PP

I'm having a baby!

2004-09-15T00:27:48Z

My OB office left a message on the machine at home. My C-section has been scheduled! Yay! Our Peanut will be born Oct. 26, barring any early labor drama. We are soooo excited!

And the baby will be here ...

2004-09-09T20:46:54Z

Had a doctor's appointment today and asked when we'd schedule my C-section. The doctor and I talked two dates: Oct. 26 and Oct. 29. I'll know when I go back in two weeks (it depends on her schedule and the OR availability at the hospital). Holy cow!

waiting game

2004-09-06T22:34:12Z

The long weekend is nice, don't get me wrong. But I'm a creature of habit and it's far preferable to stick with my routines.

Saturday morning, we woke up and drove to the middle nowhere to get portraits done. I found a wonderful maternity photographer and wanted to get some pictures taken for posterity. Because of the package we chose ($600 worth of pictures), we got to do some great family portraits, too. And what look like will be great pics of the boys.

We drove the hour home and a short time later (a whopping 20 minutes), my in-laws arrived. They stayed until 9 p.m. Definitely a long day. My MIL mostly behaved herself (and I skipped over a couple of snotty comments she made), which made for a much more pleasant visit than most we've had with them.

Sunday night, the breeder e-mailed me to let me know one of her cats is pregnant -- possibly two of them. I'm excited and sad, all at the same time. While I'm nowhere near ready to bring home a second cat, it'll be more like 20 weeks before we'll get to bring one home. And by then, I should be ready. It's been hard to cope with no Karma this week. I miss her so much. And it's been really tough to watch our male cat try to come to terms with the fact that his companion is gone forever.

The waiting game is extended to our weather, too. We're expecting to get some pretty bad weather courtesy of now-Tropical Storm Frances. It's looked like it would rain at any minute all day, but it hasn't. There's been a good amount of wind, nothing major -- but I'm guessing that will come.

In house news, Mr. Pen and I picked out new faucets for the bathrooms and the kitchen while at the Giant Orange Home Store today. We also found that the foyer light fixture with which we fell in love is on clearance, a likely sign that it's been discontinued. So we may be shelling out $150 for a light fixture we can't afford to install (much less buy) in the next couple of weeks. On the other hand, we also found out how much picture moulding costs (77 cents a foot) and determined it would cost less than $70 to install it in our downstairs. Yeah!

It's so hard to say goodbye

2004-08-31T14:42:33Z

It doesn't help, knowing that the day will come. If anything, the waiting prolongs the pain.

Today I will have to take my cat to the vet and have her put to sleep. She was diagnosed with chronic renal failure about 18 months ago. In the past month, we have been unable to maintain her kidney function at the needed 20 percent. The vet told us that, were she human, she'd be a transplant candidate. But she's not, so we have taken her twice a week for fluid treatment, letting the vet insert fluid into her body to slow down the toxins building up in her blood. It gave us a little more time, but so much less than we should have had.

I have waited for a miracle but none came. Now all I can do is wait. Wait until I have enough courage to drive the 15 minutes to the vet's office and bring an end to this.

It just hurts so much.

Long time, no write

2004-08-15T22:57:21Z

I need to get back in the habit of blogging. I miss having an outlet for writing and this is pretty much the ideal means for it, especially since it is anonymous.

Right now, I'm grieving for the impending loss of my kitty. She was diagnosed with chronic renal failure about a year ago and it's caught up to her. I was pretty unprepared for it to happen, even though the vet told me initially that it would cut her lifespan pretty short. Still, you never think it's going to happen. She's doing pretty well right now. We've been giving her the run of the house, which is pretty much what she expects on an ongoing basis anyway. I just hate this deathwatch, though.

School daze

2003-05-28T16:08:02Z

Just found out that I get to register for Fall 2003 beginning on Sunday. Wooot! There's one class in particular that I want, an honors class in my major that's taught by the head of my department. Only problem is that I'm not in the honors program. :(

I checked around on my school's Web site and found the honors program info, downloaded the application and faxed it over. Now I just have to wait and pray that they'll overlook the crappy GPA I brought from my previous university (from my failed attempt at college 15 years ago).

