The Fluness

I have just survived a three day, knock down, drag out boxing match with the Fluness. I haven't had the flu in years and had forgotten how horribly awful it is. Of course I got the flu over the weekend J and I had planned to do much of the baby furniture shopping, so it's postponed to this weekend. Hopefully I'll be up to it. I'm still feeling like a pile of blurgh and the weekend is only a few days away.

Blurgh.

Names, Names, Names

If y'all have any ideas for baby girl names, I'm open to suggestions. J and I agree on two names as of right now, but I'm not sure if either of them are THE name. You know?

I'm still getting used to the fact that I am having a girl. Even with my old home office no longer my beloved granny smith apple shade of green, repainted to a brilliant color called "cheery" (read a bright reddishorangepink), and slowly morphing into nursery status, I still have a bit of a hard time registering it.

A girl. There is a little girl growing inside of me. Soooo amazingly strange. J has taken to calling me out every time I refer to the baby as "it," and/or The Flash. But The Flash is sooo catchy. I've threated to use that moniker as the middle name, but I don't think J sees the humor in it. At least not like I do.

I wish we could agree on a name. Maybe if we had one, I could stop thinking of this little girl as The Flash, and by her name instead. So help a sister out if you can.

Suggestions?

Phew!

I finally got my updated voter registration information a few days ago. Phew! At the end of August I realized I needed to update my current address in order to vote in the election this year. With the state of chaos my life was in last year, the address change wasn't a major priority to me, but with an election coming up, I realized I needed to get my change in stat. In Ohio (I'm not sure about other states) you can't change this information online - you have to physically go to the board, send your form to the board via USPS, or physically go to a deputy registrar to take care of the change(s).

Since I didn't want the form to get lost in the mail, I opted to drop off the form at one of the deputy registrar's offices a few miles away from my house. When I got there, the lady working behind the counter seemed a bit surprised that I was dropping my form off at the office and proceeded to inform me that she wasn't quite sure what to do with my address change form. Really?! I would think that if you are employed at the deputy registrar's office you would be aware of what your job entails, and be even more aware of the voter changes that would be coming in with an election only two and a half months away. But then again, knowing how BMVs can sometimes be mysterious mazes of contradicting information, maybe not. I then asked her to get someone who knew what to do with the form, so I knew it would be appropriately taken care of before the election. The lady behind the counter was quite apologetic and congenial, got the other person working there (thankfully who knew what to do, unless I was being paid lip service), and as far as I knew, the situation was taken care of - I should be getting my updated registration in the mail within 2 weeks.

Two weeks pass and no registration. Three weeks. Four. Five. Six...I finally got confirmation that the changes were updated and approved on Monday of this week. I'm thankful I received my updated card from the county board of elections, but I can't help but wonder if it takes this long for everyone to receive their updated information. And if it does this long, how do the people who get their changes in by the 30 day before the deadline know where to go to vote besides downtown to the board of elections? Is their information updated in time to reflect the necessary changes to allow them to vote, or does it literally take several weeks for changes to be reflected?

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but having to wait so long to find out my voter status was causing me a fair amount of anxiety and I wonder if anyone else in this city has felt that way, too. I know you can call the county board to inquire about your status, but it's not always easy to retrieve that information once you start having to go through a tray of automated options and being put on hold for long lengths of time, getting mysteriously cut off, etc. I guess maybe I would just like information to be more readily available to people who need it. I don't remember it taking this long or being this difficult in any other state I've lived in since I was 18, so it just makes me wonder.

Crunching The Credit

Ever since we found out I was expecting Little Miss Flash, J and I have started working aggressively towards getting ourselves out of debt. For me, this has meant paying off the 3 credit cards in my possession as well as getting my student loan debt in order. As of the end of September, I officially paid off 2 cards in full and am working to get that 3rd paid off before the baby gets here. As far as the student loans go, J has been awesome and is helping me with finding out if I can refinance or get a better payment plan going. So all that has been going on with the aforementioned is a definite positive for us. Less debt = more money saved. Pretty simple when you think about it, but I guess neither of us ever really considered being as aggressive about paying off our revolving balances until we found out about the Flash.

Major life changes, I'm telling you.

