heat is unmotivating for anything except a nap

It is hot hot hot. The heat index has been well over a hundred degrees for over a month with very little relief in the form of rain or anything. And in a black car, there is definitely no escape from the heaviness of it all.

I work all day in the air conditioning and then get into my hot car to make the 5-minute drive home. But in just those 5 minutes, the heat seeps all the way into my bones. I leave work with such good intentions of going home and doing some sewing, but for the past several days I have done none of that. On a few days I had "excuses" like "oh today is laundry day" or "today I need to go grocery shopping" or "the dishes are starting to stack up, I need to wash them". And I do those other chores, but there was more than enough time for sewing also. And it's not like I picked a complicated pattern to get back into the swing of things either. I'm making a pair of maternity khaki pants... 5 construction seams, two hems, an elastic waistband and we're done. So if I started it on Sunday or Monday, then by Friday I should have definitely already been DONE with the pants and on to a nursery item. But I've only managed to sew one seam each day just about. I did get off an hour early today and have a shift later this evening to do w/ LiveOps for an hour and a half, so I am going to take advantage of this afternoon and SEW THOSE PANTS even if it kills me. And then I should even be able to start in on the nursery curtains. My self-imposed deadline is creeping up rapidly, and I won't have all of Labor Day weekend like I originally thought I would. Hubby's family (including his sister that I've never met) will be here so I will be spending time with them.

That's about all I wanted to say today so off I go to sew.

coworkers got to feel the baby

Two of my coworkers got to feel the baby today. :D I had tried to have one of them feel it the other day, but baby of course got still and quiet when I called her over. But today, he/she was moving a TON so I let her feel again today. She was feeling my strong pulse first and thought that was kicking, but I didn't feel anything so I knew it was my pulse and told her so. Then the baby gave her a VERY big kick. The other coworker was watching and saw the girl's hand move when my baby kicked her. :P So then my second coworker gave me her hand and was able to feel several good kicks too.

We did have our ultrasound this past Wednesday and did keep the gender a surprise. Our doctor has a guess though. I didn't even realize that is what she was looking at until she went away all of a sudden and said "OK I have a guess for the gender." I have seen so many gender shots online, etc that if I had been paying attention and not spacing out I probably could have had a guess too. I think come December and this baby's birth day though I will be very glad that we didn't find out early. I'm still having strong girl feelings but a few people are starting to seriously guess boy so who knows.

I have one more hem to sew tonight and then all my mending will be done, and I can get started up on the "fun" sewing... namely maternity clothes and nursery items. I want to have the entire nursery done (including the closet cleaned out and my sewing/crafts pile organized, etc) by the time my parents come in the last week of September. I plan to sew maternity garments and nursery items alternately and then when I have a few days off I'll do the "organizing" part. Unfortunatly my next day off is going to be the Saturday before Labor Day... BUT I also have Labor Day off too so hopefully it will be a very productive weekend.

fun and games while watching the belly move

Today in the middle of chores, I took a little break to lie down and WATCH my belly move. When I feel the kicks, they feel strong enough to me that they might show up on the outside, so I thought I'd try and see them. The baby was moving a lot and I could see it! It was so cool. I called hubby to the room and he watched it too for a while. It looked like the bottom side of a trampoline when someone's jumping on it. Our ultrasound is going to be this Wednesday and I so cannot wait to get a peek inside my belly again. It's a morning appointment this time so I won't have to wait for hours and hours after I get off work. Oh but anyway about the fun part... while hubby and I were watching the belly, I got so tickled at something that he said or did. I can't even remember what it was now, I just remember the aftermath... when I was laughing so much, my belly button turned into a tiny little mound. :P It was funny. Hubby thought it was so cute but I couldn't stop laughing, and my sticking-out belly button because of the laughing was embarassing, so I kept trying to cover it up but hubby kept looking at it, which would make me laugh even more, and the cycle continued. :P

The organization project is going fine. I managed to completely go through both dressers last Saturday, and I was off today again too. I intended to do a bunch MORE organization but haven't quite gotten to it yet. I had some laundry and dishes to do. I do have two boxes from the second bedroom's closet that I can go through tonight though.

