Thursday, January 28, 2010

When Life Hands You Lemons...curse them!

OK…soo…January was a really great month. Can you tell? Combined with my lack of posting and my completely depressing posts that I did manage to write, let’s just say that I am really looking forward to Monday. Which is a first for me. I usually have a pretty bad case of the Mondays.

The other day, I went onto my blogs that I check every day, and on one of them, I was given an award!! It’s called When Life Hands You Lemons” award. And, I’m not going to lie, my first thought was PANIC!! I HAVE TO POST A BLOG NOW!!! And OMG!!! I have to nominate FIVE other blogs!!! Shit. Here’s the thing…I do read several blogs. I wouldn’t say that I am blog-obsessed, but I do enjoy me some internet stalking, best friend-making. But my best friends, (who have no idea that I exist), are generally the popular girls. Dooce, Pioneer Woman, The Spohrs, Playgroupie. These are women who have plenty of readers and don’t need more readers. Because what you do when you get this award is to thank the giver of the award, link to their blog, share 5 things about yourself, and then link to 5 new blogging recipients of my choosing and notify them. Eeks!! The pressure!! And then I decided to make a master decision. I am going to break the rules. And I am going to link to a couple of blogs, and that will just have to do. I can breathe a little more easy now. (please note also that it has taken me approximately 3 days to make this decision and act on it.)

My friend Pamela at 2 Much Testosterone is the one who induced this panic. Fortunately, I found her shortly after I had Sam, when I was a bit down in the dumps. And you know what?? She was too!! She encouraged me to seek medication, which makes me happy. And I truly enjoy the stories about her kids, even though it blows my mind that we are only a couple of years apart and she has a teenager!! It makes me want to write down stories about Sam, so I don’t forget. Which I rarely do, but I totally have the intention of sitting down one day and journaling all about it. Pamela lives in Florida, and whenever I talk about her to Workaholic, it’s “My friend Pamela in Florida,” and he is all, “How do you know her again?” Boys just don’t understand.

And here is where I am supposed to share 5 things about myself. Which shouldn’t be hard, except I once shared 50 Things About Myself, and I am trying not to duplicate.

1) I get road rage, except instead of yelling at people and flipping them off, I yell and then almost start crying. This is especially bad if I hit a million red lights in a row. The only way I have found to deal with it is to ask God to not let me cry hard enough so I can’t see, because that would be bad, because I am driving. And to please just give me a break. It generally works…He listens.

2) Continuing on the God theme…I recently discovered that I HATE the church I joined up here. I decided I am never going back, and already have a new one picked out. I have been told that it is normal, and the Mass starts and ends on time, which is important to me. (I am Catholic, so I have to have a church here...but to be honest, I hadn't gone to the one I HATE since early last year. So yes, I am a pretty typical Catholic.)

3) I don’t let Samantha watch little kid TV. She is a big fan of the news, and NCIS, and I tell people that I don’t think it is good for children her age to watch lots of programs geared towards selling them crap. Secretly, it’s because I am trying to put off memorizing children’s songs, which I know will happen eventually.

4) We decided to put our house on the market with a realtor. For the past 3 years, we’ve had a huge for sale sign in our yard that my husband had made, but it hasn’t really gotten us anywhere. So she is coming tonight. Eeks!

5) I recently posted on facebook that I wanted a particular dog, and put link to her. This inspired a friend of mine to go onto www.petfinder.org and look at dogs. Her and her boyfriend brought home a black lab mix puppy named Sam!! I am so happy for them that I am not even weirded out that their dog is named Sam (the shelter named him that), and him and my Sam are kind of going to grow up together.

Okey-dokey…now to my recipients!!

http://gemini-girl.com/ She may be much more popular than I realize, but I think she is awesome. And she just made the HUGE decision to leave her hometown and move hundreds of miles away. That girl has balls.

http://tuesdayshope.blogspot.com/ Again, probably much more popular than I realize, but she is the ultimate in courageous. I love to hear her take on life, and how she gets through her tough days. AND, she just gave birth to an adorable baby boy, Angus.

