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Weekend in Review – Boring!

Jan 23rd, 2012
by gazelle.
2 comments

Friday – I worked from 8 am – 6 pm. Then the architect & I went out for dinner. Then, I went to bed. We are party animals!

Saturday – I went to yoga (yay!) and then to Babies R Us. We are now the proud owners of a carseat for Alvie Bean. The architect is convinced that Alive will be early, and wants to be prepared.

Saturday afternoon, I did a bit of yard work – a lot of pruning & prep work for the spring – and tried to decompress a bit. I got really sick Saturday night – nauseated and dizzy and cold sweats and blergh. I slept on the sofa (with a bucket near by!) and it was the best sleep I’ve had in a while. Apparently sleeping on my back propped up into a semi-reclined position with a cat on my ankles is the most comfortable ever!

Sunday – pancakes and coffee in the AM. School in the PM.  Today will be work from 7 – 7, I think. This damn project I’m working on needs to be done by mid-day Tuesday, and oh, it will be. Oh, yes.

I am tired, and still a bit pukey feeling. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly exhaustion & stress.

I will try to stay abreast of the posting this week, but no promises!

Three (3!) Things Thursday

Jan 19th, 2012
by gazelle.
3 comments

1. Yesterday morning, the architect & I woke up to a very loud noise at about 2 am. We rushed to the window to see what was the matter. Turns out, it wasn’t jolly st. nick & 8 tiny reindeer. It was one of our walnut trees uprooting and falling onto the architect’s pickup. We also were powerless (well, without electricity, anyways) all night, so it was a chilly, dark, and snowy morning! I made it to work about 9:30, and the architect waited at home for PGE to come cut down the tree, since it was leaning on some lines. He waited. And waited. And after the power went on, he plugged in my kick-ass chainsaw and with the help of a couple of neighbors, cut down the biggest parts on his truck. Finally, at about 8 pm or so last night, PGE came and cut down the rest of the tree. Apparently they were a bit busy yesterday!

 

2. I am four weeks away from finishing school! I would be super excited if I wasn’t so stressed out about finishing school! And work! (ha! just kidding, mom – I am not stressed at all. In fact, I am currently floating on a zen cloud made of unicorns.)

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3. I am writing this on Wednesday night (as is my custom), and it’s 11 pm. I haven’t been asleep for almost 21 hours. I hate these periodic insomnia episodes! If I weren’t floating on unicorn clouds, I’m sure it would be stress related. The job is a bit…much right now. Good news – after Friday, the job will go back to normal stress levels, and I’m hoping to sleep for 48 hours straight this weekend. Or at least 10 hours in 2-hour increments.(This is, however, nothing to worry about if you are, by chance, my mother & are just here to see a pic of the architect’s truck. Really – I tell lies on the internet to make myself seem more interesting. I actually sleep like a baby.)

 

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Three (3!) Things Thursday – super depressing edition

Jan 12th, 2012
by gazelle.
9 comments

1. Last night’s swim wasn’t very good. I’m trying to not be too hard on myself. I got dressed (first time since Monday morning!), left the house (again, first time since Monday!), and got in the water. Also, I looked cute in my maternity suit. BUT – after 250 yds, I started to cramp up in my lower abdomen. Ordinarily, I’d just push through it via my patented process of “ignore the pain until it either goes away or completely sidelines you for an entire season.” However, I am trying to be a good girl and NOT push through pain right now (apparently not as recommended in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, or honestly, in life). So, I stopped for a breather. Eventually I decided that maybe it was dissipating enough that I could give it another go. yeah, not so much. I ended up walking in the last bit of that lap as soon as my feet touched the ground.  I wouldn’t have been so alarmist, except that’s where all the false labor contractions started earlier this week, and I really would like to not do that again for at least 10 more weeks. SO – all that being said, I totally forgot to have the Ambitious One take a picture of me in my cute maternity suit. SORRY!  Pretend, instead, that this is me:

(used under creative commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic)

 

2. My dad is finally awake again after his surgery on Tuesday. I don’t think he’s very alert yet, but he was extubated this morning & is breathing on his own. I am going to try not to talk about this too much on my blog because (a) my family reads this blog, and I’d like to try to keep this as a place we don’t have to deal with this too much; (b) I write this blog and am trying super hard to be upbeat, positive, and wicked relaxed/Zen, because I hate crying while writing blog posts;  and (c) I am not here trying to garner sympathy or whatever. Shit happens. Currently shit is happening to my family. And that shit has happened in the form of brain tumors. There is good news – the largest tumors were successfully removed via the surgery. And now, there is waiting. Waiting for the biopsy results so a treatment plan can be made. Waiting for my dad to fully wake up from the surgery. Waiting to find out prognosis. Waiting to have this baby – in NOT LESS THAN 10 WEEKS, Alvie, so stop punching me in the cervix…that avenue is closed – so that I can take him to meet his grandfather.

(I was secretly pregnant in this picture. Please admire how I am managing to NOT look like I’m five seconds away from barfing on everyone! I am a champion!)

3. Um – so something happy? Alvie Bean is super active this week, and when he’s not punching me in the cervix, it’s actually kind of fun. The architect has got to feel a lot of kicks in the last couple of days, which is awesome, because previously the fetus would freeze up every time someone even thought about touching my belly. (He has a bit of performance anxiety.) (Funny side story – I got home from the pool last night as said to the architect, “Guess who kept punching me in the cervix while I was trying to swim?” His response, “The Ambitious One?” ha ha ha ha – fortunately, not.  I think I couldn’t be friends with her anymore if that were the case!  :) )

 

This is a dramatic reenactment, as that is not my belly, and as far as I know, those hands do not belong to the architect. (Used under Creative Common License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) )

 

So – there you are. I hope I didn’t bum anyone out too much. I am going to try to be my regular glass half-full, sunny side up, cheery person, blue skies, puppies, rainbows & unicorns self soon!

