If you are reading this, you should know by now that I am knocked up!! I know some people hate that phrase, but I find it amusing. 8 weeks, 4 days. It is still really early, but we are excited and hopeful. There are other good things going on as well for us, but I believe that should stay under the radar for a few days.

I expected to get morning sickness (or "morning" sickness), but I was not expecting the fatigue, dizziness, and shortness of breath. Its all for a good cause though, eh? The nausea is so weird. I can simultaneously be cooking/want to eat something and feel like I am going to throw up. The thought of food can make me feel ill, but the smell of food is almost always good (except perhaps Chinese food). Things that shouldn't smell bad at all make me sick (like the smell of wet paper towel?? Not dirty, just wet). I have some other symptoms as well, but they are not entirely blog appropriate. LOL.

Yesterday I came home from work early. It was not a particular symptom that had me down, just a general sense that I needed to lie down. If I am feeling sick to my stomach, or have a headache, or a sore muscles, I can just get myself to work through it - but a general sense of unwellness and desire to lay down? Don't know what to do with that, so I came home.

Another Weekend Past

Its Monday again, somehow. Funny how that happens, it just keeps coming round. Back to the grindstone. My grindstone is a bit slow moving these days. Somehow I managed to get caught up again (this happens periodically without any rhyme or reason). My work is very cycular. I will have crazy busy periods and lulls w/no logical explanation. I am currently in a lull. The plus side of a lull - low stress, can work slow w/out consequence. The downside - having little to do makes the hours tick by slowly. This morning things have been going on at a decent clip, but I expect it to slow down. And now, for unknown reasons, I have a crick in my neck, which is really annoying me.

But this is not really what I intended to post about. I intended to tell you about my weekend. I hope to get some pictures posted on facebook for anyone interested. Friday night DH and I went to Mellow Mushroom pizza and ate deliciousness (I had the mega-veggie, he has the mighty meat pizza), then went home and watched Young Victoria about Queen Victoria's rise to power, it was very interesting.
Saturday morning, after walking the dogs, we went out to breakfast as Bob Evans, then headed up to the mall where we did some shopping for Derby costumes. This was of course to go to the Kentucky Derby party at our friend T's house that afternoon. We arrived at his door at five PM bearing spinach dip. I was clad in a summer dress and white hat with a large pink rose attached whild DH wore boat shoes, very light khakis, a double-breasted navy blazer, and a hat. We were stylin'! It was fun. Delicious food, good race. The host randomly distrbuted the horses names and had chocolate prizes for win place and show. I was lucky enough to get Animal Kingdom (the winner), and DH got second place! So we have some delicious chocolate now.

Sunday I met some girls for lunch at Panera's (more delicious food), then came home and slept away the afternoon. In the evening we went to "An Evening With the Captain's" - a "speaking" tour featuring three of the captains from the deadliest catch - Johnathon and Andy from the Time Bandit and Sig from the Northwestern. It was very casual and very entertaining. I would say overall that their personalities come through pretty accurately on the show, except they are a bit raunchier in real life. It is not surprising that Discovery Channel cleaned them up a bit, eh? Andy played a couple of songs - one dedicated to Phil Harris (another captain who died a couple of years ago), and one called "Fisherman's Life" which was very good. They told some good stories and they called up Jake Anderson (a popular deckhand from the show) on their cellphones and put him on the mic for a bit. At the end of the night they had three people come up on stage and try to get into survival suits in the regulated 1 minute. I believe two of them would have made it, the third totally sucked and hardly even tried. We also got to be the first audience to see a certain premier of Cars 2. Captain Sig has a voice role as a boat in the opening scenes, so we got to watch that. He had not even ever seen it before last night. It was pretty cool. Makes me think I should go watch the first Cars. Amusing stuff for a fan of the show :-)

Then we went home and pretty much both crashed right away, even though it wasn't that late. Guess the fun of the weekend wore us out

The did and didn't of the weekend...

Things that did not get done over the weekend: starting my sewing project, straigtening the disaster that is my office.

I did have a nice weekend though, both in terms of productivity and entertainment. Friday night DH picked up BBQ on the way home. We ordered from Pig Iron because it is the most convenient for him to swing by. On the phone I ordered Potatoa Salad, but when he go there they told him they did not make potatoe salad anymore. Um. What kind of BBQ resteraunt doesn't make potato salad? That is really messed up... I like BBQ a lot. I like the meat, but really my favorite part are all the sides - corn pudding. potato salad. cole slaw. green beans. baked beans. cucumber onion salad. etc etc etc. Mess with my sides and I might just stop using you... Anyways. We ate dinner without potato salad and watched the NFL draft (day 2). Then we walked the dogs. Then we ran to Target to get a bunch of wants and needs, then we went to City BBQ and got potato salad for dessert. LOL.

