New white stuff

Well, it's definitely winter here. We've been getting snow all day, and it's not supposed to stop until late tomorrow. Just in time for the arctic cold temperatures to arrive. Adam and I both have off of work on Monday, which means that neither of us will have to commute in the -20 degree weather. Yay! I can only imagine how my poor brother and Lena will feel when they fly in Tuesday night to a snow storm in Madison, with temps below zero. Poor CA kids! Good thing we got them some good Christmas presents.

I just finished a small filming project with Commedia Beauregard, who I used to be a company member with last year. They got tapped by Paramount Pictures to film parts of the Klingon Hamlet, based on the fact that they've done A Christmas Carol in Klingon as a fundraiser two years running, now. Commedia asked me to come back and SM the scenes, since they were being filmed about three days after the fundraiser. It was a really great experience--I'm glad I did it--and you can all look for us as part of the DVD extras when Paramount re-releases Star Trek 6 next May. Fun!

One of the best parts was that my stipend from the project paid for a lovely new front-loading washing machine. Woohoo! I'm waiting for Adam to come home with the new high efficiency detergent, and then we're going to do our first load of laundry in our new machine. Here are some pix of Adam and Garry bringing in the new washer:

As if I had been posting all along...

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails? No. Our little boy is made of fruit cocktail.

Well, and Pizza. I made a delicious pizza on Sunday. I am going to make a pizza every week until I have mastered the pizza fu!


These images were captured with our new $35 digital video camera from Microcenter. CHEAP!

Short update

Our next ultrasound is a week from Friday. I know you're all looking forward to more horrifying pictures of the little guy!

We had a delicious Thanksgiving, and we hope you did, too. My mom and dad were up from Madison, and they gave us the first gifts off our baby registry: a carseat and stroller frame. They also brought up a couch for the spare room and took away the double bed. So we actually have some room in the spare room now--it's beginning to look like a kid could actually live in there.

I've been slowly collecting baby clothing off of cragislist, so I've been washing and sorting all of that. It's taken me a little while to get used to the idea that these aren't actually doll clothes instead of baby clothes. Newborn onesies are almost disturbingly small. Not, mind you, that I want to deliver a large baby!

Adam has been fighting with his car lately (maybe he'll post about it--ha ha ha) so that's been a bummer. Hopefully, the repairs will fall under our warrenty. Everything else has been going well, which leaves us plenty of time to wonder what the heck to buy everyone for Christmas???

The Midriff at Midway

Me at week 22 1/2.

1/4 of the new Science Bathroom

Adam and I had been convinced for a while that the bathtub and shower in the house needed to be replaced. We wanted first, to make sure that we didn't have water damage anywhere in the bathroom flooring, and second, to get rid of the very ugly tile and shower walls that were there.

Step One: Get the old tub out. As you can see, that necessitated cutting a cast iron tub in half. While Adam and Dad worked on that, I took a shower at Heidi and Garry's house and went to the Ivey Awards.


Step Two: Tear out the old tile, plaster and lathe to make sure that there isn't water damage to the studs or flooring. That process was mainly just messy and time consuming. Everything turned out to be sound, although old and not exactly standard. Here's a view of what the inside of the walls in our house look like:

Steps 3 - 468: The damn plumbing. We discovered that whoever put in the last tub ran the plumbing for it over the floor, instead of under it. So, in order to put the new tub in at floor level, we had someone come out and re-route the tub water supply lines and the drain line. The good part is, we're now up to code. Well, okay, that depends on which code you're looking at. We had to get a variance so that the wall for the shower plumbing could go in the same spot as it was previously, which was not far enough away from the toilet to be up to building code. Here's a look at the lovely new plumbing. Please note that these steps took over a week, during which time we were bathing in our basement. Such fun.

Steps 469 - 234897: Install new tub, and make sure it's level. Install new surround walls. Caulk. Sheetrock. Plaster. Sand. Clean. Paint. Plaster. Sand. Clean. Paint. Hang shower curtain rod and shower curtain. We still need to patch up the floor in front of the new tub and then wash the whole room to get the last of the plaster dust out. We also need to put the access paneling on the shower plumbing wall, and then we can start having some fun finding just the right accountrements. Here's Adam and Dad leveling the new tub:

Soon to be a famous B-horror flick actor

We're definintely in week 19, in case you were really wondering. Here's our little boy, very helpfully snuggled up to my bladder. (Thanks, kid.) This was the Level II ultrasound which took the place of our regularly scheduled Level I ultrasound, so that we could check on his heart development. He's got a clean bill of health from this one, and holy crap, I can't tell you how nice it is to walk out of the perinatal clinic knowing your kid is healthy and not wondering what the phone call will say later. Both the ultrasound tech and the perinatal doc were very pleased with how all of his organs look, so we're feeling good about that.

We're also feeling good about his chances to star in the next Chucky movie.

Yikes, dude. Good thing you've got another four months to go. Try to grow a cute face before March, okay?

