Weddings are ALWAYS awkard for me

Alex and I have gone to two weddings in the last two weeks. They were both lovely, but very different. However, they had one thing in common. The first time I spoke to the brides the first words out of their mouths were, "Congratulations!" Which is incredibly kind because I am supposed to be congratulating them on their big day. But before I could even get the words out of my mouth, they both congratulated me immediately. It was an incredibly odd feeling because hello! Backwards! But also terribly nice as well. But then awkward because I am unable to handle myself well in social situations so I was like, 'Hrm, no! Congratulations to YOU!'

Furminate Me

So. We have two dogs. And one is very, very, very hairy. I would love to post pictures of him and his hair, but that would mean I'd have to have pictures on this computer, which I don't. But trust me when I say that Murphy is very hairy. Super hairy. Extremely hairy. The hairiest dog I have ever met in my entire life. And he sheds this hair daily. Perhaps hourly. It is probably the most difficult thing I had to adjust to when I moved in with Alex. There is ALWAYS dog hair SOMEWHERE. I feel like I can't keep the floor clean. Or the couch. Or any other surface that Murphy goes near. We could have created ten Murph's by now if we had been collecting his hair. I have daydreamed, like yes, literally DAYDREAMED about removing all of his hair. I've tried to convince Alex to get him shaved. I bought a brush and attempted to brush his unruly mane into something manageable. We tried vacuuming him. Nothing worked.

And then! Then! Dooce talked about the Furminator and I immediately sent the link to Alex. But it was kind of pricey and we weren't positive it would work. Murphy's hair seemed like it would always be a part of our lives. Until I got pregnant and began making threats of sending Murphy off to a farm to live if we didn't figure out some way to control his CONSTANT SHEDDING THAT WILL GET ON THE BABY, OH MY GOD OUR BABY CANNOT LIVE IN A HOUSE THAT IS INFESTED WITH MURPHY HAIR. Alex slowly began to realize that his wife was insane and if spending some money on a de-shedding tool would help lower the crazy, then it was well worth. Plus! Slickdeals said it was sale at Amazon!

So yesterday our Furminator came in. Alex bathed Murphy because he is amazing while I sat on the couch and wished I was no longer pregnant (because I am PUKING AGAIN. PUKING. I am 16 weeks pregnant! There should no longer be any puking!) because he is awesome like that. I may or may not have chanted "Furminate! Furminate!" over and over again while Murphy dried off. And then it was time to begin the magic.

And y'all, I should have taken pictures.

This thing is AMAZING. A-MAAAAAZ-ING. I have never seen anything take that much hair off a dog at one time. I would have taken pictures except I thought it was a little gross, so I opted to just throw the hair away instead. But believe me when I say that it was the most satisfying experience of possibly my entire life. I am going to write the creators of the Furminator a love note and seal it with a kiss because my life is so much better now. I also used it on our 8 pound, short haired dog who also does her fair share of shedding herself and was again, AMAZED at how much of her undercoat came off. I kept brushing her and yelling, "Look! Look at this! It's amazing!"

So if you have pets who shed, I HIGHLY recommend investing in a Furminator. It might seem pricey for a "brush," but it is worth it. We should have gotten the large version, because the medium one seemed a little small for Murphy. They also make them for cats too, and if we had a cat, I can guarantee there'd be another Furminator in the mail and headed towards our house this very second.

Although I must say Murphy did not enjoy the experience. Which is bad for him because I cannot WAIT to attack him with it again next week. All the while maniacally laughing.

Officially Tagged

Jodi tagged me in a meme (how do you say that word!?) in which I am to tell you seven random things about myself. This should be pretty easy as I am a random person, but I am feeling pressure to not only be random, but "unique" and "fun" too.

1. I will listen obsessively to Heart's "Alone" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." Those songs get stuck on repeat in my head. Often.

2. I have terrible bags under my eyes and I have no idea how to get rid of them. But they bug me. Every morning and I look at my face and think, "Why does the skin under my eyes have to be a different color from the rest of my entire face?"