I haven't sewn anything since my last entry, but the fabric for the nursery has arrived. :D I washed that today and will probably start sewing on that next week sometime. I think I will tackle the curtains first since they just have measurements to go by instead of an exact pattern. The sheer fabric is going to be "interesting" to work with since it is very spider-webby textured, and isn't really woven or knitted but is instead loosely "matted" together sortof like felt. After I get the curtains done, the rest of it should come together piece of cake. But before I start on that, tonight I plan on doing some mending that has been sitting around for a while. Hubby has a few shirts that lost their buttons, and I have several pairs of pants that I need to hem. I hope to get all that done today, possibly sew a new garment tomorrow (but will at least get it cut out), and then do the curtains, then another maternity garment, then some more bedding, etc. I hope to have the nursery DONE by the end of September when my parents get here. It's a good goal. For the end of August, I've set the mini-goal of 4 maternity garments... and if I intersperse those with nursery bedding items, then I should be able to reach the September goal.

being overcome with excess emotion

The extra pregnancy emotions have started to settle in. :) Thankfully, they are not all crying sessions, lol. Sometimes I just feel extra happy, too, so happy that all I can do is laugh out loud for real.

But anyway, on the boo-hoo's... Hubby and I are watching a reality show about chefs, one of the type where each week there is an elimination. This week they were down to the final five. We watched this show last season too and when they got to the final five, after each was eliminated, they would show a mini-montage of all the fun times and positive moments that that particular person had. Last season when I watched the montages I would think "oh, that's so nice of them to do that so we remember their good times and not what they just got eliminated for" etc. But with this past show and seeing the first montage, I just kept wanting to cry. :P

And then at Toys'R'Us this weekend, when hubby and I were setting up our registry, there was the option to have a message print off on the registry sheets when people come to shop for us. I suggested to hubby to put "Thanks for thinking of us during our special time"... but I was only able to say aloud "Thanks for thinking of us". If I finished the phrase out loud, I just knew that I would start crying. My voice even cracked a tiny bit at "us". :P

As for the laughter, that comes from baby kicks. I've been feeling the baby move pretty consistently day to day, but usually he/she kicks me in random spots in my intestines, instead of right up on the surface where I could feel the kicks from the outside. Well, when I got home from work this afternoon, I layed down in bed for a bit and was able to feel several BIG kicks from both the inside and outside. Each kick would bring me such intense joy that my body would just involuntarily laugh. I couldn't NOT laugh if I tried. I really really love those kicks and don't think I could ever get tired of them. These kicks were big enough that if I could see my stomach (I couldn't from the angle I was at), I'm sure I would be SEEing them as well. If I laugh just at feeling strong kicks, I wonder how I'll feel in a few more months when I SEE the baby move.

we have movement

I'm 19 weeks today, and I think I'm finally feeling the baby move. Yay! :) Yesterday at lunch, I felt three distinct little taps about 10 seconds apart. These taps didn't feel at all like gas or anything so I was pretty sure it was the baby. Then I felt one more tap a bit later in the afternoon. Today, I felt some more movements, and they were still so tiny, but this time they were a few actual pushes, one right after the other. It was SO cool, but at the same time a little strange. My body is doing such an amazing thing by providing a place for the baby to grow, but the baby is doing these movements on its own. There really is an entirely separate human being inside me right now. That fact is SO hard to wrap my brain around, but the increasing movements over the next few weeks will definitely help it sink in.

Like earlier when I was sick all the time, "yeah I'm naseous because I'm pregnant." Or after that when I would get so sleepy early in the evenings "I need a little more rest because I'm pregnant." Or when I was just STARVING by 8:30 am "I am hungry and need to eat more frequently because I'm pregnant." I would think these things to try and help the pregnancy sink in, but they were just words and even though I KNEW that I was/am pregnant, words and mild symptoms alone cannot make me really FEEL pregnant. But the growing belly over the past few weeks and now these tiny, wonderful movements are definitely making me "feel" pregnant. I am looking forward to both the belly and the movements increasing over the next several months.

