Greetings from Puffy-Land!

If the title of this post brings about thoughts of the rapper aka "P-Diddy", so sorry, not where I'm going with this. "Puffy" are what my feet, hands, etc are resembling these days. When I have time to nap and keep my feet up on weekends, it's not so bad, but during the week my appendages reach ridiculous proportions! My ankles are seriously wider than the widest part of my feet right now. My toes are like Lit'l Smokies. The tops of my feet jiggle when I walk ("waddle" is probably more accurate) - it feels like I've got Jell-O molds on my feet! The swelliness in my lower half has been an ongoing issue for the past couple months but my hands have started their expansion quest as well and I finally had to take off my favorite ring yesterday too. Probably doesn't help that it's been in the 90's here, along with some lovely humidity to contend with. Happily, A/C is never far!!

Currently at a couple days past 37 weeks, another interesting side-effect of pregnancy that I've been encountering are a plethora of strange, vivid dreams. The other night, for example, I dreamt that Izaak had kicked through my left side (yes, specifically the left side!) and had his little foot sticking out. Initially, I just pushed the baby leg back in but he insisted on being stubborn and kept on shoving it back out. Not knowing what to do, I called the doctor and asked what should be done about this now protruding foot and she told me that I should just gently pull the rest of him out through the newly kicked out exit. I mean, really, at that point I should've been well aware that I was dreaming because getting my doctor on the phone so easily in the waking world would've been a miracle! Another weird thing is that mostly I feel his little feet on my right side. He's flipped around a bit but mostly he's been positioned head down, backside sticking out lunpily on my left and jabs from feet, elbows, knees, and whatnot on my right. He still hiccups quite a bit too. It's kind of fun to watch my belly jump around, looks like I'm carrying around the Loch Ness Monster sometimes :)

Joe and I looked at some more SUVs yesterday. We test drove a Honda CRV and a Nissan Rogue. Both were 4-cylinders and both didn't have the get-up-and-go that we're looking for. And I really wanted to like both of them! My current car has a 4-cyliner engine as well and while she's very gas-savvy, she admittedly does lack oomph at times. We also tried out ("we" in the case of these test drives means that Joe was driving and I was passenger-ing) a 6-cylinder RAV4.... there we go, much better!! I think we may be on to something... I'd still rather have a Lexus or Acura or some other "luxury" branded auto but the RAV can be equipped with all the features we're looking for and it appears that we (possibly) can afford one of the later models. Not talking about getting another brand new car - already been down that road a couple times - but an '09 or '10 doesn't seem wildly out of reach. Still need to do some more research. [SIGH!!] 

Joe went to see one of his favorite bands this evening at one of our local dumpy bars, all by himself. I've accompanied him before to see this particular band (Dillinger Escape Plan) when we first started dating and I'm sorry that I couldn't have joined him this time around also. Besides it probably being just too darn loud, I occupy a lot of space at this point and it wouldn't take much to knock me over since my center of gravity is somewhat shifted. I'm glad that he went though, he'll have a good time and it gives me the opportunity to work on some freelance projects and maybe get a painting sketched out! Or perhaps I should just relax, put my feet up, and enjoy the quiet that won't be around for much longer...