The Queen's Rambles

The Good:

I made an excellent, healthy dinner tonight. It’s been . . . oh. . . nine months give or take a couple of weeks since I’ve done such good cooking. When I visited Bethany Actually a couple of weeks ago she served peanut Thai chicken. It hit the spot, so I decided to see if I could come up with a recipe. I didn’t really follow a recipe, just jumbled a bunch of stuff together, but it was oh-so-good and chock full of vegetables and pineapple.

For my future reference, I marinaded chicken in Lawry’s sesame ginger marinade. I fried it up with sugar snap peas, thin sliced carrots, green onions, pineapple and red bell pepper. Toward the end I threw in a peanut butter mixture that included peanut butter, white wine vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, grated ginger and cayenne pepper. I served it all over rice and had crunchy Chinese noodles available. This was quite a triumph for me because I never serve Asian food.

The Bad:

I had an annoying OB appointment today. I’m with a large practice and have mostly been seen by two different doctors that I really like. Today was only the second time I saw Dr. X. I wasn’t too impressed with her last time either, but what can you do? Other than say “Sorry, but make my appointment with someone else?” Which I will do if it comes down to it.

It’s no secret that I’m a big lady and don’t need to gain a lot of weight with pregnancy. I have plenty of fat reserved just for my little alien invader sweet-ums.

Last week my weight gain was way up (six pounds in a week! But my feet were very swollen.) This week I’d lost two pounds. With this week’s weight check, I’ve gained 10 pounds with this pregnancy, though I feel fatter than ever since I’ve lost all my muscle tone.

So the doctor says “I can tell you have radical lifestyle changes week to week and this is not what I like to see. These weight fluctuations make no sense.”

Ok. Talk to me about the weight fluctuations, but don’t talk about “radical lifestyle changes.” I don’t even know what that means! Was she accusing me of being a drug addict? That’s all I can picture when I hear “radical lifestyle changes.” Maybe I’m a wee bit sensitive.

I did tell her that I quit going to the gym about three weeks ago, but she didn’t seem to think that mattered. I forgot that I was really swollen last week or I would have mentioned that. Instead, I said “Well, I guess I’ve been eating a lot of Cadbury Creme Eggs.” Does that really count as a radical lifestyle change? I’ve only gained ten pounds! We are not talking huge fluctuations! Most people’s weight can vary by as much as four or five pounds throughout the day. Combine that with different clothing and you’ve got an explanation.

Now she wants me to go in for ultrasounds twice a week until my c-section to check on the baby and on fluid levels. I realize this would make a normal pregnant lady happy (get to see the baby! Make sure everything is ok!) but I guess I am just not in the worry state of mind like I was with Erik. At the last u/s all we could see was the spine and the back of her head. Not very exciting stuff.

The main two problems: timing and the office. The u/s machine is in the “big city” office. It’s crowded, cramped, stuffy and staffed by a whole slew of cranky-pants people. Last time I was there we had to wait over an hour to be seen. I should just drop Erik off at the sitter, but my appointment is at 2:50 and he has swimming at 4. If we get very, very lucky we can run out of the appointment and go straight to the pool. I doubt I would have time to drop by the sitter and pick him up.

Also, what if they decide I need to have the baby right then? Of course if they decided that it would be an emergency situation and I would be glad to have it taken care of safely instead of risking a stillbirth, but my brain is not accustomed to the idea of her coming that early. My mom won’t be here until Saturday, so childcare will be a stretch. I have it handled, but not in the most ideal way. My friend’s husband is out of town all week so I’d really hate to have to burden her with Erik in addition to her own two kids. Erik and her son always want to play together, but they have a major problem playing nicely together.

I’m just a wee bit stressed by the situation.

The Ugly:

It doesn’t look so bad in the picture, but I’m not impressed with it close-up. There are several things that make me frown, but I am trying not to point them all out. My best advice to other people is to just sit back and enjoy praise, don’t nit-pick your work and point out all the flaws. Very hard to do! I want people to know that I know it is not the best thing since sliced bread so they won’t have to make fun of me behind my back. I believe this is something that comes from my grandma. My poor, socially awkward, always pessimistic grandma. It was weird not to hear from her on my birthday.

