My dog, I think, is seriously mentally challenged. I have mentioned how he won't leave me alone, and believe it or not it's getting worse. But can someone explain to me why he won't eat or drink unless I am standing in the same room? I mean, I can leave a room with human food unattended for .03 seconds and he will eat anything and everything he can shove in his face...but when it comes to his food and water I have to be present to witness the beast at the trough. And the sound of him drinking water is enough to make me want to kill someone...it's like nails on a chalkboard. I have tried everything. I have tried putting it on the deck and I've tried leaving the room immediately after filling it up...he's like a damn camel, he won't drink for days...it was a battle of wills...and he won. It was either I win and he dies of dehydration or I give in and stand there and plug my ears. What an ass.

It is so hot and gross outside. Summer is the bane of my existence. I would give anything if we had a pool. No way am I going to take my big pregnant self to a public pool right now. Besides, there isn't one anywhere near me anyway. Mark my words: one of these days I am going to have a pool in my backyard. Yeah I know they are a lot of upkeep, blah blah, but that is what pool boys are for. I will gladly work that in my budget and give up things like food and clothes. Who needs food when I need to be skinny in a bathing suit anyway? That solves the clothes problem, too.

Oh- I put this on my Facebook this morning that I heard Spandau Ballet has reunited. Seriously, wtf? That ship has sailed. Like, a quarter of a century ago. Move on.

Lastly- I am married to a 14 year old boy. Today when Hub had to call AT&T he told the automated operator several, progressively worse, x-rated requests when she asked what he was calling for. She responded with "I don't understand your request."  Eventually she said "I am forwarding your request to an operator." That's when he lost his balls and hung up. I can just see this poor girl getting that fed into her headset.  

(you know, as opposed to 2 birds with one stone...)  My only attempt at being clever today.

Anyway- good times at the Brown backyard last night. My curious little boy all of a sudden walked over to a small tree in our back yard and started shaking it "to make some leaves fall down". But he got more than he bargained for when 3 baby robins plopped down instead. The 3 baby birds scurried a little and then immediately just froze...in terror, I assume.

Hub and I sat there for a minute on the deck and laughed, trying to figure out what to do next. The mama and papa robin's were sitting on the fence, doing the same thing, except they weren't laughing, they were squawking hysterically. Jacob stood in the yard, watching the birds in amazement.

Finally I say ok...I'm going to go get some gloves...we have to put them back. They were clearly too small to get up there on their own, and it would only be a matter of time before the neighbor's cat or my stupid dog wants a snack. 

Speaking of my stupid dog...it was all going pretty well until he decided he was going to go investigate the birds and perhaps eat one, because as soon as his mouth got within range of one of the babies, the parents went completely apeshit and started dive bombing anything and everything they saw as a threat, not only the dog, but Jacob, me and Hub as well. We all ran up on the deck and started to map out our next course of action. By this time, before the mayhem began, we had managed to get one of the babies back up in the nest. 2 to go.

But the parents were flying around like rabid beasts, clearly not aware that they were about 1/1000th of our size. Any time we went near them they attacked. I figured we had to go on the attack as well, to get them far enough away, or at least distracted enough so that we could save the babies. So naturally I sent Jacob to fetch the broom, and this is where it gets good. I am sure the neighbors got a nice treat, watching a pregnant woman manically waving a broom around trying to fight off two really pissed off robins while her husband is running around the yard trying to capture two terrified babies. Anyway- teamwork prevailed, and we were able to get them back home safe and sound....although I suspect that they all immediately died of cardiac arrest as soon as the whole ordeal was over.

I am SO over baby birds this year. They seriously need to go find somewhere else to live.

I've been working on the baby's room a lot, becoming a little obsessed actually. I have at least 3 months to go, so I don't really know why I'm being so gung-ho about this except:

a. it's fun
b. I feel pretty good now and I know I won't later so I want to get it done before I'm too blimpy and lethargic
c. I want to have it pretty & perfect so I can enjoy it and anxiously await...

Anyway...here's what it looks like so far:

 


So as you can see I still have some work to do but it's coming along! (Incidentally, that was my dresser when I was a little girl. Aww.)

