Ridin' the pine and not feelin' all that fine...

I've been contemplatin' whether or not to start a pregnancy blog....you know, so y'all won't get bored with my blathering on about getting impossibly round, my many and varied food aversions/cravings, and how findin' decent maternity clothes for a plus-size gal is a pain....just to name a few reasons. I'm on the fence about it. I'm not sure I have time to keep up with both blogs but, on the other hand, a lot of my readers are related to me and a prego blog would be a great way to keep them in the know despite the distance between us.......or I could just include it all on this blog. Oy! See what I mean? That fence is givin' me some serious splinters.

I'm thinking a poll may be just what the proctologist ordered. Nothin' faincy, just leave me a comment letting me know what your opinion is.

I'd stay and "talk" a little longer but the Hubs is home and the Closer is on!

A "Positive" Note, Cont'd

As most of my readers have figured out from my Wordless Wednesday post (below), I am indeed pregnant! If my math is correct I think I'm about a month along, give or take. I'm excited, slightly shocked and nauseous. The Hubs is, of course, delighted (a little on the smug side, too). The differences between the beginning of this pregnacy and my first have left me bemusedly confused (sorry...I think I just went a little Dr. Seuss-y). The differences being that I've had very little morning sickness this time around and have, instead, been nauseous in the afternoon/evening. And dizzy! Oy, I'm fine one moment and feeling like I'm on one of those dang tilt-a-whirls the next. Maybe all these differences means it will be a girl this time....?

I'll be going to the doctor next week to confirm and make sure everything's progressing like they should be....and because the Bubs will be in school and I won't have to worry about finding a babysitter. Oh, speaking of the Bubs being in school, he's totally stoked about school starting next week. He's even started a countdown for himself! Yesterday when he called his Poppi on the phone, he happily told him that there were only 4 days left until the first day of school and he was right on the money! Now if I could just get him to understand that the first week of school for kindergarten is a staggered enrollment, meaning that the class is divided to come on different days, we'd be good. He's a smart little guy so I'm sure he'll understand.

Recently the Bubs has also been very excited about babies. Any baby he sees, he makes a big deal over and usually earns smiles from the tiny tot's parents and squeals of delight from the baby, too. All this before we knew I was prego. Funny how things kind of work themselves out, isn't it? The Hubs and I were both concerned how the little guy would react but, for now, he seems happy. I don't think the news is completely real to him just yet, but we'll get there. Right now I think he equates a baby with a puppy......he thinks babies are pets. That's okay, though. At least he's trying to reason things out for himself. We can work with that!

Wordless Wednesday.....on a "positive" note

And I thought to myself, "Only a man could have done this...."

*scraaaaaape, screeeeeeeech, shuffle, shuffle..........THUNK!*

That's right, y'all. The soapbox is out! As I was trying to, um, relieve myself in the local Target's restroom I composed a little letter............

To the men who design restrooms for women:

First off, don't try to deny that this letter shouldn't be addressed to you guys. For none other but a male would design and build female restrooms so ineptly. A woman simply wouldn't do this to others of her gender!

I'm tired of going into restrooms where the stalls are maybe 6 inches wide with the toilet paper dispenser at elbow level. That means I've got maybe 3 inches in which to squeeze my behind on the seat. This makes it horribly inconvenient to do exactly what I came in there to do- pee and clean up! In some cases I end up sitting sideways on the seat because things are so awkwardly placed in the stalls. This is totally unacceptable. Did they run out of rulers and measuring tapes where you come from?

And, yes, please continue designing bathrooms that should have triple the number of stalls in big venues like stadiums. I simply adore paying good money for event tickets then spending most of the time in a line waiting for one of those dang under-sized stalls. It tickles me to stand there and watch the men on the other side lope in and out of their bathroom, totally at their leisure, having spent not one moment in a long line. While I wait behind a line of grumpy, twitchy women.....and their poor kids. If you didn't catch that- yes, that was sarcasm guys!

