Maggie's Journal

Depressing Stuff:

This week it seems my teachers and classmates are out to depress me. First thing Monday morning my tiny little old man of a British literature teacher starts out the 8:00 class talking in great detail of having to put his cat to sleep. There was line in a story we were reading and it made him think of that. Now, you know how much I love animals, so I really didn’t want to hear about the poor kitty with cancer and how it slept for two hours on his stomach before they took it to the vet and then stood there with it while it was put to sleep.

Then in my Shakespeare class that same day we were talking about tragedy plays and what the purpose of them was. So my teacher got to talking about sad movies. Terms of Endearment. Steel Magnolias. And of course she had to go over the plots of them for people who had never seen them.

And finally today in my grammar class over half the class was absent so we were talking about all the things people had going on in their lives and how this was just a bad week. A girl pipes up that her kitten died. Sad enough. But then she went into how it got hit by a car and had some broken bones but they thought it was going to live. And then it died.

Random:

There is a girl in my Shakespeare class who I’ve thought since the first day of school is a little odd. She talks to herself outloud. She’s just weird. But I would NEVER say that to her.

Today we were in a group together working on a project and someone in the group smelt like pickles. So I said, “Someone smells like pickles!” I suppose it’s a little bit of a random thing to say, but so what. And she turns to me and says, “Okayyyy,you are a little bit wierd!” I’m weird? Really? Hello pot, this is the kettle, you’re black!

Class discussion I liked:
For the person who thinks, life is a comedy.
For the person who feels, life is a tragedy.

Of course, I’d like to think that we all think and all feel so that life is a mixture of both comedy and tragedy.

Poem I liked:
Resume by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I think it’s a really funny comment on suicide. Not that I think suicide is funny or anything.

I just got back from my weekly doctor’s appointment and non-stress test. The doctor and the nurse that did my testing said everything is looking great! And the swelling that I had in my legs and ankles is looking better thanks to lots of putting my feet up on mounds of pillows.

As I was getting into the elevator to leave the hospital a lady wearing a hospital gown and attatched to an IV got on with me. She started asking me questions about when I was due and what I was having so I got brave and asked her if she was escaping since she was going down to the ground floor. Hey, she’d already told me I was huge, I didn’t feel there were any more boundries to cross. Turns out she was going down to smoke. No big deal you say. Maybe if she hadn’t told me that she was finding out the sex of her baby today. Who let her out to go smoke? I really wanted to tell someone to stop her, but who can you tell?

A headline I read today :

Health Tip: Some Allergies Are Year-Round

No kidding. I’m glad someone finally acknowledged that I might be sneezing and having itchy eyes all year instead of just seasonally!

You know the little silver circle on the inside wall of a bath tub that drains the water when it gets above it? Why is that there? If bath tub makers only want you to fill the tub up to that line, then why do they make the tub deeper than that? I want the tub all the way full, not full to some arbitrary line.

Patrick and I actaully watched all three of our netflix over the weekend and today. Today’s choice: “Closer”. We’d heard a lot of great things about it, but sadly, we didn’t feel it lived up to all the hype.

The characters had no redeeming qualities and I didn’t even like them. It may be the first Julia Roberts character EVER that I didn’t like. Things came out of her mouth that just shouldn’t have. I mean, I know she’s an actress and just playing roles and that she probably doesn’t want to always be the good girl, but man!

We really didn’t get the point. It’s one of those movies you watch and at the end you say “that’s it? I want my two hours back!” We decided maybe we just aren’t sophisticated enough to get it.

Oh well, maybe the next set will be better.

Patrick switched where all our stuff is being hosted and had to make some changes on my website so I took the opportunity to pick a new look. I lost the cute puppies, but now I have more color!

I just got back from my doctor visit. Everything is looking great. Baby’s size and heartbeat are normal and good. My blood sugar was ok. Iron ok. Weight and blood pressure ok.

Then we got to the portion of the visit where I get to ask whatever questions I have. Patrick wanted me to ask how long after my due date I’d be allowed to go before being induced. Neither of us are super fond of the idea of induction unless it is necessary for the health of the baby or um, me. So when I got the very assurred, “Oh you won’t be going past your due date. With diabetes, we’ll probably have you go a week early” it wasn’t exactly the answer I was looking for. If that holds true instead of being due on the day of my last final, I’ll have to arrange to take my finals a week early. Also, that means that this Thursday when I’m supposed to switch to having 9 weeks left, I’ll only have 8. So yes, I’m freaking out a little, feel free to join me!

I know it will all be fine, but right now I’m very nervous about the things that aren’t ready. Especially Patrick and I! So Kelli, I told you there was no way I could hold out until your birthday on May 17th!

