Thursday 13

6 Things I Can't Do and 7 Things I Can! 1. I can’t see those stupid magic eye things that used to be popular a few years ago. I stare and stare and nothing pops out at me. 2. I can’t get through Forest Gump without crying. Especially the ending scene where he’s at Jenny’s grave under that big tree. 3. I can’t understand how people zone into heavy metal music. It truly sounds like noise to me. 4. I can’t justify spending more than $15 on lunch 5. I can’t do a pull up. 6. I can’t get comfortable parallel parking- it always is a daunting thing to do, especially downtown! ** -- ** -- ** -- ** 7. I can finish my entire bowl at Chipotle, even with the extra rice! 8. I can read a book and forget within 6 months what the plot was. Same for a lot of movies I watch. 9. I can watch elephants at the zoo for an hour without getting bored 10. I can spend a half hour trying out different fonts for a project and justify that it’s time well-spent 11. I can count some of “Jim’s” friends (friends before I knew Jim) as “my” friends now because we’ve spent so much time together over the last 5 years 12. I can negotiate a deal so well that it impresses others 13. I can publicly speak without getting nervous

35 Weeks - 5 To Go!

How your baby's growing: Your baby's getting big. She weighs a tad over 5 pounds and is just over 18 inches long. Because it's so snug in your womb, she isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times she kicks should remain about the same. Her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

My Take: Special thanks to Mom for letting me borrow a diamond ring of hers to replace my own. My fingers are so swollen my wedding rings got stuck and it took me hours of elevation to get them down enough to yank them off. Yeah for still looking like I'm married though in this day and age probably no one notices or would care if I was 8 months pregnant and didn’t have a ring on my wedding finger.

There are a few questions that people who haven’t seen me in a while universally seem to ask. Here they are with the answers for your reference!

1) Do you know what you’re having? Yes, we’re having a little girl.
2) What are you going to name her? Nicole.
3) Are you going to take drugs [during labor]? I'm not above an epidural if it’ll make me enjoy the experience more.
4) Is Jim excited? No, he’s irritated that I got knocked up, especially when I told him it is really Dale’s kid.

Duh, obviously that fourth one isn’t my real answer but geez, people, what do you expect me to say? Even if Jim wasn’t excited (which he is!) he’s smart enough to put on a good act!

Anonymous Fan

I reposted my receipt blog but purged the original to get rid of the comments.

I find it peculiar that someone takes the time to continuously read my blog though they find it and my friends "annoying". To further illustrate how backwards this person is, they actually comment and CHECK BACK to comment more!! And they think I'm not interesting?! Apparently I am- they keep reading day after day!

I Have an Opinion on Everything: Receipt Edition

Similar to my pet peeve on how restaurants waste a lot of food on oversized portions we don’t need, I have a similar issue with businesses that unnecessarily print out 2 feet of receipts for a simple purchase. I think perhaps the worst perpetrator of this is Blockbuster. Why I need not 1, not 2 but 3 separate receipts for an item that I'm taking with me and won’t return for money back at any time is ridiculous. I have never known anyone to actually have a use for any of the receipts Blockbuster, or most vendors, print out except for those budget-conscience folks who track every purchase/dollar spent via keeping a receipt copy or of course if you're concerned you might return the item for a refund.

My solution: have a single button on the cash register that is “no receipt” and is pushed in response to a negative answer to the question “would you like a receipt with your purchase today?” That way, those people like me who would pretty much NEVER want a receipt don’t waste the paper and those who do can continue to get them. I suspect this would save companies thousands of dollars per year in paper.

