Doctor's visit...and Walmart

Follow up doctor's visit:

Doctor's visit went well. Doctor was thrilled that my cervix stayed steady and didn't shrink any more than since she last saw me. She was happy with it and told me to go back to bedrest and she'll see me again in 2 weeks. That sounds reassuring to think that he'll be in there for at least 2 more weeks. She let me go to the knitting store to get some needles and yarn on the way home. Unfortunately, I only bought really GOOD yarn and I'm not a good knitter yet (had a crash lesson at the store and sort of remember learning in high school somehow,) so I'm sort of nerve-wracked working through this skein. I got nubbly, expensive yarn, so it's not easy to undo it when you screw up, which I'm still doing! My friend Michelle's going to send me some normal yarn in the box she's sending me so that I can practice first. She's sending me some old baby clothes from her two little boys. They are mature and old enough that one of them volunteered their favorite stuffed animal to go to the "new baby." How cute!

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Walmart.com - from hate to love

I've always had a love hate relationship with discount stores. I like inexpensive, but I hate cheap. Sometimes the merchandise is good stuff that's expensive, but the experience can be cheap.

Ross is usually a turn off for me except for housewares and occasionally luggage or purses. If I go, I dash in directly to the department I'm looking for an dash out as if I'll catch some type of disease from seeing too much fallen merchandise scattered disorganized on the floor. TJ Maxx and Marsalls are similar. I usually only buy clothes from those places if there is something snazzy on an end-cap that I notice on the way to housewares to gaze at Le Creuset cookware that I never seem leave the store with. Even with an extreme discount, I've never felt like my cooking entitled me to top of the line cookware. Maybe now that I'm a mommy, I'll eventually step it up. All the watching of the Food Network is making me want a stand-alone mixer for the first time ever.

Syms is hideous, with ceilings painted black. I used to wonder why I always thought it was raining while I was in the store until I noticed the ceiling and asked an employee about it. Some study told them that people shop more when they feel the apocalypse upon them. Doesn't work for me - I realize that I'm artificially being given seasonal affective disorder and run the heck out of there.

Loehmann's is great. I could almost live there, especially now that there are individual dressing rooms in addition to the naked, mirrored group corral they've always had. All locations aren't all equal, but we have a great smaller one in Burbank and a crowded, but ritzy one near the Beverly Center in LA.

Big Lots (which I hadn't heard of before moving here) is just welfare annoying. I feel like I need a bath after leaving there and I've only been twice. Kmart's recovering well from being gross in the 80's (thank you Martha Stewart), but Target is simply divine. For me, it's the Loehmann's of discount department stores. Costco is okay, but I historically haven't haven't had space for 64 rolls of toilet paper. With a garage, maybe now I'd go, but that'll have to wait until the little bunting is here.

It's a clear cut case of love or hate with most stores, but Walmart, dear Walmart has caused strong mixed emotions in me. I love the low, weird prices ending in $.77, but hate the block lettering of the store fonts, the harsh lighting, the long lines and brushing up against all the unwashed masses. I think it's more snobbery and OCD than agoraphobia. I hate disorderly stores with piles of crap everywhere.

And if you live in an expensive city, Walmarts are far out on the outskirts. So I never got in the habit. Even in St. Louis, we lived in the first layer of 'burbs, so there wasn't one anywhere nearby - they were always located in the the Stepford suburbs. You know the sterile 'burbs with no mature trees, where you couldn't come home drunk and successfully distinguish your house from your neighbors'.

In DC, Walmarts were on in Maryland or Virginia suburbs. In Los Angeles, there is a really nice one in the city near the Magic Johnson theatres, but I don' t live near there. Pretty much, Walmart is destination shopping - you have to aim to go there, it's never on the way to anywhere for me, until now. Our new house is just south of little Mexico, as I like to call Panorama City, and we have a close Walmart. But if you think I hated the unwashed masses in the midwest, imagine when you don't even speak the same language. We shopped at this particular Walmart our first week in LA when we had to buy a printer before the rest of our stuff arrived from DC and Mark's words were, "we will never come here again."

It's moot for me since I'm housebound, but I made purchases on Sunday and Monday for emergency baby provisions and some of them were from Walmart.com. The mattress crib at Target was out of stock and wouldn't arrive til February, so I went to Walmart.com and saw that they had $.97 shipping on several models, including the Serta I ended up getting. Imagine my surprise when I came home Tuesday from the doctor's office to find it in the living room already! 2 day delivery for .97? And today, the baby bassinet I ordered was here as well. The Target stuff is still pokily on its way, not getting here until somewhere between Saturday and next Saturday.

I feel SO much more at peace knowing that I have a couple of things for the baby. And I also scheduled the one day intensive birthing class for me and Mark as well, so I'm not just swaying out there in the wind anymore. And I have a feeling that the bedrest is going to get less conservative as time wears on. Initially I'm on complete lockdown because the baby's so young, but as we get to later weeks, I have a feeling that I'll be allowed at least once a week outings to places other than the doctor's office.

Our property management company futzed around, waiting to fumigate for ants until I'm on bedrest and now I'm stuck trying to figure out where to go with the dogs for four hours. We've got to vacate the premises, yet I can't go anyplace really, and especially not places where I'll need to walk or yank dogs, so I've got to be create and figure out what we're going to do. I want to get rid of ants, but I also don't want to do anything risky, nor am I thrilled about breathing the after effects of the pesticides. Maybe I'll come up with an idea in my sleep...