yet we never really considered the ramifications of those two events coinciding.  when i was pregnant with 1 and got a due date of 10/29, i figured we might be able to stretch it two days.  well, that didn't happen, she was born at 38 weeks.

with 2, it was never a possibility - she was due 12/09 and born just a few days before then.

then 3 came along.  he was due 11/4, i think.  maybe it was 11/6.  either way, he was born on halloween.  everything was wonderful...until he turned two.  we were up in PA that year, and we still had a great halloween and he had a great birthday...

...it was just very, very hectic.  it has gotten progressively more hectic every year.  preschool parties, a little celebration at home, trick-or-treating...gotta fit dinner in there somewhere...the day isn't boring, i'll say that. 

i can also say that although i really, really, want to get this new baby out of me, the thought of having two halloween birthdays makes me cringe a little.

and i'm a little bummed that the costume i was going to wear isn't going to fit me.  yes, it was a costume i already had and wore once several years ago - but it's a one-size-fits-all deal, so i figured i'd be okay.  nope.  not okay.  i probably won't dress up at all.

i briefly considered dressing up as Agnes of God, but i'm pretty sure that only two people in this very Baptist town would have gotten it.  the rest would have just been offended by the concept of a pregnant nun. 

i don't want to dress up as a pregnant housewife again (my standby pregnant costume)...bleh, i'll probably just skip dressing up entirely this year.

so since moving out to the country, we've noticed a definite increase in the amount of wildlife we see.  most notably are the frogs and lizards - there are a veritable ton of tree frogs around here, one of them likes to hang out in my hanging planter - that are all around the house.  huge, enormous spiders - which is probably one of the reasons we don't see very many bugs.  (i thought we'd be up to our necks in bugs...not so much). 

there's a wolf spider the size of my palm living in the workshop out back -  darling husband was actually going to kill it and was quite shocked when i pleaded for its life (dudes, i generally loathe spiders...and pretty much any other kind of insect).  i figure a spider that large has to consume a whole lot of bugs, so he deserves to live.  saw another huge spider outside yesterday, too, it was black and yellow and quite exotic looking.  unfortunately, it also built its web on my washline, so laundry is going to wait until he or she relocates.

when i take my goofy dog outside in the morning, i hear a rooster crowing, which is odd as it's still dark and i thought they waited until sunrise to do that, but i guess he's an early riser?  in any case, every morning, that crowing rooster is answered by a hooting owl.  haven't seen the owl, but i hear it every day.

and the squirrels...we wondered when we first moved in why we weren't seeing squirrels - but they're just apparently really shy out here.  there's a tree in our back yard not far at all from the back door, and my washline is attached to it.  those squirrels are INSANE.  instead of scrambling down the tree like normal squirrels, they jump from the branch they happen to be on and scurry off into the forest.  they actually thud when they hit the ground - these aren't low branches.  we're talking 15 feet off the ground, and they're just flying out of the tree (and they're not the so-called flying variety of squirrel, just regular old eastern grey squirrels).

the *coolest* thing though - the other morning there was a doe in our yard.  darling husband went out to get something from his car, the sun wasn't up yet, but the sky was just starting to lighten, and there's a high pole light that's on all the time, too.  he came back inside and called one of the girls to come see what was outside...i of course followed (other daughter was upstairs brushing her teeth and checking out her winning smile in the mirror) and there she was.  she had her back to us, but then she turned around and stared right at us, even took a few steps toward us.  she was gorgeous.  then she turned and started walking away toward the forest on the other side of the yard, and broke into a slow run before leaping in among the trees.  what an awesome sight!!  our daughter was quite impressed.

i also saw a big old buck running alongside the road the other day on my way back to the house from running errands - it was right around sunset and i thought he was going to run in front of the car, which would have been bad, as i was not in my car, but darling husband's - and that buck was big.  thankfully, he stayed on the side of the road. 

i could do without the skunks.  i haven't actually seen them, but i've smelled 'em.  ew, ew, ew, ew. 

we made a nice discovery, too - there's a persimmon tree at the very edge of the forest lining our yard.  having never had a persimmon, we didn't know what they were, so i had to do some research before identifying it.  hopefully we like the way they taste (the won't be ripe for a while), and if we don't...well, it's still cool that there's a persimmon tree in the back yard.

Wal Mart Keeps Toxic Shoes On Shelves

Short story - woman buys cheap flip flops at WalMart, wears them for a little while here and there, develops what turns out to be a burn exactly where the straps/thong hit.  WalMart reacts negatively toward her, and keeps the shoes on the shelves, while passing the buck to the Chinese (shocker there, huh?) manufacturer.

