elfin massacre

this morning i woke to the following crime scene:

the victim:

the suspect:

baked with hate

ok. thats a little extreme. not hate exactly but...resent? minor annoyance? aggrievance? (what a great word). more like: these better be fucking appreciated. what am i talking about? my self imposed tradition of holiday cookie baking...thats what im talking about. anyway its taking way too long this year. and im way behind and nobody is going to get them by xmas and are they even worth it? when all is packed and paid and shipped and broken into little stale cookie bits? and i can hear the complaints already: no white chocolate chip macadamia nuts? (no dad, nobody else likes those. especially me) but im allergic to walnuts (actually no walnuts were used this year lee. serious) these chocolate chip cookies are too flat (yes, yes they are. i failed to adjust for altitude this year. sorry). what the fuck are these? (oh--biggest mistake of the season: 7 layer "magic bars". sucky mess. will not repeat ever)... ugh. im 9 months pregnant here people give me a break. oh speaking of pregnant. last night i had heart burn so bad i woke up coughing and choking i went into the bathroom and coughed so hard i threw up into the sink. serves me right tho. i ate half a calzone for dinner at like 7:30-8pm. half a calzone with pepperoni sausage mushrooms onions jalopenos and pineapple. see i discovered the secret to sleeping is to have "dinner" at around 4. and then maybe a little snack at night of yogurt or something. but god i love pepperoni. well, i gotta go dip shortbread in chocolate....with love with love

none

hello computer. and computer people. well, wednesday was the end of what will be my last semester for a long while. and as usual i had the end of the semester crash--what now? oh yeah, wash all those baby clothes with dreft, and read about attachment parenting and breastfeeding...
i am alone again, since the saturday after thanksgiving. god, tomorrow makes two weeks. the husband is training in minneapolis for his new airline job. with the economy as is, we decided it was more important for him to take the job, even if it meant leaving me alone in my ninth month of pregnancy...some of that sentence needs to be in all caps im sure. part of me is all boo hoo poor me, and part of me is all woo hoo yippee. its kind of nice to have some alone time. like this will be it for a while im sure.
oh it looks like were moving to memphis...choices being memphis or detroit. minneapolis wasnt offered, and it was the one we were hoping for. anyone out there care to weigh in on memphis/detroit?

what pregnant looks like

this photo was taken a week and a half ago. so add a bit more on there.

cats, pumpkins and large happy cocks

i cannot be accused of false advertising. that is one large happy cock. found in the "rotunda" on campus, halloween, on the way to american civ. guys got balls...
otherwise, ive been feeling a little low. so i dont feel like posting. call it my anti-nablopo or whatever its called.

small town rewards

ooh. today was another cc holiday celebration: the livestock and heritage festival. but this one is pretty awesome. i came out of albertsons this morning (after saving $22 with coupons and my preferred shoppers card {!}) to find a large herd of sheep being paraded down main street. they were escorted by an atv, a horse with rider, one animal control unit and 2 cop cars. in case any of the sheep got out of line and tried to make a break for the pizza hut i guess. things got tense around the dairy queen, but there happened to be a pickup with an aussie shepard in the back who set them all straight. the paper claimed that there were 1500 head in the herd but id say 200 max by my count. one of those moments i am truly sorry i didnt have my camera, but boy did it make me smile. very cute... fortunately the cedar city review posted the above photo. other events include: cowboy poetry, dutch oven cook off, tractor pull, stock dog competition.

welcome mulch

so monday was harvest day. its another holiday that i think exists solely here in utah. its a special day set aside to go out and harvest yerself some deer or elk or whatever you want to shoot and kill and hopefully eat. i decided to extend the 3 day weekend into a six day trip to go n harvest me some baby gear. first stop: new york. where i didnt take any pictures. but had of course a super fantastic time, tho very little sleep. well there are some photos, but they all look like this:

lots of cute small clothes and whoozitwhatsits that rattle and blankets and amazing hand knit things and books of all sorts and fuzzy lambys ... cant you just hear all the "awwwwwww loookat this its soooo cuuuute!"s. and i cant believe all the people that came all the way to the upper west side from places like texas, florida, and brooklyn. seriously, that brooklyn trip is almost as long as the flight from jacksonville. my friends and family are the best. next morning i had a shuffle bus pick me up at 6 am and drive me around and around midtown in the still dark morning before dropping me at newark airport where i flew to: chicago.

