The Three Day Weekend.

It truly has been a long weekend. I've been really sick with pregnancy related nausea since wednesday and as I called the nurse helpline begging for some kind of miracle remedy, she explained to me that the best thing I could do for now is to keep to the "b.r.a.t diet," nibbling every few hours. To paint a picture, this nausea feels as though I've been stuck in the middle, back seat of a smart car (do smart cars have backseats?), surrounded by sumo wrestlers, caravanning through the mojave dessert, with no a.c., mid-august, down a windy road, wrapped in heavy coats and scarves,  for 8 hours, completely carsick... and I could go on, but I'm sure you've got a visual. On the sunny side, this road trip has only--give or take--8 more weeks before I reach paradise.

For those who don't know, "b.r.a.t" stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. Basically, basic, basic foods. What they should call it is "the bland diet" or "the most boring selection of food known to man diet" because either variation stands true. Now I may have thought way too far into it, but I'm thinking the acronym spells out 'brat' to imply that any person who holds their diet to such limited selections is a picky brat? If this is so, I'm calling crap! We are not brats! We definitely didn't choose this! And just so you know, if I was going to restrict my diet to such specific items, I'll tell you right now, cheese is definitely making the cut. Unfortunately, since I don't actually know why the b.r.a.t diet is called what it is, and I have successfully given you an accurate sample of how stir crazy I'm going, I'm just going to give the founder of the diet the benefit of the doubt and say 'brat' was just his or her clever way of rearranging the initials to spell out something people will remember. If you have any insight as to the true history of this savage diet, do please share your wisdom, all comments are welcome :)

In far more fun news from our week, Miles gave me a sewing machine! It was an early birthday present so I could work on some projects before the baby comes, and also because it's been getting pretty warm and he really wants me to hem some of his pants into shorts. What can I say, it's a gift of the best sorts, a gift that keeps on giving! I love it, and can't wait to share with you the projects that stem from it! Also this week, one of my favorite authors, Khaled Hosseini, released his third novel. I'd been anxiously waiting for its release and I immediately downloaded it onto my kindle. I'm only on chapter two, but am already so hooked! Whenever I  can find a good book, especially a page-turner, I'm in bliss and just have to share with somebody. I really should join a book club. Right now in my book club it's just Miles and I, problem is Miles doesn't know he's in a book club and I'm the only one who reads the book. I don't mind though, Miles is a great listener and after I summarize each chapter, I'm sure he feels like he read it too. It truly is amazing how detailed and elaborate my synopsis of a story can get.

Now I don't know how I can go from drooling over a Hosseini novel to genuinely being excited about the season premiere of The Bachelorette tonight, but somehow it happens. It's one of my terrible guilty pleasures. Awful to admit, but I couldn't get enough of Tiara and her crazy eyebrow last season, who knows what kind of drama awaits me tonight. I even texted my Granny reminding her to record it, she indulges in that sort of thing too, which in turn makes me feel a lot better since she is a really wise woman who wouldn't waste her time with something if it were so terrible. Being stuck at home for the weekend, Miles and I watched our fair share of really ridiculous TV shows, some appalling, some intriguing. One of our late night favorites is Hoarding: Buried Alive, mainly because it makes us appreciate the beauty of good hygiene and cleanliness. I thought I had seen it all when someone found their 'lost' cat's skeleton buried under years of unwashed laundry, but I was mistaken. We caught the most absurd episode ever the other night where this woman, Janet, literally had buried herself in her clutter. The social worker came over to help her, and was shocked when she found Janet's tiny head barely peeking out amongst the mounds of litter. It was like a sad version of Where's Waldo? We couldn't resist snapping a photo:

Janet had no working plumbing, leaving her to use the completely exposed side of her house as a bathroom (so gross!). Sometimes she couldn't make it outside due to the many mountains of clutter she would have to trek in order to get to the door, and she would just opt to use a jug or doggy bag it and toss it among the rest of her clutter. Jaws dropped, we could not believe our eyes. And it got worse when no joke, her son actually stepped in a fresh bag of her mess while trying to clear out one of the many heaps of rubbish. It was complete chaos! It puzzles me, why is it that are we so interested in other people's issues?! I can't seem to justify the fixation, but I also can't turn away! I'm really going to cut back on watching TV so I'll have more substantial things to talk about than hoarders and their bathroom patterns, but not before I see who Des picks as her knight in shining armor on The Bachelorette!