Still Resolute

I've been meaning to write a post about my resolutions for a while now. I've been working on them (most of them) all year, but just hadn't gotten around to an update. So tonight I pulled my old post to see how long it's been. I almost fell off the couch laughing. It's a good thing keep up my posting on my resolutions wasn't part of them, cause I've failed miserably on that part. I updated them ONCE! Ummm, yeah. Well, even though I haven't been mentioning it, I have been working on them. So, even though you probably don't care, da da da dummmmm, here's the current update on them:

1) Get our finances in order
Well I obviously did a lot more then indicated in those last posts. Because of my efforts on this topic I was able to QUIT MY JOB in April. OMG, I’m still pinching myself over it. The outcome of this was to find out that we are on track for retirement and the girls college (assuming they aren’t asking for a full ride to Stanford). I do have some follow up items to help consolidate where all of our accounts are located.
Goal for week: Get consolidation paperwork (which has been sitting on my counter for months) out the door.
This is an ongoing goal, so for all intensive purposes I consider this goal ACHIEVED for this year.
b. Set up plan to get legal stuff (ie—living trust, define who the kids would go to, etc…)updated.
Ummm yeah. Not so much done on this one.
Goal this week: Make that phone call!

2) Get the house completely unpacked.
a. Spare bedroom & den still have boxes that haven’t been unpacked. (Gee do you think we still need this stuff?)
Umm..yeah. This one is lagging as well. Big surprise. DaddySpeak has moved things around a bit. And I’ve pulled together a few boxes for recycling, but honestly nothing to write home about. I did get a dent made in the spare bedroom, but that was after it got much worse for a while due to an influx of hand-me-downs.
Goal this week: spend 10 mins in spare bedroom every day (cleaning out/purging). Dude, I’d be happy if I got ONE day in this week.

3) Get all the rooms decorated; still have pix to be hung, etc…
No where near where I’d like to be on this one, but progress has been made. I had a photoshoot of the girls in July & then purchased a ridiculous amount of prints, but hey, it’s “art” right? The result is that some of the rooms in our house are looking pretty good. It’s moving along.
Goal for week: Hang at least one print/pix.

4) Follow the Flylady system again (the other stuff will fall into place if I stick with it)
Afraid this one is still where it was at the beginning of the year. I’m not sure why but for some reason I just can’t seem to get off my arce & just do it. I know it works, I just need to do it. I have been taking small steps, (baby steps!!!) so it’s not a lost cause, but if I would hunker down & do it, life would get a lot simpler.
Goal for this week: I will both update my calendar & write out/time my evening routine.

5) Define house projects we’d like to do, prioritize them, budget them out & move on them (if I do #1 and #4 this will actually start to happen.)
I did do the spreadsheet on this one. And some of them have actually happened. But new things get added & reprioritize things, so it’s hard to remember how far we’ve come.
Goal for week: reassess spreadsheet & tackle a new project.

6) Walk for 30 mins at least 3x a week.
I’m hoping to get going on this again. My back is tentatively better right now (knock on wood) so tomorrow I’m going to try adding the 30 min walk after we drop BigSpeak off at school. OF NOTE: A large part of my reason for wanting to do this was to try and drop some inches/pounds. In the last 3 months I’ve gone down 3 (yes, THREE) dress sizes. I kid you not. I don’t know how much I’ve lost cause I don’t own a scale, but I do know that I really, really need to go shopping for some clothes cause all of my shorts and pants are HUGE on me. I'm going to write about how this happened later this week.
Goal for week: walk for 30 mins at least 1x this week.

7) Get hair free (except my head) by EOY.
This is almost complete. I took the bull by the horns and got this done. All I can say is, “why didn’t I do this sooner!!!” For the first time in years I’m considering wearing a regular bathing suit (instead of board shorts) because my bikini line isn’t full of in-grown hairs. I know TMI, sorry. The shaving I do have to do is only about every 2 weeks now. Yeah I know. AWESOME! I was very, very expensive, but worth every damn penny. If you're even thinking about doing this, by all means find a way!
Goal for week: schedule next appointment.
I consider this goal ACHIEVED.

So two of my 7 have been achieved. Not so bad for a girl who updated once, huh? I'm motivated to get a few more check marks in the done column now.

Have your resolutions fallen by the wayside? What have you completed?

Beach Babes

We did make it to the beach (in spite of the dump truck I mentioned). I paid a high price for this little trip. Packing and unpacking the car and sitting in traffic was all I was able to pull off. My back has been in attack mode ever since. Luckily my mom & GodMum were here right away and helped to keep the girls entertained and give me a break. I spent the first two days mostly on my back. I'd go do something and then I'd come back and collapse on the couch.

