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With Cupcake’s arrival, everything changed.

My sleep pattern is shot to hell (though last night, Bagpiper was amazing enough to take over and let me sleep all night long), the majority of my shirts have spit up on the shoulders because I haven’t had time to do laundry (or any housework) and the only meals I’m making are the quick-easy and often frozen kind (thank goodness for Bertolli meals!).

But all of that was expected.

Now that we are past the one month mark (time flies!) the new daily routine is starting to become a bit clearer and more steady.

On Monday, I Skype-chatted with my writing buddies back home (and a new one from Australia — Hi Jodie!) and we discussed our writing goals for 2012. Now, I put together some fairly lofty goals, but I’d rather aim too high than too low. And though I meant to start writing on Monday, it didn’t happen.

First, it was my birthday so I went out with some of the wives out here and celebrated. Second, by the time I got home Cupcake was waking and I had to take care of her. Third, I haven’t written since NaNoWriMo and I’m finding it hard to get back into the writing habit.

Now it’s Friday, and I haven’t written all week.

I’m beginning to realize that my normal writing habit has got to change to adapt to my new life style. I can’t just open a work in progress and spend hours writing this scene or that scene. For one, I don’t have hours to write. I have fifteen minutes here, half an hour there…

Which means, I’ve got to start being more organized when it comes to my writing. I’ve got to make a plan of action for the day/week. As in, “Today, the goal is to write THIS scene. If I finish then I will do THAT scene or plot for tomorrow’s scene.”

People, I have never been a plotter and my writing could never be described as organized.

This is a hard change, but I’m determined to do it cause I miss writing! So since I didn’t write this week, I’m using the afternoon to make daily writing goals for next week. Thank goodness for OneNote…best program ever.

Also?

I had myself a baby photo shoot…and I didn’t even wake her while trying to pose her and stuff. Go me.

Today, January 11, 2012, the Cupcake is one month old! Seems like we just got home from the hospital a few days ago, but it’s already been a month since she entered this world and changed my life forever.

My last update was in October.

However, in my defense, a lot of stuff happened that prevented me from blogging. Actually, stuff happened that made me forget I even had a blog to update.

So…recapping:

November 2011

It was birthday ball season for the USMC, which meant the Bagpiper was super busy playing gigs. This was month eight of the pregnancy and I found myself sleepy a lot.

Also? NaNoWriMo — I won, but just barely. JUST BARELY.

Cooked my first ever Thanksgiving meal on my own. Since it was just me and the Bagpiper, I cooked a turkey breast rather than an entire turkey. Besides, an entire turkey would not have fit in my countertop oven.

December 2011

The big month.

Bagpiper had some Christmas concerts early on, two of which he almost missed due to my almost being induced.

I was induced a week early, and on December 11, 2010 at 10:12pm, the Cupcake was born at a whopping 5lbs 2oz. Twenty-seven hours of labor (for which I slept through most of it thanks to the magic of an awesome epidural) and less than eight minutes of pushing.

I’m a mommy, y’all!!

Even though I was full term (38 weeks) when I had her, she was so tiny! I had to have my mom send me some preemie clothes for her, because none of the clothes I had ready for her (and there are a lot) fit! And finding preemie stuff out here was pretty impossible. Not even the newborn hats fit her, so I had to do some quick knitting and make her some teeny tiny hats.

Now, however, she’s pushing close to 7lbs, so the preemie stuff is almost outgrown and we’re almost fitting into newborn stuff! LOL

Granted, most of you (if not all) who read this blog already know that Cupcake made her arrival (I’ve only been tweeting a photo everyday…lol). But on the off chance you haven’t seen the pictures on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook…

Brand new!

So pretty...just like mommy!

OK, so I’ll stop there, because I could fill this post with HUNDREDS of pictures of Cupcake.

So after her birth, I was stuck in the hospital for a full week due to my elevated blood pressure. Not high, but higher than normal so to err on the safe side, I was kept in the hospital with nurses checking my BP every 2-4 hours. It sucked.

The bright side was that Bagpiper had two weeks off for paternal leave, so he was home with me and Cupcake. Even better? Paternal leave ended the day after Christmas, but the band was still on leave, so he had another two weeks off of work with a few half days thrown in — so basically, he had almost a month off. It was glorious.

