End of the first trimester, and the return of spring flowers!

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I posted! At about 8 weeks the fatigue that I'd been hearing so much about set in, and I think I spent the whole month on the couch. I'm finally starting to come out of the fog, and today actually got some tasks done around the house!! I didn't even log in to FarmVille2, my previously main addiction, during that time!!

Another cousin texted me congratulations... I told her it was a secret and so far I haven't heard any more about it. I'm at 12w1d today, and plan to tell Facebook (i.e. the world) on Thursday, which is our fourth wedding anniversary. Dan and I are still debating how to announce, somehow I feel like I'm going to win this one ;)

Things are going overwhelmingly well, although I got back a positive test for a recent exposure to toxoplasmosis and that is stressing me out a bit. I got blood drawn two days ago for a recheck test, so I'm just waiting on results at this point. I've read a lot of things that tell me that statistically everything will be fine, at this point the normal anatomy screening should be adequate to predict outcomes. I have my first trimester testing tomorrow! I'm excited for another ultrasound, and to see this little Newt dancing.

My boss and co-workers are very excited, and my boss and office manager seem to be more concerned about my co-worker leaving (understandably). It feels great to be so supported at work. I have taken x-rays twice so far, and avoiding anesthetic gas exposure has been harder than I expected, but I'm keeping it to a minimum. Otherwise, because of my previous back problems, I'm avoiding lifting and stupid big dogs as much as I always have, so no change or problems there.

In the last month spring has sprung! Our lilacs have bloomed with vigor and are starting to fade now. The crab apple tree put on quite a magenta show that is becoming a blanket of petals on the lawn. Way more tulips came back this year than I expected, and I made sure to enjoy each and every one while they stuck around. A few hyacinths came back, the new azalea produced two bunches of flowers, and one of the alliums popped out a flower. I love my yard.

This weekend is the drama of watching my brother and sister-in-law move... it's hilarious. I am keeping myself sane by primarily staying out of the way :)

So close to spring!

So nana misunderstood, and she told her eldest daughter, who told her eldest daughter at which point the Facebook Congratulations started. I think/hope/beg that it's back under wraps, and my aunt doesn't have Facebook (and my cousin was incredibly sweet when I told her it was a secret still).

My parents are not effusive people, but my mom seems pretty excited. I think I'm going to tell my boss and the office manager (his wife) at our dr meeting tomorrow night. She's going out of the country for 3 weeks next week, and my other co-worker is quitting to move with her husband back to Connecticut. We figured that it would go better if we tag teamed them :-) I still think I'm going to hold off on telling my co-workers until after the ultrasound on the 13th. Especially since my darling husband had a twin dream!!!

Craving - very little. Aversions- whole cuts of meat (chicken breasts, pork chops). Some mild pregnancy nose (I can smell poop very well at work...). Rolling waves of nausea worse in the afternoon, nowhere near debilitating but uncomfortable. No bloating. Normal pants/clothes. 7.5 weeks.

7 weeks

7 weeks today! Morning sickness isn't too bad, but it's not a walk in the park. Still haven't told work. Mom is going to see Nana today, and asked if she could spill the beans. I'm a little sad that I couldn't tell my grandmother in person, but I don't have any plan to be back in the Northeast anytime soon. My rule is that if something happens, mom has to untell her.
I was hoping to wait until I had confirmation on viability and a firm estimated due date (I ovulated on cd24, so my calculated and actual will likely be at least 10 days apart), but that ultrasound isn't until May 13, the days after Mother's Day and 2 days after I turn 30!
I was planning (on Pinterest) this huge 30th birthday bash - have a big open house and a ton of fun, but I'm not sure I'm feeling up to it now ... Plus I can't drink, which is one of my terrible coping mechanisms for coping with 30 people in my imperfect house.
I am so glad that spring has finally hit Minnesota! I did some gardening today, and it felt so good to be outside!!!

It's a wild, crazy world

Dr confirmed it! Due sometime in December, sent home with a bag of free samples and forms to fill out :-) I now own my first diaper and pacifier.

