New Bed

When we first moved to LA we had to buy a bed because we didn't have a way to transport our old one. Not wanting to spend any more money than we had to we ended up going to an outlet type store and buying a queen bed for less than $300. It was fine at first because I'm a tummy sleeper, squashed frog more specifically, and so the hardness of the mattress didn't really bother me. Joel, being a back sleeper had a harder time. But when my pregnant belly got too big for me to sleep on my stomach it became very very uncomfortable and I would wake up with sore hips and a sore back. So recently we decided that we should start looking for a softer bed so we both could sleep better and not wake up in so much pain. Then yesterday in the Penny Saver I spotted a California King bed for sale with a pillowtop AND bed frame for just $100. We went over to see it and laid on it and it was MUCH more comfortable. So we got a friend with a truck to help us and we bought it! Last night I felt like a dwarf sleeping in this huge bed, but it was so comfy. The only problem now is we have two beds in our tiny apartment and our room is completely taken over by the thing. It's worth it though.

12 Days of Christmas

Because Joel is so sweet and precious and the best husband ever he decided to do the 12 Days of Christmas again for me this year. Last year he ended the 12 days with a Grand Slam by proposing to me so I guess he's got a lot to live up to this year. Just kidding! I was so surprised by him doing it again this year and I'm already thrilled with the gifts he's given me. He's spreading the 12 days out over 25 because we're going to Utah for so long and some of the gifts are too big to travel with.

Behold the first day of Christmas: A Winter Scene

















The second day of Christmas: A sewing desk!



There is a hing on the top left of the desk that allows the top piece of wood to fold out to make room of the sewing machine and fabric. Now that I have a place to sew I just have to figure out how to thread the stinkin' machine correctly.














The third day of Christmas: A sewing cabinet!




This is my favorite so far!! It's so cute! It reminds me of a mailbox. In the card that he gave me with the gift he said he that it may look like he's encouraging me to sew but it's just that he found these cool pieces and thought I would like them, which I do and I do want to sew so maybe this will encourage me. If I don't use it for that though this cute little cabinet will house something else.










I'm excited for the rest of the days of Christmas!! Thanks Joel for being so sweet and giving! I love you!

Grandpa

Baby Parts

We went in for our ultrasound today and if this baby's behavior is indicative at all of his future personality we are in for a ride, although I should be expecting such things when marrying a character like Joel. Last time we got an ultrasound the lady couldn't see his heart very well because he wasn't in a very good position and wouldn't move. We also found out last time about the placenta being underneath him, which if it didn't move come birthing time I would have to get a C-section. So for these reasons we went in again today at 23 weeks. Today he was in a good position for her to get a good look at his heart and she said that everything looked fine. This time, however, he had his little feet wedged down between my cervix and the placenta so she couldn't see the placenta. Joel says it makes sense because his feet are probably cold and he was just trying to find a place to warm them. She tried to get him to move but he was not budging, apparently he was just too comfortable. So the little stinker put me in quite an uncomfortable position: pants off, sitting on the table with a cold slimy apparatus up my hoo-ha that had a camera on the end. She ended up getting a good idea about the placenta this way. Apparently the placenta needs to been at least a distance of 2 centimeters away from the cervix in order to be cleared for a vaginal birth. My placenta was 2.5 centimeters. She also said in the next 17 weeks it should get further and further away so I don't need another ultrasound and unless the midwife spots something we are a go for the most painful experience of my life. Yay! Also the baby is in the 27th percentile at 1 pound 5 ounces right now which is above the danger point (10th percentile) so if he continues to progress in the 27th percentile everything is good. We're grateful that everything is looking good and the baby is already exhibiting such stubbornness. And since I know you're so curious the ultrasound lady was much better today. She talked to us and told us what was going on, last time she must have been having a bad day ... or maybe she just enjoyed seeing me so uncomfortable. Who knows.



Here is another picture of baby, I was told that his mouth is open and tongue sticking out taunting us but I can't really see it.










