Cruisin'

Yesterday was the perfect summer day. Highs in the low 70s, sunny & a little breeze. I had my windows rolled down, the sun roof open and Prince playing way too loud (to cover up my awful singing). I could have driven all day.

As I was driving and singing and dancing in my seat, I felt HAPPY. Its not all that often, sadly, that my brain sends the "you are HAPPY, dummy!" signal, but when it does, I pay attention. I thought of the many half-cross-country trips I took by myself - really the best way to travel if you want to sing along to the music. Sure, Kansas will make you consider suicide when all you can see FOREVER is corn, but singing and seat dancing really help to distract from the corn. Or the miles of plain highway through Ohio. Or was it Pennsylvania? Or Indiana? Or Illinois? They all kinda run together.

Beyonce and I (my Mini Cooper Clubman's name is Beyonce because she is bootylicous. Cuz she has a big boot. Get it? hehe. I will show myself out.) enjoyed some over the speed limit (but reasonable) cruising, with the sun streaming in the sunroof. But compared to my previous half-cross-country treks, I had cruise control, and since it wasn't 100 degrees, I didn't have to wrap my arm in a towel to prevent sunburn because I also didn't have air. Or power steering. Or power locks. Kids - you probably don't remember these, but once upon a time, in world far, far away, we used to have to use a HANDLE to get the windows to roll down. Like manually! Crazy I know, but true. Also crazy? I drove from OK to NJ and back without a cell phone! GASP! Can you imagine that insanity today?!

The 30 minutes I got to spend in the car, cruising and singing yesterday, really helped renew my sense of happy, my sense of Tracie. Might I prescribe some seat dancing for your day as well?

Normal

How in the hell is the end of July already?! I think I misplaced the month in the midst of all this heat. Ugh.

For most of my life, ok some of my life, I have owned my uniqueness and lack of ability to feel like I fit in. But being pregnant is really messing with that. I worry that my belly isn't normal. That its not big enough. My natural waist doesn't appear to want to give up the good fight yet, so its holding strong and dividing my belly into two. Which makes me mad that I didn't lose more weight before getting pregnant. But that's a whole other counseling session. So one of the things I always tell people to scrapbook is their pregnant belly. However, I feel too self-conscious about my not-normal baby belly to take any pics - and here I am at 6 months. If I were someone I was helping with scrapbooking, I would coach her to do it anyway, but I am fighting it because I don't feel normal.

Normal. Something I try to avoid for the most part. But being pregnant makes me desire to be normal, and its kinda freaking me out.

Besides the baby belly, I am also worried that I am not enjoying my pregnancy like "normal" people do. Now, I know I have gotten some great feedback from friends that they didn't enjoy being pregnant either, so I know there is a wide variety of "normal", but that doesn't stop me from worrying. Why don't I enjoy the kicking? Why don't I enjoy the growing belly? Why am I not in awe of the growing fetus?

I know the answer, I am still nervous that me reproducing was a bad idea. (Which probably explains the dream about a giant squirrel chasing me while I protected someone else's child. My counselor thinks I was the squirrel.) I am still nervous that parenting will not be something I enjoy, and I will screw up another's life. Messing up my own life, I know how to do that, but as a general rule, I try not to mess up someone else's. Well except for Jim's, but he signed up for that.

I do enjoy that being pregnant gives me all the excuse I need to sleep. So there is that.

But apparently the desire to conform to the physical norms of the world do not cease because one is pregnant. Its just a different set of rules.

For Ron

Apparently I haven't blogged in a month?! Where did June go! I had hoped to get a blog in about my awesome vacation, but instead I feel compelled to write about my devastatingly bad day yesterday.

Yesterday one of my foster kittens, I had named him Ron Weasley because he was a red & white kitten & very scrawny, died unexpectedly. I have had two sick kittens die previously, and lost a litter of tiny babies, but they were all things I could see coming. Ron's dying struck me blindsided. Anytime I get a litter of kittens, I know they haven't had a cushy life. They usually come from outdoors from undernourished moms, so I am always cautious, concerned and on the look out for red flags. Ron was scrawny and seemed fragile, but he had been given medicine for mites & worms, was eating, drinking, using the litter box, and would come out every time I came into the room to wait for me to pick him up & then start purring. Oh the purring. I would hold him upside down in my arms like a baby, and he would just purr. And he would stay there as long as I had the time to hold him. Or I would set him in my lap, and he would stretch out, never ceasing to purr.

He wasn't interested in playing, but watched his sister run around. Looking back, I could have seen these as flags of something being wrong, but I didn't think they were so abnormal as to indicate sickness. But now, all I can think is WHAT IF, or I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, even though I know I couldn't have. My husband, who was the last one to see him the morning he died, is also beating himself up that he didn't see anything wrong. And I can logically comfort him that there was nothing to see, nothing to miss, that sometimes kittens with poor starts to life just don't make it. But illogically I just want to scream, NO! NOT HIM! HE WAS MINE! HE WAS FINE THAT MORNING! I keep picturing his little body as I had to find him, and I swear I want to rip my heart out so that it stops hurting. I know its irrational, but I feel crushed that he died alone, that I wasn't there for him. I feel like I failed. I want to go back in time and get him to the vet. I know these first few days are the worst, and that with time, the pain goes from gut-wrenching, instant tear-inducing to a background wistful remembrance.

