The Vinyl Cutter Worked!

After much research about raster graphics and vector based graphics and much practice using various graphics programs like Illustrator and Fireworks, Dan finally figured out a process to make our shapes work with the software that came with the vinyl cutter, which allowed him to mechanically cut the shapes out of the rolls of vinyl in various colors that I had purchased.

The vinyl cutter is like a big printing machine that connects to Dan's computer. It uses a stylus that automatically moves to trace the outlines of the shapes that are provided to it by the software program on Dan's computer. We can replace the stylus in the machine with another that has a cutting tip, and it cuts the outline of the shapes into the vinyl, but without cutting into the thicker backing paper. It's a pretty cool machine!

Dan can adjust the vinyl cutter to cut the cartoon-ish designs in various sizes. I had purchased rolls of the vinyl in several colors. We had already agreed to a general design for the walls, so it was just a matter of cutting the shapes in the correct colors, and taking the sections we wanted and placing them on the wall.

Here's a little insight into our design process. All of our projects end up much bigger than we originally intend them to be. The design started with our idea of having a kite or several kites hanging from the ceiling in the room. The walls in the room are a bright, light blue, so we both imagined clouds on the walls as a background for the kites. When we looked at commercially available vinyl decals of clouds, we found one package that included a green airplane and a few clouds. We purchased the package, and loved the plane, but I didn't like that the clouds were pink and clover-shaped. When we saw that the vinyl decals were essentially just shapes cut out of a sticky vinyl, we thought that if we found that type of vinyl, we could cut out whatever shapes we wanted and make our own decals. I was happy, because then I could create clouds in shapes that were more appealing to me, and I could make them larger. Another design we found that we like was of cute, cartoon-y little guys that were parachuting and falling out of the sky. We thought that would go well with the airplane, so a version of those were added into the overall design. As Dan was playing with working with various graphics to work with the vinyl cutter, he decided that some birds flying by should be added to the design, so he worked up a cartoon-y shape of a seagull and used the vinyl cutter to create different sizes.


What started out with an idea about a kite hanging from the ceiling turned into a full blown wall mural of vinyl stickers across two walls of the baby room. The whole process took a few days. Mostly it was because Dan had to work and I was busy sleeping through my 10-day sickness and only working on the project during the few hours in the evening when my head was clear. When the project was completed, though, both Dan and I were happy with the results.

Sick and Pregnant (But Better Now)

Okay, so I have been neglecting the blog for a while. I got behind because I was sick, and then I just felt like I could never keep up with all the changes that are going on. I'll think I'll start (calendar-wise) where I left off.

That first week of March, I caught a really bad cold or flu or something really unpleasant. As I was teaching in the computer lab at my school during the last week of February, I noticed a large number of the students sniffling and coughing, and as some of the little ones tend to do, they would wipe their noses with their bare hands, then continue using the computer keyboard and mouse. Grossness above all grossness! I trusted in my normally sturdy immune system, but still was wary of the germs that the students were carrying. I used a lot of Lysol and antibiotic wipes and washed my hands often. I made it to the weekend, apparently healthy. I kept going, spending a long, enjoyable day with Dan's family that Saturday. The lack of sleep while teaching during the week and playing over the weekend probably didn't help my immune system.

By Saturday night, I was completely exhausted from all the activity. I slept hard through the night. I didn't wake up even once to use the restroom, and I woke up really late. I was groggy while I got dressed and ate breakfast, and less than a couple of hours later, I crashed back into bed to sleep for a couple of more hours. That part was especially not normal for me. I'm usually a morning person, even on weekends.

I told Dan I wasn't feeling well. I wasn't hungry and I didn't feel like doing anything but sleep. A pregnant woman who's not hungry is definitely a bad sign, right? Fortunately, I didn't have to work on Monday or Tuesday, so I figured that I could sleep it off. On Sunday and Monday, I really did nothing except sleep, eat chicken soup, drink water, take Tylenol and Vitamin C. Dan was impressed that I could sleep 4 or 5 hours during the day, then sleep the whole night without interruption. And I was still waking up late.

