Drooling

Knowing that we have 2 mastiffs, you're probably thinking drooling is going to be about the dogs. Unfortunately, no.

Do a quick google for: pregnant drool

This started maybe a few weeks ago or so. I'd be falling asleep and would wake up to this weird feeling of drool coming out my mouth. WTF? It has gotten progressively worse but luckily only happens when I'm sleeping, not during normal conversation or anything. But I got a good look at my pillow yesterday and it was hilarious - drool pattern marks everywhere! It is the strangest thing. Most of the time while I'm drooling and sleeping, I wake up and have to wipe my mouth. It makes me wonder though how much drool seeps out that I'm not aware of? Do I need to buy new pillows after I'm done being pregnant?

While I'm very grateful I never got morning sickness or anytime of day sickness, I did get my share of strange pregnancy symptoms. I'm going to go ahead and list them off because it will make me feel better:

- I'll start with the drool, because it is annoying and really, what grown up drools while they're sleeping??

- Feet so swollen I can barely squeeze into my husband's size 10!! I keep them elevated as much as I can but as soon as they hit the ground you can literally WATCH them swell.

- Carpal tunnel. Mostly in my right hand, something about swelling of the whatever causes the nerves in my hand to carpal tunnel. I haven't been able to feel my fingers on my right hand for over a month now. There is a bit of a tingling sensation, but that's about it. Makes it hard to pick up and grasp things, they're pretty much just numb.

- Sciatica. I'm SO ready to be done with this. At least not sitting at my desk all day long has given me some relief of this but it is still there. Mostly when I try to lift up my right leg whether it is to put it on the couch, in the car, in my pants-  I get this shooting pain that makes me wince and make a little noise. Well, sometimes it's a lot of noise.

- Snoring. I still don't think that I do, but the circles under Lance's eyes tell me otherwise. I've started using the breathe right strips and they seem to help. I notice I can breathe easier while falling asleep and Lance stays in the bed at night. 

- Gas. My pregnancy books all said that you'd notice an increase here...but lucky for me, we do have the 2 mastiffs in the house so that's easy enough to blame on them. Unless of course, they get up and walk away from me, then it's kind of a giveaway it was in fact, me.

- Heartburn. This comes and goes. It doesn't seem to be tied to any specific food..I think for me, it has to do with what position baby is laying in. There will be days I go through like 20 tums, then there will be days I don't even need a tums. But being a person who has never ever had heartburn before, 1 tum is 1 tum too many.

- Water weight. There isn't an inch on me that you can't push and see your finger imprint for a good 2 minutes after the fact. Lance had his hand resting, not pushing, just resting on my calf the other night. When he lifted his hand, there were indentations of each of his fingers, enough that you could see his fingerprints. Water weight needs to go away.

K, I complained a bit, I feel better now :) 

My new favorite drink

A couple weekends ago we were at the grocery  and on one of the end caps, I saw a cranberry flavored ginger ale. It didn't sound especially yummy, but it was pink and fizzy looking and drew me in. I'd guzzled that whole 2 liter by the end of the evening. A couple days go by and each day I mention to Lance how I'd like some more cranberry ginger ale, it was good, will you go get some more? 

I'm a little surprised he didn't pick up on the urgency sooner. A few nights go by and he was out playing "Go" - I called him when I figured he'd be on his way home to say how much I really really needed that ginger ale. He didn't hear his phone ring and walked in the door just a couple minutes later. THEN he got the urgency of my need for ginger ale. He didn't even bother to take his coat off, just turned around to go get me ginger ale. 

He came home with 3 2-liters, score! I started guzzling right away and it was the best tasting thing I could have had at that moment. But then he had to point out how funny it was that not only did I really really want this ginger ale, but that I was standing in the kitchen window waiting for him to bring it to me. True, I was waiting in front of the window...I was thirsty. I didn't realize he'd see me in the window though :)

We've since made a point to keep that cranberry ginger ale in the house now. Mmmm.

Good kitty kitty

One of the kitties caught a mouse last night! 

Lance is much quicker about getting downstairs in the morning than I am and so is always first to the kitchen and to let the dogs out. This morning was no different, but then as I was convincing myself to get out of the bed I could hear him coming back upstairs. I was like, what's up - you're changing the routine!? :)

He had to come back up to tell me to give the kitties extra love this morning because one or both of them caught a mouse and put it in the kitchen for us to see. Well, at least they didn't bring it up to the bedroom for us to see. My old kitty had killed a shrew once and came trotting over to us with it her mouth like, here - look what I did!

So, I'm up doing my morning thing and Henry (gray kitty) does his thing, which is to follow my every move and be my shadow. He knows my habits and how the mornings go and he's gotten into his own habit of hearding me. When I'm finished in the bathroom, he heards me to the bedroom...when I'm finished there, he heards me to the stairs - its weird really. But that's Henry. George (black kitty) was downstairs the whole time being extra swishy. He would go in the kitchen and purr meow and then run to the basement - only to come back upstairs real fast all swishy. 

Lance thinks George was the hunter because George seemed very proud of himself this morning. I think the kitties tag-teamed the mouse and were both involved. It's hard to say. George likes to chase and Henry likes to put things in his mouth. The only thing we know for sure is that Mesa was not involved in any way. She was probably completely unaware there was even a mouse. In all the years we've had her, she has never shown any desire to hunt or catch things. The kitties though, took down a bat within weeks of being adopted!

I should probably point out that it isn't that we have an animal infestation problem or anything - it's just a house from 1902 is going to have some little holes for critters to come in through. Something I've had to just learn to deal with. And by deal, I mean scream. Bats make me scream, a LOT.

He's growing up

We've always jokingly made fun of Franklin and his 'simple ways'. He's not an especially bright dog, but he's a really good dog. Eleanor though, she's our college grad. 

Whenever someone comes to the door or a stranger gets too close to the house, it is always Eleanor sounding the alarm. Franklin will, on occasion, let out a woof but doesn't always bother to get up to see what the woof was for. This weekend, our little boy grew up! He found his inner guard dog finally. Lance was napping, and I was playing in the baby room...putzing around, organizing, etc. when all of a sudden Franklin let out a really big boy bark and went flying downstairs. Eleanor slowly came out of the bedroom a bit bewildered, not barking, but headed downstairs anyway to see what Franklin was doing. Honestly, I figured he was just having a moment and there was no reason for him to be barking. But I went downstairs, and I'll be darned if there wasn't someone at the front door! I didn't hear the doorbell, and Eleanor obviously didn't otherwise she would have been barking right away. 

Up until now, he was just "for looking at", but I think he's going to be a good guard dog after all! 

Ready ready!

I'm ready. Baby doesn't seem to be ready yet, but I certainly am. This whole business of sciatica is really getting old now. As the days go on, my pain gets worse. I can't lay down or get up without letting out a very genuine cry of pain. It's this shooting pain that goes down the inside of my right leg. Doc says, oh its just one of those pregnancy things, baby is pressing on your sciatic nerve. Well sure, why wouldn't she be?

I have this vision of her inside me with various pull cords: one for sciatic, one for bladder, one for squeezing my lungs, you get the picture. She's just in there randomly pulling the cords for fun :) The space inside is getting more constricted for her now and when she moves I can literally see my whole belly rumble with the quake. It's pretty freaky to watch and realize, that's a baby in there!

And the larger my belly gets, the more the gray kitty wants to be on it. Like it is his own personal shelf, lol. As soon as I lie down on the couch, he comes out of nowhere and gets all comfy on my belly. Oddly, that also signals to baby to wake up and start shimmying. These two, they have a strange relationship already...he will not budge from my belly no matter how violent she gets inside. We joke that all that movement is giving him a belly rub and he likes it. Especially lately, the movements have been really pronounced. Henry digs it.

Lance is working on fixing up a dresser he had as a kid. It is being donated to baby girl. He's painting it, made new feet for it, and attaching new hardware. I found some cute little pooh decals to go on the sides too. It already looks like a completely different dresser. I'm ready to start washing all her clothes and get them put away in her drawers. The crib gets delivered tomorrow so he'll have that to put together next. A nursery - its all about the putting together.

It's coming together

And by it, I mean the nursery. Lance had to do some patchy patch to the walls and then sandy sand and then more patchy patch...you know the routine. So after all that, he was finally able to put some paint on the walls - he did that this weekend. We chose a great color for that room. Initially I was a little worried about the fact we chose beige - no other room in the house is as boring as beige. But seeing it on the walls and knowing it will be filled with colorful cute pooh-bear items, makes beige the perfect color for our nursery.

