A friend brought to my attention today that I’ve been neglecting my messages and responding to ya’lls posts. Let me start by saying, my laptop is officially a $1000 paperweight.

 Best Buy is convinced it’s my fault somehow and they won’t repair it even though I’ve got a warranty. HP won’t touch it either without a $1300 repair bill.  The darn thing is less than a year old, barely paid off and all it can do is sit there looking shiny. It died about a week ago, so my lack of communications hasn’t been because I don’t care.

  I get ten minutes in the morning during breakfast to read all of my subscriptions (aka, your posts) and about 10 minutes in the evening to respond to what few emails/comments I can manage.  I’m in the midst of job hunting for our move to Texas so most of my internet time goes to applications and resumes.(thus why I’m not on instant messenger any more) I apologize greatly for the lack of concern I have shown in your personal lives.
 
Just to clear up any hard feelings, I’m not neglecting you intentionally. I’ve just not learned how to handle my desktop’s lack of portability/accessibility. I love you all and I *do* read you EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Your sweet messages and kind words make me smile while I drink my morning coffee.

 On a different note: People love gifts. The more expensive the gift, the more precious it seems. Therefore, would you like a paperweight? I spent $1000 on it so it’s really special.

God bless you all.

I think it’s my lucky day. I logged onto my xanga twice and both times, I got the Michael Bolton song playing. What are *you* listening to right now? Do you know the odds of that are only 1/60? Damn, I rock!

Today, we’re ten weeks into our pregnancy and the doctor told me the baby is officially the size of a kumquat.  I blinked my eyes in suprise at her… “You actually think people know what a kumquat is?”

The doctor put me on the scale. “You’ve lost a pound since our last visit. That’s normal when women experience high levels of nausea.. Blah blah blah” I couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying. In my head, an inner monologue was playing, done by the movie voice-over guy.

*thrilling background music*

Movie Guy: “She was no stranger to tempation. More than once, last weekend she had succumbed to her mother-in-law’s evil attempts to make her waistline grow.”

Mother-in-law: “Here honey, have a second piece of banana cream pie. Smores after dinner? MWAHAHAHA.”

 All of that and still no weight gain. Try again Mother-in-law. Try again.

TEN WEEKS

Although he’s (the size of a kumquat) a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby now has completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature. If you could take a peek inside your womb, you’d spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.

Now I highly doubt the accuracy of that last line. If any of you have seen my two year old daughter and her “hair” you’d know there was not a single strand of peach fuzz on this baby. I share the DNA of a hairless rat apparently.

Onto more prudent matters. There are plenty of youtube videos out there that people tout as being the greatest ever. But I fully feel that this increases my liking of Barack Obama which only tells you as my faithful friend how important this video is. It’s also not derrogatory. See? I can be nice.  

“Oh, gasp! Life_by_us actually felt a moment where she liked Obama? Check the temperature of hell. It might have just frozen over.”

Feel free to view it:

There’s an alien in my belly. Apparently the alien hates red meat. And dairy. Salad is cool but absolutely NO pepperoni’s. (what? Pep’s *make* the salad.) Caffeine does NOTHING for me anymore so Baja Blast Mountain Dew is no longer my mother’s milk. Pregnancy sucks.

But red meat… Ugh, my nemesis. For HOURS after consumption, I’m laid up with indescribeable pain.

Dear Medium-Rare Steak,

I miss you. We’ll be together soon. Just let me get this hippie vegan out of my tummy.  I’ll drench you in A1 sauce and we’ll prance together in a meadow.

I love you.

~Me

    Nine weeks  down, only 217 more days to go. With this baby update,  I’d like to offer a little advice to those of you who don’t have kids or who have just begun your child bearing journey. Although I’ve only been a parent for two years, my daughter makes up for YEARS of expertise. So  here are a few pearls I think you might enjoy.

1. Always keep your toilet bowls clean. You never know whose hands will end up in them. Or whose watch… or shoes…  purse, etc.

