Fix it or Replace it?

We are reaching a turning point in every car owner's life: When should you keep fixing a car you own vs. getting a new (used) one?

The situation:

Jon has a fine car. It has 91,000+ miles on it and is almost 8 years old. Earlier this year we had to replace the entire cooling system to the tune of...$2000 or so, if I remember right. He just replaced the windshiled. At 40,000 miles he replaced the clutch. But alas, now the care seems to be having troubles again. And, hooray hooray, it appears to be the oh-so-cheap transmission! So...do we keep sinking money into a car pushing 100k miles? A car that was the first model year the PT Cruiser existed? One that has started costing a lot of money to fix one thing after another? Or do we trade it in for whatever we can get and find a nice used car instead?

It's always one thing after another.

If we do get a new car, it will be used. We'd ideally like a wagon-style body. The shape and size of the PT Cruiser has been nice, I just hate driving it because the windshield is too low and cuts off my line of vision. Since my car is a two door, this new car would likely become the "baby" car, as in the car either of us drive when we have the baby.

Jon dropped his car off at the mechanic this morning and they will try to get a look at it today. We'll know more once we get a price estimate on the repairs. But...after the mechanic drove it around the block with Jon to get a feel for what was the issue, the car no longer went into reverse. It went into reverse yesterday. It's not looking so good...

Biting the bullet

Alright, people. I have hated my hair for the past nine months. A rogue stylist making me look like Joan Jett circa 1984 back in February has led to a long string of disappointing haircuts and an attempt to grow out some sort of style for myself. I have cried at my desk at least two times because I hated my hair so much. (OK, OK, so it's probably more about the horomones than the haircut, but still.) It's just shapeless and styleless and blah. Now I'm having a baby in a couple of weeks and I've got more important things to worry about than how much my hair drives me crazy. The madness must end.

So I'm biting the bullet. I'm going to a real salon with a real reputation and a real price to match. I'm going tomorrow. I'm going in with hope, but tempered expectations. The salon is across from Jon's tattoo shop and he says they are always busy and everyone comes out looking happy. I certainly hope so. I need a hip, fun, easy, awesome style!!

If all goes well, I'll post some pictures.

Full term

I am full term. That means if I go into labor, the hospital will just let it happen and there likely will be no detrimental effect to my child. So...let's get this show on the road! It is CRUEL that pregnancy lasts somewhere between 37 and 42 weeks. (Which is TEN months, by the way...not nine!) That is a big gap! Five weeks of "it might happen any time now" is a long time to sit around waiting. Even though first-time mothers usually deliver later rather than earlier, it is still in my mind that it *could* happen any time. My mom had me three weeks early and I was her first baby. But then my brother was late, after putting my mom on bed rest for a while. Really, it's just a crap shoot. Waiting and waiting, growing and growing. I keep reminding myself that up until 40 weeks, it is better for my child to stay inside the womb where she can keep learning how to do all the stuff she'll need to know once she's born. Better for her.

Patience has never been my greatest gift.

My to-do list is not getting any shorter:

* Unbox, assemble, and install all the car seats, car seat paraphernalia and stroller. (This is really for Jon.)
* Unpack all the lovely gifts we got at the baby shower.
* Put all the stuff I've purchased in the last three weeks into the baby's room in some sort of organized fashion.
* Stop dreaming of the too-cute preppy looks currently selling at the Baby Gap. (Seriously, plaid corduroy jumpers? Most adorable ever.)
* Buy a few button-front shirts so I can breastfeed outside the house. I have no button-front shirts because button-front shirts tend not to be my friend.
* Stop piling last night's clothes in the bassinet. It is not a laundry hamper. There will soon be a sleeping child in there.
* Stop worrying about labor. It's happening and it will be fine.
* Put all the small furniture items back in the baby's room now that the carpets have been professionally cleaned. (They still look pretty bad, but soooo much better than before.)
* Pack the hospital bag.
* Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep.

