December Photo Project Day 15: Day 2 of Unemployment

Holy cow - today was absolutely crazy. I didn't have two seconds to relax (except for the two hour midday nap I took). Here is a little bit of what it looked like:

7:00 - woke up (why can't I sleep late anymore?)

8:00 - showered and ate breakfast

8:30 - took Jake on a walk

9:00 - leave for doctors appointment

9:30 - doctors appointment (nothing exciting to report)

10:30 - pick up monogrammed blanket from Oxford Kids Co. (blanket wasn't ready yet)

11:00 - go to Belk and exchange two nightgowns for bigger sizes - ouch (nightgowns are for D-day)

12:00 - fix a dinky lunch at home

12:15 - Aaron comes home from taking his second to last exam

12:30 - we take a nap

2:00 - wake up from nap to start baking cookies for Christmas party tonight

3:00 - still baking cookies - over 100 at this point because I decide to bring some of our new neighbors cookies as a "Welcome to the neighborhood...I'll be your extremely nerdy neighbor for the next year and a half" gift.

3:50 - go back to Oxford Kids Co. to pick up Clark's blanket - its SO cute and I love love love it.

4:00 - run by Walmart to get more cookie making ingredients and a new toothbrush.

4:45 - back home to keep baking cookies and make some taco soup so Aaron can eat a relatively nourishing dinner

5:30 - take shower

6:15 - head over to Liz's house for her Cookie/Ornament Swap Party

8:45 - back home from party

9:00 - start helping Aaron study for his LAST exam of the semester

I will continue to help Aaron study into the wee hours of the morning. He is reading one section of his notes at a time, and then I'm quizzing him on what he read until he pretty much has everything memorized. He has to know somewhere in the vicinity of 300+ cases by 9:00 tomorrow morning. I'm not exactly sure if thats the right number, but I do know we are going to go through 60 pages of notes and there is nothing great about that. I can't wait for 12:00 tomorrow, because that means Aaron is completely finished with his third semester of law school, and then he can sleep for however long he wants to, and then he can help me get ready for Clark. AND...we can play lots of Scattergories. Aaron is walking around looking like a zombie because he has gotten no more than five hours of sleep in the past 72 hours. Poor guy. Just hang in there Arnie - almost finished.

I finished putting all of the ornaments on the tree last night, and I want to show off my all time favorite. Please don't think I'm a terrible wife for loving this so much, I just think its hilarious and I laugh every single time I look at it.

It's probably difficult to tell exactly what this ornament is because I am still limited to the camera on my blackberry. This little guy is a soldier with his right leg missing. No, I didn't buy it with two legs and purposefully cut the right leg off. That would be cruel. Besides, Aaron had his left leg cut off. A few years ago, I was in Midland, Texas browsing some cute little shops while Aaron was hunting and found this ornament as I was rummaging through a huge basket full of defective items that were nicely discounted. When I found it, I died out laughing and knew I had to have this on my tree. I took it to the counter to purchase it and the lady asked me if I was aware of the missing piece on the ornament, and I said something along the lines of "Of course I noticed it, and wouldn't want it otherwise." I told her the short version of Aaron's story and she laughed with me and gave it to me for free and told me to thank Aaron for his service for her. I don't know if Aaron thinks its as funny as I do, but he's not the one who decorates the tree, or even acknowledges its existence, so he doesn't get a say so.

This is going to be Clark's favorite blanket. I'm convinced this will be the security blanket he has to take with him wherever he goes and drags it everywhere in the exact same way Linus does in Charlie Brown. It is so soft and this is what the rest of his bedding looks like in his crib. It may not be the most masculine blanket, but I love it, and of course that is what matters the most at this point. I suppose the deer heads sticking out of the wall make up for the not-so-manly blanket and print I chose for his name. Speaking of the name, I am loving it more and more everyday. There was never a point that I didn't love it, but recently I've been hearing people say his name and talk about him like he's already here and it just makes me so happy that his name is Clark. For example, tonight my mom asked me what she should get Clark for Christmas. Well, there is a good chance he won't be here on Christmas so that is a non-issue. And even if he is here, I suspect he won't be too impressed with anything he receives at that point. Having said all of that, I certainly didn't want to stop her from buying him anything, so I just went on ahead and gave her some ideas of what he might like. Anyway, I believe there is so much in a name, especially a man's name, and I am so completely confident that Clark Randall will one day take pride in the name he was given, and hopefully want to keep the name in the family.

Tomorrow will be much less chaotic than today and for that I am grateful. Because I was on my feet all day (except the nap, of course), they are swollen and I am walking about as graceful as a 95 year old man. When I stand up, I have to hold my lower back and limp until I can regain my balance enough to stand up straight. I'm about to go to bed, only to be woken up in about 20 minutes to go over the next section of Aaron's notes. Fortunately I can sleep in tomorrow so I'm not too worried about not getting a full nights rest. In fact, I can just sleep ALL day tomorrow and that will be just fine. I'm still waiting on a burst of energy so I can tackle some of the stuff I would like to do around the house before D-day (that would be my deliver day, not the day we stormed Normandy during World War II).

Once that burst of energy does come, I'm going to make myself miserable by cleaning until there is literally not one dirty/dusty/unsanitary item in this house. I'm going to try really hard to not spend money because I'm, um, unemployed now and the lack of paycheck is going to really freak me out when our next bank statement comes in. Oh, but wait, I've been instructed by my husband not to look at the bank statement because Aaron did, in fact, buy me a Christmas present and I would know what it was if I looked on the statement. I look at our online bank account on a daily basis, and it is killing me not knowing what's going on in there. Also, now that I know he got me something, I guess I have to get him something, and that stinks because I have no idea what to get him. If anybody knows Aaron Rice better than I do, please feel free to give me some suggestions. I've already made one big boo boo on something I thought he might like (and suggested it to a family member) only to find out that he despises it. Bummer.

Before I go, I want to leave you with this.

Isn't he simply amazing? I love getting to hang out with him all day now. He's such a great pup. He's laying next to me right now growling in his sleep and passing a little bit of gas. I just love him.