Of Baking, Speeches, and Jobs

I think I was a baker in a past life.

No, I'm serious! I find great joy in baking. I like making cookies and breads and just about anything that involves flour, butter, and sugar. I like cooking too, but I don't "get" cooking. I "Get" baking. It makes sense to me. We eat a lot of baked goods in this house. Baking is also stress relief. I feel so good when I peek in the oven and find 12 little orange pumpkin cookies puffing up to their fluffy goodness. I would love to open a little bakery one day.

So one of the classes I'm taking this quarter is speech. It didn't occur to me until recently that part of a speech class is, well, giving speeches.

I had to give my first speech last Wednesday and was terrified. I had too much information and ended up rushing through it with some stuttering and going over the time limit, but all in all I must have done pretty good, because I got 190/200 points. Tomorrow we get a better report of what we did right, wrong, and what could be improved.

Also, Ben got a new job (with a raise!) that he starts Monday. It's a 9-5 job this week, which means we had to find care for Mori. Luckily a girl downtown who I know from the Columbus board offered to help out. I told her I needed her for Monday and Wednesday, but now, thinking about it, we don't have school on Wednesday... so I might go ahead and have Ben drop Mori off anyway and take a day to myself. JUST myself. It would be very, very nice. Good golly, I could sleep in, and take a bath, and maybe get some housework done...

Ugh. Housework. Speaking of which, here is today's To-Not-Avoid-Doing list:

• Call Paypal and get them to reopen my account.
• Search for Tracfone phones (Walmart?) and pricing.
• Pick up the livingroom
• At least get all the dishes done in the kitchen
• Bag up icky produce to throw to chickens
• Do something with the apples... Applesauce?
• Get all the laundry put away
• Pack up Mori's bag for tomorrow
• Do some homework
• Lay out clothes for me and Ben tomorrow
• Set alarm extra early for tomorrow
• Vacuum kitchen and livingroom
  

I haven't updated in a while...

But I'm going to now because I have to complain and the best place to complain is to myself. Warning: Post ahead contains pregnancy hormones. Read at your own risk.

Ben's schedule is hard to get used to. He has three-four days off at a time, so he's here... all day. Every day. For four days. This wouldn't be bad if I could get over the fact that he is Ben, and not some perfect husband that I concocted. He's a great guy and I love him and that should be enough, right?

But then, there's times like yesterday... He's been obsessed with this chicken house project because he wants to get 50 chickens by the end of June. That's fine, great, whatever, but that's a month away. We have company (my brother and Ben's parents) coming over THIS WEEKEND. And yet when I mentioned him helping me clean up, he seemed to think the damn chicken house was more important.

The house is a mess. The carpets are... gross, due to dogs. There's McDonalds trash all over the yard because Ben didn't take the trash out last night and the dogs got in it. We still have groceries in their bags that haven't been put away yet. There's dishes to be done, surfaces to clean, carpets to vacuum, trash to pick up... and Mori's being a you-know-what.

My nerves feel shot. I'm sick as a dog. I have no, I mean, no energy. I just want to curl up on the couch and cry, except that wouldn't help anything and I can't justify it. My brother won't get ahold of me for his flight information and I'm afraid he's going to cancel, in which case we'd be out $150 that we'd never see again.

And the cake-topper of this whole pity party?

It's my 21st birthday. I don't want to be puking and cleaning and trying not to yell at the child on my birthday. I wanted a happy day, maybe we'd go outside and play in the sun, settle down and read a book... Preferably not be sick.

I have made a solemn oath that I will not be pregnant on my next birthday. This is the second time in a row. And it's not fun.
-------------------------------- END COMPLAINING

God, I can't wait until school starts. I'm so excited. I need my math book and then I won't have to worry about ANY books. It'll give me two whole days to be away from the family (which sounds horrible but I think it will really help my sanity.). I'll finally be on the road to where I want to be. It's exciting!

Oh! And Tuesday we met with the midwife, Kathy. I have to admit, she's pretty awesome. When she learned that Summer didn't help us with the birth cert. paperwork she seethed. She seems very cheerful and understanding, and I can see her being at the birth and really being encouraging and involved. Which is great, since that's what I want with a midwife.

We're going to steam-clean the carpets before the birth. Even though that's OMG-far-away, it's nice to think about. Nice clean carpet for new baby.

I almost told my mom. She mentioned that I was 21 and now could drink, and at first I thought she was being mean, and then I realized that she didn't know. But I couldn't tell her. It's just... not time.

Anyway. Done here for now. Kudos!

Troubles in Paradise

Now, I love my husband.
He is my other half. He is my support, financially and emotionally. I have no doubt he loves me.
But he does have some failings.

I try my hardest to make him happy. I make his lunch. I let him sleep in. I wash his clothes, make his dinner, clean his house, take care of his child. Rarely do I ask his help, and it's always with something stupid (take out the trash, etc.). I can count on one hand the number of times i've asked him to watch Mori for more than ten minutes.

Meanwhile, I have to take care of her, clean the house, cook the food, try to squeeze in some homework and maybe a little bit of knitting. I take care of all the animals, regulate when they go out/in, pay the bills, keep track of bills, keep track of medical stuff and 401k stuff. I sort the mail, file the taxes, etc...

... See where this is leading?

I'm sick of it, and these are the top 5 things that bug me the most.

1. When I wake him up, it takes anywhere from 3-7 times of me going in there for him to get up. If I use a harsher means to wake him up, such as turning on the light, he gets royally pissed.

2. He would rather starve at work than take the five minutes to make his own lunch. When I have time, sure, i'll make his lunch, but 9/10ths of the time it is an inconvience to me because I have Mori or am in the middle of something. It's his lunch, he's going to eat it - he knows where all the fixings are for it. I am not his mother.

3. He never offers anything. I have to ask. Doesn't matter what it is... taking out the trash, watching Mori while I do homework, making food... I always have to ask. It would be nice, one day, for him to say "Hey, would you like me to do [insert thing here]?". And when I do ask things, I feel bad, because he either makes an excuse about why he can't and I have to badger him, or he acts like it's a big burden.

4. EVERY time he watches Mori, when I get back, all he talks about is how she cried the whole time. I know my child... She does whine a lot, but there are reasons. She's either bored, wants to be held, is tired or hungry or needs to be changed. Rarely does she whine for no reason now-a-days. So he's either not taking care of her, not entertaining her, or ignoring her.

5. The sex thing. I can't remember the last time we had sex. Or cuddled, even. I just don't even have interest anymore because it's such a chore to A, get the alone time, and B, make sure the alone time coincides with his small ass libido.

Okay. I feel better.

Kudos,
Ket

Mobility in Strides

I am convinced Mori will be mobile before next week. She's doing that 'scoot' thing, and getting up on her knees. When she finally gets it, OH, the flurry of baby-proofing... Luckily, we have all the outlets plugged and nothing on the bottom shelves that aren't baby-OK.

It's only 7:30AM, and already Tavy has: Broken an ornament, howled at a passing siren, stolen some of my cereal, stepped on Mori's hand, chewed one of Mori's stuffed animals.
Why the hell do I love dogs? This is why Ben keeps telling me "No more dogs!"

Speaking of Ben, he thinks he has an ear infection. I told him pop some vitamins and amoxacillin and he'll be fine. He's sleeping it off, so I think i'm going to let him sleep all day if he wants to. Poor guy's been working 2-4 hours of overtime every night. I think he deserves a break (no matter how much I want to go wake him up),