And finally…
http://www.hicksfamilyonline2.com/blog/ Full disclosure…this is my ex-boyfriend. And no, our break-up was not pleasant. But it was years and years ago, and we are both adults now and thanking God that we broke up. He hasn’t posted since football season, so this is incentive for him to get off his ass, quit being all in love with his girlfriend, (fiancĂ©?), and update his blog!!

So THANK YOU Pamela, for making me get up off my ass and post a new blog! I feel so. much. better. More to come…I promise!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Better Late Than Never

January 8th was a Friday this year. Last year it was a Thursday. Tuesday the 6th was my due date, it came and went rather uneventfully other than I didn't sleep much since I'd been having fake contractions since Sunday. But the 8th? The 8th of January 2009 was a great day. It was the day Samantha was born. It didn't start out so great, since the Sadistic Whore of a night nurse refused to medicate me. But once Dr. Arch-Your-Back-Like-an-Angry-Cat came into my life, the 8th of January got so. much. better.

I was thinking of this when I was walking out of work this January 8th. It was a Friday, so I should've been all pumped right? No. Work this January has really gotten me down, and it was almost worse that day as I drove home and was thinking back on that Thursday. I started thinking about how happy I was. At the time, and after I got back to work after Sam was born, I heard people say that they were on a high after giving birth. And I thought, "Well, that's crap. I didn't get high." Looking back though, I realize I was just...happy.

I was surrounded by family and friends who loved me. They were taking care of me, and my baby. They were in awe of her, and even of me a little bit. Even the nurse (Peggy...my day nurse, the one who was there for the big event, the one who promised me that she could deliver my baby if she needed to, but we were paying the doctor the big bucks, so he needed to earn them) told me how awesome I was, since I did everything she told me to. I made her job a lot easier. And I made her laugh too, so that helped.

I was medicated for the pain, which was nice, because there was definitely pain. I was brought gifts, and water, and Peggy showed me how to use my squirt bottle. (if you don't know, don't ask) I got to hold my new baby daughter, and watch other people hold and adore her. And I was a texting fool. I was happy.

Fast-forward a year. I am back into the throws of life, back into the stupid drama that I either create, participate in, or am an innocent by-stander. No one is telling me that I am awesome, in fact, the exact opposite is happening. I am treated like a trouble-maker, a pot-stirrer, and I really don't think that is true. I may call people out for being dumb, but if you are dumb, that is your problem. I'm no Mensa member, and if I do something wrong, I'll fess up. So own it.

So January 8th of this year was kind of a let-down for me. I suppose I never thought of it as being impossible to match the happiness of January 8th, 2009. I look forward to having other days like January 8th, 2009 in the future. Samantha won't be our only child. I'm excited for the future, and until January is over, that is what I am holding on to. That and my beautiful little girl.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

I know she is deserving of a much better post than this, but it is year end at work and I am truely about to lose my mind and go postal on certain people, so



HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!!!!

I'll try to give you proper tribute this weekend.
Until then, enjoy these videos I've uploaded to youtube.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!!!

I typically don't like really hyped up days...they are always a letdown. A few years ago, we started going to my in-laws cottage for New Years' Eve, mainly because we didn't want to take the risk of going out and getting arrested somewhere, and also because I am too cheap to spend a ton of money on one night. Every year, we sort of go back-and-forth over what we are going to do, and every year we wind up at the lake. This year, we have been blessed with "real snow".

Real Snow is the kind that piles up and you can go out and play in. It's the kind where you can build snow forts, and go snowmobiling, and have snowball fights with your Golden Retriever. (guess who wins??) It started snowing on our drive up last night, and hasn't really stopped since. I love Real Snow. Especially here.

Since it is cold outside, and there is Real Snow, we have a fire in the fireplace. And since my Purdue Boilermakers were on ESPN playing against #6 West Virginia, Workaholic snuggled up with Sam, and this is her, watching her future alma mater kick the you-know-what out of the Mountaineers...


Fonz also loves real snow...

And when it gets too cold, he comes in and warms up with the Blue Blanket. We all love our lazy days...