Tuesday, January 4, 2011

You suck and so I cry

Ok. I don't normally slam books because, well, I'm not overly picky. I'm a pretty big reader and have a wide variety of interests when it comes to books. On top of that, I really try to get through a book that's not keeping my interest if I feel it deserves the time. For example, I read "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer and while I was bored to death for the first 350 pages, everyone kept telling me that it would be worth it in the end to finish it. (Btw, it was actually pretty good for the last 250 as everyone said).

However, that's not the case for one book in particular. For Christmas, Jordan bought me the new NookColor that just came out by Barnes & Noble. I'm IN LOVE with this thing! I was really excited that I finally finished The Host because it meant I could start a new book on my new Nook! So I turn it on and start searching for books I want to read. While making my "wishlist" (which btw is an awesome feature), I stumbled across a book called "It Sucked and Then I Cried" by Heather Armstrong.

I was wanting to read another book called "Oogie" about a pitbull who had gotten damaged in dog fights and had been taken in by a family (which btw, I'm still planning on reading because I read a sample and it was really sweet) but no. I find this other P.O.S., read a quick free sample of it (another fantastic feature of the Nook), read great reviews by consumers (who led me into the land of P.O.S.), buy it, and immediately waste $9.99. Holy moly what a piece of crap.

So the summary on the buy page said it was a light-hearted, hysterical (NOT) book written by a woman who got well-known for her funny and entertaining blogs. She gets pregnant and writes an "HONEST" account of pregnancy, child birth, and her experience as a first time mom. Sounds good, right? Right up my ally, right? I'm thinking, oh she'll say all the things I was thinking during my pregnancy but just didn't want to say outloud. Oh, she'll talk about how hard it is transitioning into motherhood.

Ya. I didn't know she was going to write like a complete moron. This chick is honestly so full of herself. Two pages deep and you can tell she's trying soooo hard to be whitty because I mean, come on, she's Heather Armstrong - the funniest woman in America! There's nothing I can't stand more than someone so obviously straining for substance and coming up with nothing but a bunch of analogies that make NO SENSE and are clearly only there for comedic affect. It gets old after a few pages of this same pattern over. And over. And over. And yet, over again. Like, "Chuck often looked at me, in between bites of a stuffed toy, like he understood, like he was sorry I had to suffer painful bloating and sore boobs - so sore that the resulting breeze from shutting the refrigerator door made me feel like a baby seal being clubbed by poachers." Honestly, ok, I get that this has comedic potential, but not when every sentence says crap like,

"I may have plucked a few staples from the wood floors here and there, and you'd never in your life have seen a more enthusiastic, pregnant, cheerleader, but 121 square feet of Smurf-blue kitchen was smitten and sent to Jesus through the hands of one very tired father-to-be. While I had prepared myself for life without a kitchen sink or stove or oven, I had no idea the actual physical toll the project would take on my already ravaged and swollen body, or that I would become so desperate as to end up on my sliver-infested knees promising the Mormon God that if he would just make it end already I would stop telling my sister's children that sacrament bread is laced with arsenic."

WHAT THE HELL DID SHE JUST SAY?!?! She said that she was tired and pregnant during a kitchen demo. Wow. Good thing it takes about 10 tries to decode all that around her attempts at comedic bull-crap. And did you notice that entire thing was only two sentences?? It never ends!! No joke, the entire book is sentence after sentence like this. After several chapters, I had no idea what I read except for bad attempts at comedy and no substance at the end.

On top of all that, she makes one mention of something and off she goes on a 3 page tangent on that topic before you get back to the original thing she is talking about. It's ridiculous. For example, she makes one slight mention that one day, she wasn't sick with nausea during her pregnancy so she decided to spend time with her dog, Chuck. This simple sentence literally catapults her into a 5 page rant about her dog, how she got him, "funny" stories about him and how she's entire incompetent as a human being taking care of a dog and therefore, should not be a mother, etc. Her BS actually finishes the chapter and never comes back to her original sentence - yes, that she was going to spend time with him the day she wasn't sick.

