5 Things I’m Tired of Hearing…

I know, people are well-intentioned but I’m about to punch someone.

5.  How are you feeling?

4. Didja have that baby yet?

3. Are you ready?

2. Get some sleep while you can!

1. Are you ready to pop?

April 27th – D Day!

I read a depressing statistic this morning – only 5% of babies are born on their due date.  This does not bode well for me today.  I just got an email from a friend who was due two days before me – her contractions started at 4AM and are now 6 minutes are apart.  I’m so freakin’ jealous but happy for her and her husband even though they poached our birthdate.

This weekend was pretty uneventful except for 2+ hours of false labor late Saturday night.  The weather here has been wacky for this time of year (seriously – it was 87 on Saturday and Sunday and expected to be near the same today!) and Ben and I were resisting turning on the A/C convinced that the house would cool down by itself.  Uh yeah, that didn’t happen.  I made him turn on the A/C around 10:30 Saturday night when the first round of fake contractions began.  I figured there was no way I was going to suffer more than I had to 😉

Now I see why it’s called false labor… you truly think, “This is it!”  It reminds me of the time when Ben had kidney stones and kept feeling like he REALLY had to go to the bathroom but then couldn’t.  He kept saying to me the whole way to the emergency room, “Why would my body LIE to me!?”  Same thing applies here. 

I kept an eye on the clock and they were 13 minutes apart, then 11, then 17, then 6, then 14 – all over the place.  They got stronger, then weaker, then… I fell asleep.  I woke up on Sunday morning still pregnant *sigh*.  Had a few twinges on Sunday but nothing since.  She’s really running out of room so even her slightest movements are kind of painful and uncomfortable.  Plus, I think she has discovered that banging into my bladder is fun.

Here’s the plan for this week; can’t remember if I shared it last week or not. 

• Monday / Tuesday – business as usual.
• Wednesday – 1st day of maternity leave, going to get stuff done around the house.
• Thursday – Inducement day.  Checking in to the hospital at 8PM where they’ll start the entire process.
• Friday – Hopefully, we celebrate her birthday! 

Of course, I’m hoping she throws my carefully constructed plans out the window by coming earlier 🙂  Have a great week – don’t forget to check Twitter for baby updates!

No baby today… check back next week.

Went to this week’s dr’s appointment and nothing has changed in the last few weeks.  Still less than 1 cm dilated and nothing happening on the softening front 😦  ZERO progression.

So now we’re all set for an induction a week from today because she’s getting pretty big and they’re starting to get worried.  Plans are for me to head to the hospital at 8PM Thursday to get things started and most likely have the baby on Friday.   Of course, my body could have other plans and decide to have this baby on its own before then. 

My mom is REAAAAAAALLY hoping that I have her tomorrow because they’ll share the same birthday 🙂  My sister is hoping that she arrives before the 1st because she and her friends are taking her camper on its inaugural trip to the Kentucky Derby that day.

I’m planning to take time off from work Wednesday and Thursday to get stuff in order.  That will also give me an opportunity to relax and just take some time for me before my life gets changed forever.  I’m making Ben work Wednesday and Thursday so I can get stuff done and chill out.   He can have Friday off, I guess. 😉 

So that’s the latest news.  Just a reminder – keep one eye peeled on Twitter.  I can easily tweet when we’re headed to the hospital from my cell phone and can probably sneak in an update or two before it gets confiscated by the nurses.

Week 39 – Still a’waitin….

Week 39 and we’re still waiting for baby.  Not a surprise really since we figured I’d go at least to my due date if not farther.  We’re just hoping it’s not going to be a Buzz Light Year Baby – “To Infinity and Beyond!”  Yeah, lame but that’s the kinda mood I’m in 🙂

This weekend was awesome.  We got some stuff done around the house on Saturday and I fell asleep in the patio chair underneath the maple tree in our backyard with my feet propper up.  Talk about heaven.  Ben got the grass cut and some other yard work done.  We celebrated the perfect day by hopping in the Explorer and looking around some property in Morrow County (2 counties north of us). 

We didn’t find much the first day except for lots of bumpy gravel roads (good  for trying to coax Miss Mallory to drop – which she did!).  Other than that, the evening was a bust except for us getting to spend time together and just laugh at stupid stuff.  We got serious when we got home and hit the Internet looking for suitable properties up there. 

We hit paydirt with a neat little farmhouse on 5 acres and a fully stocked pond.  I told Mom about it and she and Dad went up to see it on Sunday morning.  They like it enough that they’re considering purchasing it as an investment property.  We headed up there on Sunday and fell in love with it.  Now to figure out how we can make everything happen – get our house market ready, sell it, and buy this house.  Yes, we’re crazy. 

So on Sunday (barring any baby arrivals) we’ll be headed back up to Morrow County to look at three properties that have piqued our interest.  My dad got us to think outside the box by looking at properties that we wouldn’t ordinarily look at (ie – dumps) and imagine if we lived in the house for 2-3 years, tore it down, and built a new one that we custom designed.  The land and surrounding property is what counts in those locations – not the actual house itself.  It really got our gears moving.

