The $900 Lightbulb

M drives an Audi A6. Or rather M drove an Audi A6. As of yesterday we bought another Jeep like mine.

The Audi has history behind it. He bought it, then a friend of his was going to buy it off him, so they took it to Washington State, with promises of taking over the payment and paying him what they owed on the car. Turns out that never happened, not a payment was made, and M was getting tired of paying for a car that he wasn't using.

Fast forward to planning our honeymoon. We decided that we were going to use the oppurtunity to kill two birds with one stone (we're efficient like that), and go 'repo' the car, and use that to drive cross country.

Ended up being the best honeymoon ever. We had a blast, and got the Audi no problems.

It's a super sweet car, fully loaded, leather, heated seats, moon roof, super engine, the works. I had a blast driving it, except when the mirrors decided to auto adjust themselves, and I almost merged into the same semi-truck twice.

When we came home to trade it in, we had a lot negative equity, since the milage was so high. We got rid of my VW for my Jeep, and M continued to drive the Audi.

I drove a Saab all through college, and loved it, but the repairs on it were outrageous. The Audi was in the same category. We had been saving enough to pay it off, and trade it in with something new, since the baby was coming, and it sounded like we were starting to have transmission issues.

M finally came home one night, and waved a warning ticket around, saying that the front light had gone out, and that we had to run to Wal * Mart and get a new one the next day.

Simple enough.

We got the bulb that we thought we needed, and M went and did manly things to get it fixed. After he fought with it for an hour, and decided that calling the dealership and asking them would be the best course of action. (I don't think that he could even get the light cap thingy off).

Audi had lovely news for him. The light needed this thing called a primer (I thought that that was what you used when you painted), and you could only get the right primer through the dealership. This little primer-majigger was an easy $500. $500!

Crickets!

Then, of course, you had to buy the light (and you couldn't buy it from Wal*Mart, turns out) for another $150. Finally, the labor to put the thing in was $90/hour, and the job was quoted at 3 hours. That's another $270. I think most of my hair fell out when we was relaying this message.

In case you're horrible at math, like me... that's $920.

For a lightbulb.

What the toast what a whole transmission  going to cost?!

Thankfully it's tax season, and we'd been on the ball about things, so we got our refund quickly. That gave our savings the boost that it needed, and we were able to get things sorted out with the Audi (which I'd been referring to as the devil car).  

We ended up with this puppy:

It's even manual, which is super fun!

Now we have 2 Jeeps! My big Liberty, and M's Compass.

A big shout out to Willie Racine's Jeep, who were GREAT the entire time. We've worked with them twice in the past six or so months, and I wouldn't hesitate to go back the next time we need something (which hopefully, won't be for a while...a LONG while).

Among other things (aka, I can't write, and NOT update everybody on Shannon!) the peanut is doing great. I think she's going through a growth spurt, since she's up every two hours, and when I say up, I mean wide awake and ready to party. I'm not a huge fan of partying at 3am anymore, but at least the company is good.

M goes back to work tomorrow, and gets to work through the weekend, so we'll see how it goes. The only option that I have is to deal with it, it's just a matter of how messy the house is going to get in the process. :-). I'm excited to be able to venture back to the barn on Friday as well, so you can get photo bombed with pictures of Wil's makeover, instead of just a million pictures of my kid sleeping.

She is perfect though. Just saying.

I am fairly proud of myself however, the pre-preggo jeans fit. They even button, AND the circulation in my lower half remains fairly strong.

Winning.

That's it for now, I'm off to fold the bazillion loads of laundry that have been neglected the past few days, then Peanut and I are off to my Mom's house, so she can meet my Godmother.

I'll just leave you with a few pictures.

:-)

Perfection

Being a Mommy has to be the most wonderful, nerve wracking thing that I've ever done in my life... and I've started a lot of really rank young horses.

Shannon has to be the best blessing that I've ever received, even when she's up screaming at 1 am.

