Archive for the ‘Money Monday’ Category

Hooooray!

Today, I’m glad I spent money on a hard drive enclosure! All my data was indeed intact, and I recovered it all quite nicely from Kurhah, the dead MacBook Pro. So in addition to aiding in data recovery, I now have a perfectly good portable external hard drive. I’m not going to say no to more space for backing up to. Yay!

I’ll even mention a second happy use of money: a screwdriver set. I really only needed a T6, but we could get a whole set for the same price as a single T6, so hey. As it turned out, having the set was super handy, because some of the screws were a bit worn and other bits were quite helpful in getting them out. I believe the set we got is intended for mobile phone repair, and there are a couple bits I doubt I will ever use, but for the most part, they’re good, useful bits and, especially considering how cheap the set was, everything seems to be surprisingly good quality.

So… yay! I’m posting this from my trusty blog-posting software with all the right settings and everything. Kisses to my drive enclosure and screwdriver set… MWAH!

Yes, I’m still alive. In fact, I’ve had a draft of a blog post for an embarrassingly long time, and even more embarrassing, this is not it. It’s not that I haven’t had things to say, it’s just… life getting in the way.

So for my first post in a long while, I present a double feature, if you will. I’m combining the Money Monday I totally intended to post this week (also not the aforementioned draft) with some Wardrobe Wednesday fun. First, here’s my bump as of today. I’m 33 weeks pregnant.

For comparison, here’s my 35-week bump from last time:

Yeah, I’m bigger this time, but not like OMG circus-freak big. So, we can stop with the comments about how huge I am, k? It’s getting old. I know with 100% certainty that I’m not having twins, that the baby is not unhealthily large, and that everything is going fine. It’s just normal, bigger-the-second-time-around-edness. Thanks.

That said, it does certainly FEEL pretty darn big. Perhaps I’m just not as in shape this time, or maybe it’s weak muscles from having a cesarean before, or just from having had a baby in there once before, or what, but yeah. It hurts having a bump. As some of you may know, despite never wearing a support belt when I was pregnant with Dagmar, I’ve been using one for a long, long time this pregnancy.

I dedicate this post to my wonderful support belt.

My Support Belt

I love you, oh support belt! You were worth every øre!

Not that it makes all the pain go away, but it helps a lot. If any pregnant women out there are reading this and have ever entertained the idea of getting one, just go do it. For real. Best ever. Before the belt, it felt like my belly wasn’t even a part of me. It was just extra weight attached to me and pulling me down. I hated it. Now I only kinda dislike my bump, and it feels like it really is part of my body. An annoying part of my body, but hey, this is a big step up.

I can’t believe I have nearly two months left to go, and that kinda makes me want to cry sometimes, but we’re getting there. Every day, we’re getting closer. I’m trying my darndest to think it’s cute when Maggie kicks me in the ribs. Thomas is probably getting tired of me calling him over to come feel the kicks, but if I concentrate on how fun it must be for other people, it keeps me from thinking about how uncomfortable it is for me. I don’t remember Dagmar’s kicks being this annoying.

At least I have a support belt.

Hopefully I’ll get around to posting again on Friday, but if not, I’m probably still alive. Just with a cold, a dead laptop, and a toddler coughing up a lung. No biggie.

I think I’ve mentioned this, but I friggin’ hate being pregnant.

I’ve been suffering through morning sickness for a while now, and though it has let up a bit, it’s still there and it’s still no fun. I don’t really feel like myself, and I just want each day to get over with so I can move on to some other stage of my life that’s happier. Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but that’s how I feel.

So it’s no big surprise that I don’t really feel like doing anything. I don’t want to do any of the things that I usually want to do, but I can’t very well do NOTHING. So during those moments when there’s nothing else begging for my attention (like, say, a toddler, for example), I have my time-sucking secret.

Burning Monkey Solitaire.

Now you know. I look forward to the day when I feel well enough to do something productive instead, but for now… monkeys that tell jokes while I play cards.

Daddy’s always on his laptop. Mommy’s always on her laptop. Bean wants to be a part of it too. I didn’t really expect it to work, but it was on sale and if nothing else, when she’s 3 and up, like the package suggests, she could use it to learn her numbers or something.

She loves it. Don’t get me wrong; she still wants to use mine, too, but it actually does work to distract her with her own laptop. Hers is more colorful, louder, and plays her favorite kind of music: the danceable kind.

