13 Weeks... Holy Moly!

So, wow - officially my last week of the first trimester. I should start paying better attention, because people are forever asking me how far along I am and I'm never really sure, lol. Uhhh, 12 weeks?? Or is it 14?? I don't know - not done yet!!

I had my 12 weeks baby appointment on Thursday. All is well in the world, and Baby G's heart was beating fast at 165 bpm! According to most websites, the wee one is 3 inches long and I think we are up to a peach in fruit terms. I'm going to rage against the machine and start using various balls instead. With that in mind, we are about the size of a tennis ball :)

So far I have only gained 2 pounds during this entire pregnancy, but for some reason I am already stretch marks galore! The doctor informed me this is because I'm retaining water, and therefore not drinking enough of it, so as punishment I am being marked for life, lol. Ok, ok, I get it. More water!

The most exciting news of all?? On my July 25th appointment, we get to find out what Baby G is (gender wise)! Hooray!! According to the extremely trust worthy Ancient Chinese Lunar Gender calendar, I am having a girl. Click here to see what I mean. Then, of course, according to babyman.net I am having a boy, lol. Babyman.net reports to have a 94% accuracy according to those who have used the tool. *sigh*. My guess is that we are having a girl, but the cool thing is that I just don't care either way! The only reason I want to know is so that I can go on a shopping rampage and start addressing the nursery!

Earlier on I had a post about what the baby would look like. I thought a better idea would be to post a picture of the husband and I, and then from there wonder what our offspring will look like, lol. So - here you are - and imagine away!

George Carlin and Feminism...

So, two thoughts have been running predominantly through my head today.

1) George Carlin NAILED it with his views on the environment. Please, watch this. It sums up my thought process perfectly!



And while I didn't agree with everything George Carlin had to say on politics and religion, I can definitely get with him on the planet earth!

2) Feminism. And mostly how Feminism has destroyed the family and marriage since the 60's. I've been doing some research (shallow research, for the moment) but I am becoming more and more convinced that the coalition of women that hate men have done drastically more damage then good. I will expand on this a lot further as I do more research, but I definitely plan on writing more on this subject.

Gene Therapy...

So, I got to thinking today about what my future offspring will look like. More specifically, I was thinking about what a little boy Gaines would look like. I like to think that my side of the family has strong traits in terms of dominant facial features, and if that remains the same for my children, then I think they will be ok (and if it isn't that way, that is ok, too).

But, if we did have a little boy, I wonder if he would look like my father? Or my older brother Jonathan? Or maybe even my nephew Riley? I'm sure you will see the resemblance...

Me and my Father at my Wedding:

My father, age 16:

My older brother Jonathan, age 27:

My nephew (Jonathan's soon) Riley, age 3:

And Riley again, around 1 year old:

I guess for my next post I'll have to wrastle up some pictures of the women in my gene pool. It is fun to imagine what my future offspring will look like :)

Pre-Partum Depression?

Is there such a thing? I know that these hormones have got to be working a number on me, because NEVER ever EVER in my life has a series of book weighed on my heart as heavily as the Twilight Series has. Not Harry Potter. Not any of the Jennifer Weiner, Emily Giffin or Jane Greene novels. Come to think of it, a book hasn't had me so bummed since I read "Where the Red Fern Grows" way way way back in the day.

Now, not to dis Mrs. Meyers - she wrote a splendid series, and I'm totally looking forward to reading the final installment in August, but my behavior has been downright silly. Thoughts have crossed my mind such as "Waaahhh... Why can't Husband be a super sexaay Vampire?" or "Why can't I have some crazy stalker Vampire madly in love with me?" Complete silliness. I actually found myself with an aching heart, and folks, that is SOOO not my way. It is hard to get me down! I'm effervescent, bubbly, buoyant... not ever boo hoo!

But its all good in the hood, pals, because I figured out how to cure what ails me. It was simple! If a book geared towards teenagers written about Vampires had me all stupified, I must find an even more amazing book about Vampires to make me FORGET all about Twilight. Victory is mine! I picked up a couple of the most recent books in the Vampire Chronicles written by her royal darkness, Anne Rice.

I have spent the last few days curled up with "Blackwood Farm" which comes after Blood and Gold in the Chronicles. I also have Blood Canticle coming up to bat shortly after this one. And Anne Rice has been so good to me, that I'm thinking about picking up the Mayfair Witch books because Mona Mayfair's cameo's in Blackwood Farm has me super intrigued about the family. I'm also pretty stoked about Blood Canticle because it is written from the perspective of Lestat (and I know there are probably a lot of you that just LOVED your Brad Pitt, but I'm sorry, Louis is a bitch!).

It's a good thing I've had something to do while laying down, because I have been in a constant state of nausea for the last several days. I actually stayed home from work yesterday, and that makes the 2nd day I was out sick in my first trimester. Not too bad, if I say so myself. Of course, being nauseous all day at work isn't much fun, and it isn't like GE is going to give me a cookie for least days missed while being pregnant. As my boss is fond of saying, no need to be a hero.
So, whats been on my mind lately? A little bit of anxiety at the fact that I haven't done a thing about baby. Baby has no place to sleep (well, baby has a room, but it isn't ready to be lived in) and the house is the disaster, and Guinness has recently rediscovered his love of gnawing on the couch and pulling out the stuffing. It is all I can do to stay awake past 6pm, and there is sooo much to be done in such a small amount of time. At this rate Baby Gaines is going to have to sleep on the dog bed with the fur babies next to my side of the bed. Hopefully they won't squish the wee one.

