gifts

I love shopping for Christmas gifts :)

And I like selling Christmas gifts, too. I just got back from Indy, I had a really great Christmas Open House there and helped all of my customers pick out fab gifts for their families (even hard to buy for men and teenage boys). I can help you too! You can call me or order directly from my website, I offer free gift wrap (just let me know you'd like it wrapped) and shipping.

Another idea is to give a gift from Heifer International. I think a gift from Heifer is perfect for everyone you know that is socially aware, but sometimes hard to shop for.

Happy shopping!

dear...

Dear Hair,

You look marvelous today, I realize this means six months of terrible hair, but I thank you for the gift I've been given today. :)


Dear Bladder,

You are empty, quit complaining.


Dear Taylor Swift,

Your new song is catchy and cute, but so insipid. It's been running through my head for days, I am so over it. Please release a new song right away so they'll stop playing this one.

Thanks.

i'm relieved

The week before Thanksgiving I went in for my blood glucose test. At my OB's if you don't hear from them it means everything was fine and they'll discuss your results with you at your next appointment. I thought I was fine because I hadn't heard from them; last night I realized I had a voicemail hanging around on our home phone and it was from the Dr.'s office. No information is ever provided in their messages, so I got to think about my dreaded test results all last night, which means I got no sleep.

Let me back this up a little, I've been worried about GD since before I became pregnant. It's no secret that I didn't become pregnant right away, this is because I have mild PCOS, which some people describe as pre-diabetes. I don't need to test my blood sugar, but I do need to be careful, and watch what I eat, and exercise everyday. In fact I was on blood sugar meds before I became pregnant as a way to stabilize hormone levels - this worked, and we now have Peanut - but you go off of the meds after conceiving because they can hurt the baby. So I've been pretty much thinking all along that I'd develop GD, and we'd just deal with it then and hope that it remained gestational only and I would be back to normal after the baby is born.

So I called the Dr.'s office as soon as possible this morning. I was expecting to leave a voicemail, but I actually made contact with the nurse who had left me the message. I guess when they test your blood sugar they also test your iron levels, and mine are just a tad low so she was calling to tell me to go to the Pharmacy and get some over-the-counter iron supplements and take them once a day. And they'll be checking my iron levels again at 30 weeks to make sure they are just right before I deliver. Just to be certain I asked her about my sugar levels and they are great :)

So I'm happy, and so relieved. And I guess I'll be buying some vitamins today.

lazy

I am so unmotivated today. I have a million things to get done, but I am blogging about absolutely nothing instead.

If you have any left over motivation please send it my way.

Thanks.

kobe's a big brother!

I just got a call from Mel.

Chase Allen was born at 4:41 AM.
6 pounds
18 inches

Everyone is healthy and happy, although Mel sounded a bit tired :)

oh sh*t

See that ticker? 100 days until Peanut's due date.

The room is not painted - I don't even have a color picked out. I have registered for a car seat, strollers, and at Laura's urging, a jungle swing. Oh, and some Dreft. That's it.

I officially feel like the most unprepared person ever.

back home, blah, blah, blah

We came home Sunday night - we had a great time in Gatlinburg! I'll post pictures later, honestly I probably won't get to them until after Thanksgiving, but you never know. Zippy traveled well in the car, and was a quiet little stowaway at the cabin; pets were not allowed, but I figured if someone found her I would just play dumb. It turns out we had nothing to worry about, and we took some fun pictures of our contraband-pig.

I thought Zippy was all better, but today she started refusing to eat again. So I called the vet, but I really don't want to drive up there, so I'm trying to convince them to call in a prescription to the local vet for me to pick up. Right now I'm waiting for the vet to call me back.

Besides Zippy I'm focusing on Thanksgiving dinner, there's a lot I need to do, and I can't seem to find any parsley at the grocery store. In fact, the woman behind me in the checkout line had all the ingredients for stuffing in her cart, and a huge bag of cilantro. I was going to ask her if she meant to use the cilantro, or if she was looking for parsley too, but she had this terrible scowl on her face so I stayed quiet. I wonder how her stuffing will turn out...

expensive little piggie

As suspected Zippy has a GI tract infection. In fact she has a certain bacteria that is deadly, so I'm glad I took her to the vet so we could figure this all out.

