2 Weeks And Counting

We are around the two week mark. It is actually about 17 days or so. I am not counting down to St. Patrick’s Day. I am counting down to the arrival of Tori’s baby brother. If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been around much lately. We have been doing a lot of last minute prep and we have all collectively been fighting colds and tiredness. I think overall Tori has been the healthiest the last few weeks up until this week. Last night she spiked a fever of 103. It went down but it is back. Poor little bug. She is having a rough time breaking it. This is her first real “sick” with fever this long. I have been spoiling her a lot lately and since she is a smart baby, I think she is deliberately keeping her fever up so that daddy spoils her more than I usually would.

I went off track. 2 weeks until the new arrival. I am already exhausted. Mrs. Voices is exhausted, and she should be. We think we are at a place though where the baby can come and we would be ready. Tori is moved into her new room and I just have a load of laundry or two left for the bassinet and what not for the little guy. What we still aren’t done with yet, is picking a name. We are getting closer though. We are finally starting to come together on some names. We are not going to have any of the names I really want but, I guess that is ok. Is it acceptable to wait until he can talk and just let him pick his own name? That might be even worse.

Hmm. I am really at a loss for what I was going to write about next. Well, just want to let you know I am all still here and just be ready for exciting news to come soon. No, it won’t be that I got a new job paying me millions of dollars. If I ever do have millions of dollars, just remember, I will not forget all my loyal readers and I will send you all at least a dollar. Generous ain’t I?

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I Got Dirty At Church

Well, just a little bit. It is Ash Wednesday. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it is NOT an Evil Dead marathon. It is when Catholics and some other denominations as well, go and have ashes on their forehead reminding us that we were made from dirt and to dirt we will return. I am what I call a recovering Catholic. I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic grade school and Jr. High. Then I went to a public high school. There were a lot of things even back then that made me curious about why the Catholics were the right and only true church (in their opinion), but these days, as an adult, there are a lot of things I don’t agree with because of me being a grown up. I am not going to get into all that right now. I want to talk about the experience.

Because of what I mentioned above, we are not avid church goers. We aren’t really even Christers (pronounced kree-stirs), or those that only go at Christmas and Easter. We do go for weddings and the occasional baptism and we go now and then so we can get our babies baptized. Mrs. Voices is more Catholic than I am so there is that.

A while back, one of my favorite blogs WhatImenat2say, warned me that some of the wording has changed in the Catholic mass. This was disturbing to me. While I am not a big church goer, I am still looking for the structure that the mass taught me as a child. I don’t like change. I should have paid more attention to that blog post because Mrs. Voices and I kept saying the wrong things. I needed notes. Although, that wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as taking Tori to her first mass as a talking 16 month old.

When the pipe organ started playing, Tori danced. That was cute. When people started singing, Tori broke out in “la la la la la”. That was also cute. Then, Tori wanted to go to mama. I passed her off and Tori started playing with mommy’s necklace … the “pretties”. Then Tori started doing her next favorite thing. She started pulling on Mrs. Voices’ shirt collar. The Mrs. was able to pull it back up in time. Nothing fell out. The problem was, is that it was very quiet at this particular time during the mass. Tori learned a new word a while back. She pulls at mommy’s shirt and says “NIPPLE” really loud. I laughed a little. So did the people around us. I love going to church with children.

In other news, Whitney Houston is still dead and the flags are back up to full staff. Eating Girl Scout cookies will not cause your daughter to become a homosexual and you will not have to have an abortion and you will not have a sex change operation, unless of course you are a republican living in Indiana.

No TV … Day Three

And hopefully the last. I am not saying I am addicted to TV … but I think I am addicted to TV. While it has been a good few nights without the box blaring in the background, or the foreground, I am finding that me not having something to draw my attention is a bad thing for one main reason. Tori. I never ignore her, in fact I play with her all the time when the TV is going. The problem is, without the TV grabbing at least some of my attention, I find various ways to amuse myself at her expense. Last night, it entailed giving her a piece of spaghetti. Someone told me to give her that and now I know why. OH EM GEE! She was soooo cute. At first, she couldn’t figure out how to get it in her mouth since it kept sliding out. Then, she got frustrated with that and decided it was what she calls “pretties”. That is jewelry to her. She tried to wear it like a necklace. I finally broke it into smaller bites for her after I felt she suffered enough. I would have taken video of it to share but a) I was laughing too damn hard b) I was cooking and cooking and laughing that hard can be rather dangerous, at least for me.

Tonight, my amusement consisted of making the little parrot and myna bird go through a myriad of songs, dances, recitations and otherwise cute stuff. We do have some on video but I will have to see if Mrs. Voices will let herself be on video published to tens of people, and I have to see how goofy I sound. I heard her showing Tori a video earlier and my voice is just AWFUL! Strange that I want to do voices for a living huh? Maybe that is why I do so many because I think my real voice is comical in itself.

Anyhoo, the little middle voice has gone to bed, we are eating our Paczkis and I will be getting the spreadsheet out tomorrow to figure out how much in therapy for Tori this no tv thing is going to cost me.

No TV … Day Two

We are surviving! I came home tonight and with no distractions, other than Tori wanting to help me cook, I was able to make dinner and we ate at a reasonable time. Eggplant parm ala Bob. It was good. Pretty healthy too with no breading. That is not the point though. We ate, played with Tori, put her to bed and now … we are going up to the bedroom to do something we haven’t done in a long time. We are both going to read a book. Not sure what I am going to read yet. I have a few on the shelf. I will decide when I get there. Mrs. Voices will probably read some book in this series she reads that seem to take all of the titles from spaghetti westerns like “Outlaw Demon Wales”, “Pale Demon”, etc. So night all!

Watch What You Say

I should re-title that, “I Should Watch What I Say”. This is our first full day without a TV downstairs. Don’t get excited, we are NOT making some grand gesture by getting television out of our lives or anything like that. It is just broken. It is being fixed on Wed. The nice thing is that we played with Tori a little extra, I did a lot of cleaning and stuff, and I will have a lot of things to watch on DVR when the TV gets fixed. The bad thing is, I think my brain is wilting from actually having to think on its own. I am saying things I really shouldn’t.

The first thing was when Mrs. Voices was going to the store. I asked her to pick me up a new pack of undershirts, which I sorely needed. I told her what kind and size and she asked if I still needed the big size that I have been wearing forever even though I have lost a considerable amount of weight over the past 3 years. I told her I still did because I need the length due to my freakishly long torso (I am just about 6’2″ and I only have a 30 in. inseam). I explained that with the smaller size, they shrink and I don’t have the ability to tuck them in properly. I then proceeded to say “and you know how I like to tuck”. This was not the thing to say to a woman who never misses an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Needless to say there was making fun of me involved after.

The second thing I said was when I had Tori in the kitchen with me teaching her how to cook. Yes, she LOVES to be with me when I cook. She will stand at the gate and yell “COOK!” when I am in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it was only a frozen pizza tonight. Still, she was enthralled with the process. By the time I am a drooling, slobbery, senile mess she will be ready to cook for me. But I digress. She has a bit of a runny nose, big surprise, and I tried to wipe her nose with a Kleenex. She sniffed and I said “Tori, your nose is gross, do you want me to suck it?” Now, anyone with small children will know what I meant, but in the back of my head, there was still that gross factor and image of me sucking her snotty nose.

There was one other thing that I said today, but, with my brain not being that active, I have forgotten it from the time I started writing this until now. Man, that sucks. As I recall it was pretty darn amusing. Oh well.

To make your day a little brighter, here is a video of Tori that Mrs. Voices took today. She was dancing with Elmo (Tori, not Mrs. Voices) and then decided to talk to herself in the camera. I may be biased but she is so damn cute!!

