Mistress of Disguise

Weekend started off with a grocery pickup after work. Came home and made a big pot of spaghetti sauce, which lasted us through the entire weekend. There's even enough left over for tonight, which is nice because I have my first OB appointment today and don't really want to have to think about cooking after that.

Saturday was a pretty decent day. M was in a terrible mood, but he channeled it into car repairs since the Jeep is still overheating. He was gone most of the day, and it was just me and baby, who was in a delightful mood, didn't fight her naps, and was generally just very chill and cuddly. 

I felt pretty good, so I worked on catching up on some chores. I swept and cleaned the living room floor, washed the windows and windowsills, and put away the clean dishes. The house feels lighter now, and I think the clutter of everything was getting to all of us.

Once M got home he pretty much stayed on his computer the rest of the day. The baby went down for bed at 8, and I passed out on the couch. M woke me up around midnight, and we moved the baby to her bed so I could sleep in my own bed, and M stayed up in the living room playing games for a few more hours.

Sunday was not so good. M's phone had an overnight update, which always resets his alarm so that it goes off at 8AM, so I was up at 8AM. I was completely exhausted because couch sleep is never great sleep. The baby was in A Mood and was fussy and full of tantrums. She finally went down for her nap around noon, and I fell asleep on the couch, only to be woken by M about 45 minutes later when he got up. 

He apologized for forgetting that it was Mother's Day. I told him I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, so I went to bed and he watched the baby for a while. Unfortunately, the baby monitor woke me up when the baby woke at 2, because he forgot to turn it off when he left the room earlier. -_- 

M told me to take it easy the rest of the day, which I attempted to do, but baby was very fussy. I didn't do any chores, but baby wrangling took a lot of my very limited bandwidth. She fought her bedtime ferociously, so I let her stay up a bit later and gave her plenty of warm milk, and that seemed to do the trick because she went down pretty easily after that.

The bathtub faucet is getting worse, and maintenance is ignoring our pleas. There's so much humidity that the door to the shower room is swollen and won't shut, and there's water running down the walls. Out of desperation I stole the fan from the baby's room and pointed it at the shower room to try and disperse the humidity. I have no idea if it's helping, but it's all I can do since we have no way to shut off our own water or do the repair ourselves. We left a dozen messages with maintenance, all to no avail, and no one at the main office has answered the phone in literally weeks. 

Went home at lunch and stayed there, but it was not the restful afternoon I'd hoped for. The baby was on a tear and was having a very rough day, crying at the drop of a hat, screaming at everything, just generally having a tough time. She did get in a two-hour nap, and it was nice to have a little bit of quiet time to myself, but she woke up wailing inconsolably, to the point we thought something was physically wrong with her. 

But no, she was just having a bad day. 

M had an enormous number of accounts come in, and was unable to help with her at all. In fact, he was so stressed about work that he was actively unhelpful, just coming out of the office everyone once in a while to vent or complain and then disappear again. I eventually packed the baby up and took her outside to play, where she got nice and muddy from the recent rains and had a good time. She got a good bath afterward, which I had hoped would cheer her, but she went right back to yelling.

Eventually the mystery was solved, though. After her just standing in the living room and screaming repeatedly I just said "WHAT?! Use your words, what do you want?!" and she did the sign for "hungry" (she has a bit of sign language, which has been very helpful), so I made her a big pot of noodles, and a sandwich, and some cheese, and some fruit, and finally, FINALLY, she was settled and happy. 

She's definitely going through a growth spurt, because she is a little eating machine. 

After her feast she was finally settled enough to realize how sleepy she was, and she went to bed without much fuss. I ate the last of my pizza and M and I watched the last episodes of Common Side Effects. It's an excellent show, probably one of the best I've seen in recent years, highly recommend.

M talked a bit about how stressed he is, and is coming more solidly to the conclusion that I may have to stay home once #2 is born. It's still in discussion, but I don't think he realizes how much work watching two kids while trying to do his job is going to be. Some days he's sure it won't be that much more work, and then days like yesterday he feels like going over a cliff. I'm all on board for staying home, so hopefully he catches up to me soon.

