Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Where's Your Baby?

Remember when I said being pregnant is embarrassing 'cause it means that all these weird-o, unnatural things are happening to your body? I mean, seriously, what kind of healthy person throws up 2x a day? Well, I told the essential people. Facebook, my family and the people I worked with. But then I just kind of let the rumor spread and counted on people telling people and didn't bother telling every person I saw that week that we found out.

This means that an important group of people got skipped on the good news. Church. Which wasn't a big deal for awhile 'cause looking at me, there was no sign. But then I got asked to go full time at Michaels and my Sundays at church became limited and next thing I know I am only with my little nursery class once a month. So I fixed that to where I can get to them at least twice, sometimes three times a month. But I still didn't bother telling anyone that there was a baby inside of me. And now I haven't been for another three weeks and what do you know? Ummm... the secrets gotta come out 'cause I am quite noticeably large.

But only large enough that you can say, "Hey, she used to be thinner... didn't she?" So then it puts you in another awkward situation because obviously we didn't tell anyone and so now everyone's gonna wonder why we didn't tell anyone and may be too shy to come out and ask at this point even with the noticeable changes. So then I will just get some looks. Looks that last a little too long as they turn in their mind if there is something going on. Second looks as they try to decide if I really do look pregnant or it's just the way I am standing. Third looks as they really try to figure it out and maybe watch for my belly to kick out or something. It's humiliating. So I am thinking we may need to make a trip by the ward gossip's house and tell them so that it can be around the ward by Sunday and I can stop sweating about an announcements.

We went to the ward picnic for the last little bit of its endurance to help clean up, or something? I didn't really want to go. I looked kind of grungy from work (I don't always bother to shower and put make-up on those days) and didn't really feel like socializing and pretending like I belonged. It's strenuous sometimes. But after a quick change and a pep-talk from Handsome Husband we were off and got there just in time to help clean-up. Which I did happily 'cause it gave me something to focus on and most usually something to carry in-front of my growing tummy.

When we had first moved into the ward we had tried really hard to be involved with everything and I had gone to numerous Relief Society functions, desperately trying to make friends and be accepted by the little old ladies. I was a young whipper-snapper with a soft smile and a quiet voice and a newly-wed that would probably move out of the ward in a few months. I wasn't given much attention. Our need to be included and meet people forced us to join the ward Christmas choir, which actually wasn't all that bad. Except, think of the ward choirs you have been. They're all nice people, but more often than not you get the weirdy reclusive that just loves music with all their heart but don't have much as far as social skills go. That activity kind of exploded in our face if it weren't for the pianist and the fact that the practices were always held at her home. She was always so sweet to us and was genuinely happy to see us there and made sure that we at least got introduced to everyone even if no one ever talked about much more than music and who should be singing which parts.

She is so so so nice and friendly and she was there at the picnic, of course, trying to get rid of the last dozen ears of corn that she had brought from her garden. While I was packing things to her husband's truck she caught up with me and all seriousness asked, "And where's your baby?" Now her seriousness had a little smile behind it, because she is such a happy, personal person and I thought that maybe she was joking. You know, that maybe, somewhere, someone had heard that I was pregnant and she was asking me this question to get around the topic and find out if I were really pregnant. I grinned, playing along, and pointed down to my stomach. "Right here!" BAHAHAHA wrong answer. Remember when I told you how we were getting baby shower announcements on our door every week? She had been getting the same ones and didn't know the girls very well and had just been tossing them aside. She had mixed me up with them! She looked extremely shocked, to say the least, and kept apologizing. Which makes me feel even worse. Is it that bad? Is it that bad to find out someone is pregnant? So now I am nervous beyond anything and am trembling about going to church on Sunday. I can only hope that maybe she will tell some of the older ladies in their quilt group or whatever, it's pretty well known that we don't have any immediate family near us and that we're doing this adventure on our own. I just don't want to be the one to tell anyone. I really don't. I wish my dad were here to announce it in church the way he announced that Steven and I were getting married back in the day. It would make life so much easier!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

I am a slob

Watch out. This is a body post. You've been warned.

Pregnancy has made me realize how much easier it is to be clean when you're thin. No one would ever have been able to call me 'skinny.' Thin. Yes. But skinny. No. I am no string bean. Maybe a cucumber. They're kinda straight up and down but with a little beafiness to them, ya know? See, I've always had this paranoia. It's a secret I don't share much, but what the heck, right? I have this paranoia of my stomach being larger than my boobs. I've always had it, ever since 5th grade when I began to notice that everyone was growing boobs and I definitely was not. So in order to feel proportionate I had to make sure that my stomach never got bigger than my non-existing boobs. I did this quite successfully and everyone was envious of my flat stomach. And then when I started running cross country in highschool not only did my stomach stay flat, but it got toned as well. All that huffing and puffing up the hills really got my abs to work their magic and all of a sudden I was awesome looking, minus the fact that I had little boobies. A girl can only have so much I guess.

