Pregnancy- the longest awkward moment

I know I say this a lot (maybe not here, but I do in the physical world), pregnancy is not a pastel Disney movie. It's a graphic National Geographic documentary, the kind where after each commercial break they have to post the "you seriously probably don't want to watch this" message. 

When you ask people about awkward moments in their lives, most involve things like "I got sick in front of everyone" or "I was talking to this really cute/important/random person and I accidentally pooted". Mine used to be "I was in class and I ripped my pants". Well, when you're pregnant these things happen all the time, ALL THE TIME. It happens so often that it becomes difficult to pick a specific time to give an example of when it happened, because it just becomes one giant 9 month horrifying blur. 

And then something happens in the 10th month (o yeah, you're really pregnant for 10 months not 9), one tends to lose (at least I have) all sense of reserve and dignity. You start using the medical terms that used to make you shudder in normal conversations, like they're totally acceptable topics.

The best way to make a non-pregnant person want to rip their ears out and make sure they don't sleep or eat for a week is to start incorporating the following terms:

Lochia- the 6 weeks of bleeding following the birth of the child

Mucus Plug- the barrier between your uterus and outside world.

Uterus-One must always use the term "womb" because it's a body part men don't have and therefore must be referred to by a sanitized moniker not it's clinical name. 

Placenta- the thing the baby is resting in. Tip to amp up the awkward factor: discuss the weird things people do with the placenta after it's delivered. i.e: Placenta reciepes, planting, family viewings. 

Colostrum-A think nutrient rich "milk" like substance that comes in before the milk

Hemroids/fissures/constipation/lack of constipation- bathroom talk is always an appropriate topic of conversation. 

Vaginal tearing- you can literally be ripped in half while delivering naturally, you should obsess about this verbally as often as possible. 

Yup, he's still in there

I've been contracting for what 2-3 weeks, years? I was dilated a centimeter two weeks ago, no movement in that area, I've staled out. My heart burn has increased, I'm only tired when it's inconvenient, like during the day, I can't stand to be within 2 feet of anyone.

I've been to the hospital twice in the past 6 days, once because I thought my water broke (it didn't and I did NOT pee my pants) and another time because I fell, I didn't hit hard and we're both fine (but even that didn't jiggle him out).

I can focus on one task for about 30 seconds, hence such a block and inconsistent post.

It's a good time. 

I'm still pregnant

I know there's still 12 days to my due date, but GET HIM OUT. I love my son and I want him to have the best which means having longer to incubate and gain weight, but Mommy really misses being mommy, not a kangaroo.

At this point I'm excited about getting an epidural, not because it will help relieve the pain of child birth  , but because I'll get a catheter and I won't have to spend 2/3 of my waking (and 9/10 of my sleeping) hours in the bathroom!!!! I swear our expenditures on toilet paper alone will cost almost the same as the actual delivery.

Also, I'll get to sleep on my belly and/or my back and/or my sides. IT DOESN"T MATTER! I can sleep whatever way I want (eventually and if I don't need a C-section, and it'll only be in like 10 min increments, but it'll still be on my stomach! ).

I won't be to paranoid to order a decaf pumpkin spice latte (It's the most WONderFUL time...of the yeearrr), I can drink a real one!

I won't have to wait on someone else's schedule to help me get the groceries up 4 flights of stairs (of course I'll need someone to watch the baby, but who doesn't love a baby(other than me previous to becoming with baby)!).

I didn't even notice you were pregnant

Really? You didn't notice the 25 lbs of moving belly? Did you think it was an awkwardly placed tumor? Or that I have a very prominent and engorged beer belly? Because I'm pretty sure I would have died of alcohol poising by now. I know I'm fat, but under normal circumstances I CAN see my feet and stand without wobbling, I even had the ability to bend at the waist and button my pants (most days, and just certain pairs others). How many cupcakes do you think my stomach can hold at a time? Cause this would be one hell of a food baby.

Having been fat my whole life, I'm normally very used to  comments like "you'd be pretty if you lost weight" and "It's weird how you still have a nice figure",  "I was shocked you were able to keep up in yoga/pilates/aerobics ", "You're not a diabetic?!? (noone's said that, but I bet they think it), but this "you don't even look pregnant" is really starting to piss me off. For pete's sake, it's the one time it's OK, that I'm gaining weight, IM SUPPOSED TO.

I'm pretty sure (well not usually, but given it's been a whole 30 minutes since someone's said something, I'm trying to sound like a good person) that they're trying to be nice, but um..........I'm two days short of 38 weeks, I KNOW I have to look something and I don't think it's just fat anymore.

Last month paranoia

Ok, so I'm pretty much just waddling around a lot and obsessing about the ridiculous now that I'm 9 months pregnant.

The latest way that I've convinced myself that I'm going to hurt my unborn son in the final moments comes from sending out thank you notes. How can thank you notes hurt my unborn child you may ask? He can't get a paper cut, he's protected by manner layers of tissue and blubber. Will he get carpel tunnel from writing so many? His writing skills aren't quit developed yet, so I'm doing all of that.

Nope, I'm pretty sure something bad will happen because I have consumed a large amount of paste while licking the backs of the envelopes. You would think that baby shower thank you notes would have a disclaimer to let you know that pregnant women shouldn't use them! What if my kid comes out with three arms now or an IQ of 5 because his mother became a paste eater!!!

Maybe he'll just be really into arts and crafts? With three arms he'd be really efficient at them.

Snakes at a baby shower

Good news, had an awesome baby shower, bad news my dad was bitten by a copperhead. There are three poisonous snakes in North Carolina (copperhead, water moccasin, and rattle snake) and my dad stepped on one (it was dark, he's not a snake praiser) in his backyard. I grew up in this house, my parents have lived here for 18+ years, we've had small green garden snakes, a range in sizes of black snakes, but we've never seen a copperhead anywhere NEAR here(or anywhere in general, except for like NatGeo or animal planet or what not) .Until recently, snakes didn't bother me, I used to chase garden snakes with a stick (classy right?), but uh now a little creeped out. We have a rubber snake that we used to hide around the house to scare each other, not so funny anymore.

So let's recap, this week we've had: earthquakes, hurricanes, rebel forces (okay so that was in Libya, but still a pretty big deal), poisonous snake bites, and a baby shower (I'm not a horrible person, at least not in this case, my dad was really upset we were going to cancel it). 

I've always considered North Carolina a realtively safe state. We don't have a whole lot of terrorist priority targets, we don't normally have earthquakes (we have several fault lines, but they're mostly dorment (I took geography in college (rocks for jocks!)), the outer banks get hurricanes but usually they're just wind and rain by the time they get this far inland, we get tornadoes sometimes but they rarely cause deaths. It's just a calm, relaxed, happy little state.

 I swear I'm not giving birth to Damien. I've been to church a couple of times during my pregnancy and neither me nor my son have burst into flames or caused crosses to turn up side down. We're good.

So for future reference here's a quick fact list about copperhead bites and treatments:

Snake bites happen at odd times, like while my mom and I were making food for the shower and my dad was putting stuff up outside and getting pumped with venom. Not while he's hiking, dirt bike riding, clearing brush, excetra excetra.

Sometimes the first responder will look like your boyfriend and confuse you for a second.

Before the ambulance leaves 10 firefighters will go snake hunting, on purpose, by choice, in the dark with axes and flashlights (not only will they rush into burning buildings, they will kill poisneous sankes, can firefighters get any more hardcore?)

The EMS workers and firefighters will stop by  the ER room when they can to see how the victim is doing. (I need to make them some cookies)

Don't keep the snake in the room with you (it was dead and in a bag), the nurses will all come in and out and squeal at it while the victim is writhering in pain (but the nurses will also be SUPER nice, compassionate, and efficent).

Anti-venom for copperheads is a myth. Unless you're very old or a young child, they will wait at least 24 hours to give it to you, if at all. The medical community is losing faith in it as a healer, it won't help pain, it is just supposed to stop the spread of venom.

The anti-venom cost $5000 a dose, and a full series is at least 4 doses (total cost $20,000).

All other visitors/patients/staff/whatnot will have snake stories and tell us what we did wrong/right and give us LOTS of advice that would have been helpful 48 hours ago not so much now.  

The strongest pain medication available will not stop the pain, but it may make it harder for you to breath.

It's a minimum three day stay in the hospital.

Suggesting we a have a Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity copperhead bite Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run For The Cure, will only be funny on day 5.

