My weekend started right after I got off work of Friday. 12:30 and I'm starving, but I know I don't have enough money to eat out, and that I have to wait until I get home. Home, however, is a few hours away. I head off to Target (you have to say it like "
Targshay" or whatever so you feel like you're sticking to your high class grocery stores) to do a little baby present shopping. I have always fully enjoyed shopping for babies. It sort of makes me worried for when I actually have one of my own to shop for... I carefully weigh my options. I don't have too much loot to spend, so I want to make sure I get the best bang for my buck. I found a pretty dang cute vintage Winnie the Pooh diaper bag, and a set of frog baby supplies like receiving blankets and a baby towel with the awesome little
hoodies. I couldn't pass up the diaper bag because it was perfectly green, and perfectly half off.
So I'm all picked out, and I decided to save money and not wrap everything; I was going to act like I was being creative and stuff everything INTO the diaper bag and stick on a bow. Pretty ingenious, I'd say. I found the perfect bow, with
curly cue ribbons that matched the color scheme of all the presents. I was even beginning to trick myself into thinking I'd chosen to not wrap them on purpose. After spending a ridiculous amount of time picking out the card that said just the right amount, I headed for the check out. Now, where was my debit card... no where to be found... "Do you take checks?" I found myself forced to ask the cashier who seemed to be paying attention to nothing. Of course I immediately became the stupid customer; who uses checks? Oh well. I stood waiting for her to tell me how much my total was and learned I had spent double what I'd originally planned. Oh well, again. So, waiting for the cashier to do whatever she does with my check, I stare off into space, figuring out how I can make up for how much I spent. "
cnieeouiepese," I hear the cashier mumble. "What?" I say, trying to sound polite but very obviously making it known that she's talking at a volume very inappropriate for any situation. "CAN I SEE YOUR ID PLEASE?" she almost yells at me. "Yeah," I say, trying to hide the annoyance on my face. I stared at her while she wrote my number on my check and ran it through the check machine. She didn't LOOK like a stupid person...Why was she ACTING like a stupid person?
She bags up my crap and hands me my receipt. Uh... "Can I please have a gift receipt?" Why is it that any time you
don't need a gift receipt, they always print one off. But anytime you check out with a birthday card and wrapping paper, they don't. She looks at the line behind me, and looks at me like I've disturbed her flow, and takes my receipt back. After she took a whole 5 seconds to print the gift receipt, I take my bags out to my blazing hot car (I'd accidentally parked
facing the sun). As I'm heading home, I control my urges to stop at every fast food place I see, and I turn on the news to distract me from my hungry tummy. Too bad nothing but commercials is on right now.
Yay! I'm home. But I immediately find out that I hate that cashier more than I thought because she'd bagged every thing
on top of the bow that I'd picked out. So, attempting to fix my smashed bow, and packing everything up to give away, I finish up that portion of my day contemplating calling up Target and complaining about that stupid girl. I decide it's probably a combination of me
and her, and move on to my lunch--finally!
After an ample supply of tuna-mac, I lounge on my sofa and watch court TV and Whacked Out Sports until my body realizes it's freaking tired and wants to take a nap. But no, I have to clean up the kitchen before I have to leave for the baby shower I've worked so hard to prepare for. I know if I don't clean it today, our cycle of dirtiness will start up again.
At 4 o'clock, my mom is there to pick me up to drive to Ogden. We have to leave 3 hours early so we can beat the rush hour traffic mixed with uncanny amounts of construction on I-15. We soon realize we haven't beat all of the traffic and are just zooming along at 35 mph on the freeway behind large trucks we can't see around. Our lane always seems to be moving the slowest, but we know as soon as we move, that will change. It takes us an hour and 40 minutes to make a 40 minute trip, my favorite. I'm not that annoyed though, because since we are an hour early for the shower we are able to eat dinner with my brother and sister-in-law who we never see. My panda bowl was pretty good, but I felt
guilty that Trevor was probably at home eating Hot Pockets, so I got a water instead of soda :) I love you Trevor.
