Avalon Update

Yesterday was a day of anticipation and frustration. Around 11:00am we put an official offer in for the house… and then waited… and waited… and waited. I finally got a call back around 6:00 when I was having dinner with Tom so I called Sheri back around 8 to get the scoop.

They don’t want to negotiate.

This was very frustrating because I had really gotten my hopes up that this would be an easy process. I spent about 24 minutes on the phone with Sheri and we re-strategized. I took out the quartz countertop (figuring we can upgrade it on our own) and raised our offer. She didn’t sound too optimistic but she has all the incentive in the world to get this accomplished as she’s paid on quantity of houses sold not on the price of the house.

Anyway, Jim and I talked at length last night and agreed that this is our final offer on this house. If they don’t accept it we’re not willing to pay essentially $20K over our asking price for the house while they’d only come down $8K. As we see it, we really like this house and location, but the other houses we see online are literally $40,000 less and look very nice on their own. Even if we did major additions/upgrades to one of those to make it our own we’d still probably break even compared to this house. And those houses come painted, with trees and grass, and neighbors, and… Besides, how can we move into Chuck/Kristi’s area of town or Dave/Rachel’s if we went here?? ; )

Bottom line, we feel comfortable with this decision though disappointed that it’s not be an easier 22 hours.

Birth Order & Friendships

There are many theories about how individual’s personalities are partially shaped by their birth order. There are stereotypes about oldest children being Type A and protective, middle children constantly fighting for attention their whole lives, and youngest children being wild and free-spirited. Thinking about this, I (the oldest of 3) fall into nearly all of the stereotypes of my birth-order position.

Other, unrelated studies show that people are drawn to others like them. This manifests itself in the ratio of friends we have of the same race/ethnicity, extroverts/introverts, driven/relaxed, etc. Thinking about this a few weeks ago, I see this coming to life in my friendships as well. The people I am closest with have personalities very much like mine. I assume this is because we understand each other’s thinking. Obviously this doesn’t help when you need an unbiased opinion – many times, if your situation is like mine, those like-minded friends of yours will just reaffirm that you’re right when asked for advice!

Putting these theories together...
Looking at my friends, I have come to the following tallies:
Oldest Friends: 14
Middle Friends: 4
Youngest Friends: ~3
Only Child Friends: 2
Friends with large number of years between them and their next closest sibling: 2

Granted this doesn’t encompass everyone I know, but it’s a group I pulled in about 90 seconds of the people I see most frequently/am closest to. What screws up my “Youngest” catagory is 2 sets of twins- Sturgises and Auchters- who of course technically only have 1 person as the youngest and the other gets to be a “middle” but that’s complicated so I did what no friend should do and counted them together.

Interesting note – the two Only children I'm friends with, Mike C and Jim E, are people I dated for over 3 years each! and obviously married one!

Interesting note 2- both children with large gaps between them and their next sibling, Kristi S and Mark J, in my opinion have more oldest children tendencies than youngest children tendencies even though they technically are the youngest child. Perhaps when you’re brought up mostly as an “only” you “start over” on the personality traits of an oldest?

Interesting note 3- My brother Mike is a Middle and he’s marrying another Middle, Lindsay. This pattern repeated itself through many of the couples I know too!

Weekend of 1/26/07

This weekend was another good one. We went to Outback with Jessy and Sean on Friday night. I FINALLY got the hang of their dice game (Can’t Stop I think it’s called) and won a match of it. We also played 24 the boardgame which was challenging from a frustration level, though engaging because it was quite different than any other DVD game I’ve played. Good time in general, but it always is with them.

Saturday afternoon we took mom and dad to go see the Avalon model in Lebanon. We made some significant changes to the design based on what we saw under closer inspection and these changes will ultimately save us another $5K or so. I asked for a final quote and then we start the negotiation process. Good news – we’re willing to walk if they don’t get where we want price-wise. Bad news – we’ve invested a lot of time into this and would have to start all over.

Saturday night we went to Rachel’s Sweet 26-teen party. I got to watch Guitar Hero for the first time. What a riot. I have a true appreciation for anyone who can be coordinated with BOTH hands at the same time. Amazing. Way out of my league.

