All Through the Night

Oh man. The time is currently 3:29 am and all is NOT well. It was only hours after my last post, and my excitement of not feeling nauseous for two days that I found myself right back at the toilet. I made the mistake of going grocery shopping... too many smells.... too many weird foods equals puking first trimester pregnant lady.

So I have been tossing and turning all night and at about midnight painfully barfed up what little food I had eaten that night. Now I just plain can't sleep and have decided to remove myself from the bedroom where I keep disrupting my hubby's Zzzzzzzzzz's.

I am going to spend the next few minutes hopefully falling asleep to my favorite Lullaby. It's not my favorite because my mom used to sing it to me or anything. In fact I was about 23 years old the first time I heard it. It reminds me of a time in my life when I needed a lullaby each night.

When I was on my mission in New Mexico this song became my way to end each day. I really felt like the soothing voices of the men in the Mormon Tabernacle choir sounded so calming and kind of like God rocking you to sleep. I worked myself to the bone as a missionary... seriously at the end of a day my head barley had to hit the pillow and I was out. But there was always this time of reflection on the drive home each night when I would listen to this song and often feel like... I can't do this again tomorrow. Yet somehow day by day I made it through.

Now when I listen to this song I usually get all teary eyed remembering the many faces and experiences I had in the "Land of Enchantment." You might not get teary eyed from it, but hopefully you can appreciate it's relaxing quality. As my former roommate Sara Ware can attest to... even adults sometimes need a good lullaby.

AND HOPEFULLY I CAN FALL ASLEEP!!!! Take me to dreamland Mo Tab.....

Number Two

Yesterday morning I was awoken at 6:45 a.m. to someone blaring "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. If you are like me your first thought was of a tiny man dancing around with a jester suit on and carrying a mandolin. My second thought was... "YOU ARE GOING TO WAKE UP FIONA!!" Which sure enough... they did. But it's kind of funny to wake up to your kid jamming out in her crib to a cheesy 80's song.

I also realized that when I woke up it was the first morning in about four weeks that I didn't feel like absolute donkey poop. And no... I am not terminally ill. Just cooking up baby number two. I am pregnant again, which many of you already knew but thought I would make it public to the world wide web.

I have tried to avoid posting these last few weeks because I really didn't have anything good to say.... and I was told once under such circumstances to not say anything at all. I just wanted to vomit all day everyday for four weeks straight and felt like curling up in a ball on the floor and sleeping. But I had to take care of Fiona, help my hubby with the house and go to school which kind of made me feel like screaming profanities at strangers who walked by my window.

But... it's all over now. We have past the sick stage. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the weird pregnancy hair growth patches I am sprouting.

But I am excited. Can't wait to find out if it's a girl or a boy. This will make the third new grandchild for Chuck's parents this year. We are growing quite exponetially these days. I would really like a boy... but heck I have a load of girl stuff already to go so that would be kind of convenient for me :)

In other news Chuck and I got a gigantic tax return (Thank you America for investing in our future!) We decided that it would be best for Chuck to quit his part time job at a group home until school is over. Between both of us in school, Fiona, and our job at the apartments we have NO time to do our homework. So he has one week left and then we hope things will settle down a bit. I am excited to not have to see him leave every morning to a job that drives his bonkers.

Also, I have decided not to pursue graduate school in Utah but just work on being a mommy and supporting Chuck. I have learned that when you are in school and working you really do need full time support at home. So that's my focus now and maybe when my kiddos are a bit older I'll go back.

Fiona is cute as ever and didn't even skip a beat during my four week drudge. She actually found out that she finds puking and dry heaving very funny and liked to stand toilet side for the event. She also is crawling around at lighting speed, and enjoys escaping from diaper changing and being dressed. Which means we often have a naked little butt cruising the apartment which is REALLY cute and funny... but she often pees on the carpet. Is it too early to start potty training?!?!?! Kidding.

Other than that here is a picture of the 930 cigarette butts I picked up along the front sidewalk of our apartment building yesterday. Yes... I counted each one, and I saved the Bucket O Butts as I am now calling it because I am going to take it around to each of the smokers in my building and show them how nasty it is that they throw them on the ground. Which is actually one of my greatest pet peeves of all time. I don't know why many people who smoke feel that the world is their personal ashtray.... cigarette butts don't just evaporate when they hit the ground. Plus they can start things on fire and it looks trashy. Please don't liter, and definitely don't smoke.... it gives you dog breath.

Cara Cara

Whole Foods... I think I have mentioned this before but there is a Whole Foods grocery store literally three buildings away from me. In this neighborhood it is jokingly called "Whole Paycheck Foods" because everything in there is more expensive than it is at the regular grocery store. BUT for good reason. Most of the food (especially the produce and meat) is way better. It even looks fancier and cleaner when you walk in. It is organic, meaning that is was grown with out chemical fertilizers or pesticides. PLUS they ALWAYS have lots of free samples throughout the whole store.

I walked over there to find an orange the other day, grabbed the biggest juiciest looking one I could find and came home. When I cut into it I was a little confused, cuz it was bright pink and thought I might have grabbed a grapefruit. But it was sooooo sweet!!!! Turns out it was just a Cara Cara orange. I don't know why I have not heard about these until my 28th year of life.... but I am in love. I daresay they are the best orange I have ever tasted and have wanted to eat one every day since.

I went to the regular grocery store a few days later and saw that they also sold Cara Cara's for a DOLLAR CHEAPER a pound. Wow! I thought, and loaded up. When I got them home they were not the same... the skins were thinner and they looked dull pink on the inside and didn't taste like anything special, they didn't taste like much of anything....

So back to Whole Foods.... and once again they were delicious.

The moral of this story is that cheaper price is NOT always better... ESPECIALLY when it comes to food. I like how the movie FOOD Inc put it. Every time you go to the store and make a purchase you a voting as a consumer. You are telling the producers what you value and enjoy.

SO vote organic... if not always, at least once in awhile. And try a Cara Cara!

SKINS

I am really perturbed by the release of the show SKINS onto MTV. If you don't know what that is I warn you that if you Google it you will find a tawdry photo of 15 + teenagers in sexy nighties looking half dead. The show is supposed to be about teenagers having sex with each other, doing drugs, binge drinking, breaking the law... etc. etc. Basically it is a parents worst nightmare. And is rated M for mature. MTV claims it is not geared towards kids. Yet the show was watched by 3 millions viewers the first night, and about 1.3 million were under the age of 18.

Some of the shows stars are 15 years old and are portrayed scantily clad and in explicit sex scenes. There are lots of reasons why this bothers me... the sexualization of young girls, the unrealistic reality portrayed (NOT ALL KIDS that age are having sex and doing drugs), the pressure to act like these kids do. BUT above all it disgusts me because ADULT MEN watch this show and begin to view young girls in a sexual way. SO thank you MTV for providing near child pornography to breed the next generation of petafiles who prey on young girls....

Whatever happened to shows where kids were presented with sex, drugs and other teenage issues but with the help of family and friends made the RIGHT CHOICE?!?!?!?! MTV argues that parents should monitor what their children watch. That is true but in our technological age if kids want to watch it or are curious they are going to be able to despite their parents wishes. I think that MTV should bear some sort of responsibility for what they expose people to. It just seems with all of the problems our culture is facing with teenage pregnancy, underage drinking, STDS, Drug use, child pornography, and many more.... THIS show is tacky and in poor taste to say the least.

Whatever happened to shows like these?

Like Boy Meets World

and Family Matters