Book Review: Wicked Business

Do you know Janet Evanovich?  Do you love her?

So many readers out there enjoy her light and fluffy literature.  I especially love her Stephanie Plum series, which never fail to make me laugh out loud.

Wicked Business is the second book in her Wicked series, featuring pastry chef Lizzy and the other worldly Diesel.  These two are on a quest for magical stones that represent the seven deadly sins.  They are in a race to get to them first, before Diesels ill-intentioned cousin Wulf.

In this book, they are after the Luxuria stone, which inspires lust.  Now, this is most definitely no 50 Shades of Grey type of lusty novel.  It's more of a comedy, really.  Janet Evanovich's greatest strength, in my opinion, is her cast of supporting players.  The blunders and mishaps that occur while trying to locate this stone are giggle-worthy.

Serious literature, this is not.  Will this book make you pause and think about life, love, or- well, anything, really?  Nope.  But it is silly and entertaining, and it is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time.  If you like Stephanie Plum, pick this one up.

Bump Watch: Week 27

I just saw a ticker somewhere that said I have 90 days left- 90 days!!

This certainly must signal the beginning of the home stretch.  Who the hell knows when the third trimester actually begins?  Some books and doctors say 27 weeks, some say 28.  Math says that when you divide 40 weeks by 3, then the third trimester begins at 26 2/3 weeks.  Any way you wanna look at it, I am heading towards the end here, folks.  There are officially LESS than three months until my due date.  Phew- saying that feels AH-MAZING.

In doing my (less than) frequent reading about what is going on with baby these days, I have been pretty amazed to read that she is breathing (amniotic fluid, but still, practice makes perfect), dreaming (about what? I mean, really?), and is fully formed.  Her job now is just to hang out in there and fatten up (but not too fat, if you please).  Amazing how six months ago she was just a clump of cells.

As for me, I have no complaints.  Well, that's not true, exactly.  My back hurts 100% of the time, but the good news is my hips only hurt when I'm moving.  What I should say is that I don't have any out-of-the-ordinary complaints.  This is the normal pregnancy stuff.  I don't remember being quite so uncomfortable last time, but I probably was.  Did the boulder settle on top of my bladder this soon with the nugget?  Most likely.  All par for the course.

The other good news of the week is- I've got some belly photos for you!  Not that we were good parents and remembered to take them on our own.  But at our recent family photo shoot with ShugarShots Photography, my dearest Heather took a few shots of me and the bump.

Enjoy!

Camera Crazy

You know, since I'm SO good at keeping my camera handy and using it ALL THE TIME, I thought I'd buy a new lens.

Actually, a few weeks ago, I took a photography class called "Moms with Cameras."  It taught us moms how to really use our fancy cameras.  Once I learned a little bit about the settings, I immediately wanted a lens that would give me a little more capability.

This lens can take one fine photo.

This lens makes Gabe's favorite truck look good.

Gabe needs nothing to make him look good, but he sure does look sweet in this shot.

Now I just need to keep my camera OUT and READY so that I can capture lots more beautiful shots.

Goings On

We've been busy little bees these days!

Last week, the nugget and I traveled to O.H.I.O. to visit with my family.  It was a wonderful trip!  I love to see Gabe spending time with his grandparents, who literally ran out to the car to greet us the moment we pulled that minivan into the driveway.  They just love him so much.  My sister and brothers were around, too.  The whole family was there (minus my hardworking hubby, whom we missed terribly).  Times like those are hard to come by lately, so it truly was a real treat.

Of course, we were out and about a ton.  We visited the aquarium, did some shopping, and played with fun new toys.  And was I good with the camera?  Of course not.  I didn't even remember to bring it to the aquarium, which was a highlight for sure.  But I did get some sweet shots of the boy playing with Grammy one morning.

What other way is there to watch TV when it's not wall-mounted?

Then on Friday, J took the day off and we went to the fair!  I have just come to love the state fair here in NC.  Mostly for the food- that's right.  I like to eat my way through that place from one end to the other.  But I was also very excited to be able to add the mommy stuff into the experience this year.  Last year, Gabe was too little to enjoy much, and mostly just rode around in his stroller and took in the sights.  This year, he could be more involved.  We had an awesome time.  Family outings like this are one of my favorite things in life.

