Big Changes in the Future

Well, it's been almost 2 years since one of us posted here, so let's do a quick catch up.

Joe graduates from college with a Bachelor's of Science in Physics with a minor in Mathematics in April. He takes the Physics GRE a week or so later that month. Then we start to look for gradschools to attend starting in Fall 2014.

I'm still working for All American Cleaning and Restoration still. Not much new there.

Our Coon Hound puppy Paige (now 3? years old) has turned out to be as large as our Boarder Collie Alex. She finally did stop growing and she hasn't eaten a pair of my shoes since she got my hiking boots (thank goodness). She's still super hyper and tries to jump on us constantly. This is now a bad thing. I will elaborate in a bit.

My older brother has 2 children now, a boy and girl. Joe's older brother has 6 children, 2 girls and 4 boys. No one else has children. My sister and brother are both married. I guess you could say my sister has children though, now that I think about it. She has a step-son and step-daughter. Both are pretty awesome. My other brother (the older of  the 2) has 2 boxers. They're enough like children for them for now, as Alex and Paige were for Joe and I.

My mother has retired (should I feel old or should she?). My dad still works. They paid off their house recently and their cars. They are now debt free. I'm rather jealous. Then again, our debt consists of our house only so I can't complain too much.

The only really big change in our lives is that I am now pregnant! Yay! As of today, I am 7 weeks along (according to the ultrasound I had a little over a week ago) and am due October 9th, 2013. I'm hoping for a healthy child with all its limbs and fingers and toes and facial features and etc.

That's also why I'm starting this blog again. My brother-in-law (we'll call him D) suggested I start using it as a way to document how the pregnancy goes. So, here it goes.

When I found out I was pregnant, I told Joe by giving him a card and a teddy bear and mentioned in the card something about our children loving their "Papa bear." He kind of stared at the card for a minute before looking up at me and asking if I was pregnant. He couldn't seem to believe it at first but he quickly came to terms and then trapped me in a hug for the next hour or two.

After that, I called my sister (who we will call J) and told her, knowing that if I didn't, she'd probably kill me at the first opportunity. After that, we kept it pretty hush, hush, telling only a few people as I tried to find an OB and asking who they went through (I'm one of the very few people I grew up with that hasn't had a child yet). After we decided on one, we found that we could get an ultrasound done before Valentine's Day and we decided that would be a good opportunity to tell our parents. We went in thinking I was just shy of 8 weeks pregnant. We were wrong. I was only 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant. The baby barely has a heartbeat and was about the size of a grain of rice (it's a bit bigger now, obviously. Crazy how fast they grow...). Anyway, we still got the ultrasound, made copies (thanks Joe!), put them in frames, and gave them to our mothers for Valentine's Day. My mom, bless her heart, opened the package so she was looking at the back and said, "It's a picture frame!" My sister, who was Skyping with her, asked "What's it a picture of?" So my mom turns the picture around and goes speechless (rare occurrence in my family) while my dad who was standing next to my mom says "J's pregnant!" So I look at my sister and say "You are? You didn't tell me!" Bless my dad, he always gets our names wrong. There's only 4 of us too. I guess it could be worse. His mom had to go through all the grandchildren and the dogs to get to me. Anyway, they were excited and all went well there. For Joe's mom, we got a picture of her other grandchildren (from D so he knew before everyone else too) and pit it in one half of the picture frame and a picture of the ultrasound in the other (really there were 2 pictures frames that were just connected by some metal artwork...). When she opened her picture said, "Are we announcing a new grandchild?" She was pretty excited. Now everyone in our families know because we called them all the next day.

To start on the personal stuff, let's just say that I'm scared out of my wits. I'm the youngest of four children and have 0 experience with children. I did very little babysitting and the kids were almost always older. I've never even changed a diaper. I'm also really excited. Joe and I decided we wanted to start our family when he graduated from college. Or rather, we wanted to have a child soon after he graduated so we're actually pretty well where we wanted to be.

Oh, I forgot something! Joe went on an internship to University of Texas this summer and was gone for 10 weeks. It was awful for me being home by myself. I also know it was awful for him as well. Anyway, while he was gone I went to see my older sister (who lived in Filer, ID at the time. That's near Twin Falls). While I was with her, we went garage sale digging. We found most of the furniture I need for a baby in one day. We found a highchair, a crib with all the fixings, a car seat, and a toy. Now all I need is a changing table/dresser and a bassinet. I actually have a friend that has said she'll give me her bassinet so we're covered there too. Makes things a lot easier, especially because I spent less than $100.00 for all the stuff.

