Packing Up Is Hard To Do

Well. I'm getting there. Slowly, but getting there.

I have gone through all of the storage closet off of the kid's bedroom and have taken some of those things to the thrift shop and some of them to the dump. I've packed up about 8 or 10 boxes this week so far. I'm hoping for a few more tomorrow. I have been finding myself extremely tired over the past couple of days. I just get exhausted by around 2pm. I'm going to have to go to bed early tonight and see if that helps tomorrow. And after all the cleaning on Sunday and Monday, the house has gone to pot again. :) I just can't keep up. I knew these 5:30 mornings were going to be hard. And I even had Mike get the kids ready this morning... so I slept til 8:30, but am still exhausted.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though, given that I'm 32 weeks pregnant, planning for a move, and packing up boxes, but it's still annoying to feel so limited.

But overall, things are looking pretty good. The termite inspector is coming on Friday morning to check things out. I imagine that will go fairly well. Mike and I are going to rent a storage unit next week and start hauling boxes over there that we won't unpack until we get to Texas. So that should help me get a better feel for what I have left. We're also going to start working on the attic next week. That will be fun. See what useless things we have up there!

32 Weeks (Yesterday)

So yesterday was my 32 week mark. I went to the doctor and everything looked good. I've decided to add a belly measurement (around my used to be waist) to my statistics just for record keeping. So:

Weight gain: 15lbs
Baby's Heart Rate: 140
Belly Measurement: 37"

Only eight more weeks to go. I think with all that's going on around here, I'm really glad that I have those eight weeks. I don't think I'm ready to have this baby yet. Hopefully I will be when the time comes, but for now, I'm glad that she's safely tucked away inside me.

First Day of School

It starts... 5:30 wake up times, packing lunches, soon... homework, and did I mention early wake up times? The first day is the easiest. Everyone is excited a little bit about the change. The next few days aren't too bad, but then the drudgery sets in and it gets really hard to drag yourself out of bed in the morning.

I made the lunches last night... a pattern I hope to continue since it will make the mornings a little easier when there's a baby in tow. I also had lots of other cleaning to catch up on yesterday... I think I did 5 loads of laundry. I wanted to make sure the kids had their choice of clothes to wear today. And I did 2 loads of dishes. I've just been slacking off on the day to day stuff since we've started thinking about packing up the house. I guess I'm going to have to find the balance over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it will be easier, though, now that the kids will be in school. But I'll have to have everything packing wise done by 2:30pm so that I can help with homework and make dinner and clean up from dinner and all that good stuff each evening.

Makes me ready to go back to bed and it's not even 6am yet. :)

Moving Thoughts

You probably already know that we sold our house. Craziness. The only people who came to look at it bought it. Our closing date is set for September 26th.

I am happy with our decision to stay in NC until Thanksgiving weekend. It will be a bit of a hassle to find a 2 month lease, but I think the kids will appreciate the additional time here and I'm glad to be able to continue on with the doctors here and have the baby here. Moving at 37 weeks pregnant just doesn't seem like a great idea, I guess.

So... We have 13 boxes packed so far. :) I'm going to try to pack about three or four boxes a day during the week and Mike and I will work on projects during the evenings. This week our project is the garage. We've been in this house for 8 1/2 years. That's a long time to accumulate junk. I'm actually pretty good about keeping junk to a minimum, but there's always lots of stuff in our garage. So we started on that today. We chipped away at things here and there, but we'll see how it turns out. Mostly we'll be keeping tools and toys that are out there. Not a whole lot else. I'll be selling the shelves if I can and we'll give away a bunch of stuff.

So once that project is done (hopefully by next weekend), we'll start on the attic. Lots of things up there that need to be sold/donated as well. But aside from those two storage areas, we really don't have that much stuff in our house. (Okay... I'll eat those words when I have to pack it all up.) But really, the kids rooms are fairly bare. Our closet is filled with mostly junk... another project. And we have the food storage... but we don't have a lot of stuff in the house, so that's a good thing.

So we're hoping a 24' or 26' truck will cover us. We may have to get rid of some stuff to make it work, but I'm okay with that. :)

And the kids start school on Monday. That should help me in my efforts to get some packing done each day.

Now what I need is for someone to come and cook and do laundry... I haven't been keeping up with those things the past several days. Maybe the kids being in school will help with that a bit, too.

