Evening #32...an insight into what I do with my spare time.

Well, nothing too exciting to report. Yes, I'm home alone late at night once again. Somehow this has reduced me to flipping through the few free channels we get and sitting on the couch munching. I'm not sure why I sound so despondent.... The point is that I decided it was time to update my blog when I flipped to the Discovery channel and saw that the show was "Hogs Gone Wild"--a show all about wild hogs. In this particular episode, they are trying to catch one in a field. Just talking about it makes me bored. Wild Hogs also sounds less exciting than calling them BOARS. Boars make them sound infinitely more dangerous.  Saying boar also reminds me of Willow and cavorting through Italy with my father driving us down dirt roads.  If you google wild hog, several pictures come up of that movie that no one I know even saw... and then this:

Something about this boar reminds me of a fluffy bear cub--before they're intimidating. If you google boar, you might find this picture instead:

Way more intimidating. I mean, this boar is suited for battle. This picture actually comes from a website entitled "Celtic Boar: A Soul Journey by Michael Honeth" He says "This is my guardian power animal. The boar is worshipped by the deities and is the shaman's most dedicated earth spirit. Tenacious and fearless, the boar earns respect."  Case in point. Boars are cooler than hogs. If you don't believe me, click HERE.

Dear Anonymous

Since you still won't stop giving me a hard time on every social network about my lack of pregnancy photographs, I have taken a few choice photos with photobooth of me in my ugly pajamas to hold you over until I can hire a photographer and take maternity photos. Who am I kidding? There is no way I am going to do that. But maybe I'll remember to have David take a picture of me when I'm looking cute and we are somewhere cool. Maybe. For now, this will have to suffice.

Hope you like the nod to the Mavs in my pajamas (the only shirts large enough besides my free SkyTeam shirt from Delta that Boyf likes to remind me wasn't free--it was paid for in pain and suffering). And the Sumo face. That's how I feel most of the time. Like a sumo wrestler. Really, it is empowering.

Evening #25

So, things have been going REALLY well for Boyf at work. He has been helping with recruiting and put on a huge case. This is all good. It also means that the days of coming home at 6 are over. I'm not upset. In fact, I've been feeling anxious that this wasn't happening soon enough. Growing up in a home where my dad was often gone by the time I woke up and home after I fell asleep, I suppose it is an expectation.  Since David grew up with a father who is very much the same, it was inevitable. Since I am a night owl, this works well for the both of us. My dad often complains now about the TV being on late when he is trying to fall asleep and my mom is watching HGTV or the Food Network, but now I wonder if he was once grateful for her staying up late so he could see her each day.

To pass the time, I did indeed make banana bread and am currently watching "Pride and Prejudice". It was inspired by my sisters.  Since they moved to London, I have heard them watching this movie in the background several times, including today, so I felt inclined to watch it myself. This movie often reminds me of being with Raechel. We might watched it every evening for two or three months beginning the day it was released on video.  I am not the best movie watcher. I got that from my mother.  As far back as I can remember, she would always tell us to start the movie and then get together whatever she would work on while we were watching. I used to try and figure out why she couldn't just sit down and enjoy the movie, but I am now as bad as she. And now I've mentioned two things I inherited from my mother in a single post. She sure gave me a lot of goodness, didn't she?

One other thing: I hate the sound of a car door being left open with the key in the ignition. I hate it more now that we have a neighbor who WITHOUT FAIL opens their car door with the key in the ignition for a minimum of five minutes each afternoon and then again each night. Similar to the time I counted how many loopings of "La Cucaracha" were played outside our window by the ice cream truck each afternoon, I wish they would stop. But I haven't been so unoccupied during the occurrence to count as of yet. I mostly try and ignore it.

Okay, Bingley is about to propose. I have to go. I love this every time.

Day #17

So maybe I missed 6 days.

Nobody was counting anyway.

Training is over and Boyf finally works a mere 20-minute bike ride from our home! I say bike ride because Boyf (David) takes his fancy bike (see THIS post about how I am an awesome wife and got him said bicycle) to work since we only have one car and sometimes pregnant people need cars to get places. That being said, I have now started my short run at the Palo Alto Children's theatre with "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" and the hours have changed to a later time, so I leave right before he gets home and get home when he is ready to go to bed. It wouldn't be that big of a deal if he didn't like to go to bed at 8:30, but we can't all be nocturnal. Also, we don't all wake up at 5am to train for marathons.

While he has been slaving away, I have also been slaving away. I have been practicing so I can play an entire orchestra score with two hands at a piano at lightning speeds (if you don't believe me, listen to THIS) while trying not to laugh as the strange neighbor boy from downstairs lurks past our window.  He seems to be very curious about all of the noise I make on the piano and as intelligent and horrifically nerdy as he may seem, he has failed to notice that even though our piano does not face the window, it has a high-gloss finish and basically acts as a mirror, so I see him clearly every time he walks by. I cannot blame him. I am an interesting creature. I am also curious and admittedly have eavesdropped on his conversations more than once as they wafted up to my bedroom window. He seems to really enjoy math. Almost every conversation I've heard him have has been about math. Except for the one where he thought it would be a great idea to tie a small kiddie pool onto a skateboard, put their cat in it, then drag it behind their car....

