I wish...

I wish I could figure out how to link this blog to my gmail account, or something. I am usually logged in to my gmail. Problem is that my gmail account is not the primary email on this blog and apparently I can't change it to the primary. So I have to log out of my email when I log in here. Doesn't make it easy for my to type out my ramblings. So I guess I'm going to have to either deal with it or go to a new blog. New blog it is. Off to figure out a URL for it and start it.

Operation: Declutter

I've always heard people say they need to declutter and thought hey, I can do that. I would go through the house, throw away garbage, stick a bunch of random junk laying around into boxes, stow it away, and call the house decluttered. I'm realizing now that I was completely incorrect. All that does is shift the clutter. When you move, all that clutter gets brought out and dumped on you all at once. That would be precicely why in the year we lived in Michigan, I didn't unpack probably 1/3 of the boxes that were there. Now we're back into our familiar house, where I accumulated the vast majority of the clutter, and I need to get rid of it before we move again. We're thinking that will be in 2 years. I don't plan to hold on to the clutter that long, though, so I'm aiming for 1/1/11 to have it done.

Since admitting it is the first step to recover, here goes: I'm Tiffany and I'm a borderline hoarder.

Step two is to determine the pathology of the illness. As with most things in life, I look at genetics. My mom has always been the type of person who doesn't throw things away. I'm sure she must have gotten rid of our baby clothes, because I don't think they're anywhere in the house. In High School I was the same size as her so we just shared clothes. I think she has most of those clothes still. The other day she came over wearing a sweater that I think I had my freshman year of HS. That would make it 16 years old. You can just imagine the sheer amount of clothes that woman has. She also never threw away things like sour cream containers. That didn't mean she didn't have Tupperware and other storage containers. In some ways it was nice. If we (or anyone she knew) needed a costume for something, up to the attic she went to get them down. And I pitied my friends who had only 1 or 2 swimsuits. I didn't understand why anyone would do that. I could have several friends over and we'd have extra suits for anyone who needed them. This is fine if you intend to live in a house for over 30 years, as my parents did. If my mom ever had to move, I think I'd be working or on vacation because it would be really hard for her to get everything packed up and moved. Not to mention she'd need a few 48 foot semi trucks.

I am working on letting go of things. Last year when we moved back to WI, I had to get rid of a lot. The patio set, outdoor swing, the first kitchen table set we bought, 10 totes (18 gallon) of baby clothes, books, furniture...lots of things I had to get over the "maybe I'll need it someday" and just embrace that one less box to pack up. I have looked for a few things (girlie receiving blankets. I never thought I'd be having another baby so soon and I'm sad I don't have Cadence's blankets now) and we do have to replace the outdoor furniture, but what we had didn't work the greatest anyway, so that's okay. I'm learning that letting go is okay.

I cleaned out the under the stairs closet and organized the art supplies under there. There are lots of empty shelves left, which is great. I started trying to work on baby clothes, but since those are housed in the attic it's tough. I obviously got out the baby girl clothes that we'll need for the next few months. I also gave away the 0-3, 3-6, and 6-9 month baby bly clothes to my friend Trixie's daughter Erin for the baby boy she'll be having sometime before October. I'm working on our room. We have an abundance of towels, lots of sheet sets, kids' too small clothes that never got into the attic bins, things we confiscated from the kids. No wonder our room is always a disaster area.

I'm very excited to go through and purge as much as I can bear. We have tons of kitchen stuff that I really need to say "will I ever use this?" If the answer is "probably not", away it will go.

I'd love to get the house finished by the 1 year mark of us living here, but with Lauren wanting to be held, Cadence making messes quicker than I can clean them, and homeschooing Tevin starting in September, I very well might need those extra few months. Simple(r) life, here I come!

The final stretch

We are in the final stretch of pregnancy, and I'm definitely feeling it. At my OB appointment last week, she confirmed what my wonderful husband feels the need to tell me every day...I'm huge. Not just gaining a lot of weight (which, sadly, I am) but my uterus is measuring large. What does that mean? Well, it means that we get to have 1 more chance to get those cute ultrasound pictures and try to convince the little bugger to show us the goods. We have very few ultrasound pictures, and I think the best ones are actually from our 9 week ultrasound. What we're hoping not to see is too much amniotic fluid. I'm sure we're also looking for the baby to not be growing at a crazy rate. Ideally, we will go to the ultrasound and see that we have the right amount of amniotic fluid, Baby is measuring a great size (and it would be lovely to see some little boy parts), and positioned head down. We will see next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I am 35 weeks and a couple days at this point. I keep getting the feeling that this baby wants out. I'm having some contractions which aren't nearly as fun as they sound. I've been avoiding walking long distances and spending a lot of time on the couch. I feel constantly tired. My belly feels much larger than it has with any of the other pregnancies and like it might burst at any point. I'm having problems finding a good position to sleep in. Last night, I would find a position that felt comfortable and then 2 minutes later I would feel like something was cutting off blood flow to somewhere so I'd have to move. The baby hates anything touching my belly, so I have taken to wearing mumus around the house (in reality, I'm wearing a long, flowy dress most of the time but it might as well be a mumu). I'm throwing up roughly half of what I eat and the only reason it's not more is that I just don't feel like eating much. I have fainted twice during this pregnancy and at least a few times a week it feels like I'm going to again. I can't bend over due to the aforementioned HUGE belly. I'm irritable, compounded by the fact that my mind is telling me to nest nest nest and my body is saying no no no.