 <— best book ever.

2. Cold pizza isn’t just the ultimate hangover food from college.  Cold pizza crusts make great teething rings and it’s a great start for your child’s all-American diet.

3. Don’t be afraid of bugs, slugs,  frogs, small snakes  or other creepy things. Your kids won’t be and they will present these ‘gifts’ to you on a regular basis.

4. Anytime you hear a “thunk” sound  when your boy is a baby, you will get up to calm the screaming that ensues. Anytime you hear a “thunk” with an older boy and you don’t hear screaming, you will still have to get up. There’s usually a concussion. Or worse.

5. Tell them from an early age it’s okay to stand on toys and jump from high furniture. They’re going to do it anyway so save yourself from having to yell ‘no’ all the time. 

6. Hot objects attract small fingers with a magnetic quality.

7. If your children are not reliant on a pacifier, MAKE THEM become so. It’s the only on-demand silence you can have.

8. Bed time and nap time are golden.

9. When you feel like buying a drink from a trendy coffee place, get it iced with a straw so your child can have some too.  Caffiene puts children (under the age of puberty) to sleep. You deserve that.

10. As everyone already knows,  the BOX the toy comes in will inevitably be more fun to play with than the toy itself. The more expensive the toy = the more fun the box.

These tips, brought to you by the riveting: Life_By_Us

We’re nine weeks along today. Here’s what’s going on in my uterus.

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She’s starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they’ll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby’s heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic “tail” is completely gone. Your baby’s organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won’t be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks.

After almost two months of cleanup duty, the house was halfway back to normal. When you hear about a flood on the news it’s shocking for a few minutes… Maybe a day, maybe a week. But you ‘ll forget about it soon.  The victims don’t. I don’t think most people realize just how long it takes to rebuild your dreams and memories. Until now, I didn’t.  The photos you thought were all safely in the attic turned out to be in your bottom dresser drawer and of course, the water found them. Your baby’s baptism outfit, once pure white now stained red and brown form silt and sewer water. It’s never really the same.

     My family had been rebuilding their house for over eight weeks now. One thing after another struck: lousy contractors, false insurance promises, banks putting holds on checks.  It had been a disaster. This weekend, my husband and kids headed back to Indiana to help with whatever rebuilding project we could do. The task this week was installing wood floors. We managed to get almost half of the first floor’s flooring down, meaning after two months that they could finally have a real living room, a real dining room and half of a bedroom. Up until this point, five people have been crammed into the 800 sq ft upstairs living space. All meals have been cooked outside on the grill  with the exception of what could be cooked on the lonely butane burner they had set up on the garage’s work bench.  With this much of the flooring down, a couch is now able to sit in the living room and a family table is back in the dining room. It took two months. Did you even remember we’d been in a flood? 

   After two months, we pulled the kitchen table out of the storage unit and set it up. My mother in law made jokes about it, but I knew she was ecstatic about the level of normalcy she’d attained. We ate pork chops (a la grill)  and joked with each other for over an hour. We were a normal family again, eating off a real  table. No longer did we sit upon folding chairs around a card table or on the floor. We had a real meal with real chairs, and it set a great vibe for the rest of the house.

 Life ain’t so bad with a table. There’s great hope for the future.

 Okay, I’ve been accused of falseities on things I’ve stated before. I’ve had to stand corrected on a few “facts” and in other cases, I’ve said “BOOYAH” and sited my information.

 Now due to the upcoming presidential election, there is a ton of crap forwards going around bashing the republican and democratic candidates. Most of you are Republicans sending me crap falseties about Barack Obama. I am NOT a fan of the man, but if you’re  going to dislike someone and continue to forward on these emails, you need to be factually accurate. It’s  not Christian to spread rumors and lies, so just be intelligent in what you think and say about the man.

 www.Snopes.com seems to be pro-Obama site, but thus far has been semi balanced on the information they’ve provided.  