We've had a pretty mellow last few days. Just a lot of hanging around the house, and getting used to one another. My Mom came up a couple of times, and M has proved to yet again be the best Dad ever. :-). Not that I doubted him at all.

Yesterday we had a doctor's appointment for her, and I felt awful. I literally woke up and felt like I had the flu, and one of my boobs felt like it was about to hulk right out of my bra. Not a fun feeling at all, but everybody has told me that when my milk came in, it was going to be uncomfortable, and just just try to nurse her. My boob was literally too hard to get her to latch, and lots of screaming was going on. To the point where she couldn't even catch her breath. I mentioned it to her pediatrician, and she had me call my doctor right away.

Turns out I have mastitis.

Blech.

They called me in a prescription for some super antibiotics, told me to pump out of that side, and by the time 7 rolled around last night, I felt 100x's better. Thank goodness.

Shannon, on the other hand looks great. She's gained 4 oz, and her jaundice is totally gone. She's one healthy baby!

We also made the decision to start pumping and putting it into bottles. She has a great latch, but the pain that's supposed to leave after the first 30 seconds never went away, like everybody said that it was supposed to. It literally hurt for the 20 minutes it took her to nurse out of each side.

I still want to be sure that she gets the milk that she needs, and she is. She eats about 1.5 oz- 2 oz per feeding (every 2-3 hours), and is satisfied. I'm pumping about 2.5 oz every two hours.  I'm happy with the arrangement, because there is no more latching on pain/screaming, and it'll make it easy for me to get to the barn, when I can start back at work. Not to mention horse shows.

My mother doesn't approve, and that hurts. I'm trying to do the best that I can, and what feels like it's the best for her, and our family. I love my daughter with all my heart, and I want nothing but the best for her, throughout her entire life.

On another note all together, I seriously have the best kid ever. She was up with M from 11 until about 1, not fussing, just awake. That meant that she slept....

From 1-5:45 this morning.

I woke up because I needed to pump, and realized that she was still sleeping, so I woke her up to eat, she ate, and was up until about 8, took another bottle, and has been conked out ever since.  

Go baby go!

She gets to meet her Auntie L and Uncle P today, and we're very excited!

Also, I'll hopefully be back on a horse (and actually working) by the beginning of April, which will give me plenty of time to get Willow started and ready to go to work by the beginning of show season. If we can get some Training level tests with good show scores, and be schooling 1st level by the time we have to move, I'll be thrilled. I don't want to set the bar too high, but I think having goals is a good thing. Wil is talented enough, that's for sure!  

M leaves in May for a little bit of time, for a school in SC, so he'll get to miss the beginning of show season, but he needs to go to this school so that he can be promoted, and we'll find out where the Army is sending us on our next adventure! All my joints are crossed for the South!

The Aftermath

After Shannon was born, I was exhausted, elated, and sore. Among about a million other feelings.

I had her at Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, and I have to give a HUGE shout out to all the staff on the labor and delivery floor, as well as my OB. They were everything I needed them to be, and about a million things that I didn't know that I needed them to be. It made our experience wonderful.

Anyways

After Shannon was born, and cleaned up, I got to go use the bathroom, and test out my legs. They were a bit shaky, since they'd been numb for about 5 hours straight, but I managed to make it up, go pee (and it wasn't as scary as I thought that it was going to be), and back to bed. After they ripped her out of M's hands. They got me all set up in the wheelchair, handed her to me, and off we went to the Mother and Child part of the hospital.

Keep in mind it's about 4am, and everybody is exhausted. I just pushed out a (very) small human being, after all. The nurse that got us settled into our room was a bit chatty. I think she was very excited. She chatted away to us for a while about hospital policy and how to make my bed go up and down, and then left us alone to get settled. M got his own bed, and my Mom got to go home and get some sleep.

My one and only gripe about the hospital is that they tell you to try and get some rest... and then there is somebody knocking on your door every half hour, asking you if you've peed yet, and taking your blood pressure. Not very restful.

They took Shannon to do some baby screens, and then brought her back to me to try out this whole breast feeding adventure. We were all up for good at about 8 am, I got some breakfast, and we pretty much just tried to enjoy our munchkin.

