So things are going as well as can be expected in the undonebeauty household, what with an almost two-month-old. She doesn't sleep through the night, but Justin didn't start sleeping through the night til he was 3 months old, so.. I'm holding out hope that I'll get a full night's sleep by the end of August. Alexis is smiling and cooing now, and it seems like each day, she gets a little less high maintenance. Still cries a LOT more than Justin did, though. Here, have a picture: ( Alexis )

I went back to work two weeks ago, but I'm gonna look for a new job. I'm only getting about 15 hours a week and I can't support my family on that - add in the fact that gas is going up again and my van only gets about 17 miles a gallon, and this job just isn't lucrative for me anymore. It was great in the wintertime, when I was regularly walking out with $50-75 in my pocket, and gas was cheap, but summer is the slow pizza season anyways, add in the recession, and I've just gotta find something else. Also, I don't want to make a career out of delivering pizza - sorry, no. So I'm setting a goal to have another job lined up by the end of July - I know that's probably a little ambitious considering current economic conditions, but whatever.

I thought I had a lot of things to say, but I've been staring at the screen for the last five minutes, completely drawing a blank, so I guess I don't have anything to say after all. Oops.

Like most of our generation, Robert and I only have our cell phones. Mostly we don't see the point in adding another bill every month when our cell phones work just fine and get the job done. And it's not as though we could dump the cell phones and switch to a landline - we both have to have cell phones for work (he has to be able to get in touch with the shop at anytime while he's out around the city cleaning carpets, and they have to be able to get in touch with him; also, every couple of months he's on call for a week and they have to be able to get ahold of him no matter where he's at. I technically don't *have* to have a cell phone, but in my line of work, it makes my life a hell of a lot more convenient - this way if I need to get in touch with the store while I'm on a delivery, or if I need to get in touch with the customer, I don't have to look for a pay phone. Also, if the customer calls the store while I'm en route and tells them something I need to know - for example, recently, a hotel customer realized he had given the wrong room number - they can call me and let me know that information). So a landline is not economically feasible, therefore, we don't have one.

So I've spent the last two days just trying to get caught up on my friends' page.. I finally had to give up at something ridiculous like 400 entries back (my friends page blew up with last week's American Idol between Danny's scream and Allison's elimination). So now I'll update about my new baby. Under the cut because I'll be surprised if it doesn't get long.

( So did I have a boy or a girl? )

I hate being nine months pregnant. I'm just gonna complain for a minute.

I hate false labor pains. I know this isn't real labor; the pains suck, but I'd still call them more uncomfortable than actually painful, they're not regular, and the closest together they are is 10 minutes, BUT THEY STILL SUCK. I hate the fact that my belly button hasn't popped out and therefore my kid kicks at it. I hate the fact that my kid kicks at my cervix. I hate the fact that I have to pee every single hour. I hate the fact that I'm seven days from my c-section date and this kid hasn't dropped yet, which means it's still hanging out in my ribs and I can't freaking breathe. I didn't have this problem with Justin; I carried him low throughout my entire pregnancy with him, dropped a week or so before I had him, and ended up induced/c-sectioned early anyways. I'm more pregnant with this child than I ever got with Justin. I hate the fact that my uterus is so crowded that the baby's kicks hurt. I hate when this child gets the hiccups. I hate the fact that I can't eat a full meal. I managed to get one taco down for dinner tonight. ONE. I had no more room after that, I would have exploded if I had tried to eat more. I hate that I have Restless Legs Syndrome at night and I can't sleep in the one position that truly relieves it for me - on my stomach. I hate the fact that I can't stand up without feeling like my uterus is gonna fall out. I hate the fact that I think I might have a yeast infection and I'm scared to just get some Monistat because I know my cervix is dilated to 1 cm (at least.. that's where it was last Thursday, it could have gotten further in the week since then), therefore, Monistat could affect the baby. I hate the fact that I can't see my legs to shave them, and I know they're going to make comments about it at the hospital because they did when I was having Justin ("Wow, it's been a while" was a comment one nurse made after seeing my legs. I'm so sorry that I have a policy of not taking sharp objects to anything I can't see; it's gotten me this far, I think it's a pretty good policy!). I hate that I spend all day in pain because I'm all baby. I don't see how Michelle Duggar does it, popping a new one out every 18 months. If I never get pregnant again, I'll be perfectly fine with that. If God meant for all of us to have 18 kids, He wouldn't make this last month so ridiculously suckish.

