We told my parents!

According to thebump.com, our little munchkin is the size of a poppyseed. It's kind of amazing how something so small can make you feel so miserable. I've been sick off and on since last week. Not fun. I've also been waking up early pretty much everyday.

We decided to tell my parents our good news on Wednesday. My mom had been asking for a week or so what I wanted for my birthday. Wednesday afternoon, Steven and I went to Target and made a short baby registry. That night before church, I gave the list to my parents as my "birthday list." Oh the looks on their faces were priceless!

Next, we'll tell my sister and Steven's parents and sister.

Never a dull moment

We got a not so fun surprise today. Our flower bed(or weed bed
actually) in the front yard is flooding. We have a bit of a water
leak. Its going to require more than digging a hole to fix it, too.
More on this later...

- blogging by iPhone

sniff, sniff....aaahhhh

I have once again reclaimed my title of birthday princess.

4 Weeks

Today I am 4 weeks pregnant! Wow, that doesn't even seem right. Our first appointment is scheduled for April 17, and I'm pretty nervous about it.

How far along? 4 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: I have no desire to step on the scale today.
Maternity clothes? no
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Pretty good, but I wake up earlier than usual.
Best moment this week: Probably will be tonight when we tell my parents!
Movement: nope
Food cravings: Green stuff (pickles, broccoli, etc.) and corn on the cob
Gender: no idea
Labor Signs: None
Belly Button in or out? In
What I miss: going a whole day without gagging or puking
What I am looking forward to: telling our family
Weekly Wisdom: Don't eat spicy stuff at night. Heartburn isn't fun.
Milestones: I took my prenatal vitamins today without getting sick! Woohoo!

Oh boy! Or girl?

Well, it's official. We are going to be parents!
Of course, by the time this actually posts, most of you will already know this.

Here are a few things I never thought about before being pregnant:

How on Earth am I going to pull the last sock out of the dryer with a big belly in my way?

Corn on the cob is a splendiferous food!

The big comfy couch

We got our new furniture in! They delivered it on Friday. Wow, it makes a difference too. Our living room looks a LOT better. We are still planning to get an entertainment center, but we have yet to decide on which one. We also need an end table of some sort, and preferably inexpensive. I guess I'll post pictures of our new stuff later. Honestly, right now I'm being lazy and have no desire to move my butt of my new couch just to take a picture of it. It's that comfy. Sorry. You'll have to wait. I'm sure you all really care what my couches look like anyway, right?

Hopefully Steven will get the kitchen and dining room painting wrapped up this week. Then he can put together my new dining room set. We decided to take a break from all the painting this weekend since Steven will be off work all next week. I figured he needed a weekend of nothing before going to work on the honey-do list. Oh yes, that's right. He has not one, but two weeks off work! We're pretty excited about that too. He's hoping we get some warm, dry weather, so he can mow the yard. He's missing his mower. And I must admit, our yard is missing that big green machine too. :-( It's lookin' kinda pathetic.

Anyway, I'm really hoping we can be productive in the next two weeks. We realized tonight that in May, we will have had this house 2 years, and we're just now really getting things the way we want them. Maybe it will be finished eventually.

I've been tagged!

Shaila tagged me to complete this task...

1. go to your documents/pictures
2. go to your 5th file
3. go to your 5th picture
4. blog about it
5. tag 5 people

This is a picture of the sunset from our front yard. I took this picture um...a long time ago. I think it was two summers ago.


Now, I tag: Victoria, Carrie S., Courtney T., Heather, and Kim!

It's what we do.

This was taken at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere on a chilly December Monday morning on our honeymoon. There was ice on the rope. I wanted to cross it, but he insisted on going first to help me across. Steven took one step onto the ropes and fell flat on his rear. I, being the sweet wife I am, laughed. He did too.

Are there moments in your life that are forever etched in your mind? I don't mean big moments like when you got engaged or when you gave birth to your first child. I mean smaller moments. Moments that will make you smile 50 years from now, even though when it happened it seemed small and unimportant.

