. . . and some coffee for my pregnant homies . . .

If you're able and inclined, drink some coffee on my behalf; _fresh coffee_, no fake creamer (eeeew, I swear that stuff is made of plastic), with a couple heaping spoonfuls of hot cocoa mix, and a little bit of vanilla soy milk -or- regular milk if you're feelin' drastic. Drink LOTS of this coffee for me - hell, go to Starbucks and see if they'll sell you a gallon at a time.

I'm still holding tightly to my "no caffeinated beverages while pregnant" rule, for reasons even I don't understand . . . wait, perhaps it's because my baby already kicks like a squirrel trapped in a sock? I don't want to accidentally trigger seismic activity in the Midwest? I'm already a bundle of nerves? I might fall off the wagon big-time and find myself throwing back multiple shots of espresso?

(That said - I'm still enjoying the occasional tiny serving of chocolate, blissful, sanity-granting chocolate . . .)

Why the fiending for caffeine?
My to-do list rivals the King James Bible in both length and complexity.

I may go into more ranting detail at a later date, but I'll try to summarize: I'm fighting multiple fronts:
WORK - multiple deadlines, far too many irons in the fire, not enough energy (still!) to put in full 40-hour weeks.
HOME - I need Mary Poppins, Martha Stewart, and a carpenter, STAT.
DERBY - "Volunteer Coordinator" is taking up waaaaaaaay more time and energy than I anticipated, but damn I love being involved with bout production.
FRIENDS - Some people need me more than before, some people are offering less support than before, and others are showing interest in becoming more involved, and I just don't have as much spare time as I'd like to invest in them.
FAMILY - Love 'em dearly, I'm getting tons of emotional support, I wish they were more physically present to do my evil bidding -I mean- help around the house.
BABY SHOWERS - I love parties, but don't like being the center of attention. That means I have to be on my best behavior, stay polite in the face of stupid comments, stupid circumstances, stupid people . . . blah blah.
ETC ETC ETC

In short (too late!) I need a couple days off just to putz around my house, sort stuff, pitch stuff, and re-set my brain. Unfortunately, those couple days just aren't available. Bleh.

IN OTHER NEWS: My blog-photo is no longer inaccurate; I've gone back to my old haircut! Until yesterday, I had enough hair to put in a twist, french braid, or ponytail, and my bangs were long enough to be tamed by a well-placed barette - it was low-maintenece and cost nothing to keep up, but I was starting to get ponytail-induced headaches nearly every day. I've found pregnancy to be heavily spiced with aches and pains I can't do a thing about - so I consider a drastic haircut to be a minor sacrifice.

Less bitching and moaning in my next post folks, thanks for enduring!

21 weeks pregnant - guess what baby is doing?

I suppose it would be presumptuous of me to bring a tiny gi and yellow obi to the hospital with me . . .

*non-martial arts geek translation: The kid is going to be ready for a martial arts uniform and a yellow belt, signifying having tested out of beginner's white-belt rank.

too ticked off to think of a witty title

I recently ranted about my computer crashing and shipping my harddrive to data-recovery specialists in California; I was willing to come up with up to $2000.00 (pulled out of my ass, I suppose) to pay them to GET MY DATA BACK.

my data =
- unreplaceable photos of my adorable nephews
- unreplaceable photos of happy times
- unreplaceable photos of pet antics, etc etc
- a FREAKING MASSIVE music collection, carefully sorted, rated, and categorized - I could hit "play" and not hear the same track twice for two weeks straight.
- tax records
- blah
- blah
- blah

The name of said doom is "Head Crash"
my harddrive was physically scraping data off of itself - this particular mechanical failure only occurs in about 10% of hard drive crashes, and always ends in the same prognosis: unrecoverable data.

The bright side is that this happened BEFORE the baby arrives.

I'm hanging on to that thought to stop myself from freaking the hell out.