The one who made me a mother.

So I have been thinking all day about what to post tonight and I have been drawling a blank. Then I stopped by Song for Whoever and she had the meme up and I thought wow this is perfect since my first will be 5 on Sunday. So here it is if you would like to steal it be my guest.

Me and My First Baby

1. Were you married at the time? Yes, we celebrated our first anniversary in August and she was born in October.
2. What were your reactions when you found out you were pregnant? Excited, Scared, Nervous, Happy all in one
3. How old were you? 21 when I got pregnant, 22 when she was born
4. How did you find out you were pregnant? A pregnancy test because Dave insisted we get a pregnancy test after I had been sick for three mornings in a row. We had been trying for 7 months and I had gotten to the point where I didn't think it was going to happen.
5. Who did you tell first? Since we looked at the pregnancy test together we each called our moms to tell them the good news.
6. Did you want to find out the sex? Yes
7. Due date: October 12
8. Did you deliver early or late? Early
9. Did you have morning sickness? All day everyday for the first trimester. I was so sick I lost almost 10 pounds in my first trimester.
10. What did you crave? I never had any real cravings i just preferred salty things.
11. Who irritated you the most? a co-worker but I think she would have pregnant or not.
12. What was your first child’s sex? Female
13. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy? 32
14. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? I have scoliosis, and double curvature both in my lower back so being pregnant made it about a thousand times worse. As my pregnancy progressed I started having problems with my hips popping out of their sockets, thankfully they would go right back in. By the end I was very close to being placed on bed rest, but somehow managed to keep my doctor from doing that to me. One last minor complication I had was at 22 weeks a lady rear ended me and for whatever reason this sent me into pre-term labor and I had to be rushed to the hospital. They gave me some drug that I can't remember the name of and it stopped the contractions.
15. Where did you give birth? St. Ann's Hospital in Westerville,Ohio
16. How many hours were you in labor? I never fully went into labor with Emma. It did take about an hour for her to be born. See below if this doesn't make sense to you
17. Who drove you to the hospital? Dave
18. Who watched? Dave was the only one allowed in the room.
19. Was it vaginal or c-section? c-section. Exactly one hour after I entered the operation room they pulled Emma out by her feet. She was breech from 16 weeks on. Now having one that did go head first I can tell you that there is not a worse pain than your child slamming her heels into your pelvic bone. She dropped me to my knees a few times.
20. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? I had no choice but to get a spinal. Hello I was sliced from one side to the other. The spinal was the one thing I was scared about and it turned out for good reason. It took the guy three times to finally get my spinal correct. Each time he messed up I peed on the nurse holding me because they had pumped me full of four bags of fluid before the surgery and they wouldn't let me go pee one last time.
21. How much did your child weigh? 7lbs. 4oz.
22. What did you name him/her? Emma Mae. When I was in the 7th grade I had to do a Family tree and I discovered a Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother with the name Emma and I knew then and there if I ever had a daughter that would be her name. I was beyond pissed when Rachel (Jennifer Anistons character on friends) named her daughter Emma because I knew everyone and their brother would be using that name and I was so right. I did not let that keep me from using it though. Now the Mae was chosen by Dave and it was his Grandmothers middle name.
23. How old is your first born today? She is 5 days shy of being 5.

Since this post is all about Emma I thought I would share my favorite newborn picture of her.



My mom took this picture when Emma was about 5 days at home during one of her naps. I think she looks like an angle sleeping like that. She was such a good baby. She only cried when it was time to eat and even then it wasn't really a cry it was more of a little whimper. Who would have thought five years later she would be a motormouth.

Friend or Foe?

I try really hard not to bore you all with the ins and outs of my job, but something happened last Friday that I am struggling with. In the past it has helped me to write about my problems or thoughts here so bare with me on this one.

In case you don't remember or don't know I work for the State of Ohio Attorney General Office. It used to be a well respected state agency in Ohio that did good for the citizens of our Ohio. However this past spring there was a scandal that happened ultimately involving the Attorney General himself which wound up with our Governor and our state senate filling proceedings to have the AG impeached. Wisely the AG resigned before that went through. Now that leaves us with a temporary AG and an election in about a month. In our office all the supervisor,managers, chief's, and assistant attorneys' general serve at the pleasure of the Attorney General. This means they don't know if they will have jobs come January. So now that jobs could be on the line our upper management has decided they need to make all these changes and fix the things that were wrong in our office. The problem is they have no idea what really goes on so the changes they are making aren't really good ones.

One of these changes will greatly affect me. It will actually cause them to re figure my job duties. Currently as the Bookkeeping Account Representative my largest job duty is to work what we call the Error Sheets. When the collectors receive money it is scanned into an imaging machine for them to process. When they don't do this correctly it kicks out on the Error Sheet and since October of last year I am the only one that works these. For the past two years, maybe three, the focus for the collectors was quantity over quality making the Error Sheets very large. From the beginning I told my manager that it was a large amount of work for one person, before I was doing them all they were split between 8 people and they struggles to keep them current. I am no where near current, Actually as of today I am on the July 16 report.

A few weeks ago after many meetings, and complaints my supervisor was able to get one of what we call the Corners (Chiefs, Assistant chief, and Operations Manager) to realize something was going to have to change and these collectors needed to be held accountable for processing their checks. This lead to the decision that they would split the Error Sheets up by what staff processed the checks and give the Error Sheets to the supervisors to correct. Now it's absolutely great that I will be getting rid of them and gaining some different duties, what is not good is that to do this we have to give our supervisor the bookkeeping system to work the checks.

