Learnedededed

In a few minutes, I'll be leaving work early to head to Seattle University, the place that will be taking lots of my money in return for a quality education. I will be learning about my program and what classes I need to register for and when. One prerequisite that I need is Business Calculus. Scary!

Urge to spend money

It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while I actually get the urge to go shopping. I have that urge RIGHT NOW. Here's a list of things I would like to procure:

- bookcase for our living room
- maternity clothes
- vase & something to go in them for our fireplace mantel
- window coverings
- jeans for Tony
- barstools
- bedroom suite

The bedroom suite, barstools and window coverings are unlikely ATM. I have my eye on a bookcase at Ikea that's $80. I know I can find the mantel solution at Michael's for less than $30. However, I would feel guilty for spending money on any of the above things because they are wants and not needs. But, then again, Tony just spent a good chunk of change yesterday on snowboarding which was definitely a want. Why do I have such a hard time spending money? Although we are in debt, we aren't poor.

It's already Friday

This week has flown by. I can't believe it's Friday already! The only thing I didn't get done on my cleaning feat list was the bathroom on the first floor. This weekend, I'm going to sweep our drive & patio if it doesn't rain. Tony will be out snowboarding on Saturday so I'll have the house all to myself. Bookclub is on Sunday.

Last night was busy. Always Chiropractic was having their 2-year birthday celebration. Tony & I went right after work to celebrate, eat and catch up with Stine & Lyam. We then went and picked Teresa up from work and then headed over to Twist in Belltown for a fund raiser for Jill's brother. He was in a hit-and-run accident as a pedestrian back in early December when we had the big windstorm that knocked out power in much of Seattle. He just got out of the hospital this month and is making marked improvements. $14k was raised for him last night! Afterwards, we went back to Teresa's house for a bit so Tony could meet her little puppy, Piper. He's in love now :)

Too ambitious?

As we work on decorating our house, we're not finding any curtains/drapes that appeal to us for our living room. I have this idea that maybe I should sew them myself. I haven't broken out my sewing machine since moving to Seattle. Is it too ambitious? Am I willing to risk spending money on fabric and then the curtains turn out poorly? What I think may be a good idea may indeed be a bad one.

I didn't get through my feat list. That was too ambitious. However, I am confident that I will get through the list this week. I dyed Tony's hair yesterday and now there is dye all in my clean tub. So disappointing :(

Amanda - I have been known to clean people's houses when I visit them. Especially if they have to work and I am carless. Just ask Betsy!

Weekend feats

- Scrubbed the master bath from top to bottom (except the walls)
- Installed new bathroom fixtures in the guest bath (we've had them for MONTHS)
- Made vegetable stew (potatoes, carrots, collards, kidney beans, tomatoes, onion)

Now that I list it out, it seems like I didn't get a lot done yesterday. Today, my goals are:

- Clean guest bath, half bath & downstairs bath (no tub to scrub so it won't take as long)
- Vacuum
- Organize downstairs guest bedroom
- Take out recycling
- Laundry

Poor Tony is sick with another cold and isn't feeling up to doing much of anything. Teresa was going to come over tonight but we may have to cancel if he's not feeling any better later today.

Make it so

If I tell the Internet, I'll be more likely to do it.

I fully intended to get some cleaning done tonight. Instead, I read my Real Simple magazine, talked on the phone with Jenn, sorted through the pile of mail, paid bills and then wasted time browsing the internet. I have two cleaning goals this weekend: vacuum the house and clean ALL of the bathrooms.

ShooshShooshShoosh

We heard lil' bean's heartbeat today so we know I'm still pregnant. My diet has been poor (for me) and I've been paying for it with constipation. Yeah, I know constipation happens when your pregnant, but I also know you can prevent it if you eat enough fiber and I have not been eating enough fiber lately. That will be changing now because I am not liking this constipation deal AT ALL. I've got the bloating pretty much under control. Eating smaller meals at night means I wake up ravenous, but oh well.

Tony & I are now having to have the discussion on whether to test for down's syndrome or not to test for it. I don't want to do the test and he does. The test could give false positive results. He says he will be too anxious thoughout the rest of the pregnancy unless he knows. The only comprimise I can come up with is that I get the blood test done and have the doctor call Tony with the results.

What today means to me

I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day. It's a Hallmark holiday and I don't want Hallmark telling me when I'm supposed to give something sweet to the person I'm romantically involved with. Tony, however, likes Valentine's Day. He likes it so much that he proposed to me last Valentine's Day.

February 14th is the anniversary of our engagement. That means a lot more to me than a Hallmark holiday. We're going to dinner and a movie to celebrate. I bought my sweetie a bunch of tulips and hid them in the car for when we leave work.

