The day has started off very slow. But I got the Thanksgiving grocery shopping done. 🙂 The grocery store becomes scarier the closer to Thanksgiving it gets.

I discovered that Johnny Depp’s daughter’s name is Lily-Rose which is the name we want to give our daughter without the hyphen. I was a little sad about that, but I guess it’s a fairly obvious name. Matt and I still really like the name, so we’re still going to name her that regardless of the fact that Johnny Depp has beat us to the punch.

But then I started wondering how many Lily Roses were out there, so I Googled the name. While surfing the pages, I ran across camwhores.com because there is a “cam whore” at lily-rose.net apparently. Well, camwhores.com is a very interesting site. I mean, sure, you can look at it from a strictly porn point-of-view which I am sure most men do when they surf the site. But I was fascinated by the women! There were the women who were obviously doing the cam thing for money, and I didn’t find them as interesting. Well, maybe I’m being unfair. I’ve never met anyone who has made money by using her body… well, that’s not strictly true either. I have met several strippers in my life. But the strippers I’ve met were all emotionally unstable. I’m not saying that all strippers are emotionally unstable, but the ones that I’ve met have been. And it made me feel sorry for them. They were wild creatures with an undercurrent of unhappiness.

Anyways, I digress. The women that I was curious about were the women who didn’t take off their clothes and didn’t have “Member Site Only” written beneath their link. They were exhibitionists obviously, but in a very different sense than the women who were exposing their body and doing it for money. I bet they would be fascinating to talk to.

I’m a bit envious of women who are so open like that because I am so shy. When I was younger, and even quite a bit to this day but not as badly, I have always been a wallflower– willfully fading into the background, afraid to be noticed. So when I see these women showing themselves to the world on their webcams, I wish I could be a bit more like that. Not to that extreme of course, but I would like to be less self-conscious and self-deprecating.

I have work to do. *sigh* Cooking, dusting, cleaning the Macquarium. I was procrastinating with my Live Journal entry, but now I’m finished. Maybe if I have a movie going in the background it won’t seem so tedious. Off to housework…

I’m really really tired. Deb and Lindsey came into town and we worked on the baby’s room all weekend. It’s beautiful. And it’s now 75% ready for the new arrival. We painted it, decorated it, and set up the baby furniture.

And now I’m exhausted. I can’t believe how much Deb and Bruce are doing for Matt and I. Deb worked hard all weekend on our baby room, and now she is helping me organize a baby shower. I don’t like giving parties. I always worry about people having a good time at a party that I throw. But Deb and Sonia both keep asking about a shower, and, the truth is, I want to do whole “baby experience.” And you really only have a shower with your first baby, so if I skip it, I’ll miss that part of being pregnant.

But people have done soooooooo much for us already. They have given us so much. And a shower is about more gifts to the parents to offset the cost of a new baby. But we’ve already been given so many gifts and so much love from our family and friends. It feels selfish to have a shower.

And we didn’t throw a shower for Carla when she was pregnant with Logan — and that makes me feel very guilty. 🙁 Carla’s pregnancy didn’t receive nearly as much attention as Shelly’s pregnancy, and I thought that was because Shelly had the first grand-baby in the family and everyone was so excited about that. I thought my pregnancy would be much like Carla’s: kind of overlooked because the first grandchild had already been born. But I’m receiving lots of attention and lots of gifts, and I’m feeling very guilty about it. Or maybe Carla received more attention than I noticed. I may have been in my own little world while Carla was pregnant and not noticed what was going on with her. I haven’t talked to Carla about any of this because I’m feeling very self-conscious. It’s difficult sometimes to be the center of so much attention… difficult in a very pleasant way because I feel so loved, but still a bit difficult.

I have a hard time writing boring stuff in my Live Journal. Usually, entries like this one only go in my private journal simply because they seem so mundane and uninteresting. I find that my journal entries are becoming more and more boring. One writes about what is on one’s mind, and of course I’m completely thinking of baby stuff. I mean, she’ll be here in about six weeks! But, geez, must it be boring to read!!