The shower was pretty ordinary. We played baby games, and people won prizes for knowing the most about babies. I, of course, won nothing, because I know an average amount about how to care for children instead of a crap-load. Obviously, the mothers who have most recently had infants won all the games, and got all the chocolate, while all the other women tried to pretend they don't need the chocolate anyways.
Present time was nifty. Women always enjoy watching another woman open presents associated with infants. I think we like imagining how it will be used to cuddle, hug, or make the baby smell nice for holding. I was surprised that this baby shower hadn't made me want to have a baby like they usually do. I wonder why it was different this time. Moving on, my present was enjoyed, but definitely overshadowed, as was everyone
else's, by my mom's gift. She, teamed up with my grandma, aunt, and uncle, had supplied the stroller-car seat combination that was so out of the budget of the parents-to-be that they had previously thought it impossible to obtain. Perfect present, that definitely deserves the attention, which is why I pretend I don't care that mine sucks in comparison. My mild jealousy was stifled as the refreshments were served. Brownie Pizza, with brownies, cream cheese topping, and assorted fruit, seemed to hit the spot and made me glad I was there.
After a long and aggravating drive home for everyone that included getting lost because of closed freeway entrances and detours, I was home, and amused to see that Trevor had spent the evening writing his first blog, and that he had in fact eaten Hot Pockets. I spent the rest of the time before bed finishing up Harry Potter number 3 for the millionth time, and feel glad that Sirius Black didn't get the
Dementor's Kiss, but mad that Peter scurried away unharmed. Darn him;
werewolf-Lupin should have eaten him. Trevor and I head off to bed, feeling slightly nervous for the morning to come.
7:30 AM and my alarm goes off. I try to clean myself up a tad and pull my hair back. We are having our exams done for our life insurance we're getting through my work. They will be taking my blood, and making me pee in a cup. Unfortunately, I had woken up a few hours earlier and peed without thinking, so I'm feeling worried that I may not have enough left for the examiner. That's the least of my worries: they are going to poke my arm and draw out MY blood, and store it in a bottle. Sick. I feel my arms start to tingle and feel weird and achy, and my stomach start to turn as I try unsuccessfully to keep my mind off of it.
The examiner seems
competent, so I have no
excuse to run away and not let her take my blood. I inform her not to tell me what she's doing, and to just go for it. I feel the sickening sensation as she ties off my arm with a
turnicut, and swab my inner arm for germs. The prick doesn't hurt as much as I remembered it would, but that's not even the worst part. The dull pain and moving sensation that courses through my arm, yeah, that's the worst. Of course it feels worse after the
turnicut is gone, despite the examiners pronouncement of the opposite. I'm forced to look over when she tells me to apply pressure to the tiny cotton ball holding back the flood, and I see her packaging up my vial of blood. Oh man, look away, and hold in the lack of food in your stomach, or you'll start dry heaving (fasting for exams means no food in tummy) or pass out. Why am I such a wuss about needles in my arms anyways? The
band aid she gives me comforts me, and I'm sent off to the bathroom to fill my cup. I force out some sample and transfer it to the tiny vials so they can be shipped for testing, all the while trying to ignore the gross pain in my arm and wondering if the sharp poking is coming from the hole in my arm, or from the
band aid pulling at my skin. I try to convince myself of the latter. I stand back as Trevor's blood is being stolen from his body, and realize I'm too awake to go back to sleep on my only day to sleep in. ...sigh...
I make breakfast consisting of pancakes, perfectly over easy eggs, and an assortment of fruit. Since when do we eat so healthy? Like, never.
After breakfast, we are tired again, so we shut out all the light from our apartment and sleep for another 2 hours. Best sleep of the month for me, not so hot for Trevor. He couldn't sleep due to my snoring and moved out to the couch. Sorry Trev.
