my dearest blog, i really haven't abandoned you....

i've just been extremely busy with this................

hopefully you can forgive me. we're on vacation at the moment, but i promise to attempt more updating once we return to our crazy life!

time flies when you have an infant

not much has changed around here.

except that this:

has become this:

he's perfect. and gorgeous. and we've never been happier. especially since we're actually getting some sleep these days! i'll try to write more often, but with that gorgeous little being around, it's amazing that i get anything done. LOL

reasons 461,925,873 thru 461,925,877 of why i haven't posted

need i say more??

not dead.......yet

just zombified. you know, because of this......

and of course, munching on these...........

and while i miss my sleep, desperately, i've never been happier.

and this? is what they call a holding pattern

so last week i went in for my 37 week appointment and was VERY excited to learn that i was already dilated to 3cm and 75% effaced. it has been MISERABLY hot here the last few weeks (today? FREAKING 100 degrees! wtf??) so i was excited by this development because as anyone who has been pregnant knows, the last month is THE WORST as far as being uncomfortable, etc. when i went in today, i was hoping for some more dilation, but figuring i wouldn't get quite that lucky since it's apparently VERY unusual to be 3 weeks prior to due date and be 3cm already. i, unfortunately was right. no further dilation OR effacement.

DAMN!

i wasn't super surprised, but i was a little bummed out. i have been EXTREMELY uncomfortable with all this heat. i'm good at 75 degrees when i'm not knocked up. i can deal with 80 as long as there is a breeze. it's been WAY hotter than that the last 2-3 weeks and it's forecast for mid 80's into the end of next week. THIS SUCKS! all that being said, i am VERY ready for little dude to make his appearance, although i'm TERRIFIED about what to do AFTER he's here. LOL i know, i know. i'll be fine once i get the hang of things. i know this. but i'm still starting to freak out a little.

so my next appointment is on monday. something had BETTER have changed (in the correct direction!) by then! LOL

in other news, we had a bit of a scare yesterday in that when we tried to go to babies 'r us in order to get the rest of the things we really NEEDED for the baby, the car wouldn't start. at all. nothing. no lights, no "door ajar" binging. nothing. thank God we have AAA. turns out it was nothing more than a bad cell in our battery, so we just needed a new one. but still. i think vrock had a minor stroke thinking that we'd have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get the car fixed. (we bought it used, and it's still under the original warranty, but it's only 3 years old.) the battery price was more than i wanted to pay, but it's done and we're back in business.

all of that rigamarole with the battery totally shot yesterday though. so today after the doc appointment, we went to babies 'r us. we didn't get EVERYTHING that was left on the registry, but we did get the things that i think we needed the most. we still have a good chunk of the money my brother & his fiancee' (the godparents) sent for the bambino, so we just moved that money into the baby's bank account until we need to buy something else for him.

since it's been so damn hot, we decided to go to one of the local casinos so vrock could people watch and i could gamble, a little. money is very tight for us these days and while i probably should have just left it in the bank, i wanted to play just a bit. so i went with $80 and hoped for the best. i'd been to that casino in june when my bestest friend in the world was here for my baby shower. i can't remember if i won, but i think i either broke even or won a little bit. (on a side note, vrock & i went to our other local casino last week to see the gallagher comedy show. we played for about 2.5 hours and came home with $50 more than we left with, which promptly went in the baby's bank account. LOL)

anyways, so today i was doing ok, and then all of a sudden i was down to my last 10 cents. (i used to play nickel slots. now? pennies all the way!) i would have had to cash out had this last spin not been a winner of some kind because that machine's minimum bet was more than a total of 10 cents. so i spun. and hit the bonus. right on! this particular game is called "great wall" and i found it last month when i was there. the bonus consists of free spins where you can accrue points & "picks". after the free spins are up, it takes you to the "picks" page where you choose from various ying-yang's and get either points or free spins. so this first bonus i won $121. WOO HOO! not bad for literally being down to your last 10 cents! i decided that i'd play until i was at 100 and that way i'd still be coming out 20 bucks ahead of where i'd started. i spun a few times and nothing. so i cashed out. i was going to leave, but decided "what the hell"? so i put my money back in and spun and hit another bonus. this time? i won 50 something in the bonus. i played for a bit and tried to get my total up to $160 which would have doubled my initial funds for the day. i didn't get there, and decided to cash out at $150.