Anyway. It needs some personality. I've been rug and curtain shopping with not much luck. I think I might just go with plain white curtains, I found these at Target that have ruffles and swiss dots....I will probably get them. But then I found these cute dot ones...

 

As for the rug, I just don't know. Maybe dots... I found a few that are ok but nothing I love:




And then there's the wall art. Probably some letters like these for whatever his name is...(not Brendan)


Then I thought I'd take some photographs I took of my friendly neighborhood cows and blow them up and have them printed in black and white and framed...



Other than that, I don't know yet. Probably some paintings...my sister is an artist and I might ask her to do something original for him. I saw a couple online, abstract, fun cow paintings....something like that might be cute but I don't want to over-do the cow thing.

So there you have it. My latest obsession. 

So I don't blog much anymore for those who have noticed. I just am not feeling it. I feel like I am such a negative person lately and who wants to read that? I'm going to do it today anyway. If you don't want to hear me complain, you should just stop reading now. Although I might be able to muster up some fun and positivity once my fingers start tapping away on the keys. You never know...

1. WHAT am I going to do with all this stufffff? The baby's room is coming along nicely, albeit slowly. While I was in Memphis this week my sweet husband, without being nagged asked, did the following:

-painted the nursery
-brought down the crib from the attic, in 30982305838 pieces
-brought down all the newborn clothes/blankets, etc
-washed said items
-notified me that he washed them "in that baby detergent stuff", and when I raised an eyebrow because we don't have any of that "baby laundry detergent stuff", he informed me that he made a special trip out to the store to buy some. This surprised me for so many reasons, but mostly because I didn't even think that he knew such a detergent existed, much less the importance of it.

I was so moved by him doing this stuff without me asking and he laughed and said "Well I think I'm nesting."  lol. So cute.

Mom rant: for the record, I'm not a nutcase about washing all of baby's stuff in ridiculously expensive, specialized baby laundry detergent, however, I think it is vitally important at least in the very beginning to not bombard perfectly pure skin with harsh detergents, dyes and perfumes. That being said, once this first bottle of baby detergent is gone and I'm sure he has been properly exposed to all of those things, I will never buy it again and he can suffer with the Tide like the rest of us.

ANYWAY- back to my original problem of the STUFF. The baby's room was my guest room and goodfreakinglord I had a lot of crap in there....which is now spilled out around the rest of my house, and is subsequently making me want to throw myself in front of a bus. I want to have a yard sale but it's SO much work. Can't I just open up the doors to my house and sell anything and everything anybody wants?

Moving on.
2. Since my child won't eat ANYTHING I have become one of those parents-I-never-thought-I'd-be and stopped and got him a Happy Meal before I had lunch with my girlfriend the other day at a restaurant that didn't have a kids menu. (Note: he didn't eat any of the Happy Meal anyway.)

I was really annoyed when we got to the restaurant and noticed that there wasn't a toy in the Happy Meal. WTF, McDonald's? Who do you think you are? That was my plan for entertaining him at the restaurant while we ate and talked. Instead of a toy, like they have done since the BEGINNING OF TIME, there was a CD in the bag. Gee thanks. Not only was it a stupid ass CD, it was a KIDZ BOP CD.  For f*ck's sake!!!! The thing I hate most in the world. Kidz Bop. Are you freaking kidding me? Of course it was too late to dispose of the evidence, he saw it and immediately informed me that we would be listening to it as soon as we got in the car.

KILL. ME. NOW.

Whyyyyyyy why why why why is it necessary to ruin perfectly good songs by having annoying children singing them and adding random, high pitched and obnoxious "WOOOOOH!"s or "YEAHHHHHHHH!"s during the middle of the song? WHY? Parents, why can't you teach your children to appreciate music by original artists??? I would understand if it was related to bad language or whatnot, but these are just regular, G-rated songs! 

That being said, I'm not sure I'd rather listen to Fergie sing Big Girl's Don't Cry over the annoying children, but that's for another day. What am I going to do? Maybe it will get lost or broken before I have to pick him up today.

