Stay Tuned...

Every time I go home to my parents' house I come back nostalgic. I have been trying to get through a couple of boxes worth of old letters and fun things from my childhood, so that my poor mother can have my closet back. I haven't lived there in 11 years, I ought to move out, don't you think? I found notes written back and forth with my cousin Kevin in church on the back of the attendance registry paper. I found old balloon slips (in my high school, you could buy a balloon for a dollar and have it delivered to someone in their class), old letters I wrote but never sent. I found a letter from my cousin in Denmark who had sent me a pendant taped to the letter. I never took it off, so it's been in there for 15 years! I pulled it out and wore it to church on Sunday. And look at THIS beauty below: (See # 8. Oh, and # 10 is my sister, and #12 is my best friend from high school... we met when we were 6 years old and sat together at this recital.)

Baby Bookey

Well, tomorrow is the day! (Shh... don't tell my mother-in-law... we're going to surprise her.) We go in tomorrow about 11:45 for the hour-long ultrasound to find out who this little one is going to be. I'm NOT looking forward to the fact that they make you drink a bunch of water and then prohibit you from "voiding." I think you can figure out what that means. I mean, isn't that cruel to not let a pregnant woman, um, void? But regardless, I am looking forward to this first little bit of learning who this little person will be.

Sooo... any bets? My father is CONVINCED that it's a boy. He was right about my sister, me, and my two nieces, so he's 4 for 5. My brother-in-law Jamie is also in the boy camp. My neighbor across the street and my cousin Lisa are SURE it's a girl. So I gotta know... who thinks it will be what? I might have to think of a reward or something for whoever is right. I mean, you've got a 50-50 chance. And I want to know WHY you think it's one or the other, even if the why is just "Because."

And I think we will tell people what the gender is, but not until after we talk to our parents. =)

The storms may come, the storms may go

For those of you who don't live in Southern California, we had some serious storming tonight. Not so much wind, but the kind of lightning I wish I could photograph and sort of rolling thunder. The Biola kids all came out when it started raining big fat drops, and then a huge cheer went up when the sky lit up with the brightest lightning yet. Some of them must have been watching Monday Night Football, too because another cheer went up when Brunell launched that amazing pass down to Santana Moss for the tie. (They got the extra point to break it.) Game is still going with a minute and a half left with Redskin possession at the Dallas 43. I have high hopes for a Redskins victory.

More Home Improvement

Here's the "live" version of the desk. I had an old, brown chair with this faded pink, sort of corduroy seat which I painted black and then covered with that toile fabric. I'm actually not going to keep the toile, but want to get a red stripey fabric that they have at IKEA. But for all practical purposes of the weekend, Walmart was a lot closer than IKEA is, hence the toile.



And here is the window that Steve put in this weekend. Yay!! Still a bit of work left to do, but we're so happy with it! I'm keeping a lot of before and after pictures of our house so years from now we can show potential buyers all the work we've done.

A first

Tuesday, for the first time EVER, I actually put a call in to my doctor's office. I'm the child of a doctor, so you just ask Dad. I had never actually called my doctor with a question before in my life. Well, with this pregnancy thing has come heartburn. I used to think that heartburn came under the category of, "Who's dumb idea was it to have movie popcorn for dinner on Friday night?" But then I gained 10 pounds in 2 months and my organs all relocated and I got to learn what REAL heartburn is. I'm not kidding, we're talking swallowing razor blades. So I call Dad, dad says, you can take Pepcid AC, but call your doctor and make sure it's okay with her first. What? Call my doctor? What do you do, just, like CALL them? You don't need an appointment? I wish I could impress on folks how WEIRD this is. Of course, not being from my family, you also won't understand why I have a hard time actually purchasing lemons, oranges and nectarines (or any stone fruit for that matter). You just never DO that at my dad's house when there are perfectly good trees on the farm just 9 miles away with FREE fruit! So I suppose I'm "growing" here.

Fun with furniture

This is the desk Steve and I just got from Ashley furniture. I was happy with the price, but I can't say that we got a steal. It's not what I would call "quality craftsmanship." However, it's a nice looking desk, and goes well with our black and red decor in the "library/conservatory." =) Now, if we had bought the green piano... I'm glad to get a desk, too, as we were sort of using multiple stations to process our paper stuff, and now we can start clearing some things out of the baby's room.

Speaking of the baby's room... here are a few ideas I have for a boy's room:






And for a girl's room...

