Birds Of A Feather...NOT

My ex-fiance was a wonderful guy. I'll give him that much. But he was immature in a lot of ways. (Not to say I was the most mature person considering how long I stayed in that situation.) Or maybe 'country' would be a better word. He was too ragged around the edges and lacked refinement and even simple manners sometimes. I'll never forget the day I introduced him to a girlfriend of mine. She had come up from Jamaica and her cousin brought her by my house to say hi but they weren't going to stay. I went out to the car and told her I wanted her to meet my fiance. He was sitting on the couch in the living room watching tv, I believe. Anyway I brought her in the house and he didn't stand. I'm hard-pressed to say he even offered a handshake. To me, that was embarassing. In general, he swore he was smooth. He liked to put on an air of overconfidence that's hard to explain; he was vain. Then he went to another extreme, getting overzealous in his Christianity, IMHO (became a vegan, wouldn't shave, etc.). In the end it was still hard for me to break up with him. Actually, if you ask him he would say it was mutual. Uh huh. I returned his ring once and he begged me to take it back which I did. Before I returned it the second time I wasted time trying to make sure the split was mutual. Maybe the time wasn't wasted. Maybe sparing his feelings was the right thing to do? I don't know. It was a learning experience for both of us, that's the best I can say. He's been married for a few years now and I rarely see him which is fine. I have never seen his wife and I know it's a girl thing but I want to see what she looks like. Go figure.

Have a good weekend!

ANTM

Hubby's girl, Nnenna, is gone. Too bad. She started off strong but she not only did she NOT improve, she didn't even remain as good as she was. I think Danielle and Joanie will be the top two. Joanie takes some amazing pictures and is very versatile (to use Jade's word). Danielle is consistenly beautiful but not as versatile - her look is usually the same - statuesque, regal.

With the ding dong quote I was referring to "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward. Sorry if I stumped you.

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I was accepted to Spelman College as a freshman but I would have had to move to Atlanta by myself. At 17 I wasn't ready to venture out just yet so instead I moved to South Florida with my mother and attended F.A.U. (which us students used to joke stood for "Find Another University"). How did that choice affect who I am now? Could I be more vain and elitist than I am? lol

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I knew I didn't love him. My twisted logic was that he was a good man who was all into me and I could be a good wife to him. According to my mother we fought all the time. I didn't notice. I did notice that a lot of times I found myself almost embarassed to be with him in public. Not a good sign. We made it all the way to pre-marriage counseling. At one point we had individual sessions with the counselor. He asked me straight out if I loved the guy and I told him no. We talked a bit more and, of course, he told me I shouldn't marry him. So, I didn't. I was 24 years old.

Contrast that with my current situation. I met K and within two weeks I knew he was the one for me. I didn't tell him. I waited and waited to see something I couldn't live with or tolerate but I never did. Six months later we decided to get married and three months after that we were married.

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American Idol - Who's going home?? I'd say Kelly or Taylor.

Me and my main 3 yr-old squeeze

See more of him here.

Taken 4-24-06

See my babies! And soon I'll have another!

Bothersome

Singing Bug

One of the things that bothers me is when I take the time to write out meeting notes or technical explanations and make sure to send them to everyone involved only to have people ask me questions a few days later. I don't mean questions for clarification or content correction, but questions that are answered in the material I sent out. If you need information I send you, why not read it first before asking me any questions? If not then it defeats the purpose of disseminating the information in the first place! How frustrating. And when I refer the person back to the email I sent I'm almost made to feel like I shouldn't be, that I should be fine with repeating myself.

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Riding to work this morning I couldn't get Ding, dong, ding, bellll! Ring it! out of my head.

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Yesterday I found myself reflecting a bit on my past and any regrets I may have had or wondering how things would have been different had I opted to go any of various other routes.

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(Modified from Chele's Version) 6 Not-So-Wacky Things About Me

1. I am a nervous wreck if I have to do anything in front of a group of people, yet I forced myself to take Drama I back in high school. I survived even though the final required us to perform solo. The class has NOT helped me in life.


