Pink ** I don't know why, but I love love love Pink's "Just Like a Pill" song. The first time I heard it was on the MTV Music Awards, which I didn't watch but caught this song while channel-surfing. It blew me away. Now, everytime I hear it on the radio, I can't help but sing along. People are looking at me strangely.
Posted 11:17 AM by Kerry O.

Christmas Cards ** You know, I've had my Christmas cards done for 5 days now and I haven't mailed them yet. I just realized that. The ONE year I get them done fairly early (i.e. before Christmas) and I putz around on mailing them. Figures.
Posted 9:57 AM by Kerry O.

Thank God ** They finally fixed the bathroom! You see, I sit right around the corner from the bathrooms. I also sit by the windows on the very end of the building. So, for the last almost 2 weeks, our bathroom has been "broken." This means to use the restroom, I (and my female co-workers) had to walk to "Sedona," a/k/a the extreme north end of the building - a long way when you really need to pee - or go downstairs to the 3rd floor and use theirs. Going downstairs isn't a problem, it's coming back up that isn't so fun. And all of this when you reeeeeeaaaallly need to go and you're 7 months pregnant. Needless to say, opening ours back up again has made my day.
Posted 9:28 AM by Kerry O.

Happy Friday the 13th ** Baby is due in exactly 3 calendar months. Yikes. Anyway, hope your Friday is fabulous. We have some nice plans this weekend, including further Christmas shopping, dinner and Cirque du Soleil with my husband tomorrow night, and just generally trying to have a good time. Tonight is our team's Christmas party at someone's house, and I cooked in preparation! Yes. I cooked. In fact, I made rice crispy treats for the first time (not tricky), and Stilton blue cheese and swiss au gratin potatoes (surprisingly not tricky either). The latter requires a tad more preparation and then I will proudly present it at the party. It looks impressive and smells impressive. I just hope it tastes equally good.
Posted 8:26 AM by Kerry O.

My beloved Diamondbacks ** My good friend, Melissa, and I keep saying how desperate we are for baseball season again so we have some good sports to think and talk about. (REMEMBER: We live in the land of the Arizona Cardinals. Need I say more?) Current stories about Curt Schilling, half of our double-ace pitching staff, at least give me something good to read. But oh! what I wouldn't give to have Randy Johnson call me at home.
Schilling, who has won 45 games for the Diamondbacks in the past two seasons, stressed that he has two years remaining on his contract. He added that the Wednesday column caused him to receive a telephone call from teammate Randy Johnson.
Sigh.
Posted 11:26 AM by Kerry O.

Parking ** My mom's ill (nothing major, don't panic), and she's essentially on bedrest for a couple of days. So she asked me to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for her. What did I find upon arriving there and looking anxiously for a rush-hour parking space? A lovely, vacant parking space with a reserved sign. What was on the reserved sign? It was blue, with a big white stork and the words "Expectant Mom's Parking Only." Well, all righty then. I chuckled lightly and availed myself of this newfound right. Groovy!
Posted 10:09 AM by Kerry O.

Circus-bound ** Yippee! I just bought our Cirque du Soleil tickets. I've been holding off in case some friends were joining us, but they can't make up their minds so I went ahead and bought them. We're going at 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, with a nice dinner first! YAY! A nice, grown-up night out. I am so excited. I just hope I can stay awake that long. Heh.
Posted 9:30 AM by Kerry O.

Aging ** My hair is betraying me. I was writing and I noticed that there was a long, gray-looking hair hanging in front of my face. After separating it from my hair and pulling it out, I examined it more closely. The last about 1/2 inch was gray, then about 4 inches of dark brown (normal color), then the rest of the way to the root was gray again. WTF? I do not dye my hair, haven't in ages, and even then it was always temporary reddish dye. Stupid hair. Aging sucks.
Posted 3:12 PM by Kerry O.

Credit ** I have to credit Joe for any advancements we've made in our credit (pun intended). When I met him, he had never made a late payment on anything in his life, and had rarely paid the minimums on anything. When I met him, I had a pretty hearty history of credit problems. None of my debts amounted to anything significant dollar-wise, but they were certainly numerous and troubled. Since that time, we have both grown together to learn about what amount and kind of debt we are - or aren't - comfortable with, and what we want to do about it. Yesterday, I closed one of my two personal credit cards, with a zero balance. Ironically, the same day, Joe closed one of his as well. I've been meaning to do it for 2 months, so it's not a surprise, but it was interesting that we both did it the same day.

This month we also finished our house refinancing. The refi provided for a settlement of all my old debts (actually, more were dismissed and cleared from my credit report through doing the research for the refi than we actually had to pay off!), and put my name on the house as well as Joe's. When we bought the house the first go-around, my credit hurt the mortgage and we had to do it in just Joe's name.

But this morning I awakened with the comforting realization that things are just where they should be. We've had a plan for attacking the very modest debt we do have and we've executed that plan with near-perfection so far. There are more steps to take, but we are so wonderfully on our way, it gives me renewed hope. And our baby will come into a world with a family that lives within its means and still enjoys many of the finer things in life. That is one of the greatest things I can ask for.
Posted 10:01 AM by Kerry O.

War Toys ** I'm surely far from the first - or the last - person to draw attention to the sickening increase in war toys this Christmas season. No, I'm not a PC hack, and I believe in individuals' rights. But this "toy" is one of the most horrific things I have seen in a long time. It's so offensive, Toys R Us (via Amazon) no longer shows the picture and has it marked as discontinued. It was central in their ads, allegedly, within the last month. Oh, but you can still get it at KB Toys. Good to know.
Posted 10:42 AM by Kerry O.

And, oh yeah ** On my work this morning, my morning deejay of choice (Mark Goodman, of former 80's MTV fame), decided to make my day. About 3/4 of the way to work, he says something about numerous people requesting today's "Oooh yeah song of the day," including Kerry of Phoenix. I caught my breath, hoping he was finally playing the song I'd requested by email several weeks ago. Yep... After some grand introduction to the band's career, he played today's song. It was The Sundays' "Here's Where the Story Ends." I specifically requested that song because it just does something happy to me. Something about her angelic voice just puts me in contented peace. What a nice way to start a week!
Posted 10:27 AM by Kerry O.

Monday again? ** I was just starting to enjoy my weekend. Figures. Friday evening, we had company over for a night of Settlers of Catan game-playing. I won once, and it was pretty darned amusing. It was a win-by-accident. I knew I had more points than I thought, but suddenly, something happened, and I just won. Kind of a nice surprise. :-) Saturday I went to my first (and likely last) Mary Kay party. That was my one obligatory nice-friend activity for the forseeable future. Saturday night was the holiday electric light parade down Central Avenue with Kendra, her 9-year-old cousin and his friend. We had a lovely time, and thankfully it was warmer this year. Yesterday, church and shopping and Harry Potter 2 finally! It was cute, but being my least-favorite of the books, I'm definitely looking forward to the next one...

Anyway, hope you all had a wonderful weekend. My darling Joe got to feel his daughter kicking on Saturday, finally! She gave him a good, solid punt so he didn't have to question anything. That was it, though. One good kick, and then she settled down for a while. Hey, I'll take what we can get!
Posted 10:17 AM by Kerry O.