La Petite Chic

When Paranoia Becomes Reality

I intended to write my big "I'm pregnant!" details post on Monday, I really did.  But I started to feel quite sick that day and never got around to it.  I was hot, so hot, and feeling queasy on top of a cough and sore throat.  Then I was going to write a post about how paranoid and dramatic I am and how I was convinced I must have the swine flu because it couldn't just be a regular cold, oh no.  But I felt even worse on Tuesday and barely made it through the work day.  I collapsed in bed when I got home and stayed there the practically the whole night except for dinner.

Then I had an appointment on Wednesday morning at my employee wellness center where they took my temperature and tested me for strep and influenza.  I was running a 100 degree fever so I was told I would be sent home for the day.  As the nurse practitioner left the room to run my tests, I joked with her about what a paranoid person I am because I had convinced myself that I had the swine flu.  She came back to the exam room ten minutes later with a grave look on her face.  She said, "Well, you tested positive."  I said, "Oh no, I have strep?!"  She said, "No, you tested positive for Influenza A."  She started to go on about how the baby should be just fine but that I had to leave work right away and not come back for at least seven days since the start of my symptoms.

That's when it hit me.  "Wait," I said.  "Does this mean I have swine flu?" 

"Yes," she answered.

She went on to explain that they could only test for Influenza A which could be many different strains of the flu, including swine flu.  However, the CDC says that most cases of Influenza A diagnosed in the summer (non-flu season) are the swine flu.  A million different things crossed my mind at that moment.  Oh, my god, what about the baby, what about me, what's going to happen, can I even take anything to make me better?  Thankfully, the nurse practitioner was awesome and calmed me down instantly.  She explained that this strain of flu is no different than the other flu viruses, it's just received a lot more sensational press.  I was given a prescription for Tamiflu and told to call my OB immediately. 

I spoke with the OB office and they advised to go ahead and take the Tamiflu.  It's a Category C drug which means that extensive testing hasn't been done on humans, but it's both the CDC's recommendation and my doctor's recommendation that pregnant women take it because the benefits far outweigh the risks.  The flu has also proven to be more dangerous (and deadly) for women in their third trimester so as long as I rest, stay hydrated and keep my fever down, everything should be okay.

It's still very frightening though.  It's amazing how quickly you fall in love with your baby as soon as you see that positive pregnancy test.  You want to do everything to protect them and keep them safe and any threat to their well-being is scarier than all hell.  Yesterday was pretty rough and I had trouble keeping my fever down.  The Tamiflu made me sicker than a dog and I threw up 5 times in a two hour stretch.  Jon has been amazing and has been by my side bringing me everything I need.  I turned the corner late last night and am feeling well enough now to walk around and eat some soup and crackers.  Thank goodness.  I'm still really scared about potential side effects, but I'm more scared about what might happen if I don't take the Tamiflu.  I'll be just nine weeks along on Saturday and it's already been quite the journey.  I'll keep you all posted and will hopefully be back to my healthy self again soon.  I've really been so lucky and having a dream pregnancy up until this point so I'm continuing to count my blessings. 

P.S.  Thank you to everyone for all of your lovely comments on my last post.  They made me smile a million times over. :)  I'm so excited to share this journey with all of you.

P.P.S.  In case you were wondering, I'm 99.9% sure I passed my polygraph on Monday!  WHEW!

On the Negative and Positive

There's something I've avoided writing about until now for fear of jinxing myself and/or being found out.  I'm at the point now though where I just can't take it anymore and I have to share it with you all so here's my story in all it's ridiculousness.

As I've mentioned before, the new job I was offered months ago requires a very extensive background check which involves checking references from every job I've held in the past 10 years (which is a lot), talking to my past and present neighbors from those 10 years, meeting with my closest friends (I had to eventually list about 20 different people representing different facets of my life), a psychological test and evaluation with a psychologist and a polygraph test.

Out of all those things, I was most anxious about the psychological evaluation because I've been treated for depression and anxiety in the past and was afraid they would hold that against me, even though I'm better and not on any medication and it would have no bearing on my job.  Well, I passed that with flying colors and I'm actually quite certain I charmed the pants off of the psychologist.

It turns out I should have been more worried about the polygraph.  I would have to say that taking that polygraph test ranks in the Top Five Most Horrible Things That I've Ever Been Through.  It all started out just fine.  They ask you a series of easy test questions to establish a baseline to determine your body's reaction when you're lying and when you're telling the truth.  They hook you up to all sorts of wires, a blood pressure cuff and you sit on a butt pad sort of thing that measures any shifting in your seat.  You truly look like you've been abducted by aliens for a probe with all of the wires coming off of you.

