energy. motivation. [I love you!!!]

In my crazy end-of-pregnancy preparation spree, I've been rather busy, I suppose...I don't really know what I've missed on here in the past week, but I've gotten some major work done around my house! I think part of it is what they call "nesting", and part of it is that I have been taking Floradix again now that I finally have some, and it is truly amazing to me how I just don't notice my anemia anymore. I constantly have low hemoglobin so I just don't realize how terribly low on energy I usually am. I make myself work out anyway, so it's not that, but it's really hard for me to motivate myself to do housework like cleaning, laundry and cooking. I just didn't have it in me. So now I'm making  up for lost time!!!

Monday: moved furniture around like a crazy woman, BEFORE my appointment at 11! Luckily Arden slept until 10 so I was able to do LOTS without a lot of interruption. But it was one of those situations where one thing leads to another... Had to move Arden's kitchen into MY kitchen, to make room for the desk in our living room...and in order to move the dresser out of the way so I could move our bed, I had to empty the desk and get it out of our room into the hall (which I successfully did without waking Arden! Woohoo! It's a big thing with a glass top and it kept clanging around, so I'm pretty amazed), then take all the drawers out of the dresser and stack them so I could move the dresser to where the desk was, then take off the mattress (which is quite heavy, in case you've never tried to lift a TempurPedic!) and move the bed frame with the mattress base still in it, around to the other side of the room where the dresser was. Of course there's lots of cleaning between moving things from place to place; tons of dust and random junk you find when you move furniture about... Then Arden woke and I fed her breakfast, and then set about getting the desk downstairs. This became a predicament in itself. The thing got stuck partially down the stairs, and was just wedged where it couldn't go up or down. I had to leave it there while I went to get the drill to remove the bannister. Then I tried to hold the desk to keep it from falling if the bannister came loose. Then the drill's battery died and I had one more set of screws to go. So I had to leave the precariously wedged glass-top desk, run to the basement again for a charged battery, and come back to finish removing the bannister. Once the bannister and desk were both loose, I had to juggle them both to keep them from crashing down; they were sort of tangled together in a way that I had to carry them both. Bannisters are heavy. And bulky. So are computer desks. Anyhoo...I managed to rearrange everything to how I wanted it, and go to the bank and get back right at 11. I actually pulled into my parking spot right after Desiree pulled into the other one. I knew it; the one time I was not totally prepared, she'd be RIGHT on time. LOL.

labor-aid: lemon juice, honey, water, liquid cal-mag, sea salt

Tuesday: made some laborade to freeze,
"padsicles" (LOL, just look it up if you care),








and yogurt,

this is Arden making yogurt like Mama :) milk, vanilla, a pot, whisk and thermometer!

and of course washed diapers, washed ALL the linens (the mattress pad all the way to the quilt on top!) on the bed in the basement, in case Mom or the midwives need it during my labor. 

Wednesday: Vacuumed all the doors, baseboards, and the trim over the doors, and then wiped/scrubbed them all down. Most of the  house wasn't that bad but the upstairs is the dustiest place. I really don't know where it all comes from. Then during nap, I made the basement a bit of a project...the bathroom has been "under construction" for a while now; there was a hole in the ceiling for a few years where we had a leak, then Drew finally patched it with some nice free sheetrock my Dad gave us, but it's been taped and ready to be mudded and textured for months. I was tired of the sheetrock scraps and powder, mud bucket, trough, tape, etc just sitting there waiting for the next free moment. Drew doesn't have any of those anyway, so I figured it was high time to just clean up the mess. Tools were everywhere, and I finally put them away so as not to have such a tempting pile of danger for Arden. Especially since I think that might be an area where Mom and Arden end up hanging out for some time while I'm in labor.

Thursday: Arden came down with the stomach bug that's been going around, so I took a break and just did "normal" housework, like washing diapers, cooking, and a tiny bit of regular cleaning. Nothing deep. :) She had a good attitude, but she just couldn't keep anything down at all...so there were lots of "extra" messes for me. Coming from both ends.

