Life as LawWife

We've now entered a fun part of pregnancy. I'm officially irritable. All.the.time. You may call me Grumpy McGrumperson. I'm sure I've earned it. D told me the other day when I was driving (my own car!) that I was muttering at other drivers. And I guess that I'm probably muttering something about something or someone nearly all the time. One of my pregnancy books says that I'm probably oversensitive at this point. Ya think?!

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We finally have a car that's just for baby and me. We've been a one-car household for the entire length of our seven-year marriage. I hardly know what to do with myself now that I can just go somewhere if I choose to. Our "new" (it's an '06) car is significantly safer than our other car, and I feel a lot more comfortable that the baby will be riding in it.

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We have less than two weeks until baby is full term, less than five weeks until the "due date" (what a crock of an idea, that a baby will come on a specific date!), and less than seven weeks until baby is officially late (42 weeks). We've finished most of what needs to be done to welcome our little guy into our lives, though a few things remain on my lists (yes, plural). Overall, though, he can come when ready and in the appropriate position. We can certainly take care of him! All along I've been praying for him to be in the correct position, for my body to function properly for labor & delivery, and for breastfeeding to be successful. I don't suppose I'm asking for too much.

The postman came to the door (ringing twice) this afternoon, bearing packages. As he handed them to me, he said, "It's like Christmas!" Now, some of them are for my friend in the UK who couldn't get them shipped directly to her. But this place has been package central all week. Let me count the ways.

• We got a replacement DVR from Dish Network, since ours bit the dust last week. Yes, we had to watch tv like the common horde all weekend. It was torture. And as soon as I see the UPS guy, I have to give him back the defective DVR. Somehow he got away today w/out knocking or ringing the bell.
  
• We got two packages from D's work incentive program (employees get points that can be redeemed for stuff, like my brand new Cuisinart blender!). One more is coming.
• My friend in the UK is having four packages sent here. Three of them arrived today.
• I got a couple of maternity items from Old Navy. Hooray for exercise shorts that don't cut off circulation.
• I got a package from Sephora, that haven of beauty stuff.
  
• The elusive parts for our crib arrived from Canada yesterday.
• We got some books and a prenatal exercise DVD from Barnes & Noble.
• Last Saturday, we got some diapers that we'll try on little J when he outgrows his newborn ones.

As if that weren't enough, we also had our brand new washer & dryer delivered and installed this morning. What makes this most like Christmas is that I couldn't sleep last night, just like I do on Christmas Eve. I was so excited about them that I was awake for at least an hour, starting around 3. I was awake so long that I had to go get a snack to help me go back to sleep. D was awake, too, but that was because he had a headache. He's just glad the W&D weren't under a tree waiting to be opened, or I probably would've gotten up for the day then!

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We finally have an assembled crib! It's so bizarre seeing it here. Soon we'll pick up a mattress, and then we can order the crib decor we like. It's starting to come together. And we have less than 12 weeks until the due date, though I fully expect that I could go overdue. That's pretty normal with first pregnancies especially, and I know that I won't truly be overdue until I hit 42 weeks.

Just over 24 hours left until I finally get my hot little hands on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I've had my copy reserved for several months at a local bookstore. I'm heading to the store in the early afternoon to get my wristband (or whatever contraption they've got set up), and then D & I will go back at night, probably around 11:00, to wait for my number to be called. I've never been to a Harry Potter release party, and this is my last chance. I can't really dress up, but I plan to wear red and to wear my glasses. Maybe I'll think of something else, but I doubt it. That's all I've come up with in a week! Pathetic.

Sometimes I'm really bad about skipping to the end to see how a book turns out, but I hope I can be more disciplined with this one. I'll never get another chance to read and savor a new HP installment, so I hope I can enjoy this one to the fullest.

Starting sometime tomorrow, I'll stop going online (or at least stay away from news sites and message boards...sticking to online games & such) until I've finished reading the book. I don't want anyone else spoiling this experience for me! 

