RANT

There's this medical condition that 50% of the population is susceptible to at some point in their lives.  The symptoms are quite varied.  They include everything from minor hip discomfort, to nausea, to weight gain, to random tingling hands, to TOTAL INSANITY, to HORRIBLE PAIN, to BEAUTIFUL GLOWING SKIN (which my doctor says is just minor heat rash).

It used to be highly life-threatening, but now, not so much.   Not everyone gets it, lots of people try really hard not to get it, and some people don't try to avoid it at all.  It tends to resolve itself in ten months or so (that whole nine month thing...where did they come up with that? 40 weeks divided by 4 weeks to a month = 10 months give or take).  How it resolves itself is this adorable process in which a strange foreign body makes its way out of the patient while she nakedly screams (unless she's a Scientologist--they believe in peaceful, silent births).  Let the record show that google doesn't think Scientologist is a word and has red underlined it.  In Scientology's defense, google seems to think google isn't a word either.

This medical condition, of course, is pregnancy.  And, yes, it is sexually transmitted.

DISCLAIMER: This is gonna get a little ranty.  Feel free to have your own opinion about things.  Ladies, do whatever the F YOU WANT about your lady regions.  If you want to boil water and stay at home, okay fine, you'll probably live.  Fine by me and power to you--you are a glorious Katniss of pain management and personal self control.  Or if you want to schedule a surgery to have the adorable growth removed via elective C-section, fine.  Yay for you and can I have some of your money, please?  But what I'm feeling a little punchy about is the notion that my choice is wrong and the "new evidence suggests" that I should be totally fine with "natural" childbirth.

DISCLAIMER #2: I totally did this whole pregnancy thing on purpose and I'M TOTALLY THRILLED ABOUT IT.  But, come on, people.  IT'S PRETTY WEIRD.

Here goes.

I MAY be in a facebok fight with a stranger.  I generally try to avoid showing emotions other than mordant sarcasm or "look at my adorable cat or couch" joy (couches and cats are things that are really important to me), on facebook because, honestly, I feel like facebook is a glorious and silly place where we show only our best selves.  It is my preferred method for keeping track of birthdays and alerting people to my personal news (I HAVE A COUCH).  I try to keep it light.

But I'm in some kind of mood today.  It might have something to do with my "momsomnia" which has spread to keeping everyone in my bed awake (even Catdome doesn't try to snuggle my face anymore) all night every night.  I'm sorry, dear husband, for keeping you up.  You are the CAUSE of it, though.  Thanks for the patience.

It's not so much that I miss sleep.  Really, I'm functioning adequately without it.  It's just that I never got to say goodbye.  My whole life, I've been a pretty decent sleeper, often the first to doze off at slumber parties and the one who got made fun of for a self-imposed bedtime in college.  I just love sleeping!  I wrote a poem, an ode to a nap, which my professor said was too sarcastic to be an ode but my college literary magazine published.  Sleep is an old buddy. 

First trimester I slept like a cat...constantly.  Second trimester, no problems...peaceful, normal slumber.   THEN BAM!  Third trimester, I'm up every two hours to pee or walk off a charlie horse and then spend an indeterminate amount of time just chilling in bed, thinking my thoughts.  If I do sleep, I have intensely graphic nightmares.  The most strangely symbolic one was that I had to rip apart a crow and fish out a tiny kitten that I was not at all surprised looked like baby Catdome.  People have joked to me that waking up every two hours is training for the child, which is right, fine, yeah, except I don't have one of those yet and I was hoping to seize the...night...as it were and enjoy my childless existence for as long as possible.  Oh well.  So it goes.

Goodbye, my love.  May we meet again in ten years or so when my child is a tween and starts doing that thing where they sleep all the time.  Please let my kid eventually sleep like I did.  It was grand. 

So, I'm a little wired. And I started responding to a thread a friend posted about how "homebirths" are really quite safe and more people should do them because midwives are less likely to use "interventions" such as foreceps, C-sections, and epidurals.

My response: "No, thank you.  I would like an 'intervention' please.  In my spine.  With a giant needle.  As soon as medically possible.  With no other medical procedure do they so casually let patients choose to go without pain management."

Several people had weighed in at this point, some saying they were thankful for their hospital births because of complications and some touting how wonderful it was to be at home.  One person (who'd had a midwife and natural birth) responded to me directly, saying that she sees it differently because for her it was not a medical procedure to give birth because she was not sick. 