So we had the best Christmas present of all, and we didn’t even mind that we weren’t getting any sleep.

We were able to trade off on sleepless nights and night feedings, which worked out great. Now Cupcake is eating pretty regularly every three hours.

January 2012

And that brings us to the new year!

Today is my birthday (Jan 9) and Bagpiper gave me the best present yesterday. He gave me an afternoon and evening of sleep and he took care of dinner. He wanted to take me out to dinner, and that was the original plan, but I fell asleep on the couch and he let me snooze.

When I woke up he asked if I still wanted to go out or if I wanted him to pick something up. So no glamorous birthday meal, just a chicken nugget meal from McDonald’s, but it was still an awesome gift, I think!

Yesterday I also wrote out all my writing goals for 2012. A lot of them focus on editing and revising some finished stories I have. I tried some editing/revising last year and I failed miserably. Not just because of being pregnant and moving to Japan, either. I just kept pushing it aside in favor of plot bunnies. Pregnancy and moving were just bonus excuses.

This year, however, I want to finish and be done with my finished stuff. Ideally, I finish (as in write, edit and revise) at least three manuscripts. Maybe even think of submitting one or two somewhere, but I may save that for 2013.

Other goals include finishing two or three unfinished stories, planning for NaNo 2012 (no it’s not too early) and learning to juggle mommyhood with writing. I’m also aiming for writing 5K a week.

For me these goals are kind of lofty, but I’d rather aim too high than too low.

And that’s about it…

…ooh! I just found out my best friend from high school is being stationed to Japan later this year! Huzzah!

OK. Now for real that’s all.

I promise to try to update regularly from now on and not just with pictures of the Cupcake.

This happened a while ago, but with the dog finally arriving and MIL visiting, I haven’t had much blogging time (so don’t expect much from me this week).

But I thought I’d share this. Remember how I was in an epic battle against the Bagpiper for a Doctor Who game with sonic screwdriver? Yea. I won.

I didn’t even have to hit 100 comments to make this happen.

He still thinks he’s right about my not playing the game for more than five minutes, but you know what? Who cares. Even if through some divine miracle he is right? I still have the game which means I won — and really, that’s all that matters in the end, right? Bwahaha!

Next up, that $95 Tardis-shaped tea pot I saw on Pinterest…

…I don’t even drink tea, but I like to think that I would if it came out of a Tardis and was tea from all of time and space.

So here you go..a video that raises awareness for breast cancer and the importance of breast exams…but with hot shirtless men.

Watch once and drool.

Watch twice and pay attention.

What thrice for more drooling.

Share with others.

I won’t be around much this weekend. By the time this post goes up in the US, I’ll be at the airport picking up my dog. WOOOOT!

I introduced my husband to a new show, “The Colony”. I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner with garlic bread. I got my husband a beer when he asked for one. I carefully and lovingly put the leftovers in a plastic container that my husband could take to work for his lunch.

This morning, I was a good wife.

After asking my husband last night to wake me up so I could have the car today, I woke up without being grumpy. When my husband was in the shower, I did not bang on the door to scare him like I did the other day (man, that was a really fun morning, too). I agreed to wash his uniforms while he was at work, since he forgot to do it last night. I made him breakfast.

While he was eating breakfast, I poked around on Pinterest, to see what was newly pinned.

I found gloriousness pinned. Awesome, amazing glory pinned in the form of a sonic-freaking-screwdriver Wii remote. I clicked. It wasn’t just a Wii remote, y’all. It was a SONIC SCREWDRIVER Wii remote. WITH A DOCTOR WHO GAME.

Let that sink in.

A Doctor Who game. Sonic screwdriver remote. I’m pretty sure it makes “the noise” too.

All at once, all the fun I was going to have with this flash in my head.

I would become a female reincarnation of the Doctor. I would put on a bow tie and wave my sonic screwdriver at the TV and do all sorts of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff and save the world on an hourly basis.

My TV would turn into my own personal Tardis, zooming me around all of time and space. I’d get to yell out things like, “Come along, Pond!”

