MidWeek Blues

Why do I always seem to be so unwilling to take a shower on Wednesdays? I suppose if I knew the answer to that I'd also be able to respond to my bi-monthly leg shaving sessions. I think I have one coming up in a fortnight or so, actually.

Update on Lucas

Sorry I haven't given an update - I couldn't do it from my phone for some reason and never got to a computer till now. Thank you so much for your prayers, we still need them!

Things aren't completely settled yet. The doc said the surgery went well ... the post surgery fall out has been a roller coaster. He had a day of no eating, way too heavy of painkillers, then a day of mediocre eating, then a day of vomiting, then a better day, followed by another day of vomiting ... which took us back to the doctor today. This poor guy can't catch a break and he's really too small to do this for too long. His personality is returning and he isn't dehydrated, so hopefully small progress is good enough.

I have a great story to tell about my neighbors, but it'll have to wait. Gotta get some sleep!

Say a prayer for my baby, Lucas

Yesterday when we went to get lucas' casts changed for new ones (a weekly event), we were surprised with the decision by his doctor to do surgery on his feet .... Today. We had been told each week that the feet looked good and we could probably avoid surgery. It has been a hectic and anxious 24 hours. I'll be so glad when this is behind us.

Starved for even a mild form of adult entertainment

I just had the most exciting daydream about a vacuum.



?

Oh So Sleepy

A couple of preemies in your house really make you cut back on the sleep. I console myself by using them as hand puppets and having them role play.

Hands down, best reason to have twins. I'm definitely taking suggestions for various characters or scenarios they can play out.

This shouldn't surprise anyone

I don't have Anne Geddes photos, calendars, thank you cards or any of the like. The only thing I actually have in common with Angela, on the office, is that I think it would be pretty great to keep a 20lb cat in the bottom drawer of your filing cabinet at work.

Anyway, the boys got to have a free photo shoot a few weeks ago because a local photographer wanted some twinfants (how's that for twin lingo?) for her portfolio. It never really occurred to me that the free shoot would come saddled with restrictions meaning that I had no say in what types of photos were going to be taken. I had several coordinating onesies set out and I even showered that day.

It wasn't to be. The image I had in my head of Benjamin in his truck onesie and Lucas in his tricycle onesie was shattered when the photographer told me she brought her own outfits.

And I looked on the floor and saw a beige, crocheted hat with mouse ears on it.

MOUSE EARS.

I had to get out of there and fast. I smiled (probably smirked) politely and then retreated to the kitchen where I busied myself making lunch. After about 1/2 an hour (don't worry ... Dr. J was with them) I took a deep breath and went in to check on their progress, only to find them naked and in a bowl.

If I hadn't been breastfeeding I probably would have drank a whole bottle of wine with a straw.

Crisis averted

I am proud to announce that both boys are Beatles fans. Right now it appears they prefer the early years, but they are only six weeks old after all. Abbey road has time.

A Guest Post from the Boys

[A rhythmic morse code of nom, nom. Nom nom nom. Mmmmnnnuu. Nom ... Followed by miniature elephant sounds and a series of monkey squaks.]


Allow me to interpret.



Lucas: Dude. You are soooooo needy. Mom can't even open her computer without you being strapped to her chest in that kangaroo pouch thingy.

Benjamin: Whatevs. You have casts.

Lucas: That's what you got for me? That's all you can come up with?? So lame. Clearly, we can see who is the dominant personality here.

Benjamin: What's with your elephant noises anyway?

Lucas: I don't need to dignify that. And it's totally your fault that mom had to give up the nursing. Those were some nice ta tas.

Benjamin: I've had better.

Lucas: I will cut you, boy.

That's when I walked in to stop the argument only to find them like this. Quite the feisty bunch.

(lucas left and top, benjamin on right

My boys are home!!

They are both on monitors, which is scary and comforting all at the same time. And now, a different type of sleepless nights begins.

Beating up on the less fortunate

[cue background music: Dada ... Da ..ta .. Da .. I'm just a milk machine]

[irrelevant to this post but worth noting that I could really use a third boob over here]

Yesterday, on top of all the other madness, I had this bizarre swelling that looked like a baseball was stuck on the inside arch of my right foot, so I called the doctor just to see. Ya know, because maybe someone did lose their baseball.

Normally, this would still be something I'd ignore, but sometime at the end of last fall, I was diagnosed with some kind of clotting disorder that was never really explained to me and I was too distracted with iVF to ask so I was like ... Oh, ok .... Yeah ... So just take this shot every day and that should do it???? Cool. Peace out.

The clotting turned out to be quite the issue and the cause of the emergency c-section. Blah blah, so I called the doc and he had me get a thing done on my leg at the hospital ( they didn't find anything and it turned out not to be a baseball, go figure!). Anyway, so I'm trying to rest, trying to take care of the boys, then also the leg thingy. When I go to the appointment, they ask me if I want a wheelchair since it's a long walk to cardio. Dr j gives me this stern look so I obligingly agree to chair it.

Then they proceed to send in this 95year old candy striper to wheel me down the hallway. Awesome. The eldest golden girl is using me to work out her morning arthritis kinks.

Right after that, I went to the bathroom and felt justified to use the handicapped stall because of all my many ailments .... And when I came out there was a wheelchair sitting outside of one of the regular stalls. And as I washed my hands I hung my head in shame and horror as a woman with one leg came out and hopped over to her chair.

I can't show my face there ever again.

Finally ... photos!!

Quick update and then back to blog stories because you know the ridiculous-ness that surrounds me isn't going to slow down just because there are babies here, right??

Update: Benjamin and Lucas were both re-admitted into special care on Sunday, which was very nerve-wracking for a million reasons ... many of them rhyming with shormonal. I was discharged from the hospital on Monday but with the boys here, it's not like I'm gonna sit around the house watching Days of our Lives (I'm sure it's really awesome though, Ashley) so we spend our days at the hospital and go in for all their feedings, do diaper changes ... stay involved as much as we can. Benjamin is being treated for jaundice and Lucas for respiratory (sp?) and dehydration. Both of them just weren't getting enough nutrition too. Basically, we had two days of honeymoon and then the boys just remembered how small (and cute!) they are and were just exhausted. So they're on lots of monitors which were scary at first, but after you sit there a few days, you don't notice them anymore ... and you hear the doctors talk to the parents with the REALLY sick kids and you thank God for all your blessings. Plus, our friends are amazing and we get so much support. Someday when I am hydrated and well rested, I'll try and remember to thank them all.

Dr. J has been taking a storm of photos and videos. Yesterday we were watching a few videos only to realize that we had about a dozen of Lucas and 1 of Benjamin ... and so it begins. Lucas just has the craziest expressions and so many of them (see, I'm already trying to defend bad parenting from the get-go). Oh, and our kids already have a reputation in this hospital for their poop. I've had no less than 8 different nurses come to me with poop stories (mind you, they are 6 days old) ... most are about Benjamin, but Lucas is catching up.Enjoy some early looks!!Above: Lucas close up, about an hour old.
Below: Benjamin, just after his first bath

I ended up with a true emergency c-section under full anesthesia ... here I am meeting my little darlings for the first time, barely alert ... I definitely couldn't have quoted my full SSN at this moment, but they let me hold them nonetheless. I guess when mom still hasn't met her babies 12 hours later, people start to have a little guilt.



All cleaned up, and ripe for snuggling. Two little burritos.




Tada!! Posed for the hospital official photo. In case you are wondering, they are (of course) the cutest babies at the hospital. Benjamin is in blue, Lucas is in green.

Introducing ...

Benjamin weighing in at 5 lbs and 18 1/2 in, and Lucas weighing in at 4 lbs 4 oz, 17 in.

They were supposed to arrive via scheduled cesarian next Wednesday but baby boy Lucas had other plans and he broke my water on Thursday just as my mom and I were about to have dinner. I definitely want to tell the rest of this story but I know I wont have much uninterrupted time here in the hospital.

