Small Bits of Normalcy

I enjoyed 2, count them, TWO fun things this weekend without spotting at all. Yay! We went to a caroling party the first night. We had so much fun being silly with all the people a couple years ago and I was anxious to go again. I only got to do one street so I missed half the singing, but by stopping at a point before my breaking point and going back to sit down and socialize, I managed the situation. Then on Sunday we were able to go to our friendly Christmas party at Max's in Fells Point. We went early and watched the (abysimal) Ravens game for a couple hours and then headed upstairs to the party. We turned a windchime and paper towel holder into a punch bowl and some books at the White Elephant gift exchange. It's always a good time.

Then today I had a doctor's appointment that didn't ruin my day (http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/2012/12/passed-ton-of-tests.html) so I liked that too. Now I just have to get through 4 days of work somehow!

Library Shower Thank You Cards

I recently received an invitation to a Christmas dinner with my library colleagues from all over the district. After dinner however, I was totally shocked to realize it was a baby shower too! My media people are so supportive and wonderful! I wasnt planning on needing thank you cards quite yet and recently made our Christmas cards, so I had nothing ready to go. I know I saw something like this on pinterest but there was a template and that seemed excessive. I know theres a way to make a diaper shape with just a triangle so I started with 1/4 triangles of cardstock and worked it out from there. After showing my husband one, I realized that the natural inclination is to pull the ribbon to undo the card. However thats all glued together, you really just need to pull out the inside card with the message. So I flipped over the message card and wrote pull with an arrow.

The Royal Baby To Be

Obviously out in the real world, we all have no idea if William and Kate have been trying to have a baby since the wedding or if they waited until recently to start trying. We only see the tabloids. But I'm happy for them that they are going to have a baby, and I hope everything goes well for them. I kept thinking in the back of my mind how horrible it would be for them if they were dealing with some kind of IF problem. It's hard enough to begin with, but I can't imagine how awful it would be if the entire world is focused on the state of your belly and whether or not you chose to have a glass of champagne at a party. Much like I'm sure it's hard to parent when the whole world watches your every move! I'm so glad I'm not famous.

Book fair thank you cards

Lots of parents help with the book fair every year! This card is a neat design but takes a lot of time and paper.

Open Apology

I would like to officially and formally apologize for any of the following things that have ever escaped my lips to a pregnant person:

-"How are you feeling?"
-"When are you due?"
-"Do you know what you are having?"
-"What names did you pick?"
-"Aw, look at your belly!"

Etc.

For the past 9 weeks at work and month or so in the real world, I have had more conversations with more people with LESS substance than ever before in my life. I should seriously just get a tee shirt with these answers printed on them.

I do ask people if they have selected names, but I don't expect them to actually share them so I just ask if they have picked them. Mostly I'm curious about that because we have no idea on earth what names we like and I'm curious if others have gotten this far feeling that way.

I don't understand why growing a human gives the universe free reign to chime in on my slow walking, weight, boob size, butt size, stomach size, foot size, rosy cheeks, etc. I can't leave my classroom without someone making a comment about at least one (but usually 2+) of those things. It honestly doesn't bother me when a kid says something, but with grownups it drives me nuts. And 3 different people that I work with and know but are not necessarily close with touched my stomach without asking this week.

This week marked the first time that kids have said anything to my face. I've known for awhile that they'd been asking their teachers, but nobody said a word to me. It's obvious that they'd figured it out, especially the big kids, by the looks on their face and the fact that they've been staring at my stomach, but nobody said a thing! Finally on Tuesday a 3rd grade girl said "Hey, you kinda look like you're having a baby." Then on Wednesday, I caught 2 kids having a conversation about it AROUND me. It appeared that someone behind me was trying to get the girl in front of me to ask, because she bent around me and said "YES! I heard it from someone ELSE!" So I jokingly asked, "Are you guys talking about my big stomach?" The girl turned red but a boy piped up "Mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe...." so I told them. An hour later that day a kindergarten kid I don't even know said "Hey! You're having a baby too!" (Their teacher is on maternity leave.) Then on Friday several younger kids asked and an older one asked if I knew if it was a boy or a girl. It kind of cracked me up that it took so long for them to get the guts to ask!