He then put together the glider/rocking chair we picked up...looks great in there. I can't wait to rock our baby for the first time in it :) Last night Lance put together the "travel system", which is a stroller with a built in/removable car seat. Quite the contraption. Minutes later we were wheeling it around the living room like pros. I can see that we'll have to do some 'de-sensitizing' of it to the dogs though. Well, Eleanor anyway. While she would eat the arm off of any intruder that dare come in our home, she's a bit of a pussy when it comes to things that move. The stroller threw her for a loop, so we're going to have to work with her on that. We started to a little last night...giving her treats as she came up to sniff it and see that it is not going to attack her. Franklin though, he just laid on the couch watching the whole thing go down without a care in the world. We wheeled it over to him, he sniffed, accepted his treat, and laid his head back down. I think he's good with the stroller.

They've been invited into the nursery also to watch and sniff as things appear and happen in there. We're doing everything we can think of to make sure this big new change is as easy on them as possible. They've been our spoiled babies for so long, we have to make sure they know its OK.

Because Franklin is Franklin, I don't know that he realizes anything is different or that things are changing. (he is after all, just a boy) But, Eleanor is our brilliant dog and she totally understands what is going on. Just the other day, I was laying on the couch with my feet up and she came over to get some pets and love. I was talking to her about the baby and pointed to my belly. She sniffed my belly and then laid her chin across it. She knows there is a baby in there :)

The Change, it's coming!

Everybody else is blogging about our new President, so I'm going to too. Last night and a couple times today watching the news and just thinking about it, I got a little choked up. Again, probably has something to do with my raging hormones - but at the same time probably has something to do with how very important this election became to me. And how excited I am to see someone put us all back on course. 

I remember 4 years ago, voting and then seeing that Bush ended up winning...I was bummed, but didn't really think it'd matter THAT much. Uh, turns out it did. This go round, I was so involved in the election process. I spent time reading and researching and learning about the candidates, I took time to caucus for Obama, I donated to his campaign, I attended one of his campaign speeches, I even sent out emails on his behalf. When he was declared the Democratic nominee, it was exciting to think - wow, that's the one I picked out of the gate and actually caucused for. Then for him to win the presidency I couldn't help but feel a little proud that I did good and I did right.

For our country to choose a non-white president is Big. For Iowa to have chosen him, HUGE. I can't help but wonder what my grandparents would think of this. When I think of Nana and Gramps, I don't think of them as 'having it in them' to vote for somebody who isn't a white male. This election would have just thrown them for a loop....Obama, and Sarah Palin...what to do?? I'm really proud of our country for coming as far as they have, being able to see past the color barrier and choosing the right man for the job. I'm excited to see what this will mean and what will happen.

More crying

I had my first baby shower this weekend and I was fully prepared to bust into tears at the sight of any cute little baby thing. I was completely surprised that nothing sent me into a crying fit, happy about that, but still surprised. Made me think maybe the hormones had gone away and I had my emotions back under control. I say had because....

Sunday, Lance was doing some serious rooting around in the basement and moving things from 3rd bedroom to basement. In his rooting he found some more of my childhood books. I had already uncovered quite a few that Mom had saved and given to me - Lance has been reading them to my belly :) But Lance came upstairs with some more! I found Duck and His Friends in the newly discovered pile and just completely lost my shit. Bawling and sobbing and not being coherent about anything. Lance had just gone to the other side of the room to put something away and came flying back to me all, what's wrong, are you okay, what happened? All I could get out was, Duck....Duck....Friends..... He very gently took the book from me and was like, OK, lets put Duck back away for now, you can look at it later. 

Mom was always very good about writing on the inside of my books who they were from and what year I got them. This one was from my Dad and I can totally remember him reading it to me, it was one of my most favorite books. I wonder if this is just the normal first year of grieving when you loose a parent or if in my case it is amplified because of being pregnant. Probably a little of both. When we found out we were expecting and did the calendar counting back thing, I was just getting to be a week along when we went home for Dad's funeral...so it just makes this pregnancy all that more special.

I'm going to try and read Duck and His Friends tonight, see if I can make it any further than the front cover. It really is a good one if you can get it opened :)

Henry and his ball

So, we have these kitty toys - little balls, maybe 2 inches in diameter that are soft and are 'bat-able'. Henry treats these balls as kill and will gather up all the balls he can find into one area and then meow-wail. The pathetic noise you hear when a cat has caught a mouse, that is the noise Henry makes when he has gathered his balls. He was in the habit of doing this late at night while were were sleeping and as much as I'd try to ignore it thinking he'd just stop he never did. The first night, I got up and took his balls away. He must have seen me put them on top of my dresser because shortly after I got back into bed I could hear him on top of the dresser rustling around for his balls. I learned after that to put them under my pillow. I learned after that finally to just remove the balls from sight before I went to bed. After doing that for a few nights in a row, I gave him back ball privileges. I think he must have learned, because he no longer meow-wails while we're sleeping. 

Now he plays ball constantly through out the day and evening though when we're home. He has claws, so he'll snag the ball and whip it through the air and then goes and gets it and repeats. Its like he is throwing the ball for himself! Sometimes though, he'll enlist our participation. Like last weekend, I was sitting on the floor in the spare room sorting through crap to pack up or throw away and Henry came walking in with a ball in his mouth. He dropped it directly in front of me and just stood there. I figured that was a bit of a freak accident, but went ahead and threw the ball for him. I'll be damned if he didn't return that ball to me 32 more times in a row, dropping it on the floor right in front of me! Okay, maybe not 32, but easily at least 20 times before I was done playing and pocketed the ball.

And just last night, Lance was sitting on the couch watching Henry entertain himself with the ball. During one of his paw ball flings, he threw it directly into Lance's lap. If that doesn't say PLAY WITH ME, I don't know what does...

Snoring?

I'll admit it, I will occasionally breathe a little heavy while sleeping - it is so dainty though, not many would really call it a snore. More like, light puffs of air.

Turns out though, yet another fabulous perk of being knocked up is the snoring. 3rd trimester snores get louder and more frequent because of some medical reason I googled. Something about your nose membranes swelling...great. Everything else is swelling, why not my nose membranes too?

The last few nights Lance has woken me up to tell me I'm snoring, and I'm snoring LOUDLY. Every time, I'm just incredulous, like really? Me? I'm snoring? Oh geez, I'm really sorry. Then I guess I fall right back asleep and turn on the snores again. LOL - Last night was just too much for him to handle, he woke me up again to tell me I was snoring and that he was going to go downstairs to sleep on the couch. 

This morning he tells me that I was snoring so loudly, he could hear me through the floor! OMG, that is pretty appalling. I wonder what our renter thinks? Hopefully he just thinks it is one of the dogs. But Lance had pillows over his head trying to block out my snores while the heat-seeking kitties were crawling on him looking for a good lay down spot. The 3rd cat was puking her way around the couch, Lance could hear her getting sick so he had to keep getting up to clean it up. Listening to him retell last night's events this morning I felt so bad for him. Poor thing, he just wanted some sleep and he looks like he didn't get ANY sleep. 

As I type it all out, I can't help but giggle because it does sound pretty funny. But I do feel for him, I know what its like to not get good sleep. There are nights when baby just won't let me, she's found that she is able to reach some special spot in me that is attached to my sciatic nerve - she is either gnawing on it or bouncing on it. Either way, it sends shooting pains down my leg and that is pretty hard to sleep through. 

People say this is just preparing us for all those supposed nights ahead when baby is out and we're not able to sleep. I say we're going to get a baby that likes to sleep through the night :)

Lock Down :(

I had another OB appointment on Friday, all is well. However, I have been put on lock down. I'm not supposed to travel any further than 100 miles away from my doctor. Because of the whole 'high risk' thing, there is a chance I could always pop sooner than later and doc wants me near to her. Which is good, but at the same time, kind of affects some out of town plans we've had for awhile. Baby Shower, Thanksgiving, Family time...

My sisters had been planning a baby shower for me, complete with specifically requested food items. (these days, it is ALL about the food...who am I kidding, its always been about the food) They've decided to go ahead with the shower, invites have gone out already. So, they're going to have MY party without ME! I told mom I suppose that's okay, but neither of them are allowed to open a single one of my presents!!

And I'm going to miss seeing all the people I was hoping to see back home. Poor me...

Maybe Lance will make me another pie to make me feel better.

