Category Archives: Uncategorized

This is a great week! We were able to FINALLY announce to our world that we are expecting our own little Harry or Helga, we had our first ultrasound and all was well, and we’re getting closer to Thanksgiving!! The crews have been working overtime (we’re not MAKING them, they want to!) and the house is coming together just in time for family to arrive.

We’re thrilled to be having our Texas Family, as well as the Michigan Family for a few days. It’s been so fun getting the extra bedrooms set up knowing that we’ll get to use them so soon!

Something happened over the weekend as well. I started to show. Not crazy-show, but to where my Poor Husband said something (risking life and limb to tell a girl she looks tubby). Now, if he would have used the term “tubby” he would have gotten punched. He’s much sweeter (and smarter) than that. =D

Our little guy is the size of a lime (almost 2 inches!) and growing teeth, bones are hardening, and his little fists will start opening and closing this week. He also may be hiccupping soon- the diaphragm is forming this week! He’s performing water acrobatics in there as well- kicking and stretching and just plain ol wiggling.

As I said, we had our ultrasound this week. What I haven’t told you, is that when the Doc (who I LOVE- he’s hilarious!) was starting the ultrasound Luke asked, “Hey, Can you tell on that screen if the baby is black or white?” The room exploded in laughter and the Doc deadpans, “You know, we have social workers at the hospital- I can set you up a consult!” …Comedy.

When I first saw our little person on the screen, all I could think of is when Little Luigi dies in Super Mario Brothers- the “dying” part is because that’s when he waves his little hands and feet:

I guess it has to do with the huge head, round tummy, and circular hands and feet... I think it's a dead ringer!

Give him a tiny cap, some overalls and a little tiny fetus mustache, you'd never tell them apart!

Okay, I went off topic. But really, I’m gonna go play some Mario Bros so I can see my kid. =P

Our house is coming along, and we figure by about June of next year it should start to feel like home. It’s amazing the difference that two extra feet can make. =)

Did we get the color matched??

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Zephyr has an opinion…

Don't worry Z... babies taste good and start dropping food after a couple of months. You'll be fine!

That’s right!! I’m pregnant! And here’s the REAL feet:

Our little Bear's head is down, butt to the center. We saw his/her little hands and feet too! That little round belly... *happysigh* Taking after mama already!!

This has been my favorite week so far. Despite a little return of nausea and general ickyness, I have been feeling great! Well, I’m still too early to bed and too early to rise, but I’ll take it. On Thursday (9w4d) we heard the heartbeat for the first time. I don’t think I’ve EVER heard a better sound. But first, a 10week picture:

I had ordered a handheld doppler off the internet (did you know you can do that?! and that they’re only 50 bucks?!) and it came in on Thursday. I quickly installed batteries and jumped into bed with the gel, intent on meeting our little guy/girl. The first heartbeat I heard was my own- only faster. I yelled for Luke because I was excited and then realized I needed to calm down. Like, really. My heart rate was in the 120s lying down. Luke then teased me for not reading the instructions and snatched the booklet off the nightstand. I was resting the sensor on my belly while Luke was reading when, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!!!!

Our bug wanted to be found! The whole process, from box-to batteries-to belly-to crying took about 5 minutes. I can’t be happier. Since then, we’ve found it a few more times. It’s always in the high 160s to 170s. One of the cool parts is that he/she would swim away right in the middle of a sentence. Apparently, a kumquat has room to roam in a grapefrui.

Okay, I was kidding about that last picture. People who know me very well or have seen me eat a LOT of food, know I can do that trick. Here is the real picture:

I just wanted to spice it up a bit. Can you blame me? These pics are just…not…changing…fast enough. I have to say though, that they ARE changing. =)

On a final note: here is the first item on my registry.

Teasing! But really, I REALLY hope our little person has freckles. Is that selfish of me?

