Welcome to the new place

This was the conclusion I came to after mulling over what to do with the little blog. I started the other blog on a whim to blather on about me and my life. After a bit of thought and talking to Paul, I decided that the focus of the other blog was changing anyway since we've got a new focus in our lives. And voila--a new name and a new address for a blog. I've imported many of the posts from The Blue-Eyed Bookworm and well, the place doesn't look much different. I'm a creature of habit and I liked the simple lay-out of the other place. But the fonts are different colors because I'm crazy like that. And I'm still about alliteration hence the title. Now we just have to hope that the sonogram wasn't wrong or I'll be needing to change the name and address again.

17 weeks

A friend asked me this week how I was feeling and commented that if she didn't know better, I didn't really seem pregnant. I have to agree. If I didn't know better, I'd say that I don't really feel pregnant. I'm feeling really good this week--still a little more tired than I normally am in a non-pregnant state but other than that, I feel good. I still have a little problem sleeping but nothing horrible. Paul commented that it seems I'm more sensitive to being woken up which I'd agree with. I've discovered that if I'll get up and go to the bathroom when I'm in that almost-awake state, I tend to go back to sleep right away. So even if I don't think I need to do so, I blindly make my way in that direction. And usually, I need to. The sonogram tech told me last week that baby is hanging out really low--just a little above my cervix--and I think he's mostly crowding my bladder. It's going to be a long five more months.

The queasiness seems to have passed as well. One of the things I've discovered is that Baby apparently dislikes tomato sauce so pizza and pasta are pretty much out. I'm not sure what it is--not the spicy since I'm still LOVING green chile and spicy food. I can eat tomatoes so I think it's that tomato sauce is just too acidic for me now. I've not eaten any for two weeks and for two weeks, no nausea. Paul keeps asking if I want to try pizza again. Mostly not since I'm feeling good now. I've told him I'd try it again some Friday evening (to give myself the entire weekend to recover if Baby still doesn't agree with it).

There was one time that I'm very certain I've felt the baby move. There have probably been some other flutters but nothing that really stands out. I was pounding out some chicken cutlets on Sunday, making breaded chicken to have in the freezer for last-minute meals. Paul and I were chatting as I was doing this which took 10 minutes to cut and pound the chicken. As I was finishing up, I felt very definite flutters that had to be Baby. I just told Paul that that was weird. Great way to describe it but "weird" is pretty much the best descriptor I could use at that time. I've not felt it again since but then again, there's not been any loud banging occurring very near my uterus since that time.

School has been fun this week. The homecoming game is tonight so the week has been full of all the festivities surrounding that. Obviously, a high school of 2000 people does things a little different than a high school of 50 like I attended but not as much as I thought. There is still the homecoming court, the spirit week with different spirit days, all the rest of the hoopla. During lunch today, there was a pep rally and Homecoming carnival where the different groups at school sell food--hamburgers, frito pies, nachos, caramel apples, popcorn, etc. and I think there were a few little games set up as well. That was fun to go down and walk through. I overindulged but it was well worth it. And supported a good cause.

Since we didn't have football, Texline's homecoming was during basketball season with ceremony between the girls' and boys' basketball games. Even the homecoming football games I attended growing up (Dumas, Sunray, Clayton), the homecoming coronation was during halftime of the football game. Not so in Albuquerque--it was an hour-plus long coronation ceremony held in the school gym yesterday. And boy did they milk it for all it was worth--each candidate was introduced as was their accomplishments in high school, their goal in 10 years, what it meant to them being on the homecoming court, who they like to thank, who they most admired, and their favorite quote. A little weepy in the beginning but I'll admit that by the end, I was playing on my Blackberry. I don't know the kids who won but the library student aide I was sitting beside was very pleased.

And in the fun world of homecoming, mums are not really done in Albuquerque but one of the groups at the high school was selling little ones. I was trying to explain to students who were so confused by the idea of a mum just all the wonderousness that is a homecoming mum. The library aide and I were laughing about them and how much fun the mums and garters are in Texas. Today, we bought one for our student aide who is on homecoming court. Our aide was thrilled. As was I when I realized that she'd bought me one as well. I have my own little homecoming mum to wear to the game tonight. I'm so excited.
I think I had one about this size when I was in 2nd grade. We do them up much bigger in Texas.
Baby and Mummy wearing a mum. Hee. I'm such an Anglophile that that is really funny to me.

17 weeks belly shot--not much change from last week. It really depends on the time of day when the picture is taken as to how big I look. It's little blurry but I didn't want to wait for Paul to get home and I really should have cleaned that mirror.

Fall!

We've been enjoying absolutely beautiful weather the past few weeks, barring last Wed/Thurs when it rained almost 2 inches in about 24 hours. That was definitely an odd thing for Albuquerque. I'll admit to walking around my house barefooted, looking for any wet spots from a leaking roof. It just doesn't rain that much in the desert and if the roof was going to leak, almost-2 inches of rain at one time would be the time it would do it. Thankfully everything was dry.