**note: I'm getting ready to blow up my blogroll list. I'm tired of reading blogs that are, well, written by Obama lovers. There, I said it. I just can't stand it. And since I can't convert you, and more often than not I end up fuming at the random bullshit you say about President Bush then enjoying reading about your day, I have decided it just isn't worth having a link to you. The blog list will be repopulated with conservative bloggers, or mom/family/music bloggers that don't let their political ineptitude spoil their writing.

Age of Conan...

I've been contemplating writing a post about the new game I've been playing as of late. Of course, when I say game, I mean MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Yeah, I'm one of those... but in all fairness, I haven't been one of those *hardcore* types in quite a long time! My love of MMO's started way back in 2001 shortly after moving in with Husband. My husband happens to be king of the super nerds (hey, I'm not kidding - he was the supervisor of the Geek Squad at Best Buy for a few years) and happened to be playing a game called Everquest (aka, Evercrack) at the time. When husband was at work, I would sign on to his computer and play for a few hours.

Let me tell you folks, I was awful. Pure suck! For my first character, I created a human ranger named Saldile (the name generator in the game picked it out, I liked it, and still continue to use that name to this day in games). I had no idea what I was doing, and I had NO idea how to communicate with the non-player characters in the game. But, I still tried. I walked right up to a guard and started typing to say something. Now, I had no way of knowing this at the time, but certain keys on the keyboard are "hot keys" and would trigger actions automatically. One such hot key is "A" which triggers you to Auto Attack. Ha! That was the fight of my life! I didn't even know how to talk in game, let alone fight, and I had decided to pick one with a lvl 65 guard! As a level 1 naked human ranger, I can assure you that I was insta-killed.

So, anyway, that began my love of the MMO. I eventually learned how to navigate through the game and ended up liking the game enough to go buy my own computer and copy of Everquest. Husband and I found a solid group of "online" pals to play the game with, and we both worked our way up to level 65 (he as a Gnome Wizard and I as a High Elf Magician).

As time went on, we moved on to new games. First was Everquest II (didn't play that long) and then it was World of Warcraft (which husband still plays to this day) and after that it was Vanguard (great concept, bad delivery, I'm pretty sure that no one is playing the game anymore) and finally I have started playing Age of Conan.

There are things I like and dislike about this game. The world is not seamless, for one thing. I HATE that. I hate zoning from one area to the next! I also don't particularly care for the lack of diversity in races. Every other game I have played until now has had elves, gnomes, dwarfs and other animal/human hybrid races. In Age of Conan, it is all just boring old humans. But - the quests are great, the world is beautiful and I do enjoy playing the game. So far I've made it through the beginning area and to my home city as a Stygian Demonologist (named Saldile).


I guess I should probably take an updated screenshot - she looks a lot cooler now :)

Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse

3 Books, 3 Days: Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse by Stephanie Meyers

Wow - what an amazing series! I feel as if I have done nothing but read for the last three days. Monday evening I wasn't feeling particularly well, so I finally picked up Twilight and started reading. By 10pm on Wednesday night, I finished the third book in the series - Eclipse. Now, I love the books - they are fantastic, and I can't believe I hadn't heard of them until just recently. I can't remember the last time I spent all day at work wondering what my characters were about to get up to. By the end of Eclipse I was thoroughly frustrated with Bella, and even though I am happy with the decision she made, I'm really kind of mad that she even had to make a decision at all. To me, it would have been a non-decision. I guess that is because to me, Stephanie Meyers does an incredible job of making your heart pound as she writes about Bella and Edward. I had no such pounding when she described Bella and Jacob. So --- I guess that is my point --- I was super frustrated that this was even in the plot. *sigh* I guess you'll have to read the books for yourself, but if you enjoy a good Vampire love story, you won't be disappointed.

Oh, and the latest book in the series comes out August 2nd! I think it is called Breaking Dawn.

Baby News:

I have none. I am on the verge of having 10 full weeks behind me. I haven't even researched what is going to happen in the 11th week. I'm getting closer and closer to being out of the 3rd trimester, but in a way I already feel that I am. It has been days since I have felt any nausea, and I'm not quite so comatose these days (hell, I stayed up until 1am reading on Tuesday night, and still woke up at 5am the next morning). Of course, all of this has me a little nervous. I feel that since I am not suffering, something must be wrong down there. I will feel calm after my next appointment, I suppose, but in the meantime I wonder if everything is progressing as it should.

Week 10:

Your baby's growth is fast and furious now. He or she is nearly an inch and a half long and the size of a prune, but not nearly as shriveled (even with all the time it spends in water). In fact, your baby is really taking a human shape now. Bones and cartilage are forming, and small indentations on the legs are developing into knees and ankles. The arms (complete with elbows) can flex already, but don't run to the store for a baseball bat just yet. Though your baby's arms are taking shape and getting stronger, each one is only about the size of this number 1.

The tooth bud fairy is making her appearance this week, heralding the arrival of your baby's little choppers, which are forming under the gums. (Those pearly whites won't break through the gums until your baby is close to six months old). Other systems are go, too. Your baby's stomach is producing digestive juices, the kidneys are producing larger quantities of urine, and, if your baby's a boy, he's already producing testosterone (yikes!).

The Right Nursery...

You know, before I got pregnant, I had this whole thing figured out. I knew EXACTLY what I was going to put in my sweet Bebe's room to make he/she feel warm, at home, cozy. I had a million and one idea's before I had a little being (with a lot of power) growing in my womb. Now... I got nuthin'. What a total bummer!

Will it come to me? In my dreams, perhaps? And do I want to put a ton of effort into a room that won't be appropriate for a small child, or an adolescent.