So, bathroom designer guy, before you begin that next bathroom/venue job take a moment and ask your wife, girlfriend, sister or mother what they would like to see in a public restroom. You never know, the solutions could be simple and the payoff worth the effort. After all, most women remember the stores with decent bathrooms and tend to frequent them instead of other places with inferior facilities.

An Annoyed Consumer and Bathroom User

**Author's Note~Even though the stalls in this particular Target were poorly designed/executed, it's usually clean. Thank heavens for that!**

A Bit of This And That~

A Bit of This~
My cousin from Boondock Ramblings sent this my way! Thanks for thinkin' of me, Shug.

In other fun news.....the In Laws have left. My week of gratuitous insults and odd behavior is over. I feel like I've been run over by a semi...and then backed over just to make sure I'm good and flattened. Even my parents were witness to some of this behavior and were horrified. My husband was embarrassed. Poor guy. I continually told him that their actions were their own and did not reflect poorly on him. I mean, how could I hate on the man when it wasn't his fault? As much as I tried to reassure him, I still think he was disappointed at their actions. I was, too.

And That~

I had a nice conversation tonight with my Nana about the history of our family and the local area we live in. Sometimes having a conversation of any length with Nana can be hit or miss, but she was willing to settle in for a good chat with me. I enjoy hearing about our family's background (on both sides) and how it ties in to our area. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures and other bits of paper that she's (and others in the family) have saved over the years....like a hospital bill for a two day stay that amounted to $65 in the 1930's.

Even when I was little I enjoyed looking through old photo albums that my parents had, the endless antique treasures scattered around Nana and Granddaddy's house, and looking at poems and very old family photos with Grandma while she told me stories about the people in them. Those are among my most fond memories of growing up. For Christmas, I asked Nana and Granddaddy to jot down what they could remember of their family tree. I'm hoping they remember to do that......Nana also said that she'd make copies of some old photos for me. As hokey as it sounds, I'm excited!

Bubs's Bedroom Makeover Update

Even though I'm not completely finished with the Bubs's bedroom, I thought I'd share a few pics of a few recent additions~

I love these metal stars! I like to use 3 dimensional things on walls when I can get away with it to make a room interesting. Thanks for letting me use them Mom....and for digging them out of storage, Dad!

I found this sign in a local pottery store for an unbelievably low price. I know the Bubs will grow out of it in a year or two, but I couldn't resist! Now all I need is a sturdier drapery rod so I can re-hang curtains below the sign.....

A Thomas the Tank Engine quilt. Hand-quilted by my Nana. The perfect addition for the Bubs's bed. Especially since the boy is obsessed with anything Thomas.

To go along with the Thomas quilt.....what else but a Thomas lamp?! A Christmas gift from Nana and Granddaddy a year or two ago, this may not be a new item in the room, but it takes on new life against the updated wall color.

Bloggy quirks and bad habits.....Confession time, Y'all!

I've been writing on here for a little while now and I like to think that I've found my personal style/rhythm. Along the way, I've noticed that I've developed a few quirks (bad habits?) when I'm writing my entries. Here are a few....and they're even in my favorite format - A List!

• I use, commas, when , I don't really need, them and when I do I don't.
• I misspell the simplist wordz. (Spellcheck? Nah! Why would I use that?)
• Their~They're~There Those three words have always given me fits.
• Odd and funny southern words (mommick, y'all, etc.) frequently make their way into my writing. I remain unapologetic about that, though. It's fun for me! And, yes, I really talk like that....
• I write like I talk...that often means that "-ing" words are minus the -g. For example, I tend to do my bloggin' in the evenin'.
• I've learned that it's never a good thing to blog angry. (Ooh! A new sayin' for a bumper sticker! "Friends don't let friends blog angry.")

There are prob'ly many more things that I could add to the list. As much as I don't mind pokin' fun at myself, I'm not a glutton for punishment so I'll just keep the list on the short side! D'you have any bloggy quirks?