YES IT IS and YES YOU ARE (Ahem.  Respectfully and in my opinion....)

 Some Possible Symptoms of Labor:

- horrible abdominal, back, and who knows where else pain (my doctor says it's time to come to the hospital when you have contractions "too painful to talk through" every five minutes for an hour)

- sweating

- vomiting

- uncontrollable shivering

- strange liquid seeping out of your genital region

- pooping yourself
- exhaustion

- multiple foreign bodies forcibly wanting to eject themselves from your genital region, sometimes ripping your flesh.

Yeah....that's normal.  A dude would get to an ER as fast as possible if he had even one of those...

Just because you know the name of your disease doesn't mean you don't have one.  

She also said something to the extent of, "you just have to be informed about the benefits and risks of an epidural."

I had to respond to this.  I have impulse control issues nowadays.

I said, "Yes.  Of course there are risks with any medical intervention.  I'm thankful I have a medically trained doctor who can explain those to me.  Because I may be a great reader, but I went to college for English, not medicine."

When I recounted this entire conversation in great, fervent detail to The Doctor over google chat, he said, "Lol.  Calm down sparky."

Valid.  But now I'm all WORKED UP.

People have been having babies for centuries.  And women also used to stay home all day.  And while I COULD raise, kill, pluck, skin, cook, and then boil down a chicken to make broth, I am pretty glad I just had to pour the broth out of a cardboard container into the crock pot and turn it on low so I could leave the house today...(we're having soup for dinner, by the way...soup is my favorite).

Why can't the magic of technology and modern medicine be applied to childbirth when we apply it to EVERYTHING ELSE?!

Need your appendix out?  Let's have REALLY COOL ROBOT do it so you have minimal scarring.
Want food?  Go to a store or restaurant and they will give it to you for money.  OR have a neat drone deliver it at your door (anyone tried Amazon suscribe and save?  Thoughts?)
Want to contact someone?  Pull out your personal phone and use one of a million methods for connecting with the world to get your message across.
Want to remember a moment?  Photograph or video it with your personal phone.
Want to hear a song?  Just look it up...again...on your phone.

FAST.  Easy.  Totally socially acceptable.

Ok, I'm not gonna lie.  If babies could be born like in the Matrix where we all kinda just grow in pink gooey pods, I'd probably embrace it.  I SEE THE FUTURE, PEOPLE.

The magic and intimacy of childbirth is still something I have not experienced and, who knows, maybe I'll totally change my tune and be like, "Oh yes.  The exquisite pain made me love my child.  Without the horrible ripping that I experienced for two straight days, I would not feel love for my child and would likely eat it and its placenta for nutrients to make me stronger."

But I'm pretty sure instead I'm just gonna get the epidural, still complain about it, and then be super happy to have the birth part over with so I can get on with obsessing about the tiny person I purposely forced to exist and making sure that she has as painless and wonderful a life as possible.  And I'm pretty sure that when she has children, if she so chooses, in the glorious future in which childbirth is as clinical and painless as buying a couch (wonderful couch), she will still love her child with as much passion as the cave women who suffered before her.  

END OF RANT.

Today I Cried Because...

Turns out I'm kinda hormonal.  Go figure.  Also, it's not like I wasn't a crier before.  But the things that will set me off are ridiculous.  Generally, adults can have a measured response to minor stimuli, but I, apparently, cannot.  I'm told the cure for my condition is childbirth...which then gives way to the hormone let down and sleep deprivation which I have been warned leads to more crying.  So, I've been hydrating and now, without further ado...

Much like the website Reasons My Son Is Crying, I bring you the exhaustive/exhausting pregnancy list from my last almost eight months: Today I cried Because...

- someone posted something on Facebook with a picture of the dog and all I saw was, "abandoned" and I spent the next ten minutes sobbing into Ruby's fur.

- I was trying to change into my pajamas and The Doctor, the perpetual little brother, thought it was funny to try to touch me with his cold hands.  He backed me into the closet and, when I broke into hysterics, said, "You don't play with me any more!" and stalked off.  When I tried to make it up to him later by trying to start a sword fight with empty wrapping paper rolls, he was busy...playing video games.  So I cried twice that day.

- I was sleepy.

- The Doctor said something nice to me.

