Random Stuff

For anyone who loves the Pampered Chef cookware (I'm looking at you, Meg!), you might want to think about at least doing a catalog show for September. The cookware is our host special so you can get any one piece or set for 60% off. What a deal, what a steal. ;)

Right now I'm waiting for my mom to come over. She's been dying to see the nursery-in-progress, so I invited her over for dinner. I made a lasagna last night and it's in the oven now. Yum! I have to admit, I make a pretty good lasagna. Of course, now my house is going to be hot because of the oven, but oh well.

Tomorrow I'm going over Becky's after work to play with Claire while Becky tries to get some packing done. They're moving in about two weeks! Yikes! Hopefully I'll remember to try to pilfer some boxes and packing materials for her from work before I leave. I'm slightly scatter-brained (even when I'm not sharing my brain with a baby), so I can never promise to remember anything.

In baby news, she's been practicing her gymnastics routines in there for the past few days. Even when I'm at work, which is when she's usually quiet, she's been going non-stop. She kicked me in a really weird spot this afternoon when I was talking to Carrie in our office. It was low and to the side and made me jump. Carrie was like, "What the heck was that?" It was pretty funny...uncomfortable, but funny. Pregnancy is just weird.

I'm Normal!

Finally got my results from the glucose tolerance test and believe it or not, it came back normal! Hooray! That was one of the things that I was most worried about. Now I'm just worried about my blood pressure and actually having to give birth. I'm trying not to thing too much about that though. ;)

I guess I'll have to start thinking about it since I should start looking into signing up for a class or two soon. What classes did you all take and were they helpful? I'm thinking of the hospital tour/childbirth one and the breastfeeding one. Any helpful advice? How soon before my due date should we take them? My inquiring mind wants to know.

Moving Right Along

So we actually got done everything we wanted to in the nursery today. Woohoo! The windows are clean, the floor is clean, the carpet is laid down, the shades are up, the one valance we have is up, the closet is cleaned out, the armourer is put together and placed, the glider is in the room and we picked up the crib from my mom's and Ed put it together. I even managed to go through a lot of the stuff we've gotten from other people and stored it in the closet until we get a better system going. I feel so accomplished. ;)

Other than that, not much happening. Baby's still kicking, I still can't sleep past 8:30 on my days off, and I'm tired and sore. Good times.

Busy in Nursery Land

Sorry for the gap in posts...I've been busy, busy, busy. Monday, Sandi (my MIL) spent the day here painting the nursery. The color is definitely a little more yellow than I had anticipated, but I think it will turn out okay once everything is in the room. I like the yellow, just wasn't expecting it to be quite that....ummmmmmmmm...yellow. ;) The ceiling and trim are white. I even spray-painted the ceiling fan blades white as well (instead of the ugly fake wood they were). It's purty. ;)

Then Tuesday Ed and I ran some errands and then I spent the rest of the day painting my old armourer white. Let me tell you what a pain in the dupa that was. I sanded it, primed it, and painted it...five times. I really hate painting too. It took forever. :( Yesterday, we found a rug (boring beige...we had a found a green that would have been perfect, but it only came in huge sizes...we weren't about to pay twice as much as we needed to darnnit!). I found a pretty throw rug at BRU.com that I'm going to order to give it a little color.

Today I've been working more on the armourer. I had to paint the outside of the doors and I'm trimming the doors and drawers in yellow. Hopefully it will look nice when I'm done. Then I can put on the drawer pulls I had made to match the bedding and it will finally be complete. Yay! Saturday we'll wash the floor, lay down the carpet and hopefully get the crib from my mom's house and put it together. We're trying to get as much done now as possible because Ed is going to get really busy at work soon and won't have as much time to work on it. Plus, I want it ready to go by the time my showers roll around so I can concentrate on dealing with all the new stuff I'll be getting. Fun! :)

Harry Rules!!!

I broke my streak of reading the Harry Potter books in one day each. :( Sadly, it took my mom and me five hours to get to Atlantic City yesterday. It normally takes about two and a half, but the traffic was horrible...especially in Delaware. From the time we crossed over the Maryland line until we reached New Jersey, traffic just moved at a crawl. Delaware sucks.

I still read like a crazy woman though and finished by about 11 this morning. It was awesome. I won't go into details here because half of you don't care and the other half might not have finished it yet, but I loved it. I've already started to re-read it. My mom totally ruined the end for me though because she was making fun of me for crying. How rude.