For now, I'm completely in love with these babies. They are healthy and doing exceptionally well, especially for premees. They only spent about 5 hours in special care before being released to the regular nursery. Lucas, like his Daddy, has two clubbed feet. While dr. J's feet may be hideous, they work perfectly fine and that was 35 years ago. We will see a pediatric orthopedic next week sometime.

We have taken a million photos, but haven't yet had the strength to boot up the computer.

One week more

If I can handle all this great "rest" for another week, then wormy and squirmy will reach their goal date in utero. That will put them at 36 weeks and 4 days. So we are officially scheduled for next Wednesday. There is still plenty to do to get ready but I'm almost too overwhelmed to do any of it.

The hardest thing about bedrest

I think I can confidently say of myself that I fall into the category of people who are self sufficient. (stop snickering) Even getting married was a mental leap for me at the age of 27 as though I was saying to the world that I was willing to be a dependent or even that I was willing to share a spot on my couch.

Who am I kidding ... I still don't share the couch. See how patient Dr. J is?

Bed rest (is that one word or two?) requires that I ask people to do everything for me. It's not that I can't do things ... it's that I'm not supposed to do it. That's the tough part, I CAN do it. (also writing on a computer while you are sideways pretty much gives me seizures so that's one activity that is quickly going by the way side)

However, the absolute WORST thing about bed rest is that yesterday, my mom made brownies ... with raspberry chocolate chips in them ... and they are sitting in the kitchen. It pretty much sucks all the fun out of sneaking extra brownies when you have to ask someone to bring you one ... and then when you finally can stand it no more and you break down and ask for a brownie, they respond with "are you sure?" In my mind, I punched him with a giant boxing glove that shot out from the end of a massive spring, causing him to spin around like a Looney Toons Character until he saw a rotating halo of stars and little chirping chicks. OF COURSE I'M SURE! HELLOOOOOOOOO! Pregnant, twins, bedrest, severe back pain, birthday, brownies with raspberry chips???? Any of this ringing a bell??

To husbands everywhere I beseech you - if your wife finds herself in this situation, bring her a PAN of brownies and a FORK. Then turn your back, and walk away.

Timing

I truly am only encouraged. Considering twins and all, I've had a great pregnancy. Boys have been fine and all my ailments are certainly things that will pass and I will recover from. So we are now literally two ish weeks from meeting these little guys. Today we got the first pic of Lucas that we have ever seen, he is just so camera shy!

Two weeks of bed rest is nothing. I know, you all think I will go crazy. I can do anything for two weeks and I'll be giddy if the rest keeps the boys happy and growing. Fortunately, today was the release date for the new Harry potter Lego game. I never thought I'd be someone that anticipated a video game release but this combines two of my favorite things. And now I have an excuse to play it incessantly when I ought to be doing things to get ready for the boys.

Pray for all of us. I'm not nervous, we have such great doctors and we have already made it so far. Just gotta sit this out!

Will the fun ever end?

Last night I was telling of all the ... ummm ... experiences .... we have had with the former owners of our house in one sitting. When I actually said them all together like that, it truly sounded insane. Ready for the latest?

- they have actually been taking our mail from our mailbox (and our friends thought we were crazy for refusing to move in anything until we changed the locks)

- yesterday he showed up to collect 2 pieces of mail that we received by accident ... and he asked that "if I don't mind" could he take our satellite dish?

Something tells me that he has the Sabbath Oven programmed to attack our first-born, poor Lucas. I have no idea what to think of this guy, except that I'm pretty ready to charge him a $5 fee for each piece of mail I store for him. That sounds fair considering everything, right?

Ahhhhh ... sweet relief

FINALLY we have AC on both floors of the house. The master is downstairs - obviously, this is the floor that had no AC. It's not worth the story of getting the AC fixed, it's not that interesting.

Today it is 72 degrees in my room. And in my bathroom. The greatest part is that when you stand with your barefeet on the air vent, it feels like ice. And when you sit on the toilet, it feels like you are sitting on a refrigerator shelf. Back when I was human, I am relatively certain that this would not have been a good thing. Now that I am carrying around a small alien planet in my tummy, I think I am actually trying to think of reasons to drop trou and visit the john.

The trifecta is in the master bath. When you sit on the icy toilet, you can rest your feet on the frozen air vent ... and recline on the chilly ceramic lid. How 'bout it?

The two week challenge

Activia commercials are funny to me. But I really love the guy with the blue phone selling some kind of insurance with vanishing deductibles. Him and his crazy ways. selling whatever he sells.

and this is how i am spending my afternoons. it looks hot outside, i really wouldn't know.

The Ultimate Upgrade

"It must be an upgrade" is the theme of our new home. Mostly because the previous owners really tried to milk us based on the upgrades they had done. They did put in wood floors downstairs and granite countertops in the kitchen, but the spotty stain job and the bulk of caulk pouring out of every crevice of the kitchen left much to be desired.

Other noteworthy upgrades:

- 10 - 20 blue push pins in the dry wall in every room
- sponge paint ... pink, to boot
- the hardware had all been switched to what I like to call gold lame'. There are those who love it (Charlie's Angels, Liberace), I don't hold it against them, it's just not us.
- imaginary lines drawn where they wanted to change paint colors mid-wall
- the "drawers" in the refrigerator were converted to immovable cubbies with no front door
- the blinds alternate cream/white/cream on several windows
- a large steel hook sturdy enough to hoist a small family was screwed into the frame between the kitchen and living room.

There are more, but why bore you with them all at once? The upgrade that was the single greatest source of pride from this family was the oven that they had installed. This oven (less than two years old, knobs already broken off) has the ability to create a downdraft so that the cooking odors are taken down and out of the home. This is important if you cook a lot of Indian food, less important to someone that roasts a lot of veggies in the oven.

This oven has been a great source of stress, the control panel on it is complicated and difficult to work with. Ashley came over the other day and was finally able to turn off a timer that I had not been able to clear for TWO DAYS. This morning, my mother and I successfully tackled the clock and got it out of military time. However, as we flipped through the setup options of the oven, we came across this screen:


No words.

It takes a village ...

So far, we are in ... Mostly through dr j's efforts. And oh so many countless others! Sadly, we are still mostly in boxes and Mona is in heaven with all there is to explore. Check out this list of saints -

- Some of my darling former students painted one of the babies' rooms.
- Ashley took charge of where to place things during the move since I had to work.
- Wendy has opened countless boxes and helped me go to the store and buy supplies. She also entertained me and played wii when my mind was bored but my body was useless.
- Adam had moved furniture and moved furniture and moved furniture.
- Mack, barret, doug, geoff, John helped move ALL the stuff from point a to point b and were patient enough to help rearrange it.
- Wendy and Pamela helped clean my bathrooms prior to move in date.
- More former students are coming over this week to help paint and organize.
- Cj is bringing us food tomorrow night for dinner!

God bless all our friends!!

A new level of manipulation

Because this is my story and my life, it truly was impossible to imagine that all would go down without incident. True to life's gentle promises, we had a bit of a snafu Friday at closing.

The (now) former owners of the house tried to scrape every last penny from us that they could in the last few weeks. When we did the walkthrough before closing on Friday and the owner was there, we were less than thrilled. At one point when dr. J left me alone, she let me know that she had left a baby gate in the garage if we were interested. I was, but I almost told her to just toss it, assuming this would somehow end up on our final bill.

Fast forward a few hours to closing. Dr. J and I are signing a smorgasboard of paperwork with our realtor M and attorney. M notices that the owners have arrived so he goes to greet them and let them know we will be done shortly. But he come back with this odd smirk on his face. The owner told M that it was against their religion to do a cash transaction on Fridays. however, they can make an exception if we give them $5. Dr. J is deep in conversation with the attorney when M tells me this, and I completely lose all sense of professionalism and church giggle uncontrollably for the next 10 ish minutes.

