Potpourri post.

Before I get to the main event of today's post, I'll give you the basic updates from last week and the first half of this week. My parents were here most of the week so I was pretty busy, and then this week I got sick a bit on Sunday and Monday so I never got around to posting. I got a lot of things done though:

• I solved the health insurance problem. I finally found the right person to talk to, and he was very understanding and helpful. Its been figured out that all I have to do is sign a paper saying I'm on "medical leave" therefore I couldn't go to class if I wanted to. How nice of that man to consider being pregnant a reason for medical leave. As far as I know, they don't normally do that. I think I was jsut very lucky to have found an understanding person who was willing to find some loopholes to help me out. So.... all of that means, I can keep my school based insurance at the same rate I'm paying now.
  
• I qualified for WIC food. It was kind of hard to call people up and say... "Uh.. yeah.. I need food." Its embarrassing to ask for that kind of help. I've always been on the opposite end of the food pantry, so asking to receive some food felt weird to me. But I'm glad I did it, because really any help I can get is good help and WIC will give me healthy food. Milk, dairy products, eggs, bread, fruit, veggies... All of those things can come to me through WIC programs. All I have to do is go down and sign papers.
• I got together all of the proofs & filled out the applications for receiving medical aid from the state of Minnesota. Again, I felt a little bad while I did it, but the more help I get the more money we have to spend on other things that will make our family's life better. If that goes through, everything the insurance doesn't cover from my doctor's visits will be paid by the state.
• I applied for an apartment. I feel pretty good about it and I'm relieved to have some place safe for our family to live.
• I went garage sale-ing with my parents and I picked up a lot of great older sized clothes. I found a lady who was closing up shop for the day and gave me any of the baby clothes I wanted for a quarter, and she had adorable boy's clothing in great shape. My parents also bought me a changing table, and we had a fun time looking for items that could be donated to my dad's church charity project. They brought home a full carload of stuff.
• I ate out at a lot of new restaurants with my parents, and found some places I liked and some I didn't. I also found other places I wanted to visit.. A Baker's Wife, Town Hall Brewery, the soup & sandwich shop near the St Paul campus. 
• I had my doctor's appointment yesterday and everything is fine. I'm still measuring bigger than my dates, but the doctor is still confident that my due date is accurate and that I just have a big baby.
• Jared can feel the baby from the outside now. He was so excited and happy about it that it made me feel happy.
• Finals week is officially next week.  My last final is on Saturday, Jared's last day is Friday.

Now... To the main event oft his post. Its sort of long and confusing, so bear with me.

Last night I screamed at Jared. I was tired, I was feeling barfy because somebody across the hall made nasty chinese food, and I really just wanted to sleep. It was 12:40, and I thought I was entitled to that. Jared was working hard to finish an assignment, which for some reason is the most aggravating thing in the world when I'm trying to sleep. His typing actually makes me feel nervous... he's a spastic nervous typist or something. This is what his typing is like:

type type TYPE TYPE TYPE

 ----silence for 20 seconds or so ---

 TYPE TYPE type type TYPE TYPE 

DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE 

---more silence for 30 seconds or so --- 

type... 

type... 

type... 

TYPE TYPE TYPE.

And then he flips pages, stares at what he wrote, and either hacks and slashes it all or goes on. That is his pattern. It drives me crazy, because I never know when the next silence is going to come, and the rhythm is truly nerve wracking when I'm trying to sleep. Add on top of that that he listens to pre-teen girl pop rock while he works and it drives me absolutely crazy. Crazy enough to get up at 2:00 AM and leave the room in my PJS to go for a walk, because if I stayed there for two minutes more I probably would've shanked Jared to death with the electric plug for my cell phone charger.

But anyway... I went for a walk, and of course Jared had to follow me. I mean, yeah, its probably not the best idea to go out that late by myself but really I'm tired of being so weak and lame. Pregnancy has taken over my body and my mind and at least if I can go for a walk when I know I'm not supposed to, I feel like I have some control over it.  I ahd to ditch Jared so I could just be alone for a while.