Anyway, the quilt was made from a kit provided by Quilts for Kids through a deal with Downy. You may have seen advertisements about the program. I only provided the batting, binding and thread. I will also provide return shipping. I requested the kit and received it less than a week later–I didn’t have to pay a dime for it, though I could have clicked a donate button to donate funds. I didn’t really have to provide binding because they had a no-binding method, but as a quilter I couldn’t stand to send in a quilt that I felt would fall apart. Binding is important. You should have seen me looking through my stash, frantically trying to find pink. I finally decided I would have to use black, but then I stumbled on just enough pink to get the job done.

The first day of spring break! Whoo-hoo! Or not.

Actually, I still must be cheerful from this weekend because I wasn’t a horrible, grouchy, mean mother today. It was raining out, so we headed to the last Playtime at the Plex and got some energy out. We had to get home pretty quickly afterward and wait around for the telephone repair people.

Talk about feeling like a stupid idiot. Despite going through tech support and doing everything I was asked to do, the problem still came down to something that didn’t need a repairman. The bleepity-bleeping phone was unplugged! My neighbor must have knocked it out when she was cleaning.

They did say the jack was a little loose, so they replaced it. They weren’t very amused by the whole situation, though.

Erik, of course, was full of ideas and kept talking to them and wanting to help them. I tried to occupy him, but one of the guys said he had a four year old and told me he didn’t mind Erik watching and asking questions. It’s nice when people are nice to my kid.

I was really excited when Mike told me the yellow lines came out of the charity quilt. Then I went down and got it. I think the dear man needs an eye exam. The lines are there, a nice bright yellow under the pink thread. We just had a big discussion about it and he still can’t see them, but they jump out at me as soon as I look at the quilt. I don’t know what to do. I have to send it back. The organization sent me the kit to put it together so it’s not like it is a random charity thing that doesn’t have to be done. Maybe I am being too hard on myself? I don’t know. I find it to be a very unattractive quilt, but part of that is because I don’t care for the fabric and part of it is because they wanted the binding zig-zagged so it won’t catch on IV lines. I’ll take a picture tomorrow when I have better lighting and you can all see what I’ve been going on about for the past month.

Have any of you seen “How to Train Your Dragon?” Erik has been asking to go see a kid movie, so I said we’d go see that one. Then I looked at a review and freaked out. The review said it was rated PG-13 and very inappropriate for young children with lots of cursing and violence. Someone on FB said it was just PG, so I did some digging and found it is just PG. I would really like to ask someone with children just how appropriate or inappropriate it is. Erik gets scared by a lot of conflict, especially when things aren’t fair. He loves dragons. He’s been asking about the movie the moment he gets up the past three days. I don’t know if I should take him or not. I wish I never would have mentioned it.

The only other movies he’s seen at the theatre were “Up!” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” He enjoyed the novelty of the movie going experience, but he was also quite bored and wiggly through both of them.

Man, do I feel like a heel for being so grouchy lately. Guess what? My friend was planning a surprise birthday party/baby shower!

I thought we were going over to her place to play, as we often do on the weekend. When we walked in, I caught a glimpse of a little brown haired boy hiding under the table. I was so confused! My brain said “That’s J, son of a different friend,” but my brain couldn’t compute how that was possible.

A few seconds later it all became clear when a few friends jumped out, yelling surprise. I was totally floored. My friend hadn’t mentioned the shower in a long time and since I’m having this baby in a couple of weeks I just assumed she decided not to plan one due to my lack of enthusiasm.

Only a few people were able to attend, but it was just about perfect. It was just a few close friends and their children, some cake, some food, and a few presents. Nothing elaborate or embarrassing. I get embarrassed easily when people are doing things for me. Something I need to work on, I suppose.

Elsa got some very cute outfits, including a few homemade things from my seamstress friend. I got some really nice body scrubs and a big “mama hospital pack” that included a wet bag, several postpartum pads, breast pads and lotions. I can quit sewing! The things I’ve been sewing look pretty bad. They will work, but they won’t be pretty. My new things are much prettier.

I think a little party was just the pick-me-up I needed to get rid of my grouchiness. I’m feeling much happier now. We’ll see how long that happiness lasts with Erik’s spring break this week. I am not looking forward to entertaining the boy all on my own!

I did manage to get to the store and buy stuff for Erik’s Easter basket. Poor Mike was looking through stuff, trying to find something cool for himself I guess. He was not impressed with his present–a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner. I didn’t get anything fun either, just a medication that is too gross to even talk about. Except once I tried to find it, it wasn’t even there! So now I have to go back again and get a gross medication. Bah!

Being a grown-up is so much fun.

