odds and ends...

well it's been awhile since a post - i've hit one of those periods of "there's nothing interesting to write about". i don't want my blog to turn into a pregnancy blog by everyday writing about the weirdness of pregnancy but i also don't want it to be a teacher blog by everyday writing about school. but here's a little of both plus some other stuff.

weird stuff about pregnancy BESIDES getting a huge belly:
> random nosebleeds are not uncommon
> your hair stops falling out so when i blow dry my hair that has not been cut since september, there's no hair on the floor. which...if you blow dry a thick head of hair - you know this is shocking and amazing.
> your body makes something that helps your pelvic bones start loosening and expanding in preparation for giving birth but it unfournately affects all your joints. this can be hazardous. in the last two weeks, my fitness level has gone waaaay down. i was still doing a step class once a week and jog/walking around at recess here and there and all of a sudden these things give me great leg and hip pain. now i walk slowly on the treadmill if i get to the gym at all...and that STILL hurts.

this week, we've gone on TWO fieldtrips. both to vancouver which means...BUS. sigh. at least a bus with 60 3rd graders is a little better than 60 kids K - 7 like it used to be at ACS. but a bus nonetheless. we went to the symphony which was a good time. my students were fantastic - so much so that i closed my eyes for a bit of the concert since there were no kids to watch closely. :) science world was the other one which always makes for a good time.

have i already posted about how much i like Dog the Bounty Hunter?

at this moment, i'm lying on my couch hoping for a snow day tomorrow. what's with 15 - 20 cm at the end of february in BC? oh man.

etiquette tips...

things i wouldn't recommend saying or doing to a pregnant woman -

- saying, "wow, you're huge!"

- poking their bellybutton that has popped out. (this happened to me 3 times on one day once)

i'd like to think that you aren't the kind of person who would do either of these things but just in case - it's not appreciated by the pregnant person. :) (okay rach, if you ask first, you can poke my bellybutton)

sugar and red dye....

the craziest day of the school year is valentines day. yesterday, we had a little v-day party in the afternoon but the kids were already hopped up on sugar and excitement. all one of my students had for lunch was a rice crispie square and a granola bar! great...what a way to start off a sugary afternoon. all day there were comments about "i can't wait for the party!" you may be wondering what grade 3s DO at a valentine's day party...all we did was eat cupcakes, cookies, and chocolate, open our valentines, then played some 7-up. why do kids love that game? i remember loving it when i was a kid too. anyways - some of the boys were bouncing off the walls after all our sugary food. as a teacher, you know that its your fault that you let them eat all that stuff by having a party so you don't want to just be coming down on them hard at the party...but by friday afternoon in general? you're SO ready for a weekend. it was craziness.

but nonetheless...i survived and came out of it with some great chocolates. :)

the deal searching pays off...

craigslist is addicting. it's frustrating. it's fantastic.

i've spent the past few days emailing people about their strollers, baby bjorn carriers, car seats, stroller and car seat combos and jogging strollers. i've learned about stroller brands, read reviews, and have perfected my questioning.

strollers are really the item of choice on craigslist, i've discovered. there about about 10 - 15 new postings a day. if you're not on top of things, they're gone immediately. the other evening i found this great looking jogging stroller for $60 and i email the person and say i can come by the next day after work. the next morning, i get the reply that that would be great and to call her for the address. so during my prep a couple hours later, i call to get the address only to find out that someone else bought the stroller that morning. what? yesterday afternoon, two new strollers that i wanted were posted. i emailed them both and said that i could come the following evening to buy them. (yes, i wanted both of them) this morning i get an email from one of them saying that they sold it last night. oh my goodness. so frustrating. anyways - probably too many details BUT getting to the point...this afternoon there was a new stroller with car seat and base for $100! i saw this model at the Bay the other weekend for $450 +! i emailed and said i could come immediately and to call me. it felt a little pushy but apparently this was the way things needed to be.