And here is that infamous foot.

Jamie: No Rant and No Slant

We had another baby appointment today. It's a little frustrating to me that it takes an hour to get to the hospital and all they do is take my blood pressure, weigh me, and listen to his heartbeat. I KNOW there's a baby in there because he's kicking me all the time. As for my weight, I don't want to know what it is (I gained seven pounds this month). This is the third time we've been in and the third midwife we've seen which doesn't really bother me except I would kind of like to know who is going to be there when I actually have the baby ... if I don't get stuck in traffic for hours and actually make it to the hospital. Also I was supposed to have another ultrasound this visit but I don't remember the very unenthusiastic ultrasound lady telling me that. So now we have to go back next week and then again in three weeks for the regular appointment. I also don't remember the killjoy ever telling me (because she didn't) that part of the reason we need another ultrasound is because she couldn't really see his heart. I thought it was just because of the placenta being in the wrong place. So there are multiple issues going on and I'm not very happy about it. The good news is the midwife did say I could listen to Eye of the Tiger while I'm giving birth. I think that will really help. Hopefully the post labor state doesn't affect me so drastically that I suddenly think naming him Rocky or Sylvester is a good idea. I guess that's what Joel is good for.

In other news I don't really love either of my jobs, doctor bills are expensive, there's nothing to eat right now, and I can't sleep on my belly anymore. Joel tells me I'm too negative and I need to look at the good side of things. So here are some good things. We got a free lamp yesterday, that was nice. And the anatomy lab I'm in isn't dissecting cats anymore, I appreciate that. It's cold enough outside that I have to wear a jacket and I have lots of cute ones. And I'm pretty sure for Thanksgiving we're going to go out to eat so I don't have to buy or cook anything. Joel is on the third Harry Potter book. I did a craft the other day ... it kind of worked out. I eat sausage. And I'm pregnant and going to have a sweet and precious baby in less than four months. This one really does make me happy, even if the ultrasound lady is the worst.

21 weeks

Here is my belly at 21 weeks.

Baby

Can you tell what it is? If not, you're welcome to call me to find out.

Today is the Day!

We find out this morning if our baby is a boy or a girl!!!! Joel thinks it's a girl and I think it's a boy and double pizza is on the line.

I Love You More Than Work

This is how much Joel loves me.

I Love You More than Work
by Joel Ackerman
For my wife, Jamie, so she knows she's always number one

Call me Marie Callendar,
I love you more than pies.
Call me Ron McDonald,
I love you more than fries.
Call me Haagen Dazs,
I love you more than ice cream.
Call me the Green Giant,
I love you more than beans.
Call me Country Crock,
I love you more than spread.
Call me undertaker,
I love you more than dead.
Call me Tropicana,
I love you more than juice.
Call me pagan pantheist,
I love you more than Zeus.
Call me Aunt Jemima,
I love you more than syrup.
Call me circus clown,
I love you more than cheer up.
Call me Merriam-Webster,
I love you more than words.
Call me ornithologist,
I love you more than birds.
Call me Keebler Elf,
I love you more than fudge.
Call me bitter old man,
You're better than curmudge.
Call me pure Italian,
I love you more than silk.
Call me a fresh cow,
I love you more than milk.
Call me wake-up caller,
I love you more than phones.
Call me human body,
I love you more than bones.
Call me marching ants,
I love you more than picnics.
Call me Oriental,
You're better than chopsticks.
Call me Mr. Thirsty,
I love you more than drink.
Call me weirdo pervert,
I love you more than stink.
Call me the zamboni,
I love you more than ice.
Call me Oriental again,
I love you more than rice.
Call me shopaholic,
I love you more than sales.
Call me Ishmael,
I love you more than whales.
Call me carbonation,
I love you more than fizz.
Call me Yogi Berra,
"It ain't over 'til it is."
Call me Captain Kirk.
I love you more than Spock.
My name is Asher Lev.
You out-do Chaim Potok.
Call me Leslie Knope,
I love you more than parks.
Call me commie bastard,
I love you more than Marx.
Call me Tracy Turnblad,
I love you more than Link.
Call me Descartes,
"Therefore I am, I think."
Call me politician,
I love you more than lies.
Call me the thigh-master.
I love you more than thighs.
Whatever you may call me,
I love you more than work.
And if you say I don't,
then I'll call you a jerk.

