I'm ready for summer to be over, and school to start. Mostly because my air conditioner is out. We're having a hard time around here, and things are only just now looking up. (Ha ha, I just realized what I do. You see this? I don't post when things are bad, I post when things get better; but in doing so, I'm still posting about the bad, lol). Anyway, I finally got a job that actually has work for me, so that means after 3 months with no pay I'm finally bringing in a paycheck. Which is right about when we need it, since we're behind on the mortgage. And, like I said, our AC went out. There's no way we can replace that by the end of the season, though. Absolutely ridiculous. Ok, my husband builds AC units for a living, right? He knows what's what, and where it goes, and all that. So this thing has been trying to go out for about a month; every week, he'd spend 200 on something, and get it fixed. Well, Saturday morning, we woke up to a melted compressor. That's right, melted; and he can't fix that on his own; he can't change it out, because of the freon and oil inside, and then when it gets changed out, it needs to be charged and all that. So, we had to wait until Monday to call around and get prices; get this. We could only get 1 company to actually give us a price over the phone; the rest were all, "It will be 150 service charge to come out and look at the unit and diagnose the problem". I'm sorry, didn't you hear me? I'm telling you the problem, I don't need it diagnosed.

Anyway, the 1 company that would give us a price, well their computers were down on Monday, so they called us back on Tuesday. Are you ready for this? $2000 to replace the compressor. Wanna know how much for a brand new unit? $2500. That's right, folks, for only $500 more you get a brand new unit, with a new warranty, etc etc! Needless to say, I'll be without AC for the rest of the year.

I'm in such a mood lately. I swear if I had a decent idea, I could write a novel. Or at least a synopsis ;). I don't know what it is with me; I WANT to be creative; the fact that I'm not is very frustrating to me right now, lol. I want to write something!! So far I've just been doodling in my blog, pulling stuff out that is pretty far down, and examining it, and throwing it out for all to see and examine.

My sister is having her baby on Monday. She's having a Cesarean done. I won't be able to be there at the hospital with her, mostly because of my job, and the kids, and the extra kid I watch, and that its Monday, but I will go see her Monday afternoon. I can't WAIT to meet baby Natalie!! I'm hoping she will ignite the baby fever in me, get me more excited about my own ;). I will have a baby to play with for 5 months before mine gets here; I only hope I don't get "over" it ;)

I feel like I'm...lazy, or unmotivated sometimes. I really need to get my butt up and start doing something, especially now, before I get too far advanced in this pregnancy, and its too late. I started walking last week, but only waled for 2 days, skipped the weekend, and then didn't do anything all week this week. I want to get started back in yoga; remember when I signed up for the Gym in May, hoping to get back into it? Still haven't done it. Something always seems to happen, and I hate saying that and using it as an excuse, but it always seems like Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days I have to watch the extra kid longer than normal, so it goes over into my yoga class time; this week, Jon worked late at work, and I didn't want to go by myself. Guess what? He's most likely working late again today, and I have to bring him dinner about the time the class is. So, it doesn't look like its going to happen again. I don't know why I can't do stuff by myself; I spend most of my time trying to convince Jon to do something with me, and then he finally gives in or it works out, and half the time I wished I had just done it on my own ;).

I'm still really anxious to find out what the baby is. I want to get prepared; not that it matters, I don't have any money to go buy anything, and I really need to get my house organized before I bring more clutter into it. Right now, everything is a mess; I've had to move my desk into my bedroom, so I can work, cause we have a window unit in here. Its the only cool room in the house; of course, it's freezing me out; I'm wearing socks, sweat pants, and a jacket half the time. Its crazy; the rest of the house is about 85, and I'm freezing my toes off in here, trying to work. At least I'm not roasting, I suppose. So, because the desk is in here right now, we obviously can't get the room ready for the baby. Its too early anyway, I'll admit that, but, I wanna do something!! I need to do something. I have tried to immerse myself in projects to keep me distracted, but its not really working; they aren't fulfilling what it is that I want to do, so I'm still restless. Even now, typing out this blog, I'm restless to do something that I really want to do; the sad thing is, I don't really know what that is ;)

