Baby bump?

As evidenced by my recent vent, I've been gaining weight. I was pretty sure all the reasons I couldn't fit into my pants were just getting chubby. But I recently went shopping for a few more shirts that had a little more give that I could wear now and then as I get a bit bigger. As I was evaluating myself in the mirror, I realized that I couldn't quite suck everything in. That there was definitely more belly-ness than I've ever had, even when at my heaviest. I'm a pear-shaped gal, and lower body always grows while leaving my tummy relatively flat.

I sent this picture to Ryan on my phone:(Taken at the best store in existence: Ann Taylor Loft. Man I love that place...)

I'm standing up straight and trying to suck in a bit. I've decided that even though I'm only 11 weeks (10 weeks in the picture), I'm showing a little! Some is for sure just my own new found fluffiness, but some seems to be the little lime-sized future Green too. The midwife I saw for my prenatal said my uterus was very forward--probably why we got the heartbeat at only 9 weeks. I'm guessing that has a bit to do with it too.

It's kind of exciting! I can't feel the little person moving around, but they must really be in there. It's insane to think about sometimes.

Now any good ideas for documenting the belly growth? How often to document?

Jury Duty

If you're my friend on Facebook, you probably already know, I spent last week in jury duty. I got the notice and thought and thought and thought about reasons that would be legitimate enough to get me out of it.

I sleep every day until at least 10 am?
Studies show: courtrooms are bad for babies?


Unfortunately, all I could do was sign thing and send it in. A few weeks later, low and behold, a little yellow postcard just for me! Complete with juror and reporting number.

There were no trials the first day and so I was instructed to call back the next day. But my luck ran out on Tuesday, when I had to report to the courthouse at 9 am. (9 am? that's soooo early...!) I got there a bit early and sat in what I remember to be the same room I sat in for traffic school--that's another story, and not as interesting. After everyone was assembled, we got to watch the most epic movie about jury duty. That is, the music made it sound that way. Imagine a theme similar to "Indiana Jones" playing as you watch a mailman walk up to a house and put a jury summons in the box. Truly an epic event, if I say so myself. The patriotic march music played through the whole thing while people described being worried about missing work and wondering if they'll get picked for the jury.

Seriously, best. movie. ever.

Then after lots of waiting--which is what jury duty really is, lots of waiting-- we went upstairs to the courtrooms escorted by our bailiff and then lined up in order. They asked a bunch of questions, including if we knew anyone associated with or involved in the case, or if we knew anyone else in the jury. Then we each had to tell our answers to the some questions:

How long we've lived in Salt Lake County.
What we do for a living.
If we're attending school.
If we're married or single.
What our spouse does (if married).

and then the judge added on what we typically read.

I have no idea how the attorneys decide, but they take the list and pass it back and forth crossing off the ones they don't want. The top 8 names that are not crossed off are the ones chosen to be on the jury. (I was #11, I counted. And then cursed. Them aren't good odds I'm not getting picked.) Sure enough, the jurors picked included little 'ol Ms. Green.

The trial started immediately with opening arguments, then lunch, then witnesses. The case was a civil trial (which I thought made it harder). The short version is this:

Mr. Sauceda and his friend Mr. Delgato decide to go into business with Mr. Capellini. That business being prepaid phone cards, prepaid cell phones, prepaid debit cards, and public phones. (the kind that are so popular with the latin community for calling long distance.) Mr. Sauceda had been selling these kinds of things for a while in Utah, and Mr. Capellini had been doing it a lot in Texas. They come up with a contract and get things started, then Delgato backs out. Mr. Sauceda then takes over Delgato's part of the contract and pays his part. Later on Mr. Capellini says he needs more money and more money and more money and stupid Sauceda keeps giving it to him. In the meantime there's some interaction and involvement with Mr. Capellini's wife and son. Mr. Sauceda is suing Mr. Capellini's wife and son for fraud and damages from that fraud. Mr. Capellini is dead. (lame!)

After evidence and testimony was given for 2 1/2 days, we went back to deliberate. The first thing you're supposed to do is pick a Jury Foreman. They sign the verdict and let the bailiff know you've reached a verdict and all that. I stopped by the bathroom on my way in the jury room and when I arrived inside the other jurors said they'd voted, and I was the foreman. "last one in! ha ha..." I laughed, and then there was an awkward pause. I said, "really?" and they were all like, "sure!" and so I was the Jury Foreman. I took that also to be that I could try to keep everyone on track and call for votes when necessary. The deliberation was probably the best part. It was one of the only times that we as a jury actually talked to each other. Our bailiff kept commenting on how quiet a jury we were. Sometimes it was awkward how silent it was in that jury room.

