Now finishing up my second trimester and heading into my third, I still don't have a midwife or doctor -- for reasons I'll be glad to tell you if you email me and ask -- and, ironically, I'm in much better health this time around than I was in my last pregnancy when I was under close medical supervision...

Last time, as you may recall, I found out in my seventh month that I should have been taking blood pressure medication from the first week I knew I was pregnant, and that I was a gestational diabetic in need of insulin. By the time I was pregnant again, I was much better educated about my risks as well as ways to minimize them.

Having received some great pointers from a fellow birth coach, I've been able to take steps and take supplements that have kept me from needing blood pressure meds again (so far, anyway). I knew the gestational diabetes would be another matter, though -- two out of three women who experienced it in their first pregnancy will have it again in their second one -- and decided to take action early. About a month ago I visited a local family practitioner, told him my history and asked him to please prescribe me some insulin rather than make me wait several weeks [or more] to take a glucose tolerance test and prove what I already knew. He was obviously caught off guard but was gracious enough to honor my request anyway. As a result, my blood sugar levels have been pretty stellar (mid-80s to mid-90s, for those of you who know what those numbers mean). Interestingly, the particular method of insulin management I followed last time called for much more insulin and greater dietary restrictions and only barely kept me under 120.

I don't plan to go the entire pregnancy without prenatal care if I can help it, but right now it seems the greatest danger presented by my self-medicating is... that an obstetrician somewhere is missing out on several thousand dollars she could be making by advising me on how to do what I'm already doing. Since it's several thousand dollars I don't have to give, though... praise the Lord and pass the needle!

Interviewer: What if anything would you like to say to the families of the victims?

Broadnax: (stares at the camera for a moment) F*ck 'em. Straight up.

In a jailhouse interview with Fox news, nineteen-year-old James Broadnax confesses to killing Matt and Steven. (NOTE: Footage is uncensored; discretion is advised.) The unspeakable irony, as Mister Nygren learned at the funeral yesterday, was that Matt and Steven were only at the studio so late because they were putting the finishing touches on a song they'd recorded together... called "We All Die Before Our Time."

In their public statements, the grieving families have expressed pity towards Broadnax and his cousin (who was present but didn't pull the trigger). I'd like to say that pity was my first or even overwhelming second response, but... I'd be lying. I wanted justice. Not even the I-hope-you-get-life-without-parole kind of justice, I'm ashamed to admit. More of the blind-outrage variety that causes mobs of otherwise sane people to do unjust things in the name of justice. Realizing that carrying out that sort of thing would make me no less cold-blooded than the murderer himself, though, I had to start praying that God would show James Broadnax the kind of mercy that I wanted Him to show me.

Broadnax tells the interviewer that his life has been hell, and that he intends to die, whether at his own hand or the state's. "I don't want [a] life [sentence]," he says flatly. It bears mentioning, though,  that at the end of the video -- mere moments after the chilling retort quoted above -- the stone-cold-killer facade crumbles. Broadnax appears to be fighting back tears as he slams down the receiver, rises abruptly from his chair and exits the visitation booth.

Watching him, I am finally overcome with pity as I realize that he, too, died before his time...

Almost twelve years ago, outside the front door of the renovated house where our oddball singles group met, a teenager with twinkling eyes pulled me aside to talk after the crowd began to disperse. Having heard me lead the music that night, Matt wanted to talk to me about his own future in music. I confessed I didn't know much of anything about making a career of it -- I was a self-taught guitarist who liked to sing, but I wasn't pursuing a contract or anything -- but gladly obliged when he asked if he could sing for me. He had a marvelous voice, and I didn't mind telling him so... but it was the sound I heard behind his voice -- his conviction and hunger to do more with his music than his years would yet allow -- that told me he would be someone to watch.

Four years later I heard the sound again -- not in a song, but in a conversation between Matt and my husband about our new recording studio. Having been laid off from my telecom job with a severance package generous enough to allow it, we'd bought a Mac, a ProTools setup, some fundamental recording equipment and enough bright purple soundproofing foam to give Barney the dinosaur an inferiority complex. Matt was full of questions, stunned at how little it really took to create a start-up studio, and bore the unmistakable look of a man who was determined to make it happen for himself.

In 2006, we and that fateful day in our apartment were mentioned -- though not by name -- in a news article where Matt was being interviewed about the recording studio he'd recently opened. Sadly, it appeared again in the news yesterday when the story broke that he and Stephen Swan, his sound engineer and good friend, had been gunned down in front of that same studio.

I firmly believe that Matt, for all the struggles he may have had here, is now in the presence of the only One whose approval of his music or work ever mattered... and God bless him, those long struggles are over. He leaves behind a twenty-two-year-old widow, a son just a month younger than my own and a daughter who will be two this fall.

Your prayers for his family, the Swan family, and even especially for those responsible would be greatly appreciated.

Yup -- finally got confirmation yesterday that Sugar Bean is a GIRL. We'd suspected it all along, and I'm really excited... but as a lifelong tomboy, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what kind of mommy I'll be to a daughter.

Thanks to Kristen -- photographer extraordinaire, equally un-girly girl and mother to the gorgeous pirate below, I have hope...

Last night, with my housemates seated around the living room, I broke out the bottles and poured small samples into the glasses lined up on the table. As each of them took a sip, eyes rolled back and smiles spread wide. One just nodded. "Dude..." mused the next. After a long pause, Mister Nygren simply said, "Wow, babe. Wow."

It was a very proud moment for me. I had [evidently] become a successful homebrewer.

I began brewing t'ej -- an Ethiopian honey wine made and served in the home -- just over a month ago. I started with very small batches because, among other things, I didn't want to get stuck with five gallons of something that didn't turn out well... and to hear some folks tell it, getting a homemade brew just right is only slightly less difficult than crossing a mine field on a pogo stick.
Blindfolded.
So when I found a basic t'ej recipe in Wild Fermentation  that could be made with any number of different flavors but only really needed honey, water and patience,* I just had to try my hand at it.

*(The author notes that authentic t'ej also calls for adding gesho, a plant indigenous to Ethiopia, for a bittering agent.  You can't get it here without importing it or finding a dealer on eBay, though, so he went on to say that a great -- if not completely authentic -- finished product could be made without it.)

My first batch was the rudimentary honey-and-water version; in the second, I threw in a half-cup of thawed mixed berries.  Both got rave reviews last night. The best part: in terms of home ferments, it's nearly an instant-gratification drink. Though it can be bottled and aged like mead, it's ready to drink young after just a couple weeks. What we had was delightful and already quite complex after just a month.  "It's official," one of my housemates declared. "You're in the t'ej-making business."

Come by and see me if you want some. It's surprisingly potent stuff, so don't be offended if I start by offering you a sample that barely covers the bottom of the wine glass. Can't have you ending up looking like one of these folks...