I’m going into the next stage of my life. I’m settling down. I’m about to have a child and all I want to do is keep my house warm and inviting for my husband and my baby, learn how to sew and cook, settle into a comfortable, happy routine. You know, really boring stuff. Well, not boring to me, but boring to outsiders. My conversation will be boring, my lifestyle will be boring. I will be as happy as a cat asleep in the warm sun, but I will not be nearly as interesting.

It’s hard to change. Even when you want the change, it still hurts a little on the inside. Goodbye, my hip young self. Hello, middle-aged mom.

I think I’ll like this stage though — I think I’ll like it a lot.

And my mom is coming to stay with me for two months after the baby is born. I’m so glad she’ll be here. Matt will be here to help me, but Mom has so much more experience with babies. I feel very alone during the day sometimes when Matt is at work and it’s just me and the dogs here at the house, and feeling alone and nervous with a newborn child was not something I was looking forward to. But now I’ll have my mom with me. I won’t be alone and Lily will have a much more experienced woman helping to look after her.

Gosh, it’s late. Matt and I meant to go to bed early tonight because we were so tired from the weekend (tired in a good way — the baby’s room really is beautiful). But then Matt’s boss phoned and he had to fix a problem with the database.

So much changing…. I’m very nervous and very excited….

We have to think of a really nice way to thank Deb and Bruce for everything they have done for us.

I talked to my obstetrician for a long time about all my worries. I feel much more comfortable with her now. Since my pregnancy is classified as “high risk,” I will see her once a week until the delivery and Lily will be getting a biophysical profile once a week to make sure she is alright. Also, all my appointments are now with my obstetrician and not her nurses.

And I have a crush on my hematologist. I always feel awkward when I develop a crush on someone because I’m a married woman. Not that I would ever do anything with another man as I am extremely in love with my husband. My husband is perfect in every way, and I’m not just saying that — he really is an amazing man. But I always find it strange that I can develop a crush on another man even when I’m happily married. My hematologist is kind, gentle, cute and smart. These are all the same reasons I first developed a crush on Matt when I first met him — he was (and still is) kind, gentle, cute and smart.

So anyways, if a married woman happens to stumble across this entry and she is feeling like a bad wife because she has a crush on someone other than her husband, apparently it’s just nature. I love my husband and I’ll never cheat on him or leave him, but I still develop crushes on other men on occasion. Go figure. I have also discovered in my three and a half years of marriage that the crushes eventually go away, but the love you carry for your husband deepens with time. So, the crushes in the end are only slightly embarrassing and inconvenient, nothing that is really trouble.

I wonder if Matt has had a crush on any other women since we have been married. Of course, he will never admit it to me because I have a history of jealousy. When we were dating, my jealousy was legendary and scary. But when we got married, it really mellowed out. I think the jealousy was just a function of fear of losing him. Then, after we were married and I felt secure in our relationship, the fear — and therefore the jealousy — abated.

I’ve been in a go-go-go mood lately. I don’t know if it is all the Prednisone as steroids give you a ton of energy or if I am entering the nesting stage of pregnancy. Either way, I want to use this energy and motivation to “complete” the house. By complete, I mean unpack the rest of the boxes from the move, steam clean the carpets and couches, clear off the hard drive on my computer (it’s amazing how much junk will pile up in a hard drive), get household routines set up so that when the baby gets here things will run a bit smoother, finish putting contact paper down in the kitchen and bathroom cabinets…. you know, normal nesting stuff. I saw a film by the Monks of New Skete who raise beautiful German Shepherds. This one female German Shepherd was just about to have her babies, and she went into a flurry of activity getting her birthing area ready to have the puppies. That’s what I think of while I’m in this stage — I’m just like that German Shepherd getting my birthing area ready for my child. 🙂

I’m glad I’m feeling better. Sadness and depression are so hard to deal with. They sap the energy right out of your body, and you’re left huddled in a corner of your room nursing an internal invisible wound. It’s very annoying. I hate being incapacitated, and that’s pretty much what sadness does — it makes you sick and you’re stuck in bed; you may as well have the flu. Yuch.

