Why have you left the one you've left me for

1. Snow. Snow, snow snow. Finally, at long last, we're gettin winter here in NE. The boys have been home 2 days now and my car won't start on account of the cold. This sucks (the car thing, not the boys bein home). I don't know what's wrong with it, just that when I went to get groceries and it wouldn't start, I started crying. I'm insane homronal, it's how I roll these days.
2. I've been on a major Crystal Gayle kick lately. And Kathy Mattea. And, as always, EmmyLou, Conway and Loretta. And a weird new obsession: Jerry Jeff Walker.
3. I'm 14 weeks pregnant today and the baby is the size of a lemon. Fitting since he/she's favorite thing in this entire world is lemon water. Like a switch has been flipped, I'm suddenly full of energy and nowhere near as sick.
4. I've re-vamped my Sidetracked Home Executives chore list to include the things that are really important now that I find myself knocked up without as much energy. Staying on top of my household chores fills me with immense joy, just as it's always done. I love working for the direct benefit of my family. (P.S. If you're ever interested in how the SHE system works for me, or what kinds of things I prioritize, that kind of thing, I'd be delighted to help!)
5. Since I couldn't get to the store I think I'm going to feed my family pizza tonight. DON'T JUDGE ME. Actually I fed my family supper almost every night last week. This is an enormous improvement. For a while there, I'd eat oranges and pickles and chocolate milk for dinner and the family be darned. Now we're back to eating as a family. This also fills me with enormous joy.
6. Last night Nathan touched my belly, lovingly, as he does every night and said "goodnight baby". Then he added "love you brother or sister". I cried. It's how I roll. This reminds me that I have an enormous pile of "Overheards" to post. I'll save the rest of those for another entry.
7. In the funniest thing ever, I actually seriously and sincerely looked at a house in Ulysses today. It was bout the same price as this one, but bigger and out on an acreage. Ulysses, you may remember, is where the NastySons suggested we move. But then I found a beautiful little log-cabin style home overlooking my favorite local lake and well I want that house more.

Here, let me introduce you to my favorite EmmyLou Harris song!
Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
Sittin on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singin every song the radio played
Waitin for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian.

She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin up a '49 Indian
He told her 'Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again"
He never got farther than Vietnam,
I was standin there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian.
Now he's lyin somewhere about a million miles from Meridian.

She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
Thats where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing
My hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard,
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across a red dirt line just a little south east from Meridian

She tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she dug right in.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't know end.
At least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid,
She was only 27 and she had five kids.
Coulda' been the whiskey,
Coulda been the pills,
Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill.
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Names Lillian
Who never got any farther across the line than Meridian.

Now the stars still fall on Alabama
Tonight she finally laid
That hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground
-"Red Dirt Girl" --EmmyLou Harris