Exactly…

4 weeks to Christmas!

Exactly 1 day until my FAVORITE day of the year-THANKSGIVING!

Exactly 98 days until my due date!

My dad emailed me this morning telling me to make a double batch of the green bean casserole because there are about 25 people coming to our family’s Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday. 25! Who are all these people? Where did they all come from? I know my mom’s cousin is coming with her daughter and granddaughter, so there’s 3 people that aren’t usually there. Other than that, it’s just the regular family only most everyone can make it. Usually we have a nicely sized group of around 15-but WOW. The house will be packed! Think of all that FOOOOOOODDDDD. I’m planning on breaking out my new jigsaw puzzle for the occasion (my family is puzzle crazy!). It’s “World’s Greatest Cities” from “1000 Places to See Before You Die”. The puzzle has little pictures of like 50 different cities. Should be challenging-but no match for the Thomas clan!

Can’t stop thinking about that Thanksgiving food now that I’ve mentioned it. I’m making myself hungry. I need to wait at least another hour before a eat my lunch or else I will be very hungry when I go to the grocery store after work. And everyone knows that hunger at the grocery store is bad news. I always end up impulse buying all kinds of snacks when I’m hungry at Meijer. You?

I was looking at my work calendar, trying to figure out my hours in relation to our holiday office schedule, when I realized how frighteningly soon March really is. It’s practically December now. December always flies by because of Christmas. Then it’s into January, which could go by very slowly, but then February comes and if she’s early at all then that’s when she’ll be born! My main concern is getting all the things we need in time-we have no furniture, only a couple outfits, the nursery hasn’t been painted, we need to buy a mattress, car seat, etc. Obviously, we still have months to do all of this, and hopefully we will be given some baby stuff for Christmas/shower gifts (if we have one?) but I think the nesting is perhaps kicking in. I don’t want my little girl to come home to a place that isn’t ready for her.

The vampires aren’t really drawing me in yet. I definitely would not call this book a page turner as of right now. But I’ve decided to stick this one out because of the sheer popularity of it-the same reason I stuck out “The Shack”. I want to know what all the hype is about.

Ashamed to admit…

but I’m reading “Twilight”. I friend from church had it at book club last night, and when she heard I hadn’t read it she insisted that I borrow it from her. There were only 5 of us there, and 3 of them had read it. They gushed and gushed about how good it was, what an amazing page-turner it was, how the movie was good but not as wonderfully compelling as the book. So I took it. Come on, it’s about vampires. I really don’t WANT to like it (because it’s about VAMPIRES) but I’m about 50 pages in and I have to admit that it’s not too bad. The plot moves fast (in typical young-adult fashion) and so far the characters are all pretty intriguing. As for the writing: It’s not beautiful, but it’s about 1000x better than “The Shack” so I can hack it. I just can’t get over that it’s about VAMPIRES…

I forgot the sandwich I made for myself this morning. DUH. It’s true that pregnant women are more forgetful-at least it’s true for me. As the baby’s brain grows, my deteriorates? Anyway, at the persistence of my coworkers I accompanied one of them across the street to Mat’s Cafe. It’s right across from Jackson Coffee Company. The ambiance in there is lovely! Soft lighting, dark wood floor, tables, and chairs, and it smells amazing! I ordered this incredible turkey sandwich on a croissant roll-INCREDIBLE! It was enormous too (I saved half for my lunch tomorrow) piled high with real turkey (not deli meat), ham, sprinkly cheese, lettuce, tomato, with mayo. Only $5.99!

I’m pretty proud of myself because I finished a “Fiendish” samurai-sudoku this afternoon without even having to make notations. Admittedly, it was much easier than the “Hard” puzzle had been, but still. I’m GOOOOOOOD.

Back to the vampires…

Let it snow :)

I didn’t anticipate coming out of work and having to dig out my car-but that’s exactly what I needed to do this morning! The snow was really coming down-big fat wet flakes of it. It’s pretty, and since it’s nearing December I guess it’s time to be accepting. Bring on the snow. Besides, I figure the sooner the snow comes, the sooner winter comes, the sooner March comes, therefore the sooner my baby comes. Get my logic? Yeah, I’m not so sure about it either.