2. I don't have a problem with my man watching pornos as long as he doesn't try to hide it. (Not saying he does or doesn't, of course.)


3. I was engaged for two years to a man I didn't love.


4. I used to say I wanted to have children without going through the pain of childbirth. In other words, I wanted to have C-sections.


5. I used to want to be a judge without having to be a lawyer first. Now I know I'd rather be a lawyer because I love to argue (no smart comments BDaB), although I don't know how that would work considering #1 above.


6. Another one of my pet peeves (besides needlessly having to repeat myself to lazy people or those without adequate reading skills) is people who drag their feet when they walk.

I know I'm late. I've been stalking her for months now and only recently started commenting. I check her blog at least once a day, sometimes twice. I know you all read her already. I know I'm the last one to add her to my blogroll. It's Nikki, y'all!

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Pregnancy is fine so far. The headaches have subsided quite a bit. Pretty uneventful otherwise. No throwing up (although I did have to run to the bathroom once in the middle of eating an egg on cheese bagel for breakfast). Been feeling kind of gluttonous lately. Just had a 6" turkey sub for lunch, a bowl of fruit sort of for dessert, and believe me I still want to eat my yogurt! Anyway, I think I'm beginning to feel the baby moving inside me now. Pretty cool. I love being pregnant.

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ANTM - I was surprised Jade was in the bottom two because of her fakeness. I thought it was going to be Sara. Brooke, of course, I knew had to go. She claims she's not a crybaby yet she's always teary-eyed. Whatever. Maybe Sara will go next week. How do they really expect her to be passionate? They went to her not the other way around. Oh, and Nnenna needs to leave her man. She is obviously not feeling him anymore.

Options

Do any of you do any options trading? I went to a seminar last week and hubby got the investing bug. He's dabbled in it before and didn't do too badly. Now he's interested in options. Any recommendations on books to read or websites to check out?

I KNEW it!

Yes, I said it first that Leslie was going home! Poor thing. Nice pics. Not enough skills. Oh well. See ya, Les! Next week will probably be Sara unless she somehow finds herself and makes proper use of her height.

For the record, I only have one biological son (for now). My husband has a 15 year old son who lives with us and an 11 year old daughter who lives with her mother. That's why SP said if I had a girl then I'd have two of each gender.

It's Been A Week

I don't have any excuse for not posting, I just haven't. But I heard from a couple of people today (in particular Mocha Girl and BdaB) who indirectly motivated me to get up and say something.

My next ultrasound isn't for another four weeks (if I can ever get an appt). I've unsuccessfully tried three times to make an appt but each time "the computers just went down." Should I be looking for another doctor??

'Everyone' says I'm having a girl this time but what do they know? I've come to grips with the fact that I'm partial to boys. Maybe having a girl will be good for me. (As soon as I know the gender, you'll know the gender.)

The deadline to file taxes is upon us and I have a couple of things left to input. Usually I take care of the taxes. This year is hubby's turn. I'm taking a break. He just tells me what he thinks he needs, I tell him what he does need, and somehow one of us finds it.

Work is uneventful. I've been reading up on AJAX and DOM and Javascript. It should be more interesting to me than it is. I'm not really feeling any work right now. If I wasn't trying to save my time for after the baby is born I would take a week off. BUT, Mocha may be coming down sooner than expected. If she does, I'll finally get to meet her!

American Idol? Not much to say here. Gotta wait and see who gets kicked off this week.

ANTM? I felt sorry for Mollie Sue. She doesn't come off like a model but she's really pretty even without trying. Tonight I'm guessing Brooke or Leslie will go.

Too Sexy For My Job

So I'm sitting at my desk (yesterday), having a good hair day, constantly looking out the window and wondering what I'm doing here. The weather is absolutely gorgeous outside and me and my cute self are stuck inside. The world needs to see me but I have code to write!

The pic you see here was taken yesterday evening outside of Lowe's. Hubby and I want to repaint the living room so we were looking at paint swatches. If you look closely you'll see my belly button poking out. (This weekend I'll be four months.)