So. Final stretch. I'm trying not to complain too much. I have had a fairly easy pregnancy. I've gained more weight than I'm personally comfortable with, but it's still within the guidelines. (alright, I'll 'fess up: 27 pounds) My blood pressure and blood sugar are fine. I've had some swelling the last few days, but it's been in the high 80's. Who wouldn't swell when they're walking around stores not drinking water? Here's a picture from today. All belly:

Tasty boy

This morning was one of the most interesting I've had in awhile. At 6:45, I woke up to Sasha yipping. 90 pound dogs don't yip often. She woofs, but this was a different sound. I was kind of hoping she'd just stop, as I had 15 minutes before I had to get up. She didn't. So I opened my bedroom door and she came bounding upstairs. I pet her for awhile. She tried to pet me back. That is a really annoying habit she has. She's very demanding when it comes to attention. She will paw at you and kind of take your hand in her mouth to move it where she wants it to be. I'll have to ask next week at training how we might stop that.

A few minutes later, I heard quiet screaming (yes, I know, that's an oxymoron. Not sure how else to describe it) and then a weird sound that was like sobbing. Thoughts ran through my mind and I hesitated to even come downstairs and look. I did, though, as sometimes sooner is a better time to see these things than later.

I was greeted by my daughter on the floor of her room giggling hysterically. My son was up in her bed also giggling. Apparently he had gone in to her room to sleep with her around 5:30 (when Matt leaves for work) and in getting out of bed, she had sort of tumbled off her ladder and into her hamper, then some other things I couldn't understand.

They were in a fabulous mood (thank goodness for happy Monday after spring break mornings) and got dressed without a problem. I went back to my room to lay down, accompanied by the big dog. Once Tevin was dressed, he followed me. Sasha started doing her puppy "pet me, pet me, pet me" thing. The next conversation left me giggling. :)

Tevin: "Mom, she's trying to eat me."

Me: "No, Son, she wants you to pet her."

Tevin: "Okay. I'm petting her and she's still doing it."

Me: "I don't know. Maybe you're tasty."
Tevin: "Sasha, I'm a boy. Dogs don't taste boys."

He was having an especially sweet morning, though. If all mornings could be like this, I probably wouldn't hate them so much.

Prenatals are kind of pointless

I have never really minded going to the doctor. I don't really recall going for anything other than illness and sports and camp physicals. No white coat syndrome here. I even loved going to the dentist. (They gave me a new toothbrush, awesome floss, and a little toy. Like a pencil. I still like a good pencil.) But lately going to the doctor has taken on a whole new meaning. I have to step on the scale.

The scale and I have not been on great terms for 10 years now. Before that we just ignored each other for the most part. After pregnancy #1 which I gained 50 pounds, took 30 off at delivery, and then put that back on with a few more, I have really not liked weighing myself. The next 2 pregnancies weren't bad. I lost a lot in the first tri. Didn't gain much overall. However, the doctor appointments always kind of bugged me. With #2, I was doing a VBAC. I was always kind of nervous about what silliness would come about at the appointments. With #3, I had successfully VBAC'ed once, so I figured it would be a breeze. I ended up in all out war with my OB and switched OB's late in the game.

This time I am back with my awesome OB that I finished my last pregnancy with. She is very accommodating to all of my requests. Right now I'm dealing with sticking myself several times a day to appease those who must be assured that I don't have gestational diabetes. I'm confident that won't be a fight at all, since the numbers are wonderful. The number that is *not* wonderful, however, is the aforementioned number on the scale. I should give myself credit. At my last appointment, 22 weeks into this pregnancy, I was still even from pre-pregnancy. I didn't even lose that much in the first tri. I would kind of bounce around the same weight. In the 5 weeks since I've seen her, though, I've put on at least 10 pounds. It's actually probably closer to 15. *blush* I keep telling myself that only 15 pounds at 27 weeks really isn't that bad. Gaining it all in 5 weeks is not good, though. I know where it comes from. I have a serious Coke/Pepsi addiction. And a severe aversion to water. Part of the water thing comes from the fact that if I drink it too late in the afternoon/evening, I might as well just sleep in the bathroom for as many times as I have to get up during the night. A bigger part of it is that I just don't like the taste of it. And I'm not really thirsty. I drink the cola more for the caffeine, the taste, and to drag my blood sugar out of the gutter if I haven't felt like eating. Unfortunately, I have felt like eating. A lot. I've given up cute phrases like "the baby wants..." because really, I can admit that the sour patch kids are for me.

