Fun stuff

I have a new internet addiction that I feel compelled to share. I re-discovered and am loving facebook. So easy to quickly keep up with so many old friends and just get snipets of their lives without having to write long amounts. All the fun of reuniting without the awkward silences. I've found friends ranging from preschool to recent. So... if you have a facebook account or just want to see what all the fuss is about.. I recommend it and invite you to find me there as well. you can search by address - and I'm zannhu at hot mail dot com.

okay so it took a while but....
Our daughter was born on August 7th at 5:29 pm. She weighed in at 7lbs 12 oz and was 21 1/4 inches long. She's doing great and we are beginning to get adjusted. It's a big adjustment for us. Can't believe I haven't made it back here to state that before now. But I'm a little bleery-eyed. All posts about her can be found at livejournal - http://zannli.livejournal.com to be specific (again let me know if you wish to be friended to see the non-public posts). I still read all the blogs in my side bar here, but I can really only keep up with and update one place any more... so this blog is pretty much retired as I'm sure you've guessed by my long absence.

However I may still post something here or there if I ever think of anything.
all the best,
z

Most likely sometime tomorrow, so I am told by my doctors, I will be a mom.
That will be weird.

The lottery is more green--- sorta

Yeah... it's been a while. But I made it back before Did, did. :P

I'm just not good at the whole blogging thing. I read them frequently but I just don't feel like I have much to contribute myself. Pregnancy is going well. It's been a relatively easy one so far. I'm a bit fearful that it will get really hard come delivery time... because it almost seems to have been tooo easy. We're getting to the short days now and I'm beginning to get nervous. Today I learned to install and uninstall a car seat from either of our cars. I also made a decision on a pediatrician. I spend a lot of time feeling tired.

But other than that, it's pretty much business as usual around here.
I did try an experiment over this summer that I thought I'd tell you all about.
Upon receiving a Publisher's clearing house sweepstakes form ... I got to wondering... which has better odds - that or the lottery? I think the odds are about the same for either. But I went ahead out of curiosity and entered publishers. A few weeks later I got another entry form - a follow-up to the first, of course to confirm your entry you had to hunt through all the junky product stickers to find the "address confirmation" sticker or what have you and send it back. Obviously they want to get as many views of their advertised products as possible... but I'll admit, I kinda enjoyed going on the little scavenger hunt to find them. So I confirmed my address with that little sticker and sent it back... Then I just got curious... just how many of these things will they send before the actual give-away date?

Turns out if you keep sending in the various confirmations, and decisions (do I want the millions as a lump sum or a several payments? Let me find that sticker...) you end up receiving/returning around 8 things before the give-away date. Each with it's stack of advertisements with stickers and little "someone in your town is definitely going to win at least $10" statements. And they are full color too.. I can't imagine how much they spend on that crap. How many trees they kill.

I would have thought that it would be cheaper to enter a sweepstakes than to spend money on the lottery with about the same odds of winning. And I still believe that as far as online sweepstakes go as long as you don't mind getting plenty of junk mail or weeding through advertisements. But as far as Publisher's goes... I gotta say the lottery is actually a better deal. They don't kill nearly as many trees for the little single ticket that you get and in the end you pay less. Because if you sent all 8 entries back that are telling you that you are "this close" to winning - You've spent over $3.00 in postage. I don't care how much fun the little scavenger hunt for the stickers is... it's just not worth it. I was just rather staggered by that after my experiment ended. I didn't send all 8 back by the way. Though I'll admit to sending some for curiosity/boredom's sake.

Just to make it clear... I'm not advocating the lottery or sweepstakes here. I just got curious. And I figure someone out here in cyberspace may have been curious about that too... so if you are that person.. I hope I just saved you $3.

Mother's Day

It's been a muli-emotional day for me.
I'll blame the hormones.
As I sat in church this morning I cried at everyone's mention of mom's and their rolls.

I miss my mom. I wish she lived closer. I'm happy I have a good mother-in-law who lives semi-close. But still nothing beats your very own mom. And my mom rocks. Let me just tell you. I may not have thought so at one time. But really she does. I really hope to be a lot like her some day.

I remember last year at this time, feeling that terrible longing to be a mom, only to find out two weeks later that I was expecting and then only five weeks after that, that all was lost and I was right back to the longing again. Have I ever mentioned that I can cry on cue? It was always one of my greatest assets when performed in theater. The secret is to be able to recall something particularly painful and relive those memories. Much like it is good to keep a happy thought to focus on if you need to lift your spirits, it is handy to keep a sad thought on hand if you ever want to bring forth real tears on cue. I've had several sad thoughts to refer to over the years, and that quickly became one of them.