If I get into the honors program, then I'll have class at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other class I'm interested in is a poli sci class that meets in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (Now that Buffy is no longer running, I can explore Tuesday night classes.)

Conspiracy theory

2003-05-16T00:01:00Z

I awoke this morning to the sound of rain, pounding the soggy ground outside my window. I fell asleep before 7 o'clock last night and morning still came too early.
About a mile from my office, my car started acting odd. The idle was erratic and my acceleration was rough. As I pulled into the parking garage at work, the Check Engine light came on. Great. I ran up to my office, did a couple of things that had to be done today, dashed off a note to my boss, then left for the mechanic.
I don't know how I made it the seven miles to the auto shop. Neither did my mechanic, who told me as much when he called with the estimate. Nearly $300 to get the spark plug wires replaced. Ouch.
When my car was finally ready, I headed in to work. Again.
This time, Nature conspired against me. A three-alarm fire at an apartment building near my office closed down the street for blocks around my office. I finally got into work and spent a happy three hours working.

Things I learned over graduation weekend

2003-05-13T12:29:20Z

* As much as I love my parents, I still don’t want their smelly yip dogs in my house, stinking up the place.

* Thirteen pounds of potato salad is too much, even for 40 people.

* Forty people also won’t make enough of a dent in 13 pounds of baked beans.

* While it’s a great idea to put sunscreen on your husband, if he’s wearing a long-sleeved velvet robe and a hat and you’re wearing a sundress, it’d be a good idea to put sunscreen on yourself.

* Sunburn? Really hurts.

* You can’t expect a 10-year-old to keep a white shirt clean when there are Hershey’s Kisses to be eaten.

* I’m not too old to be embarrassed by my parents. In public.

* There’s nothing like having your step-mother tell your friends that this is the first time your father has worn pants in a month.

* It’s great that our fathers can entertain themselves by videotaping everything, but is it really necessary for them to videotape each other videotaping the other? For 15 minutes?

* Beer makes it much easier to tolerate my mother-in-law.

* It’s possible for four adults to have four different conversations with each other simultaneously.

* It’s impossible to parent your children when their grandparents are there to countermand everything.

* Only a grandparent would let your 10-year-old son eat a half dozen cookies and a Coke for lunch.

* If you leave your house at 6:15 a.m. to get to the school in time for your husband to line up at the Quad at 7:15 a.m., you’re guaranteed to make it to campus in 3 minutes or less.

* In the rush to beat traffic, you’re also pretty much guaranteed to get a great parking spot next to the law school.

* Graduates and their families can demolish two buffets faster than a swarm of locusts or those creepy scarab things in The Mummy.

* Three chunks of pineapple, two cheese straws and a spoonful of hummus do not a lunch make.

* Seeing my husband walk across the stage, with our sons, to get his diploma? One of the top three moments in my life.

Save me, please

2003-04-20T02:19:51Z

Just got back from the movies, where I accompanied the youngest nib and three of his friends, who henceforth will be known as Team Ritalin. God knows they all are in need of whatever medication they're on. Seriously. It's like being with a bunch of senior citizens -- they all talk about what medication they're on and the medications they've used in the past and the various and sundry side effects. I had no idea that 10-year-old boys had so much to say -- and so loudly. It. Doesn't. Stop. Always in outside voices (or as Mr. Pen put it, "outside urban combat voices." Bless him and his sense of humor; it's all I have left in these, my last few sane hours on this earth.)

Team Ritalin has been here since 5 p.m. and all but one is spending the night. (The one who's not spending the night has issues about sleeping over. And cats -- which makes it tough for those of who have cats in the house.) One member -- the tall, mouthy one -- informed me while eating birthday cake that he really should avoid sugar unless he takes his Ritalin in the morning. Not that this stopped him from hoovering down the cake. And a Coke. And ice cream.

Mr. Pen was also happy to point out that light saber fighting is definitely an indoor sport, bested only by firing live ammunition at one another in the confines of the nib bedroom. And playing said game at almost 10 p.m.? The. Best. Idea. Ever.

