Nonplussed

I think the baby was draining the life force out of me today. I have had a headache for days, waves of nausea, exhaustion, irritable... ughhhh. What a shitty day too. I felt beseiged all day - like everything in the universe was working against me. I had to get up early this morning to get to work by 5:30 for a meeting, and from the moment I left the house it seemed like everyone and everything was out to get me. By mid-morning I was feeling so raw all I wanted to do was go home. I went in the bathroom and cried twice! I'd like to blame the pregnancy hormones, but they didn't cause all the shitty things that happened to me today. Then to top it all off, on my way home I drove on base to run an errand and I got pulled over at the gate because the "decals on my car were FADED." (Are you kidding me?) After I talked to the asshole MP, I cried again. It was the shitty icing on the shitcake.

I know I shouldn't give any energy to these things when I'm all irritable and hormonal, but today I just couldn't stop thinking about how it seems like everything I am doing right now is crap I don't want to do. My job... Ok, maybe it's mostly my job. There are so many things that annoy me to the point of getting knots in my stomach. I realize there are annoying things about every job, but with this one, it's like 20% stuff I enjoy and about 80% stuff I'm like why, wHY, WHY??? Either things I think are a waste of time or things I flat out don't want to do (like coming in to work at 5:30 am, for example). I miss my job at State Department!

And maybe I also kind of a little bit hate living here. Maybe hate is too strong a word. Dislike. Sometimes strongly. How can you hate living in Hawaii? It's paradise! When you are not a tourist here, there are things that try your patience. I admit I feel isolated and sometimes lonely here. I don't notice as much when Adam is here, but when he's not I realize, um, I have no friends. You know, like girlfriends. It's not like I work with many young women (hardly any), and it's not like I could really see myself hanging out with the femme-bots on the blonde brigade of spouses in Adam's squadron. Anyway we are done with that place.

One of the biggest reasons I fear quitting my job (besides the money thing) is that I worry I will become a complete recluse. I'm introverted as it is and I worry I will end up hermiting with the baby. On the other hand, maybe I would meet other moms doing activities with the baby.

And.... now I'm done with this sad little uptight post. I have Weeds to watch.

Mostly stuff about Adam. And Thanksgiving. And Halloween.

Adam is leaving on Sunday to go back to Dirka-dirka-stan or Turkalurkadurk or wherever he is going - an undisclosed location. He is taking his replacement out to the det site to show her around and teach her what she needs to do. I'm so sad he is leaving me! It's only going to be for 2.5 weeks, but it still sucks. He promises me he will be back for Thanksgiving and I have already made it clear he is going to be divorced if he isn't.

We still haven't decided whether we are going to cook or go out for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year we went to one of the hotels downtown and sat on the veranda while enjoying the ocean views of the sunset and a nice Turkey buffet. That was great - the beach, having someone else cook and clean. But it's just not the same as making the recipes you grew up eating. Plus we have to watch the Cowboys OF COURSE and it's better to watch it at home. I don't really want to cook a turkey, but I guess we could buy one pre-roasted. The things I missed the most from dinner last year were my Nani's sweet potato casserole (made the southern TEXAS way with pecans and brown sugar on top - YUM), green bean casserole (you know, like with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and cheese and fried onions on top), and pecan pie. They had pumpkin pie which I also like, but not as much as pecan. At our house we usually have one of each. My mom's mashed potatoes are also better than the buffet ones were, but they are not the crux of the meal for me. If I cook I will do mashed and sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing and cranberry sauce. What are you all planning for Turkey Day?

We will be at home tomorrow night handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters and enjoying all the cute costumes! I think we are going to watch The Shining tonight. It is pretty much the only scary movie I will watch and that's only because I watched it about a million times in college so it doesn't scare me anymore. REDRUM!

Adam also found out where his new assignment is going to be: in the Southeast Asia division at the JIOC. That's the Joint Intelligence Operations Center. And major bummer, he is going to be on the watch floor for at least a year. I nearly sunk into a major depression just thinking about it last night. Hopefully it will only be a year, so it would really only be 6 months with a baby. He was on the watch floor when we lived in DC and I hated it with a firey passion.

The schedule here sounds better though. He will be on 12 hour shifts from 5-5 and he will work a month on days then a month on nights, rinse and repeat. Every other week he will only work on Thursday and Friday. The in-between weeks he will work every day but Thursday/Friday. The only bad part about it really is the night shift stuff. Because he will be rattling around the house in the middle of the night on his days off, while I and the baby are trying to sleep. The big benefit to that is that he will be able to be with the baby if s/he wakes and I can keep sleeping. But I'm a light sleeper so I worry he will just be keeping me up all night. The other big benefit to this schedule will be that the months he works days, he can keep the baby at home on his days off if I decide to go back to work. Those months we would only have to put the baby in daycare for 10 days out of the month. The night-shift months that won't really work because he will need to be sleeping during the day even on his days off so his sleep schedule doesn't get too wonky.

No baby news really at the moment. I will get a picture of TEH BELLEH up this weekend. I will be 14 weeks!

For those of you who happen to care about the minute details of my life (hi Mom!)

I wish I had something fascinating to update with but seeing as how nothing (NOTHING) that would interest you has happened to me in ... days? ... weeks? I have nothing. I know it's been all Baby up in these parts lately, but I don't even have anything to report on that front. We seem to have reached a pregnancy lull where nothing much is happening. Our next exciting appointment is not for another 7 weeks - that's the ultrasound where we find out the sex of the baby. Everything is the same. Even my body doesn't seem to be changing much the last few weeks. My waistline is staying pretty much the same. The books all say I will gain a pound a week and my uterus will be growing up and up throughout the second trimester, but I haven't noticed anything particularly unusual yet.

Adam's cousin who was supposed to have her baby the same week as us had a miscarriage this week. So of course I have been worrying about our little Papoose. I assume s/he is still bouncing around in there because I'm still having bouts of nausea, but I really wish we could hear the heartbeat again, just to confirm s/he is still well.

The ticker baby is going strong though! It looks like it had another growth spurt. It got taller and skinnier again. Apparently the (real) baby is now the size of my fist and can drink and pee. Wheee! Good times.

I actually got inspired to cook this weekend. Like real food, with raw ingredients! Adam did not faint, much as I expected him to. Last night I made curry turkey burgers on sprouted grain buns. They were super yum. I also made a stew-like concoction of chicken and squash in a cream sauce. Haven't sampled it yet but it looks tasty. (ETA: I just tried it and it's kind of like a creamy chicken noodle soup. Without the noodles. It's good, but not delicious like the recipe made it sound - i.e., cheezy and thick.) I'm planning to make a few more things this week: taco salads, chili and eggplant with meat sauce. This is more than I have actually cooked since like before Adam and I got married. I should get some pictures of this stuff up to entice your taste buds.

I also want to post pics of my expanding girth of pregnant glory (aka: the belly), but ... as much as it is protruding ripely, it has not really reached the stage of looking actually honest-to-god pregnant. Instead it looks more like I-just-overate-at-Thanksgiving-dinner.

I spent a good 30 minutes this afternoon trying to explain to my colleague (the one with duct tape on his shoes) that the President is not elected by the popular vote, but rather by the electoral college. He totally didn't believe me that you could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college and therefore the election (hello! where were you in 2000??? where were you in 7th grade???), or that the electoral college members could technically vote any way they wanted and didn't HAVE to vote for the most-favored candidate in their state.

I learn so many fascinating things while I'm at work.

Baby Dancing

This is HILARIOUS. You guys have probably already seen it but in case you haven't ... ahhh. This is the kind of stuff that makes all the challenges of parenting worthwhile :)

My Cancerversary

Three years ago this week I was diagnosed with cancer. It's kind of funny because I didn't even remember this year. Adam reminded me on Tuesday it was my three year cancerversary. At that time, when I was first diagnosed, I couldn't imagine a time when I wouldn't think about having cancer every minute of every day. I knew it would come eventually, the time when my life didn't revolve around having cancer, but I couldn't picture when or how I would get there. Cancer was the first thought in my mind when I woke up in the morning and the last before I went to bed. Cancer colored my whole world for at least six months until I gradually started to feel "normal" again. Now I hardly think about it at all. Sure I still have moments when I resent having this extra thing to worry about whenever I have to go back for more bloodwork or remember to take my thyroid hormone every morning. But mostly it's a non-issue in my life these days. And I still believe - even more so as I get more hindsight - what I said before: having cancer was a blessing in disguise. Not least because it made me more aware of how precious life is and what is really important. I know that sounds cliche, but when you are confronted with your own mortality, it brings everything into sharp focus. I've lost some of that focus now that I know I'm going to go on living for quite some time, so it's nice to remember every year what it felt like then. To be alive.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e. e. cummings

To work or not to work?

First off, can I please direct your attention over to the right and ask what the blue fuck happened to the ticker baby?! It's ... it's ... got fat? It looks like a tiny oompaloompa all of a sudden. I know I've been eating a lot of ice cream and pancakes, but seriously!