As sad as I am that the series is over, I am just as happy that I never have to deal with another release party. What a nightmare. I thought we had a lot of people at the last party, but there were even more this time. It was insane. Most of the people were cool and just happy to be there and getting their book. But then there were the people who didn't understand why THEY had to wait "in that line." Oh so sorry...we weren't aware that we were going to be hosting royalty. We would have made special arrangements for you had we known. Plus I was starting to get cranky because every bone in my body was aching by the end. Oh well...we got out of there by about 2:45 and then went to breakfast at the diner. I got home around 4 and then had to read a couple of chapters to wind down before I went and got my three hours of sleep. ;)

Today, once we got back from AC, Ed and I went to Becky's to pick up some more baby stuff that Scott's cousin gave us and the glider that she sold us (or rather the she sold my mom since she's paying for it). It's a really nice Pottery Barn glider...extremely comfy and large enough to fit my big old butt. Woohoo! ;) We also got a stroller, some clothes, a pack-&-play for my mom's house, and a bunch of other stuff...including some more from my sister. At least I'll have a few more things to take off my registry so I can just have the stuff I really need left.

Tomorrow my mother-in-law is coming over to paint the nursery. Yay! It's supposed to be really cool and nice out tomorrow, so we'll be able to have the windows open to help with the fumes. Hopefully she can get it all done tomorrow because Carrie and I have a date to go see Hairspray on Tuesday. Then I have to go back to work on Wednesday. I thought ahead and made sure I gave myself a few days to recover from the HP madness!

Things That Make You Go "Ew!"

Pregnancy is so much fun! I woke up at 1 am to discover that the part of the sheet by my hand was soaked. I thought, "What the heck did that? Did I try to drink some of my water in my sleep and spill it? Did the cat puke next to me? Did my water break?" Then I felt around and noticed that the area of my nightgown all around my right boob was soaked as well. That's when I realized that I had leaked.

Gross! It was the side that I was lying on and I guess my breast was a little bit under me. Is it normal for that to happen at this point in the pregnancy? Either way, it totally freaked me out. And I had to change nightgowns because the first one was soaked. I mostly stuck to the other side for the rest of the night, but at one point I had rolled back over and noticed a little wetness again. Weird.

Now I'm here trying to conserve energy for my big party tonight. I'm pretty sure I have everything done that I needed to do. I'm excited, it will be crazy fun. Sometime before I leave I have to make the sauce for the meatballs I'm bringing for our bookseller potluck. I also made my ice cream dessert and a shrimp ball. Hopefully the rest of the slackers remember to bring stuff too so we'll have a nice spread. My manager did promise that he'd order pizza if we didn't have enough food, so at least I know we'll be covered. It's just something to make the night a little more enjoyable for us poor fools who have to work it.

Then tomorrow I'm off to Atlantic City with my momma. I managed to scrape together a little bit of gambling money, even though I'll be spending most of my time reading. I can't fathom going there without gambling at least a little! I can't help myself, I come from a long line of gamblers. The gene seemed to have missed my sister, but I definitely inherited it. At least I know how to just bring the money I can lose and I stop once that's gone. But it's fun to play and even more fun when I win (although I wish that happened a little more often!).

Come on Blood Sugar...

Had another doctor's appointment today. The fun one where I got to drink the orange stuff beforehand. I wasn't looking forward to drinking that stuff because I had heard that it was nasty, but I didn't think it was too bad. It reminded me of something I couldn't quite place until Becky came up with it for me. Remember those little barrel drinks you used to get as a kid? That's what it tasted like...an orange barrel drink. Not something I would choose to drink, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

So he took that blood and I can call on Friday for the results. Everything else was normal, so hooray. :) I even gained three pounds since the last appointment, much to my sister's delight. Although I'm pretty sure that it was only 2 1/2, the arrow wasn't centered dammit! :P Keep your fingers crossed for me that the test comes back okay...I really don't want to have to do the three hour test.

Other than that, it's all about Harry Potter. I have to be extra careful when I'm online now since the book has been leaked all over the place. I don't want to know what happens!!!

Waiting to Go to Work

Ed and I are supposed to leave at the same time today, but he's holding me up as usual. I need to walk out the door in six minutes, but he's still in the shower and his car is blocking mine in the driveway. We agreed that we'd park my car in the driveway every night, but sometimes it's rather inconvenient (like now). He had better get a move on...that's all I'm saying.

