So much going on. Happy Mother's Day.

We painted the baby's room yesterday. It looks lovely. Now the computer room is filled with the rest of the stuff from the baby's room I haven't found a place for yet. It never ends! And I want to haul stuff out of the house into the garage and move other stuff back into the nursery, but my husband says no way. Yes, I'm pregnant and it would be dumb, but I just want to get it all done. And his schedule is so ridiculous lately. He has a "day" job but also works Saturdays and Tuesday and Thursday nights. And since he's a caricature artist, he's also working at after-prom parties (4 weeks in a row) from around midnight to 3 or 4 in the morning) on Saturday nights. Today (and yesterday) he's working at the museum booth at the Beaux Arts fair in downtown Davenport. Aside from the fact that he's working long, thankless hours (7 days this week with no break), it's only been 47 degrees and rainy out for days. He felt like he was getting pneumonia yesterday! To top it off, because people aren't stupid and taking their kids out in this mess, they only had 28 people stop by their tent and do the activity they are offering. He was there from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thankless and ridiculous.

Just because they've ALWAYS had this fair on Mother's Day weekend doesn't mean they still should. Many years ago, May was pretty nice in this Midwestern area. But in the past 10 years at least, it's always been crappy. So move the date down! People are wasting their time and money setting up their booths with their fancy arts just to be rained on. It's so silly.

So, anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing my husband for more than an hour or two at a time. And half that time he's fallen asleep because he's so tired. It's getting to him and it's getting to me.

How am I doing? I'm 18 and a half weeks pregnant, I'm dropping weight instead of gaining it, and I'm having panic attacks. Work is stressful, my husband is miserable but keeping his chin up, the house is a wreck, my mind is spinning all the time, I have a magazine to produce right now, I just got an e-mail from a woman who received her copy of the magazine but not the book (which I am sure I mailed in the same package...argh), my uterus is stretching and does not feel pleasant at all, etc.

The panic attacks suck. They basically are making me feel like my throat is closing up. Almost all the time. I had problems with these before, a few years ago. Bill says I need to take more time to just relax. And I do. But I have so much going on. I've got the new magazine issue and old ones to reprint. I've decided though that once I do this reprint of issue #1, that is it for that one. People have been on hold for it for a while, but I haven't had enough to warrant a print order yet. Now I do, but once these are gone, they are gone. Limited edition or what have you. One thing I'm learning is how to know when to say when. When.

As to anything else cemetery related, the magazine is it. And any help I can get on that front with people sending in articles, photos, poetry, etc., will be great. And advertisements. My dream of getting the price of the mag lowered by getting a nice number of advertisers per issue is not coming together at all. I blame awareness of our super-cheap ads and the economy. If you have a small business, how can you even afford to keep it alive right now? It stinks. But let me tell you how "thrilled" I was to hear that Congress and the President are passing through yet another tax break for rich people. Well, that's just fab! While the rest of us are selling plasma to get by, the rich keep getting more help. Save the rich people! They pay more in taxes than my friends and family and I make in a year--all together! I don't know who voted this man into office (except himself), but he is far from "for the people." Our government is adding to my panic attacks. And don't get me started on the panic the media is trying to create over the bird flu pandemic possibility. Doesn't it seem like every time one of our presidents slides in popularity or starts/continues a war that some form of panic-inducing issue is brought up to scare us all? I know all about the bird flu; I read the book. It's called "The Stand," and Stephen King wrote it. All the stuff they're saying about it sounds just like the horror book. Captain Tripps is on the way so they say; and if it's not, the government will make it so.

Enough of that rant. It's just that I'm sick of hearing my dad and others go on about how a TV movie says that if the bird flu hits (which could be around THE BIRTH OF MY BABY), that it will "circle the world three times," blah blah blah. It's a scare tactic. A nation or world full of fear is easily controlled.

Well, I better start working on organizing this house again. I plan on bundling up and visiting my husband at his booth, too. Poor guy wore his winter coat today!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Minda