So this week has been eventful.  I had two Pampered Chef shows this week, bought a car, took care of a sick cat, had a head cold, and kept up with 4 open shows all together.  Good job, Nicki (patting myself on the back).

We got Lexi to the vet Tuesday.  They didn't know what was causing the sores on her.  They said it didn't look like fleas in any way, so maybe it was just her allergies again.  The solution--give her a shot to help with itching for about a week (which makes her throw up the whole next day...yay....) and then we had to give her some liquid meds twice a day until it runs out--antibiotics or something.  I was a little disappointed she didn't get the "cone", but at least it's an "easy" fix.  Of course, the vet bill wasn't easy....how can that stuff be so expensive??  Is there pet insurance we can get or something?  It wasn't fun to pay knowing that we just dropped our emergency fund as a down payment on a car and we've got baby costs quickly approaching.  You know what.....God always provides.  I have seen it time and time again, so I know that if we end up being in real "need", He will take care of it.  The other stuff we might not be able to afford--we don't really need.  Thanks for the reminder, God!

So Wednesday was spent cleaning up cat vomit and trying to shove an eye dropper into Lexi's mouth to get her to take her medicine.  Not fun.  Luckily, I got to leave for the evening to do another Pampered Chef show.  It was an outdoor show at this beautiful oudoor area built by the home owner in their back yard.  Amazing.  After talking with the husband-I found out that he is a contractor.  He actually built someone's house that I know, and put in a bid on another friend's house.  They go to our church--so I'll definitely be calling him up in a few years when we're ready to start building.  Any help or advice anyone is willing to give us, I will gladly accept.  Plus, they're big fans of our singing, so they actually like us :-)  Bonus.  The show was a lot of fun-using the grill during the show was a new challenge, and a successful one at that.  We had Grilled BBQ Chicken Pizza and then Caramel-Banana Ravioli for dessert.  I'm going to say that this ravioli is my favorite dessert that we make at my shows.  Always yummy and pretty easy to make! 

Thursday, we finally had an evening at home.  There was a big storm that was making our electricity kinf of surge off and on.  It was very strange.  So--we took the opportunity to get out as many candles as possible and save on lighting costs :-)  I got a lot of Pampered Chef paperwork done and then we attacked our disaster dining room together.  We had a build up of Yard Sale leftovers that needed to be stored until Adam's dad decides to do his yard sale (and hopefully we can unload some more before heading to Goodwill).  On top of that, with me being so busy lately, having more frequent PC Shows, the dining room table kind of became my "load em up" place that had lots of PC papers and products and bags and boxes all over it.  Definitely a nightmare and it's been a bother to Adam and myself for the whole month it seems like.  Again--another example of my laziness.  But-hey, we almost completely finished the room last night before we had to switch gears.  He had to prep for the radio and I had to pack for this weekend.

I'm heading out to Columbus, Ohio in a couple of hours.  There is the Pampered Chef Fall Launch meeting tomorrow and I'm headed there with my director and I think only one other consultant.  This seems to have been a very Pampered Chef focused post, but it's a big part of my life lately...so get over it!  Anyway--the Spring Launch meeting that I went to in January was lots of fun so I am expecting a great time again tomorrow.  We'll get to see what new products are coming out in the fall and then we'll get a little goodie bag with some smaller free products inside, along with a sneak peek of new recipes to showcase them and lots of fun and inspirational videos and speakers.  It always pumps me up!  And the best part--the free stuff.  I'm a sucker for free stuff  (as Capital One Visa knows--I signed up for the credit card my first week of college to get a t-shirt and a frisbee....SUCKER!  It's actually the only credit card that I still have open now.  Good for me for not ruining my credit with that impulse decision!).  I will do almost whatever PC asks me to do to get free products.  I LOVE them.  Now that Adam has rearranged the kitchen cabinets, I should have a good space to devote to storing all of this stuff. 

I'm excited and will be on the road to Ohio around 3pm.  Pray for safe travels!  I'll also be trying to get the 4 shows I have open closed either over the weekend or early next week.  Can't wait for that commission check!  It will be a doosy. 

