A Major Transformation of the Onion

When P and I decided to convert our weight and workout room to a nursery, we had no idea the project we were undertaking. It's like an onion...we just keep peeling back more and more layers to find more things to do.

The first step of course was to decide on the Finding Nemo decor and order the wallpaper border. The dresser, of course, is still a major work in progress with about half of the top of it stripped right now. (I still have not ordered the hardware.) Last weekend we went out and bought the paint in Balloon Blue and Star Command Blue with the bright idea of doing the top half in this light sky blue and the bottom half in the royal blue with a wave line. Then, the preparation began. I think that getting ready to paint always takes about ten times longer than the actual painting. We spent, it felt like, forever, cleaning the room up and moving crap out of it and emptying the closet. Then, P spent two or three days sanding the nasty crow's foot texture off the walls. THEN, Sunday we spent the day wiping down the walls, vaccuuming, and painting the ceiling and top half of the room. Today, we spent the day spending moolah at Home Depot and finding even more layers of the onion that we didn't know existed and painting the bottom half with the wave line in addition to painting our entire closet (which is harder than it looks). We would have put up the wallpaper border tonight, but the directions on the border said to wait 72 hours after painting, which puts us at...Wednesday. Blah. But never fear, we have lots of other onion preparation. We bought 60' of 2 1/2" baseboard which will be painted in Star Command Blue, cut to size and installed. We are painting the sill of the window, back of the door, and all other moldings plus the two bifold doors we just bought for the closet also in Star Command Blue. There is installing the new Finding Nemo fan blades. We also bought a wire closet organizer for the closet so I will have SOMEWHERE to put my baby stuff I've acquired so far. I bought a plain white shelf for my stuffed animal display. And, lastly, we have got to get that dresser ready to go. I told P we are NOT buying any baby furniture until that dresser is finished and sitting in the nursery. We even saw some awesome stain today at Home Depot that we want to use on it...it's called Island Blue and it's a streaky blue stain that looks VERY cool and will look great in the room.

And...look what I bought on Ebay last night. I was going to buy Finding Nemo ones, but I just honestly could not find any Finding Nemo ones that I liked, and I love these.



I bought one switchplate and four outlet covers. I can't wait to share pictures of the finished product, but right now we've still got a long way to go. I did look through my picture folder and I have a before picture I took of the workout room about a year ago, so that'll be fun to share before/after pictures.

We also came to a very sad realization when we were cleaning up the nursery. Our treadmill just will not fit in there. It's just not happening when you contemplate the fact that we're getting a crib, a changing table, and a rocker in addition to the dresser that we bought. Bye, bye, workout room, forever; hello, children's room. We have not decided to sell it just yet...but we are seriously contemplating it. It's in great condition, we've definitely gotten our money's worth out of it, and for Pete's sake, I have a membership at 24 Hour that is like five minutes away! So I'm not sure yet what we are going to do there. If we keep it in the house, we're going to have to do some serious rearranging of our bedroom, which I don't want to do, so I'm not sure yet what we will do. For now, it's going to go in the garage and I'll just have to drag my butt to the gym when I want to walk or take the dogs for a super duper long walk at night, which they would love anyway. So we'll see.

I did go see Revenge of the Sith last week and I LOVED it. I'm probably going to go see it again this weekend with a pal from work! Everything I wanted in the last Star Wars movie for sure, but for God's sake, could Natalie Portman have acted like she wanted to be there ANY LESS?

That's about it going on right now. I'm looking more and more pregnant every day. I'll take another belly shot in a week or so to share. I can't believe I'm going to be four months along on Friday. The time is flying!

Grease is the word!

I have had a ticket to see Grease, the musical, for about three months, with my old boss Queenie and one of my old team members, A. So last night we all met up, had dinner, and then went to see it.

Truthfully, it sucked. I don't know if I was expecting something loosely based on the movie, but it wasn't anything like the movie at ALL. Very disappointing. Things were in the wrong order, they totally changed a lot of things around, and the acting was purely high school stuff.

But the cool thing was that Frankie Avalon was in it as the Guardian Angel and sang "Beauty School Dropout", and that was very cool. I didn't even know he was in it until we got our programs last night. He sounded just as good in it last night as he did when the original movie came out, and that was what, over twenty years ago? Anyway, that was the one good thing about the show, but that was the only thing.

