02.27.2007 | 1:29 pm | Uncategorized, Daily Life, Gray Matters
This morning at breakfast I was so tired and crappy-feeling that G picked up on it. He asked me if I wasn’t feeling good, and I told him no, I wasn’t feeling good this morning. Being the sensitive boy that he is, every couple of minutes after that, he would cock his head and ask,
“Are you feeling better now, Mama?”
And I’d answer, “No, I’m still not feeling good.”
At one point he asked, “Will some apple juice make you feel better?”, as he held his cup out to me.
I answered, “No, G, it won’t, but thank you for offering.”
“Can I read to you and will it make you feel better?”
Again, I answered, “Aw, baby, no, I don’t think that’ll help, but thank you.”
Finally, he asked, “If I smile at you, will that make you feel better?”
My heart melted! I told him, “Yes, G, if you smile at me, it’ll definitely make me feel better.”
So, he gave me the sweetest, cutest smile. 
I said, “Aww, G, what a beautiful smile! I definitely feel better now!”
He said, “Good!”
And, I did feel better! I just love him.
We went to town later on, and he sat in the back seat just talking my ear off. Non-stop jabbering and constant questions. It’s so funny, sweet, and exhausting at the same time.
“Oh, look! That house has bricks!”
“But that one does not have bricks.”
(Gasping) “Oh! That one does have bricks!”
“Mama! That truck had chairs in it. How did that happen for?”
“Look! There’s a mail truck. But it’s not an old mail truck, it’s a new mail truck, because it has lights.” (I have no idea…)
(Another gasp) “Mama! Look at that bi-i-i-i-g truck!”
“Heyyyy, this isn’t Home Depot!” (said as we were pulling into Dollar General)
That’s all I can remember because it all starts blurring together after that. Even when it’s a bit exhausting, I always remember that I’m so blessed to have this little chatterbox to share my days with. Years from now, he won’t be so open with every single thought that he has, like he is now, and I’m sure I’ll miss my little buddy who talked so much.
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02.26.2007 | 1:01 pm | Uncategorized, Gray Matters, Reviews
is on VH-1 Classic this morning.
They showed some pretty good songs. “Fade to Black” by Metallica was my and Philip’s favorite, but G was enthralled by Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” video. He announced that it was his “faaa-vorite song!” Something about him saying “Iron Man” is his favorite song, cracks me up.
I am in love with this channel, by the way. 80s heaven! And they show lots of obscure, non-mainstream groups & videos from back then.
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02.26.2007 | 11:35 am | Memes
I figured I’d participate in Monday Madness as well—and on time, even! Things have been so pleasantly boring here that I haven’t had a thing to blog about. Not that I have this big readership that’s counting on me to write or anything. I could think up some topics to write about, but lately I haven’t had the energy to put into constructing any great posts. So, in the meantime, I’m taking the easy way out and answering any interesting memes that I run across.
1. Do you ever use all caps when typing online messages?
No, never!
2. Does it bother you when other people use all caps in their messages?
Yes, it annoys the heck out of me. I don’t like being yelled at, and that’s what all caps suggests, as well as that the person using them is not that bright.
3. Do you use abbreviations (i.e. lol, brb, etc.) when typing email messages or text messages?
I use a few.
4. Do you ever receive faxes or other correspondence from a professional office that are typed in all caps? If so, what do you think of that?
It would bug me.
5. Do you rely on the computer program to catch your typing errors, or do you proofread your material before sending it out?
Neither. I never use any kind of spell-checking. I don’t need it, and using it is actually a handicap because it highlights all kinds of words that aren’t misspelled. I don’t proofread personal correspondence, but I do proofread anything formal. Spelling and grammar come easy to me, and I’ve always had problems relating to people who can’t spell or write well…I can’t figure out what’s so hard about it! Then again, I can’t do basic math in my head (and I can barely do it on paper!), so I do realize I’m not perfect. 
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02.25.2007 | 10:37 am | Memes
…because I never got around to it on Friday!
Appetizer
Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?
I have a few…should I name them all? I’ll just keep it to the prominent ones:
My biggest is a 10-inch diagonal scar across my left, ah, buttcheek. 
That was the fat & skin donor site for my breast reconstruction in 2001.
Of course, I have scars on my reconstructed breast.
I have a scar under my left arm where they biopsied the lymph node to see if my cancer had spread (it hadn’t).
I have a scar on my lower abdomen where skin was taken to finish the reconstruction.
I have scars around my belly button & also my pubic bone, from the two surgeries I had for my endometriosis.
I have scars on my fingers from a bad bike wreck.
I have a scar on my left ring finger from when I was 7 and a pile of bricks fell on my hand.
I have a scar on my inner right ankle from when I was about 4 and a spring popped up from my bed while I was jumping on it (good lesson learned there!).
I have a scar on my left arm from where I burned it on a McChicken basket back when I worked at McDonald’s as a teen.
I have various chicken pox scars all over my body; I had a very bad case when I was 19.