There is a reason that we have two different systems to process checks and that is so those of us in Bookkeeping can get our reports, pay our Outside Counsels & Third Party Collectors, as well as pay our clients the money they asked us to collect for them. So in giving the supervisors our system we give them the entire thing and one wrong move on their part could create complete caos for us. When I was informed of the decisson I voiced my concerns about this but the corners decided that it was not enough to change their minds. I could only say so much because it really isn't my decisson to make, I did however ask that the supervisor go through an extensive training to try and prevent any major mistakes being made. I'm sure some of you are thinking these people are superviors so why is that a problem but in our office supervisors don't know how to process the checks so this is going to take alot of work.

On Friday morning my Supervisor and I were called into our Managers office. I was informed that the project was going through and the Supervisors would have the system istalled on their computers by the end of the week. I was then asked by my Manager if I would help my Supervisor give the training. I said yes but I asked that once we had the materials together that we have the entire Bookkeeping Staff look at it and get their imput. My Manager agreed to this so my Supervisor went on to compile a list of the things we needed to dicuss and how we wanted the training to look.

Ok so I know the back story has been a little long but I felt it necessary to give you the full background on what has happened before I get into what has me so upset.

Everyday I eat lunch with the same ladies two of which also work in Bookkeeping. I consider these ladies to be good friends of mine. Friday one of them was eating with her husband so that left only one other. I was telling her about what the corners decided to do and her inital reaction was the same as mine, and she brought up every point that I had already dicussed with them. I told her this and that those were not good enough reasons for them not to do it. The next thing out of her mouth completly caught me off guard but she said to me and I quote " What are you anyway, A's (our supervisor) personal assistant?", I had no idea how to respond to this and I can only imagine what the look on my face was. Before I could collect my thoughts and respond she proceeded to say and I quote again "why are you the one giving the training when there are people on the staff that have been her alot longer than you like so and so, or myself?" At this point I got mad, I took those two comments together as a personal attack on me and what made it hurt even more was that it came from someone I thought was a friend. Now I'm not so sure if she really is a friend.

I have talked to some friends one that knows her, and one that doesn't and both of them said it sounded like she was jealous. The one that knows her also agreed this was not like her at all and they were very surprised by her comments. Part of me thinks that maybe this is a jealousy thing. See our current supervisor has only been in the position since March and when she has special prjects going on she goes to the person that it will affect the most for their help. Our old supervisor, who I loved, only went to two people with special projects which were this person and the other one she mentiond. Now I don't know what to do. Work was very uncofortable for me and I was very greatful for lunch plans previously made with another co-worker allowing me to not have to eat with this person. The problem is I can't avoid her forever and I just don't know what to do. Do I confront her about it, or do I act like nothing happen? Anyone have any good advice here?

Fat Lip

This morning when I woke up I was laying in bed and something just didn't feel right. I could tell that their was a pimple just under my bottom lip. I actually could feel that coming in yesterday but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

When I finally got out of bed and looked in the mirror I was shocked at what I saw. My bottom lip was so swollen that I really couldn't tell where my bottom lip started and stopped. the pimple I had felt coming in was also very large and it had come to a head so I was able to take care of him.

I tried to take some pictures of my lip so you all could see what the heck I'm talking about but they didn't turn out very good. So here is the best one I got.



Now if you notice on the right side (your right) my bottom lip is swollen and there is a pimple directly below it. I kind of think that the pimple is causing the swollen lip. It's hard to explain but there is no place on my lip that has a mark like a bite or a cold sore. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I took some Benadryl and the swelling went down some but not allot. I still look like a freak and I have to go to the grocery store as soon as the game is over so this should be fun.

Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

Another week has gone by and it's time for Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta.

This week I am taking you all back in time to the Fall of 1997.



This is a band picture of Dave and I in our Marching Band uniforms. This was Dave's senior year and my Junior year. Our show that year was The Mombo Kings and I think Dave had two maybe three solo's. I thought it was appropriate to share this after my Band Director from Hell story.

Now it's your turn to go straight over to Carrie's and share something with all of us.

Band Director from Hell!

In high school both Dave and I were in the Marching band. He played the Trombone and my first two years I played the flute and the last two I was in the Color Guard. Our band director was a women and her name was Mrs. Brown. She was a short skinny (back then) women but she acted like she was a giant. She was a very mean person and she didn't like me much because I would talk back to her.

For instance shortly after my Freshman year started I was dating a senior in the band. The guy was a loser and it didn't take me long to figure that out but before I did Mrs. Brown gathered all of us from the Freshman class to lecture us on how we were not allowed to date any seniors. This if course was not her decisson to make and she had no buisness saying anything to us and I let her know that. If my mom was ok with it then who cared what she thought. From that point on the battle was on and we spent the next four years hating each other.

Things were quit a bit differnt for Dave. For some reason that no one has been able to figure out Mrs. Brown loved Dave. From my first practice it was obvious that Dave could do whatever he wanted and she may tell him to stop but she would never yell or scream at him and most of the time she just plaine ignored any of the bad things he did. This also meant that one of the first rumors I heard as a Freshman was that Mrs. Brown and Dave Wilson were sleeping together.