I also got Erik some allergy medicine, but I’m a little concerned about giving it to him. I think I need to get him in to the doctor and see what they say. He’s been rubbing at his eyes for two weeks and it’s driving me crazy. He says his eyes are itching and it finally occurred to me that I’ve been seeing a lot of people complain about allergies. Itchy eyes often mean allergies. Perhaps I should do something to try to relieve his symptoms. He took a Clariton this afternoon and it did seem to help. I don’t want to drug him up all summer, though.

In other news, I made a really big mistake! I finally finished the charity quilt I was working on. I threw it in the wash without even thinking about it. I’ve been using EcoNuts as my detergent, a weird hippie kind of thing. Thus far I’ve had no complaints with it. My clothes seem to be clean, even Erik’s dirty jeans. I washed the quilt with the nuts and threw it in the dryer without looking at it. When I pulled it out, it became very obvious that the bright yellow chalk lines didn’t come out! I’m washing it again as we speak in real detergent, but I’m scared the whole thing is going to be ruined. Nooooooo!

After looking at the pictures from the baby shower, I think I need to invest in some headbands. Can a grown woman wear a head band and not look stupid? My hair looks a lot better pushed back.

I am so happy to be not-grumpy! I think Mike and Erik must be happy as well. Let’s hope the trend continues.

I’m so glad it’s Friday, but I’m not looking forward to next week. It’s officially spring break. I think this is the first time in my life when that inspired a sense of dread instead of happiness. We do have plans most days next week, but still. I am not in the mood to be a good mother. I feel guilty that I’m such a grump, but I can’t seem to do a lot to change that.

Thanks all for the birthday wishes today! I wish I was in the mood for a happy birthday, but see above reference to being grumpy.

I was not really looking forward to dinner tonight since we were having friends over and the son can be a bit of a pill around meal times, but in the end it was ok. At first I thought both his mother and I would kill him because he kept screaming and throwing a fit about the food on his plate and insisting he wanted cake, but eventually he ran out of steam and things settled down.

Erik didn’t make matters any better, but he was cracking me up. He came up with a plan–we’d just stick a carrot under the other kid’s cake and trick him into eating it. I don’t think that would work, but at least he was thinking. He’s a peace maker and just wanted every body to be happy. That boy is so much like my sister it’s scary. I hope that we are able to guide him into a life of happiness instead of addiction. His childhood will be completely different from my sister’s childhood, so that has to count for something. Right?

In other news, our land line phone is down. What is it with pregnancy and no phone? When I was very pregnant with Erik and we moved to a new place I couldn’t get a phone line installed. Now I can’t get a tech out here!

Ok, so that is an exaggeration. I have a tech coming out here on Monday afternoon, but I am irritable about it. I could have had a tech come out tomorrow sometime between 7am-7pm (so ideal for a Saturday), but then the customer support guy dialed our number and the call went to voice mail. The phone never rang, but since it went to voice mail our situation was not considered an emergency.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit I’d rather just have the tech come out Monday instead of wasting a whole Saturday waiting around. We have our cell phones so it isn’t an emergency. We’ll just miss all our calls from the Fraternal Order of the Police. As if I’m giving them money after a power tripping officer told me he was going to arrest me because my tags were expired by six days.

Speaking of arrests! I didn’t see an arrest today, but I saw a guy get in trouble for stealing cookies from the Amish!

As we were leaving the market a guy was walking out with a package of Snickerdoodles that weren’t in a bag. An Amish guy came and asked him if he paid for it and he claimed he did. They had a little kerfuffle about it since they are always careful to bag things at each stand. In fact, I don’t even take my own bags there because each stand has to use their own particular bag, or so I’ve been told.

The man pushed his way out of the store, practically knocking down an old woman. The Amish guy went and asked the girl at the bakery if the guy had paid for the cookies. He hadn’t.

I went out to my car and the guy was parked right across from me. Suddenly three Amish guys were there, asking to see his receipt for the snickerdoodles.

I was getting ready to watch an Amish smack-down! I didn’t know the Amish could give a good smack-down!

Ok, so it really wasn’t all that exciting. They talked to him and he went through all his receipts. I was trying not to stare, but I did note that they walked back in the building with their pack of cookies.

You just don’t expect to see Amish cookie thieves in your every day life. Of course, I never fail to be surprised when I see the Amish girls sitting at the picnic tables, drinking their Starbucks while chatting on their cellphones. One day the novelty will wear off.

