30 JunAnd for today’s shopping indulgence..

Stargate Atlantis, Season 5. Available at your local Fry’s for $31.58, or from Amazon for $32.49 (with free Super Saver Shipping).

I haven’t seen it, keep your spoilers to yourself. The only spoiler I do know is who delivers Tayla’s baby. OMFGCAN”TWAITTOSEEIT.

*grins*

22 JunNot quite long overdue, yet.

Eleven days.  2300 miles.  I’d be totally glad to be home if it wasn’t a hundred fucking degrees outside.

We had a pretty good time.  We stopped overnight both directions so instead of spending fifteen hours in a car it was only six or seven each day.  Wasn’t too bad.  On the way there we found ourselves at a rest area that was within walking distance of the Tennessee River where I almost stepped on a snake and then found this on the wall outside of the exit from the woman’s restroom. hugemoth It was about as big as one and a half of my hands.  Fuzzy feet, so we’re pretty sure that it’s a moth.  Or the precursor to a human.  Something like that.

We got to see a lot of my cousin Vanessa - which was awesome, since I don’t get to see much of her (in fact, I didn’t see her at all for about twenty years!).  She introduced us to Lynn’s Paradise Cafe where I ate this delicious dish that won a Throwdown with Bobby Flay and is now featured on the Food Network.  Hooray for Bourbon Ball French Toast.  I also got this great shot of Brian trying to molest a teacup outside.  brianfountain The entire atmosphere rocked.  It’s also convieniently located close to Cave Hill Cemetary where my great grandparents are buried, about ten spaces away from this fellow.  briancemetary Anyone know him?

The three of us accompanied my parents and Aunt/Uncle on my first visit to Churchill Downs.   Wasn’t a bad time, my Uncle had access to a box - they made it sound so nice and private, and in reality it’s just a section with six chairs in it.  Worthy of a laugh.  It was about 70% shaded which made it entirely bearable, along with the fact that it was about twenty five degrees cooler outside than it is in Dallas today.  I conned Josh into buying a Mint Julep so I could get the souvenir glass.  It tasted horrible - I personally think that it might taste better if they’d use the recipe that Alton Brown does.  Meh.  Anyways, I stole five dollars from my dad after we’d been there about an hour so that I could gamble it away.  My Uncle (who seems to know what he’s doing, that shit is complicated) escorted me to the window where I picked the best named horse out of the next race and plopped a Win/Place/Show bet on it.  He threw in the last dollar since it was a whole six dollars.  What happened?  My horse won, 29 to 1 odds.  I walked away with ninety dollars.  Gooooo, horsey number 5!  horserace Yes, that was on the return cool the horses down lap, they really run the opposite direction.

Brian ran around a lot taking pictures with his camera.  There seemed to be an inordinate amount of pictures of his feet, however, here’s the best of the bunch.  (Bunch being in the hundreds.)

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These (slightly better images) are from my camera.  Brian took about 50 on there, but if you notice, I think he’s in every one I’m about to link.  His career as a photographer isn’t starting very well.

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Josh agrees with me that Moby Dick’s is the best fried cod he’s ever had.  White Castle in his opinion is meh, I still think it’s great - and anything that’ll help with constipation might as well be gift wrapped and left on my pillow.  I miss Big Red on tap, and if I never have to sleep on that bed in my grandmother’s basement again I think I’ll give up the gift wrapped White Castles.

While we were there we picked up some maternity clothes, since I’m becoming more and more barrel shaped each day and my pants seem to be falling off my fat shelf.  I don’t think this is fair, since I didn’t need maternity clothes with Brian until I was at least seventeen weeks (and I’ll hit fourteen weeks in another day or two), but what I can do.  It’s not like it’s a balloon and I can just let some air out of it… although, that sounds like a great plan…

06 JunVacation.

Just in case people do pay attention to my small little presence here on the internets, we’re leaving possibly tomorrow but for sure Monday morning for Kentucky. We’ll be back the 18th. If you need to get in touch with me for whatever reason, you can email my iPhone (jennifertidmore ‘at’ gmail ‘dot’ com)

Not that I expect anyone ever NEEDS to talk to me, or anything. =D

edit - Josh got tomorrow off.  We’ll leave in the morning, and the first stop on our cross half the country tour?  http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/ Kid from Dallas pulled a 3.75 carat one out of there this time last year.  Here’s hoping one of us gets lucky!