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

- does his religion also prohibit them from notifying people of their religious restrictions on cash transactions in advance?
- how is this even their transaction, we are the buyers!
- ok so the religion permits sets of transactions. One was bad but two is good?

M and I scrape together $4.25 between the two of us, both believing that it is much more likely that we are funding their gas money than anything else. Dr J. finally notices my irrational snickering, so I go ahead and ask him if he has 75 cents. He doesn't even let me finish my question before he cuts me off, tells me he doesn't even want to know what is going on, fishes a buck from his wallet and tosses it to me like I was a pole dancer.

I can't say I've done heavy investigating on the matter but after about ten minutes of googles, my searches for religious prohibition of cash transactions on Friday proved fruitless. We have both resigned ourselves to the belief that we did, indeed, pay for a baby gate. Since M pitched in $2, we are calling it M's gate. Thanks man.

Every Man's Dream

And so go the house closings. Our first is today, closing on the home that we shared for the first 5 years of our marriage. Hopefully the second closing will be tomorrow. There have been a lot of hiccups in this home's progress, but I'm ignoring all that and assuming it will work out.

In any case, we are celebrating the sale of our first home today by making the first purchase for our next home. We'll head straight to Best Buy to purchase a ...

[drum roll]

a new vacuum!!

Our current vacuum was purchased for $75 when I was in grad school and has more than fulfilled its expectations. It has only survived 9 years because we haven't had many carpets in the house in general. Good job, little guy.

What a good man I have to let me take advantage of the 20% off of Dyson vacs before The TV Purchase. Dr. J has long awaited The TV Purchase. Much to the chagrin to our friends that are forced to watch Lost at our house, we have a 32" tube, that was generously handed down to me when my tv exploded about a week before moving from St. Louis to SC. It's still going strong, Erika! And now it's probably going to go strong in the guest room.

Plus, I personally love that The TV Purchase is going to happen right after Dr. J got his tenure. You deserve it babe!!

From whom all blessings flow

We've got a lot to be thankful for right now.

.... we have an unimaginable amount of stress, hence the posting at 4:30 a.m., but we've got more to be thankful for.

Near the top of that list is the survival of my grandparents from yet another tornado. These are two of the Godliest people that ever walked the earth, truly. Somehow, they have managed to ride their faith well into their senility. In case any of you are wondering, they do not do frequent local weather updates on either Larry King or on CNN. So if you are a political junkie, you may or may not be notified when there are two tornadoes passing through your town.

And if you are my grandparents, you will probably drive downtown looking for a good squash. Lord knows, if you don't get there in a timely manner, someone else is gonna get your squash.

As jawdropping as their continued behavior in the face of natural disasters may be, I think we (the family) have resigned ourselves to their stubbornness. Perhaps we all just need to up our prayers for their safety during tornado season.

Any of you reading this that actually know me, must be thinking by now ... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yes, I'm well aware of the irony here. And I'll close by saying that I can only hope to have the stamina to make homemade biscuits for my grandkids early in the morning AND stay up until 10 pm to watch Larry King when I'm 88 years old.

Rock on, Grandmother. Live it up.

Trauma Drama

So we are officially out of our house. Our first house that we lived in together as a married couple.

Pause for nostalgic purposes...

Well, we might have had a minute to consider this step in our journey together if only MONA HAD NOT LOST HER SANITY LAST NIGHT!

Mona has stayed with friends before, when we went out of town. She is often depressed when we leave her alone, so if we can, we find a place for her to stay. Oh dear God, I hope she's never done this to anyone else.

So what did she do?

We arrived about 9:30 pm, to our temporary home away from home, and Mona sat silent for approximately 12 minutes .... before the howling began. The howling and the crying that continued as we slept - correction - tried to sleep. About half way through the night she started propelling herself into the air, doing front flips like an Olympic Cat Gymnast, landing on her back on the bed, all the while continuing to cry. Gold medal performance for sure.

What on earth???????? She did at least 30 of those flips. FLIPS! That ended with her laying on her back! Without a doubt, we've been the cause of the most traumatic event in her kitten life.

So goodbye, little house. You were a good little house. You were all my little kitty ever needed.

Have Mercy!

Oh so many things happen all at once. My school year should be wrapping up as soon as all my little darlings take their finals ... and graduate.

It is so hard not to tell student stories on here, but I don't want to cross that bridge at all. I will say that final exams do bring out the strongest emotions in kids, and I remember those days clearly. Today I watched one of mine as he struggled to try and figure out how to manage all the stress. I could totally relate!! So, so, so many things are happening with me all at once. Some days I feel like I'm going to pop, not just because of the babies either. I keep thinking, if we can just sell the house, if we can just find another house, if we can just get tenure, if the appraisals / inspections can all go through, if ... if ... if. No matter what, I just know it's not all gonna get done before the boys get here. However, my mom is coming earlier than we originally planned and I'm SO GRATEFUL! Isn't it amazing how mom's can make everything better?

I do want you to know that I do not feel guilt when my students are stressed over finals - it's not my fault!!! However, I do feel for them. Even my little heart of stone that used to get grounded for crying, can only watch so many tears.

The Ugly Duckling

Or Leo the late bloomer or whatever children's story is a metaphor for our life as of late. Dr. J and I are both just overwhelmed with God's grace right now. We have just spent so many years reminding ourselves that the Lord will take care of us and there is a larger plan. And so we have just forged ahead trusting and praying.

Dr. J got tenure today. I'm so proud of him and want him to take time to appreciate the achievement. Which is going to be challenging with all the other things that have worked out for us lately. All of which are wonderful blessings - they just happened arrived in kind of a scary order. Right now, things are really looking up!!

Congrats Dr. J!!!

MUCH Progress

1. Our current home has been inspected and appraised and all has gone well. Close on May 27th - yay!!

2. Our offer on the next home was accepted!! Hopefully we can fast track inspections / appraisal / closing and be in by June 5th.

We love a lot of things about this home and are really excited about it. Photos of the front and back yard below.





Last but not least, I ran to the grocery store after work today to alleviate all the chores that Dr. J is now fulfilling. I thought I was going to have a heat stroke so I went to the frozen section and stood there holding a door open staring into the vast space of Ore Ida Potato varieties.

Smooth

This morning, Dr. J stepped back a little too quickly and almost knocked me and my decaf coffee over. The following then took place.

Dr. J: Whoa Mona! (because we have conversations by talking to the cat) I nearly knocked over a bus!!

Me: [stopped in place, slowly turned, furrowed my eyebrows]

Dr. J: [blink, blink]

Me: [stare]

Dr. J: I mean because you are carrying around two babies. [gulp]

Me: [blink, blink]

Dr. J: [smiling innocently] A smartcar??

Rollin, Rollin ... Rollin ...

It's hard to even think of a day of my childhood without my father singing the theme song to Rawhide (complete with the hi-yaw! and the whip sound). Right now, I can hear him singing it all the way from Hachie.

National Board Certification Portfolio Submission - check.

National Board Certification Test - check. (Passing score? Not so definite, we will see)

Offer on the sale of our house - check. (please, please let this work out!!)


Which means that pretty much everything that was out of our control has a check by it and we are about to be on a massive crunch to complete the finding of a house, purchasing, moving in, and finally ... getting ready for babies!!!

How many weeks have we until they arrive? 12 at MOST.

Gulp. .... and yay!!!

Hello 35!

A few days ago, I noticed a white (not grey) hair in the middle of Dr. J's chest.

Dummmm .... dum, dum, dum .... DUMMMMMMMMMMMM!

After realizing that it was not, in fact, a string, he claimed to be wearing it with pride ... except that he covered it immediately and won't let me see it again. I think whitey will get special recognition on Dr. J's 35th birthday this year.

Bada Boom, Bada Bing!

