I am having the problem workaholics have. Only I don't work. And when I did work, I certainly wasn't addicted to it. My problem is that I can't let these shopping issues that have all hit me with a vengeance go and I am now having bad dreams. Dreams where I am giving birth (and it's miraculously an extremely easy labor, and baby girl comes out looking just like Amaris and WALKING, even) we forget to even take any pictures, my belly vanishes instantly, and I'm leaving the hospital to head home in shorts and a tank top (ha, yeah, like I'd be wearing shorts leaving from labor and delivery).

But we get home and !!! There is nowhere for baby girl to sleep! Not even a temporary pack & play or bassinet! Although I am pretty sure Amazon won't give me too much grief about shipping a pack & play. No crib, nothing. And it's like I just... forgot. Or maybe not forgot but just couldn't ever figure it out.

At this point my best idea is to order the Wal Mart crib, have it shipped to a Wal Mart close to a friend, have that friend pick it up, and then ship it to me. But what if for some reason THAT doesn't work out either?? What then? I am at a total loss.

Does this then make me a shopaholic? Or am I just troubled..? I don't know what to make of it all, really. I just know I'm not doing so good right now.

Of all the bases here and all the exchanges, there is only ONE furniture store. ONE. For the whole island. For all of the thousands of military personnel here and their families.

One store. How messed up and weird is that??

So I've been to this one furniture store three times now. The first time I was horrified to find that all of the cribs available for purchase were not all that attractive, and priced at least $100 more than what you'd pay in the 'states for the same crib. Disappointed and with newly lowered expectations, we went back the second time to truly scope things out. We found (to our surprise and delight!) a crib similar to the crib we had for Amaris, just in a different color of wood - perfect for baby's room! And it was only $200! The same price we'd paid for Amaris' crib! Score. Money in hand (well, debit card anyways), we went back to the furniture store last night only to discover that crib (was it a mirage?) was gone. And all that was left on display were those same cribs from our hopeless first trip to the store. Nothing suitable for our intents and purposes OR within our price range.

This was all AFTER we went through the fiasco of trying to deposit the check from our crazy former landlady in Texas. (The one where she wrote "$440" on the amount box, and then "four hundred fourty four dollars" on the legal tender line... Dunce.)

Since then, I've been extremely bitter. We found an amazingly cool TV cabinet (if our TV EVER arrives, that is) and I was temporarily contented by that, but after the awesomeness of that had worn off (and the price tag had set in and given me a mild heart attack) I was back to bitterness over the crib that never was but should have been. We asked a store employee what the deal was but she didn't fully understand our inquiry (English was not her strong suit, poor thing) and we were left informationless.

Last week I discovered the curtains I'd fallen in love at first sight with for Amaris' bedroom were out of stock on pbkids.com, and the outlook for them returning was not good. I've been scrambling trying to find a friend with access to these curtains ever since to no avail.

One of my friends emailed them and they told her that there were just 5 left in stock and that she'd better order soon via phone to ensure she could get a pair. I called the moment she told me this news, and the customer service agent told me that no, they're all out. I about cried. Of all the false hopes!

I shopped online for over an hour trying to find a crib I could deal with, and finally settled on one from Wal Mart - it turned out that if I ordered the crib and changing table both from their website, I'd score them for cheaper (even after shipping) than the original crib and changing table would have cost me. I was so elated. I went to order them immediately. Only to have Wal Mart's website tell me that they would ship me whatever I wanted, just not the crib. I checked 3 other websites. None of them want to ship me the stupid thing.

Clearly it is not turning out to be my week, right?

So we go to check the mail. Mark has high hopes and is expecting a check from his bank account to help us in the baby items shopping. No check in our box, but we did have two small packages in our box and 3 claim slips for large packages. So we claim the packages and find that Pottery Barn (damn that store all to Hell!) has come through and our new Christmas stockings are HERE! Score! We immediately tore into the boxes to find... 4 stockings. That I paid $6.50 extra EACH for to have them personalized with our names. All of them packaged nicely, but entirely blank. What the EFF, man. Mark and I then spent the next hour discussing how I will NOT be paying shipping and handling to return these stockings, and Pottery Barn will be fixing this issue ON THE HOUSE, or ELSE. Mark seems convinced they are going to give me hell over it, but I am so damned angry that I will absolutely be the one giving all the hell there is to give. Just wait and see.

So for now, I'm extraordinarily bitter. My slippers arrived from shoemall.com (my favorite store right now since they are the only store that ever bothers to come through with their agreements) and here I sit wearing them and my yoga pants. I bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and I'm about to crack it open. I'm ready to just go to bed.

We went to the Churami Aquarium on Saturday, which boasts the second largest aquarium in the world:

It was a lot of fun, but it was hot! And sort of crowded. I guess the heat can't very well be avoided here in tropical Okinawa, and supposedly at this particular location, the crowd isn't to be avoided either. Which, honestly, is okay. We had a good time despite the heat and the sardine-can effect. Amaris loved it - she always loves seeing fish. This aquarium is part of Ocean Expo Park, if I understand correctly. Which is a bunch of different things all in one spot - a couple of beaches, one of them boasting white sand (and if we'd been wearing our swim garb we'd have gone there... I'm telling you, it was hot), sea turtle exhibits, a dolphin show, manatees, tons of fish exhibits, a couple of restaurants, some concessionaires, and gardens for your viewing pleasure.

