Thankful Thursday

It’s Thursday again, and this week I made it on time!

ABC’s of Gratitude:

• Eggs – I’m not a huge fan of just egg dishes, like scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, etc. But I do love Nick’s egg salad sandwiches, and I definitely wouldn’t get very far in my cooking without always having a carton or two on hand.
• Dr. E – my OBGYN’s last name starts with an E, and I just have to say that she is a FABULOUS doctor! She’s delivered both of my babies so far, and Lord willing she’ll deliver this one too. She’s a doctor who really, truly cares about her patients, and her practice reflects that. I can’t tell you how many times over the years she’s sent me home from her office with 6 months worth of birth control samples just because she knew we were having a rough time financially, and she’s always gone above and beyond the call of duty in addressing any concerns I had, whether over my PCOS or any of my pregnancies.
• Elevators – since I no longer work outside the home (other than for photography), elevators don’t play a huge part in my life anymore. But I had to visit the hospital’s billing office when I went in for my doctor’s visit this week, and you can bet I was happy not to have to traipse up and down stairs between all those floors!
• Electricity – We ended up going without power for most of the day a few weeks back due to some area storms. Now I know that there were plenty of folks without power for weeks, so we were quite fortunate to get it back so quickly, but I sure did miss it while it was gone!
• Easter – the day we celebrate the greatest gift we were ever given!

Recent Blessings:

• I went to the doctor on Monday, and everything is going well with the baby. I even got an unexpected peek at him/her! I wasn’t supposed to have another ultrasound until next month, but my (awesome) doctor asked me if I wanted her to try to see if she could tell what I’m having. Unfortunately our little peanut wasn’t cooperating AT ALL. My doctor said that a lot of times when she says she can’t tell for sure, she’s pretty sure it’s a girl, but this time she wasn’t getting even a glimpse of the relevant parts. But it was still really neat to get to see the baby, and this way Nick will get to be with me when I find out. Plus, I get to go back 3 weeks from yesterday instead of waiting a whole 4 weeks like I usually have to do.
• God has, as always, kept His hand on us financially, and as we face some upcoming expenses in the next few weeks, it’s wonderful to know that we can depend on Him to continue doing so.
• Morgan is back in school, and she’s enjoying it. Now there’s a little more to the story than just that. For the last 6 years she’s attended the Christian school that I attended from 1st grade through graduation. My mom worked there for 22 years, retiring just a couple of years ago. Now this has always been a great (if small) school with some great teachers, but over the last few years it has quickly begun to decline. The founding pastor retired in 2009 and passed away later that year, and unfortunately the man he hired to replace him has made some really terrible decisions. Sadly he has proven to be a less than honest man, although I think he genuinely wants to do a good job. Piece by piece the ministry has started to deteriorate as he has replaced some of the much loved and very capable long-time employees with people of his own choosing. At this point there are a total of 8 teachers for the entire K through 12 school, and enrollment has bottomed out. Since he took office, the school has lost about 20 different teachers and office workers, some of them who have dedicated 20 years or more of their lives to this ministry. Some, like my mom, retired because they felt like it was no longer the place God had for them, some were forced out by pay cuts, and some were outright fired because they didn’t agree with his policies. Anyway, since last year Nick and I have been in serious prayer about where to send Morgan this year. Just a few days before the school year started he fired a lady who had not only been a tremendous asset to the ministry, but who had also kept a close eye on Morgan, no small thing for us in the climate that had begun to develop there. We felt it was God really working on us to go ahead and move her to a new school, so with much continued prayer, we have done so. Her teacher at the new school seems to be a really great guy, and Morgan is really enjoying the new setting. The academics are also on a whole new level at the new school, and I just thank God that He guided us and smoothed the way for her to have everything she needed to enroll there.
• Morgan wore a uniform at her old school, and since the decision to send her to a new school was not made until literally last Friday, we didn’t have much in the way of school clothes for the new school. Nick’s dad and stepmom came and took her shopping for most of what she needed, and I was able to get a few other things on clearance for her.
• Morgan’s school bus now picks her up and drops her off 3 houses down from ours. This is great news, because at first it was going to be about a quarter mile away – not a huge distance, but far enough that I had to stick Daisy in a stroller and walk her to the bus stop the first three days. This is not such a big deal right now, but when I have a toddler and a newborn, it will be a huge help to not have to get them both out every morning.
• With the bus now coming to get Morgan, Nick no longer has to drop her off at school, and I no longer have to pick her up, saving us both lots of gas!
• We went out to eat tonight (a rare treat, but I had to take Morgan for her school physical and didn’t have time to make supper). Shortly after leaving the restaurant, I realized I didn’t have my phone. I borrowed Nick’s to call the restaurant and see if they’d found it, but they said they didn’t have it. Praying hard and trying not to panic, I drove back down there and found it under the table where we were sitting. Yay!

