reason number one million why I'm glad I don't work in the food industry anymore

People are freakin' out of their minds.

Did you hear about the Wendy's manager who got shot because he didn't give a guy enough extra chili sauce?

My gut, redux

Back by popular demand - my gut. Here's what 32 weeks looks like, kids! Doesn't Junior look excited?

here comes the sun

I love love love reading Dooce.com, but her most recent post has been on my mind a lot, and not in a good way. She has once again been diagnosed with skin cancer - not the super-bad kind, melanoma, but the other kind (still bad, but can be taken care of) - and it has me reflecting on the many, many hours I have spent grilling myself in the sun since my teens. Like Dooce, it's not that I don't know that the sun is bad for me - of course the sun is bad for me, everyone knows it - but there's just something about having a tan that makes me feel like I look more alive. Of course, the irony being that a tan can make you very dead.

I'm half Italian, and I definitely have the skin of that side of my family, so I know I'm at a lesser risk of skin cancer than people with very fair skin. Still. Since I have been severely burned a couple of times in my life - to the point of blisters - I have this horrible feeling I'm not going to get off scott-free.

I have all kinds of freckles and things I didn't have in the past, but so far, they seem "normal." And over the past several years I've been much more diligent about putting on the sunscreen and not getting fried. I just don't have the patience or the time for sitting out in the sun like I used to anyway. But I'm increasingly afraid that my past is going to come back to haunt me, so I'm constantly checking myself to make sure nothing looks weird.

Ah well. I guess the good thing about staying in the shade (you know, besides avoiding more skin cancerous sun rays) is the fact that it will help me not to look 100 years old when I'm 40. That's always a good thing!

role models

I can't tell you how exciting it is to think about the fact that Lindsay Lohan, who recently got in yet another alcohol-and-maybe-coke-fueled car accident and is now back in rehab, again, all before she turns 21, is a huge role model for young girls. This is mostly exciting because I'm having a girl, so now the stories of celebrities-gone-bad that have so often entertained me leave me feeling slightly unsettled. How bad is it going to be in 10 years, when I'm dealing with a pre-teen? If Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan, etc, are the girls to look up to now - how egregious will the behavior of the future's role models be?

I shudder to think.

memorial day

So today is Memorial Day, which is never a big deal in terms of picnics or things like that in my family. I did go over to Heather's for a small little barbeque, and that was fun. I can't believe how warm it is outside. What a difference a year makes - the wallpaper on my computer at home has a picture of me feeding ice cream to the pups around the same time last year, and I'm wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. Today I'm in a tank top and shorts. I'll take the summer stuff any day. It's kind of weird how much I'm feeling the heat this year - usually I love sitting in the sun (even though I know it's horrible for me and my wretched skin) but this year I'm shade girl, or inside girl. Something about carrying around a big ol' watermelon just makes you want to stay cool.

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA! (thanks for the reminder, Melissa!)

mmmm carbs and sugar

Tonight we went to dinner with two of Greg's friends who are up in CT for the weekend from Delaware. We went to dinner at Pepe's in New Haven, and it was the first time that I had ever been to the pizza joint. I know, I know, pizza isn't exactly a diabetic's friend, but I only had one slice and it was delicious. I think I could have had at least three. After that, we went over to Libby's, an Italian pastry shop, for dessert. I made Greg get lemon Italian ice, and I had a tiny bit, and it was heavenly. Greg's friend got some sort of chocolate mousse treat that looked so good I wanted to stuff my face in it. But I held back, which took a decent amount of restraint on my part. I'm definitely going back to those two places after this whole diet nonsense is over.

bookworm

I looooove to read. It's my favorite hobby. I've been a bookworm since I was a little kid, and it surprised no one when I went on to be an English major in college. I still love to read. I read everything from trashy gossip magazines to, you know, real literature. The top thing I spend my disposable income on is books. Most of the time, I read one or two books a week, and that can add up.

"But Amanda," you are saying to yourself, "Why not go to the library? The books are free there, you know."