Here's the only picture I have available to post today.  It's from this past week's church service.  Adam was singing "Danger Zone" from Top Gun.  The summer series is Blockbusters that never made the big screen--or, less popular Bible stories that were actually really interesting.  This summer we've already sang "Eye of the Tiger", "Up Where We Belong", "Power of Love", and few other classics from epic movies.  Adam rocked out Danger Zone.  Wish they would start posting the recordings again, but we're inbetween sound people so no one is assigned the task.  Maybe they'll turn up one day :-)

Laziness

So--maybe you're picked up on this, but I don't post when I have had a tiring day.  That's just the fact of the matter.  Sometimes, I'll try to get ahead and type a little during the day, but we've been so busy lately, that it's just not happening.  My apologies.

I have been so lazy, that I have not unpacked a suitcase from our weekend in Beckley.  There's not that much in it.  But I just can't make myself do it.  Any time I actually make it up to the bedroom where it is, I am so tired that I collapse on the bed and can't move.  This morning, Lexi hopped into the suitcase and seemed to be unzipping things so that I would get my act together.  She was like, "Mom!
Get it together!!"

This past weekend was particularly hard as I seemed to have gotten sicker, rather than better.  Boo for germs.  It didn't help that I sang all weekend--a pretty demanding song--and had to just sing through the sore throat to get it out.  That left me with a feeling of swallowing razor blades any time I could actually get down a swallow.  Oh--did I mention I had two Pampered Chef shows during this time?  I've got to figure out how to slow down.  I know that I won't be doing the crazy amount of shows for future months, so that gives me some peace of mind, but we also do so many other things in the evenings.  I'm definitely not taking the rest that I'm supposed so far.  It evidentally is effecting my immune system and my ability to get better.  I was telling Adam last night as my fever approached 100 degrees, that I thought 2nd trimester was supposed to be the fun one....why can't I have that?  I do have my appetite back, though I can't taste any food lately.  Hopefully that will return soon.  I didn't have a fever this morning, and had more energy, and could swallow without feeling the pain--so hopefully I'm on the upswing!  I woke Adam up with a coughing fit last night around 2:30--to which I had to get out of bed, drink water, eat Halls Breezers, and stay verticle as long as possible.  I think that I spent the beginning of my time dreaming that I was still at the Pampered Chef show I did earlier in the evening and apologizing after not being able to stop coughing.  Luckily, it was just a dream--I didn't cough but maybe once or twice at the show :-)  These Breezers have been a life saver here at work today.  I'm trying to keep my throat coated in them so i don't freak everyone out around me.  Coughing in tight quarters makes people nervous.  Don't want to be spreadin my germs around the office. 

In the middle of everything else going on this weekend, we had to get me a new car.  Well--a new used car.  Mine had just pooped out.  We were dumping thousands of dollars in repairs into it every year with repair after repair, and after Adam took it into the shop last week and they hit us with an $1100 bill--we said--no way we're putting that much MORE money into this heap of metal, and decided to try to get a different car.  Newer, safer, more reliable.  This is not the time we wanted to be spending extra money since we'll have to be purchasing baby furniture and an extra freezer, and so many other things in the near future, not to mention medical costs and then vacation that is coming up in September--but we just felt like it was wise to move away from this vehicle.  This is me saying goodbye--

So in exhange, after many hours battling with car sales people, we got something with a monthly payment we could afford.  It's a white Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo.  4-Wheel Drive, excellent interior and exterior.  I think we made a good decision.  It's hard to go further in debt while we were trying to get out of debt, but it would have been unsafe to stay with the ole' "Silver Bullet".  It's done now, so we'll be enjoying a newer car for a while.  Only thing--I have to keep it clean, cause it's white! Wish me luck!

We had a Dr's appointment this past Friday.  We were hoping to get an ultrasound.  It didn't happen.  She did have us go ahead and schedule an ultrasound for August 7th--so that is the official afternoon that we will be finding out if our baby rubber ducky is a boy or girl.  I really don't have a preference at this point.  I would be happy with either.  If I got to choose such things, I would prefer to have two kiddos--one boy and one girl.  You know, get the full experience.  But, since those things aren't really in my hands, I will be happy with a healthy child of either gender.  Some people have asked me if I feel like it's one or the other...I don't really know what I'm supposed to "feel", but if I had to take a stab at it--I would guess that it's a girl.  And plus--it would add irony to our lives--because we cannot agree on ANY girl names, so I could see God giving us a nice little "relationship challenge" before we actually get to impact another human being's life.  But either way, it would fit into my "one of each" hopes.  Doesn't matter what order.  We'll keep everyone posted on the outcome.

