It's a long wait for the turning clock Another seven quick takes (I'm totally not original ATM. sorry?). And also, (for those of you who don't like that sort of thing) sorry for the fact that it's mostly baby news - seriously, it's the all consuming thing in my life right now, so if it weren't for that I wouldn't have any blog fodder.
I am ready for Christmas. I have all my shopping done, all the gifts to my family mailed, and the last of the non-family gifts get mailed today (they will be a little late... sorry). I have everything wrapped, and expect for a couple of small stocking things, I'm not waiting on any more packages. Yay!
My boss organized a surprise baby shower for me this week, which was awesome. Now I have more baby stuff, including some stuff to decorate the nursery. Yay!
That same day, I got a huge box of baby stuff from William and Kim. Because they are awesome. Now I'm goign to spend Christmas week trying to organize this stuff, so I can find it all when I need it.
Went to the baby doctor yesterday, and it looks like the baby is already starting to drop. Which doesn't mean that it will come early, but means that things are moving in the right direction at least. We go in for an ultrasound on Christmas Eve, to get an idea of the baby's size and position. Yay! If the baby is big, we have to figure out the best course of action (induce early? c-section? tough it out?), and if the baby isn't big, I have to figure out why I've gained 50 pounds, and what I'm going to do with the extra weight when I'm no longer pregnant, lol.
I started this pregnancy with the greatest ideals... no induction unless there's a serious medical reason, no c-section except for the same, and I absolutely would not have them induce me early unless it was a life-or-death thing. Somewhere along the way, though... I got tired. And now I'm like... "OMG, big baby? Sure, induce. Tomorrow would be awesome. Unless you can do it today. Do you think cutting the kid out of me would be better?" Not that I think it will come to that... but I'm just tired. I'm tired of being tired all the time, and of not being able to tie my own shoes, or walk up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing, or get up from a chair without doing some weird back bend thing to rearrange my center of gravity. And I want to eat a rare steak. And some sushi. But it'll be like, a seriously long time before I can do either - maybe for Christmas next year or something. Blah.
I go to Babies R Us this weekend to get the last big piece of baby furniture (I have good coupons, yay!) - this one's a dresser / changing table. And I'll put off buying everything else until after my shower at church on the 4th :-)
My family, and possibly Chad's family, will be in in early February, which will be nice (but also interesting, as they may be here at the same time, and there could be interesting family dynamics there). And yeah, I'm a little nervous about my mother's parenting style clashing with mine, and the same for my mother-in-law. Hopefully, I'll make it through the visit without being told that I'm doing it wrong (in my head, this is said lolcat style: UR DOIN IT WRONG!). We shall see.
Head over to Conversion Diary if you want to read more seven bullet updates from random people, lol.
I guess that I was hoping / that you'd finally understand The six month curse has stuck again. And interestingly enough, it wasn't me.
In other news, we're trying to tie down our cruise plans for the summer... so if you're interested in cruising, let us know kinda soon. We're looking at going the second week of May. And possibly leaving from Galveston.
This weekend I may try to catch either the CSI exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science, or the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. I feel the need to go experience some culture of some kind. If the museums don't work out, maybe I'll talk Chad into going to the movies with me or something.
Right and left it's all the same conspiracy / just cause you ask, doesn't make a difference to me Did my civic duty and voted yesterday. Not that it really mattered much... I always was one to go for the under dog :-) I had an unrelated excuse to work from home, so I was able to go to the polls at an off-peak time, and mostly avoid the lines. This also meant that I was the only person in my party at the polls who was under, like, 100 years old. (This probably holds true for the other party, as well, but I didn't sneak over to their side of the building to look)
I went to the first meeting of that Tuesday night women's bible study last night... it looks like it's going to be a good group, but (as of last night) there isn't really anyone my age. And I'm the only one without kids. But everyone seemed happy to have me there anyway. Interestingly enough, there was a woman there who had recently moved from Starkville. So we sat and talked about places we ate and shopped in Starkville, and where exactly we lived.