Eight years with my best friend

My husband is my best friend. Today we celebrated eight years of marriage together. Eight years of love, laughter, tears, baby shenanigans, and more. I've never met another person (outside of my parents) who so completely got me..........and he loves me anyway. I'm a blessed lady, y'all!

We met through friends at church and hit it off almost from the moment we met. Conversation wasn't a problem at all. I was usually so nervous and self-conscious that it took me a while to loosen up and have a decent conversation. We talked like long-lost friends. He treated me with respect and made me feel that I didn't have to put on a front to impress or interest him. I was enough. I still am.

My parents still get a kick out of tellin' the story about the first night I brought him home to meet them. He was polite, jumped in to help Dad bring in some groceries and, after dinner, even took over washing dishes from Mom. Yep, I knew I had a winner pretty early on in our relationship and that went a long way to help my parents see that, too.

We don't have a perfect marriage and that doesn't bother us. We keep trying. My parents used to tell me when I was dating that being friends was a big part of making a marriage last and remain healthy. They were right.

It was either laugh or cry.......we laughed

Sooooooo.......the hubby and I were researching the area that we'll be moving to yesterday evening and ended up huddled together in a laughing heap. No matter what site we looked at for the local area there was no getting around the fact that it definitely had a, uh, rural focus. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the country and even here am used to regularly seeing the odd tractor here and there riding down the road, but this was just too funny. Every single page had the local fishing report very prominently displayed and under the list of local events there was the beginning of huntin' season in big, bold lettering. My personal favorite was the ATV Jamboree.

Yep. Nothin' but helpless laughter at this point. Especially when I slapped hubby on the arm and wailed, "You are movin' us to the boonies!!" (Sorry, Cuz.)

And then to top it off, I asked where the closest Wal-Mart is (because I don't know the names of grocery chains over there). Hubby snorted and showed me that the closest major shopping area is at least 100 miles away. I think Hubs was laughing more than I was at that point.....

A tale of a chronic list maker.....who found love on the internet.

Most of y'all know that I LOVE to make lists. Grocery lists, school lists, long lists, short lists.......my lists have lists! They help me make sense of my mad, out of control thoughts and, to put it simply, get stuff done. In one of my many searches for household organizational tips I came across a site called Organized Home. Now, some sites like this one are so involved and complicated or the author is so know-it-all that the ol' gag reflex tries to kick in. I didn't get that feeling as I browsed through the different information packed articles......much. Some of the ideas were wonderful, but for me weren't realistic. Others, like the Household Notebook idea are right up my list-lovin' alley. Especially now that we have to break down an entire household, sell our house and move cross country in around 3 months. Holy freakin' cow, y'all!

The whole notebook idea caught my eye because it encourages keeping important papers and info in ONE PLACE. Not scrawled on the back of an envelope or on the world's tiniest piece of paper like someone in my house does. And then calls from work frantically needing the info that I just tossed in the trash having thought it was, um, trash. He shall remain nameless.......Ahem.

Another topic that caught my eye was how to de-clutter. Ahhhhhhhh.......yeah. To be honest, I didn't stay on this topic long. I started hyperventilatin' and having visions of the piles of stuff waiting to be sold off, given to family, or donated. Drama I don't need to wallow in! I almost had a fit of the vapors right there......

How do three people accumulate so much stuff? Hubby and I have started having these kinds of conversations~

Hubby~ "Hon', why do we have three of these?"

Me~ "'Cause we couldn't find the other two when we needed 'em."

OR

Both of us at any given time~ "Oh! So that's where that was! I've been looking for this for weeks."

I guess when you live in one place for so long you tend to lean towards being a pack rat. I think in our case, it's been a combination of everyday neglect and out of sight, out of mind-ism. Honey, we are gonna be paying for that big time. We can't decide if we should do one big yard sale or several small ones. What do y'all think?

Well, I've blabbed enough. I hope everyone's having a great weekend!