When there is a positive, there is often a negative...so to the negative. On Sunday night, J and I were were working and I decided I needed a break. While taking my 15 minute breather, I decided to check on the last credit card I need to pay off. I've been autopaying about 2.5x the minimum balance for the past 4 months, so I hadn't been really monitoring the card seeing as how I haven't used this particular one for several months. If I'm not using the card, there shouldn't be a potential for any transactions, so while I was paying off the other 2 cards, I left the monitoring of this one alone. I shouldn't have.

Apparently someone stole my card or my card number and has been charging pornography to my card since July. When I first pulled up my account summary, I was dumbfounded. My progress was going NOWHERE. Why wasn't my balance going down more than it was - seeing as how I have been paying a good amount over the minimum?

I started examining my statements and discovered mysterious transactions. Not the disgustingly high finance charge. But actual transactions. Transactions with receipt numbers. Transactions that listed the website(s) where said transactions were made. All of these were for pornography. Porn. I don't do porn. And if I were to be all about the porn, I certainly wouldn't purchase it online. Have I mentioned that haven't used this card since last fall? I haven't swiped it since I decided to stop using it until I got my balance down to a more manageable status? And no, J didn't use the card for the porn either.

Whatever happened to the fraud department calling me and asking me about these charges? Mysterious porn charges. The card has been inactive for several months, and then suddenly decent sums of money are being spent on porn. You would think the fraud department would call and inquire. Nope. No dice. Apparently they don't have the time to call people who have more than a 50% balance on their cards, stop making purchases on their card for several months in order to try to pay it down, and ALWAYS pay more than the minimum. I've always been a more than minimum payment maker, just not as high as the past few months.

Long story short. I spent almost 3 hours on the phone with the fraud department on Sunday night. Got my account credited to where it should be. Cancelled the card and am being issued a new one.

I figure there are some scenarios of how this may have happened: someone surreptitiously took the card out of my bag, wrote the numbers down and then started using it; someone went through my garbage and pieced together an old statement I accidentally threw away without shredding; someone somehow got the number by hacking into my secure account and the firewall I have set up on my computer is junk...but then this couldn't really be the case since my other two cards are fine; this credit card company was the victim of some sort of hacker themselves; or something may have happened when i was out of the country in april/may.

What do I think happened? I simply do not know. Which makes me feel completely gross.

What I do know is that I will definitely be checking EVERY SINGLE STATEMENT I RECEIVE MOVING FORWARD. I can't believe something like this happened to me.

Miscellany

-- I had another appointment with my doctor last week, and again, everything was normal. My next appointment is during the first week of November. I'll be getting the dreaded diabetes test then. MMMmmm...glucola. I only dread the test because I can't stand supersugary things that leave a nasty residue in my mouth, but mostly because of the fact that I will have more blood drawn then. Mere thoughts of veins, needles, and blood makes me lightheaded, so just imagine how it is when blood is actually taken. I'm just hoping to not pass out from the combination of my low blood pressure and anxiety about bloodwork...it's been known to happen. You would think I would be okay with bloodwork and all that comes with it by this point in my life, considering how many stays I've had in hospitals, but I'm not. Well, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

-- The horrorfest was a pretty good time, although I was displeased with the fact that you weren't allowed to have food or drinks in the theatre. The horrorfest changed venues to the restored Warner Theatre this year, and apparently you aren't allowed to have any noshies in there. Zero. Zilch. Nothing. No popcorn. No licorice. No soda pop. Not even water. Being a pregnant waterfiend, I was displeased. On the positive tip, I did get to see some interesting long and short films, spend time with a couple of my sisters and a nephew, and I got to meet some new people.

-- While I was away in Erie, J altered the cleaning and painting plans a bit. He ended up priming and painting the baby room, and priming about half of the basement room. While it wasn't everything he intended to get done, it was a good chunk. This weekend we ideally be finishing the cleanout of the basement room, moving the office furniture from the baby room to the basement, and possibly getting 2/3 of the painting done down there. It seems like somewhat of a lofty goal considering we both have work to do this weekend, but I am hopeful we can get a chunk of the HI stuff done.

