Baby Doozit being silly

Last night, a little while before I went to bed, I got this awful pain in my side. It felt like a running stitch, except in the wrong place. It was very localized, so I didn't really worry about it, but it was annoying. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. My mom said it was "growing pains."

Well, I went to bed and laid down on my side, and it hurt, and I sat there and thought, WHAT COULD IT BE??!

And then, just in time, I felt some wiggling and Baby D moved on over. It was him the whole time, just chillin in the exact wrong place.

Silly Doozit! Glad he moved. He's avoided that spot since (thankfully).

random thoughts

On the idea that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Takeaway:

Among those who in 1996 were in the very highest income group isolated for study — the top 0.01 percent — 75 percent were in a lower income group by 2005. The median real income of super-rich households went down, not up. The rich got poorer. Among actual households, income grew proportionally more for those who started off in the low-income groups than those that began in high-income groups.
[...]
When somebody says that that top 1 percent saw its income go up by X in the last decade, they are not really talking about what happened to actual households in the top 1 percent. Rather, they are talking about how much money one has to make to qualify for the top 1 percent.

What kind of ketchup is best? Check out this guy's taste test. Pretty limited sample (he only asked 11 people to judge), but still pretty interesting. I will admit it hurts me to buy Heinz anything these days, but I still buy Heinz ketchup. Perhaps I will try something new one of these times.

Incidentally: turns out that Theresa Heinz met John Kerry at an Earth Day rally in 1990. Is anyone really surprised?

Here's an article on the most important hour of the day. My aunt calls her most important hour her Hour of Power. I would call mine that too, if I had one anymore. I've been bad about my Power Hours recently, but I should pick it back up again. The one place I'm usually good about the Hour of Power is work.

Baby Doozit is dancing! This morning, at one point he twisted around weird, such that his whole body was pressed up against the left side of my body. He kind of stuck out. When I touched him he went back to where he had been earlier. Right now he's just kind of wiggling. I think it's because We R Who We R is playing in the background. He probably is a closet Ke$ha fan. The rebel.

PS, I totally am not the one playing Ke$ha in the background. Yeah, that's my mom.

Okay, fine, it's on NCIS. But my mom is still listening to it.

Good quote:

“You can get sympathy or you can get better but you can’t get both. You can be in your comfort zone or you can have growth, but you can’t have both. You can be interested or you can be sold-out-committed, but you can’t entertain both. You can have excuses or have results, but you can’t do both. Choose the path that develops your visceral fortitude.”
- Mario Cortes

Visceral fortitude. That might be my new favorite phrase.

I liked this article on 20 things this guy does with money. Hollah with your dollahs! I especially liked #19. I learned in college that you should never lend money you want to see back again.

Here are some cloth diapers that really intrigue me. I love the Moo-licious diaper SO MUCH but Carl says he will not allow our son to wear such a cute diaper. :^( But Carl was okay with the giraffe diapers, which are also pretty darn cute.




This post brought to you by a dog wearing a bag:

Awesome video

You need to watch this video. It's catchy and also very informative. If you live in a place with an economy (which, if you're alive, you do), you need at least a basic understanding of these two guys. Don't worry, the economic principles are explained in hip hop music video form.

Fayek v. Keynes ROUND TWO!!



And of course, here's Round One:

why I can't eat!!

I figured it out!

Yesterday I had to stay late at work, even though I hadn't brought any extra food with me. When I got home, I was pretty tired and sick-feeling, but I had to force myself to eat dinner.

I realized today that my nutritional issues stem from stress. I remembered today how in college, whenever I got stressed out, I would stop eating--not because I was going anorexic or something, but just because. I still get hungry but it kind of stops mattering. I don't really notice it. It's not the clinical disorder of anorexia nervosa, but it is a form of anorexia (which literally means "lack of appetite").

Anyway, so I'm pretty sure that's the issue here. I'm glad to finally have a reason as to why I keep having weight problems. I guess I should have remembered how my body handles stress earlier, but for some reason I never saw the connection until today.

I would be more worried about my stress-related anorexia, but I remember how Baby D weighed so much at the last ultrasound, and I get the feeling that he's probably fine. Also he moves around so much in there, he clearly has enough energy.

In related news, today the receptionist at my work finally noticed I'm pregnant. I am officially 8 months along! And some people are still just barely noticing. How funny.

an unexpected kindness

I didn't get to properly acknowledge this random guy in person, so I have to acknowledge him here, where he will probably never see it.

Today I stayed late at work, and met my husband at my Metro stop to ride home with him. We got on a crowded train, and I beelined for an open seat, and this random other guy got there right before I did. It was a sad moment because my back was killin.

But right then, another guy got up. He'd been sitting next to the wall, so he had to maneuver to get out of his seat. But he did, and offered the spot to me.

I was really touched by that. It's not super often that people are so considerate on the Metro--obviously, since that first guy totally was like "I'm gonna beat the pregnant lady to that open seat!!!!" Anyway, I thanked the guy who stood for me several times, but I know those words alone can't really convey my gratitude. It really meant a lot to me.

I wish that guy could know what a difference he made in my day.

It really makes me wonder how many other tiny acts of kindness are like that: small on the outside, but deeply meaningful to the recipients of said acts.

Like this one time, I was at Union Station, and as I walked past, a woman spilled her purse on the ground. It was the lunchtime rush and people were everywhere, and this lady was crawling on the ground and cursing at her bad luck. I bent down and started helping her, and I thought she was going to cry. "Blessings! Oh, God bless you!" she said over and over again. She just seemed so grateful. It only took like 2 minutes out of my life, and it was 100% not a big deal just to bend down and pick things up for her, but I do think it seriously changed her whole day. I think about that time a lot.

So after that guy gave me his seat and I thanked him a few times, I decided I couldn't go wrong by doing what that woman did for me. I prayed for that guy to get some extra blessings for helping me out.

Who knows. But I sure hope his day turned out great.

random thoughts

Here is a terrifying article about the plague of child-men in America. Basically, it explores the trend of single young men (SYM) who spend decades in extended adolescence. I know a few of these.

Carl once sent me this poem, years ago when we were just dating. I found it again today:

I THINK CONTINUALLY OF THOSE WHO WERE TRULY GREAT
by Sir Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the spring branches
the desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious is never to forget
The delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth;
Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light,
Nor its grave evening demand for love;
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest field
See how those names are feted by the wavering grass,
And by the streamers of white cloud,
And whispers of wind in the listening sky;
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun.
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

This article explains how to get what you really want. Gist:

1. First, decide what you really want. Studies have shown it’s hard to get something if you’re not sure what it is. If time and money were no object, who would you be? What would you do?