I think that’s it!
Soup
What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?
Again, I could list many! But I’ll keep it to just one. I had stage 4 endometriosis and was clinically infertile. I was told I’d have to undergo 6 months of aggressive treatment, and then take fertility drugs, if I wanted to have a baby…and even then, my chance of pregnancy was low. I have issues with any kind of fertility drugs, and I didn’t want to undergo the treatment because of the horrible side effects. Instead, I prayed. Long and hard. I had long, heartwrenching conversations with God, and I felt like he was leading me to believe that he was going to heal me. I never went back to my doctor for treatment or even follow-up…I didn’t need to. Within a few months, all the terrible endometriosis symptoms disappeared, the pain was gone, and my cycles regulated completely. A few months after that, I was pregnant with G. In the 3 years since his birth, the endometriosis has never returned, and I’ve maintained normal, painless cycles, as well as remained fertile. Most people—even most Christians—who hear this are skeptical, but that’s their problem. I know it was a miracle and I thank God all the time for what he did for me.
Salad
Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.
Barbara Walters…can’t stand the woman. Rosie O’Donnell gets a close 2nd.
Main Course
What was a funny word you said as a child (such as “pasketti” for “spaghetti”)?
I usually have a very good memory from childhood, but I cannot think of a thing here…
Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.
I have always thought that lap dogs [are] the biggest waste of an animal!
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02.22.2007 | 12:29 pm | Uncategorized
I’m 7w 5d today. I had an appointment with Jenny this morning, and I was very nervous. But, everything is great. She did the ultrasound first, and baby is still growing, and the heart is still beating. It measured 16mm, or 8 weeks exactly.
After she did the ultrasound, she tried using her doppler to hear the heartbeat from outside. She said it wasn’t too likely, since it’s so early, but since I’m “so thin” ( That’s hilarious to me…I’m nowhere near “thin” anymore!), that it may be possible to hear it this early. Well, it took a few minutes of searching, but she did find it, and we heard the heartbeat! It was so fast. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that sound coming from inside of me.
She congratulated me and told me that my chance of miscarriage has now dropped to less than 3%. I guess studies show that once a heartbeat is heard (rather than merely seen on ultrasound), the miscarriage rate drops significantly. I can’t complain about that.
I go back again in two weeks. I hope all continues to go well. This is a scary time for me. The last one died right at 8 weeks. It’s also a little hard, as well as fascinating, to know that the baby inside looks just like the one I saw & held after my miscarriage in November, since it’s at the same week of development.
My morning sickness has been creeping back up on me since this weekend. I’ve felt pretty sick the past couple of days, but that’s a good thing. I’d rather feel it than not feel it!
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02.20.2007 | 10:08 pm | Daily Life, Gray Matters
I uploaded the past couple of months’ worth of pictures, which, surprisingly, aren’t that many. But check them out nonetheless! If you’re interested in how my recent bedroom-painting project turned out, you can see the pictures there as well.
Here’s a direct link: New Pictures
Nothing much going on to write about lately. Just plugging along, doing daily chores and taking care of the boy, and taking walks every day. Boring, but exactly the way I like it.
I made spaghetti today, and it turned out delicious. I used my MIL’s crockpot recipe, and it almost tasted as good as hers. Philip was in heaven; he loves his mom’s spaghetti, and with good reason—it’s the best ever. G begrudgingly ate it, all the while complaining, “I don’t like meat. I don’t like the tomatoes.” 
I watched “Pretty Woman” on Sunday afternoon; it came on one of the Encore channels. I had forgotten how much I absolutely love that movie. Or, is it that I forgot how much I like both Richard Gere & Julia Roberts? Either way, it was a nice two hours of losing myself in one of my old favorites.
Anyway, that’s all I can think of to write about. Don’t forget to check out the pictures!
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02.17.2007 | 11:36 pm | Daily Life
It was a busy day in the Ms. Understood household. Lots of chores, cleaning, and photography.
I gave G a haircut this afternoon. He obliged me a few pictures of it tonight, and here is one:
I also caught Philip in a posing mood this afternoon. He decided to pose like a sullen rocker, which I found rather cute:
I was behind the camera for much of the day, so I’ll include the only shot of myself that I took. I was in the bedroom taking pictures of the new paint & decorating I’ve done, and I sneaked one of myself in the mirror:
I have a desktop full of picture folders dating all the way back to Christmas, that I need to upload to Flickr. I’m planning on doing that tomorrow, so there should be a lot of new photos to look through soon. I’ll update when I get them all on there.
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02.16.2007 | 4:53 pm | Uncategorized, Ranting
The show today is a big joke. At least, that is, to those of us who know the Truth. It’s just a bunch of new-age feel-goodism, being spouted by these guys who are, of course, there to sell their book. What an empty, human-based farce. And Oprah (along with way too many naive people) is lapping it up.
I love Oprah; I always have. I admire her as a person, and I love her show and her outlook on life in general. But my word, she can be so… dumb… sometimes. She repeatedly falls for things that sound good on the surface, but make no sense at all.