Hellloooo!!  9 weeks yesterday, and boy does it feel good! We are now the proud parents of a grape with eyeballs and NO TAIL. This is exciting for various reasons. One, the more it looks human… the less it looks like an eraser mouse (you’ve seen a newly born rodent, yes?). Two, we’re one week closer to the end of the first trimester. I’ve been told this is when it gets FUN. Three, morning sickness is gone and I’ve exercised 3 days in a row! This is just for me- I was feeling like a gigantic slug and am so happy to be feeling more normal.

My non-baby baby bump is showing more and more. I have to assume my uterus is elbowing my organs out of the way and causing the illusion. Or something. I don’t really care *why* it’s there… I would just love to be completely out of the prego closet so I don’t have to pretend I’m just getting tubby. Oh well. Don’t worry guys, I’m not worried about it. More so I’m just mystified by it all.

No real cravings at the moment, but I’m back to my old self. That means pretty much EVERYTHING tastes delicious. =D

Baby wants enchiladas. Instead, he’s getting prenatal yoga… and then maybe enchiladas.

Ok, You all have been very patient. Thanks for bearing with me as I gather my thoughts regarding this little creature.  I’m 9 weeks tomorrow- and have been feeling MUCH better this week. My 8week photo was on Oct 30. We had just gotten a foot of snow! Of course I was bouncing off the walls… What a fun day! We shoveled the driveway and then met Heather in town for some YUMMY brunch.

I was nauseated from week 4 through 8 weeks. Lately, I’ve been getting “sick hungry” but can eat a much broader diet without making it worse. =) Aside from my new 7pm bedtime, my energy has been better too. This is good, cause it’s never fun to lay in bed eating saltines while upwards of 10 guys are working on your house. That’s NOT a complaint- I’d much rather be in bed than working on my house. hehe.

You can see I don’t look much different. There’s a reason I take these pics in the morning. By nighttime I look MUCH further along. *sigh*

A little about the bug: At 8weeks, Bug was a KIDNEY BEAN. S/he has fingers and toes (along with arms/legs/wrists/ankles) and the tail is disappearing. Starting to move around in there, although I won’t be able to feel anything until week 20 or so.

I had my first appointment on Wednesday. Luke came along because we were hoping to hear a heartbeat. Turns out it’s still too early. We *might* have been able to hear it, but if we couldn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to do an ultrasound. I didn’t want to risk a melt down on my most emotional week yet, so we declined the heartbeat hunt. Other than that, the nurse gave us a binder that was a “Guide to Pregnancy”. Did you know:

YOU CAN”T DRINK ALCOHOL??!?! Holy crap, I had no idea. 😉

Next appointment is with a Doctor and we should get an ultrasound at that time. November 17th, Folks! Can’t wait!

I’m sure some of y’all have seen this, but I was cracking up! As kids, we had what were called “Mommy Tax” and “Daddy Dues”. Mommy taxed at a significantly higher rate, as payment was required in the form of chocolate. Daddy dues were a mere pittance of sweet tarts and licorice… Maybe a few Tootsie rolls.

Needless to say, we NEVER threw a fit when we had to pay our debt to household society. It wasn’t their fault they were too old to get candy on their own. We needed to take care of the less fortunate.

Ha! OR… OR!! We went libertarian on their arses and ran like heck to the bedroom for the great “sort n stash”. I’m not sure it ever worked but it was always worth a try. 🙂

Love to all! Enjoy!

At my new job, I work kind of as a one woman urgent care. It’s a boarding school, so the kids come to me for their daily meds, if they feel sick, and if they stayed up too late and are tired and don’t feel like going to class. In the morning, it’s a bit of a rush to get all the whiners sorted into sick vs. not sick. The kids HAVE to go to class, and the ONLY way to be excused is if they were in the health center. That’s why so much of my clientele is nothing but sleepy.

So, to give a little perspective on my patient population, I’ll tell a little anecdote. As always, identifying factors are changed to protect the rich kid.

