Where I wax on and on about everything

Update, short. More later

2006-06-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

For all three people who read my blog, I realize I haven't updated in a long while. Here's the short form and I'll post more later:

1. Feeling very depressed. Obsessing over Mom a lot.

2. Got pregnant.

3. Felt better, hardly obsessed over Mom at all.

4. Planted huge vegetable garden, very excited.

5. Had a miscarriage.

6. Felt awful all over again.

7. Got list of therapists, started feeling a little better again.

8. Going on vacation in Ogunquit in 14 days.

Rock on, folks.

The things that stick with you.

2006-05-01T21:24:00.000-04:00

I'm part of an online group that a friend of mine started a number of years back, made up of friends of hers and then she invited us to invite friends of ours, sort of a yay-women sort of thing. Anyway, there's sporadic activity on the group, usually the only time people post is when they have some news. It's a nice enough group, if a bit boring from time to time as the group keeps things fairly light and non-challenging. There have been a few people with health problems and the like, which are always sad, and everyone could band together to give them support. In general, I've had a positive experience there.

Well, not really, I just didn't realize it. I really don't feel like going into details, but it came to a head this weekend and resulted pretty much in my being targeted by multiple people and ripped apart. I will say that I am eternally grateful for my friend Mary, who was the only person to stand up for me and I appreciate it. Everyone else who weighed in made me feel more or less like a useless piece of shit. That sucked.

The long and the short of it was that a couple of people felt judged by things I was saying on the list (gee, where has that happened before? :). The ironic thing is that, unlike here, I was REALLY careful to only relate my personal experience and opinions and I never (well, at least I thought I never) said anything to disparage another person's decisions. Ranting senselessly in my own journal is one thing, posting to a list is another. Yet apparently people felt threatened anyway. I seriously have posted to this list maybe six or seven times a year, mostly because I had nothing to add about hair products or vacation locations.

Which would be fine, except this one chick decided to open a can of whoop-ass on me and relate her opposition to everything I've said over the past three years. Um, hello? What the hell? Seriously, if someone has an issue, I'd really like to just know about it so I can hear their perspective, take my foot out of my mouth and apologize if necessary, and most importantly learn to temper the way I present myself so I don't offend people in the future.

I'll be the first to admit I step in it up to my knee fairly often. I'll also be the first to look at my own actions and make a change, I'm not afraid of admitting I'm wrong. Yet it just seems colossally hypocritical for someone to accuse me of being judgmental, then drag out their laundry list of gripes that's three years long, adding in some cruel personal attacks at the same time. Who's judging who here? I mean, I might come off like a major ass sometimes, but at least I'm honest and at least there's no question as to how I feel about something.

Anyway. I went home on Friday after some of this went down and told myelf not to worry about it, that it didn't matter, that she didn't know me. Yet I obsessed about it all weekend and it made me feel majorly depressed. I think I slept 85% of the weekend, which was annoying to me, and also incredibly unfair to Michael as he had to do a lot of work from home this weekend for this gargantuan project he's finishing up and I wasn't there like I should have been. The house was a wreck until Sunday night when I started feeling marginally better and stopped thinking about the shit this chick had said to me and could actually do more than sit on the couch reading a book or sleeping.

Michael could even tell something was up, from Friday night onward he asked me multiple times if I was all right. At one point he asked me, "I'm worried that you're thinking about something and it's making you sad." Score one for the husby, he certainly knows me better than anyone. I denied it, simply because I didn't want to feel humiliated all over again having to relate the whole story back to him.

I did manage to take the kidlet out to the playground on Saturday so Michael could have some quiet time at the house, and I hoped that would energize me enough to keep me running. It wasn't. When I got him home I gave him some lunch and put him down for a nap, then just lay down with him and went to sleep, too. Which would have been fine and good except once I was asleep, I didn't want to get up and Michael had to watch kidlet after he got up from his nap instead of working. I think I was the worst mother ever this weekend.

