Today is the first day of my second trimester. (Theoretically anyway, I still think the dates are a bit off.) I am down to four pairs of work-appropriate pants that still fit. The pants I'm wearing today are not included on that list and I'm a getting a little worried about the seams. I'm wearing a v-neck sweater today that I've had for ages and just looked in the mirror and realized that I am exposing a very unprofessional amount of cleavage. Now it's not that I've been flashing my coworkers for years without noticing, it's that I've never had this problem before because I've never had this cleavage before. Does anybody have a scarf that I can borrow?

I had hoped that hitting the second trimester would finally ease the low-grade hysteria I have been feeling since finding out that I was pregnant. Nope. If anything, my constant fear that something is going to go wrong at any second is even worse today. I have decided that my doctor is wrong and that the random stomach pains I have been experiencing since before I even knew I was pregnant are not gas, like she said, but instead a dark and ominous sign that Something Is Not Right. Today I'm convinced they are cramps, even though I feel exactly the same as I felt last week and the week before that and the week before that. Do not try to be reasonable with a pregnant woman! I expect this will last right up until the baby is born, at which time I will shift to worrying that the baby isn't breathing.

Anybody want to make bets on how long I can hold out before calling my doctor and insisting that they see me today? I'll even give you hints. I have a meeting at 9:30 and think I can hold out at least until it starts, so the window of opportunity is probably somewhere between 10:30 and oh, let's see.. 10:35.

Anyway, to distract myself from worrying about every single thing in the world, I have decided to compile a list of Things I Am Not Allowed To Do:

- Clean the litter box
- Pick up my cat. He weighs 16 pounds, my limit is 15. This rule is frequently broken.
- Use any cleaning product whatsoever.
- Do any housework. Except laundry.
- Carry groceries.
- Take out the trash.
- Go into my own back yard.
- Walk on any amount of snow or ice. Or wet pavement for that matter.
- Refer to myself as fat, or suggest that I will be getting fatter.
- Stay up past 10:00 on weekends, 9:30 during the week.
- Fail to finish a single bite of any meal my husband is watching me eat.

My doctor's office just opened. The internal battle begins!

I am two days shy of 14 weeks pregnant. I'm not showing yet, but I have put on a few pounds and every ounce I have gained has gone straight to my stomach. I can't even suck my stomach in anymore, it just doesn't happen. The side-effect is that my belly button is huge. Massive. A great, gaping hole in the middle of my belly. I noticed it for the first time yesterday morning while I was drying my hair, and my very first thought was "Hey, I could catch stuff in there. Like, peas, or something." So, if anyone is in the area tonight and wants to stop by, I'll be hosting the first ever "Throw Peas Into Beth's Belly Button" contest. There will be fabulous prizes, of course, like the left over Christmas candy from my pantry, or maybe a can of black beans.

Yesterday, Chris posted a question on his site as to whether or not it was ever appropriate to drink directly out of the one gallon bottle rather than using a glass. The answer to this question is no. However, the people who responded to Chris's question were clearly confused and did not recognize that the answer to this question is no. What follows is the email conversation Chris and I had regarding this confusion and the serious implications of the underlying question.

Oh, this might be offensive. Sorry bout that.

From Chris
I don't think so. I just think they see no harm drinking beverages as god intended they be consumed.

From Beth
If god intended us to drink out of the bottle, he wouldn't have given us glassware.

From Chris
Matthew 13:3
"Sip thine sports drinks from their original vessels if thou art the solitary drinker. Offendeth not thine guests but encourage thine wife to getteth over it."

From Beth
John 3:11
"Wast thou raisedeth in a barn? Wast though raisedeth by wolves? He that doesth not decant thine sports drinks into appropriate glassware is an abomination and an affront to nature. Also, he who sipith sports drinks from their original vessels aggravates thine fat and cranky wifeth."

From Chris
Yolanda 24:28
"Protesteth not the nature of a man who drinketh from plastic. For it is not the vessel of the sports drink that matters. Nay, it is the vessel of man of greatest import."

Barney 3:29
"He who sippith of the vessel carved not of glass but of 25% post-consumer recycled plastic intends no affront to his wifeth. For she is neither rotund nor cranky. She is beautious in her splendor, being with child. Whilst her moods dost swing, there art more pressing concerns than drinks of sport."

From Beth
Howie 14:92
"He who drinkith from the bottle drinkith his own backwash."

Billy Bob 17:76
"He who hath a fat and cranky wife shall consider who hath gotten her into such mess in the place of the firsts, and shall make such small
accommodations as shall bring pleasure to said wife to insure the happiness of his home and maintaineth his headeth upon his shoulders."

Ralph 19:84
"The Lord hath revealed to his chosen people that upon his decree all people shall pour their chosen sports drinks into appropriate glassware before drinking always. Further, all people shall rinse said glassware and place it into the washer of dishes in an orderly and correct fashion. So sayeth the Lord."

Beth 1:27
"Dibs"

From Chris
Maryanne 3:452
"And Denzel strode into the kitchen to rinse his vessel. Upon its deposit in the dishwasher his cranky wife spoketh - 'arranged glassware properly, you have not, Denzel. For now I must rearrange all the dishes in the place to assure proper washing and ease my neuroses' Verily, Denzel gave up instead using no glassware for surely he would be wrong in his arrangement of such vessels."

