week end wrap-up May 16, 2008

This week I have:

• Almost hurt an old lady at CVS on purpose. I had ONE THING to purchase, and I was in line at the photo center, the only register open. There was an older lady standing at the front registers (which were closed) writing something in her checkbook. As the line at the photo center got longer and longer, the cashier called for backup and another register was opened. You know the old lady hightailed it over and got to the new register at the same time I did. I figured I should be nice (even though…hello, pregnant!). But then she slowed back down to molasses speed and took forever emptying her (full) cart, finding her ExtraCare card, and writing a check. Four customers got through the line at the photo center while I stood there. I could literally feel the hormones surging through my body and I wanted to scream, cry, and then throw her cart across the store. It was an uncharacteristic display of willpower. OY!
• Passed my glucose tolerance test. I took Monday off to do the test (realizing once I got there that they were open on Saturday…) and meant to call the doctor on Wednesday for my results. My OB practice has a “no news is good news policy” but I just wanted to check. I was busy at work and forgot, and around 12:15 I had a voicemail on my cell phone from one of the nurses doing a “follow-up…give me a call back after 1:00.” So I spent the next 45 minutes thinking I had gestational diabetes and was drinking my last Coke until August. But when I called, the nurse said I had done great with the glucose, but was slightly anemic and needed to take some additional iron supplements. Compared with the possibility of diabetes…no problem.
• Overdrafted our checking account by $700. When I tried to transfer our economic stimulus money into our ING account, I pulled it from the wrong bank. We have been so busy this week, I didn’t notice it until a day too late, when all of my electronic bill payments went through and our checking account was a nasty mess of red numbers. Train spent most of Wednesday night (until 1am, actually) making multiple ATM withdrawals from Wachovia and then depositing the money into Bank of America. Even then we kept miscalculating the fees and outstanding checks so it still really wasn’t enough. I called BoA on Thursday and the customer service rep nicely refunded the $125 in overdraft fees, and I made another deposit Thursday afternoon thinking we would be in the clear. But a single debit hit the account in between that time, causing another $35 fee, so that when Hector cashed his check yesterday (see below), we were $15 short. Ay yi yi. Another $10 in overdraft fees. I’m not even going to look at that account for a few days until all of that settles down. But what a holy mess. I’m blaming it on the Bush administration.
• Finally hung curtains in Sherman’s room. I wanted something very specific and I had to have them pieced together because I know nothing about sewing, but I love them. Am decorating genius.

This week we have:

• Bought a car! After Sunday’s attempt at the Honda dealership, Train took another look around Craigslist and asked me what I thought about a Ford Expedition. I know you are thinking we are out of our minds, with $4 gas and all, but remember: the vehicle we’re getting rid of is an F-150, so it’s not that different. He had found a couple in the area that looked really nice. We fell in love with a green Eddie Bauer edition, but when I called the dealer Monday night the salesman was 90% sure it had already been sold. I found another 2005 Eddie Bauer (blue) at a dealership closer to us, and Train went to look at it Tuesday during lunch. Of course the salesman said, “Take it with you and try it out!” and so he did. We ended up driving that Expedition down to another dealer Tuesday afternoon to look at a second (older) one. It took over an hour in traffic to get to the second dealer, and the car was not in as good condition, so we stopped for drive-thru and went back to the original dealer, which took over and hour and a half. By the time we got to the dealer it was after 7pm and we still had carfax and other issues to work out, not to mention price. I eventually left Train there and got Sherman home, bathed, and in bed by 8:30pm. Not too shabby, but not an evening I want to repeat soon. That night we ended up using the DVD system that we swore we’d try not to use, and it was a LIFESAVER. I’m in love with this car. It’s so much roomier than a Pilot.
• Replaced our basement door and bathroom faucets. Hector and Train have replaced all of the other exterior doors in the house, and this was the last one to do. They put in a solid steel door and a storm door on the outside. And not a moment too soon, because we had some torrential rains and we had had problems with water getting in under the old door. As for the faucets, the upstairs bathroom double-handle faucets squeaked something awful, and the guest bathroom is right outside the nursery and that always set my teeth on edge. Now we have single handle, silent faucets, and you don’t have to always choose between “hot” or “cold”. Heaven.




