St. Lucia's Day - Brady

Hello there!

I'm sorry I don't post as often these days. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but babies are SUPER time consuming!

One thing I always looked forward to when I was pregnant was starting holiday traditions as a family. And I knew right away I'd want to celebrate St. Lucia's Day. My family has Swedish roots (at this point, it's pretty diffuse, but we still do a semi authentic Swedish Christmas Eve). However I really didn't hear about this holiday until, of all things, I got a Kirsten doll from American Girl when I was 8. St. Lucia's Day celebrates the end of the darkest days of the year and the return of the light (they were working from an old calendar - we now know the darkest days of the year don't happen for another week). My mom and grandma indulged my obsession one year, and my sisters and I woke up, dressed ourselves in white gowns and head wreathes with fake candles, and served buns to our family, just like (we read) they do in Sweden. Kevin and I have also attended a St. Lucia's Day service at a church in Andersonville, the Swedish neighborhood in Chicago.

Although the oldest girl in every family plays the biggest role in St. Lucia's Day celebrations - wearing the white gown and the candle wreath and waking their families up with coffee and rolls - I learned that there is a part for little boys to play, too, as Lucia's attendants. They wear big white hats with stars on them (they look a lot like dunce caps) and carry a wand with a star on the end and are called "starboys."

So yesterday morning, on St. Lucia's Day, Andy and I woke up, baked cinnamon rolls, made coffee, got him into his special outfit, and woke Kevin up. We were lucky enough to have my mom here with us, too, so she also joined in the celebration! It was a little hard to get pictures of Andy in his outfit - especially once Molly stole his wand - but here are a few shots from the day.

Andre Clark - Brady

Hey, guess what?

I had a baby!

On October 3rd I went to my doctor for a check-up because I'd felt decreased fetal movement all day, and at 12:18 the next morning, October 4th, I delivered a little boy by emergency c section. It was a wild and scary experience, made all the scarier because he spent the next 7 days in the NICU, but we are home, happy, and healthy now.

Andy is named for Andrea Sununu. She is a professor at DePauw, and Kevin and I met in her class. We've stayed in close contact with her over the years and think there's no one else who more highly deserves to have a child named after her. Clark is for Clark Street in Chicago. We have lived on or near the street the entire time we've been here, and it's where our first apartment together was.

Here are some pictures of my guy, who's now one month old!

Just a few days old, in the hospital. 

With Dad at our newborn photo shoot.

Today, at one month.

We love this little guy to pieces!

Want to see some pictures of our nursery? - Brady

Here it is!

On the daybed in the corner you can see one of my favorite things about the nursery - three stuffed rabbits. One is "Rabbi" (pronounced Rabby...I'm not sure why, as a child, I spelled it with an "i"). My grandma gave me Rabbi the day I was born and he was my number one favorite toy throughout my childhood. I couldn't sleep without him for years. One is "Bunnit," a doll my bridesmaids got me when Kevin and I got married so Rabbi could get married too. And the smallest one is also from my Grandma. She sent Rabbi a baby when she found out I was pregnant so our child will have a Rabbi of his/her own. 

Babies are EXPENSIVE. So we got as much stuff as we could secondhand. Kevin's parents generously donated the rocker and the shelf/changing table. The paper lamp in the background has been in our room for years. 

We bought the sheep mobile from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, one of our favorite museums. The picture behind it is from a trip to Banff, Canada. 

That quilt is from an antique shop in Nappanee, Indiana, and the weird looking stuffed animal is a "sleepy mouse" from Quebec City. 

On the shelf above the changing table is some diaper rash creme, a picture of me as a newborn, owl decorations from our baby shower, a picture of Kevin as a baby, and a picture of me on my first day at DePauw - the day we met. 

All of the pictures above the daybed are from places we've traveled: Chicago, Phoenix, Costa Rica, and Indianapolis. I actually did the painting on the far right at a wine + painting class. The orange star was a gift from a student in one of my Spanish classes.

Our hospital bags are packed and ready to go! 

