Finally some progress on my house repairs

Three and a half months have gone by since Hurricane Ike. I talked to the roofing company and they're going ot deliver the new shingles on Jan 6 and plan to roof our house on Jan 8-9. My fencing guy called last night and he's going to start on Friday. My mortgage company also called yesterday and said I didn't sign one form and so they won't send me my insurance check until I do. Grrr. Of everything I have to deal with, the freaking mortgage company is giving me the most grief. I hate the fact that they are holding my insurance check and insist on all this damn paperwork before they dole out the money.

It's 4 am and I'm awake

I guess that's what happens when you go to bed at 9. Actually, I've been up since 3, and I'm already had my morning eggs, an oatmeal muffin, an orange and a glass of almond milk. I have a feeling my whole day is going to be screwed up now. Oh well.

I'm proud that I got a few things accomplished yesterday. Put drawer pulls on the drawers in the garage and changed the tire on the wheel barrow. I'd love to put up pegboard on one wall of the garage for my tools, but I think I may ask my dad to do that when he visits in a couple months. My rationale is that he'll probably be bored and want something to do. :)

Had my glucose test this morning

Everyone was right. The drink they give you is disgusting. Mine tasted like limeade. The first 3rd wasn't all that bad, really. The second 3rd I had to work to get it down. The last 3rd only went down by sheer willpower. Blech. Then you sit around for an hour before they draw your blood. I won't find out the results until Friday. The nurse was nice, but they had not written on my paper work that I was supposed to get 2 vials of blood drawn. One for the glucose test, and the other for standard blood work, including anemia. I mentioned that to her, unfortunately AFTER she had taken the needle out of my vein. She apologized and proceeded to stick the other arm for the 2nd vial. Luckily she was very good and neither of the needle sticks hurt.

Asked my doctor about a couple of questions I had. The main one was my heart rate. It seems like it's been racing lately. I walked into Kroger's and just walking into the store, my heart was pounding. So I sat at the automatic blood pressure thing to see what my blood pressure was. It was 117/72 but my heart rate was 95! Today in the doctor's office, my bp was 106/62, so I obviously don't have a bp problem yet.

The doctor said it was very normal for a pregnant woman's heart rate to speed up because of the extra work it's doing. She said 95 wasn't bad at all, but if it went to 110-120 and wouldn't go back down, I should go to the ER. I also asked about my exercising heart rate. I'd been trying to keep it to 140 or less because that was what I had read. I asked her if that was right, and she said yes. Actually, for me, she said it should probably be lower because of my age. She wants it to be 220-my age * 60 to 70%, so somewhere around 120. Man, that's like barely doing any work at all. (Actually, I just calcualted it. It's 108-126. That feels like I'm not even exercising!)

My weight gain is about on track. Looks like I gained about 3-4 pounds last month. A pound a week. Not bad for Christmas with a sweet tooth. Speaking of which, it was really hard to resist the temptation to stop and get a donut on my way home from the doctor's office this morning. Silly, I know. But my sweet tooth has been going crazy lately, and I've had to abstain from sugar for the last 5 days including Christmas. But I was good. I came home and made a bowl of oatmeal with a bit of peanut butter and cocoa in it.

Now I'm off to contemplate improving the storage in the closet in the baby's room.

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a wonderful day. I had a very nice day. Nice and quiet and fun.

Apparently I drove Daniel crazy and he just had to give me my present on Christmas eve. I don't mind. I got something really cool! I got a Kindle! Awesome! I'd wanted one ever since they came out, but I didn't figure I'd get one for at least another 2-3 years. Within about 10 minutes of opening it up, I had it connected, registered to me and had bought a book and was able to read it on my Kindle. It's pretty darn slick.

So far, I've downloaded a bunch of first chapters of a whole bunch of books, and I've got a free 2-week subscription to 3 different blogs, to see how much I like them. They've only got access to about 21 magazines and about 15-20 newspapers. I don't tend to read newspapers, but it would be nice to look at individual editions sometimes. The Houston Chronicle costs $0.50/issue. I can also get Newsweek for a really cheap price.