Oh, I haven't updated you lately on the rats. You may remember that we caught one a while back. I think it was last week that we caught another. I heard a lot of rustling and then K was calling me downstairs. We had left out some traps cause we knew there was at least one critter left. Wouldn't you know one got stuck on the glue trap with all fours! It was trying to get away but of course it couldn't do anything but make noise. It totally grossed me out. K took a mop and a broom and smooshed him in the middle. Then we slid it to the front door and used a shovel to pick it up and put it in the trash bin (fortunately it was garbage day). I thought that was the end of it until the next day we started to smell something funny. About a week before we had finally put out rat poison as a last resort. Something ate it all up and we believe that's what we've been smelling. Every day, as long as we're home, the windows go open and the candles are lit. I think the smell is almost all gone now.

A Grand Lux Cafe opened up nearby. It's a sister restaurant to the Cheesecake Factory. Amazing menu. I picked up something there for dinner last Thursday but I wasn't too impressed. I usually love chicken pot pie but this one had way too much butter. The creme brulee on the other hand was excellent. Hubby said it was too eggy but whatever. So anyway, we decided to try going there for breakfast one day. One day ended up being this past Sunday. We had brioche french toast, perfectly fluffed pancakes, an omelette and hot chocolate. Again, I was less than impressed. My favorites were the pancakes and hot chocolate. As we were eating these huge portions of food I got to thinking about how excessive we are in this country. So much goes to waste unnecessarily. We have a culture of greed and that carries over into everything we do. When I visit other countries it's not this way - it appears that people live to live, as opposed to living to exceed like we do here. Maybe I'm just oversensitive seeing that I live in superficial South Florida.

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I really enjoy the benefits of being pregnant. It's nice to be catered to, to not be expected to do anything. At church the ladies are always finding young men to carry my load for me. When I go somewhere I'm always offered a seat. People's expectations of me are lowered, and that's nice sometimes. I can eat as much as I want without being harassed. I'm expected to rest a lot. No one wants to be the one to stress me out. Even with my cute belly hubby still has a healthy appetite. Not to mention my breasts are swelling. Hubby keeps looking at me and making comments. I told him that since he likes them so much maybe I should get something done. He just laughed. He didn't say no though. Hmph. I know I'm biased towards this whole pregnancy thing because I haven't had any real complaints. Not the first time around and so far not this time around *knock on wood*.

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Having a 15 year old stepson without common sense and not having many female friends for various reasons made me think (again) about our mental capacities when we're born. If some people have a knack for mathematics and others the arts, who's to say people aren't born with a natural inclination towards logic or otherwise? (Try to follow me here. I'm beginning to confuse myself even though it made sense in my head.) I'm trying to understand why some people just don't have sense. Or why some people are "ditzy." Why does someone become a genius? If you watch the wannabe models on ANTM, for example, even as they're all taught the same thing they don't all have the skill and talent and brains to make proper use of the knowledge. And no matter how much you teach, skill and practice can only get you so far. How do you teach someone to have innate ability? You can't. So, with that said, how much can we really expect from the less logical of us? Why even bother getting upset with them? I know, their inability to make intelligent decisions cannot and should not prevent them from reaping what they sow. I know we still have to try to teach in hopes that at least one person will "get it." We can't give up. I'm just sayin' it gets tiresome.

Motivation

I attended a motivational day-long seminar this past Wednesday. A bunch of people from work went and I managed to get a ticket through a co-worker's wife (long, convoluted story). There were some big-name speakers there (Zig Ziglar, Steve Forbes, Jerry Lewis, Suze Orman, Don Shula, Rudy Guiliani, Colin Powell). There were a couple of other people who I had never heard of before (Krishna D, Phil Town, Tom Hopkins, Peter Lowe). I won't bore you with my observations but I will give you a few highlights of the presentations that stood out.

