Not My Best Week

This is the time of year when I don't have time to be sick. This is the time of year when I try to make weekend plans and have to go at least a month forward in the calendar to find a free day. This is the time of year when the horse doesn't get ridden, girly movie nights are often unattended, and friends wonder if I still exist. It's the time of year when I have golf tournaments to run, Maryland Million Days to organize, Gala parties to attend, and Fair Hill volunteer work to take up any spare time.

So the past seven days haven't helped me out much. Last Saturday, while volunteering at Fair Hill, I had a stomach ache and was SO happy when someone finally came to take over my job so I could go home to take a nap. I stayed awake long enough to watch the VT football game (go Hokies!) and to take my temperature (99.6) before I fell asleep on the couch for the rest of the night. Sunday I managed to eat some toast and feel a little bit better - better enough to go to Babies R Us with my girl friends to figure out what kind of stuff needed to go on a baby registry. I'm such a moron. Down each aisle I'd say "OK, so what IS this stuff? Do I really need it?" Fortunately I was with two voices of experience who could say "You HAVE to have this" or "Nah, that's just hyped up crap."

All this week my stomach just wasn't totally right. I thought perhaps I was experiencing heartburn - annoying, but livable. Thursday I ate lunch, felt really bad after lunch, and decided I really needed to investigate the heartburn theory more. So I wandered out for some heartburn medicine, then to Sam's Club to buy some goodies for my golf tournament. While in Sam's Club I frequented the bathroom - one stall and I were good friends. Throwing up in Sam's Club is a new experience - not one I'd like to repeat. Figured this was maybe more than heartburn, so I walked in to my doctor's office. Seemed that nothing was majorly wrong - appendix seemed fine, pancreas seemed fine. Doctor said go home, rest, drink fluids. So I promptly left the exam room, entered their bathroom, threw up. Went across the road to my office, gathered my stuff and a trash can for the road, just in case. It takes me an hour to drive home. I made it half way, found a quiet parking lot, pulled over, made good use of my trash can. I was a hurtin pup.

John took care of me Thursday night, and Friday morning I was kind of ok, but with serious pain in my lower right belly. Like someone is stabbing you with a knife kind of pain. Not terrible if I didn't move. Pretty terrible if I moved. Or breathed. So I hopped on down to the OBGYN's office on Friday morning. Rocky's doing fine - still in me, heart still beating, still doing somersaults. Good work, Rocky. Sorry I bothered you yesterday with my heaving. So the going theory as to why I cannot stand up straight, or lift my right leg, is that I pulled my ab muscles while throwing up four times on Thursday. Welcome to pregnancy... Who in the world says that? What's wrong, Alissa? Why are you walking all hunched over? Well, yesterday when I was throwing up, I pulled my ab muscles...

Anyway, my goal for today is to not move. At all. Although I do feel better than I did yesterday, which is fabulous. After I showered, I could almost walk normally. Yay! It's a bummer, though, this whole not moving thing. It's a gorgeous fall weekend. We were supposed to go visit John's sister in New York City. And now I am stuck in the recliner in the basement, watching college football. But - has to be done. I need to get better now - I have a golf tournament to run on Monday, and about 28 billion things to do in the 10 days following that. No time to be sick this time of year...

Consignment

As I was looking for a halfway decent consignment shop around work, so I could find a full body pillow for less than $60 and perhaps be able to sleep through the night without searing pains in both hips, I stumbled across an awesome twice a year consignment sale in Bel Air. For last night. Got lucky on that one! Last night was actually a "new mom preview sale" and then the sale is open to the public all weekend. Sunday is 50% off day - I might have to go back!

Anyway, John came with me, so if we saw something big and important (like we really know what that is...) for a decent price we could just buy it. I think we hit the jackpot! I was having some stress on the whole infant car carrier and car seat thing - way too much money for something I can use for such a short period of time. But at the sale - car seat, 2 bases, AND the awesome car seat carrier stroller thingy that I had read such good reviews about. Total cost? Maybe $50 for the whole package. Most excellent! One less thing to worry about.

Had people actually heard our conversations, they may well have laughed at us. They went something like this: "Do we need this?" "I don't know. What is it?" "I don't know." OR "We don't need those things, right? Larysa is giving us like seven of them." "Larysa kicks ass!" OR "Can we get this Pooh outfit for the kid?" (me rolling my eyes - it's godawful ugly) "Sure, it's only 5 bucks. But it's not my fault when he looks back at his baby pictures and is horrified at what he is wearing." OR "What kind of baby carrier thingy do we need?" "I don't know. How will we know if we will like it? Or if he will like it?" "I don't know, but they're only 12 bucks - lets get a few."

So we dragged home a nice stash - car seat, stroller thing, clothing - all kinds of excellent sleep sacks and warm footie pajama things, and a kick butt snow suit, and a car seat cover - another "Hmmm, what's this for?" moment that we decided would come in handy when Rocky and I stroll down the road in February to visit with the Red Army. And like three different slings, baby carriers, etc. Total cost? $142. Killer!

I, of course, completely forgot to look for fat lady pregnant clothes, or full body pillows. SO - I might have to go back! :-)

Irritated

It's my busy time of year at work. I'm organizing a golf tournament that happens in 10 days. Less than two weeks after that is the Gala I organize, and the following day is the Big Kahuna - Maryland Million Day (October 4 at Laurel Park - excellent day of horse racing if you want to come!). Between all that there's slots promotions, an open house for Maryland horse farms, and a desk that never seems to be able to get cleared off.

