Itching to Be Done

Living with half your life in boxes sure does suck.  I wanted to be prepared and have things boxed up well before the day we moved but I'm realizing now how much it wears on my nerves to want to do something and find the supplies are in a box. 

Mainly I'm talking about sewing.  First I was sick, so I didn't feel like doing anything anyway.  And then the etsy shop was super quiet, I made one sale the whole month of April.  I was pretty over the whole thing, thinking about not doing etsy anymore even!  Then I got home from the hospital to find three orders.  And in the past week I have had three different conversations about custom orders.  And I have been thinking of things I want to make for Ingrid's new room.  And I forgot about a birthday present owl I had to make and I packed the stuffing away! 

So, I'm itching to get sewing!  I want to make bunting for Ingrid's birthday party, something like this.  I love Candace's choices of fabric!  I also have some more motivation to make things for the shop.  And of course I have to outfit our new house with curtains and pillows!  So much I want to do and all my fabric and supplies are boxed up. 

You know what really bugs me is that we can get our keys tomorrow but President Obama is making a speech at the UofM commencement.  It's taking place at the stadium which is exactly one block away from our new house.  So...all the roads will be blocked off and there's no way I want to try to get through that traffic!!  I could be moving tomorrow, I could be getting things settled again, and instead I'm going to be stuck at home without Brendan (who will be in Chicago at a friend's wedding) wanting nothing more than to be getting into our stinkin' new house!! 

I am so impatient.  What's one more day?  I should quit my complaining and just go pack up the rest of the house.  Or play outside with Ingrid, it's supposed to be in the 70s today! 

Decorating Daydreams

We are moving one week from today!  I am so excited, I can't wait to be close to things again!  Yesterday for example, Brendan wanted to go get a suit for the wedding he's going to.  The shop we wanted to go to is a 20 minute drive from our current place.  But our new place?  A ten second drive!  Yay!

So, instead of focusing on how much stuff I still need to pack up, I'm imagining our new place and what I want to do with it.  I have Ingrid's room all planned out--her new bed, her bookshelf, and some throw pillows.  I found some fabric I think I need:

I want to make a small quilt for the bed, floor pillows, and curtains.  I think the walls are a creamy color, so hopefully I won't have to repaint.  I love to paint, but I'm getting sick of making a place my own and then having to move a year later...

The other place I have ideas for is the basement--our new playroom/sewing room!  We have a little Ikea couch with a red cover, I want to get a cushy rug to put in front of it, we have two red shelving units to put toys on, and then Ingrid has her kitchen set.  A friend has a bit of chalkboard paint leftover so we'll probably do a square of that on the wall, and have her little coloring table for an art corner.  And my sewing area!!  I finally get a chance to leave my sewing machine in one place!  And have a stand up ironing board that I don't have to move.  And all my fabric can be out and inspiring me, instead of being balled up in a linen closet.  Maybe this way I'll use the fabric I have and quit buying more.  ha!  I doubt it.

Yep, don't want to deal with packing, so I'll just keep on daydreaming.  I hate moving, I can't wait until we buy a house and won't have to uproot ourselves every year.

Hosptial Craziness.

Friday night I ended up in the hospital and I just got home yesterday.  It was completely unexpected and completely crazy!

I was sick all last week with a sore throat, swollen glands, I couldn't swallow.  It sucked.  But I've had that before, it goes away, life goes on.  However, this time it wasn't going away.  Five days of not being able to eat or drink anything and I was at the end of my rope.  So, Brendan drove me to the ER when he got home from work Friday night. 

I felt like they were going to laugh at me and just tell me I had a sore throat and to deal with it, but right away the triage nurse was concerned and called a doctor to come see me.  He threw around some terms and said get her an IV right away and get her to a bed.  So I was brought back to a bed, put on a gown, and given some fluids by IV.  Doctors came in, nurses bustled around, and they all seemed really concerned.  I ended up getting a CT scan of my head and throat so they could see where the infection was and what was going on.

After the scan they made the diagnosis that I had an infected thyroglossal duct cyst.  Apparently when the thyroid is forming in utero, it starts at the back of the mouth and travels down to where it will stay in the throat.  Then the track disappears and everything's normal.  Unless the track doesn't disappear, in which case it forms a cyst which can and will become infected.  So I found out at age 33 I have a birth defect!  It was so crazy to me, because I have had this happen a number of times in the past 15 years but no one ever knew what caused it.  I was just relieved to finally know what the hell was going on!

They wanted to admit me but found out my insurance wouldn't cover a stay at that hospital, so I had to be transported by ambulance to the other local hospital.  Right beforehand the nurse insisted I take some morphine to help with the pain.  So I was totally drugged up, riding around in an ambulance on a Friday night.  Not what I had planned for at all!

