one down

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't know what to expect, but always thought it was going to be tough to adjust to an ever-changing body. After an entire summer of house hunting in this ridiculously tight market and looking for a minivan, turns out the pregnancy is the easy part.

I have lost far too many hours of sleep, nearly pulled my hair out on multiple occasions, and shed buckets of tears over the houses we didn't get, the ones on which our offer was accepted and spent hundreds of dollars on inspections only to cancel over some weird buyer contingency at the 11th hour, making arrangements to test drive a van and finding out it was sold right before leaving to get there, etc.

Today is no exception to this experience. We're in escrow for the third time. This house is a fixer and is being sold as is. Unfortunately, the inspector we used totally screwed us and placed us in a very vulnerable position. He didn't check the plumbing...didn't check for leaks 'cause "faucets tend to leak in older homes." huh? So, here we are scrambling to find out more about the house...and, of course, shelling out more $$ for more inspections to determine if it's worth our $$ to continue with the sale. Thankfully, we'll have our go/no-go decision by Thursday. Our inspection contingency ends on Friday...talk about cutting it close! So, we'll table this drama until then.

This past weekend, the universe was on our side (finally)! Since the market for used Siennas is just as competitive as housing, we decided to broaden our search to include Odysseys as well. We met the seller at our mechanic's and took the Odyssey for a drive. Instantly, it was clearly much more comfortable to drive. Fortunately, it was also in pristine condition -- both physically and mechanically. The sellers were a dream to work with too. Our mechanic came out of his garage and told us this was "a good one" which would provide us "many years without big problems". whew.

We sealed the deal later that afternoon. When we got home, we sat in the van in our carport and watched the demo DVD using the wireless headphones without feeling an ounce embarassed. This van has more features than we really need, but I'm sure we'll grow into it very quickly...and I'll be able to reclaim the hours I've been spending scouring car ads.

hiccups

When B came into the room to wake me up yesterday morning, I was already awake. The little bun woke me up a while earlier with lots of activity. B placed his hand on my tummy to check out what was going on in there and felt a rhythmic pulse. We were baffled. I motioned that maybe the little guy was punching around like a boxer in training which made us laugh at the silly scenario.

Later that evening, I took a look at a baby site my co-worker mentioned and read about what to expect at 27 weeks. Turns out the little guy had hiccups this morning! Ah, now that makes more sense than him training for a boxing match. So cute. Well, as cute as you can imagine a small being hiccuping in a sack of amniotic fluid.

My surprise for B arrived in the mail yesterday. Good timing since he's been so immersed in the PS3 these past couple of days. Guess I better be prepared to be outnumbered in this household by gamers.

back 'n belly

I like when I can post about a sewing project. It's been months since I've touched the sewing machine.

A little while ago, I bought a back 'n belly pillow as a splurge to prepare for the days I'd need the support while sleeping. I ended up using it much earlier than expected 'cause it was so comfy. It feels like sleeping in a cloud of pillows. One thing I don't like about it is the pillow covering which came with it is hard and scratchy.

It's been so hot lately that I abandoned the pillow 'cause it was too hot to be blanketed by polyester fiberfill -- even with a fan blowing directly on me all night. Propping pillows around me has been the alternative, but it's doesn't do the job as well. Last night was the first night in weeks that we slept without a fan which means the pregger pillow will be back on the bed soon.

I spent the afternoon making a new pillow case for it. I bought the fabric shortly after the pillow arrived in the mail, but hadn't gotten around to it. By coincidence, it happens to have turquoise in the pattern which goes with a comforter cover I just picked up at Ikea the other week. I'm thinking my color choices might've been subliminally influenced by the little boy blue I've got kicking around in my belly.

Looking at the scraps on the ground, I realized I had enough fabric left over to make a woobie cover for B. bonus.

Next project of the day: avocado ice cream.
Another splurge since I'm going for the real deal, not froyo. All weekends should be long weekends.

lake poway with kojo

Something about weekends makes me wake up earlier than usual. Our original plan was to head out to a flea market, but scratched that for a lazy breakfast...until I pulled up the weekly ad for Tarjay and blurbed out that the PS3 was in stock. I don't know why I encourage B's hobbies (not that he needs any help from me to keep it going), but I saw it on the ad and off we were as early bird shoppers.

Since our next errand wasn't going to be until an hour and a half later, we brought our small collection of bread heels to Lake Poway to feed the ducks. The lake was misty because of the marine layer that blanketed the area earlier. (Made for a very humid morning. I hope relief is on its way for this heat we've been experiencing this summer.)

B made friends immediately with a statue of a mountain lion by the concessions stand who he named, Kojo.

We sat on the rocks by the water and fed the ducks. I was okay with this until the geese came by and stood right next to us. I'm not a fan of geese. Bay Area folks know of the aggressive ones at Stow Lake who attack people on the walkway. Those guys ruined it for all the geese for me. I made sure we threw the bread pieces far away to discourage them from sticking around. A family with a little boy and a bag of feed arrived at the beach area and the geese moved on to them. whew.

Home from our excursions, B set up the PS3 and played his game. Looked like all the other games he plays. I don't get it. Why did we need another console in the house?