In a nutshell

1) Work:

I finished all my deadlines for today and I am feeling so relaxed. I have work to do, but I am in the euphoria of having finished all the critical stuff I was supposed to.

2) Home:

Well, house is still filthy, but finished a lot of handyman stuff around the house. I had given up on getting all that work done, but the person who usually does the work for us (who is also someone we fellowship with at the chapel) was out all summer. But a change in plans had him home for this week and we got all this stuff taken care of. It is a great blessing to us!

3) Materials:

We had to have a new exhaust put in for the kitchen and Mr. G bought a white one for us. I didn't want the white since all appliances in the kitchen is black, plus we wanted one with a removable filter. With our kind of cooking, nothing else would do. So we went to Home Depot in the night and was looking around for one. The one with two removable filters were close to $230 and it was only available in stainless steel or white. And then we found one for $250 which was black, had two removable filters, AND was marked down to $60 since they were discontinuing the line. Praise God who is faithful even in little things.

4) Pain:

I loathe to talk about it since it is just bad everyday. Sleeping is torture. The slightest housework sets off pain alarms throughout. I am surviving though.

5) Friends:

An Indian couple we met at the church we visited invited us to their home last Friday for Bible Study and Prayer. Hubby and I went and there were about 30 people there. It was a nice time, they are great folks and at the end of it, the host said that there was some light food that they wanted to serve. And we went to eat the "light food", and there was Paratha, Chicken curry, Chicken fry, Mutton Biriyani, and Raita Salad. Except for the Paratha, everything was cooked from scratch for 30 people.

Yeah, it was real light and didn't fill me up at all.

I don't think I have written a more sarcastic sentence on my blog so far.

6) Family:

One. More. Week. My Pa and Ma are coming and I am beyond excited. I have a list of things I want Mama to cook for me. Please don't think I am all stomach (actually, I AM, so never mind). I hope there will be some days before the baby comes so we can take them around a little bit.

7) Baby:

The little one seems to be doing well, and my church friends are throwing me a baby shower this Friday. The room is painted, bedding has been bought, crib needs to be assembled and I am working on a couple of small projects for the room. I will show the pictures as soon as I am done. Which I really hope would be before the baby comes!

8) Hubby:

A friend was supposed to come and stay with us for a while. He is a missionary on a visit here and will be going back in less than a month. R was suggesting that he can come stay with us starting that night he arrived. Our house is a filthy mess as of now. (See No: 4) I am not saying it coyly, like Number 5 above. I am no June Cleaver or whatever. It is actually a sad, pathetic, dirty mess. And it makes me want to cry every time I see it. Hubby said "it is no big deal. He is a guy, he wouldn't mind. Just relax". I then realized this is one of the times I would cheerfully break a frying pan over his head.

I am just kidding.

Why would I waste a perfectly good frying pan?

Notes from the weekend -10

It was a great weekend. I was relatively pain free and what a blessing that was! Of course most of the weekend, I spent just sitting around or lying down doing nothing. I am sure that helped.

I had an ultrasound on Friday and thankfully baby is doing well. I have a 3 cm tear inside my abdomen. The doctor is hoping that it would heal on its own after delivery, otherwise I might need PT or surgery to correct it. It is still in the future, so I am purposely not thinking about it now and stressing. There are a lot of uncertainties in our life right now, unfortunately I have to be rather vague about it here in the blog. Lot of things up in the air and things which we can't make any decisions on now. It seems difficult not to be able to have everything nicely and neatly tied in a bow, but it is what it is.

I got the nursery painted with one coat and will get the next coat done next Friday. Slow but sure, things are getting done. After Sean (he does the painting, landscape and most odd jobs around the house) left, we went to watch Earth. We both loved it. The movie was $1.25 each and the water was $3.00 (Note to self: Please remember to take a bottle everywhere.) After that, we went for a mile walk in the park. There was a free jazz concert which we enjoyed for a while and then went to the mall and I bought two baby outfits from Macy's with a gift card my sister had sent a while back. And to celebrate our annual trip to the mall, we bought some Godiva chocolates. I was on the phone with my sister and she asked me if the chocolates were part of my craving. I had to inform her though that hubby is the one with all the cravings. I have no cravings. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Is that weird? And then we drove to Don Pablos to eat our most favorite dessert ever. The chocolate volcano. We love it! It was a lovely day all in all.

We visited a different church yesterday. It has been something we were thinking of doing for about 5 months, but just got around to it yesterday! We met a friend there and we all had lunch together at their house. I got to hold her sweet 2 month baby as well! It was a nice time of fellowship. We came back home and stopped at Publix to get some groceries. And by that time, I was so tired like I had run a marathon. I was thinking to myself that the floor is clean and was seriously considering just lying down on the floor there. The fatigue is just unbelievable. I never thought I would feel this way. I guess a big part of it is the heat. It is HOT HOT HOT here in FL. We also somehow managed to walk a mile as I really needed my exercise.