Sunday we ran errands, watched Rocky Balboa (B) at the cheap theatre, and went bowling. Dave scored a 257 in his final game (wa-hoo!) and we won ¾ for the night!

The morning was rough as I was up a lot through the night – dreams, thirst, dry eyes, you name it. Ah well… work week starts again!

17 Weeks!

How your baby is growing: Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now, and he's around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone. Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he's born. A newborn's skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As your child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time your baby reaches adulthood, he'll have just 206 bones.

My Take: Many of the books I’ve been reading have warned that the mucus in my body is going to get whacked out. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve definitely seen this happen. The humidifier in our bedroom has been wonderful, and it’s not 60 seconds after I leave the room that my nose gets stuffed up and bleeds a bit when I blow it. All normal and not a big deal!

I think I’m starting to feel the baby move inside me. It’s a little tingle that starts in one area and then goes across me in a straight line. It feels like a feather being drawn across me from the inside. It doesn’t happen very often (1 or 2/day), but I do notice that if it is what I think it is, the baby likes oranges.

The Happenings

Class last night went really really well I think. It’s nice to have a class of mostly extroverts because there’s a lot of participation and idea sharing going on. I knew all my students from last semester (8), about 4 names I remembered from introductions the previous week, and I picked up another 5 or so last night (13 more to go!). As you can imagine, the students who are quiet are the ones whose names I don’t get to practice and therefore will have a hard(er) time learning. All in all though, I think the 2.5 hours went by with relative ease, which made me happy!

When I got home around 9:15 (ugh) Jim and I finished Little Miss Sunshine. There were some funny parts, but in general you more just sit and watch rather than being fully engaged in the flick. I give it a B. This is a better rating than what we have Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon which we finished on Tuesday (B-). That movie was really not engaging and only the cool martial arts saved it from C status.

Work’s been good in general – I have a lot of great projects going on that will make my management VERY happy with me. I really enjoy the fact that most of them I'm fully running on my own. It makes me very excited to “casually” drop off a closed big deal on my boss’s desk and walk out like it’s nothing. He gets really excited about those which makes me excited. All this leads to further justification for me to come back to work in September. The company does treat me well, the work is challenging but still within my capacity to excel, and I’ve gotten my time management down so that I'm never working more than 42 hours a week. I know, I know, wait ‘till I see that little face and then try to leave it behind to come to work. We’ll see, I'm hopeful that I’ll have a Sue experience and be able to find a good balance with the kid while still earning an income.

Life Changes!

Just got back from another doctor’s appointment. All’s well – heartbeat is 156, blood pressure is 110/62 and I’ve gained 5lbs so far. The doctor felt my stomach, smiled, and said I was “definitely pouching”. Glad she thinks so; I think I’ve stopped growing! What’s nice about that is I'm still wearing my “old” skirts and all my own tops. I think I had unrealistic ideas about how much I’d be showing because all the other pregnant people around me are 7+ months along and big!

Jim and I talked a long time about the house last night. We came up with a game plan on how much we’d offer for the Avalon, how much we’re willing to put down, our process for getting financing, and confirmation that we’re both comfortable with the builder, the lot and ultimately the geographic location of the house. Next steps: tour the model again, take some pictures of another Ryan neighborhood for external design ideas, knock on some doors to find out current home-owners views of their Ryan home. Things are wrapping up nicely!

Sunny Days

Today’s been a good day:

• I had a meeting this morning that could be a really big sale for me in the next few months
• I saw Tom S at my lunch restaurant and he went out of his way to say hello
• I renewed a friendship with a very wonderful friend
• I have enough to keep me busy the rest of the work-day!

What more can a girl ask for?