Friday: Drew woke at 3 am throwing up, and the poor guy just could not stop. I mean, every 5 minutes or so it seemed he was back in the bathroom. I was a bit of a grouch to him. Every time I'd fall asleep he'd be in the bathroom making horrid noises. I finally woke up enough to realize he was having a lot worse time than I was, and set about trying a few "home remedies" to stop the puking. I felt so bad. Made him some rice water and Gatorade, and as I was cooling the jar of rice water to take it up to him, the jar broke and I lost all the rice water. I started over and made some more, but it didn't matter because he couldn't stomach it anyway. The poor fellow was lying on the bathroom floor, shivering and shaking. Sometimes I'd come in to check on him and he'd be falling asleep while sitting atop the toilet. It was bad. I've never seen him so sick for as long as we've been married. So he finally slowed down on the puking and later in the morning  (around 0930) I ran to the store to get some sickie goods. Chicken broth for soup, more Gatorade, Pedialyte, Pedialyte popsicles (since the day before I'd tried to make some electrolyte solution on my own and Arden was NOT impressed) and saltines. Arden was DONE  having me gone before I got back. At first she just laid in bed with Daddy, but he called me on my way home and she had had it...she needed Mama. :(

So pretty much all day I was a nurse to my poor sick family.


Toward the end of the day Arden seemed to be getting better, and ate some soup and crackers. Drew however, did not eat a single thing all day. Oh, and between all the "nursing" and running for anything Drew needed (and holding my sad, sick baby while doing it all), I managed to scrub TWO sets of mini blinds and put them back up! This nesting thing, it seems it cannot be stopped.


Saturday (today): Still was needed as a "nurse" somewhat, but I HAD to get some more things done today! I made some cookie dough in the morning, since it needed to chill for several hours...then did lots of laundry (washing, and putting away some I'd washed the day before but hadn't put away) and I attacked the workout room. There was SO much junk hiding in the closet and behind the futon bunk (which I want to sell), and on top of it was big bags of yard sale rejects that I piled into the van to take to Goodwill when I get a chance. I was too embarrassed to try to sell the futon bunk on CL, with the ginormous mess that was in my workout room, not to mention that there was so much stuff on it I couldn't even take a picture! 

(I listed it today and I think someone is coming to get it tomorrow; HOORAY!!!)

I also managed to throw away a good bit of junk that had been hanging out in that room; it's our catch-all, it seems. Now we just need to get rid of our excess wood flooring that we have hiding under the bunk!

Drew also helped me by getting the blinds down from the window in the  upstairs stairwell...I wasn't about to kill myself trying to climb up there. I started to a couple times, but each time, I realized it was suicidal. It's a frustrating thing; those blinds are the dirtiest in the house because they are next to impossible to get to! You cannot put a ladder or step stool on the stairs, because there's not a place flat/large enough. And when you're a bit off-balance like I am, you don't want to attempt climbing into the windowsill with absolutely NOTHING to hold onto while you wrestle a set of blinds off the brackets. So I am very thankful to my brave husband, who used the balcony rail and the windowsill as a place to stand while he did the crazy work of getting them down. Then I cleaned them. Or so I thought...I scrubbed them in a bath of dishsoap and washing soda, but the water got so very dirty I couldn't see what I was doing, and when I drained the tub I saw that I needed to start over. I'd gotten a fair amount of dust off, but these blinds are on the sunny side of the house. The dust was BAKED on, apparently. Then I went to air-dry them outside. Which was great a couple days ago, but today it started raining. So I just had Drew hang them back up (bravery again!) and also clean the window where I'd sprayed but could not reach to wipe!  Then I made some MEAN stuffed shells for dinner...I froze one 9x13 full of them too! After dinner I cut, baked and frosted about 5 dozen of these:

"Lofthouse" cookies

I was going to do the classic Lofthouse pink frosting, but then thought about later when the baby's here, how wrong it would be if I gave birth to a sweet BOY, and were celebrating and eating cookies and the frosting was pink. We just couldn't have that. And blue was the opposite problem...so I did green. Just in time for tomorrow, I suppose. ;)

Well I better get myself off to the shower and my nice clean sheets...it's 2330 and I just really ought to be in bed by now. G'night!