Dear New Bagel Place,

Even though I love Panera with a passion that should really be reserved only for people, I decide to give you a chance. I set aside money from my food budget (yes set aside money!) to buy your ‘Bakers Dozen and 2 Cream Cheese’ deal. I try to go by twice but you are only open 6am to 3pm. This is difficult to do on my work schedule but I am determined to welcome you to the neighborhood.

Wednesday morning I rearrange my morning schedule so I am at your bagel shop right after 7am. I start work at 730 but it’s only 3 blocks away. I stand in a short-ish line and then order my baker’s dozen deal, a croissant sandwich breakfast sandwich (pregnant woman treat) and an orange juice. I am slightly sad that your OJ is from concentrate but every place in OK does that so I move on. You also do not have asiago cheese bagels, which are my favorite, but I am willing to try new things.

The young girl taking my order appears new and confused. I am gentle and speak slowly and give her plenty of time to get everything down. I think about asking to see what she wrote to make sure it’s correct but it seems rude. She gives me my total- $16. This is not correct. The Baker’s deal is $16 by itself. I tell her I think it’s supposed to be more than that. She is very confused. Boss Lady comes over. She seems stressed. She tells Confused Young Coed what she did wrong and rings up the order. I’m pretty sure they’re still low a dollar or so but decide not to stress anyone else out.

I then sit in your store 35 minutes. Yes 35 minutes! You see, instead of having the cashier girl grab the bakers dozen deals, which several people are ordering, at the time of purchase- thus insuring both accuracy and speed- you have it all written on a ticket which is then filled quite a bit later by the same people doing the breakfast sandwiches. You also have the cream cheese containers filled as they are ordered. It involves using a hard spatula to fill a container with cold cream cheese while people are waiting for their orders. This seems ineffective to me. Why not fill them before?

People are standing all around waiting patiently. You call Brandy. I get excited and get my bag. I look in and it is obvious this is not my order. I hand it back and another Brandy (who ordered after me) takes her meal and goes.

I wait 10 more minutes. Boss Lady hands me my meal and Baker’s Dozen box and apologizes for how long it has taken. I am gracious and friendly in assuring her I am not irritated. I look in the bag. My croissant sandwich for some reason is made on a cinnamon raisin bagel. I do NOT eat raisins and let you know politely that my sandwich was supposed to be croissant. Boss Lady seem both apologetic and irritated. She blames Confused Young Coed. My sandwich is made (taking an additional 5 minutes).

I leave, getting to work almost a half hour late. I leave the bagels in the car and take the cream cheese in with me to put in the work fridge.

That evening I get home and open my bagel box. I start sorting bagels to freeze. I have 2 raisin bagels in my box.

I decide to return them the next day and ask for them to be replaced- neither Nate or I will eat them and by this point I am slightly irritated.

The next day I cannot get out of the house in time to make a trip I have to assume will take more than 5 minutes. Friday morning I come in with my bagels and politely explain what happened and ask to have my bagels replaced. I hand Different Young Coed the dead grape bagels in a eco ziplock bag. Different Young Coed is friendly but says she’ll have to check. She brings over Boss Lady. Boss Lady tells me (in an 'I'm doing you a favor voice), “I’ll let it happen this time. Next time you really need to bring them back the next day.”

Boss Lady has wiped away all my patience and good cheer in an instant. I inform her I could not make it in yesterday. She hands me my bagels. I am at work before I realize she has given me 4 bagels instead of 2 but am sure it was not out of politeness but lack of paying attention to what I was asking for.

New Bagel Place, I tell you this story because I will not be back. I was willing to overlook a bad morning. I even apologized to you in my mind for bringing my bad mojo to your store. No longer! I will return to Panera where I have always been treated extremely well, including the time I went in with my ASL class and had to order without talking. I will not be overly positive if people ask about you.

…Welcome to the neighborhood.