However, spending time with Queenie was not as fun as I had hoped. She didn't have much to say to me at all, didn't ask about my pregnancy and how it was going, or any of that. I didn't really know what to think. I'm sure a big part of her is really envious since she's been trying to get pregnant for over a year with no success, so I'm just going to chalk it up to that.

My first day back to work yesterday was fine. I got a fire in my neighborhood first thing in the morning, so I went out there yesterday afternoon, which I think the guy really appreciated, and got it done. Poor guy had a fire occur in his garage while he was at work. He is SO lucky that his garage is airtight or else his whole house would have burned down. As it was, he lost two motorcycles, and a whole garage of stuff.

Today we are waiting for the Dish Network guy to come and set up their version of Tivo on our system, so until he comes, we are stuck here, but I think after that, we are going to hit Home Depot for paint now that my wallpaper border is here. I can't wait.

Okay, now for my tags since I didn't get to them Thursday...I fell asleep on my bed after my doctor's appointment. Which, by the way, went fabulously...P heard the heartbeat, my doctor was on her best behavior, and I have my appointment for the BIG ultrasound scheduled for June 21 at 9 am.

Tag from Kari:

If I could be a scientist . . .
If I could be a farmer . . .
If I could be a musician . . .
If I could be a doctor . . .
If I could be a painter . . .
If I could be a gardener . . .
If I could be a missionary . . .
If I could be a chef . . .
If I could be an architect . . .
If I could be a linguist . . .
If I could be a psychologist . . .
If I could be a librarian . . .
If I could be an athlete . . .
If I could be a lawyer . . .
If I could be an inn-keeper . . .
If I could be a professor . . .
If I could be a writer . . .
If I could be a llama-rider . . .
If I could be a bonnie pirate . . .
If I could be an astronaut . . .
If I could be a world famous blogger . . .
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world . . .
If I could be married to any current famous political figure...

If I could be an inn-keeper, I would have a hotel with rooms decorated in one color...so you could either stay in the red room, the orange room, the yellow room, and so on. I think that would be very cool. If I could be a professor, I'd teach mathematics in a way that people could better understand it and learn it. If I could be a writer, I'd write children's stories that would favor fairy tales.

And my tags: how about Shannon, Dana and Terri? (the ones from below that don't have this one already in their blogs)

Tag from Suz:

1) Total number of books I've owned: I couldn't even venture to guess this one but if I had to make a guess, counting all the books I had as a child, as a young adult, as a college student, and now as an adult, probably somewhere around 1,000. Now, I'd say I probably own less than 100. I just don't have room to keep books in the house, so I usually buy them at Half Priced Books, read them, and then either give them to friends or trade them back in.
2) The last book I bought: I bought three books at this thrift shop in Lincoln, NH, for 99 cents each...Wings by Danielle Steel (I normally don't read DS, but she's an easy read and this is a HARDBACK book for a buck...I can probably trade it into Half Priced Books for at least two dollars), The Andromeda Strain and Sphere, both by Michael Crichton. Those last two are two of the few by Crichton I have not read. I also bought The Horse Whisperer for my stepmom.
3) The last book I read: The King of Torts by John Grisham
4) Five books that mean a lot to me: Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, The Notebook by Nicholas Evans, Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, Taking Charge of your Fertility by Toni Weschler, and Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy.
5) Tag five people for filling this out on their blogs: I think most everyone has been tagged, but I'll give it a whirl...how about Emily's mommy to be, Lady Mary, M's mom (as a thank you for the first tag), a snarky mom, and a fresh new college graduate!

And one last one that I got from Erin's blog...

Instructions: Press each letter in the address bar of your browser and list what the auto-complete function jumps to first. (I'm altering this a bit and picking one since the first choice oftentimes is something like a drive or something boring.)

