making me happy

March 2nd, 2010

To be honest, I’ve been a little crabby lately. My carpal tunnel is getting worse by the day and my fingers are starting to swell. They don’t look too bad but my wedding ring only sometimes fits. I know I shouldn’t complain because there are a lot worse pregnancy complications I could be having. But it is frustrating to not be able to do anything without wrist pain/finger numbness. Oh and did I mention that the lab called to say that they lost my blood glucose test!? I took it on MLK Jr day so don’t know why it’s taken so long to figure out. I’m hoping I can just skip it at this point. I’m 33 weeks now, it seems crazy to worry about it now. I really don’t want to take it again!

Mostly I’ve been frustrated that Jacob is so so busy with school. I do appreciate that he’s so motivated and disciplined but sometimes it would be nice if he was a bit more of a slacker. :) Usually I like the alone time but I’m starting to feel bad knowing this is our last few weeks together just the two of us and he’s too busy to enjoy it.

BUT there are a few things making me happy lately.


- Multigrain Cheerios. I don’t know what it is but currently I can’t get enough of this cereal. I usually eat at least two bowls a day. Hold on, I need an afternoon snack….

Ok I’m back now.


- Lemonade. It’s certainly not the best for pregnancy heartburn but it’s one of the few things I’ve had any cravings for. Jacob wonders if it’s related to this next thing…


- Lysol 4-in-1 Lemon Breeze Cleaner. Yeah, that’s still going on. I can’t get enough of this smell. Our kitchen is much, much cleaner than normal.


- Jacob had these wedding photos framed for me for Christmas as a really sweet and thoughtful surprise. They finally made it to the wall this weekend and our apartment feels so much more homey now.


- The fact that it’s Cadbury mini egg season. This is the king of all candy, in my opinion.


- The wrist brace. Ok, it’s not making me happy at all but it is making life bearable! Plus it looks incredibly hot, am I right?


- Working on some things for Baby Girl’s room. I’m pretty much making it up as I go along. I’ll have to share some of my favorite baby things another day. I’ve found so many cool things (even if most of them won’t be coming to live at our house.)


- Seeing this on the fridge. The fortune says, “The rainbow’s treasures will soon belong to you.” I got it in a fortune cookie at dinner after we had the ultrasound last week. In case you didn’t know, we have a history of special fortunes.


- And this beautiful invitation on my fridge. Is my sister awesome, or what? I think it’s so darling (the photo and my “editing” don’t do it justice.) I’m really excited to go to Utah this weekend and see lots of my favorite people! I only wish I could stay longer. It will be a super quick trip for us but I can’t wait.

What’s making you happy lately?

the sweetest face

February 23rd, 2010

We’re in love. We got to have a second ultrasound today at the ultrasound center to check on the location of my placenta (it’s all good!) But it was great because we got to see our little blueberry! I had some irrational fear that they would figure out she was actually a boy so I’m relieved to say she’s still a she! She’s getting so big, right now she’s 4 lbs 4 oz! Just like last time she didn’t cooperate very well with the pictures, especially the face ones. She has her head down really low, tilted back and smooshed right up against the placenta. And of course, she’s normally quite active but for this she wouldn’t budge to give us a better look! Still, we got a couple 3D views of her sweet face.

That nose!! We LOVE it. Can’t get enough. I keep going back to the fridge to look at the picture. Jacob was cracking up about her little lips. He even asked the doctor, “Are those really her lips???” Jacob sticks his lips out like that when he’s thinking so I’m getting a kick out of it. He’s calling them “Stephenson” nose and lips. Wherever she got them, they’re adorable.

The ultrasound tech said she could see some hair on her head. Maybe she’ll come out with some pretty locks of hair, we’ll see! The best part of the ultrasound was that for the first half she had one (just one!) of her feet right up next to her face. Then suddenly decided she was done and put it back down. Which explains the crazy movements I feel from her almost nightly. She’s quite the little gymnast.

Those are the best of the shots we got. Jacob says she’s stubborn like her mama. (Hmmm, I think she gets it from her dad!) I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen a sweeter face. We love you, baby girl!

(Here are her 18 week ultrasound pics.)

32 weeks and Lysol 4-in-1

February 21st, 2010

This photo was actually taken last Sunday, so 31 weeks.