my dad and brother picked me up and we had one of the. most. amazing lunches. ever. can i say: duck prosciutto. ! its probably in that "do not eat when pregnant" category, but jesus god it was so damn good and i havent died and charlie is still punching me from the inside regularly, so... there, take that, what to expect to not eat when youre expecting... i finally had a solid night's sleep at the family's lake house in the indiana dunes:

steel city quick stop mart gas station. welcome mulch 5 for 999. which if you didnt know, is a really good deal...

when i woke up the next morning, this was my dad's breakfast (the first, he had 3 more). we have perogis with sour cream, a bag of mini snickers and some ice cream... this was also his dinner the previous night.

dads porch:

and chicago division shower cupcakes. kinda got destroyed in transit. thats sups to be an airplane on the center cupcake.

and back to cedar city on monday. kb picked me up at the airport and we went directly to car dealership and signed a million papers and the next 4 years of our life away. yes, we reconsidered our reconsider and decided to get the nissan... im still recovering from all the traveling, too much too pregnant. so right now i think its nap time. happy friday!

no welcome wagon

since we have lived in our duplex, we have had 3 maybe 4 landlord/owners. the original couple who rented to us were great, but maybe too nice to be landlords, so they got out soon after we moved in. eversince then its been a progressively worse slide downhill to slumsville. somewhere along the way they decided: will only rent to drug addicts. the adverts must resemble something like this:
unit for rent, must use drugs, have criminal background {parole a plus}, slam doors regularly and be willing to leave furniture on lawn or driveway.
so we have a new neighbor whos drug of choice im guessing is meth. she came over this morning to yell at me about the heat (this is the second time). oh shes lovely. apparently our unit controls her unit (hehe, i said unit...). unfortunately for her, being the preggo person that i am, i am rarely cold now, so we havent really needed it. but after having her scrawny manic winter coat covered self shake wildly about on my porch this morning, i will be sure to bump it up a bit. i really dont need any more visits. and i do remember what its like, that meth cold. yuk. soo glad those days are over...

the weather

its snowing! its snowing! so what. i think its exciting...

introducing

the $763.00 seizure inducing scratching post:


in use:
jeezus i need to clean the carpet. im terribly embarrassed. but its a rental... ? anyway. as you can see, the couch finally arrived. its nice. it smells of pine. the stripes hurt my eyes.
oh, and we were approved for the nissan. sort of. not the 155/mo for 60 months that we had originally signed up for, but at 178/mo for 48 months. but after insurance it comes out to 300 bucks a month, which we decided was too much for us to take on at this time. . . seeing as how kb hasnt worked for 7 weeks and i make 8 dollars an hour... how the hell did we get approved? seriously. isnt this part of the reason the country is headed towards bread lines? so we had to turn down the offer. i made kb make the call, and in a last ditch attempt to change our minds mister carsalesman tells him, "i sure hate to think of your wife in that toyota..." kbs retort was, "yeah, poverty sucks." soooo, we are still looking for a car. but one we can just pay a medium amount of dollars all at once to a nice person in exchange for a reliable vehicle. is that so much to ask for?

fear of approval

so. had a regular prenat check up this morn with my crnm (is that right? certified registered nurse midwife?) (whatever, the woman who will deliver my baby). week 28 weigh in: 156 lbs! thats up 42 pounds from a pre-preggo 114. but i am apparently right on schedule, all looks good so on and so forth. last night i saw the baby move for the first time. that was incredibly bizarre. little alien creature. anyway, after the appointment i was a little early for work so we stopped into a ford dealership---just to look around. . . we ended up "applying" for a 2004 nissan sentra. and now im afraid we will be approved. car payments? i hate the idea. plus its a stick shift, which i am totally not thrilled about. but since my husband just learned how to drive a stick, he totally wants one. we also drove a saturn something. 2004 as well, but about a grand more. honestly i liked the nissan better. filling out the paper work i had to put down how much i make a month. i was really stretching the truth with 950/mo. like double stretching it. the guy gets out his whiteout and tells me he would like to hear 1500/mo. jeeze, so would i mister, but hey, ill tell you whatever you want to hear. sure 1500/month it is. does the same thing with kb... whatev. its after 4:30 and hes yet to call, so probably no deal. oh and guess what the trade-in value of the camry is... 100. thats how much of a piece of junk our current little car is. . .

