Mmmm... Fatness

Micah said that my last picture was scary so he wanted me to take a better one. This one was taken on Saturday.

Aside from the drama of our car, this past week has been pretty cool. On Saturday I worked an adoption event for the Small Dog Rescue Humane Society. It was really fun to walk and snuggle the dogs all afternoon and talk with the swooning passers-by. They set up every Saturday in front of the Petco down the road, which is in a shopping plaza with a few other big stores. So, they get a lot of people coming by who look at the dogs. It was fun, but tiring. Who knew that one could get so sore from crouching down on the ground to get the dogs out of their kennels all afternoon.

I also started working regular shifts at Party City this week. Fun fun fun. At least it's something to get me out of the house, off my butt and doing something other than reading novels. By the way, just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it was a good read, as well as the second book in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. Moving on now to another Orson Scott Card story.

Also of exciting news: I learned how to cook quiche. I haven't gone grocery shopping since last week because I don't want to drive the car. So, sizing up the contents of my kitchen, I made this quiche. I used broccolli instead of spinach and half grated parmesan half colby jack cheese. It wasn't a fancy, legit quiche- it didn't have a crust and wasn't in a tart-pan. Come on! Who even owns one of those? But it was still yummy and new and successful.

AAARGH!

Check engine light has been on and off, but on for a while. Need to pass the IM test to register the car in GA. Had them diagnose it in February, autozone said it was probably a thermometer of something minor. So, 2 weeks ago, took our car to the shop. The diagnostic read 5 codes, had to replace a few parts- an O2 sensor, the thermostat gasket, etc. Oh yeah, and our wheels were about to fall off, so we had to fix that too. Goodbye, enough money for 3 months' mortgage payments. At least everything was fixed. Today, the light came back on. I got it checked, hoping it was the same problem and the place we had the repairs done had just screwed up and would fix their faulty repairs. No such luck. 2 NEW codes-the other O2 sensor and the catalytic converter. Sure. No problem. Who doesn't have $700 of fun money to throw at their car?

This matter makes me very upset.

New Job and Fatness Update

This week has been pretty fun.

Last week, Micah drove to the train station so he wouldn't be all sweaty from his bike ride because of a career fair at Georgia Tech. He was scoping out businesses that he wants to intern for next summer.

So I was left without a car and decided to walk down to the library to get some new books. On my way back from the library, I walked through a shopping plaza to see what fun stores there were- a Pier 1 imports, a Trader Joe's, some expensive restaurants, a Party City with a sign on the door that they were hiring for the Halloween season. I continued to walk, thinking, "That sure would be fun." then, halfway through the complex, turned back around and returned to Party City. Just figured it couldn't hurt to ask. They were looking for temps to work through the Halloween rush, which made it very appealing because it wouldn't interfere with my having a baby in December/January, but would give me something to do in the meanwhile. So I filled out their application, they called me in for an interview and by Friday I had the job. Completed orientation and training this week and will be worked into the schedule after today. It should be pretty easy, mostly tasks that I'm very familiar with- cashiering, customer service, even blowing up balloons. So, it shouldn't be anything too hard. Plus, I get to wear a highly-tacky orange vest that says "Halloween Expert" on it, so that's pretty awesome.

Still working on getting the car registered in GA. Took it to a mechanic 2 weeks ago for the I/M test. He told us that we needed to do 5 major repairs. Goodbye small amount of remaining savings!!! So, after the repairs he told us we needed to drive 75-100 miles on the car after the repairs for the computer system to pass the I/M test. We'll hopefully take it back this weekend to get that done. Might have to wait a few more weeks after that to have money to register it though. GA only gives you 30 days after moving here to change your plates! Not nearly enough time... Since the car got the repairs, it has been showing some improvements. It's a bit more quiet now for sure. But it makes other, new sounds that it didn't used to make and it doesn't accelerate as well between 0 and 30. Here's hoping it just survives a few more years.

I haven't been updating on my mammoth-like size because I'm bad at taking pictures of myself and I never think to ask Micah to take one when he's home. So, here's a crappy shot of my fatness at 25 weeks, almost 6 months. Woo hoo! Only 15ish more weeks to go!


Last night after Micah had fallen asleep, he jerked suddenly from his snoring and asked, "What happened to all the other doggies like Sammy?". I informed him that they had all been adopted and found loving homes. He said, "oh, okay" and went back to snoring. Silly sleeptalker.