I'm sure you're all wondering "How much does it cost to keep a pig healthy?" This time the price was $135.65 - I know it's a bit ridiculous, but she's my little buddy, and she relies on me for everything, I can't let her die. Believe me, I was half expecting the vet to tell me that she is old (5 years), and probably wouldn't make it, then I was going to bring her home and have a local vet help her "over the bridge." But her vet felt there is no reason she won't feel better after an extensive round of antibiotics, pain medications and probiotics. Add all of those meds to three syringe feedings,four syringe waterings and a new vitamin; and you have one confused Alanna. So after I post this I am making a spreadsheet to keep track of Zippy's new schedule.

FYI - Zippy is now accompanying us on vacation, what a pampered little pig.

sick little piggie

Zippy is one sick little pig. She is really pathetic, not eating or drinking and just wanting to be held. So I've been syringing her water, and kibble mash. Today we are going to visit a new vet, because I found out that her old vet moved to Africa.

The new vet is about an hour from here in Toledo, it may seem ridiculous, but she's not a happy pig, and I need her to be better by Wed so I can go on vacation!

In other news we started registering for Peanut, Oh My Gosh - I had no idea there was so much stuff to register for. I'm beginning to think we'll need an addition just for all of the stuff. And while we were in the area I went to Macy'$ and bought some new bras. I know the ta-ta's are huge right now but I was not expecting to be quite this large - 40 DDD. I think I've officially entered sideshow sizing.

catch up

I haven't blogged in a few days, I've just been super busy. Last Friday I woke up to a call from J that his grandfather had passed away. We all loved Bumpa, and his absence is going to be hard on the whole family. On Sat J had planned to go to the Navy - Notre Dame game with his mom, and they went anyway and had a nice time. My sister, Susie, had the weekend off at 'bucks, and a teeny bit of homework, so she drove down and spent the day and night - we just hung out, but we had so much fun :)

We drove up to Muskegon on Sun and drove back home Mon night. It's about a 4 hour drive from here - not too long for two old pro's from Tech, right? WRONG! That drive always wears me out, blahhhh.

Tues was a catch up day, Wed felt like a catch up day, although I'm not quite sure I accomplished anything and yesterday we had Peanut's last ultrasound. Peanut was being extremely active, even the technician commented on the acrobatic abilities of my tiny Peanut. This time she was able to measure everything and we have a healthy little baby, and the doctor knows Peanut's gender, but we still don't - and that makes me very happy!

Today I've been working around the house and finalizing plans for Thanksgiving. Next Wed we leave for Gatlinburg - I ended up renting a cabin, and we should be there during the color peak, which is a nice surprise because I just assumed their color season ran about the same as Michigan and Northern Ohio's. For the record, Tennessee is much further south than Ohio, so obviously the season changes come later. And we're going to Dollywood - and I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about that!

That is all. Have a good weekend!

craving

This one is terrible.

I am seriously craving a huge, frosty pilsner of BEER.

Does this mean I am gestating a future frat-boy? Or just a future Alph Gam?

thanks,and eewww!

Thanks so much for all of the vacation ideas. I'm writing them all down and creating a new file for "Vacation!" in my filing cabinet. J has 15 days of vacation left for this year, he can roll five over to next year, the rest are use-it-or-lose-it. I've decided we are not going to be in this situation next year; I am going to hold him down and force him to plan our vacation time for next year before he plans his work schedule.

I've decided we're going to Gatlinburg for 5 days just before Thanksgiving. I really want to go to Dollywood, and hiking in the Great Smokey Mountains, and everything is supposed to be really pretty for the Christmas Season. Today I need to decide if we are staying at a B and B or renting a cabin. I feel the strong pull of daily maid service.

Here's the eewww! I just swiffered our bedroom. I must be related to Chewbacca, the hair ball that came out from under our bed was beyond disgusting. You would have thought I never clean. So gross. Reminded me of the hair ball they snaked out of the AGD house plumbing.

On that lovely note - have a great day!

vacation

J and I are in need of a vacation. All year long we were planning on going to Niagara Falls and Toronto during the summer. But then Peanut came into the picture, and I wasn't feeling too well, and now it seems a bit cold for the Falls.

This is where you come in. I need a vacation spot. We don't want to spend a ton of money, and would prefer not to fly - we're just looking for a fun and relaxing, reasonably priced, vacation. We're also looking to get away for at least a week, maybe a bit more. My only stipulations - not Vegas - if I'm going there I want to be able to drink, and not camping - sleeping in my own comfy bed is hard enough right now, I don't need to be on the floor in a sleeping bag.

spooky

Tonight the Trick-or-Treaters will be out! I am so excited to get rid of all of the candy I've been buying. It seems like I am always reaching into my candy stash, and the only way that will stop is if the candy is gone.

