Yesterday marked 35 weeks of pregnancy for me — 35 long, slow, hot weeks, lol. I had an ultrasound on Monday and he is now 6lbs 7oz (+/- 17 oz, so who the hell knows) and today at my other appointment I measured 2 full weeks bigger. Kill me now.

My parents have been here the past couple of days, and my basement? Still not done. Although I am heading downstairs now to see exactly how much more time will be needed. We are at 20 days (including two Saturdays) and I am more than ready for the process to be over.

Sadly they spotted a leak that’s coming from a small crack in a tile in my upstairs bathroom… which means I will now have to have them come back to look into the wall and see if I have mold and to fix the crack. The baby and I are very highly annoyed.

My dad is going to a rally in DC tomorrow — he’s so excited it’s kinda sad. Initially my mom said it was rude coming here, then going down there, but we’ve decided he’s too much of a handful, so sure, take a bus down 8 hours, go to a Glenn Beck rally with Sarah Palin (I know, I know, our politics are soooo polar opposite) and then take a bus back 8 hours. Have fun! We’ll be here chilling. Heading to dinner. Eating ice cream. Definitely not riding on a bus for 8 hours with a bunch of gun-toting crazy people :P

The basement guys started yesterday. Apparently they moved the heavy stuff (couch, chair, etc.) to the garage and put down sealant. Then they left. I actually think they left around 2ish, but honestly I don’t remember—it’s too hot for me to pay attention to that shit.

They called and said, we’ll be by tomorrow to check and see if it’s dry, but it might not be, so we’ll have to hold off.

Did they come by today? No. Did the Chop call them? Yes. And what did they say? Apparently it will take two days for the sealant to dry, but they guess they can come by tonight to check.

Irritation level is currently very fucking high.

Today I had a meeting that lasted from 915AM to 415PM. Seven hours in one room with two, sometimes three people, where we attempted to compile accurate lists of their products on their website. It was excruciating.

The worst part was that we were in a closed room—meaning the temperature did not come down from around 79 all day. And we sat virtually the entire time. So not only was I boiling, but the baby crawled his way up to my ribs and decided to stay there kicking for seven hours.

Tomorrow the final step in the basement process begins and oy, I am not looking forward to having “company” every day for two weeks. Especially considering the 90 degree temps they are forecasting. I cleaned Sunday, then did a little bit of weeding and spent all of Monday in pain—hello back and abdominal muscles. Do I need to use you all to clean? Apparently, yes.

Every since we had the nasty rains in March, our basement has been disaster zone numero uno. We had it dried out rather quickly (10 days worth of fans), but picking a company to due prevention AND picking a company to finish it again was a pain in the ass. Fortunately, the drains and new pumps are in and now it’s just a matter of having it turned back into the space it was. That starts in a week and a half and today we spent part of the morning visiting tile stores and trying to envision 1000 sq ft of finished space.

Initially I planned to buy the tile online, which seemed like a fabulous idea… until they wanted to charge $700 for delivery. Oy. So now we’re buying it local, which will cost a touch more per sq ft, but less than if we had to pay an extra $700 for shipping.

The worst part is I’m due in less than two months and it’s not done yet. They tell us it’ll take two weeks, and they can start in the first week of August (awesome, I can’t wait to have people walking around when it’s this freaking hot and all I want to do is where boxers and a tank top), but we can’t move the basement stuff downstairs until it’s over… and so the nursery is full of boxes. And cats. Argh.

I’m itching to finish the nursery and wash and put away all the cute stuff we have—perhaps I’m nesting, but I think it’s just because I like to plan. Not having stuff done makes me slightly anxious, especially because babies do not have the best record for timing.

We’re in day four of the second heat wave of the past month and I want to die. Being pregnant in the summer is quite possibly the worst time—especially if you don’t have central a/c and you work with a laptop (hello heat wave on the legs).

Thursday marks 30 weeks of being pregnant, and the past couple of been my least favorite. I passed the first glucose test, but just barely, so they made me take it again. Some BS about my liver and blah blah and the next thing you know I’m sitting in a hospital for 3.5 hours, getting my blood drawn every hour. This, after fasting since the night before and swigging 100 ML of the nastiest orange drink known to man. Friday was a rough day.

Our last ultrasound was about a week and a half ago (I know, I know, I’m behind), and I’ve decided my baby looks like Gollum:

The tech helpfully took a picture of his foot, too, seeing as how it’s permanently affixed to the underside of my ribs:

They tell me the kicking is a good sign that he might come early, and honestly, it is my one desire. Four weeks early kid, you can do it!

Yet another fun aspect of pregnancy? Pregnancy brain. (And yes, that is the technical term for it.) Basically the brain swells a bit when you are pregnant and certain aspects, namely memory, become hampered. Fortunately it goes away once the baby is born, but for now, I’m stuck with a worse-than-usual short-term memory (ie, I literally have to right everything down from a 10 minute meeting or I forget everything from the first 5 minutes) and an odd habit of just forgetting words in the middle of sentences.