got the call at 6pm and by 7:30pm we are the owners of a new Eddie Bauer stroller and car seat. it looks like it has been barely used. woohoo! so when craigslist comes through - it's great!

maybe you were wishing you could see some pictures? haha - well, whether you were or not...

the stroller!

the car seat

and the two together.

so new that there were pieces still in original, unopened packages!

and here's the baby that will soon be hanging out in our stroller.

diaper bags?

so it seems like a fun thing to get to pick out a new bag for when the baby comes.  the question is...can you buy a flowery bag since it's something that you're going to be carrying?  or does it have to be boy-y since it's for your son's diapers?  hmm...here's the one i want:

oh the calories...

my new favourite muffin at tim hortons is whole wheat raspberry. now i don't ever buy muffins from my counting points days...however...doesn't whole wheat raspberry just sound healthy?

i looked it up on the tim horton's nutrition chart today. the 2nd highest calories of all the muffins only stepping down for chocolate chip. even the fruit explosion muffins (yuck) are 40 less calories and lower in fat. sigh.

just so you know.

oh the baby gear

yesterday we had a pro-d day and i was finished at school around 2:30pm so i thought i'd head to the langley mall.  i have a $50 giftcard for this mall and had the brilliant idea that i should use my $50 towards baby stuff.  so i spent some time in the "baby gear" sections of The Bay, Sears, and Babies R Us.  apparently it's "baby week" at the Bay but the clothes are really too expensive to begin with so 30% off doesn't make for the most awesome deals anyways.  however, that said, i still bought a little outfit with matching bib with a Bay giftcard that i had also.  so cute.  

anyways - there is a ton of gear out there for these little guys.  the crazy strollers and car seats, cribs, crib bedding, $70 mobiles, playpens, swings, mats, etc.  i was a little overwhelmed.  needless to say, "my $50 giftcard will not cover anything.  :)  BUT it's nice to have a little something something towards it.  i went to a baby swap this last weekend (no, we weren't swapping babies) and there's just TONS of this gear, barely used, out there for sale.  now THIS is the way to go.  i didn't buy anything but it was nice to know that i can get it somewhere other than the mall.   i spent some time emailing people on craigslist today too.  

so the search for the gear is on.  the goal?  to get some good deals.  let me know if you see any.  i should put judy on the job.  :)  

if you like ricky gervais...

from the original, British version of "The Office"...then you should see The Extras. we've been watching them on dvd. the premise is that ricky gervais, an aspiring actor, is an extra on movie sets. every episode has some famous actor is it who is the star of that movie. the stars are pretty self-deprecating which i appreciate. kate winslet, sam. l. jackson, orlando bloom are just a few that i've seen. something i like about watching this series is that ricky gervais is actually a different character from the office - i was worried that that might just be what he's like in real life. but as it turns out...he really is acting. ha.

oh the names...

so tim and i DO have two boy names that we agree on and one will most likely be it but we've had this name agreed on since before we were even pregnant so it just feels a little like we haven't tried enough to think of other great names.

any suggestions? (since jonny started the suggestion game) i guess you won't be suggesting your secretly loved names that you want to use but maybe there's some gooders out there? we don't like anything that ends in a, starts with a sh, or is too weird...because "shulba" is weird enough. we have our child repeating and spelling out both last name AND first name.

getting my veggies...

so on a day to day basis, i try to get lots of vegetables in. sometimes...it doesn't work out so well. like margaret says, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." yikes. thanks margaret. i think of this often in regards to my lack of vegetables. haha.

my new trick, which some of you may look down on, but my trick nonetheless...V8 juice. not the tomato-y kind - the kind mixed with fruit. while many fruit juices that have vegetables in them advertise "two servings of fruits and vegetables"...V8 fusion is the only one that says, "one serving of fruit and one serving of vegetables" in every glass. and it still tastes great. so while i know that juice can be empty calories because it doesn't fill you up - i feel good knowing that i'm getting at least one serving of vegetables from it.

try the peach mango one. it's great. and no, i'm not getting paid for this advertisment. but if you know how i could, please let me know.

