Sweet Tooth and Stripping

I want to know why my OBGYN's office doesn't have candy. I mean, c'mon, even some dentist's offices will give you a sugarfree lollipop if you're good during your appointment. And they just stick things in your mouth. I really could have used a candy yesterday. For starters, they lost my chart (verrrry impressive) and then I had to wait, half-dressed, lying in a very uncomfortable position, for the doctor to come. So he could check my cervix (ow) and then strip my membranes (freakin' OW!). And I was SUCH a good girl. No swearing, no kicking the mean man in the nose, or anything. I think I deserve a lollipop.

As far as baby goes, things look good. Her head's really low. I'm about 75% effaced. If I haven't gone into labor by next Friday, they're going to induce me by the next Friday. So apparently, come heck or high water, I'll have my baby in two weeks.

Locked and Loaded

Now that I've discovered that someone actually reads my blog, it's much more fun to write in it. (Hi Miriam!) Tee hee. It also helps that I've quit my job and am sitting at home with nothing much to do but wait for the killer contractions to set in. Speaking of contractions . . .

Napoleon did something really good at his job last month, so his boss gave him a nifty bonus: "go take your wife to a nice restaurant, and I'll foot the bill up to $50." Eeeexcellent. The sad thing is, we had to do some serious thinking about how to spend that much. :) We ended up going to Chili's and getting drinks and appetizers, which we NEVER do, along with nice expensive entrees, and a dessert! Yee-ha, livin' the high life. My lower abdomen had been hurting all afternoon, but figured it was just a normal pregnancy symptom. We gobbled our yum-yum-yummy dinner, or rather, what we could of it: we ended up taking home four boxes, including the entire dessert. (I used to not be a fan of buying dessert at restaurants, since it always seems so expensive. But the last two times I've gotten it, the desserts have been HUGE and really really yummy! Plus, Chili's packed all the parts separately, which meant we assembled the dessert at home later so it wasn't all mushy and mixed together. I'm converted.)

So we headed home in our jolly, stuffed state. I don't remember what else we did that evening, probably because I developed a fever and chills, and basically felt like I had the flu. I know we went to the grocery store and the pharmacy, because we came home with a (pretty nifty) thermometer and found out I had a fever of 100.3 degrees. Yick. I was sent to get ready for bed, which, unfortunately, includes brushing my teeth. I should've known better. Goodbye, Chili's. I love my Napoleon. He insisted on doing the cleanup.

I slept probably a total of 3 hours that night, in 10 minute spurts. Ahhh, so restful. Napoleon went to work, and when he came home and found out I felt no better, he prodded me into calling the doctor, who told me to go to Labor and Delivery. Apparently, "constant lower abdominal pain and flu symptoms" is also known as "periodic contractions and labor symptoms." Oh. Good to know. They hooked me up to the contraction-and-fetus-monitoring-machine (which I would like to have one of at home), and when I could see the contractions on the screen, it was a lot easier to tell that the pain really was coming and going. Every 2-4 minutes. The kept me there for an hour, then booted me out and told me to come back when my contractions hurt too much to talk through. But first, they offered me morphine. Heh heh heh. Um, no thanks--I think I'll wait for the heavy-duty drugs until these contractions actually hurt. How's that sound?

So that's why I'm sitting at home, trying to figure out how to rearrange our stuff so that we can fit in the baby's stuff and the baby. My baby shower is set for Saturday, so I'm also trying to get the baby to agree to wait until at least then to make her first appearance. My parents are trying to get me to tell her to wait for another week, since they're on vacation all over the East and having fun. Napoleon is telling her to hurry and come out, because he's ready to hold the baby. I think I'll stick with Saturday. :)

Phil: Agent 003

I have a new car. Mmmmm. And it gives me road rage.

How, you might ask, do starving students afford a NEW car? Yes, new new new, not new-to-us. It had about 30 miles on it when we brought it home. Nice '07 Sonata, deepwater blue, with leather seats. I named him Phil. He's my graduation present from my parents, who are deeply concerned with the welfare of their children and therefore dangle the carrot of a new car next to those of parental approval, greater earning potential, and bigger smarternessness (oops, looks like I only nibbled that one). So, after three and a half years of intellectualism, I've been rewarded with my pretty car.

Napoleon is always very whole-hearted. We did lots of research about safety ratings, mileage, true cost to own, yadda yadda yadda. It's a good car. And it's got some REALLY good warranties. That was a big selling point for me, since our &^#@* Kia had barely lost its second-user warranty when it decided it was time to crumble to dust. I never liked driving the Kia much anyway, since it was a manual, and I liked driving it even less with the Check Engine and Airbag warning lights on.

