Counting down to Christmas

I love Christmas.  I'm pretty sure I always have.

The husband's job makes it difficult for both of us to be excited for the holidays though.  He works so much, deals with customers, listens to Christmas music all day long - you know the same loop of radio jingles for a 10 hour stretch and doesn't get very many days off during December.  So, needless to say, we have very different views of the Christmas Spirit.

The one thing I'm so thankful for is that we both really try to focus on what is important during the Christmas season.  We are just so thankful for what God is doing and has done in our lives...I can't imagine not celebrating his Son's birth.  Even though Christmas tends to be a bit intense - at least I know that when the actual 25th comes around - I will have my husband back and we can celebrate with family together.

The really crazy thing to think about is NEXT Christmas!  How will it work with a baby?!  How will we juggle daycare, my work and his extended schedule?  So many questions - and no answers right now.  That's okay with me though.  The thought of celebrating as a little family just makes me so happy.  And the thought of celebrating w/out being pregnant makes me happier.

Don't get me wrong - I am more than thankful we were able to get pregnant and I am now carrying our son or daughter, BUT I certainly do not understand all these people who loooooooooove being pregnant.  They must be crazy!  I wouldn't say I hate it, but I find it difficult to understand why one would love this feeling?  Oh well, to each their own I guess.  Perhaps somewhere along the lines of the 2nd trimester I will see the light.  Or maybe birth is so bad that women are just thankful for pregnancy?  Or maybe they normally feel bad so when pregnancy comes along they figure at least they have a baby on the way... I don't know?  Maybe some day I will  understand...

TWO Days...now almost ONE until I see my grandma and family.  I'm so excited!  I can't wait to celebrate Christmas ON Christmas with them AND BRIAN!  It just means so much to me.  I am sad that Brian will be away from his family at Christmas time and I know that will be hard on both him and his family...  but I really can't help but feel so happy at the same time to be able to celebrate on Christmas with my family.  AND have my grandma there...I just can't remember the last time that happened.  I know our time is limited with Grandma, so I love it when we get holidays with her.

Brief update on preggo-life.  It's week 16 and I still have limited energy.  When I get too tired I cry for really no reason at all.  I am not craving anything, however I DO have an appetite again so that's great!  I actually got to clean most of my house last saturday and I still can't believe that I had the energy to do that.  I have heartburn all the time and burb up nearly everything that I eat.  Gross.  I'm very thankful for TUMS.  They help me curb my grossness.  There are very few nights I sleep well, so I still go to bed pretty early and I sleep with this giant pillow called a snoogle. Oh - and my hips/hip-joint? has started randomly hurting...especially when I sleep in certain positions and I get headaches every day.

All of this to say...I AM feeling better now that I'm out of the 1st trimester and am looking forward to better days!  Most things mentioned above I already dealt with and are much less of a problem than feeling like death every morning, so a vast improvement.

After over a year of trying...

I just figured I'd cut to the chase - haha!  I have held this in for long enough and have really been waiting to write about this for a VERY long time.  (well it felt like a long time anyway).

Since only a select few have been able to keep up with me or check in week to week, I figured I'd give a run down of how the first 15 weeks of the pregnancy have gone.  Some know much more than others at this point.  I have yet to decide how painfully...brutally honest that I'm going to be in written form.  After all, once it's out there...you can't get it back.

Weeks 1-5:  No idea I was pregnant.  No sick feelings.  No tiredness.  No signs.

Week 6: My cycle (so I thought) had started during week 5, however had abruptly stopped after 1 day. I waited 3-4 days for it to return, however no dice.  I told Brian and let him know that I would be taking a pee test once I got home from work.  Unfortunately for him he wasn't home, but I had to GO and I didn't want to drink a bunch more water and wait until he got home to take it.  The test was a digital one, so fool-proof!  So I took it out, did my thing...and waited.  {blink - blink - blink} then...NOTHING.  The darn thing shut off!  I'm pretty sure the battery died or something - NO answer.  Brian got home and I told him what happened.  So we weren't sure what to do.  Finally we decided to go to Walgreens and just get another test.  We picked up a pregger test - AND - an ovulation kit!! haha!  This is how convinced we were that I was preggo.  At 10pm I took the test - within less than 30 seconds we were staring at the word "PREGNANT" on the little digital screen.  We just kinda grinned in silence.  Umm...now what?  Bad idea to take a test at 10pm...because you can't sleep once it's positive.  At the end of the week I went to the doctor and sure enough they confirmed.  6 weeks along.

Week 7:  Morning Sickness.  Whoever coined the term morning sickness was full of it.  I have a feeling it was some self-absorbed male that thought the "sickness" was all in the woman's head, so if he labeled it "morning sickness" women would only think about it in the morning.  I call bs!!  No way - NOT morning sickness.  All day and evening dizziness and feel like you're gonna gag constantly sickness.  Take that self-absorbed male. Thankfully the drug Zofran exists.  I probably thank God for this drug and the doctor that prescribed it (and keeps refilling it) more than any other thing.

