What an emotional week this has been!

Tuesday was the day for my scheduled induction of Sophie. Turns out she had other plans. At around 6:45 Sunday morning, I woke up having strange pains. I wondered if I was having contractions, but it didn't "fit" - felt different than when I was in labour with Emma, and running through the checklist from the doctor (belly tightening, gets worse, can't talk or walk through the pain) didn't really help. My husband woke up at 730 and asked if I was ok. I honestly answered, "I don't know!" I had him start keeping track of the timing just in case, and when I realized it was happening every three minutes (which puts me in the "10 an hour" range for the doctor) I had him call the office.

The on-call doctor said I should come to the hospital to get checked out, just in case. So my husband woke up Emma, she salted the front steps, he tried to shovel the ice off (unsuccessfully) and showered, I finished packing, and we got ready to leave. Thinking that we'd probably be sent back home, I didn't hurry, and we both thought we had hours. Finally around 930 I was putting on my shoes to leave when my water broke.

Ok, maybe I'm a little late in this revelation. Maybe VERY late, considering she's coming in three days. But this entire pregnancy, even though I can feel Sophie moving around, have seen her ultrasound pictures, and have been preparing like crazy for this little person to come, it's felt almost like a visitor was coming, somoene else's child. Especially since we know what day she's going to be born. (Which, by the way, I LOVE since we have Emma and the dogs to plan for.)

Then yesterday, I was thinking about the shelves in her room. When Emma was born, I had lots of pretties to put on the shelves. There was a music box doll I had as a small child, flowers I got as a gift in the hospital, a couple figurines, things like that. Nearly 12 years later, they are all still in Emma's room. I tried to think of something I could put up in Sophie's room, but found myself thinking "That's personal, though." Then it hit me - what is more personal than our baby??

I gave myself a drunken haircut.

Don't make fun. 

It felt right at the time.

A couple of glasses of Chardonnay after a really good workout last Saturday evening. And well, it just happened. I was feeling relaxed. I was feeling confident. I looked in the mirror, twisted them just like the stylist does...and snipped. And then I realized, er, I cut them a little short.

I didn't leave much room for error.

Yes. I cut my bangs when I was drunk. Now for the big reveal...

Sure, they're a bit uneven. Sure, they don't look amazing. Maybe they aren't exactly "fly." Just deal. I'm the one that has to live with them.

After I cut them that evening, I showed up at my father in law's birthday party where my husband and my new family proceeded to laugh and point out how uneven they are. (Thanks guys.)

Oh well! Such is life.

Here's what I learned: Sometimes you make mistakes. But just like life, things will take care of themselves.

They'll grow out.

What I'm wondering is...Has anyone else ever given themselves their own hair cut? I wonder if it matters what you drink and what kind of haircut you get?

Like, for instance, drink Franzia. Get a mullet?

So, if you are a resident of Knoxville, TN or a sports fan, you know that Lane Kiffin royally screwed over the football team this week. By leaving UT for USC, Kiffin caused uproar among the students at the University of Tennessee.

I've always thought of myself not so much as a technophobe, but as soneone who didn't really need or want a lot of technological things. I much prefer the TV off, phone off, cozied up with a good book kind of day than one spent with 200 channels, four cell phones, three laptops, and a video game system kind of day. Sure, these things come in handy, but I could take them or leave them.

Then yesterday, I realized what I was doing: Sitting on the couch, using my Blackberry to read an article listing the "best of" from the CES show in Las Vegas last week and telling my husband all about the cool things I wanted!

Wow. I was amazed at myself! Granted, I've been immersed in this world for 10 or 11 years now with my husband's job, but I even surprised him this time. Usually he is telling me all about the CES show (their company usually attends) and I'm trying to follow what he says with a glazed-over expression on my face. 

I was thinking even more, though, about how our lives have been forever changed by technology in the past decade. In 2000, we were buying CDs in stores, sending some email but lots of letters still, using a land line with an answering machine (cell phones were a luxury and actually turned off at times!), and using paper maps to find our way when lost away from home.

So I posted earlier today about a surprise for my husband.

I knew he wanted to see the movie Avatar. I didn't have any interest in it - it was odd blue people, what kind of good movie could that be? - and ignored all the commercials. I knew the lab guy from Bones was in the movie, because there was a recent episode of Bones revolving around his character and two others going to a screening and of course they showed a commercial during the show. That was ALL I knew.

