Hang on, honey! :)

Jason riding the mechanical bull at last weekend's trip to Mebane w/Kingsdown.

Amy E, Kelly, & Amy G

We're at a party to celebrate Kelly's wedding, hosted by Amy G and her parents.

Look at me! I almost completely eclipse Kelly with my huge baby belly! :)

Well I did get some rest that night like I should have. My house was a wreck but so was I after working all day, so I decided to get to bed early. I think I was asleep by 8:15 and it was wonderful! :) Friday night, we went to a party for a friend who was gettting married this weekend. We had a great time. Here's a picture of us at the party:

I had an appt w/the anesthesiologist's office today and it kind of freaked me out even more. I understand that they HAVE to tell me about all the risks involved w/anesthesia but still...I don't want to hear about that scary stuff! But at least I didn't have to SEE examples of what they do. We did have to watch a video which explained what types of anesthesia are offered but the pictures were cartoon-like and not too scary so it was sortof OK.

In other random news, I'm treating myself to a pedicure tomorrow on my lunch break. I can't reach my toes too well these days and I want to have cute tootsies for the engagement party we're going to tomorrow night. Yay! I'll try to get a picture of me in my cute outfit and post it...some time.

Tonight I'm home by myself, I've already eaten dinner and it's only 7:30. (J's schmoozing w/a vendor from work.) I'm looking around my house and I see a sinkful of dishes, laundry that needs to be done, 2 bags that need to be unpacked from our trip this weekend, a bunch of paperwork and mail that needs to be gone through and put away, a gift that needs to be wrapped for a party tomorrow night and TONS of other things I should be doing. But all I have the energy to do right now is take a bath and go to bed. And that's OK, right? Tell me I shouldn't feel guilty about going to bed before 8. :) Part of me is saying "Of course it's OK. You're tired. You're pregnant and you're sick." (I either have a cold or my allergies are really acting up.) And the other part of me is saying "You'd better not go to bed early. You'd better get your house cleaned up while you still have a chance because once the baby comes you can kiss that idea goodbye for a while." Hmmm...I think I'm gonna tell that 2nd little voice to shut up so I can get some sleep. I am TIRED!

I had a dr's appt today and was glad to hear that everything was A-OK. I gained 2 lbs (for a total of 26 so far) and my blood pressure was great as always. I'm usually pretty textbook when it comes to all those tests. (Thankfully!) The dr measured my belly and said things look good. The baby was heads down and his heartbeat was 138. I have a cold or allergies or something going on and have practically lost my voice entirely so I asked the doc if there was anything I could take to help. He said lots of water (which I'm already drinking) and Tylenol Cold. My back was hurting a lot today. I actually ended up kind of limping around by the end of the day because it hurt so bad. I really hate to keep complaining about being pregnant. I want to bea able to just enjoy it because it's only ONCE that you're pregnant for the first time. But can my back just quit hurting for a little bit?!

OK, Jen... you're right. I haven't been blogging much about being pregnant. Know why? I'm having a hard time admitting to myself (and anyone else for that matter) that I do not love being pregnant. In fact, sometimes I don't even like it. (OK, a lot of times.) Now that is not to say that I am not thrilled beyond words at the thought of being a mommy. Those of you who know me well know that I've been looking forward to this for so long. And maybe it's because I've been looking forward to this for so long that I often find myself feeling disappointed that I'm not just enjoying every single minute of this pregnancy.


Yes, feeling the baby move is beyond wonderful and I do enjoy that every single time. Yes, wearing the maternity clothes people have so generously given me (and the ones I've bought for myself too) is fun. But you know all of those annoying pregnancy side effects you read about? Yeah...I've had almost every single one of them. And mostly I've not blogged about too many of them because who wants to actually read that I have really bad mood swings, horrible gas, hemorrhoids and the worst case of all-the-time indigestion and acid reflex imaginable. Sounds like fun blog reading, no? Just trying not to fill my blog with so much negative stuff.

But that's not to say that I am totally miserable either. I do enjoy when people ask me when I'm due and I get to tell them all about when my due date is, yes this is my first, it's a boy, etc, etc. And people are incredibly nice to pregnant ladies. Everywhere I go people are falling all over themselves to help me, give me things or just generally look out for me. And who could not love that. Sometimes it's a little weird when it's coming from total strangers, but it's still nice.

