Well, there are always interesting stories during the Olympics and here are some of the things that have made an impression on me so far:

Basketball: What idiot didn’t think to add some outside shooters to the team? DUH! At least the women are looking good.

Fencing: The first gold medal in 100 years and it was won by a woman. :)

Gymnastics: Team USA men AND women got silver in the team competition…the first time they’ve medalled on foreign soil. And then Paul Hamm (in one of the most dramatic comebacks I’ve seen in a long time) and Carly Patterson did the teams one better and brought home individual all-around gold. Not to take anything away from Mary Lou Retton in 1984, but this is pretty big considering it’s a fully-attended Olympics. I see Wheaties boxes in their future.

Soccer: The Iraqi men’s team came from torture under Usay’s dominance to become the darling of the games. They made the semifinals today and everyone is rooting for them. Say what you like about the war in Iraq. They wouldn’t be at the Olympics were it not for Saddam’s overthrow.

Softball: I think the question has become not whether the USA will win its third straight gold, but whether or not anyone will ever score a run against them!

Swimming: So much to talk about here.
*Michael Phelps - 8 golds or not, he’s amazing.
*Amanda Beard - her first individual gold.
*Men’s 4×200m Freestyle Relay - Klete Keller holding off Ian Thorpe to win a gold. WHAT a finish!
*Women’s 4×200m Freestyle Relay - smashing a 17 year old world record - you go girls!!
*Kaitlin Sandeno - coming through in the clutch.
*Gary Hall Jr. - being himself regardless of the consequences.
*Ian Thorpe of Australia - yummmmmmmm.

Tennis: I wish I could have see Martina Navratilova get an Olympic medal, but regardless at 47 years old, playing against girls who weren’t even born when she started on the tour, she has class and she can still play.

Track & Field: It’s just getting started, but…
*Gail Devers at 37 in her 5th Olympics is still able to contend for a medal.
*A 16 year old Afghani girl running in sweat pants and a t-shirt in the 100 meter qualifying heat. She came in 2nd to last, but being there is the real accomplishment. This is the first time women have been included on the Afghani team. She overcame so much to be there. A strong, brave girl, making strides in a very difficult place to do so. The stars of track & field wanted their pictures taken with HER. In this case, truly, being there was the most important thing.

Okay, I’ve read all about pregnant women having vivid wild dreams, but last night I dreamed I was eating chocolate candy (which I can’t have anyway because of the caffeine and haven’t eaten in years), but nonetheless, I dreamed I was indulging in all kinds of lovely chocolate candy. The one I remember the most is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And the strangest part is that I could taste every single bite. It really tasted good, too. I wish I could have some for real. *sigh*

I am 17 weeks pregnant as of today. Yay!

11 weeks ago tomorrow, my husband called my mostly absentee father to tell him the news. As of this moment, we have not heard another word from him since that phone call. Now I am certainly not expecting him to call me every day (my mother of course would be calling me two or three times a day I'm sure) nor even send an email every day, but I do not think it is too much to expect him to call and check up on me ONCE in three months.

But then again, what am I thinking? He only calls me when he thinks he is going to die, because that is obviously the only time he needs me.

Do I sound bitter? Well, perhaps I am. It's hard enough not having my mom around to talk to when I've had not the easiest pregnancy ever, but to feel like my dad doesn't give a damn is pretty sucky.

Oh well, I don't need the aggravation anyway. I need to think calm happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. HAPPY!!!

Thank you <a href=http://nbcolympics.com>NBC</a> for giving us so much coverage of the Olympics we rarely have to watch anything else. Thank you for letting me watch sports I rarely get to watch. Thank you for letting me root for the Iraqi soccer team. However, maybe you should stop showing the Men's Basketball Team. ARGH!!!!

I am in Olympic overload heaven. *sigh*

[Got this in email and it was too funny not to share.]

1. You accidentally enter your password in the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You email the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have email addresses.

6. You go home after a long day at work and you still answer the phone in a business manner.

7. You make phone calls from home and you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.

8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.

