christmas list!

every year i try to think of things i need to put on my christmas list and i always find it a little challenging...for two reasons.  one, i dont need much.  and two, the things i really want or really need are usually pretty expensive (ie: new lens for my camera, a new computer, etc) and are things i would expect to buy for myself instead.

but this year ive been trying to come up with things that i need (and want) and i think ive come up with a few.

first, something like this:

i have a bottle of dolce and gabbana perfume that i LOVE.  and the sprayer on the bottle is broken.  and i need a new bottle to store it in.

and this: (www.thymes.com)

Olive leaf lotion by Thymes.  my favorite lotion.

the frasier fir candle (or the room spray!!), also by Thymes.  i want my whole life to smell like this.   i also just need some new candles in general (plain, scented or unscented, pillar candles that will burn a long time.

i know its dorky, but i kinda want one of these:  (http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/camera-lens-mug/)

the canon lens coffee mug (preferably the 16oz white one) .....  cause i'm dorky, like that.

something im dying for (and have been for about the past 2 years) is a new pair of uggs.  my last pair lasted me almost 4 years and were the BEST things i ever put on my feet.  these are the ones i want:

the women's classic short in black.  size 9. yummy.

these (women's muk luk's vintage toggle boot from target.com) are awesome too :

the 'moody rose' color/pattern.  size large.

OR these (women's muk luks classic cuff boot from target.com)

candy apple.  size large.

i also need clothes, but that's tricky.  before getting pregnant i got rid of everything that was too big when i started losing weight.  which was oh so fun trying to find anything to wear during my pregnancy when i was in between 'regular clothes' and 'maternity clothes' .... but as it is right now i have virtually nothing to wear and i know i wont be back in my prepreggo clothes right away.  (hopefully sooner than later, but...)  but i also dont know what sizes of things to ask for and wont really know until bella is at least a few weeks/months old.   so while i know a lot of people think its tacky, im not opposed to gift cards either of the universal (visa) variety or to target, where i can get some of the essentials i need (socks, sweats, leggings, underwear, bras, etc)...

xo.

    m.

pumpkin picking!

for glenn's 22nd birthday, we all piled into the car and drove to linkwood, md to go to brekenridge farms!

we walked *half* of the 9.5 acre corn maze.

  we played games:

we played in a corn pit:

we picked pumpkins (and lisa took some amazing pictures!):

glenn likes this one!

jo found hers!

'this looks like a pear.'  'i just said that.'  'i know.'

lovebirds.

lisa's first pumpkin and first halloween!!

one for me and one for bella!

'i love this one!!'

'i think i like this one.'

'even though its a little dirty.'

'...a lot dirty.'

we had a blast!!



i love fall and i love picking pumpkins! we didnt carve ours this year but i think we might try to roast them.  and make toasted pumpkin seeds. yum!!



next year, we'll be taking bella to the pumpkin patch!!


xo.
    m.

today is mom's birthday! out of respect for her, i wont post her age for the world to see, but she's young.  and will always be to me.  and im super excited for her because i think this year might just be one of her best years yet.  she's got a lot going for her right now - as far as jazzy glass goes (she had such an amazing show at the wine fest) and also has a show in dover tomorrow.  not to mention her new job is going great and i think is going to open up some really cool opportunities for her this year.  very exciting.

in other news...

im pretty sure bella is dropping, or perhaps has dropped...?  i just woke up yesterday feeling really "different" ... like she's lower.  feeling pressure in weird places.  a little restless.  but no real contractions to speak of.  (to be fair, i have contractions every day...but so far nothing that's becoming 'regular' or 'more intense' as time goes on....)  i packed my hospital bag this week and mike and i put the car seat in yesterday.  we are as prepared as we're going to be, simple as that.

i'm technically "full term" on monday (37 weeks) so now is as good a time as any, for me....(although everyone has requested i not have her this weekend, or next week, lol)  but, she's going to show up when she feels like it and i can't wait! i just cant wait to see her little face and fingers and toes!! im tired of being pregnant, yes but more than that im just really really excited and ready to see her and meet her, this little tiny creature who i feel like i already know because im carrying her.

pregnancy is weird like that.   and weird for a million other reasons too.

a lot of women say they love(d) being pregnant.  and that i will miss her being inside of me when she's born.  and while i may miss feeling her kick me, i doubt i will miss pregnancy...  in that regard im definitely not a shinning example of a womanhood that embraces pregnancy as beautiful and amazing and enjoyable.

dont get me wrong.  it is AMAZING. and beautiful, in its own right.  and so worth every single second and more.  i would do it over and over again because its worth it.  i just haven't enjoyed it.   probably because im a huge control freak and ive had to really come to rely heavily on my [wonderful, darling, patient, adorable and adoring, practically perfect] husband to do really simple things for me like...tuck me into bed with a million pillows or help me put on socks and shoes...things that i have done for myself for a long time.  and its weird for me.  and i hate feeling helpless.  and i like doing things for myself!  not that it hasnt been nice to have someone wait on me, a little....but mostly i just get a little bored and whiny because i want to do everything im used to doing, but my body doesnt cooperate...although, i have to give my body props for doing as much as it has done and still allowing me to keep up a mostly normal life though just a few weeks ago - working, being on my feet, having a relatively normal sleep schedule, carrying this baby around without too many aches and pains, etc.

anyway.  now we just wait for bella to make her arrival, whenever that may be!

personally, i hope its soon.  :)


xo.
   m.

mercy.

. . .there's a reason that we [men] are not god.

an ironic evening.

its autumn.

and my dog caught a raven in the back yard tonight. (or, maybe a crow)

....


ironic, and sad.  : /




ill blog more about it later.


xo.
   m.

intolerance and outrage.

sometimes i get so mad.

and its mostly at people i dont know. 

when i read things (like blogs/articles/member comments on articles) that are so ugly and blatantly closed minded that it literally makes no sense, sometimes i laugh - because sometimes the ignorance is actually laughable.   but sometimes i yell at the tv/computer/empty house in sheer frustration.

it may seem contradictory, but i am SO intolerant of ... well ... intolerance.  i dont care what you believe.  i dont care if you celebrate christmas or believe in god or are an atheist or if you are for or against gay marriage...everyone is entitled to their own belief system.  when i start to get upset is when people push or force those beliefs on others or attack other people who think differently.  or, more specifically, when they are hateful or ugly about anyone who believes differently.

ugh.  sometimes i get so worked up.

it started reading about people wanting to take christmas out of thomas the tank engine because its not politically correct (although it was originally written by a minister) and ended with me reading that "the boyscouts of america hate gay people." ........and that they "take the position that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the Scout oath ... and contrary to the Scout Law to be 'clean' in word and deed"

and now, people are mad at the tv show glee.  why? oh, aside from all the other unrealistic highschool drama portrayed in this FICTIONAL FUCKING TV SHOW, the adoption community is up in arms about the fact that when quinn put her baby up for adoption, it was inaccurate to a real adoption.  and now that she's falling apart and having a breakdown because of all of the grief, she wants her baby back.  which, is also, inaccurate to real adoption laws.

its a tv show.  a soap opera, for all intents and purposes.  (if youve ever watched a soap, you know people die and come back all the time - very biologically inaccurate.  where's the protest from the medical and scientific community?)....

whats next? some person riding a crazy train who believes they are a real life vampire (yes, these people exist) flip out because twilight is historically inaccurate and the vampire diaries casts vampirism in the wrong light too? 

whats next?

....i read this stuff and all i can think is 'everyone is so stupid.' - and i know that's not a fair statement. and i dont literally think every person is so stupid. i just get SO MAD!

i have so much to say about all of these things, separately.  like why i think its absurd to take christmas out of something where it was written in (so many reasons).  and how mad it makes me that the boy scouts (or anyone) are openly hateful toward 'the homosexual lifestyle' (or however they addressed it) and why i think that is SO unacceptable.  and how frustrated i get when people demand unreasonable things from glee (or any tv show) although its a fictional tv show and i think its offensive to the FICTION WRITERS to ask them to stop writing fiction. but i cant elaborate, i cant even really keep typing about it right now because i feel like i cant really talk about it coherently. i just feel like there is such a mentality of entitlement, that so many feel that their opinions and beliefs should be the only way and everything else should be removed, immediately.

embrace diversity.  open your mind to the possibility that, no matter how much you've seen, how much you've experienced, what you've been through, you dont know EVERYTHING about ANYTHING. you dont have to believe everything everyone says, or change your mind just because you listen to another opinion.... but  there is ALWAYS something to learn and there will always be people to teach you new things if you can listen.

xo.

    m.

a lazy day...

so, i couldnt fall asleep last night.  mike and i didnt go to bed until about 1:30 or so and even then it took me a little while to fall asleep.  and after that, i was up every hour or so because my stomach was hurting (not contractions, just muscle aches).

