forgive me this one whiney post

samuel just got paid for the first time today.  the school district pays once a month.  and, judging by the amount on the paycheck, he is only getting paid for the first two weeks or so on this paycheck, because of how the dates and payroll work out.

so now we have to figure out how to survive for another month without buying anything.  gaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

it is really crazy how this summer money has seemed to magically appear in the perfect amounts (just barely enough).  each month when it has come time to pay the bills, i have worked the books and there is magically just enough to pay it all.  and only one of those times was it a loan of money we have to pay back eventually.  the rest of the time it was just magical hidden money showing up just for us.  I’m serious.  i just finished figuring out how we were going to survive this month with a tiny paycheck, the first paycheck in five months, and i think it’s actually going to work, just barely.  and just in time for the baby to come.

at least the baby won’t cost much.  free breastmilk, free healthcare (i have NO idea what we would do without medicaid) and cloth diapers.  we’ve got the essentials.  a loving mom and dad, a doctor, food, and diapers.  hehehe.  plus more thanks to generous friends and family.  i think i have spent a total of about $3 for this baby, on some snaps for the clothes i made.  I guess if you count the rocking chair and lambskin that is about $100.  plus maybe $25 on used maternity clothes.

the only thing that will cost more than usual is laundry for all those diapers.  lol.

Oh my gosh i will be SO happy when i can buy stuff again….next month samuel should get a nice fat paycheck.  and a new baby!  wish us luck surviving until then.

an optimistic update

Sorry I have not written in a while.  Whenever I felt like writing recently, I also felt like complaining MAJORLY.  So I thought it would be better to just not write.  Today, however, I’m feeling pretty optimistic.  We can pay our rent and bills coming up this week!  Granted, we will have about $100 left to our name, and it will be impossible to pay bills next month unless Samuel gets hired, but I feel like things will start looking up very soon.  Samuel has applied to over a hundred jobs.  Every weekday morning he spends a few hours applying to new jobs, both online and in person.  Something has got to come up eventually.

ETA: I thought I should clarify that, though we cannot pay our bills next month unless Samuel gets a paycheck, we do have Other Resources in the form of Family that can lend us money to get by.  So don’t be alarmed!  We are not going to be homeless.

Sorry for talking about our money in such detail, but I personally do not feel like it is inappropriate to talk about money unless you are whining, begging, or bragging.   So I try really hard not to do those things.  In fact, I think it is important to talk about money so that people can have a realistic view of it, and can learn from other people’s examples.  Also, I think it is important for people to be ok with using the words “we can’t afford it.”  Just matter-of-fact “we can’t afford it.”  Not “we can’t afford it don’t you feel sorry for us and want to give us money?” or “we can’t afford it and thus we are depressed.”  Just plain owning up to what you can’t afford and not being upset about it beyond reason.  So that’s why I am talking about this.

I am really excited about this baby.  I have been reading up on how to guess what position it’s in.  Now whenever it kicks, I try to determine what body part(s) is(are) kicking.

This morning Samuel looked at our phone bill and noticed that they were charging us for things we don’t want and didn’t ask for.  We seriously can’t afford that, so he called them, and they fixed everything and are going to pro-rate our account so that we will be refunded!  Samuel is my hero!

We got church callings.  I am the Relief Society Music Committee, which means I pick the songs and lead the music and also do the practice hymn and arrange a Relief Society musical number and stuff.  At one point in my life I said this was my coveted calling, so I’m pretty happy.  Samuel is a Sunday School teacher for the 14-15 year olds, including my sister Emma.  He is excited about that too.  After working with teenage sex offenders at his previous job, there is basically nothing these kids can dish out that he can’t handle.  They are all good kids; their only problem is that they don’t talk much in class.

What’s happening today

Regency maternity/nursing dress I'm working on. It has a drawstring neckline and waist.

This dress is made out of some kind of shiny polished cotton, with a darker blue silk dupioni for the trim.  And a silver gimp braid.  I want to do something really fancy around the skirt hem but I’m not sure exactly what yet.

kitty wanted me to take a picture of her too

Hair this morning

Lately I’ve tried washing my hair with a minimum of products.  Scrubbing the scalp with some cheap thin conditioner, rinsing with vinegar water, and then oiling with a coconut oil/shea butter blend.  I think I might just take out the conditioner part and see what happens.  Then my hair will be like a salad.  Water, vinegar, and oil.  haha.  Vinegar rinses are amazing, they make my hair feel just like I put conditioner in it.  Who would have thought?  Anyway this is a picture of my hair this morning after washing last night.  Keep in mind I haven’t combed it yet.  I like the lack of frizz that this routine produces.  My scalp hair is nice and clean too.  It’s funny how simple it is to wash and care for hair.  People make it into such a complicated and costly procedure.