Today--Lexi has to go to the vet.  She has these soars on her face that she is scratching and keep fresh.  We're not sure what caused them, or if they're going to go away.  She also has several bumps on her body and neck.  We'll see what the ole' vet has to say, and how much we'll get charged for them to say it.  Might as well pile it on, right?  I'm thinking they're going to make her wear a cone so she stops scratching her face with her back claws.  That will be hilarious!  She hated the cone when she had to wear it for something else--always fun to torture our little "daughter" as long as it's for her own good...of course....I'm sure they'll be able to fix her up like new-and pass on some horrific treatment that we are supposed to do to her at home--just to make sure the torture is shared by the entire family--like applying an ointment somewhere or making her take a medicine.  That would be LOADS of fun...

Now--I don't feel AS lazy as I did before I wrote this.  At least I accomplished one thing I was supposed to today.  We'll see what else I can force myself to do :-)

Ahcoo!

So....yes.  I am sick.  again....boo.  I had several long and important meetings today so I couldn't take a sick day.  And plus, it would just make things worse since I've been so busy lately.  My first meeting of the morning, I walked in and the guys were like "What is wrong with you? You look horrible"...great....and I was thinking as I was getting ready that I did a pretty good job with hair and makeup to try to not look sick.  Oh well.  They're always honest with me.  Rod tried to send me home after a few meetings but I said I could either feel bad at home or I could feel bad at work-might as well knock some things off my list if I'm up to it.  I'll be fine.  Just a head cold or something like that. 

We got to go out to dinner with some friends tonight, Brittani and Joey.  We used to be in their home group but haven't been able to spend time with them since we moved out of the group.  It was good time getting to catch up with them, and you know I'm always in for some good food!  Well, at least since my appetite has come back :-)  I'll have to be careful to keep my meals small though, because I am hungry often, and have to eat when I'm hungry.  Small nutritious meal...that's the hope.  But they're not always available.  It's definitely a struggle with self control.  I give in some times.  Oh well.  No one is perfect!

So tomorrow is my next Dr appt.  I'm REALLY hoping that they'll do an ultrasound.  I would love to go ahead and find out the sex of the baby, but I'll settle for just an ultrasound if they think it's too soon to make that call.  I just want to make sure there's enough room in there!

No picture today, sorry :-) 

Rough Week so far

So we had a good time in Beckley this past week.  Monday, Adam had a later tee time so we helped out watching the kiddos at the Griffiths' house during the morning.  I assigned Adam a poopy diaper duty...to which I walked in on to find someone else had taken over to "show him how to do it"....sneaky Adam... We decided that since there would be a 3 to 3 1/2 hr drive home after Adam's round of golf, that I would join him on the course to watch and then we could immediately leave form there to go home.  So I was that creepy person standing in the trees on the course.  I walked the 18 holes and would walk ahead of them to find their balls that had wandered into the tree line.  At some point, I'm pretty sure they were aiming for me because the balls would come directly towards the tree I was standing behind.  I was very strategic in finding a "back tree" so that I wouldn't get any bounce off from another tree.  Your welcome, gentlemen, for keeping you from loosing your balls.  Here's a picture of Adam Monday morning.  He happened to have been wearing the same outfit as Eli (Ashley and Chad's son) that day.  How embaressing that they wore the same outfit :-)

I don't think Eli was comfortable for this picture...

As I was walking through the woods, I was not only reminded of God's beautiful handy work in the environment around me, but also of how clumsy I am.  I forgot that I can't walk straight when I am looking to the side.  I caught myself looking around in awe and then stumbling off of the path I was on.  Silly me. 

In the midde of Adam's round on Monday, there was about an hour rain delay.  This stopped all action on the course and caused a huge back up.  His tee time was at 1pm, but we didn't leave the course until 7:45.  Needless to say, it was pretty late when we got home.  After 11pm.  I collapsed in bed and was startled awake by Adam Tuesday morning telling me it was time to get up.  I rolled over to check the clock because I could have sworn I had just closed my eyes and there was no way it was already morning.  I felt like I got hit by a truck.  Boo for mornings.  After dragging myself to get ready for the day, I went out to my car to find my battery had died.  I apparently left some sort of light on over the weekend.  My bad.  A neighbor overheard my conversations trying to find a solution and came out to give me a jump.  So--I was almost 2 hrs late for work.  Rough start back.

