I started the day with more vigor than I have in the past five, though I’m fading now and am fighting the desire to sleep.<\/p>\n
Day three of the roofing. Yesterday I felt too unwell to go anywhere. I stayed home and bathed in my own sweat while the mercury rose to 93F and the closed windows made the the house feel like a sarcophagus. The roofers did not leave until 7:00 p.m. To cope, I took a couple of cold showers, though the relief was temporary.<\/p>\n
Last night Husband and I made a foray to Whole Foods (a rare visit) to purchase eucalyptus oil to dab on my temples and neck for congestion relief. We also bought red raspberry leaf tea<\/a>, which is reputed to help “tone the uterus” — it doesn’t start labor, but supposedly it makes the Braxton Hicks contractions more efficient. According to what I’ve read, it can act as an abortifacent if taken too much and too early in pregnancy, but after 37 weeks it’s considered helpful. Will it work? Who knows? But it’s not a teratogen, and so there’s no harm in it.<\/p>\n I did manage to get five hours of straight sleep last night by propping myself on pillows in bed. It’s the only comfortable position for my belly anymore, and it allows me to breathe.<\/p>\n When the roofers came today, I felt well enough to push myself out the door. I filled the gas tank and got the car washed. I made a deposit and withdrawal at the bank. I bought stamps at the post office. Each of these places had air conditioning, and I blasted it in my car. I went to Unamas! for lunch (guess what? they have air conditioning!); I have to remind myself to eat since I can smell and taste nothing. I only know I’m hungry when I get lightheaded and my stomach growls vigorously. The symptoms do seem to be lessening, finally.<\/p>\n I stopped by Purlescence to visit Sandi<\/a> and Nathania<\/a>. Nathania, who will assist my labor, invited me to her home (air conditioned living room!) for a massage this afternoon. So right now I’m ensconced in the library pushing myself to stay alert so I can meet her at 5:00. I can’t go home; the heat is at its peak, and the roofers certainly aren’t done. (They only started putting on shingles today.) I don’t expect them to completely finish until next Tuesday; meanwhile we have three lovely days of quiet and open windows ahead.<\/p>\n Nathania mentioned that Lowe’s has a sale on air conditioning units. Typically, September is one of the hottest months here, and it can even be warm into mid-October. So finally, finally, I am giving in and asking Husband to see if we can get one. He’s been suggesting it for months. Friends, family, and readers have been suggesting this. I’ve resisted because of the expense, and because we rent, and because our windows don’t open vertically (which would hold a normal window unit). I’ve resisted because pregnancy is temporary, and the hot season isn’t long; only a handful of days are near intolerable, and open windows do help. But now I say “Uncle!”<\/em> and hope that we can find one. So often we have the “California shopping experience,” which is a fruitless scavenger hunt for an item that whatever stores you visit don’t have in stock. <\/p>\n I keep telling myself, any day now…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I started the day with more vigor than I have in the past five, though I’m fading now and am fighting the desire to sleep. Day three of the roofing. Yesterday I felt too unwell to go anywhere. I stayed home and bathed in my own sweat while the mercury rose to 93F and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10783,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/10783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}