* Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Cheery Festivus or Bah Humbug to you all. *

Well, It's here.
The trees are trimmed, the presents are wrapped, the cookies are baked, and the stockings are stuffed.

Minus my one small fauz pas, however, where I put extra money on a credit card for my husband before realizing that our cards were expired. Hm. So I had to wait until today, Christmas Eve, to complete my shopping.
How quaint, right? ;-)

Ah well. In my house, the tree is trimmed, (some) presents are under the tree, the cookies are in my stomache, and the stockings are (basically) filled.

So, I wish you all in Blogger-land the best of the Holidays, from my home to yours.
Be it Christmas, Hanukkah, or Festivus for the restuvus. :)

xo
K

The Pros and Cons of Christmas.

It's officially winter here in my hickville-middle-of-nowhere county of the U.S.
It is 20 degrees outside. That is approximately 30 degrees below my comfort zone.

I've been bundling up like a child the past few days. And wouldn't you know I caught a cold too. ugh. The joys the holiday season brings. Which brings me to:

The Pros and Cons of Christmas. Allow me to elaborate.


Pro: Frank Sinatra singing carols
Con: Britney Spears singing something resembling carols.
Pro: Snow
Con: Ass-freezing cold
Pro: Christmas spirit
Con: Christmas spirits pregnant ladies can't drink
Pro: Sparkly, shimmery xmas trees
Con: The spacious, empty gap beneath the tree that my cat sleeps.
Pro: Christmas treats and cookies
Con: Christmas weight gain
Pro: Family get togethers
Con: Family get togethers. ;-)
Pro: Holiday shopping
Con: Getting hit in the hip by shopping carts
Pro: Christmas cards
Con: Recieving christmas cards from people you forgot to send one to.
Pro: It's Christmas! Everyone should be happy!
Con: There's always a grinch in every family.

You know what the really funny thing is though? Even though I have visions of baby onesies and I'm achy and tired and cold.....

I always look forward to christmas. It does, after all, only come once a year.
:)

Pregnant Woman Cry, It's Normal!

Well, it finally happened. The emotions of functioning for two finally brought me to tears.

I'm happy, don't get me wrong. I'm exhuberant! I'm pregnant! But holy hell- I feel like crap!

I feel like I could vomit from the moment I click off my alarm clock in the morning to the moment my head hits the pillow at night.
I feel bloated, and I have headaches, but really....it's the nausea that is killing me.

I am always eating, always tired, always nauseated, and I always have to pee. It's the perfect combination of pure joy and pure misery if I've ever experienced it........


Anyways. So to the point, I felt like crap all yesterday at work, which I might also add has been a less-that-fantastic environment even before my mommy-hormones were raging; got home and ate some ice cream (momentary fix) and watched some tv and drank my weight in water trying to offset the fact I felt like I was on a ship in a tsunami.

The husband, the sweet man he is, made dinner whilst bringing me fruits and vegetables as I laid sprawled on the couch in an unladylike fashion. We bickered some, which I will happily admit was mostly due to me and my current sensitivity.
I napped. I woke up.

Then he brought me dinner. Smothered pork chops with egg noodles and steamed green beans.
I couldn't eat it. I just broke into tears.

Here I am, walking about in a constant fog of "do I/don't I vomit", wanting to pull my hair out during work yet smiling like the chesire cat instead, come home for even more bouts of sickness, and then my husband makes me dinner and all I can't even eat it.
I felt terrible.

And yet, I'm still stuck. I'm so grateful for every wave of puk-ish desire because it means the little bugger is doing well, but at the same time:

I can not wait until this morning sickness crap passes. Holy crap, people.

My Books, My Belly, and My Gag Reflex.

I have to admit, I've never been very good at taking instruction verbally.
In fact, I rarely take instruction well at all unless it's self-instruction, but that's besides the point.

So, of course the moment that everyone finds out I'm pregnant I'm knocked on my ever-growing tushy by a barrage of "do this" and "don't do this" and a handful other less inviting phrases.