We do most of our normal purchasing with an AmEx card. We get points, and we're working toward earning some rewards. Anyway, that means we need to make regular payments. We've not been great about that, so we end up making semi-regular large payments instead.

Last week, knowing that I needed to pay off D's business AmEx (it gets paid out of his reimbursements from work, earns more points than our personal card, and cannot carry a balance), I logged in to the site. I saw that the personal card was due in a few weeks and thought I should pay a chunk of that. D was off at the bank making a deposit (and withdrawing cash for our carnival excursion), so I added that to Quicken and proceeded to make a quite large payment on the personal card as well as the nearly-as-large payment on the business card. And then I checked our bank balance.

Hmmm, something's not right here. How can it be so different from Quicken? I look through the transactions. Oh no. I had missed inputting our mortgage check (I thought it was already there) into Quicken. And our mortgage check isn't some small sum like $50, of course. Sick feelings began to pervade my tummy.

D comes home from his banking, and he tries to get AmEx to cancel the transaction. Sorry, they can't do anything once the Submit button is clicked. He calls the bank. No, nothing can be done as they can't see the transaction. (We found out Monday that they could have seen the transaction, had they known where to look.) But it was a moot point, since they require 72 business hours' notice on automatic payments. (No, I'm not sure how that's possible since by definition, automatic payments go through almost immediately; only scheduled payments would be affected.)

Oh, dear. And then everything hit Monday evening. Not just the two large AmEx payments, but also two checks we'd written to our church the week before (yes, that means eight days previously but not cashed until our own personal Black Monday). Ugh.

We were quite thankful for the overdraft protection our account has in place, as it kept any of our payments from bouncing. And we were also thankful that the money keeps coming in so we could repay that overdraft protection account immediately and move on.

We live and we learn. And sometimes while we live, we're stoooooopid.

Last Saturday was our sixth wedding anniversary. So we spent the day like newlyweds. Heh. No, not really. D went to a men's breakfast at church and then came home and replaced an outdoor faucet that had burst over the winter (yes, it was my fault; I didn't remove the hose). That took a couple of hours and help from a neighbor. After we got all cleaned up, we went to Abuelo's for lunch. Undoubtedly some of the best Mexican food I've ever had, and certainly the best thing this area has going! When that was over, we came home and took a nap. Yep, we're just like newlyweds!

After our nap, we got ourselves together (finally) and went to a local carnival. We rode the ferris wheel (called something else), the Black Widow, the Ion, and one more thing. You know that the Black Widow (called the spider a lot of other places) and the Ion go up and down in the air, spinning you around. Well, those didn't me sick. Nope, not a bit. They sort of hurt my neck a little, but otherwise, I was good. What made me sick? This. I thought it would be fine, as the little cars just run around on a track, not leaving the ground or anything. That's what I thought until we started going backward. I survived, but just barely. After that, all I could take was the ferris wheel, leaving D to ride the bumper cars and black widow alone. When he was in line for his last solo ride, he sold his remaining tickets to some girl, six for $1. She was all over that! Her friends were even kind of disappointed that he didn't have more to sell.

We had a lot of fun. It was great to just laugh and enjoy the rides, even though this was evidently the ghetto carnival and a town over has a much nicer fair. We don't live there, and D's bosses didn't see fit to tell him this city's carnival is ghetto. Maybe we'll make our way to it if it's in town when we have money again.

Oh, and lunch from Abuelo's held us both over for the rest of the day. That's right, aside from a funnel cake and a cherry Coke, we had no need for more food that day. We both had the fajita chimichanga (D had the steak, and I had the chicken and only half of that!). Turned out to be for the best, esp. since that danged ride nearly killed me!

Rambaldi has never truly been a destructive animal. He's chewed a couple of things, true, (like the little button on top of my husband's Red Sox cap and half a button off my husband's polo shirt and the cord of the trimmer charging majigger), but overall, he's not been bad at all.

