Spring Finally Arrived!

The weather finally got nice, and I am so happy!  :-D It just puts me in a good mood.  Work is going better too.  Also, I applied to a math teaching position in the Exeter School District last Wednesday, so we'll see if anything comes of that.  Tim decided to start up our tutoring services again for extra money, and he got his first client today.  They bought a "package" of sessions so it's $250 up front.  That is good news too.  :-)
I have a cold, and I talked to the OB doctor at church about what is safe for me to take and she suggested Clariten first.  So, I started taking that today so hopefully it will work.  I pretty much have seasonal allergies, and was told when we moved here that your allergies get worse from living here, so that is wonderful. :-) 
My first doctor's appointment is two weeks from yesterday!  I'm very excited to go and see my baby!  Hopefully it is healthy and normal!  I don't think we'll be able to find out the sex, but somewhere around 17-20 weeks we can.  I really want to know what it is so I can decide on a nursery theme.  I have some ideas, but I don't know for sure what I want to do.
One last thing, on Hillside's new website, http://www.hillsidepa.org/, you can WATCH videos of the sermons now.   Tim has one up from a few weeks ago, and he is preaching this coming Sunday, May 1st, so look for that one to be up next week!
Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

8 Weeks!

I made it to the two-month mark!  Here is how my baby is developing according to http://www.babycenter.com/:
New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl. Either way, your baby — about the size of a kidney bean — is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can't feel it.
Yesterday I had a bazzar experience.  Tim and I were putting groceries in our car at the store and a man drove up asking directions to a restaurant.  I walked away to put the cart away as Tim was talking to him.  On my way back to the car I see the man jerk his head and make some kind of loud noise, and then drive off.  When we got in the car Tim told me that after he gave the directions the man started to say thank you, but sneezed, so it went something like, "A CHOOOO! Thank you!" and for some reason, the situation and the way Tim said it just struck me as hillarious and I started laughing and couldn't stop.  I was laughing for a good 5 minutes or so, and then all of a sudden started bawling.  Now, I have laughed so hard I cried before, but this felt different.  I was leaning forward, laughing then all this emotion just started pouring out, and I'm making sobbing noises and I look at Tim and say, "I don't think I'm laughing anymore."  But as soon as I said that, I did start laughing and then I was laughing and crying at the same time.  Talk about mood swing!  That was a really strange one!!  On the way home from school earlier that afternoon I was thinking about my dad for some reason and just reliving everything that happened, and I think that kind of slipped in my brain when I was laughing which could have triggered the crying but I'm not sure.  It was a weird feeling though!
And then this morning when I was bending over to get something, a nerve in my lower back spasmed and it's been hurting all day.  I can barely get out of a chair, and walking is a chore.  This is not good since Tim and I have a 6 hour car ride tonight to Boston.  The only thing I can take is Tylenol, and it hasn't helped.
Well, those are my crazy pregnancy stories!  Hope you have a great weekend!

Happy Hump Day!

Well, I've had my first major craving.  Monday night I was really wanting a Big Mac from McDonald's.  Don't ask me why because I've never had one!  But it was bed time so I just ignored it and went to bed, and decided I could have one the next day.  On Tuesday morning, I packed a can of soup for lunch, but when lunch time came around, I REALLY wanted that Big Mac.  I texted Tim, who was home, and asked if he could bring me one.  Because he is such a wonderful, caring, compassionate, husband, he did!  It took a while, and I only had 4 minutes to eat once he got there, but don't you know I finished the burger and fries with time to spare! :-)  I have to say I wasn't that impressed with the famous Big Mac.  It was good, but I think I still prefer the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
I haven't been really craving anything else specific, except I've been eating a lot of cheese.  I'll just grab a couple of slices from the fridge a couple of times a day.
I was looking online the other day for teaching jobs, and actually found one!  A district nearby has an opening for a secondary math teacher, so I've been trying to get everything I need to apply online. (Just waiting on my letters of recommendation)  If I could teach for a few years it would really help pull us out of debt quickly and we won't have to move.  Our townhome is pretty expensive, and if I stay as an assistant we will probably have to move after our lease is up in December to help cut costs.
Well, the cat has done it.  He attacked me again yesterday.  He didn't actually bite me, but he tried, so I moved all of his things to the basement and locked him in there.  He's allowed to be out during the day when Tim is home and I'm not, and I haven't locked him up today, but his stuff is not coming back up so hopefully he'll be down there more often, and especially when the baby is here, Max will be kept in the basement with the door closed.
So I'll be 7 weeks pregnant on Friday.  Here is a picture from babycenter.com of what the embryo looks like and here is what they said about his/her development this week:

