As of yesterday, me and Jag are now VW owners. I wanted another full-size wagon and I prefer to buy used, and we both wanted something newer than our current cars that would accommodate the LATCH system for the baby seat and got decent mileage, so we ended up with a 2007 Passat Wagon. We love it so far! The amount of leg room in this thing is crazy.
Here’s a nice happy picture of our tree. I was sitting nearby on the floor with my laptop, editing the Flickr title for the photo, when it just Fell. Over.
I’ve heard of Christmas trees falling over, but I’ve never had one come down right beside me (it only brushed my arm; luckily I was not in the direct path). Somehow we only lost 3 ornaments, despite the fact that a bunch of them are blown glass. (One of them was the chili pepper ornament from Arizona; sorry Mom and Dad!) Me and Jag got it upright again, Jag loosened and retightened the tree stand screws while I held it, and then we spent a while cleaning up all the broken glass while trying to keep the cats out of the living room. Sigh. At least we have a good story: The Year The Tree Fell Over and Almost Crushed Me.
I almost forgot that it’s the Bean’s Rutabega Week!
Rutabegas, like turnips and parsnips, are underrated vegetables.
I should have known better than to be feeling pretty good about my up-to-now problem-free pregnancy. On Saturday, I noticed some very itchy bumps on my tummy. This morning, I have more both on my tummy and on my wrists, and I’m pretty sure it’s PUPPP (Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy). (Note: do not Google for this unless you’re into photos of pregnant women covered in oozing crusty rashes.)
The condition normally starts in the third trimester (I’m 2 weeks away from that), but is most common in first pregnancies and when carrying a boy, so given the symptoms and comparing with the aforementioned icky photos, it seems likely this is it. I have a Bean-related doctor appointment tomorrow anyway, so I’ll see if they agree with my google self-diagnosis. Right now I’m going to run out to Whole Foods for some Grandpa’s Pine Tar Soap and see if that particular home remedy helps at all. The itching is intense but luckily still intermittent at present. I really really don’t want to be one of those women who has to be induced at 36 weeks because the non-stop scratching and sleeplessness has become more detrimental than an early labor. :-/
Poor Miss Miranda has not enjoyed most of her Thanksgiving weekend. We boarded her at the vet from Wednesday morning to Friday afternoon since we stayed over at Myrtle Beach with Jag’s family, and she did not have a good time. We had the vet do her yearly physical while she was there, and towards the end of the exam, she flipped out and attacked the vet tech’s welder’s gloves, losing a canine tooth in the process. She then refused to eat for the next 24 hours and had to be syringe-fed. She did start eating a bit on her own before we came to get her, but I’m really worried about boarding her again. I’m actually much more upset about the not-eating part than the losing-a-tooth thing.
She really is a sweet kitty at home, and she seems so cute and peaceable and incapable of attacking anyone, although both me and Jag have seen her in action at the vet before. It’s amazing how scary a pissed-off 8-pound cat can be.
This was a good, if somewhat busy weekend. Saturday we headed to the Carolina Renaissance Festival with Phil and Jamie and spent a very nice day there eating, shopping, and hanging out. (Thanks again to Michelle and Jeff for kind assistance with the tickets!) None of my dressing-up-for-ren-faire clothes fit me currently, so I had to go dressed as a pregnant normal person.
The Tree Man was there again, although rather less tall and imposing than in previous years. He was still pretty cool.
Jag, after much deliberation, bought a new leather hat for hiking and general wear, since he’s very prone to sunburn year-round. I thought he looked much more dashing in some of the more pimped-out selections, but was forced to admit that he’ll get much more practical wear out of this one than a hat decorated with a leather rose and a green feather and with one side rakishly pinned up.
The Living Statue lady was there again (I assume the same person as in previous years), in a more classical white-marble mode than before. Jamie bought a leather rose for her as we headed out of the day, and she very graciously accepted the gift.
We caught the tail end of a very cool carillion performance as well. This is one of the two mobile carillons in the US; think 35 bronze church bells rigged up on a trailer, with someone playing them via a keyboard that’s operated pretty much by pounding with your fists and some foot pedals for the larger bells. It was very cool. The web site for more info is www.castinbronze.com.
I think I was in serious nesting mode today. After a somewhat crappy morning caused by a scheduled outage for Jag’s job (sometimes I wonder if it’s good or bad that we’re both in IT), we moved some more of my crafting stuff out of the nursery and spent a while cleaning up the office and shredding piles of old bills and stuff.
After baking a batch of chocolate chunk cookies this afternoon (I bought the bag of chunks by accident, but I think I prefer them to chocolate chips!) I made a double batch of pizza dough, froze half, and used the rest to make what was definitely my best pizza ever. Along with a simple homemade sauce, it had Italian sausage, red bell pepper, red onion, artichoke hearts, and goat and mozzarella cheeses. The house still smells like this pizza and even though I’m completely stuffed from dinner, I still want another piece. It was amazing. We won’t be able to do dinners like this for a long time after the Bean arrives, so I am definitely appreciating that we have the time to do this kind of thing now.
