Lately 10/27/17

+ We're still waiting for baby girl to make her grand entrance (official due date is the 30th). Honestly, I'm OK with the waiting. C and I were talking at dinner last night about how the whole we're-going-to-have-more-than-one-kid-in-the-house thing hasn't really hit home just yet, and we think stretching out these last few days with just the three of us is a good thing. So take your time, sweet baby.

+ I've been reading a little bit out of You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living each morning. It's a devotional consisting of excerpts from Henri J.M. Nouwen's writings. Nouwen was a Dutch-born Catholic priest and prolific writer who died back in 1996. He wrote more than 30 books, but his name was totally new to me until earlier this year. I've actually never read anything by Nouwen before, so this devotional is a nice little taste. (At the library book sale this week, I spotted his name on the spine of one of the books in the religion section and snatched it up, so soon(ish) I'll be able to change that.) The book is dated, so I started near the back in the month of October and will just flip back to the front when the calendar rolls over. Most of the excerpts are about a paragraph in length, so it's a really quick read right away in the morning. I like that it's so short--if I'm pressed for time, it's still easy to get it in. And if I have a few moments to sit and savor, the day's reading makes for good journaling fodder. Each entry also notes which book of Nouwen's it is taken from, just in case you want to go read the complete original.

+ The dollhouse has sortof stalled. Since my last update, I've glued in two out of the three walls and ordered the very last furniture set. But that's it. I keep telling myself there's still plenty of time. And there is, of course. But with a newborn... well, we'll see how this works out over the next two months.

+ E has moved on to reading and re-reading our big book of Beatrix Potters stories, particularly The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She also loves our little Golden book The Three Bears and our library copy of Angus and the Cat. 

+ E and I went to the library's annual book sale for the very first time this year. It was *really* overwhelming. We got there right away when the sale started on the very first day, and there were tons of people sifting through the books on tables and in boxes. We started in the kid's picture book section--all the boxes of books were sitting in tight, narrow rows on the floor. Let me tell you, crawling around on the floor sorting through boxes of books while staying out of someone else's space and trying to move quickly at 39 weeks pregnant is NOT easy or fun. I got frustrated pretty quickly. I probably made it through less than half of the boxes spread out there on the floor before I gave up. We wandered through some of the other sections as well, but I didn't add much more to my bag after that. In the end, we walked out with twenty books--18 for E and baby, and two for me.

Despite the rough experience, I would totally go again. The books we got are really good ones, and there were still others I left behind. If your city has such a sale, I highly recommend going!

+ How do you listen to an audiobook? I'm not talking about a fictional story or something similar, but a book with ideas and lessons you actually want to remember. I'm currently listening to one from the library, but I find myself pausing it way too often to write something down. It'd almost be better to just buy the book--not better for the budget, of course, but better for my time because I could simply make my highlights and notes right on the page instead of having to write so darn much. Is there a better way? Should I just let go of the note-taking and listen while keeping my fingers crossed that the important points stick? Seriously, how do you do it?