"well...the mileage has got to ya..."

or so says leon from the auto shop. $1200 to fix the camry. boo poop. alignment probs. what do you with a 90 camry? fix it or get a newer hopefully less junky piece of crap car. gah. dont want to think about it now. so here are some photos from my latest digital photography assignment. the assignment: pt 1: shoot 10 subjects straight and then pt 2: shoot the same subject in a more creative and interesting way...

you may recognize this guy:

and then theres a couple of donuts. but its taken me 2 days to figure out how to resize for the web and blah de blah. and i dont want to do any more. tomorrow we are off to vegas for a wedding.

a (pregnant) girl's real best friend

i dont leave home with out them

original plan a

hello bloggernet-o-sphere. its been 5 weeks since ive writ. shameful really. well...where did we leave off? ah yes, the yo-yo-roller-coaster. well kb left sept 2 in the morn to head to seattle to check out the freight pilot job and got as far as salt lake city where & when he decided he didnt want to take the job, rented a car and came home. so here we are in cedar still. decided it was too stressful to move while preggo. (cuz, yeah, itll be so much easier with a newborn...) so we are staying here for the birth of charlie. and, im in school, which tried to kill me the first week. actually is still trying to kill me. but i dropped 3d design and lightened the stress load a little. classes include: painting 3, digital photography, american civilization (history of) & art seminar. plus still working in the gallery. we no longer love my neighbor, since he secured his wireless only a few days after my declaration. does he read sowut? so now we are loving ourselves. and i dont care if you come and steal our wireless from us.
in american civ the other day there was a girl sitting in front of me writing : i love life! i love life! over and over in her notebook. with big fat curly lettering. and hearts. i dont know if she was reminding herself, convincing herself, or she thought it was going to be on the test ...
today i left therapy early because i told my therapist i just didnt want to be there. he was ok with that. it was kind of weird tho. but some days i just dont feel like i have anything to talk about. todays topic was: im (always) tired and i dont have enough time to do the things i need to do. can i go now?
something to smile about: mini pumpkins. now, go, get a couple, and smile.

love my neighbor

omygodx1000. my downstairs neighbor got internet and guess who is tapping into his wireless... i almost want to go give him some money. or cookies. i am actually blogging from home. school starts tomorrow and after all the plan a, b and cs. i decided to go ahead and start, and will drop/withdraw if we decide to move. i just felt there is too much uncertainty with this job in pdx (or seattle)(we still dont even know where the damn job is) to not have a back up plan. so it may cost me more money than i want to imagine, but it may be worth it if everything falls thru... plus keeping busy with school will keep me from dwelling too much on these minor details like my future and the future of my future child. for now, its time to go make some cookies...

3:30 is the new 6:30

a.m. that is. every fucking night (morning?). i cant seem to sleep any more. and believe me it is taking its toll on my emotional stability and physical well being. grrr. now the yo-yo is spinning between seattle and portland. i can live with either one. i just wouldnt mind knowing which. might help with the 3:30 wake up calls. hope you are sleeping well and sound and dreaming lovely dreams.

