Eaten Alive

I am fairly certain there is a zombie in my uterus. Like the flesh eating kind. And it rolls and turns and kicks the shit out of me all. day. long.

I don't remember this with Sophie- being beaten from the inside out but it is happening this time. My poor internal organs are probably bruised and trying desperately to move as far up as they can get in order to avoid Zombie Baby. I don't blame them.

Many pregnant women make birth plans. They lay out on a nice neat word document exactly how they want their births to go. What they want done or not done and when. I am not going to need this. This baby is going to round house kick its way our of my stomach Chuck Norris style.

Hell maybe Chuck Norris is the father. Now that would be kick ass.

Until I have the baby and get Chuck to submit to a paternity test, enjoy this video that cracks me up every time I watch it. Because it's true.

I gave him The Finger

Football season is among us and I am sure there are a great deal of women out there getting super irritated at their husbands for their half listening skills and glazed eyes. Women who are probably close to demanding something other than football be put on the TV, despite being only 2 weeks in to pro-football.

I am not one of those women. Football can be on all day for all I really care. I understand it and like enough to half pay attention and it makes great back ground noise for when I am cooking. I will probably regret everything I just said, though, if my husband sees this blog post.


One thing that makes football so great, for me anyway, if FANTASY FOOTBALL! Yes, I belong to a league. It is a keeper league through work and it is my second year. Last year, I did well enough to make the play offs and finished somewhere in the middle of the pack. I WILL do better this year.

I am borderline obsessive when it comes to my fantasy team. Named "Over Dwayne Bowe"- yes I stole the name- I am the proud owner of Aaron Rogers, Rashard Mendenhall, Hakeem Nicks and yes, my namesake, Dwayne Bowe. I check my line up constantly. Hell, today is Tuesday and I have already checked my guys and who they play and how well that teams defense it. I will make tweaks and second guess my self until the last possible second.

Then during the games, I will check and re-check and re-re-check my score, how many guys do I have left to play, how many does my opponent. It is tiring and thrilling all at the same time. And stressful, don't forget stressful!


Last night was Monday night football. A match up between the Giants and the Rams. Neither team I care about one way or another- except for Hakeem Nicks. Questionable all week with a bone bruise from last weeks game, I gambled and left him in. All the news I heard suggested he would play. The "Questionable" status is a killer for FF, especially a Monday night game. ESPECIALLY since I was down by 7, with ONLY Nicks left to play and my opponent with NO ONE to play. Man, I am getting stressed just thinking about it again.


I was intently watching a very subpar game, hoping and praying to the fantasy gods that all passes were thrown to and received by Nicks. Jeff was next to me on the couch. All of a sudden a play starts in motion and it looks like it's going #88 and Jeff picks that exact time to tell me about somebody singing the national anthem or something like that.

I did want ANY good wife would do- I held up my finger, indicating I want him to be silent and I leaned into the TV.


For the record, I tied my game. Nicks got exactly 7 points which brought us even in score.

What's For Dinner?

That's the question I asked Sophie last night.




Sophie: Peanut butter!


Me: A peanut butter sandwich?


Sophie: No samwich, finger!

Me: You can't eat peanut butter on your finger


Sophie: (thinking about this) peanut butter on my TONGUE!





Kid cracks me up!

Gimp Tutorials- Part 1

If you don't want to learn how to edit pictures then you can skip this one!

For you, Heather!

My favorite Gimp’s:

Ok so you have noticed there is a TON to do in Gimp and Photoshop. I love Gimp ‘cause its free and have most everything I need.  If you have anything you want to specifically do I am sure I can type up directions for you but for now I will stick with the ones I use the most.

Here is an example of a picture taken straight out of the camera. And not my good camera either. This was taken with my Nikon Coolpix (thanks dad!)

The picture is cute but it cool look better. Let’s play with it shall we?

Red Eye:

Sophie has a massive case of red eye in this picture so I am going to remove that.

1-     Select your lasso tool

2-     Next to “MODE” you will see the picture of 1 box is selected. Go ahead and click the box next to it with the 2 red squares. This will let us lasso both eyes at once.

3-     Click the box to put a check mark next to “Feather Edges” and change to 5. This will soften the edges of your selected region so you don’t get harsh lines.

4-     Click various spots around the eye pupil. You will see a line appear around the eye were you click. Once you make the whole pupil, reclick the first dot to close off the circle. You should see a dotted line around the pupil now. Do this for both eyes.

5-     Go to Color>Desaturate>(box will pop up with LIGHTNESS selected) OK. This will turn the pupil gray.

6-     Go to Color>Contrast and you will get a pop up. Move the contrast bar up (positive numbers in the box to the right) until you get the blackness you think looks right.

7-     Go to Select>None.

Now, your eyes are no longer red! I prefer this method bc it leaves the light spot in the pupil from the reflective on the flash.

Eye Color Pop:

I like to pop the color of the eyes in some of my pictures. Here is an easy way to do this.

1-     Use the same steps as above to select the eyes (if you have trouble selecting, remember you can zoom in close to the eye!)

2-     Go to Color> Hue Satuartion> and toggle the saturation bar up. With eyes, a little goes a long way. I usually only move mine up +10

3-     Go to Color>Contrast> Move the contract bar up. Again a little goes a long way.

4-     Go to Filter> Enhance> Unsharpen Mask- you will see a pop up box with a preview. Adjust all 3 toggles until you have the eyes the way you like them and hit ok. Again- a little goes a long way.