So how was your weekend? I slept through most of mine. No really. I slept about 12 hours on Friday night, then Adam took me out to breakfast and I came home and took a 3 hour nap. I think there were drugs in my pancakes. Sunday was busy. It went like this: wake up, Whole Foods, church, commissary for groceries, Marine Corps Exchange (like a Wal-Mart on base, except ghettoer -- that is totally a word), home to unload groceries, driving tour of neighborhood we hope to move to, gas, Navy Exchange, Costco, home again, nap, gym, shower, tv, bed. You may have noticed that we go to three different places to get our groceries (much to Adam's chagrin). It's because I am paranoid about dairy and meat products and will only buy/eat those mostly from Whole Foods. I buy eggs, cheese, butter, yogurt, meats, and anything else that suits my fancy. We shop at the commissary for all the other food things we need like spices, some veggies, milk (because they have the same organic whole milk as WF for less money), and other random things I will not spend $10 on a box of crackers from WF so help me god I don't care if it's made with the Queen of Sheba's tears. Then we go to Costco to get the majority of everything else: fruit, more meats, nuts, veggies, cottage cheese, Babybel's, feta, hummus, giant 5 lb bags of carrots, booze, motor oil, etc, etc, etc. Stuff is cheap at Costco and I love shopping there but you can't buy all your groceries there unless you are shopping for a big family because there is just not room in my freezer for 15 lbs of pork loin.

Sometime over the weekend Adam and I managed to have another conversation about whether I should go back to work or not. We have discussed it ad nauseum and still have yet to come to a definite conclusion. Just when I think we are pretty much leaning towards me quitting my job, Adam up and pulls a 180 (on Saturday) telling me how much money we could save for a down payment on a house in a few years if I keep working now. Leaving me like: I thought you wanted me to quit working?! And he's like: the daddy part of me does but the economist part of me doesn't! And then we have a three hour discussion about what is going to happen to our finances if I quit working (also known as: evaluating whether I will have to stop getting pedicures and dropping $100 in Target whenever I feel like it, because really I don't want to do that).

This is such a hard decision! Also because the pro's and con's aren't easily balanced out. How do you balance the extra income against the stress of being a working mom and having to hand off mah baybeeee to some stranger to care for? You can't! You can't even compare those things.

If I keep working, a big chunk of my income is going to go to day care, but a very-not-insignificant amount of money will still be left over to save for a down payment on a house and to spend on frivolous things like going to the mall and buying a shirt if I feel like it. If I keep working I will have the satisfaction of having "something for myself" and getting to leave the house and interact with adults and do non-baby-related things. And I will keep up my skills to continue to have a lucrative career later on when the kids are in school and doing their own activities.

However, if I go back to work, I will have to hand over my tiny 3 month old baby to day care to go to a job I don't really like that much = HARD. Plus, getting myself ready in the morning AND getting a newborn ready, dropped off at daycare and getting to work on time = HARD. I can hardly get myself going in the morning. Plus, lugging around a breast pump and pumping twice a day at work = HARD. Plus, will they even give your baby breastmilk at daycare?? And cloth diapers? I'm pretty sure they won't do cloth diapers at daycare, so we will have to be buying diapers. Not even mentioning the feeling of missing out on so much baby stuff = HARD. All of that = HARD.

If I quit working all those hard things go away, but we will also be cutting our family income literally in half. Right now we put all of my paycheck into savings, and that would go away. We would probably not have to make too many cuts in our current spending levels, but we wouldn't be able to save as much. Which... that is ALSO a part of providing the best for your kids: saving money and financial stability. But is it more important than being there? To me? Because there is no answer to this question. All that matters is what matters most TO ME.

At the moment, I am leaning towards quitting my job. Right now it seems like the sacrifices we would make to lose 50% of our household income are not as bad/much as the sacrifices *I* would have to make to keep working. But I still haven't decided. And I don't think I'll ever truly, finally DECIDE. I will have to just buckle down eventually and do one thing or the other and then try to find peace with that. Either way there are going to be positives and negatives - benefits and sacrifices. But I will only have one chance to stay home when they are babies. Once they are grown, it's over. Still. This decision...

HARD.

Pregnancy Food (AGAIN) and Fall

The major food-related theme of this pregnancy so far continues: I can't seem to stomach anything I prepare myself. Except eggs in the morning, and even those are iffy and I sort of have to force myself. The nausea is less in general, but I'm having real "morning" sickness these days instead of the all day nausea I was experiencing before. From the time I wake up until about 1:00, I feel sort of barfy. I manage to eat eggs and a snack during that time because if I don't eat I feel MORE pukey. Then in the afternoon I get really hungry and that continues basically all night. I ate a lot of food yesterday afternoon and I got into bed and my stomach was growling.

The staples of my diet are (as usual except for the last bullet):

- Fish oil/cod liver oil
- Butter
- Eggs
- Meats - steak, chicken, shrimp, mussels, tuna (yes I eat the skin and fatty cuts, all the minerals and fat soluable vitamins are good for me and the baby)
- Cheese
- Nuts
- Greek yogurt (FAGE - full fat version)
- Fruits
- Some veggies (they still kind of make me pukey)
- Other things I've enjoyed eating: oatmeal, sandwiches, peanut butter & jelly, pizza, ice cream, hamburgers, cookies, brownies, candy - trying to focus on all of the above FIRST!

It seems the weather is finally cooling off a bit around here (thank you JESUS). We have not been using our a/c in the living room in the evenings. I still turn it on in our bedroom before we go to bed, but it's staying cooler all night. We wake up to cool temperatures instead of the muggy inferno of the summertime. I love fall, it's my favorite season! It is one of the things I have been missing the most since we've been here. I've missed two falls so far. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving! We will probably get lots of trick-or-treaters this year since we are in a neighborhood with lots of kids instead of a high-rise apartment building. I'm going to make pumpkin muffins this weekend - yum!

What are your weekend plans?

More pregnancy nonsense and due date changes to May 3

I was planning to go to the gym an hour ago, but I realized I forgot my gym socks. I *KNEW* I was forgetting something when I packed my gym bag this morning. I stood there blinking, staring into the bag hoping the item would reveal itself to me, and finally thought, no I guess I have everything. Duhhhhhh. Can I blame it on pregnancy brain?

I thought I might find some socks across the street in the mini-mart so I went over there about 30 minutes ago. They do have athletic socks... if your feet are a men's size 8-9. They were awful and they only came in 3-packs. I opted to do my workout later after I get home instead of buying 3 awful pairs of socks. Then I saw an egg salad sandwich in the cooler and I kind of wanted to eat it for lunch. But I decided not to buy it. Even though I kind of don't want to eat the chicken wings I brought with me from home. Meh.

I'm wearing maternity pants for the first time today and I love them and hate them. They are really comfy and don't constrict my belly at all. But they also go up to my armpits (secret fit belly) and they keep falling down because my belly is not big enough yet.

I changed my tickers because when we had our ultrasound yesterday, the midwife thought I wasn't quite as far along as they first thought. I done told them when I first went in that I didn't ovulate on day 14 of my cycle and my due date was probably a little later than 4/30! But they just smiled like "poor dear thinks she knows more than us" and wrote down 4/30. So if I ovulated when I thought I did and not later (which is also possible*) then I'll be 12 weeks pregnant next Monday and not this Friday like I thought.

*I was charting and my temp shifted twice. I thought the first time was when I ovulated, but it could also be that I didn't ovulate until the second shift. Which would kind of make sense because got very faint positives on the HPT's I took exactly 14 days after the first shift, which should have been enough time fora clearpositive, BUT would have only been a week after the second shift, which would have been pretty early to get a positive HPT. WHO KNOWS. If I didn't ovulate until the later date, I'll be 11 weeks on this Friday. It's only a few days either way (but the latter scenario is still a WHOLE WEEK LESS than what I was going by before... even though I knew it was probably the wrong due date... I no longer know what I'm talking about in this sentence so I'm going to stop).

Dopplers and Ultrasounds and Babies - Oh My!

Oh my gosh, that was so cool! I've been grinning like a cheshire cat all afternoon! We ended up getting an ultrasound out of the deal (yay ultrasounds!); we were only expecting to hear the baby's heartbeat. At first the midwife couldn't find the heartbeat, and I was getting really nervous about it. But she kept saying that my uterus was probably just tilted backwards or something. So she brought in the ultrasound machine and holy cow, there's a baby in there! It was so cute, s/he was jumping all over the place, kicking his legs and punching with his arms. And we could see the tiny heart beating! After that, the midwife was able to find the heartbeat - 170 beats per minute!

I also told my boss and my coworkers, so the cat's out of the bag. I know I'm still not out of the first trimester yet, but I feel like things are going to be fine. My coworker - the one with the duct tape on his shoes :) - was really excited, it was cute.

So excited!

We get to hear the baby's heartbeat today!

I couldn't sleep at all last night! I don't know if I was nervous about today or if it was just a back-to-work-in-the-morning kind of thing. Today we get to hear the baby's heartbeat!!! At 1:00 this afternoon we are going to our first appointment with the midwife and we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat! I'm so excited, but also nervous. I'm pretty sure everything is going well and there's a strong heart beating away in there. After all, I'm still having lots of nausea (although gradually - dare I say it? - feeling a little better) and my stomach continues its outward expansion. But still. Nervous. Plus, I am nervous because after my appointment I am planning to break the news to my boss. I don't know why this has me anxious, but it does! I'm not expecting him to react badly.

So. Everyone think shiny good thoughts.