I came back to the room before Jared gave up looking for me and I surfed the internet until I felt a little better. Jared came in looking all sad and worried, and I wasn't even angry at him anymore. He said he was worried because he has so much stuff to do and he felt guilty for not going to the doctor with me that morning or having time for me that day. He was worried because he had forgotten that it was his turn to make "snack" for his work group. He asked me to help, and my immediate thought was for revenge. I wanted to just say, "Do it yourself, why should I help you?" but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wouldn't accomplish anything other than to make Jared feel even worse. We made up last night and decided to look at everything again this morning when the sun was up.

I got up at the crack of dawn this morning because I couldn't sleep anymore after I got up to pee.  I used my morning time to brainstorm ideas for Jared's snack. I remembered something that made me really upset while I was in the doctor's office yesterday.

There was this woman who  sat next to me in the waiting room and wanted to be all Chatty Cathy with me. Normally I'm fine with people talking to me, I'm not that shy. My dad's way of talking to waitresses and other strangers has probably made me realize that talking to people isn't so scary. But all this woman wanted to do was tear down her husband. All she would say were cynical jokes about how husbands don't do anything and how her life would be so much easier if not for him. She complained, complained, complained about how her husband was lazy, how he probably wasn't attracted to her anymore, how he didn't know how to take care of the kids right...

And I was so pissed at this woman. I couldn't stand her. I hated that she was being so mean to her husband, because if he really was that bad why did she marry him? How could she expect to stay married to him and be happy with him if all she could say about him was negative? If she says all of these things to a stranger in a waiting room, what does she say to her friends? I didn't know what I could say to her, so I didn't even answer her. I ignored her in favor of reading an old issue of Harper's Bazaar. I just didn't know how to react.

So when I got home, I wanted to make sure to let Jared know how appreciated he was and how helpful he is to me. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't so complainy like that woman was. I truly do appreciate everything he does for me and I couldn't even have gotten this far without him. I wanted to remember to let him know he was loved and appreciated.

But not even 12 hours later I forgot all about it and I was screaming at him for being up and working on that assignment. Once I get started, I just can't stop. Pregnant hormones take over and I'd stomp on a fresh grandmother's grave if my hormones compelled me. I screamed at him for way more than was appropriate last night. While I was lying in bed this morning, it made me feel terrible. I wanted to work extra hard to bring him an extra special snack he could bring to work. That was something I could do for him, and I wanted to do it well... So I went to work. Its always easier to feel better about a situation when you've got a project you can work on and conquer. My project today was solve the dreaded "snack" problem.

Preparing a "snack" for work isn't easy. Unlike the name implies, the "snack" is supposed to be substantial enough for a full meal. It also has to have a vegetarian and dairy free option to it. Plus, it cannot be anything that has already been done before. On top of that? Oh yeah.

We needed to have enough to feed 32 people.

Almost all of my ideas had already been done. Baked potato bar, walking tacos, spaghetti, cereal breakfast meal, sandwiches, salad, lasagna... All already used. I needed something that could be prepared easily and quickly without hte use of a full kitchen, and that fit the above requirements. In the end, the best I could come up with was chili dogs. We got the giant packs of hot dogs & buns, with chili and cheese and all the condiments to go with them. We picked up giganto bags of chips, some Coke 2-liters on sale and made a go of it. Vegetarians could choose to eat the chili, or they could eat some of the fake veggie hot dogs we got. (Sounds gross to me but who knows.) I borrowed a couple of crock pots from Beth, packed everything he needed (cups, utensils, can openers, etc) into a bag, and gave him instructions on how to set up. It may not be the most glamorous meal, but its the best I could pull together for him in the short time I had. I hope it goes well for him, and I hope he has a good day at work, because he deserves to have a good day today.