Earlier in the week, we got word that a new student was coming to school. She was going to be taking medicine in the health center, so we needed an insurance card and a credit card from the parents to give to the nearby pharmacy *National Chain*. This way we can get the pharmacy to auto-refill and deliver the meds. The girl kept saying, “It’s okay, it’s taken care of.” And the nurse was saying, “No, we don’t have the credit card. We need a credit card.”

This went on for awhile until the nurse looked down and saw that this kid was, in fact, *National Pharmacy Chain*. As in, his family started it. D’OH! How often does that happen?! Apparently fairly often. I was a little gobsmacked.

I miss my little medicaid kids, but I have to say that if I was looking for new and unusual, I found it.

Most of you know by now that we’ve moved into our new house. Amazingly, it’s the original house. We did everything we could to “lose” this house… Including putting an offer in on a different house. Not because we didn’t WANT it, but because we figured it wouldn’t happen.

It’s still a little shocking to me to wake up every morning in that beautiful bedroom. It does feel more like home when I leave piles of clothing, and half-empty boxes of house crap all over the floor. And two huge, furry mounds asleep right in the only clear path to the bathroom. You know.

We’ve lived here for about 3 weeks now and have (with the help of our builder and some extra hands):
-Moved all our stuff in (DUH)
-Removed 2 of the upstairs bedrooms (walls, floors, drywall, electric… you name it, we ripped it out)
-Had maybe a dozen windowsills/frames fixed or replaced
-Put a UV filter on the well water (so we don’t drink moose poop every time it rains- don’t worry, this is very common and perfectly fine! No need to cancel your visit!!)
-Fixed one furnace and broke the other. =/
-Lined the beautiful chimney so we don’t burn the house down (though, some would argue that it has survived 200years of continuous burning without hurting anything… but better safe than sorry!)
-Removed the stairs to the 2nd floor (before realizing our ladder was… you guessed it! UPSTAIRS)
-Started on the wainscoting in the dining room. The dining and living room have beautiful cedar paneling that is a little dark. So we’re just cutting it off at chair rail height and plastering the walls above it- I can’t wait to see how much brighter and cleaner it looks!

We also tore out the basement and have purchased the flooring and paint to turn it into a beautiful guest suite. You hear that, People?! It’s all for you! Now come visit!

Here are a few pictures:

Darwin is NOT enjoying all the people and loud noises.

This is basically what the dining room will look like, only with cool light fixtures hangning down and white walls from the chair rail up.

Who needs stairs? The beams you see are over part of the kitchen... also where I'm standing. The chimney is behind all that plastic, and the wall with the stair imprint will be removed, revealing the dining room behind it.

Hello All,

Much has happened in the past several days, and I can share some of it with you now!

We have been having a ton of trouble with the Hatch house. This was our first love, and although we were getting no encouraging information regarding the title issue that needed to be resolved, we were having a hard time letting go. I just kept saying to myself, “If only I could find another house I love more! THEN I could let go of Hatch.” So we looked at several more houses. This time we had a different perspective: we know now that we want to live in Meredith. We just love that little town and how quaint it is.

About a dozen houses later and no luck. Then, on 9/19, we got word from the owner of our little love shack, that he was concerned about the above ground pipes freezing, and that we would need to be out by Oct 6. Now, if we were going to buy a totally different house, there’s no way we could be closed by then. And since we had no information on the Hatch house (they were still trying to locate the guy that needed to sign the waiver), we had to assume that it was out.

Then came the task of trying to get a rental house that would accept pets AND be willing to go month-to-month. Enter: Heather-Rockstar-Rental Agent. She managed to find us a super cute HOUSE (Yes, folks! A real house!) on another lake in the area.

See?! A HOUSE!!

With another DOCK!!

So now the pressure is off. We moved in on Thursday, cooked dinner, and slept in the same bed for the first time in 8 weeks. It was lovely! Not that moving didn’t suck. It poured rain (poured) all day. Heather was kind enough to help- so we loaded up her pickup, covered it all with a tarp, and dumped it all at the new house. Running back and forth on that super steep driveway at the love shack was no bueno. But we sure as heck EARNED our blue cheese/bacon/sauteed onion burgers with sweet potato fries for lunch! NOM.

