So Hurricane Earl is about to be upon us over here on the East Coast of North Carolina. After much deliberation we have decided that Anya and I will be heading to Tennessee in the morning to err on the side of caution. Ryan, unfortunately, has to stay here since being in the Marine Corps and all that jazz means he can’t just pick up and leave even if we’re told to evacuate. He gets to stay behind and man the fort, so to speak. So I’m heading out after Anya’s nap to buy him a small camping stove, some canned goods, batteries, and bottled water to get him through if the power goes out or things get crazy. He’ll probably be at home bored to tears without me over the long weekend unless they call him in to help with damage control. Figures that Hurricane Earl would choose a long weekend to hit and take away extra time that we could have spent together as a family. But it’s not worth the risk to stay and ride it out now that we have The Cuteness to worry about.

I’ll probably be in Tennessee through the weekend frantically trying to get all of the homework done that I won’t have much time to get to today and no time to work on tomorrow since I’ll be driving for 8 hours instead. Ryan and I are being positive about the situation, though, and are glad to give my family a chance to see Anya as my previous plans to visit in October are most likely not happening at this point because Ryan’s training for that month was cut down to only two weeks instead of the whole month. Which means by the time I was ready to head out I’d only be there a few days before I’d need to be back home. So we’re just waiting to go in November for Yo Gabba Gabba! Live! and staying for a little over a week then.

I’m really said to be leaving poor Ryan behind, but we both think it best to remove our daughter from a potentially dangerous situation that we would rather not expose her to if we can make the smarter decision to get out now. Today is going to be full of errands and packing so I’m going to enjoy what is left of Anya’s morning nap because the rest of the day is going to be insane.

Just finished up Anya’s invitation! Yes, I made it myself. I took the design from the party plates and then spent over an hour doctoring it up and replicating the bubbles for the information. I’m that awesome.

I think I’m getting a sinus infection. Again. Ugh. I had one in the Spring and ended up in the Naval hospital by Sunday with an ear ache in both ears, one ear infection, and the sinus infection itself. I got reprimanded by the Naval doctor for not having a physician for this sort of thing so it seems going that route again isn’t the best plan. (Not that it would have mattered because I was in there on a SUNDAY when physicians’ offices are closed, jerk.) Unfortunately I seem to be getting stuck in the same situation where the realization that this could be more than seasonal sniffles isn’t hitting me until the weekend is upon me. I really can’t schedule an appointment for today without exposing Anya to stuff by taking her in there with me, and I don’t know that any physicians around here have Saturday hours. Internet research doesn’t seem to be turning up much so I’ve asked around on the Marine wife message board I frequent in the hopes that someone will have some advice or suggestions for me. In the meantime, it’s awfully difficult to teach myself C++ and take a quiz with short answer questions when my brain feels like it’s about to explode from all of the sinus pressure. I’m definitely going to be spending part of my weekend doing homework to keep from falling behind because these allergies have slowed me down for most of this week.

On a completely unrelated note, it really, really sucks when your kid has a diaper explosion in the middle of the night. Mostly because she was apparently just as disgruntled as I was about having her sleep disturbed by a dirty diaper of epic proportions so she kicked and screamed and tried to repeatedly dive head first off of the changing table. And it was slightly more difficult to catch her than usual because A) She usually doesn’t flail like someone in a psychiatric facility that’s about to be sedated, and B) I was all strung out on Sudafed and foggy from sinus pressure while half asleep. So between the flailing, Ryan and I yelling at each other about how to change the diaper and JUST GET HER A FREAKING BOTTLE ALREADY, and the diaper explosion itself which required a changing of pajama pants (And, holy cow, did that ever make her even angrier which, at that point, I didn’t believe was possible.) it was a pretty stressful and chaos filled 15 minutes around midnight in our apartment. The good news is that this story has a happy ending: Anya fell back asleep immediately after a bottle, and while Ryan was in the kitchen making another bottle for her breakfast since we’d just used her previous breakfast bottle for this emergency situation, he felt bad for yelling during the crisis and went ahead and unloaded the dishwasher and made the next morning’s bottles so that I wouldn’t have to after breakfast. Now that’s love.

I’m kind of glad that I needn’t worry about things like researching GPS reviews. My cell phone comes in handy for just this purpose. If I’m out and about and need to a map or directions for whatever establishment or friend’s home I’m headed for, I can just pull out my phone and type in the address or a nearby street and find my way in moments. GPS isn’t the only function that cell phones have taken over. I check my e-mail, surf Facebook, and even post blogs from my phone. It’s amazing how connected I can be when I’m nowhere near my computer.

I would have enjoyed these features even more when I was in school on a campus and had to take public transit to work every day. Now that I’m home with Anya, I just check my computer when I get a second and hardly even think about using my phone unless someone calls me. I mostly use it to find something quickly while out running errands with Ryan or to occupy myself while Anya and I wait in the parked car for his weekly haircut to be over. But even so, it’s awesome to have those abilities at my fingertips. I can even download an app for Skype when Ryan deploys again so I never have to worry about missing a call if I need to be away from my computer! Now that’s what I call progress!

Things have been crazy around here. That’s why all you’ve really seen me write about is brinkmann q beam or promotional materials. I just haven’t really had anything super interesting to say or the time to say it in. This semester is kicking my butt already, and I’m only two weeks in. I haven’t cracked my Japanese workbook or even glanced at which photos to print for scrapbooking since last week. And it’s killing me a little bit. I’m going to have to come up with a solution, and, as much as it pains me, I may have to just start dragging my butt out of bed at least 30 minutes before Anya’s usual earliest wake up time and use that time to work on Japanese and scrapbooking. Or use that time for blogging and checking my dailies and use this as Japanese and scrapbooking time.