Somehow, the year has gotten away from me. I was pretty sure it was still the middle of January, and then people started asking me what I want for my birthday, and reminding us to nail down our summer travel plans (since we're looking at traveling in May)... How did it get to be March already?
The sky starts to crash the rain on the roof starts to drumming I managed to take an hour for lunch again today… I went to Target, and bought Propel and paper towels. Which is entirely uninteresting, but saves me a stop on the way home.
Chad and I bought two apple trees this weekend. One for the front yard, and one for the back. We managed to plant the one in the front, but planned to do the one in the back yard tonight. Unfortunately, no one told the weatherman this, and now we're under a thunderstorm warning. So it'll have to be Wednesday, as I think we're both busy tomorrow night. And tonight, maybe I'll read or something… or at least pick out a book to bring to work tomorrow. I'm currently in the middle of several (which is typical), so I need to decide which one I want to finish next. Slowly but surely, I’m working through my "to read" list.
The best thing you've ever done for me / Is to help me take my life less seriously I actually took a lunch today. As in, I packed my lunch and took it to work (this in and of itself isn't unusual these days), and then (and this is the amazing part) I stopped what I was doing for an hour and took a lunch break.
I did it yesterday too.
The sad thing is, neither of those two breaks were actually used for eating... I still ate over my computer, while working (or attempting to, at any rate). Yesterday, I took the break to run down to Half Price Books and look around, specifically for a little journal-type book to use for the bible study thing -- I found one that will work great, I think, and in addition to that I found another journal that has graph paper instead of lined paper. Who thought of that? And why didn't they call me when they did? I bought it, with no specific purpose at the moment. I just miss writing on graph paper -- and today's break was spent reading (with my office mate out of the office, I could shut the door and enjoy some quiet for an hour, reading the Time Traveler's Wife. Except it wasn't really quiet, as I share an office wall with someone who projects very loudly into the phone, mostly about finance, and am around the corner from someone else who also projects into the phone (and at people in person), mostly about travel arrangements).
I might continue to take real lunch breaks. Until such time as I have too much work to do to really enjoy them (which will be, you know, right before the next big deadline). Not sure about the reading thing though... might have to take it outside, at the very least. Not just to escape the loud phone people, either. I forgot that 9/10 of my reading time is in bed, right before (and sometimes slightly after) bedtime, so when I finished my hour and stood up to open the door, I thought I was going to fall over. I didn't, but I'm still not sure if the lightheadedness had to do with the reading, being stationary for too long, or was just a fluke.
Actually, this week has been really easy, work-wise. Which is a nice change after last week, where I was rushing to get everything ready for user testing and trying not to die in the process (In the end, everything was ready, and I'm not dead yet). I attended a conference for two days, and spent some time tying up a few loose ends that slipped through the cracks last week. Since then, I've actually been inventing work to do, as I was so busy last week I forgot to ask for extra work to do this week :-P
There's a lot in my head, and very little of it particularly blog-worthy.
Right or left, it's all the same conspiracy Having flexed my political activism muscles yesterday over the internet music debate, I wasn't planning to delve into the realms of politics again this soon... But yeah, I have something to say.
Read this, about Massachusetts' initiative to "make sure everyone has health insurance". And everyone is praising it, and if it succeeds it could be a role-model for a national plan, etc.
But I don't see how they are helping. Telling people to get insurance, or risk paying a fine probably isn't going to get great results (look at how many motorists don't have insurance in states that require it -- and the fines for not haveing car insurance are much much higher)... And what about people who can't afford health insurance? I mean, there is a substantial SES demographic that falls between the "I'm so poor I rely on the state to provide my basic needs (and healthcare)" bracket and the "I have enough money to get by (and buy insurance)" bracket. Simply telling people to get insurance isn't going to help.
Asking insurance companies to play nice, probably not going to help either. I mean, really. Plus... if you forced the insurance compies to comply and insure *everyone* who applied... They will raise rates.
