Soaking up the sun

Sort of...it has been a little overcast, which is fine with me considering I still manage to get plenty of sun even when it is cloudy! We are having a great time (except for the laundry I had to do yesterday - yuck!) and have more fun stuff planned...luau tonight, snorkeling tomorrow and a submarine ride Monday. Gotta love vacation!

Nicole and Greg left yesterday (they announced they are pregnant so it looks like Bryn and Cletus - baby boy's in utero name! - will have a baby cousin in August) and Uncle Tom, Aunt Sue and cousin Julie came in yesterday so we some new family members to terrorize!

Bryn is loving the pool and the ocean. After getting clobbered by waves on the shore a few times she figured out when to run into the ocean and when not to. She'll run out and then she'll "catch a wave" into the shore. And she's still ready to do even when her whole body is shaking and her lips are blue!

It sounds like everything is going well back home...the cats and fish are doing fine and Elmer is doing O.K. at the kennel. Elmer evidently has a roommate - a little Yorkie mix named Archie. They are having fun playing in the 6 inches of snow that fell in Kansas a couple of days ago - gee I am sorry we missed that! I know that Elmer is fine, but I will be glad to get him back home with us!

Hangin' Loose

We made it to Maui and are enjoying some sand and sun. A far cry from the 15 degrees and snow we hear is going on at home. I'm not complaining a bit!

Bryn is enjoying the water...she and I went out in the ocean yesterday and bobbed around on the waves a bit. We rented some snorkel gear today - we'll see if she can get the hang of that or not.

We went whale watching this morning - it is always so cool to see them and hard to believe they are just hanging out in the big blue ocean.

Hope everyone is getting geared up for a fabulous Christmas!

We're out of here!

I got an all clear form the doc today (my blood pressure was lower than it has been the entire pregnancy) to head to Maui. We leave tomorrow and have an overnight in Oakland tomorrow, but hope to have our toes in the sand by Friday afternoon.

We had a nice Christmas with Aaron's parents this weekend - I was sick a lot of the time as my stomach bug lasted far longer than the 24 hours it seemed to last for everyone else, but we still had a good visit.

Aaron and I got our classes all wrapped up, so with the exception of the emails from students wondering how they can improve their crappy grades (way too late to be thinking about that now!) we are all done for the semester.

Things are progressing in the basement - the studs are up and it is exciting to get a little bit of a picture of how the finished product might look.

Merry Christmas to everyone and all the best in '08!

I finally really got it

That stomach bug, that is. It has been a long night and I figured since I am not really sleeping anyway I'd jot down a few thoughts. Now it has occurred to me I don't really have any thoughts to jot down!

Elmer did fine at daycare and I am going to try to do my best to assume all will be well while he is boarded for 15 days - poor guy!

I have a fridge full of pork chops, chicken and ground beef that I got the other day at the store on sale. I planned on making a bunch of meals up for the freezer and wouldn't you know I get sick the night before it really has to be done. I could throw it all in the freezer, I suppose but it might get sucked into the great black hole in there, never to be seen again. I guess we'll see how things look in a few hours...

I am supposed to volunteer in the computer lab at Bryn's school today for an hour - I am debating whether to cancel that pronto (well, on a few hours when normal people are awake!) or just hope that I am feeling better in the next 8 hours. And I have a dinner date with Stephanie and Monica (we decided to go out for a girl's night instead of exchanging Christmas gifts) so I am planning to recover very soon!


I bought the last of my Christmas gifts yesterday and even have just about everything mailed - hooray! Once I get cards out I'll be done...another year down! Hard to believe it's almost 2008...

Ice storms and stomach bugs

We have had an exciting few days here...the whole area is pretty much closed due to ice. Interestingly enough, the roads are clear as can be but the rain is coming down and freezing on trees and power lines. We have been very fortunate as our power was only out for about a half hour this morning. There was no school today and no school tomorrow, so we are just hanging out and getting stuff done at home.

Bryn has a stomach bug...I think we are at the end of it and I am hoping to avoid it myself. We'll see how that goes...

I had another sonogram today and everything is going well. Baby boy (definitely a boy, BTW) is growing perfectly and evidently has very long arms and big feet. My blood pressure was up a bit today, but the doc wasn't concerned so neither am I. I'll go next Wednesday for my final check to get the all clear to head to Maui...I guess if we can't go we'll have to create our own luau at home and hang out in our bathing suits!

So much to do...

It seems like I can never quite get caught up on all of the things I need to do...

Today I am working on washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms, sorting through baby stuff, making a menu and grocery list for our Christmas next weekend (we are doing it early before we leave for Hawaii), finishing up with Christmas shopping/wrapping/mailing and taking a really long nap!

I decided to have the baby shower at my house...I am too tired to worry about it any more and I figure if I am banished from polite society here in town, I'll just have that much more free time!

We had a couple inches of snow on Thursday. It was a crazy day...I dropped Elmer off at doggie daycare at the place he will be staying over Christmas (he was shaking like a leaf when I left and happy to see me when I picked him up, but he seemed to be O.K.) and headed to a meeting with another instructor about developing my spring online course. By the time I got to my meeting, the snow was coming down pretty hard and the roads were getting slick, so we postponed, I had Chinese for lunch, picked Elmer up and went to the school to get Bryn b/c they got out early! Whew! Anyway, it was a crazy day and we're hunkered down today waiting for another round of winter weather.

Off to work on my to do list...I am sure it will still have a lot of the same things on it tomorrow!

Help - need advice

So I need some etiquette advice... I mentioned that a couple of dear friends of mine are going to host a baby shower for me. I have been slightly uncomfortable with the idea since this is not my first baby, but have pretty much gotten over that since it has been almost 6 years since Bryn was born, this baby is a boy and I live somewhere totally new where there will be no overlap (except family) in who had to suffer through my first pregnancy with me! That being said, the question is whether or not it would be appropriate for the shower to be held at my house. All neurons in my head familiar with Emily Post scream "no", but I am not sure if it is actually "improper" or not. My friends want to host a brunch and I have the roomiest dining and living area to put people in and they asked if they could host the shower here.

Will Miss Manners haunt me forever if I have the shower at my house if I am not the one hosting it?

There may be hope yet...

that the basement will actually get done! We met with Ralph last night and he is supposed to be getting started next Wednesday. He is estimating 90 days until completion which means we will probably be in utter disarray around her when baby shoes up and won't have a baby room, but it will just be more exciting (challenging) that way, right?!?!

Stephanie and Monica are going to throw me a baby shower (which makes me feel a little weird since it is not my first baby and I think showers are technically only for first babies), but I am excited since I didn't get to have a pre-baby shower when I was pregnant with Bryn as I went on bedrest so early.

It has been a quiet couple of days, which is good since I think I am trying to get a cold. Things will pick up tomorrow - I am meeting Christi in Topeka to do some Christmas shopping and have lunch. On Thursday I have a meeting for work and Elmer is going to doggie daycare to check out the digs where he will be staying over Christmas. I must admit I am looking forward to a break from puppy world...it will be nice to sleep in a little and not have to clean up "accidents" all the time (yes, Elmer has still not completely caught on to where his toilet is located - I am so thankful for the wood floors I could just about cry).

We did get Bryn's correct school pictures and even got to keep the crazy pictures as a bonus. Not surewhat I'll do with a 8 x 10 of my wild-eyed child - I guess it will be good to pull out when she starts dating someday...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, it will by the end of the day anyway. Today we are finally putting up Christmas decorations (although I must admit I am opting out of putting up a tree since we won't be here to enjoy it).

Bryn got to open the first door of her Littlest Pet Shop advent calendar today...you would think today was Christmas the way she has been anticipating that. She and I are going to go shopping and to lunch today...something I love to do but Bryn (im)patiently endures. Then Bryn has a birthday party to go to and we have an afternoon filled with watching college football. Busy day!

I went scrapbooking last night, but came home a couple of hours early since I didn't have the pictures I needed and I was so very tired. I am not sure I actually caught up on any sleep since I always stay awake too late reading, but I guess I at least did get to sleep earlier than I would have if I had scrapbooked until midnight.

Do you really have to be rude?

I had one of those moments yesterday while picking Bryn up from school when I just wanted to throttle a fellow human...

I pull into a parking space to wait for the kids to come out. Now I notice the lady next to me has parked practically on the line but I am happily in the middle of my space so I worry no further (and I cannot go elsewhere as there are no more empty spaces). Elmer and I sit and wait until the lady in the car next to me scowls at me and rolls down her window. "How am I supposed to get out of my car?" she demands (totally intimating it is my fault she has 2 1/2 inches to open her door because I am some moronic parking pariah). I tell her I don't know and will try to move over, but she practically parked on the line and I wasn't sure what I could do. Does she look to see where she parked? Does she move her car? No. She waits for me to move, rams her door into mine and goes to get her grandkid. Meanwhile I try to come up with some clever comment, and fail. When she comes back she says "I guess I did park a little close to the line, ha, ha," and proceeds to open her door into mine again.