all in all? not bad for less than 2 hours work. i won $70, so even after i subtract the $40 that i gave vrock, i still walked out $30 up. not bad, not bad at all.

tomorrow will be a stay at home day to do laundry and to see what all we have for the little dude that we'll need right away. and hopefully the walking around today helped jiggle things so that he's thinking more about coming OUT OUT OUT already! LOL

oh, and i'll be spending a fair amount of my day with my feet elevated. i'm tired of vrock teasing me about my "elephant feet". they are SO swollen it's not even funny.

i swear i haven't fallen off the face of the earth....at least not yet

i believe i owe you a post about the trip.



the trip was fantastic. it was the first time in TWENTY (count them!) years that my entire immediate family (all 4 of us. LOL) were in hawaii at the same time. both my brother & i have managed to go see our grandparents while our parents have been there over the last 20 years, but this was the first time we'd all managed to be there together. and it was awesome.

between vrock totally loving my grandparents (they love him too!), asking my grandpa for his blessing to name the baby after him (of course, he's THRILLED!), and talking about my brother & his fiancee's wedding next year, PLUS celebrating my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary AND mother's day, it was just an AWESOME trip.

it was a little too warm for me, what with the humidity and the whole "i'm growing a person so my internal thermometer is all out of whack", but vrock loved the weather, even the humidity! we didn't "do" a lot while we were there, until my brother got there. most of our days were fairly lazy, with the most strenous things we did being walking downtown throughout the shops and eventually going to the beach. (my bro & his fiancee' ended up coming in later than planned because her grandmother died a week or so before the trip. that was a major bummer, but i'm really glad that they decided to come anyways. i think it was therapeutic for her.)

the highlights of the trip were these gems:

• vrock, my bro, dad, & grandpa having daily "cocktail hours" starting around 3:30pm complete with each one smoking a cigar. (vrock & my brother do not normally smoke AT ALL and dad only smokes pipes/cigars every once in awhile.) grandpa was definitely in his element as he held court with the boys.
• everyone hanging out in the pool room at my grandparents playing pool and just enjoying the family time.
• my brother & his iFlip getting some of the best sound bites EVER from grandpa!
• and of course, seeing grandpa's reaction when we asked for his blessing to name the baby after him. it was priceless and something i'll never forget.

vrock is ALREADY talking about next years trip. he wants to make sure that they get to see the baby in person. i love my husband!

all you get is a few photos from the trip because blogger is pissing me off!

all the news that's fit to print

i guess i have to make this a quickie since blogger says it's got a scheduled outage in 10 minutes!

1. we found out at our ultrasound on monday that it's a boy! vrock is thrilled and while at first i wanted a girl, i'm thinking that maybe having a boy first is a VERY good thing. so there's that big news.

2. i found out today that 4/17 will in fact be my last day at my current job. this is not a huge surprise to me, as i was supposed to be out of here on 1/16. my boss did try to see if he could keep me, but it was a no go. while i'm bummed about the fact i'll be losing that income, i'm not really bummed that i won't be working here anymore. the people are great, don't get me wrong. i just think i'm ready to be doing something else than financial stuff for a long while. i've been doing this since 8/01 and i think it's time for a change.

and if i can collect unemployment while i finish my transcription course AND only have to pay 35% of my cobra costs (thank you Mr. President!) all the better.

plus, this means i don't have to buy anymore maternity work clothes!

free is good

i knew that having a baby is an expensive process. from all the doctors bills to all the new gear the kid will need once it's here.

but good lord. i didn't realize i'd be SO overwhelmed with STUFF. do i need to register for THAT or should i just try to buy THIS 2nd hand? i'm kinda at a loss as far as what are ABSOLUTE must haves and what are "it'd be nice but not 100% necessary" wants. my head spins every time i look at babies 'r us or target online to try to figure out WHAT i need to/should register for. honestly, it's making me a little bit crazy.

