Progress Report

I was welcomed to the third trimester - literally to the day - by none other than the flu bug. Thank goodness it was a Tuesday and I was able to cancel my piano lessons for the day instead of trying to find 12 hours worth of coverage last minute at work. It was a miserable day. I spent the majority of the day alternating between the recliner and the bathroom trying to hold down saltine crackers. At long last most of the icky part had passed and I was just left with the achy part. I was laying back in the recliner trying to watch a movie on Netflix when the doorbell rang. I had no idea who it would be since my sister had already brought me a giagantic cup of pebble ice from Sonic. (Thanks again Necia!) I pushed the blanket off, maneuvered the dog and laptop from my lap and slowly made my way up the stairs. I am easily winded by stairs as it is being pregnant, but being sick on top of it made for an even slower assent. I finally reached the top, opened the door and looked out into the wide open nothingness.

Door bell ditched.

I couldn't even be angry. I just leaned against the door frame trying to catch my breath and trying not to cry. Dodger scouted out the breezeway and looked through the gate for any clue who it might have been. I am fairly sure I know who it was, but it doesn't matter. We spent a good portion of our summer being doorbell ditched and so we finally unplugged the doorbell. I had only plugged it back in that very day so I would know when Necia came by. After the blood had returned to my head and the breathing came a little bit easier, I descended into the dark cave like gloom of the basement, unplugged the doorbell, and resumed my movie and remained - thankfully- undisturbed for the rest of the day.

But to keep with tradition, I took a picture of myself in all my flu glory, to prove to the world that I made it to 7 months and that the third trimester had officially begun.

I can definitely say that things have been much better since. No more bugs and I am enjoying good health.

29 weeks.

30 weeks. On Tuesday I will be 31 weeks. Frightening how fast it goes! 7.5 months down. Only about 9 more weeks to go. Ahhh!

I have been very lucky to enjoy good health and energy through the pregnancy up to this point, and I hope it continues.

I am still going to the gym roughly 4 days a week. My muse is spinning. I cannot tell you how much I love that class. It is such an incredible work out. I first starting taking spinning classes a year ago in January. I went religiously through the end of May, and then stopped going. I couldn't say why. Laziness I suppose. But I really missed it. Thankfully, around January of this year my friend Corinne asked me if I would want to go to spinning with her. It was all the motivation I needed to go back and haven't stopped since.

Not only is spinning just an awesome work out anyway, it's prefect for pregnancy too because it isn't as hard on your joints as running or even walking. There have been two other girls that come to class that kept coming right up until their babies were due. That is some serious dedication and motivation. I hope to be just like them. In fact, one of my instructors is about a month ahead of me and is still doing amazing. So as long as I can keep it up, I am going to!

The only hiccup I have had in spinning happened in the last two weeks where by chance, two different teachers both played the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." I love that song. Always have. Always will. But both times in the last two weeks that they played that song it made me tear up. What the heck?! Not full blown crying, thankfully. But actually tears. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Really?! Now Ryan can tell you that I have "overactive" tear ducts when it comes to music, dance, and some movies. I am not actually sad. And I am not really crying. Art sometimes just brings a tear to the eye. And in this pathetic case - apparently those mad fiddling skills. Good grief.


Working out really has been my sanity saver. When I said in my post about Ryan's fly fishing that I don't have an hobbies or do anything, I guess that was a lie. Working out is my number one. And don't get me wrong. I am not one of those crazies that works out for hours at high intensity and eats nothing but lettuce. Good for you if you are like that. I just like the movement and the energy. Typically I do spinning 2-3 times a week and the eliptical 2 days a week. And I enjoy my ice cream afterwards. :)

My back hurts a lot, but not in the way that I expected. It often kills right between my shoulder blades and mid back. I have a hard time trying to figure out how to stretch it out and it keeps me up at night a lot. But it could be much worse.

I was suffering from horrible heartburn, but daily Prevacid has saved me there.

I have no real cravings that keep me from functioning and I have never sent Ryan out in the middle of the night for some food that likely is out of season.