For comparison here’s last month’s photo at 27 weeks.

Still feeling pretty good! The only really annoying thing has been that I seemed to have developed pregnancy related carpal tunnel syndrome. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. It started with my arms falling asleep several times a night (especially the right one) which would wake me up. Then when the arm wasn’t asleep it was just aching. A couple of weeks ago it started spilling over to the daytime. My fingers were constantly tingling. It was getting to be painful to hold cooking utensils, write, and obviously type. Brushing my teeth was killing my wrist! So Jacob picked up a wrist brace for me at the store and it’s helping a lot…as long as I wear it! I try and wear it all night and that helps. I have to put it on for an hour or two a few times throughout the day, especially if I’m typing or sewing or doing something else with my hands. (When am I not? What is there to do that doesn’t involve your hands?)

The funniest pregnancy symptom has been the smell cravings I’ve developed in the last couple of weeks. I haven’t had any real food cravings but I can not get enough of the smell of cleaning products. My cleaning product smell of choice is Lysol 4-in-1 All Purpose Spray in “Lemon Breeze.” I’m looking for things to clean with it everyday just so I can smell it!! Sometimes I’ll be doing something and just suddenly have the strongest desire to smell that spray. It’s crazy! I also like the smell of dishwasher detergent, hand sanitizer, bleach, and laundry detergent. We were at the store yesterday and I insisted that we walk twice through the cleaning aisle just so I could take another whiff. This is especially funny because I hated all smells during the first trimester and had to buy unscented laundry detergent.

My parents were here for a day earlier this week on a detour from their trip to Zion’s. Mom got to come to the doctor with me and hear the baby’s heartbeat.

I’m making some progress in my plan for the nursery. I’m too much of a worrier to handle crib bumpers. So I’m skipping the bedding set altogether (the rest seems pointless without the bumpers!) I’m just going for some cute crib sheets. I’m pretty sure we’re going with the Gulliver crib from Ikea too. It’s a third of the price of the one I wanted and still is the style that I like. We don’t have Ikea here so we’re planning to get it in Utah in 2 weeks when we go up for my baby shower.

We went today for the labor and delivery tour at the hospital we picked. There are lots of hospitals around here and the one we picked isn’t the closest but is newer. My friends who have delivered there really like it. It wasn’t very “cute” but everything seemed nice. I won’t lie, the tour freaked me out a little. Mostly because I can’t believe how close this is getting. We’re planning to take a one day crash childbirth class next month.

And somebody asked about the name. We have chosen her name but won’t be sharing it with you until she arrives. Something to look forward to! :)

I bought soy milk last night at the grocery store that expires AFTER the baby’s due date. Less than 2 months to go now. Wow! Ready or not…

<3 day

February 14th, 2010

Love the felt heart garland I made with some of the other med school wives last week. So easy to do. We cut the hearts by hand and the whole thing took less than 2 hours to put together.

Since I wasn’t able to do any holiday decorating in NYC (all my decorations were in storage) it’s been more fun to get out my decorations here. I made the LOVE blocks the first year we were married from a kit from Pebbles in my Pocket. The blocks are totally uneven but I think they look nice. The frame was from the dollar spot at Target a few years ago. (Don’t mind the garland taped up with packing tape! I tried everything else and it kept falling down!)

A Valentine surprise in the mail from Mamacita. Thanks Mom, they’re yummy!

Heidi’s been here this weekend and I’ve loved having some company! Jacob has midterms this week so he’s been gone all day everyday studying. Having Heidi to hang out with made up for the fact that we won’t be celebrating Valentine’s Day until next week. Heidi and I did some shopping yesterday at the outlets and some other fun things. We’ve been on the hunt for some fabric for a project I’m cooking up for the baby’s room. I think I finally know what I want to do in there.

Hope you have a lovely weekend and holiday with your valentines!

freebie for V-day

February 11th, 2010

Go here for a free Valentine Game!

a little scare

February 11th, 2010

Tuesday night I had scary experience. It was early evening and I was sitting in the armchair (drinking some orange juice, if you’re curious) when I suddenly got a sharp pain in my lower back. I’m pregnant, so that’s not all that unusual. The pain immediately started spreading wider and higher on my back, though, so I got up and started walking around the house to try to loosen up the muscles. No success from the walking so I tried lying on the floor, the couch, the bed, sitting on a hard chair, standing, and nothing helped. In fact, the pain was getting worse. After about 5 or so minutes the pain was continually increasing and spreading now to my abdomen and even up into my chest.

