Make Up Homework....

My favorite Valentine ever!

My fabulous strawberry chocolate cake.

I'm Off

I'm off to my second shift of work for the day but before I go I wanted to drop a line or two. Making lists always makes me happy and although I'm already in a decently good mood I thought I'd make one strange, not so happy list. So...

Things that have disappointed me this past week:

*Miles Davis abused women. (Maybe this is common knowledge but it shocked me and I feel a little icky now listening to his beautiful music)

*People in the restaurant business don't neccessarily live by the secret code of politeness and respect for fellow restaurant workers. i.e. Don't show up to eat at any restaurant at closing time and act like no one else in the place has anywhere else to be.

*I don't change the station when 'If I Had a Million Dollars' by the Barenaked Ladies comes on the radio.

*And... I actually sing to 'If I Had a Million Dollars'.


Now I'm late to work. Ah, well. What are they going to do? Fire a pregnant woman? Just kidding! I'm going. Quickly.

all dressed up with a cake! (and still nowhere to go)

I just made a fabulous chocolate cake with strawberries and dark chocolate shavings! Will post a picture when J downloads my 10,000 shots of it. I'm wearing some of my new super comfy maternity clothes my mom bought me recently. I'm not exactly 'big' yet but my regular clothes are beginning to feel awkward. Rising up here, hanging over there. Just not too pretty. I'd rather wear these fitted but billowy shirts that hang way past the waist. Certainly not a fashion queen but it's my day off and I want to feel good about myself. (Key to that was opting out of trying on a bathing suit)
I had most of the ingredients for the cake just around and since it's my dad's and my friend's birthday I thought I'd bake one. I ate half the frozen strawberries before they made it on the cake and licked the batter realizing immediately it might make me very sick. Oops. (It was delicious anyways and made me feel like a kid) Dad's too far away to enjoy it and who knows if I'll end up seeing my friend but I felt productive for about 1.5 hours today.
Dog is so incredibly bored she can't stop whining and I feel bad but it's so damn cold and windy out I just can't bring myself to go out there. She runs around the yard and then slams at the door saying come on! Get out here with me! Nope, I'm lazy and useless. Saving my energy for baby (admitted bad excuse).
I'm at 14 weeks and 2 days. I feel like it's going really quickly and that kind of scares the hell out of me. Breathing deeply to slow the time. I'm also eating nervously constantly. I've put on just about 6 pounds at this point. Can't get enough fruit or peanut butter. I have a feeling soon it'll be chocolate cake with strawberries.

Don't want to call it IT..

I'm having a hard time referring to the little being inside me. I can't say him or her and I won't be able to say that for a while because we don't want to know till he or she is born. I'm somewhat sick of constantly saying him or her and he or she and I don't like the sound or the connotations of the word "it". J actually said he had a dream last night that I told him it wasn't a he or a she; it was both. (And I'm not referring to my husband anymore as just husband, he will be J. Who am I hiding us from? Though I still can't give up all anonymity.)
I need a nickname but not something obnoxiously cutesy. I read someone on MDC referring to their babe as Roo. That's cute. J likes 'little acorn squash'. A bit long though. But not right.... Little kung foo fighter would be appropriate after seeing their little kickboxing moves on the ultrasound screen.
AND... I need to start coming up with a list of real names I like. J is really stuck on Jack Henry. I like Jack but not so much Henry. I really like Leif, Quinten and Adrian. Adrian for a boy or girl. We were stuck on Helen for a while, with Len being the short. I thought of Haylen last night. It's hard to tell anyone what names you like. My boss gave me this look when she matched Leif up with our last name like eww. I wanted to smack her. People are very tactless.
AND... that's another thing. I've been super irritable lately. But, to sound like someone I would've wanted to kill the other day, it does help just to smile. For no apparent reason. Just smile. People smile back and treat you nicer and so on. It did help with a table full of check splitting, hot coffee demanding, bad tipping old ladies the other day. At least they all said, "thank you, we'll see you next week!" in a chipper tone. Made me want to poison them a little less. Negative energy not good for babe.

Love at First (ultra)Sound

Just had the first ultrasound! Two arms, two legs, one head, yay! It was amazing to see little one move. S/he just jerked this way and that and we saw the little flickering light of the heart beat. I have the little black and white pictures posted on my fridge. It was crazy how quickly we could just recognize him/her. I wanted to keep watching but at the same time I was worried about being a bother. Maybe it was saying, "what are you doing?! get out of here!"
Met with a great midwife who really quelled my fears of having my birth plan thrown out the window and being pushed around and drugged up against my will. I feel very relieved but with a total sense of renewed anticipation. I'm just kind of in awe all over again. It feels more real now. Now that I know everything is ok, there really is a baby.

A New Year, A New Feel

I feel good. Well, better before I ate all those beans. I'll be ten weeks pregnant tomorrow! Went to the gym for the first time in ages yesterday and stepped up onto that scary scale. I haven't been eating a tremendous amount but I feel... looser. Ends up I've lost 2 pounds. Normal. Fine with me. Suddenly though I'm starving. I think that scale gave my body more permission to want food. My energy is finally coming back to me. Actually hiked with dog on New Year's Eve. Felt great. Came home, took a bath, started a fire and spent my first and last New Year's alone. Well, sort of. Not counting dog and fetus.
I haven't been able to write or even look on the computer much for a while. My body associated it all with nausea. No cheese, chips, tea, or blogs. Still can't do the cheese or tea. I'm working slowly. I haven't been too overly emotional lately (that's strictly my opinion not that of husband's). So it seems I might be entering a less tumultous period. Less yakking and sleeping and more working and planning. Yay!
Otherwise, life is fine. The squirrels living between the floors in my house are very content although, it did smell like last spring's skunk might've thought he was coming home early this year. Oh, what a full house. We're thinking of ways to politely evict them all soon. Baby's and squirrels don't mix. I'm a little afraid of an uprising though.