My prediction for my prenatal visit in 1.5 hours is that I go in, get weighed, feel nauseous, Matt will hop on the scale to make me feel better but it will be less than me now and it will NOT make me feel better. The doc will come in, say be lovely and wonderful, tell me I look great but comment briefly on my weight gain. We will listen to heartbeat which will sound great. We will talk about my at-home blood sugar testing. We will the talk about the follow-up ultrasound scheduled for next Monday. I will make some comment about how exiting my 20's is really making me feel old. She will float off to her next patient and I will silently resolve to NOT gain another 15 pounds before my next visit. Then I will come home and eat a Kit Kat. Just to make myself feel better.

This is probably my last pregnancy, though, so I should be eating what I want and just dieting longer afterward...right?

And in other non-dog news...

We officially own more computers than pets. And there are an equal number of pets and computers that actually work. *blush*

We have had an HP desktop for years. I think this thing is 6 or 7 years old. It's pretty slow, crammed with a lot of junk, and fairly unreliable. When I was in school after I had Tevin, we bought an HP laptop. That started not working so well maybe 3 years ago. We bought another HP laptop because it was a great deal at Wal-Mart. In retrospect, not a great deal, but at the time it was. Very shortly after we bought laptop #2 and external hard drive #1, laptop #1 took its' final breath and is now resting in peace...somewhere in the house. We weren't using the desktop and I don't exactly remember the details of it, but we became the owners of a Dell laptop. Time frame for laptops #2 and #3 were close. Laptop #2 is running Vista on 1Gb of RAM. Laptop #3 is running XP on 2Gb of RAM, I think.

So...with Matt back in school now, he expressed a desire to get a Netbook. His reasoning was sound. Compact, inexpensive, he's able to slip it in his bag and bring it to school to take notes on and take it to work with him. I liked the idea of having a computer with a functioning webcam installed. Since we got a PHENOMENAL deal on the kids' swingset, we had lots of tax return money left over. So, we ordered him his Netbook. It came today. It's cute. :)

If you're actually keeping track, that makes 5 computers, 4 of which are functioning. No, we didn't get rid of a pet. We still have 5. Yesterday, Matt texted me from work to tell me that they had a "can't pass up" deal. It's a monster laptop. We've always said that when the desktop retired, we would get a laptop and just station it on the desk. This laptop just screamed "buy me" to us. It is a 17" HP (hiss boo, I really hate HP, but this deal...) running Vista (again, boo, but we can get the Windows 7 upgrade dirt cheap through school) with 4Gb RAM, a 500Gb hard drive, a blueray lightscribe drive, an HDMI output, a webcam, and a FULL keyboard. Including 10 key! He couldn't buy it until today since it was marked UNDER $400 yesterday. When he got to work today, it was still there and he was able to buy it. His co-worker Chester is jealous.

Under $700 for a Netbook and a Laptop. As much as I can complain about spending that much money, at least now I can smack him if he even starts looking at computers again for years to come.

Remember the movie Beethoven?

I have officially recorded it on my DVR and have to watch it regularly to remind myself that St. Bernards are great dogs and someday she might save my child from a swimming pool.

Sasha is SUCH a puppy. She's really your standard 9 month old puppy. Playful, adorable, and sassy. She has a tendency to chew on things once in awhile, if she can't find her bone. She will flop herself down on the floor if we're trying to guide her somewhere. The other day we came home from the store and discovered it had snowed in our dining room. Okay, so it wasn't snow. It was a bag of poly fill I had just bought. Apparently she was helping us free the poly fill from that evil bag that was holding it hostage. And then yesterday morning in the 5 minutes I was gone getting the babysitter, she also freed the new potting soil I had bought. Again, all over my dining room. Maybe she wanted to remind me that it's spring and we have moved from snow to dirt.

*chanting I love my puppy, I love my puppy, I love my puppy*

Oh, and 4 foot fences really aren't a challenge for a giant dog. She just kind of hops over it. She had been getting out a hole in the gate until we fixed that. Now we have the pleasure of investing some money and a lot of time to put a 3 foot rabbit fence on the top of the fence. It's working well on the 50 feet of fence Matt put it on one side of the yard. Not so much on the other side. We did find her weakness, though. She loves cheese By treating her with cheese, we pretty much have her (warning: bad pun alert) following us around like a puppy dog and eating out of our hands. So, I grab a piece of string cheese and follow her when she escapes. I just rip off a piece, toss it at her, and when she realizes I have cheese, she is there. Then I can put a leash on her and drag her back to the house. Training class signups are tomorrow. We think she is very trainable. She's smart and food-motivated. She's just such a puppy!