Weekend of 1/19/07

I feel like I do a lot on the weekends but it’s all repetitive from weekends before… On Friday night Mom, Dad, Mike & Linds came over for dinner (Italian) and a movie. Low-key but a good time. I gave Mom her birthday present (gift certificate to the spa) and told her she needs to try something new (ie a facial) and not just get a haircut with it. Somehow I'm doubtful that’ll happen. : )

Saturday was B-U-S-Y. We got up and met the builder rep at the home-sites and confirmed what she said – Lot #2 will NOT work in any way, shape or form. There’s a big hill that would leave for no backyard and in general it’s just not as great as it looks on paper. We did find 2 other lots that we liked though so all’s not lost. Of course both are $10,000 more than the one we picked… *eye roll* We thoroughly toured the Courtland model again and while it’s no Avalon, it is $35,000 less. I took a bunch of pictures of the model home and I think that this is the direction we’re leaning.

All this home stuff made me 15 minutes late to meet the girls who were waiting patiently for me in my living room when I got home. We headed to the Playhouse to see A Catholic Girl’s Guide To Losing Your Virginity (putting in the full title will probably put me back on the naughty list for Dave’s commenting ability! Grrr) which was an hour fifteen and quite funny. As you can imagine, there were some very good one-liners which I’ll refrain from posting here so Dave doesn’t get totally blocked from seeing this blog. We dined at Buca di Beppo and had a marvelous time in general.

Sunday snowed like CRAZY (first of the year) and made Sarah unable to come down to Cincy to go baby registering (I have a shower on 2/18 with Lindsay so I have to do this early). I had to get some stuff in because the invites are out, so Mom and Lindsay and I went for a little bit sans Sarah (booooo!). What a frickin’ confusing process! Especially when you don’t know what you’re having yet! There are so many choices and they are all SO expensive! I got some basics in but left a lot of the major stuff TBA until I get some mom advice from friends.

Jim and I wrapped up the weekend by some grocery shopping, dinner, and Apprentice watching. Nice wind-down to the weekend!

16 Weeks

How your baby is growing: At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avacado. In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby's ears are close to their final position, too. Her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, circulating her total blood volume through her body many times. (By the end of your pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn't recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she's even started growing toenails. Her finger- and toenails will continue to grow throughout pregnancy, so don't be surprised if she needs them trimmed soon after birth.

My Take: Being pregnant is pretty uneventful right now. There is so little happening that I often forget that I’m pregnant! I can’t feel any kicking yet and won’t for another 2-4 weeks, I've stopped growing belly-wise from what I can tell, and there are no “symptoms” of pregnancy at all except the feeling of hunger more frequently.

Taking books’ and Jessy/Sarah’s encouragement, I’ve stopped sleeping on my back out of concern of weighing down some vein and nerve in my back (the baby smooshes it apparently) that’s dangerous to me. This (sleeping on my sides only) has been HARD to do and my subconscious is waking me up every hour or so to remind me that I’m rolling over and shouldn’t be.

I thought that when I got pregnant the world would start revolving around me but obviously no such thing happened and I see why - even I'm bored with myself and the process at this point - why should anyone else care?? I look forward to the 20 week mark where "things" are "scheduled" to get exciting.

I go in for my 4 month check-up on 1/24 (really the four month mark is on 2/7/07) and we have a scheduled appointment to get an ultrasound and find out the baby’s gender on 2/21/07!

First Day at School

It was a good day at school yesterday. We didn’t accomplish ½ of what I wanted to in my class tonight (only got through introductions and 1 role play, no chapters) but they were a chatty, friendly group that laughed at my jokes; all of which made me happy. I have to cram last night's text material in to the next 5 weeks which will make things tight, but I think that what we did accomplish tonight was worth the extra time.

My evaluations from last semester were great!

• My lowest score out of 25 evaluations (1-5 scale) was a 4.375 on “contrasts theories” which is fine because I don’t know how I ever contrasted any theories other than my own vs. the text!
• My highest grade was a 5.0 on “Easy to understand”.
• My overall “grade” was a 4.92 (23 “Extremely Effective”s and 2 “Very Effective”s) and the average of all categories was a 4.78.
• All the comments on the back were fantastic as well – I hope someone at a dean level reads them.

I’m thrilled! Makes me more encouraged to ask for a raise next year.

