loving the fall

I could just stare out of my window at work all day, the sun finally came out and the trees across the street are bright orange which contrast amazingly with the yellow trees on this side...sigh. We don't get many beautiful fall days here in the Tacoma area but today is one of the rare ones. And the wind - I love the wind blowing around the leaves - I just wish I would outside with Doc wrapped in a blanket roasting marshmallows on a camp fire (sorry got really cheesy for a moment).

It's nice to be back and back to my routine. Doc is still sick but is slowly on the mend. He has the whole weekend off so he will be able to get a lot of rest but I am afraid I may be catching his flu. We don't have plans for Halloween, he said he was invited to a party but I don't think we are going, he's got a BIG day at work on Monday and I think he should concentrate on being prepared for that. Hopefully I will have some news on that next week...I haven't quite decided if I will post about it or not.

I can't believe how quickly time is passing, less than 100 days until our wild child free days are over! OK, we aren't really wild but we could be. Doc is also getting ready to leave again. While I was home it really sunk in, we have a handful of weeks before he's gone and when he gets back our life is going to be totally different.

The plan is to get him home for the birth and then he will link up with rear-d. For the most part he should be home with TC and me (I've decided to call her TC here, her first and middle initials - not to be confused with Tom Caron you NESN fans!). Then once the rest of the guys get back he will be gone for 3-4 months of training. I am not holding my breath that he will make it back in time for the baby, I know they will try but military plans are about as unpredictable as child birth. We are both at peace with the fact that he may miss the birth, obviously I would want him with me but if it's not possible I will not stress to much, that wouldn't change anything.

Do that's pretty much the update here. I know I still have to post about my baby shower, I will try this weekend but I think the iMac needs a new hard drive. Luckily I still have a few months left on my Apple Care so I don't think I will have to pay for it.

I hope you all have a fun and SAFE Halloween weekend (have a drink for me!).

My trip home...in pictures

Hot chocolate and a donut, no better way to start a morning

I could eat 57 of these sundaes!

Lots of goodies for my shower

I got a little excited when I realized that this dog looked just like Moses!

Amazed at how small she's going to be!

My 87 year old grandmother and me, I get my height from my mom's side.

The plastic babies took over!

hilarious!

OMG, this stand was still open!! I wish we stopped here for lunch because they have blade meat sandwiches. (Woot woot for A-Town, my home town!)

D and me saying good-bye

My niece and nephew, she had never met me and he had no idea who I was but it was great to see them.

I'm back!!

I am sure you all missed me. :) My trip was exactly what I needed and when it was over I was ready to get back on a plane to crappy WA, I missed the hubs and the critters.

It was a little stressful, as I was landing in Boston I started to freak out - it had been so long I was worried that I had changed or everyone else had changed. I tried so hard not to cry but I was so scared. I was just being silly though, of course I have changed and so has everyone else but when it comes to family that doesn't matter.

I stayed with my sister D, it was so nice to finally see her house, it's coming along great. She and her husband are doing a lot of work to it and have really made it their own.

On Friday I went to RI to see my friend Jenn and meet her baby. He has been dealt an unfair hand (this is the baby with ACC) but he is the happiest baby you will ever meet. He woke up from his with the biggest smile on his face. It was so great to be able to meet him because I think about him all the time. He got very lucky when he drew the parent lottery.

Saturday I spent the morning with my in-laws and had the very strange task of going through the baby clothes they had left after my sister in law died and the father of her baby took the baby away. I know they are glad that someone is getting to use it and that it is staying in the family but it was also very sad. I am glad Doc wasn't there for that, it would have been impossible for him. After that it was baby shower time, it was so nice to see everyone and people were so generous. I brought a duffel bag with me just in case and let me tell you that this was busting at the seems with clothes and blankets. Doc and I are truly blessed. This will get it's own post in the next few days - you need all the details.

Sunday we watched football and were lazy. Amanda was able to come over and visit more with her daughter. My sisters and I decided that Amanda's daughter will have to marry our nephew because they will have the most beautiful kids ever!

