5 years of awesomeness

I almost can't believe that I've been married to the ear doctor for 5 years now. 

And at the same time, it feels like he has been a part of my life forever. He's the kindest, funniest, most thoughtful person I've ever met. He is so smart and hardworking and I am SO proud of the work he has chosen to do.

To celebrate our anniversary I really wanted to get out of town. So, 2 weeks ago I went online and found that the cheapest airfare of the day from Denver would land us in Chicago. I'd never been to Chicago before...and I love being in big cities. So I booked the tickets.

My mom, who is awesome, graciously let us use all her stored up Hampton Inn points and got us a hotel right downtown for 5 nights. She's the best!

We ate like kings, walked all around the city and had a great time. Even though we were there for 5 whole days I felt like we barely scratched the surface of all the cool things that city has to offer. We'll be back for sure!

 Getting our tourist on while listening to a Chicago Architecture Foundation tour.

Doughnut Vault...a MUST! Delicious doughnuts. But get there early! They open at 8:30 and by 9:45 are usually sold out!

 

Riding public transit...a huge perk of being in a real city. (no offense, Denver)

 

Me with Apollo 8 at the museum of science and industry. This is approximately the same area of the new vehicle that I'm designing!

 

Obligatory top-of-Sears-Tower shot

 

 I couldn't resist...I love everythingl red-head themed...

Gender confirmed

I'm thinking of buying this t-shirt:

because we are having a

BOY!

making money on the side

This weekend we hosted a multi family yard sale in our front yard.

When I agreed to host the sale I had NO idea how much work a yard sale is. The only yard sale I've ever participated in was hosted by my amazingly hard working mother who makes everything look effortless. Preparing for a sale is ROUGH. You have to go through all your crap and figure out what you think someone might actually buy from you. If your storage areas are like mine you stuff is crammed in, totally unorganized and covered in an embarrassingly deep layer of dust.

After deciding what to keep, sell and throw away you then have to decide how much to sell it for, take good pictures of it, post it every day on craigslist, make posters and run around your neighborhood like a crazy person hanging the posters.

Luckily, the other people selling at our sale were awesome and did a large majority of the work.

The day of the sale I had to go in to work REALLY early so I wasn't there to help set up.

When I pulled into my neighborhood I saw a mammoth amount of stuff and about 30 people milling around my yard perusing my stuff. It was awesome.

All day I barely had to do a thing! We devised a sticker method to keep track of who was making what money so we could just put it all on one pot all day long. At the end we separated it all out and it worked like a charm.

The real MVP of the day had to be the ear doctor. I never imagined how important it would be to have a fluent Spanish speaker wheeling and dealing at the sale. I'm sure we made more money simply because he was able to really negotiate with the 50% of our buyers who were much more comfortable speaking in Spanish.

All told, the sale generated about $700! And we took about $200 of that for ourselves. Not a fortune, but enough to say that it wasn't a waste of our time.


Plus now my kitchen cabinet that used to hold all my baking tools doesn't explode every time I try to pull out a pie pan.


Mission accomplished.

New Mantra

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo.

I've never really been a tattoo person...ever. I think it may stem from when I was little and my mom let me put up wall paper in my room with bunnies on it. In 6 months when I was tired of the bunnies and wanted it taken down the work was staggering. Well, watching my mom do the work was staggering.

I shudder at the thought of putting a real bumper sticker on my car. What if I change my mind in 3 months and no longer can really support the idea of COEXIST-ing.  It could happen. And then I'd be stuck with a razor blade trying not to ruin my paint job.

But since finding out that we were having a baby one overwhelming sentiment has powerfully affected my soul.

Faith, not Fear

Moving confidently in a direction, despite the unknown. Knowing that there is a plan for me, a guiding influence that is purposefully shaping my course. The idea that even though I can't see how the dots are going to connect, they will. And the picture they make will be awesome.

how a dork experiences pregnancy

You know you're a nerd when you attempt to describe the feeling of stepping off a curb with an enlarged womb as a spring damper system.

