wilzwife.blogspot.com

It’s been quite a while.  Katie is 8 months old today, and a pure joy.  She’s beautiful and sweet and all I could have asked for a daughter.  I’ve been stitching again.  I’m working on a project for my mom for mothers day: My mother, my friend by Doop Designs.  It’s very soft and pretty.  The only issue I have is that it calls for “Just Another Button Company” buttons, and my LNS doesn’t have them.  I did find a retailer online that can ship them to me, so when I get the money together I will get them.

I’m frustrated with work.  I’m bored.  It’s just not challenging anymore.  Yet looking for something else just seems to be too much a pain in the ass.  I don’t want to have to re-earn vacation time.  On the upside, out of sheer boredom I have managed to build very impressive wish lists at a couple of ONS’s.  I have enough charts marked to last me about 4-6 hundred years beyond my life expectancy.

Look at the list of (100) books below.  Bold the ones you’ve read.  Italicize the ones you want to read.  Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.  (Movies don’t count)

1.        The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)2.       Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)3.       To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)4.       Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)5.       The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)6.       The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)7.       The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)8.       Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)9.       Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)10.   A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)11.   Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)12.   Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)13.   Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)14.   A  Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)15.   Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)16.   Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)17.   Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald18.   The Stand (Stephen King)19.   Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)20.   Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)21.   The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)22.   The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)23.   Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)24.   The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)25.   The Life of PI (Yann Martel)26.   The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)27.   Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)28.   The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)29.   East of Eden (John Steinbeck)30.   Tuesdays With Morrie (Mitch Albom)31.   Dune (Frank Herbert)32.   The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)33.   Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)34.   1984 (George Orwell)35.   The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)36.   The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)37.   The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)38.   I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)39.   The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)40.   The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)41.   The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)42.   The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)43.   Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)44.   The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)45.   Bible46.   Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)47.   The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)48.   Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)49.   The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)50.   She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)51.   The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingslover)52.   A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)53.   Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)54.   Great Expectations (Dickens)55.   The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)56.   The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)57.   Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)58.   The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)59.   The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)60.   The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)61.   Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)62.   The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)63.   War and Peace (Tolstoy)64.   Interview With the Vampire (Ann Rice)65.   Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)66.   One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)67.   The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)68.   Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)69.   Les Miserables (Hugo)70.   The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)71.   Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)72.   Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)73.   Shogun (James Clavell)74.   The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)75.   The Secret Garden (Fances Hodgson Burnett)76.   The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)77.   A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith)78.   The World According to Garp (John Irving)79.   The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)80.   Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)81.   Not Wanted on The Voyage (Timothy Findley)82.   Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)83.   Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)84.   Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)85.   Emma (Jane Austen)86.   Watership Down (Richard Adams)87.   Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)88.   Blindness (Jose Saramago)89.   The Stone Diares (Carol Shields)90.   Kane and Abel (Jeffery Archer)91.   In the Skin of A Lion (Ondaatje)92.   Lord of the Flies (Golding)93.   The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)94.   The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)95.   The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)96.   The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)97.   White Oleander (Janet Fitch)98.   A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)99.   The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)100.                        Ulysses (James Joyce)

I can’t believe it’s been so long, but I really do have a good excuse.  About a week before November, in a fit of grace, I fell in the parking lot at work and broke my arm.  It’s mostly healed at this point.  I can rotate it all the way, and am working on unbending it. 

Katie is doing really well.  We just had her 4 month appointment a couple of weeks ago.  She is up to 9.5 lbs and about 23 inches.  I say about because she refused to stretch out to her full length.  We had a little scare when the Dr. flipped her over and looked at her spine.  He noticed what he called a sacral dimple.  He ordered an ultrasound to make sure it was harmless.  We had it done on Friday and the results came back all clear!  I tried not to get too worried; Alex has the same dimples and has had no problems.  I tried telling myself that it was just genetic, but it didn’t really help.    

Billy is doing great.  He is improving his reading every day.  He is a whiz at math (gets that from his father I assure you).  He’s also really good at spelling.  We do need to work on his penmanship.  It is awful!   On the upside he really does seem to enjoy school, and every teacher he had says he’s such a loving, caring boy. 