Happy (?) Thursday!

The Twelve Days of Gazelle-mas: Day 8 (2011 In review)

Dec 30th, 2011
by gazelle.
1 comment

First of all, I need to mention that I fell asleep about 11:30 pm last night and then: I slept until almost 7 AM! I woke once & briefly about 5, but did not need to get up. I’m sure those of you who aren’t/have never been pregnant (or closely associated with a pregnant person) are not sure why that’s news-worthy, so let me enlighten you.  This is probably the 3rd or 4th time since late July that I haven’t had to get up to pee at least once. I don’t know if you remember me bitching about remodeling our bathroom in August – the month of no running water in our upstairs (read: bedroom adjacent) bathroom. I know you didn’t know I was pregnant, but I was, and holy balls, that sucked the big one.

ANYWAYS – looking back! Such an interesting year. A lot of surprises – mostly  good ones.  How did I do with my 2011 goals, you (probably don’t) ask?

Well – let’s just look at that, shall we?

 

  1. Run a half marathon by the end of June. – FAIL! In fact, I didn’t run a half marathon all year. I only had one run over 13 miles, even. Boo!  However, it took a LOT longer to recover from my foot surgery, and just as I was getting into the swing of things, I got myself all knocked up.
  2. Read 52 non-paranormal romance books, including at least 12 from my Nobel Prize list. – FAIL! I only read about 50 books (not counting textbooks) total in 2011, and only 2 were from my Nobel prize list. There’s no way a majority were not brain candy.
  3. SIRASANA! With no wall support. – SUCCESS! Albeit, briefly. I did hit this pose a couple of times, for short periods of time. This is something I will never stop working on.
  4. Take fencing classes. – FAIL!  Due to school/work/pregnancy, this, too, was put off.
  5. Achieve contentment with my body (which may be a combination of weight loss and muscle gain) – EH??? I don’t know. Pregnancy has really thrown this off.
  6. Take a few risks that may lead to happiness. – SUCCESS! Job risks, Toast risks, getting knocked up risks….
  7. Secret Goal that I don’t want to talk about – FAIL! Job changes really got in the way of this (btw, it involved a career switch, and I did interview for a new job in January/February 2011, and was a finalist, but it was not to be….)
  8. Finalize my capstone paper topic and get ready to finish grad school! – SUCCESS! I have only 7 weeks left until I’m done with grad school! YAY!
  9. 5K PR – FAIL!  Again with the recovery from foot surgery + getting knocked up. 2013 is my new year of the runner!
  10. Successful cheddar cheese! – SUCCESS! I love cheese.
  11. Eliminate all non-mortgage & non-student loan debt. – EH….I am in much better shape now than at the beginning of the year. Of course, I’m sure that having a baby will make all my financial dreams come true, right?

 

Overall – even though it looks like I had an approximate 50% fail rate for goals, I am okay with the ones that are fails. I failed for good reasons (i.e. not pushing too hard during surgery recovery, getting pregnant, getting a new job that changed a few of those goals), and I am pretty happy with my 2011 overall.

I have some of the best friends a girl could ask for – both here in PDX, back in South D, and in the internets, as well as the best architect in the land. I’m having a great(ish) pregnancy, I’m almost done with school, I got a promotion at work (and no longer feel one step away from failure at work), and life is pretty damn good.  There are still changes I want to make with my life and my job and all sorts of things, but overall, I’m generally pretty content.

***First the song, and then I will reward (punish?) you with a photo recap of the year!***

On the eighth day of gazellemas, Amy gave to me:

Eight hours a-sleeping

Seven miles a-cycling

Six yogis posing

FIVE PAIRS OF SHOES!

four pancakes,

three lazy cats,

two empty boxes, and

A Pooh Bear outfit, adorable and twee!

 

January 2011:

February 2011:

March 2011:

April 2011:

 

May 2011:

 

June 2011:

 

July 2011:

 

August 2011:

September 2011:

 

October 2011:

 

November 2011:

 

December 2011:

 

 

I am pretty excited to see what 2012 will bring. It certainly won’t be boring!

 

 

The 12 Days of Gazelle-mas: Day 3 (Merry Christmas!)

Dec 25th, 2011
by gazelle.
Comments are off for this post

I love this time of year – most of the time, anyways. The grocery store was a little crazy yesterday – people were rude and pushy, and I don’t get it. Shouldn’t everyone be full of happiness & peace & joy?

ANYWAYS -

Last night was a lovely Christmas Eve. I decided that we would just have snacky noms – cheese, sausage, crackers, and fruit. Later we had nog and opened one present each while watching one of my favorite Christmas movies: The Thin Man.

It was a great Christmas morning. We got up, made coffee and Croque Madame sandwiches for breakfast (I meant to take a photo, but I’d left my phone upstairs, and the food was too good to put off) using the architect’s newest bread experiment: buttermilk rye.

Then it was present time!

I got the architect some running gear AND a smartphone. He’d been wanting one for awhile, but his contract wasn’t up (for his new every two) until April. Mine, however, was – so I used my contract to get him a Droid of his very own….he’s been enjoying that all morning!

Alvie really cleaned up this year, too – he got a Pack ‘n’ Play and a little Pooh outfit from Grandma & Grandpa Gazelle AND a little onesie from his Auntie Liz. He also got a pair of shoes (SHOES!) from his Auntie Sarah (Alvie Bean has many, many honorary aunties). For a fetus, he did pretty good for himself.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas (if that is what you’re celebrating) and/or an equally good Sunday. :)

 

On the 3rd day of gazellemas, Amy gave to me: three lazy cats,

two empty boxes, and

A Pooh Bear outfit, adorable and twee!

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