Today I had to endure a 3-hour-long glucose tolerance test at my ObGyn's office. I had a 1-hour test done a few weeks ago, which I just barely failed, and so I earned myself the opportunity to participate in the extra-long version of the test. Not pleasant. For those who may not know what a glucose tolerance test is like, allow me to explain. First, I was given strict instructions not to eat or drink anything besides water after midnight the night before my scheduled test. The next morning, as I was starving and desperately craving a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I went in to my doctor's office, where I was handed an 8oz. bottle of neon orange glucose-laden liquid and informed that I had 5 minutes to consume it. The stuff wasn't nearly as awful as I had expected. It tasted like a melted version of one of those cheap "freezer pops" that come in the plastic wrappers. After that, I was handed a timer with the instructions not to eat or drink anything, not to leave, and to come straight back when the timer went off. So I sat in the waiting room with my mom, who graciously agreed to come keep me company, for the designated hour until my timer started beeping, signaling the end of the test (this was my initial test, of course). They drew some blood and sent me on my way, assuring me I would have the results in a couple of days. Approximately a week and a half later, after 2 phone calls and an email to the doctor's office in search of the promised results, I found out that I failed. They were looking at my blood sugar level, which they want to be less than 130 at the end of the test. Mine was 138. And so, those 8 measly points bought me another test, only this one was 3 times as fun because it lasted for 3 hours. I initally went in to have it done last Thursday, and my wonderful husband took off from work to come pass the time with me. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing when we went in, since I had already done the mini version. Little did I know... When I went back to drink my liquid sugar, I was handed a larger bottle of "juice," with twice the glucose content of the previous one, and this time it was fruit punch flavor. Still feeling optimistic, I downed it in the allotted 5 minutes, and returned to the waiting room where Charles and I were prepared to pass the 3 hours with reading and Sudoku for me, and paper-grading for him. Approximately 30 minutes into the test, my confidence started wavering a bit. My head felt funny and I was suddenly reminded what morning sickness had felt like. Thinking I might feel a little better if I got up and walked around for a minute, I went into the bathroom and promptly threw up the entire bottle of red glucose drink. Unpleasant, but I felt much better afterwards. Unfortunately, because I was unable to keep it down for at least an hour, I was forced to reschedule my test and endure the entire routine all over again. I was pretty bummed, but I'm pretty sure Charles was glad not to have spend 3 hours sitting in the waiting room. Can't say I was entirely disappointed about that either. Since he had already taken the day off, we got to spend the rest of the morning and afternoon getting some errands done that we hadn't had time for lately, which was nice. And so, this morning I once again took my growling stomach in to the OB's office for round 2 (or 3, depending on how you look at it). I had hoped they would let me have the orange flavor again, but unfortunately I had to endure the dreaded fruit punch flavor again. I had a little harder time getting it down this time, no doubt because of my looming fear of seeing it again, but managed to succeed in the allotted time frame. My mom came with me again this time, so she and I went out to the waiting room, made ourselves comfortable on one of the couches, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, I was able to keep everything down this time, and had my hourly blood tests drawn without incident. Now I just have to wait for the results. Hopefully I will get them in a more timely manner this time. I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday, so I figure surely by then I should know something. Hopefully it will be good!

Two days in a row?!?! Look out, world!! I'm on a blogging spree!

Today was a good day a work. I needed a good day today, considering the last day I worked was utter chaos. I thought it would be fun to work on Halloween. Last year, they passed out costumes to all the kids and had a little party for them and all was fun and happy. Not so this year. Someone up on high decided it would be a good idea to instead hold all of the holiday festivities on Friday, so all the 8 to 5 folks could attend, I guess. Boo on that decision. So I arrived to work on Saturday with no cute kids in costumes to adore, no fun festivities to watch, and a bunch of crazy, cranky families to take care of. Sad day for me. But today was good. I worked with a fun group of people, had fantastic patients and families, and a generally laid back day. Good times. Probably one of my favorite moments of the day occurred when one of my patients' overly-involved grandmother came out of the room and asked me if I knew when her grandson's doctor would be making rounds. When I told her I didn't know, it just depends on their schedules, she shook her head and said seriously, "I really hope they reform healthcare. This is ridiculous!" Um...ok? I don't know how reforming healthcare will make the doctors round on any kind of a schedule, but whatever.

