Heartbeats

Today Steve and I met with our midwife for the first time and are happy to report that she seems really great.  It's actually a practice of 9 nurse midwives, so we'll be meeting a handful of them (if not all).  But first impressions are important and so far, so good!  Nothing felt rushed, they answered all of our questions, laughed at all of Steve's jokes and smiled patiently at my notebook full of medication information, questions and referral requests :)

But the absolute fun part of the appointment was hearing the baby's heartbeat!  It took a minute or two (it felt like an hour, so I can't really be sure, maybe it was 30 seconds) to find, but then there it was.  Smack dab in the middle just chuggin' away at 160-some beats per minute.  It was an amazing thing to see on the screen a few weeks back, but there was something extra special about actually hearing the little "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"

No more ultrasounds until the big gender scan in late February, but we'll get to hear that sweet little heartbeat at every monthly visit.  So that's okay by me!

The only other change happening this way is INSOMNIA.  Good.  Gawd.  As someone who has never had problems sleeping, this is quite the new phenomena.  Each night somewhere between 3 and 5 am I'm up for at least 1-2 hours at a time.  It would make more sense to me if I were awake worrying about impending parenthood, risks of pregnancy, psychological traumas we can unintentionally inflict on this child.  But no.  Here's a bit of mental commentary from last night:

"Man my nose is runny."
"Should I go eat those pierogies in the fridge?"
"Do I still remember the words from that song...(proceed to sing entire song in head)"
"Or maybe I'll go eat a bagel."
"Where is Bella?"
(sing song in head again)
"Those pierogies were really tasty."

Big, big stuff that's keeping me awake at night.  Though now looking at this I'm wondering if I should keep food next to my bed.  Maybe filling my belly would send me off to sleep faster. 

Stomach, I accept your challenge.

Merry Christmas!

Cozy.  Next year we'll branch out to outdoor lights!

7 Stockings hung with care...yes, 7.

Our first full size Christmas tree!

Some things never change.  But unlike last year the tree has not been knocked over (knock on wood) and we've only lost 3 4 5 ornaments to Bella pulling them off of the tree.  Christmas miracles do happen!

We officially kicked off Christmas with some beef and bacon chowder last night.  Today we'll be taking it over to Jodi and Stacey's while we do some cookie decorating with the kiddos!  We've got a lot going on between today and tomorrow and my goal is to try and stay awake for as much of it as possible :D

Merry Christmas everyone!

Pregnant!

Okay, not so new news for most of you, but it certainly deserves its own post!  I thought I'd post the two ultrasounds to see how quickly s/he is growing!

This is at 5 1/2 weeks.  If you look close there's a small circle towards the bottom of that dark spot labeled "Gest (gestational) sac".  Don't blink, you'll miss it.

And then BAM!  Just 2 weeks later at 8 weeks! 



It's finally sinking in for us that I'm really pregnant and this isn't just some trick our doctors are playing on us :)  This time next year we're going to be parents, and that is both wonderful and kind of crazy.  For now though, our lives aren't much different, but here's what's changing:

Food:  Over the course of 6 years on working with pregnant women, I've seen how bad the 1st trimester can be on a woman.  So I am very grateful to simply feel nauseous all day.  I'm grazing like a cow which helps, but it is a strange feeling.  I also will enjoy a food for a day or so and then never want to see it again.  Which recently lead to Steve coming home and proudly showing me all of the foods he bought for me that I'd been loving and me not being able to stomach them.  Or Emilie bringing juice all the way from Lawrence into Eureka, only for me to drink one cup. 

Sleep:  In pajamas by 6:30, early bedtimes, sleeping in and sometimes even lunchtime naps--I actually love this part of pregnancy.  It's the sedentary life I've always dreamed of living.

Sex: Not us you sicko!  The sex of the baby, sheesh.  Steve and I always planned on waiting to find out the sex until the baby's born, but as soon as this pregnancy was confirmed we seem to have changed our minds.  Partly because we have so many friends with kids and want dibs on their clothes and partly because we're both very instant gratification oriented that it would be hard to have that 20 week scan and not find out.  Plus we can't agree on a boys name, so if we found out it were a girl we could just shelf that conversation for a later date :)

Our next appointment is on December 28th when I'll be about 11-12 weeks.  We saw the heartbeat at 8 weeks, but we're hoping we get to hear it on the 28th.  Very excited!