I figured out today that I’m actually working a ton this week. Here’s a peek:

Mon. 6-11am JoAnns, 1-6 SAU
Tues. 10-6 SAU
Wed. 9-4 SAU
Thurs-THANKSGIVING!
Fri. 6-12:30 JoAnn’s
Sat. 10-3 JoAnn’s
Sun. THANKSGIVING PHASE 2

That’s…36.5 hours! That’s waaaaaayyyy more than usual. I’m totally stoked about Friday and Saturday though. Really! I think I get some weird pleasure out of watching people madly scrabble and scurry around for a good deal. It’s going to be INSANE.

Great morning here!

It’s a sunny, albeit cold and windy, morning and when I arrived here at work I decided to take a walk across the street to Jackson Coffee Company. I’ve only been in there a time or two with Diana since it was so close to our beloved Nomad’s, but I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there this morning. The owner and the other “barista” were very friendly and talkative, they have Almond Joy drinks (yum!), and they can make any drink de-caf (unlike Starbucks-sad face). After a windy walk back across the street to our building, I’m happily sipping away on my Almond Joy latte, enjoying the sunshine from my window, and merrily blogging away. Once I’m done I plan on reading my book – “The Lost Daughters of China”.

So, shout out to you Di, since you are probably sipping away on your mocha slappacino (or did you go hot this morning?) and immersing yourself in your Kurt Cobain novel over at Starbucks. We’re *sort of* together in spirit.

I’ve decided that I’m going to forgo the December selection for book club. It’s “Pope Joan” and while others in the group have said it’s good once you get into it, I’m not too interested at all. We’re also discussing “Are you there Vodka? It’s me Chelsea”, which I’ve heard is really funny but I just can’t bring myself to read a book with such a “klassy” title. I’m sure I could snag them from the library (because there’s no way I’d buy those books) but ehhh, I’d rather have a month off and read what I want. I have another Chinese memoir (not an adoption one, but it still looked totally interesting) stashed away for just such an occasion.

I just found YET another reason why I LOVE my Mac. Here’s the situation: I emailed Lori a bunch of pictures from last Saturday’s excursion to the Make A Difference House. I did this from my home Mac. Anyway, since I am here at work, I can look in my gmail account and see the pictures from the email I sent (obviously), but I can’t figure out how to use them here. I wanted to post them to the Kids’ blog, but I’m having trouble saving them, yada yada yada. I don’t even want to really save them on this computer, just post them to the blog, so I was trying to get them onto the desktop. But of course, something that would take me thirty seconds to do on a Mac seems to be completely complicated over here on a PC. I’m sure if I used these darn machines more often then I’d get the hang of doing things like that, but why should I have to google this question, or email Kevin, when on a Mac I could drag and drop the pictures from the email to the desktop??? COME ON Microsoft! Get with the program!

Alright, I’m off to read and work on my samurai-sudoku!

Just feel like writing…

so I hope this turns out to be worth reading.

Right now I’m at work, the baby is kicking, and I’ve done my task for the day here. I emailed one of the classes to tell them that their new textbooks have arrived and are ready for pickup. I did solidify my schedule for next week, which was kind of up in the air with Thanksgiving and everything.

I was cruising around on The Bump, but I was getting so frustrated by people fighting with each other that I decided to hack that activity for the day. Sometimes it is best just to stay away. People come on there looking for support, and get flamed for it. It’s sad, and I feel bad for these women who are having extreme morning sickness or trouble with their families, but there are so many people on there who respond with harsh judgments and self-righteous attitudes. Sheesh. You’d think on a pregnancy message board, where everyone else is more or less in the same boat, that people would have a bit more compassion for each other.

This morning was lovely! I went over to campus for my weekly-ish walk with Megan. We made chai in to-go mugs to take with us, hoping that our hot drinks would keep us warm. After a long walk, we went back to her apartment for hot chocolate and Yahtzee. She completely demolished me in Yahtzee, as she got 2 yahtzees in one round. Did you know that if you get a second yahtzee, you get a 100 point bonus? Yep, you do. I think the version of the game my parents have is so old that it doesn’t have this new rule. Anyway, I didn’t role a yahtzee at all, putting me a solid 150 points behind right there. There was no coming back after that!

