One

So, yeah, the kid is about to turn one so I guess I have no excuse not to blog anymore! In fact I've been itching to get back into it since I can't always cram Paul's ridiculous stories into the 400 or whatever characters that my Facebook status allows.

Paul is still at the same job. I got laid off from my job while on maternity leave and I'm still looking for a job that is right for me and will pay enough to cover daycare costs and still have a little left over. We had to send Smeagol off to live in a pug rescue in Nashville since her allergies had gotten to the point where she can now only eat kangaroo meat and we were unable to meet her needs. Apparently she is doing great at the rescue though and lives in a house with 5 other pugs (heaven, huh?) Waffles is still nervous and massive. Cooper is STUPID cute and just got a buzz cut in preparation for his first birthday and the long, hot summer ahead.

Hopefully I'll have more time to post from now on and I promise to post some pics of my cuties soon.

By the way, I've been trying to fix my template for over a year and was unsuccessful. However, I am typing this on a Mac and had no trouble fixing the template here. Go figure.

Hi, I'm still alive. I'm working hard to catch up on everything including Facebook and this blog but it is slow going. Miss you all and I will try to write here at least sometimes.




Btw - Terry Wolf - I replied to your email and your email addy is no longer valid. Email me again, I would love to catch up!


Here are some grainy, uncropped pictures:

Lord have mercy things are busy with a new baby. I just have five minutes here as Cooper is already stirring from his nap and I have not yet finished the bill paying which was on this naptimes to-do list but I wanted to let you all know that Cooper is doing fine. He is sleeping a bit better and so am I and I have a friend who has been helping me quite a bit and she adores Coopie so that helps a lot. We have been pathetic at taking pictures but as life is now beginning to settle in we will try hard to take more and then post some...I swear!

Oh, and he had his one month checkup (he was five weeks yesterday) and he is gaining weight nicely - 7 pounds 6 ounces - and is in the 5th percentile now (when he was born he was below the lowest percentile). Way to grow, Cooper!

Heading to the Hospital

Well, here we go. We went to the doctor today and my blood pressure was 150/90 and the baby is only in the 11th percentile of growth. Baby's head is normal size but his little body is two weeks behind his head which is an indicator that he is no longer getting what he needs, nutrient-wise. It is possible that the placenta has decided to slowly stop working here because of the placental hemorrhage that I had around Christmas - quite common apparently that women who get the hemorrhage have a weakened placenta.

Anyway, so far there is no particular indication that the baby has any serious health problems, although that is not necessarily a for sure (never is, really, though) and so it's not a 'let's get this baby out now' kind of thing but more of a 'let's get the ball rolling and see how he does' since I'm already considered full term and neither baby or I are doing the way we should.

We go in at around midnight to be induced but the baby has not dropped and I'm not dilated or anything so they expect the induction to be a slow process and thus a C-section is not impossible.

I'm kind of freaking out and my fingers are numb so I hope this all makes sense. Will post when I can.

Thanks for all of your support up until now!

Yes, I'm still pregnant for God's sake.

I'm totally aware that I am not posting at least once a week. And, to be honest, I probably won't until the first few weeks of baby's life outside my uterus are over. The last month of pregnancy is very exciting but very tiring too. Let me answer a couple of questions though:

A) Baby is doing okay. We had a biophysical profile today (which is both a pain and pretty neat) and will have one every week until boy decides to come out or the doctor decides that he needs to come out. Baby boy is quite small and his body is not quite as well developed as his head so they are trying to determine exactly why that is and make sure that that does not mean that he is in jeopardy of any sort. As of today he was doing well. Just wee.

B) I am doing fine. I'm struggling to work for as long as I can (we're 37 weeks on Wednesday 6/3) since I get no actual maternity leave and we need every cent that we can get, Lord knows. I feel generally okay though except for extreme fatigue, which is very normal and the carpal tunnel syndrome which makes me sort of a slave to the sensation level I'm getting in my fingers. Poor Paul has to open all bottles and things like that for me. When he's not here I'm somewhat helpless in regards to anything that requires fine motor skills. And he's stuck covering someone else's vacation this week so he's working 4-midnight which means we barely see each other and I'm pretty much pathetic. It could be worse though, a lot of my other normal symptoms sort of come and go but are not constant which makes them bearable. Oh, and it's 100 degrees (like...35 ish is my best guess without bothering to look it up) outside which is the extreme suck.