I got a call from the Rockstar Realtor Jane on Wed morning saying I needed to come look at a house in Center Harbor. Center Harbor is possibly even cuter and more private than Meredith, and so was an option. We went to look at this house, and Holy Cow! It’s lovely! This old (maybe 1850) victorian that had been built by a very rich family. 12 ft ceilings, TONS of moulding, really ornate and beautiful woodwork, and buried under approximately 8ft of grime and 20 layers of wallpaper and lead based paint. Not our style, but definitely our level of challenge. And it was a house that was really easy to appreciate. So we made a lowball offer on Thursday night. Friday, Luke was working his mad negotiation skills getting them to accept an offer just minimally above his initial offer. All is well, and we have the house for a steal if we want it.

The best wrench ever: Friday evening, Luke got a call from our lawyer who said they have contacted The Guy and he will be coming in today to sign the paper!! If that’s true (I’ll believe it when it actually happens), we got Hatch! It’s obviously our first choice, and so we may be able to close this week or early next. We are so psyched!

I also got a call on Friday morning that I have been offered a school RN position! I’m waiting to hear more about the job, but I’ll be covering some medical leave/maternity leave through April or so. It’ll be between two different prep schools, and a relatively flexible schedule.

So yes, a very exciting birthday week. Looking forward to this next year- It’s gonna be amazing!! I love my life, and my family, and my friends. It just keeps getting better! =D

Hey all! We’ve received some news on the house. First, a catch up. We have paid up through this week on our little love shack on the lake, and have to decide where to go next. We can feasibly stay about another month here before it needs to be empty and winterized. If we wait any longer they may accidentally close it up with us frozen to the futon for the winter.

With a month, it’s possible to pick out a new house and get closed on it in time for out eviction.

Tomorrow is the deadline for the sellers to fix the title issue on hatch corner road. At this point we can walk away with our earnest money, find a new house, and move past this whole messy situation. Problem is that we haven’t found anything that holds a candle to our first choice.
At this point, probably the smart thing to do would be to find a winter rental and just put all of it on the back burner for a few months. This would give us time to keep looking for a house and/or give them time to fix the title.

OR…. OR!! I KNOW! Let’s see if we can make it worse!

We can wait in the cabin for a few more weeks, hoping that we get good news that they actually did something they SAID they would do.

Luke got a phone call yesterday from our awesome (no sarcasm, he really is an asset) lawyer. He had finally gotten ahold of the actual person who had filed the foreclosure and failed to notify that one guy. Basically, the guy knows he screwed up and is working to fix it. He and THE guy’s lawyer are currently negotiating the waiver signing. This is good.

The problem will be solved when that guy receives a packet in the mail, signs, and sends back the waiver that removes his claim on the title (he was an embezzlement victim). Now, the main way that all of this can get ruined is if the guy has an angry power trip and decides not to sign. Usually some cash clears that up (common practice) or they have to re-forclose. At that point we will have lost the farm. 😛

So fingers crossed that this guy just signs the stupid thing. At this point we’re looking at a few more weeks in the cabin. By then we should know if the guy signed or refused, at which point we can move into one of the winter rentals and regroup if need be.

This house is worth it. Wish us luck!!

Oh! a few more updates.

We got our driver’s licenses and Luke’s first paystub in the mail yesterday. Wheeeeeee! Luke’s job is still going great. So far very predictable. He has been staying a little late every day- maybe til 4 or so. BUT he gets overtime pay starting at three, so we can’t complain.

I’ve been working for a friend with a property management/landscaping company. He’s a super nice guy and I’ve been painting the foyer in a shopping center. I like to paint. It gets me out of the house.

Buddy is stir crazy and Apple is wreaking havoc on our little space. Z is stinky and Darwin is normal until he drops a bomb in the middle of the night and spends 15min “burying” it in the litter box about 10ft from Luke’s head.