Vacation

I think we've finally succumbed to the several encouragements we've received to go on "one last vacation" before the baby comes. Now we just need to pick a date, time, and flight.

We're 80% settled on Hawaii in the March-April time frame, but pretty much everything else is up in the air. Anyone have any suggestions? It's harder to pick a vacation than I thought when the whole (tropical) world is your oyster.

But it gives me something to do on my lunch hours.

It's painted green, so it's okay.

Usually, we attend the 9:00 service at church, and use the satellite parking lot and take the shuttle bus. Doing so is super-convenient, and has made us forget about the hassles of parking near the church.

But, this week, we were staying for a lunch after 2nd service, so we came to the later service and had to park on the surface streets. So, after spending about 10 minutes elbowing our way past the church, we finally found a spot approximately four miles away from the church. As we were parking, I noticed that the car across the street from us was parked DIRECTLY in-front of the fire hydrant. (As a side note: there's no fear of this neighborhood burning down any time soon, there are about three hydrants on each block, but I digress...). Being in a somewhat charitable mood, I thought I'd be nice to the two poor college girls getting out of said car, before they had their car towed. So, we parked the car, and I jumped out and mentioned to the girls that they were parked "directly in-front of the fire hydrant, so you might want to move." Their ever-so-grateful response: "It's painted green, so it's okay."

Now, I realize that at 20 years old, they know infinitely more than I ever could, and they have much more recently taken driver's ed than I have. But EVERY fire hydrant in that ENTIRE neighborhood is green, so maybe whoever gave them that crack-pot idea, probably shouldn't be talking to impressionable young college girls. I'm starting to see why people aren't 100% excited to see a giant church growing up in their neighborhood.

What a nice boy...

We've had a funky smell in our basement bathroom, pretty much since we moved in.

So, in the hopes that it's nothing big (and expensive) to deal with, our first choice is to wash the room well and paint over it. Hopefully sealing in all the little nasties that were making the room so unpleasant to be in.

Unfortunately for Keith, I wasn't much help because: 1. I barely have the energy to brush my teeth every day, and 2: I'm pretty sure that all those fumes would be bad for the baby. So, Friday night, while I watched TV on the couch, Keith cleaned and prepped the room. Then Saturday, while I took a three-hour nap, Keith painted the whole room, all by himself. I have never before felt quite so indescribably lazy, and yet unable to do anything about it. I am so grateful to have Keith's willing spirit to take care of things while his wifey sits around doing nothing. He has been wonderful.

And the room looks great:

Of course, no home-improvement project is complete without some manner of catastrophe (that usually involves 2-3 trips to Home Depot). Due to some sort of communication break-down between Keith & the paint-mixer-guy, this is the first pot of paint he came home with:

Cute, isn't it? But do you have something that could cover all four walls in the same can, maybe?

Six more weeks of winter...

We had our first official Doctor's appointment today. We got to meet the Doctor, take a picture of the baby, and Keith got his first introduction to the indignities of child birth.

Our little olive is alive and well, but his/her little birthday has been pushed out from August 12 to August 21. Now, while it was such a relief to see true signs of life, and so exciting to see it's little bitty heart beat. I can't help but feel a little like the groundhog who saw his shadow, knowing that the ever-elusive glory-days of the second trimester have moved NINE DAYS farther away. Aren't they supposed to be getting closer?!? Are you sure I'll survive? Will I ever be able to stomach ice cream again? Am I going to live off ginger and vegetables forever?

But I suppose it's all worth it, and we did get to see a teeny, tiny heartbeat in the middle of the blob that will soon grow into our baby. We've waited this long for our little bundle of joy, so, although I complain (and I do!), deep down I'm loving every nauseated moment of it. And I'm still not as sick as Sharla...

The year of despair

2009 had such great promise. We went into the year with our house newly on the market, with big plans to sell our house quickly, be in that Olympic-Manor-House by Valentines, and have a baby by September (twin girls, to be specific). It was going to be such a great year, we were going to live in a grown-up house, do grown-up things, and I'd finally get to quit my job, and life would be happily-ever-after (except for those 2am-feedings).



Funny how life so seldom does what you'd like it to...

I certainly hadn't planned to still have our house on the market nine months later at $100,000 less.

I didn't expect 8 months of infertility followed by a short-lived pregnancy and a lot of tears.

I didn't expect to get an offer on our house, find the perfect house, and then have the buyer back out.

I suppose I did kind of expect work to stay horrible, but I could have done without it nonetheless.

I most definitely didn't plan to spend the ENTIRE month of July sick on the couch (nor did I expect to watch the entire Tour de France, normal people don't have time for that sort of thing).



What did we do wrong? Was it too much to ask for things to go our way for a change? I understand (theoretically at least) that you can't barter with God, but what sort of horrible behavior was I making up for? If I was nicer to my sister, could we get a viable offer on our house? If I cut back on the brownies, would we finally get pregnant? I don't know.



I've never been one to put labels on years. With the exception of 2006, which was "the year we got married", I really don't distinguish one year from the other much. But I think that 2009 will go down in infamy as the year-of-despair. Never before have I been so happy to shut the door on a year and move on to the next.



But even with the worst year, there is always light in there somewhere. Thanks entirely to this crummy economy, we got to go on a cruise. I've been trying to finagle a way to go on another one ever since we got back from our honeymoon, but I'd been expecting I'd have to wait until our 10th or 20th anniversary before we could swing it again. That was a wonderful trip. And we did finally get to move, into a house that is so amazing it really does make the whole last year worthwhile. Oh yeah, and did I mention that I saw the entire Tour de France? And I cooked the most AMAZING Thanksgiving turkey. There's a silver lining in every cloud.



So, now, 2010 is the year of promise. We're in a grown-up house, maybe that grown-up life and baby are just around the corner.

Who am I?

Occasionally, I like to try out the "next blog" option on my blog site to see what the powers-that-be think would come after mine. Today, I got "SANTANA", an all-Spanish art site. It had paintings and sketches with what I assume are the artists thoughts along with. The next was an older lady who's on a quest to make a piece of art every day. It got me to thinking, and mainly what I thought was, WHAT ON EARTH have I been writing about that the great and powerful BLOG thinks that I have any relation to those two actual artists?!?

I really can't imagine, but it's a fun new project. ...but right now I have to run down to Aaron Brothers, they're having their 2-for-1 canvas sale.