Just another day

I woke up twice early this morning to go to the bathroom, and I couldn't sleep after the second bathroom trip at 6:45 AM, so I thought I'd have an unusually early start for the day. After checking my e-mail and what nots, I felt a bit tired and was able to catch up on a couple more hours of sleep. When I finally got out of bed and had breakfast, I decided to play handywoman and fixed up all the baby furniture. The back side of the "changing table"/chest needed to be re-nailed and the bottom row of the "other" changing table gave out due to the heavy diapers, so I fixed that as well, with Trung's help.

After lunch, Trung and I caught the last half of "Night at the Roxbury"; Will Ferrell sure does look young. Then I decorated and added the base to the clock, and here's what I ended up with:Oh, and here are the pictures of the two other little projects I did; I basically just painted them, but not bad for a newbie if I do say so myself. :) FYI, the one on the left is a peg for hanging stuff on and the one on the right is a picture holder.

Ready

Last night we finally saw the Oscar award winning movie "Crash", which was very good. There was one scene in particular that really got to me...if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip to the next paragraph. Okay, so there's this scene where a five year old girl runs into her father's arms just as another guy is about to shoot him, but she gets "shot" instead. The father is crying out and I just totally lose it. I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant or the thought of that happening to my little girl, but the tears kept coming. I think I even saw Trung's eyes water. You can actually see a still image of the scene if you click on the link. Anyhow, yeah, good movie.

Today I painted a butterfly peg and a butterfly photo holder for Lydia's room. I started working on the clock as well, though I have to wait a couple days for the paint to dry before manipulating the design a bit. I did a couple loads of laundry and sorted out my bigger maternity clothes for my cousin since all I've been wearing lately are big t-shirts and shorts. We went swimming, had dinner, and watched a depressing special on 20/20 about the Last Days on Earth.

So, I was hoping that Lydia would be born early, but seeing that she's due in only five days, it feels like she's going to be late. I really should read those parenting magazines like I said I would...ah, something to do tomorrow. Oh, and another reason why I want the baby to come soon besides the fact that I'm beginning to get bored, the pregnancy is beginning to be uncomfortable. I've been waking up every night for the last week and a half to go to the bathroom, the bottoms of my feet have begun to hurt from the extra weight (I'm still at 144 from last week), and sometimes a sharp pain runs down my right back side for no particular reason. Yeah, I'm sooooo ready!

Still waiting...

So instead of grocery shopping yesterday, we decided to go out to eat. As I was looking through my purse for restaurant deals that I had gotten in the mail, I came across the free sneak preview pass for "Trust the Man" which I had won last week from KISS FM. The movie wasn't too bad; there were some funny parts which were rather entertaining.

Today I had my 39 week doctor's appointment, where I found out that I was 3 centimeters dilated and the doctor could touch the baby's head (and for those doctors out there, she was 50% effaced). So, Lydia really could be here any day now...or in three weeks, who knows. The weather was kinda muggy today, but Trung and I still went to the pool. Of course, no one was there and it was sprinkling a little, but we got our work-out nonetheless. You never know when the weather could get really bad, thus making that swim my last swim.

Oh, I've also been watching my niece and nephew at school via the school webcams. I've got a lag time of 25 minutes, but it's kinda cool seeing what they are up to throughout the day. I don't know how their teachers concentrate knowing that parents could be watching them at any moment, I know that I wouldn't be able to.

It's raining!

After a drought of a few weeks, the rain is finally coming. It's still thundering outside, but the rain will surely follow. Thank goodness for our newly installed sprinkler system, or else our grass would have shriveled up and died by now. With rain comes cooler weather; maybe Lydia will be born on a nice sunny, cool day! :)