Work didn't help the issues because things have gotten really busy all of a sudden.  Lots to do and not enough time to do it.  We are also in the position of hiring 4 new team members with our recent lossses.  Hopefully we can do this quickly before any one else gets burned out.  I'm trying really hard to leave work on time and leave work at work, but that rule might be bending for a little while. 

After work--the fun stuff.  Ashley had a Pampered Chef party in her brand new kitchen in her amazing adult house.  It was a nice relief to a stressful day.  I do enjoy doing the shows-luckily-so it was a nice way to end the day.  Poor Eli seemed to have picked up some germies from his cousins.  I'm pretty sure I did too, as I am feeling a little under the weather today too.  I do specifically remember one of the kids wiping snotty fingers all over my blackberry...and then I had an hour long interview call that I sat in on Monday afternoon....with the blackberry stuck to the side of my face.  Yay.  I will not be taking any meds for whatever creeps up there though.  Learned my lesson there.  I do have an OB appointment this Friday though, so at least they'll know I'm sick...I guess?  blah.  I'm also hoping they do an ultrasound while I'm there.  I would love to see a baby--although one of my email newsletters says it's the size of a rubber ducky right now...so that would be a fun sight to see as well.  That, or a tiny unicorn.  Who knows...

Today was full full full of meetings.  And it seemed a theme of, what do you mean you haven't had time to do this item from the list of 100 action items you were assigned last week??  Why not??  We're all a little down as a team with everything moving so quickly, so it's been a depressing work sight.  Tonight I am on a 9pm call with some SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) in Japan, New Zealand and Australia.  I'm not leading it, thank goodness, but have to be there to facilitate the Web Conference and phone conference that we're running for it.  It will be another long night. :-)

Lightening+Golf = no fun

Ok--so recap of the week that I did not blog....It wasn't that great.  Work got real stressful all of a sudden.  Some of the issues that were causing stress at the beginning of the year came back to haunt us.  Details not important, but I sure didn't feel like blogging about it.  Adam went golfing one evening and I had the house to myself for the evening...so I cried a lot.  I figure I was due a good crying.  I mean, everybody says pregnant women have raging hormones and cry all the time--so I could have my night. 

We left for Beckley Friday after work to come for the golf tournement the Adam is taking part of.  The BNI.  We come and stay with the Griffith family-Mom and Dad, an older son, two identical twins, all of the boys' wives, and their children, and some dogs.  It's a packed house for the weekend, but we all have a fun time hanging out.  There is yummy food, crafts, shopping, and lots of laughs.  All in all, a successful weekend that I'm in the middle of right now.  I'm trying to get some Pampered Chef stuff done while I'm here.  I have four more shows this month.  No--actually 4 cooking shows and one catalog show that is open.  Lots to do!  The host special is awesome, and the reward for consultant sales is totally rockin' as well--so it's really a win win.

I am in this weird middle stage of not fitting into my normal clothes, but not really being big enough for most maternity clothes yet...so I'm just trying to mix things up and make it work.  I'm thinking if I can get some maternity pants, I can use looser blousey tops and make it for a while.  I have tons of maternity tops now from friends, but after trying a few on as I was putting them into my closet, I decided I was a little too early to look like a house!  It's amazing how clothes can make you look so different. 

We have been taking a weekly belly picture that I was planning on putting on this blog, so as soon as I have a moment, I'll load them in so far. 

Oh--I just read the title.  Guess I should explain that!  The guys had their first round of golf today and they had an hour delay in the middle of the round because of lightening.  We didn't really notice it back at the house.  After they all came home, Adam and I went with Eric (one of the brothers) to a driving range to practice a bit.  When we got there, a strange looking cloud was growing and circulating over a mountain right next to the driving range.  We watched it for 30 minutes because the driving range man said we shouldn't be standing out with all of the lightening.  Good tip.  It was really freaky.  We gave up and came back because we knew dinner was going to be ready soon.  Evidentally it's dangerous to swing a metal rod/club around in the middle of grassy areas during a lightening storm....who knew....When we got back, the heavens opened up and it let loose some powerful rain.  A nice evening in my opinion, of fellowship.  The guys played poker at the neighbor's house and the girls made these crafty owls for someone's baby shower.  It was a fun time.  Now we are all telling funny stories in the main room.  There are twelve of us, and two dogs.  Everyone else is asleep.  This will soon be me, as my eyes are slowly drooping. 
Good night for now.  We'll see what adventures are waiting for us during the rest of the weekend.