Fundal Height, Bad Mojo,Tiny Melons and a Washing Machine

What is Fundal Height?
In your 2nd trimester the doctor starts measuring fundal height. Fundal height is the measure from the top of your pubic bone to the top of the uterus. The distance in centimeters should match pretty closely with the number of weeks pregnant you are. i.e. 30 weeks pregnant should have a fundal height of about 30 cm. This number can be +/- about 2 cm and still be considered normal.

At my 34 week checkup I measured right on the dot. At this last check up (36 week) I was still measuring 34 cm. This is still in the normal range but the lack of any change and the fact that I gained no weight in the last 2 weeks resulted in my doctor and I deciding to do an additional ultrasound to make sure everything is still fine. This will take place next Wednesday (Sept 9th).

Again let me remind you (and my subconscious) that we are still in the normal limit. Everything is probably fine. The Mayo Clinic gives the following possible no-stress reasons for a smaller than normal fundal height:

• a tall or thin frame (uh... oh well, not that one)
• well-conditioned abdominal muscles (hahahahahahahah)
• a baby prematurely descending into the pelvis (not sure???)

So I'm letting you all know on the strict promise you will assume, with Nate and I, that Peanut has just taken pity on me (and my hippy-craziness of not using drugs for the birth) and decided to stay small until after he after he rips through my vaginal cavity. Thank you.

Next let me tell you of the bad mojo I have had this last week...
(ps who can name this book???)

I ripped the button off my maternity pants packet, had to remove my underwear in a grocery store bathroom, burned my finger, dropped my potato in cat hair, gave bad mojo to an entire bagel store, got raisin bagels in my baker's dozen (ewww!), got a random cut on my foot that bled like crazy, had to park way far away from my building in a spot I wasn't sure was legal and lost poker to Nate (meaning he got an additional book this month and I didn't!). :(

On a brighter side I have melons! I planted, in the desperate attempt to grow anything in my garden this year, some watermelon and cantaloupe plants way late. They have baby melons on them! Here's a pic of the largest melon:
Isn't it cute! Some more melon plant pics.

farther away cantaloupe
watermelon
Other best news...

We got a new washing machine! The one we had was one we got from a lady at church, who had gotten it from a man at her work. It was old and made a lot of noise (some balancing issue inside) and didn't clean super well. We decided that since we're doing cloth diapers we needed a good machine that actually cleaned. It is beautiful and wonderful and we love it.

Last night we tried out the sanitary option on our dirty rags. They came out so clean and good-smelling! (although it did take 3 hours. holy hannah! not to be used often!)

Plus one outfit of Peanut's had accidentally fallen into that basket without us noticing. It was so fun to fold little Peanut clothes. Made me 'miss' him- and he's sitting on my bladder right now. Yes I'm a sap.

Oh well, as long as this doesn't happen...

One of those...Weeks???, Church Rooms and Britney Spears

Ok so two things lead me to blog this morning:

#1- Britney Spears won VMA Best Video for "Piece of Me"
#2- I am losing my mind (and possibly my husband)

Here's my train of thought (don't be worried if you get lost- it doesn't make much sense).

I never liked Britney Spears. I didn't like the Back Street Boys or N'Sync or 98 Degrees etc. I pretended slight enthusiasm about N'Sync at one point cause my friends were so into them but I think even they realized I was feigning minimal interest.

Anyway so while I've been familiar with Britney Spear's 'music' for quite a while I've never been that interested in her until the hailstorm of bad press started. It was ridiculous! People were saying and doing the most horrible things to that girl. I'm making no judgement calls on her behavior but I can imagine few things she could have done to be eligible for the anger directed at her. Just awful.

So when "Piece of Me" came out it was the first Britney song I had ever liked. It was probably the first she actually meant when she sang it. I just love the underlying anger and attitude.