Currently stressed out about exercise. How much is too much? I thought is be fine just listening to my body, but then I stared having panicky thoughts about how my heart rate was up and I was sweating and what if I was causing irreparable damage to my little newt. I've done more research, and the jury seems to be on the side of don't start a new exercise routine, but if you have one you like that is working for you, go for it.

So I think I'll decrease my epic hill climb elliptical workouts that routinely keep my heart rate above 165 to something that peaks at 160 and stays lower overall. Too bad I hate the pool, it seems like a really good solution to my problem!!

Baby shower

I'm putting on a baby shower for a friend tomorrow, she's due with her first next month, and it will be exciting to see her get stocked up for her baby girl. We are using a Dr Seuss themed shower, and I have to admit I'm most excited about the piñata. Because the cat in the hat has always annoyed the dickens out of me. I'm such a goody -two shoes, apparently. Give me Fox in Socks any day!!

I know you aren't supposed to give opinions on you own shower, but I love love love Sandra Boynton ...! And since apparently I'm going to be needing a shower early this winter, I figured I'd throw that out there (pending Monday's dr appt and 8.5 months of who- knows-what, of course!)

I'm ecstatic.

"Day off"

We had a great, low-key Easter with my brother and his wife. We ended playing a 6-hour game of Arkham Horror, which we stopped when it became very clear that we were not going to win. I was completely drained of energy by the time they left, go go introverts. 

This morning I overslept, called the chiropractor to ask if I could show up 20 minutes late (he said yes), and promptly stepped in overflowed toilet water in my socked feet. Eww. I contemplated just going back to bed at that point.

I chickened out on asking my chiro if he knew the Bradley Method, and instead just chatted with him about the really cool foreign body surgery that I did last week. (Cat vs plastic cap found on wire shelves, cat survived, but barely). 

Went out to lunch with hubby and his co-workers, and ate so much delicious Indian food (and rice, and naan). Googled pre-diabetic diets, just out of curiosity (I am totally an apple and at higher risk because of PCOS), and cried a little at the carb restrictions they recommend. I'm not getting on that boat yet!!

Sucked it up and made an appointment with an internist for next week to discuss: PCOS, hypothyroid, obesity, and the m-fing excess body hair that seems to have erupted since I went off birth control last year. We'll see what happens with that, whether she says diet and exercise, or if maybe I can get a little metformin here in this body to see if we can regulate it. I can run 2.5 miles in 30 minutes and I still weigh 245 pounds - training may not be enough for my poor body. 

The bathroom floor is dry, but needs some serious bleach action. I guess I'll go do that now. :)

Crazy Spring

Before I head to bed...

How is it that some things can feel too weird/personal/private to share with my best friend in the entire world, but not for sharing with the entirety of the internet? Note to real-life people - humor me and pretend you don't read this and I think you'll find more information than you ever wanted to know.
Peeing on a stick a week from today. Terrified and excited. Stopped really doing all OPK, BBT, tracking symptoms stuff - drove me crazy (as in I became intolerable, not that I couldn't do it). I don't think I like the person I am when I am tracking and sharing all that information. We've only been "trying" since late November, so it's OK that nothing has come of this yet. I will keep telling myself this until it sticks.

Meteorologically, it IS spring already

I never know what to write on here. As a vet, I need to practice client confidentiality, especially as this blog is in my real name. As a friend, I can't share all my friends' lives for them. As an individual, I don't know how much I want to share on the internet in my real name.

I also go through phases where I'm totally cool with telling anyone anything, and phases where I'd rather deal with things on my own. How do you figure out what to put out there, into the vast aether that is the internet? How do you figure out what to hold back and process, because you don't have to unsay what you never said in the first place? And, as an aside, where on earth does the question mark actually belong in that last sentence.

I'm trying Feedly now that google reader is going away ::sniff::

My quilting is all on the back burner. My knitting is chugging along (2 pairs of socks finished this year!, a baby sweater that the baby it was originally intended for is already too big for, which means that motivation is just not there despite the fact that I am one sleeve from finishing.)

