A place to call my own :)

Well Jason was super sweet to me last night, he created an area for my crafts!! We have so much construction and stuff out of order because of all the room shuffling we've been doing that my art/craft supplies are everywhere, now I have a table, with a lamp, a cushy chair and some shelving to organize everything. It's just temporary but it will be great in the meantime. I've been bringing everything up to the dining room table which isn't very big and it always looks so darn messy. Now this is out of the way and much better! I'm so happy! Now maybe my art can commence!! I plan on making a lot of Christmas gifts this year so this will totally come in handy since the room it's in is a last priority to get finished.

Speaking of rooms, we're trying to decide on what to put on the floor in the Dunder Mifflin room now, we've ripped up the old carpet and we're trying to decide on new carpet with the super stainmaster guarantee type thing or laminate, I'm leaning towards laminate but J wants carpet for cost effective reasons. I can't see putting carpet in there with 4 cats though, cats puke way too much for that. So not sure what we'll do but hopefully we'll do it soon.

Also wanted to say thanks to our friends who read this, I never know it, but I've been getting a lot of support from you guys telling us it's ok to feel overwhelmed and stuff about the baby, thanks so much! We love you all!

Can we say OVERWHELMED???

Hi all!

I'll try to keep this one short! Lately Jason and I have been so overwhelmed with everything going on in our lives. We're still freaking out at the fact we're having a baby first off and then that we have so much to do before our little girl gets here!!! We have our moments of excitement but right now the stress of everything else seems to be taking over. We have so many projects to finish at home, not enough time seeing that my due date is 10 weeks and 2 days away!! I was on the verge of tears the other night just thinking about it all, I'm sure I'm just more emotional due to the hormones but this is a lot to soak in all at once, I guess that's why God makes you wait 9 mos. before the baby is done cooking in the oven! This 9 mos. has flown by way too fast, not that I enjoy being pregnant, but that I thought we would have a huge amount of time to get ready. The only thing I have enjoyed about being pregnant is feeling the baby move or kick inside of me. I know Jason is feeling frazzled about a lot and he tries to stay strong for my emotional state but I wish I could help relieve his load of projects, I wish there was more I could do. So if you do read this please pray for us to get over this rough time and help us to focus on what needs to be done before Lorelei gets here. I would greatly appreciate it!!!!!

Thanks!

Whirlwind of a Week!

Well we had a surprise visit from Jason's parents last weekend and into the week. They were here from Monday to Sunday and it was quite the visit. We had been trying to plan a week for them to come up sometime in October but it didn't look like it would work out. Then we get a call Friday night saying they were going to be here on Monday just 2 days away and they were coming for a week. The reason being is that Bertha's boss owed her some money and he booked the tickets for them without giving them any say in the dates or times. We were so caught off guard by the whole thing Jason wasn't really able to take any time off of work because of it. So anyways the whole point in them coming up was to visit with us and also to help us with some projects which we had to figure out what we were going to do because we hadn't planned on any of this. So we had them help us in our new office to get that started. Bertha was a working machine!!!! First off the room was completely trashed with construction mess from other projects, she and I were able to organize it in a day and get rid of a bunch of junk. We also finally got rid of our garage sale junk we had left over!!! Why didn't I do that sooner, The Salvation Army took almost everything we had!!!! Anyhoo, Jason would work on the lighting and ceiling with his Dad after work each night so we have new lighting, new ceiling and it's also texturized! It looks great. We went out to one of our favorite restaurants one of those nights, My Greek Kitchen and had a nice meal but after that we were in Lowe's or the "Club" as we call it picking out paint and materials for that room. The rest of the week Bertha worked her butt off painting it!!! She was so meticulous! I helped when I wasn't feeling nauseous. We picked warm coffee colors and will probably do a coffee theme in there. There is still a lot to do like replacing the flooring with radiant heat and tile as well as window treatments and trim but for the most part it's complete thanks to Mom and Dad Wheaton! The pic above is the after results. I was so physically and mentally drained from the week, I'm glad it's over. On our way to VT to bring them to their hotel Sunday night we got a call from our good friends Chris & Lea they wanted to come and visit this weekend, which they are!! We won't be working though it will be a nice relaxing visit with some good friends! They come in tomorrow night and will probably leave on Sunday afternoon.

In other news, I'm officially 7 mos. pregnant as of yesterday! Boy did I feel it too! My stomach was so hard and it was kind of painful. The only time I felt good yesterday was when I was sleeping. I know it will probably get worse and I'm ready for it to be over with. I find myself increasingly getting nervous as my due date approaches with lightening speed!!!!! It's only 11 weeks and 6 days away! I'm officially freaked!!!! The baby is still breech and she has been that way the entire time, if she doesn't turn in time I may have to have a c-section, it's all so scary to me the whole process, I know it should be a natural thing but this is my biggest fear coming true! I guess once I've conquered this I won't be scared of much. So that's about it from here!

Birthday Weekend

Hello all!

