Since Joel has been brave enough to answer all these personal questions, I thought I'd be supportive and make myself vulnerable too.

Birthplace: Williamsport, PA (home of the Little League World Series).

Age: 33 (almost 34).

Birthday: Late September

Hair Color: Light brown, with blonde highlights.

How long/thick is your hair: Chin-length and layered.

Eye Color: Blue-green.

Height: 5'6".

Weight: I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. ;-) Let's say it will take some hard work to get a figure again after I give birth in August.

Personality: On the Myers-Briggs I'm a INFJ (Joel is actually an ENTJ, he misremembered when he filled this out).

Do you drink? I have rarely met a tea I didn't like. In my non-gestating-baby days, I occasionally had wine and girly drinks in which the alcohol flavor is subdued

Have you had your appendix or tonsils out? Nope. I did have to have general anesthesia to get my badly impacted wisdom teeth out at age 13.

Have you ever gone skinny dipping? Not since I was a baby.

Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Nope.

'Dream' dream car: Silver Jaguar convertible

Favorite place to visit: London (been there several times and still have so much to see)

Favorite soft drink: Root beer.

Adidas, Nike, or Reebok: No brand loyalty. I've not yet found a brand in which every shoe in the line is consistently a good fit. I have high arches and short toes, so I have to try 10-12 pairs to find something that's comfortable.

Favorite Blog: Lady Dusk, always lots of fun links

Favorite subject in school: Social studies and choir in high school, poetry writing and "fiction to cinema" in college.

Least favorite subject in school: Phys Ed.

Favorite movie: Amadeus. (Seen this 16 times)

Favorite book: I loved all of Susan Howatch's Starbridge books except the ones about Aysgarth, who is a scoundrel.

Favorite alcohol: Woodchuck Dark and Dry hard cider; Tom Collins.

Favorite sport to watch: Equestrian show jumping; snowboard half-pipe

Favorite sport to play: Swimming and hiking. I dislike games that involve airborne balls, as I usually get hit in the head every time. Pool and croquet are fun, though.

Anything different about you: I was a girl percussionist in high school. In college I sang in a rock band, did theatre and created a poetry group called the Janitor Poets (we all had custodial work-study jobs). I also know how to make balloon animals.

Tattoos/Piercings: Standard 1 hole in each earlobe.

Quotes: "Too much of a good thing is wonderful." --Mae West

Favorite ice cream: Chocolate marshmallow, Vanilla Heath bar crunch

Favorite color: Burgundy.

What's your bedtime: Usually around 10:30-11:00

Favorite TV Show: The shows I like invariably get cancelled. Used to really love "Stark Raving Mad," about a book editor.

Words or phrases that you overuse: "Really." "Actually"

Something that can be improved upon: Worrying less

What you want to be: An encouragement to others

The one place you would like to see: Austria

Famous person you have met: Chaim Potok, Alice Walker, Ed Rendell, Lawrence Welk

Favorite animal: horses

Are you too shy to ask someone out: No, but I've only asked people who didn't intimidate me

Have you ever thought you were going to die: Yes, frequently. I have an overactive imagination.

Do you believe you have a soul mate: I used to. I also used to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

Have you ever felt you were in love: Yes.

Do you pray: Yes, but in a catch-as-catch-can kind of way. I aspire to give it more concentrated attention.

Do you attend church: Yes.

Single or attached: Married and carrying his baby, so attached.

What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day? Listen to local news radio for weather report. Use potty. Dress. Fix hair. Apply makeup. Eat breakfast with Joel while listening to NPR. Kiss Joel and pets goodbye. Walk to train station.

What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed? Wash up. Sit and read a devotional or listen to Joel read to me while cross-stitching.

What daily routine have you recently added to your day? Lower back stretches and Kegel exercises.

What routine do you wish you could get rid of? Two - three potty runs a night. Get this baby off my bladder!

What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day? Time to myself to just think

So much for my conviction to stick with public transportation through June! I woke up and told Joel, "I can't be heroic any more." The heat index in Philly is supposed to be 105 today, and I could barely walk down the stairs in our house this a.m., my sciatica was so bad. So we will be doing my commute together until I begin maternity leave. Thank God Joel has an academic's flexible schedule!

