I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing two paragraph blog posts in my head and then promptly forgetting them. It’s mostly due to the fact that I’m doing all my brainstorming in the middle of the night when I a) can’t fall asleep to begin with or b) can’t fall BACK asleep after waking up for no apparent reason. This pregnancy is doing weird weird things to my internal clock and thermometer and electrical system and pretty much any other part of me that could be compared to something mechanical. When the weather changed suddenly last week and the barometric pressure went way down (or up or lopsided or whatever it is that happens when it goes from mild and humid to clear and cool) I woke up twitching from head to toe feeling like my skin was trying to crawl off my body. It was rather unpleasant. And not at all conducive to sleeping. So I stay up too late and toss and turn all night and then totally crash during Baby Evan’s nap time which means I stay up even later the next night and get even less sleep and am more exhausted so the vicious cycle continues forever and ever amen.

I felt the same way last pregnancy, only then I wasn’t chasing a toddler around all day so napping wasn’t really a problem so much as a glorious, wonderful way of life. I’m hoping if I can make it through the rest of this week sans nap and with a 10 pm bedtime my body will readjust and I can start stocking up on zzzzz’s while I still can – that number on my pregnancy ticker ain’t getting any bigger and it has DEFINITELY not been long enough since I had an infant around that I’ve forgotten what that’s like. Ugh.

My exhaustion is making every other little tiny annoyance in my life seem like a Huge Deal this week, which is just making it harder for me to relax. Huge Deal #1 is that I’m still laptopless after almost a month because we’re still deciding if we can afford to buy E a new computer or if I should just buy ANOTHER power cord for my clearly defective yet much beloved HP. So we’re “sharing” one laptop, and by “sharing” I mean I’m currently up writing blog posts at 1:20 am because it’s pretty much the only time of day E isn’t involved in some vitally important online game that he tries to guilt trip me into not nagging him about by claiming he’s “spending time” with his brother and his dad. To which I say: THAT’S WHAT PHONES ARE FOR. Because, obviously, I NEED to get online to comment on all my internet friends’ blogs and whine about things on my own. Priorities, people.

Huge Deal #2 is more bullshit with one of our worst purchases ever – E’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. Go ahead, Google “problem with my 2004 Jeep” and come back in 12 hours when you finish reading eight bazillionty forum posts about stupid problems like windshield wipers that don’t work and cruise control that fails every time it rains and the ridiculous trash they call the “heating system” but I’m pretty sure is just a hamster on a wheel working a little fan that costs $1000 every time we have to have it replaced. Which has been twice. So far. But most ridiculous of all is the windows that simply FALL INTO THE DOOR at random times and then can’t be fixed without taken the entire panel apart. It’s because some genius made the little piece that holds up the electric window out of cheap ass plastic. So the piece itself costs like $7 but the work costs $500 plus two days of being a single car family in an area that does not lend itself to single-car-ness. Did I mention this is at LEAST the second time we’ve had the window fall? I’m pretty sure it’s happened to both the driver’s and passenger’s windows once before but E thinks this is the first time on the driver’s side. He’s been driving the Jeep around with the window down for weeks now rather than getting it fixed (I think we were both secretly hoping it would just sort of…self-heal or something).  I could complain about this for another fifty years (I hate our dealership! Taking my car to work is a HUGE pain for E because of security! Being housebound with a toddler in the rain is the 8th circle of hell!) but let’s just sum up by saying the weather report for the rest of the week is so grim we’re going to bite the bullet and take the Jeep in for repairs today so I’ll be Mr. Grumpy Pants for the next few days. 8th circle of hell here I come.

Huge Deal #3 is..oh nevermind. Whatever. Let’s just say I’m annoyed at myself and annoyed at the world and annoyed at my husband and pretty much nothing is going to change that right now besides a good night’s sleep and a day without being smacked in the face by my child. And maybe a few hours of peace to get the house clean so I can stop feeling like I’m YEARS behind on my to-do list. I’d settle for weeks. The best case scenario is days. I’m exhausted already just thinking about it.

The whole POINT of going to the Eastern States Exposition (known as The Big E) was so I could get a picture of E standing next a sign that said “The Big E”. And although I took 114 pictures of various others things and people somehow I did not take that picture, despite spending 6 hours and a good portion of my sanity wandering around looking at cows and fried things and Fair People.

