Painting nightmare!

What a weekend! Before I get into it, I just wanted to show everyone what I look like now - 8 months along! Anyway, Brian and I decided to paint the room that we're turning into the nursery. Painting is not rocket science - you pick the color(s), buy the supplies, paint a few coats, and you're done. It's actually difficult to really mess it up if you're just a bit careful. All was going well, until we completed the second coat of the lighter walls (as you can see from the pictures, we did one wall a darker green than the rest). There was a bit of a rough patch on one of the walls - somehow, the paint just hadn't covered it very well. In hindsight, we should have just let it go - chances are it wouldn't bother us for that long and most people probably wouldn't notice it. Is that what we did? Nooo - I had to take the roller that didn't have very much paint on it and try and patch it up, thinking it should just blend it. Made it worse. So later Brian tried with more paint on the roller - only made the area bigger. At this point I need to make it clear that all along Brian was the voice of reason - he suggested right away that we just repaint the entire wall if it bothered me, but I wanted to take shortcuts. Anyway, at 7:30pm last night, I went upstairs to observe the wall and see if I could live with it - I could not. I started crying uncontrollably as though the world had come to an end and poor Brian had no idea what he was to do! He suggested that we try to repaint the whole wall as that seemed to be the only solution to this problem. I had thrown away that last roller because I was determined at the time that no matter how it looked I did not want to repaint the entire wall, so now Brian had to make a trip to Home Depot to get another roller. He called and asked me if I was sure we would have enough paint left over to do the entire wall and I assured him it would be fine (there was after all half an inch of paint in the bottom of the can - you can shake your head now). So I'm doing all the cutting in around the edges and baseboard while he's off to Home Depot and he comes back with this enormously fluffy roller - I think it soaked up all the paint we had in like two dippings! Now we had a problem - weren't going to have enough paint. Sooooo Brian was off to Home Depot again, where he ALMOST didn't get the paint because they close at 8 on Saturdays (who knew!) but luckily he was able to sneak in just before (phew!) so I finished the wall and we were able to relax - finally, the wall was done. We went downstairs, watched a movie, relaxed for a bit, and when we came upstairs to check on the wall, we noticed that the part we had rollered was lighter than the edges. Thinking it must just need more time to dry, we went to bed, all the while deep down having a sinking feeling that this was not going to correct itself. I got up at about 2:45am to use the washroom, and started thinking about the wall and just had to go check (here's where I'm going to really start blaming my pregnancy hormones for making me irrational!). Sure enough, the edges were noticeably darker than the middle. At this point I thought the new can of paint must have been slightly lighter - that can happen when they mix it at the store - so what did I do? I get the paint brush and repaint the edges - at 3am. How can you be so wide awake and yet so tired? I don't really know. Anyway, I got back to bed and had a restless sleep until morning. Of course I had to get up super early just to see if my experiment had worked. To my dismay I discovered that the edges were indeed still darker. Wow you can't imagine my disappointment. Brian gets up, and being the rational one in all of this (and I thank him for finding a solution and not just having me committed like I'm sure he thought I deserved at that point!) he figured out that the new paint was NOT lighter than the last can, but for some unknown reason the last time we rollered the paint must not have been mixed properly (it was straight from the mixer at Home Depot - how could it not be mixed properly?!). So the decision was made to reroller the wall and be done with it. One thing I should mention is that last night after we rollered the wall Brian wanted to clean the roller just in case we needed it again - I assured him (because I really am of sound mind) that would not be necessary, and if it was surely we could just soak it in hot water for a while and it would be good to go. As you can probably guess, soaking it did NOT help so we were off to Home Depot once more for another roller! It's a good thing it's so close or this could have been much more of a painful experience. I finally conquered the wall today - I rollered it and sure enough, it now matches the edges. The ironic thing is that the wall itself is still not perfect - there are still patches that look a bit more dull than the rest. But I assure you - I am now willing to live with those imperfections (as most people do!) and am NOT going near a painting project again for a LOOOONNNGGG time! On the bright side, the colours look great and now that we got the crib, glider rocker and dresser set up in there, it looks awesome:). Our baby has a room! Still pretty plain - still need to figure out what we want on the walls etc, but it's a good start. It was all worth it in the end, although I have to wonder - how much less stressful would this weekend have been if I could have just been reasonable about the rough patch. Anyway, I have decided to blame the entire episode on pregnancy hormones and take no responsibility for it whatsoever. Oh it's going to be a longgg five weeks! Thank goodness I have a husband who loves me:).

Time to check in!

It's been a bit of lax summer with the blog posting, and there's no real excuse except laziness. And maybe that there's nothing terribly exciting going on! As you can see from this picture, I continue to grow and grow - I will be 30 weeks on Tuesday (which for those of you who can only think in months is 7 months almost exactly). I can't believe the baby's going to be here that soon! Ahhh I hope we're ready! People keep asking us if the nursery is done or if we have a name picked out or if we've bought a lot of stuff yet and the answer to all those questions is no, these things haven't happened yet. We did buy a stroller, carseat and playpen a while back, but there's still much to be done. I've decided that my last day of work will be October 12, so that leaves me about three and a half weeks until the baby is due - PLENTY of time, right?? No we plan on getting going soon - as you will see from the following pictures, our backyard is finally done!! Hurray!