What a wonderful thing!

We had a 24 week sonogram today and thank everyone so much for their prayers. Both Benjamin and Lucas are looking good (and devlishly handsome, I presume) ... both have normal amounts of fluid in their brains and are measuring 1 lb 8 oz (Lucas), and 1 lb, 10 oz (Benjamin) ... which is right at the 50th and 58th percentiles. Oh to be so normal!

It's a good thing they didn't measure the nose or eyebrow percentile ... their father has doomed them to score well above average there. As long as they get his pigment along with it, I'll just teach them proper brow grooming early on.

The sonogram operator (I know there is a formal name for this) surprised us by giving us a 4d image of Benjamin's face. He looks strikingly like his father (see paragraph 2) and eerily like his Uncle Austin. Witness:

I'm completely preoccupied with trying to pronounce eerily right now. Don't look at it too long either, or you'll want to play scrabble.

Mambo

To the relief of my Colombian husband, these boys are already working on their Latin dances. Unfortunately for this American wife, their learning is at the expense of my bladder and ribs. Where are the days when they just randomly kicked?

We get to see the boys again on Tuesday - please pray for the health of both Benjamin and Lucas!

Superstar of the Week

This probably breaks every rule of effective superstition, but I'm gonna gamble. After what has been an unrelenting 23 week streak of steadily worsening heartburn, I've had three days of relief. My doctor finally told me I could take Zantac and oh what a relief it is (I definitely had a jr. High cheerleading cheer with those very words ... minus Zantac of course).

I get to cap off my week of shopping, eating (finally!) and leisure at the parents house with a baby shower today that I'm super excited about because .... who doesn't love parties with delicious food and punch???

I'd also like to point out that I'm completely in favor of squads of middle schoolers walking behind me and cheering me on. Especially about the lack of vomiting and heartburn.

Pigment-ly Challenged

Truly, life can be so unfair. I emerge from the winter months with pinkish blue blotchy skin that looks as though I've been infected by January. The first few days of sunlight force out all the acne that's been stuffed down into clogged pores for 4 months. My skin literally aches for Vitamin E.

On the other hand, Dr. J delivered some boxes to the post office on Wednesday and came home looking like he'd been on a Caribbean Cruise.

Cause for multiple exclamation points

I.

AM.


DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




I've decided to watch television tomorrow in the main office during my planning period to celebrate. In the meantime, I'm gonna go have a milkshake.

Re-entrance to Society is Near

I am almost dizzy with excitement. Today should be my last day of writing and then hopefully I can even get this edited today as well. I honestly haven't seen anyone but Dr. J, Mona and Ashley in three weeks.

I am so throwing myself a party ... and getting a pedicure ... and getting my hair done. The only good thing about having to do all this so quickly is that it is due before Spring Break, so I can actually take a break next week when I go to Dallas and hit the Gymboree Outlet (and Off Fifth Ave for me, but don't tell Dr. J).

I am totally going to pee myself.

To Ivanka: My iPhone

If I could remember what a Haiku was, this would be a totally appropriate moment for one. Out of respect to those of you that actually know the syllabic requirements, I'll not dare. In any case...

Ivanka, when I spent those 3 hours today thinking you had been stolen, I barely had the will to live. Thankfully, you were on "silent" in my bookbag ... where I put you, even though I can't remember doing it. I wish I hadn't made myself late to the doctor looking for you. I think he was pretty unhappy with me.

I measured 24 cm today which for singleton pregnancies is supposed to go along with the number of weeks you are pregnant. I'm 20 weeks and 24 cm ... so it looks like Benjamin and Lucas are growing steadily.

Oh yeah, we decided on names :) Benjamin Louis and Joe Lucas. Joe is after my dad and Louis is after Dr. J's granddad. But they'll be called Benjamin and Lucas.

Potty Training Prof. McGonagal

I'm oddly intrigued by this idea, mostly just to see if it really works.

Please indulge yourself in Mingus' Cat Toilet Training Program

The only problem is that Mona is extremely trained, do I really want to mess up a good thing? She did however, vomit all over the office for no apparent reason this morning. She's definitely seen me make it to the toilet, why can't give that a go?

And the results are ...

Well before we tell you the gender, there is a prayer request for one of the babies. Both had all thier appropriate parts and measured appropriately. One baby has a little bit too much fluid in the brain. Not a lot too much, a little, but enough they were concerned and wanted to make us aware. They will check again in 6 weeks and my prayer is that everything will look normal with the fluid at that time. I don't really want to go into a guessing game of what ifs yet, we will wait till the next sonogram.

After the nurse told us the gender my first thought was that I already have one Dallas Cowboy onesie and that should get us through football season, but I will need one more. At least I don't have to worry about hunting down cowboy cheerleader uniforms.

My dad is gonna have these guys welding in no time.

The Surge

In my last post I referred to the fact that I had a months less time to complete a huge amount of work than I thought. This means that it all has to happen in the next few weeks along with house selling, house hunting, parental visit and of course, work and life.

This weekend has been declared the surge and by tomorrow afternoon, I intend to have half of all the writing done that needs to be done. Which amounts to about 25 pages of writing. Of course, I have called in reinforcements for help with editing and so far have three offers. Ok, so offers and a plea. Karolina, you may be hearing from me soon.

And so goes ... my pre-oscar watching activity.

Sayonara. For now, at least

I do promise to post on Monday when we find out the genders. I have a SEVERE amount of work to complete in my very near future and thought I had until the end of April to do it, but as it turns out, I was off by a month. Leaving me THREE WEEKS to finish the work.

Let's hope I come home rested every day from work and be ready to ... well ... work more. UGH.

That combined with the house going on the market this week, house hunting, parents coming into town. YIKES!

Ricky and Lucy

The long awaited sonogram photos from last week:

This photo shows the baby on the right (head is to the left, big tummy on the right, blob underneath). Now that the Septum has been located, doc says that the baby on the left will stay on the left and the baby on the right will stay on the right. To the happiness of my friend who has been dying for me to name the embryos, they are now referred to as Ricky (right) and Lucy (left). Pea, popcorn, bean, etc, just weren't really us. Ricky and Lucy are much more tasteful.

I can definitely feel them now. The Ricardos seem to take turns poking and prodding. In these photos, Ricky is sitting on top of Lucy's butt (and is waiving ... apparently it's pretty awesome to be the topmost embryo). Apparently they can switch the up/down, but not the left right. And so goes the first sibling rivalry. Although I'm not sure whether it's more desirable to be up or down.

Anyway, Lucy is laying underneath Ricky's butt in this photo. Lucy isn't waiving and this profile isn't as clear, but Lucy was still very jumpy during the photo shoot.


Dr. J had some difficulty with the scanner at his work, so this took longer than intended. Sorry mom. And Dad and everyone else that's been "patient".

One more week and we'll find out the gender(s)!! Ricky and Lucy will remain their reference until they get official names, which we haven't worked on yet ... so it'll probably be a while.

Tough Luck Ladies! He's taken.

This weekend, in doing the final preparations to get the house on the market, I asked Dr. J to find something to do with all the random rods and metal scraps that had found their way to the bottom of the office closet. This closet holds pretty random stuff; games, potting soil, folding chairs, pet supplies, vacuum, and of course those random bits of scrap metal. After much trauma to his psyche, Dr. J disposed of the random bits of scrap metal ... we went through a short marital argument that if you can't remember why we have them, we aren't putting them in to storage, etc.

I went on to stage the house, placing decor and tidying and cleaning. At the end of the day, I went to put something up in the closet and noticed that Dr. J had "staged" the office closet as well.

Witness:


The idea behind staging is to show the future owners how they could use the space, what they could place where. Clearly we are demonstrating that they, too, could use this as a vacuum / miniature tripod closet. Enough space, in fact, to keep their tripod open in case they have an emergency photo op.

I hope there is enough room at the next house for a Tripod Closet.

