Week eight is over. I've been preggers for two months already -- whoa. Only seven or so to go.

Still no morning sickness, thank the Good Lord. And my food aversions seem to be lessening in intensity a little. Or maybe I'm just getting used to things tasting weird. I'm definitely hungry more often lately, and been eating more as a result, but seem to have still only gained that one pound. Huh. Maybe it's because I've been trying to eat healthy things more? Still, today I ate a whole mini-bag of popcorn, and yesterday there was the ice cream incident. Huh.

I've had a cold since Wednesday, but I only felt really crappy on Thursday and the rest of the time I've just been ishy and blah, lots of sneezing and nose-blowing. Used it as a nice excuse not to go to work for a few days, though. I've got gobs of sick time that I've never used, and why overdo things when I can take it easy and rest, right? So me and Gumdrop have spent a few nights lounging about watching movies and tv shows, mostly Westerns. Gotta raise this kid right, you know ;-)

Yeah, I've taken to thinking of the baby as "Gumdrop" cuz right now it's about an inch big and that's the size of a good gumdrop. And I like gumdrops, although I rarely get to eat them. Besides, it's cute, but not tooooo cutesy, and non-gender-specific. I'm sure I'll come up with a new nickname for it for this blog once it's born, but for now, Gumdrop will suffice.

Hmm. I seem to recall blizzards being more exciting when I was a kid. We had a blizzard here tonight, in that we had winds and snow. Whenever I looked out the window, I could still see the house next door, and the snow was never blowing at a more than 45 degree angle. Guess blizzards are different in town than out on the flat MI farmland where I grew up. But we got quite a bit of snow, or so it seems -- I haven't been out, as I'm just getting over a cold and would like to continue getting over it. But they were predicting 7-10 inches for tonight... and we got almost a foot last night too....

Cowboy's not home from work yet (I didn't go to work at all cuz of the snow), but it doesn't look like they've plowed our street yet, so he'll probably have to park out on main and walk the two blocks down to our house like he did yesterday.

And to think it was in the 50s earlier this week!

Update: Cowboy is home and shoveling the driveway. He estimates we got another 10 inches, which means at least 20 inches total for the past two days. And it's snowing again. They say we'll get another 3-5 today, then an inch or so of freezing rain on top of it. Yeah. Snow, I like. Freezing rain, not so much. They've closed the interstate, one of the roads I use to get to work, and most of the town where I work is shut down. The cops say that unless it's a medical emergency, they're not coming. If you get stuck in a ditch, it's your own fault for being stupid. And if the cops in their Crown Vics with studded tires don't want to be out....

I have a new rule for myself. I'm only allowed to go in the Media Warehouse once a month. Because every time I go in there, I buy vinyl. Yes, last night I went there to rent the Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection and ended up buying Elvis Sings Flaming Star as well.

It's not that I'm a huge Elvis fan. I like his music, sure, but he's not one of my top five favorite oldies artists. But, you see, when I was very little -- three our four years old -- I fell in love with Elvis' Christmas Album, which my parents had on LP. I would listen to it over and over (still do, only on CD now) and stare at the back cover, which had little pictures of other Elvis albums from the era. And one of those other albums was Elvis Sings Flaming Star. Even though I couldn't read, I knew I wanted to hear that record. Why? Because he's wearing a cowboy hat on the cover, of course! And to my tiny-Hamlette eyes, he looked a lot like James Dean's character Jett Rink from the movie Giant, with whom I was already in love by that point.

So last night I went to the Media Warehouse solely with the purpose of renting the Pink cartoons. But I had to check to see if they had any new Bobby vinyl, of course. They didn't, but the Elvis section caught my eye and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if... nah, they'd never have it."

But they did!

So I spent a joyous night wearing my Pink Panther "Cool Cat" t-shirt and Pink Panther slippers, listening to an Elvis album I've wanted to hear for 23+ years, and watching classic cartoons starring the only pink thing I really like :-) I maybe anti-pink, but I'm pro-Pink Panther!

Well, here I am at the end of week seven. The icky taste in my mouth has gotten worse -- sometimes it helps to chew gum or eat a little something, but as soon as that new taste fades, the icky taste comes back. But still no morning sickness. However, I'm starting to get really turned off by most foods. Like, just the thought of eating something makes me go, "Nah, why bother, that doesn't sound tasty at all." The only things that really make me say, "That sounds yummy!" right now are milk and anything involving tomatoes.