Xavier

XU is picking back up again. I start teaching (MKTG 361, Professional Selling) tonight from 6-8:30. I have 31 students, mostly junior/senior business majors, in my class and I'm in the old business building (blah!). 9 of the 31 are students from last semester which I'm taking as a sign that I'm either a good teacher or a very easy one.

A former student asked for some help on where to send resumes for sales jobs upon her graduation this May. I sent some emails to clients of mine and I already got her resume in front of 3 presidents and 1 sales director! Yeah for her! I hope she makes some positive headway so I can keep my reputation up with these clients.

Also, tonight I’ll get my evaluations from last semester. I'm anxious to see them!!!

Ryan Homes

We spent about four hours with the builder rep yesterday (love her!) driving around Lebanon looking at different house models. We had our initial list set at 5 potentials and I think that we’re going to narrow this down to 3 now. The Oberlin, while externally pretty, has a smaller feel on the first floor. Since I suspect most of our lives will be lived on the first floor (with all of you visiting regularly!) this weighed in heavily in the decision to cut ties with this option.

Here’s the skinny:

Jackson- this is the smallest house by square footage. We’d be upgrading the following: cabinets, countertops, 4 foot family room extension, 3-car garage, morning room, master suite bathroom. The basement in this house was awesome.

Courtland- this is the first model we went into, the middle sized house we’re considering, and the one we’re re-visiting on Saturday afternoon. We’d be upgrading the kitchen, master bathroom, and the garage only. This is the big brother to the Jackson (adds 300 sq. ft. but is the same floorplan).

Avalon- this is the model whose floorplan I like the best but the house is too big for us (3600 sq. ft plus a basement we’ll eventually finish- I'm afraid of the heating bills when this happens). The house is beautiful with great rooms, full kitchen, AMAZING master bedroom suite, etc. but we really don’t need that much space. I suspect that unless they wheel and deal on this a great bit we’ll be tossing this model out too. Why doesn’t this option come 1/3 smaller!??!

Next Step: re-visit the Courtland on Saturday, review the option sheet for it/others so we can see all the areas we want to upgrade (ie crown molding, ceiling fan runs, hardwood, etc.), and get a final offered price. Jim says he’s 75% on board with this neighborhood as the final decision.

Oh, and for those of you who expressed your distaste for houses without porches - there are some porch options I saw in another Ryan neighborhood in Fairfield. Jim and I are going to drive through and take pictures for ideas.

little life updates

I’ve seen LOTS of friends over the past several days. Dave and Rachel had us over on Thursday to talk houses (and treated us to dinner! Thanks again!), we had the shower on Friday, the wedding on Saturday, and I got to have dinner with Sarah F last night before she left town. When I came home from Dayton Jim said that Sean G stopped by unexpectedly to drop of a commercial-free, burned copy of The Apprentice for us (since we missed it to watch 24 on Sunday). How cool is that!? This extended weekend was another reminder that we are really lucky to have genuinely good people in our lives.

Tonight we’re going to have dinner and see a few model homes with the builder rep for Ryan Homes. Mom did some leg work for us at the marble and granite shops and made us aware of even more savings available if we bring in our own countertops. Negotiations will be STRONG with this company if this is the route we go.

I'm also noticing that a LOT of people are getting this stomach flu that’s going around (Lisa, Emily, clients, my morning DJ, etc.). Thank God it hasn’t hit our office!

Weekend of 1/12/07

The weekend had a very busy start and ended on a relaxing note.

Friday: I left work early to go to the rehearsal for Sean and Anne’s wedding. I then left there, sans dinner, to go to Mike and Lindsay’s surprise baby shower. They got some really cute gifts and had a bunch of friends there – I think everyone had a good time. Mike’s friends are good people but I always feel a little out of it with them – he got to be good friends with them when I was away at college, then, when I came back to Cincinnati he was away at college. Then, when he graduated I was living with Jim. So, it seems weird to me that I don’t know most of these people near as well as I “should” for them being such good friends. Maybe I'm making false assumptions that he feels he “knows” my friends....

