How to expect when you're not expecting...

It has been a long time since I’ve written on this blog.  Life has just been a special kind of crazy this last year.  I’m only a year away from finishing my degree.  I have no idea when I’m going to be able to go to school and finish that year though.  

I think I explained this on my very first blog post, but ‘Nikkie’ is just a nickname of mine.  A nickname I’m very fond of, but a nickname all the same.  I think that everyone that reads this blog is aware of this, and is also aware that my first name is Alicia.  My name has 3 meanings depending on what culture you look at, the meanings attributed to it are: Sweet, Nobility (or Noble humor), Honesty/Truth.  It was that last meaning that my parents focused on my whole life, so I’ve learned to be ridiculously honest.  Sometimes overly blunt unfortunately, but that is who I am.  

I make mention of this because I’m about to be totally blunt and honest.  

I have a little announcement, I’m pregnant.

Yes, I’m having my third child.  A bit sooner than I had planned.

The two electric ones did say 'PREGNANT' on them, but
batteries must've died...
I probably could've stopped with the first 2...

I have so many conflicting emotions right now.  I wasn’t planning on being pregnant yet.  I have 1 year left of school, and as it is the last year of my program it is a very difficult year.  I cannot imagine doing my senior project while caring for an infant.  The two kids I have are old enough that they are fairly self sufficient.  Since I started this program when my son was almost 1 I can say in all honesty, I know exactly how difficult it is to balance a baby and school.  I’ve done it twice now.  The thought of going through that kind of stress and guilt again is not appealing.  At the same time, I cannot be out of school for long, for a variety of reasons.  One being that the program could change again, could might be to soft of a term.  It will likely change again.  I could just apply for my BS degree, I have the credits for that, but I was going after the BFA and I’ve worked way too hard to not just push through my last year of school.  My tentative plan for school now is to go back next Spring (2017) and finish up in 3 semesters.  Why 3 when I only have a year left?  I cannot afford the time, I’ll have 3 kids.  One first grader, one pre K and one infant…. 6 credits is all I will be able to handle at a time.  We’ll see how life actually pans out.  

So school is a big part of my conflicting emotions.  I had such firm plans that I am not emotionally prepared for another kidlet.  I do not resent this kid.  I want to put that out there.  I could see how one could get that vibe, I don’t I’m happy to add another person to our little family.  Be that as it may I’m still frustrated.  Pregnancy is awful to me.  I have no energy, I get sick at the drop of a hat.  I feel nauseated 24/7… I’ve literally spent the last 2 months in bed getting up only when I had to.  It’s hard.  I’m officially in my second trimester and I am starting to feel a little better, I still have all day sickness, but I can cope with it better.  I have a little more energy, the past 2 days I’ve been able to sit up and get stuff done instead of just laying around feeling like crap.  I have 6 more months left until I have the baby, and right now that feels like an eternity.

I’ve not announced this pregnancy before now because I honestly didn’t want to deal with people congratulating me.  Or asking me how I’m feeling.  There is a part of me that just doesn’t want to say anything ever and just throw a family picture up next February with a ‘hey look, there are 5 of us now’.  I’m announcing mostly because I know people do care.  

But please don’t ask me how I’m doing.  I’ll tell you right now, and this will be true for the rest of my pregnancy.  I’m so tired, I’m sick, I’m overly emotional to a degree that makes my teenage self look sane.  I’m overwhelmed, I’m frustrated.  I’m happy to have a baby, but there is nothing else about pregnancy that is good or great.  I was 100 pounds overweight when I got pregnant, I was actually working on an exercise and diet plan to drop at least 50 of those this year.  My plan being that if I lost 50lbs a year for the next 2 years then I could get pregnant and reduce the inevitable health issues I have every time I’m pregnant.  I have ‘pregnancy brain’ to a frightening degree.  I forget so much right now,  I mix up words… I’m having to write everything down and hope that I look at my lists.  

I’m more than a little nervous about raising another baby.  Sure, the first 2 lived and seem to be pretty rational human beings (as rational as a 6 and 3 year old can be).   Babies are so hard.  They need so much.  They also develop so fast and it’s exciting to see them learn and accomplish things that are so ridiculously difficult, feeding themselves, walking, talking…. All of these things that all of us adults just take for granted.  Babies are amazing.  They also need 24 hour help.  That is part of what made school so hard with the other 2.  My dear daughter still wakes up at night screaming.  I know she was/is a harder baby than most.  I’m not sure that I get easy babies though, so I’m kind of bracing myself for that.  

So that is where I’m at in life right now.  

I’m still working on getting my art career off the ground.  I’m finally able to sit up and draw again so I hope that means I can maybe possibly get stuff up on a website that I could potentially sell.  

I’ve got so much to do…

For my home I need to get caught up and stay caught up on chores…

I need to figure out where the baby is going for the first six months.

I need to figure out my kids bedroom, again…

I need to update my portfolio and re-apply for the BFA program this fall…

Then I need to start on my senior project.

That’s me, that’s life and that is why I’ve seemed to be dead for the past 3 months… I kinda have been.

