The Leichty Life

Today is my day off.  For some reason, I’m off today and tomorrow and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that.  I’m finding that spending 8 straight hours on my feet is becoming more and more difficult.  I came home from work yesterday, took my shoes off and realized that my feet were swollen and bright red.  But, I probably wouldn’t just sit around if I stayed home anyway, so I may as well make a little money while I’m on my feet.

I’m making spaghetti sauce right now.  It smells good, but it’s a long and messy process.  I think this will be my last round of canning.  I’m tired of washing jars.  My aunt and cousin helped me make applesauce yesterday and we made a few extra jars with very little sugar so I can feed it to Project Leichty when he/she is old enough to eat it.

Speaking of Project Leichty, I dreamed last week that we had a little boy and as I was changing his diaper, his skin kept flaking off because it had the texture of the chopped ham that I’m constantly slicing in the deli at work.  It was a very disturbing dream and it almost made me refuse to slice chopped ham the next day at work.  I think that means I’ve been working in the deli too long.

My sister and I are going to Columbus today to register for baby things.  Jon wasn’t very interested in going and Vicki knows more about what we need than we do anyway.  It will be fun to hang out with Vicki for a few hours - we haven’t done that enough since Jon and I moved here.

The extended Gascho family came to town for Labor Day Weekend.  We had a great time eating too much food, watching a parade with FAR too many tractors, and walking around in weather too hot for our own good.  It was so fun to be together again and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Jon and I signed up for childbirth classes this week.  Our first class is next Wednesday.  Should be interesting.

I can’t believe we’re at the end of August already.  Time is flying by even more quickly now that I’m once again working full time.  We went on vacation with the Leichty family, I celebrated my 29th birthday (yikes!), I entered into the third trimester of my pregnancy (only 9.5 weeks to go - yikes again!) and we’ve tilled up half of our garden.  Now we just have peppers, tomatoes and lots of herbs. The garden looks a lot nicer now that our chaotic zucchini, squash and cucumbers are gone.

I am home from work for the afternoon, but I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour.  Unfortunately, Jon can’t come to the appointment because he is still in the 90 day probationary period at work and can’t use sick/vacation/personal time.  Oh well…I guess this is life in the real world.

I plan to can some spaghetti sauce when I get home from the Dr. We have some really nice tomatoes growing in our garden, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of them because of lack of rain.  It’ll be small batch of sauce, but I don’t want the tomatoes to go to waste.

Work is going well.  It keeps me busy and I’m finally feeling like I know a little more about what’s going on.  I still do stupid things (like forget to set the timer for the cookies I’m baking and forgetting to have someone sign their credit card slip), but so far the management has been pretty forgiving.  It’s a good thing because I don’t necessarily see myself getting smarter between now and when the baby is born.  I am finding, though, that I am feeling a little more limited in what I can do based on my inability to fit through tight spaces and my inability to lift heavy objects.  I don’t enjoy asking for help, but I also don’t enjoy sore muscles or getting stuck between carts in the freezer (yes, that has almost happened).

The big Labor Day Festival is this weekend.  I am very excited to be living here when the festival is going on.  The town park is already beginning to fill up with campers and vendors and my extended and immediate families are making plans to come to town on Friday.  The next few days will be busy as I juggle work, cleaning and cooking for the weekend, but I look forward to having everyone here.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate with our plans.

It’s been almost two weeks since my last post — sorry about that.  Of course, I may be the only one that even noticed.  Because a lot can happen in two weeks, I’m resorting to bullet points so my thoughts can be a little more organized.

• My job application was apparently convincing enough because I was hired by our local grocery store last week.  I am starting off working about 40 hours a week and I’ll try to keep that up until my ankles disappear with swelling and I can’t walk anymore.  So far, I’ve really enjoyed the job because I work quite a bit in the bakery.  Anyone who knows me well knows that baking is one of my favorite activities.  The people at the store are really kind and helpful and it’s a great environment for me to be working in right now.  And at the end of the day, I go home and love the fact that I don’t have to think about work anymore.
• Our garden is growing well and we have jalapeno peppers coming out of our ears.  I’m hoping to make salsa some time next week…as long as our tomatoes ripen in time.
• My aunt, Marilyn, and my cousin, Carla, helped me can peaches last night.  We got 13 quarts, but one jar broke in the canner, leaving me with some very sticky neighboring jars.  They look beautiful, though, and I can’t wait to eat them…the peaches, not the jars.
• Last weekend was my 10 year class reunion.  The food was very disappointing, considering that we paid $25/ticket, but it was fun to catch up with some old friends.  I was horrified by how many names I have forgotten over the last 10 years, though.  Who would have thought that I would one day forget the names of people I saw every single day for years?  Strange.
• I was officially told that I will have to take three master’s level courses in order to pursue the counseling exam in the state of Ohio.  That will cost us about $4000.  Can’t wait.
• We are going on vacation with Jon’s family this weekend.  We’re going to the lake for water skiing, tubing, eating and reading books.  I’m really looking forward to showing everyone how good of a skier I am when I’m 7 months pregnant.  Just kidding…I’ll be the one reading books.
• The baby is still doing well as far as we can tell.  My sister connected us with one of her friends who was getting rid of some baby stuff and we cashed in on a stroller, high chair, baby monitor, three diaper bags, a bunch of gender-neutral clothing and blankets, and some other miscellaneous items.  We were very excited about the great price they gave us and we’re thankful that we have a couple of bigger items taken care of now.
• Jon’s job continues to go well.  We are enjoying the fact that his hours are so predictable now.  He goes in at 7:30 and is home by 4:30 every day.  I love that!  He likes it, too, because it still gives him time in the afternoon/early evening to work on projects, go golfing, putz around, etc.
• My cousin, Lisa, had a beautiful baby boy a few weeks ago.  He arrived 2 weeks early with a full head of dark hair and very kissable cheeks.  They named him Braden Emery and so far he and his older brother, Caleb, are getting along fairly well.  However, Lisa is a little scared to leave the two of them alone together because Caleb enjoys “loving” on Braden so much.  It makes for some funny stories, but frustrating moments for their mother.