Thursday 13

Thirteen of my Friends and something I like about them (Today's could be a Thursday 30!!) 1) Jim – he hit a grand slam last night at softball! And he tells me I'm pretty. 2) Mom – besides Jim, she’s literally the only person I’ll call without a purpose and still chat with for a half hour 3) Dad- he called me the other day to tell me about a fair at work where I can come get free lunch and samples! 4) Sarah F – she sees what other people need and actually does something to help them get it 5) Sarah W – she’s quilting Nicole’s bumpers and quilt and didn’t make fun of me when it took me a long time to pick out the fabric 6) Greg – he asked me for help with his tuition reimbursement program – it’s nice that your little brother still needs you some times 7) Lisa – the person who inspires me (even though I don’t act on it) to change my hairstyle. She’s got amazing courage in the salon chair. 8) Viki - I want to hold her hostage in my basement and make her sing to me all day. 9) Jen – I’ve noticed that her favorite word to use is “fantastic”. Since I’ve noticed it I always smile because even when she writes it I hear her say it in my head like a little .wav file playing 10) My grandparents – they are the epitome of what I want to be when I'm 82+ - active, social, and loving 11) Jessica – it’s so weird and cool to see a friend go from a kid to one of the best moms I’ve ever seen 12) Karen C- she’s going to frickin’ Albania to study something she loves. Seizing opportunities is kick-ass. 13) Chuck- about once every other month I get an article in the mail that he thinks I’d like. It’s fun to 1) get mail and 2) know someone was thinking of you

34 Weeks - 6 To Go!

How your baby's growing: Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is probably almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which she'll need to regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her central nervous system is still maturing and her lungs are well developed by now. If you've been nervous about going into preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that 99 percent of babies this age can survive outside the womb — and most have no major long-term problems related to prematurely.

My Take: I went to the doc this afternoon. I gained 4lbs. in 2 weeks which I thought was high but the nurse said it was no big deal and Dr. Johnson didn’t say a thing. They’re not worried, I'm not worried. My abdomen measures right on with where it should be. Johnson felt around and said that Nicole is head-down and will probably stay that way for the next 6 weeks! Hooray!

Acid Reflux = Gone
Charlie Horses = Reduced
Swelling = Continuing at current pace
Thirst = I'm drinking about 4X more water than “normal” me
Fatigue = only when wild women come to visit and wear me out!
Nicole’s movement = she’s not getting any more extroverted personality-wise though I feel her strongly several times a day. I'll see if I can video her during one of her active times.

I feel great! I'm not exaggerating that if someone told me I had to be pregnant, even 7.5 months pregnant, for the rest of my life I’d shrug and say okay. Jim would not agree as he misses my old figure (which I take as a compliment). I’ve been really lucky and I’ll try not to gloat too much or jinx it for next time!

Stop the Noise!

I feel like a crotchety old man for saying this, but I really don’t like inspirational pop songs. I think they’re beyond cheesy. Perhaps because “I Hope You Dance” by Leann Womack was so horribly overplayed I'm now instantly annoyed when I hear a tune that encourages me to be all I can be. The latest in the stream of these songs- Rascall Flatts’s “My Wish” – I want to gag as soon as it comes on.

Weekend of 5/18/07

Long post, but it’s been a long weekend!!!

Friday: Worked all day which was “fun”. As soon as I got home I got a message from Sarah F saying she was stuck in traffic and to go to the homesite without her, which I did. They had an open house at the brand new model to welcome the 7 families who’ve already bought and to introduce ourselves to our soon-to-be neighbors. I checked out two main things from the model – the color of the ceiling fans (white or brown wood) and what furniture they put in the morning room (as I suspect the table Jim wants will be too small for the room). Then we headed over to our site to do the walk through where we approved the stakes in the ground. It was cool to see things as they’ll be laid out. I have two lot issues- 1) our house is set further back from the road than everyone else’s because of some berm that they’re not even putting in but is registered with the county. The means that our front yard is bigger than our backyard which isn’t my preference but Jim says is fine. 2) the second lot behind us is practically unusable for new construction which leaves the door open to us to purchase it if we want – a move that will give us 1 acre of land though ¼ of it would be woods/unusable. That decision is currently on hold. Ground will be broken in the next two weeks!

When we got home we met Sarah, Lisa and Kendall for dinner which was good (we never have roast beef b/c it’s too hard to make for just 2 people), and played with L & K’s new Wii. Other than my girl friends being too cool to do the bowling approach when they played, it was awesome!! We made little Mii’s (cartoon characters of our likeness) and used our own characters to play the games. It was fantastic! Lisa even made a little midget Nicole with a pink shirt and hat on!