Gotten the letter forwarded from the soldier about Obama’s trip to visit the soldiers and ignored them to instead play basketball? 

Snopes.com  claims it to be false. However, he did refuse to visit the sick and wounded tent if his camera  and photography crew could not accompany him. Answer here.

The book of Revelation warns about the anti-christ being a “man of muslim decent, mid fourties with persuasive language whom nations will flock to.”

False. OH come ON! If you’ve read the book of Revelations, you’ll know it reveals very little aside from  hints and sly prophecies that are hard to pin down ANY specific facts. God won’t just HAND US a brochure of the end times and He certainly didn’t warn us about Obama being any of those things.  Neither Revelations nor Nostradamus came even close to mentioning Barack  being the anti-christ. I don’t like the guy, but that one is just nuts. Answer here.

Obama  took the American flag off his personal airplane when he did a $500,000 repaint of the outside?

True, and it befuddles me..

Before: 

After:

 This is actually against standard international air traffic laws. But in the most recent  photos taken from multiple angles, there is no American flag. It’s required so that you are easily identified as threat or friend while in airspace and is required by all nations.  The other thing that bothers me is, he took a red white and blue symbol of his name and placed it on the plane instead. Is this what our new flag will look like once he’s in office? Answer here.

Obama took his congressional oath on the Quran?

False. There *was* another Muslim congressman who did so, but it was not Obama. Answer here.

Native Americans dubbed Obama “Walking Eagle” at a sit down dinner.

Funny joke, sure. But it’s false.  The same was passed around about John Kerry and George Bush in  the last campaign. BTW, if you’re unfamiliar with a punch line, they supposedly dubbed him so because “bird too full of sh*t can’t fly. Must walk.” Answer here.

Seen the picture of Obama during the National Anthem  where he does not place his hand over his heart?

True. There are actually several pictures of Obama in several circumstances where he doesn’t place his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Alliegance or the National Anthem. But lately, several photographs have been ciculating of him WITH his hand on his heart.  I guess he got wise?  Answer here

Michelle Obama’s college thesis has been made unavailable by Princeton until the day after the election.

True.  Michelle Obama write her thesis on the differences between white students and African-American students. Princeton, (trying to cover her  from having to face public scrutiny) took the matter off of public records. Funny, we can hear all about Cindy McCain and her good deeds (here) but we can’t  even look at Michelle Obama’s works. Answer here.

Now I’m not saying McCain and his wife are perfect or even that they were my first choice. I’m also NOT defending Obama. But if you’re going to dislike the man, make sure it’s for a valid reason and not just because he is full of crap thinks he’s the messiah of change. 

We had a sonogram yesterday revealing that we’re 8 weeks as of today.  In 12-15 weeks we can find out the sex of the baby. Wanna make a bet?

 I’m betting it’s a girl. Scientifically speaking, (sperm vs time of conception vs egg dropping) it has a higher percentage of being a girl. Also,  I’ve been a royal b*tch to my poor husband. Hormones being rampant? Good chance that it’s a girl.  Fortunately, Derek’s  taking it pretty well… Except in the middle of a heated fight when I suddenly smile and say,

“Um… Honey.. I’m not mad anymore. Hormones. Sorry.” I think he secretly wants to kill me, then.

 So our baby is as long as a peanut right now, according to the sonogram. As you all know, I’m a huge pro-lifer advocate so stick around. I’ll prove to the world that there’s more than just a blob of cells in there.

Here’s the two month baby belly pic:

HAHA! Just wait until these start getting gross. About the time  I hit 6 or seven months, you  won’t even want to look at the pics. The belly’s all stretchy and gross. Kinda like the Alien movies.

New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby’s hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his “tail” is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven’t developed enough to reveal whether you’re having a boy or a girl. Either way, your baby — about the size of a kidney bean — is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can’t feel it.