And here's a shot of my belly at 37 weeks! Any day/week now! 

A very hard deadline and my job search story - Brady

Yesterday I reach 37 weeks of pregnancy - full term! Here are my latest belly shots:

What I really want to talk about today, though, is this MASSIVE JOB SEARCH I'm doing. That's right. My five/six years of grad school are ending, and soon, and I've got to find something to do with myself when I finish up this spring/early summer. 

I always suspected I would want to look for jobs only in Chicago, and that's remained mostly true. I did apply for a couple of positions down in Bloomington at Indiana University because it would be an easy career transition for Kevin and because we have family down there (and because Bloomington is amazing), but everything else has been here, in the city. I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how many academic positions have come open in the area. I think I have about 13 jobs, total, I plan to apply for. 

Here's my story, for those who are interested: 

Right now I'm ONLY looking at traditional, tenure track, academic jobs. (The exception is a grant I'm applying for that would keep me at Northwestern for 2 more years as a post-doc on a really cool project.) I'm doing this because (a) being a professor is my top job choice and (b) academic job deadlines come around much earlier than "industry" job deadlines. Works out well for me. It also works out well that all of the tenure track deadlines are in October or early November. When I'm on maternity leave, the job market goes into a bit of a dormant period when colleges are reading your applications and deciding whether to interview you or not. 

There's a VERY good chance I won't get any of these jobs. There's a pretty good chance I won't even get an interview, anywhere. The academic job market is really tough, there are tons of applicants for each position, and I'm definitely limiting myself by applying only in one geographic area. I'm totally okay with this. I've decided being where I want to be location-wise is more important to me than getting my number one top choice job. There are PLENTY of jobs out there I'd be happy to do, and I can always try for a tenure track position later. 

If I don't get any of these jobs, I'll keep an eye on new openings during my maternity leave and certainly in the winter and spring when I'm back at school/work. Most postings at that point would be for post-docs (kind of like a fellowship for a few years where you're suspended somewhere between grad student and professor...the idea is that if I got one of these I'd go back on the tenure track job market as the post-doc was finishing up). Or the postings would be for "industry" jobs - research positions at big education policy firms or organizations like Teach for America, One Goal, Ounce of Prevention, etc. I would be completely fine doing any of these things. In fact, some people think getting a post-doc before a regular job is better for your career in the long run because you can publish a bunch of stuff before your "tenure clock" starts ticking. 

It's going pretty well so far! Now that I have good drafts of a cover letter, research statement, teaching statement, etc. drafted, it takes me about a day to apply for each job. I've sent in 8 applications and have 4 to go. 

I had an especially nice moment this morning. I woke up, made myself coffee, and sat down in front of my computer to focus on kind of a hard application. It's an instructional position at University of Chicago, and they ask you to pick a classic text in the social sciences and write about how you would teach it. After struggling for a bit, I narrowed in on one book (Emile or On Education) and finally figured out what I think will be a cool way of teaching it (I won't go into boring details, but it involves pairing it with the movie An Education). It got me really excited about the possibility of working with college kids. I also remembered and felt again that surge of excitement from teaching high school when I would come up with a creative way of explaining a concept. And it felt good to be so productive on a Sunday morning. 

So that's my life these days! I fill out job applications. I walk Molly. I take some time to watch my stomach bop around as this baby kicks me. I spend some quality time with Kevin (we've been trying to do one "moderately priced date night" per week - last night we had veggie brats at this cool bar/restaurant called Northdown Tap and saw a movie musical called God Help the Girl at the quirky Musicbox Theater). I do yoga. Life is simple and good and I think we're just about ready, house-wise, career-wise, relationship-wise (give us just a few more weeks!) for our son or daughter to come into the world and shake it all up. 

Making Good - Brady

I've been making perfect coffee lately. Mostly decaf, a little bit of regular hazelnut, and a ton of cream.