Ginger 4:28
"And the Lord sayeth,be ye not a sheep and follow blindly. Be ye a leader, blazer of trails, leader of men, leonardo of the caprio. Reject the silly imbibing habits of mortals and drink direct from the font of sports beverages."

Charleton 3:3
"Soylent Green is people!"

Cactus 8:4
"Damnit, you called dibs"

From Beth
Gilligan 234:1
"Thou knowest full well that while thine wife doest have the annoying habit of rearranging the washer of dishes, thine wife generally doest politely refrain from mentioning such rearrangement and rather quietly rearranges the washer of dishes to accommodate her own neuroses."

Professor 2:1231432
"If thou choosest to be a leader, thou shouldst not be a leader in drinking from the vessel of the sports drinks but rather be a leader in picking up thine own socks from the bedroom floor."

Kingsmen 1:32
"Louie Louie [unintelligible]"

Beth 6:6
"She who hath the dibs, hath also the power."

From Chris
Thurston 4:54
"And the Lord said drink. Drink of my blood and my malted beverages.
Drink straight from that tap of all that is good and holy. Drink thine 40, drink from its paper bag the color of the desert. Use no other vessel but the vessel in which it came."

Ok, so I'm very late. I wrote this back in January, but of course I couldn't post it because at the time the baby was still a state secret. Better late than never, right? Reading over this now I think it is unspeakably sappy and I'm worried you will lose all respect for me, but I've decided to live on the edge and post it anyway. So here, in no particular order, is my list of Holy Crap I'm Going to be a Mother New Year's Resolutions.

I resolve to get very fat. I resolve not to care about how fat I am. I resolve to paint a face on my hugely fat belly and laugh about it rather than worrying about it.

I resolve to relax a little, to focus on the big things and not on everything, to cut everyone a little more slack, including myself.

I resolve to let go of grudges. I resolve to address the ones that need to be addressed and forget the ones that only cause me pain.

I resolve to either forgive with my whole heart and spirit, or forget and move on.

I resolve to sing more. I resolve to not care who hears me or what they think. I resolve to make myself comfortable singing to or with my child wherever we happen to be and whoever we happen to be with.

I resolve to be a less aggressive driver.

I resolve to do a better job of showing my husband how much I love, respect, and admire him.

I resolve to be the same kind of parent to my child that my parents were to me. I resolve that no matter what else may happen, my child will never doubt my love.

I resolve to be a good mother and a good wife and to hold those priorities above all others.

I resolve to have a hell of a lot of fun.

I just saw a woman (in my office, and therefore theoretically trying to look professional) wearing capri pants (it's 20 degrees!) high heeled black pumps, and very visible footies.

No, honey. Just no.

No, I'm not going to post a picture of every single thing I get for the baby. Probably. But come on, this is frickin' adorable!

Moving on. Do you want to know the absolute best part about telling people we are pregnant? It wasn't telling our parents, although that was a lot of fun. It wasn't telling my brother or our aunts or our grandparents or any of our friends. The absolute best part about finally telling was telling our cleaning lady. Stay with me here, I can explain. We use the same cleaning lady as Chris's parents and there was every chance that she would accidentally say something to Chris's mother. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hide a pregnancy from your cleaning lady? On the days she came, I spent 20 minutes in the morning running around the house hiding things. Picture from the sonogram on the fridge? Stick it between the pages of a cookbook. Prenatal vitamins on the counter? Hide them inside my winter boots. Baby books covering the house? Put them in the tub in the bathroom in the basement, she never cleans that anyway.

She came last week, and I left everything just where it was. Turns out, the next time she went to my in-laws' she asked if they knew the news. I had been thinking that I had a very observant cleaning lady, since I didn't talk to her last week, and that she must have seen the sonogram on the fridge and put two and two together. However, I just realized that my small (so far) collection of baby clothes is currently hanging in the closet directly above the vacuum cleaner. That was probably pretty hard to miss.

We have these friends, I'm going to call them Ava and Jack. I'm not changing their names because I think they would mind if I used their real names, but Ava and Jack are two names I like for the baby that Chris will not even consider. I've decided to take all the names Chris vetos and use them to rename my friends. Anyway, Ava and Jack live very far away from us, because they are selfish and mean and insist on having jobs and going to school rather than moving here to entertain me, but I am only a little bitter about that. Ava and Jack were in town for Christmas and we went to dinner and then spent far too many hours afterwards sitting in Starbucks, and while we were in Starbucks Jack said something that I thought was odd. Not that what he said was so odd, but he made a comment that made me wonder how in the world he knew about that. I figured Chris had told him, but then I had a terrible thought. Jack reads my blog! I tried to remain calm, to convince myself that such a thing could not happen, and then a few days ago Ava emailed me at my blog address. There's no more denying it, they both read my blog. Shit.

You see, nobody that I actually know reads my blog, well not that I know of anyway. And honestly, if I had to pick anyone I know to read my blog it would be Ava and Jack. And I'm not just saying that because they might read this. (But hi, guys. How's it going?) Chris has known Jack for 15 years or so, and I honestly have no idea how long I've known Ava, but I think 25 years would be a reasonable guess. Needless to say, I'm pretty comfortable with these people and I'm sure they aren't going to change their opinions of me just because I talk about purses too much on my blog, but it's still just a little strange for me. Anyway, it got me to wondering about how other people have handled being "found out." Any good stories out there?