2. Never make decisions based on the perceived limitations in front of you. There is almost always a way around perceived limitations; watch this video for a great example. Instead, make decisions based on what you identified in Step 1.

3. Take small, immediate steps toward getting what you want. Don’t wait long; take the first step right now. Possible small steps toward traveling where you want include reading a guidebook at the library or bookstore, saving $2 a day, scheduling a date in your calendar even if you’re not sure it will work, etc.

4. Review the steps on a regular basis. If it’s your life dream to go to Destination x, write it on a post-it note and put it where you’ll see it everyday. Then always think, “What’s next? How can I make this happen?”

This is an article about one guy's year of penury. Hint: penury = SAT version of "poverty."

James is watching the Disney channel, and can I please just mention how terrifying the "Sharfabulous" Sharpay movie looks.

....super terrifying.

I am terrified.

This post brought to you by disturbing images:

super interesting video on fat and sugar

Okay, this video is LONG--long long long--but worth it. So fascinating.

Yeah, I will probably have to never have a soft drink again.

random addendum to Easter program and Baby D updates

Oh yeah, forgot this one random tidbit, which was that during the Easter program, Baby D actually kicked me so hard that not only was it visible from the outside, but it was so visible that the lady sitting next to me saw it out of the corner of her eye and she like spun her head around to see what happened. I don't know if she realized it was Baby D. I think she just thought I had suddenly done something with my hands or something. But it was pretty crazy.

Maybe Baby D is double muscled.

Baby Doozit update

These days I always forget how many weeks Baby D is, but I believe we are officially at Week 31.

Supposedly, he is now around 3.3 lbs (although three weeks ago he was weighing 2.9 lbs, so... I'm skeptical), and about to go into a growth spurt.

Baby Doozit has started hiccuping like a champ. He started yesterday during the Easter program. It felt like being gently flicked from the inside of my guts, extremely rhythmically. Very weird. He did it again for a while today. I read online that that's healthy. I keep remembering one of my other friends, though, whose baby hiccuped all the time in the womb, and then she came out and she STILL hiccups all the time, except this particular baby really hates hiccuping, so every time she starts to hiccup she cries. Poor baby. I'm hoping Baby D doesn't make hiccuping a normal thing.

I guess at this point Baby D's major organs are mostly developed, with the exception of his lungs. Those are on the way, though.

On my end, things are all right. I have a lot of back pain basically always, which is pretty lame, but I don't think there's too much to be done about it. Carl is really nice, and he's usually pretty good about rubbing my back at night.

Today I have been randomly dizzy and stuff, but I think that's more a function of the heat than anything else.

We still haven't picked a name. However, we did promise my mother that we would pick a name post-birth at the latest.

my Metro friend

A few months ago, I was having a Hard Time. I got out of my car to get on the Metro, and in a moment of despair I prayed for help. I told Heavenly Father that I couldn't get through the day without Him, and so He should probably send me someone or something to help me out.

And when I got to the top of the escalator, right there was standing a lady from church! I'd never really spoken with her before, but she's the mom of one of my high school friends, and she recognized me. She was so excited to see me, all smiling and everything, and she gave me this giant hug and had me sit next to her on the train. It was really cool because one of the things that had been stressing me was my sad, sad ward choir, and the first thing this lady told me when we sat down was how much she loved to watch me conduct music. It was just the compliment I needed. And then we just talked about our lives and scripture stuff for the entirety of my commute. It saved the day, in the most literal way.

The same exact thing happened again a month later. I was having a weird morning, and then there she was! And we sat together and had a great time on our way to work.

I guess on Friday my friend got on the Metro and another woman came up behind her, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Where's your friend?" she asked. "You know, the friend you always laugh with all the way to work? You both always look so happy to see each other!"

Ha, my friend told the lady that we'd just met on the Metro that first day. LOL!

Anyway, I guess that random lady had been apparently touched by our friendship or something. It was cool to hear about. My friend told me yesterday after the Easter program and it kind of made my day.

Easter program

As some of you know and most of you don't, I am the choir director for my ward. It's an interesting job. In the past I've always been the choir pianist/organist, and I always thought how I could be such an awesome choir director--and then I actually became one and realized that it's pretty hard to be a good choir director when the choir is non-audition and no one has any real reason to come to practice.

The past few months have been really hard for me. All my staple musicians either moved out of the ward, or were going to be out of town for Easter, so since February the choir has had like 5 people show up each week, and it was basically just hard and depressing.

BUT the Easter program went well! The choir sang "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "I Stand All Amazed." Also, I got to perform a piano/violin duet I wrote, with my BFF Julie. We had two Laurels come up and sing "O Savior Thou Who Wearest A Crown," and then one of our Beehives played an Easter song on her Irish harp (or whatever it's called). It was pretty nice. We had a lot of congregational hymns, and then in between, the bishop read excerpts from conference talks about the Atonement and the Resurrection.

Best part was when the bishop called me by my maiden name and mispronounced Julie's last name when we got up to perform our song. Ha!

The song we did was a mashup I wrote of "As Now We Take The Sacrament," "All Creatures of Our God and King," and one other Atonement-themed one that I can't remember now that it's all over. It ended on "All Creatures," which I thought was a nice way to end it. We just played the "Aleluia" sections over and over a few times, with varying bass lines for piano. I messed up a smidge at the tail end, but in my defense, I didn't write the piano part, so it was pretty much all memory, and sometimes memories fail ya when you're in the middle of a performance.

But I'm still way too lazy to actually write down the piano pieces I wrote on Finale. Even though I have SongWriter 2010, and even an electric piano to hook up to it to auto-write for me or whatever, it's still just takes so much time, I always procrastinate it forever.

But, I was thinking I should write out at least the past two piano/violin duets I've written, and I could put them up here in PDF format for download just so other musicians can use them. I had to write them because other arrangements I found were either too hard or too easy, and I think what Julie and I have come up with is pretty doable on short notice. We totally threw our Easter medley together in under 9 days (we are awesome).



Anyway, whew! Glad the Easter program is over! Now this ward choir director can chillax until Christmas. ^.~

random thoughts

Accepting False Limits

Quote that stood out to me from the article:

Perhaps I shouldn't be pushing people who want something but have been taught not to push themselves. Somewhere along the way, it seems, I forgot that it's none of my business if people choose to accept what they've got, to forget their dreams and to not seek to help those around them achieve what matters to them.