3. I can't stand for my nails to get too long. I freak out and rip them off. Incidentally, I always have ugly nails.

4. I want a girl. There, I said it. I have tried to be open minded, but I really hope we have a baby girl in March. I'm not sure why because girls will only lead to heartache as she and I will THROW DOWN about clothes...and boys...and curfew once she reaches her teenage years, but still, I can't help it. I think it's because my mom and I got along really well and I like our bond and I hope to be that to my daughter some day. (Awwww! Sap!)

5. I hate Chipotle.

6. I am constantly reconsidering new careers. Even though I am going into massive debt for a new career as we speak, I still look for other jobs and day dream about how much fun they might be. Even though I know I'll probably always hate my job no matter what, it's still fun to imagine it.

7. I *heart* Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock. I don't know why. The hair? The accent? The naivete? Whatever it is, his scenes are almost always my favorite on the show.

I'm supposed to tag 7 people, but let's get real here. I generally have a one sided relationship with blogs. I have a VAST number of blogs that I check daily and even though some of them are of people I vaguely knew in college, I doubt they read mine. So I'll pass on tagging others. Although this probably means I'm going to have bad luck for the next seven years or something now.

9/22/08

One year ago today, Alex and I committed our lives to each other in the shortest, most romantic ceremony I have ever cried at. I have no idea if it was actually short or romantic, but in my mind it was, plus, I CRIED like, THE WHOLE TIME. So I had no idea what was going on for most of it because I kept thinking, "Why am I CRYING so much? Pull it together woman!" I didn't talk a lot about our wedding on here because...well...I had some issues with it. But the most important thing is that we got married. I couldn't be happier and I certainly couldn't ask for a better partner in life. Sometimes I feel like I might be dreaming because we are just so good together. I wake up some mornings and just can't believe I married such a handsome, charming, loving man. He listens to me. He takes care of me. He makes me laugh. And this past year was hard. Not for us as a couple. We didn't struggle with typical newlywed problems. Instead, we both had family crises ranging from my father's spine surgery to his father's death. But we made it through together. I can't imagine going through life's difficulties and joys with anyone else.

Unfortunately, we did nothing to celebrate because I have been so sick. I started off the weekend puking and never really recovered. Nothing sounded fun unless it involved laying down in bed. The thought of dinner at a restaurant made my stomach turn. Which kind of left us up a creek as far as romantic plans go. So instead we watched a lot of football this weekend and went to work today as usual. And to top it all off, we had a doctor's appointment. YES! Nothing says "Happy Anniversary" quite like peeing in a cup and getting weighed in public.

But this visit was different because we (finally) were able to hear the heartbeat. It didn't take the doctor very long to find it, but I was still nervous as she moved the doppler around. And suddenly there it was. The sheer joy on Alex's face when he heard the woosh woosh woosh of the heartbeat was unbelievable. He looked so happy and so proud and then immediately whipped out his phone so he could record it, just like a true geek. It was the best anniversary present he could have ever given me. He looked at me with the same, perfect face of love that he did on our wedding.

He adores me. He adores our unborn child. I can't wait to celebrate many more anniversaries with him.

Mr. Clean

Well, that was fun. Sunday afternoon we lost power, along with another 180,000 people in our city. We were lucky and got ours back Monday afternoon. So we went only about 24 hours in the dark. My brother and sister-in-law are still without power. Since SUNDAY. Which is insane. It was so weird because it's not like there was a big storm. It was just a lot of wind. No rain. No lightning. Just wind, wind, wind.

But! Lack of power is an EXCELLENT excuse for not blogging! Certainly better than my usual "I'm siiiiiiiiick" excuse. Which...holy cow, am I ever sick. I have a sinus infection/allergic reaction/cold thing going on that has completely knocked me off my feet. I had a spectacular breakdown of epic proportions last night and I may or may not have scared the crap out of Alex with my wailing.

I am also just a teensy bit emotional.

