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
  

TGIS: Thank God it's Sunday

I find it highly amusing that, as you get older, things start going backwards.
Make sense? No? Okay, let me explain.

Back in highschool, I distinctly remember the "Thank God It's Friday!" drama. EVERY Friday. "Ugh, I'm SO glad it's Friday... I'm so sick of school. I want to be at home."

Now? I thank god it's Sunday. I go, "I'm so glad it's Sunday! Tomorrow I get to leave home and go back to school!" while dancing and throwing confetti.

See the backwardishness?

Don't get me wrong. I love being with Mori, and most of the time I love staying home. But 'staying home' is literally 'staying home'. We have no car and we live 15 minutes away from the nearest, well, anything. Four days of enforced homebound-ness can be excruciating, especially if Mori is having a bad day.

However, school! Oh, school. School not only gives me adult (or semi-adult, depending on what class we're talking about) interaction, but also gives me a whole day in which I am not chasing around a 1-year-old. Am not changing diapers. Am not listening to squeals of "COOKIE!".

I can, at school, stop, sit, and think. I can eat lunch without interruption. I can do homework without dear child stealing my erasers and trying to stuff them up her nose. I can look around and see PEOPLE.

It's glorious. So glorious.

So, anyway. Ahhem.

Today has started out great. Not only did Mori wake up in a great mood, but she also ate 90% of her breakfast without throwing it, sat quietly through half of Cinderella while mommy caught up on math homework, allowed me to change her diaper, and went down for her first nap with no fuss or hollaring. Rarely do we get a morning this... peaceful. And not only that, but mommy got a shower - a real, soap-and-hot-water shower, all by herself during kidlet's nap.

Peaceful.

On the list of Things To Not Avoid Doing today includes:

• Making brownies with a new, yummy-looking recipe.
• Call to cancel bike insurance.
• Finish Speech homework.
• Poke and prod at the wet (and probably moldy) towels that have been in the corner of the shower since last, um, month. Try to remember to tell DH to pitch them.
• Load up the dishwasher
• Try to sell Mori's old halloween costumes
• Go through more baby clothes. Will they ever stop?
• Laundry. 'nuff said.

Not too huge of a list today. So heeeeeerrrrreeeee we go!

Energy, moods, and kids

It's amazing how in-tune Mori is to me.

I felt my blood sugar drop about half an hour ago... and I mean honestly felt it. One second I was fine, playing with Mori, the next second I felt like crap. Poor Mori reacted in the same way... she went from fun and giggling to crying.

I hate being pregnant. I honestly do. Some women have that 'glow'? Not me. I have zits. Some women breeze through the first trimester? Not me! Nope. I get puking, passing-out, losing-weight months.

I find it amusing that the only thing I like about being pregnant is feeling a bump and the actual labor.

This morning I did manage to get two loads of laundry and a load of dishes done, though. I also bought some solar cells on Ebay to play around with and try to make a panel out of. I've had lots of water and moved Mori's previously-unused toy container to the kitchen, where it's now half-filled. I've checked on the chickies and dogs.

I still have to:

Write an essay.
Clean dishes off the cpu table.
Get Mori's toys all put away/organized.
Empty vacuum and vacuum kitchen and livingroom.
Pack up yarn.
Go through livingroom and pick up all the freaking trash.
Do another load of laundry.
Stick chicken in the oven for dinner.

If I can get all that done by 7pm, I'll be happy with my day.

Also, this is the first day in my pregnancy that I've kept down both my prenatal and my fish oil pills. Normally I bring up at least the fish oil... but today I kept them both down! Yayy!

Signing out,
Ket