04 JunThey call him Flipper, Flipper

Everything looks to be okay.  Had my regularly scheduled appointment yesterday, during which Josh and Brian got to watch the fetus jump around like it had just recieved a hit of sugarized caffiene.  My cervix is perfect, the baby is perfect.  Who knows what the hell happened Sunday, but it looks like whatever it was isn’t going to bother anything (other than my nerves).  I’ll keep crossing my fingers/legs though, just in case.

We’re leaving on Monday to go to Louisville for about ten days.  I’m really excited - first, we’ve got a vacation that isn’t to Atlanta and two, that I get to see all of my grandparents and they are all still alive.  Not that I’m not homesick for Atlanta or anything, but yeah.  It’s also going to take us through two cities I’ve never been through before (TexasArkansasana, however it’s spelled, and Memphis).  I don’t know how much we’re actually going to see, but it’s got to be better than the same Atlanta to Louisville route that I’ve taken over a hundred times, right?

I also think I need to start taking more pictures again.  I wonder if we could pull another thousand dollars out of our asses this year.. I’d kill for a DSLR.  :[

04 JunCooper, the super cat.

cooper1Cooper.   Summer 1998 - June 3, 2009

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01 JunThere are bad days, and then

There are worse days.

Sunday afternoon I finally got in the shower, after putting it off for most of the morning doing things (cleaning, laundry, fixing meals, etc).  I’m on auto pilot doing my usual shower when I feel a pop.  I think, that’s weird.  I look down, and the bathtub is ABSOLUTELY filled with blood.  That fast.  It’s just gushing out of me, down my legs, clots, etc.  I figured that was it and called out for Brian to bring me the phone.  (Poor Brians..)  Called Josh, got him all upset, and then we figured out that he couldn’t actually come home because (if you remember a few months ago when he had the plague and was vomiting all over the office) if he has another unexcused absence before his year ‘probation’ time is up in October, they’ll fire him.  [I figured if we got the swine flu, we'd just call a local news station.]

I figured finally that I needed to finish and get out of the shower, since I couldn’t just stay in there for the next three hours until Josh could come home.  I got out and got lotioned/dressed and went and laid down on the bed.  I remembered from the last time I miscarried that the only advice they’ll give you is to lay on your left side and hope.  I didn’t have much hope, but laying down sounded like a great idea.  Josh finally got home, I eventually got up a little bit here and there.  The bleeding had stopped, so I figured that I’d end up going to the doctor this morning and walking over to the hospital portion of the complex for a D&C.  I didn’t even eat or drink anything this morning, thinking I could be all smart about it.

Called the doctor as soon as they opened and got in an hour later.  Got there and he cracked my vagina open and saw some ‘old’ blood.  Shipped me back to the waiting area (wtf, they have a front waiting room and then each doctor has their own personal waiting area - granted, it *is* a big office..) to wait on the sonagram lady.  He’s all about reassuring me that I need to keep my hopes up.  [While I'm thinking, dude, you just didn't lose two liters of blood and matter out of your twat...]  I get in the ultrasound room, on the table, get the probe where it needs to be, and she finds this.

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Heartbeat is 160.  It’s measuring 10 weeks, 4 days (which is about a week later than it should have been from the last ultrasound, which brings it back to where it should be LMP wise).  She sees a few clots so she can tell there’s been some bleeding [SOME!?!?] but everything looks okay.

Fuck me.

For the next week I’m supposed to ‘take it easy’.  No sex, no exercise, nothing more strenous than doing what I can to take care of Brian.  I’m going back for my regular scheduled appointment on Wednesday.  They are going to do another sonagram to make sure everything’s still okay, and I’ll have all that bloodwork done that (IMO) I should have already had.  I remembered a few hours after we got home and called to ask about a RhoGam shot.  The doctor’s like “You’re O-?”.  Deedeedee.  If I wasn’t O-, would I have known about it (or had three other ones?).  So I’ll have that, and hopefully every other test they can throw at me.  I’m still freaked the hell out - but at least as of this morning, it’s still there, and it’s still beating.