IT'S A BOY!

you heard it here first! there will be a little boy shulba in the family come june.

so i guess the name "june" is out. haha.

i happened to be on my prep when my doctor called me today during school so that was great because last week i missed two calls from him. he wasn't keen to tell me - calls me a cheater...but i have to say, finding out makes it a lot more real to me. it's no longer "the baby" or "it"...it's a HE!

we'll save the name and birth weight as the suprises for when he's born. :) gotta be something to tell people!

lazy saturdays

tim and i have very different philosophies on saturday activities. to tim, saturday is the day that you get things done. he cleans, spends hours in the garage "organizing", does yard work, goes to the dump, etc. etc. my kind of saturday is sleeping in, reading, watching a movie, taking a nap, eating out, maybe throwing a workout in, taking another nap, hanging out with friends, etc.

sometimes this difference of philosophy can be a problem. but the longer we are married, the better we get at making both work. or sometimes one of us gives in to the others' saturday style. today was a rebecca saturday. went out for breakfast, had a nap, watched my tom petty documentary while buying music on itunes, read the latest issue of explore magazine from cover to cover, went for a drive together, and we're heading to a movie tonight. i love saturdays like today.

things you should know about the info in this post:

> i downloaded "the weepies" album - say i am. also, the song - you don't know me by ben folds and regina spektor. you should listen.

> even if you're not a big tom petty fan, you know a lot more songs than you realize. "running down a dream" is a 30th anniversary documentary of tom petty and the heartbreakers' journey and it is SO interesting. you will be a huge fan of tom after watching it. you should borrow it from me.

> explore magazine is a canadian outdoor sport kind of magazine. often, there are no articles in explore that necessarily relate to me and anything i'm doing but the entire magazine is so so well written and interesting. we had a subscription for years and even though it was tim's subscription (thanks judy), i probably read my entire way through first because it's an inspiring magazine - makes you want to be more outdoorsy person. you should read it.

thanks for the photo, james.

twins? nope...

i just read a poll on babycenter.ca that 68% of women would choose twins over just one baby. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? TWO babies at once sounds crazy. i'm worried about having just one...

what would you choose?

going green

we have so many reusable grocery bags but usually forget to take them with us to the grocery store. it's not that we're not reuse-savy...we just honestly forget.

yesterday as i was pulling out of the garage to go to the store, tim came running out of the house with 3 reusable bags.

i took them into the store with me, carried them around, got up to the counter, watched the girl bag my groceries in plastic bags and then when i reached over to pick up my plastic bags, realized that i had my reusable bags in my hand still. shoot.

i got home and tim was like, "why do you have plastic bags?" i told him that i'd taken them in and forgot they were in my hand.

"at least we were one step closer to using them." - tim

cravings...

one of the most popular pregnant question that people ask me in small talk is "do you have any cravings". well, let me tell you about the time when i ate kosy shack rice pudding everyday...the the time i had two pieces of texas toast with peanutbutter with a diet coke everyday at 10:30am...or the daily afternoon bounty bar. these are all pre-pregnancy cravings. i'm just a craving kind of girl...so pregnancy hasn't changed anything.

what i AM liking these days is...food. bring it on.

the inconsistancy of blogging...

here's the question...or maybe it's a pondering. i check blogger everyday even though i may not blog everyday...so when you come to my blog and there's nothing new, it's not that i just didn't get to my computer that day. usually the problem is that i don't have much of anything to say. i don't want to have the boring day-to-day posts of teacher-life or pregnant-life goings on (though maybe you think that's already what i'm doing? ha) but sometimes there are periods of time when nothing very humourous or interesting happens. what then? do i blog for the sake of blogging? because if you knew there would be something here to read everyday, maybe you'd check more regularly and i wouldn't write life-changing posts about my first ultrasound only to get two comments. ha. but then maybe no one would be interested anymore and they'd take my blog off the roll. hmm...it's a quandry really. but as i ponder that - here's a random story of the everyday:

