Quick

Grits...yes or no?

Better

The morning sickness is definitely getting better. I still threw up a few minutes ago, but not much and I did not spend the whole day nauseous. That's the good news, and I really am thankful for that. The bad news is that I now am fighting allergy/sinus fun. Of course, I can't take the good medication, so I am trying several different lesser remedies. Actually, it is not that bad and I hope that after a weekend on the couch I will be okay to go to work Monday.

So Tim comes home shortly. I am so excited to see him. I miss him terribly, but of course he goes right back out tomorrow evening to cover some government retreat thing for work. He'll be back on Monday but not in time for my doctor's appointment. Boo hoo. At least I will get my car back. I have been driving the truck, and as each day passes it is harder and harder to get in and out of it. It also rattles terribly on the freeway, which has been driving me and my carpool crazy.

Off to watch Casablanca!!!

Foggy Days

Fall is starting to creep in. Last night it was in the 50's, although a temperature rebound is expected and it will hit 80 today and close to 90 this weekend. Summer in the south hangs on for a very long time. There will still be days in the upper 80's in October (normally, watch this year it will snow in October). I feel foggy. I don't know if it is the change of seasons or what. I guess it might be the pregnancy. I feel like I am moving and thinking in slow motion. I slog through the day at work (thank God we are reading a novel and I can let them read aloud, or silently for that matter) and then go home and get on the couch for a while. I can manage to do one or two things at home after a nap (not that I have, but I can)., little things like the dishes or cleaning off the kitchen table. Tim not being home might have something to do with it too. At times it is bothersome feeling this way, but for the most part I am okay with it. It almost feels like pre-hibernation or something.

Still

sick sick sick sick.......When will it end???????

A week later

So it has been a week and not nearly as bad as I had thought it would be. Of course, the house is a mess, but I have done the dishes and no dried vomit anywhere. I have not had time to be lonely as I get 3 or 4 phone calls a night from friends (thanks guys, just remember not after 9:00pm!). My sister-in-law also gave me a beautiful flower arrangement. I just love flowers and they definitely brighten my mood considerably.

So the morning sickness seems to be getting better. All the books say that at 11 weeks it will start to subside. Knock on wood. I did not throw up yesterday and so far so good today too. I ate a wonderful dinner at Moe's last night and there were no problems. I plan to eat out again this evening and might shoot for the moon with say Carrabba's or perhaps Shogun. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Don't tell Tim, but I am starting to eye baby stuff. While at Target last night the rattles and receiving blankets and onesies were calling out to me. My friend Teresa and I are going back today to look for invitations and I have a feeling that at least one little baby thing will make it back home. (I promise Tim I won't spend too much money...oh well yeah, we don't really have any money right now, but the baby, honey!!!)

He goes out of town

Tim took most of the day to pack, then we went to Walmart together for his food stuffs. We also got the oil changed at Walmart. Big mistake. We had to wait forever. The second big mistake of the evening was eating at Taco Bell. It went down well, but later as Tim was trying to leave I completely broke down and cried like I haven't cried in years which of course made me sick. I ALMOST made it to the bathroom. Tim cleaned it up swearing under his breath the whole time. It surprised me in a silly way. He is not so good when it comes to taking care of me when I am sick. Usually he leaves town. You think I am kidding, but I am not. I got the flu a couple of years ago, he went out of town. When I had my gallbladder removed, he went out of town. When I got my wisdom teeth pulled, he went out of town. I mean, he wouldn't really insist that I clean up my own vomit when I just am puking away in the toilet. It made me love him more, which made me cry harder, which made me throw up more. I cried for an hour and a half solid. (Had the crying jag hangover this morning). He left for New Mexico. Just as I stopped crying the phone rang. He was in South Pittsburg and had forgotten his sleeping bag and wanted to know if I could meet him halfway. I asked him just to come back home and spend the night with me and leave early in the morning. He did. I love him so much. Boy it is going to be tough without him.

A couple of long weeks....

...ahead of me and behind me. I have been really sick and tired lately. I normally throw up about 3 times a day now and go straight home from work and sleep for about 2 hours. I stay up until about 9 and drag myself back to bed. Then I get up and start it all again. It has made me so out of it that I rarely know what is going on around me. I have neglected everything in my life, friends, work, dogs, husband. I hate it but just can't make myself do anything about it. A woman at work says not to worry about it, that it will get better soon, and I know that surely it will, but can't seem to fogive myself for being human.