The Septum

Ok so I teach high school, so I can't resist.

A Septum is a ...
a. part of a toilet that "stores" your solid excretions (also something my father fell into when he was a lad)
b. a line of tissue that separates the food supply of multiples in utero
c. a portable tranquilizer that can be used in cases of extreme nausea (e.g., an overrated writer with a tendency towards the "extreme true-life and therefore sad" romance makes a movie)
d. a phrase heard in the country when choosing all but one boy (get it? everyone 'cept him??)

Too much fun. You should see my physics test from today.

The correct answer is B! This was much case for concern as of late because the doctors could not find the Septum at our last visit. Yesterday we had a 16 week sonogram specifically to look for it and there is was! Right down the middle. Hooray!! The babies looked like they were out at recess, all flipping around for the cameras and whatnot. I have some very cool photographs that has a great profile shot and perfect little hands to boot, perhaps my baby daddy will remember to scan them tomorrow.


4 Days to Dear John. Peace!

16 Weeks and Counting!

The good news should be that the sickness has passed, unfortunately it has just been masked by the cold / cough that Dr. J gave me. I expect to make a massive online announcement when I finally see 9:30 pm again and/or not have heartburn for the last 3 hours of my awake time.

I'm trying to make the most of these last moments of sustaining a relationship with my ankles and toes. In celebration of their visibility, I shaved below the knee and painted my toes. Some people would call this good hygiene, but I'm pretty sure I've never shaved in February before. This was also prompted by my friend showing off her toenail polish remnants in public yesterday. She was completely horrified. I of course, do that all the time, should I have shame?

I've always been a flip flop girl to the point that it causes me physical pain to wear actual shoes once its more than 60 degrees out. Without batting an eyelash, I intend to play up the whole pregnant-with-twins thing and wear shoes of my choosing for the rest of the school year. I've even got my eye on those leather Reefs I passed up last year.


Countdown to Dear John: 6 days. Get 'em!

I cannot be trusted

Back in the day, I used to work in front of a computer. It was always difficult to not be distracted by things like reading news, gossip, blogs and the like on the internet. The amount of "interesting" content out there is astounding.

Today I told myself I'd work for a few hours so I could go and see a movie this afternoon. I desperately need to work and truly have no excuse not to but I found one anyway! Somehow I convinced myself that I was way behind in the musing and goings-on of several of my friends and now I can at least say I am caught up.

My accomplished "work" consisted of
1. I discovered the sound is working on the computer (aka I couldn't watch a you tube video)
2. our external hard drive is not communicating properly (aka i couldn't upload some old photos)
3. We did at least meet with a Realtor about listing the house. Step 1. Got a few more phone calls that need to take place in the next few weeks, hopefully we'll be on the market in a couple weeks at the latest!!

Not much point in pretending to be productive now. I don't know how anyone could work from home.

Spreading the love

Anyone that know me well knows that I hate things that are sappy and ridiculously sentimental. In spite of this, I have agreed to go and see Dear John with friends in a couple weeks. With any luck, the reviews will be so bad that the theater manager will pull it and the producer will burn all the reels over a glass of red wine.

Just kidding Shelley, I'm sure it's perfection.

And today I spent most of the day by myself and it really was a nice day. I'm finally feeling better and I watched a
movie on the couch. In spite of myself, I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to blog some very sappy ode to my friends. I think this would be the hormonal equivalent of drunk dialing, I'm sure to regret that in a new light. People might start giving me Nicholas sparks book recommendations and the like.

In any case, I hope that everyone is lucky enough to have a friend that mispronounces half of the English language. It keeps things very fun and interesting and makes me feel like I have a sufficient vocabulary.

And this isn't Dr. J either. He mispronounces things in several languages.

Oblivion

How is it that you can cut off half your hair and your husband doesn't even notice?

It's not like I changed my lipstick color. Or plucked an eyebrow. I mean half of my hair is not on my head.

Oblivion must be a pleasant world.

Double Demolition

Dr. J disarmed upwards of 2 dozen jalapenos today while watching The Hurt Locker.

Both the movie and the peppers are not for the weak of stomach, but I recommend them both. For those of you attending our Superbowl Party, bring some Tums and a hearty appetite.

2010 Oscars

Babies or no babies, there are still Oscars this year. The major dilemma is party or no party? The number one problem is that the Oscars aren't going to be interesting! This may be the year that everyone forgets faster than any other. We could jazz it up with margaritas (accelerating our ability to forget) but then the babies you know .... whatever, I can make them for everyone else. We are about to put the house on the market, so friends, you'll have to try not to damage the dry wall while you are here. Thanks.

I think the focus needs to be on the pregame show. Generally, living in EST forces that simply because who can watch all the awards until past midnight and then get up and teach 17 year olds? ME!

Normally.

The stars had better be out in their finest, that's all I've got to say. Something has to make up for the lame 2009 movie calendar.

The Other Side of the Navel

My baby daddy is confused with the navel linkage. I keep telling him that attempting to speak to my own belly button will allow him to communicate with his mother-in-law, not the babies.

I still love you!

You still make my heart go thumpity thump thump. And I'm still gonna deck my kiddos out in Blue Stars.

Gimp and Lovin' It

Every time we go out of town for any substantial length of time, Mona has this self-depricating behavior of compulsive cleaning. Sounds fake and insignificant, but last year, most of our Christmas money went to vet bills for Mona. This year, we came home to little bloody footprints all over our white bedspread and white desk. She has licked off part of her paw pad, poor little dear. A few days later, we took her to the vet where she got cast #1.



With the cast on, she is milking the attention and acts like her foot is broken and can't hold her weight. The cast / wrapping was switched a couple days later, but she had that one off in less than 24 hours. She works at "cleaning" it with such ferocity - if only she could put that OCD to good use and get the floors mopped!!

Cast #4 and dreading her next dose of antibiotic:


Here she is ashamed of the vet bills. Actually the vet has been really great this time and only charged us the once. Kudos to Rosewood Animal Clinic.

Sonogram Photos

We have two early sets, since we have one from Fertility at 6.5 weeks and one from our OB at 8.5 weeks. It's so amazing how much they developed in two weeks!

To answer the very popular question, how do you know they are identicals? See in the picture the oblong dark area that my brother says looks like an okra (week 6.5 photo)? That's the amniotic sac. There are two circles in there with white smudges at one end. The circles are the babies, the white smudges are the hearts, and the fact that they are in a single amniotic sac makes them identical.


The week 8 photo is when the doctor officially named them Twin A and Twin B, so I guess our work there is done! You can make out their figures in this one.

OMG I must have this.

I am not purchasing twin stuff for a while, gotta get further into this. BUT I am completely in love with this, good thing it is currently out of stock.

Long-awaited Results

In just a few months, I expect that these will be very swollen.


Not much to look at now, I know. They'll look even more pitiful once they've been toting around a couple of extra chillins.

Yes, I said a couple! Both of the embryos did not make it, but the one that did had a little surprise in store for us. It split and now we are having identicals!! Dr. J is all smiles and excitement, I'm still a little overwhelmed.

We have so much information to pass along but the most important is that we want to thank everyone for their prayers. Our friends and families' prayers have meant so much to us, particularly the prayers that took place when we were finding it so difficult to pray at all. We thank God so much for our gifts.

We do ask for your continued prayers. Carrying multiples is always high risk, carrying identicals is even more high risk, essentially they share a food supply. If my ability to share is any indication, it doesn't bode well for one of our little ones. So, particularly in the next 5 weeks or so please keep all of us in your prayers. We are almost 8 weeks now, and we'll feel a lot better once we move into the second trimester (in both confidence and indigestion).

We wanted to tell our grandparents in person so we did put off telling everyone for a few weeks. We also hid the twin info from everyone and that's been fun to spill. More to come, more to come....

My Date in Dallas

About a month ago, Dr. J asked if he could take me on a date while we are in Dallas.

