almost at the point of no return!

this is what our house looked like when we first bought it in august of 2009... remove the cedar trees from this though since we took those down that first summer, lol. i never realized how green our front lawn was til looking at this now... anyway, imagine this house, with taller windows upstairs and down, grey siding, stone along the bottom, white trim and the left-hand side extending out 17 feet. that is our plan for this summer. to build an attached garage with a master suite upstairs. we're basically doubling the size of our house! we'll have a great oversized one-car garage (couldn't quite get a 2-car, but oversized one is great, we'll have room for storage and tools) downstairs, and a new master suite complete with bigger walk-in-closet and our own bathroom. we're also doing some changes to the back half of the upstairs, but it's nothing compared to the actual addition part.

today, i applied for the development and building permits. not really any turning back now!

and cue the anxiety attacks that i'm sure i will be experiencing through most of this til its done, lol.

cycle timing >:-(

(cycle 19, day 17, 3 dpo)

this cycle has been the most frustrating (well aside to the most emotional one last cycle). i didn't start doing my OPKs until cd12 so that if i was going to O as late as last cycle, i didn't run out of tests prematurely. well that was a bad idea since i got my positive on cd12 and by cd13 it was negative already. i had a feeling i should've tested on cd11 because my CM was actually showing fertile signs but decided against it because i usually can't base O off CM anyway. bad idea. i knew we needed to start BDing in case this was going to happen, but timing just didn't work out in our favour this cycle. so i'm hoping that with the wonky-ness of my temps and our BDing schedule results in something much less frustrating by this time next week... i O'd way on the side of early this cycle and is the second time i've O'd on cd14. i guess at least my EDD if this works can actually be based off my LMP instead of O day like last time. and now the excrutiating 2ww starts......

otherwise, i'm down a pound with WW so i'm headed in the right direction and am back to what i was pre-pregnancy now.
i've also been blowing through the very big course book at the fastest pace i've ever done since beginning on my quest to become a building inspector. all the courses up to this one have been around 400 pages and this one was double that. i made a plan at the beginning of this month to read 200 pages each weekend so that i can take the exam at the beginning of may and have this course done in a record 2 months. so far, i'm still on pace  : )  at this rate (where i take a month off from any studying and then take a month to complete a course) i can get at least 4, possibly 5, courses done just this year alone! if i can knock that many out this year, i should be done all the required courses to get my level 1 by the middle of next year or sooner!!!

Prank Calls

(cycle 19, day 12)

well i'm another year older and i was actually dreading it up until the day of my bday. i was so focused on another birthday passing me by while i still don't have a baby in my arms, let alone even cooking in my tummy yet... I was actually quite upset most of last week and now that it has passed, its not so bad. i guess.

anyway, so yeah. i got prank called. in the early evening...  when i was a kid, i swear we wouldn't make prank calls until at least 9, but then again, bedtime was much earlier when i was a kid so maybe it just felt really late... back to the point. yep, we got home from my hubby taking me out for a bday dinner and i checked the phone and thought the number looked a little familiar (i guess not) so i listened to the message that was left. i'm surprised i can still hear anything! first there was a lot of high pitch giggling, followed by "omg, your ass is so hot" followed by a LOT more high pitched giggling and laughing. i deleted it, but i should've recorded it somehow just so i could post it and get a laugh out of it  : P

Back to Weight Watcher's

(cycle 19, day 5)

yep, back to WW for me. been trying to do it on my own for the last 2 months, but i haven't been very disciplined. the first month i decided that i was just going to do what i wanted and let my emotions settle down fromt he MC. the second month i wasn't doing too bad but still had a quite a few 'cheat' days so i didn't really lose much, mostly just maintained.

so tonight i'm going back to the meetings to hopefully lose the last 5-10 lbs i wanted to lose in the first place. i won't be heartbroken if i don't do that before getting pregnant again, but since i haven't been able to lose weight i figured it was best to go back.


on another weight loss note, since losing 20 of the 30 pounds i gained in the first year of marriage (i know, i'm not happy about that fact either) i now fit back into all my summer shorts that didn't fit me at all last summer  :-)  it felt so good when i pulled them all out to try on and decide if i needed new ones this year as well. turns out i don't! and the 2 pair i bought last summer just so i had something other than pants and dresses to wear all summer, are super baggy, lol. and if i happen to get pregnant and gain a bit of a belly over the summer, my shorts are either just big enough to still fit a couple more months, or i would just have to wear the bella band i bought last time too keep them up but not buttoned. yay! a win for me with all the other crap that has been going on for me lately!!!

Pinterest, lol

since last fall, i've done quite a few projects from this glorious site  :-P

first, there was the hand towel holder for the kitchen. i actually made 3 different sets and gave one to my mom and another to my sister as gifts.






then, there was the toilet paper holder for the upstairs bathroom. it was kind of a pain because our spare rolls are in the linen closet which is in the hallway so you had to make sure you had enough of a roll left so you wouldn't run out...



i actually can't believe how busy i was just before christmas with my projects, haha.

we finally have a tree topper since the one i bought for my flimsy tree was too heavy so i haven't had a topper for the previous 5 christmases  :-/ til i saw this gem on pinterest.

last project for the holidays was a flat iron cover for my sister since the one that came with hers wasn't insulated. this one created quite a bit more work than i anticipated since the pot holder i used was far too thick to fit in my sewing machine once it was folder over... so i had to do some project 'surgery' and take out about half the insulating material so that it would fit into the sewing machine. i'm really happy with the result and if it hadn't have been so much work, i'd make myself one, lol. maybe when i have a bit more time on my hands and see a need for one since the cover for mine is insulated already.


i took a bit of a break from these projects after the holidays to focus on my studying so that i could get the course done and then the pregnancy happened and everything that went one with that.

when i started up with projects again, i did 3 of them.

the first was a piggy bank type thing with a picture of what i want to save my money for inside of a shadow box with a hole at the top to drop money in. can't wait to buy a new zoom lense for the camera!

i also made a padded strap cover for the camera. it really makes the camera feel like its personalized for me since i picked out the fabric.





i have at least two other projects i've done but i don't actually have pictures of them so when i do eventually get pics of them, i'll make a new post : )