The Coolest Thing I Ever Bought

We purchased a mattress online almost a month ago and were nearly prepared to accept that we would be sleeping on the air mattress forever. It FINALLY arrived, shipping delayed by all the flooding in the Northeast. It was a Textrade 11'' Innerspring pillowtop mattress, king size. It arrived in this form:

It was pretty heavy, but small enough that I was able to shove it up the stairs, around the banister and into the bedroom all by myself. You can see by the scale of the dog and the door, it certainl wasn't SMALL, but I was skeptical. I had ordered the king size, right? Inside the box, the mattress was folded up into a very tight coil.

Cutting the packaging tape that kept it spiraled, it imediately uncoiled and then unfolded into a king size sheet about 2 or three inches thick. As you may notice from the pictures, Sammy was quite impressed with the whole process. So was I.

The COOLEST part, however, came when I began to cut off the plastic wrapping. This is a normal spring mattress but was vaccuum sealed very tight. When I cut into the plastic, the mattress immediately started filling with air. It inflated so fast I could barely cut the whole length of the plastic to allow it to take a normal form as it grew.

Within an hour, it became completely firm and that night we finally got to set up the bedframe and sleep in a real bed. It was utterly fabulous. The mattress is really comfy and I now see why the ratings were so high. Plus, it was cheaper than any other spring mattress we looked at except Ikea but shipping was free.

Aside from all the advantages of having a bed that is larger (no elbows in my face, Sammy laying next to me, not on me), I am quite certain that this bed has magical qualities of stopping motion transfer. I have always been woken up every time Micah moved into a different sleeping position, but for the past few nights I haven't felt him at all. I don't even notice when he gets out of bed to get ready in the morning. I just wake up to him saying goodbye and am confused because I swear he was just asleep right there...

I think that he is having a similair experience with this bed. He always used to wake up when I would get up to use the bathroom, but last night he didn't. He was only awakened when I bumped the door coming back to the bedroom. Seeing someone in the hallway walking towards him and having no recollection of feeling me get out of bed, he let out the nanciest high pitch scream I'd ever heard. After assuring him that it was just me, we went back to sleep slightly unsettled, knowing now what micah's true reaction would be if anybody ever broke into the house...

Woo Hoo Labor Day Weekend!

Had a great time over the past week. My Dad was planning on going on a civil rights tour with a Utah State Alumni group that got cancelled, so he ended up just spending almost a week here in Atlanta visiting us. LeAnn and Gabby drove down Friday and stayed until Monday as well. It was great because I finally got to see some of the touristy sights around Atlanta.
We took a tour of the CNN studio, which was way cool. A lot goes in to making a news production! And we got to see it all in action! And chat with the director in between segments!

Then we swung over to the World of Coca-Cola. Some parts were cool, some parts were weird. They start off by having you watch this totally awkward cartoon that... doesn't seem to have a point. Much less, a purpose that relates to Coke! My favorite part was definitely the end where you can sample different Coke products from different parts of the world. We got to try Peruvian Inca Cola, which Paco mentioned in one of his letters. He was right! It does look just like pee! But it had a yummy bubblegum/creamsoda sorta taste to it. Then there was the Beverly.... eeeegh. What is wrong with Italians that they would ENJOY such a drink?

I didn't know that Dr. Martin Luther King was from Atlanta! We visited his birth home and Ebenezar Baptist Church where he preached as well as his grave site.

We went to the Aquarium on Saturday while Dad went to Auburn to watch them Play Utah State (a very good game). It was PACKED! This out-of-service exhibit was my favorite because there weren't a billion people crowded around it. Micah was quite enthralled with it as well.

The beluga whales were my OTHER favorite. They were very playful and funny.

One area had a few little petting ponds where we got to touch bonnet head sharks and sting rays. Other pools throughout the exhibit had starfish, shrimp, horseshoe crabs and different little crabs an urchins. At one area, LeAnn ad Gabby and I checked out the little critters in the petting pond and then went over to look at a display about some kind of fish and suddenly we heard a commotion behind us. We look around and Micah is walking away from the petting pond with the front of his shirt drenched, a huge puddle on the floor where he was standing and everyone around muttering and staring in shock. I guess something touched him from under a rock while he was petting a fish and it freaked him out. It was pretty darn funny.