Yesterday was the 30 week mark! In just 10 weeks Steven and I should have our little bundle in our arms, rather than where he currently resides- in my belly, snuggled up again one side in a tight little ball. According to our emails from BabyCenter.com Baby Peanut is coming along in his lung development and eyesight. Of course he's growing like a weed as well. He continues to be highly active and bouncy!
As for me, I'm still feeling good but I'm definitely feeling more stiff and it's hard to sit for more than an hour at a time. My lower back hurts and I can't sleep without a pillow propping up my baby belly. I kind of roll out of bed, rather than sit straight up and have to be careful about doing too much physical activity in a day. It's fine though, nothing that I can't handle! This makes for an excellent segway into how we've been spending our days lately....
Instead of taking things down a few notches we've decided to go from 50 to 1000 in one week's time. Smart, right? Let's begin with the unpredictable.
Right after my last post Steven and Colin asked to drive my car to Chicago so they could go see Roger Waters. The show was amazing (maybe I can get Steven to do a blog about the show....) but while in Chicago a hotel valet decided it would be fun to drive my black car down a white concrete pole in the hotel parking garage. Somehow neither of the guys noticed the damage and drove my car back to Nashville without a clue. Once they were home I noticed the damage immediately even in the pitch black night because, well, it's my car and I know how it's supposed to look! After getting nothing but nasty attitudes from the valet company and cluelessness from the hotel I decided to turn the situation over to insurance. Isn't that what I pay them for each month? Apparently not. Last Monday I spent hours on the phone with Progressive and they fought me each step of the way.
Agent: well did you see where they parked the car?
Me: Noooo, it's valet. They drive it away and park it for you (duh)
Agent: well how do you KNOW they parked it by a pole?
Me: Because of the dent and 2 foot scrape down the side of my car!!!!!
Long story short, they ended up telling me that I needed to take the car to get fixed FIRST and at that time they would "try" to go after the valet company. I said, "look, I don't have the money for this. I have a baby coming in a few weeks and I can't just go drop a thousand bucks to fix damages I didn't even do for the off-beat chance you guys might actually help me out and do something. So please just cancel my claim."
Well, there it was. "The B-Word." Apparently mentioning you are having a baby means something to the stubborn and often unfair world of car insurance. Suddenly the tone changed and it was "oh when are you due? Is it a boy or a girl?" Then it became "let me speak with my manager and see what we can do."
They called back and told me to take my car for an estimate and they'd send me a check for the damages. They also promised not to raise my premium. Then they congratulated me again on my pregnancy and closed out my claim. Ummm... what just happened here? I was left feeling somewhat dumbfounded but I won't ask questions. I can't say this makes me feel warm and fuzzy about Progressive Insurance but it is a lesson to all of you out there: when facing insurance companies, just tell them you're pregnant!
So after the car fiasco, we decided to tackle house project #2: getting rid of our bedroom carpet. The carpet in our room has never been lovely but after Crash had a freak out in 2009 over 4th of July fireworks and tore it to shreds we started saving money to get it replaced.
Bad dog!
We thought we coud just refinish the hardwood floors underneath but once the furniture was all moved and we could actually take a real look we realized there was only about 80% hardwoods and the remaining 20% was sub-flooring.
The Great Destroyer, some nasty carpet and some sub-flooring
FAIL!
We were in a bit of a time crunch so we decided to install new carpet in that room. I love what we picked out! It's called Lemon Custard and looks beautiful.
The bed was still being put back together, which explains it's messiness
While waiting for the new carpet we figured, what the heck? Let's go ahead and tackle house project #3: new appliances in the kitchen. Since moving in to our house 4 years ago I have hated our stove with the fire of a thousand suns. Only 2 of the burners worked and the oven consistently heated far beyond what we set it for. Since we are looking to move sometime next year we decided a while back that when we replaced the stove we'd buy a new refrigerator so they would match. So we did! And here they are.
My smart husband had the brilliant idea of putting the old fridge in our garage so now we have extra fridge and freezer space for storage. Can anyone here say "boiled peanuts all year 'round??"
So yeah, we have been very, very busy. But all three of our home improvement projects are now complete! This will make it much easier to put the house on the market next year in the event that the perfect house shows up and we need to sell quickly.
That's all for now- love to you all!