For the first time in weeks, I actually felt energetic when I arrived at work. The 9-block walk from the train station to my office was more wearing than I'd realized.

I guess this latest loss of autonomy is what Vicki Iovine means in The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy when she talks about "surrendering" to the process of growing a baby.

I feel important today--I had to make nice with the AMA.

In our little weekly e-mail news digest for docs (circulation 1,200), we reported on the AMA funding--or not funding--its labor union. Our story was basically a digested from of a Chicago Tribune story.

Lo and behold I got an e-mail from the AMA this morning saying our story (really, the Tribune's story) was inaccurate. I called the AMA guy, made nice, got the rest of the story, and wrote up a revised story all by myself. See my new story at http://www.acponline.org/express/2002/6/25/index.html#union.

Wow, I feel like a REAL journalist now. I almost never get to write anything, I just fix everyone else's stories. Okay, it's not exactly Pulitzer material, but it's satisfying to know that this little e-newsletter is being read by the powers that be, despite our low subscriber rate so far.

Wow, I hadn't realized how much time had elapsed since my last blog.

Some good news: things are looking far less frantic at work today and hereafter. I got the July/August issue of the Observer through editing and design and it went to the freelance proofreader today at noon. Monday, her edits will be input, then the pages will go to the printers.

I took care of some budgeting stuff for my boss for the new fiscal year and found I enjoyed it. I usually think of myself as a math midget, but I do have something of a head for basic business stuff. I actually enjoy doing our taxes on TurboTax each year. I'd like to get more aggressive with investing personal savings, but I'm kind of a coward when it comes to risk. I had picked up the "Dummies Guide to Personal Finance" this past winter, but haven't read too much of it yet, other than the sections about life insurance (a big concern with a child soon to be in the picture).

While I haven't had much mental energy for obsessing about the baby like many first-time moms-to-be, our little girl continues to make her presence felt. The activity in my womb seems to be of seismic proportions. Perhaps we have a future gymnast in the making. She still enjoys hanging out nice and low where she can squash my sciatic nerve.

Starting in July, I am giving up the commute by train because I just can't manage the 9-block walk between my office and the station. Joel will be teaching at LaSalle for second summer session and can drive me in before he heads to campus. I never dreamed that I'd feel so incapacitated by pregnancy, but the hip pain from sciatica has become quite intense lately. The twinges I had starting at 15 weeks are nothing compared to the pain level now (32 weeks).

I'm now moved from my nice quiet office on the 5th floor of the building to a cubicle on the 4th floor. The only plus is being next to a window. Otherwise, I have less storage space, less privacy and far more noise to contend with. Of course, this fact should make it easier to convice my employers that I will be far more productive telecommuting several days a week. :-)

Some of things stressing me out at home are beginning to be resolved. Joel has made tremendous progress with the remodeling project. Our future guest room looks far less like the Warsaw ghetto now. The new closet is framed and drywalled, the new ceiling is 75% finished, the new ceiling fan is installed, and some of the new wood trim is up. Plaster repairs continue slowly, because several layers are needed in places.

My in-laws decided against the house an hour away, at least for now. Joel was never too worried, but his parents are far more change-averse than mine. My folks have been fairly impetuous most of their 54 years of marriage, and have not lived in one house for more than 7 years. They often don't share plans until they are already laid and beginning to be put into motion. It has been a real learning experience, trying to figure out the "rules of the game" in my new family by marriage.

I'm not dead yet...I'm feeling much better. I think I'll go for a walk. I feel happeeee...

No I don't have the excuse of plague by association, as the poor bloke quoted above (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) for my absence from blogland. I've simply been swamped at work and not much in the mood to use a computer when I get home.

Why so swamped? I'm currently doing a job and a half while my boss is overseas for the next six to 10 weeks.