So I'm going to try to alternate and do one baby post and then one non-baby post, but I'm so addle-brained lately I'm not sure I'll be able to keep it up.

I had an all baby weekend, well, once I left the bar on Friday anyway.

On Saturday, I went shopping with my Mom. For maternity clothes. Eek. I bought my first pair of actual maternity pants, which I don't need yet but will need someday. At the moment, these things are so huge that you could get in them with me and then we could make out.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yes, shopping. In addition to the maternity pants I got two sweaters that are way too big and have ties so I will be able to hold them closed over my burgeoning belly. Then we got tired of ugly maternity clothes and bought baby clothes instead. You've already seen the ducks, but you will just have to take my word that I bought the cutest bib ever conceived. It has Winnie the Pooh embroidered on it and then little folded fabric ears. I know the ears are just going to be full of cheerios and drool, but it is so damned cute I couldn't resist. One of the real benefits of having this kid will be finally having a cover story for my unnatural Winnie the Pooh addiction.

On Sunday, we finished cleaning out the (gulp) nursery. Prior to being pressed into service as a nursery, this room served as overflow storage for our books. Cleaning it out involved carrying I can't even guess how many hundreds of books and three very heavy bookshelves down two flights of stairs and then replacing all the books on the shelves. The best part was that the shelves barely fit down the stairs to the basement, so not only did we have to hold the heavy shelves while standing on stairs and bent at odd angles, we had to wiggle them to get them around the turns. Once we finished, I declared that it had been my last experience with hard physical labor until I am no longer lifting stuff for two. Lima Bean and I are spending the rest of our time on the couch. Oh, and the treadmill, but Lima Bean loves the treadmill. Do you think my gym would let me push Lima Bean in a stroller on the treadmill?

Sunday night I had a dream about having the baby. I had one dream before about the baby sleeping in a bassinet next to my bed, but this time I was actually in the hospital having apparently only recently finished popping the kid out. So the nurse or somebody handed me the baby and it was beautiful and soft and good and then they told me the baby had leukemia. What I want to know is, where the hell did I come up with leukemia? From now on, I insist that all of my "there's something wrong with my baby" dreams involve things like antlers or speaking fluent Yiddish or being born 14 years old. No more of this horrible disease crap; I will hereby accept nothing short of crazy.

Ok, I have to tell you the cutest thing ever, even though it will probably piss off my husband that I told the entire Internet. (I'm pregnant, how mad at me can he get?) When I came home on Saturday and showed him the little duck onesie, he said "Oh, that makes me want to cry." Could you just eat him with a spoon, or what?

By popular demand, although I promise the story isn't nearly as interesting as you would think.

On Friday night, we went to Happy Hour with three friends to tell them we were pregnant. Now, before you all freak out on me, the bar we went to had a large non-smoking section and I drank Sprite. We got home at around 8:00, ordered a pizza, and I went upstairs to change. When I went to take off the bracelet my parents had given me for my 30th birthday it was gone. Lost.

We tore the house apart. I went through the clothes I was wearing, my coat, my gloves. We checked the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, closets and stairs. I went through the trash. We checked my car, we looked outside the house, on the porch, on the sidewalk. Then we checked all those places again. It wasn't there.

I called the bar. It hadn't been turned in. They wouldn't go look for me. I headed back to the bar with two flashlights and barely contained hysteria. Yes, it was just a thing and I don't generally care that much about things, but this was a gift on a special occasion and also happened to be very expensive. I knew it was hopeless, but I had to look. I got back to the bar and searched the parking lot with a flashlight in each hand. Did I mention it was 4 degrees? No luck in the parking lot, so I went back into the bar. I asked at the front, no luck, so I went in to look. The non-smoking section was now full of smoke and dark and I scoured the floor trying not to breathe. I saw something! No, just a part of a cellophane cigarette wrapper.

I finally got to the back near where we had been sitting and was headed toward our table when a guy spoke to me. He said "are you looking for something?" Now, maybe it was the way he said it or maybe it was just my generally uncharitable nature, but my first thought was "Great. On top of everything else, now I have this loser trying to pick me up." I debated for a second then said yes, I had lost a bracelet. He said "Oh, it's over here." I was floored. I was amazed. At that moment, I loved this man more than I have ever loved a total stranger in my entire life. Even more than firemen. I followed him over to a table and there was my bracelet, just sitting there. He asked the woman at the table if it was her bracelet, and she said no, that they had found it and didn't know who's it was. She looked at me and asked if it was mine. I said yes and started thanking her.

Then my hero, the guy who had saved me, who had shown me where to find my bracelet, grabbed the bracelet off the table and asked me to describe it. Ok, now I just saw it sitting on the table, so this isn't a very good test, now is it? But I played along; I described the bracelet, thin, white gold and diamonds. He gave me a skeptical look and squinted at my bracelet now cupped in his hand. Fine. I elaborated. It is white gold but it has yellow gold around the diamonds and the clasp doesn't work and the safety catch is too loose so it doesn't work either. It's entirely too dark in the bar to see any details, but he did me a favor, so I was humoring him. The woman at the table was getting annoyed and told him to give me my bracelet. He said he wasn't sure it was really mine, because obviously there were a lot of diamond bracelets just lying around so he wanted to make sure I got the right one. Finally I got fed up and just kicked him as hard as I could in the nads and took my bracelet and ran. Ok, not really. It took at least five minutes of me asking for it and the woman at the table demanding he give it to me before he finally turned over my bracelet.