Sigh.

Makes me want to move to a private island even though I wouldn't have curbside trash pickup.

On a brighter note, we went to see "Peter Pan" last night and although Peter Pan was not a stellar actress, Bryn thought it was great. Which made Aaron and I glad we went.

Decorating and picture distress

Another crazy, busy day...

Haircut this morning (it had been 4 MONTHS)- who knows why I wait so long...Oh wait, I know - because it costs a FORTUNE!

Wild Oats for some groceries...I actually have a couple of meals planned for the week. Aaron will tell you that is something that hasn't happened around here in quite a while!

Playdate after school at Maddie's house. All 3 girls escaped unscathed, so a success I'd say!

Decorating the library (for Friends of the Library) for Christmas tonight...just reminded me that all of my decorations are still in boxes and there are only a few short days before I have to have Bryn's new drawer advent calendar filled with goodies and activities (I come up with one activity for each day - go driving to look at Christmas lights, watch a Christmas movie, do a Christmas craft, etc.).

Distress over Bryn's school pictures...we got the right package, but the wrong pose. Thanks for sending the one that looks like she has just been poked with a cattle prod instead of the one that she looks normal in. I may have to go to Walmart to scan it...you'll see why I am not sure I need an 8x10 of this one!

Good news on another picture front...Some "lost" pictures were found on our external hard drive. I am not sure how they disappeared from the other spots they should have been located in on our computer, but I am glad to have them back. I know I haven't been great about taking pictures this year, but I felt sure I had taken more than 6 between January and June!

BTW, Elmer is making it throught the night without potty breaks! Of course I still wake up every hour worried that he needs to go, so I am still not getting much sleep! But hey, we're making progress!

Off to watch "Biggest Loser" and get ready for another full day tomorrow!

More of the same

We had a nice Thanksgiving with Mom and John...the food was great, of course, and Elmer was fabulous in the car. He basically just slept in his kennel.

We made it home last night and today is back to the daily stuff. I need to empty the dishwasher, wash clothes, etc - more of the same! I also need to work on some Christmas shopping as it is sneaking up on me. And catch up on all the blogs I haven't read in the past few days...hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

We're out of here!

We're headed out today to visit Mom and John for Thanksgiving. It should be an interesting trip with Elmer..we'll see if we all survive! I hope everyone has a god holiday and eats plenty of turkey!

Another pretty quiet weekend

Aaron and I had a nice dinner out last night (Italian - yum). Bryn spent the night with a friend, so we had some time to ourselves. We watched "The Fantastic Four" after dinner and I went to bed early...I am such a rockin' date these days!

My goal for tonight is to organize some pictures on my computer and order them online as I don't think I have printed pictures since last spring - scary. I'm sure it will take me much more than one night to straighten it all out, but I guess I have to start somewhere.

It's a boy! (most likely)

We had the big ultrasound today and from the brief glances the tech got it looks like we will be adding a boy to our family! Bryn is quite distressed as boys will now outnumber girls in our house (once the cats and dogs are included).

Most importantly, baby looks healthy and all the measurements are right on (by this time in my pregnancy with Bryn she was already measuring small) and my blood pressure is still fine. The perinatologist says everything looks great thus far and I am hoping for a continued healthy and uneventful pregnancy! I'll go back for another visit with the perinatologist and another ultrasound in a month - hopefully we'll get to say for sure then whether this little bugger is a boy or a girl. For now we're getting busy trying to think of some good boy names...

Playground trauma

Bryn took a tumble off the monkey bars today at school and broke her fall with her face. The school secretary called to warn me she may be a little scary looking when I picked her up today. In all reality, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but it does look like the mulch won the battle! I don't know if the shock had worn off by the time she got home, but my usually dramatic child was relatively unfazed by the occurrence by the time I picked her up from school. All's well that ends well, I suppose!

100th post

It is hard to believe I have managed to babble away for 100 posts - and even harder to believe that anyone has been reading! I started blogging as a way to keep a sort of journal - the journal I have always been too lazy to consistently keep. I didn't expect to find so many other blogs I enjoy visiting and keeping up with - what a fun bonus!

O.K. So for the puppy update...another great night in the crate and a not-so-good day in the house. I must have cleaned up a half dozen puddles today...sigh. Two steps forward, one step back. The bright side is that I think I am going to be able to find a nice place for Elmer to go while we are gone over Christmas. There are a couple of potential doggy daycare options here and my mom and John have generously agreed to keep him if he gets along with their dog. So I am feeling better about not having to leave him in a little box all day and night for two weeks.

We had another Knowledge Bowl practice this week. I am expecting an utter disaster next week as I have been pretty ineffective at coaching the kids. it is pretty hard to get 5 year olds to understand and/or care about rules like time limits and a designated question answerer. Ah well...at least it should be amusing.

It feels like an ice cream night - I think I am going to have to head to Sonic for a little fix.

Hallelujah!

Elmer made it through the night without an accident! So sad that I am so very excited about a dog and its bodily functions, but I am almost giddy! I have been trying to feed him in the kennel to restore the "don't poop where you eat" instinct that he had obviously lost during his days in the pet store. I crated him last night and it seems to have worked! I am not at all convinced this is the end of our housebreaking struggle, but at least it is progress!

Our house is overrun by ladybugs. They are absolutely everywhere this year and I have probably vacuumed up a hundred of the buggers. I always thought they were pretty cool until they came into my house. I love bugs, but they are not allowed to hang out inside (unless I am purposefully raising them).

Bryn went to a little program on poop yesterday at the zoo and I had 2 hours to hang out in Topeka and do some Christmas shopping. I still have a lot left to go, but I feel better to have knocked out most of the kids shopping I have to do. Of course, kids are pretty easy to buy for so I still have the hard people left to go!

I am feeling behind with the house. There are papers piled everywhere and I still haven't gotten the Halloween decorations put away. I guess the motivator will be the fact that I have people coming over Thursday night for a Party Lite candle party - that will at least make me move the piles out of sight!

Everyday happenings

I know it's been a few days since I posted, but there is not much new to report. I had a quiet couple of days after Bryn's sleepover. Yesterday I babysat for MOPS in the morning and took Bryn and Elmer to the park yesterday afternoon. Today I took the van in for an oil change and got some grocery shopping done. I need to be cleaning the house but am totally unmotivated...

Aaron is leaving to hunting tomorrow morning so Bryn and I will be on our own. No big plans yet...we'll probably just hang out and watch movies and paint fingernails and let Elmer in and out. Speaking of Elmer, his bathroom habits are continuing to improve (slowly). Maybe there is hope...

My first reading challenge

I finally put together my list for Annie's "What's in a Name" reading challenge. Here it is:

1. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig
(color in the title)

2. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
(animal in the title)

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
(first name in the title)

4. Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
(place in the title)

5. Lick of Frost by Laurell K. Hamilton
(weather event in the title)

6. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
(plant in the title)

Some of these books I have been wanting to read and some are totally random picks to fit the category...

P.S. Annie - I truly did try to get one of the buttons but I am afraid that is beyond my current blogging skills!

Toenails and trivia

Never fear...I am not going to tell you about some horrible toenail fungus. Instead it is the day of Elmer's first visit to the groomer. When I brought him in she was behind schedule so I had to leave him in a little cage whining his heart out. I felt really bad until I remembered all of the soiled newspaper I had to pick up out of the bathroom this morning. That tempered the sorrow a bit...

And for those who are waiting with bated breath to hear how the housebreaking saga is going, here is your update. Elmer is doing very well during the day while I am home and there has not been an accident in the house for two days (of course I am hoping that someday I won't have to take him out every 15 minutes, but I am glad for some progress). Nighttime is a completely different story. After the crating debacle, we resorted to newspapering the entire bathroom and locking him in there at night. It is not a pretty site in the morning and taking him out in the middle of the night doesn't seem to help as he is simply so excited to be released from doggy jail he won't focus on the business at hand. So I am at a loss as to how we'll solve that problem...can someone remind me why I didn't try really hard just to talk Bryn into another cat?

On the trivia front, Bryn had Knowledge Bowl practice yesterday. I thought it would be a riot to volunteer and watch a bunch of kindergartners participate in Knowledge Bowl, and it was. I was thoroughly impressed that my kid knew which planet had rings around it (thank you Magic School Bus!) and nevermind that she had no clue who the president of the United States is...She's far too young for politics, right?!?! Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

Bryn is having a friend sleep over tonight (on a school night even!) as Emma's parents are headed to the Garth Brooks concert. As much as I love the girls, I am thinking the concert would be a little more fun than trying to get two girls to quit giggling in bed and go to sleep! Actually, Stephanie is making us dinner as babysitting payment so I seriously may have gotten the better bargain!