Thinking about trying a piece of funnel cake...

He'll give it a whirl...

He likes it!

Watching the cows in the livestock show.

Riding the carousel with Daddy.  He loved it so much, he cried when it was over!

Petting zoo!  

Bump Watch: Weeks 25 and 26

Sorry for the missing post last week, friends.  The nugget and I were on an adventure to Ohio to visit my folks.  A nine hour ten-and-a-half hour car ride of an adventure.  Post to follow soonly.

Baby keeps a growin' and a kickin'!  My sister got to feel a few hard jabs during our visit last week.  My oh my, she is active.

Pregnancy brain seems to be the name of the game lately.  I am here to tell you- I am D.U.M.B.  Seriously, I have been doing or saying some of the stupidest things lately.  I looked at J with an honest amazement when he could divide 52 by 4 in his head.  When I asked him if he had done it without a calculator, he thought I was joking.  Sadly, no.  Then a few minutes later I realized how this was actually rather simple math, and that there once was a day when I would have spit out the answer to this equation without batting an eye, let alone pulling out a calculator.

I'd give you further examples of the pregnancy brain, but I seem to have forgotten them all.  And I know there have been many.  I'm that inept right now.

So you've all been warned.  Please blame all spelling, grammar, or syntax mistakes in the coming weeks on the little lady.

Movie Review: 21 Jump Street

I know, I know...we're completely behind the times.  So what else is new?

A couple of weeks ago, J and I managed to stay up late enough to watch a movie.  A true rarity these days.  We had heard from a couple of people (one of whom was my college-aged brother) that 21 Jump Street was actually pretty funny.

Now, were we really going to take the word of a 19-year-old boy that the humor in this movie was worth our precious movie time?

OF COURSE we were.  Let's be real here, people.  That's totally right up our alleys.

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it looked nothing short of ridiculous.  In the stupid way, not the funny way.  I had no desire to see it.  But it turns out, I'm pretty glad I watched!  It was laugh out loud funny.

Jonah Hill is a funny guy.  For reals.  Have you ever seen him not be funny?  (In a comedy, at least?  I realize that he has dropped the weight and is trying to become a more serious actor, but come on...he'll always be the chubby kid with the jew fro from SuperBad.)

Channing Tatum plays a pretty, stupid boy pretty well.  In my mind, this is not terribly far from reality.

What I loved the most about this movie is it made fun of itself.  It realized that it had stemmed from a tired 1980's television series, and in order to make the film plausible in the least, it had to acknowledge the ridiculousness of this fact.  Well done.  I especially love the angry black police captain, played by Ice Cube.  (Or is it Ice-T?  I always get them confused.)

This one is worth watching.  If I managed to stay up past 10:00, and didn't regret that use of my awake time?  That must be the mark of a solid movie.

Bump Watch: Week 24

Geeze, I feel like I'm writing these weekly posts every other day.  Has an entire week really passed since my last update?  Time. Is. Flying.

So, I found ANOTHER skin tag this week.  It's sad when something on my own body gives my the heebie jeebies, but such is life.  With Gabe, I had pimples.  Lots of them.  My poor face looked like a pubescent teenager's.  I hated it.  But I might prefer the pimples over the skin tags.

At my monthly appointment this week, I was shocked to see the doctor get out the tape measure.  This is the first time this pregnancy that they've measured my fundal height.  I guess I wasn't expecting that so soon!  Although, in reality, it's not soon at all.  Again with the flying time.  Anywho, my uterus is already two weeks ahead of schedule.  If you remember with the nugget, this was the case with just about every measurement.  It scored me a late ultrasound, just to make sure that everything was okay, there wasn't too much fluid, and my baby wasn't a giant.  According to the tech at that ultrasound, we were having a little baby.

Folks, last time I checked, 8 pounds 6 ounces does NOT a little baby make.

In any case, we'll see what happens at the next few appointments.  Maybe I'll get one more ultrasound after all...

Everything else at the appointment was great.  I've come up another pound (according to my home scale, holding steady in the -5 or -6 lb range), blood pressure is great, little lady's heart rate perfect in the 130's.  Next appointment, I get to drink the dreaded Glucola for my gestational diabetes screening.  Good times!