Around the house

I used to be able to get all those little things that keep popping up around the house taken care of well enough while I was working -- for the water heater repairs, window installation, pest control, alarm system installation, bill transfers, etc., I could usually either work from home for a few hours, make calls during down times in the office, and so forth.  But then again, it has been helpful to be at home the last couple of weeks with ongoing house maintenance stuff.  Now I'm just limited by whether I can answer the door or type with a baby physically attached to me.  I kind of have a setup here in the media room with water to drink on the end table next to me, nursing pillow and ottoman, my laptop and Blackberry for communication, and TV remote on the couch.  Hey, I am stuck in this spot for at least an hour, every two-and-a-half hours, all day long.  I need a command center.  (Last night Michael stayed up after the 11:00 feeding all the way through the 1 a.m. feeding.  I ended up watching three episodes of "Biography," on various 60s rockers, in a row before I could fall asleep sometime after 2.)

So this week, I found some people on Craigslist to do a fall/winter cleanup and treatment of our lawn.  They came on Wednesday and everything looks really nice overall -- they mowed, trimmed hedges and trees, got rid of some ugly weeds, cleaned the gutters, raked, and put down something (you can tell I'm good at this gardening stuff) to protect the lawn over the winter.  The only thing is I told them the brush goes in the back alley for pickup, but we got a notice from the city last night that it has to go in the front and I have to schedule a pickup.  I hadn't actually seen the amount of brush along our back fence until this morning when I went out -- yikes!  Mike and I will have to move it by Monday and I'll call the city today.

This week we also had a pool guy (recommended via a reference from the previous owners of our house) come to do a thorough cleaning of the pool and teach us a bit more about the existing system, which is "antiquated" (read: about our ages) and probably needs to be upgraded next year.  He was really nice and we ended up hiring him to do weekly maintenance on the pool at least through the winter.  The pool pump was actually broken when he came out though, so he couldn't evaluate that.  So the pool pump was another maintenance appointment this week.  Fortunately, it was covered by the home warranty company.  Their people came out yesterday and fixed the pool pump.  Guess what the problem was?  You'll never guess.  Apparently the switch was shorted out by geckos, of which the repairman said he found lots of dead ones nearby.  I kid you not.  Who knew?

The Internet was also a helpful resource this week in finding a person to call about natural family planning while breastfeeding.  Mike and I originally were taught NFP by a sister/obstetrician associated with the Washington archdiocese, but I know there are special rules associated with practicing NFP while breastfeeding (since you have to be on the lookout for the return of ovulation) so I thought I'd try to find someone to talk to about it while I'm still early postpartum.  I was going to call the diocesan family life office here, but it turns out that the Billings Method, which is what we use, has its own website with contact people in different cities.  I called the woman listed for Dallas and she was very helpful.  I should be able to start charting again in the next week or so and have a good basic infertile pattern established by the time that information becomes useful again.  The teacher said she'd be happy to continue to be a resource though if we need it.  Glad to have the support!

Okay, naptime for me since the baby is surprising me by sleeping longer than normal this morning.  (Watch, as soon as I lay down he'll wake up...)