Not the post I promised,

but maybe a fun one nonetheless?

Soon I'll start posting "Bump Watch 2009" pictures (because there actually is a slightly visible bump now), but I'm not quite ready just yet. And let's pretend I never said in my last post that I was going to post pictures of anything else because I can't seem to locate those pictures. So instead I'm going to show you some of the fun BABY PURCHASES we've made in the last week. Woot!

First and foremost, we bought a lovely set of nursery furniture from Craigslist. Days before that creepy story about the Craigslist Killer came out. Comforting. The sellers of this furniture purchased it, assembled it, and then decided that they wanted something in a different color. So it's essentially new, as no baby has had contact with it yet. And here it is, along with Justin, who has chosen to represent himself as an orange blur:


Next up, some of the fabric that will eventually be our crib bedding, again with an appearance by Justin the Blur:


I'm still missing a couple of fabrics. I ambitiously decided that I know enough nice people who know how to sew that I can make my own crib bedding. Very Martha Stewart, right? Except, like, a Martha with very little actual skill.

And finally, tonight I purchased these (a cute farm book, an animal noise toy, and two Baby Einstein DVD's):


and these (even tougher to see, but that would be two pairs of maternity pants, two maternity shirts, and one maternity dress):


and this (to which Justin the Blur has already given his stamp of approval):




















for a whopping $32 at our church's MOPS Bargain Garden. Again I say, Woot!

Today:

1. I wiped the rear end of a little girl I don't know. I walked into the bathroom at the gym, and she was sitting on the toilet with the stall door wide open. As I walked into my stall, I heard her little voice say, "Hey, excuse me! I need someone to wipe my bottom." After some questioning, I discovered that there was no mom/babysitter/nice kidnapper around to handle this duty (apparently mom dropped her off with the gym's childcare people, which I don't think you're supposed to do... but to be honest, I didn't even know the gym had child care). So I got to do the honors. And then pull up her pants, hold her up to wash her hands, and track down paper towels to dry them.

2. is the last day of my first trimester! I know, right? I really can't complain about the first trimester, given what I hear from other pregnant ladies, but I'm still glad to put it behind me. The past week has been an especially good pregnancy week for me, so I feel like I've already reached some sort of milestone. Here's what I'm loving about this new phase:

*the ability to think about AND EVEN EAT chicken without gagging
*having enough energy to stay up until bedtime (most days)
*the end of my beautiful, hormone-induced pizza face
*the ability to withstand hunger for more than 30 seconds without feeling like I'm going to die

The most awkward part of this phase is that I'm not actually showing yet, but I'm definitely bigger in the belly than I used to be -- so I look like I just finished a really big meal. And my pants feel like I just finished a really big meal. So far, my strategy has been to wash my pants as infrequently as possible so they're nice and stretched out all the time :)

3. I am making the non-binding promise to post two picture-ful posts in the next two weeks. One will have pictures from my family's visit here, and the other will have some before/after pictures of the work my dad did on our house during his visit.

Micah is:

A little Daniel-Micah hybrid human will be arriving on the scene sometime around October 2.

A Coloradoful Weekend

Last weekend, we had some extraordinarily Spring-like weather here in Southern Colorado, and the hubby and I decided to cultivate our outdoorsy side and go for a couple of hikes.

We started out at my place of employment, the Glen Eyrie conference center. There are several miles of hiking trails there that I hadn't tried out because, you know, I'm usually working while I'm there. I've liked where I work from day one, but this little hiking excursion solidified the absolute awesomeness of Glen Eyrie in my heart. Here's the view a few minutes into the hike (my apologies for the picture quality -- I forgot my camera, so we had to use Daniel's phone):


Maybe this is why I've had "For the Beauty of the Earth" in my head all week?

Then the next day, we headed an hour or so west to Mueller State Park. We picked a trail with several overlooks and were not disappointed (again, I forgot the camera - story of my life - so these are from Daniel's camera phone):


We were, however, surprised to find snow on a fairly hefty percentage of the trail. Apparently Mueller State Park is a couple thousand feet higher than Colorado Springs, so it gets kind of cold there.


Also surprising was the sudden appearance of a ski slope on what had previously been a pretty mild trail. Fortunately, the foot+ of snow on the ground eliminated any fear of injury in the event of a fall.


