Monthly Archives: May 2010

Dry Run Results (30w4d)

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So we had a good time last night testing out the UStream system. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and got a tour of the nursery! We discovered a couple of things about interactive broadcasting with UStream:

  • Lag kinda sucks. There is a lag between what’s happening in front of the camera and when it shows up on the webcast. The speed of your connection seems to make a big difference. But as long as the camera stays fairly stationary, there don’t seem to be any problems with things getting chunky. The camera will mostly be sitting on a tripod during the shower, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
  • In order to participate in the chat feature to interact with us during the shower, you must have a UStream account. (Yeah, we’re not happy about it.) You can use your Facebook or Gmail or Yahoo account to get started, but you’ll still need to create a UStream username and password. Or, you can create a UStream account from scratch on the main UStream.tv website, or when you try to click in on the chat window for the first time, it will pop up a login dialog box that has a “Sign Up” option as well. It would probably be best to set up a UStream account before Saturday if you can.
  • I need a script. I end up babbling kind of a lot if I don’t have a script. Also, arm flailing commences pretty quickly.

    • We’re gonna do it again tonight for anyone who wants to give it a shot (Aunt Nita, I’m looking at you…) or who wants to watch as I make Oreo Truffles. (Yes, see I’m not below bribing friends to come to the shower – if you come, you get Oreo Truffles!) We’ll get going around 6:00pm, but I’ll be working for a while, cuz it takes a bit to form all the little balls, and then they have to chill before they can be dipped. I’ll work in batches though, so you guys can see the dipping process without waiting until midnight. :)

    If you have a problem getting in on the UStream chat thingie or you don’t have sound – please Skype me or txt me to let us know so we can fix it. Just click on the Webcast link above to join in on the broadcast!

Dry Run (30w2d)

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Tuesday and Wednesday (tomorrow and the day after) Paul and I are gonna do a little dry run with the UStream gizmo – the thing we’re gonna use to put the baby shower up on the web with.

So if you’re thinking of watching part of the shower on Saturday it might be a good idea to stop by tomorrow or Wednesday at 6:00pm Pacific time (so 7:00pm Mountain, 8:00pm Central, and 9:00pm Eastern) and see if you can get hooked up to not only see AND hear us, but to say hello in the chat window and have us respond!

Just come back to the website and click on the link above that says “Webcast.” That’s all you should need to do! We’ll leave the webstream up for about an hour on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings as we dink around. Please pop into the chat to say hello if you stop by. (Or if that doesn’t seem to work, you can shoot either of us an email and we’ll connect with you some other way!)

SO much, and SO little! (30w2d)

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There is so much I wanna write about, but holy cats am I tired.

  • Mother’s Day was great, once Paul and I got done killing ourselves to put the house together. We’re almost done, which is good cuz we’ll have guests this weekend! We had Paul’s parents and Nonny over for a great dinner.
  • Mother’s Day wishes were appreciated, but weirded me out kinda a lot. I do not see myself as a mom yet, and it seems like asking for trouble to take something like that for granted with as high-risk as I am.
  • The house looks fantastic. The Guest Room/Office is stellar. The baby’s room is amazing. My bedroom is incredible. The house seems more open with the slight shifting of furniture, and the removal of a ton of clutter. We’re about 90% put back – gotta refill the bookcases and such. Paul’s parents have been MONUMENTALLY helpful in helping us get our house put back together.
  • My work shower is Thursday and my family/friends shower is Saturday. Paul and I CANNOT WAIT to see our friends and family this weekend. We’re literally giddy at the thought of seeing our friends.
  • We’re having an open house of sorts right before the shower (until we head over to Tom & Jeanne’s place) so anyone who wants to see the house and nursery can stop by.
  • School finishes for me this week, and I am so happy. One less non-baby thing I have to focus on right now is so appreciated.
  • Foot swelling is still epic. A pedicure didn’t help the swelling, but I feel so much better for getting it.
  • Belly pains are increasing. I can’t be up on my feet for very long before they kick in. Not cramping or contractions – just a dull constant pain across what would be my bikini line if I’d ever worn a bikini.
  • I ordered our cloth diapers. Ended up going with a different style that hopefully will eliminate the need for disposables all together. We’ll be starting out with prefolds and covers – which is the modern version of what Paul and I were in as babies. We’re planning on still getting some of the Pocket style diapers too, but not for at least a month or two.

Ok, really. That’s all I’ve got right now cuz I’m falling asleep sitting up.

What a Weekend! (29w3d)

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Wow, what a weekend. The carpet is in, and the house is about 70% put back together. Most of our furniture is back inside (from the back patio) and in the right rooms.