All of this on top of the fact that Tim is going out of town for two weeks. I will miss him so terribly. Plus I have depended on him so much lately to do laundry, cook, clean, etc. I don't know how I will manage. I imagine that when he returns there will be a pile of laundry, a sinkfull of dishes and dried vomit everywhere.

The Labor Day weekend pool bash starts tonight, but I doubt I will make it tonight. I hope to go tomorrow, but the way I am feeling I am afraid that I will just lay on the couch.

color me.......

Your Power Color Is Teal

At Your Highest: You feel accomplished and optimistic about the future. At Your Lowest: You feel in a slump and lack creativity. In Love: You tend to be many people's ideal partner. How You're Attractive: You make people feel confident and accepted. Your Eternal Question: "What Impression Am I Giving?"

What's Your Power Color?

Yuck

I feel yucky........yucky.......yucky. The dr. gave me phenegren, but I usually cannot keep it down long enough for it to work. I got an ultrasound Monday. The baby is measuring 9 weeks. I got to hear the heartbeat and I have the first pictures of our kid. It looks like an alien blob with little arms. I hope I feel better soon. It makes me not want to do anything.

Two weird things

have happened to me lately. Here goes:

1. The other morning my carpool bought me a biscuit for breakfast. I ate it, and later after getting to work, ate some yogurt (during a meeting). On my way back to my classroom after the meeting I started feeling sick, threw up a little in my mouth and ran for the bathroom. So I threw up some more and then looked in the toilet to see that I had thrown up the biscuit, but n0t the yogurt. No sign of yogurt anywhere, just biscuit. I must have a compartmentalized stomach or something. It is a mystery

2. Yesterday I felt like I had something stuck to my tongue. I brushed my teeth, but still felt that way. Still later I felt the same way, brushed again, but still something was there. So finally this morning I decided to do a detailed inspection of my tongue. It had this little ridge on the side. I pulled on it and the top layer of my whole tongue peeled off. It was like peeling a sunburn. Again, a mystery.

Vomitous

Twice today. I used to love the word vomitous (my friend Teresa and I made that up), but now, I don't like it so much.

Volleyball

There is a young second year math teacher/volleyball coach who is having a baby at about the same time as I am. I have been talking to him about it over the last week, asking questions such as "When is your wife due? How is she feeling? Is she sick? How far along is she?" The only answer I have gotten so far is a very noncommittal "I am not sure." I must say that Tim knows everything....when I am due, that yes I am sick, that I am six weeks pregnant, etc. So yesterday I ran into this teacher in the copy room. He was hovering over the copier and looked at me and exclaimed, "I have a 5'10'' junior transfer from Virginia who has been playing since she was 10." I was flabbergasted. I could not respond. Evidently this man cares more about his volleyball team than his baby.

uhhhhh...honey....

This is what I said to my husband two weeks ago after taking a home pregnancy test. I did not think I would be pregnant, but thought what the hell I have these tests. I was pretty schocked and Tim said he did not think they were reliable tests. So I had to take a test for 3 subsequent mornings. He said he still had his doubts. Men. Needless to say, yes I am pregnant 5 weeks and 4 days due April 3, 2007. Long, long time to go.

...and I'm freeeeeee......frrrreeeeeeeee.....

You had to be there. It was great to be comfortable enough around friends to have the discussions and activities of last night. Must do it again very soon. Props to Rachel for being the first and to everybody else for averting gazes when necessary. Love to all that were there and missed you to those who were not.

...ish...

When I was in Spain I learned the following (from a Spaniard). They go to work 9:00ish to 10:00ish. They visit with co-workers until 11:00ish. They go to lunch at 12:00ish until 2:00ish, return to work until 3:00ish, go home to siesta until 6:00ish, then back to work until 7:30ish. I asked her when they got work done. She said that work was just kind of 'ish' to them.

Trying not to nap again

Seems like just as good a reason as any.


One of the highlights of the trip.... The NAKED BIKE PARADE!!!

Yes, naked, yes parade. We had decided to take a double decker bus down to Green Park from Oxford Street (in London) and here they came! We were so stunned that it took a minute to realize that there were hundreds of naked people on bikes, so we missed our stop and started snapping pictures. Hence the picture from inside the bus.







Big Ben. I found out that Big Ben is the bell not the clock. Who knew? It was, after all, an educational trip.



I purposefully skipped the pictures from Paris. I hated it last year and I hated it this year, too. If you want to go to France, don't bother with Paris and go to the south of France to Nice or somewhere like that.

Spain was my favorite.
Every little town claims Don Quixote.



















More Alhambra. This is typical of the walkways. They were stunning, as was everything there.



