I don’t want to write much these days because all I have is a litany of complaints. I am pretty lucky that I haven’t had sciatica this pregnancy, but guess what? I seem to have it now. Lots of burning in my leg joint with pain radiating down all the way. Oh joy. It’s a familiar feeling, but at least I’ll only have to deal with it for 19 days instead of three months.

I’ve been confused all day because I’ve been getting birthday wishes on Facebook. I’m pretty sure my birthday is tomorrow. Even my sister sent me big ol’ birthday wishes, but my cousin’s wife told her she had the day wrong. Maybe my cousin’s wife, a girl I’ve met once, is right. I hope so, because that would mean I know the date of my own birth. I don’t feel like I know much these days.

Luckily we had a pretty busy day planned. We had a make-your-own-pizza-party through the MOMS Club today. Only four families came, which was just about perfect. I really like all the ladies who showed up, so it was fun.

Afterwards, I took Erik over to Target to get him some new socks. I bought him some Hanes socks a few months ago and they are awful. The smalls are way too small and the mediums are way too large. I’m sure they’ll be great in a few months, but it has been bothering me. The other day I bought a different brand and they fit just right (does this sound like the Three Little Bears?) so I wanted to pick up a couple packages. I don’t know why. Summer is almost here so socks are not going to be needed for much longer.

I also tried to find him a plain green t-shirt but had zero success. There’s a big notice that the kids are supposed to wear plain green t-shirts to their preschool graduation. I think they are doing some sort of play or presentation about the kids growing. Must be spring related. I don’t really know. I am not keen on this idea because A) It is his graduation! I want him in something handsome. B) He looks terrible in green. His skin suddenly turns red and he looks really tired when he wears it. Poor kid.

I finally settled on a striped green polo shirt. That better be good enough because I’m not buying a bunch of other green clothes. What’s the worst they can do? Kick him out? It will already be the last day of school. I’m sure I won’t be the only parent who has a hard time finding the required wardrobe. Compromises must be made. I’m not running all over town in my state. And I’m not paying shipping on a stupid t-shirt.

I wasn’t feeling too great, but decided I had to get Elsa a baby book. I’ve been meaning to order one, but just hadn’t gotten around to it. I had the brilliant thought of “Hallmark! The store I never go to because it’s full of useless, over-priced crap!” Indeed. I was able to pick up a baby book that is already asking questions I don’t know the answer to. How did I find out I was pregnant? What did daddy think? How did we celebrate? This book expects me to remember something that happened nine months ago? Maybe I can search my archives and figure it out.

I was also going to get Erik a new pair of Crocs while there, but he freaked out and wouldn’t even look at them. “I’m not giving away my Crocs! They can’t have my Crocs!” He didn’t seem to get the concept of getting new ones. Perhaps I’ve been a little over-zealous with giving away stuff on freecycle lately.

I usually try not to buy him stuff when we go to the store because I know it can become a big thing where they expect to get a toy every time we enter the store. Somehow we’ve managed to avoid that mindset (I have no idea how, but I count myself extremely lucky). However, today he found a Dalmatian beanie baby that he had to have *eye rolls*. He promised that if I bought it for him he wouldn’t ever ask for a real pet again because it would be his real pet. Sure, sure, right. I caved and bought it. Sometimes there is no reason to say no, you know? Especially for a $5.00 that has already brought him at least $5.00 worth of happiness. Somehow he knew that Beanie Babies come with a name tag, but he was mighty confused by the pre-existing name (Hydrant). I finally convinced him it would be ok to re-name the dog Spot since he has a lot of spots. Spot had to sit on my lap all during Erik’s swim class. Spot has been in my face. Spot is going to be very lucky if he doesn’t end up as a spot on the bottom of my shoe.

But swim class! Erik finally met his first goal and got a blue arm band! He can float by himself for 20 seconds. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but he was one very proud little boy and I was one happy mama. Now the real task of learning to swim begins.

Tasks for tomorrow:
-Brave the Amish market for birthday cake
-Sit on my butt and don’t move

Somehow I don’t think I will be able to accomplish the second one, but it sure would be nice. Instead, I think I want to hunt down Erik’s baby book and see if there is anything I could be filling in and if there are spaces for pictures that I should be printing out.

Can you believe next week is spring break? I wish my mom was getting here this weekend instead of next weekend.