Usually, if I get really sick, two days of sleep and chicken soup fends whatever it is off, so Tuesday, I tried to go back to my normal schedule of being awake in the daytime. I was feeling a bit better, and normally I would have recovered by then, even with a nasty sickness. And that Tuesday was my most recent blog entry.

Not a chance. By Tuesday evening, I was back to feeling horrible, but I went to sleep hoping that I would feel better enough in the morning to go to work. The next morning, I called in sick to work, then I went back to sleep. I knew it was bad, because even when I told my work who I was, they still didn't recognize my voice, I sounded so sick!

I hate calling in sick to work. All the time I spend at home, I just worry about what's going on at work, and I imagine all sorts of scenarios where everyone is angry at me for not showing up. When you work with little kids, it hits the guilt sections of your mind and heart particularly hard. Also, since I knew my time is limited at work, I felt stressed that the school computer projects weren't going to be completed prior to the baby coming. I tried very hard not to worry, and was encouraged by scolding emails from the teachers and staff at the school, telling me to stay at home and take care of myself and Belly.

I ended up feeling miserable and calling in sick for the rest of that week, and continued recovering through the weekend.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I racked my brain for the last time I had been so sick for such a long time. After days of thinking, I remembered a time in high school when I was taking so many AP classes and it was exam time. I think I was sick for a week once then.
I did a search on the Internet about getting sick while pregnant. Most of the hits were as expected, many pregnant women complaining that they couldn't take any medicine except water and Tylenol. There were other sites that listed some medications that were okay for pregnant women, but I'm always wary of people who are so quick to take medicine, and I definitely didn't want to jeopardize Belly, after we've worked so hard to get this far.

It turns out that a woman's body naturally lowers its immune system significantly while pregnant, so that it doesn't accidentally fight off the baby as a foreign element. It makes so much sense now. But here I was, trusting in my healthy immune system that had been so protective of me until now, and it wasn't even there! I still don't know exactly what it was that I caught, but what a terrible experience!

It was very frustrating to be sick for so long and only have the options of Tylenol, water, and sleep to help me get better. Chicken soup didn't seem to have that magical quality that it usually does. Even lemon and honey tea didn't seem to help much.

Fortunately, I did eventually fight it off after about 10 days, and I'm much better now.

Room Decor

There's this new trend in home decorating - vinyl wall decals. They're an alternative to painting, they're easy to apply, they're removable and they're easy to customize to your own space or design. I see them as big stickers for your walls. I had seen them before, because they are becoming more and more popular in arts and craft stores and in home decor stores. Dan found them on the Internet while he was searching for baby room decor. They come in scroll designs, lettering, or large silhouettes of plants, animals, people and places. They even have vinyl in shapes that emulate spacecraft or video games.

Initially, the idea was to create clouds to go along with our kite theme. I wasn't opposed to painting a few clouds and leaving it at that. Dan thought that the vinyl wall art would be easier to put up now and remove later. This is a very practical idea, given our tendency to change our minds. As we were looking through the available options of designs and shapes, we found some other whimsical designs we liked as well.

Most people would just find the designs they like, buy as many as they could afford or fit on a wall, and leave it at that. Dan and I don't think that way. We think, hey, it's just stickers - some vinyl and an xacto knife... we could do that! After some pricing research, we ordered some rolls of vinyl in different colors and a couple of xacto knives and a cutting mat. We were very happy for a little while, but then we realized that cutting the shapes by hand took a lot of time and effort. So, back to the Internet. We found that there are vinyl cutting printers that can hook up to your computer and automatically cut out the shapes you want! Things just aren't worth doing in this household if you can't plug it in! Ha ha!