I think that sums up the last couple of weeks in a nutshell.  Hopefully I can keep up with the blog a little better in spite of the fact that I am once again a working woman.

Today is Jon’s 27th birthday…and I actually remembered to say “happy birthday” right away this morning.  For his 26th birthday, I didn’t remember to tell him “happy birthday” until we got home from church and I saw his birthday gift from his parents sitting on our dresser.  I felt horrible, but he was excited about having one more thing to hold over my head.  Needless to say, I was quite paranoid about it this year.  I woke up at midnight, 3am and 6am with his birthday on my mind.  Finally at 6:30 we both woke up and I could wish him a “happy birthday”.

We had his siblings, parents and grandparents over this evening for cake and ice cream.  All I had to do was set the table and clean up my house because Jon’s mom volunteered to bring her raspberry cake, which she always makes for Darrin and Jon’s birthdays (Darrin’s birthday was on Saturday).  It was delicious and I was once again thankful for a home big enough to entertain in.

I canned 10 quarts of green beans this afternoon.  I really enjoy canning, but there’s something about a pressure cooker that freaks me right out.  I consulted with two different seasoned canners (my mother-in-law and my aunt, Marilyn) before getting started and their advice served me well.  I only had one can not seal, so I didn’t think that was too bad.   And more importantly, I didn’t have any explosions in my kitchen in spite of the scary hissing noises the canner made.

I found out last week that the state of Ohio has found me “deficient” in my counseling coursework.  You’d think that they could find a more encouraging word to use instead of “deficient”.  According to the board members, I need to fulfill 8.5 more credit hours before they’ll allow me to sit for the counseling examination.  I’m sure you all can imagine how I felt when I received that letter.  It’s nice to know that I spent about $40,000 on a graduate degree that I can’t even use in this state.  I think they’re targeting me because they don’t like people who are originally from Michigan.  Now I’m looking ahead to two good semesters of classes that I’ve technically already taken before I can start working as a counselor.  I decided that I can’t wait that long to make a little money, so I picked up an application at our local grocery store.  The application asked what skills I would bring to the position and I responded with “I have strong customer service skills and I like food.”  I hope that is convincing enough.

Our town has a bird problem.  Every night starting at 7:00, literally thousands of birds make their way into the town where they settle in the tall trees in the neighborhood.  They stay all night long and they are loud, messy and smelly.  Our front tree hosted hundreds of the annoying pests.  They were mostly starlings (judging by the feathers that were constantly on our front porch and in our bushes) and they have damaged our sidewalk because they poop everywhere…and apparently from pretty high up.  Jon and I casually talked about taking the tree down for weeks, but finally after one bad rain storm which made our front yard/porch smell like a chicken house, we decided to take it more seriously.  I wanted to call a tree service, but of course Jon and his brother wanted to do it themselves.  After a rather heated discussion, I realized that Jon and Darrin would be wise enough to know their limits and if they wanted to risk their lives and limbs, I would have to just stand by and watch.

Last night was the big night.  Around 6:00, Darrin came over with his trailer and two chain saws.  He took the first limb down without any problem and the process went rather smoothly from there.  Arlis, Andy, and our friend, Anthony came by to help and we wouldn’t have been able to get it all done without them (I say “we”, but I really didn’t do anything but sit on the porch and watch).   They used Anthony’s truck to pull on a few of the branches that were a little too close to the house and that worked really well even though the very last branch raised everyone’s blood pressure a little.  Check out the video below if you want to see that branch come down.  Our July pictures have been updated as well, showing the process.  Needless to say, Jon was right:  he and Darrin did a beautiful job with the tree and when the birds showed up last night, they circled a few times and then moved to another poor soul’s yard. They did such a nice job, in fact, that our neighbor stopped by to ask if Jon and Darrin would take down her tree as well.  Unfortunately for her, they were starting and stopping with our tree.

 

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We had our first ultrasound today.  I was pretty nervous going into it even though I had no reason to suspect any problems.  Thankfully, everything looks perfect!  It was so fun to see the baby’s arms and legs moving around and I cried when they told us that the brain, spine, heart (the heartbeat was a steady 140) and other organs looked just like they’re supposed to look. At one point, he/she moved its hand up and down like it was waving to us.  They had to keep moving the wand around to chase the baby because he/she was moving around so much.    We’re sure that it’s a really cute baby — even in fuzzy black and white.  And we stuck to our decision to wait until delivery to know the gender.  I asked the doctor if he could tell what gender we’re having and all he’d say was “I’m not saying anything”.  We are just thankful that it looks healthy so far and he/she is measuring within a week of our due date, which is perfect.

We are with a practice that has a residency program, so at each dr. visit, we have the faculty doctor and a resident.  We like having the residents there because the doctors explain things to them, which in turn provides us with more information.  We love both doctors that we’ve met and the resident that was assigned to us is wonderful.  She’s expecting a baby in 3 weeks, so she’ll be gone for a little while until her maternity leave is over.  Either way, she should be with us for our delivery in November.

I will sleep much better tonight knowing that Baby Leichty has 2 arms, 2 legs, a perfect spine, perfectly shaped lips and a normal-sized brain.  With us as its parents, the brain could have been an area of concern.

In other news, we got 6 beautiful zucchinis out of our garden.  Zucchini bread is in the oven as we speak.  Yum.