There's also a crap-ton of sentences that run on for like...uh...an entire page. I swear to God, if this wasn't an e-book, I would have literally thrown this thing across the room. I haven't hated a book this much in years and I mostly hate it simply because I think the writer is a pretentious moron who thinks she's hysterical and is obviously, not.

I read 46 of it's 183 pages and was done with it.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Holiday Bonanza!

Honestly I have no idea where to begin! I have been so horrible at keeping up with this blog while the holidays have been going on.

The last month has been an absolute whirlwind! We had Thanksgiving at our house with our best friends here in SC, Todd and Amber, and then that weekend, the four of us went out and did our Christmas tree hunting and spent the rest of the time putting up our decorations in the house. Jordan and I were so excited because we are in a new house as of August (yes, I moved 9 months pregnant thank you very much) and were really excited to decorate for Ashton's first Christmas! I did the inside as usual and Jordan did his specialty on the front of our house. He and Todd literally spent two days repelling off our second story roof (with ropes) to get the lights the way he wanted them. It was a ton of work and way more than I would ever be willing to do but I think they had fun and he wanted to do it so more power to him! :) They turned out fantastic!


After that weekend, Jordan's mom came for a short little visit where she babysat for a few hours and let Jordan and I go on our first date since Ash was born! It was REALLY hard leaving him. I knew he would be fine obviously but I'm just so attached to my little one. I'm sure Jordan was so tired of me talking about him the ENTIRE time we were gone lol! We were sitting at dinner and I would randomly interject, "Oh my gosh Ash is just the sweetest, cutest baby ever! He did (insert cute story here) the other day and ahhhh! Isn't he just the best! I miss him. Do you miss him? Should we call your mom and make sure he's okay? Do you think he's okay? I miss him. I wish he was here. Where's Ash?" This went on all night. Poor Jordan hahaha

Literally the very next weekend, we took a trip to Alabama to go visit everyone for our early Christmas together! It was so awesome seeing everyone and getting to celebrate Christmas with them and Ashton. I just love being there ~ Jordan's mom's house is always so warm and inviting. The house always smells like the fireplace in the winter (which I LOVE) and there's always amazing food and so much fun. Ash was so spoiled with all of his gifts and all of the constant attention. I swear that kid is not loved at all ;) I couldn't believe how into all his presents he got! He was really paying attention to everything and looking at all the wrapping paper and bows. It was so incredible to watch him figure things out! I was honestly really surprised at how into it he was!

Jordan's mom "Neela" and Ash during our visit! I'm obsessed with those reindeer socks! One of my mom's friends sent us those! Like a complete idiot, I packed in a hurry and completely forgot to pack Ash any pants...thus his outfit hahahah Ooops. 

Chloe and Zeke, our niece and nephew (ages 10 and 3) wearing the hats I knitted them for Christmas and playing with the Slinkies we got them :)


A week or two after that, my parents came out for Christmas at our house! Unfortunately, we picked them up from the airport, went to get a late bite to eat at the only thing open (Denny's) and while I enjoyed my chocolate chip pancakes going down, I did not enjoy them coming back up an hour later as I randomly came down with the flu out of nowhere. My poor parents are at our house 11:30pm and promptly at 11:42, I'm upchucking into our kitchen sink until 4am. Real nice. Welcome home, Mom and Dad! I'll tell you, though, I'm a TOTAL baby when I throw up. It's like dying to me so it was honestly really nice to have my husband AND my parents there taking care of me :)

So they spent our first 2 days doing literally nothing but watching me want to die on the couch. Luckily by Christmas Eve, I was feeling okay enough to go to dinner but we went to one of our favorite upscale restaurants in Charleston (High Cotton) and I really had to watch everything I ate :/ (I.E. No wine. No good sauces. No dessert. Bummer.) We made up for it, though, a few days later and ate at this incredible restaurant called Charleston Grill (which which had live jazz and not a grill at all) and it was UH-Mazing. I'm not kidding ~ If you are ever visiting Charleston, PLEASE EAT HERE! Semi-outrageously priced but omg best meal I've had in a REALLY long time!! Plus, I haven't heard live jazz since we lived in California where I used to get to hear it all the time and I really missed it. It was so awesome!

