Next reader gets a prize!

Hey, my site's had 99 hits.

Whoever reads this first and lets me know by posting a comment, gets a prize! Lucky reader number 100! Woo hoo!!

(Dad, if it's you, you have to hit the "comment" hyperlink and type something, or else no prize.)

Scrubbie cat says, "What's up, yo?"

The scary room in my basement

My house is old. 118 years old to be exact. The basement is scary. There are some doors to pantries that won't open due to the years of floor-shifting. There is a room. Wes discovered it one day. It looks almost like paneling on the wall, but there's a handle, and a place to padlock it from the outside. "This is where they kept the retard," he said.

The room is scary. It's about 8' by 6', with no windows. There is a single, bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, one old chair, a large food bowl, and some old newspapers. Did I mention there is a spot for a padlock on the outside and no way to open the door from the inside? My $4.99 digital camera wasn't up to the task, so I had to borrow Dave's camera to try to capture the essence of the room. And, a bunch of the photos wouldn't come off of the CD he burned the photos do, which is weird. Also, I couldn't zoom out enough, so I will try to describe the photos.

This photo is of the chair in the room, which is against the wall near the bare, cold, scary wall.

This is the bowl we found on the shelf. I envision it as a food bowl, used to feed the room's resident. Next to the bowl, on the top left, you can see the remaining shreds of a newspaper; there are some old, yellowed newspaper scraps on the shelf.

The next photo shows the lock, on the outside of the door. Did I mention there's no way out from the inside??? There is simply no explanation for this room, nor any reason for it to exist in my basement.
Kids are terrified of this room--when we moved in we showed Dave's kids, and they could not get out of the basement fast enough. Perhaps it will be an effective time-out room for our little one?

These photos don't really do the room justice. When I get my new camera, I'll post more.

I really hope I don't have bad dreams thinking about it tonight!

F*&% the Police!

I'm a little pissed off at the po po this morning.

Wes is in Chicago until next Thursday. He's a police officer.

Yesterday morning, at 6am, the phone rang, and it was the police department, calling to ask if he wanted to come in for overtime. I politely and sleepily explained that he was out of town for a week, and to please make a note of that on the roster and not to call again for him until he returned for his regularly-scheduled shift next Sunday.

This morning at 6am, the phone rings again. I wake up, climb out of bed to answer it, and its the police department again, asking for Wes. I again explained that he was away and to please make a note of that fact.

Motherfuckers. Do you know what happens when this pregnant girl gets a 6am call??? Yes, I'm now awake for the freakin' day, doing laundry at 7am. And, no, I can't just shut all of the ringers off because what if there was an emergency or something.

If they call again tomorrow, the rage will ensue.

New baby v. Old baby

I had an ultrasound today. I'm at 10 weeks and 4 days. During my last pregnancy, I had one at about the same time, and thought I'd look at the pics side by side to see if I notice any differences. I'm glad I did.

Today's baby pic:
See how there is a perfectly round yolk sac above, and the baby has room to stretch and play. Strong little heartbeat of 150bpm.

Below is the 10 1/2 week picture of the first baby. As you can see, there's barely anything around the baby, and it looks like the yolk sac is squeezed up above his/her head, and the space looks really cramped. That is no doubt because there was softball-sized fibroid crowing the space. Needless to say, I've been really nervous and will be until I get past 16 weeks, which is when we lost the last baby. BUT, just looking at the ultrasound pictures, I feel better--because I have visual proof that this new little baby has lots of room and is doing well.

In 9 days I go for the nuchal-translucency ultrasound. Hubby will be home and will get to attend. This is the super-new 3-D ultrasound that measures the baby's head and neck to see if there are birth defects. The cool thing is that we will get a 3-D image of the baby! Woo hoo!

Anyway, I thought I'd be posting every day when Wes was in Chicago, but I've been so crazy busy--worked until 9pm last night, that I've barely had time to read other people's blogs, much less post my own. The long weekend is upon me, and I've lots to post, so loyal reader (I mean you Dad!) come back soon!

Comic book movies are for guys.

I took the day off today. It's been a long week of late nights and I just felt like being a slug. And, since the big man had last night off, we could hang together all day!

So, he cooked me a breakfast feast--pancakes, eggs, bacon, coffee.
I'm sad to report that I'm back to being "egg-tose intolerant" (Wes-speak coined during last pregnancy for my total aversion to cooked eggs), and even the bacon was not doing it for me. Thank god for the pancakes. Carbs are my friend. I would be happy these days to subsist on beef, chocolate, vanilla yogurt, and white cheddar cheez-its. I've just become so damn picky, and I always want sweet stuff--I even baked a cake on Sunday, a layer cake, with frosting in the middle (certainly a who are you and what did you do with Bethany event). And, I'm sad to report that I can't really bring myself to eat salad. And I LOVE salad--eat it every day for lunch, or I did until this week.

Anyway, I digress. We decided to go see Iron Man at the new-ish Bow Tie cinemas in Schenectady--an awesomely huge theater with great sound and seats and everything.
It's apparently the biggest movie of the year, but I thought it was kind of lame. *Spoiler alert*
When the iron man guy got kidnapped by terrorists there was shrapnel in his heart so some guy hooked up a car battery and magnet to his heart to keep the shrapnel from killing him. Thing I didn't get was that when he got back to the states, he upgraded the battery-magnet thing--INSTEAD of just having a doctor take out the shrapnel?? So the guy has a stupid cylindrical opening in his chest that, when changing the powersource, people can just reach in with their bare, unwashed hands into his chest cavity to plug it in. It just made no sense to me. And I like Terrance Howard better when he's a pimp--he just didn't articulate all of his words well enough to be a senior military official. And the iron man's assistant as his love interest, blah blah blah. And I just don't like Robert Downey Jr. so much either. Anyway, comic-book reading hubby thought it was great, and I got to eat movie theater popcorn so it was a win for all.