~Nikkie

Oh PS I had a sonogram of ‘Peanut’ (the nickname my son has given our little baby) I was going to post it along with this, I cannot find it for the life of me.  Yay pregnancy brain…

Bloggering

So I've obviously completely abandoned the idea of doing a 365 blog challenge on this blog made to be full of random lifeness.  For 2 reasons.  1- often the things I want to write about are to mundane or I simply cannot think of anything and 2- when I do have something to say generally it is so controversial all I can think of is 'Well So-in-so will probably agree, but so-in-so will have a lot to say.  Then I'll have a lot of passive aggressive comments for subject x and I'll have to address them... what happens when people I know start fighting each-other?'  And so on... my thought process usually ends with 'I really like all of my friends who come from incredibly diverse backgrounds- so I will not write about [this subject].  I wonder if we have stuff to make Tacos... I love tacos...'  (and now my picture makes sense :D)

Of course I do like writing about my family- but you hear so many stories about sex trafficking and stalking and stealing of cute kid photos to use on fetish sights... etc.   This leads to another problem... I have a private family blog that I sometimes update- by sometimes I mean I think it's been 2 years since I've touched it.  The problem with that is that under bloggers current rules you can only have
like 50 people on your list- then it starts kicking people off :P  (googles quickly to make sure that is still true) Ok I looked it up apparently it is 100 followers on a private blog.  That might be enough- I'm not really that social of a person when it comes to private life.  Though it appears that there may be less restrictions with private blogs on tumblr or wordpress.  So I'll have to look into it.

With that said if anyone is interested in my family I'm going to start posting weekly in a journal-scrapbook like fashion to my family blog.  Let me know and I'll add your email address to the list (provided you are a close friend or family member- if you are someone I don't know- then no; I will not add you- seems fair I think)

From here on out I'm just going to write a loose list of things I've been thinking about.

• I want to start dancing again- I think I will; but I really need to slim down so I don't blow out my knees (despite some lengthy post someone I don't know wrote on the subject- I legitimate would blow out my knees; the extra weight I'm carrying+plus the fact that I have very little cartilage to begin with would in fact damage me)
• I'm going to start running to lose weight.  'cause I love me; but don't care for my luv handles
  
  (ha ha ha I'm so punny)
• I need to start writing again.  I think I will; if I do and I make a private blog to share my stories- would people be willing to read and critique? (and obviously not plagiarize)
• My home is clean enough that cleaning my home is no longer a long sought after dream (if you don't remember what my apartment used to look like... I did a post a while back but am to lazy to look it up)
• So far this is turning into a long rambley to-do list.  
• I'm really happy that my home is pretty much clean/organized after so many chaotic moves.
• My daughter turns 3 tomorrow; and I'm just kinda in shock about that- 'cause I kinda cannot believe that it has been 3 years since I had her... at the same time a TON has happened in that time.

I'm going to bed now; 'cause it is late.

~Nikkie

Clarinet Sketch

Rough Sketch of yesterday's photo

clearly I spent most of my time on the clarinet itself- I need to redraw the speaker and the ribbon as well.

This sketch is 6x8 inches; going to do a few more studies on the ribbon and speaker... then draw a 12x16 inch final drawing and then paint it :D

~Nikkie

Clarinet Photo

I'm working on a new sketch- and took some photos for it tonight.

I've neglected my poor little clarinet; I must find time to practice again; but for now- I'll draw it :D

~Alicia

Playing at the Park with a camera

I've been a grump the last couple of months and am doing my best to battle past that and get more 'positivity' into my life.  With that depression comes neglecting of things I love- (don't worry I still take care of my family) but this blog has been neglected.  I am determined to make my goal of 365 entries; so I shall.  

In other news- I'm trying to learn how to use my camera again; so I took the kids and my camera to a park and shot some photos.  I barely know how to use the thing now!! (as you can telll; the 'great' pictures there are happy accidents) however I am determined to re-learn how to shoot properly.  

My son is a total ham as you can tell from every picture I took of him- my daughter is also a ham- but still young enough that she doesn't get super self-conscious when the camera is out.  

My favorite one by far is the photo of Avi as she just reaches the bottom of the slide.  I lucked out and captured a great expression- also the time of day (around 6ish) helped as well as where that slide was located.

It was pretty fun- I look forward to improving my photography skillz.

~Nikkie

Haha- another post about cleaning

So I've been unpacking and sorting our stuff everyday for the past year and a half- I finally feel like I'm making some progress- not that I haven't been but I've not seen a lot of evidence of it.

(side note- the pictures i'm using in here reflect more of my feeling towards the project in general- also how I felt this morning when first started on all of this)

SO my update on this ongoing saga of chores...

I can call the kids room officially done.  All of their toys have a place; the furniture is arranged in a very efficient and functional fashion- and most importantly the kids like they way the room looks and feels. :)

Our 'master' bedroom is officially done- David's office is integrated into the room in such a way that he has space and it feels office-ish- while the rest of the bedroom feels like a bedroom.  I feel like this is a HUGE accomplishment for that room since it's just a little over 100 square feet.  Also have the bed set up so I can put storage containers underneath it... although I'm going to need to do some repairs to the bed frame.  (more on that later)  And also found another storage spot behind the door- which allows the door to open comfortably while stacking a few plastic bins behind it.

Bathroom... I think it's done- I've thought this before- but I think the set up of shelves and mobile towel racks in a way that best utilizes the space without shrinking the room much smaller than it is.

The last two- the living room is pretty much done but needs to be better cleaned and the kitchen is in a similar fashion- though right now I need to integrate a dinning area into it.  (The kitchen serves as kitchen and laundry room- so what is one more function?)

That is the truth of most of the rooms actually- I try to make the little apartment sound bigger by giving each area (some as small as 20 square feet) big pompous sounding names.  It makes me happy :D

Then there is my office... Which is WAY better than it used to be... but still kind of a terrifying mess of boxes and... stuff...

I'm really hoping I can have all of this done by the end of February :)  I've been using every Tuesday as a big cleaning day- not really intentionally; but it has just worked out that Tuesday's are a really good day for deep cleaning.

Well that is it for today- I know not really an exciting post; but it's a little slice of my life- which is really what this blog is all about.

~Nikkie

Fav Song

One of the catch-up posts I did recently was about a favorite or important band.  I talked about the Moody Blues.  Since I've neglected today's post until just this very second I thought I'd share my absolute favorite Mood Blues song.  Enjoy :D

~Nikkie