What track where?

I've lost track of what week we're on today. I think it's 18 because our (third and hopefully final) ultrasound is next Thursday, and I'm pretty sure we scheduled it then because we'd be in week 19. So, hey! Week 18! Whatever.

The bathroom is slowly coming back together. My parents had driven up to help us, and we had taken the week off from work. On Monday, we took our the tub and those awful plastic shower walls and discovered that not only was the plumbing not up to code, but the wall for the shower plumbing would actually not be up to code either. So, we got a permit from the city to have our shower wall closer to the toilet than is actually code, and we had a plumber come in to move the plumbing around and make sure it's up to code. $1200 later, we were finally ready to put the new tub/shower into place.

Of course, by then it was already Friday, and it was time for Adam and I to go to St Louis, MO, for his cousin's wedding. It was a very long drive, but hey, look! This hotel has a bathroom with a whole, functioning shower! Plus, our neice is way cuter than any other baby on earth. You know, for now, until ours gets here. The wedding was nice, too. It was at the Historic Hawken House, which meant that we got to tour the house while the reception was being set up. Very cool Victorian furnishings, and some fun stories about the nine Hawken children.

We drove back up on Sunday, and on Monday the plumbing inspector came out to check up on the plumber's work. He gave the thumbs up, so we proceeded to put the tub in place and level it all out. As of last night, the shower surround is in place as well, all leveled out and waiting to be attached to the wall studs. My parents have been kind enough to do chores and more bathroom work while Adam and I are at work--we couldn't have done this project without them.

I have photos sitting on the camera at home. You'll have to check back for them later. But it feels really good to at least see the tub/shower in place. It makes me think I actually might get to stop bathing in the basement one of these days!

Oh, PS, I forgot to say that all of our tests from the last post came back completely normal. Yay!

Clinic Appt #3, or Sure, Take Some More Blood!

I had my second appointment with Sheela, our Nurse Midwife, this morning. I got to drink a hideous orange beverage (which contained sodium benzoate, thank you very much) and then have blood drawn an hour later to see if I have gestational diabetes. If I do, I must be the most asymptomatic person ever, since I've been eating ice cream like crazy. They also took blood to test the baby for Spina Bifida, and that's the last screening test we'll have to deal with for a while.

In October, we'll have our Level II Comprehensive Ultrasound to check on the fetal heart development, so we're skipping the general "how many limbs and what's the sex" ultrasound. We've seen his limbs, and we know he's a boy, and he had a lovely strong heartbeat today, so that's all good.

If I haven't mentioned it before, one of the lessons that I have learned from the past two months is that you should not be shy about interrogating (and I mean that literally) your clinic staff. You should make them tell you everything about whatever it is they're talking about, and I mean everything. If I had done this sooner, we would not have gone through the screening hell that we have, and that makes me really angry. I got on Sheela's case hard today about the fact that her secretary sent me medical forms with zero explanation whatsoever about what I was supposed to do with them, and when I called and talked to Sheela about it this week, she still didn't give me clear answers about what was going on. So, I'm now a strong proponent of the call them until you're satisfied that you're fully informed method.

Because, hi, I'm pregnant, I'M SUPPOSED TO RELAX AND NOT BE STRESSED OUT BY YOUR CRAP. Thank you.

In other news, my parents will be up next week to help us put a new tub/shower into the bathroom. I'm excited to make sure that our tub is not going to fall into our kitchen. =)

Week 16

That's where we are today. Feeling pretty good. Went to yoga last night, which is always kind of trippy, as our instructor is a very "Earth Mother Goddess" type. She's really funny, though, and she's a doula, so she's attended over 300 births, and she's got some funny stories. Anyway, I'm happy to be back in the yoga. I was taking over the spring at another place with some theatre friends, but the art studio closed, so no more yoga studio, either. That teacher may get another class started again, which would be nice, because I miss her and those friends.

If you're interested in another person's take on Week 16, you can read one of the blogs that I follow. It's Zero to Forty, written by Amalah (Amy Corbett Storch), who also writes a personal blog and an advice column. Amalah mentions that you might be having weird dreams these days, which I can bear out. I dreamed last night that Adam was writing a hit musical about building stereo speakers, and woke up with the song, "My Straightedge Will Be Steel," in my head. Let me repeat, I woke up with a song that *doesn't exist* playing in my head.

Our next clinic appointment is on Friday morning, at which I'll get to drink a disgusting sugar concoction and then wait for an hour to see if I go into a diabetic coma. Woo...fun.

Baby!

No, not our niece...our son.


We're due March 4th, so far. I've been feeling pretty well. The sickness has subsided a lot, but we're into more muscle and nerve pain in my belly as it starts to really stretch out. I've avoided the sciatica, thank God (knock on wood), but I did get one killer migraine (complete with partial loss of vision).