This is a picture of one of those moments for me. It reminds me of what my husband and I do best together. Laugh. For a long time, I felt strange when people would ask us, "What do you do together?" I always felt a little embarrassed that we didn't have a joint hobby that we do together regularly. I'm not too interested in playing COD4 on Xbox Live, and he isn't too interested in scrapbooking or watching Desperate Housewives. Now don't get me wrong, we take our annual trips to the zoo together, go to car shows, play a mean game of Uno or Scrabble, and do other little things together here and there. However, none of those are things that we do together on a regular schedule. Of course, with Steven's work schedule, "regular" isn't really in our vocabulary.

Anyway, I worried that we weren't normal and that our marriage was doomed because we weren't enrolled in dance or cooking classes together and didn't share a love for something like Star Wars movies (although, strangely, we do both appreciate romantic comedies starring Ashton Kutcher). Then I thought about my parent's though. When they were newlyweds, they took a compatibility test. The person giving them the assessment told them they really weren't sure how my parents made it past the dating and engagement to end up married to one another. They've been married nearly 30 years.

Then I realized there is something my husband and I have in common with my parents. It's something we do together. It's something my husband and I do together everyday, whether we are in the same house or hundreds of miles apart. We laugh. Sometimes it's just a giggle or two, and sometimes it's a side-splitting, tears pouring down cheeks, me screaming for him to stop whatever he's doing that is so funny, need to run to the bathroom laugh. Sometimes it's even over those romantic comedies starring Ashton Kutcher that I mentioned earlier. Either way, it's what we do together. Although, my mother might say that arguing holds a close second place. :-)

Click the button and join in!

My little troublemaker

Tonight I started painting my cabinets. After getting all the doors to the top cabinets painted, the pantry door, the sides, and some of the trim done, I decided to call it a night. I walked into the living room to grab my camera for a few in-process pictures of the kitchen. When I returned to the kitchen, this is what I found...

Apparently when Steven took the baskets off the pantry door, he just laid them on the floor of the pantry. One of those baskets just happened to contain doggie treats. Emerald attempted to help herself to the treats, and got covered in paint in the process.

Ten Things Tuesday

Bet ya thought I had forgotten about these, huh? Well, I haven't. I have no excuse though. Just laziness. Here are a few things I have been thankful for lately.

1. The weather! Woohoo for warm days!
2. I have only 2 months until graduation. I think I can survive it.
3. I am thankful for my new furniture that should be arriving this week. Trust me, if you saw my pitiful, chewed on, stuffing deprived, down to one last throw pillow, old-lady print living room set, you'd be glad we're getting new furniture too.
4. I am thankful for my hard-working husband who made that new furniture possible!
5. I am thankful that my hard-working husband is (supposedly) getting time off after tomorrow! He has had only about 6 days off since January 25th, so he is in need of a break.
6. I am VERY thankful that my husband was not hurt in his accident last week. God was definitely protecting him.
7. I'm thankful I only have one more class today. I'm tired.
8. I am thankful that I have been able to attend the Monday morning Bible Study at my church! If you haven't done Beth Moore's Esther study, go check it out. I'm loving it! I'm also pretty fond of all the girls doing the study with me. :-)
9. I'm thankful for bananas. Random, I know. I really like them though. Bananas are my favorite fruit. Lately, I've been starting my day with a banana or a banana smoothie - except Mondays. Those are coffee days.
10. I'm thankful for spell check on Blogger. I type too fast. If it weren't for those little red dotted lines, I'm pretty sure people would think I was illiterate and just hitting buttons on the keyboard. My dad would certainly be embarrassed.

Not Me Monday

Click the banner to join in!

I did not go to FedEx today and mail a package containing a Christmas gift that got left behind when we traveled to Missouri in January and a few of my mother-in-laws belongings that got left at our house at Thanksgiving. Not me!

