Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Finally, An Update

This past week has been very full. I'm on the mend, but unfortunately Kevin has caught the stomach bug (or ate some unfortunate food, we're not sure). Looks like we'll be having soup for dinner tonight. I've been super-busy at work. Weekends are always packed. I'm enjoying my Chinese class. It's much more relaxed and fun than the last time around. Other than that, it's just been work, class, and sick. Send some good vibes to Kevin!

That Bug That's Been Going Around

Yesterday and today I took a turn for the worse as my stomach started getting involved in the whole "sick" thing. At first we thought Kevin had accidentally poisoned me with his cooking, but the problem continued past what would be food poisoning. I went to the doctor today and he diagnosed me with "that bug that's been going around" which apparently attacks both the upper respiratory system and the stomach. Lovely. I'm getting antibiotics and some decongestants, but the stomach thing is going to have to resolve on its own. I seriously would feel a ton better if I could get rid of this headache! Also, big kisses to my wonderful husband who is now at Walgreens waiting for my prescription. My doctor faxes the prescription directly from his handy computer to Walgreens, but they don't always pay attention to the faxes that come in. I went to Walgreens on the way home from the doctor's and after waiting 1/2 an hour, was told that they "didn't receive the prescription." I informed them that it was faxed in, and could they please check? So I see the girl walk over to the fax machine and pick up a big stack of papers. She flipped through them until she found mine, which was very near the bottom, and then tells me that they "just got it" and it should be ready in an hour. I was feeling crummy so I came home and Kevin very nicely went out tonight to go get it.

Happy Saturday

Things are good in Shelby-land. My head hurts less than it did before, which is a big plus. Work is going well. I'm getting antsy about the piece of government paperwork (our government) needed for the next step of our adoption, which hasn't shown up yet. Other than that, there's not much to report.

Danger: Explosives!

It's quite possible that my head is going to explode, so if it does, consider this my final message to humankind:

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!

All joking aside, I have developed a major head cold. My head and sinuses are just pounding and I'm pretty sure that head explosion is a possibility. Ugh. Thanks to my beloved husband, I now have some XXXtreme night and day cold medicine, which seems to be making a small dent in the problem, but I think this is just one of those things that's going to have to run its course. Ugh again.

Also, I'm writing this from the couch where I'm here with my laptop. I also have a dog cuddling next to me, which makes typing kind of difficult since his ear is draped over the left half of the keyboard.

Chinese, Take Two

I started my second attempt at Chinese 101 today. What a difference it was from my first class (last semester, which I ended up dropping)! I had a different instructor last semester and the class was nothing but a big ball of stress. This semester I have Kevin's teacher from the class he took last semester, and she's a world of difference. The class was just more relaxed and the teacher went nice and slow (my main problem last semester). I think I'm going to enjoy it this time around. Plus Kevin was her star pupil (this happened in San Jose when I took German from his teacher--sigh). After class I identified myself as his wife and she said, "Oh! Did he tell you I'm using your wedding picture in my textbook?" Um, no, he didn't mention that. It's not clear whether the textbook is being written for just our jr. college or meant for wider consumption. My beautiful wedding shot (I have no idea which one) may be famous among Chinese 101 students everywhere!

Happy Tuesday

Nothing new to report here. I got my ICD checked today and everything looks good. I can't believe that in April it will be 5 years since I had it implanted! The nurse said my battery looked good and should last at least another year or two. That's good--although it's a minor surgery, nobody looks forward to that. She was also very impressed with my scar and implant site. The doctors at Stanford did a great job (but tell me something I didn't know). She turned on the beeping function, which is where the ICD beeps briefly every morning at 10:30 when the battery is going out. She tested it and it was very strange to hear my chest beeping. I also got signed up for the home monitor. My grandfather has one of these and it's very handy. It's a little machine I plug into the phone line, then stick the transmitter over my device and it reads it and sends the information to my doctor. I'm on an every-other schedule, so every other appointment I'll go in in person. My appointments are scheduled 4 months apart. So that's a bit more convenient.

Don't Take This Personally, Pop!

Another plug for one of my favorite blogs: Post Secret. Post Secret is a blog where people anonymously create postcards with a secret on them and some are selected every week for the website. They range from hilarious to heartbreaking. This one, of course, was not written by me, but the fact that my dad loves Costco just made me laugh.

Babies Everywhere!

