Dear Starbucks Employee..

I haven't been drinking caffeine for some time now, almost 3 months to be exact, and as I have mentioned before... I don't miss it. Occasionally I will get the craving for one of my beloved coffee drinks but I order it in decaf form.

This weekend my husband and his friend ran to Safeway to pick up a few things and asked if I wanted anything from Starbucks. Thought about it and decided that yes, since PSL's are back (Pumpkin Spice Latte) I would gladly take one in decaf.

From the first sip I thought it tasted horrible and hubby advised me that the gal making it seemed confused about what exactly the drink was and he made sure to tell her "DECAF" to which she even wrote the word on the side of the cup. I took another couple of sips and my head started to feel funny. Within 30 minutes my hands were shaking and I knew that the little lady at the Starbucks made my drink with caffeinated espresso. &*#($%&^*#(@*@$%

I threw out the drink and while I could have called them, or gone back in... I really didn't feel like it. I was angry. Not only had the price gone up (a tall was $3.98!!) but it tasted bad, not at all like I remembered and it wasn't made to my liking.

So, Dear Starbucks employee that doesn't know what she's doing, you should be happy I don't have an allergic reaction to caffeine and maybe you should pay more attention to what you are doing. I ordered decaf for an important reason and you screwed that up. I won't be coming back in to that Starbucks for a while...

Has it really been a month already?

I can't believe that I haven't written since September 1. Well, I take that back. I can believe it, I've been busy. Homework, being a mom, a wife and starting a new home business. Things have been great over the past few weeks and they are only going to start getting better.

I'm not looking forward to this Saturday, Joey will be leaving to go visit with his dad for two weeks. It's not that I don't want him to see his dad, because I believe he does need to see him, I just hate that when he comes home he's a different person and we have to draw out his real personality again. This weekend, watching him play football with Paul and swim in the pool only to end the night with cuddling up to me on the couch with a smile, really got to me.  I hope that whatever happens while he is gone doesn't affect that this time and he comes back just as happy as he is when he leaves.

My mid-term for Algebra is coming up soon, in two weeks. I've already started studying and I really want to do well so I can keep my 96% in that class. I'm enjoying my communications class, although at times I feel like I'm in marriage counseling the way it talks about listening and words and body language. I know I am taking a lot from it and here and there I think Paul's even paying attention too.

Joey has started football and has practice every Tues & Thur from 6-8pm. I'm really hoping that it helps to bring him out of his shell, and while I am extremely nervous about the whole thing, I am excited because he is the one who came to us asking if he could play. Major downside is he's missing 7 practices while he is gone visiting his dad and his first game. I'm sure he'll be sitting on the bench for a while when he gets back until he can get his tackling skills caught up to the rest of his team.

That's my rant for today, back to homework and errands...

A little bit of magic

Just two short months ago DH and I decided to have a baby. When the decision was made, I cried, he cried and I immediately stopped taking my BC Pills. I weaned off of caffeine and haven't had a drop of alcohol since. All in hopes of getting pregnant and making a healthy baby.

Last week, Sunday the 19th of September to be exact, I got the urge to take a pregnancy test. My emotions overwhelmed me as I looked down and saw the two pink lines showing me that yes, indeed, we are going to have a baby. I went to my first Dr. appt on September 21 where she did confirm that I am pregnant and calculated a due date of May 29, 2011. I cried some more.

Today, I am 5 weeks, 2 days pregnant and I am happier than I have been in a really long time. We are choosing not to tell anyone for a while, with Joey being the first to find out in a few weeks. Our first ultrasound is scheduled for October 21 and at that point I will be 8 weeks pregnant. We plan on telling Joey sometime that week after he gets home from visiting his dad.

It's killing me inside to not tell anyone, but a part of me kind of likes it. It's a little secret that only Paul and I know and I believe it's really brought us closer together. He is my only source of conversation about the topic so of course I'm rattling his ears with new information every day, (not to mention the mood-swings and daily crying bouts). We'd really love to travel home to California sometime around Thanksgiving so that we can tell everyone in person, just not sure how well that will work out. There is no way I can wait until Christmas...

So far I'm feeling pretty good. I'm walking 2-3 miles 5-6 days a week and am eating even healthier than I was before. Nausea is starting to kick in here and there, mostly in the middle of the night and in the morning. I get huge bouts of energy and then I get extremely tired. I try to rest when I am feeling tired because I know it's my body's way of telling me to do so.

I'm so thrilled that we are going to have a baby, and I really don't care if "it's" a boy or a girl as long as it's healthy.  This morning I weighed in at 121lbs and am still pretty small.... makes me wonder how soon I'll start showing, since this is baby #2, and am hoping I can still hide it until at least Thanksgiving. Otherwise they might just be finding out via Skype.

Solving inequality systems & contemplating whether or not communication is intentional

When I signed up for this fall semester of school I had every intention of taking a full load of classes. I felt that I was ready to take on a huge work-load and thought it would be ok to spend hours upon hours doing homework. I was wrong. On the first day of classes, I dropped 2 of them. The two classes that I would have had to go to campus for and the two classes I was most excited about. I didn't drop them because I'm lazy or just didn't want to take them, (because, duh, I have to take them eventually) but I dropped them because I wanted to be able to focus more on the other two classes.

I struggle with math. Introduction to Algebra over the summer was hard for me, especially since I am basically teaching myself. This semester I am taking the next step up, which is Intermediate Algebra or what I'm thinking is the equivalent to "Algebra 2" that most high school sophomores take. Yes, I was one of them 16 years ago and here I am, 30 years old taking it at the college level. Should be interesting.

While I have always felt I was a good communicator I believe that after reading the first chapter in my Human Communication book, I was wrong. I hope to take a lot from this class, once I get over my fear of speaking about topics I have no clue on. It's another online course, which will consist of discussion board posting, weekly assignments and quizzes and of course, a speech. The speech won't be due until December, but I'm already terrified. Paul tells me that's ok, since one of the biggest known fears among people is, yup, public speaking.

Once October rolls around I will be also taking a Sociology class and possibly my next English class. (barf) I need to get it out-of-the-way, I'm just not ready to have someone pick apart every letter of what I write. I love my blog, it doesn't matter what kind of punctuation I have, I just write.

Life has been really good to us this past month. We have been happier than ever in our marriage and I can really feel us growing as a family. Joey turned 11 and is starting to show mannerisms of a "Pre-teen" and he's growing like a weed. His feet are bigger than mine and I'm just patiently waiting for that next growth spurt. His teacher has been great so far, and Joe seems to like him. He had a minor mishap a few weeks ago, throwing away his homework instead of bringing it home to Paul and I, so of course, to teach him a lesson (because that's what good parents do) we grounded him. It's not like he's had a whole lot taken away, just his freedom to play video games on the weekend and go on the computer. I'm hoping he will soon learn his lesson that it's better to just tell the truth than to try to hide it. I ALWAYS FIND OUT!

I heard a new Zac Brown Band song earlier this week and one of the lines has stuck with me... It's really what we've been telling ourselves the past couple of months and it brought tears to my eyes when I heard it sung...

"Roll the dice and have some faith." -Zac Brown Band/Alan Jackson