Nominated for Mother of the Year!

Yeah, that’s for sure. I'm sure you'll agree after you read this:

My back’s bad today. One of the worst days I’ve had in a long time. Bad enough that I’m calling my doctor tomorrow. I think I need to either have another MRI or maybe another epidural. This has gotten ridiculous, it has now been over a year since I hurt it. I know a herniated disk has a long recovery time (they told me up to 9 months) and it is better than it was, (my siatica isn't as involved now,) but jeez a year is a long time.

Ok, I’m done complaining, but you get my point, it hurts. A LOT. So I’m much less patient about everything right now. I have a super short fuse and no tolerance for anything of any sort. The usual banter of questions that DD1 throws at me while in the car, I’m totally snapping at her over. I HATE it when I’m like that. It’s almost like I can see myself doing it, but am powerless to stop it from happening. Thus you have my mindset for the day. As I mentioned in my last post, DD2 has also been in rare form as of late; we are a treat to be around, let me tell you.
……………………………….


The girls both are in need of new shoes & my mom had offered to buy them. (She feels strongly that they need really good shoes while their feet are growing and will spend a minimum of $40 on their shoes to make sure they fit properly. Since my girls both wear shoes that cost more than double what mine cost, I‘m inclined to let her pay for them.) We’d been trying to coordinate a time when we were both available & found that we didn’t really care about the Super Bowl this year (I can TiVO the commercials) considering that the teams were both from the East Coast. We headed off to the good (pricey) kid's shoe store (not Payless Shoe Source) to get the girls some new tennis. All was well during this, except that the little bit of walking we did in the mall really made my back tweak out. Bad. DaddySpeak was at a neighbor’s house watching the game & I called him on our way home because I was in no condition to deal with the girls alone. Plus I was totally taking a major pain pill as soon as I got home. Before we’d left the mall DD1 had complained that her tummy hurt because she was hungry. I figured she was trying to make a play for Starbucks or McD’s (which she was totally not getting) and told her she could have some fruit when we got home. In the car she cleared her throat and it sounded a lot like she was getting sick. My mom questioned her about where she learned to clear her throat like that (probably at school) but she got all sensitive about it and wouldn’t answer. She did it one more time and then literally started crying that her throat hurt. Well no wonder dude, don’t clear it like that & it won’t hurt. My mom looked at me and said, “Do you think it really hurts her?” to which I replied, “No. I think she’s all bent about the throat clearing question and this is her face saving attempt at attention.” You might say I was a bit skeptical. In my defense, this type of episode is not uncommon for her. She can be a bit sensitive at times. Just as we pull into the driveway DS is walking up and she’s crying at this point. He gets her out of the car, but now she’s pulling the whole “I only want Mommy” thing which isn’t helping her case so much. (Remember, Mommy ain’t feeling so hot, so needy clingy , whiney kid is not what I’m in the mood for exactly.) We go in the house & get her calmed down. I check her throat, nothing. I get her settled in front of the playroom TV w/a “My Pretty Pony” movie and life is generally back to normal.

Let’s all bow our heads now in a moment of gratitude for “My Pretty Pony” and
their like.

So I finally get my pain pill and lay down on my “good” side on the couch in the family room so I can yell at DD2 and then hassle DS because he’s really only half watching her while he’s watching the game. Then, right as the Giant’s score their first touchdown , DD1 goes into the bathroom & starts retching. Because of the activity on the TV, I totally have to yell at DS (over the TV) that I think she’s getting sick, he can see her from where he’s sitting and runs into her, (he didn't even stop to pause the TiVO, so I do have to give him props for that part).



Poor baby got totally sick; barfed her little guts out.


Yup, Mrs. Sympathetic that’s me.

Just nominate me for Mother of the Year, I’m sure I deserve it.



My poor kid is feeling sick and I’m totally dis’ing her cause I think she just wants attention. And she got sick two more times after that. I'm a piece of work, am I not? I’m still not sure if she’s really sick or if she just ate something that didn’t agree with her. Hopefully it was the later & she’s done with it by now.



Just so you know, I know when I’m a total a**hole, even to my 4YO, and I told her I was sorry she didn’t feel good and I was sorry I snapped at her in the car. She came and laid on me on the couch for the next hour (in-between getting sick). I know she enjoyed the attention. She's currently sleeping w/a large tupperware bowl next to her now, cause I care. Nothing says I care about you like plastic bed assesories (hmmm, wonder what that will do to all those Google searches?) and holding your hair back while barfing. Daddy held the hair back, so I got her the bowl. What a team we are, no?

And I did let her have a pedalite popsicle on the couch tonight. She just about fell over when I suggested that she could lay on the couch & eat it instead of at the kitchen table.



That right there should ensure my winning “Mother of the Year.”

Advanced For Her Age

She ain't giving up that bink w/out a fight either!

DD2 is hit a new level this week. She’s become a complete TWO YEAR OLD. Why yes, she does have several months before her official birthday, so she must be advanced for her age.
OMG has she stepped it up. Her fuse is so short! She can’t stand it if you tell her “no”, she will immediately throw herself on the floor kicking and screaming. Doesn’t matter what it’s about, we are merciless and her life, it is tragic. Yes, at 21 months, her life it is already a tragedy, because her mean, mean mother will not let her have a cookie 10 minutes before dinner. I still haven’t hit this status with DD1. You know what they say about each kid being different? Like night and day folks. The biggest milestone she’s passed this week is that she will now promptly do exactly what you told her not to do. People w/no kids would call it "asserting her independence." Tonight it was about climbing on the leather cubes/tables. We have these in lieu of a coffee table, so the kids won't crack their heads open on them. No one told me we needed to get all the neighbors to get rid of their driveways too. New hobby of hers; climbing on everything she can & standing up! She likes to be TALL! She wants a matching scar above her other eye. Mommy is not impressed. So tonight, I catch her pulling herself up onto one of the cubes and I tell her to get down. This isn’t news to her, we’ve had this conversation before, almost daily this week in fact. She responds by STANDING UP! Because she’s independent and smart! I change my tone and tell her to “get on her tush” and get down. She ignores me. I walk (quickly, because I’m not in the mood for another trip to the emergency room) and pick her up and give her a time out. (Time out for her consists of being straped in her high chair and moved to the next room. I set a timer so they hear the beep when the time out is done, she gets a one minute time out, because she is one. However, by the end of this little episode, I decided she had more than graduated to 90 seconds; being advanced and all.) After the timeout she gets down, walks over to her sister and (insert any one of many negative behaviors here) bites, scratches, hits, pulls hair… her. She immediately gets another time out. After this timeout I make her apologize to her sister, which she does. She then she walks back over to the cube. She watches me watch her do this. She reaches to pull herself up (watching me) I tell her she’s going to get another timeout. She responds with a grunt/screech-like sound of displeasure. Lovely child. She continues to pull herself up I count “One!” She pulls herself some more, now on her stomach on the cube, still smiling at me. “Two!” and I start to walk over, she pushes herself off, smiling. I tell her, “You do it again & you’ll get another time out.” (God, I sound like my mother.) She sort of grunts her understanding, then she puts her hand on the other side of the cube, watching me the whole time and smiling. You can see the wheels turning in her head, “Hmmm, is this pushing your buttons yet mama?” You know all those things you wish for your child when they’re growing inside of you? To be smart, independent, a leader, creative, funny…Not so much what you’re looking for in your toddler. I’m just saying.