3. My hair. Ugh. Yes I am going to complain about my hair again. I had a gift card to use in Memphis and while I was there I figured I'd go get my hair done because I didn't really have the $150 it would have cost me to do it here. :-(

BIG MISTAKE. It was a disaster from beginning to end. In a nutshell:
-Appointment was made at the wrong location. When I showed up at the spa/salon location, they informed me that my appointment was at their satellite location...AT THE MALL. Oh God. I should have known to just run away then.
-The place was filthy.
-She ruined my hair.
-She spent 4 hours trying to fix it
-She didn't fix it
-She then asked for a tip

So now, instead of my really pretty light auburn hair with blond streaks, I am back to having hair as dark as night, because that was the only thing she could do to fix it, to cover up the FIRE ENGINE RED color it was when she ruined it. I am not kidding when I tell you it looked like this:



I don't know who this girl is, but I appreciate her letting me borrow her picture from Google Images, which came up when I searched for FIRE ENGINE RED HAIR.

So after she "repaired" that, now I have short dark hair. Which is not bad, I've had it this color before and it's really pretty I guess, but it's not what I wanted. So yay now I get to save up $150 to go get it fixed, again, like I had to do after that great Dora incident. At least I don't have a Dora haircut now, but that is only after I made her re-do the haircut too because it was a disaster when she originally was finished.

I have more to say but this is too long as it is. Toodles.
 

I think I'll do my review of the Dave Matthews/Jason Mraz concert in a Top Ten form...just for fun.


Top Ten (or 6) Reasons Why Pregnant Women Should Not Attend Dave Matthews Concerts:

1. I have never felt so old, fat and pregnant in my entire life. Apparently, attending a DMB concert on a college campus can do that to a girl. Who knew? The standard uniform for all females in attendance was either a short strapless sundress or the tiniest shorts known to mankind. My Old Navy maternity jeans and black top (which I thought was cute until last night) had me feeling a bit self conscious. The average age seemed to be about 20. Thank God for the token too-old-to-be-there-lady-dancing-in-the-aisle that seems to be at every concert, she made me feel young.

2. Hazard #1: Navigating stadium bleachers with baby-in-tow, I did pretty well actually.
    Hazard #2: Being around extremely drunk people who are navigating stadium bleachers all around me. I had at least one drink spilled on me, possibly more, and a few people nearly ended up in my lap, but no major injuries to report except for a bruised toe that got stepped on once or twice.

3. Alternating between standing/dancing and sitting on cold backless bleachers for more than 4 hours might not have been such a great idea.

4. Then having to walk 3+ blocks back to the car was really not a good idea. I was cramping all over by the time I sat down in Hub's truck. He asked me if I needed a hospital. lol

5. I think my baby is going to be born with a drug problem, given the amount of second hand pot smoke I inhaled all night long. I felt like I was in high school again, except I wasn't actually high...and I'm pregnant. (although I had some friends in HS that were both)

6. I had NO PATIENCE for the people around me. This is normal, but I will blame my rage on hormones this time.

a) Why is there always a gaggle of annoying drunk females sitting directly in front of me that apparently paid $75 per ticket to sit there and talk (scream) to each other the entire concert? STFU already. I don't even think they liked the bands. The only time they showed interest in the music was when Mraz did "I'm Yours" and DMB did "Crash Into Me"...that's when they jumped up and started screaming ~ eyeroll ~ 

b) Two drunk boys sitting in front of us that were seirously on the verge of puking the entire show. Everyone around them moved away. And even though it was a no-smoking event, they kept lighting up, even though security came over three times and told them to knock it off. Normally I'm not a smoke-snob, do it, whatever, I don't freaking care, but for hours right in front of me with it blowing in my face.... GROSS. I was close to playing the pregnant lady card, but then I would just feel even more old and out of place than I already did...so I kept my mouth shut and hoped they would pass out. They didn't.

c) The PDA couple. I can't tell you how many times I had to see this girl shove her tongue down her boyfriend's throat. At one point she was on his lap. Oh, and her entire ass was showing. Every time she sat down you could see the entire back of her thong. I was hoping he would just take her to the bathroom and bang her so I wouldn't have to see her in heat anymore. It was so revolting.

7. I can't think of any more reasons...besides that...it was totally freaking awesome. They put on an amazing show. I am totally bummed though because they didn't play any of the handful of songs I would have killed to hear live. I found a set list website this morning and saw that they did my absolute favorite song ever (#41) the last two shows before this one. BOO!!!! Better luck next time.