Baby book

My latest baby book gift. Farm themed this time. One of my favorites!

Final Phone Dump

Weeks ago, my cat was sick and I had to give him liquid penicillin. Several times, he spit it back at me. Now, I'm allergic to penicillin and the last time I took it (in middle school) I did have a nasty reaction. But is it possible that I'm actually allergic enough to get hives from a cat dosage? At first I chalked up the weird hives (I got a couple, this is about the size of a quarter) to some kind of pregnancy thing, but the doctor didn't think that was the cause. It was only then that I made the possible link to the cat's meds. I don't know, but after I made the link I made sure that I didn't let any meds touch me and I didn't get any more hives. I'm not positive, since the medicine touched my hand and the hives were on my legs, but still. Weird.

 On our way to a friend's kid's birthday party, we stopped at an orchard and picked apples. Those things lasted forever.

 Really? Dressing rooms in the mall still have ash trays? I found that fascinating.

On a windy day, I came home to see my trashcan against the house and the siding partially popped off. That can is heavy! Luckily it was easily fixable.

Another Phone Dump

Hanging out waiting for Frankenstorm to show its whole wrath. Right now it's just breezy and lots of rain - no different than a regular rainy weekend. I didn't buy milk before this fiasco because it doesn't get used fast around here, and we didn't want to lose power and then waste it. But now I'm wishing I had some because I could bake some things for breakfast. Thinking of going to Royal Farms to just get a small container....

The library all set up and ready to go for the first day of school! Nothing stays in one place for more than a few minutes, especially those green chairs. Everyone wants them in a different place. I don't sweat the small stuff.

Seen at St. Joe's Hospital when I was there for our 12 week NT scan... a real actual payphone! 50 whole cents - ouch!

Mike Mussina HOF game night - Yay!! There he is on the jumbo tron!

I made this one bigger for identification reasons. The whole ceremony is going on there on the field. On the left of the crowd, you can see lots of kakhi pants and dark jackets. But in the middle, there's one person in white pants. That's Brady! And Mike is the one in all kakhi in the middle above the camera guy on the baseline. (Silly iPhone pictures!)

And there's Mike giving his speech. Not one of his best qualities, but that's ok. He looks pretty doing it. :)

Phone Dump!

When we got our new phones, I transferred over the old pictures that I never posted. I'm not trying to figure out dates, I'm just posting a few at a time.

I never took a picture of the sinks my mom installed while she was here! Last year we did Mike's bathroom because had issues. This year she did my bathroom and the powder room because they're prettier and use a lot less water.

At some point in August when we were visiting Jeff, we went to his new Lonestar Steakhouse for dinner. I had bacon crusted sirloin. Steak, wrapped in bacon, sprinkled with bacon. It was heavenly. And then my cholesterol went up 40 points. Worth. Every. Point.

The other thing we indulged in while visiting Jeff was this delicious piece of fruit. I promise, there was apple in there somewhere. Even with the 3 of us eating, it was hard to finish.

This Jim Abbott autobiography was super interesting. Every other chapter was an inning in his no-hitter and the opposite chapters went through his life chronologically. I know he was never really a superstar, but I was always impressed by him when I was younger. Every year my dad would make sure that one of our O's games was against his team in hopes of seeing him pitch. The year our tickets finally fell on his pitching day, I was in Florida with a friend and my parents got to go without me. I am very said that I never got to see him or Nolan Ryan pitch in person. (My dad and brother got to do that one!)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar in person!

