yay!

NIN! AUGUST 2! TARGET CENTER! YAY!

we have an extra beast in our house this week.

we are dog sitting for geffre while he, michelle and the abbey are on vacation -- and i have to say that their pup, mia, is cute as hell. by "pup" i mean "full-grown coonhound," but she's awesome and will rub her face up against you whilst making a grumbling noise. it's neat.

i always have a tough time when abbey is out of town -- i mean, it's not as bad as when she went to girl scout camp and i couldn't even talk on the phone with her for the week. but with me being all nearly 35 weeks and more emotional than usual, it's just tricky. BUT her spring break is next week, which guarantees me all sorts of abbey-time.

i think the baby may have dropped (in this way, not this way) which could mean my body is getting prepped for labor. or it could mean nothing. what's important is that i am having an easier time breathing again. however i do pee every six and a half minutes.

damn, i'm up early. i think since it's my weekend, it warrants going back to bed for a few more hours.

my husband is completely out-blogging me...

... on his site, so i should probably do some updating on mine. BUSY lately. health-stuff mostly -- had some weird chest pains that i needed to get checked out, and my EKG was just fine, so i think my panic had gotten the better of me. began having weirdy contractiony-cramping last friday, so spent some time in the hospital getting monitored. THEN i fell on some fucking ice in a parking lot wed. a.m. -- which meant more monitoring in hospital (baby and i are both fine). we've had an assload of snow fall around us and then my abbey is feeling a bit sickly, so i'm taking care of her.

tomorrow: dustin's birthday! we shall have a party and good eats.

here's a question for the masses: abbey used a giftcard to buy some stuff from an online store -- one of the items smelled horribly of gasoline when we took it out of the plastic packaging, and after washing it TWICE the smell still remains. any suggestions?

now i must go do mom-stuff for the sickly kid.

six weeks to baby due date!

i should be getting to sleep...

... but first i have a few things to say about march 15.
ever since october 15 of last fall, my blog entries have been about bram whenever the 15th came around. however this month that is not the case, and i know he'd be glad to have me not mourning him yesterday, but instead celebrating my AMAZING WONDERFUL FANTASTIC UBER-GENIUS daughter, Abbey, on her 12th birthday.

that's my girl, 12 years old. isn't she beautiful? i recall the age of 12 being INCREDIBLY awkward, but if this is her awkward phase...? well, i'm screwed.

abbey is amazing. she is funny and has a warped sense of humor and, largely in part to her age, she finds jokes about testicles incredibly humorous. she doesn't just read books -- she DEVOURS them with amazing speed. she loves movies, she loves soundtracks, she loves Harry Potter and Hairspray and the vocals of ewan mcgregor. when given the chance to eat ANYWHERE for a birthday, she'll choose subway. more often than not, vanilla is her choice when given an infinite number of ice cream possibilities. she is cuddly but cherishes her alone time when she can hang out and watch youtube. she is emotional and dramatic and i love her to pieces.

she made me a better person 12 years ago and continues to challenge me to be the best person -- and mother -- i can be. the say that she is the best thing to have happened to me is a complete understatement.

happy birthday, my sweet girl -- i love you more than i can ever express.

i think this looks totally bitchin'.

miscellany

these are a couple of music videos that scared me when i was a young lass.

this one had snakes in it... hence my fear.



this one involved a captive woman and some midgets.



and this one, too.... churches scare me.



in short, i'm afraid of midgets, snakes and churches.

moving in: the saga continues

dustin completely rocked the last days of the old apartment -- i did the surface kind of cleaning, but he spent HOURS doing the real dirty work. i applaud you, dustybill!

so everything is here. it's not necessarily in its place (or in any place other than a box), but it's here. much of this is in the garage, awaiting a time when we can put it into our storage closet, or organize it into shelves in the garage. for instance: dustin's box o' adhesive sprays? those can find a shelf. someday. not today. today's tasks include laundry (in progress), vacuuming (done) and dishes (later).

THEN it's a trip to the clinic to see the midwife -- and no, that doesn't mean i'll be doing a homebirth into my bathtub (ICK)... my clinic has a nurse-midwife option (similar to the one in minot when i had abbey nearly 12 years ago) and their way of treatment works well for me. a little bit kinder, gentler than the run of the mill ob/gyn. so i'll have some weighing done, some measuring done, some blood taken to make sure the thyroid is still working with the meds. it's weird to think that in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS there will be a baby here. blogging may slow a bit, but count on many photo posts.

LESS THAN TWO MONTHS. and since friday marks 32 weeks, anytime after four weeks from now would be just fine in terms of lung development and whatnot.

am i feeling ready, you ask? for the most part. it helps having moved before the baby's arrival, that way we're mostly settled. i'm not sleeping very well at this point -- AT ALL -- so i don't think the sleep deprivation will hurt me too much.

of course, i say that now.

hurrah!

success!

those damn kids will go offline sometime, right? don't they have bedtimes? isn't the internet big enough for all of us?

when do i get MY turn to order the new NIN cd? huh? i think hordes of angst-ridden kids are clogging the series of tubes that make up the interweb.

i began my "hey! a new nin cd to buy/download!" journey a bit after 9 tonight. then i went to watch a movie. then i entered payment method, then it "timed out" and basically told me to fuck off, then i made a sandwich, then i went back to the main page and began again... i ate the sandwich, i waited some more. i went to the kitchen to put away my plate and to grab and apple. still waiting for the Quantity page to load. berated the cat for trying to get into the pots and pans cupboard. still waiting.

why, you ask, am i still trying to do this? why not just do it when i wake up?

huh. good question. yeah, it's time to sleep. after i eat this apple. and if THEN i STILL can't get to the site, i'll go to sleep.

(instant gratification issues are being tested currently. and i'm failing. miserably.)

MUST... HAVE... NEW... CD......

*** MIDNIGHT UPDATE ***
page still not loading. must give up the fight. FOR NOW. but i'll be back, nin.com... i'll be back.