One of the hardest things for me is to accept that some people just aren't interested in doing the work it takes to achieve their dreams.

The True Cost of a Coffee Addiction

This both reinforces my belief that coffee is lame, and explains an economic principle of financial freedom.


This video is super awesome. CRs go around and ask students who believe in the redistribution of wealth, if they would support redistribution of GPA points.

Interestingly, the students disagree because it's not fair--they EARNED their grades!

As opposed to those blasted rich people, none of whom earned their income.



I guess President Uchtdorf was in DC for a meeting of the BYU Management Society the other night. You can read most of his speech here. Favorite bits:

He noted that, “Church members live in 184 countries. They speak approximately 170 different languages. Church materials have been translated in to 166 languages. To provide for its every growing membership needs, the Church completes a new Church building every other weekday.

“But it is important to recognize that the growth of the Church is not just about numbers of members, languages, buildings and other things which are countable. Our mission is to bring souls to Christ. We teach, support and encourage all men, women, children to draw near to God and live charitable and honorable lives.

snip

President Uchtdorf noted that this is a volunteer Church, that we have no paid ministry. “Our bishops, leaders of local congregations of about 400 members, may be plumbers, doctors, truck drivers, teachers or accountants…When we assemble on Sundays, or at other times, we do not hear a sermon from a paid professional . Our ward members themselves teach from the pulpit and in the classrooms.”

snip

“Most people don’t realize and some can’t believe it that 100% of donations given to the Church Humanitarian fund are used for relief efforts. The Church absorbs its own overhead costs.”

These good works, President Uchtdorf explained are “an application of the gospel’s core doctrines.

This guy is a ninja of awesome:




This post brought to you by Rubik's sandwich:

depressing work stuff

Today my research* focused on Early Retirement Extreme, which I found through a review on The Simple Dollar. Through those two things I discovered Your Money or Your Life.

From the first review of the book on Amazon:

* STEP 2: Since money is something we choose to trade our life energy for (central idea of the book), determine how much money you truly get for doing your job, including the fact that you have to spend money in commuting, clothing, meals at work, etc. and start to keep track of every penny that you earn and spend. Just to illustrate the power of this step, I found myself making 25% (hourly rate) less than I thought I was by doing this exercise, and that takes into account the fact that I live 20 minutes away from my work and I half the time I bring my food from home.

I thought it would be interesting to try this exercise. So I did it.

It was so depressing.

First order of depressingness is that if I just subtract taxes from my income, I make 24% less than I do on paper.

But that was just the beginning.

I also discovered that I literally work 5.5 days out of every 20 just to get to work. As in, I spend 20% of my time at work just paying for Metro fare and the gas to get to the Metro. Wow.

I went through my costs associated with actually attending my job, as in being physically present to work, and it was pretty depressing. I factored in my commute costs, money spent on clothes and food for work. I also factored in my commute time, since my boss doesn't allow any "new" hires to work from home under any circumstances. I'm expected to work an 8-hour day, but since I have to actually get to work to put in that 8-hour day, my 8-hour day is really almost 10 hours when you include my mandatory commute.

I also factored in tithing, since that's a fixed expense.

When it comes down to it, and all those things are taken into account, I make less than 1/3 as much as I thought I did, that I can spend on rent, food, non-work clothes, utilities, and anything else. If you factor in the hours I am unproductive during the rest of the day because I am stressing/destressing from work, the number per hour is even lower--by a substantial amount.

That's really depressing.

I went ahead after that and factored in the cost of child care, for when I come back from maternity leave in September. Yeah, that will put my hourly wage at ~$2/hour.

This information makes me kind of a sad camper. Just going to work costs me over 2/3 of my salary.

There has to be a better way!!!!!!

Sigh. I guess there's no answer except bacon sandwiches. Better go make some.





*Every day I try to fit in a few hours of high quality research on something interesting.

synchronicity in my pregnancy again

So this morning I ended up talking with my darling ex-roommate, and we were both lamenting how out of shape we've gotten. If you would believe it, the week I found out I was pregnant, I ran a 5K as part of a regular workout. And you could even see multiple muscles on my arms.

And then I got super morning-noon-and-night sick at all hours of the day and night, and gave up working out in order to keep down food and rest.

Anyway, I told my friend this, and then about how nowadays I've lost like all my muscle tone in my arms and I literally got shin splints a month or two ago just from walking up the escalator at my Metro stop. Wow. How pathetic is that.

I was thinking about that all morning, and then lo and behold, I strained my shins on my way home. Again. Ah! So pathetic. Can't wait to not be so tired anymore. It will be nice to work out regularly again.

pregnancy update!

Went to the midwife today. This particular midwife is awesome because she looks, acts, and probably secretly is my high school choir teacher, who is one of my favorite people ever. I really like her.

Baby Doozit is doing well. She confirmed that the choroid plexus cysts went away, and said that I definitely do NOT have gestational diabetes (I didn't think I did anyway).

Baby D's heart rate is good, and pretty much the big downside right now is that I am STILL borderline anemic. So make me eat meat.

I scheduled the rest of my appointments for this pregnancy today. That was weird. I think I have 6 or 7 more appointments. I'm going to start just living at the midwife's office soon, probably. Which would not be that bad, all things considered, because the midwifery is literally located inside a shopping mall. It's just one floor above H&M. Winning!

Yesterday at church I had multiple ladies ask me about my pregnancy. "The last time I saw you you barely showed! You have blossomed!" said one friend. I hadn't seen her in maybe 2 weeks?

Another friend said basically the same thing. That she essentially forgot I was pregnant because it wasn't super duper obvious, until she saw me today, and then was shocked that the due date is so soon.

Yep: only ~10 weeks to go! Whoo hoo!

Which reminds me that I asked the midwife about her view on childbirth classes. I told her we missed our window on the Bradley classes I wanted but we were thinking about Hypnobirthing. But when I say "we" I secretly kind of mean "I" because Carl was not too thrilled about the idea of spending $250 on a childbirthing class called "Hypnobirthing."

But the midwife said that would be a very smart idea. So maybe we will. Although she also mentioned that my yogic background might be okay.

Obviously, it's more ideal to take the class, but if I can't do that, at least I have what, 8 years of yoga under my belt to draw on during labor.

