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:

The Chop and I, like virtually everyone else within about 200 miles, have water in our basement. Due to this lovely “50-year storm” the news is dissecting in every possible way (I counted no less than 10 front page stories on the rain. Really? 10?).

Sadly it’s a finished basement, and now, after two days of using a wet vac, we are calling in the big guns to rip out the carpet. The sad part is that we actually have three sump pumps, and they never stopped working—the damn water just wouldn’t stop coming in.

For something more enjoyable…

So it’s been raining for three days and three nights, which frankly makes me want to kill myself.

More importantly, it’s been flooding for three days and three nights, which overall was fine, until last night when the Chop checked the basement and lo and behold, water!

Upside was that it was only a small section of the finished basement, and I had wanted to pull out the carpet and put in slate anyway. Downside was that we spent two hours pulling up carpet and carpet padding, which was fucking GLUED TO THE DAMN CONCRETE FLOOR, and attempting to soak up the standing water.

Today the sun is shining (of course it is) and the water appears to have stopped coming in. And in three weeks my parents are coming for a visit and booyah, Daddy’s got a project! 😀

My LFTs came back last week—elevated, as expected. I now have an appointment with my liver doc, an appointment with a new, hi-risk OBGYN at the best hospital in the area and a inordinate level of stress that I’m trying to corral.

We upped my SAM e, which has helped immeasurably with the slight itching and overall exhaustion, but I’m still slightly freaking out. My mother is really no help, talking about several months of bed rest, them potentially moving in toward the end (kill me, seriously) and the possibility that we will have to induce me early.

Personally I’m trying to take a positive approach to the whole thing… and it mostly works, on days I don’t feel sick or really tired or my side is really sore, lol.

I started SAM e yesterday and I’m frankly terrified. I’m having symptoms of being sick again, and after checking with my Dad, decided to try the treatment that worked four years ago. So far, I’ve been hardly nauseated at all and the itching is mostly gone—but no one knows what SAM e does to babies, so I’m basically freaking the fuck out.

My OBGYN isn’t in today and my LFTs (liver tests) aren’t back yet, so basically it’s take a couple of pills and hope nothing bad happens. Very discouraging, to my mind.

There’s something called cholestasis of pregnancy, where in the third trimester you get itchy and your body isn’t putting out enough bile because of the hormones. I’m pretty sure I’m experiencing that, but in my first trimester, which is probably a bad sign. It is bad for the baby, and the suggested treatment is everything that never worked for me before when I was sick—so in my mind, this treatment is the only way to help.

It’s a very disconcerting feeling, wondering if my taking the SAM e (which is an over the counter pill) will help me, but hurt the kid.

It’s very hard to be low-stress lately.

If I have a singular skill, it’s that I am incapable of backing out of my driveway when I am: tired/stressed/ill/excited.

Time #1: Was mad at my mom, backed into her van—or rather, according to her, “floored it and landed on” her van. I think I was 17.

Time #2: Backed into the Chop’s car last year during the move. I had my car full of stuff and honestly did not see his car and didn’t even think about it possibly being there. I broke a light and crunched in his hood the tiniest bit.

Time #3: This morning I backed the right side of the car into the garage as I was pulling out. I ripped the glass out of my side view mirror (the casing is pretty busted too, but still hanging on!) and ripped some weather stripping and wood off the garage. I’m really busy and stressed and frankly exhausted lately, so yeah.

I think I need the kind of car that beeps or yells when it senses something behind me. But it’s gotta be really loud, and really, really sensitive… because even as I was hearing my mirror crunch, I didn’t stop backing up. Nice, right? I finished pulling out, putting a nice scrape on my bumper (the Liberty’s have a plastic-type bumper, so really I just buff it and it goes away, but still).

Then I cursed a blue streak. Not a great start to the day, lol.

We’re supposed to get something like 10 inches of snow and I swear to god, they are acting like it’s the “big one” that will keep us in our homes for days. They have closed schools, canceled mail (WTF THE MAIL?! what happened to “neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor dark of night”??) and people are already driving like grannies—even though maybe 1/2 inch is on the ground.

I have rage about this because half of my clients are rushing to push out emails, some canceling events, some that they are just afraid we won’t get to tomorrow because of the weather… hello, I work from home? I guarantee you the Internet will survive 10 inches of snow. Sigh.