Once your baseline is established, the real test begins.  The rules are simple:  Tell the truth.  As long as you tell the truth, you'll pass the test.  Easy enough, right?  Wrong.  WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.  I will swear to God until the day I die that those tests are inaccurate.

I was fine through the first set of questions.  Passed them like a piece of cake.  Am I a terrorist?  NO.  Easy.  The next set of questions were a different story.  These questions involved criminal activity, accurate answers on my employment application and any illegal drug history.  I passed the first two questions just fine.  I'm too much of a goody-goody to have ever gotten in trouble with the law and I answered every question on my application truthfully and to the best of my knowledge. 

Admittedly, I was very nervous about the drug question even though I had no good reason to be.  I have never done an illegal drug in my life and I'm quite proud to say that.  I've been tempted sure, but by the time I graduated college and was no longer subjected to random drug tests by the NCAA, I said to myself, "Self, you've gotten this far without doing them, why start now?"  And I never did.  The reason I was nervous about it though was because my mother failed this very section on her polygraph almost twenty years ago and she has never done a drug in her life.  My mom is where I get my straight arrow tendencies from.  Still, she failed it (twice!) and refused to go back and try again because she was so offended.  So I had that in the back of my mind the whole time, but I shared my concerns with my tester and she said I would be fine as long as I told the truth.

Well, I failed.  Miserably.  After the set of questions was over, my tester turned off the machine, pushed her chair back from her desk and said, "Katie, what are you hiding?"  I was floored.  I explained and explained some more how I've never done a drug in my life but she didn't believe me.  Apparently her test doesn't lie.  Bullshit!  She repeated the test and I failed again.  At this point, she turned into an interrogator.  "Why are you lying, Katie?  What aren't you telling me?"  I was holding back tears, trying desperately not to cry.  I went through every situation where I've ever been in the presence of drugs (but didn't partake) and she said, "Well, if you didn't do them, that shouldn't matter."  She even offered to show me pictures of drugs to "jog my memory."

That's when I almost lost it.  I told her, "Frankly, I'm getting really pissed off that I'm telling the truth and you and your machine don't believe me."  I was livid.  She was treating me like a lying, no-good crackhead and I was not happy about it.  I was completely offended.  So she decided to take all of the drug questions out of the test and make them into their own test, worded in a different way.  I said fine, bring it on.  And wouldn't you know I passed each and every one of them then?

Only trouble is that for some reason, I had to retake the criminal activity and application accuracy questions since they had been taken out of the original set of questions to ask the drug questions separately.  Don't ask me why, but they had to be redone.  And I freaking failed those the second time around!!  My head just about fucking exploded.  I asked her, "How can I pass those questions the first time around, then fail them the second time?"  She replied, "Well maybe you were so focused on being deceptive about the drug questions that those other questions flew under the radar."  And that's when my head actually did explode.

At that point, I had been taking the polygraph for almost two hours and had maxed out the allowable amount of questions they can ask you.  I was told that I would have to come back at a later date to try again.  The thing is, they want you to pass.  You can take the polygraph as many times as it takes you to pass.  And the irony of it all?  You can get hired if you've done drugs in the past.  You just have to be honest about it.  But I was honest!!  ARGH.  I was so upset that I called Jon bawling as soon as I got out of there.  It was nearly noon so he took me out to lunch where I drank a very large margarita.  My honey always knows when I need a drink!  He took my miserable ass home where, to make me feel better, we, ahem, enjoyed some married people time.

It was a couple of weekends later when I noticed that my boobs were quite tender and I was having some weird cramping sensations in my stomach.  I decided to take a pregnancy test just to shut up the little voice in my head that was telling me I must be pregnant.  Imagine my shock when I saw this:

And imagine our elation when we saw this and a very fast heartbeat on Wednesday:

 

Yes, that's right, we're having a baby!  Unbelieveably, she or he was conceived on that fateful day!  Expected arrival date: March 5, 2010.  More details coming soon, but I figured this post was long enough already.

P.S.  For the record, I'm taking my second polygraph on Monday.  Wish me luck!

There's No Place Like Home

I love vacation, I really do.  But my goodness, it sure is sweet to sleep in your own bed after a week of sleeping in a strange one.  There's nothing like your own sheets and your own pillows, even if you are waking up at 5:30 AM rather than the 8:30 AM you've grown accustomed to after a week of staying up late (is it sad that midnight is considered late for me now?). 

I also love coming back to a home cooked meal when all you've eaten are restaurant meals for seven days straight.  When I was a little girl and on my family beach vacations, I used to loathe that we only ate out a few times and would make most of our meals instead to save money.  How embarrassing for a 12 year old, right?  The horror!  Lunch meat or PB&J sandwiches for lunch and a big pot of spaghetti or fried chicken and potato salad for dinner was the norm.  It was good and cheap and necessary for us to do so in able to afford that week at the beach.  And oh, how my parents were right on!  Eating out gets old very fast.

