Happy-ish Thoughts and Other Things

So I'm sitting here bored out of my mind waiting for the right time to head out and go grocery shopping.  I hate when John gets paid in the middle of week.  It's always a pain in the butt to schedule shopping time to be done around the time John gets home from work.  Bringing groceries up the stairs is bad enough, but being 30 weeks pregnant and having someone inside you karate chopping your lungs on top of 104 degree heat...never a good time.   I'd have no problem going on Saturday if we wanted to eat Ramen Noodles and Cream of Mushroom Soup with a Cherrio Crumb Topping...needless to say it's pretty slim pickin's around here so today I must venture out into the grown up world to get shopping carts shoved up my butt because people at grocery stores are just rude.  And here I just thought it was a Detroit thing....along with their hurry up and honk at the red light attitude. 

In happy-ish news...I did have to have my 3 hour glucose test done because I barely failed my 1 hour.  I had it done almost a week ago and I have yet to get a phone call.  Having worked in a doctors office before, generally no news is good news.  Considering I got a phone call a few hours after my first go round I'm pretty sure everything is okie dokies on that front.   The test wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be.  Don't get me wrong sitting in the waiting room of the lab for 3 hours was no picnic.  But John was there since his SGT was feeling nice that day so he ended up getting a 3 day weekend out of my misery.  I was worried about having to eat no food for over 12 hours, get vials of blood stolen from me and then sent back on my merry way down the freeway for a half hour. 

And in even happier news.  I am 100% in love with being pregnant.  Minus the fact that if I'm on my feet too long my body hurts a little the next day, I'm pretty excited that I finally have an ass and hips!  I finally found where the 7 pounds I've gained have gone to!  Usually getting a fat ass would make most people sad, but considering for the last 26 years all my butt fat went to my boobs, I'm so happy to be evening out 13 years after puberty. 

Also my belly button is like the incredible shrinking pond, which when I think of it getting smaller for some reason I associate this cartoon from being a kid with it.  Poor fishies are gonna have no place to go!  I was really hoping to avoid the turkey thermometer belly button...but we'll see how that goes.  I know some people think they're so cute...I have an innie.  I like my innie.  I might even be a little freaked out if little bean ends up with an outtie.  

 

Well, now that I feel like I've sufficiently wasted enough time between the blog and blow drying my hair I guess I'll be heading out for the store.  Maybe I'll stop at some other places a long the way and drag it out.  But I'm pretty sure there's a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's calling my name for stop number one.  

The worst blogger in the world!

That would be me. 

I always start these things off with good intentions of following through and keeping little notes of what's going on in our world and it never happens as we can tell since the last time I posted anything here was March. 

I wish I could say that it's because my life is so awesome and busy and hectic and I don't know which way is up, but that clearly isn't the case.  

So for some mental notes for myself. 

April:   Nothing happened. 

May:

 

We learned that Kojo and Gatsby are going to have a little sister.   They're thrilled.  

 

June:  Still a whole lot not happening.   

 

July:   John had block leave for two weeks so for the first week  we went on vacation to Las Vegas.  My parents met us there and we also got to hang out with John's parents who came up for the week from Arizona as well.    I got laughed at for not looking pregnant.   

As of today being 29 weeks I have only gained 7 pounds, still fit into most pre pregnancy clothes, and just look like my normal chubby self.  I'm a little disappointed that I actually don't have a round baby belly and it's been discouraging to actually want to have maternity pictures taken since it would just like John and I standing there next to each other.  I'm hoping maybe by late August or early September things will start to change down there and I'll finally get to look pregnant.  

I'm hoping now that we're in the final stretch of this whole pregnancy thing that I'll start to update more frequently...well at least more than every 3-4 months!   Maybe if I start updating more I can actually keep up with all the changes they keep making to blogger.  Every time I get on here it looks totally different than last time and it takes me 10 minutes to figure out what I'm doing, so then I get frustrated and end up never updating in the end because I don't understand why they have to fix things that work perfectly fine.  

 So to end since I'm bored I think I shall post a few internet baby funnies because thanks to pinterest I have no life.  None.  

The last one makes me miss having a dog.  I can't wait to move into a house after the baby is born and eventually get a dog.  Even with the two cats, John and myself, our apartment still seems so empty without a big fluff monster to take over the couch, bed, and leave tumbleweeds of hair blowing around.  

My monthly posting

I never post on here, mostly because I am a hardcore facebook addict and my life is pretty much all on there.  There's not a whole lot of anything else to do around here.  As you can see from the view of our apartment balcony.  

We pretty much live in cow land.  Surprisingly enough it doesn't smell, but that could all change come the summer heat and humidity.  Then again it doesn't really matter because I plan on staying inside with the AC cranked up unless I waddle myself down to the pool to play 'beached whale.'   

Let's see...in the last month

We went to the Alamo.  

My parents came out to visit over St. Patrick's Day Weekend. 