I think I have figured out my problem. Or, one of them, at least. I have blog envy. I spend my time reading blogs of friends who are so entertaining and humorous and talented, and I think to myself, "There's no way anyone out there wants to waste their time with my boring ramblings, when there are quality blogs to be read!" And so, I don't update my blog. But I have decided this should no longer be an excuse. When I first started blogging, many moons ago, it was not for the purpose of entertaining whatever people might stumble across it, it was to have some sort of outlet for the random thoughts that stumbled across my brain, or to chronicle the current goings-on in my life, purely for my own sense of release. People could read or not read what I had to say, and all was well. But somewhere along the way, I lost that. I began to feel like unless I had something exciting or amusing or interesting to share, I was wasting people's time, so I cut back drastically on my blogging. I have since decided this is ridiculous reasoning, and I need to return to my blogging roots. Go me.

And so it begins...

I am excited to report that I have finally gotten to a stage in pregnancy where I pretty much feel good all the time. Hooray! The morning sickness left around 18 weeks or so, and I have been feeling much more human since. My tummy has also finally started growing to a degree that is obvious to more than just me, which I find exciting. Along with that, my belly button is slowing starting to become an outtie, which I'm not so sure I find equally as exciting. It feels weird, and I find myself walking around pushing on it like a button, like maybe it will make something special happen. So far, nothing to report. Another thing I am loving right now is feeling Landry (that's her name, in case you missed it) move around inside me. It's unlike any feeling I've ever felt before, and I really think I will miss it after she's born. I was trying to explain to Charles the other day how I think I might be kind of sad after she's here and I can't take her everywhere with me all the time and know she's ok. Obviously, I expect that the joy and excitement of actually seeing her and holding her and loving her will drastically overshadow this tiny sadness, but I still think it will be there. I don't think he got it. I can't blame him. It does seem pretty silly. Oh well. I can tell you what I won't miss, though. This feeling that some tiny, baby appendage is constantly pushing on my right ribs. I don't know what to do with that. I just noticed it about a week or so ago, and it is super uncomfortable! Most of the time I can reposition myself enough to either make it go away or become less noticeable, but it always comes back. Annoying. But then I feel those little kicks, and I smile and life is good again. :)

Here it is!! The day some thought would never come! The day I FINALLY update the old blog!!

So, it's been a really long time, friends. (Assuming I still have friends that check this thing...) I have been a terrible slacker lately, but I figured an update was in order, considering some major developments have taken place in the Nobles' household since my last post.

I'm sure anyone reading this already knows, either via Facebook or human contact, but in case anyone has been living under a rock for the past 3 1/2 months, I'M PREGNANT!! I know, crazy, right? But there it is. A new little baby Nobles will be entering the world sometime at the end of January. My official due date is January 29, but we all know how likely that is to be accurate. We don't yet know if this little person will be of the male or female persuasion, but we should find out in another 4 weeks or so. I go in for my 3rd appointment on Wednesday, where we will get to hear little Jellybean's heartbeat once again. Yay! The sonogram happens on the next visit. I don't really have any preferences as to which gender we have, although the vast majority, if not all of the people who have ventured their predictions have gone with girl. I would be happy with that. Charles is just happy there's only 1 baby in there. :) Needless to say, we are both super excited about everything, and also wondering how in the world we became grown up enough to become parents. Weird. So far, everything is going smoothly. I have had my fair share of the morning sickness (which people assured me would go away in the 2nd trimester...so far no such luck), but if that's the worst I have to deal with, I will consider myself blessed.