The Blahs

Have you ever had a period of time where you feel like you’ve stopped trying? I’m having a week like that. I’m tired (I know, “wah!”) But seriously, the last 3 nights I’ve fallen asleep on the couch right after dinner. It’s really, really not like me. I feel almost zombie-like; I get dressed, but don’t care what I wear (mostly jeans & t-shirt w/sweater/sweatshirt over). I do my hair, but could care less how it comes out; using a spray bottle mostly so it’s frizzy. I just avoid the mirror.

This is why I haven’t written this week. I hate to write and be all wah, wah, wah, whine, whine, whine (unless of course its’ wine,) but that’s how I’ve been feeling all week & can’t seem to get out of the funk. Thanks for sticking with me, yes, I can see you from behind this curtain & I’m lurking around your site too BTW. Hopefully, I’ll be back up to speed real quick here.

The other reason I haven’t written is that I’m hoping to have some very, very big news very soon here. No, I’m not pregnant, get over that one right now. As much as part of me really wants another baby we are done. This big news is something I’ve talked about before, but it never really seemed tangible before. I’m not going to say what it is because I don’t want to jinx it, but that’s another reason I haven’t written; something potentially exciting may be happening and it’s all I can think about, but because it isn’t for sure yet, I don’t want to jinx it. So this topic has been taking up all my brain space and leaving any room for other things. You know how it is. I was going to leave you with some random thoughts from this week, but I got bored writing it. So I guess that’s it for now.

Yes, of course, I got pictures so I can scrapbook this event!

I spent my afternoon of free time in the local ER w/DD2. It was one of those stupid accidents, are there any other kind? We were walking DD1 to a neighbor’s house to play & in their driveway she tripped and fell. (You should see the driveway!) Not sure if she actually tripped on something or not, she’s 20 MO they fall a lot, you know. She turned her head just right so that she landed face first and used her eyebrow to catch herself. Her eyebrow was less then pleased. I was initially relieved that she didn’t knock out a tooth. She had obviously given herself a good knot on her head and after cleaning her up (quite a bleeder) we went home where I made her lunch. She seemed fine, was quite happy & joking around in fact. But the damn cut wouldn’t stop bleeding. It wasn’t gushing or anything, just every couple minutes I’d have to press it w/a cloth so the blood wasn’t dripping into her eye. Your welcome, eating breakfast were you? You should know better than to do that while reading my stuff by now. Once an hour had passed & it was still bleeding I decided to call the advice nurse; I knew it was more likely than not that they’d tell me to come in, but I also thought there was decent chance they’d say they don’t butterfly a child at that age or something and as long as she was acting fine then she was fine. Of course I told me to come in. In fact I was directed NOT to got to urgent care, but to go to ER. Great.
Luckily the hospital was relatively slow when we got there. We did end up having to wait for an hour and a half in the beginning (I think we got screwed in a receptionist shift change) but once I decided to allow DD1 carte blanch at the waiting room they got us in right away. Yes, I was that mother. In my defense I had pretty much run out of tricks to keep her entertained and seated after an hour an a half. Whatever, it worked. We didn’t even see a doctor. The nurse practitioner took one look & said stitches for sure.

Me: “Really? Can’t you glue it? It’s so small.”
Nurse: If it were anywhere else we probably would glue it, but by the eye we don’t use the glue. Plus being right at the beginning of her eyebrow we’d be messing w/the hairs & it’s really best left alone.
Me: So you’re basically going to give her a shot in her eye, right? (I'm thinking of the therapy this is going to cost me later in life.)
Nurse: We’ll numb it first, and we’ll strap her down to a papoose board.
Me: Trust me the board will be the worst part of it. She can’t stand to be confined. I can’t overstate how much she hates to be strapped down.
Nurse: That’s typically it’ll be fine.

So they put some gel on the cut to numb it, and in the end didn’t do a shot, only the gel. She ended up with two stitches. It was big enough for three, but the nurse decided the other two pulled it together well enough and a third is just that much more opportunity for scarring. Here's the real kicker; she didn’t cry. Yes, you read correctly. Remember I mentioned before that she doesn’t cry at shots (neither of my kids do), well she didn’t cry at this either. In fact, I spun the situation so well with her (yes, I am taking the credit for this thankyouverymuch) that she was cooing through the whole thing at me & the 2nd nurse who was holding her head still. No shite! I swear! I honestly wish I’d had a video of the thing because it was amazing. When we left, the nurses were in the back telling all the others about it because they’d never had a kid be not just so calm, but actually happy during something like that. I made a big deal out of the fact that she was getting to lay on a big girl bed (the ER beds) and she ate that up. Then they brought the board in and she was interested in what was going on, so they told her they were going to wrap her up w/blankies so she would stay warm. When they started, one of the nurses said something about becoming a baby burrito and I told her they were going to wrap her up like we do Baby S & Baby G, my friend’s twins. I told her we were going to pretend she was a baby. Well let me tell you, she lurved that!!! (She loves babies.) She cooed through the rest of the procedure. As they stitched her eye I stroked her face & told her how proud I was of her & what a big, brave girl she was, just like DD1. I couldn’t have said anything better, she was thrilled with herself. I have a feeling this is the first of many of these types of ER visits in her future. I hope I’m wrong, but I told DaddySpeak “I think this is our hockey player.”

The post in which I float away…..

I live in CA, have you seen us on the national weather map? We are under the big green blob the West. The one indicating heavy rain. It has been raining since last weekend. In California. Usually we don’t get that much water for any length of time. I ordered wellies during the big storms we had a few weeks ago, cause they were cute & I was jealous of the kids with all their cute shoes. My husband & mother laughed at me, cause you know, we get so much rain here.