Baby Update:

Week 17 of Pregnancy

Your baby is practicing sucking and swallowing as she gets ready for the real thing: a breast or bottle! As for Mom, you may be warding off some unwanted belly touching.

Your Baby in Week 17 of Pregnancy

My how your baby has grown! She's about the size of your palm, weighs about five ounces, and is developing some body fat (join the club, baby!). Her heart is now regulated by her brain (no more random beats) to beat 140 to 150 times per minute — about twice as fast as yours! What else is up? She’s practicing the survival skills she’ll need at birth — like sucking and swallowing.

Learn more about your baby in week 17 and a baby’s body fat.

Your Body in Week 17 of Pregnancy

Now that you're starting to show, chances are that friends, coworkers, and even strangers may feel the urge to reach out and touch your belly. If you don't mind, that's fine. But if you do, speak up kindly but firmly. More new developments with your body: a slight vaginal discharge (leukorrhea) and a greater sensitivity to allergens these days — both are totally normal — and the appetite of a truck driver now that the queasy feeling is (probably) gone.

Learn more about your body in week 17 and your growing appetite.

Week 17 Pregnancy Tip: Snoring

If your partner finds your new snoring habit about as sexy as a hippo in a thong (which, by the way, you're starting to feel like), take heart. The stuffiness that often triggers world-champion snoring is common and temporary, another unexpected (make that inexplicable) side effect of those pregnancy hormones at work (that’s right, even your nose is affected by pregnancy hormones!). Try putting a humidifier in your bedroom, using one of those nasal strips on your nose to open up your nasal passages (doesn't look pretty, but it works for some people), or sleeping on a couple of pillows to keep your head slightly elevated. And if he still complains, buy him a set of earplugs — or banish him to the couch for the night; after all, it's more important that you get a good night's sleep these days.

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Thankful Thursday

Ok, I really am sucking at this. After being late with Thursday before last, I forgot last Thursday completely, and here it is almost midnight on this Thursday. But I made it!

ABC’s of Gratitude:

• Dip. Cannoli dip, specifically. This one. Make it and eat it with animal crackers and you can thank me later.
• Dollars – like it or not, we’ve gotta have them, and it sure is easier when we do.
• Dogs – not all of them, necessarily, but I sure do love ours.
• Donuts – Okay, I don’t actually love donuts. They’re okay, but I’d much rather have a cupcake. But our church serves them with coffee every Sunday after the evening service, and I cherish the fellowship time.
• Date night – we really, really, REALLY need another one of these pronto.
• DVR – it has revolutionized our TV watching.                                          
• DD – is it a sad sign that I almost forgot this one? Yes, it’s been awhile since there’s been too awful much sign of it, but I think it’s still there under the surface, and I‘m grateful for however much of it there is.

Recent Blessings:

• Nick installed our new garbage disposal and it works great! Yay!
• Last year when we went on vacation, Nick’s supervisor forgot to put his vacation in to payroll, and his paycheck was majorly short. This year Nick made extra sure to fill out the necessary paperwork (which he also did last year, not that it mattered). Unfortunately, his supervisor did the exact same thing this year. Last year they refused to fix it till his next paycheck, two weeks later. Fortunately at the time we had some money coming in from elsewhere, so we made it, but this year there was just no way we could make it another two weeks. We both really prayed about it, and his supervisor pulled some strings and got Nick a check cut for the difference the same day.
• On several separate occasions both my mom and Nick’s dad have found Nick nice used left-handed golf clubs at flea markets and thrift stores. Today his dad dropped of a very cool golf bag along with another club, and his set is nearly complete.
• We’ve been interested in moving Daisy to a toddler bed in the very near future. She’s gotten very proficient in climbing out of her crib, plus we want her out of the crib well before the new baby arrives. Less chance of her feeling like the baby has pushed her out of her bed that way. Nick’s dad and stepmom found a perfect one for a great price at a little antique store while we were away in Texas, and they bought it as a gift for us.
• Nick got a little bit of side work today, which is always nice.
• More movement from the baby over the last few days. Happy times.                 

Baby Update:

Week 16 of Pregnancy: Baby's Hearing

Listen up: Tiny bones in your fetus's ears are in place this week, making it likely that the baby can hear your voice when you're speaking (or singing in the shower) at 16 weeks pregnant. In fact, studies have found that babies who are sung to while they're in the womb recognize the same tune when it's sung to them after they are born (so choose your baby Muzak with that in mind…).

And baby's busily boning up in other ways. For one, the backbone (along with the back muscles) is stronger now — strong enough, in fact, to enable your baby to work on straightening his or her head and neck even more. Baby's crown-to-rump measurement is between four and five inches in length, and weight is hovering around three ounces.

This little one's a looker — with a face that has both eyebrows and eyelashes — but a skinny looker since there's no baby fat yet. And here's the skinny on baby skin: It's practically translucent now, so if you took a peek inside your uterus, you'd be able to see your baby's blood vessels under that thin skin.

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Reflections Candy Cane Vibe Review

It’s review time again! I was really excited about this month’s selection from Eden Fantasys’ array of g-spot vibrators. I’m a big fan of glass toys, so I was pleased to find out they were sending me the Candy Cane Vibrator from Doc Johnson’s Reflections line.

Now if you’re like me (and I suspect most people), you probably aren’t going to put your toys on display for the in-laws. But this one is just about pretty enough to do so!

As you can see, it bulges in the middle of the shaft, and it features raised lines spiraling around the bump. Operation is a easy button on the end of the cap. It has three speeds, and turns off with a single push once you’re to high speed. One feature I really like is the fact that it only takes one AA battery. It’s also waterproof. The glass is super slick, but the ridging around the shaft does a great job of holding it in place if you choose to use it internally, and the ridging also provides a wonderful sensation if used externally.

As always, the specs from Eden Fantasys’ site:

• Material / Texture

  Material:

  Tempered glass

  Material safety: Indication of overall safety based on cleaning and chemical properties, on a 1-10 scale (10 being the safest).

  Texture:

  Ribbed / Swirled

  Safety features:

  Food-grade material / Hypo-allergenic / Latex free / Non-porous / Phthalates free

• Functions / Performance / Controls

  Functions:

  Vibrating

  Special Features:

  • Multispeed
  • Waterproof

  Control type:

  Push button

  Powered By:

  AA-1

Please check out Eden Fantasys for all your sex toys needs!

Eden Fantasys provided me with this product to review at no charge, but I was in no was compensated for this review, and all opinions are my own.

A bit late, but so much to be thankful for!

Sorry I’m late with my Thankful Thursday post, but I was busy in Texas last week!

ABC’s of Gratitude:

• Cuddling – whether with my husband or my girls, I’m a big fan of cuddling, and I can’t wait to cuddle with the new baby!
• Comcast – okay, most of the time. There are occasions when we lose service for a little while (like yesterday), but their customer service has always been phenomenal with us, and I love their On-Demand and DVR services.
• Casseroles – I admit, these are my go-to dinners when I don’t know what else to fix, and I’ve got a million of them.
• Couches – I mentioned a few months ago that we got a new living room set with our income tax return back in March, and I just have to say how very much we all love our couches. One is technically a love seat, but it’s almost big enough to stretch out on, so I think it counts as a couch.
• Chair – Oh, and I love the huge chair and 1/2 that came with the couches too!
• Cousins – Morgan and Daisy got to spend the week with their cousins while we were in Texas, and it was so much fun to watch them interact with each other, especially Daisy and our nephew M, who’s four months older than her.
• Crafting – the last year I’ve really grown into my crafting hobbies, especially with sewing, and it gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction to be able to create something. My mom was always an incredibly talented person with sewing and crafting, and it makes me happy to wander down the same pathways.

Recent Blessings:

• First of all, I felt a liiiiittle bit of movement from the baby on the Saturday after my last post. Be still my heart!
• A big one of course is the fact that we all got to go to Texas and spend the week with Nick’s sister and her family last week. It was just a wonderful vacation, very comfortable and relaxing, and with staying at their lake house, very luxurious as well.
• We got to Texas safely!!! We left on Friday evening after R got off and arrived Sunday morning. It’s a long trip, but we split the driving, and it wasn’t too bad.
• K and her husband actually have their lake house on the market (so this will be our last visit to Austin, although we’ll still visit them in Houston where they live full time). As soon as we arrived they had a showing on the house, despite prior instructions to their realtor that they didn’t want any showings this week.

         We were happy to just hang out and get lunch, but K’s husband S sent us to Academy (a huge sports store down there) with instructions to all pick something out for ourselves, and they would meet us there as soon as they could and pay for our purchases. Now that was an incredibly generous offer, but it was also sort of an unusual one, and we all felt kind of strange taking him up on it. None of us really felt comfortable with that kind of freedom with someone else’s money, so we all just kind of hung around the store till they got there. Morgan had picked out a few little things, but she had her own money that she had saved for the trip, and she was planning to pay for everything herself.