I am not a crazy pregnant lady, thank you very much. Just ask Ryan. He will tell you that I have been about as normal as is possible for being pregnant. (I am confident he will give you that answer even if I am not around, so you can't worry about me telling him better answer the right way or else!)

I am still working 3, 12-hour shifts a week at the hospital and teaching 14 piano students, when I remember. :) (Yes, I did forget a couple lessons last week and thankfully the mom was nice enough to text me and forgive my placenta brain and let me come a few hours late.)

Baby is doing well and moving quite a bit. Feeling and watching the baby move is amazing. I went from not being able to feel him and being totally unsure if those little "flutterings" were really him, to being the soccer ball for kicking practice from the inside. He is very active. On days that he is calm it kind of freaks me out. So when my ribs feel bruised and I am short of breath because he is stretching as big as he can, I am grateful to know he is alive. He loves to somersault and flip around. Ryan is concerned I will need a c-section when all is said and done because the little guy will probably have tangled himself up in there.

I am measuring right on, or maybe a few days small - depends on which measurement you are using. All the ultrasounds show right on if not a little on the big size. By laying down and using an actually measuring tape, a few days shy of my estimated due date. The doc says not to plan on delivering on time - which I never was to begin with - but we can still hope, right?

On the home front... Yesterday was the appointed day for cleaning the carpet. We have a rough goal of trying to do this ever six months, but I think this last time the semi-annual cleaning was skipped. We wanted to get it done before baby came, but before it got too cold so that we could leave the windows open and let the carpet dry. Thankfully we had a nice break from the snow and rainfall last week and instead enjoyed 70s plus all weekend. Perfect for carpet cleaning. My energy however, was not. But energy or no, it had to be done.

Ryan had to work all weekend, so he helped me move the last bit of furniture out of the living room and clean up the floor a bit on Friday so I would be ready to go. I rented one of these guys from Macey's grocery and got going...


I love these machines. They are so handy. About an hour after I started I realized there was an away BYU game and decided to look it up. I was able to find it on KBYU and it provided a much needed excuse to rest my back in between each bucket. Dodger also appreciated these little breaks because I would play fetch with him while trying to stretch out my back and cheering on the Cougars. At each explosion of applause and shouts for joy, Dodger would look at me with his head cocked to one side like he does when he is trying to understand what I am saying. And then giving up, he would pounce on this ball and remind me what we were doing before my fits of "random excitement."

The whole process took me longer than usual with the breaks in between each load, but I got it done. As much work as it is, it is such a rewarding thing. I love washing those buckets of dirty, nasty water down the drain. It's kind of gross when you realize how dirty things get when you don't realize it, but it is awesome to know that you are actually making a difference.

And the bonus to all of this? Not only do I have clean carpet, but check this out!


This is the baby's room during construction. As a matter of fact, this isn't even a true "before" picture because there was a bed in that corner and even more stuff piled on it. Since then, it has gone through several stages of clean up. Right before cleaning the carpets I had it down to just a few boxes lining the wall that had the different sizes of boys clothing we have.

And now?!
Tada!!! This child has a room! No furniture yet, but there is a space for him! Pretty awesome, right?! (Do you love how you can tell where the bed has been for the last 5+ years? No dirt was getting under that thing!)

AND....


Check that out! I have a living room again! Yes, there is still stuff on the couch, but that is because I was cleaning the carpets, and because some of it still needs to find a home. But I am stoked! Look how nice that is. I just want to sprawl out on the carpet and lay there enjoying the space and cleanliness. However - it's still wet and that wouldn't be too much fun.

So things are definitely progressing! And considering our crazy schedules, I don't think we are doing too bad for ourselves. :)

Things we haven't done:

1. Picked a name. No, this is not a point of argument between Ryan and me. We just haven't found anything yet. Probably cause we don't really talk about it. Not sure why. Most couples spend a lot of time on the internet or looking at books, but we haven't. I do hope to have a name before we get to the hospital. I know a lot of couples go with multiple names and just wait to see what the child looks like. If that happens for us, that's not necessarily our intention. It would simply be because we haven't found anything yet. I was talking to the mom of one of my student's the other day and she told me that they didn't have a name for their youngest for 4 months after he came home. 4 months! Wow! I don't feel too bad about not having one any more.

