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Let me begin by saying that I am aware maté is not recommended for pregnancy… however, today was just one of those days.

Long story, short(ened): I’ve been working on a poetry chapbook with a friend, she wrote the poems, I make the chapbook. We send in prototype + proposal by April 15th and wait to see if we get the funding to make an edition of 75. Seems simple enough, right? WRONG! First, it’s taken until last week for her poems to be edited and finalised. It’s hard to come up with layouts and such when you don’t know how long the poems will be or how they are to be structured (poetry can be tricky like that, with all it’s lack of conventional structure, punctuation, and whathaveyou). Luckily, she figured out the layout for me, I just had to come up with the artwork (I’m carving stamps), binding, paper, and printing. Unfortunately the paper we fell in love with—a Japanese paper that’s very tempermental—can’t be printed on using ink-jet or laser printers, so I’ve spent this past week wracking my brain as to how to “make it work” (in the words of Tim Gunn). I decided to go with vellum, instead of the Japanese paper, breaks my heart to surrender like that, but we have no choice. So, I waddled my 39-weeks-pregnant self—accompanied by my toddler daughter—over to the printing place and got everything sorted.

Today, I picked up the printed vellum and everything looks awesome! BUT my 2-year-old accomplice was getting whiny (nap-time, you see) so I decide that instead of waiting for the bus, we’d walk to the children’s library… 1.5 km in the Saskatchewan snow. Bad idea. Neither my body nor hers were up to the task, but I didn’t know when the next bus would be, so we did it anyways. We arrived, she played for 30 min, then it was time to catch the bus home… which meant more walking since our bus stop is a couple blocks from the library. And of course, my girl got tired and wanted to be carried, but have you ever tried carrying a 25 pd toddler when you’re 39 weeks preggo?? Not. Happening. So, I had to be harsh and make her walk, promising her we’d be on the bus soon (she loooooves the bus!).

If you’re reading this, then you can guess that we made it onto the bus okay and are now home, but maaaaaan. I. Feel. Exhausted. So, I’m drinking the jar of this that I had chilling in the fridge and hoping for the magical maté boost that it promises. The tea itself is delicious, reminding me of Luscious Watermelon, but obviously more of the honeydew persuasion. And it is excellent iced. Haven’t tried it hot and not sure I want to considering the thought of drinking hot melon tea makes me shudder.

So, here’s to the most exhausting day of this pregnancy ending on a slightly better note, to delicious iced melon-y tea, and to getting this chapbook prototype completed before baby #2 arrives! Oi.