-- Next weekend we are taking a trip south to West Virginia to visit J's mom. On the way back we are stopping off at the IKEA in Pittsburgh to purchase essentials for the baby room and other items for the changes we are making. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't overwhelmed with all of this. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't excited though, too.

Eerie Horror Film Festival

I'm being kicked out of the house over the weekend so that, in theory, J can prime and maybe paint the basement bonus room, move the heavy office furniture downstairs, and more or less make that space functional.

What am I going to do? Leave ClevelandOH on Thursday, head to EriePA, and watch scary movies with sisters Kat and Becky, and my nephew, Jacob.

How thrilled am I?

I Should Set Up Camp At The Home Depot

This weekend marked the beginning of major interior house changes J and I will be making over the next year plus. Since it has been decided we will be staying in Cleveland for at least the next 4-5 years (unless a South America move for all of us becomes a reality), we are finally going to invest the buckage into the house to modernize, increase longer-term value, and generally make it more of our own vs. investing minimal money to make minor changes in order to sell the house. I will be taking pictures along the way.

The master list of home improvement projects includes five relatively large undertakings:

1. (Re)finish the half-finished basement bonus room. Make functional for home office and family/play room
2. Baby Room. Painting, furniture, organization.
3. Living room. Reposition room for traffic flow, install new lighting, paint, move and reinstall home theatre system. We need a new couch since our current one is way too large for the space, but I know the new couch dream won't likely happen for at least a year.
4. Demo and gutting of the upstairs. Build a master suite and one additional upstairs bedroom vs. the two strangely small walk-in closet sized "bedrooms" and master.
5. Demo of the kitchen. Install a modern, functional kitchen space.

This weekend we purchased a new flat screen television and started cleaning out the bonus room in the basement. J and our friend Chris moved the old 60 inch projection tv that was in the living room down to the basement since I'm unable to do heavy lifting, then unloaded the new tv, and put it together in a temporary, makeshift set-up since J and I will be getting the living room completed within the next month.

We have a pretty hefty undertaking ahead of us, but I'm thrilled to be doing it. I suppose since finding out I was pregnant, I've become more mindful of the home I want for my family instead of my typical modus operandi: the highly nomadic, bachelor(ette)-pad-minded Karoline. Does that make sense? And while Cleveland, OH isn't my ideal location to live, I do want a livable, comforting, secure, warm environment for the baby.

It's A Girl

i am spawning a girl
Originally uploaded by thesynesthetic

That's right, people! On Friday, September 26, I found out I am having a girl who will be joining the world in February 2009. According to the doctor everything looked good, and we received a dvd of the ultrasound as well as these loverly 3D pictures you see here on the side of this post. The baby was again veeery active and moving around during the majority of the appointment and is still moving around like an Olympic gymnast on a daily basis.

I have been slowly gaining girth and a more rotund stomach with no extra thanks to the baby's latest obsession with Amy Joy Doughnuts and ongoing penchant for Mexican food, but as long as I am remaining active and positive, I'm really not obsessing about my size too much. I posted a couple 20 week Karoline Is Spawning Baby pictures on my flickr account, so you can see what I'm talking about.

Slacker Uprising

As I think it is important to be aware of what is said, written, filmed, drawn, and any other form of artistic rendering from left- and right-wing political commentarists out there, I'm excited about this: Slacker Uprising. Tomorrow, or tonight at midnight depending on how you look at it, Michael Moore will be releasing his film on his 62 city tour leading up to the 2004 election for free to the masses.

I'll Miss You, DFW

I don't know what rock I've been living under for the past week, but today I found out that one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, committed suicide on September 12.

Introduced to his work during my first year of undergrad in Arizona through a conversation I had with one of my TAs, I didn't give much thought to Wallace's writing until a year after this conversation even though I did read one of DFWs books before then. It all started one day while my TA and I were going through one of my essays which was going to be entered into the freshman composition publication contest for the following year's textbooks, and my teacher made mention of how he had noticed my writing style more or less rejected typical norms (whatever that meant...I think he was just trying impress me) and my thought process adhered to a more post-modernistic perspective - much like David Foster Wallace. Who was Wallace? Why had I not heard of this author before? Post-modernistic? Really?

