My OD subscription expires today :(

I guess I’m not sure why I care, except for note giving… I’m going to miss the extra room, since I sure do leave LONG notes.  Oh well.  I never did the chapter thing… or really took advantage of any of the extras.  I haven’t missed the ads though.  I DO have an internet account though now… could renew.  IF I could justify the cost of it.  It’s NOT like we have a bunch of extra money right now.  Man, I sure do hope Jerry closes this deal. 
I just enlarged the text….wow, that’s MUCH better.  I can see now! 
I’m tired… and I don’t mean just physically.  I’m tired mentally, emotionally… 
No, I haven’t sent in the paperwork!  It’s due this week too.  I’m thinking I’ll just call and schedule an appt to bring it in.  I have struggled so hard with the darn paperwork, it’s not funny.  I don’t even WANT to see a doctor.  I really, seriously HATE all of this.
Oh… random thought.  The baby kicked me in a way that sent kind of an electric shock through my body, like I’d hit my funny bone, only in my pelvis.  It was the WEIRDEST feeling, I did not appreciate it at all.  That baby sure can kick.  I found myself calling it baby girl… like I KNOW…but then, with FOUR daughters, I know.  I KNOW. 

I just ate some rice, so the baby should be waking up any time now to say thanks for the food ;).  LOL

I got a treadmill from FreeCycle.  I need to find some things to put up on there.  I just don’t know WHAT, you know?  Probably ought to start with my scraproom.  We were talking about cleaning out the garage and doing a garage sale.  There is SO MUCH stuff in there.  Jerry said we should put the truck in there.  Actually, it’s got an engine problem now, possibly the transmission, so I guess we’ve decided to let them re-po it, unless this deal does actually come through.  I am kind of wondering, WHY are we doing this to ourselves?   What I mean is… are we EVER going to see a deal close?  Jerry seems to feel one will…eventually.  I know it’s a tough business.  One guy I told him what Jerry goes, and he called it "Elephant hunting"  LOL, that’s pretty accurate.  So we trade the security for one big deal… which is fine, if we weren’t totally flat broke.  Well, not TOTALLY flat broke, but even when we do get a LITTLE money, we still have to budget as though we were totally flat broke.  I hate it.  It almost makes me want to go back to doing foreclosures, except that’s not a fun business right now…well, even less fun than it was.  I have to say though, at least I had the satisfaction of helping keep people OUT of foreclosure.  I just would love to see us keep this house, and our land, and be able to just live like normal people again…well, maybe better than normal ;).  I guess a lot of people struggle, I just hate counting myself among them.  Oh, it’s been a challenge all right, and challenges can be fun.  But so many days, I just don’t even go out of the house except to pick up Shabree, that it’s kind of depressing.  Today, I didn’t go out of the house once.  Not once.   I didn’t see the light of day.  I could do that every day practically, if I didn’t have to go pick up Shabree.  I don’t like going out.  I don’t like spending time in the store.  I get tired too easily.  Maybe it’s the pregnancy, I don’t know.  I mean, I’m pretty tired all the time.  I don’t think it’s depression exactly… I don’t feel suicidal, not like I used to.  I just don’t go out, and when I do, I do what needs to be done and head home.  I’m pretty sure it’s the pregnancy, because I think even if I did have money, I’d probably still stay home.  I don’t feel like cooking much either, don’t feel like doing much of anything, though I did tell Jerry the other day that if he’d sweep, I’d mop, so I did that yesterday, and I mopped the floors THREE times.  Yes, three!  It needed it.  Each round came with a fresh bucket of boiling hot water w/ bleach, and I even bought new ($1.43) mops for the job…4 of them.  Though Shabree was the only one here to really help me, and she didn’t help much, so I kept her busy with other "chores" like putting the baby to bed, and putting away the dishes (an actual chore, and one she hates, but can do by herself, though she tries to con everyone into helping her by saying she can’t do it herself)  I knocked the stupid bucket over twice, so Shabree did help by getting "dirty" towels (used once, I’m sure!) from her room to wipe up the excess water.  The floor there looked so much better that I actually only mopped it up once.  Well, next time all the girls can help me.  One guy at Wal mart commented on all the mops, and I told him, "Well, I have 4 girls, so the 3 oldest get to help me!"  I have to say though, by the time I was done, the new mop I was using was unravelling and looking pretty old already.  But it’s nice to have clean floors (I was pretty pissed this morning though, walking on crunchy stuff on the floor…Bec had spilled dishwasher detergent and hadn’t bothered to really clean it up… she did after I complained, but I can’t figure out WHY I have to complain!)  Speaking of Bec… had to ask her FIVE times last night to do the danged dishes in the sink.  Shabree had mostly emptied the dishwasher, so asked Syd to finish and wipe down the counters, and Shabree helped empty.  So Bec just ignored me, and ignored me, and ignored me.  I finally told her "You can redeem yourself by doing it when you get home without me having to ask, otherwise, I’m going to ground you to your room."  And today, when she saw me coming, she raced for the sink to do them.  I never really said a word, but I have to say, it took her ALL FREAKING DAY to finish them totally.  I also had to have her re-wash a glass pan I used for broccoli and rice the other night, which when I took it out of the cupboard, I’d had to wash before I could even use it, there was so much junk around the edge, it was disgusting, plus the glass was cloudy…ick. 

Well, I’m going to go to bed.  I think I covered all the minutae, lol.  I know, I go on and on.