On Monday D and I went to the home town to visit our cousin who was released from the hospital the day before. She looked great and seemed to be in good spirits. She'll be in MA until at least Dec 2 or longer if her doctor doesn't clear her to fly. I felt bad for D because Heather and I spent a good 45 minutes to an hour talking about military stuff but it was our first time. From there we went to our stepmother's house where our brother and his wife came with their kids. We had a fun visit, I was so glad to finally meet my niece. Such beautiful kids.

Tuesday morning I got up at 3:30 AM and went to the airport. It was a great trip, I will have pictures up soon. Doc and I hope to be back in MA at some point after the baby is born, if not then I will bring her home for Christmas next year since Doc will be overseas.

shipping up to Boston!

So much for a nice quiet day before I am away from work for 4 days. It has been CRAZY in here today, but at least that means a lot of orders. I just wish an email that expired on August 4th was not released to our entire contact file...you're on my shit list today iContact.com.

I am leaving tomorrow for some much needed time away. I hate leaving Doc, we've spend so much time apart since he's been "home" from his last vacation overseas. But man, I can't wait to see everyone. I hope they can look past the wonderful things that pregnancy has brought like the pimples and dull hair and see me. But, as I posted on facebook today, my finger nails are insanely amazing.

My flight leaves at 6:15AM so I am for sure getting Doc back for that trip to the airport he made me take a few months ago. I am nervous about flying, my flight is full which means I will have a stranger inches away from me for at least 6 hours...gross. I plan on reading the whole time so it should be OK, I can give a pretty good "bitch face" when I don't want to be bothered.

Anyway, I don't think I will be doing much blogging while I am home but I will be back with a full update on Tuesday. Hopefully I wont gain to much weight from all the wonderful east coast food but if I do it will be well worth it :) When I get back I plan on checking out the blogs of all of the new followers! I love adding new blogs to my reader list.

Finally, my cousin had a bit of a set back. She is still in the hospital recovering from her surgery and her arms and legs have swollen with fluid. While her legs swelling up has been an issue in the past her arms never have and needless to say, she's scared. Please keep her in your prayers, she's been in that hospital for over a week and is itching to get out.

because I know you all care about my mac

Honestly it's the biggest thing in my life right now so I can't really get it out of my head.

(Yup, it's bigger than my trip home - sad. But that is only because I know I am going home no matter what, the computer being fixed wasn't so black and white.)

I got home last night and got right on the phone with AppleCare, this time I was not so lucky in call center destinations - the dreaded India call. Barf. I told him my issues and what the tech told me on Sunday, something he could have gotten from the notes, and then he proceeded to tell me that my hard drive was completely broken. Actually "Adam" (just use your real name, we know where we are calling) my hard drive is confused and not broken. He would just not listen to me! After several holds so he could ask questions he started rattling off a bunch of crap - what he said I have no idea. This is where I said, and very rudely (sorry but I was in crisis mode and being treated like an idiot):

"Hold on a second - I have no idea what you are saying to me and you are clearly not listening. Can I please be transferred to someone I can understand?"

He then told me he would talk slower...not a help. I don't know what was more annoying, the fact that his accent was indecipherable or that he really had no knowledge of my (very common) product. Finally I was sent to a very nice girl in Canada.

She listened to what I had to say, answered the few questions I had and walked me through my reformat. Let me tell you, hitting "Yes I am sure I want to erase" was one of the scariest things ever. I am sure in a few months I will be looking for something and realize it wasn't backed up.

After that it was on to reinstall Snow Leopard. While it said it would only take 30 minutes it took over a few hours...I went to bed when it was at 29%.

Doc got up at 5 and was out the door by 5:20, I was laying in bed scared to go look, if it hadn't installed it meant big trouble. Thankfully everything was good! So I shut it down and it rebooted right back up, life is good. I was out there at 5:30AM with hot chocolate and a blanket installing...tonight I will add all my iTunes and as long as my photoshop PSE 6.0 has installed by the time I get home I'm good.

Hopefully this will be the last of it, I really want to relax a bit before spending the day on a plane.

so much for my lazy day...