- The cat food was precariously perched on the door of the freezer, and when I tried to get some frozen peas, the entire container of cat food fell on the floor and scattered to every corner of the kitchen.  At this point, I can pin down that the tears were not so much because of the "oops" but because the incident required me to bend over and clean it up before Ruby ate it all.

- The Doctor said something I decided was mean.  He knows not to do that now...

- I ate some lunch meat and then was sure I'd killed Booberry with listeria.

- I wanted a cheese enchilada but The Doctor misheard me and ordered a chicken enchilada.  This one was a bonus because it was in public.

-  So is this one: I was in Babies R Us.  It's just overwhelming there.  I've not gone back...Target for the win (as long as they don't steal my identity).

- I had to clean the sink and I didn't like how the cleaning chemicals smelled.

- And then there was eight am this morning.  Today I cried because the bed we bought a week ago inexplicably broke when The Doctor rolled out of it.  The wood split and will not go back into place.  The Doctor laughed as we took a picture of the damage, which is in sight of the "Made in China" sticker on my beautiful new (consignment) bed, the last piece of furniture we needed for the house to make it complete, as I wept quietly from the corner of the room.

The furniture in my house falls into the following categories:
- stuff my family members didn't want/were able to part with/loan us (we can call these "family heirlooms")
- consignment
- thrift store
- both couches are new (and glorious)
- and, of course. the infamous...IKEA.

So, really, I've put some effort into making my house not just an empty shell and doing it with limited funding.  Nothing I hate more than lost time and money.

 Here's hoping I can get a refund because, if not, I will GO TOTALLY NUTS on the consignment people because we had the bed for six blissful nights...not that I slept well.  It's just that the three-four times I had to get out of bed in any given night were a simple two step process of, moan/roll until my feet hit the ground and then stand as opposed to my method when the mattress was on the floor up until now which was moan/roll until one foot touches the floor and then do a reverse grande plie while wincing in pain until standing while feeling like my abdomen is a water balloon about to pop.  Rest in Peace, beautiful consignment bed.  I will not be...

Things I Do Now that I Work at a Desk

I used to be a "classroom teacher" which means my day was like this:

5:45am roll out of bed and stagger in a state of exhausted delirium to the kitchen where I'd make a good deal of noise preparing cereal.  Get dressed in the dark and put my hair away in some sort of frizzy ponytail because I went to bed with it wet.  Go to work.

If it is post winter break, I will have gift cards to coffee establishments and, if I am running early and it is cold, I may get coffee or tea.  

7am: arrive at work and start up computer (Windows XP for the win).  Make tea if I did not already procure a hot beverage.  Usually this tea is throat coat because usually I am either sick, allergic to school, or vocally exhausted. 

7:15 computer is ready.  Kids start arriving for homeroom.  I make copies and generally stagger around with my winter coat on, getting ready for the day and "warming up."  Literally.  I have to go through my emails and permanently delete a bunch because my mailbox is probably full.  I try to respond to the various parent emails and hope there's no "crisis" (kid got a B).

7:45 school starts.  Interact with children.  Tell them to stop doing that.  Tell them to sit.  Tell them this or that anecdote.  Try to get them to look at me and not Fredrick the mouse who lives in my classroom.

9:30 prep/parent meetings/snack/gossip with fellow teachers.  Prep is THE BEST especially when there's a surprise snack of some kind.  It can be LIIIIIIKE one hershey kiss, I'll still be entralled.  My whole world is food.

Teaching and stuff.  We write poems.  Or read books.

12:45 lunch which I eat at my desk while various students wander in and out of my classroom.  I almost always have yogurt and carrot sticks because it was all I could grab at 5:45am.

Teaching and stuff.  We perform Shakespeare.  Or write dramatically ironic fables. We do plays about grammar.  

2:00 advisory: kids do hw while I try to do work such as grading and/or prep and/or administrative stuff one always seems to have to do.  Kids with no hw do my bidding.  This usually involves counting books or making snowflakes out of coffee filters (which are the best material for making snowflakes, fyi.  I'm sure this fact has changed your life).

3:00 rehearsal for the play (Dec-May).  Sometimes I have a snack if I thought of it or if MAGICAL SNACK MOM brings me one.  I yell things at children like "THE WATER LOOKS CLUMPY!"  "SMILE BIGGER!  YOU ARE IN LOVE!"  or "DIE CENTER!!!!"  A play happens.  There's singing and dancing.

5:30 shuffle in the darkness to my car and head home. This is the only time I am alone all day except during my drive in. 

