In 6 short weeks I’ll be taking a blog hiatus and enjoying the forest settings at The Farm while I wait for Tater to join us. Can you believe that? 6 weeks! I am feeling pretty good about it all and am still totally ready and excited! If you missed the update on my latest OBGYN appointment from yesterday you can read about it here.

Some of you already know, we went thrift store rummaging for baby clothes as did Maiden53 (who is a doll for thinking of us) and we’ve also received some new clothes from N’s family and from my grandparents for Tater. This means we have about 30 outfits in varying sizes and styles ranging from 0-24 months!

I succeeded in getting them all laundered at the moldy rental while we were cleaning it over the weekend. I am so pleased to have some clean clothing packed away in the birth kit ready for Tater’s arrival, makes me feel all prepared and stuff!

As I am writing this it is 3pm and 82 degrees in the coolest part of our house. I am chugging water and eating a jonagold apple with the fan blasting me while I type this. I am a Phoenix, Arizona baby and am very used to NOT having AC (thanks to Flagstaff, AZ apartment living) so I refuse to use the AC unless it is totally unbearable. I know once the humidity comes I’ll need the AC but for now, while it is a dry heat I’ll make do. It saves money right?

On Saturday we called and were avoided by the slumloards but left more messages, we are still trying to set up a move out inspection time. We also spent several hours over at the old place cleaning and doing laundry. While we were there N got to chatting with the neighbors who were all very curious about our landlord drama.

One of them even asked us for the landlords current phone number. I guess they’ve got a friend who also used to live in that place as renters. The slumloards never returned the owed security deposit to them, it’s been 2 years and they are still trying to get their money back. Also we were told that 2 other old tenants have had to abandon the premises without a move out inspection since the landlords mysteriously become unreachable. N talked to 3 different sets of neighbors about our crappy rental situation, the slumloards seem to be on everyone’s bad side!

We did have a wonderful “date night” Sunday. We were given tickets to a show and we rewarded ourselves to a cheap “linner” out (late lunch/ early dinner= linner, lol) and then went to the show in Owensboro, KY. It was fun to get dressed up and to go out since the majority of our days are spent cleaning, running errands or unpacking right now.

We went to Firefly Southern Grill and had the most amazing food. It was by far the BEST food we’ve had since moving here. We loved the atmosphere and the service and the food was amazing. I had my first taste of fried green tomatoes and collard greens, yummo! I enjoyed steak and N had salmon wellington as our entree items. Everything was fantastic!

The show we saw was also great! We saw the Broadway show, the Spelling Bee and thought it was tons of fun. Tater was super active during the show, I wonder what she thought of the singing and music. Hopefully she’ll be a lover of the arts like we are.

All in all the date was super fun, we had a great weekend and are off an running for another productive/ busy week.

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Perhaps it is because he is apparently swallowing whole pieces of food as opposed to chewing them like every other animal in the world. Yep, those whole bits came right from his stomach!

Nothing like the sound of a cat preparing to vomit waking you from your afternoon pregnancy nap and when you try to quicky move him from the carpet to a vomit safe tiled area. BAM, explosive vomit stream shoots from his mouth and splatters the white carpet. AND, there is not carpet cleaner here for me to clean the mess up with. Double WTF!

Called N and told him to either pick me up so orange dye for the carpet or to bring home some damn carpet cleaner for the explosive vomit mess.

And now I present you with the view of our recently cleaned out basement at the old place.The stuff has been moved out, the carpets are vacuumed and we are just about done cleaning the place-

Wait! WTF is that in the corner? Is the wall leaking again and flooding the basement? I thought it was a dry day today…

Oh, wait. We shouldn’t be surprised. It is just mold, like I’ve been saying all along. Except now we can actually see evidence of it with our own eyes. Big shocker huh?

Notice how it is all pretty and furry it is growing on top of the carpet and up the wood siding? There are black, green and even some gray types all mixed together. Ooo, so enchanting – NOPE!

More like effing disgusting and super bad for the body! Sure mold isn’t a big deal if you can clean it up with some bleach or something. Too bad the mold is growing under and now right on top of totally finished areas that if bleached will look severely destroyed.

It is no wonder N has been draining some major crap from his sinuses since we’ve moved to our new, not toxic house! Now if the slumloards don’t set up a freaking move out inspection with us and take back possession of this shit-hole of a house I am going to get really nasty!

I am talking having all neighbors come over to walk through the house and observe it’s current state, while we video tape the whole thing. Then we’ll call the sheriff and give them the keys to the house with a copy of our video or something. Heck I might even put the walk through video online for the world to see and perhaps I’ll share the address of the house, to warn any future tenants…

Seriously! All I can say is WTF? Okay, I am done now. Happy wordless Wednesday everyone.

