it's the little things...

If you keep up with me on FB at all, you already know that things have been a bit challenging the last few weeks.  I'm just going to vent a little here. Things with the house selling/buying got all kinds of crazy and got really down to the wire.  I thought I'd be able to have a week or two prior to the closings to just be able to exhale.  Nope.  That last week and a half was spent trying to figure out what to do if one sale didn't happen.  Which one?  It could have been either.  Trying to figure out how to move money around.  How not to kill people if all the work and packing had been for nothing.  To still be in the old house when the baby came.  Hoping the baby didn't come early due to stress.  The thought of two mortgages.  The thought of being homeless.  You get the idea.  And it wasn't just me being pregnant and crazy.  It seemed like at some point any of those scenarios was a possibility. During all that...

I'm super unmotivated today. So much so that I'm not sure if "unmotivated" is even a word but I'm not bothering to check. I'd like to just stay home today and make breakfast foods. But instead I'm flying to Tampa for work. At least it's warm there. I had such a productive day yesterday I fear I used up all my productivity for the week. And it's Tuesday. The baby got pink eye. Again. But not nearly as bad this time. In fact, after a few doses of meds yesterday, she looks way better already. One of the day care providers? Her husband died yesterday, and I'm terribly sad for her. I keep thinking about how he enjoyed the pumpkin bread we gave them as part of their Christmas present. How he'd ask her each night (until it was gone) if he could have a piece. Hubby had a 24-hour sickness thing that I was afraid he passed on to me but now I'm thinking maybe (hopefully) it's just allergies. Perhaps Tampa will be good for something.

Seriously, everyone is doing this meme right now. I figure since I've been falling down on posting (and just about every post is baby-related), I'd jump on the bandwagon. A. Age: 34. I have to do the math sometimes. I can't believe that second number is 4. I think because it happened only about 3 weeks after the baby was born. B. Bed size: Queen. Oh, to have a King. Oh, to have a way to get a King up the stairs. Oh, well. We have an awesome new mattress and it will make for more fun cuddling once the baby (or babies) are bigger). C. Chore you hate: Cleaning the tub/shower. D. Dogs: Maggie! E. Essential start to your day: Making the rounds on the internet--blogs, e-mail, Facebook. More recently? Breastfeeding. F. Favorite color: Can you love them all equally? I'm loving aqua/grass green combo right now. G. Gold or silver: Silver? White gold? H. Height: 5'6-ish I. Instruments: Flute J. Job title: Sr. Clinical Research Associate III, Momma K. Kids: Just the ...

I don't want to get into a debate on Facebook or really anywhere. I've been a little out of the loop regarding the news lately but found this post at Blurb quite interesting and thought at least a few of you might as well. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. Obviously, the Arizona shooting was a tragedy and our political climate is a little nuts. That is all.

Let me preface all of this by saying that it hasn't really put me in a bad mood. That's progress, right? Even with all these crazy pregnancy hormones. Go figure... So I'm reading this book on hypnobirthing because Hubby wants me to. I think if he were to read it he'd think differently. I mean, if it's too fruity for me it will DEFINITELY be too fruity for him. I'm hoping there's at least a little to take away. That, and it's about 100 pages. Anyway, before bed I was reading a chapter about dream interpretation. So of course I wake up this morning after having this freaky long, detailed dream that ends with what? My tooth falling out. The only recurring dream I've ever had. Thanks a lot, hypnobirthing. Have I mentioned how much I HATE those dreams? And Monday arrives... Last night I made this pretty good Mexican casserole out of some random stuff we had and only going very loosely by a recipe. I was looking forward to leftovers. What d...

New food? I can't think of one specific thing but this year I've continued to really enjoy making breakfast. Last year for Christmas my husband got me a cookbook from the B&B we stay at in Brenham. She has great recipes! I've also made one non-breakfast recipe she has in there and it's fantastic, too. Changes? To where I live? Where there any? Um, yeah. We've done a lot of work in the yard. Cleaned out a bunch of the beds, planted the lime tree, lost the papaya tree, planted a few other random flowering plants, gardened!, dug up the back "sidewalk" and are prepping for the new one, started growing herbs again. Inside, we've merged our stuff (which was way more involved than 4 measly words convey), got rid of a bunch of things, and finished the black and white bathroom. All good changes! Well, I did like that papaya tree...darn storm. Unrelated to the best of? Ok, so Husband and I woke up sort of early (for a weekend) to head to town to vo...

