We've decided that October 13th will be my last day before maternity leave. That's sixteen more days of work (since I'm taking some time off between now and then for weddings). I can do sixteen more days, right? I think so. :D I think that will be just about right, because it's already getting difficult to do a full days worth of massage. Standing for that many hours, leaning over people, it kills my low back and hips. After four massages it hurts to stand. Not so bad that I can't do it, but enough that I'll complain about it. I have been trying to do stretching and I work my low back muscles so they aren't so tight, and that helps. I'll miss my coworkers, but it's not like I can never see them again or anything. And I have enough projects to keep me busy the rest of my pregnancy.

    If any of you ever check out our Flickr page, you know that our oaks are down. Steve's made a pretty good amount of progress on our log pile. As he's been splitting pieces, we find more and more things these trees were dealing with, and we start wondering how they managed to live so long in the first place. Massive ant infestation. Starting about head height to half way up the tree, the ants had bored out living space in the trunk. One piece is so bored out that the thickest piece of trunk is about two and a half inches. The rest is empty space. I think there's a picture of it on Flickr. It just makes you shake your head to look at it. There are a few bore holes from beetles, but not enough to kill the tree. There are some spots with dry rot. I'm SOOOOO happy we went ahead and had these trees cut down. The autumn winds are on their way, and I can just imagine what would have happened if we had left these structurally unsound dead trees standing right next to our house. Bye-bye bathroom and kitchen. Our house is a bit protected from wind because of the little valley we're in, but we could still be talking thirty mile an hour winds. We had that last year, but only during the Santa Annas that pushed the big fires all around. So, since we had so many ants in the trees, and now the trees have been cut apart and the nests are on the ground, guess what? We have so many ants EVERYWHERE that we had to put in a call today to a pest control service. Luckily, they're only outside, but I don't want to risk them finding ways into the house. Since we destroyed their homes, they're on the lookout for a new one. As long as I stay inside the house (with the windows closed, of course) for a few hours after they're done spraying, it's not a danger to the baby. We made sure to ask before we scheduled them to come out.

   We signed up for a three week childbirth class. It starts December 3rd, so it'll be close enough to the due date that we don't have to worry about forgetting everything we learned by then. I was really frustrated by the childbirth classes offered around here. The free ones didn't really cover anything I wanted to know about, and the ones I was the most interested in were outrageously expensive. So we went with a series that isn't very expensive but covers the basics we want to know about, like lamaze and relaxation techniques, and I bought some books on the topics I wanted to know more about in detail. I want to do natural childbirth (if at all possible), so I wanted more in depth info on pain management techniques, how to avoid an episiotomy if possible, etc. I actually have a pretty high pain threshold, as long as it isn't something I just have to live with. That wears me down quickly. But short term intense pain I handle just fine. When I broke my arm in two places several years ago, I didn't take any pain medication until about seven hours later, and that was only so I could sleep. While I was at the hospital, the doctor was moving around one of my breaks to show a student he thought it was broken because of the amount of pain I was having there, even though they couldn't see it on the xray. The nurses thought I was out of my gourd when they asked if I wanted any pain meds and I said no. I just didn't think it was bad enough to warrant them. Of course, childbirth is on a different scale than breaking a bone (or two), but I really, honestly, think I can handle it. I guess we'll see in four months.