Mental Confetti

Lo, LJ hath returned. (And there was much rejoicing.) But man, you guys didn't lose any time catching up, did you?

For those of you who hadn't heard about this before, I am eight weeks pregnant. I'm feeling a little draggy and queasy, but on the whole not nearly as bad as with my first two.

Apart from that I don't actually have a whole lot of news, unless you want to hear about our new guinea pigs (nah, I'll save that for rjanderson_blog), or are interested in a review of the Kalan Porter concert I went to on New Year's Eve.

...

Yeah, I thought not.

For my fellow Lost fans and those interested in fan-made soundtracks, I've thought for a long time that the song "Bedshaped" by Keane (from their recent album "Hopes and Fears") reminded me of Shannon. However, it wasn't until I listened to the song again today, having just seen the most recent episode of LOST, that I realized ( this spoilery thing )

And I do mean totally. yahtzee63, give it a listen and tell me if I'm wrong on this.

Am currently listening to former Blue's Clues host Steve Burns' album Songs for Dust Mites, which I had long coveted and finally found cheap on eBay. It's charming, especially if you like grungy guitar riffs in the middle of your melodic pop/rock (which I rather do).

New Arrivals

As of Christmas, we are the totally insane proud owners of two guinea pigs, bought as presents for our two preschool boys. They're both females, one named Boo and the other Strawberry, after the horse in The Magician's Nephew. My four-year-old son chose the names, and I'm rather impressed with his cleverness.

Boo, who has a glossy black coat with touches of brown, has proved skittish enough to deserve her name, while Strawberry, the white-and-brown one, is definitely the dominant of the two. For weeks after we got them, we could hear the two of them swearing at each other, or gossiping with each other, or whatever it is they're saying when they make those vweet-vweet sounds. I never realized that guinea pigs were so... vocal. But they're rather cute noises on the whole, so I don't mind.

It's also nice that guinea pigs don't bite, though I find myself wondering just why they don't, as they certainly spend a lot of time chewing the wood in their cage and there's no doubt in my mind that their teeth work perfectly well.

My husband is planning to design a cage that won't need so much cleaning, but it's all the same to me, as I haven't had to clean the thing yet anyway. Furthermore, Nicholas is very diligent about filling up the girls' water bottle (sometimes two or three times a day) and making sure they have enough food. In the beginning I worried a little that I'd get stuck with the cleaning and care duties, but so far it's been fine.

Also, for those who don't read the LiveJournal, we are expecting our third child in early September, and are quite pleased about it. It did occur to me the other day, however, that it's a very inconvenient time for me to be having a baby, since Nicholas will be starting kindergarten within a few days of the birth. It'll be a challenge trying to give him the attention and reassurance he'll need and look after a newborn at the same time, but... such is life.