Out of the closet

I finally came out at work about lil' bean. I'm in my second trimester now and will be showing soon and was tired of making up excuses about so many doctor's appointments. My next appointment is Thursday - we hope to hear lil' bean's heartbeat. The bloating is probably the most uncomfortable thing about my pregnancy so far. I've been eating junk food and still have yet to gain an ounce. I expect to start putting it on soon :)

Utah was a relaxing time. We pretty much just hung out with family. Tony took Casey snowboarding on Saturday. I don't think I left the house once! The kitties sure did miss us.

Our new blinds arrived at the end of last week and we installed them last night. Fun stuff! Unfortunately, one of them got slightly damaged when being shipped, so we must go return it.

Family Weekend

We're off to Utah on a jet plane this afternoon. Whew! It's been a busy week. I hope to have some downtime so I can upload some pictures and catch up on responding to email. Work has been busy and productive and I don't know where my free time goes. Really, I don't.

Jenn, I missed talking to you this week. I will try to give you a ring if I have a free moment this weekend.

A Very Large Shell

Yesterday evening, we returned home to find a notice in our mailbox that the postal service had a package for me at the post office. An unexpected package! We were planning to go to the post office anyway to pick up a certified letter we received (another bleeping lien on our house) so now there was a bonus for me!

The box was square and somewhat large. The return address = unknown. A mystery! We get back into the car to head to work and Tony opens the package - it's a large conch shell. The note that was included only confused us more because it made no sense whatsoever. The person who sent it to me hoped that I enjoyed my visit to Barbados. I only wish I went to the Carribean!

How could someone accidentally send me a conch shell? Our address is brand new so no one has ever had it before. It took me awhile to figure out where it might have come from. I called Dad & Carolyn later in the day - it was from them. The dilemma they faced after purchase was how to send it to me. They asked the diver if he could ship it. He had his daughter take it with her to the states and she shipped it from Florida. Mystery solved.

The Evil Bloat

Starting on Friday, my belly has been severely bloating and hurting after at least one meal a day. It doesn't happen at breakfast, but can happen at lunch or dinner - mostly dinner. It's extremely uncomfortable and i don't know why it's happening. Hating the Evil Bloat!

We arrived at Whistler around 11pm on Friday. After unloading our stuff, we headed over to the condo where Chris, Julie, Adrianne, Lorian and Douglas were staying to hang out with them for a bit. On Saturday, I wasn't planning on boarding but Tony was. Unfortunately, he was still not feeling well enough to go up on the mountain. Instead, we headed to the Village so he could get one of his bindings repaired. We met up with Julie and then went to visit Jill, William and Zach at their hotel room. Zach (9) was grounded for misbehaving the prior day so they decided to head back to Seattle in the afternoon after Jeremiah (11) got back from his day-long boarding lesson. Before they left, the lot of us grabbed lunch at our favorite Irish pub (minus the 3 that were boarding that day). We offered to have Jeremiah stay with us if he wanted to board for one more day. After lunch, we headed back to our lodge so Tony could rest and I could go swimming and take a bath. I love that I can go swimming outside while it's snowing! After my bath, Jill dropped Jeremiah off and we all got ready for Lorian's birthday dinner at Teppan Village (Japanese steakhouse). Fun times!

We got an early start on Sunday - we didn't want to miss out on the little bit of snow that had fallen the previous day. Towards mid-morning, we noticed written notifications on the lift signs about 99 (the main road to get to/from Whistler) was closed due to a landslide. Oh crap! By this point, it had started raining so we decided to head down the mountain around 1:30pm to figure out a plan. We found that they were working on clearing it out and hoped to have the road opened by 5pm. We hung out for a bit and then headed back to Seattle around 5. Strangely enough, we saw no evidence of the mudslide other than a little bit of traffic. We dropped a very tired Jeremiah off at his parent's house around 11pm and then headed home to lay our own exhausted heads down for the night.

What is it with these delays on getting home from Whistler?

Complaining time

My belly is bloated and it hurts. Hating it!
The lawyer that we met with last week is dragging his feet on sending a letter out to the seller. We are so done with dealing with people who are nonresponsive. My guess is that he's not putting forth the effort since he isn't going to be making much money off of our case.

Oh lookie! Time to go home, feed the kitties lots of food, pack up the car and head to Whistler for the weekend!

Puppy dog eyes

A friend of ours, Diana, is an artist. For our wedding, Diana and Cory gave us a print of the below image beautifully framed.

Diana is having a showing tonight during the monthly art walk in Pioneer Square. Tony found out that she's reduced the price on the original of Alien Girl. He came into my office and gave me the puppy dog eyes. Seriously.

We just forked out $900 for car maintenance. That boy has the hardest time with a budget. I'm doing our best not to increase our credit card debt since we loaded up the card during our wedding & honeymoon. *sigh*