Boxes boxes everywhere!

So while we haven't received the official word that we got the house, we'll find out tomorrow. It looks good. I mean, we've had an inspection/walk through and have received a ton of paperwork concerning details of the house, etc. They wouldn't be doing all that if we didn't have a great chance. Because of the short time frame, we've finally begun to pack. So far, the DVDs alone are in 3 boxes and I'll still need 2 more to finish. Ridiculous, much? Yes... I'm hoping to get the loft packed up today as well.I've made good progress but have run out of boxes. Kaylee's room should be easy - probably just a couple of boxes there. Most of her stuff is already put away since she's grown out of it. Our bedroom should be easy as well. Probably 1 box and then bags/suitcases for our clothes.

Tomorrow, before 8am I get to run up to HEB and grab more boxes. At least I don't have to run all over town chasing the CL posts. Most of them are way north or way south. The 5 minute drive is more my style. :)

The only good thing about moving 30+ times in my life is that I'm a pro at it now. I can get this house packed in a few days if my energy will hold up. That's the kicker though... I'm winded 10 minutes in, so I need to learn to slow down. But, I bet ya anything I'll have most of the house packed before Brian has the man cave packed. Ha! He's so slow! But, he hasn't moved many times, so I'm cuttin' him some slack. As long as I don't have to pack that room, I'll be happy.

If we don't get the house, I will cry. But, we'll continue looking for something else and will be ahead of the game if that happens. Trying to keep a positive spin on all the madness.

There's Nothing Like a Good Laugh

My poor husband had a revelation.... one that made me burst out into involuntary laughter. Not because I thought his revelation was funny - but that HE was having this particular revelation. I just never thought I would see the light of day. Good stuff. :)

Unanswered Questions... Still unanswered

August was a big month for us. We found out our little bean is growing right on target. Oops! The cat is out of the bag... Yes. I'm pregnant with baby #2 and as of Saturday, I'll be in my 2nd trimester. But, there is a problem, so we kept the news to ourselves until our 2nd ultrasound, which was today. It's not a problem we caused, but there is no treatment other than "wait and see." Do you know what this does to a person like me? No... ?

No information or resolution makes Kristal go... something something.

Go crazy?

Why yes! Don't mind if I do!

That's for my Simpsons fans. :)

So, what's the problem, you ask? I have a subchronic hematoma or SCH. SCH is a gathering of blood between the membranes of the placenta and the uterus. Miscarriage happens in 1-3%. Women with SCH are at greater risk for placental abruption or abruptio placenta. Fun times. Let me tell ya. The 2nd ultrasound didn't tell us anything new. It's still there. It seems big by the measurements.

In other news, we have been trying to buy a new house. Literally. A brand new house. Something I never thought I wanted or could get. We've been given the run around - yes, you got it... no, you didn't... OH wait, we think we have it figured out! We're still not sure whether we got it. And now, our weekends are filling up. Next weekend is the only weekend we have free where we can move. Will it happen? We have no idea. We haven't even begun to pack. I know if I start that, everything will cave in and nothing will go through.

Then, as things continued to be uncertain, my friend passed away. And another friend showed up to the viewing drunk. So, instead of concentrating on what we should have been, we were trying to make sure she didn't make a giant fool of herself. And right before all this, I had a fight with myself which caused me to pretty much give up social media (again for the 3rd time this year). This has a lot of people mad at me. But, the bottom line - I shouldn't have mixed on social media set of friends with the other. Lesson learned.  Will I go back to any of the sites? I'm not sure. Right now, I'm quite content.

So here we are. Still without answers to all of our questions. We wait as patiently as we can.

One more sleep

Today, I have sneezed about 100 times an hour. Stupid allergies. So, thanks to that, my head is pretty fuzzy and I'm exhausted more than normal. But, my anxiety level is rather high so what am I doing? Cleaning.