So now we have Phil. Napoleon recently read an article (like this one) which said that people who name their cars are more likely to have road rage. I'm not sure if that's the reason, but something about this car makes me fiesty. I live in constant fear of my carport neighbors (who I'm not fond of anyway) dinging Phil's beautiful blue sides. I snarl at reckless drivers on the freeway. I nearly told off Br. Johnson after we gave him a ride home and he shut the door too hard. I have nightmares about teenage punks keying my car. And I try to beat everyone else off the line. This could be bad: what will I do when I have a little tyke who spits up, flings full sippy cups, and crumbles crackers in the car for entertainment?

At least I can enjoy having a nice clean car for . . . two more weeks?

I'm HUGE!

I have never felt so enormous in my life. Napoleon, sweet man that he is, tries to assure me that the baby is huge, not me. That does not make me feel too much better--she will, after all, have to come out of me. And, amazingly enough, it should be quite soon. We're into once-a-week visits to the doc. The visit before last, they told me they were going to test for group B strep, which I was okay with, since I'd heard that it doesn't hurt. And it didn't, so all is jolly and well, until the doctor says, "okay, now let's see if you're dilated." Uh, ok. He checked, informed us that he wouldn't even call it 1 cm yet, you're doing fine, see you in a week, and walked out of the room. As soon as he shut the door, I turned to Napoleon and said, emphatically, "OW!" How come nobody told me that getting your cervix checked stinkin' HURTS? Thinking about it later, my guess is that it's kind of overshadowed by the whole labor thing. And, ok, it didn't really hurt that bad, lest anyone think I've no chance of surviving actual labor. But still, they coulda told me!

I think I can, I think I can . . .

This is month 7--I think there's less than 60 days to go until my first due date. Yes, I have two, because apparently I can't keep track of my body well enough to satisfy the doctors. That makes things fun when people ask when I'm due: "Well, either the third or the eleventh, depending on who you believe." I think my Dad has me down for the ninth. I'm kind of enjoying being pregnant, which I'm sure disgusts a lot of women out there. No, I didn't have bad morning sickness. No, I don't have a ton of ugly stretch marks. No, I don't have many cravings for weird stuff. I think my big belly is kind of cute. The problem is that I'm growing out of clothes, but I can't buy more because everything we own has suddenly decided to fall apart in ways that cost lots of money. Oddly enough, I still feel okay about buying my husband new clothes. Maybe I'm not all that selfish after all . . .

I think I've given a lot of people the wrong idea about how I feel about the baby. Let me be clear: I'm excited. I think it will be fun in a lot of ways. I've always wanted to be a mommy, and now I am. BUT: the idea of being the place where the buck stops scares the snoopies out of me. As I said, being a mommy has been my goal ever since I can remember. That probably stems somewhat from the fact that I had such a good mom. So of course, now I'm having heebie-jeebies about whether I'll be good enough. Sure, I thought about this kind of stuff before I got pregnant, but now that the day(s) are so close, I'm realizing that this is going to mean a lot of changes. I don't think I realized, when discussing children with my husband, that I, not WE, will be parenting this child. Yes, he's a terrific guy, excited about being a father, willing to help me with whatever. But if he's at school and/or work all day, that's not going to help me a whole lot. So yes, I sound nervous when I talk about actually having the baby. I bring up lots of concerns. That's because I'm scared.

Looooong time no see!

Ahem. Yes, I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything. I'm now officially a college graduate, in that I've got my diploma. I haven't actually opened it yet, but it's in the spare bedroom in its happy little "do not bend" envelope, waiting for me to get a frame and figure out somewhere prominent to put it so I can rub it in everyone's faces. Buwhahahaha! Okay, so that's not a good idea. It'll probably go in our bedroom, actually. That's where our marriage certificate is, so I guess the paper stuff belongs there. We're planning on making the spare bedroom (which hasn't actually been spared--it's kind of the office/junk room) into the baby's bedroom. Because I'm pregnant. Uh-yup. Pretty weird. So I'm supposed to be using all my spare time to clean out that room's closet, but who really wants to do that? And I've had to get a job. Ick. It's really hard for me to get up early, since I feel exhausted and nauseated, so we'll see how this whole 8 to 4:30 thing works out. I'll only have to keep those hours for two weeks, and then I'll probably go to part-time, just because I don't think I can handle sitting and typing in a room all day. Right now I spend lots of time on the computer, but that's different.
Napoleon congratulated me on getting the job. He said it's a confidence booster. I won't deny that it's nice not to get turned down. Job searching is hard enough; I hate when people write back and say, "Thanks for applying, but you didn't even make the first cut. Ha! Loser." Is that really necessary? All ya gotta say, really, is that you don't want me. That's all! But I suspect I'm somewhat overqualified for this job. It's data entry, after all, so if they had 10,000 monkeys and could convince them all to sit and type at a computer for 8 hours a day, they could supposedly ditch me and all the other semi-human people who work there. They sure didn't look very sociable. Makes me wonder if they have any office parties. I'd bet they'd be real bashes.