Carla’s birthday is on Monday. I want to get her a really nice gift — you know, something that she really wants. Maybe I should ask Steve…

My body is not handling this pregnancy at all well. I have been on prednisone (a steroid) for five months now because of ITP (low platelets). My hematologist just had to raise my prednisone dosage to 80mg again because my platelet count fell below 30,000. A normal person has a platelet count between 150,000 and 300,000.

But now I have prednisone-induced diabetes. Prednisone commands your body to create glucose and to dump it into your blood. Pregnancy creates hormones that block your insulin. So I have a ton of glucose being dumped into my bloodstream because of the prednisone, and my insulin is not working very well because of the pregnancy. All carbs turn into sugar in the blood. So I am basically on a low-carb diet… an extremely low-carb diet. I can’t eat any carbs at all during the day as that is when my blood sugar spikes all on its own because of the prednisone. And I can eat very very few carbs for breakfast and dinner.

Well, milk and yogurt both contain carbs. And my pre-natal vitamin does not contain calcium because it does contain iron, and the body doesn’t absorb iron as well if it is taken with calcium. So, now because of this crazy low-carb diet, I am calcium deficient and losing weight. In fact, I am 30 weeks pregnant and I have not gained a single pound… not a single pound. I weigh exactly the same as I did when I first found out I was pregnant.

I asked my dietitian for a calcium supplement, so now I am taking a calcium supplement to deal with that problem.

And I don’t like my obstetrician. I’m so tired. I don’t mean physically tired, I mean mentally tired. It’s hard to keep up this diet. It’s extremely difficult to eat hardly any carbs at all. And I get so hungry, and my diet is so extremely restricted. And prednisone is so hard on the body, and I’m on a pretty intense dosage. And I’ve been battling ITP since I was told I had it at 15 weeks. And now I’m losing weight. I’m in my third trimester and I’m losing weight. 🙁

So all this is going on, and my obstetrician has only seen me once this whole time. I am due in two months and my obstetrician has only seen me once during the entire pregnancy. She has no idea who I am and I have no relationship with her. I meet with her nurses all the time for my check-ups.

I’m so unhappy. I’m so weak… mentally weak… hard to stay upbeat… hard not to cry. I’m hungry but I can’t eat anything but salads and meat. I can’t just go have a banana and a glass of milk for a snack. I have to eat something with no carbs. And my platelets keep falling. And my obstetrician is crap.

I’m going to try to switch obstetricians tomorrow. I really like my hematologist and maternal fetal medicine doctors, so I want to continue seeing them.

I thought pregnancy would be fun. And it was fun. I was dealing with the ITP just fine. But then diabetes, then losing weight, then the realization that my obstetrician is crap. Why can’t I be happy? Lily seems to be doing fine.

I think it’s because so many things are going wrong with my body during this pregnancy, and I feel alone because my obstetrician sucks. I don’t have a doctor to hold my hand and tell me that everything will be alright. And the problems just keep piling up. And I’m hungry. 🙁

So very sad… I don’t want to waste this joyous time while I’m pregnant on sadness but I am having a hard time shaking it. Maybe when I change obstetricians things will start looking up.

I haven’t updated in awhile. Matt’s parents were here for two weeks, and everything was put on hold while they were here and we spent all of our time with them. It’s nice to see Matt glow when his family visits. He loves them so much.

And now I’m so tired all the time. So tired and unmotivated. I hate it when I get like that. I have dreams, man!! Unmotivated people never realize their dreams.

Thomas and his friend, Sarah, came over for dinner last night. And Sarah called wikipedia “wacky-pedia.” I really like that… because it is a wacky little thing.

