Leading entry: "Invalid Entry" 

I love taking photos... of other people. Rarely will you find me in front of the camera as I am usually the one taking photos. I, like Capp, hate the way any photograph of me looks.

There are a few of me from various events where I'm grinning, all squinty-eyed, my chin down, my neck all puffed out and rolling, my teeth showing, my fat cheeks pushing half of my face away. In the meantime, everyone else in the photo has a gorgeous smile, looks comfortable, and seems not to notice me.

The lack of notice is probably a good thing. It would mess everyone else in the photo up if they saw just how dumb I looked. At least, this way, I can crop myself out of the photo completely and use all of the other people who look good. (Yes, I have done this before and I will do it again in the future, I'm sure.)

There's only one time I regret my lack of willingness to have my photograph taken, and that was while I was pregnant with Ethan. Yes, I was puking most of the time, yes I felt like crap, but in the few photos that I do have of me, I am glowing, beautiful, and truly happy. My eyes are shining with excitement, my skin is splotchy in a few photos, but for the most part the best it has ever been in my life, and I have a little baby potbelly in all but one of them. There is only about three in existance from the entire 10 months, other than those from Convention 2004, but I haven't seen many of those and I was only just pregnant at the time.

I've made attempts in the past year to be included in more pictures. I'm sure that my children will want to have something to remember what I looked like before I got old and gray, and that's the only motivation I have. Jason says I'm my own worst critic, though, and that most of my photos come out quite well. I don't see it, though.
 

Leading entry: "Lost Wallet" 

I rarely lose my wallet. It's always my keys. I've lost them in several different places and in several different ways.

A lot of times, I lose them in my car. You know, the whole turn off the car, set the keys down to grab your other things, go to grab the keys from where you set them, and they've mysteriously disappeared bit. Usually, they turn up pretty fast, since I can't get in my house without them. A few times, though, I have set them down, forgot I set them, locked my doors and walked away, keys still inside. That always pisses Jason off because I have to call him (usually my cell phone is locked inside with my keys) and have him come unlock my car.

I did that once at a gas pump. It was bad timing, too. Prices were just getting ready to go up and the line was out of the parking lot. I had guys screaming at me to move and I couldn't. The attendant was a bit miffed, but tried to be understanding as I explained that my keys were locked inside of my car with my purse and could I please use their phone. The most miffed was Jason, though, who had to leave work in order to come unlock my car door so I could move my ride out of the way and free up that gas pump.

A couple of times, I have just dropped my keys in various areas of our property. Jason has found them anywhere from our pole barn to the carport, nearly underneath the car, to the road in front of our house. Lucky for me, each time, they were found in tact and without damage. I always get cursed out about keeping better track of them, but nothing I have tried has ever worked.

This last time, though, the keys have been lost seemingly permanently. I'm convinced that they're somewhere in the house, though, because I lost them after coming home from a trip one day. Either they got stuck in a shopping bag and the shopping bag was thrown out, or they've been lost within the realm of my house, never to be found again. It sucks, too, because my library card was on that key chain, along with a few other things of which I'd still like to have possession.

I've been driving the minivan with the chauffer key for months, now. I've also lost them several times, only to find them again. Most of the time, they've been found in one of Jason's pants or coat pockets. He yells at me about keeping track of my keys, like it's my fault that he walked off with them in his pocket. Another time he locked my purse in the van when he moved cars around and I couldn't leave to go where I needed to that day. Yes, it was my fault for leaving my purse in the van, but it was in plain sight so he should have grabbed it before he locked the doors.

Oh, well. If you happen to see my keys anywhere, have them send me a postcard. I'd like to know what they've made of themselves.
 

I just want to stay in bed all day today. I'm tired, I don't feel good, and I just don't want to do anything at all. For obvious reasons, that could never really happen, but one can wish, can't she?

I didn't sleep very well last night. Tossed and turned. I guess when I get home from work today, I'm going to take a nice, long nap, instead of cleaning up my craft room like I originally intended. Everything has been hit or miss, lately, anyway.

I'm not complaining. I'm just tired and want some extra sleep, especially since I had to give up my nap time yesterday for a damned doctor's appointment that was a waste of my time. I already went in and saw the nurse for the preliminary stuff, but for some reason, when I scheduled the preliminary appointment AND the midwife appointment, the girl at the front desk scheduled me for two preliminary appointments.

I get in there, and the nurse is doing all the stuff I've already done. Rather than waste both of our times even further, I told her I'd already done all that stuff. She said she'd thought so by my chart, but didn't question it. So, she went to see if I had a midwife appointment along with the preliminary and I didn't.

