Sunday, April 15, 2007

hello, hello again, shaboom and hopin' we'll meet again

Note: this post title made more sense when I was using a less-than-fantastic blogsite and I ended this rant by asking the blog-o-verse to help me relocate to greener pastures . . . I was exhausted and nearly ready to give up on blogging entirely.

With lots of help from Mr. Lee, a great portion of the universe has been told that I am pregnant. Fair enough, he was the third person I told - he would have been expecting me to be ready to go to watch a roller derby bout, and I needed to be told by a test that _didn't_ come from the dollar store that the "two-stripe" news was for real.

* Take note: Dollar store pregnancy tests _do_ work just fine, but are less sensitive than more expensive tests. If you want to know if you're harboring a hitch-hiker ASAP, plan on spending more than a buck to find out.

First, I called up Mr. Hubby, who was out of town, spending time with his family - I felt bad that he wasn't there the moment I found out; I was expecting a negative response! I just wanted clearance for a Saturday night of beer and roller derby spectatorship!!
Second, I called up my parents, who are estatic. I would have preferred to tell them in person, but I was home alone and understandably rattled - as if I could wait!
a side note: I should also mention that my status daughter has changed a bit, to my perception, I am now she who carries our first grandchild, and am forbidden to curse because "Sweet Baby doesn't need to hear that!".

Third, I called up Mr. Lee and said "I'm running late getting ready to leave, please go buy me a pregnancy test that costs more that $10." He sounded like he was gonna wet himself laughing at me. He quickly arrived with at $13 test that looked like it could diffuse a nuclear bomb, strawberries, and a fruit smoothie.

I decided to stick with my plans to attend the roller derby bout so I would have something to think about other than my entire life changing. I planned on telling my derby friends _after_ the bout was over, since it is important to watch other teams play in order to learn what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do in a bout situation. Mr. Lee was sitting at the opposite end of some bleachers and my friend Tony questioned our atypical tardiness "Oh, she's pregnant" was his reply, followed by a chorus of "what!?" and "Huh?!?". As I told my fellow derby girls who didn't over hear that blip of news, their faces vaccilated between shock, glee, and horror. "You can't skate!" was the most common response, followed by "ohmygawd, I completely slammed into you last week, I'm so sorry!"

So within a few hours, my family, my husband's family, and my derby friends knew - and I was desperate to stop the news from getting any further because I was convinced I'd jinx my hopeful future baby.

My logic? We'd been "not not trying" to concieve for quite a while and nothing was happening, so I was overjoyed to focus on being a derby girl instead, and gave little to no thought to conception. My ovaries were ingoring me, I could ignore them right back! As soon as I really got my skates under me, was well on my way to fufilling all WFTDA bouting requirements, and had all the equipment I needed . . . ta daa! Time to hang up the skates. In my mind, a logical extension was "as soon as everyone knows, I'll lose the poor kid and have to tell everyone about that".

I'm no longer afraid of miscarrying, although I know it is a very real possibility, first time through and all. Now I'm far too busy concentrating on trying to stay awake and keeping up my yakk-free streak. My new mantra is "13 weeks . . . . midwife says I'll feel better at 13 weeks . . . ." I hope the next four weeks fly by quickly, if it weren't for that pesky full-time job of mine I'd just attempt to sleep through the next month.

I broke the "official" news at my parent's church on Easter Sunday, I was walking around looking like death w/ inflated boobs anyway - I doubt I could have fooled anyone. In fact, I was called out by my kindergarten teacher; I abruptly sat down in the middle of the world's longest prayer, and hit my head on her hymnal behind me. Mr. Hubby and my mom both looked like they were going to leap out of their skin until I indicated that I was just tired, not fainting. After the service, I turned around and said "so . . . I've got some interesting news" and she just laughed at me "Oh, you're pregnant!"

I intended to send out a swarm of emails on Sunday night and on Monday, but instead spent all that time sleeping, sans quick trips to the kitchen and the bathroom. Ever slept for 15 hours in less than a day? It's wieeeeeeerd, and leaves you wanting only more sleep.