Finding out

A few weeks ago we went to the doctor for my 16 week appointment. We both thought that you absolutely had to wait until 20 weeks to find out the gender of your baby, but the first words out of my doctor's lips when she walked into the examining room were, "so, do you want to find out if it's a boy or girl?"

We looked at each other with excitement and exclaimed, "YES!"

She wheeled in the ultrasound machine, gooped up my stomach and flipped the switch. I was so surprised how much bigger the baby looked than last time. The ear doctor was excited to see both sides of the brain looking symmetric. I though the seeing each of the little spinal vertebrae was breathtaking. After taking some measurements, the doctor rotated the paddle around to attempt to determine the gender.

Our baby's little legs were shut as tight as can be. The doctor poked and prodded to entice it to move. I jumped and jiggled to get a better view, but we were stymied.

We'll have to wait another 4 weeks to find out what we're having.


As we walked away from the office the ear doctor admitted that he was glad we had a dry run of that moment. A first stab at running through those emotions without really having the deal with them. Whereas I was unreservedly excited to find out, he was a bit anxious and nervous.


So we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl yet...but we do know one thing: our kid's a modest little thing. The ear doctor is so proud.

First trimester hightlight #4

Instead of calling the ear doctor's parents right away to tell them our good news, we decided to wait a week. We'd planned a trip out to California and we knew it'd be really cool to be able to tell them in person.

On the flight out there we sat next to the most annoying person on the planet. Now, I usually get a little air sick during landing, but add first trimester nausea into the mix and it was all I could do to leave the barf bag in it's gross little pocket. My eyes were closed, head pinned back to the chair, knuckles white and my breath deep in and out, but did chatty Kathy next me stop gabbing for a minute? Not a chance. I felt so rude, but I literally could NOT look over and make eye contact with her for fear of a repeat showing of my mid-air snack of ginger ale and crackers.

When we finally landed and waited for his parents to pick us up from the curb I wanted to blurt out our news right away...but that wasn't the plan.

The day before we'd gone to a cool baby shop in our neighborhood and picked up two little figurines; one said grandma and the other, grandpa. We wrapped them up and decided we'd have his parents open them when we got back to their house.


Well, when the picked us up we were all hungry so stopped for dinner along the way. The suspense was killing me, but we managed to chow down and then drive back to their place.

As soon as we were there I threw open my bag and got out the packages. We sat down on the chairs in their front room (which BTW are really comfy gliders that will really come in handy when we come to visit them with the baby), handed each a package and watched with knots in our stomach as they unwrapped.

Of course, there were the usual protests before they saw what was inside, "oh, you shouldn't have got us a present" and "you don't need to do that." But as soon as my mother-in-law saw what it was and put two and two together she BEAMED with joy.

No one beams like my mother-in-law.

And my father-in-law was just as excited.

Out came a flurry of well wishes and excitement, of questions and ideas, of hopes and dreams. It was a great moment and I'm so glad the timing worked out that we could tell them in person.


We swore both of my sets of parents to secrecy for the next month or so. A VERY big challenge as they both wanted to immediately tell the rest of the family. I have to report that they all did an amazing job of keeping the cat in the bag until we were ready for the news to spread.

First trimester highlight #3

Ok, this one is actually a highlight.

We waited until I was almost 3 weeks late to take a pregnancy test. Since I've been as regular as a freight train since I was 14 years old, I was pretty sure what that meant. The first test I took we couldn't interpret the results and it was very anticlimactic. Before that moment I was always confused by the TV commercials that advertised CLEAR results. I didn't understand how a person could be confused by such a seemingly binary response.

But we couldn't tell exactly what was going on with our first test.

We drove back over to the grocery store and picked up a different brand...one that was more that just a line or a plus...one that had actual WORDS confirming our suspicions.

15 minutes later we knew.

3 minutes later I was on the computer calling up my parents on skype. I'm not sure if they suspected anything or not...we don't skype all that regularly. We chatted back and forth for about 15 minutes before we said, "well, we have some pretty cool news..."

And we showed them the positive test.


I thought my mom was going to explode with excitement. And the corners of my dad's eyes got a little wet...probably from allergies or something.


I will never forget the looks on their faces for as long as I live. My parents truly love me.