Having the government provide health insurance isn't the way either... honestly, I don't want to spend my tax money paying for druggies and alcoholics and people who are otherwise screwing around with their health (any more than it already does).
So the answer? No idea. I agree the healthcare system is broken... but I don't think that either a) mandating health insurance for everyone or b) providing government health insurance for everyone is the answer.
The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota/ at a place where you could walk across with five steps down
My keywords are not working exactly as I would like them to. So weird. Don't know how to fix it.
Settled on a d20 character idea. Already having fun with it. (and we haven;t started playing yet). Chad says I'm evil, but he's enjoying it, too.
I will never never never understand women. So don't call and ask me for advice on how to figure them out. 'Cause yeah, I don't know. Don't have a clue. On the other hand, if you figure them out, by all means let me know.
It's funny, when you're used to coming in to work for like, 3 hours at a time, how much 8 hour days kinda suck. But that's ok... 80 hour paychecks sure beat 10 hour paychecks.
I need to learn XML, which to this point I've never bothered with. I'm considering renewing my Safari subscription to gain access to some books... but not sure. It's kinda pricy (about $20 a month for the base rate, $40 a month for unlimited). Maybe I should check out what ACM has to offer, as I've already paid my dues for the year (ouch! I forgot how much dues were once you added in SIG memberships and transactions, etc).
Um. Yeah. Still totally addicted to LotRO. Started running quests with my secondary... the thing that annoys me the most? It takes freakin' forever to get somewhere. Like, anywhere. I spend more time running than anything else.
I dream like a mad one... Had strange, strange dreams last night.... all the more strange that I can't remember them. I know they included my mom, Brian, Chad, and some random subset of people I knew/know from State. But I can't really put my finger on anything else about them, other than they were strange. Bits and peices are coming back to me, though, but none of it makes sense. And it's kind of annoying, cause I'll be reading a journal article, and all of a sudden I'm like, What the hell were we doing driving Hil's car? And how did we all fit? And where were we going? And then of course, I have totally lost track of what I was reading.
The sky pours out biblical rain / Then days so still the beauty gives you pain [whining] My back still hurts. [/whining] Nothing new there.
It's really freakin' cold here. Just in case you wondered. We're too far south to have gotten a lot of the ice and stuff, but cold cold rain... yeah, not much fun. They closed Rice this morning (when I didn't have class), but are open all afternoon (when I have class).
But this (nsfw!) made me laugh today... Because I am sick and wrong. But then, I suppose, that's why I read PennyArcade.
Also, for like, the first time ever, I'm totally ahead on homework. Not only am I ahead... I've been ahead for two days. Yeah, really. I finished everything yesterday that was due this week... got assigned a new homework yesterday afternoon, and finished it just a few minutes ago. So yeah. I might get to enjoy my weekend (well.... I know I'm going to get assigned a pile of journal articles to read over the weekend. But it was a nice thought).
I had to learn the hard way... Um. So yeah, Bob the Builder. But now, make that a midget pr0n version of Bob the Builder. (Someone warned me that this existed, and I didn't believe them. I had to see it for myself, which was probably dumb, and has probably scarred Chad for life).
Anyway. Had a great night tonight. Ate dinner (ribs and chicken) with David and Nichole, went to see Night at the Museum, almost ate donuts, and now I'm killing itme on the internet, proving to myself that mankind truely has descended to a point where people find a reason to post pictures of midgets wearing bob the builder hats and posing in um, very interesting positions. I'm just saying, I didn't think we'd fallen quite that far yet... but I was wrong. The intarweb is a strange and scary place. And on that note (and before I see anything else scary or wrong), I'm going to bed.
It's funny what you know and still go on pretending With no good evidence you'll ever see that happy ending
I'm in love with my mobility... But I'm not in love with my car. *sigh*. My car is old and busted, and long past the point of repairing it... so I'm stuck with an oil leack until I can buy another (January, methinks). So if you hear of a cheap car for sale... point me in that direction. The requirementas are as follows:
It has to be low maintanece. Not like me :-)
It probably should be low mileage. See #1.
