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Jana’s Substack · Nov 25, 2023

Saturday Sweep #2

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Jana Groh · Jana’s Substack

Hello!

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you celebrate. This week was short and busy at the same time:

This week made for a nice change:

I worked on Monday in a school and then enjoyed a Turkish cafe in Brooklyn afterwards.

On Tuesday, I took the day mostly off to mostly do what I wanted. Just like in previous years, I went to see the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. This year they made several changes to the show, which I quite liked. After that, I treated myself to lunch at Olive Garden. I had never been and definitely missed out until now. Their food is great, and even their lunch special comes with bread sticks and a giant bowl of salad. At the end of the day, I had a pregnancy check-up with my doctor. Unfortunately, I have recently had quite a bit of real pain (like intense and long enough that it sometimes takes my breath away), and it is unclear where the threshold is between Braxton Hicks and actual contractions. So they checked quite a few things. Luckily, Tiny Dear is doing great - we have reached 34 weeks -, and I am not (yet) dilated. I take that for now.

Wednesday was one of those days where I tried to get as many little tasks done as possible. Also called the day before the holiday. I even finally extended my car registration - only three months late, oopsies. But since the car spends the year in Maine and we only need it in summers, that is alright.

For Thanksgiving, we went to Rich’s relatives in Connecticut and enjoyed two days there. We had, obviously, a lot of food, great conversations, and we enjoyed watching Josephine (kinda) play with her cousins. Her newest word then was “toys” (cutely pronounced with a ‘d’) because she enjoyed the many boxes of new to her toys so much. I just love to see her grow so much. A year ago, she was basically still a little potato who crawled very slowly. Now, she walks and talks and interacts with others.

Now, we are enjoying a slow weekend at home. I think of maybe setting up our Christmas decorations. But that is about the highest level of energy I feel like spending on this lovely long weekend. Oh, and having seen that Christmas tree prices have increased again, I am contemplating an artificial tree … not as classy, but significantly cheaper over even only two or three years.

I have definitely reached the stage of utter discomfort. Every now and then, I forget that I am already 34.5 weeks along. I had also forgotten how much I disliked being pregnant. Really, it is not fun at all - at least in my experience. Everything hurts. I am constantly tired. Still nauseous if I don’t take my medicine. I need to sit down to put on socks and shoes. I cannot really lift Josephine or our big cast-iron skillet anymore because heavier things cause me immediate pains. I sleep worse because our party baby loves to move and kick a lot (which, granted, is also great news).

So I feel quite ready for our Tiny Dear to be born. Everything is set up. We have a plan for my mother-in-law to come and look after Josephine whenever we finally go to the hospital. We even agreed on the full name. So, really, she can come. But I guess that day might be at any point between now and in seven weeks.

I am still reading and enjoying “The Myrtlewood Mysteries”, currently book 7. This series just appeals to me on so many levels. I would definitely love to be a witch like Rosemary and her daughter Athena in Myrtlewood …

Besides, I started “The Christmas Orphans Club” by Becca Freeman this week. I followed Becca on Instagram throughout her whole novel writing process and also went to her book reading here in NYC a few weeks ago. So I am stoked about reading the novel, but also waited until now on purpose. I actually started reading my signed(!) paper copy on Tuesday after my lunch - just when I rang in the start of the holiday season for myself.

It was time for me to watch “Love Actually” - which I do every year towards the end of November. There is just something so soothing about that movie. Again and again.

Here is a list of Christmas movies I watch every single year:

  • Love Actually

  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas

  • The Grinch

  • Home Alone

  • Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (also for this, I always get a real NYC large cheese pizza)

  • The Twelve Months (an animated Russian movie from 1956)

  • whatever Hallmark has to offer

I mostly try to purchase Christmas gifts and basic things we would buy anyways. My favorite on Black Friday is always cat litter (this pine one is our favorite by the way). I get all excited about spending only a little more than the price of one bag for two packages. And Rich's reaction is like: “Really? And who will carry up those 80 pounds?” Don't worry though, our building provides a cart so that Rich won't injure his bag, ha ha. To be honest with you, I would order even more packages if we had more space … so, really, he cannot complain at all.

Besides, I this year ordered (and all of these are still on sale):

  • this digital picture frame (%50 off) because my in-laws asked for one for Christmas

  • body lotion for Rich, who also gets really dry lizard skin in winters

  • For myself, I took advantage of the Amazon 3 for the price of 2 offer and ordered these three books: A Home for Every Season (I have followed Steffy on Instagram for several years, and her content definitely inspires me to do more home projects), Murtagh (a new book of the Eragon series, and I used to love reading that when it was first published), and Super Attractor (because I want to try out manifesting)

I am still eying:

Read the original on janavar.substack.com ↗

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