How do you know when its time to cut someone out of your life? I don't really want to go into specifics too much, but I had a best friend, we'd been friends for about 10 years, and we had sort of a falling out/argument almost a year ago. It was so very depressing; it was almost like a serious break up, you know? And in my opinion, it was blown way out of proportion, but I don't feel like I was wrong to bring up the way I felt; I just felt like it got too defensive on the other side, instead of trying to figure out why I might feel the way I did, it was a complete defense team going on. So, we pretty much don't speak at all, most of the conversations we've had were to return stuff to the original owner; I've tried making contact about a few different things; going to the movies, etc, trying to bring the relationship back to life, but I've not gotten any feedback. So, I feel like its pretty much dead in the water, and it feels like there is less coming from that side than is going out on this side. So what, then? All of a sudden, we're just not friends anymore? Just like that? What kind of person do you have to be to be able to walk away from something like that without a backwards glance?

So, I'm just wondering, should I cut it out completely? There's still MySpace. I still see bulletins, and blogs, and pictures, and announcements, and all that jazz. I'm not invited to any of it anymore, but its there for me to see. Should I just go ahead and completely severe all ties, since its obvious the want for a resurrection is one-sided?

Sometimes, it makes me question the person I am. Of course, this isn't the only thing that makes me question me. There have been plenty of things going on in my life that make me question me. And you know what they say; when so many different people have a problem with one person, its usually the ONE person, not the so many different people. So if I have a hard time getting close to people, and I have a hard time making new friendships, at least, meaningful ones to me; then what does it mean that the few meaningful ones I have pretty much bail on me?

I don't have anyone. I have my husband, my kids, and my dad. I can't really talk to my dad anymore; mostly because his hearing is so bad, he doesn't hear anything I say, and he rarely asks me to repeat myself. So, its like talking to a brick wall most of the time. Which, its not his fault; he's ok in person. Its mostly over the phone. So, I can't call him anymore. I call my sister sometimes, but we're not really close. We talk, and sometimes we blow off steam, but I don't really know what goes on in her life, and we could probably go a month without seeing each other. We talk because we share a dad, and a brother, and, I dunno....I'd like to say we talk because we're family, but that's not it. I don't talk to any of my other family. I didn't speak to my mom for 10 years after I graduated high school; she never saw my kids, and then she died. Because of the rift between my mom and I, the rest of the family treated me like I was the plague. After she died, of course, she was the saint and I was the sinner, cause who speaks ill of the dead? Apparently I do. But, I don't regret that relationship with my mom; that was chosen, by me, due to the circumstances. Yeah, I wish I had a mom I could talk to, and a mom I could have trusted to stay with my kids and not die of a drug overdose, but it didn't happen, so guess what? I dealt with it the best I could.

I'm not sure how people see me; I realize that yes, I can be pretty much a cold-hearted bitch. I will admit to that. I do have feelings, but they've been hurt so many times, I'm certainly not going to wear them on my sleeve anymore, so to speak. I've had to deal with a lot of rejection, and so mostly because of that, I guess I'm a hard person to get close to. I think its because I don't know how, and people don't bother to try. So that makes me wonder if I'm doomed to be lonely forever; because I stood up for what I believed in, and I protected my kids as only a good mother would, and was looked down on because of it; not that I was protecting my kids, but that I had severed my ties with my mother. But at the same time, its not like she tried to ever call or come over, anyway. So its not like I had to work very hard at avoiding her.

At the same time, I'm tired of feeling like I have to defend myself because of this. My dad told me, when she died, "Don't ever feel bad or guilty or regret what happened in the past, and don't ever let anyone make you feel that way." Trust me, I don't. But sometimes, I still doubt myself, and wonder if my choices are wrong anyway.

