Okay, I don’t usually like to talk about my job all that much but there are some things that just drive me crazy!  Our department is always up to some juvenile antic.  They call them “Performance Improvement Projects”.  Well, guess what?  They make me feel like I am in kindergarten!  The latest thing is that each office of our department puts on a “State Fair Day”.  Well, you have a choice of whether to participate or not participate.  So, for once I decided not to participate in this “initiative” right now.  I am working overtime, going to school, and oh yeah, I am almost 7 months pregnant, I do believe that I have enough to do right now.  So, I am trying to work this morning, I turned on my MP3 player and jacked up the volume and I could still hear the noise of them decorating our office for this State Fair thing.  They even ROPED off my desk so I had to Limbo under it to get out!  (their state is Texas)  So, I respectfully asked them to remove the rope, I am not going to Limbo out of my desk all day.  Remember I mentioned above that I am working overtime.  They have asked us all to commit to 8 hours of overtime for each pay period right now, yet they want to have a State Fair day??  What kind of Sam Hill management tactic is that?  Oh, let’s not forget how many TREES they’ve killed printing crap to hang all over the office!  Whose expense account is that one coming out of?   But the whole thing is so disruptive that I just want to slap them all!  Just because I decide that I didn’t want to participate in one of their goofy things for once, I feel like I am being tortured for actually doing my work!  Oh, and our manager, brought Chicago Style Popcorn for everyone who participated in decorating!  (and disrupting everyone who was working) Yeah, go ahead, reward people for NOT WORKING!  Oh, this whole State Fair thing is supposed to make it so that other people from different offices in our department can get to know each other.  Hello!  If you don’t work with them, what do you care?  You only see them once in a great while unless you change offices!  I just don’t get it.  I have never worked in a place where they have these PIP’s, it is the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen!  Other departments don’t do this!  Sarah (SIL) made the perfect reference one day to all of this stuff.  She asked “who was passing around the CRACK pipe at lunch?”  Which is so true!  What are these people smoking and where do I get some?  Anyway, sorry to totally VENT, but tomorrow is the State Fair thing, today was just the “decorating” part.  So, thank God my other friend Sarah has the day off and has agreed to kidnap me for a long lunch and shopping for a couple hours so I don’t have to be there for all the Fun and Games!  I know, I sound like a GRINCH, but I didn’t go to college to learn how to put on a “State Fair Day” at work!  I am pretty sure I wasn’t hired for this job because of my decorating skills!

I feel like I have a watermellon sitting in my stomach!  I feel like a Weeble when I walk around (Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down).  I’m really full right now too, there is no treat like fresh strawberries and sweet cherries dipped in fruit dip!  YUM!

Okay, I should be working on my research paper, but I just don’t feel like it!  I wish I could get in the mood to just whip the rest of it out, but I just can’t!  I have it about half done, but I need to share some statistics in it.  So, I have been working on the research portion to add some statistics to support my theories.  Make sense?  I have a few websites saved for that already.  But right now I can hear my husband snoring away right now, and I really want to join him for a nice NAP! 

Earlier this week we had “carseat” class to learn about carseats and how to install them in our cars.  It was interesting.  David said he almost fell asleep during the first 5 minutes, but then he started to get interested in it.  I said, “Well, next month’s class should be a real eye opener then!  Labor and Delivery!  Go ahead, take you bottom lip and pull it over your head!”  That is what Bill Cosby said one of his female relatives told him about how childbirth feels.  I figure it is only temporary, once it is over you’ll have this exciting little bundle of joy to behold.  (he’ll probably pee on me the first time I hold him hunh?)  Plus, there is my friend Barb’s motto too,  “Drugs in, Baby OUT!”  I may be a bad mother, but I am not one of those people who is freaked out about taking medicine.  I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I don’t do any street drugs, but I will take my prescription medications.  I worked with my physicians before I got pregnant to decide which medicines were best to control the 3 or 4 ailments that I suffer from during pregnancy.  I have Allergies, GERD, and depression with anxiety.  I know there are people out there that are freaked out about every little thing.  I wash the fruit and veggies, but I still drink a couple caffeinated beverages per day.  Soda pop is my biggest downfall.  I LOVE the stuff!  I am probably going to die with a  Dr. Pepper in my hand!  But from what I have seen on the ultrasound “Kendall” is perfect!  He’s a beautiful little boy!  Can’t wait to finally meet him!  When my doctor said, “16 more weeks!” the other day, I just about freaked  Only sixteen?  How can that be?  Well dork, you are 24 weeks pregnant now, sometime I was going to end up on the other side of the halfway mark, duh!  I just looked at my little pregnancy wheel thing, next week, it says I will be in my third trimester!  Wow, that is weird.   Most people still can’t tell I am pregnant, I just look chubbier.  In fact, when we went to carseat class, I was almost waiting for someone to ask us if we were adopting!  Just about every woman in the room was sporting a basketball!  I did feel a little better when I saw one woman sitting near me though, she looked the same way I do, just chunky.  I have gained 16.5 lbs, which they tell me is totally normal, and actually good for me being 24 weeks. 

Well folks, I do feel that new bed calling my name right now….I’m feeling like I need about an hour, then I can get back to the homework!

So goodbye for now!

On Tuesday, it will be 22 weeks!   Things are really starting to happen,  he’s definitely moving around in there!  It doesn’t feel like flutters or butterflies, at least, not to me, it feels more like pressure, and sometimes I can see little movements.  Dad hasn’t experienced it just yet though.  He’s waiting though, he is starting to get really excited now.  So hopefully soon he will be able to feel or see something going on in there.

Meanwhile, I have that whole “nesting” thing they talk about going on!  That nursery just can’t get done fast enough!  The crib finally came last week, and I got it all put together on Friday night, of course I couldn’t wait to get it put together!  Yesterday, I washed all of the bedding and the clothes we have in Dreft.  We bought the crib mattress too!  So his bed is already for him (just like 18 weeks early!  LOL!) .  Oh well, can’t say we aren’t “prepared parents”.  Even David has been slightly bitten by the “shopping bug”!  Not nearly as much as I have though!

Speaking of David!  Dad has something VERY exciting happening this next week!  (I’m so jealous, because I started before he did, and he is going to be done almost a year before I am!)  David graduates on 7/7/07 from AIU!  So very proud of him!  He has done extremely well also!  Since his G.P.A. is so high, he is expected to graduate Magna Cum Laude!  His degree is in Business Administration with a focus on Accounting.  Mom is still working toward her B.S. in Health Information Management, and hopefully will graduate next June.  While Dad starts his Master’s this Fall.  I have 5 more classes to go, and my 2 internship classes next Spring, then hopefully, finally, I will have my Bachelor’s Degree.  I will probably start my Master’s in Health Informatics soon after that.  I will be so glad when the degrees are all out of the way.  I know it costs a lot of money, but it is worth in the long run.  My motto when I started school this second time is “Work Smarter, not Harder.”  Don’t know who came up with it, but I hope whoever it was, was right!  But the “Working Harder” part is NOW, getting through it all!

 Okay, well, for now, I shall be off.  Someone is telling me it is again time to pee!  (Aren’t you glad I wrote that?)  Sorry!