Anyway, now for the other stuff. I'm tired all the time. I have to get up 2-4 times a night to use the bathroom (glamorous, I know) and that means I don't sleep well at all so I'm dragging when I get to work. Weekends are nice. I can sleep in then. I'm sick to my stomach a lot. I haven't thrown up, mind you, but I sure feel like it might make me feel better some times. Instead, I drink ginger ale and eat pickles (don't ask me why, but pickles settle my stomach). I'm not sick in the mornings or in the evenings. Just from about 11:00 to 5:00, so for most of the work day. Good thing my job isn't too strenuous. It just means I probably don't eat as much as I should. I try to. Yesterday, I discovered that if I eat a pickle about five minutes before I eat lunch, I don't feel all that sick for about 45 minutes. Don't ask me why. It just worked yesterday so I'll be repeating the experiment today. I really want to eat my Pad see-ew from Thai Kitchen that's sitting in my lunch box and going "Eat me! I taste good!" Maybe I should be alarmed that my food talks to me...

As for emotions... I think I'm pretty status quo other than I cry at EVERYTHING remotely sad on television and I would probably cry over sad stuff in books too. Like the other day, Joe and I were watching Doctor Who. I cried. Before that, we watched Downton Abbey. I cried then too. I HATE crying. We'll leave it at that.

So yeah, Joe and I are in for a big change come October. We're both excited. We're also looking forward to him being done with school for a year before we have to worry about moving somewhere for gradschool. Anyway, that's stuff for another day.

Forgetful anyone?

We're a bit forgetful around here, obviously. So, here's an update as to what's been going on in the last six months.

Joe and I have been married for 2 years now. We have a house and 2 dogs (boarder collie and hound). Joe is in school for the third semester in a row. He has been doing great and earning scholarships and all that fun stuff.

Meagan has found a new job. She works for All American Cleaning and Restoration as a data entry specialist (yes, she sits in front of a computer all day. Not much of a change). Meagan is playing soccer on a city league and has not gotten hurt this season (It's a miracle, we know).

It's been a rather nasty spring in Idaho. Lots of snow and rain. It's been raining for about 2 days now. It's supposed to be nice but we'll see if that actually happens.

That's really about all there is to say at this point. Maybe we'll remember to update this more.

Job Hunt and other updates.

For those of you that don't know, I (Meagan) am jobless again.  That's right, the idiot I had to work for that promised me for months on end that the temporary position I was working at would become permanent and that I would be the one to get the permanent position so I should stop looking for work, didn't give me the job.  Go figure.  Anyway, this week I've really been cracking down on looking for work...again...  This is the third time in the same twelve month period.  Joy...

For the other updates.  Joe is doing amazing in school.  He's had nothing but A's on his tests so far this semester (okay, a few A-s but I'm not splitting hairs over it, he is) He even came out with all A's for his midterms.  He is doing really well on all of his assignments, even in his technical writing class.   Having a wife with an English degree that took the same class from the same teacher has absolutely nothing to do with it.  I promise...

Anyway, our dogs are just as crazy and goofy as ever.  Paige (our 6 or 7 month old puppy) is getting huge.  This isn't necessarily a good thing.  It means her teeth are really big and sharp.  So, yesterday morning, I let them into the laundry room because they had muddy paws and I didn't want paw prints all over the house.  Usually, they clean their paws off.  Well, I left them in there a little longer than I meant to and Paige decided that my leather hiking boots were her mid-morning snack.  No more hiking boots.  She ate the insides.

Alex is being his usual mellow self.  He follows me around and wags his bat of a tail at the most inopportune moment possible.  He keeps knocking things over.  Still love him though.  He and Paige follow me around all day when they're in the house, lying on the floor when I'm working at my computer or sitting just outside of the kitchen (usually) when I'm working.  They both refuse to come near me when I'm vacuuming though.  Don't blame them.

Because I'm unemployed and all that crap, I've been trying to be a better house wife.  Some things go better than others.  For example, I'm fairly handy around the house.  I can clean pretty much everything (as long as I can reach it) and I know how to do minor repairs.  The things that don't go well are well, the basics.  I'm a terrible cook.  I made chicken pot pie recently and completely screwed up the crust.  I couldn't get the dang thing to roll out without flaking really bad.  In the end, I ended up too frustrated to do it and Joe rolled it out.  I'd worked it so much that it turned out really heavy and kind of nasty.  Thank heaven's my husband isn't too picky an eater.