But back to the lovely weather! Yesterday saw the temperature drop by about 20 degrees from Monday's high in the low-80s but we've still got blue skies and sunshine with the chillier temperatures. Even this temperature drop has reminded me why I love fall so much. From the time the smell of roasting chiles start to fill the air in mid-August, I'm happy because I know fall is right around the corner. The temperatures in the spring might be similar but there's always the wind to contend with. The fall just doesn't have that same constantly blowing wind. It's not disgustingly hot like it can be during the summer. I think my ideal temperature in which to exist occurs from early September until mid-to-late November.

When we were planning our wedding, one of my arguments for wanting a fall wedding was that the weather is almost always so pretty and it's just a great time of year to have a wedding. My in-laws asked didn't we want to get married in a more "traditional" wedding month--meaning during the summer. Nope. I didn't want to sweat through my wedding dress. I wanted a fall wedding. I think I wanted a fall wedding long before I'd met a boy named Paul. It's definitely my favorite time of year. So, I gushed and gushed to Paul about how perfect the weather is in October and it would great because we could have all our pictures taken in the lovely courtyard of the church and it will be PERFECT.

Yesterday's temperature drop made both Paul and me laugh about a weather change that was almost exactly the same almost exactly 10 years ago. The day before our wedding, the temperature was in the mid-80s. It was a little windy during the day but by sunset, the wind had died down. We were able to have our outdoor rehearsal dinner at my parents' house without any problems. We knew that a cold front was predicted for the weekend but the local forecasters were saying late Saturday into Sunday. Yep. My dad woke me up on Saturday morning to let me know that the front had blown in overnight and it was currently about 45 degrees. I think it had warmed up to about 55 by the time our wedding started at 11:00 a.m. So much for all our outdoor pictures. We got a few but not all the ones I'd planned/hoped to have taken outside. I will say that the next day was absolutely lovely thought with temps in the mid-70s.

Paul still gives me a hard time about that darn weather front anytime I start talking about how much I love fall weather. You can bet that with yesterday's front, it was one of the first things he mentioned. It was still a good day though and I'll still argue that on most any other day, the weather is pretty much ideal.

Paul and all of this

Everyone keeps asking if we're excited about Baby? and isn't Paul so happy? and do you have names?

Eh.

Depending upon who I'm talking to, my answer to those questions vary. Usually, it's a simple "Yes, we're excited but we don't have names yet." For those people who actually know Paul pretty well, the answer is a bit more complicated.

Yes, we're happy about the upcoming arrival to our house but that happiness is definitely tempered with other feelings as well. Paul still gets a completely overwhelmed stressed look on his face whenever Baby is mentioned. It doesn't help that work is incredibly stressful for him right now. There were a series of mistakes on a project make by some of his coworkers that Paul is now dealing with making right. Baby is pretty much the least of his worries right now. And, yeah, I can't say that he's totally happy about becoming a father. He was never 100% certain about wanting to be a dad--this was my idea that he went along with. Like he said, he could have done something to stop it so it's not that he's completely opposed to the thought. I think he'll get on board pretty quick when the little one arrives but if you mention it to him now, he pretty much looks like he's going to throw up.

Needless to say, I'm not really pushing the subject of baby names or nursery decorations or any of that. No, we're not walking around pretending I'm not pregnant but it's definitely not the center of every conversation we have. There are plenty of other things to fill our conversations. Entire evenings will go by when we've talked about work stuff, things we heard on the news, funny things we read with no mention of Baby. Pretty much what we've done for the past 10 years. I don't think that's so odd, is it? Life goes on. I would get a totally overwhelmed stressed look on my face if I had to talk about Baby all the time.

We have talked about how things will change once there is a little one around. I don't knock the decisions other people make in raising their children. I think everyone does what they believe is best for their child and their situation. I will say I've never understood our friends who refuse to leave their child with any non-familial babysitter especially since their families are both in the South. It's been hard to maintain/grow a friendship since we so rarely do anything with them because of their kids. And they aren't bad kids; just always there. They've had some offers of babysitters from people I would totally trust--and really when Baby goes to bed at 6:00, all you're doing is paying someone to watch TV while you go to dinner. I can still remember having babysitters when I was little--not often so it was a big deal when we had one. We'd get to eat exotic food like fish sticks and French fries or chicken pot pies. That was such a cool thing that I still remember it over 25 years later.

One of Paul's coworkers who has grown children told him that she really wished she'd gotten/said yes to more help when her kids were little. I'm all for that--part of my big cleaning fit right now is to clear out stuff so we can hire a housekeeper without feeling embarrassed by our loads of treasures. Plus, I don't think Baby will be scarred if we get a high school girl to come hang out for an hour or two so Paul and I can have some grown-up time even if it's just to go to Target. I've got fabulous friends who have already said that they'll babysit. I love and trust these people and would have no qualms about leaving my child in their care. And I've already told them that they better not be joking because I'm already planning on that. Not every week but why not the occasional date night? Baby will get to hang out with some cool people that will ply him full of sugar and hugs and kisses.