Also, Matt and I have decided to quit surfing for online porn. We’re not big porn trollers to begin with, but every now and then we’ll see a link and think, “Hm, that sounds fun.” But every time–every time–the surfing will lead to some really sick picture. Matt retired from online porn surfing several months ago when his random surfing led him to a picture of underage porn. He said the link had no warning to it, and he was taken completely by surprise. And then his fun surfing became a mixture of disgust and sadness– two feelings that you aren’t really looking for when you are surfing for porn.

And then I joined the ranks of retired online porn surfers today when my random surfing led to a very gross picture of necrophilia. It was awful. And it started out so fun. And then you feel so disgusted and worried about the condition of the human race when you hit a picture like that. And it seems that you always hit a picture like that.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t surf for pictures of consenting adults enjoying normal, healthy sex. But you have to take the good with the bad on the internet. I’ll have to get my porn the traditional way again.

Speaking of traditional ways to get porn, Thomas was making a joke about that last night. Matt was saying that our cable modem connection was really slow in this neighborhood, and we were joking about all the teenagers in the neighborhood surreptitiously downloading porn and hogging all the bandwidth. Then Thomas put on a voice like an old man and said, “You kids have it so easy. Back in my day, we had to steal porn from the corner shop or get into our dads’ stash!!”

Matt is playing Doom 3 and really likes it. I don’t know what sub-genre of game it is considered, but I would definitely label it “horror.” I can’t see Matt’s monitor, I can only hear his speakers, and that is scary enough for me. There is no way I would play that game. I would have nightmares.

The part that creeped me out the most was when the female disembodied voice whispers, “Follow me. They took my baby.” And then you hear the baby cry. Matt died right after that so when he loaded his saved game, I had to listen to that again. Yuch! It was so creepy. So when he died the third time and had to load the saved game again, I covered my ears so I didn’t have to hear it. Then he saved the game just after that point so we wouldn’t have to hear it again if he had to reload the game again.

Matt is thoroughly enjoying his game though. It is really well-done. Even though I wouldn’t play it, I still recognize that it is well-done, if you are into scary first-person shooters.

I’ve been watching my 3-year-old nephew everyday for the past week. I had originally volunteered to watch him for 3 months, but I asked Carla yesterday to put him in daycare as soon as she can. He takes up all my time and I get nothing accomplished. And I’m dead tired by the end of the day. It’s like having a job, complete with looking forward to the weekend and dreading Monday.

I know that I will have my own baby soon and that will be 24/7 instead of 8.5 hours/day. But that is a responsibility that I have accepted as a mother. As an aunt, watching Logan everyday is just too much. The responsibilities of my life have been put on hold to take care of a responsibility in Carla’s life. Each day passes with none of my business completed… or even started for that matter. I play catch-up on the weekend.

I hope he goes to daycare soon. I hope Carla takes care of this soon.

On a “cool geek factor” note, though, the Macquarium is almost done. We are waiting for the last plant and a pair of A. australe killifish, both of which I have to order over the internet. In the meantime, we have set it up with everything that we have so far. Really, only those two things are missing… well three. I want to treat some water with peat and add that.

I should probably wait until it’s complete to post the pictures, but I’m just so excited. Also, the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s very pretty and very cool.

We couldn’t fill the water all the way to the top of the tank because the bubbles from the filter were causing the water to leak over the top. But we didn’t want there to be a visible gap between the top of the water and the top of the tank, so we printed out an image of the System 3 menu bar and taped it up so the gap was hidden behind it. I think it’s pretty cool.

Some advice if you are considering making a Macquarium:

1. It’s a bitch of a project but well worth it.
2. You are limited to goldfish because your water will be cold unless you buy a 6″ mini-heater for tropical fish.
3. If you do use a mini-heater and get tropical fish, you are limited to two choices because all other fish will languish and die in such a small volume of water. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ll get tetra. They are tiny. They’ll be okay in such a tiny tank.” Nope. They may be tiny, but they still need room to swim. Your choices are either a betta or killies. These fish can quite happily live in two gallons of water.
4. If you do choose killifish, they jump and you will have to fashion a device to cover the hole in the top of the Mac. Matt has plans for a wire frame covered in panty hose. 🙂
5. Choose easy, low-light plants. I am using java fern, anubius nana, and Italian vallisneria.