I wanted a shower in the worst way.

Our daytime nurse, Heather was the BEST. She got Shannon latched on, and made learning how to breastfeed her a snap. She tried to let me up to take a shower, but I got really light headed and my ears started ringing, so I wasn't allowed to right away. My in-laws were coming up, and no way was I going to let them see me in all my post-birth sweaty glory. I ate some more, sat on some ice packs, and tried again and hour later.

Success!

The rest is pretty much a blur of people visiting, snuggling my kiddo, more attempts at breastfeeding, blood pressure taking, and trying to take a nap.

That night (Monday 2-21-12) was long, as I was getting used to the idea of getting up every five minutes, and Shannon was getting used to the idea of nursing. Trying to get a successful latch at 2 am, the day after you've given birth, is pretty difficult, not going to lie.

The angel that was our night nurse, Maggie, taught me how to nurse her laying on my side, and that made life perfect. I've never been an advoacate of co-sleeping, or having the baby in the bed with me, and I always swore that I would never be one of those people. How things change when you get desperate!!

I am a big fan of co-sleeping now. When you're up every 2 hours, and your who-ha feels like your sitting on a catus, being able to have my child right there with me was a blessing I never thought to expect.

The post birth thing is sore. You feel like you just wrecked your entire body at the gym with the worst workout of your life. Ice packs and a peri-bottle were my best friends. If you think about it though, I just pushed out a human being. An entire human being. It's the hardest thing that my body will ever go through. If you think about it like that, the soreness and bleeding, is really not that bad. I made a point of being up and down pretty often, and moving around.

We were discharged Tuesday morning, and everybody was pretty impressed. Shannon is healthy as a horse, and I was doing pretty well too. Normally they keep you two days afterwards, which wouldn't have had us home until Wednesday morning, but it was so much nicer just being home, surrounded by your own things, sleeping in your own bed. The hospital is nice, people clean up after you, and bring you food, but when push comes to shove, it's a hospital, and in my opinion, they just smell weird.

The two days we've been home, leading up to this one have been pretty easy. Shannon sleeps, eats, and sleeps some more. We have a great system going, and M and I are trying to stay as relaxed as possible. Even the night times aren't that bad. The first night she had a stint of cluster feedings, and that really stunk. Last night she was up every two hours, almost on the dot, and that was easy as pie.

My milk really started to come in last night, and that made nursing on my side really hard, since my boobs were solid as a rock, but I managed to pump right into a bottle, and M fed her. No problems!

We had a drs appointment yesterday, and she was looking great, just a little bit jaundice, so we went to the hospital for some blood work, but it all came back great! She didn't have any meltdowns (except when they were trying to get blood out of her feet for the blood work. She wasn't a huge fan of that, and Mommy had to go wait in the waiting room, since I couldn't stand to hear her scream), even though the drs. office was full of screaming children.

Don't get me started on the one child in there. He was a little too curious...

Now here we are. She's sleeping in her pack and play, M is working on college stuff, I managed to type up two HUGE blog posts, and that's it!

Off to lunch and a shower!

Shannon's Birth Story

Sunday morning (2.19.12) started like any other. I was whining about being fat, uncomfortable, and pregnant. I had slept the night through solid, and was a bit disheartened by the whole fact. I thought that my contractions would have been picking up by now, not slowing down! By 10 that morning though, I started to feel the dull throb I was getting to know so well.

I took it easy, even though M kept asking if I wanted to go for a walk, or go grocery shopping. I didn't. I just put my feet up on the couch, and watched episode after episode of Bones, and timed my contractions on an app I'd downloaded for my iPhone.

By 4 that afternoon, my contractions had picked up considerably, and I was pretty uncomfortable. Not surprising, this had happened before. I told M that I was going to go get in the tub, and see if that made any difference. I didn't think that I could be in any significant labor, since they told me that I wouldn't be able to walk or talk through the contractions. It was hard, but I was still able to talk through them, and got around pretty well.