I had so much I could have done yesterday but I decided that it could all wait, I was going to lay around and watch the patriots and enjoy the nice breeze in my house. I've mentioned before Doc and I have a Slingbox set up at my sister's house in Massachusetts so we can watch the Patriots games. I unplugged my iMac to move it to the sun room so Doc could watch while he played xBox and everything was going fine. It wasn't until I plugged it back in when my world seemed to crash in on me (perhaps I'm being over dramatic...)

When I hit the power button the load screen appeared as if it was going to start and all was normal until I saw a progress bar, I've never seen this bar on my mac. Then all of the sudden the screen went dark - it had turned off. After several failed attempts I called Apple Support, we still have 2 months left on our original 3 year service plan (so worth the money). The tech I spoke to was great and didn't make me feel like an apple idiot (and bonus - he was in AMERICA).

He walked me through a few different fixes, none of them worked. Finally I got my install CD that came with the Mac and ran the diagnostic check...there were problems but my CD could not fix them. I had a few choices, reformat and lose EVERYTHING, buy a program that MIGHT recover my stuff, bring it to an apple authorized Mac Dr.

The thought of losing everything was enough to throw me into a mini panic attack. I decided I would call a repair man and see what I could do. In tears I walked into the other room and gave Doc the update, I was devastated but at least I was able to watch Brady throw 5 TD's in a quarter on Doc's laptop. At half time I decided it was time to go power down the mac and see about driving it to Tacoma. I closed out of the test that had been run and then a miracle happened - my desktop appeared!! It was seriously one of the biggest sighs of relief in my life. You better believe I ran my pregnant ass over to Best Buy as fast as I could and bought DVD-Rs and started backing up.

I almost lost 4000 pictures, 4000!!! Some were backed up on scattered disks but the majority would have been lost, everything from 2005-now...gone. We have thousands of songs on our iTunes, the cost of replacing those...well I can't even imagine. I backed up the iTunes (6 DVDs full!) then the pictures, then my documents and PSE projects...I think I got it all. As a secondary backup I uploaded all of my pictures to Webshots, took about 11 hours but I was in bed by 12:30AM.

Tonight I reformat. Everything else can be reinstalled, I am still waiting to hear back from Adobe about downloading PSE, hopefully it wont be a problem. Everything else I have on disks. My next big purchase will be an external hard drive and I will utilize the time machine feature...I don't ever want to be faced with this kind of loss again.

Oh and as an added bonus, my cell phone took a bath in a glass of root beer while all of this was going on...I think it is dry now, it's working but is a little sticky.

I can not get to Massachusetts fast enough.

nervous

I am heading home in less than a week and I have to admit, I am a little freaked out. I was talking to Doc about it and I said that this trip was either going to be really good or really bad for me. It's so true, after 2.5 years I really don't know what to expect, I am going to meet my niece who is already over a year old! She has no idea who I am.

Then there is the whole leaving part too. It just seems so unnatural to get on a plane and leave my whole family. Yes I will be flying towards my husband but for how long? He's leaving not long after I return and who knows when I will be back east. I wish this trip could be all ice cream and baby showers without the stress.

Now for the very crazy part, I haven't been away from Moses for more than a day since my last trip home! Doc will be here to take care of him but it's not the same. I have been his constant while Doc has been in and out and he's very clingy. I know he will survive a few days I just hate to stress him out any more than I need to - my pregnancy is hard enough on him as it is.

Why am I always so emo on Fridays?

what a weirdo!

Some of you may remember this picture, I took it while Doc was getting ready to head out last deployment. I just couldn't get over how many pairs of boots he has (and it's more than doubled by now...I would guess he's got 15 pairs!).

Anyway, I posted this on my facebook after I took it and didn't think much of it until the other day when in my news feed I see that a girl I went to high school with hijacked it! She seriously copied it and posted it in one of her albums. Who does that? I thought it's pretty obvious that these are mine and my husband's shoes. So wanting to get to the bottom of it while not starting any FB drama I enlisted a friend to get the scoop and here is what she said:
Haha, I can't even take it! I told Erin I am going to start watermarking all of my photoshop pics. But hey if she likes it that's cool I just wonder if she knows that they are combat boots and not construction boots...

