I have my house back!

Don't get me wrong. I love the holiday season. I love getting the tree and setting it up, along with the household decorations. I even LOVE doing extravagant lights on the outside of the house (even though we have YET to do them to our house...I told  Ben that come hell or high water we're going to start going all out next year. We're talking mechanical penguins, deer, the whole shebang).

I also love it when it all comes down and I get my "normal" house back. After a while I start feeling like all of the holiday joviality is liable to swarm in and suffocate me. It's amazing how much more spacious my living room feels just by getting rid of a medium-sized piece of dead vegetation. Not to mention the needles that go with it!

So, now the house is pretty much back to normal. With the exception of aforementioned dead tree sitting out by the side of the house, waiting to be picked up/delivered to it's final resting place.

On another note...I finally ordered the bulk of majorly needed baby items. I say the bulk of it because I'm being cheap and waiting for my discounts to be effective for the last couple of places I'm ordering from. Especially because I ended up ordering the pack & play, even though I wasn't planning on doing so until we actually needed it. The reason I had to order it? Well...apparently the furniture we ordered for the nursery was out of stock, which they failed to mention when we ordered it. It isn't due to even SHIP until the end of March. Pardon?!?!?! My baby is due in mid-February, and will probably end up coming before then. I kind of need somewhere for my child to sleep!!! SO...hello pack & play!!! I guess I don't get that perfectly ready nursery that I had envisioned. Oh well...adaptation is a wonderful thing. Disappointment, not so much.

I'll admit it, I also changed my due date on the sites where I "registered" (I registered for the exact same things at 3 places so that I could get the completion discounts, and then buy from wherever ended up being cheapest. I only told people about one of them, however, so as to avoid getting multiples of things). I changed my due date to a full month and a half earlier than it actually is, because they don't give you the discount until after your due date. Hello? Common sense? Can you kick in for these registry places? I need the discount earlier than that, because I need to have the stuff before the baby arrives so I can be fully prepared. DUH!!!

Sock Monkey Hat and Other Randomness!

Well, after finishing my initial sock monkey hat (as seen modeled by my puggle, Cloe) I was almost immediately asked to make another. I've got to watch it, though, because I have a quilt that is VERY time-consuming to finish before this baby gets here, and I'm procrastinating on it. I really think it's just the sheer magnitude of it that makes me so unwilling to work on it, but once I get started it will go right along!

We managed to get our Christmas Tree this weekend...and, despite a rather unnerving episode (see below) I was able to get all the decorations out, set up, and working. Now I begin the countdown until I can take it all down. It's weird...I love having them out, I love seeing seasons change through the house decor (part of why I love fall and winter), but I also love it when I "get my house back" and no longer have all the decorations taking up space on my surfaces. I also love not having Christmas Tree needles all over the ground.  Ben insisted that I wrap empty boxes so that it at least looks like we have presents under the tree. He's already got his gift (Ipad) and we're getting mine in the next week or so (blue tooth installed in my car...the stereo has the button but it's "not equipped").

I also got our Christmas Card picture taken. No, I'm not in it. I'm really not feeling up to tackling that monster...between  Ben, 2 dogs, and myself, it would be virtually impossible to get a shot where everyone looks good and is doing what they are supposed to. Especially when you throw in the fact that the dogs have "uniforms" that they HATE. Can't you see how happy they look? This took about an hour, a half a bag of dog treats, and a ton of "wardrobe adjustments" to get. If I had to add  Ben in, with his tendency to look like he's in pain when he smiles for pictures, plus myself (and my apparent inability to take pictures without a double chin and look halfway decent other than in my belly pictures) it just would not have worked. Can you say disaster?

OK, on to my "episode." I went to the pharmacy on Sunday to pick up a prescription refill. No biggie, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. As I'm pulling into the parking lot, I start feeling...off. Then too hot, and then the distinctive feeling that I'm going to throw up. Wait, wait, no, that's not all. Then tunnel vision. Mind you I'm still driving. Then I realize that I KNOW this feeling. I'm about to pass out. All I could think was "Park the car, park the car, PARK THE G-D*&N CAR NOW!!!". I did manage to park the car. So far it's all happened in about 20 seconds. In the next 10 seconds my hearing gets VERY muffled, then the tunnel vision is compounded by my vision appearing pixelated and orange. Suddenly, I just KNOW that I'm going to throw up. I throw open the car door (car is in park, e-brake on, and key off) and proceed to dry heave. I sat in the car for probably 5 minutes before I could think of anything other than how awful I feel. And then I realize that I do not have my cell phone on me...I have to get home. Here's the weird thing. At that point Monkey started moving, and as soon as he did ALL of my symptoms went away. I felt fine. Oh...my prescription wasn't in yet. Oh joy.

I managed to get home...yay me. I called the nurse on Monday and she said it sounds like Vena Cava syndrome, where Monkey was resting on the main blood vessel that carries blood back to the heart...either that or he was on the vegus nerve. And if it happens again, it's off to a workup complete with EKG for me. Wonderful.

Up next week: another growth scan to see if Monkey is growing better, plus a standard office visit and 20 more minutes hooked up to a fetal monitor (I do this once a week, but after next week it will be twice weekly). Stay tuned.