New Favorite "As Seen On TV" Product

I used to love infomercials. It was a good thing I didn't have a credit card and 800 number privileges as a child because I would have put us in the poor house. (I'm still mad I never talked my parents into getting Color Coat 2000, but that's another story for another day.) One thing that particularly fascinated me was the "If you call in the next half hour..." I always wondered how they knew when the commercial was on! It was years before I started assuming they just always had that special deal.

Ok, so you see, my body has one serious issue. I'm VERY short in the shoulder area. Everything I own that has shoulder straps has to be adjusted to the smallest size possible, and sometimes even that's not enough. It has kept me from getting cute dresses for years unless there's a way to pin them under. (I'm not talented enough to unstitch, deconstruct, and reconstruct clothing.) If I get tank tops, they have to have the adjustable straps or I am indecent. A lot of times I buy petite tops because even though I'm not short, I'm short THERE. (That trick doesn't work for long sleeves, unless it's something that could realistically be a 3/4 length sleeve. My arms aren't short.) This has been a serious problem as I started looking for maternity wear. I don't know if it's just the style this year, or if it's the fact that maternity clothes only really come in S/M/L but almost every shirt I've tried on has been too big of a V or scoop. Some to the point where not only the top of my bra is showing, but the bottom is as well! This is compounded by the fact that I spend much of my day bending over and helping children. It's harder to find a shirt that is work-appropriate than play-appropriate, but I've never really been comfortable hanging out anyway. :)

I saw this product on a TV commercial last year, but since I'm trained to avoid them and intellectually know that 90% of that stuff is junk, I ignored it. Then I saw them on the "As Seen On TV" rack at Rite Aid, but since it was $10, I kept walking. With my current situation, maternity tops are being more and more necessary every day. (I've been in the pants for 6 weeks, but they were slightly easier.) I decided to hunt these down, and they were on sale. Score!

So yes - they really work. It slid down as the day went on, but never slid so low as to not be helpful. Even when it gets to the juncture where it can't go any lower, it was covering me enough to be decent at school. I might need more colors now. :)

http://camisecret.com/

Link

Since 2010, I've been keeping a periodic journal blog of our journey to where we are today. At one point, I completely forgot the user name and pw that I created so I had to restart. (I didn't want to be able to be found out via google, so I made a new account and I totally couldn't remember!) But the old blog was still viewable online, so I cut and pasted and the whole thing from 2010 til now is in one place. Caution - lots of medical jargon and health stuff is contained. But I wanted to keep track because I was often googling for personal stories along the way. It's interesting to see which posts get hit frequently because of infertility buzz words.

Recently a friend of mine blogged about invisible illness week. I think of my fibro as an invisible illness, but it's been 17 years and I'm used to dealing with that one. Infertility is also an invisible illness and definitely has messed with my head more than fibro. With the fibro, I don't have daily visual reminders of other people being "cured" and me still being broken. I thought that I would be cured once I was pregnant, but I'm not. It's a journey I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy but it's one we took anyway. Luckily my husband is the greatest person on earth, because he didn't know he was signing up for this. He never made me feel bad about it and he held my hand for all the yucky stuff. He was even (sometimes overly!) willing to jab needles in my body. We learned 2 important things early on. 1 - We couldn't make the journey the center of our universe. We still planned vacations, had a life, and purposely didn't make it part of daily conversations if it didn't have to be for a logistical reason. 2 - If we didn't laugh about the absurdity of certain things, we would have gone nuts.

So anyway, if you ever want to read about the journey, it's out there. http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/

Apologies

Recently, my life has become much more busy. Most of the states throughout the country are rolling out a new curriculum and Maryland is included in the craziness. It's good change, but it is SO MUCH change. We honestly feel as though we are an entire school of 1st year teachers at times! When I'm not working, I'm doing nothing that requires brain power. :)

On top of that, we happily found out on June 29th (our 4th anniversary!) that I am pregnant again.  I had a ton of doctor's appointments to monitor the progression of the pregnancy over the summer and it was consuming a lot of my brain power. I've been lucky in the sickness and exhaustion departments - it would appear that having fibromyalgia for 17 years trained my body for the 1st trimester! I have had some issues along the way that have made the last 20 weeks more stressful than I would have liked, but today marks the half way point so I'm starting to finally feel like this will be our "take home" baby.

