30 weeks

A string of very random thoughts:

Akilah and her baby sister will be 5 years apart. I can't possibly imagine going through all this with another child that is any younger or any less independent. Akilah is such an amazing helper and little miss independent. We truly appreciate her fun loving, spunky, positive demeanor especially as this definitely has been a week filled with a tragic reminder to keep our loved ones close. Although Akilah has no clue about the elementary school shooting in CT, I am sure she can feel it on some level. We send our love, hugs, and prayers to Connecticut.

If there is one thing I have learned from 30 weeks of debilitating illness it's that sometimes we just need to pause and rest... for a very long, seemingly endless amount of time. For me this has meant that many of my normal tasks have been pushed aside. No knitting, no baking, no sewing, no kitchen days, no canning, no making all our snacks, and the list goes on and on. I still can barely read as it makes me nauseous to do so for prolonged periods of time. As a result we aren't having handmade holidays this year. In fact, everything will be pretty low key, we aren't even sending out cards. Thankfully Tony is such a rock star Papa in charge of feeding us, all the cleaning, laundry, and doggie care. He is such a trooper, I am so incredibly grateful!

People frequently ask me what kinds of cravings I have had and what kinds of odd combinations of food I eat, but what they cannot fully comprehend (unless having personally experienced hyperemesis) is that food has been my evil enemy for the past 6.5 months. Other than raw milk, cheese grits, and an occasional piece of cake, I have not really been able to get super excited about much, although now the fact that I can finally drink water is pretty exciting. But this week I have been chowing on tongue tacos (just a bunch of tongue meat in a soft corn tortilla) with a side of queso. SO TASTY. We discovered the tacos because I am needing iron and Tony remembered a friend recommending them at a Mexican restaurant near the West Asheville post office.

We still have 7 pumpkins on our front porch, a fully decorated tree inside the house, and a bouquet of autumn flowers from Thanksgiving on the mantle. The holidays are all sorts of confused around here!