It's been a busy week!  Monday, I was having some minor health issues that I called my doctor about.  They said--you definitely need to be seen today, but we can't fit you in.  So--that meant another trip to the Urgent Care place.  Boo.  Once there, after two hours of waiting, they realized that the medicine that they put me on last week caused another problem.  For real?!  The NP that saw me left the room twice so she could look up what to do and what I could take.  She told me she had to look it up...very reassuring.  Needless to say, after that experience, I was moody for the rest of the day.  Things that I could normally just brush off and not let bother me just really got on my nerves.  I know that I'm more easily aggrevated at this point, so I have this internal battle with myself before I react to things.  Monday was definitely a day for crazy thoughts.  When I got home from work, I had to search Morgantown for the medicine that they prescribed to fix the problem.  Strike out.  No one had it, so I had to call back for further instructions.  Very aggrevating.  Oh, and yesterday, they called me to give me lab results as to what exactly the problem was and if the meds they gave me were the correct ones or not (awesome, right?)--the girl that I talked to said, "Looks like your labs are normal.  You don't have any of the things we thought, so you can stop the meds"--I said---whatever!  I definitely have something going on.  So she put me on hold for 20 minutes while she consulted the physician on call.  They came back on the phone to say, ok-yes, the labs show I have what they are giving me medicine for--keep taking the medicine.  And oh, by the way, they forgot to test for something, so I'm going to have to go back in so they can take some more labs.  Ridiculous.  I can't trust them, and I can't go to my regular doctor.  I give up.  As my pharmacist friend, Ashley, always tells me....drugs are bad, don't take them.  Lesson learned...lesson learned....  Today my sinus infection symptoms are back--ear pain, sore jaw and neck.  Boo.  I'm not going to the doctor, or even calling them.  I can stick it out.
 
Tuesday night, I got a random phone call.  This girl calls and says, "do you remember applying to be on the game show Minute to Win It a couple years ago?"  Um....yes.  "Well, though we didn't call you for an audition, we kept your application and have a new game show coming out that we'd like for you to audition for.  Are you still interested?"  Um...yes.  I'm pregnant...so I can't do anything crazy.  "No problem.  It's a Skype based game show that is kind of like family feud in that you just guess what America's opinion was"  Ok....random.  So I talked with her a little bit more and set up a skype interview with a casting person for Thursday.  Yesterday I did that--she just asked me to talk about myself for about a minute.  That's easy.  I could talk about myself for an hour if you asked me to.  After that, she set up another audition that will be more lengthy with some producers.  I'll do that Tuesday night so they can see if my personality is what they're looking for.  They said I have to be energetic and opinionated.  Well--I can be those things if I really try hard.... ;-)   So we'll see how that goes.  Evidentally they keep applications from games shows until they can use them for something.  Interesting.

I think I mentioned that someone gave us free tickets to the Greenbrier Classic.  It was for Wednesday--practice rounds basically.  I definitely think I would prefer to do that again, because you get real close to the players, can get autographs and pictures, and even talk with some of them if they're in a good mood.  Wednesday was the Pro-Am so it would be one Pro playing with 3 amateurs (i.e. really rich old men that donated a lot of money to the tournement to do that).  It was STEAMING hot outside, but after watching the first two people slide by (including Tiger Woods), I started getting bottles of water to hydrate and it wasn't too bad after that.  Baby needs water...and turns out I do too.  We watched Tiger walk up to the green we were standing around talking to Jerry West (the NBA logo, from Morgantown, WV in case you don't know), watched him take some practice puts around the green after his team had finished the hole, and he walked a foot or two away from us to the next tee box.  I could have touched him....and then went to jail...but I could've....He doesn't give autographs until the end (they say...i doubt he ever gives autographs).  Most of the other players give autographs between every hole, which was super fun.  Here's a pic of Tiger as he walked to the next tee box right next to us.  He's shorter than he looks on tv.