Well, when you get pregnant, your boobs grow. I know. It's the best thing that has ever been given to me. There's a minor problem though. They grow and all of a sudden you have them and all of a sudden you notice food splatters appearing on all of your t-shirts right on your now-voluptuousness chest that otherwise never would have happened 'cause there was no shelf (per-say) a week and a half ago. It kind of reminds me of when I first started growing hips my junior year of highschool and I kept running into stuff. The desks at school could never be far enough apart and it seemed like doors that I used to be able slide through, barely missing the frame, were bumping me all over the place. And then when I had to move up a pant size, well that was a not so awesome day. Not necessarily the fact that I had to move up a size, but that now when I went to a dressing room to try on jeans I had to not only take a bajillion different styles, but I had to take one of each size and try on both and decide which one fit better. It slowed down my clothes buying and decision making a lot. It was torturous.

And now my stomach is growing. So instead of food splotches showing up on my chest, I usually get a nice swipe of sauce or whatever down the side of my belly on any shirt I am wearing at the time as food escapes bounce twice before hitting the floor. And for some reason, I can't seem to get food from the plate to my mouth without spilling something, sometime in a meal. It's really embarrassing. Being pregnant is messy business.

Where were we...

It's hard, I always have so many things to write about, and then I finally get to a computer and kapow, it's all done and gone left my brain. Usually I think of spunky title names and one-liners on my way to work and back. 30 minutes in the car can do that to a person. And then I pick Handsome Husband up from work and we get home and scrounge something up for dinner, which this week will be tuna sandwiches and carrots. (Going back to the college days since I gotta pay for a stinkin' ticket! That's right. A ticket. Me. Master of avoiding police cars. A ticket. Dumbest thing I have EVER done. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Enough on that. That's another post.) And then it's all I can do to get my dishes in the sink and fall into bed. Seriously. I am that tired. Usually Steven will have a movie picked out for us to watch. And I fall asleep during that. Doesn't leave much time for blogging my brilliance into cyberspace. Bummer for the world.

But really. Our little baby kicked me. (I am still afraid that if I call her 'our little girl' I am going to jinx it and we will be picking out blue accessories rather than pink.) At first I thought it was just my food settling. It really feels just like that. Little bubbles popping in your stomach. But then I noticed them coming at kind of weird times and not at all predictably. Unless I am in the car with a seat belt on. Then I can count on feeling her push against where the belt is. Is that a sign? Something about pushing boundaries or something? Let's hope not. So I've got a bubble blower in my stomach and it's kind of a weird sensation. And that's where we are on this road called 'creating life.' Mind you, it's been a rough, gravel road with A LOT of pot holes. But I think it's starting to move toward a decent highway right now and if I could just get my belly to grow a little bigger life would be much more smooth. Right now I still look like I've got 10 lbs added to my belly and little love handles stick out from my jeans. Not what any pregnant lady wants to look like but I am sure it will give way to a beastly stomach and some awesome looking hips in the end.


Saturday, August 13, 2011

The black hole; otherwise known as: the fridge

Check out the fancy punctuation on that title. Hu, pretty impressive hu? You gotta say it just right. The black hole, small pause, otherwise known as, longer pause, let the anticipation rise, the fridge.

And I am not even joking. Our fridge and its ability to capture innocent left-over food items is really that dramatic. I am pretty sure that if that thing were an animal it could not catch more food than we willingly feed it if it were faster than a cheetah. Although, it would have to go through some long droughts of zero food being passed through its gaping door and placed on the racks of teeth.

I loaded Steven up with some sorry looking vegetables, a few containers of yogurt, vienna sausages from a 'shopping while pregnant' episode, chicken, fruit and a few other things that were otherwise unidentifiable other than the fact that I knew the containers they were captured in had been sitting in our icebox much too long. The best thing about using empty yogurt and sour cream containers for left-over containers is if they are left too long it is much easier to toss the whole shebang than stink up our food disposal and risk the need for gas masks to avoid mold spores.