DaddySpeak surprised the hell out of me by showing up late Wednesday night. He got his work done and brought a few things with him to work on, but managed to get here around 9:30 that night. I'm so glad, it means so much to all of us. I can tell the girls are so thrilled to have him back. And it means so much to me when he pulls though like this, I know we're important to him and I know he's got a lot of pressure at work. I get it, I really do, I just get frustrated sometimes. (The back situation doesn't make it easier for me to deal with these things.)

That all being said, we've been fogged in all week. The beach house is in an area known as the Fog Belt. We're the first to get the fog when it comes in and the last to have it burn off. It's typical and we know it, but we've had such incredible weather all this summer that I'd almost forgotten that this is the weather we're more inclined to in the summer months. Even at it's worst it still usually burns off by noon, but not this week. We haven't seen the sun since Wednesday, so today I finally demanded that we go find a beach with some sun. (The irony is that if you go two blocks from the beach it's totally sunny, but we're picky, we want our sun on the beach.) We had to drive to Santa Cruz, and found that the wharf area & Boardwalk were really the only beaches with sun. The fog was hanging right at the edge of the beach so it wasn't exactly "warm", and it's apparently pushing 100 at home so the place was crowded. The girls didn't mind and they had fun, so that was the point right.

Since it's been foggy we've actually been doing some stuff beside just hanging at the beach, but I'll have to post more later as back is telling me it's time for another vicodin!

Straitening Things Out

Yup I'm working on becoming the queen of the pun, cause down here in Silicon Valley, that's how we roll.

Update from today's dr visit:

I still don't have a reflex in my right ankle bad

I have an epidural scheduled for 8/21 good

If the epdural doesn't give me permanent bad
relief, I will be given another MRI & most
likely referred to a specialist surgeon.

I have to say that I will be surprised if the epidural gets rid of it altogether. They've helped my pain a lot, but they've never been permanent. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it happens, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Dr. K also commented that nerve pain typically goes into your lower leg (below the knee) and as of the last two weeks mine has not. All the other tenderpoints and movement (or lack of) I do and don't have imply the nerve is still a big part of the problem. I assured him that I knew it was as I'm getting tingling and numbness this go around still AND after his little exam my pain was defineatly all the way back down into my foot (I'm pretty sure my shoe and the floor were feeling it for a while there). I've been poping half vicodins all day. (You could set a clock by me cause I can tell you exactly when they wear off). They don't eliminate the pain (a full one probably would, but I'm responsible for kids you know) but they do take the edge off.



I could've gotten the shot this week, but I'm really, really trying to get the girls to the beach house for an extended period this summer. We're going Wed. for 5 days, DAMIT!

I'm still here! Back here!

Yeah I got a million of them. I'll be here all zee week, and be sure to tip your bartenders and waitresses folks!

So guess what went out the week DaddySpeak left?

Yup, my disk is back being herniated again. I haven't been posting because I haven't really been doing much of anything to be honest. That's not exactly true. We've actually been doing quite a lot as my preshus baaaabeee starts kindergarten in a few short weeks here and I'm trying to fit it all in still. Where did my summer vacation go I ask you? And when did summer vacation end in August???? The school district at the beach house starts this week!!! I guess we're lucky. But I digress; So I hold myself together as long as I can (or until another adult is present and able to be in charge) and then I generally collapse. It's fun! NOT. Since I'm collapsed not so much on the posting happening here, but I suppose you know that already.

I'm somewhat better this week than last, not popping vicodin every day anymore. I have an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow, so I'll let you know what he thinks after tomorrow.

Update from the Fire Lines

Just wanted to let you know how our friends are doing. I feel bad that I haven't updated you, but I wanted to be able to include how the fire started, and that's a very recent development.

The Bad News:

Their house is totaled.

It’s in the process of being taken down to studs (which whips up the fire smell on a regular basis). 99% of everything they owned is gone due to water, fire & smoke damage. Pix is from their daughter’s room and it makes me want to cry every time I see it. (It's a color pix, nothing was altered in the color or anything, that's just what it looks like now.)

The fire was arson & apparently the PD & FD feel they know who did it; some kid who has set other fires in the neighborhood. He’s currently detained for other things, but hasn’t been charged with this one yet. They have quite a bit of evidence so I think it’s probably a matter of time. He’s a foster kid, so I’m not sure it does anything for our friends. I don’t think there’s anyone they can sue or anything.

The Good News:

They have unbelievable insurance; their house and possessions are completely covered and there is also money for living and expenses while their out of their house. (Out for 10-12 months). They were able to rent a house on our street, which is amazingly lucky. The response of friends and family actually overwhelmed them. It finally got to the point where they had to tell people not to bring them anymore stuff. One of the other neighbors volunteered to collect the donations and several other neighbors helped with sorting, so in the end it was fine and quite a bit got donated to some very lucky charities too.

