The best thing about working out in the campus gym when you are 5.5 months pregnant

is that you will definitely not get hit on by any of the freshman guys.  

The beginning of the academic year always brings about the following awkward conversation starter/ attempt at politeness at least once:

18-year old guy at gym: Hey, are you using that? (Points to weights/machine half way across the room).

Me: Ummm... no.  I'm using this. (Points to machine/weights I'm actually using).

18-year old guy at gym: Okay.  Cool.  (Walks off and may or may not use weights/machine he just asked me about).

I would shrug it off if it only happened once or twice EVER, but I swear I have this "conversation" at least a couple times at the beginning of every semester, and there's never even the most remote possibility I was using the piece of equipment in question.  There must be an article from Maxim that gets handed to every guy when he registers for the Selective Service that tells him the sure fire way to pick up a girl at the gym is to ask if she's using some piece of equipment that she is obviously not using.  It boggles the mind.

Even though some things change (no lame pick up lines this year, yay!), the more they stay the same.  The beginning of the academic year gym crowd was there in all its glory this morning.  There was:

• Guy who looks like a buff version of the villain from Despicable Me (he's ALWAYS there):

[source]

• Skinny Korean dude who spent the entire 1/2 hour I was there bench pressing the 45lb bar.
• Skinny white guy who didn't seem to lift any weights but kept lifting up his shirt to "admire" his "abs" in the mirror.
• Two guys who were pretty muscular but will probably be fat by the end of the semester by the way they were talking about how much they drank over the weekend.
• Three grad students who were just minding their own business.
• Two girls who had no idea what they were doing.
• One guy who stood directly in front of the free weight rack doing an exercise I could only describe as "flightless bird desperately trying to lift off and escape from a lion".  

And a partridge in a pear tree...

It's never boring.

Welcome to the neighborhood

The good news is that I got out and explored our new neighborhood on foot for the first time early this morning.  I think I've found a nice 4 mile loop that's well lit and well traveled by joggers and walkers.  It's hilly, and there are lots of connecting streets that I can turn down to keep things interesting.

The bad news is that I think my running days are over.  Some part or parts that keep my left leg attached to my torso are really painful - not so much while I'm running - but during the rest of the day after I run.  It happened for the first time two Saturdays ago, and I took a whole week off hoping it would get better (the elliptical and walking don't bother it).   Sadly when I ran last Saturday before we moved the same thing happened.  At the end of the day I was gimping around and my leg HURT.

It's disappointing because I'd hoped to make it way farther along in pregnancy before I had to give up running, and I'd thought that it would be a slower decline rather than a sudden end.  I plan to keep up walking and doing the elliptical and lifting weights and going to yoga, but I know stopping now is going to make it EVEN harder to get back in shape after the baby is born.  But on the other hand, I'm afraid if I don't stop I'm going to get injured, and that's not going to help anything either.

On the other hand, I made it to 24 weeks, which isn't too shabby either.

On the other other hand, there's still lots of exercise to be had climbing stairs, putting things away now that our furniture is here.

Getting there

We did a lot of work sorting and moving things around today to get ready for our furniture to arrive tomorrow.

Here's the downstairs storage area:

It's right inside after you come in from the garage so we plan to use it for storage and also as a closet for winter coats and hats.

We also finished the second bathroom:

It will obviously be a long time before the baby could take a bath in here, but I think the map shower curtain and neon green (the bathmat is "avocado" colored) will make for a cute bathroom for a little boy.

It's back to work tomorrow, and I have to say, I'm not sad that I'll be sitting down.  Daniel is going to meet the moving guys and direct our furniture over to our new place.  We're both looking forward to having a real bed again.  The air bed just doesn't cut it.
 

Kitchen

While there is are still dishes to be washed and put away and the floor ALREADY needs to be vacuumed and mopped, the kitchen is mainly done.

The long view:

Pantry:

The sink area (A fair number of things are still in the wash/put away cycle).

The stove and appliances:

I wish I could think of something interesting or funny to say to go along with these boring photos of my kitchen, but I'm physically tired and my brain says it has Labor Day weekend off.  I'm hoping that 30 minutes or so of mindless blog reading will be the miracle cure, and I'll be able to get up and do some more work upstairs/ in the living room.  I'm so so so so glad I don't have to go back to work tomorrow.

Whew

All of our belongings sans the big furniture that will be moved on Tuesday has been migrated to the new apartment.  I've done about 5 loads of dishes and 3 loads of laundry today, and things are slowly but surely finding their new homes.  No pictures today - or maybe even this weekend - until the chaos subsides.  Even though I know they aren't reading this, we are so so so so grateful to K+I and K+S who packed, lugged, and cleaned and to K + S who made it possible for us to have dinner waiting in the Crockpot right now.  I don't even want to think about how long it would have taken to do everything ourselves.    

That is all.

24 weeks

The baby is almost a foot long and somewhere in the 1 - 1.5lb range, making this weeks fruit the Subway sandwich.  Actually, it's the cantaloupe.

[source]

He's getting longer but mostly heavier every week.  His organs are developing and his fat stores are filling in.  And he's been moving around a lot this week.  Not just little kicks but pushing and rolling around.  It feels like he's learning to wrestle or tap dance in there.

I'm continuing to feel good, but I definitely get tired more easily.  I'm so glad we decided to move now and not later in the fall.  So many stairs...

The Gallery of Regrettable Living Arrangements

I had fun looking at these pictures showing residence hall life at UW over the past 100 years.

Here are some highlights:

Dorm decor was much frillier back in 1908.

And suspending twigs from the ceiling was the fashion at the time.

No man on campus would be without a giant picture of MOM on the wall to watch over him at all times.

Thinking was just as hard in 1909.

And cleaning was still reserved for the frantic 15 minutes before your parents came to get you at the end of the semester.

Kind of a creepy trophy collection hanging up in this room ("So this summer I killed a turtle and a..."):

The human male didn't evolve to have chest hair until after 1955.

Why they don't still have sweet wallpaper like this in Eagle Heights I'll never know.

Like woah.  Between "moochies!" on the wall and the nets hanging from the ceiling, I have to believe whoever lived here ate some "inspiration" mushrooms before decorating this room.

I can only hope that thing hanging on the wall is a picture and not a mirror:

And I can only hope that thing hanging on this wall is a mirror and not a picture ;)

Can you even imagine the amount of ground up pizza crust and Doritos in that carpet by the end of the year?

Sweet fire place:

And while matching decorations abound

You just can't buy high quality matching camel fur comforters these days.