Short version: I hope I don't deliver early so I can be a pumpkin for Halloween. Kiddo will be here before Thanksgiving and I really hope I'm up for turkey, cranberries, and stuffing by then!

COMMENTS (harvested from old account)
Autumn - 2007-04-13 16:45:01 Congratulations!!!
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Alie - 2007-04-13 21:53:43 Glad your blogging again! I was tired of checking your page and seeing that disguesting elvis tatoo. I of corse am estatically happy for you!!! Seeing as I will be and AUNT! That's right blogging nation! I'm outing myself as betti's sister. And can I just say what a kick-ass-fabulous-wonderful-wierd-outragesouly wonderful sister she is!
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Alie - 2007-04-13 21:55:13 Did I mention that she's wonderful? oh yeah and "super kewl" (insert Cartman voice)
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Madame D - 2007-04-13 22:17:01 Whooo! Of course, you know, this means that I'll have to make you a mountain of baby things. Because I have the time, the yarn, and nothing better to do. Congrats, and don't feel too bad about Mr.Lee telling everyone. I still hold a grudge against my ex for telling everyone who went through his line at work, which meant I only got to tell three people. Who were out of state. Whose numbers he didn't know.
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Mari - 2007-04-14 14:05:38 You'll have to buy a domain name, and then you can link something like blogger to the domain name- host the blog there basically.
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alfredsmom - 2007-04-15 11:06:05 CONGRATULATIONS!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!!! AHHHH!!!! Wow! I suppose that explains the blogging hiatus. Of course, now you'll be expected to post even more and OF COURSE post belly pictures. PErsonally, I really like Typepad.Check it out.
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Denise - 2007-04-15 19:04:34 i agree with alfredsmom about typepad -- now, i don't know anything about this shit, but a buncha people i know who DO know something about this shit think typepad's pretty cool. and hey, it's what cuteoverload uses. c'mon! ....oh, and yeah....congratulations!!! thanks for the play-by-play of notification...i LOVE that shit. have a great time with it, and know i send my blessings along!
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nikki - 2007-04-16 10:47:34 Yeah! I've already congratulated you, but I will do it again! Congrats! I hope the early pregnancy ickies go away soon.
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Catazon - 2007-04-16 15:30:37 Congrats, and thanks for the great story about your first few weeks of pregnancy! One of my teammates is due any day now, and she can't wait to skate with us again. I use Wordpress for my blog and host it with a guy that does websites for librarians, lishost.org, but you can get a Wordpress blog at wordpress.com without paying the $10/month hosting fees.
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Denise - 2007-04-20 13:43:42i *just* got your title! life is but a dream, sweetheart!

Friday, April 13, 2007

Elvis Wednesday archive / Ministry of Truth

**deviation from actual archive**

Folks, I'm gonna re-write my blog history: some of my "Elvis Wednesday" submissions were worth saving, and other were not. (Side note: Yes, I've read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four multiple times, and I still find it to be one of the spookiest books ever written)

Perhaps I'm having moral issues with using photos from other sites?
Meh . . . probably not . . . there are some photos that will be dragged along to this location . . . but most will not be.

To get your "Elvis Wednesday" fix, I highly reccomend that you visit my esteemed colleague, Nikki, at http://www.emich.net/~nikki/blog/

Thursday, April 12, 2007

I've bitten off all my fingernails!?

I've come across my first *real* conflict with training for roller derby. Fortunately the conflict is not with my own body or any of my (fabu) teammates; the conflict stems from my urge to play in MUD.

Yesterday, my corner of the Midwest offered up weather PERFECT for stirring the compost piles and doing some preliminary vegetable-patch preperations. I've seen pansies placed in the ground around town, and I'm itching to part wtih $20 to plunk some down by my mailbox and up by the front stoop so I can enjoy some color. If I didn't have a meeting to attend after lunch then practice into the evening, I would have stayed outside until my overalls were damp with dew, my hands were numb, my nose was running, and the light had faded to the point I was paranoid of chopping unsuspecting worms in half with my garden implements of doom.