First trimester highlight #2

At the end of March the ear doctor and I flew out to California for a long weekend to visit his parents and go to a wedding. One of my favorite people from undergrad was getting married to the coolest girl and I just knew that we had to go.

The wedding was just beautiful, and really reflected the couple's personalities...which is my favorite part of a wedding. And the coolest part is that a couple of my other friends from undergrad also made the trek out to be there for the wedding.

After the party was over, my friend's rad wife suggested that we drive over and buy ourselves a cupcake from an ATM. By the time we got to the ATM it was probably 11 pm. We stood in line and talked for a hour before we got our confections.

They were devoured while sitting in chained up tables and chairs across the street. Total consumption time ~ 4 minutes.

We said our farewells and hit the road back to the ear doctor's parents house. What we did not expect was bumper to bumper traffic in orange county at 2 AM!  Seriously, how do people live like that?!?!?


Well, turns out that one thing you shouldn't do in your first trimester is 1) eat crazy sugary cupcakes in the middle of the night and 2) stay up until crazy hours.

The entire next day I was laid up in bed...feeling physically horrible because my body was thrashed and emotionally horrible that I was wasting a whole day of vacation with family.

First trimester highlight #1

My first trimester with the scamp wasn't nearly as bad as I was worried it would be. I'd seen my little sister through 3 pregnancies and, to be honest, her experience made me leery.

Basically, she looked and acted like death for at least 4 months. No energy until noon, pale as a sheet of paper and constantly bent over a public garbage can puking out her little guts.

Compared to that, mine was cake. However, there were some pretty special highlights.


For Christmas my in-laws got me an awesome VitaMix blender. As a result, the ear doctor and I had become fruit smoothie consuming junkies. My favorite was a blend of orange, banana, pineapple with a healthy handful of spinach thrown in. It was bright, neon green and delicious. I made one, poured it into my favorite to-go container and hit the road for my 40 minute, all-freeway commute to work.

About 15 minutes from my office, going 70 mph on the freeway I was suddenly overcome with the most powerful nausea of my life. Sweat beads popped up on my forehead and I was terrified by the idea of a loss of bodily control while moving in down the road at such a terrifying speed. Luckily, I was right by an off ramp. I got off and at the bottom of the ramp, the blessed light was red.

I've never in my life been so happy to see a red light.



I can only imagine what the woman who pulled up in the car behind me at the light thought when she saw this bright green vomit erupting from my body. 

Pod People?

Mars attacks?

Nerve gas?

Meet the Scamp

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't posted in over a MONTH!


It's kind of hard to write about anything else when all I want to do is share this news:

Due date: Nov 6



We call it the Scamp

commuting cogitation

This morning on my drive into work I got to thinking about my little sister.

My parents and her in-laws live about 15 minutes from each other in the town where we went to high school. It's a great place, but I can't see myself realistically ever moving back there. Their aerospace engineering industry leaves something to be desired.

But my little sister told me that she and her husband would really like to be back there someday.


So this morning I was picturing what her life might be like if she moves back there, they buy a beautiful farm house out on the agricultural area away from nosy neighbors and they live their life. What would I be doing today if I were living here future, idyllic, pastoral life?


I decided that today would be the day that I make strawberry jam and fresh baked bread while the kids are away at school.


And suddenly living in the place I grew up started to seem absurdly appealing.

Lessons of age

Yesterday the ear doctor told me that Denver has a new radio station...Jammin 101.5. They play all of the best hits from the 90's, so basically every song that comes on reminds me of something from middle school. It's awesome.

Last night as I was driving some teenagers to our weekly church youth group NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK CAME ON THE RADIO! The right stuff...to be exact.

As I excitedly reached for the volume knob a hush fell over the usual teen chatter coming from the back seat.

About 30 seconds into the song one of the kids said, "who is this?"

To which I excitedly responded, "New Kids on the Block. Theirs was the first concert I ever went to.  My dad took me to see them when I was 8 years old and he bought me a blue bubblegum ice cream cone at the show"


The kind of looked at me with blank stares until one of the kids started singing the lyrics to the LFO song Summer Girls that references New Kids on the Block. So these kids were referencing a song written in 1999 in order to reference a boy band that released a song in 1988.


