Wednesday, July 27, 2016

28 weeks, aka the 3rd trimester!

We are in the third trimester!
Weight gained: 10.5 lbs
Symptoms: The belly button pain has taken some time off and been replaced by a couple of those terrible leg cramps I had read about. Charlie horse in the middle of the night where you have to jump out of bed to flex your foot. Ouch! Still waking up once a night to pee. And several mini times a night I partially wake up to roll over, it's not so automatic anymore to heave yourself from side to side! And of course baby kicks, can see my stomach moving now. I heard someone can press their ear to the belly now and hear the heartbeat, but so not true, I can't even hear it with my stethoscope.
Cravings: Still fruit. Probably ate a whole watermelon myself and several cartons of blueberries. Also burgers and icecream. We made one trip to Culvers and one to Smashburger. Mmmm. Baby needs that iron and calcium! ;)
Birth prep: Just a couple more classes of our hypnobirthing class, it's been pretty good. And we are trying to make a decision about hiring a doula.
Purchases: A shower dress for me and coming home outfit for baby boy
Days left till my sister arrives: 2
Days left till our baby shower: 3
Days left till babymoon: 29
Days left till due date: 80 (give or take!) :)

Monday, July 25, 2016

around the house

It's been an expensive month around our house. First we paid for the 7 new windows which have yet to be installed. Then paid for the cabinet doors coming from CA that my dad is going to custom build for laundry room storage. Then our refrigerator has been slowly dying, and instead of yet another craigslist fridge that lasts a year we got a new one. And now our AC is broken.
I guess I can still be thankful that we have good jobs and are able to pay for these things, and that I am blessed with a husband who in 90+ degree weather goes out in the weeds behind our house armed only with crappy harbor freight tools, his laptop of "how to fix your air conditioner" youtubes and a lot of gumption and determination. Yes, I'm very thankful for that. So Doug got a couple new fuses and is planning on installing some other part today to try to fix it. Hope it will work! And the new fridge was delivered this morning.
I can't help feeling down about some house projects that have gone wrong lately. I'm super bummed my deck/porch paint is already peeling. And I had gotten these cool solar bulb lights for the deck and both of them already snapped. Sad! And the violets mom transplanted around the deck have either been eaten by the groundhog or just dried to a crisp in all this hot weather despite my almost daily waterings. Too bad.
Another sadness is our nursery wall we've been working on and is just not turning out as we hoped. More on that another day.
One project that is finally done is the crown molding in our bedroom.
This is how the room looked before Doug and I got married and I moved in:
absolutely disgusting
We painted it "shark loop" grey and moved in.
This year during the late winter we decided to add crown molding. It was a tricky task as it went up on a slant and you had to cut all these inside/outside cuts with the miter saw.
The ol' measure twice cut once apparently does not apply to crown molding. It was like measure several times, cut several times. So often we would measure, cut, and bring the piece in just to have it still be bowing out and too long when we'd try to put it up against the wall. Truly mind-boggling.
yes, this kinda stuff happened a couple times.
We also hung curtain rods and curtains that mom and I lined with old salvation army white sheets to make them more light blocking.
And then we lived with it until the last weekend.
I spent one afternoon puttying all the little nail holes and cracks. Another afternoon painting two coats of white trim paint. A third afternoon applying the caulk between the trim and the ceiling. And maybe I should've stopped there, except our walls must not really be square and I could see cracks underneath the trim and wall that were bugging me. So this morning I caulked that crack. But bummed again because unlike my bathroom caulk job which turned out awesome this caulk looks wavy in some areas and it's just not as good. Hopefully I'm the only one who pays such close attention.
It does feel good to have one more thing checked off the to-do list.
But all these things, and working hard just to have things still 'off' just make me dream of a brand new house.
This last weekend Doug and I went with a realtor to look at a house. All I could see as I walked around was project after project. Maybe if the price were right, possibly, but to be an expensive house and still have tons of work to do, no thanks. I guess it's just as well, I think it's crazy to move now with the baby coming and I want to stick around and enjoy our home improvements and see my gardens grow, at least for now.

Monday, July 18, 2016

girls' getaway

My book club has been meeting for 8 years now. It is really nice to see these friends so consistently, at least monthly, and now we have been there through many of life's ups and downs together and it has been a wonderful blessing. We have done movie nights and the occasional sleepover, but we had never done a trip. Until last weekend!
We went away to a west coast city called South Haven. Unfortunately, one of our core-group friends couldn't make it, but we were able to meet up with another past book club friend who had moved to Chicago, so it was so nice she could come up and meet us.
After a fun car ride, we arrived and we went down to the beach and laid in the sun. We also window shopped and shopped in the cute downtown and got a delicious dinner. Then we raced back down to the water to see the end of the sunset.
We went back to the hotel and were sad to see the hot tub water was brown :( the hotel lady was not super helpful "I don't know, people must have worn their street clothes in there." Hmmm... how about not allowing that?? Anyway the hotel owner the next morning took some money off the bill, so that was a bit better. So we just hung in the room talking and having snacks.
Next morning hotel breakfast and back downtown. It was a little overcast, so we shopped some more and got a super tasty lunch. I had a salad with roasted beets and goat cheese, and a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. And ice cream of course!
Then the sun was out so we walked to the beach again. It was incredibly windy and there were humongous waves.
Pretty soon it was time to start heading back home. All of these ladies are moms and everyone was excited for the break, but ready to get back to their families. Me too even though September just breezed right by me to her food bowl, I did get a nice welcoming hug from Doug :) It was such a nice time, cool to see a new city, and just great to relax and have meaningful conversations with friends. Doug is super supportive of me spending time with friends, and I've wanted to do something like this for awhile, just hard to pry others away from their babies! Haha, I'm sure I'll be feeling the same way pretty soon too. But it was a great time and I think we all realized how important it is to break away and rest, so hopefully this will become an annual thing. Love girl time!