Electricity: Good

Yesterday around 5pm, with some minor storm rumblings still miles away, our power went out. It seemed a bit weird given that there was no lightening to be seen and the thunder was obviously far away. And even weirder when I noticed that the neighbor caddy corner from us still had power.

I was just grateful that I had decided to cook dinner a bit early and it had been done for about 10 or 15 minutes by the time the power went out.

After a while, some of the neighbors down the street from us got their power back. Later, we saw some of the power company trucks driving back and forth and back and forth... hmmmm, that didn't seem good.

Turns out that by around 7 or 8pm, there were only 7 houses without power. (Aren't we lucky?) Us and Derrick (next door to us) on our street and the other five were in the culdesac across the street.

Well... time went on and more and more power people were in the neighborhood. We saw three guys walking down the street, then up again and one of them was telling his dispatcher person to cancel the order... they needed more cable than they had, or something... Mike decided to set up the tent in the front yard since it was cooler outside and since it seemed fairly clear that the fix wasn't going to be happening any time too soon.

So, the tent went up with the help of a bored, powerless neighbor who had too much coffee earlier in the evening. :) And the kids went to sleep in there. I slept in my bed (easier to sleep hot than 31 weeks pregnant on the ground!). The power company people were out in the culdesac working on whatever was wrong until about 6:30 this morning. The power came on at 5:30am. I told Mike last night that I would have taken them something during the night, but I didn't have any power to fix anything!

So we're back to normal today. It was a little adventure that hopefully won't happen again too soon. Although it was nice to see the kids playing outside for an extended time rather than trying to beat the Zelda game they've been working on for a couple of weeks!

And as for me, I've been revisited by the early pregnancy nausea. I ate a banana at church yesterday and thought I was going to puke a few minutes later. And today I got hungry, but felt too sick to eat. I had to force myself once I started getting shaky. So... looks like lots of fun from here on out. Only two more months. Seems like both forever and right around the corner...

Zach the Amazing Pet Sitter

Earlier this year Zach asked me to help him make some fliers that he could pass out around the neighborhood for a pet sitting business that he wanted to start. So we typed up some of his experience and put a picture of him on the flier (and one of Kory, our cat).

Not too long after, one of our neighbors asked Zach to care for their pets while they were away. Zach was in charge of feeding the cats and watering the plants. Then he got asked by another neighbor and is doing the same for them this week. So by the end of the summer, Zach will have earned $50 pet/plant sitting. Not bad for an 11 yr old kid with about 15 fliers.

30 Weeks! (And a great quilt)

So here I am at 30 weeks. I've grown a good little bit. I went to the doctor today and have gained 13lbs. Her heart rate was 147 today. She tried jumping out of my stomach completely when the doctor put the doppler on my stomach. She never has liked that little device.

I'm feeling pregnant lately. But nothing that is bothersome yet. I try to remain focused on the fact that I'm about to have a daughter and complaining about things just doesn't seem necessary. :)

And last week Kristin gave me the quilt that she and her mom made for me. It's really pretty. I like it a lot. I can't wait to wrap my little cutie up in it.

74 Days!?!

Ack! I was just looking through my blog and at the bottom of the page is the little baby widget thing and it says I have 74 days left. I know I only have two and a half months... but 74 days... that's seems nuts.

I'm going tonight to register at Target and Walmart for the two showers that I'm supposed to be given. I have never registered anywhere ever. It will be interesting. I'm not a happy shopper, so I hope I don't get too stressed out doing it. And I haven't really even sat down to think about what I do or don't need. I guess I should, though, since I only have 74 days!

Beach Vacation

A little stress and a lot of fun. That's how I would describe the week at the beach with Mike's family. We had an amazing house right on the beach that was just perfect for our group. The teenagers spent a LOT of time in the theater room. By the end of the week, though, the ladies had begun to take over to watch some Jane Austen/Elisabeth Gaskell films. Much to the teenager's dismay, I'm sure. :)

There was also tons of great food and lots of great people to spend time with. The older cousins bonded and the little cousins played. It was just a great week.

And of course, there was lots of ocean and pool time. A nearby nest of sea turtles hatched while we were there and most of us got to see at least a few of the 102 cuties make their way down the beach.

And we managed to get a pretty good group picture.


Nice family.