I should pause and tell you that Jacob was home studying Tuesday night. A week or two ago that wouldn’t have been unusual but with midterms approaching (starting tomorrow) he has been studying at school in the evenings, leaving me home alone and without transportation. But on Tuesday school was canceled and the building closed for the day because of the death of one of the school’s founders. So he was forced to be home studying all day. Thank heavens.

At this point I felt my breathing becoming labored so I decided to get his attention. He tried rubbing my back but that hurt. He got the heating pad on the bed but no help and lying on the bed was really painful. He ran a really hot shower for me but it just wasn’t relaxing the muscles. It felt similar to the worst charlie horse I’d ever had but instead of being a leg cramp it was a tensing of every muscle in my back/torso/chest until I felt like I was in a vice. My breaths had become tiny, shallow things that barely brought in any air (and I’m sure this was making the tensing worse.) Jacob hadn’t seemed too worried until the breathing became gasps and we were scared I was going to pass out. We decided we should go to the hospital.

For the record, I KNEW that this wasn’t contractions or anything to do with the baby (other than the fact that being pregnant probably triggered the back pain, of course.) The pain was definitely in external muscles. But I was worried about causing stress to the baby.

Jacob tried to find the address of the nearest hospital while I somehow managed to get dressed again (looking like a wet mess from the shower.) He pulled the car up to the door and we dashed out in the rain. While the GPS was trying to find the address Jacob was also calling 911 for directions. He got an automated system that eventually hung up on him but the GPS found it for us anyway. Then during the 10 minute drive to the hospital, something finally triggered the muscles and they slowly started to relax and I could start breathing normally again.

By the time we got to the hospital I was feeling fine, just sore. Start to finish the pain had probably lasted about a half an hour. We waited in the parking lot for a little while to make sure the attack was over. I was only nervous about the baby. Jacob ran into Walgreens to get some candy to hopefully get her moving and once I’d eaten some of that and some dinner she started moving around. I was SO relieved!

I’m so grateful for Jacob. He’s so cool under pressure. The only hint of stress I got from him was when he was trying to find the hospital address but he took care of it and stayed calm for me. He was so good to reassure me that nothing that was happening would be hurting the baby and not to even worry about it. He’s my rock.

We’re still not sure exactly what happened. I think if it hadn’t restricted my breathing it wouldn’t have been such a problem. I did call my doctor yesterday and I’ll talk to her more about it next week at my appointment. But here’s hoping it was a one time occurrence.

14 things i love

February 10th, 2010

Today I’m over here sharing 14 things I love. You should check it out. And while you’re there, read the rest of Megan’s blog because she’s a hoot.

(More posts coming soon. Wait for it….)

why i’m scared of my steam cleaner

January 31st, 2010

This happened days ago and I wasn’t sure I would blog it. But it’s the only really eventful thing that happened this week. So I’m sharing and you can laugh at what an idiot I am!

I saved my birthday money for months because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to spend it on. I finally decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted a steam mop/cleaner. I did lots of research and decided on one that had a mop but lots of other attachments too so I could use it to clean virtually everything. I was SO excited.

When it came on Tuesday I decided to use it in the bathroom first, since the edges of the linoleum and the baseboards are the hardest for me to keep clean. I read through the directions and got the cleaner all set up. I went to town steaming the bathroom floor and was so pleased with how nice it looked afterward. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been using it or how much water was left in it so I decided to leave it to cool and then add some more water so it would be full enough to clean the kitchen. The directions said to leave it to cool at least 20 minutes before emptying or adding more water.

I waited at least 20 minutes before attempting to open the water canister. But I missed one crucial step in the directions: pushing the trigger to release any built up pressure before letting it cool. When I started unscrewing the cap, steam came flying out and onto my hand. In my panic I thought the best choice would be to completely unscrew the cap so all the steam could get out, rather than screwing it shut again. This was the wrong choice, however. I unscrewed it as quickly as I could. As soon as the (large, heavy) cap was loose it FLEW off and steam shot out everywhere. We have high ceilings and the area above me was dripping water. The area around me was all wet as well. Jacob was staring at me from the couch in disbelief. I quickly cleaned up the steam before I realized that the hand I’d used to unscrew the cap was hurting. Yes, I burned the top of my hand with very hot, high powered steam.