I have been terrified to verbalize this pregnancy all along. We waited longer than the traditional 12 weeks to even say it to some of our families. But with the issues I've been having, my life has consisted of going to work and coming home to sit still. That didn't lead to very many exciting pictures to post. I realized there wasn't a lot I could post of my classroom or view from the couch. I didn't want to explain away my boring pictures, but I didn't want to say anything either. My solution was to pretty much ignore the blog. So I'm sorry about that. I'm also not interested in making it 365 pictures of my stomach or a thousand baby things, so I'm not sure what I will do going forward. I'm leaning towards just posting when the mood strikes like my friend who posts about things that make her happy! I have some random things saved from the last couple months that I might post about too.

We'll see :)

Year 3 - Day 229 - August 16

Here we are, on the first school night of the year. Tomorrow when the alarm goes off, I have to stay up! Oh the horror. Luckily I have a day to break in the alarm and my 5:45am days don't start until Monday. Whew. I got these paper globes at Target this summer and I'm hoping to make the Very Hungry Caterpillar out of them like this. Lots of people had it pinned on Pinterest and when I saw the globes on clearance I couldn't refuse. Of course we just got the email saying we can't hang things from the ceiling, so we'll see if I get in trouble. That'd be a bummer!

Year 3 - Day 228 - August 15

My other souvenir is a teeshirt from my favorite golf place. I probably won't wear it out and about, it'll be a pool/beach/lounging/PJ's tee shirt, but it was only $5. All 4 holes depicted on here are ones that I have mastered. :) Love it!

Year 3 - Day 227 - August 14

Definitely my most bizarre souvenir purchase ever! When we were checking out of the B&B, the innkeeper asked me how our stay was and I told her we really enjoyed it and that I wished I could take the sheets home with me. (I don't know what they are, but they are amazing!) She laughed and said she got that comment so often in the beginning that she now has sets available. She pointed at the sign in the corner with the display. So yup. I bought sheets. They were totally reasonable too, cheaper than I'd pay for a king set of good sheets at a regular store!

Year 3 - Day 226 - August 13

Normal people make chili for the Super Bowl or other wintery activities. We spent last night and today making and continuing to cook chili. We had a few of the ingredients from the crop share, so we bought the rest and finished up. We did actually have it for dinner tonight (and Mike had some last night, too during the 20 minutes of Closing Ceremonies we could handle) and now the rest is frozen for when the weather dips into cooler territory.

Year 3 - Day 225 - August 12

As you drive around the island, there are a lot of matching houses. There used to be (and still are in some places) a zillion cape cods from the same era. Then our era (early 80's) of houses started going up on stilts. There are a whole bunch of one model, but there were only 2 of our model. I knew our house's twin was in Barnegat Light, but I didn't know where until we drove by it yesterday! (The one on the left.) The stairs to the lower deck are in a different spot but the rest is the same. 

They're painting the Surf City water towers a dark blue. Either that or they're going to be 2 toned and they are only painting the bottom...

Our house! Well, our old house. The new owners made the deck pretty. I'm thinking they spend more time there because they actually have flowers. 

Oh they made a new trash can holder too. They're currently putting in pretty pavers under the house and getting rid of some of the stones.

This house has looked like this FOREVER. "But they got new windows!" says Mike. Nope, those Anderson windows tags have been on since I was a child. They used to have a trailer in the side yard but that finally disappeared. There are also board games piled up in the bay window. So ugly.