I got an offer that if I would register online, I could have an online baby shower.  That sounds pretty good, but I don’t know who I’d "invite"  I mean, I’m on lots of Yahoo groups, but I tend to lurk a lot… so don’t know what the protocol there would be… I mean, I only have a couple of people that even check out my diary on a regular basis.  They know who they are, lol!  Well, I suppose it can’t hurt to register anyway… don’t need much, some Dr Jones’s bottles for the first few months.  I have one left from Sammi, but not sure where the nipple is… Jerry tends to put bigger holes in them for cereal, and those have been total disasters for Sammi, she hates them…even now they make her choke.  So I have had to get rid of some nipples, and now I’m short on them.  I’m HOPING the hospital where I have this baby can "load me up" on some nipples.  What hurts, is that I had a big old bag full of just rings and nipples, and they were going to expire (I can’t believe those things expire!) so I trashed them.  I think that was actually shortly before I got pregnant with Sammi, so they’d be expired by now.  Still…a waste.  I’d been given them when I worked for Apple by a fellow employee who had a BUNCH of formula she’d gotten and her baby was too sensitive to use.  Well, the formula was those little two or four ounce bottles, that you take the top off and screw on a nipple…Enfamil I think.  Shabree sucked those puppies DOWN, she was such a little piggy.  But I’d recycle the nipples, so I still had a large bag full.  I kind of wish(ed) I could have given them away to someone who could use them, or kept them.  I just wasn’t sure about the expiration date on them… they WERE rubber after all.  I didn’t want them cracking on some poor mom and having her baby choke on them… yikes!  Though with all the times I put them through the dishwasher, I never had a problem with them.

Anyway, back to my point… I know I’m going to want Dr Jones’s bottles, those things are fabulous for those first 3-6 months when the regular nipples choke them (I’m going to do my best to breastfeed, but if I have to supplement like I did with Sammi, then those are the bottles I want!), then I want/need a baby swing… might ask on freecycle, a new one would be nice, but some days seems a bit much to ask for.  I only want it because it seems to be the only thing some days that can really soothe and put to sleep some babies (like Sammi, though at first she hated it and Jerry told me it was a waste of money, but I knew better.  Wish the older girls wouldn’t have broken it.  I mean, I KNEW they were going to, but I didn’t think it would be accidental!  It still made me mad though, they really shouldn’t have been playing by it.  One pushed another and they fell on it, and it never did work properly after that, Sammi just slid right out of it 🙁   What else?  MAYBE  a Johnny jump up.. maybe not.  I don’t know, a little play blanket/rug where they could do tummy time (Shabree loved tummy time, and learned to crawl before she could sit up.. she sat up a week later but still.  Sammi HATED tummy time and cried the whole time she was on her stomach), probably don’t need clothes unless it’s a boy.  Then I’ll have to start completely over!  Diapers, wipes, every mom needs those with a new baby.  Mmmm, baby wash, Desitin (I find I only like the original, purple tub or tube Desitin…nothing else works as well.)… MAYBE a baby tub so s/he can be washed easier.  I’ve got the car seat, stroller, will probably put Sammi into a "big girl bed" so the baby can have the crib…after the baby is too big for the cradle (or sleeping with mommy)… well, could probably use a second set of sheets for the crib and cradle (where ARE the sheets for the cradle?  Crap!)  So I guess those can go on the "needs" list.  Don’t need a changing table, always have used the floor, bed, couch or whatever, and actually STILL have one of the changing pads I bought when Sammi was born (only to find another one in the diaper bag the hospital gave me, which I LOVED that diaper bag, I must say!  It had everything in it)  Probably won’t need a diaper bag, if I can swing it to have this baby at Kaiser too… I hope so.  I have the little case for the wipes too.  I think I still have it, because for the most part, it’s been in the house for the last 6 months, lol!  The problem is, I don’t USE diaper bags!  I should, and I just don’t.  They tend to get all nasty when you find stuff growing in them, because diapers didn’t get tossed, they just got left to rot in the diaper bag (yuck!  But I totally blame others!), or some food you put in there for the kids spilled, and got everywhere, or a bottle spilled, and then the bag rotted, or it got left in the vehicle of choice to get trampled on and ruined.  Who knows… but diaper bags and I don’t typically get along, and it’s a minor, perhaps major miracle I still have this changing pad.  I have wipes because of Sammi, and somehow Linda got some in her bag at the grocery store, so she’s supposed to give me some.  I have started going online to fill out forms for all sorts of freebies for babies, free formula (including some for Sammi, yea!), free diapers (messed that one up, and can’t seem to get it to take the proper birthday, it just says I already applied for the freebie, doggone it!  I’ll try again, could really use the diapers, they’re SO expensive.  I might see if some friends of mine could get them too).  I tried for a free baby bowl, but it said it was expired, shucks.  I hate all the doggone forms you have to fill out, and then they want to try and "sell" you on other stuff. 
Oh, the baby woke up… it’s kicking in there pretty good.
Well, it’s 2 a.m. guess I should go to bed or something ;).  Tomorrow I’ll see about registering… should be able to do that on Target, and that way I can use them as my whole baby shower registry, if anyone in "real life" should want to get me anything (won’t hold my breath though, truthfully!  Everyone knows we’re in a pretty bad situation, but they have lives, and difficulties, of their own!)  It really does kind of suck a little that my mother isn’t "that" sort of mother.  She would never think to hostess a baby shower for me.  It just would NOT occur to her.  Oh well…that’s all right.  I have to accept her the way she is, and she might just come through with a check instead, to help out.  The thing is, you NEVER know with her, so can’t really plan on it, or rely on her.  It’s okay… it’s a surprise then, but it would be nice to know, okay, mom’s going to give me so much for baby stuff, will include it in the budget, or whatever… but I won’t ask her to come this time.  I just won’t.  I don’t care if I’m ill-prepared or what, but I’m just not going to go there.  She can love from afar, which seems to be more comfortable for her.