Christmas with my parents was so great. I really just can't imagine not having them there and especially having this as Ashton's first. We really were so blown away by how many of our friends and family sent that baby presents from all over. We are just so blessed! It was incredible. He had such a good time and the poor little thing didn't even get to finish opening his presents! He fell asleep right in the middle of it ~ it absolutely wiped him out! He had so much fun. The next morning, we got to do it all over again Christmas morning and open both his stockings (one from us and one from my parents) which was, once again, present overload and made him tired but he was just soaking it all in and loved every minute of it!

 Ash absolutely LOVING a book my parents got him for Christmas :)



         
Ash and I opening one of his many gifts :)


Totally pooped out in the middle of opening presents! 

It was really a bummer to have the flu while my parents were here but on the bright side, as Jordan had a cold at the same time I had my flu, my mom was able to take care of Ashton during the night for me (his nights got messed up from traveling to AL again and he's finally back to normal sleeping through the night again as of last night...yay!!). Her and my dad got to spend so much time with him changing diapers, feeding whatever I could pump for him (ugh. Milk supply goes down big time when you're sick btw. Not okay.), bathing him, playing with him, reading to him, etc. They seemed to really enjoy getting to spend so much time with him and Jordan and I were able to sleep to try to recover. It's so weird, though, how if I didn't spend every waking second with him, I missed him instantly and not being able to touch or kiss him (for fear of giving him my flu) was like torture!! The first day I felt like I wasn't contagious anymore, I was quick to grab him and love all over him. My dad was like, "Ummm...are you sure you're not contagious??" (not wanting to hand him over yet! lol!) and I'm like, "Yes. I'm fine. Gimme. Now." :) Once again, no one loves this kid, I swear ;)

Me and my Sweetpea on Christmas morning <3
December 25, 2010

It was really hard saying goodbye to my parents on the 29th when we took them to the airport. It's a funny thing ~ I'm always okay if I'm visiting home and I get on the plane to go back to South Carolina but I have a really hard time with being left behind when they go back home. I doubt they know this but every time they turn the corner to go to their gate and I can't see them anymore, I always burst into tears. My parents leaving just has never gotten easier. I always get SO used to them being around and our time together always seems way too short. We are hopefully moving to California this summer and will no longer have to deal with that! YAY!!!

By the time New Years Eve hit, Jordan and I were so tired from the last month. On top of that, I had just started to come down with the cold he had had and Ashton was suddenly getting congested with it also. We had planned to just go downtown to a new restaurant we had been wanting to try but we just didn't feel right taking Ash out into the cold with so many people out and about when he wasn't feeling great so we stayed in, Jordan made us dinner (crab legs! Soooo good!!), we took a picture of the 3 of us at 11:59pm as the last picture of the year, we watched the ball drop on TV at 12am, popped a bottle of champagne that was a wedding gift, kissed Ashton, kissed eachother, and watched movies :) It was perfect <3

Honestly, 2010 was such a memorable and life changing year for us. My incredible journey finding out I was pregnant literally a day or two before New Years last year and then my pregnancy unfolding all year long into the birth of our precious baby boy on August 21 has turned us from fun-loving newly-weds into loving parents overwhelmed with love for a new life that we created. I'm so excited to see where 2011 takes us but really, I don't know how it will ever top 2010.

2010 will always been the year that I found my purpose in life ~ being a mom.

Thank God for the gift of creating life. 
God truly showed me why I was put on this Earth.