         When K and family arrived, we all hugged and exclaimed over how much all the kids had grown, then S and K did some shopping of their own. K immediately picked out a couple of pairs of shoes for Daisy (something she really needed!), and they insisted on paying for Morgan’s stuff as well. It was so incredibly sweet of them to do, although I’m glad the rest of us didn’t take him up on his offer, especially considering how generous they were with us the rest of the week!

• Beyond just the trip itself, there were many other blessings last week. I’ve mentioned before that K and her family are very, very blessed financially, and they obviously love to do things for those that they love. It ended up costing us more in gas than we had thought to get down there, leaving us with barely enough to get home. Of course we never said a word about it to anyone, but we were a little worried that something would come up that might leave us short. The third day we were there K pulled Nick aside and handed him a handful of Visa gift cards and just said, “Here, these are for you.” It was completely out of the blue, and she just said that they wanted us to have them and use them to enjoy the week. It turned out to be $600 worth, and there were also six $10 iTunes gift cards in there as well. He of course told her that we appreciated it very much but that it was completely unnecessary, but she insisted he take them and told him it was just something they wanted to do. That generous gift not only allowed us to have some fun down there, but it’s also helping us this week too!
• On Tuesday Nick and his sister R’s husband C got to have a guy day and go visit Austin Speed Shop, which is Jesse James’ motorcycle shop and has long been on Nick’s bucket list. They really enjoyed the day, and Nick got to bring home a really cool t-shirt.
• The same day Nick and C hung out, Daisy, Morgan, and I went shopping with both of Nick’s sisters and our niece and nephew. I didn’t know at the time about the gift cards, so I didn’t do any shopping of my own, but K bought several outfits for Morgan and Daisy, and took us all to lunch.
• Wednesday Nick’s sisters agreed to watch the kids for us so Nick and I could spend some time together alone. We went shopping at one of my own personal favorites – the Goodwill! I loooove to go thrifting – I think it’s just so much fun to find hidden treasures at a fantastic price, although lately I’ve not really had much extra money to go with. Let me just say that the Goodwills in Austin (at least in the rich part of town lol) are AWESOME.

        We went to three different ones, and I cleaned up! I got two brand new, never-been-worn pairs of shoes, a low heeled dressy pair with the original price tag still on them for $6.99, and a pair of Converse All Stars (which retail for about $40) for $4.99. I also found a pair of awesome maternity pants for $6.99, and several shirts for $1 to $1.99 each.

• My very favorite purchase though was………….a garbage disposal! How random is that at the Goodwill? But it was also brand new, never been installed, still had all the paperwork with it and everything for $14.99. See, a few months ago, our garbage disposal bit the dust. I had really missed being able to use it, but a replacement was over $100, definitely not in our budget, so we were just living without it. The one we bought in Austin is actually a better, more powerful one than the one we had previously, and I can’t wait till we get a chance to install it!
• Wednesday S got to rejoin us (Monday he’d had to drive back to Houston to work for a few days). He took us all to an incredible dinner at a really high end steakhouse in downtown Austin, and afterwards we went to Congress Bridge to watch the bats take off.
• Thursday they took us all to Sea World. It was an awesome trip, and we all really enjoyed the Shamu show as well as all the other animals and attractions.
• We got home safely on Sunday morning – what a long, long drive! Whew!
• After the last fill up that Nick’s sister R did on our way home (we were splitting the gas with them), we had enough gas to make it home plus get Nick to work and back this week.
• We had enough left on the gift cards to go on until payday this Friday.

Baby Update:

At 14 Weeks Pregnant, Your Baby is a Mover (But Not a Shaker Yet)

Growing by leaps and bounds, by week 14 of pregnancy, your baby is leaping and bounding. He or she is on the move almost constantly — and those movements are a far cry from those jerky twitches of last trimester (though you won't feel any of them for weeks to come). They are now ballet-like, smooth and fluid.

Your Baby at 14 Weeks: Developing Perfect Posture (or Better Posture, at Least)

Speaking of ballet, it'll be years before you'll start nagging your offspring to stand up straight — but unbelievably, he or she is doing it right now, without any prodding!  No slouch anymore, your baby's neck is getting longer, helping his or her head stand more erect. This gives your 14-week-old fetus a more straightened-out appearance.

Your Little Bigfoot — A Hairy Baby at 14 Weeks

Growth is happening on top of the head as well — by 14 weeks pregnant, your baby could be sprouting some hair (though the final color may not be determined until birth) and the eyebrows are filling in, too.

Hair growth isn't limited to the baby's head, though.   He or she is also covered with a downy coating of hair called lanugo, largely there for warmth. As fat accumulates later on in your pregnancy (the baby's fat, not yours — though that will accumulate, too), most of the lanugo will shed — though some babies, especially those born early, still have a fuzzy coating at delivery (it sheds soon afterward).

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