A little behind but pushing ahead!

Okay, so I haven't posted anything since July 18th. Yes, just like with everyone else, life has been about as full and changing as one can possibly imagine. So many things have happened since then that I can't even begin to think about putting them all in one post, which is good, since that is not the purpose of this entry. Because I have been told that goals are just wishes or dreams if not written down, the point of me writing this afternoon is to give myself someone (or something) to be accountable to. As of today, I am 64 days from my due date and I have plenty of things that I would love to accomplish (well) before then. I am now writing them down and can now proceed with my goals! In no particular order...

1. Organize the garage (we still have things from when we moved in that haven't been organized)
2. Organize the basement (ditto)
3. Organize/sort/hang all of the baby clothes (I have no excuse now- my sister is letting us use her beautiful baby armoire!) 
4. Make a car seat cover to match the nursing cover my mom/sister gave me
5. Make a couple more burp clothes (apparently you can never have enough) 
6. Finish our headboard 
7. Finish our curtains
8. Get all winter guard items completely organized (this includes uniforms ordered, flags made, drill books with routines put together) 
9. Make a little Sunday dress for Madeline 
10. Figure out/rearrange our "baby nook"- it needs some feng shui 
11. Purchase any other important items I may have forgotten (baby bathtub, nursing pillow, monitors, baskets to hold toys, blankets etc.) 

I'm sure this list will grow, but for now, those are my long-ish term goals. I'm going to pick a few things a week to work on and will then report on them at the end of the week. This week I will be working on: #1, #3 & #6 since those might be less pleasant in the cold and #10. Let's see how it goes!! 

Pizza, pizza!

The Nasson family has a tradition. It's called Friday Family Fun Night. On Friday Family Fun Night, we do something fun. Something like eating pizza. Where my family lives in Connecticut, there aren't any chain or 'fast food' type pizza places and if you want to go out for pizza you go somewhere like Bertucci's. (Great. Now this pregnant gal is craving Bertucci's rolls!) Since Bertucci's is a very rare treat, my family instead either makes homemade pizza or embellish frozen pizzas with things such as grilled chicken, fresh chopped veggies, basil & sliced tomatoes from the garden, fresh mozzarella- really, anything. One of my brothers enjoys death by meat. It's Friday Family Fun Night and really, (almost) anything goes.

               Living in a college town in Utah, we're surrounded by tons of pizza places. Everything from Brick Oven to laid back buffets to $5 pizzas can be found within a 2 mile radius of our house. Yummy treat? Once in a while. Healthy? Absolutely not. I recently had a desire to start my own version of Nasson Friday Family Fun Night. This past Friday I decided to go for it. I made some pizza dough from scratch (easy, yummy and less than buying a pre-made one at the grocery store), topped it with half bbq half tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, grilled chicken, roasted red peppers, sliced tomatoes and basil, chives and rosemary from our garden. I received rave reviews from Craig and Grandpa Merrill (thankfully!) and now we have a little tradition of our own: Friday something and pizza and something night. New name to come!
(Included are a few pictures from the process. I'd be happy to share the dough recipe!)

Surprise!!

Surprise! Craig and I are expecting an addition to our little family this winter! While it might seem like we've been sneaky keeping this a secret from everyone for the past 20 weeks...we have been.  With this little one being my first, I've been a bit apprehensive about things. Compliments of the reading I've been doing, I have learned about all sorts of things to be concerned about. Neural tube defects, missing limbs, partial heart development, missing brain sections, club feet... you name it, I'm sure I've read about it. As a result, I've been hesitant to make a mass announcement, just in case.
     However, this morning Craig and I went for my 20 week ultrasound and all is well! Our sweet little baby has fingers, toes, arms, legs, a darling behind and a very cute little head! As the really nice ultrasound lady was going around doing all of the medical checks (routine before finding out gender), Craig and I noticed a little something by our little ones' legs. Or, I should say a "lack of" a little something. That's right! We're having a baby girl! We're still talking about names, but for some strange reason, it feels so much more "real" now that I have pictures to back up what I've been feeling.
Stay tuned- many more posts specific to the pregnant life and continuing development of our little "sweet pea" to come!

What a Rush!

Craig and I have recently returned from what has seemed like a marathon of Nasson-family events. I know it was meant to be vacation, but vacation and major life events just shouldn't coincide. At least not in our family where "major" just doesn't suffice!

I flew out after guard on the 15th and Craig then followed after his finals on the 17th. From there, our schedule looked something like this:

Friday the 18th:
*Picked up Elizabeth, who came down from her internship in NYC, in Hartford for Jeffrey's graduation and a weekend away.
*Jeffrey graduated from Canton High School- WOOHOO! Jeffrey currently holds many of the school and state records for kicking (football).

Saturday the 19th:
*All of us kids, plus Elizabeth and the nephews drove to Misquamicut, RI for a day at the beach. The air was warm and the water cold. It was great fun to see how long it took to go numb enough to enjoy the water.
*We had dinner at Sea Swirl- if you're a food network junkie like me, you'll know what that is

Sunday the 20th:
*Fathers Day! (Of course I forgot my present for Craig in Utah... grrrrrr!!!)
*Delicious steak dinner to celebrate both fathers day & Erins birthday- too bad eating beef isn't such a good idea right now
*Took Elizabeth back to Hartford to catch her shuttle back to the city

Monday the 21st:
*Erin, Grant & co left for a short little road trip of their own (Sesame Place in Penn, etc.)
*Mom & I spent nearly 9 hours (not nearly an exaggeration) attempting to find an outfit and shoes for mom. It was lots of fun to be out with just mom, but very sad that there really isn't much fashionable and functional this season
*Aunt Susan flew in from Arizona after 1:00 am

Tuesday the 22nd:
*The day was spent packing, wrapping items, washing and cleaning cars, playing legos (Andrew & Craig) and general insanity. Controlled, but insane.