We had a great time on our little trip to the Smoky Mountains. Jacob had a BLAST. Here's a bunch of pictures...

First GoKart adventure. He was in heaven. The look on his face was priceless. This was the highlight of his trip by far.


( More pictures behind the cut..... )

My life is boring. Nothing much to post.

My son is hilarious....some of the things he says seriously crack me up. None of which I can think of right now. I need to start writing them down as they happen.

I nearly had a nervous breakdown yesterday regarding the state of my house. I seriously cannot keep it clean, or even remotely orderly for more than approximately 10 minutes. And I have too much crap. So when I do try to clean, I have nowhere to put stuff. It's driving me CRAZY. I spent a long time yesterday cleaning out my closet and am donating a huge pile of stuff. It didn't help much, but at least I have more room to put the stuff I actually use.

The toy situation is maddening. He can't keep pieces of things together so everything just ends up a hodgepodge of tiny toy parts and it's going to be the death of me. I wonder sometimes if he would notice if I just went through them all one day while he wasn't home and got rid of 90% of this junk?

On the baby front...I picked out his bedding and decorated the nursery (in my head), and while it's not as cute as the pink and tangerine dream I had envisioned, I think it will be sweet and calm...something my house needs. Regarding names, he still does not have one. I have ONE possibility at the moment that I'm not ready to share because a) I honestly don't want opinions about it and b) It's just a "maybe" so I'd rather not discuss it at length and then have it stuck in my head and it just becomes his name as a default.  Regarding The Belly...I'm getting pretty pregnancy huge. But I went shopping for new maternity summer pants and I had to go DOWN a size from the two pair I bought in February before my cruise. I still haven't gained any weight yet my belly is getting enormous. How weird is that? By this time with Jacob I had probably gained at least 20 pounds.

Oh...and today I'm going here and will be here for the next couple of days:

http://www.goldenvalleyrentals.com/dream_angel.htm

88% of you said it was a girl, and 88% of you were...


Wrong. It's another boy.

I'm going for an ultrasound on Thursday...one of the local colleges here that trains ultrasound techs is offering free ones so I figured why not go a couple weeks early for a sneak peek? My 20 week scan at my doctor's office is in 2 weeks. Anyway......

Let's see what y'all think.

Poll #1383378
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

It's a...

We'll see who was right on Thursday. :)

Today Hub was going to grill burgers for lunch (for him, not me, I'm still on a meat-strike...ugh.) and came running inside...

"You HAVE to see this."

Hmm...ok, what is it, I wonder. With Jacob outside there is no telling, but it could be entertaining, so I went.

So I go on the deck and look at the grill...and see...



Hub's like "ha ha very funny, someone put hay in my grill."

Backstory- we have a neighbor friend who likes to play little jokes on Hub and vice versa...you know, trash can on the front porch, trash can upside down on the mailbox, Thanksgiving pilgrim yard art being positioned in not-so-innocent ways...that type of thing. So, bale of hay in the grill? Par for the course. What can I say, we live in the country, it's readily available.

But the he looks closer...



So...nice...apparently a flock of dinosaur birds has taken up residence in my grill. Look at the size of that nest! I also happen to love this second picture because if you look closely in both bottom corners, there is further proof that, AT ALL TIMES, I am followed around by at least 2 of the three males in this house. Bottom left: My son's foot. Bottom right: My dog's foot. Out of camera view: Hub right behind me.

Anyway- wtf is wrong with this bird? As she's house-hunting she apparently has a check list:
-Nice, open, spacious floor plan: Check! (seriously, this is a big grill.)
-Off the beaten path: Check!
-Nice schools: Check!
-Friendly neighbors: Check!

What she wasn't thinking about?
-The likelihood that at any given moment her new home would instantaneously burst into flames.

So what's any understanding and sympathetic mother like myself to do in this situation? Close the grill and stink up the house with pan-fried burgers. How long does it take for bird's eggs to hatch?

Random things because I have lost my writing mojo.

1. My child, like most men, has developed selective hearing. He can hear a candy wrapper rustling from across the house, and the garage door opening when Daddy comes home from a mile away, but things he cannot hear are:
a) The Cowboy Song. STILL, that song has to be "LOUD, Mommy, LOUD."
b) His cartoons. "I can't hear it. I can't hear it." ...until it's at a deafening level.
c) His name when I want something from him.

