Baby Name Charts Give Me Ulcers Part II

Realizing that my baby name list was dwindling down (and not because I was crossing off my least favorites from the list) I hopped on the social security's baby name top 1000 (yes 3 zeroes) chart to get more ideas. I also Googled "How Not To Choose A Trendy Baby Name" and you know what I found? An article that specifically listed my #1 baby name as a prime example of a name not to choose because of it's popularity!

WTF! Seriously. What. The. F#@%.

I swear on everything holy that I thought I made it up! The ironic thing is though, that I've still never heard anyone say the name let alone name their kid with this name....but it's somehow so popular that it's in an article about not choosing a trendy baby name.

F@#% me.

So long name. I love you dearly. But I just can't do that to my hopefully in-the-near-future kid...

Back to the drawing board.

Baby Name Charts Give Me Ulcers

Not really.
But close.

Every girl has a list of baby names...whether you're trying to get pregnant or not, every girl has a list. I've had mine for a very long time, but admittedly names come and go from my list. This mainly depends on the Top 100 Baby Names chart...I refuse to give my baby a popular name. Though some of the names I have in mind are on this list, in a perfect world my baby names wouldn't even reach top 100. 

But you know what ruins my day even more than seeing my baby names get more popular on this list? (Though that really frustrates me and causes me to go back to the drawing bored once they hit above #50.) When people I know use my baby names!

The other night I told John he needs to "hurry and knock me up before all my baby names get taken". In the last couple weeks 2 of my names have been used by people I know and one has reached soaring popularity on the baby name charts which makes me no longer want it.

But I'm running out of names!

One that frustrates me the most is a name I made up. I've never heard it before; I honestly thought I made it up. Even with all the other baby names that have come and gone on my list, it has constantly been my number one name  for 2 years now, and the other day I saw it on a "today's trending names" list .

So seriously. This baby needs to be made fast, before anyone I know uses my name!!


A couple previous names on my baby list that have become too popular or used by people I know:

Lillian
Scarlett 
Amelia
Olivia
 Isabella (before Twilight's Bella became ridiculously popular) 

Gabriel
Wesley
Landon
Lucas
Noah
Gavin
Elijah
Sawyer 


*Note:  I hopped on and looked at the popular baby names list again while I was typing this and saw my number one name move even higher up the list! It already seems unusable being at the spot that it's at on the charts, I'm going against everything I've always thought by keeping once it surpassed  #50 ..if It gets any higher I'll seriously lose my mind.

I love having a unique name. I do not want my kid to be 1 one of 5 or even 1 of 3 in their class. I've always wanted a name that wasn't even on the charts, and now because of the way trends go, ALL of my names are on the top 100. I really love them, but do I keep them knowing they are growing in popularity and go against what I've always wanted as far as naming my child? Or start looking for new names, knowing that eventually they will probably come up on this list too?

Head Scratch

Today was a day for the books.

I went into work, happy go lucky, ready to start my work week, when as soon as I get there I'm told that there's a lice outbreak.

A WHAT?!

GROSS!!

So me and Courtney (a friend I work with) got the pleasure of doing lice checks on all the kids. We checked I think around 10 kids....only a couple of them weren't infested.

YUCK!!

The moms had to be checked, go figure, they were all infested too.

DOUBLE YUCK!!

Have you ever had to do multiple lice checks? I've seen so many lice (louse?) today I'm set for life. They're nasty, and they scurry throughout your hair....I fell like I'm gonna gag just thinking about it. 

I know that this comes with the job. I work in a very gross house, with some pretty questionable women who honestly astound me sometimes with their awful hygiene...but I don't do lice!

I've gotten sick so many times from this place, my immune system should be epic right now, but guys, lice? Really?

All of the staff were checked for lice. I don't have it! (Thank God!) But everyone was required to do a lice treatment just in case. So after work I went over to Courtney's house. I did her hair and she did mine....we felt like monkeys when we were sitting searching each other's hair. Can I reiterate THANK GOD I DON"T HAVE LICE!

Some people say "Oh it's just lice"...they're basically saying, "Oh it's just a parasite that's sucking your blood and lays 5 eggs in your hair every day". Yeah, it's "just" lice....