I hate that people think I'm judging them when I'm honestly trying to put my ideas out there. I like to tell myself that it's because they're insecure about something in their own life, because I get that way myself, and they're lashing out at me. But I do honestly wonder - am I judging people? I don't *think* I am, but at the same time would I know it if I were? I just don't know. It makes me feel incredibly insecure and like I should withdraw and not share any of myself with anyone. In the case of this group, I feel like I've been pretty open in sharing with them, the very personal decisions I have made and the things I do, and by doing so I've just given them lots and lots of ammunition to later throw in my face when I'm least expecting it.

I mean, this chick even went off on me because I posted a picture of kidlet's nursery and said something about not liking Elmo! This was BEFORE kidlet was born! Come on! She said, "What did Elmo ever do to you, anyway?" I'm glad I never told her I hate onions, who knows what she would have had to say about that.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: People suck. Sharing with people you don't know very well will inevitably make you feel like shit.

Because after all is said and done, no matter how I feel about how things went down with the group and whether or not anyone was to blame, I feel like shit. I get in this morning and (stupidly) check my email and this same chick felt the need to make some comments about my husband. That made me feel worse. I've never even met this person in my life. I've never made any comments about her or her family, but the things I've said about my beliefs were enough for her to feel threatened and lash out at me. That feels shitty.

Shitty shit shit. That's how I feel and I'm not sure how to go about dealing with it.

High

2006-04-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

My review went great! Sure, I've only been here five months, but they scheduled me in with everyone else as the annual review time is generally in January, I think, and it got pushed forward due to the acquisition late last year.

Want to read it? I need to send some of my good review juju over to A'ishah - here you go, girl. I think you're all these things, and more.

Part I - Objectives and Accomplishments

Objective: 30 Day Web Developer Expectations - Above Average
Accomplishment: Jen came up to speed far ahead of the 30 day time table and has demonstrated high quality effort and work.

Objective: 60 Day Web Developer Expectations - Above Average
Accomplishment: Jen has mastered most of these items, but is still waiting on client specific cases to practice her knowledge and complete her training. She has taken a great initiative to seek out training from others to round out her skillset.

Objective: 90 Day Web Developer Expectations - Above Average
Accomplishment: Jen has demonstrated an above average grasp of [Application], especially given her time on the job. She was ready for her first implementation at 60 days, officially completing her 90 Day Objective in two thirds the allotted time.

Part II - Performance Characteristics

Teamwork: 5 / 5
Strong team player. Regularly conveys good ideas and opinions to the team. Has a positive impact on the team dynamics. Adds many complementary skills to the team.
Comments: Jen is a great team player and she brings a lot of humor and warmth to the team.

Customer Focus: 5 / 5
Considers customers to be a priority, and works closely with them to identify and anticipate their needs. Maintains frequent communication with the customer to set realistic expectations. Consistently ensures that their needs and expectations are met.
Comments: In so far as her "clients" are mainly her coworkers at this time, she has done a great job communicating on all aspects of the job description.

Initiative: 5 / 5
Consistently takes the initiative to resolve problems with minimal assistance from management. Has taken on new responsibilities, and acted on opportunities.
Comments: Jen has done a great job of trying to be self reliant and resourceful while at the same time asking pertinent and appropriate questions. Her willingness to hop in on the [Company Website] redesign has been a boon to the team.

Interpersonal Skills: 5 / 5
Excellent interpersonal skills. Always deals with others in a pleasant and respectful manner. Displays sensitivity to the needs and concerns of others.
Comments: Jen has displayed extraordinary interpersonal skills and is a joy to work with.

Communication: 5 / 5
Always expresses facts and ideas clearly, in a credible manner. Always uses an appropriate tone. Displays excellent judgment as to what information should be communicated. Listens to others, and elicits feedback.
Comments: None

Part III - Overall Summary of Performance

Summary of Performance: Given the short time she has been with us, Jen has done a great job of getting up to speed in the Web Development space, and I look forward to working with her in the coming year. I also look forward to her bringing her unique skillset to bear on our team and help the Web Developers better perform in the coming year.