2. The pirate birthday party is tomorrow and it's turning into a huge ordeal, as I knew it would. As hard as I tried to keep it simple it has taken on a life of its own.

My inner dialog:

"The party will be from 2-4 so that leaves no place for food. Cake and ice cream for the kiddies. That's it."
But then I got to thinking and remembering that I am not capable of having people enter my home without offering them something yummy.
"Hmm..ok, I'll make some homemade salsa and homemade spinach artichoke dip for the parents/adults while the kids are having their cake and ice cream or while they're playing/treasure hunting. Cool."
...more obsessing ensues...
"Well that's not very nice. I can't have snacks for the adults and not the kids. I'll pick up some pretzels and Cheetos for the kids."
...a few days later...
"Crap, that's not very healthy or well-rounded at all. I'll get some fresh fruit and cheese and crackers..."

So now we have: cupcakes (which I have to make tomorrow), ice cream, 3 kinds of juice, Cokes, bottled water, pretzels, Cheetos, candy, Pirate Booty Popcorn, salsa, spinach artichoke dip, a cheese and fruit plate, BEER (because who can have a party without beer?), ...and I know I'm forgetting something.

Also, I still have to stuff a thousand metallic eggs for the pirate treasure hunt, "hide" them all in the backyard, and oh yeah, make the salsa and the spinach artichoke dip, cut up all the cheese and fruit, put together the goodie bags, decorate......

3. For the love of God, WHY am I still throwing up? And it's worse now, entering my 5th month, than it was in the beginning. I threw up in the car this morning after I took LG to school. Yeah, that was SO pleasant. It probably didn't help that I had just passed the body of a decapitated duck by the park that clearly didn't know how to wait his turn to cross the road. The sad thing is, the poor little guy bit the dust right there on the crosswalk. How can you not see a giant duck crossing the road where the speed limit is like 20 mph??? Anyway, yeah it was a gross morning all around.

4. Still no new car because we still have no tax return back yet.

5. I just want to sleep for days. :-(

6. Oh yeah...one more thing I'm heavily stressing about what to do with the influx of dogs my house is about to have. My one dog is hard enough to deal with on his own, but my sister is bringing her two miniature poodles and my mom is bring her miniature wiener dog. Kill me now. One of the poodles is brand spankin' new, too, and will probably crap all over my house.

is my little boy's birthday!! He's four. I can't believe it.

Something I noticed back when I had Jacob....

Being pregnant makes me a total freaking idiot. Like my brain just turns into Jello or something. I can't remember birthdays. I can't remember phone numbers. I can't remember dates...all things that *usually* I do exceptionally well.

Sometimes I even draw a blank on a word I'm searching for, something common and regularly used.

I spent all week making arrangements for a party I had to go to tonight. I spent a good portion of the day putting together my famous double chocolate triple berry trifle special for the occasion...I took a shower. I got dressed.

I called my friend to tell her I would be a little late.

She told me the party is tomorrow.

Well shit.

For anyone who is willing to answer a stupid ass question:

Jacob's birthday party is next Saturday (the 4th). I'm trying to think of at least one activity so that they will be somewhat contained and not running over all willy nilly the entire time, destroying my house. Since the following Sunday is Easter...

Would it be TOTALLY stupid to have the kids (4-5 year olds) dye Easter eggs and/or have an Easter egg hunt at a Pirate birthday party? Or is that way too hodgepodge-ish and completely weird?

PS, if I did the egg hunt, the eggs would be stuffed with pirate goodies, not Easter candy.

Didn't anyone see this on Friday? Why hasn't anyone bought me Coldplay tickets yet? God.

I haven't been sleeping well lately, I've been puking like crazy, but on the plus side I've lost weight. I weigh less now than I did when I got pregnant. So anyone wants to lose weight? Just get pregnant. (Please don't lecture me, that was a joke. I'm not doing it on purpose, besides I have enough to spare.)

I had a dream last night the baby was a girl. I had always heard that whatever you dream about the baby will be the opposite, but with Jacob I dreamed he was a boy and sure enough...so I guess we'll see.

