Of nursing school, robberies and restraining orders

Well, this post might not end up being as interesting as it sounds. But I did remember--a good while after I posted my blog last Tuesday--that I wanted to talk about nursing school (or the lack of it). The semester started August 25 and the first week was great. The second week was a different story because I got a severe case of bronchitis - which landed me in the emergency room. I just couldn't breathe! It was pretty scary. Anyway, I was confined to bed pretty much all day for a couple weeks. Just trying to walk into the next room made me out of breath and I constantly felt like I was going to faint. Well, to make a long story short, you just can't take two weeks off of nursing school. So, I did the obviously painful thing (after all my hard work!!) and withdrew. Before anyone has a heart attack, let me just say that I was told I can reenter nursing school later on. But even if I never go back, and end up staying at home and raising babies :-) ... NO ONE is going to make me feel like a failure--so don't even try, because I have a mind of my own.

And as for the robbery (no, I wasn't robbed) ... I was doing my 2-mile walk at the college track and I was *almost* finished when I saw a police officer run, with his gun drawn, into the bushes surrounding an apartment complex. I halfway wondered what was going on, but thought that maybe they were training. (ACC happens to have a police academy; it's just too bad they usually turn out losers.) Well, just as I was about to get into my car to leave, an unmarked car stopped beside me and out came an officer. He asked if I had seen someone matching such-and-such description, but I hadn't. So I left, but on my way home I couldn't help but notice that there were police cars staked out at every intersection. It was a little eerie! It turned out that an income tax place right around the corner from the college had been robbed; and unfortunately, I don't have the rest of the story. I mean, I don't know if they caught the guy or not.

On Saturday, Nat went to pick up Josh from work and I was surprised when they came home early. Josh was supposed to work until 6:30, but they got back at 6:15 or so. Nat was like, "Yeah, had a bit of a mess. Had to get the police out, and we decided to just go home early." I was like, "Uh, what did you say?" Apparently, Nat had arrived at the car wash pretty early, and was going to hang out till Josh finished. But there happened to be a rather heated argument going on between two or three people and eventually Nat had to ask them to take the argument off the property (Nat is basically still employed there too, so he's in charge of keeping things orderly). The guy was offended and said, "We're not arguing, we're just talking." Nat said, "Well, I'm going to have to ask you to talk somewhere else." So the guy turned around and shouted to all the customers, "Hey, everyone! We're not allowed to talk at this car wash." LOL. Well the guy just didn't want to cooperate, and he ripped his shirt off and told Nat to fight him. Etc, etc. Anyhow, they ended up getting two police officers out there and they wrote a restraining order against the guy and banned him from the property. When the owner of the car wash heard what happened, he decided he's going to press charges against the guy for assult. So, I guess that guy will have to find a new car wash to go to. It doesn't pay to act like a jerk.

Okay, now I can fill in the blanks! On Friday, my siblings had a birthday party for me and invited basically everyone. We had very yummy pizza (thanks to a really kind friend who bought enough pizza for the whole crowd!) and a delicious cake (thanks to Sarah), as well as other tasty things. And I got some cool presents--including a digital camera from Nat and Josh. The first one I've ever had!!! Quite exciting. :-)

Hmm, what else was I going to say? Oh, I guess I could say that today marks the 13th week of my pregnancy...and I don't feel a bit different. I'm still tired and I still have no appetite. :-) Oh well. I think I have decided that it's all about forcing yourself to do things - at least in my case. I don't feel like getting out of bed, but I force myself to do it anyway, and I feel better. I don't feel like going to the gym, but I do it anyway and I feel much better. I DON'T feel like eating, but I FORCE myself, and...em, sometimes I feel better and sometimes I don't. LOL. It's all good though. But lately I've been going through what seems to be the dizzy stage?? I know I already have very low blood pressure, and I think that since I'm pregnant, it's even lower. Well, I get super faint. Like, for about two hours the other day, it took everything in me just to stay conscious. It was actually pretty bad!