 

How To Make Enemies At Work

Yes ladies and gentleman, it is another VIMB “How To” moment. Today’s moment is brought to you by the acrid smell of burnt popcorn as it wafts through the office on a Friday afternoon, making the end of a long and arduous work week all the more needed. So, without further adieu but a large middle finger to the person that does this EVERY week …

How To Make Enemies At Work

1. Remove the outer plastic wrapper from a bag of microwave popcorn
2. Unfold bag and place in work-place microwave oven
3. Press “popcorn” button
4. After approximately two and a half minutes, when timer ends, press “popcorn button again (alternately you can set the timer for 5 more minutes)
5. Go back to your desk
6. When the smoke and smell of failure finally reach your desk, go to microwave and remove your smoldering bag
7. Place directly into garbage can without dousing in water
8. Walk away so no one knows it was you
9. Make new bag of popcorn in microwave oven on other side of office

 

 

In The Home Stretch

Today is Feb 15th. The new baby is due March 17th. I have mentioned before, probably more than once, that the overwhelming feelings are setting in. The main thing is, the house. It is a disaster. I did get Tori’s new room painted, but I still have yet to get everything put back together and put away and all that. We have stuff everywhere. Not just Tori’s toys, but stuff all over. It’s not dirty and we aren’t hoarders or anything like that. We just need a good spring cleaning and then a good cleaning. We have both been pretty tired. I really need to order groceries from Peapod. At least that saves some time not schlepping to the grocery store.

I would LOVE LOVE LOVVVVVVE to hire a cleaning service to come in and give the house a real good, thorough cleaning. The problem that I have is that I would have to clean before I could have someone come in and clean. I don’t mean I would have to put things away and straighten up. I mean that I would have to CLEAN the house. I don’t think I could let someone else come in and think that we are slobs or don’t do anything. I am lazy not disgusting. I know it is there job to come in and clean. I know I shouldn’t be self conscious because I know there are people that are a million times worse. I just have issues. Many, MANY issues. I guess I will have plenty of time to clean after the baby comes when I take a few days off work when he and Mrs. Voices will be sleeping … a LOT. I will just have to make sure it is one of the days that Tori goes to day care or to grandma’s.

The recent celebrity deaths, well, Whitney Houston mainly, have brought an increase to views on my blog again this week. The odd thing is however, once again, the search terms that are causing hits to my blog, have NOT been Whitney Houston, Don Cornelius, Jeffrey Zaslow or any other recently deceased celebs. It is Grease, Olivia Newton-John and Sandy again. I don’t get it. I think I am just going to put those tags in my posts every day just for giggles.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I wore a tie to work today. I normally do not dress anywhere close to that nice. I usually wear jeans and a collared shirt of some sort. Even on client days I wear khakis. Today it was slacks, dress shoes, tie … the whole nine yards. Why? Why not. It was Valentine’s day and I decided I would look nice for my wife who would see me for 30 seconds as I left for work and wouldn’t see me since I would be changed into different clothes by the time she got home. That and me and another guy at work wanted to see how many people would ask us if we had job interviews. I told people I was going on a mob hit later in the day. It actually felt nice to dress nice. It gives a certain respect the client meetings we had today as well. That is something that I can honestly say I think is lacking from today’s yutes.

A few years ago, I was between career assignments and was going on numerous interviews. I always wore a suit. It was in the middle of the summer and in was 90 plus degrees. I always wore a suit. I am wondering if I maybe didn’t get some of the jobs I interviewed for because I was over dressed. A lot of the people I interviewed with, wore jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts … I very often times felt uncomfortable. I have seen a few interviewees coming into our office for job interviews and they aren’t even wearing a polo shirt. The dress like they just came from a head shop and decided to apply for a job. I feel that is a lack of respect. That and the whole “business casual” has just gone to “casual crap”. I just don’t think that ripped jeans and t-shirts should be worn when you hold a certain position or if you are giving a presentation. Shorts should never be worn at work unless you are a lifeguard or a mail man/woman. Enough of that.