2. Figured out the whole going back to work gig. Ryan is still looking for another job, so that is a big unknown factor. I would love to cut back to part time, but if I am still paying for insurance, that's a pretty big pay cut. So it's a matter of mathematics and timing.

3. Find a dresser and/or changing table that we like. We are searching the KSL classifieds daily. There are plenty of "good deals" but we are really hoping for a "GREAT" deal. Unfortunately, most of those sell really quick and it seems like its always during the hours that we are at work and couldn't do much about it anyway. So hopefully we will figure that one out.

Let see... I am sure there was more I was going to report on, but in case anyone actually made it through this post - I am sure that is enough for now. Besides, little Dodger is giving me a sign that he is bored...


This is new. He jumped up on my lap and put his head on my arm while I was typing. It can't actually be comfortable as it makes his head bob around a bit and he can't actually lay down and stretch his neck that far. I think he knows this post was mostly about baby and not him. Someone is feeling left out...

The Itsy Bitsy Spider...

...Does not live at my house. But his big brothers and sisters do!

In honor of the season, here is a delightfully creepy post all about spiders.


We are basement dwellers. And though we love it, it comes with it's downside. Like this guy...


And these guys...


Nasty, right? I am pretty sure they are just regular old house spiders, but they are big, fast, and gross!


Not that long ago, we had a patient come into the ER for a spider bite. This isn't terribly uncommon, but what was unusual is that the patient brought the spider with them in a cup... alive. I waited around the room for a while since I needed to finish the registration anyway, and one by one I watched the Dr, nurse, and tech all come out of the room individually shivering away the hebbie gebbies. So I decided I wanted to take a look too. What they had in the cup was about the size of a silver dollar, I would guess, if the legs were all spread out. Creepy bugger. And it looked just like the first picture above. I heard the Dr tell the nurse that it was a Hobo spider. Oh now that's just great. A Hobo! Big creepy spiders in my house aren't enough - but a Hobo?! I called Ryan to let him know, so as soon as he got home from work, he jumped on the Internet and started comparing the Hobo spider to our little friend. It's close, but not an exact match. But we can't exactly rule it out either.

You can see the monster above the quarter there. I am pretty positive if he was alive, or if we could spread him out and measure him, he would be the size of a silver dollar too. Sick. Sick. Sick.

Our biggest help in combating these lovely little creatures is what's pictured above. A sticky glue board. They wander onto it and that's that. Obviously they don't make it very far - that's why there aren't any in the middle. Sadly, yes, they just starve to death. If there was a mouse trap type mechanism for a spider, I would own it. I do feel bad making them die this way, but I can't tell you how nice it is knowing that these little traps are doing the work for me. The other day while Ryan and I were moving furniture around, he paused with his eyes open wide and said, "Don't look up." So of course I did. And there directly above my head was one of those "Hobo" looking spiders - just as big as the one in the picture - but alive... and not on a glue board. I wanted to scream like a little girl and run. I did my own hebbie gebbie dance and asked Ryan to smash it, which he obliged. Thank goodness for that! I can handle most spiders and bugs - but that one was just too big and too creepy.

If anyone is great at identifying spiders, I would love to know officially what that guy is. Just throwin' it out there.

Aside from the sticky traps, Ryan has spent a good amount of time cleaning out all the window wells and spraying them down with bug spray. It has helped a ton! Due to the fact that our home is old and the windows are single paned and not completely air tight, we are going to put plastic window wrap over the windows we don't use and seal them shut.

I know having a few spiders around the house it totally normal. And I know they are good to eat other bugs too. But I don't need them in mass quantity - especially when they are unknown species that are fast, ugly, and creepy beyond belief (if it's possible for a spider not to be creepy.) In the last few weeks as we have been working on deep cleaning, we have gotten rid of lots of hidden spider webs and hide outs. It is such a nice feeling knowing that things are really getting clean! And it's nice to know we won't be bringing our little guy home to a spider mansion. This is our home - not the spiders' - thank you very much.

