The seen

A middle-aged black woman at the grocery store, wearing what appeared to be a curly wig, big eyeglasses and carrying a black, patchwork purse. As I walked past the customer service desk, I saw the back of her shirt and had to look again.

So fly

Those were the words air brushed to the back of her red t-shirt. It was evident they had been made for a group of some sort -- I started thinking of bowling shirts, high school band shirts, even my old dance studio shirts -- but my eyes didn't read past the distinct lettering.

It made my day!

Sorry, dear

Last night, I had the most glorious night of sleep since, well, I can't remember when. I slept seven hours straight - 2:20-9:20 a.m. - and the only caveat was I was walking to the bathroom hunched over like Igor because I usually get up at least once in the middle of the night. But seven hours ...

...and C. wasn't even here to experience it.

Nope. My hubby is away in Oklahoma, and I had the whole bed to myself. Well, it was me and my five pillows.

P.S. Lest you worry I didn't get enough rest, I slept about another 90 minutes after that!

Shameless contest plug

The Pinks & Blues Girls Blog is having another contest giveaway, and by golly, I'm going to enter.

It features Body Shop coconut butter and a Vera Bradley purse. And you know I love my purses! (Haven't bought one in more than six months! Help me out here!)

Anyway, here's the other required link to Sheena Williams' Body Shop site. Great stuff to be found, no doubt!

If you yourself are a blogger, why not enter?

I can't believe I'm doing this

Since I got pg., I've been trying to "document" my size by taking weekly (but sometimes I forget) self portraits. Here I was at 14 weeks (two months ago):



Mind you, I thought I was getting "big" back then. Now look at me. Here I am at 22 weeks (just a few days back, as confirmed by my ticker):



It's not easy to get all this flesh into the viewfinder any more.

Anyway, stay tuned. I'm sure more humiliating belly shots will be available as the weeks roll on. (And I roll on...)

The trifecta

By popular demand, here is the finished seahorse!



I wish the tail was longer. That's something I can experiment with as I make more. I already made a second crab; it's just not assembled yet. I gave the first one to a friend for his daughter. He said she would get a kick out of it!

Stupid technology

Here's another thing that didn't used to happen 20, probably even 10 years ago.

I was leaving work tonight and on my way down the stairwell to my car, I heard a familiar noise. Just then, I tensed up, searching in my purse to make it stop. It was my cell phone, and the speaker was happily chirping one ring, then two. Then I saw the outer screen. Calling B. home.

Shit!

I crazily searched for the end button and hit it about 18 times. Since my pal in Massachusetts was the last person to call me, she and her hubby were the lucky winners of a middle-of-the-night phone call courtesy of my arm banging on the outer buttons of my cell phone. With just the right movements when I walk and hug my purse close to my body, I can squeeze out a redial when I'm expecting it least. And it's on speaker to boot. Embarassingly, I have done this several times (I've woken up my mom, I've called C. repeatedly). This was just the worst all-time goof.

So B., I'm sorry for the 2:23 a.m. wake-up call. Please tell your man I'm sorry. Tell the little dude in your belly I'm sorry.

And tomorrow, I'm calling AT&T to see how to disable this horrid, unnecessary feature!

P.S. The entire time it took me to write this at 1 a.m., I devoured a bowl of Kashi Autumn Wheat cereal. I think I may have another!

Considering

After discussing cloth diapering with C. and doing lots of online research, here's what we've been considering (as of now, in order of approval).

• Earth Smart Diaper Service in Longmont. Weekly delivery included.



• The Changing Table diaper service in Boulder. Also weekly delivery.



• Bummis, wash-it-yourself cloth diapers you buy. Have to buy new sizes as baby grows.

We wouldn't use cloth exclusively -- think day trips, vacations, sitters, etc. -- but the thought of tossing even one disposable diaper into the trash makes me wince. One throwaway takes 500 years to decompose. Disposable diapers also are the third most frequent item in our landfills.

The pros I've learned of with cloth diapering? Fewer infections and quicker toilet training. Suddenly, this is something I'm very passionate about!

---

Also, here are a few things I have bought or received for the little guy.

Little pjs with Pooh and Piglet on them, and an outfit for next summer from Michelle.

"Perfect" onesie and some terry-like footed pjs, bought on clearance at Kohls.

Some bigger clothes I bought for next year. I love the whale onesie, and the raincoat makes me smile.

Have you ever...

...hiccuped and burped at the same time?

I don't recommend it.

A friend for crabby

I had so much fun making the crab, I decided to give the fish a whirl.




Thanks to my friends who suggested I make a bunch of them and make my own mobile for the baby's crib.

There still is one more pattern: a seahorse. I'm sure I can squeeze him in over the next couple of nights after work. After that, I can play with different color combinations on all three. This is fun!

No pinch

Here is my latest knit project. I labored over scraps of yarn last night for a couple hours tops, and here's what I got.




P.S. I'm actually craving a very ripe watermelon, but my mac and Blogger weren't communicating this morning, so that's why the french fries are still there (I think it's a good staple to be craving, anyhow).

Doctor's orders

I was at Petsmart today buying our glorious cats some supplies: cat food and cat litter. I lifted the Iams bag into the cart myself, but when an employee was walking past the litter aisle, I asked him kindly to put the litter in the basket. He did with a big smile on his face, and I felt better about saving my strength and not pulling something. (My round ligaments still hurt when I sneeze.)

When I was checking out, the cashier asked if I would like help out today. When I said "Yes", she looked at me like I had a third eye.

"I'm sorry?" she said.

I guess people rarely ask for help anymore.

Update

I got an e-mail from a nurse in my OB's office today. Her orders? Drink, drink, drink and keep exercise moderate. If cramping is closer than 15 minutes apart for one hour despite rest and hydration, then I should call. (She gave me a list of other symptoms to watch for, but some of them are just gross.)

So here I am, taking it easy today on my day off.

Pure '80s

Just seen/heard: 1980s pop star Tiffany strutting around the stage at Civic Center Park at this weekend's Denver PrideFest, hosted by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of Colorado. There were lots of rainbow-colored umbrellas, lots of skin, and I saw smoke rising from the food vending area. I bet they have frickin' funnel cakes there. (I'm so close!!)

Also seen: A black t-shirt on a woman wearing capri jeans and a studded, black leather belt and blue cap. The t-shirt read:

HOLA

BITCHOLA

The seen, No. 2: A guy in his 40s running through the water fountain on the corner of Cleveland Place and Broadway, just steps away from Colfax Avenue. There were many teens who were standing and sitting nearby, drenched and laughing hysterically. The guy's woman was standing by, giggling, when he ran out of the fountain, soaking wet and undeniably cooler than before. Just then, he ran into the street in front of my car (my light had just turned green). Oops.

Whew

Well, after suffering from way too many Braxton Hicks contractions yesterday, I decided to elevate my feet and watch TV last night. I even took a nap!

I think the contractions were a way of telling me to slow down. After going to yoga yesterday from 12:30 to 2 p.m., I picked up C. at Prima, we went to the Cherry Creek mall to pick up an ink refill for his space pen, then headed for the Greek festival. We ate fried calamari, gyros, Greek fries and baklava, and listened to live Greek music. It was so freakin' hot there that we decided to split.

After dropping him back off at work, I drove to Old Navy to see if they had any outrageously cheap items on clearance. Nope. I decided to park the car near the new outdoor shopping mall at Northfield; it's basically situated on the old runways of the former Stapleton International Airport. I'm really excited about this shopping center because they have good restaurants, a Super Target and lots of cool little shops in between (including Bass Pro Shops from a previous post). I hadn't marched around to see exactly what cool shops those were until yesterday, so I may have been pushing it.

But I was drinking from my water bottle the entire time. I even sat in a Brookstone massage chair for 15 minutes to rest. I hadn't realized my feet were so swollen until I tried on a pair of flip flops. I could barely squeeze my tooties into them! I figured one last stop at the Cold Stone would suffice, but I got surprised with a contraction, then another about 10 minutes later. While indulging in my ice cream bowl, I had yet another one on my way to the car. That was it. I got home and that is where I've been since last night.