Saturday: Sean and Anne’s wedding was at 1:30 and I practiced my reading in my computer room for a bit before I left. I thought I sounded pretty good, so I felt confident when I headed out the door. The ceremony was the prettiest (no offence to my other, currently married friends) I’d ever been to. The music was gorgeous (Jeremy Helmes was one of the soloists and several other friends played instruments), the cathedral was magnificent, and the amount of participation from their friends during the ceremony was really great (they had a lot of friends doing a lot of jobs- readings, bringing the gifts up, serving, etc.). Though very long (an hour forty), it was enjoyable until the end.

Sarah was nice and said I did well during my reading. As predicted I got very nervous just before I went up and I thought my voice sounded crackly as a result. At least I didn’t lose my place.

Jim joined for the reception where we talked with a lot of old friends (Katie Hitz, Jen O, Mark J, Cloppert, etc.), I scowled at Mike C’s drinking jests, and we ate good food. A nice, elegant night in general.

Sunday: I was a bum. I watched Dances with Wolves on AMC, read, and did some laundry. I bowled okay (95-135-137) which helped us win ¾ games for the league. We watched 24 on TV but missed the Apprentice as a result. Sean and Jess TIVO’d I though so we’ll catch up on it with them soon.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!

15 Weeks

How your baby's growing: At around 4 inches long, crown to rump, your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 ounces. He's busy inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which will help develop the air sacs in his lungs. His legs are growing longer than his arms now, and he can move all his joints and limbs. That means his hands are more functional, too. Sweat glands are appearing, and although his eyelids are fused shut, he can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, he's likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for your baby to taste at this point, but his taste buds are beginning to form. And if you have an ultrasound, you may be able to find out whether your baby's a boy or girl!

My Take: the headaches are gone and the spots have significantly reduced- both of which I’m quite grateful for!

At the wedding last night (where the reading went fine, thank God) a frequent question was whether or not I missed drinking alcohol. Truth be told – YES. Really the frustration is all about timing versus missing drinking. With so many holiday parties and open-bar weddings I miss the opportunity to kick back with a White Russian, especially when it’s on the house! Going out was the only time I ever really drank, especially with a husband who doesn’t like the taste of nearly any alcohol, so I do miss having a cocktail or two when I’m in the complimentary the social, casual, fun-loving atmosphere. Ah well. It’s all for the greater good.

Reading for the Masses (pun intended)

I was honored to be asked to be a reader at Sean and Anne’s wedding tomorrow, a request that was very touching to me. Being a reader is cool because you get to get up in front of everybody (proof that you are important to the bride and groom), you sometimes get a corsage or your name in the program, and you don’t have to spend all the money on bridal showers, dresses, hair, etc. like the bridesmaids do. The downside of course is that you don’t just get to “stand and look pretty” like the bridesmaids, you actually serve a function (reading, duh) so people pay full attention to you and how well you do.

The first time I ever read in a wedding was at Jen O’s and I was really excited about it. As I sat in the church and the ceremony progressed my nervousness grew and grew. Same thing for Christina’s wedding. This is slightly confusing to me because I don’t normally get nervous about public speaking. I'm in sales for crying out loud- my job is to present information. I attribute my nerves to the fact that, unlike the workplace, my family and friends (people whose opinions actually matter to me) are in the audience.

So, wish me luck tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t stumble all over my words or get dyslexic when I get up there.

Love Conquers All

Yesterday was a really relaxing night. I took all the information that the builder rep sent me on features for the different models and put them into a spreadsheet to cross-compare houses. I'm still waiting on square footage information, but there seems to be a large (aka $35K) discrepancy between my preferred house and EVERY other one. Two big things that will push us closer to a decision to build or not – will homeowners association fees cover snow removal and looking at the lot again in the daylight. We’re scheduled to go see at least two other models on Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted!

Amazingly, we also had a few hours to sit down and watch Pride & Prejudice last night. Now, I know this is Lisa’s all-time favorite movie, but it wasn’t as good as I was hoping. At the time we finished I would give it a B. Now, thinking back on it, I like it more, but not much more. The acting was tremendous in general but the whole plot isn’t that thrilling and therefore the movie is often slow.