Not too many pictures, since I’ve been super lazy this month. I don’t know what my problem is. It’s not like taking a picture is hard work, though it does get irritating when I get out the camera and Erik immediately gloms on to it and wants it to be his camera. When I got the new camera my plan was to give Erik the old camera. Too bad I have no idea what happened to the old camera.

I’m in a super irritable mood today, so I think I better refrain from posting several rants that I’ve been formulating in my head. I probably should chill out, cool off, soak my head in some water–something. I’m a crazy lady and I don’t even care.

Bug, Secret Agent Josephine’s daughter, and Erik at our Sunday meet-up. The only decent picture I got from the deal!

Erik at his school’s spring party. I assumed all the parents would be there, just like they are at every other party. I assumed wrong. I was the only one there. It was awkward, but Erik was happy. I had to sit in a little kid chair. I’m surprised it didn’t burst.

I also felt like the best mom in the world (not) because Erik was the only one who had a clue what to do with the Peep on top of his cupcake. He loves them and calls them sugar tweet tweets. He was telling the other kids they were marshmallows, but none of them would even try them.

It was really interesting to sit in on his class as the only parent there. My mom and grandma used to bitch about my young cousin always “sounding like a grown-up” and were totally resentful that she didn’t act like a kid. She was sort of an only child (her half-brother didn’t live with her and was 10 years her senior). Guess what? Erik is an only child. He sounds like a little grown-up. He can have a fairly decent conversation with an adult. It was weird to see the other kids just sitting there staring at their food while Erik was trying to chat up the teacher and ask lots of questions. He’s exhausting.

Thirty-six weeks! This picture makes me want to cry. I know pregnant ladies are supposed to be huge, but it is still upsetting to see. I decided I better take a few pictures for Elsa’s baby book. She’ll be interested in seeing her pregnant mom when she’s older.

Adorable knit socks from Sandy! Aren’t they cute? Baby Elsa is going to look so sweet in her little socks. I’ve been very remiss in not posting a picture of these before. She gave them to me back when we were in Sweden!

Elsa is already so spoiled! This is a beautiful crocheted blanket from my long time reader Jeanette. I love the girliness.

Facebook can be such a double-edged sword, but when you have real life people on there it can be fantastic. This morning I made a complaining post about having no school, no play dates, no classes, nothing to do with Erik. It was rainy today so I knew we would both get cabin fever, but I had no energy to take him to the open gym because there’s no place to sit. I have to sit these days.

Within five minutes I had an offer for a play date. Unfortunately it was an offer for me to take her kid for a play date, but that didn’t really matter. I was all over the offer. Anything to keep Erik out of my hair for a couple of hours! There are kids that I wouldn’t have over when I’m in my fat, lazy, painful, pregnant state, but this kid is very self-sufficient and nice so I knew it would be ok.

Even better, I dropped Erik off at the kid’s house, ran to my doctor’s appointment, then picked both boys up afterwards. Win-win for everyone!

I don’t like taking Erik to the doctor’s appointments, but I don’t like paying a babysitter either. I only pay the sitter when I know my hoo-haw is going to be exposed.

My appointment went really well. I was one minute late (whoops!) and didn’t even have time to sit in the lobby. I was literally out the door nine minutes later. We had a bit of a scare at first when the doctor couldn’t find the heart beat, but I knew she was ok because she had just been beating the heck out of me. Turns out she is no longer transverse–she shifted herself into a breech position. Once again, I’m glad I was already in a c-section mindset.

Once we got home the boys had a lot of fun playing and I got to do a lot of crafty stuff while they ran wild. It was so nice to have a kid over that knows how to play well with others, share, and do simple things like throw his own trash away and pick up his toys. He has two older sisters so I don’t think there is much babying going on at his house.

They started to get grouchy with each other after a couple of hours so I did my magic trick and gave them food. It helped, but by that time the boy was ready to go home. He asked me to call his mom because he was ready to go. No muss, no fuss. If only all play dates were so easy!

While we were waiting outside, the neighbor came out on her porch. I’m really glad she was able and willing to clean my house for a reasonable price, but we need to set up some boundaries. She suddenly thinks I’m going to hire her to come over to clean two times a week for the rest of my natural born life. If I had that much money we wouldn’t be living here! A one time thorough cleaning is all we can afford. Possibly I could hire her once a month over the summer, but after that I have to get my butt in gear and clean my own house. I hope this doesn’t become a big problem.

In other news, I was getting my crafty on this afternoon. I feel extremely guilty about some of my crafting. I received six huge bags of baby clothes from a friend. A lot of them had big formula stains down the front. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand to dress a child in stained clothes if there are any other options. Just can’t do it. And at this point I have plenty of other options.