Today’s mail contained bills, my car registration renewal, and two things I wasn’t expecting: a copy of Parenting magazine and an envelope from Similac. Clearly, someone sold my name to some mailing list, and I’m pissed. It can’t have been BabiesRUs, since we only just signed up for a registry there. I suspect it was Gap/Old Navy, since I’ve ordered maternity clothes from them on two occasions. BCBS has been sending me free baby and childcare books in the mail, but I don’t think HIPAA would allow them to sell my information to anyone.
Parenting is just as useless and inane as ever. I about threw it across the room after reading the results of the following reader survey question: “Is it cruel to make your toddler eat a vegetarian diet?” 63% of the morons who read this magazine said “YES”. I guess that means that, what, half the parents in India are child abusers? Are observant Jews “cruel” for denying their kids pork products? I’m not vegetarian and I think even asking the question is beyond ludicrous. Do these people think that parents in vegetarian cultures around the world suddenly start cooking steaks and fried chicken for their kids instead the same foods the adults eat?
I’m going to see if I can get this subscription canceled somehow; in the meantime I want to buy a bunch of copies of some hippie-homebirthing-breastfeeding-clothdiapering magazine with articles longer than 2 pages in 30-point font so I can wash my brain out.
Who can hear it? Apparently just me and Miranda. 😉 Around 4am I woke up to a loud hollow thud. I would have thought I’d imagined it, but Miranda, who had been sleeping next to my pillow, jerked awake and jumped off the bed, so I woke up Jag and we prowled around the house peeking out the windows, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn’t til morning when Jag looked out the craft room nursery window that we realized it was a tree. Luckily one that was pretty far from the house and missed the deck by 3-4 feet. We’ll be doing some wood choppin’ this weekend.
This turned out to be a much busier weekend than we expected. On Saturday we drove to my old townhouse to check on things and see if there was any remaining cleanup to do. It turned out we’d somehow left a bunch of empty boxes and old computer equipment in one of the spare bedrooms, so we ended up making 2 trips to the dump/recycling center. Then we discovered that 2 of the toilets had stopped working. I was able to fix one with a bit of joggling things around, but the other one broke completely as soon as Jag started poking at the innards, not very surprising since all 3 toilets are probably original to the 30-year-old house. It’s very clear from looking things over that the 2 full bathrooms are going to have to be completely redone before I can even think of selling: new tubs, toilets, and sink/vanity and floor replacements.
We stopped by Home Depot afterwards to get a feel for how much a redo would cost, and the parts themselves for nice basic replacements aren’t too bad, it’s just the labor that’s going to be a killer. If anyone knows of a good contractor who redoes bathrooms, let me know. I’m not looking to do anything fancy. With the Bean arriving in 4 months, there’s no way we’re going to try tackling this kind of renovation ourselves. If I can recoup the costs and break even when I sell, I’ll be happy.
When we got home, we found that Jag’s garage door refused to open. It turned out that the big spring on the door had broken (yet another nasty repair that we didn’t want to deal with ourselves). We found a likely-looking web site and Jag used their online form to request a repair quote. A mere twenty minutes later, someone had called and we’d set up an appointment for Sunday. The place we used was http://www.garagedoorspecialist.net/ and we would definitely recommend them! We still can’t believe they called us back on a Saturday afternoon and showed up on Sunday for a totally non-emergency call.
The garage repairman showed up today to replace the spring, which led to the exciting discovery that the doorbell was broken. After the repairman left, Jag ran out to Lowe’s to get a replacement and did the swap with our pal Frankenstein looking on in amazement.
The weekend wasn’t all doom and breakage.
I spun some more of the merino-bamboo on the new drop spindle. Jag suggested winding it onto one of my spinning wheel bobbins in case I wanted to ply it. I think I’ll end up leaving it as singles, but it’ll be much easier to skein it up this way.
I also worked on my Dad Secret Project. Dad should not click on this link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hsarik/4087869650/in/photostream/
Let’s see…we found what is possibly the world’s awesomest candleholder last week. It’s gnometastic! Jag told me he’d still have married me even if he had known we’d be buying this less than 2 weeks after the wedding. That’s love for you.
Jag tried to get some reading done, but the couch was taken.
He ended up settling for the love seat, even though it was a little on the small side.
Of course, within about 10 minutes he had to share that, too.
Last but not least, I made a big tray of chicken pot pie with herbed biscuits on top. It was deeelish, especially since we got pretty hungry while waiting 45 minutes to eat it due to some excitement going on at Jag’s work. Yay for working in IT.
Dear Little Bean,
It’s very nifty that I’ve been able to feel you moving around for the past few weeks, and it’s even cooler that you’re already so active that Daddy can feel you too! It’s very reassuring to know that you’re bopping around in there and I no longer have to fret during the weeks between the doctor appointments when we get to hear your heartbeat. However, I would really appreciate it if you could try and reassure me in a different manner than using my cervix as a trampoline.
Love,
Mommy