The vinyl cutter just came in today. We're working out how to use it. If we can get it to work, then you'll probably be seeing vinyl shapes appear all over our house and maybe on our cars or anything else we can think of to decorate with vinyl. If we can't, I guess it's back to the cutting mat.

How Are You Feeling? - Part II

I've recently changed my answer to this oft-asked question from "Fine" to "Pregnant." Overall, the Science Project is going well. All observations are as expected. I've entered the Uncomfortable Third Trimester Phase.

I feel very big and round, all over, no just in my belly. I've been waddling instead of walking for a couple of months now. I'm certain I could do a great Laughing Buddah statue impression, if I tried.

I feel swollen at times in my hands and in my feet. Some people have said it doesn't look bad, compared to other pregnant women they have known, so maybe it's in my head, or maybe they're just being nice because I'm pregnant.

In the computer lab, I keep trying to squeeze into spaces between chairs and tables that I used to slip through. My belly bumps into the backs of students' heads and shoulders. I apologize, noting how big my belly has become. The students agree, as sweetly and as politely as they can, that yes, my belly is quite big. Watching the kids try their hardest to agree with me, yet be polite, is pretty funny.

I often feel physically exhausted. My lungs can't wait to get their space back from the upward pressure from my belly. I almost passed out going from my car to the ATM earlier this week, because I moved too quickly and my lungs and blood pressure couldn't keep up. It's weird, because in my head I remember how quickly I used to move from place to place, but when I try, I quickly remember that I'm lugging around 30 more pounds than I'm used to.

I'm constantly ravenously hungry, but I can only eat a few handfuls of food at a time. There's only so much you can get done in a day if you're constantly preparing food and eating it.

My feet start to hurt after standing for any period of time. I'm constantly leaning against sturdy things or finding a place to sit. Standing even for a short time while teaching in front of the computer lab or standing in line at the grocery store can become very difficult. If I'm out with Dan and I have to wait for even just a little bit, he turns around and finds that I have run away and found the nearest clean place to sit. Where were we when I last did that? Oh yes, Starbucks! I couldn't even wait a minute for his coffee to be prepared!

Despite the physical changes in my body, I am confident that they are all perfectly normal and healthy for a pregnant woman expecting to give birth in the next 6 weeks or so. Last week, the doctor had me schedule my next appointment for three weeks out, so that tells me that all is going well and that she's fairly certain that the baby's going to keep incubating for at least that long. I am taking all the discomfort in stride with good humor and anticipation for the hard part - when the baby's actually here.

Still No Name

Here we are, 34 weeks along our 40 week journey, and we still have no name for Baby Burnett. A number of people have responded to this information with knowing smiles, saying, "Ah, of course! You really have a name, but you just want to keep it a secret, so you're just saying that, right?" Nope. It's true that if we had a name, we had planned on keeping it a secret until the baby was born, but it's also true that we still haven't decided on a name.

Early on in the pregnancy, we had chosen a family name that we thought would be perfect, but as we asked around, we discovered that name had a negative emotional connotation, so we threw that option out. That left us back at Square One, and we've been there ever since.

We looked at a few Baby Name books and the endless lists of names on various web sites on the Internet. That research method is proving to be fruitless, because there are so many names in these lists, and so many of them just "won't work" for our kid, or for any kid, for that matter. Just because someone out there named their kid something funky, doesn't necessarily make it a "good" name. The school and teenage years will be difficult enough, and we are trying very hard not to make it worse for our kid.

When we're looking at lists of names, it's inevitable to associate a name with a person we've known in our lifetime. Most of the names remind us of "that one person who..." I've got 10 years under my belt of working in various school districts, so many of the names I tend to reject almost immediately because I am reminded of a snotty or bratty or bully kid I once knew. Dan has his own list of names in his head that remind him of a smarmy sales person or a nerdy techie person he has known. We're trying to move away from these biases, in the hope that this new being we've created will forge his own identity in another time and place than these other people we once knew.