Maintenance made an appearance to look at our leaking bathtub faucet, which has been running continuously for about a week now. He concluded that he's going to have to buy the part for it, since we have one of the few renovated apartments with updated fixtures and not the stock stuff they have, and said that he'd be back. He also told us that he is now the only maintenance man for the entire complex, because the temps that they had hired the week before had all quit. It's now just him and a porter. Swell. We told him our AC had been out for nearly 2 months now, and he said that he knew nothing about ACs and couldn't help us. Super.

Big nothing burger of a weekend, as wooziness had me mostly just laid up on the couch. 

Friday I made a big pot of stew to last us the weekend, and that was my only accomplishment for the entirety of it. 

Sunday I woke up woozy, but craving mac &cheese, so I whipped up a pot of it that lasted about half the day. The rest of Sunday I was so incredibly sick that I could not be vertical. I laid on the couch most of the day and did very little. Dinner was frozen pizzas all around, and once the baby was in bed, so was I. 

Watched the premier episode of Miss Austen, a new Masterpiece limited series about Cassandra Austen. I didn't really get to pay as close attention as I wanted because there was too much going on in the living room at the time, but it seems pretty enjoyable. I did notice that one of the young Cassandra's dresses was made of the same fabric as Ellen's blue dress in Nosferatu. 

Torrential downpour yesterday right as I started my lunch break, of course. Ended up walking through downtown barefoot so I didn't waterlog my only pair of shoes.

While making sandwiches for our lunches, I discovered that all our tomatoes are pretty soft, which means it's time to make soup. It's supposed to be very pleasant this weekend, which will be perfect for tomato soup and grilled cheeses. 

Despite having a pretty sizable sandwich for lunch, I was completely ravenous by the time I got home after work. I quickly heated up the remainder of the Toscana soup and made some grilled cheese sandwiches to supplement. 

And then I completely hit a wall of exhaustion. My brain shut off for the rest of the evening, and I barely functioned until bedtime. M gave the baby her bath, I took a shower, and then I went to bed to try and get to sleep as soon as possible. Which was thwarted by a chatty M who wanted to talk pregnancy logistics. -_-

Been having a lot of dreams lately about sewing and going to events. Hmmm. Maybe my slump wants to end? It's always natural form fashion, too, so maybe I should see about working on my red dress this weekend. If I have the energy, anyway.

Very spacey today. Tried to start the car with the house key. Zoning out quite a bit. 

Had a novel burst of cleaning energy right when I woke up, and ended up scrubbing the bathroom floor before work. ~shrugs~ Nesting must be kicking in.

Lovely and foggy on the way in to work today. We don't get many foggy days down here, so I enjoy them when we do.

Baby has her checkup this afternoon, then I will attempt to make dinner. Thankfully, we have frozen pizzas in case I can't muster up a real meal.

Left work early yesterday feeling ROUGH. Went home and laid down on the couch while the baby ran around and tried to force feed me pretzels. (Her favorite thing right now is feeding other people by aggressively shoving food into your pie hole. She is very excited to share.) 

M did a Sam's run and picked up some much needed small foods for the baby. She got very excited about the boxes of fruit cups, and proceeded to eat three babybel cheeses.

It took me all evening, but I managed to make a pot of Toscana for dinner. It turned out particularly well because I let the onions fry up a bit instead of just getting them translucent, and it added some nice flavor to the soup. I didn't finish making it until after 9pm because it was HOT in the house, and I had to take multiple breaks to cool down and rest. 

Oh yeah, Maintenance ghosted us again yesterday. -_- This morning no one answered in the office and the emergency maintenance line went straight to voicemail. >| 

danabren posted about a hefty chunk of import taxes added to a Temu order, so out of curiosity I checked my Chinese shop of choice, AliExpress. A good number of the items now have a line for "estimated charges" which are often at least double or triple the cost of the item. The ones shipped by AliExpress directly have the lowest charges at less than $1 marked as "import taxes" (I'm guessing maybe there's a stateside warehouse these ship from?), but there were also many items in my cart that are now greyed out with the note "item not deliverable to selected country/region". Good thing I have a hefty stash.