It has to have a driver-accessible cup holder that will easily hold a 24 oz bottle. Two cupholders is a bonus.
It has to have a cigarette lighter port that isn't blocked by the ashtray, so I can actually use the damn thing.
It has to be a manual. I'm serious. No automatics.
If it happened to be sleek and sexy, or cute, or would make me look hot, that would be an added bonus
Yeah. In other news, I rode the Metro rail for the first time evar today. Yay for public transportation! (Not that it goes to my house.... but I had a ride into downtown, and the rail stops right next to Rice). This may become a much more regular occurence. Which is awesome. Somehow, carpooling and then riding the Metro makes me fell like a "city girl". Which is funny, as I've never really been a city girl.
PS... 10 cool points (would have used blog points, but those were taken) to whoever can name the song that my last three post titles (excluding the RenFest one) came from. I predict David will be the only one to guess it... but I know that at least one more person out there has access to a copy of this song. :-)
I was hellbent on agony back then... been listening to old mp3s. brings back old memories... both good and bad. Mostly from Freshman year, but some before and after that.
I did some crazy stupid stuff back then. Fun, mostly, but crazy and stupid. And... well... not always fun, come to think of it. lol. Like the time Mike ran into a tree, and got a concussion, and we had to take him to the Oktibbeha Coutny ER (for those of you who have never been there... this is like, the smallest "trauma" center ever. Ask me about it sometime)... And Hil freaked out...
Or the time that Hil, Louis, Grey, Joe and I all went out to Dorman Lake for a Mudslide Party (the drink... not the wet dirt)... and Joe was busy hating Louis for hitting on Hil, and Hil was busy being oblivous, and Grey was disgusted with the whole situation... and then we ran out of ice cream, so Grey and I drove like, 45 minutes round trip to the nearest store, and by the time we got back everyone else was drunk, so we all ended up just going home.
Yeah. Lots of random crap. Some of which I had forgotten... Interesting, I suppose, if nothing else.
Random note to self... typing on a Z-board is annoying. Remember to switch out keysets before blogging.
My regrets become distractions when I cannot do them justice So I dug up my old laptop hard drive tonight, in search of a couple of mp3s. Yeah, my hard drive from like, years ago. Talk about a blast from the past... Found some funny, funny stuff though, including:
About 6.5 gig of mp3s of my favorite songs from my u-grad years... and I still know all the words :-)
The start of a short story based on a character that I developed from Chad's D&D players handbook back when I was still avoiding playing D&D like the plague.
Mathematical proof that Chad is evil.
A meme type list of random facts about me at the time.
Chat logs from forever ago. Funny funny stuff. Including a conversation I had with "John Glenn". Ha. Bet you didn't remember that, did you? Well... it is saved for all posterity. On my hard drive.
Pictures of people (Willer Lite, Sbbn, Mikie (pre marriage and children).... among others).
Proof that Chad is evil (I can't help it....)
**** THE PROOF THAT Chad Hammons IS EVIL ****
C H A D H A M M O N S 67 72 65 68 72 65 77 77 79 78 83 - as ASCII values 4 9 2 5 9 2 5 5 7 6 2 - digits added \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ \_________/ 4 7 2 1 6 - digits added
Thus, "Chad Hammons" is 47216.
Turn the number backwards, and add 38 - the symbol of slavery. The number is now 61312.
Subtract 5181 from the number - this is the year first commercial cheese factory was established, written backwards. It gives 56131.
Subtract 1964, the year Beatles with "Can't buy me love" topped the charts in a very mysterious way. The result will be 54167.
Subtract 1927, the year Fidel Castro was born. The result will be 52240.
Turn the number backwards, subtract 1904 - the year Oppenheimer, the man who created the atomic bomb, was born. The number is now 2321.
This, when read backwards, gives 1232. This is 666 in octal, the number of the Beast...
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