It’s just really difficult for me to drag myself out of bed before Anya makes me. Heh. I may have to start sucking it up and dealing with it or continue to never have the time to do anything that I enjoy between housework and homework. A maximum of 3 hours of nap time for the entire day just isn’t enough for everything I need or want to accomplish. Anyone who says being a stay-at-home mom is easy needs to be kicked in the face. It’s a full time job. Add being a full time student and having interest in any kind of hobbies or extra studies like a foreign language…and you have a recipe for a stressful time management disaster.

But this face? Totally worth it.

Ryan has told me several times during the process that is planning Anya’s first birthday party, that I should be an event planner or even just a wedding planner. Because I enjoy coming up with all the tiny little details, and the main reason I’m not doing more of it for Anya’s party is because I’m afraid not enough people will show up to make it worth my time, energy, or money.

And then I reminded him that we live in an area where courthouse weddings are the norm, and the most couples around here look for are wedding cake toppers and a pretty white dress. Planning done!

Maybe one day when we’re done with this chapter of our lives it would be fun to try it out, but right now I’m more concerned with getting my freelance design business off the ground and studying my Japanese as much as I possibly can in between homework for my Web Design degree.

I admit it. I’ve been lazy at times when it comes to school. I never took part in extra curricular activities or wrote any essays to colleges in the hopes of getting more scholarships. I just kind of let whatever happened happen and did what I had to do to make A’s in my classes which wasn’t always a lot for me. I’m lucky, I know, but it has its downfalls. Because I’m so good at memorization and such I don’t always truly understand the materials I ace tests on. I know what I have to know for my A. The end.

But while I never partook of SAT prep courses and only lasted a couple of weeks in Art Club, I know when enough is enough. Though I have skated through several of my college courses since moving here, I have to buckle down this semester. Because I intend to start my freelance Web design business over the next year with the motivation of using the website as a class project this semester and the requirement of a final Senior project next semester for which I would like to use a client website if at all possible. And every single class I’m taking this semester – all FIVE of them – relates directly to what I will be doing on my own so I have to understand the concepts thoroughly to get anywhere. C++, JavaScript, Databases, Servers, and Web Design. Lots of work but lots of fun, and I’m eager to understand more of the programming and coding I’ve skirted around with working on my personal site over the years.

Anya drooled an exceptional amount on Saturday. We thought it was because of the new toy keys we’d gotten for her that were much more realistic that she was allowed to chew and did with much gusto for most of the weekend while we were out and about. But then yesterday Ryan was playing around on the Yo Gabba Gabba website with Anya on his lap and stuck his finger in her mouth to let her chew on it for a second – which is something they do all of the time because she thinks it’s a game to chew on us – when he let out a little ‘Ah!’ and told me to stick my finger in her mouth. It seems like a strange request, I know, but when I did it I felt the top of her first little baby tooth on the bottom right hand side poking up through her gums. When I made a big deal out of it, she smiled and we were able to see the top of it coming through. She hasn’t really been behaving any differently – which I’m told we’re lucky for, but that the top teeth are usually worse than the bottom ones for that anyway – aside from the drooling which we hadn’t even contributed to teething because we had conceded to the fact that she wasn’t going to have any teeth until 14 months like me.

But she has surprised us yet again! Now if we can just get her to eat table food without gagging and throwing it up, drink formula and water from her sippy cups instead of just juice, and all the fun little clapping, waving, pointing things all of the other babies her age seem to be doing already, we’ll be doing good. Sometimes we honestly think Anya knows how to do a lot more than she cares to actually do. We’ve caught her waving at people in restaurants before. But she won’t do it when we wave at her to try and get her to do it on command. She’s said ‘dada’ a couple of times lately like she actually means what she’s saying when Ryan’s been messing with her, but, again, nothing on command. I think she’s pretty much the most stubborn kid EVER. She and I are going to be doing a lot of head butting, I am sure because I’m pretty determined myself. I dread her teenage years already. And what am I going to do when she gets to the terrible 2’s and 3’s!?! I don’t know what is going to kill me first: her stubbornness or her unbelievable cuteness and how much I love her for both.

Ryan and I planning a trip to Tennessee at the first of November to take Anya to see Yo Gabba Gabba live. I don’t know who will be more excited. Us or Anya. Ryan already snatched up a Muno t-shirt at Hot Topic, but we’ve been scouring promotional items for days now trying to find something nice for Anya and myself. I did manage to find a custom made Foofa bow on Etsy to clip to one of Anya’s headbands for the event, but most of the clothes seems to start at 2T as the smallest size. But we’ve got a while to keep up our search.

We’re actually planning several trip to Tennessee between now and the New Year. I’ll be driving down just after Anya’s birthday to stay for a week or so and let everyone get some time with The Cuteness while Ryan is away training for several weeks. Right after he gets home it will be Halloween (Which we still can’t decide on costumes for!) and then time to head back to Tennessee for Yo Gabba Gabba live. We’re staying here for Thanksgiving because driving back and forth that much in like a 6 week time period would be insane with Anya, but we’ll be heading to Tennessee yet again for at least part of the Christmas holiday. It’s going to be a bit on the hectic side between planning and carrying out Anya’s birthday party, Halloween costumes, Christmas gifts, and all of the packing, driving, and unpacking. Did I mention I’ll still be in school FULL TIME during all this? Why, yes, I do enjoy putting myself through as much stress as humanly possible. It’s awesome.