It's A Miracle!

Blogger let me on! Granted, it is almost 11pm on New Years Eve and the rest of the planet is out doing something lively and NOT in front of a computer screen, but still....

So, shock and amazement, we are having a boy. I should have known. I took a gigantic leap of faith and wrote articles and stuff about how I was so sure that God wanted me to have another girl so it was destined that I would be pregnant with a boy. I am now three for three in Very Wrong About Gender. I give women's intuition a really bad name.

On the other hand, my Hubs is a great dad of sons, therefore this is boy will be an awesome man of God.

Now for a name...because the one that "God gave me" is totally inappropriate considering the plumbing.

I have three more days that constitute holiday in my house so I'll be sparse and short, but hopefully I'll be back "ON" soon.

1000 Words

Sleeping Through It

I keep having dreams that I have slept through an important event in this baby's life. First I dreamed that I slept through the labor and delivery (which was apparently hard) and the baby was a boy. Considering I thought it should be a girl, I didn't believe them that the baby presented was mine.

And last night I dreamed that I fell asleep in the sonogram. In my dream they did all these preliminary things...not only on me but everyone in the room (my children, Hubs and one random teenager from my church). I fell asleep while they were doing samples on the others. Apparently so did the sonographer. We both woke up just as the appointment was over. I demanded a quick look where she showed me a very bizarre shot of the baby's brain and then kicked me out.

What I want to know is considering the trouble I have sleeping these days, how on earth when I do sleep, do I dream of sleeping through important events?

Any dream interpreters out there?

Oh, my good heavens...blogger let me on. Granted, it took more than an hour to get to the posting site once I opened blogger, but I didn't get an error page! Hubs tells me that it is because I have Explorer 7 and my last computer had 6 and he refuses to take me backwards in time. I have to use Firefox. Whatever. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, I'm a freak.

I knew I was a bit of a freak. I'm a freak in my family: they are all melancholy and I'm sanguine. They homeschool. I don't. They don't eat sugar.....And I'M the freak. (she chuckles)

So my family is just enough strange to make me feel somewhat "normal" and then I go to Hub's company Christmas thing.

(insert maniacal laughter here)

Oh. My. Gosh.

I'm a total freak. I've been in my little social circle for so long that I've forgotten how totally freakish I really am.

Seriously. I could console myself with the idea that they are the freaks and I'm the normal one, but come on, even I don't believe it. So, instead, I'll continue to dance around my house singing the eighties "She's a Freak" song until the shock of it all wears off.

Just finished Rene Gutteridge's "Scoop." It was a fun little read.

A Walking Reminder

I promise it isn't me. I can only get on blogger about twice a week these days. Maybe it is the new computer? Someone doesn't like my cookies.

Any-hoo---

A good friend of mine miscarried last weekend. I hate that. It makes me angry. I hate that there is usually nothing that can be done when it happens. But,

She and her husband are strong. I have heard enough of the story to know that they are doing as okay as they can spiritually, emotionally, physically and they will get past this. So for a moment I'm going to go into the all-about-me mode.

The poor girl had to spend four out of the last eight days with me. Four in a row. Me, in all my shining, glowing, blooming, undeniable in-the-family-way glory.

I've been on that side of it. I've miscarried and listenend to some pregnant woman complain about how tired, hungry, or swollen she is. And I'd wonder why she couldn't tone it down. (In my case it was usually because she had no idea.)

I have such a hard time on my side of things. By my 31 years I've suffered three years of infertility. More than one miscarriage. A lot of hopelessness. A lot of hope. I've had the opportunity to adopt and I love it. I want to adopt again. I've been miraculously healed. And now I can get pregnant at the drop of the hat (or whenever God tells me to which is, of course, the preferable method). So I understand both sides of the equation.

I know how annoying it is to see pregnant women when you want to be and can't. I understand how annoying it is to hear pregnant women gripe about the side effects. I understand how annoying it can be to hear moms complain about their bad days.