A- Albertson's (I use that to price groceries online for my customers)
B- Baby Stuff (I have a folder for my bookmarks titled Baby Stuff where I save all the links that people send me for the perfect must-have baby gadget)
C- Cinemark (I was checking out times for the new Star Wars movie that I am DYING to see)
D- Dooce (one of the funniest blogs I've ever read)
E- Ebay (I've been surfing that a lot lately for maternity clothes)
F- Famous Birthdays (Tchaikovsky has the same birthday as moi!)
G- Gap (I guess I was checking out their maternity clothes)
H- Hallmark (thanks to everyone that sent me birthday ecards)
I- The Itsiest Blog (Kari's)
J- Janlynn (someone sent me the link for Finding Nemo cross stitch this morning)
K- Kenmore (my customers always lose their refrigerators in fires either due to fire damage or loss of power)
L- The Lego Star Wars video game that Erin wrote about in her blog a long time ago that I checked out but refused to even try for fear of getting lost in it
M- The Meet The Fockers website for fodder for my Sunday Brunch meme
N- The North Texas Tollway Authority webpage (I get my tolltag statements here to turn in each month for reimbursement by my company)
O- The Ocean Wonders baby musical mobile that I really really really want!
P- a bunch of EZBoard webpages (shows you how much time I spend surfing bulletin boards!)
Q- the Quotations Page for my Sunday Brunch meme
R- The Room Store Texas (since we're now couch shopping...Katie finished the job on our couches Thursday morning when we were at the doctor's office)
S- Sea Creatures Mobile (my second choice in mobiles)
T- Target (best store for not only shopping, but pricing things for my estimates!)
U- The UCLA store (I was looking for a price on a graduation announcement cover for one of my estimates
V- Verizon...I love my webpage for stitching!
W- Wal-Mart (not a great store for shopping, but somewhat decent for pricing estimates)
X- the direct link to my Xactimate estimates, the estimating program I use for my structural bids
Y- Yahoo, of course!
Z- nothing for Z...I guess I don't shop too many internet stores that start with Z

I guess that's it. The Tivo man is still not here, but I have two very sulky couch-chewers staring at me, willing me to walk them. So, I'm off.

State of Moira's World (includes full vacation update)

Oh, my. It's been well past a week since I've blogged?! That's insanity!

So let's see...what's happened since I last blogged? Well, in a nutshell, I worked an insane amount of hours (well, just my regular ones, but it seemed like more!) to get things in order before my vacation, and then worked an insane amount of hours at home getting the house clean for our house guest and getting packed, and then Saturday, I left for New Hampshire to spend five days with my husband, father and stepmom. I would have blogged while I was gone, but being online on dial up will kill your patience after being so used to DSL. I tried to at least do the Sunday Brunch, but the formatting wouldn't work for some reason...I couldn't figure it out. So I just gave up and used my dad's laptop for checking my Ebay auctions and email only.

Here's what I did during my vacation:

Saturday: Arrived in Boston, drove from Boston to the condo in the mountains in New Hampshire, had family dinner, watched National Treasure, and had a minibaby shower courtesy of my stepmom
Sunday: Drove to Conway further into the mountains for serious outlet shopping, out to dinner with family for my very first lobster experience at Gordi's, watched Survivor finale
Monday: Drove to Portsmouth (on coast) for tour of town, lunch at TGI Friday's, family dinner at some soup place right on the coast (can't remember the name now), shopping at secondhand store, Goodwill and Old Navy, and then back to condo for family dinner and The Italian Job
Tuesday: Stayed IN TOWN for local shopping, family lunch, spent a good amount of time packing all my shopping and stuff, and then watched Finding Nemo and Seabiscuit
Wednesday: Drove to Boston for lunch at the Naked Fish and then hopped on flight

Are you getting the impression that I shopped just a little bit? I can't believe how much stuff I bought...but there were great sales and there is no sales tax in the state of New Hampshire, so I just couldn't resist.

This is what I bought on my own:

-brown linen maternity capris, four maternity t-shirts at Old Navy
-four maternity t-shirts and a three piece baby fram set at a secondhand store
-The Ultimate Brownie Cookbook and two mini jars of jam at this specialty foods store
-a travel pillow and small new age alarm clock from Brookstone
-several paperbacks and a hardback book at a thrift store
-stuffed bone for the dogs, a t-shirt, and a baby blanket at Goodwill
-satin blue robe at a thrift store
-two pairs of leather slides at Rockport
-two pairs of canvas shoes (white and navy) and a pair of ankle boots at Bass
-truffles at Lindt Chocolates
-some snacks at another specialty foods store (which P has eaten just about all of)
-a prism for the baby's room at a Christian bookstore

This is what I was given by my stepmom...thank you again SO MUCH, Susan!