Yikes, I felt old.



Also, as  I listened to a song I once thought was awesome I realized that 8 year olds may not have the best taste in music...

...and that my dad is a hero for taking me to that horrible concert...

...and that maybe I shouldn't sing Bieber's Never Say Never at the top of my lungs to annoy my husband quite as frequently...

sweet

Today I got so mad at a rude coworker that I had to go sit in my car and simmer down.

Yup, I put myself on time out.


While in self-imposed time out I yelled at him, I reasoned with him, and I cried just a little bit in my frustration and hurt feelings.


As a result all morning I've been in a funk. The funkyness lingered all morning. It lingered through meetings and to-do list making. It lingered after I talked to my mom and heard my awesome new nephew's little cries on the phone. It lingered after I indulged in Mac n Cheese from Panera. It even lingered as I walked through Banana Republic with $20 gift certificate and 40% off coupon in hand.

It lingered all the way until I was in the car driving back to the office and the smooth beats of Bell Biv Davoe started thumping from my Bose speakers. The funkyness of the morning was totally and utterly erased by the funky beats and smooth rhymes reminding me that sometimes girls can be POISON.

travel journal

While in California my wonderful in-laws decided to get both the ear doctor and I new phones! Hooray! No more stupid old phone that wouldn't let me text the ear doctor! No more waiting for 30 seconds to let google maps pull up! Life will again be livable!

Since we already have a macbook and an ipad, we decided to both get iphones so they can all sync together. I got the white and he got the black.


And the first app I got? Instagram of course. I was tired of everyone else's phone pictures looking so cool while mine were standard and boring.  So here are the highlights from the trip...all taken at the Nixon library:

 Me in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall

My reflection in the sun shield of an astronaut helmet

 Us in front of Nixon's boyhood home (which is so darling and still sitting in it's original location)

The ear doctor getting off Army One...the president's helicopter

Twinners

We recently took a trip to California to see the ear doctor's parents.

Can I just tell you how great it is that my in-laws live is such an awesome place? Because it's awesome. I'm so glad they live somewhere that people actually choose to vacation.

On our way out there we were standing in line for the Southwest cattle call and there was a classy looking middle aged man standing in front of us. We were B25 and 26 and he was B23. I knew there would be another person about to walk up to us and stand in between.

A few minutes later another middle aged man walked up, presented his B24 boarding pass...made a few pleasant comments to the guy in front of us and took his place.

Simultaneously, my brain almost exploded. I looked back at the ear doctor and his eyes were the size of silver dollar pancakes. The two guys COULD HAVE BEEN TWINS!

Same age, same build, same hair, same demeanor, SAME OUTFIT!!!!!!!!



They didn't even seem to notice that they'd met their doppelganger. I was so blown away that I asked the ear doctor to take a picture so the moment could be immortalized forever.

cured meats

Last Sunday night on the Amazing race the contestants were in Italy. During the leg, they had a choice between scrubbing the dirt off an old statue and tasting/memorizing 14 different kinds of salami. As much as I love getting my powerwash on, I thought this was a no brainer. Taste testing salami in Italy? This task is rapidly moving to the top of my 10-things-I-must-do-before-I-die list.

I couldn't believe there were people on this planet that would rather don a white bunny suit, get down on all fours and scrub. The whole episode I just kept shaking my head in confusion.

But they're on a race. For a million dollars. And I guess if I thought scrubbing would be faster than eating then maybe I'd choose the same thing. But if I didn't win the million dollars, as most of them won't, I would SO annoyed that I decided to spend a warm sunny evening in Turin Italy scrubbing dirt when I could have been standing in a bustling piazza sampling some of the best salami in the world.

If I ever had the chance to be on the race I would hope that instead of doggedly, single-mindedly pursuing the end goal that I would be able to slow down, appreciate the experiences I'm having in the moment...even if they didn't seem the most efficient way to get to the end goal.

Because sometimes in my life the finish tape I had pictured in my mind while I was running the race wasn't really where I ended up when I was done.