Funny story... ok not really. I am not a very good homemaker. I'm a worker. I do well at a company doing whatever is asked of me. But at home, I have a hard time making myself keep up with things I know I should. Besides Kaylee. She's my excuse for everything. But, I don't miss many seconds of her life. The consequence to this is my house feels like it's falling apart. So, I am biting the bullet and getting a housekeeper once a month. We shouldn't be spending the money, but I think if I have this little bit of help, I'll feel a little more calm. I'll be able to pick up the projects I have left alone upstairs. Projects I can make money off of. Premade scrapbooking pages, several different kinds of baby/kid items, and of course web development.

I still find it funny that I'm trying to clean up before the CLEANING PEOPLE get here in the morning. What's wrong with this picture?

Tomorrow afternoon. Here's hoping we get some answers.

Acupuncture

It really is my miracle drug... I wish I could afford to do it more regularly. I went in yesterday for a variety of reasons. Two of the reasons was for sleep and back pain.  My back began to hurt more and more recently - to the point where I was having a hard time picking Kaylee up. I hated climbing the stairs. Even sitting or laying down was painful. Nothing helped. I broke down and used my Group On that I had bought back in July.

While I didn't sleep through the night last night, I did manage to sleep longer spurts. Even one of the spurts lasted until 7! Yay to no more midnight wakings (for the day!)... There's really not much worse than getting only 2-4 hours of sleep for 3 weeks straight to make a lady a bit crazy. My back also no longer hurts.

I have to laugh at those who think acupuncture is a placebo effect. There's no way they have tried it for something as serious as back pain. This is the third time that some form of "puncture" has helped my back. When I was 17, a friend popped my back incorrectly. This was after I told him not to do it in the first place. For years, I was unable to lay down without popping it back into alignment so it would stop hurting. At 24, I met Laura. She was my sweet Brazilian friend who I have since lost contact with. :( She recommended colorpuncture. It's the same technique as acupuncture, but uses concentrated beams of colored light. She suggested it because I have an irrational fear of needles.

One treatment and I didn't have to ever pop my back again..... until I got pregnant. Pregnancy is hard on a body. I get that it's what a woman's body is essentially made for, but the changes you go through is rough. At 38 weeks, I went into my first acupuncture appointment. I was pleasantly surprised that it doesn't hurt! Not only that, but I left feeling pretty normal.

So, when I stopped sleeping well and my back started hurting, I made an appointment. I'm pretty sure I am starting to believe more in Chinese medicine than I am in Western medicine, which is just ruled by BigPharma.

Two more sleeps!

Can't wait for Thursday....

Is it really free?

This whole "free" health care insurance thing Obama has going has had me confused from day one. First of all, it's not free. The money has to come from somewhere. And guess what - it'll come from those who bust their butts everyday trying to make ends meet. Those who have sat on their butts spittin' out babies for years will get a free ride on our broken welfare system.

The thing that scares me the most though isn't the money part. Yea.. that'll suck. But, it's the quality of care. The ease of getting an appointment and actually seeing a doctor. It's knowing that I will only have to wait a few days for a non-emergency but can get in the same day for an emergency. I currently can get a 2nd opinion within days, sometime the next day, even as a new patient.

It saddens me that people can not see the reality of throwing everyone into this mandatory system. Things won't get better... they'll get worse. Shortage of doctors. Shortage of nurses. Long waits for appointments. Long waits to get into the appointment once you are sitting in the waiting room. And then, a 2 minute appointment revolving door meeting where the doctor doesn't have time to really evaluate your situation. They won't have time to get to know you - build a relationship. All because they have 100 people sitting in their waiting room desperate to see them for whatever reason.

There must be another solution to the problem of people not being able to get health insurance. I wish I knew what that was. But for now, I want to be selfish and say I'm sorry.. it's not my problem. It never has been. I've always made getting and keeping insurance a priority. Even with pre-existing conditions. I've taken care of myself with exercising and eating right.

And the count down begins....

10 sleeps -- ok, maybe not sleeps... more like "10 more nights of staring at the ceiling"

Either way, I'm glad it's within reach.

Preparing for a Possible Evacuation

So, I guess I spoke too soon. Last week continued to get worse and now it's seeping into this week. There's been death, there's been birth (at least I'm assuming by now Adrianne has had her little girl.. it's been 23 hours since her last post saying she was going to the hospital)... there's been insomnia and snake bites and wildfires galore. The only good thing is the baby! Brian is finally home from his trip and I couldn't have been more excited to see him if I weren't so exhausted from not sleeping for the past few weeks.


