taking a break from the pictures

Actually, not really. The big news here is that I got a new laptop!! The new MacBooks just hit the market and Steve and I thought that it was a good time to upgrade our lives and get a MacBook Pro. I am in love, it's so nice. I just need to figure out how to get my pictures from my camera onto it now that I don't have a nice card reader like the last laptop had. Once I find the cord I am good to go and update with all of the pictures and video that I've been taking in the mean time :)

at least we know where he gets it from...

34 and 35

Ok, only 4.5 weeks to go! I know that's a rough estimate, but it certainly is getting close.

Here's me at 34 weeks

Here's me at 35 weeks

I certainly can't believe how big he's gotten over the past few weeks. He's starting to run out of room :) It's been a really fun and busy last few weeks too. My mom visited at the beginning of the month, and we got a lot done as well as had a lot of fun. She happens to be an excellent seamstress, so I put her to work making me some pj's and lounge wear. I figure that I'll be wearing sweats quite a bit for the next few months and it's nice to have some that fit me now too.

After our crafting, we had a little ladies brunch that turned into a family brunch/shower at an amazing restaurant downtown. My sister in law Laura made me a "blessing box" to fill with encouraging notes from friends and family members! I got to open up the notes and read each one as we ate, and I was overwhelmed by the touching notes that I received.

And then just this past weekend my good girlfriends from college drove up from Chicago and even further to spend the weekend with me before Baby Mellema arrives. I was amazed that they'd spend their Valentine's weekend on the road to see me, and loved having them over. My friend Holly also brought up her camera, and took some maternity shots which I'll be posting too! I'm blown away by her abilities, it was a blessing to have some professional shots to document my third trimester :)

annual tradition

Do you think that this guy has dementia? He called me again this morning. I answered the phone and he yells, "JUDY!". I say, "no, you have the wrong number" and he mumbles something and then says, "oh". I hang up. He calls back about 10 seconds later. I hang up on him. Very strange. This is the third January in a row that I've talked to him. Maybe next year I should confront him about getting rid of my phone number :)

fun with toys

No, not baby toys. Steve's brother Joe got Steve a toy for Christmas. Here's a few videos of Steve trying it out.

The other night, when I was already in bed and ready to go to sleep, Steve got out the helicopter and I grabbed the camera. But he likes to fly a little too close to my face for comfort, so here's me ducking for cover:


I love the "oh, dangit" at the end when he crashes into something.

Then I moved out of the way and he got a little more control over flying:



Today my camera ran out of batteries, but he's had several really sweet flights all over the house :) Thanks, Joe!

yay, new camera!!

Ever since my nice, new, DSLR camera was stolen last April, I've been using our old point and shoot camera. It was a very nice camera until it started to go bad :) I knew that before the baby came I'd want a camera, any camera, that could take a decent picture to record some memories. The problem was, did I want to replace the DSLR or the point and shoot? I loved that DSLR and I really only had it for 6 months or so, but I could get a decent camera in the $100-200 so I thought that I'd better put my money into baby stuff for the time-being and maybe find a good deal later on for a nicer camera. Anyway, all that to say that I'm pretty happy with my purchase. Too bad I didn't get it before Christmas, then I'd have some pics of us over the holidays. So all that to say, I'm back to picture-taking and hopefully documenting some of our memories in the upcoming months :)

my favorite conversation of the day

Kid 1: "Yeah, and we got to eat string cheese"
Me: "Yummy!"
Kid 2: "I don't like strange cheese"
Me: "Well, you can just give it all to me and I'll eat it" :)

Tomorrow morning! Can't wait to see my little jumping bean in there!!!

it really does pay to complain

I wasn't the complainer in this story; I was behind her in line at the grocery store. As I was loading my stuff onto the line at the check out, I noticed that the lady in front of me was really complaining about there not being a bagger to bag her groceries as she was checking out. I guess he was a couple of isles down and would be there in a moment, but she was pretty mad that he wasn't there right then. The lady ringing her up was flustered, and forgot to scan her last few items before she totaled her bill and gave her the receipt. As she started to ring me up, I mentioned that the next items were not mine, and were probably hers. The cashier just bagged them up and handed them to bagger, who had now showed up and was helping her load up the groceries.