The Chop thinks this is awesome. Particularly today when I said, “yippity do da doo bird,” or something along those lines. Basically I make no sense. It’s highly irritating to me, but highly entertaining to those I work and live with—yet another aspect of pregnancy that they don’t tell you occurs.

When we were in Provincetown I went and got a pedicure at a local salon, where two early-20-year-olds were working. They ooh’d and aah’d about my stomach, felt the baby kick and we discussed all the stuff that nobody mentions about pregnancy…

Your feet hurt, your back hurts, your stomach hurts, you can’t get up by yourself, putting on pants is painful, you don’t sleep well (or at all), it’s freaking hot, you get random heartburn FOR NO REASON (even if you just drink water), your feet swell if you’re on them too much, you can’t shave your legs comfortably, you run into things constantly and, oh yeah, sex becomes a logistical nightmare.

Happy Fourth of July!

They started on our basement today, jackhammering through the concrete to lay French-type drains around the perimeter. This would be fine if I wasn’t here, or was able to sit on the porch, but a) I’m blocked in and EVERYONE thought I should stay here to supervise (although it’s not like I’m going downstairs, but whatever) and b) the porch is 80 degrees, like the damn outside.

So I’m in the living room with the lovely air conditioner and the overwhelmingly loud sound of jackhammers—so loud, in fact, they’ve knocked over a painting, knocked some stuff off a coffee table and have sent the dog into spasms.

I present, for your listening pleasure, the music of the next three days: Sounds from the Basement.

(Mind you, it’s way louder when not recorded through your laptop’s microphone.)

When we bought our house, we knew our gardens were going to be a pain in the ass… but they were so nice, and beautifully landscaped… and half a freaking acre. The guy who owned the house was a contractor/handyman type and it’s evident in all the awesome details (hardwood floors, gorgeous kitchen, three bathrooms) and in the yard. We have huge trees (perfect for tree houses), buckets of different flowers, lots of grass, and our own well with built in sprinklers — we also have a company that weeds, mulches, etc. and a company that maintains the sprinklers. Hi, home ownership? Fucking expensive.

Sadly the sprinklers in the backyard went on this morning around 4 and haven’t shut off, despite me flipping the turn off valve, so now my backyard is like Jungle Book and the cats are having a party. So far cardinals, bluejays, some random black birds, squirrels and two bunnies have decided that our backyard is their new sanctuary. Aside from the incessant chirping, I’m highly entertained. It is 85 degrees (on it’s way to a high of 90, thank you fucking hot wave! I LOVE 90 degrees when I’m 5 1/2 months pregnant) though, so I get the love affair they’re all having with water spouting from the ground. On the other hand, two squirrels are copulating and that’s really kinda creepy.

In more entertaining news, the baby is finally kicking enough for other people to feel him (I’ve felt him for a couple of weeks), so after I had a crazy dream where the baby’s foot was formed and pushing enough that I thought I could feel his toes and see his full foot and ankle near my belly button (pregnancy dreams = insane), I woke the Chop up.

So if you’re in the neighborhood and bored at 7AM, feel free to drop by. There’s a Mariachi band that seems to start playing about that time.

When I was about 17 the alternator gave out on the Jeep I was driving. Highly terrifying, I was lucky to have it happen right before I got on a bridge, and right above a street that descended to the house of a friend. When your alternator stops working, your entire car stops working. All the dials go to zero, no radio, air, the car powers itself off — and you can’t turn your wheel either.

This morning, going about 75 on the freeway, my alternator, for lack of a better word, fluxed. My car shut down and using the momentum I had, I attempted to exit the freeway, forgetting that my wheel was not so keen to turn. I ended up pulling off in the middle of a turning exit lane (awesome, I know), cruising over a cement barrier and settling in the dirt.

And then, I tried to turn my car back on. Which, admittedly, might’ve been a bad idea… except it turned on. I pulled back onto the road, turned around and got back onto the freeway and arrived at work with no other problems.

So I’ve decided a) someone set off an EMP of some sort that temporarily knocked out the power of my car (and yeah, sure, no one else was affected, but it was aimed at me!) or b) my car had some sort of crazy hiccup and now it’s fine.

I have my fingers crossed I’ll be able to turn it on and get home, because I don’t really want to have it towed 45 miles back to the mechanic where we live. And the Chop really doesn’t want to have to come and get me, lol.

Yesterday we received a check from FEMA, a “grant” if you will, to help cover “some” of our basement expenses. The Chop, being the smart guy that he is, is all, I’m just glad they sent us something! Me, being the practical (read: bitchy) person that I am, is trying to figure out how they came up with just over $600.

Especially considering DRYING the basement was around $3000. And I received our electric bill for last month, with all those fun dryers, and that was over $400. So seriously, what the fuck is $600? We’ve received quotes to add French drains, add new sump pumps, finish the basement with tile and redo the walls and so far, it’s most definitely going to cost over $20K—hello SMA disaster loan—so to me, $600 feels like nothing.

Also, definitely boy. And the nice ultrasound tech wrote it on there helpfully, just in case we weren’t positive: