today i am due

it is 4:36am. jack woke me up at 4-ish and i can't sleep. there are no magazines i haven't read, no movies i want to watch, no books i could concentrate on, no part of the house that really needs cleaning... nothing to do! except keep checking my e-mail and peeking in on my favorite blogs.

thankfully dan will be up at 5am. i am so awake and he'll be so tired and groggy and i will annoy him.:) but i won't mean to. it's a "cereal day" today since i made scrambled eggs and leftover biscuits for breakfast yesterday. should i have cheerios or cocoa crispies?...

dirty rotten magazine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

guess which check just cleared my bank account. if you guessed the one i wrote out to "fit pregnancy" magazine for $5.97, then, ding ding ding! CAN YOU BELIEVE THEM? i am really disturbed. i am due tomorrow and they cash my check for their thrice buggered mag. i printed out a copy of my check image. i had written across the top, "I protest paying for a subscription I never received.". i wrote in the message line, "Please void! I don't want your magazine.". apparently big corporate america does not have any shame. frustration.

i think i will go scrub the bathroom now.

less than 2 days to go...

here is a bit of an e-mail i mailed my husband's step-mom. --
"i'm due thursday. the suspense is killing me. other than that, some acid reflux and carpal tunnel and fatigue, i am doing well.:) i even cleaned the house really well today. tomorrow i will scrub the bathroom. if that doesn't bring on labor i am going to go up and down the basement stairs! i guess jumping jacks will follow soon after if THAT doesn't work."

seriously. one of the biggest days of my life is just LOOMING. i would say graduating from pcc and my wedding day were two of the biggest and best days of my life. they happened on a certain day i knew ahead of time and began at a certain set time. labor? crazy! it could happen anytime! i could be pregnant a week from now! or i could have this baby in a few short hours. insanity.

i put the car seat in my car today. i placed the newly painted bassinet in the bedroom with it's liner my mother made it, and the pad, and i placed the new sheet on the pad. then i decorated the bassinet with a blue crotcheted blankie my aunt made jack. it is waaaay too hot for it, but it looks precious.

jack just got the hiccups. again. i will not miss them.:) i will miss his wiggling.

"ar be dar", mateys!

arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! i successfully made it to "pirates" last night at 8. hoorah! it was fab. it was a big pirate bonanza. is it the best of the three or worst of the three? i don't know. i really don't care. i like it. pirates, johnny, orlando, keira, jeffery rush... oh, i especially love the greasy bald pirate with his wooden eyed friend. they are very amusing.

i was worried that watching the trailers and reading up on the movie would take away all the surprises. don't you hate that? thankfully there were PLENTY of surprises. a few i didn't care for. the cheesy surprises. i would hate to tell you what they are and ruin your surprise, so if you want to know which i thought cheesy i will e-mail you about that. i love to talk about books and film and such.

i did not catch one glimpse of my friend patrick janelle as an east india trading company soldier. there were so many characters on screen and it moved very fast. i will have to wait and see if he could pick himself out and then i will have to get the dvd. i think i will need the dvd anyway. the movie was so complex i want to watch it with the commentary.

one big nagging question: why did tia dalma bring capt barboussa back? and why would she want to bring jack back? i know that if you watch the movie it seems that she would maybe have reason, yet, doesn't it seem that she should hate them for what they did to her that she couldn't be so friendly with them? i mean, she just seems like too duplicitous of a character. it's a stretch for me. i love her hair and makeup, though. i am thinking of adding dots to my makeup routine.

by the by, i think that keith richards did an ok job. he's not an actor, after all. and he looked sooo good as a pirate. it was very amusing to me. yes, i am often amused.

target baby shopping update

well, i ordered the "cocoa" bundle me, and the baby bjorn potty chair in red. they came swiftly thereafter and i am so pleased. those will be my splurge purchases. well, i really didn't splurge, i used a gift card. but, you know what i mean. those are frivolously nice items that jack could have muddled through baby-hood without, but they're cool to have.:)

i have rethought the diaper stacker and etc in navy gingham. i just don't think they will adequately match the bumper and quilt my mom is making for jack. i think i will just get some solid blue pieces, eventually. anyway, like you care.:)

i am 30 now... who cares?

another decade down. do i feel older? no, but my husband does! ha ha! my brain refuses to age me past about 20. it helps that i am still wrinkle-free. yipee!