Saturday I slept in. DH mowed the lawn and I laid around. We went to my coworker's wedding. The ceremony was at 4:30 PM at the Statehouse Atrium. It was very pretty. It was clear the bride was very detail oriented (totally opposite of me). The reception was at the Antheneum, a banquet hall in an old building a few blocks from the State House. It was a beautiful venue with this cool balcony encircling the room. The lighting was very nice and again the decorations and details were meticulous. The food was delicious, the company (my coworkers), was good. We left pretty early, mainly because the dance music did not suit us (we prefer slow songs, things we don't shame ourselves doing), and because all our coworkers left early. They were heading up to meet at a bar where a band was playing that has a member from our work. I told them that a bar with live music very not our scene. We went home and walked the dogs, watched some Dr Who, and went to bed. This morning my coworkers reported they had a great time at the bar and we should have come. I don't regret not going. Seriously, we just don't fit in when it comes to loud live music. My coworkers also said that they really liked DH and he is a great guy and very funny, which I already knew, but was nice to hear again.

Sunday... we both slept in, and because the dogs had been walked so late the night before (10:30pm), they let us sleep in. Nice. In the afternoon I went shopping with the other female guests for our murder mystery party. We were looking for 1930s formal wear. This is challenging. I mean, think about it. If you have average to slightly above average knowledge of fashion history you probably can picture a woman's outfit from 1990, 1980, 1970, 1960, 1950, maybe 1940, and 1920.... but do you have any idea what people were wearing in 1930? I certainly didn't. I did find something though, very authentic/ actual vintage. It is not attractive by today's standard's, but it makes me feel like I am from a different era, which is sort of the point. Now R&T will have to accesorize me. We are meeting again tomorrow night to go over more details. Sunday night we did Laundry and watched some TV. I loaded up some new stuff on my MP3 player (thank you dad!!), nothing resolution related, but stuff that makes me happy. Although, I did finally get the "best of the Eagles" cd from the library, but I have not got it on my Mp3 yet.

This week looks like it will be busy. I have started up with a new round of cooking club, where we get a new recipe everyweek, so tonight I will be trying this weeks - Taco Rice. Tomorrow night is the planning meeting. Wedneday, trivia. Thursday, getting together with a friend J... and hopefully still getting plenty of sleep. I stayed up late last night waiting for Obama, and now I want a nap. :-)

1/3

Tomorrow is April 30th. Sunday is May 1st. Measuring by months, we will be 1/3 of the way through the year. Time certainly does fly. And as far as I know, it will just go faster.

Work. People keep asking me "has work calmed down?". The answer is yes and no. There have not been any new changes in the past few weeks (since the implementation of the dress code), so that is good. But there is a lot of drama/gossip concerning SB5 going around. (the Anti-Union legislation that was passed in Ohio under the new governor.) Additionally, without OT, and with my low motivation levels, and recent use of a lot of sick time, I have been treading water instead of swimming laps around my pending - just keeping my head above water. Its not bad and I certainly am not behind or in trouble, its just not as pleasant as it was to be ahead and be helping other people out. We found out we will get OT back soon, but because of new rule changes it will only be available on Saturday's and will not help your individual pending. I doubt I will be doing much, especially in May, since I have so many weekend plans already laid out.

I went to a used book sale at work earlier this week. They had universally marked all of their hardcovers as $1 and all paperbacks as $.50. I feel like I robbed them. I bought a copy of Mockingjay and Catching Fire - hardcovers in brand new mint condition, all shiny and pretty, for $2 total. I have the urge to say that if you have never heard of these books you live under a rock, but that is not true. But, they are massively popular. They are the 2nd and 3rd books in the Hunger Games trilogy. Still don't know what I am talking about? I guess that just means you don't follow the literary world/books much. Mockingjay was considered the "savior" or the 2010 financial year for publishers. It is not as big as Harry Potter or Twilight, but it definitely has a following. They are currently working on the first movie, which will star that young actress from Winter's Bone that was nominated for an Oscar. I am both skeptical the movie. The book is a Young Adult book, but it is very violent and dark. I am not sure how they can both please parents and readers. I am not sure how they can show some of the images that were described and not have it be rated R. We will see what happens. THE POINT is that these books are worth way more than #1. Probably $20 a piece new, $15 used. Now I just need to find a nice copy of the first book and I will have added nicely to my book collection.