100

woohoo. just hit 100 views. only 93 of them were me checking to see how many views ive had. so i finally opened an etsy site/store! jeezus christ it was alot of work. i probably spent at leat 10 hours from start to finish, maybe more with photos, uploading, reloading, resizing, figuring out the stupid etsy site, writing a description. im not sure if it was worth the trouble. well i just tried to link from here and i cant figure it out. oh fer fucks sake. how did i make the deans list? the etsy store name is jcdoe if you want to check me out. good luck. buy something. this kid is kicking like a maniac. 20 1/2 weeks. halfway there. i actually have a full weekend this weekend. ive worked the past three saturdays in a row. tonight im going to attempt making pork chops. i dont think ive ever done that before. the husband is the designated meat cooker. but he is in tucson and baby needs some protein. also on deck: a boy and his dog (fuck this link bullshit). a movie i know nothing about other than it stars a 1975 don johnson. also have flashdance. and farmers market tomorrow. hope yours is a safe and happy one.

nowewa

perhaps the new name of blogs to come? (north west washington)
husband may have job in seattle. tho yesterday he may have had a job in spokane, but that fell thru. and then this morning it was boise. and now its seattle. with another job offer in st. louis or denver. so im not getting excited until he is there (wherever there is) with paycheck and looking for an apartment for us. at least there are job offers. for pilots these days, they are hard to come by. and jeezus. seattle. i love seattle. i cant imagine living back in civilization again. restaurants, museums, galleries, book stores...you know, stuff. and the green trees and fresh fish and cloudy days.

and

i hate the phrase "strappy heels"

so i lied

ok. so im pregnant. fat chance if you think im not going to be blogging about it. i know, i said this wouldnt turn into a mommy-baby blog. but i cant help it. yesterday was our big revealing ultrasound and... its a boy. ! i knew it all along. we are pretty sure we are going with charles henry, charlie as go by. i looove the name henry, but father of the child claims to hate it. however, yesterday he conceded and said its an acceptable middle name, if he must have one. if he must have one? puhlease, if i was the only one involved in this affair he would have three or four or five: charles henry jackson pike or charles henry wallace patrick pike the first... i just think a person should have options. thats why i love to order the sampler platter at restaurants, i can never decide on just one entree. its unfair to make me choose. i want the french fries and the salad and the soup and the coleslaw... please. anyway yesterday was such an exciting day, it almost felt like we had the kid, but were only half way thru with the hardest part yet to come. for the record, i love being pregnant. oh but heres something that has nothing to do with baby etc: i think i am no longer a sonic youth fan. it used to be that only kim gordons vocals got on my nerves, but now i cant stand thurstons.? what gives? i will always love daydream nation. and ok the first release self titled sy, and most of sister, and death valley '69 is probably, definitely in my top 10 all time favorite songs ever. i think it all started around goo, and just kept sinking into suck ever since. they still represent ultimate cool (of the mid 80s-early 90s at least), i just cant listen to them. for what its worth.

day of deliverance

im sure if you dont live in utah you no doubt have no idea what "pioneer day" is. well its is today, for starters, july 24. its a mormon holiday celebrating the arrival of the first mormon settlers to salt lake city in 1847, and its a very big deal. here in cc, there is a parade that i actually didnt make it to. well i went last year, and wasnt impressed enough walk the 3 blocks this year. the parades here are hardly worthy of the title parade. they usually consist of a couple atvs, some pickups with crap taped to the side, the "confidance" dance troop (last year they performed with fold up lawn chairs), a fire truck. you get the idea. and then since there are so few entries, they space them out like a half hour apart to make the event last longer than the 3 minutes it should. for pioneer day, they dress up in pioneer clothes and pull hand carts. and everybody is there. anyway i missed it this year, so maybe it was the best time i never had, i dont know. but i was really tired because i couldnt sleep all night because i had nightmares about the ice truck killer from dexter. i cant stop watching it because im addicted to my love for michael c. hall. last night i watched one episode and was so creeped out i had to watch an entire marilyn monroe musical afterwards (gentlemen prefer blonds)(a kind of torture of a different kind) to try and de-creep my mind. it didnt work.
ps i guess pioneer day used to be called "day of deliverance" which is creepier than all the dexter episodes put together...