Then he told me I should by him a drink to thank him. I bought the woman at the table a drink, took my bracelet and left.

Writing this up it seems less unbelievably rude than it seemed at the time, so maybe you had to be there. Or maybe you had to be there and up past your bedtime and dinnerless and standing in a smoky room worrying that you were doing irreparable harm to your unborn child, but believe me, that guy really deserved a swift kick.

I will warn you right now that this is really long and boring and I will still love you even if you skip it and go get a cookie instead. Especially if you bring back a cookie for me.

When I found out I was pregnant and we decided not to tell anybody, I started keeping a pregnancy journal. As it has been every time I have attempted to keep a journal, it was a really half-assed effort. Since I think my blog is going to wind up being my pregnancy journal, I wanted to add the first couple weeks so that if my child ever reads this they will have a full picture of just how crazy Mommy really is. So, in the interest of historical accuracy, I hereby present "Beth Gets Pregnant - Days 1 through 50," also known as "Boring, Tedious and Badly Written." You've been warned.

Now, where's my cookie?

To the nice people at Ned Devine's who found the bracelet my parents gave me for my 30th birthday and decided to just hold onto it in case someone came back for it: Thank you so much. I cannot tell you how unbelievably thrilled I was to find my bracelet, which I thought was surely gone forever. You made a hysterical, stressed out, freezing cold, nearly crying pregnant lady who was close to passing out from trying not to inhale the smoke in the bar very, very happy.

To the man at Ned Devine's who noticed my bracelet sitting on the table and then noticed me coming through the room frantically searching the floor and put two and two together and took me to the people who had my bracelet: Thank you for noticing me, thank you for helping me. It's just too bad you had to ruin such a nice gesture by being an unmitigated dick.

Is this the cutest thing you've ever seen or what?

(With apologies to Dawn since this is exactly the same thing I emailed her this morning. I'm too tired to be creative.)

Things I forgot yesterday because I am pregnant and apparently therefore stupid:

My PIN.

My husband's Social Security Number.

How to put my car into reverse.

Which key opened my office door.

The name of the cat I have had for 18 years.

So tell me the truth. How long does this last? Does it go away once the kid graduates from college?

Update: I just realized that the title of this post makes no sense. I chose it because I thought that in my post yesterday I said I would write about something other than being pregnant today. I just checked, and I didn't say that. However, I think I just gave you an excellent illustration of the point of today's post, so at least there is a redeemable aspect to the mistake.

I was going to write about something other than being pregnant today, because if I go on about it constantly until August even I'm going to get sick of it. I had two problems though. First, I didn't tell anybody (well hardly anybody) for over seven weeks, so now I feel pretty much want to just talk about it all the time. Sorry about that. Second, I thought of something very important that I completely forgot to tell you. Are you ready? It's pretty exciting. I finally have boobs!

Man, I love you guys! I hope that you will still love me when I am fat and bloated and cranky. Now that's a pretty picture, isn't it? Thank you all so much for your good wishes. It has been really hard keeping this secret for the past 7 weeks, and it was lots of fun to finally be able to share the news.

So, details. I am 12 weeks and 2 days pregnant, which means I have actually been pregnant for about 10 weeks. You see, they count funny. Did you know about the counting funny? It was news to me. Basically, the very instant that you actually become pregnant you are suddenly 2 weeks pregnant. Whatever.

My official due date is July 31, but I'm not sure what my doctor was smoking when she came up with that one. My due date should be August 2, and it I were putting money on it, I would go with August 5 or so.

We found out I was pregnant the day after Thanksgiving, and I think we were able to start breathing and blinking again about a week later. You see, I wasn't supposed to get pregnant. I mean, we were trying, but we had done all the testing and I had the prescription for Clomid and I had even filled the prescription but we decided to try one more time on our own. It was going to be a good last effort, but clearly it wasn't going to happen. Except it happened. My theory is that my ovaries got carried away with the holiday spirit and forgot about their campaign of hatred and woe and accidentally dropped an egg. And now I'm pregnant, so take that, bitches.

I've felt great the entire time. Well, I'm so tired I can barely speak, but otherwise I've felt great.

Best part of being pregnant, so far: Lying in bed this morning with my husband's head on my fatter-by-the-day stomach.

Worst part of being pregnant, so far: Eight weeks of zombie-like exhaustion. I'm starting to wonder whether I should go eat some brains.

