I spent the entire week planning various household remodeling projects. This morning I had a window treatment lady in and we ordered window treatments for my office, our bedrooom and the nursery. We'll be doing the cool Silhouettes on all windows but the nursery will have light-blocking honeycombs.

I just got done talking with Maid Brigade for weekly maid service. I hope I'm doing the right thing by going with a commercial service. In case anyone is wondering why I need a maid I will soon be having modified to strict bed rest during my pregnancy. My body will need all the help it can get in order to hold the body in my body, so I need to be laying down as much as possible. My husband just told me yesterday that he might be traveling to Cincinnati every week, so I might need someone to visit everyday during the week. A household assistant will cost us about $350-400 a week so I might cancel the maid service after two months and go with a fulltime household/personal assistant. I won't be able to make my own meals, walk the dog, and many other things that I'll need help with. Not looking forward to this, but hopefully this Thanksgiving we'll have a healthy baby to be thankful for.

Tonight our painter comes to give us an estimate for our bathroom. The people haven't called yet about remodeling our porch, which got ruined this winter due to our pipes bursting and flooding it. I should call them up this afternoon.

I am soooo tired!!! I've been like a busy little bee cleaning and getting stuff done in preparation for the tough months. I haven't allowed myself daily naps like I should.

Thank god morning sickness hasn't kicked in yet. I'm hoping I don't get it at all, all I'm experiencing right now is a slight "deja-vu-like" feeling of what it was like last year. If I drink water or pop and eat a few nuts it usually goes away.

I have a few hours to relax today. I'm going to spend an hour napping, then "mastering" regular expressions which is a crucial skill for a programmer to have. Then I'm going to study a bit for my C# certification. An online friend of mine is studying for his, so I want to keep up with him so we can quiz/help each other out.

I'd like to start my personal site so I don't have to use Live Journal anymore. My personal site will have different topics for me to post in, so people who don't care about certain aspects of my hobbies (pregnancy, programming, vegetarianism, books) don't have to hear me drone on about my passions.

I recently registered 10 new domains, including names for our future babies - Satori and Andrew. They will appreciate having their own name as a website! And as they grow up they will have their mother to show them how to build their own homepages! :)

Okay now to read and relax a bit.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Soma Holiday - G.o.l. (Groove Salad: a nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves. [SomaFM])

Well, a few days ago I awoke to a nauseating smell of an overpowering fragrance when my husband was in the shower. I asked him to wash his cologne off, he said he wasn't wearing any. I made him offer his deodorant so I could sniff it to see if that was the culprit. Nope. It was the soap!

I thought this was a bit strange, and seeing how I was slightly nauseous the day before, the truth dawned on me. Sure enough, my suspicions were correct!

I am now 5 weeks along.

I hope my family doesn't stumble onto this, as I hope to keep this a secret a bit longer. I only started this journal to deal with my emotions after losing a baby to premature labor last summer.

I've been feeling exhausted after doing the tiniest tasks. But I've got sooo much to do before I'm ordered bed rest. (My pregnancy will be termed 'high-risk'.)

I need to get help (maid, dog walker, cook?). I just ordered for the first time tonight groceries online from SimonDelivers.com. It took me 13 minutes only and it was my first time. Later online grocery shopping just take just a few minutes once I get my custom lists setup. They didn't have alot of veg-friendly ready-to-eat entrees (in case I can't cook) but I ordered lots of organic fruits and veggies so I hope they come all fresh and tasty. After I placed my order, it reminded me that I only spent 13 minutes, and imagine all the things I could do with the time I spent shopping! That was pretty cool.

I moved my EQDiva.com from two Load Balanced servers to one server. I had some issues with it. I may go back to the dual servers one day, that was a great concept. Tonight if I feel awake enough I'll move my database over to MaximumAsp (new web host). Then I can finally cancel the incredibly terrible Interland web host.