She fails spectacularly at all the games on it, but that’s not why we bought it anyway. We just wanted something that looked like a laptop so she could have one too, and something that was safe for a child, since our old Dell laptop can apparently hurt little fingers that pry the keys off.

We got exactly what we wanted, and so did Bean.

Legos. I love them. My daughter loves them. My husband loves them.

At first, we built towers and watched Bean tear them down. Now, she’s starting to put Legos together on her own. No towers yet, but small formations for her to carry around and show off to me are wonderful too.

The packaging wanted me to wait until 18 months to get Legos for bean. She’s been playing with them for months and I have nothing but good things to say about it. I look forward to more and more exciting Lego sculptures.

Bring it, Builder Bean. Bring it.

I don’t mean labels like words you use for people. I mean literal LABELS like these manufactured by Avery.

I’m getting back into FLYing. So far so good. It feels great and the flat is looking great. I spent two 15-minute sessions in the foyer, and was inspired to add labels to the drawers in our hanging organizer.

I put pictures on them because that’s fun.

It remains to be seen if they’ll get wet or hit a lot and thus become useless. But at least until Thomas comes home from work, they are making me happy, and considering how cheap they are, really that’s good enough. Any extra time is a bonus.

And yes, I know it’s Tuesday. I’m not quite FLYing all the way yet, but hey, I didn’t post at all last week, so one day late isn’t so bad.

I wanted to write today about how happy I am with my new mugs. But I don’t have any new mugs.

*cue sad violin*

We got some nice, big, sturdy glass mugs as wedding presents. At least we thought they were sturdy, which is why we registered for them, and we still thought they were sturdy as we used them for the first 2 and a half years of our marriage. Then it all began to change.

*cue dramatic crescendoing horns*

Within the past month or so, four of our eight mugs have cracked. Not in any sort of oops-I-dropped-it kinda way, but like in that, I-justed-poured-myself-a-drink-and-brought-the-mug-to-my-lips-and-noticed-in-my-periphery kinda way that makes you want to stop using the mug before it’s in that unexpectedly-shattered-into-your-face kinda way. So we’re left with four mugs, which isn’t a lot, even when only two people are using them.

Our mugs are our only drink-holdery bits. We have no tumblers, wine glasses, champagne flutes, water bottles, or even shotglasses to supplement. If we’re drinking something, and we’re at home, we’re drinking it out of a mug.

So we need more mugs.

For some reason, perhaps because they have always provided me with all my needs before, I thought IKEA would be the answer. It was not so. We showed up at IKEA and found our choices were really small mugs, really ugly mugs, really small and ugly tumblers, or large but completely unadorned and uncolored tumblers.

I don’t do plain, clear glass. I just don’t.

So I’m holding out for better options, and we’re living with just four mugs. We can do it. Oh yes, we can.

*cue inspirational orchestral arrangement*

I used a 12-inch iBook for a long time and I didn’t think it was too small. I got a 17-inch iMac and I didn’t think it was too small. I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro and I didn’t think it was too small.

We had mentioned to each other in passing that it would be nice to update our 17-inch PowerPC iMac, but it certainly wasn’t a priority and there were never any serious discussions about it. Then Thomas came home and said that his work was offering computers at cheap prices. I said something along the lines of, “yeah right, like we need another computer.” He told me how we’d “save” if we bought a 27-inch iMac, and I thought he was joking. As if we need a 27-inch iMac. I laughed and said we’d save 100% by not buying one. Then I figured out he was serious as he made his case for getting this computer. We struck a deal that if he did some stuff I’d been asking him to do anyway, then he could order it, and so we both got what we wanted.

Here is our new iMac, Sol, next to the old 17-incher, Alderamin.

(If there are any Mac-ignorants left in my readership: those are the whole computers, not just the displays. There is no separate box or tower. People still ask about this even though iMacs have been all-in-one units since their inception over a decade ago. )

I have to admit, it’s a thing of beauty. It’s awesome for watching TV and movies on, since we have no TV, and with the wireless keyboard and mouse, I can basically use it from across the room. And it’s not just a huge screen. The resolution is ridiculous (2560 by 1440) too.

What can I say? I’m glad we have it. You win, Thomas. You win.

