Stay on the Ride

Oh my friends! I had such a wonderful weekend! It was so good to see and hang out with my friends and family. Once again though, as I said goodbye to my friend, R, we both wished out loud that we lived closer.

I guess 3 1/2 hours away is better than the 16 hours that divided us when Hubby and I lived in Phoenix. But it is still far when so many things are happening in everyone's lives and you desperately want to be a part of it.

But, absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? And I am so fond of my friends in my old hometown. Even though I want to be near them every moment, it really does make it special when I do get to see them.

So the blessingway was on Saturday. Some of you may not know this, but it didn't exactly turn out the way we had planned. We really picked a bad weekend, and in the end the turn out was next to no one so we changed the format a bit. I actually think it worked out better this way - we had a great adventure and a wonderful day of talking, eating and bonding. And though many of my friends were not there, we could still feel you all in spirit.

The new plan was to meet in the morning and travel into the city to get henna tattoos. It started out as 3 of us going, then 4 then back to 3 then down to 2 and then back up to 4 plus a 4 month old baby! By the time we all got together, we had just enough time to load into the car and race down to the Mehndi Shop in time for our appointment. The shop is quaint and small, in the heart of an arts type district and the burning incense outside was welcoming. We walked in, greeted by the artist and had a chance to look around at all the pictures and beautiful fabrics and baubles and items for sale. After perusing the sample book, we picked out designs for our tattoos. I was first.

The artist had me sit on a beautifully decorated bed with loads of colorful pillows. I propped up several and laid back, not sure of what to expect. The henna paste was cool and tickley - and her very light touch on my belly was comforting and relaxing. The baby had his back to us, and we could see the rise and fall of each breath he took through my belly button. The girls seemed fascinated with it's movement. Once the artist got a good bit of paste on my belly, Port began to move around a lot; kicking and rolling and jabbing. She said that she thought the cooling properties of the eucalyptus in the paste could be felt through the skin, and that babies often respond to the belly paintings in a similar way. It only took her about 10 minutes to finish my design, and the results were outstanding! I was so impressed. The room was very warm, and I could see the sweat forming on my belly above the design, so it was good that I could get up and move around a bit.

My friend Shannan went next and got a lovely flower design on her foot. Then it was Sheila's turn. She chose to have her hand tattooed - which looked really cool, but unfortunately was not too handy when her baby boy needed a serious diaper change just a few short minutes later! lol! Thankfully the artist seemed to love babies and helped her out. My friend Rhonda went last and had a beautiful butterfly painted on to her upper chest.

We were done in a mere 45 minutes and then were out the door. I had to keep my shirt up to allow the paste to dry for at least an hour, so we decided to go back across town for lunch. We chose a local sushi place and had an amazing meal and some great conversation. [Here's a bad food shot for you!] After gorging on sushi and noodles and food galore, we headed back to Shannan's house. But first me made a couple of crucial stops at Starbucks and Sonic! lol!

When we got to the house we took to task stringing the necklace and putting the blessing book together. The beads and blessings everyone brought and sent were shared and documented. Shannan put together a beautiful little book with brightly colored pages for each of the blessings. It is so pretty, and something I am going to cherish forever. Here are a few pages...

There are more, but this post is already really image heavy. I'll try to post more later. I am still waiting on a couple of beads, so we didn't complete the necklace, but I will be sure to post a picture when it is done. It is so beautiful so far; I cannot wait to hold it and gaze upon it and feel the energy it will give when I am in labor.

I also received comfort gifts from the girls and several friends that couldn't make it, and went home with a gorgeous basket full of smell good stuff, lotions, massage oils and useful things to help me get through labor, delivery and beyond. It was really nice and wonderful and I can't wait to utilize some of the items!

Once it was time to go, Sheila, Shannan and I ended up standing in the driveway for over an hour yakking about anything and everything (but mostly about giving birth) and it was so nice. It was hard to peel myself away, but after a couple of "we are desperate to go to dinner" calls from Hubby I finally left. I had to drop Sheila and her baby off at her house. I won't go into details, but her mother in law gave us quite a laugh with her antics!

After the drop off, I made my way over to the car show that Hubby, Happy, Grammy and Kiddo were participating in and we all loaded up and grabbed a quick bite. Kiddo has been battling some sort of crud - and though I thought it was allergies, it has really been affecting his mood and is now in his chest. It may still be allergies though because they tend to do the same to me by causing sinus infections and the like. But the excitement for the evening with Kiddo at the car show was a gigantic gusher of a nose bleed. Poor kid. Poor Grammy! lol!

We finally made it home sometime around nine, and by then my entire body was swollen. I had tingling in my feet and hands, lovely sausage fingers and toes and a purple belly. I guess it was too big of a day for me and my body revolted.

I tried to take it easy yesterday, but with running around in the morning and then a 3 1/2 hour drive back I am afraid it didn't do much good. When we got home last night my ankles were swollen and my pelvis felt like it was going to break in half. You know that feeling you used to get as a kid when you rode your bike for too long on those hard bike seats and you feel like someone kicked you between the legs - yeah, that was my night last night.

Today is better, but I am really worn down and crampy once again. I hope I can get back to some version of normal today, because frankly, I have far too much to do! Now there is so much more to organize, wash, put away and assemble before this baby comes. I am overwhelmed at the thought of everything I still need to do.

But I know it will all be worth it.

Thank you to all of you who participated in the blessingway, near and far - it truly was meaningful and special to me and I will never forget it.

Until,

D :)