Ugh

The evening had been going so nicely; I met up with my friend, Gretchen, in Alexandria and had dinner with her at Faccia Luna where we caught up on a bunch of stuff. After we finished eating, we headed down to Mount Vernon for a reception in honor of the new exhibit celebrating the 150th anniversary of the public opening of George Washington's estate. We mingled a bit and then took in the sights; the exhibit was very nicely done and the bonus for me was seeing a porcelain object that the gallery had sold to Mount Vernon as well as some silver that we had appraised prior to the pieces being donated to the organization; a little blast from the past! Once we had our historical fill, Gretchen and I headed off to our respective homes. The drive was relatively traffic-free and pleasant, and I was looking forward to taking care of a few chores, like putting away a load of laundry and unloading the dishwasher, and then calling it a night.

I got home and prepared a snack and a shot of insulin for Tricia; she hasn't been feeling well the past few days, but this morning she seemed back to her old self, so I wasn't really expecting the mess that I encountered in the master bathroom. Vomit was everywhere; on both bath mats, the floor, her water fountain, and the coup de grace, on the floor of the closet. I sighed and went downstairs to get the mop and some paper towels. As I came back up the stairs, I noticed Sandy acting weirdly in the guest bathroom--she then ran out into the hall and promptly started doing the poop scootin' boogie. For those of you without pets, this translates to the animal in question putting itself in a semi-seated position and then dragging itself across the floor in order to dislodge poop stuck to its butt and/or fur. I yelled, "SANDY, NO!" and grabbed her but not before she had managed to make a nice poop streak across the carpet. I flipped her over and inspected her bottom, which to my chagrin was caked in poo. I put her down to grab some toilet paper and she made a run for the first floor; I chased after her and caught her in the powder room; I managed to get some of it out of her fur with toilet paper and then I shut her in the bathroom and told her she couldn't come out until her butt was clean. I was ok with cleaning up vomit, but I was not about to add scrubbing poop-smeared carpeting to my list.

I cleaned up the mess in the master bathroom and threw the soiled bath mats into the washer. By this point, my back was killing me. Scrubbing the floor is not a pleasant task when you're 36 weeks pregnant. I then got the Spot Bot out and had it work on the vomit in the closet while I folded and put away the load of laundry already in the drier. Once that was done, I put the Spot Bot to work on the poop-streak in the hallway and unloaded the dishwasher. I figure I went up and down the stairs at least 15 times in the first half an hour of being home. I am sooooo ready for bed. And a massage. And maybe some new cats.

Before and after

Last summer my friend bought a house and a number of pieces of furniture conveyed with the sale, which translated to a bunch of beat up furniture left in the basement for her to deal with. This particular chest of drawers had been used as a sawing board of some kind and had the scars to prove it. I asked if I could take it off of her hands and try to fix it up and she helped me load it up, more than happy to get it out of her house. I brought it home and cleaned it up as best I could and then started priming it for paint. I managed to get the drawers painted and then I found out I was pregnant, which meant I had to postpone my spray-painting fun for the time-being. Fast forward to this month: As a present for the baby, my friend, Barb, agreed to finish the project and have it ready to be used as a changing table and clothing storage. Here's how it turned out:
The overall color is petrol blue by Valspar and the original hardware is painted white. I then used a white paint pen to outline the incised decorative tracing on the drawer fronts and voila! Perfect, right? Now I have a place to put all of the baby's Fuzzi Bunz and clothing!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a shout-out to all of the moms, grandmas, aunts, step-moms and soon-t0-be moms out there; happy mother's day!

Camera ready

Captain Husband and I made a deal; if our quilt sold at Pook & Pook, I could use the proceeds to upgrade to a new SLR digital camera. I figured with the baby coming soon and whatnot, it would be nice to have a decent camera in the house to document things while CH is over in Korea. Lo and behold, the quilt exceeded the reserve that I had set and just a few days later I received an email detailing a camera sale going on at Target on the camera/lens combo that I had been eying for months--it was meant to be! There are a lot of bells and whistles to the new camera, but I'm slowly figuring it out and liking the results so far. As you can see, Sandy is a willing model.

Son of Sasquatch

Image courtesy M. C. Squirt

This morning I had my third, and hopefully final, ultrasound; at the last one, the tech was unable to get a clear view of the baby's heart and wrote it up as some sort of minor cardio abnormality (hello, minor panic attack). This was after about the most uncomfortable 45 minutes I've experienced since getting knocked up; the baby wasn't in a good position, so the tech attempted to push and prod him around using the ultrasound wand on my belly. Did I mention that I also had a very full bladder at the time? By the time she had finished, I felt as though I had just gone several rounds with a meat tenderizer on the inside and outside. Not fun at all. Needless to say, I was a bit wary of this morning's appointment.

Fortunately things today went much, much better. The tech was super friendly and the baby was in a decent position for once so she was able to see everything that she needed to see. Turns out the heart is perfectly healthy so there's nothing to worry about there. She did, however, notice something unusual going on with my kid's dome. "Wow, your baby has a lot of hair." Me: "What?" "See all of these lines around your baby's head? That's all hair." Apparently those old wives' tales were on to something; according to them, if you have heartburn, your baby will be born with a full head of hair. I've been riding the acid reflux/heartburn train since October, so I fully expect this kid to come out looking like a miniature Big Foot (especially if his feet are anything like mine, oi vey).

I gave Captain Husband the news (baby's looking good, weighs 5 pounds, on track for June 18th, is going to be hairy) and his response was priceless. "I hope he can hold on to all of that hair longer than me."