Basically, my life was going to be awesome.

My life was going to be complete.

Being a good wife, I wanted to share my joy with the Bagpiper — who, I would like to add has FINALLY started getting into Doctor Who. He started with series five (not one, like I want him too, but we’ll get there), and he’s really enjoying it.

So I do the only thing possible at this point. I turn around and squee, “OMG OMG OMG!”

Bagpiper: “What?”

Me: “There’s a sonic screwdriver Wii remote. WITH a game! I must have!”

At this point, I’m already looking around for my wallet and debit card.

And then, tragedy strikes my happy marriage.

My reaction:

I didn’t understand. Like, I really didn’t. I must have misheard him. Surely. I tell him again exactly what it is. Sonic screwdriver. Doctor Who game. Sonic screwdriver remote. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

He was really saying no to this. After all the goodness of my wifeyness in the past 24 hours, he was saying no to me. He was saying no to our unborn child. Because surely, unborn baby would feel mommy’s euphoria in playing such a magical game.

It was time to take some drastic measures. I did sad panda face mixed with puppy eyes. I wanted him to know I was hurt. Emotionally scarred, even. I reminded him of the good things I’d done, like make him the breakfast he was enjoying.

I told him that I would play because it game with a sonic screwdriver. How could I not play?

I begged.

I pleaded.

I had to make him see that this was important.

He still was not budging on the issue.

I was flabbergasted.

Freaking flabbergasted.

What happened to my husband?

The one that loves me? The one that wants me to be happy? The one who re-enlisted into the military to provide for his family.

Doctor Who game with sonic screwdriver falls under the “providing for you family” umbrella. It’s even under “necessities”, just below “roof over your head” and just above “groceries”.

I tried one more time.

He had to say yes. My husband is a nice, loving, caring man.

He could say no to anything else, but not this. I was willing to give up yarn buying for a week! Book buying for a day! Anything to make him say yes.

But no.

Clearly, I did not marry the romance hero I thought. My kilt-wearing, bagpipe playing Marine husband was morphing into a Cyberman, deleting all my requests for this game and all my chances of happiness.

He became an Evil Husband of Doom.

So, I sat quietly for a minute, thinking of what to do next.

I came up with the perfect and most flawless of counter-arguments.

“It comes with a sonic screwdriver. So really, all your “reasons” are invalid. INVALID, I SAY.”

If I had a pair of gloves, I would have slapped him with them as if I were challenging him to a duel. Because I was challenging him. There is no argument better than “It comes with a sonic screwdriver.”

I had won. I knew it. And he knew it.

But he just rolled his eyes as if it were nothing and went back to his coffee.

Clearly, I have to play hard ball.

For now, I’ve “let the matter go”. My dog arrives tomorrow night, so it’s not like I would play the game this weekend anyway. Even if my dog wasn’t arriving tomorrow, mail takes like two weeks to reach me, so it’d be awhile before I could play anyway.

But mark my words…I will order this game and get the sonic screwdriver. I will be the female reincarnation of the Doctor and I will do wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Instead of saying, “Come along, Pond!” I will say, “Come along, Sushi!” because my dog will be here and she will be my companion, because clearly my “loving” husband has no desire to fill this roll.

And when the game arrives and my dreams are fulfilled, he won’t be able to do anything about it. Because games are like DVDs. Once you rip off the plastic wrapping you cannot return it. He will simply have to sigh and accept that I won. And if he can’t, then I’ll just sonic him into acceptance.

Or silence.

Whichever.

Bwahahaha!

Take that, husband.

You know, I bet Rory would have given Amy the game without all this fuss.

ETA: Somehow, I’ve gotten into my head that if I can get 100+ people to comment on this blog post, each comment will equal $1 my husband will have to put forth toward the purchase of this game.

I’m not sure if this will really work, but it’s worth a shot. Help a girl, out…comment. Share. Tell your friends to comment. Show my husband all the reasons that having this game is necessary.