Suddenly I don’t feel so foolish, or wet.

We were supposed to go back up to Tahoe this weekend, but being the wussies that we are, we bailed. We were supposed to go with some friends this time & they were not impressed that we backed out, but they didn’t just sit in the car with toddlers during a storm. Dude, the thought of 8+ hours in the car w/DD2 who just lurves riding in her car seat and communicates that through screaming at the top of her lungs, (for HOURS) made us rethink the whole deal. As I sit here listening to it get worse and worse, I’m glad we did. So instead of sitting the car listening to the screams & whines of toddlers, I’m sitting here listening to Sesame Street the gurgling of the gutters as they’re overloaded with water.
It’s weird to have an unscheduled weekend for a change. Guess I should take advantage of it and start working on those resolutions related to the house.

Resolving to Update….

How many titles do you think I can get out of “resolve”? I’m not sure that I haven’t exhausted them all and I’m in January.

Since I did set some goals/resolutions this year I figure the only way I’m going to accomplish any of them is to update them regularly. You, Internet, are keeping me accountable. So I’ve copied them from my original post & will be updating at least once a month, if not more. Guess, I’ll make the 1st & 15th my go-to days on updating these (that would be me making myself accountable to you again there). So here you go….

1) Get our finances in order
a. Meet w/advisor to define what is “out of order” & define & start to implement plan
(i.e.—we were under insured, I’ve upped our coverage.)
Met w/advisor on 1/10, got a summary of “things to do”.
Have already done some of them!
Goal for week: Go over list w/Daddyspeak & make some decisions (1/24).
Follow up meeting w/FA on 1/29.
b. Set up plan to get legal
stuff (ie—living trust, define who the kids would go to, etc…)updated.
FA offered to provide contacts/lawyers for this, follow up on 1/29. Need to define a date in which this should be completed by (will come after speaking w/actual lawyers).
This should be part of discussion w/Daddyspeak on 1/24.

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?)
Daddyspeak started some of this (he couldn’t find his passport & we both need to renew). All boxes have been pulled out.
Goal this week: spend 10 mins in spare bedroom every day (cleaning out/purging).

3) Get all the rooms decorated; still have pix to be hung, etc…I finally accepted that Daddy ain’t going to pony up so I’m starting to do it myself. (Need to unpack/hang at least one thing a week.)
Need to work on this one; I brought a pix downstairs to be hung, but still haven’t done it yet.
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)
Need to work on this one too. I did update my calendar for this week.
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.)
Ummm, yeah…need to work on getting this one out of my head & onto paper.
Goal for week: spreadsheet things to be done around house.

6) Walk for 30 mins at least 3x a week.
In my defense, it has been flooding here the last couple weeks (much less the rain). So yeah, I need to work on this one too. I did ski last weekend, does that
count?
Goal for week: walk for 30 mins at least 1x (go to the freaking mall if I have to!)

7) Get hair free (except my head) by EOY.
Goal for week (cause yeah, lagging on this one too). Figure out the clinic I’m going to and cost.

Internal Mommy Wars

Here’s where my head is today.

Have you ever noticed how it seems like women work so hard to obtain & move forward in their career only to have children and then start to work their butts off to be able to stay home? And then when/if they are able to stay home with those kids they make excuses about how they had this “career” before kids and act as if staying home with those kids is a lesser job; like they’re slacking or something. (AKA—The Mommy Wars).

We’re told all our lives about how we can achieve anything we want (girl power!). Our mentors have broken down barriers and through glass ceilings so that we can do as much and make as much as our male counterparts. When I write it like that, I almost feel like they (whoever “they” are,) are trying it guilt us into pursuing those careers because they sacrificed so that we could have these wonderful opportunities. Women’s magazines constantly tout how lucky we are: “We can have it all: A career, a family, a fulfilling marriage!” Really? All at the same time? I’m kinda tired just thinking about all of that at the same time. Cause all of those things take a lot of effort. At least if you want them done well they do and honestly at 39, I’m finding that I’m a bit more tired these days. There is very little talk about how many of the celebrities who waited till their late thirties or longer to try and have children are not using their own eggs or more. They certainly don’t talk about how expensive it is for these families who wait to have babies to go through fertility treatments. There’s no discussion about the emotional toll these treatments take on the individuals, much less their relationships. What about those costs? We pursue this career so we can put ourselves on a roller coaster just to get to the real ride.

No, I don’t have any first hand knowledge about these types of things; I’m that girlfriend who gets pregnant by thinking about it. Everyone is good at something, right? I’m good at pregnant, which I wish I could do more since I’m so damn good at it.

My mom’s generation (baby boomers) is the “me” generation. They were the ones who tried to have it all at the same time. they mostly look tired, don't you think? I’d like to think that my generation (I’m part of Gen X) learned from their mistakes, but I’m not really sure.
I’m just spewing crap from my brain (i.e.--thinking out loud) so this probably doesn’t make any sense (I’m trying to work it out in my head as it is). I guess what it means is that I’m having this internal mommy war in my head right now. Why does it feel like it has to be my head (career) or my heart (SAHM) why can’t be both?

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!

Rock Star

I've been meaning to share some video with you. Ever since we got the Cannon TX1 (love it!!!) we've been pretty good about getting those kodak moments on video as well as photos. You're just getting video on here now because I am lazzzzzy. But you knew that already.

As a side note, if you're considering a new camera, but think this is too expensive, consider this: you can sell your regular digital camera & video camera on ebay or something to offset the price. Once you have this you won't need those anymore cause this one will take the place of both, I promise. (They should pay me or something.)

I'm looking for one of the baby (who really isn't a baby anymore) cause she has the most awesome toddler/baby giggle right now, but until then here's a good one of the my BIG girl who is starting kindergarten in September. Oh. My. God. Just shoot me now. It seems like I just brought her home from the damn hospital last week. Damn kids and their growing up.....grumble, grumble.



This is an original composition by her. Like the way she already knows to turn her back on the camera cause she's the star? Oh, and dig her moves, she gets that from her mama (singing voice from daddy.)

Two Steps Forward….

Yeah, one step back.
Can I just tell you how badly I got my arce kicked today?
Shagged my arce out of bed at dark o’clock to get in line for the kindergarten registration, as planned. DaddySpeak was still in bed and I told him he was late (he leaves the house at dark o’clock every morning, I do not know how he does it, but I certainly appreciate him for it). He informed me he was going in later so he could get his passport done this morning. Really?