(T-one week and I will be back in the land of the "r" droppers!)

Potpourri (as in a little of everything)

Update on my cousin's surgery:
She came out of surgery a few hours ago, unfortunately the doctors were unable to find any leaks but they were able to completely drain her lungs and thin they feel positive about what they were able to do. I know that isn't much info but it's all I've got right now. So that is good news and we will take it. She's been through so much, I just wish that someday she will be able to lead a "normal" life without all of the restrictions put on her.

My window valance project:
I was able to easily hang it last night, took about 5 minutes (looks like my measurements from Monday were just fine after all). Here is the finished product.

I need to remove the ties but other than that it's done!

Work update:
In March my, along with 4 coworkers, hours were cut. We were told it would be temporary. I've been trying to find out what is going on with this for months. Had they been upfront about how long this schedule was going to last I would have found something else but by the time it seemed like a "no end in sight" issue I was obviously pregnant and didn't feel right about job hunting.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my boss at 4:30 which she called "Q4 plan" or something like that. So I started brainstorming ideas for sales and promotions that I can offer all while cursing her for planning a meeting at 4:30! I get in there and she asked me about my appointment yesterday and that fun stuff and then she asked about my plans. I am due Feb 2 and I have every intention of coming into work until it becomes a physical impossibility. I let her know that and also said, "it would be a lot nicer if I had my Mondays back" which as was a good transition for her into her next topic.

In a nut shell, they are doing some reshuffling and working on getting all of us back in full time, my compromise is that I will be spending my afternoons in the outlet store. I will still be doing my job but I will also have to help customers. I wont have to deal with any administrative outlet store issues, that will be done by the store manager who will still be in there in the mornings.

One compromise another coworker has to make is she will be taking over the phone calls from me. Woo-hoo! I HATED that part of my job (and as I've said before it was kind of a surprise they sprung on me after I was hired). I don't think she's too happy about it but anything to get back to 5 days a week.

Finally, I once again let my boss know that I really think I should be a salaried employee like EVERYONE else. I reminded her that I've been here for over a year, had nothing but good reviews, and was a team player when this 4 days a week thing happened. She will have to talk to her parents about it, they are the ones who blocked it the first time for no good reason. All I need are sick days and vacation days, I don't think that is asking too much.

Update on my cousin #2

She is going in for surgery at Mass General tomorrow. They will make a small incision on each of her lungs and insert a scope to look around and hopefully find the fluid leaks. Once they are found they will be repaired and hopefully she will be out of the woods. I've been told the surgery is not risky at all, she has healthy lungs (other than the fluid) so she should recover quickly.

It is a surgery so there are always risks so please keep her and her doctors in your prayers tomorrow. I am a nervous wreck, I know it's not the same but it was a minor lung procedure which ultimately did my father in during his cancer treatment. I am trying to push those thoughts out and only allow happy thoughts in.

The good news is that she will still be home next week when I come home! I don't even know the last time I saw her, maybe Sept 2006...

I should have thought of that sooner

Over the weekend I worked on a few craft projects for Teagan's room the biggest being the window valance made from the bedding bumper (I will be getting a breathable one). I first I thought I was sooooo smart by making it with foam board, it will be super light and easy to hang and all that crap. I measured everything out and used my trusty staple gun to attach the bumper to the "board" and it wasn't until I got into the nursery that I realized hanging foam board to the wall was not going to be easy since everything falls out of foam! UGH!

On Monday I went to The Home Depot with my measurements and the nice guy there cut the wood for me, I grabbed some L brackets for the valance and some to hang it on the wall and I was good to go. When I got home I spend a good amount of time removing the bumper from the foam board and reattaching it to the wood. Once again I walked into the nursery determined to get this thing over the window. I screwed on the brackets to the valance, measured the wall and installed my drywall screws and called Doc in to help. He just needed to hold it up while I screwed it in.