i woke up around seven to go to the bathroom (for the third time, surprise!) and when i laid back down, i finally felt ... mostly comfortable and i slept for two more hours.

around 10 mike and i decided to go get coffee.  so we went to starbucks and he got a pumpkin spice chai, of course.  and i got...decaf.  we came back home and i .... laid on the couch.  it was about 11 at this point and i was starting to realize that i wasn't going to "wake up" for the day - which should have been obvious from the start, considering i rarely sleep past 830 and once im up, im up and awake.

so i laid on the couch and watched tv with mike (season finale of dr. who that we had recorded on DVR!!)  around 130 mike got up to take a shower and start getting ready for work and i ... WENT TO SLEEP.   i woke up a little on and off between 130 and 245 when he left for work.  i kissed him goodbye and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so, waking up at 330 - still tired.

after that i played around on the computer and read a lot of entries from not always right - a hilarious website mike 'stumbled on' last night.  we read a few pages of it together before bed, and i wound up reading a bunch of it today while laying around, being lazy, and doing virtually nothing.

i went to pick up dinner and mike came home for 30 minutes to eat.  when he was about to leave, i was ready to go back to bed.  but i didn't...not yet, anyway.  although, i could easily fall asleep right now if i let myself - oh the joys of pregnancy fatigue.

but, despite the slight inconvenience of feeling SO tired, it has been GLORIOUS to not have anywhere to go today, or really anything to do (i mean, im sure i could have found SOMETHING....but i was just TOO tired).

and speaking of all things pregnancy - here's the latest for those of you i havent had a chance to update yet.

for the last two weeks, every time i would work at starbucks i would get AWFUL contractions (one every few minutes) that at first were just annoying but escalated on sunday to being actually VERY painful and causing me to stop what i was doing.  i was nervous because everything id read said that if you have more than 4 braxton hicks in an hour, or if they dont let up after you stop what youre doing and drink water, to call the doctor, which i had done a few days before....but these contractions were worse.  i went home and laid down and did start feeling a bit better....and assumed i wasnt in labor because they didnt get worse or closer together.  i had an appointment on monday anyway, so i went in and talked to the doctor about everything that had been going on.

she checked to see if i was dialated (which i wasn't, luckily) but told me that if every time i worked i was having constant contractions and cramps that the odds of me starting to dialate early were pretty good and that continuing to work on my feet could cause preterm labor.

so, she said no more starbucks for me.  no more spending lots of hours on my feet at a time.  i dont have to be on bedrest and i can still work at the studio editing but nothing that requires me to stand/walk around for very long...which is a huge relief for my body, but a strange sensation.  i really had planned on working through the end of my pregnancy (as close as i could get) and its strange for me to be taking so much time off work (its looking like about 12 weeks now)...but i know its the right thing.  for as ready as i feel to have this baby, i dont want bella to be at risk to come too early.  i want her to be full term and healthy!  so i did what the doctor said and worked my last four hour shift on tuesday. . . and now im officially done at starbucks until bella is at least 6 weeks old.  weird.  this is the longest i have ever gone not working at starbucks since i started, six years ago (happy 6 year anniversary to me this month!)

in the first two days after being pulled from work i had hardly any contractions, just the normal braxton hicks they describe in the books - not super frequent, irregular, not painful.  such a change from the other contractions i had been having.

then, yesterday, mike and i were both off and had to go to target to finish up some baby prep shopping.  we were out and about and i was on my feet for about three or four hours and started having contractions about an hour or so in to shopping that continued to get worse (not painful, just annoying) the more i stood up.  finally i told mike we had to call it quits on the shopping and head home.  i had pretty bad contractions most of the way home but the longer i was sitting, the  more they tapered off.  i went home, laid down, and took it easy the rest of the day and the contractions laid off.

then i went to britt's house for fondue dinner and dessert with her and anna and it was delicious!! and we had a ton of fun!

today, since ive been so incredibly lazy, i've had very few contractions, which is a relief.  maybe this baby will make it to term, after all.

monday i'll be 35 weeks, or as anna told me - 35/35 - 35 weeks along, 35 days to go.  WILD! i cant believe i only have 36 days until bella is due and that she might be here before then.  crazy!! but i cant wait to meet her!





so, after writing this i fully intended to pick up a book and start reading, but i just used the book to kill a giant spider that was crawling across the living room floor....ick.




maybe ill just go back to sleep!


xo.
    m.

more new house pictures!

here are some more pictures of the newly painted house!

blue bathroom!

green bedroom!

pink nursery!

yellow kitchen!