Wednesday, June 29, 2005

The Rose Bush

I generally have a green thumb...except when it comes to roses. For some reason when a rose bush sees me it immediately withers. I will try not to take it too personally.

Bryan has given me mini-rose bushes before thinking they would last longer than roses. You could almost hear the things squeal the minute he handed them to me. Maybe I have Halitosis or something, but I just breathe on the things and they start to shrivel. Geez. How rude.

When we moved into the parsonage in the middle of nowhere East Texas, someone came to the house to welcome us with...you guessed it...a mini rose bush. I was determined to keep this thing alive. I read books and the internet on the subject, I repotted the sucker into the type of soil it was supposed to like, I pulled off the dead blooms, I read it bedtime stories, I did a Native American growth dance, and I even let it sit in a little lounge chair while I sat with glasses perched on the end of my nose and a little pad and pencil and listened to it's problems. It died on me anyway.

Our first day at the new church they had a welcome reception for us. They had a nice spread of cookies, nuts and punch. Donning the table was a centerpiece with a MINI ROSE BUSH in the middle. And the sweet little grey haired lady serving the punch said "the rose bush is for you to take home when this is over". I think she could see the immediate fear in my eyes as she stepped back a little. I thought about begging her not to do that to the poor little rose bush, but I figured that would be in poor taste.

After it was over and I walked toward my husband with rose bush in hand, his eyes got very large. He said "Is that for us?". I said "Yes, wasn't that nice?" Hoping he would have forgotten the thousands of rose bushes that sacrificed their lives before this one. His response was "How long will it take you to kill this one?"

I decided not to even try. After all, I put my heart and soul into the last one only for it to die on me. The more emotion I invest the more heartbreaking it is when I see the last leaf fall slowly from the stem. So, I watered the thing and put it on the windowsil of the kitchen. That was three weeks ago. I have watered it, and that's about it. Now it has beautiful dark green foliage and buds galore.

It likes me! It really likes me!

If it dies I'm going to bury it in the back yard and put a little cross out of popsickle sticks. It's never too early for funeral planning.

Monday, June 27, 2005

The birthing class

We started our birthing classes tonight. The whole experience was quite interesting. Is it possible to flunk this class?

The nurse started out by having us introduce ourselves. We were all supposed to say when we were due, what it was going to be if we knew, and what our greatest fear is about having the baby. I decided that I was pretty relaxed until I heard everyone else's fears. As each person mentioned what they were worried about, I started thinking "Oh, yea, that IS a concern" and "I hadn't thought about that!". And then they ran the tape warning about preterm labor. By the time I finished the tape I became quite the hypochondriac and started thinking I've had or was currently having every symptom they mentioned. "OMG! Was that a pain? uh, no, that was just the baby moving." "Oh, no, was that a cramp? Oh, no, just gas". Sheesh.

And then the very nice nurse had us lay on the floor and had our husbands massage us for relaxation. Obviously this woman has never had a massage from my dear husband. Quite often I wonder if he is actually trying to relax me, give me a rug burn, or crank a model-T. Relaxing? Uh, no. Try as he might, poor thing. I gritted my teeth as she put on soft music and in a soothing voice kept saying "concentrate on relaxing...relax...relax...". Then Bryan started cracking jokes and we got glared at from the nurse. I made him be quiet before she sent us to the principal.

We did get a nice tour of the facilities. The birthing rooms are great, but once you actually get the kid out they put you in these tiny rooms that resemble a coat closet only it has cable TV. Really, besides the size they are very nice. We went by the nursery and we saw the tiny little babies in there. I had to walk away as just seeing one made my eyes water. Yes, my hubby is going to have a long post-partem time with me. Get ready, dear.

Karen's Meme

Karen from Karentertainment tagged me for a Meme about 100 years ago, but I hadn't done it yet due to my computer/internet/moving problems. So, here it is!

10 things I've never done:

1. Gone on a cruise
2. Met any of my grandparents
3. Eaten frog legs, alligator or bugs of any kind
4. Played hopscotch
5. Had a one night stand
6. Seen or read Alice in Wonderland or Bambi
7. Written to a famous person
8. Camped overnight in a tent
9. Worn a girdle
10. Played the lottery

There ya go! I'm not sure who has done this and who hasn't...so if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

Saturday, June 25, 2005

All is right with the world again...

After reading my previous blog I realized I was getting upset over things that were so minor. I mean, in the overall scheme of things the pregnancy is going well (with the exception of minor things but at least they are minor FIXABLE things), the move wasn't TOO disaserous, and overally I'm pretty blessed. I guess we all have our good and bad days. Especially while pregnant. I have been so whiny lately, I'm not sure how hubby has put up with it. ..."My back hurts", "My side hurts", "The baby is kicking my insides", "The baby is on my bladder", "This gestational diabetes SUCKS", "I want a milkshake and I can't have one", "My feet are swollen", "It's hot", "I can't walk fast","I can't get comfortable". Just a few of my whinings over the weekend. All in all things could be much worse. Come to think of it, my whininess bled over to my blog. So, this is an official "Sorry 'bout that".