THEN, there's all the unasked for advice. the "you HAVE to buy a new crib! you can't borrow one or buy a used one!" the "are you going to do THIS or THAT?" i know these people mean well. honestly i do. however, they're just making me crazy!

the bottom line is threefold:

1. we don't have any money. i mean we barely have enough money at this point to pay our bills. i'm hoping that vrock gets a job soon, but with the economy the way it is and the fact that i'll be out of a job come mid april, well, you know how that story ends. that's a HUGE factor as to why we moved in with my folks at the end of last month. which has helped.

2. i REFUSE to pay massive amounts of money (that we don't have!) for certain items (crib included) that the baby will only use for a specific period of time and then not need anymore. i'm willing to buy (or register for) the car seat/stroller combo because i know that we need to have something that will pass all the safety inspections, etc. i have a few friends that i can possibly borrow a crib from, FREE, and when i don't need it anymore or when they need it back i can return it to them. i'm TOTALLY ok with that.

3. we don't have a lot of room, since we're not in our own place. this also makes it difficult as far as procuring baby items, etc. IF we had our own place & the funds? this would be a totally different post. we'd get a new crib that converted to a toddler bed & then to a headboard/footboard for a full size bed. at least THAT way? we wouldn't be buying a piece of furniture for 2-3 years, as would be the case if we bought JUST a crib.

so i was talking to a gal at work and she said the magic words: freecycle.org

i'd never heard of it. so i checked it out. and boy, did i score!

first i got a basically brand new baby bathtub. yeah, it would only have cost $20 to buy a new one and it's something i probably could have registered for. but? i didn't have to. it was free. all i had to do was go pick it up.

then? i really scored. i got these:

for free. yes. i got them both from the same gal plus 2 big bags of cloth diapers (some of the nicest i've ever seen) & a few other assorted things that she threw in. all for FREE! the pump alone is around $200 and the swing runs between $75 - $125. now, once we're done with them, i'll put them back up on freecycle for someone else to use. they're in excellent condition and i'm just so excited about being able to start collecting things for the baby & not damaging my wallet in the meantime.

i'll still look on there and at consignment shops & the big garage sale one of the communities around here has at the end of april. but it's looking like we can at the very least cut some of the baby gear costs in half if i continue to be lucky with freecycle!

it almost makes some of the crazy go away.

almost.

and when i say atlanta, i mean the braves

so the other day i posted about how ANNOYED i was with atlanta for prohibiting the seattle fans from getting their nostalgia fix by stealing ken griffey jr from us, the fans who were there for the first 11 years of his baseball life.

well. it seems that i may have to take a step back from dressing them down.

see, on tuesday, an atlanta paper published a story that jr had decided to sign with atlanta. which of course started a flurry of "atlanta sucks" comments & feelings from the seattle fans. and i was on that band wagon. (technically i still AM on that band wagon.) i'm not a national league girl. never have been. and i'm a true blue mariner fan & hometown fan kind of girl. (or homer, whichever you prefer.) about an hour or so after THAT story surfaced, was a denial by jr that he had chosen, yet.

so, there was still hope alive in the hearts of all jr fans that our beloved "kid" might, just MIGHT come home to be celebrated as he deserves.

this is a new position for most mariner fans. i can't recall another mariner who has gone to play with another team that would be welcomed home with such open arms & excitement. maybe jamie moyer, who now plays with philly. but that's about it. our greats have retired. edgar martinez, jay buhner. yes, we had randy johnson & alex rodriguez but i honestly don't think that mariner fans would want EITHER of them back, EVER. jr is the exception to that rule.

