The Nose Bowl

Yesterday started off on a bad note. J woke up to the "glug glug glug" of me repeatedly pouring water down the sink from two little water bottles while muttering obscenities about the incompetence of toilet bowl manufacturers.

See, I have this habit of using toilet paper to blow my nose and then flushing it down the toilet, since this seems to me to be more sanitary than having dirty tissues sit in a wastebasket for a week.
Over the past couple of days, I have been battling some kind of no-you-can't-take-any-medication-for-it-because-you're-pregnant illness and my nose had been a particular distraction the night before.

Basically, I was up all night tossing crumpled toilet paper into the toilet. But I couldn't flush the toilet because I was afraid it would wake up J. Not once did it occur to me that the repeated sound of the foghorn attached to my face could disturb him. But I just knew that if I flushed that toilet once behind two closed doors, his sleep would be ruined for the rest of the night. Go figure.

So in the morning, I had amassed quite a mound of unflushed tissues in the toilet bowl, and had a sneaking suspicion that the toilet might choke on it when flushed. But that was a theory that had to be tested.

WHAT I DID NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION, HOWEVER, WAS THAT EVIDENTLY THERE IS AT LEAST ONE TOILET BOWL MANUFACTURER WHO DOESN'T THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO MAKE THE BOWL BIG ENOUGH TO HOLD ALL THE WATER IN THE TANK.

Toilets clog. That's just part of their job, and a fact of life. WHY then, would anybody make a toilet that overflowed when it couldn't get everything down the tube??? Even at our old crummy house, the water would stop flowing into the toilet if it backed up to a certain level.

I watched as the water rose. And rose. And kept rising. It didn't stop. It just kept coming, up, up, and out of the bowl. And onto the floor.

And furthermore, WHY WOULD ANY HOME MANUFACTURER INSTALL CARPET IN THE TOILET AREA???

I mean seriously people, what if this had not been toilet water and tissues, but the result of a seafood dinner gone bad? Our bathroom area would have been ruined for good and we would have had to get the flooring replaced because that kind of thing never REALLY comes out of carpet. It's like putting carpet in the kitchen - something anybody with a brain just doesn't do.

Anyway, after layering the floor with towels, I realized that the only way to lower the level of the water in the bowl was to take it out myself. Since we just moved in, all I had at my disposal was a couple of empty water bottles. Hence J's morning wake-up music.

I can tell you that this particular start to the day, in addition to my lack of sleep the previous night didn't do wonders for my mood or my cold, which grew gradually worse through the day. I eventually had to leave work just to go home and get some sleep.

Ah sleep. The wonder-cure. Much better today.

Body & Mind

My suspicions about the bed sheets have been confirmed. J woke up with a sore neck this morning. Aha! And you all thought I was making that up. But it's true: Satin sheets are bad for the bod. And I think they will be sentenced to the "emergency laundry backup" drawer tonight.

We had some old friends from Seattle visiting last night and enjoyed reminiscing about college days. Somewhere between complaining about my sore neck, rehashing the stupid things we did in college, and a conversation about vacuums, it hit us: we're getting old.

Seriously, if you had told us four years ago that at this point we would be living in Texas, expecting a baby, and sitting around comparing the suction power of assorted vacuums, we would have imagined a very chilly day in hell.

And yet here we are.

It's amazing how time flies and what a drastic mental change happens during the early twenties. Fantasies about traveling the world as a vagrant artist and living on Ramen just for the intrinsic value of rebelling against the black hole of Corporate America are replaced with the desire to find a stable job and have the means to support a larger family. Where 'Planning for the Future' used to mean bringing an extra pair of underwear on that impromptu out-of-state camping trip, now it's contemplating a savings plan for our baby's college expenses.

And forget about those 2AM trips to Denny's for hot wings. Or spur of the moment treks across the city to hear a live band. I can just feel the grey seeping into my hair. Sigh.