I ran a warm bath, and settled in and then WHAM! It was was like a freight train. All the sudden they picked right up and we're 2-4 minutes apart, and lasting about 40-50 seconds. I didn't want to get excited still, because everytime I did, I got told;

No, you're just in pre-labor.

Sigh

I finally called M to come haul my butt up out of the tub, since I felt like I was starting to overheat. The contractions were still coming in a fairly steady pattern, and I was starting to have to breathe to get through them. Not fun, but I was thinking...

If these are contractions, I got this no problem.

Then I decided I had to go pee... and when I wiped, I noticed that there was a bit of blood on the pieces of toiler paper. (I said I have no shame, remember?)

Cue panic attack

I immediatly got on the phone with my OB, told them about my contractions and the blood, and she told me to come into labor and delivery and get checked out. M and I grabbed our bags (the poor guy was just about to eat his dinner), loaded up the car, called my Mom, and off we went. It was about 6:30 at this point, and my contractions were still holding pretty steady.

M looks at me as we were halfway there, while I was in the middle of a contraction and asks;

What do they feel like?

I almost divorced him right then and there.

M made it to the hospital in record time, and my Mom wasn't too far behind. They got us set up in a delivery room, and put the monitors on me. At this point, I still didn't want to get my hopes up, just in case. They checked my cervix and I was still about 3 cm dilated, so no change from when I'd been in the office on Friday. The contractions, on the other hand, were getting steadily stronger and stronger, and with the way that she was laying, they were all in my back.  

Maybe this wasn't going to be so easy after all.

I was told that we were going to wait 2 hours, and I was going to get checked again, and if I hadn't dilated more we were going to get sent home. I was on the war path then. M and my Mom took turns walking with me around and around the l&d floor. The contractions were getting worse, but it felt better to lean forward and walk through them. After about an hour of that, the nurse came in to check and see how the baby was holding up (she was sleeping, the lucky ducky), and my contractions had me feeling like I wanted to puke.

M and I decided that I wanted to try getting in the shower, so he got me all set up with the shower stool and hot water running on my back. That helped a million times over. Everytime I had a contraction, I was able to lean forward, breathe, and concentrate on the hot water hitting my back.

Our 2 hour mark hit, and the resident came back in to check me.

4 cm.

Phew! Progress had been made, and they weren't sending me home! I asked them at what point I could get an epidural at, and she smiled and said within a half hour. I was the only woman in active labor on the floor and hearing that was music to my ears!

The epidural was not half as scary as I thought it was going to be. I made sure not to look when they were prepping the table with the huge needle on it. The rose the bed up super high, and had me put my feet on M's lap. The nurse held my shoulders and it was easy as pie after that. The hardest part was trying to stay still through a major contraction as they were inserting the needle. M was rubbing my legs, and I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.

After the epidural was in place, I felt almost instant relief. I was smiling and chatting away with the nurses and resident, and was advised to try and get some sleep. They would be back in in 2 hours to check and see how dilated I was.

No turning back now!

M rolled his little cot/chair thing to the side of my bed, and held my hand through the bars, and we just chatted about nothing, while my Mom slept. The 2 hours passed in no time, and the resident was back.

6 cm.

I'll take it! She said that it was because I was able to relax all my muscles once I got the epidural, and that it wouldn't be long now. I was instructed to try and get some more sleep (yea right), and they would be back in another 2 hours to check and see how things were going.

It was about midnight at that point, and I was a bit sleepy. The nurse came in, rolled me over, and I managed to get about 45 minutes of on and off sleep. The 2 hours passed in no time and at 2 am, the resident came back in, checked me, and said that it was push time!

Pushing was by far the hardest part. I was okay with it though, because I could control it. I watched to monitor, and waited to feel what I called poopy pressure (it literally felt like I had to poop, really, really bad). M had one foot, and the nurse had another and I gave it the good 'ole heave ho.