why? because he helped not only save baseball in seattle (1995 refuse to lose season anyone?) but he also helped to get our beautiful safeco field built. and he was a perennial all star for 10 of his 11 years here. and he's ALWAYS been a fan favorite. when he left the town was crushed. when he came back in 2007 he got a heroes welcome, even though he wore the opponents uniform. standing ovations. declarations of love from the fans. from the management.

and a declaration from jr himself that he wanted to return to seattle to finish his career. to retire a mariner. to go into the hall of fame as a mariner.

and atlanta swooped in at the last minute to try to turn that dream into a nightmare. and for that i'll never forgive them. luckily they didn't succeed and jr WILL return to the town that loves him. who is excited about baseball for the first time in a few years. yes, he's not the player he was in his prime. but he's a mariner. a family member that we've missed for the last 9 years. and i couldn't be happier.

but the braves? they can still suck it.

edited to add photo:meet the jumping bean

we haven't come up with a nickname for the baby yet, so jumping bean will work for now.

especially after today's performance!

we went in for the genetic testing this morning complete with ultrasound. we got to hear the heartbeat (154 bpm) and of course see the bean on the screen. and let me tell you, that little one did NOT want to stay in one position long enough for the sonographer to get her measurements! (hence the nickname jumping bean. although, to be fair, this baby is 1/4 mexican/latino/whatever you want to call it, courtesy of vrock. LOL)

according to the genetic counselor, everything looks good. we'll get the final blood results sometime in the next 7-10 days. i have another appointment on monday with my regular ob. all in all a good visit. the bean was VERY active during the scan (vrock kept saying he/she is camera shy what with all the movement!)

the biggest surprise? the bean is measuring 13 weeks 3 days. according to the in room scan my doctor did on 1/12, i should only be 12 weeks 4 days as of today. (although from my lmp, i was dating at 12 weeks 6 days) so i guess we'll have to see. since the difference was less than 5 days, the sonographer said that they wouldn't change my due date so we're still looking at 8/11.

if i can remember to do it, i'll add the "photo" tonight when i get home. provided i can get my scanner/printer to cooperate. moving is such fun. (LMAO i just typed "moving is suck fun" before correction. i think that's MUCH more accurate!)

bean spillage

so for the limited numbers of you that actually read this, this may or may not be news.......

we're knocked up.

due date is roughly 8/11, which is my grandfather's birthday, so that would be kinda cool. we're very excited and of course, a little scared. we plan to find out the sex only because i think the suspense would kill me to not know. lol

so we have a lot going on these days. gearing up for our move this weekend, preparing for a baby, etc.

life is good.

news

so i got a bit of good news today.

my boss requested & received permission (is that the right word?) to keep me on for another 90 days.

so that means that not only do i not have to pack up my office next week, i also won't have to pay cobra for at least 3 more months.

happy days!! (at least the next 90) :)

the countdown begins

so i found out yesterday that my brother & his girlfriend are coming for christmas. yay! they were here in october for his 35th birthday and we saw them in april for our wedding, so this is a good year. (we typically only see them once, maybe twice a year. 3 times in one year is a record. although, now that i think about it, we'll be seeing them AGAIN in may when we all go to hawaii for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. so, FOUR times within a 13 month period. that'll be a tough record to break.)

where was i? oh yeah. so they're coming on the 26th and leaving on the 1st. this is typical for them as it allows them to spend time with her family on the actual holiday. and we don't mind pushing christmas dinner & opening presents back a day or so if they're coming up. it also makes the hassle of thanksgiving (2 family deals 45 minutes of travel time apart) obsolete.

as i was reading his email yesterday i realized that holy crap, christmas is only 21 (now 20) days away! and i'm not done shopping. i have NO idea what to get my dad this year and mom's been no help in that department. i'm already done with my brother (amazing in itself) and i'm almost done with his gf's stuff. vrock is done and with one or two minor things to get for everyone else, we're pretty much done. i'll be doing some baking this weekend which will round out the gifts and then it'll be time to pack up the boxes for shipping.

this time of year is always a whirlwind for me and it always seems that christmas comes & goes much too fast. i wonder if it will always be like that? i've noticed (much more so this year than ever before) that the things i've looked forward to (predominately the wedding) have snuck up on me much sooner than i'd anticipated and then POOF, they're done. what happened to the time when you could savor something?

