I feel depressed because I have been feeling bad, and it has prevented me from exercising or even leaving the house much. I really want to go for a brisk walk, but that sounds terrible at the same time. I'm hoping that after I am forced to get out of the house tomorrow for work, it will boost my energy enough to start exercising again. It's really boring just sitting around the house all day, watching TV (I hate TV, but my whole family watches it all day so I have started again as well) or sitting on the computer. Reading is a nice break, but I'm still not moving when I'm reading. I'm getting anxious because I know I only have 8 months to do the yoga to build the muscles necessary to give birth... and how many of those months am I going to feel like this? Who knows. I wish I had gone ahead and gotten in really serious shape before getting pregnant.

Ash and I have decided that is is really important for us to have our own space, and that we need to starting pursuing the house-building more aggressively. I'm going to start working on some sketches for a cob house to send to the cob guy for an estimate, and then schedule a visit to Virginia to look at the yurts. I can't imagine that a yurt is a better investment, but it's so tempting to think we would have it up in a week, whereas the cob cottage could take a year to build and a lot of our own labor.

TTC and TTC

It's December and we have been officially trying to conceive for 32 days. Took a pregnancy test a few days ago because my temperature went up and stayed up! But it was negative. Still no Aunt Flo, sill the elevated temperature, so I guess I could have taken the test too early (the test was also a couple years old so that may have been a factor too). The instructions say wait 7 days before taking another test. The waiting game it is then.

I have been trying to hold out on any baby prep until I'm actually pregnant. But when I was in Amsterdam I was buying a present for a pregnant friend and I saw these PERFECT little leather booties (used of course). So I bought them (only 8 euro!!).



And recently I bought some crafting supplies and tried making a stuffed animal for the first time:





BUT I SWEAR THAT'S THE LAST BABY STUFF I WILL DO. The wool is 100% natural wool... but the felt is not, which made me feel pretty guilty. I am going to look at Joann's craft store next week to see if I can find some 100% recycled felt (100% wool felt is too expensive, until I have my own sheep).

I'm trying to conceptualize what I want our family's home to look like. In my head it has always been Bag End, Bilbo Baggins' home in "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Due to our lack of experience building things that don't fall down... we may be going with the yurt option and building add-ons (wood burning stove, greenhouse, deck). There is a group of people around here who know what they are doing (Carolina Cob) but I'm afraid to ask what they charge. A yurt will probably cost $10,000 total, including a bunch of add-ons but not all of the add-ons.... a lot less than rent and mortgage for the rest of your life!!
I have been collecting pictures of sustainable homes off of the internet for inspiration.





This is a picture of how a girl built a rocket stove into the floor of her yurt!! Very cool.





Then they did something REALLY cool... they wrapped piping around the heater and ran water through it. INSTANT HOT BATH!



My parent's roof is so huge, it could capture a LOT of water. There is already one rain barrel in place and it is always full all the time. One of the chickens tried to roost on it so I'm afraid there might be some chicken poop in there... sill chickens.

THE FUTURE IS EXCITING. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The best prep for collapse is OPTIMISM!