Kelly in NC

Well, today was my first day of maternity leave. Of course, that is Maternity leave with OUT a baby. Grayson is still stubbornly stuck in my womb, and no amount of prodding seems to be getting him out. I had contractions on Friday night, but absolutely NOTHING since then! How frustrating.
But, let’s talk about maternity leave…or let’s call it vacation since I do not have a baby yet. I am sure that once the baby is out it won’t feel too much like a vacation. Anyhow, rather than just sitting around here, I made myself a list of things to do. From getting a new tire for my car to sweeping the house, I have found all kinds of things to keep me busy today. I have even found time to sit down and read half of my book “She’s Come Undone.” Now, what should I do tomorrow?

Thanks to my sister at NaeNae in NC, you can all learn 6 random Kelly facts. Hmmm where to begin…
1. I love to scrapbook and edit home videos. “Preserving” memories has been one of my favorite past time since high school when I first found Creative Memories. While I do not use much Creative Memories stuff anymore, I do still think that it is important to document all of the major events in my life. Who know who will appreciate them one day…but I hope someone will.
2. I love to read. I have always LOVED to read. When I was younger, my mom used to hold that over my head as punishment. “You’ll get your book back when you have finished cleaning your room!” Now how many moms out there would threaten that? (By the way, it worked!)
3. I cry easily. If there was one thing that I wish I could change about myself it would be this. I cry at sappy movies, books, when I am mad, anytime I feel like I have been “wronged”, and right now while I am pregnant. I have tried every technique I can think of to get rid of this emotional “malfunction” but NONE of my couseling strategies seem to work. I have finally come to terms with the fact that there isn’t much I can do about it. So just accept it. It just isn’t easy to accept when your crying at the bank because of a major bank problem that is not your fault (which I actually did 2.5 years ago. Embarassing!)
4. I hate liver. And I have always hated liver. My mom loves liver and used to fix at least once a month while we were growing up. Since she would force us to eat it, I would smother is with half a bottle of Ketchup and could still taste it. YUCK! I vow to NEVER cook liver. Disgusting!
5. I once went Sky Diving. Tim bought it for me as a birthday present about 6 years ago. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done, but I loved it! I would love to go again..but will probably need to wait another 25 years so that there are not any children depending on me!
6. I am NOT athletic at all! In fact I am one of the clumsiest persons on the face of the earth. If I could change 2 things about myself, the first would be #3 mentioned above, but this would be the second. I would like to make it through one day without tripping or dropping food on my shirt, or spilling a liquid. I would like to know what it feels like to be chosen first for a sports team, or to catch a ball, or beat someone at a race (who is at least the same age as I am).

Baby: A four day weekend and still no baby. That was Tim’s request anyway, but I can tell you that I was in no way purposefully holding him in. If anything, I have been working on the opposite. I have tried every wive’s tale on the internet. From sex, to foot massages, red wine, spicey food, “stimulating” my cervix, walking….I am not sure what is left except the Castor oil. That is my absolute last resort and I am not sure that I am THAT desperate yet! Any other suggestions out there? I do still have 2 days until my due date…so maybe Grayson just still isn’t ready. I’ll give him until Thursday before the Castor Oil!
House: Well, we decided to not put an offer on the house that we were looking at last week. It ends up that it has a major basement issue ($30,000) and the sellers are not willing to budge on the price…or so we have been told. It also needs a LOT of updating…so we decided to let this one go. I guess that we will continue our “casul” house shopping. Our current house ought to get us through until the next baby at least.
Easter: We had a wonderful holiday complete with church, dinner with family, and an Easter egg hunt. It is on holidays like these that I appreciate how close a good amount of our family lives. It is so nice that we all get along and can spend an entire day in each other’s company. Holding the new babies was wonderful too. Of course, it just made me wish that mine would hurry up and “pop” out too!
Husband: Tim is currently working on the finishing touches to the nursery. When he put up the cubbies, he had to take down the chair rail and base molding. It has taken him a while to get around to finishing those last details, but today the molding is going back up. Now of course nothing is as easy as it seems when it comes to my husband “fixing” somthing. By my calculations, he has been working on this project for at least four hours, and he still isn’t finished. I go in the nursery with intentions of helping, but then he starts cursing and banging things around, so I leave. I am not sure what is worse: Not offering to help or Being an audience to the “angry” behavior that I absolutely HATE! I guess you can tell that I decided that I was better off not helping.

So after a long, relaxing weekend, it’ll be back to work tomorrow…and the wait will continue…..

Three years ago, Tim and I bought our very first home. While we really like our house, it does have a number of draw backs, such as: it is small, has little storage, and is on a very busy road. I would say that for the past year and half, we have been casually house “shopping”. Nothing too serious, but definitely keeping our eye on the market for the perfect “find”. I finally found something worth taking a deeper look at this past week. Tim and I did a “drive by” on Friday and yesterday our awesome realtor, Kate, took us for a showing. It is a 2000+ sq. ft. brick ranch sitting on almost 4 acres. While it hasn’t been updated since it was build in 1979, it is in excellent condition…and has a 1700 sq. ft. unfinished basement. It is located in a quiet culdesac neighborhood…and to be honest, is everything for which we have beeen looking. So what’s the problem right?
If you have ever bought a house before, you will know what I mean. The probelm is that feeling you get when you are really excited about making a big purchase, yet keep questioning if you should really do it. “Do we really need a bigger house?” “Can we really afford it?” “Is it over priced?” “Are we making a good decision?” “Is there something better out there?” And then on top of that, Tim (just as he does with all major decisions) cycles through a series of negative and then positive outlooks. Just yesterday, he could only think and speak of the negatives about buying a new house. Today, his outlook has moved to the more positive, with little bouts of pessimisim. I think having the opportunity to walk through the house has helped to change his frame of mind. So anyhow, there were a few things that we are concerned about. I mean there really isn’t a perfect house out there, right? Here were our major concerns:
There could be a slight basement “leak” problem. Luckily with Tim’s construction connections, it should be fixable…something that we will be looking into this week. Also the 1970’s wallpaper is horrendous, enough to make you puke. And they must have had an interior designer help when they built the house, since all of the lenolium floor matches the lovely wallpaper! But, I guess that is what makes this house affordable enough for us. Other than those three things, the house is workable…it will definitely require some remodeling, but I have seen alot worse.
So, while the house “hunt” may be over…the stress has just begun!

For those of you who do not know: I LOVE the Florida Gators and am VERY excited to see them win their game last night. Now it is off to the NCAA finals, where I am crossing my fingers that UCLA will be nothing more than “Gator-bait”!