28 wk checkup

I am actually twenty nine weeks today, but I had to keep rescheduling my appointments last week. I thought that I would only be there for about two hours this morning but I ended up being there for four hours instead.
First I had to get my vitals taken while waiting to see the doctor. I dreaded stepping onto the scale because I know that I've been gaining more weight than my first pregnancy. I couldn't help but look at the numbers. 160. Ugh. I have gained thirty five pounds already. That's the max weight that I'm supposed to gain for my size. When Tristan was born I was only at 157. Well, that was the day before he was born. I had actually dropped four pounds over night from not being able to eat anything because of my contractions. I don't look like I've gained any weight so I'm glad that I carry it well. But I still have about eleven weeks to go, so hopefully I can keep it in check. I just went for a walk a little bit ago and I am going to keep that up every night from now on. Sucks walking by myself though. If I still had my white cat Ivy I would be able to take her with me. She loved putting the harness on and going for walks.
After seeing the doctor, a whole waste of about ten minutes, I had to go down to the lab to take the glucose test and pick up my Rhogam shot to take back down to the ob/gyn. At the lab the really cool guy at the counter asked me if I wanted to get my blood drawn once or twice. Once, I have to sit there for two hours. Twice, I only have to sit there for one hour. I don't have a problem with needles and needed to get this over with so I opted for getting stuck twice. They drew some blood before I drank the cup of orange sugar, and then again an hour later. Not only was I waiting for the disgusting sugar to do it's thing, I had to wait for them to prepare a dose of antibodies for my blood type to use in the Rhogam injection. After getting my blood drawn the second time, I left the lab with my shot and headed back upstairs. Only the elevators were out now. Fuck. I was on the second floor and had to go all the way up to the fifth floor. One flight of stairs, fine. But three? Goddamn it. By the time I got up to the ob/gyn, not only were the nurses gone to lunch for the next forty five minutes, but the new hole in my arm had bled alot on the way up. Lovely. The entire ball of gauze was soaked. The other arm had bled more than usual, but not as much as this.
One o'clock finally came and all the other patients that had come in were getting called in to their appointments. Apparently my nurse was taking a shower so I had to wait a few more minutes. She eventually came to the waiting room to get me and I was not looking forward to getting this shot. Back in GA I had to get the shot in my hip and it really hurt. It's a bigger needle. But the nurse today asked if I wanted it in my arm or my butt. Arm?! Why couldn''t they've stuck my damn arm last time?! Yes, my arm please. Thinking that I could finally go home after this she tells me that I have to sit in the waiting room for fifteen more minutes before I can go. Uuugh come on. After the fifteen minutes she had to take my vitals one more time and then I was finally out of there. Omg I was so ready to be home and eat something. I had to have a light breakfast because of the glucola test. So I went home, told Tim about my wonderful day at the hospital, and curled up in bed for a nap.
I can't wait for this to be over. When it is, one of us will be getting fixed. I only ever wanted two kids, a boy and a girl, and I will be so happy to have my little Colleen :3

