I have become a Giant. I have always wanted giants to exist so one of them could hold me in his hand and we could walk around, but now I am the giant. I also feel like a kangaroo, only less bouncy. Well, kind of bouncy. Let's just say I am bouncy in places.

It's all for a good cause, though :) Getting fat for a cause! Not bad, not bad. It'll be interesting to see how this extra weight will leave my body - but I have a feeling that sleepless nights might help.

I love feeling the baby move. The baby has moved a lot so far today. I don't even care that I can't really breathe anymore because my lungs are squished to oblivian and my allergies have taken me over and I can't take any medication...I just want babe to be happy.

The doctor said I could take benedryl for these allergies, especially as no other medication works and I feel like I constantly have a brick on my face. I tried, but I was out of it for two full days. A zombie with a belly is a very crazy combination. You get off balance easily and whatever brain you have left that the baby didn't eat the meds take over and it's like your in a cloud for two days, then you come out of it and you're really tired because any sleep you did get didn't count for some reason and you need another two days to recover and you don't even remember what happened in those lost two days. It's like one of those hangover movies only I came out of it with my teeth still in my mouth, which is good at least.

So Steve and I have been working and been busy non-stop. We have a goal in mind: To get the house ready for the baby by September 28, which is exactly one month before the Due Date. Can we do it? Well, I look to my fellow humankind. If you can believe it you can achieve it. I think of Snooki - she wanted to be famous, she believed it, and BAM! Look what happened. I can say something about Snooki in this little blog and you know exactly what poofy haired girl I am speaking of. Take, also, J.K. Rowling. Girl had a baby and not too much money and bam! She believed she could write about Harry Potter and be a big writer and she did it. So, I, too, shall believe and achieve. I, too, will set my final goal at September 28 and will work toward the result of babyifying this house by that time. You heard it people- we have a week and a half.

Here's some things that got done the past week or two:

-Baby Showers! It was great to see everyone!
-Thank You Notes! Those I am finishing tonight. Because I can believe I can achieve. Yep that is right.
-Taking all of the hoarder clutter and organizing it! Now the next step is washing the baby clothes, moving the last few boxes of things from the old office and moving the toys up into it so that room gets transformed into the Play Room. I believe I can achieve. I swear. My mini-goal is to do this tomorrow.
-Painting the furniture (Steve has been working on this. He's got like one more coat on a drawer of the dresser and the side of the dresser, which he proclaims will be done tomorrow. He's at class for work until 8:30 tonight so there is no way that is getting done tonight, but I know he can get that furniture done tomorrow.
-Now from Wed-Wed we have critical components to the "Babyify the house by Sept. 28 Plan". I'm not even gonna mention the P word. Everytime I have it doesn't happen. So let's just say, oh miracle of miracles, maybe on Wed. or Thurs. something will happen to make the room change color. (If you are wondering why the room has not been painted for four months, just know that so many complications have risen up that I can only just say this is a test of patience that is training me to be a monk, or, more appropriately in size matters, sumo wrestler).
-Steve is going to put in the new floor
-We also have to put the decal up, add the furniture, and the freshly washed clothes
We have a critical time frame of working from now through Thursday.
Friday Steve and I are leaving for Rochester to celebrate our two year anniversary early in Rochester at dinner and then go to my nephews' birthday party.
Sunday we drop off his dad at the airport for vacation and BAM! Back to work Mon-Wed.
If all goes to plan and the house is babyified by Wed, Oct. 28 I will be the happiest person ever. I do not have to win the lottery because I will have felt what it feels like already, if this happens. We shall see. I'm keeping my eye on the prize. Like Rocky. Like Indiana Jones. Like Snooki.

If you don't hear from me for a few days, that might be a good thing. That might mean we're on track with this goal. I hope to post a very happy post on Sept. 28.

OK I've written long enough. It's Thank-you note time.

I was reading over the last few entries of this blog and I realized: I refer to the home I live in as "cozy" and "little". This is because it is literally getting smaller and smaller! As the baby's room is still not complete, and we are compiling more and more very useful things for babe...our house is beginning to look like hoarders! Or "baby hoarders" or "hoarders who are still babies but will soon grow up to be official hoarders but hopefully they will not because the baby room will get completed before then and there will be space to put all that stuff."
It is becoming an obstacle course to get through, much like you might see on early '90s shows on Nickelodean, like "Adventures of the Hidden Temple" or "Gladiators"...in order to get through the living room, for example, you must strategize how to hop over a box of diapers and duck underneath the stack of books, linens and high chair piled on top of one another...and make it out alive.

SO it's not that bad but it's almost there. It is the house of baby hoarders! Ahh! Sounds fitting in so many ways. Anyway. I just had to write this.

I had time again to write this morning because I had to bring Steve to work in early and I'm eating my cereal and I thought - there is definitely time to write something....if I don't write now, I probably won't write today, because I am so tired I think I'm going to fall into bed after work today. If I don't do that, however, I think it'd be a cool night to have the fire pit going. We'll see. Or, you know, I could try and organize the stuff for babe - although I have tried this and it is quite difficult when there is nowhere to put anything. We'll see. I've never been good at math, but I have a pretty good imagination, so we can see where that takes us. It could go from "Hoarders" to "Those people with the most neatly organized piles of baby things all throughout the house, it would be too harsh to call them hoarders anymore."