Hi, I'm Random, and I have an addiction

I am addicted to food network. I'm so addicted I'll even watch "five ingredient fix"( this is a dumb show, it's always got like 5-6 dishes and none of the ingredients are reused in any of them, so it's really more like 30 ingredient fix) to get a hit.

It's to a point now that I can recognize a show and it's food lineup with in seconds after intro music (which I also can name the show from without even looking).

I'm watching food network  right now and one of the hosts was laughing about being embarrassed because a "recipe" only had two ingredients and it wasn't really a recipe. Sandra Lee would have had a nervous breakdown trying to put that many things together!!

O yes, I know all the host and their little back stories. How pathetic am I?

But I know a TON of recipes. 

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and rebel forces

Well dang, it's been a busy day in man made and natural disasters. My biggest worry when I woke up was remembering to make it to the post office. A lot of North Carolina (where I live) felt the earthquake, but I'm in the mountains and pretty well insulated so I didn't feel anything.

I've been crazing texting since I saw the earthquake on the news (was originally watching the rebels going in to Gadhafi's stronghold). The vast majority of my family is in central North Carolina (aka the Piedmont/Triad) and not all of them felt it. The people in business buildings seemed more likely to feel it. Crazy huh?

All the people on the news' answer to "what were you thinking" seems to be "I was so relieved it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack".

**some dumb CNN ditz just asked if it was possibly cause by terrorist- yes, and her name is mother nature.

***also, a lot of very military looking helicopters just  flew over, reinforcing my crazy conspiracy nut theory that there are government bunkers in these here hills. I'm going to go put my aluminum foil helmet on. 

Pineapples

Has anyone else ever noticed how menacing a pineapple looks? I mean look "beyond" the obvious spikes and all and how (at least for me and my mom) it makes the inside of your mouth feel like it was just in a knife fight, but I mean seriously look

                                                     

                                                                      Pineapple

Doesn't it kind of look like a frustrated war monger created it? It looks like a very large grenade. Even the top is just to reiterate was it's supposed to do, it looks like a spiky explosion coming out of the top. 

I'm only focusing on how uncomfortable pineapples are because I got another "Fruit update"  on how big the baby is and they said she (although mines a he) weighs about half a pineapple. Can you think of a more uncomfortable fruit to have in your uterus?  All I can keep thinking about is, what half? the half with the spiky, stabby top or the bottom part that can explode and turn my insides out. I do not like this metaphor. 

I'm a make my own job

Screw it, won't give me a job? Huh punk, I'll make my own! I'm gonna go all hippie and desperate housewives and make things and sale them online. Have you ever noticed that hippies and rich bored housewives generally have the same occupations (neither rich nor a wife, but limited in mobility).

My baby shower is next Sunday and I've been doing A LOT of crafting. I love doing this kind of stuff, party planning and things that involve scrap book paper, glue sticks, and imagination. Why spend $50 on invites when I can make exactly what I want for $20?

So what I'm thinking about selling are the favors I've made. My nursery (or my son's nursery) is being done in a forest theme, heavy on the owls, and I wanted a favor that went along with the theme. Original thought: we'll give everyone saplings to plant! That way my son's first breath would be a little easier, a little cleaner! Of course with almost 40 positive RSVPS, and at $2.50 a pop, that's a little out of my price range. Then I moved on to tree seeds, which are apparently not sold commercially, then fall perennial flowers (I'm due October 10th). When I asked the workers at Lowe's Home Improvement, they said that I could come back in the spring for them.  Final decision: Bird seed! We'll share the love on the day he's born and feed the woodland creatures (The longer I live in the mountains the more hippie-ish I become, I've always maintained it was a contagious disease)!!

To get the seed to my guest, I went to a craft store and bought small brown paper bags (that kind of look like little evelopes when sealed), filled them with bird seed, and made really cool looking "thank you" tags for them. I'm really impressed with my 28 cent favors! So I have 50 creative favors for everyone plus a few spare for $14! I figure I can sale them for $20 for 25? That's standard mark-up. Think that's to much?

OMG

In need a job, I'm very employable, I can make it to final rounds of interviews, face to face. The problem seems to be when people stop looking at my face and start looking at my belly. I am losing my mind with nothing to do all day but cook and clean (I don't really clean that much, the apartment isn't that big and boyfriend will just go over it again due to his OCD). As soon as someone finds out I'm pregnant I'm out of the running, you can see the glaze come over their brains as they continue going through the act of interviewing me.

Technically, right now, I'm protected by the "American's with disabilities act" (which is a GREAT selling point right? "you have to hire me! being pregnant means I'm disabled!"), but a potential employer can give me any number of thinly veiled reasons as to why I'm not getting hired. The most common being "We went with someone who would be a better fit" I know what that would normally mean, but when my body is morphed to hold two people, like a half inverted Siamese twin, getting rejected from a job AND getting called fat, is NOT a good combo. In a town of constant, cheap, renewable,unattached labor, why hire someone who'll need a month off (during the busiest month of the year, great timing right?) and will come to work tired and sore ( no matter how well they'll actually work)?


The end.

The toilet war

warning not for the squeamish, or easily annoyed at run on sentences and rambling. 

Yes, this how exciting my life is now, toilets.

The battle of the bladder 

BY: Corporal Random 

 I was consumed with an all encompassing rage at plumbing. The situation wasn't so dark last night, the enemy only made me uncomfortable. And I would have eventually worked up the nerve to call in reinforcements ( ask the neighbors to borrow their plunger (because surely I am the only one unprepared for a clog in the works (ha!).) Except that the neighbors seemed to be having a little domestic dispute (not in the "COPS"  TV show kind of way, but in the "you freaking didn't take out the garbage AGAIN", overflow (i'm so clever) of everyday irritations that had be piling up. ) and I wasn't going to interrupt that. So I went to bed with a fullish bladder safe in the knowledge that in the morning I'd go to a hardware store, buy a plunger and all would be well with the world, there was nothing more I could do tonight.


However, while I slept, IT plotted. It rallied and increased it's arsenal.  The mysterious toilet paper clog had some how gotten hold of cement, barbed wire, and super glue in the middle of the night (where I don't know, all useful stores where closed. I suspect fowl play, no seriously a bird must have flown it in over night from another town), and quite possibly land mines. Because the five dollar plunger I bought at 8 this morning was no match for it's mighty mutant strength. 


At first it toyed with me, tested my battle lines for weaknesses, the bowl cleared, I saw a light at the end of the pipe, but it was all a ruse. When I flushed, it took my hopes and threw them at my feet.....all over the floor. I had an overflow of emotion....and toilet things. I lost two towels, two good towels, in that initial skirmish, and a mop, but I kept the enemy at bay. Kept him from breaking the battle front and moving into the home front. 


I regrouped, resupplied, and tried to hold on to my breakfast. I spent another 30 minutes at the hardware store carefully reading drain cleaner's directions (the vast majority, apparently, aren't meant for use in toilets), I bought a $8 bottle of un-clogger and a $15 (yes that's FIFTEEN, with three f's) plunger, $15 for something I was going to purposefully stick in a toilet. But I was bringing in the big guns (o, I love old cliches, I'm very original), I would give no quarter (no I was gonna give what, $30 total?), show no mercy.  I was prepared, but La Toilet was more so. It overflowed again. and again. and I cried. And snapped at my boyfriend who called who was only trying to help. 


I tell you my friends, I lost faith in the world during those dark times.I had lost all hope. But I surged onward, it was the only direction left available to me. It was all I knew to do, there was nothing outside that tiny room (except two cats desperate to get in) And I tell you, you may not believe this, I barely believe it, that day (as in today) I won. I was the victor. I don't know how, I suppose fate was on my side,maybe lady luck took a shine to me, but I have never seen water so pristine, so clean, so beautiful as what came rushing into (and out of, the proper way)that bowel. 


And now due to my two new mops, a bottles of pine-sol and clorox, rubber gloves, and scalding hot water I have the cleanest bathroom in three counties. 

Q: What is:

A bad thing to realize you don't own in the middle of the night when you have to pee every 5 minutes.

Answer: a plunger.

Q: What is a bad thing about living in a small town that's population quadruples (no exageration) this week with students moving back in?

Answer: The stores continue to stock their normal year round supply of plungers which means that the 8 plungers the store had in stock are now gone.

Q: What is an awkward way to meet your new neighbors?

Answer: Knock on their door in the middle of the night and ask to borrow their plunger.

Q: What am I currently doing?

Answer: Thinking about the Sahara desert and working up the nerve to meet the neighbors. 

Shows that help me feel like a better parent

Ok, so my kid is still inside me and I haven't really had to deal with any tough parenting dilemmas yet, other than giving up coffee (which I needed to do anyways since my kidneys were cups away from going on strike), but seriously there are some things I don't need to live to know I'll  never do. For example:


"Toddlers and Tiaras"
JonBenet Ramsey. Did these parents learn nothing about making there little girls look 24 when they're 4? Also BULLFUNKY on "my daughter loves it" she just screamed for 3 hours that she didn't want to until you threatened to drugged her when the camera was turned and controlled her with controlled substances (food) for the rest of the time. She is 4, all she wants to do is run around in circles not shake her butt in a two piece bikini because you didn't grow up to be who you wanted to be.

"Dance Moms"
Same as above but with a physical exhaustion level and a slight risk of neck snapping from all the gymnastics. Also what's her name? the dance teacher, is WAY out of line. If a kid is sick let her be sick. She wasn't even complaining (how sad is THAT by the way? that a 8 year old tries to hide that her body is giving out because everyone will yell at her, even her MOM).

"Hoarders"
I'm not a neat freak by any means but when it comes to keeping a dead cat and fifty plastic animals or my child I hope I choose my child. I do believe that these people do have a legitimate problem that needs professional help, but I would hope I'd seek that help before DSS shows up. Makes me feel better (sometimes slightly panicked) when dirty clothes pile up or dishes stay in the sink.

"Jersey Shore"
I hope that my kids know that mom and dad don't want to see them acting that way and giving American's bad names in other countries. His father is 1/2 German and spends a little time every year visiting family back in the fatherland (hehe, my phrasing) and this cast's behavior is not acceptable for him. At least of you're gonna be a drunken mess, have the decency not to broadcast it on international television. And for pete's sake know more than 10 words, please.

"Keeping up with the Kardashian's"
Kids are not a business. The end. (I really hope most of that is just for show for the show)

"I didn't know I was pregnant"
Most of them drank, did drugs, and did all sorts of horrible other things while they "didn't know" and all reports say they have normal, happy, healthy babies. I try to follow all the rules but sometimes I slip. I eat deli meat (now that I'm in the third trimester), I don't always exercise, I have to drive somewhere else and it's 5000 degrees outside. It's usually not bad in the mountains in the summer, but this year has been insane.

"The Desperate housewives of ANYWHERE"
How can you live your life "for your kids" if you never see them and you have 5 nannies to take care of them because you don't have the time (nipping and tucking and shopping and drinking and gossiping take up A LOT of time)? The ones that do spend time with their kids seem to have the same issues as the moms from "Toddlers and Tiaras" and "Dance Moms", their just a tool to make them more famous or richer.



Ok, I absolutely admit to watching all these shows, and knowing way more of the story line than I should, and therefore I am also condoning these parents actions via my commercial advertising dollars, but I can't look away. It's a "How to" book in reverse. It's educational right?

I would also like to ad "Semi-homemade with Sandra Lee" I will put more thought into my kids meals than into mommy's "special happy drink" (seriously I think the food is an afterthought, why else would her meals have two ingredients and her drinks 12?). Frozen pizza+ extra shake of kraft Parmesan cheese DOES NOT equal a recipe. I'm pretty sure everything learned on her show can be learned by reading the back of the box (everything she makes starts with a box, not that I look down on this kind of cooking, I do  quite a bit of it, but I don't try to pass it off as a TV show worthy of half an hour......although maybe I should.....)

Birthing Class

I have decided the most annoying phrase to come out of birthing class is "it's a purposeful pain". Well, no flippin duh, all pain has a purpose, it's to tell you not to do what ever caused something to hurt. OW! That burner's hot and it hurts to touch it, OW! it hurts to break your arm, don't do it! OUCH! IT REALLY FREAKIN' HURTS TO DELIVER, don't do it a lot, the population can't handle it.

It's pain, and although not having delivered yet, I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt a lot and it's not going to be pleasant. I doubt I'll be singing that "I am woman" song while I'm in my 100th hour of labor. Even with the drugs I plan on having pumped into my system. I know I don't handle pain well, I have to be medicated just to get threw menstrual cramps, and you do NOT want to be around me when I have a kidney stone. 

Also I think it gives first time mother's who aren't planning on using drugs ,their choice, an unrealistic sense of what to expect. Maybe if you're like "hey you know what, I shot out a human from my who-ha and it really hurt" they'd have a better chance of making it without the drugs sense they'd be better prepared. That's just a thought. 

Also, when your birthing instructor is a Douala and she brings in one of her clients to talk about her delivery, I tend to doubt the validity of her pain account, not her experience or her emotions, just the part that sounds like an infomercial "and the $800 for (insert instructor's name) to be there and talk to the staff for us and to help me manage the pain was MORE than worth that piddly amount, act now and she'll even throw in a free diaper change!"

Stupid phrasing. 

****edit also, did I mention that the birthing instructor/Douala is also a nurse at the only hospital for like 30 miles sooooooooooooo there's a good chance she'll be there with you for "free" anyways? 

Things I learned this weekend

DO NOT allow yourself to be photographed pregnant at a wedding. Everyone will have their hair and makeup done, be dressed to the nines, fresh off a 10 day fast, and you will have sweated off your makeup, lost control of your hair, and swelled out of your dress.

Moving while pregnant will be poignant and sad. You've spent a lot of time in that previous place, decorating it, cleaning it, making memories and it will all be packed up in a matter of hours and it will already look like someone else's place before you've even turned in the key. Yes the next place will be your babies first home and you'll be living with someone you love, but it cements in a very dramatic way that you are not your own anymore.

Wedding cake is always better than normal cake, already knew this, but pregnant while eating wedding cake is near nirvana. (especially when it's funfetti!)

There will always be that one decenting voice in birthing class and sometimes it will be you, the other women  may or may not appreciate this.

I have gained a lot of weight. Not owning a full length mirror is a really good way to avid discovering this. 

Things I did (will do) this week

1) dishes X a bazillion

2) watch all of True blood (I admit to not having the most sophisticated taste, but the show makes me laugh)

3) go to  (be in a wedding) YEA KATIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4) have my face clawed off by a cat

5) feed said cat medicine through a medicinal dropper, continue to get face clawed off

6) suffocate boyfriend after discovering the best way for him to feel the baby kick is to press my stomach against his back (more surface area (is that a fat joke?), so his hand doesn't have to be in the right spot at the right time).

7) go to birthing class and admit I'm the only one who wants to use  drugs during delivery and am the only one not using(interested in using) a midwife or doula. I want drugs and I want a medical professional that has a MD and DR in their name.

8) cringe every two paragraphs while reading baby books because the writers feel the overwhelming need to compare pregnancy and infancy to "your" wedding and marriage (not married, no wedding, our choice). There has to be another way to explain it, get creative people.

9) blog a post about nothing so you have an answer when people ask "what did you do today?"

Texts from the Laundry Mat

Some days the Laundry Mat is full of turmoil and suspense, not a boring minute to be had, like from this post. However, sometimes, it gets really really boring, especially when you forget to bring a book. So in my boredom, as I do many times when I'm bored, I shared my misery via text. This time got creative and made the great masters of haiku regret their life choices.

At the laundry mat
my book is so far away
reduced to Haiku

My baby belly
Not so much full of new life
Full of  deadly gas

Bombard friends with junk
have unlimited texting
which sucks for my friends

It's not so much the heat

For those of you that don't live in an area of the world where the standard greeting is: person A "Hot enough for ya?" Person B responds with: "Well, it's not so much the heat, it's humidity", let me give you an example of what an average 91 degree day is like.

It's like walking outside and being smothered with a wet blanket that's been in the dryer only half a cycle. It's not wet enough to be called "drenched" but you're drenched by the time you get back inside and shrug it off. It ways you down.

It's the opposite of a cold shower, air conditioning, and a ceiling fan on high.

It's a sauna with no walls, no escape, and less dry.

It's stupid.

Hey you,

Yeah I'm talkin to you, Shutterfly.

When I email your company a question about pricing, a very DETAILED question about pricing, don't just send me your freakin rate card. Respond with an actual typed response.  I can read, I can even look up the rate card on my own, the problem as I clearly stated (including the links that showed the discounted price listed on your page) was that you were advertising one price but trying to charge another.

A difference of 70 cents over the course of 50 items plus a shipping fee of $6 is a BIG difference and one I'm not comfortable paying (since there's a good chance that the difference will over draft my bank account). So when I contact you, again, about how that wasn't helpful, don't send me a pissy little email about how I'm not looking at the right page. I included the name, stock number, and a link to the page I am discussing, I even rechecked after your email to make sure something hadn't changed. IT didn't .

Having worked in sales and dealt with confused clients, I understand that it can be a LONG day when people send you questions because they're to lazy to look up the answers and you answer the same thing over and over and over again. However, sometimes, believe it or not people have legitimate concerns that need to be answered, and BOTH types of questions, any type of question EVER, deserves a well thought out and polite response.

So, take THAT.

My body is not a wonderland

It's apparently a jungle gym. The baby likes to use my ribs as monkey bars (or as a possible escape hatch, I thought he was going to break out last night when he was trying to get away from the fireworks), he uses my bladder a teeter totter (jumping from one side to other to be both the teeter and the totter), and he commanders my spine as a slide (which he likes to grip on the way down).

Don't worry, he doesn't ignore my other internal organs, they all get plenty of attention, I just couldn't think of any other good (or you know kind of works if you squint and title your head) examples of what he's doing in there. Being almost two feet or so at this point and around two pounds he's heavy enough to feel and big enough to see when he hits toward my belly (and not vital organs), he's small enough that he can perform all sorts of acrobatic feats of daring.

On an unrelated topic (like second cousin  once removed by marriage unrelated) has anyone noticed that at 4th of July celebrations (particularly public ones that involve fireworks) the number of rednecks in existence seems to increase by almost eleventy billion percent? Is it an optical illusion caused by all the grill fumes? Does the week long lead up of at home fireworks spook them out of hiding? Where do they all come from? I swear I usually only see two or three at a time, over the course of a couple days, but last night at the park (where my hometown has it's firework's display) they were out in droves. It was unsettling. Even Larry the Cable Guy would have taken a step back and gone "WAY to many mullets".

Don't think about

Purple cows in tutus. Also "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine" is not playing in your head.


Happy 4th!!!!! 

It's not real huntin' no more

The job hunt used to be about a person with a certain marketable set of skills taking those skills and offering them to an employer for a fee. There was certain amount of equality involved, I have something you want let's find a situation we're both comfortable with. At least that's what I've read about in history books.

I came into the job market during the beginning of the recession. It wasn't that bad yet, it hadn't really hit the insular college community so on-campus jobs weren't that hard to get, you just had to know someone. Then the budget cuts hit and I went from 20 hours a week  plus commission (I was an office assistant, book keeper for off campus accounts, and a sales representative for student publications) to about 5 hours a week with no commission. I had to quit and find something else.

So I went to work for the Census Bureau, that was a good job, no one wanted to hike through the boon-docks alone so they were desperate for people (as long as I could prove I could read and kinda follow a map I had it). But that ended earlier than planned (I should have been less efficient) and I was out of a job. I was unemployed for about a month after  that but it wasn't so bad because I had a decent savings account from working summers at a hometown bank as a teller. I eventually ended up working retail in a tourist trap (a nice trap, but a trap) that I ended up quitting for lack of  pay and lack of hours, which brings us to my current state of desperation.

During my current state of desperation things have gotten bad. There are four help wanted ads in the classifieds and most of those are continuous runners (an employer pays to run the ad until the money runs out not until an employee is found) so that when you call to ask about it they're PISSED they're still getting calls (DUH, I should just KNOW that the job is filled, my physic abilities are failing me). But my favorite is when I'm treated with disdain and irritation when I walk into a store and ask if they're hiring or if I can submit an application.

I don't feel powerful like I'm on the hunt I feel pathetic and like I'm begging for jobs. Like I'm asking for pity I know that I'm asking someone to take a calculated risk on me and invest time and money in me, but I am a GOOD worker and not only that but I can SALE, I mean I can unload merchandise like it's my job (hehe). Uh, someone stop me, this rambling rant of emo is getting out of hand.

Things I read now

I have been an avid reader since roughly the fourth grade, before that I had a really hard to time learning how to read (go figure teaching a kid to read phonetically after just beating a speech impediment). Also because of a little something called AR points (accelerated reader) where you read a book, took a test online, and were rewarded with a certain number of points based on the difficulty (length) or the book and accuracy of your answers  (was your friend who also just read it near by?). The best part of AR was that you got to use class time to take the test!!!! "It's time for spelling and grammar (just so you know, I misspelled grammar, thanks spell check!) lessons Paige (my name)"  "Gee, I would Ms. Justice, but I have to take this test, O darn!" (In retrospect probably should have skipped those AR points, you just got to have your name on the bulletin board if you were in the top ten anyways.

Ok so to bring that rather long and unnecessary tangent back to what I was originally going to write, here's my current reading list and what I used to read pre-bump.


Current library books
HaperCollins Complete book of baby care:from birth to three years

First Aid fast for babies and children: Emergency procedures for all parents and carergivers

The New Mom's Companion;Care for youself while you Care for your Newborn

The Diaper Diaries: The Real Poop on a New Mom's First year

Pregnancy Sucks: What to do when your Miracle makes you miserable (Actually bought this one, it makes me laugh)


Does this pregnancy make me look fat? (No the year before baby where I didn't exercise did that, but I like to put the book where non-baby-making people can see it and get confused)

Anything that has a baby on the cover or "mommy in the website name"

Old books I got to buy and keep or borrow and keep for a really long time


If You Were Here-Jennifer Lancaster 

The Picture of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde

Written on the body-Jeanette Winterson

The Edible Woman- Margret Atwood (please read this amazing book, this woman is a literary great)

The Irresistible Henry House-Lisa Grunwald (Actually would be good to reread so I know what NOT to do)

ANYTHING I COULD GET MY HANDS ON, I seriously read a novel or two a week, and just because I had to for class (English Major), but because I wanted to. Now I seem to be almost solely intrested in diaper dishing.

Texts from the gym

I do not enjoy the gym. I only go when someone makes me (boyfriend, cousin, friend), so when I spend an hour (half hour most days) I make my displeasure known to everyone and anyone in my address book, as texting on the elliptical or bike helps keep me from tearing my clothes and ripping out my hair in agony.


2:45 At the gym :( all the machines are full :) guess i'll just sit  around 


2:53 Machine opened up :( Maybe someone else needs it more?

2:55 On the stupid machine, why do they put mirrors in front of it? Most people go to the gym because they don't like what the see right? So why make someone look at themselves when they're sweaty red and out of breath? 

3:01 this tool bag beside me better stop trying to read my settings, jerk wad, mind your own business

3:05 "O look at me, I can go backwards.  what are you doing? Forward, ha, I can do it backwards and not
 fall off"

3:07 Please make it stop! Make it stop!

3:10 I want a milkshake. 

3:15 Hey! I did over a mile! double pre baby time but that means it'll be over soon right?

3:16 Sweating is stupid, who needs to regulate body temperature anyways?

3:23 Do you think I could pretend to sprain my ankle? Can you do that when you don't even lift you feet? 

3:27 NEED WATER, why do I never remember to bring it? 

3:30 I think I'm dying, can you die from to much exercise?

3:33 DONE!!!!!! :D :D Kind of feels good 

I hate you Tweetsie

Far away, in the mountains of North Carolina, high on a hill not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway, there exists a community of people that come together in the spirit of a desperate need for money. These poeple particapate in an ancient, it would seem almost scared, ritual of ripping people's money off. These people would be the owner's of  "Tweetsie Railroad".

Don't get me wrong, I went as a child and absolutly LOVED it. I got to see "Indians" (I know it's Native American's if you don't know a persons tribe, or was the last time I checked) and Cowboys duke it out on a coal powered train and a ply wood fort,  four sad, polyester clad saloon girls perform in the "dance hall", and I rode a farris wheel that looked like it was going to throw you off the side of the mountain. And you know what? Between the ages of 5 and 10 it was AWESOME! Somewhere after 12 I started noticing certain.............historical inaccuracies.

 I'm not a history buff or particulary studious, but I did read enough "Dear America's" as a child to know that not everyone in the wildwest was between the ages of 19 and 22 (all workers at tweetsi are from the local college) and had nose and eyebrow piercings, that most "General Stores" probably didn't specialize in goverment cheese $8 nachos (they were $8 in the mid 90's, probabaly a couple hundred now), and small teddy bears beating plastic tribal drums. Along the way, other people seem to have also noticed, and Tweetsie has since been sued out of existance but still somehow runs May thru October.

As an adult I now live less than a 1/4 mile from Tweetsie. Which does nothing to hide it's multitude of flaws.

And since I'm so close now and it runs May thru October I hear the train whistle May thru October (25 runs a day starting at the 7:30 train inspection) and I play Russian Roulette with snotty suburnaites who fly around blind curves (doing 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, down a mountain ,that they ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH) so that when I pull out of my drive way I have a 50/50 shot at dying (I either will or I won't die). (My favorite part is when they get mad at me and ride my butt  whike flipping me off for half a mile, screaming obscinities with young kids in the car, because they had to slow down for half a second. Nothing like a wholesome day of family bonding!  (you know I obviously have less reason to be upset since it's now gonna take you (5 seconds) longer to get home and get away from your kids and I only almost just DIED, you JERK)).

So to make this shorter and not go into a 500 word essay on how crappy they treat and pay their employees because everyone is so desperate for jobs (so desperate I was upset when the jobs filled up before I got my application in), I will conclude with a simple yet emphatic statement:

I HATE YOU TWEETSIE!

Dressing Rooms

Dear clothing designers, retailers, and all those whom (who?) are interested,

I'm a big girl. And yes that mean's I can wear pull ups and cry at my party if I want to, but I also mean I'm a BIG girl. I don't think small children have ever cried at the sight of me and to my knowledge no one on the street has ever stopped, pointed, and yelled "DAMN", but I can sometimes be a plus size shopper. Compound that with being 5'10 and oddly portioned (no butt, rather busty) and it's usually a long day of shopping when I'm in need of new clothes, it's not impossible and I don't usually start crying and cramming my face with Ben and Jerry's (What up chunky monkey!) but I do avoid certain stores.

One store (or type of store) I thought I wouldn't have to worry about not finding anything in was a maternity store (I have been known, on occasion, to "unknowingly" buy a maternity shirt (or two). They are very flattering for my body type). IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE DESIGNED FOR WOMEN WITH BIG BELLIES AND BIG BOOBS!! That's what's supposed to happen when you "become with child". BUT NO. Same problem as in normal stores, if it fits one place it doesn't fit another and if you are already fat, that means you have even bigger boobs which means you want to wear tops slit in half to show the world because surely a big woman doesn't want people looking anywhere else (LIKE MY FACE) they might notice she's fat.

Surprise designers! People with eyes know what I look like (or people that read my blog have hazy details that can inspire an idea). So stop putting me in mu-mu's with inappropriate chest-ail cutouts. Not only skinny people get knocked up, I promise you, I'm living proof (as is my in-utero son) that you don't have to be hungry for someone to find you attractive. So please make something that will cover me without suffocating me.  Thank you.

Inspiring TV drama

First I would like to say NO SUCH FREAKING THING. Now there are several movies, NOT 'made for TV movies, (lifetime/hallmark channel) that have made me want to do something with my life, not really long enough to actually do something, but long enough to get a heady wave of possibility flooding my system. See: "Mr.Smith Goes to Washington" staring Jimmy Stewart (by far my all time favorite actor).  Every time I watch this movie I think I'm going to be a Senator and fight for the children and good honest people of the world, fight corruption and hold a filibuster so dramatic and moving that the whole world with wake up and actual good will be accomplished.

However, Inspirational Television, that is dripping with it's own self-importance and self-righteous soapbox performance is at best depressing and at worst cloying.  For something to be deemed inspiring one must first suffer, and suffer hard. They or it or the town or the endangered wildlife must be in the brink of oblivion and stay there for an awfully long time before something good is allowed to happen to them. My life's going pretty well, despite my constant whining, I really have nothing to complain about. Does this mean to do anything worth wild with my life I have to lose everything? How is that inspiring?

Or it must be about the sweetest PERSON EVER (I'm out), like the person that's so nice you can't say anything mean about them but you still try because they rub you the wrong way (seriously could they burn a batch of cookies at least? For Pete's sake at least spill something on your frilly polished self) and then you come off as a callous jerk. Of course this could just the bitterness of self reflection rearing it's ugly head but I feel like people that are THAT sweet are hiding something and I don't trust them. Another way I'm screwed out of Opera interview status (of course I'm pretty sure her shows are all booked anyways and there's not gonna be another season so one more thing that I'll never be able to accomplish on my bucket list). 

Guess what time it is?

That's right, Benford tools is proud to present to much information time!

I have both a UTI and  and a bladder infection. I just lost half my readership. There's just not a lot to right about when you've spent all day rocking in pain, hydrating, and napping. For someone that's never had either before: I hate you. A lot. In fact, you should send me cupcakes. Right now. I'm waiting. Ok. Yeah, I didn't have much hope that would work.

To kind of understand what it's like (UTI's and bladder infections, not waiting for cupcakes, although....)  imagine being on a long, long car  ride while riding through a thunderstorm by a roaring river after drinking three 32 oz big gulps. OK, now imagine you've been stuck in the car for 3 hours and you can't pull over. Does it hurt yet? You know that "OMG SOMETHING IS GOING TO EXPLODE, I'm gonna die from spontaneous internal bladder explosion" feeling? Got the yet? Ok good,now sit around with it for another ten hours. Then, finally get to the bathroom and where it turns out you don't have to go. The need to go isn't gone, but the evidence is.

Now shove all of this routine into about 4 minute intervals. I know according to the description this process should take about 47 hours, but pretend you're in the Tardis with Dr.Who and you're speeding up time with his sonic screw driver (DORK ALERT!). It's just that you have this painful, burning, all consuming need to go but YOU CAN'T. You sweat, you rock, you cry a little and you wish with more power than a 6 year old on Christmas eve that the doctors (the place not the British TV show) office opened at 5 am instead of at the unreasonable hour of 8 am.

Then you get the blessing from the doctor to take some AZO and 30 minutes later you can function.

The end.

A message from the cat

dafkj;iu" "ZX<v nvZWIRp;UP UP23487953QHKIJ NVHN;NZZVJNHZ/ ZGJ/BGJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJRKDS;KLJSFLKZDSJFDEAJ;EGFATRO948RJFR,M.C , .BVBGSX.PERWOERWINJDFGLMAFKFGKPSEWDKLDFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

For those you that don't speak cat, I will translate below.


Hey, you're not looking at me. If you're not looking at me you can't possibly be worshiping me enough, do you know who I am? Look at me look at me look at me look at me NO DON'T TOUCH ME, just look at me! Fine, you're not gonna look at me then I'm gonna sit on the clicky things. If you have time to go the bathroom 40 times a day then you have time to pay attention to me 80 times. 


 Listen, I'm normally a very laid back kinda cat, I will cuddle for just the right amount of time, I let you stroke and marvel at my silky fur when appropriate, and I never overstay my welcome on your lap. 


But lately, you've been lacking. You have been spending a lot of time on your computer making clicky noises. Everyone is rubbing your belly and not mine. What the hell? You don't even have any fur! 


So, in conclusion more time for me, less time for the clicky noises that interrupt my naps on the computer, and people stop touching your belly because it's weird and giving me nightmares. 


PS- there's a dead chipmunk hidden somewhere in this apartment. I'm saving him for later, don't throw him out. 


O man, he totally killed Simon, I hope it was Simon hidden behind the bikes. He's (Simon) a know it all that sometimes makes me want to punch him (I hate it when someone has cooler glasses than me). It would be sad if it was Theodore (we share an over eating disorder and that creates all kinds of emotional bonds (which lead to more emotional eating)). I'm luke-warm about Alvin, I think he just wasn't loved enough as a child (I googled if there was a special name for baby chipmunks( like a baby dear is a fawn, a baby chicken is a pullet) but no luck). So yeah, I guess the best option was Simon. Although, the chipmunk really looked like the one from "Enchanted" so maybe I'm referencing the wrong children's movie. 

Mine Vs. His

Exercising-
In the pool 


His: One hour of high intensity Olympic size laps in the pool. He does take (occasional and brief) breaks to make sure I'm not swimming across multiple lanes because it's fun to dunk under the ropes.

Mine: Dunking under ropes because it's fun. Occasionally I'll do a lazy backstroke down the lane, but mostly just float around with my ears underwater wondering if this is what the baby normally hears (but with a lot less rumbling, because my stomach is usually louder than my voice).

Hiking

His: Going on a hike

Mine: Walking from the parking lot to the picnic tables (I will actually go on hikes and used to enjoy them (UNTIL  I started carrying around an extra person strapped to my stomach, he (El bambino) tends to get feisty when hiking so he starts picking on my internal organs)) (that's a lot of parenthesis, I wonder what the world record is for most correctly (and incorrectly) used parenthesis in one sentence is).


Accepting compliments-


His: Thank you.

Mine: I'll do this in example form
                    Friend's text: What are you doing?
                    Mine: Trying to be funny, it's not coming out well
                    Friend's text: Everything you write is funny
                    Mine: O, friend
                    Mine: Are you day drinking? 
                    Friend's text: It's 6:15, day drinking occurs before 5
                    Mine: So you're normal drinking
                   Friend's text: Yes


Holding on to a consistent thought process before staring a new sentence-

His: He can routinely start and finish a sentence without changing subjects inappropriately multiple times and without employing the use of superfluous parentheses.

Mine: Please read this blog as explanation.                

                         

Update

Still pregnant, still fat, still unemployed and still unable to write anything interesting.

In other news (but not really) that statement makes me seem really really emo. All I'm missing is the odd haircut and dark clothing (Just so you know, I'm currently in a pretty white on white striped shirt and khaki preggo capris. I look almost wasp like....almost) and pseudo intellectual stance on something completely inane and pointless to snare at lesser people about (although I do have this very strong and snooty belief system for certain brands of chocolate milk).

I do have those short(ish) angled bangs but that's more because I only get my hair cut 3 times a year and the woman that cuts my hair knows this and so tries to cut it short enough that I won't look ridiculous by the time I get around to seeing her again but in doing that makes me look ridiculous for a month after getting it fixed.

And that long run on thought process about my appearance makes me sound super vain.

And the constant commentary on myself makes me sound really concieted,

I'm gonna go sponsor a kid in Africa, clean a stream, and walk a shelter dog at the park (I probably won't do that today, but I'll totally try to us less paper towels and recycle something).

O!  I missed judgmental! The stereotyping of the emo makes me totally judgmental (I am not a valley girl or whatever, my vocabulary just seems stunted today so I keep saying totatlly a lot....see judgmental again). 

Phrases that irritate me

COLD HARD CASH

That doesn't even make sense. Why is your cash both hard and cold? Did you drop it in the sink and then accidentally put it in the freezer (keys/remote control/tooth brush, all acceptable things to find in the freezer. Cash? NO). I understand if cash is just cold. It could be a really cold day out side, that would make anything cold. You could have been at the beach and put your money in a zip lock bag in the cooler to make sure the roided up tide didn't take it out to sea. But why WHY is it hard!?

What are you a drug runner or a bank robber? Are you trying to hide your loot from the police in the chopped frozen onions and your half empty bag of pot stickers? Cause guess what, that just makes your money sticky and smelly. And do you have ANY IDEA how dirty money is, I was a bank teller for a couple of months and believe me, you would not BELIEVE the crevices people pull their money out of. BLLLAICK (I just shuddered and jerk around like there was something on me just thinking about it). 

Or is just that your money is jaded and emotionally unstable? Is that why it's so cold and hard? Has it seen to much in its lifetime and is it now unable to connect emotionally to other bills? I mean, I'm sure money sees a lot, but for an inanimate object to be so disturbed, it would have to be pretty messed up. Was this particular stack only ever used on the black market? Were people mean to it? Did it's mother not love it enough when it was young and still a coin? 

People always talk about "cold hard cash" as being a good thing. I'd be mad if someone handed me a bunch of frozen emotionally unstable money as payment for something. Really? REALLY? You friggin bonehead, go thaw your money, send it to therapy and bring it back. Jerk. 

I realize that was one phrase (singular) and not two phrases (plural hence the "es" at the end of the word) but I'm really distracted by my deep hatred of this phrase so I'll do another one later and make it part of a series (series-also a plural word), but in all reality, probably not. 

10 and 1 things a pregnant person should not do at the beach

(I say person, because we don't know how close evolution or medical science is to making men able to gestate, hopefully soon because you MEN should have to take a crack at it and see how fun it is)

1. Kayak two hours down a canal to the ocean then turn around and kayak six hours back because you're going against the tide now under a full moon (FUN FACT: Full moons mean that the moon is closer to the earth and it's gravitational force is much MUCH MUCH FREAKING stronger so it's effects on the ocean's movement are much MUCH MUCH FREAKING stronger (as in tides will make you paddle for 30 minutes at top speed, making you think you've gone like, 1/2 a mile, when really you've been paddling in front of the same pink house and have drifted backwards a little ))
2. Be attacked by sand fleas
3. Think that chocolate teddy grahams are appropriate beach snacks and leave them unattended near boyfriend. 
4. Be attacked by seagulls because your boyfriend found out that those spastic beady eye birds freak you the freak out and you will scream in a high-pitch girly cartoon voice every time one dives anywhere near your head, so he starts throwing chocolate teddy grahams near your feet.
5. Throw Teddy Grahams in the ocean to get rid of them, the tide will wash them back in.
6. Complain about how bad you look in a bathing suit, the only answer you get is an exasperated "YOU'RE PREGNANT", doesn't matter that the damage you're complaining about was done via cakes pre-baby. 
7. Go anywhere without a bathroom, even if it's the car, you will give the driver of said car a heart attack when you start yelling with out warning that you need a bathroom RIGHT NOW. I don't care if it's just a bunch of sand and trees and there's no where to pull over, MAKE A BATHROOM APPEAR.
8. Keep bringing up the kayaking trip and how you can't move your arms, then move your arms to hold your stomach because you remembered the time your boyfriend fell out of his kayak and it took half an hour to get him back in and you're laughing so hard your stomach hurts. 
9. Come back from the beach and wright lists that are mostly run-on sentences and think that since it's a list it's okay to ramble because list are informal and not each one has to really be a gem or have a point in general other than to get you to a round number.
10. Forget to rotate every once in a while, while out in the sun, you'll get sunburn/pale tan on only one side of your body and look like a comic book villain when combined with your oddly morphed body and thus scare small children.
11. Have the balls to complain about any kind of vacation, especially a beach vacation that for 98% of it was awesome and a lot of fun. Then lock your keys in your car on your way back when your 15 minutes away from home.  

Is it spelled with an O or a U or are we talking about the wrong person all together?

I had an urge for a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's at about 10:45 last night. On my way back from a my deep fried mission I received a text from my sister that said  "Are you watching the news?". Of course I'm not watching the news, I just drove ten minutes to get $4 fast food in the middle of the night, I needed a break from watching a marathon session of "Two and a half men"(I think the half refers to Charlie Sheen, not the kid as I originally thought).

So, my sister calls me and it turns out that Osama is dead. Ok, WOW, honestly I had stopped thinking about him. I figured he was old, reportedly on dialysis with Kidney problems and would probably go quietly into the night anyways. But, I'm relieved he's not a person to worry about anymore.  Although now, with the video of his violent death, I am worried about him becoming a martyr and his death fueling an increase in attacks world wide, but probably mostly targeted at the US. I also that it might have been poor phrasing for Obama to say "america can do anything it puts it's mind to", I just see that going out in places to people that hate us anyways as "america can do anything it wants to".

In lighter news, Fox News has once again decided to show how unbiased it is creating it's own spelling the recently deceased. Every other news outlet is reporting that "O"sama Bin Laden is dead, while Fox News is Reporting "U"sama Bin Laden is dead. Is Usama Osama's Doppleganger(a doppleganger is your evil twin, someone that looks just like you except for one tiny difference, of course in this case Osama is Usama's doppleganger, because I would like to think that Osama would be the eviler of the two).

Of course it could be that they meant to spell it Obama instead of Osama, maybe it was a mistaken "S" for "b". They did report that "President Obama is dead" as a result of US forces. That report didn't seem to match up with the cheering crowds gather around the world. Anyways here are videos of the crowd ralying around the Chancellor at my college and one of the reporter announcing that the wrong person is dead, I think it'll be pretty clear which video is which.

Also, I would like to apology for the language, I don't know the poeple that posted this video (I got both from YouTube), so if you are affended by poor language just skip this next one. I do however like that it shows the sheer mass of people and the emotion of the moment. Most of us were somewhere between 4th and 8th grade when 9/11 happened and the World Trade Centers collapsed. I remember watching it in Ms. Coe's English Class.

And the winner is.....................

SARAH!!!!! I'll be sending you your candy soon. Email me at allredpe@gmail.com with your address and I'll get it out as soon as I remember it! Also, this is my 69th post, 

FREE THINGS!!!!!

For Easter, since I didn't do what I feel is a mandatory blog holiday post, I'm gonna do this.


Post a comment about what your favorite Easter candy is. I'll pick one person at random and mail them that candy (with in reason, I'm not importing a gourmet candy from Belgium for you). Make sure you leave your name. I'll announce the winner Tuesday night after 8pm Eastern Standard time. The contest ends Tuesday night at 8pm. If I announce you as the winner, send me an email with your mailing address and I'll get that candy out to you.

 My favorite? Peeps, not because I like them (they're disgusting) but because of all the controversy they can cause in families. They pit mother against mother-in, brother against brother, and send siblings to new levels of rivalry. They are the civil war of candies.


Post away!  

AZO is A OKAY

This is a post with way to much information for everyone!!! I possible have ANOTHER bladder infection. One of the few things I always thought would be nice about being "with child" would be that I didn't get my period for 9 months. I didn't know that my monthly punctuation would be replaced with this mess. It looks like I've been drinking Easter Egg dye.

A bladder infection makes you feel like you have to go the bathroom all the time. You don't, you just have an undeniable urge you can't control (much like the beginnings of many other things). Some people handle discomfort with restraint and grace, they handle it so well everyone but their closest peeps (it's (almost) Easter! PEEPS!!!!!) notice that something is a little off. As you all know, I'm not the suffer in silence type, people I've never met often think I'm on my death bed every time I stub my toe.

So today, in class, I was handling this minor annoyance in stoic silence, but I couldn't quite stop my self from rocking. Yes, I sat in class glassy-eyed staring at the teacher, arms crossed rocking. I think I made some people uncomfortable.  I wonder how many readers I've lost with this unnecessary and weird little post.

I don't like those "Hillshire Farm" commercials. It's the same one over and over again with different actors. Kind of like my post are all the same but with different(ish) titles. 

well dang,

I quit, who can top that? Thanks a lot Tina Fey 

"It's Natural" is a crock of crap

Some people shouldn't watch delivery videos. For those of us that are visual learners, you would think this would be the best way to prepare, but it's not. For all my whining about how horrible horror movies are and the toll they take on my psyche, one would think I would know better. But I don't.

Most of the advice given to a pregnant woman who's  worried she's doing something wrong (and this may just be so she(me) doesn't make 500 million mundane calls to the doctor's office everyday) is to trust your body. Well, my body won't let me bend and rotate so it can see itself being torn in half.

I don't think we're supposed to see what's happening between our legs during the big push, if we were we would have been built without a spine or with mirrors on our feet. There's to much gore and violence for our already weary, aching bodies. The nine month payoff is not the witnessing of all that horror, that's why you need someone else to watch your baby come out. Seriously doctors study for YEARS to be able to sleep after witnessing all of that.

If anyone else is expecting and reading this, sorry if I freaked you out, but that was the worst thing I've ever seen, I don't know why I think I can watch stuff like that.

And DON'T TELL ME it's beautiful and natural and we we're "made to handle it" because that's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. We can handle and recover from broken bones, collapsed lungs and all kinds of diseases. Oil spills (and you know oil alone)  are natural (maybe not when certain gas companies are negligent, but sometimes it bubbles up on it's own). Arsenic  is natural. Lions and tigers and bears (OH MY!) are built to rip us to shreds, but I don't go out and chase them.  Natural is a crock of crap.

sketchy gas station/laundry mat

You know how every town has that place you "just don't go to". Well, there are a lot of those in my town, but they're usually down a dirt road, up a mountain and over a creek, so it's really not an issue. Unless you go to the robbery express laundry mat and gas station.

 "Fill up and be held up, while your delicates are fluffing".

I almost NEVER go there, but they're the only place open after like 8 o'clock and when you need undies you need undies. And my boyfriend needed boxers. So I went with him to keep him safe. He doesn't know that's why I went but it is, I can judo-chop evil-doers with my new pregnancy arms!

 As soon as we got there, a white kidnapper van full of sketchy men is just sitting there, and they're all staring into the laundry mat, sketchily. I don't want to get out of the car, but Capitan Commando, marched right in, like he didn't even see them, sitting there, plotting. So I follow, boyfriend (NOT staying in the car by myself) covering his flank (I just watched "green zone" with Matt Damon "LIKE").

While he's looking for quarters and starting the laundry I find a check for $2000 lying on top of one the machines. My first thought? "What kind of drug dealer/pimp/smuggler pays for his goods with a check?" It ended up being a check from a construction company to a tool company. That was a legit transaction so I called the number on the check to let the company know, they had a loose $2000 check floating around in a laundry mat.  When I got on my phone, the sketchy kidnapper van guys, who had gotten out of the van, hurriedly got back in and screeched out of the parking lot, guns blazing (there were no guns, that I saw).

Then I start thinking, o crap, maybe it's a money laundering scam ( I AM in a laundry mat), and I've just stumbled into it, the guys in the van are waiting for their contact to come get the check. And I just screwed it up. They're gonna come after me and my unborn child!

Couple minutes pass with no activity, and then a beat up car pulls up slowly and turns off it's lights while leaving the engine running, maybe this was the contact kidnapper van guys were waiting on. I sit quietly and don't think about checks.  The men in the car (what am I, the only female left on the planet? Where are all the other women?) get out one at a time to get change for their five dollar bills (they were OBVIOUSLY casing us, but my big baby belly and he-man arms scared them away. Also, my boyfriend looks like he can snap most people by looking at them).

After I scared the beat up, chop-shop car guys away , it got quite. TOO quite, like the calm before the storm. If this had been a horror movie, the music would have changed and swelled and gotten all screechy. Captain Commando, choose this moment to leave me alone, in the house of horrors, so he could walk next door to the gas station and get change to dry his clothes. I begged him to leave them, offered to make him a makeshift clothes line in the apartment, but he went anyway. First rule of horror movies, as soon as up split up and look in the half open door, you die.

So what happened? I died. I didn't, I just sat there quietly, watching all exits, trying to look intimidating, while the non-electric doors kept OPENING AND CLOSING ON THEIR own.

All that time I thought I had to watch out for murders and robbers, when really I needed to be preparing for a possible exorcism. So, I start fastening crosses out of pens and pencils in my purse, looking for a priest and water for him to bless, and staying away from anything that could be used as a human sacrificial table. Then I wonder if the humming noises I thought were coming from the dryer sounded all that mechanical anymore. They started sounding more maniacal and menacing. Had a previous money laundering scheme gone sour here, and the deceased gangster was looking for a fresh load of revenge?

And this THIS, boyfriend, is why I don't watch horror movies with you. I watched "The Last Exorcism" with you two weeks ago and "The Bad Seed"  5 days ago and now I can't leave the house without seeing evil everywhere. I WILL NOT watch paranormal activity with you unless you want me to start standing over you in the middle of the night with a cross waiting for you to go all evil and dangerous on me. 

HAHAHAHAHA, this little boy and his father are trying to go somewhere. The little boy want's to ride in the car but the father want's to walk. A Loony Tunes reveres psychology moment ensues. 

Why don't you kick Tiny Tim while you're at it

When I discuss my pregnancy with mothers (anyone's mother not just mine) they usually tell me how much they LOVED being pregnant. That it was the best time of their lives, they had all this energy and were happy all the time. I don't know if there is some kind of hormone that's released right after delivery that brain washes women or if they really did have a dream pregnancy, but either way I hate them.

It's just mean that after I've just told someone I spend 80% of my day with head in a toilet and the other 20% trying to get back to a toilet, that they never got sick during their pregnancy. WHY? Why would you say that? WHAT ON EARTH, makes you think that's okay to tell me? Why don't you walk up to Tiny Tim, kick his crutch out from underneath him (for me the fact that everyone goes through it, it's normal) and start telling him how running is "the most awesome thing ever". Why not walk up to Helen Keller, flick her in the nose, then tell her (sign her) how "nothing compares to a rainbow and she doesn't know what she's missing, that you can't die happy without seeing a rainbow".  You could even find a one armed man and challenge him to a patty cake competition, tell him to do the hokey pokey "Put both arms in and shake them all about  (I mean, it is what it's all about)".

