Hooray! Today marks the start of my second trimester. Time to celebrate, as chance of miscarriage drops dramatically to less than 5%. :-)

I still feel the "quickening" of little Jelly Bean moving around from time to time. It's not a daily thing yet, but considering I'm not suppose to feel anything until around 15 weeks or more, I consider myself blessed.

Hormones and I are still raging. I'm starting to fear that I might not go back to being Nice Laura after the baby's born. Yikes! Well, maybe once I start actually feeling kicks and seeing my little bump morph, I'll gain a little perspective and chill out.

I must be regressing or something, because last time I talked to the doctor he said I was “entering the honeymoon stage” of pregnancy, aka the second trimester. Well, last time I checked, a honeymoon wasn’t about wanting to puke my guts out!

Amazing! I get through nearly the entire first trimester, with almost no nausea whatsoever, and now, at 13 weeks, I’m pushing my hubby out of the way so I can hang over the toilet! I’m not really mad, though, just astounded. I know I planned to celebrate every pregnancy symptom I got, but it’s kind of hard to party hardy when you’re praying that everything will stay down and the wave of nausea passes.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling awful, thanks to my sinuses running amuck. My head hurt, and I felt weak and exhausted and just plain miserable. NOT a good day to be around “ Curry Man. ” That’s what I’ve labeled this guy I have to work with. He absolutely REEKS of curry! No joke! I can tell when he’s been in a room or down an aisle even after he’s left! We had a staff meeting yesterday afternoon, and of course he decides to sit next to ME! YUCK! I had to nonchalantly cover my nose with my hand and hair. When that wasn’t enough, I started pushing my chair back from the conference table as subtly as I could.

My boss happened to notice me turning green, I guess, and asked my lead if I was ok. Since my lead has to sit right next to Curry Man all day long, she knew exactly what was up and told the boss. Now, the boss is going to have to address personal hygiene and cleanliness with Curry Man. How ridiculous is that? I mean, we’re in a professional, corporate environment, and some people have to be told to bathe!!?!!

When I got home, I stripped off my clothes as I went up to my bedroom and basically fell on the bed for a very long nap. Alex woke me when he got home and I had enough time to have dinner and go to choir rehearsal. I felt a little better when I got home, but my head still hurt pretty badly.

I didn’t sleep very well last night, and had a hard time getting up this morning. I had to constantly stop in the middle of brushing my teeth to hang over the toilet. Fortunately, I kept everything down, but it was difficult. 

On top of that, Alex had to drink a huge chalky Barium shake for his PET/CT scan this morning, and he was having a hard time keeping it down. We were basically competing over who got to hang over the toilet! Ha!  I’ve heard of sympathy pains and sympathy weight gain, but sympathy morning sickness? Now, THAT’S a sensitive hubby!

Speaking of sensitive, Alex and I have to keep 5 feet away from each other for 24 hours because they injected him with some radioactive gunk for his PET scan. Oh boy! So now he has to sleep on the futon in the rec room tonight, while I get the bed… alone. I’m going to have dinner at my mom’s house tonight and maybe watch a movie over there. What a bummer! Well, at least it’s only for one day, and I’ll be working most of that time.

Now that I'm approaching my second trimester, I made hubby take a "belly shot." Yikes! I knew I was pooching, but I look a little like l did a few years ago before I lost weight!

I'm not complaining, though! How can I? My little bumpsie is just another wonderful assurance of my pregnancy.

My hormone levels are supposed to be leveling out now that I'm approaching the "honeymoon" second trimester. Supposed to be. So either it hasn't happened yet, or my personality has permanently changed to be extra-aggressive. I mean, I've always tried to work on being assertive, but ever since these hormones kicked in, I've surpassed assertive and gone ultra-aggressive.

The other day, I was driving home from work, and as I was approaching my house, I noticed a big fat dump truck coming down the road towards me. It was on the side where my house was, and to my horror, I saw that the driver let his tires go off the road and he drove over the edge of my yard, creating a BIG FAT RUT! Then he turned left, leaving dark tracks from the dirt he dragged out of my yard.

So I turned the car around and followed the jerk. He didn't go far, as there was a house being built just around the corner where he was delivering dirt. I wrote down the number on his license plate and all the information I could get from his truck. I was about to go home and call the company, but decided that I probably wouldn't be satisfied with the results. So I got out of my car, went up to the driver and asked for the number of his corporate office.

"I don't have a corporate office. This is my business. I can give you my number," he said, holding up his cell phone.

"Well, I want the number of whoever is going to fix the damage you did to my yard when you ran over it!"

