In the mean time…

Well, I still have those drafts sitting around, and Joe and I are leaving for Nashville tomorrow after work (though we’ll only make it to Dallas that night).  We’re very excited!  We’ve had this trip planned for a long time, and now it’ll be our last vacation as a family of two.  I’ll be 13-14 weeks along for our trip, but first trimester woes (morning sickness, etc.) have not stopped yet.  We’re hoping they will in the next couple of days, or that at least Friday (all day driving) will be a good day.  (Ryan & Chalyce will still be home, so don’t even think about toilet papering it while we’re gone.)

Between feeling bad and trying to get ready for the trip, I still haven’t been blogging.  Maybe during lunch today.

Some of you may enjoy this more than baby news anyway… here is Improv Everywhere’s latest musical (if you haven’t seen the food court musical, it’s better -  go there instead) :

Pictures online!

Shauna posted the pictures she took of us (thanks to all of you who voted for us!) on her blog today – you should check it out.   This one is my favorite:

I have two other posts that I should put up soon – until then, enjoy Shauna’s work!

Eve really screwed things up.

Don’t worry, Adam gets blamed, too.  Is it so wrong that I wish Adam and Eve had one child in the garden, just so she could fully understand what “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing” meant?

Before I go off the deep end (yes, that’s coming), I want to make it clear that I feel incredibly blessed to be growing a baby inside me right now.  This is something I longed for, and I praise God for this, yet another gift I did not earn.

Seriously, I’m full of joy.  And feel miserable the vast majority of my waking hours.

Instead of complaining about it, I decided to make a Venn diagram.  It makes me feel like I have control over something.  Probably a childhood coping mechanism.

It was a toss-up to label the blue “hours in a day” or “exhausted.”  I didn’t just throw that together, you know.  I calculated this so that 1 square inch = 1 hour of the day (at full size), and the drawing is to scale.  It’s been a long time since I’d used the formula for the area of an ellipse.  Stop laughing – your choice is to look at this or read my whining, and I shouldn’t have to tell you I’m long-winded.

There have been some amusing moments in dealing with first-trimester woes, and I’ll try to record those soon.

For your own safety the next few weeks: If you want to ask me a favor, call between 6:30 and 8:30pm.  You’ll have the highest odds of catching me in a tired-but-not-about-to-puke mood.  Contact at other times is strictly at your own risk (though email is relatively risk-free).  You’ll likely receive either fake smiles or biting sarcasm (depending on whether or not I’ve reached the Daily Fake Smile Quota).  If you’re lucky, I’ll just be very quiet, responding only when necessary.  You also pose a high risk of making me cry.  If you respond negatively to tears, try to avoid saying anything sweet, rude, funny, sad, or random.  Thanks.

Grandparent’s Day

A few people have asked for more details about the whole me being pregnant thing.  I’m not exactly sure what details they were fishing for, but here goes.  Potential due date is May 8th, which is also Joe’s 30th birthday.  I’m 7 weeks along right now. (In case you don’t know, you count weeks of pregnancy like you do years of age – so I’m really about 7.5 weeks along = in the eight week, but you don’t say “I’m in the 29th year of life” but instead “I’m 28 years old”)  I’m feeling sick to my stomach most of the time, and need an insane amount of sleep, but I’m happy and excited, too.  Joe’s been overly sweet and is getting things taken care of – groceries, laundry, cooking, he’s pretty much doing everything.  That’s on top of some other outside-of-work responsibilities he’s had lately (mainly two different music projects and helping friends on their houses).  He said that maybe in order to grow a baby I have to act like a baby – in that all I do is eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom.  If you add in work, that’s pretty accurate.

Next Monday we’ll go to the doctor and get to find out if there is one baby or two babies growing in me right now.  That will be good to know.  We’ll also get to see pictures of the embryo(s), which we’ll have to pretend are cute while we secretly start praying the head-to-body ratio evens out well before birth.

To tell our parents, we mailed them packages with gifts for Grandparents Day (September 13th).  We included this card that they opened first:

That was for my parents, Joe wrote “I bet you can’t guess what this means!” on the one for his parents.  Then we included these gifts that they opened second.  I embroidered the hats for the grandmas-to-be.  The Gramps shirts were for our dads.  This will be the first grandbaby on both sides.

For our sisters and brother-in-law, I made pillows and embroidered “Aunt ___” or “Uncle Kevin” on them.  I would recommend that you do NOT embroider on satin-type material.  It did not go that well, and I’m afraid their pillows won’t last that long (especially since I’m sure they’re using them all the time).