One aspect of my evening was the same: I was very tired, very sore, and very very happy.
On the minus side, my garden is neglected. On the plus side, I shared smiles, body slams, accidental pile-ups, and laughs with an extrodinarly friendly group of people.

I'm telling myself that I can only get away with derby for a finite amount of time. I hope that my yard can wait on me, I hope the vagrant bunnies still stop by to eat clover and don't mind the (potential) absence of salad bar. I hope my kitty-corner backyard neighbors don't think they've "won" because I'm not busy cluttering their pristine Cheml@wn view with my scruffy-looking experiments.

And I wonder why I've recently taken up biting my fingernails, when I haven't done that for years . . . .

I'm *considering* coming up with extra money (that I want to spend on more skating gear) to hire out someone to help my yard along a bit. The criteria being
1) little to no chemical use
2) unless it's edible, it's a native species
3) I'm helping rather than harming native critters
4) tomatoes. Lots and lots of them.
5) tidy-looking enough that my neighbors don't get shitty
6)
7)

I could go on forever.The point is, I want to do this myself and am afraid I'll end up being a ginormous hag to anyone foolish enough to work on my yard on my behalf.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Cruuuuudd . .

um, someone explain to me how it's Thursday already?

I have _not_ been the devoted blogger I once was. I have a few excuses, but excuses are like assholes, everyone has one and all of them stink.

I suppose blogging has become "low priority" since I started training for roller derby, but I can't help but to think that I should keep blogging regardless of my schedule. I feel like I should continue to blah blah to the pseudo-anonymous void of the internet. As self-centered and vain as most of my entries are, blogging is a good way for me to hop out of my own head, out of my own little universe for a while and make a conscious effort to communicate with people in a passably normal way.

For instance, on Tuesday night, I attended a stretching class that was arranged specifically for my teammates and I. Since rollerderby is essentially controlled combat (yeah, I sell it as an endurance sport because I don't want people to form the opinion that I'm an angry person) we need to be able to recover from knocks and keep ourselves as limber as possible. All of us were learning to do rope-assisted leg stretches so there was alot of squirming and giggling going on with the occasional person sitting upright to watch what everyone else was doing. The instructor said something along the lines of "just wait until all of you can do these stretches in rhythm at the same time, it will be fantastic". Out of my mouth pops "yes, we'll be like starfish migrating across the ocean floor".

Bless the newbie laying next to me who started giggling at me! I wasn't trying to be funny, I didn't even intend to speak - that's just what was going through my head and it made (and makes) perfect sense to me.

I have been doing this since I was a little kid and only rarely have stumbled into an ugly situation because of it, but at the same time would really like to be better at engaging that between-brain-and-mouth filter that other people have or use more often than I do/can.
Not tragic, not really worth whining about, just trying to prevent foot-in-mouth-itis.

My question for you:What was your most notable foot-in-mouth moment? Did the the other person take it well, or were they ticked off?

COMMENTS (harvested from old account)
nikki - 2007-03-08 11:10:56 i have too many moments like those. in fact my foot rarely dislodges itself from my mouth.
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Alie - 2007-03-08 13:40:00 Too many to count! I have been working on my brian mouth filter a lot lately, kinda like a new years resolution. But I still love saying the things I think anyway! Oh yeah! I thought one of my students's anuts was her grandmother by saying "How nice *suzzie* your grandma came to watch you dance today!"
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Betti (me!) - 2007-03-08 14:51:26 Nikki, you must be great at yoga! Alie, that is _not_ the way to get repeat customers! :)
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nikki - 2007-03-09 09:07:32nah, i always fall over and land on my face.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

mild injury #3 / some info about roller derby gear

Derby-training injury #1 was in mid-January; I was attending an open skate session at my local rink and fell on my knees while not wearing knee pads, which resulted in a mild bruise beneath my left knee. No big deal.