Date stop #1 ...

Yes, indeedey, there could only be one location for our date. And yes, these are the posh "paper towels" on top of the granite countertops that reflect a beautiful Dallas Cowboy blue when the light hits it just right, inside the new Cowboy Stadium.

And since I only had Ivanka to take photos with, you'll have to bear with me as you squint your way to see the lockers of Miles Austin, Tony Romo, and Jason Witten ... made of African hardwood.


Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of JJ's (Jerry's) private elevator that ports him from his private nook to the field in a matter of seconds ... so he can speak with Coach Wade about what a great job he's doing.

We actually had to skip out on the last stop on the tour (the Cowboy Cheerleader's locker room) because we had a dinner reservation. Seriously, I had nothing to do with this. I think those girls are just so wholesome. In any case, we had dinner at Five-Sixty, the restaurant on the floor above where our wedding reception was. How romantic is that!? Five-Sixty gets its name because it's 560 ft in the air, on a rotating floor so you get great views of the skyline. It's in Reunion Tower, a Dallas landmark, that made for a beautiful wedding reception locale.


See the "ball" shaped tower on the right? Our reception was there in 2005, on the bottom of the rotating floors, the restaurant is one floor up and was just remodeled a few years ago. I highly recommend it, if ever you come to town and want to splurge. We had beautiful views all evening and the food? Wow. Too die for. Did I mention the chocolate souffle that we finished the evening off with?

The Crazies

So Wednesday night, there was this guy that was straight out of a SNL skit that mocks the crazies who go out to dinner alone, at 5 pm, and murmur themselves. I actually snagged a picture of the scenario when he got up for a refill (right before I ran for my life).

Picture me at 5 Guys next to This Guy:
- white guy, mid-50s with a combover
- has four LARGE ketchup containers lined up in single file
- ever fry he ate was dunked into each of the four ketchup containers (in order)
- he alternated the dipping direction with each fry. One fry starting with the furthest ketchup container and coming towards him, the next fry started with the closest ketchup container and went away.
- when the fry cup was half empty, it was refilled from the bag

I'm so grateful that my darling husband met me for dinner so I didn't add to The Crazies. Maybe I did though. Perhaps he's blogging about me right this very moment. My hair did look really, really scary, but I didn't see a mirror for another 2 hours.

If you aren't already

You gotta start watching Modern Family.

I think I may get a bumper sticker. I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep this hilarious-ness around.

Sometimes, I'm too smart for my own good

By Saturday of Thanksgiving break, I was starting to feel guilty that I hadn't even started grading all those lab reports that were due the day before Thanksgiving. By tonight, I felt really guilty about it. So at 8:15, I sat down to grade them ... and opened my bag ... and remembered that I left them at school on purpose knowing I wasn't going to grade them, so why carry them?

And for all of you that think it's harsh to have lab reports and tests on the day before a break ... well, you have a point. I just tell myself I'm preparing the leaders of tomorrow, but I'm probably just preparing more physics teachers.

2 weeks and 4 days of school until Winter Break and the annual 17-hour drive to Dallas!!!

Productivity

I got the following things done:

1. I ate two chocolate chip cookies and drank two IBCs with sugar in one day. This is a pretty intense amount of sugar for me. ok fine, and I definitely ate a bunch of pringles. and some cashews...

2. I got caught up on Ugly Betty (5 episodes), The Office, Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy

3. I prettified my blog. By comparison to the other things I did, this actually might have been worthwhile.

4. I watched a Christmas Movie on ABC Family / Lifetime (is there a difference when it comes to made for tV movies?) I can barely remember what it was about but I remember that I was so in suspense that I held in going to pee for a good 15 minutes in spite of the fact that we have a dvr and I could have paused it.

5. I read an entire book of the bible (a long one!). I wish I had time for that every day!

6. Cowboy Game (those are some seriously short shorts on the cheerleaders. I know they always have been but whoa, they just really got to me today, maybe it was the cookies)

7. Defeated another 3 levels of Batman Lego for Wii. All except for one evasive bat canister that me and the Wii are currently disagreeing over. I say I got it, Wii doesn't think so. It may win because it's a dictator and has total control, but it will never convince me.

8. A little smidgen of work done for my national boards. Boy am I going to regret that. All that nonsense and nada to show for boards.

9. I washed my hair (I got so little done that this seems very significant) ... I haven't straightened it yet so this process is hardly complete.

10. I finally got some overdue baby gifts bought online and shipped. I found this one super cute thing that I'd love to put here but one of the recipients tends to read this blog, so I'll keep it to myself (but it's a giraffe teether!!)

You might hear a lot from me this weekend

I just called Ashley to find out what the weather is like and to have her describe her every movement. She's supposed to call me if the weather changes. I'm trying to be a good couch potato and I was looking forward to it all week long. I'm just not one to sit for so long. I think I'm gonna go hit the wii here in a bit, now that I've got my blog all pretty, and pass some mindless hours finding the rest of the bat canisters on Batman Lego (which totally rocks by the way).

I will leave you with this photo, because the Professor is totally cracking me up today. Last week, I got a pair of boots and decided we should keep the giant box because Christmas is right around the corner. Prof M LOVES herself a good box to sit in, so every chance she gets she looks like this ... sitting upright ... in the box.

New Layout

A perk of lounging ... I need to be distracted or I'll go nuts! I've always hated the look of this thing so I'm working on making a few changes. The first few changes truly were just a mere click of a button but now I've got a photo frame sitting atop my subtitle. Since I know I'm not the only one that doesn't speak html, there must be an easier solution here but for the time being I'm just gonna wait until Dr. J gets home to do a little diagnostics.

I did however find some easy to add buttons that go on the bottom of posts! And in case you are wondering, Professor McGonagal loves the new background.

Attempt 2

Dr. J and I are going through our second round of in vitro this week. There is a good possibility this will be our last, one way or the other, this roller coaster is a little much to take. Please pray for us for the next few weeks.

The jealousy may commence

Dr. J just asked me if he could take me on a date while we are in Dallas for Christmas.

I'm so spoiled.

Ahhh Christmas

So I was talking to mom today and she's definitely working the weak, invalid, post-surgery angle. She plumb wore herself out today with online shopping. Apparently her shoulder was exhausted from all the computer usage. How cute is that :) Thankfully an order she placed a couple of days ago came in, to give her a little material comfort in her time of need.

Me: [Being dutifully supportive] So what do your new sweaters look like?

Mom: I wanted to get a new Christmas sweater that didn't scream Christmas

Me: [sighing of relief and remembering the sweatshirt with the reindeer whose antlers were tangled with Christmas lights that I wore through middle school] Nice.

Mom: It's green and it has these trees on it

Me: MOM! Trees?? What on earth? How does that not scream Christmas?

Mom: They aren't bad, I promise! And there's a bear .... [interrupted]

Me: MOM!!! A BEAR?!?! For the love of God, you bought a sweater with trees and a bear and that doesn't scream Christmas?

Mom: It's not like a "teacher bear" (somehow implying that there is such a thing as a non-teacher bear outside of collegiate gear)

Me: Yes because there are good bear appliques and bad bear appliques

Mom: It's really not bad you can barely see him peeking through the trees.

Me: [Dial-tone]

And my mother wonders to this day why I didn't go shopping until I was in my twenties. I mean, what was really the point if even the non-screaming attire were iron-ons. I guess when she said it doesn't scream, she meant in the literal sense.

I really, really like those chewy blonde brownies

They are so rare and I always forget how delicious they are.

But I don't get why they call them brownies. In any case, people should make them more often.

It was only a matter of time

I'm officially a hooker.

But it's under the codename flapper and it's in this PCA Dance performance this week where they rope in some shameless teachers to make fools of themselves with costume and heavy makeup. All in good fun. We have our very own number and in spite of the limited motion "dancing", I do have a bizarre ankle injury (in recovery).