Needless to say, he said he didn't know what I was talking about and denied running over my yard. ("Yes you did!" I responded, "I SAW you do it!")

He said he would stop by and take a look, but he acted like he was just trying to shut me up and get me out of his face. "Fine!" I said, and went back to the house, grabbed my digital camera, and started taking pictures of the damage.

The jerk did actually stop his truck across the street from my house and come over to stare at the big rut... AND HE STILL DENIED DOING IT!!

"There are plenty of trucks that come through here," he said.

"Yeah, but YOURS is the one I saw in my yard!"

"Well, that's city property!" he replied, trying to imply that he had NO responsibility to fix his mess.

"So you're not going to do anything to fix the damage you did. You're going to make me call the cops and the city and the better business bureau and whoever else, just to get this fixed?!?"

"Well, if you're gonna call the cops, you better call them, because I've got things to do. I didn't do it, and besides, this is my business and I know that's city property!"

"Fine!" I shouted, "I'll call the cops, but shame on you for running your business like a complete jerk!"

So I went into the house and dialed the sheriff's office. I explained, as calmly as I could, what happened, and gave the dispatcher all my information. He said he'd have someone out there soon.

I let the jerk wait by his truck until the police came. I stood by the big rut, guarding it, so that no cars that were trying to go around the jerk's big dump truck would run over the yard, and so he wouldn't have any opportunity to say some other vehicle did it.

It wasn't more than 20 minutes before the first police officer came. He got out of his car, and I very calmly explained the situation, telling him that I saw the guy do it and now he's claiming he didn't, and even if he did he said that's city property and not his problem. About that time, a second police car drove up, lights blazing, and another officer got out to investigate.

The jerk in the dump truck told the cop "I ain't sayin' I did it, and I ain't sayin' I didn't do it, but that's city property, and I know 'cuz I'm licensed and work out of Baker county."

To which, the police officer told him that even though that's city easement, I'm the one who has to maintain it and so it's still my yard. Then he said, "Now, because your vehicle was in motion when the damage occurred, I would be writing you a moving citation, which could go against your license and create some really big problems for you and your business. It would be best for you if you could work this out and not make me write the citation."

"Well, if you think it's better if we work it out between the two of us..." the jerk started to say.

"No, there IS no two of you," the officer cut in, "I'm telling you it would be best for YOU to work it out."

Anyway, it was so cool, because bother the police officers totally got my back and weren't swayed by any of this guy's BS, like "well, she came out of nowhere..." and "I've gotten nothin' but attitude from her..." (One of the officers even said, "You know why she followed you, right? She needed to identify the vehicle that did this damage and so had to get your information.")

I said, "All I want is for this rut to be fixed. I don't care if you fix it yourself or pay someone to do it, I just want it fixed."

"Well, I work every day..." the jerk started to say.

"So do I!" I cut in.

"Well, my father's in the hospital, and when I'm not working, I'm with him, so I don't know when I can come out here to do this."

"I'm not unreasonable," I said, "I will be satisfied if you can get this done by this weekend."

"Well, if you loan me a shovel and a rake," he said, "I can put the dirt back in there."

"And then what?" I asked.

"Well," one of the police officer said, "It'll look ugly for a while, but it'll grow back slowly." Then he looked at the jerk and said "It'll only take about 6 pieces of sod to put on top."

So I said I wanted it filled in AND sodded.

But the jerk tried to argue saying, "You have to buy sod by the pallet. You can't just buy it by the piece!"

"Uh, yes you can!" the other officer said, "Home Depot or Lowes sells it for about $2.99 a piece."

Unable to weasel out of it, the jerk asked if he could fill it in and give me $20 for the sod, which I agreed to.

"I just got paid, so I don't have anything less than a hundred," he said.

"There's a store right up the road," one of the officers told him, "you can get change there."

So the jerk had to go to the store, get change, fill in the rut (which, by the way, he did a LOUSY job), and pay me $20 for sod. I can't help but smirk a little when I think that he could have saved himself so much time and money if he hadn't been such a big fat jerk.

I mean, he drives a dump truck for crying out loud! He hauls DIRT around for a living, so how easy would it have been for him to just fill the hole?!? I would have been perfectly happy if the guy simply said, "Gee, I'm sorry. Let me fill that in for you," and then dumped a little dirt in there. I wouldn't have demanded sod, he wouldn't have had to wait for the cops, or get change at the store; but no! He had to be a big jerk about the whole thing and deny it! Well, it serves him right. He's lucky I wasn't going to be a jerk like him and insist that he get the citation.