Thanks, curses and weirdly answered prayer

I've been thinking a lot lately about my car. I'm only a few months from paying it off, and it's running down. It does all sorts of weird things -- the radio randomly won't work, the clutch I just replaced is still sticky, the gear shifter requires some serious elbow grease. And there's the cosmetics: The windshield has been cracked since I bought it, the driver's side window tinting peeled off during a South Dakota cold snap. The leather was getting kinda cracked.

But it was a Subaru, and it could go anywhere. And she was my Betty, and I loved her.

But still, I worried it would leave me and the baby stranded somewhere. I worried we'd be stuck putting more money into it. I debated whether I should just see how much I could get for it, since Subarus appear to be really over-valued here. I thought about the joy of having a 30+ MPG vehicle. I weighed it against not having a car payment. Could we afford one once the baby came?

And I prayed for guidance. That God would make it clear what I should do. And in the meantime, I would try to hold in my desire for car less than 10 years old.

Thursday night on my way home from my lunch break, I didn't see an oncoming vehicle and turned left across traffic. He hit me on my passenger's side, sending us both across the intersection, collapsing my right front tire into the wheel well, shattering the rest of the window and stripping off most of the paneling on that side of the car. The passenger's mirror is gone.The entire passenger's side of the body essentially needs replaced.

The know-it-all tow-truck driver assures me "it's a wash" and there's no way my insurance company will pay to fix a 12-year-old Subaru with 120,000 miles on it (just a dent! It's a Subaru, for pete's sake!). But I have to wait for Geico to tow poor Betty to Spokane and have their adjuster go over it. And next week she'll tell me if I get a check or a mechanic.

And Lord, your will and all, but this is not really what I had in mind.

A crisis of church

Recently, my church split up in to two services. Great news for them, as it highlights their growth in just over three years of existence.

But they moved my service time. By half an hour.

OK, look, I realize this isn't earth-shattering. But that 30-minute loss meant getting home at 12:30 instead of noon, which meant pulling in at just the same time as my husband was getting off work. I couldn't have lunch ready for him when he walked in the door anymore. I didn't have that 30 minutes after church sitting on the couch, napping lightly, before he got home. I only had 1 1/2 before work instead of 2 hours.

I felt the loss of that half hour deeply, and I resented it.

So I've been hit-and-miss at church since. I've managed to drag myself there about every other week since the switch. The problem is, having church start at 11 meant I never had an "I overslept" excuse like I did sometimes for the 10:30 start. I'm always awake in time to be dressed and out the door by 11. So I would lay in bed, starring at the cat, who I knew was looking at me in judgment, until the clock ticked just past the point that I could still make it if I hustled.

A shower of questions

The other day, we got a text from TJ's sister telling us to check our baby registry. So we did -- and low and behold, there sat a big "purchased" stamp next to one of our items: A real fancy stroller and car seat "travel system." A gift from sis and TJ's mom.

Dee and Leslie -- can not thank you enough.

Which is rock awesome.

Really, it was one of those things that you register for and think, "No one is buying this for us. It is a gazillion dollars." But you put it on there, hoping maybe you have a rich aunt you forgot about who has decided she loves you beyond all reason. You cross your fingers that you get enough gift cards and cash from people that you'll be able to cover it in the end.

Registries are sort of an unknown for us. We created two for our wedding, but very few people actually bought anything on them. Part of the problem was that we did the Peggy Post-appropriate thing and did not include a note in our invitations about where we were registered. This in spite of the fact that pretty much every other relative, friend and acquaintance we've known has done just that.

It didn't matter in the end. We got a lot of cash and filled in the blank spots of our home just fine. And instead of looking at a pitcher and thinking, "So-and-so got us that for the wedding," we say, "So-and-so gave us a check, and we bought that pitcher. On clearance on Black Friday. It was a sweet deal."

And it's all a wash.

But this time, people are asking about our registry and offering to throw me a shower. I missed out on the family shower for the wedding, seeing as how we lived several states away.

So now I'm facing Peggy Post again. Do I tell people where we registered? Do I just offer that info, do I wait to be asked? Should the eventual shower host include the info on the invites? And just how many showers can one expect, anyway? My aunt offered to throw a post-baby family shower, which is sweet and I'm really excited. Should I expect one from coworkers? From church folks? Do I have rights to invite people from outside those circles to it?

And finally, do I keep an eye on those registries, keeping track of what people bought us, adding more items as it gets depleted? Doing a little happy dance when someone actually forks over for that big ticket item, totally unexpectedly?

Does this entire post make me look like a gift-happy, ungrateful bitch? Because I'm not, I promise. We've already been so hugely blessed with so much -- my mom has our kid clothed for as long as he fits into 0-3 months sizes (so, about a minute). My Grandma bought us a crib. We have a swing, a baby backpack, blankets and sheets, a high-chair. People who have had boys recently have been overwhelmingly generous and we are eternally grateful.

So the very last thing I want to appear is greedy and ungrateful.

Oh dear, that reminds me. Should I write thank you notes for all the used items that people have given us? Or do I wait for new gifts? Because we have a mental list of all the people we've sent baby gifts to in the past three years who a) Didn't acknowledge them and/or b) Didn't bother to write a thank you note. Ever.

Peggy Post and I do agree on some details.

(Target and Babies 'R' Us, by the way. And our theme is dinosaurs. And superheroes).

Savannah SMASH!

The other day, I was cleaning the kitchen. And while putting away a cookie sheet in the under-the-oven storage, the drawer fell off its track. I picked it up and put it back. It fell off again. I took the drawer totally out and set it back on the track. I slid it back in. It promptly fell off. At which I point I swore something unrepeatable at the top of my lungs and kicked the stupid drawer as hard as I could.

The cat looked at me like I was nuts.

When TJ came home, he said, "Ah... so I see you've discovered that drawer has problems." I was maybe still foaming at the mouth.

"I kicked it," I admitted. "It didn't really help."

He nodded wisely, and slipped it back onto its track.

The next day, after being irritated by a coworker for maybe six hours on end, I ended up flipping out on both my husband and another coworker. "I AM NOT THE IT DEPARTMENT!" I hissed at him. "Stop telling me your problems!" And he just stared at me, like I'd suddenly turned green.

Which of course, I had. The Hulk has nothing on pregnancy rage.

I'm blaming most of it on Clark, and the extra burst of testosterone I'm sure I've picked up from his little blood stream.

Even the science is the same -- just like our Dr. Banner, I too have to watch my heartbeat. If it gets too high, it can divert blood from the baby. I actually think my level is a bit lower than his -- 140 versus 160. But I feel like my heart is racing all the time. I can feel it thumping away in my chest, shoving a few extra liters of blood through my system at all hours of the night. I'm constantly trying to deepen my breathing, slow my pulse, think happy thoughts.

And then my boss gives me needless attitude, or annoying coworker asks me the same question for the millionth time, and the monster is there.

Thankfully, I have been mostly successful so far in diverting my rage to inanimate objects -- the oven drawer, my computer, Photoshop (which I quite loudly told to f'off a couple days ago ... thankfully, after hours). And I've been pretty good about apologizing quickly to the poor souls who happened to be standing there when the cork finally blew. Unfortunately, that's often my husband.

He's been a real trooper about this whole thing.

And hopefully when the baby is born, the hormone-induced rage will subside. If not, hey, I figure that's a pretty damn good superpower to have for a toddler. Especially if his dad backs me up.

"Don't make mom angry, Clark. ... You wouldn't like her when she's angry."