preparing me for motherhood

Normally, Porter, aka Doodles, will sleep in my comfy chair. A big chair-and-a-half with an equally large ottoman. I wake up in the morning, and invariably, he's asleep in my chair. Which is fine. Because he's asleep & not bothering me. And he's never been one to sleep in our bed. He'll take a little time-out in mom & Mike's bed, but he rarely sleeps in ours. Although, there was that one time we couldn't find him and he was in our bed, surrounded by a pile of clean laundry, with a pair of my underwear wrapped around his neck. Not quite sure how he managed that, but whatever.

Then last night I heard him click-clicking down the hallway (I am a very light sleeper when it comes to pets causing a raucous in the middle of the night) & I fully expected him to nudge his nose into my face to be let out. Instead, he plopped down on the floor at the foot of the bed. So I go back to sleep. Until he decides to hop into bed. And do circles until he finds just the right spot. But, wait! It's not the right spot! So he must get up, do some more circles, and then plop down again. And these aren't dainty little plops, mind you. And then get up, do some more circles, and then lay down halfway across my body with his back-end way too close to my head.

And then our bed clearly wasn't good enough for him, feather bed & all, because he got up & continued to pace back & forth from our room to the living room FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Needless to say, I did not get a good nights sleep. I wish I knew why our perfectly good furniture is all of a sudden not good enough for our DOG to sleep in.


Oh, Doodles, it's a good thing you're so damn cute.....




PS ~ Adam & I both told our co-workers about Porter's strange activity, and consensus seems to be that we had a bear in our yard.

a thank you

If I had a lovely picture that expresses my gratitude, I would, but I'm at work & just really wanted to get this out ~ THANK YOU! Thank you to my mom, to Jerusalem, to Jeanetta, to Melissa for all your encouragement & support. And to Tanya, who was on the phone with me for 2 hours last night while she talked me down from my metaphorical ledge. She saved me, and helped me to see things in a new perspective. I feel like I am seeing more clearly today than I have in a long time, or at least since I became pregnant. There's no way I could get through this without the help of my wonderful friends ~ even Melissa, who may be a total stranger, but who has been so sweet with her comments. While I don't want to be a drain on my family & friends, it's nice to know that when I need help, all I have to do is ask.

finally some good news

I've not been posting much because frankly, I've been feeling pretty crummy emotionally & didn't want to throw my bad vibes out into the world. Not that all of you wonderful ladies wouldn't be completely understanding, but still. Aside from my ultrasound last week, which I still need to post about, nothing, and I mean nothing, is going right in my life. It's so sad that I can't even be happy about this pregnancy. I even say "this pregnancy", like I haven't claimed it as my own. I don't care about planning, I don't care about nesting, I'm doing what I have to do & that's about it. Very unlike me. But today, something good happened.

In 2000, I had unofficially graduated college with my Bachelors in Business Administration with an Accounting emphasis. I was supposed to, and fully intended to, finish up my last two classes that summer. Can you tell where I'm going with this? Six years later, Adam & I were at a going away party for our friend Kenn, who was setting out to ride his bicycle across the country ~ from Alaska to New England. At his party, he asked what all of our goals were for the upcoming year. Mine was to finish up those last 2 classes. It had been such a burden to me; my parents had rightfully assumed I had finished so I felt like a total liar & a fraud for all those years. Caught in my lie, I had fessed up to my mom, who then encouraged me for the next couple years to finish what I had started. I had spent several hundred dollars over the years on correspondence classes, but didn't have the motivation to do them.

After saying my goal out loud to Kenn, and determined to actually complete a goal I had set for myself, I registered for Statistics that Fall Semester, and then a Human Resources class in the Spring. That year, school took over my life. Not counting my actual class time 3 days a week, I had reading & studying to do 4 out of 5 weeknights. It seemed I always had a book on my lap. But, I finished them, and with strong grades. Satisfied with myself, I put off putting in my graduation application until the next fall, where I learned 2 things: 1. that in order to apply for graduation, I had to be enrolled in at least one class, and that 2. since I had been out of school for more than 2 years, I had reverted to the current course catalog which now meant I had several more classes to take to satisfy my degree requirements. As if my 123 credit hours weren't enough!

Again, I put off taking care of my business until now. I printed off a petition form from the university's website, and sent an e-mail to my advisor (not my original advisor, the one assigned to me during that last year) kindly requesting that he write a letter on my behalf since he neglected to perform a degree audit for me knowing that I was of the belief that these were my last 2 classes I needed to graduate. That was last week, and I was starting to get a bit miffed that I hadn't heard back from him. Today, just moments ago, he called saying he performed a degree audit, & that with my 123 credits, I had satisfied my degree requirements under my original course catalog. He was sending my paperwork "upstairs", so now my only hurdle is whether or not I'll have to take one more class in order to actually submit my graduation application. If so, they offer 1 credit computer courses that only run for 5 weeks or so instead of the whole semester, and I think I can stomach that. Not that I'd be happy about it, but it's my own fault for not submitting my graduation application on time.

So, while not as monumental as my baby's first photo, it's a pretty huge deal to me. And hopefully, within the next few months, I'll finally have that piece of paper that proves I worked my ass off for 5 years.