I'm not supposed to be on sites like this while I'm at work, but I can hardly contain myself!!! If I had a car (boo to you insurance company) I would just take off work this evening and I would be in Lexington right now at the hospital to witness the birth of my Goddaughter.
I doubt there is room in the delivery room right now because I'm sure its full of Grandmothers and a (very nervous) Father-to-Be, but I would at least like to be out in the waiting room so that when the nurse announces, "You can see her now." I could be one of the first to grace the doorway of my cousin's room.
I am so very excited to get to finally meet little Bella. I've already bought flowers for her Mommy (my younger cousin, Ashlee) and I suppose I can stop and buy a cigar for her Daddy (or maybe take him out for a beer tomorrow). I can't wait to see her. To meet her. To talk to her. To hold her. To count her toes and fingers. To rub her little head. Give her lots and lots of kisses.
I'm certain that as she gets older she'll be meaner than a snake, so I'm going to try to enjoy her sweetness while I can. :-)
So good luck Ashlee. When six o'clock rolls around, push hard. And can't wait to meet Isabella Jean tomorrow!!!
I really want to be a Mom.
Of all the dreams, goals, and hopes I've had in my soon-to-be 28 years, only one has remained constant. I've always, always, always wanted to be a Mommy. Life doesn't always give you what you want though and I'm trying really hard right now to be patient and have faith that when the time is right I will be blessed with a child of my own. In the meantime, I consider it my duty to spoil all the children of my family and friends.
Today, my friend Brandon and his wife Nikki welcomed their first child into the world. They named her Zoey. She's a cutie and looks just like her Mom. I've known Brandon since we were three. He was my neighbor and became my friend while playing tag and hide-and-seek in the front yard. Brandon and Nikki have prayed so hard for this baby girl. They went through some trials to get to this point and I'm sure that everytime they look at her they will know that it has all been worth it.
Not too long ago, my friend Tabby and her husband Harold, had their first daughter together. Tabby already has a son that she adores and now she has a little Princess to spoil. I'm so happy for them both. Harold loved Tabby for three years before she finally decided to give her (already) best-friend a chance to be more and she's had a blessed life ever since. I'm sure she couldn't ask for a better Step-father to her son and Daddy to her daughter.
Just in the past couple of years alone everyone I know seems to be popping out babies right and left. Close friends...family...even not-so-close friends have all been having children. Story Jade came in to the world in 2009 and will soon be celebrating her very 1st birthday! Little Hyatt David (whom some call "H.D." and I call "Heavy Duty") just turned 2 last month. Lily (who turned 1 in October) got a baby brother, Mason for her Christmas gift. And my very first best friend, Crystal, had a baby in 2008 that has blessed her life a million times over. So its not hard to see why I have babies on the brain recently. Everyone around me is either getting pregnant or giving birth.
To top it all off, on Sunday, my little cousin Ashlee goes in to the hospital to start the process of inducing her labor. Hopefully, if all goes well (and I'm sure it will), my very first Goddaughter will be brought into the world by Monday evening. I'm so very excited to meet Isabella (whom I've decided to nickname "Bella-Bonita"). I think she will make a grand addition to the (really BIG) Nunn family.
But in all the joy and wonder of all these bright new flowers added to the world, its a little bittersweet for me.
I'm so happy for everyone else, but its strange too. I remember Brandon being a pain in my butt when we were kids...Travis (Lily & Mason's dad) and BJ (Heavy Duty's dad) being brats and trying to kill me with a jump rope (long story there) when we were younger...Kayla being mean as a snake and throwing rocks at cars and all kinds of naughty things when she was still in Kindergarten...meeting Crystal for the first time when we were 5 and it was the very first day of Kindergarten...meeting Tabby in Middle School and thinking she was snotty because she wouldn't talk to me (even though she thought I was snotty because I wouldn't talk to her - lol)...and I can remember when they first brought Ashlee home from the hospital after she was born (for the record, I remember when they first brought Kayla home too).