C) The to-do list is very slightly smaller than it was although I still cannot imagine getting it done. I'm trying not to panic about getting it all done, but when I do manage to slow down the panic about that then I start panicking about the pain of labor and delivery. This is all normal, though, I know!

D) If any of you have any suggestions for things that helped you in these last few weeks or things that you wish you would have avoided or things that you really appreciated having at the hospital or anything like that I would love to hear them!

Current Top Pregnancy Symptoms: Numb hands, Sore neck and Severe Need to Nest

Yikes, I'm supposed to update at least once a week here, but holy moly there is so much to do and I'm still at the tail end of my cold or flu or whatever it is, we're only 4 1/2 weeks away and my pregnancy induced carpal tunnel makes typing really painful. I'm freaking out a little, I must admit.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is our 36 week ultrasound and we are hoping and praying that the baby is not actually transverse as has been suspected. We also take Smeagol in for yet another lime-sulfur dip and have to go renew the tags on the cars and have other errands to do and then more baby prep to do when we get home and that's the way every day goes around here these days. We realize that there will be a whole different level of busy-ness after the baby is born but right now it's like there is this firm, scary deadline to get to and everything has to be in place before it arrives and that is kind of terrifying.

Things are progressing though, if slowly. Much baby prep is done already though, my immigration paperwork has been received at USDHS, Smeagol's spay is done and the to-do list is getting smaller...that's the good news.

Friday we get a baby shower too! Paul's work has decided to throw a shower for he and I and I'm very excited - although nervous because I haven't even met most of these people. I'm really touched though that they are doing this because they genuinely like my hubby and want the best for him, and hey, some cake and a few gifts will be appreciated too.

Hands numb...later.

Hey, women who have been or are pregnant, answer a question for me, k?

This cold or flu thing or whatever it is that I have is getting maybe a bit better but I have this wracking cough that's painful and dry. It's only been for like 3 days so far so I don't want to fret about it and I wouldn't even think of it except for the 34 week old kid inside of me. I'll call my OB if I have to but I was hoping you all might have some advice or opinions...does my coughing hurt or bother baby? is there anything I can do to soothe the cough since I'm not supposed to take cough candy or decongestants or anything really?

Pupdate

I got an email from BlogHer, the lovely people who post advertisements over there in my sidebar ----->, the other day that I thought was hilarious. They mentioned that, if it was okay with me, they would like to switch my blog to their 'parenting' section after Baby is born. I had to laugh because I SO don't want to become a one dimensional blog but seriously it is difficult to think about or concentrate on anything else besides the 4 pound human that currently dominates every aspect of my life. So, I guess in a few weeks this will be an official Mommy Blog...but there could be worse things!

For today though I'm going to give a little dog update. Our complete and utter love affair with Waffles continues unabated. There is something about that dog that we adore so totally that it is actually sort of strange. He is so terribly sweet and sensitive to our moods that I frequently have to calm myself down in order to MAKE THE DOG FEEL BETTER.
(Mama's crying! It must be my fault! Maybe if I press my ears flat to my head I will be less noticeable.)

He still regularly (although slightly less regularly) destroys our belongings and yet we are still in love with the little idiot. He is also so smart that I can give him complex commands and he will follow them. The other day he had three toys downstairs (when they belong in a basket upstairs) and, rather than bending down, I told him to 'pick up his bunny and bring it upstairs'. He snooted through his three toys until he found the bunny, picked it up and brought it upstairs. I found that eerily intelligent and he does similar things all the time. His vocabulary is massive.
(Lying in the sun with one of his bunnies)

And then there's Smeagol. I've written for around 3 1/2 years about Smeagol's health problems. She gets these random infections about every 6 to 16 weeks or so. It will start off as an irritation in her facial wrinkles and eventually spread to sores on her belly and swollen, irritated paws. We have seen at least four vets over the years and each one goes through the same routine: 'it's a food allergy, change her diet', 'its an environmental allergy, clean her off when you come back inside from walks, 'its a bacterial infection, here's some expensive medicine and cream', 'its random, all we can do is treat it each time it occurs'. We have gone through this cycle literally dozens of times and it is exhausting and expensive for us and miserable for little itch-face.
(Papa, I thought you'd never come home. Is that really you?)