So we had a nice, relaxing weekend and I am grateful for my husband, our growing baby, friends, loving family, a beautiful park, respite from pain and chocolate volcano. And what a privilege to serve a heavenly father who gives all these good gifts abundantly!

Why I am not posting much

Because if I did, it would be like reading a letter from your 90 year old grandmother complaining about the aches and pains.

I wish I was a dog so I could make whining noises. That would be a relief.

A new normal

It has been a fairly eventful couple of weeks to say the least. First of all, I apologize to all my non mom, non pregnant readers who has to put up with all the pg related posts. But when you are so big and fat that you can't see your toes and you wake up to go to the bathroom 6 times in 4 hours, it is kind of uppermost in your mind. As for the 3 men who read my blog, they might want to skip this post completely.

July 4th, I woke up with very bad pain in my lower abdomen and since I had no idea what in the samhill it was, we decided to go to the hospital. I had Braxton Hicks the night before and well, the money spent on childbirth classes paid off. I could recognize it for what it was and I wasn't alarmed. But this new pain was concerning and we went to the L&D unit of the hospital. The doctor came and touched the area below the navel and it was very very painful. So she told me that I don't have preterm labor (I knew that!), but what I have is diastasis recti. But, let us not get fancy schmancy on this lil blog. What it means is, my stomach muscles have separated due to the growing uterus (Sorry guys, but I did warn you). It affect 30% of pregnant women. Here is the funny part. It is not supposed to be painful, but it is for me. Very much so. Getting in and out of couch is difficult. As for the bed, it is torture.

The good news is that it is not affecting the baby in any way. The bad news is that other than a tylenol, nothing can be done about the pain at all. I have 6 weeks of this to look forward to. I can't say I am thrilled, but there is this. It was really bad yesterday. I suffered till about 4 am and then for the first time in 34 weeks, I had a Tylenol and the pain subsided.

The verdict from the doctor is that I should really take it easy. No bending, no lifting. I need to get by with doing the minimum necessary. My to-do list is mocking me. Hubby has taken over laundry and dishwashing. I have hired people to paint the nursery and clean the house. Even with all that, there is still things for me to do. The hardest part for me (aside from the pain) is to sit still. Sitting still is not part of my nature. It is no fun to be almost helpless either. But there is a season for everything. It is a season of quiet and slowing down for me. Maybe the Lord is preparing me for the time to come. I also don't know at this point if this will affect labor and delivery. I tend to be a little concerned until I remember who was and is in control. In any case, what a comfort it is!

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

And that is all I am going to say about that

To update on the story below, I have no (or ever had any) intention to take her to small claims court. The $25 is not worth the hassle or emotions for me or my baby. I was not relentlessly stalking her with a pitchfork, nor was I thinking about it every minute of the day. If I were, I would have sent a lot more emails and phone calls. It would come up every so often, and I would send a friendly reminder. I don't have the time or energy to rip apart her reply, but I can assure you, it is complete BS and "borderline lying."

She might be the nicest person in the world and she could have had a bad day and sent that email. Or she might be a jerk like many other people in the world. Thanks for all your comments, it was cathartic for me to write it out.

K, I want to address your comment though mainly because of the line about "taking emotions out and putting yourself in her shoes." I don't think emotions were really involved. You can see from my emails that it was pretty noncommittal. I did not tell her "I drove one hour to get the china cabinet and it is terrible what you are doing to me and I am 7 months pregnant and blah blah." She offered me to pay the money back if it didn't work out. My taking the piece was contingent upon getting transportation. When you make a verbal promise to refund the money, it IS her problem. And as for putting myself in her shoes, I would never behave this way. I mean what I say and say what I mean. If I am having a bad day or PMS or hormones and behaved badly, I darn well will make amends and apologize.

I want to end with another CL story. We had a green sofa in our office room which we didn't have room for anymore. I had advertised it as no rips or stains as I didn't find any when I was looking at it. I was trying to sell it for a while and a lady came and looked at it. She took a cursory look at it and said she was interested. We had offered delivery and when we were loading it in the van, I saw that it had a rip on it which I had never noticed. It was not huge and could be patched up. When we got there, we told her about it, and she was very upset. We reduced the price by $40, and she was a little appeased. I felt bad the entire day that I had not looked at the sofa well enough before posting it. Two days later, I wrote her a letter of apology saying what had happened was unintentional on my part, but asking for forgiveness. I also included $20 on it. She emailed me back with a sweet response and said it was not even a big deal, she could patch it up and she was very touched by the email.

I did not write the above to show what a great person I am though it may seem like it. *smiles* I just mean to say that even with the best of intentions, we can make mistakes. That is okay. The character shows in how you choose to correct it.

In dear Miss Shannon's case, other than *maybe* sending an occasional one line email, I am not doing anything. Unlike her fake busy-ness and stamp-less business ownerships, I really am busy with life - incredibly so. The blogging about it was great, because it got the nasty email out of my system without having to deal with her. She hasn't found the time to take 60 seconds to paypal the money yet, but I am going to let this go and her petty self can do the right thing if/when she chooses to.