The performance this weekend is actually going to be very cool (I'm only in one number, but I do have a solo for 2 8-counts that has yet to be worked out). The choreographer / writer created a performance that blends The Nutcracker with The Untouchables and it is so clever!!!! It's called the Uncrackables. :)

If you are bored out of your mind and are up for a different variety of entertainment (and really want to see my upper thigh in fishnetting) there are performances at 7 pm on Thursday and Saturday. I'd recommend Saturday. It is $6 / adult (you can buy online if you are super fancy and/or never carry cash).

Yay!!! I made the list!!

Stressful jobs that pay badly. (according to CNN Money)

Oh wait.

...

I'm not alone though, ADAM.

:)

gotta get back to working so I'm ready for tomorrow!! (9:22 p.m.)

I am very bad at wheel of fortune when my ears are stopped up

You wouldn't think they'd be related, but you'd be wrong. You'd also be wrong if you thought that this would not be important to me. I am the wheel of fortune master. And it stings a little when my awesomeness wavers.

My students are so talented

The same girl that painted the sophomore banner is my student aid. I was able to help her fulfil a "lifelong dream" of completing the wet floor caution sign. Apparently there is some scene in the movie 300 that it bears a striking resemblance to. I definitely saw that movie, but mostly i just remember a bunch of roaring, bare-chested men on ego trips banging on their chests and dragging women around by their hair. If that didn't happen it might as well have.

Apparently the janitors weren't too happy with her addition, but I love it. :)

Overheard between students

One of my Jewish students returned today after being out for 4 days. Poor guy, he really didn't look like he was ready to return.

I overhear a student say to him, "Swine flu ... huh. Is that kosher?"

I laughed outloud hysterically. Couldn't hold that in.

Some homecoming banner photos

I took these before the pep rally, so some groups had lights in their banners (i know, these are crazy!) .... and the lights aren't up yet, but this gives you an idea of why they took so long. there is a closer view of the freshman banner because it's harder to tell what it is. all of them are painted expertly, and you can kind of tell that here, but in person they are impressive!!

enjoy!

We lost :(

For the first time in about 5 years ... the senior class lost. It was so sad!!! They really tried their best though and I was really proud of them. The way the competition works here is that the different classes compete in about 8 different activities, one of which is the banner (that's what we were still working on LATE LATE on Thursday) ... one is the skit (ok that ran pretty late too) ... another is raising money for a charity.

And they raised almost $1100 for Families Helping Families and we'll be able to do such a great christmas for some local families here!!

I took some great photos which I have to show you guys but I have to download them first. The banners really don't translate well to photos, you just can't tell how huge they are and how well they are done.

Anyway, I'll post them tomorrow (I hope!)

It's all done ... So now we wait and see

Please note that it is 11pm and I'm about to go home. Be back at 7:30!!

It feels like three weeks have passed and it's been three days.

I feel like I'm working two jobs. The teaching thing - that's still on. Plus the homecoming prep work. All the planning and painting and errands and dances and skits and sequins. oh, the sequins.

I got home about 10 last night, 8 tonight ... and tomorrow's going to be ugly, I'm prepared for midnightish. One day left and so much to do. Not to mention my class has been observed about 5 times in two days, plus I have an unbelievable number of meetings this week. I barely even remember teaching amidst the chaos!

Oh to go to Happy Hour on Friday. Watch me be first in line and somebody outta buy me my own bowl of queso.

Latest Fashions

Yesterday, i was too lazy to get up and fix my hair, since the night before I had been too lazy to wash it. As most of you guys know, my hair is actually curly, and although I love it when it looks good on a good day, it just isn't reliable. And being the Type A control freak that i am, I just prefer to straighten it so I don't have to worry about it's own ability to perform.

That and I don't like to walk around with wet hair. Makes me look like a hungover undergrad.

So yesterday i wore my hair curly which caused much uproar and ruckus in my classroom. After the water heater blew in the gym, followed by the fire alarm going off and immediate evacuation of my school, I was standing in the sun, sweating and unable to put my hair up. Of course, the AC had gone out when the fire alarm went off, so once inside, i was teaching and sweating with no AC, with sweat-sodden curly hair that had looked so nice an hour earlier.

Finally I find a rubberband and put it up, against all the objections of my students that were either 1. enjoying the curls or 2. pandering for a better grade (just do your homework guys!). I still had a floppy mess of bangs and no safety pins, but being the resourceful engineer that i am, I found a solution and spent the rest of the day with two pink paperclips atop my head.

Witness:

Allow me to define irony for you

I've spent my life mocking cheerleaders and pep rallys and all the hoopla that goes along with the glittery madness. Now I'm in charge of the senior skit for the homecoming pep rally and that's what I'll be spending all my free time in the next two weeks doing.

I love priceline

This month is full of interesting and fun, which is a nice change. Dr. J and I have been saying we needed to take Victoria somewhere a few times while she is here. She is going to Dallas with us for Christmas and will experience her first (and maybe only) 17 hour road trip.

This weekend (in 4 days) we are going to Asheville for the weekend. We got a good deal on priceline to stay at Doubletree in downtown next to Biltmore Estates, where .... as you may know ... they give you hot chocolate chip cookies when you check in. And if you are bold, like I am when it comes to warm cookies, they will give you more later. mmm ....

I am so looking forward to going. I intend to saunter a lot. And read in cafes, undisturbed while Dr. J and Victoria go check out Biltmore (I've been twice and it's $$$$$$ or I'd happily go again). Speaking of, does anyone know a way to get discount tickets?

Where I get it: Part 322

I picked my parents up at the airport yesterday (yay!) and when I went to give my dad a hug, his nose was covered completely on the left side with black soot. So much so that I was afraid to hug him because it would spread over me like a disease.

While he was in the bathroom powdering his nose (sorry, I couldn't resist) my mom shows me that she has spent the entire day at work and on the airplane, not with two different socks, but with two different shoes.

Witness:
This photo is now set on my caller ID on Ivanka.

Update on In Vitro

It was not successful.

Oops!!

So this morning I was making a shortcut for my iPhone "desktop" for my blackboard classes. Ivanka (the iPhone) shortens the name of everything you save and drops out the middle. I wish I were kidding but she renamed my blackboard classes to "black asses".

My phone is racist. And apparently likes booty.

Great.

Did anyone else see Dr. Oldendick interviewed on WIS tonight?

That name pretty much says it all.

Peace out.

This was so tacky, But I was laughing inside the whole time

We have been trying to correct a problem with our credit card number on one of our bills for the past 6 weeks. This was my fifth attempt and it just sort of made itself available when they sent an automatic call to me today.

After some time on hold, I got to speak to a salesperson and explained the entire scenario to her. It probably took me a full minute to explain. To which she replies, could you speak up, I really can't hear you.

Uh .... you couldn't hear my minute long explanation and you are just now mentioning that?

Yes.

(this was on my home phone that works extraordinarily well in sound quality)

So, I raised my voice. To a level that was just below screaming at the top of my lungs and proceeded to have the calmest, loudest conversation I've ever had for the next 10 minutes. And she still hasn't fixed our problem, but oh how I'm laughing inside.

We can't do anything normal

We really need to do laundry. I wasn't aware how bad the situation was until today, when Dr. J was asked to put on a pair of scrubs (leaving only his underoos) ...

and I was surprised to see that he had broken the cardinal rule of not actually wearing the silly flourescent yellow boxer briefs with the large mustached face on them that your mom gave you for Christmas.

Fun with Dr. J

This morning we were talking about how they are making a movie on the book, Where the Wild Things are and saying that Victoria should read it as her first English book. Then we can all see it when it comes out.

Dr. J says, "I love this wild things stuff".

So cute. but not as cute as this. She is just very upset right now that she can't sleep on my tummy.