While I am ranting about respect, how about respect for the flag. I am NOT some conservative or liberal whack job. I just don’t think that the flag should be lowered to half staff for a celebrities funeral. Yeah, New Jersey is doing that Saturday. Along those lines of respect, her fans are all ticked off that there isn’t going to be a public memorial. Now, I don’t care one way or the other but, I have always felt that a wake/funeral should always be for friends and families unless maybe you are a head of state or someone ultra super important to the world. Not if you are a drug addict. Yeah, I said it. I can’t respect someone who does that to their life especially when they more than have the means to get help. I understand it is a disease. That doesn’t mean it isn’t controllable. Even with that feeling, I think that is any family, wants to grieve, they should be allowed to do it in private if they want.

Well, that became a downer really quick and way went off the rails.

On a lighter note, I finally got Tori’s new bedroom painted. With any luck, this weekend will have everything moved in to the new room and I can start getting the rest of the house clean and ready. The new little guy is due 4 weeks from Friday! FOUR WEEKS!!! St. Patrick’s Day! That is not far off at all. I am feeling the stress but of course I know it is all worth it. I mean, I will get a few days off work after all.

 

 

There Was An Award Show?

While I like listening to music, I have to admit I am not a music-phile, or whatever it would be called. I will often times be accused of listening to music that went out of style with half the clothes I still keep in my closet. So, I really had no desire to watch the Grammy Awards last night. So, we didn’t, until the last hour and a half that is. I saw things I did NOT want to see, things I didn’t care about and quite frankly, things that scared the hell out of me. While I didn’t see the whole show, I can say the following based on what I did see.

– I am glad that Taylor Swift finally ran out of eyeliner. Not because I like her and think she looks better, but because I hope it causes her great pain.

– Carrie Underwood still has no personality when she sings.

– Speaking of no personality, Blake Shelton should just remove himself from everything. When he sings without a guitar, he looks like Kathryn Hepburn the later years. Other times, he just looks blank and lost. Plus, he sounds horrible. My opinion.

– Tony Bennett … Well, he’s Tony Bennett. As I heard today “He is like 1116 years old and he still gets more tail than a waiter at Red Lobster.”

– Glen Campbell sounded the same as he has as far as I can remember. Yeah, I used to listen to him when he could remember I did.

– Adele … when she speaks she reminds me of Eliza Doolittle. When she was accepting last night, all I could think of was …

– The head of the Grammys gives a big speech about pirating music and then they have Steve Jobs in the dead people tribute as an innovator in digital music. Yeah, he gave everyone an iPod so they would want to go online and download all kinds of illegal music. They however didn’t recognize other people that died.

– I forgot, they gave a tribute to Whitney Houston. Don’t make me go there. Hate me if you will but … no. Never mind.

– I really don’t get the mouse head that lights up. Why?

– L.L. Cool Whip gave a 3 second tribute to Don Cornelius. At least it was more than Etta James got.

– Chris Brown channeled the wardrobe of Run-DMC. That was all he channeled.

– Foo fought well.

– Dave, Bruce and Joe did pretty well with Sir Paul.

– Nicki Minaj was horrible. Do people actually like her? And why does she have to have an alter ego?

What does any of this have to do with anything that you, the reader cares about? Not much. My opinions. I am realizing I am getting grumpier and crankier as the days go on. Probably work related. Plus, every day I put a tag for Whitney Houston in my blog, I get tons of hits. Yeah, it is cheap to use this as a ratings booster but, too late.

A Promise Fulfilled

First, I am going to get it out of the way. No, I didn’t have her on a list. No, I didn’t even think of putting her on a list because I didn’t think she was still relevant. She’s dead. That is my mention.

Now, onto things that actually have a bearing on my life. A while ago I talked about us going for the 3D/4D ultrasound. I promised pictures. I am putting up the one that I like.

I think he looks like me.