Part IV - New Objectives

(Objectives are the usual "reach high and be polite" stuff. In meeting with them, I discussed getting a list of goals and objectives tailored to my position and experience, and was assured that these are going to be developed in coming weeks.)

Part V - Development Plan

SQL Training
Help Jen improve her SQL Server 2000 skillset.

VB.Net Training
Help Jen improve her VB.Net and .Net coding skills.

[Application] Training
Provide Jen with continued training in [Application] to ensure she has a complete and thorough understanding of all its functionality.

I don't know why I get so nervous during reviews, I mean, I had an idea that it would be largely positive due to my 1-on-1s with my manager and our new Director, but it's always nervewracking getting it all down on paper.

I was told by both of them that I am doing a fantastic job and they're really looking to help me develop professionally not only for what is best for the company, but also working toward my personal goals in regards to my career. There was some strong hinting at project leadership and assisting to train new folks - both of these things are good, since right now I'm not sure where I want to go, whether it just be making my brain bigger on the technology side or moving towards a management role, but it seems like they are keeping this path open for me should I choose it.

I was also told that I bring a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm to the team, and that made me glad as I have been trying to make a good impression. I have been insanely satisfied and happy with my job the five months I've been here (five months already?!) and it shows, I guess. I said that I was very glad with how things have been going so far, that I enjoyed working with everyone on the team and I felt I was learning a lot.

So, that's it, in a nutshell. I am half tempted to black out the company name and application specifics and mail this to my craptastic old manager, Christine. I keep hoping I'll see her in public so I can flip her off.

:)

Entry two, Thursday edition.

2006-04-06T21:04:00.000-04:00

Last night we took Katie out to Vinny T's for her birthday, and I gave her the two gifts I got for her from some talented folks on Etsy. She really liked the presents, it made me happy. Here's what I got her:

This Bag:

and This Necklace:

Dinner, of course, was awesome. I love Vinny T's and have never had a bad meal there.

I asked the waitress to have the bored-looking staff come over and sing "Happy Birthday" in Italian to her, and even though they were surly and unenthused Katie got a free piece of cake out of the deal. She got the Chocolate Bomba, which she shared with kidlet. I didn't mind if she did as he doesn't have sweets all that often, and frankly I'd rather he have something made fresh in a restaurant than some mass-produced chemical-filled candy. Regardless, I knew we had about 15 minutes after he finished eating before he went ballistic.

I took him to the bathroom to change his diaper and get him washed up, and laughed when I saw that that daycare staff had written "MICHAEL NEEDS DIAPERS PLEASE!" in purple marker on the front of his disposable diaper. Ha! He looked down and said, "That Michael's name!" and pointed to it. Um, yeah! Someone just went through another development phase, it seems.

The remainder of the time we were in the restaurant (it wasn't long) kidlet started getting really wound up. He was running away from us and generally showing off to other patrons. Fortunately there were lots of other families in there so he was met with smiles, but I was very concerned about his running the wrong way and tripping up one of the staff. We managed to reign him in and got out of there.

After dinner we took kidlet over to the Maine Mall to run around and blow off some steam before the ride home. We found a store that sells beanbags (and really nice ones! I want one!) where the kidlet had a grand time jumping on them. I also saw a husband and wife with their three children, the youngest in a sling on her chest, fast asleep. I risked being "that creepy woman" by going over to chat with her. I complimented her on her gorgeous baby and found out he was two months old (!). We chatted for a few minutes as the three kids formed a gang and started playing together. It's so nice to see kidlet become comfortable with strange children so quickly. What a lovely little family. I wish there were more people living around us like that in our town.

I usually don't buy stupid mass-produced Made in China junk, but this particular item was too hard to resist:

I let kidlet see how it worked and now he points to pictures of birds and asks me if they have babies that come out of their butt. Ha!

They also had animals with brown bubbles that came from their butts, which were also quite funny but it was possible to pull the brown stuff out so I didn't get one. The last thing I wanted was for kidlet to get his hands on it and I'd discover him chewing something. As it is, egg-laying rubber chicken is staying zipped inside my bag or at work where he can't get to it.