Baby scare

I'll start off with baby is OK. But we spent a few hours at the hospital yesterday with me hooked up to some baby watching monitor. The doctor had the machine on for what seemed like forever and then says he wasn't getting the results he wanted to see. He was able to get the heartbeat (whew!) but wasn't seeing 'spikes' like they like to see. ?? So, he sent me over for an ultrasound. The ultrasound was totally reassuring. We could see baby moving around all over the place in there, she was opening and closing her fists, moving her legs, her arms...everything looked really good.

I'd called the doctor because starting the end of last week things weren't feeling right. She had been in the habit of moving and kicking me about every 20 minutes or so. Suddenly that stopped and I wasn't feeling her moving like I had been. With much cooing and poking and prodding, we were able to get a little whoof out of her each night but after a whole weekend of the same I was just a little too worried to not call the doctor. 

It is still really strange though, that all the movement we were seeing on the screen, I wasn't able to feel. Doctor said she must have gotten herself into some weird position that was muffling her movements to me. She must have flipped herself around again already because today I've been feeling her more again like normal. It took me so long to get used to feeling her moving inside of me that when it wasn't there, I really missed it! 

So sad...

I found this blog today:

http://www.mattlogelin.com/

I started with this page:

http://www.mattlogelin.com/archives/2008/04/13/what-happened/

Just be forewarned, it is a very sad, tragic story.

Nothing in particular

I find I'm becoming more and more scatter-brained. Yes, I realize I've always had a touch of "the blondies", but since being pregnant, it is just amplified. It is hard to use my words, I loose focus on what I'm doing, I daydream when someone is talking to me. From what I read, this is normal. Just another one of those perks of pregnancy. 

I have my first baby shower in a couple weeks, I'm really excited! And one of the best parts of it is that I will hopefully get a cake from Lovejoy's. They are who we used for our wedding cake (Oh, so long ago) and we loved loved it and I've thought of their cakes over the years but could never justify getting one. Now that I'm having a baby shower though, I think that counts as a special occasion. I've brought it up to Carol a couple times so I think she knows I really really want it. lol

Lance is almost, really almost done with the outside of the house. The summer project has unfortunately dragged on and on. With him doing the bulk of the work by himself, I can understand why he's tired of working on it. He's had a helpful hand from others here and there, but it has mostly been him and I can see how burned out he is. I'm hopeful that he'll get it all finished up by the end of this weekend. Because once that is done and no longer a worry, we can move our (his) focus to the baby room!

I'm so anxious to get started on the baby room, its all I can think about. He emptied it out of all the storage crap we'd piled in there and now we're just piling gift bags of baby clothes in there. We did have an electrician come last week and do some wiring for us, so that room now has an actual light switch on the wall - imagine! And the electrician put in our light fixture for us too, but of course with that little bit of work he did came more work for Lance. Some mudding and sanding to do before he can paint. But at least we've already got the ceiling and trim paint done in that room, we're just changing the wall color. Hopefully it will go quickly so we (I) can start building the room :)

Crying with a touch of yelling

This weekend, I was taking a shower and for some reason started thinking about a specific time when Lance sent me flowers. So I'm showering, thinking about that, then started thinking I want some flowers now. As I thought about how badly I wanted flowers I started to cry. I wanted some flowers that much! I realized how ridiculous that was and tried to laugh to make the crying stop, but I only ended up crying harder because I wanted flowers.

Wow. Hormones are freaky. So I of course tell Lance I had a crying fit in the shower because I want flowers. Good man that he is, he didn't laugh at me too much, rather gave me an 'aww, baby its okay' :) My inner freak was screaming, NO it isn't OK, I want FLOWERS!!! 

I think it was the same day, just later that I started rambling about pie. I want pie. I want cherry pie. Where can I get pie. I need pie. I just couldn't shake it...I seriously needed pie, cherry pie. It couldn't be Baker's Square or anything like that, because they suck. It couldn't be the cheapo hostess kind, it had to be real honest to goodness Amish type pie. By the time Sunday rolled around, it had turned into 'I need some God damn pie!' 'Where can I get some God damn pie!?'

Lance recognized the urgency of the situation and made me a pie. Home-made crust, real cherries, the whole works. I ate that pie and had the most contended moment ever. It was the best pie in the world. And he made it for me :)

All is well again

Just in case you were worried, we didn't miss Survivor. I did go buy a $10 set of bunny ears to get us through until the Directv thingee arrived in the mail. Pretty pathetic, but I do love me some tv!!

And this last weekend we went up to Wisconsin for one of my nephew's wedding. The last of the original 3 to get married...makes me feel even older. It was a really beautiful ceremony and reception - they did a great job. I had a good time, though had I not been pregnant, swollen, and tired, I'm pretty sure I would have had a better time. I did get to see a lot of family members that you usually just see at funerals and weddings and it is always better to see them at the weddings - so that part was cool. 

I feel like nothing has really happened lately, all I've been doing is going to work, coming home, and falling asleep within minutes of having had supper. I think I'm entering another one of those tired phases, hopefully it passes soon. 

Oh, the humanity!

Last night I was watching tv when all of a sudden the screen flickered and then gave me some strange coded message. I did the off/on thing, hit the reset button on the DVR, nothing. I couldn't get my screen to come back up. I called Directv immediately and after going through all her trouble shooting steps, she's like, huh...I'm going to have to order you a replacement receiver. All I could think to say was, but but but, I was in the middle of watching a show!

20 minutes later she's wrapping up my 'order' for a replacement receiver. I ask her how this works, do I get it tomorrow? She says, no this will arrive in approximately 2 days. I start to hyperventilate a little and sputter something about this being THE BEST WEEK OF TELEVISION EVER, and while she sympathized, there was nothing she could do. 

Lance came home as I was on the phone with them, saw the black tv screen and was like - I assume you're on it? Oh baby, I'm all over it! After I got off the phone though, I gave him the bad news. He starts to get a little freaky too and is like, well, we'll get it by the time Survivor is on....right?

I just checked the status online to see if it had shipped yet and yeah it has! But boooo, it isn't due to arrive until Friday :(  I guess we need to look into bunny ears or something so we can watch the Survivor premier. Even the dogs missed the television this morning. Part of the routine is to turn on FoxNEWS for them in the morning and then it keeps them company throughout the day. 

The house seemed eerily silent as we left for work...

Sympathy Heartburn

So, along with being swollen, I've also had a lot of heartburn lately. Its a very strange feeling for me because I think in all my 33 years, I've had heartburn maybe twice. But for the last 3-4 weeks I've had it more often than I've not had it. And it can be an all day feeling that by this time I'm almost used to. That's just wrong. 

Lance has had a tummy ache most of the days this week that then turns into heartburn. This morning he had a revelation as we were getting ready for work. He's like, you know, I never get heartburn - I think I'm getting sympathy heartburn!! I was conflicted between feeling sorry for him that he also had to feel the pain and annoyance of heartburn and laughing because, really, sympathy heartburn? LOL :) 

I would have to agree though, he probably is getting sympathy heartburn. He has gone through the sympathy weight gain and sympathy tiredness...it only makes sense he'd get other symptoms too. Wonder what his sympathy labor will be like?

Swollen and stubbed

I've started to swell. I knew it would happen, I've always heard about pregnant women who can't wear their wedding rings any longer - but I just figured that wouldn't be until I'm a lot further along. But as people remind me, I AM 6 1/2 months now.... I've had to take all my rings off and even my watch. When I get home from work at night, my ankles and feet are so swollen that my socks leave impressions in my feet. Sad.  At least swollen doesn't hurt, it just looks weird. 

And baby girl is so very active. Its like I can feel her all the time just doing stuff in there. I'm all, what are you doing? Sit still! She of course doesn't. But that's okay, an active baby is a good baby :)

And the stubbed part...Franklin has an owie. We noticed a couple days ago that he was a little gimpy and wouldn't put one of his back legs down all the way to the ground. After closer inspection, I could see one of his toes was HUGE. Just absolutely swollen and red. I wasn't sure if it was maybe broken or if he had jabbed a twig up in there and it was infected? Lance took him to the vet yesterday and $140 later, he's got medicine for a stubbed toe. To be fair, the vet wasn't sure if it was infected or not, so it is legitimate that he is on antibiotic and anti-inflammatory...but still, it is a stubbed toe. Freaking dog - what dog stubs their toe?!

Body Movin'

As the Beastie Boys say, "Body Movin'"  :)

I've been feeling little girl moving around for quite awhile now, just weird little burble type feelings. The ultrasounds have shown us that the placenta is between baby and belly so many of her movements are muffled by that. Doc said that as she gets bigger and the space smaller, I will start feeling way more movement. 