What crazy life changing events are YOU experiencing? 🙂

Weekend Plans

This weekend is supposed to be absolutely beautiful in Central Ohio.  Yesterday’s weather was in the mid 60s with sunshine;  today is supposed to be more sunshine and a high of  70 degrees.  Tomorrow is slated to be the best day of the year so far with temperatures in the mid 70s and just bursting with sunshine.  So, what’s a girl to do?

1. Grill out!  We’ve got pasta salad already made up (the perfect cheap side for any grilled meal) and plan to grill London Broil tonight, steaks my mom is bringing down on Saturday, and chicken or pork tenderloin on Sunday with Ben’s parents.  If it rains Sunday we’ll compromise and have lasagna. 
2. Spring Clean!  We’ll open all the windows, leave the sliding glass door to the patio open and let the fresh air in.  Mom and I will be tackling my kitchen this weekend – getting it spotless and organized.  I hate a messy kitchen.  I probably won’t be allowed to do much other than direct what goes where, but we’ll get it done.
3. Put the dogs outside.  The puppies love to lounge in the sun, shade, and anywhere in between when the weather is nice.  They’re perfectly content to spend the entire day outside if they have fresh water and someone  throws the frisbee and/or tennis ball with them for a while.
4. Spend some time in the yard.  Last weekend I sat in a patio chair with my feet up reading a good book while soaking in some sun.  I may have to repeat that this weekend 🙂 

What are your weekend plans?

I’m a Grocery Store Saving Super Star!

I’m on a mission to save money in any way we can.  We’ve already eliminated our monthly gym membership ($106) and said ‘sayonara’ to our cable ($86).  Looking at the last few months of our spending trends on mint.com I came to the realization that we were spending a TON of money on food – both groceries and eating out.  Mint is pretty cool in the aspect that I can define custom categories to help me track spending in a way that makes sense to me.

I’m using their standard ‘Grocery’ category but have also added three custom categories under their Food & Dining umbrella to further help us track spending:  F&D – Kris, F&D – Ben, and F&D – Us.  In March we spent $853 in our Food & Dining category.  Only $427 (50%) was spent on grocery items.  The rest was made up from us eating out.  That was the first category to get worked on.  I didn’t budget us $400+ a month to eat out – where is it coming from??

We’re trying to make dinners that are conducive to being packed as lunches (enchiladas, cabbage roll casserole, you get the idea).  That allows us to have a pretty good dinner on a weekend AND have at least 2 days worth of lunches to boot.  I’ve been making pudding and packaging it in to-go containers so that’s working out well, too.  I’m tricking Ben by sneaking in a serving of calcium, reducing the waste we put in the environment by skipping the puddin’ cups, and  saving a crapload of money on that kinda stuff.

The second part I wanted to whack down was our actual grocery spending.  Ben and I are two people – how are we consuming $427 in groceries a  month in addition to the $427 we’re eating out?  I’ve made it my mission to see just how low I can get our grocery bill while building up a stockpile of items that we can live off while I’m out on maternity leave and my paychecks are a little leaner than usual. Last week I saved $44.17, or 30% of the total bill.  This week I saved $34.15, or 33% of our total bill.  It’s become something of a game to see how big of a percentage off our bill I can save.

So, how am I doing it?

1. I picked the right store – Meijer – over its local competition.  Meijer doubles coupons up to 99 cents, has low overall prices, and they also price match what other stores show in their weekly ads.
2. I peruse the weekly ads on Friday night / Saturday morning to prepare for a Saturday afternoon trip.  I grab a piece of notebook paper and quickly jot down what’s on sale where (ie – Kroger has Wheat Thins for $1/box, Giant Eagle has cereal on sale for $1.99/box) making sure that I only write down stuff we’ll actually eat/use.
3. I go through my stack of coupons to see if I can save any additional money on what I’m already buying.  I don’t cut out the coupons until I actually am going to use them – it’s much easier than carrying around a box or envelope of slippery loose coupons.
4. I figure out what we’re going to have for meals for the week based on what’s on sale, what’s in the freezer / pantry, and oddly enough – what the weather will be.  It’s tough to schedule a grill night when it’s going to rain all week.
5. When I’m at the store I grab a cart *and* one of the small shopping baskets.  I put the basket on the bottom of the cart – my price match items go in there so I can easily separate them from the rest of my purchases.  Believe me, the cashier LOVES me for this.
6. I also make sure to have the coupons that I’m going to use all ready before I get in line to make things go faster.

Believe it or not, but it actually takes me only 20 minutes to half an hour more to get all this done over what I was doing before.  I’m hoping to save over 40% this week at the store 🙂

Let me know if you decide to try any of these tips and how much you save.  You’d be surprised how quickly it adds up.

There’s an end in sight!