Wowzers!

Ahem. Ta-ta-ta-DAA! We just got a letter announcing that Napoleon's excellent work last semester earned him a place on the Dean's List of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. It's very well deserved, since he got a 4.0. What a smarty. I've never made the dean's list, so I'm wildly jealous. We're back in school now, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty busy semester for me. I'm taking 14 credits and working two TA jobs. Hopefully I won't be stressed out of my brain. This should be my last semester though, so if I get burnt out, who cares? ") Now I just need to figure out what I want to do after I graduate, which is a pretty big question. I'm thinking about grad school, but BYU just doesn't offer anything that I want to get a master's in. So it looks like if I do want to go, I'll have to wait until Napoleon graduates and figures out where he wants to go, and then see if there are any schools around that offer something I'm interested in. Till then, I guess I'll be doing lots of painting and reading and planting. I really need to find a more exciting hobby. ")

Blahness

I'm bored. When I'm bored, I start thinking "blah." And when I start thinking that, I start writing it and saying it. Which makes my husband nervous, as he's read somewhere that people who write and say "blah" a lot are suicidal. I'm not, but I suspect I may be depressed. He thinks it's because I don't have enough work to do, and the solution is for me to get another job. I am therefore encouraged daily to search out and apply for another job. Applying for jobs may be the most depressing thing I've ever done, especially because it frequently ends in being turned down by snooty people who write things like "Good luck in your search for employment." And yes, that is a direct quotation. Look, pal, I AM employed.
So I get bored and depressed, my husband tells me to get a job, and I get more depressed because I feel like he thinks I'm a lazy bum, so I try and fix it by applying for jobs, whereupon I'm turned down by obnoxious people and get more depressed. It's a vicious circle. I'm also encouraged to paint. This is not a good plan. I was taught to paint by a woman who apparently had little creative instinct, since she painted mostly from photographs and encouraged her students to paint from other paintings. Hence, unless I have something else to look at, I don't know what to paint. Or maybe I'm just blaming my own shortcomings on other people. At any rate, I haven't painted for over a year now, besides the walls of our apartment. I guess they turned out pretty good, but they're not exactly works of art.

Hrm

So, the guy that I sent off on his mission is back. I talked to him a little bit online today. It really seems incredible to me that he's still kinda bitter about the whole breaking up and me getting married to someone else. I mean, c'mon. It's been over a year now. But I guess he didn't have much normal social interaction in the interim. It really made me sad, because I've been feeling like I don't have any friends lately, and I really would like to have him as a friend, especially since we have several mutual friends. Oh well. Maybe he just needs time to find himself a charming wifey. Except then he'll disappear into the ranks of married males, who don't seem to need friends once they've found a woman. I know my darling hubby doesn't understand why I need someone besides him to talk to, bless his heart. I guess that being friends with a bachelor, as a married woman, is kind of frowned upon. Bummer.

Testing

Have you ever taken a big test and just felt like you did absolutely ROTTEN on it? On Wednesday, I went and took my last test of Logic in the testing center, which is so incredibly impersonal. I took like an hour and a half on it, because I could not for the life of me figure out what to do. I studied for about an hour and a half before I went, but I have the feeling it wasn't too effective because I was also trying to help my brother study for his test in the Logic class that is the pre-req to mine. But anyway, I opened up my test and just blinked. 5 problems, all of them yucky. I went through the first one, couldn't get it, went through the second one, couldn't get it, went to the third one, couldn't get it, fourth, had no idea how to get it, and the fifth, just about pooped my pants, it was so yucky. I ended up getting at least an answer for the first one, and was pretty sure I got the second and third ones right. The fourth one I tried something and it seemed to work, and the fifth I just wrote some remotely connected junk. I felt so crummy I wanted to swear.
So when we got our tests back yesterday, I was quite prepared to get a lousy grade. I actually prepped myself to accept a 60% or so. So I got it, opened it up, and . . . 95%! Holy Cow! I really couldn't believe it, but there it was. Great feeling. In a weird sort of way. Maybe I like school after all.