Did you know there is also a Pooping Santa and Pooping Snowman? I had no idea.

Kidlet fell asleep in the car on the way home and I was able to knit as fast as I could on the second baby sock for Baby Katy. I want to get them done as I have some gorgeous sock yarn that I've been itching to get started on for a pair for myself!

Want to see it? I know you do... ;)

I can't remember if I've shown that off already, but there you go.

I got a couple of inches of sock done by the time we got home, yay! Kidlet woke up as I was getting him out of the car, but was very good while I got things settled and changed him into jammies. He wanted to read some books, picking up one about Clifford saying, "This one my favorite!" He loves having favorites these days, he'll pick something out of a picture or see an item in the store and say, "This one my favorite!" So cute.

After a couple of readings of Clifford's Happy Easter I convinced Michael that we should bring the books to bed with us. My idea was that I could knit while he read and ultimately he would fall asleep. We tucked ourselves into bed and read Clifford again, then What can Pinky see? and a little My Big Truck Book but kidlet was still wide awake and I was the one falling asleep. He read Clifford over again and kept saying, "Mommy, Mooooommmmmyyy...wake up! Look!" then I'd say "Uh huh?" and crack open my eyes and he'd say, "These eggs same!" and then I'd go back to sleep again.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is the alarm going off and waking up next to his feet. Kidlet tosses and turns a lot in bed, so most mornings he ends up head-down with his feet on the pillow. He also hates covers so we have to dress him in long pajamas to keep him from getting cold. Weirdo.

Just a day.

2006-04-06T20:03:00.000-04:00

Sigh.

My boobs are definitely drying up. I was only able to manually express the teeniest droplet from Lefty this morning, and kidlet only wanted to nurse on Righty. He said he was getting milk when I asked him but I wasn't noticing much swallowing. When he was done where was a little milk on Righty but it wasn't nearly as much as it used to be. I think he's mostly just sucking for comfort.

It makes me a little sad.

When I talked to Heide a week or so ago she was talking about how her milk came in for the new baby and was just gushing again, like it did for her first daughter. She was tandem nursing and had more milk than she needed. I have to admit it made me jealous. I mean, I'm glad as hell for her, but why did I have to end up with boobs so barren?

I know rationally that I should be happy that I have been able to nurse my son for as long as I have (32 months so far) and that I've done everything I could to ensure he had the best there is, but I had always hoped that he would wean himself by choice. If I dry up he won't have much of a choice, and that's just kind of sad for some reason.

Well, anyway. I just hope with my next child that I have better luck with lactation, because I do NOT want to go through the pumping hell I did with Michael. I'm not sure I could face that again without some serious antidepressants. When I think how I had to resort to taking naps while pumping it makes my stomach turn over.

This morning I put on cologne, it's been a long while since I've done that. My coworker came into the department and said, "It smells like school lunch in here!" I know she wasn't referring to me (dear god I hope not), but it still made me feel less pleased with trying to be more girly today.

Then I went into the kitchen to find no clean coffee mugs and no one had run the dishwasher. On top of that, the sink was full of dirty dishes. When I first started here I would clean up the kitchen every day, wiping things down and putting things away. Heck, not any more. If people want to be slobs, I can't keep cleaning up after them. I got my coffee mug from yesterday out of the dishwasher and started putting dirty dishes in so I'd have space to wash it in the sink. While I was doing this, another coworker came in and poured himself the rest of the coffee. Bummer. He did apologize and started another pot, but I had to wait until it was done brewing before I could have any. Again, just a minor "oh" for today.

Joy is out of the office today so I won't even be able to talk to her. That's a bummer, too!

I'm not in a bad or sad mood today, exactly, just sort of down. It's a gorgeous day out (after it snowed last night!) so I can't be too upset about that. I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately, though, and that's never a good thing. There are times when I honestly believe she's still alive. I haven't been to her house since before she died...I think this is because I can't stand to see everything changed. As long as I don't have proof, I can still imagine that she's at home sitting on the couch, smoking and watching Passions.