"Dr. Hamilton can see you at 2:30."

Dr. Hamilton is a male. I don't see males and it's written on my chart. "Will Dr. Hamilton have to do the pelvic exam?"

"Well, it's customary to do a pelvic exam for the first appointment."

"I'm not going to see Dr. Hamilton if he has to do the pelvic exam."

"Alright, then you'll have to reschedule with Linda."

"I made this appointment a month ago. It isn't my fault that your front desk made an error."

"I apologize, but Linda has no appointments available today. You'll have to reschedule."

"Fine."

I wasn't happy, and I argued a lot more than that, but that was the jist of it. I had to reschedule for the 3rd, which is 2 weeks away! How inconvenient for me!
 

Leading entry for "Invalid Item" .

I was watching Deal or No Deal on NBC when I realized that my leading entry was still due. It's been a rough past couple of days, if you couldn't already tell. The couch has started floating again and I'm doing my best to keep it from getting too high off the floor. (That's what Jason calls it, anyway. I'm the best damned lead weight for our couches.)

Anyway, I'm watching and this chick with the ugliest damned pants I've ever seen (seriously... u-g-l-y) is up to something like $115,000 with the banker. Her husband jumped up and down in the air and grabbed himself on national television. It wasn't the first time, either. He also did the same jump-grab when the banker offered $71,000.

So that leads me to wonder what other kinds of things people will do when they get excited about money. It's sort of like that old commercial, "What would you do-oo-oo for a Klondike bar?" People would bark like a dog, cluck like a chicken, and other silly things.

That lead me to google Klondike bars, in case someone wanted some information on what could be done for a Klondike bar. Here's what I found:

http://www.icecreamusa.com/klondike/ - The official Klondike home page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_bar - Wikipedia even covers Klondikes!

http://www.arouse.net/jesus/ - What would Jesus do for a Klondike bar? Uhm... apparently a lot of odd jobs.

http://tinyurl.com/y38oyv - a test to find out what you'll do for a Klondike bar.

Apparently, I will die for a Klondike bar:

Popped by King o Pop
41 scenarios a, 88 scenarios b (send me a message if you are really curious what these numbers means).
You continued running toward your car at full speed. Although you loved your family...the urge to grab a Klondike Bar was too much for you to overcome.
You drive into town to look for a Klondike Bar. You can't find any convenience stores or supermarkets so you head into a cafe. You are sorbidly looking at the menu when suddenly the waitress offers you a Klondike Bar. You are so excited that you barely hear her say you have to eat a plateful of slugs first. Blech! You realize that's totally gross and you head out of town.

You continue driving toward the next town. On your way you pass Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. How odd! Even more bizarre is that you find a Klondike Bar just within his territory. Surely Michael Jackson wouldn't mind if you took it.

Carefully you tiptoe onto his territory. Suddenly out of nowhere you hear a "hoo hoo hoo!" In a high pitched girly voice a whitish man jumps out of the bushes and says to immediately put down his bar. You are so stunned by this odd odd man that you just freeze. At this point Mr. Jackson takes out his gun and shoots you dead. His monkey looks on from a distance.

Here is a quick link in case you want to try to avoid such a lethal scenario try again.

So what would you do for a Klondike bar? Would you look at these links?

Hopefully my next leading entry won't be as lame. The couch keeps calling me to return. I haven't even really answered my emails for the past few days. I apologize if anyone is waiting on some response from me, but it could be a few more days.
 

Oh and we're also announcing our pregnancy to the family for Christmas. That ought to put us in favor with everyone this year. Maybe they won't notice we got everyone a lot of cheap, $5 presents because they'll be trying to suggest boy and girl baby names to us, even though we don't plan on telling anyone the names we choose.
 

My sinus problem went as fast as it came on, though I'm fearing a relapse due to changes in the weather (again). 50-damned-degrees at Christmas time? Who ever heard of such malarchy in Michigan?

Ethan is either teething or his sinuses are acting up now. He was up most of last night because the poor guy couldn't breathe out of his nose. His snot is running clear, he's drooling up a storm, and he's running a low-grade fever, which lead me to believe he's getting his 2-year molars a couple of months early. He ended up coming to bed with us because he is one of those kids who feel better when he's cuddling up with Momma and kicking Daddy in the face while they both try to sleep.

Morning sickness seems to have started, though I'm keeping it under control pretty well. Vitamin B6 in the morning, saltine crackers and 7up or ginger ale all day, and grapes before bed to keep my blood sugar up. This is about the same time that I started getting sick when I was pregnant with Ethan, so this feels normal to me, so far, except that with Ethan I was doing things like passing out and vomitting several times per day, so this is way above my expectations.