It kinda got me chuckling that the lady left in a huge huff, obviously irritated, and she didn't even realize that she had just scored free groceries. The cashier explained to me that she just didn't want to hear any more complaints. It didn't bother me, but I decided to try to use my kindness and charm to my advantage a bit... see, I had an old coupon for $2 off my next purchase. It had expired earlier that month, but it was still in my purse, so I just made small talk and tried to be nice to her since she was still obviously flustered by the previous rude lady. Then I slipped her the coupon before she totaled me up. She didn't even look at it and gave me my $2 off. Was I being just as bad as the lady before me? Aren't you were supposed to catch more flies with honey? :)

found!

I found my camera! I was sitting at the computer the other day, and noticed it sitting on top of the filing cabinet in our computer room. I swear I have looked all over the place, how in the world is it just sitting there?! I started yelling that I found the camera, and I can't imagine that it's been sitting there this whole time. Steve didn't look shocked, it turns out that he put it there after looking in the filing cabinet and coming across it. He thinks that he might have been the one who put it in the filing cabinet... I think he might be right ;)

Anyway, I'm glad that it "turned up". I've got several trips coming up here and I was going to be bummed if all I had is my camera phone. Our old digital might be going bad, but the camera phone is definitely worse. We leave this afternoon to visit my parents in South Carolina. I'm looking forward to it!

it's like Christmas!

I got my new laptop today! I think the UPS guy laughed a little at how excited I was to get it.

more couponing

I don't know why it makes me so excited, but I love to see the % savings that they print on the receipt and today I saved 51% on a pretty large grocery trip! :) I ended up saving $62 between sales and coupons, getting many items completely free. I am happy to tote around my little coupon book for the occasional $62 savings!

more stories

Steve usually takes care of most of the outside work around the house. He's much better at it than I am, and he enjoys doing it. He has a pair of shoes that he leaves outside most of the time, and I think it's really gross, but he just leaves them by the back patio and puts them on to walk around in the mud. This morning right after he woke up he went out to turn the sprinklers on he noticed that the toe was wet and squishy but no big surprise, they've been sitting outside. Then later he went back outside to turn the sprinklers off, and noticed that the toe was still wet and squishy. He took the shoe off and shook it out, and out fell a small frog. Ewww.

case in point

My last post I explained that I was kinda getting into coupon clipping. I just got back from the store where my coupons up to $2 were being doubled. My original total was $44.32 I saved $22 using coupons making my total only $22.32! Crazy :)

I'm becomming one of those people...

Years ago I was a newly married grad student, doing my best to make ends meet. I wouldn't say we struggled to make ends meet, but we did eat Tuna Helper meals several times per week. (I still get slightly gaggy on tuna casserole) I shopped in the discount stores and knew the prices of things I purchased regularly, we rarely ate out, and if we did it was fast-food. Then we both started working full-time and had a little breathing room. We still are both pretty frugal in general, but having 2 salaries enabled us to relax a bit, and I stopped driving across town to get the best deal because my time had become more valuable when I didn't have such a flexible schedule to do grocery shopping. However in all of this I was never a coupon clipper. I even remember seeing someone out shopping with their coupon organizer and laughing a little at how much time she must be investing to save... what... 30 cents per visit? How could that be worth it?

Then as I learned that I would be losing my job I started looking into ways to cut back on our monthly costs a bit. I knew I could do better on my grocery bill if I just paid a little more attention each week. And I started clipping coupons :) I honestly never thought I would. I went into it telling myself that I'd do a bit of it and if it looked worth it I'd keep with it. I was definitely willing to throw in the towel if it appeared to not be worth my time. I subscribed to a few blogs listing deal updates, stopped by the store to buy the paper each Sunday, and bought a coupon organizer. I seriously am starting to become one of those people.