Yucky yuck.

I feel like crap. crappy crappy crap.
You know that feeling like you think you need to be sick, whether you drank too much or just got off a ride that was too spinny? Then you puke and rally? That's basically how I feel every day from lunch until bedtime. Except there's no puking and certainly no rallying. 9 weeks down, two million to go... or so it seems.

Big man is headed to Chicago on Wednesday. For a 8 days. Who will cook for me and care for me and keep me sane? :(
Seriously though, he makes this trip every year, and for me it is usually a book-reading, girlfriend hanging drinkfest. The kind of good time where I'm like, "honey, take another day!"
I've been scheduling some playdates for his time away but everything is so unfun at the moment. Probably because I just feel yuck. The only silver lining is that since I feel like crap, I know that means that the pregnancy hormones are still raging, and then I tell myself the baby's okay. I go for another ultrasound on Friday. The baby's the size of a grape this week and should be even bigger next week so there will actually be something to see!

Have been too busy to be online much this week; hope to do better next week.

Pimp car.

Look at the photo above? What does it make you think of?

If you're a guy, you probably think a 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado is a cool car. My husband does, that's why he bought it.

If you're a girl, you probably think that the family that owns it surely qualifies for food stamps. When I drive/ride in it, I feel like people will feel bad for me because my car is so old.

Only a guy would buy a "fun" classic car that's not a convertible!

Worst craft project ever.

Did I mention I like to do crafty stuff from time to time? I get tons of magazines and many have neat ideas for things to try.

I saw one, which was approved for kids, which I thought would be great for the bedroom revitalization project. And heck, if it is designed for KIDS, how much trouble should I have?

They are supposed to be some kind of art, you dip yarn or ribbon in glue, drape over a balloon, let it dry and then you have a yarn bowl. I even bought some spray clear sealant so they would last.

I did one, two weeks ago. Dipping yarn in glue makes a big mess. And the little yarn hairs want to stay in the glue. I still have the bowls of ribbon and embroidery thread I was going to use, as I was going to do FOUR! FOUR! A little bit ambitious, I suppose. Now that a few weeks have passed, I'm considering trying again and making a new one. But, it really was designed to go with the new colors in my bedroom that I haven't painted yet, but have bought the bedding for. Maybe if I finish the crafty bowls, I will be inspired to paint.

Here's my masterpiece (taken with my $4.99 digital camera--love it!):

Our plan to stimulate the economy.

We've decided to use the stimulus check to buy a new laptop and digital camera. We're really in the dark ages now, so in June, we will begin shopping. Just doing our part to end the recession.

Until then, I made an ebay purchase--a digital camera. A cheap one. A really cheap one. It was $4.99, plus $5 shipping, has a very small memory, bad resolution but connects to my computer via USB cable. Since my expectations are zero, I won't be disappointed. Seriously, this thing has no flash, no zoom, and exactly two buttons--one to set the resolution mode from crappy to craptastic, and one to snap the photo. Love it!

Because I stubbornly failed to read the 3 page manual, I am unable to upload the photos I took. However, hubby played around with it in my absence and managed to snap a few. Looks like a cell phone photo, but hey, for ten bucks, I think it rocks! Behold the photo quality:

Weekly recap.

Ahhh, the end of another week.
Each time I look at my blog and see the pregnancy timeline, it feels like I'm going to be pregnant forever!!! The daily countdown is nearly unbearable--only 230 days to go, or something like that. Essentially, I'll be pregnant for the rest of the year. Damn.

I'm really wishing I took the OB up on his offer to come in every other week instead of once a month. Apparently, they respect that women who had a prior loss like to be reassured more regularly, and they accomodate that. I'm just at that early stage in my pregnancy, where I don't feel that much different, tired of course, the occasional queasiness, but other than that, same old me. I'd just like to see a little heartbeat to reassure me. But, I wait patiently until the 23rd.

Big man's going away from about May 21 to May 28; annual family reunion in Chicago, well actually southern Illinois, but he stays mostly with his folks in Chicago. It's probably his last trip for a while as he probably won't leave the baby next year, and I don't know if we will all be able to make the trip. So he will go, see family, have fun and will even be able to squeeze in a day or two with his best friend in Michigan. I'll be home. I'm thinking of painting our bedroom in his absence; I'd been planning to for a while, and even bought a new bedding set to go with the colors I had chosen but not yet painted. We'll see if I actually get to it. I tend to revert into sloth mode when the big man's away. (That or party girl mode, but we know that's out of the question.)

I'll have to make some plans, or get some books!

Girl Power!

I went to a chamber of commerce event tonight for women only. We're forming a group called "WoW", for Women of Worth--an interesting label, because during the intro it was expressly explained to us that by "worth" they weren't talking money. So, I like the play on words, and well, with the new job and all, I sure wouldn't have made the cut if it was net worth for admission! Anyway, I met a number of women business owners who all work in my community, many of whom, even after all of my involvement in politics, I had never met. Women who are successful, and interesting, and who I could potentialy learn from and refer clients to. I am pleasantly surprised about what a success it was and I'm looking forward to working more to help this group grow and develop. I think I had to be the youngest woman there, which is neat because there is so much wisdom in the room, and so much for me to learn!

Girl Power!!