• Paid $450 for the 30,000 mile tune up on the CR-V. Ouch.
• Gotten our man room projector back. We have a “den” in the basement and instead of a TV, we have a ceiling-mounted projector and movie-style screen (thanks to Luff). A while ago, it started messing up so we replaced the lamp and Train cleaned out the inside of the projector. Of course that wasn’t the problem, and things went downhill fast, to the point that the colors were so screwed up you couldn’t even watch it. We decided to send it off for service, and $800 later, it came back today. We have hardly spent any time in the man room since the projector’s been gone (even though there is an actual television in there). It’s looking great and better than new. Let’s hope it holds out.
• Drafted a Craigslist ad to sell the truck. I hope we can get it up there soon but we have got to clean it out first. We are determined to get enough money (within Blue book range) to pay off the CR-V and have some left over, possibly for a trailer.

I’m sure you’ve seen that John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama. He says he’s not interested in Vice President (and cagey about Attorney General), but you have to admit they look damn good together. It’s a shame, because I think Edwards on the ticket would help Obama immensely. But I understand that he’s been there, done that.

to add to the problem, our new car has a DVD player May 16, 2008

When I was a kid, my dad wouldn’t let my mom read fairy tales to me. He thought there were too many scary parts, and didn’t want me to have nightmares. The evil stepsisters in Cinderella, the witches of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the Big Bad Wolf in Three Little Pigs. Now obviously (and mostly thanks to Disney), I eventually heard and learned these stories like every other kid. My mom and I always gave my dad a hard time about it. I remember I never even saw the “Thriller” video until 8th grade, even though I was a huge Michael Jackson fan as a three-year-old. Dad just thought it would be too scary, and put his foot down. 

Now I’m starting to see the wisdom in his plan. Sherman loves the movie Cars. Honestly, I do too. It’s not annoying yet, and he’s been watching it at least 5 times a week for a few months now. I like the Sheryl Crow song in the beginning, and Mater’s jokes that only adults understand, and the super realistic animation. Plus, I guess any time your kid gets excited about something it’s hard not to get into it yourself.

But what I like the most about this movie is that there are no scary parts. Lightning begins the movie a total jerk and ends up as a totally different car, and does what is right, not just what’s best for himself. The only sad part is when he and Sally talk about the good old days of Route 66 and how the interstate killed Radiator Springs, and the awful James Taylor song that plays during this scene.

Since he enjoyed Cars so much, we added a few more movies to our Netflix queue to see what else he would get a kick out of. We started with Finding Nemo. Train has seen this movie at work about three million times. I had not seen it, and when I walked in on the part where two fish are about to be swallowed by the whale, I got pissed that he hadn’t warned me. It brought back flashbacks of Pinocchio, which (to me) was a dark and scary movie/story. Then he tells me that Nemo’s dad is really overprotective, and never let Nemo swim in open water. “Where else do fish swim?” I ask. “Well, that’s how his mother died.” “WHAT? His mother dies?” “Yes, in the beginning.” “Like in Bambi?” “Well, yeah. And then Nemo goes swimming in open water and gets separated from his father and ends up in a fish tank”. “WHAT?” “And he doesn’t think his dad is coming for him because, well, he doesn’t have a lot of faith in his dad.” At that point I didn’t really want to hear any more. Finding Nemo went back a few days later.

So then we tried Toy Story, which I actually have seen. Bright and sunny. Yeah, the part where the toys get separated from Andy is sad, but at least the toys are together, not left all alone to fend for themselves. Except I forgot about the evil neighbor that burns and mutilates toys. Um, okay, I was 14 when this movie came out and that kid still gave me the creeps. So we found ourselves hovering around the DVD player so we could skip the worst parts of Sid. That one went back immediately, but he actually has asked for “toys” a few times.