The big news this week: Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs — although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities you're daydreaming about holding and tickling. Technically, your baby is still considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of her tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. Your baby has doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry.
If you could see inside your womb, you'd spot eyelid folds partially covering her peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of her nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your baby's brain are growing, and her liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and takes over this role. She also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in your baby's growing intestines is bulging into her umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body.

Baby On Board

Well, I don't know if there is anyone who reads this who doesn't know, but I am pregnant, or "preggers" as kids say these days.  This will be my 6th week, and my first doctor's appointment is on May 9th, which will be the beginning of my 12th week.  Before I got pregnant, Tim and I had talked about when we would tell people.  I said I wanted to tell right away because I didn't think I would be able to wait, and he wanted to wait until after the first trimester, when the risk of miscarriage goes down.  But on Monday of this week, Tim decided it would be okay to tell people and have them be praying for it.  Last weekend we went to a lab to get a urinalysis and blood test, and the results were emailed to me on Monday, and silly me, I misread it, and thought the blood test results were not listed, and thought it was the urine test that said "positive", so I told everyone that the urine test was positive, but we were still waiting on the blood test.  But in reality, the "positive" was from the blood test!  So, it is official, and I'm excited to go to the doctor and get an ultrasound.  If I get a picture, I will be sure to post it!!  :-)
Yes, Tim and I want to know the sex of the baby and we do have names picked out: if it's a girl, Chloe Grace; if it's a boy, Gabriel Keith, who will be called "Gabe."  I'm tending to lean towards wanting a girl, and Tim is sure that is going to be a boy, but we'd be happy with either, of course. 
So far, this week has been my hardest week as far as sickness.  I usually feel nauseated in the late afternoon, and I have a cold/cough so that doesn't help things.  But no vomiting so that's a good thing!
Tim and I are very excited and happy for this new blessing in our lives, and I will update everyone with events as they happen!!

Ready for the Weekend!

Where is the spring weather???  It snowed the last two nights!  I'm ready for 70-degree weather!

My FriendSpeak meeting went well on Sunday.  9 people came, which is more than I was expecting!  I called the FriendSpeak office to find out how they can all get trained.  There is an online training for individuals that costs $45, but I was hoping I could use my account and show it to the whole group and train together, and the lady said I could!  After our meeting I was talking to a lady that meets with the Spanish speaking group on Sundays, and was telling her about the program, and she was very interested to start.  I will be reading with her on Sundays after the service.  I'm excited to see what God does through this ministry.

Last week I found out about a Christian school that is about 30 minutes away, in Pottstown, and I emailed them asking if they had any math teacher openings.  The principal wrote back and said they don't have anything right now, but they are looking to expand in the near future and requested my resume and references.  I think teaching at a Christian school would be the best place for me.  I just don't handle urban kids very well.  I would like to teach at a school that teaches Christian values, and has smaller class sizes.  :-)  We'll see what happens. 

Well, Tim did it.  He canceled our cable.  At least most of it.  Because of the promotion we were under with our internet and cable combo, it was cheaper to keep basic cable and not have our internet charges go up than to get rid of it all together.  That will be saving us over $100 a month!  And we still get Fox and NBC for House, American Idol, Glee, and The Office.  (Tim is only happy about two of those.)

I have officially disowned Max.  The other night he attacked me for no reason; I was just walking to the bed, and he left two huge marks on my arm, plus two smaller ones, and I already had a scratch that was healing on my hand from when he bit me a couple of days earlier.  I told Tim that I have had it.  We can either put him down, give him to the shelter, or he can live in the basement.  None of those have happened yet, but he has left me alone, so until it happens again, he is on very thin ice with me.  And I will put my foot down and send him downstairs to live alone if he does it again.  I am tired of getting bitten and having ugly marks all over my arms.