Well, you can expect another baby-related post soon, but it should be more amusing.  Congrats to all the grandmas-, grandpas-, aunts-, and uncle-to-be!

Guess what else is official!

The word is now out on the street, so you’ve probably heard.  Joe and I are expecting!  Yes, a baby!  Why do people always ask that?  Oh yeah, because I’m a Peebles.

You can thank me for sticking to my standards of not posting pictures of anything someone (to my knowledge) peed on.  Blogging was very difficult in the after-we-knew but before-most-of-our-family/friends-knew period.  Now it should get easier (more frequent), and I promise not to talk only about  pregnancy / baby related things… which is more than I can promise if you talk with my mom any time soon.

It’s Official!

Football has begun, rain has starting falling regularly, and days no longer have highs in the 100’s.  It’s “Fall” in Texas.

So we let the pumpkin-eating commence.  We had dinner with Ryan & Chalyce – yummy steaks, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob.  If I could, I would eat that meal daily.  Since we craved dessert but don’t have desserts on hand, we improvised.  I made something similar last “Fall” (September) with French Vanilla cake mix, and it was also good.

Pumpkin Balls of Goodness

1 box cake mix (I would recommend French Vanilla, Yellow, or Spice)
1 can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 egg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon

I did all the mixing by hand.  Beat the egg, then mix in the pumpkin and cake mix.  There will be some white lumps, that’s okay.  DO NOT ADD SPICES IF YOU USE SPICE CAKE MIX.  Mix in the spices.  If you really like cinnamon, add more.  Put balls of batter on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 until it bounces back when you touch the top of one.  It depends how big you make them, but mine took about 14 minutes.  They will not brown or spread much.  They are like a very moist (and delicious) cake inside. (Note: you don’t use any of the other ingredients on the cake mix – no oil or water or any of that!)

punting is still forward progress, right?

Yes, today I’m supporting the Aggies first victory of the season with a vague football analogy.  That is all.

I need to spend some time recording the wonderful birthday adventure Joe planned for me, but instead I’m quickly going to link to a few things.  So, punt!

Remember how Ryan & Chalyce are now living with us?  You should check out his website.  He does computer animation / special effects / video games / whatever else he feels like.  A couple I especially liked were Tummies and Not Another Zombie Movie.

Another friend, Jordan, has recently started a blog where she posts recipes and pictures of a lot of the (healthy) food she eats.  I’ve loved everything she’s cooked for me, so I’m excited to try some of her proven meals.  She also will post about crossfit workouts.

Also, if for some reason you’d like to check out more pictures of Joe & I from that contest we won, you can click here and then scroll and click on Joe and Kathryn, then use “peebleslove” as a password to look at the rest of the pictures.  We’ll be doing a full session with Shauna later this month, so there will be more pictures in a few weeks.

Oh!  Joe and I saw District 9 this weekend, so if you were one of those people who tried to talk about it, only to have me cover my ears and start humming the French national anthem loudly – you now have permission to bring it up in conversation.

We won!

Thanks for all of your votes for our picture – we won our category!

We will set up a full photo shoot soon, and will also get a free 4×6 picture because we got over 100 votes.

This has been a big week for us – lots going on that I haven’t shared!

Joe’s work decided to restructure, but for him that means new job responsibilities that have more earning potential.  Ask him about it!  He’s about to become more of a computer nerd.

We both got sick (me first, then him) with a lot of congestion and sore throats.  I think we went through 500 tissues this week, half of which are on the floor beside the bed where Joe slept all day Thursday.  I’m back to normal, and Joe’s almost well.

Joe had a cyst removed from the back of his neck Wednesday.  It wasn’t really dangerous, just painful.  I watched the doctor do it. (He asked if I were squeemish!  I’ve definitely not only seen, but DONE much worse.)  I don’t think Joe appreciated the play-by-play the doctor was giving for my benefit.  The upside is that I think I could give someone stiches in a real pinch – it’s the exact same as at work.  Poor Joe – he had to keep a big bandage on it for 48 hours, during which he couldn’t let it get even close to wet.  So no shower for two days – poor Kathryn. But he showered and we changed out the bandage last night, so we got to enjoy First Fridays last night.

Joe’s plans for today got cancelled, so we’ll have time to work on the house today for the first time in several weeks.  I think I’ll be cleaning / organizing while Joe does floor or baseboards.  The first Aggie football game of the season is today, so we’ll have to hide out in the house.  Maybe I can get some student-less grocery shopping done during the game.  Enjoy your Saturday!  And thanks for the votes!

Offical Wall-Call Post

I’ve mentioned this in my last several posts, but it was announced that we get 10 extra votes (plus a vote for anyone who clicks on the link to get to her blog from here) if we make a post about the Wall-Call.  So get ready for the OFFICIAL post!