1. Tom Hopkins was a top real estate salesman, selling a house a day for a year. He explained a bit about the art of effective questioning, and gave us some words we should never say. Question Form 1 is the Tie-Down: Ask a question that demands a yes, i.e. "We're having fun today, aren't we?" Don't use more than two of these in a presentation. Question Form 2 is the Inverted Tie-Down: Ask a question that suggests a yes, i.e. "Aren't we having fun today?" These can be used freely. Question Form 3 is the Alternate Positive: Ask a question that assumes a yes, i.e. "I'm available next Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Which day would be better for you?" The point of these questions is that the minor victories in getting people to say yes to you eventually lead up the final victory of closing the 'sale'.
   Words never to use and what to use instead: buy - use own instead; contract - use paperwork/form/agreement instead; sign - use endorse/OK/approve instead; price - use investment instead; downpayment - use initial investment instead.
   I bet that the next time you talk to a salesman you'll notice him using some of these techniqes.


2. Suze Orman is a leading finance expert. She talked about how to make more out of less. She said everyone should have a will AND a living revocable trust with an incapacitation clause. When you make any large purchase, like buying a house, it should be put in the name of the trust. If there are two signatures on the contract and one person becomes incapacitated, then the person left will still be able to sell the property if necessary. She also said that if you own a home, make sure you find out exactly what your home insurance covers in case your house gets totally destroyed.


3. Four-Star General Colin Powell. This man had an amazing presence. By far, his was the best presentation. I can't tell you what he talked about exactly, but his face stays with me. I was very surprised at how personable he appeared and how funny he was.

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ANTM - I am SO glad they got rid of Gina! It's too bad she sucks as a model because with makeup the girl is stunning. Every week I'm surprised by Danielle. She is probably my favorite. Nnenna is my husband's favorite. She takes some excellent pictures. Joanie surprised me. She hasn't stood out for me until this week.

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My father's side is all black as far as I can tell. Everyone from his parents on up were born and raised in Grenada (maybe Mocha Girl has more info on this line).

My mother's side is quite diverse. My grandfather was a white Jamaican. His parents were some mix of Scottish/Irish/etc. My grandmother was an indian Jamaican. Her grandparents were from India. It is to them that I attribute my luxurious and sometimes bothersome hair. *Aside* Mocha, I'll make sure I shave my legs before you get here but I'm notshaving my arms! :) *End aside*

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I've been feeling quite antisocial lately. I know that's no excuse for not talking to my peeps, but I really haven't had anything of interest to say. I could tell you that I thought Jade tore it up on ANTM last week. She really redeemed herself. I was shocked though when they let Kari go instead of Gina, esp since they said all that crap about Kari being moldable. I could talk about American Idol but that's not exciting enough yet. When they get down to the top six, then I'll be at the edge of my seat. Hmm, nobody wants to read about work, do they? I've been stuck in documentation-hell for the past month and I'm trying to get out. But everytime I think I'm done "they" decide there are more enhancements/clarifications/corrections to be made. *sigh* As you can guess I did not make it to NY. That turned out to be for the best because I had to fork over $240 so far to get my AC fixed. Plus, I finally did something I've been contemplating for a while - I got rid of my unsightly upper lip hair! Yes, and I did it myself without wax. Ms J from ANTM put me over the edge when 'she' made fun of Danielle's mustache. My grandmother used to use Nair for as long as I can remember. She always told me that if my hair started to grow never to get rid of it because it would just grow in thicker. Oh well, 20+ years later and I'm putting her advice to the test. Sorry, BdaB for having to wait for you to leave to get the courage to try this. Thank you for being my friend anyway. :) My next endeavor is to get perfect eyebrows like my husband who was unfairly born with them.

Hey All!

Thanks for the well-wishes and for bearing with my absence. I've been busy, but not an interesting type of busy. You probably already read from SP that they laid off someone from our department. Apart from that it's been work as usual. Sid and I have been sick all weekend. He's on day two of his fever. I want to go to New York next weekend. My great-grandmother's niece passed away and I think it would be a perfect opportunity to meet a whole line of family I've never known. I'm reading Chele's book, Raymond's Daughters. I don't know if it's cause I'm pregnant or if the writing is just that good :) but I've found myself almost moved to tears a couple of times so far. One of my fave shows right now is America's Next Top Model. Last Friday I found myself defending the women of our department to the men, swearing that we look just as good as those girls on ANTM. We do! I also told the guy who just married that we were the best looking women at the reception. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have said that? His reply was something about me being confident but he seemed to take it well enough. Oh well. What can I say. I'm not taking it back now. Speaking of pictures, in a few months I'm going to get some pregnancy pictures taken. One of my co-workers is a photographer and he takes awesome pictures. Anyway, I'm starving now. Gotta go feed the babies! Later.

