Almost time!

I can't believe Helen is almost here.  I am incredibly excited, and truly believe that everything is going to be fine, but there is that little part of me that still wonders if this is really going to happen.  After four years of disappointment am I really going to have a healthy baby?  Although I have worried some about the pain, it is almost like I don't even care or think about that part anymore.  I just want Helen to be okay.  It is less than 3 weeks away.  Had some small contractions (I think ) today.  I am at station 3, 50% effaced and dilated 1cm.    My doctor goes out of town Sunday until Wednesday so we will see what happens with that.    I love Helen so much already.  She is our special angel.  I hope people will put up with us because I know we will be a little crazy about trying to raise her right.  God help us to raise a great child despite ourselves. :)  

Long time no see!

Yeah....so I guess it has been way over a year since I wrote on this blog.  I know that there are probably only about 2 people who might even see it since most of my readers gave up on me a long time ago.  But that is okay.  I enjoy it as a record of my thoughts, feelings, and events in my life even more than as a communication tool.

The main thing that is new in my life (and the two people who might read this already know it) is that I am pregnant!  21 weeks and everything is going well.  Knock on wood.  I tell Steve that maybe God is blessing us with an easy pregnancy after the pain of the last four years....but I am also know that I still have a lot left to go and who knows what can still happen.

Little Baby Helen Pauline is moving in my belly sometimes now where I can feel it.  It's a wonderful feeling, and I sit here constantly waiting in expectation of her next move.  Although at this point sometimes that means I am waiting for a long time.

She is beautiful too.  Here she is saying hi to you!

akward sweet t

so.....i told the kids to write a letter to a teacher for teacher appreciation week. I told them not to write to me unless they just couldn't think of anyone else because it would be weird for me to require them to write a note, and ask for a bunch of compliments for myself..... so one kid writes me one. He says, "What I love about you most is your awkwardness"........hmmmm....he kept writing, and really did seem to love the fact that I guess I am more funny that graceful.....

So....in my next class which is mostly seniors who have had my class for 3 years, and we have a mutual love and respect for each other I told them what the student said, and this girl immediately yells out...I LOVE that about you too!....and another kid said, yeah, kluge, you are pretty awkward....

so during this same class period we were in the media center making bratwurst lunches for the teachers. A couple of kids went to see if a teacher wanted a dinner, and they came back and said this particularly stylish, graceful, skinny, beautiful teacher wanted a plate. And I said, "that surprises me." and this kid said, "what does that mean?" and I said, "I never pictured her as a sausage eater." Immediately when I said it, I knew it was wrong. The kids busted out laughing, and I was like...oops that came out wrong. And one of the kids said, "see kluge....awkward. :) Okay......guess I am guilty as charged.

At least they find it charming rather than repulsive. They also mean I am clumsy....but yeah....i am a little bit. The German word for this is awful. It is the opposite of chic. ungeschickt.....oh well. Again....at least people find it charming.:)

Have an awesomely awkward day!

new drinks

so....steve has a notion in his head that we shouldn't eat or drink anything with aspartame anymore. I am of the notion to agree with him. So we have nearly completely stopped drinking soda (it had gotten out of control) and when we do drink it, we are drinking regular dr. pepper or coke. In the mean time, we are now drinking loads of unsweetened tea). It has gone pretty well. we are starting into the second week, and have gotten past the headache stage.

We know that there are drinks with splenda and such, but not many...even coke zero has aspartame...pepsi one doesn't, but we dont' really like the taste of it. All the better. The more we stop drinking soda, the better off we will be.

yay!!!!!!

this week's menu

Sunday breakfast- cinnamon rolls
Sunday lunch- Roast, mashed potatoes,green beans and toast
Sunday night- chicken and feta pizza (made at home)
lunch every day-north african stew
dinners---
Monday- Spinach cheddar squares and......something else.....
Tuesday-barbecue roast beef sandwiches, and baked potato wedges
Wed- rigatoni chicken in pesto sauce (stouffers)and vegetables and toast-steve has class on wed., so he eats a frozen dinner, and i eat the left overs of it after I get home.
Thurs- spaghetti, or baked macaroni and cheese with chicken
Friday---GO OUT TO EAT!~!!!!!!:) (however very early because I have a paper due that night that I will probably be working on till I have to turn it in....and will not get to have hoity toity fun....)

i will also probably be making some pineapple cookies, and/or brownies during the week for our sweet tooth!

Yeah to not eating out very often!!!!! whoohoo!

