A whole lot has been going on. I had a good New Year's sauerkraut and ice cream pig-out at Gerry's on Sunday. Work has been decent, but intense. We 6 days away from the official due date...and I think we are as ready as we can be. We figured out/installed the car seat in yesterday. This was the day when I was discussing the ins and outs of foundation repair, humidifiers, and after I had just installed a new range hood...but the instructions on the car seat were by far the most confusing. Those instructions though...egad, they are definitely not concise or well-organized. We eventually got it in and it appears to work well. We have practiced the labor and delivery stuff and we have some good expectations as to how it will most likely go. It is hard to wait.
Then we think of what we will name her and it seems much easier to wait.
Girl name list (in order or preference as of today in Neil's (and Anne's, sort of) mind):
Kiersten
Amelia
Gretchen

Others we liked (also in order): Sarai, Julia, Alana, Astrid. It is scary to think that the name will most likely be based more upon our mood at the moment more than anything else. At least the name seems to be fluctuating daily as of the past week.

In other news, we had water in our basement on Monday night. It seeped in from one end of the basement to the storm sewer drain in the middle of the floor. Luckily, we didn't have anything important in the puddle--by coincidence, I was down there the whole time it was leaking in. We had the company that waterproofed the basement out and we determined that the draintile system they put in is really good (we ran a hose down it on full blast and it worked well), but that the storm sewers were full. There is not one thing you can do if that happens besides draining your sump into the yard. Luckily, I can accept the circumstances that created the sewers to fill as truly exceptional (my dad has owned property in this neighborhood for 16 years and had never seen it flood like it had on Monday). We simply had downpours for days and days mixed with a foot of snow melting due to 50 degree January temperatures. Next time (if there is one) I will wetvac the draintile system and dump the water into the yard. It might be futile, but it might work. Also--IF YOU OWN A HOUSE GET A WE/DRY VAC. This thing saved our hineys yet once again by being able to remove the water from the floor.

We have a big ol' crack in the basement wall to think about. This is likely to be our clay soil pushing in on the block. The waterproofing/foundation guy recommended an interior steel beam system if the problem gets any worse--though he was clear that it was not a huge deal right now.
I also get to look forward to installing my own draintile into the crawlspace to alleviate the water that is collecting both around the perimeter of the inside walls and in the block. This will be a looooong weekend project...maybe over the summer.

Who knew that home ownership could be so much fun with a "best house we viewed" house? Anyways, I have been trying to knock as many of the items off our "to do/to fix/to remodel" list as possible before the baby comes. So far we have been installing shelves, fixtures, doorknobs, switches, outlets, hookups for appliances, carpet, insulation, scrapping wallpaper, painting, lighting stuff, reseting doors, caulking everything, a hundred small things, and generally learning everything about every system that is in the house. We have about 3 dozen things that are left to do (though most are repeats of stuff mentioned above). Oh well, they can all wait once the baby comes!

Who knows, the next picture that goes up here may be of the baby...