He has a crate like this that we use at home and occasionally when traveling for long periods. There is often clothing on top of it (nothing unusual for me), and that's been true ever since we got the crate right after his neutering at about 8 months old (he's 2 now).

Sunday we got home from church to find that he had pulled nearly all the clothes through the top of the crate and started chewing. He destroyed my husband's new jeans (purchased at the Gap Outlet in KY and never worn or washed), his new shirt (ditto), and my comfy pants (often worn walking when the mornings are chilly). In addition, he'd slit my walking shorts (used only for walking him).

I had to send him outside for a good 15-20 minutes to keep from yelling at him, I was so upset. I even cried a bit. We don't have a lot of $$ for clothing right now, so especially the purchases at the Gap Outlet were important. My husband needs nicer clothing like that (they weren't incredible, but they were definitely stylish and the best jeans he owned) because he must project a professional image. Grrr. The rest of the day, I wouldn't let Rambaldi on me or really near me. I just kept telling him, "We're not friends." Yes, I know he didn't understand, but I needed my space! Plus, my husband was here to keep him company.

We had to throw out the jeans and comfy pants. We'll probably have to cut off the sleeves of the shirt so my husband can wear it for doing yardwork or something; that one wasn't such a loss, since it cost $0.99. It's the principle! I can still wear my walking shorts, as the slit isn't too noticeable and I wear them only for walking Rambaldi. Still. Grr.

How could such a cute little doggie do so much damage??? And why, after all this time, did he finally snap and destroy clothing? The mysteries of a dog's mind....

Yeah, it's not as cool as it sounds. I went to the dentist today, and for the first time, someone took my jaw clicking seriously! The dentist is quite concerned, especially since he couldn't see a good reason for it. I haven't had any head trauma, AFAIK, and I know it's been going on as long as I can remember. I can even remember trouble with it in high school, and I graduated 10 years ago! Anyway, he took an impression (I didn't gag ) and he's making two different appliances to see which one helps me more. He said that if I don't do something about it now, I could well end up needing physical therapy in 10 years. We don't exactly have a lot of money right now, but it makes sense to get this so I can have some relief AND avoid costly therapy.

I'm an introvert. That doesn't mean that I'm shy; it does mean that I need alone time. I apparently need a lot of it, since I'm so content being at home all the time!

Our two weeks of traveling have taken their toll on me. I can just barely stand the idea of seeing anyone right now (aside from my dear husband, of course). I couldn't even go to small group last night (not to mention I'd completely forgotten about it until my husband called from work to ask what time it started).

There were three other people (beside us) in KY, three others in OH, two others at our college friends' (the baby went to bed), and three more when we met up for ice cream. Then there were my four family members in WV. And the weekend before, we'd been in Virginia Beach, where we stayed with five people and saw essentially our whole church there.

You might say I need a vacation. Nah, I just need me time. 

We really don't do much traveling, honestly, but April & May this year are just chock full of little trips. Let's see...in April we visited North Carolina and Williamsburg. In May, we are visiting Hampton Roads, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.

We went to NC to hang out with my oldest bro & his family and visit his church. We visited Williamsburg as a little romantic getaway (which wasn't, thank you very much, AF) for free b/c we listed to a spiel on timeshares. Our trip to Hampton Roads was b/c my husband had a court date on a Monday (and originally also one on the preceding Friday), so we took the opportunity to visit our friends & church there. It was like coming home, as true as that can be while staying in someone else's home! Our Kentucky-Ohio-WV trip is based on my BIL's college graduation, and then we're heading to see some friends and then hitting my parents' place on our way back home.

My husband had to use his vacation or lose it, so that's why we're doing all this traveling at once, right at the end of his first year of practicing law. I do wish he would take more days off as the year passes, but he's such a good provider to be so focused on doing his job well. I know I'd be taking all the vacation days I could...that's exactly what I did while working!

Here are some photos of us this Easter. Enjoy!

In the last one, I was trying to use the timer on the camera but it obviously didn't work. :)