I did my best to salvage them with judicious use of hot water, borax, detergent, stain lifter and oxy-clean. Some of them came out ok, but several of them were beyond the scope of my laundry skills. I don’t have experience removing red formula spit-up stains, so I don’t know if there was something else I should have tried.

Anyway, since we are cloth diapering I figured out that buying wipes makes no sense. We are doing a ton of laundry anyway. If we used disposable wipes we’d have to have a garbage can for them. Cloth wipes make more sense. So what do you use for cloth wipes? Basically anything, from what I understand. So I got out my pinking shears and cut the stained baby clothes into a bunch of cloth wipes. My friend said I should sew them with a zig-zag stitch around the edges to prevent fraying, but I am hoping the pinking shears will be enough. We didn’t discuss the pinking shears when we were discussing how to make wipes. I really have no desire to do a bunch of sewing on poop rags.

I still feel guilty, though! Baby clothes! Cut into rags! What have I done? I won’t freecycle stuff that I think is beyond use so let’s hope my little green heart can be content with making something useful out of something stained.

I also tried to bind the charity quilt that I’ve been working on. They directions for binding are different from any I’ve ever seen before and I don’t think they are all that great. I was going to follow it, though, because they are the directions. I am nothing if not a rule follower. Basically you just flip the backing to the front and then use a zig-zag stitch to hold it down. Very ugly. Very, very ugly. I don’t think it will hold up all that well, either. For some reason I could not make my zig-zag stitching work. The front is ok, but the back is a tangled up mess. Tomorrow I’m going to make real binding and do it my way. I won’t hand sew the binding on, but I am not going to have this silly looking flipped over baking. It seems like it would wear out in about three days. Maybe, just maybe, that quilt will be ready to ship out by this weekend. It would be nice to get it out the door. I want to take pictures of crafty things! But who wants to see a picture of a postpartum pad or poop rag? I know I don’t.

Ok, off to bed. It’s way past my bedtime. I had to stay up to watch LOST. Bah. It was supposed to be a really exciting episode, but I could barely stay awake. Booooooring. We don’t have time for boring at this late stage.

Twenty-two days, people! I can’t wait. I am not looking forward to the screaming, but at least I’ll be able to walk again. Are you tired of the count down yet?

Today was the big day–my neighbor came over and cleaned half my house! She would have cleaned the other half, but we’re waiting for Erik’s next preschool day. He wanted to help but was more of a hindrance. I decided I didn’t want to pay her hourly rate once she slowed down. I didn’t tell her that part, though. I just told her I thought it would be easier without him.

It is so nice to have a mostly clean house! I can walk upstairs and not have my nose go crazy. I didn’t realize just how bad my dust allergy was getting until the dust was gone. I need to stay on top of it a lot better and maybe I will have better sleep.

Unfortunately I was supervising her/telling her where to put stuff during my preschool break so I felt like I never got any alone time today. Plus, it was a thundery, raining day so we couldn’t go outside. I was a pretty cranky mama by the time 5 pm rolled around.

This lady is like my mother’s long lost, twenty year younger clone. Making small talk was fairly exhausting. She’s a very nice lady, always trying to help people out and be kind, but we are very, very different with nothing in common. She hates reading. She’s 40 and has two grown kids. Her big excitement is to drink beer and watch Nascar. All perfectly fine stuff, but not anything I can relate to.

I had to laugh when she was complaining about the recycling guys. She’s decided to quit recycling because she tries her best but they usually put a sticker on her box telling her that it has non-recyclable items in it. I was curious about what she was putting in it since we’ve never had that problem. Turns out she was putting yard debris and cardboard in there. They do take that stuff, but you have to separate it all out. They have a completely different truck that comes by for yard waste. I am not sure how they work the cardboard, but I know it specifically says you have to keep it separate from the mixed recyclables (glass, metal, plastic). They ask that you put it out in a paper bag or small cardboard box and use the recycle bin for the mixed stuff. The instruction are printed right on it and it’s really not that hard.

Like I said, she reminds me of my mom. In my mom’s town the sanitation place provides customers with a huge recycle bin and you can put everything in it except yard waste. My mom can’t even do that because it’s “too much trouble.” Drives me nuts. How much trouble is it to throw things in two separate containers? Seriously? I don’t understand. Save the planet!

Ohhhhh!