I come to find out that David Foster Wallace was a UA alum. Small world, eh? And while I kind of disagreed with my TA about my personal style of writing, I thought I should read some of DFWs work, so I picked up The Broom of the System and read it over the course of a couple days. I thought it was good, but I had no deep thoughts regarding the essays. At the time I was a nineteen year old who, in her free time, was more concerned with caloric intake and how to burn off mysterious fat that wasn't really there, so my deeper thoughts were mostly limited to the several credit hours I was taking combined with my psychotic exercise regimen.

Fast forward to late fall 1997, sophomore year. I was unwillingly pushed into recovery for the first time during my adult life. And with this particular stint at recovery came less exercise, and less exercise meant more free time to do things I wouldn't normally do in years previous, so I bought DFWs book, Infinite Jest. I read it over the course of two weeks, and then had to read it a second time. I'm not going to go into the story line(s), but this one thousand plus page book changed my life. Literally. It changed my perspective on the writing craft - the many different possibilities on how to tackle subject matter, creating characters while injecting my spin and narrative, ensuring inclusion of theoretical concepts, how attempting to write philosophically did not have to equate to pretension, and among other things, introducing me to my love of metaphysics.

Many people claim that DFW wrote an esoteric, elitist tract in Infinite Jest, but I would have to disagree. Yes, the book is lengthy and filled with parody and theory, but that doesn't necessarily make it esoteric. You should give it a read and see what you think. In fact I still have my battered copy of Infinite Jest. Complete with highlighted passages, notes in the margins, and its dog-eared, yellowed pages. I've had the book for over ten years and I've probably read it about ten times. Every time I read it, I get some new insight out of it.

DFW was one of the most talented contempory writers of the twentieth century. And while it saddens me to think he committed suicide, I cannot say it surprised me based upon what I know of his life and his works. He showed glimmers of his depression in some of his writings and he certainly analyzed everything. I mean, he could turn something seemingly fun and possibly trivial into a complete existential crisis - as an example, read his article on the Maine Lobster Festival, "Consider the Lobster." I guess I just think that someone who thinks that much, is bound to do something drastic. And while I am no great theorist or writer, I understand how thinking too much takes its toll on one, thus leading to drastic measures taken. News of his death also forces me reflect on my own writing and life.

Will I ever be able to get back to my own constantly morphing style of pomo writing? Will I ever get be able to get around the roadblocks in my brain? Will I ever write again as writer versus mere thought thrower outer? I feel I have become "dumbed down" over the past several years working the grind in the business world as HR champion and writer of the technical. Is it true? Am I dumber? Or is it just self-sabotage? This is all a mystery to me, but something for me to ponder.

Thank you David Foster Wallace for the gifts you bestowed upon the world. Your presence will be missed.

18 Weeks

I never thought I would be one of those gals whose blog would start to revolve around her pregnancy babies galore once she made the offish announcement. But I am. I feel kind of embarassed and my face flushes when I think about this, but it has happened, so why not revel in it? I spare my readers the details they probably don't want to hear about such as my bowel movements and vomitaciousness, yet I am also sure I overshare to an extent as well. I cannot make everyone happy, but I try to respect the fact that not everyone is interested in hearing about such things as my body functions.

Today marks the beginning of week 18. I had my second doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and everything looked and sounded normal. My vitals were still a-okay with my blood pressure remaining quite low (looow = normal to me), which was both a relief and a surprise since I wasn't the most active person the first four months of the baby incubating. I still need to improve on my eating habits, which is an ongoing process and I'm trying to make it work. I want to do everything I can to make the last 4.5 months as smooth and comfortable as possible for both me and the Flash.

Speaking of the Flash, I started to feel it moving around a couple weeks ago - the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to be exact. You know, after the mysterious virus I had that kept me laid up for a week. J and I decided to go out to eat that Saturday night, and let me tell you the Flash was thoroughly excited I was up and moving and out of the house. I just had to have Italian food that night, and since Mama Santa's was still closed due to the Feast, J and I decided to chain it and go to Olive Garden. On the drive to the OG (the first time I had been to one in Cleveland), J and I were talking and then suddenly I felt as though butterflies were trying to release themselves from my belly push themselves up through my throat. It was the strangest, most surreal, yet most natural sensation I have ever had. It continued throughout the evening and I had to box up my meal after a few bites.