5-     Select>None

Dingy Picture fix:

This is a quick way to make the picture brighter. The original wasn’t bad but it was a little yellow. This brightens it up

1-     Select the eye dropped tool. Find a place on the picture that should be white (I like eyes or teeth but teeth can be iffy if the subject doesn’t have white teeth to begin with)

2-     Once you have the color picked from your white spot (you can see it on the Tool Box window), create a new layer.

a.       In the Layers, Channels and Paths window you will see your picture. It is layer. If you go to the bottom of the white box your picture layer is in you will see what looks like a white piece of paper. Click on this and a box will pop up. Make sure “Transparency” is marked and hit ok and it will create a transparent layer over your picture layer.

3-     From your tool box window, select the tool that looks like a paint bucket pouring paint. Then click on your picture window. This will fill that transparent window with the color from the color picker (you will only be able to see the color you filled)

4-     In the Layers window, right under the word “Layers” at the top you will see “MODE” and it will say Normal and to the right on Normal will be a drop down menu. Might sure your filled layer is selected (not your picture layer), then use the drop down menu to select Divide.

5-     You should now see your picture and it should be brighter!

6-  If it looks unnatural (some times does), make sure your fill layer is selected then place with the opacity slider on the top of the Layer windows. This will make the top layer more and more translucent the far down you slide it!

Lastly, here is a link to a Gimp Tutorial page where you can find more info!

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Time Flies

When I was pregnant with Sophie, I knew down to the day how far along I was, what that translated to in months, how long I had to go and when each trimester began.

This time, ehh- I'm somewhere in the middle. I do know I am due at the end of Dec, which is what I tell people when they ask how far along I am. Actually, I don't even know my exact due date. It is either the 20th or the 17th- I think. I am fairly certain my midwives changed it based on an ultrasound a few months back but I never asked. I figured what difference did it make? This kid will come out whenever she is ready.

Today, I did get curious about the trimesters. I looked up a breakdown and realized I am in my last week of my second trimester. When the hell did that happen? Do you realize how much I still have to do? My list is crazy long. Hell, I had planned on having Sophie in her twin bed by next week so she had plenty of time to adjust! I am not even close to that yet. We haven't done anything in the office. I have no clothes cleaned or baby gear brought up and cleaned.

Now I am slightly freaking out.

Apparently I should wake him up for that

I heard gun shots last night. Laying in my nice warm bed, I woke up at 1:38 am to gun shots. At first, I thought it was my redneck neighbors shooting off fireworks again but it was only the one shot so I am convinced it was indeed a gun shot.

Even Jake heard it. He sleeps by our door and as soon as the shot was fired and woke me up, I head him get up from our door and walk to the kitchen door. The shot came from behind my house (my house backs up to a pond as do many other houses in our subdivision).

I laid awake for a few more minutes listening for A-more gun shots or B-sirens. I didn't hear either so like most other people, I went back to bed.

I called Jeff this morning when I got to work and asked him if he heard the shots (he didn't) and he says to me "You didn't think you should wake me up for that?" Really, cause what would you do? Go stand on the deck and wait to get shot at too? I don't think so, buddy. You don't get out of this marriage that easy!

Apparently, going back to sleep last night was the wrong course of action. Of course, I have no proof that what I head was a gun shot but I feel fairly confident in my ear drum's ability to distinguish this sort of thing.

Where are my house shoes?

Jeff text me this morning to ask me where his house shoes were. Because, you know, I AM the keeper of HIS house shoes. Really, it is common knowledge I wear his over sized, worn down house shoes all the time- NOT.

I called him to ask him specifically why he thought I would know this sort of information. Did I wear them last? Apparently, the answer is I "move his shit all the time". By move, I am going to guess he means put away. In it's proper spot. Heathen, I am.

So I asked him where he looked for them. Duh, in the shoe basket and the closet. Wait- you already looked in the ONLY 2 places I "move" things too? Again I ask, why would you think I had any idea where there were if the 2 places you already checked are the 2 places I would have put them?

So I tell him the only other place I could think they might be in under the bed. I suggest this place because knowing my husband as well as I do, I know he probably took them off next to the bed and since he hasn't had a need for them in a while they probably got shoved up underneath it.

Ta-da! They are there! Instead of a thank you though, I got "You probably put them there on purpose". What gratitude!

The funny part is he even admitted that the sensible place for his house shoes to be is next to the bed wear he could take them off at night and put them back on when he wakes up. Still, it was I who purposely shoved his shoes under the bed just to fuck with him.



In completely un-house shoe related news, Sophie got to watch "Mary Poppins" for the first time this weekend. Honestly, I didn't hold out much hope of her watching the whole things since it isn't a brightly animated cartoon with an onslaught of funny characters. Much to my surprised, she watched the entire movie! It's like a 2.5 hour movie too! The best was at the end though- as Mary Poppins in flying away with her umbrella Sophie asks me "where she going?". I told her Mary Poppins was flying away.



Oh the tears. Never have I seen the likes! She bawled and howled "Marry Popppppiiiinnnnssss!!!!" She was so upset. I tried to calm her down, explain to her it was just a movie and then finally, I put the movie back on to show her Mary Poppins could come back. She sat and watched the whole movie a second time.

The girl in the purple dress

Sophie the Princess. Princess Sophie. All things girl, all the time.

How did I end up with such a girly girl? Sophie's princess phase doesn't seem to have an end in sight. Luckily, Tinkerbell seems to be fading out but only to be replaced by Princess Belle.

A co-worker recently brought in a bag of clothes her granddaughter had out grown. In this bag there are a full length, purple princess dress- completely with tiara and wand. Yes, I snagged it for Sophie even though I knew this dress would be the bane of my existence. I could already imagine the number of fights Sophie and I would engage in over this dress. In short, once Sophie saw the dress I knew she would never willingly take it off.

I was right.




By the way, last night I sat on the crown and broke a piece of it off. I hope she doesn't notice!