So here's the thing. Alex has many, many qualities that are amazing and wonderful, but being a good cleaner is not one of them. His brand of cleaning involves wiping down a counter with water only and going, "Eh, good enough." And I know this about him. I went into this marriage fully understanding that he can't (or won't) clean. The first time I ever came over to his house (now our house), he proudly announced he had cleaned. And I saw all of this...stuff...everywhere and right then, I knew. This man is not a cleaning man. Which is FINE. He is a cooking and a laundry man, so really, it's not like I got the shaft here.

Except that now I can't clean. I've been sick for almost two months now. (Two months! BabyCenter said I should be feeling fine and regaining my appetite now. Suck it BabyCenter!) Which means I don't do anything. I lay in bed. I eat. I cry. I sleep. Everyday. Notice how "I clean." wasn't listed among those statement. Gagfest 2008 has prevented me from cleaning, much less CARING about cleaning. So that has left the bulk of the housework duties to poor, poor Alex. Which means the house is, in a word, disgusting. I'm not knocking Alex. Please understand me. He is doing a phenomenal job of taking care of me and the dogs and the house and the HUGE TREE that fell in our backyard (which...we have amazing friends who came over last night and helped move all that crap while our neighbor, WHO IS THE OWNER OF THE TREE, just sat and watched) and working full time and shuttling me around to various classes and appointments. He is AMAZING. He is also busy. He also hates cleaning. Cleaning has gone out of the window.

And that is the point of this post. Our house is gross. I could have just written that and saved you all a lot of time and energy. But instead you read the word "clean" a lot and realized that our house is not. There is crap everywhere. It smells. I am appalled by it, yet not motivated enough to do anything other than gag and run back upstairs.

Last night during Super Meltdown #37 of 2008, I was so miserable and all I wanted was my mom. And finally Alex asked, "If your mom came would she, like, clean the house?" And when I said, "Yes," I am SHOCKED that he did not immediately pick up the phone and call her. Maybe he waited until I fell asleep. But I won't be surprised if one of our moms shows up this weekend to help their poor, decrepit children clean their house. We need our mommies and we are about to be a mommy and daddy ourselves. Holy COW are we not prepared.

ThisClose

Barack Obama was at my school today. Barack Obama! Presidential hopeful! Barack Obama! And I was completely and totally unaware of this. I didn't figure it out until all of the teachers had their TV's turned to a public access channel and I saw the little podium with the "Change We Need" poster. And then it slowly dawned on me that the big hullabaloo that I saw this morning when I arrived was because Barack Obama was actually in the building. The building I was in. Which suddenly made all of the cops in the hallway make more sense. Sadly, I didn't get to see him in person. But I was so close. SO CLOSE!

So...yeah

I just wrote an entire post and chickened out of publishing it. The gist of it: am miserable, feel sad. But I feel guilty for complaining about pregnancy and I can't bring myself to put those thoughts on the internet.

Uh, what else is going on? Nothing (see above: miserable).

Alex and I watched the entire Firefly series this weekend. And then I convinced him to purchase the movie, "Serenity," last night and we stayed up late to finish it. I'm a pretty big Joss Whedon fan and am happy to have converted Alex to the Whedonverse as well. (Except that I finally got around to watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and didn't like it. Woops. Guess I'm not as devoted as I thought.)

In other news, two of my dear friends from college (Hi Jenny! Hi Mel!) announced their pregnancies this past week! I am excited that we are all pregnant together and our children will be the same age. This will be super convenient for our yearly get togethers (we live far, far away from each other) as we can then share war stories of toddler tantrums and projectile bodily fluids. It's funny because I met these girls ten years ago when we began our freshman year of college. And now four of us (Bell is due...SOON) are pregnant at the same time. I'm not sure we could have planned it better.

New this week on the weirdo pregnancy symptoms list: water makes me vomit. Yes. Water - life-giving, hydrating, absolutely needed to survive, water is responsible for dry heaving and much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I was only half joking when I told Alex we were going to start keeping ice chips in the house.