Derby-training injury #2 has been an ongoing battle between my skate and the arch of my right foot - I've learned how to tape up my foot so it is no longer blistered/mangled by friction, my socks are now blood-less, and I don't have to pause mid-practice to adjust shifting bandages. Kinda painful in short bursts, but again, no big deal.

Derby-training injury #3 was definitely the most fun to acquire. Yesterday, we practiced knocking each other over via controlled bodyslam. Essentially you skate after someone (who is acting like a "Jammer", the person who skates laps around/past a cluster of other skaters) and try to knock them over (or at least slow them down) by quickly bumping your shoulder-thru-hip into their shoulder-thru-hip, avoiding using your head, elbows, hands, or anything below the butt to bump into them. I was knocked over at least three times and made very good use of my mega-dorky looking butt-pads and tailbone protector. However, I have nothing padding my upper arm from an unexpected shoulder slam. At one point, I happened to be practicing with one of our referees-in-training who hadn't figured out that you use the entire side of your body, _not_ just the bony part of your shoulder. I should mention that he's a very sturdy dude with very broad (and apparently bony) shoulders. So now I have a bruise on my arm, a few inches down from the shoulder. I have no complaint about the mild pain; my complaint is that the bruise is definitely not picture-worthy. Many derby-team web sites have a section devoted to pictures of injuries, I suppose because even as adults we like to show off our boo boos.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Speaking of showing off, I'm assembling quite a collection of (goofy) skating outfits. I find that I'm most comfortable training in:
  • a helmet and mouth guard - because concussions suck
  • wrist guards with cut-up socks as liners - I broke my right wrist back in '83 at a skating rink, and already spend time in wrist braces, duh.
  • sports bra or regular bra covered by tight tank top - protect the girls! Even if it means squishing them into oblivion!
  • long sleeved cotton top - so the elbow pads don't rub bonus sweat-absorbing qualities, and protection from being scraped by someone else's padding
  • cotton undies - animal prints or cartoon characters please! If I have to have my clothes cut off by a medical professional, I might as well entertain them in the process.
  • thick (footless) tights - so the kneepads don't rub, animal prints or stripes preferred
    cotton bike shorts/tiny tight shorts/padded bike shorts - so my tights are more modest and I have something hold my butt pads in place and latch my tailbone protector onto.
  • (I have to mention that even if your tailbone protector is in its proper place, it makes you look like you dropped a giant load in your pants. Which is preferable to an injured tailbone, if that gives you an idea of how bad an injured tailbone can be).
  • -and- top off the three layers between my butt and the floor with a miniskirt (in a feeble attempt to hide my butt pads)
  • Of course I'm also wearing a pair or two of socks under my skates

Just wanted to shatter any possible illusions that I'm lookin' hawt, or even trying - I too have seen girls skate in thigh-high fishnets, tiny skirts and questionable undies. Although it's a very entertaining look, I don't think it’s for me -or- I'm too chicken to try anything like that just yet. I've seen too many photos of fishnet-print floor burns and wheel-shaped butt bruises to give much consideration to attempting vixen-on-wheels. At this point, I'd completely settle for not-disastrously-uncoordinated!

COMMENTS (harvested from old account)

Mari - 2007-03-02 13:30:21 I think you look really cute in your skirts/tights. Especially that pink striped candy look you had going on last sunday. I'm gonna do the fishnets when we're actually bouting. Over nice thick protective tights and with knee socks. Because, why not? It's fun and what other excuse to I really have to do that. But I'm all about these skirts with the built-in shorts. They look all sassy, but you can't actually show the world anything!

Madame D - 2007-03-04 07:18:41 Oh yes, I totally understand comfort/no pain vs. style. They can KEEP it!

nikki - 2007-03-05 09:49:35 mother fucking elvis on a stick! (love that line!)