By the way, we got on WIC and Medicaid so tomorrow I’m going to make an appointment with the birth center!

Wheeeeeee!

Oh man, I packed some things today and it made me so happy!  I’m trying to sell our two end tables on craigslist for $5.  I’m not sure they’ll sell but it’s worth a shot.  We’re moving in two weeks and two days.  Yikes! I am very excited.

My furniture goals for the new apartment are:

Used dark (but not black) leather living room set (sofa, loveseat, armchair, some combination of these things that fits in our living room) that isn’t ugly and saggy, for under $500.  I’ve seen a few on the KCMO craigslist.  I really want leather because I’m sure the apartment is all beige, and my cat sheds lots of white hair.  Explanation: if we got a fabric couch it would need to blend in with the cat hair, to hide it.  But to blend in with the cat hair it would also blend in with the walls and carpet.  So I want dark furniture that cat hair won’t stick to.   Leather!  Besides all that, I really like leather furniture.

Used queen sized headboard in dark wood in a classic style.  Like, pedestals or something.  No Ikea or mid-century modern.  Under $50.

Other than that, I’m not sure what we’ll need or what will fit, so we’ll wait and see.

I bought a bag on etsy today.  It’s kind of messenger-like canvas bag with a screen print.  It’s nice and big and I’m sure it will double as a diaper bag very well.

Oh, they mailed us the lease so it looks like we’re getting the apartment for sure!

I am so excited to have my kitty living with me.  I miss having pets so so much.  Having a little fluffy thing wandering under your feet, talking to you and snuggling.  It’s so nice.  And my family’s dog, Socrates, will be available for satisfying our dog craving and he’ll love us for giving him walkies. 

Well, it looks like someone wants to buy those end tables! Hopefully they will come take them away today.

General updates

We’re moving on May 19th.  We wanted to use a Relocube but they were all out! So we got one of their shared trailers instead.  Same price, and same amount of space.  But now we can’t just put it in our parking space, because it’s a huge trailer -we have to have them park it on the other side of the parking lot, quite far away.  So that makes me a little grumpy.

We will probably get in to the apartment we applied for.  It’s about a mile away from my parent’s home.  It costs about the same as Wymount, plus more for utilites, and has twice as much space.  I’m so used to being a BYU student.  Now that I’m not anymore I have to buy a landline and internet! Internet is soooo expensive.  I believe trash and water are included in the rent price though.

I’m going crazy looking at furniture on craigslist.  We will need couches, a dresser, and some other things.  I really don’t want to buy ugly things just because they’re cheap and available.  I would rather wait and find something nicer.  If I find something on craigslist while I’m still out here, my parents could pick it up for me, but they only have small cars so it’s a bit difficult.  So I don’t know why I’m still looking.  It’s addictive.

Plus we are rapidly running out of money, so it’s really hard to find furniture that I like that is still cheap.  I’ve been working nearly full-time this week and will next week.  Then they kick me out because I’m not a student.  Working full-time is a lot harder now than it was when I wasn’t pregnant.  I get tired fast!  Sometimes it’s like my arms and legs are super heavy.  I’m glad I am only working for one more week.

In really awesome news, I found a freestanding birth center in Topeka, an hour’s drive from Manhattan.  The website is here. If you don’t know what a birth center is, check out their FAQ page.  Check out their c-section rate in 2007: 3.6%.  That is just phenomenal.  The national average for 2006 was 31.1%.  Outrageously high.  The W.H.O. recommends no higher than 15%.   The other nice thing about this birth center is that they charge $4,100 total for prenatal visits, delivery, and a few postnatal visits.  This is a very good price.  If a patient ends up with an emergency hospital transfer (4.8% did in 2007), they will cancel the birth center fee and charge what it would cost for them to do a hospital birth.  So what that means for us, is that if Samuel doesn’t get a job with maternity coverage, and we don’t qualify for Medicaid (both of which are likely) we will either  pay $4,100 or the amount for the hospital birth (anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 and up, just for the delivery).  We were thinking of doing a home birth with a certified midwife ($2,000-3,000) but then if we ended up having a hospital transfer, we would have to pay the hospital bill on top of that.  So not only does this birth center have good statistics and a philosophy that meshes with mine and Samuel’s, it also is the least risky financially.  And if Samuel does get health insurance, we will get a plan that pays for a certain percentage of the bill from whatever doctor we choose to see.  So potentially it could be much less than $4,100, which as it is is cheaper than we would have paid in copays with our BYU insurance.