I've been really pleased at how my yoga has gotten me through the pregnancy this far. I haven't actually done any asanas since December, really, besides the occasional cat-cow and.... mmh, that's probably it. But every time I've had to get shots/blood taken/do other really traumatic things, that yogic breathing has saved the day.

blogger has issues?

I keep writing blog entries that don't get posted. For some reason Blogger won't post them, randomly. Just FYI. Working on fixing that...

...okay not really but I'm working on understanding it and working around it! :^D

an answered prayer!

I wanted to share this story with you guys.

As you know, my FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR is today--Tax Day! Typically it's the 15th, but due to stupid government things, it's the 18th of April this year.

Of course Carl and I put off doing our taxes, so on Thursday I decided I needed to get my act together and get all my forms in order.

I distinctly remembered gathering them all together to put them in my tax binder. But when I found my tax binder, it only had 2 of the... 6? 8? forms that we needed.

I freaked out.

I spent Thursday night looking. Friday night Carl and I went to see Atlas Shrugged (more on that later), and then I was up until midnight on Saturday looking. I tore everything apart.

Every few minutes during my searches I would offer up another prayer, because the power of prayer has always helped me find random stuff in the past. And each time I would say "amen," think of a new place to look, feel so confident I would find the dang forms, and then AH! They weren't there! But I kept on thinking of that scripture, "seek and ye shall find."

It was at midnight on Saturday that I remembered another scripture: "Be still and know that I am God." So I decided to take Him up on that. I got on my knees and I just laid it all out on the table. I said, "Heavenly Father, I need those tax forms and I have looked all over for them. I can't even think of another place to look. Send me those forms. Instead of having me look for them, bring them to me."

And then I just went to sleep.

Next day there was church, and then I had 4 hours between church and Ward Choir, and in between I had to practice practice practice my piano-violin duet I wrote for me and my friend to perform next week for Easter. At 5:30, Carl and I had a date with Turbo Tax and the hour was swiftly approaching.

And then, while I was practicing with my violinist friend, Carl came into the piano room with his arms full of forms. He had literally brought me the forms I prayed for.

It was really an amazing moment. I've been reveling in gratitude and awe ever since. Carl ended up finding them in a pile of junk in my handicapped brother's bedroom, which is basically a magnet for random things. I hadn't even thought to look there at all.

It was just crazy to me how I had specifically asked my forms to be brought to me, even knowing that it sounded silly at the time--but then my prayer was answered so literally, and just in the nick of time.

Prayer--specific prayer--works, guys!

10 things i didn't know before I got pregnant

Things I learned the hard way about being pregnant. In no real order except the order in which I am thinking about them.

10. When you get pregnant, your body makes 25-40% more blood. What this means: your heart rate goes up and each pump of your heart moves more blood than it does when you're not pregnant.

9. All that extra heart pumping is kind of uncomfortable. I don't usually notice it except when I'm trying to relax--for example, while I'm trying to fall asleep. That's when I most notice that my heart is racing and I have to extra focus on my yogic breaths.

8. At the end of the first trimester, your body goes crazy with this hormone called Relaxin. Apparently it sticks around until delivery (at which point, HOPEFULLY it goes away and everything goes back to normal). Basically it relaxes all your... joints? tendons? something? so that eventually your pelvis can stretch out enough to let the baby out. Which is cool. But in the meantime, what is not cool is that everything else in your body becomes super stretchy. All my joints feel loose now, and in a not-good way. It's not really bad or anything, but like the blood thing, it makes sleeping kind of hard. My hips and my knees and my ankles have all come undone, which makes sleeping on my side really strange. It's hard to explain.

7. Pregnancy really does make your hair grow freakishly fast. And your nails. My hair has probably grown 5 inches since December. For comparison, normal hair growth happens at a rate of 1/2 inch per month. Also I have to trim my nails at least once a week if I want to be able to play the piano--which, I do! That's about twice as often as usual, or possibly more (I can barely remember what normal is, but I know it's not every 6 days).

6. Oh yeah, that whole extra blood thing means extra blushing! In normal life I almost never blush, but now I feel like I spend half my life blushing. So ridiculous.

5. They actually weren't kidding about foot cramps. I thought I'd dodged the bullet because I didn't start getting them until last week, but no. They are crazy painful.

4. In addition to foot cramps, the extra weight you have on the front of you apparently makes your arches flatten out and your ankles pronate. Sad day for me, I was already flatfooted and dealing with severe ankle pronation. So if you see me wearing flip-flops, berate me soundly and make me go put on responsible shoes so I can walk the next day, please.

3. Back cramps. My weird back keeps cramping. I'm guessing it's a result of the relaxin, the extra foot issues, and then all the extra weight in the front. I notice that they get a little bit better when I sit differently.

2. You can totally see babies move around FROM THE OUTSIDE once they get big enough. Totally never knew that, until the other day when Baby D was all like "kick" and it poked out of my guts. Wow. It's kind of awesome. If you find me just staring ponderously at my own stomach, it's because I'm hoping to watch him do something crazy.

1. Hmm. Nine's all I can think of. Oh well.

random thoughts for tax day

Super fascinating article on taxes. Written on Tax Day 1992--so basically things have only gotten worse since. The article calculates the true cost of items once you've calculated taxes in. Key bit:

In high-tax states the true price of goods and services is about twice the retail price. To calculate how much income you need to earn to purchase an item, multiply its price tag by two. That is the rule of two on taxes.

This inspired me to clean my desk at work.

Twenty-four things you can do today to change your life.

How to spice up your emergency fund.

Why it's important to see Atlas Shrugged:



And from Drudge this morning, a man decides to go through with a murder only after realizing the death penalty was banned in Illinois. But don't worry, guys. I'm sure he's the only guy in America who would find the death penalty to be a deterrent. I'm sure that the woman he killed is the only woman whose life would have been spared if the death penalty were enforced.

This post brought to you by getting off the IRS's mailing list:

NUGGETS!!!

Tonight we had Chick-Fil-A for dinner. I got nuggets, for several reasons:

1. I like them.

2. They remind me of my second-favorite sports team. The Nuggets.






Why are they my second-favorite? I believe the answer is obvious.

"Nugget."

Just say it.

I'm 90% sure that "nugget" could be the funniest word in the English language. It is possibly even funnier than "moist" and "weasel."

It even looks funny. The longer you look at it, the more ridiculous it is. Nugget. Ha ha.

Yes, that is my main reason for liking them. I'll admit it: I've never seen them play. But let's be honest here. They don't matter anyway. What matters is having an awesome name.