And I've been making the best of a broken down car which equals lots of public transit which equals lots of time to read The Goldfinch. So good.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Best Summer - Brady

Up until now, I've always said the best summer of my life was the summer I was in Guy and Dolls at the La Porte Little Theatre. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I can't remember what I did during the day - maybe worked as a teaching assistant or something. At night we'd have rehearsal. And then after rehearsal, as I recall, we'd always go out and do something fun. Drive around and listen to music. Go to Taco Bell and dance in the parking lot. One of my most vividly fun memories from my whole life was a humid, sweaty, karaoke cast party over at the Krentzes' house. I remember dumping ice down the back of my shirt I was so hot from singing and dancing and basically just laughing hysterically all night long. Nobody parties like theater kids party.

It's different, for sure, but I think this summer has actually topped that one. I don't know how to write this without sounding ridiculous and weepy and sentimental, but I'm just so happy to be pregnant. If you knew me five years ago and knew my hesitation to even have kids, that would surprise you, but once we did decide to go for it we had to try a really long time and lost faith on a few occasions that it would ever happen. On top of that, I've had an easy, easy time the past eight months - no terrible symptoms, tons of support and love from my family and friends. I'm actually sad when I think of all of this coming to an end in October. Things are also kind of fun at work. My dog is a blast. Kevin and I have had a great time setting up the nursery and just enjoying the city, with no pressure to go anywhere or do anything major. So even though this summer hasn't involved sweaty dance parties or late night drives or even any Taco Bell, it's been just about the most content and exciting time of my life.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's a random smattering of photos I've taken with my phone since June that show lots of the little good things we've been involved in this season.

My two favorites at Shakespeare in the Park.

A birthday walk to Lake Michigan.

Molly getting a whole lot of love at Lake Wawasee. 

Happy birthday to me! 

We spent a couple of awesome days at Lake Wawasee at The Oakwood with Molly.

Reading on Kevin's parents' porch.

Good old Stone Lake.

Quebec City.

A Quebec City breakfast.

Berries from my parents' yard.

Dinner at The Stray Dog in New Buffalo.

The belly in Denver.

The belly at Lake Wawasee, growing out of my favorite DePauw sweatshirt.

The belly in Quebec City. I remember thinking it looked huge in this picture. Ha! 

The belly in Evanston (in my work bathroom).

The belly again, a few weeks later, in Evanston.

It's always hard to see summer go, this one especially, but right around the corner, I'm hoping, is the best fall, the best winter, and the best spring. 

32, 30, 20 - Brady

This weekend I hit three milestones.

I turned 32 years old.

I reached 30 weeks of pregnancy.

And I'm officially 20 pounds heavier than I was in January.

All good numbers, I'd argue!

Oh, you don't care, you say? You want pretty pictures of Lake Wawasee (where we celebrated this weekend), you say? Okay fine.

The Value of a Balanced Day - Brady

One thing I've learned from taking care of Molly is the value of a balanced day. She, an athletic, energetic, two-year-old dog, would prefer to run and play and swim and chase tennis balls all the time. Kevin and I have found that it's up to us to say, occasionally, "time for a break" or "we're not going to do that right now."

This weekend, for example, she had A TIME on Saturday. We jogged two miles to the dog park, she ran around there like a maniac with a Golden Retriever/St. Bernard mix, we jogged a mile back east to Heritage Bikes, one of our favorite coffee shops, she sat outside and met lots of other dogs and kids and ate a bunch of ice, we walked the additional mile home, and then we went to a party for three hours on Lesley and Paul's roof deck where she got all kinds of treats and pets.

It was an awesome time for Molly, and she loved every minute of it. But it just...threw her off. Her stomach was upset and she was so tired her eyes were red.

Sometimes it's okay to have crazy days. But I'm learning that there's kind of an ideal balance we need to strike with her. The best days, for Molly, involve a jog with both of us first thing, her normal food, a long morning nap, some energetic activity (dog park, dog beach, long walk, trip to Petco) in the afternoon, and a chill evening that involves more of her usual food, a nighttime walk, and an early bedtime. If she has a busy day one day, it's best to let her sleep as much as she wants the next. Kevin's especially good about reminding me of this. We don't need to take her to doggy day care on Mondays, for example, because her weekends are usually so packed. And we run her every other day, at most, and only hit the dog beach once or twice a week.