Had my weekly doctor’s appointment today – nothing too earth shattering.  Still barely at 1cm and nothing’s happening cervix-wise.  My doctor is concerned about me going too far overdue with the size of the baby and other stuff so she’s scheduling an induction for me for the evening of Thursday, April 30th if I don’t go into labor on my own prior to that.

I’m relieved to have a final date, but also worried about being induced.  My body is showing ZERO signs of wanting to give up this baby.  I feel comfortable with the decision because my doctor isn’t one to panic or do unwarranted medical procedures.  If everything else was normal and I had requested an induction or a c-section, she would have flat out told me no, to wait for nature to take its course.  WhenI first started going to her I was taking all sorts of fertility medication that was prescribed by another doctor.  She made me go off all of them for a full year to get my body back in tune with its natural rhythm and even then didn’t put me on any fertilility treatments because she believed that my body would get itself straightened out (she was right). 

At any rate, I’m glad that there’s finally an end in sight – TWO WEEKS MAX! – and that I will probably have a May Day baby.  Of course, now that she’s scheduled me for the 30th I’ll end up having her before then on my own with some miraculous insta-dilation 😉  I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom calls her and requests that she reschedule it for the evening of the 23rd so that I have the baby on the 24th – Mom’s birthday.  She mentioned it on the phone today and I wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not… both she and my sister know my doctor pretty well 🙂

So yeah, that’s the news such as it is.  I’m just glad I have a definite end date…. *whew*!

Week 38 – Still no baby…

Well, I pulled a pretty Kristy-like move yesterday and tripped over some stuff in the garage necessitating a trip to the OSU Labor & Delivery facility since I’m at 38 weeks and didn’t feel the baby move for a while after falling.

No worries – baby is fine, I’m fine (minus a few pulled muscles and assorted bumps & bruises), and all is well.  I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for a good 2+ hours and let me tell you, this kid can KICK when she’s being monitored. 

Good news is that it served as a dress rehearsal for the real thing – I’m all checked in and ready to go paperwork-wise when it’s show time.  Plus, I found out how quickly Mom and Jamie can get upstairs from the operating room.  I texted Jamie from the lobby of the hospital and she ended up riding on the same elevator as me.  Plus, Ben and I learned where to park, how to get into the L&D floor to visit, and all sorts of fun stuff.  We also learned where the ATM is because we’re idiots and don’t carry cash.

This was also a wakeup call for me that I need to slow down, take it easy, and let other people help me.  Yes, I know… read back a few weeks and I said the same things then but I really mean it this time.  Honest. 

This is my pledge to myself over the next 4 weeks or so:

1).  I will let Ben know when I need help with stuff around the house and actually ask him to do it.

2). I will take people up on their offers to help me even if it means swallowing my pride and letting them see I don’t keep a Martha Stewart house.

3). I will sit on my butt when necessary and not overdo things because I *have* to get them done.

4). I will keep my cell phone fully charged at all times and have emergency cash stuffed in my purse somewhere.  

5).  I’m sure Ben will have something to add here 🙂

So that’s it – still waiting for baby.  I hoped yesterday would be the day but nooooooo, it couldn’t be that easy.  Next Dr’s appt is on Thursday morning.

Nursery Pictures!

I can’t figure out how to embed ’em like Ben did – check out his blog instead:  http://benjaminrogers.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/nursery-pictures/

Our Easter Tradition…

Ben and I were married in March of 2003;  coincidentally, the Tuesday following our wedding was Fat Tuesday, which was followed by Ash Wednesday and Lent.  We had thought about heading to New Orleans for our honeymoon but I quickly reconsidered when I found out that we’d be there over Mardi Gras.  Ben doesn’t like crowds much and he gets hostile when Wal-Mart is crowded; I didn’t see him doing so well in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  All in all, we were married for a little over forty days before our first Easter celebration as a family.

We had planned to eat Easter dinner (ham, I think) with his parents, but received a phone call at 6:30 in the morning that his mom’s gout had flared up and she wouldn’t be able to make dinner and wasn’t up to company.  I offered to come over and make dinner but she wouldn’t have it.  There it was – Ben and I were on our own for Easter dinner.

Looking back, we could have called my parents to see what they were doing (nothing special) and invited ourselves up there but we didn’t want to impose.  Instead, we started thinking about all the places that we might be able to go for dinner – the pickings were slim.

We ended up at the Hong Kong Chinese Buffett down the street from our house enjoying General Tso’s Chicken, fried rice, and crab rangoons with sweet & sour sauce.  People thought we were nuts, but we thought we didn’t make out too badly.  The next year my parents were out of town for Easter and we decided that we’d have Chinese again – back to ye olde Hong Kong Chinese Buffett. 

This year, we’re taking it up a notch and are going to the Hunan Lion.  We found this restaurant a few weeks ago and hands down, they have the best Chinese and Thai food in all of Central Ohio.  I just hope they’ll be open 🙂

What about you – any strange holiday traditions?