This is what I have learned so far. I’m sure I will learn more as time goes on. And maybe I will learn that I got some of these rules wrong. 🙂 I did just set it up.

It’s been a fun project… well, fun once I gutted the Mac. Gutting the Mac was not fun. Matt wants to find some old Mac SE floppy drives and cut them down and install them so they look like working floppies. That would be cool, but I’m not so sure we are going to be able to find old Mac SE floppy drives.

By the way, Matt and I are discussing upgrading our machines so we can play EverQuest II. “Why?” you ask, “Why, after you were so happy to be off the Crack?”

Because it’s EverQuest II, man!!! I want to explore the new world! It looks like so much fun.

I can quit anytime…. 😉

Actually, it’s all just talk at this time. It will cost about $1000 to upgrade the two computers so that they can run EQ2. That game has some serious system requirements.

Much has happened. Much has changed.

My Tai Chi teacher explained the yin-yang symbol to us once. He said that it represents positive and negative, light and dark, balance. That even when you are all in the light, there is still the spot of darkness, and, as you circle around, the darkness increases and the light decreases. But, since everything is in balance, when you are in complete darkness, there is the spot of light and you circle around and the light increases and the darkness decreases.

Well, we have finally circled around into the light. The dark was long and hard, and, to be honest, I don’t think I handled it very well. Matt, of course, was always a pillar of strength that is almost his defining characteristic. To give you an example: the Jeep broke down today and left Kelsey and I stranded on the side of the road. I called Matt at work and he was by our side in 15 minutes and had the situation completely under control within one minute of being there. I didn’t fall in love with him because he is so reliable and strong, but it sure is an extremely nice quality to have in a husband.

But to continue with the original thought: three things have changed. We’ll start with the simplest. Matt got a raise at work which gives us more money. That always helps things.

We’ll move on to the next easiest to explain: I’m pregnant. After two years and feeling like our hearts were being ripped from our chests each month because of our unanswered love, I showed up pregnant. I’m 18 weeks pregnant now with a little girl.

Of course, there is a story with that. I didn’t show up pregnant until I had finally moved on from my single life. I was mired in my past. I loved my time with Gene so much that I had a very hard time saying goodbye to it. It took me almost three years to move into my present life with my husband– to quit longing and mourning the past. But I finally started living in the now and being wholly present with my husband. And then I became pregnant. Coincidence? Who’s to say.

The third change was a big eye-opener. We bought a house in Round Rock and moved into it two and a half weeks ago. We moved from a very filthy, very tiny, very dark apartment to a beautiful, clean, spacious home. I didn’t realize that my entire life and my moods were so affected by my environment. It was truly like coming out of the dark into the light.

I thought I would try to explain it, but it is very hard to explain. So just let me give unsolicited advice: live in a place you love. Keep it clean and organized. Keep it uncluttered. Let me repeat that last one because it is more important than people realize. Keep it uncluttered. Take unwanted stuff to Goodwill, clean out your drawers and your files.

I feel so much lighter and happier, and I know it’s not just that we finally got pregnant. I am no longer in that filthy, dark cave that sucked the very happiness out of my soul. The dogs have a grassy backyard they can play in. Matt and I have a usable closet and a great study. We have desks on which we have room to do work now instead of being completely covered in dust, junk, and computer peripherals. The living room is inviting and warm. Needs a bit more seating though and perhaps a rug.

Oh, I could go on.

Live in a place you love. Don’t let the happiness be sucked out by your environment. I think it happens more than people realize. They just continue to live where they live, unaware of how it is effecting the happiness and quality of their lives. It makes a huge difference. I have just experienced the difference first hand with myself.

I’m so happy we moved.