Eleventyhundred things…

Due to more awesomeness than I deserve, I have a new laptop as of today and I am officially BACK, baby.

Your life is now worth living again, right?  

I totally knew it.

You look AMAZING! Seriously. Have you lost weight? Done something different with your hair? Gotten ProActive Skin Solution? Whatever it is, you look damn good.  

You also smell like flowers.  Except for my manly readers. You smell manly.  And well-endowed. (I don’t need you to verify that last thing for me. Not only would that be whorish and wrong but I am surrounded by more than enough penises at my house as it is, yo.)

Since I’ve been gone, I thought I’d just play a quick game of “catch up”.

SOCIAL LIFE

Compared to previous months, I have actually HAD a bit of one and have gotten out a couple of times. I have seen some of my friends that live around here, went to a concert of Jonathan’s, had some friends for dinner  (Bridgy made me the most delicious, butter-drenched rolls) and managed to get in a Sunday game night, even though I had to leave early to go lie down. I have to do that a lot, but it was still lovely to be able to attend at all.

The creator of the blog Post Secret came and lectured at Utah State University and I attended with my fab friend, Michelle, and my good bloggity friends Jon Deal and Sarah Nielson drove up from Salt Lake to the cow country of Cache Valley to hear the lecture and hang out with me. Sarah is one of my roomies at BlogHer (Jon is not. He’s just freaking hilarious and fun to hang with). They are grand. The night was lovely and we capped it off by eating dinner in a dungeonesque, peanut-strewn pizzaria. 

SUCKASUCKASUCK

Because my laptop was dead, a LOT of things have been neglected.  I owe a ton of emails on a ton of different writing things, personal emails and dude, I also realized that I need to unsubscribe to tons of crap. So PLEASE do not be offended if something falls through the cracks or it takes me time to get back to you.

I think that the worst thing that happened without having my laptop is that it threw off so many important things that I check on online, like my bank account.  I forgot to make a banking transfer from one account to the other and didn’t look at my account the whole time I was offline.  

Very. Very. BAD. 

And stupid.

And BAD.

Guess what happens when you forget to make a monthly transfer but still have things automatically coming out of your account?

Some of you may know that I have saved up forever to buy a Nikon D40 for when the baby gets here and was going to buy it when I was able to get back online.  Imagine my sick horror when I checked my account and POOF! My camera savings were gone in overdraft fees.

It was my fault and I felt horrible. It takes me a long time to save for things like this because, um, I don’t make a lot of money.  And I suck at saving, frankly.  To have it gone on something that was so avoidable and lame on my part is a bitter pill to swallow. (Did I already mention it was bad and STUPID?)

I found out right before meeting and going to lunch with another one of my BlogHer roomies, Sandi.

She called to ask where I was and I was like, “Bawling like a dork in my car in front of the restaurant! WAAAHH!!!!!!”

Nothing says “GET TO KNOW ME” like red zombie eyes, mascara streaks and a splotchy red face. Except maybe an outbreak of herpes. Luckily, I didn’t have THAT issue to deal with.

(I have been trying to look on the bright side lately. It feels foreign. And weird.)

Sandi is a completely great and comfortable person to hang out with. I wanted to take her home in my purse. She is in Utah finalizing the adoption of one of her little ones and I met her halfway in Ogden for lunch.  The food was fabulous and so was she.

She takes a great picture but she is one of those that is even cuter in person. She didn’t mind my snotting and I felt like I’ve known her forever.  She lives in Orange County now, but we grew up in the same town and it was so great to reminisce about places and things we love from there. I only live an hour-and-a-half away from where I was raised but no one KNOWS where I am from that lives around me. The nostalgia was great and we know a lot of the same people.

She feels like home to me.

AND HELLO, SHE IS TINY!  When I say I want to take her home in my purse, I seriously COULD.  No need to ask “What’s in YOUR wallet?” because the answer would totally be, “Sandi. DUH.” 

We are conspiring to try to get my family down to visit her in August. That should be quite the adventure. It will depend on if Jonathan or one of my nieces can go with me because no way am I attempting that by myself.   

PREGNANCY

I’m 32.5 weeks pregnant and feeling every bit of it.

 I weigh 171.2 lbs, which puts my weight gain for this pregnancy at 21.2 lbs total. 

As I mentioned in my last sad post about little Maddie, I had a huge appointment this week.  Because of my history, my ultrasounds are very in depth and loooooong. It got a little worrisome during part of it, but over all, Wee Baby Aaron passed every test and is doing fine.  

I had a series of icky shots and there are still issues, but over all, I’m doing well, all things considered. Although it has been replaced by the feeling of never being able to catch my breath, my nausea is finally easing up, thank god.

I have some significant depression and hormone issues going on, but really, who wants to talk or hear about that? I know I don’t. 

Speaking of which, the appeals to our insurance company to not have this pregnancy declared a pre-exisiting condition aren’t looking good. As much as I hate shitty insurance, I would take even the shittiest at this point to get SOME of it covered. 

Also…my cravings have been out of control. And not just with food. If something drastic doesn’t change this kid is going to be born looking like a crepe or Suzanne Whang from House Hunters.

Heh.
BABY PREP

It’s both good and “Meh”.  

The “Nursery” is pretty much just a plain room that all the baby stuff is stored in right now. No curtains, decorations, rugs, blah, blah, blah…it’s just a room.

I have almost everything I need, but honestly trying to decorate a nursery has been pretty miserable for reasons I can’t go into here.  I’ve pretty much just thrown up my hands about it and I think that it is pretty much just going to stay as is. 

It’s a little sad and disappointing, but that’s life, huh? 

Still…the baby is healthy, I have a room for him and I have what I need for him to get here and I am so grateful for it. Victoria brought me a ton of things from her adorable little man when she came out to visit and I can’t tell you how much it helped to have crossed off my list.  

And is there anything cuter than tiny little baby clothes hanging in a closet? 

We’re going to get a recliner and changing table in there and move the table out.  We don’t have to worry about a crib for a few months, so I’m not even stressing about it at this point.

WEIRDNESS

Is now a good time to tell you all that I have a recurring nightmare that I am a guest on The Dr. Phil show? I am not even sure why I’m there. I just sit in a big chair in a spotlight while he keeps shaking his head and yelling, “Are you kidding me?!!!” over and over.

Horrifying.

For reals. 

So, yeah.

That should do it for now. 

It’s good to be back.

I hope you feel the same way.