Just the usual blabber.

2006-04-04T21:00:00.000-04:00

- monday -
Everyone's back to normal, it seems. Man, March was a toughie. Literally 3-1/2 weeks of the month found at least one person in the household ill or otherwise incapacitated. WTF was up with that?

Anyway, I'm thankful that we're all healthy and hanging in there.

Things That Bug Me:

I bought that mint green argyle sweater off of eBay for $4.99. I paid $5.99 for Priority Mail shipping, even though I know a sweater stuffed into a Priority Mail bag would cost $3, tops. Whatever. Literally 30 seconds after clicking Buy Now, I sent my payment of $10.98 via PayPal. That was Wednesday, March 22.

Fast forward to Friday, March 31, a full nine days later. No package yet. No email, not even a confirmation that she received my payment. WTF? I send a very nice message to the seller asking if they could tell me when I could expect my sweater. Monday, April 3rd, they respond, saying, "hi! sorry for the delay, but it will go out tomorrow!"

WTF, indeed?!

It really burns me when people overcharge for shipping on eBay. It burns me even MORE when they don't even ship until you get fed up and ask them about it! I mean, really? If she forgot to ship the damned thing, why not just say, "OMG I am so sorry, I will refund what you paid for shipping and I'll put it in the mail tomorrow."? What is this "sorry for the delay" crap?

So what should I do? Obviously I should wait until the sweater is in my hot little hands. Then I'll see if she even shipped it Priority or if she lied about that, too. Then what do I do? Ask for the cost of shipping back? I think I'm entitled to it, especially as she charged more for shipping than she did for the damned sweater.

She's another one of those feedback hostages, too. I buy something, pay instantly, yet she doesn't leave me any feedback. That's because she's waiting to see what I'm going to leave her for feedback, and then no doubt retaliate if I tell the truth about the transaction. Because she definitely deserves a neutral. I hate this eBay feedback BS. It sucks. I held up my end of the deal, I paid you with no other assurance that I was doing anything but throwing my money into a hole.

Gah, I'm just so irritated by stuff like this.

In other news, had a decent weekend. I slept a lot more than I probably should have. I just love to sleep. I feel a little guilty as Michael gets up with kidlet at asscrack o'clock and these days he doesn't bug me when I sleep in. I'm ashamed to say it's because I would get really bitchy with him when he'd try to wake me up. Sigh. The poor guy probably doesn't get enough sleep because of me. I'm bad.

Anyway, slept a lot, sat around a lot, and then on Sunday I suddenly said "The house is dirty!" so we spent a couple of hours cleaning up. Again, Michael did more than me (in my opinion) but I washed some very nasty dishes that had been fermenting for a few days and didn't fit in the dishwasher. Pots and pans, mostly. The house is now fairly clean, I mean, there's always the avalanche of my desk and my tendency to stack my folded laundry on the floor rather than put it in my dresser.

Speaking of which, I've come to a decision about my clothes. They are getting out of control. Maybe it's a by-product of watching What Not To Wear at the gym while working out, but I just have too many clothes that don't fit. I don't have the time or patience (or space) to eBay them all, either, so I'm going to just get the Great Purge over with and donate them to Goodwill. I know that I could probably get some money for them, but right now the time investment just isn't worth it. There are lots of other things I want to do and can't because I can't get past the clutter in my mind.

I have tons of clothes that I've put away for "later", and have sat around for a long time, unworn. There might be some things that I could legitimately hold onto, but honestly, it's not happening right now. I keep telling myself that as I lose weight again I'll be able to wear some of them, but in the meantime they're just sitting around.