I started following Shauna Maness’ blogs about a year and a half ago.  Some friends of our friends had a very premature baby for whom we were praying.  (Kyle is now doing fantastic, against all odds!)  Shauna took some pictures of the infant and made some neat fundraising items.  Last Fall, Shauna challenged others to do something creative every day for 30 days.  I tried my best (see the posts here), and enjoyed the excuse to be creative.

Shauna just moved back to Bryan / College Station, and decided to get new pictures for her studio walls by hosting a competition, the Wall Call.  She did several short sessions (for free) in downtown Bryan, and has posted her favorite picture from each one on her blog.  Until TODAY at 5:00, you can vote TWICE (that’s the rule) for the picture of Joe & me.  From my understanding, we compete in categories (couples, children, infants), and the winner in each one gets their picture on her studio wall and a free full-length photo session.  There is only one other couple!  Click here to go vote on Shauna’s blog.  We’re photo #8 (Joe’s really cute, huh?).  You have to refresh the page to vote a second time.

I’m posting something later today that will be much more entertaining, so check back.  I think I’ll change the time stamp so that this one is still the first one you see, so you may need to scroll down.  I know, life is hard.

Oh, and if you’re local, don’t forget that First Fridays is tonight!  We have lots of friends involved… Ian is playing at the Village Cafe (where you can also see art from Kristen & Tim), Randy will (as always) be playing jazz at the Frame Gallery, and Joey (not Joe) will be playing the park at 28th & Main!  Joe’s been sick, but we’re hoping he’ll feel well enough tonight to get out.  Hope to see you there!

My friends are right.

Sometimes it’s great when your friends have insight into you, seeing things before you can notice them.  Sometimes it’s not so great.

Need examples?  Well, I happen to have a couple are related to old blog entries!  Remember when I said I like the musician Jonathan Coulton?  After posting, I realized that Cory had actually played a song of his for me months before.  You were right, Cory.  That’s great!

You may have missed it, but in the comments Nicole told me that she thinks of me every time she watches the Big Bang Theory.  When I admitted to never having seen it, she said “I cannot believe you haven’t seen it. I’m literally in shock right now. Seriously, you work with these people. It’s like me at the bank with all those folks on the office. You work with them. Watch the show.”

So I gave The Big Bang Theory a try.  It is very funny.  Especially Sheldon… though he also makes me a little self-conscious.  I used to be obsessive-compulsive, and still feel more comfortable when I can give in to some of those tendencies.  I wrote out a few examples, but then thought better of it.  You can ask me in person if your curious and need a laugh – I’m about to confess enough for one post.

I like the show (I’m about 2/3rds into season 2), but I couldn’t help but think “My life’s not REALLY like that.  Maybe when I had all those classes with computer engineers in college.  But not so much anymore.”  Those words rang back in my head this week.  I had to go across campus with my coworker.  We talked on the way.

him: It’s too close to lunch time.  Traffic will be terrible.  That’s why I never drive so close to noon.
me: (walking to the far end of the parking lot) Well, at least you’ll get a better parking spot when we get back.
him: I got a fairly good one this morning, but it could be better.  They are only good if they are shaded.
me: Oh.  Well, maybe that one will still be empty when we get back (pointing to far corner under a tree).
him: I used to think that, too, but that’s actually the second best spot.  Because of the trajectory of the sun in the afternoon and the lack of low branches, the one next to it is more shaded – though only for afternoon parking.  Also surprisingly, that spot over there is the third-best spot.  For such a small tree, it gives an inordinate amount of shade.
me: Yeah, what type of tree is that?  Once I took a flower from it to Dr. Frye, but he couldn’t identify it.
him: I don’t know – Dr. Frye couldn’t tell?  Hmm.
me: I like it because it’s about the size and shape of a crepe myrtle, but it looks so much better.
him: Yeah, my in-laws have a whole bunch of crepe myrtles – I wish they’d get rid of them.  But they also have some great trees – five different variety of oak, a pecan, and two magnolias.
me: Oh, I wish we had more magnolias around here, they have such beautiful flowers.
him: They are incredible flowers.  One of the first to exist.  Fossils have been found with magnolia flowers that date back to the Cretaceous period.
me: I hadn’t realized that. Interesting.
him: (doubting me) Well, you only have to look at them to realize they must be early on in the evolutionary chain.  The flowers still look like leaves.

And that’s when I realized that I DO “work with these people.”  I hadn’t even made the connection.  You were right, Nicole.  That’s not so great (for me).

Here’s to hoping I’m at least a Leonard.