While I graciously appreciate everyone's concerns and intents to share their boundless knowledge and experience, why is it that even though motto of pregnancy is and always has been "No woman is alike", that the first people to forget this is women who have been pregnant?

I expect what I expect, and what I read, and more importantly; I will roll with the punches and get where I get when I get there. I don't need to know that I will be kicking my cat off my bed in the middle of the night because I no longer love him, and even more so, YES I am aware that you don't leave newborns alone in a room with two cats.

C'mon people, it's the first time a baby has been inside me with the full-on intention of coming out, but it isn't the first time this girl has been around a baby. They aren't foreign objects to me.
I have been around a few years, long enough to know that 1. babies are kind of hard to break, and 2. if in fact you do break them, it's ever-so-helpful that their daddy is a medical assistant.

Back to my original point.
I don't take well to people spouting off their opinions (or 'facts' depending on their assertion level) to me. I'm a reader and a doer.
At my appointment yesterday with my midwife, as she was flipping through literature and explaining the high points of the first trimester and what to/what not to worry about:(which btw, did not annoy me because it's her job) I already was aware of 90% of what she said.

Because I, the day after I got the 'you're knocked up' sign from my self-pregnancy test, went out and bought some books. And I read.
The most prevalent message I'm getting from all of it (other than the obvious do's and don'ts) is:

Every woman, and every pregnancy is different.

So as we go into it, it's a whole new ballgame, ladies and gentlemen.
While I appreciate the fact that your wife threw up at the sight of raw chicken, and that you ate peanut butter and jelly at midnight everyday for a month, and you have the "best" cure for constipation........

frankly, conversating about vomit and defacation isn't really what makes a pregnant lady feel fabulous, if you know what I mean. :)

Staycation and a Little Surprise.

I've been off work for a week.
It's crazy, because I thought I'd get WAY more done than I did.

I must add, I did get a lot done, but it sure feels like it's only been 2 days, not a week. But whatever.

We went through our storage, and now there is a huge "Goodwill" pile in the hall, as well as a garbage pile. The closet in the second bedroom is also much more empty.
I cleaned my fridge out. I reorganized my kitchen appliances and whatnots.
Odds and ends job completely all over the place.

I have come to one conclusion. Work sucks, I wanna stay home all the time.

*sigh*
Never gonna happen, but my, I love my staycations.
Granted, I would gladly trade one in for a trip to...face it...anywhere. But I got so much more done this way. And....it was cheap. I like cheap. I embrace cheap. It's one of my mottos.

Yesterday the hubby and I celebrated 4 years of marriage.
My, time does fly. We had pizza and watched Star Wars 4 - 6. I slept through most of The Empire Strikes Back, but hey. I was tired, in my defense.
It was a nice anniversary.

I digress. It's been a fast week, and I want it to start over. Also, I have a myriad of things to accomplish today and this weekend. So why am I blogging.
I need more tea and to get moving!

Ah yes. And one more thing.

I'm pregnant. :)

~The Unraveling One

Sincerely, The Starving Housewife.

Do you remember that feeling you used to get when your a kid, and you have your nice warm house, and big delicious dinners, and all the coolest toys you play with, and no bigger concerns than who you're going to sit next to at lunchtime tomorrow?

Yeah, all these little pouty kids that strut down the leaf-speckled sidewalks looking like the most pathetic creatures on the planet make me sick.

I mean, not that I want to go back to wearing hot pink sweaters and crooked ponytails and trying not to make eye contact with the creepy lunchlady in a hairnet....but I have to say I kinda miss that carelessness of childhood.
Adolescent minds simply do not comprehend the side effects of growing up.

~

After careful calculation between my disposable income and the stack of bills that clutter my mailbox daily, I have come to the conclusion that I can pay everything diligently and on time as long as I cease to eat for the next 6 months. Hm. Yes, that will work. Think of all the weight I will lose.