After this hike (which, for the sake of full disclosure, also included half an hour of wandering in the wilderness because someone - okay, I - forgot to bring the trail map), we went to an old mining town called Cripple Creek to behold their majestic Ice Festival. What we beheld instead were a handful of cool ice sculptures and several handfuls of drunk people with missing teeth. As it turns out, Cripple Creek is now home to what is surely the country's highest number of small casinos per capita, so the town attracts some interesting visitors. Add to that the fact that the temperature suddenly dropped to way cold, and we didn't last long after seeing a couple of these:


Lest you get the impression that we've suddenly become cool and started doing things that are actually fun, I should mention that I haven't left the house or taken off my pajamas all day today. You can take the girl out of the boring (sorry, Lawrenceburg), but you can't take the boring out of the girl.

Does anyone know how to use a Stair Master?

When we first moved to Colorado Springs, some very nice people from church gave us a free six-month membership to a gym that's right across the street from the church (and, awesomely, about five minutes from our house). This gift was sort of bittersweet for me because, truth be told, I really only like the idea of working out regularly. And it was really convenient when we lived in Lawrenceburg and didn't have a gym within reasonable driving distance, and I could just pretend that I was so disappointed that I couldn't actually do anything about my idea of working out regularly. Then this very generous gift appeared, and now I feel guilty for doing the same amount of working out I used to do (read: none).

Within the first two months of living here, I went to the gym twice. Maybe three times. Let's say it was three times. I was definitely getting my money's worth (free membership = no money-related guilt about being lazy!), but I wasn't exactly helping myself get back into running shape. Sidenote: Moving to high altitude is a great excuse for being a crappy runner. You can totally tell yourself you were in good shape at reasonable altitudes, and your body just hasn't adjusted to this 6800-feet-in-the-air nonsense.

Then my lovely cousin (hi, Whitney!) got engaged (!) and asked me to be a bridesmaid for her wedding at the end of May, and now I have a teensy-weensy bit of motivation to get a little fitter. Specifically, I've decided that I want to get my arms lookin' all pretty for Whitney's big day. Because we all know that's what everyone else is going to be looking at, right? And I am currently rocking the teacher flab in the tricep region.

The only problem is that I am not really adept enough with gym machinery to achieve this goal. There are two or three machines that I recognize from my previous life of semi-intensity when I semi-frequented the Vanderbilt Rec Center, so I use those machines, and there have been a few times when I've stood next to other machines and tried to figure them out (while also trying not to look like an idiot) to no avail. Apparently I'm not willing to sacrifice my dignity in front of total strangers for the sake of arm fitness.

Yesterday, I did my typical routine of using the machines I know and love, then hovering around the other arm machines, trying to convince myself that no one else would notice if it took me a minute to figure the machine out, failing to convince myself, then finally giving up and going over to the treadmill.

But yesterday - yesterday! - I decided that if I couldn't be brave with the arm machines, I would at least use a different cardio machine. For some reason, I selected the Stair Master. A decision that I now wholeheartedly regret because it seems I don't actually know how to use a Stair Master. I've seen them used before, and they seem pretty self-explanatory, but I could not make those stupid stair pedals do what I think they're supposed to do. I thought you were supposed to simulate the actual act of climbing stairs, but my Stair Master experience felt more like climbing stairs in a bad dream with a bad guy chasing me. You know those dreams where your legs feel too heavy, and you can't seem to make yourself go? I was climbing those suckers reallllly slowly.

And perhaps you've seen enough Stair Masters to know that you're about three feet in the air when you use one. The perfect height to be inconspicuous when you don't want to make a fool of yourself using new equipment in a crowded gym. What fun.

Needless to say, I will not be experimenting at Fitness 19 anymore. I will stick to the treadmill and my few trusty arm machines and hope that's good enough. And I would greatly appreciate it if you would share an embarrassing gym story to make me feel cooler.

Pictures and Explanations

In honor of our closing on Friday, here are some badly-taken pictures of our house. I don't have photography skills or a very good camera, so you'll just have to take what you can get here.

This is most of the front of the house. With some snow.

This is sort of what you see when you walk in the front door. You're standing in a living room, which looks like...

this. As seen from the loft/landing you could see in the previous picture. That room is the office, which looks like...

this. This, of course, is the second level of the house, where our bedroom and a couple of other bedrooms (one is currently the "box room," and the other is YOUR ROOM!) are located.