Other than that things are same old around here. Gearing up for my big party Friday night at work. It will be crazy, but fun. My big, pregnant butt will be sitting behind a table all night giving out wristbands. I told my boss a long time ago that I couldn't be running around like a crazy woman and he agreed. Yay for sympathetic bosses! :) Then Saturday my mom is taking me to Atlantic City. I'm just going to lay around the hotel room all day, reading my book. But I guess it will be nice to be away, however briefly.

Sunday was Kaylee's baptism (Ed's niece). No offense to those of you who aren't Catholic, but non-Catholic services always seem so strange to me. This one was no exception. I guess it's all about what you're used to, but I just don't get the same feeling that I do from a Catholic mass. I'm not the most devout Catholic, but I do like my faith.

I think I finally hear Ed...gotta go to work. :*(

Good Morning

As usual, I had the opportunity to sleep as late as I wanted today and couldn't snooze past 8:30. Oh well, at least I feel rested. Today we get to go to the grocery store, then I get to make a couple of things for Ed's niece's baptism tomorrow and then we're going to the Orioles game tonight. Good times. I really don't feel like going to the game, but we got these tickets with friends of ours way back before I was even knocked up. So I'll just suck it up and go. Blah.

Sleeping

We went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter on Tuesday. It was awesome! :P I know most of you don't care, but I love all things Harry Potter and the movie made me happy. Some parts were a little mishmashed (they were trying to fit an 800+ page book into just over 2 hours), but the ending was so good it totally made up for it. I can't wait to see it again!

The only downside to going to the midnight show was that I was exhausted all day yesterday. Luckily, I had some meaningless tasks to complete in preparation for my big HP Party next Friday, so I just sat at the breakroom table most of the day and got the busywork done. When I got home, I went on the computer for about 20 minutes then I was literally in bed the rest of the day dozing off and on until bedtime. Then I actually slept through the night (except for a 3:00 am trip to the potty). I feel much better now though. :)

I work late tonight, so right now I'm waiting for Ed to get home from an appointment so we can go to the insurance company's office to drop off the title to the Taurus and pick up our check. Hooray! Then tomorrow he'll drop me off at work and take my car to the dealership to drop off our down payment. We want them to take a look at the radio because the CD player doesn't seem to work. I've waited forever to have a car with a CD player...they will fix it!

100 Days!

We're getting down to the home stretch now! Only 100 days left until my due date. Hooray! It almost feels like there's an end in sight. :)

In bad news, today is the last day of my vacation and I have to go back to work tomorrow. I don't wanna! :(

At least things are really starting to look up with Ed's job right now. His boss keeps getting some big groups, which really benefits us. Ed's going to be pretty busy from the middle of this month through the middle of November. Yay! He just had to apply for his D.C. insurance license because his boss was just handed the D.C. Police and Fire Departments and the D.C. Metro. Keep your fingers crossed that the money will start to roll in soon. His boss seems to think it definitely will...Ed told him he didn't want to get his hopes up about some of the things they have coming up and his boss told him to go ahead and get them up. Here's hoping...

I Got a Car!

Hooray! Now I don't have to beg rides all week like I thought I was going to have to do. :) We went searching this morning. Struck out at 3 places and then went to Jerry's. They had a pretty good used car selection and we had found two online that we wanted to look at, both Chevy's. One was our "absolute last resort, nobody will give us any credit" car and one was what we thought we could afford. When we were looking around though, we saw a 2005 Honda Accord (my top car choice) that was marked down from $16000 to just under $13000 as part of their 4th of July sale. Granted, it has a crapload of miles, but it's a Honda.

The salesguy came out and asked what we were interested in and we told him our situation. So we decided to go in and start the financing process to see what we could afford. Turns out that we were worried about getting a loan for nothing and we could afford the Honda and keep the payments where we wanted them. We're even keeping $2000 from the settlement to make sure we're covered with the payments for awhile. They worked with us and got us the car today knowing that we wouldn't have the check until later this week. So all in all, we're happy.