We finally sited Mrs. Rodriguez (Wife of Capellini) with fraud and awarded damages to Mr. Sauceda. But we didn't feel there was enough evidence to fully sentence fraud to Mr. Perez (son of Capellini). It was really hard because I felt bad for Mr. Sauceda. He was obviously swindled, and I wanted him to have some compensation. It was hard to keep that separate and look at only the evidence. I wanted him to have money so bad, but I just couldn't justify where the money would come from (not Mr. Capellini himself). And it's also hard because so much of the evidence that was to show that Rodriquez and Perez were involved in the business of fraud were also things that family members would just be doing for each other. Cashing checks, delivering equipment... all things that could have just been your dad/spouse saying hey--do this for me. And the wording of the verdict said that they had to have "knowingly participated in a fraudulent activity."

I decided next time I hope it's a homicide. Then it's just did they or didn't they kill them. Guilty, not guilty. The end.

Overall it was a good experience, and I learned a lot from it.

I didn't know how much the bailiff does. He was our escort and host, and he opened and closed the session, and ran a lot of the court. That is, the stuff the judge didn't do. Ours was awesome, he knew all our names by the end of the first day.

It was fun meeting the other jurors and getting to know them over the case. One of our jurors was a retired clerk for the court. She worked for a different judge, but knew almost everyone we passed in the hallway. She was a good resource for us other jurors because she knew how stuff worked. She could even predict what was going on in the courtroom when we were dismissed. Sometimes the jury leaves so they only hear certain things. Those things seemed to usually be stuff that had to be hashed out between the attorneys. That way we didn't get distracted from the actual case and the evidence presented.

Though the time off was not the way I'd like to spend my time off of work, it was still a pretty valuable use of my time. And I'd say now that jury duty isn't that bad. It was a good experience.

My Blanket

Over dinner the other night, Ryan and I got into a discussion about swearing. I told him I had never ever used the F-word. I said it was the mother of all swear words and I had never used it. It's not even one that pops into my head in a moment of weakness.

Ryan confessed to having not sworn in a long time because it had been a long while since he'd played Volleyball--where he's been known to sling around the G-D word. Yea... THAT one. I remember when I found he'd been using that word. It was a dark day...

I told him that was really the real mother of all swear words because it was taking the Lord's name in vain.

So we decided he needed a substitute and that he better start putting it into practice so that it would become a reflex in time for any sports playing.

It had a few requirements: it had to have three syllables with the emphasis on the second syllable for maximum impact as an expletive. (sheesh... Mr. English Pants even with swear words...)

So beware, next time you're in a riotous game of V-ball with my hubby, he's likely to make a bad play and then you will hear a very heated:
"My blanket!!"

We practiced a lot last night:
"I want to go buy a fish, my blanket!"
"My blanket! I can't open this mayonnaise!"
"That hurt! My blanket!"

lol... may be the best substitute swear word yet.

Some Random Updates

The Green Team isn't just tired and fat, and killing fish, we've been up to much more that I've missed:

First, We have callings in the church. Ryan is Assistant Scout Master. He was called to specifically "keep the boys safe". Apparently they are often left to roam and do whatever while at camp and what not. I laughed a little at that. Ryan will just rein them in with his sarcasm. It's his true talent, and you know what they say about bushels and talents...
That was random.
Anyway, I've been called to be the YW Secretary. Yay! Young Women's again! I actually knew the president before being called, but we didn't put it together until after. She was the Volunteer Coordinator when I volunteered at Legacy Hospice. I have to confess I was a little embarrassed because I totally just stopped out of the blue and never warned anyone. She didn't remember though, but I've always felt guilty about flaking out on her. The YW in this ward are very different from my old ward. There's a bit more drama between all of them, which is disappointing. The YW goup is super tiny just like my old YW, only 6 girls total. It's all ward based, we do hardly anything on a Stake level, which is different from my previous ward.
We're going ice skating on Wednesday for our activity, I'm pretty excited.

I made my first baby purchase! It was really random. I got a coupon in the mail for a free sling from Seven Slings. It might still work: type "utah" as your promo code. The sling was free with paid shipping. The sling is originally $40, the shipping was $15. So not a mega huge deal, but better than $40 and shipping. The website made me giggle. Several of the models are totally "modeling", like Victoria's Secret, sexy fashion style, but have slings with babies in them. They're all scrawny, like all models, and have babies almost as big as they are strapped to their waists. It's funny. The babies are cute though.