I ran my hand under cold water for ages and it was still so painful. After a couple of hours, some Tylenol (what a whimpy pain reliever!) and many tears, I was still in so much pain. We tried a few topical pain relievers we had in the house but nothing helped for more than 30 seconds. Jacob rescued me by going to Walgreens and finding some burn gel that finally did the trick. It was such a relief when it started feeling better. After a couple of days it’s feeling great and you can barely see the burn.

But the main problem is now I’m scared to turn it on again!

Hearts for Haiti

January 23rd, 2010

We donated a brand new alphabet game to Hearts for Haiti. All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders! (The description on etsy looks a little sparse, but it’s just like our other games!)

have you heard of alice?

January 22nd, 2010

Yesterday, Janssen had an awesome post on the “Frugal Wife = Wealthy Life” blog she started with her mom and sister Merrick. It was a very wise post entitled “Keeping Your Money Temptations at Bay.” Learning how to budget, especially on student loans, has been tricky for me. In her post, Janssen likens money temptations to food temptations, like when you buy cookies and say you won’t eat them. “The goal, then, is to empty your money cupboards of cookies and chips and other things you can’t resist, and just make it easy on yourself to not spend. Make it so you don’t have to decide EVERY SINGLE TIME you open that cupboard to say, ‘No. No cookies.’”

One way she combats the temptation is to avoid going to the grocery store more than once a week. This tactic also works for me. It’s nearly impossible to go into the store and only leave with the 5 things I wanted to pick up for dinner. It helps that Jacob takes the car to school most days so I don’t even have the option of going out to run errands.

My biggest budget-breaking temptation is Target. I often have totally legitimate reasons to go there (and it’s just a mile down the street from my house…) Like the other day, for example, I went in with some coupons to pick up a few super cheap and free toiletry items. For the record, stocking up on those items is great for the budget. But then when I decide to wander around the store afterward I find other “deals” that I didn’t need as much. I’m never buying anything expensive, but the little less-than-necessary items add up. Just like Janssen, I’m a sucker for a good deal.

So I’ve discovered something new that works for me. Alice.com. It’s an incredible new website where you can order household items online, delivered right to your house, and keep you from constantly running to the store. Shipping is free (as long as you order at least 6 items at a time). Now if you are a player of the Drugstore Game who has a closet stocked with deodorant, razor, and shampoo that you got for free, then Alice probably isn’t for you. But if you’re the type, like me, who generally just buys toiletries when you’re out of them and don’t have time to shop around and find deals, then Alice is great. For the most part, Alice has good prices. And the cool thing is they post coupons to items for you to use, so you don’t have to have clipped coupons. A couple of weeks ago they had 3-packs of Ivory soap with a coupon that made each pack .18! The deals aren’t always that good but sometimes they are. From what I can tell the diapers are priced well and you can’t beat the convenience. And like I said, I don’t buy everything there, just the things that I find to be good deals.

Alice also has a cool budgeting feature. They track “your products” so you can see the things you like to order right on your “shelf” and see if they have a coupon or are on sale. And you can go to “Other Ways to Shop” to see the items that are current good deals.

The only drawback I’ve found to this website is that shipping to the West coast takes about a week. I’ve heard it’s lightning fast if you live on the East coast, though.

Shopping at Alice can keep me from making unnecessary trips to the store that will cost me not only gas, but the added expense of picking up items I don’t need. It’s not a fix-everything solution, but it helps and works for me.

(Note: if you sign up for Alice from any of the links in this post you’ll get a $10 credit after you’ve spent $50 (you don’t have to spend the $50 all at one time.) Also, the first time you order from Alice, you don’t have to order 6 items. They let you order less the first time so you can try it out.)

P.S. Do you use Swagbucks? I earn “swagbucks” everyday by searching on the Swagbucks toolbar in my browser. So easy. And I’ve cashed them in for gift cards to Alice and Amazon! (But you can cash them in for lots of things.)