I do have the stroller and carseat all ready and the diaper bag packed and a list of things I'm going to pack in my bag when it gets closer to time to go. So I'm feeling pretty prepared. I thought about going today to get my carseat checked out and make sure it's in right but it feels WAY too early for that. (One of my books say you should do this some time in your 8th month so that you'll be ready in case the baby comes early.) But I couldn't even bring myself to put it in the car yet because I don't want people to think I'm totally weird when I'm driving around with an empty carseat in my car and very obviously still have at least a month or so to go before the baby gets here.

We have our first prenatal class tonight. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also hoping it will help me be less anxious about the actual labor and delivery because right now I am totally freaking out. Everyone I've talked to says "You'll be fine. You'll do great. It's not so bad." etc but I think it's a conspiracy. How in the holy heck can pushing something that big out of somewhere so small be "not that bad"? You must truly forget the pain of childbirth after seeing your baby because I'm totally not sold on the idea that it's a piece of cake. Yes, I am positively having an epidural. And whatever else they'd like to give me would be fine too.

See? I told you I was freaking out. Not every day. Just mainly the ones that end in -y. :)

We had the best weekend this weekend! J's work had a "Kingsdown Global Employee Celebration" this weekend and every single Kingsdown employee and their spouse was invited to the corporate office for an all expense paid weekend. It was amazing!J They chartered a bus for us and we all rode to Mebane (6 hours away) and took a tour of the plant. Then we checked into the hotel and rested for a few hours and then got ready for a western-theme party. And when I say party, I mean PARTY! They had a live band, line-dancing lessons, a trick roper, and a gun spinner (had to look that one up because I wasn't quite sure what to call it...but it was VERY cool!). All night long they had an open bar and things got pretty interesting when you combined that with the mechanical bull. :) They served a great barbeque dinner and then had a huge fireworks show and then a dj and dancing until midnight. It was a really fun night. Yes, Jason did ride the mechanical bull and I do have a picture of him on it. I'll have to charge up my camera before I can post that picture though. I really wanted to get my picture taken on it but knew I'd never have a chance at getting up on that thing without some help. I wouldn't have ridden it, but wouldn't it have made a funny picture with my pregnant self up on a mechanical bull. :)

The next day, there were several events you could choose to do and each one was as well-planned and as fun as the next. Some people chose to golf, some people took the chartered bus to the mall for some shopping (wish I would have done this one! They gave everyone a $25 gift card to the mall!). Jason signed up to play softball so I watched him. At the softball fields they also had a wellness fair set up (with free massages, blood pressure and blood sugar checks) and bingo. Then we all went back to our respective hotels for a rest. There were so many Kingsdown employees they had to rent out several. And when I say that, I mean they rented out entire hotels! We stayed in the Best Western and you could tell they had recently done a lot of renovations to it. It was very nice.

Saturday night, we all got ready for a formal dinner and hopped on the buses again to be taken to the Grandover resort. It is a beautiful place and we were in for a very elegant night. First, we had cocktails (or Sprite in my case) on the back lawn for an hour or so before dinner. They had an orchestra and hors d'oeuvres (yes, I did have to look up the spelling on that one). Then we all went inside to the ballroom for an amazing five-course dinner. Then they had an awards ceremony that lasted a long time. All of the employees were recognized for their time of service (even the ones who had been there less than a year were applauded and welcomed into the Kingsdown family) and some retirees were announced. It was a long night but a very nice one.

Everyone I met was so friendly and nice. From the CEO of the company, to several plant managers, to just the "regular Joes"...everyone was incredibly nice. And the first person that asked me how far along I was said "Wow! You're eight months?! You look great!" I just smiled and said thank you and chalked it up to them just being nice. But almost every single person I met said the same thing. Boy, that can make a mama go from feeling fat (ok, I know not fat...pregnant) to feeling fabulous real quick. :)

This morning, we got up and loaded on the bus for the long ride back. It was a great weekend but I'm very glad to be back home. On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. (Jason and I did...not the busload full of people.) While we were there, we saw they had crab legs on sale and noticed a sign that said "We'll steam and season them for you for free!" Holy cow! We bought 2 lbs of crab legs for $12 and we are gonna eat well tonight! I've been craving crablegs for a while but haven't indulged because they're so expensive. Usually when we go out to get all you can eat crablegs (which is so far only once since we've been here) it ends up costing us about 70 bucks. We got the crab legs and the rest of our groceries (quite a lot of groceries, too) for $53. Can't beat that! And the best part is...now I don't have to worry about cooking dinner.

Gotta go, the crab legs are calling my name!