My boss and his wife left on May 26 for Moscow to adopt a little boy. They didn't have a definite court date when they left. They were getting so sick of being put off by the adoption agency (they were supposed to go in February to adopt their son), that they decided to go in person to help speed things along. A big bonus is extra time to bond with their son. The latest news from him is that their court date will likely be within the next two to three weeks, and they can return to the U.S. two weeks after that.

In the meantime, I will be putting together the July/August issue of the ACP-ASIM Observer by myself. Oh, and also move to a new part of our building while we're under deadline to lay out and edit pages of the issue. Isn't this just what every woman dreams of doing while seven months pregnant?

Back at home, my future guest room looks like a movie set of the Warsaw ghetto and my in-laws, who had agreed to help with childcare, are thinking of moving an hour away from us.

This would be about the time that the Hornes would all come down with scarlet fever, just to make a stressful situation more fun yet. ;-) Fortunately (providentially!), I'm feeling pretty good...just some sciatic pain in one hip. Joel is fit and trim and the pets are great. So, with God's help I will keep on muddling through.

An incurable bibliophile confesses...I'm a book club junkie. I'm currently in three groups and I know I'll have to give up one or two when I become a mom. But look at what I've read in the past 6 months (including several non-club selections):
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein
Personal History by Katharine Graham
The Red and the Green by Iris Murdock
The Coalwood Way by Homer Hickam

I'm already sad thinking about the books I won't have time to read once the baby comes. "Pat the Bunny" just isn't the same.

We rented the film Waking Life over the weekend and were sorely disappointed. The animation technique employed is actually quite fascinating, but on the whole, the film left a lot to be desired.

First of all, we had the silly expectation that the film would have a plot. Second, we believed there would be something of a consistent visual look to the animation, so that characters are recognizable from scene to scene. The choppy incoherence might have made the film more fun for the animators--each obviously given license to do their own style in a given scene--but it makes for tedious watching.

The script seems like a poor attempt to be profound, giving random samplings of world views of benighted postmoderns and other poor schmucks of our day mired down in a moral and epistimological quagmire. Scene after scene, the protagonist wanders into conversations with various individuals who spout bankrupt philosophies. It struck me as being forced to sit up all night listening to sophomore philosophy majors jabber on and on inventing crackpot theories.

In no sense is any hopefulness expressed about our lives having meaning. The theories and stories the protagonist hears as he wanders in a dream state serve only to clarify that his waking life is an illusion. He is trapped in this existence of passivity from which he cannot wake.

I have not in a long time seen such a loud cry for help from a God who loves, who cherishes, who enlivens and fills his people with meaning and purpose.

Last week, I finally finished up the tome I was slogging though for a book group, Personal History by Katharine Graham. I knew little about Graham except that she was in charge of the Washington Post during the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. I was more familiar with the former story because of my final graduate class, Journalism History.

I was concerned early on that this would be another "poor little rich girl" kind of story. After all, Graham's rise in her career can be attributed largely to her birth into a prominent family. Strangely, she is remarkably uncocky about what is handed to her. In fact, she downplays her education and work experiences from her single days. It seems strange that such a privileged background, growing up in two mansions run by hordes of servants, would produce such an unconfident person.

Graham attributes much of her lack of confidence to the ways in which her mother tore down her children, when she wasn't ignoring them completely. Only over the course of many years does Graham realize that her self-centered mother is not the only cause of her timidity. The entire culture fed her constant messages that she was nothing and that her talents would never stack up to a man's.

Graham never puts herself forward as any sort of poster child for the women's movement. She in fact faults herself for not being more sensitive to women in her workplace and of doing too little to improve working conditions for women. As a leader, she often deferred to the judgement of male colleagues, often against her better instincts. The way in which she fumbled around professionally actually made me see the women's movement in the 1960s and 70s in a new light. Many women were not bra-burning radicals, but simply intelligent people struggling to make a living and do their jobs competently. I don't think I appreciate enough what the last generation did to overcome barriers and remake our culture so that women could have opportunites to excel intellectually and professionally.