We had a fantastic holdiay weekend. I took Friday off work so I had a four day weekend. It was glorious! I made the trip over to the Motherhood maternity store on Friday and was surprised to find lots of stuff I liked. I ended up returning ALL of the maternity clothes I got from Gap and Old Navy and I'm fast approaching the time when I will *really* need them. I knew I needed to go somewhere and try stuff on, but we have exactly ONE maternity store on the island (Motherhood) and it's about 40 minutes away from our house. The girl at the Motherhood store was really nice and she let me try on basically every pair of pants in the store! They aren't designer pieces or anything but they will do for the next 6 months. I got 2 pants and a skirt for work and 3 casual capris, plus some cute tops. I am already wearing them around. They make you look more pregnant than just chubby!

The rest of the weekend was basically football, working out, going to the movies and otherwise relaxing. I'm really proud to say that I have been pretty consistent with my exercise. I've been walking 3-5 miles three or four times a week and lifting weights on an upper/lower split three times a week. I'm not making any real gains in fitness, but my plan for this pregnancy is just to stay active and keep up my basic fitness level so I have an easier labor and an easier time getting back into shape after the delivery.

I can't say I'm all that proud about my diet! I mean, I've been doing pretty well, considering the nausea and my increased appetite. But some sugar and processed foods have snuck in. Realistically, there is no way I'm going to avoid that stuff through this whole pregnancy. So I'm focusing on moderation - one or two "unhealthy" things each day, but striving for mostly nutrient-dense fare. I've done pretty well with that. But I still feel FAAAT, which makes me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job keeping my diet in check. I hate worring about it, but I started this pregnancy heavier than I would like to be, and I don't really want to weigh more than my husband, even if pregnant LOL!

As much as I've been feeling like I'm already gaining too much weight, I was, in fact, completely and utterly shocked at my weight this morning. I always get on our scale first thing in the morning before getting weighed at the doctor because you can't tell how much water weight you'll carry around during the day. Well this morning I just stood there blinking when it said I'd only gained 2 lbs. Huh? No, seriously, HUH? For the size of my stomach and the way I feel puffy, I was expecting 7-9 lbs. So that made me happy and feel like less of a cow! ;)

Regardless, I am completely and utterly in awe of my pregnant body. I still can't get my head around the idea that there is a tiny person growing inside me. The books say the baby is the size of a lemon now! And s/he will triple in size in the next 3 weeks. It's crazy and amazing and weird and scary all at the same time.

Ok, I have more to chatter on about, but I need to get some real work done before my doc's appointment. I'll be on here with news as soon as it's over!

Ramble

Ahhh, it's Monday. Again. We had a relaxing weekend spent mostly at home sitting directly in front of our window a/c unit trying to keep cool. I just cannot stand the heat lately, it makes me feel like I'm going to die, or at best, pass out cold. On Saturday we watched the Aggies get spanked by Arkansas. Man, was that depressing or what? The first quarter looked so promising and then they let it all unravel. Aggies' offense just did not look good. We're still having fun trying out various restaurants around town, which Adam loves because I normally do not like to eat out, but I can't stand the thought of cooking these days. I've pretty much lost the will to limit what I'm eating in any meaningful way. I had high hopes that I would follow a sensible, but restricted, pregnancy diet and only get bigger in my stomach, and end up with a perfect watermelon belly and lose it all right away after the birth.... hahahahaha. I'm certainly not pigging out on junk food (all the time), but there's no telling what I will feel like eating day to day, and mostly it's not grilled chicken and salads (BLEH). My new strategy is bascially do the best I can. I'm taking my fish oil & cod liver oil & vitamins. I'm eating protein with every meal. But I also have 4 flavors of ice cream in my freezer. Sometimes a peanut butter & jelly sandwich is the only acceptable thing to eat. Hey, it's whole grain German chunks-of-bark-in-it bread, all natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts) and organic jelly. Like I said, the best I can. I don't want to gain more than 30 lbs, but I've decided not to become too obsessive about it. If I don't do anything too crazy, it will work out ok, I have to trust that. I still haven't told work! Next Tuesday we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat! I am thinking I'm going to wait until after that to make any announcements. I feel like everything is more than likely fine, and it would probably be ok to tell work now, but it's only a week away. We had our first big rainstorm of the season last night. It was so loud it woke me up and I laid there half the night listening to the deluge. I had to call the post office this morning and they said they were closed because their roof caved in! That's all I got right now!

A few things...

- Adam is getting close to being done with his current assignment with the P-3 squadron. He'll be checking out before the end of November! He has to go on deployment one more time to turn over with his replacement. That will probably happen in the beginning of November, and he assures me he is going to be home before the 20th. He better because I am going to be one pissed off pregnant chick if I'm here in Hawaii all by MYSELF on Thanksgiving!

- Adam's next job is going to be at the Joint Intelligence Operations Center (JIOC) on the other side of the island, near where I work, and near Pearl Harbor. If you look at the map of Hawaii, Adam works right now on the upper right side where it says Kaneohe Station and we live basically right off the highway on the bay there. I currently work on the left side in the middle where it says Aiea at Camp Smith, and right below that where it says Halawa is where Adam's new job is going to be.

- Instead of having to commute all the way across the island, we are hoping to move to the other side into military housing. The commute is not the only reason for this. The military housing is new, bigger, and has central air conditioning. It's all located right around Halawa. We drive over there almost every weekend anyway to go to Costco, Whole Foods and Target. If we are able to move it will be more convenient. The downsides to moving are that it is more crowded on the other side of the island, and hotter. There is more traffic. Oh, and I will have just given birth two months before! Our lease ends June 30, and we are not eligible to move into military housing until our lease is up. We should know 30-45 days before that whether they have a house for us or not. Since we are so far out, we should make it to the top of the waiting list by then - keeping my fingers crossed!

- Adam kind of had to sweet talk the lady at the housing office because we are technically not eligible for a 3 bedroom house. It is aggravating and unfair and I think the lady sympathized because she pulled some strings and got us on the list anyway. Adam basically told her we were going to expand our family before we leave here and they will just have to move us again. Which is true. We are hoping to at least be pregnant again before we leave here in 3 years, if not already have another baby by that time. The only two bedroom houses they have are far away and were built in the 70's! We will have 5 bedrooms worth of stuff by the time we set up our nursery and we are in a 4 bedroom place now, so it would be impossible to fit in a 2 bedroom anyway. Adam and I each had queen size beds, and we got a new king size when we got married, plus we have an office. With the nursery, that is 5 rooms of stuff!

-I ordered some more maternity pants from Gap and Old Navy today. I have ordered several pairs online already and ended up sending them back because they were too big. Hopefully these fit because my regular clothes seem to be getting too tight. I'm in the weird stage where my regular clothes are starting to not fit right (shirts riding up and too tight across the chest and pants too tight around the waist), but I know maternity stuff is going to be ridiculous on me right now because I by no means have a bump yet. It's coming soon though. I am having cramping the last couple days which means my uterus is growing again! At least my boobs seem to have stopped for the moment!

Pregnancy Crazy

EEK! The ticker baby is looking all baby-ish and not like a little alien baby anymore! Cool!

So, Adam informed me after reading my last post that he is decidedly NOT "poor and beleaguered" and that he would have fed me the Oreos. In fact, to prove his point, he gleefully participated in extending the dietary debauchery through the weekend. I think he thinks it's fun: like we are back in college and to hell with our love handles!

I may or may not have gotten into the candy and Oreo's again on Friday (ok, I did), and then I was not feeling nauseated AT ALL, and I started to really freak myself out that maybe I was going to have a miscarriage and OH MAH GAWD, WHAT IF I KILLED MAH BAYBEEE WITH OREOOOOS! Which: I know. Totally irrational. But pregnancy hormones do some weird things to your brain. And we still haven't heard the baby's heartbeat. And I was the only one in my office on Friday, so I spent the better part of the day going down internet black holes, and I advise you not to do this if you are pregnant because NO GOOD CAN COME OF GOOGLING "CAN I HAVE A MISCARRIAGE AND NOT KNOW". Trust me on this one. (In fact, I discovered that you CAN have a miscarriage and not know. There were plenty of women on the chat boards who went in for their 12 week appointment only to find out the baby stopped growing in week 8. )

I got home and decided to cook some shrimp and by the time I was finished, I was standing there gagging as I pulled them out of the pan, so I guess I'm still nauseated, although no less paranoid. Nothing "healthy" appeals to eat. My normal routine of grilled meats, salads or cooked veggies, nuts, fruit, is not appetizing. I can't stand the idea of uncooked meat. Veggies don't appeal. Even fruit makes me feel a bit queasy. When I couldn't eat the shrimp on Friday I asked Adam to get me a pizza from Papa John's. Can I tell you I hardly even remember the last time I ate a pizza from Papa John's?! I don't think we'll be doing it again either because that damn pizza cost almost $30!!! For a thin crust supreme. Since when does a freaking pizza cost that much? Is it because we are in Hawaii? And it was much smaller than either of us remembered. We finished off all but one piece between the two of us. Man it was good though.

Satisfying a pregnancy craving is like having a religious experience. Saturday we went to Teddy's Bigger Burgers and I had the best hamburger dripping with ketchup and mayo, plus nice thick fries and a hand-made chocolate milk shake. And Sunday I found myself BAKING COOKIES. Like, getting all domestic with the measuring cups and stuff. And then Adam and I sat there giggling like five year olds licking the spoons and the bowl and then eating gooey, melty chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven.

Egads.

On a positive note, I got caught up on workouts! I actually went and did my 4 mile loop on Thursday night after I wrote that last post. And I did the same plus lift on Friday, and did the loop again on Saturday. So really I only missed one workout last week - on my planned day off.

We watched "The Business of Being Born" last night - which, I know, Ricki Lake - but I thought it was pretty interesting. If you are thinking about having a natural birth, I would give it a try. It's definitely pro-natural birth and anti-intervention, so if that gets under your skin, better to avoid. There was a lot of footage of natural home births, which was kind of fascinating, and made me feel more confident about wanting to pursue a natural birth. Seeing those women absolutely glowing after giving birth was inspiring (as opposed to watching like TLC's Baby Story where the women are screaming bloody murder and the babies are all in distress). I remember when I first heard Ricki Lake gave birth in her bathtub, I thought she was crazy and that was gross and misguided. But the more I've read about birth, the more open I've become to the idea of giving birth at home, even in the water. And by the time we were done watching that last night, even Adam was like, maybe you should give birth in our bathtub? :) Even though we'll be 25% of the way thru this pregnancy at the end of this week, we still have PLENTY of time to make these decisions.

Let's just pretend Week 9 never happened, shall we?

Week 9. Oh dear. Let's file Week 9 under "The Week I Sucked At Pregnancy" and move right the hell on, M'Kay? This week's behavior was definitely not befitting of a Pregnancy Viking and shall henceforth be stricken from the record and not be admissible as evidence in a court of law.

First off, I skipped not one, not two, but THREE (3) of my planned workouts. Two cardio and one lifting session. Yes, I have my excuses (am pregnant, am tired, am lazy, am bored with said workouts, etc) blah blah blah... no more! There is no - repeat NO - reason to miss workouts unless I am lying in a sickbed. I have pleeeenty of time during work to go move my body for an hour. Plan for self-flagellation: double up tomorrow and Sunday (and maybe Saturday too). Now don't go worrying - doubling up only means I will do my regular lifting plus go for a walk. Hardly overtraining territory. And Saturday it might mean my walk plus a yoga session. Remember, Self: We have never regretted working out!

Secondly, my diet this week... yikes. Can we just erase this week from the history books, nutritionally speaking? You know, wipe the slate clean, no harm no foul? No? Well then, bless me Father, for I have sinned, it's been (uhhhhh) 13? years since my last confession. It has not helped matters that I have been having cravings for all sorts of strange and interesting things. And it's different every day. I normally cannot eat the things I am craving more than once or I get barfy thinking about it.

On Saturday there were the aforementioned buttermilk pancakes doggypaddling in butter and syrup, plus a farmer's omlette! And that was just breakfast!

Sunday it was shrimp scampi that I made with lots of butter and feta and garlic.

Monday featured steak and a salad dripping with ranch dressing, egg, avocado, tomato, and sesame seeds (at Buzz's!).

On Tuesday I had a craving for pizza, which I have been wanting for a week now, but not yet indulged. Instead I satisfied another craving for peanut butter and salad made with butter lettuce leaves (not together).

Yesterday I had a craving for a refried bean burrito with cheddar cheese, but I was like, no that is just ridiculous. But then I got home from work and found a can of mexican black beans in the pantry and the next thing you know I'm shoveling them + shredded cheddar in my piehole with a spoon (we didn't have any tortillas). I ate nearly the whole can. (No I did not spend the whole night tooting, but thanks for wondering.)

And today. Ye gods. *Hangs head in shame* Pregnancy FAIL. Last night I was laying in bed not able to fall asleep, so I said to Adam, I can't sleep my head is racing around in circles. A few minutes later he asked what I was thinking about, and I was like, I'm having an argument with myself about whether I should get Subway for lunch tomorrow or pack something healthy from the fridge. Or maybe go get a slice of pizza and a DQ blizzard. I finally fell asleep and this morning I dutifully packed a couple of hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, a baggie of cut veggies and an apple and peanut butter for my lunch. But the junk food was like a siren song, and the thought of eating my cottage cheese... barrrrf. Here's what I ended up eating instead:

- 2 hard boiled eggs
- snack pack of peanut butter sandwich crackers, snack pack of oreo cookies, about 5 Reese's mini peanut butter cups
- 6" Italian BMT Sub (with MAYO! The horror!) and a packet of baked lays, plus 3 chocolate chip cookies and a diet Sprite
- a Twix PB bar, 3 Heath miniatures, 4 or 5 more Reese's and 2 Lindt truffles

Sweet baby Jeebus!

You might be wondering if I made myself sick eating all that candy and crap. The Lord's honest truth is: I felt better after I ate it. Seriously. Not even trying to rationalize. I woke up with a headach and feeling all nauseated and pukey, right up until I started in with the peanut butter crackers. And magically my headache went away and the nausea stopped. But lo, the guilt!

Seriously, I need to get "TWO LBS" tatooed on my forehead so I remember that WE'S NOT S'POSEDA GET FATZ YET!!! You'd think I would remember that considering I complain to my poor, beleaguered husband on a daily basis about how Fat I Ammmm! And I feel frummmmmpyyyy! And did I mention faaaaat??? (Even though truly, I hadn't gained any weight yet at my 8 week appointment... although that was before this week's festivities.) I have 3 weeks left in the first trimester to do better!!!

Midwife v. Doctor

Well the birth center tour went pretty well yesterday. It is a fairly new facility and they have 10 rooms, 4 of which are brand spanking new with a nice pull out couch for dad and a BIG jacuzzi tub you can sit in while you're in labor (you can't deliver in the tub though). I really liked the lady who was leading the tour. She is a lamaze coach and really in favor of natural birth, and she said they really try to accomodate whatever kind of birth you want to have. She said stuff like, "channelling your mother's powerful natural birth," and "sacred experience" and "wisdom of your own body." You can have the lights dimmed, and they have birthing balls and the tubs, and you don't have to lay on your back to deliver the baby. She also said they are big on keeping the baby with mom and dad for the first couple hours after the birth instead of whisking it away for tests and stuff. Overall I think it would be a good experience. BUT - they don't have ANY midwives. And the doctors all have their own protocols so it's up to each of them how they like to do things.

The midwives at Tripler are certified nurse midwives. Midwife means "with women" and it's a more hands-on experience. The midwives spend more time with you and do more teaching and coaching than doctors. With the midwives, you call them at home if you have a question. For the doctors, you have to call the clinic and talk to the answering machine. Women have been having quite a few healthy babies for many thousands of years, and in many other cultures it is typical to go through pregnancy and birth with a midwife instead of a doctor. In America there seems to be a culture of fear and we are so reliant on drugs and machines in our healthcare that the whole experience is medicalized. Pregnancy and birth are normal parts of women's lives. We are having babies, it's not a disease! It's not like surgeons and doctors won't be available if something goes wrong. I'll be in a hospital. And if it's not a normal pregnancy (something is wrong with me or baby) then we won't be able to see the midwives (hospital policy). The doctor's main goal is getting the baby out alive/healthy. They don't necessarily care if you have "your ideal birth experience", or even a natural birth. I know it all depends on who you end up with, but in many cases, doctors are too quick to induce labor or go straight to a C-section. Midwives are experienced with coaching women through the process of labor and delivery. Since I am hoping for a natural birth, this seems more in line with the experience I want.

So I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm going to register us for a tour of the Tripler facilities, and I think I will have a better sense after my first appoitment with the midwife on Oct. 13.

As for pregnancy news... nothing has changed. I'm still feeling nauseated all day long, although thankfully I haven't been puking. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to throw up every day for weeks on end. Being nauseated is bad enough! I'm really super tired, and I have insomnia. It's awful! My stomach seems like it's starting to pooch out more every day. I wake up in the morning and it looks fairly normal, and then by the end of the day it's all poochy! All the books say you don't start to show until 3 or even 4 months, but I'm wondering if my uterus has already doubled in size and it's getting bigger all the time, how is that not displacing other stuff and making my stomach pooch out?! I can imagine it won't be long until I will need to buy some maternity clothes.

Doctors

Adam took me out to dinner at Buzz's Steakhouse at Kailua beach park last night to celebrate our engagement anniversary. I thought it was terribly sweet that he remembered and made a big deal about it and even said I was the best investment he ever made. We always joke about how he had to work hard to "convince" me we were supposed to be together. Those of you who know us from the beginning and know how many ups and downs we had can understand!

I had yet another doctor's appointment today. I saw the OB/GYN last week for our first prenatal appointment and had about 5 gallons of blood drained out of my arm. Then I had to go get stuck again yesterday to have bloodwork done for my endocrinologist today. The OB doesn't even want to see you when you are pregnant until you are about 8 weeks along! Waiting all that time is torture. And then at the first visit nothing happens. We don't get to hear Papoose's heartbeat until our next appointment at 12 weeks.

The endocrinologist, on the other hand, needs to see you RIGHT AWAY, THIS VERY MINUTE when you are pregnant and (as I am) a cancer patient. I saw him 4 weeks ago, practically as soon as I finished peeing on the sticks, and then saw him again today. As expected, my TSH is going up so I get a higher dose of thyroid hormone to keep my levels suppressed. I can't have anywhere near a normal TSH because it could encourage the growth of tumors if there are any cancerous cells left floating around my body that didn't get zapped by the radioactive iodine.