Heartbeat

Joel and I finally went to the midwife today and we got to hear the baby's heart beating!! It was soo amazing! The midwife said everything looked good and it definitely IS okay to sleep on my stomach. She was asking about family illnesses and I think she was impressed at what a healthy family we have. So in exactly four more weeks we go back in to get an ultrasound to see if it's a boy or a girl. I feel like it's a boy. I want a girl but I still feel like it's a boy, so it probably is. Either way it's pretty awesome!!

Engagement Photos

Joel's younger brother is getting married next month and so we were looking at their engagement photos, which inspired us to find OUR engagement photos and take a look at them again. Joel's older brother was visiting and had never seen them which made me realize that I didn't actually show anybody, I don't think, the engagements that we didn't use. We had a good laugh looking at them and hope that you will too.*

*Disclaimer: These photos are very entertaining. Please do not use them for any "awkward engagement photo" websites or anything like it.




















This first one is a great one. We are in a cemetery and Joel is actually SITTING on the giant ball of a headstone.
















This next one was also taken at the cemetery, but in a different part. This was taken way at the back at what is essentially a dump. This is where they dispose of all the trash and dead flowers that people leave on graves. We also have a nice industrial themed background and of course a perfect touch of class with the caption spray painted there on the cement.




















Here we have your classic front cover of the touching movie involving the girl's ghost coming back to quietly guide and direct the troubled lover back to a life of do-gooding and peace after her tragic death by car accident ... caused by him in a drunken stupor. Classic.


















And last but not least we have the traditional peek-a-boo engagement photo but with the added bonus of the remains of the burned out tabernacle in the background.

California Pictures

Joel's Blog

Joel has a blog now too. www.ackermanifestdestiny.blogspot.com

19 Days

We've been here 19 days and it's slowly getting better. The good news is we saw a coyote in the neighborhood next to us and at the international marketplace the pitas are 40 cents a package. I've had a couple job interviews, and got one of them, but the others weren't just summer jobs and the schedule didn't work for the fall, so I didn't get them. And I'm going to try to get us tickets to Jeopardy.

New Look

What do you think? Joel says he loves me even though I'm a peace loving hippie and he's a war-mongering Republican. I'm not too sure those are mutually exclusive.

The Beginning

We've been living in LA for one 11 days. I hated it at first, and I mean really hated it. It's so big and crowded and it seems like EVERYBODY is having an awful day. It's hot but because of the pollution, I'm assuming, it's smoggy and weird. Our apartment is small and expensive and every time I go to the grocery store I feel like everyone is staring at me. The first couple days we were selling Orabrushes to Wal-Marts across southern California but that turned out to be a nightmare. Trying to sell tongue brushes to busy and angry people all day is not my idea of a good time. So after the three days we decided to give ourselves as a trial period we didn't feel bad about giving up. Then Joel left to go back to Utah for three days to finish up some work he had. Back when we found out he had to go he suggested we buy me a plane ticket too so I could come with him, but being the financially minded person I'm turning into (thanks Dad) I thought it would be a waste of money. Turns out it would have been a waste of money but it also would have been better than me being all by my lonesome for three whole days. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal. In Provo if I was left alone for a couple days I would hang out with my friends or go to Kelsey's house when I wasn't working. But here, here I have nothing. I have no friends, I have no family, no job, and there is no one to spend time with. I would have had the internet and my artificial relationships via Facebook but it wasn't set up yet, so I didn't even have that. I had my phone and spent a lot of time on it talking to Joel and various family members who were probably concerned about my sanity (thank you family members).