However, bearing in mind that if I die from starvation that nobody will get paid, some other process must be administered in balancing my finances. Either that, or I'm going to need to take up a second job licking stamps or making tacos for a pimply teenage boss.

Our dear friends at the Department of Revenue have sweetly requested payment for my previous year's balance due, and rightly so. I concede that I owe them the money. But I must admit, I'm a little miffed that in an analysis of my disposable income in order to determine my monthly payment that by excluding my credit card payments as offset, ANY 26 year old girl is going to plunge into starvation when they tell me I have to give them $112 a month.

This, of course, is actually the part that is only making things worse. The initial bombshell was a garnishment I recieved on October 1st because the lady at the collection agency is a biznitch and turned me in because my payment was...wait for it...


Not skipped.
Not avoided.
Not missed in over a year.

but late. Just a week late.

Soooo....now, rather than making my $25.00 a month payment, they are garnishing my paychecks for $560 a month. Seems fair. (cough cough)


Uhhhh.

Being the spreadsheet freak that I am, I created an simple filliable calculator in a program that allows me to input all my monthly bills, my monthly paychecks, and it will spit out an ending balance that I fondly refer to as my 'scrap fund'.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what this girl, husband, and two cats will be surviving off of for the month.

$33.00.

Look like Mr. Capital One and Mr. Household Bank will be playing a role in my life again. :)

I think now I could really go for some of that cafeteria food and a crooked ponytail.

Lost in Translation, I Blah You Too.

Ever notice how you can say one thing, and someone will hear something completely and vastly different?

Annoying as hell, isn't it.

I can pull out of my personal verbal closet a thousand things I have said to my husband and I would have been better off slamming my fingers in a door it would be less painful. Not that he intends it wrong. He just doesn't hear it right.

It's okay though, I'm not too worried about it. I've heard it from a crapload of spouses so I'm pretty sure it's more often the rule than the exception.
Face it, ladies, men and women do NOT speak the same language.

I can say "It's on the top shelf somewhere"

And he will hear: "It's on the top shelf in plain view. If at first momentary glance you don't see it, be sure not to touch or move any item, and instead start hollering about how it isn't at all where I said it would be."

But don't be upset, men. We do it too.

You can say "I need that socket wrench right there, can you hand it to me? Yeah, right there next to the 1/8th inch and the phillips screwdriver. No, not that, that's a hammer. Yes, that's it. Ooooh, look at you bending over, look at that butt! mmmmhmmmm!"

And we hear: "blah, blah, blah, socket wrench, blah, blah, yes, blah, no, blah blah, you look kinda fat today."

Ahhhh. It's a complicated science.

Now, let's throw a scenario out there to complicate things even more. Let's take K and her fantastic husband and throw them into a alcohol-flowing, late at night situation with some friends. See, the thing about me is that once I get a little on the tipsy side, my mouth opens and starts pouring verbal atrocities.
I start talking all subjects taboo and making innappropriate jokes to go along with it.

The pros to such an affliction, is that once some friends go out drinking with us, you bet your bottom dollar that they like us if they ever attempt such a feat a consecutive time.

The cons to ordeal is that more often than not I get the evil eye in the morning when my husband informs me that me and my girlfriends were loudly comparing bra sizes, or sharing tips on 'married lady actions'.
Yeah....I usually feel a enormous wave of regret the next day, which might I add is always a fun addition to the hangover I'm suffering through.

What can I say. Men and women, we speak different languages. And sometimes, I get a little alcohol in my system and I speak a language all my own.
I can look on the bright side.

a. My husband must really love me, because he hasn't divorced me yet.

b. I have an inate ability to screen out friends that aren't true friends, i.e. Karen embarrasses them and they can handle it.

and c. We may speak different language and communication may at times be strained, but at least whether we're a slightly embarrassed, irritated husband or a half-drunk, crude-mouthed wife: 'I Love You' is still the universal language we understand. Kind of.