But today, I don't think I've had one, and I'm on my way to pack a lunch and head to work. But believe me, if I start having them at work, I'm going to drive my achy butt home to do some more self-imposed bed rest.

P.S. I had fun updating the code on my blog today. It's much easier this way, but a lot of the pesky html code I had in place before was deleted, and it took me way too long to figure out how to keep the pregnancy ticker at the top of the page, then to add a link to the baby pool to the right. And this was all done for you. ;-)

My latest purchase

The four-piece crib sheet set (not the crib), for the kid's room! I think I've got a blanket that matches.

Insomnia strikes

It's either that or I still have a lot on my mind. Or it's heartburn. My guess it's a little bit of both. I got home from work less than an hour ago, brushed my teeth, washed my face and took my vitamins. I felt tired, but maybe I just need some more time to unwind.

I also got some tragic news about a friend, so that has me thinking of the things I need to be thankful for, namely, this little boy in my belly. Tragedy does not discriminate. It's not fair, but it happens. So I guess I was left to lie awake, listening to the twirl of my ceiling fan, C. lightly snoring and a kitty purring at my feet. And my mind still racing from the night just passed.

So now I'm up. Guess I'll curl up with a book, and pop a couple of Tums just to be sure about that heartburn.

Another "brown" cloud

While I was getting ready for work today, I noticed how HOT it was outside. We've had temps in the 90s the past few days to bring an end to spring, and yesterday, making the 0.6-mile walk to my car was brutal.

So with the sun blazing outside, I rifled through my limited wardrobe with extra care, got dressed and headed out the door, equipped with a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle with ice water. But what waited for me at Vasquez Boulevard and Interstate 70 was ominous.

A sandstorm, if you will, had whipped up in the area, like a dense fog leaving motorists creeping along, not sure what waited on the other side. After pulling out of it, the blue sky reappeared and tiny dirt devils whipped up adjacent to the highway. Denver's know for it's brown cloud -- a very ugly, stinky smog layer that blankets the city in the winter.

But this one was a little bit different. There to remind us that weather in Denver is never dull.

Introducing...

...our baby boy, set to make his appearance Nov. 1, 2007.

A different world

I finally went into Bass Pro Shops yesterday to purchase a stadium/bleacher seat (the one with the back support, since I tend to get uncomfortable more quickly these days). We were headed to watch Pulp Fiction at Film On The Rocks at Red Rocks last night and I wanted to be prepared.

But nothing prepared me for these wild indoors.

First, hundreds of antlers were intertwined at the grand entrance, and a big, brown grizzly bear stared at me when I opened the door. (The door handle? Made from a giant antler.) There were tons of taxidermied bodies all over the place! Brown trout, lake trout, rainbow trout, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, white-tailed deer, a mountain lion, a blond grizzly bear (which was rather pretty) and elk.

Everywhere.

I'm by no means a card-carrying PETA member, but something about hunting just doesn't sit right with me. Before entering the ginormous store through a gate past customer service (which, by the way, has a rustic, log-cabin feel with big wooden rocking chairs, leather seats and a fireplace, if memory serves), there's a sign that reads "Please check all guns and bows at the door." And I saw two men check their rifles!

I quickly made my way to the camping section, pulled what I needed off the shelf and hurried my way to check out. Adjacent to the checkout lanes is the "general store", with saltwater taffy, fish fry batter, salsa and chili, spice rubs and anything else you need to cook your venison or freshly-caught fish. Yikes!

I'm not saying I'll never enter the store again, but at least next time I will be more prepared!

Baby's first...

...blanket! I hated the color of this yarn when it arrived, but after working a few rows it grew on me. Especially now since I might have chosen a crib sheet set. It would match!

The baby knitting will have to take a back seat for a bit though. I've got to start making more washcloths for my relatives and finish up another baby project - that one is a gift, though. I also promised my cousin a kitty bath mitt for the kids. Methinks I don't want to do another blanket for a while; I don't need a big project draped across my lap as I work. Discloths, bath mitts, even the stuffed monkey I was dreaming of knitting wouldn't fill my lap and make me break into a sweat! I'll keep you posted on my progress. (I am being a hair ambitious with all this talk.)