Luckily Kelli threw a lovely shower for me on Sunday where I got a lot of great stuff to get us started. The baby won’t be naked. We can bath and groom it. And it will have blankets and a few toys to keep it company. It was very nice girl time to have everyone over and I really enjoyed it. Kelli was nervous as it was her first baby shower to throw, but I thought it was great! It was my first baby shower to attend too 🙂

Oh, I’m also having a pain that I asked about. The great news is that it will get worse as the baby gets lower. And it will probably spread to both sides instead of just one. Ouch.

I just watched a story about a tree in Oak Cliff that is supposed to have the Virgin Mary in it. Ok, the tree does have a shape created by time that does resemble the shape of a women. But honestly, how do you get the Virgin Mary from that? People have spent the last 3 months going to this tree and praying. The people who’s yard it is in are saying that they want their lives back now and so they are selling it.

My first problem with this is that if Mary were going to make an appearance, I seriously doubt it would be as a sketchy figure in a tree in Oak Cliff. Or in a grill cheese sandwhich for that matter!

Second problem is, if you truly belive that is her image and that the tree is holy, why would you sell it on ebay? The couple said they want to sell it because they want to donate the money to charity. How much of the money you ask? Only 10%.

Call me jaded but it seems to me that they discovered this shape in the tree, spread the word until it got popular and are now trying to profit off it. I guess I missed that lesson in CCD!

Today I’m in my 29th week. Tuesday I had another 3 hour glucose test at the doctor’s. Somehow, I managed to walk away once again, without being put on insulin. My dr. said I’m an interesting case. Just what I always hoped for! I’m interesting. So I am contining to monitor my fasting blood sugar and I have to call if it gets over 115. Which makes the fact that I keep craving sweets hard to deal with, but I’m hanging in there.

Today I started to work on the nursery. I primed over the ivy stencils that were on the wall from back when it was a guest room and I taped off everything that won’t be painted. And I also managed to get one wall painted. I’ll post a picture of it when I’m done. Of course I still have 3 walls left and figuring out how to hang wallpaper!

I’ll try to get Patrick to take a picture of me tomorrow so you can see how big I’m getting!

Patrick has actually posted twice in the last two days after only posting once since forever. Is that one of the signs of the end of the world? See, I had to post a third time today just to stay ahead of him!

As I’ve started feeling very large and elephant like the past week or two I’ve been wondering where on earth the phrase “in a delicate way” came from. I certainly feel anything but delicate right now!

Patrick got me a gift certificate for a massage for Valentine’s Day and I had my appointment today. It was absolutly wonderful! The girl talked to me the whole time which would normally drive me crazy, but she was fun to talk to and was asking me questions and stuff so it was fine. I didn’t even realize how much my neck and shoulders hurt until she started working on them. And she also spent a long time on the lower left side of my back where I’ve had a lot of pain the last few months. How nice to be pampered for a whole hour!

Today I had to google myself to look up the Sherman High School website for a friend and found this link:

Amazon.com: Bloomfield rhythms: Books: Maggie Romanski
Amazon.com: Bloomfield rhythms: Books: Maggie Romanski by Maggie Romanski.

If it’s any good, that’s me!

I have a website that I signed up for that sends me emails everyday with information about changes in the baby and changes in me and also keeps track of the time line for me. Today I start week 26 and looking at the chart, that means I have this week and next week before I move on to the 3rd trimester. Man, time is going fast. I thought it would be so slow, and I’m sure towards the end I will feel like it is, but right now, it’s just zipping by.

When I pointed the two weeks out to Patrick his response was, “Man, we’d better get cracking on the nursery then!” So much to do still. And we have only narrowed down the names, but we still have several we are debating. We’ll go buy some of the furniture soon with our lovely target gift card (see the entry on my car). It’s getting really exciting but really nerve racking!

click the thumbnail for a clearer picture.

I found the following story on the yahoo headlines:

SAN FRANCISCO – A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple’s iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it.

Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.

The iPod players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. Patterson’s suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that’s beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

“He’s bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market,” Berman said. “He’s paying for a product that’s defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it.”…………

So now we can’t even take responsibility and use our brains to decide when the music playing in our ears might be too loud? What the heck?

On the 3rd I had a sonogram. If we were going to find out the sex of the baby, this would have been the time to try to do that. Luckily we had made up our minds not to find out, becuase the baby was not cooperating, or actually, I guess it was. It had its legs crossed and curled and there was no budging it.