Here's the thing - I have always had a difficult relationship with the library. I have never been good at returning books on time. I remember about nine years ago when I applied for a new library card when I moved to a different town and they tracked down the fact that I had forgotten to return Hamlet to my hometown library when I was in high school. I also had my library card privileges completely revoked when I failed to return a movie that I had taken out a couple of years later. It's not that I don't want to return books and movies - it's just that I forget. Or I'm lazy.

Greg goes to the library, and recently he took a bunch of James Patterson books out for me. I just finished up the last one, and I thought, "Well, there's a good $30 saved." I decided that since I'm going to have to start spending money on big-ticket items like daycare and diapers, maybe I should try to save some money where I can.

So we headed off to the library this morning. Now that I have my brand spankin' new last name (well, not really new - we've been married for going on three years, but still, it's a new identity for this library felon) I was free to open a fresh new library account without any of my old baggage. When the nice librarian asked me if I had a library card somewhere else, I hesitated for just a second, and then said "no." I find it's good to start out a new relationship with lies.

Then I headed to the New Fiction section, and immediately found a bunch of books that I want to read that I would have inevitably purchased. I was in heaven. I know I sound like kind of an idiot - I mean, everyone knows that the library=free books - but it's been so long since I've gone to one that I kind of forgot the joy of bringing a pile of books up to the counter and walking out without having to crack open your wallet. Sure, you have to deal with other people's food stains on the pages and the books are often sort of beat up, but that didn't really dispel any of my library happiness today. And my town's library is a good one! So I'm pretty psyched. Let's hope I don't ruin everything by falling into my old bad habits.

throwing down the challenge

So, Alan and I were emailing today about our blogs, and whether they were super boring, and whether we cared, and stuff like that. My last email to him was to blog a lot this weekend. He said the same to me. So, like, remember way back when (uh, was it six months ago?) when Alan and I blogged for two weeks straight, just to see if we could do it? Well, the challenge is back on. I'm tired of clicking around and seeing the same boring entries for days at a time. Anyone in? Anyone? Bueller?

Let me kick it off with some super-exciting news. I got my oil changed, two new wipers, and two new tires today. Hells yeah. Oh, and speaking of hell, it's hotter than, you know, out there right now. I mean, I heart summer and all, but we could take it down about ten degrees.

See? This blogging all the time thing is gonna be AWESOME.

sorry, Charlie

Well, here is the exciting conclusion to yesterday's post - yes, I did manage to stay awake for the whole finale of "Lost." Not only that, I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about it. Guess it made an impression. It was a really good episode. I won't say it was the best "Lost" episode I have ever seen - I'll save that honor for the season one finale - but it was sufficiently action-packed and had enough twists to keep me guessing until next February (my favorite part was the realization that the flashback was a flash forward). That's right - eight more months until we get to see a new episode!

Oh, and it was Charlie who went to the great island in the sky. I was never a huge Charlie fan, but he's been really engaging the last couple of episodes - Dominic Monaghan really took his character to the next level, I think, over the past couple of weeks. Also, if the guy who plays Ben doesn't get nominated for an Emmy this year, it's a huge tragedy. He's so awesomely creepy.

Here's an interesting interview with Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) from E! Online

Also, an interview with Damon Lindelof, one of the producers of "Lost" that sheds some light (or no light at all) on what's up for this show in the future

the whole goal of my life right now....

....is to be able to stay up for the season finale of "Lost" tonight. In real life, staying up 'til 11 is not a major issue, but it seems to be these days.

Sad? Oh yes, beyond words. But this is my ultimate goal of the evening. The thing is, yeah, I could TiVo it and watch it tomorrow night, but then the damn Internets will screw everything up for me and tell me what happens before I watch it. See, a major character is supposed to die tonight. And I don't want to mistakenly glance at MSN's entertainment news tomorrow morning to see that Terry O'Quinn or Matthew Fox or some other Lostie is out of a job.

So. Either I will stay up and watch the whole thing, or I will fall asleep and then get up early to watch the end before I go into work tomorrow. Or, God forbid, look at a computer.

OMG, the Bachelor finally picked the right girl!

If you know me, you know that one of the most embarassing things I will admit about myself is that I watch "The Bachelor." It's an incredibly cheesy dating show, where every episode features "the most dramatic rose ceremony ever!!!!" and often includes some pretty sweet catfights between the ladies fighting for the lucky guy who is The Bachelor. This year, it was a Navy lieutenant who was a very nice guy - smart, good-looking, all that jazz - he actually seemed fairly normal and non-ass-like, which is unusual for "The Bachelor."