I did not breath a little sign of relief on the way home tonight because I remembered my sweet husband would not be here, therefore allowing me to watch Dancing with the Stars and hang out on the couch undisturbed. Promise. That wouldn't be nice.

I was not late for Bible Study today because I was not sitting in a drive thru line at a coffee shop down the street.

I did not go in the dollar store tonight looking down right scary after going to the walking class and running class.

And since I didn't go in the dollar store, I didn't purchase a half-size bag of Funyuns to consume while watching Dancing with the Stars.

Since I didn't buy those Funyuns, nor did I look at the nutritional value (or lack thereof) and say to myself, "Oh well, they're cholesterol free!"



Ok, I've posted my weekly confessions. Now you do it too! Click the banner above and join in.

My Little Escape Artist

Not Me Monday

It was not me that spent hours combing out my dog's hair the night before she went to the vet to avoid him seeing her with muddy tangles.

It was not me that restocked the fridge just to eat out every night for the whole next week.

It was certainly not me that told my husband he could play Xbox360 last night so that I could watch Desperate Housewives undisturbed. However, had I done that, you would think I would have remembered that the Oscars were on, instead of subjecting myself to machine guns for no reason!

It was not me that was nearly late for bible study today because of insisting on stopping by the coffee shop, even though the car also had to be refueled to the point of the little red light being on.

I did not leave my book and bible on the coffee table this morning when I left.

I did not skip an entire week of blogging.

I'm not currently postponing studying for a mid-term in order to post this. I'm a very responsible student.

I do not have a messy, messy house right now. Not me.

I am not going to bed before 10:30 10:00 tonight.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Not Me Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.


After Shaila told me about this today, I had to check it out for myself, and here I am joining in now. Enjoy. :-)

It was not me that ate cold pizza for two meals today. Nope.

It was not me that called for my dog instead of reaching for a paper towel when a bit of marinara sauce was dropped on my kitchen floor tonight. That must have been my husband.

This is not the current state of my refrigerator. That is someone else's. I just stole the picture off Google Images. My fridge would have more than sugar, water, beer, caramel, and honey mustard in it.

It also wasn't me that almost skipped a shower today because my husband forgot to flip the breaker to the water heater back on. I would never think of doing such! Neither did I rub it in when I told him that I figured out which one it was and turned it back on all by myself. I don't do stuff like that.

It wasn't me that chose to wear sweats today because of recent laziness in the laundry department. I also wouldn't happen to be the one that is in charge of said laundry. Our maid took the week off.

And, I did not agree to do a running clinic with Ashley, Amy, and the other girls from church today. Why would I do that? (That would be cause to worry about my sanity.) And as for my husband, he did NOT laugh when I told him about it. :-)

New Toys!

Of course, pretty much everyone knows by now that I got a new computer.

I finally broke down and got a laptop - a MacBook Pro that I am in love with. Truly.
I'm really excited to not be confined to the desk now when I'm working. It's lovely.

Right now, I'm in the livng room, sitting on the couch, listening to Steven play his xbox on his new toy.Yeah, he got a new toy too.

After church today, everyone wanted to go eat at Shorty Small's, and Steven decided to run into Circuit City since we were the first ones there. I didn't think they'd have any good sales, so it wouldn't be a problem, right? Um, no. He found a tv. He wanted the tv. He bought the tv. I really should learn to use the "no" word a little better after he comes home from storm. I let my emotions get the best of me. I think he knows that too. :-)

Ok, maybe it isn't so bad. I did talk him down to a 42" instead of the 50"! I'm glad I did too. The 50" would have been massive in our small living room. I would post a picture of the actual tv we bought, but there's no point. It looks exactly like the last one we bought for our bedroom. It was a good deal though. We bought this one for almost $200 less than the first one, and we bought the first one on sale at Sears for about $200 off the original price. So, that's about $400 off the original price for this one!

Sad news...

I have been putting this post off for a few days.

