Nine Days...

As opposed to nine months of course. I'm actually, if you're counting about ready to move into week 22 of my little experience with pregnancy. The past couple of weeks haven't been too awful on that front. My biggest complaint is that I'm just so darn tired so often.

At any rate, this has been quite the whirlwind of a week plus to be sure. Lots and lots of things are going on....some wonderfully pleasant and others, well, not so much. I guess that's just life, though, huh?

So, first up, I don't think I mentioned in my last post that my dreams of an office to myself were crushed. It totally stunk finding out that I was going to be put in a cubicle while a younger person who was promoted to senior auditor shortly after I started but who's been with the company longer would be getting the office that I'd been told would probably be mine. It was a bummer especially since the audit staff is out of the office so much, but whatever. I was able, at least, to talk them into letting me stay where I am so I am still sharing an office with another lady who is nice but gets on my nerves often...at least it's only for a few more months.

Tax season is upon us and my work load has increased quite a bit which means I'll definitely not be posting super regularly, but I'm still shooting for once a week here if there is something worth posting about. We have an "issue" with doing our taxes currently which just isn't fun at all either (I'm trying to get all the "bad" news out first so we can dwell more on good news later!). That would be that my computer has died. My hard disk is fried and so now I have signed my life away - or at least up to $1600 (no, I didn't back it up....I was in the process believe it or not when the stupid thing finally said it gave up) to send said hard disk to a restoration company that will hopefully rescue countless pictures of importance (thankfully most of our pictures through 2005 are on a disk somewhere), family recipes (though this is suspect because I'm not sure exactly where I put these for storage and I have a funny feeling they're going to be missed - sigh - glad a lot of them got posted to our recipe exchange site), every business file I ever created for my wedding business and most importantly, our financial data (!) for the past couple/few years. This alone is worth that $1600 price tag...and more. The thought of having to recreate those records makes me shudder. I think maybe I'll back my computer up a little more often once I get it back. That is a bit of good news - we did have a service plan so the dead hard disk will be replaced free of charge.

So, I think that about covers all the not-so-pleasant items on the docket...let's move on shall we?

Mark's parents came for their "parting" visit on Friday, Jan. 5. It was nice to have them around again. His dad busied himself with various minor repairs around the house which seem to have been successful with the exception of the caulking which I redid yesterday since a good portion of it had come off...probably because we needed to use the shower prior to the 36 hour period you're supposed to wait was up. My "redo" isn't nearly as nice as his job was since I've never done it before, but it looks "good enough" as Mark would say and it's getting it's 36 hours of dry time since we had notice of it so it should be fine (though I'm cringing today that I can't get a shower in...grr!).

The rest of us did a lot of galavanting (per Mark's terminology) last weekend including visiting Babies R Us to finish up our registry which we're thrilled to have done because now we know what it is that we want for our little guy. The simple knowledge that we don't have to pour over strollers and car seats and what have you anymore makes me one happy camper. The tricky part now is that we just have to start buying the stuff....we figure we'll do a little at a time.

And, I've already started! I actually bought baby's first article of clothing this past week at Old Navy. They had the cutest little sleeper with owls and mushrooms (why these go together I'm not sure in case you wonder as Mark did) that I picked up for around $4. I also had another little whirl at baby clothes shopping at Babies R Us this past Friday where they had a lot on clearance with an additional 30% off. I found about 10 pieces (most are separate tops and bottoms since Pat (Mark's mom) clued me into the fact that separate tops and bottoms mean quicker diaper changes. I spent a little over $40 so I am feeling pretty psyched about the experience. Most of the clothes I bought are for when the sprout is a bit older (in 3/6 mo. and 6/9 mo.). We kind of have a feeling our little guy is going to waste no time growing and so we're not planning to invest in a lot of newborn clothing...

In addition to finishing up the registry, we also went to a store called Lullabye Lane and found a crib that we really like. It's made by a company called Munire who comes highly recommended and converts into a toddler bed and a full size bed when the time comes. We are still contemplating whether or not we want to wait to get it until after we move just so it doesn't get banged up in the process.

In other furniture news, we actually have purchased a dresser for baby! We found one at Ikea last night (after Mark's neurology class which was nearby) for $59...on sale from $150. It is pine (an easily dinged and damaged wood) so we may not keep it forever but we couldn't pass it up the great deal especially given the fact that this chest of drawers has a fold out changing table on top of it. It is basically perfect. We were glad we found it, but if not, there was a suitable $30 changing cart that we were going to get to make due with. So now I have something to put together....

And, let's see, it's sort of related to furniture so for those of you who know about the Consumer Reports car seat study, we have done our homework and will be getting a seat that passed the tests. We originally had chosen the Graco Safe Seat which we were going to combine with a little stroller attachment to use until the baby outgrew his infant car seat at which time we were planning on moving to a Peg Perrego stroller and a convertible car seat. Since the Peg Perrego car seat seems to have passed the tests as long as safety belts rather than the LATCH system are used to secure it (and we're not even sure our car has the LATCH system) we're just going to go for that seat with the Centro stroller and we'll be just fine.

And, finally, we hit another milestone on Friday with respect to our little one - I felt him move! Since then, I've picked up the weird little feelings of his synchronized swimming moves off and on. He was especially active this morning after my breakfast of oatmeal waffles with blueberry sauce (yum!) - apparently I wasn't the only one who really liked them. ;)

I hope you all have a nice week. I am now off to finish taking down what little bit of Christmas decor I haven't yet while Mark is at his second day of Neurology study stuff (I think I get the better deal here, but he actually enjoys this a lot). I also get to go for groceries, do laundry and try to relax since tomorrow is sure to be a taxing (ha ha ha - CPA humor rears its ugly head!) day. :)