Sunday, September 27, 2009

i LOVE being off work

i have talked to so many friends and coworkers who say "I could never stay home - i'd get so bored! need some time outside of the house..." well, it's been almost 3 weeks that i've been on disability leave now, and i still can't fathom WANTING to go back to work. i just feel like i get to be so "normal" now! I cook, keep the house clean, hang out with friends, read, and be creative as much as i want! yesterday i made 22 scrapbook pages!! workin' hard on getting caught up! and the 2 days before that, i made, wrote, and sent off 35-40 thank-you notes from my shower! SO MUCH FUN... i hope joey comes on his due date 'cause then that gives me 6 weeks still to get all caught up and ready for him! we shall see... babies come when they want to come, but i'm doing everything i can to keep him inside a few more weeks! (lots of resting and staying hydrated) plus then my mom can see me pregnant before she meets the new little one (living in hawai'i, she hasn't been able to see my growing belly - much to her dismay)... yes, this is the first grandchild (on both sides of the family) so EVERYONE is so excited!


well, i'm not going to post pictures of my creative endeavors of the last couple of days, 'cause there are too many pages, and i already sent out the thank-yous! but i have a shot of a piece i made a while back that needs a home on my blog - it's made up of a bunch of pics of things around our house - turned out kinda fun...

Monday, September 14, 2009

3 months later...

wow - it's been a while... i guess i took a break because of how sick i'd been feeling and the total lack of energy... but in july i found a "magic medicine" that made my morning sickness go away - just like that! amazing stuff! i just take one little sleeping pill (Unisom SleepTabs) with a B6 every other night, and abracadabra! no more nausea! discovered this stuff and stopped feeling sick about 3 days before going on a cruise to Alaska (a-mazing.) and ate everything in sight while i was there (because i could finally stomach more than fruit and gummy bears!)... and ended up with a gallstone. so ever since then, i've been having lots of little bouts of pain after almost every time i eat because of this gallstone (doc says i'll probably have to have the whole gallbladder removed after the baby's born - just what i wanted to be doing in those "bonding weeks" i get off from work)... but i seriously feel so much better and like a normal human being again, after finding my little magic blue pill :)




of course, as my pregnancy has progressed, i just feel more and more like my body is falling apart... everything hurts - feet, legs, back, pelvis, belly... and then a couple of weeks ago i started having contractions at work. i work 12-hour shifts as a nurse in the ER and don't get a lot of "down time". so at about 29 weeks, i started having fairly consistent contractions towards the end of each shift (like 8-9 hours into the shift, i'd start having consistently 6 contractions an hour), and i was also totally exhausted - like i was about to cry the last couple of hours of each shift. so after a few days of all these contractions, my doctor took me off on disability - 5 weeks early! yay! now for the last week or so that i've been off, i've been feeling so much more "normal" again! i mean, i still feel like my body is falling apart ;) but only 2-3 contractions a day, and i'm just getting to rest a lot more and do "normal" things like keep the house clean, and cook and bake and stuff... AND i've had more time to "be creative" finally! which is mostly taking the form of getting "caught up" on my scrapbooking from the last few years... i finally did our wedding (6 years ago now)!!! and i just want to get everything chronicled from pre-baby before he comes and all my scrapbooking will be about him... i really need to do some painting/collage and stuff, too. i miss it. i have this piece that has been in progress for a couple of months now (the 3rd piece in the Coldplay series - Cemeteries of London)...







here's the only 2 pieces i finished this summer (during my blog absence), both based on pictures from my baby sister's wedding in april... HUGE departure from my usual color schemes... but i think they turned out pretty good... i'm thinking about making prints and marketing them as like cards or something (bridal shower invitations?)