Trevor went to band practice at 2, and I lounged around a bit after getting ready for the day.
We decided to go look at the hamsters at the pet store to entertain ourselves. Before I could look at the hamsters, I had to pet all the dogs and cats who were in tiny cages out in the isles of the store. They smelled but they were so cute. Some were happy, actually probably more like ecstatic, to see me, while others were too sad that they were in a cage to care that anyone was around. They probably knew I wasn't going to take them home, so what would be the point of getting their hopes up. If I had a million dollars, I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from adopting every homeless dog I came
across. In fact, if Trevor wasn't there to stop me, and if our apartments allowed big pets, I'd probably do it anyways. I always feel so bad for them and I have to force myself to leave the area after a while before I
embarrass myself by being either angry at the establishment, or crying hysterically.
The hamsters were cute, I guessed. Trevor has a fascination, that I've never quite understood. I've never been the owner of a rodent. I've only held a couple in my hands. We started looking at the rats, and I could tell Trevor wanted one. I don't exactly have anything against having a hamster or a rat, I just, don't want them to smell, or bite, or poo on me. We left, hamster free, which was a shock, because we always buy things spur of the moment. We had
Greek food for dinner while watching Big on TV. We further explored the idea of a rat by checking out the adds on
KSL. Don't ask me how, or why, we be settled on a 3 level cage that was spectacular for rats, and decided we'd get some the next day. I, still a little wary, pretended inside we wouldn't get them if we didn't find any we liked. Rats? really? They DO have cute faces...
So, church, and
RJ Whitehead's homecoming. Both went well. I found out that the relief society has to sing the song we've been practicing for a few months in Sacrament meeting in 2 weeks. Holy cow, is the congregation ready for that? They'd better buckle up. We ran through the song a few times, and I finally told the sopranos that I wasn't going to play their descant on the piano anymore since it wasn't written in the accompaniment. I had to play it the way it was written. Good grief...but, because the presidency is tired of the song, they pretended to be excited that we were doing so well, and stuck to their guns about singing in front of 300 people in 2 weeks.
Seeing a bunch of old friends, or rather, people who used to be friends but are now involved in lives of their own, was both refreshing and depressing. Refreshing in that some of them were quite enjoyable, and interested and willing to be involved with others; depressing in that some, well, were not. Some were still stuck in high school, some were stuck in college, though they would never believe that college mentality could be a bad thing. Some getting married, some home from missions, some leaving for missions, some meeting up with missionaries coming home. Then there was us. Married and doing nothing, talking about the rats we wanted to buy as pets, and 50 pounds fatter than the last time anyone saw us. I hated myself for caring what they think about me. But I knew that the majority of them wouldn't see me for who I had become, but rather, for what my body had become. I believe that I am beautiful, whether I need to lose weight or not, which is why I'm not a maniac about my fatness and why I'm not depressed about my body. And I hated that I was feeling so self conscious about my appearance and my life around these people who used to be my best friends. I think my feelings about friends should probably be for another blog. This one's getting a bit lengthy.
We ended up getting our rats, and our awesome cage. Trevor's, I dark gray rat split between being super curious, but overly shy. He has not been able to hold her yet. He named her Templeton. Mine, a light gray and white rat who was obviously scared at first, but let me hold her. She is not adventurous and would not explore outside the little house in her cage. I saw her eating later though, so I know she started to feel at least a little at home. I named her Cinderella, yeah, I know, that's not really something I'd normally do. But it fits for some reason.
Templeton made me laugh when she found the water and guzzled for like 5 minutes straight. Apparently she was thirsty.
We ended the weekend by watching a few hours of Wallace and
Gromit and doing our endless chore of laundry.
Found a freaking awesome recipe on foodnetwork.com. We've had it twice already. We've only tried the pesto version, but I'm sure we'll try at least the ham and cheese version too. We served the chicken with spaghetti/fettuccinni tossed with the same pesto you use for the filling, and it was amazing!