They are able to now remodel their house and update their kitchen, which was original (40 years old). Not the way you want that to happen, but it’ll be so nice when it’s done.

Emotionally they are hanging in there. They have good and bad days. I think it’ll be good once school starts and there’s more distraction to things.

The one bad thing is that now they are much farther down the street from us and I miss them a lot. I didn’t realize how many impromptu play dates we had just because the kids where playing out front.

All is well and everyone is safe and really that's all that matters.

Summer Vacation with a Vengeance!

This is our first week true week of summer vacation and we are at it with a vengeance!

On Monday we went to Happy Hollow. This is a park aimed at the under 5 set and is perfect for us. After 30+ years are they are gutting the place & redoing all of it starting in July, which is really very bittersweet. On one hand ,it’ll be really, really, really nice once it’s finished. On the other, this park is a place that anyone who grew up in the South Bay has visited as a child, and to have them change it now after all this time, is just sort of sad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure, safety wise the place is a nightmare, but still, I have pictures of both DaddySpeak and I as children riding the carousel, running in the maze, climbing the fire engine….so it’s melancholy. We’re trying to get in as many visits as possible before their close date.

Yesterday, we cleaned house and then cousin S came over for a playdate; after which you couldn’t tell I’d done any cleaning. It was fine, they just built a “carnival” in the front room using every toy in the house and utilizing every inch of space in our playroom. After the playdate we headed over to one of the neighbors for slip and slide and then take out Chinese. (I love summer!)

This morning we got up and picked up the playroom (took us 30 minutes, I set the timer in 10 minute increments) then headed off to Gilroy Gardens for the day. The girls slept the entire ride home.

Tomorrow we have gymnastics and swim lessons, and Friday is Gymboree.

Whew! If we keep up this pace I’ll be a size 4 in a month!

We made it.

Schools out (as of Wednesday) and I’m now feeling like I can breath again. Note: the next time I decide to initiate a school project with less than 2 weeks left in the school year just take a gun to my head ok? I’m obviously loopy. You see, I decided that a scrapbook would make a really nice teachers gift. Being that I was working most of the year & wasn’t able to get into the class and take lots of pictures. Brilliant me! I thought I’ll get everyone else’s pictures. This really was a great idea, if I had like a month left, which I did not. I did not let that deter me. And in the process I offered to set up a class gift as well. Because, well because I am obviously short a few brain cells.
Short story long, I was able to get quite a few pix from other parents, I now the name of every kid in my daughters class. I created a really nice (if I do say so myself) album for each teacher and collected enough money for a really nice gift card ($100+) and box of Godiva (dipped fruit, yum!) for each of them. I lost a bit of sleep (try 4 nights up till 2-3AM and Monday was till 4 AM). But I think they really appreciated it. And I enjoyed playing Santa. So that’s the reasons I’ve been MIA the last couple weeks. In the meantime some bullet points on what you’ve missed:

• Headed to the beach house for the weekend last weekend & had So. Much. Fun!


• BigSpeak lost a second tooth. And I do mean lost. So far, the Tooth Fairy is getting gypped.


• BigSpeak has officially graduated from Pre-K.


• Major neighborhood drama between moms & girls (not together, that would be too exciting); the fun never ends here.


• LittleSpeak bit her sister & broke skin the other morning (she wanted the step stool BigSpeak was one, note there are two of them.)


• I got to view the photos I had done with the girls a few weeks ago and OMG! Lets just say the photo studio is having a very Merry Christmas based on what we’re spending.

All right, the neighborhood pool is open now & the girls are jonesing to go again. More later! Happy Summer!

I Meant to Write.....

So I've had good intentions, but you know the drill; "I wuz bizeeee!"

Yes, well the outlaws left on Tuesday & I'm still recovering. I happen to choose their visit as the time to run out of the anti-anxiety/PPD pills my dr had me on for PPD. Yeah, I know my kid is two, I was supposed to be weaning off of them, I just got distracted. Not great timing for me, you think? So I'm feeling a little anxious...actually just my brain starts to race most of the time & I feel like I'm having dizzy spells a lot. It's like Disneyland, without the metal detectors or high prices.

In other news...
I did get my laptop back. Yeah!
But our WiFi network has been reconfigured since it was out and I need to reconfig the network and/or laptop again. Boo! So yeah, a couple more days on that one still. But hey, it's getting close.

