trying to Re-Lax

Oh my, what a couple of weeks.

When I last updated, I talked about finding radon in the basement and the contractor never showed.  Well, he did show up the following morning and after installing a new fan that we hope will solve the radon problem, he did an “energy audit”.  He went around taking measurements and finding areas that were leaking air.  He was in the basement for quite a while and I was getting ready to walk out the door to work when he came back in and said that we had a “major problem”, never a good thing to hear when getting ready to leave town for the week.  Using his infrared camera, he found a water leak behind one of our walls.  It was a fairly serious leak and had apparently been going on for a few days and was just getting ready to seep into the carpet where we would have noticed it if we had been here.  I made an emergency call to the plumber and waited for him to arrive which made me late for a meeting at work.  I skipped the meeting (I got to work about 15 minutes before it was done) and got in trouble for that.  Oh well.  Hopefully we got the radon fixed and the water line fixed in the same day.

Mike and I headed out for a weekend in Gatlinburg to celebrate our 12th anniversary (since our first date).  We had a great time.  The cabin we rented was amazing and had a media room with a 72 inch screen and theater chairs.  It  was by far the nicest cabin we had ever stayed in.  I was feeling a little sick when we left, but otherwise the weekend was perfect.

We left the cabin on Monday and drove back home for a couple of hours before I had to fly to San Diego for a week of work.  The flight out was beyond awful, I arrived very late, then had problems operating the rental car requiring me to call roadside assistance around midnight and sitting outside for 20 minutes while someone talked me through it.  Work was very productive and i was happy to be there, but my sugars ran high the whole week (I think because I was eating a few hours later than my normal times).  I flew back home on Saturday, happy to be here for the duration of the pregnancy.

On Sunday I just laid around and felt like crap.

Today was my doctor’s appt.  The one where I was going to confront her with the VBAC vs C-section discussion.  Here is the problem: I have talked to all my girlfriends including a nurse that works at the hospital in labor and delivery and tried to get a recommendation for a new doctor.  The nurse was the most helpful, she said I should try to a stand alone older male doc (she gave me a couple of names) for 2 reasons.  1) A doctor in a big practice would be hesitant to take me away from my doctor and 2) no local doctor was going to be pro-vbac, the best I could hope for was a person who was practicing in the late 90s when vbacs were more common and not too scared to give it a try.  So having this depressing  information under my belt. I didn’t want to be too aggressive with my doc because I really don’t want to change to a stand alone doc.  I went into the doctors office prepared for a nice calm discussion and everything went wrong.

As it turns out I am severely anemic and getting worse.  I mentioned that I was really tired and they tested for anemia and it had dropped several points since my last test even though I have been religious about taking the iron supplements.  She also felt my sugars were too high last week and I should go on insulin.  I asked her to one more week and she said I had to fax my numbers into them on Friday and if they were ok, we would put the insulin off.  If not, they would start it next week.

Ugh.  So no big c-section talk today.  I am just feeling very defeated by this pregnancy.  The good news is that I have only gained 20 lbs (compared to ~45 at this stage with Iz) and I am measuring right on target for the date (33 weeks).

When I got back to work, I got in trouble for missing the meeting 2 weeks ago and then had a confrontation about some stuff in a committee I am on.  I so can not deal with this right now.  I just need to bow out of the committee and reduce my stress levels.  I keep thinking Re-Lax, Re-Lax.  Any good tips on avoiding stress that involve no exercise or sugar would be most welcome.

And that has been my week.  How was yours?

radon and nesting

ARGH!  When we bought our house 2 years ago, we knew there had been a radon problem and there was a radon mitigation system in place.  The system consists of two pvc pipes that go into/under the foundation and pump the radon gas into the attic/out of the house.  We have this gauge thing in our garage that looks like a thermometer and from what I can see, it reads “0″ so I assumed all was well in the radon world.   However, Mike has been wanting to test the basement for some time and finally got around to it.  We got the results yesterday and came back with radon levels of 11 (the maximum allowed number is 4) and we both summarily freaked out.  I started calling radon mitigation services that morning and all the numbers seemed to go to someone’s house (never a good feeling).  I finally got someone on the phone and his first question was “do you hear the fan running?”  Umm, there is a fan?  No, we don’t hear a fan running.  Well, he says, fan has probably gone out.  I will come by in the morning and take a look.  I will call before I come.

