No resolve?

This bright and balmy new year, I've formulated precisely no resolutions. Since I'm nearly positive that I've never actually stuck with a resolution in the past, it doesn't seem like much of a loss. Besides, my resolution is usually to workout and get fit (always with an eye on the scale) - a fitness overhaul type of thing, and something that doesn't exactly mesh with pregnancy. 

I traditionally detest New Year's, as rather than looking forward, I typically look back at all those things I have failed to accomplished in the past year (including my failed resolution). That doesn't make for the happiest of moods. 

Plus, we have a tradition of doing a whole-lot-of-nothing-exciting on New Year's Eve - that is, Brad, my mom, and I sit in her living room watching TV or a movie until about 15 minutes before the countdown when we turn to Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve; rip on the people crowding Times Square ("Why would you ever want to go there?!"); gasp at the inane awfulness of the music being performed (last night we were horrified by Lady Gaga); and then watch the ball drop. 

To be clear, I haven't resolved to not-resolve or anything so hipster as that. It's only that nothing particular springs to mind on this here New Year's Day, perhaps b/c the past few months/weeks/days have been so chaotic that I haven't had 35 seconds to even think in peace and silence. 

And believe me, it's not like there aren't areas in which I could use some improving - there are aplenty. I can think of a number of proclamations I could (and possibly should) be making. For instance: 

Write more fiction. 
Read more. 
Be less judgmental. 
Go to church more. 
Keep a cleaner house. 
Learn to meditate. 

These are all good resolutions, and they're all things I want to do. 

Even so, I haven't been bitten by the resolution bug for whatever reason. (I don't think I made any resolutions last year either.) In the face of my 2012 non-resolution-ness, I think maybe I'll just keep an open mind and try to work daily on improvement. Whatever that means at a given moment, even if it's something small. 

So, if "improving in general" counts as a legit, true-blue resolution, then call me resolved. If not, well, then that's okay, too.

Prizefighter?

Or maybe MMA star? No - neither. I don't like violence. At least not when someone I know is involved and Bruce Willis isn't kicking butt on the TV screen. 

So, let's just go with a little busy-body who I can finally feel kicking/punching in my belly! 

That's right, the little guy made himself unmistakably known Tuesday at 3:30 in the morning when, for an hour, he plunked and thunked me in the side. It was so irresistably sweet! I even woke Brad up, and he could feel the big ones! 

A few days before Christmas, I thought I was maybe feeling something for a few minutes, but it didn't last long and it was slight, so I couldn't be sure. But Tuesday and since then, I have been certain - sometimes you can even see what looks like a heartbeat in my belly when he gives a good strong kick! 

Next on the list: start showing for real, instead of only after I've eaten (when, believe you me, it's very obvious that I'm pregnant). 

Nothing Can Ever Be Simple; or, Displaced Persons

That, I believe, is a fitting motto for Christmas Break 2011 - however, right now I'm only talking about the floor re-finishing project, AKA, the Winter Headache '11. 

The plan was (relatively) simple, especially given all the alternatives we had laboriously considered: 

1.  12-22 - have the floor professionally sanded on 12-22 while we are out of the house for the morning/afternoon; 
2.  12-23 - Brad and my mom apply two coats of stain over the course of the morning and afternoon, while I hang out downstairs and away from staining smells; 
3.  12-24 - Brad and my mom apply polyurethane coat #1, then Brad and I vacate the house for the holiday (to my parents' house) until late on the 26th; 
4.  12-29 - Brad and my mom apply poly coat #2 in the a.m., then Brad and I go to WV for the Christmas celebration with his family and eventually head back to my parents' house through the New Year; 
5.  12-31 - Brad and my mom apply the 3rd and final coat of poly in the a.m. Then it's done! 

Numero uno went great, and it only took the floor guy about 4 and a half hours from start to finish. 

Look at those bare oak beauties! 

But, of course, we didn't even get all the way through #2 without a problem: the stain reeked, and I had to get out of there all afternoon; then after they did the second coat, we packed up in a jiff and went to stay at my parents' house a day early. 

Fine. No biggie. Except when Brad and my mom went over on the morning of Christmas Eve (boo! Who wants to do work on Christmas Eve?!), the second coat of stain was not completey dry despite having 17 hours. The first coat was dry after 4 hours, so we figured 4 times that (the can says 4-6 hrs.) was sufficient even in non-ideal conditions (i.e., December in Southwestern PA). Wrong. 

They hung out for two hours with the heat jacked and a fan blowing, but still it would not dry. And putting poly on a not-completely-dried floor is just asking for problems. So they returned, and step #3 got moved to the afternoon of the 26th, when all went well. Thankfully. 

Brad and I went back to our abode about 24 hours later, however - really needing some in-our-own-space time - and this time the house smelled of polyurethane. We opened windows everywhere except for the nursery (despite rain), jacked the heat (again), and went out for a bit. But when we returned: no dice. It wasn't an awful smell, especially in the living room where I was - in fact, I could barely tell there was anything still lingering - but Brad the bloodhound could smell it, so we left for baby safety's sake. 

Thus, just 5 hours after having packed up everything we brought to my parents' house (and we do not travel lightly) and driving 45 minutes home, we turned around, drove back, and unpacked it all. I thought I was going to flip both my lid and Brad's lid and the lid of anyone else within my sight. I was sooooo exhausted, and I felt like a displaced person traveling around with pillows and blankets and Target bags filling the back seat of my car. 