Me: What time are you doing that at?
Him: 8 or 9, whenever the post office opens.
Me: Oh Dude! Can I let the girls sleep and you stay here with them while I go take care of the registration?
Him: No problem.

God, I love him!

So, anywho, girls, of course heard me; they seem to have these secret super sonic listening devices for when ever I’m trying not to be heard, do your kids that that too? What is up with that? I mean I can be next to their ear saying their name 3-4 times & they don’t hear me, but man, I sneak upstairs or try to get out of the house while their sleeping? And they are all over me. I digress; I end up putting DD2 in bed w/DS (so awesome, we lurve it when she does this, cause she sleeps on you, which rocks when it comes to snuggle time. The kid’s still pretty small, what can I say?) And, then DD1 of course called me into her room, once again w/a face full of dried snot (your welcome, I’m sure you were eating breakfast or something, huh? Consider it my contribution toward your New Year's weight loss resolution.) So I clean her up, give her some more medicine & get her back to sleep. By that time I’ve got several neighbors calling because they didn’t see any lights on at our house, and I wasn’t at the corner, blah, blah, blah…

and I’m off! (like a herd of turtles) Yesterday was frickin’ cold so I dress warmly; layered long-sleeved t-shirt, wool sweater, wool pea coat, wool scarf, jeans, wool socks, damn, left my mittens on the counter! But the fog was in & it was low, so no ice this AM. Cool! Booked it over to the school, where the neighbors were saving my place in line. At 6:45 AM we were NOT first. KaRAZEE! In the end we stood in line for over an hour and a half and we got off easy!!! By the time we were done the line had at least 50 more people in it and was growing! Thank God for my neighbors, cause I would’ve been one of those 50 people if one of them hadn’t found out what it was like & clued us all in. (We were #12 BTW)
BUT…
You knew there was one didn’t you? There always is with me….
Sometime around 7:30 the fog started to lift, and when the fog lifted the temperature dropped. Notably. Like I bet we could’ve estimated the degree drop as it happened. Suddenly it was damp and freezing!!! No seriously, it had to be in the 30s. By the time I made it home I was damp & so very, very COLD! (I know there's snow where you live, but you don't stand outside in it w/out down clothes on, right?) I couldn’t get warm. I drank like 3 hot drinks, I laid under blankets, I just couldn’t warm up, especially my legs. Since my back has been so out of whack this last week, guess what decided to really take a nose dive? You guessed it! I was back to being laid out & barely being able to move. I kept thinking that if I could just get warmed up it would stop aching so badly. I finally upped the thermostat to like 75, that helped warm me up, but by then my back was shot. I called DS at work & told him that if there was anyway he could get home early I would be eternally gratefully, he said he’d see what her could do. A few more hours later it did start to subside a bit, at which point it was migrating into a migraine. (The pattern it has been taking this last week.) So I grabbed a diet soda (caffeine) & took the girls for a walk (trying to loosen it up some more & help them burn some energy). We ended up at a neighbor’s house (as usual) where the girls all played happily & us mom’s got to visit. It was a much, much needed break. Good call on my part. On the walk part, I called DS & told him I was better & if he couldn’t get away it was ok, but once he did get home I was totally popping a vicodin. (I won't take them if I'm the only adult w/the girls.) Knowing how I am he said he’d still do his best to not work late. (He’s awesome that way.) So at 5 we were on our way home & saw him pulling into the driveway. The girls ran up to him with hugs, and I can’t tell you the sense of relief I had.

Now here is the awesomeness that is my husband:

He totally played with the girls for half an hour. I got my vicodin & laid down. He made the girls & himself dinner (I wasn’t that interested in eating, go figure.) He cleaned up the kitchen while I occupied the girls w/a movie. Then he played with them a bit longer and got them ready and into bed! THEN (yes, it gets better) he went to Trader Joe’s for me to get dark and milk chocolate cashews, cause I was craving chocolate (typical pain response) and the dark chocolate ones are relatively low carb. Yes, he made a special trip just for those for me.

Now the next time I attempt to bitch about my husband and some stupid thing he didn’t do (like pick up his socks) tell me to Shut my Pie Hole and direct me to this post, cause I just may have married the most awesome guy on earth, seriously. Sometimes, I wonder what I did to have scored so well, you know?

All I know is that I must’ve done some seriously good shite in another life to deserve someone who not only do I love and cherish, but who loves me back so much that he not only puts up with all my shite, but takes care of me in spite of it.

All this and he makes beautiful babies too! Yeah, I know you’re jealous.
I have to go now, cause I’m due for another vicodin & I hear it calling my name.

My First Baby

Isn’t a baby anymore. Sigh. I know that’s not news.

I filled out the registration forms for kindergarten tonight.

We have to get in line tomorrow at 6:45 with all our paperwork (shots records & proof of residence). We don’t have to get there that early, but if we want to get in the morning classes then we need to get there early. We live in a very good school district so there are wait lists for inter-district transfers. We are guaranteed to get in as this is our school, but like I said we want the morning classes, and so does everyone else.

I can’t believe she’s starting kindergarten in September.

Next thing she’ll want to be driving the car or something.

Fun Monday

The lovely Ann is hosting today’s Fun Monday. Her topic is:
For today's Fun Monday, I want to hear about a web site that's changed your life. A web site that you can't live without. A web site whose inventor you'd like to see win a McArthur Genius Grant. A lot of people have said that they didn't think they could narrow it down to one, and that's okay. A top-5 list or a top-3 list is completely acceptable.

You’d think (Well, I’d think) that this would be easy for me. OMG there’s so much we do via the web. At one time I did all my grocery shopping via the web (oh, how I miss you Web Van.) Most of my groups of friends have formed groups on various sites; yahoogroups, googlegroups, facebook, etc…and that’s how we organize all our activities. But still other than say, My Yahoo and Google, I can’t think of any website I “can’t live with out.” To be honest, I prefer those two portals, but if I had to live w/out them I think I’d get by. It would be a bummer, but I’d manage. So I guess, you’re going to get a little story. Lucky you! I’m going to talk about a website that changed my life. I don’t use it anymore, but that’s because of the change it made for me.