If you have done the math and realized that we shouldn't know his sex already, way to be up on your human gestation. We know he's a boy because we ended up doing chromosome testing after some early screenings came back abnormal. We'll still have a few extra tests along the way, but every sign now is that he's totally healthy.

So it's a relief in several ways to be into the second trimester, but we've just started to really realize that we'd better get off our asses and get ready for Little Obadiah to move in. After all, it's not like Ice Cream will have his own U-Haul full of Ikea furniture for us to drive home from the hospital. Adam has become excited about the possibility of using his woodworking skills to build Tadpole a crib, which I think would be awesome. I've been looking at the giant pre-baby shopping lists that stores like to provide, and that's enough to give you nightmares, let me just say. You thought the wedding planning was bad? HA HA HA. Is it any wonder we've been shopping for dishwashers instead?

Baby!

No, not ours--cute pictures of our niece! She was definitely worth driving to Adam's family reunion. Supposedly, she looks just like Adam when he was a baby. Clearly, we all hope she grows out of that later! We didn't get to spend a lot of time with them, but it's always nice to see the family. Here we are with Scott, Erin and Baby Charlotte.

Back to School

As part of our epic driving adventure over the first weekend in August, we helped Jesse move to Rantoul, IL. He'll be attending the U of IL at Urbana/Champaigne to earn a PhD in...something scientific at which he'll no doubt be terribly brilliant. =)

The driving started on Friday afternoon and continued until about 1:30am Saturday. That's about the time we all started hallucinating with fatigue, so we snagged a hotel room and finished the drive to Rantoul at 10am on Saturday. Jesse's new place is a nice little townhome, a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, with a laundry room (which Jes was especially excited about).

All Muraled Out

Looks like they're done with the mural by my bus stop.

Watching too much Price is Right

Every time I think about car shopping, I can't help but remember watching Bob Barker getting mauled by contestants after announcing, "A new car!" Thank goodness we're done with the car shopping for a while.

For those of you who need a little catch up, the Blazer got rearended (again) last fall, and then we got told that the engine wiring needed replacement. Instead of fixing those issues, we decided to save the money and put it towards a nice used minivan.

I did a bunch of research, and all of the signs pointed toward a Toyota Sienna, 2005 or later. After a few weekends of shopping around, we settled on a 2005 AWD Le from Walser Toyota in Bloomington, MN. Our salesman was very nice, and he's actually called us since to make sure that we're happy. The van is the 7 passenger size, and it had about 47,600 miles on it. It's got some really cool options, too, like having both a cd player and a tape player, which I think is awesome. Mom really liked the power passenger sliding door. Adam likes it for taking the dog to the dog park, too. Yay!

Sidewalk Work

We got a couple new sections of sidewalk in front of our house recently. It's our neighborhood's year for sidewalk work--they started at Chicago Ave and are working East. It was an annoying couple of week to walk back and forth to the bus stop, so I'm glad they're done. Now we just get to wait for them to send us a bill. Yay.



This is the house across the street from us.

The new mural by my bus stop

I was happy to see a new mural on the corner of 38th and Chicago. I'm a big fan of building murals in general, but I really like this one because it's all about mass transit, which I think is hilarious.

Aftermaths

I think we're on week five or six of the Great Thorne House Re-Landscaping Project 2008. You can't see very well in this photo, but the hostas have moved from along the front walk to up next to the house, and around the two trees on the boulevard. Yet more hostas have moved from the front walk to in front of the garage. I think I have four more hostas left to move, and then the Great Hosta Diaspora will be over. Oh, except for that big one on the corner, maybe.

We had a very strong straight-line wind the other day, which resulted in a lot of smaller branches down in our yard, and some larger ones down in our immediate neighbor's yard.
And then there was the next block up, which was still not open to traffic this morning. Thankfully, this tree didn't fall on any cars or houses, so it's just a nuisance.

It's not easy to see in this picture, but there is a huge twist in the branch that fell.

More Spring Pix

This is the giant hole that Rex has dug underneath the tree in the front yard. The scrawny little plants next to it are tiger lilies that the dogs have trampled almost to death. I don't know if I'll be saving those--I may just give up on them. It's not as if we don't have a zillion more tiger lilies around.

This used to be an ugly little scrubby bush, which Adam dug up a couple of weeks ago. These are Sweet Black Eyed Susans.

These are Smooth Blue Asters, which will hopefully be lovely and attract butterflies.
This is the south side of the house. I dug up the rose bushes (that you can barely see here) last night. So now there are Meadow Blazing Stars planted underneath the furnace exhaust pipes, instead of ugly dying rose bushes.
This is a not-so-great picture of my super great new fences on the east side of the hosue. Next to the stairs, I planted Elegant Camas (also known as Mountain Death Camas, since the roots are poisonous). Around the corner, I have tiger lilies, some of which started there and some of which I moved there over the past month. I was going to continue the fence around the south side of the house, but the dogs have been leaving the new plantings alone, so I might not put more fences around.

And this is a picture of the kind of things you see on my bus ride.