Holiday Cheer & Happy New Year to Y'all!

Signs you've had a little too much holiday cheer (hee, hee):

1. You take off your shoes and wade in the potato salad.

2. You hear a duck quacking and it's you.

3. You refill your glass from the fish bowl.

5. You hear someone say, "Call a priest!"

6. You complain about the small bathroom after emerging from the closet.

7. You ask for another ice cube and put it in your pocket.

8. You tell everyone you have to go home... and the party's at your place.

9. You have to hold on to the floor to keep from sliding off.

10. You pick up a roll, and butter your watch.

Can't Complain

I have three particular friends in mind, all of whom nearly never complain, no matter what's going wrong for them - -

One friend in particular, she really could lodge some very, VERY valid complaints against life.  Whenever I try to persuade or all out push her to vent, thinking she must need to with all that she has on her plate, I almost always get nothing from her - - She's sooo focused on all the good things in her life despite the rest; sooo incredibly grateful for what she does enjoy, rather than waste her energy complaining about what she doesn't want or doesn't have.

She often serves me as a major reality check, if and when I ever find myself pouting. Memories of my own mum also serve me in the same way, indeed.

I'm so grateful for my dear friends and family who serve as voices of hope and love, optimism and positive outlook, resilience and perseverance, and all that good stuff that makes the world go round!

Halloween Humor

An extremely modest man was in the hospital for a series of tests, the  last of which had left his bodily systems extremely upset. Upon making several false alarm trips to the bathroom, he decided the latest episode was another and stayed put. He suddenly filled his bed with diarrhea and was embarrassed beyond his ability to remain rational.

In a complete loss of composure, he jumped out of bed, gathered up the bed sheets, and threw them out the hospital window.

A drunk was walking by the hospital when the sheets landed on him. He started yelling, cursing, and swinging his arms violently trying to get the unknown things off, and ended up with the soiled sheets in a tangled pile at his feet.

As the drunk stood there, unsteady on his feet, staring down at the sheets, a hospital security guard (barely containing his laughter) who had watched the whole incident walked up and asked, "What the heck is going on here?"

The drunk, still staring down replied:   "I think I just beat the shit out of a ghost."

Things You Think of Inbetween Feedings

Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?

She's Here Now and 2 Weeks Old Already

So, I haven't been online much since the arrival of our new lil' addition to our family, who is, by the way, 2 weeks old as of today and is totally adorable - - I cannot lie, she's gorgeous! And she is a ridiculously effortless baby, no less.  Yup, she's sooo easy - - easy peasey, lemon-squeezy, as our lil' Jellybean would say.

Since her arrival I've been posting stuff to Facebook via my Blackberry, but that's been about it until today.  Plus, I never really had the chance to write much about my pregnancy, compared to my first -with or without comparisons really- and I've missed writing anything about my repeat c-section or the past 2 weeks' time. 

For now, I'll just say that I've spent the last 2 weeks trying hard to not repeat the same mistakes I'd made after Jellybean's c-section delivery.  Consequently, my coming and goings have been strictly limited, including my ability to sit up in bed with a laptop.  Due to my diligent determination to rest and take things slowly, I stopped taking my pain meds this past Saturday at midnight, to be exact, and although it's slowed me down some (which is NOT a bad thing), I'm much improved and I'm clearly on my way to a solid recovery, which will include some backlogged blogging.

Lastly, our lil' darling daughter arrived June 11th, 2012, Monday morning at 8am, sharp. The cesarean delivery was flawless, as is she.  As for her full name, it's got two Vs, three I's, two N's, 5 E's, 2 M's, two L's and two T's - she's gunna complain when she's old enough to write it all out, I'm sure!

In 6 DAYS

In 6 days -the maximum- we will have ourselves a new lil' addition to our family! woot! woot!