September 1 is when it first happened. I was laying on the couch with my feet up when suddenly it was like, WHAM. I think she may have braced herself back on her hands and used both feet to try and "kick the wall out". I actually jumped because it was so startling. Lance put his hand on the belly and was able to feel her too. She was just all over the place!!! I'm so glad Lance was finally able to feel it :)

Since then, she hasn't really let up. I don't notice it so much when I'm up and about doing things, but when I lay down and stretch my feet out, she starts dancing. Last night I had one of the cats laying on my belly - the one I never write about because she's old and bitter and never does anything funny. Except for now, LOL. She was just laying on my belly purring and getting some love when the baby did a super kick. Mesa lost her shit and jumped straight up in the air and started scowling, like WTF? She got kicked by the baby and she did not like it. Too funny.

The great fall of '08

I fell! I totally fell!! I used to fall a LOT. I've broken my share of bones from falling. In fact, on our wedding day, I fell twice! Somewhere along the way I stopped falling...

But a week or so ago now, actually the evening of the bunny incident was when it happened. I'd gotten home from work and had Franklin in the house with me while Eleanor was patrolling the yard for bunnies. I was on the line looking up something or other when the doorbell rings, it was my MIL, she'd popped over to give us some home-grown plums. She was all dressed up and headed out to an event so she didn't want any dog drool on her. Completely understandable with nice clothes and all, but uh, that's what our dogs do :) So, I wanted to get Franklin outside into the yard as quickly as possible so he wouldn't get her messy. I was so focused on getting him away from her that I'm really not sure how it all happened - but I was at the back door, Franklin was standing next to me, my hand was on the door knob, and suddenly I'm falling. 

There was a lot going on with the fall, because when I hit the ground, I was facing into the dining room looking directly at Carol. I'd spun around somehow! Franklin was standing off to the side looking at me like, uh what are you doing? I got myself up off the ground, cursing the whole time because I hurt. I went ahead and let Franklin out because that's what I was trying to do in the first place and when I came back in, Carol came into the kitchen to see if I was okay. I just started bawling....everything hurt, I just fell while I was pregnant so I was scared, it hurt to move my fingers and arms and knee, I was just all sorts of shook up. She got me some ice out of the freezer and set me up on the couch and tried to reassure me that I was going to be okay, but that she had to get to her event. What was probably going to be a really quick pop over in her mind turned into this big ordeal! I was trying hard to stop sobbing and pull it together while she was there. Even though I cry at the drop of a hat these pregnant days, I still prefer people don't see it happen. I held it together long enough to tell her I'd be okay and to have a good event, no problem.

Lance was driving to his Dad's house in Moline and we'd talked earlier but his cell phone had died. So as I was saying goodbye to Carol, I kept thinking I can't even call Lance, his phone is dead and he won't be at his Dad's house for hours. That upset me even more. But the ironic thing is, as Carol was leaving I could hear my cell phone ringing with Lance's ring. So I went to get my phone and call him back - here he had stopped at a rest center to plug in his phone and check on me!! How weird is that?? He just wanted to see how I was doing and to let me know where he was at on the road. I started crying all over again, telling him what hurt and what had happened and that I was scared and wasn't sure what to do. Luckily he was less than an hour away so he just turned right around and came back home. 

He checked over all my owies right away and called my OB. They asked a bunch of questions and then reassured us that the baby is very protected and was more than likely fine. I just had to watch and see if I had any contractions or bleeding. Neither of which I had, so whew!

My owies: 

jammed left middle finger (turned totally blue)

bruised left side of left hand and pinkie (I think it must have whacked the counter)

bruised left shoulder 

bruised left knee (huge, massive bruise, with much color and much swelling)

bruised right shoulder with the added bonus of not being able to move my shoulder

**when I bruise, I bruise big and colorful

I had to go see my chiro for an adjustment because my right shoulder was bothering me so much - it hurt to lift my arm or move my arm, shooting pain in my shoulder. Now, most of my owies have subsided. I only have a little shoulder pain left and the left knee is still swollen but I feel much better. Those first several days I was in so much pain, it was like a car accident where everything hurts.

Luckily we also had an OB appointment a few days after the fall, and it was another ultrasound one so we were able to see baby girl in there moving around and showing us she really was okay. That made me feel alot better. OB told me too that it is very common for women to fall while they're pg because their center of balance is whack. That I just need to be careful about watching where I step and keeping a check on my balance. 

So I see 2 lessons here to be learned. If you don't want drooly dogs getting you messy, better call first so I know to not have them in the house when you come. And two, I need to pay better attention to what I'm doing so I don't fall!

Now I'm über paranoid about falling though, so I'm like taking baby steps everywhere and watching every crack in the sidewalk. Falling hurts and I don't want to do it again.

Eleanor vs bunny - you guess who won

So one of the jokes between myself and Lance is that whenever he goes out of town, there is a critter episode in the backyard. Seriously, every single time he's been gone there has been: opossum, groundhog, rabbit, beaver, you name it - it has come into the yard and Eleanor has either chased it into a corner or it has gotten her so riled up she just won't come back inside. This weekend, Lance was planning on going to his Dad's, he was going to leave Friday right after work.

Friday, I decide to come home for lunch, get a little dog love and break up my work day. I let the dogs out for potty and am watching them because usually Franklin does a quick pee and wants right back inside for some hugs and kisses. I'm watching and I see Eleanor lift her legs up off the grass real quick like something bit her. I look closer and she looks closer and I hear a squeak. Oh man, I realize she's stepped on a baby bunny. Faint of heart? Stop reading now.

She started to play with the bunny and put it in her mouth, I freaked out, ran inside so I couldn't hear it anymore and called Lance and am like, you are not going to believe this. There is a critter in the yard and you haven't even left town yet!!!! I got off the phone and realized I should try and man up at least a little and see if I couldn't save the bunny. So, I went out to the porch to find a pair of gloves and headed into the yard. When I got out there though I didn't hear anymore squeaking and saw Eleanor set it down and paw at it like, come on. Well, at least the poor thing was dead and wasn't being tortured. I thought maybe she'd let me take it from her so I can at least dispose of it, so I head towards her, hand out, telling her to drop it. In the house, she drops whatever we tell her to - but a bunny is entirely different. Rather than drop it, she started to chew it. The more I asked for it, the quicker she chewed until she gave a big swallow and uh, bunny was all gone. 

Eleanor's done this before, so it wasn't entirely new to me - but its still pretty disgusting. I love bunnies and used to have them as pets when I was a kid. So the first couple times she caught a bunny it was really hard for me, but I just have to remind myself she is a dog and dogs will eat things like that. Its nature. Its kind of like her own version of the RAW diet that others feed their dogs.

The entire time this was going on, Franklin was oblivious. He was watching her a little bit kind of like, what's going on? But he mostly just puttered around the yard doing his own thing. Poor little simple Franklin....

I did get the dogs out of the yard and do a full search for more bunnies and their nest. I didn't find anymore bunnies, but I found their nest so I dismantled it so they have to go live somewhere else now. Before I did any of that though, I did a quick internet lookup to see what would be the best thing to do. Turns out because of the size of the bunny, he was supposedly kicked out of the nest anyway and told to live on his own. I guess he wasn't quite ready. Poor little bunny.

Contented sigh...

We know what our baby is :) We had the OB appointment yesterday morning and they were able to tell with 99% certainty what little Baby Koch is going to be. The ultrasound part lasted for like maybe 30-45 minutes, it seemed to go on forever. She was taking all sorts of measurements and stuff and it was taking her longer because we have a wiggly baby. And along with be wiggly, the baby was also sucking - how cool. It is just amazing to me to be able to see all that going on inside my belly. Trippy man.

I'm purposely continuing to refer to baby as baby rather than by a pronoun because there are still a few people we want to tell yet. I told my mom and we told Lance's mom yesterday, both were beyond happy for us. Knowing what baby is, is weird, I was very sure I wanted to not know and be surprised, but now I'm glad I know. I'm so excited :) 

This afternoon I am heading to Wisconsin for a little mini bonding session, today through Sunday. My mom and sisters came out to see me in June and I had such a good visit with them, I had to arrange and find time to go back home to visit some more. My Boston sister is also back in Wisconsin for a couple weeks visiting her mom. She and Wayne are going to come to mom's house on Saturday for a bbq and mini family reunion of sorts. I'm not sure what all they're doing while they're in town, but at least I have an opportunity to see them on Saturday. It will be nice to be able to spend some time talking with them, hopefully much less sad than our last visit at Dad's funeral in April. I'm anxious and nervous at the same time. 