Here's The Latest News!

11 weeks and 6 days
Length: 5.3 cm
Heartrate: 160 bpm
Due Date: 9/23/2006

This is the last one....

Ok, I know I'm belaboring the point, but when Shawn suggested I tell the guy I have a pic, little did he know that I actually DO have a picture of the half-eaten cake. lol. Click on the pic for a closer look!


I promise, promise, promise that tomorrow I'll have a better post! Trust me!

I decided to ask my coworker yesterday about the cake incident to see his reaction. I didn't do it in a confrontational way; the conversation went similar to this,

ShellyP: Hey, RK, something curious happened at the wedding.

RK: Yeah? What was that.

ShellyP: Someone took a piece of cake. And it was at W's seat right after you left. Did she take it?

RK: I don't know. I'll have to ask her.

ShellyP: The bride was pretty upset.

RK: What time did they take pictures? (Note: He left at 11 pm.)

ShellyP: 11:30 pm.

RK: 11:30 pm? (He asked incredulously.)

ShellyP: I didn't want to think it was you guys. Cutting that cake was not a good thing to do.

RK: I'll have to ask her. I'll have to ask her if it was her or JW's wife. (Note: JW is our boss!) Sometimes W does things that she shouldn't.

blah, blah, blah, whatever

The rest of the day he spent making sure everyone knew that he was basically drunk before the reception even started and he didn't really anything that went on. Yeah. ok.

It Was A Nice Weekend

The wedding I attended was beautiful. SP was there and it was good to see BdaB and his wife again. Everyone from our department was there looking great. It's a nice change to see another side of people.

The wedding was scheduled to begin at 6:10. K and I zipped in, initially behind the carriage then manouvering our way into a spot, at 6:15. Fortunately the ceremony started at 6:20. It was a simple sunset wedding. I was just glad we weren't the last ones to arrive. Some others arrived with us, after us, and some even missed the ceremony entirely! By 6:35 it was done. Yes, it was a 15 minute ceremony! Not bad. While waiting for the cocktail area to open up we ran to Walgreens to pick up a card to go with the gifts we bought the day before. I know what you're thinking and you're right - we procrastinate way too much! We made it back while the mixing and mingling was still going on. It was an open bar so people were quite "toasty" before the reception even started.

The reception was fun. There were toasts from the best man and matron of honor. Then it was time to eat. I like that, not too many preliminaries to keep the people from the food, which was served buffet style.

Of course, how many weddings do you know that don't have some sort of drama? I thought this one was going to go off perfectly until 11 o'clock or so when SP called me over and showed me something I couldn't believe. She pointed to the groom's cake. I looked and there was a piece missing - the front right corner was cut out! Then she turned me around and showed me who had been eating that cake, which was left half done. It was someone from our department and his guest. They left a few minutes before she showed me. This wouldn't have been half as bad if they had cut the cake after the official cake cutting had taken place, but it happened before.

How could anyone have so little class as to cut someone else's wedding cake?? I shouldn't even say "so little class" because really they had NO class whatsoever. I was quite upset about the whole thing. All I could think about was how we could hide it so that the bride wouldn't see it. I suggested that we tell the best man. While SP was finding him, the matron of honor came over with another lady and they looked at the cake and were obviously discussing what to do. They took the bridal bouquet and laid it up against the missing corner. I was temporarily relieved until I saw them bring this whole thing to the bride's attention. Needless to say, she was visibly upset. That made me even more upset that they told her. Didn't they think about the fact that she still had pictures to take!

Other than that it was great. A memorable occassion.