2011 Goals

Well, I figure, since we're, oh, almost two full months into 2011, I ought to figure out what my "resolutions" are going to be this year. Yeah, I'm seriously not on the ball.

Anyway, I made a scrapbooking layout that lays the major ones out - thought I would share it with you all. I made this using the various mini kits provided in October 2010's LDS Blog Train Blog - the theme for which was Family Home Evening. And also one of my friendly neighborhood comes-with-your-pc fonts - I think it's called Minka. :)

Click on the thumbnail to be taken to the full-size image. :)

Sick and Lazy Day w/Cats

I am sick. Ew, gross, right. Blah. The picture is kind of washed out (I am not that pale) but I would look bad even if it wasn't - my nose is pink and chapped from days of blowing and blowing and blowing into kleenex. Also, my lips are chapped because I can't manage to keep tabs on a tube of lip balm and I've gone 24 hours without any twice in the past week. My eyes look so weird because my glasses need to be tightened and because my sinuses are so tender that it hurts a little to open my eyes all the way.

I haven't taken anything for the sinuses yet - this started getting annoying late Thursday night, and didn't get really bad until Friday evening, after my dr's office had closed. I'm calling first thing tomorrow morning, to find out what is okay to take and what is not.

I'm not going to show you a picture of this area to prove it (and you should be greatful) but I've also been experiencing spikes of excruciating frontal pelvic pain in the last 36 hours. After doing some looking up online, I'm pretty confused. Apparently, if it doesn't last a long time, it's a normal pregnancy pain, and nothing to worry about - though you should mention it to your practitioner. It looks like if the pain is frequent, and lasts longer than a few weeks, it could be something serious called symphysis pubis dysfunction, and you should definitely consult your doctor (though not all doctors actually accept this as a valid diagnosis, insisting that some pregnancies just hurt more than others)... Since I'm seeing my Dr. on Thusday, I will make sure to have this conversation with her - and get her opinions on the validity of SPD as an actual medical condition. I also plan to have a long discussion with her about the hospital's (and her personal) policies on birthing positions, epidurals, and breastfeeding. We might even sketch out some kind of 'birth plan' while we're there.

Nathan and I are planning on attending a birthing class at Central Baptist in April (they ask that you wait until Month 8 anyway), and I plan on waiting to pack my hospital bag until the beginning of March, as long as everything is progressing normally at this dr. visit - which will also be the one where they tell me whether or not I have Gestational Diabetes, I'm pretty sure. I'm not worried about that one, though, as I have none of the precipitating symptoms except being overweight.

So, in the mean time, I'm taking it easy (yesterday Nathan and I were out and about, I'll blog about that on Monday or Tuesday), and since I was too tender and stuffy to go to church this morning (or to the other service at 11:30 - which was almost exactly when I finally crawled out of bed to get under a hot shower) we've had a pretty lazy day at the house. Nathan finally got to see first-hand how our kittens like to spend the day - and even got to be involved with their activities a little!

Yup, you guessed it. Jack and Kaylee's favorite pastime is napping in the sunlight. Wasn't Daddy lucky that the sun just happened to fall in his lap today? He certainly looks pleased about it. :)

We'll keep you all updated as things happen - blog at 'ya later!

My Dream Bedroom

Okay, so begins my dream bedroom. Keep in mind here, that I'm dreaming. Price doesn't really figure into this, neither does general live-ability.

This is the bed I would like to have. Ignore the bedding, it is not important. What is important is the color (espresso) of the wood and the fact that there are sturdy storage drawers underneath. Hello, out of season clothing!

Again, I know that this bed would be trouble to get in/out of (bumped shins and whatnot) and that keeping it made just perfect would be a crazy hassle that I don't need.

BUT LOOK AT IT! IS IT NOT BEAUTIFUL???

And this... this will be what Nathan and I have instead of the nightstands that are pictured above. As cool as it looks, I just can't get behind open front storage - I want to use my nightstand to hold stuff, dude! And the holy grail of furniture buying, the Ultimate Truth that everyone eventually learns, is this: If it is not both beautiful and functional, it has no place in your house. /shrug

That is the end of that. And this is one beautiful nightstand. :)

This lamp does too serve two purposes! It is beautiful, and it gives me light to read by at night! See? I knew you would understand. All is forgiven.

