Closed doors and broken windows…

As most of you know based on my Facebook posts, I have a LOT going on in my life.  I have had two interviews this week and a friend who is working on getting me some part time book keeping work to keep me sane.  I also started my own Mary Kay business this week, which I fully plan to dedicate 20 hours each week to.  I also found out that Jayson and I are having a little girl!!!  @----}-----

Her name will be Magdalene Marie Pratt, Maggie for short.  I am super excited about buying all the cute frilly dresses and pink and purple clothing items.  It’s funny because outside of the beauty pageant circuit, I would have considered myself a tom boy – but I have very girly plans for Maggie.  We’ll see how well she takes to them, lol.

But don’t worry avid readers, I do NOT plan on her making her debut appearance on “Dance Mom’s” or “Toddlers in Tiaras”.  No offense to those mom’s out there that have those goals for their daughters.  If she wants to do pageants?  We’ll do pageants.  If she wants to have a Volvo driving soccer mom?  Then that’s who I’ll be.  If she tells me she wants to try out for wrestling and needs a work out partner?  You guessed it.  I’m so excited, and very emotional about the whole thing.  We found out on Tuesday, and Tuesday afternoon I found myself tearing up when wondering whether or not her future husband was already born, conceived, or not even thought of yet.  I know – I’m a mess.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What else.  Oh!  So Mary Kay.  Not that any of you believe this, but those of you who know me very well know that it’s true…  I am really shy around new people.  Put me with a group of my friends and a few new faces and I am the life of the party.  Put me in a room where I’m the only person I know?  Can you say crickets?  I think this is my biggest fear as I learn how to put on a skin care class and essentially educate complete strangers in the awesomeness that is a product that I’ve loved for about 6 years now.  I won’t bore you to death with the details but if you have any interest whatsoever in the product, or becoming a consultant, please reach out to me.  I’d love to help you, and helping you helps me get started!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, I put in thought separation lines as to confuse you less than I normally do.  Wasn’t that thoughtful of me?!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Restaurant business:  As many of you know, I have a serious love of food that over the past year or so has grown into a serious love of cooking.  And not to toot my own horn, but I’ve become pretty good at it.  I still struggle slightly with the creativity of it but I can take any recipe, make it my own, and have it be a complete success.  It’s kind of exciting.  I think my style of cooking can best be referred to as the “cutting corners” style.  LOL I’m not making a  roux for chicken and shrimp gumbo, are you kidding me?  I’m adding some bisquick to some oil and water and throwing it in after I’m done cooking it to make it LOOK like I made a roux.  Stop judging me right now.

So anyway, as part of this – and my as of late lack of job – I have once again been considering what it takes to open my own restaurant.  Which is honestly why I started the whole Mary Kay thing – to be home with the baby while gaining the funding to do so.  So obviously I’ve been looking to get back into the restaurant business to make sure that I still have it.  So that was two interviews this week.  One I got offered a job as a bartender immediately (but they’re not open yet – and need to discuss pregnancy), and another I am waiting back on a server position.  At least I can still sell myself in a heart beat…

Depending on where the next 5 months takes me, I’m thinking about starting culinary school on a part time basis after Maggie is born.  I need to learn knife skills, sauces, and fish.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Life is such a beautiful mess.  I’m enjoying it one day at a time, and wish you all the strength to do the same.  I’ll write soon.

Being inside of my head is exhausting…

Seriously.  I have been doing a lot of research the past few days on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and whether or not it is something that is genetic, or results from how you’re raised.  And you’d better believe I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that my kids are not faced with the same issues that I struggle with.  I want my kids to be able to grow up, and to a point be able to shut things down when they need to.  I don’t want the anxious obsessive compulsive side of me to come out in their personality at all.  And quite frankly, I’m terrified that I’m going to fail.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly feel that my OCD is part of why I’m so successful at whatever I do and why I’m good at the things I’m good at.  But I also feel that most of my social hang ups are a direct result of my “black and white” way of life.

I got laid off today, and though my last day isn’t until the 16th, I spent the second half of the day at home.  I’ve barely been home for four hours and I’ve already completed two loads of laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, re-organized the closet, picked up the bedroom, re-structured my entire budget to live within the confines of my new income that unemployment will bring, prepped dinner for two nights, and researched ways to make money on the side and start my own business.  How in the hell am I going to survive six months of this?

I’m definitely interested in starting something that I can do from home such as PR and Marketing, creating files for people, etc. so that I will be able to stay home with the blueberry and contribute towards the financial stability we’ve worked so hard to obtain.  So maybe it’s a blessing in disguise?  No more spending $400+ a month in gas, no night meetings, just getting the house ready for Pratt baby #1.