Saturday: We got home at 12:30am from picking up Viki at the airport and went to bed not long after- we had to be up early to go to Mom’s and set up for the shower. What a great time!! So many people came to celebrate, the food was wonderful, the games were fun, the generosity of my friends with their gifts was overwhelming. I seriously have the best friends ever. THANK YOU to Sarah W, Sarah F, Jess, Viki and Mom especially for making my party so spectacular!!

After we left the shower I shuttled Viki, Sarah and myself over to Dale’s for his graduation party. It was funny because so many of our friends overlap and 3 of the girls from the shower were at Dale’s party too- ha! CONGRATS to Dale on his 5 years-in-the-making accomplishment!

We headed to Meijer for a fun shopping trip after the party and got Viki her nightly vanilla Frosty from Wendy’s. We hung out talking until about midnight or so and hit the sack- long day = restful sleep!

Sunday: Sarah left us (boooooooo!) around 10 and Viki and I solved the world’s problems for several hours while Jim studied and got his hair cut. I snuck away to go to Ben’s first birthday party (he’s so cute!) for a few hours. We went back to Meijer for our weekly shopping trip and had marinated chicken, broccoli, and crescent rolls for dinner. We watched Legends of the Fall last night – what a depressing movie! Great acting but man- everyone dies!

It’s a weird feeling to have been up for almost 3.5 hours already! I took Viki to the airport and then got ready and came into work. It'll be an early night I predict!

Game Chic

Jim and I pride ourselves on being on the forefront of all new games and introducing them to my family where enthusiasm spawns from there. Let’s review the past few years:

2004: Cornhole is all the rage. Parents, grandparents, and children alike enjoy tossing beanbags outside in the sunshine. Steve & Jim capitalize on the trend by making and selling their own sets.

2005: The Erdahls teach Jim and Karen Mexican Train Dominos. Quickly buying a set of their own and teaching the Templins, now nearly every extended Templin family (aunts, grandparents, etc.) owns the game. Mike and Lindsay got their own set for Christmas this past year.

2006: Bocce is introduced as the “new cornhole” after family picnics with Jim’s side of the family where the game is played. The game is so universally loved it makes its debut appearance as a second tournament at the Annual 4th of July party. At least 3 bocee sets were purchased by guests of said party as a direct result of playing there.

2007: And the new game is…?? Jen & Josh taught us a card game called Quiddler a few weeks ago that I bought for my mother for Mother’s Day this year. When we left the cook-out there were 6 family members playing the game, including Mary Ann who doesn’t normally play anything. It’s unfortunate that Jim doesn’t care for it as much…

Smaller Portion Follow-up

As a follow-up to my restaurant post, Chuck S sent me a link to an article that TIME wrote about this same complaint (Thanks, Chuck!).

Here's a snipet:

Big Chain Restaurants' New Small Portions
by: Joel Stein

It's the big gulp theory. The basic laws of restaurant economics state that meals keep getting bigger because food is cheap and fixed overhead--staff, rent, equipment--is the same no matter how much is piled on your plate. So giant servings are a win-win: you pay a little extra for a lot more food, and the restaurant makes extra profit. It's the same rule that created tubs of movie popcorn, venti-size coffee cups and Burger King's Meat'normous Omelet Sandwich. It's why no restaurant will ever give you a reasonably sized stack of pancakes.

Read More...

Week 33- 7 to go!

Nicole this week: This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and measures 17.2 inches. Thanks to she recent weight gain, she's losing that wrinkled alien look. Most of your baby's bones are hardening now, but her skull is still quite pliable. It's actually in separate pieces with spaces in between. This flexible structure allows your baby's head to compress so it can fit through your relatively narrow birth canal. The pressure on her head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a cone head-like appearance. This is totally harmless, normal, and temporary. Her skull plates won't completely fuse until she's about 9 to 18 months old.

My Take: I love how the baby people called my kid alien-like. Ha!

I’ve made good progress on the acid reflux since last week – I'm down to about 2 TUMS every other day or so. MUCH better than the 8 I was taking daily before. What has gotten worse though are the charlie horses I get- my calves are so sore that I can’t fully straighten my leg or walk without pain. I see now why pregnant women waddle – it’s because their legs hurt and they can’t walk right!