Stained glass from the the largest mosque west of Mecca, in Cordoba, Spain.
















It was a mosque first, then a temple, then a church, so it has architechture of all three inside. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to use flash, so not many of the pictures came out.



















This is the view from my hotel room in Costa Del Sol (which is the name of the beach, not the town). My roommate and I locked ourselves on the balcony one night. It was crazy trying to get someone's attention to let us back in.

I can't keep up with the days

So I think I am getting my days and nights mixed up. I nap regularily during the school year, but during the summer it gets a little out of hand sometimes. I had two naps yesterday ( I feel sorry for those of you who cannot nap...my sister-in-law can't nap...poor girl), then had great difficulty in sleeping. I did my regular routine of MASH until 12:30 or 1:00 and then just kinda laid there tossing and turning. Tim doesn't come to bed until 2:00 or 3:00 sometimes. Last night it was after 2:30 and shortly thereafter we started the 'turn over......shut up......good god....shut up...turn over' thing. We both snore. I finally gave up at 6:15, mainly because the dogs wanted to be fed, and went to the couch, turned on TV, watched morning show, checked e-mail, checked laundry status, had strawberries for breakfast, watched Today Show. I remember Tim getting up and all the bad morning news, but I don't remember him leaving. Woke up in a panic at 9:00 remembering that my friend Teresa is picking me up to go shopping soon. She shops, I navigate. So needless to say I am ready for a long nap. About 3/4 of the time I have absolutely no clue what day it is.

Fourth Fun

So yesterday was nice enough. I did not get out of my pajamas until about 8:30 last night. Yeah...judge all you want. You are just jealous. I have all summer to do the little projects that you have to do on holidays. Tim and went to get ice cream and see fireworks. Ice cream and fireworks...two of my favorite things. Add cake and...well cake, and I am good for days and days. So we went to our usual fireworks place(church parking lot down from Lake Winnie) and this year there was a whole big deal thing.

We parked in the God Bless America Parking. Cracked me up.












It had just rained and was really hazy, so the viewing was not so good, but a good time was had by all. I hate to think about this, but I have less than a month until I go back to work. Yeeesh.

Pimp the Pool

Went to Pimp the Pool yesterday at Beelers et al, Inc. I went early and caught Donna and Superman and some good rays. Tim says I look like the orange fake and bake girls, but at this juncture, I am 100% natural tan. I think he is just jealous that I have time to work on a tan. I do this mostly in the backyard communing with my dogs and at my mom's pool which is always empty. But I digress. More pimping. I beat Tim by at least a couple of hours, so I met the famous Irishman and got goosed on the ass for the first time in nearly 20 years. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed it.


The Irishman getting ready for round 2.










After baking in the sun, I grabbed a chair (avec socks) and took the plunge. The chair thing turned out to be a really good idea, and I must have sat for at least for an hour or so, trying lamely to play ball whilst not disrupting the delicate balance of the chair migrating to the deep end. There was much drinking and frolicking as more and more people showed up.
A surfing contest ensued as well as more drinking and frolicking.
















Then eating and more drinking, followed by more frolicking. The next contest involved several types of liquor, including but not limited to tequila and some 'irish p***y whiskey' (Bushmills). I had tried earlier and knew to steer clear, but it was certainly fun watching grown men trying to out drink an Irishman (subtle hint here...it cannot be done). We had to spend a bit of time walking it off for some people. There was puking and slurring and speaking in tongues. It was quite grand. Tim and I left by midnight, but it looked like several other people would be puking by night's end. Nothing like a good pool party. I look forward to the next opportunity.

Europe

Yes I am back. I had a great time. Better than last year. I spent more time in Spain and I think that had a lot to do with it. I had a nasty fall in the Underground in London on the escalator that made for some nasty looking legs and lots of blood and swelling. I created a photo log of my legs each day. This is several days after the fall. You can't really see the bloody stuff, but the swelling is really evident here. The sights got so overwhelming that I began to just take pictures of flowers and tiles.

This is in the gardens at Alhambra in Grenada, Spain. Beautiful, amazing gardens that have been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. Hard to believe.



The tile work everywhere in Spain was amazing. This is a wall somewhere in Spain. I have been back about a week but I still feel like I have jetlag. I think if I were working it would be different. I woke up the other morning at 4:00am and went to Walmart (I hate that place, but it is so cheap and we are so broke).
This is an outer wall of a building in Alhambra. The outside is square but the inside is round. It makes me almost motion sick to look at it. It seems a little off kilter, like I still feel from the jetlag.