I’ve spent over an hour pouring over this adoptive family’s blog. I love sites like this, hearing people’s stories of adopting from China. It makes me so excited to experience this myself. It is something I must do and I truly look forward to the day when it will happen for us. This is still years away, but that doesn’t stop the interest for me, or stop me from reading everything I can on adoption, particularly from China. There are tons of blogs like this one, and on many days here at work that is how I spend my time 🙂

They say…

that pregnant women have a heightened sense of smell. Must be true because last night, while Kevin and I were getting into the car to come home from Dante’s I said “smells like snow out here”. Wake up this morning, and what did I see that made my jaw drop?

Alone at the office…

and I have NO idea what I’m going to do all day to keep myself occupied. There’s only one actual task I have to do, which is to update the attendance sheets from this week, and I don’t actually HAVE to do it. It’s just something I stay on top of. I have my giant 16 X 16 sudoku to continue working on, and I have my new book (“The Lost Daughters of China” which I’ve already read) but I’m here until four and everyone else is in Lansing at a big meeting. Hmmm. I wish I had a tv in here!

I’ll probably write another post later…

"One Minute Writer"

I usually keep up with the Blogs of Note, because they are always so incredibly interesting. This one here gave me some inspiration and I decided to go with it.

Prompt: If you had the opportunity to write as a career, what would you write?

Well, now I’m torn in two. First, I must honor my long-standing aspiration to be a writer of any kind. Not really a burning desire, but just an interest that took hold on me and never really let go.

To tell the truth, I’ve always wanted to write creatively-either short stories or a novel. There is something about the characters you meet in stories, especially novels, that draw you in. Good writers connect you to their characters, make you feel their emotions as your own, make you celebrate their triumphs, mourn their losses, understand their thoughts. Also, I am constantly blown away by a great writer’s ability to transport you to a different place and time, so that when you are disturbed from your reading by someone calling your name you look up and are surprised to find yourself sitting on the couch in your living room rather than in the setting of the story.

On the other hand, I would absolutely love to be a travel writer. Travel writers must use these same techniques that I so cherish in good storytellers, but in their case they have the additional challenge of telling a specific story of a place, a person, or community. They must be present and come to a full understanding of the people and place, the culture and history, in order to convey the story to their audience.

24 weeks

Updated the family blog. Check it out please 🙂 Leave comments too, appropriate ones (ahem DIANA!)…. 🙂

20 minutes left of work…

I’m puzzled. I wrote down the passcode for my voicemail here at work, and it won’t work! I have voicemail, which is puzzling to me in the first place (who needs to speak to a secretary anyway?) so I’m curious! I’ll have to call someone over on main campus tomorrow to get this straightened out. I swear, I am the WORST when it comes to remembering passwords and such, which is why I wrote this one down. Oh well, no big deal.

I finished my book today! I HIGHLY recommend “The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes” by Diane Chamberlain if you are looking for a quick suspenseful read. I got it from the library, and wish I had actually bought this one. I bought last month’s book club pick (“The Next Thing On My List” by Jill Smolinski) and wish I hadn’t. Not that it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t a “keeper” in my opinion. This month’s pick, however, was great!

I was going to devote some time today at work to working out a menu for the next few weeks for Kevin and I. It worked out so well for the past two weeks, having a nice schedule to follow, having all the ingredients on hand because I had planned meals before going grocery shopping. I’m not sure what came over me though, because I had such a great time finding recipes and such last time, yet I have no motivation to do it today. Maybe tonight.

Tonight I think we’ll have to DVR Biggest Loser and watch “Get Smart” instead. I rented it last week and it’s due back tomorrow, but we haven’t watched it yet. I wish we had because I’d love to watch some Biggest Loser tonight. Di gave “Get Smart” rave reviews though so I doubt I’ll be disappointed!

We had an OB appointment this morning. It’s so thrilling hearing her heartbeat! If you haven’t already, check out our family website. Bookmark it!