Here's a picture of a totally wiped out Molly after a trip to the Montrose Dog Beach. She couldn't even get out of the car:

Not only has this been a key idea for me to remember when taking care of her - it's also taught me about how to best take care of myself and this baby, who will eventually be a walking, talking human child who will also probably want to run and play and swim and maybe even chase tennis balls all day. In the summer, especially, there are so many opportunities to have fun - so many things to do and places to go. Thinking about my day as a balance - time for work, exercise, friends, movies in the park and ice cream trips and patio pizza dinners but also for rest and routine and healthy food - helps things feel more sane. And makes the fun times even more fun.

Molly's New Digs - Brady

Check out the space where my dog now sleeps. She's in the perfect spot - in our room (where there's a ceiling fan, and where there's us) between the window (with blinds that go all the way down so she can look out on to the street) and the desk (where Kevin sits to work). Her toys will be on shelves in the corner. She has a new dog bed that's both comfy and stylish. And she has her very own painting, a purchase by Kevin's parents from Key West. 

Roll your eyes at me. Go ahead. But I think this is about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Told ya - Brady

Told you I'd be posting more often!

I thought I'd try out this app and post from my phone. Here are some photos from my walk from campus to the train today.

Some days I have tons of energy and some days I do the pregnant lady slow walk. Today was one of those days. I was happy to take a break and photograph these gorgeous hydrangeas.



As a young able-bodied person, I try not to sit too often on public transportation or at stations. Recently, though, I've been taking full advantage of benches and priority seating.

What I didn't take a photo of was the woman rolling around next to me, kind of massaging her shoulders on the wood of the bench. City life.







That's it! Nothing big, just a slice of my life these days!

Grandma & Grandpa's 60th Anniversary Weekend - Brady

First things first. I'm feeling some major guilt about not keeping this blog updated. I downloaded an app to my phone that will let me post here more easily, so expect to see shorter, more frequent updates from me.

I'm writing today mostly to tell you about the incredible 60th anniversary weekend we had for my grandparents this past weekend. We spent Friday through Sunday in La Porte celebrating the glue that holds a pretty awesome family together. Friday we all arrived at the hotel and stayed up late (I was up until 2!) chatting in one of the common areas. It's a shame Grandma and Grandpa's children and grandchildren don't like each other very well. ;)

Saturday we partook in the incredible brunch offered by the hotel. Then we rented a pontoon and staked out a spot at one of the beaches on Pine Lake. We ate at the Yacht Club and then at Portofino's for dinner. Molly got to swim twice and did so great. She fell head over heels in love with my cousin Charlie.

Sunday we ate a second awesome breakfast (I couldn't wait to get down there and pile my plate full of waffles) and went our separate ways.

Here's a link to some beautiful photos Ashlie Ostergren took of our family. This one's my favorite:

Also I wanted to say that last weekend was one of my favorites ever for selfish reasons. I got so much attention for my big pregnant belly. I loved it because I remember my aunts being pregnant when I was a kid, and it was so cool to play a similar role with my younger cousins. Also, the baby's kicking a lot now and Amy finally felt it after weeks and weeks of trying. I can't wait to introduce the newest Jones-Rasp to everybody, and I'm so proud to bring a new member into this fabulous family.

Here's a blurry shot of my big old stomach!

I continue to feel great. This pregnancy's been so easy that I'm not wishing away the weeks a bit, although of course I'm excited to meet this person who's seems to be doing tai chi in my stomach. I'm just about 29 weeks pregnant now, safely into my third trimester. 

Now I'm going to sit back, sip a non-alcoholic beer, and enjoy another gorgeous summer night in Chicago on our balcony. Molly's at my feet, Kevin's making dinner. Life is so very good. 

And one last congrats to my grandparents. You are one (two?) in a million, and I aspire to be just like you someday.