Beth and Chris: Guess what?
Internet: What?
Beth and Chris: No, guess.
Internet: Ok. You're both following your childhood dreams and
abandoning your seemingly normal life to join the circus. We've
always thought you were "circus people."
Beth and Chris: Um.no. Try again. It's a secret.
Internet: You're not actually two people. All this time
you've been stringing us along you're really one talented yet highly
disturbed person. Right?
Beth and Chris: Come on. Get real. I'm, uh, we're two real
people. Give it another shot.
Internet: This seems to be a one-sided relationship. Its all
give, no get from us.
Beth and Chris: Hey, play along or we are taking our blogs and
going home. We're getting something. Now, what could it be?
Internet: Fine. A puppy?
Beth and Chris: Yes! One of those little ones you can carry
around in your purse!
Internet: Really?
Beth and Chris: Are you on crack? No.
Internet: Fine.
Beth and Chris: Try again.
Internet: A new car?
Beth and Chris: Yes!
Internet: That was totally not worth playing this stupid game.
Beth and Chris: Well, we are getting a new car, but that's not
what we want you to guess.
Internet: This is getting old.
Beth and Chris: Come on.
Internet: A new house?
Beth and Chris: No.
Internet: Rickets?
Beth and Chris: Ha-ha. No.
Internet: Annoying?
Beth and Chris: Fine, we'll give you another clue. It's
something we're getting in August.
Internet: Why should we care now, then? Post about it in August!
Beth and Chris: It involves new clothes.
Internet: Someone gave you a cruise?
Beth and Chris: No. It involves new furniture.
Internet: A new house?
Beth and Chris: No, you guessed that already. It involves screaming.
Internet: Um, unless someone's passing a kidney stone at a
costume party, I don't think I get it. I give up.
Beth and Chris: Fine, one more clue, but this really gives it away...

I'm living in a war zone.

My front porch is home base for one side in the wide-ranging conflict. My front porch makes an excellent base as the surrounding terrain makes it easy to defend. Also, you can hide behind the hedge rows and launch a surprise attack when the enemy passes by. However, as far as I can tell the soldiers have walkie-talkies but no weapons, so I'm not entirely clear what they use in the attack.

The retaining wall in my back yard appears to be some sort of holding cell. There have been interrogations taking place there sporadically for several days. I expect there will be a sneak attack from above before long, and I think the occupying army should pay careful attention to what is going on in the junipers above their heads. Also, as long as they are down there, they should take my trash and recycling up to the curb.

It has been rather stressful trying to live my life while surrounded by battles. I can't decide whether I should barricade myself in a closet or invite the commandos in for hot cocoa. You see, it's very cold today and I'm sure their mothers would be upset to know they weren't wearing their gloves. I've also considered loaning them my set of walkie-talkies, but I am concerned doing so may change the balance of power in a conflict that I do not fully understand.

Perhaps I should call the U.N.?

Holy cow, what a week. Everybody who is thrilled beyond words that it's finally Friday, raise your hands.

Ok, since this is the Internets I guess that didn't work too well, so you will just have to picture me waving my hand around above my head like a dork in third grade who has the answers to every question and really, really wants to be called on. It's hard to type while doing that, take my word for it.

Anyway, I am four days behind on email and it is making he hyperventilate a little bit and I have meetings all morning so no way to catch up. Work has been crazy this week, but crazy in a good way. As in rather than wanting to fling myself off the top of the parking garage by noon every day, I actually feel that I have been making a difference in my little corner of corporate America. It isn't making the world safe for democracy or anything, but it's better than contemplating suicide every time my phone rings.

My actual real life has been a little insane too. I was thinking last night about how I almost never talk about my actual real life on my blog. I'm not going to start, I was just thinking about it because I was wondering whether my fellow bloggers feel like their blogs are fairly accurate representations of themselves. I think mine is an accurate representation of an aspect of me, but not an accurate representation of me as a person. I think if you read my blog and then met me, I would not be quite what you were expecting.

So what do you think? If I met you after reading your blog, would I be surprised, or would your blog have given me a good idea of what to expect? Or is this too much thinking for a Friday?

A couple of weekends ago I wasn't feeling very well and my charming, lovely, ice-scraping husband (who also has a really nice butt) went to the grocery store for me. I asked him to buy yogurt, which he did, but he bought low fat instead of non fat. I'm eating the last of my low fat yogurt now, and I just wanted to say yuuuummmmmmm.

Also, I am not blowing Spongebob in the picture below. Well, I mean, I am blowing Spongebob, but not like that. Get out of the gutter people.

Thanks to everyone who picked up my slack today and blogged for me. I promise to try to do all my own blogging tomorrow. I may even tell you the story about how my day was really bad because somebody's lunch leaked all over my lunch in the fridge and I had to throw away my three hershey's kisses, but they my day was really good because I got the absolute best possible parking space at the gym. But only if you are very good.

Anyway, since you were so nice as to do something for me, I wanted to do something for you.
Jon in Michigan asked for a picture of me looking really pissed off. I am sure hundreds such pictures exist, but I can't seem to find one at the moment. I decided that the next best thing would be a picture of me looking really stupid, so here you go...

Morning, peeps. Seems I have another all day meeting today, which I am not very happy about. Since I haven't be able to think of a way out of it, I decided to steal a page from my husband's book and turn the asylum over to the put you all to work blogging for me. So if you want to leave a guest post, here's how you do it:

Go here
Username: Guest
Password: Bethi$hot

Have fun, but please don't make me regret this. I reserve the right to delete anything I find objectionable, but frankly there isn't too much that I find objectionable.

Don't forget to sign your name!

Oh this is a first for me! I've never guest blogged before. Promise me you'll be gentle!

And now for the shameless self promotion.

My partner packed his stuff last night and left. He used to read my old blog One Perfect Day and was critical of my blogging. Ok, so he was critical of EVERYTHING about me but that's beside the point.

So, I deleted it. All 70,000 words of it. That old blog. Now I have a new blog: www.feminoz.blogspot.com. It's so I can write again without feeling the need to censor. Hope to see you there sometime. There's no telling how disgusting it will get.