 I kissed my husband goodbye and stood at the back door letting the dogs use the restroom outside. I walked back into the house and as soon as the door latched, the screams began.  With the blood curdling yells, I just knew the Boogeyman had come out of the closet and was mauling my children. I hiked up the stairs listening to the strange sounds coming from the baby monitor, swung open the door and was surprised at the absence of blood. As I assessed the situation, I came to this understanding:

After 30 minutes of laying in her bed, Caity had decided she was NOT going to take a nap.  She  squeezed between the 10 inch gap of the wall and the safety railing and hopped over to her brother’s dresser. She reached up and knocked over the most interesting looking baby album- onto Aidan’s head. Aidan began screaming. 

 To make the baby stop screaming, she  reached through the bars of his crib and  took the book.

“Baby, bonk  you head?” (which I heard on the monitor.) I know this to be true due to the binder shaped imprint on Aidan’s forehead. At this point she must’ve heard me hiking up the stairs and scrambled back into her own bed. Due to the gap being so small, she stumbled and landed face first into the wooden bars of her crib (putting bar shaped imprints on her own head.) and hid the book under the covers.  Now they’re both screaming.  At this point, I swing the door open  noticing odd markings on everyone’s head. I check the closet: Nope. Boogeyman’s not home.

 I pick up my son and soothe him, but out of the corner of my eye, I see his album peeking out from Caity’s covers.  Through her heavy sobs and bar-scarred forehead, she heaves,

“Baby, *gasp* bonk *sob* you head…?” I pick up the book and glare at my daughter who is suddenly perfectly fine, looks up at me and cheerfully responds,
“Mommy, wead it?”

 Days like this call for a drink. Isn’t it five o’clock somewhere?

By VaultESL

1) The Republican Version

It’s my birthday, and I finally got to see Batman.(ROCKED) I got fancy perfume and a couple outfits. I ate till I was physically ill at Chili’s last night. It was perfect.

But let’s get back to politics.

It’s human instinct to place blame on someone else when you know you’ve screwed up. Trace the roots back to the very first human beings on the planet: Adam and Eve. Adam said, “Duh, but Eve said I should eat the apple.”
And Eve said, “Nuh uh!! The snake told me to do it!”

“Fix me now. My life is going to hell, and I need someone to blame.” So let’s blame the government. Do you agree? No? Well, you should. After all, you took out too big of a mortgage on your house and now you expect  the government to fix it.  Didn’t pay attention in school? Got poor grades and didn’t go to college? Now you have a lousy job with crappy wages and someone should do something about it. Who’s the current scapegoat? Oh yeah. The government should fix this.

  Thirty years ago we blamed all of our troubles on the Russians. (during the Cold War.)  In the 90′s, everyone told Maury Povich how badly their parents had screwed them up. Now we need a new scapegoat. Who ever takes personal responsibility these days?  So what  if I bought a brand new car? Oh wait… I can’t afford health insurance for my family.  The government should be taking care of this.

  I seriously wish just once I could hear someone say, “I traded in my car for a smaller, slightly older car and got rid of my satellite TV so I can make ends meet. I don’t want to default on my loans so I’m going to take responsibility for my checkbook. I want a better paying job so I’m going to go to take evening classes and further my education.”

Ewww… Responsibility. What a dirty word. Nope. Instead, we’ll play the blame game.  Someone else should fix this. It’s so easy to be mad at the president or congress  because they’re imperfect figure heads. Being that they’re imperfect, why couldn’t I blame my problems on them? So we shall. And since we have a liberal congress who’s trying to elect a liberal president, they’ll tell us what we want to hear. They’re going to fix all of our problems. So what if they tax the hell out of us to do it. So what if our taxes jet so sky high to raise government spending  that we can’t afford  that car, that satellite, the mortgage, etc… Or is this a little bit of foresight?

Think about it and wish me happy birthday.
I baked strawberry cupcakes and I’ll share them with you. =)