Okay, well, now that I've bitched, I'm gonna get up and get something done, because moving around is pretty much the only thing that makes these stupid false labor pains better (and that's another reason I know this is false labor and not real labor; if it was real labor, moving around wouldn't relieve the pain)

So I'm going to my friend's baby shower today.. which totally puts me in a clothing dilemma. Obviously, it's her baby shower, today is about her, and I don't want to distract from that.. but being 9 months pregnant myself, I can't exactly hide my belly no matter what I wear. I haven't really worn maternity clothes this pregnancy, except for my leftover maternity pants from when I was pregnant with Justin, but the problem is that most of my shirts, while they cover my belly and leave nothing hanging out, they're tight (obviously) and I'm afraid they would draw too much attention to my own belly. I could wear a maternity shirt, but the problem is that all my maternity shirts that are clean are either sleeveless or have very short sleeves, which wasn't a problem when I was pregnant with Justin (which is when I bought these damn things) because I could cover up with a jacket.. but it's in the 80's and 90's here, it's way too warm for a jacket, and wearing one of those shirts without a jacket would lead to too many awkward questions, and again, distract the attention from my friend.

But I'll figure something out. I guess if all else fails, I'll wear something out of Robert's wardrobe - obviously him being male, he has bigger shirts, I think he has shirts that aren't too distracting (or advertising beer.. somehow I think a pregnant woman wearing a shirt about beer would probably attract some unwanted attention), and he has been known to wear some of my shirts (most of my shirts have smartass comments on them, it's not like he wears my blouses or anything. Although if that was his prerogative, I'd still love him) so it's totally okay for me to return the, ahem, favor, y/y?

I went to Kid To Kid yesterday to pick up a car seat for the baby, seeing as how I'm having this kid in 10 days, I thought it might be a good idea. I also picked up several green/yellow/white/brown onesies (this was really the first time my entire pregnancy I wished I knew what I'm having - I saw loads of cute onesies that would have been appropriate for a boy, or a girl, but not both). A couple hours later, Robert comes through the door.. holding a car seat he picked up at a yard sale. On the one hand, it's not completely unnecessary, we do have two vehicles, after all, but on the other hand, since infant seats can be buckled into cars safely without their bases, we really only needed one (we only had one between the two of us when Justin was a baby and never needed a second). But at least we were both thinking about getting something we knew we needed for the baby.. and both car seats are in great condition, and together, we still spent less on two used than we would have spent on one new, so no harm done. Actually, it kind of reminded me of the time we had just gotten our tax refunds and we both went grocery shopping, spending about $250 each, without the other one knowing, and ended up with more stuff in our kitchen than either of us had ever seen before (and, eventually, we did eat it all).

Omg, I just realized I seriously hope I don't go into labor at the baby shower today, because if I'm tripping over my clothes possibly distracting from my friend, imagine what me going into labor would do. I fully recognize I could go into labor before May 5, please God, if I'm meant to have this child before May 5, please just don't make it this afternoon.

My wonderful husband called my dr's office and spoke with the office manager.. long story short (because it's not 3 AM and I actually have things to be doing right now), I don't know how, but he managed to get something worked out for me and I still have a doctor and am still having this child on May 5 as planned. So needless to say, I think I have the best husband in the world.

I had an appointment today, incidentally, and had my cervix checked. I'm dilated to 1 cm, but it's not active labor until at least 3 cm, and 1 cm is normal at my stage of pregnancy. So I'm still determined to make May 5, no matter what my coworkers say.

Can't sleep. Bottom fell out from under me today. I don't know how long I'll type or how melodramatic I'll get so here's fair warning that what's under the cut may be long and whiny.

( ... )

I'm such a putz, I mostly update via my status message on Facebook anymore, and then I forget to blog. Oops. So I guess I'll update now.