So how that relates to my life is this...I have had one of those weeks. Not just the odd bad day or grumpy meeting or irrational emotional ridiculousness but everything for a full week. It started innocently with a slightly grumpy Sunday morning last week. Nothing earth-shatteing but overall unhappiness. It wasn't fun but I didn't worry too much since those days happen and sometimes there's just not much you can do about it.

But then Monday sucked too. I was angry I was sad I was grumpy and I was likely to kill the next person who expected me to do ANYTHING. Seriously crazy.Tuesday was just as bad.

and then came Wednesday...

Wednesday I had Cub Scouts. I love my Cub Scouts. They're cute and nice and mostly listen to what I say and don't cause trouble etc. However, early on Wednesday I got a call saying the YM/YW huge 2 ward combined activity had to be moved inside because of weather. The Cub Scouts have the gym reserved from 6 to 7 and the YM/YW wanted to know if they could use it. I told my person they could have all but one sliver of the gym by the stage (I needed it for my activity). As far as I knew the matter was closed.

So I get to the church and start my activity with my boys. They're doing great. They listen and help and have fun. It was awesome. But about 630 someone comes in to ask when we'll be done so they can have this part of the gym also. I tell them I'll be here til 7 then they can have it. 5 mins later another person. Now, lest anyone think these people haven't been told I'm in there, I have SIGNS the say "Cub Scouts meeting- Do Not Enter", posted on both doors. I'm starting to get frustrated (please also remember these are 7 year old boys- every distraction results in 5 minutes of getting them back on task).

At 745 a leader from the other ward (whom I completely confess to having previous issues with due to some events a year ago with my sister) opens the partition and asks when we'll be done. I say we'll be done at 7. At 750 she asks if we're done yet (at this point she's starting to kill my Cub Scout buzz). At 755 she asks if we're done yet- when I answer her this time, trying to keep my temper, she says "what???" because aparently she can't hear me. I repeat myself she again doesn't hear me. At this point I tell her (rather loudly) that we'll be done at 7 and CLOSE THE DOOR!!! It's possible I could have been calmer but unlikely.

At 7 I leave the room, letting them know I'm done. If they had stopped bugging me to begin with I would probably have been done at 645 or so.

So I breathe deeply talk to some parents and get ready to leave. The person in my organiztion stops me and wants to talk about changing room usage and times for scouts. She says, "I was told by ___ that we need to be out of the rooms by 645 so the YM/YW can set up for their activities that start at 7". I am not kidding- I almost threw down right then and there (do you see how on a normal week Wednesday this might have been amusing). Seriously, I barely restrained myself from finding ___ and telling her my very strong opinions on the subject. I told the lady in my organiztion we couldn't move our time and I would continue to use the gym we had reserved until 7. I said "YM/YW is not more important than Cub Scouts. I have no problem if there is a special event and they tell me in advance, adjusting my schedule to help them out."

So I'll skip the rest of the week. Let me assure you it did not get better. Work sucked, classes sucked, people sucked, errands sucked, my house sucked. Overall there were several annoying things that happened but nothing worthy of the anger or distress they produced in me. I feel as though I'm starting the day one step before 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. One thing happens and my day is shot. It's crazy. And of course if anyone suffers for my bad mood it is my husband. He's probably asking to be tranfered to Russia without me.

So the moral of this story is...I'm losing my mind...and be nicer to Britney Spears.

Just that kind of weekend...

Well folks it was just that kind of weekend and honestly the week hasn't improved much so far. But I do have Cub Scouts tonight so it's sure to get at least a little more fun. Here's a fun video of a really good song.

Snow Patrol - You Could Be Happy


another video done by the same person/people...

Kate Nash - Nicest Thing


PS Sorry if you could possibly kill yourself at this point because I couldn't pick a happy song...

PPS Do you feel like once you get married you have to miss out on the best depressing songs? I mean for real- they're both sad but neither applies enough to be touching anymore. I think I need a depressing song about the house not being clean and work being long and grumpy to just wallow in...Any ideas?