At the other hospital they pumped me full of steroids to take down the neck swelling, and antibiotics.  And more drugs.  I have to say, I can see how people could become addicted to pain meds, they make you feel all nice and warm and dozy!  I slept awhile, finally got a hold of Brendan, who had taken Ingrid home by then to put her to bed, and in the morning I was moved to a room.  I was admitted into the hospital and stayed for 24 hours, being given antibiotics and steroids. 

I felt so much better after a few hours!!  I could finally swallow, which meant I could finally eat after five or so days of eating yogurt.  I had more energy, I got some sleep, I was ready to go home.  Brendan took Ingrid to come see me and it was so hard to hear her yelling "I need my mama!!" as they left the room to go home.  I couldn't take it, I wanted to be home.  So they let me go Sunday afternoon.  I went home, felt like crap, and by the time I woke up Monday morning I was completely swollen and unable to swallow.  Again.  So I had to go to the hospital.  Again.

I got to a room, got hooked up to more IVs, more antibiotics, more doctors coming in asking me questions.  I met with some Ear Nose and Throat doctors and we scheduled a surgery for the end of May.  I went back to the room, had to listen to my 80 yr old roommate tell anyone and everyone that she just had an enema, and tried to rest.  This time I couldn't so well.  I just kept thinking of Ingrid and how sad she was.  My mom came to take care of her and she said Ingrid just kept saying "Mama's at the hospital, mama's sick.  Mama go to the doctor."  For some reason, that just killed me. 

With another 24 hours of antibiotics I felt much better.  I got released yesterday afternoon and I am feeling okay.  Weak, still have a sore throat, and I got a cold on top of all this!!  But better.  On the mend.  And I'm home, thank god.  I got to sleep in my own bed last night, it was amazing.

Now, though, I have so much on my mind.  We are moving in a week and a half, so I have to pack up the house.  After we move we obviously have to then unpack at the new house.  Then Ingrid's birthday is in May, so we're having a party for her.  But somewhere in there they want me to have surgery and a 2 week recovery period.  I am completely stressing thinking about all the stuff that needs to happen in the next month!  No fun.

Guess What??

Chicken Butt!

Haha, we got a book from the library last week called Chicken Butt.  Ingrid thinks it's funny to say "You know what?  heehee, chickbutt!"  I love toddlers' senses of humor.

But no, seriously, the guess what is for this--we're ready to try for #2!!  This weekend, the weekend of crabiness and yelling, we actually had a conversation about babies.  Brendan always thinks we should wait.  With Ingrid he wanted to wait until he was done with school, which I am so glad I would not agree to, seeing as Ingrid was almost one by the time he was actually done.  This time he wanted to wait until he got a job.  I said cool, it'll be this spring.  Then he decided to stay at his job another year, so I figured we could start now.  He kept saying later, later, in the fall.  Why?  Who knows. 

And I am always the one that says no, let's just go for it now.  Especially after having Ingrid at the time we did.  We thought Brendan would have one year of grad school left, and that it would take six months or so for me to get pregnant.  I have PCOS so I thought it would take forever.  With that thinking, we started trying the summer before Brendan's last year of school.  I got pregnant on the first try, and he had to stay in school an extra semester.  We lived with his parents and it was crazy, but you know what?  I wouldn't change it.  We had a great support system for the first few months, it made us really ready to move on from Milwaukee and try something new, and I honestly don't know how it would've been to be in our own place with a newborn.  It was nice to have his parents pop in upstairs every once in awhile.

So now, of course I was thinking the day he figured he'd stay another year that we could start trying for baby #2.  You know, I'll get pregnant this spring, have a baby in late winter, and then we can move with a 2 1/2 year old and a newborn next spring.  Instead of having a 2 1/2 year old and being insanely hugely pregnant...And saying that made Brendan realize, once again, that I'm right :)  So we're trying.  Hooray!

It's funny how much Ingrid picks up on things.  Every time we see a baby I say oh, don't you want a baby?  You could be a big sister!  You could be my helper and sing to the baby!  So after her nap today she says "Mama, I need to be a big sister.  I need to sing Rockabye Baby to the baby."  Ha!  I'm totally brainwashing my child into thinking she needs a sibling.  Hopefully she'll still feel that way if we get one!

Good Riddance, Crabby Weekend!

Man, is there something in the air?  Or perhaps our water?  This weekend was awful, both Brendan and I were so crabby.  This may or may not have led to Ingrid being equally crabby, which in turn made us both more crabby.  Nice little circle of events, no?

Honestly I can't even remember what set me off, but I was so pissy and then Ingrid says "I sorry, Mama" and I almost started crying.  She takes it so personally when we get yelly, and now that she can say things like she's sorry it's making me realize how much we have to try to talk like adults and be at least civil to each other. 