Last time I updated, I had just gotten my cat, so let me think what's happened since then. I traded my Saturn in for a van.. god I feel like such a Soccer Mom typing that. It wasn't paid off yet, but the dealership paid the Saturn off and just added the balance to my note, so it's all good. My payment on the van is $420 a month, BUT consider that before Robert paid his truck off, we were paying nearly $600 a month in payments on my Saturn and his truck, we're still doing better now than we were. Additionally, the way we've got the payments set up, we're going to have the van paid off a full seven months before I was scheduled to have the Saturn paid off; so that's gonna be freaking awesome.

I'm still working at Domino's, still like my job. There's idiots, of course, but you get idiots wherever you work, so it's nothing I worry about. People tend to tip me a couple extra bucks when they see my belly, so that's pretty cool. Honestly, it would be nice to make more money, but right now, Domino's is working for me, and I need Domino's because Ted works with my crazy-ass scheduling issues, and I know that not everyone would do that.

I don't have diabetes with this pregnancy. As a matter of fact, I have no complications. It's kind of nice, after the pregnancy hell I had with Justin, to be able to see what it's like to have a ridiculously normal pregnancy. I don't even have a small-or-large-for-date baby; I'm measuring EXACTLY where I should be for how far along I am. My C-section is scheduled for May 5, and I have to be at the hospital at 5:30 AM. OH EM GEE I DO NOT WANT TO GET UP THAT EARLY AIIIII.

Justin's getting big; I think I might start potty training soon. He's talking more now, I can actually understand him more of the time. Not all the time; he still babbles a lot, but it's okay.

Let's see, talked about the van, the job, the pregnancy, the kid.. now you know why I don't update, my life is ridiculously normal and unpostworthy. It's all great.

The only thing I remember being afraid of as a kid was the vacuum cleaner, and that was more the noise than anything else, and once I was about seven or so, I got used to the noise and the vacuum didn't scare me anymore. Other than that, I can't remember being afraid of anything. I even tried reading other answers to see if any would trigger my memories, and nothing did.

Of course, I'm absolutely terrified of spiders now, but that fear didn't manifest itself until high school.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/daschle_taxes

I have to admit, it's rather nice having a President who is willing to not only say "I screwed up," but also "I'm frustrated with myself." It's something that's been sorely lacking the last eight years.

I didn't watch the Superbowl because I didn't care. I find it extremely amusing, too, that I was the only one at work that Ted DIDN'T schedule to work on Superbowl Sunday (busiest pizza day of the year).. and I'm the only one who didn't care about the game. I wasn't even 100% positive who had won when I went to work on Monday morning; again, didn't watch the game. It's awesome.

So, Robert and I have a friend who lives in Kansas City who needed to find someone to adopt one of her cats cause she couldn't take care of him anymore. We talked about it and decided to adopt him. Originally, she was going to drive all the way down here, but then the next day she asked us if we wanted to meet somewhere. So we met her in Emporia on Sunday to get the cat. His name is Rocky, he's a black-and-white manx cat, and I don't have a picture because I'm still without a phone.

Yesterday, when I got home from work, I couldn't find the cat. I typed out a whole long story, but then I got bored rereading it, so I'll just give the Cliff's Notes version: the cat, we're pretty sure, ended up being somewhere between the first and second floor of our house, because after four hours of looking, he jumped out of a closet that I had thoroughly cleaned out in an effort to look for him, and there was a hole we found in the closet that looked like it led under the stairs. On the bright side, I had been wanting to clean that closet out for quite some time now, and now it's done. We went to Walmart and bought a latch for that closet door; Rocky won't be hiding in there again. We also moved his litter box and his food and water into the bathroom; we didn't want them in the basement anymore since we were looking for him and found a way he could jump into the basement of the other side of the duplex - we don't have room in the kitchen for the litter box or his food and water, so we made room in the bathroom.

I have nothing else to babble about.

Carrie Underwood, no freaking contest. And you get no reason, because no reason is necessary. It's Carrie Underwood. That's all the reason you need.

So I actually came up with three laws of trains (similar to Murphy's Law) about a year ago or so, and I posted them on my friend's Myspace, but since I've since deleted my Myspace, the comment was also deleted, so I'm posting it here (and at Facebook) so I actually have it somewhere. I can't guarantee this is word-for-word the original, because the original no longer exists, but I'm gonna get it as close as I can. All these laws are true, and I can vouch for them because I deliver pizza in the worst possible area of town for trains - I don't even know how many train track intersections there are in my area.

