Construction and Angel Trees

After eons of delays, everything finally ready to get started!  I met with the contractor, project manager, his assistant and the electrician today.  I think I’m in love.  They are such a great group of guys – joking around with each other (and later with me), patient with my very slow building manager and still able to be all business when needed.  In less than an hour we’d decided on where the door to the nursery was going to be, how long the chain for my chandelier needs to be, that recessed lights in the kitchen would definitely look better and cost less than I thought, how high the window in the wall needs to be and what time they’re showing up on Thursday to start work.  There was a bunch of other stuff in there, too, but most of it was over my head.  I liked that they still included me in the conversation and treated me with respect - which is sometimes hard for men who wear tool belts to do. 

Tomorrow I’m ordering my new lighting, and then my work will be done until they’re done, which will hopefully be right before Christmas.  I am so exhausted after the craziness of the past few weeks – I’m really looking forward to a chance to laze around and do nothing this weekend.

In completely unrelated news, I have adopted two siblings for Christmas this year through the Angel Tree run by our local police department and radio station.  I chose the two children I did because all the 6 year old boy asked for was clothes and underwear, and the 4 year old girl asked for clothes, shoes and a baby doll.  Of course, I have to buy the boy something more than just clothes.  Remember when you were 6?  How awful would a Christmas be with just clothes as presents?  I guess if you were in desperate need of new clothes, you would be grateful to get them, even at 6, but I feel like I need to get him something more.  Trouble is, I have no idea what the cool things are for 6 year olds these days.  Any suggestions?  

The Fifth Day of Thankful

I did a little Black Friday shopping today. But not on purpose. I had planned to meet LB and her two kids at a lighting store this morning, to help me pick out a chandelier for my dining room, and new light fixtures for my kitchen, and then I was going over to my sister’s house when we were done. I ended up spending most of the day with them, instead. It started when they joined me at the store, and Isa ran up to give me a hug and asked, “How’s Mr. Baby doing today?” It ended with J asking me to come home with them so he could sit in my lap and cuddle. In between, we had hamburgers and milkshakes, visited a home improvement store, a sporting goods store and a kitchen store. At that point we thought we were done, until we passed a little children’s boutique with a sign out front that read, “50% off entire store.” LB dragged me inside, where I found a cute giraffe outfit for Chiquitito to wear in about a year and a half, a soft little hat, a few small security blankets and a beautiful handpainted wooden growth chart in blue with jungle animals, all half price. I also found a fireman raincoat and matching umbrella for my nephew D, so I’m now done with his Christmas shopping!

In the midst of all that shopping, we rolled our eyes at the kids and their crazy antics, joked about being pregnant, commiserated over our various extended family woes, and had had more relaxed fun together than we have since LB first told me she was pregnant again. It was a lovely day.

I am so lucky to have the wonderful friends that I do, but today I’m especially thankful for LB and her friendship, and the fact that her children (who I adore) consider me (and Chiquitito) to be part of their family.

The Fourth Day of Thankful

Tonight at dinner we each went around the table to say one thing we were thankful for today.  My dad went first, and said that he was thankful that I was pregnant and that next year there’d be 3 grandsons sitting around the table for Thanksgiving.  I managed not to cry because my brother in law promptly piped up, “Well, now Shannon’s going to have to come up with something new to be thankful for!”  But actually it reminded me of one of the things I’m most thankful right now (besides Chiquitito – but that one is sort of a given).  I’m thankful for a family that is so supportive of me and my decision to become a Single Mom by Choice.  My family has its fair share of problems, but not one single family member has ever said anything but kind and encouraging words about my plans.  And so, when it was my turn, I said just that.  And thanked my family for being so wonderful.  That’s when my 3 year old nephew, D, had to ask, “Aunt Shannon, are you thankful for me?” 

So that means that the Fourth Day of Thankful has me thankful for two things – the support of my family, and my nephew D.  And yes, I bought him that t-shirt!)   