I thought I would show you my big belly pic taken on my birthday which was yesterday. We had a great weekend, it was too busy as usual but we had more of a leisurely weekend than lately. Friday night we went out with friends to dinner which was fun. Saturday morning Jason woke up early and went on a hike with Nate up to Owls Head which is in Keene, they took some incredible pics of the mountains and foliage up there. I wish I could have joined them, maybe next year. While they were doing that I was hanging out with my other pregnant friend Amanda and we had lunch and did some shopping, we both were either going to parties that night or hosting them. I had a jewelry party I hosted for a friends sister who sells Lia Sophia jewelry. I was able to get some free jewelry from the sales at the party so it was worth it.

Sunday was church which was good and then afterwards Nate was cooking lunch for all of us as Mom and Dad's house which was absolutely incredible!!! He cooked a homemade shepherds pie with stew beef that was slow cooked in Guinness!! Boy was it delish! Then my mom had made her famous White on White cake which is my all time favorite cake in the world, I then caught on it was my birthday party with the fam. I had no clue which is so funny because usually I catch on early. It was great, I got some nice gifts from the family and Jason bought me a beautiful necklace with a peridot shaped in a heart and a bunch of diamonds pendant. It was a great day!

Monday, Oct. 9th my b-day, was a normal day, I spent most of the day working on a project for City Church for their Halloween outreach and when J got home we went for a drive in the mountains to take pics and just spend some time together which was so nice. We got some goofy shots! It was so much fun just being us. We stopped by our friends Brian & Barb's house in Jay, NY and chatted for about 20 minutes then headed back to Plattsburgh for a yummy Italian meal at Mangia's. It was so good, we haven't eaten there in forever!

So that's it, that was my birthday in a nutshell, oh, BTW I've caught up to J now, I'm officially 33.

TTFN!

YAY it's October!!!

After an exhausting and whirlwind of a month, we're both thrilled it's October! We're hoping things slow down a bit for us in the next few weeks. Let's see, what haven't we done? Can't think of anything at the moment because our house is torn apart right now! We had a garage sale on the 16th and it went crazy from that point on. We didn't sell a whole lot but we made $100 which was nice, extra money we could use at the time. We have neighbors who are moving to FL when their house sells and they keep leaving stuff in front of our garage that we don't need or want, they're trying to get rid of items, I'm not going to mess with them because they're elderly but STILL I haven't gotten rid of our garage sale crap that didn't sell!!!! It's sitting in our still unfinished den downstairs and I just don't know what to do with it all.

The following weekend was my grandparents 65th wedding anniversary/family reunion in VT. I got to see lots of family from out of the area that I hadn't seen in over 2 years. It was great! I got some hand-me-down baby clothes from my cousin Carolyn which are so cute!!! It was a fun night but tiring. The Wednesday before that Jason flew up his brother JJ to help us do our roof which was in severe shape. I had had a dream one night a few months back that I woke up and it was downpouring rain into our guest bedroom and I was just standing there in shock and crying about it. I told J about it the next morning and he got the ball rolling with trying to get the roof done, he was freaked too!!! Well so back to my story about the roof. JJ was here to help and we also hired a friend from church named Shannon, so the 3 of them and with a little help from my bro Aaron got the roof done in a weekend pretty much! It was so bad over our bedroom and bathroom upstairs all of the sheeting (plywood) had to be replaced, it was peeling up in layers like an onion. We still have debris all over our yard on the side and in the back, I just hope it's picked up before the first snow hits. So we have a new roof!!!!! While JJ was still here Jason extended his plane ticket so he could insulate the back porch which Jason has dubbed the "Dunder Mifflin" room, if you watch "The Office" that would be funny to you! Anyways it's our new office so they ripped out the ceiling and put up insulation and new drywall and we will be putting in some can lights for more lighting back there. It will be nice when finished, not sure if that will happen before the baby gets here. We still need to start on the nursery, things are never done!!! So if you get the jist, September was a month of major projects!

OH yeah, the cool part is we put my Wrangler out for sale the day of the garage sale, someone called us the 22nd which was a Friday night and wanted to give us $9500 in cash for the JEEP! So we made a deal, he picked it up the next morning, I still miss it! We only owed 6K or a little more on it so we made $2600 which covered our roofing costs!! God's timing was so perfect for us! We also had enough to FINALLY get the windows tinted on the Accord which doesn't feel like a fishbowl anymore!!!

Last weekend J had to work all day Sunday which sucked! They had a big network downtime at the hospital that had been planned for a month, so this past weekend we didn't get much done other than bring JJ to the airport on Saturday to go home and we did a little warm clothes maternity shopping in VT. What a whirlwind month!!!

On a different note, I sold 4 paintings in the last 2 weeks of September!!! I'm now collected internationally! My "Lovebirds in the Garden" painting went all the way to London, England!!! I was thrilled but sad at the same time. The other paintings sold in the US. Speaking of paintings my art is now on display at the Great Adirondack Soup Co. here in Plattsburgh for the month of October and the display looks great, now my walls are bare here at home! Guess I need to paint more!

Today is a special occasion to me, today is the day that J proposed to me 8 years ago!!! I love you baby!