The first thing my endo did was freak me right the hell out. He asked me when my last scan was (June) - when I took a tracer dose of radioactive iodine - and whether they had told me to wait a while before getting pregnant. WTF?! Uh, I remember when I got a whopping treatment dose of RAI back in 2007 they told me to wait a year before getting pregnant. But I don't remember them saying anything during my scan, althought that doesn't mean they didn't and I just missed it. Well, admittedly I was not really that concerned even when he was making a big deal out of it because the tracer dose is such a small amount that a month or two should be plenty of time to get out of my system. It was about 2 months between my scan and getting knocked up. Heck, even a week or two would probably suffice. That stuff degrades and has a half-life of only about 10 days and anyway it flushes out of your system more and more every time you pee. He called the nuclear medicine people and they were able to confirm that it shouldn't be a problem. Crisis averted.

I'm on my way to get a tour of the birth center at the clinic near our house. Because we are Navy, my initial appointment was at the military hospital, Tripler, which is about a 30 minute drive from our house (less if traffic is good). We can get switched to Castle Medical Center which is close by if we want, so we are going to take a tour and see how we like it. My biggest concern is that I would prefer to have my prenatal care with a midwife instead of a physician, and then have the birth attended by a midwife. And they have a midwife program at Tripler which I was accepted into (they only take a certain number each month). I don't think they have a midwife program at Castle. My reasons for this are numerous and I will probably talk more about them as time goes on, but the biggest is that midwives tend to favor less intervention during pregnancy and birth. They view pregnancy/birth as a natural process, not a medical event. And they are more likely to provide the support needed for a natural birth than a busy doctor. The drawback to Tripler is (obviously) that it is far away, and we'll have to drive there once I go into labor. I'm guessing less stress on the birth day is better!

PS: I put up two pregnancy tickers. I like the one on the right that shows a little 3D baby floating there. I did notice though that the baby looks pretty scary and weird right now. By the end of this week it should look more like a little human and not like an alien anymore!

A Year Ago

A year ago today Adam and I got engaged in Wichita, KS. If you had told me on that day that in one year we would be married and expecting our first baby it wouldn't have surprised me one bit! It is exactly what we both wanted and I'm very happy with everything going on in my life right now. Well, except for my job... still not happy there.

I haven't broken the news at work yet. I want to wait a couple more weeks at least to get past the time of the highest risk of miscarriage. I figure next week or the week after I will tell them. I don't exactly look pregnant yet so nobody is any the wiser. Although my uterus is apparently the size of a grapefruit (!!) it is still "in my pelvis" (whatever that means) so there's no pregnant belly to show off at the moment. And Papoose is only about the size of a gummi bear right now. Most of the expanding is just bloat at the moment. All my clothes still fit, although my pants are getting a little tight. Supposedly around week 12 my uterus will start expanding up towards my bellybutton and give me a more pregnant look. I can't wait!

The first trimester is such a weird time. Especially because not everybody knows! My stomach is getting rounder but I don't look pregnant yet, just fat. I'm hungry but nauseated and nothing appeals to eat. I'm tired and exhausted, but I can't sleep at night. All of this is supposed to get better by the second trimester. The time is dragging on right now. I'm sure I will look back and think how fast it all went by!

Papoose

Ok. I cannot possibly wait one more minute to tell you all that I'm pregnant! I'm a little more than 8 weeks along. We hadn't even really started trying in earnest and the next thing you know I'm peeing on a stick. Wheeee! What can I say? I guess we're fertile. Or lucky. Or some combination of the two. In fact, at one point I was kind of wishy-washy about the whole idea because I was wondering if we would regret not just being the two of us for a while (since we just got married in February), and then there was the matter of wanting to lose 20 lbs before embarking on a weight-gaining-venture, but then the day of ovulation came and we were like, eh, what are we waiting for? We want a baby! We both suspected I was pregnant right away. But I waited the requesite excruciating two weeks before taking a home pregnancy test. My hands were shaking as I sat there holding the stick and watching a second blue line appear. Even though I suspected as much, I could hardly believe it. And Adam didn't believe it!

The line is very faint, but I'm not sure you can be just a little bit pregnant.

He insisted we go get another brand of home pregnancy test. He wanted one with a plus sign, even though I explained it works the same way as the one we had. The next morning I peed on another stick.

Still positive.

I know it's hard to see in this pic, and the second line is still faint, but it's there. We got plus sign pregnancy tests and I proceeded to pee on both of those in the following days.

Peeing on a stick never gets old.

It's positive. Let's move on.

On Monday I went to the clinic and got a blood test to confirm, as well as some counseling and a referral to OB/GYN. They estimate my due date at April 30, even though I know when I ovulated and I think it will not be until a few days later, like May 4. We're having a baby!!!!!!!

Half the time I'm like Squee!! I'm going to have a baby!!!

And the other half I'm like oh... my LORD. I'm going to have a BABY?! Like... grow a human being in my uterus and then it's going to come out of my VAGINA??? Can I change my mind? I mean, sure, I am aware of the mechanics of having a baby, but I have to say the reality of this didn't quite sink in during 5th grade sex-ed class. I guess it's one of those things that you don't understand until it really happens to you.

But mostly: SQUEEE!!!

Am I really going to have a baby?! It's still too soon to tell, maybe. It seems so crazy and unreal and huge and exciting and overwhelming all at once.

Before I got pregnant I would read about pregnant women getting sick and hormonal during the first trimester and for some reason I always thought it wouldn't happen to me... hahaha HAAA! I am so hilariously one big ball of hormonal, paranoid, nauseated, pregnant glory.

Some of the first trimester joys I have experienced so far:

- Let's just get this out of the way up front, shall we? MAH BOOBS. They have taken on a life of their own. They hurt. Are huge. Need special contraptions to keep them from pulling me over forward. And apparently this is just getting started. Let's not speak of it.

- I need olives! I love olives! I will eat 50 olives at once, I will finish the economy size jar in 4 days!!!! I must buy more olives! No wait... olives are disgusting! I can't believe I bought all those olives. Look at them just sitting there all green and slimy and barrrrrrf.

- Pickles! Pickles are the best! No wait...the very idea of pickles makes be gag a little! What is that you're cooking???? FETA CHEESE???? *BARRRRF*

- And so on.

- *Yawn* zzzzzzzzz (Constantly. I am so tired! Bone tired! Making another human out of two cells is hard work, people!)

- Am fat. That is all.

- Except to say, we are supposed to only gain 2 lbs in the first three months, otherwise we are fat cows who ate our weight in pancakes. Preferably smothered in butter and drowning in syrup. Mmmmmm.

- I'm hungry. No wait, I might barf? I know we already covered that, but it bears repeating and if I manage to only gain two pounds in the first trimester it will a) all be in my bra; and b) be because I... *barf*.

Only four more weeks to go in the first trimester people!

I bore myself.

Seriously, this blog is boring lately, it's bothering even ME, and it's MINE! But I have nothing to blog about at the moment. Or, rather, I do, but can't/won't/don't want to.

Enough with the sickness.... I thought I got better, but then my nose got all stuffed up. Now it's either allergies or I don't know what but it's truly making me sort of miserable! And I'm not sleeping again, so it's contributing to my already-weariness. I'm so tired I'm falling asleep on the couch at 7:30, but then when I go get in bed I can't fall asleep? It's like I can't get my body/brain to STFU.

I am deeply despondent about the ending of season 2 of True Blood and I cannot BELIEVE they are waiting almost a fraking YEAR to start the next season! Yes, even though the season finale was sort of anti-climactic, I still loves it. It didn't surprise me that it ended with a fizzle because they went off on that whole Maryanne tangent and that was really kind of annoying. If they had just stuck with the storyline in book 2, it would have been better. The show climaxed at the whole Light of Day/Godric-burning thing anyway. Pffft. I suppose in the meantime I will content myself to read the rest of the books. I'm on book 5 right now. And I just heard Charlaine Harris published another book in the series!

I can't even look at the news because I get sick with Fear & Loating of Obamacare and all the other retardedness going on in the government these days. Sigh. Let's just say I didn't vote for him. Not that I really had high hopes for McCain either, but at least we wouldn't be swiftly tilting towards socialism.

Speaking of "swiftly tilting", you know, that was like my all time favorite book when I was younger - A Swiftly Tilting Planet. It was so good. I should read it again and find out why I liked it so much the first time. I'm guessing it probably had a bigger impact on me than I realize.

I used to read SO MUCH. I used to zip through piles of library books. I don't read as much anymore. Probably because I spend so much time on the computer reading stuff at work, I don't feel like reading anymore after that.

Let's see, let's see... there's bullshit at work, but I don't really want to go into it. It's still hot. Although now we have our a/c in the living room it makes things MUCH more pleasant. Except I've noticed now that we have the house shut up more that it smells funny in there. Like stuffy or mildewy or something. Great. It probably IS, we just didn't notice it when we had all the windows/doors open all the time.

That's it for now. I'm going home to watch Martha! :D

Sick!

