:: i'm a winner, dontcha know? ::

i'm twenty-six weeks pregnant today, and man oh man am i all over the emotional map these days. i wasn't like this when i was pregnant with evan and because of the postpartum depression with him i'm of course going off on all these mental tangents that end with me in a heap on the floor or me in a hospital on a 3-day psych hold. there are days when i think, "i am not going to be able to handle this. i am going to die from this. i am going to become one of those moms who has to stick her kids in front of the TV all day because she can't handle anything else." there are days when i'll be sitting with evan and we're doing our daily life kinds of stuff and i'll just burst into tears because it seems so hard.

but then other times i'm completely fine and washing dishes is bringing me some kind of weird joy and peace and i'm all la la maybe let's have four kids or maybe five.

like i said: all over the map.

so yesterday was a day when i was all those things in one day. i cried in the morning, was fine most of the day, spent the early afternoon in a mild panic for no apparent reason, and was ornery at dinner time.

and then at 9 or so i found out i'd won this print (pictured above) from laura george and i wanted to dance a jig. at the time, it felt like a cosmic hand reaching down to say hey, julie, even if you feel like a total mental case you're doing everything right. it felt like reassurance.

plus i really, really like free things, particularly when they're lovely and handmade and something i would have bought anyway.

i'm thinking that when i've got a little extra cash coming in, maybe when y'all do your holiday shopping at up up, the shop, i might go back for one of these:

don't i kind of sort of need that?