Last Wednesday, Dad and Mom came out to our house to feed the outside dogs for us and found our poor Biscuit had died. :-( We don't know what happened. Also, Poncho is missing. We are hoping he returns, but his food hasn't been touched in days. However, when we got home this afternoon, Steven noticed a dog had "visited" the tires on the Trailblazer. We're hoping that's a good sign, and not just some random dog that wandered up into our yard.

In the meantime, we are down to just Roush and the girls. It's pretty weird driving up to the house and not hearing Biskie's big hound-dog bark/howl greeting us. I'm also gonna miss staring out the window, watching Poncho go back and forth across the yard - nose down, tail up- with his best attempts to catch a rabbit.

"Let there be light..."

We have electricity!!!!! Woohoo!!!

My neighbor called me Friday night just before we met my parents for dinner to say that they would be turning on the power within a few minutes. Oh was I happy!

We didn't get to go home that night though. Saturday we came out to our house, turned the water back on, murdered a few snakes Steven removed from the water meter hole, turned the heat on, and dropped off our kitty. I admit it. I shed a few tears. I was SO ready to be back in my own home! In all, the power was out here over 18 days. I went around the house flipping every switch on and off, on and off. :-)

Today after church we moved the rest of our stuff back in and brought the dogs too. Woohoo! I'm home! Oh, and Steven's home too! His crew has been assigned to a 34 mile stretch between Greenway and Maurmaduke, so he'll be working 7 days/week, but he'll also be home most of those nights. That's a nice change for a bit.

Marriage does funny things to you

Me, the hopeless romantic who threw a year-long hissy fit after one bad Valentine's Day (It's true, I'm ashamed to say.), called off Valentine's Day this year. Steven had been working out of town for so long, we had no idea if he was even going to be home until the Thursday before, and I spent an hour wandering around Wal-Mart with no idea what to get him. I also knew that because of his work schedule he had zero time to buy me a gift, and I'm not big on buying my own gifts.

So, for our 2009 Valentine's Day....

We exchanged cards, drove to Batesville to pick up the Trailblazer from his boss' house, ate dinner at ol' faithful (Salsa's Grill, of course!) and went back to the house to watch an episode of CSI. We lead such exciting lives. :-)

8 Days and Counting!

There are perks to being the wife of a lineman, but apparently getting your electricity turned on quickly isn't one of them! It has now been 192 hours (8 days), 30 minutes since my electricity went out.

Yesterday I went out to my house and brought back Roushie. He's adjusted pretty well to Mom & Dad's house. Thankfully, he and Jill have stayed away from one another. She's being rather tolerant.

Winter Blast '09

First, I'd like to say, "Thank you!" to Danna over at Ramsey Five. Her post about the past week made me feel better a lot about being a total emotional mess through all of this. I'd rather not count the number of times I have cried in the past week, nor do I wish to think about how many more times there will probably be tears before it is all said and done. Not that the whole week was awful, because some parts were honestly fun, but it sure isn't a week I wish to repeat.

It started on Sunday. Sunday night, Steven headed back to work as usual. They have been working in Floral, Arkansas and staying in Batesville lately, so he has been leaving a little later on Sundays. It wasn't a good leaving though. I was moody and sad about it, which caught me off guard actually because I've gotten to the point where his leaving is normal and doesn't usually bother me too much.

On Monday, Steven called and said they (his crew) were being sent to Mountain View because of the ice storm coming in. I didn't think too much about it because they always get everything worse up in the hills. I don't think anyone knew what we were really in for. That morning I went to class, church, and to pick up a few things at Sam's and Wal-Mart. (Things that went bad in the fridge and are now in the trash can out by my road. Urg.) As I was leaving Sam's it started to rain a bit, and I noticed it was sticking to my windshield, but it wasn't much at all. I went home, and I went about my normal Monday stuff - homework while watching The Bachelor and True Beauty. Important stuff, huh?

On Tuesday, I woke up to this...