And because I told my mom I would send a picture of our new-to-us dining table...

here it is, all Thanksgivinged up. Note the Norman Rockwell turkey (purchased fully-cooked at Honeybaked Ham because I don't so much love raw meat) and my father-in-law about to rip into it with great zeal. The people to the left of Daniel are some new friends from church.

Around the corner from the dining room is the kitchen -- sorry, I don't have any pictures of that one yet. It looks like a kitchen. And then there's a family room, which looks a little something like...

this. Except there are couches that you can't see here because, again, I am a bad photographer. And that's Daniel playing Guitar Hero.

Then downstairs there's a basement with another bedroom/bathroom (YOUR ROOM??) and, the real crowd-pleaser, the ping-pong room.

I think that covers it. I know this photographic tour makes it all sort of hard to picture, but you know what? There's an easy solution to that. And I think I've already dropped enough hints that you can figure out what I mean.

Now to explain my cryptic reference to my second job (which, by the way, ended today! Woot, woot!). I worked at a doll store called Mollycoddles, and here's the schpiel I gave new customers: "Mollycoddles is a newborn nursery for baby dolls. When a little girl comes in and finds a doll that she loves and wants to take home, we take her through an adoption process. She gives the baby its first bath, weighs and measures the baby, we give the baby a birth certificate, and the baby and 'mommy' get matching hospital bracelets [please excuse the lack of parallel structure there]. Then she can bring the baby back in for free checkups, and she can borrow our strollers to stroll the baby through the mall!"

Does that help you picture it all a little better? The store is supposed to feel like a real newborn nursery, so I was supposed to act like a real nurse. That sounds a little creepy, but it really wasn't.

And here's a freebie for you: Last night I applied to be a student at Pike's Peak Community College so I can take a hip-hop dance class next semester with two girls from our college group at church. For reals.

In conclusion, the Wigintons wish you a merry Christmas. Especially Justin.

This is old news by now

to anyone who would be reading this blog, but we now live in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Not some other Colorado Springs.

The abbreviated version of the story (more details are available upon request) is that Daniel and I were happy in Kentucky, loved our church, felt like our ministry there was stronger than ever, etc. -- but also felt like we needed to be somewhere else. So we started looking. We had a few plans in mind, but God made it abundantly clear that He had a different plan. And now here we are in Colorado Springs, where Daniel is the Singles/College minister at Vista Grande Baptist Church.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say that this place is totally the bomb. I love living here, despite the fact that the temperature right now is negative five degrees. NEGATIVE FIVE, with a "feels like" temperature of NEGATIVE EIGHTEEN. And did you know that it snows here? Kind of a lot? That part is pretty cool, and it's easy to overlook the fact that your extremities are frostbitten when you have sweet views of Pike's Peak from everywhere in town.

When we moved at the beginning of November, we hadn't sold our house and didn't expect to sell it any time soon. But you know how I mentioned God's making it abundantly clear that we should be here? Exhibit A: With only a day or two to look for houses before we moved, we found a place that is perfect for us, and the owner agreed to let us rent until our house sold. Exhibit B: Our house sold a few weeks later! If you watch the news at all, you know that is kind of a big deal. We closed last Wednesday, and we will close Friday on the aforementioned house here. Yay!

I'll post pictures when I'm not blogging from work.

And speaking of work -- I have a job. I work at Glen Eyrie, which is a conference/retreat center owned by the Navigators. The main attraction out here is a castle that was built by General
William Jackson Palmer, founder of Colorado Springs. And you can stay there if you come visit us. Hint, hint. I book reservations here (from what used to be Gen. Palmer's carriage house), which basically means I answer the phone all day. And for some reason that I don't quite understand, I really enjoy it.

I also have another job, in which I dress like a nurse and pretend to provide pediatric care to baby dolls. That part is pretty entertaining. But this job also requires that I sometimes stand at a kiosk at the "ghetto mall" (wearing pastel purple scrubs) for hours at a time, often engaging in polite conversation with people who should probably only be allowed in public under special guardianship. I'm making it sound worse than it is, but I won't be heartbroken when I'm through with this job at the end of the week.

And now I can't think of anything else with which to update you. Feel free to comment if I didn't address your specific question. And feel free to leave a comment telling me when you're going to come visit us! COME VISIT US!