This is a message I emailed to friend just before this post, it'll give you an idea of what my week has been like:

Got your phone message, but this afternoon was KRAZZZEEE! (That would be a special kind of crazy w/a capital K, in case you didn't notice.) LittleSpeak is still recovering from the fact that her G'parents have left and the world no longer revolves directly around her. Perhaps you felt the Earth's axis shift? I'm sure you heard her screaming her displeasure over it. I'm pretty sure everyone in a 5 mile radius heard her screaming her displeasure about it.

Yeah, that's pretty much my life right now. We're in the process of trying to reset from the G'parents visit. That, and LittleSpeak is teething (two-year molars, whoo!) so there was a 48 hour period this week in which I'd had a total of 7 hours of sleep (not all in one stretch, jeez, you're optimistic). Last night was better, I got 7 total hours, now we just need to work on the whole getting at 5:30 AM thing with her and we'll be golden.

Hoping to get the b-day party pix up this weekend, so really cute ones, not just of my kids although if I don't say so myself....

No rest for the weary!

Wow! You just may have too much time on your hands. I’m just saying; I’ve been totally MIA for almost two weeks and you’re checking back anyway? Well, thanks. It’s good to know that someone in the blogosphere might actually alert the cops to my house after a period of non posting. Cause that means someone was still coming to see if I’d written something. Which is actually really touching…or sad, I’m going w/touching.

So here’s the deal; I’m retired!!! Yeah!!! OMG I’m retired!

I’m still working out the whole schedule thing and when I get to be on the computer each day; ummm yeah, still haven’t worked that part out yet. I can say that each and every day myself and both girls have been dressed by 8 AM (weekends don’t count). My house is waaaay cleaner than it’s been in months. Yes, I know that’s not necessarily saying much, but work w/me here. And we’ve celebrated one birthday and had a full weeks worth of very sick child. So nothing like being thrown into the thick of things, right?

Ok, since it’s past midnight already, and one of my goals is to get to bed by midnight, it’s a goal people, no one said it would be easy, I’m going to stop here and try to get in some writing tomorrow. I said try and I really will, but JIC it doesn’t happen I did say try. Promise to be back again this week. PROMISE! I have good stories & pix, soon ! So keep checking, and thanks for caring, seriously.

I need a weekend from my weekend now.

I was going to write about my weekend, but once I started writing I realized how freaking boring it really was, sorry, such is life in suburbia. I'll bullet list the high lights below. And then to make it up to you, a photo I've been meaning to post.

• My back was pretty sucky all weekend long. Vicodin and my bed are my new BFFs.


• We pulled the training wheels off BigSpeak's bike (running along w/her, not one of my smarter choices.) I predict she'll be w/out training wheels full time by June 1st!


• I found a great new place for pedicures!


• We got our fence fixed!


• My neighbor (who shares the fence) came over to yell at me because her dog got out during fence fixing (somehow this was my fault) and her 90+YO dad fell looking for him (also somehow my fault.) She ruined all my good pedi vibes by making me feel guilty. Bah!


• LittleSpeak is doing her best to try and make me rethink the whole SAHM thing.


• BigSpeak has started a new line of whining and I may have to cut her tongue out.


• Got decorations for LittleSpeak's b-day next weekend: going to be a Fiesta!

Thanks for letting me vent; and now your reward.....BigSpeak playing in the backyard!

Her beauty continues to amaze me. Even if she is whiny sometimes.

Cleaning House, so to speak

Big News

And now for the most anti-climactic moment of the month…da, da, da, DA! I quit my job today! No, this is not a joke, April Fool’s is tomorrow. I know big surprise. My last day will be April 24th and then, God help us, I will officially be a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM). Right now I’m flying high on my "giving notice excitement" (I love giving notice, it’s such a sense of freedom!) I’m sure two weeks into this, I’ll be begging for them to take me back (I don’t think they’ll want me). DD2 turns two 3 days after I do this, so I will be staying at home right after my kids are done with their baby years. I think that means I’m doing this for them vs. for me.

Oh, yes, and for my love of you internets. You will benefit from more posts and I imagine more fodder for posts. All that time with the two year old, what else could come from it?

………………

Computer Issues (AKA Death vs. Taxes, I may just choose death)

Yesterday, I finally sat down to start our taxes, don’t want to rush into anything you know. It took me two hours to ascertain that the computer can not locate last years return. BAH!

I don’t know if you remember a couple months ago we had a big storm that knocked out our power (and our back fence, which also is still jimmied together, I see a theme emerging). The resulting power surge killed our CPU. It was fine, we have like 4 hard drives backing everything up 2-3 times. Seriously. We pulled out an old CPU which was loaned to us by a friend.

In Silicon Valley everyone pretty much has extra computers, parts and
accessories around their house. Seriously, it’s part of our geek code
here.