I'm planning to build a second tank, one of my cichlids has no territory in my main cichlid tank. I'll give them a happy life, but from now on, no more cichlids, they're too aggressive. I already have one fish in a small hospital tank. Can't wait to move him to a bigger tank once I set it up. I hope someone will be okay with doing 40% water changes every month to two tanks, it usually takes a whole afternoon... I'll have sweetpea do it I guess.

Well, it's almost time to pick the parents up from the airport, they went to Las Vegas. Hope they had a good time.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Benjamin Iobst - Sound Meditation 1

Okay not much happened this past month.

I worked on my gaming site. I moved it back to it's home (I was updating the site to .NET and it took me a year to move it back home). I feel bad that I neglected the site for so long, but now I'm active on it again. I re-launched it January 26 2004. I made a few tools that seem to be very popular and after the launch spent a week polishing those up. The first few weeks of February I switched my focus to upgrading the forums. I'll be using the ASP.NET 2.0 forums, which I am helping them build with my feedback. I may even give a hand with some of the code. Lord knows those ASP.NET team people are busy enough!

I made some new IM friends and they do a good job distracting me from coding. But they're worth it. :) Luckily, they're every bit of a code geek as I am!

My yoga room now has a little entertainment center so I can watch yoga DVDs and listen to meditation music. I bought a few CDs today to do yoga and meditate to. Next week I'll put together a surround sound in that room, order some ambient lighting, get my wall mirror going, and some zen-like decor. I can't wait till the room is finished.

I feel guilty that I let an entire month slide without remembering my priorities. I made lots of people happy world-wide, but I can't forget myself. So I started my running again, I've been doing 3 miles a night for the past 4 nights, a small stint of strength training and some yoga. I've also been trying to fit some massages in. We're eating better, sweetpea is trying to eat less sweets now, and he's doing very good. Most nights we only have vegetables for dinner, it's more filling than you think!

My brother Ken in Iraq is doing better, he says it's getting very cold there but at least he's got a nice place to stay now and warm showers. He took a few pictures which was nice to see him in.

Thursday we head to the Florida Keys to finish our scuba diving certification. We're meeting our friend Mike there and a friend of his. I can't wait to relax, read a book (that's not technical) and sip some pina coladas and margaritas. I'm looking forward to the trip and know that the scuba diving will open our world.

Well, better head to bed now...

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: De Phazz - Godsdog Information (Groove Salad: a nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves. [

Does Fitnuts sound weird? That's my new name for my fitness and nutrition related website. Get it? Fit-nut... And you can BE a fitnut, if you care about working out and eating right. And stress management and taking care of your environment. Well this is my future baby project. I registered the domain name, fitnuts.net yesterday. I backordered fitnuts.com. I plan to make a site similar to fitday, except much cooler and better looking and more. See how much carbs, fiber, fat, etc... is in the foods you eat. Track your workouts. Motivate each other! Learn more about a healthy you! I have a free nutritional database, I'm armed with fitness/nutrition books for content and articles, I have a cool forum capability lined up. Can't wait to start!

And my friend helped me dream up a logo! It is so cool, I'll draw a sample logo up tomorrow to show you.

Today was hectic, but I'm bored with that news already. Now, to tuck my hubby into bed...

Fuck ya. Love this song!

Had to post that emotion here!

In my Everquest community I am following the ripple of news about a certain corporation buying out all the sites. Most are saying I should sell out. I have high personal ethics and am determined to decline their offer. This means turning down $15,000 the first year, and $5000 each consecutive year for placing a little ad on my site. That means turning down the most beefed up computer I could ever dream up. Dual 19" LCD monitors. Plus a new weight lifting station thingie. Plus our trip to the Keys. I can't think of anything else I want, but those are the only things I've wanted in the past few months. And I'm turning it all down for the sake of my personal conscience...

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Jane`s Addiction - Jane Says (Radio Paradise - eclectic intelligent rock - music info & listener com

This has been a busy holidays for me.

