OK...

So, yeah, it's been a bit since my last update. I would have written this weekend, but I was a bit busy...

See, with the baby coming, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided that we really needed to do a cleaning party on the house. Not just a bit of dusting and putting stuff away, but really, down-and-dirty, in the cracks and crevaces clean.

So, at 9:45 Saturday morning, Raistlin arrived with TSP and a determined attitude. We woke up the two girls who had slept over the night before after visiting, and roped them into it as well. I brewed coffee, and started general fussing with snack items, as I had been told repeatedly that I was not to do *ANYTHING* more strenuous than putting out cheese and crackers.

Lil and Anxiety showed up around 10:30 or so and commenced to helping out. Lil got into the kitchen and Anxiety helped move everything out of the front room.

I apparently was a lot more optimistic about the house than I should have been... There was 8 years worth of bachelor-hood to be removed from both the walls and floor, not to mention the at-least 6-7 years worth of dust wending its way through the rooms as well...

Bobby came by around noon with the shampooer, which was perfect timing, as most of the room had been emptied, less the large furniture items. The room had its walls completely washed down and all the nicotine plaque from years of smoking in the house was removed. Then the baseboard heater was washed down, the floor was swept, then vacuumed, and then Bobby commenced to shampooing the carpet.

To say that it was a bit needed was something of an understatement. I honestly am surprised that it's still together at this point, since what we got up looked like we could have planted several redwoods and they would have thrived. It went from dark black dirt-water, to gamer-strength coffee (equal to the opacity of Turkish coffee), to sort of a dirt-grey after two rinses. We decided to stop there, since obviously we weren't going to get much more out of the carpet, besides the carpet itself - and we would like to keep it...

Bobby also steam-cleaned the persian rug, which apparently also needed it. Years of general abuse, and nothing other than the occasional vacuum left it needing a good washing.

Next, everything had to be put *back* - a more physically demanding part of the job. While everyone else was heading into and out of the baby room (where we had stored pretty much everything while the front room was being cleaned), I snuck into the bathroom with impliments of destruction and proceeded to re-caulk the bathtub, and wash down the walls. Yes, I'm evil. But I really needed to do something, and that type of nit-picky job was just perfect for me, since it was out of the way and was needing to be done, anyway.

Lil and Anxiety had to leave around one-ish, to finish some errands. The kitchen, while not completely clean (tops of the cupboards and fridge, and inside of fridge still needed to be done), was much better than it had been, and the extra hands were definitely appreciated.

I ordered out for pizza about 4pm - the time when Raistlin and Emma both found me in the bathroom wiping down walls and gave me dirty looks for doing anything... Just as an aside note: The Pizza Hut Pizza Mia pizzas are good, but you won't get nearly the amount of toppings they advertize on tv. Then again, for $5 per shot, I wasn't expecting huge amounts of anything.

We stopped, finally, around 6:30-ish... And I realized that we hadn't even touched the dining room, or our room, and there were lots of things still stacked up in piles to go through in the Baby's room, too... I decided not to worry about it at that point, but did realize that 10 years worth of dirt and grime is going to take more than 1 day to wipe out - unless you have about 5 people per room working on it...

We gamed afterwards, which was a nice way to relax for the evening, and then went to bed where I had a pretty good night's sleep for once.

Sunday found me in a chair in front of the fridge, unpacking and cleaning the inside of it. I got only to the fridge part of it - not the seal, the freezer or the outside, much to my dismay. My back gave out on me after a few hours, and I ended up paying for it Monday morning when it wouldn't let me out of bed for literally 2.5 hours, causing me to think that perhaps I was going to have to get the mattress steam-cleaned as well...

I also did a quick photo shoot with Fred to show off how big Elizabeth has gotten in comparison to me... They came out pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. I will have to post up a few of my faves once they're done editing.

I called in yesterday and proceeded to hot-pack my back and hips all day, and did physical therapy exersises in a vain attempt to relax my back enough to sleep last night. Had a few braxton-hicks which felt fairly strong and regular, but then went away after about two hours. The pool at the gym helped my back and hips, though I did find that there were times when it was almost impossible to move myself through the water simply because of the shape that I am currently. Rounded prow of ship, plus opposing force of water, equals stuck for a few seconds...

Went home last night and collapsed. Woke up at 3, just in time to realize not only could I not breathe, my back and hips were both killing me. So, took some tylenol and sucked on a throat losenge to try and clear out my sinuses. It worked - sort of. I got more sleep, at least.

I have decided that the next really big project is going to be our room. I have no allergy problem at all in the front room now - it's all in our room. Can't breathe, can't sleep very well, and my throat always feels sore. SO - I will be bugging Bobby to bring back the steam-cleaner and we will do the same thing in our room we did to the front room, then put everything back, tidily. Hopefully we can do this prior to the baby being born - though I have to say this right now:

If I head off to have the baby prior to having the room done, I want the room done before I come home. *chuckle*

This weekend's major project will most likely be cleaning up, sorting and putting away everything in the baby's room. Raistlin is thinking that Elizabeth will come on Saturday. I just know that things seem to feel like they're gearing up a little faster than they had been even two weeks ago when baby dropped. I'm wanting to sleep pretty much full-time, but when I'm awake it's all I can do to not get down on hands and knees and start tooth-brush scrubbing floors (I stop myself because there's no one to pick me up when my legs go to sleep...).

So, I will keep people updated on the continuing story of getting the house in order, as well as the Elizabeth project. *chuckle*

~M