10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.

11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.

12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.

14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.

16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)

17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

And now you are laughing at yourself.

<img src="http://www.firstcoastnews.com/politics/articles/2002-12-01/images/ap_kerry_lg.jpg"><img src="http://www.startrek.com/imageuploads/200307/odo01/200×150.jpg">

You decide.

I really miss my mom.

Has anyone seen the two commercials where one character gets stuck in a situation and says "thank you" to get out of it?

One of them is a guy and a girl at dinner. The girl asks, "When are you going to ask me to marry you?" The guy looks like he just swallowed Drano, then finally says "Thank you!" The girl gets all misty-eyed and says "You've never said that to me before!"

The other one is two women in a grocery store. One goes up to the other, pats her stomach, and says "I bet you're going to have a boy!" [For future reference people, it is not a smart move to assume a woman is pregnant unless you KNOW she is.] The other woman looks taken aback and says, "I'm not pregnant!" The first woman gets that deer in the headlight look and finally says "Thank you!" Then everything is fine again.

Okay, these were obviously paraphrased, but my question to you is this…off the top of your head, can you tell me what product those commercials are selling? I had no clue until I specifically paid attention to see what it was. I asked a few other people as well, and no one had a clue what the ad was really for. Therefore, I conclude that while the advertisments themselves are very memorable, they don't work since most people don't have a clue what the product is.

I had an interesting talk about this with a friend who is in the advertising business (who also, by the way, didn't know what the product was!) and we discussed advertising campaigns that are memorable for the ads, but not for the product. I often wonder (having worked in the sales department at two radio stations in my younger days), how these ads actually get on the air when they really just don't work. I thought they used focus groups and such. Although I suppose if you KNOW you're in a focus group, you're more likely to remember what the ad is for, so that's a little pointless.

Okay, enough rambling. Anyone think of any other ad campaigns that you had no clue what they were advertising yet remembered the ads?

I swear if I hear that John Kerry commercial one more time, I am going to throw something at my television set. Perhaps if the man was a halfway decent public speaker, it would not drive me quite as crazy. But he's not. So there.

Thank you. I feel much better now.

I was reading today that about this time if you are carrying a girl, she has formed about 6 million eggs or so, 2 million of which will still be with her by the time she is born. That is pretty profound if you really think about it. If there is a baby girl in there, it means (okay work with me here), that not only am I carrying my offspring, but what will become my grandchildren as well. Wow. I continue to be amazed and humbled by the immensity of pregnancy and childbirth. It is mindblowing.

15 weeks pregnant - about the time they say you can start feeling the baby move. Of course, for a first pregnancy, it's hard to distinguish those first little flutters as being actually the baby, but then again what else could they be. It's hard to describe except that it feels like little butterflies fluttering around in there, which is just how one of my friends described it to me. It's pretty amazing to think those little flutters are a living little being inside of me. It's also comforting because if baby is fluttering and moving, baby is probably doing just fine. And it helps because it seems like every time things seem to be settling down and going well and I calm down and relax, something happens to stress me out again. But, the doctor found the heartbeat with the doppler last week, and the baby is moving. Those are all pretty good signs I think. And I remind myself that God took this long to give us our little miracle, and I don't think after this much time has passed that He will take it away. I know that we can never truly know God's plan, but if you are thinking that, please don't say it to me, I need reassurance, not reminders of reality. We'll make it through, the two of us, somehow. I may be insane by then, but we'll make it. Sometimes the days and weeks seem to crawl by, but when I realize that I'm more than a third of the way through now, it really is amazing. If I felt better, I might actually be bored. Luckily we changed prenatal vitamins and that seems to have pretty much cut the nausea except when I'm hungry. Nausea is no fun, but that in itself is also reassuring in some crazy way. We just keep chugging along, day by day, every day making the chances better that baby will make it all the way. Now if "mommy" can just calm down and relax, things will be great! In the meantime, I will enjoy the most positive butterflies in the stomach I've ever had.