Well, on that happy note, hope everyone has a great Friday tomorrow!  Woo hoo!!  It's the weekend!!! :-)

It's Been a While!

Sorry for the lack of posts!  I tried to do a couple of video blogs, but couldn't get them uploaded.  I tried doing it directly to YouTube but my Mac was having issues.  Hopefully I'll figure out how to get it to work and can start putting videos of myself up instead of writing.

Anyway, a couple of things that have been happening are one, I'm trying to start a FriendSpeak ministry at Hillside.  When I went to Brazil and Panama for Let's Start Talking, it was the FriendSpeak material that we used.  FriendSpeak is the local version of Let's Start Talking.  We would advertise lessons in town, and have people from our church read with whoever came.  I am having a meeting on Sunday to see who's interested and hopefully it will be a success!

Also, I took my 7-12 Math Praxis test last Saturday.  I was really nervous going into it because I didn't feel as prepared as I should have been, and the official practice test from the company was really hard.  But my test was actually easy!  I couldn't believe it!  Most of the questions were pretty straight forward and I knew what to do.  I only had to blindly guess on one problem, and there were probably about 5 or so that I had to make an educated guess on.  But I'm pretty confident I got at least half of them right, which is what I needed to pass.  My score will be up on their website four weeks from the test date.  Once I pass that test, I can apply for teacher certification.  In the mean time, I will be requesting transcripts, and info from LCU and get all my paperwork in order so it's ready to go when I get my score.

My mom also came to town last Saturday (in the afternoon after my test) and stayed until Wednesday afternoon.  She flew into Philadelphia and had always wanted to see the city, so we saw all the historical sites there, including Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's burial site, Betsy Ross's house, and we saw the Liberty Bell from the outside because the line was too long to go inside and see it up close.  Since I am still in my probationary period for my job, I couldn't get off work, so she hung out with Tim during the day, and he took her on a tour of an Amish farm, which is something else she really wanted to see, and she got several jars of jams and syrup, and a couple of Amish cookbooks.  It was really good to see her, and I'm excited to see G-ma, G-pa, and Mitzi this summer!

Well, that's all the news I have right now, so until next time (whenever that is! ;-p)....TTFN! 

I'm a Working Woman!

Well, I finally had orientation yesterday morning, and then we were told to go to our schools, but it was an early release day, so by the time I got there, the kids were gone and I got to sit through most of a faculty meeting that had nothing to do with me. :-) 
Today I actually "worked".  My job is to sit with my student and make sure he stays focused on what he's doing and doesn't touch anyone (Or just tell him, "Don't touch" when he does).  It was pretty funny though, because he said he didn't like my last name so he was trying to come up with a different one, and was just going through the last names of other students and saying my first name with their last name, but I don't think he actually decided on one.
I had to take a nap this afternoon because I was so tired from sitting all day. :-)  But I guess it's better to have too little to do than too much? 
Tim and I hosted the youth group for the Super Bowl, and we had a good time.  Yay for the Packers!!  We didn't know how Toby would react to having so many people in the house, so we let everyone give him a piece of a dog treat so he would be friendly.  It seemed to work.  We didn't have any problems with him until toward the end of the game.  I was holding him in my lap in the kitchen (we put chairs and our TV from the bedroom in the kitchen for overflow from the living room, which ended up being the adults and me), and a kid was standing next to me, swinging his leg back and forth, and it apparently upset Toby, because he jumped from my lap to attack the kid!  I don't know that he bit him hard, if at all but he jumped on him and started barking at him.  And then he would grow at anyone who came up to pet him.  After most people had left, and there were three boys left, one came up to pet him when he was in Tim's lap, and he leaped at him and tried to bite his arm!  I don't know what is up with that dog.
On another note, (no pun intended) Glee is new tonight after having a new episode Sunday after the Super Bowl!  :-)  Yay!  But I have to study before it comes on because I haven't studied in a couple of days! *Gasp*  But I did better on the last practice test I took than I did on the first one.  I was four questions away from passing on the first test, and I passed the second, so hopefully that means I'll do well on the real thing. 
I hope everyone has a great week!! :-)