Went home for lunch at the usual time yesterday, and that ended up being the end of my work day. I was so nauseous and so exhausted that I texted the Captain and said I was taking a half day. 

I ended up napping on the couch for about an hour while the baby was napping. M pulled a ham out of the freezer for dinner and threw it in the oven once it was defrosted. He ran to the store while it was cooking to pick up a few things. The smell of the cooking ham nearly tipped me over the edge, and I was NOT doing well. I ended up just eating half a family pack of Hawaiian rolls for dinner, since bread was about all I could tolerate.

I ended up in bed at around 8 and passed out not long after. My stupid brain woke me up at 4:30, the baby's usually wakeup fussy time, but thankfully she was still asleep, and she continued to sleep the rest of the night, which allowed me to catch up, too. 

Woke up this morning feeling mostly okay. Stomach still makes a rumble now and then, but not anything like yesterday. Hawaiian rolls for breakfast, and a piece of German chocolate cake that the kitchen put out in the ODR. So far, so good.

No plans for the weekend. There's a lecture on medieval gardens before populace on Monday, which I'm thinking of going to. We'll see how I'm feeling come Monday night.

It was sticky and hot yesterday, and I had to sit in the air conditioned bedroom upon arriving home from work in order to cool down and catch my breath. Yuck. I hate the heat. I used to love it as a kid, but now it's just miserable. 

A part for one of M's gun builds came in yesterday, so he was busy with assembly when I came home. He left not long after to test the new bits at the range, so I had the house to myself most of the night.

I had an intense craving for mac 'n cheese, and I managed to whip up and excellent pot of it. I attribute the success to plenty of mustard powder and the fact that I was out of milk and had to use watered down cream instead. 

M came home just as I had put the baby down for bed, so of course she woke up when she heard him come in. He ended up being the one to transfer her to her crib from the pack and play and get her down so I didn't have to do it. He was very chatty and excited about his successful build, so we sat on the couch as he told me all about it. I turned in at around 9 and was asleep by 9:30, which was desperately needed.

Had a lovely storm last night, which I only witnessed because the baby woke me up at 5. Thankfully she was cooperative this time, and went back to sleep pretty much right away.

First bout of morning sickness this morning. Hooray. I sure missed that, I tell you what.

The weekend was busy busy. Friday was fairly normal until M got fed up with maintenance flaking on us, and he cashed in some of his work reward points for a Lowe's gift card and bought us some window units for the bedrooms. 

I don't know why he always does these things late at night, but he came home around 10pm with the AC units and since we had to install them that night or apparently doom would befall us, we ended up working until 1AM getting them put in. It had already been past my bedtime when he came home, so I was struggling by the time we were done. Of course, things would have gone faster if we hadn't had to do a massive rearrangement of the baby's room/office to get to the needed outlet.

You see, M's game shelf that has his entire collection on it had started falling apart, and two of the shelves actually collapsed a couple of weeks ago. Instead of taking all the games off of it right then, he sort of just shuffled things around and put it off. Well, the outlet we needed was behind the dying bookcase, so a large part of getting the AC installed in that room involved unpacking the bookcase, boxing everything up, and moving furniture around. It was chaotic and messy, and took forever.

Thankfully, the AC in our bedroom took much less time to install, and I was able to go to bed right afterward and pass out. Had a short night because the baby was up at her usual time.

But, at least we slept in a cool room!

Saturday was lunch with Liz since she was in town, which was lovely if brief. We went to a nearby Cracker Barrel, which was middling, and then we went to the antique mall up the street, which was fun to poke around in. I was completely exhausted, so we only spent about an hour in the mall before we headed back to the apartment. We spent some time chatting on the couch before her husband came to pick her up. The baby loved Liz and spent most of the time crawling all over her, so it was less me and Liz chatting and more Liz entertaining the baby.

Sunday was a very chill day. We had storms the night before, so we had gloriously cool weather. I set the fan in the open living room window to pull in some of the cool air, and took the opportunity to do some cooking for the day before it got too warm. 