-Finding Nemo rug
-Mozart Magic Cube (plays instrumental sounds)
-Hands On Baby Massage Kit (book and onesie)
-Chicken Soup for Expectant Mothers
-Who Loves Baby? photo album
-two Be My Valentine baby onesies
-a stuffed rabbit that says a prayer when you squeeze the tummy
-Bonny Belly salve for stretch marks
-pastel stuffed bear with a rattle inside
-three 3-compartment containers for formula
-"Sweet Little Baby Sleeping" pillow for door
-Noah's Ark t-shirt (changes colors in the sunlight)
-three pairs of socks
-three Pooh bibs
-a set of a matching baby blanket with a bib and oneside with applique bear, duck and frog

And the piece de resistance, a hand-crocheted baby blanket in OCEAN COLORS! It's GORGEOUS!

It was great. I spent a good part of the evening tonight when I got back unpacking and going through all my stuff. My Finding Nemo clock and border also came when I was gone, so my nursery is a little more full now, and my two skirts from Old Navy arrived too, so I'm not only a happy girl, but I am fully outfitted with maternity stuff. I also read two books on my travels...The Reef by Nora Roberts and The King of Torts by John Grisham. Both excellent, if you are looking for reading material...and I also put on an additional ten hours on Noah's Sub. I will get a picture posted tomorrow...it's looking good!

And in closing, I must gripe just once about my airline experience today. GRRRRR. When P and I packed, we very much kept in mind the 50 lb. limit on suitcases now for checked luggage. We checked four bags and carried one, with the full intention of using a loaner suitcase when I got there for our shopping bags, and then checking four and carrying two. Good plan. Well, I forgot to take the nail kit OUT of my second carryon before going through the security checkpoint, my bag of course was pulled for a manual search, the girl found my tiny little curved scissors and confiscated them. Shame on me. I admit it. As many times as I travel with stitching, I'm always SO CAREFUL to check my scissors and my needles. For some reason I just forgot about those little scissors.

Then, we get on the plane. P and I were SEVERELY irritated to see that many people had carryons that were clearly well in excess of the size that the airlines allow for checked bags, but for some reason, no one was saying anything to ANY of them. We were in the twelfth row, which means that we were in the last group to board, which means that by the time we got on the plane there was NO ROOM for our carryons. Fortunately, one of the carryons was small enough to go under my seat, but the other one? The one that had the scissors? Yeah, it was checked at the last minute. So I lost my scissors for NOTHING. NADA! There was tons of room in first class, and I can't even tell you how many overhead compartments I walked by that had space taken up by smaller pieces of luggage that could have easily gone under the passenger seats. Ugh. I'm getting pissed just writing about it. I have half a mind to write to American Airlines about it!

But even more annoying was the stunts that my precious Labs pulled in our absence. Keep in mind that Katie, our older Lab, is four years old. Simon, our younger Lab, is 2 1/2 years old. Both of them have had free rein of the house for many years now. Simon has been out of his crate since he was six months old. With the exception of a few pairs of glasses, some carpet, and a few remote controls that fell victim to the Terrible Twosome, our house has survived unscathed for the most part. Let me also inform you that P and I have not taken a trip TOGETHER AND ALONE since our honeymoon in 1999. If one of us goes somewhere, the other one stays behind to take care of the dogs. We have been so panicked about leaving Katie and Simon for such a long time, we took extra care to make sure that they were looked after. Most normal people would board their dogs, but oh, no, we didn't do that...we instead asked one of Philip's friends to house sit (he was there all the time except for working hours) and had our dog walker, G, come in three times a day to walk them.

How did our babies reward us? Well, Katie, apparently suffering from serious separation anxiety, decided to dig holes in our couches. Simon, being the seriously clingy and stressed out dog that he is, decided to take a monster dump RIGHT on our master bedroom carpet to illustrate (in case we weren't aware) that he was MOST unhappy about us being gone for five days. And, oh, yes, there is no mistake about which dog pulled which stunt. Our housesitter, D, called us last night at our condo and the first thing I heard him say to P over the phone was, "Man, Simon must be pissed at you or something, dude!"