Paul really really stepped up this weekend. I commended him for doing real Daddy stuff this weekend by working SUPER hard doing stuff he didn’t wanna do simply because it had to be done, and I couldn’t physically help him with it. Paul was up until 4:30 on Saturday morning clearing out the house. He was unloading bookcases, liquor cabinets and dressers and then moving the furniture outside onto the patio until the wee hours. I had to stop before midnight because I was having some pretty painful contractions that forced me to go lay down. (Whoever said that Braxton Hicks contractions don’t hurt was a LIAR.) I dozed off and on, trying to get up and come help every hour or so and collapsing back into bed within a couple of steps.

Paul came to bed at 4:30am. I got up at 6:30 and started working again, letting Paul sleep until 7:00. The installers called at 7:00 and said they’d be there at 8:00. But we still had our bedroom to finish packing (our nightstands and general daily use stuff…) Paul ended up finishing that part of packing because I had to take our dog Kishou to go get a bath at Petsmart to get her out of the house while the installers were there. I came home later with bagels for breakfast to find the couches and bedroom dressers in the backyard, the bed in the garage and pad already laid down!

Paul and I spent the next couple hours on the back patio doing maintenance and cleaning projects while the installers worked. (Paul cut a new ventilation hole in our entertainment cabinet and installed a fan to help cool our system that it trying to overheat.) I got cleaning supplies so that I could clean/dust the furniture before it came back in the house. (I wanted to clean the leather couches, but they were sitting in the hot sun.)

In just under 5 hours, the carpet was done! The installers helped Paul put the bed back together (even though they’re not supposed to) because Paul had moved so much of the furniture for them. The couches and recliners came back in and that’s about it. We tipped them (and gave them a 6-pack of beer) and Paul and I left to go get food and collect the dog from her bath. We returned and collapsed onto our bare mattress for a fantastic (in Paul’s case) nearly 4-hour nap.

Saturday night was very relaxed, as we were both still very tired after our nap. I slowly worked my way around the house cleaning stuff (OMG, ‘Magic Erasers’ are the single most appropriately named product EVER!) and Paul worked on cleaning up cables for our electronics. It was a quiet evening, and we both collapsed into bed (still unmade) around midnight.

Sunday found us starting the morning at Cracked Egg for breakfast (Peanut Butter
& Banana french toast!!) and then hitting Target to pick up what turns out to be the perfect light for the nursery! We came back home and were soon joined by Paul’s parents who were ready to help us build furniture. Jeanne spent the first hour+ wiping down everything in sight with her microfiber cloths, as there’s a heckuva lot of dust everywhere now. Paul and his dad tackled the new desk and hutch for the office – which turned into a MUCH bigger project than any of us imagined.

Jeanne and I built the 4-drawer dresser for the nursery (she and I built a couple of them a few months ago for our bedroom, so we were old hats at it) and then moved on to the crib. I picked up three battery-powered screwdrivers for the weekend and they made all the difference in the world! ($8 at Wal-mart and SO worth it!) It was pretty awesome to be sitting in my son’s room, building his crib. It went together much easier than I expected, honestly and looks just fabulous! (Thank you again, Aunt Nita!) Now all we need is a mattress for the thing! Ha!

We called it a night on Sunday and came back Monday evening to continue working. Tom and Jeanne have been great about helping us with this stuff. Jeanne and I put together the last dresser (baby’s room is getting one of our 4-drawer dressers, so we replaced it with a 6-drawer model) while Tom and Paul moved the trundle beds into the guest room/office and built the horizontal shelving unit. It’s SO great to finally have all those boxes out of the garage and have everything built! (Oh, and Tom took the slot machine and put it in his office at The Sun, so that’s even more room we have now!)

It’s been an amazingly busy weekend. Paul and I are still recovering – I accidentally took a 2-hour nap this afternoon because I sat down to have a snack. We’re plugging away at putting the house back together – there’s still a fair amount of stuff on the back patio. But we have this weekend to work on it and evenings this week and next week (altho not Thursday evenings, cuz our Childbirth classes start on Thursday) to get the house into shape before Oin & Cynthia are here for the shower, and all our other friends are invited over to see the nursery!

So for all of that – Paul and I are both astounded that we’re finally here. The point at which we’d be setting up the nursery and having the paint done, carpet in, furniture built always seemed SO FAR away. And now it’s here. It’s entirely likely that we will have our baby NEXT MONTH. Unreal.

(And no, there’s no pics yet. We’ve taken pics along the way as the nursery came together. I want to get the last things hung up on the wall and get the crib set up with linens before pics of the nursery are posted. Another week or so….)