on guard.

[meet baby wells. from top to bottom: long fingers just like his momma; side profile; velociraptor foot.
photo is held up by a little magnet we bought in paris -- he's our favorite gargoyle at notre dame. lost his foot in a fall last year.]

last week b took the latest ultrasound photos to school, to make a requested photocopy for a relative. he accidentally left the original on the copy machine and didn't realize it till sunday night.

he was upset about it so we took off for byu at 7 p.m. to see if it was still there. no big deal, i said -- i lose the baby all the time, only in my case it's just in my dreams and he's already born. have i mentioned i've had CRAZY dreams since i got pregnant? most of the time they have to do with forgetting to feed him for a week or not knowing how to breastfeed -- apparently i have subconscious fears on this subject. last week i dreamed i kept forgetting where i put him...and then b and i had a huge fight about how to change his diaper, and then i woke up and was inexplicably mad at b in real life for five hours.

but anyway. success! the photos were still there, of course, because byu is full of honest do-gooders who'd never think to steal them. we grabbed them, brought them home and stuck them up in their rightful place on our refrigerator door.

as b was sticking them to the fridge, i said, "stop losing our baby, okay?"
he said, "don't worry, the gargoyle is protecting him now. he's safe."

hopefully the gargoyle sticks around after this baby is born, because baby's momma will most likely lose him. maybe i should bring the magnet to colorado just in case.

the new ride.

next time, please remind me to avoid buying a new car and having a partially-insured-out-of-state baby within the same four-month timeframe. my financial stress level can't handle it.

workin it

above is the sweet view from my new office. last week we moved some people around at work and i ended up in a roomy new space, all to myself [prior to this, i'd been working from a bigger office that i shared with a co worker]. amusing downside to the new office: it's techically a hallway, because it has two doors -- one of which leads to our product room, so i have people walking through often. upside: i now overlook the gas station next door, the 15 freeway and gorgeous mt. timpanogos. not a bad setup.

got some unfortunate news last week...due to the pending summer move and this whole baby thing, i gotta quit my job when we go to colorado. boo for non-steady paychecks. i'll be launching a little freelance PR career here in a bit [which i'm actually pretty excited about], so feel free to fling leads my way.

b, on the other hand, is rockin it in the mba world. some of his schoolmates are still trying to nail down internships for the summer, while we've had this taken care of since before christmas. we have been so blessed not only with a great summer job for him BUT one that is ever-so-accomodating -- they've been sending him little welcome gifts and answering all my momma-to-be questions, and we learned last week that they'll be putting us up in uber comfy digs for the summer. i was nervous we'd have to bring baby dub home to a dump, but it looks like it will be quite the opposite.

also, he was chosen to be executive vice pres of the marketing association in his program for next year. i'm not really sure what that means just yet, but i know from personal experience he is the world's best VP.

[in college, i was the president of byu's chapter of the public relations student society of america -- i actually met b when he was elected as one of my VPs. the first thing i ever learned about him was when our council got together for introductions and each had to share our favorite quote. he used a line from a killers song and i thought he was a weirdo. luckily our relationship improved from there.]

annnnd he got a job as a TA for an undergrad marketing class for next year. i'm so glad someone will be bringing home the bacon in one form or another, since apparently i suck at maintaining my role as sole breadwinner. this baby better be worth it.

snow + a car accident

i swear, on monday i wore sandals and cuffed jeans withOUT a jacket and i was delighted the entire day, thinking march meant that spring had come. hallelujah! i made it through a utah winter! but noooo. the fates had something else planned and on thursday a fluke snowstorm blew in. friday morning i woke up to the scene above -- snow everywhere, and more coming. barf.

around 9:15 a.m. yesterday i got a call from b -- he'd been in a car accident. yippee. he was fine [luckily!!!!] but his car was not.

he'd been driving south on state street [by the mall, for those of you familiar with the area] and a woman, driving the opposite direction, turned left RIGHT in front of him; he didn't even have time to brake till it was too late. luckily there were witnesses, and the cops who showed up confirmed she was completely at fault...something about failing to yield. idiot.

anyway, her car was beat up, but she had neck injuries after taking the full force of impact and had to be taken to the hospital via ambulance. she was gone by the time i got there to pick b up. he was miraculously fine, except for a bloody nose and scraped up hands from the airbag deployment [which i personally consider to be the most exciting part of the whole thing...never saw an airbag deploy before. b said it was dusty and smelled bad]. his car, on the other hand, was not so fine.

haven't gotten the official word but the tow truck people said it looks totaled -- too much damage to the wheels, engine, motor etc. the windshield is cracked and the front is jacked up. poor little car. b bought that when he got home from his mission in 2003 and has taken great care of it; we are sad to see it go. hopefully the dumb lady's insurance will give us enough money to buy something new.





i'm starting to get really sick of all these emergency phone calls happening in our family lately...hopefully next week will be a little less eventful than the past two have been. but i'm SO grateful everyone is okay! [my bro is doing much better and can probably get a clean bill of health in one month...and needless to say i'm REALLY glad b isn't injured or dead.] heavenly father has been watching out for us, that's for sure.

make sure you say your prayers every day :)

ode to target

i've blogged before about the target effect, where just entering the wonderful world of target exponentially increases the amount of products you're planning to buy. it started for me when we lived in LA, although our target there was right off of la cienega and kind of ghetto. then we moved to pasadena where i went to the 2-story store right on colorado blvd at least once a week and always ended up with something wonderful.

and now, we live one stoplight away from a SUPER target. i can do all my grocery shopping there, plus all my regular target shopping -- shoes, clothes, makeup, home decor, craft supplies -- and it's conveniently placed right on my drive home. dangerous.

it's ridiculous how often i go to target now. [another bad habit, developed in pasadena -- having a trader joe's on the walk home from the train meant that i stopped there usually every other day. i'm now used to being a repeat visitor.] i feel like an AA member, like i should start counting how long i can go without a target trip -- currently: 4 days.

anyway, friday night we went to cafe rio for dinner to use up some gift cards, and stopped at target on the way home to look for shoes. that was the "reason" we had for going in...but of course we ended up there for way longer. blame it on the target effect.

i wanted to walk around a bit, so we wandered up and down all the big aisles. eventually we ended up in the back near the patio furniture, which looked really comfy...so we grabbed books from the book section and parked it on the padded recliners to read. [this is a common activity...we've read at target before. we also like to hang out at barnes & noble for similar reasons.] luckily we didn't get kicked out...utahns, i've noticed, are quite passive creatures. i doubt any store workers would have had the cajones to try to ask us to move.

so we're just sitting there reading and b says "man, target is the best. they have everything here. if there's ever a zombie invasion, we're moving into target." [see: zombieland obsession.] then, five minutes later: "actually, maybe not. they don't have guns. we'd have to get guns before we moved in."

i'm so glad i have a husband who is adequately prepared for zombie invasions. and i am so glad i live close to target for fun date nights like that.