They are very lucky that those couches are as old as they are and that we were thinking about getting new ones this summer anyway.

I'm aware that I've been tagged, by Kari and Suzemo at this point, and I do plan on answering both of those...tomorrow! I promise! I'm going to hit the sack early tonight, but I have tomorrow off as a vacation day and all I have to do tomorrow is go to my doctor's appointment (which I'm dreading), grocery shop, and take care of some personal business sitting on my desk such as the Columbia House bill, enroll in Defensive Driving, stuff like that. In other words, I'll have time to blog. And I will do it.

One last thing...since I mentioned my doctor's appointment. *sigh* Like a dummy, I stepped on my scale as soon as I got home from the airport. According to my scale, I'm six pounds up from before I left on vacation. I'm sure there are several explanations for this: 1) I was on a plane for 3 1/2 hours today, 2) I didn't eat horribly on my vacation, but it wasn't the best either, and 3) I'm constipated. And oh, yeah, did I mention that I'm pregnant? *rolling eyes* P is going with me tomorrow to the appointment, and if she makes me cry, I'm telling her that I'm switching doctors, no ifs ands or buts, and that will be AFTER I give her a piece of my mind. So there.

More tomorrow!

More shopping!

I went to Old Navy tonight just to check out a few things, and walked out with a pair of denim capris, tan shorts, maternity lace hipster underwear and NINE t-shirts...lavender, light blue, black, white, yellow, lime green, melon, tomato and peach. I just couldn't help it...the shirts were $5 each!!!!!



I think that combined with the lots I have bids pending on Ebay and my massive shopping trip with my stepmom next week in New Hampshire at the outlet stores, I'm going to be set for maternity clothes.

I'm such a shopaholic. It's just bizarre! But all this shopping and having fun, pretty clothes to wear is actually helping me ENJOY my pregnancy, and that's a very good thing. Plus, I'll be totally set for pregnancy #2 and #3, if there is a third.

Some more good news...I FINALLY wore him down and P has finally agreed to find out the sex of the baby with me at the big ultrasound! He's been saying all along that he wants to be surprised, but he finally told me tonight that he has changed his mind since he knows how important it is to me, and we're going to find out together.

In other pregnancy-related news, I think my boss thinks I'm a psycho bitch from hell. I'll spare you the details, but I bet the whole state of Texas will hear his sigh of relief when I shut down Friday for vacation. I really need a break from work.

Only three more days left, and what busy days they will be! We need to get packed up, I need to finish my work, and this house needs to be cleaned in a MAJOR way to be ready for our house sitter that is going to stay with Katie and Simon next week while we are gone. It's just scary right now.

Off to buzz around the house! More later!

The skirt: the best thing ever invented!

Here's a riddle for you. What is the fastest way a husband can bring a smile to his pregnant wife's face who is struggling desperately with ALL maternity shorts?

One word. SKIRT.

Today was the BEST day I have had during this pregnancy with the exception of finding out I WAS pregnant, the ultrasound, and the day I heard the heartbeat. P took me maternity clothes shopping and I had the BEST time. I'd been a few times before and had always walked out in disgust...and of course, there was the icky visit to Kohl's.

My suspicion that Kohl's maternity department sucks was confirmed. It sucks a$$. I went to Sears, JC Penney and Target, and they were SO much better.

The awesome thing about Target is that there is none of this S/M/L/XL mess...if you were a 12 or 14 or 16 before your pregnancy, that's what the clothes are labeled. I was a 14, but since I put some weight on during the first pregnancy, I played it safe and went for the 16, which is a XL in any other store but Target. It was SO great. Everything was quite big and loose, but I'd rather have things be loose rather than tight and constricting. I don't do well with discomfort!

This is what I bought. I had recently gotten a bonus at work, it was my birthday yesterday, and I really need clothes considering I was down to one pair of jeans and just about out of my only pair of shorts, so I went a little nuts.