Until then!

A few more before and afters

Dining Room Before:

Dining Room After:

 

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:



For now I think we're on a break from house decoration/updating.  The housewarming party definitely put a fire under our butts to get moving and get the majority of what we wanted done.  I certainly feel more at home now and it feels like our space.  Next we'll be painting our bedroom and the kitchen which will most likely begin after the holidays...and after we aquire some equity the big renovations start.

So while we're taking a break from house stuff, we'll see if we can't find other stuff to keep you entertained with.  I promise to keep this from becoming a cat blog, but I CAN'T promise I always keep promises ;)

Warming of the House

The housewarming/Halloween party was a success!  The house quickly filled with friends and family and what seemed like a small maze of children who we got to fill with chocolate and then send home with their parents :D  Case in point:

Party WIN.

More goodies...(thank you for all of your help Janice!)

Mums

Welcome to Stepford

The Dragon Whisperer

Even Izzy had a good time!

Before and After!

Before...

And AFTER!



Wow, it's been a while...

Sorry about that!  Last month we loaned out one of our camera's to Jodi and Stacey since they're camera crapped out just before their newest lil addition arrived.  And while yes, we have a second camera, we couldn't get the pictures uploaded for some reason (okay, mostly because we didn't try very hard).  But that's okay, because that means they were able to take earth shatteringly cute pictures like this:

Did you hear that?  That was your brain exploding from all of the cuteness.

But now we're back and I promise to get more pics up again.  Our latest project has been us hemming and hawing over what to do with the second bedroom.  I pulled up all of the linoleum which left thick, black glue all over the hardwood floors.  This is kind of how it went:

"Let's pretend we're not lazy and vow to scrape up all of the glue before Janice visits at the end of October!"

A week later...

"Um, let's just put carpet over it."

A week later...

"Well, let's just buy an area rug, apologize to Janice for the black tar like substance on the floor and hope no one sees it."

A week later...we're sadly still going with option three until Jason just shows up at our house with his brand new industrial sized sander (with an attached vacuum!).  He and Steve scrape up the glue and then Jason proceeds to finish the floor.  And like that, floors are done.  It was kind of incredible.

So Steve and I are going to stain the floors today and then I'm going to post some before and after pics. 

Wait for it.....

Anniversary Weekend

It's been (now over) a year since we got married!  So, so much has happened in this past year, yet it doesn't seem that long ago.  Steve and I took a weekend trip to a cabin in Ohio where we did a whole lot of nuthin'.  Cozy cabin, private jacuzzi, in-cabin massage, wine and a lot of good food = one hell of an anniversary!  Here are some pics:

Our super cute cabin.

Flowers from my super cute husband.



Champagne from our wedding day and the top of our cake-not at all gross and mushy like I expected...still  super yummy.

Steaks and corn on the grill!

So. Much. Fun!

As I type Steve is painting the ceiling of what will soon be called "the formerly blue room."  Today we'll throw on the final coat of paint and then start pulling up that god-freaking-awful linoleum.  Pics to come...

And then she walked in...

It seems that word has definitely gotten out that Steve and I moved in.  Let me start from the beginning.

They're filming Batman in Pittsburgh, which has been super cool in so many ways-but not for traffic.  What usually takes less than 5 minutes to get from my job to Steve's took 45 minutes on Friday afternoon.  Painful.  So by the time we got home and ate dinner I was close to foaming at the mouth to crack a beer and settle in for the evening.

This was not to be.

Just as said beer was cracked, I saw Izzy head for the front door.  She's been barking her head off at every little thing, so I was preparing for a useless round of "No bark!"  Instead, I see a small-ish young pitbull on our front porch looking through the glass door.  And she has no tags.  *sigh*

Long story short, she's amazingly sweet and we can't find her owner.  She spends the night in a crate in the basement (sidenote: I lurve me some doggies and believe pitties get a bad rap and aren't all out for blood, but one did attack Izzy a few years ago and had her by the throat, so I am a bit more skiddish than were it another breed). 