Since then the Flash has been quite active. In fact, at my appointment this week the Flash was moving around so much while my doctor was checking the heart rate, it took several minutes to get the reading. She finally got the heart rate - which was 145-155 (normal), but it was rather funny. I'm going to have a very busy baby methinks. Now I just have to wait two more weeks for the ultrasound that will tell me what the Flash's sex is. I have a feeling this is going to be a veeery long two weeks. September 26 can't get here fast enough!

Zoo Day

Instead of going to the Falls or Canadialand over Labor Day weekend, we decided to stay in Cleveland. We headed to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on Monday and had a really good time looking at the animals. I didn't get around to the camel ride, but J did agree to ride the train with me since I was unable to go to Cedar Point this summer due to impending baby. It was supercheesy, but a good time was had. Check out the pictures: Cleveland Zoo.

I Have A Confession To Make...

I totally watched the series premiere of the revamped 90210 last night. And I enjoyed it.

Back In The Saddle

I'm beginning to feel less like a barf machine and more like a human again. I'm going to knock on some wood now. I didn't know morning sickness would be so volatile and last for such a long time, but I guess the reality is I really didn't know a whole lot about the potential pregnancy woes coming into this. You would think with six sisters and thirteen nieces and nephews I might have some idea. I did not. Regardless, I found out firsthand, am reading enough books, and talk(ed) with some of my sisters about all this pregnancy stuff.

Now that I am beginng to feel human again, I'm trying to ramp up to more billable work hours and I decided to take up my regular or a slightly modified exercise regimen. For the past four months I haven't really been able to exercise regularly and now I feel like I can without retching every 20 minutes. My goal is to workout 4-5 times a week by walking and jogging 3-5 miles a day inside or outside when weather permits, biking 20-30 miles on a stationary, doing light weights, or dancercising to my trusty Core Rhythms dvds. Oh yes, I got those dvds when I was feeling like death warmed over and thinking I would probably not be able to leave my house for months because of The Flash. And the dvds are surprisingly not bad. Now it's just a bonus that I can leave the house ;) So I've exercised the past three days and my body hurts. I can't believe how much it does hurt. The pain is similar to what I've experienced a day or two after running a marathon. Can a sister ever win?

J has encouraged me to get into a pregnancy yoga class, too, which I'm becoming more receptive to doing; Although, I still have my reservations since I have two things going against me when it comes to yoga: 1. I am one of the least flexible people I know, and, 2. It is almost impossible for me to relax. It's been challenging enough to get my body to move correctly to aerobic dance moves since I am also lacking in the graceful coordination department (which I still find humorous because I was great at derby which requires a good amount of coordination and grace), and my balance has been completely off for the past couple months, so yoga could be funny...or frustrating. I guess I'll just wait to make the yoga decision after I find out more details from J after he gets information from his boss' wife who is a yoga instructor here.

That's the long and short of it.

Books Read - August 2008

Caroline Cooney, The Face on the Milk Carton
Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts
E.L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday
Dean Koontz, Brother Odd
Flannery O’Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge
Joyce Carol Oates, Expensive People
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Wanderlust

I've been laid up with some sort of virus the past few days and haven't been able to leave the house. And while I typically don't mind being a shut-in to an extent, absolutely not being able to leave my house for fear of the sudden tossing of cookies, has made me a bit cagey and lusting for some wandering. I started feeling better last night and feel about the same today, so I'm hoping tomorrow I'll be up and ready to face the outside world.

After being shut inside all week, I decided that I really want to go on a short trip this weekend. It is a three-day weekend after all. But I wonder if I can persuade J into this...probably not, since he'll be leaving the country in about ten days. Blargh. I feel like this is the best time to do something fun and just for us since everything is going to drastically change in five short months. And my morning sickness (read: I've had the worst possible type of it you can imagine - twenty-four/seven, all day and night sickness) has abated to no more than a few times a week, so I feel now is the time for something fun. Nothing major like a flight west or anything, but maybe a roadtrip to Niagara Falls or somewhere in Canada.