This sign (and it's new sign friends on 95 throughout Harford county) have been driving me crazy, but I'm always driving alone so I can't snap a picture. Luckily Mike was driving today. They recently changed a lot of the signage on 95 in our area. Instead of using the names of areas that people just use in conversation, they switched to the real names of towns. (543 used to be Riverside but now it's officially Belcamp, etc) In addition, they added several "How Far Until I Get To..." signs. BUT THEY ARE ALL IN THE WRONG PLACE! All of the signs going southbound were put in a few miles off. If you do the math, they have 543 being exit 77 instead of exit 80. Every one. And one of the signs has a whole bunch of extra miles between two things. It's escaping me right now - it's either 543 and Bel Air or Bel Air and White Marsh. I don't get it. How hard is it to put the signs in the right place?!?!

Year 3 - Day 224 - August 11

Today we jumped in the car at 8am and went to Long Beach Island, NJ. I grew up going there and haven't been since the fall of 98, shortly before my parents sold the beach house. It was cloudy and drizzling for most of our ride, but as we approached the bridges and the shack, we saw blue sky!

Our first stop was bagels for lunch. The remnants of my salt bagel. They're the best. It's like permission to eat a hot pretzel for breakfast or lunch!

My favorite bagel shop on the island is Bageleddi's in Ship Bottom. I was terribly excited to find out they still had a good bagel selection at 11am. Sometimes the good flavors (you know, the salt ones) are gone by then. Whew. This was probably because every one was either coming or going from the island at this moment! (All the rentals go Saturday-Saturday)

After getting to the B&B, changing into our suits, picking up the beach badges and getting to the beach, the clouds rolled in once again. I honestly was never uncomfortable on the beach and Mike wasn't roasting, but it was breezy and not prime beach weather. We stayed for a couple hours and then headed back as the rain rolled in. While it rained, Mike went for a run. (I think he's nuts, but it's his favorite running conditions - breezy but not windy, not hot, rainy, and super flat!) I enjoyed the sugary treats and hot chocolate that the B&B had out for afternoon tea and watched Olympics. I find that far preferable to rainy exercise!

After dinner at Kubel's next to the B&B, we headed down the island to do the 2 things I really wanted to do. (Honestly, the beach was an extra. I can go to the beach anywhere. These were the things that make my beach vacations complete!) First we went to Flamingo Golf. There are flashier, prettier, harder courses around. But this one is my favorite. If you are careful, aim well, and time your shots, 16 of the holes are relatively easy. My brother & I used to go to the tournaments on Thursday mornings when we were little, and I got really good at this course. One day I got either 10 or 11 holes in one, and 7 of them were in a row! That was exciting for me because for years they had a record board up and the tournament record was 6 in a row. I broke it! We went and saw my name on the board. Of course this was the 80's or 90's so we didn't have a camera with us. THE NEXT WEEK SOMEONE GOT 8 IN A ROW. My short lived moments of fame. :) (At least in my head!) Now 7 and 8 are routine, but they start over every year. Today I only got 4 and I don't think any were in a row. Totally off my game. :)

After golf, we kept heading south the Beach Haven to enjoy a delicious elephant ear. They're a cinnamon, sugar, buttery pastry. So so good. They're about a foot across, maybe not quite that big, and you can go in to sugar shock if you try to eat the whole thing by yourself. (I speak from experience!) But it's so so so good.

On our way back to the car I had to check out the new "Surf Shack" at the waterslide park. It's a FlowRider, just like on cruise ships! I think it's wider than the ones on cruise ships though. Saturday night must be "people who know what they're doing" night because it was really fun to watch them and there were minimal wipe outs.

Year 3 - Day 223 - August 10

Last week we got a phone call from the fire department asking for money. Early on in their spiel, they asked if we had tested the smoke detectors lately. I told them we had, but as I thought about it I wasn't sure the last time I had done it. I asked Mike and he wasn't sure either. So I bought 9V batteries at the grocery store over the weekend. They've been sitting on the kitchen table as a reminder to get around to it. I figured it would be a good idea to change them regardless because I know we haven't done that since we've been here.

Then yesterday during that crazy lunchtime storm, a house nearby caught fire after being struck by lightning. Figured it was definitely time to make sure our smoke detector was is working order. So I dragged a chair over and pushed the button.