Utter Boredom

I am SOOO ready for this semester to be over. In fact, I'm pretty much done with being in college. I like learning, but I hate having to do it from teachers who don't want to be there and don't really feel like teaching what the students want to learn. Granted, that's not all of them, but I know of at least a couple. And I'd like to puke on them. Grrrr.
On a happier note, all my plants are doing well. Except for those sundews, that is . . . they just don't grow quite fast enough for me. And one of my orchid buds is blasted! I'm really quite unhappy about that. And ok, so a bunch of other kind of rotten things happened today too, but I didn't really remember them until I started trying to. Boo.

Livin'

My parents and my little sister came up from California this week and brought us a whole box of oranges! YUM. They're smaller than the ones we usually get, but very delicious. We average about 4 a day. If there's a way to overdose on vitamin C, this is it. My big sister is up here too, sleeping on our couch for the next week. I love my sister, and her fiance is great, but I HATE hanging around engaged people! Just the other day, I was sitting in the computer lab trying to do homework, and this disgusting couple sat in front of me and started searching for dish patterns online, by which I mean they were rubbing each other's legs and making out and whispering in each others' ears. Ewwwww. I could scarcely type because I was struggling to hold back bile. Don't get me wrong: I whole-heartedly approve of affection between couples. Just not as a frame for my computer screen. It was gross. So now I have an engaged couple coming to my apartment every night, where they engage in a yucky goodbye smooch before my future brother-in-law heads back home. I'm so glad to be married, and not engaged.

Philosophizing

So, the other day I was in one of my more slow-moving philosophy classes, and was kind of joking with the girl next to me about Hume and Kant. She asked, "so why are you majoring in philosophy anyway?" Sad, sad question. I have no idea.
Okay, that's not really true. I know why: I couldn't think of anything I'd like to major in, I'd done well in all my philosophy classes so far, and I'd taken several of them, so I already had a bunch of credit. And that's about it. I really like ethics, especially Kant's ethics, but I absolutely hate and despise my medieval philosophy class. We're reading Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. It wouldn't be bad, I think, if the teacher was someone who actually teaches. But Professor X, who is teaching it, is SOOO boring! He reads out of the book what we were supposed to read for class, and then tells us the Latin words for random sections (and we care because?). And this class lasts for AN HOUR AND A HALF! BLLLAAAAAAAH! Oh well. I'm off to self-defense: much more fun, and enormously useful. ")

This has got to be one of my favorite pictures of me and Napoleon. Our kids are going to be SOOO cute.

Baby Orchids

Recently, I've discovered the mania that is attached to orchids. Once I got one, I had to have another, and another, and another. I'll have to attach a few pictures of my new little seedlings--getting them here was a pain in the bum. There are some very dodgy companies out there. Sigh. But they're here, and looking like they might actually grow nicely, so I'm pleased. We are running out of room for houseplants now, though, and Napoleon is getting a little concerned about whether we're going to get a new one every month. I just broke the news to him yesterday that my Mom is bringing one that she's had for a while down to me: she has a notoriously black thumb for inside plants. Funnily enough, Mom's a terrific gardener. With her orchid, I'll be up to eight. Then there's the zebra plant, the corn plant, my lucky bamboo, two rosebushes, two peace lilies (which I split just the other day, and was so pleased with myself), a poinsettia (which has survived despite my best efforts, so I'm resigned to caring for it), an Asian pitcher plant, an aloe vera, a foliage plant (I call it "Gordy") and three compots, two of sundews and one of basil. So come Monday, I'll be up to 22 plants. Eeeeexcellent.

Blah blah blog

Alrighty then. How to begin this blog, knowing that it will be out there exposed for all to see? I'll start with dessert--that's always a good way to begin. I'm making candied acorn squash. I'm not sure if I'll be able to eat any, since Napoleon and I just pigged out on a bunch of mozzarella sticks and pasta. Okay, and we had a bunch of cookies dipped in milk, too. But it was all so yummy! And it's Friday, so that makes it all okay. I think that's one of the joys of being a student: on Friday, things suddenly don't matter as much, so you drop everything and go eat something fatty and delicious, and watch a movie. I think The Curse of the Wererabbit is tonight's showing. ")