Conversely, please don't regal me with horror stories of bad deliveries, yours, your friend's, or one you read about in the paper. I'm scared enough as it is, I don't need nightmares of 15 pound babies trying to climb out  through my nose after 3 days of labor with no epidural. I need to save my strength to do the hokey pokey, be flicked in the nose, and have my crutches kicked out from underneath me. 

When I grow up (out)

There are several things I would like to do when I am obviously and heavily pregnant. They are

• Pretend it's a food baby  (I was so hungry)

• Act oblivious and then offended when people ask how far along I am

• Tell people I'm  52 weeks when asked (elephants won't have nuthin on me!)

• Lose my emotional cool on someone and then act like it didn't happen 

• Get stuck in an elevator and pretend to go into labor (I will have many many elevator rides)

Please note

Please note that I am for hire and will work for diapers.

Baby diapers, not adult diapers. I am potty trained. I may have left that off my resume, but it's important to make clear. Special skills- can pee pee in the potty.

Fruit Salad- yummy yummy

Not only is "fruit salad" a TERRIBLE HORRIBLE UNFORGIVABLE children's song (some of my younger cousins were IN LOVE with it, I can't eat it now) it's also what's been growing in my uterus.

I signed up to a website "BabyCenter" which gives you the progress your baby is making each week, like one week it grew hair and another week it grew a liver(I don't think it was in that order). It also gives you the approximate weight and length of your baby. However, and I find this odd, it gives you things to compare the size of your baby to, which is not the weird part, this is: it's always a fruit.

Like one week my baby was the size of a raisin, one week a blueberry or grape, this week it's a lime wedge. It even does it to my uterus. It went from being the size of a pear to the size of a grape fruit (at 11 weeks the baby was the size of a fig, next month it's an apple). If the baby would grow to the size of a yogurt container, I really could make a decent fruit salad.

It's not just this site that refers to baby's size by the "Kertzwig Fruit Scale" (the name I made up for it, I think "Kertzwig" sounds like a doctor's name that would spend time making a baby height fruit scale) it's every single baby book I've read and every single site I've visited, everyone is obsessed (I kept trying to type "obsessed" and it kept getting auto-corrected to "obese" I GET IT, computer)  with fruity babies. Why are vegetables being left out huh? Or Hostess cake snacks? What's your angle National Fruit Growers Association?

Is it less offensive than having a home office in your belly? "Your baby this week is the size of a paper clip/stapler/coffee mug with cutesy inscription".  Or how about art supplies? "Your baby this week is the size of a gum eraser/oil paint/bottle of turpentine". OH! How about house hold cleaning supplies? "Your baby this week is the size of a sponge/small liquid soap bottle/scrub brush".


Fruit salad (inspired by my little uterus usurper)
Feeds: up to 6 belly rubbers
Time: Should distract them long enough to make your escape or booby trap belly.

Mix together in Large bowl:

1/4 cup of raisins,
1/4 cup of blue berries 
1/2 cup sliced grapes (what ever color, ultra sounds are in black and white. So it doesn't matter)
2 sliced, skinned and cored pears, chopped
1 grape fruit peeled and segmented
1 handful of chopped and seeded figs
1 apple peeled cored and chopped
Sprinkle all ingredients with 1/2 a lime to reduce browning of fruits
Add yogurt to taste

Serve and run away.

Prenatal Fitness class- the second day

As much as my thighs are burning/shaking/wobbling after class, my abs and arms are usually feeling pretty good. I was really surprised by all my upper body strength considering I usually can barely lift a loaf of bread over my head or sit  up from laying down without a pulley-system, but then I figured it out: Mother Nature has been kicking my butt into shape, I've just been to exhausted to notice what was going on.

The constant morning sickness has whipped my abs into shape by doing what morning sickness does, tightening and releasing the ab muscles to get the end results, do this for 15-20 mins 5 times a day and in no time at all instant abs(this is not a post that is pro vomiting or bulimia, it's just something I've noticed)!

As for my arms. I'm constantly pushing myself up off the floor or out of bed. Pushing my boyfriend off of me or pushing away people's hands from my belly (seriously I don't rub random parts of your body, hands off mine!). Each of these works a different muscle group in the arm, so by the end of the day they've all been worked on and are starting to tone up nicely.

As to my thighs and legs, I haven't gotten to that part in my circuit training yet, but I figure that toward the end  of the pregnancy I'll be so big that just to support my blossoming bulges I'll need the thighs of an Iron Man. And instead of doing squats down a track in the gym I'll have to do them to pick up anything since it looks like most pregnant women can't lean in any direction without capsizing.

I think by the end of this I might become a swimsuit model (I know). 

Hiking in the "high" country

The area I live in is known as the "high country" because it's....wait for it......in the mountains (if you'd like to get to the point skip down about 5 paragraphs, if you like rambling and have nothing else to do, continue reading)

(Geography lesson: North Carolina is segmented into three parts going from west to east "The high country" mountain region, "The foothills" Piedmont region (where I'm  originally from, I traveled far), and "the coastal plains" or the beach/kind of.)

Sometimes I think the "high country" was named not because of it's geological constructs but because of the activities of about a 1/3 of it's population.

Exhibit A:

I went hiking with my boyfriend through a surprisingly flat 3 mile circuit around a lake in a shallow valley yesterday. It's an easy walk (I know I said Hike earlier but it was more of walk being there was no climbing or wrestling of foliage, but the alliteration sounded better with hike).

 We saw the usuals on the path (meaning we recoginze the type not the person) the over exhausted family that's trying to make memories but who's children are probably still to young to remember the experience anyways, but will break into a cold sweet the rest of their lives at the site of a water bottle and will never know why. The old couple that leaves you in the dust no matter how fast you think you're going. The out of place people that would rather be watching a rerun of "Golden Girls"  and realize this was a mistake half way through the trail (me). The serious enthusiast that's out there because he/she enjoys physical activity (my boyfriend), And once again. my arch nemesis, the hippies.

(I promise I'll get to the point sooner or later, if you're familiar with this page, you know it'll be later)

There are two types of hiking hippies you often come across, the " I went on a quick hike that lasted a month/don't eat your dollar trail mix eat my homemade homeopathic trail mix that cost $50 a pint /We should take care of our mother(earth)" type hippie, which will usually leave you alone unless you provoke them by using a plastic water bottle and then there's the "I came out here to "bong" with nature/I think dreads are natural and not out of place in a sterile environment/ let's all dance under the moon before replanting our souls" type hippies.

The second and more aggressive type hippie should be avoided at all cost when "hiking"  an easy trail. They will invite you to their communion circle, other you some "natural substance" and try to find out the story of your life force, this type of hippie has been known to be contagious, so BE VERY careful, some people are immune to this infection and others are highly susceptible(Science has yet to find a diagnostic technique to determine the chances any one person has of sub-coming. Much like the drugs they may offer you, you don't know if the first time will put a hole in your brain or if you'll see funny colors, so best to stay away from it).

We were attacked by the second type of hippies on Sunday but, thanks to our quick thinking and cat like reflexes, (spoiler alert!) we were able to escape. As were walking along a particularly open stretch of trail with  a beautiful bridge over a little brook, we saw them coming. They had already started across and we were to far along on the bridge to turn back.

We followed the rules at first, we filled our heads with thoughts of "McDonalds" and "Wal-Mart", natural hippie repellents.  We stuck or water bottles out in front of us like a cross and we avoided eye contact while talking about Hummers. These were mutant hippies, stronger than most of their brethren. They made contact anyways.

Hippie- "Are you guys breeding yet?!" he yelled it even though he was less than 2 yards away at this point.

Me and my boyfriend- deafening silence as we try to figure out why he thinks were dog breeders, he had a dog with him, was this a proposition?

Hippie- "Have you two started breeding yet? We're (here we notice a second less hostile hippie) deciding what poeple should breed and which shouldn't. Have you to bred yet? "

Me and my boyfriend- STUNED silence, what out come do we want here? "Not Awkward" is no longer an option. Is this a "Green Day" reference? Is he calling us stupid?

Hippie- (continuing like there is nothing unusual about this conversation, like that we're not responding ) "You guys should defiantly bred, you're both beautiful people"

So this guy was insanely high right? I'm almost four months preganent so it's kind of starting to look like I'm "breeding" and I am not a pretty person, I'm funny, I'm smart, and I cook a mean pot roast but "beatiful" I am not. My boyfriend is more than above average, and I think most people think I'm his homely sister, so I understand some one wanting him to "go forth and multiple", but really? WHO THE FREAK SAYS THAT? See this, right here, is why I don't like hippies.