I can't believe that my childbirth classes are in less than 2 months! I haven't even seriously looked at baby furniture or any of the other "stuff" that I'll need right off the bat. I really need to get on the stick about that so that I am not scrambling at the last minute.

working at home is coming back

I haven't written much lately about my work at home venture. Over the past several months I've sortof tapered off with it. I'll take the odd call here and there just to keep myself "active", but the main focus of that company was burning me out.

Then, they introduced directory assistance. That was awesome! I loved it and was looking forward to supplementing my "day job" income BIG time with that. But, it went away almost as quickly as it came. The way that the higher ups worded their e-mails about it, I didn't think it was ever going to come back. So I went back to doing very few calls here and there, then about a month ago, they said "guess what, directory assistance is coming back, launching the day after memorial day." Yay! I was excited. But, that day came and went with no re-launch. And even today, it STILL has not been re-launched. The last message on it said that it would come back within the next two weeks. Well, that would put me right at my 60 days (I have to take a call every 60 days to stay active), so that weekend I went ahead and logged in and grabbed a couple of calls.

In the meantime, I e-mailed my "supervisor" and asked her about getting on with one of the other projects that this company is doing. This other "line" of calls is taking orders for a national restaurant for delivery. It is something that I felt I could do so I e-mailed my supervisor and asked her how to get into that pool and be able to take those calls. She wrote back and said that she put me on the "list" of interested agents. I wondered to myself how long the list was and when I would hear back from someone, but didn't worry too much about it.

Then 2 days ago, I woke up to find an e-mail waiting for me that says I've been selected to start training for that line! I was given a link to the training modules and told that when I complete modules 1 and 2, I'll be given instructions on how to download and log into the ordering application. So I cranked out the first two modules and passed the quizzes on Monday, and Tuesday morning I downloaded the application and finished my training. Tuesday afternoon I got one final e-mail saying that I have been moved out of training mode and into production mode (meaning I would be sending out REAL LIVE orders... scary! lol). I worked one half-hour shift last night to get my feet wet, and it was actually kindof fun. :) I really like the interface in the ordering software, and the callers are generally friendly. And the best thing about it is that this particular line's busiest time is a time when I'm consistently off from my day job, so once I get into the swing of things I should be able to do a shift or two every day, and then a little more on the weekends.

And, like I said way earlier when I first mentioned this work at home venture, it is something that I can do after the baby comes, too, to help bring in a little income. We _can_ live off of hubby's income alone, but it's nice to have a little extra padding for emergencies. :)

slowly making progress in organizing things

Very very slowly, I am making progress in getting organized. I have my thoughts of what I need to do... I just need to DO it. It helps that I have today off (except for a shower that I'm going to this afternoon) and Tuesday off, and next Saturday off. I've been writing in this blog for so long and it's been so easy that I've neglected my paper journal. The last entry in that was from August of 2005. I am going to catch that up first b/c it is something I've written in off and on since I was 15 and eventually I may want my children and grandchildren to read it. So I printed off this blog from July of '05 thru now to help me remember significant events. :P

Hubby and I did decide to go ahead and get a doppler and now we listen to the baby almost every day. I can now distinguish between just the pulse and the actual heartbeat, and last night I even managed to get the "galloping horse" sound that several of the baby websites talk about. We've called both sets of parents on the phone and let them listen too. They loved it. :)

But anyway getting back to the organization thing. After I get my journal caught up, I'm going to get back into sewing with a vengeance, and I'm also going to clean out our dresser drawers. Hubby and I wear clothes that are all from our closet, except for our socks and underwear, so there are clothes in those drawers that we haven't even seen since we've moved here. Cleaning several of those drawers out will open up a lot of storage room... which we need with a baby coming. After I get caught up w/ that and the sewing I want to start organizing and rearranging the room that will be the nursery. It is a HUGE room so we can put some "stuff" (like my huge pile of craft/sewing supplies) in one side of the room and have the other side for baby things. But there is a huge collection of CD's that are mispackaged or lost or something, and those all need to be gone through, for example.