These pictures were taken about 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I didn't go to my classes that day because after nearly busting my rear end on my driveway and in my yard trying to take the pictures, I figured the roads in my area were about the same - ice covered. I hung out in my pjs watching Good Morning America and reading. I knew it was getting bad outside, but I was in denial. I talked to my mom, assured her I was fine, and went on enjoying my day alone. My lights flickered here and there, but they stayed on all morning. About 1:30 I was dozing off while I waited on General Hospital to come on when the lights blinked...then blinked again...and again...and finally came back on. I fell asleep but vaguely remember the lights going out for good a little before 2, and I thought, 'Dang! I'm gonna miss General Hospital!' That's sad, isn't it? Anyway, I woke up about 3:00 and the lights were still off. About 4:15 my Dad called and talked me into coming to their house. I was still in denial and figured my electricity would be back on by the next morning. I grabbed my camera as I headed out the door, and this is what it looked like at my house, about 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday.

When I got to my parents' house, my sister and brother-in-law were already there because they had no power either.

About 1:45 a.m. on Wednesday, I was awakened by the electricity going off and on. It finally went out for good about 2. I rolled over and went back to sleep. At 6, I woke up cold. I stayed inside all day with Mom that day. We played cards, and she made us mac-n-cheese and hot chocolate on the grill.

I'm not too sure of anything after that. The days and nights all run together in my mind. I remember going back out to my house for the first time and seeing all the power poles and lines on the ground. I'm a lineman's wife, and I knew it would be a while before the work around our house was finished. I had to hold back the tears when I saw what was left of the pretty trees in my front yard. I actually ran in the house to check on my cat while my parents tended to the dogs so that they wouldn't see me crying. When I saw the poles on the ground I just groaned and sighed, I'm not really sure why the damaged trees made me cry. I'm weird.

Here are some pictures I took on Thursday, and I only know the day because of the file information from my camera.

That afternoon, Steven called and mentioned needing some more clothes because he was going to be in Mountain View for a while (they are estimating a month). I jumped at the chance to get out of my parents dark house that was very cramped with 5 people, 4 dogs, and a cat. Did I mention I'm used to living alone with my dogs and cat? That many people in a dark house was a bit much for me. I was getting cranky, and I knew it.

Friday morning I gathered up some clothes for me and headed to our house to get stuff for Steven. I packed up clothes, fed the animals, and loaded the car. Then the car wouldn't start. I called my mom to come help me, figuring it was the battery. Then I sat in the car and cried. It was getting late, I didn't know where I was going, my car wouldn't start, and it was warmer in my car than in the house. I ended up just trading cars with Mom, so her and Dad could have the battery changed on mine.

I did finally make it to Mountain View, about 4:30 that afternoon. The drive up there was nice. I didn't get lost at all!! (That's a big deal for me.) The alone time did me some good. I was in a much better mood when I got there. I didn't get to see Steven a lot. He works until 5:45ish, eats dinners, goes to bed about 8:30, and is up at 5:15 the next morning to do it all over again. I felt like I had important stuff to do (work & homework) and needed to come home on Saturday, but I just couldn't convince myself to do it. I stayed another night, and it was all I could do to force myself to come home today.

I came home today and found out it wasn't the battery on my car. We took it to the shop and will hopefully get more information tomorrow. Our other vehicle is parked at Steven's boss' house in Batesville. I'm not sure when I'll have electricity back at my house, but I don't expect it to be soon. As of now, I'm at about 5 days and 6 hours without power there. I'm a lineman's wife, and I'll probably be one of the last in the county to get electricity back. I'm living with my parents. My husband is out of town indefintely. This has not been a fun adventure for me.

I say all of this not to whine, but to let everyone know that if I'm grumpy, it's not you. I'm just stressed out and cranky. Please forgive me.

Tomorrow I am planning to go volunteer at Craighead Electric. The least I can do is go feed someone's husband and hope that someone else is doing the same for mine. I'm hoping this will give me something to do this week to keep my mind off all the other stuff.