Most Sincerely,

This has been a day of bright, beautiful, springtime inspiration. Plump and budding with shiny possibility. And I will get to those delicious pieces, but first I must record a happening of the beginning of the week.

For a little while now I believe I have been cognizant of the wee being inside me moving, and yet I would second guess myself, wondering if it was really that or something else. Over the weekend I decided that there has been no movement like this before in my history of my abdomen, and thusly it must be our baby moving. That was very fun. What was even more fun was on Monday night, when Josh and I were laying down to go to sleep, I had an intuitive notion that Josh would be able to feel the baby move if he were to have his hand on my tummy. I had noticed that the baby tends to get really active a few minutes after I lay down for sleep at night, so when Josh laid down beside me I put his hand in the area where I can usually feel the movement. Within a few moments Josh went "Oh!" and I giggled and told him that was the baby. The baby continued to kick for a bit and every time Josh would go "Oh!" and I would giggle. It was very thrilling. Then on Tuesday night, while Josh was out with a friend, I was spending some quiet time with the dogs reading Spiritual Midwifery when I started to feel the baby move. I decided to lift my shirt up and watch my belly to see of I could actually "see" the baby move. A moment later I felt the kick and the side of my tummy bumped out for a split second! That was also very fun.

Alright, now back to the present. Our day full of inspiration started early this morning with our monthly visit to our midwife. They are always so wonderful to me at the birth center, always paying me compliments and making me feel so very special. We talked about a bunch of stuff-- our move to Columbia, the baby moving, how I'm doing physically. I mentioned that school was a bit stressful, but that I was using Anne Lamott's philosophy of bird by bird, and my midwife said that she loved that book! We got to listen to the heartbeat again and the midwife apprentice heard the placenta and it is in a good spot. They found my fundus (the top of my uterus) to be right at my belly button now (crazy!) just exactly where it should be at this time. Everything was beautiful. While the apprentice was checking my tummy she told us about this clip on youtube that we should watch for inspiration, it was featuring Susan Boyle, who was a participant in Britain's version of American Idol.

We had a nice lunch with Josh's old secretary and then came home to find that our internet had been hooked up. We had a wee stressful time figuring out how to work out the kinks in the router, but through grace and intuition I was able to get things running smoothly. Then I rested because it gave me a headache...

After resting we came downstairs to find that one of our friends, a folk singer from Nashville, sent us a music video he had just finished. We had gotten a sneak peak of the video while he was here at the end of last month playing some shows in the area. It is fantastic and filled me with such joy! Here it is:

Untitled from Jon Jackson on Vimeo.

Let me just say a little bit about Jon. Josh ran across him last year during election time, when Jon was running for congress. Jon had posted a campaign video on our mutual hero Todd Snider's myspace page. We were instantly intrigued, understanding that this was our kind of guy! We later found out that Jon is also an incredible musician, so Josh, being the music promoter that he is, struck up a conversation and invited him to this area anytime he was on tour. It turned out that Jon was going to be in our neck of the woods the last of March, this was before we decided to move. Once we decided to move Josh told Jon that we would be moving but that we was still welcome to the floor. Jon is an amazing individual and said he's bring his truck and help! And let me just say, we couldn't have done it without him. That weekend was a whirlwind, moving and three shows. Yet, it was surprisingly enjoyable because we had such great company to spend it with. So yes, please check out Jon's music at his myspace page, and also his catalog of videos found on his youtube page. You won't be disappointed.

Finally, I was catching up my google reader, perusing this article by Magpie Girl, and noticed that she posted a link to the video our midwife apprentice has spoken so highly of. What synchronicity! So Josh and I checked it out and were so blown away. If you haven't ran across it yet, I would encourage you to watch Susan Boyle, it is such an inspiration.

Enjoy the sunshine and the twinkling stars! Goodnight, and blessings.