I got nothin'. Those pansies I planted are looking good. Like this now (well, today they look slightly less beaten down by rain): And those ranunculus bulbs I planted? The ones that are supposed to cheerily bloom in the spring? Look like this: Shame on them. You know, unless they bloom. Doesn't really matter what season to me. I made cinnamon rolls yesterday. And altered a dress. And we're going to see A Christmas Carol at the theatre (live, not the Jim Carrey movie). Yep, that's all. I'm super unmotivated.

Hopefully my husband is coming home today. There's a chance he'll stay out of town until tomorrow which would mean I wouldn't get to see him until Tuesday evening. That's sad. So yesterday I got a little work done around the house. Did a little laundry. Made some lists. Got some shopping done. Baked a cake (that looked really terrible but tastes good). Hung out with The Brother. Watched some of his cable. Today? Got some yard work done. Made dinner (ahead of time). Laid around a little because I was starting to feel like I might be getting sick. Am trying to refuse the sickness. It's been a good weekend. I should be trying to get a little work done but I'm not going to. It is still the weekend afterall. I'm reclaiming it.

Seems like the blogging is falling by it... On Friday I had to do real work and then try to finish getting ready for the garage sale. On Saturday we woke up early to set things out and finish pricing random items. It was a pretty good day weather-wise and we had a lot of traffic. Got rid of a lot of things and made a little money. I put up some of the remaining items on Craig's List and have gotten several responses so no official income tally quite yet. We're donating the rest. A few garage sale tips? You should advertise at least a little. I don't think you need them to start obscenely early like they did when I was a kid. We started at 8 but probably didn't have people show up until about 8:30. (Which was fine since we didn't even have everything put out yet.) Price things to get rid of them. If you're pricing something too high, maybe you secretly want to keep it. And if you're going through all your belongings and cramming them into boxes be...

Things are busy and crazy and ever-changing. Weren't things supposed to settle down after the wedding planning was over? Wasn't I supposed to have free time? Let's recap, shall we? Since we got married I've thrown a baby shower, gone on the fabulous honeymoon, traveled to California for another wedding, traveled to Vegas and San Antonio for several days for work, gotten my hair cut (bangs!), changed my name, had 2 doctor appointments, had huge job changes, and had one job interview. The Husband also moved in; we went through every possession we each owned to see what we should keep, sell, toss; and prepped for a garage sale. In the next two weeks, I have 3 more doctor appointments and one of my best friends is giving birth. And if things look good with the potential new job, I'll have to fly out for a face-to-face interview. Can we say crazy? Granted, many of these things are positive. Baby/baby shower? Good. Honeymoon and other traveling? Mostly good. Po...

I don't want to work today. There's a lot to do. And I'm again in that place where there are organizational things and the figuring out of things to do. Things that don't have deadlines. Things that no one will ever see whether or not I've done but will allegedly make my job more manageable down the road. We'll see about that, though, what with all of our big changes. So, yeah. I'd rather be working in the yard. Or maybe working on preparing for that fictional garage sale that I'm determined will actually materialize next weekend. Or hanging out in the hammock. Sigh...but I'm inside even though the weather is nice. And should be working. Wanna see another wedding sneak peek before I go? It's my cake. Perhaps I'd also rather be eating that right now.

would like to kill some time? Go here . Apparently, there are 70,308 people in the U.S. with my first name. Statistically, it is the 656th most popular first name. Shockingly, >99.9% are female. There are 1,253 people in the U.S. with my last name. Statistically, it is the 22,507th most popular last name. There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. with my name. I'm betting on one. Oh, you know you want to do it. It takes 5 seconds. Then you can put in other people's names to waste a significant amount of time. (I was going through draft posts and came across this one, which was good since I'm at a total blank when it comes to writing right now. I'm pretty much only thinking about the wedding and doing wedding-related tasks. With 33 days left, I'm a flood of different emotions. Maybe I'll be able to get them out on virtual paper soon.)

