3 cheers for slacking!

i declare this, slacker day.

usually my friday mornings go like this. sleep in (as in 7am...since my usual alarm goes off at 5am), take a ride to dunkin with hubby & get a decaf iced mocha latte. upon arriving back a la casa de licky's, husband gets to work (he works from home, usually) and i take in a little regis & kelly. (there was an episode a few weeks ago i still can't stop laughing about. david duchovny was guest-hosting [before his sex addiction rehab business] and they did the trivia crap they always do. the caller was from a place called effingham, illinios. david asked her if it was effinghot there. ha, yeah...i'm lame). once that's over, or when my ADD kicks in (whichever comes first) i relocate to my "scrapbooking area"* and scrap, scrap, scrap.

*right now, it's a pile of my supplies in our bedroom, arranged in a semi-circle behind where husband works, and i sit in front of said supplies. on the floor.

i totally get the award for most parenthetical side notes in one paragraph.

on this friday morning, however, i am at work. how dare my employers rain on my friday parade!!! it's not their fault, really. we switched to four 10 hour days not long ago, and forgot to tell our certification auditor. i work at a steel factory (i do a girly job, don't go picturing me in a jumpsuit tossing rebar around). there's some kind of certification (iso...something) that puts you at a "better" level. kind of like a college being accredited or not. he does these audits 2-4 times a year, where he tracks our processes and such. in the 2 years i've worked here, the man hasn't so much as acknowledged my presence - but since i'm in a different department this time around, he may. so i might get a little badgering...i might not. it's yet to be seen.

in the mean time, slacking, whoooo!

on my way into work this morning, i saw husband's dream car. he has this thing for corvettes...and there's actually a certain year he's obsessed with but you know, it's man speak. i don't remember these things. anyway, his father had one when husband was a kid. it was this ugly, pukey, beige color. apparently "ugly" was the thing to be in the 70's. this was a rare color, and from what i hear it's pretty well hunted. husband has a strange obsession with it, and can be caught googling for one at any given moment. he even used a picture of one for sale on ebay as our desktop background on the lap top. boooys. anyway, i saw that car....and i knew that he would be highly jealous if i just said "hey hubs, i saw your car on my way to work this morning" - so graceful me stumbled through my bottomless pit of a purse, pulled out my camera, and snapped a picture. going 70mph. that's talent. safe? no. probably the dumbest thing i've done in a long time. and as you can see, my photography skills at such a speed are not exactly "good".

i did get a slightly "better" picture - aka, not crooked. but my flash refused to go off this time and you can't see crap. but, whatev. his license plate says "peewee08". hmm. interesting. there are so many things that could mean.


this picture....is my smile of the day. there has been one way in which this pregnancy has been nice to my body (instead of ravaging it like it has to the rest of me). my nails grow! anyone who knows me in real life will know....i have the worst nails in history. ever! for serious - horrible, horrible. but look at those puppies! husband asked me to scratch his back the other day and he exclaimed, "omg! you have girl nails!". yes, yes i do :)

oh! OOOOH! oh-oh-oh. my fellow charlotteans, have you heard the good news? lowes foods, triples next week? oh my gooosh. i thought i was going to have to wait months before i could try out my new found couponing obsession on a full-effort triples experience, but here it is!! and the best part, lowes is the very grocery store i have around the corner from my house. i just hope that all the domestic goddesses from charlotte mommies that are living in highland creek don't clear the place out! considering, they are far more skilled than i am. i figure i will take a trip wednesday night, and then probably another 1 or 2 on friday when people are working. ooh yay, i'm so excited to get the sunday paper and plot out my purchases.

seriously, i'm getting lamer by the day.

yes, i'm mildly insane.

i'm about to be insanely busy at work today. ugh. i'm taking a pre-break, before i get my hands dirty...because, i really need to gear up for the suck my day is about to become. i'd explain, but it wouldn't make any sense. just....it sucks.

i had a dream about my baby last night. only, he wasn't my baby....but he was. that tends to be the theme of my baby dreams. he belongs to someone else, yet when i look at him i just know he's mine. in the dream i woke up one morning to find that husband had left the front door open all night long. i was afraid to do anything around the house, so i asked him to check every room for anything suspicious. he checked everything, and i said "don't forget about the basement". ps - my house doesn't have a basement.

so he went down into this imaginary basement, came back upstairs with an infant in his arms and said "this little guy has been down there for 4 days!". how he knew that? no idea. so he handed me the baby...and for some reason i was suddenly topless. as soon as he handed me the baby, it tried nursing on me...only i was still pregnant, and had nothing to give. but i held him and let him anyway because i figured it was comforting him. strange. so i started to panic and told husband to hurry up and buy a car seat so we could go buy him some formula and then find out who his parents are (i don't really understand why he couldn't just go buy some formula, rather than buy the car seat first so we could all go...).

as the dream progressed i was taking this baby with me everywhere and totally falling in love with him. however, when i told people about him they looked at me like i was crazy. i couldn't figure it out. at one point i was talking with my friend about the baby, and showing her pictures of him. she looked up at me and said, "these pictures are blank, what are you talking about?". so then i started feeling crazy, and she started telling me how it was a manifestation of my own mind to cope with something....i have no idea what. in my dream she sounded like an expert, though. so then i came around eventually, the baby disappeared, and i started missing him like crazy and wishing it was time for my baby to arrive.