Let's see...what else? Charles finished up his first year of teaching at Martin, and is getting ready to start year 2 in just a couple of weeks. This year he will have an added adventure: coaching ladies' wrestling! This was an unexpected opportunity that was offered to him, and even though it's probably (ok, definitely) not his first choice of sports to coach, he is super excited to have the opportunity to get a start in high school coaching. Who knows what kinds of doors this will open in the future. Until then, there is much to be learned and girls who might be able to beat us both up to keep happy.

Work is going really well for me. The summer was interesting, as they were remodeling half of the floor I work on, so I got to spend a lot of time floating to other units in the hospital. I don't mind floating at my job here nearly as much as I did in Abilene. At least here, no matter where I go, I am always taking care of children, and not being forced to palpate funduses of women who have just given birth. (I am super glad there are people out there who enjoy that kind of nursing, and I'm sure I'll come to appreciate them even more after having my own child, but I am just not cut out for that.) Anyway, the remodeling process just finished up about 2 weeks ago, so now we are back to full capacity. The new unit is so pretty! It's all bright and festive, and even smells new. I've had the opportunity to work on that side of the floor twice so far, but the last couple of times I've worked I've been on the old, drab, gray and blue side. Oh well. I still love my job.

This summer has been fantastic as well. In June, Charles and I went back for our second year of working at New Beginnings Camp. Charles was a counselor and I was the nurse. I had to do the nurse thing all by myself this year, which I was slightly freaked out about, but we ended up having a fabulous week, free of any major illnesses or injuries. We recruited my brother Brandon to come along this year as well, and I think he enjoyed it too. I hope we get to go back again next year. Just the week before last, I went to camp again by myself, this time at Camp Heavenbound. There I was one of 3 nurses, which I was super glad about, because we were much busier there! It was kind of an interesting experience though, because this is the session of camp I grew up going to and working at as a counselor. It was weird to go back as "adult staff" and to realize that all the teenagers who were the counselors were my campers back in the day! It definitely made me nostalgic for the youth group days as well. I was definitely blessed to grow up in an awesome church family with a very active youth group that did so many fun things. It also made me feel a little old, but that's beside the point...

Well, that's about all I've got for now. Sorry I fell off the face of the earth. I guess I really should get back into the habit of updating with a bit more frequency, especially so when the baby comes I can share all the interesting experiences we are certain to encounter... I will work on it. Thanks for sticking with me. Love to all!!

Well, the good news is that Emmy does not have Addison's disease. But, we still don't know what caused her megaesophagus. The vet is not too concerned about running a bunch of other tests at this point, since 40-50% of the time they never determine a cause. For now, her medicines seem to be working. She has not thrown up at all since we started giving them to her. Hooray! She seems to be adjusting to her eating from her new elevated feeding dishes as well. However, most of the time she still just takes the food from the bowl, carries it into the living room, drops it, and eats it off the floor. What a weirdo.

Today Charles and I took Emmy for a walk in our new neighborhood. It is such a gorgeous day today! It was nice just to get outside for a little while. We really should probably start walking more often. I think it would be good for us. And the dog. And, now that we have a nice neighborhood to walk in, we really have no excuse not to.

For the past several weeks, Charles and I have been going to church at Lakeside Church of Christ here in Mansfield. It is less than 5 minutes from our house, which is fantastic. But that is not the only reason we like it. It is a smallish size church, which really seems to fit us. We really loved the small, family feel of Hope back in Abilene, and it was really hard for us to leave it. Ever since we have moved back, we have kind of been church hopping trying to find a place where we felt at home. It was especially hard when we lived in the apartment in North Richland Hills, because we didn't really feel motivated to get involved in a church out there since we knew we would only be living there for a short time. We went back and forth to Pleasant Ridge, but never really felt that would be our forever home either. Charles definitely prefers a smaller congregation, and I was just ready to go somewhere where we would put down our own, new roots. (Not that I don't love my family there with all my heart, biological and spiritual!) So we have been going to Lakeside for about a month or so now, and we have really enjoyed it. Everyone we have met has been super friendly, and the church has a nice, close-knit, family feel to it. Today we asked about joining one of the small groups that meets on Sunday nights. We figured that would be a good way to get to know some people better, and find out more about what the people of Lakeside are all about. The guy we met told us they weren't meeting tonight, but that he would definitely get in touch with us about next week. I am excited!

