My Own Wisteria Lane

I wasn’t planning on blogging again until next Sunday, but Monday was sort of crazy. Actually, it wasn’t crazy until after I finished teaching aerobics at 7:30. I got home and found Lee resting on the sofa looking a little disheveled. He told me he’d had a good day but he’d had a “rough night”. Since he’d gotten home at 6pm, I was interested in what had gone awry in an hour and a half. According to Lee, he took all three dogs outside when he got home. The two big dogs went out to eat and Trudie went out to use the ladies room. In the middle of all of this, Lee received a phone call from a client so he had to go back inside to use the computer. Twenty minutes later he realized that he’d brought the two big dogs in but had left Trudie outside. He immediately went out to get her, but Trudie was not there.

There are two big problems with this situation – 1. Trudie can’t see and 2. she can’t hear so if you call her, she’s not going to come running. I can only picture Lee, flashlight in tow, running up and down our street and back alley screaming her name all the while trying to figure out how he’s going to tell me he lost my highly-immobile elderly dog that I am admittedly very weird about. He finally found her 15 minutes later in a bush, still in our backyard. Crisis averted, but I’m quite sure he’s never been so glad to see those little white eyes and hairless butt caused by a recent skin allergy.

Then weird thing #2 happened. Living in a big city, I pretty much never know anyone in the news. I got in bed to watch the ten o’clock broadcast when they went into this story about a murder-for-hire scheme where this man had hired someone to kill his 8-months pregnant wife. Then they flashed up a picture of the guy and I knew him. I was stunned. I’ve known Al for five years because I teach aerobics with him. I have a conversation with him every Tuesday night since he teaches the kickboxing class after my step class. In fact, he teaches the most well-attended class at the gym. I guess it won’t be now. I wouldn’t say I know him well, but if I called him, he’d know who I was. Allegedly, he hired someone he knew to break into his house and kill his wife while he was out of town. The guy broke into the house, but instead of killing Al’s wife, he told her Al’s plan. She’s fine and living with family. Al is now charged with two counts of criminal solicitation of capital murder – one for his wife and one for his unborn child.

It just goes to show you that you never know what’s going on in other people’s heads even though they appear seemingly normal. What strange thoughts are running through our co-workers’ heads? Our neighbors’ heads? What drove Al to do this? We may never know but if I had to guess, I’d bet Al hired a man to kill his wife because she lost his blind/deaf dog.

O Happy Day!

Let's start with the important stuff. Over the weekend, I took a minute to reflect and think about all of the things I am thankful for. I have a wonderful husband, a great family, and we are so lucky to be expecting a baby. But most of all, I am thankful that the AGGIES beat the longhorns!!!!!! I have been on cloud nine for the past two days. Finally the my Aggies stuck it to t.u. where it hurts - at home on Senior Day. I was still a little nervous that they'd back door their way into the Big 12 Championship if Oklahoma lost, but the Sooners won and now Texas will be sitting at home next weekend. I love it. L-O-V-E I-T.

Aaahhhh. Enough ranting and in-your-facing. A four-day weekend... what could be better? This blog was actually a little hard to write because all of the days have blurred into one long day with extended nap times. We started the weekend on Thursday by attending Thanksgiving festivities at Mom and Dad's house. All of the Brights and the Rogers were there. David and Lissa stopped by to have dessert with us. Usually, nothing says the holidays like turkey, dressing, two bottles of wine and occasional prescription medication usage, but not this year. I love my family and gladly gave up alcohol during my pregnancy, but will truly miss my happy-place maker during the holidays. I'llleave it at that.

Friday I watched my Aggies lay it down and then Lee and I went out to eat and saw For Your Consideration, the new Christopher Guest movie. We love Spinal Tap, Best In Show, and all of the others, but this one just wasn't funny.

On Saturday, hell froze over and Lee bottled the wine. This is big news. My living room is carboy free and I am so happy. It was an all-day process for him. He had to sterilize and sanitize the bottles, fill each one of them, and then cork them. I helped with the corking. The wine is still a little young so it needs some more time in the bottles. We'll see in a year. While he was doing the tough part, I stayed inside and took care of my sudden urge to bake by making some White Chocolate Cranberry Loaves. Very yummy if you're looking for a bread recipe. That night we watched USC and Notre Dame. I was pulling for the Catholics, but it just didn't work out for them.

I did hit the malls with my mom on Sunday, but we only bought things for ourselves because thankfully, I am 90% finished with all of my Christmas shopping. I think one more weekend should cover it. What made this shopping trip even better was that my hubby had cleaned the whole house by the time I got home. He's the best. I will leave you with a parting shot. It's all of our wine bottled and ready for labels!

And Introducing...

I would like for everyone to meet...

Marley.

NO - We did not get another dog. Three's company, four would make our house a dog ranch. This dog is Lee's sister's dog. Elizabeth was given a boxer puppy by her boyfriend for her birthday two weeks ago. She's really cute, but WOW - I always forget how much I appreciate older dogs until a puppy comes along. She looks cute posed in the picture above, but this is how she looks to Morgan, Lucy, and Trudie just before she attacks:

Our poor dogs have no clue what is going on when she comes over. Lucy just stands there looking at her with moderate amusement, but Morgan thinks that she's done something bad and this is how we're reprimanding her. Marley will run up to her growling and "boxing", and Morgan will stand there taking her puppy punishment with her tail between her legs. And poor Trudie - we just have to pick her up because Marley is no match for her. She'd much rather spend her Sundays as she did today... dog free watching Tivoed Oprahs on the couch. Oh wait - that's me.