There has been one funny exchange in which the true, goofy Paul was shown when discussing Baby. On Wednesday evening, we were talking and I told Paul that I had forgotten to tell him something from Monday's sonogram visit. While it doesn't mean our child is exceptional or anything like that, he was already practicing using his diaphragm. On the sonogram, you could see him "breathing" and his chest moving in and out. Paul, in mock seriousness, told me, "Well, of course he is already breathing. Did you expect us to have a child who was AVERAGE?"

I think everything is going to be just fine.

Rethinking this place

I started this little blogspot on a whim about four years ago as a way to get back to journaling. I never thought about getting rich and famous off of it as I know some have. I thought it would be an easy way to share a little about our life and to share pictures with people so I sent the link to my family and some friends. I try to keep this light-hearted and not post anything that is too controversial or questionable. Occasionally, my mom or a sister or Paul has suggested that I might need to reel in a post and they are usually correct.

I've generally tried to maintain privacy--I've never posted our last name or too much information about where we live. In regards to our jobs, I've never posted the name of my school or Paul's company. Some of the settings are private--it's not on the main blogroll or accessible with the next post button. It could be found from a search engine although I didn't intend for it to be and I changed that today. I don't post lots of pictures of Paul's family because while they might know about this place, I've never directly told them about it. Not trying to hide it; just never shared it with them. Because of this, I try to keep them out of it.

I think I have a steady stream of a dozen regular readers, most of whom I'm related to. I keep an eye on the site meter and while there are some IP addresses from locations where I don't know people, I've come to think of them as "regulars" and I think they're fairly safe or they've linked from a friend's blog. I've only had one anonymous person even try to start a fight with me in comments on something I've written in a post and that lasted all of two exchanges. When I joined Facebook, for some reason, I added the address of this blog to my main profile. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I guess I thought it was among friends and what could be the harm. I think a few friends checked it out but I didn't have a huge spike in my readership. I just went on with life and didn't think much of it.

Last week, a post I had written about my former school apparently touched a nerve. I've removed the post at the request of my former principal. I didn't mean for it to appear as negative and disgruntled about the school as apparently it did to some of my former coworkers. I was very frustrated by my job last year--I won't deny that. But I never meant to imply that my coworkers were bad. In fact, if one were to read posts in which I talked about applying for another librarian position, you would see that it was with some hesitancy that I was doing it. I did enjoy the majority of my coworkers. I do think most are doing a good job. Are there those that weren't? Heck yeah. Do I think that those same negative teachers exist at my new school? Definitely and I said as much in the now-removed post. While I didn't mean to sound as disgruntled as apparently I did, there were just things that *I* thought should be dealt with differently--most of which didn't directly affect my job but yeah, it affected my morale. I was feeling put-upon as a result. For *me* personally, it's hard to want to do a good job and be held to a high standard when it feels like there is an unequal treatment. I guess I'll sound a little bratty when I say it just wasn't fair. So, I did something about it and it's been a positive change for me. But no one should think that I'm going around badmouthing my former school--give me a little credit for that. If anything, it's quite the opposite and I'm fairly certain most of my new coworkers know I came from there and how proud I am to see so many former students who have "done good" in high school. Yeah, there are turkeys and I admitted to my new principal when seeing the name of one such turkey that that was probably the only child that I'd personally wanted to stuff in a trash can.

Back to Sitemeter and rethinking this place. Since what happened last week happened, and I'll admit that I messed up with a poorly written post, I'm a little gun-shy. I've also started to notice more Albuquerque accesses as well as several accesses from APS IP addresses. I'll admit to playing around reading blogs when I should be at work but not since this school year started. Am I feeling like I'm being watched, perhaps to see if I'll mess up again? Oh yeah. Am I worried that what I'm writing is being reported to others and not in a friendly "hey did you read that?" kind of way? Definitely. Paranoid, perhaps, but that's just how I am.

Paul and I were talking about it last night--about what to do about this place. I don't want to give it up completely because I do like being able to share stuff with my friends and family, especially during this time of our life and when The Most Amazing Child Ever is born. But I'm thinking about making it a private access place or just changing the location I keep it. I know other sites allow only some posts to be private access. I don't know if I'll actually do it before I get over myself and the paranoia I'm currently feeling. Heck, I should change this place to All Jub, All the Time. He is a rather interesting little creature. Maybe I'd feel better if everyone just gave a little shout-out in comments. I don't know if that would allay all my worries. I do know there are lots of possibilities about the future of The Blue-Eyed Bookworm.

For a little levity, I just had to add this video: