Here's an update: I am boring.

I want to keep this blog updated but geez...I am so very boring! Seriously.

I did have another shower this week. A few girls at work threw me a smallish shower at the Crowne Plaza next to work. It was so incredibly nice. All of these girls are just too good to me. I feel like they threw me my wedding shower YESTERDAY. I told them not to do this one but no one listens. It was wonderful and they were so generous to me, Toby, and Stella.

Pictures of work shower here.

So, this weekend I have not one thing planned. Well, not one thing outside of the house. INSIDE the house I have to get the nursery close to complete so I can assess what we still need to get. I need to wash her clothes and put them in drawers and organize them.

I also need to pack my hospital suitcase (that Mom so gently reminded me to do in an e-mail not 5 minutes ago...)

Did I tell everyone the greatest news in the world yet?? I don't think I did. Gosh. What a dummy. Well, here it is:

Stella is not going to have to go to Daycare because my Mom is retiring from her job and will keep her full-time for us!!!!!

Isn't that amazing? Toby and I are both so relieved. She's helping us emotionally (not having to leave a 2 month old in a strange place!) and financially (we are paying Mom but not what the daycare costs which is nearly $1000 a month.) Mom lives 4 miles from my office so I can go there for lunch or Mom can bring her here so I can show her off.... I'm just so happy and excited. And I think Mom is too. She said that she felt the "pull" to keep her granddaughter. I'm so glad.

In other news, my husband I are are GIANT idiots.

We have sort of adopted another dog. A 7 month old Rottweiller named Elvis. Don't tell my Mom.

A co-worker of Toby's needed to find a home for him. And since the cats left, the dog Abby has been lonely and whiney and needy. She needs a friend. I also think it will be good for her to have a friend when the baby moves in too - she won't be getting as much attention from us for a bit and her and Elvis can just run and play in the backyard to their heart's content. They already get along really well... and Toby has promised that they will be outside together most of the time. I DO NOT want TWO big dogs in my house all the time. So, we'll see how this works. He sure is cute. And Toby said - NO ONE will mess with our house with a 200 lbs Rottie in the backyard.

Speaking of cats, I really miss Easter. It hits me the most when I am driving for some reason. Most drives home from work involve me crying at some point - or just feeling a bit of a heart ache for her... I want to e-mail her new owner SO BAD and ask how she is doing - but at the same time, I'm scared of the answer so I don't. I know that woman thinks I totally abandoned Easter...but I just feel like contacting her and hearing about Easter will just bring it all back up again - and I've done really well "moving on." But I sure do miss her. Pretty soon I won't have the TIME to miss her, so that's good. I'm sure she's fine. She has food and shelter and a new owner who loves her so what more could she ask for?

Anyways... I'm keeping current with Chantel and Nikki by reading their updates on their blogs and occassional posts. I still think about them constantly - I guess because my own due date draws near. My heart is broken for them because of their losses and what they have had to go through - and the long journey to "recovery." But what exactly is "recovery" when you lose a child? Ugh. I just don't know what to say about it and I feel like everything I say to THEM is just a big pile of crap. But I do think of them and pray for them and pray for myself as the birth of my own child is coming up quickly....

35 days to be exact. That is unless Miss Priss wants to come early which would be JUST fine with me. Just let me get my suitcase packed this weekend.

Burn Baby Burn

Yeah. So I'm hot. Like HOT. Like a hot I have never known. I'm sitting here at my desk with a fan about 3 inches from my face. Hair blowing. And the heat is still resonating off of my skin. If you could see my aura, it would be fluorescent orange and red.

It's in the damn 90's this week - and Thursday it is supposed to be 97. I think the only natural sunlight I will experience for the next month will be walking from house to car, car to office, office to car, car to house. And that is IT! Any other time you can find me in my cube or in my cool bedroom, lounging on the waterbed, under the ceiling fan.

It's weather like this that makes me feel really sorry for my husband who works outside all day. But then I remember I am carrying his child and was sick for 7 months and now I'm hot - and I don't feel so sorry for him anymore.

So, not a whole lot going on. My previous entry talks about the Warped Tour show I had to miss last week. I'll also miss the ones that come through VA since they will be at the beginning of August. Matt will be on the tour when Stella is born but will be home for 2 whole weeks at the end of August after the tour is over. I think that will be a great time for him to meet his neice. We'll have settled down some (hopefully!) and he'll get to really spend time with her - unlike the commotion of the hospital if he came home right at her birth day.