Bunny and Kiwi

A couple of months ago I was bored and was browsing a local website called Okinawa Yard Sales. People here aren't allowed to have normal yard sales so you have to sell your stuff online. I was looking through the pet section and saw that someone was trying to get rid of their rats. Rats? Really?! I had never found any back in Misawa so I assumed that Japan just didn't allow rats as pets. So I emailed the seller and said that I wanted to look at them first. I wanted to make sure that they really were rats, as some people don't really know the difference between some of the different rodent species. Well they really were rats and I was so excited. Tim was very hesitant to let me have them since my last litter didn't work out well at all, but I managed to talk him into it since they don't live long and would be dead before we left the island. We wouldn't have to worry about finding them a new home like sooo many other people that just abandon their pets when they leave the island.
The girl getting rid of the rats had special ordered them but said that she just didn't have enough time for them since she was working so much. She also kept trying to talk me into buying all the extra stuff she had bought for them because she didn't want to return it and get her money back until finally she just gave it to me anyways. Of all the other 25 rats that I've had in the past, none of them were ever interested in wheels, toys, or chewing on the cage. Because of that I didn't think I would need the extra cage, wheel, or toys so I just sold them to someone who actually did need them. The rats did seem fond of the wheel before I took it out but it was just so damn noisy.
Well the girls seemed to be doing just fine for the first few weeks. Then one morning after checking my email and whatnot, I went into the kitchen for a little bit to make breakfast and do the dishes. When I came back my internet was out. I assumed that Tristan had messed with a wire somewhere so I started checked everything. The rat cage is pretty big and takes up the space between me and Tim's computer desks in the living room, with my computer cords running along the floor behind the cage and around the room to the modem. As I looked behind the cage I noticed that my internet cable was all chewed up! I didn't see how this was possible since they couldn't reach it, but when I pulled the cage away from the wall I saw Bunny just sitting their staring at me! It really shocked me for a second and I actually jumped back. I looked back at the front of the cage and the doors were still locked so I didn't understand yet how the hell she got out. Then she decided to be a little smartass and hop back just out of reach everytime I grabbed for her instead of just running away. After a few swats I grabbed her and as I was putting her back in the cage I saw it....The Hole. They had completely chewed out the entire back corner of the plastic base of the cage. I was shocked. And pissed. I didn't know what to do with them at first but ended up throwing them in the tub for the rest of the day until I could go hunting for a temporary cage, which took me about five hours of driving all over central Okinawa. And I can't believe that the very first thing Bunny just HAD to do with her new freedom was go straight for my internet cable. Seriously?
I ordered a new cage right away which cost almost a hundred dollars with shipping, and until in got here the girls would have to reside in a happy little apple tree forest. Haha, that's what I call the small hamster habitat I got that is supposed to look like an apple tree house. They were miserable and cramped in there but at least they couldn't chew out it because of the way it's put together. The new cage and toys finally came in so I set it up and kept the wheel in this time. They immediately took turns taking it for a spin so I know that they missed it. They wouldn't touch any of the nice chew toys that I got for them so I figured that they were satisfied enough with just the wheel.
A few weeks went by without any signs of chewing until last week when I was cleaning out the cage. I put the girls in the bath tub to soak in Tristan's baby shampoo while I washed out the cage. I was about to dump all the bedding into the trash when I saw it. The Hole. You have got to be bloody kidding me!!! I lost it. I was ready to just throw them into the jungle behind my house and let them chew down the damn trees if they wanted to. I decided that I was just going to pack up all of their stuff and drop them off at the pet store late at night. I knew that I was not going to be able to find a new home for them as most people hate rats and I'm not going to lie about why I needed to get rid of them. And I wasn't about to buy another expensive cage for them to destroy again.
The girl that I got them from sent me a message right away on Facebook asking what had happened when I posted that the rats need to go. I told her that they chewed out of another cage and that I had had enough. She said that they had done the same thing to her. Really? For some reason I don't remember that little tidbit being mentioned prior to selling them to me. But whatever. They were my problem now. I didn't really want to have to get rid of them and tried to think of things that I could use for a new base to replace the plastic. Tim could easily make a new one out of metal at work but I knew he wouldn't so I would just get rid of them.
Well today I went to the BX and just bought a shallow storage big that luckily happens to be just the right size for the wire cage to sit in. Yes it is still plastic but even if they manage to chew threw it, which I doubt since its just a flat bottom, they still can't get out because the wiring goes straight to the floor now. Unless Tristan picks up the cage or knocks it over, those little shits aren't getting out this time. I will just keep trying to find new things for them to chew on. I know that Tristan has lost a couple of colored pencils to those piranhas so if that's their flavor of choice, then colored pencils they shall have. With a side of whatever other random object Tristan drops in there next of course.