And I totally get how hard it is to guard your every word around people that are having trouble. Or to not feel free to express the diffuculties of parenting. Or to not feel that adoption is sometimes a stinking lot easier (even though in the throes of it, it didn't feel that way).

So anyway, I'm suffering a guilt complex because I know I'm a walking reminder of what a lot of people want this season and can't have. So I find myself trying to hide behind a coat or big clothes and pretend that I am not blessed indeed. Which I think is again closing myself off.

Sigh.

Best Friends

Yesterday was one of those days where so many things came clear. For years I've complained that I'm lonely and I can't tell Hubs why. It isn't that I can't find someone to spend time with or that I don't have plenty to do. But on those days when I am just at odds with myself I feel like there is no one to call. But yesterday I figured it out.

I'm no one's go-to person.

I'm a great call-in-a-crunch person. I'm a great pinch babysitter. Go to piano recital with not much notice person. Bring a snack to a meeting that starts in 30 minutes person. Offer my home to host something when the original host got sick person. But no one calls me in the throes of a real crisis. I'm usually on the list. I'm often in the lineup of "let Jamie know, okay?" I ALMOST always find out when the crisis has passed but before it is mentioned in passing at the next gathering. Friends, family, you name it.

And this is a problem why? Because that leaves me with no one to call when I'm having a crisis. Like the person on the other end of the line is wondering why I called them. Part of my problem is that the person I would call my go-to person has become a lot of people's go-to person and she doesn't need anymore people caling her with a crisis. My second go-to who has become my go-to has more on her plate than I can even imagine so my stuff seems so petty. But part of it is that you can only be brutally honest with someone so many times without reciprocation before you start feeling naked at a party.

So last night Hubs and I were trying to figure out why neither of us was anyone's emotional go-to person (because everyone will come to him to solve a technical problem). We decided we must be holding ourselves emotinally unavailable. But I don't know how to be any more emotionally available. I don't keep an immacualte house. I don't have perfect children. Heaven knows I don't look the part of perfection, ever. I confess my failings. I send out invites like crazy. but there must be some part of my make up that says "not available." How many times do you tell a people "stop by anytime" "come over in the morning for coffee" "if you need a nap, please call me to watch you squirt" "I have been there...if you need to talk, I promise not to speak" before you just pack it in and quit?

That wasn't a rhetorical question.

And is there any way to get out of this place I'm stuck without just moving to another town, church, whatever and starting over?

I had an eloquent post...

one keystroke and 99% of my post was deleted. What happened? No clue. Hating either Blogger or my new-to-me computer right now.

Integrity

I'm tired of people. We are so fallible. And so annoying.

So today I got an email from someone who purchased an audiobook from me through Amazon. The book was on CD. The CDs were in "like new" condition when they left my home.

Apparently the box is all smushed, the sleeve is all dusty and the CDs are all scratched. Tell me, when CDs are in sleeves and the box is in a padded envelope, how this could happen?

Yes, the box could have been smushed. I don't question that. But there is no way that CDs in a sleeve could get scratched without the envelope tearing (and being run over by a car). Could there be A SCRATCH? I suppose. But I thought i ckecked them over pretty carefully. I am a nonconfrontational person. I don't like being questioned so I go overboard to please, to give the absolute truth.

So it is this person's work against mine. Lovely huh?

I had the stupid CDs less than a week. I got them new. Listened once. Didn't think I'd ever listen again. Listed them and sold them. If the sleeves are dusty, it is because they came that way. Cardboard has fillaments that flake off. I'm sorry. There is no way to prevent that.

So my mind starts questioning this person's integrity. Does this person just want a free CD series and see me as a conduit? If I question the condition, it isn't like they can't scratch it up before sending it back. And then it is ruined for me anyway.

All for the sake of $20. That's it. I'm done. I'll just keep my books. People can buy new. Take it up with the publisher.