Missing you

The ear doctor is out of town at a conference presenting his awesome research. As a result, last night I slept alone in our bed.

My dear husband has a tiny snoring situation. When we first got married I thought we weren’t going to make it because he woke me up all night long; over and over and over again. I couldn’t take it. That is, until we got our fan. The fan saved our marriage in its infancy.

This year for Christmas our in-laws got the ear doctor a humidifier. Denver is the driest place I’ve ever lived in my life and this humidifier has been a game changer. No longer do I wake up in the morning and feel like someone has shoved a triscut up my nose. Glorious!

The effect, however, has been that our bedroom at night is pretty loud. So loud, in fact, that my ear doctor husband was starting to worry about our prolonged exposure to the sound level might have a detrimental effect on our hearing. Don’t worry…he found an sound meter app for his ipad and determined that it was only 60 dB…below the level to worry about.But, to be honest, 60 dB is still pretty loud. It’s about the volume of normal conversation of people standing 3 feet from each other.

So last night when I was trying to sleep by myself I decided that since he wasn’t in bed I wouldn’t turn on the fan or humidifier. I was shocked by how quite the room was without my accustomed babble of invisible people having a conversation on the pillow next to me…

…and really annoyed when the dog’s snores woke me up...once a 1:23 AM and a second time at 3:43.

Anxiously engaged

My front yard right now looks horrible. And not just because it is the end of winter. 

There are tall dead stalks last year’s Russian Sage that didn’t get cut down. Last year’s Iris shoots didn’t get cleaned away in the fall. And not a single leaf that was trapped by the ground cover got thrown away. I got around to pulling out the dead petunia plants that looked so amazing in August, but their sad dead stems are strewn across the front yard grass instead of piled carefully away in a compost heap.  Every single time I park my car in the driveway and look over the patch of earth I call mine I shudder with embarrassment.

My mother’s garden is spectacular. Not just average, or nice, or pleasant…inspirational. And she works at it. Growing up Saturday was yard work day. She was up before dawn, garden shoes on feet and a wide brimmed hat overhead ready to take on the challenge. I’ve never seen someone work so hard or sweat so much while turning earth.  She and my dad instilled in me (and my sister I assume) not only a love of a beautiful yard, but the extreme value of being able to work hard. 

The current state of my front yard makes me feel that I’m not only disappointing my parent by squandering their lessons but also feels like a giant neon sign over my house saying “A lazy woman lives in here” with a big red arrow pointing down. 

Which is probably why my first thought at this beautiful 70 degree Denver day is not about bike riding or lemonade sipping or sandal wearing.

My first thought is, “will I have enough time between leaving work and going to my yoga class to rip all that crap out of the yard?”

In and out

I remember seeing pictures of people in iron lungs. I always thought they looked like some kind of torture device. Rows and rows of poor sick people laying around, trapped in a metal tubes to prevent them from dying.

But, actually, an iron lung is a good thing. An amazing thing. When disease has ravaged a patient's muscles and the diaphragm is no longer strong enough to expand the rib cage and force the lungs to draw in air, this machine does that for them. It helps strengthen weakness when there just isn't anything left to give.


For me, grief is a similar condition of the soul. It can eat away until it feels that taking a carefree breath is next to impossible. When in it's throws, I desperately yearn for there to be something or someone who can just take over for a little bit. Prop me up. Move my feet. Help me move through my normal routine without having to exert the monumental effort it takes to accomplish the mundane tasks on the to-do list.


Lucky, for me, I have that in amazing friends and family.

Admittedly, my experiences with grief have been minuscule compared to some people's. I have not had to personally deal with serious levels of tragedy that change a person. I would never compare what I have been through to serious personal crisis and would never assume to be able to fully comprehend, offer them advice, or attempt to give any kind of critique.

But for me, on my small scale, there is a small part of me that is grateful to have had my crises. Because they give me compassion...and empathy. Because as horrible as it is to be the patient inside the device it is an unbelievably humbling opportunity to be the iron lung for someone you love. To be there when someone else needs help. To be there to do the dishes, cycle the laundry, make the dinner, or have the shoulder of your shirt used as a towel to soak up tears.