The cable company gave me a new modem, the water company aplogized for screwing up and reduced the bill from $250 to $37.50, and the satellite company is sending me a new receiver. I won't complain about how UPS lost it, but it is on it's way now.

Anyway, I'm hoping tomorrow I can start blogging on a daily basis like I used to. And I'll try to make my new entries much more interesting than this one.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

AAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

Well, here I am...with DIALUP (at a mighty 14 kbps). My cable modem crapped out on me after about an hour on the internet. I have a technician coming tomorrow between 10am and 12pm. IF he shows.

*bang* *bang* *bang*

(That's the sound of my head banging on the wall as I rock back and forth in the fetal position.)

Well, it will give me more time to call the water company who sent me a $250 water bill (no, in the two weeks I have been here I did not use $250 worth of water). And the satellite company because our satellite TV isn't working, either.

Or, I could just crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. Maybe after I finish rocking.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Could it be??

Part two of my internet disaster....

The cable company, who I now refer to as the spawn of satan along with my sister's dog (but that's another story) did finally call me. They set up an appointment for last Wednesday between 4 and 6 to come and connect our cable internet. I had a church dinner thingie I was supposed to go to, but I realized some sacrifices have to be made if you want certain other nicities in life, so I opted out of the dinner to sit for the cable man. Four o'clock came. Four thirty. Five thirty. Ironically the Seinfeld episode where Cramer waits for the cable man and then taunts him comes on TV. I enjoyed that immensely. Six PM comes. I thought maybe they were just running late. Seven o'clock came and I phoned the cable company. I get into this horrendous automated loop that always ended with some supposedly soothing but rather annoying female computer voice saying "You have an appointment on Wednesday from 4 to 6. To keep this appointment press 1. To cancel it, press 2". Apparently annoying computer voices can't tell time because it was well after 6pm. I would press "1". It would say "Your appointment has been confimred. Goodbye!".

Finally I outsmarted the computer (OK, there's a first time for everything.) and called from my cell phone, so they didn't know who I was. I finally got a live person, who forwarded me to another live person, who had me on hold for about 20 minutes. She came back and said "They will call you to let you know when they are coming". I say "Does that mean they are still coming today?" after all, it was well past 7:30 by this time. She said "I'm not sure".

Now I'm really missing the baked potatoes and salad I was supposed to have at church instead of the leftover cold frozen pizza that I accidentally left in the microwave too long while watching the afore mentioned Seinfeld episode and, therefore, chewed like cardboard.

Finally at 9:30pm, having already given up and changed into my PJ's, I get a phone call from a woman who apologizes profusely and asks if I'll be home tomorrow (last Thursday) for them to come. I said after 3 pm. She said they would be here after 3 pm Thursday.

OK, so 3:30 pm they show up. Great! Finally! Right? Wrong. The guy comes in, goes into this long complaint about the last house and how the lady had "a zillion kids running around" and how it was difficult to work there, and then proceeds to tell me that no one told him I needed a new jack put in and he didn't have time to do it. Sigh. Realizing my pregnancy hormones are at full force as the day before I practically lost it on a guy who wanted to charge me for ranch dressing with my calzone, I chose to instead of losing it on him right there rather count to ten and reschedule for the following Wednesday. That would be today.

A different (thank God) guy who was pleasant came today and had it done in an hour. I thought about hugging the guy but he was drenched in sweat from being in my attic. I do have my limits as much as I do appreciate him.

So, no more 14 k speed internet! I will be on regularly again for your blogging pleasure. Or more MY blogging pleasuere.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth!

Would you believe that I now, as of Monday, live in civilization (more on that later) and I am having a harder time getting internet access than when I lived 40 miles from the nearest grocery store? I'm amazed.

Anyway, we did the much anticipated move on Monday and Tuesday (much more on that later). I hooked my computer up and hoped to use dialup until I could get something better. Believe it or not, in the stix I got about a 52kbs dialup, but here very close to Houston I get 14.4!! That's ugly. So, I click on a page, go bake a cake, wash the dog, take tap dancing lessons, click again, learn to cross stitch, meet the neighbors, click on the next page. You get the idea.

OK, no problem. I'll just get DSL. Certainly it is available here. It JUST became available in the stix from which I came. I called the phone company..."Yes! We have it available there!". Great. I sign up. They came by today and said they were wrong. Something about copper wiring, blah, blah, blah. I say "Hey, it's a brand new house! It can't have old wires!" They say something about lines from the central office...copper...whatever. I just don't get it. I wasn't supposed to have these problems living closer to the city. My cell phone actually works here, and it didn't work in the stix.