Fair People makes me think of Bill Engvall’s stand up bit about the fair. Which is why I took this picture:

Sorry, that’s probably only funny to E and me. We’re dorks. And maybe rednecks.

Even though I didn’t get a picture of E next to the sign, I did get a ton of other pictures. There was food…

That's the face of a child getting a major brain freeze from my strawberry-lemonade slurpie.

And animals…

That's one of the Budweiser Clydesdales getting a foot rub.

All that WOOL! I could knit so much stuff! And Baby Evan liked petting them too.

And plenty of things to buy and touch and look at…

That unicorn in the upper left is part of the Massachusetts building. Apparently they have unicorns there. Or maybe they USED to have unicorns, until the pilgrims ate them all at the first Thanksgiving and everyone got gay married. I was never very good at history.

That was some sort of crazy skateboarding themed fun house on the midway. I just like the picture because Baby Evan's wearing his rock'n'roll shirt.

Not pictured: Framed poster of the Jersey Shore cast dude in a tank top was carrying around. I guess that’s what counts as a “prize” from the ring toss game these days. Hand on my heart, that’s 10000% true.

It was a very fun, very busy, very long day. We planned to stay until about 1:30 and ended up hanging around until 4 to meet some friends. My feet were SCREAMING and my horrible pelvic pain threw my left hip out of joint. I ended up half limping, half waddling, clinging to the stroller and breathing like I just finished a marathon. It was dead sexy. And despite my huge pregnant belly, the people who had claimed the very few benches showed absolutely no interest in letting me sit down for even a minute.

So I took a little rest in the grass. At least SOMEONE got a seat.

And just so you know, I TOTALLY resisted having this done:

But it was really really hard.

Maybe I’m a little more redneck than I thought.

Taking off over Minneapolis at 7 am

But it sure can feel like it.

I had a great time at The Creative Connection & have a zillion pictures to share & some gorgeous pretty things to show you. Everyone at the conference was unbelievably nice and approachable and down-to-earth and willing to chat with a friendless blogger lost in the craft world. I didn’t feel lonely for even one second of the event.

AFTER the event I might have had a teeny tiny breakdown. First it was a cab driver who got totally lost and argued with me and my new friend (and fellow winner) Kerrie about whether or not he would adjust the fare to make up for it. 30 seconds after he pulled away to take Kerrie to her hotel on the other side of the airport the front desk guy informed me there was a mix-up somewhere and I was at the wrong Residence Inn. My room was at the other one. On the other side of the airport. And their shuttle was busy picking people up elsewhere so no, I could not get a ride but he could call me a cab. Then THAT cab driver managed to make what Google assured me was only a 5 minute drive into a $30 ride. And then…well, and then it was 9:30 at night and I’d been up since 6 and the only thing I’d eaten since noon was a cupcake and my crotch felt like it was being stabbed with a giant pointy stick and I had just spent ALL my cash on two cab rides and as soon as E picked up the phone I started sobbing and just totally couldn’t stop. I was a snotty, pregnant, exhausted mess. But every time I opened my mouth to complain I felt like the most ungrateful douche-canoe in the whole world. I am INCREDIBLY lucky to have had the whole experience and appreciate every single minute of the time I had. All I can say is Pregnant Hormonal Woman is Pregnant and Hormonal and really, really, really hates people who refuse to go an inch out of their own way to help someone obviously lost and vulnerable and struggling.

But now it’s all over and I’m just SO GLAD to be home with my wonderful, patient, awesome husband and my adorable loving Baby Evan.

Who may be just a little bit mad about my leaving.

I think E let him watch too many episodes of Family Guy

Thank you again to Lark Crafts and Where Women Create! You are all the most inspiring, kind, creative people ever!

It’s been a month since we stopped paying $100+ a month for our TV habit (two months since we first talked about it) and no one has died. It’s a miracle. There haven’t even been any hissy fits or screaming arguments over who gets to watch Their Show and who has to Wait. Look at us! Compromising! Give and take! General awesomeness! Exclamation point!