The thing that's so frustrating about this whole ordeal, is that the client that brought the lice into the house brought it in over a month and a half ago! She was embarrassed so she didn't tell anyone, and didn't treat herself, so it's invested the entire house.

Like I said, I guess it comes with the territory because of the type of people I work with in the environment I work in, but come on that shit's nasty.

The Basics of Nutrition My...

@$$

The basics don't seem very basic to me, but anything that involves having to do calculations doesn't seem very basic to me. I'm one of those people.

My grades in this class are no bueno right now :( (78%...this can't be happening).

But on a happier note: I got a 95% on my final paper for my Latino family studies class!

Darn tootin'!

I'm definitely not the science/math type and I definitely am the English/social science type. Why can't I just take all literature or social science classes? Who needs to be well rounded anyway? Not I, I say!

Just kidding.

Kind of.

But seriously. This girl needs to step up her game.

say what?

Mid Term

Up until today I've been doing really well in school. I've been ahead of my work, I've gotten A's on every assignment, I've been on top of my game....until today.

This week I pushed aside all of my other homework and house work to study for my mid term in Latino Child and Family Studies. This class has so many reading assignments there's just an overflow of information. My professor didn't require a textbook, instead he's listed multiple links to articles for each weekly reading, sometimes this means four, forty page articles for one reading and we have two readings per week.

My professor was nice enough to let us know that there would be around 4-5 essay questions for this test so I tried to know the information pretty well. Welp, I got in to take the test and there were FIFTEEN essay questions. That should be illegal. The whole time I felt like a broken record. One question asked, "Why do people emigrate from Latin America?" the next question asked, "Why do people from Latin America immigrate to North America?"....really? What's the difference?!?

Not only did I feel like a broken record, but there were a couple that I honestly felt like I just pulled the questions out of nowhere just hoping to God that they might hit the ballpark of the right answer.

I'm really hoping I can bounce back from this one. So long 97%....it was nice while it lasted.

I'll Keep You Posted

Today John and I went to look at a couple houses. We've been looking for a few months now and I think today we may have found one that we're going to try to put an offer on. I'm hoping it works out, but we need to discuss it a bit more before any action is taken.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Later today John was exercising Duke and Duke got loose and ran into our neighbors tree grove. Yes, our neighbors have a tree grove that is filled with hundreds of trees (no idea what kind though). Anyway, Duke got lost in there, John ran in after him and called me and told me to come out to help. I ran in there and tried to find them but the sun was setting and it was getting really dark. Finally I heard a yelp/cry and I ran over to where it was. Duke was fighting with a raccoon- a nasty, diseased, filthy, mean raccoon and my baby was fighting it!

I don't know if the cry was from the raccoon or from Duke. When I got there Duke had jumped off of it and was standing a few inches away from it just starring down at it. The raccoon wasn't moving. It was hissing, but it wasn't moving. Duke pounced on it again and the raccoon still didn't move. I mean, it moved in the sense that it was scratching, but it didn't get up at all. Every time I tried to take a step closer to get Duke the raccoon turned to me and hissed. Finally after about half an hour John and I got Duke. I'm pretty sure the raccoon was dead. By then it was dark and I couldn't really see, all I could see was a black figure on the ground but after a while it stopped hissing and it still wasn't moving.

Well, knowing how filthy and disease ridden they are I'm freaking out about Duke. Our pet clinic was closed so we have to wait until morning to get him in, and animal control was closed too so I couldn't have them come and get the nasty critter. Duke seems to be ok. I'm sure that the raccoon did something to him (scratch, bite) and that's worrying me. We can't see anything- he's not bleeding, he's not acting like anything hurts, he has so much fur we can't see any scratches or bite marks...but there's no way that Duke left that fight unscathed. He is all caught up on his vaccines (rabies included) so I'm hoping that prevents anything like that from setting in, but God only knows what other diseases that thing had and if they were transferred to Duke through a scratch or bite.

Do you see why I'm freaking out?

I'll have to keep you posted on this too.

I was going through some old pictures tonight though and found some puppy pictures of Duke.