She did it when Algore was on her show a few months ago hawking his “documentary”. I was so disappointed in her that day as she allowed Algore to give her a virtual spoon-feeding of his agenda. Surely, I thought, she’s smart enough to question his “research”. But she didn’t; she just went along like a good little sheep and didn’t call him to any kind of accountability.
But on today’s show, about “The Secret”, I feel so sad for her that she’s fallen for yet another farce. We live in a sad world, where so many people are vainly searching for “The Secret”. They buy the books, believe in the phony alternatives, while the real secret—the Truth—is right in front of them, if they’d only open their eyes and see it. I wish I could open their eyes, but only they can do that. Worse yet, many do see it, yet choose to reject it. It’s heartbreaking.
The sad reality is this: Until the end of days, there will always be new gurus coming up with ways to make people think they’ve found “The Secret”. But of course, people will have to buy the book first.
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02.14.2007 | 8:07 pm | Uncategorized, Daily Life, Gray Matters
Today, Philip took G to the florist and they each came back with a flower for me. Philip gave me a red carnation, and G got me the daisy he’s holding here. He burst in the door saying, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”, and gave me a big kiss and hug, along with my special flower from him. He was so proud of himself!
I’m a pretty low-maintenance girl when it comes to stuff like this. I don’t get that into Valentine’s day anymore. Part of it’s because ever since we were married, we’ve had our anniversary the week before V day, so V day seems so unimportant in comparison. The other part of it is the whole commercial aspect, and how much commercialization of holidays turns me off. All I want is to be with my boys, and that’s good enough for me. If I get a flower or a card, that’s icing on the cake! I happened to get both this year, and I got a slice of cheesecake from the local deli to boot.
Tonight is Lost night, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to curl up in the dark and watch our favorite show! Wouldn’t you know, after all my angst at missing it last week, and then downloading it & watching it the next night…it turns out they’re re-airing last week’s episode at 8pm tonight as an encore! Ugh! Oh well, even if I’d have known, I would’ve wanted to watch it sooner anyway.
Yesterday G made my day. He was playing on our bed and called to me to come in to lay down with him. Of course, I can’t resist spending a little while laying down with him, because those are the moments he likes to really talk to me. So we lay there all snuggled up, and had a good little chat about all kinds of three-year-old topics. After we’d discussed a few riveting things, he smiled at me and declared,
“Mama, you’re my faaaa-vorite one!”
I rock! He saves “faaaa-vorite one” for only his very favorite things, people, etc. I made the list!
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02.13.2007 | 3:42 pm | Uncategorized
Okay, I am officially paranoid. 
I spent all last week completely floored with sickness and utter craptitude. Saturday afternoon, I lay in bed moaning that I couldn’t do this; I’d never felt so sick in my life without actually being ill. I felt like throwing up whenever I didn’t eat, and so I’d eat, get about 5 minutes of relief, and then feel sick all over again. It went on like this until Sunday morning.
Late Sunday morning, I noticed that I felt a little better. By Sunday night, I was feeling a lot better. Not good, but definitely better. Yesterday was the same; I was without the constant nausea and ickiness of the week before. So this morning, when I awoke and still felt better, I started to really worry. Loss of pregnancy symptoms can be a bad sign, especially when they’re sudden. It happened to me last time—I felt very sick up through the first 7 weeks, and then just before 8 weeks, it got better. This coincided perfectly with when the baby died.
So, I called Jenny (my midwife) this morning. When I explained it to her, she asked me if I wanted to come in at 1:30, which is right when she gets back from lunch. She said if I was concerned, then she wanted to check it out and make sure everything was okay.
I went in, of course. She did an ultrasound and everything looked as perfect as it possibly can look. There was a strong heartbeat, and even though I’m 6w 3d today, the baby is measuring 7w 1d. It was a whole centimeter long! She reminded me that last Thursday it was measuring 6w 1d, and 5mm long. She said that a week’s worth of growth, as well as doubling in size, all in only 5 days, looks very good to her.
She doesn’t know why my morning sickness went away, but she said it’s not worrisome after seeing the ultrasound. She said it’ll probably come back, but it might not. At the moment, I feel a little sicker than I have in the past few days, and I’m actually happy about that. I hope it gets a little worse, so I won’t be so worried! But maybe it’ll return without being as bad as it was Saturday & before.
I was so relieved! I had been so worried that something had happened. Thankfully, she said to keep my appointment for next Thursday. I apologized for being so paranoid, and she laughed and said she doesn’t care if I call or come in every other day, if that’ll make me feel better. She’s good about understanding how scary pregnancy can be, especially early like this when there’s no way to know what’s going on except to do an u/s check.
I got another picture out of the deal:
The sac should be pretty obvious now; it’s the black half-circle. Baby is the floating white blob within…it has a plus mark at each end where she measured it. The light-colored diagonal line that comes up from baby on the upper left side, is the umbilical cord. Pretty amazing stuff.
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