The next day Steve makes some signs and I hang a few around the neighborhood.  I take her to the smartest animal person I know Nina Wolf, who owns a local pet supply store called Animal Nature and is the former owner of Au Purr, LLC the folks who pet sit while we're away.  Anyways, Nina confirms that the poor lil' pup has mange and needs quarantined.  Nina tells me that most shelters will assess her for aggression, but that the mange is a strike against her. 

Now, I'm not against "kill" shelters.  I even volunteered at one for a hot minute.  I don't believe that a dog/cat living out its life in a small cage, slowly losing its mind is necessarily the best thing to do.  However, mange is treatable, and this dog was CRAZY sweet...and I've never had to put an animal down before so I wasn't ready to go there. :)

I take her to the local shelter where basically they confirm that not only will they put her down because of the mange, they won't even treat her for it even though I offered to pay full-price for it.  I then call our local vet who was great and said they would treat her, but it'd be a few days, then it'd still be a minute before she could go back out for adoption. 

So now I'm back to being stuck between the health and well being of our animals and the life of this dog.  Now, I'd like to say that this is where some inner strength kicked in and I made some tough but firm decisions that ultimately were best for everyone involved.  That I'm that woman that summons strength in the face of adversity and moves forward with a quiet dignity that can be admired.

Instead I just cried in my car.

Fortunately, while I was crying (the dog of course, happily smiling, tongue hanging out in the back of the Suburu) her owner called responding to one of the signs I posted.  Hallefuckinglujah!

Turns out I hung a sign about 2-3 houses down from hers.  Sadly, I don't think it's the best of homes for our lost little pup.  The girl was young and was trying to treat the mange with Tree Tea Oil.  She also said this wasn't the first time she'd run away, and that there was a baby pit that also got out.  I tried to scare her by telling her a doctor told me she'd need prescription medicine, and if she got out again and someone found her they'd put her down. 

This is the second dog that's come to us without tags and it's a real bee in my bonnet.  I can't say that for next animal that appears on our door (oh come on, we both know there will) who doesn't have tags I will search for their owner.  If you don't love your animal enough to put tags on them, then you don't get to keep them.  I am SO relieved that I didn't have to make that difficult decision, but it feels short lived when you know the animal is just going back to owners that don't know how to/don't care to take care of them.  Not ideal.

While the weekend was a bit derailed, we're back on track and finishing up the priming of "the blue room."  While it's good to be working on the house again, I can't help but wonder where that missing baby pit is and when s/he'll show up on our door. :)

Cleaning Out the Ol' Camera

We only recently got the interwebs back up and running, so I've got a few pictures saved that I'm only now able to upload for your viewing pleasure...so here you go!

The chaos.

Before we were even allowed to sleep here, we invited Jason and Kate over for beers.  Jason instinctively put on a pair of protective glasses and started working.  We thought about just letting him go, but decided that would make us bad friends and convinced him that he didn't have to work and could join us for beers.  I love Kate's supervisory role in this photo.

"Casey seriously, stop with the pictures.  I'm trying to sort through the duality of love and shame for eating my own poop."

Who is knockin' at mah doors?

We had my parents over today for brunch and I made this insta-diabetic cake.  Chocolate cake with coffee icing and Oreo cookie crumbs.  It was sweeeeet.

Not much else is new.  We're just about finished with the living room so I'll be posting some before/after pics shortly (promise).  It was probably not the smartest thing for us to finish the living room first, because ever since we've been slacking and watching tv.

This week I did however, put together my Ikea nightstand all by myself.  Now, you might be thinking "But Casey, my kid/dog/houseplant could put together some piece of crap Ikea nightstand."  And I would refer you back to my heated argument and subsequent physical altercation with the towel rack.

Right.  So as you can imagine, I was feeling pretty invincible afterwards.  I even picked it up and carried it upstairs into the bedroom, where I then dropped it on my toe and cried. 