I’ve put myself in a bad place here. I recognize now that my dad understood that he and my mom could control the images and ideas that were deposited in my brain for a short time only, and for that time he wanted to keep my world as simple and innocent as possible. Even now Dad gets angry when my uncle tells his daughter that there is an alligator in the bathtub drain. But obviously kids have to learn that not everything in life is easy and happy. I just don’t want to deal with nightmares or weird phobias from a kid who still (STILL) isn’t really verbalizing very much, and would just as soon throw a tantrum than try to communicate.

I think next we’re going to try Ratatouille. What am I getting myself into with that?

life is a highway May 11, 2008

Why can’t anything ever be simple? Ever since we found out about baby #2, we’ve been contemplating our vehicle situation. We have a small SUV and a pickup truck. It works fine for now, but we’d like something with a little more room for actual human beings and all of their legs.

We bought the truck my senior year of college, during Train’s first year of teaching. I say “we” because if it were up to him he’d still be driving his shit brown 1987 Ford Ranger (I know all my sorority sisters are recalling that truck fondly right about now). But let’s face it, we were engaged at that point, and no husband of mine was going to be driving a car almost as old as me. He has an F150 extended cab 4WD, and it has served him well. Me, on the other hand…well, it’s kicked my ass a few times and I’m not particularly sorry to see it go. The reason it has to go is because Sherman’s car seat sits in the middle of the back bench, basically putting his legs in between the two front seats. Adding a second car seat, which we always thought we could do because there are anchors, means each kid would sit behind one of the front seats, and also means Mommy and Daddy in the front would be eating dashboard every time we were in stop-and-go traffic. NOPE! Selfishly, I’m also tired of Train being the neighborhood and family haul guy just because he has a truck. Dude, Home Depot rents those things for $20/hour, move your own damn couch. We’ve gotten to the point where if someone needs the truck we just give them the keys, but that has resulted in some unfortunate air-freshener incidents which I don’t care to repeat. Plus, have you seen gas prices lately? Yowza.

Our other car is a CR-V, which we bought new about two years ago right after Sherman was born. I really love this car…pretty much the only thing that would make it better would be a line-in jack for the iPod. Or maybe XM radio. Anyway. I love how it handles, and it is plenty roomy for the three of us and all of our junk. It’s not too hard to get in and out of (like the Civic we had before, which was too low to the ground for me to wrestle Sherman into). The only problem is that in this car we have our Britax Marathon, which, holy jesus is that thing big. It’s in the middle of the backseat, and I asked Train a few months ago to move it to one side so it would be easier for me to get Sherman in and out. His verdict was that it is so large front-to-back that it wouldn’t fit behind one of the front bucket seats. Plus, we don’t go on a whole lot of car trips - the furthest we go is North Carolina, which is about 5 hours - but when we do, the CR-V is usually packed to the gills with luggage, pack n play, toys, snacks, computer, DVD player, etc. Adding a second child and all of his accompanying gear was overwhelming. So the idea is that we could get something bigger for serious family travel, and I could keep the CR-V just to get around.

We had settled on a minivan some time ago, thinking that it would give us plenty of space and extra passenger room if needed. I was SUPER psyched about automatic remote sliding doors. Every time I walked out of daycare with my arms full of keys, backpack, and Sherman I had a nice little daydream about the Honda Odyssey. But there is still the whole “minivan” stigma, and how we couldn’t really see ourselves in one, and Train didn’t think having two or three extra seats in the car just for when my parents came to visit was all that worth it.

So we had kind of decided on a Honda Pilot. We are obviously pleased with our current Honda and everybody knows they last forever. We do all of our service through our local Honda dealer who is just down the street, and the anal-retention in me likes having all of our records at one place. The Pilot has a third-row seat that could be kept in the fold-down position until needed (although with two car seats anchored in the second row, it would be next to impossible to actually sit in the third row, but hey…THE OPTION IS THERE).

