an alarm i didn't set

so where were you last night at 1am? i should have been sleeping but instead i was standing tippy-toed on a barstool in the baby's room with a 9-volt battery in one hand and a partially distmantled, yet still beeping to high heaven, smoke alarm in the other hand. it's a miracle i didn't land on my face but i was bound and determined that i was not going to have a bum smoke alarm in the baby's room. (not that there's going to be a baby for several more months but i know i'm going to have more on my mind than smoke detectors during that time.) so after about half an hour and a lot of cursing, i swapped batteries and stopped the blessed beeping.

the bedrooms are upstairs in this place and they have sort of a vaulted ceiling thing going on. so of course you can't put a smoke detector in a logical place - a reachable place. nope, they're on the slant and hard to get to. i ended up dragging every chair in the house up the steps last night to find something tall enough to get me within arm's reach. and even the barstool was nearly too short...

so where was the bee in all this melee? asleep on the sofa, impossible to awaken, in spite of the fact that i'm swearing like a sailor, the dog's barking, i'm dragging furniture up and down the steps - he manages to sleep through all of that. how that's possible i don't know.

ugh.

and how was your night?

fish sticks

fish sticks, french fries and DONUTS, oh my!

i love fish sticks. lucky for me, the bee loves fish sticks too. we got a cool daddy deep fryer for christmas and he has been craving fried food since the wrapping paper came off the box. it was one of those things he bugs me to buy all year long but i won't do because if you've seen the latest christmas pictures over at my momma's place, you'll plain as day see WE DON'T NEED ANYMORE FAT.

but whatever. merry christmas, have a clogged artery. or two.

so the birthday boy gets to choose dinner tonight and he wants to use the new deep fryer. he wants fish sticks and french fries. wooo buddy, we're eating high on the hog tonight!

it's okay, it's his birthday. and it's not like it was difficult to make. it's just that the place smells like a dirty hardee's kitchen now. ewww...

i didn't get a chance to ask him what kind of cake he wanted, so i picked one of my favorites, fudge marble with chocolate frosting. YUM.

gotta go, things to eat.

where's the tylenol?

*sigh*

it's over.

the holidays are done and moving is finished, sort of.

christmas was good. christmas was great. the bee and i spent christmas eve at my parents and christmas day with his family. and both events were wonderful. i love christmas. i felt incredibly guilty this year because a lack of funds kept us from buying a lot of presents and that's really the best part - watching people open gifts. but as usual, my mom outdid herself even though it wasn't really necessary and we had a really good time. even christmas day with the bee's family was good. his little sister is a real sweetheart and i'm getting to know his mom better.

we moved this weekend. with huge help from mark and craig and the bee's little sister (and his dad's big truck and trailer) we moved from a teenie-weenie one-bedroom apartment to a larger two-bedroom townhome. the biggest difference - the 16 stairs from floor to floor. i'm not complaining, the layout is great. but because i'm bullheaded and a little dumb when it comes to moving, i refused to stop even though my body was screaming for it last night. and so i unpacked and moved boxes and climbed stairs well into the evening until i really thought i might fall over from exhaustion.

and let me tell you - i'm paying for it this morning. i hurt in places i didn't know i had. it took nearly 10 minutes to get from the upstairs bedroom to the downstairs door just to walk the puppy.

oh, and the poor dog. poor little kingsley was so confused and so scared - he's never known any place other than our tiny little apartment and to see him come in for the first time, his little tail pointed down and his shoulders all hunched over was so, so sad. he was really frightened. he's since discovered that stairs are fun and so is dragging up the shoes from the entryway and throwing his toys down the stairs to run after them is his new favorite thing to do.

to be a dog. or at least, be my dog.

i don't have any picutres of the new place yet but i'll get them soon. i saw the camera not that long ago, i'm just not sure where.

later i have to figure out what kind of cake to make the bee for his birthday. i wonder if he has a favorite kind of cake. i'm thinking cupcakes but it's not really my day... he's 24 today. happy birthday to the bee. :-)

but for now i'm going to go back to bed. i just wanted to see if any of my neighbors had unsecured wireless networks - it looks like i may never have to pay for internet again! woohoo!

it's a holiday classic!

merry christmas from superjanel, the bee, baby wal-mart and millions of special bk lounge employees worldwide.

i'm hungry for girl scout cookies.

i'm writing from a hijacked internet connection. i thought i'd been riding the wireless connection of the neighbors that moved but apparently it's the neighbors across the hall that are hardly ever home. whatever, i don't really care. thanks to who ever it is. (who? whom? i don't know.)

so it's christmas week and my mood is great. no, seriously. i have so much to be happy about right now, i'm just trying to enjoy it all.

the bee and i are still so excited about the news we got last week about baby wal-mart - i feel like it's okay to be happy about being pregnant. i feel like i've been holding my breath for the last two months and finally, it's okay to breathe again. the perinatologist said that everything looks great and that we're having a healthy (and handsome!) baby boy and there is no reason to continue to see the specialists - apparently i'm not high risk anymore and that's okay with me.

i think this has given the bee an immense amount of relief. i know he was upset and scared at the possibility of a special needs child, not that he ever wanted to talk about it. but since learning that things seem to be okay, he's been happier, more open and more interested in the baby. and in me. and that's okay with me too.