Last week I succumbed to the office crud that was going around. I woke up on Thursday feeling icky with a sore throat and ended up going home early feeling feverish. I stayed home from work on Friday and spent pretty much the whole weekend on the couch. I didn't get it too badly. My only symptoms were really the sore throat and feeling deeply tired. To the point where we came home from church and the grocery store on Sunday and I laid down and slept for two hours. I've been sleeping like 10 hours a night and then napping during the day. I was worried about how I was going to make it through work, but I've been ok, even though I'm still dragging. I think the worst of it is over. It was kind of a weird illness - I guess my body was fighting it off or something, instead of actually getting full blown sick. I just don't get sick, it's very unusual for me! Besides that whole cancer thing, I haven't been sick since college. Well, ok, I got the flu one time when I went on a work retreat and was locked away with the sick person, and about 70% of us came down with the flu. It was so bad they ended our conference early and sent us all home. But other than that, I don't get colds or anything. Even when everyone else around me is getting sick, I usually power through. I have a strong immune system. Anyway, that was my weekend... sleeping and football. How was yours?

One man's trash... as they say.

I got sucked into watching this documentary on tv last night about people who eat unconventional diets (like vegan raw foodists). They had this one lady on there who was a Freegan. Have you ever heard of this? These people live by principles of anti-consumerism. They try to scavenge everything they use - clothes, laundry detergent, soap, furniture and even food. They followed this lady around New York city as she went on a "Trash Tour" gathering food out of trash cans.

I'm not sure what I think about this. I mean, they weren't eating rotten or half-eaten food. They were finding food in packages, unopened, maybe close to the expiration date. Or food from restaurants and shops that just discard everything at the end of the day. Outside of one bagel shop that has "fresh bagels every day" they found bags of bagels made earlier that morning that didn't sell, just put out for trash. Same thing with fruits and vegetables. Cartons of eggs - if one egg was broken, the whole dozen was thrown out. Ready-to-eat meals in packages like soups, sandwiches, etc.

The idea doesn't sound particularly appetizing to me, but in the same token, it is shocking and disappointing how much STUFF we throw away in this country. I remember years ago being in a store after Christmastime where they were pulling wrapping paper off the shelves and putting it in a big trash bin. I asked what they were going to do with it and the clerk said, oh, just throw it away. I was horrified. I asked her why they don't donate it to a shelter or some place that provides toys for underpriviliged children to wrap presents. She said she didn't know, but I dug further and it turns out it messes up profit margins to do stuff like that. Supply and demand. People or companies have to pay for the "free" paper that goes to shelters. If the paper is somehow recycled, it causes paper to be less valuable - if supply goes up, demand goes down and prices go down. When I worked at a restaurant we threw away tons of food. Especially on the days we had buffets. Trays and trays of food went into the garbage.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure how I feel about this, and I'd never think of doing it myself. But it's still heartbreaking in a tragic postmodern way.

I'm a maniac!

Adam got up super early to go to the airport for a work trip to Las Vegas for the week. I slept in and then after breakfast got down to my task for the weekend: cleaning. Now, I'm a pretty tidy person. I like to do a little bit all the time and kind of keep the mess and dirt at a constant low level. I can't stand it when things pile up and then suddenly you are so overwhelmed you don't know where to start and you end up wallowing in your pajamas for a week eating cookies out of the box and lamenting the state of your life.... ahem. Maybe that's just me. Not surprisingly, in Hawaii things get dirty quickly and my normal routine of swiping and sorting here and there doesn't really do as good a job at keeping the mess below my radar. I've been mostly ignoring it since about April when I started noticing the dirt more. Of course, I still did the vacuuming and laundry and kept the kitchen/bathrooms clean. Just not gleaming and sparkly like I like things. With Adam being gone this weekend, I decided it was the perfect time to really get down and scrub.

I'm pleased to say my kitchen is SPOTLESS! Yes, I realize it will last all of about five minutes before the dust and dead bugs and sand start collecting again. For now it is clean. And by that, I mean I took everything out of the pantry and cleaned the corners in the back of the floor and vanquished a colony of ants, and reorganized everything. I opened all of the cabinets and confronted whatever was stashed inside them. I threw away about 3 bags of stuff that was old or I know we will never use, including a bunch of mismatched tupperware. I hate it when I put something in a container and then I can't find a lid for it! I pulled everything out of the fridge and scrubbed it down on the inside and threw away anything questionable. Same with the freezer. I scrubbed all the counters, then I swept and mopped the floor. All clean!

I also went out in the courtyard and swept up the whole place and watered all our pathetic plants and scrubbed off our outdoor table and chairs. Next I dusted the dining room and the living room and pulled a bunch of old books we never look at anymore off the shelves for goodwill.

I still need to dust the guest room and vacuum the downstairs and then the downstairs will be done. I'll finish it this evening before I sit down on the couch for the night. I think I will save the upstairs for tomorrow... there is not too much to be done up here. Except for the office. It's sort of our magnet for whatever crap we don't know what to do with. And we still haven't hung any of our pictures in there. I think that project will wait for Adam to come home. So mainly upstairs it is just my bathroom and our bedroom. A cleans his own bathroom... well, he will when he gets home even though he doesn't know it yet.

Ahhhh! I love it when home is clean and tidy! Makes me feel like my life is functioning properly haha.

I hope I was channeling Marilyn Monroe... or possibly that I became her for 3 seconds.

Dudes. The most embarassing thing just happened to me!!! Oh my lord, I can't even think about it. So the air conditioner at the gym where I work is broken or something and it's really hot in there. They have one of those industrial fan-blower thingies in there to cool things off. You know, one of the ones that sits on the ground and looks like a giant whistle?



Anyway, today it was pointed at the cardio equipment. It doesn't help things much, but I guess it's better than nothing. Well I finished my thing, rinsed off in the shower and put on my work clothes - a t-shirt and a poofy, gauzy skirt from Banana Republic. Well. With nary a thought in my head I proceeded to waltz right in between the cardio machines and ... THE FAN!

You may have guessed what happens next. Now before I continue I want you to look at that picture of the fan again. Notice the special way it blows air in an upward fashion, with incredible force, I might add.

I can only say I was regretting my choice of thong underwear this morning. Lordy be! Talk about a wardrobe malfunction. What did I do, you ask? I made a split-second desperate attempt to contain my skirt around my bum where it belongs instead of swirling up around my waist like a pile of autumn leaves in a gale. And yet, I somehow had the good sense to just keep walking, acting like nothing happened. Nothing to see here! Those two guys on the bikes had a GOOD day today. The worst (or best?) part about it was that I passed my boss not two seconds later on his way to get on the elliptical machine. Thank GOD, Jeebus, Oprah and Martha he was not already on there when I paraded by. Now THAT would have made things awkward.

What ended up happening?

I didn't go to the stinking VTC. I felt horrible about making Lt Col V do it instead, but everything inside me was screaming no no no. This morning I told him thanks for taking the bullet and I hope he doesn't secretly resent me now. He just laughed and said it was no problem and no worries. He was sincere too, really nice about it. So I feel better and the worst has passed for the moment. Until the next shitty thing they want me to do.

I had something else to tell you but I can't remember right now?

Oh well. It will probably come to me right after I log off.

Dilemma Update

Well. My supervisor LtCol V said he told our boss Mr. G I wanted to be compensated for coming to work in the middle of the night. Mr. G apparently said, "We don't do that here.... it's DOD, we just say you can go home early." Nope. Wrong answer. I did my homework and printed out the OPM.gov guidelines covering night pay.

Night pay is paid for regularly scheduled work performed at night. This generally means work scheduled before the beginning of the administrative workweek. However, night pay is also paid for night work on a temporary assignment to a different daily tour of duty during the administrative workweek." (OPM.gov)

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. I also spoke to our HR people who said they could make an alteration to my schedule to allow me to claim night pay. To be fair, HR did seem confused and told me no one had ever asked before. Which I find shocking: there are tons of people who end up working in the middle of the night for one thing or another, or even working all night. The DOD civilians who worked on the watch floor with Adam in DC got paid night differential so I know DOD does it. HR also said they don't have any guidelines published governing special pay for employees. Because everyone "just works it out within their directorates and gets comp time or whatever."

So I'm some kind of activist trailblazer here at PACOM.

Meanwhile, I guess Mr. G basically decided after talking to LtCol V that he didn't want to mess with the night pay so he told LtCol V (who is in the military and doesn't qualify for night pay) to go to the meeting because someone from our office needs to be there.

{Note that if/when we DO attend this thing, we'll just be in listening mode. In my opinion there is no reason we can't just read the slides and notes afterwards (which they are going to push to us anyway) and get in touch with the POC if we have questions (unlikely). It's not like we won't find out if there is something they want us to do (also unlikely). Our being there is all to show face and say someone was there from PACOM J5.}

I, of course, lost a night of sleep over it because I felt bad about making my supervisor suck a rotten egg because I am "being a baby" about the whole thing. There is certainly a culture around here that you just do things like this with a smile because it's "part of the job." Sort of similar to working in DC where we regularly worked 10+ hour days but no one ever tried to claim overtime. I mean, if you DID, your boss would tell you you need to finish your work within the allotted 40hours/week, and if that wasn't possible some of your work would be reallocated to someone else. Net effect = you lose legitimacy in the workplace.

