So I guess there’s this soccer game going on right now?  Between a bunch of teams?  And the whole world really cares and is all excited about it?

I don’t know.  I looked into it, and apparently the most common score in a World Cup Finals Match is 1-0, which gives me the impression that watching these matches must be frightfully dull.  They score once in how many hours?  And they’re not allowed to bare their chests because FIFA doesn’t allow them to anymore, so we red-blooded females don’t even get to ogle the muscley men dashing across the screens.

But, according to people who know things, the World Cup is a huge deal.  Because everywhere other than America regards soccer as a Very Big Deal.  Therefore, this is like a global Super Bowl.

Now, I’m a huge fan of the Super Bowl.  It’s like mini Thanksgiving for me, what with the gratuitous food and encouragement to constantly stuff your face while not moving.  The football game?  Meh.  Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s a snore, and sometimes it makes the people watching the game around me shriek in outrage while I snap my attention back to the game and try to figure out why everyone’s so angry.

From what I can tell, though, only America cares about the Super Bowl, because Americans are really the only ones who play football.  So essentially, we as a country decided to thumb our nose at the world’s favorite past-time and invented our own special game.

In the global playground, we scoffed at the kids playing Four Square and took our ball, squashed it flat by sitting on it, and then coaxed all the biggest kids to beat each other up trying to steal it from one another.  Which I suppose is better than if we’d had all the biggest kids beat up the Four Square kids first, before playing with our weirdo squashed ball.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this a post about the World Cup.  And about football.  And somehow it’s also an allegory on foreign policy, with the moral being that perhaps our politicians would do well to remember that the other kids can play Four Square all they want as long as they stay on their side of the playground.

See?  We can all learn so much from the World Cup.  And for that, we can thank my brother in law.

I have ultrasound pictures though!  And a healthy, dancing fetus!  And clean laundry that’s folded and put away!  So I guess even though I’ve been slacking as a blogger this week I’m not completely useless.  I’m getting a lot done at work, but that’s not nearly as cool as folded laundry.

Ugh, I’m too tired to even pretend to be coherent.  I promise I haven’t forgotten that I said I’d share my pictures.  I haven’t.  I even had my very gracious sister in law scan an old photo of me that really showcases the ginormous glasses I used to sport back in the dark days before contacts.

I’ll get to it.  I promise.  Sometime between now and next year, definitely.

Don’t you just wish you could come too?

The good news is, we’re all caught up to where I am in pregnancy so you won’t have to read through the updates every day.  This also means I’m actually going to have to start coming up with content every day again.  Heh.  I’ll ruminate on that all weekend.  I hope you all have a lovely time doing whatever it is you’re doing.  See you on the flip of the vacation!

(A special note to anyone thinking of robbing us while we’re gone…We have a savage, bloodthirsty dog loose on our property who will not hesitate to devour you where you stand.  Also, our neighbors are watching the house for us while we’re gone.  Because they’re awesome.  So, for your own good, stay away.  Please.)

Please excuse me while I quell my stomach butterflies of excitement with copious amounts of work.

Friday night was awesome fun.  One of my co-workers has joined the Army and Friday was his last day so we sent him off with a party.  My month-long craving for margaritas was finally satisfied, and I won $200 by drinking more beer at once than I’ve ever drunk my whole life.  It sounds shady, but with $200 sitting on the table I couldn’t pass it up.

My bosses bet me $100 each that I couldn’t drink a full yard of beer (which is about 36 ounces) in four minutes.  Once the yard glass was filled I was certain they were right, but I figured that fortune favors the bold so I decided to give it a shot.  Sure, I never drink beer and sure, I’ve never tried to chug anything before but you only live once right?

I finished the darn thing in 2 minutes 16 seconds.  My bosses were flabbergasted and impressed, and I now have $200 to go clothes shopping with.  I am so. excited.  Sure, it was probably a very silly and unclassy thing to do, but I managed not to belch in front of anyone (I know, I’m probably a freak) and it was easy money.  FTW!

Saturday dawned sunny and warm and I had a strange surplus of energy so I cleaned the house like a fiend.  This place is sparkly clean, and Wes didn’t even have to help me because he was enjoying himself at the Worldview Apologetics Conference.  It felt great to clean the house and give him a weekend off from vacuuming and sweeping (which are normally his jobs).  My back is paying for the cleaning spurt though.

I’m looking forward to spending the rest of this pretty Sunday relaxing on the couch and hanging out with Wes.  I would really like to go shopping for clothes immediately, but I think I’ll wait until after my birthday next month.  Then I can go shopping and it’ll be like my birthday present to myself.

It’s a bit weird to think about going shopping right now, because I have no way of knowing whether I’ll be pregnant next month, or in two months.  I suppose the best way to ensure that I’ll be pregnant soon is to buy a whole bunch of clothes that won’t fit when I get pregnant.  I guess I’d better get shopping then, huh?

I bet you didn't know I could be so crafty!

 I came up with the idea and the awesome graphic designer brought it to life!  We took approximately 3,018 pictures, assembled and re-assembled the favors, and generally had a fun time taking pictures and making arts and crafts.  We even staged a fake wedding reception:

Look at all the pretty!