Nothing.

Eek! How long have we been living without a working battery??

Took it off to change the battery and learned that it was a hard wired one - AND THE WIRES WERE CUT.

That means that we have been without one SINCE WE MOVED IN. No wonder I couldn't remember when I last tested it. I know you're supposed to always test when the time changes, but it would appear that I did not do that. Stupid stupid stupid.

I seriously almost jumped in the car at that moment and drove to 24 hour Walmart. But I didn't. Mike got them today.

Oye vey.

The better news of today is that it's BBQ Festival day! Last year we waited in line for 45 minutes. This year we went at 4:30 (it opens at 4) and beat the crowds. We drove there, parked, walked, picked a stand, ordered, ate, walked around a little and left...and it only took an hour. That's what we are doing from now on!!! We skipped the all you can drink soda from the cowboy wagon, but saved some time. :)

Year 3 - Day 222 - August 9

We just started getting hit by an insane cloud burst/thunderstorm at lunch time! It's hard to see through the waterdrops on the glass, but the gutters are pouring overflow. It hasn't rained this hard for a long time. There's some insane lightning going on out there too. I am just hoping we don't lose power, because day 4 of no car plus no Internet could be painful!!

Year 3 - Day 221 - August 8

Another day without a car, and another day searching for things to do. (Yes, there are plenty of things I *could* do, but I don't wanna.) After moving the Duclaw glasses, I decided to actually put some pictures up. Us in Turkey & Egypt up top and us in Paris at the bottom.

Year 3 - Day 220 - August 7

If you look at yesterday's picture, you can see the preview of this. I'm carless today for the 2nd day in a row, and feeling bored. I honestly didn't do anything interesting today so I walked back over to the end table where I took yesterday's picture and turned the page. :)

This is her visual representation of our library. Alphabetical shelves, some people, and of course a SmartBoard. :)

Year 3 - Day 219 - August 6

Another bag from the end of the school year emptied and another end of the year gift. :)

Year 3 - Day 218 - August 5

It's "Breakfast at Wimbledon!" Except it's the Olympics. And Wimbledon is dressed up in purple and hot pink. And the players are not wearing all white. And there's more rock music and less bowing to the Queen. Since the grass is always a mess at the end of the regular Wimbledon tournament and it didn't have time to recover before the Olympics, it's going to take forever to get the lawns pretty again.

Year 3 - Day 217 - August 4

Remember these pencils? I found one in our house. When I was younger I thought they were so cool - but the lead disappeared quickly and as soon as you started popping it in the back to get a new lead, you were guaranteed to lose one and render the pencil useless. Not to mention needing a separate eraser! I seriously wonder where this came from...

Year 3 - Day 216 - August 3

As the cat has transitioned into a wet food only animal, he has become increasingly whiny. This is a big change because he was a pretty silent cat up until this point. He begs and begs for food, but he can no longer graze, so if we give him too much he gets sick. He's missing the logical part of his brain though, because he still begs and begs. He took it to a new level this week and began jumping up on the desk counter where (he thinks) the food is. (It's actually on the chair that pushes up on the counter, plus it's in cans!) He's spent the first 9 years of his life very well trained in this department - I saw him go up on top of the cabinets a couple times when he was young and bouncier but he got "no kitchen surfaces" trained pretty young. But today he went even further - when he didn't find what he wanted on the desk, he tried the top of the fridge. And then when I yelled, he leaped to the floor in one jump. Talk about a thud. Ouch.

Year 3 - Day 215 - August 2

I just realized I never did a picture of the other home improvement project my mom did while she was here. We did the kitchen and Mike's sink faucets last summer, so she did the powder room & my bathroom this year. Mike has to help with the strength part (getting the old screws/bolts undone with 25 years worth of corrosion) but then my mom does the rest. :) They're much nicer than the old ones with the plastic handles!