There is some of that here too. And granted, if my job required me to work longer than 8 hours here, I wouldn't try to complain, I would just do it. I've gone in for 5 am VTCs before without complaining even though that would technically qualify for night differential too since it's between 6 pm-6 am. I wouldn't think of making a big deal out of it. But coming here at 2:30 am? I'm sorry but that seems ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of duty.

I'm willing to be told I'm being a whiny baby about this. Go ahead and call me out if you think that's the case. I even said that to my boss - hey, I'm willing to be told to go pound sand this is just part of the job. But he agreed that I was entitled to the pay if I worked in the middle of the night.

He said he is just concerned because this would be opening the proverbial can of worms. If I get paid then everyone will want to get paid for working in the middle of the night. Then will people start trying to claim overtime? It raises a bunch of questions which the command hasn't addressed. Which, AGAIN: shocking. No private company would be able to be run this way.

He said he will raise it up the chain of command and pursue the issue. Still I guess he didn't want to mess with it too much because when I sent him the paperwork by email yesterday he wrote me back and said LtCol V is going to attend instead kthxbai.

So that's where it stands. Yesterday it looked like I was going to attend after all, and get paid night pay for it. Today not so much. Although I'm still stuck here feeling like a tool because LtCol V is basically left carrying the water.

Grumble.

Dilemma

...but first: omg girls. I too have feverish - even desperate - dreams about a quiet house near a lake/mountain with a fireplace and space/quiet/solitude enough to calm my restless mind. I long for forest treks and dry sunshine and coolness. Of course, this dream would have to occur within a 30 minute drive of a Whole Foods and a well-equipped mall. Ha. But we're stuck here in Hawaii another 3 years. I already asked A if it was too late to ask for orders somewhere else. It is. True confession: I don't want to stay here another 3 years! Oh, I know, it will be fine. There is plenty of fun and adventure to be had here. But still... the idea of Colorado, the possibility of it, is stuck firmly in my mind.

I've said it before but now seems a fitting time to remind you all that I have a restless heart. I can't help but wonder if, once I get that next dream, I won't fixate on something else. Probably. Hopefully it can involve something other than moving somewhere new? I mean, I was totally itching to move away from DC; even thought I would love Hawaii (although I knew I was probably not going to particularly like my job). I loved my job in DC, but the vibe of that city just didn't resonate with me. But now that I am here... well... what can I say? Will I ever be satisfied?

When I was younger I wanted to be a writer, but I've never been very good at the creative sort. Like making up a story with characters. Or even writing creatively about my past. I'm good at prompted writing, the sort I do (or used to anyway, before I began this cognitively-dead job) for work. For a while I thought if I lived enough, you know, like really got deep into life, that it would give me fodder for a novel. Turns out no amount of cavorting, travel, drugs, sex, love, music, or drinking will ignite a creative spark, no matter how excessive, illegal, potentially dangerous or ill-advised. I sometimes wonder if I will be able to write through the lenses of time and wisdom - in other words, later on in life. It's definitely not something I feel capable of in my near future.

Why is it beginning to seem like I'm having a 1/3-life crisis??? The last time I had a life-crisis, I broke up with my long-term boyfriend and went back to graduate school. All with very little thought of where I was headed other than I like and have experience with foreign countries so something in international relations seems like a good fit. I'm not about to break up with A and school seems like a good idea, but for what? Maybe I just need a convertible and some strippers?

So. About that dilemma. Today at work, I discovered They want me to go to this VTC that is happening at 3:00 am here on Wednesday.

[Digression: This is another thing I didn't anticipate about this job: any VTC's with the East coast of the U.S. often end up occuring between 3 and 5 am because that is normal-time in DC. I also didn't realize how much travel they would want me to be doing, or the fact that ANY travel would require a whole day on a plane and at least one night of missed sleep. Plus two weeks of jetlag. I mean, you'd think this would have occured to me because duh, Hawaii is in the frickin middle of nowhere.]

Back to the VTC. I said, no way, I am not coming here at 3 in the morning. I told my immediate supervisor that if they really wanted me here, they were going to have to give me nighttime differential pay. I said, you guys forget I am not in the military. I don't think he liked that much. And I get little sympathy for being a civilian from the next-higher-up boss either because she was in the military for 20 years and likes to be a bitch about it and say, suck it up because I had to for 20 years. Whatever. Anyway, this went back and forth a bit, and I stuck to my guns. If you're going to have me come in here at 2:30 in the morning, you're going to have to compensate me with nighttime differential pay. In the end, it looks like another guy in our shop (who is a contractor and probably gets nighttime pay anyway) is going to go to the meeting. I have gotten up at 3:30 more than once already to come in here for a 5 am VTC. Not to mention all the weekends and sleep I have wasted so far traveling for these people.

So I am curious: what do you all think about this? Did I do the right thing standing up for myself and demanding what is technically rightfully mine if I work "after hours"? Or was it pansy - not sucking it up and taking the bullet? You know, for the team. Or whatever.

ETA: now that I'm reading this again, it's really irritating me that they just EXPECT me to come happily in the middle of the night without paying me the differential they technically OWE me under my contract. The fuck, government lackeys? I realize we're broke since we just propped up dozens of failing companies and we're about to flush billions more down the entitlement-loo with Obamacare, but your lack of any sense of capitalist principles is really starting to grate my nerves.

Happenings

Because none of these things deserves its own blog post...

- We got an air conditioner for the living room! It was pretty much the first thing we did when we got back from the air conditioned shangri-la they call Kansas. Because we have high ceilings, the air temp only gets down to about 70 if the sun is shining right on us in the late afternoon, but it feels MUCH cooler because of the dehymidifying effect. And in the evenings after the sun is gone it gets downright chilly. Huzzah! Now we just need to figure out the bedroom situation. We have an air conditioner in there but it is too loud to run all night and even if I run it for a few hours before bed (which I do) it's still hot and sweaty by about 2 am.

- I'm officially a Seiler now. It feels dirty and wrong. I keep trying to log on to my computers with my maiden name and getting all confused when I get an error message. People keep emailing me like, who are you?! Har har. AND! Someone has already gotten my name wrong. It's SEILER, not SELLER. Are you blind?! BTW, I found out in Kansas that Seiler means rope-maker in old German. Our ancestors were rope makers. I think that is kind of cool.

- I hate my joooooooooob. I don't think I have mentioned that here recently. Hate. I thought things would get better when A came home, but they really haven't. Home is better but work is still hateful. It's getting to the point where I am considering just up and quitting. You know. I quitz. It's still the idea of all the money I am making, but even that is starting to matter less and less. They want me to travel too much. Ok, I realize too much is a relative, but it's too much for ME. I can't be going TDY every six weeks. And they don't have enough for me to do. I feel like my time, talent and treasure is being wasted! I am also afraid I would be super bored if I just quit and stayed home all day. Or found some other job... and then ended up hating that even more and totally regretting quitting THIS job. Le sigh. What would you do?

- A and I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. It was way better than I remember it being the first time I saw it. I think it's my favorite HP movie. I forgot how cool and interesting the subtext is in that movie: the government is oppressive, and they form a secret underground society, Harry battles with his inner darkness... fascinating. I really need to get the books; I haven't read them yet!

- What I am reading is the Sookie Stackhouse series. And of course watching, totally addicted, to True Blood. The series is different from the books too so of course I have to watch to find out what is going to happen, even though I kind of know from reading the books. So good. Eric! Le sigh. Sunday is now my favorite night of the week.

What's going on in your world?

Report your fellow Comrades for Re-Education

The Obama Administration is asking people to report on "fishy" conversations about health care they encounter:

"Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President's health insurance reform positions....There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.

These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

I sent them an email just now:

Dear Comrade Big Brother,

It is fishy not only that Obama is trying to impose socialist health care on the citizens of this country, but also that you are engaged in an apparent witch-hunt to squash any opposing viewpoints. Yes, very fishy indeed. If your ideas are worthy they will stand on their own merit despite the loudest opponents.

Anyone else want to email the Truth Czar? I think it would be great if they got flooded by useless emails.

Atlas Still Shrugs. The pursuit of [one's] own rational self-interest and of [one's] own happiness is the highest moral purpose of [one's] life. -Rand

Who is John Galt?

If that doesn’t ring a bell—or even if it slightly jogs your memory—I have a summer reading recommendation for you during this lazy month of August.

I’m in the midst of re-reading Atlas Shrugged, the legendary novel first published in 1957 by Ayn Rand. It reads as if it were written this month—and that’s only the first shocking thing that will strike you if you’re brave enough to attempt this 1,100-page work of art.

I remembered its influence it had on me when I read it as a teenager, and it strikes with new force as I read it today in the context of Obamacare, wage and car “czars,” and multibillion-dollar “cash for clunkers” payouts, and amid headlines decrying profits, bonuses, speculation, and well, financial success.

If the comparisons don’t strike you within the first 100 pages, you can stop reading. But if every page leaves you wondering how this novel could have been written 50 years ago, when it so perfectly depicts our own times, then I won’t have to exhort you to finish.

I’m about one-third of the way through, and as I reread through more mature eyes and in today’s context, I find it even more compelling. I’m sure I will have more to say on this blog in coming weeks.

The book tells the story of Dagny Taggart and Hank Reardon, two unrepentant capitalists who are determined to make an unapologetic profit by using a new kind of steel to build a new railroad line to the West, where the last remaining entrepreneurs are creating an economy built on free market principles.