The Way It Is

How does one know she's a bit hormonal = Listening to iTunes on shuffle, I turn the volume down to take a serious work call, and thereby, lose track of what's playing... then I turn the volume back up nearly 2 hours later to discover Bruce Hornsby & the Range is playing, and inexplicably, the tears flow like a faucet's been turned on... dripping off my chin, and I sit there, perplexed... what the heck is wrong with me?  And I place the music along the timeline of my life...

'The Way It Is' is an album that had been played a great deal the two years preceding my mum's death, and I remember one particular time, listening to it in the car with my father, shortly after her death, driving down from Billings, MT, through the Gallatin Gateway on our way to Bear Lake, Idaho.  I was watching for sand cranes, staring west out the car passenger window at the waters of the glistening Madison River, and remembering trips to Yellowstone with my mum and dad, wishing I could just stop time from moving forward, to just remain with my daddy, driving together in the car, indefinitely, listening together to the music of my childhood to date, 1987 at that time.

The music we listened to during my childhood years, it still sustains a great deal of my childhood memories of my mum.

So I Know I'd Said I'd Be Writing More...

...And then I found out 4 weeks before my due date that my assistant had secured a new position elsewhere and his last day would be 2 weeks before my maternity leave is to begin.

So yeah, no time for blogging much, no time for a lot of things lately.  Only a few moments of sobbing the first week the news hit, and generally keeping my head up since then  - - none of it amounts to the end of the world; just reeeeally poor timing for me.  Oh well, but that's why I'm not blogging much, pre-baby delivery.  I guess I'll have to try to catch up post-delivery, which is scheduled for June 11th, by the way! Yup, just two weeks away is all ~

This past weekend was chock full of domestic honey-Do's for my honey-man to accomplish, and I have my own lengthy 'before-the-baby-arrives' to-do list to work at.  In the past, I would detail that list of mine right here and include all that my honey-man had accomplished as well, but these 5 minutes before 4pm this afternoon, they constitute my first non-potty related break of the work day, and I need to get back to work already.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 79

Because I have discovered tonight, for the first time ever in 2 years' time, that my honey-man uses the sound of a quacking duck for his iPhone calendar and appointment alerts-reminders setting...

I'm sitting on the couch and I faintly hear:  "Quack, quack, quack - Quack, quack, quack"

What the??? and he pops out into the room, "Do you know where my phone is?" and I say, all befuddled, disregarding his question entirely, "Do you hear a duck quacking?"  And he smirks at me, sheepishly, and realize, indeed, I am in love with a TOTAL geek. I love him so.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Seven Pounder Thus Far

Baby Nacho -still in-utero- weighs in at 7 lbs right now

28 Days

We're officially scheduled for a c-section, June 11th at five-freakin'-A-M in the morning! As long as she doesn't make her grand entrance before that time, our Baby Nacho will have a birthdate of 06/11/12!

Spoken Too Soon

So last night, just TWO DAYS after I announce that we may have settled on a baby name, my honey-man tells me he's just not sold on (fill in the blank), and without that name, I'm not sold on his middle name choice, sooo we're back to the very start, square one, without a name for this baby.

We have 4 weeks to figure it out - - and we've been debating names for the last 6 months, and we're basically agreed upon nothing but the two names we've had, sooooo, I don't know what we're gunna come up with now!

Maybe the original name we first had in mind for the lil' Jellybean.... Niagara Mitochondria!

Needin' a Tear Jerking Trigger

Ever get so tired physically and emotionally, and so generally overwhelmed that you constantly feel like you're on the verge of tears, but you can't name exactly what's wrong, if anything at all really?  I just feel like I'm going to burst into tears at any moment.  If the right trigger presented itself, I'd be a puddle of tears. It might be hormonal, or maybe not, but that's how I've been feeling for the last 24 hours. 

I think I need a good cry.