6:00 So tired.  Eat peanut butter and maybe go to the gym.  Grunt to husband about my day when he prods for details and stories about awesome, nerdy children. Sing parodies of whatever play we're doing to Ruby. 

8:00 shower and become one with the couch. Watch TV until I become unconscious (9pm).  Get carried to bed (I love you, Doctor!).

THE END!

Now I have these snippets of jobs scattered throughout the week.  8-16 hours of this involves me, in an empty classroom, at a desk, doing administrative work.  I generally interact with others 1-2 times a week and these others are never children.  So, here's my day:

7:10 am: wake up either because I've set and alarm or Doctor gently (suuure) wakes me after he showers.  Leisurely shower, make coffee, and breakfast, which is almost always oatmeal but, if I didn't preggo hate them so much, might be eggs and toast or something exciting like that.  Drink coffee
(one cup a day oooh livin' on the edge) and read the internet.  Get dressed and run a brush through my hair which looks fine because it's clean and/or recently blow dried.  Sing commercial indie pop to Ruby.  Have a conversation with the Doctor.  Look outside my window (it's LIGHT out).

8:10 leave for work.  Talk to Booberry in the car. Take instagram pics of Mt. Hood if it's a clear day while I'm at stop lights.  If I feel special and/or wealthy today, go to Starbucks and buy myself a tea and muffin.

IF I'M AT MY DESK JOB

9:00 arrive at work.  There is no one waiting at my door.  Children are safely in their own classrooms and not camping outside their lockers. My classroom is sometimes home to meetings or book fair, but generally is uninhabited.

9:05 fire up Macbook which I hate because, as the manual says, "it's just like a PC except everything is slightly the opposite." Read facebook on my phone.

9:06 computer is ready to go and all my emails/docs are open!  Read the one or two emails I have.  Look at the to do list on my google calendar.

9:30  Have completed to do list.  NOW, I have the following options:

1.  read files: there are three file drawers full of various things my predecessor printed out.  Some of it is research on gifted education that EXPLAINS MY CHILDHOOD TO ME (oooooh I was such a cry baby because I was SMAAARRRT) which I kinda like reading.  And also obsolete records of past kids and A LOT of prints outs on none other than Harold Bloom, who wrote about educational philosophy and who most people don't reference any more (with notable exceptions).  Usually this is what I do for most of the day.

2.  Listen to music: I like to listen to my "solo piano" station on Pandora because it makes me feel smart and dramatic, like I'm in a Victorian novel or I'm Emily Dickenson or someone, but I also like to listen to my "John Williams" station which makes me feel like a JEDI.  Sometimes it stresses me out, though, especially when Hans Zimmer starts BROOOOOOOMing.

3.  Try to gather information about my job.  If it's not in the files, this involves emailing various people I've never met.  They are all very friendly and helpful in their responses and I feel guilty for being such a clueless freak who doesn't know anything about this school district.  I also need to do things like count books and don't have any minions to do it for me which makes me sad.  I want to make some snowflakes but there doesn't seem to be an audience for them. 

4.  Eat.  My whole world is food.  Today I had a precious Starbucks muffin which I placed on the heater to keep warm and dutifully waited a full hour before consuming it.   I'm not even hungry!  I'm just bored snacking.  The plus side is I can pack healthy snacks that are good for fetuses.  The negative is that I pack spagetti o's and goldfish crackers along with apples and yogurt and fill up on those awesome orange foods first.  Orange foods are the best foods (orange cheese, orange juice, mac and cheese, those candies that are little orange slices).

5.  Desk Exercises.  So much fun.  The problem is I have this window by my door across from my computer which people are constantly walking past, so when I want to do embarrassing exercises like squatting (butts are never bigger than when they are squatting...and my butt is bigger than usual due to my loose hips and excess snacking), I go over in this little corner where I don't think people can see me.  If someone were to come in, it would be WEIRD.

6.  Internet "research" (#5 took a bit of sleuthing), and general email upkeep.  I used to NEVER answer personal emails or manage my junk mail.  Now, my inbox is SQUEAKY CLEAN!

7.  Come up with reasons to leave the room.  Technically, this counts as "desk exercise."  But, I try to make sure that I do not combine bathroom, printer, microwave, and trolling for surprise snacks in the teacher's lounge errands.  These are now individual errands to be spaced out throughout the day.

