Happy Anniversary!

Mr. W and I have now been married a total of 8 years. Wow! In some ways, I can hardly believe the time has flown by so quickly. In others, I can barely remember life before Mr. W.

He is my very best friend. Even though I love that we are raising a family together (he makes excellent X chromosomes), I do look forward to the days after the kids are off on their own. The kids are rewarding, and I wouldn't change a thing about our family. However, I miss spending more time with my sweetie. Especially uninterrupted time.

Ah, well, give us another 18 -23 years, and we'll have our house to ourselves again.

In the meantime, thank you, love, for the wonderful ride. I love you forever.

Ever wish your kid would go ahead and get sick?

I find myself in the rather odd position of hoping that L. breaks out in a bright red rash today. You see, her sister broke out with the rash that signified Fifth Disease yesterday afternoon. Ordinarily, Fifth Disease is a very mild illness that most Americans are already immune to. However, for a pregnant woman who has never been infected by the virus, this illness can have really nasty effects for her unborn baby. It is rare that an infected pregnant woman would have anything worse than achy joints, but it is possible.

We were scheduled to head down to Corpus Christi to spend Thanksgiving with my family and observe a memorial for my grandmother. However, my sister in law is pregnant and has never had Fifth's before. I would not dream of intentionall exposing her and her unborn child to something that could have bad health consequences.

So now, we're waiting to see if L. breaks out in a rash. You see, the odd thing about Fifth's is that once the rash comes up, the person is no longer contagious. Odd, isn't it? It could be that L. is already immune, but never showed symptoms. This would be fine, except we wouldn't know she was 'safe' in time for T-day. It could be that L. didn't catch the virus at all. Again, this would be fine except for the not being able to tell. So, I find myself hoping that L. has been infected and will break out in that tell-tale rash today.

Part of me is really upset about the timing, but another part is relieved the rash popped up yesterday and not a week from yesterday after we'd exposed my brother's entire family to the bug... Kids...

I should be okay since I had it as a child. However, my doc, being the cautious one, ordered a blood test to just be sure. Not a problem, really, since they were already drawing blood to check for anemia, Coombs test and glucose tolerance. I also got my RhoGAM and flu shots this morning. I'm feeling a bit of a depressed pincushion today.

Yes!

My blood pressure is normally quite low. At home, I typically got around 96/65. It's always quite a bit higher at the doctor's office, since I really dislike going to the doctor. Even then it would climb to the 116/76 range.

For whatever reason, my bp has been hovering in the 130/80 range for this pregnancy, and boy have I been stressing over this. I've been really nervous about PIH or pre-eclampsia.

Last night though, I took it and got.... 110/65! Woohoo!

Side note: At this precise moment, I have a little baby bottom poking out making a cute little lump off to the left side.

So why does it hurt?

My grandma passed away October 31. She had been very sick with circulatory issues, heart troubles and alzheimer's/dementia for a long time. She was depressed, scared, confused and difficult to be around. We knew she did not have much time with us, and yet it was a terrible shock to me to get the phone call. I had so hoped to see her at Thanksgiving so she could see my girls one more time.

Now she is at peace. No longer in pain. No longer confused. No longer angry. No longer sick. No longer depressed.

The vibrant, shopaholic, funny and interesting woman she used to be has been gone for some time now. So why does it hurt so much that she is gone? Did I have a hope in my heart that one day she would get better? Did I think that she would miraculously learn my girls' names? Did I really expect her to hop out of that wheelchair and go bowling again? Yes... I did. I really and truly did.

I have the engagement ring my grandfather gave her, but I'd much rather have one more night bowling. Her bowling technique wasn't exactly graceful, but she always scored much better than I ever could (even after taking a course in college). She was one of those lob-and-thunk bowlers. She'd get a good run up to the line and chuck that ball in the air. It would sail halfway down the lane before finally hitting the wood with a loud 'thunk' and then rolling the rest of the way down, knocking over most of the pins.

I miss you, Gramma...

Veni, Vidi, Flunki

Today was T-day. I packed my calculator, my calculator backup and my mechanical pencil and headed off to take my Actuarial exam.

Faced with a 30 question, 2.5 hour exam, I estimated that I would feel confident on 10 questions, iffy on 10 and completely clueless on the last 10.

Reality of the breakdown was: confident on 5, iffy on 15 and clueless on 10. Why on earth can I not remember ANY of the formulas for bonds, and I swear as I am sitting here I know how to do a Macaulay duration before I got up this morning.

Oh, well, I knew I'd flunk, but now I have some valuable lessons:

1. Do NOT try to learn anything new 1 week and closer to the exam. Spend that time making sure you are solid on what you already know.

2. Do NOT waste cartloads of time breaking down formulas. Reduce and simply and THEN break apart.

3. Read the question carefully... twice... before deciding there isn't enough information to answer it.

4. A death in the family 1 week prior to the exam really screws up your study rhythm... another post for another day.