And this is totally off topic, but yesterday I got one of those typical telemarketer phonecalls. This was about some "fabulous" home security system, an $875 value that you get for FREE, you just pay a monthly monitoring fee of $29.95. I let her talk, and talk, and talk; mainly, I guess, because it sounded like a good deal, and I wanted to see if they could send more info in the mail. Before I knew it, she was practically signing the contract for me. I was like, "Hang on, I really need to talk this over with my husband before we go any further." "Oh," she said, "that's not a problem. Give me his number and I'll call him up right now. We can have a 3-way phone conversation." "No," I said, "I really need to talk to him myself." "OK, Sweetie, that's not a problem," she replied. "Do you have a cell phone? Just set this phone down, go call him on your cell phone, and I'll wait right here." By this time, I'm really mad at myself. WHY do I let people do this to me??? Well, I went and called Caleb and he didn't think that we're in critical need of a big, fancy security system, so I got back on the other phone and told the lady that we just wouldn't be interested right now. She said, "OK, well look...we've got a work order in place. When your husband comes home from work, talk to him about it, and if he's not interested, call us back and cancel. Now, I need you to go to this website. Click next. Great. Click next again." Well, next thing I know, this website is asking for my bank account number and routing number! Maybe I'm gullible, but I'm not THAT gullible. I very politely hung the phone up. It immediately rang back and I let it ring--15 times. It stopped. And then it rang again. Another 15 times. So, I solved that by taking the phone off the hook. Just a little later, I had a friend over and I told her about this telemarketer. She was like, "Oh! Let me talk to her." So, next time the phone rang, my friend answered it and basically told the lady that it would be a good idea to never call back. And I haven't heard from her since.

Now we come to the part that I don't want to think about. :-'( My husband went out of town - without me!! He had to go to Seattle on a business trip so I took him to the airport this morning. And he won't be back till Friday evening. :-( If anyone wants to join my pity-party, feel free to do so.

I guess I should end this post...so I'll do so with a couple photos.

First we have the most handsome, charming, lovable guy in the world, who happens to be my husband:

And then we have Shannon, the dog that constantly wakes me up during the night, and for some reason ... I love her anyway.

Twenty-four and twelve

Well, Blogger is being rather stubborn. I didn't choose to start this post with a photo of Shannon, but it won't let me move it either, so here it is! That's Shannon on the way home, after we evacuated. What I was going to say is --

Today . . .

I turn 24, and our lovely baby (which is still inside me, of course :-)) turns 12 weeks!! I got an ultrasound at 10 weeks and we could see the baby kicking its feet and waving its arms. It was so amazing. Such a tiny baby, too! It will be a while before it's ready to come out, so in the meantime I will enjoy watching my tummy get bigger and bigger. :-D I've had an amazing pregnancy so far--no nausea, no morning sickness...just lots of tiredness!! Of course, I have *no* appetite (even though I am hungry 5+ times a day. How weird is that? Hungry but no appetite!), and there are some foods--like eggs--that I can't bear the thought of. LOL! Yeah, I've had a couple times when I felt a little sick; but in general, things have gone well. (Ok, apart from the time I walked two miles in the wrong kind of shoes and got a very painful blister :-P).

Anyhow, I wanted to say 'thanks very much' to everyone who left a comment or sent an email! It was very kind of all of you!

As most people know, we recently had a hurricane. The photos below show some of the damage to our place. We evacuated at 3 AM on September 11th and went to Bastrop, TX - 32 miles from Austin. It wasn't until September 26th that we were able to return home. Since we had a lot of electrical damage, it took a while to get it fixed and get the electricity back on. Also, it wasn't until later that we realized the phone box had been torn off the back of the house...meaning no phone or internet. Well, we finally got that repaired too, so we have internet again!

October 7 is National Night Out, meaning each street in Alvin is supposed to have their own "neighborhood barbeque." Our barbeque is being hosted by a firefighter who lives a couple houses down. It lasts from 6-10 pm, and even though I *really* don't feel like going (I'm tired, of course!), I will probably make my appearance at least for a little while. I did bake some brownies, which Caleb is delivering right now, and we'll probably go down there (the gathering is in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street) when Nat gets home from class.

It seems like there were *so* many other things I was going to include but they have slipped my mind. :-(

Okay, guess I better get going.