I guess that's really all the updates for now.  I now, I don't take pictures and post them.  Someday I'll get there.  But not today.

-Meagan

Odd orders from a chiropractor...

So, I went to chiropractor yesterday because I was having a lot of issues with my shoulder.  Let me tell you, he beat me up trying to get that shoulder to go back into place or whatever it was he was trying to do.  After about ten minutes of me gritting my teeth and trying not to cry from pain, he tells me he can't get it to how it's supposed to be.  Go figure, right?  Anyway, he goes and gets a golf ball and tells me how to use it to push on my shoulder without having to try to reach my back (something about putting the ball in a sock and leaning against a wall...).  He also suggested I start doing something physical, like running to help relieve the stress in my shoulders.

Today, I took his advice and went for a two mile run.  I haven't been running in about oh... longer than I can remember, probably close to a year.  Let's just say, I'm severely out of shape.  About a mile into the run, my lungs are telling me I'm an absolute moron for taking my chiropractor's advice.  My skin is telling me I should have waited another two hours for the world to cool down when the sun set.  My heart is telling me that I should listen to my brain when it says that having a chiropractor tell me it's time to go running is some of the oddest advice I've ever been given.  My ears are yelling at me for not having smaller ear buds that don't make me hear every single bounce of the chord.  My feet are yelling at me because my best running shoes are about three or four years old and should have been replaced long ago.  And my legs are telling me that if I don't start walking right now I'm going to find myself either face down on the sidewalk or on my butt on the sidewalk, depending on how I have my balance distributed at the time, probably face down.  Somehow, I managed the two mile jog, going very, very, very slowly.

I'm now sitting on my couch after taking a nice, long shower and oddly enough, my shoulder doesn't hurt as bad as it did this morning while I was at work.  My legs, on the other hand, are warning me of the pain I'm going to feel in the morning.  I'm of the opinion that my chiropractor has things perfectly right when it comes to my neck and shoulders.  Now I just have to figure out what to do about my legs...

Meagan

Introduction 2

   Hello, my name is Joe, I have a wife, two dogs and I'm a button opera-- wait no I'm not. I'm a college student, full time. Currently I'm lined up to take 18 credits in the fall (about 5 weeks from now).

   My hobbies include motorcycles (off-road), computers, my wife, and cheating at online computer games. Most of those things are self explanatory except the last one, and I'm not about to elaborate.

   I'm a scientist by nature and a Physics major, currently with a math minor which may become a second major. I love to understand just how things work and often that isn't even good enough. I want to know why things work.

   I love my wife more than anything. She's awesome, that probably isn't self explanatory either so perhaps I will elaborate more in the future.

   Now you know a bit about me, feel free to say hi or never visit this page again. You won't offend me if you choose the latter, odds are that I don't make a habit of visiting your blog regularly either.

TTFN
-Joe

Introducing...

     I'm Meagan.  Honestly, I've never had a blog or anything like it before.  I'll be pretty surprised if anyone actually reads it but it's a way to kill some time.

     As a start, I am married to Joe (he'll probably be posting too) and have been for over a year now.  We have two dogs, Alex and Paige, who will probably be the subject of at least a few posts.  They're both insane and make us laugh a lot.  I've graduated from college with a degree in English.  I play soccer when I get the chance.  I play the piano as well.  I love to read and write.  My favorite color is red, my lucky number is 19, and I love Italian food.

     Currently, I work for two companies.  First, for a publishing company as a freelance editor.  Second, for the local college in the mail room.  I don't particularly like it, but it pays the bills.

     I'm a bit of a nerd, I'll admit it.  I read a lot more often than is probably really necessary or I listen to audio books.  Sometimes the audio books are the only thing that gets me through the work day.  In fact, that's usually what gets me through the work day.  No, I don't listen to classics (often).  I typically listen to things meant for teenagers.

     I'm silly.  I have a tendency to trip over thin air or say something that doesn't make any sense at all.  I'm a constant source of amusement for a lot of people.

     I love my husband dearly.  I love spending time with him. His family is great too.  I love my dogs.  They're always there to comfort me and make me smile, even on my bleakest days.

     Here's the last of it, I guess.  I'm not good at conclusions.  So... Yeah...

Later,
Meagan