We kind of wandered around the course that day.  The big crowds followed Tiger, so we were the only people on some holes watching.  It was great.  I am now a big fan of Charles Howell III.  He was super nice and stopped and talked with us for a minute about West Virginia.  I like him a lot.  Jonathon Byrd was also really nice, but he seemed to be sick.  He's playing well this week though.  Jon Daily was weird, but of course had some nice patriotic pants on.  Jim Furyk was a trooper hanging out to sign as many autographs as he did.  We got a total of 13 autographs.  Very fun time.  They were very organized at the Greenbrier as well.  I was very impressed with the transportation shuttles, parking, and everything.  Very well done.  We even went into the hotel to walk around and eat a meal.  It's like a mall in that place.  Very nice. 

After that, we got back to our car, decided we didn't have the energy or patience to wait for the 9pm concert that night, so we drove to the downtown area, walked around for a bit, and then met up at the Griffiths' grandmother's house in Beckley.  They were having a cook out so we joined them for a bit.  We head back to Harold and Di's house (Chad's parents) to collapse for the night, and were able to leave whenever we felt like it the next day after they left for the tournement as a giant family group.  We are blessed to have the Griffith family in our lives.  They treat us like we're they're own! 

We talked on our drive back about what we SHOULD HAVE said to some of them as they were signing our stuff.  There's a popular song out now, "Call me maybe", that's really catchy, so we were replacing the lyrics with different combinations.  This is what we came up with..."Hey, I just met you....and this is crazy.....my wife is pregnant.....will you name our baby?"  It works with the chorus...we're not crazy :-)  Oh well--maybe next year.  Of course...I won'tbe pregnant then.  Oh well.

On our way back to Morgantown, we stopped in Bridgeport to return the pack and play my mom got us.  It's an AWESOME pack and play, but unfortunately--it turned out to be really pink.  Since we don't know what the baby is yet, and we would like to be able to use it for whatever babies are to come, we thought it best to get a gender neuteral color so we could get the most use out of it.  We returned it to the store, and they gave us a gift card for the entire amount as a refund.  I ordered the other color that night and it should be here next week!  Yay!  I'm excited to take it out and out it together.  Of course, Adam will kill me since we're already pushed for space, but I just want to see what it looks like and play with it for a little bit!  I'll pack it away in the travel bag when I'm done, but it's got some really neat features and I'm very excited to play with it.  Thank you, Mom, for getting it for us.  It's a really awesome pack and play.

Since we were already at the mall there, we couldn't resist doing a little shopping while we were there.  I suprisingly had some energy to walk around even more, so I got to get a good amount of maternity clothes I've been needing.  Jeans, shorts, and a couple of tops that I can just wear over a tank top top and can get as big as I need to.  I went to Motherhood Maternity to try on a bunch of things because they have a fake belly you can try on to see if it will work when you're bigger.  I wanted Adam to take a picture and post it on facebook, but I think it was freaking him out a little bit!  He wouldn't take a picture :-)  Oh well.  You guys will just have to wait to see the real thing :-)  The baby is the size of a naval orange now, I think, is what one of the sites said.  Maybe a little bigger.  My next appointment is a week from today, so I'm hoping we'll get an ultrasound picture.  Not sure we will though.  I just really want to see that it's a baby in there....not a unicorn...or an orange.  It would be really nice.  We'll see.

Today, since NO ONE was at the office at work, I decided to work from home.  I got a lot done, and it was nice to stay in sweat pants all day.  Very relaxing day.  I am also feeling like I can do more, so I went ahead and gave my closet another go through to get out clothes that I can't wear anymore to make room for all of the maternity stuff.  I'm really loving maternity jeans, so I'll probably try to get one more pair of those, and then I really need to get work pants.  I've been unsuccessful in finding any that I like so far, but I still have some places I can go to give it a try.  And I would like to get a pair or two of capris.  Oh--and I would like to find some cute summer dresses.  Once I get those few things, I think I'll be set for a while!   I'll start attacking the rest of the house soon--making room for another person will be a challenge.  One thing I have to keep reminding myself of is that my body can't do as much as it used to, so I need to take it easy sometimes.  It's frustrating, but I definitely pay for it when I over do it. 

This should be a fun weekend coming up, filled with Blueberry picking, singing, and Pampered Chef.  We'll see how long it takes me to collapse :-)