So I am torn between wishing time would fly so that I could be past this crushing grief & just remember his content purr instead picturing his little lifeless body where I found him when he didn't come out to greet me, and wishing I could turn back time so that I could have a chance to try to save him.

I know I gave him a warm place to live, with all the food he could want and the all the love I had to give. I know he was content to lay in my arms and purr, and he sought out my lap whenever I entered, meowing if i didn't notice him fast enough. I know the hurt with remembering will be raw for a few days. And I know that his little life will leave a permanent little pawprint on my heart.

But I know that I wish it could have been different, and that wish hurts.

Sad or Just Pregant?

Sorry for the lack of blogging. Besides wanting to sleep 10-12 hours a night, I am struggling with not wanting to do the things I normally enjoy doing. (Well, not wanting to do anything at all is more like it.) Normally, pre-parasite if I found myself not wanting to do the things I normally enjoyed, I would schedule an extra appointment with my counselor and be on the look out other depressive signs. But now I am all discombobulated and don't know what to do. I have all my normal depressed signs: feeling tired all the time, not enjoying my normal activities or any activity, irritability and a general feeling of discontent. (Not having any suicidal thoughts, mind you, but generally I can sense when something is going the wrong way and right the ship before it gets too far off course.) But oddly enough, many of these "symptoms" are also "symptoms"of pregnancy. (Read into that what you will.)

So instead I feel like I am stuck feeling unmotivated to create, read a book or even just watch TV. I have a vacation planned to Vegas next week with Jim and some friends, and I am GREATLY looking forward to that since I haven't had a week off to do nothing but relax in over a year. (I don't actually have any vacation or paid time off from my job, but there was a glitch in the system with some unpaid overtime, so I traded it for some vacation time. THANK GOD.) So I am hoping that a week off to relax with help "reset" my general feeling of being wrong. (I love finding the perfect word to describe a feeling or a sight or an event, but the perfect word is eluding me here.)

In the mean time, I do the things I have to do (go to work, do my treasurer duties for the animal rescue, clean stuff around the house, feed 4-legged children, walk the foster dog, eat mostly healthy things), but I feel like I am faking my way through the day. And I am tired of feeling off my game. Tired of not having the energy to enjoy what I am doing. Tired of faking my way through the waking hours of the day, only to have nightmares while sleeping.

And while reading this, apparently I am too tired to be my normal funny self.

Said Baby

*Let me preface this blog post by saying, if you do not get my humor, you probably will not like this post.

So if you follow me on Facebook at all, you have probably figured out that I am expecting. Said Baby is due November 9th. The amount of time it took me to come to the decision to have children cannot adequately be covered in one blog post. But let me just note a few things to give you some perspective:

1 - Jim and I will be married 9 years this year.
2 - I am 35.
3 - I have 4 cats.
4 - I have seen a counselor since junior high school.
5 - I am mostly crazy.

I will note that Jim is very excited about Said Baby. (which probably speaks to his own level of crazy, but you already knew that since he IS married to me.) But I on the other hand, am still on the fence about the whole Said Baby "thing". I really thought I would have more time to prepare for being pregnant. I mean, I am OLD - I thought for sure getting pregnant would take a lot longer than two months.

If you aren't familiar with the baggage I have from growing up, you will have to wait for the book. In short, poverty, alcoholism and a dearth of positive parenting role models. If your own mother tells you she wishes she never had you (so that she can go out drinking), it takes a LOT of counseling to overcome the myriad of issues that this causes. Including the pervasive doubt that you should be a parent.

Needless to say, I am fairly positive I will hate being a parent. So, when people post on my Facebook wall or tell me things like, "Oh just wait! You will never sleep past 5am soon!", I want to stab them in the face. IN THE FACE. Really? What was the point of that statement? Was it to make you feel better? Or make me feel worse? Because either way, it doesn't seem helpful. I get that to normal people, this is just passing, idle conversation, which I have never really been good at anyway. But to me, statements like, "Oh you are going to Vegas? Enjoy it because you will not go on vacation again ever!" makes me want to stab them & run away.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Also? Please do not take offense that I occasionally refer to my pregnancy at the Parasite. I referred to Said Baby as the Parasite to a friend, and I think she nearly died from inhaling the wine she was drinking. But seriously, do you KNOW the definition of a parasite?! It’s exactly what a pregnancy is! And it’s not even a symbiotic parasite, as besides putting on weight, I don't get any positive benefits from the relationship. Again, if you don't get my humor, right about now you have unfriended me, and are telling your husband/wife about this completely insensitive person you know who cannot grasp the joy that carrying a child is!