DaddySpeak and I met online. Gasp. Yes, we’re one of those couples. This was in the heyday of the dot.com boom. You could do anything and everything on line, for FREE. I was working at a (semiconductor) chip maker and he was working at a small bio-tech, who was backed by a much larger international bio-tech. In other words, we were both at companies that were pretty flush. That means we both were in a world where everyone worked hard & played hard. Twelve to fourteen hour days were the norm, so were signing bonuses, stock options and Friday Afternoon beer busts (at work). Silicon Valley was flush with money & that mean flush w/people. Even the best of commutes would take an hour. As a result, it could be really hard to socialize. In my case, I was working in MarCom and managing a pretty active tradeshow schedule, so my travel was 1-2 weeks every month. I met lots of single guys, but most were geographically undesirable. I had a good friend who worked at an ad agency (where I would soon end up, cause it’s not so much what you know as who you know,) who asked me to check out the beta site on a dating website they were designing. I did, and in the process decided to sign up (the first month or something) was free. You filled out a questionnaire, a couple of essay questions and then based on your answers you were given a match with others. A high match was usually somewhere in the high 20's. From the day I got on there, DS and I were a 37% match, so high it was almost unheard of, except, we wouldn't contact each other. DS is rather youthful looking, and at that time he had long hair, which made him look even younger. I figured he was lying about his age and wasn't interested in someone who was going to start out lying. Ironically, DS wouldn't write to me because of my picture as well. The most recent digital photo I had (this was like 10 yrs ago, digital photos weren't that common then) was from my 30th birthday. I had gotten all dolled up for the party & was wearing a black cocktail dress, long black gloves and a tiara. He thought I was advertising that I was a princess, so he wasn't interested. Funny, huh? Lucky for us his friends were also all on the site & short story long, I became good friends with all of them. DS was dating someone else at the time. But a few months later, when he was single again, he and I sat next to each other during a group dinner (he was single by that time) and well, we've been together ever since.

So I would say that website was life changeing wouldn't you? It was http://www.matchmaker.com/ Tell you what, the one thing I learned from all of this was that sometimes you should pay attention to what others are telling you; you're "type" might not really be your type at all.

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.

Bedspread Update

Well w/Daddyspeak out of town the cat did not defile the bedspread.

I'm at a loss of how to get the damn cat to stop. We'll see what happens tonight, Daddyspeak got home about half an hour ago.

Damn Cat!

You know what I mean......

The Cat Came Back….

Remember in my last post how I mentioned that sometimes the kitties don’t always get along so well?
Yes, well that’s been going on a bit the last couple nights. Nothing obvious has really seemed to trigger it. The first time it started Mama walked into the family room and Monkey jumped off my lap so she could hiss, spit and growl in her general direction. Mama just looked at her like she was insane (which apparently she may be) and jumped onto Daddy’s lap. Every so often Monkey would walk by them & pull out her Diva act (maybe she‘s protesting the new golden globes format by bringing forth her best cat fight drama? She could win with this performance.) We finally locked her in the bathroom for few hours so she could cool off. I let her out for about an hour when I was the only one up and when I went to bed Mama was already crashed on the foot of our bed. Monkey seemed to fine, acting like nothing had happened, they curled up together were buddies again.

So little scenarios like the one I just described have been going on for the last couple (maybe 3 or 4) nights. It’s never turned into an all out cat fight so we haven’t really thought much of it. If Monkey won’t chill we give her an hour or so in another room (usually a bathroom, easier to clean if she did decide to retaliate,) and it all seems to be resolved. We figured it was just Monkey being her quirky self; maybe she’s hormonal or something. You know cats can get hormonal too, maybe Monkey is being PMS-y (yeah it’s totally a word, I just used it that makes it one).
Whatever is up, one of the cats started leaving a surprise on our bed for the last 3 days. (It started right around the same time.) Yup, one of the cats has started to crap on our bed. I agree it is GA-ROSS! The litter box is being used and is clean, so it’s not about doing their business, it’s about sending us a message. I'm pretty sure whomever is doing it, is trying to convey that they aren't happy. You think? My guess is that it's Monkey because she’s the one who’s been acting all weird, but I don’t know for sure. Each time it's happened we pull the comforter & duvet & wash them seperately in HOT w/soap & oxyclean. I have two duvet sets so the it’s happened to both duvets at this point, but the second time it happened was on a different set of linens that had not yet been defiled. AND the cat who is doing it, is doing it in the same place every day, which is how you know they‘re telling us something. It’s been done on Daddyspeak’s side of the bed, near his pillows, but not on them. I told him one of the cats is PISSED off at him (in every sense of the word I guess) and is giving him the equivalent of the horse’s head in his bed. Cats can be so mafia. So I don’t know, weird things are afoot w/the babies at Casa de Speak. DS is traveling to the Southland (LA, LA, LA) for the next couple days so it’ll be interesting to see if the behavior stops while he’s gone. Thank goodness for short, hot cycles on the washer is all I’m saying.

FUN Monday (whee!!!)

Whee! Are you having fun yet? I’m a little delirious about now, this cold is getting to me.
Ok, well I’m actually NOT having fun right now. I was all excited to share my pet photos with you and guess what?! Remember that CPU that got fried from the power outage on Friday? Um yeah. We didn’t lose the photos, we have them backed up in like 4 hard drives, but we don’t have a working CPU to access them right now. Yes, I could hook them up to this laptop, but that would take a while and I’m really don’t have the energy to get that involved in it. So I have some photos they just aren’t as recent as I had hoped and they won’t include our neighbors dog either. You'll have to settle for some old pix for now. Sorry deal with it, you're getting two posts in one day, don' t push it ok? ;-)
So Lisa over at Lisa's Chaos is hosting Fun Monday this week, here's her topic:
Let’s meet your pets. I think most of us have at least one pet and I would like to see your fluffy or scaly pal. If you don’t have a camera you can tell us about him/her/them. If you don’t have a pet tell us about a pet you had or a pet you want. If for some weird reason you hate all animals we want to know why gosh-dang-it.
Ok Lisa, you asked for it:
My mom (and quite possibly my husband) would tell you I bring home every stray in the county, which is totally not true (only the cute ones). I do, however, love my babies. I’ve had a pet of some sort for most of my life, mostly dogs, but after my teen years I started with my kitties too. In college (the dorms) I suddenly didn’t have any pets and boy did I miss them. After college & the dorms, there was a kitty who lived in apartments with me. I had this kitty for 7 years and there was a lot of drama involved with this kitty, A LOT OF DRAMA. But any story involving that kitty is a series of posts and in the not all happy, (he had what they call "behavior issues") so we’re going to focus on happier times and the current babies.

