserving our energy this year - that's what I'm telling myself.

I feel so much better now!  Thanks for that!