There are ideas swirling in my head about new projects with regards to the use of our bedrooms, they are such a disaster. With any luck we will be selling out house withint he next year, and things really need to get straightened out a bit. In an ideal world (OK... not in an ideal world... in an ideal world we would win the Powerball and be back in Duluth without caring if we sold this house and have a nice mansion on the lake... but in a realistic but ideal world...), we would
(1) get bookshelves for all the books that are in the closet in the red room.
(2) clean out the yellow room which is currently storage, organize its contents and move the contents to the red room closet in a manor that allowed for future use of said contents.
(3) re-paint the yellow room to a color or shade that doesn't give me a migraine, and reinstall the closet so that it is officially a bedroom
(4) Re-organize the green room so things are findable and move any overflow from it to the red room.
Did I mention we have way too much space? All the above rooms (red, green, yellow) are essentially "spare bedrooms". They all have massive closets. Perhaps I should post picture to demonstrate... perhaps another day.

It's a miracle. I actually feel like posting!! Aren't you all lucky (or so I like to tell myself, LOL).

So one of my cousins asked me to help out with recommendations of things to do in Germany. I procrastinated on this and then eventually decided to sit down and do it. I wanted to pull out my old Europe stuff to look through and make sure I got everything (names etc) right. I have one assembled scrapbook from my 2001 trip (when I spent 3 weeks w/HS class in Southern Germany), and then a giant box unassembled of random pictures, brochures, journals, etc from my 2005 trip (when I spent 5 months in Austria and travelled around a lot of other parts of Europe). I thought these were all in a nicely lablled box in the one organized closet in my house (in my office/sewing room). My sister LEKT helped me organize it ages ago. So, I opened up the closet and began to look. I ended up pulling every single box out of it, most of which were not labelled, and not find it. I was a bit frustrated. I thought this was the ORGANIZED part!! Turns out that it was in a large box labelled scrapbooks that had been moved to another room. I obviously have too much space in my current house. This story is not really about my trip to Europe, its about my organizational issues. Now my office has returned to complete disaster area because of course being me I did not put a single one of those boxes BACK into said closet. It is not functional, which is unfortunate because I definitely have a project I should be working on. I suppose if I get up the motivation (maybe this weekend?) I will vaguely reasemble the closet and get cracking on that project... we will see.

I had two friends over last night because they are planning a massively complex party. Technically speaking I am planning it as well, but its really their show. It is a murder mystery party. The theme is 1931 English Country Manor. It will be the first time I use my formal China, though I don't have quite enough place settings so it will be mixed with some of my friends. Last night we discussed the 7 course dinner they plan to serve, how the table will be set, how we will rearrange my furniture, how we will dress, who will play what characters, etc etc. It should be fun. And stressful. As I said, I am not really in charge, its just my house. LOL. So maybe a bit less stressful.

Several people I see or talk to in real life have asked about my New Years Resolutions. Suffice it to say they are not going well. They are likely to undergo serious revision in the next month or two. May Day Resolutions anyone? Or perhaps Birthday resolutions?

Speaking of my Birthday (at the end of May), we have arranged to be out of town for two weekends in May if everything goes according to plans. We are going to go to Illinois to see our friends B&R, and then on Memorial Day weekend we hope to take a long weeked in St Louis. Should be good times if it all works out.

Crickets

Do you hear the crickets??
Wait... I have not been in hear for so long they probably died off or something.
And I really don't have anything to post today, but I thought I should post something.

I hope to get back to meal planning next week. It has been ages. I really am going to try. I might shift to shopping at Kroger. I have been disapointed by my Giant Eagle's selections in a number of departments. Today I went to Kroger on the way home instead of Giant Eagle and its not as far our of the way as I thought.

I am currently on a Pride and Prejudice kick. I love that movie (Kiera Knightley version). Now I am watching the 1980s BBC version. I am five minutes in and already feel like its trying to hard.

I watched Gone with the Wind. I like it, but I don't see why its called one of the best movies every.

That really is all my news....

the movies...

HP1 - warm, cheerful, comfortable, wondrous, embracing HP2 - mysterious, curious, naive, confused, youthful HP3 - suspenseful, playful, nervous, off-kilter, stimulating HP4 - adventurous, tumultuous, dramatic, grand, aggressive HP5 - stubborn, frustrating, angsty, strained, rebellious HP6 - hopeful, overconfident, romantic, expectant, dark HP7 - tense, lonely, resigned, determined, gloomy that is all