A year and a half later Dave and I went on our first date. Shortly after that I remember asking Dave about that rumor to which he seemed really annoyed and completely disgusted. He had never slpet with her and said he never would because she was old and nasty! He also didn't know why she liked him and let him get away with things but he was no dummie about it and never said anything to her. A few weeks after we were offically boyfriend and girlfriend Mrs. Brown pulled Dave aside during his Jazz band class to talk to him about me. Someone had told her that we were dating and she didn't think that was such a good idea. She told Dave I was not a good person and no where near good enough for him. If you know any of the Wilson's then you know that they all share two of the same traits.

1. They don't like to be told what to do.

2. They have short tempers.

Both of these traits came out that day and Dave told Mrs. Brown that it was none of her busines who he did or didn't date and he could care less what she thought of me because he liked me. From the stories I've heard over the years from people that were there she didn't not like Dave yelling at her and it was a very awkward uncomfortable class that day. Even after that Dave was still her favorite student and I remained a pain in her butt.

About a month after Dave and I were married I was working in a jewlrey store in a local mall and Mrs. Brown came walking through. I noticed her and immediatly started walking towards the back of the store to hide out but she has seen me and came in anyway. She said she had seen our wedding announcemnet in the local paper and was very shocked by it. Stupid me had to ask her why she was shocked by it and that is when she told me that Dave and I were not meant for each other and she would be even more shocked if we weren't divorced with in 10 years. One of my co-workers was just around the corner in the back and had heard everything so she came out and asked for some assistance in the back. Thank god for her quick actions because I seriously was on the verge of hitting someone for the very first time in my life. I could not believe that this women would say something like that. She clearly is not a nice person and from what I hear Karama has come back to bite her in the butt.

Watch Your Step!?

My awesome MIL had the kids this past weekend which meant Dave and I could spend some time together. Saturday after the Buckeye game I went to the grocery store to restock my fridge with all the food we lost during the power outage and I got a few special things for our dinner. I made a great pasta dish with garlic bread and some great Merlot. When Dave walked in the door the table was set with lots of candles, our wedding china, and Frank Sinatra was playing through the sounds system. It was a nice very nice dinner but shortly after we were finished eating Dave informed me that he had talked to his uncle on his way home and told him we would go out to the bar with him to have a few drinks.

I was kind of bummed about this because I had planned for an evening in with just the two of us. After dinner was supposed to be a movie of my choice (Dave owed me) most likely a romantic comedy. I could tell Dave was wanting t go out so I sucked it up and we went to the bar.

Now Dave and I may be in our 20's but neither of us have ever liked the club scene. we prefer the whole in the wall type places where everybody know your name. Thankfully his uncle has a knack for finding the good whole in the walls. The one Saturday night was having Karaoke which is why I think Dave wanted to go. See Dave used to go out every Friday night with the guys and sometimes me to karaoke. He is really good at it and enjoys it. I had kind of forgot how much I enjoyed watching and listening to him.

We got to the bar around 9 and stayed until almost 1. I had a few drinks while we were there which of course meant I had to use the restroom. You can only hold it for so long before you eyes start to float and you have not choice. I hate going to the bathroom in bars because you never know what your going to find. I was surprised when I first walked in.

It was clean - check

There was no foul odor - check

The stall had toilet paper - check

death trap - check

Ok death trap may be a little harsh but let me show you the sign on the back of the stall door.



Now let me show you what that sign is referring to.



In case you can't tell that is a fairly large step to get in and out of the bathroom stall. To make it worse the door to that particular stall barley opens because the sink is right outside and there is a small trash can between the sink and the door. While I was hoovering over the toilet to pee I couldn't help but laugh because I started thinking about how many women have probably fallen down trying to get out. I mean really if you are drunk this is a death trap and I can't figure out why they would have designed their bathroom like that. As you can tell I also knew I had to share this with all of you and immediately pulled my camera out and snapped these pictures for you.



I also must show you all what I received in the mail today from Tabi at Tabi Rambles On.... See last week (or maybe it was the week before I can't remember) she had a contest to see who could guess the weight of her daughter and I won. The prize was a gift card to sonic to try the Java chiller. I was very surprise to find a small box from her on my porch when I got home. I was expecting a regular envelope with the gift card.



In the box was an awesome coffee mug, the gift card, and cute little card with a note. I took the picture so you all could see exactly what I got. Thanks Tabi I love it and I can't wait to go to Sonic!

Making History

That my friends is what happen today on the banks of the Olentangy!

For the first time in Ohio State history we started two true Freshman one as center (Brewster) and the other as Quarterback (Pryor) and we won.

The final score today against Troy was 28 - 10. For the first time this season I felt like the Buckeyes had that fire back that has been missing in the first 3 games. We still have a lot of work to do and areas to perfect but today was a good start.

Now I am going to share something with you that you may or may not believe but I swear its the truth. Over the last 6 years I have been able to predict regular season games as wins or looses and it hasn't failed yet. It's very simple really, if I have a good Friday we win. If I have a bad Friday we loose. I know, I know it sounds crazy but that's how it works.

Following tradition I will leave you with a video of the team and fans singing our alma mater Carmen Ohio after the win against Michigan in 2006.

Shhh, It's a secret!