All is quiet here

We have had a nice weekend. It has been relatively relaxing if you discount the endless trips to the backyard and constant vigilance required to keep a puppy form making hash out of a house...

Bryn had her fall party at school on Friday. There was a near tragedy when the other mom bringing cupcakes left them on the roof of her van and drove away. Fortunately, she salvaged 4 and I had 18 so we had 2 to spare! Fun times!

I bought a couple of new shirts yesterday to help get me through the colder weather and another shirt to have to wear in Hawaii over Christmas. I am hoping I get to wear my fabulous warm weather maternity wear - as long as baby and I can stay healthy we're good to go!

I went to bookclub last night - we read Graham Greene's "The Quiet American". Not my favorite book, but it was interesting. We had good food - always a highlight of any gathering, in my opinion.

Does something stink?

We had two skunks in our house on Halloween...

There is more than enough candy in the house after a night of trick-or-treating, but we all had fun!

And we had a minor housebreaking breakthrough today...Elmer scratched on the back door twice today to be let out - hooray! Mind you, I am still cleaning up plenty of accidents, but hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Bryn's fall party at school is tomorrow and I actually have already baked and frosted the cupcakes I have to bring.

Now I just have to get some clothes out of the dryer and settle in for Grey's Anatomy - life is good (except the laundry part!).

Trying to catch up

Whew! We had a great weekend with my dad and Cheryl here, but we definitely stayed busy. The town Halloween party, Boo at the Zoo, shopping and endless trips outside with the dog kept us all going nonstop all weekend!

Bryn's class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch today and it was fun to see all of them pick out the perfect pumpkin. They had lunch at the park and got to play for about 45 minutes on the playground so there were a lot of happy kindergartners!

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up after Elmer when he didn't make it outside, cleaning up kitty barf and cleaning the house. Too exciting for words, I tell ya!

I had another doctor appointment on Friday and everything is going well. Baby's heartbeat sounds good and my blood pressure is good. The bummer is that my doc is going on maternity leave this week and I will be seeing other docs until the beginning of January. The bright side is that I'll go see the perinatologist (just to check in with her in case I need to see her later in the pregnancy) on November 15th and have an ultrasound to check everything out and see if we can see if we can pull out pink clothes or have to round up a bunch of blue...we'll see!

Adventures with Elmer

The puppy has an official name and is officially healthy according to our vet. Unfortunately Elmer didn't read the puppy manual about how he shouldn't want to potty in his crate. Elmer has had 2 baths and I have washed many loads of laundry in the past 24 hours. Right now I am trying to remember why I thought a puppy was a good idea...at least he is cute!

And his name is?

We aren't sure yet! But we do have a dog. A 10 week old male Westipoo (West Highland Terrier/Poodle mix) to be exact. We have narrowed the name list down to 5 possibilities and are going to let Bryn pick the final name in the morning.

So new dog day went something like this...

We went to my friend Cassidy's house to see her Brittany Spaniels. Yes, they were precious and yes, the parents were bigger dogs with feathery, sheddy fur so despite the 10 pairs of precious puppy eyes, I managed to walk away. Only because I focused on the vision of my bagless vacuum filled with even more hair than it currently is with two cats in the house. I called some numbers I found in the paper for various breeds (one of which asked me what kind of dog I was interested in and informed me they had THIRTEEN different breeds of dogs - can you say "puppy mill"?) and didn't hear anything I was totally impressed with. I had seen an ad for a puppy groomer and store run by two vets and we stopped in. Bryn fell in love with a neurotic mini schnauzer, so we beat a hasty retreat and headed to their other location in Kansas City. After 2 hours in the store meeting many dogs we narrowed it down to a Westipoo and a Shih-Tzu. Bryn was really pulling for the Westipoo...Aaron stopped in after work to make it an official party and we decided on dude pictured above. Although I feel a bit guilty for not rescuing a shelter dog, I am feeling very good about having a dog that is the size I want with a seemingly good temperament and no fur to be vacuumed up. And if it ends up being a disaster, it will serve me right, right?!?!

Anyway, we made it through the evening without any accidents in the house (although I had no idea the back step was a more appealing bathroom than the entire green, grassy yard) and puppy is currently asleep in his kennel. So far so good...we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Dog hunting...

I think we have decided it is about time to add a new family member. We were planning on waiting until after Christmas so we wouldn't have to kennel the dog while we are in Hawaii, but after thinking about trying to housebreak a puppy in January and the possibility that I will be on bedrest we have decided to start looking now. I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean anything will happen yet, but the wheels have started to turn. We are headed over to a friend's house to check out her Brittany Spaniel puppies (bigger and sheddier than I think I want, but I am sure i can be sucked in by some cute 7 week old puppy eyes!) and I am sure they will be adorable.

Our trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled yesterday - it was icky and rainy so we sat around and did puzzles and read books and watched movies. Exciting stuff!

If anyone has nay favorite small dog breeds or some tips on how to pick the perfect puppy, be sure to weigh in. We need all the help we can get!

Shopping

I had a great day shopping with my friend Monica and got some cute holiday stuff. I found an advent calendar with little drawers...I have been looking for a cute one for a few years now. I usually put little strips of paper with holiday activities for Bryn and I to do in envelopes for every day in December, but now I can put them in the drawers with a treat. Too cool!

Uh oh! I am listening to the very end of the K-State game as I type and it looks like the game is not going to go to the Wildcats tonight. Oklahoma State just scored a field goal to pull ahead by 2 points with 2 seconds left. Not good. I hope Aaron is having a little bit of fun at the game anyway.

I think the new heartburn medicine is doing the trick. I am sleeping better without the strange symptoms that were plaguing me at night so I am thrilled.

Off to watch some more DVR'ed reality TV...can't beat that on a Saturday night!

Relief...hopefully!

I finally have a prescription in my hot little hand that will hopefully help me with the reflux. It was quite a long, drawn out and expensive process to get it filled, but hopefully it will be worth the pain and trauma!

Bryn was out of school today...we went shopping for clothes (maternity for me, nightgowns and footed jammies for her) and then went to the bookstore. We managed to leave with only one book for Bryn, But I then had to stop by the elementary schools Scholastic book sale where I bought her a few more. I did get through the day without purchasing any books for myself - only because I have a pile of library and loaner books I need to get through!

Clarissa got to go tot he vet today - she threw up A LOT for about 24 hours. she is acting fine, but I just wanted to get her checked out. She seems to be doing better and I am thrilled to be cleaning up less cat barf!

Bryn is headed to Grandma and Grandpa's tomorrow and Aaron is going to be gone to the K-State/Oklahoma State football game Saturday. I am planning on reading, relaxing and doing some holiday shopping. I am looking forward to it!

I am looking forward to "Grey's Anatomy" tonight, although I must admit I can't get into George and Izzy...I feel like I should like them together, but I just don't. We'll see how it goes...

Hooray for normal!

My glucose tolerance test came back normal - I am so excited as I was sure my blood sugar was going to be all whacked out. But so far so good...Now if I could just get this reflux under control I'd be a happy camper (I'll try not to even get started on the fact I couldn't start a new medication for it today because my insurance requires pre-authorization for a PRESCRIPTION - for crying out loud!).

Scrapbooking yesterday was fun and I did get some stuff done. Nothing exciting, but enough to have made it worth my while to spend a whole day off from other obligations.

I went to a CPR recertification class tonight so I am now ready to save lives - that is of course assuming that I could control my panic and actually remember what it is I am supposed to do. Fortunately I have never been in a situation where I needed to do CPR, but I am hoping I could pull myself together and do it if I needed to.

The parent/teacher conference with Bryn's teacher was today and all seems to be going well. She did say that Bryn sometimes struggles with emotional control (not news to us as we live with the drama everyday), but she didn't have any suggestions for helping. she just said that some people are wired that way and that she herself is wired similarly. Gotta love a teacher who really loves her students no matter what the issues...we are so fortunate that Bryn has such a patient and loving teacher as her introduction to the educational system!

Rested and relaxed

I did get some nice downtime in yesterday - in fact, I never even changed out of my pajamas! I did get all of my and Bryn's summer and winter clothes changed out in the closets so we at least can wear some season-appropriate clothing now! We had movie night (and ordered pizza so I didn't even have to cook!) and then watched K-State beat Colorado. All in all, a pretty good day...

No big plans today either. Just headed to church - the children's choir is singing today so we'll get to watch Bryn belt out some tunes with the other kids. Besides that I have to organize some scrapbooking stuff...I am going to an all day crop tomorrow while Bryn is in school - I can't wait!

Still standing

Despite Debi's advice not to say yes to anything else, I ended up subbing for the school secretary yesterday afternoon and participating in a homecoming parade today to pass out flyers for our Wednesday night kids program at church. As a result, I am exhausted. The bright side is this weekend is still activity free!

I had another doctor appointment today and everything seems to be going well. My blood pressure is fine, baby's heartbeat is fine and I should know the results of my 24 hour urine test (nothing more fun than doing that at home for 24 hours) and my glucose tolerance test soon.