A theme that I'm finding resonates with me through movies, songs, and life is people not giving up on Love. This concept was pretty big in P&P last night, Shall We Dance? from last week and Castaway from a month ago. The theme goes like this: the main characters express their feelings for each other, life gets in the way for one reason or another, and through all that they come back to where they started by still being in love with that person (P&P: Elizabeth thinks that the guy is a jerk for splitting up her sister and her boyfriend but later sees the light; SWD: Husband expresses to his wife that though he has a new hobby that's kept them apart recently, their relationship is his most prized accomplishment; Castaway: he gets stranded on an island but clings to the memory of his fiancé at home, and she him). I find this drive very moving.

I think what gets me is that when I internalize the idea, it’s what I hope someone [would] feels for me – that I'm worth all the pent up feeling and emotion and worth “fighting for”. Obviously I'm sure everyone wants someone to feel this way about them. I think it’s why people entertain or act on the idea of getting back together with an ex- they like that the other person still sees the good in them. I know I’ve been there more than once through the years.

Kid Comments

Some updates on this pregnancy process:
1) I claimed I wouldn’t be one of those people who unbuttons their pants and I’d just buy maternity pants when needed. Suddenly, I became that person!! So…today I'm wearing maternity pants for the first time. Once I tried the mom jeans on in the store with Megan on Monday I wondered aloud why I hadn’t bought some a week ago. What a frickin’ difference in comfort!

2) Sarah W is a mean person. She sent me this “birth plan” creator with about a million different items to consider just during the 2-3 days you’re in the hospital pre- and post-birth. HOLY CRAP is this thing scary and educational in an eye-opening way. Here are some examples of items I'm supposed to decide on:

So I can stay as mobile as possible, I would prefer to have a heparin lock administered instead of an IV. I need to look up what a heparin lock is...

If fetal distress is suspected and time permits, I would like confirmation of this with a fetal scalp blood sample before proceeding with other interventions. a scalp blood sample?! If the kid is in trouble do whatever is necessary as soon as possible to remedy the situation.

If my pregnancy progresses past 40 weeks, I would prefer to base the decision to induce on the results of the baby's biophysical profiles, not on my own personal discomfort or impatience. 2 words for this one - bull shit. If I'm miserableI want this bugger out of me.

I would rather tear than have an episiotomy. This does not sound like fun

I would like the opportunity to touch my baby's head as it crowns. I do not want to delay the labor process for anything. I want it over and done with ASAP.

Please allow the umbilical cord to stop pulsating before it is cut. it does what!?

Please show me the placenta after it is delivered. like a car accident I'm strangely interested in seeing this, however, I think it's probably better to not know what gushy, non-pretty things are/were inside me

Granted I picked some of the more interesting items on the list to post here, but many of the others weren’t far off. Jim and I read the list together last night and his only and final thoughts on the subject were:

“I'm not watching, catching the baby, or cutting the umbilical cord. You can have whoever you want in there, but I wouldn’t want anyone else but us. Why in the world would anyone want to do most of this stuff? Just give me the regular old way they normally do things and I’ll be fine.”

Home Buying

We’re making progress with this home building thing. The builder rep and I have gone back and forth via email several times and she’s good about answering my questions to the best of her ability or getting me answers on the things she doesn’t know. Each time we write I send her like 10 more questions to get me info on.

Last night Jim and I went through all the different models we’d consider (5) and talked about the pros and cons of each. Heating and cooling for a great room continues to be a major concern. So is the square footage – the house we designed is probably too big for us if we’re being truthful.

Here is the model that's front-running right now:

We also went to Home Depot and talked to one of their employees about the differences between Granite and Quartz. Really interesting education because we were both 100% Granite when we entered and now we’re both all for the Quartz option after learning more. Also opened our eyes to how much the builder is overcharging for these options. For example, on our 92 sq. ft. counter they wanted an upgrade cost of $10,500 on top of the counter price pre-built into the house. Home Depot wanted $7800 for the same thing installed and with a 10 year warranty!

Jim also found an article today talking about how much you can talk builders down on their houses – more ammo to negotiate!

