Moving back to Nashville has certainly been an adventure…one full of lots of nausea and morning sickness (thank you baby E #4), floors that sink down in the middle of rooms (I think our foundation could use a lift), some intense infant self rescue swim lessons for all three kids, a never-ending stream of boxes to open, and the awesome knowledge that I am the world’s worst about getting rid of our “extra” stuff laying around. We may have moved from 2800sqft to 2800sqft but our house does NOT look like that at the moment! Nothing seems to fit anywhere, probably because the home was built in the 1930s and there are very few cabinets and not so much closet space (very unlike our rental in Evans).
We had the brilliant idea to “cut the cord” on the cable company and strictly go with internet, using Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime for all of our television programming. It seemed to go OK for the first month, but then the AT&T fiber optics sales guy came ‘a knocking. Bah. He managed to talk us into signing up with them (again) for internet AND cable (don’t judge – I REALLY missed BRAVO). We are treating this as a trial since they said we could cancel any time within the first 30 days with zero penalties/fees. Comcast has been surprisingly good, for the moment at least, so we are unsure if we will stick with AT&T.cv
Today was our first official payday with Jake at Vanderbilt! We were pleasantly surprised that our reduced tax burden (since this is technically a “stipend” and not a real salary) has almost made up for the pay cut from residency to fellowship. Praise the Lord! Jake is still awaiting his Vanderbilt credentials so he has done zero moonlighting thus far (read: from 80 hours of clinic work each week to 0 hours). Once he gets the green light he has 2 or 3 jobs in the pipeline which should help keep up his clinical skills throughout this two year fellowship. The kids and I have loved having him around this entire summer, though. The last time Jake had a full summer off was the summer after MS1 – so crazy!
This week I decided it was *finally* time to take the Etsy shop off “vacation” mode and start to ease ourselves back into what HAD been “normal life” back in Augusta. I’m happy to be working on arts and crafts once again…but it was NICE to have a massive break from everything. I have also been working on getting the kids’ school year activities scheduled…here is our insane tentative weekday schedule:
Monday
*preschool (Vera)
*Side by Side (Amanda)
Tuesday
*private cello lesson (Cole)
*SwimAmerica lessons (Cole & Vera)
Wednesday
*preschool (Vera), MDO (Asher)
*private golf lessons (Cole, possibly Vera)
*orchestra rehearsal (Jake & Amanda)
Thursday
*dance lessons (Vera)
*group cello lesson (Cole)
*SwimAmerica lessons (Cole & Vera)
We have yet to schedule Vera’s private and group violin lessons, so that will be two more things to add…I think I may lose my mind.
On the less slightly stressful front, a few days ago we officially announced that we are pregnant with baby E #4, due January 11, 2015! (And yes, we plan on not finding out the gender again…even though sometimes I think it may kill me…) Cole came at 39 weeks (which would be January 4th), Vera at 37w3d (December 24th), and Asher arrived at 38 weeks (December 28th)…needless to say we will be on baby watch throughout the Christmas and New Year’s holidays 😀 Just yesterday at 16w3d I felt movement and again today the same movement at the same time of day. Hoping the morning sickness eases off sooner rather than later!!
