Waiting for the World to Change

I keep waiting to post in hopes that I'll have some spectacular photos to share with you. A finished nursery? A completed kitchen? A clean house perhaps?

Nope.

Things keep plodding forward at what seems to be a snail's speed and I keep biting my nails and covering my eyes and wishing it would all just go away.

In order to catch you up a bit, here are some highlights:

• Greg is up and about, without crutches. He will be in a straight leg brace for another 3 weeks at least. He is attending physical therapy twice a week where they bend him and prod him and electrocute him regularly. The best news here is that he can drive. The doctor was not being entirely truthful when he earnestly assured us that there was no possibility of Greg driving until he was out of the leg brace because insurance wouldn't cover it. Turns out doctors should stick with medicine and stop advising people on what insurance will and will not cover because our Insurance companies said we were good to go! This outcome turned a seriously frustrating and stressful situation into a puff of non-issue smoke.
  
• I have begun to develop the ability to ignore the chaos and mess around me and focus in on the little things I can accomplish. It has been incredibly guilt-inducing that up until about a week ago I haven't worked on anything crafty SPECIFICALLY for my baby - So to remedy that I began a slew a projects including a crib quilt (just for show), and curtains for the nursery. I'm making great progress with at least the quilt. Hopefully I'll have something to show you soon.
• Our "Kitchen" aka "Dining Room" is a complete and total disaster. As much as we've tried to use disposable plates (Give us a break - I'm 7.5 months pregnant and Greg's in a leg brace, we can't be toting dishes up and down stairs just to have a clean bowl for cereal in the morning), there are still dirty dishes piled up. And in addition to dirty dishes there are several Tupperware containers of molding food just laying around, sealed in their containers. It's gross and totally freaks me out.
• We're meeting with our potential Doula next week. She sounds like she might be a good fit for us. She has two daughters, she's given birth both with an epidural and completely without medication. She is a strong proponent of keeping the main support person (Greg) as involved as they want to be (and he wants to do everything - he just doesn't know what to do!). And she shared that she understands that change - even wanted, desire, sought after change - such as bringing a baby into the world, can be difficult and overwhelming. It is not all butterflies and roses - and it's okay not to be sickeningly happy about every moment of every day when embarking on the journey of parenthood. Sounds about right to me.
  
• Yesterday was our Four year Anniversary. Greg had flowers delivered to me at work. Four red roses for the years we've been married and one pink rose for the year to come. After the baby is born, he'll add a white rose. He was kicking himself for not including a little baby rose bud this time though. Isn't he sweet? He's definitely my favorite. We also went out to dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in Pittsburgh. We decided that it was an acceptable expenditure, and then enjoyed ourselves thoroughly looking out at the city skyline and enjoying a four course meal.
• Unfortunately, there was a slight shadow overhanging our dinner: Our handyman pulled a houdini on us. Our handyman, who has been helping with odd-job projects for the last several weeks, has been flaking out on us lately and I really don't appreciate it. He insulated the entire kitchen in less than 3 hours. He put the baseboard in the nursery. He did a spectacular job on both projects. Then, we had him do the finishing of the drywall that we had a company come in and hang. The drywall finishing was only supposed to take two days - it ended up taking 4. Then he painted. The painting was supposed to take Half a day. It took Two days. Then he and Greg were supposed to start tiling the kitchen floor together (Last weekend). They weren't even able to think about starting until Sunday - He told us he'd be over at 10:00 a.m. At 11:30 I finally convinced Greg to call him to find out WHAT the deal was - Turns out he'd slept in. He came over once that afternoon to bring some tools over, but they decided to start doing the actual work on Tuesday night together. Tuesday they did about half the floor. Wednesday they did about 2/3rds of what was left. He was supposed to come over yesterday during the day to finish the little space that was still yet untiled so that TODAY he could grout it all and then this weekend we (Greg and I) could start putting together kitchen cabinets! Exciting right? Well, when I got home from work at around 5:15 yesterday, Mr. Handyman was no where to be found. There was a bucket of wet mortar, part of the remaining floor had been tiled, his saw as set up, but there was no Mr. Handyman. We tried to reach him for the entire rest of the evening - Nothing. His cell phone started going straight to voice mail. In the middle of our incredibly pleasant anniversary dinner, Greg shared with me that he'd also looked at the tile Mr. Handyman had laid that day and it was hugely sub par work. He hadn't used spacers, the tile was all kinds of crooked... Greg thought it would need to be torn out and re-done. When we got home from dinner, Greg started prying up the tile himself because the mortar was still damp and then spent an hour scraping it up off the subflooring. We still have not reached Mr. Handyman. Who knows what's happened. I don't want to be uncharitable, but I'm thinking there might be a substance abuse issue going on here. Additionally I'm somewhat pissed. I also think Greg's too nice. I'd like to chew this guy out for what's going on - if only we could get in touch with him...
• Also, he took our house key. Greg had left it under the front mat so he could get in while we were at work, and apparently had told him - on a whim - that he could just take it with him. Now I'm afraid we're going to have to replace all of our locks because I'm paranoid that this guy has our key first of all, and second of all in the course of his hiatus he could have had a copy made. He doesn't seem like a malicious guy - but seriously? ugh.
• My brother is coming to visit today. He'll be staying the weekend. It is STILL up the in air what exactly he and Greg will be working on together while he's around.
  
• I converted Greg's grandmother from shooing stray cats and kittens out of her garden by yelling and gesturing at them to wanting to catch them and deliver them to the Humane League's doorstep by sharing a simple statistic with her. "The average number of litters a fertile cat can produce in a year is 3. The average number of kittens in a litter is 4-6. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can theoretically produce 420,000 cats. Only 1 in 12 of those 420,000 cats born finds a home." I see this as a win-win because now she'll get them out of her garden and off her property and they'll stop breeding exponentially.
• There is grass growing in our gutters. This is not a situation either of us are currently equipped to deal with.
• I'm going to give birth soon and I'm kind of freaked out about it.
• I'm going to be a MOM soon and I'm way more freaked out about that.
• Greg's parents and his Aunt and Uncle are coming to visit July 4th weekend. Hopefully we can have a kitchen cabinet par-tay. That is, unless Mr. Handyman comes back, sneaks in using his key and steals all of our cabinets. And our dog.

meh.