Cravings and Ebay

So, as is normal, this pregnancy is SO different from the others! I think I am more sick than even I was with Joshua. With Josh, the only things I could eat were apples and tuna. Weird. This time, there really isn’t any one thing that stands out. I am either sick or not. Certain foods don’t usually make me (or not make me, as the case may be) sick…but if I let my stomach get empty, I can barely walk! I am really enjoying pancakes, though. Nice white, unwholesome, empty of all protein IHOP style pancakes. With absolutely nothing on them! The very thought of butter makes my stomach churn, and I’ve never been a real fan of syrup anyway, so plain pancakes are really making my day lately! J We had oatmeal for lunch the other day. We’ve eaten lots of breakfasty things for lunch and dinner, and cereal or sandwiches for breakfast. Actually, I believe that the thing that has really helped me the most: Vitamin C!! I have to take one every single morning! And it settles my stomach almost instantly. So, there’s something different.

I admit that I am sad that many of my favorite cravings aren’t even here in Cameroon…like good old fashioned fast food! J I remember with Claire, I really needed to have some KFC biscuits. That was it. Just a couple of biscuits. Oh, that was heavenly! With Andrew, I think I ate at Golden Corral probably 2 times a week…maybe more! And just enjoyed all the steak and popcorn shrimp! Mmmmm… Oh, how I miss tender cuts of meat! Here in Cameroon, they like their meat SUPER tough. Yuck! I can’t really eat meat here. The chicken is pretty good, and the ground beef is passable, but the cuts of meat are just…well…different. I miss mozzarella sticks (mozzarella here is $7-18 a pound!! So, we don’t eat it often…), greasy Arctic Circle, McDonalds or Wendy’s french fries…I miss Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and Big Macs. I would give anything for a Sonic Lemon Berry Cream Slush!! I would love some chicken nuggets! Oh, all these wonderful morsels of artery clogging goodness that I am missing at this moment! I wonder if I will gain ANY weight at all this pregnancy? Maybe I’ll gain it all after week 34 once they ship me off back to America and the wholesome fare of fast food… J It does make it a little harder to not be sick when everything that I really crave is over 5000 miles away. *Sigh*

Another nice thing has been my exercise time. This time around, it’s SO much better… Before, any time I would try to exercise, I’d get about halfway through with my video or routine or whatever, and one or more of the kids would have a tizzy fit and start hanging on my legs while I was trying to work out, or start throwing tantrums on the floor, or all of a sudden be overwhelmingly needy and they just can’t wait! But this time, I have the added bonus of my wonderful housekeeper who helps me out with them while I’m trying to get in my movement for the day! What a nice hour of exercise it is when I don’t have to battle against the wills of 2, 3, 4 or 5 year olds! J That’s been so very nice! J

An interesting thing happened to me this past week. Ebay froze my account! Ok, honestly, I did buy a LOT more than I normally do, and I did buy different things than I normally do. I decided it was time for a new maternity wardrobe. So, I got one! I ordered khaki’s, black slacks, jeans, capri’s, skirts, shirts, even swimsuits! And I got some amazing deals off of eBay. I got a swim diaper for Andrew, some kids books because I’m doing story time for the kids in the area in July, and even Devin jumped in and ordered some things! So, sufficeth to say, we did have a LOT of things in our list. So, I suppose what happened (I still don’t know, as I have yet to be able to get into my account yet!!! >:( Super frustrating!!) is eBay looked over my account and saw all these weird things and thought, “OH! That must not be this person because they’ve never done something like this before!” Well, really, DUH! I don’t buy maternity clothes every month. Obviously. And I would have thought that the telltale sign of someone hacking into another’s account would be that there would be a lot of things bid on and won, but nothing paid for. I pay for everything immediately and I always contact the people I buy from to let them know it’s me. So, why would they think it was someone else if everything was paid for and I even had lots of positive feedback? Well, eBay took matters into their own hands. They didn’t even have the courtesy to ASK if it really was me or not, they just froze my account, and wrote emails to all the people I had won items from and told them that it wasn’t me and that the transaction was void. They gave everyone back the fees that eBay had charged, so I guess that’s a nice thing of them to have done… But it was such a pain to have to contact every single person I had won something from and explain what was up. Luckily, they were all very nice people and very understanding…especially since I had already gotten everything and paid for it. Really retarded. THEN, when Dev and I got onto eBay’s live help, we tried to figure out what the problem was and they said they couldn’t discuss it until we were positively identified as the person to whom the account really belonged. And to do that, we had to send in a fax with our driver’s lisence and some mail that was recently sent to our current address. I felt like I was on trial!!!! Holy cow!! Talk about being violated! I suppose they are trying to protect people, but good grief!! Couldn’t they ASK BEFOREHAND???? I would have appreciated it. So, we sent in the dumb fax, and they wrote us an email saying thanks, we’ll send you a new password. Well, they’ve never sent us a new password yet. So I wrote them some more hate mail asking for the new password, and they said they had already done it, but if we didn’t get it, they’re going to give us a call. Oh, that’s a fantastic idea, since they’ll probably call at like 3am or some ridiculous hour since they’re based out of Utah. Seven hour time difference is not fun when they don’t know it exists!! And besides, they have to go through Post One to even get to us, so I wonder if that would throw them off a bit?? What a MESS! I am super frustrated and ready to leave eBay forever after this. If they go berzerk over me buying a few more things than normal, I don’t know that I want to be a part of a bunch of over anxious psychopaths. (Yah, I’m a little mad.) There are lots of good things about eBay, obviously, but I feel like they have questioned our integrity and that kind of gets my back up a bit. Oh well. I’m sure it will all work out just fine….