The plan is to get a ton of stuff done on the room on Sunday. Yes, I know I keep saying "The plan is..." and then I follow it up with "well we never finished and the room still isn't done." But. I have to believe that this room will be finished before the end of September. If I don't believe that, then....I don't even know what, but it's not fun, it's like in Indiana Jones in my favorite one where he has to walk across that pit on the invisible walkway and he just has to believe....I have to do that. I am just like Indiana Jones, you see.

Anyway - I don't even plan on putting the babe in the baby room right away, I just want babe's stuff to be safely and neatly organized in the room so that when it is time babe has a comfortable and nice place to go - and there really is nowhere else to put babe's things, and babe needs to have certain things and deserves a good room.

I'm doing it again. I'm obsessing about the room. They say it is nesting, I hear. If I were a bird I'd have about 7 nests built by now. Mama birds are allowed to do construction on their own nests. I wish I could do the dry wall and paint, and lift up heavy things, I would definitely do it all. For now all I can do is be really annoying and say things like "I hope this room gets done soon" and "Oh my look at all these beautiful things just lined up in the house ready to be put somewhere...where could they go? Oh yes, a room would be nice." Sunday, Sunday Sunday. I am keeping my eye on the prize.

Well since I should really stop talking about that, I will talk about something else. Let's see. Oh yes. My neighbors two streets away finally have their halloween decorations outside back in season! Hooray to them! They did it! Their ghosts and ghouls are even whiter because of all that sun they took in this year - making them especially spooky. Kudos to them, they win! They're even earlier than the rest of us. Sometimes, life just helps you out. Even if all it did was pass through a few seasons.

I also wanted to say that I'm very much looking forward to lunch at work today. We're having tacos in honor of Mexican Independence Day. I am all for food and Independence. I think it's a great idea.

I am hoping it's another "Good food day". I had one yesterday, and it was absolutely fantastic. I woke up and had a nice bowl of cereal, then later a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce for lunch, and a choco taco at work for Ice Cream Thursday, and then I had lots of yummy salad food at the baby shower, and then cake! That was a good food day.

Bad food days are not so fun, but you just have to get through them sometimes. Those are the days when there is nothing to eat but a leftover from two days ago, or you're sick and can't eat anything but chew on ice...those are really not so great.

Anyway I'm definitely going off tangent here. But I do want to say one more time that I had a great time at the Buffalo baby shower, and I am so excited - six weeks left!!

I'll have to keep you posted!

Today is the day of my Buffalo Baby Shower. I am really looking forward to seeing everybody. My parents are driving up from Rochester, on a weeknight. My dad is going out to eat with Steve and my cousin John who has been living with us. Mom is coming with me.

I had a great time at the Rochester shower as well. It was so nice to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time, and I can't wait for the baby to wear and use everything that we got.

SO I have about 6 weeks left and I've gained about 30 pounds. I am hoping to stay where I am at this point. I've been trying to eat as healthy as possible.

Lately I have been loving waking up in the morning and putting on Good Morning America in the background. I don't know why - I just love it. I don't even watch that much t.v.

I am watching it right now while I type. I just want to stay on this couch all day, but I'll go to work in a minute. I'll go, especially because it's for babe.

Before I go, I'm just going to say I'm really not losing steam on this blog - I just haven't had any time at all lately. I did force myself to write and submit something to an essay contest last night, so this morning I thought I could write in my blog before work. I'm glad I was able to do that. I'm still working on my novel too. I guess writing is just my outlet - it's just an extension of myself, something I like to do, a lot. It will be especially fun to write about the baby when we meet him or her.

I was thinking about life, and I thought to myself - I'm happy to have my little family, and my cozy little house. If we ever got more money, we'd probably just travel more and our debts would be gone, and then we'd give to charity too. And Steve might open a restaurant then. But if we don't, that's cool too. Because I'm very happy just being...us.

Anyway. I'm going to work now. Hope you have a good day!

Things I want to do in the rest of the month of September:

1. Finish the baby's room
2. Eat more raw vegetables
3. Only use the computer to write

If I came into some money and did some more traveling, this is where I'd want to go with my family --

In no particular order --

1. Ireland
2. Finland
3. Australia
4. Alaska
5. Somewhere in the Carribean
6. New Zealand
7. Germany
8. Scotland
9. California
10. Denmark
11. France
12. Seattle and or Portland

If I don't get to these places, that's cool too...but it would be nice to experience them with my husband and kid(s).

In the meantime, or...anyway....I am very happy with living in my cozy home with my little family. But, if we had the money and felt like going somewhere....a little far away....those are the places we'd go.

This is the color the babe's room will be in. The baseboard and trim and changing table and dresser will be a bright white, and the crib and top of the dresser and rocking chair will be a dark cherry color, and the floors will be a hardwood, and the bedding will be a cream, and then when babe is born, I will add pinks or blues in the forms of ribbons and such to the room as accents (like a ribbon woven into the baskets on one of the changing table shelves, etc.). There will also be an owl decal, with owls in a tree. I can't wait for this room to be decorated!! I think about it way too much.

