The joys of Jimmie Jo/Jimmy Joe

Jen puked not long ago, like 30 minutes or so.

This morning sickness is an odd thing. For one, I didn't realize it could happen at night, as you're going to bed. I mean, it's called "morning" sickness. Not "random times of the day" sickness.

Jen has gotten sick three times so far. I think that equals the number of times she puked in all the years prior to that.

Tonight was odd. She's laying on the couch and gets up for bed. When she does, she coughs. And that caused her to get sick.

Luckily, she got to the bathroom in time. Being the concerned husband, I dutifully stayed in the bathroom while she was heaving. Since her hair is too short to need to be held, I got a washcloth and rubbed her back.

Oddly, the sound of her getting sick didn't turn my stomach. Maybe I'm already psychologically adjusting to the future grossness I'll endure as a father.

(BTW, the names on this post are not in the running for actual names of the baby. When Jen and I would see kids acting up at the mall or at restaurants, we used to say "our kid won't do that." Eventually, we started using Jimmie Jo/Jimmy Joe as a way to refer to our future child, since depending on the spelling it can be a girl or boy.)

Jen is always a good hostess

It just dawned on me that Jen straightened up the main bathroom this morning.

She hid the toothpaste, the water cup and wiped down the sink. I never do understand hiding the toothpaste, but not hiding the toothbrushes. But hey, I'm not the hostess with the mostest.

I guess she wanted it to look nice for the construction workers, in case they needed to take a whiz ... which they never did. Or, if they did need to, they did it out in the backyard or something.

UPS

So I ordered a Patagonia sweatshirt and cap (don't tell Jen, she thinks I've got too many caps as it is) last week from one of my outlet Web sites. Heck of a deal on them at 75 percent off.

I got the confirmation e-mail with a link to the UPS package tracking Web page. So each day I've logged on to see where my shipment is located. Monday, it was in Reno. Then it was shipped to Mesquite (home of the mighty Skeeters, says Sean Brown). From there it went to Little Rock, before arriving in Fort Smith at 4:08 a.m. this morning. Then it left the local UPS warehouse at 6:53 a.m. ... and I still don't have my stuff.

I'm usually pretty patient. But come on, bring me my stuff. It's been nearly five hours since the truck left the depot. Aargh!

I'd have been better off not logging onto that site at all.

Update: Hooray, UPS finally arrived a little before 5 p.m. I'm now wearing my rocking new sweatshirt and will be sporting the cap soon.

Seven hours

How'd you spend your Saturday?

I spent mine sanding the ceiling in our bedroom. And then cleaning up the dust.

The previous owner just troweled on the ceiling plaster in big swooshing motions, then never sanded it smooth. I guess she was doing a cheap or more "artistic" variation of that textured popcorn ceiling stuff.

Jen hates it. So I'm tasked with removing it, then smoothing the ceiling so we can repaint the bedroom.

I spent four hours sanding, three hours cleaning up. I swept, Shop-Vac-ed, Swiffered, mopped and Lemon Pledged everything in the bedroom. I did more cleaning today than I have in the previous seven-plus years of my marriage.

The worst part? I only got about a fourth of it done.