Quote from Envy by Anna Godbersen

A young woman, newly wed, may find herself in the delightful position of wanting to do nothing without the company of her darling husband. She may indeed discover that she spends all her waking hours with her fellow to the exclusion of every other friend or family member. This is understandable but wholly unacceptable, to society.

--Mrs. Hamilton W. Breedfelt, Collected Columns on Raising Young Ladies of Character, 1899



Is this not still considered unacceptable if not actually weird in our society? A man and woman who spend so much time together that they actually begin to have no friends? They are spurned from society. Actually society feels that the couple has spurned them rather than the other way around.



Society must have its "girl nights" and its "poker nights", and other activities with the underlying purpose of seperating spouses from each other. If a man and a woman enjoy spending time together to the exclusion of all else it is seen as akward, strange, and unsual.



i understand that the concept of society means interacting with more than one person. A society is made up of many different components and to be a part of it, you must interact with it on several different levels.



I understand that one can need some time a part from the person they live with. With the recent blizzard it was made clear that sometimes there can be perhaps too much together time.



My husband and I are strange. We like to be together. We like to be together nearly all the time. We like a lot of the same activities, and we like a lot of the same topics of discussion. We like the same music, and mostly the same movies. We look forward to the idea that we might work together some day at the same school.



I am not saying that we want to be together 24/7, but even just an hour or two away from each other and we can be ready to hang out, and chill with only each other again. And if I have missed him all day at work, it is sometimes hard for me to want to go out and leave him again in the evening for some other activity. Co-dependence? I don't know....maybe?



Yeah, okay, so maybe society may not like us too much. Sure, our whole little system may be a little too insulated. I am okay with that. Society has been one of my arch enemies for a long time now. It might be a pretty good time to piss her off again. I am in the mood for a fight.:)

Here is Sweet T signing off.
p.s. I am not saying I don't like girl nights. I LOVE girl nights. I just miss my husband when I go to them....and well, let's face it.....I am a bit of a hermit. I can enjoy a quilt and a good book and a glass of wine a little too much sometimes...or perhaps a nice guilty pleasure like Veronica Mars, or Bones......

blizzards bring out the blogs!

I love my new home. I love the space. I love the warmth and coziness. I love how if you are tired of one room, there are many others to go hang out in, and feel like you are in a new place. I am so blessed and lucky. I hope I remember this feeling. I remember before I married steve, he started taking out the trash, and I thought this was so amazing. It is so wonderful to have someone who wants to help. All those things that I used to have to do myself...even little things...there is someone who wants to help me do them. At the time, I made a concious decision that I would always try to have that same feeling of enormous gratitude even after I started taking it for granted.

I want to do the same about my home. I want to remember now how thankful I am, so that even after I have more, or feel like I need more, I will remember how big, and wonderful, and cozy it was. I don't want to ever take these little pleasures for granted. I want to live in a state of awe and thankfulness every day. I want to appreciate this extraordinary life that I live.

By the way, i have started a new blog about books. sweettlovestoread.blogspot.com

hope you stay warm and cozy!

OU--are you serious?????

So...I haven't told a whole lot of people, but I was accepted to the University of Oklahoma this last spring, and it is my plan to go this fall and begin work on a second Masters in the field of Library and Information Studies. I have heard that OU is notorious for all of its red tape and massive problems that have nothing to do with their classes, but everything to do with the adminstration, and operation of the university.

I now believe it. Seriously....trying to get admitted, and enrolled has taken nearly every ounce of patience that I have. I went to Indiana University, and had NONE of these problems. Seriously....after several other issues I have had, not to mention the confusion over the maiden name me of 10 years ago, and the married me of now (which I can let go as it might be something a little confusing)....now I am struggling on merging my identity with some dude named Brian Little. When I access my records, I am half me....Sweet T on the home page, but some other dude on all the other pages, and these are the pages I need! I am sorry, but I don't want to enroll in classes as a little freshman dude who is an engineering major....and they won't let this little dude enroll anyway in the graduate courses I want to take.

I am about to give it all up. Perhaps it is not meant to be. I can't get the IT department to understand the problem, and they seem to think it is something I am doing. I just want to take one tiny small diddly online class this fall, and I can't imagine what it would be like to get these folks to let me graduate in a couple of years. I have never liked OU. There has never been any sympathy in my heart for them, or their football team, and it is turning closely to downright hatred. I can't believe that I may have to work with them as they are the only ALA accredited school in the state, and if I ever want to be an academic librarian I have to take their classes. Ugh. Anger. Frustration. Maybe I will just turn to writing instead, and forget the dream of being a bun styling, glasses wearing, matronly lover of books......