It's also connected to my Amazon wish list, so I can browse the store through the same wireless that cell phones use, all free of charge. If something strikes my fancy, I can see if the book is available, or I can check Wikipedia for a word or phrase that interests me. I can even check the weather whenever I want to.

It's not a multimedia device. It's strictly a reader, but I love to read. I have a feeling I'll be spending lots more money on e-books now.

I got Daniel 3 movies that he wanted, plus some Kona coffee from Hawaii and a couple of shirts. I think the only time he gets new shirts is when I buy them for him at Christmas. :)

It was nice out today. Overcast, but fairly warm. Went for a couple of walks and had a couple of snoozes. For dinner, we had our fried turkey. Eh, can't say it was as good as all that. Wasn't any better or juicier than roasting our own bird at home, but now we've tried one. Maybe it would be better fresh. We picked it up on Tuesday and kept it in the frig until tonight. I also made a great butternut squash and cranberry dish that was delicious. Took the place of desert. Which is good, since I need to stop eating sugar until after next Tuesday and my gestational diabetes test. Bleah. Oh well, I think I'm tired of sugar and junk food and chocolate for a while.

Christmas Eve Eve

This year we ordered a fried turkey from our favorite BBQ place in Alvin. Everyone has been telling us that a fried turkey is the best and so delicious. Not wanting to deal with 5 gallons of used oil or potentially burning the house down, when we noticed that Joe's BBQ was selling fried turkeys, we thought that sounded like the ideal solution.

So tonight we went to pick it up, and coincidentally had dinner at Joe's too. Yummy. They have fantastic ribs!

Came home and got Daniel to play the new Prince of Persia while I finished wrapping Christmas presents. I had a little help...

From Dora:

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And then from Nomia:

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And I took this one of Nomia the other night. It doesn't fit anywhere, but I think it just looks hilarious. Looks like she's going "FEED ME!!! NOW! OR I SHALL CONSUME YOU, PITIFUL HUMAN"

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Such wierd weather.

I know. Everyone in the US is saying that, or they're complaining about horrible winter storm that just came through.

We had snow last week, and last night, we slept with the windows open. Yesterday, I had the AC on in my car, and today, I'm lounging around in shorts.

Nope, can't complain about winter weather in Texas.

We're going on a babymoon!

We booked a vacation the other day, our last one as a couple. We're going back to Vegas. It's one of our favorite places to go, and we got really good deals. I guess Vegas is having the same recession problems as everyone else. We never go to gamble anyway. We go for the fun, the shows, the people watching. This time we're staying at the MGM Grand. We picked it because we got a package deal for an upgraded room from Expedia, and it's got a monorail stop inside. I know it's a huge hotel, but I'm hoping we don't have to walk too horribly far to get to stuff inside. To prepare, I bought a new pair of Birkenstocks so I could wear those in Las Vegas. My last pair was incredible. This new pair will require a bit of breaking in though, so I'll be wearing them for a couple of weeks at home.

Can't wait!

Forgetfulness

Ever commit to do something, and then forget all about it?

I promised to give a talk on recycling at work to one of our orgs. Made the promise early last week and the talk is today. Yesterday, one of the org guys called me to ask if there was anything he could do to help me get ready for my talk today. You should have seen my face. I'm glad I was on the phone, because my face said Oh CR#$! I forgot!

So I chatted with him a bit to get some details about the audience and what they wanted to hear. I didn't want to tell him he'd already done the most valuable thing he could, by reminding me about it.

Anyway, I put together a rough draft in about an hour, and spent another hour finding pictures and polishing it up. Sent it to him last night to see if it was what they were wanting. Whew. Hopefully not many changes to make to it this morning.

I'd been doing so well on all my work stuff, too. But it's just getting to be too much, especially with the contract stuff I manage. That office is going to be hurting bad when I go out on maternity leave.

Shuttle Flyover

The space shuttle was flying back from Edwards to Kennedy yesterday, and it's flight path took it over JSC. Someone got a call that it was near so we headed to the window.

From the 7th floor, we saw the plane with the shuttle on top fly low over Ellington Field, then curve around. Everyone ran outside next. I didn't even have time to grab my coat, and it was cold outside. But it was incredible.