And  we got our first sneak peak of Bean.  

In this picture, bean is all of 9 weeks and is about 2cm long.  

You can already see little arms and legs..and a giant head. 

So we've have a pretty busy and eventful last month.  Had a good time with my parents.  Went to San Antonio, saw the Alamo (wasn't at all what I expected.)  Very touristy area, across the street from the Alamo are a bunch of cheesy Ripley's Believe It Or Not museums and attractions.   We walked down to the San Antonio River a few blocks away.  The River was dyed green for St. Patrick's Day and we took a boat tour of the downtown area.  Did some shopping, John, the bean, and I all got very spoiled.  Bean received some very cute gender neutral duckies and giraffe outfits, some baby bath time stuff,  and mommy got a new diaper bag.  My parents also got us a house warming gift, so we are now the proud owners of patio furniture! My next appointment is April 5th, which can't get here soon enough.  My doctor is pretty awesome, John and I really like him.  We already have our 18 week ultrasound scheduled for May 9th, so we're looking forward to finding out Bean's gender.  I want a girl because they have way cuter clothes and John wants a boy because 'they're easier than girls.'  (He would know because he has so many children haha.)  Bean has been kind, I've had about zero morning sickness, and have only paid homage to the toilet once when I decided that eating 3457485743 lettuce wraps at the Chinese place we frequent was a good idea.  Bean is not a fan.  I'm hoping that changes because I do love me some Chinese food.

I kind of forgot about this thing....

I haven't really wrote anything since we've gotten here.  Everything has been pretty hetic with getting everything we need for our place and getting used to John's crazy schedule...so here's a recap of everything that's been going on since we got here.  

We arrived in Texas on November 3rd.

We moved into our apartment on November 19th.

We got our household goods....December 22nd.


For 34 days we slept on an air mattress.  An air mattress due to sharp little kitty claws wound up with 7 holes.  Super itty bitty tiny holes that had us waking up tacoed in the middle of our bed only two hours after falling asleep.  I have no idea how the neighbors downstairs didn't try to come up here and kill us at 2, 4, and 6 am when we would reinflate our mattress on the nights we couldn't find a hole.  We should have bought stock in super glue and tape because we went through a lot.  John became a patch master, and Kojo would continue to delight in poking holes and then batting the air as it would jet out in her face.


About an hour after opening boxes marked Master Bedroom, we found the smelly unwashed sheets from our bed, threw them back on and had the most relaxing sleep since November 3rd. (I'm pretty sure the place we stayed at previous to finding our apartment was haunted.)  Now the boxes have been non stop, our place is a disaster, but I could not be happier.  I never knew how much I could miss a toaster or a vacuum cleaner, but 34 days of no bagels and dirty carpet was 32 days too many. 

We bought a couch on December 18th, it finally got delivered January 15th.  I really think things move slower in Texas, except bills in the mail, those little bastards show up ultra quick.  

To add to my incredible sex appeal...I now have an inhaler.

John and I adopted another cat.  His name is Gatsby.  He's a goat/dog trapped in a cats body.  He loves feathers, paper, and bubble baths.


It's pretty boring being trapped at home during the day.  I cannot wait to have a second car and hit the open road again.  Starting to get some cabin fever going on.  Our first car is going to be paid off this month and hoping soon after to add a new vehicle to the family.  Yay Ford!  

Being stuck at home has made my sleep schedule all sorts of whacked out.  Half the time I'm getting to sleep right before John's alarm starts going off.   Then I take a short nap, wake up, do some things around our place, make dinner, start relaxing with John, and as soon as he falls asleep, I'm suddenly wide awake. 


Anways, I'm finishing this up at 5:30am.  Fell asleep last night at a decent time, John's alarm woke me up and I've been going since.  The sleepiness is starting to creep back in so I'm going to take advantage of it while it's here. 

Welcome to the Army...

If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me that, I wouldn't be so worried about getting quarters to do laundry. 

So when John and I got to Texas we decided to make a pact that no matter what happens we wouldn't take our crap out on each other because we were all we got. So instead of loading more crap onto him since I know he's stressed like crazy right now, I decided to vent some frustrations on facebook since I have a lot of other friends that are Army wives and have been there done that, and was trying to figure out how they handled the situations we're about to face..instead.... 

Apparently, I'm not allowed to complain about anything ever.  Because before I could get any such advice from anyone my family and people who think they know what John and I are going through jumped all over and used this as an opportunity to try and make my problems seem small.   I should be thankful for what I have because:

"A home is what you make it"
"Would you rather him not have a job?"
"You know, he could be deployed right now, you should be thankful."
or my all time favorite... "get over it."

Trust me, I'm very thankful my husband is not deployed, but what I said didn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with that.  So if that's the only thing people can say...I rather they wouldn't.