In other news, I must also admit that today I got a pizza for lunch.  It was a medium pizza from Papa John's. My favorite. There are only two pieces left. So much for going to the gym this morning...and yesterday morning...and tomorrow morning. My mom told me several times about when she was pregnant with me and ate a lot of pizza in one day. She never quantified "a lot" but I will no longer think it is a lot until she admits that she ate almost two pizzas.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment at the DMV.  This is when I give in to all that is evil.  I will register my car in California and I will get a California Driver's License.  I don't feel that confident about giving up my Texas license and if they try to make me cut it up or something, I will shed tears. So many tears.

Well, I should have split that up into more than one blog post and made it seem like I had a lot of really exciting things to say, but I'm not so proactive that I am going to backdate any blog posts or copy and paste this one into multiple others, so this will have to do for now.

Nightmares?

I think that I might have nightmares about this. But St. Vincent, I love you more than music can say.

Pre-Day #5

Well, I'm up. I can't fall asleep. I just finished reading the most awful book (yes, even worse than Twilight) entitled "The Vampire Diaries". Technically, I finished reading two installments of said diaries in one go.  Apparently if the author didn't lump them together, no one would read the second book. TRUTH. I checked both the first and second set of two out from the library, and I just can't even bring myself to open the second set.

So I'm blogging. Tomorrow is day #5. I'm actually pretty excited for day #5 because I have some GRAND plans. I'M HEADING TO THE CITY!!

Boyf is doing his training in San Fran, so we are going to make a night of it. And before we make a night of it, I'm going to make a day of it. I don't have a complete list of things to do, but I figure that while I'm up I can do a little more research. So far my list looks like this:

1. Stop at used bookstore on my way into the city. Last time was a success--this time I'm hoping they'll buy a few of my books and give me in-store credit. OH YEAH!

2. Tour San Francisco Center for the Book.  I plan on taking several workshops so I can learn to letterpress, silk screen, and bind books as well as volunteer there while we're living in the area.

3. Head to Pier 39 and get myself some Boudin bread (sourdough, of course) for lunch. mmm, mmm, GOOD.

4. Maybe see some seals if mating season is over. (last time I tried, mating season kept them all off of Fisherman's Warf)

5. Gaze at Alcatraz and determine to book Brother's ticket to visit so we can go take a tour

6. Watch people and sneak pictures. Or maybe not sneak. Lots of people have cameras on those piers...

I can't imagine that it wouldn't be a great day. Hopefully we can find something great to do for the evening as well. Any suggestions for bay area shenanigans would be greatly appreciated.

Recap: Day #1

Well, Day one was not quite as productive as I would have liked. I did, however, complete all things on my to-do list. Except find a baby doctor...well, I found one, but I didn't make an appointment, so I'm slacking.

First I went to pre-natal yoga. Thanks to a glitch on the website, I arrived 55 minutes early believing I was 5 minutes late.  Needless to say, I had some time to kill. SOOOO, I read. It wasn't a complete bust. Pre-natal yoga, however, was a different story. Maybe I should have read the signs in their name: BlossomBirth, but I was sorely disappointed to go to yoga anticipating a sweaty workout that was also safe for baby and find it was a bunch of lonely pregnant women holding hands and shedding tears over baby. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but after doing yoga in Costa Rica with my sister-in-law who is a hardcore instructor, I was more than a little let-down. Will I be returning? NO THANKS.

At least the next few hours had much more to offer. I got ready, rearranged a few loose papers, and then headed off to the library! I got a library card without even showing my proof of address (apparently the people at the desk don't like to wait for you to pull up a bank statement on your phone), and checked out 8 books:

All but one two (almost forgot The Secret Garden!) of these books were found in the "Teen" section, which should attest to their credibility as real literature.

Then I did some other things (so important I've forgotten them) and went to Williams-Sonoma to purchase a wok.  If this Williams-Sonoma had been like other Williams-Sonomas I have entered, I would have been in and out in 20 minutes flat.  This Williams-Sonoma, however, was a DREAM COME TRUE.  There were demonstration counters all over the place, everything you could find online and never in stores, and it was beautiful.  I got lost for at least 45 minutes before remembering that I had come for a purpose.  I accosted a sales associate who happened to be an older man into helping me get a wok, and he knew so much about cooking and cookware I was enthralled. Needless to say, I will be returning to that Williams-Sonoma many times over--even if it is just to wander and wish... I did end up buying this beauty:

Then I made a mediocre stir-fry for boyf before I went to pick him up from the train. He kept telling me how good it was and even though I knew it wasn't awful, it was quite bland. I kept pestering him until he admitted that it was fairly bland, he just liked my cooking and didn't want to deter me from doing so. I felt much better after that--it gave me confidence that he would tell me the truth and perhaps liked all of those other things I tried previously.

Out of the ordinary: I felt pressure to be a "good wife".  I don't even know what being one means, but I felt like the fact that I didn't fold up the clean laundry because I didn't feel like it would have boyf come home wondering what I had accomplished all day. I'll keep you posted on whether or not the pressure subsides.