Impulse buys

Just when I start to mentally prepare myself for the next wave of babies coming into the lives of my friends, one jumps right in early to surprise us all.  This afternoon at work, I received a text message from my friend who was due with her first child on September 23.  She lives out in a more rural area of the state, so I do not see her nearly as often as I would like and updates are a little harder to get through.

Nonetheless, she texted me to announce that her baby girl was born this morning and that everyone was doing great.  It was such a shock coming just over two weeks early and I was so unprepared for the news that I gave an audible yelp of surprise from my desk. 

Immediately, I sent a message back and we exchanged a few words.  Not too many, however, because if there is one thing I know about child labor from all the stories I have heard is that it wears you out.  I am totally excited to eventually get all the gory and painful details of the act of childbirth, but I think I will wait until she has a little time and distance between present and the experience. 

One of the unexpected reactions I experienced immediately was to find myself on the verge of tears.  Not totally inappropriate, but I am generally speaking not a crier at happy moments like weddings and births.  But this news nearly had me bawling with happiness.  I kept in check as I was at work and did not feel like freaking my new coworkers out completely, but I did share the news with the gal in the cubicle next to mine.

As I meandered through the craziness that is Babies R Us after work in search of some new baby gifts, I analyzed my tears a little more.  If I had to name a reason (aside from just happiness), I realized that I have been carrying a little bit of tension over my friends and their pregnancies.  A couple of years ago, this would not have been the case, but the heart-wrenching loss of my best friend's first born just over a year ago did a number on my sense of tranquility when it comes to babies.

Maybe it is irrational, but it will probably be like this until sometime next year after the last of the expected babies for my friends and family members are done.  In the meantime, I am channeling my feelings into shopping and maybe even a little embroidering project and possibly some more cross-stitch.

In other news, my doggie weekend continues uneventfully.  Tomorrow I am getting a pedicure and leaving them to their own devices for a bit.  Sunday I may go out again.  Crazy, I know.

This morning, I had a bit of a crazy impulse moment.  My company's internal website just started locally based social pages for internal sharing, and on a procrastinating whim, I decided to peruse the page for the Twin Cities.  I was attracted to a thread in which a coworker was consulting the experiences of others to help him decide if he should pursue an MBA and if yes, where he should go.  The responses were interesting, and I found myself briefly considering a return to graduate school.  Fortunately, the financial requirements put me back in check.

However, in reading the thread all the way to the end, I found that the original post-writer came back to offer up a little explanation of his background and perhaps to brag a little bit about all the seemingly ah-maz-ing things he has done thus far.  Rather than just snort in disgust and move on, I read.  Maybe it is all part of the whole "don't knock it until you try it" mentality that led me to read Twilight.  Maybe.

Either way, I was caught by a casual description of the author's experience taking Norwegian language courses through a local Norwegian-American church organization.  To clarify, I have always wanted to find a way to take Norwegian classes that are affordable and could maybe, possibly, hopefully one day give me the ability to converse with natives.  On the off chance I ever get the chance to go back to visit (or live).

So I braved the work firewall and went to the website of the church.  Classes are starting next week and the price was reasonable.  I signed up.  It is funny because just the other day I had marveled at the fact that this was the first fall since 2008 that I have not had homework.  Not that I expect a ton of homework to come with this class, but I look forward to practicing my skills on my grandfather and maybe others in my family.

PLUS... the name of this blog is in Norwegian, right?  It is time to acquire the skills to support the awesomeness of my blog name.  Good justification, at least to me it is.

Check back periodically and see if I can manage to insert some useful phrases and demonstrate my linguistic prowess.  I promise to try my best.