So much to do, so little time ...

When we found out we were expecting, time was creeping soooo slowly. We counted down the days until our first appointment. Until Christmas, when we told most of our friends. Until the second trimester. Until the nausea was gone and making the grocery list didn't make me want to gag. Until we told our work places. Until we got to hear the heartbeat.

And then the last big milestone seemed to creep up a bit on me. We had our ultrasound at 18 weeks, and I thought, "Hey, we're not even halfway through this pregnancy. I just started feeling better a few weeks ago, and we just found out we're having a girl. We have all the time in the world."

Then we hit the 20-week mark. And strangers started noticing that I'm pregnant.

Now it seems like time is running in short supply. I can look at it from both sides - August seems soooo far away. But yet it feels like it was just December, and where has the time gone? There is so much we wanted to do before we found out we were pregnant but never found time to do it. There is so much we NEED to do before this baby comes. And so much we want to do in preparation for the baby, too. And I don't want much of this stuff to wait until the last minute - I will likely be huge, uncomfortable and tired (although by June I expect to be done with my part-time job *and* done with school). I'd love to have most of our big stuff done so that I can enjoy the last few weeks of pregnancy (as much as one can enjoy trips to the bathroom every five minutes, back pain and 100% Florida humidity while in one's third trimester). So to get a good idea of what we're looking at, I wrote out an updated version of our "to-do before baby arrives" list last night.

I don't think it's an unbelievably big amount of stuff to get done in the next few months, and certainly, if some of it doesn't get completed before the baby comes, the baby will still arrive and we will all live. I broke the list down in to things we need/want to do around the house (get blinds for our lanai, get rid of some furniture/rearrange to make room for baby's crib and dresser, etc.), baby-related things (complete our childbirth classes), craft stuff (make wall hangings for the baby's room, catch up on some scrapbooking, work on some cross-stitch projects), and personal stuff (finish my Web design certificate program, redesign my Web site).

We're also on the hunt to find a church we like in our area. When we moved down here, we lived in different cities. We weren't married, and we come from different religious backgrounds (Tim is Methodist, I am Catholic). After we got married, we talked about wanting to find a church so that we could get back to our faith and expand our roots in a new community. But then, among other life hiccups, my work schedule made that more challenging, as I work really late on Saturday nights, and it's hard to get up early enough for services on Sunday morning. But we've renewed our search and have several options, including a church that has later services, and we've decided to start attending after Easter Sunday. (I'm not against Easter at all, I just don't want to be one of those people who starts to show up to church around major holidays, and I think we'll get a better feel for the church during a "non-peak" time.)

And why do I tell you about all of my to-dos and our church plan? Accountability, baby :)