building an arky, arky!

Well, talk about a crazy and insane week!!! Last weekend was crazy super cold! The low's were down to 3 and 4 degrees at night with wind and a feels like temp of zero. We were super excited to be home over the weekend and building fires and just hanging out. We have both been sick with sinus colds and I think his has developed into a sinus infection which we are attempting to take care of holistically with the neti pot and grapefruit seed extract. I think he is doing much better. Anyhow, on Sat. night I was finishing laundry and we were both chillin in bed (him playing a video game and me reading) when we heard a loud pop/snap. The cats all were alarmed and I was like, what was that...he blamed Maggie for being mischievous in the bedroom. But she was snoozing on a dining room chair. So we shrugged our shoulders and went back to our chillaxin. As I went to put away laundry we had standing water in our closet. I began to freak out as we had our water heater overflow or something when we first moved in and it flooded everything too. So he came and looked, and it wasn't the water heater. A little more investigation showed that it was a pipe (our water source and electrical box is in a storage area on the other side of our closet, but outside) that lead to an outside spigot and it had frozen from the outside in and split the pipe. The pipe was spraying water and there was two or three inches of standing water in that room...and it was leaking into our house. The entire bedroom carpet was soaked, the water ran into our bathroom and out into the kitchen, into the closet and out into the living room. So, we had to borrow a mini shop vac and do what we could and I used every single towel (after I had just done laundry) and even some sheets to mop up and dry out the remaining water. A lot of the water was in that outside room and it was snowing and getting nasty outside as he was sucking up the water in the freezing cold! We had to haul some furniture out from the bedroom into the living room (which we literally already live in...the bed is in the living room like we live in a studio apartment because we don't have a couch). So our Saturday night was spent cleaning and doing flood relief. We then didn't have water until Sunday when our landlord/maintenance man came over to survey the situation and fix the pipe. So Sunday was spent doing laundry all over again. And to add insult to injury during the cleaning process I knocked an entire cup of coffee over on the bed and had to strip it and wash all of the sheets and afghan! *sigh* Needless to say this caused me to have a major meltdown!!!

Monday was MLK day and I finished the laundry and put it all away and hung out with my friend Sarah for the day. It began snowing pretty good that afternoon and then got down to 13 and the high for Tues. was only 25 so they called off school and we had a snow day. I spent the day reading books that I assigned to my middle school English classes. If any of you like historical/juvenile fiction, let me recommend "Rifles for Watie" by Harold Keith. It is based during the Civil War and it is beyond excellent. If you have a kid in the age range of 12-16...this is a great read. I could barely put it down!

We went back to school on Wed. and hit the ground running making up for lost time and starting a new semester. My sinus cold is finally winding down but I ate something a day or two ago and suffered from HORRIBLE heartburn for almost 24 hours straight. I hear a lot of pregnant women spend their entire pregnancy with heartburn. I can thank the Lord Jesus that this has not been me. I joke that God never lets my first time in anything be overly traumatic because he knows I won't ever allow a second round. The first time I went backpacking...it didn't rain at all and I didn't get a single blister. I thought, well this sucked, but it wasn't too bad. The next year and every year after that I had blisters to the point of toenails falling off and it rained like mad! But I was hooked. So I haven't had any morning sickness and only slight heartburn. I wonder what all of my future pregnancies will be like! haha.

Well that is it for news. Just thought I would fill you in. Hope all of you are well and I would love to hear how you are doing!

140 bpm

Well, today I had another Dr. appointment. The visit started off with them taking blood from me to run tests to see if the baby might have some sort of defect. I made it clear that no matter what we found out, it wouldn't change the final outcome...we are having this baby! Well, three pricks in the arm and still no blood and the nurse gave up and had someone else try my hand. That was successful. then we listened to the heartbeat. It was beating away in there...140 beats per minute. I have heard (an old wives tale) that if the baby's heartbeat is consistently under 150, it is a girl and if it is consistently over 150 it is a boy. We will know next month. On Feb. 12th (just before Valentine's day!) whether Lima Bean is a girl or a boy!!! I don't really care, but for whatever reason, I am sort of hoping for a girl. I always wanted a boy first, but maybe because almost all of my friends already have boys, I want a girl. Plus I LOVE the name we have picked. Delia (Deal-ee-uh) Ann Wooten. But of course all I really want is a healthy baby.

So I am sorry I haven't written anything in so long. I have been fighting a sinus cold all week and have had a sore throat! And last week was our first week back to school after the break and I am feeling so much better that I have been teaching up a storm which generates more work for me to grade. Tomorrow is the last day of the quarter and I am hustling to get all of my grades into my grade book and averaged so that I can enjoy my three day weekend! We have Monday off for MLK day. Get excited.

The other big news is that Chris finally found a job! He is doing construction clean up for our new performing arts center. It is all indoor work right now and I am thankful for that because it has been very cold here (high's being in the low 30's). The only bad thing is that he is standing/walking on concrete all day and it is super hard on his feet and back. He needs different shoes and we are looking into getting him a pair of z-coil shoes if we can afford it when he gets his paycheck. I am just so glad that it isn't just my small wage we are having to live on anymore. So that takes a huge amount of stress off me. Just pray for him and his back (he hurt it severely, like couldn't walk and then could only drag one leg...4 or 5 years ago when he worked for BMW). Pray that he stays out of pain and that the Lord would continue to provide for us.

I would just ask that you would pray for me as my entire body hurts. My back is in severe pain and Lima Bean is pushing on my sciatic nerve and for the most part I feel like I got hit by a car. All of this is to be attributed to my body changing and making room for the baby. But pray for me to get good rest. I am already not sleeping well. I can't handle it!

Well, that is all the news here! We are in for a cold night tonight...low of 5 degrees! Brr!!! We will have a fire in the fireplace tonight! The high is only 26 degrees tomorrow. chilly!!!!

Love you all!!! Keep me posted on YOU!