I think I'll go lock myself in my bedroom and pray for a very brief bout of hysterical deafness.

School daze

2003-03-26T20:17:55Z

My film history test is in two hours and I really don't know that I'm any better prepared now than I was a week ago. The sheer volume of information is overwhelming. How am I supposed to prepare for a 30-multiple-choice-question test when I have nearly 200 pages of text and thirty pages of notes to digest?

This crazy decision of mine to go back to school really needs some re-examining. What the hell was I thinking?! Work full time and go to college, with two kids and a husband in law school? Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid.

It seemed like such a good idea. Getting a degree would give me the chance to change careers, if I were so inclined. I'd be setting a good example for my kids.

Right now all I think I'm teaching them is how to pretend the four-foot high pile of clean laundry in the corner is invisible.

It's all about the choice

2003-03-17T02:43:17Z

We were driving around, house hunting, today when we came upon an unusual sight. There's a six-way intersection and on two corners were people holding anit-war signs. "Give Peace A Chance," and all that jazz. On a third corner were people holding signs in support of war. I've never seen anything like it.

I told my husband, Mr. Pen, that I was tempted to make some signs myself. My slogan? "Choose Apathy." He laughed and told me I'd have to just drop them on a street corner to keep in line with the message.

Now, it's not that I'm truly apathetic. In fact, that's the farthest thing from the truth. It was a humorous comment to make at the time, especially given that my own political views are as yet undetermined.

I'm very pro-military. I'm an Army brat and can't imagine our country without a strong volunteer armed forces.

But I'm not sure how I feel about a war right now. There are so many parts of it that concern me.

I want this world to be a safe place for my children. I want to know that they will have the chance to grow up and experience all the freedoms so many of us take for granted.

Whirlwind of what not

2003-01-28T15:20:21Z

In spite of my three-day weekend (gotta love personal days!), the 72+ hours passed in a blur of activity and just plain sitting on my ass.

My mouth hurts. What was I thinking, getting braces at my age? On the upside, it should do much to help me eat better since the only candy I like is now on the forbidden foods list.

Next goal? Kick the caffeine habit. Giving up Diet Coke is going to be really tough, but I need to do it. No time like the present.

Of course, my long-term goal is to lose another 15 pounds -- and maybe as much as 25 pounds. Crazy, right? But I'm so tired of seeing pictures of myself and fixating on what I perceive as wrong: Wide load, buck teeth, nerdy glasses. I want to look like Jennifer Garner (OMG, she kicks major ass) but don't know if I have the dedication. Guess I'm going to find out.

So, why all this self improvement crap?

Well, cos I'm thinking about getting pregnant this year. Hubby and I will celebrate six years in August and if we're ever going to add another kid to the brood, the timing isn't going to get any better. We're both over 30, he'll soon return to the land of the gainfully employed, and the kids we already have are almost teens.

But if I'm going to do this, I want to start out from the healthiest place possible. I gained more than 50 pounds with each of my previous pregnancies. At my current weight, that would put me up to well over 200 pounds. At my age, I can't handle that kind of weight. Seriously. It would probably kill me. My body rebounded pretty quickly from the two pregnancies, but that was a long time ago, when I was in my early 20s. My body? Doesn't have that kind of snap back that it used to.

It's not realistic to hope that I'll have one of those Hollywood starlet pregnancies where they leave the hospital three sizes smaller than they were before they got pregnant. But I want to do it from a healthy, fit place. And now? Seems like as good a time as any to start.

What the ...?

2003-01-22T17:50:52Z

How did I become the mother of a 12 year old? It just doesn't seem possible. Was it really 12 years ago that this five-foot-tall sarcasm machine came into this world?

He is, without a doubt, the most amazing person I know. He's smart, witty, caring, kind, compassionate, and loving. It astounds me that he can be so trusting of people and be willing to do so much for others. I think he's a pretty awesome kid and I'm enjoying every minute of him.

Golden Glove recap

2003-01-20T18:12:59Z

What is it with Hollywood actresses today that they not only must be emaciated beyond all concepts of starvation, but must show off their scrawniness in the most horrific ways possible? Case in point: every actress wearing one of those cut-down-to-there dresses (Courtney Cox-Arquette, Debra Messing, to name a couple). All it does is show off the minuscule layer of skin covering their sternums. Yeesh!

