The bullet points

• Today I start my third trimester.  The past six - almost seven - months have simultaneously been the longest and shortest of my life.  How can it feel like last August was years ago and weeks ago at the same time?  I can't explain it but it does.  And the 12-13 weeks that loom ahead feel similarly like they'll never end and will be over in an instant.  I'm trying to embrace every moment because it may just be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  (And if I'm being totally honest I don't know how sad I'd be if that turns out to be the case.  We'll see how I feel about it in a year or so.)
• I hate unsolicited advice.  I'm no stranger to it of course, and I'm sure you aren't either, but I think it's only going to get worse now that I'm about to be a first time mom.  Everyone who already has a kid will be coming out of the woodwork to tell me the "right" way to do things, and it has already started.  You make one innocuous comment about how cute baby shoes are and someone has to chime in with what brand you should buy because otherwise you will destroy your kid's feet.  I get it, they're probably just trying to be helpful, and maybe it was something they didn't know until they had kids.  But I hate the general school of thought that just because someone doesn't have kids means they know nothing about them.
• I think I mentioned that Hubs and I are doing the Bradley method for our birth class.  We've been going for a few weeks now and I like it, except that it's kinda boring.  If you don't know anything about Bradley, basically its focus is on natural childbirth, understanding how to work with your body during labor and birth, and learning relaxation methods to help you through the pain (similar to the meditation methods I've been practicing for the past couple years).  As you might expect, my class is half-filled with hippie granola types who are planning home births.  I'm not planning a home birth, although after being in the class for a few weeks I can definitely see the appeal, so more power to them.  I'm with the other half of the group planning regular ol' hospital births; just hoping I can make it through without pitocin or an epidural or (god help me) a C-section.  I don't have strong feelings about how women in general "should" give birth, but I feel that for me, if at all possible, I'd like to experience it as it is, and I believe that my body will be able to handle it (or be handled by it).
• My job is still going really well, still learning a lot, still like my coworkers and my boss.  Actually my boss is pretty freaking amazing.  She keeps offering me hand-me-downs, which I will gladly take off her hands.  Plus, the other day she told me that if my schedule (9:30-6:30) isn't convenient after the baby is born that she's okay with me switching to earlier hours.  Ummm... freaking amazing!  I didn't even have to ask, but I had been thinking about it.  After three years of torture at my last job, I didn't believe that places like this (and bosses like her) even existed anymore.  
• I'm still working weekends with the DJ too, and it is exhausting!  It's bridal show season so that's what I've been doing most Sundays for the past month.  I don't mind so much, except that it's sales, sales, sales, and I am just not a salesperson.  I'm an introvert.  I don't like striking up conversations with random people, I get flustered when I feel like I'm trying to sell someone something, and for the life of me I can't close a sale, which at these shows just means getting a potential client to book an appointment.  (Which you would think would be easy because why else are these brides there except to find vendors for their weddings?  But a surprising amount of them act like they don't want anyone to talk to them.)  It's starting to stress me out.  But they pay me whether or not I book any appointments and it's only for another month and we really need the money, sooo...  I will suck it up and try to make the best of it.
• Baby shower planning mode is on, and we've decided on a casual, co-ed, open house style shindig instead of a traditional shower.  I'm excited!  We can invite lots of people this way and it won't be weird for the guys because the games are all set up to be optional with no timeline, and I won't be opening gifts.  
• Okay that's all I can think of for now unless you want to hear about how Atticus has been using the (lid-less) litter box we got for Scout, missing the litter and peeing all over my walls and floors from inside the box.  Never a dull moment...

Lots of stuff about baby

We found out we're having a girl!  Now someone please help me come up with names because we're seriously struggling.  We've been talking about boy names for weeks and now we have to switch gears, and nothing sounds good.  I don't want anything too trendy or too bland, I like old-fashioned but not fuddy-duddy, and uncommon but not made-up sounding.  So far the only name that's securely on our list is Mari Joy, and we'd call her Joy.  (Mari is pronounced the same as Mary, but it's the spelling of my grandmother's name.  And see?  That's already too complicated because everyone is going to pronounce it "MAH-ree" when they read it, and being "Kitty, not Katie" and answering "How did you get Kitty from Mary?" my whole life makes me want to avoid any names requiring explanation.)  Okay, so... GO!

I told my new employer early this week that I'm expecting, and they were extremely cool about it.  RELIEF!  The job is going well.  It's just enough of a challenge that I'm not bored, I'm learning a lot of new things which is great, and I really like everyone in my little department (there are four of us).  Emotionally I'm feeling a lot better these days too and the job is a big part of that.  I feel like I'm contributing to the household again (which makes sense because I am), not feeling nearly as anxious all the time, and I have a bit of confidence back.  Thank goodness!