35 days

i don't know if i should be stunned that christmas is a mere 35 days away or amazed that vrock & i have survived this year with all of its ups and downs.

regardless, i feel somewhat accomplished today.

with everything that happened this year, christmas is going to be much smaller than it usually is. (read: done on the cheap) my family isn't huge and his isn't really until you start counting the nieces & nephew. all in all, with the select few friends i also exchange with, we're talking 18 total people including vrock. (let's face it, i buy the majority of the gifts. he buys for me and has input for everyone else.)

that's a lot of people when you're trying to keep costs down. (and i cut out 2 people last year.) i used to try to spend around $100 each on my parents & brother & vrock. that's just not possible this year. it's so hard to buy for most people these days that i'm trying to figure out what to do.

for his mom & sis, he wants to do food items, which should be easy enough and shouldn't cost too terribly much. i was able to get a bunch of gift certificates for really cheap a month or so ago, so some will be receiving those. (lifesavers i tell you!) and i think we're getting omaha steaks for my grandparents & his brother & sister-in-law.

but i did score today. i was able to get all of vrock's gifts (all 2 of them) online today. and on sale. woot! shipping was free and all told, i spent $108 and change. i know he'll love what i got and i'm just relieved to be done with at least one person.

i'm almost done with a few others that will be getting the aforementioned gift certificates. all i need to do with those is to bake the pumpkin bread that i'm going to send along with those. but i can't bake them too soon or they'll go bad. we don't have the room to freeze them, so those will be a weekend before christmas type of thing.

but at least i've started. back in the day i would have been completely done shopping by now.

i miss those days.

1/2 the dilemma is over

my parents ROCK! (not that this is news to me, but they totally deserve a shout out!)

so here's the scoop:

i got my "notice" package at work. i knew it was coming and was actually kind of looking forward to it if only so i could ask all of the questions i had milling about in my brain. i called hr and got most of my questions asked.

the bottom line is this: i will get paid through 1/09. which means i'll also still have medical insurance through that time. which is an immense relief. (even though vrock already had his surgery, we're covered for a little bit longer.)

the notice period (60 days - thru 1/16) can either be working or non, but i'll still get paid.

so, i took the plunge and enrolled in the transcription course today. i should receive my books & course materials (sans the laptop which will be sent directly from Dell) either friday or monday. so this time next week, i'll be a student. :)

i'm excited to start on this new path. i don't know yet if my boss will want me to come in for any or all of the notice period but i should find out tomorrow. i know i'll be there through next wed, though.

wow. i'm doing it. (thanks again to mom & dad for the loan!) i'm actively taking hold of my future. it feels good.

exhausted & confused

ok, maybe not confused. but definitely still exhausted! what a long weekend! it was great for the most part. there were some drama filled moments, but other than that it was great!

we left seattle on friday afternoon on the train down to salem, oregon. vrock had never been on a train before and it's always been on his "list". so we could have just ridden the train all weekend and that would have been present enough for him.

we got in a little later than anticipated and after waiting 30 minutes for the shuttle to pick us up, ended up calling a cab to take us to the hotel. (we got a receipt and the hotel reimbursed us for the cab ride.) we went up to the room and after settling in a bit, i gave vrock his birthday gift.