I'm bored. I think I'm lonely. I keep calling my sister; she gets irritated with me when I call too early (her husband works second shift, so they are late sleepers, and night owls), so I've been sending her text messages "call me when you wake up". Not much to talk about, but I still call her ;). Like I said, I think I'm lonely. She's pregnant too; she's about to pop, too. She's due in like 2 weeks. I can not wait to see this baby girl. Its going to get my baby "want" flowing ;). We still haven't completely decided on a girl name yet; I think we are having such a hard time because my girl name was stolen about 6-7 years ago, and I just never came up with another one. We have narrowed it down to a list of about 10 or so, give or take, that we like, and we just have to find the combination that we like ;).

I have started a new hobby; knitting. I am already an avid crocheter, as I have posted my Eeyore blanket on here before, and I have tried the knitting thing before; it just didn't take. Mostly, because I am self taught, and I am not a visual learner, I'm a kinetic learner; so I can't look at the pictures and read the descriptions and figure out if I'm doing it right; also, I'm left handed, so I have to take all the instructions and do them backwards and upside down. I found a pattern, though, of a baby blanket that I REALLY REALLY like; here's a picture of it ...


I know its kind of hard to see, but the white part of the blanket has strategically placed holes to look like butterflies; and the border is a different color with solid butterflies. (I love butterflies, BTW). I loved this pattern, so I bought it, and decided I would try knitting again. Of course, this pattern is an intermediate pattern, and I was having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly all this stuff meant, and of course, turning it around and upside down for my left-handed status ;). Anyway, I have set it aside for more "beginner" patterns to get my skill level up; I still have about 6 months ;)

So, I am a member of a yahoo group for knitters, and as an incentive to myself, I signed up for an exchange, where in you are assigned a partner, and you make that partner something based on a list of their favorite colors, etc; this way, I would be forced to actually make something. Well, of course I got paired up with the most experienced lady on the group, so I am so nervous, lol, but I'm hoping the scarf I'm making her will not be too shabby ;). I'll post a pic of it when I'm done.

Anyway, knitting, to me, is prettier than crochet. There are 2 major stitches in knitting; the knit stitch, which is just the regular stitch, and the purl stitch, which is basically the backwards knit stitch. Then, you take these 2 stitches, and you make all kinds of crazy things with them!! To knit every row is called a garter stitch; to knit one row and purl the next row is called a stockinette stitch; you can knit 1 purl 1 all the way across the row and then repeat the next row for what is called the seed stitch; you can knit 2, purl 2 on one row, then purl 2, knit 2 on the next row to create ribbing; then, you can use another needle to pull some stitches off and skip, and then turn around and do them after doing the next one, and you create cabling. And don't even get me started on making holes, and stitching in the back loop instead of the front ;) Its really amazing the things that were thought up long ago, before television dulled everyone's senses ;)

Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm just rambling. Like I said, I'm bored. My next doctor's appointment is August 22; she said she would guess what she thinks it is by the heartbeat then. I think both me and my husband think its a girl. Oh, also, I have cervical dysplasia, so I have to go back in on the 27th to do a culposcopy, but they can't do a biopsy, obviously, because I'm pregnant. So how great is that? I might possibly have cancer.

Thanks for everyone's comments. I'm not "upset", per se, that there is only one ;), I guess my biggest deal is I don't know what I want. I don't want 2 girls and 1 boy; I don't want 2 boys and 1 girl; I want it even ;). I know, I'll get over it.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog, mostly because I have always considered myself a writer. I love to read, and I was always coming up with short stories as a kid, and I would love to write a book like the ones that I so love to read. I don't know why I don't do it; I internalize enough to be a writer, I suppose, but then when it comes to actually putting something down; or even, regularly keeping up with something, I can't quite seem to do it, and I dont know why. Its very strange to me...

Wanna hear the heartbeat?

Hey there. I know its been a while; I have felt so "blah" lately, don't really want to do anything. I had my doctor's appointment today; no mention of a second heartbeat ;). Do you wanna hear it?