Once I purchased my first home (by myself) I got Merit. Merit is 7 now. When I got her I worked at an ad agency which allowed you to bring your dog to work. Quite possibly one of the best places I'll ever work. We dubbed Merit, “Director of Dog Services” and she l became the department mascot. She learned tons of tricks while I worked there. I’d go to a meeting with her sleeping under my desk and come back to a monitor filled with post its notes of all the people who came & got her and took her places. In turn I had a “cookie jar” of dog treats on my desk and on Mondays I would put a post it on the top describing our trick of the week. She wasn’t to get treats unless she earned them. As a result of this Merit knows how to do the following: sit, down, come, shake, high-five, play dead (roll on her side), drop (whatever is in her mouth, including food), wait (when she's eating we make her stop and take food from her, so she won't get food aggression), heel (although she’s pretty rotten about that one if she thinks she can get away with it), bed (get on her bed), find “daddy” (or mommy, or either of our kids), crawl (we call it sneaky-sneaky), and hold, which involves holding a piece of food on her snout until given the command of ok, at which time she’ll flip the food into her mouth. (When we had Mowry we had them trained to do it in tandem). Yeah, I could go on and on about Merit she’s my baby. I choose this pix (taken in Oct) because it reminds me of how much of a part of our family she really is, as usually she's right in the middle of the action.
This is Mama. A few years back I was feeling a bit maternal. Daddyspeak and I had gotten married, purchased our first home together, etc…but I wanted a kitty to snuggle with again. I went to the Humane Society to adopt a kitten. While I was waiting they were asking people to come hold the older cats and someone handed me Mama. What a snugger! She chose me right there and then. When it got to be my turn I found out that the last girl kitten had just been adopted, but I couldn’t help myself I was already in love with Mama. She was 2 at that time, so that makes her about 9 (wow, I just realized how old she is, I haven’t really thought about it in a while!) Mama runs the show. She allows the kids to pet her and generally just moves when she is done with them. She’s still very much a lap kitty.
The last of my brood is Monkey. Yes, I know that’s an odd name for a cat. (My mom has a cat named Mouse, so Monkey suddenly isn’t so weird is it?) After getting Mama I was still feeling maternal & wanting a kitten so we went to the one of the local rescue groups and adopted Monkey. Her original name was Samba, as they named all the kitties in her litter after different dances. Monkey was a teeny, tiny kitty for a very long time. (Part of why Mama kept her name as Mama seeing as she was the bigger of the two.) One day when I got up from sitting on our bed and she launched herself onto my back in play. She was so little it didn’t hurt and it was funny as all get out (I imagine she looked a lot like small backpack) and I called her “Monkey-cat” and it just stuck. She’s much bigger now. I n fact, I just told her the other day I was going to change her name to “Fatty” for obvious reasons. She’s very much my cat & tends to follow me around the house. In fact, she won’t go to bed until I do, so she’s sitting next to me right now. Occasionally, she’ll meow at me cause she wants to go to bed & I’m taking too long. Monkey is surprisingly, also really good with the kids. Monkey’s always been a bit skittish and tends to go hide when new people are around or if someone is just moving too fast; like kids will do. But lately she’s decided she likes the attention and now that DD2 really understands how to scratch her she’ll go looking for her for some lovin’. Mama & Monkey mostly get along, but occasionally get into spats where we’ll have to separate them & reintroduce them to each other. They’re like to old ladies who get sassy with each other once in awhile, but most of the time (even when they supposedly aren’t getting along) we’ll find them sleeping all curled up with each other.
I guess my novel gives you an idea of how much I love my babies. This is inspiring to maybe have a weekly post about my babies or maybe more directly about my family. Hmmm…no promises, but I’m thinking about it.
Alright, I’ve typing for so long now that I’ve missed Fun Monday and this will be posting on Fun Tuesday! Monkey’s meowing at me again so I’m off to bed!

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!

Get some Resolve

Did you make any resolutions this year?

Normally the only resolution I make is “not to make resolutions” which I break in the making of it, so there you go. One of my work buddies sent out an email to see what we’re all resolving this year and I decided to play along. Cause what how much I have to do today at work? That's right! Nothing! I know be careful what you wish for, but damn I'm bored. But hey! More blogging! You may even get 2 posts in one day! Don't hold your breath, I'm just saying...

Knowing that if I want to meet any of these "resolutions" I need to have some defined parameters to them, so I was very Type A in my detail. Want to share yours?

1) Get our finances in order
a. Meet w/advisor to define what is “out of order” & define & start to implement plan (i.e.—we were under insured, I’ve upped our coverage.)
b. Set up plan to get legal stuff (ie—living trust, define who the kids would go to, etc…)updated.
c. Make sure there’s a date in which this should be completed by.
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?)
3) Get all the rooms decorated; still have pix to be hung, etc…I finally accepted that Daddy ain’t going to pony up so I’m starting to do it myself. (Need to unpack/hang at least one thing a week.)
4) Follow the Flylady system again (the other stuff will fall into place if I stick with it)
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.)
6) Walk for 30 mins at least 3x a week.
7) Get hair free (except my head) by EOY.

Happy New Year!!!

So I’m sitting here listening to DD1 sing a very off-key and re-worded variation of Rudolph. Well I was listening to that. But then DD2 came over to play with me and I realized she was due for a second nap, so I just spend the last half hour rocking her to sleep. Only she wasn’t sleeping, she kept reaching up to touch my nose, or my eye or pull my lips back so she could touch my teeth and then giggle uncontrollable. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be messing around so she thought she was hilarious. I personally can’t think of a better way to my last afternoon of 2007, can you?
We’re off to a neighborhood party(No driving ;-); we’re pot lucking and celebrating an East Coast New Year (no baby sitters) meaning we'll "whoop it up" at 9 PM our time. Doubtful the kids will make it much past that.
Hoping that you are celebrating the New Year in a fun and safe way (sleeping counts too).

I’ll see you next year!

Christmas Chaos

I don't know if you can tell, but this photo is only partway through the gift opening. It was crazy, but so much fun. DD1 was much less excited initially than I would've thought. I guess the idea of the fat guy bringing her the doll was a done deal in her mind. I would've expected a bit more excitement. But the doll has not been put down since, so I'm not complaining. DD2 was way more excited about her Santa gift than I would've thought. She saw that car & went running right for it. She knew it was hers. We actually ended up opening some of her gifts for her cause we couldn't tear her away from the damn car. So cute. It was a fun day, but now I feel like I'm recovering from a major hangover. The last couple days I've been feeling like I'm walking in water and I have this reoccuring headache. I also have been sleeping in till almost noon most days. It's lovely to sleep that long, but I know it's the Fibro. All of it's my Fibro. I basically said screw low carb this month & now it's caught up with me. I'm in detox as of today! I started yesterday, but didn't stick with it. (It's all these damn leftover desserts!!!) I have NO willpower. I'm fine if the stuff isn't in the house, but if it's around it's like I can't control myself. Today though I've only had about 20 carbs total. I'm hoping I'll find myself feeling better by Monday, but I know it could take as long as a week.

