I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while, but it never seemed to be the right time. Then it got so late, it seemed a bit silly to make it out to be some sort of big announcement. So, I’ll just do a quick recap of the last 7 months.

For those that haven’t heard/seen…We’re pregnant! A little over 30 weeks to be exact. Which means we have less than 10 weeks to go! It can’t get here soon enough, that’s for sure. It hasn’t been an easy pregnancy. For me or for poor Dan. It probably has something to do with that ‘Advanced Maternal Age’ thing I keep seeing on my medical charts.

Here is a phone camera video of the 16 week ultrasound.

The ultrasound was done as part of the amniocentesis. Which, by the way, hurts a hell of a lot more than anyone let on. If I wasn’t already laying down, I would have passed out. Apparently the doctor had to make TWO attempts at stabbing me with the giant needle, and on the second one I got all pale and clammy. Did I mention what a big wimp I am? I have no tolerance for pain, so I’m really going to be up a creek without a paddle in 2 months.

I’m getting a little ahead. The first three months were rough because not only did I have morning sickness, I had noon, night, and car sickness as well! Toast became my favorite meal. Then in the 4th month, after the amniocentesis, I was put on bed rest for almost 2 weeks. The amniotic fluid level was still low (hmm, wonder why…) a few days after the amniocentesis, so I was told to rest and drink lots and lots of fluids. After my fluid levels were back up in the ‘normal’ range, I went back to work.

The fifth and sixth months were relatively uneventful. I had monthly checkups, and my weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, the baby’s heartbeat, the baby’s size, etc were all good. Then I went in this week for my 7th month appointment. The good news was, I had passed the glucose test (no gestational diabetes! Yay for us!) but when the doctor went to measure my stomach, she measured it, then remeasured it, made a face, and then rechecked my chart.

“You’re measuring a little big.” Which didn’t seem possible since we were spot on at 26 weeks and I had only gained a pound in the last month. When I asked how big, she said we were measuring 33 weeks when we were only actually 30 weeks along. She said that either, “the baby is big, the baby is laying funny because you don’t have a lot of room in your torso (i.e. – I’m short), or there’s too much amniotic fluid.” So, I get to go back for another ultrasound in 2 weeks to see what’s going on. In the meantime, sit here and sweat over what the problem might be.

Did I mention we’re having a boy? The amniocentesis came back normal and he is definitely a boy. The ultrasound technician was quite sure he was a boy, but the amnio confirmed it. When we told the girls we were having a baby, the first thing Diana said was “If it is a boy, can we name him Peter.” So, Peter Doty Blance is due to arrive sometime around December 15th. Both girls are very happy not to have another sister.

So, that’s where we are now. I’m hoping to tough it out at work another month but the commute is killing me. After sitting in the car for 45 minutes, I can barely walk. And then sitting at a desk all day doesn’t help. I’m hoping to telecommute for a while before going back to work. I’ve already got Peter on the waiting (yes, waiting) list for the infant room at the daycare center on campus. I’d love to be able to stay home, but with the economy doing such a spectacular crash and burn, I don’t see it happening.

Which leaves us two months to get the baby’s room , and ourselves ready. I can’t wait to see Dan with a little baby. I have visions of having to say “Ok Dan, you have to put the baby down now so he can sleep.” And then having him pout at me.

He’s going to be a good daddy.

I was getting ready to take Rachel over to a friend's house when I looked out the front window and saw smoke pouring out the neighbors garage. My mother in law was here and called 911 while I went across the street to see if the neighbor was ok. He had just finished mowing his lawn and had put his tractor in the garage and it caught fire. My father in law helped the owner put out the flames with the other neighbor's garden hose before the the fire trucks got here.

Now that's an impressive response from the fire department!

Oh god, the news crew just showed up....

Anyways, here's part of 1 of what we've been up to for the past 8 months or so.

At 12:55 yesterday afternoon, I finished signing the paperwork to sell the house! We spent a good chunk of the last few years painting, landscaping, updating both bathrooms and the kitchen. (Ok, we paid Harvey's Construction to to do the bathrooms and kitchen, but we went shopping for all the supplies. :) Anyways, everything turned out beautiful, the house was in immaculate condition, and we sold it to a nice young couple...who already have plans to go in and repaint everything *sigh*

The day before, Dan got writers cramp signing all the paper work to buy our NEW house. Ok, it's only 3 years newer than the old house, but it's new to us....and it needs some work. Mom, Dad, and Aunt Denise were up here three weekends in a row helping us clean and paint. We painted the kitchen, the living room, and three of the bedrooms. Diana painted hers hot pink and Rachel painted hers white so she could add her own drawings. The landscaping was neglected for a long time, so I should get out there with the hedge trimmer at some point. But right now, I'm thinking of having the bathrooms remodeled. I know I have the Harvey's phone number around here somewhere...

