Less Cerebreal; Still Important

(Whew.) I had a mild bit of cardiac angina all the while that the health care schpiel was the first post that showed up when the Internet pulled up emilyanne.net. Part of me absolutely devours the political controversy; the other parts of me worry fretfully the whole time whether I've said something stupid, (which I did,) that someone's been offended, (which they were,) and that while sticking so vigilantly to our political leanings we might actually have forgotten that most of these complicated issues are ultimately about what kind of world we want this to be for us, our children, and our neighbors--that there are people, not just dollars involved. I know that this may be viewed as a politically "chicken" place to stand, but most times I feel that while my instincts tend to be conservative, my person is split something like 75 red/25 blue on the proper resolution of these issues. I understand the economic implications (well, sort of...well, not really until Nate (or Jesse) explains them to me,) of too much government control and intervention, but also see, in real life, that the market doesn't always correct itself...or if it does, it can take an awfully long time to do so, and during that awfully long time there is a lot of social and economic injustice going on. As far as health care, I guess I'd like to see more private initiative for reform before we hand things (ie more of our money, which equals more of our liberty (thank you, Jesse,)) over to the federal government. (p.s. Jesse is incredibly astute when it comes to financial principles. We use his budget. We love his budget. We think you should buy his budget. Amen.)

And now I am politically spent for a season, (but please keep commenting below if there is more of your mind that needs to be spoken,) and I wish to discuss something of equally great consequence, (to me,) but which will require a much less rigorous cerebral output from all of us, which is this: I am expanding. In many ways. The bulk of the aforementioned expansion is taking place in my abdominal region and in my capacities for turkey sandwiches with spinach, tomato, avocado and lots of pepper AND Blue Bell Great Divide (Dutch chocolate/Homemade Vanilla) ice cream consumption. (I think the former (abdominal expansion) and the latter (capacity for Blue Bell ice cream) may be cause-and-effectishly linked.) When I asked Nate to take a picture of my mid-section last night, his first question was, "you're not going to post this on your blog, are you?" I assured him that I hadn't planned to, (with fingers crossed tightly behind my back,) and that I just wanted to e.mail it to my sister, Halley, to placate her persistent requests to see if I was showing. Thing is, I also had several distant-dwelling friends ask to see the bump and had nothing better to blog about today, so this is what you get -- a shameless display of pregnant self...

Expansion is taking place more rapidly than it did with pregnancy #1 and I never imagined I could be so delighted to behold such a rapid swelling of my waistline. Clearly, my mind is treating me to some kind delusions, but last night as I examined my nearly-naked self in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom, it may have been the first time in my life when I thought, in response to my own reflection, "that is a really beautiful body." Perhaps that could be considered another, more soulful, form of expansion?