4:00 pm: Congratulations, self!  You have now worked an 8 hour day!  You are now done for the day and are free to go.  No homework, grading, or panicked emails from twelve year olds to answer.  Just go home and live your life.  Like most people do. IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Does my new job sound amazing?  I suppose it does to many folk.  But I'm used to NEVER BEING ALONE and never having time to be organized.  As a result, I am highly efficient and tend to either rush through tasks or just plain complete them before my allotted time is up.  And when I get home now, all I want to do is chat and interact with people as opposed to grunt and curl in a ball and sleep, which means that I have to leave my house sometimes or people have to come over and I have to wear pants.  Somehow I'm still tired at the end of the day and look forward to becoming one with the couch.  Funny how that works.  Do I miss my glamorous teacher gig?  Yes, quite.  Even Fredrick.  Do I concede that my life right now is pretty cushy?  Sure, the two peppermint patties I just peacefully ate without any children asking me to give them candy can attest to that if they weren't inanimate and in my belly. 

And that, my friends, is the perfect way to end this post.  DEAD PEPPERMINT PATTY!

Sorry, didn't mean you...

How to Build an Ikea Bedside Table aka I refuse to let this be a metaphor for my life/marriage

So my wonderful mother-in-law bought us a crib.

It's white.  It looks like a crib.  

THANK YOU!

She also was ever so kind as to buy us a bedside table to go in the kid room.  What follows is in no way her fault.  She tried to buy us a fancier table but we opted for a very simple and inexpensive one.  We are awesome (cheap) like that.  

The first (simplest, or so it seemed) task was to put together the bedside table.

It's gonna look like this.

I started out alone (it's easy to see how this could be a metaphor...but don't let it).  On my owwwwwwwn (cue music), I started with THE BOX.  It should be simple.  Open the box.  I did not have scissors.  So then I had to waddle off to find scissors.  Then I returned and realized that the box is GLUED shut on all four sides. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SIGN.  I felt the flash of regret at choosing this table when I could have had one for $5 from my favorite thrift store.  Sure, the thrift store one would have had ridiculously deep scratches and dust of mysterious origin, but it would have been assembled.  

After ripping the various layers of the box into shreds so that I could get my scissors into it and, lo, open the box, I had to tip the whole thing over onto the rug to get all the pieces out.  THUD CLUNK ONOMATOPOEIA.  From the basement, The Doctor yells to inquire if I am okay.  He does not join me upstairs for another ten minutes.

When at last my knight in shining armor arrives, I am still on step one.  The instructions are 30 steps long and read much like the non-verbal IQ tests I have to learn how to administer for work.  You have to make sure that you have a) the right piece of seemingly but not identical wood rectangle b) all the various sized holes facing just the right way c) the appropriate pegs and screws (of which there are three that look alike via the instruction manual but are vastly different sizes).  The Doctor bravely takes over the task while I stretch (lie down) on the floor.  

He made it to step two before rage quitting.  I had the rectangle facing the wrong way, turns out, during step one.  I harangued him for giving up (not a metaphor) and he begrudgingly had me fetch some tools while he took over the very important man-task of RTFM (read the...manual, a classic my dadism).

Soon we were rolling along.  Things were going well.  He felt like the head of household he is and I felt confident in our mutual intelligence.  But it was grueling hard work.  It was tiring.  I know, because I was working really hard (lying on the floor, watching).  And then, the drill ran out of batteries.  

Ugh how long does it take to charge a drillllllll?  Ok long enough that we decide to sleep on it.  I close up the room so cats don't eat any screws and we shuffle off to bed.  

My friend seemed to be surprised that I had such trouble with this project.  

HER:  Didn't you take stagecraft in college?

ME: Yeah.  I got an A.

HER: So you should be good at this.

ME: I also put a nail through the professor's thumb...

HER: Oh.  Yeah.  I remember now.

ME: You know in school how you had to take those little fake tests where it said, "Read all the directions before beginning the test?" and the last direction was "don't take this test?"  Well, I was the kid clucking like a chicken and following all the steps in blind order, thinking I was winning by finishing all the questions first, before feeling like a dummy when I finally made it to the last question.  Turns out, that was life lesson.  

Tuesday: As I sleep in (yay no school this week), and The Doctor kisses me as he heads off to the office, he mentions that perhaps I will have time to finish off the project.  "It'll only take half an hour!"  He insists.  I squint dubiously and then inexplicably burst into tears of overwhelmed emotion at the prospect of doing this ALONE (not a metaphor).