Speaking of my liberal agenda, I was laughing my ass off at the flurry of righteous Republicans posting on my Facebook page today. I’m really excited about health care reform. There is no reason America should be the only industrialized nation that doesn’t take care of our people. Big insurance companies are pulling a lot of strings to make it sound evil, but if you strip it down to the essentials I don’t understand the objection. That’s neither here, nor there, though. I am sure the certain sub-set of very conservative Christians* on my Facebook page would never make the connection that Christians are supposed to help the poor and maybe, just maybe, universal health care would do that.

Anyway, I was laughing my ass off because several of them said they were going to move to Canada since the health care reform was going to ruin our country. Do they truly not know that Canada has had universal health care for years? Do they truly not know that Canada is much more of a “socialist” state than the US?

If you’re going to move to a country that doesn’t have universal health care, you’re going to have to look a lot further afield than Canada.

And that’s all she wrote for tonight. I’m off to enjoy my freshly cleaned room.

*Please note I am NOT referring to all Christians. Just a certain sub-set that I know very, very well since I went to college with them and was a part of their religion for many years. I do know there are Christians who fights for social justice and health care reform.

We had a totally crazy day at Chez Possum. Most of it was excellent, but some of it was really scary.

Secret Agent Josephine was hosting a bigger blogger meet-up in Alexandria and I knew I had to go! It is not often you get to meet such a long term blogging buddy, so I was up for anything.

My original plan was to ditch Mike and Erik, but after looking at directions and realizing they included the dreaded “get on 395 from the George Washington Parkway,” a maneuver I have never successfully completed after five years of living here, I decided I needed a navigator. Looking at Google maps, I could see there was a playground a block away from the coffee shop, so off we went as a family!

Of course we got lost. You can’t drive here without getting lost.

I successfully got on 395, though it took a whole lot of really foul language. Maybe that DVD player with headphones isn’t such a curse after all.

But then? I had approximately five seconds to cross six lanes of traffic for an immediate left exit. We missed that exit.

I was moaning and grumbling and possibly, just maybe, screaming my head off, when a fast movement to the left caught my eye. A motorcyclist ran into the left median, flew ass over heels through two lanes of traffic while his bike skidded over four lanes of traffic. Suddenly my cursing was more of the “Oh my god oh my god oh my god” variety. Somehow everyone around managed to stop and no one ran him over, but it was still the scariest thing I’ve ever seen while driving. People immediately jumped out of their cars, cell phones against their ears. We were probably four cars back and by the time we got up that far people were already with him, holding his head still. I thought for sure we were going to see a dead body and I was freaking out, but when we drove by he was moving his head and I didn’t see any blood.

I only felt slightly guilty that we didn’t stop to help. At least seven other cars were stopped and a lot of military looking guys (we were right next to the Pentagon) were running to the scene. I thought the best thing we could do to help was get the heck out of the way. If you’re the praying sort, I know of a guy who could use some serious prayers. By the time we had turned around to try our exit again there were already emergency workers on the scene so maybe he has a shot.

After getting lost several more times, we finally arrived at our destination at the same moment as SAJ and Bethany. They had their two kids and Bethany’s husband, so we grabbed seats in the toy nook and enjoyed some dessert while we waited for the rest of the people to show up. Once I find out the links of the other people, I’ll have to post them. In the end there were only two other bloggers and their families, but it was a nice size for a meet-up. We all ended up walking down to the little playground because the kids were pretty restless. I felt bad for one of the ladies, Christine, because she had an active toddler that took most of her attention. It is so nice to have a four year old. You can just sit and watch without much active participation.

I’m really mad that my rechargeable batteries don’t seem to be charging. Brenda has had that problem before and thinks my charger is probably shot. I thought I was all prepared to take pictures this time, but apparently not. Boo! Brenda and Bethany both love taking pictures, so you can check their blogs if you want to see all of us. They are probably the only pregnancy pics that exist of me! Maybe I should have Mike take a few belly shots for this baby’s book. That would require purchasing actual batteries, but I need to do that anyway. I’ve been very remiss at showing off the handmade goodness that blog readers have sent for baby Elsa. Bad me! I shall do that soon.

One of the kids brought a bubble wand that Erik was fascinated with. The girl wasn’t too interested in it and her mom said Erik could have it. You’d think the kid scored a million bucks. He’s currently sleeping with it. It’s his sword, at least until he hits me with it and I have a conniption. I suppose every boy needs a sword and it’s not as pokey as a stick. Thank you, Shanee!