But I am very much looking forward to spending some time with mom. Its going to be weird to be home and not have Dad in the house, but its what mom has dealt with every day. Okay, I can't type about that anymore, I'm already starting to cry. If it weren't for these hormones, I'd be able to hold my shit together better.

Lance is staying home with the dogs, given the cost of gas, and the cost of boarding the babies at the spa its more economical for just one of us to travel. I get it, but its still too bad that he won't be able to spend some time getting to know Boston sister. But, at least he's finally met her, lol.

The crackers, my god the crackers!

I've heard about pregnancy hormones, but its one of those things that you hear and are like, uh-huh whatever. Meaning, I didn't really believe in them. I just thought it was an excuse for women to be really bitchy and just blame it on hormones. K, I believe in them now.

Lance and I had gone out for our now traditional Saturday lunch time bucket 'o shrimp at the Waterfront. You can get a whole big bucket of shrimp there for half price on Saturdays! Awesome deal. There is no better lunch than shrimp and a salad on the side, AND it is very good/healthy for baby. But anyway, Lance had ordered a cup of soup and with the soup they brought this basket of crackers. As we're eating and talking and almost at the end of our meal I start fiddling with the basket of crackers. I had a memory flash of going out to eat with my grandparents and them always either eating the crackers or putting them in their purse to take home. I was telling Lance this and was like, isn't it weird that they used to eat crackers at a restaurant? All of a sudden, with no warning, I burst into tears. The crackers had pushed me over the edge. To be fair, it was the memories of my grandparents, the crackers just triggered it all. I could not get the sobbing under control, it was the kind where you are crying into hiccups and the tears are just streaming down your face. I feel bad for the diners around us, they were probably wondering what on earth had happened to me.

Lance kept talking to me in soothing tones, telling me its okay, its okay. I'm like, you gotta get me out of here. He paid and ushered me outside where I continued to sob and sob. In the car a-ways down the road, I was finally able to pull it together. Holy cow, no more thinking about crackers OR grandparents during this pregnancy. 

A Henry Story

Its been awhile, so its time for another little baby Henry story. Actually, we're going to have to stop calling him that, because I think he may be a 20 pounder now...he's neither little, nor a baby anymore.

So, working on the house, all the screens have been taken off to be scraped, repaired, painted, and re-screened. I did my part - I painted them all! But because we're screen-less, I went and got a few of those temporary expandable screens to put in the windows. This story is from maybe a month or so ago, because if was fairly comfortable outside and I wanted the windows open - now its just hot and I want the air on :)

Anyway, I'm in the kitchen ready to put in my first temporary screen and Henry jumps up onto the counter to see what I'm doing. He pays very close attention to my every move. At the time, I thought weird, its almost like he is studying me -but whatever. So I open the window, insert the screen, expand it out to the right width and then pull the window down on top of the screen. Turns out the window is a just a titch wider than the screen, so it didn't fit super tight, but certainly well enough.

I then move away from the window and am doing something else in the kitchen when I see Henry out of the corner of my eye. I stop what I'm doing to watch him. He went up to the screen, sat down, put a paw out to the screen and tapped. I see him go, tap, tap, tap, slide. Just to reiterate, he tap tapped a couple times on the screen and then slid it open! He WAS studying me!! Freaking cat opened the window. This cat never ceases to amaze me. Even though he has a tendency to be very naughty, he also seems to be brilliant at times.

The Woz

I was out in Vegas last week for a work conference. Whew, it was freaking HOT out there!! For whatever reason I felt compelled to walk from my hotel (The Palazzo) to The Bellagio. Preggers, and 107 degrees don't go well together. When I finally made it to the Bellagio, I had to sit in their lobby for awhile taking in the A/C. Lance told me out of all hotels to see there, I should try and see the fountains at the Bellagio because they're so pretty. So I got most of the sweat wiped away and I started wandering around the hotel looking for these pretty fountains. I saw a pretty ceiling, a pretty inside garden, but no pretty fountains. huh?

I wasn't about to ask anybody, because it seemed like something I should probably just know. After wandering around for awhile, I decided I needed to conserve my energy for the hike back rather than continuing to hunt down these elusive fountains. I got back outside and realized, hey, there is like this really big lake here...looking closer, I saw there were these strips running all over the bottom of it. Putting 2 and 2 together, I realized THAT was where these pretty fountains were supposed to be - but they weren't even freaking turned on! $@&%*@!

About an hour later, I made it back to my room to lay down and put my feet up - they had gotten all swollen after that little adventure.

BUT, later that day, my conference started and the keynote was given by Mr. Steve Wozniak - woohoo! Having been to see Mr. Steve Jobs numerous times, I expected to have to wait in line to get in the room, at least a little bit. But this conference was more of an application specific type deal rather than a full fledged geek-fest. When I got to the keynote room an hour and a half before it was supposed to start, the hallway was empty. EMPTY! Do these people not know who the Woz is?? So on the floor I sat, waiting for the crowds to come, but they never did. When the doors opened about 30 minutes prior to speech time, I was in the door and at the front of the room before I could even blink. Front and center! As it got closer to start time, the room actually filled all the way up. The Woz came in on a Segway and zoomed around the room for awhile before taking the stage. After his speech, I stood in a surprisingly short line to meet him and get him to sign his book for me. That was pretty fucking cool :) I told him years ago on a trip to California, I drove by THE garage and he laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about.

The peeing, the yelling, the crying... (in that order)

It took me a few days to get over my euphoria of having seen Tom Waits to be able to write about it. Settle in...its a long one :)

So, we picked up our friend diddly do at 7:30am, dropped both the dogs off at the spa and were on the road around 8ish. Given all the rains and flooding, we weren't entirely sure what to expect on our way down but turns out the Avenue of the Saints was just far enough away from the Mississippi that we were safe. Many pee breaks later (see pregnancy post below) we got to St. Louis!!

We went ahead and checked into our hotel and then napped and just vegged for a little bit before heading out to dinner and the show. Lance had never been to St. Louis before, but both diddly and I have. But my trips were so long ago I can't remember much other than the Arch and the Clydesdales. She said there was a pretty cool restaurant across the street from the Fox theatre, so we headed down there. She was right, there was a very cool restaurant right there! But it was about an hour wait and that wasn't going to work, it was a bit past 6, the show was at 8, and already there was a huge line for getting in the theatre.

Next door to this cool restaurant was another one called "Best Steak House" - hmm, really? We gave it a try anyway, I was hungry! (and had to pee) So we walk in and see this snaking line going through what looks like a pseudo cafeteria line. How strange, yet ponderosa like. But within seconds of being in line there is all sorts of shouting. It seems like the shouting is coming from the grill cooks. But then, it also seems like the shouting is coming from the line of customers. Whatever, it was weird, I stopped trying to figure it out - must just be big city-ness. So then Sarah (diddly) says she doesn't want to be first in line, will somebody switch with her? Uh, sure - I can go first, no problem! About 5 minutes later I figure out why she doesn't want to be first...the grill cooks are yelling "NEXT" at each person in line, who in turn needs to "YELL" back their order. Uhhhhh. The scary guy starts yelling NEXT at me and I freeze. The guys in front of me turn around and are chuckling and say, its your turn - I'm like I don't want to! After the scary guy yelled at me again, I made Lance yell back my order. So the yelling continues on down the line, and we inch our way to the front to get our food. I thought the worst was over, but when we got to the way front to pick up our food, the yelling was RIGHT THERE. Even though they weren't yelling at us, they were most certainly yelling through us! It is worth noting that the food was actually more than decent. I can't speak for the steak, but it looked like a lot of people ordered steak...

On to Tom :)  We cross the street and get in line around 7pm. Because we had the up close fancy seats, our tickets were at the will call window so we had to be in line. It moved pretty fast though, so within minutes we were in our seats and patiently waiting. Like I said, it was supposed to have started at 8, but because people were still streaming in and being seated, it didn't actually start until 8:45. Apparently the line outside had gotten much longer and slower. He came on stage full of energy and started stomping and epileptic-ing like good ole Tom. I think for at least the first 5 songs I was sitting, literally, on the edge of my seat with my mouth open. After awhile, I settled back in my seat to be more comfortable. He made me laugh, giggle, hoot and holler, and cry all within the first 10 minutes. We had great seats, row L, so pretty close - I could see his face!!