And these, um, they serve a purpose as well... They, well, they... Oh! They will hold my glasses - and also possibly act as a candy dish to hold peppermints or tootsie rolls or something. Yeah! :D

Thought you had me there for a minute, didn't you?

This is the bedding I would love to have. Aren't teal and brown together just luscious? Let me tell you, looking at this bedding, and thinking about the bed frame I showed you earlier, I'm seriously considering making this bed, and then having Nathan and myself sleep under other covers, on top of it, so that it always looks pretty. That's so much better than having to make a bed every morning, right?

I'm still deciding on chairs/rugs/dressers/wall art, etc. And of course, Nathan has a say in everything too (mostly: "Yes dear, if you like it it's fine with me...") so none of this is final. But it's what I would love to have if I could just have nice things. /sigh

Travel Week

With the departure of in-store rush comes my travelling season. This year, instead of starting small and working my way out further, I will be starting as far as I anticipate travelling with this job: Arkansas. I will be leaving early tomorrow morning, making a few stops, and arriving in Little Rock sometime in the late evening (if all goes according to plan).

I find myself nervous about this trip. I will be meeting the biggest of big cheeses in my company and working with him for at least a day, possibly two. A lot of people who were just voices on the end of the phone and text on the IM screen will become real people with faces. Plus, you know, a 10-hour drive. That should be fun.

On the plus side, Chris (my boss) has given me a pretty good list of places to eat for various locations in Arkansas. If you don't see me by next week, it's because I ate too much and got stuck. I'll also try to take some pictures while I'm down there. Keep an eye on my Facebook feed to see my poor attempt at photography. And speaking of, Virginia says she'll be adding pictures to this post later, so you can see me packing and leaving. That's something to look forward to.

He looks a little more optimistic this morning, doesn't he? You might not be able to tell, but I took the 3rd picture because he was waving at me from inside the car.

Have a great trip, Nathan! :) Can't wait to see the sights in Arkansas from your camera! Love!

News

Just a quick note to let all our *cough* many visitors know that Nathan and I have condensed our personal blogs - Coincidental Fishsticks and Just Keep Swimming - into this blog. You can click on the links at the top of the page to get to our personal blog posts.

Enjoy!

Maggie 365

Hello, there! :) In case those viewing this don't already know, this is a take on "Project 365" - which has been adopted by the scrapbooking, blogging, and facebook communities and has become wildly popular all over the web. Basically, you take a picture (or pictures) every day of the year, and post them online - then, after 365 days, you have a photo archive of whatever you've been focusing on that year. With scrapbooking, you not only take the pictures, but at some point later, when you have time (ha, time, that's funny...) you incorporate those pictures into scrapbook pages, so that at the end of the year, you have a scrapbook commemorating whatever you were focusing on that year.

This can be done a variety of ways, and so below, I have answered some questions you may have for me regarding the project.

If this is a year-long project, then why not start on January 1st?

That's a silly question, little goose. The whole point of this project is to take pictures of Maggie, my baby. And she hasn't been born yet. So, instead of going January-January, I'm going birthday-birthday. :)

So what are you doing, exactly?

Well, I am going to post 1 picture of Maggie every day (excluding days when we are in the hospital, so you might get the first 2-5 in one lump post) to this blog. They will all be tagged "Maggie365" - and you can click on the link at the top of the blog to show you a filter page with only those posts (cool, right??)

Why is this going on the family blog?

Well, that is a good question. I suppose, for two reasons. One: Maggie is a part of my family, and so she deserves spotlight time here as much as the rest of us do; and Two: I'm just waaay too lazy to update more than one blog. /shrug.

So, keep an eye out for Maggie 365 - coming to a blog near you as soon as my baby girl is born!!

New Look!

I come before you today with a new blog layout.

Yes, yes, I've done this before. So what's so special about this one, you wonder?

I MADE IT MYSELF!! :D (well, with a little help from Blogger's Template Designer.

I made the graphics for it in PSE7.0, using a scrapbooking mega-kit provided by all the wonderful designers presenting in February 2011's Blog Train on the Blog Train Blog. I made the background, header image, cute little divider, thank you graphic, and email me button all from their amazing contributions! Then, I just tweaked the blog's css and the settings in the Template Designer until I was happy with how it looked. :)

Now that I know how to do this, I betcha this layout lasts until March. Who wants to bet me?