The plane flew in a big circle over JSC and we could see the shuttle fixed to the back. It was very low and the weather was perfectly clear. I was regretting the fact that I didn't have my camera, but it also gave me a chance just to watch it, instead of trying to take a picture.

The plane circled around again, and this time, it fly right overhead! It was so close I could see the individual tiles on the belly of the shuttle. Everyone cheered, then we headed back inside to have dessert for our holiday lunch.

Afterward, some of my friends with cameras sent me some pictures. Here they are.

The shuttle on its first circle around JSC:

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Here it is on the second pass. From where I was standing, it actually flew directly overhead. These pictures are from a friend in a different building.

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Here is a picture of it taking off from Edward's Air Force Base Thursday morning.

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It Snowed!!

Yes, snow in Houston!! Give me a bit more time later today and I'll have the pictures up to prove it.

I took the day off work to go shopping north of Houston with some ladies from work. We knew it would be cold, windy and wet. However, we did not expect it would actually turn first to sleet, then to big fluffy flakes late in the afternoon. So we ended up going home a couple hours sooner than we usually do, in case the traffic was bad. I slept most of the way home, but it was still a long ride.

Daniel was sort of sad he didn't see snow. It was raining at home, south of Houston. Later that evening, I looked outside, and the ground looked odd. I thought maybe it was frost, since we occasionally get frost here. Then I looked out back, and we had over an inch of snow on all the plants and patio furniture!

You can tell we're from the north. We heard kids outside screaming and playing. The next day I heard everyone talking about going out and throwing snowballs and making (tiny) snowmen. Daniel and I looked at the snow, said, yep it's pretty, and went back inside. We've already done enough snow stuff. We're content to look at it from inside the cozy house.

UPDATE (12/20/08)
Yes, I'm lazy with posting my pictures. But here are my snow pictures from last week.

Our front yard:

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Snow on a couple of our palm trees. Wierd.

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Just back from the doctor's office

Had my regular monthly appointment and everything is fine. Gained 4 pounds last month. Could be worse. I'm doing better with my diet and exercising more, so hopefully I'll keep the weight gain in check. And hey, this morning, I passed up the Starbucks peppermint mocha that was calling my name, along with the Shipley's donut place I drove by when I was starving. I came home and had a cranberry oatmeal muffin and a glass of water. Small steps.

This was the first time she measured my stomach/uterus. It was 24 inches on the tape measure, which she said was exactly where it was supposed to be. Doesn't mean anything to me, but if she's happy, I'm happy.

Tonight at work we have an interview with a guy coming in for the open water specialist position in my office. He's flying in from Florida and won't get here until 4:00, so we'll be doing the interview late. Poor guy gets a group interview with everyone in the office, which right now is 4 of us.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. The women at work take a day off and go shopping in Spring, north of Houston. It's a cute, kitschy little town with lots of neat shops. Unfortunately, it looks like the bottom's going to drop out of the temperature tonight and it'll be cold and windy tomorrow. Oh well. If I run out of steam, I'll go sit in the coffee shop and drink hot chocolate for a bit while the others shop.

Good luck to my Mother-In Law

She's having knee surgery today. Wish her the best.

I'm fighting a losing battle

As far as my fitness goes. Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that I spent about a month eating junk food and not exercising at all. but I finally got my expanding butt to the gym this week, and I'm trying to eat more veggies, beans and lean protein and cut back on the sugar.

For the upper body workouts, I finally switched to machines for a lot of the chest exercises instead of free weights. I don't want to lie on my back anymore. Those aren't so bad. But it's the unexpected things that get you. Like doing assisted pullups or cable pushdowns and realize that you don't have the ab strength you used to. My core strength is still good, but it's definitely going down as I can't rely on my abs as much.

I did a pretty normal one- hour workout Wed at lunch, split between the elliptical and upper body lifting. I didn't think I'd worked out too hard, but after lunch, I turned into a zombie. I just sat and stared at my computer, and even writing an email was too much work. I stuck it out as long as I could, then finally went home and went to bed for an hour.

Guess I'll take advantage of all the naps I can get now.