The vet we started with here in Tennessee went through this as well in our first year with him but then he said something that I've been hoping to hear from a person doctor for myself for years - he said 'I'm frustrated and we are going to figure this out'. He contacted a veterinary dermatologist and said that if we agreed we were going to follow her timeline suggestion.

So, first he instructed us to bring Girldog in one morning for a 'sulphurated lime dip' (stinkiest substance known to man) to see if that would do anything. We agreed because we are amenable to anything and this was something that had never been done before so that made us feel hopeful. He then scraped bits of hair and skin off her paws and neck and put them in a 'dermatophyte test medium' (a little vial of orange goo) and told us he would watch it for 21 days and if it turned red it meant she had dermatophytes so we could start treating that. This was also something that had never been done. This week he called to say that the medium had turned crazy, bright, cherry red (which it did, I saw it...it was actually really pretty, this bright red vial with little white streaks growing in it. Andrea, did you ever study dermatophytes?) so we needed to come by and pick up anti fungal medication.

Last, but not least, in the timeline is to get Smeagol spayed which is going to happen on Friday. The vet and the dermatologist vet both seem to feel that unspayed dogs, particularly as they age and particularly the pug breed are just slaves to their hormones and thus some of them become susceptible to every bacteria and fungus that enters their living area and are thus almost constantly tormented by infection and itching.
(The black part is my leg...this is her way of letting me know she doesn't feeeeeeeel well)

So, that is the plan. It is an expensive plan and a time-intensive plan and in some ways a dangerous plan but it is the best we can do. Fortunately veterinary treatments are individually quite cheap (the lime dip was $22, the pills for the dermatophytes were $14 for example) it's just the cost of all of these treatments added up over the months and years that makes me feel faint. But, at this point we felt that this had to come to a head. We are so utterly broke and I am freaking out trying to figure out how this month we are going to be able to pay normal expenses plus immigration fees plus spaying plus buying all the baby stuff that we still need but we are not prepared to give up our dogs unless it becomes absolutely, critically necessary. These are last ditch efforts here to get Smeagol better. If this program does not get her better I do not know what we will do because after Baby is here we will not have the time or money to try to help her constantly.

When I went to pick up the pills yesterday I asked the vet if he thought that the dermatophyte infestation was what had been wrong with Smeagol all along and he said that in his opinion that and her need to be fixed was what was keeping her this way. He said 'in another month she is going to be a healthy, happy girl again'. That's what we're asking for.

(We have no couch, only a love seat, so the little bit of time that we spend in the living room is a little awkward. There is barely room for Paul and I on the loveseat but on this day both dogs were DETERMINED to be on the loveseat with us. First, Smeagol rearranged Papa into this very awkward sitting position so she could lie on his leg, then, not to be outdone, Waffles managed to find himself a position too. They would have been content like this for hours, but, needless to say, poor Paul was not.)

I screwed up and I need to apologize. Before I post anything about Paul I always ask him if it is okay for me to do so and he always says yes. Lately though he tells me that I'm making him out to be a serious jerk and that was never, ever my intention. I would be absolutely lost without my Paul; I love him so dearly and who else would still love me throughout all of my tears over the years and especially over the past few days (and already this morning and I've only been up for 50 minutes).

I'm sorry to those of you who read this that I unintentionally made Paul to sound like a jerk. He is not. And I'm sorry Paul that I made you out to sound that way - I don't feel that way and I'm sorry that I hurt you.

