Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Friendship



I failed miserabley at the July photo challenge, but wanted to include this picture for the 30th's prompt: friendship. This is me with my circle of friends from college...they were all able to attend my shower this past Saturday. It meant the world to me to have them there...we realized it's been just over 7 years since we were all together in the same place! I am so blessed to call them my friends. :)

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

It's a list kind of day...

I thiought I'd give you some updates on "stuff" going on...it's bullet-point style as I am currently working on my to-do list here at work. :)
(Yes, I am procrastinating by posting right now.)

  • The plumber came to the house today...I do not know the damage yet, but the leak by the street has been repaired and we have discovered why our water pressure in the house has been all over the place. Our water softener is no longer functioning properly...another thing to add to the list of repairs to be done.
  • The contractor has been contacted and he'll be starting the work in the house on August 5th! I am so excited. :) That means no more popcorn ceilings in the formal living room or what will be the nursery. Our goal is to have the nursery ready to go no later than Sept. 1st...I am hoping we'll be able to move that date up.
  • J and I leave tomorrow to head home to MA. I cannot wait to see all of my family. I am a little anxious about the baby shower. I am not really a fan of being the center of attention. Thankfully, it's a "Jack and Jill" party so J will be there with me.
  • We are going to visit J's dad's grave site for the first time while we are home. I am anxious about this too...I know it's going to be really tough on J.
  • I had my work baby shower yesterday...it was fun and odd all at the same time. One of my co-workers was super anxious to cut into the cake. We had a bundt cake and "bundt-tinis" (almost like bundt cupcakes)...people started in on the bundt-tinis while I was still eating lunch. Next thing I know my co-worker asked if I was ready to cut into the cake. So I put down my pizza and cut into the cake so she could have her slice. I have some really nice co-workers and I have some odd ones too.
  • We got back the results from Garnett's most recent blood work - it's all normal! He needs to have his blood checked every 6-12 months due to the medications he's on for his seizures. I don't think I've mentioned it but he's been seizure-free for the last 7 months!! We are getting him to the neurologist next month for a check-up.
  • I am still dealing with "stuff" from my accident in April. Last month I received a letter/invoice from TX DoT for the damage caused by the accident...I called the insurance rep and she said she'd "take care of it". Well, yesterday, I received a postcard saying we missed a certified letter delivery from TX DoT...guess it was not taken care of. I've tried all day to get in touch with her and have not had any luck.
Time for me to get back to my to-do list...

Hope you are all having a Wonderful Wednesday!!

I leave you with Garnett then and now pictures. :)


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

One more time...

Can you see the differences in these two pictures??



Pretty amazing how two plants are nice and green and flowering when the rest of our flowers are not looking so hot thanks to the drought and the lack of rain. Last night I was outside with J while he was watering the yard and we started commenting on how the plants were not looking so good even after having some rain last week. Then I looked towards the street and noticed the two plants that were flowering. Instead of being amazed this time around I said to J - OMG - check the water, we must have a leak again. So J removed the cover where the water meter is located and sure enough there was a leak!! The same thing happened to us last summer except we did not realize it until we opened up our $300 water bill!! So that means another call to the plumber. :(

Just this weekend J and I were patting ourselves on the back on how we've been actually building up our "emergency" fund and how we have a little extra money for when we go home to MA this week. Guess we'll see just how much "extra" money there is after we write that check to the plumber.

Seriously...Murphy's Law needs to forget our name for awhile!!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Sigh of relief

I was patiently waiting to hear from Dr. W's office regarding the results from my blood work on Friday afternoon. Once I hit day #3 without a phone call or email I decided to send a quick email. I only had to wait about an hour to hear back...all the results from my blood work on Friday came back NORMAL!! Phew!!  HUGE sigh of relief over here. No low iron levels (I was concerned about this as I've noticed myself munching on ice cubes lately.) and most important - NO signs of gestational diabetes!! Looks like I'll keep up with my cruciferous veggies and no/low carb diet as it's working. :)

I started my day with getting my teeth cleaned...in hind-sight I should have gone last month but at least I finally went. My gums have suffered thanks to the hormones but everything got a good cleaning today and I'll be breaking out the electric toothbrush tonight. To add some fun to the mix I get to start using warm salt water to rinse out my mouth each night and morning to help heal my gums.

Only one more week until we fly home to MA for our family/friend baby shower. I am truly in awe that we are going to get to do this!! :)


http://tippystocktonblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-sure-thing-at-shore-thing.html

 This is downtown Newburyport - the town that my Mom lives in...get wait to get there!! :)

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

July Photo Challenge - Bottle


Here is my "bottle" picture...Belikin beer in Belize. :) This was taken outside on the patio near our favorite room at the Sunbreeze Hotel. While we were there in May we bought a 6 pack to bring home so I can have my Belikin in September!!




A quick pregnancy update....(skip if it's easier for you)



I had a check-up on Friday afternoon...all went well. Dr. W is happy with how things are going; especially, my weight. Overall I am up only about 1-2 pounds from where I started. She said after giving birth I should be down about 25 pounds. I was shocked to hear that. J sent some text messages to Dr. A after our appointment to update him and he was also very happy with our progress. We are going to go visit him after our next appointment. It will be great to see him!

I asked about another ultrasound and Dr. W said normally she would not do one but Cinco is measuring about a week ahead so she is ordering one more. Phew! I really wanted to get to see him one more time. It was so odd to go from weekly u/s with Dr. A to "an needed" u/s with Dr. W. I am not surprised that Cinco is measuring big...my niece and nephews were each over 9lbs at birth, so I am expecting a 9+ lb baby!

I had the pleasure of going through my first glucose tolerance test on Friday. It was not quite as bad as I had expected. The glucola really reminded me of the juice we got as kids in the little plastic jugs with the foil tops. (Yes, I may have just dated myself and shown my age just a bit...oops!) I am still waiting to hear back regarding the results. The lab tech told me it can take 24-48 hours and no news is good news. Fingers crossed I passed!!

Friday, July 12, 2013

Happy Friday!!

I figured after yesterday's picture of my smoothie you deserved some much more appetizing pictures.
So I give you what I have been craving lately. It's really odd because I haven't had a lot of cravings. It's been more like "Ooh, I want that...must have it." I have it and the craving is gone. Of course, with the carb restrictions a lot of that has changed...no lemonade or ginger ale is allowed. :(

Here are my current cravings:

Moody's Diner Blueberry Pie:
The craving was bad enough that when I could not sleep last night I went on their website to see if they shipped their pies. Sadly they do not.
When we were younger we went to Maine every summer and went to Moody's several nights for dinner/dessert when we were there. SO GOOD!!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TGo3RnDnzrA/TEeUQUJHJJI/AAAAAAAAA0w/QRJFexsKDT8/s1600/Moody's+Blueberry+Pie+2+0685+copy.jpg

Moody's Diner 4 Berry Pie:
Just as yummy as their blueberry pie. :)
I used to make my own variation of this pie, except I also added cranberries for my SIL - she is obsessed with cranberries as I am with blueberries.
ttps://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/p480x480/526434_10151520542563788_1496954254_n.jpg

Garrett's Chicago Mix popcorn:
Truly, there is nothing like fresh Garrett's popcorn. Right now I would be happy with the shipped variety. We are thinking of requesting that when people come down in the fall that they get a connecting flight through O'Hare so I can have some popcorn. :)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/foodspotting-ec2/reviews/2627495/thumb_600.jpg?1351185757

 Blueberry muffins:
This is a picture made with the old Jordan Marsh recipe. This is the recipe my mom used when we were growing up. We were so lucky as kids...we had wild blueberries behind our house. There were mornings my Mom would go out early, pick the berries and back muffins before we were ever out of bed. When we were really young, before we knew about the blueberry bushes in the back yard, my mom would get us up early to go blueberry picking. We had to go super early so we got there before the mosquitoes woke up. :)

One of my brothers was in Maine last week on vacation...on his last day there I asked if he could find any blueberries for me. I figured if my Mom freezes them now then we can make muffins with the berries when I am home at the end of July. Unfortunately, he could not find any. I am hoping we'll be able to get some wild berries when we are home. I love, love, love them. :)
http://divaofdining.blogspot.com/


Thursday, July 11, 2013

July Photo Challenge - Smooth


I meant to take a picture of my smoothie before I started drinking it - thankfully, I remembered before it was completely gone! This morning's smoothie was a bit of a fail. I bought a new type of protein powder and do not like it at all. It reminds me way too much of Slim.Fast. :( In order to hide the flavor, I've been adding banana, peanut butter and cocoa powder. Well, this morning I decided to "treat" myself and use ovaltine instead of cocoa powder hoping to cut down on the "chalky" texture a bit. Really should have taken the 2 seconds to use a spoon instead of trying to shake some ovaltine into the cup. It got everywhere! Dumped at least a half of cup into the container, got it on the counter and probably some on the floor too. OOPS! Thankfully, I could scoop some out and the counter was easy to clean up. (Not always the case because we have "custom" aka DIY concrete countertops.) Fail #2 was forgetting my straw this morning...instead I had to use a coffee stirrer to drink the shake. Ah, the joys of cutting down on my carbs. hehe


Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Someday...


Someday...I want to live in this house in Ambergris Caye. We found it on the day we went on our golf cart adventure...it was south of town and overlooks the reef near where we go snorkeling. It was so pretty.