yes, i suspect drugs as well.

i need to get to that hell of a job i have...but i just wanted to document my smile of the day, because i'm amazed that it's 8:26am and i've already had my heart warmed :)

smile of the day:
yesterday i helped out one of the new girls - hmm, let's call her G. i have been known to be annoyed by a few of her actions, but for the most part i like her. she is going to take over a few of my jobs while i'm on maternity leave (or, that's what they think i'm doing for now, anyway), so i've been training her. in the middle of this she asked me for a post-it note, and i told her i was out. office supplies are pretty scarce around here. so this morning, she comes in and said "hey...i just wanted to give you this since i know you're out of post-its, i made it for you". she handed me a stack of paper that she cut down to nearly-post-it size & stapled them together at the top. i couldn't believe how sweet that was!

me + iron = fail.

husband's antics, september 30th edition:

me: our kid will be polish, and italian....and hairy.
husband: do you think he'll have white hair like his big brother[odin]? covers odin's ears do you think we should tell odin he's adopted?

i love him :)

so. i'm sitting here, feeling like a failure....and i don't know why. it's silly, really. but i do. i had a doctor's appointment today and everything is good. baby is measuring well. things look good with me. except, they tested my iron (via finger stabber from hell)...and, i failed.

usually pregnant women with iron deficiencies show symptoms. like, becoming faint often. or excessive exhaustion (which, yes, i'm always tired - but no more than normal for this pregnancy so far. in fact, i've been more awake the last 4 weeks than the 20 before it). there are even known cravings for iron deficiencies like ice, and red meat. and not only do i not have those - i actually want nothing to do with red meat. it's like some weird switch that was flipped at the start of my pregnancy...i can't stand the thought of burgers or beef in most forms. and then...my vitamins say "with iron" right on the front....as if it's a specifically iron-filled version. and i take those every day. so really, i thought i was all set in the iron department.

i didn't fail badly, or anything. i don't know what their unit of measure is...but they want you to be at a 12. i was at a 10.6 - so really, it's not that far off. and perhaps it was simply my diet of the last 24 hours or so that wasn't full of iron. but i still can't help but feel like a failure. is my baby not getting what he needs? should i have been sucking it up and choking back some beef?

they told me they will have to test me again in the future, not sure if that means at the next appointment or what. really not looking forward to it since that finger stabber is totally not cool. i swear she poked my bone because the entire bone in my finger ached for a good 20 minutes post-stabbing. they said if i dip below 10 they will put me on an iron supplement. but, they gave me a list of iron food sources to try and bring it up above 12.

and ya know what? this list freaking blows.

according to my doctors, these are the foods which are excellent sources of iron:
calf liver, beef liver, pork liver, raisins, english peas, lima beans, mustard greens, spinach, and prune juice.

guess which ones from that list i would eat? hmmm. zerooo.

okay, i'm exaggerating. maybe maybe spinach, only in an omlet or a gourmet-style pizza. and i have no idea what english peas are, but i like normal peas...so if that's them, whatev. but liver?! seriously?? and i cannot STAND raisins, or lima beans, and i don't even knooow what mustard greens are. ugh.

there's also a list of good sources (of which i will eat berries, shredded wheat, broccoli, and pork) and a list of fair sources - which, i will eat almost all of. it's mostly fruits and veggies, which i love and have been obsessed with this entire pregnancy anyway. but they aren't really going to boost me up there since i'm already eating them. boo.

i'm also feeling kind of gross after seeing how much weight i've gained. i still have a shot at staying within the healthy 25-35 pound total weight gain....i'm pretty confident i can. but it's going to be hard. i have to eat better. not that i've been eating bad, because i do have my weak compulsive moments maybe once a month (like...sitting down with a bag of smart food and not getting up until it's empty....), but for the most part i eat well. i have a bagel with peanut butter, banana & orange juice for breakfast. i have decent lunches - usually a salad, or a sandwich - nothing ever heavy. i can't remember the last time i got a burger & fries for lunch. and at dinner i always make something decent. we have our late nights where we'll throw a frozen pizza in the oven, but even that is fairly rare. with husband being home when i get here, i no longer have to wait until late to make dinner.

so i know i need to eat lots of iron, and things that aren't going to immediately travel to my ass, yet all i can think about is how delicious it would be to make a container of pillsbury biscuits and eat them all with butter and strawberry preserves.

my smile for the day:
husband made me a snack after work (a spring mix salad with balsamic vinaigrette - see! my cravings are always along these lines), and i was watching GH. he could see it from the kitchen, and whether he likes it or not....he knows everyone on the show, and the current story lines. he asked me who got shot, and i told him. he asked me if she was dead, but i thought he asked something else so i said yes (she's not dead). and he responded with, "WHAT! she's DEAD? seriously?". i wish there would have been another woman in the room so i could send them a "how cute it is that he will deny it up and down that he doesn't know anything about GH and then reacted like that" glare. you know men. had i shared that moment with him he would have begun operation pretend to hate GH, and i can't have any of that. :)