God, I hate Wal Mart.

um, yeah, that might have been hasty of me to make such a claim.  perhaps it should have been prefaced with "when it's 92 and below"  this weather blows.

on the other hand, the new house rocks.  so does the trampoline, although i only jumped on it once...and i won't be doing that again until perhaps next spring.  baby did not like it. 

the new yard is...large.  i decided yesterday evening that i couldn't take it anymore and it needed mowing - lo and behold, our mower made the move the day before, so how could i resist?  everyone knows how much i love to mow the lawn...and i've missed normalcy.  so i figured i'd cut the grass just around the house and the trampoline, take it nice and easy and slow (it was still hot, and let's face it, i'm 6 months pregnant).  i cut that damn grass for nearly 3 hours.  and that really was just around the house and the trampoline, with just a bit of back yard thrown in there (technically, the trampoline is in the back...)  there's so much more to cut!!  darling husband may be onto something when he states that we're going to need a tractor.  i don't mind pushing the lawn mower around, i really do love cutting the grass...but i don't have time to spend an entire day just cutting the grass, which is probably about how long it would take to do the entire yard that way.  next year it won't be so bad, we'll have the garden going by then, so that will cut down the amount needing mowing nicely.  and i'm thinking we need more trees and shrubs and stuff.

the mouse who was invading the new kitchen seems to have eaten the poison.  sad and depressing, i know.  but i won't mind not cleaning up mouse poop out of my kitchen drawers, under the stove, on the counter...if i could have just gotten a cat, i would have.  if gunner could handle a cat in the house, i'd be all about it to keep the mice at bay - and that's saying something coming from me (the idea of a litter box completely grosses me out...and i refuse to clean one).  but gunner is a freak.  and he's old.  so there will probably not be any cats for mouse control.  we got d-con instead.  *sigh*  as much as it depresses me to poison a mouse, i think it might be a better way to go than the sticky traps that the exterminator gave us - not that the sticky traps worked, the mouse went around it.  but thinking about it...*shudder*  i think i'd rather be poisoned than stuck to something and freaking out, killing myself in the process of trying to get unstuck.

oh, and we tried the humane trap, too (the Mouse Cube - they can get in, but they can't get out until someone dumps 'em out in the location of their choosing - far, far away from the house), but as one of our friends pointed out, mice haven't survived all these years and in every single climate by being stupid.

still ate the poison, though.  today i get the pleasure of the final cleaning (hopefully) of mouse poop from my kitchen.  after that, i'm going to try the steel wool thing my mom suggested to keep more of them from getting in the house....trouble is, i'm not sure where their access point is.

and why am i blathering on about this?  because i'm tired and really don't feel like doing anything, let alone a massive cleaning of the kitchen.  i need to do it, though.  there are no available flat surfaces in the house because all of the kitchen stuff still hasn't been put away - because of the mouse.

i just got a good motivator to get up, though.  gunner is lying down on the floor right beside me and apparently has some nasty gas.  eeeeewwww.....guess he shouldn't have raided the trash last night and eaten the remains of that black bean enchilada...

...who's been pissing me off and causing me ever greater levels of stress for the past two weeks.  i can't post details yet due to some circumstances that will be revealed after the weekend. 

no, it wasn't darling husband.

it was a guy who works with darling husband, but thankfully not in the same department.  i had occaision to be in the same room with him today, which i was hoping wouldn't happen because i seriously doubted my ability to hold my tongue and turn the other cheek.

well, i know myself a little too well, as it turns out.  i let him have it.  i gave him the earjob of his life, telling him everything that has pissed me off about him and how he's a useless sack...for about five full minutes. 

apparently, being berated by a mean-ass pregnant woman was just what he needed.  he sent darling husband an email apologizing profusely. 

but i didn't need the apology - not even remotely.  just yelling at him and getting it all off my chest made me feel soooooo much better.

and i don't like to mention names on my blog, so i won't, but i will say this - his first name is the same as my ex-husband's...it must be a requirement that to have that name you have to be an idiot.  every dude i'ver known with that name has been one.  it's a little weird, actually.

It's Finnish.  And I can't seem to turn it off...

Just Listen To This...

...But, I thought you'd all love to know that I finished it at 2pm today.  It was good.  I laughed, I cried.  I'd read what I thought was a fake version of the epilogue on Friday afternoon (I thought it was too cheesy to be real).  Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a real leak…other than the cheesy epilogue, I am quite satisfied that this book was a fitting conclusion to the series.

Although one of the deaths really pissed me off.  And I can see a ton of parents getting all up in arms about the swearing, because there's quite a bit more of it in this one than in the others – previously, the extent of it was damn and hell, and it's few and far between.  This one, however, has a load of that plus a helping of bastard, and one big, healthy bitch (totally called for and absolutely necessary). 

I thought I'd be sad that it's all over, now…no more HP books to look forward to…but I'm really not.  It was a good conclusion.  And  my big theory was absolutely dead-on (although I read the previous 6 books obsessively, over and over...so it would have been sort of sad and pathetic had I not been right...).  I'm going to re-read this one now, as I sort of raced through it.  I'm sure I missed a few things, I always do on my first read-through...yeah, I'm a geek!  I just don't care! (see my hands in the air?  i'm wavin' 'em around like i just don't...well, you get the idea)

i figured the time was ripe, so here it is.  and for those curious as to where my hip, stylish maternity clothes came from - i made 'em, right at the very desk you can see in my belly pics.