So I've decided to go through my clothes and be really tough. I will keep only the things that fit me RIGHT NOW and that I will wear RIGHT NOW. It's got a hole, or a tiny stain that I just can't manage to get out? Goodbye! No mending, no "maybe I'll wear it to the gym", no "I should save it to tear up and make a rug out of!", just goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I will allow myself ONE plastic storage bin of "future" clothing so I can keep a few key pieces that I particularly loved when I was smaller - for instance, my beloved Old Navy bootcut jeans. They are my favorite jeans so I will keep them. I will allow myself one 90-gallon bin, and after that's full, that's it.

Other than that, out of the things that don't currently fit I will keep my one black suit, my favorite green flowered dress, and that one froufrou Victorian dress I bought years ago looking forward to being size 12 again someday. The rest of that stuff in my closet that doesn't fit is going, that's the end of it. I'll go through the business clothes that do fit and get rid of the stuff that looks awful but I keep wearing anyway.

This is it. Honestly. There's no sense in my having so many clothes and only wearing what is picked off of the clean pile during the week - the eternal pile that exists because there is no room in my dresser because it's full of clothes I don't wear. I probably wear the same eight to ten outfits over and over again, all of the extra crap is hiding anything else I might want to wear. It's time to get rid of it!

There's my decision. I'm going to be getting rid of a lot of stuff, but it's long overdue. Hopefully I'll discover a few things I forgot I had and be able to actually start using them again.

- tuesday -
Got another eBay purchase last night, a lot of boy's clothes for kidlet. I figured out the cost per item including shipping and it came to $1.25 apiece, which is cheaper than Goodwill. Of course, there are a few pieces I won't put my kid into, but those will go to Goodwill for someone else to find. No biggie.

I get a nice note from the seller (Another feedback hostage, "Please leave me feedback when you receive this package and I'll leave some for you - thank you!" - *hmph* indeed.) saying, "I've sent you a few bonus pieces, the white Ralph Lauren shirt has a small stain on the front that I thought you might be able to get out, enjoy!" That was a nice gesture, even with a stain. No biggie. Then I'm looking through the box and I find a long-sleeved navy shirt that appears to have an unwashed food stain on the bottom. Um, yuck. It doesn't look like a washed-in stain, it looks like someone dripped something on the shirt and then it didn't get washed. Bleh! I stopped rummaging through the box, I plan to dump the whole works into a hot wash cycle and wait until it all comes out of the dryer to sort through it.

*shudder* Bleh indeed!

Last night we got home and there was a message on the answering machine from kidlet's doctor. The culture came back negative, which means kidlet didn't have anything at all. No staph, no strep, nothing. Just a diaper rash. Sheesh. Thank GOD I didn't give him that oral antibiotic! Can you believe it? The doctor just rattled off a prescription for medication that wasn't necessary, and had no plan to take a culture to find out if it was even needed!

And people think I'm nuts for questioning the medical establishment.

Don't get me wrong, I think modern medicine is a marvelous and awesome thing...I was thinking just this morning about a little scratch I have on the back of my thumb. How a few hundred years ago, with the limited knowledge of hygeine and treatment, a scratch like this one could get infected and fester and result in losing my thumb, my hand, or even my death. How if you broke a bone, you were pretty much left with a limp for the rest of your life if it wasn't set right. So many things we take for granted - like aspirin, or cough syrup. Sure, there are plenty of natural alternatives, but if you weren't in the know about them, you just didn't have them. Nowadays we have the luxury of choosing naturopathic treatment because we are so well informed. Also, and I'll admit it, we have the option of turning to "tech" medicine if a natural method fails. It frees us to do whatever the hell we want.

So anyway, I was musing over my thumb and all that goes with it, and I think medicine is a wonderful thing. However, I think it's also very smart to be well informed as an individual, to really know how your own body works and what your personal level of health and maintenance is. To question things that are told to you, but in an intelligent manner. If kidlet had seemed seriously ill, I would have had no problem giving him a prescribed medication. In his case, my gut told me that he was fine - he had no symptoms of illness, he was acting normally, and the doctor didn't say anything about latent symptoms that could be easily missed. I insisted on a culture as it could only make the situation clearer. I did my reading about staph and strep and knew what to look for. I consulted the naturopath for her opinion. It all took just a few minutes, and I avoided overmedicating my son.