Look at that face, guys.We had had him for about 2 minutes when this was taken

My itty-bitty baby :o) too freakin' cute

Yes, bask in the cuteness of my baby boy <3

I Can't Think of An Appropriate Title for This Post So, This Is What You Get

I've had a bad couple of weeks. Well, not totally bad. John and I did celebrate our 1 year anniversary this past weekend. I'll talk about that in another post because we had a great time and I'd like to share it with you guys, but for the sake of this post I just want to vent...complain...cry...whatever it is that might come out while typing.

Work has been ridiculous lately. We have a client that has made work hell. I've had my fair share of disrespectful clients, but this one takes the cake. Every night for nearly two weeks there has been some problem caused by her. To make it worse, her and I don't mesh at all. I've been on good terms with every client (excluding one) that has walked in the door at my work, but for some reason or other her and I butt heads like crazy. Tonight she felt the need to announce to everyone how much she doesn't like me. When a client would come talk to me she would say catty things like "you actually like her?? why?!" and then she pushed me over the edge with this comment, "Piper doesn't like me because she knows I'm prettier than she is".

You would think that with her level of maturity I would be talking about a younger person. She's in her 30's. I don't really care if she likes me, that's not why I work there- for the women to like me, but when it gets to a personal level I start to take offense and tonight she actually hurt my feelings

On top of that, my hours have gotten cut because my boss keeps hiring a ton of other workers. I don't understand why companies do this. The last two companies I've worked for have done the same thing- they complain that no one wants hours, so they hire more workers to cover shifts, when in actuality the employees who have been there for a while are begging for hours. So now because there aren't enough hours to go around what with these new hires and all, my hours have been cut and I'm forced to look for another job. I was already looking for a job (relate to previous Baby Itch posts), but now I'm forced to find one soon because starting in 2 weeks my checks will be cut. Awesome.


I've been feeling pretty homesick lately too. It's probably because of the holidays, but part of me thinks that it's not necessarily the holidays but just the fact that I'm really family oriented and I've been away from them for almost a full year now. No matter the reason, I'm homesick. And when I get this way I realize just how lonely it is out here. I hate not having my family or friends here, and I hate that I don't know how to get connected and grounded since moving here. It's hard making a new circle of friends. I have work friends, but they have their own lives and they have their own friends...I feel like I don't really belong anywhere.

To put the cherry on top of my marvelous sundae, my brother broke it to me tonight that he will be moving to LA soon. The only family member that I have here will be moving away. I understand it. The relationship he was in didn't work out; he hates not having family or friends here either, and a group of his closest friends from high school are all in LA. I get it. I just hate the idea of having no one here. Yes, I have my husband so I'm not totally alone...but it still gets lonely. And yes, I have John's family, but it's not the same having his family here as it would be if my family were here.

I dunno guys. All of this adding up is pretty overwhelming. I'm sad. Really sad.

Which Emotion Will Take Over Next

Basically, I feel like an emotional roller coaster right now.

I went from being super happy today, to being incredibly pissed off...and I mean like, blood boiling pissed off, then after the anger wore off I got sad, and now I have a little hope which makes me happy.

Here's how my day went.


John and I spent the day together and I was totally feeling the Christmas spirit. We went shopping and bought some Christmas stuff, and we decided that tomorrow we're getting our Christmas tree and decorating it. Then we went to the store and got pumpkin pie and eggnog (which we were going to save until tomorrow when we decorate the tree/house but we just couldn't wait so we dug in), and I was having a holly, jolly ole' time.

Then I went to work. And that's when it all went downhill. Literally less that one minute after walking in the door I went from :D to >:O. Why the sourpuss face you ask? Two of our kids got taken away from their mother tonight and put into foster care. I have no sympathy for her, I would have taken them away too. But I feel heartbroken over those kids. I've never been so angry at a client before but I was irate when I heard why the kids got taken away. Mad because she fooled everyone so well; mad because she chose a guy over her kids; mad over her selfishness; mad over her irresponsible and dangerous decisions; mad that those two beautiful babies will now be torn apart; mad because she had chances to change; mad because she's giving up, and mad because I kept thinking of how I would do anything to have a child while there are people out there who don't value their children enough and then situations like these happen.

