A Look Back at 2012

This is always my favorite post of the year.  It's so much fun for me to go back through all these posts and remember the things I forgot I did.  Here's 2011 if you want to read it again.

January- I wrote a to-do list, cooked some weird-looking stuff, fixed some holes, I considered giving up tv, I wrote about lawyers and makeup, I made new holes, and then I quit writing.

June- I started back writing.

July- We tore up our driveway, I wrote about my hippie fails, I got a weird compliment, Boots and I did some math, and then I felt really bad.

August- We ate pizza, I ate eggs, I was really sleepy, and I went to the doctor.

September- I was 12 weeks, bought something for Frank, wrote about cell phones, I dreamed, Boots dreamed, I gave advice on chicken, 14 weeks, I plotted against a tree, 15 weeks, my sister had a shower, and I looked at beds.

October- 17 weeks, I had an expensive dream, 18 weeks, I made the most beautiful and delicious cake ever, 19 weeks, I posted pictures of how bad our kitchen and bathroom were for all the nonbelievers, and I wrote about makeup again.

November- I talked to myself,  21 weeks, I posted pictures of how good our kitchen and bathroom looked, the baby kicked Boots, I got a surprise, Frank went outside, I felt ironic, 23 weeks, we had Thanksgiving, 24 weeks, I was November, and we saw the baby again.

December- We finally got new closet doors, Boots painted, 25 weeks, more math, daycare, 26 weeks, 27 weeks, our tree, Christmas with my mom, Christmas with my dad, 28 weeks and a doctor's appointment.

Weirdness

I think my husband is the only man on the planet that doesn't like Westerns. How can you not love John Wayne? Oh, well. We can't all be obsessed with The Duke, I guess.

28w1d

*This week's baby update is a day late on purpose because I wanted to combine it with a doctor's appointment update.*

The kid hiccuped to at least 60 before I lost track in church Sunday night.

It's very opinionated (you're not surprised?) and doesn't like me propping books or setting remotes on my belly when I'm laying down. I get rewarded with some type of roundhouse kick or karate jujitsu move. I can't see in there but it seems like things get pretty wild at times!

Eating breakfast is a little tricky when someone is kicking your stomach.

I took my sugar test at the doctor this morning and I passed it the first time. (The juice wasn't as bad as I'd heard it would be, sort of like a melted Popsicle.) 122 out of "it can't be over 140." My iron was perfect she said, 12.7, so no nasty iron pills for me. Yay!

I lost a pound from last month. (How did that happen?) My belly measured on schedule and the baby's heartbeat sounded good.

One of my coworkers gave me two birth books for Christmas- Hypnobirthing and Lamaze. If I had the Bradley Method book I'd have the hippie section covered. When I told her thanks for the present she said, "I know how you pregnant types like to read." ha!

My appointments are now three weeks apart instead of the normal once a month or every five weeks.

Christmas 2012, My Daddy's Side

Christmas 2012, My Mom's Side

Our Christmas Tree, 2012

This year's tree is very simple.

We only put up the five foot, pre-lit tree as opposed to the gorgeous 8 footer and decorated it with ornaments like glittery poinsettias, birds, and ornaments with ribbons that don't require hooks because I'm pregnant and lazy, even though BootsElf hauled all the Christmas stuff down from the attic. Next year I plan for this tree to be all cute and festive in the baby's room. Hope this kid's a girl because I've got a LOT of Barbie ornaments!

After it was up and decorated Boots requested a tree skirt, but you can see all he got was a forest of white pinecones and my magazine tree instead. Perhaps he should have thought of that earlier in the year before I decided I didn't like to crochet. Between now and next year I'll put that on my "maybe I'll get creative" list.

Notice the one lone present. Fake. Or maybe symbolic. This year I didn't buy a single present. The gifts I am giving are homemade and (supposed to be) edible. I didn't buy any ornaments either. Boots and I have saved our dollars like rats to get our tub painted (that's where the empty, but wrapped, present comes in.) Merry Christmas to us! I'm so excited!

27 Weeks

26 Weeks

  I took my own picture this week because my photographer was busy deer hunting all day long.  Notice I'm in the bathroom, but not on the toilet.  Yay!

  This is the start of the third trimester right?

  I'm really enjoying being pregnant, but I'm excited about maybe one day getting my body back.  Ya know, being uninhabited.  It's like I'm waiting on a family of squirrels to move out of the attic.