Ozfemme. (Bella is gone, may she RIP)

So, I was thinking of a title, and came up with that one, which gave me an idea for something to write about. As ya may have guessed, I've never blogged or guest blogged or done anything remotely related to said blogging. So to keep things simple I will tell you a story...which has nothing to do with Doritos.
My friend Bren and I were in another friend's basement, and we were bored. He and I are kinda brotherly/sisterly pain in the asses to one another and we commenced having a pillow fight. Some of the pillows were rather heavy, and I (by accident, I swear!) managed to hit him in a rather inopportune area. He sucked in breath something fierce before I figured out what had happened, and he was sitting on the couch with the pillow over his lap looking afraid, while I was giggling uncontrollably on the other end of the couch. So, of course, at this point, the aforementioned friend to whom the basement belongs rejoins us, and I'm giggling and saying "I did something I've never done before!" and Bren's protecting himself and looking shocked. She jumped to a whole 'nother conclusion.

I'm in class and I'm starving (not for Doritos, thanks Amber) so lets make this quick:

My dad and I had a conversation the other night about his work and having to sign contracts. In over 30 years of business, he has only signed two. One of the two read: "I hereby promise to please your wife."

Haaaaa.

-bmh

*Note: Christian was 7 and Tommy 6 when this was written last June.

On the way to summer school, the first day:

Christian: "I'm so excited, I could just cry."

Me (naive): "Oh, good!"

Christian: "I'm not excited. I'm housebroken!"

Christian: "What does housebroken mean?"

Me (covering mouth): "It means you know to go outside to go to the bathroom if you are a dog. You are not housebroken, honey, you are heartbroken."

In The School:

Christian: "I'm so embarrassed."

Christian: "What does embarrassed mean?"

Me: "It means you feel funny."

Christian: "I'm so embarrassed."

At Baseball:

Christian: "We always win! I hate winning! Why do we always have to win!"

Christian (at homeplate): "Do you want me to get a homerun, Mommy?"

Me: "Sure."

Christian: "Well, I'm not going to!"

Christian (at homeplate again): "Do you want me to get a homerun, Mommy?"

Me: "I just want you to have fun, honey."

Christian: "Well, I'm not having fun!"

At Bath Time:

Christian: "Can I go pee, Mommy?"

Me: "Yes."

Christian: "Tommy says he will spank me if I go pee."

Me: "Are you going to go in the bathtub?"

Christian: "No, the potty."

Me: "Go head."

Tommy: "I'm going to spank you Christian!"

Me: "No you are not."

Christian stands in front of the potty and, yes, still manages to pee on my foot.

~Jen~ http://jenorama.blogspot.com (how do I do links in Movable Type?)
I hope we weren't supposed to talk about Doritoes...

"Arrr! We've got 'er now. She's a right proud beauty, she is. No quarter, me mateys! Dead men tell no tales!"

What are you doing?

"Blimey, Cap'n! We've given chase and overhauled this here prize. We'll seize her booty, hang the hands from the yardarm and scuttle this jollyboat."

Seize her booty? I'm not sure Beth would appreciate that. Her husband either.

"Oo's Beth, Cap'n?"

The owner of the blog. We're here with her permission. And stop calling me Cap'n.

"Wha'?! The saucy wench in the tricorn hat? The one with all the bloody handbags?"

Well, that's not a very nice thing to say, but, yes, that's her.

"Well she's got grog then, an' that's good enough for our bunch o' scurvy dogs."

No. Blog. Short for Web log, or online journal.

"Eh?"

Nevermind.

"That's being a bit of a rum fellow, Cap'n. Smartly then, me hearties! Back to the ship!"

Sorry, Beth. Pardon our mess.

Patrick

Speaking of Doritos, I have a doozie of a story....

My husband and I lived in different states when we were first married. We saw each other a couple times a month at most. When I turned 21, we didn't get to see each other until after my birthday had come and gone. So when I finally saw him, he decided we needed to celebrate by going to an Octoberfest celebration. We bought huge ceramic pilsner mugs and you could buy beer tokens cheap. There was a German band there playing cheesy German folk music. We drank until we were doing the polka on our table. Soon closing time came, and we had to leave. I had drank so much so fast that it really hadn't hit me until we got back to his place. When I opened the car door I stumbled out and could bearly walk. I have never been much of a drinker and I definately had never gotten this drunk before. As I walked up the three flights of stairs to my husband's room I started to feel sick. A friend of my husband's decided that I should use his theory of "puke and rally" to feel better. He thought that if you puked, then quick drank a beer that you would feel better. Right. He started chanting it over and over, puke and rally, puke and rally.... He was really starting to annoy me, with my not feeling so well and all, so I told him where he could shove that idea. Then someone gave me the spicey cheesy kind of Doritos claiming that the chips would soak up the beer. I was drunk, it sounded better than the whole 'puke and rally' bit, so I ate the Doritos. I have never thrown up so much in my life. What a learning experience. I can honestly say that I will never forget my 21st birthday. I haven't drank that much since, either. Sad as it is, I can't stand cheese Doritos now. You couldn't pay me to eat those things. I don't even want to smell them! What's with Doritos making people ill? Its a sign, I tell you!

Puke and Rally! Pass the Doritos!

Myllissa

Ode to Beth
because she's cool
she lets us play
with this wicked tool

She like breath mints
and to drop hints
on money she'd like us to provide
and pets she'd like to confine

(ok that one didn't rhymme, gimme a break, I'M at work!)