So that was all fine, right? Well other then photos we really haven’t tried to access the old files too much and last night when we did, I can’t find the one I need, of course. But hey, the text for my wedding invites, no problem. So I’m pretty sure I also saved this file on my laptop, which is having WiFi issues since we returned from our Cabo trip. Fine, I’ll lug it up the stairs and plug it in to the modem MANUALLY. The humanity of it! In the process of doing this, I found that the laptop is having driver problems (I suspect it may actually be Vista problems, but I don’t know for sure) and can not locate any networks anywhere at anytime. What I do know is that I will now have to spend some time on the phone with someone from Bangladesh and it's going to suck! Fun that I am so looking forward to. I also managed to set it up so that the CPU was not talking to the modem for a while as well. Big Fun! I love playing IT geek when I NEED to be doing something else. After two hours of all of this, I did finally get the CPU talking to the Internets again, but I was done. I loaded some pix to our Google photos and called it a day.

Tonight I get to re-enter all our personal information to start our taxes for this year.

And to really spice things up on Friday, I'll probably call Bangladesh. I'm just saying...

So how was your weekend?

Since I loaded some new photos I’ll share. This is my favorite of both of them together. Taken in Feb., when the outlaws were visiting.

Not Quite so Dramatic this time.

A little melodramatic no? Yeah, I know, I get that way once in a while. It’s more or less passed. When it happens I feel like it I write it down & get it out maybe it’ll go away. I’m not sure it helps, other than to prove I’m mentally ill (and help my kids have me committed some day.) But, whatever. I was in the thick of a very bad time with my back. I believe I peaked yesterday. God, I hope that was the peak. I spent almost all of yesterday in bed on drugs. I was pretty good this morning, driving in the car put me backward for sure, but now I seem to be better. Vicodin is, once again, one of my very best friends evah! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s passed now. It was awful.

Work has been super busy, which hasn’t helped things, but all of this business should soon be slowing down. On MONDAY I can finally tell you my BIG NEWS and then, hopefully there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. After all this, I’m sure it will be very anticlimactic. Ok, back to work, just wanted to let you know I’m ok & I haven’t done anything like thrown myself down a flight of stairs or something.

Things I Hate!

• I hate 4 PM.
  
• I have an awesome day w/my girls, but 4 PM hits and it's like someone hit a switch. The whining, the screeching, the drama, and that's just me. Seriously, I just don't get it. It can take a great day of 8 hours that fly by and dissolve it into 2 that seem to last all day and make me feel like mom of the year.
• My Job
• They don't pay me enough to deal w/the idiots I'm working with; I know that goes against my do not talk negatively about work rule, but damn some people have no regard for others. Let's just say I got a really rude (insulting) email at the end of th day on Monday. Even though I vowed not to let it bother me and consider the source, I'm still stewing over it. Grrr!...I'm working on this one (remember my "big news" from a while back ago? Soon, I may have an announcement. I'm just saying...)
• Sharing computers
• I'm a selfish bee-yoch when it comes to my bathroom & my computer. Knowing this, it's obvious that I love my husband very, very much when you consider we share both of these. I find these to be extremely personal areas of my life (yes, my computer is very personal, I have it all arranged just so and it drives me ape shit when someone removes a shortcut or adds software or something! It's up there w/putting the toilet paper roll on wrong.) I'm moving on, I could rant for hours on this one.
• Giving up Chocolate
• Sigh, it looks like I'm going to have to. It's becoming more and more apparent that I'm having a really hard time w/chocolate. I've realized that I seem to be getting reflux from my mochas now. If that isn't a sign I don't know what is. Bah!
  

That's it for now (cause now I'm super depressed). Isn't it enough? Sigh.

Checking BACK In….

Yup, more back cracks. I know, I’m sorry. Honestly, it’s pretty much what’s going on here these days. I was down for the count Thursday and Friday. Saturday & Sunday I took it easy, sort of. Taking it easy meant I didn’t pack moving boxes up and down stairs I guess, cause on Monday I worked in the garden. I know, what was I thinking???? I was thinking that those bulb kits at Costco were a good price, (only $15) and that we had a weekend long break from the rain and it was nice to get outside. I was thinking it was a nice project for my MIL & the kids. That’s what I get for thinking. But DaddySpeak & I planted them w/the girls, so that's what I get for thinking. They weren't labor intensive or anything. They were even in raised beds, but it was enough bending and reaching to throw me off I guess. I spent the later part of yesterday & early today feeling like crap. I hope I didn’t undo any good the shot had done. I promise I will behave myself from now on; beside it’s raining again & we go to MEXICO in two weeks! GAWD, I can’t wait.
In the meantime, apparently Antique Mommy’s Sean is walking around in a coma. (No, I’m not making light of her situation, but if his count really was 2000, I’m pretty sure a coma would be the upside of things. I’m on the side of human error in the testing, but I’m also saying a little prayer for them too.) Amalah & Mrs. Mogul went & got knocked up again! (Yes, I’m totally broody and jealous. Sigh) And Juni’s a big sis! So there’s your something shinny. Go read and enjoy, I’m going to bed early to try and HEAL!