That last "to do" is particularly important because I have been fighting off a cold or something for the past few days. I've got that scratchy throat, fog head, hot eyes feeling you get before you get sick. Which is totally NOT what I need right now. I've been pounding the OJ and trying to rest as much as I can. Sadly, rest is not very restful. I'm usually pretty good about fighting things off at the very first sign of ickiness, before it becomes a full-blown cold or flu, but my body is so tired, so run down, so focused on growing this baby and nothing else, that I'm afraid my tried and true methods of prevention will fail me. We'll see what the next few days have in store.

Cutest puppy earth

I have the cutest puppy in the world. Seriously.

Did you know?

Did you know a woman is supposed to stop gaining weight the last few weeks of her pregnancy? This seems silly to me for two reasons:

1. My baby is eating all my food. I'm sure of it. Because I am hungry ALL THE TIME. And not like a little hungry, seriously hungry. Woozy headed and passing out from the hunger kind of hungry. Eating a dinner salad and half a plate of garlic bread and and most of a piece of lasagna and three glasses of water all in one sitting kind of hungry (which is quite different from the "oh I don't have any room in my abdomen for food" kind of hungry I was getting before, where a piece of apple and small bowl of cereal would stuff me).

2. I have absolutely zero energy to cook any kind of meal, let alone a nutritious and balanced meal, which means I'm eating prepackaged and processed foods quite frequently. Sodium and evil chemicals be damned. I'm too hungry (and tired) to cook!

So how is a girl not supposed to keep putting on the pounds under these circumstances? I'm not worried about it one iota, but I read things about how your weight gain will stop around this time and I laugh. Laugh out loud. Heartily. A belly laugh. A big empty starving belly laugh.

Exchequered

I have embarked on the following project:



I am knitting it in a dark charcoal gray and soft earthy green, for Jon. (Although the colors are so lovely I may steal it back this winter.) I bought baby alpaca yarn and it is so very very soft. I wanted to knit, to keep my hands busy, to get back into the rhythm of it, but not follow a complicated pattern. However, I didn't want to knit something for the baby because I got a little frustrated with the pants I recently finished when I realized I have NO IDEA what size a baby is, let alone my as-yet-unborn baby. And I didn't want to knit something with a complicated pattern since I am swiss cheese brain lately. I forget what I am doing, or where I am in the pattern, I get pulled away for a moment and I can't refocus.

This project is perfect because I can make the pattern up as I go (basically just counting by blocks of three) or follow the pattern laid out for me. AND I learned a new, yet easy, skill: double knitting. For those not in the know, double knitting is where you knit the front and back of the piece at the same time, basically creating a reverse pattern on one side. It's nice for scarfs where the things flips around a lot and you don't want to see a scraggly bumpy "back" side. Double knitting is very simple, but very slow, so I hope I can finish the scarf before I go into labor.

Which, by my calculations, is VERY CLOSE! 25 days to my due date!

Holy Cow

Alright people, we're getting down to the wire. I am LESS THAN A MONTH from my due date! That is almost unbelievable. I keep hearing the last month is the longest month, and I can certainly see that being true. You just get bigger and bigger, and the anticipation mounts and mounts, but you can do nothing but wait.

I'm feeling surprisingly good today. I slept poorly last night, of course, but not as poorly as I have the few previous nights. I haven't had to do much this morning, just working from home, hanging with the dogs. We are having our carpets cleaned tomorrow so Jon was working all morning to get everything off the floors. Our kitchen and bedroom closet are absolutely stuffed with miscellaneous items that usually reside in the living room, baby's room or bedroom. Laundry hamper, small bookshelves, dog toy bin, lamps, chairs, etc. He is so nice for moving everything, because I was no help at all.

This weekend my aunt hosted a baby shower for me and little Baby Evelyn to be. It was really nice to see a few people I haven't seen in YEARS, a few others I haven't seen in many months, and just generally to catch up with all the women in my life. My mom also was in town so I got to spend a day and a half with her.

She is off to Virginia now to visit her newest grandchild. She'll be back here shortly after I give birth, so I'm looking forward to that. She probably won't be staying with us, since our apartment is so very very small, but she may stay for a few nights. We'll just have to see how things are working out. If I'm feeling really overwhelmed and want my mommy, or if I'm feeling really overwhelmed and just want to be alone (with my husband). Luckily, all the mothers have said they'll do whatever is best for us and not take offense if I ask them to go home at night. So nice.

One month!