25 Weeks and a Lactating Pug

Yurgh, that last post and its subsequent comments sort of took the wind out of my blog posting sails. I've chosen not to comment back though except for to say one thing: I'm aware that lots of things piss me off and I have always been up front about that. Since I'm now pregnant and all full of hormones its even worse and I'll probably wind up writing about it more so if that bugs you you should probably not bother reading this blog.

ANYWAY, life is truckin' along over here. Paul and I are both working as much as we can in order to get bills paid and buy stuff for our impending kid so we tend to be pretty busy and somewhat grumpy. We're used to getting lots of time together and not getting as much is a bit taxing; but of course worthwhile. We get very little time to relax these days so I'm thinking for our anniversary at the end of the month we might both take a 'mental health day' and go have a nice little date or something like that.

The baby's room is coming along in leaps and bounds all of a sudden. I was so overwhelmed by the massive quantity of stuff that this child is going to need that I wasn't even sure where to start so I started with a list...and then wondered how I could ever possibly afford to get all of the stuff. But, two weeks ago Paul's parents came for a visit and they brought us some fantastic hand-me-downs; a swing type thing, a bouncy seat, a bassinet and a huge box of clothes. Then they told us that they wanted to buy us the crib and last week we found a coupon for 15% of cribs at Babies R Us so we went and got a gorgeous 'lifetime crib' for a decent price this weekend (Paul even set it up this weekend, it is GORGEOUS). When I mentioned to my Mom about these great coupons that we found she said that they had wanted to buy us the car seat as our 'baby warming' gift so we used another 15% coupon and got the car seat. It is one of those cool ones that is a combination stroller/car seat so you can take the car seat out and plop it into the stroller and then when the child is bigger it is just a normal stroller for them to sit in - two birds with one stone! We also used some other coupons to buy a bunch of miscellaneous stuff and since a few people had asked us about it we registered at Babies R Us too (which was rather fun let me tell you and they have a neat combo online/in store system that made it really easy).

So, we're probably about halfway there, stuff-wise which is pretty good. All of my baby books and websites say that you should ideally try to have the nursery ready 6-8 weeks before the expected due date since you never know when the baby will actually arrive and also because you may be too tired and off-balance to work on it towards the 40th week. But, since my previous sub-chorionic hemorrhage makes me a good (bad?) candidate for premature labor I'm hoping to get the room pretty much done by 30 weeks - which is scarily only 5 weeks and 2 days away.

Everything else is going well with the pregnancy too. We had the one hour glucose test today which involved drinking something nasty and then trying not to throw it up for an hour. Hopefully I will pass the test because if I don't I have to go do the whole thing again for four hours. I feel mostly okay, very tired and frankly somewhat bitchy since I get very, very little sleep because of SUCH sore hips but other than that and the heartburn that regularly makes me throw up I'm pretty much okay. Baby's heartbeat and my measurements and blood pressure were all good today and my doctor said that everything was going really well. I've only gained two pounds so far which means that even if I gain a pound per week for the rest of the pregnancy I'll still be on target which makes me very pleased.

Oh, and we may have figured out all of Smeagol's FREAKISH behavior over the past few weeks - I think she has a false pregnancy. The poor girl is even lactating! I think my hormones have caused her to believe that she is pregnant which is just so weird I can't express it. And hey, if you want to feel sorry for someone feel sorry for Paul who is, in essence, living with two pregnant bitches. God bless him.

Sorry!

Hey, folks! I'm totally still alive, I swear. Just so busy and so tired. But I'm fine, honest!

I have not given up on my blog and I really want to write more but things are just hectic right now. More soon, I swear!

My days are filled with poo so you can damn well read about it

Sooo tired, but I have to update here. I'm not abandoning this blog, I swear, but we've been so busy lately plus my new job plus being sick, its just all been too much. But for today again, just some catch up.

So,

1) I'm getting better. I'm finished my second batch of antibiotics yesterday and so far they seem to be working as opposed to the first batch which could not help my powerfully weak immune system. I'm still coughing and phlegmy (AKA SO Sexy) and weak, but I feel like I'm on the mend. My bosses have been extremely understanding of my absences so early in this job. They say that this is what happens to everyone their first few months of working in a large group of small children, so hopefully after a few more months I'll have a bit more immunity to everything.