I've been meaning to write about this all week but I've either forgot or had something else I needed to. So before I completely forget I am going to share it now.

There was one good, no great thing that happen during our 3 day power outage. It was Monday night and I was sitting on the floor in front of the couch (this was the kids bed for those few nights) trying to get the kids to go to bed. I thought I finally had them settled in and I had started to get up when Ian says to me in a loud whisper;

"Mommy I have a secret for you"

So I knelt down beside him and this is what he whispered in my ear;

"I love you!"

My heart instantly melted. Those words are the most rewarding words to hear my children say and for Ian to say them to me in that way brought tears to my eyes. It was the sweetest moment and I just had to share that.

Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

I can't believe it's finally Friday. This has been a very long rough week for me but it just got a 100 times better.

You see about 6 weeks ago my friend Lindsay had a purse party. The company is called chopstix and there is one lady that makes all the bags. You can purchase one she has already made or you can design your own.

First you have to pick the style of purse you want. Then you pick what length straps pr handles, next is the type of closer, and last you pick the fabric(s). the fabrics used are very sturdy and the insides are lined and padded to add extra strength.

I had just bought a new purse for my Birthday so I wasn't planning on purchasing one at the party until I saw it. She had a Buckeye purse. It was black with a red Block "O", Buckeye leaf, and a button that looked like a Buckeye. Of course it was over right there I had to have one of my own.



This is a little different than the one she had at the party. I got a tote style with longer straps. I also has her had the Scarlet and Gray ribbon around the top. Around here there are allot of Ohio State purses but most of them look cheesy or they are really expensive. This was perfect and I am so glad I finally have it. It will look super cute with my OSU polo on Saturday when we beat Troy! (I told you I would come out of my depressed funk and be back to loving the best team ever.)

Now it's your turn. Go over to Candid Carrie's right now and join the phun!

Why Bother?

I think I said this about a million times today.

Why did I even bother to come in?

For about 3 months now I have been experiencing problems printing images of checks at work. About 80% of my job requires me to be able to print these images. As time has gone on the problem has gotten worse to the point that every time I tried to print yesterday something was wrong with the printout.

My IT Help Desk finally decided to reimage my machine. Now normally when they have to reimage a machine they replace the computer. The whole process normally takes 30 to 45 minutes. They decided to do the main part after I left for the day.

When I got into work today they had reimaged but I still had my old computer. This concerned me a little but I logged in anyway. Unfortunately I didn't get very far because the program we use to clock in and out has not been reinstalled. The only thing that had been reinstalled was my Microsoft office. So I had email, and the Internet. There was an email waiting for me that said they did what they could and they would be up first thing to fix the rest.

I had a few meetings scheduled for this morning so this didn't bother me. At 10 when I finished my last meeting and got back to my desk I was expecting to find all my programs on my computer so I could get to work. This was not the case at all. I called my contact person in IT and she was had been told I had everything I needed to work which was a complete and total lie.

From that point on it was a nightmare. My contact person was running around trying to find someone from the Help Desk to stop and look at my computer so they could figure it out and fix it. About 2 hours later someone finally called and remote controlled to my computer reinstalled the programs I needed and said that after the signed off I could log back in and everything would be working. By then it was time for me to go to lunch. When I got back and logged in I got this strange message box saying that I did not have rights to install new hardware so I called my contact person back and she spent another couple of hours going back and forth with the Help Desk.

About 3:00 pm they finally figured out that the lady who reimaged me did it completely wrong and conveniently she was gone for the day. In the end they decided to come and actually reaplace my computer and install everything I needed. By 3:30 I had all my programs and I was going though them and adjusting all the settings so they would work they way I needed them to. I saved my main system for last because it's the hardest to reset. I typed my user name and password in only to be told that I did not have access to this program.

F'ing Great!!

I put another call into my contact person but she was either on break or had left for the day so I had to leave a message.

So the whole point of this story is I went to work for 8 hours today and did absolutely nothing at all. It was the most pointless day I have ever had there and I don't know why I even bothered!

Hurricane Ike & Ohio = DISASTER!

Let me just start this by saying I don't understand how anyone lives in areas that get hit by Hurricanes, and I really don't know how they stay in their houses instead of evacuating. I say this because Sunday us central Ohioans got a little taste of Hurricane Ike.

Apparently Ike went through Texas and Oklahoma and right into the jet stream which just happened to come right through Central Ohio.

It was sometime between 2 and 3 Sunday afternoon when the winds started to pick up but I just thought a storm was on it's way in. It had been cloudy off and on all day and they said we were supposed to get rain so no biggie. By 3:30 the wind was blowing so hard the kids were starting to get really scared and by 4 it was just nasty out. Dave left work early because they lost their power and he said there were tree limbs down all over the place and the winds were really bad.

A little after 5 we lost our power and the winds kept picking up. The trees in our yard were blowing all over the place and large branches were coming down. I was trying to clean up the dinner dishes when I heard this really loud BOOM. Unfortunately one of the old huge trees in our back yard snapped in half partially falling on the neighbors house and partially on our shed.



A few minutes later a large piece of our neighbors tree fell on our roof and another large chunk fell on their porch. This brought us out of our houses and Dave and the neighbor pulled them our into the yard.



No damage was done to our house but the neighbors lost their fire pit with that branch. At some point between the time Dave got home and when our trees started to fall a large tree along the road also fell blocking the street. This brought the power crews out to cut it up and move it out of the way enough for traffic to get through.



As a bunch of us were outside talking and snapping pictures when we started to smell smoke but it didn't smell like a house or building it just smelled like wood burning. the next thing we knew our yards were filling with the smoke from this fire.



By this time the wind was whipping around so hard that Emma couldn't stand up without someone holding her. I think it was at this point that Dave said the winds had to be close to 80 miles and hour which we later found out was very accurate, We decided then that staying in our house might not be the safest place with all the trees falling so we packed the kids up and headed over to our friend Joe's. Of course not before Dave had to track down the fire. It turned out to be a mulch plant about 2 miles from our house that somehow caught fire during the storm and the firefighters were able to get it out so they were just letting it burn.





We spent the next few hours at our friends house. Around 9 the winds finally died down so we headed home even though the power wasn't on. We let the kids sleep downstairs on the couch mainly because I did not want to carry them up the stairs and through their messy rooms in pitch black. I had every intention of going to work on Monday so I took a shower by candle light and used a flashlight to pack the kids bags and find an outfit for myself to wear.

That last part was not easy since all of my work clothes were in the washer in the middle of being washed when the power went out. Once I had everything together I set my phone alarm and went to bed.

About 5:30 Monday morning my phone rang and it was the babysitter calling to let me know their neighbors tree fell on both their cars so she wouldn't be babysitting in order to take care of all of that. I noticed when she called that the power still was not on so I reset my phone alarm to wake me up in enough time to call off work which is exactly what I did and what Dave did.

We spent all of Monday morning on a frantic search for ice because the radio was saying it may be 7 days before power was restored. It seems our power company sent a very large number of employees down to Texas to help so they didn't have the man power to get our problems fixed. After the fourth store we realized that we weren't going to find any ice and accepted the fact that all the groceries I had just purchased on Friday were going to go bad.

On our way back home we stopped and got some lunch from Wendy's. After we ate and relaxed for a little while we headed outside to clean up the yard as much as we could. I took that time to clean my flower beds for the fall and winter. I figured if I didn't do it now it wouldn't get done this fall (I'm really bad about that). Once the yard was done it was back inside where both the kids fell asleep for a few hours and Dave and I played Battleship and Scrabble. Then it was a quick dinner of Hamburgers on the grill so they wouldn't go bad. Once dinner was done it was off to Emma's gymnastics class that had it's power. That was a very nice change of pace but it didn't last long enough.

We were hoping to come home to power but that wasn't the case so it was more candles and an early bedtime. The babysitter had power back and the tree was moved so the kids went there today and Dave and I went to work. It was nice to be somewhere where I had access to the outside world other than the radio. It was a bit of a nightmare driving in though because the traffic lights were all out and people are morons. In case you don't know when the traffic lights are not working you treat it like a 4-way stop!

After work the kids and I went over to a friends house. We had planned this last week and since she had power and we didn't it worked out really well. Her husband fixed spaghetti and meatballs and we hung out and talked while filling out the Baby Shower invitations for our friend and the kids played. When I pulled up to the house tonight our front porch light was on and I thought I could cry. It was so nice to see the power back on and to know I could take a shower with light and watch some TV. One of our neighbors happen to be getting something from his car and he let me know that the power had come on about 5 minutes before I got home. I guess I had good timing.

Well there you have it my story of Hurricane Ike and it's destruction. Now I am off to shower and go to bed.

Emergency Notice

Sorry I was MIA yesterday but it may be a few more days like that because Ike decided to go through Texas and Oklahoma then into the jet stream which rolled right thru Central Ohio. So Sunday night we have 80 plus mile an hour winds come in that lasted for about 4 or so hours.

We have been without power since 5 pm Sunday evening and it is looking like it will be Thursday before it's back on.

Once we are back up in running I will have a nice post with lots of pictures for you all to enjoy.

Mourning

Yes I am in mourning and it may take a few days for me to come out of this funk.

I was not expecting the Bucks to win last night. Anyone who has seen them play this year and is being honest with themselves knows they hadn't been playing well enough for that to happen. Now I thought they would do a hell of allot better than they did. I was hoping they would put up some kind of fight. I mean after the second possession I actually had hope but that quickly diminished.

Some people may ask how someone who claims to be such a big fan can say these things and it's simple. I love and support my team win or lose, but I am also honest about it. We sucked butt last night. I HATE that we played so poorly and lost like that. I just hope that we can get past this loss and move on to finish our season with all wins.

Nerves

I am so nervous right now I could vomit. In 13 minutes my Buckeyes will take on #1 ranked USC.

Last week's game was not so good so that has me scared. We can not play like that at all, not even for a second if we want to win tonight. Then Beanie Wells is out with his foot injury which really sucks. He isn't the only running back we have but he is definitely a good one and will be missed.

So right now I am saying about a million different prayers, sitting in my chair, with my shirt, and my Buckeye necklace. The kids are also in their shirts and Emma has her Block "O" face tattoo. The best part about tonight it that Dave is here and gets to watch the game with us and of course he is in his newest shirt.

Ok it's getting to close so I am going to watch my game. I'm sure there will be tears I just hope they are the overjoyed kind.

Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

It's still Thursday but I'm writing my Friday Foto post anyway. As of right now no one has guessed What My Name is so I thought I would give you a little hint before I told you exactly what it is. If you didn't read today's post then go check it out first so this will make more sense.

Here is your hint;



Who is this a picture of? Well it's me as a baby. Really I was about 18 months old but that's close enough. Figure out what the nickname Carrie gave me is yet?



If not it's OK I am going to tell you. Drum roll please.......


BJ = Baby Jess

I must give props to Mom To Three Monkeyes for her guess of Buckeye Jess. That would completely fit me and I can't believe Carrie didn't think of that one. Although if Carrie had thought of it it would have been Bucky Jess because that's just how she rolls.

So thank you MC for the latest nickname, I love it.

Do you have a picture you want to share? Well then head on over to Candid Carries to share it and if your lucky she just might give you a new nickname.

What's My Name

I was named after my moms favorite Aunt Jessie. Unfortunately for me Jessica was the most popular name for girls in the 80's. In my kindergarten class I was one of 5 other Jessica's. So in order to be able to tell myself apart from all the other millions of Jessica's I took on a nickname. More accurately my mom gave me the nickname of her aunt. So for a while in school I was known as Jessie.

As I got older I took on more nicknames. Most of my elementary years my sister called me Jupiter Butt. Anyone who knows me knows that I never had a huge butt but since my sister didn't have one at all she thought mine was as big as Jupiter. Friends in school stopped calling me Jessie and stuck to just Jess. During the 80's my Aunt Pat always called me Jessie Sue and I have no idea where the Sue came from because it is not my middle name.

In middle school we moved from a small town to the capital city of our state which meant even more Jessica's because their were more people and most of them went by Jess. This created a problem when walking through the halls so my my best friend "B" started calling me "J". Soon my other friends picked up on it and for a while it was nice because I knew when someone was calling me. Around this same time I was given the book Little Women which I fell in love with and read about three times that year. After watching one of the movies with my sister she decided that I was just like Josephine and that became my new name at home. Of course Josephine was a bit long when Steph wanted to yell at me so it was eventually shortened to Jo. Those two names followed me through the rest of my school years. Well those and klutz.

While I was going to College I lived with my Aunt Pat and one day out of the blue she started calling me Jeznik. Of course my Uncle Ed picked up on this and they both still call me this. It was also during this time that everyone else in my life went back to calling me Jess, except my sister who still calls me Jo.

For the past nine years I have lived with the three nicknames of Jo (my favorite), Jess, and Jeznick. Then a few weeks ago my awesome friend Carrie gave me a new nickname. Well really it's two because the original name can be shortened and she has. The shortened nickname is BJ, now all you dirty people get your heads out of the gutters it doesn't stand for that.

So I have two questions for all of you.

1. What is the full nickname Carrie has given me?

2. Do you have a cool nickname?

Mini Me

As long as this isn't the first time you have read my blog you know that Emma looks exactly like me. Well she had more of me than just her looks.

She loves to do crafts.

Any kind of craft she loves it, coloring, painting, cutting, gluing, you name it she likes it.

For Emma's first birthday I had to make her invitations because the theme was raggedy Ann & Andy. That was her nursery and she loved the dolls so it just made sense for that to be the theme of her 1st birthday. Back then it was hard to find birthday invitations so I made them. Little did I know that would start a tradition of home made birthday invitations.

Each year since then Emma has picked her birthday theme and I have made the invitations to match that theme. This year she asked if she could make them herself. Now she can't write well enough to fill out the information so I said I would do that but she could do everything else.

On Saturday afternoon we went to the craft store in search of things to make Princess themed birthday invitations. Emma found some Disney Princess foam stickers and then she picked out some pastel pink invitations with matching envelopes. I also got a fuchsia pink gel pen and a lavender ink pad.

Tonight Emma and I sat down and made her invitations. I used the lavender ink and a your Invited stamp on the inside, then I wrote all the information in the fuchsia ink. The next step was for Emma to decided which stickers she wanted to use and where she wanted to put them. After a great deal of thought Emma decided to put one of the oval stickers with three of the princess's on the front and then on the inside of each invitation she put either a flower of a start sticker.

I took a few pictures but because of the light pink color of them they didn't turn out the great but I think you will get the idea.

Front

Inside

I think for a 4 year old's design they turned out very well and I'm really proud of Emma.

Our Soundtrack

This post is for my friend Em over at Adam, Hannah, Charlie, Austin, & Me. She is a huge music lover and wrote a post a while ago about how she will put music on and her and the kids will dance around the house.

Like Em and her family the kids and I do this quit often. The love music and they love to Dance just like I do. So tonight after their baths I turned the On Demand music channels on and we had a blast dancing and singing. Dave and I have always been the kind of people that listen to a bunch of different types and styles of music.

Tonight's selections were this;

Song of the South by Alabama

Dream Lover by Mariah Carey

Things that make you go Hmmm by C C & the Music Factory

Free Fallin by John Mayer

and the last selection before bedtime was

Don't Stop Belivin by Journey

As I am typing this Old Time of Rock and Roll by Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band has played and now Soul Man by The Blues Brothers is on.

I know this sounds like a strange set of songs to listen to but I think it's more fun when it's mixed up like this and the kids love all the different types of music.