These are things that most people find in the fridge, buried in the deepest corners, often frozen as they are pushed further and further back nearer the vents. However, most people find these things after they have eaten what was fresh in their fridge and are getting to the nitty gritties of things that were not so delectable and were just scooched further and further back. Not so much in our case. Those containers were right up-front and center. In fact, we had more yuckies in our fridge than eatable items and therefore gave us the disillusion that our fridge was full. And this happens ALL of the time. Not just on occasions, all of the time. You can always count on finding some left overs that are being purposefully overlooked. And it's not that I don't know what's in the fridge, it's that I know exactly what is in the fridge and wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep thinking about the trapped contents that we will never consume. But are also just too disgusting to take care of and throw out.

We have two cereal bowls right now when our usual number is up around six. They are all in the fridge covered with plastic wrap housing bacteria science experiments. I know. It's disgusting. And I just can't bring myself to clean them out. So they sit there, because at least when they are in cooler temperatures than they don't give off any offensive smell.

And that is our fridge. We can't go shopping 'cause there's no room for anything but the occasional gallon of milk with all the rancid food taking up space. The only reason that doesn't go bad is 'cause it's got an easy-access cap and a handle to pull it out of the cold abyss. Our black hole needs to be emptied out and we need to fill it with some eatable things, but when everything over-does its stay its just not too encouraging to go and fill up on fresh vegetables and fruits and things that come with good intentions and sit in neglect. It's just not fair.

Our black hole is looking famished right now after the load I put into Steven's arms, but it is still a black hole and you know what they say about those things. They never go away, they just get stronger.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Enter: laundry help

Ikea didn't have what we were looking for. Target had what we were looking for. While going in to look for some shorts we browsed through the living organization section.

Side note on the shorts, this happens to me every year. I always need clothes too far into the end of a season and I am such a grateful 'normal' size that everything that is cute is sold out in my size. Blessings of being such an average size. It's ridiculous. But it happens, to no end, especially in the summer. Last year it was a swimsuit. This year I got my swim suit in March. That's right, when kids are still skating on frozen ponds here in Utah. However, I am still looking for shorts. After being sick for so long and feeling accomplished if I got my hair washed that day I am tired of mulling around in jeans or sweats. I need some shorts. And there are no shorts to be found. Bummer deal.

Now, please tangent back to our laundry situation from the last episode of my ridiculous life. We were looking for something to dump clean clothes into so that they don't have to spread all over our green, shag carpeted floor. Don't take a double-take on the shag. It's normal life. Don't worry about it. And the all too well-known pea green carpet of the 70's, don't pretend you're not jealous. Sometimes I think that my clothes look better on the floor 'cause then there isn't so much green. So much shag green making you think you're outside and perhaps should throw down a picnic blanket.

And we found it. We found a woven basket. Woven casket? Casket. It's huge. 80$ huge. We could only afford one. We could only fit one in our car. We had an arm wrestle over who got to use it. Steven won. Of course. He wasn't playing weak for such a tremendous reward. I get to use the dresser. The whole dresser. The whole boring dresser. That I promise I will put pink wall paper in the drawers. That's what I get to use, minus one drawer that Steven keeps his belts and odd clothes in, like shorts and long sleeve shirts and stuff that doesn't get worn too often. Mostly because I try not to remind him of those clothes that should probably be given to DI. Or burned.

We've got a casket in our bedroom against the wall, and it looks awesome. I no longer need to worry about folding clothes. I just need to get them sorted and practice my shooting skills. It's going to be fantastic.

How to make friends

Well... first you gotta get yourself a jeep. The more broken down, the better. You gotta park it in your barn of a garage, kind of out in the open. That way people can see it. And they can see you working on it. Now, it had better sit there for a little while first. That way people get used to seeing it and then when you're out there they can ask you questions about it. Like where it came from and what in the world you plan on doing with it and most importantly, 'Does that thing run?'

We are now the most popular people on our block. No joke. There are always people coming up our little bit of a driveway to check out our 'glorious, awesome piece of yellow metal.' Its beastliness just calls out across the pavement.

We've had people on their evening walks come and talk to us. Me sitting in the passenger seat, a lamp tipped to spread light over the book I am currently reading. Steven rolled under that thing somewhere, clunking on things and shaking others.

The neighbor boys (the boys that are married but have no children yet) drop by once in awhile, checking in on the progress and offering their advice and sometimes their muscles in a tricky spot. We even get to know them a little better as Steven has to run across the street or across the lawn, depending on who's brains he needs to pick, and asks them for a hour of their time to help him figure something out and twist something that I can't even see, let alone understand what its function is and why I am doing this. Pretty much I am only good for scooting the tool box around to the other side when needed.

Steven's a smart guy and keeps most of his tools within this convenient tray filled with the goodies. This makes it easy for me to hand him what he needs 'cause I can just hand him the whole thing instead of searching under boxes and through old jeep parts to find a hammer. Seriously, this jeep building is as messy as crafting.