I carved four pumpkins, I'll post pictures later. One is supposed to be J's, but I had to help him design it. I felt like I was helping a three year old - "Do you want eyebrows?" "Should they be scary or happy?", etc. That's the last time I carve a pumpkin for him - next year I'll just make more for myself :) Also, this year I made two of the pumpkins into lanterns by drilling holes into them, I like the way they look - very Martha.

Four big pumpkins = tons of pumpkin seeds. It took 3 hours for me to roast all of them, and I'm tempted to take them to the neighbors because I can't see us eating all of them by ourselves. But they are salty and delicious!

I can't wait for Halloween to be over, because the Meijer commercial with the clown reflection in the freezer scares me. There's just something about clowns that is not right.

weird dream

Last night I had the weirdest dream.

I dreamt J and I were on vacation and we had my friend Holly and her two children with us. We also had the young son of one of my Mary Kay clients, three little boys (actually J and his two brothers as children), and Eli and Peyton Manning. For some reason we had a gigantic suite with a whole mess of beds, but only one bathroom.

Holly and I slept in one bedroom with all of the assorted kids, and J roomed with the Manning brothers. The kids wanted to go swimming but for some reason little J and his brothers were wearing snow suits. It was highly chaotic, and the housekeeping staff kept barging in to refill the little bottles of shampoo, bars of soap and shoe-shine towels.

J and I kept trying to get in some alone time by locking ourselves in the bathroom, but the Manning brothers kept barging in.

I woke up confused and disoriented.
Any insight into what this dream means?

rigth now...

J is on his way to Wendy's because I MUST have a Frosty.

Yep, it's essential to life.

this and that

I had my ultra sound on Thurs. It's a good thing we didn't go in expecting to find out Peanut's gender - because someone was VERY shy. In fact Peanut was downright uncooperative, after 45 minutes of trying to get baby to roll this way and that the technician told us to come back in three weeks.

So we will have another "photo session" soon :)

This weekend we made apple butter with Holly (my OH friend) and her family. This was so cool. Her family has been making apple butter over an open fire in this huge copper kettle for around 120 years. Two weeks ago we went to Amish country to buy the apples and apple cider, and we had a schnitzing party (peeling, coring and paring) on Thurs. so everything would be ready. Holly's dad started the fire at 7 AM and seven bushels of apples and twenty five gallons of apple cider went into the kettle. By 6 PM we were canning machines. We ended up with 130 extra-delicious jars of apple butter, and one bowl to eat from all night long.

On Sun. we drove up to Troy to go to a cider mill with my parents. It was so nice to see them even for just a few hours, and my mom made the yummiest stew and a German's Chocolate Cake.

In other news I have been working! Which is exciting because I don't feel like I've been treating my business like a business since we moved (9 months ago). I haven't put in too much effort, but I've seen huge results. I was queen of sales and bookings at my meeting last night - which means I got to wear a tiara and sash (cheesy, but I love it!). And I woke up this morning and held a class, so today is already turning out to be productive :)

clean teeth

I went to my new dentist this morning, so now my teeth are all clean and happy :)

I've been so much better about scheduling personal appointments since we moved. I loved my GYN from before we moved to Indy, so I made sure to schedule that appointment as soon as we moved to town - now with Peanut on the way I'm scheduled there all of the time. I also went back to my previous family practice, but I'm looking at switching because I don't know anyone who uses them as their pediatrician. We found a new eye doctor right away because J's glasses were falling apart, and my contacts were running out, and we are both already scheduled for our yearly exams. And now we have the dentist squared away for both of us.

It's so nice to know that these things are taken care of, that they are no longer looming over my head - just another item on a long list of to-do's.

Speaking of appointments, Thursday we have THE ultrasound planned, but I'll disappoint all of you because we are not planning on finding out if Peanut is pink or blue. I'm excited to keep it a surprise. I feel like so few things in life are truly surprises, I just couldn't resist creating my own.

Happy Tuesday!

home again

Last night I cam back from Pittsburgh - I was there for an MK retreat.

I really like going on the little trips, I get to see my extended group of MK girlfriends, and I get extra training and I am always really excited about my business when I get back.

Enough procrastinating from me, time to get back to work!

know what?

I really, really, really like Gummi Bears.