We celebrated this huge accomplishment with bagels, naturally.

When everyone was freaking out about The Hatch (on Lost, if you’re a newb) we had just started the show and were trying to figure out what in the blue blazes was up with the scary smoke monster.  When co-workers were laughing about “Support the Rabid” (on The Office), Wes and I were tensely wondering if Jim was going to stay with the other branch.

It’s strange living your life like this, continually out of touch and behind the times, but also nice as well.  It’s easier to disappear.  If I’m stressed because economic news is getting me down, I don’t have to worry about seeing a commercial touting the Latest Scary Headlines at 8!  If Wes and I feel like disappearing for a weekend, all we have to do is stay away from our computers and then it’s just us and the puppy.

This is turning into a lengthier intro than I was anticipating but oh well.  Onto the point!  I was talking to my good friend yesterday and she was filling me in on the gruesome chimp attack that happened awhile ago.  I hadn’t heard anything about it and she was giving me the terrible details.

When she was done, she said something interesting and I’ve been pondering it since.  She said that, if it had been her in the attack, she would have been angry at the doctors for resuscitating her.  In my friend’s opinion, life wouldn’t be worth living with a terribly disfigured face.

This ties in with the whole isolated-from-civilization thing by virtue of me having space to think about this issue without being pummeled with new information every few seconds.  I heard the succinct details from my friend and now I’m digesting those details.

I’m genuinely trying to figure out whether life would be worth living if my face looked like ground beef.  Of course I’d like to say I’d be willing to go on after such a horrible thing, but I’m not going to pretend that the prospect of spending a lifetime with those injuries wouldn’t be a bleak consideration, either. 

Still, even though I wouldn’t look forward to all the stares and disfigurement, I would rather be alive and kicking than dead.  So I guess that’s the choice made.  It’s still a tragic situation, though.

What I’m puzzling over is what this issue is.  Is this an issue of values?  Whether you value your life or your looks?  Or is this more a question of where your priorities are and how you view yourself?  As a blogger, I could look like a centaur and none of you would ever be the wiser.  If I were a sales person or a PR rep, would I make a different choice?

It’s a tough issue, and one I’m glad I don’t have to make.  This whole incident will make me think fiercely before taking my kids to the ape house at the zoo.  Of that you can be sure.  On the plus side, I have no doubt that if a chimp tried to attack my kid, the chimp would be the one who ended up without a face.

Perhaps you are confused as to why I am so unshakably excited about the presence of holiday lights in my home. Allow me to elaborate: This is the first time Wes and I have decorated our house to celebrate the holiday season.

I know, it’s shameful, really. Nearly three years of marriage and nary a single Christmas decoration, we must be Scrooges, right? Wrong! We’re frugal, which means we have simply been waiting for someone to get tired of their Christmas decorations so we could helpfully volunteer to give them a new home.

One of the ladies at work is converting to LED Christmas lights and so is clearing her house and garage of her old-fashioned ones. Wes and I gladly took three strings of lights off her hands and this is what we’ve chosen to do with them.

It’s frightfully cheery, no? I’m not exactly a whiz at decorating things (this is why I have such a great mother-in-law and sister-in-law) but I’m pretty sure this looks nice. Wes certainly seemed to think so and, as he’s the only one who lives here and reads this blog, I’d say that’s good enough.

We haven’t let Doc in yet to inspect our handiwork, though. I’m assuming his initial reaction will be to try to eat them and, when he learns that this is not allowed, he’ll react by steadfastly ignoring them until he thinks we aren’t watching, and then he’ll attempt to play with them.

We still haven’t worked up the nerve to get a Christmas tree yet. We’re not huge on gift-giving, so it seems a bit silly to get a nicely dressed-up tree in order to put absolutely nothing under it. When we have kids we’ll definitely rock the indoor foliage but for now we’re content with our lights.

With a staircase this pretty, wouldn’t you be?

As I’m sure you have guessed, you being the capable and intelligent readers I know you to be, my new cell phone came today. Zipadeedoodah! That being said, today’s post is woefully short. I have a metric ton of names and phone numbers to transfer over, not to mention lasagna to make from scratch (I’m a bit of a culinary masochist, yes?)

Never fear though. I’ll be back tomorrow with more fun, games, and nonsensical bric-a-brack.

It’s a blog dedicated to failure. You get tall trucks bringing down low buildings, unfortunate wedding snafus that plunge brides into pools, cars smashing into one another during freezing conditions, and, my personal favorite, English translations that go seriously awry:

If you like my nonsense, you’ll probably like theirs too.

In other news, election season is over! I’m so relieved I could dance a little jig right here. In fact, you can’t see it but I just did!

I am practically giddy over being able to again turn on the radio without having to hear yet another radio commercial sponsored by the Washington state Democrats that claims that the Republican contender for the Governor’s spot is pure evil and probably eats babies.

I don’t care which party you support, political commercials are annoying, upsetting, and lame. Hooray for the next four political-commercial-free years! I’m curious, do you or anyone you know actually enjoy political commercials? If not, then why do politicians spend so much money forcing us to listen to them? Isn’t that a tad expensive and counter-productive?