Okay, so what have I been up to since Thursday? Well, we settled on a pediatrician; we're going to go with the recommended one because she seemed to really take her time to talk with us, while the meeting with the family friend felt really rushed. Friday, I spent the morning and early afternoon at the brand new Round Rock Premium Outlets; here's what I looked like <------. There's really no point in clothes shopping for myself anymore, so I shopped for Lydia. The way the outlet is laid out, the children clothing stores are right next door to each other, so I just went from store to store, loading up on the cutest baby girl's clothes. I also managed to get a little something for myself...okay, so I've been told that the diaper bag ultimately become your purse from other mommies. So, I've got the stylish diaper bag, but then I was thinking, what if I just wanted to run a quick errand or leave Lydia with Trung, would I have to take the big ole diaper bag with me? Then I saw on ebay a Coach lilac wristlet, and thought that it would be perfect! Even better would be if I could find the wristlet at the Coach outlet store, which I did! And in my book, every "purse" needs a matching key ring, and it just so happens that the regular Coach stores have one in lilac. Oh, but the only thing is, the wristlet and key ring are from different seasons, so even though the color codes read the same, they don't exactly match. Um...what to do, what to do.

Saturday, we had our carpets deep cleaned for the first time in almost three years. Let's just say that there was tons of cat hair accumulated over the years, but I think we got most of it after vacuuming before and after the deep cleaning. Anyhow, we had to let the carpets dry, so we went to Whole Foods for lunch where we ran into Sing and Maggie. Then the four of us went to Tapioca House for some Taiwanese drinks. Trung and I headed to Half Price Books next to purchase pediatrician-recommended baby and discipline books. After spending a few hours at Barton Creek Mall where I baby shopped again while Trung checked out the Apple store, we had a quick dinner and went to our photographers' house for some poker. We also got a DVD of our maternity pics, where most of the pictures turned out pretty well. Now, it's a matter of going through and picking out our favorite ones, which we will post later after they have been photoshopped.

Since we were out all day Saturday, we spent Sunday putting all the furniture back. In moving most of our things off of the carpet, we took the opportunity to really clean up and rearrange the rooms. We went for a quick swim later and got home in time for "the gang" to come over for a barbeque. We ate macaroni salad, burgers and/or sausages, salad, home fries, and pineapples, while watching the Emmys. Oh, and we had yummy strawberry shortcake ice cream for dessert.

Okay, so the weather is such a tease. After the dark clouds rolled in and the thundering stopped, we received not even a single drop of rain. Well, I guess I'll head off to the grocery store now, so that we don't starve. Tomorrow I will start on my next arts and craft project: a clock for Lydia's room. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished product.

A Hawaiian morning

Now that I've all this free time on my hands, I've been experimenting with my cooking. This morning I finally made Banana Macadamia pancakes with Coconut syrup, which I had been wanting to make for awhile. I had this delicious breakfast combo my first day in Hawaii, Molokai to be exact, on our honeymoon. Despite the lack of scenery, the pancakes did take me back for a moment. We drank POG, of course, which is a concoction of passion fruit, orange, and guava juices. All we really needed left was a mug of Blue Mountain coffee; decaf for me this time around. :) Oh, the memories.

So, right now at this stage of my pregnancy, I am supposedly "nesting", which means having an urge to clean the house. I personally think that I naturally would have wanted to clean the house before having the baby since I am at home now and have the time, but call it what you will. Plus, my family will be coming up to Austin when the baby is born and I wouldn't want them to stay in a filthy house. So far I have cleared out all the closets in the house, reorganized the entire kitchen and pantry, and swiffered all the tile floors. I'll probably dust today and get Trung to vacuum before the carpet cleaning people come on Saturday to deep clean.

Yesterday I went to the pool by myself since Trung was home stuck with a work application problem. For the first time ever, I was the only one at the pool, which was kinda cool at first, but then later freaked me out. I don't know if it was because it was on a school day and kids have to stay home doing their homework or if it was the time (I went at 7:30 PM, about an hour later than usual), but it was completely empty. As I was doing my laps, I started getting crazy thoughts about drowning and someone finding me there, all pregnant and such a tragedy. Then the movie SwimFan popped into my mind, followed by the Lacy Peterson murder. So, I swam my last lap and quickly went home. Yeah, Trung's coming with me from now on. Shikes!

And on the third day...