We're kinda sorta trying to get pregnant. Which stresses me out, and excites me. And I have so much more to say about this and don't know how much to say. I'll think on it. I read so many infertility blogs that I feel like I know what this feels like, but going through it myself is a whole different ball game.

I crave spring. I'm so happy that it is light out more often. I wish there were less than a foot of snow on the ground.

All Saints Day

We had our annual hallowe'en party last Saturday, with a total head count of 44 people (41 guests). I had my annual freak-out that my house would never be clean or decorated enough on Saturday morning. Somehow, by the time people were hanging out and eating and drinking and chatting and happy, I'd already started thinking about what I'd do differently for next year's party!

Next up is thanksgiving, which we will be cooking with my brother and his wife and a whole bunch of thanksgiving orphans. We are still deep in negotiations about whether we will host or Bill will, although it has already been decided that Bill will be in charge of the turkey.

I am excited that my trip to PA to visit my best friend and her newest baby is coming up in just over a week - I am looking forward to gossip and giggling.

How I made most of a quilt...

I found fabric that I couldn't live without:

Then I got a whole bunch of tools that made my life a better place:

Then I cut it all into 5" squares, paired them entirely randomly, and made a whole pile of half-square triangles. I squared them to 4.5":

I made a whole bunch of 12-square rows:

Sewed them all together to make a 12x10 quilt:

And finally ended up with a finished quilt top:

I had to sacrifice a quilt to the cat to prevent him from "helping."

Next up - Find a backing fabric (I'm thinking a dark brown), and a binding fabric (I'm thinking the exact same dark brown), and quilt! (I'm thinking straight line quilting, turquoise thread).
Then I learn to bind a quilt and then I never give it away ever because I MADE IT!

Block of the Month Class

I have made more quilt squares too!

February: Half-square triangles

and

March: Foundation piecing

 and

April: English paper piecing

and

This is what happens when I try to take a photograph of my quilting (it's also what happens when I get out my quilting stuff):

Dreams

As part of my project, I have written down many of my dreams, and am categorizing them. I expect that this us as close to a bucket list as I will ever get. I hope to update this list regularly as new ideas occur to me and I get to cross things off.
Financial:
Pay off all debt (mostly student loans)
Travel to:
France (in June!)
Belgium
Ireland, Scotland, England
Germany, Austria
Greece, Italy, Turkey
Japan for cherry blossoms
India - a journey of food
Grand Canyon and Yellowstone (again)
Colorado Rockies
Alaska and Hawaii (again)
Egypt to see the pyramids
Safari in Africa
Brazil with mom
Antarctic cruise
Career:
Find a job that makes me smile every day when I go in.
Have weekends off (or 2 days off in a row)
Run my own business/clinic
Get a PhD
Outside:
Garden
Learn to golf
Go snorkeling
Have a productive vegetable garden
Have a cutting garden to keep my house beautiful
Have a bee and butterfly garden that attracts lots of animals
Go horseback riding more often
Ski more
Inside:
Quilt
Knit
Write a blog
Scrapbook (digital?)
Food:
Learn to make sushi
Learn to toss pizza dough
Cook healthy meals
Understand nutrition
Family:
Have kids
See my parents more often
Raise a seeing eye puppy
Socially:
See my friends more
Throw more dinner parties
Be a better friend
Self:
Get fit
Run a 5k in under 30 minutes
Laser eye surgery
Laser hair removal
Be proud of everything I have, think and do
Be mentally healthy
Learn sign language
Learn fluent French

The Perfect Day

I'm doing a project with myself and part of it asked me to imagine my perfect day. This is what I came up with:
Wake up naturally, with the sunrise. Feel well rested.
Drink a cup of coffee on the porch with Dan and Violet. Watch the birds wake up and visit the feeder.
Go for a run.
Weed the garden, pain free.
Go out to lunch with friends - drink a glass if wine and gossip.
Spend some time crafting and writing. Listen to music, podcasts, a book on tape or the radio.
Make dinner, and not have to worry about dishes.
Curl up on the couch with a good book, a blanket, and Dan.
Go to bed before I become too tired for words and turn into a pumpkin.