I am so busy Tuesday (so many house projects are more fun than going into that blasted room), that, when The Doctor arrives at 5:30pm, I'm still hanging Christmas lights inside all of our outward facing windows (two days before Thanksgiving is the right time to hang Christmas lights...it was URGENT, I tell you).

They're pretty.

SUPER begrudgingly, The Doctor goes to work on the nightstand ALONE while I sing Christmas songs and make everything merry and VERY bright.  I only hear him yell once.  Then I join him.  The project is almost done.  Ruby seems to like it.   It looks GOOD.  I am impressed.  The last step is the drawer.  

Uh oh.  The Doctor realizes he has done something wrong at some point in the past.  What point?  He can tell me exactly.  Have we all been there?  Yes...well all of us in the room...well not Ruby.  She's a cat.  Can he fix it?  No.  The stupid dowel things are nearly impossible to take out and the floopdydoops are too far inside to get out without splintering the wood (he splintered the wood a little).  As a result, the drawer will not go in...

Side note: sometimes things just work out due to magical thinking.  That's sometimes how things happen to us in my family.  For example, I used to have pretty severe TMJ (clicky jaw).  It was painful, annoying, and persistent, even after I clenched through my mouth guard and tried various behavior therapies.  I had resigned myself to having this cursed condition forever.  Then, on a flight to Hawaii, I fell asleep with my jaw resting on The Doctor's skull.  When I awoke, I surreptitiously wiped the drool from my face and into his hair ("product") and realized I had a horrible jaw ache.  It hurt the whole vacation.  But then I realized, it wasn't clicking any more.  I WAS CURED!  It hasn't clicked since and doesn't hurt.  HE'S A FANTASTIC DENTIST.  

The Doctor stares at the blasted bedside table with a seething fire.  And the does what toddlers and adult men have done for centuries.  He HADOUKENS it onto the rug.  

HADOUKEN!

The drawer pops in!  FIXED.  Well done, team!  We high five and it freeze frames as the credits roll...THE END.

Ok.  No.  The drawer now won't open.  The bedside table LOOKS functional...but it's just...not.  I mean.  It's functional as a SURFACE.  And as something that looks fine.  But...hahaha.  No.  

We begin to laugh.  We google the IKEA return policy...yeah that's not happening.  We laugh some more.  We put the stand next to the bed.  It looks....JUST GREAT!  

Things I am thankful for this holiday:

1.  A husband willing to do my bidding...even when it turns out to be beyond both of our skill sets.

2.  A husband super good at tooth carpentry because neither of us can cut it as actual carpenters and we need to have money to buy semi-functional furniture.  

3.  A fetus that, thus far, seems to be more of an Ethan Allen than an Ikea.  Keep kicking, Booberry.  

4.  A holiday weekend in which, hopefully, my dad can team up with The Doctor to put the crib together...

5.  A shared sense of humor with my awesome teammate and fellow stagecraft graduate.  

YAY for family.  Happy Thanksgiving!  

I made dis.  

I win the internet...

I don't know who brought the glorious Pinterest into my life, but it is an amazing time suck of awesome.  As a result of this website, I've started using a lot of baskets in my home decor and I bake a lot of things in unconventional appliances.  There are wins (energy bites) and losses (do not try to make a regular t-shirt into a sporty tie t-shirt unless it is a GIANT shirt) Here is a list of some of my triumphs and failures.

Dessert
The most important category, of course.

1.  Baking things in mugs: the brownie beats the cookie but only if you have ice cream because the brownie doesn't really cook through but tastes great.  The cookie in a mug I tried tasted weird and rubbery so I gave it to the Doctor who smothered it with milk and was very happy.  WIN!

2.  Brownies in a waffle iron: do not try unless you want to be scraping burned brownie scraps off your waffle iron and sadly, still eating them.  LOSE.

3.  Eggless cookie dough!  There's the healthy hummus one which is very good when you want to rationalize that you're eating healthy.  Super good on apple slices and those fancy graham crackers.  And then there's the delicious one which is just cookie dough without eggs or baking soda.  You can reduce the recipe to single serving.  Good plain or with ice cream.  WIIIIIIN

om nom.

4.  Soft coconut oil sugar cookies.  Because coconut oil is cool.  WIN

5.  Brownies with caramel:

Huge LOSE.  They do not look like the picture and they just become wet, unfinished brownie smush.  So...win? 