And with that, I hope anyone reading this is enjoying a nice, spider-free morning, afternoon, or evening. Happy Halloween!

Grown Men Craft Too

Okay... so I might get in trouble for calling it a "craft"... but it certainly is an art.

Camping season may be over, but fly fishing sure isn't. This is another one of Ryan's hobbies that has really just developed over the last year or so. He owned a fly rod before that, but he didn't really start getting into it until this year when he starting tying his own flies.

I can't tell you how many times I have called to him from the other room to ask his opinion, or see if he could come help with something and the response would float back, "Uh honey... I am kind of a critical point right now..."

I laugh each time and respond, "You are always at a critical point!" The truth is, I have watched him make these little buggers, and they really aren't easy. And there really isn't a great "stopping point." It's a delicate process!

This back bedroom is Ryan's "Man Cave." It has been a huge blessing to have that extra room because with all our hobbies, we would be in real trouble without the storage. Nowadays you can find Ryan back there whenever he has a free minute, working away on some more flies.

At a glance you would think he was sewing something, right?


This box of flies has actually grown quite a bit since I took this picture. It's now nearly full. Each fly is different and serves a difference purpose. They all imitate different bugs for different areas, seasons, and fish. The boy does his research. One day we were down at Olive Garden in Provo and he asked if we could walk across the street to the river. He pulled out a couple rocks and plants and studied the bugs he found there. When we got home we compared it to the color of thread and materials he had to find the best match. When complete, he tried them out on the river and sure enough - that was exactly what the fish wanted!

He fishes mostly on the Provo River where, though you are allowed to keep some of the fish you catch, Ryan stays strictly catch-and-release. It doesn't hurt the fish and he has a great time. It has been a great stress relief and option for him now that the weather is getting colder and our other outdoor options are gone for a few months.

Something interesting I learned in this process though, is what "hackle" is. Funny enough - normally I wouldn't have known what he was talking about. In fact, I still wouldn't have known the term. But come to find out, I knew very well what he was talking about... and I think almost every girl out there will too...

Recognize this stuff ladies? All those pretty feathers in different colors? And what do we do with them?

That's right... hair extensions. This hackle used to be primarily for flies! This stuff is primo when it comes to getting just the right fly - just the right look for the bug you are imitating. That really was it's purpose. They are genuine feathers, typically from a rooster. But suddenly the fashion world caught wind of this and every girl had to have a feather in her hair. Though they are fun and pretty, they have driven the price of these things through the roof. For both parties, I might add, but especially for the fishermen. If you want to stay on the good side of a fisherman, hide the feathers in your hair! In fact, it's now to the point where if a member of a sporting goods store sees a woman walk through the door - they know what they are after. But they are selling out! Most sporting good places can't keep them stocked!

Don't worry ladies - if you have a feather in your hair - I won't disown you. :) I think they are fun, and they are kind of pretty. I personally don't have any in my hair for a couple reasons. 1. I have never wanted one in the first place. 2. They are expensive. 3. I have a healthy relationship to maintain. Hahaha. But if I was true to the cause, I wouldn't be able to talk to my little sister, or a few of my piano students, or half the women I know... Ryan just shakes his head. The fashion will change eventually.

Aside from the frustration Ryan shares with thousands of other men about the price of hackle, he is loving his little "craft" and taking advantage of it at every chance he can. It's healthy for him. And really for anyone. Not necessarily fly fishing - but having some "release." Some hobby. I have realized that on a daily basis - I really don't have one. Ryan has lots of little hobbies. I enjoy a lot of things, but I don't really "do" anything. That may be because I am working full time, teaching 14 piano students, and trying to get ready for a baby. But just this weekend I started scrapbooking using my digital scrapbooking program again and I am so excited! I love it! Scrapbooking and blogging are my "outs." And I think they are good ones. Preserving memories. That's what it's all about, right?