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I’ve been trying to bust out some posts in advance that I’ll schedule in June to keep the blog fresh while I am away from the internet waiting for Tater to come. That is the idea at least. If anyone wants to guest post here just sign up as a user and I’ll get you all hooked up to be a contributor.

Okay, so over the weekend we did get lots done, as usual… For starters we wrangled the freecycle dog home through our back gate so now Dixie has an even nicer shelter to enjoy. Problem is Haily, the outdoor cat, is smarter than Dixie and she manages to take over the dog house every time. Dixie refuses to fight for it and just sleeps out on the deck.

Mind you Hailey has her own house that we built but she refuses to use it unless absolutely necessary. So when we go out and lure her out of Dixie’s home, Dixie can use it but it seems every time the rain starts to fall or when it gets windy Hailey is in the dog house and Dixie is outside… I give up! If the dog doesn’t want care to fight for her home that is her bad, right?

We also went by the old place to do some deep cleaning. We spent 3 hours there doing the kitchen and basement. We’ve only got a few rooms left to do now and then we’ll be totally done with that shit hole. Yay. Oh and while the cleaning was happening guess what we discovered growing on top of the basement carpet and up the outside of the wood paneling in the corner…

MOLD!!!

Yep, you can see it with your own two eyes just growing right on top of all the carpet and wood siding. We had a freestanding shelf in that corner holding my business stuff but once we moved all our things out of the basement and began vacuuming we spotted the fairly big moldy corner. N took some photos of it on his iPhone. I’ll share them soon.

It’s been over a month since we met with the slumlady and started the ball rolling on having them sign our mutual release letter. They’ve been avoiding us now for over a month and N has begun the harassing phone calls to them again. We’ve not paid them April’s rent and are trying to set up a meeting time to turn over the keys and complete the final walk though. It seems they could care less, still.

Last night N put the freecycle crib together in Tater’s room. It was an interesting process since it’s an older crib that needs work, plus the assembly instructions were nonexistent so we were winging it so to speak. It is now pieced together, just needs some wood glue and some screws tightened. We’ll buy a crib mattress for it sometime after Tater is here if we still haven’t found anything better/ safer.

We spent Sunday thrift store hopping. We were window shopping for a washing machine since come May 1 we will have no way to wash clothes (other than a laundry mat), we also thought we would keep our eyes peeled for some necessities for Tater while we were there. Things like cloth diapers, receiving blankets and a variety of sized onesies.

We managed to find some clothes and a few receiving blankets that we spent $6.00 on. We didn’t see any pack n’ play’s or newborn sleeping solutions and we didn’t see any washing machines either. We plan to keep looking, hopefully we’ll find all that we need in due time.

It’s was a windy, rainy weekend but we still managed to get some good progress made! We even found a work around for our failing external hard drive (I’ll post more on this later) and N painted my toenails for me since I can no longer reach them. Isn’t he a trooper?

We took my blood pressure at the grocery store and it was 108/70, I am still not swelling or having any heart racing or blood sugar issues. I haven’t weighed myself since we moved in, the scale is still missing but I feel like I’ve gained a few (5 or so) pounds. LOL. What do you think?

We’ve got a shower in our honor taking place in Phoenix, AZ courtesy of Krystal on May 2nd that we are getting excited about. We’ll be there via video conference to talk to and enjoy everyone’s company. If you are going to be out that direction and haven’t already received an invite shoot me an email and I’ll hook you up with the details.

We’ve also got a web baby shower going on right now and a live shower chat scheduled courtesy of another bloggy friend, Maiden53, that you can check it out here.

Don’t forget to put your dollar in and place your baby weight bet! Remember 2 winners split the pool of cash so the more people who enter the better it is for YOUR pocket book, lol.

Okay, I am off to try finishing those 3 blog posts and I’ve got to feed the animals and such. Have a good monday everyone!

Oh, and if you aren’t afraid to see how an actual homebirth was featured in a commercial check out this video. Thanks Ryan and Kari for blogging this! Don’t worry it is peaceful and beautiful. Just graphic, shows nudity and you know a baby coming out from down there:

The post Weekend #2 in our new place, it's been busy! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

During the week N had a meeting with some higher ups about his future at the station. Remember how this job was supposed to be an anchoring/ reporting gig? Since moving here his anchor time has been minimal (it’s happen once) so he was eager to hear what they had planned for him and his future.

It looks like they are hoping to have him around and are grooming him to fill some big shoes in about 3-5 years. This means buying a home was absolutely the right decision to make and that we truly will be able to stay here for a good amount of time. Yay for following the gut instinct.