Last night was "the most romantic finale ever!!!!" and it came down to Bevin and Tessa as his two final choices. Now, in all of the seasons I've watched this show (and "The Bachelorette") they NEVER pick the girl/guy that I want them to. Well, this time Andy came through for me and picked Tessa. I liked her because she very often seemed kind of horrified at the whole "Bachelor" process, and wanted to bail a few times, but genuinely seemed to like the guy enough to hang in there. She seemed as normal and smart and regular as he did.

Now that they are engaged, do I think they'll make it forever? I think they have a much better chance then pretty much any other pairing I've seen on this show. But how real is reality TV romance?

Now excuse me -I have to go watch PBS for a while.

oh my God, could my blog get anymore boring

So, the gestational diabetes saga continued yesterday with my trip to see the nutritionist.

We went over my diet prior to diagnosis (carbs, carbs and more carbs) and I told her some of the changes that I've made since diagnosis last week. She put me on a meal plan, basically restricting me to a certain number of grams of carbs per meal. She also gave me a list of general food and how many carbs they include. So, for example -instead of a whopping bowl of Cap'n Crunch (mmm, tasty) I can have a proper portion of plain Cheerios (1 cup) with splash of milk, for a total of 30 carbs for breakfast. AND THAT'S IT. I am also supposed to eat three snacks a day consisting of 15 carbs each, and lunch and dinner should be 45 carbs each. When measuring out my carbs, I need to look at the nutrition labels and make sure I'm sticking to the proper serving, or I'll blow it. For example, 1/4 of a bagel is 15 grams of carbs, so if I ate one whole bagel from Dunkin Donuts it would be 60 carbs - twice as much as I'm supposed to have for breakfast! Also, I need to subtract any grams of dietary fiber out from the total number of grams of carbs.

And that's not all. The nutritionist suggested that, although my doctor told me I didn't have to, I should do blood testing one to two times a day. At first I was like, "hells, no" but she said the magic words - if I found that my glucose levels were on the lower side of the range, I could add in some more grams of carbs - and oh, how I will desperately want those five extra Cheerios in the morning!

So, to wrap it up - my diet now consists of blood tests and lots of math. But I need to have perspective, because in the long run, I'm sure it will be good for me to get on a better eating path as a lifestyle.

However.

reality

Today we went to visit a potential daycare. After pregnancy tests, doctor's visits, ultrasounds, blood tests, and everything else, I think today was the day Greg realized we were having a baby. It really kind of made it all real.

The place was really great, and a real contender. At the same time, I felt sad, because I feel like I just want to have this baby before I have to think about giving her up to someone else for the bulk of my work week.

walkin' on sunshine

So, like, as recently as nine months ago I was practically a professional walker. Walking is my main form of exercise - not wimpy stroll-like walking, I mean power-walking at about a 12-minute-mile clip. I've lost a lot of weight this way, and find it the least reprehensible of all the exercise choices (although it's still awful, because I would always rather be sitting on my butt). Anyway, since this whole pregnancy thing, I've pretty much given up walking (not in general, just for exercise. I'm not that lazy - I don't make people carry me around). However, I have learned that walking is good for controlling blood sugar, so I decided that I should take it up again.

Boy, is walking different when you're hauling around 29 1/2 weeks of pregnancy.

Greg and I did a few little loops around my neighborhood, and I was winded. WINDED! And we only were out there for like 15 minutes, and definitely not going fast at all. But it's better than nothing and I have to build up my stamina again. I'm also going to try to start lifting my little 10 lb weights when I'm watching TV again. I used to have arm muscles, you know - but the weight lifting was another casualty of the pregnancy.

For now, however, I need to sit down.

I am oh so original

I remember when I was coming up with the title of my last post, "sugar and spice and everything nice" it sounded somewhat familiar, as if somewhere, long ago, perhaps on another blog, I had used a similar title.

Except that it wasn't so long ago and far away. It was four days prior, when I titled my post "sugar and spice."

Sigh. They say the mind's the first thing to go.

