Migrating

The move went very, very well.  We had good help from both my and Andy's work, and it took less than two hours to get all the stuff out from the old place and into the new one.  I didn't have to do very much, which was the plan all along.

The new place is coming together very nicely.  Brisco seems to like it too.  He gets very distracted on our walks by animal tracks, of which there are plenty.  Today is rainy, but it's going to be a gorgeous area.

There's still some work to be done at the old place.  Most of the things over there are fit to be scrapped, but it still has to be done.  Our bikes are in the attic, too.

I'm very happy with the new place.  I'll be happier still tomorrow when the internet is hooked up.

I had a doctor's appointment today, another quick one.  My blood pressure and weight are fine, her heartbeat is still thrumming along, and that was it.  The next round of ultrasounds are on Friday, to get a few more images and angles that they wanted.

I'll try to get some pictures up soon, but week 20 may be over before I get to it.  And on that note--I'm over halfway through!  Hard to believe!

Moving Day

It's almost Week 20, and we're moving today.  I'll probably be without internet at home until Thursday. Wish us luck!

Hangnails

You know what I've found myself wondering lately?  Do hangnails ever really go away?  Google has been no help on this subject.  I know you can cut the protruding part away, but I feel like I'm cutting the same area regularly.  It doesn't help that it's been particularly dry here lately.  I wonder if I'm doomed to keep trimming these same couple of hangnails every few weeks, on rotation.

Now that I've made you read that.

We've got a few more people lined up to help with the move on Saturday, so I'm less worried about it than I was.  And I'm certainly less worried than I was before our last move.  Andy and I are going to do another shuttle run to the place this evening, and we'll take Brisco along to introduce him to the new place.  He'll be leashed and watched keenly.

When I was a kid, I had an "outie" belly button.  It wasn't until I started taking tae kwon do at the one and only Keith Hafner's Karate that it went in.  I think that was due to a development of ab muscles, and me poking it in, and having it stick one day.  (I was like ten, what do you want?)  I suspect it's going to be back out sometime soon.  I can already tell that my belly button is wider.  It's weird.

Anyway, the real reason you're all here:

Check out that creepy face in picture two!  There's a better profile picture, too, but it didn't upload correctly.  I have it up on my desk, so that's nice.  We'll probably have more after 3/1.  We're still talking about names. We know a couple who had their boy just last night, and he's as of yet unnamed.  I want to have something that we can call her, both now, and as soon as we meet her.  Suggestions?  :-)

Week 19

Another busy week.  We moved the majority of our small stuff into the new apartment on Saturday and Sunday.  Andy was a beast (without hurting his shoulder, of course) and I helped as much as I could.  It was only boxes and small furniture.  The big stuff will be moving this Saturday, hopefully with help from people from my work.  One person has already said he'll be there, so yay for Nick!

Our ultrasound was last Friday, where we found out that I'm carrying a Fraasslette.  She was not terribly cooperative during the ultrasound, so I have to go back for another ultrasound in two weeks so they can get the other measurements.  She was quite content just sitting still.  I have some new pictures, but I haven't scanned them yet.  I'll get to it.

I do, however, have some pictures of me (and Brisco decided he should be in them too)!

I think my jeans, which I wear every day, do a pretty good job hiding my belly, so I opted for a dress this picture.  And then I changed immediately, because our apartment feels noticeably colder with less stuff in it.

I'm very, very excited about our new place.  As I started moving things in and trying to figure out how to best set up our kitchen, I can tell it'll be more of a challenge than this current place.  We'll be missing the large pantry to which we've become accustomed.  We are, however, looking forward to having doors where there should be doors, and not having to go into our neighbor's place to do laundry.  I'm also excited about the carpeting.  Much safer for a crawling Fraasslette.  And much less noise from a clicky-nailed dog!

It's...

Have you ever thought about how strange the phrase "It's a...." (when it comes to someone's sex) is?

I mean, you're still using the It in that sentence, to refer to him/her.  I just find it strange.

And don't get me started on "its."

But anyway, I guess you're waiting to find out if we were able to determine the sex of our baby yesterday at our appointment.

We were.

Would you like to know what we're having?

It's.....

a girl!

Week 18

It's been a busy week.  We visited an apartment that we liked a lot, about 18 minutes from Amherst (we're about 13 minutes away now, but who's counting).  We filled out an application on the spot, and I called the landlord (who was not the one showing it to us) the next day with a few more questions.  He asked if we were relatively certain we wanted the place, and I said, unequivocally, yes.

He talked to our current landlady and offered it to us last Thursday night, saying that he wanted to have the place rented by 2/15.  This Friday, that is.  Our current landlady wants thirty days' notice, understandably, but we wanted this place enough that we were willing to pay a bit on both, and be able to take our time moving in.

We spent a lot of this weekend packing and finding more stuff for Goodwill.  Of course, getting to Goodwill is another story.  You may have heard there was a lot of snow 'round these parts.  Nothing too eventful happened to us--we didn't lose power or heat, we just stayed inside.  The internet even continued to work, so we just streamed Netflix and worked on packing.  I'm going to try to get the van from work this coming weekend so we can start shuttling things over to the new place.

We have to meet the neighbors at this place early this week, and sign the lease.  It sounds like they had bad tenants before.  I'm hoping we get a lot of help from people at work for the furniture-moving, but we're really hoping to have most of the small stuff done before then.

Friday morning we'll have our next ultrasound and will attempt to find out the sex.  I think I've felt the baby move three times now, but it's hard to be sure.

Not sure how many more pictures we'll have in this location.  The bread board is already packed and you can see the blue bins, waiting to be filled, in the back room there.  They're doing a Biggest Loser-type competition at work (which obviously I'm not participating in), so there's a scale out every week, and I can tell that I've gained a bit.  (I'm still ten fewer pounds than I was at my heaviest.)

I got a little dizzy last night, but I've mostly been feeling good.  I had some pretty amazing mood swings today, too.  They were mostly good.  Mostly.  :)

Bros

I was thinking about my brother the other day, because it was his birthday.  And then, it was three days later.  Oops.  Happy birthday, (Uncle Traveling) Matt!

And speaking of brothers and sisters, that is my segue into the fact that we'll be finding out the sex in two weeks (assuming the baby cooperates).  We'll find out if we're having a Fraasslet, or a Fraasslette.  :-D

I had another appointment yesterday, just a quick one.  My blood pressure is great, my weight is fine, and I'm allowed to eat gorgonzola cheese (HOORAY).  That was on my list of Very Important Questions, and now I know.

I brought home a bunch of boxes from work and we're going to continue the house-purge/apartment searching.  We found two places we liked enough to fill out applications for.  (That doesn't feel right.  Oh well--sentence construction be damned.)  We're waiting to hear back on both, which is frustrating, because I think we both want one more than the other.  I'm worried that we'll get "stuck" with the other (more expensive) place, even though we did like it.  It's definitely more of an inconvenience.  It's farther away and not on the busline for Andy to get to work.  But it is significantly bigger and has laundry downstairs.

We also need to spend some time discussing and researching doulas.  From what I've read about them, it sounds like something that would be very helpful to have, and most offer a free initial meeting.  So, we should get started on that process if we're going to do it.

I'll try to do another round of pictures sometime this weekend.