2) My job is going okay. Its a long commute every day and the day is long for me but the kids are awesome and I totally miss them on days when I'm not there. I spend most of my time in the infant rooms and I like them best. The teacher to my 'assistant teacher' the other day told me that I was a natural around the babies and that she had missed me while I was sick. Whee! I also LOVE the fact that its a Christian school. We sing Christian-y songs a lot and listen to them too. We put up Bible verses around the room and tell the babies stories from the Bible as well. I love love love that as it is very natural for me. As well, I was a bit worried that in this day and age it was going to be not appropriate to hug and snuggle the babies and I didn't know how I would manage that. But everyone does it and its a great pick-me-up when a one year old toddles up to you and wraps himself around you and just holds you for a minute before going back to play. Its neat too seeing babies take first steps and first words. No matter how many times I see a baby take his or her first steps it never gets old.

I spend some time in the toddler rooms too which is not my favorite but its usually just covering breaks. I love toddlers but they're just a bit too high energy for my sickly self. The toddler room entertains me though because of the things they say and I find myself saying. Here's a conversation I had with Riley the other day:

Riley - Miss Jennifer, I have a poopie.

Me - Do you really?

Riley - *laughing hysterically* NO! I'm just TEASING!

Me - Uh-huh.

2 minutes later

Riley - Miss Jennifer, I have a poopie.

Me - Do you really?

Riley - *nearly on the floor laughing* NO!

2 minutes later

Riley - Miss Jennifer, I have a poopie.

Me - No you don't.

Riley - *instantly bawling* I DOOOOOOOO!

Me - Okay let's go change you.

Riley - Okay, but I want you to do it and no one else and I want to hold the new diaper while you do it and that's how I want it.

Me - Fine.

*changing*

Riley - *suddenly bawling again*

Me - What's wrong, hon?

Riley - I have an ITCH!

Me - Where is your itch?

Riley - Where I POOOOOOOOED!!!

Me - Okay, well that will go away in a little bit, tell me a story about your day today and by the time you're done it will be gone.

Riley - Why does it itch where I poo? Does it itch where you poo too?

Me - Uhh. Well, sometimes when we poo we get itchy but if we clean ourselves very well like I'm cleaning your bum right now then the itch goes away.

Riley - So your poo place itches too?

Me - Um...so you have to clean up your poo really well.

This just went on and on. Ah, 3 year olds.

3) My birfday is today and Paul and I are going to be going out for Indian food and maybe to a movie of my choice (although we saw Hancock a few weeks ago and it would be hard to top, it was great). I told Paul that I didn't need or want any gifts but he got me great ones anyway and harrassed me to open them until I did, a day early. I've told him many times that to me a big part of a gift or card, even a $5 item,is that its purchased in advance and wrapped with care and arrives on time etc. So he went, on his own, and bought me a card and Eeyore wrapping paper and wrapped up my stuff. It meant SO much to me, almost as much as the gifts! He got me some drugstore type items that I love; candy and pens and things. Plus a PedEgg...have you seen those commercials? Ew, eh? The PedEgg is like a foot file deal to help make your feet sandal ready smooth and its pretty neat, although my feet are a bit raw now. Then the best gift...Shortly after our wedding my engagement ring broke. At first we thought it was just a prong around the stone, but it turned out to need a fairly complicated weld and we could never afford to get someone to weld platinum properly and reset the stone. So, I went without my engagement ring which really bothered me. But Paul snuck the ring and stone out of my jewelry box and had it fixed for me. He had them put it in a beautiful new box and put a slip of paper into the box that said 'will you marry me?'
LOVE IT! Great gift. I was thrilled.