So far the only real negative I have is that I don’t get immediate responses to my emails – I know that a lot of the stuff I ask has to be researched and priced, but I'm so eager to get answers I sit on the edge of my seat until I see her email pop into my inbox!

Weekend of 1/5/07

Another busy weekend and another spiteful Monday morning.

Friday night Jim and I and all the grandkids went to Grandma and Grandpa W’s for dinner. Grandma claims that she’s not a good cook anymore so she got KFC chicken and made all the side dishes. No one complained though we don’t agree with her reasoning. Greg is an amazing eater. That kid puts tons of food away and remains so skinny at like 160lbs or something on a 6’2” frame. It’s nuts.

Saturday we ran some errands and then headed up to Spencerville for Jim’s family’s Christmas. SO nice that they don’t celebrate holidays on the specific holiday- makes coordinating my family’s festivities so much easier. We got this decorative solar light that Rusty and Diane made us and of all things they decorated it with DUCKS. ; )

I got the joy of driving home in the POURING down rain on Sunday. We did some stuff around the house (took down the Christmas tree, etc.), I started and finished my ER book where Jim and I are the main characters (it certainly lived up to its claim of being a “prescription for passion”), and we went to NKY to watch The Apprentice. Jim’s got a buddy who’s a contestant in the show this year, Surya, so we were lucky to nab an invite from him and get some inside scoop about the really reallys as we watched the first show together. Quite entertaining.

Lastly, I'm having some annoying issues with headaches and floaters (seeing “spots”). Apparently the black, transparent spots I'm seeing are really shadows created by parts of my retina detaching. According to my optometrist the spots are hormone-induced and should go away post-July. Like my headaches, these have turned into “every day all day” types of visitors. This morning I literally waved my hand in front of my face trying to get the dots to move out of my line of site. Obviously didn’t work.

14 Weeks

How your baby's growing: Head to bottom, your baby's 3 1/2 inches long — about the length of a lemon — and weighs about 1 1/2 ounces. Her body's growing faster than her head, which now sits upon a more well-defined neck. By the end of this week, her arms will have lengthened and will be in proportion to the rest of her body. (Her legs still have some growing to do, though.) She's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair all over her body (called lanugo). Her liver starts secreting bile this week, a sign that it's already functioning properly, and her spleen starts contributing to the production of red blood cells. She's also producing and discharging urine into the amniotic fluid, a normal process that she'll keep up until birth. You still can't feel your baby's movements, but her hands and feet (which are now half an inch long) are more flexible and active. Thanks to brain impulses, her little facial muscles are getting a workout as she squints, frowns, and grimaces. She can grasp now, too, and she may be able to suck her thumb.

My Take: Well, I’m apparently moved out of the sickness trimester and into the best one (second). Too bad I never suffered from many of the bad elements of the first three months, namely morning sickness.

Jim and I did decide that we’ll convert the guest room into the guest room/nursery as we expect it’ll only be for a 3 month period before we move, we’ll have a bassinet with the kid in our room for a few weeks, and no one will want to visit us then anyway. We planned out how to rearrange many things in that room and are on the books to go register on 1/21 (I’m sharing a family baby shower with Lindsay so I have to do all that jazz sooner rather than later).

What's "Fair"?

My dear husband and I got into a conversation last night about sibling rivalry and communism last night after we got home from visiting the Polleys. I think that the reasons that we differ in opinions somewhat is because he’s an only child and has therefore never dealt with sibling rivalry. Would you mind weighing in on this situation:

Two kids in the family, one grows up to be a doctor and the other grows up to be a teacher. Obviously these two individuals have drastically different salaries. When the parents die they obviously have the free will to give whatever inheritance amount they want to the two kids (or none at all).

Should they give their children even amounts or should they give them different amounts based on need?

Thanks for noticing

Jim and I are in the process of watching Shall We Dance (2004) with Richard Gere and Jenifer Lopez. So far it’s earning a B but we’ve got 40 more minutes to go.

Anyway, there’s a quote in there that Susan Sarandan’s character says that really struck me. This is her answer to “Why do people get married?”:

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.