The Third Day of Thankful

Today, I’m thankful for pumpkin bread.  Baking pumpkin bread is my official signal of the start of the holiday season; it just isn’t Thanksgiving until I’ve got a couple of loaves baking in the oven.  Right now, my first batch of the season is filling the house with the wonderful smells of pumpkin and spice, and it will smell like this for at least a couple of days.  I smell pumpkin bread, and I’m immediately filled with all the happy memories of Thanksgiving, and even Christmas (though I hate combining the two holidays, I guess it’s unavoidable at times!)

I love holiday traditions, but strangely, my family has almost no recurring traditions at all.  Instead, I’ve created holiday traditions with my friends; my favorite is with LB and her daughter Isa.   Every December, we have lunch or dinner followed by the Nutcracker or another Christmas themed production, followed by hot chocolate and presents at my house.  It’s something we plan to do for years to come, and is a special time the three of us can look forward to sharing together every year.

I’m thankful for pumpkin bread because it’s a tradition that I have on my own, but it symbolizes all the traditions I hope to form with my children, and my sister’s family in the years ahead.

I’m also thankful for pumpkin bread because it’s delicious.  Especially hot from the oven, or just out of the toaster with a little butter.  Yummy in my tummy!

Shannon’s Favorite Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

3 eggs

2 cups (1 15oz can) of pumpkin

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix above ingredients (in order as listed – unless you want to be really good and sift the flour with the baking powder, salt and baking soda, which is better, but I’m always too impatient to do it the right way).  Bake in two loaf pans for 50-60 minutes. 

I usually play around with the spices – today the cloves smelled really good, so I added a few more dashes in.  Occasionally, I’ll sprinkle the top of the loaves with cinnamon or even a dash of nutmeg.  It’s never the same every time, but that’s half the fun!  The second loaf makes a good gift – or freezes well, if you can keep it around long enough to make it into the freezer!

the picture above is a bunch of cloves, freshly picked off the tree

The Second Day of Thankful

I’m thankful for Judith McNaught.  As in Judith McNaught, the romance author.  No, not because of her books, though at one time I did absolutely adore them.  I’m thankful for her because of the wonderful group of friends I found just by trying to find out when her next book, Water’s Edge was coming out.  Eight years later, that book still isn’t out, but I have some of the most wonderful friends in the world.  We’ve seen each other through deaths, births, heartache and joy.  We’ve run miles of races together – or cheered each other on from the sidelines.   We’ve flown in from around the country, and even around the world, to get together and eat, shop and laugh together.  And not a day goes by that I’m not thankful for each and every one of them.  

Who knew that a romance author could do all that?

The First Day of Thankful!

Sarah over at Sarah Fain Has Starfish Envy has a wonderful idea for this week – a Week of Thankful. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and I love the idea of a whole week of giving thanks, so I’m totally stealing her idea.

I’m going to start the week with something pretty simple. I’m thankful for exercise. Yes, exercise. It’s one thing that I can do for me that makes me feel good, is free, and is good for me. I might not have the best body, and I probably will never get rid of my muffin top, but I can control my fitness level, and that makes me feel wonderful. Right now, exercise is the only thing allowing me to eat whatever I want to while keeping gestational diabetes at bay, so I’m doubly thankful!

I wish I could go for a run tomorrow morning, because I always feel so great after I do, but even a brisk walk outside on a cool fall morning can be heavenly. And so I’m thankful that I can go for that walk every day. And I’m even thankful for the high blood sugars that inspired me to get back on track with daily exercise again!

(Again stealing from Sarah) - feel free to jump in on any of these posts and share what you're thankful for.  Or better yet, do your own thankful post.  :)

Is this Nesting?

Some of you may remember that I’m planning on doing some construction on my condo to get ready for baby.  Things have been moving slow; between my architect being sick and my building manager being too busy to get back to me, there’s been no progress for weeks.  But all of a sudden everything came together on Thursday evening, and I was able to email my contractor with answers to all his questions.  He emailed me back Friday morning and said that January was all booked up, but he had an opening for December, if I could do that.  Could I?  That’s what I was hoping for, but had given up on after all the delays the past couple of months.