4) I have pages and pages of unanswered emails and un-responded to comments and I'm gonna just give myself a pass on that. I don't have the emotional energy to respond so I'm just gonna cross that off my list. I truly hope that that is not rude. Once again, I'm just going to say that most of you just rock. I got so many supportive and wonderful comments after we lost our baby and in general regarding all of our other problems. I'm so utterly grateful, there are no words to describe. Nancy F., Kimberly L. and so many others who I'm sure I should name by name, you guys have moved me beyond words and you are in my prayers every day. Thank you all for more support than I could have imagined and I hope you'll forgive me if I don't respond to you right now...its all just too much.

***

Oh, and an edit. FRICKING COMCAST!!! Our internet and cable and thus also phone have been working only sporadically for about a month now and have worked hardly at all this weekend. So, you're trying to call us? Good luck. Also, we finally changed our phone number to a Tennessee number last week so if you're somebody who calls us please email me for our new number or call Paul on his cell if you have that. Thanks!

Stupid More Admin

This is driving me CRAZY! I've been working hard on fixing all the little problems and things that bugged me about the blog. I've been getting there, although with all of Blogger's bugs, it ain't easy. I also wanted to change my email address from jerajenn to popandsoda...which I accomplished by using the Blogger Help Group's suggestion of giving popandsoda author privileges and then revoking jerajenn's author privileges. Well that worked except then my profile, profile views and other things were gone. So, I added jerajenn back in order to retrieve that information and that worked except that now in my sidebar under 'Who Am I' it says my name twice, one for each email address. When you click on one you get my profile and accurate numbers, on the other you get nada. I need to fix this! I also want to show my entire profile or at least the first bit there on the sidebar but for some idiotic reason I can't figure out how to do that!

Gah, its too early in the morning. If any of you have suggestions on how to fix this stuff or other things that need to be fixed, please let me know!

Email Admin

Hey people, I changed some email addresses around today. If I actually know you then I sent you an email with my new address and as you can see from up top there, blog related stuff now has its own separate email address - popandsoda@gmail.com. The old address will probably still be in use for a few months while I change everything over. Thankee!

Obsessively Compulsively Fixed

Oh, also. yesterday I noticed that one bug that, well, bugged me was fixed so I updated the links down there on the right. The OCD had me in a tight grip on that one. Not only did the links have to have the proper name and spelled correctly and double checked, of course, but they also had to be in the SAME ORDER IN WHICH I READ THEM. (The OCD? Its really getting out of hand these day, the stove IS OFF and the door IS LOCKED but I have to keep walking all the way downstairs to recheck them, even if I haven't used the stove that day. Anyway.) If the links were listed in a different order from which I read them it would keep me up at night. The ordering process is so complex that I couldn't begin to explain it, I just do what the crazy brain tells me to do. But, the first few are people I actually know, in the real world or in blogoworld, and then it moves on to people whose blogs I just like to read even though I don't know them. So, that list down there is of the sites I actually check and read every day. Hope you find something new you might like!

Explanations and Excuses

HIDEOUSLY IRRITATED with Blogger. I have been trying desperately to change some items in my layout template but can't because of a glitch in which that page has no scrollbar and thus you can't see your whole layout template. I checked the Blogger Help Group and there are many other people irritated about this as well. They are suggesting workarounds etc. but none really work for me and the Blogger Known Issues Page says that this problem is fixed. I emailed Blogger Support as well, indicating that, nuh-uh this problem is NOT fixed, and after a week they haven't even gotten back to me with a form letter saying 'we received your email'. I have another problem with the blog too that is basically the same thing - known issue, said to be fixed, not fixed at all.

I'm really frustrated with this and I want to bring my blog somewhere else, but then I would lose all of the old content (or at least have to refer people back to this blog), I assume, and I don't want to do that. It pisses me off that Blogger, which is part of Google for heaven't sake, can't get their act together enough to fix a problem that is affecting so many. You'd think the IT department of GOOGLE might be a WEE BIT MORE COMPETENT, wouldn't you? (Side note, Google is such a massive empire that I kind of got a shiver writing that, like now they'll be watching me or something.)