So do any of you do this? If not and you are a music lover than I really suggest trying it. Whenever the kids are having a bad evening I can put music on and they straighten right up. When they are having a good evening the dancing and singing is so much more fun, just like tonight.

Playing Hookie

Right now I should be taking my first break at work, but I'm not at work today. I'm not really playing hookie either but that sounds so much cooler.

See I had a weird stomach bug yesterday and the headache that accompanied that decided to stick around. When my alarm went off and I still had it I decided that I was not going to suffer through work with it.

Now I still have a faint headache but I think it's finally starting to go away. Hopefully this means I will be able to enjoy this beautiful fall day since I missed out on yesterday's. My plan for today is to get my fall decorations out and put the summer ones away and I desperately need to go to the grocery store or we will be starving this week.

Well I had better get started or nothing will get done.

Vomit, Puke, Throw Up

Whatever you choose to call it, it's gross!

I hate it when I have to do it!

I feel horrible when Dave is going through it, even if it's his own fault for drinking to much.

I want to die when one of my kids has to do it.

I can NOT, and I mean this, I can NOT stand it when my dog does it.

I love Ginger to death and I don't want her to be sick but I can not find the sympathy for her when she vomits. Maybe it's because she only gets sick when she eats trash. I would probably vomit too if I ate trash. Just in case no there is not trash laying around my house. If anyone goes to the bathroom and forgets to close the door behind them when the leave Ginger will go in there and eat the trash. If she is feeling exceptionally frisky she will pee on my rungs too, she wont pee anywhere else in the house but there.

Anyway, Emma left the bathroom door open this evening and Ginger had a feast on some very disgusting trash. About 30 minutes later while she was sitting on my lap she starts making a funky sound that is the precursor to vomit. I quickly put her on the floor and it was just in the nick of time. From what I did see I don't think Ginger chewed any of the stuff she ate but instead swallowed it whole along with some of her actual food.

Of course I was the one that had to clean it up and it was so hard to do. I had to plug my nose and try really hard not to look at it because I knew I would have to clean up my own if I did. My kids can puke all over me numerous times and I wont even gag but a little dog vomit barley brings me down.

Since I am talking about Ms. Ginger I thought I would share a picture of her. So hear is the nasty trash eating vomiter (if this is a word I have probably spelled it wrong, if not it's a word now)

Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

Earlier this week I had a plan for what today's post would say and what kind of picture would be featured. That plan will not work, see Emma had her first Gymnastics's class on Wednesday and I was going to talk about that and share a picture of her during class. Well, there was a big sign in the sitting area at the gym that said No Flash Photography and my camera is fairly new which means I didn't know how to turn the auto flash off and spent most of the class trying to figure that out with no success.

So Wednesday night I started thinking about what the heck I was going to do for my picture. I tossed around the idea of a few things but I wasn't loving anything. Then it happened, my kids did something that I just have to share with you.



This is the floor in Emma's room between her bookshelf and bed. When I put her to bed Wednesday night the only thing on her floor there was her Little Mermaid Polly Pocket play set and a few of the Polly Pocket dolls. When I went to get her up Thursday morning this is what was there. I know that this mess was not made while Dave and I were still up because we would have heard it. What makes this even better is that Dave and I did not go to bed Wednesday night until almost 12:30 because we stayed up to watch the Sarah Palin speech and some of the reactions after. So this means that sometime between 1:00 am and 5:45am Thursday morning one or both of my kids woke and decided to make a complete mess! Of course neither of them will fess up or even blame the other so I honestly have no clue who it was which is why they both had to clean it up, but not before I got a picture of course.

Do you have a picture like this that you want to share? Do you have a picture of any kind you want to share? Well then you need to head straight over to Candid Carrie's and join the phun, phun, phun!

Lost Friends: Part 2

Part 1

The next week when I came back to school things seemed fine, until 4th period. That's when Shanna (someone I hated with a passion back then but now is one of my best friends) asked me how I was able to even look at "B". Of course I was very confused and I asked her why I wouldn't talk to "B", so she told me everything that was going around the school about Dave and I.

At first I was in total shock and was sure Shanna must be lying to me. So I asked someone who was supposed to be my friend if this was true and she said yes. I really don't know why any of my friends didn't tell me about this and to this day that really hurts me. Some of them latter told me they believed her until I talked to them and they really thought about things they had seen and things they hadn’t seen.

I don’t think pissed even begins to describe how I felt then. I am pretty sure my blood was boiling and all I wanted to do was find her and beat the living day lights out of her. Of course she left school early that day so I had to wait until the next morning to confront her. Which I did first thing before school started. In true “B” fashion she first tried to deny it but she quickly figured out I wasn’t going to buy that so then she started rambling on with one excuse after another which made me more mad. It got to the point where I was screaming at her with my face almost toughing hers. That’s when a few friends of mine pulled me away. It’s a good thing because I really don’t know what I would have done next.

By then the truth had gotten around the school and people were finding out how she had lied about everything. There was also another rumor going around that she was trying to become a witch. It actually was true because her mom had called me to find out why “B” was researching How to become a Witch. I’m sure you can all imagine the kinds of things people were saying about her, myself included.