I was mad for my entire shift. Then I got in my car to head home and I started thinking more of the kids and focusing less on my anger towards the mom. I feel heartbroken that they will be taken away from their mom because they adore her. I feel bad that they will be torn apart. And I'm sad that I won't get to see their cheery little faces anymore.

And here's where the hope comes in.

I'm thankful that they will be taken out of a dangerous/unstable situation and placed with foster parents who care and love them. I know the foster system is screwed up, but one of them has already been taken once and has a foster mom who really does love this child and takes care of them. Maybe that's this will be their saving grace. Then when I got home I started telling John about my awful night and he talked me through my emotions and even though I was doubting my ability to work in a career like this permanently, he encouraged me and listed reasons of why I can do this job. That obviously led to a discussion about our careers and our future, and in this topic of our future, John mentioned babies. I didn't say anything, though I wanted to, but he said that we need to get on top of making our lives better "so we can start having babies". Yes. Those words came out of his mouth. That led to us talking about our careers, him applying to police jobs this weekend, and me finishing my degree. So, then I hopped online and started looking at some more information about my degree and then I started looking up police positions that are open. There are two police departments that are hiring in our dream spot...the coast. This makes me super excited. As soon as I told John he got really excited too. He's applying first thing tomorrow. So please, please, please, say a prayer that John will get one of these positions! I cannot accurately describe how happy the thought of living on the Oregon coast makes me.


 So there's the inside scoop on my highly emotional day.

Gotta love it.

FML

Today was a very frustrating day for me.

I woke up to an email telling me that my admissions to OSU was denied. I was shocked. I knew I met all the requirements, why didn’t I get in?? I called them and asked why I wasn’t accepted and they told me that I didn’t meet their math requirements. I then told them that I tested out of math at my old university, apparently OSU doesn’t accept clept classes. I asked if I could take a math class there to make up for it, and they said no. I need to have that credit before walking into OSU. Why? I have no idea. I don’t understand why I can’t take a needed math course at a university, that seems like it should be pretty simple. But what do I know.

So the lady in admissions tells me that  I need to go to a community college and take a math course and then transfer over to OSU. *Oh by the way, I should also mention that the admissions lady said that they need my high school transcripts to prove that I’ve met my English and foreign language requirements. I should also mention that my high school has closed their doors, my old alma mater is no more.* So, I called my old university and asked them if they could send me my old high school transcripts. They told me no; they’re not allowed to do that. They told me to call my old school district and see if I could get my transcripts from them. So I did. I called Weber school district and because Christian Heritage was a private school, they weren’t required to hand over any records. They told me to call the Utah school district and see if they had any of the records. I did; they don’t. How the hell does that happen?? My transcripts have to be somewhere but no one knows where.

So then, I called a community college out here to see if I could get in and finish my math requirements. I told her my predicament and she told me that I would need proof that I’ve taken certain prerequisites in order for me to walk into a college algebra class. Well, I tested out of math in college so I don’t have the proof there, and we all know what a mess my high school transcripts are. So once again I’m at a dead end.

Being very confused and frustrated after being transferred from person to person for 5 hours, I called back my old university and asked if I could finish my associates degree and then just walk into OSU and finish my bachelors. I have an interview tomorrow over the phone with my old university to talk to an adviser about whether or not I can finish online. Well, then I called OSU back to double check and make sure that would be acceptable. They told me no.  Even though I would have a degree (which obviously shows that I’ve met my general requirements), they won’t accept it because I still wouldn’t’ have that one damn math class.

Now I’m thinking that tomorrow on my phone interview I’m not going to ask if I can just finish my associates, I’m going to ask if I can finish my bachelors online through them because this whole thing has gotten so ridiculous. I want to say “screw OSU” and they’re unwillingness to work with me on my transfer, and stick to the university who already has my information and who will accept my math credits.

If they tell me no and I can’t finish my degree, well then *@#% me!

I can go without a degree, right? I mean who needs one when I can just sell my body for money, hookers make bank and the whole "girl next door thing"...people eat that shit up

I kid, I kid.