The other thing Graham's book helped me appreciate is how far mental health care has come since the early 1960s. Graham's husband left her a widow when he committed suicide in 1963. He showed all the signs of bipolar disorder, which experts then were just beginning to understand. Lithium treatment was experimental those days--bipolar patients usually received only counseling. I'm close to several bipolar people, including a relative, and I'm awed at what a difference medication makes. Tragic stories like Phil Graham's would be the norm if not for scientific breakthroughs in neurology.

Thanks to Dawn and her talk of wine tastings, I am suddenly craving something alcoholic. I could really, really go for a Woodchuck dark and dry hard cider right now. :-(

It's been a while since I've had a chance to blog. My organization's annual convention was two weeks ago, which meant several long days producing a daily newspaper for the show, then returning to the office to whip together the May issue of our regular magazine. The May issue went to press this morning, and I can now breathe again.

And now for the real news...drumroll please....

After our last disappointing ultrasound, we got our wish of learning the gender. We will be having a GIRL!

I realize that ultrasounds are not 100% accurate for determining gender, but none of us--the tech, her trainee, Joel nor I--saw evidence of boy parts.

Come August, we will welcome to the world Claire or Johanna or Amelia. We will pick the final name at the hospital.

Since you all gave us such great prayer support while we were trying to conceive, I thought I'd mention our current challenge.

With Joel working full time in the fall, it means he will not be able to be the primary caregiver for the baby, as we had planned earlier. We are working out some preliminary plans for childcare in the fall and appreciate your prayers. Joel's schedule will be heavy on M, W, F and light on Tu, Th. I would like to telecommute on his light days so that I can be with the baby some during the week, but still be able to put in hours my employer expects of a full-time employee. It's possible that Joel's mom will help at least one day a week. We would like to find a Christian stay-at-home mom near us who might be willing to watch the baby a few days a week at a reasonable rate. It's a lot of details to work out by October, when my maternity leave will end.

We got some very good news regarding Joel's job situation starting this fall. But it's his news to tell, so let the spamming begin: Bug him at garver@lasalle.edu and perhaps he'll take a moment to blog about it.

I had my "big" ultrasound done on Tuesday, and it look's like we're going to have....a baby!

Nope, we weren't able to discover the gender of our incubating little one. S/he was face-down/spine up the whole time, with legs crossed at the knees. In fact, the tech couldn't even get a very good scan of the entire heart, just a side view, so I'm scheduled to go back for yet another ultrasound in three weeks. We're praying the insurance company doesn't have a cow!

So, the waiting continues. I'm gradually coming to accept the fact the we might not be able to learn the baby's gender ahead of time. I've never been too great with surprises, but that's a large part of parenthood, so I suppose I need to learn to deal with it now.

Keat's last pre-surgery feat was to haul an entire 4-pack of toilet paper halfway across the house and hide it in the guest bedroom. At 6.5 months old, and just under 8 pounds, this is quite a show of strength.

The neighborhood racoons had better beware!

Our feline son Mr. Keats had his surgery yesterday and seems to have fared just fine. Joel jokes that he is now a cat-strato.

He was just about as rambunctious as ever last night. We brought him with us from the vet's to Joel's parent's house for dinner and time using Dad's Turbo Tax program. While I filled in tax forms, Joel chased Keats all over, trying to keep him from destoying any of Mom's copious collection of knick-knacks. (I sure hope she realizes that she will need to pare down to make her place safe for the new grandchild to visit!)

We decided to let Keats keep his claws, since he hasn't been destructive and also because of the expense of the surgery. I hope our reward will be a continued mouse-free home.

I beat my record set on March 5, 2002.

Last night I went to bed at 5:30 p.m. and slept until 7:00 a.m. this morning. Is it a virus? The sin of sloth? Nope. The baby factory needed to run second and third shift. Another growth spurt must be imminent.

I'm beginning to suffer from blog withdrawal!

Points of interest since my last blog.
-Our book group held a dramatic reading of "Much Ado About Nothing." Joel and I played Beatrice and Benedict. It was great fun, though some of the lines are real tongue twisters.