I do think this was my last outing until after the baby is born. I’ve not had much swelling, but today my feet are the size of watermelon and my legs are hurting. I even caved and bought man sandals at Target on the way home. I HATE HATE HATE wearing men’s shoes. All my tennis shoes are from the men’s department, but I still hate it. I want to be feminine. I want purple. Or teal. Or blue! Gray and black. Puke. Yuck. I wants pretty, my precious.

My feet, however, are not made for cute, girly shoes. I suppose I should count myself lucky that I made it to 35 weeks without a dire need for huge man shoes. I probably could have found something acceptable online, but it was a lot cheaper and more convenient to grab man sandals at Target. I suppose one must sacrifice form for function at some stage. I’m already wearing disgusting maternity clothes, so why not add manly shoes to the mix?

At least I have a good excuse to just sit in my chair and groan. Mike has been working his tushie off all day (in addition to escorting me through two states!). He totally rearranged the craft/guest room. I am amazed. I had no idea we were using the space in such an inefficient manner. It looks quite a big bigger and is a lot more functional now.

Tomorrow, I get to be embarrassed while my neighbor comes in and cleans my house. It is going to be so good to have the place deep cleaned! I am worried because we have so much crap that doesn’t have a home and I’m not going to know what to tell her to do with it, but if she can just vacuum, dust, wipe down all my baseboards and wainscoting, and do my bathrooms this place will be a million times better. I’m looking around here feeling like a slobbish pig. I know I’m not a great housekeeper, but at least most of the time my house is just cluttered, not disgusting.

I was adventurous and went to a Girl’s Night Out last night. I thought I would know the host and one other lady, but it turned out that I knew over half the party. The host’s mother lives four doors down! I also knew people from my old mom’s group, preschool and freecycle. Do I need to say it again? This is a small town.

I used a Nigella Lawson cheesecake recipe since I couldn’t find my fool-proof Kraft recipe. Boo! You’d think Nigella would kick Kraft’s ass, but it wasn’t all that good. I was disappointed.

It was really nice to be out, talking to grown ups, doing grown up things without a child to supervise.

Yesterday also brought me a plethora of little girly clothes. I have seven bags and a big box to go through, most of it from one of Mike’s co-workers. I’ve already started the sorting and there are some super cute items, but there are also some head scratchers. Well, not really head scratchers, but more of “No. Just no.” The co-worker’s daughters are 17 and 15, so the baby clothes are ’90s retro. The turquoise and purple florals are a bit eye searing. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I really am so touched and grateful that so many people have thought of us. With all the hand-me-downs we’ve received I think this baby could live her first year of life without ever wearing the same thing twice. I’m not sure it’s worth keeping the stuff that makes me cringe just to be nice. We simply don’t have the room to store it all.

I was outside talking to my neighbor yesterday and mentioned that I wanted to hire a housekeeper to come give my house a thorough clean from top to bottom. I mentioned it to her specifically because I wanted her to offer her services. She’s been here a year and is really unhappy because she can’t find a job. She says all she likes to do is work in the yard and clean her house. She used to be a custodian and then a CNA. Anyway, I didn’t want to straight out ask her if I could hire her as a maid, but she was all over it. She’s coming on Monday. I can’t wait! Though I have no idea how to even start getting this house organized. You should see the huge pile of boxes we have in our dining room. I’ve been ordering a zillion things online and we always keep the boxes because we use them for our paper recycling. I think we need to let some of them go. We have enough boxes to last six months.

I did something kind of dumb yesterday.

I went to JoAnn’s to buy some thread to finish up the quilts I’m working on. The never ending quilts. Oh my!

I stumbled over the clothing patterns and saw the cutest little girl dresses/bloomers. Suddenly I found myself at the cutting table with elastic, clothing fabric and interfacing. Just when am I going to have time to sew this child an outfit? I barely have time to sort out the three majillion outfits that are already sewn!

Sewing projects:
-Bind doll quilt. Put off cutting out the paper doll clothing until the child is old enough to do that part.
-Quilt charity quilt
-finish piecing/quilt/bind real baby quilt
-sew a bunch of postpartum pads (my hippie mama seamstress friend gave me a pattern and a bunch of super special fabrics to do this with. . . stuff like bamboo velour, Zorbo and some fancy kind of waterproof fleece)
-Sew a baby outfit

I am having a baby in 24 days. Do you think any of this will actually happen?