But the kicker was last week when I went by a grocery store where I knew a good sale was going on. I made my list of things that I could get on sale, plus the coupons, and stock up on these items for very cheap. So there I was walking around with my coupon organizer in the seat of the cart. My cart was filled with tons of boxes of cereal, gat orade, ice cream and yogurt. And that's it. Only those 4 items in large quantities. I then notice one of my neighbors in the aisle with me and we talked for a bit. I felt funny about the contents of my cart but just laughed about it. Hopefully I don't need to explain that we do in fact eat more than cereal and ice cream during our week. I'm definitely becoming one of those people... it's a bit scary :) But now I'm thinking it's kind of fun and we're definitely saving money! And who knew they sold coupons on E bay!! Yeah, I'm off the deep end now :)

fireworks

Ok, so fireworks have gotten so much cooler than they were when I was little! I love the 3d cubes, the smiley faces, and all of the variety! When I was little, it was like, that one was blue, that one was loud, etc. So much cooler now.

Random

Just when you think that you should know everything about each other and nothing will surprise you... :)

I bought M&M's for our church VBS. I signed up to bring M&M's because we don't usually eat them so I knew that I wouldn't be tempted to open them up from the time I bought them to when I dropped them off at church. Then I totally spaced on bringing them to church and here it is VBS week and they're still at our house. So we dug in. I poured a bowl and we've been munching on them for the past week or so. Steve came home from work the other day and asked where all the red ones were? I ate them of course. Doesn't everyone eat their M&M's color by color?

Good and Bad

An example of bad customer vs good customer service service learned from recent experiences.

United Airlines won't refund my stolen items. What's worse, they won't even talk to me about it. I have to email them. I spent time on the phone going around in circles with people who wouldn't talk to me about it, then finally someone gave me an email address and that's all I get. I emailed back and forth and they won't tell me anything further than the fact that they won't reimburse me. Apparently when you buy a ticket they tell you that you shouldn't pack anything of value in your suitcase because they aren't responsible. I'm still emailing them back and forth, but I doubt anything will come of it.

As for the good example, I am so totally thrilled with the company that built my hair dryer. I know it's trivial, but it's so refreshing when you come across a company that stands behind their product and their customers. Almost 2 years ago I bought a hairdryer and in recent months the concentrator nozzle has been melting. It had gotten to the point that a couple of holes were in the sides. I searched everywhere online and in a few stores to find replacement nozzles without buying the whole dryer again for over $50. So I emailed the company on the side of the dryer and found out that the dryer is made by Helen of Troy. I emailed Helen of Troy back and forth a few times and they told me to send the entire dryer back to them, and they'd replace it for FREE! All because they didn't have any replacement concentrator attachments and the dryer was less than 2 years old :) Boy that made my day. I will definitely be buying their products in the future!

And as another example of bad customer service, in my search for the replacement nozzle, I called a beauty supply store here in town to see if they could order replacements. I talked to someone who was obviously busy, but she told me that they had a catalog and could order the part if I came into the store. I made the 20 minute drive out there that weekend, and they took one look at my dryer and told me that they couldn't order it. I made the comment that it would have been nice to know that before I wasted an hour of my day making the trip out there and they told me that I should have called first... errr!

my first week of unemployment

Ahh, what should I do with my time?? I spent this morning on the phone with United Airlines. We'll see where that gets me and maybe I'll share the details later. I've got a load of laundry in the wash, a steak that will marinate for a few hours before I grill it for dinner, and I plan on stopping by the store later this afternoon to grab a gallon of paint and begin a new house project. Ahh, I feel like I have all the time in the world now :)

funny and slightly embarrassing

Yesterday I was grabbing a few quick items from the grocery store on my way home from work. I noticed the lady in line behind me was struggling to hold all of her items so I offered to help and took an item from her before she dropped it and she readjusted what was in her arms. I exchanged a few words with her, and suddenly realized that I totally knew her from somewhere. However, I couldn't place her at all. As I started loading my stuff to be checked out she made the connection for me. It was my neighbor. How funny.

not much these days

The airline has said that it will take 45-60 days to get back to me about my items. Not surprising. I called our insurance agent because those types of things are covered under our home owners insurance, but as I expected, our deductible is greater than the amount lost so it wouldn't even be worth it to file a claim. We're resting on the airline to reimburse us.

Also, our backyard has yet to be finished from last summer when it was dug up to fix the basement leaks, and at this point in the year I think we'll recommend that they wait till fall to finish it so we don't spend our entire lives trying to keep the sod that they lay down from dying. So we've got several things in limbo currently.

Other than that, it's life as usual, which is a good thing :) We're hoping that sometime in June we'll be able to get away for a week or so to take a break.