Ok, enough about my loser diet and health. More photos and maybe even a video (don't get your hopes up too high) to come soon! Hope you're having a great vaca, we are.

Merry Christmas!!!

It's 12:30 and Santa was just spotted around Anchorage; we've been watching NORAD all day. He showed up here just after midnight. I was scolded for still being up, but once he had our treat (we left him a piece of our Bouche de Noel that DD1 and I made today) all was forgiven. I figured cookies might not cut it considering the gift list this year; you ask big, you need to put out a little, you know?
He filled stockings (mine included, and I thought he forgot) and brought DD1 an American Girl doll (which she asked for) and DD2 a Toddler Coupe. I think they'll be pleased. He even remembered the pets; Merit got some chew toys and Mama & Monkey got some "squirrels". Seems our household was extra good this year!
So, while the babes are all snuggled in their beds, I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas! I hope you all are safe in your travels, keep warm and find the meaning of Christmas in all that you do today.

Merry Christmas!!!

Clear Cake People (aka—1000 Marbles)

I got my daily chain mail this morning. I get this kind of stuff all the time, I'm sure you do too. The chain letters that will bring you love, health and long life as long as you "send it on to 10 of your friends in the next 10 minutes or you'll be doomed to email hell." (On a side note; are you really my friend if you're willing to risk dooming me to email hell over a chain mail? Or are you just concerned about your own well being? I digress...) I normally delete them after I read them (fight the madness, stop the spam!). But I got one today that was worth mentioning (link here if you want to read it.) It reminded me of a friend I knew many years ago. And he had a theory about living life that I seem to be having trouble with as of late. The hectic pace I’ve been under this last month has made it hard to “see the forest for the trees” so to speak. So when reading this story I remembered this friend and his lesson and I thought it would be good to share with you.

This friend, “Tim” was Chinese (there’s a reason I’m mentioning this, stick with me here for a minute). He grew up in the Midwest; one of four boys. They owned the town’s Chinese restaurant (of course they did). He used to joke that every town in America is required one Chinese family to run the one Chinese restaurant in each town. I always check when I travel now, and I think he might be right. Although, maybe not Tuna, I’ll have to ask Antique Mommy if Tuna has a Chinese restaurant. Tim’s Grandparents lived in San Francisco. I’m not sure how it all came to be exactly, but by the time I met him he was living in SF with his Grandmother; taking care of her basically. I would venture to guess that they were probably taking care of each other. He never really talked about his Grandmother or the fact that he lived with her. I remember our little group of friends had known each other for quite some time before we became aware of the fact that he drove down to the South Bay for work because he lived up there. And that he lived up there because he lived with his Grandmother in her house. I believe he didn't mention it, because it was just something he did. He didn’t question it or complain about it, he just did it. I found out later that he was the one who came to live with her because he was the most mobile of the four brothers at the time. (Just out of college, no wife/girlfriend or kids to relocate). I think he never complained because in the Chinese culture (as well as many others) the older family members are revered and honored. When Grandma was alone and it became apparent someone needed to be keeping an eye on her to some degree the family figured out who was in the best position to go and then that person went. They didn’t put her in a “home” they moved in with her so she could finish her days in her own home. I know that’s not realistic for everyone, but it says a lot about their family and their commitment to each other. If he resented it I never knew. I don’t think he did and this theory of his is why:

Tim used to say that he thought us we had the whole birthday cake and candle thing backwards. That at the time of your first birthday they should figure out your expected life span and put that many candles on your cake. This means on your first birthday they start with say 75 candles. Every year they take a candle off. By the time you’re getting short of breath you have fewer candles to blow out. Once you’ve “cleared your cake” then everyday is an extra gift and people who fall in that category should get special treatment. He felt that “clear cake people” should get a free ride: free rent, no taxes, free transportation, free meals, free health care, etc…You’ve more than paid your dues to society, now it’s our turn to take care of you. This was told to us during Happy Hour one night and after that we would often toast to the “Clear Cake People”. I think this little story speaks volumes of how he felt about his Grandmother.
In the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, take a few minutes to take a deep breath and relax and think about why you’re rushing about; to have fun right? Don’t forget to have fun. Don't resent that dinner party you're going to because you really should be wrapping. It's really about being with people, and enjoying the time together. And when you say grace or propose a toast on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day make sure to toast the “clear cake people” and enjoy the candles you have left on your cake.

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…

X-mas-y Type Things.

We decorated on Sunday, and at the beginning I had lots of helpers.

(Please note we have given the living room to the kids as a playroom, my whole house is not full of toys, you're pretty much seeing all of it. And yes, we do have way too much, a good portion of which is hand-me- downs.)

Why yes, that is a life size Barbie in the background, you mean you don't have one?

I made a huge deal about putting the star on the top of the tree the first year for DD1 and now I may have created a monster. We let DD1 put it on, but then had to stage a second round for DD2. The annual Staging of the Star!

DS decided the star needed straitening, but DD2 wasn't going to be left out of that either.

This incident should've clued us into the upcoming accident on Tuesday in which she pulled a chair onto her face, but that's another story. (Thankful no permanent damage, just to my ego and her trust I'm sure.) Right now my child and I are so bruised up I'm sure CPS is on their way over.

The kids had to go to bed before we were done, so near the end, not so much on the helpers Even Merit crashed out.
Monkey was providing help of her own kind. I’m sure she’ll do her best to scale the tree in the next week.

And finally the end product! (I kinda like blurry one, it's all artsy...work with me here people!)

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.

FUN MONDAY--X-MAS STYLE

I know Monday is almost over (it is over on the East Coast, but it's only 7 in Hawaii) but I'm still making it. I recently discovered a couple new blogs and via that I came across Fun Monday. It seemed like such a cool idea that I jumped in! Plus I think the topic is such a good one. I just so happens that we decorated our tree last night & when I sat back to enjoy it I decided to take a picture of my favorite ornament for a blog post. Queue Twilight Zone music. I'm physic or something. So without further ado:

This week is hosted by Lady K and is about your favorite ornament:

In the spirit of the season I would like to see your favorite Christmas
tree ornament. Not to be confused with the WHOLE tree. I want you to zoom in and show me one or a few(you know I can't choose just one!) of your favorite
ornaments. If you don't decorate a tree, show me your menorah or dreidel,
Kinara, or Yule Log. I want to see your favorite decoration for this holiday
season.

