Happy 2nd Tri to Me!

Today marks 13 weeks of pregnancy and the start of the 2nd trimester...which I suppose is a somewhat misleading "milestone" since you technically don't know you're pregnant for four of those weeks.  I'll take it though, because I've been feeling a lot better for the last week or so.  My appetite is back and I just don't feel quite so..."off".

I went to the doctor last week for my 12 week appointment and heard the heartbeat with the doppler.  It took quite a long time to find it, which made me panic a bit, but all is well.   

I had Brent take this picture at 8.5 weeks for a baseline belly shot so we can tell later what's just regular old tummy fat and what's actually baby:

Pardon my appearance.

Here I am at 12.5 weeks, and I do see a difference...but very slight.  The bottom line is that I haven't popped yet.  My pants all still button which is probably more of a direct result of the eight pounds I lost in the 1st tri from not wanting to eat and never having to cook supper for anyone (unless it was a Tuesday with Rachel - the one night of the week when I always get a good supper!).  My shirts seem to be getting shorter, but I think I still have a couple more weeks before I look pregnant and not like I just ate too much pizza.

And here I am last night on the eve of 13 weeks, when I really just felt a lot bigger.  Maybe it's the angle, maybe it's the shirt...who knows.  One thing's for sure, when I really look pregnant, we'll all know.   

Rendezvous in the Windy City

Brent and I try very hard to see each other every two weeks while we're in this transition period of relocating, and this weekend was right at the two week point.  As luck would have it, the NCAA committee gave Purdue a favorable tournament draw in Chicago (what we were hoping) and our plans of meeting up in the Windy City actually came to fruition.

The first tournament game was on Friday night, and I took a half day at work so I could be in Chicago in time for the game.  My friend Lana rode along with me and we met Brent, and later Adam, in plenty of time for the game.  We had so much time, in fact, that we ended up milling around on the sidewalk in front of the United Center for over an hour waiting for them to let the 2nd session fans in after the ND game.  It was a little cold and I was getting a bit tired and crabby and hungry, but luckily we found a PowerAde stand giving out free bottles of their new product...so at least I stopped whining about being thirsty.  There was also a vertical leap contest, and both Adam and Brent passed the 10-foot mark so they both got t-shirts.  At almost 30 years old, they were the only two people we saw get t-shirts in the hour we stood there.  That's my man!  I'm so proud.  : P  And since I forgot pajamas in my mad packing panic on Friday morning (otherwise known as "throw crap in your suitcase as fast as you can"), I was pretty grateful for that t-shirt later on in the weekend.

We had a really great time at the game on Friday night and stayed until there were about ten minutes left of the VCU/Georgetown game.  I was cheering for VCU until I realized they were really good...and would be potentially be running a clinic with Purdue in just a few days. 

Here's a man I like to endearingly refer to as "Ram Man".  Sitting right behind the very entertaining VCU pep band, this guy was into it.  On Saturday we read an article about how there was a lone fan left in lower section long after the end of the game, wearing a ram's helmet and chanting CAA (VCU's conference).  We knew immediately who the journalist was talking about.

We did absolutely nothing on Saturday.  Lana met up with her boyfriend and Adam had already gone back home for the weekend, so Brent and I just putzed around the hotel, ate lunch at Potbelly, and went on an hour and a half Cookie Quest that afternoon.  I really wanted a big bakery sugar cookie...like one you get at the mall.  We searched for bakeries on Google maps and drove around the area searching for this perfect cookie.  Sadly, we never found it and I ended up with a shortbread from Panera.  Good, but not what I had in mind.  Brent was a good sport for the Cookie Quest - there was no complaining.  :)

After the shortbread cookie and a long nap, we ate at a Giordano's down the street from our hotel on Saturday night.  Yum!

We had a nice time together this weekend and I can't wait until the next time we get to be together!  It's always hard to part ways again but it does seem to get a little easier.  My days here are numbered though and we're on what we are calling the home stretch.  This winter has been such a strange time for us, but it's really gone very fast.  I am so appreciative for my friends here who make fun plans throughout the week!  As much as I'm ready to move, I will hate giving that up!
 

What's Your Point Wednesday?

Life has been full of excitement lately, but not really the type of excitement that you take lots of pictures of and make up funny captions about.  We're in a constant state of change here and will be until...well, a long, long time.  And that's okay by me.  I was ready for a little life shake-up and it's going to be really good for me because it's easy to get too comfortable. 

Here are some random things to tell you to try and save this blog from becoming forgotten and stale.  (If you thought it was already forgotten and stale, just keep that to yourself.)

