It’s the day before our cruise. I think I’m more stressed than excited at this point!! It seems like we still have a lot to do. Once the packing is completely done, I’ll feel a bit more relieved for sure. I have pictures to post but it's on my pc that I just took to the computer doctor (see below for story).

This is our first cruise. I don’t know what to expect or what to pack. Thank God for Caroline! I feel like I’m taking my entire closet! I’m taking skirts, shirts, dresses, jeans, shoes, pajamas, shorts, and workout clothes!!! This is SEVEN days worth! My entire suitcase is full – chuck full and I didn’t even pack my curlers, or any of my toiletries! Joe’s suitcase is near full and he hasn’t even packed all his khaki’s or suit yet!

Today at work was nice. I got a lot done at work. I was kinda sad though. Our NEW Toshiba laptop keeps shutting itself off. I am 95% sure it’s overheating and shutting off. I took in for service and they said that I need to blow the fans out so the dust doesn’t accumulate and they were going to keep it to see if there was a fan problem still after they did that. I told them to just keep it for a little while since we are going on a cruise. Hopefully it will be fixed when we get it back! They said it was a known problem with Toshiba laptops! Augh! AND I need to get my pc back to download my photos. I’m going to be in agony until I get it back!

I still have to do a few things to finish packing. I need to pick up the house a bit more so it looks good. Our neighbor is watching our cats and feeding them for us. Our daycare lady is coming over around the 2nd to put a bunch of frozen cookie dough in our freezer that we bought for their fundraiser. Our neighbor watched our cats during the 15 days of our honeymoon and we asked them to watch them this time too. They were more than happy to and they will NOT take money. They seemed very interested in our cat water filter system – the water is filtrated continuously and our cats LOVE IT. The most important thing is they drink more water too. I guess our neighbors have a cat that isn’t getting enough fluids and said they think something like that would help. So I went to the pet store the next day and bought them a cat water filter for them. She was so happy I thought she would cry. They have TEN cats! I helped her put the cat water filter system together. I wonder how her cats like it!

Joe and I seem to be getting along better. I think just knowing we are getting out of town has made everything so much better.

It’s so cool watching Joey grow up. He mimics almost every 1 and 2 syllable word you say. He also has really been enjoying books lately, especially his first words book. Usually when I ask him to say ‘cow’ he says ‘moo’ instead. Today I said say cow and he said ‘cow’ instead of moo. I’m kinda sad. I thought it was sooo cute when I asked him to say cat and he’s say meow instead. He’s in 3T shirts and between 2t and 3t pants. He’s 35 inches tall – almost 3 feet and not even 21 months! He’s going to be a tall boy!

I guess that’s all for now. You won’t see an update for about a week. See you then!!!

So anyhow, Joe comes up to me and asks me if I'm happy. He's actually asked me that a few times lately. I guess I've been so stressed out lately I never noticed. I think I'm over-obsessing about a lot of stuff. He says I used to be so happy in my blog and lately I'm complaining - he reads it too. I think it's probably a good way to see into my mind. Maybe I just need a place to vent. Who knows?

I don't know what the problem is. Maybe I just need a vacation - thank Goodness we leave to Mexico on Saturday. I'm so excited to see Caroline again I can hardly stand it! I miss having my best friend here. Even though she's in Seattle and we email all the time, it's not the same as just girl talking with her, you know? It seems all my best friends move away. My other best friend Jennifer moved to Florida right after high school. I'm so sad to see my friends leave me.

I'm not sure what the problem is. I think I'm a bit stressed out over keeping my weight level. I'm so happy at this weight that I want to stay like this, yet I still want to enjoy food. I think I'm worried I will gain it all back. I'm sure I won't but I still have that worry there.

Then I am being so anal about keeping a clean house lately. I feel so awful about it because I'm not playing with Joey like I should be. I told myself I would never ever do that to my child...so look at me. I have a friend who is a little older than me and she worked and worked and worked. She was never home. I told her she would regret it one day, never being home with her son. So look at me. When I am home, I clean. Ok, I'm in tears now. Why can't I just be normal? Why do I feel such an obligation to clean, and not spend the time I need with Joey? I can't even relax when I'm watching tv (which is hardly EVER) and when the commericals come on, I clean. It's like I feel guilty for even sitting on my duff, well except when I'm on the pc. I guess that's my only relax time.

Maybe I just need to get away and need a vacation? We really have not had one since June 2003. Isn't that sad? Last year we spent our vacation at UofM hospital, watching over our 6 week old baby Joey after he had kidney surgery and a kidney removed.

Ok, I think I'm blabbing because I'm tired. I'm going to bed at 10 tonight so I'm not staying up too much longer.

Today at work I had back to back meetings. I took off for lunch with Lori. She and I went to our chiropractor for an adjustment. Then we went to Rio Wraps for lunch. When we got back I was scheduled to give blood at 12:45. First they couldn't find a vein which is normal for me. They are hidden in my arm. So moving the needle 3 times they finally found it. Then my vein dripped blood sooo slowly. I saw about 5 people come and go before me. They actually took out a FOOD SCALE and put my blood bag on it to make sure I was still dripping blood into the bag. What a pain I was today! I think they were glad to have me out of there.