Don't get me wrong though, the week off was so lovely.  We don't get to see Jon's family very often since they're all in Pennsylvania so it's always nice to spend a relaxing time with them.  We had perfect weather the whole week which is rare for us, the bringers of rain wherever we go!  We played a lot of putt putt (mini golf) and I'm happy to say that my game has improved tremendously since last year.  Either that or they're making the courses easier. 

We came home to our wiggly little Lola Bean who was thrilled to see her Mama and Dad and we've been happily snuggling and sharing bacon ever since.  So did I have a nice vacation?  Yes, quite!  But am I happy to be home?  Oh, most definitely! 

Fabulous Find Friday - Graduation Edition

As of last night, Jonathan is officially done with his MBA!!!  Woo hoo!  So that got me thinking about graduation presents... 

For your husband or boyfriend:

I really don't like dainty watches on men, but then there are some men's watches that are comically enormous.  This Classic Round Timepiece with Silver Dial from Burberry strikes a nice balance between the two and is understated, yet unique to boot.  $395.

For your wife or girlfriend:

Surely your sweetie would appreciate a beautiful new bag to tote her work stuff in.  I love the size of the Medium East/West Satchel from the Florentine Vacchetta collection at Dooney & Bourke.  It comes in six different colors at $345.

For the new undergraduate graduate:

If the new graduate has landed their first real job in a big city like Boston, Chicago, New York City or San Francisco, these Transit Token Cuff Links from Red Envelope would be such a charming and fitting gift.  $124.95 a pair.

For any graduate:

Like many BA graduates, it took me a long time (four months) to find my first job after graduation.  I honestly felt very lost and depressed, but I think the message on this clever ceramic egg from palomanest's etsy shop would have inspired me.  $18 per egg.

 

Honfest 2009

Finally!!  The photos I've been promising from Honfest way back in June.  My parents were born and raised in Baltimore and I was born and raised in Baltimore until I was three so I would say that's enough to make me an honorary hon!  I absolutely adore this festival.

A hon sitting patiently for her beehive.

Two lovely hons hamming it up for my camera.

 

There were a few guy hons too!

 

This crabcake won the record for the world's largest crabcake.  After the record was won, they sold pieces of it to the crowd.  I love my crabcakes, but you couldn't have paid me to eat that thing!

 

Even the little ones get dressed up!  (Funny true story: My mom used to put pink foam curlers in our wet hair before bedtime when my sister and I were little girls.  To keep the curlers from falling out, she would stick a pair of our clean underwear on our heads!  We used to giggle so hard over that.)

 

Those were some serious beehives!

 

Yes, that is a dog with a beehive and no, Lola would never allow such a thing on her head.  You can't deny the cuteness though!

 

I think she likes it.  Look at that smile!

The Unofficial Rules of House Hunting

When you've been searching for a new home for as long as we've been searching (torturing myself for almost a year now!), you begin to pick up on the various ploys and trickery that realtors and homeowners employ to make their home stand out and look much better than it actually is. 

I'm not saying that we were completely innocent of this when we sold our own condo.  That slightly bumpy wall next to where we opened up the wall in our kitchen?  Nothing a strategically placed frame couldn't hide.  The noisy neighbor upstairs who constantly blared his music and stomped around like a water buffalo?  A terse knock on the door and lightly veiled threat of calling him in for a noise violation quieted him down long enough for each of our open houses.  Of course we didn't hide anything that would have been a real issue.  Honestly, there wasn't anything to hide.  We took care of our home and it showed, resulting in a sale after only three weeks on the market.

Here are some of the tricks I've learned to avoid in our own home search because they usually point to some sort of red flag.

There is no photo of the front of the house or it's featured at the very end of the slide show. 

It could mean the house is run-down, has no curb appeal or neighbors who keep seven junk cars in their front yard.  Save yourself the time and go no further.  This one never ends well. 

The posting contains the words "handyman's special" or "fixer-upper".

Unless you're really handy or looking for a renovation project, run, do not walk, away from the house.  It may be a good deal now, but you might end up biting off more than you can chew.  Jon and I really do love fixing up things on our own for the sense of pride and accomplishment it brings, but when that means potentially dealing with mold issues, ancient heating systems or complete kitchen and bath overhauls, we know when to walk away.

Similarly, the posting contains words like "cozy" or "intimate".

This is code for "smaller than a shoebox" and "you might end up divorced or in the crazy house for lack of space."  We've been there and done that with cozy and unless it's in a flat in Paris, we're not going back. 