The thing I like most about the new house is that it so QUIET. No traffic, no sirens, NOTHING. Just the occasional blue jay...I've spent more time outside here in the last two days than I did at the old house all summer. It even has a koi pond! I'll get pictures of everything online as soon as we get some of the storage bins out of the way.

I should mention how the move went down. I had hired movers to come in and pack everything up and haul it to the new house. A guy came over, I showed him all the rooms (the attic and basement were well stuffed with storage bins and such) and he gave me an estimate for about 5 hours of moving. He was slightly off with his calculation. First of all, there was a slight miscommunication between the guy who did the estimate and the guys who showed up to do the move. They showed up with a truck, but no packing supplies and they had no access to packing supplies that day. Thankfully we had quiet a bit already packed up, and there was plenty of furniture to move. So, while they were hauling stuff down from the attic, we recruited Dan's parents and John Adams to start filling more boxes and storage bins with the rest of the stuff. Did I mention we wound up buying about 60 extra storage bins? (this is in addition to all the ones we've accumulated over the years for other things, such as holiday decorations and season items) The movers were there 7 hours the first day, and 6 hours the next. We did all the packing. There were quiet a few odds and ends left after the movers were gone, including our lawn tractor. We then called up the reserves, better known as Laurie, Howard, Brian and Doug. They helped with the last bit of packing, and then the cleaning of the house. We left with the last of our stuff in a small convoy at about 9 PM the night before the closing. It took about an hour to unload everything and then find the storage bin with all the bed sheets.

So, we have the next 30 years or so to go through about 200 storage bins. Has anyone seen my cell phone??

I should make a check list of the lyrics - I'm pretty sure I've said 95% of those things myself

"If you're not a rebel before you're 20, you've got no heart. If you haven't turned establishment by the time you're 30, you've got no brains."

Click on the image for a larger view

That's right! "Buy Office for Mac before September 6th and RECIEVE an extra $25 rebate"

It's a good thing Office comes with spellcheck. Or someone at Microsoft might have to learn that whole i before e except after c thing....

It's definitely as step forward, especially for mac users. It captures still images or screen activity. While the images can be edited (call outs, text, etc), the videos can not. What's really cool is that both the images and the resulting flash based video can be saved locally or uploaded automatically to your account on screencast.com. At the end of the upload process, a copy of the url to the file is saved to your clipboard .

This has been extremely handy for creating mac based tutorials. But I'm still really looking forward to editing and podcast production capability (enhanced podcast production would be nice, too!) in a mac based Camtasia Studio.

It's a great intermediary step and I will be putting it to full use. Thanks Troy!

No, that's not Barnes and Noble in the background. We went there at about 9:30 and there was a line to get INTO the building that only moved when someone came out. So we opted to take our chances at Wegman's. We were 8th in line and with three 'Harry Potter Express Lanes' open, we were the second to check out with our books.

After staying up most of the night, Dan and I are about 200 pages from the end. I won't spoil it for anyone, but it's certainly darker than any of the other books. It will interesting to see if they wind up having to tone it down for the movie...

Me: Darwin is sitting at the end of your driveway, scratching his head and rechecking his math...

Subdivisions

Early Distant Warning

Time Stand Still (with Amy Mann from Til Tuesday)

Roll the Bones (Yes, it's a rapping skeleton - voice provided by Geddy Lee)

Other songs/videos by Marillion...

(Pseudo Silk Kimono)/Kayleigh/Lavender - Written by Fish after a 10 hour acid trip, about the end of his relationship with his girlfriend, Kay.

He Knows You Know

Garden Party

Unfortunately, I didn't really discover their music until the summer/fall of 1991. This was wholly thanks to Brian Sieker, who had the most incredible mix tapes that always seemed to include something from Marillion and Rush. We spent that summer driving around Lake Carmel, NY, listening to those mix tapes, playing tennis, going to see "Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves" WAAAAAY too many times(7?? 8??)

.... thanks again, Brian. :)

Since it's late, I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version of what I originally intended to post... I have more than one friend who was 'MTV deprived' during their formative years. Being the good (corrupting) friend that I am, I going to share my favorite music videos - with or without explanation - here on my blog for their benefit....whether they like it or not.

I'm going to start out with 4 videos from my favorite band from junior high (I told you I was a child of the 80s), who's success was largely due to their first video that was innovative at the time for it's use of the 'Rotoscoping' animation technique.

These videos are circa 1986 by the Norwegian pop trio, A-ha, from their debut album, "Hunting High and Low".

-Carpool Dan
(In response to my "What do you mean, you've never heard of 'Dokken' "?)

-Steven K.