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

26 weeks

Weight gained: 9 lbs. This seems behind schedule to me, but my midwife hasn't said anything and I think my belly is still measuring ok.
Symptoms: Baby kicks. That crazy rash is mostly gone. I'm glad because the midwife wanted me to take a steroid pack. No thanks! Dry scaly stomach skin is back at times... growth spurt! Mostly just feeling big and pressure in the stomach. Sometimes I've had a bit of pain right above the belly button. Not sure what that's about.
Cravings: Still fruit and cookies. I am a very boring pregnant person. Still having to force myself to cook.
Nesting: Yup. We are getting 7 (out of 12 total) new windows installed. I was worried about lead and leaky windows in general. My dad has also been hired to do some custom storage shelves in the laundry room. And we got this storage thing on craigslist and I got some fabric bins to go in. This room will be a little playroom and I don't want all this baby crap and toys all over the floor so hopefully this will help keep things tidy.
Also we have been working on the nursery. Come to a bit of a standstill, but slowly slowly.
I have received some shower gifts in the mail. Here is September helping me practice the new Ergo:
Snug as a bug!
So we're doing all this home updating and now Doug has been talking a lot about moving. My plan was to be here for 4 years, I love our quiet street, I like all the things we've done to make our house more cozy, love being 15 mins to work, I want to stay and see my landscaping become more beautiful! My dream is to build a home and we are so far from that so I almost feel like why bother with a "tweener" house when I could just stay here till then. But he is becoming very determined, so we shall see.
Speaking of Doug, today is his birthday! I brought him lunch at work, and found when you surprise your husband at work sometimes you only have 15 mins before he has to be in a meeting. Haha, whoops. Tonight we are going out for dinner and then we have our baby class this evening. So not super exciting for him unfortunately, but it will be good. Thankful for him and another year of life!

Monday, July 11, 2016

weekend: wedding, dogsitting, flying lesson

This last weekend our friends Steve and Emily got married.
Steve was one of Doug's old roommates and lived here till we got married and then he moved out and I moved in.
Doug was a groomsman so I was walking in to the wedding alone when my shoe started to feel weird. I kept walking but a few steps later my shoe completely fell in half. Um thanks. Luckily I had packed some back up flats for the reception, so I walked back out barefoot to my car to go get them. Thank God I had packed those!
handsome groomsman
smashed looking baby bump
I got to sit at this huge head table with Doug which was thoughtful of them I thought, no spouse likes sitting alone with strangers.
They had these cute cookies and so many other personal touches at the wedding, it was beautiful and lots of fun. They are off to Traverse City and then Jamaica for a honeymoon, I'm jealous, I've been begging Doug for a Jamaican babymoon!
Saturday we worked on the nursery, did errands together, and Doug built his fire pit.
We were also busy watching this fun little guy for the weekend.
You will be friends! Actually they did pretty good together. Doug said he saw one episode of cat stalking dog, but I didn't see anything. So that was nice.
Sunday we went to the church that is Doug's top pick in our church hunt. I know he's getting frustrated that its taking so long. It doesn't help that I work every third wknd so that takes away, and summer is so busy with traveling, etc. I don't think it's my top pick, but it's been hard. I really just liked my old church!
After that we finally got to use the flying lesson groupon I got Doug for Valentine's day! Like me, Doug had many a major change in college, and one of those majors had been wanting to be a pilot. I saw a groupon for a flying lesson and thought it'd be fun for him to revisit that old dream.
The bridge to Belle Isle
downtown Detroit
I was starting to get pretty nauseated back there, it was warm, loud and bumpy. A search for a throw up bag proved fruitless, so eventually I just took off my headset, closed my eyes and practiced my relaxation labor breathing.
Doug taking us in for a landing
Back on the ground!
I guess Doug is about 30 some hours away from getting his license if he wanted to pick it back up again. I think it was $85 an hour when he was pursuing it, now it's around $150, so pretty expensive. I told him I think I'd be actually pretty scared in there if it was just him and I, which I feel bad about. But if something happened to him or the wind got crazy or whatever, then there's just useless me sitting there to help. But you don't get the license to just pay to have the instructor with you there forever haha. So who knows. But it was kinda cool for the afternoon.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

4th of July

Stack of CDs, junk food, this could only mean one thing. Road trip!
Doug and I took a day trip to Sagatauck for the 4th of July. I had heard wonderful things but never been to this little Michigan beach town, so it was time.
After waking up early to get to the Salvation Army 50% off sale where items were found for every family member, exercising, and breakfasting, we were off.
3 hours of good tunes and good conversation and we arrived. Little did we know there was a parade going on, so parking was ridiculous. This led to a very full bladder and an extremely close call of going into a ditch to relieve oneself. But luckily we eventually found a parking spot, walked downtown, and made it to the first restaurant we saw. Then we had a late lunch. I got bean and spinach quesadillas and Doug got the cajun burger.
The day was slightly overcast so we didn't rush off to the beach like I had wanted, but it was really nice to go into some shops and sit by the docks.
We got this assortment of cookie cutters at some kitchen store. I don't even like sugar cookies but thought surely I'll be doing that with my son! And he could also use them for play dough, win-win.
Then we went down to Oval Beach which was rated one of the top beaches in the US (!!). We saw a $8 admission fee as we headed in and were bummed, but as we waiting in line another car coming out came up to us and gave us their pass, score!
We laid down and just relaxed and talked for awhile.
A couple hours of relaxing and it was time to head back as Doug was working the next day. And in bed to the sound of fireworks. Happy independence day America!