I agree. I probably can't yet. Because I am not yet excited about Said Baby and what he/she will be like when he/she arrives, I don't see the happiness that will come with those changes, but am instead focused on grieving the loss of my life as I know it. (Most normal people are all SQUEE!!! A BABY!!! And therefore don't focus on the loss in their life. But as we have already established, I am not normal people.) My counselor assures me that life has a way of adjusting this when necessary so that I don’t get stabbed in the face. So far, she has been right about a lot of things, so I will have to go with her on faith on this one.

But until then, if you tell me that my life as I know it will end when the baby arrives, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Jinx

Note to self:
Do NOT EVER say you are pee-free. The very next day after my last post, we had pee. And again yesterday. I totally jinxed it. Completely perplexed as to WHY. So the cats have lost access to a couple of rooms in the house. (Although Big Mo again sprayed a closet door near the entrance to the garage, and there is no way to block him from that area, but at least its a hard surface that easy to clean.)

I do love my cats (As Mama Squeaks repeatedly walks between me and the laptop, putting her butt in my face.), but I can't figure out what else to do. My guess is that it's Roxy just getting older (she is 11 this year), and since she has never liked other cats, or people for that matter, she likes to show her displeasure by peeing on my bathroom rug. And Big Mo then needs to show he is the alpha cat in the house by peeing where he can smell her pee. Its a vicious pee cycle. Roxy should probably be an only cat in a quiet household, but here we are.

Between working and cat pee, the rest of my time is split between my hobbies (reading, scrapbooking, jewelry & card making) and my volunteer work - mainly with one local animal rescue, Orphan Animal Rescue. I am their treasurer, besides being a foster home, open hours adoption counselor & general volunteer. But as the treasurer, I can't help but stress over donations. It is amazing what we do take in, but as I am the one that knows what we need to spend on medical care and facilities, I cannot help but stress. I know $80 for a kitten or $50 for a cat may seem like a lot to an adopter, but those fees do not even come close to what it costs to get them healthy, up to date on shots, fed & warm. And save for ONE paid 15-hour a week volunteer coordinator to help keep everything running, we do it ALL with volunteers. Crazy. That's 2 AM and 2 PM cleaning volunteers, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to clean the center. Foster homes to take in sick kitties, doggies, new mamas & kittens. Event volunteers. Open hours volunteers. Fundraising volunteers. Volunteers to process adoption applications. Volunteers to write thank yous. Volunteers for special projects. Oh - and volunteer board members.

If I spend too much time thinking about how all of that magically comes together, my brain hurts. In fact, I think some leaked out of my ear just now from making sure I didn't miss anyone.

So I better get back to trying how to figure out how to increase fundraising so that all the gears can keep moving smoothly. Or possibily I should eat some pie to keep my energy up. Pie always helps.

PS - if you want to donate, our website is orphananimalrescue.org and we are also on FB. So many little ways you can donate too - even just by using GoodSearch while browsing the web, or iGive when shopping online. The kitties and doggies thank you with many purrs and kisses.

Baby Got Back

I am happy to report that things on the cat-front have been PEE-FREE! We are still giving Big Mo a half a pill once a day, but we are hoping that we can stop that and things will remain dry.

Because of all the pee issues, I never got to share that I got a new car! Getting my first Mini Cooper was a dream of mine. I got Tiny just a couple of months before my 30th birthday, and boy was she a step up from my first car that I was selling to get her. With Tiny came power windows! And AC! And power steering! And cruise control! All things I greatly wished I had had when I drove from OK to NJ one summer (and then back again that same summer) ... Think sun burn on just the left side of my body, with ground in interstate dirt in my hair. Hot stuff.

I got a Mini Cooper Clubman this time around. I had been wanting to upgrade to this slightly larger model for a while, and had been keeping an eye on rates. The dealer in town was running $3000 off 2011 models and they even had one on the lot that I liked. The only thing I didn't love was that it was black. I do love me some of the original colors that Mini's have. BUT - I could get custom graphics, and black was a great background for that. So my new car, Baby Got Back, became mine. The first couple of weeks were so weird - just like I remembered from when I got Tiny and my very first car too. Like I couldn't believe I was so lucky.

Having grown up in poverty, with mostly unreliable cars and constant fears of them breaking down and not having the money to repair them, I have only purchased new cars with good warranties. Even though I make very different life choices than my parents, and Jim and I do not live in poverty or anything like it, I cannot seem to break free from this mentality. So I save up lots of money to get low car payments, so that I can buy a new car. Now, I know lots of people disagree with that. But the security I get from having a 7 year (or more) warranty on my car, makes me feel like its taken care of even after I own it outright.

Oh, and the custom graphics? We put on silver stripes over the black, on the hood, roof and down the back of the car. And put the number, 01, in lavender, in a racecar-like circle on both the passenger and driver side doors. The bad news is I don't blend in well, which makes my road rage harder to hide. But the good news is ITS AMAZEBALLS!