Its just surreal for me to think of all those people (and many more that I know) as being Mommies and Daddies. And I can't wait to join their ranks. But until I do, I suppose I will have to be content to spoil all their kids and be a Godmother.
So congratulations to Brandon and Nikki, but also, congratulations to all ya'll out there with wee little ones. Hold them tight. Kiss and hug them lots and lots, and give them each a great big hug from me too. :-)
There are a great many changes going on in my life right now and before I forget them, I thought I should post them here.
I unfortunatly won't be able to get on here quite as much as I have been. I make it a point to check here every day to see what others have posted, even if I don't have anything to say at the moment. I love reading everyone's blogs...especially all the Mommy Blogs!!! They are all so sweet and it makes me so excited and anxious about when I become a mother myself one day.
That brings me to the first big change.
This was originally started to document my path to artificial insemination. Since that time however I've changed my mind. I'm not counting out artificial insemination altogether mind you, but I'm counting it out for the time being. I'll be 28 in May and I would very much like to have at least one little child of my own by the time I'm 30. So I've decided to wait on the artificial insemination thing until I turn 30.
There are a lot of reasons for that. Some of them very personal and involving other people in my life (or rather, people that were in my life but aren't anymore) and so I'll not go in to details here. I will say though that over the course of 2009 I've grown and changed as a person. Some of the changes are very visible to those that know me well enough and some of them are not. In fact, some of them I still struggle with myself. There are times when I feel like two different people and like I'm being pulled in two different directions. Times when I look in the mirror and don't even recognize myself anymore. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I know that it has to be an improvement from the person I was last year. One of the things that I think I've improved upon is my personal faith. I don't want to go into details over spirituality or have some sort of religious debate with people I barely know or don't really know at all, but I will say that 2009 was a year of faltering faith with me. 2010 is not going to be that way. Late in 2009 I started to come to terms with certain things, events, and people in my life and I started to look at it all through a different set of eyes (so to speak) and through a long, difficult process, I began to heal. Through that process I found my faith again. When I did, I decided that I would put off artificial insemination for another couple of years. Try to give God time to help me have children the way He/She sees fit and not necessarily how I see fit. So no artificial insemination until 2012. :-)
Other than that, you can expect more blogs about traveling. I have a big trip planned for this Summer. My friend Cilla and I are going to be driving across the country to California. Expect lots of photos and funny stories from that trip. Cilla is a wee bit goofy like me and so we usually get in to some pretty strange situations when we travel together. Plus I sooooo need the vacation! I'm so excited for July to get here so I can hit the open road. Wish me luck!
I joined The Biggest Loser of Madison County again. So far I'm doing really well. I lost 3 pounds the first week. I probably won't blog about that too often simply because it lasts until December 31, so I have an entire year to lose the weight. The goal is to lose 60 pounds. I actually think I can pull off a bigger loss than that. So we'll see.
The weather in beautiful Kentucky is finally starting to warm back up. That means I can get to work on my little house, plant a garden, plant some flowers (I want to draw in as many butterflies as I can this year), and practice skating. I still want to try out for a roller derby team in October, so I need to get REALLY good at it.
Other than that, well, I'll be a Godmother sometime between now and next month. That's super exciting. I can't wait to meet little Bella (whom I think I will call "Bella-Bonita"...I've been going back and forth on nicknames for her, but I think Bella-Bonita is a keeper).
That's about it for now. I really feel good about this new year. Last year was a stinker!!! I hated it. There were only a few shiny bright spots in the year for me. Otherwise it was awful. I'm glad to see it behind me. :-)
I love animals. I love them dearly. I'm not a vegetarian or a member of PETA. But I have a profound respect and love for all God's creatures, no matter how small. I've always been that way.