Adventures in Airline TravelBoth of my flights to and from Denver were weird last week.  The first was an evening flight and it was also after one of the most tiring days ever.  I woke up that morning to discover that the dog had sneezed bloody snot all over my throw pillows, duvet cover, couch, etc.  She had been wheezing for a few days but I didn't really worry about it until I saw the bloody snot.  Luckily, she was being boarded at our vet while I was gone, so they could treat whatever the heck illness it was that she had.  In addition to getting ready for work that morning, finishing my packing, and getting the dog packed up, I also had to get the house ready for the Open House we were having this weekend.  So you can see why Tuesday was a really fun day for me.  It almost all came crashing down when I had to wait for a half hour at the vet just to drop Bonnie off because they had an emergency come in RIGHT before me, and I started to panic that I was cutting it a little close to stop at Cafe Patachou and get some cinnamon toast and that delightful egg sandwich before going through security.  When my cinnamon toast time was threatened, I started to get crabby.  I was able to stop at Patachou thanks to upgrading to long-term parking, then deciding to not waste precious time waiting for the shuttle but instead practically sprinting through the parking garage walkway.  Priorities, people.

Back to my weird flights!  Wow, sorry.  Anyway, so I'm on the plane that night and there's a man about five rows ahead of me who will just not put on his seat belt.  He finally did, but as soon as the flight attendant left he took it off again and laid down.  A scene ensued when the flight attendant walked by again and saw that he wasn't playing along.  I heard her say, "SIR, do we need to turn this plane around and go back to the GATE?!"  I think everyone within earshot perked up at that, and I think that there were probably at least 15 of us that were going to make sure that that bozo kept his seat belt on long enough for us to get in the air.  How ridiculous.  He finally complied and we were able to leave on time.   

A good weird thing that happened was that shortly after take-off, the same sassy flight attendant came up to my seat and swiped her card in my TV screen.  I thought she was giving me free TV because I had shot her a few sympathetic looks that said, "Can you believe this guy? Sorry you have to put up with this crap!"  That wasn't it at all, but good thought.  Apparently I was "on the list".  WHA???  I'm never on the list!  I got to watch the entire last half of the Purdue/Illinois game and I was the happiest girl on the plane.  There was lots of fist-pumping and loud exclamations coming from my seat that got me a few of my own looks, but I didn't care.  At least I had my seat belt on.

Speaking of keeping your seat belt on at all times, my return flight home was equally eventful.  Before we took off, the pilot told us that he expected it to be a bumpy climb.  Now, I never like to hear that, but in my experience it seems like it's never really that bad and the pilot is maybe kid-gloving us a little bit.  Not on this flight.  HOLY.COW.  I have never, ever experienced turbulence like that.  We kept dropping, and shaking, and climbing, and dropping, and I just kept watching the wing tips in awe that the wings were even still attached to the plane.  I wasn't sure whether to cry or throw up, but I just gripped the arm rests for dear life.  The co-pilot and flight attendants would keep reminding us to stay in our seats.  Duh.  WHO would get out of their seat during that?  There's no book important enough to retrieve from the overhead bin in that moment unless it was your Bible.  That one I could understand. 

It obviously turned out okay, since I'm here to write about it.  But I feel like I maybe put a notch in my flying cap with that flight.  Not as good as the stories Dad can tell, like the one about lightning striking the plane and the flight attendant peeing her pants, but I think an experience like that would probably do more harm to my nervous system than good. 


Pregnancy Dreams
Oh my goodness, those are some crazy, vivid dreams.  A little sexier than normal, but I won't go into detail about those.  I will tell you that the other night I was hangin' with the Glee kids and rehearsing a song to sing for regionals.  I picked the theme song to Heathcliff, as in the cat, and sang it very poorly.  Uh, was this a TV show?  I really can't remember.  Anyway, Mercedes was mad at me that I picked such a crappy song and then didn't even know the words to it, so I changed it up to Peggy Lee's Fever instead...an old standby.  The brown recluse spiders coming out of a cactus started attacking us all before I could sing it though, so I'll never know how I did.


I could go on, but I hate to take all my material for the next posts.  Until then, bloggers...adieu.


 


     




 

Live from Mile High

Brent and I get to be together for six whole days this week.  I am so happy about it!  I was supposed to fly out on Thursday night, but I got a call for a second interview here and they wanted to see me in person today.  So, as luck would have it, a long weekend with Brent turned into six days. 

I'm quickly finding out that living at Brent's apartment is similar to camping.  He has one recliner (with the tags still on - no scissors), two bar stools, a bed, and empty boxes for a nightstand and end table.  He has no dresser for his clothes since we're hoping I'll be coming out with ours soon. 

We bought the ingredients for Corn Sausage Chowder, but didn't take the severe kitchen tool limitations into account.  Here's how making dinner went tonight. 

"Shoot, there's no big pot for the soup!"
"Brent, do you have any knives?  Oh yes, I remember now that you asked me to bring a sharp knife or two in my checked luggage...sorry I forgot that."
"Any salt and pepper?"
"Your cheapo can opener stopped working."

The pot we have was just big enough, apparently you can cut potatoes with a dull butter knife, and the soup is just fine without salt and pepper. 

Lasagna tomorrow night will be a little tougher...and I'm going to forget about the oatmeal cookies I wanted to make my man.  I think instead I'll probably make several trips to Target to help him make this temporary living situation more of a home.