It's hard to be an adult.  At one point I let the sarcasm flow and my voice got louder and louder, and then Ingrid looked over at me and it just broke my heart.  I don't want to teach her to be like that.  One of the things I've always prided myself on is that I like to settle things in an adult manner, with conversations and give and take.  No petty yelling and swearing and throwing things, no real fighting, just issues and trying to talk through them.  This weekend I forgot about all that...

So my goal for this week is to try and return to being a nicer mom, a nicer wife, someone people would want to live with.  No more rolling eyes (well, I'll try anyway) no more getting mad that things weren't done my way.  I actually yelled at Brendan for running the dishwasher without putting enough dishes in it.  He said I was just trying to help and I got mad that he didn't help in the right way.  I still think it was silly to run it, but I certainly didn't have to yell at him. 

Back to being calm, gentle, nurturing.  I somehow have lost my way with that, but hopefully I can get back on track.  Tomorrow we're going to take a picnic by the lake, and bake bread, and maybe try to sew a dress for a friend's birthday.  Things are looking up! 

More TMI, Beware: Family Cloth

As I've said before, I've kinda gone a little crunchy.  Cloth diapers, cloth pads, cloth napkins, etc etc.  The only thing I was still waiting on was using family cloth.  If you're unaware of this, it's using cloth wipes instead of TP.  From what I've been able to find online, people are pretty grossed out by this.  I believe I read someone's comment calling whoever did this an environazi.  However, when I heard about it, I was open to the idea.  But for whatever reason, it's been months and months and I still was using TP. 

Cut to last week when we ran out.  I hate running out of TP!  Sitting there searching the nearby area for anything to use, wondering if your two year old will understand if you tell her to get mommy some TP from the other bathroom.  And I did what I had to do, I used a washcloth.  I survived.  And it got me thinking about family cloth again and how much TP we go through, and how it's really the last of the paper products we still use in our house. 

So, yesterday I rummaged through my scrap box, found some flannel, and went to work.  I came up with 35 5"x5" squares, pinked the edges, and sewed two pieces together.  I have to say, they were pretty cute and inviting right away.  Ingrid wanted to go potty three times in an hour just to be able to use a new wipe.  Hmmm, maybe these would catch on as potty learning tools? 

We put the wipes in a little box on the counter, moved the diaper bin into the bathroom, and viola!  We are the proud new users of family cloth.  My husband came home and saw me making more, and I was just gushing about how proud I was of myself for doing this.  He kind of gave me a look and shrugged.  Whatever, my wife is going crazy again...But he used them when he took Ingrid to the bathroom, that's all I care about. 

So there you go, more personal information about our household practices that you probably never wanted to know.  I did warn you, though.

Ann Arbor it is.

We got the apartment in Ann Arbor, the side by side duplex (or semiattached home, depending on where you're from!)  It's perfect for us, and I'm so excited to move there.  We will have a little yard, a basement that I'm envisioning using as a play/sewing room, hardwood floors, which means my vaccuum can be stored away and I won't ever have to use it!!  Hooray! 

This place is right down the road from the University of Michigan football stadium.  So, if you know anything about Big Ten football, it's pretty huge.  Which means we'll probably have lots of traffic, noise and other crazy things on game day.  But...it's only a few days out of the year.  And it could be kinda fun.  Right? 

We are going to be so close to things, I just can't wait.  I already have started decorating the place in my head.  We can paint and of course I'll sew up some new curtains and pillows.  I'm ignoring the fact I have to still pack up my whole house and figure out a way to move it all there, I'm just focusing on the fun stuff after we're in :) 

Moving Time!

Not so fast, Amber!  We haven't found a new place yet.  BUT, we did just hand in our official notice that we're moving at the end of the month.  Hooray!  So long, apartment complex living, with your smelly hallways, your roaring showers, your washing machine in the upstairs apartment that is always off balance as it's being run at 11pm. 

So far we have found two places that seem okay.  One is by the university and is a side by side duplex, which I've lived in before.  Shared walls but it's only on the side of the bathroom and the stairs.  And it has a yard!  And hardwood floors!  And Brendan could be home by 5:30pm!  The other is a huge house a block away from our friends.  It has three bedrooms, a yard, is in a cute little small town where I could walk everywhere and barely need a car anyway.  Brendan would still have to commute, though, and heating an old house like that will really add to our expenses.  The guy hasn't even gotten back to me though, so I shouldn't be counting on that house being available anyway!

It's exciting to think of moving and setting up house in a new place.  Not exactly what I'd been planning on, staying here in Michigan, but it's not bad.  I really do like my friends and if we are in a better place to live, I know I will be able to enjoy myself here.  Especially during the summer, I'm imagining walks in the park, barbeques in the backyard, and walking everywhere I can.  Because I will be able to walk places, unlike here where there's a ghetto Domino's pizza, a carwash, or a rundown gas station in walking distance. 

So long, Ypsilanti, I won't miss you.