The Countdown Begins!

Hooray!

So, to celebrate the end of two big things that I can't wait to be over, I made my favorite things ever:

I love paper chains! I can't get enough of them. I love making them and I love taking them apart.

The two things I'm celebrating? The end of work and the day the baby is due!!!!! I really can't wait.







Only 37 more days of work and 63 more days until the baby is due! What an exciting time for all of us.

Maybe I'm just hormonal

But people are really getting on my nerves. Especially the 33-year-old men who may or may not work in my office and may or may not smell like they caked on women's baby powder fresh deodorant and still never wash their hair or scalp. The horror--the torture. Perfumy stench and dirty scalp stench. I wish I could die.

Just to be clear--you make me want to kill myself. And it's not just your stench. It's also the fact that you never do your job right and you never pay attention to anyone but Karly (which only bothers me when you awkwardly drool over her and ignore all of the work-related conversations we have) and so many other things. But the stench is a really big part of it, too.

Mandatory Overtime

Overtime is killing me. Dead. I don't know how Michael lives with me. All I do is work and cry (sometimes in an angry voice) about how I still have to work that evening/the next day. I just need a break. I'm so tired. We are entering the 7th week in a row of mandatory overtime and I am slowly dying inside. If I have to work 50 hours again next week, I may just call in sick all week.

Hard Times at Work Today

A conversation at work (maybe today, maybe yesterday, maybe late last week, even) that involved Joel, mostly, I think, involved Joel's saying how he sometimes felt a little bad that he could just look at Bethany and she'd get pregnant, and he felt a little bad sometimes because they have so many friends who are trying to have kids and they just can't. That is something that I can totally relate to. It's sometimes hard when all of my friends are having their third, fourth, or fifth kids and I still can't have one. I identify with how hard it can be. It's sometimes hard to be happy for my friends, even though I want to be. But I still tried and I never missed a baby shower I was invited to and I never said mean things about anyone who was having a million kids (except maybe my sister had TOO many kids way too close together), and never out of envy. I honestly believe Chelsea had her kids way too close together for her to be able to handle and she's never been able to catch up on her sleep or sanity and she's totally turned into a frazzled old woman at the age of 33.

But today, someone at work started hating on people who say they are trying to have kids. He said some really hateful things, demeaning a couple's pain when they just want to share their love, lives, and joy with a baby of their own. It was really hurtful to me. I wanted to yell at him that it's totally inappropriate to mock them for saying that they are trying. Sure, "trying" implies having sex, and I'm sorry taht he can't handle the idea of married people having sex when he's been in a drought since he moved to Utah. But "trying" often implies so much more--with medical interventions and stress and faith and so much that no one ever sees. When he said those mean things, I was so offended and sad. I almost cried (not that it takes a lot for me to cry these days, but it was so inappropriate). How can someone be so oblivious to someone else's pain?

I mean, I know that a week or so ago, this guy said that he wanted to stop being so mean and start being nicer, and then asked me, very seriously, about ways he could start being nicer to people. And I told him that I didn't know except to start seeing people as people who have other things going on in their lives and problems and hard times that we can't and may never see. He replied, "Yeah, I don't think I could do that." And then dropped it. So why am I surprised when he's mocking people that have a hard time having kids and tell people that they are trying? Guys, here's a shocker: I am married and I have sex with my husband. In the end, that is how I got pregnant. But there was a lot more involved in it than that. There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of prayer, there was a lot of wishing, talking, internal dialogues, and then there was a lot of stress and worry and the threat of a lot of medical interventions.

I don't know why I was so offended by his offhand comments--saying things like, "oh, you're trying to have kids? What--does that like take an advanced degree or something?" "Gross--you're trying to have kids, that is not anything I want to hear about." I can't believe anyone who is 33 years old is that immature to not realize that not every couple can get pregnant the second they want to. I know I shouldn't be so invested in things he does--to mock so flippantly the couples that Joel was talking about. But it is hurtful, because, even though he didn't realize he was making fun of me, and I never told people that Michael and I were "trying" to have kids, but that was my situation until three months ago. It's just rude that he can't see other people as people who have things going on in their lives that we aren't a part of.

Halloween 2009

Dressing up for Halloween is really fun since everyone in the "office" participates--and this year was great. I had a wonderful costume that involved a big white sheet, white face paint, and a little baby ghostie. I safety pinned a baby ghostie to the belly of my ghost costume to let little Pat Shea join in the fun of Halloween with everyone else. It was pretty gross and creepy, which made it so fitting for all of us--it was the best thing I could do that didn't involve painting my naked belly (which I would NEVER do, because ew).





One nice thing is that, while my white sheet is getting dirtier and dirtier and making my pants so dirty all day, you have no idea how big my belly is.

Halloween is great, not just because we eat treats all day at work and watch Haunting episodes and have Halloween Power Hours all month, but it's also Crystal's birthday--Happy Birthday, Crystal!

And I am totally sugared out. I can't wait to go home and take a nap.

Things I Love about Work (there are a lot, I promise!)

I guess I feel like I have to explain that I really do love my job. I promise. It isn't the work, necessarily, and it certainly isn't the upper management. It's all of the kids I work with. I love all of the people who work in our office room. We work in a room inside of the warehouse and we have a lot of opportunities for bonding. If nothing outside of our room existed, we would have the greatest time at work.

Joel will give us an Aicha All-request Power Hour a couple times a week. It starts with Gellieman singing "Aicha" and ends with Liam Lynch singing "United States of Whatever" and in the middle are all of the songs we can think to request. They usually have a theme--which is so much fun. I love the themes of the Power Hours. And I am always so impressed with the musical knowledge in our room. Those are good times.

We have potlucks and treats all the time. It was easier when there were fewer of us, but we would always have someone carry in treats and we have potlucks quite frequently. More recently, we've been having themed potlucks. Oktoberfest (lots of delicious German food), soup potluck-amazing!, and a cookie potluck were a few of the things we've done. And I love the assortment of treats we always have.

Watching things with snaps. Not all of us have speakers/sound on our computer, so we will watch things with snaps. We will all queue up whatever youtube video we choose to watch and Jordan snaps out the rhythm and we all click "play" together and Joel will use his speakers. In the month of October, we watched so many episodes of the Haunting. Really good stuff. We watch music videos, clips of reality shows, cooking shows. If there is something to watch, I love watching it with snaps.

Pictures of kittens/puppies/other baby animals get passed around all day every day. I have seen some really adorable things. Cuteoverload.com is now a frequent stop for me.

It is important to always check my horoscope--how else would I know that Mark is going to come down to the warehouse today? Or that if I were running for president today, I would be elected on the spot?

I have learned more about pop culture than I ever cared to know. Tacky Paris Hilton, the misunderstood Britney Spears, the diva Mariah Carrey, any new movies that are coming out, basically any wayward popstar there is to know about, I hear about at work. And I love every moment of it.

There are so many other things that I just love. It would be impossible to encapsulate the joy of working at Overstock.com in just one short post.