22 MayChupa, part two.

I did a very poor job of clarifying a few things during that last entry. First, the title. I’ve looked in every candy venue that I know of around here and couldn’t find a damn Chupa Chups lollipop to save my life. I ended up ordering a box of 150 of them from an online candy retailer and they got here yesterday. Ahhh, sweet Strawberry Vanilla relief. :]

Next, those prices that I was quoting? The caesarian birth price is JUST for the actual birth. The hospital stay, the surgery, any ultrasounds/lab work/IV’s/spinal blocks needed. Doesn’t touch anything during the preceding nine months. Aren’t you just jumping for joy? I know I am - but at least we can afford (read: justify the expense) for both of us to go to the doctor for whatever reasons this year, since we’re not having a choice in the maxing out the deductible part of our health care plan.

I still don’t think that I’m anywhere near as sick as I was with Brian - which worries me, even though I know that everyone says that each pregnancy is different. However, they did see a heartbeat, which (after doing some internet sleuthing) means that my risk for losing it went way the hell down. I still wish I could just skip ahead about six months in the future though. Patience doesn’t exist for me.

I’m sticking a cut here, since I want to bitch talk about some shows.

Read the rest of this entry »

21 MayChupa Chups.

It’s one of those lalalalalala entries.  I want to complain about the writers of both of my very favorite shows, but to do that, I feel obligated to stick it under a cut (just in case there’s other people in the world like me that don’t actually have television and watch their shows online, and for whatever reason [like, omfg, why haven't you?!] haven’t watched the end of this season’s shows).

Everyone here is doing okay. The three of us can’t wait to get the hell out of dodge. We’re driving to Louisville to my Grandmother’s house the Monday after Brian’s last day of school (which is the 5th). Josh has ten days off - and the cool part of that is because of when his off days fall, he’s going to have four of those as ‘free’ days, so he’ll actually have a few vacation days/personal/whatever days left when we get back. It’s so crazy to think that we’re actually taking a vacation and that it’s paid. My only real dream is to actually take a vacation to somewhere I’ve never been before, but even I think that seeing all four of my grandparents again is more important than going somewhere for (hookers and blow) straight pleasure. Keep in mind, Josh hasn’t been on a real vacation since he was in his early teens, and I haven’t been on one since my senior year in high school when I invited myself on Kevin’s trip to Panama City. That would have made me eighteen, and I’m now twenty nine… *screams*

The embryo seems to be doing fine. I’m already having trouble with my pants and how they fit, the fat on the bottom of my stomach seems to have increased by about 30%. I can’t even really feel my uterus popping above my pelvic bone yet, either. My next appointment is on the third, during which I get the eight hundred vials of blood work, the pelvic/all body exams, and we talk insurance. I’m not exactly looking forward to that, although I already know that it’s going to be an ass raping. I hate insurance, I hate doctors, and I hate the American health care system.

The deductible is $2300. The maximum out of pocket per year is $6525. Their cost estimator on their website estimated the total out of pocket expense for a caesarian birth to be $3,678.60.

Makes me want to be poor on welfare, I swear. I think after looking at those numbers, I’ll television blog later. :|

09 MayPerfect Days.

You never know the biggest day of your life is the biggest day. Not until it’s happening. You don’t recognize the biggest day of your life, not until you’re right in the middle of it. The day you commit to something or someone. The day you get your heart broken. The day you meet your soul mate. The day you realize there’s not enough time, because you wanna live forever. Those are the biggest days. The perfect days.

06 MayHouston, we have a heartbeat.

It’s measuring about a week earlier than my dates indicate - which means one of two things.  I ovulate abnormally (which wouldn’t be a surprise), or I ovulated twice.  Either way.  Estimated due date is now January 1st - with delivery about ten days beforehand, due to my repeat caesarian.  (There’s no way in the WORLD that I would try for a VBAC, it sucked enough the first time.)

Heartbeat was a nice and strong 132, measurements matched the heartbeat developmentally, and the doctor said everything looks perfect.