Lara Flynn Bjork, what evil hath fashion wrought? While you may have the body of a nine-year-old, you really ought now raid the ballet-recital wardrobe of one.

Sharon Stone's breasts may defy gravity, but did we really need to see them in such great detail? That's a no-brainer: NO. And while I'm on the subject of Sharon, she'd be advised to take notes: when you are a presenter of an award, your job is to read the nominees, announce the winner, hand him/her the goodies, and shut the hell up. Nobody wants to hear you butt into Richard Gere's speech.

I still don't understand the appeal of Jack Nicholson as a sex object.

Sarah Jessica Parker does not look like a new mom. Honey, it's OK to look as though recently bore a child since, ya know, you did.

Golden Globes

2003-01-20T01:21:58Z

Adaptation, which is one of the best movies I have ever seen, is well on the way to racking up as many awards as Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, and cast can carry home. Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep deserve their awards and Oscar nods.

poisonedpen @ 2003-01-16T22:04:00

2003-01-17T03:00:28Z

"bread baggage."

Heeee!

The Wide World of Skank

2003-01-17T02:51:33Z

While I can tolerate Alex McLeod as the host of Joe Millionaire, I don't know if I can consistently watch the skeez that is this show. He ain't the brightest bulb in the box, but he seems kind.

The women, though? Some of them are just beyond belief. One of the girls kept referring to Evan as "an opportunity." Hey, skank: he's a human being, not an opportunity.

Do-re-mi

2003-01-14T18:55:59Z

What prompted me to take voice lessons? The question keeps coming up when people find out that I'm taking lessons. I'm sure if they'd heard me sing, the question would never tumble out of their mouths.

But, seriously.

I've always wanted to play a musical instrument, but just don't have the patience to practice and learn. Time also is an issue, between work, school, and family issues. Kinda squeezes my free time into extinction.

After my mom died, I realized how much I wanted to accomplish in my life . Sort of cliche, right? She was only 52 years old and should have had many happy years ahead of her. She never got to see my brother turn 30, or my husband graduate from law school. She never got to retire or travel or ... well, you get the picture.

Suddenly, all the excuses that I'd made seemed flimsy. And I realized that the only obstacle between me and any goal is ... me.

At my dad's surprise birthday party last spring, my brother brought his guitar so he could play a couple of songs for my dad. While we sat and talked, he strummed a melody that seemed familiar.

"Hey, I know that! That's that song by The Calling."

"yeah. You know the words?"

"Ummmm. No."

Brother pulls out the lyrics. "Here ya go."

So I sang, for the first time in probably fifteen years, and for the first time in front of my dad. And I didn't suck.

After nearly five months of lessons, I suck a lot less now. And it feels really good to do something that's just about *me* -- for me, because I want to do it. Not because I have to.

Still haven't gotten the nerve to sing in public, though.

Suffering from dontgiveadamnesia

2003-01-13T15:20:04Z

Or maybe it's just a terminal case of the whatevers. All I know is, I've got tons of work to do, yet am accomplishing next to nothing.

Alias RAWKS

2003-01-13T03:52:29Z

OMG -- the show totally kicks ass! I can't believe how much action gets shoe-horned into an hour of television.

Kitchen Krazy

2003-01-13T01:40:21Z

I planned out menus for a month and did three days' worth of meal preparations tonight. I'm optimistic it will alleviate some of the stress of trying to feed the fam now that I'm in school AND working full time. Dumbass husband actually balked at having to cook dinner one night a week. I realize he's in school full time, but I work. Full time. And have three hours of class two nights a week. One night, buddy. That leaves me SIX. So, deal.

Thank goodness Alias starts in less than 30 minutes. I need some Vartan love.

Quirky and fun

2003-01-12T21:35:19Z

Just returned from the movies and the nearly two hours of whackiness that is "Adaptation." Although it's a little tough to follow at times, it is well worth the cost of a movie ticket. Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze are brilliant together and the acting is phenomenal. Go, run, see!