All summer we (well mostly Brian as I've been sort of useless this summer) have been plugging away at our backyard, trying to make it somewhat presentable. We bought one of those vinyl sheds from Canadian Tire a few weeks ago, and now the last step was laying the sod. Brian started this process on Friday night by renting a roto-tiller (sp?) from Home Depot. We wanted to get a bigger one, but once again the curse of not having a truck cost us - the only one that would fit in the car was this dinky little one. So, a few hours later, Brian was thoroughly rattled (literally) and the ground not very much softer. Oh well - it helped a little. Saturday, Jer came over and helped Brian lay the sod. It didn't take too long in our tiny backyard and it was done right around lunch time. Todays rain couldn't have come at a better time, and now we can have people over and we don't have to sit in a pile of dirt! Just in time for the fall and winter of course. We even have one little patch left over beside the shed for a small garden.

New Fence

It seems like its been a busy summer with next to no progress on making our backyard livable, but last weekend we finally got our fence up with some help. Now all thats left is to get some sod in the backyard (if its large enough to be called a yard that is).



After the fence we had some family over for supper, where we had birthday cake for both Mike and Sarah's birthday. We were also given our first baby clothes gifts!

FINALLY looking pregnant . . .

So I've had some people telling me that they want to see me growing, and I've been putting this off because I really haven't looked all that pregnant until the last week or two. Now I'm pretty sure I look pregnant:). It's been fun shopping for maternity clothes and truth be told, I think I have nicer clothes now than I did before! Not as many maybe, but cuter. I'm having some trouble finding nice jeans, though - will have to keep my eye out for those. Some more fun news is that Brian finally was able to feel the baby yesterday when he put his hand on my tummy! I've been feeling her for several weeks already, but we never seemed to time it right for Brian to feel it. She was a bit extra hyper yesterday and decided to humour him I guess:). So far, besides some lower back pain, I'm loving being pregnant!

No More Guessing . . . IT'S A GIRL!

So I went for my ultrasound last week (the 14th). I was so excited - I had visions of seeing my baby in different positions, moving, stretching and kicking, possibly even seeing for myself the sex of the baby. I had booked at a 3D/4D ultrasound and I had seen so many pictures online about what my baby would look like so I was eagerly awaiting this appointment. In reality, here's how it went down. The guy called me in, not Brian - he would be called in later, turned the screen toward himself and started poking around my tummy. He asked me if I wanted to know the sex if he could see it and I said "yes" and he went to work. He used the 4D wand for 45 seconds on the baby's face and that was it - the rest was in 2D and I didn't see anything. He did call Brian in when he was done his thing and show us some stuff in 2D - the baby's spine, feet, heartbeat, etc. but all in all I saw more at my first ultrasound. He was very rushed. He did tell us that he saw the sex . . . I couldn't believe it when he said it was a girl! How could that be?? With all the male genes in the Kroeker family how could I be having a girl! I asked him if he was sure, if he had seen female anatomy or merely the absense of male anatomy (as a friend so aptly put it, 'Maybe he's just a late bloomer!') and he claimed there had been evidence of female anatomy so we're just going to have to trust him. Now that I know the gender I'm all excited to start shopping for her! We bought a stroller/carseat combo and playpen/bassinet combo the other day - so fun to set them up and imagine that in just a few months . . . that is coming up so fast! I passed the halfway point of my pregnancy this last week. Starting to phase myself into maternity clothes, but still wearing a lot of my normal clothes. Once I start looking pregnant instead of just a bit flabby I'll start posting pictures of me growing:). Started feeling subtle movements a few weeks back but only in the last few days could I be sure that it was definitely the baby. No big kicks, yet - still have that to look forward to!
                       "___________ __________ Kroeker"

End of An Era

So for the past few weeks I've been going through the search for a new job. Nortel gave me the option of either working from home or moving to Ottawa, both of which I didn't want to do. A lot of people have commented on how great working from home would be, but I don't really think its the right move for me full time.

I had many hours of interviews at three different companies in particular, so many hours that I really got tired of the standard interview questions and I never want to answer the question "why are you leaving nortel?" ever again let alone hear it. Anyways, I ended up with offers from each of the three. Now, having three different job offers sounds really great, but I found that it was actually a little stressful choosing since I really thought that all three jobs sounded really good. I declined two of the three offers intending on taking the third, but each of the ones I declined came back with an increased offer making the decision quite a bit more difficult. Once the offer/counter-offers were done I ended up accepting a position as a senior software developer at IHS in their energy department working on a software product called Enerdeq.

From the interview it seemed like a place where I can learn a lot technically as well as gain experience in a new industry. Also, IHS placed number 30 on the Canadian businesses list of Top 100 Companies. I start on Monday June 25th.

Its a little sad leaving Nortel after five years there, not that I'm hesitant about leaving at all, but having spent so much time there I guess its more just the end of era.

Has it been 10 years already??

Well, Brian and I just got back from La Crete where I attended my 10 year high school reunion.
We drove up to Edmonton on Thursday night and made the rest of the drive on Friday. It was good to be home (as always!). The reunion started on Saturday with an AMAZING supper at the Heritage Centre - it was a really fun evening. A lot of reminiscing and catching up:). Old friends are the best because you can not see each other for years and you can just pick up where you left off.
A few of us girls had a campfire on Saturday night and I stayed up later than I probably had since high school ironically enough! It was great, though - I'm really glad we made the trip. Sunday was a potluck barbeque at Ridgeview school. The weather was amazing. Brian was a really good sport - instead of sulking in the corner while I caught up with all my old friends he was visiting with some of the other "abandoned" husbands and even joined them for some floor hockey - it made it a lot more fun for me knowing he was at least trying to make the most of it.

Grad '97 - ten years later!