  I can't breathe.  I feel like my ribs are closing in on me when I'm sitting down.  I'm going to have to give up wearing socks soon or hire some nice man to put them on me.

  Some days the kid is pretty wild in there.  I swear, Friday he/she must have been clogging or maybe break dancing (didn't get that from me!)

  Thursday night is our first baby class.  Is it bad that I'm not excited?  I'm ok with being educated about childbirth, but do I have to learn about it in a room full of strangers?  It's kind of personal and all.  I get embarrassed watching A Baby Story at home with Boots.

  Ay yi yi!

Child Care

I was listening to the radio after leaving church about an hour ago and a PSA came on about whether or not your child care provider is state licensed and inspected.

After checking out the website they gave, I learned that my #1 daycare pick is exempt because it is part of a religious institute. The same goes for my second and third choices. The fourth choice on my list is state licensed though.

Is this something that really matters and that I should be overly concerned about? Part of me is worried, but part of me thinks that even though they are exempt doesn't mean they are substandard and unworthy of my baby. Kinda like whether the guys at the farmers market can afford to be certified organic even though they may be in actuality. Is this something else the government has regulated and is trying to scare us with?

You can check it out for yourself at www.alabamachildcarefacts.org.

Let's discuss!

Probably Why I Hate Math

Saturday at work, I was trying to figure up the trust allowance for a preneed contract and it just wasn't coming out right. I was frustrated and has been my habit, if something is particularly difficult and I can't figure it out I'll give up on it for a while.

I've done it when I've been embalming and things aren't going quite right, in high school with stupid physics problems I couldn't work out and in band when I couldn't get certain parts of the music. The reasons behind my temporary quitting are for another rambling post, but not today! Today, I'm writing about math.

I found something else to do while I procrastinated what I really should have been doing and I thought about all the trouble math has given me throughout my life thus far. Perhaps we should put on Jimmy Buffett's "Math Sucks" while we reflect?

In college, I took the lowest math that counts- College Algebra 1 or something like that, because my ACT scores didn't put me in a higher class. Math was always my lowest score on the ACT every time I took it. Physics and chemistry sucked in high school because you need Algebra to do those kinds of science. In sixth grade, I was bored and read books during math until it got me in trouble. Guess I thought since I wasn't going to get it anyway there was no point in paying attention. In fifth grade, my blue-haired teacher made us work out problems on the board in front of everyone. This was ok if you knew what you were doing and got it right, but if you got it wrong...... She made several of us cry with her yelling.

I kept thinking and went back in my brain as far as I could. I couldn't remember any math in kindergarten or first grade, my earliest mathematical memory was second grade- learning to line the numbers up neatly and add or subtract them.

I thought about third grade and the sheets of 100 math problems we worked out as fast as we could. All that was hunky-dory til we started multiplication. I don't remember the explanation of multiplying exactly. I can't remember the 1 times or even the 2 times. I believe we started with the sevens.

Sevens! You've got to be out of your mind! (Somebody was.)

I remember all the other kids yelling out random numbers that I couldn't figure out how they were coming up with- 7! 14! 21! 28! until they got up to around 100.

I just gave up right there. That's where it started. I didn't understand and they ran off and left me. I remember several big red F's on math tests after that.

Sidenote: once, this third grade teacher got mad about one of the boys reading a Garfield book when he shouldn't have been so she snatched it from him and frisbeed it across the room, right over the top of my head! I saw this lady two years ago in a restaurant and nearly broke my neck trying to avoid her. Carry on!

Fourth grade was no better. I made it through multiplication and then they wanted to start fractions! Somehow I passed all these and while I'll still break out in a sweat over numbers sometimes, I've learned that math can be useful and even fun. Like in the kitchen cooking or paying bills- two of my favorite domestic things to do (no joke!)

Sunday, I figured out my trust allowance perfectly.

25 Weeks

This week the baby is a rutabaga, an eggplant, and a squash.

Something about pregnancy I'm not happy about- clothing. Why must all maternity shirts have such big necks? Why don't "they" make suits for pregnant women? Do they not expect you to work while you're pregnant?

Painting the Bathroom

These are cell phone pictures of what Boots was doing last weekend.

This weekend he's working and deer hunting. Probably no pictures of that. ;)

Stupid Bifolds

They're back!

Does anybody hate bifold doors as much as me?