I made a comment to one nurses that I should have them try the left arm next time and I am pretty sure she muttered under her breath 'Maybe you shouldn't give next time'. That made me so mad I was speechless. The Red Cross is always talking about how they NEED people to give and she said WHAT? You have to be kidding me. They constantly harp they don't have enough blood and then want to turn away people who's vein's don't roll fast or are hard to find? I've been a problem child because I used to almost faint, my blood sometimes rolls slow and my veins are hidden and hard to hit. I have a very rare blood type so you would think they would want my blood. I guess some people don't want to be hassled. Well she can kiss my butt - I'm going to keep on giving blood despite her really rude comment. Oh, all in all, it took ONE HOUR to finally fill up the bag. My co-workers at the cookie table nearly clapped and then teased me about how long I took.

Today I got home, cleaned again, took Joey outside. I washed all the floors and I then went into the back bathroom where the cat litter boxes are and hand cleaned the floors in there. When Joe got home I fertilized the front yard and then got the neighbor and showed her how to care for our cats while we are in Mexico. I think I just want the house clean before we leave! We are going to buy her a cat water filterer for a thank-you gift for watching our cats. She was talking about getting one because she liked ours so much. They own TEN cats!

Well off to bed I go. I have some photos but I'm too lazy to take them off my camera.

Oh and I'm happy to announce that I AM taking my good camera to Mexico. I even went out and bought another 1 gig memory card for it so I could take a TON of photos! Yay!

Good night. Hopefully next time I blog I will be a little more perky and a little more upbeat. Sorry, I just needed to vent.

Today I'm home from work. I got something - a neck ache, pressure between my head like a vice, I had some queasy stomach, felt run down and I'm starting to get a sore throat!!! Augh! I hate being sick. I HOPE this goes away before our cruise leaves this Saturday!!

This weekend was interesting. Saturday's post was below.

So Sunday rolls around. Joe and I had JUST been talking about how he wanted to get a new battery for his car. His car is a 98 Honda Accord and it has like 150,000 miles on it. He went out to the garage to get something, realized his car door was open ALL NIGHT and drained the battery. Well good excuse to go buy a new one huh?

Today was also the day we were to walk in Belle Isle for the Kidney foundation. This is how it turned out.
1. We got to Belle Isle. Did not realize it was 6 miles around. We thought a 1-2 mile walk around the island would be great for Joey (did not realize it was SIX miles!)
2. We forgot the diaper bag.
3. It was supposed to storm.
4. We took Joey who did not want to get in the stroller.
5. We still had to get a car battery.
6. We got there at 12:45. We did not realize registration STARTED at 1 and that the walk did not even start until 2!! Joey waiting around for an hour? Yeah right.
7. The organizer told us the walk was only 1-2 miles, not SIX!
8. The organizer for our workplace said she was sending out maps, which we never got because she sent them last second and would not reply to our emails! Thank God we got some type of directions from the person organizing it for the Kidney foundation.

We turned in our money and went home. It's about a hour drive to Belle Isle too! There was no way we could have walked. We had no diapers, no diaper bag, and the lady was so disorganized and gave us wrong info and if we did the walk, we couldn't have gotten Joe his battery because Sears would have been closed on a Sunday. Yeah, too many signs. It was a walk gone very very bad. The most important thing was that we raised money for the foundation and turned it in.

On the way home we stopped at Kroger to get diapers. We then changed Joey. I worry about him peeing all the way through the diaper so we change them often. He drinks a lot of liquids!

Then we went next door to the scrapbook store! Yay for me! I love the scrapbook store and used my 40% off coupon!!

Then we drove to Sears and got Joe his car battery.

Then we went out to eat. We went to Red, Hot and Blue in Novi. They have great ribs. Joey would not stop talking at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS. How do you tell a child to be quiet? We tried and tried multiple times. We felt quite badly. He was behaving well, but kept talking and screaming. We kept saying shhh and it worked for one work then he raised his voice again. It's not like he's got clogged ears either - he has tubes in his ears. I'm not sure what the deal is. Our dinner was great but a little bit stressed because we were constantly asking him to quiet down!

It was weird. Joey didn't really get a nap yesterday. He went down at like 6 on Saturday night. He slept until about 6. We told him it was too early to get up and laid him back down. He slept until 9:30! Wow, lucky us!!

So he hardly took a nap again Sunday because of all the running around and his late morning. So we laid him down when we got home. It was about 4:30.

Then we went outside to change Joe's battery for his car. He was nervous. I guess his step-brother had one blow up in his face so he was not happy about having to change it. But Joe was very careful and did an awesome job. The car started wonderfully after he put it in and hooked it up.

Then we backed out the car and cleaned the garage. We had a TON of cold pieces of 2x4's in the garage and took them to my van to take to my parents so they could burn it in their fireplace. We cleaned out boards, and just misc stuff that has rotted in our garage. It looked so good when we were done. I freecycled some black plastic lawn edging we never used and a small wooden baby gate (we had two and kept the bigger of the two).

So then we woke Joey up at a little past 7 and then went to my parents to take the wood. Joey had a great time there playing with his matchbox cars and all. We dropped that off, stayed until about 9pm and then drove home.

Today Joey woke up and he was full of energy like I've never heard. I was still sleeping, not feeling well but he was FULL of energy. You could hear him running around. Even Joe asked me about it in email this morning. I guess he dropped him off at daycare, took off his shoes and Joey went RUNNING to Dena. She said, "Wow, I guess he's full of energy today, huh?"

I hope I feel better today!