I even feel a little guilty about using the antibiotic cream for the four days I did, but in the grand scheme of things some topical cream applied to the affected area won't have the same effect as a systemwide medication dosed twice a day as far as overuse is concerned.

When my son is 50, I don't want him to need an antibiotic to stop a life-threatening bacterial infection and not be able to find one that works. I don't want my son to develop asthma. I don't want the population at large to suffer because antibiotics are overused. I wish other people saw things this way, but being a parent I see many kids at Michael's daycare who are constantly on one medication or another. How can their parents not see the correlation?

Anyway. I'm frustrated that the doctor was so ready to just give my son medication, so resistant to doing a culture, and the result ended up being that my gut feeling and background of knowledge was right. And I'm the one being difficult. The doctor, while nice, actually tried to discourage me from getting a culture taken - something that I would end up paying for anyway, something that would take her two minutes to collect, and then I had to do all of the legwork to bring it to the lab. What's the big deal?

Sigh.

The other thing is that most childhood illnesses will improve on their own over the course of 7-10 days. Of course, after your kid's been sick for 3-4 days, you bring them to the doctor out of concern, they prescribe an antibiotic, tell you it takes 2-3 days to show improvement, and then the "improvement" is actually your kid getting better on their own. It's so ridiculous. Sure, no one likes having a sick kid, but I'd rather have a sick kid who is building his own immune defenses than depending on medicine to fight the battle for him.

Here's more information on antibitoic overuse and what you can do (or rather, not do) about it:
Dr. Greene article
Keep Antibiotics Working - focuses on antibiotic use in people as well as animals.
American Association of Pediatrics
Antibiotic Overuse Fuels Drug Resistance article

In other news, I was really irritated at how the Dr. Sears website didn't have ANYTHING on staph infections. What the heck? It also doesn't have anything about antibiotic overuse. Ever since they started endorsing breakfast cereal (I'm serious, we bought a box of cereal and Dr. Sears' head was on it with his official recommendation!) and putting ads for formula on their website I've been sort of disenchanted with the Sears folks. (OMG this isn't a formula/breast debate, so chill - I'm just saying that his books encourage breastfeeding so strongly that it's hypocritical to sell out to a formula company to make money off of their advertising.) I wrote them an email about the staph issue and never heard back. Hmph indeed.

Aaaanyway, the bottom line (ha) is that kidlet is fine, always was fine. The illnesses have passed, hopefully until next season. Yesterday it was gorgeous out, sunny and nearly 70, and today it's cold and sleeting. Stupid Maine springtime.

I've been going to the gym every day, and overall I feel great. I even did a few minutes on the elliptical at home last night, I'm going to try and do that more often. It might only be a few minutes here and there, but it's better than nothing. Now I need to work on drinking less coffee.

Ha!

Rocking out to Led Zeppelin today.

Just like that chicken with its head cut off...

2006-03-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

What a week. Well, a week and a day or two.

Let's recap...

Kidlet is sick Friday, dad stays home from work with him. Good dad. Kidlet still sick Saturday, feeling better Sunday. Husby is now sick on Sunday. Husby stays home Monday, kidlet goes to daycare until all of 9:30am when I am called to pick him up as he has a temperature. I leave work early to pick up kidlet, go home and now all three of us are home. Tuesday - kidlet is still warm and husby is still sick so I convince him to watch kidlet so at least one of us can go where we have to be. Wednesday we all limp off to our respective workplaces/school. That brings us to today.

Today we took one car to Portland as we always do, and I get the dreaded cell phone call at 9:30am. Apparently kidlet's rash looks suspect and the staff is worried about staph. They suggest bringing him to a doctor but since it's his butt he can stay at daycare. You see, two other kids have had staph in the past month, though of course they can't say who or how bad or how they were treated. Great. Stress out a little bit. Get a second call at 10am - the director of the daycare has consulted their on-call physician and I have to go pick kidlet up. He needs to go to the doctor and can't come back until he's been on antibiotics for 24 hours, which means Friday is shot to hell. Grand.