Click Here for a Map

Thankfully, 3 of the fires from yesterday in my area were extinguished fairly quickly. Our firefighters are stretched so thin, they were asking for anyone with fire experience to come help... retired, off-duty, etc..

Today, I decided with our neighborhood surrounded by fields - dry fields next to roads where irresponsible people throw their cigarette butts next to - it's probably time to make a list and start putting things in a pile to quickly load into the car. So, here it is:

* insurance papers and birth certificates/passports
* valuable coins/currency in my collection
* both cameras and memory cards/chargers
* laptop and external harddrive
* scrapbooks
** bag of dog food
** diapers and sippy cup as well as some clothes for Kaylee
** an overnight bag for Brian and I with clothes
*** Mac, toys

* is priority
** is 2nd priority if I have room/time... these are things I can buy if I can't take them.
*** is if I'm able to make a second trip to the house... sorry, girl.. I can always replace you but know that if I have room/time, I'll pack ya up.

Other things I need to do now is document everything we have just in case the house burns and we lose everything.

As of right now, there are not any wildfires near us. But, 1 of the 3 yesterday was only about 3 miles away and that has me on edge.

So the question remains - are YOU prepared if a wildfire breaks out near you? What would you grab if you haven't had time to prepare?

Native Texan is Frying....

I was born and raised here, so I've gotten used to us only having two seasons. However, this year has been brutal. I've never seen so many 110-113F degree days. I also have never experienced more 100+ days in my lifetime. We're on 79 days. We'll easily hit 80 today. This smashes the record from 1925 of 68 days of 100F+.

Our nights have been pretty warm as well. It was not uncommon for it to be 100 at 10pm. We just started to drift into the high 70s as a low. And as of today, we're drifting into the 60s! That's jacket weather, ya'll! I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. It's been so bloody hot that I really thought it would never end. I fear our new trees did not survive the drought and all of those hot days even though they have had a constant drip. Only time will tell there. Our yard has barely survived. And that swing set I wanted so badly? Yea.. it hasn't been used much because of the heat. I just couldn't take her out there... but this week it's on! We're going to get back to swimming and back to swinging. Can't wait!

31 years old is too young to die...

But, that's exactly what has happened to a good friend. I think I'm all cried out this week so I'm having a hard time figuring out how to react to all of this.. having your friends call crying also puts you into the "stay strong for them" mode... I'm thankful for all the years I knew Clay. He was a sweet, sweet person that had a lot of bad circumstances fall into his lap. And this morning, the worst of all circumstances... a sudden heart attack.

Thank you for coming to dinner with us a few Fridays ago. I'm glad I got to hug you and tell you bye. But, I'm sorry we weren't closer over the last few years. 16 years of friendship - it won't be forgotten.

So many things are up in the air

Nothing much has changed in the ways of worry. There's still a bunch of unanswered questions... and I *still* can't really talk about it, which is frustrating. So, instead, I bottle everything up until I explode, which may or may not have happened this week. It sucks. I hope the next few months fly by... I'm over it all and trying to lay low for a bit.

So... hypothetically speaking...

If you send out an invitation to someone and they don't receive it... and that person asks for another one but you don't have one - you would give them all the information from the invitation and not have them track it down themselves, right? Would it really stress you out to the point of making a fool of yourself on a social network site?

Coming from someone who had half of her wedding invitations lost or dismantled by the USPS, I understand the frustration, but giving people a few addresses wasn't a big deal. It was the least of my problems. Then again, I always had it in my head that the wedding is just one day... and while I wanted it to be nice, I didn't want to be completely and utterly stressed out because of it.

I'm kind of over the whole "zilla" phase that the world is going through. There's bridezillas, groomzillas, babymommazillas, snarky-know-it-all-zilla.... it's obnoxious.

Keep it simple, ladies... you have no idea what real stress is if THIS gets your panties in a wad.