That’s all I’ve got for now because I’m physically and mentally exhausted.  Write more soon.

Men Vs. Women… So unfair

So here is what I want to know…  Why are the baby books that are written for men so much better laid out, and written for that matter, than the ones that are for women?  What makes these people think that I care to read about heroin usage during pregnancy, or eating well for the whole 9 months when I am only 3 months pregnant?…  GRRR…

Meanwhile Jayson’s books?  Laid out in chapters by MONTH for the changes he should expect to see in me, and what’s going on with the baby.  Well that’s freaking helpful.  A lot more helpful than the pages I skipped over in my book about acupuncture.  Really?

This is where it starts to get a bit gross.  Light stomached readers (and men) should probably turn back now…  okay, I warned you.

Are there any baby books out there that talk about how effing scary this is?  Seriously?  Because I have to tell you, this pregnancy has not been sunshine and rainbows.  It would have been nice if someone had said “hey, the heartburn, indigestion, and gas are going to start before the morning sickness ever subsides” or better yet “at the end of your first trimester there’s going to be scary white crap coming out of your nipples!”…

Thank God for baby center…  I don’t know what I would do without those women.  Cause I am one cranky, mean, sick, miserable woman right now and it’s nice to know that I’m in good company.  However sometimes I want to smack the hell out of women that aren’t sick like I am…  Perfect example.  Today at Target, the man in line in front of me left his cart instead of moving it to the end to put his bags in, and then left his keys on the counter.  As I handed them to him I jokingly said “I’m the pregnant one, I should be the one leaving things everywhere".  To which the lady at the counter asked me how far along I was and proceeded to tell me that if it were not for the ultrasound, that she wouldn’t even believe there was a baby growing inside of her…  Well what the crap little blueberry?!  Why are you being so damned mean to me?  I’m your mommy, and I love you.  You’re supposed to love me back!

Speaking of which – my OB is freaking hilarious.  We went in for our second prenatal visit last week and I brought my prenatal vitamins to make sure that there were enough nutrients for both me and the baby – because my hair and nails have taken a turn for the WORSE and my skin is SUPER DRY.  He was like “yeah, those are fine” to which I responded “I was just curious because this baby seems to be sucking the life out of me” and without missing a beat he goes “and it will continue to do so for the next 20 years or so”.

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of Eve ruining it for the rest of us at this point in time…  Can’t wait to meet our little gift!

Expecting the Unexpected ~ Baby #1

As most of you know (because I assume you’re my Facebook friend if you are reading this) my husband and I are finally expecting Pratt baby #1! :D We are currently 13 weeks and 1 day and our estimated due date (or EDD) is August 26^th. That’s right; this impatient, cranky lady is going to be pregnant all Carolina summer long… ugh.  I can’t wait for that part to be over, but we are super excited and anxiously awaiting this whole pregnancy thing to be over so that we can get on with the good stuffs…  You know, spoiling it rotten!!!

Oh, and also for those of you who don’t know, this was completely unplanned and unexpected!  We had tried for almost two years before things went south with us for a while so we were NOT expecting our miracle at all.  In fact since the in home pregnancy tests kept reading negative, I had an appointment with my regular doctor the day after my OB appointment in case there was something horribly wrong with me.  Morning sickness is a myth, they should really call it ALL DAY sickness.  :P

So let’s see… What do you want to know? EDD, check. Sex? Well TOO BAD, ‘cause we don’t find out until March 27^th. I am so anxious! I just want to know already! Healthy, check. Genetic testing? No idea. We aren’t doing it…

Baby showers:

NY – May 27, yes… it is early but my husband is the pregnancy nazi so I will not be travelling any later than Memorial Day weekend.

NC – July 7, yes, it’s co-ed, yes there will be food, and yes – it’s in Gastonia… Don’t give me any lip!

Appointments thus far:

On January 25^th we had our first prenatal appointment which included our first Ultrasound (u/s) at 9 weeks and 3 days. We could make out the feet and barely the arms but the heartbeat was a strong 175 BPM.

On February 15^th we had our second prenatal appointment. Dr. Wicker was able to find the heartbeat without too much effort using a regular monitor (no picture) and the heartbeat had slowed to 160 BPM. Then he told us that finding it without the u/s machine meant that we were at less than 1% risk for a miscarriage.

Here’s a cute cartoon picture of approximately what the baby should look like right now. And no, I will not be posting pictures of my belly on a weekly basis… So don’t ask! :P

2011 and the year of losing myself…

So it has been four months since my last blog entry… and they have been a long four months.  For those of you who are unaware, they have involved me losing several friends who I would have considered pretty damn good ones, getting out of a great gone toxic in a heartbeat relationship, and starting the process of reconciling with my ridiculously patient husband.