My mom and his mom were a little worried about the number of miles on the car, but we're only looking at it as a temporary car anyway. I shouldn't be in it for any more than two years. But it's very safe, it runs much better than my old car and it's the make we wanted. So yay! :)

Insurance Companies Suck

Yesterday we got a call from the adjuster saying that we could pick up our check anytime starting today. So as we were getting ready to leave this morning to go to the office, we got a call from the Total Loss department of the insurance company asking where our paperwork was. I told the guy that we never received any paperwork and that I had even called yesterday to check up on it since it had been over a week. He said that they had sent it the day after I made my claim and that he couldn't authorize a check until he got the paperwork...and it had to be notarized. Luckily he said he could e-mail it to me.

Let me tell you what a pain it was to fill that out. A lot was information that you know they already had and some was just stupid stuff that we didn't know (what was the name of the salesperson that sold you the car?). I mean, come on. Ed and I both got extremely frustrated and upset with the whole thing this morning. I even broke down while on the phone with my mom. We finally got it filled out as best we could. Luckily my mom is a notary public, so we took it to her and she finished it up for us and we faxed it over to start the process. We still have to mail the originals too, but hopefully this will get us our check a little faster.

We were hoping to go car shopping tomorrow since a lot of places are running 4th of July specials through Monday. We're still going to go and just take the insurance paperwork with us to show that a check is coming and to hopefully start the process. The problem is we don't know what kind of financing we're going to qualify for, so it's hard to know what sort of price range we're looking at. I guess we'll just have to find something decent and try to get the process started. Blah.

Hola

It's been a long week so far. The shore was nice...fairly relaxing despite the chaos with all the people in the house. The only crazy day was Tuesday when we went to the ocean for the day. Making an out-of-shape pregnant woman walk for about 3 miles in the sun isn't very nice. I was very tired and sore afterwards, that's for sure. Since I don't do the beach, my MIL and I sat on the boardwalk and fed the baby while everyone else went to play in the ocean for a little while. Then we walked the boardwalk (the afore-mentioned 3 miles), had dinner, and did some outlet shopping. I got a very pretty top and a pair of work pants from Motherhood Maternity with my gift card (thanks Meg, Val and Kathy!), so that was productive. Then we had to drive back and the poor baby cried almost the whole way because she was exhausted and her tummy hurt. I'm still trying to recover myself.

We got home around 1:30 yesterday at which time I promptly took a nap. Then I had a few things to prepare for the party and did a quick straighten of the house. Everyone started showing up around 5 and we had a lovely time, despite the rain. They started the fireworks about 20 minutes early and it was a good thing they did because the second the grand finale was over, it started to pour. Of course, we were happily safe and dry in my sunroom. Everyone was gone by about 9:30 and Ed and I crashed.

Today we slept in and then I had an early Rita's date with Meg and Conner. Nothing like Italian Ice for breakfast! Yum! Ed and I are now getting ready to go run some errands. Home Depot has a special on their Behr paint this week, you get an $8 mail-in-rebate for every gallon you buy through the 7th. So I'm taking the fleece blanket I got that goes with my bedding and finding a pretty yellow to match. Yay! :)

Buh-Bye

You gotta love my husband...he wanted to leave by 11. It's now 10:40 and he has yet to shower or pack. But that's pretty much par for the course for all our cartrips. At least on the rare occasions when we fly, he HAS to leave on time. The best one was when we were going to Atlantic City with my mom and instead of packing, he decided to reorganize our snack cabinet. Oy.

I, on the other hand, am packed, showered and ready to go. It's pretty sad that I'm so desperate to get away that I'm actually considering a few days with my in-laws to be a vacation. Especially when you consider that it will be us, his parents, his 3-month-old niece, his aunt, his 12-year old cousin and his sister's 9-year-old stepson, all in one little house:

At least we have our own room there and a travel DVD player, so we can hide from the masses when we need to. Other than that, I plan on reading and relaxing.

See you on the 4th! :)

Something Besides the Car

I've been so preoccupied with the whole exploding-car thing, I haven't written about anything else. Despite everything, I did get to see my Claire-Bear the other day. My mom picked me up from work and we went together. Just because, here's some cuteness for all:

I can't believe she's already pulling herself up. And that she'll be a year old in less than two months. Sheesh!

Ed and I spent today getting ready to go to his parent's other house for a few days. We had to go to the library to get Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on CD for the trip. Luckily when I checked the library website yesterday, one of the local ones had gotten a copy back, so we went early to make sure we got it. Then we had to go to Target to get his allergy prescription filled and to the grocery store because we were out of food. Good times.