The realtor gives off an air of desperation.

Jon and I went to an open house a few weekends ago and were completely put off by the realtor.  Before we were even out of our car, she was standing in the doorway waiting for us.  Creepy!  She made really strange attempts to flatter us ("Oh, such a lovely young woman!") and got so flustered at the prospect of a buyer that she couldn't even remember the name for crown molding. 

We've since saved the creepy realtor's card and have been hiding it throughout our bedroom for the other person to find.  I found it in my jewelry box this morning and Jon will soon discover it in his beloved Pleepleus' hands!  Hee hee :)  We've also since devised a plan for whether or not to put our real contact information on the realtor sign in sheet, since Jon has been getting calls from the over-eager Dolores.  When signing in, I'll casually ask Jon if he wants me to leave his home e-mail address or his work e-mail address.  If he says home, I'll leave accurate information; if he says work, I'll leave false information.  It's a good way to cut down on calls from realtors who make you sign in even when you're not interested in the house.

The house has been on the market for longer than six months.

You can't help but wonder why it hasn't sold yet.  A long time on the market could indicate an inflated asking price, a bad neighborhood or something inherently wrong with the house.  Of course it could also just mean a flooded market and bad luck on the part of the seller, but it still makes me nervous.  That being said, however, being on the market for a long time could definitely play to your favor if the house is your dream home.  The sellers are probably anxious to sell by this point and might very well entertain an offer considerably below asking price.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

I can't even begin to count all of the fabulous homes we've discovered only to be shattered with disappointment when we find out the reason behind the low price.  Most of these dreamy homes tend to be new construction in shady parts of town or built practically on top of each other.  I much prefer an older home on a big lot in a good neighborhood with highly ranked schools rather than a new home with a tiny yard that juts right into your neighbor's yard set in a pocket of a bad neighborhood. 

I know a lot of you out there are home owners...what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way?

Right Now

I can't say that I feel too terrible about being such a sporadic blogger this summer because from the looks of my Google Reader, it seems that mostly everyone else has scaled back on their writing too.  There are bike rides to be had and snowballs to be consumed and evening walks for not one, not two, but three "can only walk by myself" dogs.  Truth be told, Jonathan and I have settled into a pretty nice routine at my parent's house. 

It's up at 5:25 AM for me, out the door by 6:00 AM and at work by 7:30 AM.  Then I'm headed home at 4:00 PM, arriving on the doorstep anywhere from 5:30 PM (on a very good day) to 7:00 PM (on a very, very bad day, usually Fridays).  If I get home early enough, I'll head out for a quick bike ride or run so that I can actually enjoy the summer air for a bit, then I head right into the kitchen where either I help my dad prep dinner or he helps me.  We enjoy cooking together and always get a laugh out of the three furry sous chefs just waiting to lend a paw (or floor cleaning duties!).  Jon has also been contributing a meal a week lately but I know better than to be in the kitchen with him.  Three years of cooking in our cramped condo kitchen taught us that it's better if just one of us handles the cooking at a time!

Speaking of my husband, he has just one whole class left in his MBA program.  Just one measly three to four hour class and he's done!  To say that he is thrilled would be an understatement.  He can't wait to take back his evenings and weekends and to never again have to worry about exams or papers or group projects.  I just can't wait to have Jonathan back full time!  He starts his new job in Maryland the beginning of August and we're both relieved that his sucky commute to DC will be over in less than a month.  Did I mention that we'll be working for the same government agency?  We'll be in completely different departments, of course, but it will be nice to do lunch with him every now and then and perhaps carpool together if we have the same schedules. 

As for my new job, I'm still waiting for my clearance to come through.  It's been a really long road involving polygraphs and psychological evaluations and a ridiculous ten year background investigation into my past jobs and neighbors and frankly, I'm just anxious to be done with it and get on board.  I mean, really...ten years takes me back to jobs I held in high school.  You try remembering your supervisor's name for the job you had at the mall at seventeen!  I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end and really, the knowledge of what an awesome opportunity it is is the only thing getting me through the horrible commute at this point. 

That's one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to autumn.  I have never, ever wished a summer away like I have this year but there's a thought lurking in the back of my head that the sooner it's over, the sooner I'll be in my new job (which is only a 20 minute commute) and we'll be that much closer to having our own home again.  There are so many good things in store for us that it's really hard to live in the moment right now.  I'm trying my darnedest to enjoy the present and to be thankful for what I have right now, because my life really is quite wonderful as it stands.  Luckily we've had a lot of fun distractions with more to come and I really can't help but feel blessed, right now.  Life is good!

Last year (and quite timely reading back on it!), I mused about my marriage and how grad school was a stressor for us.