We finally have Alex potty trained!!  We went out this weekend to buy him his first ‘big boy’ underwear.  He picked out Thomas the Train and Diego.  He is so proud of himself J  He’s been learning letters and colors with his babysitter, and he is so smart!  The sitter said he picks up on it so quickly.  He can’t wait to go to school like his brother. 

I have yet to do any Christmas shopping.  It’s really bad, because Will has already given me two huge gifts!  He gave me a X-Box 360 and a big screen TV.  I told Will that if he didn’t have to work late tonight, I would do all the shopping after the boys were in bed.  I do this to myself every year, and every year I hate it. 

I think that brings everything up to date.  I’m still trying to work on Lady of the Mist, but I don’t get to stitch as often as I like.  Like usual, I have half a dozen other projects lying around to do as well.  Hopefully I’ll actually finish something next year!

I went back to work today. On my birthday no less It wasn’t so bad. I was hoping to stay home, but in the course of three weeks my car sprung a gas leak, lost the *entire* exhaust system, and the brakes started to work only half the time. So I am now the proud owner of a 2007 Kia Sportage. I love the car, but am scared of the loan! New car payment meant back to work for mommy. Luckily I am blessed with a wonderful sitter. Katie is doing great. Had her two month appt and is now almost 6 lbs. She’s almost holding her head up completely, and has started using her arms to push herself up. I’ll try and get some new pictures up soon! I’ve been stitching on Lady of the Mist by Mirabilia, and I love it so far. I just wish I had some more time to stitch. Well off to bed I go, cuz I’ve got work (ugh) tomorrow!

I was looking through my stats for the blog and saw that someone got here with a search for “pregnancy and dead baby”. Ugh. I hate that my blog can be found by that. I wish I was well spoken enough to offer meaningful advice to someone suffering from a ‘dead baby’. I’ve been through two of them. For some reason the first hurt the most. As bad as it sounds, losing Katie’s twin didn’t hurt as much. Most likely because I got at least one baby out of it. I don’t even know the point of this entry. Loss sucks, no matter when how or why it happens.

That’s how I feel Katie had an at home nurse visit yesterday and she weighed in at 4lbs 7 oz. The nurse said everything looks good, and she’s going to refer us to an early intervention program that will evaluate her for developmental delays until she is three. I don’t think it will be an issue, but better safe than sorry. Both the boys are sick. I will be so ready for Billy to not bring every illness home from school! I got the worst sinus headache I have ever had Sunday night, and it’s just starting to taper off. Between that, and the sleepless nights I have been a lump for a week. I love my family the way it is, and am basking that it’s complete.

Katie is home She came home on Monday after 22 days in the NICU. She is wonderful. It seems she is like Billy, always wants to be held. Let me tell you how much that breaks my heart! We are giving her fortified breastmilk to help her gain weight more quickly. She was 4 lbs even when she was released. She had her very first Dr’s appt. the day after she was released, and that’s the only ’special’ consideration we have for her. I am pumping for her still, and let me tell you how much I hate that machine. I can’t wait until we can turn it back in. The boys are doing very well with the new sister. The biggest problem is that they want to help too much. It’s kind of hard to explain to my two year old that he needs to just back off and let mommy change the diaper, nurse the baby, etc. etc. She is going to be one spoiled little girl. I am pretty brain dead from lack of sleep, but very very happy.

She is doing absolutely great. Shes up to 1690 grams, and when she hits 1,700 she will be moved to an open air crib. If she can hold her temperature up, and keeps eating well then she will be home on Sunday!! I’m home again and am doing pretty well. Will is having to pack an opening in my wound, but I’ve finished my antibiotics and am feeling almost normal. Billy starts 1st grade next week, and Alex is bugging us to go with. Will lost his job (yup again), so depending on how quickly he finds a new one I may be going back to work next week. It sucks, but it is what it is. I think that’s everything. I’ll try and put up some new Katie pictures in a little while.