The swelling in my ankles (which are starting to blend right into my pained calves) is also consistant now. Fortunately not painful, it's reduced me down to a very small quantity of shoes that I can comfortably wear. I wear newly purchased size 9-10 (I'm normally an 8) beaded flip flops more than anything else now. Megan was a gem and lent me a blanket to soften the prop I keep my feet up on at work.

I’ve been reading more articles about the signs of labor. Though I'm sure I can’t miss it, I don’t want to misdiagnose it either (exaggerate something that’s not labor into a trip to the hospital for example). I'm hoping that it’s (forgive the pun-twist) not too painfully obvious.

I Have an Opinion on Everything: Restaurant Edition

I share an annoyance with my grandparents that came to light yesterday when I had dinner with Karen C (thanks again, Karen!): restaurants always give you way too much food. You read in the news all the time about how Americans’ concept of a portion size is sometimes 2-4X what the professionals would deem “1 serving” and as a result, we eat and eat and get fatter and fatter.

When I went to Chipotle for dinner last night they didn’t fill my bowl as full as they normally did. My first reaction was to pipe up and ask for some extra but then I figured, “why do I need to eat a 5lb. burrito bowl anyway?” and kept quiet. Lo and behold the portion they did serve me was not only finishable, but had me comfortably full and not stuffed. I think I just got used to seeing my bowl piled inches higher than the rim of the tray and translate it to “that’s how it has to be” versus "that's how it needs to be".

I’ve said it before, but I really wish that restaurants would correct this issue by giving me 1/2 the food but charging me 2/3 the price of a “normal” meal. That way they’d still be making a great profit and I’d feel better that the meal was more affordable. I wouldn't overeat and I wouldn’t have to kick myself the next morning for forgetting the doggy bag on the table when I left because there wouldn’t be one- I'd have finished all my food the night before. Side benefit: we'd eliminate all those smart alecs that exclaim "feel free to send my "wasted" food to the poor children in Africa 'cause I'm not eating it."

School's out for the summer!

Well, the school year is officially over – I turned in my final grades today. This semester was an interesting one. I wasn’t nervous at all like I sometimes got with my first class – perhaps it’s because I have a semester of experience under my belt or just that I knew my subject (sales) really well. The students were fun and I got a lot of good feedback and suggestions the last night of class. Nearly everyone said they’d take a Sales II class if it was offered. I got some hugs from students as they left and have already received a few emails from folks just since Thursday. I hope some of them keep in touch – even I never did with any of my college profs and that’s probably weird- they were good people.

Comparatively, I liked the 2X/week during the day better than 1/week at night just because I got to know the students better. I also think I gave out too many A’s this semester. I know how to adjust this – no more participation points and no more dropping the lowest quiz score. I would have doubled the amount of B’s had I made those two changes and the grade inflation wouldn’t have been as high.

Hopefully my feedback on the evaluations will be as positive as last semester’s… not sure when I’ll find out…

I don’t start back again until mid-October! A long break to settle into my other life changes (kid, house, etc.) before we start up with the madness again!

Perhaps now it'd be kosher to set Greg-Scott up with some of the girls from the class? They're his age and in his city! And pre-screened for his convenience! ;)

Weekend of 5/11/07

Friday: The family met up and went to the Olive Garden for Greg’s graduation celebration. The funniest part of the night came when Mike spilled the beans about Greg’s tattoo, which my parents didn’t know about, over dinner and the whole ball of yarn unraveled quickly. Greg announced Jim is his new official brother and Mike tried to divert attention from Greg and his error by pointing out that Lindsay has a tattoo. She didn’t seem thrilled to be in the limelight either. Quite entertaining!

Saturday: Got up, breakfast, furniture/mattress shopped, got a call from Martha (a pleasant surprise!), bought flowers, got groceries, went to Jim’s boss’s house. Full day, led to sleeping in until 10am on Sunday.