Week 8-9:  Blocked.  Ok...I will spare those sensitive readers the details for now, but lets just say things hadn't "mooooooooooved" along since I found out I was pregnant.  Remember back in week 6?  Ya, that was also the last time and food product escaped from my system.  At the end of week 8 (or 9 or something) I decided to take matters in my own hands and drink some laxative tea.  Cleverly named, "Smooth move" this herbal concoction promised to gently and safely get things moving.  I drank 8oz as indicated close to bedtime on a Thursday night.  At 3am - things were clearly happening.  4am - more things were happening, but my system was VERY stubborn.  I some how picture the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandolf pounds his staff into the ground and yells at the firery beast, "You SHALL NOT PASS!"  The unfortunate part of all this was that I reeeeeeeeally felt like I HAD to go...but it wasn't until 5 or 6am did things actually start evacuating.  Then - the morning sickness kicked in and I started vomitting.  AWESOME!  What a gift!  Now I can't keep water down!  By 8am I was a shaky, shivering, crying, exhausted wreck of a woman.  Brian came down stairs to say good morning and he got a lump of nerves that burst into tears - wimpering instead of talking.  At the doctor's instruction - I went to the emergency room and proceeded to not only get rehydrated but to rid myself of the 3 weeks of "build up" in my system.  Pheww.

Week 10-13:  Smells.  Bloodhounds had nothing on me.  I could smell whatever was brewing in our kitchen the second I pulled into our driveway. And most good smell were really too much for me to take...let alone bad ones.  Smells affected me so much that we ended up sitting in the foyer at church one Saturday evening because some guy sitting somewhat near us splashed on too much cheap cologne.  Ridiculous.  Preggos are ridiculous.  I  must admit - there is more to weeks 10-12...however perhaps for another day.  Let's just say my trip to the hospital was not the end of my constipation woes.  Perhaps more on that later...

Week 14-15: Made it to the 2nd trimester.  We arrive at current day.  I have an appetite once again and things seem to be regularly moving through my system.  Thank God.  The all-day sickness has tamed down and I have some energy that I didn't have during the first few weeks of this adventure.  I am told that I will gain more energy and feel super good in a matter of a couple weeks.  I'm definitely looking forward to that!

So - there you have it.  A run down catching you up to current day.  I'm so thankful God allowed us to get pregnant, but at the same time I had no idea what I was getting into.  I'm pretty sure I still have no idea.  I'm definitely nervous about things to come, but more on that later.

I miss Blogging...

So, this post has to be short and sweet...but it appears I might have lost the 2 readers that I once had.  OH well - this is a nice way to document things that I feel necessary to write about.

I am well into my new recruiting job and it has been a roller coaster so far!  New hires, fall-offs, acceptances, rejections...the list goes on!  It's definitely been a challenge for me to keep up.  I work with a great team though, so that makes every day much more liveable.

There is SO much going on at the Schupbach household!!  We've been SO busy and the Christmas season will be busier than ever.  We have big changes ahead of us and are looking forward to the future.

I will be visiting Omaha this weekend, so I'm really looking forward to seeing family and friends. 

Ok must go for now, but will update soon!  Much to update!!

Perfect mix of productivity and relaxing

Saturday is such a key day in the week for me. I always find Saturdays to be difficult to plan because a part of me know the house and laundry need attention, another part of me wants to hang out with friends, another part of me wants to get through errands, yet another part of me wants to relax and be lazy. How do I ever balance all of these? I also have my 8th grade girls thrown into the mix some too!

It's so hard to figure out which things to say YES to and which things to pass on...because generally...I want to do everything!

This Saturday I went shopping at Walmart with a couple 8th grade girls. We were buying things for our church food pantry. It was pretty interesting watching the girls navigate the store and weigh-in on what they thought was best to buy the people in need. Among the items were hot chocolate mix with colorful marshmallows, a jar of pickles, nutella, and various types of name brand sugar cereals. I'm sure those shopping at the pantry this week. What a great thing to have jr. Highers do! Get them thinking outside themselves!!

Next up...I really wanted to go to the apple orchard with friends. However, unfortunately...I had a disaster of a house to attend to! AND a mountain of laundry to concur! Ok I admit, and a nap to take. I missed hanging out with the girls which I'm sad about, but did make a dent in the laundry and the house has found some kind of order. Praise the Lord!

Ok time for church! Yes!

No matter how I feel...God is faithful

I've reached the end of another week! This week went so slow! I just felt like it was dragging so much! It's my 7th week with my new company and I really was feeling like I wanted to get an offer! As a recruiter, there's a big focus on placing candidates. If you are not placing people it starts to get to you after a while. I am not expected to actually get any hires for another month, but it is nice if I do. WELL...it appears that I will have TWO offers on Monday! I'm terribly excited! It sounds like my candidates will accept the positions too...which is a big win!