Nothing else new around here...just looking forward to a long nap tomorrow and some football tomorrow night!

Not much excitement around here

Which is just fine with me. We decided on a local guy to do the basement and hopefully he will get started soon. We are shooting for everything to be done before the end of February...it sure seems like a long time to have everything in the house in upheaval, but at least it will be mostly contained in the basement.

I have been feeling less than stellar this week. I can't decide whether I am trying to get sick or if I'm just suffering from pregnancy icks. If I am getting sick, I get to go share my germs with a bunch of kids at church tonight...I am in charge of the science lesson for our Wednesday night program.

I have a busy next couple of days (babysitting for MOPS, scrapbooking party, doctor's appt, and Bryn out of school early on Friday), but we have no plans for the weekend. It is the first weekend in a long time that we don't have anything on the calendar - it will be nice to just hang out. Maybe I'll actually clean my house...what a novel idea!

Another weekend come and gone...

It was a busy one! The garage sale went well...we made almost $200 and best of all, EVERYTHING is gone. We sold the big stuff, loaded up the rest and took it to Goodwill while Bryn went to a birthday party. It all worked out quite nicely and now we have some empty space in the garage. Never mind that it will soon be holding all of the stuff that is currently crammed into the basement - we may never get to park our cars inside!

We served 160 meals to the homeless this morning at Bridges of Hope...it seems like we have more people every time.

Looking forward to relaxing tonight and watching some good TV...

More everyday stuff

We have had 4 different guys in our basement to take a look and give us estimates...we'll see how that comes out in the next couple of days.

I went to another Party Lite candle party last night (this makes 3 in the past month) and agreed to have a party in November. Aaron is pretty sure I have lost my mind...I blame it on pregnancy.

Mema had a CAT scan last week and all that showed up was scar tissue - no tumor at this point. She's not out of the woods yet and will have a PET scan in November, but the doctor said the results couldn't have been better. She is still not able to taste anything and has no appetite, but is feeling O.K. otherwise.

I am going to spend today getting garage sale stuff ready...fun. I am betting this one won't be quite as productive as the last one, but I am definitely ready to get rid of some junk.

Bryn has had about 3 back to back "worst day evers" this week. Of course she doesn't know why and won't tell me thing (which my mother insists is only fair since I never told her anything), but she doesn't seem too despondent so I am just going to assume there is not permanent damage being done to her psyche.

Getting the ball rolling...

I finally caved in and called our builder to see if he was interested and/or available to finish our currently unfinished basement. I love our new house, but losing that basement area to put toys and the computer has been a bummer. I don't think Aaron and Bryn are much bothered by it, but having stuff I can't unpack and stuff piled on top of stuff in closets is driving me crazy. Now one could argue that simply means it is time to get rid of a lot of stuff because we have too much and one would be very correct. And some of it will be going in the garage sale this Saturday (yes, I have gone insane and decided to participate in the city-wide garage sale), but I am still longing for some more space and an extra bedroom so we can have a room for the baby and a guest room for our visitors. The current plan is that the baby doesn't get a room and shares our bedroom and closet, but I don't think that is a great long term plan! The long and short of it is that we could definitely work with what we have and have plenty of room for all of us - finishing the basement is definitely not a NEED, but it is a serious WANT on my part. Anyway, we'll see what the estimate comes back to be and go from there.

No other news...had breakfast with some mom friends this morning and had a nice time and I have book club tonight. And I am so very excited to get home from book club and have both "Prison Break" and "The Bachelor" to watch...hooray!

It's A...

No, just kidding! I did have my 12 week OB appointment today but it is still way too early to find out the sex of the baby. Everything looked good...I'll go back in two weeks for some more tests - the doctor is watching me very closely which in itself won't necessarily keep things from going wrong, but it does keep me from worrying about it as much.

Bryn has a friend spending the night tonight. We went to the high school football game - it was homecoming so there were lots of people there. The bright side was the concessions were cheap so we got to eat lots of junk food without spending much -not something that usually happens at sporting events!

We actually have a pretty quiet weekend coming up and we are looking forward to relaxing a bit. I plan on taking a nap or two and catching up on some of those DVR'ed shows!

Everyday stuff...

Mom made it home after a bit of an overnight delay in Chicago...gotta love the joys of air travel!

My saga with Lab One and the insurance company continues...Let's just say I was a little less than pleased when I got a call from a collection agency on Tuesday. The poor girl at Lab One got an earful...after faxing the info they needed twice and sending it once and being notified back in May that it had been received, I told her I wasn't really sure what else I could do. As she assured me she did not have the information, she leafed through my file and what do you know?!?! She found it! Gee, I'm utterly shocked! You had it there the whole time but couldn't manage to file a new claim or keep me out of collections - thanks for that. O.K. enough of my ranting, I suppose, because in the end she and her supervisor did agree to call of the collection agency and write off the balance of the bill since it was their mistake. We'll see if that all comes to pass, but I would be thrilled to have them out of my life after a year of going round and round about this charge!

Aaron is busy desperately trying to create a lawn out of a tangled mess of weeds in the backyard. It will be kind of nice when fall really rolls in and it just all up and dies for the winter so he can get a break!

I am so excited that all of the TV shows are starting their new seasons. My DVR is working overtime and it is great to have some mind numbing programming to enjoy! I can't even say what show I am enjoying most at the moment - I'm just kind of like a kid in a candy store!

Fun with Grammy...

We have had a nice weekend hanging out with Grammy. We went to T-Rex Cafe yesterday (always more fun for Bryn than the rest of the group!)and to a local farm where we picked some green beans and bought a couple of mums and pumpkins. Today was Grandparent's Day and it sounds like everyone had fun. Grammy got to hang out with Bryn in her classroom and eat lunch with her and do whatever it is that kindergartner's normally do (I wouldn't know - my kid surely isn't going to tell me!).

The twilight tour at the zoo was pretty neat although Bryn started complaining about halfway through that she was tired and wanted to be carried...sigh. Sometimes it would be nice to get through an activity that we plan for her without her complaining about it...

On a Bryn bright note, she did stay in her own bed all night last night and only woke me up once. I didn't even actually mind since when I got to her room her hands were on the floor and her legs were on the bed and she was quite stuck! It's hard to get too upset when your kid manages to fall only halfway out of bed.

On Saturday we went to a Homemade gourmet party - we brought different meat and $25 and prepared meals for the freezer. The spices and a couple of additional ingredients were provided and since we have a small family, I ended up with 8 meals. Kinda cool...

The last bit of excitement was that the bug man showed up today to spray and set out some spider traps...he wasn't supposed to be here until Wednesday, but since he was originally scheduled for last Friday and I totally forgot and wasn't home, I figured I didn't have much of a leg to stand on as far as protesting appointment times!

We're off to the park this afternoon and then will be painting the pumpkins we got yesterday...too much excitement around here!

Issue resolved...

Our backyard is looking better...the holes are filled and the cross bar thingies for the fence are up. Hopefully it will be all done by tomorrow. Then Bryn's begging for a dog can begin! Actually I think she will be O.K. waiting until after Christmas like we had originally planned...we'll be gone for a couple of weeks over the holidays and would hate to leave a new puppy at the kennel. I know that Christmas will roll around before I know it, anyways!

Had a day in my jammies today, mostly planning menus and cleaning. I am having coffee and breakfast here tomorrow (see, I do only clean when we're having company!) - some of my mom friends are getting together every couple of weeks and it is my turn to host.

We have an exciting weekend coming up. Tomorrow night we are going on a twilight tour at the zoo and Saturday my mom is coming in to visit and to go to Grandparents Day at Bryn's school. I'm even going all out for mom's visit and putting up some temporary shades in the guest bedroom! I just can't seem to get around to getting the windows done...fortunately the fence will let me putt off covering the windows in the back of the house even longer!

Holes

Not the great young adult book by Louis Sachar. Instead it would be the two huge holes in our yard...

And don't worry, they look even better today with the nice orange temporary fencing around them!
Our neighbors have evidently not had phone service for two days as the fence guys hit the phone line in at least two places when they set our posts. Great. I called the fence guy to let him know I was a little less than thrilled with the situation (and could you please keep your guys from throwing Dr. Pepper cans all over our yard while you're chastising them for not hand digging the holes in the back to avoid this mess in the first place) and although he was apologetic, he seems to disagree with the evaluation that it was his fault rather than the line marking guys fault. Whatever - all I know is that we have two huge hole in our yard and some neighbors who I suspect are a little less than thrilled with us. Not to mention the fact that poor Aaron has been seeding the yard like a crazy man trying to get some decent grass to grow. All of the trucks through the yard and holes are not helping his cause much...