So this morning found me anxiously waiting the radon guy.  8:00 came and went, then 8:30.  I called around 8:45 and got his voice mail to ask if he had a time in mind that he would arrive.  He called back at 9:30 saying he couldn’t come out today, how about Friday.  Since we are all going out of town and want to get this fixed asap, Friday doesn’t work for us.  he said he had another job tomorrow that he could push to Friday and would come by tomorrow at 9.

<>I hate dealing with contractors.  If your radon  person cancels on you tomorrow, I apologize.

<>Since it was already 9:30 and I was meeting Mike for lunch at 11, I decided to clean the house (lets just call it nesting) instead of go to work before lunch.  I cleaned our kitchen bar area which always gets junked up with everything imaginable and takes forever to sort and put things away.  Then I cleaned our bedroom which was where all the excess stuff from the former storage room – now nursery was “temporarily” placed (3 months ago).  The bedroom looks loads better.  I guess we will set up the pack and play in there for the first couple of months of baby life.

The nursery is really coming together too, I need to take some pictures.  I bought a white bookcase yesteday to put by the rocking chair and hold books, little toys, and my iced tea while I nurse.  We still need to get some baskets or bins for additional storage on the closet shelves and bookcase and some artwork supplies (we are making our own artwork for the baby’s room!).

<>Speaking of the nursery, I went with a barnyard theme (you know, horses, cows, sheep, ducks) because it was nice colors and gender neutral and I thought it would be easy to find barnyard stuff anywhere.  (I hate being held hostage by the big baby store.)  WRONG.  Everywhere I look there are all zoo animals and bugs and butterflies, but no barnyard which is why we are making our own artwork.

<>I am off on Friday for a romantic weekend (!!!) and then off to CA for a week of work.  Will try to check in sometime.

10 weeks to go

Are you feeling better Cat?

We spent our weekend setting up the nursery!  It was great fun.  We painted the walls yellow 2 weekends ago and got the carpets cleaned last week.  This weekend we moved the furniture in, set up the crib, and unpacked and washed all the clothes from my 0-3 month bin.  We have ALOT of little clothes, about 25 onesies (some plain, some highly decorated).  Some of them to tiny and small it is impossible to believe that Iz ever wore them or that this baby will ever wear them.

Even with our overabundance of clothes and all things baby, I can’t stop looking at the baby section of whatever store we walk into.  I want to buy the baby at least one outfit that will be just for her.  It is hard to know what the temperature will be like, though, when the baby comes since she is due at the cusp of spring.  I will try to wait till slightly closer to the due date.

The gestational diabetes diet continues.  I am getting the hang of it and even though I HATE it, esp. breakfast, I am managing and my blood sugar seems to be ok.  I thought I would test it a little since I still don’t really believe I havee it and ate a little worse yesterday (we went out to lunch with friends), but sure enough, my blood sugar was high after lunch.  I guess I do have it. I can’t tell you how much I miss my cereal and juice for breakfast.  I have been having toast with cheese or eggs instead with a big cup of ice cold water.  Sounds like a prison breakfast, no?

Otherwise, everything is groovy.  I hope these next 10 weeks pass quickly, I can’t wait to hold a little baby in my arms again.

Home improvements

I loaded up some pictures of our wall paper removal and new paint colors on my other site.

Busy Weekend

Cleaned out the storm closet and picked up some “drawer” tubs at Target. (Also got new yoga and fitness pants — maybe that means I’m moving closer to hitting the gym again?)

Closet looks great, now I just need to sort the junk in the hall, pack into new tubs, and ditch the leftovers. Bills and correspondance await me on my desk. Got my prescription and tomorrow I’ll make a hair appointment.

I also already spent all our “home improvement” budget for Feb. and it’s only the 4th. I got some magnetic paint to paint a wall for Julia to display her artwork in a more organized way and then I picked up a small dining set at Target.com.

I’m a bit leery of buying it without actually touching it but I’m sold on it being an actual wood in a mission-ish style, relatively cheap so it’s ok if the kid dings it around, and if I hate it I can return it to a local store.

This week? Busy with Julia’s school junk and if all goes well I can paint on Friday.

which lamp says you?

Mike and I are in the process of redecorating our living room.  Right now we have a sofa, chair, loveseat set, a Big Ass TV on an ugly glass stand, and TV trays pretending to be endtables.  All the light is from overhead light.  What we want to do is add end tables, lamps, and an entertainment center that will house the monster.  As I mentioned before, we want fairly “rustic” furniture, no fancy finishes, no curvy lines.   We want to buy these big pieces so we know what type of wood finish we are going to get in the room before buying things like frames for the pictures on the walls.