Not a whole lot else going on. Hubby wants to go watch fireworks today (our town is doing them early since it's a very big event here) but I don't want to fight a crowd of 50K to 100K people. We'll probably end up just staying in and watching another NetFlix movie.

i need baby-listening instructions for dummies

So my mother in law bought us a few baby-related gifts a while back... a little stuffed animal that plays a lullaby when you pull its tail, a bottle of stretch mark cream, and a prenatal listener. It's not a doppler... it's basically an electronic stethoscope, so it just amplifies internal sounds. When I first got it, I was still way in my first trimester and the instructions say that you can hear the baby's heartbeat in the third trimester, and other sounds (kicks, hiccups, etc) in the second trimester. I decided to go ahead and assemble it and try it out that same day, knowing that I wouldn't really hear anything.

So I grab a battery and set it up and put it on my abdomen, press the button, and hear.... nothing. i adjust the volume and move the unit and hear.... nothing. I try putting the unit over MY heart and still hear nothing. I was very perplexed by now because I can hear hubby's heartbeat even without a stethoscope and didn't know why the unit wouldn't pick up my heartbeat.

Fast forward several weeks to a few days ago. I see the unit standing there and decide to give it another go. As I pick it up, I notice something... and then it's painfully obvious why I wasn't able to hear anything. The battery was in fine, the unit turned on fine... but I had only pushed the headphone jack in about halfway. I was so embarrassed.

But the story gets even better. I fix the headphone "user error" situation and turn the unit on to a medium volume. I place it over MY heart just to make sure it works OK, and nearly make myself deaf! I had NO idea that it would amplify sounds THAT much. My heartbeat was SO LOUD. Boom-BOOM, Boom-BOOM. I quickly released the button and turned the volume down lower. :P Then I placed it on my lower abdomen and heard "stuff", and some of that stuff could possibly have been kicks, but more than likely it was all intestinal noises, because I heard the same sort of sounds when I put the unit on my upper abdomen. :P I'll try again in a few weeks to hear kicks and hiccups, and then later than that I'll try for the heartbeat. :)

got my first belly rub today

I got my first belly rub today. :) It was from one of my female coworkers after an after-hours meeting we had. She came up to me and I thought she was going to say something, but instead it was just rub rub rub. It was over so quick but was cute, especially since my "belly" is so NOT a baby belly yet. :P I mean even yesterday, I wore a non-maternity dress, and the particular dress I wore made me look like I wasn't even pregnant at all. My morning sickness is pretty much gone. Today I woke up to potty about an hour or so before my alarm went off, and drank a glass of milk (on an empty stomach) and went back to bed. Still felt fine all throughout getting ready and the rest of the morning. My next appointment is in two days. I wonder if I'll get to hear the heartbeat again. I also wonder if my appointment after this one (when I'll be 18 weeks) will also be my ultrasound appointment. I'm still not able to feel my uterus so I feel now like I did at the very beginning of this pregnancy... like I'm faking it. :P I even still take my waking temperature every now and then, and just a few days ago I took another home pregnancy test. I believe it, I really do... but at the same time it's so unbelievable.

showing, but with a fake belly

I turned 13 weeks yesterday. I've only gained about 5-6 lbs or so (most of it in my bosom). I have been taking pictures weekly except for weeks 9 and 10, and although there is little change week to week, there is a very noticable change from my first picture to my 13 week picture. I'm definitely starting to show a little bit.

But, I just feel like it's not really "baby" belly yet. I already had a little belly before I got pregnant, and I think that my "showing" now is just a little expansion of the belly that was already there. It's enough to make my pants a little tight but they are still wear-able. And if I pull my tops tight then you can definitely tell that it's there.

This is all while I'm sitting or standing, though. When I lie down on my back, everything disappears and my belly goes as flat as if I do hundreds of crunches each day. I call it my "incredible disappearing belly". :P And I really don't know where it goes, either. It doesn't feel like it goes up higher on my tummy... or over on the sides... or anything. It just completely disappears. :P My weekly pregnancy e-mail says that the baby is 3 inches now, but it is hiding VERY well in my abdomen. I still poke at my tummy to try and find my uterus and sometimes I think I feel it, but other times I wonder if it's just part of my abdominal muscles.

But, I have enough of a tummy to rub without looking _too_ silly, so that makes me happy. :)