Still kicking....

Yes, I'm still alive. I have lots to relay & I'm totally lagging (and actually may flake this week) on the Fun Monday post (because I have so much to write already). But I am tired from our trip & drive home. So here's your teaser....DD1 skied this weekend for the FIRST TIME!!!!

Pix & maybe even video to follow soon!

House Keeping

I suppose most of these could be Twitter posts, but I'll round it up anyway, it's faster this way.

Cats
I know you’re all waiting w/baited breath to get the cat/bedspread update. So far, so good. No more defecating on the bed, even w/DaddySpeak back in town. I'm sure I just jinxed it right now.

DD1
Woke up w/a super, bad cold today, of course she did, we’re going skiing this weekend. This way we'll all be sick by Friday. Bah! In fact, it might even be pink eye; if she’s still all “goopy” by noon I’ll be calling the dr office.

DD2
Not to be left out she indicates w/grunts & finger pointing that she too has whatever Big Sis has. She doesn’t (I hope) but she is not going to be left out of anything. It’s kind of cute right now, you'll need to remind me of that in a year when it’s become annoying. She is also tall enough to reach the kitchen counters now. Bah, these damn kids w/their growing! I know this because she swiped my keys this weekend (w/out me knowing) and put them in one of her play purses. I went NUTS looking for them! Luckily, I finally thought to ask DD1 if she knew where they were (true desperation) and she did! Otherwise, I’d probably still be looking for them.

Mommy
I think I’m in the early stages of a Fibro flare up. I really, really hope not, as I mentioned earlier we’re going skiing this weekend and it would really suck to feel like this when it’s so very, very cold. (Temperature can affect the symptoms.) Plus, skiing! I haven’t gotten to ski in over 2 years; last year I had a herniated disk in my back (it’s still not in great shape, but we're not going to talk about it), and the year before that I was pregnant. Last year I got new skis and bindings, so I’m dying to use them! Have I mentioned that I ski? I used to ski A LOT! No, ok blog fodder for later, but hey, I ski! No, really, it's like the one sport I will actually tell you I do well. (That should tell you something, cause I SUCK at most sports.)

At work last week, a group of us started a friendly “biggest loser” game. Everyone put in $10 and who ever loses the highest percentage of body weight wins the pot. There’s over $200 in there right now. There's one person who tracks everyone on a spreadsheet. We had to indicate our goal & he calculated our goal percentage. My goal is to lose 9%, which means I want to lose 13 lbs. (But wouldn't it be awesome if I lose more??? Ok, focus on those first 13 MS.) I lost 3 lbs this week! Wahoo! What’s really awesome is that because I was feeling so bad this weekend, I wasn’t very good about my diet. I got better on Saturday and Sunday, but Thursday and Friday were the worst I’ve eaten since July. A couple guys in here lost 6 lbs each and one guy lost 11 lbs! It’ll be interesting to see how it goes over the whole 90 days, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

More on FUN Monday in a little while.

Catching up and Other "FUN" Stuff

Once again I am lacking in the “stuff to do” department here at work. I shot off an email to my boss reminding her that “who hooo, I’m here! And I’m a little light on stuff to do!” Not that I can’t find anything to do, (like blogging! And shopping!) but I just don’t want her to get upset later when she asks what I’ve been working on and I say, “my scrapbook.” I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that would not go over hugely.
Like in all Dilbert cartoons she wrote me back as soon as I went to lunch telling me to “come on over”. And she asked one of my co-workers to pass along some of her stuff to me to work on, only the co-worker is confused about how and what to pass off to me. And when I got back from lunch and went to meet with my boss, she was gone, of course. So back to my blogging.

FUN MONDAY
Why Yes, it is Fun Monday. Thank you for asking. Only I’m at work and the topic today involves pictures of pets, which I’m totally excited to write because, “hey I love my pets.” And I love my neighbor’s pets too, but without a cute pix to accompany said post it would be pretty boring. So I will add the pix when I get home and then post everything together. Yes, that does means TWO posts in one day. Contain yourself.

UPDATES
The first part of this weekend kind of sucked. Beside the neighborhood now looking like a war zone from the weather I was sick on Saturday. It was nothing major, just a rotten cold. Daddyspeak got up about an hour after I did on Saturday and I declared I was going to go lay down for a little bit, I was just so worn down. I slept until 2:30 in the afternoon. Guess I needed it, huh? The only reason I woke up right then was because he’d taken DD1 out to run some errands and DD2 woke up from her nap crying/screaming. The bummer was I had all these things (putting away all my Christmas décor) I wanted to get done. Guess what, other than showering at 3, that was about all I got done on Saturday. Wooo! The crazy life I live.