Anyway.

I feel like I haven't written in a very long time. I have been writing more of my novel and of course I write all kinds of ideas in my idea journal, because I have an idea journal because I'm a total geek. But I really want to update whoever might be reading this on life, just because, maybe, it's fun to snoop about someone's life.

I am now 32 weeks pregnant! It still feels good except it's getting harder and harder to go through life as a fat person. Especially when it is 9,035 degrees outside and your air conditioner decides to break. It didn't just break, it was on all day not working, and then by the time I got into my room, it started making very loud screeching sounds, so apparently it can't just die a silent death, but one protesting the injustices of being a stupid waste of space air conditioner that doesn't do anything. Oh I just wanted to kick it. I wanted to kick it good. But that would hurt my foot. So I didn't. Instead I just kept tossing and turning all last night and trying to feel the fan, which was really just circulating hot air throughout the room. The hot air was dancing around in a conga line around my head, to a little dance to a song that I think had the words "Haha you are probably so so hot, haha you are probably so so hot" over and over. And my belly was just never in a comfortable spot, and I thought I sweated off half of the weight I've gained in my pregnancy, but somehow I gained a pound. AND I didn't even mention the million times I got up to go to the ladies room. AND how my leg would go numb because of my siatic nerve or something like that. But I still love being pregnant. Because I love babe. And babe is who I'm pregnant with. But all of that aside - What a night. And tonight is supposed to be just as hot, so I will be just as a complainy person about it. Ugh Ugh Ugh

So now I'm going to say something nice. My grandma says if you say a bad thing you should say something nice too. So I must say I am so blessed and lucky to have a very warm and loving family who have all been helping so much with the baby's room. We are making progress slowly but surely. We really had to totally deconstruct it and rebuild it again. Every time we think we're done with the drywall we see more things that need a-fixin', but you know what, nothin' but the best for babe. So, here's the plan as of this week:

Sunday: Church to pray we stay on schedule - among other things! Also Steve finishes painting of the baseboards and we go out (hopefully for some ice cream!!) with some friends we haven't seen in a while
Monday: Labor Day - we'll probably go to a barbeque and there might be some more sanding and drywallish stuff as well
Tuesday: Finishing touches on drywall-type things
Wednesday: Breastfeeding Class -Oh my! And we can start painting
Thursday: Paint
Friday: Rochester for the baby shower (and Jon-boy's birthday of course!)
Saturday: Baby Shower!!!
Sunday: Going to my friend's baby shower!!!
Monday: Flooring
Tuesday: Furniture starts to go in.....

That's the plan! Let's see how it goes! We've been working and working (I haven't been able to do a lot of the stuff because it involves inhaling things that I shouldn't be inhaling and lifting things I shouldn't be lifting, so I've been baking a million cookies for my faithful workers and helping out with making sure they are well fed and have plenty of ice water!!)

So there you have it. That's what's going on in my life, and Steve's, and, babe's, (and the dog and cat are here hanging out as well). The dog is a very good boy, and so is the cat but unfortunately he got into a fight with another cat and his face got all puffed up on one side and he looked like phantom of the opera of all the cats and we took him to the vet and now he's on antibiotics and feeling beter but other than all of that he is great too.

And just a side note: MY Goodness it is hot. Today was so so hot, I wore a bathing suit top (tankini created for pregnant people) as my outfit top and actually went to Home Depot and Lowes like that on various trips to Home Depot and Lowes. I even got a "I like your top!" It was pretty exciting. My hotness apparently was showing...like a cooked turkey. That's actually pretty accurate as to how I felt: like a cooked turkey.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about other people's lives. In my family I am happy for a lot of people. I just want to do a couple of "Shout Outs" to those who are listening about some people I think are pretty great. Now, I think a lot of people are pretty great, so if I mention you here, you are super great. I think Kathy, my mother in law, is a trooper because she got her knee surgery and I think she's doing a really good job healing - it seems like a horrible thing do go through and I think she's doing a pretty inspirational job.

I also wanted to say I think Steve is pretty great, because he is amazing. I cry at pretty much everything these days, even if I'm happy. He is very consoling and kind and so helpful and I just am very grateful to have him in my life.

I wanted to give a BIG shout - out to my sister Julie and her family, and their newly adopted daughter, Paris. Paris is sooooo cute, and she seems to be getting along with her brothers and sisters and parents in a great way. Paris was finally able to come home to the Dony family a few weeks ago, after months of waiting, and paperwork, and what-have-you. I can't wait to meet my little niece and I am loving that my big sister and brother-in-law Scott are now the mother of 4 beautiful children!

I think that's all I wanted to say. I guess I wanted to say a lot. A lot is going on. Anyway - I hope you all are doing well. If you try to get a hold of me, and I'm busy in the next week or so, you can look at that tenative schedule and know what I'm up to. I'm an open book I guess. I just can't wait to see the finished results of that room!! And I can't wait for a few other things, too ;)