Anyone in the greater Copenhagen/North Zealand area interested in a 17-inch PowerPC iMac with built-in iSight, let me know.

I mentioned on Monday that I’d be posting this later, and I’m on vacation, so that totally counts.

Monday was a good day. Thomas’ fabulous sister, Charlotte, lended her driving skills to us to bring home our IKEA loot. Yes, we spent 2 hours and some kroner at IKEA so that we could make magic happen.

Magic.

We live in a teeny tiny flat, with one bedroom. When we originally moved in, the bedroom was, well, our bedroom. When I got pregnant, we discussed how to make that work out, and decided to make the living room our bedroom, and make the bedroom a fun room. This was because we wanted to sidecar Bean’s crib, and the crib and the bed would not both fit in the bedroom. It’s a small bedroom.

My mother complained a lot about this decision. She thought Bean should go in the living room and we should stay in the bedroom. I’m very happy with how we did it, though, and wouldn’t change a thing about that path we took.

But we did decide to choose a new path going forward. Bean hasn’t been sidecarred for several months. We all sleep better if she’s in a separate crib. The crib was perpendicular to our bed, so I could get to her easily, but needing to get to her steadily became less and less of an issue. Additionally, we found ourselves stuck in the fun room, scared to go out and make too much noise, whenever she was sleeping. It just wasn’t making sense anymore, so I suggested giving Bean the fun room and making the living room our combo bed/fun room. I was expecting Thomas to ask for an explanation, but he said he’d been thinking about it too. Well, that was easy.

I went ahead and moved her crib in there the next day, and a couple days later, we moved our bookshelves and stuff out and her toys in. It was her bedroom, but it looked like a crib in a junk room. IKEA to the rescue.

I’m so pleased with the results! My mother still complains that we don’t have a proper bedroom for ourselves, and my mother-in-law still has little to say other than it’s small. But, dammit, I’m pleased and it’s my flat so MAGIC!

So, the history of this little room in pictures:

First, it was a bedroom! We went with a black and white color scheme. The floors and curtains are solid black too, though you don’t see them in the pictures.

Then, it was a fun room.

And now…

Other than the photograph, I made all that art on the walls. *beam* With all the black we’d put in previously, I wasn’t sure I could make it look like a little girl’s room, but I think I did a pretty good job. It is small, but Bean is small too, and she’s quite happy with it.

Thomas’ work had a juletræfest, which literally translates to “yule tree party,” but I think I’ll just call it a Christmas party. We had to buy tickets to go, and I’m glad we did. So glad, in fact, that I’m devoting this week’s posts to it.

First, it was fun. I finally got to see where Thomas works, and meet a few colleagues.

Secondly, I got to eat æbleskiver. It literally means “apple slices,” as the linked entry says, but the entry fails to mention that neither apples nor slices are involved in them. Still, they could be called Toe Fungus Delight and it wouldn’t change the fact that they’re yummy. A rose by any other name, and all that.

Thirdly, Dagmar got a Christmas present. When we bought the tickets, we were asked to list our children, their ages, and pick two presents from a list for each. There were several gifts per age group, and I couldn’t remember what was on the list much less what I had picked from it, so it was truly a surprise, even though there should have been a 50/50 chance of getting a particular item. Hooray for failing memory!

And I’m not going to check my sent messages to see what else I picked, either, because I’m very happy with what we got, and if it was my second choice, I might just be disappointed. It must have been my first choice, though, because what’s better than this?

Yeah, we got a rocking horse! Dagmar seemed mildly interested when I put her on it, and she figured out how to make it rock, but then oooh shiny she got off and went somewhere else. I think she’ll get into it a bit more later though.

Fourthly, Bean got to go to her very first live show.

We don’t have a TV. We do watch some TV on the computer, but it’s not Danish TV, so when it comes to stuff that’s big in Denmark, I’m not your girl to ask. I’m aware that there’s a program called X Factor that involves singing. That’s about as far as my knowledge of that goes. So some people are up on stage speaking Danish and all I really catch of it is “X Factor.” My Danish is getting a lot better, but when they’re speaking fast and there’s lots of background noise, well, it’s not the easiest. Anyway, I didn’t really know what the connection to X Factor was until I asked T later. The band that performed, Alien Beat Club, won second place on the show.

Here’s Bean’s favorite song from the performance.