The baby was in an excellent mood and more than happy to keep herself entertained while I cooked. She went down for her nap easily, was super snuggly all day long, and was just in fine spirits. She hardly fought me at bedtime, too.

Of course, after she was in bed and I was ready to wind down for the day, M decided it was time to Do Work, so he finally got around to moving the boxes in the office back into the closet. It only took an hour or so to get done, but dammit, why do we have to do these things in the middle of the night?! AUGH.

Showered, went to bed, M wanted to chat, so I got to sleep way, way too late, and am on the verge of collapse myself today. 

I just need rest. For the love of Zod.

M drove the car around last night, but of course it wouldn't make the sound or anything once he was behind the wheel. He tried again later that night and still nothing, so who knows what my little misadventure was. Maybe I was dragging something and it dislodged itself just as I got home.

Picked up a couple of rotisserie chickens from Sam's on the way home, and we ate one of them with some baked potatoes left over from work. A decent meal, and no heat involved in the making of. Plenty of leftovers for tonight, too.

It was brutally hot yesterday in the house, and no relief until after the sun went down, a cool front came in, and we could finally open the windows. M and I both called the office and nothing came of it. 

I was exhausted, so I went to bed at 9 and was asleep by 9:30. Unfortunately, the baby had one of her bad nights. I suspect it's because her room is the hottest in the house. It was 78 degrees in there overnight, which is insane when the outside temp was in the low 60s, but we can't open her window because it's the only window in the house without a screen on it. We cool it as best we can, but it's a losing battle.

Anyway, she was up at 11:30, and then again at 1AM, where she had full meltdown for a good hour before she exhausted herself back to sleep. She wouldn't go to sleep in the pack-n-play in our much cooler bedroom, either, so we were left wrestling with her until she finally gave up. She was back up again at 6:30. That time it only took 20 minutes to get her back to sleep, because I took her into the much cooler living room and let her rest on my chest while she cooled and calmed down. Of course, then it was time for me to get ready for work, so no more sleep for me.

Today's going to be rough. 

Called the apartment office's as soon as they opened on Friday in hopes of getting first dibs on the maintenance guy, and finally, finally, he showed up! Unfortunately, his repair did fuck all, and it was still warm in the house when I got home. The AC was also making this whirring noise every couple of minutes that sounded like a lawnmower trying to start. I walked over to the office and plonked myself down there until they called the maintenance guy to the office, and he went back to the apartment with me to recheck the unit. Turns out that all he did that morning was recharge the freon, he didn't actually repair anything. 

This time he took off something and replaced something else. The whirring continued, but cool (not cold) air was blowing, so we crossed our fingers and hoped the house just needed time to cool down.

By the next morning it was clear the AC was once again borked. It was now blowing room temp air and the whirring had stopped. M thinks the sound was some part trying to come on that ultimately failed. So now they need to replace even more parts. We left maintenance messages on the emergency line and never heard from them. 

Saturday I woke early and got a little bit of work done on the red bodies. I managed to get half the boning put in before the baby woke up, so there was some decent progress. In the afternoon I went to a late lunch with my sister. It was good to catch up, and we both had drama to catch each other up on. 

Because it was too hot to cook, we picked up some fast food for dinner. Caught part of The 10 Commandments, which made me happy because it's one of my favorite movies. The sets! The costumes! The chewing of scenery! Everything is so lavish!

The night was stupidly warm and I barely slept. The baby was up at the crack of dawn, so I was a zombie the entirety of Sunday, pretty much planting myself on the couch in front of the fan and trying not to melt. I napped while the baby napped. 

M went out with friends to go see a movie in the evening. Baby and I ate cheese and fruit for dinner, and then I put her down in her pack-n-play in our bedroom since it was cooler than her own room. The rest of the evening I just watched TV and tried not to sweat. M came home just as I was getting ready to shower and turn in. 

Called the office again this morning so hopefully we'll see maintenance come by sometime today. So tired of this.

Doctor's appointment tomorrow. M had a minor freakout last night about having a second kid, not because of finances but because of how much more time two kids would need. There are still a lot of unknowns, so we're still talking things through.