Yesterday I took Daddyspeak on his Christmas gift; we went to an exhibition at The Tech Museum in San Jose, BodyWorlds 2. The idea of this might gross you out, but DS is a biology guy. He wasn’t into human biology so much, but still I figured it was something he’d dig. He said he did, and I have to admit I really did. It was fascinating. I went to a science magnet high school and was in the senior level physiology class (supposed to be the exact same everything as the freshman pre-med physiology class at Stanford) so I got to take apart a cadaver in high school. But this was so much cooler then that. It certainly smelled better. They approached the body in layers and had different layers in different areas (i.e.—there was a room on the nervous system and they had a body with just the skeleton and nerves.) They also had “slices” (cross sections) of people; some were perfect & healthy while others might have cancer or other well known issues with that organ. So you could clearly see what would be considered normal vs. unhealthy. If you ever have the opportunity to see one of these exhibits I highly recommend it. It isn’t gross. It’s mesmerizing. When I walked into the first room it suddenly hit me how much could be gleaned from these bodies. How much could be learned and studied. The education that these people have helped provide is immeasurable.

At the end, they had a small area about how the people came to be used in the exhibit and then how you could sign up if you were interested. DS and I joked about signing up. (“We’re here for your liver.” “Umm, I’m still using it.”) We both agreed we’d rather help by being organ donors. However, if by studying my body they could figure out the whole Fibro thing then I would pony up my body right away for that. But I don’t think you really get to say what science would do with your body so much.

There were two things about the exhibit that bothered me a little; the first was that you could tell that the people whose full bodies were used were typically young and seemed to be in excellent shape. There was no evidence of how they may have died, but it seemed apparent that they had all died well before their time. The second thing that bothered (made me emotional) was that they had a room just on babies and pregnancy. In this room there was a woman who was 5 months pregnant w/the baby in her womb. She was cut and layered so you could see the baby in her womb and how everything fit together. The baby’s foot was sticking up and it was about the size of my thumbnail. They had fetus’ from 1 week to 8 weeks in small tubes (which magnified them so you could see them better, they started out about ½ the size of my pinkie nail and ended up about the size of my thumb nail.) There were also babies who had died at various points in the pregnancy; 14, 20, 32, weeks, etc… I was fascinated with this whole section of the exhibit, but also extremely sad. When viewing the woman who was 5 months pregnant, I couldn’t help but think, “Someone out there is still mourning the loss of these two.” Each of the full body exhibits had a year attached to them. I assume that this meant that the person died that year or the year before. The oldest one I saw was 1996, the newest 2005. The thought that there are families who are still mourning the loss of these individuals was something I couldn’t shake.

However, all that being said, these people died regardless of what was to happen to their bodies after, and I think it speaks volumes of them and their family to allow their bodies to be used for this type of education. It was an amazing exhibit and like I said before, if given the opportunity, I highly recommend you go see it.

Rain, Rain, Rain....

Yes, we made it through the weekend more or less unsacathed. Only lost our power for most of a day, and a small section of our fence. (Oscar & Merit are actually somewhat happy about that aspect.) We had "huricane force winds" here on Friday. The brillant person that I am, I took my kiddos out in it first thing too. Took DD2 to her gymboree class, while DD1 stayed at the cousins' house to play. Gymboree was flooding, so half the play area was closed while they tried to figure what was up (facilities was pretty sure that the ground was just so saturated that it was coming up from the ground (vs. a leaking ceiling or wall). Had to take various side streets, as the main road to get there was blocked by a very, very large tree that been picked up by the wind and placed across the road. We had a lot of that around here; the ground just got so wet, so fast that with the wind the trees didn't have a chance. Several trees on our block alone were pulled up from the roots, all were at least 40 years old; meaning BIG trees. After seeing all the damage done, I realized it was a bit scary and not just me. The major bummer is that it looks like we lost our CPU. In the last couple months my scrap book hobby has maxed us out so much that we have purchased 2 additional HD, which brings us up to soemthing like 4, plus a laptop and an external that I use downstairs. I swear we are personally keeping the electronics industry going. I guess it's our fault for not unplugging everything to avoid a power surge, but still. We're still much better off than a friend of mine in the City; she lost the roof on her apt building. She wasn't on the top floor, but last I heard they had flooding on one side of her apt. I told her to come stay down here & store her stuff in our garage, but she wanted to stay near the building. I'll let you know how that goes.

It's late & I have a rotten cold so more later.
Oh, and it's still raining, I'll keep you posted in case we start to float away!