-four pairs of casual pants for work (two black, one stone, one khaki)
-one pair of jeans
-two pairs of shorts (black and tan)
-three pairs of capri pants (black, tan and white)
-five knee-length skirts (basic black, black with white polka dots, turquoise/yellow/lime plaid, white with turquoise/green flowers, and tan with pink/fuschia flowers)
-two bras
-new sunglasses (since mine broke in the car today)

Anyone who has met me will tell you that I am NOT a skirt person. At all. But after I've had such major difficulty with maternity shorts, my husband suggested I give skirts a try. (What a man I have!) I had the same problem when I was body building...my quads are much bigger than the normal woman in relation to my waist size, and as such, the legs in shorts are constantly too tight. And when I put on these skirts...well, let's just say it was the first time I had really felt pretty and feminine in a while. It was a great feeling.

Anyway, it was just a wonderful day. Once I determined and accepted what size I was, and really let go and let myself enjoy it, it was fine. Fun, even. And I was really impressed with the selections that Sears, JC Penney and Target had. Very nice stuff. I didn't buy any shirts this time since I really don't need any just yet and I'm carrying low, but I'm sure I'll be getting some of those as time goes along. P was just fantastic during the entire day. SO incredibly patient, didn't look irritated when I modeled everything that I tried on, and didn't say anything about the money I spent. He said that considering how down I've been the last few weeks over the clothes issue, it was money well-spent, and I'm planning on saving all this stuff for Round #2 when we are pregnant again, so it's an investment really. But the BEST thing he did all day was to suggest that I try skirts. What a guy.

When I am in New Hampshire, my stepmother is planning on taking me to an outlet store to go shopping, and now that I know my size, now that I have the basics on hand, and now that I have accepted the whole "yes, I'm getting bigger" concept, I can really have fun and buy some fun clothes, like tops and maybe a sundress. These clothes were SO MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE. If I had known what a difference this was going to make, I would have gone shopping two weeks ago!

At any rate, I'm a happy girl tonight. I have new clothes, I'm in a good mood, and I even made myself go walk on my treadmill tonight for 25 minutes AFTER spending all afternoon walking and shopping and walking the dogs this morning. I'm ready for some stitching.

We did not get to the dresser, sadly. Blah. I'm hoping I can talk P into at least stripping it tonight, but I'm not pushing my luck considering how great he was this afternoon with the shopping spree. Oh, well. We have lots of time.

My advice to any newly pregnant women out there...when you start feeling uncomfortable, GO GET NEW CLOTHES! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Just go shopping and pronto. The difference it will make in your mental status is well worth it.

And a special thank you to Erin for the suggestion to try JC Penney...you were right, girl-their maternity section rocks!

My belly at twelve weeks

I can't believe I'm posting this on the internet, but my dad and stepmom assured me before I posted that I DO look pregnant and not just fat!



It won't be too much longer before I have to take my navel ring out...it's just getting kind of irritated. Hopefully it won't close back up, but we'll see. I'll take another round at the end of my second trimester, probably towards the end of the summer.

And with that, I'm off to go clothes shopping! I'd really like to score two pairs of pants and two pairs of shorts.

No longer a twenty-something!

I can't believe I am now officially thirty years old. *sigh* I don't feel thirty. A big part of me still feels like I am 21!

I wrote the Sunday Brunch just for birthdays...so I'm going to do it.

1) What is your birthday, what time were you born, what astrological sign are you, and what city and state were you born in? I was born on May 7, 1975. I think I was born around 3 am. I am a Taurus, and I was born in Ithaca, New York.
2) Are there any famous events or famous people that share your special day? About the most interesting people that share my birthday are Johnny Unitas, Eva Peron, and Tchaikovsky. I thought the latter was particularly interesting considering that the Nutcracker is my favorite ballet.
3) What did you do to celebrate your last birthday? Yesterday I slept late (super late) and then went to my in-laws for a Mother's Day luncheon. Then, last night P and I went to Boi Na Braza with two other couples for a Brazilian feast. Afterwards, I just couched and watched television. It was a very relaxing day.
4) What is your best birthday celebration that you can remember? When I was sixteen, my parents gave me a Sweet Sixteen pool party with all of my friends. It was fantastic.
5) What is the best birthday present you have ever received? I honestly can't remember! Memory of a gnat and all that.