I just finished doing my Prenatal Yoga dvd for the first time. I love the way I feel after doing the poses but could totally do without all the kooky stuff the woman says during the yoga session. "Feel your heart bloom like a lotus flower opening up to the morning sun"??? Give me a break! Just show me how to stretch and do the poses and make my aching back feel better. I wonder if there is a yoga class or dvd that is offered without all that mumbo jumbo. My back does feel better but it is hard not to laugh at some of the stuff they say and I think that totally takes away from the calming experience of the session. Leave the incense and chanting and lotus flower references out of it and I think I could totally get into yoga.

Books, books, books. Never enough books.

Just remembering some favorite books from when I was little. Some I've already managed to find for my little one but I have yet to track down all of them. Here are my favorites.

But No Elephants by Jerry Smath
The Fire Cat (Pickles the fire cat) by Esther Averill
Popcorn by Frank Asch
The Jumble Bears by Molly Brett
The Housekeeper's Dog by Jerry Smath (Dad, that's the one I was telling you about that I couldn't remember the name...only the pictures. I LOVED this book!)
Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins

I made an Amazon Wish List with a few of these books on it. Anybody need an idea for the baby for Christmas? Look no further. :)
(Click on the amazon.com icon)

P.S. What I usually do is use amazon to make my "shopping list" of books and take it to a used bookstore and see if I can find the books there. It's just easier to see all the books online this way. I'm totally a bargain shopper and am usually too cheap to pay full price at amazon for the book I want. Sometimes I get lucky and can find the book I want for sale used on amazon or ebay. That's how I've made my library grow so quickly and so (relatively) cheaply. Just a hint.

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged...let's see how much random stuff I can think of to talk about in one post. :)

I'm feeling OK these days. I've had a LOT of back pain/sciatica and that's not very fun by the end of the day but there's not a lot I can do about that. I've become best friends with my heating pad and back massager and been taking lots of warm baths and a little (very little) Tylenol. So far, those seem to help somewhat. Other than that, I'm feeling great. I have another routine dr's appointment on Wednesday. Shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary.

I went shopping today for an outfit to wear to a friend's wedding and ended up spending WAY too much money at Motherhood Maternity. Why are maternity clothes so expensive?! I didn't really need a whole lot because I've been given SO many maternity clothes (thank goodness!) but I did need a fancy outfit for the wedding and a new bra and ended up spending over $100! Of course, while I was shopping for the wedding outfit, I did happen to find 2 cute shirts on clearance so I had to get those too. But still....$116 for 4 things?! Outrageous! Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. Let me check that receipt again.

Man, I should have known that sounded way too high! The 2 shirts didn't ring up as the sale price so I got charged full price for both of them! Guess I should have paid more attention while she was ringing them up, but she had the screen turned away so I couldn't check the prices as she scanned them like I normally do. No wonder the total was so high! Now I have to take all that stuff back to get them to adjust the price to the sales price. AAAGGGHH!!! What a pain in the butt! Oh well, it will save me about $20 so it is worth it. Guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

In other news, I finally decided to jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon and see what all the fuss is about. I've read the first 2 books and am waiting for my library to get the next 2 available so I can check them out. The first 2 were really good. I didn't expect to like them because I'm not much into the sci-fi/fantasy type genre but J.K. Rowling is such a good writer! She makes all those crazy characters really interesting and I found it hard to put the books down. I've got the first 2 movies coming on Netflix and I can't wait to see how closely they follow the books.

Yes, I did say Netflix. If any of you watch very many movies, you should totally sign up for Netflix. It is so EASY! I just joined last weekend and chose the 3 movies at a time choice for $16.99 a month. Sounds like a lot of money, but you can watch as many movies as you can in one month and they'll just keep sending you more. OK, so without me starting to sound like a commercial here...you should really go check it out. I love the part where you can cancel at any time so even if we decide we're not watching that many movies to make it worth it we can cancel without worrying about a contract. I think I'm gonna love it. So far, we've watched Kiss the Girls, which is based on a book by James Patterson that I just finished reading. That is one creepy movie and an even creepier book, but it was good. Next to watch is another Patterson book turned movie Along Came A Spider. Then we've got the first Harry Potter to watch and by that time we should be getting Potter movie #2 since we've already returned the 1st movie we watched. Pretty easy. Anyway, enough about that...go check out www.netflix.com if you're interested.

Lastly, I got new glasses. I'd take a picture but my hair is all crazy and I can't find the camera. Maybe tomorrow after I've cleaned house, found the camera and washed my hair I'll get around to taking a picture of the new specs.

Gotta get off of here and figure out something for dinner. :) Happy Labor Day weekend!