But I've been making myself eat anyway, trying to get in as much protein and calcium as I can, and also trying to eat fresh fruits and veggies more. Haven't gained any weight yet, but that ubiquitous little book, What to Expect When You're Expecting, says that normal weight gain for the first trimester really should only be like four or five pounds. And I've got five weeks yet, so maybe I'll just gain some gradually and healthily.

Why do people think I'm weird because I wear a scarf? Okay, granted, it's an absurdly long scarf, but when it's cold outside, who doesn't want their ears and nose to be warm? It was -3 when I got off work this morning, with a -20 windchill. So I wound my scarf around my face and happily walked in comfy warmth to my car, as opposed to all the brainiacs who mocked me for my scarf and then spent twenty minutes on the way home trying to remember what their nose feels like.

Well, I've got six weeks down, about 34 more to go. Cuhrayzee, huh? So far I haven't had any morning sickness; I'm convinced that half the time people wouldn't have morning sickness at all if they didn't expect to have it and so every time they feel the least bit nauseated, they think, "Oh no! It must be morning sickness! I'm going to throw up!" and then they do. So I am firmly saying to myself, "I am not going to throw up. I am not going to have morning sickness." So far, so good. I do feel a little off half the time, just sort of vaguely blah, and my mouth tastes funky sometimes, kind of like it tastes when I'm dehydrated. Except I'm not dehydrated, but I bought some Gatorade to drink today just in case my electrolytes are out of whack.

Weirdest thing so far: I seem to have lost my sweettooth! I can eat sweet things, but they're just nnhhh. Except for chocolate milk, I love that. But salty things? I am all about the salty foods this last week or so. Salty and tangy. Maybe I have a salt deficiency? I don't salt most of my foods, and we don't cook with a lot of salt, so that could be. Hmmm.

I've now listened to both sides of my new Bobby Darin record several times, and I definitely like the spoken-ballad "The Reverend Mr. Black" and the hotly minor "Not for Me" best, with "Walk Right In" running third. Alas, the arrangement of "Rhythm of the Rain" is disappointingly chipper, although there's a nice little brassy trumpet section in the middle.

One of the other songs totally cracks me up, though: "I Will Follow Her." You know the song "I Will Follow Him" by whatever 60's girl group performed it? Well, this is that same song, only with the genders reversed, which just makes it sound like a stalker song. The first time I heard it, I totally cracked up, and it still makes me giggle every time I hear it. Silly Bobby! Of course, it's not nearly as creepy as that ultimate stalker song, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, but still!

So today something happened at work that really made me go, "Whoa, I'm pregnant." I mean, so far I've been really blessed and haven't had morning sickness at all, and even the tenderness in my chestuses has been diminished these last few days. But when I was eating lunch today (around 2:30am), all of a sudden in the middle of my sandwich and yogurt, I got the table-spins! I was just reading LotR and eating as usual and then the whole lunchroom turned into a tilt-a-whirl. It only lasted for probably ten seconds, though it felt a lot longer, but I was really glad I was sitting down when it hit. Eeep! I took a bunch of deep slow breaths and it went away and didn't happen again, thank the good Lord. I came home and googled to see if dizzyness is a symptom of early pregnancy, and sure enough, it is. Ew. Hope it doesn't happen sometime when I'm like on top of a ladder or something!

Baby, it's cold outside! As in, the bank said -22 when I drove past a little before 7am! Yikes! And the windchill is supposed to be anywhere between -25 and -35! Double yikes! It's so cold that the last time I heard, 150+ area schools are closed for the day! Boy howdy, I sure wish they'd close down my Wal-Mart so I wouldn't have to go out tonight -- when it's supposed to be even colder!

We have a date! July 21st! That's when the seventh, and final, Harry Potter book comes out! Woooooooo! I will definitely be preordering this time around, as I'm actually planning to buy it since I now have the first six. I'm quite psyched! It's called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in case you haven't heard.

Woooo!

Oh, and all that news about how two more main characters are dying off? As I said about the last book, what do I have to worry about? My favorite character died in book five! (But I'd be really really really really sad if Ron or Hagrid died. Oddly enough, if my second-favorite character, Severus Snape, died, I would probably be okay with that.)