I’ve had more conversations about that decision than almost anything else I’ve ever written about, so clearly we’re not the only ones who think cable companies are owned and run by the devil himself sort of a rip-off. Since we take our TV very seriously, E put a LOT of ridiculously dorky time into planning how we would watch various shows even without the Super Awesome Cable Plan of Amazing Awesomeness and Thousands of Dollars A Year.

First, let me clarify that we ended up NOT canceling all of our cable. We currently pay $16.80 for basic cable service and $49.95 for the second fastest internet package Comcast offers. We USED to pay $149.99 for TV, $15 for HBO, $7 for the HD DVR plus the $49.95 for internet and a totally unidentifiable amount for a home phone only used to talk to telemarketers. Although the bill claimed our “package” cost only $119, our monthly amount due ranged from $180 to $210 based on…I have no idea. How many nice things I said about Comcast on Twitter that week? How many times we rewound So You Think You Can Dance while saying “Did you SEE THAT?!?!?!”  So losing the “package”, the DVR and the home phone equals a savings of approximately $120 a month.

Second, we have the advantage of already owning a desktop computer with a TV tuner card. Actually, two TV tuner cards. Basically, that means we can watch all our TV through the computer with the added benefit of being able to *GASP* pause, rewind, and record live TV. Finding out I could do that without a fancy cable box or Tivo subscription was like finding out I was secretly adopted. The cards cost anywhere from about $40 to $150 depending on where you shop/what you want/how tech savvy you are when it comes to installing that kind of stuff yourself, but since that’s less than 1 month’s cable cost they are DEFINITELY worth it.

So with basic cable (which in our area includes all the major networks plus USA, Discovery, Spike, TCM, and about a dozen shopping and Spanish language channels) plus the computer card we can watch/record two broadcast shows at once or record one and watch another. I also still get my morning news and lunchtime Price is Right. We have it hooked up actually through the computer so turning on the TV takes an extra step but it’s worth it for the DVR and channel guide the tuner card provides.

“But I don’t have a fancy computer!” you say, “I want to watch broadcast shows! And also, I will DIE if I can’t watch Teen Mom!”

To you I present: Hulu.com. Not only did they have really funny commercials about Alec Baldwin eating your brain, they’re actually a REALLY good way to watch TV. E made a spreadsheet showing when shows air vs. when shows are available online and the answer is almost always the next day. Here’s just part of it (click on it if you can’t read the tiny writing):

If for some insane reason you want the whole thing, I can email it to you. I just couldn't get the whole 50 show spreadsheet into one screenshot. Oh and it was for the summer lineup so some shows are listed as airing on "0" because they weren't on.

There are a few shows I have to track down online (Project Runway and Army Wives on Lifetime, anything on TNT, CW shows, which are especially hard to find – I STILL haven’t seen the premiere of ANTM) and I don’t get to see non-network award shows (like the VMA’s Sunday night) but EVERYTHING ELSE – including Teen Mom – is on Hulu. The best part is you can go through and add all the shows to your queue so when you log in it shows you the new episodes you have to watch. There isn’t a limit on how many shows from each time slot you can watch either, so even though I’ve missed several seasons of Dancing With the Stars because too many things I watched were on at that time I will definitely get to watch it this season (for the record, Jennifer Gray is going to win. NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER WITHOUT A SPARKLY DISCO BALL TROPHY).

Which means I may actually be watching MORE TV than I was with the fancy cable package. I’m humming “Ironic” in my head. Not because this is the perfect definition of irony, but neither is rain on your wedding day so I feel justified.

Throw in a Netflix – now streaming movies straight to your tv! and computer! and XBox! and Wii! all of which we have! – subscription for $18 a month and we’ve got seasons and seasons of shows we might not have watched the first time around (Dear Joss Whedon, please please please forgive me) plus enough HBO and Showtime series to tie up entire weekends of time. Even if the very newest seasons aren’t available instantly you can get them in the mail as soon as they’re released on DVD. (Sort of. Some movies seem to be released on Netflix later than they’re actually released on regular DVD at the store.)

So, there you go: the least concise and most confusing explanation of how to watch TV on a budget ever.

(It helps that I am not the sort of person who gets upset at spoilers. If who wins Top Chef is REALLY important to you you’re going to have to make sure you watch the finale live at a friend’s house. Or if you don’t want to know that at the end of season 4 of Dexter *blank* is *blank* in the *blank* OMG!!!!! you’ll have to avoid not only the whole internet, but clip shows, talk shows, and most of your friends. Or you can just forget that someone already told you the ending. Like I did.)

