• Last month, one couple had their first child.


• Friday night, we were out to dinner with another couple, who are due next month. Their baby shower is this Saturday.


• Our other friends finally got the word that they can go to Vietnam and pick up their baby boy.


• And of course, we're on baby watch with SIL. Her due date is this week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Also happy birthday to genghisjon_666!

To recap, Kathy just has to mention setting a start date, and I start stress eating, and Hubby starts to freak out.

My aunt finally called me back, so I was on the phone with her for about 40 minutes. Somehow between putting my camera strap on and dropping the phone, I put that lovely scratch in the middle of my forehead, as you saw. So that pushed back our watching the first episode of the new Law & Order Classic. We watched the first episode. I didn't think the story was so hot, but the performances -- including cult favorite Brad Dourif going all awesome and mainstream! -- were very good.

So we finally get to bed around 11:00. Naturally the smoke alarms start going off. For no good goddamn reason. We'd had a candle going in the rec room, but I had definitely blown that out before coming up to bed. I think they aren't really smoke alarms. I think they're psychic stress alarms. They only seem to go off at the worst possible times, like right before a dinner party, or while we're in bed freaking out about our remodel.

Did I mention Hubby was also already stressing out over his business trip? He leaves from the office this afternoon to go to the Philly airport.

But we had some good news this morning. Mom wrote back to say they can still take the cats, but they were planning to paint the back bedroom before tax season (my dad is a CPA). And she wanted to get things ready for "the grand-cats." Oh, and by the way, she had thought it was going to be mid- to late-January. Yeah, so did we. It's not my pick either. But yes, they can take the cats. Whichever start date the contractor goes with, we can take the cats down the Sunday before. That's a relief. And that helped Hubby feel less stressed.

He called the vet's office down the street, who also kennel cats, and he got quoted $19 a day. He didn't ask if that was per day or per cat per day. If it's per cat per day, Hubby did the math and figured out that a month of that would cost more than a month's rent on my old apartment!!! My apartment wasn't huge, but it was certainly bigger than a cat kennel!

But anyway, we have that to fall back on, just in case they want to start before my parents are ready. A couple of days or a week wouldn't kill us.

Kathy says the cabinet place (whom I was concerned about because their check hadn't cleared yet) gave her a tentative date, so she's assuming all is well, but she will double-check. And she threw in at the end, have we placed a tile order yet? Wait, what? I thought we put in the order, but I don't remember giving them any money.

Know what else occurred to me? Paint. Furniture. Haven't talked to anyone about them yet. What do we do?

Oh yeah. We're having fun now.

Phew! It was almost a relief to come to work this morning. At least I get to sit down.

On Saturday morning I hit the farmers' market right when they opened. Then we went to the appliance store ( Adventures in Remodeling continue here )

After we left H&H, we picked up Hubby's bike from getting a spoke replaced, and went home. My head was spinning with all the info we'd gotten, but I started sifting through it on the ride home. We picked up some lunch, and talked more. The most useful thing we did was actually draw on our existing floor where the new island is going to go. We looked at Kathy's draft and measured everything out. I made markers with Scotch tape and a Sharpie, so we could see just how really long this thing is, and where everything will roughly be. Very useful.

That night I watched Jekyll on BBC America and racked up 3 activity points on the treadmill at the same time! (I heart my treadmill!) Why is skinny bald James Nesbitt so friggin' sexy? How does he do that? Anyway, watch Jekyll. It's quite good.

Sunday was a bit harder going than I'd planned. At 10:00 a.m., I rode over to Trenton to pick up an antique desk I bought from Craigslist. This is the first time in two years I found something that I couldn't make fit in the back of the Vibe! We got it wedged in pretty tightly, but the girl's mom had to tie down my hatchback. (Note to self: learn to tie good knots.) I drove home with the blinkers on and absolutely nervous the whole time. Thank God my GPS has the option to avoid highways; it didn't take me along back roads or anything, but I would have probably died of fright trying to go on I-295 with the back open and driving 20 mph.

So I finally get home about 10:45, and Hubby and I unwedged it. Then, it didn't fit through the door to the office. We needed another inch of clearance, and the desk had these little feet on each leg that were, oh… about an inch thick. Hubby bust out the saw and sawed them off! He did a good job too; they were pretty even.

I was so wound up after driving the desk home, then not being able to get it into the office, that I snapped at Hubby for suggesting something to fix the desk problem. Then while he was sawing, I realized I'd just done to him the kind of thing I'd heard my mom say to my dad probably thousands of times. But instead of just taking it, Hubby called me on my B.S. (Good for him!) So after we got the desk in the office, I gave him a big hug, thanked him for all his help, and apologized for being mean to him. Which, in my book, makes me way cooler than my mom. Yay for me! And thanks again, honey! xoxoxo

After we got it through the door, Hubby also helped me disassemble my old desk. Then I did a good vacuuming of the whole area, and shifted it exactly where I wanted it. It's basically just to store papers and little desk-y things like pens and Post-Its, as well as have all my gear in one place -- my MacBook, my iPods, accessories. There should even be plenty of room to put a scanner when I get one! I took all my junk out of the printer stand, so now the printer stand is free to hold only paper.

My original plan was to go pick up my new exercise bike from Omni after I dropped off the desk, but since the desk was so much more of a project than I'd anticipated, we didn't get over there till 1:00 p.m. At least it came in a flat box, but it was heavy. I treated Hubby to a sandwich from Subway for lunch, because we were both pretty hungry by then. We tried opening the box and taking the pieces into the house one by one, but there weren't that many extra pieces. But we got that into the office… sorry, I decided it's the "rec room" now. We got it into the rec room. I was going to spend the afternoon putting it together, but I was tired and my back was killing me. And we still needed to go grocery shopping!

After groceries, I laid on the floor on my back for a while. Aah. That helped. I watched bad movies on Sci Fi and read through the "how to assemble" book for my bike. I may give it a try tonight if I feel up to it.

Hubby made very tasty ribs, which we had with corn on the cob and baked beans and lots of sauce. We watched Pitch Black, which we hadn't seen in a long time. It's so basic, but done so well.

So yeah, busy busy weekend! But the rec room is looking good. Once I get the bike put together and we decide where to put it, I'll put up some pictures.

Okay, I should actually go do some work.