Quilting - a new project

I have been at a loss for a good project recently. Since last year we spent quite a bit of money on the house (new bed, new furnace, new floors in the basement), one of the guidelines is that my new project cannot be expensive. I have knitted 2 scarves for Becky's project with yarn I'd purchased a while ago but didn't like the way the project was turning out. The scarves came out nicely, but apparently I haven't taken any pictures of then. I should get on that.

For a project around Christmas, I'd purchased a couple of dat quarter bundles. I did not use them all, so my next project will be quilting! This should be fun. I signed up for a Craftsy course (free!), and last night I made the first 2 quilt squares. Now I covet a self-healing mat, a rotary cutter and a guide.

Here are my first two squares!

Small town feeling

I think I should be distressed at what happened this afternoon, but instead I find myself mildly amused. There are a couple of pharmacies in the same chain that I frequent for my medications, but the one I go to the most is near my favorite grocery store. The pharmacist who typically works on Sundays is the one I tend to see the most, I'm not even sure I've seen him there on other days of the week. However, today he was working when I went in to get my meds filled. The conversation went something like this:
"Hi, I need to refill my no-crazy pills"
"Birthdate?"
"*lists off birthdate*, I'm running to the grocery store, I'll be back in 20 or 30 minutes."
-half an hour later-
I smile at him, he picks up my prescription, I state my address without him asking, he checks me out.

During NO part of this did I actually tell him my name or what medication I wanted refilled. Oh no, my pharmacist knows me by sight.

Good thing that I'm such a believer in better living through chemistry.

The laptop is working!

Sometime over Christmas break the laptop got put on the floor at my parents' house. And it could be that I stepped on it. Or, you know, someone else could have stepped on it. But I'm the only one who will admit to having knowingly put my foot on it. So, it's my fault. But anyways, the next time we turned it on, there was a big white line down the middle of the screen. Everything on the inside still worked, but the screen had only the right and left sides showing.

Good thing we got the warranty. The laptop went on vacation to the spa for a few weeks. Then it took a long nap in the library, which we couldn't walk through due to the sheer quantity of junk that inhabited the floor. But! We cleaned the library last weekend, and found a copy of Office that we could install on it! And now it's a real! live! useful! thing! Can you tell I'm excited? Well, I am.

I read so many blogs, probably over 50 in my Google reader. I keep wanting to be better at posting, but it's so hard for me to find something to say and the energy to write. With the laptop, I can sit on the couch next to my darling husband (who's making me watch Dr Who with him), and spew out whatever's in my brain.

Bullet points:
-I accidentally overdosed myself on my thyroid medicine. Turns out that 50mcg is 10 times less than 0.5mg. But my brain, when I refilled my meds from the clinic stock, didn't take that appropriately into account. So when I got my thyroid rechecked last summer, they cut my dose in half. And then at New Years, took me off of it completely. At which point my thyroid stopped making any hormones again. Jerk. So I'm back on meds, at the CORRECT dose.

-I thought I had a deep vein thrombosis in my calf. I got a d-dimer test which was positive. I got an ultrasound (and an x-ray), which were negative. I'm still on birth control pills, but a little more paranoid about any aches and pains that I have.

-I had a terrible day at work, between a chihuahua in kidney failure and a yorkie having a seizure, I felt like I was working right at the edge of my mental capacity all day. Which, as I was running a few fries short of a happy meal all day, was not very high to begin with. My husband met me at home with a pizza and let me watch Glee and Bones instead of dealing with life when we got home. Then we had strawberries and leftover chocolate mousse for dessert. It was amazing, and I'm feeling a ton better. Fortunately, if I hadn't been, I still would have had girl scout cookies and boston creme ice cream to fall back on. Those are safe for another day.

That more or less emptied my brain. Woohoo.