We went grocery shopping for all of our "dishes to pass" for Christmas parties. We've been trying to go lean with Christmas presents this year, but I think we've spent just as much, if not more, as we did last year because of all of the damn parties. We've got 2 more added this year; one for my mom's mom's families, and Jason's aunt & uncle's house on Christmas day.

One of these years, I'm going to put my foot down and tell everyone to bugger off. We'll spend Christmas at our house, not go anywhere, and have a quiet, unchaotic day. We'd never get away with it, though. Not now that we've got a kid. Everyone wants to see him and thus we have become somehow obligated to visit everyone and God so they can give him the $1.00 Matchbox car they bought him at Wal*Mart. Not that Ethan's going to be ungrateful for another car to add to his collection of 250+ cars, but I'd rather they come bring it to him so he doesn't have to be toted around like a trophy and be forced to deal with a short nap, etc.

Not to mention that we can't afford to buy all this food right now. At least, not until my paychecks start going into our bank account. We get by fine with what Jason makes when we don't have to buy extra, but December is all about extra and it's pushing our bank account to its last pennies. We have $20 to get through the week after putting fuel in the minivan and buying all the damned groceries for the parties.

(Holiday green beans, anyone? We're going to be making a ton, since frozen green beans were on sale for 88 cents a bag, naval oranges were buy-1-get-1-free, and dried cranberries were 1/2 off. They're actually quite good and quick to make. Here's the recipe:

16 oz. frozen green beans [I use the french cut]
1 teaspoon grated orange peels
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup real bacon bits
2 tablespoons honey

Prepare green beans according to directions on bag, adding the orange peels during cooking; drain. Add cranberries, bacon and honey. Toss to combine. Serves 4.)

We already had the turkey for Friday, thanks to Jason's boss, but I had to buy 2 pies, cool whip, stuffing, carrots, and celery. We're having the De Vries Christmas party Saturday night, so holiday green beans for them. Christmas Eve morning is at Jason's parent's house for the Ketelaar get-together, so sausage links and Cranberry/Cream cheese muffins for that. Christmas Eve night is with the Meeth's, so more green beans. Christmas morning is at home, so donuts because I'm not fucking cooking anything else that day. Afternoon is Jason's aunt and uncle's for the Williams' thing, and that's a veggie tray. I couldn't talk them into letting me bring green beans, although I tried.

Poor Ethan is going to be exhausted with all these parties. Thank goodness, I'm on a 2-week break with work since school is out, though I might have to go in 1 or 2 days to check phone messages and file transportation paperwork, keep my boss company, and get my office in order.

Alright. Enough boring and intricate details. I'm tired and I have to get started on dinner, eventually. Just wanted to make sure that I let everyone know I'm still alive, doing OK, and just really busy and tired.
 

Can and will someone drill and hole in my head, without killing or doing serious injure to my person, to let all this damned pressure out?

I still have a contest that I haven't even started an entry for, Christmas presents to start and finish, and still more Christmas shopping to get done. I don't have time to be sick.

I can't concentrate what with not even being able to breathe through my nose. Whenever I get in the middle of something, I start sneezing uncontrollably. I sneezed so much about 15 minutes ago that I had to change my panties because all of the sneezing (J counted 10 sneezes in a row!) made me pee my pants a little.

This would be funny, if I didn't feel so miserable. Plus I'm having to go in to work in an old, dry high school. My boss asked me if I needed her to buy a humidifier for the office. I told her only if what I was doing at home wasn't helping. I mean, I only spend 4 hours per day there. I feel silly having her spend money out of our grant for me to have a humidifier, especially when it can go to buy homeless kids school supplies and things.

I have an air purifier in my office that came from the old building. She said I was welcome to plug it in and see if that helped. I think I might have to take her up on her offer.

She asked me if I wanted some Dayquil that she had in her purse. Since it has whatever that stuff is that makes it so you can't buy it on-the-shelf anymore, I can't take it due to the baby. I told her I was allergic, which wasn't really a lie. I mean, I might as well consider myself as such for as long as I'm pregnant, right?

Plus, I haven't exactly told her I was pregnant, yet. I'm waiting until she tells me how much she loves having me as an assistant and can't have anyone else working for her. I figure that way, it'll help lessen the blow when I tell her my maternity leave is going to be at the busiest time of year for her, although I may work it out with my doctor that I can go in 2 days a week or something for a couple of hours in order to help keep her afloat.

I filed 22 transportation requests today. I'm sure that the bus depot was using my name as a curse word by the time I got done. It'll probably make for an insanely busy day tomorrow, which means I'll have to bring some work home that I won't get paid for because I have to make 2 posters for a memorial ceremony for the homeless that passed away in 2006.