Sounds easy, well it would have been if the distance between the valance and the wall allowed for a screwdriver to fit. I know what you are thinking...there is an easy way to solve this but it wasn't so clear at the time. Doc was mouthing off about my crappy measurements and I was getting frustrated with the whole thing and wanted to just forget it. I was ready to just throw the whole thing away but he talked me out of it, "you worked so hard...blah blah" I decided to just leave it and come back to it later.

Yes the solution is easy and I can see that now. Anyone with basic problem solving skills knows how to get this thing on the wall but an irrational pregnant woman and a man who would rather be playing xBox do not posses those skills. 6 hours later as we were getting ready to go to bed it hit me.

"Babe, all we have to do is screw the brackets into the wall first and then into the valance, that way we can hold the screw driver parallel with the front of the valance!" Thank God because it would have kept me up all night. Tonight we are hanging that thing once and for all, I will have pictures tomorrow.

Grampa P

My stepmother (my dad's widow who is now remarried) just let me know that she shipped her gift for the baby but she gave me a heads up that the credit card she used had my dad's last name and not her current name. I guess she has one card that she uses for online orders that she just hasn't changed yet. No big deal, I don't think I would have noticed. It did get me thinking, that name is gone now as far as my father is concerned. He had only daughters and we've changed our names. There will be one person at my shower with this last name and that is my grandmother.

It will be nice to see something come from my stepmother's old name - it will kind of feel like it's a from my dad as well. Maybe that will help fill the void I've felt since becoming pregnant without my father to share it with. I can just picture him now, showing a picture of me with a belly to all of his clients at work, the girl at Dunkin Donuts, everyone in church...that's how he was with me. Once my acceptance letter from my top choice school came it was "this is my daughter she is going to/goes to X College." What I missed was "this is my daughter, she's married to military man" and now it would be "this is my daughter, she's expecting her first little girl and I hope Teagan turns out just like her mom."

That was my dad, even in my worst times he was my biggest cheerleader. If it's going to help me to pretend that he had something to do with the gift of that stroller to my daughter that is what I will do. I will picture him and my stepmother pushing her together.

I hate my dog

He doesn't let me sleep. He thinks it's cool to not go to the bathroom the 47 times I let him out before I go to bed and then wait until 3:30 in the morning to cry until I let him out.

I can't wait until Doc is back, Moses should go back to normal...I just hope he's back for a while this time.

where am I?

This weather, there is only one word to describe it, AMAZING. It is the most perfect day and it has been like this all fall.

I know I am in western Washington but I feel like I could be back home. This is what October should feel like! The sun is shining, it's 61 degrees out, yellow leaves are scattered across lawns. This is why fall is my absolute favorite.

I am in no hurry to see the rain return but I am afraid I am being spoiled with all of this wonderful weather. I hope this pattern of dryer weather continues through the winter, it would be nice to not hate the place I live for a little while longer.

This and that

Doc comes home this week! Woo-hoo, and he's lucky I like him because he's making me pick him up at the airport again. At least this time he is coming in at a decent time but it means we will have to fight I-5 traffic on a Friday afternoon...not fun at all. So yea, only3 more nights of bed hogging.

On Thursday night I fell, I was taking the recycling out to the garage and I slipped on some water that came off my tire. I twisted my back to avoid falling on my stomach and while the baby is OK my back still hasn't forgiven me. No more flip flops when the garage floor is wet! On Friday I was squeezed in for an appointment to be sure I didn't squish Teagan, she's very well and kicking.

Friday I discovered that Teagan loves the new Britney song as much as I do, she was dancing away to it, of course when she's old enough to start understanding the lyrics I will be kicking myself in the ass for introducing her to the world of pop music.

On Sat. I picked out the paint color for the nursery. I LOVE it, it's called Tangerina or something like that, it's kind of peachy and kind of pinky without being peach or pink. A friend came over Sat evening to help me paint. Here's the result:


With the bedding which I am really digging, I ordered it thinking it was much pinker (and not happy about it) but it came and it's hardly pink at all so woo-hoo!

