Hello, lovelies!

I was asking around Twitter a few days ago about formatting awesome ebooks because… drumroll… I am creating an ebook from ten of my own favorite blog posts of all time.

And it’s going to be FREE! Hooray!

Also, I woke up this morning (having slept on my side and snuggled up to my sweetheart husband) with the worst neck-back-shoulder lockup I’ve ever had. Couldn’t move my neck, couldn’t get up off the bed by myself, couldn’t put my robe on unassisted. IT SUCKED.

I’m still really super sore, but some medicine and plenty of water to drink and lots of careful stretching here and there throughout the day has made it better. You bet your butt I’m sleeping ON MY BACK, no snuggling allowed, to let my spine rest in a nice straight sort of alignment tonight. I do NOT want to repeat this morning, EVER.

Um. That’s it! For now. ;)

I don’t have much energy to update because I’ve been WRITING ALL AFTERNOON at our awesome Red Hot Writers writein.

My wrist hurts! Because I wrote over 3300 words today. Booyah!

(I’m still behind, but I’m not NEARLY as behind as I was. Now back to my awesome writers.)

Guess what, people? The title of this post has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CONTENT OF THE POST. It was just what popped into my head, because my head is currently in the grip of yet another cold.

All my hopes and dreams are crushed, *sniff*

I thought that September was going to be all kinds of awesome: the older two in school during the day, so that the bulk of the day is somewhat quieter and better suited for working. Since this my favorite time during the year – when summer slips gracefully into autumn – I feel more creative, less fettered by what I don’t know, and in general, happier with everything.

EXCEPT! The universe decided to hit me right away with a Very Bad Cold, which I was sick with for a lingering week and a half (not counting the four to five days afterwards when I most Mostly Better but Not Quite Well Yet). I would sit down at my computer, waiting for my brain to clear of fuzz, blowing my poor nose, and mentally beating myself up for all the time I was wasting NOT WORKING.

My schedule, MY SCHEDULE!!

I have all these awesome clients right now, and I am working on a great many really exciting projects. And when I got sick, well – I let some of them down. I was unable to design anything for days on end. All I could do was communicate, try to re-do my deadlines, and hope against hope that I was going to get better sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, summer colds being how they are, I got better later. Which meant that my previously fine-tuned project schedule (once similar to a smoothly-running four-lane expressway) now resembled the scene of a thirty-car pileup rammed up against a tipped-over semi truck that was t-boned through a guardrail.

Whine, whine, complain, complain!

And now this morning I woke up sick again. OH THE HUMANITY.

I tell you what – I love this time of year, but it’s becoming increasingly cruel to my health. I actually have allergy problems now, and I have never had them before this year. Woe is me, and so on.

Rambling on and on with no point

(I have the feeling that when I’m better and I re-read this post, I will be sorely tempted to delete it.)

It really doesn’t feel like my brain is firing on all cylinders today (how many cylinders does a brain have anyway? Two? Five? Eleventy-billion?), so you get a post full of RANDOM.

I Have Desk Woes

My desk here in the basement is awesome, but the table that is being the desk is a little sad. As in, the weight of the monitor, plus my hugely muscled arms (heh), has caused a slight bowing in the section of table that is in the middle. The part where I put my mouse. So my mouse is all skippy and confused, and occasionally refuses to do anything, which led me to believe it needed a new battery. I changed its battery twice (which only made it a little hyper), and still it was confused and obstinate. Until I realized the slight bendiness in the middle of my outdoor-table-slash-desk, and now I am trolling Craigslist looking for a used wooden desk that won’t get bendy in the middle.

All I Want To Eat Is Bad or Stupid

I keep getting the munchies during the day, and I can’t ever seem to think of something good to eat. Maybe I should, you know, go grocery shopping one of these days. For food. Because these yogurt-covered raisins are really NOT that satisfying.

Kids Are Coming Home Soon! EEEEEEK!!