Not to mention we're trying to get my office in order. I have free reign to move the furniture as I see fit, plus she told me to let her know if I needed any certain supplies in order to make my job easier. That reminds me; I need to get ahold of Joe who used to work as a server engineer at Pfizer in order to get my damned Access book back. I lent it to him a year ago, lost my job, and he's quit since then. He was supposed to get the damn thing back to me when I was back for my 2-week short term thing, and never did.

Damn engineers. The whole lot of them are evil.

Wow. I wrote more than I thought I was going to.
 

This is mostly just a reminder to myself. I think I chose a journal/blog for the bonus prompt.

865259

My Sporadic Journal  [13+] A sporadic account of my reaction to life. by PlannerDan

I almost want to make the last entry private. I never talk about that kind of stuff because it generally makes people uncomfortable and/or exasperated, myself included.

Ugh! I'm ashamed of myself! But it's the first thing I thought of as I was writing my response, so that's what I ran with, and I posted it, so there's no turning back.
 

Leading entry: "Longer and girthier, with two midgets waiting at the side" 

"Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol

Before I cared about Jason (yes, people, I tried to make him a one-night stand), I was the kind of girl who thought sex at the longest hours of the night was the best. You're near exhaustion, your body is ready to give in as it trembles to climax, and the rest of the world is quiet as you scream in throes of passion.

I used to love to fuck to Rebel Yell, so I found it hilarious when Jenn decided that she associated this song with me. Not only does just thinking about it turn me on, listening to it pretty much makes me want to masturbate if there's nobody around to help me relieve my tensions.

Don't ask me why I'm admitting this. I rarely write about this kind of stuff, but, damnit, Jenn , you've pretty much just turned me on. Jason isn't here to help me out with this... problem... and being pregnant, I'm kind of scared to masturbate because, even though it probably wouldn't be harmful, I can't get over the whole fear of orgasming yet. Not for another ten weeks or so, at least.

Yes, I plan on going eighteen weeks or so without an orgasm because the chances of a miscarriage drop dramatically. Not that an orgasm could make me miscarry, but having one under my belt already (miscarriage, that is), I'm avoiding everything that could prompt one. Since an orgasm is basically my uterine muscles spasming in pleasure, it can cause your placenta to become displaced and, subsequently, miscarriage. Occurance of orgasmic miscarriage is rare, but nonetheless, I'm a retarded hypochondriac who thinks she could have every disease on the face of the earth at one time or another, so why wouldn't I think this is possible for me, too?

Anyway, enough about being pregnant. I wanted to recall fond memories of fucking to "Rebel Yell!" by Billy Idol. There was another band that did a cover of this song, a techno band by the name of Scooter. I like both versions equally, I think, though the Billy Idol version will always be the "real" version to me. The Scooter version is nice to grind to on the dance floor.

There's other songs that I found to add to the sexual sensation. Stupid Girl, #1 Crush (both by Garbage), Leather (Tori Amos), a couple of KMFDM songs when I want angry sex, and of course Rebel Yell.

I'm sure there's other reasons that Jenn associated this song to me, including my propensity to scream and shout my opinions, bedamned what anyone else thinks who whose feelings it might hurt. How obnoxious of me, right? Maybe she just thinks I like Billy Idol. Or maybe she thinks of me as a child of the 80s. Whatever the reason, it was a good choice. It brought back to me many... pleasurable... memories. Some not-so-pleasurable memories, too, but for the most part, if Billy Idol was on, I was fantasizing that I was fucking him if I wasn't as attracted to the person in front of me as I first thought.

(You know, he seems like a good idea at the time, and then he takes his pants or shirt off and he has a small... organ... or man-boobs. Not that I'm shallow and material. I just appreciate a good body. He doesn't have to be buff or anything [see my husband - he is far from buff, no matter how much I encourage him to at least do pushups and situps], but man-boobs and cottage cheese on a man is just not something that I find attractive. And the small organ... well for the most part, it isn't important, but I have seen a pencil dick up-close-and-personal, and his ocean-motion sucked, to say the least. I've been biased against "short-dicked men" ever since.)

OK. Enough talking about sexual exploits past. I had a period of a year where I was promiscuous and I try not to sound proud of my unhampered practices at giving myself away to those who didn't really deserve it, so don't think I am by my "bragging."

Jason just called and asked me what it would take to get me in the sack. I told him to play "Rebel Yell" after Ethan went to bed. Whether or not he'll really get some is up to my sinuses. Being unable to breathe out of my nose makes me sort of feel unwanting of that kind of attention.