I got a card yesterday from my best friend S insinuating that when you are starting to be called, "ma'am" that means you are old. Ha. Not in Texas. I've been called "ma'am" ever since I moved here nine years ago. But this past week I had a "you're old" encounter with a girl at work. We were talking about my pregnancy and whether or not I was going to find out the sex. Here's the conversation:

L: Yeah, when my mom was pregnant with me, she felt that she was having a girl, and found out that she was.
E: Did they have ultrasounds when you were born for that purpose? When my mom was pregnant with me, they didn't.
L: How old are you?
E: I'll be thirty on Saturday.
L: Yeah, you're old.
E: *laughs hysterically* Excuse me? How old are you?
L: Twenty-seven.
E: OOOH. A whole three years younger!
**Both E and L crack up**

It was a purely innocent conversation and didn't bother me in the least, but I found it funny that she considered me old and I am only three years older than her!

I got some nice gifts. My dad and stepmom sent a check (thank you!) that I plan to use on some maternity clothes, one of my friends bought me Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy (a reality check for pregnant women that I read in one night), and my other friend (the dinner pals) got me some perfume. And I got a bunch of cards, including one very basic, generic one from my mother, so at least she remembered. It was a nice birthday.

I feel pretty good right now although still very tired. This tiredness is seriously cutting into my stitching time! Grrr! And klutzy me...I tripped on the DSL cord in my office and broke my left smallest toe. It hurt like the dickens the first night, and now it's not really hurting, but it's several shades of blue and purple, it's swollen, and I have not ventured to try to put it in a closed-toe shoe yet. I've been wearing slip-on sandals since it happened, and I plan to wear them all week until the swelling goes down.

Today is dresser day. We are equipped with some really high-powered furniture stripper that is supposed to dissolve wood furniture finish in about fifteen minutes, so P's going to use that and see what happens. We have semi-gloss white paint that we are going to use, and one of my tasks for today is to figure out what handles I want to put on the thing. I have that website of course, but I need to figure out what handles I want from that selection. It's going to be great. My Finding Nemo border STILL has not arrived, so I can't select any paint. P agreed that we can do the walls different colors, so that'll be fun when we get to the store.

I also need maternity clothes. The two pairs of dress pants I bought at the beginning of my pregnancy in the next size up (the ones that were so loose) are now very snug and tight in the tum, and it's time to just bite the bullet and go get some that I can grow into. At least now I don't feel so bad about it since I'm officially in my second trimester now.

Well, I guess that's all I've got for now. I'm going to go see if I can drag P out of bed, and then walk the dogs. I still have that baby diatribe to write about one day...the one that was inspired by my discussion with my sisters in law last weekend, but I'll save that for another day. I'm sure it'll inspire MANY commenters to chime in, so I'll try to get to that this week if I can. I also have another one on dogs (strays and other things) but I don't have the energy to write about that today. Another day, another day.

A friend sent me a card yesterday to remind me that this will be my last birthday without sticky fingers in the cake. Yes. That's true. It's also my last Mother's Day without a child. Next year, I'll be celebrating this along with all of you mothers out there.

To all of you mothers reading this, happy Mother's Day. Enjoy your special day and remember that you have the toughest job out there!

So far, so good, so sad...

Well, it's after midnight, and I survived today without any problems. No cramping, no spotting, nothing. It was fine.

Of course, other than my crying jag about an hour ago.

Nothing seems to have gone right this week at all. I got two fire assignments on Monday...both with women that are old, cranky and don't want some kid who is less than half their age telling them what she will and won't pay for. Seven hours in the field on Tuesday with two hours of computer time that night, and then seven hours in the field on Wednesday with three hours of computer time that night. Nineteen hours on TWO CLAIMS, not to mention all the time I spent on Monday setting up the claims. Then, when I put in my request for overtime, my boss denied it on the basis that "I don't really need to be working any more and pushing it this hard when I'm pregnant" and said that he wants me to take it easy, relax and stop working so much at this pace...that he's afraid that I will get high blood pressure. Yeah. First of all, this is the way I've worked for four years, I'm not going to change now, and it has served me well. Second, my medical status is none of his business. Third, why didn't he think of that before he gave me two fire assignments???

Okay, rant over. I'm just frustrated. But I guess there's worse things. I'm getting all next week off new assignments, I only have to work three hours tomorrow and can take the rest of the day off, and Saturday is my 30th birthday, so there are definitely worse things in life! I plan on sleeping super late tomorrow, going to lunch with P, and then making a pineapple upside-down cake for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day tomorrow night.