Sunday: I made Jim and I strawberry pancakes for breakfast which was so great. I planted flowers along the front of the house (1 more flat to go!) and we headed to Mary Ann’s for the mother’s day dinner. As my first “unofficial” mother’s day, it was nice but weird to have people wish me a good day. I got a card and a frame from the neighbor across the street, my baby book and a card from Jim (that he signed for him AND Nicole that made me all smiley), and a back massager from my dad. Mom liked the card game and novel we got her and a large number of family ended up playing it at the party through the time we left. Hooray for successful gift-giving!

I am T-I-R-E-D this morning!!!!

Ma Bell's my enemy

I work in telecom but I hate getting telephone calls. It’s not that I don’t like to talk to people, I do, but I'm never around when people call – I'm either at work/school and can’t answer my cell phone when friends call, or at an appointment/already on the phone so I can’t answer my office phone when my clients call.

As a result, my friends/clients seem to be forever leaving me voice mails, which I like less than getting phone calls. I literally cringe when I see the red blinking light on my phone indicating that a message is waiting. As a result, I am terrible at returning voice mails promptly because I typically don’t listen to them for a few days. I can’t really get away with this at work where I have to call people back to be polite/professional; but even then I often reply to their VM with an email which I like SO much better– it’s fast, convenient, and to the point. I think that I've just gotten burned out from talking all day that I appreciate the break email offers.

How this happened to the person who spent 4 hours a night every night on the phone in HS talking with friends is beyond me…

Self-inflicted misery

I'm really congested. So congested that there are times that I talk and get so stuffed up I choke on my own words.

Why then, do I spend so much time blowing and hacking to just immediately swallow all that gunk and re-create my own suffering?! I want this crap out of me, not back in!!

32 Weeks - 8 to go!

How your baby's growing: By now, your baby probably weighs almost 4 pounds and is almost 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. She has tiny toenails now, and her fingernails have grown in, too. Some babies have a head of hair already; others have only peach fuzz.

My Take: Two words define my life: Acid Reflux. Y-U-C-K. Sarah and the “old wives” predict this means I’ll have a hairy kid, which I’d like, so if that’s the case it’ll be worth it. Tums are my friend. Lots of Tums. Hint: Dale, buy stock!

Also, over the last two weeks I’ve had a handful of Braxton Hicks contractions which feel weird but I'm grateful my body’s getting “practice” now!

I conned Jim into going to the park with me last night. We walked the trail (about a mile and a half) and watched the geese. He held my hand and then took me for ice cream to put all those hard fought calories back on. He’s the best!

An update and 3 random thoughts

1) went to the doc this morning and here are the stats: I gained 2 ¾ lbs (perfect!), Nicky’s heartbeat is 150 (right on!) and my blood pressure was 112/68 making pre-eclampsia no longer a concern! Hooray!

2) We were talking about excuses over the weekend and Dad brought up a co-worker’s strategy of always calling off 2 days in a row since it makes the illness look more plausible, especially when your first “sick” day is a day after a weekend. I think that has some merit to it if I ever called off sick….

3) Does anyone other than the person him/herself or their significant other notice someone’s “signature scent”? I have no idea what my perfume/cologne my friends wear. Hell, I don’t even know what Jim wears. I do know what he wants to wear (Armani Black Code).

4) If you had to bring to mind the image of yourself in a photograph, which would it be? The first photo that comes to mind with me in it was was taken at the zoo with Lisa and is displayed on a picture box in her bathroom with her arm around me. I think I recall it because I was genuinely happy in the shot and it shows.

Weekend of 5/5/07

Friday: I woke up feeling like C-R-A-P. My throat was still sore from Thursday evening and it kept me up all night. Talking was painful. Swallowing was painful. The only real positive is that it DID get better as the day progressed and that so many clients/vendors were concerned about me and wished me well. Awwwwww!

After work, Jim, Mike, Lindsay, Ryann and I drove the 3 hour trek to Toledo to watch Little Greg get his college receipt. Long trip, another crappy night of sleep later…

Saturday: We got up early for Greg’s graduation and sat for 3 hours watching the business school file through. I lost to Dad in the dot game (you know, the one that you connect dots to make boxes and the person with the most boxes at the end wins) and I'm ashamed to admit that he won because he was truly more strategic than I at playing. I hate losing, especially when it can’t be blamed on bad luck which so many games are. Anyway, CONGRATS to G-Scott for finishing up at UT and for entering the tax-paying world of work.