Wednesday the 23rd:
*In true Nasson-Family style, we left about 3 hours late. There were a few kinks in the packing plan as you can really only fit so many items in one car. Seeing as we were taking EVERYTHING (down to the wedding dress and suit) to WV with us, there was very, very little room. Certain people took up way more than their fair share of luggage room.

Thursday the 24th:
*We got to meet our new nephew! Brendan James is just about the cutest little thing- and SO well behaved. I think we may have heard him cry a handful of times and that was only when he was hungry or needed a change.
*Craig & I were in charge of Gabby (7), Andrew Charles (7.5) and baby Brendan (3 mo) for the day. I had to fight Craig for some time with the baby.
*The other adults got things ready for the wedding- except dad & Bryan who went for a looong bike ride.
*Kristin's dress didn't fit

Friday the 25th:
*Wedding madness
*....
*Awesomeness
*We had Brenden for the night- Erin took Gabby.  Craig was so good with him and even got up to feed him during the night (I still diapered)

Saturday the 26th
*We went and all walked around the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs.
*Got back to the hotel where we had Andrew take a "rest time" and we fell asleep.
*Spent the evening with the Zobrist's

Sunday the 27th:
*Baby blessing of Brenden James in the White Sulphur Springs ward- very little has changed there
*Drove to Monticello in VA (Thomas Jefferson's home)
*Left to drive home home (read Canton, Connecticut) around 7:30
*Drove through the night following thunderstorms

Monday the 28th:
*6:00 am Arrive at home
*7:45 got out of bed to pack
*1:15 left for the airport
*Midnight MST arrived at Utah home

 In case you can't quite tell from this extremely shortened version, it was a long, very busy trip. Many more blog postings to follow!

A well-learned lesson?

I got a phone call Tuesday morning in response to an email/resume I had sent out to various dental offices in the area. In my email I clearly stated that I was currently in school but I was interested in helping out/ shadowing an assistant in order to get more experience.  I got a call the very next morning asking for an interview. Naturally, I was quite excited. I called back and set up an appointment with the dentist for the following morning (yesterday).  I got all dressed up (clean pants and my new shirt from my amazing husband) and made my way over to the office. After getting thoroughly lost- the grid system failed me- I found the office and met with the dentist.

It would have been useful if he had actually read my email and resume before calling me for an interview or perhaps even before I got there. Nope. He seemed quite surprised when I seemed surprised that he was interviewing me for a full-time job. One for which I am certainly not ready. Long story short, I went in to assist today from about 9-5:15. I now understand why there are openings at the office. The assistant is super sweet, very kind and patient. While the dentist was demanding and basically expected everyone to be mind readers, the rest of the staff was the exact opposite.

During the course of the day, I learned how to go through all of the steps involved with room prepping (I did it about 10 times by myself today), fill a cavity and cure it, prep and mount a rubber dam, not pass instruments, develop X-Ray film and fully sanitize dental instruments... among other things. I am a firm believer that one day of practical experience is worth 3 days in lecture. Oh, and it's a good idea to make sure that you like (or can at least handle) the people you might someday work with ;)

It's something

I am happy to report that I slept in this morning. Only until about 8:30, but I slept! I got out of bed and showered, blow-dried and styled my hair a bit and I even attempted some makeup (powder and mascara but it's something). I'm now on campus with the intention of studying before a review but I am tired again. 2 chapters of micro in an hour. My new goal.

Time for a step back

Have you ever allowed yourself to become too busy, too wrapped up in your own issues or simply too whelmed by the everyday + tasks that you find yourself becoming a complete blob? Not just any blob but one that has a hard time finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning, can go from being somewhat OCD about cleanliness to being the messy roommate. I seem to have hit that point recently.

At this point I could go on about all of the things that have been eating away at me or the demands that have been placed upon my shoulders, the added responsibilities that seem to grow larger and harder to carry each day,  being shocked by someone you have looked up to for years or worse, finding out that life really isn't easy and it most certainly isn't fair but then I would just be sitting at my keyboard crying. And that doesn't help anyone.

I'll try to be brief. I dropped Craig off at work this morning and drove back to campus to wait for the next item on my agenda. Sometimes I feel more like it is controlling me than I it.  I had been sitting in the warm car listening to quiet music while being illegally parked in the JKB parking lot eating too many thin mints that likely won't stay down when I realized how wrong I have been handling things. Anyone can sit in a warm car eating slightly melty thin mints but not everyone can put them down and get out of the car. As pathetic as it may sound, that seemed like a completely unreachable goal today. I have already ruined the day, right? I was grumpy at the love of my life this morning, kicked the cat who was just trying to get some lovin',  made our oatmeal with about a 1/2 cup too much water, missed most of my last 8:00 class, only half-heartedly did my literature assignment and had eaten almost an entire container of thin mints. But I put the few remaining cookies down, turned off the quiet background noise of the radio and got out of the car. I made it almost to the flag pole in front of the ASB when I heard a pretty little bird sitting in a tree chirping away. My first thought was "See!! Birds really do sound repetitive! It's not just my sound effect!" Once I got past that, I stopped and looked around. There are some pretty patterns in the stonework. The grass is starting to turn green and gosh darn it, I liked that looping bird.

I hate cliches. Perhaps it's true, though. When you are so focused on getting everything around you perfect, you really can't see what is already there. Tender mercy. That's what my little moment was.