It was some weekend. Good heavens, people. So, yeah, we knew that May was going to be tough. Work had me running around like the proverbial headless chicken. I thought all that would end two Fridays ago but some deadlines have gotten pushed back to this Friday. That's left some lingering frantic emails and phone calls that have gotten me even further behind. Not terribly unexpected that I have been running just below the threshold of some sort of breakdown. Even though I was in the office on Friday, it still wasn't starting off well. I can't even remember what problems there were with work... But I was on a conference call that was going on and on and I was multitasking. I won't lie. It wasn't even work-related. I was trying to finish up the map that will be a wedding invitation insert. My not-even-2-year-old Mac just froze. And then would not restart. I tried the few online trouble shooting suggestions and then went to the Apple store. Now, I know yo...

Man, am I tired. I had a very disturbing dream last night/this morning (which was not the first one of its kind and a person doesn't have to be Freud to figure out I'm overwhelmed). This time, it was suddenly August 7th. It dawned on me at about 10pm that, "Hey, we're getting married tomorrow." Thing is, I didn't have any more done than I do right now on May 6th. Huh. Not good. I was a little stressed in said dream... I have bridal portraits next week. I'm very excited about them. I look forward to wearing my dress with hair and make-up done. For the first time! And for The Brother to see the dress on me in person. And to work with our photographer whose work I love so much. Of course because now is the time to be careful with myself, all sorts of injuries and accidents are happening. Between Thursday and Sunday alone, I got a burn about half the length of my forearm, busted my lip, cut my right index finger, and have been attacked by mosquitoes and fleas....

It's my birthday. Yesterday was my birthday observed (with The Fiance). More thoughts later...work doesn't stop for birthdays. Sadly.

Tired. I shouldn't. I got some rest yesterday. I didn't wake up terribly early. I'm blaming the dreary weather. It can't help but lure you into napping. Freaked out. Dude, that wedding countdown thing is less than 6 months. Yep, I'm freaked out. It doesn't seem like I'm far enough along in planning. I keep thinking of more things to do...it does not seem like the list is getting shorter. Busy. It feels like there's so much going on that I'm like, "My birthday? Whatever. Valentine's Day? Whatever." Yeah, that's happening this week. I feel ill-prepared. I've always looked forward to my birthday well in advance but not this year. And it's not even because I'm having some sort of aging crisis. I'm just busy. I'm also apathetic about work and feel like I could be working in the yard or painting the Ugly Bathroom or anything but responding to e-mails and harassing people...

Remember on Seinfeld ? How George's fiance, Susan, died because of licking all those wedding invitation envelopes? Let's hope my incessant Christmas card envelope licking doesn't end the same way. They'll go in the mail tomorrow, people. Woohoo ! Also, lots of shopping last Friday so hopefully I'll be ready for the holidays. And of course I have a head cold. I think I'm feeling better. Hard to tell with the medication hangover... In obligatory engagement news, I had to bail on lunch with the future MIL today because I literally had no voice. And? It took my ring finger a week to get used to the engagement ring. It now notices when it's gone. My pointer finger, however, is still feeling a little sad. It used to sport the left hand ring (for years) but now that seems to bling -y. One ring per hand. Poor, sad pointer finger. (I said I was sick. That's as good of a post as I can muster today...)

Or maybe two weeks. Then maybe I wouldn't have been MIA for that first week. My last two posts were entertaining to me. Were they enough to constitute an entire post? Probably not. You want more? Today I overheard someone say, "I'm not really much of a reader." I do not understand. That's like speaking an entirely different language to me. Also, as I was walking back from the liquor store to get lunch (not liquid lunch, an actual salad...oddly the freshest produce around and it's 1.2 miles roundtrip), I passed some purple lantana. About 30 butterflies flew up and were all around me. I smiled and giggled. Do you see? You could have totally read about these things via flicker. But I still won't break down and get it. (And not just because Patois made it less cool.)

"Terrorism is what made America." What she actually said: "Volunteerism is what made America." I'm a little eavesdropper this week. And sometimes even part of a word can make a world of difference. Hey, at least I'm not listening to conversations people are having with the voices in their heads today. You can't wait for tomorrow's installment, can you? _______ Ok, sorry. One more for today. Leaving a voicemail, "Hi, this is BLAH. You were scheduled for an appointment at 10:00 today for a memory assessment. If you'd like to reschedule..." Heehee.

Overheard from a schizophrenic patient today: "Yeah, I was just going to be homeless. I decided that I'd do it for, like, a year. I would live in a car. That way, after a year, I'd have $5,000." Also? "Thanks for the soda. They don't serve them at the hospital. But you can get some caffeine." There are multiple things in those brief sentences that make me ridiculously grateful. And puts some things in perspective.