I went to the cardiologist yesterday to have the heart stuff checked out and everything looks fine. I haven't had any skipped beats since Monday - I am beginning to wonder if that Diet Barq's Root Beer I splurged with on Sunday night may have some caffeine in it despite the no caffeine label...

We survived the weekend!

It was crazy, but we made it through! And the house looks great because we moved all of the boxes - isn't it great how having some people over will motivate you to do things that will otherwise never get done?!?

We went to Aaron's work picnic yesterday and it was nice. Neither one of us was much up for introducing ourselves to a bunch of people, but I did meet a few people so I can put some faces with some names. Bryn had a great time climbing trees with the other kids (fortunately none of them were very tall trees, so there were no major catastrophes!).

I am feeling good and have even stopped the incessant nose dripping - only a little stuffy now. The not so bright side is that I had a couple of heart flutters tonight - a bummer since I haven't had any in months. I am hoping it was something I ate or drank as opposed to pregnancy hormones causing them. I know they are "normal" and know tons of people that have them, but it is still freaky to feel like your heart is skipping a beat. Fortunately I am tired enough to not have much energy left to worry!

Off to the races

Figuratively, of course. My life is not so exciting that it is filled with actual races of any kind!

My races will be more of the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off variety with me leading the pack. I have once again over scheduled and under-prepared...















The space is for the to do list and calendar that I almost subjected you all to and then deleted...just suffice it to say there will be more to do than there is time. Anyone want to come dig me out of the hole I have jumped into?!?!

On the bright side, I felt great today...no nausea! On the not so bright side, my nose is literally dripping like a faucet from whatever blooming things have decided to get going now that we had a couple of cool days. Ah well...you can't have everything, I suppose!

Family time and birthday celebration

We had a nice weekend starting with Aaron's brother, Bryan (hi Bryan!), coming in to the Kansas City airport and staying with us Friday night. We had dinner at Jazz, a new cajun restaurant close by, and had some good food. Bryn ate fried alligator (and lots of it) - go figure. I can't get her to eat a ham sandwich or a hamburger, but she'll eat alligator. Gotta love it.

Our neighbor cut down a couple of scrawny trees in our backyard and a huge overhanging limb for us on Saturday morning, so we are now officially ready for our fence. Our neighbor then proceeded to cut the grass seed into our yard and water for us when we were gone on Sunday - can't beat that for good neighbors, can you?!?

We headed to Manhattan for Grandmother's party and had a nice time catching up with Kristen and Adam (Aaron's cousins), Uncle Don and Aunt Shirley and Aaron's parents. Grandmother's bash was on Sunday afternoon and over 100 people came. We were all pretty tired by the time it was over, but it was a nice celebration of 90 years of life of an amazing woman. I must admit it was bittersweet for me as it was the first time I saw Grandmother's new room and finally had to realize that she just isn't able to do all the things she used to do due to her lack of short term memory. She is exactly where she needs to be, but after volunteering at nursing facilities a lot in college I just am having a hard time picturing such a vibrant and wonderful woman in the same space with all of the other people I used to visit. She is well taken care of and still is her agreeable self, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't make me a little sad to not see her in her apartment with her pile of knitting close by.

On the road again...

We're taking off tomorrow morning to attend Grandmother's 90th birthday party, so I thought I'd check in before I am MIA for a couple of days. I will likely spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out a birthday present for her - I am considering just doing a photo album of pics form the party and giving it to her later. We'll see...

Aaron's brother, Bryan, is coming in tonight and will be staying at our house overnight. The guest room is still is some disarray, but at least there is a nice big bed to sleep in (now I just have to get some sheets on it!).

My little rant for today is about health insurance...aaaargh! I had some lab work done in May 2006 (yes, over a year ago) that was never paid for by the insurance company due to lack of information on why the tests needed to be run. O.K., no problem, I know how this works after working in insurance for a while...step 1: obtain records from doctor's office; step 2: send records to the insurance company; step 3: wait for them to deny the claim and fight with them some more.

The first headache was getting my records. The office sends the file to another company to copy the records who then waits until I have paid the $15 fee before they send them. So in the past there hasn't been such a long process, but I can deal and now have records in hand.

I fax them to BCBS and wait. Then I get another nasty gram from the lab company, who then calls BCBS, who then claims they never got the records. After spending many moons on the phone with BCBS, I find out I cannot send the records - they have to be sent with the claim from the lab company. So I fax the records to my new best friend at Lab One and she calls to tell me she has received them and is sending the claim.

Now three months later, I get yet another bill from Lab One. I call them and ask to speak to my Lab One buddy who of course no longer works there. My new not-so-good friend then proceeds to tell me they never received the records and I need to refax them...sigh. Now if I could only unearth them - I have no clue where they ended up during the move. Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll get to pay for another copy...

Linking

Thanks for the linking info dawn! I think I have actually figured it out!

Shopping and hanging out

I spent the morning shopping for a few clothes and books...it was nice to hang out at the mall by myself without a munchkin complaining about being tired of walking! I picked some lunch up at Panera for Stephanie's birthday and we had a nice afternoon chatting and peeking at her birthday presents.

I also finally called the fence guy to get a quote. Now we just have to figure out what we want and where our property line is. We think part of the neighbors brick-edged flowerbed is on our property, but I am all about moving our fence a foot or so in and letting hime mow that part of our yard! we also have to decide to back right up to our neighbors chain link fence or leave some space in between (that we would then have to mow). Decisions, decisions!

Learning to link

O.K. blogging pros...tell me the easiest way to set up links to your wonderful blogs within my posts. I know it's not rocket science, but do I really have to type in all of the URLs?

Follow the yellow brick road...

Or various highways...at any rate, they led us back to Kansas! And we now have a king size bed for guests, so we're ready for anyone to drop in anytime (actually give me a little time to clean and try to unpack some more boxes before you come!).

We had a quick but nice visit in Memphis. We saw Mema and she is recovering from the radiation and chemo. It will be a while before she has the scans to see what has actually happened with the cancer, but hopefully it was wiped out.

Bryn and I visited Nikki and she seems to be doing pretty well after calling off the wedding and moving back home. I have four bridesmaids dresses to try to sell on Ebay...let me know if anyone needs some formalwear!

Bryn brought home a school fundraiser form today...yipee! I can't even begin to tell you how much I loathe school fundraisers - I know they need the money, but aaargh! I hate selling trash bags and magazines and cookie dough! You know where to come if you are in dire need of some trash bags...we'll have quite a stockpile here!

Ohterwise, it's back to the daily grind...Walmart, groceries, emptying the dishwasher, packing lunches, napping. Can't beat that!

Good news at the doctor's office

Thank you all for the birthday wishes...we had a nice dinner and a relaxing night.

I had a doctor's appointment this morning and everything looks good. I had a sonogram and I got to see the baby's heart beating away. I am right around 8 weeks so there are still a million months to go, but it is still nice to get good news. I feel really good about my doctor and I think she'll keep a close eye on me. Since she unfortunately is not psychic she couldn't reassure me that this will be a nice long 40 week pregnancy with a full-term healthy baby at the end, but I still like her!

I'm off to cram some clothes in a bag for our trip. Hope everyone had a fun Labor Day holiday!

Mellow birthday

I had a nice, mellow birthday today just hanging out with the cats, watching some shows I had DVR'ed and cleaning the house a little. Stephanie and the girls came over for a play date and the kids spent the afternoon climbing up and sliding down the huge pile of dirt from the basement hole for the house going in behind us. We're headed out to dinner in a few minutes. All in all a nice day...

A little more patience...

Thank you everyone for reminding me that Bryn is going through a lot of changes and I probably need to chill out a little about the sleeping thing. Between kindergarten and the new house, it is plenty to deal with (we haven't told her I am pregnant yet, but that will just be another thing to add to her list of things to adjust to). We do leave lights on and have walked through the dark house and such. I think it did start out as her being a little scared, but now I think it is just habit. She wakes up between 1 and 2 am every night and just doesn't settle back to sleep. I know it will pass - I just don't happen to be one of those people that deals well when my sleep is interrupted. Hard to believe I survived the baby years!

Aaron's car is fine and all set for us to head to Memphis this weekend to pick up a few furniture odds and ends. It will be a quick trip...it sure was easier to travel before I had to stick to this kindergarten schedule!

I'm back

I'm finally back after what feels like a really long time of not blogging and not checking in on my blogging buddies, and I don't even have much news to report after my hiatus!

We're still battling sleep issues around here - mainly me not getting enough because Bryn doesn't want to sleep in her bed. I am not really sure why we're having a problem after 5 1/2 years in her own bed, but I guess me not understanding doesn't make the issue stop! I'm currently trying bribery (a stack of little toys she can choose from in the morning if she doesn't wake me up a jillion times a night) and punishment (no TV or computer all day if she does wake me up a jillion times). And no, neither one seems to be working!