Someday...when I open my pageviews I won't see the post titled "Ironic" as one of the top-viewed posts. It currently has the most views of any post I've written...500. It breaks my heart everytime I see it. Somedays it surprises me how much losing Fred still hurts. This past weekend I heard the song that was being played during the transfer and had to shut it off. J thought it was kind of odd because not 30 seconds before I turned it off he commented on how he liked that song. I burst into tears. Thankfully, I got enough words out that he was able to understand why I shut it off. I wasn't just being hormonal and turning off a song he likes.

But that house...I want to live there. :) I'd have plenty of room in it so we could finally have our blogger meet-up in Belize!!

Monday, July 8, 2013

July Photo Challenge...Path

I thought participating in this photo challenge would help me blog more often...I was wrong. I am not going to try to catch up on the days I missed. I'll post pictures from the challenge throughout the month, but I have a feeling I won't be as consistent as I hoped.

Today's picture: Path




Here is a pic of J and Garnett on a "path" when we took one of walks in the woods last year. J and I laugh all the time that the "paths" are paved. Thankfully at the other park, they are not paved, just marked every 1/4 mile so you know you are still on the path. :)

Warning...bump pic ahead...please feel free to stop here if you'd like.















This is me from this morning... a picture of me on the "path" to motherhood. I was worried my shirt looked too tight but J told me I looked cute and was showing off my bump. Even though he really needed to get to work he wanted to be sure to get a picture of me before he left for the day. :)

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

It's official...

I am freaking out...

This will be a pregnancy freak-out post...please feel free to skip if you would like.

Today is the first day of the third trimester for me. Once we got past 10 weeks I knew it would be a strong possibility we'd get here but it always seemed so far away. Now it's here and I am freaking out. Yesterday I had two people at work ask me if we had the nursery set up yet. Um, nope...it's still a guest room, complete with clean laundry that needs to be put away. We worked on the closet a few weeks ago so we felt good that we had started but nothing has happened since then. We have plans of stripping away the popcorn ceiling and taking down the paneling; then we'd like to hire someone to come in and hang the sheetrock for us. We've received two recommendations for people to do the sheetrock work...J has called both of them...we actually met one of them in person when we went to the rodeo over Memorial Day weekend. Have either of them called back? Of course not!! Now I am looking on Craigs.list but do really trust someone from CL to come in to do the work?

Next freak out was me looking at the child birth class schedule...there are 6 seats left for the class on Aug. 8th...next class after that is Sept. 5th...I feel like if we wait til then we are pushing it. We could try for July but that would be on J's birthday.

I also let myself panic this morning about my next two doctors appointments...they are scheduled for July 12 and Aug 2nd. Everything I read online this morning seemed to indicate that I should be at bi-monthly appointments now. Hmm...do I ask about it at my appt next week or do I email now?

I've been having a hard time falling asleep at night thinking about all that needs to be done. The smallest things can cause panic to set in. The other night I started to get upset because we did not have any cheese in the house. Really, cheese?? Jason pointed out that we did have cheese but to me it was not the right kind. What if I wanted some to eat (without crackers of course because of the carbs! lol)...

Sorry for the super panicky post but that's where I am at right now...hoping to calm down any moment now.
I think I'll start a to-do list for our long weekend. Our goal for the weekend is to focus on the baby's room and to find ways to keep me from freaking out over what needs to be done.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

July Photo Challenge

I've decided I am going to join Melissa from A Place Where I Can Be Me for the July Photo Challenge using the prompts put together from Fat Mum Slim.

Here are the prompts:



July 1: Happiness is...Family :)

This is from last year but it's still one of my favorite pictures of J with the puppies. :)

July 2: Shoes...
Garnett LOVES sneakers! He won't always chew on them, but he loves to pick up one (or two) and lay down with them.


Monday, July 1, 2013

Hormones and Tornado Warnings

I started to let myself get pretty freaked out about the tornado warnings that are in effect for the county where my parents live, so I thought I'd post about it hoping that typing it out  might help me back off the ledge! My parents are divorced but live in the same county, so as soon as I saw the warnings on Facebook I sent them both text messages. My Dad is safe and said that he was happy he had the weather alerts on his phone. My Mom was at work when the warnings were first issued...she works at a hospital, so I knew she was in a safe place. That is until the hospital lifted the warning before the National Weather Service did. That is when I started to freak out. She said the administration released those that were still at work. I quickly pulled up the warnings and pretty much made her go back to work. I feel like a complete worry wart but, partially due to my lovely hormones, I worried about her being out on the roads driving home...a lot! Thankfully I received a message from her just a few minutes ago that she is back at work. :)

I had IM'd J about the warnings as well, but didn't hear from him because he was in a meeting. He sent me a quick message telling me a friend of his told him about it as well, because our house in MA is also with in the tornado warning area. As I am telling him about me making Mom go back to work he says "back in a bit"...how do I handle that msg? With tears of course! Does not help that I now have co-workers on the first floor with me now. Thankfully, I was able to hide behind my monitor and no one knew what was going on!

Thank you for listening/reading...I do feel better now!! Guess I should get back to work now...