So in the spirit of welcome to the Army (which I'm not sure why I'm sharing because everyone on this planet who isn't in the army already knows what it's like to be in it, or be a spouse of a person in the military.)  I hate to alienate friends on this but just because you have a friend of a friend who served in the military and was over seas does not mean you put up with the red tape and had to watch every move you make as if you're 12 and asking if you can go hang out with your friends.  I'm 25...I don't need rules for the sake of having rules, if I'm old enough to drive, vote, and drink, live on my own, pay my bills, I do not need someone else to play mommy and daddy...I already have a mom and a dad...I don't need another one.  


So here is my welcome to the army story:

Upon coming to Fort Hood, we were instructed to not go near Rancier after dark.  One guy says he carries a gun in his glove box and still won't drive down there.  Apparently they have what some might call a little bit of a gang issue. All the apartments I could find online in Killeen were off of this street, and I was super not looking forward to being alone all day in the ghetto. So we waited a little longer for housing, in our crappy hole in the wall hotel, if you could even justify it being called that.   We had been told they usually almost always over estimate the time it takes to get a house, and most people I've talked to were put in a house in about 2, even 3 weeks at the most.  So in this shanty the ceiling fan was ready to fall off every time were turned it out, it was 85 degrees outside and there was no A/C.  For the first day we had no hot water.  For the next week we neighbors that blared their TV, the speaker phone on their cell so I could hear both sides of the convo through the wall, and 2 screaming children.  Everytime the guy burped I thought he was throwing up and it scared the hell out of the cat. 

So John begins his in processing.  2nd stop, housing.  "Oh you don't have any children?  Well it's about a 6 month wait for a house on post, here's a list of places to look off post.  You can also continue to stay in temporary housing, but we will only reimburse you for 10 days of your stay.  It can also end up taking longer because more people are scrambling for houses because people are coming back from Iraq and some units have even had to scrap plans for deployment, have a nice day."

So since John and I took precautions for the fist 5 years of our relationship and he didn't irresponsibly knock me up when I was 18, we're basically screwed out of getting a house because people who have kids need a house more than we do.  We started off at number 140 out of 240.  By the end of week one we were 146 out of 247.

I did the math and figured out with our car payment, cell phone, car insurance, our credit cards, plus our hotel bill.  We would be making -587 (yes, negative) a month if we continued to stay in the hotel.  This doesn't even include groceries, gas in our car, food for the cat, etc. 

So we did what any person with a brain would, we took in upon ourselves to go through the list of places they gave us at housing plus this nifty little apartment finder flyer that was in the laundry room of temporary housing.  So we let the googling commence.  Everytime we found a promising place we could afford, we google street mapped it...next to a creppy auto body shop, strip joint, or bar.

So then I found this place in the flyer we were given.  It was brand new with the first people just moving in back in June.  I wasn't even going to bother calling because the last apartment I had just got off the phone with wanted over 1200 a month.  (Granted it was furnished so we could stay there until a place on base opened up.)  But I called anyways.   Brand new, never lived in by anyone, almost 1100 square feet 2 bedroom 2 bath for less then our BAH and still have money left over for the utilities...the catch..John would have to commute a 30 minute drive.  None the less, knowing if we stayed another 2 weeks in temporary housing we'd be pretty close to flat broke (not to mention the army frowns upon being in debt) we went to look two days later, and then moved in the next day.  

So we spent all weekend making it at homey as possible with no furniture and an air mattress.  Almost got a kitchen table but it was too big to fit into our car, so that didn't end up happening. Thankfully we did jam some necessities into our car when we headed out from Michigan, so we have silverwear, dishes, pots and pans, cups, tv and xbox. 

We spent close to 500 dollars on groceries, cleaning stuff, toiletries and some extra bath towels so we wouldn't have to wash them every 2 days.  But seriously, when did wiping your ass become so damn expensive?  So we hung up our clothes, unpacked our undies, got the cable and internet hooked up and have been having a jolly time making the best of it...

Then comes Tuesday, where one guy in John's unit gets chewed out for living in the ghetto.  And then it's John's turn.  He gets yelled at for living too far away somewhere nice and safe so his wife isn't scared to be home alone all day.  Then after being held over late, they were instructed to bring a copy of their LES and get a haircut and get a PT belt all by tomorrow morning.  Luckily everyone has printers.....hahahahhahaha.  So after being told how much a belt cost, then going to pay for it and spending almost triple, then running to get a hair cut right as the place closed (even though he just had one 4 days ago tops) and then running to the one place there was supposedly a computer lab and finding that to be closed John did not have a great day...and did I mention he was only 3 1/2 hours late for dinner?  


/rant.  :o)
~~~

On another note the laundry room at this apartment complex totally sucks.  It's 1.50 to wash a load, then it's 1.50 to dry a load...and it only gets like half dry unless you dry like 3 things at a time.

Kitchen table vs Washer and Dryer...looks like we're going to be enjoying a few more dinners Asian style.