I am ready to feel more settled in life. I really haven't felt all that settled since we moved back from Abilene. I'm definitely glad to be here, don't get me wrong, but I guess I just haven't felt "home" yet. I think a huge part of it is because I haven't really established a group of friends here again. Pretty much all the people I hung out with before aren't here anymore, and even though some are, we are all going a million different directions in life now. I have made some friends at work, but at this point none of those friendships extend beyond work hours. I miss having a group of people to hang out with. I realize that now that I have entered "grown up land" my social life will look different, but we don't even have any other married friends here that we hang out with. Hopefully getting involved at church will be a good way to meet people and make friends. That's how I've met pretty much all of my best friends in life so far!

Hello, friends! I have not fallen off the face of the earth. We have been pretty busy the last several weeks getting the new house all put together! It is so much fun to have a house! Last week was spring break for Charles, so he had the whole week off. I took the week off as well, originally with the intent of going on a trip for our 1 year anniversary, but in the end we just stayed here and put the house in order. There are still a few little things left to be done, but for the most part we are all settled in. Can I just say how excited I am about the fact that I don't know when I will be moving again? It's really a wonderful feeling. I was thinking about it, and ever since I graduated from high school, I have known the next time I would be moving. Whether it be from dorm room to dorm room, dorm room to house, or apartment to apartment, I have always known when my next move would be. It is so great that now I can officially feel settled.

Yesterday was a traumatic day for our sweet puppy dog. For the last several weeks, she has been randomly throwing up for no apparent reason. It doesn't happen everyday, and she doesn't act like she feels bad, but for whatever reason, she just keeps doing it. We have actually taken her to the vet twice before for vomiting, but on both of those occasions she was throwing up like 10 times in a day. At first we thought she ate something weird. Then we thought maybe she had allergies, so we started giving her Benadryl. But yesterday she threw up the Benadryl as well, so I decided to take her in to see the vet again. They did some x-rays and found out what's going on. She has what they call megaesophagus. Basically, the muscles in her esophagus are weakened for some reason, and her esophagus is like 3-4 times bigger than it's supposed to be. Turns out, she hasn't actually been vomiting all this time, she's just been regurgitating food, saliva, etc. that hasn't even made it to her stomach. Poor puppy! So now we're just trying to figure out what caused it. They did a test yesterday for Addison's disease, which we should hear back about today. If it's not that, they may run another test to see if it's myasthenia gravis. Both of those conditions are treatable. Or, it could be that one of the times she was throwing up so much before her esophagus got so irritated that it caused this, or we may never know the cause. So, for now we have to give her Reglan and Zantac twice a day, which is supposed to increase motility in her esophagus and decrease acid in her stomach to hopefully manage the regurgitation. We also bought her elevated feeding dishes, which is supposed to put her in a better position for eating so her food will make it to her stomach. When the vet was telling me about elevated feeding positions yesterday, she said that some dogs have this so bad that they have to be fed in a high chair type thing. I almost laughed in her face. I cannot even imagine Emmy eating from a high chair! She would not be happy! But, of course I had to know what this looked like. So I Googled it. Here is what I found: http://www.geocities.com/bailey_chair/Page2. Hopefully we will not get to that point!

Good news!! We closed on the house on Friday! Hooray!! I was a little bit afraid for a while that I had jinxed everything with my last post, but in the end everything worked out. So, now Charles and I are officially homeowners! Crazy! We are going to take our time moving in and take advantage of the house being empty to get some things fixed up just the way we want them. Nothing big, just some paint and flooring and things along those lines. I am excited!