As for baby bump pics, I've been really bad about taking them.  I think the last one we took was around 15 weeks, and now I'm at 26.  I'm just lazy!  So much for creating a flip book of my burgeoining belly.  (Just kidding, I wasn't really going to make a flip book.)  But I suppose I can take a second to provide you with a shot, just because you're so nice.

You're probably wondering how my boss didn't already know I'm pregnant!  Well, basically I wore as concealing of clothing as possible for a couple of days and avoided giving anyone a profile view.  Like I said before, I'm sure she suspected.  Plus I swear I popped out a little bit more just over the past few days.

I'm almost in the third trimester and it still feels weird to have a belly sticking out in front of me.  Also, really weird to have something moving around inside said belly.  She's still feet-down, and I get a lot of shots to the cervix which is definitely the weirdest.  Last night I was almost asleep when all of a sudden I got hit there with what felt like both feet and I jumped!  Ugh.  I'm definitely going to start doing the exercises my doctor gave me to try to get her to turn.  As she gets bigger the kicks are obviously more intense and uncomfortable, plus I really, really, REALLY want to do whatever I possibly can to try to avoid a c-section just in case she has no intentions of turning herself.

So three months to go and I haven't begun to start working on the baby's room, which is now the office.  And what a tornado of an office it is.  And that's why I'm procrastinating - it is such a daunting clean-up project.  I already decided I'm not painting any walls.  They're a nice sandy color that will go with just about anything and painting sucks.  I did find some crib bedding I like - ladybugs!  So we're going with a red color scheme.  But I can't do any of the fun stuff until the room is clean... I'll get to it eventually.

Okay lots to do today and I'm procrastinating again, as usual.  So peace out!

New year, new news

So I got me a job.  It's temp but with an open-ended contract so it's potentially long-term and could lead to full-time.  My that's a lot of hyphens for one sentence!  It happened really fast - I had an interview on Thursday morning, they offered me the job that afternoon, and I started working on Friday.  It's with a vendor for B of A, basically working in Excel all day long.  But it seems pretty low-pressure, the environment is business casual (I actually get to wear jeans to work!  That alone is worth the huge pay cut), plus it's just a hop and skip away from where Hubs works and I have the exact same hours as he does so we'll be able to commute together.  I haven't told them yet that I'm pregnant, I figure I will sometime next week.  I think it's pretty obvious and I'd be surprised if they didn't suspect, but I wore some loose-fitting tops both days I was there so they might be totally clueless.  At any rate I don't want them to think I'm trying to pull something over on them, plus I'm about out of tops that camouflage my belly (however poorly), so I figure honesty is best.

In the meantime, the wedding business is booming.  Well, in a manner of speaking anyway.  I have three weddings booked for this year so far, and the organizer of the same bridal show I went to over the summer offered me free table space in exchange for some balloons at their January show next week.  I am so getting the sweet end of that deal!  I'm still working weekends with the DJ too, so I think life is about to get ridiculously busy.  I'm trying not to worry about how everything is going to work out this summer with a baby, a business, and a full time job.  It's hard to think too far past my due date anyway though; one thing at a time!

The pregnancy is still going smoothly, knock on wood.  I'm 25 weeks along now.  We have our second chance to find out the baby's sex on Monday.  On the one hand I'm excited to know what it is, but on the other I'm pretty used to not knowing so it won't be the end of the world if he/she decides to be difficult again.  I do think knowing would help us finally decide on some names at least, though!  I should have figured someone as indecisive as I am would have a particularly hard time picking out a name for my kid.  Next week we also start our birth classes, which I'm kind of excited about.  We're doing the Bradley Method.  Like so many women before me I'm hoping for a natural childbirth, but I'm not going to kid myself about how tough I am - my miscarriage was pretty excruciating and that was only 8 weeks along; I'm sure childbirth will be exponentially worse.  If it's more than I can handle I'm not going to hesitate to ask for the juice and no one is going to make me feel guilty about it.

Hubs has demanded that I talk more about how great he is on my blog.  I told him he's worse than me about fishing for compliments.  But I will close with this: He's been such an amazing provider while I've been unemployed these past many, many months.  On top of that, he never put pressure on me to find a job and has been super supportive of my starting a business that doesn't make much money.  I always knew he'd be an amazing dad, and he's always been an awesome husband, but he's been so impressive during this most recent struggle of ours that I'm finally learning to accept that I don't have to worry so much, and that no matter what happens we'll be okay.  So, thanks my love.  You're a better husband than I would've even thought to ask for!