But that leads us to another question: if they're only my second-favorite team, then... who's Number One?!

Well, that is obvious. The Blazers.

Because Carl said so.

Also because it takes a blaze to cook a nugget. I know that from baking dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets for my little cousins. Alternatively, you could argue that cooking a nugget only takes "Heat" but then you would be wrong.



So many nuggets. So little time.

taco bell + doritos?????

AHHh I want one!!!



O_O!

Everything he expected and more! Ah!

Thanks K!

evil love

Woke up with this song in my head:



Love was once a crazy dream,
Now it's my new evil scheme.
And I'm as happy as can be,
It's the age old story
How an evil boy meets an evil girl.
We've got a love strong enough to rule the whole wide world!
We both maniacally laugh at all the same stuff.
I found my other half, yes!
I've got an evil love!
(La la, la la la la)

When our robot armies march
to the beating of our hearts,
I'm as happy as can be!
It's the age old story:
How an evil boy meets an evil girl.
We've got a love strong enough to rule the whole wide world!
We both maniacally laugh at all the same stuff.
You can't foil a plan that's built upon evil love!
Ooh-hoo!
Evil love!

FHE last night

Last night's FHE was on money. And actually, now that I think of it, we never had a closing prayer, so technically I guess FHE is STILL GOING!! Awesome!

I taught the lesson. It was on a scripture that I'd read earlier in the day on MoneySavingMom.com, Romans 13:8,which addresses the Biblical principle of "owing no man anything."

Earlier this year I had to go to a conference for my work, and the first lecture I had to attend was on Jews in literature (specifically, The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice). One of the big deals the speakers made was on how at the time those plays were written, Jews were considered bad guys because they lent out money--and Christians were taught that borrowing money was essentially a sin. So they viewed the Jews as enabling Christian sin.

In our church we have a whole lot of ecclesiastical statements on debt, both temporal and spiritual. This article points out:

In 2 Kings 4:7 [2 Kgs. 4:7] we read, “Pay thy debt, and live,” and in Proverbs 22:7 [Prov. 22:7] we learn that “the borrower is servant to the lender.” The Apostle Paul instructed the Romans to “owe no man any thing” (Rom. 13:8), while in modern times the Savior counseled Martin Harris to “pay the debt thou hast contracted with the printer. Release thyself from bondage” (D&C 19:35).

Clearly scripture cautions us against incurring unnecessary debt. Modern prophets and apostles have echoed that plea (see accompanying statements on page 66). President Gordon B. Hinckley has said: “Reasonable debt for the purchase of an affordable home and perhaps for a few other necessary things is acceptable. But from where I sit, I see in a very vivid way the terrible tragedies of many who have unwisely borrowed for things they really do not need” (“I Believe,” Ensign, Aug. 1992, 6). To better understand the role of debt and interest charges in our lives, it may be helpful to consider what constitutes appropriate debt, why easy credit can become a trap, and how to create a personal plan to avoid debt.

That article also goes on to explain how interest works--the title is "Understanding Interest on Debt" and it's pretty informative (even though it was written in 1997).

Anyway, we didn't talk about that so much, but just the idea of the divine suggestion? commandment? to stay out of debt. We also studied Matthew 6:25-34 (which happens to include my favorite verse of all, Matthew 6:33). Basically the idea there is, as long as you're keeping the commandments--or seeking first the kingdom of heaven, as verse 33 puts it--God will make sure you're taken care of.

I know we'll be blessed for staying out of debt!

random thoughts

WHAT?!?!? Discrimination in the MODELING INDUSTRY??

Maybe Carl and I should move to India and put our English skillz to good use.

This video single-handedly convinced me to vote for Obama in 2012.


Here is an inflatable crowd. Basically, they're inflatable people to create the illusion of extras in movies--including movies and even music videos you have probably seen. Check out the pictures. So crazy.

The story behind Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail love!

Jessica Simpson's new flipper heels. Trendy.

This is SO funny:



This post brought to you by this terrifying cougar mascot:

why Carl is awesome.

There are many reasons why Carl is awesome but this post is just dedicated to one of them.

I have breathing problems. As far as I know, I have always had breathing problems. Asthma, "reactionary airway disease" (which is code for, "my airway sucks but there's not a REAL diagnosis other than that"), and I've even had some chronic bronchitis. It's been super fun. A side effect of my breathing problems is that when I get a cough, I get it LOUD. And LONG. I can cough for hours and hours at an extremely high volume. It is not a talent I am proud of.

When I was little, my parents would make me sleep at least one floor down when I got coughs--because otherwise I would keep everyone on the top floor awake. It was very sad and I hated it but, what can you do.

When Carl and I first got married, I spent the first 7 months of our marriage ill. I just had one cold after another for 7 straight months. And sure enough, they involved coughs. The first night that my coughing started to get out of control, I told Carl that I would go sleep downstairs so he wouldn't have to listen to me.

And you know what he did? He just said, "You don't have to do that." And he let me sleep in the upstairs in our regular bed and I just felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

Last night the full pregnancy pain set in, for realz. Over the past 2 days I've gotten foot cramps and back cramps, but last night, it was insane. Like my whole body was this giant contorted mess of fail and pain. Ow. We turned off the lights at 10 pm, and then I spent at least the next 2.5 hours after that just rearranging pillows and stuff in an attempt to not be in total pain.

It kept on accidentally disturbing Carl's slumber, and I felt so guilty about it (but not guilty enough to start all over trying to get comfortable downstairs with the BoyCat).

But then this morning I apologized to him as I left for work, and he just said, "it's okay," and gave me a little goodbye kiss like it was no big deal that I spent the whole night flipping around and restacking pillows.

I'm pretty much the luckiest girl in the world. <3

other pregnancy updates I almost forgot about!

It's easy to forget about things now!

1. I told Carl that the reason Baby Doozit has been growing so quickly is because my eating habits have made his bones Dorito strong.



2. Carl suggested we take up prenatal swing dancing. Apparently no such thing currently exists (probably for good reasons). Maybe if we're ever underemployed one of us should start teaching classes.

more pregnancy updates

This marks the first week that random strangers have asked me about my pregnancy. I went to the bank on Tuesday, and the teller asked me if it was a boy or a girl. Literally, our conversation went like this:

Me: Hi! I need to deposit these checks.
Teller: Is it a boy or a girl?
Me: ...a boy! ::secretly wonders what that has to do with banking but is happy anyway::

That same day, I went to Home Depot to pick up some stuff, and while no one actually offered to help me, I did get a lot of stares from people who thought it was weird to watch a pregnant lady lug around a giant pile of 5-gallon buckets.