Knowing you can truly settle in and build a life for yourself is amazing. We’ve got our “bun in the oven”, a home of our own and his career going in the right direction so we are super fortunate and are so grateful to have arrived at this stage in life. It’s been a long and grueling journey and it will continue to have up’s and downs I am sure but what more could you ask for? We are pleased with everything, obviously.

I’ve been getting bursts of energy and then major spells of fatigue so I am gardening and unpacking when I’ve got the energy. The weather is warming up and the plants are springing to life, I am enjoying this very much.

Also, the animals are adjusting much better these days it seems. They still act up now and then and need to be reminded of the rules but the overly obnoxious stuff in the middle of the night has stopped. This is a relief.

Other random musings:

I just saw a commercial about birth defects and Paxil so I googled it for more info and am just floored. “Babies exposed to Paxil early in pregnancy may have a higher risk of major birth defects, according to a new study.”

I already don’t have much faith in our drug saftey testing process here in the USA. This is why I’ve refused the RhoGam shot during pregnancy and am doing my research on vaccinations right now.

This whole Paxil development is just added proof that we approve and distribute way too many drugs to people before we fully understand the effects and risks of the drug. It’s irresponsible and scary. We really can’t trust that all approved drugs and procedures are safe for us.

I need a washer bad!! We are doing laundry at the old place till the end of the month because our new place doesn’t have a washer in it already. Ideally we would love an energy star, front loading washer but there is no way we can afford one right now. Shoot we can barely scrap $100 together to go towards the purchase of a used one.

Not having a washer is stressing me out a bit and I don’t really know when and if we’ll get one. I’ve been looking at craigslist for them but am so worried that I’ll end up with one that is crap and our money will have been wasted.

Also, the external hard drive we used to back up all the PC files and financial stuff (a Seagate Free Agent External Drive) is now dead.. Or at least the USB portion of the drive is acting wonky.It worked at the old place but somehow in moving the computer it’s become damaged and is not longer recognized by the computer.

I am stressing because I need to balance the accounts and work the budget before this weekend so I know how much money we have for groceries but all the data is on that drive that I can’t access.

I am going to go work in the garden a bit now to counter all the things I currently have to stress about, LOL. Hopefully you have a pleasant weekend in your neck of the woods. We are so ready to chill and get some slow progress made on the new place.

The post So glad the weekend is almost here! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

– Yesterday we signed the paperwork and paid the down payment for our new home. We got the keys and have begun slowly but surely moving stuff in over there. The utilities aren’t on there yet but they will be soon and I planned on doing a live video tour of the new place on April 2nd to share it with you.

– The video home tour will take place at 3pm Indiana time and will be posted @ http://www.harvestofdailylife.com/webcasts-vlog-live-chat for your viewing and chatting pleasure. It will also be recorded and available for you to view at any time after the live broadcast, you just wont be able to participate in the live chat.

– Got a funny call from my OBGYN’s office today! After not calling back to schedule my 3 hour blood test like they wanted on Friday they placed a follow up call this morning that I missed. Then this afternoon I get another call from them and they’ve changed their tune!

I was told by the nurse practitioner that “when the doctor was filled in she decided, since I only failed by one point, and because I have such a hard time with blood draws… that they would LET me skip the follow up test” if I came in and had a chat with my doctor about all the particulars.

I told the nurse that we were going to decline the 2nd test anyway and that we would come in to talk with the doctor about it all since I want to be written a prescription for the blood glucose test strips so I can just test and mange it all on my own. Isn’t it funny and kind of odd that they have changed their tune all the sudden?

– Oh, rent is due on the 1st right… Well, the slumlady never dropped that mutual release letter back off to us like she said she would. We met with her back on March 13th and she assured us she would retun the letter signed, she also said she would swing by to pick up our April 1st rent (as opposed to her just using our security deposit to cover it like we suggested).

Since she is still NOT following through with what she says she’ll do we’ve decided we are also going to quit following through with our own obligations. She can keep our security deposit for April’s rent, we’ll give her a check for any supposid “damages to the property” upon move out inspection and we are done.

Heck she can sue us if she really wants to, we would be happier if she did that way we could lay our case out to a judge (without having to pay crazy fees to begin the legal process) and get this all delt with officially. I bet she wont sue though, she seems to be avoiding paper trails and official stuff like the plague. We probably wont even be able to get her to do a move out inspection.

Oh, on Saturday we hid in the basement waiting out our Tornado warning and the basement flooded again. It was flowing like a river down there, I even took a video of it for fun. Luckily there wan’t ever a tornado, just another flood in the basement. We were kind of hoping that a tree would cave in the roof here or something, that would end our lease early I bet! LOL…

If you didn’t get email notification of the online shower Maiden53 put up for me you can check it out here. Be sure to stop by to sign the guest book and play a game or two. Oh and you’ll be able to see some cute photos of the baby bump (and her heartbeat) there too!

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