Sticker Shock, Somersaults, and Snot

Sticker Shock-- We spent a lot of money yesterday on the car, and she still needs more! Thankfully, we have this blessed thing (with horrid interest) called a SEARS CARD so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We had to renew our registration ($106) and get new tires ($518; our old ones were literally bald in the front). They also did an alignment for us, and tried to charge us $200 for new brake pads to be put on, but as Hubband has done that in the past and we can get the pads for $35 at Advance Auto Parts, that one just went on our "to do" list along with a new windshield and an oil change and interior detailing.......

Somersaults-- Every time I start to worry because I haven't felt the baby move in a while he/she will suddenly decide its time to compete on Dancing with the Stars. Yesterday, he was either doing the rhumba or the flamenco or some sort of complicated gymnastics routine suitable for the olympics. I don't think she likes when I cough, as I also had the new experience of not just feeling the stretching of my uterus as the baby moves but actually having the baby rap on my stomach with its hands or feet. Felt like someone was knocking on the inside and waiting for an answer... so i knocked back. Not sure he liked that too much....

Snot-- What?! It's alliterative... and true, sadly. You know you have a bad cold/cough/infection when there is so much mucous built up that the pressure pushes tears out of your eyes when you breathe. So far I have escaped without a fever, and thus without being forced bodily to the doctor, but I think the day is coming (today...) when Hubband will no longer take no for an answer. Not only is he worried about me and the baby, but starting last night he began to fear for his own sleep. Apparently I coughed in my sleep all night long. So, today I will at least start taking some OTC medicines that are on the "approved" list from my OB and if they don't work, by Friday I'm going to be in the doctor's office.

Furthermore....
Hubband was able to start working on the house again this week. Not a LOT, but SOME! He's got all the wiring finished and the first coat of mud over the patched drywall in the ceiling over the island. All we have to do now is sand and paint and touch up and then my pendant lights go in! He also finished the final touchups on the mud on the new archway we framed in the dining room/living room junction. It had been molded sort of like a really wide doorway, so we've torn off the molding and reframed the edges where they'd built it out and redrywalled it. This week was the last coat of mud. Hopefully today the final mud goes on the ceiling, the dining room light is moved to our room (no more ugly ceiling fan, hurrah!), and the last pot lights are installed in the dining/laundry rooms. Of course, Hubband DOES have homework, and classes, and work... but a girl can dream, right?

Dallas was great fun; Danger Elf and I roamed with abandon... usually around our hotel suite with books in our hands. It was fun to just relax, chat, eat good food (at the meetings) and ok food (hotel restaurants) and great food (the one mexican place we traveled off the convention grounds for). Of course, we got home and I was swamped with work, her kids got sick, then I got sick, then she got swamped with things....On Friday we were wishing we could go back to Dallas, just to sleep!

This shot was taken at the dessert reception our last night of meetings. For those of you who don't know, or who forgot, or who I forgot to tell... we were there for the relaunch of Victoria magazine. It looks like we both may end up getting some freelance out of the deal, too!