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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Disney on Ice … Again … (Coupon Code Inside)
Months ago, I fully intended on attending Disney on Ice. I spent money on tickets and everything…and ended up not going. I was kind of sad about the whole thing. But all that changed when I met Meghan Daly from Mom Central!
Read the Rest at MommyBlog Reviews
Aliens Stole My Husband
They left behind an exact clone, except for one difference…
He has pre-planned everything during this remodeling weekend. I’ve never seen him use a ruler so often, break out the leveler at every chance, or re-read the directions – sometimes multiple times – before opening individual parts!
For this morning’s project, he even checked to make sure he had the right size drill bit and that it wasn’t broken! Really, it’s amazing to watch. Kind of like a DIY network meets Discovery Channel kind of thing.
I picture a khaki-short wearing narrator in the background saying in that cool, deep, Discovery Channel narrator voice that’s kind of hushed in amazement while still sounding low and strong, “Watch as the domestic male checks his drill bit to make sure once the project begins, it won’t have to be interrupted. Even with the occasional interruption from the domestic young, he is concentrated and focused on the task at hand.”
Thank you, aliens. Please keep the one you have and leave me the clone. I like this “measure twice, cut once” guy way better.
This Much Closer To Ditching My Vacuum!
My husband has finished the magical floating hardwood in the living room and the hallway.
When he gets back from checking on gram he will finish the tile in the playroom and the office (there are two half tiles needed in each room to butt up against the wood.)
So…yeah…almost done…will be 100% done by bedtime!
I’m excited about breaking out the Swiffer and not having to vacuum the living room anymore. To know at the end of every night I can hang out in the living room for five minutes with a Swiffer and the floor will be CLEAN. No stains. No matted, old, gross, trampled-down brown carpet.
The room looks bigger and brighter.
I can’t find my camera, but I will, and when I do I will add pictures 
For now, you can see the exact type and color of the flooring right over there.
Tomorrow? He starts on – and maybe even finishes – the back bathroom. It’s looking like the front bathroom will have to wait for next weekend or sometime Monday after his in-person interview. He’ll probably start after the interview to keep himself busy and not-crazy with wondering.
Renovation Time!
I don’t know if I mentioned we received a small inheritance from my great-grandmother’s passing.
So we spent some of it.
We are redoing the floors in the living room and the kitchen. Nothing super-nice. Laminate floating wood flooring, I think it’s called. I call it “stuff that’s easy to clean spills off that looks way better than my uber-stained carpet until it wears out and I have enough saved for real, professionally-installed hardwood.”
We also got the stuff from Menards to redo BOTH bathrooms. Pedestal sinks, WHITE toilets (they are currently robin’s egg blue in the front bathroom and pepto-pink in the back bathroom *yuck*) beautiful white cabinets with glass in the front, beautiful chrome fixtures for the sinks, new lighting fixtures, and paint. Oh, and new, inexpensive-but-pretty laminate peel-and-stick tile. And a new (totally awesome) shower head.
The bathrooms are crazy-small so every purchase was made with the idea of that small space in mind. Trying to use every illusion in the book and every space-saving measure to make it feel less claustrophobic in there!
All that, all brand new, only cost us less than two grand! To redo two bathrooms completely and redo the floor in the living room, kitchen, and small hallway.
We could have done it even cheaper, I know, but I like the fact that everything we bought has warranties because it was new. With the baby coming in a month or less, I did not have the time to start searching craigslist.
So the renovation schedule looks like this:
Today: Living room floor.
Tomorrow: Back bathroom (it’s smaller)
Sunday: Front bathroom
Monday: Hubby has his in-person two-and-a-half hour final interview…which is why we’re keeping him busy all weekend with projects…so he doesn’t go crazy worrying about the interview! (Two birds, one stone…)
Guess Who Went Downtown Today? (plus a credit and job hunting update)
Yep…that would be me.
I did a lunch and learn at Zócalo Group (where I am a telecommuting Senior Analyst) – it was really nice to be able to meet people up close and in person that I’ve been working with for almost a year now!
It seemed like a good plan. Randy went with me because I was a little scared to go alone and be wandering around downtown 36 weeks pregnant. Call me crazy, but I liked having my “assistant” with me. I felt safe and he was a whiz taking care of the Internet connection and working the websites while I did my presentation.
I also came up with a great way to involve mom bloggers with our brands that will circumvent the whole argument of should they be paid in cash or product or giveaways or whatnot. Here’s hoping they listen and at least attempt to implement, because I think what I proposed is going to be the future of how PR interacts with bloggers…
Really, my favorite part was coming home on the train…sitting across from my husband, our legs touching, listening to music on my phone. It was so relaxing and I felt so much love for him – it was kind of nauseating, really.
We came home to find out that his third and final and in person interview will be Monday at 10:45am. It will be two-and-a-half hours long and he’ll meet and talk with five people while he’s there. Talk about an intense interview!
There is a bit of irony involved in the job. You know we’ve been doing the Dave Ramsey program now for the last couple of years, right? Well, it seems that when you get interviewed for a company that basically IS representative of credit cards and credit lending you need to have some seriously kick-ass credit to GET the job.
