So here’s the spidey I was talking about in the Bugs post below. This isn’t a very good picture of it, but it’s so weird. During the day it tucks all it’s legs in, more than this even, until it looks like a little frog up in the web. Then at night it spreads them out and looks like a big bad-ass.

And then here it is at night, although this soooooo doesn’t do it justice. I couldn’t seem to get a picture that captured the creepiness or the perfection of the whole thing. You’ll just have to use your imaginations.

Introducing Baby Ophelia! Our good friend Anni just gave birth to all 7 lbs 10 oz of this small wonder a week ago, Sept 12th! She has her mother’s hair, that’s for sure.

I got to spend some quality time during the first three days mama and baby were at home with them, and I must admit, I was in a little bit of shock after Day 1. After witnessing the wonder of technology that is the electric breast pump, I now feel that I can accurately say that I have seen it all.

In addition to being so very excited to be a part of this new chapter of Anni’s life and to be one of the wee babe Ophelia’s super-cool Aunts, I’m viewing this as a great opportunity to learn about this whole baby thing. My sister has 4 kids, but since she is 14 years older than me I was pretty young when she had them and didn’t have any good understanding or perspective of the whole thing at the time. For another thing I’ve always lived far enough away from them that I’ve only gotten to see them 2 or 3 times a year. This is so different because I get to live in the same city as this little one, and hopefully get to see her every week! So I’ll get to see all the little changes, watch her grow, and I better learn some of the finer points of baby life if I want to be the world-class babysitter I intend to be for this munchkin !

So the time I’ve had with mama and baby so far have left with me with some seriously strong impressions. First, I’ve gotta say the whole childbirth thing is even more terrifying to me now than it was before, after hearing Anni’s story of what she went through, seeing the burst blood vessels in her eyes from pushing so hard, and hearing the after effects and the things that are currently going on with her poor body! But I must also say that after holding little baby O that first day, I could not stop thinking about her and seeing her beautiful face all day long the next day and couldn’t wait for more!

So congratulations to our wonderful, amazing friend Anni! I am so excited to watch this little girl grow, to learn from her, and to be a part of her incredible life!

Well here it is, my long-awaited first entry on our blog. Ta-dahhh!! Since this is a momentous occasion, it would probably be appropriate to write about something very profound. But instead, I want to write about bugs. I get along alright with bugs, with the very serious exception of centipedes, and the moderate exception of cockroaches. I have a long, dark history with centipedes, because for some reason they seem to have a magnetic attraction to me. If there is a centipede in a building, guaranteed that I will be the one to encounter it. If I was climbing around in a waterfall in the Ivory Coast and there was a centipede on one teeny tiny spot on an enormous boulder, guaranteed that that would be the one spot where I would put my hand down. Ugh. One of our first nights in the house, we came home and turned the light on as we entered the dining room and saw an enormous (for real) centipede in the corner. Access to the corner being blocked by piles and piles of boxes, we weren’t able to get to it to squish it before it crawled into the heating vent and out of sight. (By "we" I actually mean Nate, because now that I have a Nate I let him do all the centipede squishing. It’s good for him, he gets to assert his manliness.) I was upset that it got away, because I knew based on all my previous life experiences, that I would be the one to find it later. I don’t think Nate quite believed my stories of centipedes stalking me, but sure enough, a couple of days later, there it was, sitting in MY nightstand, not his, waiting for me! Uggghh. The very next night we opened the front door and another huge centipede scurried across the screen door. I was a little concerned about the way things were starting out, but I am happy to say that we haven’t seen another one since.

Our first issue that we had to deal with as homeowners was wasp nests. I discovered nest #1 as I was dumping stuff into the composter where said nest was located, which the wasps weren’t too happy about. One stung me and then I realized they were all swarming around me. I ran into the house, accidentally letting one in with me, and stood at the door watching them swarm, with conflicting feelings ranging from ouch wasp sting to Yay! We have wasps because we have a yard to have them in! We later discovered another nest close by, which may be the same… colony? is that what you call them? Anyway, Nate in all his MacGyverness built a trap out of a 2-liter Coke bottle which worked well, and I really dug it – the first couple of days. Now it’s gotten kind of old. It’s still there, it has like hundreds of bees, wasps, flies what-have-yous in it, it’s full of rainwater and it’s like a vat of death. Gross. How does one dispose of such a thing? Anyway, the wasp nests themselves have since been dealt with, and they are no longer taking over our entire yard.

And now that I’ve already written a novel I get to the part I originally intended to write about. The spiders. They’re everywhere! Big ones too! Every time I walk out the door I walk through a spider web. They build crazy webs the likes of which I’ve never seen in all our windows. One built this cool tunnel thing at the intersection of two walls. One was huge and bright red and built a big ol web from above our front door to the tree. Every time I have to get the lawnmower out of the shed I have to break through the spider web that is continually rebuilt on the door handle, carefully avoiding the big mama spider that’s always hanging out there. Nate and I both have sort of an affinity for spiders since they eat other bugs and are just cool, so we pretty much let them do their own thing, except for the ones in the house.

So a couple of nights ago I was trying to use some of the massive amounts of veggies we’ve been neglecting from our CSA veggie share. I pulled out a whole bunch of Chinese cabbage from the crisper, and to my surprise came upon a big ol green caterpillar! I watched it for a little while, realized it was still alive, and then opened the back door to take it outside. Now. We have a motion detector light outside our back door, so when I stepped outside I waved my hand up in front of the light so it would go on. And then I got another shock, because built directly in front of the light was a big, beautiful, perfect orb spider web with a big ol fatty spider sitting right inthe middle of it. I had almost stuck my hand right in it! (I recently had the experience of walking face-first into such a web in the Boundary Waters, and I just don’t need to relive any part of that.) It was pretty amazing, and pretty spooky, like too Halloween perfect. When I told Nate about it later on, it was mostly about the spider web. But upon further reflection, I realize that the really amazing thing is that that caterpillar had been living in the crisper drawer of our refrigerator for a week or two! It must have been moving reeeeeally sloooooww… occasionally munching Chinese cabbage…

Well I think I’ve written enough now to make up for the last couple of months. Watch what you ask for Nate…