Sesame Street – how do I love thee. SO much so, when my mom said I could decorate my room any way I wanted for my 16th birthday, it was done in Sesame Street wallpaper. I have had an obsession with the little orange female monster named Zoe since she was introduced in 1992.  My little girl is named after her (note: never EVER name your child after a monster).

Happy Birthday Sesame Street! You are loved.

Meiko -- first -- I LOVE her name. This was on my short list for baby girl names -- #mce_temp_url#but we all know how that turned out.

Anywho -- meet Meiko. I had heard something by her before -- but stumbled across her music again this past weekend while on a website. Which means I had to go download her album — thank you Amazon for the $9.49 MP3 album -- which you can find here -->  Meiko

How great is this? I have vivid memories of watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds movie in high school.

Each year I forget about what a great costume this would be at Halloween. Tonight I stumbled upon this and think this maybe the greatest Barbie doll every made!

Amazon is selling these – I think I have a few people in mind who would love this. (minus me!)

As I sit here uncomfortable feeling my alien child kick me – I love being able to tell my husband:

IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.

That is why I love being pregnant. Guilt.
(oh and the outcome of a cute little bambino)

So, to go along with the iphone – Baby Daddy surprised me with this puppy – a Motorola T505 ROKR Bluetooth in car speaker phone. Apparently he knows my awful habit of  talking and driving.

The bluetooth sync’d easily with the iphone – took about 5 minutes to setup.  I have had this for about a week and so far has lasted on 1 full charge.

The Motorola ROKR sound quality is great – except there is something I don’t like. The kids can now hear my conversations. And they feel like they should chime in and be apart of the conversation. ANNOYING! But I guess my eyes are on the road, though.

Another great use I’ve found is streaming Pandora thru the radio. Since the Motorola ROKR has a digital FM transmitter – you can stream things thru your stereo. We live in the Dallas metroplex and with my iPhone iTrip i have to shuffle often to find an empty radio frequency. The ROKR picked a signal right and streamed flawless.

Baby daddy bought this on Amazon. I was looking at purchasing an ear piece – but knowing my ability to keep up with things – I am glad he purchased this for me.

Here are the highlights:

• Portable media players and music handsets will allow you to beam music via the T505
• The Motorola ROKR T505 can either play it through speakers, or transmit it via FM to your car stereo
• It scans for clean frequencies, and when it finds one, it says aloud, “Tune your radio to 90.7.
• Palm-sized speakerphone is mounted in a car to offer handsfree calling as long as you are using a compatible handset with bluetooth functionality
• One year manufacturers warranty.

21 weeks – we’re making progress. The belly continues to protrude and i’m reminded daily of the fact that i’m carrying this little munchkin by kicks and jabs in my abdomen. I realized today that we have about 18 weeks before I most likely will deliver. 18 weeks! Crazy as long as that sounds, I know after the holidays are here – time will fly by.

We’re trying to decide what to do about the crib. We opened it – and it in deed has 2 molded hearts (that weren’t in the online pics!) on the crib.  Since buying it online – it would cost us a butt load to mail back. I think i’ve convinced Sean to just keep it. Though the purple stroller is an entirely different story.

This next week the kid will gain a full ounce and a half – which means that I will gain 2 pounds. He is up to almost 11 inches which is crazy seeing my other 2 I believe were 19 inches.  With this being my third pregnancy, you’d think I’d comprehend having this thing grow inside me – but still freaks me out (in a good way – of course!).

Here is hoping for a speedy week – full of lots of sleep and less jabs – and if little man could move off of my bladder that would be great too – thanks.

Hosting company just called me to verify that I registered a domain name thru their website. The lady was laughing as she read the domain name.

Well lady, I am now laughing at you.

GREAT redo of Britney Spear’s Womanizer by Sliimy!

I am totally loving Sliimy‘s sound. He makes me want to smile and I need more things in this world that make me smile.

And the mistake maker of today is…. *drum roll please*

I lay here watching the DVR and Oprah has a show on about first jobs. OH the memories. I should say… as ADD and spontaneous as I am – there are 2 things in my life that I have remained committed.

My family and my current job.

I’ve been with the current company for almost 9 years. Considering I am 31 – not bad.

My first first,VERY first job was at my Dad’s baseball card store.  We use to get paid 25 cents to sort baseball cards into sets. Child labor laws did not apply in our household. I could count to 100 therefore I could sort baseball cards.   As the baseball card trend faded my Dad went into comics. Then,  my days were spent bagging and boarding these stupid books. The only thing good about any of it was being a teen girl working with teen boys. Little did I realize at the time, most were totally losers.

The first offical, your hired job was as an “Associate” at Eckerds. My friend Rachel’s father hired me. One of my besties, Mimi worked there as well.   We had a great time calling each other over the intercom by our nickname initials.

Me = D.B. (dumb bunny)
Her = S.A. (smart ass)

“S.A. please come to the front of the store.” – in which then laughter would errupt from any Eckerd employee who wasn’t my manager.

Good times were had, and lessons learned. Like never turn your back on a customer for more than 2 minutes or they may walk out on you with their stuff and not pay.  That happened to me once – the customer wanted cigarettes. I was turned backwards and they had walked off with several items. Stupid me didn’t think to call the manager on duty. I just let it slide.

I remember laughing at a customer uncontrollably when he brought LICE into the store in a little baggie asking me to identify. Or the time a guy asked where the vibrators were, and I kept saying “Sir, we do not sell that kind of stuff here, this is Eckerds”.  I was later informed after he had called my manager complaining about me and that he was looking for back massagers. Why couldn’t he of just said BACK MASSAGERS, come on.

My 20-30 hour a week schedule had me busy.  Mimi (S.A.) and I spent endless hours looking thru people’s photos, smelling perfumes, straightening shelves and putting anything that was extremely cheap aside so we could snag it. The life of a 16-year old Eckerds employee – not to glamorous.

The whopping $4.25 an hour was sad. After my first year, I had a review and was given a raise to $4.35.  I laughed out loud when my manager told me that he was giving me a DIME more an hour. A DIME, seriously?   Thankfully soon after, I had a back injury which landed me in the Chiropractor’s office.

The Chiropractor asked if I knew anyone looking for a part-time job, which I said I was. She asked if I could start the following week for $10 an hour.  I am sure my response was something of pathetic. But so be it. I was no longer an Eckerd’s employee. Hello Chiropractic Assistant. Not bad for 17 and I actually was making money with early nights and no Sundays.

Lessons learned from my first real gig:

• A good relationship with your co-workers is key.  They can make or break a sucky job.
• Working with the general public is an experience. Don’t be suprised by anything. Even a junkie asking if we do needle exchanges.
• You have to make more than $4.25 an hour to buy a car. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this going into the job. Oh yeah, I was 16 and DUMB DUMB DUMB.
• Cleaning your bathroom at home = not fun. Cleaning a bathroom used by the public = DISGUSTING.
• Drunk guys will approach you and ask you to do a price check on condoms. (Little did they know I found this hilarious.)
• Pushing all of the talking holiday animated animals is hilarious. Having to hear those animals  for 8 hours straight on a Saturday afternoon = ANNOYING!
• Telling your under-aged friends you can’t sell them cigarettes, upsets them.

I am sure many lessons were learned about responsibility and timeliness and yadda-yadda as well.  And I am sure once  my kids get to the age of getting a job my tune will change about my time at Eckerds. Of course, their minimum wage will probebly be $12.00 an hour then. Regardlesss, I will always value my year in khakis and a collared navy shirt with my name tag that was decked out in Sesame Street stickers. How cool was I? (no need to answer.)

What was your first job and what lessons did you learn?