Now I'm hungry.

HOME STUFF and entertaining

I have one of those...homes.  And here's what I've learned from the internet!

1.  Use a stand for toiletries:

Lose.  My toiletries aren't so cute and monochromatic and don't really fit on the stand.  Also my stand is silver which tarnishes like crazy.  So I have this stand in my bathroom with one bobby pin on it.  

2.  Wrap canisters in paper for cookies or gift boxes.  SUPER WIN!  These are the ones I made last year:

3.  ALL THE BASKETS!  Baskets are my favorite.  I am so my mother.  

4.  Closet organization.  More baskets.  And:

For cleaning.  Or toys for future child.

5.  Parties!

Two wins: Hang balloons from the ceiling:

Take different sized cookie cutters and make a hanging garland:

From awesome NYE partay.

Food that is not completely sugar based.  

1.  Delicious summer app:  Strawberry bruschetta:

REAL PHOTO:  Baguette.  Goat cheese or mascarpone, basil, strawberries, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar.  YUM WIN.  

2.  Crock pottery!

Bolognese: meh

Minestrone: YAY (but Mark Bittman's is the same and just as good and I love him)

Tomato Basil Cheesy Soup: RICH but win 

3.  Baked zucchini salty goodness I ate in one sitting.  For real healthy.  I promise.  Win.

There are so many things I have YET to try.  Is it a waste of time if it's THE MOST FUN EVER?!

Me Want Food

I'm sitting here icing my arm because apparently you're not supposed to workout directly after getting allergy shots because it's speeds up all your BLOOD and stuff and makes you react faster.  So I have a welt on my arm the size of a baseball.  I'm special.

This happened to me a couple years ago when I got shots the day of The Hunger Games midnight premiere and forgot to call my allergist when I had a mild reaction because I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE HUNGER GAMES THAT NOTHING ELSE MATTERED.  And then the next week my arm simply couldn't handle the amount of grass serum being injected into and got looking REALLY CUTE just in time for a long day at school.

In general, though.  I feel ever so much better than I have the last few months.

It's the kind of thing where you don't know how bad you felt until you feel better.  My ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor from a few years ago really enlightened me to this phenomenon.  You see, I had a GIANT CYST in my sinus which is an extra attractive attribute of mine.  He took it out for me, and, in my follow up appointment, was gleefully pulling "crusts" (don't ask) from my nose and showing them to me.  I told him, "I'm really glad you like your job, but please stop showing me things that have been in my nose."  He said, "You know that thing you mom tells you: 'you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friend's nose?'  Well, I can!  And I get paid for it!"  A joke he probably tells all his patients.  Then he said, "But seriously, I'm just excited because you are going to feel SO MUCH BETTER!  You don't even know!"  And I did.  It's nice to have a clear sinus cavity!  WHO KNEW?!

The thing is, a few weeks ago my friend (I MISS YOU GANGER) and I were doing this cool new thing, google chat, because we are the hippest and coolest ever (it's free) and she, probably sick of me complaining to her about my sleepiness and craziness and carsickness and general lumpiness, asked me, "Is there anything good about being pregnant?"  I thought long and hard.  What I came up with was, "My hair grows really fast and is really shiny!"  And she was impressed.  But then I said, "So is my leg hair, though."  Less impressed.  "My toenails are really strong!" I offered.  She was mildly proud of me. I tried, "I have zits on my boobs?"  No comment.  "I'll think of something.  I'm sure of it."  She waited patiently.  Finally, I said, "I guess the having the baby part is the good part and the rest of it is just fine."  Which is nice and all...but then I took a nap.

But now, just about midway through this thing, I came up with something really good!  AND IT'S FOOD!  So, I lived mostly on multigrain cheerios (no milk) for the majority of the summer.  My OB was cool with it, saying, "Whatever gets you through!"  But it's kinda depressing eating only off white foods.  BUT NOW I LOVE FOOD!  I am only nauseated sometimes in the morning and only when I make the Doctor bacon because apparently bacon is my worst enemy now (sad, I know).  Generally, though, I eat like a champ.  I can eat so much more than I thought I could.  I'll be eating and then eat the normal amount and be ready to be done but then I'll kinda rally and be like, "you know what? I CAN DO THIS!" and then eat more stuff.  The thing is.  I have the slowest metabolism on the planet.  Not really.  But I have been told I have a middle-aged-woman metabolism.  And so generally, eating DELICIOUS Tillamook peanut butter ice cream every day would catch up to me.  But this is the magic part.  It's not (yet!).  If this changes, I will sadly bid adieu to my double string cheese a day habit and my "pretend" Starbucks (decaf lattes I pretend are the real deal).  But until then...