I just have been offered $10,000 for one of my sites, and an additional $300-500 per month for me to keep it up and put an ad on it. I turned them down. It was a bit surprising though.

My cousin's wedding was sooo much fun! It was one of the most unique and personalized weddings I've seen. She had a 2 mile Fun Run (in January in 30 degree weather). I came in first for the Women!! I actually haven't been running much this past month, just walking 40-70 minutes. I must start up my running again in earnest.

Lately been addicted to programming again... I am having fun using Amazon Web Services, I think I have an idea for a website that will require two weeks of coding for me, then I can sit back and let it bring in $20-50k a year by itself. That would be awesome, and if it works, I'll have future ideas for two other niche sites to make even more. I think it's awesome that Amazon is opening up their code to developers, sure they make money off of us, but we make like 15% or more for hardly any work on products we sell. And we don't have to deal with money transactions and inventory or anything!

Last night I prepared a bunch of photos from my cousin's wedding. It took me four hours, whew. And tonight I spent three hours preparing images for some members on my site to show off their epics. All this work for free too... Oh well, it's fun.

Ken my brother in Iraq is now in a safer place. I wish he would come home now and resume his life. He was on top of the world before getting dragged into this.

Well I suppose I better get to bed, I just wanted to update my Live Journal. I also had to express my surprise at the offer for me to "sell out" my site. I don't want to talk about it on my site, but most of the sites are getting bought out now, it's kinda sad.

Well, we passed our Scuba final exam! We also passed our 200m swim and 10 minute treading water. PADI makes it pretty easy getting your scuba diving certification (although one person failed the exam), so I recommend everyone to get certified! Now, we just have to make plans to hit some tropic waters and get our Open Water test done so we can get our lifetime certification. We're zeroing in on Key West, I think that sounds romantic and relaxing for our February vacation. Other ideas were Hawaii, St. Thomas, we just have to stay within US territories, as sweetpea is still in the process of getting his green card, leaving the country and coming back in is always such a hassle.

Looking forward to a full week of doing whatever I want and not having to worry about studying scuba. I think I'll work on my EQDiva.com site a bit and study some geeky stuff. Maybe I'll study nutrition, a few more chapters out of my nutrition book would be cool. When I say "study", I don't mean I have to, I'm not taking any classes, I just like to teach myself lots of stuff.

I'm fasting this afternoon and night, I think I'd like to get into the habit of fasting for a day once a week or at least once a month. Getting past the first 4-6 hours are the hardest though.

I won an auction of David King's, he does abstract pet art. Looking forward to getting my cat!

It was a long hard weekend with all that scuba diving stuff. Sweetpea already relegated himself to a night of XBox. I'm going to clean up a bit, and then immerse myself into Uru, the new Myst game.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Cibo Matto - Know Your Chicken

We sent our little jacket to our toddler in need today. He's getting a super cool jacket, 3-in-1 and matching gloves from Gymboree. I tried slipping in a $50 Gift Certificate, but sweetpea said that was overdoing it. So I plan to send it to my sister with her new baby. I can't wait to have cute little kids to buy all those cute little clothes!

My gifts I ordered from the Internet for others are pouring in! My parent's computer is getting setup, and sweetpea's gifts just arrived today via Airborne Express and UPS (They arrived too fast!). I am not in a Christmasy mood though this year, since every day is like Christmas for me, I'm going to pass on it being a fun, materialistic day for me. I asked sweetpea to donate a few hundred to a charity of my choice. He takes all the fun out of it by requesting that it's tax deductible. Know any charities that give you a receipt for your donation? Anyway, he calls me "Grinch". I don't want to put a tree up in our brand new house as we won't be around much in the holidays to see it. I did deck out the yard with animated leaping reindeer and sleigh and lights all over the place, miniature christmas trees, so that was enough for me. So I don't know why but I'm extremely crabby. I'll have fun giving all my presents, the fast Dell computer to the parents, XBox to brother Justin, and sweetpea's gifts, but if I had my real wish I would bring in a poor family and give them lots of gifts, play Christmas songs/sing, and a great vegan Christmas meal! But it isn't going to happen.