We’ve kicked this into high gear recently because the Honda dealers around here have been doing promotion after promotion, and my bank at work has great auto loan rates. We’re in the position that what we make by selling the truck privately (probably Craigslist) can pay off the CR-V, so we can still have one car payment.

Train and I hate the whole car buying process. We are terrible negotiators and never stick to our “out the door” maximum that we agree on going in. We have purchased three cars together (new and used) and we still don’t feel like we’ve gotten the hang of this game.

My preference is to buy a new car because it’s easy. You have a warranty and you don’t have to worry about finding some guy’s fingernail clippings in the ashtray (Britt, looks to me like you need to re-tell that story). There are no variables about condition or mileage or Blue Book values. Sign the papers and you’re done, on the way home with the paper floormats in place and the new car smell. It’s fast, and time is something we have very little of lately.

Alas, we can’t afford a new Pilot and keep a similar car payment (obviously, since a Pilot is bigger than a CR-V). So we hit Craigslist to see what is out there and I was overwhelmed by all of the details. There’s this Pilot that’s newer, but has higher mileage, but a lower price. But then there’s this one, with less mileage and leather. Nothing is equal, there is no baseline. It’s exhausting.

So my second-favorite option is to buy a certified used car from the dealer where we bought the CR-V. They had quite a few 2005 Pilots and, oh darn, they are all EXL with leather interior and alloy wheels. Shoot.

We did the internet request-a-quote last night on 4 different 2005 Pilots, all with varying mileages and one with a Rear Entertainment System, which I had mixed feelings about. Of course the salesman looked up our records and got Train’s phone number and called us today on the way to our Mothers Day lunch from hell. I told him we could stop by this afternoon or maybe tomorrow. He told me he had just gotten 9 additional used Pilots in that were in the process of being certified.

After we got home from our disaster of a lunch-that-wasn’t-lunch-at-all, it was raining and I went up to the dealership to meet with the salesman. He had three PIlots with great low mileage, all the same color and trim level. I mentioned the truck and how we might want to trade it in (although really we want the cash, if we can save any hassle in this process we at least should check).

He takes the VIN for the truck and runs a report. I won’t even tell you what the trade in offer was because it was laughable as they always are, but come to find out there is an odometer discrepancy on the Carfax report. Some IDIOT at the Ford dealership here keyed in the wrong mileage on a routine service back in 2004, so when the truck was inspected in 2005 and the correct odometer reading was entered, it appeared to be lower than in 2004 which sends up a red flag. No dealership will accept a record like this as a trade-in, and any Craigslist buyer with half a brain would have questions about it. So we spent the evening digging through the glove box and our file cabinet looking for mileage verification. Luckily, Carfax wants a receipt from within 6 months prior to the error and within 6 months after, and we were able to find oil change/inspection receipts within that time frame. Hopefully it won’t take too long, but it’s still a pain in the ass we don’t need.

As far as the Pilot goes, the salesman told me his internet prices were the bottom line. I was so stunned by that bullshit I thanked him for his time and left, because…whatever. He obviously didn’t need my business enough to do anything but point to the sticker. Not to mention that we are repeat customers, and Train also brought his brother there to buy his first car. So we’re back to Craigslist, and the unending comparisons and hand wringing about which is the better deal, then chasing them all over northern Virginia.

crippled by the vein* May 10, 2008

I’ve mentioned a few times how so far my worst pregnancy symptom this go-round has been nosebleeds. While I’ve always had pretty severe nosebleeds that have gotten worse instead of better as I get older, they have been MUCH more frequent now due to the increase of blood flow and hormones in my body.

It was only recently that I realized there was possibly something surgical that could be done simply to help the inconvenience issue. I mentioned to Train that after this baby was born, I would go see a specialist about possibly getting something sutured or cauterized. Then we had a bit of an incident in the car between Kay’s wedding and reception involving using an extra sweatshirt to keep blood off my dress, and Train suggested I make an appointment sooner rather than later. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had made an appointment with an otolaryngologist and I was super psyched about it.