When we got home we caught the last hour and a half of Tom/Meghan’s Derby party (great food, great company!) and got to see Dale’s CCO concert. I loved every minute of it. It was fantastic. I would go every weekend if they had a show. Jim appreciated the music but is not a fan of the orchestra so I'm not sure he’ll be joining me much in the future. We did agree that Nicole will be required to play a musical instrument (piano to start probably) as a significant percentage of the smartest people we know have this ability and I do not think it’s a coincidence.

Sunday: Finally, a good night’s sleep!! After working around the house we ran errands to look for a front door (for the new house), buy mom’s mother’s day present, sew bean bags for the cornhole set we’re going to be making/selling, grocery shop, and share a milkshake. Good day all the way around! My "illness" morphed into straight-out allergies and now I'm all conjested, snotty, and sneezy.

I did buy my mother’s day present for myself too: a fancy baby book for Nicole. I won't write anything in it until I confirm in June/July that we don't need a blue one, but here it is!

Seeing the States

Here's my state map:

Create your own visited states map

I think I've been to WI but now I can't remember fully. I only counted states I'm spent the night in, not just ones I've driven through as I don't think that really counts. I'm at 54% (28 states). Most desired to see next: Maine.

Yeah, I'm expecting some harrassment from Martha about how I could/should check OR off the list... I'm quite proud that I have some far away states in red, specifically AK, CA, HI, WA, AZ...

Thursday 13

Yeah, I'm a day late but yesterday was crazy from 7:30am - 10pm and there was no time to blog!!

The 13 Things I want to do in the next 365 Days 1. Give birth a healthy, little baby with as little pain as possible 2. Go to Costa Rica for Jen/Tom’s wedding where I intend on zip-lining for the first time! 3. Have at least one room in my new house that my friends honestly and enthusiastically think I decorated really well 4. Get a raise at XU 5. Lose more weight than I gained with Nicole 6. Make 1 new recipe a month out of a cookbook or from a referral 7. Spend time, not just money on charity work 8. Have date nights with my husband where we leave Nicole with a babysitter and “keep the flame alive” 9. Maintain or improve my 128 bowling average 10. Continue blogging at least 3X/week 11. Avoid getting any traffic tickets 12. Try a drastically different hair style 13. Visit one new city

31 Weeks- 9 to go!

How your baby's growing: This week, your baby measures about 16 inches long. She weighs a little over 3 pounds and is headed for a growth spurt. She can turn her head from side to side, and she's beginning to accumulate a layer of fat underneath her skin in preparation for life as a newborn. As a result, her arms, legs, and body are filling out.

My Take: This kid is moving a lot and the feeling is so neat. I sat in a meeting yesterday and she was so active even Megan got to watch her move my stomach. I can truly say that though I feel like I’ve been pregnant for a long time (how do I have 2 more months!?) I’ll miss it when it’s over.

I'm obviously pregnant now, rather than just oddly shaped, as strangers ask me when I'm due without hesitation. I am REALLY grateful that all my growth has been in my middle and not spread out over my whole body. And though I think he’s mostly being polite, I smile every time Jim tells me I'm pretty.

Interesting fact – about half the time I dream (which is roughly 3-4/night) I'm pregnant in my dreams.

Catchin' up from the weekend

Some Random Things…

• I think everyone with those annoying word verifications on their blogs should turn them off and just see what happens. I know they turned them on because they got spammed, but that was a long time ago. You should forgive and forget. :)
• Since the transistor on our street blew the whole office had to close yesterday around 3:30. How did I spend my extra 2 hours? With Ryann who’s so adorable and slept on my chest most of the time.
• Best thing about the weekend?? A really awesome baby shower put on by Jim’s mom in Van Wert. Great games, great food, great attendance!
• For Dale: I “met” Katrin from Vienna because she randomly commented on my blog a few months ago so I checked out hers and found she had many similarities to Viki (in that she calls her grandma ‘Oma’, wears authentic German attire at times, has been through much of Europe, etc). Anyway, I directed Viki to her blog and now we’re all friends!
• How amazing is this 85 degree weather!?