We also had to re-tire both of our cars. Ryan had two flats in a week, and ended up having to replace pretty much all his tires. I went for a rotation, and they wouldn't rotate them, they just had to be replaced. The insides were bald. uh... should have rotated them a little earlier I think. :) Cars are soooo expensive sometimes. *sigh* Ryan said our New Years Resolution should be to take better care of our cars.

I miss sushi.

The "woah, she's gained a lot of weight" stage

I really don't mean for all my posts to be negative ones, but just humor me one more time...

I'm really having a hard time with this whole gaining weight thing. I mean, it's nice because I'm supposed to. It's like guilt free weight gain. And I know if I want a healthy birth weight baby I have to gain weight, but all I can think about is how much stinkin work it's gonna be when I try to work it off.--all the while having an infant to take care of.
My weight loss goals have always been to not gain the weight in the first place. I reached the point I would have turned my lifestyle around about a month ago. Within the last week or so I've breached the Heaviest I've Ever Been point. I haven't even over shot the amount I should be for the first trimester. It's gonna be a shocker when I put on all 25-30 lbs I'm supposed to by August. I'll weight almost 170 lbs!!!! that's only 10 lbs away from Ryan!!

Sigh... I know it's all for a good cause and necessary. But it's a lot of work for me to stay thin and fit when I weigh my normal size. I know I need to focus on something else, I know I want to gain weight for my growing child. I just wanted to vent for a minute.

Finding the Mean

The last couple of days have been a breakthrough! Finally, a tiny piece of normal has come back to my life. I haven't taken B6, Zantac, and Unisom (the magic OTC recipe for nausea) regularly for several days now. The nausea seems to have generally subsided! I know I really have nothing to whine about, since I've never actually thrown up. But it's so nice to be able to feel like eating something other than saltine crackers.
I've also made it to the gym two days in a row now and haven't felt completely wiped out afterward. I even did some weights today! Of course--much lighter than I usually do. I have to be careful, I noticed myself doing the Valsalva maneuver* too often while lifting. Even sometimes when I'm exhaling while lifting, I'll hold half of it in. I never realized I've been doing it all along. I'm gonna blow a vessel in my brain! It took pregnancy for me to actually pay attention.
I still sleep til forever, but it's nice to feel more normal when I'm up.



* the "bearing down" thing you do when going poop--or lifting sometimes. It increases the pressure in your abdomen, so no bueno for fetuses. It's named after some dude. It has always made me laugh what scientists/doctors name after themselves. "You know that thing you do when you poop? Yeah, that's MY maneuver. Heimlich's got nothing on me."

Get well

One of my patients has a super cute Get Well card in their room that has been tickling me all night.

It has pictures of a sad dog like this:
and a sad little kitty like this:

The front says:

"Sick as a dog

Weak as a kitty

That sounds really cute,

but feels really..."

The inside then has pictures of the cat and dog's heads covering the main portion of the word that fits the rhyme.

It makes me giggle.

And is really very accurate.

It's the simple things...

And now for the real reason for lack of posts:

I'm pregnant!

9 weeks and 2 days today.
Due Aug 21, 2011.

And that's why I have seldom blogged. Partly because the real thing that's on my mind all the time could not be revealed, and partly because I feel too freaking exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Thus far my feelings on pregnancy are as follows:


Totally sucks.


I will never be one of those people caught saying "I love being pregnant!". Thus far it's just plain exhausting. That's my main complaint, is the lack of energy. I sleep until 11-11:30 every day I have off. It's ridiculous! I've never been a big sleeper. I usually get up at 8:30 on my days off and I usually call myself a morning person. But man, growing an embryo is exhausting work.

Actually, I thought I might have Seasonal Affective Disorder (seasonal depression) for a while. I just didn't have energy or desire to do the things I usually do. But my mom assured me that it's "just pregnancy". The second trimester is supposed to be better, so I look forward to actually doing something and feeling less like a hermit soon.

The first symptom I really had was nausea. I'd wake up nauseated in the morning, and it'd come back in the evenings. Then it was every time I was hungry. Then it was pretty much all the time, just in varying degrees. Now a days that has actually gotten better, and I've still never thrown up (though I feel like it every time I brush my teeth).

Other than those physical symptoms, my poor Ryan has been subjected to some strange emotional outbursts as well. The worst one being a couple nights ago when I was crying for no reason, then laughing at my stupid self crying, then crying because it was so pathetic, then laughing because it was pathetically hilarious. Ryan just sat there looking at me with a frightened look and could only say, "uh... I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Can I help you? I don't know what to do." Which made me laugh and cry simultaneously even more.