Pin Cushion

I've added several new things to my routine in the last few weeks. I should be getting ready for school but for the most part - I'm way ahead of ya! In an effort to keep my world as low stress as possible I did Let's Dish at teh end of July and have those meals ready-to-go in my freezer since then (we are partaking in the first tonight ... salmon ... mmmmm), I got my room and courses ready for school early, and I've started acupunture (what's a few more needles at this point, right?).

Acupuncture is something I've been considering doing for years anyway because I have a chronic back pain that my very patient husband will try and massage out from time to time, but truly, it's pretty bad. People have recommended Eastern Medicine to me for years and I've gone from thinking I'd rather have 3 squares a day of tofu and berries to being so desperate that I'd stick myself with needles if it would stop hurting.

Then our fertility specialist recommends doing acupuncture throughout our treatment, partially to increase blood flow, but partially to just de-stress. So my acupunturist (I feel very elitist saying "my acupunturist" by the way) is also treating my back pain.

All. But. Gone.

The biggest stress in my life right now is that my acupunturist is always running 30 minutes to 1 hour behind schedule. But thanks to Ivanka the iPhone, I'm kicking some Oregon Trail Tail.

Allow me to pass on the raving reviews that acupuncture works!!!

Nonparenting a 17 year old

Dr. J's sis (Vito) is living with us until mid-January. Vito is coming from a different culture, can understand quite a lot of English but rarely attempts to speak it. She's been here about three weeks and I think she's averaging about 1 sentence every other day. And then we have Spanish Day every Saturday ... and then it's like living with a mute-turned-hummingbird-paced talking for 16 hours straight. I think she even gets up early.

At home, Vito has a very different culture, having someone to cook all your meals, do your laundry, and clean your home. I think she's been blown away by the nonstop amount of things to do at our house. If we aren't cooking, we are cleaning up, or the dishwasher needs to be emptied, or the trash should be taken out. You guys are Americans, you know what we do all day long.

So she's been helping and hasn't ever resisted when we've asked her to do things, which has been great. But she isn't always familiar with how. Things she's learned since she's been here:

- you can't stack bowls one on top of the other in the dishwasher
- there's a lever on the vacuum so that the upright handle reclines
- how to run a dishwasher, washing machine, dryer
- how to clean a toilet
- every one has to stop at stopsigns (this was scary and driving lessons warrant their own post)
- that she likes peanut butter. a lot.
- that she likes eggplant, tuna salad, fish, and blue cheese. all of which she said she didn't like
- and she's already found a love of Aeropostle

That about summarizes our first few weeks with our houseguest (minus the driving lesson days). I'm now in my weeks that I'm going out of my way to stay low stress ... so I may turn over all driving lessons to Dr. J for a while. :)

This is hard to write

I want my friends to know, because I'm tired of making myself an outcast with so much unspoken between myself and my friends (whether they know it or not) ... and because Dr. J and I definitely need some serious prayer, but it's still difficult to just put it out there. A few of our friends are aware, but Dr. J and I are doing in vitro this month. Please pray for us, this has been a very long struggle even getting to this place. And since I just gave myself my first shot, we are sure to have a stressful month ahead of us.

I'll be on a lot of medication, so pray that I'm good at taking it and Dr. J is good at giving it. I'm not allowed to exercise, so I need another form of stress relief and I really don't know what that will be. And of course school starts this month (and we have a house guest) ... so it's just a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to take it all on. There is a pretty good chance I'll miss the first day of school, too. So in the next week, I need to get a LOT done in terms of school preparations.

I will try and post some updates, but I (actually we) do ask that you not ask about how things are going. It's hard to explain all of the emotions that you have leading up to and during this process. Most of the time, I'm pretty easily offended because, yeah, most people just say the wrong thing. If I could figure out what the right thing to say is, I'd let you know. So mostly we just ask for prayer.

You know when large businesses think they can screw customers because we are little and they are big?

I feel it my duty to warn others of those companies. I used ABC Distributing (catolog / online) for the first time this past month and was charged incorrectly. I thought it would be straightened out easily but gave up. I was forced to write the following letter to their website.

I am writing to state that I will never do business with this company again and will encourage others to stay away.

1. My billing was bizzare (3 separate charges for a single order), I was not charged the amount for shipping that was stated to me.

2. I looked at items in May, I did not buy them until several weeks later in the middle of June. I know because my car was stolen on June 19 ... I sat down a few days later after having some free time and then purchsed. Your system recorded my order date as May 30. That is wrong. It is bad business to put incorrect information like ORDER DATES wrong.

3. Your customer service rep I spoke to was reading excuses off a paper and kept talking over me. She transferred me to someone to help me with a credit card charge. This person was kind, but told me I should have gotten a refund from customer service.

4. You don't even have 800 number. I had to PAY for this useless phonecall.

5. I like my products, but this is a shady organization that cannot be trusted.

Ok fine.

i was in the hospital last week. so there you have it.

i'm fine, it's probably an ulcer. it was a long irritating and painful day. as you can imagine i'm not the most patient patient.

How on earth did patients ever come by that name? I can just see a bunch of exhausted, unjustly-beaten down doctors lounging at the end of day in a sauna just listening to the silence ... when one lifts his head, cracks open an eyelid and says "you know what we oughta call them ...."

People watching

Is it awful of me to want to take a photo of the middle aged man on the airplane that is wearing tapered (and frosted!) denim jeans with the matching frosted denim jacket?? I so want to post this on my blog. Even better, the set looks newly purchased. He's going way out of his way to remain in his youth.

Closure

At lunch today, we received a certified mail letter from the Sheriff's Dept saying that our car was at XXX Towing. I guess that means it's found.

This past Monday we settled with insurance and have already replaced the car (the new one is grey, instead of red ... sniff, sniff). So insurance owns the car now.

But in any case, we got to see. It was fine. It was found at Big Lots in West Columbia. It's been smoked in and had cigarette butts in the front console, the Temporary Owners didn't take care to keep dirt and sand out of the car, and somehow they broke the rear windshield wiper and had it sitting in the back seat, but other than that, it looked good.

Even the gossip magazine I was reading on the trip back from Dallas were still in the car, and were definitely used. And my iPod was gone, but that was pretty much a given.

So what can we tell about our theives? They are Broadway Showtune / Celebrity Gossip loving smokers that like to buy discount household products probably because they do not bother to wipe their feet before going inside.

Anyway, I knew you all would want to know. I'm praying things are on the way up for us!

Preparations

Dr. J's sister arrives on July 16. Our guest bedroom has a decent sized closet except that it is overflowing with our stuff already.

Here I go about to install some new shelving. I love an excuse to use a drill :) Wish me luck!!

Ivanka the iPhone

I don't name vehicles, but I do tend to name electronics that talk to me. The navigator in my car is Natasha and Dr. J is guided in his car by Ximena.

Having your car stolen brings about many follow up tasks, including yet another 11 hour drive down I-20 to get another Tiguan. One actually was, since we had been contemplating iPhones and my iPod was in the car when it was stolen, we got iPhones for our birthdays / someone-took-our-car-and-iPod.

I never imagined how much I would use this little guy. And as I sat in the car just now for 82 minutes trying to get the Sirius Account transferred from the stolen vehicle to the new one, I had games to play, facebook to check, To Do Lists to modify. I think it helped me not go nuts as I baked in the car ... in July ... in South Carolina. Because since the car wasn't activating properly, I had to get out from under any trees. and sit. and wait. and dehydrate. I didn't know it would take so long or I would have prepared myself with beach gear.

I have found some cool apps though. (Mancala, fuzzle, and I paid $0.99 for Dominoes). And of course a movie trivia app that's very me. There's a grocery list app that I am still debating whether I will use it or not. But this is the first time in 4 days I've used an actual computer. Dr. J has taken to playing on his phone in bed and we no longer talk.

Maybe I should find an iMarriage app so that we can communicate when we are in the same room.