We heaved and we ho'd for about 45 minutes, and I kept asking, and I getting any closer? Are we there yet?! The OB laughed and said yes. Between pushes she asked me questions about the horses, and my Mom told her the story about my first ever riding lesson. It was all a bit strange. Laying there on the table, with all my bits hanging out, baby on the way, and chatting like we were out to tea.

 Then I felt this god awful pressure and I didn't want to stop pushing. There was a flurry of activity of the OB and the resident putting on what I can only describe as high tech rain gear, complete with face shields (?!), and they told me not to wait for the next contraction and just push for all I was worth. And by george I did.

I started hyperventilating a little bit, and kept repeating;

Does anybody have a vacumm. Please just get her out. F*^*$(& Christ!  

I didn't act much like a lady.

One more good push though, and out she popped.

I have never felt such a relief in my life. I swear. All the pain and pressure was instantly gone.

They put her right up on my chest and I was happy as a clam. I remember M kissing my forhead, and my Mom was up somewhere around my head doing the Mom crying thing. The OB and the resident were still down in my bits, apparently I had a 2nd degree tear, but I didn't notice at all. They were trying to talk to me about something, but I was so wrapped up in snuggling my new little bundle I didn't really listen.

Then she pooped. All. Over. Me. I was a mess. It's funny how you just don't seem to care though.

The nurse took her and cleaned her (and me) up, and got her vitals. M followed her, taking pictures galore. She was by far the most perfect child ever. I'm not biased or anything.

I'll post about the aftermath of everything later, which honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's time for me to scrounge up some food, and then I'm sure it'll be snack time for the little princess. :-). I'll just leave you with some pictures!

Shannon Ellen. Born 0306, 6 lbs 1.5 oz, 18.5 in.

Co-Sleeping at it's finest <3

Not so thrilled about going home.

Milo helps baby-sit while I folded laundry.

I've been bad...

I've been a very bad blogger, not updating this page in a few days... but that's because of this little muffin...

Yup! That's right! Miss Shannon finally decided that she'd had enough of waiting, and wanted to make her grand entrance! She's beautiful and perfect and everything that I could have hoped for! M and I are so blessed to have such a good daughter, we're still floating in the air over the whole thing. I'm going to post my birth story in a different post, so that it can be found a bit easier, and I can take some time to write it. This whole being a mom thing takes a lot of time! I don't know how you other bloggers do it! I've been reading a lot of mommy blogs, and props to you! I can't gaurantee the frequency of my posts at this point, but I'll do my best to stay on top of things, so that everybody can keep up with how our perfect little munchkin is doing!

No baby...yet...

I missed posting yesterday, and I don't really feel all THAT bad about it. The nice thing about having this all to myself (unless somebody manages to stumble across it on accident, and if they do, I'm going to doubt that they'd really care that I missed a day) is that it doesn't really matter. :-)

Yesterday was fairly uneventful. We got to sleep in a little bit, even though I'd had a pretty crappy nights sleep the night before, it felt good to just be lazy with M. That's really all we seem to do nowadays, because that's all I'm ever up for. This whole, growing a human being thing is rather tiring when you get to the last bits of it.

 We had a doctor's appointment at 11, and everything is looking okay. I was still in labor, and had a couple pretty decent sized contrations when they hooked me up to the monitor. The nurse decided that it would be a good idea to have the doctor check and see how much further along I was. Sadly, no more progress has been made, I'm holding pretty steady at 3 cm. All the yucky feelings and contrations for nothing at this point. It's a little bit discouraging.

Okay, I'm lying... it freaking sucks!

The Dr. said though, since I've been in labor for a few days now, that if I kept having the bad contractions for another few hours, I should call them. They would have me go up to labor and delivery and shoot me up with enough morphine (!) to make me sleep for a few hours, and make my muscles stop contracting. I guess all that contracting makes your uterus tired, and then when it comes down to it, it craps out on you, and you end up having to have a c-section. I didn't really like that idea, so I came home, took a hot bath, did a little bit of light cleaning, and by the time I'd done all that M was done for his work for the day and we flopped on the couch to watch a few episodes of Bones.