1) No matter how fast a train is moving, if you decide to stop and wait on the train, it will stop. You will be stuck.
2) If you are coming up on a train intersection and notice a stopped train, and try to find an alternate route, the train will start moving again as soon as you turn down a side road.
3) If you think you can outsmart the train and sit and wait on it, expecting it to begin moving again at any moment, think again: If you decide to sit and wait it out, that train will stay stopped.

I think it's time to just accept the fact that I am never going to read Lord of the Rings. You don't understand, I've been trying to read these books since I saw The Two Towers in the theatre. I just can't get into them. They don't interest me, which makes no sense as I read The Hobbit and loved it. I've tried something like four or five times now to read these books, it's just not happening. My most successful venture was about three years ago, when I got all the way through Fellowship and halfway through The Two Towers. I've been trying to read Fellowship for the last three or four weeks and I'm only four chapters in, because I can't get more than five or ten pages read at a time before I want to fall asleep, and anymore, the fact that I'm just not interested has made reading feel more like a chore to me, and that's the last thing I want.

So up next, I think I'm going to read Twilight, just to see what the big fuss is about; about half my friends love those books, half hate them. I haven't read them, so I have no opinion.

But now, it's time to go to work. Hopefully we're busy today, I need to make some money.

( cut because my insane pregnant woman hormones are going haywire again :( )

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday, everything's going ridiculously normal. I couldn't get health insurance, so I guess I'm just gonna have huge medical bills. I'll be all right, though, I'll set up payment arrangements so that I don't have to file bankruptcy. I had a sonogram last month, everything looked extremely normal (no deformities, no defects, nothing), I'm measuring normal, I have no abnormal symptoms.. of course, my pregnancy with Justin was ridiculously normal up until about this point, and then my blood sugar went nuts. I have that test next month, here's to praying I come up normal this go-round.

I don't even have any weirdo cravings! There's a girl at work who's also pregnant, she's going to have her kid about 3 weeks after I have mine, the other night, she had made breadsticks, she was drizzling them with honey and then dipping them in ranch. HONEY AND RANCH. blech.

I have nothing more to say, so I'm gonna close this now.

So my kid watches Sesame Street in the morning, right? The other morning, he's watching, I'm playing around on Facebook, when all of a sudden, I recognize a song!



I love it!

I've been actually cooking for dinner, as opposed to making Hamburger Helper, or just picking fast food up, or making Robert cook. I've found all sorts of recipes that I've been trying out. Some turn out well, some don't, the ones that do, I save so I can make them again sometime. I've found that I enjoy my meals that much more for the effort that I'm putting into them. I've also discovered that instant mashed potatoes have NOTHING on real ones - I've actually been making real potatoes lately. Cooking is mostly foreign to me, Robert says it's because you learn to cook from your parents/grandparents. I wouldn't know, my mom doesn't cook. Nearly everything I had growing up got cooked in the microwave. I think the only thing that wasn't cooked in the microwave was the rare occasions we had spaghetti. But I've discovered that I really like sitting down with my cookbooks, poring through them, deciding what I want to make during the week, writing down what ingredients the recipes call for (and how much), going through my kitchen, figuring out what I already have, making my shopping list accordingly, and then going to the store with my list. It's also prevented me from doing impulse shopping at the grocery store, because I also put things we need in general on my list (milk, cereal, bread, etc) and that makes it so that I can stick to my list - and ONLY to my list, so that if it's not on my list, it doesn't get put in my cart.

Christ, I really do act like an adult now. When the hell did this happen?

Today, Robert and I took the kids out to help his mom move. She had been living in Eureka, which, while not exactly Wichita, at least has a Sonic. And a grocery store. She moved out to Bumfuck, Egypt, and that's not much of an exaggeration. It got me thinking, and I think this is probably just a side effect of growing up in.. well, I know Wichita isn't the biggest city around, but it's big enough. Anyways, I grew up in a good sized city, and that's probably why I've always wondered what it would be like to live in a small town.. if I actually lived in one, I think I'd go crazy, honestly. Good gravy, his mom's gotta be living AT LEAST thirty miles from the nearest grocery store. Three gallons of gas just to go get a gallon of milk and come back! It doesn't hurt so bad now when gas is $1.69 a gallon, but it can't be too long before gas gets super expensive again. I just don't think I could handle it. I have to have civilization. I have to be able to go to the grocery store and interact with a stranger while they're ringing up my groceries. I have to be able to spend less on gas than I am on the milk. Good gravy, I just had a thought, I hope they don't have an emergency, and not just because I hope that for everyone I know, but because I don't know where their ambulance/fire truck/cops/whatever would come from and I don't know how long it would take. I like knowing that if my house catches fire, or something happens to Justin, I can call 911 and the ambulance/fire truck will be there soon. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't live 30 miles from anything even remotely RESEMBLING civilization. But his mom seems like she's going to be happy, so I'm happy for her.