Thursday was the first day that a non-spouse asked to touch my belly. Don't worry, that person was a friend, not a random stranger! It happened twice more that evening (still with friends, so not awkward).

This evening was the first night I actually SAW Baby Doozit do something. He kicked my gut and you could see the lump where his foot was. That was maybe an hour ago. Now I keep on just wanting to stare at my own stomach in case it happens again. So weird.

On Saturday the church YW had a giant yard sale fundraiser (incidentally, we earned over $1500! Go us!). We got a bunch of free stuff, including a couch, a bassinet, a baby rocker thingy, a chair, a cabinet, and various other things. We also got a ton of baby outfits for only $9. I was pretty pleased with that.

While we were there, one of the ladies from church asked when I was due. She almost died when I said we had just 11 more weeks (or 10, according to the ultrasound tech). Admittedly, I was wearing a sweatshirt, which kind of hides my belly, but it's still true that for being in the 3rd trimester, I'm pretty tiny-looking. My church friend said that my face has thinned out a lot in the past few months. I do think that overall, I am technically skinnier now than I have been in a while, in the sense that I carry around less fat. Except I'm carrying a lot more other stuff, so, oh well.

Also at the fundraiser I ran into a girl who used to babysit me when I was little. Now she is married, has three kids, and is just starting a business teaching hypnobirthing. This was incredibly convenient because Carl and I have put off taking a childbirth class, and oh yeah, now we don't have 12 weeks anymore. So it was pretty fortuitous to see her and discover that her hypnobirthing classes are just 5 weeks. We'll probably sign up, I guess. Originally I was planning to go Bradley, but I could be down with a mix of that and hypnobirthing, maybe.

AH BEST THING!!

WHY did I not know about this BEFORE?!?!?!?!

Eric Whitacre is one of my ultimate heroes. Ah. You have no idea. Sometimes when I am sad I go play his song "She Weeps Over Rahoon" and I sing all the different parts one after another. He is just the most incredible musical genius. Wow. Wow. Wow. Here is his blog. Now I guess I will have to read it daily and not miss anything.

Ah! What genius! The video I linked above is 15 minutes long but wow. So cool.

This was his first attempt at a virtual choir, Virtual Choir 1.0, Lux Aurumque:

why I miss working at the bakery

10. Once you accomplished all the set goals for the day, you were free to go home.

9. We actually had set, defined goals.

8. Even when my coworkers/subordinates sucked, we were still united by a common understanding of the store's purpose (i.e., to make and sell baked goods).

7. No one gave me crap about being in charge, even though they promoted me to my position when I was 17 and had 4 months of total experience.

6. When that one girl did give me crap about being in charge, since she had been there forever and was so much older than me, a) management didn't take her seriously and b) my random non-bitter friends at the store retaliated by making voodoo dolls of her out of bread. Awesome? Oh yes.

5. The guys above me were always excited to try my new ideas and innovations. Oh and PS, all my ideas worked awesomely. No joke and no exceptions (at least as far as I am aware).

4. When my ideas were implemented and turned out to be ingenius, I was rewarded for it. Not as much as the ideas merited based on their monetary value to the store, but at least there was some recognition that the ideas were worth something.

3. Everyone at the store had clear, well-defined responsibilities. When people didn't step up, they got fired. It was GREAT!

2. The store functioned as a meritocracy. No tenure for anyone. You had to actually be good at what you did to get ahead.

1. Free cookies.

other ultrasound update - Baby D is fat?

Oh, also, almost forgot: the tech said that Baby Doozit is 2 lbs and 14 oz.

Um, yeah, that's like almost 3 pounds (technically, it's 2.875 lbs).

The pregnancy websites I've looked at say that at 28 weeks, the baby should weigh 2.2 lbs.

This site says that 2.9 lbs is an appropriate weight for a baby at 30 weeks.

A couple other sites say that 2.9 pounds is also fine for 29 weeks.

Whew, just got oddly dizzy.

Anyway, Baby Doozit is apparently big for his age. Which is weird to me because I weighed myself last night after blogging about how I hadn't weighed myself in a while, and I gained like 1 pound in the past 2 weeks. That puts me at something like 10 lbs over my starting pregnancy weight, and almost a full 3 lbs of that is just Baby D.

So really, probably neither of us is very fat when you get right down to it. Here is the breakdown of how much weight is what during pregnancy.

Okay, the end. It's dinner time and I have YW tonight--I love my girls but I do feel kind of poked and pricked and dizzy. :^/

ultrasound and due date update

I had my ultrasound at ~2:30 today. Good news: Baby D's choroid plexus cysts are gone (as I suspected they would be!). In the meantime, it was nice to have an excuse to check up on him.

The tech this time, Alisha, said that the last time they'd done an ultrasound, the other technician (Kara) revised Baby D's due date to the 25th of June. But, Alisha said, according to his head and leg and stomach measurements, she would revise it to the 20th.

The doctors are planning for the 29th.

If Baby Doozit DOES come on the 20th, well, that would be dandy! And there would only be 76 more days according to that weird day counting website!

Also that would explain why I started experiencing third-trimester symptoms about a week before I was supposed to.

But Alisha noted that the most accurate ultrasound is the first one. Our first one took place when Baby Doozit was ~13 weeks, though--a far cry from when people normally get their first ultrasounds, from what I understand. I know people who've gotten first ultrasounds at 8 weeks or even 6 weeks (we had to wait for ours because of the holiday season).

So, who knows? My hope is that the 20th is the more correct date to plan for.

Alisha also said that Baby D has a "beautiful" head. I'm biased, but she's totally right.

She was so nice, and tried to get a good picture of this silly baby. We got pics of his arms, legs, and feet, but he twisted just enough so that we couldn't get a profile picture of him.

Once again, though, I did get a good look at his face for a second. Yay baby faces!

I don't know how to use our scanner, so no pics yet, but I'll post them when Carl scans them in. :o)

so brave!!!

I had to come home and blog about my day so far! It's been crazy.

Since this is Week 28, I've had a gazillion jillion tests to take and things to do for the baby. I scheduled them all for today.