Even though things are going very well with Jayson, I have a small group of amazing friends, and have finally been blessed with my shot at being a mom – I am more confused, and lost than when I first started writing to you all one year ago…

Can somebody help me understand this part, please? We are three months pregnant and making new preparations for our little bundle of joy every day, but I am too sick to enjoy what is coming. I have great friends who would do anything for me and yet there are days where I’d like to tell them all to stuff it and hide in a hole. And honestly sometimes it feels like Jayson and I have changed so much over the past year that I am living with a stranger, even though some days it feels like we are closer than we ever have been before. It’s all maddening.

I literally spend a good 60% of the time that I’m awake screaming inside. Any patience that I had is completely gone. With coworkers, friends, random people who don’t know how to drive, you name it. My fuse was short to begin with, and blame it on the hormones if you will, but now it is gone.

Just me letting it out, but am going to follow up with a bit more sunshine and rainbows about the baby because despite what I have stated above, I am freaking ecstatic and tearing up just thinking about playing with my new baby! I’ll let you know when I’ve finished.

Someone Like You

With a house full of company Saturday night Adele’s Someone Like You came on several times. Of course all of us women sang it at the top of our lungs while playing board games with our friends. A point was brought up. Almost every woman can in some way relate to these lyrics…

I hosted a Meetup for a group that I am a part of a couple of weeks ago completely based around Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. Including myself, only three women showed up, so there we were a group of women one in the mid 20’s, one in the mid 30’s, and one in the mid 50’s with one thing in common. Or so we thought. We were all separated and learning how to cope with our failed marriages.

But by the end of the night we had realized that we had so much more in common. Not only were we learning how to cope with our failed marriages, but our stories were all so very similar. I was able to relate to a woman in her mid 50’s who was at a completely different stage in life in ways that I never thought possible. Why: Because we both felt exactly the same. We are both going through exactly the same thing. Learning how to move on with our lives, how to date again, what’s normal, how we should feel, all sorts of crazy struggles. We are learning how to be us again.

With every relationship, breakup, experience, friendship, loss, celebration that comes our way, we are all learning from it. We are beautifully ever changing beings that are all going through the same exact thing disguised as different situations.

What have I gathered from it? That I’m glad I’m so open with people. It allows me the opportunity to be there for people who may not think that it’s okay to talk to someone. They may be in the same exact spot I was a few months ago, holding everything in and hiding behind a social calendar that could wear out Martha Stewart.

When people see that I’m not perfect, and that I hurt to? It allows people to open up in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t have. And with that I realize that is the true reason that I am so easy to talk to. Because I am open and honest about where I am in life, and it makes others feel that they can be open and honest about where they are in life as well.

The decisions that change your life

Let’s be honest. We make hundreds of decisions every day.

Do I want to get out of bed when the alarm goes off?

Do I need to wash my hair today?

What do I want for breakfast?

What socks do I want to wear?

How should I do my hair today?

Do I need a jacket?

Do I give Gracie some wet food with her breakfast?

I’m just rambling off meaningless decisions that I face every day before I even walk out the door. At this point I have maybe been up an hour.

So we make hundreds of these tiny decisions every day. Decisions are a part of life. These are the easy decisions. My definition of an easy decision: minimal choices resulting in minimal consequences.

So what about the hard decisions? What tactics do you use to make those gut wrenching, life changing decisions that nobody ever actually wants to make? Do you stick with those decisions once they are made? Do you falter in your decision? Do you always go with your gut reaction? Do you create a list of positives and negatives and go with whichever list is more favorable? How often do you regret those decisions?

I have shared a lot with a few lately and I’m going to be completely honest… I think it’s hilarious how people take my decision making. I am very much a gut feeling decision maker. I’m not the brain-storming list maker. Yes… I do know that this is against my OCD tendencies but you know what? I only have a short amount of time on this earth and I’m not going to spend it agonizing over decisions (no matter how crazy they seem) or regretting ones that I have made.

I find a path and I start to head down it. If I get half way down and can’t work my way through it with a machete, then it’s time to create a new path for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that my way is the only way. Hell, I’m not saying that my way is the right way. I am saying however that they are my decisions to be made. I very much love the people with whom I have gained their concerned. Don’t think that I’m not. I just wanted to rant a little bit about the musings of people completely non-understanding of the “erratic” or “fast” decisions I have made with my life.

I am happy, and I love my life. Can you honestly say the same?