So, yesterday was super busy; Trung and I had appointments and errands galore. We started off the morning by organizing our closets, which meant a couple bags going to Goodwill. Then off to our "Meet the Pediatrician" with an old family friend of my family's. She too is a PK (aka preacher's kid) and works right across from my hospital Seton Northwest. We basically thought that we would automatically go with her since I knew her, but then again there's always a downside of knowing someone already. So, on Thursday, we have another "Meet and Greet" with a highly recommended pediatrician, just to have someone to compare with.

After we met the pediatrician, Trung and I had a yummy lunch at Sushi Sake, our favorite restaurant for lunch because those bento boxes are a great deal! Afterwards, we headed to the hospital for my 38 weeks appointment. My doctor had a C-section to perform that morning and had two ladies in labor at the time of my appointment, so we had about a thirty minute wait. When she finally did arrive, she checked for cervical dilations...right now I am dilated 2 centimeters, which she said is very good. :)

Next, Trung dropped me off at the hair salon where I got my hair chopped while he went to finally get his state inspection. I don't think my hair has been this short in ages, like when I was four! I just thought that it would be convenient for when I have the baby because I won't really have time to mess with it. Um, maybe I cut it too short. Hmmm, I wonder how long I get to take prenatal pills for, the longer the better for the hair growing process if you know what I mean. Anyhow, I was going to post some pics, but they don't look so great, so I'll have some later when I actually fix my hair. I meant to take them yesterday when I had just gotten my hair cut and it looked better, but you'll just have to wait.

We then got a carwash at Genie Carwash, which was highly recommended by the brother-in-law, and then went to Carmax to see how much Trung's car would be appraised for. The end result was a disappointment, but at least now we know what we've got to work with. So later, we weren't quite hungry yet, so we hung out at Wal-mart for a little while. We just walked around the entire store and looked for things that we would possibly need within the next couple months. KISS FM was at the Wal-mart, so I got to see Bobby Bones from the morning show; I swear he was looking at me weird...maybe cause I'm so huge. There was a spin wheel for winning some cheesy prizes, but I won a pretty decent one, a sneak peek pass to the movie "Trust the Man" on Monday night. Honestly, I wasn't surprised that I won; I've had a stream of good luck in my time. I won a Bulova clock at an Off-Shore Technology Conference and the grand prize of a laptop and color printer at my Project Graduation, just to name a few.

Anyhow, we had dinner at Clay Pot, a hot pot place, which as always, was very filling. I was sad that they didn't have their tasty desserts from the last time I dined, but they had a bunch of new hot pot ingredients to make up for it. This time around, the restaurant offered clams, squid, scallops, and tripe. Yummy in my tummy...Lydia agreed.

So, today so far I've posted like eight postings on Craigslist; it's my new way of cleaning house. :) I'm getting hungry, so I'll warm up lunch in a bit. Oh, here's what Sasha was doing this morning, bothering Trung...notice the tail on the mouse. Uh-huh.

My first day on maternity leave

It was nice not having to be at work today. All I did all day was feed Trung as he worked and cleaned/reorganized the entire kitchen and pantry. Our kitchen counter space has tripled and as Sing said, looks as if though we just moved in. Um...maybe I put away too many appliances, but Trung, being a clutter-phobe, liked the "new" look, no pun intended. (well, maybe)

We tend to have an ant problem once in awhile since we've got a greenbelt behind our backyard, but today they all came storming in. I don't know if it was because those critters knew I was home or if it was just too dang hot outside, but I had never seen so many ants since we've moved into the house, which will be three years in November. So, I basically 409ed all the kitchen counters and moved the ant traps around. Within minutes, the ants were gathered at the bait...so long, suckers! :)

After Trung finished work, we attempted again to swim at the community pool, but once again, it was "out of order". It was bad enough that the pool was closed yesterday, but again! Geez! The bottoms of my feet have begun to hurt, I guess from standing with the extra weight too long, so swimming is basically the only form of exercise I can (or really want to) do nowadays. The management company of the HOA aka as the people in charge of the pool is located next to my hospital, so if we have time tomorrow after my now weekly doctor's appointment, I may swing by and chew them out. Looking forward to it. Tee hee hee.