I forgot to report the results of this year--the Baby Year! 5 of our friends had their firstborns this year and all 5 of them turned out to be girls! The BabyFest started in May with our new cousin Addison, daughter of Tracy and Geoff. In August, we had Evelyn, daughter of Hai-Nhu and John, followed just a week later by Sadie, daughter of Marc and Wendy. Not too long after we got Paloma, daughter of Anita and Derek, and we closed the year off by just 2 days before January with Natalie, daughter of Jennifer and Christian.

Who are these people???

Tracy is my cousin. Actually, Tracy's mom's is my dad's aunt, making my dad and Tracy's mom cousins, so that makes me and Tracy...um...cousins. Let's just leave it at that. Geoff is her wonderful husband. We love him to pieces. They were married the same year we got married. Lucky for us, Geoff and Tracy live nearby in Orange County--which reminds me that we need to make plans to get together!

Hai-Nhu is one of my IBM friends. She, John, and Evelyn live in San Francisco so we haven't gotten to meet little Evelyn yet. I hope we'll take a trip up there soon.

Wendy and Marc are our "couple" friends (I know they're reading this saying, "Oh is THAT what we are?" haha). We met Wendy at our church in San Jose. They live in wine country--in the Santa Rosa/Sonoma/Napa-ish area. We're very excited because they used to live in Colorado and we never got to see them. Now they're at least in the same time zone. We got to meet Sadie when they were down for Christmas and she is the cutest baby ever (well, the co-cutest with Addison, Evelyn, Paloma, and Natalie). We got some great pictures of her. Poor Digory was just kind of freaked out by the whole baby thing.

Anita is one of Kevin's Berkeley friends. She did us the honor of standing up to our wedding (here she is with David, Kevin's best man, and here she is crashing after the raging party). They live in Berkeley and we haven't gotten to meet Paloma yet.

And squeezing in before the end of the year on December 30th, Natalie S. was born. Jennifer is one of Kevin's friends from high school. They also live in San Francisco so we haven't met Natalie. In case you're not familiar with the area, San Francisco is across the bay from Berkeley, and Santa Rosa is an hour-ish away from there, so we can hit 4 babies with one stone with a single trip to the Bay Area! Not that we'll be hitting babies with stones or anything. That's cruel.

It's Cold!

Okay, relatively cold. Cold for us. This week has been the craziest week. Monday it was hot--not just warm, but hot. Today it's cold. I was at Build-A-Bear and when you're standing in the doorway and wearing just khaki pants and a polo shirt, it gets a bit brisk at 55 degrees or so. Fortunately I managed to finagle my way away from the door as much as possible.

The weeks are flying by, actually. Of course, adoption-wise they're not going nearly fast enough. We're currently in a holding pattern waiting for our I-171H form from the US Government granting us permission to bring a foreign orphan into the country. I had my second set of fingerprints taken on December 5th (the first set didn't go through--great). Other adoptive parents and parents-to-be are reporting a 4-6 week wait from the Los Angeles Immigration Office, which is where our paperwork is being handled. So, giving them the week of Christmas off, we're just over 4 weeks. Don't worry Mr. Postman--I'm not stalking you yet! YET.

Happy Birthday Elvis--and Mom!

Happy Birthday to the co-greatest mother in the whole world! That would be my mom, who shares the honor with Kevin's mom. Now I know you're all very busy celebrating Elvis's birthday, but if you could send a little thought over to my mom, I'm sure she'd love it--haha.

Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!

My Dream Life

All right, this dream thing needs to stop. So apparently on three different occasions I have said, quite clearly, "Have you been here before?" in my sleep. Now at Build-A-Bear the person who stands at the door and greets guests says that to each guest. If the answer is no, you guide them through the process. If yes, you tell them to have a good time. So when I'm stationed there I say over and over and over again, "Welcome to Build-A-Bear! Have you been here before?" And now apparently I'm saying it in my sleep! What a dedicated employee!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 everyone! I know everyone says this, but I can hardly believe it's here. I can't believe we've just celebrated our FIFTH anniversary in November. It blows my mind reading about celebrities who get divorced after like 6 months or something. I blinked and 3 years went by. It's taken me more than 6 months to get around to doing some household projects. Anyway, looking forward to year 6.

Our New Year's Eve was fun. We went up to Santa Maria for a black-tie dinner at the winery my parents co-own (with several other people). The winemaker is also a chef and the food (filet mignon! Wrapped in bacon!) was very good. Our group comprised about 2/3 of the people there (we were 16 and I think there was another table of 8 or 10). The wine was excellent, and the winemaker had rented a limo to drive all of us to and from the hotel, so that was super-nice. It was actually only the second time I've been in a limo (the first being my junior prom). And I'm proud to say that I wasn't the least bit hungover this morning.