Of course, my loft is currently full of things I’ve been meaning to move or give away, and I really don’t want all that stuff still there when the construction starts.  This weekend I’ve spent hours going through my books and packing them up:  books I love but don’t expect to read again anytime soon to put in storage, books I don’t ever want to read again to give to Goodwill, and rearranging the remaining books on my shelves in a way that won’t look too weird in a nursery.  (Really, I have tons of bookshelves that a child could never reach, I can’t let the space go to waste!)    I still have books scattered elsewhere around the house, but I really can’t handle thinking about those just yet.  Come to think of it, it’s possible I might be a book hoarder. 

The book purge inspired me to work on the rest of my house, which meant shopping for a new shower curtain (and rugs and towels) for my guest bathroom.  While I was shopping I found throw pillows for my couch that are perfect.  The style is a little out of my comfort zone – it’s a geometric pattern with lots of squares of different colors – but the colors are perfect.  It looks as though someone specifically made the pillows to pull together all the colors in my living room!  In addition, my new chair was delivered Thursday afternoon, so now all I need to finish the living room is to replace my current heavy coffee table (with sharp corners) with a leather storage ottoman.  I feel like I might finally be making some serious progress.

This coming weekend, instead of shopping for Christmas presents on Black Friday, I’ll be at the lighting store, looking for a chandelier for my living room as well as new lighting for my kitchen.  I’m pretty sure that will complete my home purchases.  Just in time to start shopping for the nursery in January!

Speaking of the nursery, it’s finally starting to sink in that I’m going to have a little boy!  I’m so excited – I would have loved a girl, of course, but I was really hoping for a boy.  I still worry more than I think I should, but it all feels like more of a reality, now that I know that all looks well, and that it’s a he.  I do already have a name picked out, but for now I’m sticking with Chiquitito on the blog.  Don’t worry, that’s not really going to be his name!  At least I don’t think it will be.

16 Week Ultrasound

Last night I had a dream that I found out my baby was a girl.  When I woke up to pee, and thought, "Really?  The night before my ultrasound, I finally get a dream?"  And then I went back to sleep and had another dream, this time that it was a boy.  So much for my prophetic dream abilities!

My ultrasound wasn't until 4pm, so it was a long day.  My sister Jamie, and my good friend (and long time running partner) Ali, met me at work and we drove across the street to the perinatal office, where I promptly forgot where it was, and went to the wrong floor.  (Seriously.)  We didn't wait long once I got to the right place, and the scan was started almost immediately.  At first, Kristy, the ultrasound tech, was taking measurements, but then she came to her senses and got to work finding out what flavor of baby I'm having.  And this is what we saw:

It's a boy!  I'm so happy!  I would have been happy either way, but I was (not-so) secretly wanting a little boy.  We were able to see all 10 fingers and toes, the brain, two kidneys, a normal heart (we could even see the heart valves!), a stomach and a bladder.  She couldn't get a good view of the pulmonary artery, though, so to be on the safe side I'm going back in 4 weeks for another scan.  My placenta is also covering my cervix (aka, placenta previa) so she wants to take a look at that, too, and be sure it's moved. In addition to all the baby stuff, both Kristy and the doctor kept commenting about the size of my bladder.  I guess all those years of holding it as long as I can has really stretched it out!  LOL  

Kicking Me!

I feel so relieved, after seeing my little boy kicking and punching and waving away in there.  I still can't feel any movement, which is crazy, given how much there is, but now that I know the anatomy is normal and all looks good, I'm feeling much less anxious.  I know the loss of my first pregnancy is going to make me more paranoid for this entire pregnancy (and any future ones, if I decide to try for 2), but this ultrasound was the big hurdle I have been waiting for.  Now it seems real.

OMG.  I'm going to have a SON!