I did the final walk-through the old place with the landlord this morning. He is going to charge us for every little thing including painting the walls and cleaning the carpets (they look fine - I already cleaned them), so we'll be lucky if we get 4 cents of our deposit back. Some of our other neighbors who had moved out had already warned us that he charged them for dust on their ceiling fans, so we weren't expecting much. He told me today that scuffs on the walls are not considered normal wear and tear unless they wipe right off with a damp rag because he will have to repaint before someone else moves in. Um, yeah - isn't that what you do between tenants and don't you roll that cost into the major bucks you charge us for rent? He was generous enough "to only charge us what the carpet cleaning guy charges to clean the carpets". I refrained from pointing out that he cleans the carpets himself with his own little truck and hoses - I guess that's a secret he expects me not to know since he does it during the day when everyone is at work. Anyway, enough of that rant...

I am taking Aaron's truck in for a tune-up tomorrow and am hoping I don't bring the same kind of luck I brought last time I took my car in and came out with a new vehicle! One new car payment is plenty!

Sickness and sin

We're waiting on symptoms of hand, foot and mouth as it is evidently going around. We had a playdate here yesterday afternoon and one of the little girls had blisters today on her mouth and hands. Sigh. One of the other joys of children - all the fun germs they can pick up to make life interesting!

On a more amusing note, I cracked up yesterday when Bryn proceeded to tell her little friend all about me using a mean voice and adding sin to the world. "Sin, sin, sin - she is just making more sin using that kind of voice". Obviously something is sinking in at school - after only 5 days my kid is already preaching hellfire and brimstone!

We are still covered in boxes around here and I am starting to feel a little nauseated throughout the day so I am not getting much done. Not that I was getting much done before...I guess at least now I have a valid excuse!

I did send an email regarding the horrible online class I tried to take. I haven't received a response and am interested to see if I get one.

Another day goes by...

Sometimes I can't figure out where the time goes. I feel like I blink and days have passed! It doesn't help that my calendar is not up and our house is still in unpacking disarray. In fact, this morning I was halfway to a doctor's appointment (no exciting news - they just drew blood and I have a sonogram scheduled for next week) when I remembered I was supposed to meet someone from the school to get a copy of the text for the class I am taching this semester! Aaargh! I frantically called Stephanie and asked her to meet him for me and get the books. Being the wonderful friend she is she loaded three kids in the car and got the books for me. Am I blessed to have such great friends, or what?

On the teaching front, classes have started and the ususal questions about what is due when have started rolling in. The questions are always something I have answered in the course materials for the class, but I am convinced that posting all of that is just for my benefit as none of the students seem to read it! And just as I was feeling like I must be doing something wrong with my class, I logged into a class I decided to tkae online this semester just for fun. It literally made me embarassed to be associated with the school as it is possibly the most poorly designed and uninformative online course I have ever seen. If I was paying for it (and not getting free tuition b/c I work there) I would be so angry I wouldn't be able to see straight. I am seriously considering emailing the department head about it, but I am thinking I should probably just keep my mouth shut and get off my soapbox!

Napping and parties and unpacking

We had a nice Saturday...we went to little Levi's first birthday party and had a nice long nap. We had taco salad for dinner and had movie night (admittedly Aaron and I worked on our laptops while Bryn watched "Madeline Lost in Paris", but she didn't seem to mind!). A perfect day as far as I am concerned. Poor Aaron loaded some more boxes up and brought them from the other house - I have big plans to get them unpacked today. We'll see how that goes.

Even though Aaron and Bryn didn't go fishing this weekend, I thought I'd post the old fishing photos that I never posted.

Nothing new today...

It is nice to be getting back to normal with no new developments in our lives. I suppose there are a few "new" things around the house as I made a run to Target today for various items. But no new big things! I did have to laugh at Jean's comment on yesterday's blog...there actually is a new pet in our future! We promised Bryn when we moved we would get a fence and get her a puppy sometime after Christmas - that will be an adventure! If anybody has any suggestions for a calm smaller dog breed, let me know!

Bryn had another good day at school, I think. Figuring out what she does each day is a bit of a guessing game as she is not very forthcoming with any info about her school time. Thank goodness I'll get a weekly newsletter form the teacher so I'll have some vague notion of what's going on!

Another "new" development

Well, used "new" development. I took my 2001 Honda Accord into the shop today for what I figured was a transmission issue and of course, it was. The mechanic reassured me that he had never seen the transmission go out on an Accord with 130,000 miles on it. Really....lucky me. Now, it could be fixed to the tune of $2500 for a used transmission or $3900 for a new one...on a vehicle worth maybe $6000 on a really good day with a working transmission. Sigh...

I am now the proud owner of a 2004 Honda Odyssey minivan. I suppose I should be happy as I always wanted my next car to be a van, but instead I just want to vomit! What a way to spend my first full day as the mother of a kindergartener (Bryn did wonderfully today at school and it looks like we are off to a great start with school!).

On another note, I no longer have to stuff myself into a bridesmaid dress in October as the wedding is now off. It sounds like the situation was really bad (I had no clue what was going on evidently) and in the end (I wish it hadn't taken her so long to figure it out) Nikki knew she couldn't stay with her fiance. I am just glad she and Ellen are safe and have her family there to support them.

Bryn's first day of kindergarten

Each school day should start with a nutritious breakfast (at our house today that would be cheese and pretzels - the breakfast of champions, right?)




We made it out of the house on time and learned that traffic does get kind of backed up during the school year when the Middle School is only a block away!




Look at this face - so sad to be leaving Mom (or just tired of Mom taking pictures!)




All settled in at her desk and ready to go!

All the agonizing about starting school - public, private, none at all (kindergarten isn't mandatory in Kansas) is officially over. I walked Bryn into her first day of school at Genesis Christian Academy, stuffed her supplies into her cubby and left her in the capable hands of her teacher, Mrs. Field. I think she has been a little nervous even though she wouldn't really admit as much. No tears this morning from Bryn or Mom and she didn't even blink as I left the classroom. Another milestone passed...

Another day!

Thought I'd post a quick update...

All is well here...just a little tired, but feeling pretty good. We are enjoying my mom and John's visit and have been doing all kinds of fun stuff - unpacking boxes, moving more boxes, eating lots of food, going to the fair, shopping. Staying busy for sure!

I did get a new knob for the buffet. After many phone calls, we managed to agree that me going to the store and exchnaging the knob would be the easiest course of action. Really, you think? That would be easier than sending me a whole new buffet? Who knew?

Today we're off the do some more shopping (curtain rods) and more eating (T-Rex Cafe). And only two more day until Bryn starts kindergarten...it's hard to believe!

Still in shock, but well fed!

I'm still trying to absorb the fact that I am pregnant and not recovering from surgery...I think it may take a bit longer to sink in. It is hard for me to be completely thrilled as I am a natural worrier and know all too well the things that can go wrong during pregnancy (a couple of years working at an OB office can really make you paranoid, not to mention the problems I had last time around). I have some good docs this time around, though, and much more time to lay around with my feet up since Bryn will be off to kindergarten next week!

We have been well fed as my wonderful friends have been bringing dinners by even though I am completely capable of cooking at his point - who am I to pass up a free, easy and tasty meal?!?

My Mom and John are coming in tomorrow night and are staying until Tuesday (and bringing meals since I was supposed to be incapacitated and Mom already put the casseroles together!). I don't have anything planned except getting the dining room curtain rod up so I can get some measurements for those drapes. We desperately need some curtains in this house as I am tired of hiding in the closet to change clothes for fear of scaring the neighbors!

And the "are you kidding me" part of today (not nearly as exciting as the last one!) is the fact that Crate and Barrel is planning on sending an entire new buffet to us b/c I need a replacement knob (one of them has some weird rust spots). Yes, the knobs do simply unscrew and come off, but evidently no one can seem to order just one knob. My request to simply go into the store and simply exchange my bad one for one of the good ones on their floor model was met with a two day delay while that request is emailed to the production manager. Who knew it was easier to order and deliver a whole new piece of furniture rather than send one lousy knob? Maybe I'll just paint the knobs hot pink and call it good!

Are you kidding?

I did not expect to be blogging today, but here I am am. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes for my surgery - it meant a lot to me to have so many people thinking of me.

Now for the "are you kidding" part...I did not have surgery because I had a positive pregnancy test! Quite an unexpected turn of events as I have had hormonal issues for a while and getting pregnant was not something that was expected to happen without some medical intervention. I guess that just goes to show that there is a bigger plan than I can understand or anticipate. It is sooooo very early still (I am most likely not even 5 weeks pregnant), but I figured I better go ahead and tell as I couldn't figure out how to explain why I am not going to be laid up and recovering from the surgery! The surgeon said the surgery can happen during the second trimester if I am having problems (like may happen if the lumps are endometriomas) or it can happen later if I don't have any problems.

O.K. So I think that's enough news from me for one day...

Moved in!