I figured after that morning everything was done and over with. I didn’t want to ever speak to her again and everyone knew she was a liar and what she had said wasn’t true. I was wrong though. At some point after school that day “B” drove to my mom’s work and told her that Dave and I were having sex. My mom came home early that evening and she was not happy with me at all. Of course I could have cared less what she thought and I even called her a hypocrite because back then I thought I was born out of wedlock which was the excuses she was using as to why I shouldn’t be having sex. I actually threw that back in my mom’s face. I really could not believe that “B” had gone to my mom and told her about Dave and me. This of course just fueled my fire and pissed me off even more.

That year at school I was working in the Guidance office and the secretary was so nice and really cool. She had heard about everything from other students and had told my counselor what was going on. I think they were all worried I was going to beat the living daylights out of “B”. So before that happened they stepped in and asked him I wanted to have “B” called to the office where I could confront her with supervision. I decided this was a good idea because I really wanted answers as to why. I had pretty much figured it out but I wanted her to say it. So they called her in and we spent the next 2 hours yelling at each other. It finally resulted in her admitting she was jealous that I was doing things with Dave and she wanted to get back at me for this.

I was glad to have her admit the truth and to tell me why she had said all those hurtful things but it didn’t really make me feel better. I had still lost a friend, someone I had shared so much with over the years and that really hurt. At that point there was no way I could forgive her because I was too hurt by her. Even now almost 10 years latter it still hurts to think about what she did and said back then. I have forgiven her for it, but I could never be friends with her again. I do find myself wondering about her from time to time. For a long time I used to see old friends and they would tell me things they had heard about her. I even saw her once on TV after she had given birth to a baby, but it has been a long time since I have heard anything. I do hope that she is happy wherever she is.

Lost Friends

This past weekend was Dave's 10 year class reunion. He was not made aware of it until a few days before and decided that he didn't want to go for a number of reasons. Him having his reunion means that mine will be next year at this time. Whenever I think about my High School Class I can't help but think about my ex-best friend “B” and the horrible rumor she spread about Dave and me.

"B" and I met on the school bus during our 7th grade year. She lived in my neighborhood but up until the 7th grade she had attended Private school. It didn't take long for us to become very good friends and then BFF's. We did just about everything together. As we got older "B" becomes very involved with a guy and I became someone to do something with when he was busy. That was not an easy thing to deal with but I did. Things got harder when "B" started cheating on this guy because their relationship was never a good one. I would probably describe it as a Love/Hate relationship. I think the only good thing that those two did together was set Dave and I up, other than that it was mostly lots of fights.

Once Dave and I started dating I was not available whenever she wanted me to be and we started fighting allot. We spent a few months not speaking to each other at all because of it. We eventually fixed things between us but it was never the same. Most of the time I felt like I tried and tried to do things with her and talk to her but there was always a guy that was more important than me. After a couple of years of this I finally gave up. I slowly stopped asking her to do things, then I stopped calling just to talk, and when she would call me I was usually doing something else with other friends or Dave.

Our senior year things got really rough for "B" their weren't as many guys for her to mess around with because she had gotten the reputation for being a bit of a skank. Most girls hated her because she had either messed around with their boyfriend or they were scared she was going to so she didn’t have many girlfriends. I think this made her lonely so she started calling me more and more but I had moved on and I was busy doing other things.

When I was younger I had allot of problems with Strep Throat and it would usually put me down for about a week. During one of these spells our senior year "B" decided to spread a rumor through the entire school that Dave was abusive to me and that all of my “accidents” weren’t really accidents. “B” used a bunch of different examples of how he was abusive but the only one I remember was that he drug me down my stairs by my hair. I guess this wasn’t extreme enough or even hurtful enough for her because she also told everyone that Dave was forcing me to have sex with him.

Now anyone that truly knows me or Dave would know that this wasn’t true at all. First off I was not the type of girl to take crap from anyone, I’m still not. Second there is the fact that while Dave has a temper he would never hit a woman. Third, I was the biggest klutz on the face of the earth and most of my injuries happened when I had at least one witness if not more. Fourth, I was the one that decided when Dave and I had sex. Dave and I had talked about it a few times but he always told me that it was up to me when and if we did it. Unfortunately for me people believed her and by the time I got back to school everyone had heard this nasty rumor.

To smart for her own britches

This is how my Grandma would describe Emma and I would have to agree. Here's why;

One day last week Emma was sitting on the counter in the kitchen and I was standing in front of her. She was looking me in the eyes and she could see her reflection in my pupils. I was surprised when she told me she could see herself in my pupils because I didn't know she knew what a pupil was. Emma then proceeds to tell me that when it's light out your pupils are small but when it's dark they get bigger. That brought on complete shock because Dave and I have never talked about pupils. I asked her where she learned that and of course she has no clue. Actually her exact answer was "I don't know I just learned it myself".

This brings us to yesterday morning. Dave and I were watching Fox News coverage of Hurricane Gustav. Emma was sitting on Dave's lap asking him questions about Hurricane's when she informs us that she knows how rain works. Of course Dave and I were very curious to hear her description of this thinking it would be something like God's tears. What we heard was, when there are puddles on the ground they turn into vapor and float to the sky. When they get to heavy it falls back down as rain drops unless it's cold then it comes down as snowflakes. Clearly Dave and I were not expecting this answer from her and we were silent for a few moments.

The only thing I could say was "and she can't start Kindergarten why?" I really would like an answer to this because it makes no sense. She can't tie her shoes so she can't start school even though she knows what rain is. Does this seem utterly stupid to anyone else?