i had a cruddy day at work on my b-day... an 8-5 monday and queasy. i had a great night, though. my parents took my fam and my grandparents to my fave pizza place and i had terrific pizza and hot wings. yes, hot wings. jack is cool with that. my mum made me a huge rice crispy bar cake! it was great.

dan gave me an old-school metal lawn furniture double glider. now i can rock jack on my deck. my granparents and parents each gave me a huge potted red geranium. my grandparents also gave me $10 which i squandered on pork steak and milk. :) my parents finished off their gift giving with 4 movie tickets and a "monty python and the holy grail" 2 disc dvd!!! i got the knights who say "nee!" and shrubberies! (not too big and not too small) ha ha ha! my mother thinks the movie is stupid (your point?) and gave me the dvds "against her better judgement". oh mom. you are just jealous you do not have a "holy handgrenade of antioch".

my sis-in-law gave me a coffee gift card and dark chocolate covered coffee beans. did i ever mention that i love her?:) dan's mom gave me a hershey kisses, a hershey's kiss shaped fondue pot (cah-rah-zy!), and signed me up for an in-home massage! so, first the baby comes, then i get a good rub down. i bet i'll need it.

p.s. may 27-- picture of me at 8 weeks. check out the curl. i still get that some mornings when i wake up.

i can't think at 4-ish in the morn

yesterday jack woke me up about 3:30-ish. i got up around 4 and decided to answer some e-mail. ok, sure, but i shouldn't have tried to make any decisions in a sleep impared state. sorry lauren! at least now i know my weakness. i will not try to make any decisions before 6am from now on. except maybe scrambled eggs versus fried. :) i made us (dan, andy, jack and i) fried eggs, sausage and toast for breakfast this morn at 5-ish. yum. the house reeks of fried meat now. not so yum. i prefer the lingering smell of bacon. am i right?

yo ho

i bought my tickets to see "pirates 3" last night. at 8 pm there is going to be a very preggers lady sitting in a darkened theater with a bag of buttered popcorn. yo ho. hang in there, jack! mommy wants to see if she can spot patrick. and, will elizabeth swan and will turner finally get together? eh, who cares?!:) i want to see captain jack sparrow!

even more fun pregnancy symptoms!!!

with just a week and a half to go, i developed a new symptom! yeah. it is a little thing called carpal tunnel syndrome. crazy, right? my right arm feels all tingly and my index finger tip and thumb tip feel just insane. like when you hit your "funny bone". at first i thought i gardened too hard last saturday. then i blamed arthritis. now i blame jack.:)

new sofa

dan has done it again. he amazes me. he talked about getting rid of those dead trees in front of our house for forever. then, one day, he mentioned it again and 5 minutes later those trees were down. he has been talking about getting a new sofa for over a year... then sunday he said we'd go get one monday night. just like that. poof! we went to the store and after only about 20 minutes (they were closing soon:)) we had a new sofa picked out, paid for, and in the back of the pickup. now, i know he said he wanted to do it as a sort of mother's day gift to me... but the boys totally picked it out. my top pick could not compete with their pick... a sofa with recliners on each end! my sofa was even cheaper! it is a very nice sofa and matches the living room, carpet and recliner. i am very happy.

note: my great grandmother elerene used to call her sofa a "davenport". she also referred to the butt as a "hump-da-la-la". jay's gram used to refer to a butt as a "po po", or so he said. anyone else have a funny family name for the old keister?

p.s. here is a photo of andy reading to his uncle jake on the ugly old sofa.

happy belated b-day, marian

happy belated b-day. i got the friendster alert that your b-day was the 15th. hope it was super seattle-rific. were there cupcakes involved?

i turn 30 on may 21. what would have been a bigger deal before i got all preggers has become a footnote. oh, yeah, my birthday. how many days until then?:)

15 days until i'm due!

only 15 days. i have the armoir together and loaded with clothes. the changing table is together and filled with diapers. we have the car seat, the stroller, a ton of blankets... so ready. my bags have been packed and re-packed. i even have a borrowed "birthing ball" (exercise ball). now i just have to figure our how i am supposed to use it.:) i think i will check out webmd for some info.

photo opportunity

i really didn't have much luck getting a good photo of myself preggers. so i decided to go to wal-mart (yes, i know, ew. disclaimer: i do not personally support "the man"!) and get a few quick cheap shots. i went yesterday and managed to get 2 poses that i can live with. question: do i really need a 10x13 photo of myself? does anyone?:) well, i had to take it.

the photographer asked if i would like to try a few shots in costume (gorilla costume?) or in a feather boa. i passed.

photos should be done in three weeks. ooo, the suspense.

shower gifts... minus the shower

yesterday i got a call from dan's aunt who lives in iowa. i have never met her. she informed me that she had sent us a $75 baby gift... to our old address. apparently she has been sending us Christmas cards all this time and the new owners of dan's house never took the trouble to even write "return to sender" and pop them in the mailbox.

i stopped by the old residence and left a note for the people to call me. they did. they said they get a lot of mail for us around Christmastime. ugh. glorious mail that i never got! it chaffs. anyway, i arranged to pick up the package today and it was a very nice scrapbook for jack. glad i can now inform the aunt that the package has been received.

in other mail news -- i received a $125 gift card to target today from 5 of dan's aunts from his mom's side. woo hoo! what i think i am going to do is use my paycheck tomorrow and order tantalizing target stuff on-line (like the cutest red baby bjorn potty chair, a brown jj cole "bundle me" for the car seat, and some navy gingham curtains and diaper stacker!) and then use the gift card for household needs. clever.

bulldozin' down the trees

we have some oak trees that didn't survive the earth being disturbed when we built the house. they are right in front. they leaned right toward the room that is going to be jack's nursery. after we got home from dinner at subway tonight, dan hopped on his bull dozer and pushed them down. he got them started, then came in the house to ask me to take a few photos. he's so cute.

i just wished he would have given me a little warning so i could have moved my rock border and transplanted my day lilly's. they were getting so big. now the best of them are crushed under a few oak trees. i mentioned to him that i would appreciate it if he could save them (if possible). he said he'd try. not sure, but i think he felt a tad sheepish.

something not related to babies at all!

i almost forgot about this. last week i was driving into work. as i was coming into town, the highway split into two lanes. there was a car in front of me. all of a sudden i realized that the car's muffler was dragging on the ground and throwing off sparks. so, i changed lanes just to be safe. not three seconds later that muffler dropped right off. well, i thought that surely the driver had seen that, but he didn't turn off. i finally got beside him and yelled out my window that his muffler had fallen off. he knew! and he kept going. is it just me, or is that really dumb, and considered littering?

my baby has a huge honker

hooray! tomorrow jack reaches 37 weeks gestation. only 3 weeks until the due date. today i had my dr appointment. jacky was soooo squirmy that the dr couldn't find his head! so, she wheeled in an ultrasound machine and gave me one herself! i was impressed. so, jack is head down. and yes, he is a boy, for the third time.:) couldn't help asking her to check again. it would be horrible to have him switch gender on me now that he has so much cool boy stuff! she said the the boy part was, "oh yeah, it's sticking way out."

i also asked for a photo of the face if she could get one. well, jack wasn't cooperating. she did get a nice profile on screen for me to see. she agreed with me that the nose looked very "prominent". yeah!!!!!!!!!!! i hope-i hope-i hope he looks just like his daddy! can't wait to find out.

update on threat from "fit pregnancy" mag

well, i decided i wouldn't chance our credit history on $5.97. so, i sent them their check... and a strongly worded letter. i used some all caps.:) i pointed out that i never got any mag or invoices and that i didn't appreciate being threatened. i told them i hoped they would void my check.

is that all? no, i wrote some notes on my check.:) ha ha! i always loved it when i worked at banks to see the checks from disgruntled people. one guy in particular i remember always wrote a lot on his check in protest of having to pay a certain thing. i hope that the mag gets a little embarrassment over having to deposit my check, if the buggers do. in the notes section i wrote, "please void! i don't want your magazine." i don't recall what i wrote across the top. it isn't on my carbon because i wrote it after i ripped out the check as an afterthought. so far it has been about a week and the check still hasn't cleared...

third shower: dan's side

shower from dan's side on saturday was fun. dan's sis and his step-mom hostessed it. good food, awesome guests, sweet gifts, silly games, and exhaustion.:)

dan's gram is the coolest. she's 86. she always makes new babies a whole bunch of flannel receiving blankies, burp cloths and adorable bibs. i was totally surprised that she also made jack a gorgeous crazy quilt!!! it is too fab. i love all the vintage fabrics.