She recently turned the BIG 3-0
she's also named her mole, oh no!
she's not going to be around today to make us smile
but she's given us the chance to be her, but for awhile

In high school I was pretty friendly with the drama teacher, being the school's only real Drama Geek. Not that kind of friendly, get your head out of the gutter.

Anyway. We were doing 'Arsenic & Old Lace' and he was doing my makeup. He had this thing about Doritos and apparently thought I'd remember... 'cause, you know, teenagers are so thoughtful. Anyway, I ate a bunch of Doritos before going to school and when he went to do my makeup, the smell freaked him out so bad he threw up all over the bathroom inside the dressing room. This caused about 3 other girls to do the "sympathy vomit" and we all had to relocate to a classroom because the girls' dressing room smelled like puke.

That's all I got. Sorry.

Stacy

It seems that eating FIERY RANCH Flavor Doritos May Be Harmful to Your Health

A mother walks into a hospital with her teenager, who is complaining of a sore throat. The girl's throat is extremely irrated and the mother believes the Doritos are to blame. She contacts the public relations person at the hospital and demands that the pr person immediately send out a press announcement stating that "eating Fiery Ranch Doritos will burn your throat". After a little bit of digging the doctors find out the girl has been eating a full size bag of Fiery Ranch Doritos every day for a month. And the mother knew about it!

So, next time you eat a family sized bag of Doritos every day for a month and get a sore throat, don't come whining to me about it. I warned you.

Patricia

So, I'm grumping over at my place today that I have to share my Doritos with four kids. Then, instead of cleaning up Doritos crumbsthe house like I should, I sit and surf. Googling and surfing the reoccurring thoughts that come to mind... ah Doritos the triangulation of cheesy yum... and then... OMG!! I am traumatised here guys! I mean, is that a leg?

I'm thinking sharing isn't such a bad idea after all!

Amber

I have an all-day meeting today, and tomorrow too for that matter. Therefore, I invite you to talk amongst yourselves. I will even give you a topic.

Topic: Gosh, that Beth is so cool and funny! We should all send her lavish gifts or possibly just large sums of money in honor of her wonderful amazingness.

Discuss.

Please don't tell my mother I used the word ain't in my last post. I think I might still get grounded for that.

On the subject, the biggest trouble I ever got in with my mother was when she told me not to say ain't because it wasn't a real word and I brought her the dictionary. Anybody else ever get grounded for being a smartass?

You can keep the flowers and extravagant gifts and jewelry (well, most of the jewelry). You can revel in your grand romantic gestures and don't worry a bit about me. My husband scraped the ice off my car this morning. If that ain't love, I don't know what is.

My afternoon

2:00-3:00

Monitored an "open bridge" call set up to respond to questions for a recently-launched project in which I was slightly involved. Not a single person called in.

3:00-4:00

Conference call regarding a new and different project. No discussion about the actual project, instead we are spending an hour talking to the Marketing dingbat about how she should edit her project action register. In other words, we have no idea what the project is or whether it makes sense, but dammit the action items better be numbered correctly.

4:00-5:00

Conference call regarding yet another new and different project staring the same Marketing dingbat from the 3:00 call.

5:02

Disembowel myself with either my letter opener, the candy cane left over from Christmas or the really big lollipop I was given as a bribe. Pondering the proper implement to use will at least give me something to do on the 4:00 call.

So, yeah. A whole lot more people were interested in the mole on my head than I thought would be interested in the mole on my head, which proves either that my moles are deeply fascinating to the multitudes or you were all really bored yesterday. Anyway, after such an outpouring of concern and support and surprisingly no jokes at my expense (at least none that I got) I feel like I owe you an update.

First things first, I have decided to name the mole Myrtle because I like it and also because my love for Dawn is deep and unending and possibly inappropriate but she sent me a page-a-day cat calendar so she should have expected that. So Myrtle and I went to the doctor yesterday, and the doctor said that while Myrtle may possibly be planning a coup d'etat or some other such mischief, she is not malignant and therefore can stay or go at my discretion. The doctor than presented my options for Myrtle's untimely demise. I can either go to my dermatologist who would apparently remove her with a melonballer, or some such contraption, or I could let the doctor just chop her off. The drawback of going to my dermatologist is that, while I love him for giving me magical zit potions that finally kicked the ass of my adult acne, he has the bedside manner of a trout and I try to avoid seeing him at all costs. The drawback of having it done by my doctor is that Myrtle may grow back, and if she did, I'm sure she would be almighty pissed.

So in the end, Myrtle and I left together to take some time to contemplate the lesser of two evils. We are going out for a nice dinner tonight, just us, to talk. Myrtle feels that we just don't communicate anymore.

This is probably way TMI, but you should expect no less of me at this point.

I have to go to the doctor this afternoon to have them check out a huge mutant mole that is currently working to take over the back of my head. You see, I have always had this small, demure, rather cute little mole on the back of my head under my hair where nobody could see it. No harm, no foul. Lately, this mole has gotten a little too big for its britches and has decided to conquer the world. It's huge. It's nasty. If it were on your head you would probably be unable to hold your head upright due to the mole's amazing girth, but fortunately for me I have a great big melon head and therefore overdeveloped neck muscles. (For the record, I would like to state that it is still entirely hidden by my hair. There's nasty, and then there's nasty.)