I've spent the last week catching up on NON-baby Dr. appointments... I went to the dentist last week and I was SCARED. This pregnancy has really made a mess of my gums (who knew that was a side effect?) and I have not been able to go to the dentist for fear of throwing up on him! So I finally went last week and it wasn't so bad...But he did say that my gums were in bad shape but should get back to normal after delivery. That was a relief to hear. Many of you know of my teeth sagas anyway - so I DO NOT need any more mouth issues!! I have plenty, thank you!

Today I went to my regular Doctor to get a prescription filled for my Restless Leg Syndrome. I have not been able to take my meds for RLS during the pregnancy so I went to get a new prescription and will get it filled and pack that sucker in my hospital suitcase so I can down a pill as soon as the kid arrives. The RLS is getting worse now towards the end of the pregnancy - and I am thankful it was not horribly bad the whole time - but it truly is hell to deal with.... I'm looking forward to that getting back under control and being able to get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time - not 2 hours of walking the floors and switching beds until I exhaust myself and FINALLY fall asleep.

I have a list of things to do at home and I just can't seem to DO them. When I get home, I am worthless!!! I do not have plans for this weekend so maybe I can get some stuff done. I want to:

*Pack my hospital suitcase as best I can. My friend Linda gave me an AWESOME list of things I need to pack and gave me lots of other advice....

*Create my "call list" of phone numbers of people to call when Stella gets here.

*Order photos of the nursery and the Baby Shower off of Shutterfly to scrapbook BEFORE Stella gets here. (haha! This one sounds so easy but I don't have much faith that it will get done...)

*Create e-mail address books with all of my addresses on our home e-mail (for my maternity leave) and for my Shutterfly account.

*Wash all of the 0-3 and 3 month onesies and sleepers and organize in drawers. And wash and sterilize all bottles and pacifiers and stuff.....

And oh yeah -

CLEAN MY STANK ASS HOUSE BECAUSE IT IS ATROCIOUS. The black dog hair on the outer edges of the cream living room area rug should be a crime. And I look at it every afternoon and go "God I need to vacuum that...." Only to repeat the cycle the NEXT afternoon...............

Oh well, I'll do it before July 29. I swear.

Warped Tour 2006

My Dad took these pictures from the opening day of Warped Tour in Columbia, MD. I wanted to go so bad but knew it would be too much for me to handle. Warped Tour is grueling - hot, and lots of walking... 2 things that I don't handle well lately... Mom and Dad said the crowd was amazing (as you can see!) and here is a picture of Mom with Dick and Jan Thaxton (the drummer, Tony's parents) in front of MCS's TWO tour buses. One for band; one for crew. Nice.

Chips and Dip = the Devil

Feeling kind of sick today. I'm pretty nauseous and gaggy again. I have heard that Morning Sickness can return in the last trimester. GOD FORBID. Or maybe I'm just dealing with the after-effects of eating half a giant bag of Wavy Lays and half a tub of Dean's French Onion dip for dinner at 8pm last night.

What the hell was I thinking? I could not stop! It was like the Teddy Graham fiasco a couple months ago. Like an alien (Stella?) took over my body and MADE me keep eating...and eating...and eating. So then I felt like crap, didn't sleep a wink, and have been gaggy all day long. I hope it's just this incident and not M/S coming back.... The past month has been HEAVEN with only a few minor sick episodes... Nothing I can't handle since I am now a Pregnancy Sickness Warrior. (That is my new self-appointed title.)

Still thinking about Nikki and Chantel for most of my days. I'll find myself thinking about other things and then my mind goes RIGHT back to them when I realized I was actually thinking about something else....

Work is boring but that's ok. I don't want any big responsibilities right now. I wish I could work from home. (ha!) I just wish I didn't have to make that drive on Powhite twice a day right now. It's getting harder and harder to get around - and it's only going to get much more difficult, I'm sure. And the lovliest part of work right now is the fact that they are replacing all of the escalators in the building. The escalators are centrally located (AKA near my cube) and were the primary means of transportation between the 4 floors - so the entire building of employees now have to use other options. Which are random stairwells located in weirdo places - and besides, I'm scared of stairs right now because I am so "off balance." And then there is the ONE elevator for the entire building. Well, there are 2 elevators but one is clear across the building and since I am WADDLING these days, I don't want to WADDLE all the way over there. So anyways, this whole deal is screwing me up and I wish the big wigs here had consulted me before they did this during my last 2 months of pregnancy. (Big laugh. I'm kidding.)

I swear, the belly has grown in the past few days. We can now SEE Stella moving around - which is especially enjoyable when I am bored at work. If I'm wearing a patterned shirt, you can see the pattern do the wave every once in awhile. I love it. The kicks are getting higher, which I guess means her head is getting lower and she's upside down - or getting there, atleast. I'm starting to have this strange pain in the crotch area (hi boys!) It's actually the inside of my thighs - like the tendons that connect my legs to my body are really sore - like I did 1000 squats and lunges in the gym (and we all know THAT would never happen.) I guess she's just moving around and settling in lower causing this pain. I have my 32 week check-up today so I will ask the Dr. then.... Maybe he'll say "Well, that means she's getting ready to get here and you'll go 3 weeks early!!!!" I can dream..........

So we had our co-ed Baby Shower last weekend.

BABY SHOWER (Click on that to see pictures of the shower and also of the nursery!)

It was such an amazing, wonderful day! We were humbled by all of the love and support from family and friends. There were over 60 people there to celebrate with us. It was just a giant Memorial Day Pool Party/Cook-Out. Everyone brought a dish to share - and that was incredibly successful since everything I ate was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. (Don't get me started on the Chocolate Peanut Butter dish that was the closest to heaven that I have been and Morgen - you know what I am talking about. Thank you, Amy!!)

We opened our gifts. There were so MANY!! Of course, Stella will be the best dressed baby on the planet with all of her new outfits. And we got lots of practical gifts as well - diapers, bottles, medicines, blankets, etc..... My mother in law got us a convertable car seat that I think we'll use in Toby's Jeep right away - while I'll have the infant carrier/seat in my car until we get another convertable car seat when she grows to 20+ pounds. She is also taking me to Baby Depot tomorrow at lunch time and buying the bedding for the crib. YAY! I'm most excited about that. Now I can wash it and decorate! Her room looks like it exploded baby stuff. I have not put anything away and it's all just in piles...

I'll tackle all of that on Saturday. In between taking naps and eating - but NO french onion dip!!

Emotions

I have been kicking myself every day this week for not updating this blog yet... I need to post about our awesome, amazing, wonderful baby shower that was thrown for us this past Sunday. It truly was a great day.

But then 2 things happened that have trumped this and have taken a hold of all of my thoughts and prayers. I will update about the baby shower and my wonderful family and friends in the next few days...but right now I want to talk about my friends.

Some of you know the story of Nikki and Josh and baby Aaron because I e-mailed a horde of you a few weeks ago and asked for prayers. Aaron was born at 25 weeks and he weighed a little bit over 1 pound. For the past month, I have been following their blog which they updated often with news of Aaron.

Aaron's Blog

I "met" Nikki on my message board that I have been an active member of for nearly 4 years now... I think... Time flies! But these girls are my family and Nikki and I were due around the same time - so Aaron and Stella were going to be born pretty darn close together and Nikki and I shared our pregnancy ups and downs on the board. Nikki ended up with preeclampsia and Aaron was born by emergency c-section.

Yesterday, Aaron passed away after fighting hard for over a month. I am constantly thinking of Josh and Nikki and their families (who are obviously AWESOME - just read the comments on their blog.) I'm praying like a madwoman over here that they will get through this difficult time and will lean on each other for support. And come to us girls on the board for ANYTHING if they need it.

So, I spent last night at home looking at Aaron's pictures and thinking about the Youngs.

Today, there is a new post on the board from another dear friend, Chantel. All of us girls were hounding her for the past couple weeks because her due date was tomorrow and we were all being annoying (in a fun way) calling her out on the board - Where's that baby!? She was in a "race" with 2 other girls - Kiki and Mary Ann - The Great Baby Race of 2006 - because they are all due within days. So anyway, Chantel posted an update this morning that has ripped my heart out. Her baby, Curtis Roger, was born yesterday afternoon - stillborn.

I still can't process it. It's just unbelievable. I feel so far away from these people - yet my heart is aching for them. I want to go to them and hug them. I can't do that - but I can pray from where I am... and that's what I've been doing like crazy.

I am not scared for me and Stella. Not one negative thought about MYSELF has crossed my mind, really. And that's the truth. I'm just so so so sad for these families I have grown to know and love. I can't even TRY to imagine what they are going through.

We are talking openly about these situations on the board and it is helping a lot to just talk to the other girls. Hopefully Chantel and Nikki will come back when they are ready and will see how much we love them and are thinking of them.

I hope your eyes don't bleed!

30 weeks


27 weeks

My First (sort of) Mother's Day

I had a very good weekend!

Saturday was "clean the house day" for me. Toby went to the Eastern Shore to do some work on his Mom's shore house so I was home alone all day. Good thing - because if anyone was watching me, they would wonder what the heck I was doing.

For some reason, I kept doing the hot/cold, hot/cold, tingly limbs thing that usually comes before passing out. It was so strange! So I would have to do one little thing (like wipe off the counter) and then sit down to recover! Then I'd get up and vacuum one room. And sit down and recover. Then I dusted the living room tables. Then I'd sit down to recover. Needless to say, cleaning my very small house took about 6 hours that way. But that's ok. It got done.

Then around 7pm, I had the dreaded gigantic trip to Wal-Mart. Ugh. That was hard. But as I said before - it got done! It's amazing the things you used to do with no problems are now HUGE productions.

Sunday we both got up early and Toby went and bought a cheap charcoal grill so we could grill out for Mother's Day. (Our propane one has a broken piece we need to get fixed...and Toby also doesn't want to pay for propane with gas prices so high...so whatever, we now have a charcoal grill.) OF COURSE he had to put the thing together so while I was cooking baked beans and banana pudding in the kitchen, he had 5 million pieces laying all over the kitchen floor and was spewing cuss words and banging around like he always does when he has to put something together. (***Remember that statement for later.)

The grill was finally finished (with a little CALM help from me) and we proceeded to put it on the covered front porch since it was raining like crazy. Our guests for the day were my Mom and Dad, Zana (Toby's Mom), Kim (Toby's sister), Kendall (her 8 month old daughter), Heath and Julie (our neighbors), and Ian (Toby's friend.)

Mom and Dad gave me a Mother's Day gift - OF COURSE - because they are the most thoughtful people in the world. They gave me 2 books about motherhood. One is spiritual with poems and sayings and the other is a "tips" type book. I already dove into that one last night. I need to bring home a highlighter!

My husband also gave me a card. It says "Happy Mother's Day. From your Love Bug" and has butterflies on it and he wrote beautiful things inside. I love it. He's so good to me. And he has been through A LOT putting up with me for the past 7 months in this condition. His lifestyle has been altered dramatically too...but that's ok, it's just getting him ready for fatherhood. :)

All in all, it was a great day! We ate burgers and baked beans and other cook-out-ish food. Mom brought cut up fruit and I ate nearly the whole bowl. Loving fruit these days!! Toby also grilled some chicken but I couldn't even LOOK at it. I tried to cut it in half to serve to others and nearly gagged. Me and Chicken do not get along these days... I made a KILLER banana pudding - Paula Deen's recipe - and it had cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk in it... LOOK OUT! It was delish. And very unhealthy. Who cares?

After we ate, Dad finished putting the crib together. Last time he tried to put the crib together, we had issues with the crib missing some pieces so I had to e-mail the company and they mailed more. At first, Dad thought they STILL sent the wrong pieces; but eventually figured it out yesterday.... ***This is something my dear husband NEVER would have been able to do. He would have broke the crib in half and thrown it out the window first....while screaming cuss words. I love that man of mine. :) I'm glad Stella doesn't understand English yet....

So now we have a put-together, sturdy, beautiful crib. Now I just need the mattress and bedding. And a million other things! HA!

After the crib, Mom and Dad started on the wallpaper border. They are such a team. And Toby helped too when he wasn't tending to the other guests. They put up the border in an hour or so. Dad is a perfectionist so the patters in the corners match up PERFECTLY. It looks amazing. I just love it to bits. And I think Toby really likes it - he seemed really excited with it all coming together. (Pictures in the entry below...) Thank God for Mom and Dad - they have totally saved my butt this pregnancy. But I think they really like working on the nursery. I think Dad likes having a "project." And it's for their granddaughter so they'll do anything for her already.

After everyone left, we sat on the couch and watched a bit of TV and then next thing I know, Toby is out like a light. I went on to bed and read some of my new book and fell asleep before Sopranos came on. Looks like I'll be catching the re-run on Wednesday night - AFTER they announce that Taylor is going home on American Idol. A girl can dream, can't she??

Mushrooms, Caterpillars, Dewdrops in the Garden

This would be Miss Stella's nursery! And that title is from some lyrics from an old Dee-Lite song that I used to love... I should pull that CD out and give it a listen. I'll probably freak at how much I am NOT that same person anymore....

Cleaning Lady - The saga continues

How come every time the cleaning lady goes past me, she says:

"I'm off to follow the yellow brick road!"

First of all, that makes no sense. And second of all, STOP TALKING! You don't have to talk constantly. Silence is OK.

I swear, I feel like such an ass sometimes, but I don't have the time or the desire to talk to you for 30 minutes every time you roll by! The lady in the cube next to me is a SAINT because she'll sit and listen and ask probing question that require long answers back and I just sit over here and type and mind my own beeswax because I do not want to be pulled in. I'll never get out!!!!

I really wish I could record this woman's ramblings. It's like nothing I have ever heard.

I feel like Sybil with " the talking! the talking! the talking!"

STOP IT.

I haven't talked about MCS in forever!

Here is an article and picture in the New York Times. Matt is on the far left.