last night i went to the gym for a Dance Fit class. as most of you know, i used to go to dancey-fitness type classes all the time until they just weren't really a workout for me anymore and i wanted to spend my time doing something that got my heartrate up higher. however, pregnancy seems to be a great time for such classes and maybe some dancing will give the baby some natural rhythm. (i told tim the other day that i would be putting our child in dance classes when they were 5 no matter whether a boy or girl which became a heated and controversial discussion. haha) so anyways, this dance fit class is actually taught by a guy who seems like a cool guy - good dancer. it's a lot more dance and a lot less cardio in comparison to my old class. but all fine and well. so i was there last week and then this week, i realized that the routines were pretty much the same. at the end of the class he explained that he keeps the same routine for 6 weeks. SIX WEEKS? that's crazy...i guess it's not for the people who didn't get it and sure, i'm not great but to me the idea is to move around. not learn a routine that i can perfect. so give me 4 more weeks and i'll be busting out some moves at the next get together.

the ultrasound

my ultrasound got bumped up to this past week so thursday afternoon, the school got a sub for me and tim picked me up to go with me for our first look at what is making me so large.  haha.  

let me warn you now - i do not know the gender yet...that's coming from my doctor sometime later this month.  :)

but i thought the experience was worth a blog post nonetheless.  

i headed in not sure what to expect...my only knowledge based on television.  on friend's, rachel is wearing a hospital gown.  but on juno, juno is wearing her clothes with her shirt pulled up.  i had a juno ultrasound - just pulled up my sweater.  the technician was obviously sick of pregnant people.  i tried to make conversation at the beginning only to be ignored so i sat in silence while she clicked away on the screen.  for about 20 minutes, she clicked, i sat.  then she said she was done and she'd call in my husband.  finally tim got to come in and we got to see the baby.  it's...umm...really cute.  haha.  no, it was very cool to see that there really is a baby in there.  she was poking my stomach to make the baby move around.  it was really clear and we could see the baby putting it's hands up to it's face and wiggling around.  i have only felt the baby moving once when we were in hawaii so it was nice to see that it is still moving around in there even though i can't feel it yet.  

so the ultrasound was a success.  

as for the pregnancy update?  i'm much larger.  i've gone back to the gym this week which is good - need to gain less weight this month!  i am actually not as averse to the random stomach touching as i thought i would be.  not that bad.  i went out and bought another pair of pants and couple shirts today because i'm really lacking in the "pants that fit" category.  :)  and i have some pain under my ribs if i sit for more than 20 - 30 minutes...what?  and i'm only halfway there!  i'm in trouble.  living room yoga is going to start this week to try to stretch the pains away.  i am still in awe at the craziness of being pregnant - how weirdly my body can adjust - skin can stretch and organs can just move out of the way.  i'm not going to lie - it's a strange experience thus far.  but you'll be happy to know that the idea of having a baby is growing on me.  haha. 

missing camera cord...

so give me a couple more days to get pics up...the cord is lost and i'll have to go to WR to use my mom's...but for those of you that aren't on facebook and seen all the phenomenal photos there - i've stolen a few to post here. thanks to ang's photographer (am i breaking the rules by posting these here? i can't take them down) and alyssa.

ang looked amazing.

(and check out that giant bump on the pregnant girl)

what a venue.

pink. hot.

yes, the man on the far right is my husband...

at the polynesian cultural centre.

(oops...after posting this post, i found the cord and now the pics are uploaded on facebook...coming to becshulba.blogspot soon...)

welcome to kauai

some random circumstances lead tim and i to hop on a plane and fly to kauai for the 3rd, 4th, and then leave the 5th. our friends that we were with in oahu were coming here to stay at a townhouse on the water for an extra week after oahu and invited us to come along. so here we are! right now i'm sitting on the lanai overlooking the big waves eating fresh pinapple and papaya. but i'm heading home tomorrow. sigh.