This has been an interesting weekend, trying to avoid carbs and sugar, basically feeling like I'm starving to death but trying to do right by the baby, and really, really wanting to talk to the nutritionist, so I can figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

At least I have the "Survivor" finale to look forward to tonight! Yes!

sugar and spice and everything nice...

...is pretty much what I won't be eating for the next 11 weeks.

Today was my three hour blood test for gestational diabetes. First of all, I had to fast before and through the test, and a pregnant lady does not like to fast (neither does a non-pregnant lady, but my urgent need for food is much more, well, urgent now). Also, the disgusting sugar drink had twice as much sugar as the other one I had to drink, so this time, I was sort of loopy and tired and sick-feeling about a half hour after the test and for the rest of the day, including now. I had four blood tests, and I just got off the phone with my doctor's office who told me I was borderline on two of the four tests, so basically I guess I'm a borderline gestational diabetic. Poop.

All day long, I've been convincing myself that if I have it, it's not that big of a deal, and my diet needs help anyway, etc etc, but I'm disappointed. I have done research on GD and the top concern with this disease is that the baby will be too big - if I'm intaking too much sugar, then the baby's pancreas can start producing too much insulin too - and get to be a big, fat, giant baby. I read some scary stuff that if you have severe gestational diabetes you can have a stillborn baby, but the nurse assured me that I was nowhere near that point - that that would be uncontrolled, very severe diabetes.

Now I have to go to a special nutrition class through the hospital that will teach me about what I should and shouldn't eat. The nurse told me I can have some bread, some cereal, some fruit, but to stay away from concentrated sugars, like candy, cake, cookies, ice cream (as my friend Heather put it - anything worth eating). The other sugar/carbs I do eat will have to be in smaller portions than I'm used to. If you know me at all, you know it's those kinds of snacks, plus an extreme amount of cereal and breads, that have carried me through this pregnancy. Now I have to learn to be friends with more vegetables and proteins. Happily, I don't have to do the many-times-a-day blood tests that you have to do if you have full-on GD.

Ultimately, I'm sure this will be a good thing for me and my diet, as long as the baby is OK. I'd pretty much eat cardboard for the next 11 weeks if that ensured that she'd be alright.

But it doesn't mean I won't be a wee bit cranky every now and then. But I just have to remember how lucky I am.

I'm a failure baby, so why don't you kill me

Continuing my trend of failing pregnancy blood tests, I didn't score well on the aforementioned glucose tolerance test. I came back around 130-something, and anyone with a score over 130 has to go for a super-awesome, not-annoying-at-all three and a half hour test. So Thursday morning at 7:30, I'll be at the lab. This time I get to get my blood taken after fasting all night, then I get to drink the gross orange stuff again and get my blood taken, and then three more times (once each hour). AWESOME.

I have already done some research on gestational diabetes, and know a couple of people who have had it. Seems like I would have to do a major diet overhaul (what? my carbs and sugar diet isn't working?) and test my blood a few times a day to see how things are going. Sometimes insulin gets involved, but I think that if it's really bad. Not sure. I'm going to take this one one day at a time.

But I did get to wear a cute tank top that my cousin lent me today, so that's cool.

sugar and spice

Tomorrow morning I am kicking off the week with a glucose tolerance test. This is basically a test to see if I've developed gestational diabetes. It's a routine test, and as with many of the "routine" things about pregnancy, I am fairly sure I will fail. I have no real reason to believe this, I just do. Anyway, when I get up, I'm to drink this super-sweet orange drink. Then I have to go to the lab, where they will draw my blood exactly one hour after I've finished the drink. I also have to get some other routine bloodwork done.

I mean, seriously. What better way to start a Monday?

the musings of an extremely tired person who has been up since 4 a.m.

Ah, insomnia. You are back, like a sinus infection you can't get rid of. I had heard with the last trimester, insomnia becomes a big issue. You'd think, what with the exhausting job of housing your ever-expanding baby (and ever-expanding everything else) you'd be more capable of sleeping for many hours in a row. But no, no, no, you're completely awake in the middle of the night. And instead of falling asleep, you start thinking about calming topics like, oh, I don't know, labor and delivery. Ooooh - calming.