But the crying...well, I guess that just erupted from a plethora of things. My crappy day at work and the discussion with my boss. The fact that I got yelled at over the phone by three of my customers. The fact that I have had no desire to stitch on anything this entire week. The fact that I emailed my mother yesterday to tell her about the pregnancy and still have not heard a response from her. (We haven't spoken since the whole check incident.) The fact that I had a serious issue with PayPal that delayed me getting my very adorable Finding Nemo ceiling fan. The fact that I'm developing acne in very strange places...the side of my cheek, my upper lip, my shoulders. The fact that I have not felt "right" all evening...I'm a combination of very tired, upset tummy and sad. And lastly, the fact that the masseuse that gave me a massage on Saturday at the stitching retreat did something wrong, I think, and hurt the muscles in the center of my back and now they ache.

I'm just a big pile of hormones! The only thing that is making me smile right now is my birthday dinner out at Boi Na Braza Saturday night and my upcoming vacation to New Hampshire starting a week from Saturday.

Ugh. I'm going to bed.

Four days left!

Are you wondering what will happen in four days?

Hopefully...nothing.

Thursday, May 5, is the eve of the day marking my twelfth week. December 6 was also the eve of the day marking my twelfth week of my last pregnancy. In other words, if I make it through Thursday, my pregnancy will have progressed further this time than it did last time.

According to my doctor, I've already passed that point since last time she thinks I was seven weeks along when I miscarried and it just took my body a month to figure it out, but mentally, it will feel like a HUGE milestone when I wake up Friday morning and everything is fine.

Really, I feel like everything is fine now. I'm exhausted all the time, but otherwise feeling good!

I did decide Friday that I'm going to give my doctor ONE more chance. I discussed it at length with P, and we agreed that she was rather excellent when I had my miscarriage and even though we didn't agree with what she did at my last appointment, ultimately I still would like for her to deliver my baby. I think that based on how she handled the miscarriage, she will really be great to have in the room when I am delivering my first child. So, I did cancel my appointment with the new doctor. However, I made absolutely sure with them that if I need to, they will take me on as a new patient anytime this summer, and P's going to go with me to the next appointment so we can discuss what happened even more. If anything bad happens, it's over and I'm switching doctors. So we'll see how it goes.

I bought some nursery stuff tonight finally! I finally felt secure enough to do it! Finding Nemo is it, if you couldn't tell from my variety of new blinkies that I found. (By the way, if you are looking for some new art to spruce up your blog with, visit Blinkie Heaven and I don't think you will be disappointed at all.)

Anyway, this is what I bought!

The wallpaper border...we're going to go match some paint to it as soon as it comes in:



A very cute alarm clock since all the wall ones I've seen are very ugly:



And, the piece de resistance, ceiling fan blades for baby to look at! It is actually the whole fan I bought since it was only $10 less to just get the blades. (Please note that the ceiling fan blades exactly match my wallpaper.)



My stepmother also bought a throw rug for me, so I'm on my way. We also bought some furniture stripper today at Lowe's (which I can't be in the room with so P's on his own) for the dresser, so hopefully we'll get that started this week. I looked at Lowe's and found the ocean sea pulls that I want, but since they would have to be custom-ordered, they are still cheaper online. As soon as I make some decisions on what exactly I want to go where, I'm going to order those. Here they are if you want to see them. I also may stop by Michael's one day this week and pick up some frames for the lithographs that my friend in Florida, E, sent me, and get those framed up. And we even decided on plain white bifold doors for the closet that we are going to get next week. We are making serious progress. P really wants to paint the room some shade of Carribbean blue turquoise (think DMC 597, stitchers), which I am not terribly crazy about, but considering that I pretty much picked out the Finding Nemo theme with no input from P, I'm going to concede defeat on that point. You gotta pick your battles sometimes.

I have more to report as well, specifically the great baby discussions I had with my friends and in-laws this weekend, but I really really need to eat some dinner and start some laundry, so I'm going to save that baby diatribe for another time. I don't have much going on tomorrow with work, so maybe I'll write about it then. Heck, maybe I'll even do the Sunday Brunch! I really need to get back into memeing again, but things are just very very busy right now!

Until then, enjoy the new art on my blog, I hope you like the stuff I bought for my nursery, and enjoy what little is left of your weekend!