But the good news is that was last week. I decided I didn't like last week and I didn't want to have any more weeks like it. Making sure some of those things didn't happen was easy. I decided Joel is never going to leave me for more than 23.5 hours again in our lives. We both decided, as stated above, we weren't going to spend one more minute in Wal-Mart ever again either. I decided I was going to start right away looking for a job so I have something to do with my time, feel productive, have more money, etc. We cleaned and organized the apartment so we feel like real people. And we decided to spend more time familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings so I don't hate it so much. We found a park just 7 minutes away on foot. We found the LA River, which consists of a huge concrete ravine going under the bridge with a tiny tiny trickle of water, nevertheless it is called the LA River. We found the public library, the laundromat where Joel will work, a grocery store full of people who DON'T stare at me, and the temple. On top of that I had two job interviews today. It's still uncomfortably hot and weird outside and the people here are generally unfriendly but maybe I'll eventually become unfriendly and angry too and fit right in.

Chuppah Ceremony

Po'm vs. Po-em

James claims
P-O-E-M
should be pronounced
po-em--
"because that's how its spelled."
While I like to meld
the two sounds into one:
po'm --
and be done.

P-O-E-M in two beats
takes more time
and less fun
as it depletes
the potential for rhyme
if syllabically one.
And of all words which should find
it easy to rhyme
P-O-E-M
should L-E-A-D them.

Ponder the poetic possibilities of po'm!
To paint the palaces of Rome;
Create a longing for home;
To sing the ocean's white foam,
Or the bee's honeycomb;
To wonder at the life of a gnome,
Or live to wander and roam!
All are possible if P-O-E-M is po'm.
And if the writer of po'ms
prefers to write in a boat
then, for the sake of the rhyme,
lets call him a po't.

But what
rhymes with po-em?
Except for a handbook for a farmhand:
If you have fields, hoe 'em.
If you have seeds, sew 'em.
If you want crops, grow 'em.
When they've grown up, mow 'em.
Then tow 'em
To a barn for to stow 'em.
That's all you get if P-O-E-M is po-em.

And if after this po'm
James persists
to say po-em,
Well,
I must insist
she call me Jo-el.
(That'll show 'em.)

Why, you might ask, when James is a she,
Do I call her James instead of Jamie?
Because of the two names
James claims more word-games.
Jamie only rhymes with Amy,
While James claims me,
Sometimes maims me,
But of all dames,
James tames me.

By Joel Ackerman for Jamie Brinkerhoff

Singing in the Shower

Joel loves to sing in the shower. He usually sings The Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute, or Under Pressure by Queen (which I think I inspired because I sing it so much). But this morning I found him singing this song. Enjoy this intimate moment.

Charts

Joel wrote this earlier this week. It's mostly true...

My wife and I come from very different backgrounds. We were both American, and Mormon, but she grew up in a female-dominated household, while I grew up in a male-dominated household. She was taught to love BYU and hate Utah. We were taught to hate BYU and we lived in Utah. Her family was realist. Mine was idealist. Her family grew up on beans. Mine grew up on rice.

This last difference has been the biggest source of contention in our home. We grew up on entirely different menus. Besides her being a water drinker, and me strictly juice—dessert has been the major challenge. My wife’s desserts are chocolate, peanut butter, and marshmallow treats: cakes, brownies, bars. My desserts are fruity. Pies, primarily.

Rather than divorce, we decided to form a Treaty of Treats, in which she’d explain her dessert preferences and I’d explain mine. Ironically, she did so with a bar chart, and I did so with a pie chart. We had a good laugh over this, and have enjoyed trying each others desserts ever since.

The two charts have become apart of our family history. They hang on the wall in our kitchen. There is one other chart important to my understanding of my wife. It hangs in our bathroom, and explains how periods work. And, of course, it’s a flow chart.