They are thwarted at every turn by the “establishment”—formerly wealthy businessmen who have co-opted government to save their uncompetitive businesses, while around them the infrastructure crumbles and society focuses on spreading the remaining wealth to the least efficient competitors. And there’s sex, too.

It is not your imagination that the public discourse has taken a turn that should make you uneasy. Strange things are happening in our politics, in our economy, and in the growing belief that the government can solve all our problems—either by taxing away our money or printing money.

Today’s Congressional rhetoric echoes the novel, where the “Equality of Opportunity Bill” was passed to “distribute” opportunity to unsuccessful people by forcing those who had built thriving businesses to sell portions of their companies to losers, financed by the government.
Ayn Rand’s entire philosophy, called “objectivism,” has been the subject of much debate over the years. In her own words: “Man must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”

Rand believed that laissez-faire capitalism was “the ideal political-economic system.” She called for “a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.” Rand, who died in 1982, must be rolling in her grave at today’s headlines.

At the website of the Ayn Rand Institute, www.aynrand.org, you can learn more about her philosophy. But don’t prejudge her philosophy before you read the novel. Don’t deny yourself the experience of translating her writings into today’s realities. Read the book first!
By the way, although rereading Atlas Shrugged has become my summer project (after completing work on a new edition of The Savage Number, which will be published this fall), I’m not alone in this quest for fresh air. The Economist reported that the 52-year-old novel ranked #33 among Amazon.com's top-selling books in January, 2009.

Have you read Atlas Shrugged lately? If so, what did you think? What lessons do you think is has for today? Please post a comment and join the conversation.

Written by Terry Savage. Reposted from: http://www.moneyshow.com/investing/blog.asp?aid=Blog-17412

Zero Turn Radius Lawnmowers

You might be wondering how in the heck I have anything to say about any lawnmower, much less a zero turn radius one. Yes. Well. That makes two of us. I'm still wondering how it is possible to have a thirty minute conversation about zero turn radius lawnmowers. But it happened in Kansas. And I still have no idea what a zero turn radius lawnmower even IS!

Wait. Let me back up for a second to tell you that I love Cowstuff. I married a Cowboy. Yes, I know, mostly he dresses like a Fratboy, but deep in his heart he is a Cowboy. And when he wears his Wrangler jeans, my heart just melts. Y'all, he can WEAR those Wranglers. If he puts on a big belt buckle, boots and a pearl-snap shirt, game over, I'm through. Those Wrangler jeans saved our relationship at least once... but that's a different blog post. I also love country music, two-steppin' and Stampede and pickup trucks. But that is just about where my love of farminess stops. Anyone who knows me will understand that I am a Pretty-Pretty-Princess. A delicate flower who belongs in a castle, not down home on the farm scrubbing pearl-snap shirts on a washing board (my cuticles!). Besides that, A and I are both frighteningly allergic to pretty much everything IN Kansas -- or on a farm -- hay, grain dust, grass, horses, cats, dust, smells, and you could also add to the list dilapidated old farm houses, excessive heat, cigarette smoke, and zero turn radius lawnmowers sitting in the front yard.

Which brings me back to how I ended up involved in a thirty minute conversation about the damn things. A's family lives in farm-country outside of Wichita. They even have dirt roads out there still. But I think most everyone has electricity by now; except maybe Nelda. Anyway, his neighbors to the back are Nelda and Greg. I was told before I met Nelda, when you see her riding around on her lawnmower with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, you'll only think of Granny Clampett. Well Nelda came by one night last week and left a wedding present for A and me on the porch. So A's parents were insisting that we stop by there and say hello and thank them properly for the gift. In my mind this is a five minute project. In farm-land, it can take all afternoon.

When we pulled into the gravel driveway at Nelda's place, the first thing we saw was an old grain silo. The yard was neat enough, thanks to the zero turn radius lawnmower, which was sitting right in the front. The old farm house was surrounded by a number of other smaller house-like buildings, one of which I think was an outhouse. We parked in the shade because it was hotter than hell. Greg came out to meet us and invited us to sit on the porch (outside! in the heat!), where there were several old chairs with dirty old bathmats folded on them as cushions and a bunch of plants in coffee cans. I picked out the least-dirty looking chair and perched on it delicately, thinking we would only be there a few minutes. Then Nelda came down with her cigarettes and a can of Budweiser and the armpits of her tank top were all sweaty so I knew right then that it wasn't any cooler inside the house. We commenced to talking while Nelda smoked and I have no idea what we talked about but I know it involved zero turn radius lawnmowers because Nelda must have said "zero turn radius lawnmower" about fifty times. Nelda and Greg both seemed oblivious to the heat, the cigarette smoke, and the chickens pecking around our feet. The whole time, in my head, I was screaming Get. Me. Out. Of. Here. I kept trying to send piercing looks over to A, but he either missed the hint or was ignoring me.

Finally, finally A said we needed to get going and I thought THANK YOU JESUS. But no, it was not over yet. Nelda wanted us to see the inside of the house, where they were doing renovations. When we walked inside I realized the porch was the far better option for visiting. The inside of the 1860 farm house was... how can I put this tactfully?... trashed? The walls were torn up, the furniture was crowded around willynilly, the floors were dirty. There was stuff everywhere. Even ignoring the "renovations" (which I suspected were a very, very long term project) the place looked like a tornado had blown through. There was trash laying around. An old dog. Unmade beds in random places. I said nothing and tried to touch nothing while A made nice comments about how lovely it will be when they finish the place. Nelda kept saying, Whatever you do, DON'T but an old farmhouse! They are a ton of work! And in my head I'm like I really don't think you need to worry about that. Another twenty minutes of chatter and then, at long last, after what seemed like a whole day but was really only like an hour, I was back in the car with the a/c blasting, and the only thing I could think or say was What the......???

Kansas. And Omaha... and how we almost didn't make it there.

We're in Kansas again. Adam came home a couple weeks ago, right after I got back from a business trip, and then two weeks later I had to turn around and leave again for another trip to Omaha. We decided to take advantage of the free trip back to the mainland to go visit A's family, so here we are in Kansas. We drove up to Omaha on Tuesday for my conference and got into a car accident on the way. It was raining really hard and we hydroplaned. Did a 180 spin on the freeway just about a hundred yards short of an overpass. Slid into the ditch on the side of the road and careened up the other side before coming to rest in the middle of the ditch looking back down the highway from the direction we came. I guess the actual accident wasn't that bad, considering... I mean, we could have hit another car, the overpass, or the ditch could have been more menacing with rocks or a steeper drop off. We were lucky. For me, though, the accident seemed pretty violent. When we slid off the road we hit a mile marker on the passenger (my) side of the car which caused the side airbags to deploy. For some reason there is a small airbag that deploys from the side of the passenger seat and of course it exploded onto the back of my arm while the side curtain airbags deployed onto my face. As soon as that happened, it disoriented me. I thought we were rolling, and with the pain on my side, I thought the car was crumpling in on me. All I could think of was This is It. I was imagining the worst. A told me later what was going thru HIS mind while I was experiencing all this trauma: Shit, we just wrecked my parents' car; Baby's gonna be upset; How the heck are we going to get to Omaha?......... yes, those were his thoughts as we were careening out of control down the highway! After the car came to a stop and I calmed down and stopped my hysterical crying and figured out what happened and that we were ok, A got out in the rain and assessed the damage. Two flat tires and the rear bumper banged up, but otherwise no real damage to the car. Plus the internal damage caused by the airbags deploying. We got a tow to Topeka and got the tires replaced and then continued on our way with only a 5 hour delay.

That was pretty much the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

Omaha was fine, we had a nice time. We were staying right down in the old Market district, so we could walk around to the shops and restaurants. We were scoping it out for potential future place to live. A would like to live in the midwest since he's from here. I'm pretty much opposed on philosophical grounds, but I opened my mind since I had to go there anyway to scope it out. I think we are still set on trying to go to Colorado after we leave Hawaii. Which is still 3.5 years away anyway!

I think we are off to some local sightseeing in some salt mines so I gotta run!

What the world eats

I've posted this before, but Mark's Daily Apple reminded me of it again. These pictures from Time magazine show what people around the world eat in a week. Fascinating!

Oh Arlington... I kind of miss you in a twisted way

HahahaHAAAA! If you have ever lived in Arlington, you will appreciate this...

Updates

I just realized it's been over a week since I posted. Shame! Truth is that I didn't want to slay you all with boredom. I have nothing much to tell. My partner in crime is deployed, my motivation for pretty much everything is in the shitter and I'd rather stay silent than spew such negativity out into the universe. My scan went ok - I'm still cancer free - yay. It's been really hot here - last week the trade winds died off and the heat was stifling. As a result I've been driving A's car around everywhere and ignoring my own since the a/c doesn't work in it. And nothing screws up your day like sweating your balls off in the car on the way home to your house, which is also like an armpit. Workouts? What are those? I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I've struggled to get even three good workouts in a week. It is really unlike me. I have no idea what is wrong with me? I am just chalking it up to a phase and rolling with it. I figure the motivation will come back when it does. Same goes for my diet... I was going along just fine, things were going well and then bam a couple of weeks ago I was back to the horrendous habits that have taken over since ... well, basically since I moved here but have sort of gotten worse since the wedding. See? Nothing great to tell you! What are all of YOU up to??