I also talked to a lady last night, whose is trying to get rid of her mare. She's up in Canada, but I don't know if it's anything that I'm intrested in. I'm not much of a Standardbred person. Not that I have anything aganist the breed, I just don't know a whole lot about them, other than the fact that 90% of them are plain bay with big heads. When I was in college I worked a few Standardbred sales, and most of my equine related near-death experiences took place there. It was fun, and I learned how to bob and weave like a professional boxer, but it didn't really install a love of the breed in me. She was supposed to send me some pictures today, but it didn't happen. We'll see.

I finally got a good nights sleep last night!! At this point, I don't care if labor has stalled out, I'm welcoming the break from the evil contractions!!! I don't know why the contractions just stopped, and frankly I don't care. They didn't seem to be doing anything anyways. If I get a break, and a good nights sleep, I'll take it.

Today was a barn day, and M had the day off, since it's President's Day weekend, so they got a 4 day. Snaps for working for the government.

We went to the barn and I felt awful. No contractions at all, just this dull, crampy, achy, almost bruised feeling that made me feel totally drained of all my energy. Luckily M is a star, and dumped all my wheelbarrows for me. I still managed to clean my stalls, I just felt totally sapped of all my energy and strength, before we even got started. I think she's settling a bit lower, because I'm walking a lot slower. It feels like somebody shoved a small watermelon between my legs. I got some water, and a bagel when we were done, and I felt a little bit better.

I talked to my boss about the Canadian mare, and she was about as excited as I was (so not very). Our motto is no stone unturned, but we came up with a better plan, involving this girl:

She is actually the dam of my late filly, Wasabi. She's a 7 year old Danish mare, named Willow, who got nailed in the hock when she was younger, and they aren't sure if the hock is going to hold up to higher level dressage stuff. I'm going to get her going this summer, and if she holds up, she'll hopefully be mine all mine! :-). I don't forsee any issues with her, at all. She's as opinionated as they come, and can be a bit snarky, but it's all for show. She's a big girl, standing at about 16.3 (she looks a lot bigger, because she's a pretty heads up mare), and has bloodlines to die for. I think that it's going to work out really well. I'm not a big person at all, so I'll be the ideal person to get her going. I'm so beyond excited!!

She's perfect.

After the barn, M and I went in search of some food, and then headed off to Best Buy to get a new computer. Both of our laptops managed to crap out within a week or two of each other, and his Mom so wonderfully gave us hers so that we could do school work.  We've had it for a while, and decided that we wanted to get our own with our tax return. We got a lot more back than we thought that we were going to so we felt okay with a little bit of a splurge. After about an hour of back and forth (I swear computer people speak their own language, and I can't even begin to understand it.) we settled on a Toshiba, and we're happy with it so far. It's not even been a day, so we'll see. I also got an Otterbox for my iPhone (it's way too expensive to be naked, with my track record with phones), a car charger for it, and we got a wireless mouse for the computer. We managed to get all that, within the price limit we set for just the computer. We do pretty well shopping together. :-)

After our shopping spree, we came home and I was exhausted, so I climbed right into the bathtub. My contractions have almost totally stopped, but my energy level has hit the floor. While I was in the tub, Milo came upstairs (as he always does when I take a bath. He loves to sit on the side of the tub and watch. What he's watching, I have no idea.) and started his ritual of sitting there, occasionally helping himself to a drink. He decided a nap was in order, and pulled my towel off the hook, dragged it to the side of the tub, made himself a nest, and settled right in.

I spent money on cat beds why again exactly?! Cats. *sigh*

After about an hour in the tub, I got out and played around with the new computer, while M got a bit of school work done. We watched a few more episodes of Bones (I'm obsessed...thanks Netflix.) and now here I am. I had soup for dinner, and I'm feeling totally sick to my stomach. Maybe this baby is going to make an appearance soon?! Goodness I hope so. I'm very sick of feeling like I'm lugging around a 20 lb sack of sand, and not being able to fit into any of my clothes.