Santa Fe

Since Lee and I only have six more months to be "just the two of us", we decided to spend a little QT (quality time) together and head out west to Santa Fe last weekend. I'll get to the rock on the left in a minute. Normally, I wouldn't include details of the flight to our destination, but this journey warrants a brief discussion. Since Southwest is having so many great deals, we flew to Albuquerque, NM. We were in Boarding Group B so we had decent seats (I was nestled between a nice old man who wanted to sleep and my hubby), but 30 minutes into our flight, we were told that due to a "strange noise", we would have to go back to the airport. I called "same seats" to the aircraft, but nobody listened to me. So we fly back, get off the plane, get onto another plane and Kevin Federline sits down next to me. Only this K-Fed wannabe smelled like a mix of bong water, armpits, beef jerky, and Corn Nuts. Well, who knows, the real K-Fed may smell like that too. Why me? Every time he moved, the smell wafted toward me and I had to choke down a little vomit. I wanted reenact the Jodie Foster Silence of the Lambs autopsy scene and stick some Vicks Vaporub under my nose to mask the smell, but I had none due to the liquids ban.

Eventually we made it there, rented a car and made our way to Santa Fe. We stayed at the Territorial Inn and Spa and ate dinner that night at Il Piatto. Great Italian food. The next morning, we did the tourist thing and saw St. Francis Cathedral, Loretto Chapel, and the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. We also hit some of the shops around Santa Fe Plaza and topped it off with lunch at The Shed. I was worn out, so that afternoon we just wondered around a little and then sat at the bar at the Inn of the Anasazi. That's where we had dinner that night.


On Saturday, we got up early and saw the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument. It was pretty interesting, but I didn't climb up into any of the caves because I was afraid of falling off a ladder or something. Pregnancy has made me clumsy - I constantly drop things now. I was in CVS on Saturday and ran into two racks while trying to walk a straight line. Another strange side effect - when I try to hand people things, I let go too early and I wind up throwing it at them. It's really weird. So if I am handing you something, either 1) think fast or 2) duck. Back to my story... that afternoon, we went to Canyon Road where all of the art galleries are and there are a LOT. We found a Jamie Kirkland painting that we really liked, but we're still trying to decide if we want to take the jump. We had dinner that night at the Pink Adobe, a Santa Fe landmark. It was good for drinks (according to Lee), but dinner was blah.



On Sunday, we packed it up and headed back to Albuquerque because Lee wanted to see the Petroglyphs (or rocks as I like to call them). As we entered Petroglyph National Monument, I prepared myself to be underwhelmed. If you're unfamiliar with the PNM, as I was, it's a collection of "rock drawings" made by ancient peoples. However, upon inspection of the petroglyphs, I was uncertain that all of the drawings were made by ancient peoples since I'm pretty sure that neither the anarchy symbol nor a drawing of an extended middle finger were ancient symbols used by them. I'm sure some of them were legit, but you know what I say - you've seen one ancient dog petroglyph, you've seen them all. Just kidding, honey - I loved the rocks.

I'm almost ashamed to tell you what happened next. As many of you know, I've had the easiest pregnancy in history up to this point. I haven't been sick, I'm still teaching aerobics with great gusto, and I feel outstanding. We got to the airport, checked in for our flight two hours early, and for our efforts we were awarded Boarding Group C. Lee cannot deal with the news and has a meltdown at the ticket counter (sadly, this is not the embarrassing part of this story). Let's put it this way - Grey's Anatomy has McSteamy and McDreamy, and I have McPantiesinawad. McPantiesinawad and I go to the gate to await our Boarding Group C fate. At this point, McPantiesinawad says "I want you to try and fix this". I got up, walked up to to the agent at the gate, told her that I was having uncontrollable morning sickness and she handed me an early boarding card. When it came time to board, four people got on early: a 95 year-old woman in a wheelchair, an eight year-old traveling by herself, McPantiesinawad, and me. I've reached a new low point. Whoever said "getting there is half the fun" never traveled with us.

That was our Santa Fe trip.

Hey Baby!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I know I've really disappointed my fans, fellow bloggers, and the blogging community. So let's see what's been going on... we're still making wine, I got my haircut last week, the Aggies are 8-2, and... we're having a baby!! Very exciting. I am 14 weeks pregnant and we're due May 9. Preliminary data is suggesting a girl. I'm not very girly, but I'm going to try to fake it with her. I actually conceived the day before the Justin Timberlake concert (we think) so the good vibrations of Sexy Back must have locked it in. Here's a shot of the most beautiful baby in the world:

Can you see her waving? She's already a daddy's girl. I think she's beautiful. Lee and I saw two arms, two legs, and ten fingers. We didn't see ten toes because her feet were to the side, but if she's like Kate Hudson and has 6 toes, I'll be fine. You can see her head on the left and her leg on the right. This was the first of three shots we took. While I was laying on the table, the doctor got a funny look on his face and said "I think there's something you need to see". The following image came up on the screen:

She was doing math. And not just your crappy "2+2" addition - she attempting some pretty complex calculus including but not limited to Laplace Transformations, areas under a standard normal curve, and measurements of three-dimensional volumes. The doctor had never seen anything like it. We listened and heard her heartbeat and heard the following:

My girl was speaking Latin. I almost cried. The doctor didn't come right out and tell me she was a genius, but I can read between the lines. I have a couple of other shots of her reciting the first 50 decimal places of Pi and finding the cure for cancer, but you get the idea.

My goal is to start giving everyone weekly updates, but don't expect any belly shots. Really my weekly updates will be pretty boring because *thank God* this whole thing has been pretty easy on me. No morning sickness, no weird cravings... it' been pretty good. Our next sonogram is at Week 20 so that's just 6 weeks away! I can't wait to see my baby again. I'm going to try to blog again this weekend. We went to Santa Fe last weekend so I hope to have some pictures up soon.