Fine, so now my only option is cable modem. Well, and satellite internet, but that's too expensive. Tonight I signed up for cable. Online. It literally took an hour to get through the pages to place the order. Sigh.

So, I haven't visited your blogs because, well, at this point the frustration is about like grating your knuckles in a cheese grater. And I'm already hormonal, being pregnant and all. I have read your responses to mine (thanks for that! Some of your drunk/peeing stories were funny! Oh, and the iron pills seem to be helping the energy just a bit, although I admit I may have overdone it a day or two moving. Don't know the results of the 3 hour diabetes test yet, but thanks for asking).

I am supposed to hear from the cable people within 72 hours. If you hear a scream coming from the Southern United States, well, that's just me if the cable company says they can't do it, either.

Now I get to click and wait for this to post. Maybe I'll learn a foreign language like Spanish waiting. Better make that Chinese. It will take a little longer.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Times Change

I had lunch with one of my friends the other day. She and I used to do a lot together. Amy and I have been friends for about 5 years. We worked together at the bio-tech company I worked for until I quit in February. We had some good times. Good times.

A couple of years ago we had a work meeting in Boca Raton Florida. Amy and I, along with about 4 of our co-worker guy friends decided to go a couple of days early and go to Key West. Our husbands couldn't go, but told us to go have fun anyway. So, we did. We found a place to stay...a trailer park with two single wide trailers, one for Amy and me to stay, and one for the four guys. These trailers were 2 bedroom one bath single wide mobile homes and...well...icky. The nastiest things. But they were cheap for Key West, right close to everything, and the beds seemed to be clean, so we took them.

The first night we went out to the strand and had a great time. We saw the sights and bar hopped and people watched. Some of us had too much to drink (OK, for the record, NOT ME!). When we got back to our trailers it was around 2am. The guys proceeded to their trailer (well, stagger was more like it) and they realized they had locked the wrong lock and didn't have a key to get in. The office of this trailer park wouldn't open until 8am, so they were screwed until morning. What could Amy and I do but offer our place? I bunked in her room with her, two guys stayed in my room, and one on the sofa in the living room and the other on the (albeit nasty) floor. OK, not the most ideal accommodations, but they were all nice guys and we were fine with it.

At about 4am Amy nudged me. She whispered "Carol! Someone is in our room!" I opened my eyes and squinted in the dark and said "Who IS that?". One of the guys was just standing there at the foot of the bed looking at us. COMPLETELY NAKED. You would think we would have been a little more startled, but for some reason we weren't. Finally we realized it was David. He turned around like he was going to go back out, then he turned toward us again, started to crawl in bed until he realized someone was there. Then he said "OH, excuse me". He turned around and stood, staring at the wall. We then heard a trickle. Amy said to me "Is that what I think it is?" I replied "Uhhh, I think so". David peed on the wall. He then proceeded to walk out. Amy got up and locked the door. And then we giggled. And giggled. And giggled until the entire trailer shook. We couldn't stop giggling.

Oh, the next day David remembered NOTHING. We made him clean up the pee. He was SO embarrassed. He said "what happens in Key West STAYS in Key West, right?" Yea, right. We teased him inscescently. And we all agreed not to tell anyone at the meeting we were all going to, but that lasted about 5 minutes. It was too juicy to keep. Now David is known as "The guy that peed in the girl's room in Key West". Poor thing. And since I've repeated this story I've learned it is apparently common when a guy gets way too drunk to pee in the most inappropriate places in their sleep.

Amy and I had a lot of times like that. Now Amy is in the middle of divorce and is ready to have the partying single life again. I'm about to be a mom and have little interest in bar hopping and the party life. Our lunch was sad, really. There were quite a few moments of silence, where we ran out of things to say. Oh, we chatted about the baby and about my old work (where she still works). But it wasn't the same. It's kind of sad in a way. But times change, and people change, and situations change. I'm sure Amy and I will exchange Christmas cards every year. I sure hope we keep in touch enough to know how life works out for her.

Friday, June 03, 2005

High hopes

I got a call from the doctor and she said I have low iron and may have gestational diabetes (have to go in for more testing for that).

So, you're not SUPPOSED to feel like crap while you are pregnant? I have been so tired lately. I just thought it was all the moving and family here for my hubby's probational ordination service thingie. I have never been considered LAZY, but I sure have been lately. I mean, packing has been such an effort. It takes me 5 times as long to do anything as it used to.

I'm hoping these iron pills will be like a can of spinach for Popeye. I'll pop a pill and get all the energy I need to spin around and get things done in a jiffy! Or maybe even they will work as "smart" pills. I'll have so much energy to think I'll be able to write wonderful blog entries that are both humorous and intellectually challenging.

OK, I know you aren't holding your breath.