Laws of the Universe

Which law of the universe states that batteries on smoke detectors must fail in the wee small hours of the morning? At 4:40 AM last Sunday morning, I was awoken by the intermittent beeping of the smoke detector, signaling that the battery was low. This same thing happened to me in my old apartment: middle of the night smoke detector failure. As if they think that if they were to tell me a new battery was needed in the middle of the day, the appropriate amount of urgency would not be conveyed, so they have to get my attention in the middle of the night.

Does anyone remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe's smoke detector beeps at her, so she takes it down and takes the battery out, and it still beeps, unpowered? Creepy. Bret informed me that there's some sort of small internal battery that will keep it beeping for a couple minutes even when the battery is removed. Even though there's a logical answer, it's still creepy.

I thought about waking Bret to take care of the beeping smoke detector last Sunday (because me, groggy tired, pregnant and standing on a stool in the hallway struggling to get the smoke detector unhooked is just a recipe for disaster) but he was sound asleep and it seemed mean to wake him. Also, I feel like there might be much more pressing reasons for waking him once the baby is here ("um, babe? I have to feed the baby but he blew out his diaper all over his crib...can you take care of that while I feed him?") so I don't want to start tapping into Bret's pre-dawn good will reserves quite yet.

Instead, I turned on the other fan in the bedroom, put a pillow over my head, and concentrated on ignoring the beep. Good thing there wasn't actually a fire or I might've slept through it!

Too cute to not post!

Last Thursday & Friday Bret and I headed up to Friday Harbor to celebrate his youngest sister Sara's graduation. Here are a couple pictures that are just too cute to not post: This is Sara and my mother-in-law, Mary (soon to be "Meemo", which is what Bret & his siblings all called their Grandmother when they were growing up). This picture is so adorable I can hardly stand it! Seriously, how cute are these two?? And, talking about what we called our Grandmothers got me thinking that maybe I'll have our kid(s) call my mom "Myrtle". What do you think of that, mom? Judging from how annoyed you'd get when I was in high school and would call you Mary instead of Mom, I'm guessing you're protesting aloud at your computer as you read this. But if a cute little toddler calls you Myrtle, can you really object? Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

Below is a picture of Sara & her boyfriend Jared (also an adorable picture!)

I will admit that I completely did the older sister thing and told Sara that I thought Jared was a keeper.

One of the interesting side effects I've noticed about being married is feeling older-sister-y toward three additional people who I've only known for 4 years, and who are grown adults! It's like it just automatically happened, which seems so odd when previously the requirement for being an older sister was actual shared blood and performing the role for the younger siblings' life span to date. And actually, when I describe it like that, maybe it's been presumptious of me to add three more notches to my older sister belt. I can't help it though - Bret's their older brother so my perspective is an extension of his.

The last afternoon we were up in Friday Harbor we sat outside on the deck and enjoyed the sun, breeze, and conversation. And then I got home and noticed I was sort of pink. And then a bit later I noticed I was really getting rather red. And then finally by bedtime, I was more of a blazing hot tamale color. And tonight I started peeling. Darn that breeze for being a distraction while the sun did its dirty work!

And the baby is a...

Boy! Bret thought it was a boy all along...I told him we're taking his betting skills to the track. He also thinks we're having the baby 2 weeks early. If he's right about that too, I may insist upon a winter trip to Vegas.

Here's a 21-week ultrasound picture:

Now we just have to figure out some of the small, pesky details, like what we're going to name him!