Well mostly, anyway. The movers came today and moved all of the furniture (except the computer desk which failed to fit up the stairs - it was assembled AFTER we took it to the basement originally!). All of the neccessities, plus some non-essentials, are in the new place and mostly unpacked. The rest will have to wait, but at least we get to spend our first official night in our new house tonight. The cats are both a little bit freaked out by the new digs, but I figure they'll be out and about and shedding all over soon enough!

I am headed to the hospital tommorow morning for my surgery which will be at 9:30 am. It is supposed to take less than an hour and then after an hour or so in recovery they will send me home if all goes well. If y'all have any prayers to spare, say one for me tomorrow...

Making progress

We are definitely making progress on moving thanks to some wonderful friends and family! Some friends from church and Jim and Sherry came over yesterday morning and we moved about 7 pick up loads of stuff. They would have moved everything, but we had to save a few things for the movers we hired (who I haven't talked to in a while - I am hoping they show up tomorrow!). And then my friend, Stephanie, brought chicken spaghetti over for everyone for lunch...how fortunate am I to have such a great people in my life?

Bridges of Hope is happening today and I am not going...it is one of those things that I am sure will fall apart without me when I know in all reality it will go off without a hitch whether I am there or not! The cooks made brisket this month...I love that they are making a nice Sunday dinner meal and not a "soup kitchen" meal.

Off to pack a little more...

The fun continues...

All is well here...just continuing to move stuff to the new house. It is kind of nice to be able to take a few things over and put them away as we go. Tomorrow morning some friends are coming over with trucks to help us move the few boxes we have packed. Unless we get some serious work done, there won't be much to move! Also arriving tomorrow are Aaron's parents - Bryn is thrilled to have Grandma coming to play with her and I am thrilled that there will be someone to entertain her as she is growing quite weary of this moving business.

My surgery is still scheduled for Tuesday...the nurse called a couple of days ago to get all of my pre op info. I will evidently have a choice of IV sedation with a local or general anesthesia. The surgery should take less than an hour, so hopefully it will be quick and complication free. I try not to worry, but the stories I have heard in the past week about blood clots in the lungs after surgery are not doing much to calm me down! These types of situations are definitely the ones that my control freak personality does not handle well!

I think we have decided for curtains the full length of the dining room windows - being there in the late afternoon/evening with the hot and blinding sun coming in made me realize I definitely want the option to close some curtains!

Window picture

So all that rambling about the dining room window and I didn't get the picture uploaded! O.K., so now you can vote!

P.S. For those that asked, the pic I am in on Pioneer Woman's blog is the one with her daughter and one person in the distant background in the store. My cousins daughter is the redhead in front of the distorting mirror on Navy Pier.

New house

Here is our new house! It is so exciting to finally have our own space (I am sure I won't be nearly as excited when the first big repair/replacement comes along). I am continuing to have a dilemma with curtains for the dining room, so if you care to vote I would love the help! I had originally planned to put dark red or chocolate brown silk (the dupioni silk that looks kind of nubby) drapes with sheers underneath all the way from the top of the windows to the floor. My friend Stephanie suggested putting a curtain on the bottom 2/3 of the windows and leaving the top windows open for the natural light. It is a west facing window so it gets lots of sun in the evening. The dining room furniture will not be ultra formal (it's Crate and Barrel so it is somewhere between casual and pretty simple). I thought the longer, more formal drape may be a nice touch since the furniture is simple. Then again, the adjoining living room will most likely have seagrass blinds and a zebra striped rug, so the long drapes may be too much. O.K., enough rambling - I think I have proven I am in serious need of some outside opinions!

Aaron started his new job today - he basically just ran around like a madman filling out all the paperwork. Gotta love Human Resources!

We're officially homeowners!

We closed on the house this morning...it was a couple of days early, but we were ready and the builder was more than ready to go considering how long it has been empty. We went and got lunch and had a picnic in the middle of the living room floor as our first official act in our very own house! I am headed over there this evening to do some cleaning and then the moving fun will begin!

In a freaky "it's a small world" twist of coincidence, I checked out the Pioneer Woman blog that Carrie had commented on a couple of days ago. In one of the pictures was a nice shot of my butt...I'll leave any comments on that part of my anatomy alone. Anyway, I thought it was kind of weird that we were there at the same time, that this woman got a picture of me and that Carrie put two and two together. I was truly shocked when I looked more closely at her other pictures today and found a picture that Pioneer Woman had taken at Navy Pier on a different day that had my cousins daughter in it! Tell me how it happens that in a city of millions, my family ends up in two of her photos? Truly weird.

I'm now off to do a "bead craft" with my daughter. I told her we could do something special together because she has been so sweet lately as we drag her around for various house and family related errands. I am thinking a nice mother/daughter lunch and movie date; she is thinking bead craft...I guess she is saving me a penny or two on this date!

Home sweet home

We made it home late last night and I am already going at full speed trying to get things squared away before closing on Tuesday. It will be nice when it is all done!

The trip to Chicago was a lot of fun. I think it was the most stress free Hudson family function I have ever attended! Bryn really bonded with cousin Lili and they had a lot of fun playing hide and seek and various animal games together. We stopped on the way home to visit some friends in Iowa - we had a nice dinner and got to watch a whole lot of hot air balloons fly over as it was hot air balloon festival time there.

My friend, Tiffani, had her baby girl on Friday - hopefully Bryn and I can head over there today to see her.

No specific plans for this week - just packing and preparing for the move. We can't wait to be in and settled - it is still hard to believe we will finally have our own house!

Field museum and family

We went to the field Museum today and saw all kinds of great stuff... stuffed animals of all kinds, dinosaurs, a mummy and a really cool underground exhibit where you "shrink" to 1/2 inch and see all the living things in the soil. Pretty cool. We didn't even see it all - it is hard to cram it all into the few hours we have!

The rest of the family made it into town today and we had dinner at the grandparents. It was kind of crazy, but actually quite stress free (not a usual state of affairs in this family!). Bryn really bonded with one of the second cousins, Lili, and they played horsey and hide and seek for a lot of the evening. There was a Happy 65th anniversary cake and we got to hear the stories about how my grandparents meet plus various other family lore (my great-grandfather and his brother were the first people to get into the University of Illinois without a high school diploma. Their father thought formal schooling should only last until age 12 when the boys should go to work, so they worked with him at the railroad by day and studied with their mother at night after their dad went to sleep). All in all, quite a pleasant evening.

We are going to stick around the hotel tomorrow (and fore go the trip to the Art Museum and/or bicycling around the city). We decided we need some down time as we have been going nonstop for a couple of days.

Dolls, museums and margaritas

The American Girl Cafe was an experience. Every little girl in the place had at least one doll and most had two. Each doll got its own little chair and cup and plate and all of the food was served on heart shaped plates. There were lots of flowers and lots of hot pink - a little girl utopia! And the American Girl marketing team has done their job well because the most exciting part of her day was Grandpa and Nana shelling out a pile of cash for a new doll and accessories. For a little girl that hasn't ever been very into dolls, she is becoming quite a fan of her American Girl dolls.

We went to the Science and Industry Museum yesterday. I must admit I remember loving it more when I was a kid, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that I wasn't trying to keep an eye on a 5 year old then! I did find the hatching chicks and the fairy castle just as fascinating as I did when I was young - and it must be genetic because Bryn was quite into the chicks, too!

Aaron and I met up with my high school friend, Dustin, and we went out for dinner and drinks. We drank beer and margaritas and had a great time- I always love hanging out with an old friends. That shared history just makes for a connection that is sometimes hard to establish once we are grown-ups!

As we were enjoying our peaceful meal out, it sounds like the typical family fun was starting. Gotta love family, but our gatherings always include a lot of stress and craziness and a fair amount of bitching and moaning. I can never figure out why all the spouses didn't run screaming into the night at the first introduction, but bless them for sticking around! Despite the unrest, it is still fun to see everyone and catch up on the latest happenings and we all always seem to survive!

Made it to the Windy City

Hotel wireless...gotta love it! I can be on vacation and still blog!

In the last 36 hours we have driven 500+ miles, been swimming twice and have eaten more meals out than should be legal! Tomorrow we are headed to brunch at the American Girl Place Cafe, the Science and Industry Museum and then Aaron and I are going out to eat with my high school friend, Dustin. Busy times, but we're having fun.

After 33 years with my curly hair, I actually have a cut that will allow me to wash and air dry and have decent hair. The hairdresser spent an hour cutting and showing me how to deal with my hair - who knew there was somebody on the planet that knows that a haircut that looks adorable on a straight haired person doesn't always work on curly hair. I think when my hair grows about 6 more inches, I'll have the hair I have always wanted. I know it sounds corny, but it is so exciting I could just about cry!

Off to bed - our fun starts early tomorrow!

We're off!

We are heading out to Chicago this morning...the trip should only take us about 8 hours, but we're going to break the driving up over 2 days. I actually thought it was closer to a 10 or 12 hour trip. Oh well! It will be nice and leisurely!

