Books

• #48: Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood. I normally find Atwood's work a little strange in a good way. In this novel, the weird factor is off the charts.
• #49: Time Traveler's Wife. It's a romance, just not the bodice-ripping kind. Good, fast read.

Bullets:

• Did I mention living in a swing state is surprisingly gratifying? Feeling like your vote counts is really weird. My county went blue for the president for the first time since... since I don't know when. I've felt the need to be somewhat mum about my political leanings, being in a relatively small city (not tiny, but this is not a metro area, either).
• Things at work are still completely insane but may be looking up. Somewhat.
  
• I'm 23 weeks pregnant (full term is 40-ish or so). I wore maternity pants for the first time yesterday. I've been doing the whole bella band thing, but suddenly, everything just felt way too tight all over the place (and was really dirty and wrinkly to boot).
• We've been doing lots of cleaning up and out. Jeff is refinishing some stuff, building bookcases, and such. I cleaned out a desk this past weekend. I did a lot of our Christmas shopping for our families online. I love shopping online.

Reading Challenge:

• Book #43: FDR, Jean Edward Smith. You know I like biographies. FDR was a complicated man and his political record is much more uneven than I knew. Also, I didn't know there are only two photos that they've been able to find of him in his wheelchair.
• Book #44: Baby Bargains: I read it in day and am now terrified that I'm going to kill the baby with a faulty crib or something. It made me add and take a whole bunch of stuff off of my registry, though, so that's a good thing.
• Book #45: Paris to the Moon: This had been recommended to me by several people. It was written in the late 90s, though, and some chapters feel quite dated.
• Book #46: Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Good. I felt like I needed to read it after I recommended it (flippantly, not thinking he would do anything like actually buy the book) to my therapist and he loved it. I could have written part of it. How'd he get there first?
• Book #47: The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. This is normally referred to La Leche League's baby. It gave me a taste of a- how difficult breastfeeding can be at first b- some of the crap that I'll have to get used to for going back to work.