I have never really researched much about nosebleeds, mostly because I was afraid of what I would find out. Honestly, in the back of my mind I figured there was something in my brain seeping blood. When my nose bleeds, it’s not just blood-tinged mucus or a little dab here on a tissue. I usually just have to hang my head over the sink while the blood pours out for a good fifteen minutes (usually I’m woken up by the scent and sense of blood in my sinus cavity) and then spend the next thirty minutes waiting for the blood to clot. I have to hold my head forward or the blood will go down my throat, so while my nose is bleeding I’m constantly spitting out blood too. (You’re welcome!)

My go-to prevention and cure for years has been Vaseline. Keeping my nose hydrated has been the only advice I’ve ever gotten about preventing nosebleeds, and Vaseline has done the trick. Then if I did get one, I would usually coat my nostrils in Vaseline as soon as the blood slowed. Once I finally did some Dr. Google research, I learned there was a rare form of pneumonia caused by the aspiration of petroleum jelly. Yikes. So I switched to Ayr saline gel, but the nosebleeds became more frequent. In the week before my doctor’s appointment, I had gone back to using Vaseline out of desperation, and saw some improvement.

When I made the appointment, I was ready to do whatever the doctor suggested. However, I had had a little lull in the nosebleeds so once I was actually sitting in the exam room, waiting for the doctor, surrounded by all kinds of tools and sprays that looked like they would be…uncomfortable…in my nostrils I started to chicken out.

I really liked the doctor that I saw. It was nice to give him the full gory details and walk through the causes and remedies that I have experienced. It was nice to not have this issue, which is a serious one for me because it’s a constant concern, be dismissed as a simple inconvenience like my OB did when I mentioned it.  The ENT was able to confirm visually that the cause is a lot of blood vessels in my nose that are also particularly close to the skin. In pregnancy you have a ton of extra blood flow which means the vessels are that much more sensitive to rupture.

I could have the blood vessels cauterized, which I was originally all gung-ho about. But the doctor and I agreed that unless it becomes totally unbearable, I should wait until after I have the baby because the problem will probably decrease significantly to a the level of pre-pregnancy (a few incidents per year). If not, I have some options. Cauterization is a “temporary” solution in that the body will attempt to re-grow the vessels within a month or so. They may re-form in a place that doesn’t cause me so much of a problem, but it’s not a long-term fix. There is a minor surgical solution that is used in extreme cases (which I am) so that would be nice, since I could be put under anesthesia for that!

The doctor and I agreed that the risk of lipoid pneumonia is so slight, and the benefit of using Vaseline so great, that I could and should continue using it as long as it works. He agreed that the saline gel was useless, so it wasn’t just me.

I’ve had a few more episodes since the appointment and while they’ve been severe, it’s helped to know that I’m not a complete freak and this doctor wasn’t totally horrified by my stories. I tried some of his suggestions but I have found my tried and true techniques to be more effective.

So I just wanted to give you an update to my saga. Right now I’m sticking with the status quo.

*I now get this song in my head every time I have a nosebleed.

multi-task May 2, 2008

On Wednesday I came home late from work (I’m in an all day class at work all this week and next…brutal). There was a fresh meatloaf on the stove and macaroni boiling on the burner. Sherman was in the backyard with Train, who was mowing the grass.

“Can you check the macaroni? It’s been boiling for a couple of minutes,” Train said.

I went in and drained the macaroni, and added the butter, milk, and cheese powder on the counter (the butter was sliced, the milk measured, and the cheese package opened). I went back outside just as Train finished the last patch of grass.

“Wow, I’m impressed,” I told Train. “I was thinking one or the other would get done - dinner or the grass.”

“Well, the meatloaf took an hour, and when that was done I started the water boiling, came out and mowed a few minutes, and then went back and added the noodles, then came back out.”

That, ladies, is how it’s done. I can barely get dinner cooked when Sherman is in the other room watching monster trucks on Tivo, much less mow the grass at the same time.