Overachiever, I am a

It has snowed a lot this winter. I think maybe 4ish feet. It's done a but of melting and raining too. This past week we got an inch every other day. So the driveway and mailbox had to be dealt with, lest our mailman decide once again to stop delivering our mail. I threw out my back before we finished the driveway. I was down at the mailbox giving the husband moral support when a neighbor from down the street brought his little rented front loader over and totally cleared the mailbox as well as breaking up the worst of the snow/ice bank. It was lovely.

So are muscle relaxants, which is about all I can accomplish since then. Damn back, I had things to do!

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highs and lows

Pregnant best friend had her baby boy last week. I was able to make it out to her (a time zone and a plane ride away) in time for my little nephew to be born. Her labor lasted over 33 hours, and seeing my friend in that much pain shut me down while I was trying to be there for her. I couldn't make the pain stop, I couldn't make the doctor hear what she was trying to say, I couldn't force her body to cooperate with the things they were doing to ease her pain and support her body. Nephew was eventually born by c-section, with his cord wrapped around his neck 5 times.

The emotions ran wild in me. I was elated to see this much loved little boy who was long hoped for, much wanted, and who already had fans all over the world. I was so proud of my friend's husband for bring a dad so quickly and easily. He's normally a wishy washy kind of guy, and he was immediately asked to make some big decisions about the baby before m.y friend was out of recovery. He made good choices for his family and I was so proud to see him fill the role he wanted so badly. While we were watching Nephew get his first bath and a proud but tired dad take hundreds (literally) of pictures, I almost started crying again at the thought of my friend alone in recovery. All the maternity recovery rooms were full, so they sent her down to general surgery recovery to be monitored. I was sad because no one was allowed to be with her and we had her baby who she had barely met, and they were tears of relief that the baby was here, and tears of sadness that they were suddenly so far apart.

I think I cried more in the first few days than she did, although now that the post-partum hormones are kicking in, she's totally got me beat. I miss being with my second family, but I'm so happy for them it hurts.

Meanwhile, my own biological clock is beginning early negotiations with my husband for a dog. Mmm, puppies.

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Overwrought

I'm feeling very emotional needy. Things that I thought I was over and done with have been sneaking up on me for the last couple of days. Last night, when mold was found on my guest bathroom toilet seat, I kinda flipped. It was just short of actual tears being shed, but it took a long time to fall asleep after that.

I spent 6 hours yesterday helping a friend move. It was exhausting, and they were still working on it at 10am when we ran over to collect the air mattress we'd lent them (they'd packed their bed already).

There is an impromptu LAN party for Civ 5 at our house today. Troll and husband are hosting, and they are on turn 252 of 500, so they'll be here for quite a while still. Troll is using my desktop computer, but there's not a ton that I can't instead accomplish on the laptop. It's only skills are browsing the internet, but that's really all I'm doing today. I have poked at the library, and have made a reasonable dent, and that is a start.

I am still waiting for best friend to have her baby, she was due 5 days ago, so every day is a little bit exciting :) I think she's ready to get him out of there too, at this point.

Tidbits of a Thursday

Husband, Troll and I were watching Glee last night on Hulu (it is on a 1 day delay, and totally worth it to not have to have watch it at a certain time on a certain day). There's a scene where a character's girlfriend tells him that he has to choose between her and being on the football team. Being much older and wiser than we once were, there were choruses of "dump her!" that cycled around the room. I wonder if I'd ever been put in that situation in high school what I would have done.

This morning, as I was pouring the milk into my cereal bowl, I happily sighed "Happy Friday." My husband piped up from the other room, "I hate to be the one to tell you, but it's Thursday."

I am currently tackling the disaster I call a home one small little bite-sized project at a time. Last night it was sweep all the floors, and put away anything on the floors that shouldn't be. Tonight, much less ambitious, is to wash all the knives. Which leads us to a potentially dangerous question... why am I missing knives? Maybe I should check the Troll lair, I hope they're there, but he rarely uses ours, typically stealing only his own.

I watched older cat eat a whole stalk of steamed asparagus tonight, along with several mushrooms. Either he has better taste than my husband, or has more appreciation for the juices of the scallops with butter that they were cooked in.