We went out for Mexican food yesterday, my favorite, and I could hardly eat it. The chicken in the enchiladas was totally grossing me out and I nearly had to leave the table a couple of times. I haven't been able to cook chicken since I got pregnant, but ordering it and having it brought to me was usually ok, until now. I think I'm off chicken until further notice. Last night all I could make myself eat was bread. :-/

My sister is coming to visit this weekend, just her. Which is weird because she's never done that before, but should be fun. She wants to scrapbook all weekend. Good luck with that. lol I told her she can do it all she wants but I will not be joining her ALL weekend.

Then next weekend is Jacob's birthday party. I have the cutest pirate stuff. I can't wait, it should be so fun.

Anyway- yeah, I'm still feeling very blah. Maybe my blogs will become more exciting soon. Sorry. :-(

Edited to add my fancy new widget, for anyone that wants to take a peek at what my fetus looks like. :)

1. I just ordered tickets for Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz on April 25th!!! I wasn't going to go, because nobody wanted to go with me (wtf is wrong with people) and Hub haaaates going to concerts, but then I looked on ticketmaster.com and found some gooooood seats right by the stage and had a "what the hell" moment and 3 minutes later they were mine, all mine. :-)

The plan? I'm not sure yet, but I think it will consist of bribing Hub in some way, shape or form, or if it comes down to it, I will threaten him. Anyway- he's taking me, and he will like it. I have *never* made him take me anywhere he didn't want to go (except for one bad Manheim Steamroller Christmas Concert that I even was miserable at, but the tickets were free.) (He still hasn't let me forget that.) Anyway, this is NOT Manheim Steamroller, this is DAVE MATTHEWS for crying out loud. Who wouldn't enjoy that? Except for my music-hating husband. :-( 

Oh- also, this assures me that I will not be getting a birthday present this year either, but I'm ok with that because this is my favorite band that I have always wanted to see live.

2. During THAT, I see that Coldplay is coming June 6. OMG I want to go sooooooo bad, but no way can we afford that, especially after this little expenditure. IF ANYONE THAT READS MY BLOG IS SUPER RICH AND LOVES ME, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BUY ME TICKETS TO COLDPLAY ON JUNE 6. xoxoxoxo

3. My boy is going to be FOUR in less than two weeks. I can't believe it. We're having a Pirate Party, so that should be fun. He's so excited. I'm trying to think of some kind of fun/original/non-lame activity we can do and I'm coming up short. It's just going to be a handful of kids there so nothing will get out of control. It's going to be here at the house. If the weather is nice they'll probably play outside, but I still think I should have something planned. I thought about a treasure map thingy, but they're only 4-5 years old, I don't think they'd really get it. Ideas? Suggestions?

4. I have the only dog in the world that can manage to break the Dyson made ESPECIALLY for hairy animals. Seriously, he just walks around and you can see the hair flying off him. It's disgusting. My Dyson BROKE because it was so full of his hair, and I don't mean the container. Like all the insides were just clogged up with blobs of yellow Graham-hair. If DYSON can't make an ANIMAL HAIR VACUUM that will withstand my dog's hairy ass then I guess it's hopeless. I looooove animals. I love dogs and cats and birds and everything, but I wish they weren't such a pain in the ass. lol My next pet will be hairless, noiseless, poopless and odorless. Is that too much to ask? No seriously, after reading authorwithin 's latest post about her new macaw I am back to my life-long desire to own a beautiful, people-friendly bird. Which brings me to...

5. I did some research, and I want one of these little beauties:


They're called Sun Conures. Aren't they stunning? And apprently very people-friendly, affectionate and make great pets. When greeted with my new desire, Hub made proclomations like "Absolutely not." and "Are you crazy?" and "Hell no." But, maybe with time, he'll come around. :-p

Before I get any comments from the peanut gallery, yes I am fully aware that birds are neither noiseless, odorless or poopless. But they are soooo pretty! 

I have survived the great sinus infection of 2009. I'm still sneezing, hacking, coughing and blowing my nose at an alarming pace, but at least the pain is gone and that is all that matters to me now. I am not kidding. I have never been so miserable. I was IN BED for a week. In pain. At least once a day I would break down in tears because I didn't think I could take it anymore. Needless to say I didn't much feel like writing, because it probably would have been 100% complaining. I know I usually do that anyway, but at least normally I can kinda be funny.