I remember when Casey was this age. I wanted to get rid of him. All the time. And now, 7 years later, he's the best dog. I can NOT wait 7 years, but I'll give her a chance to calm down and learn to be a good puppy. I really hope she decides to do this sometime before she hits 100 pounds. Wrestling is fun. Wrestling with a monster puppy at 5am when Matt leaves the house isn't quite as fun.

Why yes, we are insane. Why do you ask?

Okay, let's do a living being check for our house...there would be the humans: Matt, me, Samantha, Tevin, Cadence, and our new addition TBA in June. Then there's the cats: Shasta, Emmie, and Chewbacca. And finally the dogs: Casey and, as of last night, Sasha.

Who is Sasha, you might ask? Well, Sasha would be the most adorable St. Bernard ever. She is 8 months old and as of last night she is the newest member of our family. Just look at this face:

See those beautiful eyes? The ones that look straight into your soul and say "love me"? Anyone who knows me is not going to believe me when I say that while those eyes were a big reason we added about 65 pounds (and growing rapidly) of new fur to our home, they weren't the biggest reason. I will admit, for as long as I can remember I have wanted a St. Bernard. I have said "I WILL have a St. Bernard someday." I can't say that I really believed that yesterday was going to be that day, but it was. It was kind of a fluke that we got her. I have been glancing at Craigslist off and on for a few months now. We met a cute 11 week old St. Bernard (who we privately named Bernie) last summer at the Humane Society in Muskegon. We had just gotten rid of Baxter, our Beagle. We could see that Casey was lonely and wanted a friend. We brought Casey and the kids to meet Bernie and we all fell in love. I did tons of research. The mean lady at the Humane Society said no, she wouldn't let us adopt him because we didn't live on an acre of land or more. We tried to plea to her, showing her research that as long as you exercise the dog regularly, which you absolutely HAVE to with a St. Bernard, they would be fine even in an apartment. She was hearing none of it. We were upset. I didn't think Matt had any great desire for a St. Bernard, but every once in awhile he would mention that he really wishes we would have gotten Bernie.

Yesterday, I was talking to our babysitter about her new little black lab puppy. I said something to the effects of "I really don't miss the puppy days. Some day I intend to get a St. Bernard, but I don't see a whole lot of them up for adoption." She said "oh, there was one listed on Craigslist just this week." When I got home, I looked. Sure enough, someone was advertising a 7 month old St. Bernard puppy. (The previous owner's math isn't great. She was born 6/9/09, making her 8 months, but that's not terribly important) I mentioned it to Matt and he asked for the number to call and get details. He was told that her name was Sasha and the owner just didn't have the time to work on training her not to jump on people. She had gotten her from Pennsylvania in August. She loves her and is sad to get rid of her, but knows that Sasha deserves a better life. Sasha has been around other dogs, a cat, and a baby around the same age as Cadence. There was someone coming that night to look at her. Matt said okay, we'll call tomorrow to see if it worked out with them or not. We discussed it and if they took her, we were okay with it. It wasn't meant to be. Fine.

Matt called yesterday afternoon. The other people didn't show or even call. Did we want to go look at her? Um...yes! We set up to go see her last night at 6:30. My mom was coming to watch the kids, and not bringing them with would help a LOT. We wouldn't have to make our decision based on their attachment. If we didn't think it was going too work out 100%, we could go home and not even tell the kids we had gone to see her. We made a pro/con list...a very long one. We very logically decided that if she had all the qualities we were looking for, the pros outweighed the cons. Matt wanted her to have nice "St. Bernard coloring". We both obviously wanted her to have a great temperment. We had been told she was AKC registered, and it was a nice thought that we might be able to breed her someday, but that wasn't a huge concern of ours.

We got to the house a bit late, and as we pulled in my mom called. She said "you're not going to look at a St. Bernard, are you?" I know that my mom doesn't want us to have another animal. She doesn't want us to have any animals. Or children, for that matter. She wasn't happy or congratulatory about this pregnancy, so it doesn't really surprise me that she hated the idea of us getting another dog. Especially a St. Bernard. Even though all the experts say that they are great family dogs, she believes that they aren't. I didn't like the thought that she was going to be mad at us, but we have been trying to make our own decisions and live our own lives. We appreciate her insight and everything she does for us, but at some point we need to do what we think is best, whether it ends up being right or not.