The day after

I really didn't do much my last day of work yesterday, just processed a few loans and sat around snacking. I didn't feel like stacking, so I didn't...what are they going to do, fire me? Ma ha ha. My co-workers didn't care; they took me to lunch and let me set appointments while they stacked. When loans did come in, however, I did do them; they helped to make the time pass faster. Oh, and I finally got a phone call from HR...I got an "increase" effective July 30th, though my anniversary date was July 22nd. Oh wells, something is better than nothing. :) Oh, and even better, Trung looked up his company's policies and discovered that he gets two weeks paid paternity leave...NICE! Now he can serve as the mediator between his mother and I when she's down here the first two weeks after Lydia's birth.

Right now I am using Trung's laptop, sitting next to him as he is gaming with eight other guys. We started off with a total of eleven guys, but a couple had to leave late afternoon, so now we are down to the hard core gamers. I tried to plan things to do outside of the house, so as to leave the guys to themselves, but there's not much for an eight and a half months pregnant woman to do, especially on ozone alert day. So I just went to get my car washed and got the inside vaccumed, and then went to the Chinese supermarket to stock up on Asian groceries. I just read a couple parenting magazines and took a nap to pass time, and now here I am. I'll probably head to bed soon...and wake up a few hours later to pee and get a drink of water, oh and say "hi" to the guys if they are still gaming. Good-night!

One more day

Whew, I don't think I'm sick after all. What a relief! I'm still keeping my fingers crossed though because I do get sick around this time every year. Today went by relatively slow since I was super sleepy. I guess all those nights I've been waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom/get a drink of water, or waking up with Trung at 6 AM has finally taken its toll on me. At least tomorrow is Friday and I'll have the weekend to sleep, um, that is until the gamers come over at 10 AM on Saturday.

Oh, and yet another incident occurred today that made me glad that I am leaving this industry. If you are not in the mortgage industry, I would just bypass this paragraph as it will only bore you. :P Last night, Sayble and I left work right around 6 PM. When I checked my work e-mail later that night, I saw that we had received documents for a loan. Well, I came into work today not thinking much about it because that does happen sometimes. Come 4 PM today, the branch manager came over and asked if I knew anything about the loan that had to go out last night. Um, noooooo. Had I known about it, I would have had to sit around doing nothing until 7 PM when the documents posted; then do the loan; and send out the documents, like at 9 PM. Needless to say, I'm kinda glad that we didn't know anything about it, cause I had my finale to watch last night. Shish! Good-bye, Countrywide!

Trung's office

My co-worker was off today at work, so Sayble and I were able to keep busy all day. I had a bit of a runny nose and headache this morning, which kinda freaked me out because after all, who wants to go into labor while they are sick? By the end of the day, however, my nose had dried up and the headache was gone. I've been drinking plenty of water and eating Vitamin C-ful fruits, so hopefully I'll be A-okay for the big day.

Tonight was also the finale for "So You Think You Can Dance" and though I was a bit surprised that Travis did not win, I am glad that the winner was a deserving person like Benji. I would like to see him in the Celine Dion "A New Day" show though, that would be quite interesting to see how a swing dancer fits in. Well, I have never been to Las Vegas before AND the TV show tour is not coming to Texas, so maybe I can convince Trung to take me to Vegas! What would Lydia do though?

Well, Trung has finally nailed up the diplomas (right) and I personally think they add a nice touch to his office. They had been lying around the house forever (I found Trung's under a humidifier box in his closet) and we figured, the least we can do is frame them, after all, our educations took a good chunk of our money. Also pictured are Trung's IBM patent awards (left), which he received for his first patent submission, his first plateau (4 patents), and his second plateau (4 patents). They came already framed and everything, so we decided just to hang them up to help take up wall space or something.












And here is Trung working into the wee hours of the night in his completed office. The back still is a bit messy, but it's all in preparation for LAN party IV this Saturday (so he tells me). Oh yeah, and this is where the ping pong table used to be. (Notice the patents on the left back wall and a hint of the diplomas on the right, next to the bookshelf)