But this year I'm well on my way to being a real mom. And I'm scared. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm assured by many that, that is a common feeling and that no one really knows.. we all just do the best we can. It's one of those learn as you go kinda jobs. But I'm one of those people who likes to know what I'm doing. I like to have a plan. I still get completely overwhelmed and want to hyperventilate walking into BabysRUs or Target because of all the stuff and not knowing what's really necessary and what isn't and some of the stuff I don't even know what it does or how it works and soooo many choices and opinions it is mind numbing. But I keep reassuring myself that people with less life experience than me, have done the job and I can do it too. And no matter how much I dread spit up and stomach viruses... if I can clean up after the dog, and still enjoy having her, I can totally do the same with this kid. After all, I already love her enough to worry all the time that something is going to go horribly wrong and I'll lose her. God has gotten a lot of panic prayers from me over this pregnancy.

But I was happy to receive a mother's day hug from my husband this morning (though he swears up and down that it doesn't count until the baby is actually here) and a DQ blizzard. And I'm thankful for every kick that I feel - though there could be more of them to ease my mind, but then she'd probably have to be kicking every 5 minutes or so and then I'd probably be complaining. And I'm thankful that I think we've finally come up with a name for her other than "Bob". But no one gets to know it until after she's born.... we don't need any feedback changing our minds on this after how much it took to reach the decision.

Oh! And a very happy mother's day to all of you. Whether you're a mom to your own or community mom (one who loves on other people's kids).

Thank You Easter Bunny, Bahck, Bahck!

Okay I don't know if anyone besides me and my family remember that Cadburry commercial from way back.. but we quote it all the time whenever some one does something nice for us. And someone has indeed done something nice for me.

A couple of days ago a little package arrived in our mail. Real mail!!! not bills! Not junk, real mail! I was excited just by the package. But even more excited when I opened it.

Oh Farmwife how you brightened my day. The same day I found out I was going to have to pay 400 dollars to get my car fixed. But a bright piece of cloth with little taggies on it just chased away a bit of those blues.

Isn't it gorgeous. I seriously think you could make a career out of selling these and those headbands. Ever considered setting up shop on Etsy.com?

I find it wonderfully fun that I got a Tag Blanket from a friend I got to know and love in a group that we referred to as TAG. It just seems very appropriate :)

I'm just sorry it has taken me so long to get up the thank you. But I blame it on forgetting my camera.



Have you ever noticed how hard it is to spell the sound a chicken makes?

Thank you all for you input on the naming thing. I'm glad I'm not alone in having it be a struggle. DH and I are now emailing back and forth as per Sarah's suggestion. We tend to make some of our best decisions that way.. might as well try it out for names too.

Things continue to plug along here. I'm enjoying the spring weather but not my allergies that come along with it. We got the furniture for the little girl's room now.. all we need is a mattress and she'll at least have a place to sleep and some clothes to where. I'm looking forward to a weekend with no commitments :)

Oh look, I'm still alive.

I really never meant to go this long without posting or replying for that matter. I really am still reading your blogs. I just do it in little burst here and there. Some how spring has brought lots of busy-ness - and tiredness for that matter.

But because I want to make sure I don't abandon my blog all together, I want to make a post of things I've learned recently. That way you at least know I'm still living... and learning.

- I recently learned that if you put cucumbers on your $5 footlong Subway sandwich.. and eat one half and then save the other half for the next day. The other half that you saved will be really nasty. In fact, the cucumbers will actually liquify the white American cheese. Ewwwww.

- Dairy Queen's Tin Roof blizzards, are not at all like the Tin Roofs my inlaws introduced me to and that I love (vanilla icecream w/chocolate sauce and spanish peanuts) - the DQ version has chocholate covered peanuts and brownie pieces... it is however quite tastey despite not being the same.

- Did you know that if you are going on a walk and want to protect yourself from stray attack dogs... it is better to grab a large umbrella rather than a large walking stick. The umbrella when opened will startle and aggressive dog, make you look bigger (a trick many animals use in nature), and also help protect more of your extrimities than a stick will. I learned that from my girl scout leader co worker. I thought that was really interesting.

- Did you know Jerry Springer had a political career before becoming the king of trash tv? I learned that this week from NPR.

- I also learned that Priceline's cancellation insurance is not worth the money. Because you can only cancel if someone dies or if you have a doctor's excuse. How crappy.

- I'm in the process of learning that "pregnancy brain" really does exist. It is not just an excuse (as I brazenly, always thought) - or it could just be that things are so busy right now that I'm scattered and can't keep track of everything that I normally do.

- I've learned that rooms look a lot smaller once you actually put stuff in them. This I've learned before, but somehow always seem to forget.

- I've learned that there is just nothing much I can do with my hair. There are only just a few lengths that don't turn it into a fro, or bozo hair. It is a fine line to tread... I really wish I could find a new style... one that's easy to deal with... but looks different. My hair is naturally curly and brown.... got any suggestions?

- I've also learned that coming up with a name is not an easy task. We may never actually agree on any names. Those we do agree on are already taken by other friends' children or people we know. Or they sound really weird with our last name. This poor child may be called Bob just for lack of anything that her parents can agree on. We have decided to withhold names until the kid is born... even if we finally come to an agreement... because we don't want anyone's opinion to throw us back into a quandary.