In other news I'm still crazy, in case you were wondering.  Just hours ago I screamed at the radio, "I do not want to hear F******* 'Wrecking Ball!'" after changing the station three times and it was ON EVERY ONE.  

One last note from a gchat convo.  My friend asked me about my new nephew (so cute) and asked if he's a good baby.  I said, "Yeah!  He's great.  He eats and sleeps and stuff."  She said, "Isn't it crazy that all it takes to be a good baby are those two things?  So simple"  And I said, "Yeah.  If only all things in life were that simple.  If so, I'M A GREAT BABY!"

Full disclosure, it has come to my attention that I was not that great of a baby...that was then, though.  I got the hang of it...

My left foot....

Sometimes our bodies betray us.  We'd like to think we would survive the Hunger Games (omg November 20th!), but most of us are not Katniss.

But a girl can dream.

Lately, because of my adorable medical condition, my body has betrayed me more than usual.

Last weekend, I did this really cute thing where, two days in a row, I almost passed out while standing.  Once, at a warm, crowded, house warming party.  And once in line at Trader Joes (aka my happy place).  Fortunately, the Doctor was there both times to supervise me putting my head between my legs as I sweated profusely.

Fun fact, this is a very normal symptom.  I know because, in high school, I was not knocked up, but I was kinda tired and singing in a choir concert at the Pleasanton Hotel.  I started to fade.  The world became boiling hot and my vision started looking like, I'm sorry to make this reference, but when your heath is super fading during a first person shooter video game...I began to list to the side, leaning on the itty bitty sophomore next to me.  My mom didn't seem to notice this, but the girl's aunt did, and during the song break, she whisked me away to a bathroom and put me in fetal position on the floor.  When I came back to reality, I realized I was on a public bathroom floor and sat up.  The woman said, "I knew what was wrong with you because it used to happen to me all the time when I was pregnant!  SO it'll happen to you when you're pregnant!"  And I was allllll, "Um....I'm 16....I don't....zzzz."  But that gypsy woman's prophecy has haunted me since (she wasn't a gypsy...I don't think.  She was mysterious and had lustrous, dark, curly locks).

But today, the biggest betrayal in my life is my left foot.

Okay, it's not as bad as whatever was wrong with Daniel Day-Lewis...I didn't see the movie...

It's "hammer toe."  I heard the doc say something about bunion I'm going to forget I heard.   And some plantar fasciitis.  FASCIST FEET!  I know the root doesn't mean that...but it should.  If you look it up on wikipedia, it tells you that it's caused by being a SUPER ATHLETE

I AM KATNISS!

...or gaining weight.  

I went to water aerobics AND prenatal yoga last week...

Okay it's probably the second thing because I eat food now.  

Wikipedia and the doctor actually said it's because I wear shoes that force my feet into the shape of the shoe.  Ironically, I have been praised for my "perfect" looking feet.  I know that's a weird thing to be proud of...or praised for, but it HAPPENED.  This one time, I was at a sleepover and my friend's mom told me I have perfect feet because my toes aren't all splayed apart like hers, which she said was because she was Hawaiian.  I don't know...she maybe had some self-esteem issues.  And, apparently, significantly healthier feet than I have.  I have the American version of bound feet.  

The doc said I have to wear shoes with wider toe sections.  

Me: So I have to wear nerdier shoes?

Dr.: Yep!

She also prescribed me this:

It will cure me.  And, no, I can't just wear the things they give you at the pedicure place...I asked.  

I also have to buy some old lady shoes.

I may have cried at Nordstrom Rack trying on shoes...

Shoes I won't wear:

Mountain climber granola shoes

Too sporty but not for sports.

Shoes for when I'm in a nursing home

No.

I will wear clogs.  But only sometimes.  They don't look good with skinny jeans or leggings.  And burgeoning bump looks good with skinny jeans and leggings.  Dressing oneself is HARD.  When I was four, I decided I would sleep in my clothes because it was efficient.  I don't know that I knew the word "efficient" but I did to save the hassle of getting dressed every day.  

Not to mention that shoes that are good for you are quite spendy.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!

Don't get me started on my eyebrows.