So anyway, I'm going to beg and plead with the doctor to just take the darned thing off, as I was really none too fond of it in the first place and this recent growth spurt has put it firmly onto my list. However, before I do that I feel that now that this thing is so big and nasty it is only fair to give it a name. I'm leaning towards Edna, but figured I may as well put it up for a vote to entertain myself. So, anybody have any suggestions? Come on, play along. How often do you get the opportunity to christen a mutant mole?

On another note, thank you to everybody who joined in for Delurking Day yesterday. I had a heck of a lot of fun and hope you all did too.

(P.S. I know for an absolute fact that drinking two cups of tea makes me sick as a dog, so why in the hell did I just do it?)

Today is the day, folks. Today is the day to muster your courage, rally your troops, possibly even gird your loins, and comment where you have never commented before. Think of it as making your mark on history, like writing an amazing novel or curing cancer or peeing your name in a fresh bank of snow. You don't have to be clever or funny or wise, although extra points will be awarded if you are, but if you don't comment I will sit in the corner and whine like a little kicked puppy and nobody wants that, now do they? So let's go, kids. Delurk and show yourselves for the brilliant and savvy people you clearly are. I will even give you a topic:

Of the following real-life happened to me examples, which is the worst:

- Drooling (and I mean big-time) on your yoga mat in the middle of class.
- Training a group of 150 people for two hours with your fly undone.
- Passing out. In church. On Christmas Eve. While standing at the front of the church holding a very large candle.
- Coming out of the bathroom with your dress tucked into your pantyhose. At a wedding. Your own wedding.

So come on now, don't make me beg. I mean, I'm happy to beg, but it won't be pretty.

(Whoops - almost forgot to give a shout-out to Sheryl for the idea!)

The paper towels stocked at my office are called Quilted Sunrise. I just thought you all needed to know that.

Just for the record, I did not drool on my yoga mat again last night. It was a very near thing, but I managed to avoid it.

People, would you please do me a favor? If you are going to send me an email and copy everyone in the world and if the email is going to say "Oh my Gawd! This is a major catastrophe! The flibjit is totally flackschmeed! And it is all your fault!," please make sure that the flibjit really is totally flackschmeed. Because you see, if I check out the flibjit and find out that it is not flackschmeed after all but is instead doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, I am going to have to reply to you and to everyone you copied on your email and gently point out that you are a total idiot. While I do, technically, enjoy doing this, I'm sure it is slightly less fun for you and could be easily avoided by your being just slightly less stupid. Thank you.

Well my friends, it seems that I have been named as a finalist for a BoB Award in the Best New Blog category. Let me tell you, things have been just insane since the finalists were announced. My phone is ringing off the hook with designers begging me to wear their dress to the big, internationally televised awards ceremony. I'm holding out for the gown that will give me cleavage and cleverly disguise the size of my holiday-expanded ass. When the jewelers started calling asking if they could pretty, pretty please give me millions of dollars worth of diamonds to wear I had to disconnect the phone. Let me tell you, if I had known it was going to be such a big deal, I might have thought twice before bribing the judges to make me a finalist.

Anyway, if you would like to vote, you can vote in the Best New Blog category here or vote in all categories here. Even if you don't want to vote, please take some time to check out the sites. There are a lot of really outstanding people nominated in all categories and I am duly humbled to be in their company.

However, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure I have some confessions to make:
- I was nominated by my husband. It was nice of him and all, but basically he had to do it if he ever wanted to see me naked again.
- I did not bribe the judges. Well, not all of them.
- I'm voting for Aussie Mama.

Well, I didn't make it to midnight last night, which was not unusual for me, but it wasn't because I was passed out drunk, which was unusual.

Chris and I almost never go out on New Year's Eve because going to dinner costs a small fortune and going to parties usually involves someone puking in your vicinity and neither of those tends to be things that we enjoy. So instead, we usually stay home and make a fancy dinner and watch old movies. Last night, we made cheese fondue. It was, perhaps, not the greatest cheese fondue ever made. It may have been the best cheese soup ever made, but it was considerably too runny to properly qualify as fondue. It tasted good though, so we ate it.

The cheese soup/fondue led to a dinnertime discussion of our other fondue disasters. To be fair, I have to admit that they were my fondue disasters, not ours. For example, there was the time that I turned the gas up to high and dumped all the cheese in the pot and burned the ever-loving curds out of it. Chris had to go get more cheese and I stayed away from the stove for the next week. My favorite was when I decided to put the ceramic fondue pot right on the burner which caused it to break into a million pieces and flood the kitchen with melted cheese. That was the night we were hosting a dinner party for six. The exploding cheese led invariably to a discussion of the many stupid things I have done which have caused me to nearly or actually severely hurt myself, which flowed nicely into a discussion of the most painful things I have experienced in my life. You know, just your average friendly chit chat.

Anyway, my New Year's Resolutions are to eat more chocolate and gain weight. I just don't see the point in setting myself up for failure, so have decided to go with goals that I know I can achieve.

As a side note, I would like to point out that the internets is especially useful for guilt trips, which is how I ended up receiving the mac-daddy of all day-by-day cat calendars from my charming and handsome husband. Now I am happy and my life is nearly complete. Not fully complete, as I also did not receive large diamond stud earrings for Christmas. Oh woe is me, woe is me! How will I ever go on without large diamond stud earrings?