dan's aunts are so rowdy. so, of course i love them. bobbie knocked a plant off a table with her butt. nelly knocked over a full glass of some drink all over the table and almost got the centerpiece. the centerpiece was carrie's interpretation of a "pea in a pod". cute. it was a piece of pale green fleece filled with tightly rolled and highly useful diapers (so it was a clever rendition of a "diaper cake") and in the middle was the "pea" a little praying precious moments doll. the doll says the "now i lay me down to sleep" prayer. sweet.

may is one busy month

my gramps just had a pacemaker put in thursday. he's doing great. his father had one too and lived on into his 90's. gramps walked over last night to see what my manly man was doing. what dan was doing was trying to squash a metal barrel with his bull dozer. boys.


i have so much to do this month. i have dr. appointments, Bible studies, niece claire's "3 piggy opera" on friday, baby shower for a church baby on saturday, a cowboy themed choir concert for andy, mother's day approacheth, gram's b-day, my b-day, pirate's of the caribbean III comes out may 25 (got to see it! hope i can see patrick from pcc.), and then memorial day weekend and hopefully JACK! tons to do.

got about 10 hours of sleep today to make up for the general lack lately. i woke up extra early for a shower from dan's side saturday. i woke early sunday to finish preparing coffee time food for church. i ambitiously made a cheddar-bacon-egg-bread casserole, a bacon-cheddar quiche, and a sun-dried tomato-basil-feta quiche (an interpretation of my favorite dish from "madison's" in pensacola). i used fresh basil from my breakfast nook garden! the best part? besides my piece that i had, only the pastor's wife was brave enough to try a piece of the feta quiche. she loved it, by the way. both bacon dishes were completely demolished. so, i took the feta quiche back home and had it for lunch and dinner!:) hooray! a whole day of quiche! oh, and i had it for lunch yesterday, too. i could live on quiche.

yesterday i worked 8-5. those 8-5's kill me. i get so tired. my feet get so puffy. i was feeling really queasy in the morn, too. blech. i felt so miserable i wanted to call in, but i figured, "you wimp! you just have a sit down job!". well, it isn't so sit-down when you have to go get the ad copy, then go to the printer after you print the finished ad, then head to the bathroom about twice an hour, and head to the water cooler to fill up about 4 times a day.:) that adds up to a lot of up and down. still.

"i have the power!"

that's a quote from He-Man. i used to watch that cartoon growing up, and She-Ra, of course. my cousin had Skelator's castle. kind of demonic, kind of cool. who lets there kids play with a creepy skull shaped castle? when they are, like, 7 or 8? icky.

anyway, i digress. i finished jack's armoire. i got to use the power tool.:) there was just a little more to do. i couldn't wait to use it so i asked if i could finish it in the morn without dan. so, next morn i screwed on the 2 back panels, installed a shelf, put on the door and the knob, and put in the drawers. yeah me! gorgeous. then i spent the entire afternoon washing tiny clothes, folding them, and putting them away. a whole afternoon spent sitting on the floor while preggers in surprisingly exhausting. my body felt like it had been run over by a truck, but the armoire looks fab. it is full of sweet little things. lots of pale blue and white... like a nursery dream. well, my nursery dream anyway.

preggers update - 9 months!

i reached nine months friday! wow! can't believe i have only 23 more days to go! (until the due date) i can't believe how well everything is going. the knees are in scary condition, but i'm not in a wheelchair and no emergency surgery has been needed. the meniscus is still torn and the right knee catches all the time. it bothers me more than pregnancy symptoms do.

jack kind of feels like a lead balloon sometimes. i can't imagine these poor ladies with huge babies or multiples. the kid squishes your internal organs! he pokes your bladder! that's a panic moment, there. ultimately, though, i love being preggers. i still love to feel and watch my belly move. jack likes to stretch out his leg on my right side and he does it all the time. never on the left side.

belly button still hasn't popped out. jack should gain about 2 more pounds if he goes until he's due, and i shouldn't gain too much more than that. will that be enough to pop it out? i'll keep you posted. i am betting not. anyone take that bet?

kittens, easy come, easy go

we gave away the last of the batch of six kittens on saturday. already one kitty has bit the proverbial dust. tiger got squashed underneath a rocking chair. his new owners were understandably distraught. they had only had him one week. alas, poor tiger.

i am posting this because i am curious to see how the others fare. kittens are delicate things. some went to homes where they will be indoors and have to watch out for rocking chairs. some will be outdoor kitties and will have to watch out for hawks and stray dogs.

kitten watch 2007 begins.