And as someone eloquently said, "And that is all I am going to say about that."

A Craigslist Story

This is going to be rather long, so bear with me.

I have been looking for a china cabinet in craigslist for a long time. We don't have a very formal dining room and so I never felt the need for buying brand new for $1000 or more. The search has been on since end of April, but nothing has worked out.

In the meantime, we went to several houses, trying to get something that was reasonably well maintained and matched our existing dark brown furniture in the dining room. Finally, I found something that seemed to match (from the picture) and I emailed the person for more pictures. She sent it within 4 hours and I made an appointment to see it that evening. It was almost an hour drive from work, but I decided to go anyway. I got there and saw that the piece was reasonably good, although smaller than a regular cabinet. The color was not an exact match and there were scuff marks, but I had enough with all the searching and said I liked it. Shannon, who was the lady whom I was dealing with, said that some other people inquired about it and would I mind leaving a security deposit to hold it. I told her then that transportation was a problem, and I need to figure out how to get the piece home. She agreed that if it did not work out, she will refund the money back. I called R and asked him, and he said to go ahead pay them the money if I liked it. So I paid $25 as a good faith money and left the place. This was on June 8 around 7pm.

I came home, and the transportation thing became an issue. Friend's van didn't work out and U-Haul turned out to be too expensive and almost cost as much as the cabinet price. I emailed Shannon back on June 9 and told her about the situation. She emailed back immediately and said she understood and her husband would look around and see if he could help with the delivery and that she would put it back on the market. This was less than 24 hours before I left their house.

Three days later, I got an email saying she was able to sell it and she asked for my address so that she could send me the deposit back. I sent her back my address and waited. After all the back and forth, there was no response from her to my last email about when she would send it. I dismissed the thought and the days went by. 8 days later on the 20th, I sent her the following email.

Hi Shannon,

I had emailed you our home address last Saturday. I was wondering if you had a chance to mail me back the $25 I had given as a deposit for the china cabinet. Please do let me know.

In case you did not receive the last email, the address is

I received no response. 4 days later, I called her husband's phone number, which was the one I had and basically said the same thing in the email. He said he would ask her that night. No response. 3 days after that, on the 27th I again called and left a message. Again, nothing. Finally, on June 29th, I sent an email with a cc to her work email which she had given me.

Hi Shannon,

I have emailed you twice, and spoke to Bill twice as well. You still have not send me the $25 good faith money that I gave you to hold the china cabinet. On June 12th you emailed me that you already sold it. It has been 17 days since then. Is there a problem? It is bad that I have to keep emailing and calling.

And I got the following (part) in reply yesterday. Spelling and grammar mistakes verbatim from her email.

I mean you no disrespect as I am sure my words are going to be taken out of context; however, I must respond in this manner. When you left my home on June 4th, it was with the plan that you would be back that weekend to take possesion of the china cabinet I had listed on craigslist. At that time you left me a deposit for the china cabinet so that I would cancel the three addtional appointments I had scheduled for that evening. Thus cancelling any potential to sell the china cabinet. You then emailed me to let me know that you would be unable to pick up the china cabinet as agreed because of the travel requirements. I then relisted the cabinet on cragslist and was able a week later to sell the cabinet as described in my email on the 13th. It was in fact my intention to return your deposit as I asked for your address to do so. However the incesent phone calls and emails are bordering on harrassmnet. If you had left a deposit with any business and then backed out of the deal at your request, you would forfeit that deposit. With any business transaction that requires a refund it can take 4-6weeks for that to happen. I say this not to insue anger but yet to remind you to calm down. As I'm sure your life is busy; so is mine. Unfortunately with 2 businesses to run and a family to maintain you are not at the top of my priority list. It has skipped my mind on numerous occasions to send you a refund. In fact the envelope is on my desk waiting to be taken to the post office for postage. I have not however been able to fit into my day a trip to the post office when I begin seeing patients at 8am and stop seeing patients at 6pm. By the time I am anywhere near a post office, they are closed. At any time you would like, you are more than welcome to stop by for the refund. If I am unavaiable I can leave the envelope taped to the front door or if my childrens nanny is home she can give you the envelope. Otherwise I'm sorry but you are going to have to wait for my schedule to open up. If you have a paypal account you could send me an invoice for the $25 and I will be happy to refund the money in that manner as well

So I sent her a one line email asking her to put the money in my hubby's paypal account.

These are my questions, interpeeps.

1. Are 2 (polite) phone calls and 2 emails in 18 days reminding to send refund money borderline harassment?

2. What would you have done?

a. Forgive her. Vengeance belongs to the Lord
b. Don't bother, it is only $25 afterall. And anyway, you deserve it for being stupid
c. Pursue it. It is not just the money, it is the principle of the thing. Send polite emails and reminders
d. Take her to small claims court and send threatening emails in the meantime.

3. What should I have done different? Should I have waited longer before sending a reminder.

and now, MORAL OF THE STORY

Thou shalt not be stupid like me.

And this is how I feel like now.