Sometimes we just want to move to Canada and have the baby there.  Health insurance is so blankety-blank complicated.  But I am really excited about this birth center.

Finally we know!

FINALLY!  We know where we are moving next month!

Samuel got rejected by all of the grad schools he applied to, one by one.  He has a 3.98 GPA, decent GRE score, 2 years of work experience in the field, and still didn’t get accepted.  He’s feeling pretty down about that, but doing better.

So, since we aren’t moving to Boston, Richmond, Akron, College Park, or that one place in Illinois, we can basically move wherever we want and try to find work.

There is a very promising job opportunity at Ft. Riley, KS where my dad works.  It requires a bachelor’s degree in psychology and involves counseling family members of the soldiers there.  It pays REALLY well, (yay federal jobs!) and is a one-year contracted position (which means not many people will want it, probably).  Samuel is totally qualified for it and so we are going to move to Manhattan, Kansas next month so he can go after it.  If not that job, then any job he can find.  Of course I really like the idea because  it’s my home town, and I’m having a baby this fall and my mom will be there and everything.

If he gets the job, he can work for a year and then try to get into grad school again (for the THIRD TIME).  Poor Samuel.  I love him, and I, for one, know that he is NOT WORTH REJECTING!  Those grad schools don’t know anything!

Hmph.

Anyway, we will also be taking a long road trip to Tennessee, Ohio, and Virginia, and back to Kansas for our anniversary/because we want to see family.  We are really excited about that and hope our car will hold together.

I’M GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE IN SIX DAYS!  My whole family is coming for it.  My brother and mom are also graduating from BYU.  It’s going to be a HUGE PARTY!  Complete with people sleeping over, on our couches and floor.

When we move, Samuel will grow a beard,

And I will get my kitty back!

Baby News (now with pictures!)

So, if you didn’t see it on my facebook status, I am pregnant! I’ve just passed the first trimester and have about six months left till birth. The due date is October 23, but the baby could come on Halloween, or even in November.

I am so excited!!!!

We went to the midwives clinic today for my first appointment, and they did all sorts of unpleasant things to me, but one fun thing I was looking forward to was hearing the baby’s heartbeat. But they tried for a long time and couldn’t find it! This was a little scary because it could mean that the baby is dead. So they sent me to get an ultrasound so they could see the baby. At the ultrasound, the heartbeat was obvious right away! So everything is fine.

Samuel was more excited than I was, I think because I’ve felt pregnant for quite some time now, but today after the ultrasound it finally became real to him. We got pictures of it but need to get them scanned at the library.

I want to address two things in this post:

1.It took us longer than we expected to conceive

2.We were in fact trying to conceive, because, in fact, we want to have a baby

1. It took us eight months to get pregnant. Because of my parents’ extreme fertility, I was not expecting to wait this long, although I did know it was a possibility. What I didn’t consider was that it was totally normal to not get pregnant on the first or second try, and just because I didn’t get pregnant immediately didn’t meant I was hopelessly infertile. The first months were the hardest, strangely enough. After three or four months I had calmed down considerably.

Because I hadn’t gotten pregnant immediately, I started researching fertility. I was already charting my cycles using the Fertility Awareness Method (which I highly recommend for any menstruating woman, because it taught me a lot about my body and I really appreciate knowing what’s going on in there. I really wish they’d taught me FAM in Sex Ed. It would have been so much more useful to me than what they did teach).

I knew that I was ovulating and that my cycles were regular, so the infertility was kind of mysterious. But when I started researching fertility and conception, I realized that it is not actually rare to have to wait months to conceive.

Here are some basic things I learned:

-According to one study, 25% of couples get pregnant in the first month of trying, while 60% of couples trying to get pregnant do so within six months. On the other hand, 75% of couples get pregnant within nine months while 80% get pregnant within a year. Finally, some 90% of couples get pregnant within eighteen months of trying.

-On average, it takes couples 6 months or more to conceive a baby.

So basically, I learned that I am totally normal! This was really comforting during those long months waiting to get pregnant. I told myself that I wasn’t going to worry about infertility until 12 months had passed, or perhaps longer. I wanted to write this all out so that other women who are trying to conceive can know that patience is often necessary, and worrying is not necessary at all.

2.We wanted to get pregnant

Though no one has said as much to me outright, I know that some people who read this blog are going to wonder why we wanted to get pregnant so young, and before Samuel is done with school and everything. Maybe some think that our church told us to. This is not true. Though our church encourages having children, there is no “requirement” on how many to have, or when to have them. It is a decision between each married couple and God, and no one else has any say in it. Samuel and I simply love kids. We both grew up in large families, and want to have a large family together. So we decided we’d better get started! We also realized that it is rarely convenient to have a baby at any point in life, and we didn’t want to put it off until the non-existent “perfect” time. We felt that we would be happier having a baby now than waiting and working and saving money. We will probably be poor at first, but we will not be destitute. And we will have children, which, I hear, brings more joy into a couple’s lives than anything else possibly can.