That huge aquarium pictured above had THREE giant sharks in it - don't remember the particular species, but they were massive. We admired them a while, and thanked our lucky stars that we weren't on the menu for lunch... (Interestingly enough, humans can observe these sharks while eating lunch - there is a restaurant just off to the right of this photo where they serve various sandwiches, rice and noodle dishes. The glass panels are literally floor to ceiling. We did it, and it wasn't even all that intimidating to eat in front of them.) and then we saw one of those average sized sharks swim by, you know - the ones that are probably around 6' long and are grayish in color. Mark said, "Oh, look, there's an actual shark!" I laughed my head off and said, "Good, I'm glad we got to see an "actual shark" too because those giant spotted sharks just weren't "real" enough for me."

That guy can be such a dork sometimes. I love him, what can I say.

We got annual passes to the aquarium so I'm sure we'll be heading back several times while we are here.

Today we got a big package in the mail from Target.com - the first part of our shipment from an online shopping trip. (It was 10% off rewards time!) It was fun to go through the package, and almost a little weird because there were several "baby" items in that box - a changing pad and cover, bottles, drool rags, a drying rack... all things I bought myself off of my registry (or, as I like to call it, the shopping list. Since generally baby #2's don't officially get baby showers.) Amaris had a lot of fun "helping" me to wash every bottle, and now they're all hanging out on the rack, waiting to be put away. A part of me still hasn't acknowledged this pregnancy as "real", and it's kind of exciting and weird to have baby bottles in the house again. I kind of feel like it's a reality check. The other day at the commissary, we picked up a can of formula. My ending total reflected that can in all it's craziness, but putting it up in the cabinet was sort of surreal. And then I realized if I am going to start stocking up on formula, I should probably also look into stocking up on diapers. It's a long, expensive road ahead for that first year - I remember! Even moreso here in Okinawa where we have no Sam's Club. We'll survive.

I still havent been to the 100 Yen store. Or the Japanese grocery stores. I keep hinting at Mark. He'll catch on soon.

Time zones are lame.

Well, not every light, but certainly every appliance. Except the oven. I can change that if you'd like.

I finally conjured up some motivation and did some housework I was behind on. The dishes are in the dishwasher, a load of laundry in the washer and one more in the dryer. The place still looks the same, unless we're talking about my sink. Which is due to be shined.

I have heartburn. This little girl had better be born with as much hair as her sister had.

Also on my list of accomplishments today is that I found an amazing photographer here in Okinawa! I'm super excited, I had been worrying about Christmas cards this year. Worry no more! We are meeting up with Kimberly on November 8. Score one for the team!

I feel like I've accomplished a lot more than that, but now that I'm thinking about it all rationally, I guess I really haven't. I bought myself a pair of slippers and new Christmas stockings for the gang. Both of those things are on their way from America to my FPO mail box. I've also been doing some serious Santa brainstorming. I didn't realize just how hard it could be to shop for a 2-year-old. What I really want to get her is a bunch of stuff she could probably care less about - most of which would have something to do with the new decor I have been eyeing for her bedroom. (It matches her Ikea Mammut furniture PERFECTLY - God help me!)

I am undecided, though, about whether or not I should go the "dress-up" route for her Christmas gift theme, or the "doll houses" theme. There are a couple of things Santa has picked out for her stocking already, but her toys here so far are slim pickings, and I'm starting to feel completely guilty about my child being bored all the time.

Tomorrow, we're making another attempt to go to the Churami Aquarium, so hopefully that'll be a good time.

Amaris is whining and saying "Help me mommy, pooooor baaaaaabyyy...." Over and over again now so I think I am going to go ahead and toss her dirty little butt in the bathtub.

I've been on a naming spree. But my two favorites are the names I gave to the iMac and the Funcargo. The iMac is Jimmy. As in Jimmy MacElroy. (Get it? Because it's a Mac? aaahahahaha) The Funcargo is Prudence. It was rainy yesterday afternoon and the roads (being paved in asphalt and crushed coral) were a tad slippery. Mark spun the tires out slightly while we were trying to make a right turn. He patted the dash board and said, "Good girl." And "Prudence" just popped into my head like a message from above.

We experienced all that is American Village, and it was pretty cool.







They had this awesome arcade there, Club Sega. Everything is horribly overpriced (it's ¥100 per game for most games. The fancier games can be up to ¥200. Our exchange rate today was $1 = ¥99.) but they have slot machines and a whole bunch of those awesome "crane" games hopped up on steroids. They had that cool scooty game where you try to push tokens over the edge for tickets, except the goal was to push CANDY over the edge into the prize return. We won FIVE regular sized packages of POCKY! And a crapton of candies.

We also visited for the first time a Jusco. Which was like EVERYTHING all under one roof. Like a Japanese Wal Mart Supercenter, but better. It was like a full sized department store, food court, pharmacy, grocery store, bakery and deli. I was pleased by Jusco.

The only thing yesterday lacked was a trip on the ferris wheel. But as you can tell by the photos, it was mildly stormy and we figured it'd be a funner experience on a clearer day. Plus we wanted to ride it at night, and we kind of ran out of Yen and things to do before it got dark. So instead we came home and rented a movie.