Exciting Friday night, eh?

The flash on my phone blinded everybody, but Milo managed a smile for the camera. M, not so much... hehe. 

M and I realized that this is going to be our last baby free weekend. I can't even believe that it's almost time to go. It makes everything seem much more real. I mean, I know that I've been carrying her around, and she's been in existence for 9 months, but in just a week she's going to be HERE. Not in there. It's a crazy feeling. M doesn't seem to be too excited about it, but emotion showing isn't really his forte.

It'll be intresting to see how he reacts when she makes her arrival.

Off to bed for this Momma!  



What this is all about...

I want to use this blog as a way to keep a record of the daily goings on of this crazy thing called life. Between a new baby, the horses, and the Army lifestyle, I feel like a lot of things can fall between the cracks, and then become easily forgotten. I love my life, and I don't want that to happen. :-). I'm looking forward to looking back on this months and years from now, and remembering the little things, just as much as I remember the big things. I don't have much of a shame filter, so if you blush easily, this might not be the place for you. I'll keep the language in check though.

I'm currently hanging in there at 39 weeks preggo, and have been 'offically' in labor since Monday. I can honestly wonder how Michelle Duggar has done this 19 times! She's a great lady in my opinion, and I love watching their show on TLC, but wow this sucks! I can't imagine doing it again, much less 18 more times. Luckily I only have to wait another week or so. My OB told me that if we don't go on our own by next Thursday, we're getting induced within the next few days. I can't really imagine hanging on that long, but I guess it is what it is. At my appointment earlier this week I was 3 cm dilated, and she's sitting so low that the Dr. had to reach AROUND her head to get to my cervix. That was not a fun feeling at all! I guess it's just a small, small, small, idea of what's to come though.

M and I have been doing a lot of walking, walking, walking, and more walking. I even went and did chores with him at the barn this morning, to try and get things moving. I'm feeling a lot more uncomfortable with each passing day, which is encouraging at least! I'm not sure how else to hurry this little peanut up! I'm going to try to have a small glass of wine tonight, and see if that relaxes me!

The barn this morning was good, everybody behaved, with the exception of Rio. She and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things (i.e. her behavior, she seems to think that kicking is an ok thing.) and we butt heads a lot. She is slowly learning to respect me, and my space, but it's hard when I'm not there everyday like I used to be, and now I have to be a little bit more careful with her, because of the whole bun in the oven thing. Hopefully we'll come to terms this summer. She's only a year old, and they all go through a bit of a rebellious stage, just like kids. Here's hoping that she'll grow out of it.

After the barn, M and I came home and I did some cleaning up around here (I'm obsessed with vacuuming) and then I jumped in the tub for about an hour. M's boss has been great about him working from home, so that he can be close to me, because according to the Dr. I can go at any time, and nobody really wants me to be alone. M did computer/work stuff all day, and I set this whole shebang up when I got out of the tub, between loads of laundry.

I HATE laundry.

We also just signed up for Netflix. We used to Redbox everything, but we were horrible about returning movies, so before we knew it, we had been charged $20-$30, for 1 movie, that we really didn't even like! Paying $8 a month to watch it on our computer, that we can hook up to the TV, seemed like a much more reasonable expense. Just be aware though, if you want the NEW new movies, you have to get them on DVD and delivered to your door, you can't watch stream them from the website, and the DVD service is an additional $8. There's always a catch! We used to have Hulu, but you can't get any good movies, and we do love to watch movies. Netflix gives you more, for the same price really. I'm just a bit disappointed, I really wanted to watch the new installment of the Twilight series, but I suppose I'll have to wait now, unless I can convince M to let me order it off the TV. We DID just get our taxes back, so we might be able to afford to splurge the $4.

My husband is the MOST money aware person that I know. This isn't a bad thing, since I'm clearly not.

I love him.

I'm off to find something that I want to eat for dinner! Maybe tonight will be the night, I'm getting increasingly more uncomfortable as time goes on... here's hoping!