I had my first prenatal appointment today. We were able to find Fetal Heart Tones, which is surprising at 9 weeks. It made me happy they could find them because when you hear FHT, the risk of miscarriage drops to less than 5%. Hence why I'm finally feeling able to announce the pregnancy far and wide. Though some days I feel like everyone knows. The day after we had a positive test, I ended up taking care of a kidney transplant patient and I couldn't give half their meds because they're immuno-suppressives. I had to tell the charge RN, who was also pregnant, so I had to tell another nurse who could give the meds for me. Then you know nurses--everything spreads like wildfire.

Our baby has just reached the status of fetus as opposed to embryo, and is about the size of a green olive. We're mostly excited, and lots scared. I'm surprisingly not that worried about L&D and more worried about actually raising another human being. I have no idea how I'll manage. Most days I'm excited to be a mom. I'm excited for Ryan to be a dad. And I'm excited for the pregnancy to progress. I'm sure more pregnancy/parenting thoughts will be flooding this blog from here on out. I'm sorry if it's lame. But here's to more exciting news to come!

Tragedy Strikes

Do you see this? This is normally fun. This normally provides hours of entertainment for me (and Afro). I like having fish. The problem with this picture is there are no fish in the tank. All of my fish died in the last three days.

At the start of the New Year I brought home two new friends. A clown loach and a red bellied pacu. Ashley's always liked loaches because they're weird. We've had loaches that liked to sleep on their sides and pick up and move the gravel around the tank. They always seem to be a little....off compared to the other fish. This one was no different, it would always swim and breathe at a million miles an hour and when it rested it would do so standing on its tail fin. The pacu was neat, cool colored and had the potential to grow to be 24" in diameter. Plus, he carried his algae wafers in his mouth and swam/ate fast to keep the rest of the fish away from his dinner. He was really neat. See?

Cute little wafer carrying fish

Unfortunately the loach caught a disease called Ick that I learned appears when there's high levels of stress or sudden water temperature changes. Ashley had mentioned seeing little white spots on him but I didn't think anything of it. In fact, after the Ick killed half of my fish including the loach my Dad said something about Ick and I though it was a typo or an opinion on the way fish can look. Anyway, Ick spreads quickly and even though I had medicine in the water to try to save the Pacu and the Rainbow Shark (who was going on 7 years old), it killed off the rest of my fish in two days after the first Ick wave hit.

Now I don't know what to do. Start over? Get a different kind of aquarium pet like hermit crabs or another turtle? Any suggestions?



In other news, we totally won Iron Man 2 on DVD from this machine at the movie theatre the other week. First try too! This movie cost us $.50. Sweet!

But seriously. What should I do with my tank?

Ice Ice Baby

I remember my dad once telling me that if you have a lot of icicles, then you're losing a lot of heat out of your roof.
Well, our house has no attic access and therefore has to have it's original 1953 insulation in it. It doesn't seem to be doing a real great job.

This is a video of our back patio. Don't worry, there's some great music to jam to while you gaze at the Iceland that is our back yard. I figured if there's music I don't have to talk. :)

This is the gutter in front of our house. It no longer has the giant icicles dangling from it it used to, but you can see the after effects. Yup. We're sooo looking forward to buying new gutters. (and putting in air conditioning, and attic insulation... and...)

2011 Here We Come

Wow. 2011 already? How time flies! What a year 2010 was!
I became a nurse and started working in Shock/Trauma ICU.
We enjoyed many a vacation including: San Rafael Swell, Running the Mud Run in San Diego, the tri-annual Green Family reunion (this time including the Aurich's), and of course--Disneyland!
And We bought a house!

I'm sure a bunch more exciting things happened, but I'm not gonna recap that much because hello--that's what blogging is for. You wanna know what happened? The archives are on the left.

2011 is starting out COOOOLD. It's a whopping 6 degrees tonight. It's also starting worky--that is--I'm working (surprise surprise) as I type this and celebrate the New Year by sipping fake peach flavored champagne and pig out on way too many treats. When I think of New Years in the hospital, I always get that scene in my mind from While You Were Sleeping where the dude wakes up from his coma on New Years and all the nurses are at the nurses station wearing party hats and singing "ol lang sign". It wasn't like that here. We all got our styrofoam cups of fake booze and then someone suddenly said oh it's midnight! and we said "Happy New Year" and then made bets as to how many people would show up in the ER as drunken assaults.

2011 holds some exciting things for the Green Team to be sure. Big changes and happy times are sure to be happening. I'm eagerly anticipating and as equally freaking out about 2011.

I don't have any official New Years Resolutions, but I hope to continue to try to just plain be better.

So here's to you, 2011, please send lots of zen and peace my way. I'm feeling I'm gonna need it this year.