from the li-berry

so we havent had internet at the house for months. so all this infrequent posting is in part due to that, also my very boring life has something to do with it as well. yesterday i had a late (second lunch) and was getting ready to ride on down to the cc public library to do a little blogging. it was almost 5, and i instead took a cue from minnow the cat and decided to lie down for a little nap. i woke up at 9 pm... there was nothing else to do but go back to sleep. well rested i am and here at the liberry. but now im hungry so im sure i wont last long. lately my mind is all consumed with "re-doing" the living room. i guess i am using quotes, because i never really did anything to the living room to begin with. its completely furnished with 100% crap from the two 100% crappy thrift stores in town. this must be what is referred to as nesting because i cant stop dusting door tops and cleaning those fucking bastard blinds. and now im obsessed with buying a couch--a real couch that costs more than 40$, a lot more in fact: 460$ more, plus shipping. im thinking grey walls with the black and white striped ektorp ikea couch... but the more i think, the more i get tired. and hungry. mmmm...pizza...

not another mommy/baby blog please

i just read the last post i posted and i remember that night with the pizza. i dont know how to explain it, but i couldnt get enough of it in my mouth soon enough. the next night i went to a friend's house for a bbq and amazed everyone with my non stop eating from the moment i walked in . i remember laughing and saying "maybe im pregnant...haha...pass the 7 layer dip please". and well. haha. i was. i am. pregnant that is. 4 months now. its pretty great. especially now that the morning sickness has passed and im starting to actually look pregnant. dont worry this wont become a mommy blog. i dont think. i dont think it will become anything really. maybe just a food and netflix/dvd blog, since those are the only 2 things my life revolves around. and complaints, because i aways have a few of those. so ive been watching dexter, the showtime series starring michael c. hall, (with whom i am in love, by the way) and i must say it is really really gruesome. i mean it is about a serial killer, but i was hoping they would air brush & candy coat it up a little bit, but they dont. so i spend alot of the show covering my eyes. my dear friend ktran just told me to stop watching that scary crap and go rent the jerk, which sounds like a great idea. yeah.

i waited two months and all i got was this lame post

so last night i ordered a medium pizza hut pan pizza: half pepperoni half pineapple & jalapeno. i ate 5 of the eight slices. i could have eaten the whole thing but the catholic guilt that will never leave my subconscious stopped me. is that really the most interesting thing that has happened in two months? ha. i wish. like the other day, i had an improvised dinner from the school's mini-mart of ritz crackers, cheddar cheese, dried apricots and an orange vitamin water. ha. everything was ORANGE. and there was this one week where i couldnt sleep and became suicidal. and then there were three that followed where i was catatonic. and then there was spring break where i flew all the way to portland, oreg for a 36 hour visit to stay up all night with my friend t.war watching him take photographs of hipsters, wearing ski masks and drinking pbr. that was kind of surreal. tonight i was invited to have sushi dinner with the old gallery director and the new gallery director. so thats something exciting too. plus my handsome pilot husband surprised me and came home today. totally unexpected. hes here til monday. have a super eve

for summer

i know you have been dying to know the contents of the vd bag. last friday under the cover of darkness i crept out into the driveway and as covertly as i could grabbed vd bag and ran back in the house. and well... here it is:

just as sad as suspected. crumbling mint cupcakes with candy hearts melting in the frosting. addressed to aunt summer... no i dont know they were mint because i ate them , im guessing they are mint because they smelled minty. the whole thing had me feeling quite dirty.

behold another crime scene:

teddy bear massacre
for my best costume ever, evern tho it wasnt a costume party, but a masquerade party.
leg warmers that once were legs

and headgear

this morning i went to put on my boot and found in it this little gift someone had left me:

pretty damn cute. that is minnows "piggie" toy. its actually a my pretty pony type cat but kb for the longest time thought it was a pig and would tell minnow to "go get piggie". in all fairness it looks neither like a cat nor a pig but minnow seems not to care and likes to leave it in various places. yesterday i found it in the bathtub.

it's colder than you think

sunrise over the mortuary:

found these vintage notecards for 1.50 today:

the bird's bodies are flocked. ha ha . but they are.

and glass tiger: mini roar:

printing update:

the green went down on saturday

and then grey on thursday: (or do you prefer gray?) (or gris)

you can just start to make out the image now. these pictures are crap. i can see i should have taken a close up. god with so much time invested i can only hope the damn thing turns out.