Again, God continues to show up in my life. He continually shows me I don't need to worry about my situation or problems...He has a plan and it's perfect. Yet I still even today have struggled with being worried about the future. Maybe worried is not exactly the right term, but I just want to have a hand in controlling the future. You know?

You see, my parents and the hub's parents plus family are coming out to visit in November...how cool would it be to tell them we are expecting?! I know, it's just awful for me to think like that...but that's just where my brain goes. Even after God has shown me time and time again that He knows best and will take care of us, I still desperately want to grab the reigns from Him. Truth of the matter is, I probably don't even know the depth of what I am really desiring. To want kids...is probably a crazy wish...I'm sure of it! I really am trying to soak in and enjoy my time spent with Brian. I have observed what children do with your time and ability to go on dates and such. I'm sure it's a positive trade off, but it's still a major change in life and I try to remind myself of that each time my cycle starts over.

I do think that I have come to grips with the fact that we have honestly been trying for over year and have been unsuccessful. It's a weird feeling really. Definitely humbling. It's humbling because you can only do so much...then pretty much God has to do the rest. I have been more faithful about bringing this want to the Lord though and plan on continuing.

He has been faithful in the past and I know He has a great plan for our future.

Commuting in the rain.

So, the other day a friend of mine asked if I was enjoying commuting or hating it. After a long-winded response I came to the conclusion that I did indeed enjoy it. I am currently 7 weeks into my new job now and feel I'm settling in nicely. I still have no hires at this point, but am hopeful something will come through soon.

I continue to learn new things about commuting. For instance, if you choose to pay for parking with cash, always bring quarters because there are only 2 of 6 machines that take dollar bills and they are often not working...not to mention there's frequently a line at both of them. Also, choose a parking spot and use the same one EVERY time you park. No exceptions. Even when it's raining and you see a closer spot, don't give in to temptation, just go to your same spot. Reason being...you will more than likely be distracted by the rain and getting your umbrella up, so you won't look at the spot number of your parking space. I learned this today. I was standing in line trying my best not to get wet (not successfully) and realized I had no clue what parking space I had parked in. Then there's that sound...ding ding ding ding ding...Oh no! No time to go look at what spot you are in!! So, I just picked one that I thought it might be. I usually park in 542. I got a little closer, so I paid for spot 536. We will see what the outcome is. Another lesson is, don't sit in a broken seat...even if you think you can handle it until your stop. It's truly just too uncomfy and distracts you from the things you like to do during the ride.

I've decided to get a monthly parking pass. It just makes sense, I mean the last thing I want to do is stand outside in the bitter cold worrying about what parking space number I am. With a parking permit I can park wherever and not have to make sure I have quarters on hand each week.

As the fall and winter seasons approach...I definitely need to beef up my supply of coats, sweaters, and boots.

Recovering

Ok, 30 day review went well...I just need to keep working...harder. The online training portion is over, now in need to make calls! This is easier said than done. I seem to remember finding candidates being easier than this. I would feel much better if I landed an interview even.

There's this special incentive on these one positions...I can get an addition $100 gift card if I can fill one of them. The problem is, a bunch of people in the office already have candidates for the positions. (sigh). It's a very defeating feeling, but at the same time expect it. I am looking forward to 6 months from now when I'm more comfortable with everything. I feel like a lost child right now.

So, this past weekend was the Chi-Town Shindig! It was a great kick-off to another year in the Jr High ministry! It was amazing. I really wish I would have brought both my film and digital camera! Especially since I had very few pictures left on the film one. So sad. There's just something amazing about being around 1000 kids worshipping God. Those kids shook the very walls of Harvest's new downtown cathedral. It just makes me wonder about what the people outside of the church heard...or thought. Pastor James came down and gave a message directly to the students. It was really cool having him be a part of the night. There's just something about having him be visually excited about what God is doing in the student ministry. I mean, obviously he's interested...it's just not often that we get to see it first hand.

You know, another thing that was awesome is how well the night was planned. Things really went off without a hitch. The only thing, as far as I can tell, that was off was how long it took the buses to get downtown. It was great! Now, that being said, I do wish my 8th grade girls would have gone to sleep before 5am!!!

Sunday was a lazy day. Brian and I went to get his beer making kit, so when I come home tonight he will have freshly brewed beer in the 1st processing container. It will stay there a week then move to another container...then another week then to bottles. This should be interesting. More to come!

Now we are off to a busy week! Brian will talk to his boss tomorrow about his new job opportunity. We are praying it goes smoothly! He will either start next week, in October, or January...depending on what the outcome of tomorrow's meeting!