I baked a couple things to take with us and made a yummy dinner and now I'm getting ready to relax for the rest of the night. Although I really should fill the dishwasher before bed. I have more cooking to do the day we get home (the 4th of July) since we have some friends coming over to watch fireworks. Which are definitely happening, by the way. It will be fun.

That's all for now. I'll try to post tomorrow morning before we leave, but I make no promises!

Yup, It's Totaled

The insurance chick called yesterday to officially proclaim the car totaled. She called the house just as Ed was getting ready to walk out the door to pick me up from work. We had to go to the garage to release the car and to see if there was anything else we could get from the inside. Unfortunately, since he was in a hurry, Ed forgot to grab the camera on his way out, so the world will never see what a mess it was. Let me tell ya, it wasn't pretty. The front looked fine, but the back was totally burned out, the tires were melted, the trunk was totally smashed in. Good times. As promised, here's the lame picture of the mess in the street:

Notice the gas-cap towards the top that got blown off. Ed cleaned the glass up yesterday. He said that he found it all the way up to the stairs to our front door. Scary.

They were supposed to call us today to give us a payoff total, but we haven't heard from them. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We're going to his parents' house on the Eastern Shore on Sunday and the cell phone reception is next to nothing out there. We won't be back until either late Tuesday or early Wednesday. I had wanted to get this taken care of before then, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. For those who were wondering, when Ed and I refinanced our house a few years ago, we paid off the car with some of the equity, so we will get the check. That will definitely help with a down payment, but I have no idea how we're going to finance the rest for a new car. We'll have to be creative, I guess. It will work itself out.

Exploding Cars at 2am

Fun story. Last night, around 2:00 am, Ed and I are rudely awakened by a frantic knock at our door. Being sensible people, we froze and wondered, "Who the hell is knocking on our door at this time of night and should we open it?" Then we hear voices outside, one of whom sounds like our next-door neighbor, Mike. So Ed lifts the blind and peeks out the bedroom window and then says, "Holy shit, your car's on fire!"

Oh yes, the car was on fire. He ran outside where Mike was trying to see if there was anything he could do. The back passenger side was in flames and sparks and flames were pouring out of the gas tank. Mike had already called 9-1-1, so the firetruck and a police car showed up a few minutes later. They put the fire out in about 15 minutes and then called the arson inspector.

Apparently, a couple of our neighbors were woken up by an explosion, which both Ed and I totally slept through. One neighbor told the police officer that he saw a group of kids running down the street when he looked out his window. I guess they felt like wrecking some havoc and randomly choose my car to wreck it on. Bastards. The arson inspector said it looked like they either lit a fire under the car or threw something that was on fire under there and the flames reached the gas tank which caused the explosion.

So, my car will most likely be totaled. The police, firemen and tow truck driver all proclaimed it to be so. There's fire damage, smoke damage, water damage from when they put it out and they totally tore up my trunk to make sure the fire was completely out. Too bad it was dark and I wasn't thinking straight or else I would have taken some pictures to post. I do have one of the mess that was left on the street this morning, but I think Ed took the camera with him to work today, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it.

What really makes me mad is that the timing couldn't be worse. We REALLY can't afford a car right now. We're going to wait to see what we get for the old one assuming they do, in fact, total it. We'll deal with it as it comes.

So that was my exciting night. Top that story!

How Far Along am I?

Do I go by my new ticker with my new due date or do I just keep counting like I've been doing? I'm a little confused about that. If we're going by new time, I'm 24 weeks today. If we're going by old time, I'm 23 weeks today. Either way, we're finally making some progress!

Last night Abby was amusing us by playing hide-and-seek. She was kicking like crazy all night long. Ed finally came to bed around 11 and she was still going. I would put his hand on the right spot and she would kick a few times and then I'd feel her on the total opposite side. So I would put his hand there and she would kick a few times and then I'd feel her on the first side again. This went on for about half-an-hour. She was still dancing around as I was trying to fall asleep. It was pretty funny.

My only other news is that I'm going to see my Claire-Bear tomorrow (hopefully). I haven't seen her in forever. Since I last got to play with her, she has learned how to pull herself up to standing, she speed crawls and she now says "mamamamamamamama." She was cracking me up when I was talking to Becky on the phone the other day. Hopefully I'll have a cute picture or two to post tomorrow. :)

Woohoo!

I have my tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter. You can be jealous now. ;)