Anyhoo, sorry for the novel!

A & J

I created a Slide Show! Check it out!

9.11 - We will never forget.

The image above is one I created in 2001 as a Christmas card insert for the company I worked for, in lieu of gifts we donated to the September 11th Memorial Fund and my design was picked for the insert.
Today was a day of mixed emotions for me. On one hand I woke up energized and refreshed which I was thrilled about because I haven't been sleeping well at all lately, having to lay a certain way each night due to pregnancy. I woke up and realized the date and I knew I had to relive those horrible memories of that fateful day five years ago. I wasn't even close to NYC at the time I lived in Orlando, FL and was pretty far away but that didn't even dull the impact 9.11.01 had on me. To this day I cannot hear the Star Spangled Banner without almost bawling. This morning was no different, I got up and ate my breakfast and turned on Good Morning America and was taken back 5 years. I pretty much started bawling right away at first I was in control of it and then I completely lost it. I'm so touched by the people who have been able to move on despite losing loved ones that day and that they have the strength to be there and read the names of all those who lost their lives. I was so moved to tears with the moments of silence and it still shook me to think of what happened. I know I will never forget what happened, how could you forget when America was at it's most vulnerable moment in my lifetime. I WILL NEVER FORGET! God Bless all the survivors, families and victims of that day.

Labor Day 2006!

DUNDERFUNK GIRLS!!!

Well we had a fun filled weekend because 2 of my best friends from college came to visit, Theresa and Serena! We didn't do a whole lot but made many memories. We bought some new games for the house, one called Quiddler which is a sweet card game similar to Scrabble you have to spell words, it was a blast! We have many new catch phrases from just playing that game! We also bought Quip It! which came with a DVD that had movie clips, drawings and pictures that you had to write quotes and other things for, it reminded me somewhat of Balderdash. We baked cookies, went shopping in Lake Placid and had a nice dinner together including my brother Nate on Friday night. Oh and we also set up Jason with a myspace page! LOL!!! That was fun, we realized we had created a monster when he was constantly checking it!!! We also reminisced about our trip to France in 2000 and started looking up people we went with on myspace, we found one but he still hasn't written!! One of the highlights of the weekend was when we all went out with our other college pal Duffy who rarely gets to get out, so we did a girls coffee at the new Starbucks in town. What a fun night!!! It made me wish we all lived a few miles from each other! We kept picking on Jason because he was telling us it was going to rain at 5:12 pm Saturday night according to AccuWeather! It never rained!!! It was just so much fun! It's just great having friends who just get you and you never have to explain yourself because they know you and your personality. I'm so blessed to have such great friends who care about me and Jason and now little Lorelai! Speaking of Lorelai, they have already started to spoil her! They came up with 2 huges goodie bags of baby items which was so cool!!! I can't wait till she is here to start using them! Thanks for such a great weekend guys!!!

Well we're back and we have news!

I'm sorry it's been so long!! I forgot the password and email that I used for our last blog so I started a new one! We'll try to keep this one fresh and exciting for you so you can keep posted on what's new with us.

Let's see what's new? Well we have a new car, we're doing home renovations and oh yeah, we're having a baby!!! We found out this Spring that we were pregnant so I was pretty miserable all summer long. I'm finally in my 2nd trimester and things are going smooth as butter! I am officially half way through my pregnancy, I'm 20 weeks today. We found out last week that we are having a baby girl. We have decided to name her Lorelai. It was sort of a shock to me but I knew she was girl, I had been having girl dreams for a few weeks. It was a shock in that I always expected I would have a boy! I grew up with 3 brothers and I'm more used to guys than girls. I was such a tomboy when I was a kid and I know I drove my mother nuts! She would make me these cute dresses and I would hate them and whine if I had to wear them. I would rather be in jeans and playing outside than looking proper! I'm still that way!! LOL. So I think God has a sense of humor because if she's a girly-girl it's payback Aimée time! We'll see, maybe I can convince her to be less girly? Just kidding!!

So with the baby news we've been working round the clock to get our house ready or nesting as they call it. We have 2 finish 2 big rooms before we can even start on the nursery unfortunately. Right now the nursery is our office so we'll have to transfer all the office stuff into one of the finished rooms when it's done. We have our work cut out for us. These are projects that we thought we had years to complete, now we have less than 5 months to finish!! YIKES! Talk about pressure! I will keep posting new pics of the rooms when they are done.

More news: I've sold my motorcycle Vira (Yamaha Virago 250) to my sister-in-law Becky when I found out that I wasn't going to be able to ride this summer, at least she's still in the family! Now we're in the process of trying to sell my 2000 Jeep Wrangler which I'm going to miss dearly! It's such a fun vehicle to drive and I'll miss it in the winter. I now drive my posh Garnet red 2006 Honda Accord and I love it, I just hope it does well come winter. I'll be without my 4-wheel drive in the snow, I'm kind of freaked about that.

Well I'll stop writing a book for now! I'll try to do better, I promise!! Hope you all are well out there in cyberspace!

TTFN!