Anyway, so if you see problems here on the blog - TOTALLY AWARE - just can't do anything about it. (This also makes me a bit slow in posting new content because I hate posting to a page that has problems.) I wish I had the knowledge to start my very own site, but my HTML knowledge, although better than it used to be, is nowhere near good enough for that. I want this blog to look gorgeous and perfect (you know, to make up for the content quality) and instead it looks boring and buggy. Poop.

Pop & Soda Admin

Okay, several things!

A) Thanks for all the awesome suggestions of blogs and websites to look at. I've checked out every one, I think, and already have some new faves. Favorite blog -name- so far 'she just walks around with it' . LOVE IT!

B) My internet friend Chickenbells commented that I looked 'thin' in the 'bed of nails' picture. I love her now. Go read her blog and give her lots of love!

C) Laz, Julie and others, I'm so glad that you 'got' the card from Waffles and Smeagol (Paul) and understood how it totally helped. Paul was embarrassed when I put that up (of course, I TOLD him I put it up because he doesn't READ my blog) cause he thought it was silly but I'm glad you guys understood how it was absolutely perfect.

D) My previous post about "In My Mind" was perhaps poorly written. It wasn't meant to be a vent session but more a question; how do you focus on your accomplishments and not on the things that you can't or haven't yet accomplished. And how do you 'think globally' when your own world seems so very small. Thanks for the comments and emails, you guys always rock.

E) In answer to email questions - I am looking for work but haven't had much success yet. I'm really hopeful about a part-time job at a women's shelter (money and helping people all in one place) that I should hear about within the next week. I applied for what I thought was a decent job yesterday but then found out it was commission based. Beggars can't be choosers but I'm not sure if I could function knowing that I was making only commission. Plus further research revealed that it was a collection agency. Blech. But we'll see. I've also applied for numerous retail jobs but no word on any of those yet. I find that people her are VERY local-centric and I think that my resume filled with jobs at companies that these people have never heard of in a city that these people have never heard of is probably off-putting. But, maybe I'm making excuses for myself since I'm frustrated that none of them have called me back.

F) I have always wanted to volunteer but up until last Thursday I didn't have the car to do it (we went down to Atlanta to pick up the car) so now I'm seriously considering it. I found a website that shows you all the volunteer positions near you and there are actually very few in our town. There are lots of nearby towns though which I'll look into next. The other day we drove through a town about 10 miles away and they had a huge animal shelter so it just occurred to me as I'm writing this that that would be a good place to try.

Thanks dear readers!

Toodle-Oo

Hey y'all! We're going away! Okay, well, we're going away for 2 nights leaving tomorrow. The hotel is booked, the boarder is booked and I miss the dogs already. We got our tax refund about two weeks ago and my goodness we were good boys and girls with it. We paid 4 medical bills as well as getting rid of various and sundry other obligations that cost money. In the end we were hoping to have enough money to go on a 2 night mini-break and get a couch. But, alas, one had to be forfeited and although we DESPERATELY need a new couch, we even more desperately need to have two days to ourselves for R and R. I'm feeling a wee bit guilty but screw it, we're doing it anyway. We're going to stay in the hotel that we stayed in on the first night after our wedding, so it should be all romantic and shit!

Anyway, Scrabulous competitors, IM correspondents etc. I will be back in a few days. And, by the by, two days after we get back we will have health insurance (if all goes according to plan). Have a good rest of the week, folks!

DAMMIT, the links for the new blogs that I wanted to add aren't working and I'm tired of trying to fix them so I'm just telling you so you know I noticed and I'll get back to it later. I can't figure it out, the links show up as 'http://http' and then the rest of the address but no matter how many times I delete the extra 'http' it still shows up and screws up the redirection.

Attention Blog readers/phone friends/Scrabulous competitors etc.

We are moving to Tennessee today! Pray a LOT for we are stressed and in pain (still chest mostly from the mold) almost past the point of rescue. We are very excited to be going though. We will, however, be without cable/internet/telephone for 8 days so never fear if you do not hear from us. In case of emergency, for those of you who would contact me in case of emergency, you know Paul's cell phone number.

Bye!