I took it as a caution from the house gods to not get too cocky.

Impulses

Impulses: The Good:

• Going to Lowe's for shelving, paint, etc, and coming out with this:

It's for Izzy-won't it be cute?

Impulses: The Bad:

• Going to Kmart for $1.99 sale on potted plants and coming out with a 40 inch flatscreen tv.

Bad, but totally rad.

Impulses: The Ugly:

• Me trying to put up a towel rack and ending with me yelling "fuck you!" at it (because it can both hear and have its feelings hurt by my mean words) and throwing it on the floor.

Trust me, it's for the best.

Like I said...impulses.

We're in!

And we're without interwebs so we apologize for the delay in updates. 

Mental note to future selves--STOP MOVING IN THE SUMMERTIME!  Holy crud, every summer we move and sweat like whores in church.  We have central air in the new house (thank jebus) and hired movers and yet we still sweat like crazy.  Maybe our 30s is all about us transitioning into the sweaty crazyfaces we were meant to be.  Either way, we're thankful to be in because our old apartment was beginning to smell like monkey piss and foot sweat heated up in a microwave.  Wowza.

Once we moved in however, out of nowhere a social life emerged and we haven't been able to do a whole heck of a lot yet.  All of a sudden we're going to BBQs, parties and other stuff I can't even think of because it was probably that awesome.  Not that we're complaining, it's just that each time we come home at 8pm (on a weeknight!) I look at that giant half hole in the wall of our dining room and feel guilty for not paying more attention to our lovely new house.

Speaking of holes, I drilled for the first time!  And failed horribly.  I decided to install our towel hooks on my own and was BEAMING with pride that I got them in, had them well spaced and they didn't fall down when I put the towels on them.  It wasn't until Steve came in and saw the four screws jutting out the other side of the door that I realized my mistake.  Oops.  Steve assured me that it was a typical rookie mistake and not to worry, but something tells me he's just being nice.

Oh well, here are some cat pictures (because I know you wait on bated breath as to what our cats are up to!)

They're settled in alright.

Word has apparently gotten out that we've arrived, because this lil stray is already hanging out on our back porch.

And this is just a lil sweaty crazy something for your nightmares tonight.

SOLD!

Okay, so this isn't our sold sign.  HUD doesn't do that, but if we had a sold sign, this is what I'd imagine it would look like!

After a seemingly endless list of documents, proof of income, fingerprinting and a contract for our first born-the house is ours!

Movers will arrive at noon and by dinner time the majority of our stuff will be in our new house!  We have a few updates to make before we get our occupancy permit, but we should be sleeping there by Tuesday.  Last night we broke the place in with a bit of porch sitting and beers with Jason and Kate. 

I'll be taking more pictures over the weekend, so more updates to come!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!  There's so much we have to appreciate about ol' Mike and Steve, but most recently I've been thankful for the lack of internet access and interest in taking your picture in the bathroom mirror of the 1980s.

No house updates...but here are some cute kittehs enjoying every minute of packing!



Closing Time...

The end is near!  At least the end to this house buying business.  We're looking at a July 1st closing, and once we got over the shock of our estimated closing costs, we started getting pretty excited.  We've started packing and our apartment already looks like something exploded in here.  It is quite the mess, but the cats are thoroughly enjoying the seemingly unlimited number of boxes to sleep on.

More good news-Steve starts his new-ish job tomorrow!  He's going back to work for Pfaffman and Associates and is really looking forward to it.  What a relief for us both to get back to doing what we love again!

Speaking of love, we went to the Pittsburgh Pride Festival today and had a super great time.  The streets of downtown were lined with GLBTQ/Allies soaking in all of the fun:

6 Reasons to love Pride

Zombies don't hate.  They'll eat yer brains no matter what your sexual preference.

Puppies for Pride

So while things didn't turn out the way we had expected, and we're not moving to Louisianna or somewhere, things seem to be working out.  We're back in jobs we enjoy, Steve will start teaching part-time this fall and we're moving into our first home together.  Overall, we're feeling pretty fortunate.