Best Laid Plans…..

Yeah, so I was supposed to post on Fun Monday…silence….and now it’s Wednesday.


I think I missed it. I took pictures during the weekend and outlined in my head what I would write about, I was so prepared! But it just didn’t happen. I’ve been having a rough week. It hasn’t been awful or anything, just unbelievably busy and exhausting and Gawd it’s not over yet, it’s only Wednesday! sob I guess I mean, “It’s only Wednesday!” In spite of the fact that I haven’t had an opportunity to sit down for two minutes I still have TONS of things to do.

Soooo the biggest obstacle I faced in participating correctly in Fun Monday was the lack of sleep I got Sunday night. DD2 has been teething for going on a month now. About a month ago, out of nowhere; low-grade fever, drool-y (from a kid who doesn’t typically have that issue), wants her bink all the time, wants to be held all the time, cranky….you get the picture: teething.

DD1 never complained about getting teeth. In fact, the way we would know she got a new tooth was because she was nursing and would tend to bite me whenever a new one was coming in. Testing it out I guess. She got 4 teeth at 4 months (all at once) and then got one a month until she was a year. After that, I stopped nursing (because she was biting me enough to draw blood for several days, think pink milk; there’s your visual. You’re welcome.) And one day it was like, “Oh look, she’s got molars.”
Not so much with DD2. She’s been pretty low key about her teeth up till now, but these ones are killing her. So that was my very long way of telling you she couldn’t sleep Sunday night because of teething. She wanted to be rocked & held. This started around midnight & at 1 AM I was dying so I brought her to bed with me. I’ve never done that before. Having sleep issues create a whole different dynamic about bringing your kids in bed with you. Anything that might prevent you from sleeping well, you avoid. So up until Sunday neither of my child had spent a whole night in our bed. So all 3 of us were miserable. Thing about it was that she was happy enough to be in our bed, but what she really want was to lay ON ME and be held, while holding Daddy’s hand. After less then 2 hours sleep (and not all in one shot) I was a bit loopy all day Monday. I was lucky I made it to work in one piece, much less put a full sentence together.

Yesterday, I crammed and got the Grandparent’s scrapbooks finished. So that’s what I took up my time with on Tuesday. I’m really happy with them and I’m really happy I didn’t have to pay extra postage in order for the one to make it to Kansas before Christmas. But I AM SHOT.

Today, I’m dealing with the rental home we have and trying to get a credit report done on an applicant. She didn’t meet the criteria, but because of the way the system is set up now, I don’t know any details. I’m debating about what my standards should be, but I still feel that I ought to stick with my original plan, so I’ve had to relist it. So Much Fun!!!

And, of course, I have not finished my Christmas shopping. Tonight after the girls go to bed I’ll be out trying to finish up. Sigh. I’m tired. Oh, and I forgot to bring the hard drive with my photos on it to post for Fun Monday. I do believe I have missed Fun Monday for this week. I suck, which I wouldn’t mind so much if I could just get some sleep while I was sucking…

ClusterF#@$ of a Day

I’m having such a clustf#@* of a day, can I just tell you? It’s not a totally sucky day, but it’s one of those days where very everything seems to take extra steps and it just kinda beats you down.

Example 1:
I overslept this AM. My alarm was going off when my mom showed up to get the girls. My mom, in true form, yelled at me because I was still in bed. Cause, you know, oversleeping, being late for work and rushing around feeling out of it is my version of fun!
On a similar note, I’ve been falling asleep in the late afternoon/early evening, it's not your dozing on the couch kind of thing, it's more along the lines of pretty much passing out while standing up. I’m staring to think I may be dealing with CFS which is a symptom of Fibro. I haven’t had this symptom before, but I’ve found that the symptoms seem to change around after each pregnancy. So this is fodder for another post.

Example 2:
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but our renter (of 7 years) recently moved out. (Inconsiderate bastard went & bought a house, how rude! I’m just bummed cause he was such a good renter and now I have to deal with all this crap.) So I ran the Craig’s List ad & had 5 people came to look at it last weekend. One turned in her application (two others were supposed to but have flaked, go figure) so now I’m trying to run her credit check. Standard landlord stuff…dude they want more information on me than they do on her!

Apparently the patriot act requires all this info now to help curb identity theft. They want to come inspect the physical property and the place where you store the property records! They want to know that you have an appropriate way of disposing of those records. Next they'll be asking for my first born. Dude, how come all those credit card companies get my credit info so easily then?

I think I found a solution for this, without having to go through the whole check out my place and my fancy organization (a moving box stacked high with papers that need to be filed into the filing cabinet, cause I'm so organized.) I’ll let you know how it goes.

Ok, back to happier times and X-mas posts later.