The show itself lasted about 2 hours, which considering he is 58, is pretty good! And rather than play all the songs from his latest Orphans, he was all over the place, playing songs from all his records. What a treat!! I got to hear so many of my favorites, it was just unbelievable to me. I can't think of enough adjectives to describe how utterly fabulous this show was. He came back for a 3 song encore, the last song being Innocent When You Dream - probably my 2nd favorite Tom song...the tears were just streaming down my face uncontrollably. It was so beautiful. I'm not sure if I would have been as emotional being not pg, or if it was the hormones, or if it was just that I love Tom so much...hard to say. But after the show, Sarah said she cried too.  :)

We hit the road right away in the morning and got back home the next afternoon. Our little mini-vacation was over way too fast. But it was so worth it.

A bun? In the oven? Us?

That's right - we got ourselves a bun in the oven, just a cooking away! We're totally pregnant!! :)

I'm 14 weeks along now so we're out of the woods so to speak and are able to tell everyone our good news. I actually found out back on April 21st. I'd been feeling really crummy and finally went to the doctor, my diagnosis was bronchitis and a baby. LOL

So far, the friends and family we've told have been a little more than surprised. We'd been so anti-baby for so long. But actually we were secretly on the baby wagon talking stages for about a year now. Started trying for a baby the 1st of this year, so we did pretty good, didn't take us long at all. Guess you'd call us fertile! Old, but fertile.

We've seen the little critter in there, have heard it's heartbeat and so far all is well. The first ultrasound we had was really wild. As soon as the lady got the image up on the screen we could see arms and legs flailing like crazy, it was totally dancing in there. The second ultrasound it was pretty still except for the hiccups. Who knew fetuses could get the hiccups? How funny... And, other than being completely exhausted and unable to keep my eyes open at times, I'm doing really well. I haven't had any morning sickness at all!! I think people are almost disappointed when they hear me tell them that. But then they seem to feel better when I add, oh I do sometimes feel a little nauseous. Usually it passes though within minutes, and I'm hungry again. In fact, I would like some mashed potatoes right now.

Mmm, Tom

I can't believe it took me this long to post this - but holy cow, I get to go see Tom Waits in concert again! When we were living in Minneapolis (in sin, prior to marriage), Tom did one of his rare tours in 1999 and we were lucky enough to get to go. It was my best concert EVER. I think I watched the whole thing with my mouth open and a goofy grin on my face, he does that to me... We only have to drive as far as St. Louis, that's not too bad. It could have been worse, it could have been Phoenix.

Here is his press conference announcing this itty bitty tour, its awsome!!!

Its just a few short weeks away, and I am so pumped. Diddly doo is also a BIG fan of the Tom, so she is going to carpool with us down there - she's more of a fun-haver then we are, so she's going to stay in the city and party while we high-tale it back here to get our dogs out of hock and continue work on the house.

Sigh....work on the house. One side is almost all the way done being painted. I remember old boss-man being teased about how long it takes to paint a house and turns out, it really does take a long time. 'specially when said house is a freaking behemoth. But what is painted looks absolutely beautiful. The front of the house project is somewhat done, we've got stairs now. We just don't have a soffit, and suddenly have a hole in our front porch floor - but I'm not going to talk about that :) Instead, I'm going to just breathe, and think of Tom....

Our friend Jeff and Franklin, after having eaten the door...
Looking closely, you can see Eleanor in the background looking for any leftover crumbs on the coffee table, and little baby Henry laying on the back of the couch.

He is something alright

And by he, I mean Franklin. When he is naughty, he is just so sweet, its hard to be mad at him. Example - this weekend we had a couple friends over for grill. Franklin and Eleanor were on very good behavior and played well in front of our friends, no growling or barking or anything scary. (198lb-er and 145lb-er play growling can come across as scary) But when it came time to eat, we shuffled the dogs outside to the yard so we wouldn't get drool in our food. We could hear Franklin 'crying' and making sad noises that he got sent outside, but we just ignored him. That's one of the differences in those two dogs, Eleanor is content to spend hours outside enjoying the breeze, the leaves, the whatever - Franklin does his potty and then needs to come right back in to be with his people. Awwww :)

So...we were close to being done eating and about to let him inside anyway, when we heard scratching on the back door. That's weird, there is a screen door and a whole porch between Franklin and our backdoor. Not anymore, he ate the door!!

Well, to be fair, he ate most the door....enough that he was able to get it open and let himself on the porch. How funny, but how naughty. Now that's one more thing Lance has to add to his "do this summer" list.

Black kitty has already discovered the broken screen door and made a break for it. Once the weather warms up, the kitties somehow know it and start crouching by the doors. So anytime a door is opened, you need to be ready with your hand at counter level to stop them and your foot at floor level to stop them. If you forget, black kitty will dart past you meowing his way to victory. Lance was caught unprepared the other day and George made it all the way to the backyard.

Back on track

K, I’m back now...I’ve been down for almost a couple weeks now, finally went to the doctor – turns out I have the bronchitis. I missed a bunch of work because I just couldn’t stop sleeping and when I wasn’t sleeping I was hacking up some serious lung butter. Once he gave me my medicine, I started to feel better right away. My lung butter is still there and is being pretty persistent at times, but at least I no longer feel the need to stay curled up in bed.

I haven’t given a kitty story in awhile so – when we left town all quick like to get to Wisconsin, we weren’t sure for how long we’d be gone or what we should do about the kitties. Lance had set out a couple bowls of food, which for 3 cats is probably realistically 3 days worth of food – we were gone Wednesday am to Sunday pm, so 5 days. Not enough time for them to have starved, but long enough that I’m sure they got angry. We do have some pretty ambitious kitties though, so the lack of food did not hold them down. When we walked into the house, all three of them milled around our feet....then I saw their ambitiousness. I blame Henry and George, Mesa has never been one to do anything out of the kitty-norm. But the two boy kitties had gotten on top of the fridge and brought down our bags of chips, bags of bread, bags of buns, and had a feast right there on the floor. I’ve seen what George will do to a bag if we leave it in his reach, its like he takes out all pent up frustration on the bag. In seconds flat, he’ll have a crazy amount of tooth puncture holes all over the bag. This time though, he didn’t just masacre the bags, he actually ate the contents! Little kitty tooth marks in the bread and buns. If it weren’t for the circumstances I would have yelled at the kitties, but I felt bad that they felt starved.

Later that same night when I sat down with jammies on to relax, little baby Henry jumped into my lap and threw himself down with such force that he actually foofed my hair! Its our routine that in the evenings, he gets in my lap and has mom-time, he gets his belly rubbed, he gets coo’d to, he snores... I think he was upset that he didn’t get his lap time for many nights in a row, not upset enough to stay OUT of my lap, but enough that he had to show me.

Dad

It took me awhile to be able to write this, but today's blog is yesterday's therapeutic journal.

On April 2nd, my Dad died. I had gone to work that morning, it was a regular routine day for me and I had just finished making my morning espresso when my cell phone rang and I saw it was one of my sisters. My heart did that little jump thing it does when your phone rings at 2am, like you know something is wrong. It isn't very common for them to call me, much less during the day like that so I was scared. When I answered, it was Pam and she sounded funny, she told me my Dad was sick and that she was going to put mom on the phone. Mom got on and I could hear in her trying to be tough voice that she was scared and I needed to come home.

I had to interrupt my boss from a meeting, but told her I needed to leave right now because my Dad was in the hospital and I wasn't sure what it all meant. She understood the urgency and told me to go, somewhere in there I got ahold of Lance and told him what I knew and that I was going home to pack and hit the road. We met up at home, packed up random things, dropped the dogs off at the spa and were on the road. I called mom back to let her know we were on our way and to try and see what was happening. She told me that Dad was 911'd in to the hospital last night because collapsed and she couldn't get him back up, they found he had a really high temperature and that they think his appendix had burst and so his other organs were beginning to fail and shut down. The doctors had told her surgery wasn't an option because he wouldn't be able to withstand it, so for now they were keeping him comfortable. Well, I knew what that meant, we needed to hurry and there was a chance we wouldn't get there in time. I asked her if she wanted me to call anyone for her that should be called, and she asked that I let Theresa know.

Just to recap a little, Dad had three kids from a previous marriage (Theresa, Mike, and Paul) and Mom had three kids from a previous marriage (Pam, James, and Karen), then they got together and had me. Theresa and Mike moved out East and while Theresa had contact with Mom and Dad, I don't know that Mike did and I know for certain Paul never did. So, for me to call Theresa was a big thing, I had no idea how to get ahold of her, especially during the daytime when she'd be at work. I called Lance's mom for help, I told her I knew Theresa worked with her husband in a business they owned and a couple towns near their home I thought it might be in. Thanks to google, she found them and I got ahold of them. I can't even remember how many years its been since I talked to Theresa and to call her with this news was beyond sad on many levels.