So this morning I got up at 6:30, instead of 5:30--and can I just say that that hour makes a giant difference?--and went to the hospital where I will eventually be giving birth to this kid, in order to get my blood tested and my Rhogam shot. To check in and get my blood taken took about an hour, but then the lab needed 2 hours to process my blood, so they let me go to this whole other laboratory to get more bloodwork done.

So I hopped back in my car, drove to the lab by my house, and did my one-hour glucose test (to see if I have gestational diabetes, which I doubt).

And guys: I totally made it through BOTH experiences without crying. Oh man. It is such a big deal. I just sat there while they poked that needle right into my veins and harnessed my inner yogini. It was amazing. I'm still amazed. Wow.

I forgot to warn the first lady that I'm allergic to most adhesives, so a few hours later when my arm still hurt, I peeled off the bandage and found that, once again, the place where she poked me was fine, but I had this giant rash from under the adhesive. The second lady put paper tape on me, though, so that hasn't hurt. Hooray!

Hooray, hooray!

UPDATE: This is a big deal because historically I usually cry, then hyperventilate, then cry more, then shake a ton and generally freak out to the point they basically have to strap me to a bed to get any blood out of me. But not this time! Bwaha!

Then I went back to the hospital and got the Rhogam shot (after waiting for 2 hours because something went wrong with something--who knows). Then on the way home, I decided to take the long way, randomly, and on the side of the road I ran into a woman from church. I've only ever talked to her a few times, mostly because whatever her calling is, it's not in Young Women, which is where I always am. But I recognized her on the side of the road, with a broken umbrella and her stuff spilling everywhere, waiting for the bus (we had a tornado warning at that same hour). So I turned around and picked her up. I was really glad I found her, and recognized her, and had the radio turned off so I could hear that still, small voice telling me to notice her.

Oh man. Crazy.

Now I have a follow-up ultrasound in a few minutes, and with any luck they'll give me another picture. One can hope!

third trimester!

Okay, this is going to be short because I am insanely tired and I just want to sleep.

The point is, we are officially in the Third Trimester now. According to this weird website that means Baby D is due in just 86 days. Wow, the longest 86 days ever.

(Baby D, come on time! Come a day early if you want!)

This week Baby D is 14.8 inches long from head to feet (or possibly a little longer if he's tall). He weighs over 2 pounds. I haven't weighed myself since the last time I blogged about my pregnancy weight, but that is weird to think that 2 lbs of my barely 10 (if I'm lucky) are just straight up baby.

Baby Doozit has eyelashes, his eyeballs are done, he can recognize my voice and he experiences REM sleep--which means he could possibly be dreaming in there. According to various pregnancy websites, he can blink, cough, suck his thumb, hiccup, and do practice breaths with the amniotic fluid (although he would still have a hard time breathing if he popped out right now).

Tonight Carl and I start our Bradley Method Exercises! They're mostly relaxation techniques. We'll see how it goes.

My body's been having a weird time adjusting to the third trimester. My back has just been contorted in giant knots, from my neck all the way down. I keep getting weird cramp things in my legs and feet, too. Also my hands. I think I blogged about how my hand trembles? It stopped that a few days ago, thankfully. Whew. And then other than that, I am just insanely tired. Insanely. Tired. I just want to sleep all day long.

Also I am just big enough now to have a hard time bending. Every time I drop things it is so sad. Also I always forget how big I am, so getting into my spot for dinner is hard. My seat was formerly the hardest one to get to, by two walls so no matter which direction I came from, it was squishy. Well, no more. Officially I have commandeered a seat next to zero (0) walls and things are so much better.

Other than that. No stretch marks, thankfully. No real cravings, still. I eat more fries than I used to, but mostly because I can get away with it and not feel guilty. And more strawberries than before, but mostly because my mom keeps buying them for me. Secretly I would still eat heaps of strawberries even if I weren't pregnant, just because I have always loved them.

I wish I had cravings because then it would mean I would know what to eat. The hardest thing now, including right this very second, is that I spend all my time starving and I can't think of a single thing I'd really like to eat. And I think the first 5.5 months of throwing up every hour kind of freaked out my body into not wanting to eat things unless it is CONVINCED it really wants to eat them. So I just spend a lot of time vaguely hungry, and looking at pictures of food in the hopes that one of them will look like I could eat it and not be sick.

So, hooray third trimester! Exciting and painful and fun. One of these times people will be able to feel Baby D from the outside--right now, every time I let people touch my stomach he stops kicking. But once he stops that annoying habit I'll let you know.

we don't drink

We don't drink, but if we did, we would probably have to drink this.

And I don't even like Sunny D.



[Skip ahead to 1:32 for the autotune version... the version poor Baby D has had to listen to all weekend between Conference sessions]

Conference!

This weekend was General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the wikipedia article explaining it can be found here).

As Elder Holland explained in his address, General Conference is divinely inspired and designed to provide insight for anyone who is ready for it. [The videos and transcriptions of today's messages aren't up yet, but eventually I'll link them.] Anyway, I was once again very impressed by it. I definitely heard a bunch of stuff I needed to hear.

One of the big struggles I've been dealing with lately has boiled down to frustration: there are so many things I want to happen in my life right now, and it seems like every time something great comes around the corner, something awful happens just in time to foil everything. Over the past while I've gotten kinda bitter about it, not gonna lie--which is really too bad, and also kind of ridiculous. Several talks this Conference seemed like they were written just for me. The theme: God is the gardener, and sometimes He cuts us down to help us grow the way we need to.

Here, I'm going to tell you some stories.

Carl and I had been married for a few months and graduation was around the corner. We were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves after we graduated, and it seemed to me that grad school might not be a bad idea. There was an opening in the Plant and Wildlife Sciences Department for a masters/PhD student to do some particular research for the state of Utah, and it would have been come with not only a full scholarship, but also a generous stipend that would have covered all of my and Carl's expenses for the entirety of my career there.

So I got everything in order and applied. I felt really good about it.

A few weeks later, my pesticide professor called me into his office to discuss it. This was it! I was thrilled.

Until he told me the truth of why he'd called me in. "I just wanted to tell you that you could get into any program in the country," he told me. "You could study this at Harvard or wherever you wanted. Your grades and accomplishments would guarantee it. But," he said, and my heart dropped through the floor--"we're giving this position to someone else. But I wanted to tell you in person because it came down to the two of you, and you deserve to be here too."