I've found myself, for the most part, happier since transferring to the new Domino's after mine closed. I get along with everyone there, and it's nice that the managers trust that I know how to do my job, and let me just do my job, rather than micromanaging me and telling me what to do every baby step of the way. I don't wake up every day dreading going to work because I'm not feeling like dealing with this person's bitchiness, this person's moodiness, this person's bipolarness, this person's unpredictability, etc. I don't even wake up dreading work at all anymore.. well, except when it snows, but that's an outside circumstance. But I've been coming home in a better mood for not having to deal with idiots and irrational people. Also, where William was scheduling me for 25-30 hours a week, Ted is scheduling me for the 35-40 a week that I want, and the tips are better at the new store, so financially, I'm doing better as well.

Really, I don't have anything to complain about at the moment. Justin whines a lot and throws a lot of tantrums these days, but he's 2, so that's pretty much all the explanation anyone needs, and I'm figuring he'll be okay once he gets a little older and more reasonable. I had a sonogram this week, and the baby looks great; no deformities, everything's developing completely normal. The baby is even measuring exactly where it should be, down to the day, so my pregnancy is just insanely normal at the moment. Robert and I are still planning on waiting until the baby's born to find out whether it's a boy or a girl, so I don't know. I think it's another boy, but I don't actually care whether it's a boy or a girl as long as I get a healthy baby, and so far, looks like I'm getting my wish. My c-section date has been set for May 5, so unless I go into labor before then, I'll be having this baby on May 5.

I don't really have anything else to say, so I'm gonna close this up and go to work (because not everyone gets today off).

I don't think I kept a single resolution last year, ha. So here I go, trying again for 2009.

1) Same resolution as number 1 last year, but actually keep at least one of these.

2) Eat healthier.. less fast food/junk food.

3) Exercise more.. though I won't worry about this until June or July, once it's safe for me to start exercising again post-surgery.

4) Read 50 books. I'm going to keep making this resolution every year until I finally hit it! And then I'll probably keep making it just to keep myself well-versed.

5) I'm not going to try to update my blog every day like I threatened to last year, because Lord knows I won't do it, but I think blogging at least once a week I can probably do.

6) Finally get all my closets organized. This means the closet off the living room, the closet off the bathroom, the cabinets/drawers in the upstairs hall, the closet in the bedroom I share with Robert, and the closet in the kids' room.

7) Organize my back room at some point this year, as at this point it's sort of a hodgepodge of everything that doesn't quite have a home. Hell, I'll throw the basement and garage in, too, especially since I'm expecting to start nesting in the next couple of months and I'll have the urge to do it.

8) Establish a plan to keep my house clean.. I'm sick and tired of constantly coming home to a dirty house.

9) Get Justin potty trained. I've pretty much resigned myself to having two kids in diapers for a few months, since I'm due in four and a half months and Justin hasn't even shown any interest in potty training yet, but that's definitely not something I want to do for very long.

10) Learn to cook. I mean, yeah, I can cook a little, but I want to get into the habit of knowing what I'm making for dinner each night so that we can minimize the eating out and fast food.

I think that'll do it.

I think my favorite is The Polar Express. I generally am not a big fan of the Christmas movie genre (or Christmas songs, for that matter - the only ones that don't make me want to gag myself are the Trans-Siberian Orchestra version of "Carol of the Bells" and the song by Brad Paisley about the completely politically correct Christmas) but this one, for some reason, melts even my bah-humbug-ish heart. I don't know, maybe it's the computer-animated Tom Hanks.

(on a sidenote, sorry all I've been posting lately is answers to Writer's Block.)