So one of my very first outings since my near-death experience has been the dreaded task of car shopping. Yes, my friends, the time is come that the old Trailblazer is getting heave-ho and I'm going to move onto smaller and better things. We went to 3 or 4 dealerships yesterday and I got to test drive a few prospects. It was then that I realized I have a problem.

USUALLY I haaaaaaaate car salesmen. Like with a burning passion. They are harrassing, pushy and generally talk to me like I have a learning disability. But yesterday, things were different. They were nice. They were kind. They were respectful. They were FUNNY. They...made me...like them. (gasp.)

I have two theories. 1) I live in a place that people are just flipping nice all the time, there is no getting around it. BUT, I'm going to go with my #2 theory, because this IS car salesment we're talking about here-- they are desperate. Desperate doesn't even begin to describe it. In fact, at the Mazda dealership, I am quite certain they would have broken out into show tunes right there on the showroom floor had I requested a special performance of Cats or Hairspray to get me in the "buying mood".

Anyway- back to my problem. It's like I formed a little bond with all of them. I wanted to help them. I wanted to help them make a little money and possibly keep their job. I mean, let's face it, it's got to suck big balls right now to be a car salesman. Anyway- it's just easier when you hate them and want to make them bleed by getting every single penny out of the deal that you can. (I still have to do THAT. Times are tough, people.)

So far, the front runner is this little beauty:



The problem is, the one that they had available in my price range, was this one:



In the picture it looks pretty blue, right? I mean...it's not offensive or anything. Just blue. But in reality, out in the daylight, that mo fo is BLUE. And it's bad. It's like staring directly at the sun, if the sun were blue. My exact words were "I love this car, but there is no way on earth that I would EVER buy this color. Ever." You'd think that would pretty much solidify my opinion on the situation, right? Wrong. These guys are goooood. They even got the General Manager involved (who would have surely joined in on the chorus line) on trying to sell me this blue devil. My favorite line of the entire day had to have been "but it's lovely...it's just like the color of your eyes! They would match!"

Oh for f's sake. It matches my eyes?? I said "yes and if it was a shirt I might be interested (not), but it's a CAR. I don't need a car to match my eyes." 

Anyway. No matter which car I end up buying, I have this guilty feeling that I am betraying my other new "friends". Can't I just buy 4?

ps I know I still owe a cruise update. I will do that soon, when I get some pictures ready.

Jacob: Daddy, where ya goin?
Hub: I have to go to work tonight.
Jacob: Why?
Hub: I have to make some money!
Jacob: Why? We don't need any more money.

If only!!!

Ok, so he's 4 and I still give him a treat after he goes #2, whatever. Anyway- I said he could pick something out of the treat bowl. He comes running upstairs crunching on something.
Jacob: I'm eatin' a ornament!
Me: Uh what?!?
Jacob: I got a ORNAMENT. (as if I didn't hear.)
Me: Lemme see.
(Opens mouth to show me he's eating a peppermint. LOL)

Cruises attended: one
Fun had: lots
Surprise baby shower given by my sweet friends: one! (can you believe it? I even got a Baby Snuggie. I'll post pics later when I am not half-dead.)
Days on ship: 4
Days sick on ship: 4 (although this was sinus related, not baby-related, except for the last morning. Ick.)
Sinus infections developed and brought home as souvenir: one craptastically violent one
Doctor visits since returning home: one
Drugs given: antibiotics
Baby's heartbeat: 156
Substances coughed up: alien-like
Hours slept: hardly any. It's hard to sleep when every time you breathe you're plagued with a coughing fit that shakes the entire house.
Night slept in same bed as spouse: zero (see above)
Kleenex used: countless. I'm on the third box already.
Tea consumed: again, countless. Too bad I can't taste anything.
Pounds lost: 6 since returning home from the cruise on Monday. 8 since before I left. Who loses weight on a cruise?
Times I was certain my eyeballs would pop out due to the pressure in my head: dozens
Amount of complaining and whining allowed by one's spouse: reached

That's my past week in a nutshell. Please oh please let me start feeling better soon.

lying