So I had a check-up today at the OBGYN, with a new midwife (we just see them all, because who knows who will be on call when Rocky actually decides to make an appearance). Appointment was at 8:30. We showed up early. And the damned midwife showed up, running through the door with her purse and her jacket, at 9. 9!!! I was less than impressed, which I am sure she gathered when she asked me how I was feeling and I told her that I was feeling pissed off because she was making me late to work. She tried getting the sympathy vote - but I live in Baltimore and have to drive all the way here. Not going to work on me, sweetie. I work in Baltimore. I know the drill.

Anyway, I was so irritated that I got nothing out of this visit, and I instantly hated this midwife. Let's please hope SHE is not on call when I give birth! The down and dirty - my uterus measures the right length for how far along I am, Rocky still has a heart beat, our blood work is all cool, and the ultrasound was good. Great. Thanks for nothing, lady...

Hopefully the night will end on a good note - we're off to baby consignment sale tonight to see if we can find some cheap stuff for Rocky.

GOOOOOOOO HOKIES GO!

While everyone in Maryland was getting rained on by Tropical Storm Hannah, we were in nice, hot, sunny Blacksburg Virginia for a Virginia Tech football game. First home game of the year, so they of course played a nothing team. Where's Furman College? We have no idea. Apparently, we were told, they're a good 1-AA team. And in the first half it looked like the 1-AA team would cut up the Hokies and have them for dinner. Hokies finally redeemed themselves in the second half, and there was actually some scoring happening.

Breakfast with a guy my dad used to teach in high school, football game in the hot sun, and dinner with my cousin who goes to school at Radford - and that was it for me! I fell asleep at 8pm in the hotel. Nice relaxing weekend. And I was psyched that my friends Katie and Brian got scared off by the storm, so they stayed home in Blacksburg instead of going away for the weekend. We met them for lunch on Sunday.

I miss the Burg. Wish we could find John and I both jobs down there. I'd move back in a heartbeat!

Corps of Cadets color guard displays the colors

Mom, Dad, and John in all their Hokie gear. John's eating lunch - kettle corn!

The Highty Tighties (I swear, that's what they are called) march and play on the football field.

Cheerleaders lead the football team out of the locker room, with their big Hokie flags

I love these seats... When we buy these seats from Kevin and Carla we sit on the 20 yard line, and actually have to walk DOWN the steps to our seats, in Row R. Nice! Hokies are in all white this game.
The Marching Virginians play during half time

John and I, and a couple thousand of our closest Hokie Friends, getting a nice sunburn!

A Pool Party with the Girls

While John headed to the beach for the weekend, possibly his last time as a not-a-dad, I headed up to New York to visit the parents and have a little get-together with a couple of my high school girl friends. Saturday Jeanne came down from Utica and we all went to lunch with my godmother, Linda, who was in town for a day. She was surprised to see us! Then we went to the mall and bought my first fat lady maternity pants. Boooooo. They're ok, though. And I also went shopping at the "House of Jeanne" and stole a bunch of pants from her, too. They might fit for a couple more weeks before Rocky gets too big to fit in to normal pants.

Sunday my girlfriends from high school, Karen and Michelle, came over to take advantage of the heated pool. Karen has two boys and Michelle has one. All the boys had fun swimming! It was great seeing the girls - I am sure I'll have plenty of "how do I do this" questions for them when Rocky arrives.

Seeing my girlfriends' kids was great, although a little bittersweet this weekend. My heart goes out to my friends Amy and Rick, whose little three year old girl, Arden, lost her fight with cancer on Saturday night. Amy and Rick are such an inspiration - positive and strong throughout their battle. It shakes my confidence a bit, though, in my decision to have a child. It just seems so unfair to have a child for such a short time, only to have to let her go...

Finishing Touches

While John put trim on the outside of the new door on Sunday, I decided I'd actually DO something this weekend, and paint the front door. White on the inside, and "faded rust" or something to that effect on the outside, to match our nicely faded shutters. One would think that painting an already white door white would be easy, right? So, so wrong. White is an enormous pain in the butt. The icky color of orange-red that John made me buy was much easier!

John's outside trim turned out awesome, though, and he only had to run back to Home Depot once to buy a new piece of trim. Good work!

Front door before painting

John got to use his cool finishing nail gun

And he was THISCLOSE to buying a new framing nailer, too. But, alas, he didn't really need it.

Between coats of white. Stupid white. White sucks...

Finished trim

Between coats of red

Finished product. If the door doesn't match the shutters, I blame John...

Welcome to our new faded rust colored door!

The New Door

The house project this weekend (one of many that are on the list before the arrival of Rocky - I think it's stressing John out a bit) was to replace the crappy, frosted over sliding glass door in the dining room. John agonized for a while, right up until the actual purchase of the new door, over what kind of door to get. A fully assembled door that might be easy to install but would be a serious pain in the butt to get up the deck stairs and on to the deck? We would definitely need an extra strong body to help us out. Or a "knock down" door that would come in pieces, would be easier to handle, but might be a pain to install?

We ended up getting a fully assembled door, all composite, with tinted glass to help keep the house warmer in the winter. Nice door. Much prettier than the knock down doors they had at Lowes or Home Depot. And our friend Adam answered our desperate plea for help and another set of strong arms to get the door up on to the deck. That process was actually easier than anticipated - we got some lifting straps to use, which made life much easier.

Door installation wasn't too bad. Truthfully, the part that took the longest time was getting the stupid door to LOCK once it was in place. It took much moving around, and the addition of some washers to move it out to the right place, for it to finally work.

Today John is working on the outside trim and weatherproofing. We'll do the inside trim some time, when we decide what we're going to do with the rest of the kitchen. Tear down the maroon stuff and the wallpaper and re-paint? Or just leave it as is, as we'll sell the house in the next year, anyway? Decisions, decisions...

Many thanks, Adam, for helping with the door project! Two engineers working on door installation, and it didn't even take too long! :-)