Although, being old and stable does have its advantages. Like cool TVs that were only the stuff dreams were made of at age 20.

PLASMA, baby. Plasma.

Thumb Things to Review

Thumbs Up: Dyson Vacuum. Love it. Took it over to clean up the old house and had to empty the canister 3 times from all the crap that thing picked up that our other vacuum left behind. Our previous vacuum went through a bag once every few moths. Now we know why - OLD VACUUM DIDN'T WORK.

Thumbs Down: Satin Sheets. Ok, I have always wanted satin sheets (always, meaning since I discovered them at Bed Bath & Beyond when shopping for dorm room accessories my freshman year of college). Finally bought a set as a housewarming gift for myself and J. BAD CHOICE for several reasons:

• They are noisy. Shifting around at night causes enough "russle russle" to wake up any sleeping indiviudal in the room, the dog and the neighbors 3 doors down.
• They don't let your skin breath. Which means they will keep you warm when your room is cold, but it's not the cozy warm of cotton sheets. It's the skin-suffocating warm that makes you sweat if you don't leave half your body out of the sheets.
• They are too slippery. Try to sit on the bed and find yourself abuptly landing on the floor. Lay your head on the pillow and it slips out from underneath you. Open your mouth to yawn and all the covers slide off onto the floor. And I'm fairly convinced that this slip-n-slide business is the reason for the neck injury that kept me home from work yesterday. Because the pillow won't stay under your head, your neck has to compensate all night to keep it there. Consequently, I woke up and couldn't turn my head in any direction all day. Last night I slept without a pillow and that seemed to help. At least I can drive today.
• They are expensive. I don't mind spending money for good sheets, but it really really irks me to spend a lot of money on sheets I (and my neck) would have been better off without. So in summary, save yourself the trouble and stick with the higher thread count cotton sheets.

Home Sweet Home

Whew! What a weekend! We are mostly moved into our new house now after a weekend of lifting and hauling...well, after a weekend of me watching other people lift and haul (pregnancy does have its advantages).

My best friend came up for the weekend and it was wonderful to have a guest room that any normal guest would actually want to sleep in. It's also wonderful to, after 2 years, be back in a house that will clean when you clean it, stay light during the day, and has plumbing that actually works!

My parents also gave me a vacuum as a housewarming gift - it's one of those cool bagless never-lose-suction Dyson vacs. Love it. I'm looking forward to taking it back to the rental house when we clean up there to really put it to work. It's kind of like that sick obsession that makes you let the glue dry on the outside of the cap, just so you can peel it off in chunks. Or maybe that's just me.

Speaking of chunks (don't you just love a transition like that), J received a somewhat (totally) shocking surprise when he closed the glass hatch on our Blazer this weekend and the entire hatch exploded back out at him into a hundred thousand million tiny bitty chunks of glass. He and my dad spent a good hour and a half at the old house cleaning up glass from the blazer and garage (and J). We have no broom and our dust-buster only holds a charge for 10.5 seconds. All they had was an old vacuum cleaner with ONE vacuum bag, which I understand was filled, emptied and recycled multiple times, and currently looks as though it's been sent through the garbage disposal. I knew I was in for a good story when he walked into the new house with "You know how I always wanted a convertible...?"

Just in case anybody out there was wondering, we now know that it costs approximately $800 to replace a glass hatch on a 10 year old Blazer. Because I know that important question has probably been buring in your mind for the last several days.

Our new house was officially christened this weekend by a can of Diet Coke that slipped out of my hand and proceeded to spray in circles all over the kitchen. It was amazing. Seriously. The ENTIRE CAN of coke emptied itself on the walls, floors, counters, and even managed to make its way into the living room. There are places in that kitchen in which any liquid would have had to DEFY THE LAWS OF NATURE to reach...and yet there we were, mopping it up on the other side of the island, around the corner of the wall, etc. Like wow.