Base Housing

We have a pretty decent house right now. We haven't really had any problems so far, we live on the first floor, we like our little back yard that feels like we have some privacy, the neighborhood is quiet with no screaming kids or punk teenagers, and we are really close to the shoppette and my preferred gate. But it's only a two bedroom, and with another little Louis on the way we have the option of getting a bigger, three bedroom house. That's awesome, but it's up to you to move all of your stuff, and that's only after you've been on a waiting list and have finally accepted something they've offered you. You get two choices, pet friendly or not even if you have pets. If you decline both offers then you get kicked off of the waiting list for 90 days. That is definitely not awesome.
We have been on the waiting list for a couple of months now and the housing office finally called us last week. They offered us two tower apartments on another base. The towers are not pet friendly. We told them at our initial appointment not to offer us towers because we have cats, and even though housing does not give a shit, the lady wrote it down on our paper anyways. Tim gave them some attitude, and the woman on the phone told him not to worry about the tower offers and that they did have an opening on this base for us to look at. Why didn't they just offer us that to begin with??
So we stopped by the housing office a little while ago and picked up the keys to go check out this house. It happens to be in the oldest and worst neighborhood on the base but we decided to give it a chance and take a look. We get there and it's already covered up because it's being repainted on the outside. It's on a hill...so there are stairs. Now, I am not one of the lazy people that can't handle stairs, or a parking spot far away from the front door of a store. If you ran into me at the BX right now, I would be the only person taking the stairs, waddling my pregnant ass all the way up next to everyone who is on the escalator. Sure it kills my lungs right now since they have run out of room in there, but it's exercise and the only exercise I'm getting right now.
So anyways, back to the house. At the top of the stairs there is an ugly trunk from a huge tree that has been cut down. Hopefully it was just really old and a hazard and not just cut down because it was in the way or someone didn't like it there. I hate not having trees where I live, but since I'm in Okinawa there are plenty of trees and jungle around. A girl and her daughter were getting into their car but they stopped to talk to us and were hopeful of getting new neighbors. That was very nice and I was surprised because I'm used to everyone on my street keeping to themselves. Then we went on our way into the house. Oooh an upstairs and wood floors. And by that I mean cement stairs perfect for cracking your skull open and strips of linoleum made to look like wood floors. I go to peak in the downstairs bathroom right across from the stairs and here a loud drop of water. Hmm...ok. I take another step in and realize that I am now standing in water and that the whole bathroom is flooded. Lovely.
Then I take Tristan upstairs while Tim stays downstairs. The bathroom up there seems nice and has a window, a little bigger than our bathroom now. Really shallow tub though. The one we have now is really deep. All three bedrooms are really small, but the second one is a tad bigger than the first, and the third is a tad bigger than the second. Very small windows in all the rooms and the second bedroom had two big closets, which makes no sense to me. I don't even know if our king size bed would fit in the bigger room. I don't know why all the windows in all of the older housing are so damn small.
Tim came upstairs, so I went down. The living room seemed pretty decent, but again a small window. I am used to having the big sliding glass doors. The kitchen was really small, smaller than any other house we've had. That's okay though I guess, it's not like we spend much time in there haha. Except for when I'm painting. There was a laundry room that was nice and big, so we would finally have a good place to put the damn cat box. There was a door in there leading out to where you put your trash, and the living room had a door leading out to the back yard. Tim said the ceilings were called drop ceilings, meaning it had the panels you can push up on, and it was there to cover up the real ceiling that was so shitty they couldn't fix it. He also said that the house smelled like fresh paint and mold. I am definitely worried about mold issues in the older houses. Oh and there was a cement closet under the stairs with no light and I told Tim that's where we would put Tristan when he's bad LOL.
Well we both agreed that we liked the house but not enough to take it. If they had moved us in there from the start we would have been happy with it, but not compared to what we have now. So we took the keys back to the housing office and no one asked us anything, so I guess we will wait for them to call and see what we have to say about it. I wonder if they will wait to offer us a second house or just go ahead and kick us off the waiting list now. Little Collie won't need her own room right away but I hope to eventually move into a bigger house sometime in the next three years!

My New Blog

So I've decided to try using a new blog. I had one on Myspace but all of my friends and I have moved over to Facebook where there is no option to blog. I also have an ancient blog on LiveJournal that I haven't used in years, and nobody uses that anyways. So I will try this and see how it goes, if I like it or not.

As I was attempting to set up this blog, I realized that I was supposed to have a gmail or Google account first. Well I don't need another email account, so I went with setting up the google account. I didn't get very far, as they asked for my country and cell phone number so they can send me a voice mail of my verification code to continue. Thinking that they might not be able to send anything to my Japanese cell phone, I entered United States as my country and typed in my sister's cell phone number from back home. Upon clicking on the Continue button, I was alerted that the selected country was not supported for verification. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Okay, so yet another problem with my computer being in a different region. So then I tried using Japan as the country, since I am kind of really here and all, and then had to choose between TWO SoftBank options as my cell phone provider. I don't bloody know, it's just SoftBank! So I pick one and click Continue. The next page asks for the verification code. *crickets* Sitting here with my phone. Waiting for it to do something. Nothing happens. Well, shit, maybe it's because I don't get any bloody reception in the black hole that is my house. So I take the phone outside and wonder around my patio and yard waiting for a few bars to come out from hiding. Oh there they are. And there's a cute little jingle alerting me that I have voice mails. I push the button and this is what I get: 5ojyua]dhboa,wenobiuyj35ky6q2340ihzdf. Nothing but Japanese bloody gibberish over and over until the nice lady finally ends the call. Lovely. I walk back in the house to grab my house phone to call Softback and ask them how in the hell I am supposed to switch my phone over to English, since they didn't get the hint when I first bought the damn thing. There's Tim, just waking up from his nap, to rescue me. He told me to just try setting up the Gmail account instead to see if I can get into Blogger that way, since he had no trouble setting his up after he got here. While he gets on the phone with SoftBank to fix the translation problem on my phone, I set up a Gmail account with no problems. Yay. So now here I am, finally writing in my new blog. Oh look, a bag of McDonald's has just wandered into my house, and I just happen to be really hungry.