Wednesday, May 18, 2005

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!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The first time I left my cat alone overnight, I came home and everything was fine. A couple of hours later, I went into my bedroom and discovered that she had dumped on my pillow, and peed on the comforter. She was letting me know how she felt!

2:44 PM  
Blogger Autumn said...

Sounds like you had a great trip!! I used to spend summers in New Hampshire when I was in high school and I really miss it!

6:04 AM  

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