I have many favorite ornaments. I have several really cool ones that were made by my Godmother as "cards" on Christmas gifts. They're things like felt angels and wooden animals. They contain our names & the years in which they were made. I get the impression that my
mom thinks they're kind of a hippie thing, but I think they're cool. I also have a set of Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz wooden ornaments. But my overall very, very favorite ornament is one that is only 7 years old. It was given to me by DaddySpeak on our first Christmas as a married couple. It contains a picture of us on our wedding day. We're standing outside of the church kissing. When I look at it I'm reminded of how happy I was that day, and how very lucky I am to have him in my life (remind me of this next time I'm bitching about him, OK?) So I think it's pretty evident why it's my favorite.

I Enjoy Being a Girl

I was over on “Want Not” (great site for great deals BTW, Mir is my hero and she’s pretty, and not just cause she finds me great deals on stuff) and one of the deal’s she posted had to do with a “globe for girls.” It’s Pink and it comes with a cookbook, because geography alone won’t interest girls.

Ummm, I have a lot to say on this subject. I’ll do my best to keep it sort
of short, but you know how that goes with me so make sure you have something to
drink & get comfortable.

The comments section of her post evolved into an I hate “Bratz” discussion. Which, I am totally down with; I too loathe the Bratz.

I have a general philosophy about most of the things my kids play with;
everything in moderation. My experience is that kids covet what they can’t
have, so you don’t let them have it that’s what they want most. If you let
them have it in small doses then it loses it’s allure & they move on.

I feel that way about most things except Bratz. I think Bratz are awful because their main motivation is dressing cool (aka—slutty) and having attitude.

Dude, I am your mother & I have years of attitude on you (oh, no she dint,
Oh, Yes, she did, snap!)

If you’re going to have an attitude than have at least some smarts to back it up with, in which case you’ll probably figure out that, that kind of attitude isn’t helping you get so far in life. Something to ponder...
Someone commented that while they hated Bratz, but as a kid they played with Barbie so they supposed that made them a hypocrite. Hey, I played with Barbie, and while her clothing choices weren’t making her any girlfriends, at least she was career minded, right? So I went to the Barbie website to mention all the cool jobs Barbie had & found that I stand corrected.

I remember that Barbie was a pilot, a veterinarian, a pediatrician, a teacher, etc… very noble professions. Upon looking at the site I became totally disillusioned. I know there was “US President Barbie” when I was growing up, I know there was, damit!!! But when I went to the website to see if there was “computer programmer” Barbie or “NASA Engineer Barbie” I found that they were all “Fairies”, “Top Models” and “Fashion Fever” dolls….WTF? I guess Barbie is over the career thing now.

She thought she wanted a career, turns out she just wanted a job. Hey someone’s got to heat that dreamhouse.

So then, I clicked over to the “collectors” site thinking I’d find those career minded girls there. I found that they are mostly “Designer inspired” and “Hollywood” themed. There were a few “retro” style ones of which “career girl” from the 60’s is dressed nicely but I believe she’s off to be a receptionist. I’m not dis’in anyone who’s a receptionist, (I’ve been one myself at times) but I was kind of hoping for “financial advisor/CPA Barbie” or “Public Relations Barbie”. Maybe even “Graphic Designer Barbie” or “Venture Capitalist Barbie”. Something!

We hear all this marketing about “girl power” and empowering our girls; “go far in life”, “break down boundaries’ and glass ceilings”, but for all our talk we sure don’t seem to give them much that’s tangible. We PC “Take Your Daughter’s To Work Day” by hybridizing it into “Take your Child to Work Day”; the point was to give girls’ female role models, enlighten them to jobs they may not have been aware of previously and give them a sense of being special for being a girl. Hybridizing it takes that away, but that’s a soapbox for another day. We give them playthings that are only focused on fashion and beauty defining for them that their worth is really in their looks and when we do give them playthings of substance, (yes, I’m bringing it back to the globes, surprisingly this rant does have a point,) we imply that they can learn this stuff (geography) but “make sure you stick the basics girls’ learn to cook so you can keep your man happy.” Yeah, I’m being a bit sarcastic, I know, moi?, but the whole thing frustrates me.

I have two daughters and I want them to know they can do whatever they want education-wise, and therefore career-wise. It is only their mind and imagination that will hold them back, not money and definitely not gender. Both my girls are very big pretend players, especially with dolls. Right now it’s mostly princesses and mommy play, but soon it will be other things and I certainly don’t want the toys they play with to limit them, so maybe you can understand why this gets me a bit riled up. I am all about being a girl, I love the color pink and I love getting all dolled up in a girly sort of way. But being girly and being smart, strong & self-sufficient are not mutually exclusive and it’s time the media started to remember that.

You Say It’s Your Birthday….

Yup, I'm 39….for the FIRST time.

I’m not really sure how I feel about it. Maybe sort of numb (but that could be the lack of coffee, food and chocolate in my system.)

Guess it doesn’t really matter how I feel because like it or not, I am 39.

That number conjures images of people who I think look (and act) much older than I do. I wish I had some heartfelt wisdom of which to impart on you after 39 years of living, but seriously, the most I can offer right now is that I need coffee. Do you feel enlightened now? Yeah? Well, I still need a starbucks, so I’m off to take care of that need. Hopefully later I will be able to provide you with something a bit more enlightening once I’ve had that coffee.

Oh, and thanx to Robinella for the graphic for my b-day!

POB, Perfectly ;-)

One of my fav reads every day is over at Cry It Out. Mike’s an excellent writer; I mentioned that last Wednesday when I was pimping other people’s blogs (OPB). There I two reasons I find Mike’s narrations compelling:

1) He has an adorable daughter who is the same age as DD2. It’s always good to commiserate with others, who are going through similar things, and I have no doubt that his Emme and DD2 will be cohorts in crime fast friends, if we ever finally meet IRL.

2) I aspire to be able to write as well as he does; he’s very good at communicating the feelings of a moment/story in very short order. (My 8th grade English teacher would’ve said, “He’s pithy.”) I, on the other hand, need to write a shot story just to tell you that I woke up.

I nominated this particular post for a November Perfect Post because it resonated with me on some many levels. From the comments he received I would say I am not alone.