Weird Dream

I was inspired by "the Wonderwoman Files" (for those of you don't know, my blogging inspiration and particular friend) to share my weird dream from Sunday night. I dreamt I was the executive assistant to the outgoing mayor of New York City, who happened to be Nicholas Cage. He and I apparently got along great, as I discovered when I was handing him his whisky on the rocks. However, the incoming mayor was much more serious, and there was suspected foul play with the new mayor. That's really it, but I thought it was a pretty funny dream.

Democracy

I don't know enough about John Roberts to give him my support to the death, but I will say that I've been impressed with his answers so far. I love his baseball analagy: "Judges call balls and strikes, they're not there to throw pitches." I also like how he addresses the senators. He shows a lot of respect to the branch of government which brings the will of the people to law. He seems to have a very sober understanding of the role of a judge as well. I also think it's pretty comical that the senators' questions are longer than Judge Roberts' answers. The senators get all riled up, too, and Judge Roberts answers in a really calm, collected way. It really bothers me that everyone wants to bring up Roe v. Wade, because all they want is for Roberts to agree with their position. This isn't really the forum to discuss the merits and demerits of pro-choice vs. pro-life. Anyhow, it's a really interesting process, much as I generally HATE political confrontation.

Saturday with a credit card...

I saved my pennies and went to Old Navy. Tons of stuff on sale, things that finally fit me, since I am done with my last pair of normal pants as of this last week. I love the feeling of saving my money so that I can go try a bunch of stuff on and then actually buy more than one thing. Thank goodness for Old Navy. Seems like everywhere else is either super expensive or just ugly. I mean, when did designers decide that great-grandmas and pregnant ladies should wear the same clothes?


In other shopping news...

I think I may have finally found a color scheme for my living room. I gotta say I LOVE Cost Plus!

Steve should never go away again and leave me with money...

Out of L.A.

My husband leaves early tomorrow morning to get back into nature and go backpacking. Thankfully, his "host" is a former Eagle Scout, so my mind is much more at ease. I made sure he had a CD with him in his bag to attract emergency attention if necessary. Say I'm an overprotective wife, but it's just plain common sense! Oh, and would-be burglers... I have a brother, and I'm not afraid to use him!

In other news, I enjoyed the first NFL game of the season. Ah, the drama. I wish I knew more about the game because I love to watch it. I think because the action is isolated but still active, the pace of the game feels good to me. Some hilights were the Raiders breaking the Pats' 31 game hold against kickoff drives. I think it was within only about 3-4 min. Laughing at Madden's infatuation with Randy Moss, and Moss disappointing us all. I suppose I was going for the Pats, but Brady doesn't do much for me. He's a cutie and all that, but he just doesn't strike me as exactly bright. I'm a Manning kind of girl. Or for that matter, really, still a Montana girl.

Aaaand, it's Reedley by a nose!

I had a little informal bet with myself that once I released the news to the hounds from my hometown in late August of my pregnancy, it would come back around by September 1. I kid you not, I got an email September 2 from a friend (who I'd told) saying that a mutual friend had brought the news around the evening before. Do I know my hometown or what!

6 years and counting!

We sort of stumbled on the fact that our first date was Sept. 2nd. I think we'd forgotten, but when we remembered, it was a really nice moment. It is so great to think that the things I initially really liked about Steve are the things that I now love more and more each passing year. We decided to celebrate by skipping Bible Study to nurse the last of the week-long colds we have, and eating bad Chinese food in front of the TV. (We actually ate good chinese food on our first date.) And while I will be going to bed in the next 5 minutes (that's right, BEFORE 10pm on a FRIDAY night!) while Steve and my brother beat the snot out of each other on a video game, I have to say that I thank God more and more for bringing Steve into my life. I love him more now than I ever knew I could. And he tells me he feels just the same.

America's Test Kitchen

Scones
Originally uploaded by earlegirl.

Mom, I apologize in advance for what I'm about to say. Tonight I made some kickass scones!! I can describe them no other way. The British would make me a national hero! Tears of joy and thanks go out to America's Test Kitchen, cooking show above all cooking shows.

Thumbs Up!

Ultrasound9-1-05
Originally uploaded by earlegirl.

Well, I don't want to completely flood my blog with these, but I thought this one was pretty cool. I had to get a blood test today to discover the risk of things like Down's Syndrome, etc. But apparently my kiddo wanted to let me know everything was okay... Thumbs up, guys!