Some members of my family have nicknamed me "Ellie Mae" (as in Ellie Mae Clampett) because I've had such an assortment of critters through the years. I'm known for bringing home strays of all kinds, not just cats and dogs, but 'possums, raccoons, deer...whatever needs a home or a surrogate "mommy".
Almost four and a half years ago, while working on our family dairy farm, I came across four little kittens. They were roughly two weeks old and their Mom had abandoned them. They were scared, alone, hungry, and cold, and I took them home with me. The first one I found was a little girl. I named her Poop because she was "the sh*t". :-) I called her "Princess Pretty Poop" to be exact. I'm not sure why, the name just stuck. She's the only cat I know named Poop.
Anyway, I raised those cats. All four of them. I was their Momma Cat. I fed them every two hours, even through the night, I bathed them, I potty trained them (not just teaching them to use the litter box, mind you, but after every feeding I had to use a warm wet washcloth to "stimulate" their privates and causing them to expel their urine and fecal matter...technical terms huh, but it is what Mommy cats do when they lick their babies after they eat, cause kittens that young can't use the bathroom by themselves and require stimulation...there's your cat biology lesson for the day). Anyway...I was the Cat Mom.
Eventually one of the kittens died. He had been stepped on my a calf when he was just born and because of that, his head was malformed and he couldn't be taught to eat solid food. We couldn't keep him on the bottle forever and eventually he died because he wasn't getting enough nutrients. He always had plenty to eat, mind you, but just not enough vitamins and minerals. His name was Weebles, because he wobbled when he walked and sometimes walked in circles...but he never fell down. :-) He was a sweet cat...ill tempered as all get out, but sweet none the less.
Poop and her brother (Bart) and sister (Emmie) made it and I moved them in with my other cat, Oliver, when they were six weeks old (he's just a few months older than them). All was well in the kitty cat kingdom until about two years ago. In the winter of 2007, Emmie and Poop fell ill. They had a lung infection. I took them to the vet. He tested them for feline leukemia and it came back positive. After some antibiotics and some long and stressful nights of me sitting up with them and forcing them to drink Pedalyte because they wouldn't eat or drink anything else, they finally pulled through, although Emmie's lungs were never quite the same. But Poop was fine.
Unfortunatly, there is no cure for feline leukemia and it is VERY contagious to other cats. It basically breaks down a cat's immune system, so anything they catch can be the death of them. Poop and Emmie were born with it, that means that Bart probably has it as well, although I've never had him tested. And Oliver, because he was raised with them and has shared food and water with them, probably has it as well...eventhough I've never had him tested either. For all intents and purposes Bart, Poop, and Oliver have all been pretty healthy and Emmie's only real problem is that she gets congested easily.
That being said, I lost Poop this morning.
She had gotten sick and wasn't eating a lot, but she was still eating and drinking...just not a lot. She had lost a lot of weight too. My vet lives an hour away and my cats don't travel well. So I decided I would just go get the usual meds for the sickness, which is what I did.
Knowing that they have feline leukemia, I knew that it was just a matter of time before I lost them, so I didn't want to add to any stress on them by forcing them to go back and forth to the vet, just to prolong the inevitable. If the vet was five minutes from my home, I might would do it, but an hour up there and an hour back was too traumatic for them.
Anyway, the medicine didn't work this time. Poop's breathing got worse. She stopped eating and drinking altogether. I knew what was coming, so I had been sleeping in the floor with her for the past few nights...just to let her know that her adoptive Mom was there. This morning I left out to go feed my outside critters (chickens, dogs, a couple more cats...) and when I came back to check on her, she was already gone.
I'm terribly upset. These were my kitty "children". And although I know it would NEVER compare to losing a real child, she was my pet, my friend, my family...and I was very attached. So for all you pet lovers out there, tonight give your critters an extra hug from me and Poop and say a little prayer for my broken heart while you are at it.
Thanks.
(Poop facing off with my pet duck, Tenbrooks.) (Poop & Bart) (Poop after a bath.)