the vd bag is still in the driveway and i decided that if its still there tonight i will capture it and bring it home. yes, i realize it may be filled with dog shit. in fact in this picture it most certainly looks like it is filled with dog shit.

this is what my computer screen looks like when i turn on the computer:

i mean this cant be good. so i fear i may be in the market for a new computer. its about the last thing i want to spend my money on. or anyones money. if im going to spend more than 5oo dollars cant it be on a trip to mexico? or italy . or france in your pants?

friday friday finally friday. i think im actually making friends here. i was invited to a masquerade party tomorrow. the host will be wearing a minotaur mask. for reals. and serving absinthe. i think im going to be wearing a paper bag on my head. it will be a great improvement.

on the gf front. i think i have officially fell (fallen?) off. yesterday i saw a seeded roll i could not resist and also some peanutbutter cookies--they were homemade fer christsake. and then today had a gardenburger with bun. and also i am officially smoking again. only 1-2 a night. but smoking ... i have permits for all the official stuff in case you were wondering.

didnt watch the ox-bow incident incidentally. i had the times wrong and wasnt interested in whateverother stupid cowboy movie was on. i did however watch some like it hot the next eve. and va va voom that marilyn is something to watch. god damn. she wears this topless dress that i dont know how got past the censors. you can see them keeping the spotlight above the clavicle while she sings i wanna be loved by you.. jack lemmon is not annoying in this movie either. i usually find him incredibly irritating, but i enjoyed him here. was tony curtis an asshole in real life? he seems like he could have been.

i think thats enough for now. a pleasant evening to you...

p.s. bytheby that title has nothing to do with anything and is just plain stupid. but i couldnt think of a title, and it is indeed colder than you think tonight. stay warm.

tcm is tcb

thank you turner classic movies for making a poor & lonely girl's nights a little more bearable lately. you tcm and the bottles of red wine that have been keeping me company. actually i do exaggerate, i think i only went thru one bottle the whole weekend (and a long weekend at that) can that be true? hmmm seems suspicious. also the spell check on this thing is not working. also all weekends should be 3 days long. also there should be no more 8 am classes ever anymore.
got up early today to finish my english paper assignment on "a place" and i finished it and then my prof didnt show up to class which is strange but at least it is done. great relief.
returned the 4 netfix discs that have been sitting unwatched at the house since before xmas. i thought i would (re)watch all the sopranos from season 1 thru, but just couldnt get into it but couldnt really admit i wasnt in to it so let them sit for yikes 2 months. im having a hard time coming up with movies i havent yet seen that i want to see. i may have to cut the membership soon. please, if anybody reads this, leave some suggestions in the comments. of course, you dont know what ive seen and havent seen but at least ill know you care or tried or tried to care...
ooh went to the home depot to get some hard board for my next painting assignment: a psychological self portrait...yes, thats art school for you
and spent over 3 hours carving linoleum that could have been done in less than an hour.
woohoo, time check and i have 8 minutes left at work, and then its home to robert osborne and the ox-bow incident, which im a little disappointed about tonights selection. looks dry and boring. unlike my left over beef stew.
sorry no pictures today. i think my computer is dying or dead.

v d bag

i found the above sad abandoned valentine's present sitting in the driveway this morning. that's broken glass nearby. im guessing it fell out of my neighbor's car or even worse was thrown out by my basement neighbors. they like to tell each other how much they hate each other around 2:50 a.m. at least once a week. i really need to crop the photo, its kindof driving me crazy.

this morning i tried my first gluten-free baking experiment. the results below:

they are rice flour muffins with chopped dried apricots and craisins and pecans and they are surprisingly super delicious. the money shot somehow didn't make it onto my flash drive so you get these 2 instead. dont fret i will upload later. maybe. if you're good. anyway, i cant believe they turned out to be edible...

and two of the minnow after she spent some time running around in the mud. pretty cute.

you know you're in utah when you hear someone say "oh my heck"... sometimes if they're really upset they will go all the way with "oh my hell"... dirty bounders, son of a biscuit