I guess I'm a bit stressed from getting ready for scuba diving class, it's a two-day class and sweetpea never prepared (too busy). He's going to flunk. He also might want me to get pregnant this month and I'm not ready yet. I'd like to scuba dive in February first before I get pregnant. There's also so much to do before I commit myself to this upcoming high risk pregnancy with all its boring bedrest time.

I want to cry. I don't know why. I am always so happy but today I am so discouraged. Oh, I know why! It's that time of the month, my hormones are making me unreasonable.

I don't want to wrap sweetpea's gifts. I just want to give them to him tonight. They're quite big and heavy. And if I'm not getting a gift, it takes all the fun out of our personal Christmas so let's just cut the drama. Yeah, I'm a grinch all right.

We did get our picture taken with the Grinch on our Univeral Studio vacation a few weeks ago. He gave me a hug. I was scared of him though.

Well I better go take Maddie outside for a bit, and then finish up my scuba studying.

Current Mood: distressed
Current Music: Eric Klapton - Border Song (Radio Paradise - eclectic intelligent rock - music info & listener commu

Your Years at Hogwarts by nevermindless
Name:
The Sorting Hat places you in:	Gryffindor (Red and Gold)
Subject you are naturally best at:	History of Magic
Your favorite book:	Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century
Pet you bring to school:	European Green TOAD
You are most known for:	Being Prof. Snape's favorite student.
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

Current Music: Deb Pasternak - Home (Radio Paradise - eclectic intelligent rock - music info & listener community a

Just a summary of what's going on.

Bamboo flooring got laid down professionally yesterday, ouch, it cost $1000 for a little room. I think we got ripped off, but at least it's done. The painter guy will paint it next week, and will also paint our nursery. I might go out today and get the rest of our nursery theme and select the two paints we're going to use. By the way, nursery is for future baby, which we hope to have next holidays. A moment of silence for beautiful girl Satori who should be here with us starting her second month....

....

I have plans to make my health website. I'm going to build an Amazon storefront. They'll pay me 3-15% commission of any product I sell. I don't have to handle any money, don't have to handle inventory, don't have to do anything but a short stint of coding. Then my husband and I can sit back and take lots of vacations without worrying about losing money by not billing hours. I attended a meeting last week on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so because I have the knowledge and the time will build a health website and will pull out any health-related products from Amazon (books, videos, clothing, products) and will sell them on my site. Also will be using a foods database I can get for free and will be building a cool tool similar to the ugly fitday.com. This is my dream project in my life by the way, I started a few years ago with a site called FitJournal.com but that was when I was still learning .NET. This time I'm much more knowledgeable in how to do things and am sure it will be a success. Even if I only make $100 a month or less, it will still be fun and an invaluable learning experience.

I went to a homeopath and he did Applied Kinesiology and a blood test to confirm his findings. That was very, very interesting.

My parent's computer arrived yesterday. I'm setting it up now. They will have (for Christmas):
Dimension 4600 Series, Intel Pentium 4 Processor at 2.66GHz
512MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz
128MB DDR NVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card

and I'm loading all necessary software (Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop 7, Winamp,...) on it today. We hope they like it. I'm a bit jealous, the computer I check email from is only a 1.4Ghz! A girl like me needs to keep more up-to-date! My other Windows Server 2003 is a bit faster (2.2 ghz, 1 GB RAM), but I only program on that.

Other exciting news, we are getting scuba diving certified this weekend. In February we will finish our certification in the warm waters of Hawaii! So today and tomorrow I will spend a large part of time studying for this.

Well, better go do that studying, I'll try to write more this month.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Donovan - Riki Tiki Tavi (Radio Paradise - eclectic intelligent rock - music info & listener communi