Turns out there were a couple itty-bitty debts left on Randy’s credit report. Thanks to our emergency fund, we were able to make a couple calls, make a couple payments, and get a couple faxes in less than an hour that truly brought his debt load to zero (not including the on time payments to his student loan).
Seeing the irony? Following the “get out of debt” plan from Dave is allowing my husband to work for a company very closely tied to the credit industry. So awesome!
I reminded Randy not to mention Dave or that we follow his program during any of his interviews.
We don’t want them thinking he’s crazy now, do we?
(Please pray to your various deities for his interview to go well, k? I’d really love to be able to rock some serious stay-at-home-mom time without having to breastfeed with one arm and work on the keyboard with the other…if you’re an atheist, just cross your fingers for him!)
My Pregnancy Craving: Cherry Slurpees
My last two pregnancies didn’t see a whole lot of craving action.
But this one…oh my…the cherry slurpee has been my demon mistress. Cravings visiting me at random times from dawn ’till the wee hours of the morning. Singing her sugary-frozen lullaby into my ear.
This time around I noticed there was a code on my slurpee cup and I got all excited, thinking I could win a t-shirt or some other fun reminder of my craving for years to come…or take a picture of the baby in the shirt…or something…
But after entering codes into the online slurpee site, it’s all point based. You can’t just, you know, spend points on a shirt. You have to spend points to enter the sweepstakes to win the shirt.
Bunk.
At that point, without the possibility of instant win, it’s just not worth the effort to enter in all those flippin’ codes after having to log into the system and then type in the stupid captcha code – because some asshat wants to game the stupid slurpee.com site and win all the amazing prizes…you know, prizes like iPhone wallpapers of slurpees. (There are other prizes but I’m just not feeling them either.)
So I will just drink my slurpee and toss the cup without entering the code. And no, I will not send you my codes. Because typing in sixteen digit codes for sweepstakes entries is pointless, typing them in to give to someone else for their sweepstakes entries is even MORE pointless – if that’s even possible.
I feel I’m already doing more than enough to participate in the success of the slurpee industry by repeatedly paying two bucks for flavored shaved-ice water.
Image Source: beej55
Ha! Things are NOT as Bad as They Seemed!
Randy (aka the BEST husband EVER) decided he did not want to sleep without me.
So, fifteen minutes and seven pillows later, I was propped comfortably in my bed and able to sleep. Pain-free for the most part. I had to reposition a few times during the night, but that’s certainly nothing new.
Best husband ever is also at an interview right now. I’m excited for him. The fact that if he did get and take this job it would start Monday after next (the 31st of August) and would mean he would be working full time while I’m having the baby increases the chances he will actually get the job by like ten thousand percent. You know how it is. The more it will throw your life into a huge bushel of chaos, the more likely it is to happen.
Unless that’s just how my life works.
But I’m excited for him. I’m excited that baby is almost here. I’m excited I can still sleep in my own bed. I’m thrilled my husband is smart and resourceful and found a solution so I didn’t have to spend a month sitting up on the couch trying to sleep and being utterly crabby.
All is well.
Totally Torn Between Sleeping and Working
Don’t get me wrong, working isn’t even remotely possible. I stare at the computer screen and basically drool on myself while trying to concentrate for more than ten seconds.
Because last night is officially the first night of the rest of my pregnancy.
That means I’ll be on the couch (probably) every night from here until baby decides to make her grand entrance. Head down, cramping all over the place, and the hip thing make it totally impossible for me to sleep in my own bed. So it’s couch time for me for the next four weeks and two days (ish). This means my quality of sleep will suffer simply due to the fact that I won’t be sleeping in my bed. It’s not like you can snuggle up and turn over when you’re sitting upright.
In between drooling on myself and not sleeping I keep thinking of things I might like to do once I’m on the other side of being pregnant.
Then I remember that this isn’t the worst part of pregnancy. The worst part is when it’s over and I become a human feedbag. (FYI, I laugh when I refer to myself as a human feedbag. It’s not a bitter thing.)
But I’d love to be able to lay down and go to sleep right now, but with my mom here and the girls here I kind of have to be a referee between them and her to make sure they don’t freak her out or overwhelm her too badly. While I’m thrilled mom is here, she’s not the suzy homemaker type so it’s not like she shows up and cleans my house and cares for my kids and stuff. Although she did watch them this morning and I’m totally thankful for that. I’m not an ingrate, I just know my mom’s limits and I respect them.
Oh, I’m part of the My Best Birth Ning social network and they have an interesting video of Melissa Joan Hart talking about her homebirth experience. (Part 1 is of her hospital experience and gets a wee bit gruesome toward the end, just a warning.) It still kind of hurts my brain to think of Sabrina the Teenage Witch having babies. Maybe I’m just being narrow minded.
Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post. There will be a book giveaway (possibly) that I feel is worth participating in because I like what they’re saying and want more people to have access to the information. Too many people look at me with shock and fear when they hear I’m having a homebirth. Yes, it could go wrong. Yes, I could end up with a c-section in the hospital. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try!