The cutest thing happened to me on Saturday

I was in a little consignment store on Main Street in Monroe, dropping off some clothes to sell...and since I was there I thought it would be highly convenient to look through the maternity clothes rack and see if I could find anything to buy (see? I'm doing my part to help the economy recover)! I grabbed a couple things to try on, and headed back to the dressing rooms. I had seen a couple little girls in the store with their Dad, running back & forth to the dressing rooms to try on different clothes. So, while I'm in one of the dressing rooms, I hear this little voice say to the shopkeeper "Excuse me, can you give this to the girl in there when she comes out?" and I assume it's one of the little girls bringing back something for the other little girl to try on. When I come out of the room, the shopkeeper hands me a piece of paper and says "A little girl wanted me to give this to you. She saw you shopping & drew this for you." (The store has a little table w/coloring crayons & paper for kids to use while their adults are shopping). On the back it says "By Olalia, To [scribble scribble]".


No other shoppers were in the store anymore, so I couldn't thank the artist.

Personally, I think the interpretation of my hair-do is probably spot on with how it looked that day. If I'd known I was going to be posing for a portrait, I might've spent a bit more time with the comb!

Latest Tidbits

Bret's birthday was April 25 we spent the day eating out and trying on running shoes (well - I didn't try on any running shoes but I sure did eat!). We went out for breakfast, and then while deciding what to do for the day, ended up going to Super Jock n' Jill in Greenlake to get Bret running shoes, which we've been talking about doing for years. Then we went to Claim Jumper for dinner and had a slice of the Motherload chocolate cake for dessert (if you haven't seen it, it's amazing...7 or 8 layers of cake, probably 10" tall). Then I lucked out, because for Bret's birthday, I got a new camera - nice! It does a lot of snazzy things that I haven't figured out yet, but hopefully someday I will!

At the end of April, we went to dinner with my sisters at the downtown Buca de Beppo. Christina wasn't happy because she had to go to work after dinner to do inventory for 6 hours, and she'd gone on a 12 mile bike ride earlier in the day so she was already really tired. Christina doesn't look very happy when she's tired and contemplating inventory.

Also at the end of April, Bret installed new doors upstairs to match the ones we installed downstairs a while ago. And then we got to talking...if we're gonna re-do the doors, then we have to re-do the hall molding and the door casings, and we might as well re-do the molding in the bathroom now too, and so why don't we rip out the linoleum and put in wood floors to match the downstairs bathroom & kitchen while we're at it. And don't you just love my liberal usage of the word "we"? I think I do that a lot.

And last but not least...my Great Aunt Dode turned 92 last Monday! We had a suprise party for her - this is Aunt Dode being surprised:

And that's my mom in the background listening for intelligence chatter on her FBI earpiece.

Just kidding. But it sort of looks like that, doesn't it?

Here are a few other pictures of family from the evening.

My mom's oldest brother Tom, is on the left, and my cousin Kathleen & her husband Dave are in the middle. Sister Laura (ha - my sister, not a nun) is on the right.

Left to right, this is my cousin Linda, her mom Diane, and Linda's daughter Kelsey. Yes Diane, I agree, that was some really yummy birthday cake!

In the middle is my cousin Cheril, who I mentioned a few posts ago, and who I found out is only six inches shorter and six years older than me. I should probably check my facts before I post! On the left is her son Christian and on the right is her daughter Rachelle.

This is my cousin Rachel & her husband Luke. Rachel commented that Luke always smiles with his mouth closed. Now, what is it they say about couples becoming more alike the longer they're together?

These are the aunts (hmm...except for my mom). In the back, left to right, is Diane, Susan, and Mary (Mom doesn't like it when I call her Mary. So I have to do it in secret, on my blog). In the front, left to right, is Shelley and Dode. Dode's real name is Elizabeth. I still don't understand how they ended up at Dode. I think there's some story about how my Grandma Pat couldn't pronounce "Elizabeth", so she became Dode...but seriously, try mis-pronouncing Elizabeth and see if you can get to Dode. ....See? I don't get it.

And this was so funny I couldn't pass it up. In the common room of the building where Dode lives they had this huge doll sitting in an armchair, a photo opportunity waiting to happen. Since Laura's always up for these kinds of wacky shenanigans, I had her sit with the doll for a picture.


But seriously, doesn't Laura look fabulous? Yowza!