We're not getting the 3 days at of rest and recuperation at home that we had planned on in b/t the holidays, and the sleeping arrangements here are NOT long-term solutions - by the end of this project, we'll have been holed up at my parents' house for TEN DAYS! (Yes, I consider ten days "long-term" in this situation.) Hopefully in about a week, though, this will all have been worth it, and I'll have some lovely fabulous wonderful great pictures of the floor to post. Brad and my mom got coat #2 on successfully this morning, and their plan is to head back Friday morning to finish this dang thing. 

With any luck, we'll be back in our smell-free house by Monday night and my mom can reclaim her living room from our computers/cups/Netflix and her upstairs from our, well, everything else. And, hopefully, the cats won't be too mad at us for our extended absence - we've loved them up during our near-daily visits back to the homestead.

Oh, Charlie Brown

I didn't watch the movie this year, but I saw the commercial a few times tonight, and something Linus says is just cracking me up: 

"Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem." 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I love it. Surely we all know that person . . . . 

Oh, and Merry Christmas (a day late)! 

We're Having a B-to-the-O-Y!

And he wouldn't sit still so the whole process took an hour and 45 minutes (!) and then the radiologist wanted to see some things for himself b/c this kid was being ob-sti-nate and giving the sonographer a hard time but then the doc said everything looks good and to keep doing what I've been doing!

Oh and he weighs 10 ounces :). (Which is just silly cute.) And he let us know within the first ten minutes that he was a little boy, haha. 

Plus he's like as low in my abdomen as could possibly be, thus making things even more difficult. My back was killing me the whole time and she was pressing and jabbing and poking to try to get a look at him and I was like barely holding back a yowl. I'm pretty much sensing he does things his own way - like his mom :). 

Oh, plus he kept opening up and closing his mouth, and right at the end of the ultrasound he yawned! It was nuts! (I was pretty worn out by that point, too, so I don't blame him.) 

Any day now I should start feeling all that crazy movement . . . and even a somersault or two - the sonographer saw him do one!

Hired Gun

For as much as I like to do things on my own and for as handy as I consider myself to be, sometimes it pays to know when to bring in the pros. Which is exactly what we're doing for the soon-to-be-nursery floor tomorrow circa 9 a.m. 

This floor has been causing not a few headaches. It needs to be refinished in the worst way. Not only is it 1960s orange, but it's got a host of black splotches and gouges and random bits of carpet padding/glue stuck to it. 

You mean your husband doesn't use various saws to 
cut apart an old desk as a means of furniture removal? 

Until yesterday, however, I had way way more questions than answers regarding this whole refinishing business: like, when is Brad's dad off work so he can help Brad sand it, and how many days is it going to take? Will my mom and Brad be able to stain the floor (2 coats) the next day? Apply the poly (3 coats) the day after that? And, in the process, how long am I (we) going to be displaced from my home? 

It's been unduly frustrating to me that this huge project needs to happen without me having my hand in it; but floor sanding, staining, and polyurethaning - like almost everything else in the world, I swear - are no-nos for the pregnant chick. And being in the vicinity of the sanding dust and the poly fumes is likewise off-limits. 

Which means all I can do is plan and direct beforehand (and then cross my fingers and hope for the best - eeks!). And sit at my parents' house and twiddle my thumbs. (Alright, there are other things I can do there, but still.) 

Then enter Brad's tennis/golfer's elbow and the chiropractor's warning that manuevering that big sander could irritate things a lot. I was at the point of giving up - and had just about decided to switch rooms for the nursery to a room with a floor we'd already done - when I had a brilliant idea: 

Call around and see what someone would charge just to sand the floor. 

Brad resisted ("it'll be too expensive"), but I persisted, and he made the calls yesterday. And the happy news turned out to be that a nearish-by floor guy is available tomorrow and agreed to do the sanding for $160 - plus he can do the whole room (with the closet) in about 6 hours. 

This is a steal considering that renting the big sander from Lowe's for two days (which is how long we figured it would take) and buying all the necessary sandpaper (for the big one and the random orbital palm sander that you need for the edges and corners) and tack cloth, etc. would cost approx. $100. 

So, for $60, Brad gets two days of his life back and doesn't hurt his arm; I get to stay in my house an extra two nights (since this guy will have all the dust cleaned up by the time he leaves tomorrow afternoon); and we don't have to work around Brad's dad's work schedule. My mom'll be over early on Friday so they can start the staining, and then early on Christmas Eve so they can get down at least the first coat of poly. It's the first coat that's so crucial to do ASAP - to ensure that the floor's grain doesn't raise too much - so if they get no further than that on Saturday, it's no big deal for them to do the remaining two after Christmas. 

I'm the first person to try to do stuff on my own to save a buck. But this time, it just made sense call in a pro and get 'er done.

The Vote Is (Mostly) In

So in the will-it-be-a-boy-or-a-girl-sweepstakes - which will hopefully be decided tomorrow morning :) - the votes have been counted . . . 

6 : 3 in favor of . . . 

No matter what, I hate the color pink 

a girl! 

My mother is still being obstinate and wavering back and forth (how dare she!), but Brad, Amanda, our chiropractor, the two receptionists who work at his office, and Diplo have all come down on the side of a girl, while Jo, Shannon, and Brad's office mate are guessing a boy. 

None of these guesses is even remotely scientific - nor are they based even remotely on old wives' tales. Shannon had a dream that we had a little boy and nicknamed him "Ogdus" (haha), so she's guessing boy. Everyone at the chiro's office can picture me and Brad with a little girl so they're going with girl. 

Last time we were at the OB, baby's heartbeat was 140 bpm - so the old wives' tale that says above 140 and it's a girl/below 140 and it's a boy seems not to be working here . . . . 

I've officially got no feeling one way or the other, but I sure hope this baby isn't stubborn tomorrow!