Wicked

Another reason why I wanted to go to New York for my honeymoon was so I could see a show on Broadway. So Monday morning we headed to Times Square to see if we could get tickets for that day on discount. We got in line pretty early and were discussing with each other which show we wanted to see. I hadn't really heard much about most of them and so I didn't know if one would be better than another. I had seen Wicket about four years ago and loved it. Joel hadn't seen any of them but had heard the most about Wicked so I suggested we just see that one since I knew it was good and would love to see it again. We ended up getting OUT of line because they didn't have discount tickets for Wicked and walked to the theater to buy the last two tickets they had for the days when we were going to be there. It was a little more expensive than we were thinking but we got 5th row tickets right in the center of the theater. It was amazing. It was even better than when I had seen it years ago in Portland. We were so close we could see all of their facial expressions and get hit with their spit!

New York

We stopped on our way to the Statue of Liberty to get our cartoon selves drawn by a street artist. It was slightly uncomfortable to be sitting there with huge smiles on our face staring at a point in front of us while everyone was walking by and even stopping and watching. But I'm glad we did it because now we have it as a souvenir from our honeymoon!









Here we're on the ferry and Joel is looking very thoughtfully at Ellis Island. This was the saddest part of the trip for me. When I went to buy tickets for Ellis Island you end up buying tickets for that AND the Statue of Liberty because the ferry goes both places. So when I got the tickets I asked specifically for tickets to Ellis Island. She gave me the tickets and we moved on. We spent about an hour going through the security line and getting on the ferry, that part was way annoying. Then the ferry took us to The Statue of Liberty and I thought they were just stopping there first and then on to Ellis Island. What was actually happening was that the ferry wasn't running to Ellis Island anymore that day and they didn't tell us. So we spent too much money to go to the Statue, which I wasn't even that excited about, and missed out completely on Ellis Island, which was the place I wanted to go most in New York.















STatue of Liberty


















Guggenheim

Central Park

Central Park! We didn't see any animals eating humans or bums sleeping in the leaves. We weren't chased down by any crazy armed men looking for drugs or mugged by anyone. We didn't get offered any nice, juicy, sweet caramel apples or get malled by a group of bikers. It was great! Unfortunately it was cold and so we also didn't see many people busking and definitely didn't see any coordinated song and dance, which was a little disappointing. But I did get a picture next to the fountain that is at the end of the song in Enchanted!

New York!

Joel and I went shopping(Joel's idea) on 5th Avenue a day or two into our trip. He wanted to find a dress for me, which I thought was a wonderful idea. We saw this dress in the window and though it took some convincing Joel got me to go inside and try it on. I loved it but didn't think we should buy it but also didn't want to cause a fight the first week in our marriage, so I let Joel get it for me.









Joel looking nice and crazy in front of Madison Square Garden.















Then we made our way to Serendipity, a restaurant known for a setting of the movie, Serendipity. Also Oprah went there to try their famous frozen hot chocolate. It was so good. I drank almost the entire thing which made me sick. But before the getting sick part, it was really great. Joel got their apple pie which he said was the best he's ever had.

New York Honeymoon

Here are Joel and I, newly married, and leaving for the airport for New York at 4:00 AM.









We went to Tom's Restaurant for breakfast one of the first days we were there. I thought Joel looked like he fit in well with this backdrop.











One of our next stops was this huge cathedral, I forget the name.











We also went to Rockefeller Center. I was excited about it because of the show 30 Rock - unfortunately no Tina Fey though. In fact we didn't see anybody famous. The scarf was to keep my ears warm because it was so COLD outside. I realize it didn't actually match very well with my shirt. Get over it. More to come later.

Hello Dolly?

More Bridals

Bridals

Joel and I had his friend take our engagement pictures this Monday. This is one of our favorites, I think it captures the essence of Joel and Jamie. Joel pointed out it looks fake so I want to clarify. It's not. This is for real people.

Bam!