We made the 300 mile drive in record time, Lance was averaging 90 most of the way, but when we got there and I called Pam to tell me where to go at the hospital, something told me we didn't make it. Pam and Karen met me in the lobby to take me up and told me then, that Dad had passed away about 20 minutes ago. I had prepared myself for that, telling myself that Dad was already surrounded by alot of family and that if I didn't get there in time, it would be okay. We went up to the room and it was so sad, so final. We stayed there for just a few minutes more and then went straight to the funeral home to begin arrangements.

The days following and leading up to the funeral were just a whirlwind and a blur, surrounded by people, taking care of all the arrangements, it seemed to go by quickly, but at the same time, it seemed to go on forever. Pam and Karen and I went through photo albums to pull out pictures and make those photo boards that people do at funerals. Personally, I really like the photo board thing, it gives you a candid look at various times in that person's life. Looking through all the photos brought back all sorts of memories, and hearing both Pam and Karen tell me how much my Dad loved me and doted on me when I was little, made me remember times I hadn't thought about in a long time. I was a Daddy's girl, through and through, he took me everywhere and I did so many things with him. I'm pretty sure he got me anything I wanted, one day he came home with a piano because I wanted one. Another day, he came home with a horse, because every little girl wants a pony. Though, the pony, I did save my pennies for and I remember very clearly, ME buying the horse with my pennies. I'm sure though, it was probably, like a couple dollars of pennies, but that didn't matter. I remember alot of fishing trips with Dad, and I had my very own pole. Again, I know now, that he took me to a stocked pond so I'd be sure to catch something, but it was the bonding time that mattered.

When I was 10, Dad got sick. We've all always referred to it as 'got sick', nobody really knows what it was. Dad developed some kind of mysterious brain illness that no doctor was able to identify and so couldn't treat and make go away. He became a very different Dad than the one I grew up with and became stuck in the past. As I aged through the years, it would confuse him to see me, because to him, I was supposed to still be 10 - the age I was when he got sick. I don't know how Mom did it, she found the strength and the courage to stand by him and care for him all these years. He wouldn't often talk, but if you asked him a question, he would answer. There were a couple times a year when it seemed like he would break through the cloud surrounding him and the old Dad would come out and he'd be his old-self, wise-cracking and just being silly.

Mom was very strong through all those years, so it wasn't surprising to me that she continued to be strong for the funeral preparations. It meant alot to me that she asked for my input on so many things and added in the little things I really wanted. Dad was a Catholic and became more active in religion when I was about 8, I remember him taking me to mass with him and teaching me the differences between Catholic and Lutheran. It was important to me that he have his St. Christopher in his pocket in the casket. The funeral was hard, as all funerals are. But loosing a parent is really hard. It meant so much to me to see all of his friends from the old days come. Most of those people I hadn't seen since I was like 10, but I remembered all their faces and can remember our families all hanging out together. Good times.

Theresa came back for the funeral. Inside, I knew she would, and I also knew that neither Mike nor Paul would come for it. Like they always say, it is great to see all these people, but not under these circumstances. I did get to spend some time with Theresa and her husband Wayne, which I really did appreciate. Lance and I have been married now for almost 7 years and this was the first time they got to meet. When I was in my teens, I went out to stay with Wayne and Theresa a few times on my Spring Breaks and I always looked forward to that and thoroughly enjoyed my time with them. Seeings how we have the same Dad, it seems we should know more about one another and see each other more, but that isn't how it is. Maybe someday that will change. I think Dad would want me to try again and reach out to them.

With Dad's kids for the most part, out of the picture, he took Mom's kids on as his own. Pam and Karen treated him like a real Dad, not like a step-dad and I'm sure he really loved that. I think Dad's dying was as hard for Pam and Karen as it was for me, he was a Dad to us all.

I'm grateful I had such a loving Dad and I'm grateful to have had him for as long as I did. While he was different in my later years, he was still my Dad. I will miss him, but I will also always have my memories of how much he loved me.

Time to open those 'healed wounds'

And by that, I mean its time for us to start work on the house again. We’d focused all our efforts on the inside of the home back when we bought it and moved in (Jan of '06). This spring, summer, and fall are dedicated to the outside of the home. It needs and will get: painted, new sidewalk, new front stoop, roof and soffit patchup, and whatever else comes along.

I think enough time has passed that I’ve somewhat forgotten how mentally exhausting (not to mention physically) it all was. Time to go at it again and see how we fare. I’ve gotten to a point now where I can almost joke about how awful it was, when people say something will cost say $1,000...I now know that *really* means I have no idea but it will probably be at least 5x that. And that my idea of timelines and timeframes have no business in rehabbing. Hmm, I think I’m still a little bitter! Lol.

Seriously though, I’m going to truly try to go into this with a more flexible mindset, so I’m not freaking out all the time when deadlines aren’t met and budgets are seriously blown. Thinking back, almost makes me want a valium-laced vodka cocktail right now, it was that anxiety filled –but Lance and I can get through it, we will persevere!!! (just keep swimming, just keep swimming). It is no secret that I have a short fuse, but when Lance’s fuse got tripped last time....that was big. It takes a lot to get him angry, (one of many reasons he is the ying to my yang) but he got angry. But we have learned a lot about things and will hopefully have better luck with contracts/etc. this time around.

On the positive side, it is exciting to me that the house will now be pretty on the outside. As they say on the TV, its all about curb appeal. And since our renter goes away at the end of this summer and we’ll be renter-hunting, it is only wise to make it appealing to those on a drive by checking the place out.

The scaffolding is in place and the scraping has begun, woohoo! Scraping outside paint, so far, is still yucky work, but WAY better than scraping the 16 layers of paint and wallpaper that was inside the house. Its also no secret that I am a big klutz, so this business of scaffolding has me a little on edge. I once fell off one step and broke both feet – ONE step – BOTH feet, makes me wonder what a tumble off the scaffolding holds.... But we won’t think about that :) Teri reminded me that any time spent on the scaffolding needs to be on the buddy system, advice I will totally heed.

Seriously...

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Spring Break!

This coming week is Spring Break!! Not that it really means anything to me, other than I'll be pretty lonely at work what with all the campus away. As a real student I totally looked forward to spring break, but as a grown up student its pretty much like any other week - boo for me.

The gray is continuing his antics. We've found he loves Grandma Marge and Grandpa Don. In cleaning and sorting we came across a photo of the two of them and because we weren't sure where we were going to put it, it ended up staying on the coffee table. Next day, I'm sitting on the couch and Henry, quick as a flash, jumps on the table, grabs the photo (in his mouth) and shoots off across the room. I chased him and got it away from him :) Hoping it may have been just a fluke thing, I put the photo back on the table, but he went right back after them again. I suppose it is sweet really, he just wants to be close to them.

On the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door....

My new favorite song.

though it is a toss up with this one too

I can sometimes really be on the ball, but I'm a bit behind when it comes to these. I'd heard grumblings but didn't pay close attention and didn't know what all the fuss was about. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, they're freaking hilarious!!!

blast from the past

I had a very pleasant surprise a couple days ago - I got an email out of the blue from a long lost friend. Well, he was more of a friend of Lance's to be technical about it, but I'd consider him one of mine too. He's all grow-ed up now and even a father. Its funny to remember back to those years when we hung out, it seems like a lifetime ago. Makes me think about some of the others I hung out with back then and wonder what they are up to. Only a couple of them have withstood the test of time and are still really close friends, unfortunately so many have moved away and we've lost touch. Whenever we start to reminisce and talk about 'back then' I can't help but remember Lori, the cat, and the cupboard. That is a story I will always remember and chuckle at...ahhh, Lori :)

On the school front, I have another test coming up on Tuesday. This weekend will be all about studing, woohoo. Freaking trig, it is almost over though. I just keep thinking of it in baby steps. They've released the schedules for Summer and Fall already, so I'm browsing and thinking of my upcoming classes. My goal is to obviously get this degree done and out of the way as quickly as possible, but I keep getting distracted by all those interesting courses that I would love to take yet have nothing to do with my chosen path.