So I gave up and got up around 5 this morning. I think one of my main problems is I'm ready for bed by 7:30 most nights. I fight the tired for as long as I can, but I fall asleep around 9-9:3o, no matter how hard I try. So then, naturally, I'm up in the middle of the night. But I cannot remember the last time I got 8 hours of sleep. Seriously - I have no idea when that was. 1999 maybe? I wish I were kidding.

But anyway. At least it's Friday. This has been a pretty crazy week. I'm still coming down from the car incident (Greg tells me it wasn't really a car accident, but I hit something with my car, and it was an accident, so I think it's a car accident, but whatever) of Wednesday morning, and work has been really really busy, so I'm very pleased that it's Friday. I noticed yesterday I was starting to get a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions (basically, fake contractions where your belly gets really hard) so I think I really need to take it down a notch this weekend. Perhaps I'll go to bed at 8:30 instead of 9.

Something else we've been dealing with this week is the return of the ticks. The dogs have brought in several ticks, and we've become quite concerned that I'm going to end up contracting Lyme Disease and passing it on to baby. Now, note - no one cares if I get Lyme Disease - including me - it's that we don't want it passed on to Amanda Junior (no that's not the name). Well, I don't want to lie -I really, really don't want to get Lyme Disease - but I really, really really don't want to pass it on to AJ. So maybe I am ready to be a mother. Anywho, we've taken to keeping the dogs completely out of the bedroom, and they are extremely distressed, because they usually sleep with us. Of course, all of this has made me cry uncontrollably at least two times so far, because I have images of the dogs feeling rejected, sad, unloved, etc. When, in reality, they are probably like, "WTF? OK, whatever."

Unless my feet start swelling up like balloons today (and I have no reason to believe they will, except sometimes they just do), I'm going to go get a pedicure this afternoon after work. I am unnaturally excited about this. Although everyone has been so nice to me lately and telling me how great I look, all I can see are the bags under my yes and the general puffiness of myself, so I want my toes to look pretty. As with everything else I do, I looked it up on babycenter.com to make sure it was OK, and since there's no proof that I'm going to break the baby by getting some nail polish on my toes, I'm there.

WOW - I don't think I've ever rambled so much on my blog. Have a great weekend everyone.

just call me crash

So this morning I had my 28 week appointment with my doctor. There is something very "official" about 28 weeks -you're in the third trimester, you have to start looking out for symptoms of pre-term labor, you have to get a glucose test - you know, fun stuff like that. So my appointment went well.

The rest of the day, not so much. I was pulling into a space in our parking garage for work, and I somehow managed to push the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal, basically slamming my car up and over the curb and through the bottom rail that keeps your car from going through to the cars below. (I was on the top floor.) The bottom rail broke off and hit the two cars below, and somehow I managed to stop my car before it attempted to follow. I completely freaked out - I was really scared about the baby, above and beyond anything else, and to top it off, I really don't know how to handle a car accident, especially when no one else is around.

The very nice woman who is in charge of the garage took care of calling the guys whose cars I hit with the rail, as well as the people who manage the garage. Everyone came out, forms were filled out, the guys whose cars were on the receiving end of the rail were both very nice - one decided to just let the whole thing go (his car had minor, minor dings) and the other said he'd just get a quote and we could handle it however I wanted, either just pay him or through insurance (his door had a decent scratch on it). My car, on the other hand, is pretty beat up - the hood is all scratched up, the bumper is a bit out of place and scratched up - but mainly it seems cosmetic.

I called the doctor and she said I should be OK - to beware of any cramping, etc, that might happen, but she's sure I'm fine, and these things happen a lot. So as long as baby is OK, I will be thanking my lucky stars.

I feel like such a moron though. Guess it's time to go back to driving school. I never get in car accidents - this is not the time to do it, that's for sure. I'm just glad everyone was so super-nice to me, and I'm sure being a crying, pregnant lady had something to do with it. Sometimes it's just nice to see that people can be cool about stuff, and see the bigger picture.

In the meantime, I'm at home. I feel a little achy, but that's from the impact. I'm sure tomorrow I'll feel stiff. I guess it's just time to start taking it slower.

What a day.