It was moving a lot though. There was one really neat shot of the whole spine were with the way it was moving, it looked like a dinosaur skeleton. Kinda neat. The lady doing it, I guess you’d call her a technician, not sure, was so helpful. Other times people haven’t really told us much about what we were seeing. She explained everything and took all of Patrick’s curious questions. She even drew an outline around the forehead, nose, and chin on the picture of the face to make sure that we could tell what we were seeing. So far, everything is going well and normal and according to my count down we have 3 months and 19 days left. The doctor does say it should be anywhere from May 8-15.

The fist picture is the baby’s arm. The second is the head and body and the third is the profile of the face.

Ever since we got home Patrick and I have been debating what kind of car to get and doing some comparison shopping. What I really wanted was a Escape hybrid. When we started looking at the prices though, we thought maybe a Civic Hybrid or even a regular Civic, which still gets really amazing gas milege, would be a better choice for our budget.

Our big debate though centered around did we want another sedan, which would be more fuel efficient and economical, or did we want a small suv which would allow us to transport bigger things every once in a while. We really couldn’t make up our minds.

Finally, we realized on the 31st that it would be good to buy on in 2005, so we headed out on a serious mission. It came down to the Civic or the Saturn Vue. We’d stopped by to look at something else at Saturn previously and discovered the view was nice and affordable. We went to test drive the Civic and it was nice, but I knew I couldn’t make up my mind until we test drove the Vue too. So off we went to Saturn, and the next thing I knew I had a new vue.

I really like it. There are a few things I’m not crazy about, but in general it’s very nice! I get leather, xm radio (thank goodness!), on star (at least for a year) and stero controls for a year. I even have a little jack to plug in my ipod and play it, I just have to find the cable I need to do that.

I’m very excited to have my own car again. Sam got to go for a ride to the vet and he seems to approve too!

Christmas was great as usual! And even better than last year because we didn’t have to travel to get home.

Christmas Eve day we spent the day with Patrick’s family eating too much good food and watching football. Ok, I wasn’t really watching the game as much as I was watching in amusement how worked up people were over it. From there we went to Andy’s (Patrick’s best friend and second family) family first in Oklahoma and then to his parents. I got to hold his newphew who was born in October.

Patrick and I had volunteered to host Christmas for my family since I’d had so much fun doing it the year before we moved. My parents had passed their 9 ft christmas tree down to us to put up in our front window, but sadly it didn’t fit. So I put up two trees instead and the house was nice and festive. Everybody worked hard to help me get ready by bringing food and helping heat it and set it up. Patrick cooked ham and deep fried a turkey. He was in charge of the meats!

I got to see my brother and his family who I’d missed in all our running around last year and my sister was in town too. My aunt, uncle and cousins came as well as my parents and grandfather. It was great to have a full house. I love to play Martha Stewart, though ever so slightly less graceful under pressure.

My aunt and uncle got all the women these scarves, so Mom, Rach and I had to model them for the camera. Picture to follow when Patrick reminds me how the heck to get it in there.

It was a great holiday and my favorite time of year. Patrick was off for just over a week, but finally went back to work on Tuesday and gave the dogs and I the house back!

(If you click on the picture you can see a version where our faces don’t look so funny.)

And even more on the picking a good time not to be in the NYC area front…the transit system of NYC has gone on strike. On the other hand, I guess Patrick would probably have a nice time being off until they solve everything.

Patrick and I just got back from registering at Babies ‘R’ Us, which was just a touch overwhelming. When we did our wedding registry that was fun. We had all the basics so we just picked out fun stuff that we wanted and there really wasn’t a lot of thinking or choices to make. This was a little different. It was still fun, but it left our heads spinning.

We got the list of suggested needs and set to work with gusto. Our gusto, however, quickly faded as we needed to make choice after choice on items that despite studying up on a little, we didn’t know that much about. And did I mention the list was huge? I had planned that it would take us about 2 hours, but it ended up being the 3 hours that the store had left to be open! And we still want to register at Target! We’ll have to rest up for that, but hopefully the 2nd time around will be much faster.

The biggest stalling point was strollers. We both agreed we wanted to get a travel system (a stroller, car seat/baby carrier all in one) but that was the only thing we agreed on at first. Patrick wanted a heavy duty manly stroller that weighed 28 pounds were as I wanted the one the stroller dude said was their best seller and the number one pick of consumer reports that was only 20 pounds. And for all of you who think I wear the pants, Patrick got his uber stroller because stroller dude said it would last through the next child. But the compromise is, as long as he’s around—he’ll be doing the stroller lifting!

I did get my way on the color scheme though, pale yellow, blue and green. And we are having a frog theme, which may be odd, but the stuff was so darn cute!

We imagine that it will be pretty obvious to anyone who looks at our registry that we weren’t 100% sure what we were doing! But hey, we still have 5 months to figure some of that out. Like where on earth in our house all this stuff is going to fit! Oh well, you live and learn right?