Sunday I watched football (Go PATRIOTS!) and baseball, made some more pumpkin bread and vegged. It was a nice day.

Monday was my mandatory day off so I decided to go look at cribs, I knew which one I wanted and it was really cheap but also selling out all over so when my Target had it in stock I HAD to snag it. So now I am just that much closer to being ready for her arrival in Feb. Yes I know it's early but I want to have as much done as humanly possible before Doc deploys again. I don't know why but I get nervous that something will happen and I will be all alone and not ready. It's crazy because I have amazing friends here and I know I would never be alone but what's a pregnancy without irrational fears? Here's the finished product:
I didn't pick up the mattress because I just happened to notice that someone bought one off of my registry :) I am blessed. Oh and if you think that a crib would fit easily through a bedroom door you would be wrong. If you think it's fun to build a crib by yourself twice in one day you would be wrong on that one too!

P.S.

Thanks for all the nice comments yesterday - I really want's fishing for them. I am just not one of those woman who thinks her pregnant self is sexy, I find myself to be revolting but it's nice that not everyone else does.

I can't wait to be done with this place! (long rant)

Have I mentioned that I HATE my job? Only about 47000 times but I am going to say it again, I HATE MY JOB. First of all, the phone system here is as old as the company - 20 years old so it sucks! One of the duties they sprung on me after I was hired was field calls, I'm not sure what that has to do with web marketing but I had already accepted the job so what could I do? Here we are over a year later and I am still stuck doing it. Not the end of the world but with everything else I am tasked to do it's a major pain.

When I first started the company owners were spending most of their time in India opening a plant over there for our cashew production (it's a total nightmare - the factory is a big money suck and it's more expensive for us to buy our own cashews than to get them from other vendors). Anyway, the only reason this factory was built is because the owner wanted the people in the village he grew up in to know how great he is. The other owner, the wife, is not Indian, she's from the Midwest and hates India so she is now spending most of her time here while her husband splits his time. This wouldn't be an issue if she wasn't such a busy body, she has to have her hands in everything but she really doesn't know what she is doing or how to properly run a business, this is the only place she has ever worked.

I have come into my office a few times to find that she's "cleaned" my desk. First of all, I never leave my desk a mess - I hate coming to work to a messy desk so there really wasn't much to clean so she did some reorganizing. WTF! Stay away from my stuff you cray old bat. She even tossed out papers from a coworker's desk that had important sales information on them. And when her husband comes into town it's worse, he likes everyone to kiss his butt, I don't do that. He's a little man with a Napoléon Complex who is putting everyone of his employees futures in jeopardy with this India plant. He's also very sexist and all around a total D-bag. When he's around I lay low because I know me, I won't take his abuse.

OK long back story to get me to today. Our ancient phone system is just too complicated for homeboy to figure out so he always calls me directly and while it's not 20 years ago the connection from India is not great but he insists on using speaker phone. So it take a few "hellos" to find out who is on the phone and he is always looking for his wife, she doesn't have an extension so I have to run around the office while I find her. When he called this morning I asked some of the guys where she was and they told me that she was across the street in the other building. Wonderful, so I told him that I could take a message for him because there are no phones over there.

"No I want to talk to her now!"

"OK I can ask someone to run across the street and let her know, I am not running over there." Why lie? I didn't see any issue with this.

"Well why can't you go?"

"Because at this stage in my pregnancy and given the shoes I am wearing running over there doesn't seem to be the best idea" We are forced to dress a step above business casual.

"What pregnant people can't walk"

"Yes we can but I don't see the difference between me going and someone else going, no one minds doing me a favor" Is he kidding? How does he know if I have been instructed to stay off my feet or not? I know he has no idea the kind of pain I am in on a daily basis.

"Well I want to talk to her"

"Don't worry, someone will let her know, it just wont be me."

God, what a jack ass! The woman who work around me couldn't believe that he was so unreasonable and that I actually stood up to him. What does it matter to him who tells her? I think it's the first time anyone has said no to him...any of his employees anyway. And let him fire me for it, I believe that is called discrimination.