We had talked about taking a trip about a month and a half ago, but ultimately decided against it because of home improvement projects and landscaping we could better spend the money on, but I've got some seriously itchy feet and I don't think my plans to visit Erie next weekend are going to quell the travelchitch. But who knows? If the weather here actually cooperates for once, maybe it will be a good productive landscaping weekend.

Just Call Me Karoline Fat Pants

May I speak openly?

One thing no one ever tells you when you are becoming full of baby is that you will wake up one day and your pants simply don't fit you anymore. This happened to me this past week. I popped. In a weird, I look like I've been eating too many Twinkies and Ho-hos kind of way. I have an interesting little, hard babybump belt below my bellybutton. I knew I was likely going to start showing in the fourth month, but I didn't know how suddenly my pants wouldn't fit right anymore. I've had a hard enough time adjusting to the new size of my chest - hello, two cup size increase already and they're supposedly going to get bigger! - and now, suddenly, I have to get used to being a completely new size by buying bigger pants for my new spare tire, wear yoga pants all the time, or take a deep breath and pony up and wear the very strange stretchtop pants.

This is new territory. I can't control my expanding belly and chest and not having control over it is kind of a frightening concept to me. And while I've been in recovery for well over a year and a half, I've been obsessing a bit about my size and other stuff that goes with the ever-familiar unhealthy territory that consumed over half my life. This is the territory I am proactively trying to steer relatively clear of presently and futurewise, and it is proving to be quite a challenge to steer clear of it while coping with the rapid body changes I am experiencing - some of which seem to happen overnight.

Sooo I thought I'd air my insanity out here, just to at least try to get my thoughts out in the open (a forum where my partner in crime doesn't look at me as though I am utterly ridiculous...and even if said partner is raising eyebrows at me right now, I, at least, can't see him); Because yes, I've been thinking about trying to control my size, weight, space, but then my wisemind kicks in and tells me that I know that I need to nourish myself not just for me anymore. It's a two party nutritionfest. And thus far I think I've been pretty great about everything considering this huge life-changing factor - and I hate to say it but I'm going to anyways - it probably helped that I lost weight the first two months and then balanced/plateaued for almost the past two months. How sick does that last statement sound? My doctor would probably have a heyday with that one.

Sometimes it's just hard to breathe when I start to think about the massive body changes I am going through and will be going through. I know as long as I keep myself in check, everything will work out okay. Keep my eyes on the prize - a happy, healthy baby. Some days are just better than others.

Soup's Up

Today I was searching the webernets for a good soup recipe. And what did I come across? A recipe for Panera Bread's Broccoli Cheddar Soup. I'm a little surprised at how excited I am about this. Especially considering what a food queer I am. Just a few months ago, this find would probably be considered small potatoes. But today it's not. The Flash is definitely telling me it wants soup NOW. Even though it is almost ninety degrees outside. I'll let you know how it tastes after I test-drive the recipe.

The Official News

Remember that life-altering thing I wrote about awhile back?

Here goes:

belly balm for my pregnant belly
Originally uploaded by thesynesthetic

I am pregnant. So guess what? I'm having a baby.

I've named it The Flash for now since we don't know what sex it is, and because of another reason which I am not going to delve into right now. But if you think reeeeeally hard about it, you might figure it out. J reeeally wanted to name it The Brain after we saw the ultrasound on Monday, but I had to put the kibosh on that one.

Where am I at right now? Well, I successfully made it through my first trimester, and am 13 weeks and a few days along. My due date is on Valentine's Day. The baby is normal and healthy, and the heart rate is good. I think that's about all I have for right now.

I will be finding out what the sex of the baby is on September 26. (Hopefully!)

While this was unexpected, I am terribly excited and hopeful.

Books Read - July 2008

Brock Cole, The Goats
Caroline Cooney, The Terrorist
Lois Duncan, Killing Mr. Griffin
Katherine Dunn, Geek Love
Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity
Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
E.L. Konigsburg, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas
Dean Koontz, Forever Odd

I highly recommend Geek Love to anyone who loves a challenging read. I'm not going to write about how it might challenge you, as I think you need to discover that for yourself. I will tell you this book is possibly the Karoline favorite of the year. At least thus far. But it will be hard to top.