now, i need to give you a little back story in order for you to understand WHY this particular gift meant so much to him. vrock is a born & raised texas boy. he's a die hard texas fan (stars/rangers/cowboys/longhorns/etc.) but he also grew up watching the notre dame fighting irish football team. he's been to see just about ALL of his teams of choice (not including some of his favorite hockey teams) but he has never had the chance to see notre dame in person. when i found out that my beloved washington huskies were hosting the irish this year, the first thing i did was go online to find out if there were tickets available. (we went to a uw-usc game last year and had a blast, so i was hoping i'd be able to score tickets to this game.) predictably, the university web site only had scattered singles. so i went to my friend, stubhub.com and looked there. they had tickets! in roughly the same area we sat last year, which was AWESOME. so i bought them.

then, i proceeded to tell my wonderful husband that "hey! notre dame is coming to play the huskies this year! but, they're sold out. so i guess we get to watch it on tv." (i know, i know. i'm a sneaky little shit, aren't i?) i knew he'd be excited and maybe even freak out a bit. i was right. :) he was, overwhelmed seems like the right word. shocked, maybe? all i know is that he started tearing up, which made me tear up. and i believe the first words out of his mouth (after "holy shit! these are irish tickets!) were "how am i going to top this??"

he was so shocked, he didn't even see the cake i had had delivered to our room prior to check in!

there is more to this story, but i need to get some work done so i'll write more later. i haven't even gotten to the "drama" portion of our weekend.

hey! it's friday! (finally!!)

so this afternoon vrock & i are taking our long anticipated trip down to salem for the weekend.

i can't wait!

here's what i'm looking forward to:

giving vrock his birthday present & seeing the look on his face

seeing his face when we get to the room & he sees the surprise there

seeing poison in concert tomorrow night

getting away for a few days with my hubby & best friend

hope everyone has a great weekend!

is it friday yet?

it's not that i don't enjoy being at work. i do. i mean, that's where i get the most of my internet surfing time. it's just that this weekend we're going out of town.

here are the reasons why i'm itching for it to be friday:

we're taking the train and vrock's NEVER been on a train. frankly, he's more excited about that than he is about the fact that we're seeing poison on his birthday.

and? it's vrock's birthday on saturday.

and? we're seeing poison in concert & going somewhere neither of us has been. (salem, oregon for those that want to know.)

and? not only am i having a birthday cake awaiting us at the hotel when we check in, but i also have a FABULOUS present to give him. so i'm ready for it to be friday already. so i can enjoy the surprised look on his face.

and trust me. i WILL get a photo of the surprise. maybe not when he sees the cake, as i'm not exactly sure when that will get to us. it's supposed to be in our room when we check in, but it might be delivered shortly thereafter. that reminds me. i need to make sure to pack some tupperware or something to bring the leftover cake home. :)

my husband gave me a box of cheese its for my birthday...

you read that correctly.

cheese its. for my birthday present.

now, to be fair, i did WANT cheese its. have been craving them, in fact. i just didn't want them for my birthday present.

truthfully, vrock does A LOT for me. little things, big things. he does it all. i get the feeling that sometimes he feels like he doesn't do enough though. which is just silly. but sometimes, he does tend to lean more to the "overboard" side than not.

take this birthday for example. last year, he gave me a beautiful wool peacoat from victoria's secret. true, i didn't actually receive the coat until sometime in february of this year, but it wasn't his fault that the coat was on backorder for so long. this year? i got my presents early. one (the wii fit that i asked for), i got at the beginning of the month. the rest? last night. 2 days before my birthday. and not because I wanted them early. no. but because he was just DYING to give them to me. it was rather cute, actually. like a little kid who can't keep a secret and HAS to tell you what it is.

so this year has been rough. between us both being unemployed (sometimes at the same time), getting married and dealing with various illnesses, we've been more stressed out than normal. and i think he felt the need to try to compensate for that. so here's what i got:

1 $50 gift card to the cheesecake factory
1 snowglobe of a married couple
1 "you rock" magnet for the fridge
1 wii fit (previously given)
and
1 box of cheese its

what? you thought i was kidding about the cheese its??