I think this is interesting too in light that the person she’s speaking too initially answered the question with the word “Love”. Really, I think love is partly all that stuff – not just noticing the other person’s life, but actually caring about the outcome.

Nearly every day I ask Jim what he had for lunch and who he ate with. Does this information affect me, especially after the fact, in any way? Of course not. But it’s a moment in his life that I didn’t get to experience with him. A choice, albeit simple, that is a reflection of who he is and what he likes to do. I laugh when he has the same thing 3X in one week. I ask more about the guy he met and dined with for the first time yesterday. I learn more about him by knowing what he did for lunch.

I'm sure you see the other, obvious connection to this quote and blogging. I think that this is the reason we all write and read here on a regular (many times a day?) basis. We appreciate the reassurance that someone is interested in what we’re doing, how our weekend went, the opinions and feelings we have. The validation that someone wants to listen to what we have to say becomes the motivation to keep writing even when we have "nothing" to say.

2006 Recap

Just like ’05, here’s this year’s recap:

Age: 27
Weight: 146 (this increase hardly counts given my current situation)
Height 5’6”
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue, Right: 20/20, Left 20/15 (thank you, Lasik!)

NYE Activities: Sarah, Danny & Alex W, and Jessy, Sean, Em and Ben G came over to play games at our place

Best Of…
Movie: Talladega Nights (so funny!)
-- Worst Movie: Miami Vice
Song: I Loved Her First by Heartland
Friend of the year: Sarah Williams- she asked me to be the Godmother of her only child for crying out loud! In addition, she’s one of the most selfless people I know

Most fun thing of 2006: Cruising Alaska with super-cool people; Reunion Weekend (from Megan’s party to The Fieldhouse) with my 1320 Honeys
Most disappointing thing of 2006: Hearing that I can’t teach during the day in ’07; and, if I'm being totally honest, that I wasn’t going to give my parents their first grandchild (selfish, but true and I was over it in a day)
Most Impressive: Realizing fully how lucky my brother Mike is to have Lindsay. I thought no one was good enough for him, but she proved me wrong.

Looking to 2007…
Most Anticipated Thing: Seeing my niece, Julia Templin ;) / Having a kid
Most Nervous About: Having a kid – the pain, the responsibility, losing my ability to plan every waking moment
Goal: To have a kid that looks like the name we pre-selected for it. How scary to see the kid and have to crash through the process of choosing a name all over again that better “fits” this person you hardly know

Resolution: Not to spend time with people who bring me down. They put me in a sour mood and wasting time on them isn’t fair to the people who consistently make me happy and want to see me.

Sleep Deprived and Home Dreaming

This whole week has caught up with me… too much late-night partying made me feel a bit under the weather around dinnertime last night and I sent myself to bed for some rest. Jim and I officially went to bed at 9:45pm last night as we were both afraid that our 10:30am wake-ups all week would screw us up when we had to get up before 7:30am for work. I could not sleep though until 11 and even then it was like I had a plane to catch – I woke up every two hours immediately scared that I’d overslept. Jim apparently did the same thing – he got up 45 minutes early because he couldn’t sleep.

As you can imagine, I'm dragging this morning. And feeling a little green to boot. Bleh.

A word about houses – the area we’re interested in, Blue Meadows, is going to be a Ryan Homes-built neighborhood. We’ve gone through a lot of the floor plans and I’ve made extensive notes on what we’d want to upgrade, etc. As you can imagine, the dream house with all the upgrades I’d like looks to be mucho expensive and out of our $ range. I asked the builder rep for an option sheet so I can scale myself back to reality.

Dave and Rachel mentioned that a house in their neighborhood just went up for sale. I looked for it last night and think I found it. It’s technically listed as “Springdale” rather than Glendale so that threw me off. Jim perked up when I explained the geographic area and I think he’ll want to take a drive sometime soon.

I was also intrigued by a house Lisa and Kendall mentioned on Saturday that a friend of theirs is selling. The good news there is that it’s 6 months out, exactly in line with our preferred time-frame, but I can’t obviously look it up online as it’s not listed yet. This one is in Maderia.

More to come as something happens (which could be months away)…