We're in Agreement Now, well, Ahhlmost

BACKGROUND INFO:  I've had a particular baby name in mind for several months now.  I've tried on several other names --really, I have tried-- but I keep coming back to this particular name every time; frankly, nothing else has stuck for me.  Meanwhile, my honey-man, he has either revisited the very same names he had had in mind for the naming of our lil' Jellybean -all of which were, sadly, vehemently rejected the first time around- OR he's been consistently coming up with new, quite lovely French names - - names that, unfortunately, no American will be able to either spell or ever pronounce correctly.  There's this one name in particular that he's been repeating most frequently, that he keeps coming back to... it really is so lovely, and I do love it, I do, HOWEVER, I can't rightly say it myself, nor could I spell it without looking having to first look it up 3 and 4 times before the spelling finally stuck with me, but I still can't pronounce it correctly, although I love it whenever HE says it as it should be spoken.

MORE BACKGROUND: Earlier today, we were swimming in the pool together as a family and we have these two new floating lounger-type chair things for in the pool, one for the boy-O -and general adult use- and one for the girlie that was gifted to her for her 3rd birthday.  So, Jellybean was loving her new floating lounger, but insisted that she float right alongside me, holding on either to me or my lounger itself at all times.  Due to the close proximity and her placement, perpendicular to my belly most the time, she had a great view of my bulging pregnant belly (as long as she hadn't turned her head to look elsewhere).

SOME MORE BACKGROUND INFO: Earlier last week, one night just before her bedtime, our Jellybean was on our bed with me and she'd laid her darling sleepy head on my big belly and just then the baby began to repeatedly kicked right where Jellybean's head was resting, and so, for the first time ever, she reeeally felt and recognized the baby moving inside me. Before then, I'd hold her hand to my belly to have her feel baby-movements, but she really couldn't distinguish the baby's squirming from my own breathing or my own muscular movements caused by my laughing.  Well, since that night last week, I've found her often staring at my belly, watching for baby movements, and if and whenever she sees anything major, she'll whip a little dimpled hand over immediately, to be placed atop my belly, little dimpled fingers splayed, so that she can feel her baby sissy moving.

So today at the pool, Jellybean was watching my belly for baby actions, lunging for my belly in order for her to reach and place her little hand on my belly while floating alongside each other - - and each time she made a move to feel the baby, she kept calling the baby a to-be-given name, rather than the usual 'my baby sister', announcing to everyone there at the pool that she could feel "baby (fill in the blank)!" Hearing her refer to the movements of her unborn baby sister by any particular name, with her little hand placed so deliberately on my belly, it was a defining moment of sorts for me.

And so, later this afternoon, we finally had a conversation that may very well be the final wrap on the whole 'what to name this baby' dilemma.
 
As of today, the name that's stuck with me, plus the aforementioned gorgeous French name I cannot pronounce myself, they might be known together as our Baby Nacho's chosen name, first and middle, respectively ... Looking at what her monogram would be, a potential nickname would be 'Vroom, Vroom!'

Hiccups!

When I was pregnant with our lil' Jellybean, she had hiccups off and on, felt from the time I first was able to feel her move, up until she was due.  Well, I'd forgotten all about this... cuz this baby? If she's had the hiccups before now, it must have happened while I was sleeping... although, Jellybean's midnight hiccups woke me many a time!  And well, actually -and DUH!- it was not until last might, around MIDNIGHT, I realized Baby Nacho had the hiccups!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 78

Because as I was at our front door this morning about to leave for work, I was whistling a song that's been a major ear worm for me, stuck with it for the last 3 days in a row... and off somewhere in the back of our home, wherever my honey-man was, brushing our daughter's hair, he began to whistle as well, completing the next part of what I was whistling... how he recognized it, I don't know, and then to have actually known how to reply to my whistling with the song's own chorus melody, I have NO idea...

Who knew he was that familiar with Joan Jett's 'Do You Want To Touch.'  LOL

And how exactly did this song got stuck in my head, oh help me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELpxApT8Kc

Found in a Notebook from 1994: At the Top

Found in a Notebook from 1994: Below the Top

Found in a Notebook from 1994: Written Behind all That

My New Favorite Quote: "Action Expresses Priorities" -Ghandi

This is fantastic: sometimes I wish that I had this kind of fearless confidence when I was younger

http://vimeo.com/40004005
 
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