Oh, writing that story is going to make me cry all over again. I was heartbroken. I cried for days and days over that. I just kept thinking--if I could get into any program in the country, THEN WHY DIDN'T I GET IN HERE?!?! It's not like BYU has a freaking amazing environmental sciences program. Why could I get into a better school, but not the only one I wanted to go to?

And so, with only a few more weeks left in the summer, Carl and I decided we would head out to Washington DC, to stay with my family until we found jobs. The night before we made the trek across the country, we got the phone call that my brother had broken his hip. And so we came home just in time to help my family with him, and the many, many, many incredible hardships and struggles that came along with his injury and subsequent surgeries and [nonexistent] recovery.

I've thought about that a lot. There have been so many things in my life that I wanted, and things came up just in time to foil all my dreams. In the case of my budding career as a soil chemist, when that abruptly ended, it was clear why: I needed to be elsewhere. It was not a mistake that I couldn't be allowed to follow that dream. I needed to be there for my family.

But not every situation like that is so clear. And at the same time, I'm very sure that James's struggles were not the only reason why I had to be precluded from devoting years of my life to the study of soils. There are many reasons for everything, and sometimes it just takes patience to see it all.

That's what I got out of Conference this time: that suffering and hardship are necessary because they make us better people. They change us from doing good to being good--if we let them.

One guy, I don't remember who right now, told a story about another guy who found a giant currant bush that was super tall, but not giving any fruit. In order to help the bush achieve its true purpose, the gardener guy cut the currant bush down to a few tiny branches. Little drops of water formed where he'd cut the branches down, and they reminded the gardener of tears. It seemed as though the currant bush were crying--hadn't it been growing so nicely? Wasn't it tall and beautiful?

Yes, the gardener conceded, except for one thing: it was a currant bush, and it should be growing currants. In a few years, it would thank him for the pain. It wasn't meant to be a shade tree, it was meant to bear fruit. The only way to help this plant achieve its true purpose was to cut it down. It would be painful, but that's the price it would have to pay to accomplish its purpose.

You should really watch that talk. It was fantastic. Again, I'll link it when everything comes up (all the conference talks will eventually be found here).

Anyway, sometimes God cuts us down in order to help us grow the way we need to. I know in my life, the most painful things I've had to go through have always turned out to be good for me.

So I'm glad I watched Conference this time around. There were some really beautiful thoughts expressed that really impacted me.

I'll link some videos as soon as they're up.

photoshoot!

On Saturday morning Carl and I woke up super early to go with our friend Heather to the Cherry Blossom Festival. We decided we would aim for sunrise, so we met up together at 5:15 am ready to go take pictures. We showed up at the Metro, and lo and behold, it was closed. I had misread their website--they were open at 5 am for Sunday, not Saturday. Whoops. So after waiting around until 6 and then checking the website again shortly thereafter, we went to Denny's for breakfast.

We ended up getting to the festival maybe around 8:30 am. It was chilly and overcast, but there wasn't any rain (thankfully!).

This weekend marks the transition into the 3rd trimester (so, that's how far along I am in these pictures! Only 3 more months, guys!).

Here are some of my favorite pictures:







Carl's faces can scare small children


My favorite:

the sweet babysitter

So I'm not really supposed to be lifting my brother, because I am pregnant, but unfortunately, my mother isn't supposed to lift him, and neither is my dad, really, all for health reasons. And Carl doesn't get home until 7:30 now, so James would be stuck in his chair--which he hates--for something like 4 hours if I didn't lift him.

I used to be able to lift him alone, and actually I could even carry him across the room by myself as recently as October. But then everything happened and now I'm not supposed to and also I'm so tired now I can't work out for an hour a day, so oh well.

Anyway, when I get home, the first thing I do is take off my shoes and then the babysitter and I move James from his wheelchair to his armchair, which he likes way better. It's hard for me because I haven't been working out, and I'm tired, and now I have kind of a belly bump in the way, and it's shifted my center of gravity, and also my ankles are super dumb and so sometimes they roll while I'm lifting him and then he almost drops and I have to wear an ankle brace for a few days.

Today, the sweet babysitter asked if she could lift my brother's torso. It's the harder part to lift. One person typically takes James's legs and the other person his torso, and the torso is hard because he resists there and he's heavier there. You need more control and more strength to do it. I always take his top when I'm lifting with a babysitter because our babysitters are in middle or high school and I feel bad for them. Also I guess I think I must be stronger than they are, which is manifestly ridiculous because we're all like 5'4 here, for crying out loud.

But yeah. I was feeling so discouraged this afternoon as I drove up to the house, and as I entered I asked myself how I could stand to do this for ANOTHER day, and I thought about just parking and taking an hour-long walk around the lake. But then I decided I had to be a grown-up and go take care of my sick brother.

When the babysitter offered to lift his torso, I almost cried.

After we moved him, I wanted to hug her.

Honestly, she did it kind of wrong. He ended up twisted and sideways in his chair, and I had to go back and readjust him and so on, but it didn't matter. That one act of service was just the most thrilling moment of the day. It reminded me of my visiting teacher saving the day that one time. It was so wonderful.

Song playing in the background:

most important video to watch today

Yes, I know it's over 9 minutes, and honestly I was thinking my attention span would die around the 2 minute mark as usual, but actually it kept my attention for the whole time.

Turns out, Michael Moore is RIGHT and you CAN balance the budget by taxing the rich... watch and find out how:




h/t Ace

doctor stuff

So I've been putting off scheduling all my tests for over a week now. Not intentionally, really; I just keep forgetting to do it until, oh, 5:15 pm every day when I can't schedule anything. I finish feeding James and then I remember, oh! James is not the only person here with medical issues! But by then it's too late, and I just tell myself to do it "tomorrow."

Well, tomorrow is today, because today I woke up and said DANG IT I AM GOING TO SCHEDULE EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!

And then, funnily enough, turns out that of the 4 or 5 tests I need to get done, they are ALL walk in, except for one. So I scheduled that for this coming Tuesday and I guess I'll spend the rest of my time that day going to everything else.

I have to go to a blood lab, the hospital, and a radiology center for a total of, I think, 4 tests and possibly 1 shot (depending on the Rh thing). I read last night that 85% of the population is Rh positive. I guess that makes sense. But I'm a little bummed that I am negative.

In other news, my mother lent me a book called The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie and it is AWESOME. She told me when she read it that the heroine reminded her of me, and now I realize how thoroughly a compliment that was. It is a good thing for the world, however, that my particular passions do not run to poisons. It is an even better thing for the world that I was not obsessed with poison when I was 11.