Here are the ultrasound pictures from today:

Spring Fever

I am having a lot of trouble living in the present.  We’re waiting for Samuel to get accepted somewhere so that we can plan when and where to move (hopefully within the next 2-3 months) and then we have to use up all of our savings to do that and so we need jobs and we need insurance when we arrive and I can’t plan any of it because we don’t even know where we’re going yet.  I have all of these things to look forward to/worry about and really I can’t see why me sitting on this yellow loveseat with nothing to do right now is worth experiencing more than even just thinking about all the stuff we will do in the next several months.

I keep feeling like I should enjoy this time right now, my last semester at college, my last months in Utah, and not spend all my thoughts on future happenings or I will regret it.  But it is so. hard. because I feel like today pales in comparison to the future.  And there are so many Important Things coming up for me to prepare myself for and plan for (insurance, moving, jobs, new city, and so on) and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t do it yet!

The warm weather and longer days are not helping, either!  Spring always makes me so restless.  Like Huck Finn said:

“The frost was working out of the ground, and out of the air, too, and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time every day….  It just makes a boy homesick to look ahead like that and see how far off summer is. Yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddening around, and there’s something the matter
with him, he don’t know what. But anyway, he gets out by himself and
mopes and thinks; and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high up on the
hill in the edge of the woods, and sets there and looks away off on the
big Mississippi down there a-reaching miles and miles around the points
where the timber looks smoky and dim it’s so far off and still, and
everything’s so solemn it seems like everybody you’ve loved is dead and
gone, and you ‘most wish you was dead and gone too, and done with it all.

“Don’t you know what that is? It’s spring fever. That is what the name of
it is. And when you’ve got it, you want–oh, you don’t quite know what
it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it
so! It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away; get away
from the same old tedious things you’re so used to seeing and so tired
of, and see something new.”

I remember the first time I read that, I was very young, and I knew in my experience that it was TRUE, TRUE, TRUE.  I’ve always gotten spring fever around this time of year.  For as long as I can remember I’ve been an advocate of going barefoot.  As kids my friend Marjorie and I would try our best to toughen our feet so we could walk barefoot anywhere.  My feet need to breathe.  Sometimes these days I forego the slippers and walk around the house barefoot, and that makes me feel so light and happy, after having my feet bundled up all winter.  The transition from boots to sandals is so wonderful.  From wool coat to none.  Skin touching cloth to skin touching air.  From potatoes and meat to fruits and veggies.  From grey to green.

Springtime means newness, freshness, excitement, freedom.  I’m looking forward to having the sun and the wind in my life more often, and I can’t help it!

more and more snow

It’s been snowing nonstop for two days now.  This recent snow piled onto the plentiful snow we already had on the ground now amounts to about two feet.  It’s kind of exciting, but I wish we (Samuel) didn’t have to drive anywhere.

Here’s Samuel digging out our parking space.

Here’s a more distant view so you can see the huge piles of snow.

Here’s me standing just outside our front door.  You can see the snow is up past my knees.

For some reason, today is completely different than yesterday

Because it’s New Year’s Day!

I’m feeling all nostalgic, so I’m going to write out what happened last year and what I want to happen this year.

In 2008:

I had my 1st wedding anniversery
I began my last year of college
I took my last Italian class
I sewed aprox. 2 skirts, 3 dresses, one shirt, and one pair of pants for myself
I pieced and started quilting my first quilt
I grew about 4 inches of hair
I designed a house with my sister’s help
I wrote 6 academic papers
I traveled to Virginia and Kansas

Some life-changing books I read were:

Technopoly
My Antonia
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (yep–  my first time)

In 2009 I hope:

To graduate!
To have a baby or have one on the way
To celebrate my 2nd wedding anniversery
That Samuel will get accepted to a good grad school with scholarship
That we will move somewhere awesome and bring my kitty
To take horseback riding lessons often (going to start soon if possible)
To possibly adopt a dog
To finish reading the Bible
To sew a few more dresses
To finish my quilt
To grow some vegetables
To read whatever books I want, instead of textbooks
To grow another 4+ inches of hair
To buy fewer things and be more content with what I have

Some actual resolutions:

To buy no new clothes except underwear and socks if needed
To only buy used clothes if I need them
To not let senioritis take over
To read more instead of surf the web