(Disclaimer: Hulu, Netflix, Comcast and anyone else mentioned in this post have no idea who I am and would probably rather I NOT mention them on this blog. I wasn’t smart enough to ask them for compensation before writing about any of the companies so I’m plugging them all for free. Except for Comcast, who I’m sort of UNplugging, although now that I don’t curse their name every time I pay the bill I have to say we actually love their internet service.)

(This next part is written by E.  You’ve been warned.)

The computer we use is an Acer that we got from TigerDirect. com.  The dual band TV tuner card we also got from TigerDirect.com.   Another source of programming for us Comcast users is their Fancast site.  Really it is just a portal to all of the streaming services already available for free (like hulu), but it does allow you to watch shows online if you currently have a subscription to that channel.  I won’t bore you anymore, unless of course you want some more information, then tell Suzanne and I’ll write something much more lengthy.

Another family photo album in lieu of a real blog post. Not that my real posts are ever brilliant to begin with, so no big loss.

We very ambitiously decided to head into Washington on Labor Day despite not getting home until 1 am, one hangover, one separated pelvis, and one child we knew was probably going to miss nap time. My folks only live 20 minutes from DC (when there’s no traffic) so we were prepared for a short visit if we couldn’t handle it. A quick escape proved unnecessary and we made it about half way down the Mall before the pregnant one started complaining too much as we had to give up on seeing the World War II memorial. That’s what happens when you park illegally by the Capitol building all the way at one end of the Mall and think “yeah, we can TOTALLY walk 4 miles in three hours with a stroller and still see several large museums and monuments.” You miss stuff.

Air & Space Museum. Did you know it's the most visiting museum of any kind anywhere in the world? That's the kind of cool stuff you can learn when you eavesdrop on the tourguides. All the good stuff is on the ceiling so Baby Evan spent a lot of time like this.

For the most-visited museum it was pretty not crowded on a holiday. Look closely, do you see the hobo baby in this picture?

Family Picture!! Tired Baby Looks Tired, but he did really well despite the sun and the crowds.

There was no way to accurately capture with a picture how cool this sculpture is. When you walk past, it appears to be turning but really it's just the perspective. Yeah, sorry, that didn't help. Maybe there's a video on YouTube or something.

Natural History Museum, home of my favorite thing to visit in DC - The Hope Diamond

See Baby Evan's blurry little hand? He's signing "fish! fish! fish!!!!" He likes them almost as much as dogs.

More fish. Ancient, scary, giant-toothed fish, but still fish. Strangely enough, he didn't react AT ALL to the dinosaurs. Maybe because he doesn't know the sign.

I mean, even *I* like the T-Rex. You'd think a kid would too. Nope.

Part of an elephant. Maybe. Baby Evan liked poking it.

24 Weeks - it's a Good Amount of pregnant. We've reached a turning point on viability (not that I WANT to have a super-premie but knowing the baby would have a shot if something unexpected happened is nice), I'm not horribly uncomfortable, I still have plenty of things to wear, and I haven't reached the "swollen bloated manatee" stage yet. Can I just stay here?

The whole trip I couldn’t stop commenting on how much I LOVE Washington. It’s such a great tourist destination. You can break up lots of outside walking with museums that are sciencey or arty or historical or fun and they’re all free. The Metro is super easy to navigate, there are tons of places to eat, and most of the time the crowds are manageable. E and I talked about our chances of ever getting transferred to the DC area and decided if it becomes and option we will definitely take it. Of course, it could be 10 years before that happens and my folks don’t plan to live there to offer free babysitting forever, but if they haven’t moved it would be the perfect icing on a lovely just-southern-enough cake. Of course, then I remembered the high crime rate and the insane cost of living and the constant, never-ending politics and the TRAFFIC and how much I complained about the total lack of fun stuff to do when I was growing up there. But hey, no where is perfect.

If you’re feeling clicky today, I’d appreciate it! I think I’m on page three. Maybe four. Shamefully uncool, is what I’m saying, and my ego could use the extra bump. XOXO!