So we're moved in and making it home. Fun stuff. Oh, and by the way, $1000 at Linens & Things (compliments of our real estate agent) can go REALLY FAST. Sheesh.

Cleanest Baby in the World

Why is it that when your belly protrudes more than normal, there's this inate need to give it an extra good scrubbing in the shower?
...Or maybe it's just me...

Oh, by the way...

IT'S A GIRL!

I don't think I've mentioned that because when we found out I was in the throws of trying to run an office by myself, so there wasn't a lot of time for blogging. But the sonogram has confirmed that we are doomed to be fending off the obnoxious onslaught of PINK that will undoubtedly be following us around for the next several years (I've already made an arrangement with my mom - I call before I come pick up the baby from her house, and before I get there, she will remove any pink adornments that may have found their way onto my child in the meantime).

But we are both looking forward to pigtails, softball, and all the other little things that come with having a girl.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised to be told that we are having a girl. I was pretty convinced that it was going to be a boy...based on the activity level of this little bundle. I swear, sometimes I think I've got a monkey in there instead. And these 11:30pm aerobics sessions have got to stop.

But overall, the pregnancy is going well and has been relatively easy. Can't ask for much more than that.

Walking on Sunshine

This week is on par to go down in history as one of the best weeks of my entire life.

Jamie came back from Europe to a busier office and some of the things that I had been wondering how in the world I would find the time to do. So they were shifted over to her department, which ended up working great for everybody. So nice to have her back!

I heard from several friends this week that I had been out of touch with for many moons, so to speak. I love renewed contacts.

I asked for AND GOT a raise at work. AND found out that they will be paying me for a full month of maternity leave (very uncommon!) so that eases a lot of tension over how we were going to survive that time financially.

I found the themed accessories I was looking for to decorate our nursery with. I knew I wanted a jungle theme, but everything I saw was either too cartoony or too dark/real/scary for a nursery. And finally the clouds parted and revealed the perfect set:

We closed on our fabulous house today! Our final walk-through last night was incredible. The woman we purchased the house from is more than slightly on the obsessive-compulsive neat-freak side, which makes this transition all the easier on us. The house sparkles like nobody's ever lived there. I kid you not, she scrubbed the garage floor and cleaned out the garage door panels (and all the metal bars on the inside) with bleach.

She even left us several extras, like shower curtain liners, a stroller, and an elliptical exercise machine! Oh, and she's leaving the electricity in her name until Monday so we will have power over the weekend, since the stupid electrical company simply could not set up our account until Monday despite repeated requests and messages from us.

And she called up the alarm company and informed them that they had to give us the same "special rate" she was getting or we wouldn't continue the contract. So we're getting the 3-year contract rate without the 3-year contract!

We couldn't have asked for a better seller to work with. And when we showed up at closing today, out monthly payments ended up being less than we were expecting because we had gotten a lower interest rate than we were originally quoted. Too cool.

So, we're getting a great house at a great price with a great loan and it comes with great accessories from a great seller who seems to be going out of her way to make the process better for us. I am so tempted to break out into a chorus of "I've Got Rhythm." Who could ask for anything more???

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, Jamie has returned from the Great European Quest and things are slowly returning to "normal." And she brought me the cutest Italian over-the-shoulder bag!
Apologies to all who have called and emailed over the last two weeks and have not received a response. I'm trying to sort through my inbox now and get through that in a timely manner, now that I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off anymore. There is something to be said for having some downtime at work...or at least having a lunch break, which is a luxury I have been unable to indulge in for the past few weeks.
I addition to being swamped at work, extra-careerular activities have been full as well. J and I are closing on our wonderful house this Friday, we've hit a new milestone in pregnancy and I've been working on planning a bridal shower.
So my blogging time has been more than a little restricted. Again, trying to correct that now that things are getting less hectic at work.
More updates soon, I promise. Though I'm not fool enough to define the term "soon." :)