-On Jenn's recommendation, we borrowed (free from the library, yeah!) the BBC/A&E miniseries Pride and Prejudice. I plowed through the six videos in just two days and enjoyed them immensely. The pacing was a bit closer to the actual book, and I think the film captured the right mix of humor and seriousness. My only complaint was that wicked Wickham was a bit too homely to be believable as the handsome rogue. The casting and costumes sure beat the BBC version of Mansfield Park, though. The women in that particular film had totally wrong hairstyles for the era, and rather unbecoming dresses. And I'm a huge fan on Georgian clothing--it's flattering to most body types. In fact, our wedding was Austen-themed.

-We received our first installment of baby hand-me-downs from church friends. We put the baby shoes on Nicky and laughed ourselves hoarse. Keats is fascinated by the rattles. He took a particular shine to a teething toy that plays "twinkle, twinkle, little star" and carried it off in his teeth to play with it some more. Both were fascinated and freaked out by this ball that makes all sorts of strange noises when you roll it on the floor. Each of them would poke it, then run away. It will really be amusing to see how they and the baby interact with the toys.

-We watched the BBC/A&E version of Emma that a friend lent us. I enjoyed Kate Beckinsale in the title role, but otherwise was disappointed with the film. The version with Gwyneth Paltrow was more engaging and funny, and the plot easier to follow. The overall feel of the latter film was far more warm, possibly owing to the more yellow-toned cinematography, and sunnier outdoor scenes. The BBC version felt overly gray and heavy. I generally consider Emma to be Austen's funniest novel.

Whoa! I think I'm feeling some kicking!

Pretty weird. It's like poke, poke, fizzzzzz, poke, ping, pull, fizzzz. What sort of acrobatics is this kids getting into? No wonder I've been so darned tired. Last night I napped from 5:30-7:15 and from 8:00 to 9:10, then went to bed at 10:15. In fact, I could use another nap right about now. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Well, I finally gave in to temptation.

Our friend Paul has been bugging me for years to join one of his monthly role-playing game sessions. I had been RPG-free since 1991, thank you very much, and hadn't played D&D since 1989. I'm not sure if my sense of sobriety has weakened, or simply that I felt compelled when Paul's wife reminded me that I would never have time for such frivolity once I'm a mom.

I can't say D&D has the hold on me that it did when I was in high school and my pal Becky and I would spend Saturdays playing on the phone, she as dungeon master and I controlling 4 or 5 characters. I think it used to make me feel powerful, something unusual for a skinny 14-year-old who's the youngest of 5 kids.

The game also doesn't have the hold it did in college. On a Christian college campus, playing D&D was considered equivalent to joining a coven, even though all of us players were Christians and none ever played evil characters. So it was kind of thrilling to have such an "underground" hobby. I also became more and more enchanted of trying on new roles and being in this pretend realm something I'd never be in real life--like a well-armed tough or a seductress. Theatre and writing became other outlets for those urges as well.

I sometimes wonder if it was actually theraputic for me to work though the unhappiness in my life, like growing up with a mentally ill parent, though these fairly safe outlets for fantasy.

I know now that I don't really need to be someone else, or even find any enjoyment in being someone else, because I've reached a certain sense of contentment with my life as it is. Who'd have thought I'd reach the day when I'd prefer to be a 30-something bookish editor with morning sickness who wears glasses and hates her thighs over a 22-year old half-elf paladin with gorgeous red hair, super-strength and charm galore? Call it a comprehension of grace.

To declaw or not to declaw, that is the question.

Our feline son Keats will reach his 6-month birthday next week and will be old enough to be neutered. What were're trying to decide now is whether to get him declawed in front while he's going in for the other procedule. The surgery is now done with lasers and is much less painful for the animal. As someone who grew up with outdoor cats and even barn cats, this whole indoor cat lifestyle (the litterboxes and toys, etc.) is new to me.

I can think of several reasons to not declaw: the expense, and loss of his ability to kill mice if we get some.

The reasons for the surgery are many: To prevent him climbing so much (like the curtains!) and clawing the furniture (though he hasn't wrecked anything yet). My bigger concern is how much he now claws us and how he might hurt the baby. Joel seems to think the neutering alone will calm down these bad behaviors, but I'm not so sure.

Any thoughts?