Chris wasn't totally surprised, though - around 1:30 he finally called me after texting me all morning trying to get me to spill.  I broke down and gave him a small (I thought) hint - lots of blue - and he guessed it. So I told him about getting the tickets, and that I even got the 3D version. Dinner before the movie was up to him, though.

I'm really strange around the holidays. I don't particularly like them, so I usually try to avoid the cheer altogether. If you have even one friend that likes Christmas, you know this is impossible. Sometimes I feel like people look at me a little crazy when I'm not excited about decorating, singing carols or making my Christmas list. I don't mean to be a Scrooge, but I just don't really like Christmas.

I know that it's Jesus' birthday, which is awesome. But I guess I just get bogged down by everything else that goes along with Christmas that I choose to avoid it all. I was watching "Big Bang Theory" last night and one of the geeks, Sheldon, was going on a rant about how he doesn't like Christmas trees. It made me laugh because, in a weird way, I understood him.

My friends always try to put me in the Christmas spirit, but to no avail. My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas either. It's a strange thing. We go to church and enjoy each other's company, but there are no decorations, no presents and no carols.

I know.  I don't want to hear, it, thanks.  Since I am the one that hasn't been doing the writing, I am aware that I haven't been writing.  I hope to be back soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to let you know that I got the results of my 1 year, post-chemo PET scan today, and I'm still cancer free.  Do I really need anything else this holiday season, (besides my hubby being home from Afghanistan, that is)?

Nope.  I'm good.  Really, really good.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. You talk a lot

Two years ago today I lost my grandmother. She and I were very close and her death was very hard for me. Now I am having another child she will never meet and who will never know her. In tribute to her, I'm recycling a blog I posted a few days after her death.

Every Sunday night for the past three weeks, the Christian Student Center has had married couples come to talk about their dating/marriage experience. Last night was the first time I felt like someone real was talking to us.

The couple that talked to us had been married for 30 years and actually met at the CSC. They had their bumps and bruises along the way, but wanted to share their message of true love through God’s plan. The other two couples that spoke to the group were great, but their stories were sort of like fairy tales.

With the first couple, the guy wrote the girl a poem to ask her out on a date. Their first date was a trip to Nashville followed by a candlelight dinner. Even though it took a while for them to meet, it seemed like a storybook romance when they finally got together.

At 6 a.m. on Monday Nov. 16, I began my two-day excursion to Florida. The theatre I work at, the Clarence Brown Theatre, performed the production of “Little Shop of Horrors.” We rented puppets from CBC Creative, Inc. in Florida. Because we had to return them, my boss, Christy, asked me if I would join her for the 12-hour drive. I jumped at the opportunity!

I love car trips. I know that sounds strange, but I really enjoy being in the car for extended periods of time, especially if it’s with someone I know well. Christy and I have known each other for about five years now, so I was really excited about it.

Well, thankfully, the first 12 hours flew by. We talked literally the whole time! It was great! We gushed about different things going on in our lives, told stories about our pasts and even confessed embarrassing moments we thought we’d never share with anyone else.

I love playing games. Not in the relationship sense, but literally playing games. I played them a lot as a kid, but it seems like the older I get the less I play games. In my group of friends, we tend to watch a crazy amount movies and very rarely play any games. Well, yesterday was my lucky day.

It all started off with an invitation from my friend Daniel to play his new favorite video game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’m not a gamer by any means (the last video game I loved was Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis) , but he seemed pretty excited about it, so I decided to give it a try. It definitely turned into a party.

Instead of just the two of us, we ended up having a group of about seven people playing. It was great! We played in teams and yelled about shooting the other person’s character. Of course I don’t encourage shooting games in general, but this was definitely fun.

I had a conversation with my boss the other day about her husband. Both she and her husband are sick right now. He has missed an entire week of work, yet she has been here just about every day. She said while he is lying in bed with the same cough as her, she continues to come in and do her job while he relaxes and gets well. We joked for a bit about the entire situation. Isn’t it funny how most women take sickness is stride while most men become babies that need desperately to be taken care of?

Of course this isn’t a hard or fast rule. Not EVERY man or EVERY woman fits this mold, but I feel very confident in saying that most men and women fall under these two categories.

Right now, I’m sick and I hate it. I don’t like taking medicine, so I usually just try to push through the sickness by eating right and getting enough sleep. Well, this all came crashing down last night.