]]> https://adorablyalice.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/sonicing-my-husband-into-acceptance/feed/ 40 doctorpony Adorably Alice HappyPony Nobuying wallet Notwo cryingpony nope hmph doctorpony https://adorablyalice.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/wordless-wednesday-getting-ready-for-sushi/ https://adorablyalice.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/wordless-wednesday-getting-ready-for-sushi/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:30:56 +0000 Alice McElwee http://adorablyalice.wordpress.com/?p=1597 ]]>

I’m SO ready for my dog to be here! Just another day and a half until I bombard you with puppy pictures!

Excessive hashtagging.

For those of you unfamiliar with hashtags, they are a simple way to put your tweet into a conversation as well as a way to make your tweet searchable. An example of a tweet with a hashtag would be: “Lalala, I have something interesting to say about #knitting.” The # sign in front of the word knitting makes that word searchable. Therefore, anyone searching the term “knitting”, will see my tweet.

Hashtags are an excellent way to broaden your scope and reach more people. However, when you have a tweet that looks something like: “#Writers will find this blog post about #writing and #publishing interesting. *URL* #amwriting #pubtib #blog” then you have too many hashtags.

Why excessive hashtagging hurts more than helps.

• It’s ugly. Believe it or not, there is an aesthetic issue. The tweet looks ugly. It’s not eye-catching and so the reader will move on without really reading your tweet. Most people scan their Twitter stream rather than truly read it, and breaking up a tweet with too many hashtags (even if they are all at the end) is going to cause that tweet to get overlooked.
• Google doesn’t like excessive hashtags. Google views too many hashtags as spam, and as a result, excludes those tweets from real-time searches. So while you think that all those hashtags are helping you broaden your audience, it’s actually hurting you.
• You look like a douchecanoe. If your tweet has more than three hashtags, you look selfish. You look like you’re screaming out, “LOOK AT ME! MY TWEET IS IMPORTANT!” It’s a turn-off, and people are more likely to ignore and even unfollow you if you make this habit.
• Hashtags overlap. Hashtags have a tendancy to overlap, especially when it comes to certain subjects. Hashtags like #knitting overlap with people using the #Ravelry hashtag. For writers, the #amwriting hashtag can overlap with a number of other writing related ones such as #amediting, #MyWANA, #pubtib and a whole assortment of others. So excessive hashtagging is still not helping you broaden your audience.

The hashtag solution.

• Don’t use more than two or three hashtags in your tweet. Even using three is pushing the envelope a little, in my opinion. Any more and again, you’re hurting yourself more than helping.
• Engage with your readers/followers. Are you retweeting your followers interesting tweets? If so, you are more likely to have them RT you in turn. It’s the RTs that are going to broaden your audience the most, not half a dozen hashtags.
• Have quality content. Look, if tweet is interesting and links to something worthwhile, it will get retweeted and shared. If it’s not, no amount of hashtagging is going to get that content shared.
• Think about your audience. When choosing a hashtag, choose with your audience in mind. Is your tweet more about #amwriting or #amediting? Are you reaching out to just #knitters or #Ravelry members in general? Remember, hashtags overlap, so if you use #amediting instead of #amwriting, chances are high that you are reaching the same people.
• Tweet creatively. The tweet you send out in the morning can include different hashtags from the tweet you send out for your evening crowd. But don’t just send the same tweet out three or four different times with different hashtags. Refresh and recreate your message.

How do you feel about hashtags? How many is too many?

Usually, I can ignore and look past the two percent of annoying habits he has.

But lately — and by lately I mean ever since we moved to Japan five months ago — he’s developed this habit of putting trash in the kitchen sink.

Really?

I mean, seriously.

The trashcan is less than two feet away from the kitchen sink. In the five years I’ve lived with him he has never put trash in the kitchen sink. Ever. So what the hell, Bagpiper?

For awhile, I’ve been ignoring it. If I go to the sink and see a beer bottle, paper plate or an empty bag of chips, I throw it away. After all, he does so much that I feel bad complaining about his bad habits.

But this…

It’s aggravating.

This evening I did the dishes and found three pieces of trash in the sink. I threw it away in the trashcan, finished the dishes and then decided to take action. I have no idea if it’s going to work, but it’s a start. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll have to figure out more drastic measures…

Think it’ll work?

What bad habits does your husband/significant other have that just drive you up the wall?