Well, that Big Ass TV is causing many more problems than it is worth.  I found the perfect TV armoire for it, but it is 2.5 inches too narrow. I found another one that would work (but was still a distant second) and it was 0.25 inches too narrow.  So far no entertainment center I have found will fit the TV and our styles.  The EC has to have pocket doors, some space for the components, and some storage space for dvds. It has to be big enough to house our TV (46.5 inches wide) and small enough to fit into the niche in the wall (77 inches wide).  These two things don’t want to come together.  We will be visiting another huge furniture store this week with tape measure in hand to see what we can find.

Meanwhile I have been looking for lamps.  How does one choose a lamp?  I see all these different styles and I don’t know what to get.  I want a lamp that will blend in with the background.

Yesterday was a horrible day at our house.  It started when mom called me to tell me that the basement commode would not flush.  After investigating further, we found sewage backing up into our basement.  All showers, dish washing, toilet flushing stopped while I called a plumber.  He said he would be there in the morning, but didn’t show until 3.  He stayed for 15 minutes to assess the problem, then went away until 5:30.  They finished up some time around 7.  The stench was horrible.  My mom aired it out and cleaned it best she could.  It didn’t smell too bad today.

Run Down

Paul’s been stressed at work — really busy.  He also thinks he’s getting ill.

What that means for me? I feel like I’ve been dealing with child alone for quite a while. I know he tries to help where he can, but I woke up this morning thinking I need some more child-free time. I love her, but I haven’t been getting enough time away from her lately.

And I’m also starting to feel a bit of a scratchy throat and feel run down in general.

checking in

<>The answer, Cat, to how working mom’s do it is that we don’t.  At least I don’t.  I have never cleaned under my bed or washed my curtains and the infrequency with which we change our sheets is alarming.  Everything just falls away.

I think it is a great idea to check in once a day, but have been having a hard time just doing it.  I am feeling a bit better, but still not 100%.  I hope to get some good exercise in this weekend with yard work but also a trip around the lake.  The weather has been very mild (but rainy) and I want to take advantage of the nice temperatures.<>

This week my department has a very important visitor (a nobel laureate) so there are many dinners and lunches and functions.  It is very nice, but my waistline isn’t thanking me.

<>

I’m Hot and Dirty

On days like today I wonder how working moms DO it?! Maybe all the moms of all types are always feeling like they’re not quite hitting the balance they want?

My day so far?

• weight workout
  
• breakfast for me and kid + nurse kid
  
• put away clean dishes from last night + another load in dishwasher
  
• flip clothes from last night to dry
• wash towels
  
• flip towels
• bring in the dry clothes and dump on kid’s bed to fold
• wash more clothes
  
• clean LR ceiling fan (ugh)
  
• Kid’s room (make bed, tidy dresser and toy shelf, sweep)
• towels still damp, dry some more
  
• move clean but wet clothes to holding basket
  
• wash curtains and bedding from master bedroom
  
• clear out a slew of boxes from master bedroom into hallway
  
• straigthen bedroom bookshelves
• clean under the bed
• sweep bedroom
  
• mop bedroom
• get dry towels out
• put in wet clothes from basket to dry

Now I’m waiting for water to boil so I can make the kid a quick pasta for her lunch. We’ll eat, nurse, get her down for a nap, and then I’m right back at it.

I’m tired, slightly irritable and my day isn’t anywhere close to being done.

I e-mailed Paul to tell him he needs to think about losing some books and/or junk in his toy closet because the overflow in the bedroom is crazy.

I hauled out a whole slew of boxes and things just to sweep and mop n the bedroom.

I kept muttering things like, “Ugh! Dust!” and “Ugh! This is SO not a room I’d want to get laid in!” and “Is it possible to have a sexy bedroom after you have a kid? Why are there Little People under my bed?”

In my email I told him I was grumpy, hot, and dirty in my tank top and he wrote me one sentence back:

“Send pix please!”

That made me laugh. So I did sent him one reasonably work-safe picture of my hot, dirty self:

PS: Wrapped it up and called it a day!

• make pasta lunch for kid with enough for dinner leftover
• wash dishes
  
• check laundry, set dryer for another go
  
• sweep office
  
• sweep hall
  
• sweep foyer
  
• sweep kitchen
  
• mop kitchen
  
• move furniture around so I can put sawhorses and table top in LR
  
• move all the boxes out of bedroom to sawhorse table for further sorting
  
• clean bathroom sink, mirror, and toilet