Our two oldest kids are coming back home from vacation in mere DAYS, and their rooms look exactly the same as they did when they left. Except for Joey’s, because I had stripped all the sheets off his bed for some reason or other, and also I was going to do some light cleaning in both rooms – you know, dusting a little, sweeping the floors, washing sheets and blankets. Guess tomorrow is cleaning day!

Neverending Project of Neverending-ness

There is one project I have been working on for absolutely FOREVER – the older kids’ grandfather’s website. (It’s here, if you want to look at the lame-ish splash page I have going on so far.) It was a difficult project to get going, because he has absolutely NO preferences about what it looks like. Not only that, but he barely ever checks in, which has resulted in this project taking wayyyyy freaking longer than any other project I have ever done. I have the new design completed (FINALLY), and I’ve been slicing and coding, and it’s a VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE, and yet I CANNOT SEEM TO GET IT DONE. It’s like wading through molasses, people! I want this project DONE and off my plate.

Not To Worry, Everyone Else

All my other projects are living in awesomeland, however. I love all my clients (especially the ones who read my blog! Hi, guys!), I enjoy the work they need from me, and I always have satisfying work days. Except for the project-which-never-ends.

This Needs To Be The End

…I think I’m going to stop writing about how lame I am now. You’ll all stop believing that I’m actually superwoman! And we can’t have THAT.

Hey, what’s better than a list of resolutions for next year? A LIST OF THINGS I AM WHINGING ABOUT! Because we’re all about the grumpy here at the house of contradictions. Meh.

As you all know, I have been pregnant this year. And! I am still pregnant. I know you are all waiting, like me, for the new wee one to appear – and I have to confess that I am getting increasingly angsty about it even though I meant NOT to do that this time around. (Because, trust me, I have been angsty everysingletime I get to this point in pregnancy.)

However, what my evil pregnant body is doing to me is NOT nice and, in fact, makes me wish I could stab at it without actually hurting myself or the baby. And I am taking it personally. Which is why all the whining and so on.

List of things that are making me bummed out and/or grumpy:

1. False labor! OMG I HATE YOU FALSE LABOR. I have already had FAR MORE Braxton-Hicks contractions than in any other pregnancy, which I chalk up to having a more sensitive uterus. Or a whinier constitution perhaps? Now that I am this far along and have a larger uterus (obviously) at this point, these lovely ‘practice’ contractions are driving me up the effing wall. They hurt, they keep me from being able to get my own damn breakfast in the morning, and they sometimes feel enough like REAL ones that I time them. And then I have to bash myself in the face with my notebook because they are never, ever regular.
2. Pelvic pain! My darling wee baby has been head-down for weeks, and quite frankly, this makes everything hurty, all the time. Sleeping is uncomfortable because there is a baby head plus little baby hands and shoulders in my hip space. Walking is uncomfortable because, well, there is A BABY stuck down there in the ready-to-go position. Getting up from a sitting position makes me cry occasionally because OW DAMMIT – when I need to move myself, I move my pelvic bones, which makes everything shift and sometimes grind and OW DAMMIT. I’m just grateful it doesn’t hurt the baby, because then along with feeling sorry for myself I would have guilt. Heh.
3. Exhaustion! Sometimes, all I do is eat breakfast, without even leaving the bed (because my husband is awesome and is taking care of me in a superb way), and I’m exhausted and need a nap. Walking down the stairs is akin to taking a sleeping pill, and I’m lucky if taking a shower does not make me nearly comatose. When I do nap, I don’t usually wake rested, but hey – at least I got a short break from feeling so uncomfortable, right?

Holy crap, you know what, all this whining makes me feel … upset with myself. Time for a list of things that are NOT making me complain like a brat!