Now on to the kitties that have lately been referred to as 'those cats'. The gray one is just continually naughty. To his credit, he hasn't eaten any fish since the Betta incident of '07. He has started a new little habit though...he's always had this weird fascination with water. I've always thought cats hated anything to do with water, unless it was in their designated kitty water bowl. This one however, comes running anytime he hears you turn on a faucet! His new habit is following me into the bathroom, jumping up into the sink, and staring at me until I turn the faucet on for him. Once the water starts running, he is happy as a clam - drinking out of it, batting at it, trying to catch it. Then, after a couple minutes of this, he'll stare at me again but with an added purr. I flip the drain plug (because that's what he's trained me to do) and he proceeds to splash in the little puddle. He'll let out another purr-meow when the puddle has reached a sufficient size and I turn off the water and let him have his fun in the sink.

The black one we now know is the official sock stealer. I had blamed Henry for the longest time because it seemed the logical choice. But it is George. We still wake up to socks scattered around the house, and come home to more socks scattered around. I have caught George in the act finally. One night I was sitting up in the den on the computer when I heard George meowing and crying like they do when they've caught a mouse. I went downstairs to see what he had, and it turns out he'd caught a sock. He was circling it and meowing at it. What is especially odd about this is that George leaves Lance's socks completely alone - he only goes after mine! Another thing I always thought about cats was that they were color blind. But George makes me think otherwise because my socks are mostly polka-dotted, striped, argyle, super fun colors and that seems to be what draws him to them. The few brown or black socks that I do have are never brought up from the basement as kill. He must take his time browsing through the laundry basket for just the right sock, lol.

These cats are by far the strangest cats I have ever had...

I did good!

I meant to write about this as soon as it happened, but I get distracted. I had my first test in my Algebra course this last week. I studied and studied and even recruited some assistance using my calculator from one of those teenagers. I was certain it was broken as I had entered in what I was supposed to but each time I hit that stupid 'graph' button I would get an error. 5 seconds in the hands of Callie and waalaa, there's my graph. Turns out it wasn't broken at all, I had just inadvertently entered some weird numbers on a different screen. Calculators these days are advanced...

Anyway, I got an 86% on my test - woohoo! I felt I had done pretty well, knew there were a couple questions I was confused on, but overall felt good. Only 4 more tests to go, hopefully I can keep it up. I've got this math course to finish and then the next one to check off is Calculus. I can then consider my relationship with math over.

Van Halen IS cool!

I've always heard my husband say this and go on and on about Eddie Van Halen being the shit on guitar, but it was one of those things that went in one ear and out the other. I just was never much of a fan, sure I knew the main songs - but I was a bit under the curve for when they were popular. Lance though, was a teen and I can picture him doing the air guitar thing...

Anyway, through no fault of my own, I ended up at the concert. We had great seats, on the floor, right up front - like I've told others, I could see their sweat!! The weather here was awful and 2 friends that had planned to go with him couldn't, so diddly do and I stepped up and went instead. It was really kinda funny, she and I had just been saying the weekend before that neither of us really liked them and so were just fine not going along. I have to admit though, I'm totally glad I got Russ's seat - they rocked! I was way surprised at how great they sounded. The drummer dude was pretty freaky looking, but both Eddie and David looked awesome and they were both into going shirtless. I found myself watching David Lee Roth thinking, wow, Teri went to the VMAs with him....that's so cool! And I can totally picture it :) Our friend Teri mentioned that awhile ago like it was no big deal and so I didn't really think it was. But after having seen them, I'm thinking I need to ask her some more details about that.

So, moral here is - turns out everyone was right, they rock!

lyrics that I just spit out cracker to

I was just working away, doing some strange formatting in Excel, munching on a cracker when a Tom Waits song came on. (not unusual considering my obsession) I had to stop for a minute and listen, I then spit out a little cracker....its that funny!

Thanks, uh... You know uh, this is weird uh...
Most of us have dogs, allright? (applause)
I don't know if it's a local thing where I live, or if it's everywhere, and I'm checking it with you because uh, I don't get in the area that often and I'm just checking to see if...
There's a new kind of a dog treat. And uh (where I live) and they're available in the pet store and for the longest time I just thought that it was some kind of a prank. Or uh...
I wasn't really sure what it was, until I read the label on the back and it said "Bull Penis" (laughter).
I was a little shocked! I know you can get just about ANYTHING in this world.
You can get a whale's pancreas if you'd want one! I can get you one! (laughter)
But com'on, a bull's penis! How busy they were their whole lives.
And they throw it to a dog, like that, for a snack! (laughter)
Now, are they available here in the Los Angeles area? They are, aren't they?
Doesn't that make you a little weazy?
Makes you wanna live a long time.
And on the back, on the bottom it said: "100% natural"!
I mean... that's the part that really got me. And it said: "A Real Meat Snack".
There's just no dignity in that. Uh, anyway...
The other thing is that they're 36 inches long! (laughter).
They're so long they had to cut them into bite-size portions.
And then they take two of them and braid them together.
I know, I know! I never want it done. But uh...
This is a song written for Gregory Peck for his dating my mom...
That's a lie!

**this is a live recording of Dog Treat

College take two

College as a 'grown up' is WAY different than college as a teenager. Since I'm working at a University now, I may as well go ahead and finish my degree so that's what I'm doing. I started with a couple courses that were just web-based, so no actual going to class, rather just doing the work and turning it in online. This semester was my first back in the classroom class. Its an advanced algebra/trig and since I haven't had any math class in like 15 years, whoa. I look to be the only non-traditional student in my class, and that's okay. In fact, one of my new friends thought I was one of them and was surprised to hear I wasn't! That's pretty cool, lol.

Now I know one of the reasons why I partied so hard and well as a kid in college - it was to escape the crazy difficultness of school work! One day after a mind-numbing lecture session and feeling like I didn't know what the heck the professor was talking about, I was driving home thinking...I wanna do shots. I'm pretty sure I haven't done shots since before I got married and I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle a night out like I used to. So, I'll just have to buck up and go through school sober this time :)

It is funny though, talking with these teenagers - priorities are so different for them and listening to what boy didn't call, which party to go to that night, and what is THE best outfit to wear just makes me laugh inside. It makes me remember back to when I was a teenager with all the angst and the drama and holy cow, I'm so glad of where I am now. College was alot of fun for me, but I like my life now much more. Call me old, but I like having a husband, a house, responsibilities, being in jammies after suppertime.. In fact, I have it made - I come home after a day of work and then school and Lance has got supper ready for me, couldn't ask for more!

Franklin's manhood

Franklin is no longer a boy...he got THE surgery yesterday. As a mastiff, it is better to wait until they are full grown before having the neuter done unlike all the other dog breeds. At 15 months and ~190lbs we figure he ought to be full grown, so in he went. I was, of course, nervous and had to have Lance drop him off because I always hate saying goodbye and leaving him at the vet even though I know they love him there. His surgery was scheduled for 9am and about 11am I got a call telling me everything had gone just fine and he was waking up, doing well. The woman was very kind on the phone and talked about how very sweet he was and that because he is so big, they didn't have any crates to hold him! So they put him in an exam room with the door open and a baby gate so he could see everything. I neglected to tell her he eats baby gates....

A few hours later I got another call from the vet. This time she was giggling and said that Franklin was snoring, snoring so loud that the entire building could hear him. She held the phone out for me to hear, and yep, he was snoring. I had to chuckle and tell her that yep, he snores...he snores loud. In fact, the more comfy he gets, the louder he snores. So I can only imagine how 'comfy' he is being drugged up!!

He got the pampered treatment while he was there, I have no doubt. Who doesn't like a person-sized, snoring, drooling dog?? They also told me that for his overnight stay he was going to get one of the spa-rooms in the resort section, again because the vet-side didn't have large enough crates for him. So he got to spend the night in a big bedroom with a heated floor, tv, snuggy bed and window. Yes, he is spoiled.

I think Eleanor wasn't overly concerned about where Franklin had gone last night. She did seem to look for him a couple times, but for the most part I think she was happy to see it was back to just her. She got special alone time with us like before he came along, wonder what she'll think tonight when he comes back home. LOL

First time caucusing

I've never been one to be overly involved in politics. But since we live in Iowa and Iowa is all about a caucus we both decided we would participate this year. What an experience! I was completely surprised by the turnout, the school library we were all crowded into was just packed. Two hours later and all the vote counts were final and we got what we wanted, Obama way in front of the Hillary. It was really something to be a part of it and to see everyone show their support for who they truly believed in. I surprised myself by flipping on the news as soon as we got home to watch the rest of the results roll in.

Go Obama! :)