Nothing else exciting around here. Still packing and cleaning and staying busy. I am going to get my haircut this morning...I found a girl that supposedly specializes in curly hair. We'll see...

I talked to Cheryl last night and Mema's cancer treatments are going pretty well. She has radiation every day for seven weeks (she is in her 4th week now) and chemo once a week. The chemo is altering her sense of taste and she is starting to have a hard time eating. We are all just hoping that it will all be worth it and at the end of treatment the cancer is gone.

Truly crazy

Like a truly crazy person I stayed up until 4 am finishing the new Harry Potter book. I really intended to read it in reasonable chunks over the next week, but I just couldn't help myself when I got to the meat of the story! I won't spoil it for any other Harry Potter readers out there that haven't read it yet, but it is a great ending!

We are still in house mode...yesterday we went and ordered some furniture and got the "floor model as-is" dresser for our bedroom at 1/2 price. It is a little scratched on the top, but I figure a good polish and some kinck-knacks will cover that up!

I am also trying to get the house in reasonable shape before we leave tomorrow for Chicago. Between that, washing cloths, packing for the trip and packing to move I figure I'll be ready to turn in early tomight!

Loving life...

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted - time flies!

Aaron and I had a wonderful night out last night for our anniversary ( I didn't even make him got to the bookstore at midnight for my copy of the new Harry Potter book). We had a nice dinner at the Outback, saw the new Harry Potter movie and stayed at a really cool hotel with themed rooms with big jacuzzi tubs and chilled cider included. Our room had a "Serengeti" theme with a big alligator statue, rock walls and a big (fake) rhino head on the wall. It was fun to do something a little different, anyway!

We bought all of our appliances for our new house today - it's all getting pretty exciting now that we are getting closer to the move in day. So now we just have to tackle the furniture issue and we are all set!

Aaron finally got his official offer letter signed, so all is well in our world! Busy and well...it doesn't get any better than that!

Things are looking better...

Thanks for the encouragement and support, but I made everyone feel sorrier for me than I deserved...the surgery will be on August 7th, not on the same day as house closing. And I did talk to the surgeon today (that squeaky wheel/grease thing is true) and she reassured me that the surgery will be quick and outpatient b/c the lump is right below the skin. She is not concerned about it being anything scary and said there is no need to modify anything I am doing between now and then. Which means I can pack and lift all the boxes I want! Kind of scary when that is the good news!

Another day of VBS down...whew! A few of us went to lunch afterwards at McDonald's and let the kids run wild. We decided it was worth wearing our kids out in the hopes of getting them to nap despite the lack of nutritional value!

Aaron and I are celebrating our 8 year anniversary today (celebrate might be a bit of an overstatement as we didn't even get each other cards and may or may not go to the local diner for dinner!). We will have nice night out on Friday after this crazy week is over.

Good news and not so good news

Good news-

Our house inspection went pretty well with only a few things needing to be fixed. We should be closing on August 2nd.

Bryn and Aaron had a good time fishing and caught some little fish. I meant to post a picture but can't seem to get to it - maybe tomorrow!

I survived day 1 of vacation Bible school!

Aaron and I had a great time last night at the BBQ hanging out with about 6 other couples from church.

Tomorrow is the last day of my online classes for the summer.

Bad news-

I am trying to get info out of a rock (i.e. doctor's office) as I will likely be going in for exploratory surgery on August 2nd to have a mass checked out. It may just be scar tissue from my c-section, but trying to get info from a surgeon's office is about as painful as dry sockets after having your wisdom teeth pulled (if you haven't experienced it yourself, trust me - EXTREMELY painful!)

So I am trying to focus on the positive and not worry about the rest of it along the way - sometimes that is a lot easier said than done.

Progress

We signed the papers to agree to the final counter offer on the house today, so the process is now underway! Hooray!

We have another busy weekend ahead - Bryn and Aaron are going fishing in the morning (I plan on sleeping!), I have a VBS planning/set up meeting Sunday and we are going to a cookout at some friends' on Sunday evening. I bet it just flies by like the weekends always seem to do!

It will be over soon, right?

So I finally freaked out about the whole house situation. Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's too expensive, maybe we'll never be able to sell it if we need to, maybe we don't want to buy from a builder that refuses to put a garage door opener on the third car garage door, maybe the sky is falling...you know the drill! I tried to convince Aaron I was overdue on a little craziness since I haven't gotten too bent out of shape during the whole job search. He wasn't convinced.

After spending about a half an hour over at the house communing with it and deciding that it is indeed a fantastic house, I had a little nagging feeling about the refrigerator space that a friend had pointed out looked a little small. We measured the height and width against the picked out fridge, but hmmmmmm...what about the depth. OMG! The space is only 27" deep and the fridge is 34" deep and the drawer won't open if a fridge is put in. O.K., let's be reasonable and measure the cheap rental fridge instead of the new sleek fridge - surely it would fit. Still 2 inches too deep...are you kidding? So I did the logical thing - called the realtor and freaked him out so much he went over to measure the space so we could both worry about it. I agreed to research fridge sizes and call him back tomorrow. How can we buy a house that can only accommodate a micro fridge? What kind of moronic builder does something like that?

Evidently a builder that is smart enough to know they make something called a counter-depth fridge that will indeed fit and the extra $500 a counter-depth fridge costs will be no problem for him since he is not putting in any appliances. Gotta love it.

And on top of all of it, the official written job documents Aaron needs to sign that were supposed to be here at the beginning of the week have been postponed by the dean being out of town. Kind of scary to sign on the house before signing on the job, so now we are trying to figure out whether to put the house stuff on hold until the job is 100% squared away. Aaaaaaargh!

At least in a month this will all be a memory - whether we're laughing or crying it will all be over soon. Right?

There's no place like home!

We signed the papers today to make an offer on the house - it is so exciting! If all goes well, we will close on August 2nd and then begin the 2 mile trek back and forth between new and old to move all of our stuff! We obviously have quite a way to go between now and then as far as working out details and particulars, but it feels good to have the ball rolling.

My biopsy results came back and although it did show abnormal cells, there was evidently nothing scary going on. I'll go back in 6 months for a recheck. Although I didn't get too worked up over this particular problem, it is still a load off to know there is nothing to worry about at this point.

The bridesmaid dress saga continues...the dresses won't be in until the end of August so there will be a little over a month to have the thing altered. Hopefully the dress and I will be about the same size and all that will need to be done is a little (O.K., a lot since I am only 5'1") hemming. Or some seamstress will have to perform a miracle. We'll see...

I'm off to cook dinner and then head out to a Friends of the Library meeting. Before the meeting I have to frantically update the checkbook in an attempt to give an accurate and current report of the finances - who thought that the person who can barely get receipts entered into Quicken would be a good treasurer? Fortunately the Friends does not do many major money transactions!

So I can't seem to title my blog today - the little cursor won't click in the title field. I guess that's O.K. since I didn't have a title anyway!

We had a great weekend. The baseball game was fun, mostly because tickets are dirt cheap and we sat right behind home plate and ate $1 hot dogs! "Ratatouille" was very cute and Bryn is already looking forward to getting it on video.

We are still waiting on the written contract for Aaron's new job to get the whole house offer thing rolling. We are anxious to get going on it and I just can't seem to get motivated to do much without everything being official. Hopefully tomorrow.

Quiet day

We have had a couple of pretty quiet days here. I spent the morning cleaning the bathrooms (tons of fun) and washing sheets to prepare for a visit from the in laws. We are going to a baseball game tonight, T-Rex Cafe and "Ratatouille" tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like only Jim is going to make it as Sherry has a really bad cold and is going to stay home and try to recover.

We had a mellow evening last night - the most exciting part being trying to pick up a zillion pieces of firework detritus that was all over our driveway and yard. And we didn't shoot any firecrackers. Yep...more compliments of our extremely considerate neighbors. Needless to say, we won't be missing them when we move.

Our landlord agreed to give us another month here, so we will at least have time to breathe while we try to get moved. I am very glad as it was looking like it was going to be very interesting trying to get everything done in 3 weeks with a 5 day vacation somewhere in the middle of that!

Moving right along

We are definitely in house mode now...as soon as Aaron gets his written offer we are going to make an offer on a house and try to get moved quickly. The house we are interested in has been for sale for quite a while and we are hoping that the builder is as anxious to sell as we are to buy. We have been thinking about furniture and window treatments and all the other stuff there is to spend money on...unfortunately our garage sale proceeds aren't going to cover all the new stuff we would like! We'll just be so happy to not be renting we'd probably be fine sitting on the floor with open windows for quite a while!

We planned to go to see fireworks tonight for the 4th, but Bryn is going to spend the night with a friend and Aaron and I have not decided yet what we are going to do. We may just hang out and relax and listen to the neighbor kids shoot off fireworks (they have been going for 3 days and nights now!). We'll just see how it goes, I guess!