1. Troy is the best husband EVER! He has done the dishes and made the meals and toted laundry up and down the stairs every day for… I’m not sure exactly. All I know is that the moment I start to even LOOK like I feel bad, he makes me sit down and stop doing stuff – AND THEN HE DOES IT FOR ME. In the first place, it’s difficult to make me do anything that I don’t want to, and in the process of getting me to give up trying to do something and just SIT ALREADY, I usually end up having some tiny little crying fit and also need consoling. Then there is the fact that plenty of people will tell you to stop and take a break, but not many will get whatever it is you were doing DONE for you so that you have no reason at all to get up until you feel better. I have no good words to describe how completely wonderful he is, or how well he manages me when I am not behaving like myself (read: ACTING LIKE I AM PREGNANT).
2. My kids rock! This isn’t necessarily an easy transition – from mom who does stuff to mom who is basically useless, to mom with new baby (in the future) – and the kids are really doing the best they can. Actually, I think they’re lucking out in a way, because they’re learning how to do things I already was doing at their age, and that’s only because I am so do-it-all that I normally forget they should be doing various things for themselves, or at least having the opportunity to do them. Like washing a few dishes, vacuuming the floor, sweeping, wiping off the table, and being able to start the washing machine and put their load of laundry in by themselves. There’s no reason for 7 and 9 year olds not to have those kinds of basic household skills, especially when they both get angsty when they have ‘nothing to do’. The bonus for me is that more things get done, and the bonus for them is that they feel good about themselves for helping mom out. (EDIT: I totally forgot to add that Ian cleans up his spot at the table and can get his own napkin when it’s time to eat. AND HE IS POTTY TRAINED! Let’s hear it for things you can accomplish when you are three!)
3. The baby bag is packed! Until last week on Friday, all we had for Serenity was a lone package of onesies, some burp cloths, blankets, a car seat, diapers, wipes, and a sling. Since it’s kind of unacceptable to bring your newborn home improperly clothed IN THE WINTER, this was not good. Through the kindness of several family members, we now have enough for the wee one to wear for several months, unless she decides to be 13 pounds when she’s born or something ridiculous like that. And I can tell she’s not that big. I see her back and feet through my stomach far too often not to have a basic idea of how big she is. ;)

I had four or five contractions during the writing of this post, ate a bowl of cereal, and drank half a glass of water. Now I have to go and pee, so leave me some love, okay?

I am tired and… well, pregnant.  I have been having a lot of false labor lately and my body is just EXHAUSTED.

I’m keeping myself occupied with some web work, and I even opened an Etsy shop and put a few brand new headers up for sale (in the sidebar, see?).  But all I really want to do is take another nap.

There’s been no homeschooling this week, and I haven’t done much of anything.  However, this doesn’t mean the house is trashed, because my AWESOME husband has been doing lots of cleaning and cooking and convincing me to take naps.  Oh, and holding me while I’m crying over not being able to wash the dishes.

NOT BEING ABLE TO WASH DISHES.  Is making me sad.  Am I insane?!

I’m betting that two or three months from now, I’ll be smacking myself upside my own head for how silly I am.

He even rearranged the living room so that my favoritest comfiest chair, the one I can sit in all day without my rear end becoming excessively uncomfortable, is close to the fireplace – so that he can make me a fire when he’s home and keep my feet toasty warm.  It also happens to be right in front of the television AND right by an outlet, where my laptop is plugged in.  So I can sit there and pretend to be productive when I’m having a tired/weepy/exhausted sort of day, like I have been lately.

My midwife tells me that my ultrasound actually gave a date of January 16th.  For those of you playing along at home, that’s a whole week before my estimated date of January 23rd (or 22nd, or 24th, or whatever – it seems to exist in triplicate for some reason).  So right now, I could be either 33 weeks + 4 days, or 34 weeks + 4 days.  Or fifty weeks, like it FEELS like I am.

Who wants to place bets on how long it’ll take Serenity to show up?

(Previous details: I had Lissie six days before her due date; Joey was five days after his due date; Ian was four days before his due date.)