this last weekend, despite awful, horrible weather, we made it to the quad cities for a small family christmas get-together and a (huge and absolutely inspiring) christmas program put on by the church i grew up in and would love to get back to if we ever moved back to the area. (podcasts just aren't the same but they are kind of helpful.) but the weather was horrific - snow and black ice and 40-mph winds - we're lucky we had 4wd to get us there and back. and the bee is a pretty safe driver, so i slept most of the way home even though he reportedly white-knuckled the steering wheel for about three hours. but we made it home safe and sound and found that the dog hadn't even messed in his kennel (although he did pee for about three minutes straight once he finally got out side, the poor thing.)

i talked to our new landlord tonight and made arrangements to move in this weekend. we're moving to a great townhome in ankeny - it's about six miles from here to the east and a little bit north. we're going from one bedroom/one bath and about 700 square feet to two bedrooms/two baths and a two-car (attached! yay!) garage and about 1300 square feet for almost exactly what we're already paying.

(thank you craigslist!)

we spent all day yesterday packing - well, i packed boxes and the bee moved them around into various piles under my directions. this is his first time moving like, ever - for real! how do you get to be 24 years old and never have moved in your entire life? i think i've moved probably 24 different times and i'm pretty sure i have a brother and a step-dad that can attest to that. (poor guys. they'll be happy to know we're signing a year-long lease so they'll have a few months to unpack their gunny sacks... i don't really know what that means but mark has always said that.) but it's almost too bad for him that his first real moving experience has to be with me. if you think that i'm anal retentive in everyday activity, you should see me in moving mode. oh wow. stand back. not only do i want things done my way, i want them done yesterday and i want it all unpacked right now. it's probably a blessing that i'm preggo and won't be able to stay up all night unpacking. plus, we're moving in between the holidays and that gives me time off from work to get things done.

christmas is thursday. i love christmas. i love our family traditions and the things we do and the things we eat and just the time we spend together. it's different without my grandma and i'm trying not to focus on that - it hurts too much to think about it right now - but even different can still be good. it's just hard to believe that the holidays are here already. this year has just flown by, and thankfully so in some cases.

but anyway. i wasn't sure when i'd get to post again, my neighbors' internet connections being as sporadic as they are. if i'm not back before christmas, happy holidays to everyone.

ps - i'm accepting all offers of donations of baby stuff! crusty, we should talk! :-)

OMG! It's a ...

...BOY!

(High five, team pink. Good game - better luck next time!)

Baby is definitely a BOY. Look at these pictures...

that is such a boy pose, oh my...

PLUS! I just got off the phone with the perinatalogist and she says she thinks everything looks great and there is no need to be seen by a specialist again. I am practically in tears, hearing this.

The bee and I are so, so happy right now - I can't even begin to explain.

*sigh*

Now we just have to wait for the little guy to get here!

sorry i ruined your black panther party...

(it's true, i know every line to the movie "forrest gump" like the back of my hand. i'm not going to tell you why.)

let me begin by telling you this: christmas parties are overrated. i tend to think that most get-togethers are overrated - it's just the nature of the beast. i'd much rather sit at home and completely veg out than sit in a crowd of people i don't know and watch them get obnoxiously drunk and rowdy. and this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that i'm preggo although it may be triggered by the fact that i'm reaching the neighborhood of being in my 30s (i'm still at least 14 blocks away, so don't go calling me "old" just yet).

but even when i was in the midst of a small-town bar scene i used to be pretty familiar with - even then i thought it was boring. it's the same people doing the same thing every weekend - in and out, no variation on a solid theme. and now, it's different people doing the same thing and i'm bored as hell. and so most social shindigs are of no interest to me. i'm kind of stuck up in that i have a particular group of people i like to spend time with and everyone else can go to hell... i don't need a lot of friends nor do i need a constant stream of people to entertain me.

and how does this relate to christmas parties? it was a company christmas party, for one, and two, it was for a company that i don't work for. so i got to be one of the (ignored) (in)significant others that stood around twirling the straw in my cherry coke while the employees stood around telling "remember when" stories. so i got to stand around in my outfit that wasn't good enough (but sorry honey, that sleaz-o black dress with the giant metal zippers up to there doesn't come in preggo size), with my attitude that was apparently not right (but apparently never is) and try to laugh at the right time so as not to seem rude.

good times.

NOT. 

but it was a good reminder of just how much i love my flannel pants, my dog, and the heat pad, especially when my back hurts from falling on the ice earlier today. 

graceful? no. snobby? yes. but ask me if i care.

hardly fantasmical...

yeah, yeah, i know. a month? was it really necessary to go a whole month? (no.) am i trying to prove a point? (not really.) was i stuck under really heavy furniture? (once, but not blog related.) am i suffering from an incurable disease that renders my hands and fingers useless? (not that i know of...)

let's face it: i'm just lazy. and that's why i haven't been around.

plus, once i'm gone for a few weeks i have this need to post something really fantasmical and outrageous, that's going to make everyone comment and speculate on the wonder that is the janel. but to be honest, i'm not feeling it. i've sort of been in a funk lately - no real reason why, i'm just stressed about things. and i'm taking it out on all the wrong people, blog readers included. 

and i don't mean george clinton funk. i mean, like, all down and sad and stressed and eeyore-ish. 

yes. i'm feeling like a forlorn, handstitched, black-cloud-plagued donkey? is eeyore a donkey? what is he? oh bother....

then i found this and this cheers me up, i don't know why.

and that's about all i've got today.