I pull my manager into the conference room and tell him what's going on and apologize profusely. Since husby already was out Friday, Monday, AND Tuesday, he can't really take any more time off. I had to leave early Monday, and now I was leaving early Thursday and would be out on Friday. Spiffy. Manager is fairly understanding and I make a few calls to arrange for a doctor's visit and I also give his naturopath a heads-up. Call husby a few times in there, too. Tell coworkers I won't be able to make surprise birthday cake for the new guy after all.

Pick up kidlet, go to lunch with dad, then drive home to go to doctor. Fortunately husby arranges for a ride home with the VP, who lives in our town. Doctor takes one look and says that it's either staph or strep, prescribes me an oral antibiotic and an antibiotic topical cream. Ask for culture, which she wasn't going to do since she prescribed an oral antibiotic but I insist (I have ulterior motives, you see). Bring culture to lab - 48 hours for results, and I need to call my doctor's office. Woman is having a BAD day and even my sunny, cooperative disposition doesn't melt her. Take kidlet home and call naturopath, she advises me to go ahead and use the topical cream, but to hold off on the oral medication until the culture comes back. If it's staph and kidlet isn't symptomatic (he isn't, he hasn't had a fever in over two days and is eating/acting/feeling normally) he won't need the oral antibitoic. If it's strep, he'll need both.

So now I wait. Kidlet can't go to daycare tomorrow regardless of whether I was giving him the oral antibiotic or not. Hopefully the lab results will be back tomorrow, I plan to call and find out, otherwise I'm going to just tell the daycare that he's being treated (which is true, I'll be using the topical cream) so he can go back to school on Monday. He's not going to be rubbing his ass on anyone's mucous membranes so I'm not worried about it spreading.

Sheesh. The things a mom goes through just to avoid overuse of antibiotics.

I really hope that my manager and director are as cool as they seem about me missing so much work due to kid-related stuff. Right now husby is helping me get set up so I can telecommute, keeping my fingers crossed that our shiny new hardware firewall will work and that the kidlet will give me enough time to actually get something done.

Sigh.

I can't wait for this week to be over!

Long.

2006-03-28T20:55:00.000-05:00

On Friday kidlet was sick, so Michael stayed home with him while I went to work. It was nice, I got in nice and early and had a decent day at work. On Friday afternoon I went over to the gym and signed up. This place claims to be a "Judgment Free Zone" but I felt a little condescended to by the kid at the desk. Whatever. I was just extra nice and extra friendly to him. Stupid fatphobes. What the hell am I supposed to do, huh? Oh, that's right - work out. So...I'm signing up for the gym to do what? Work out. So kiss my ass.

This gym is offering a decent deal, I got the membership that gives me an additional family membership, so Michael can come with me, and I can bring one guest a day. I'm hoping I can coerce Jenn into coming along once her office moves. It's moving closer to where we all work so it would be easy to bring her along. We'll see how that goes. The more the merrier, I always say!

Today is the first day I'm going to go to the gym with my coworker. I'm really glad she asked me if I wanted to join and invited me along when she went to check the place out. It'll be a great motivator to have someone else to go with. She's also got her system down so she can get there, work out, shower, and be back to work in an hour. Cool. Michael won't be joining us today as now he is sick with what kidlet had on Friday.

Kidlet stayed home Friday, then on Friday night when I got home he was running a temperature of 103.6 so we gave him a cool bath, which he screamed throughout. I normally avoid giving him anything but he was so hot that he wasn't able to settle down to sleep, so I gave him a half dose of Infant's ibuprofen and within half an hour he was down to 100.8. He was acting a lot better, much more spirited and happy. We got him dressed and ready for bed, I nursed him for a little while and then he went down without incident.

About an hour later I was checking my email when I heard him wailing - I met him as he ran into the living room and he looked really bent. As I picked him up I realized why - he had vomited all over himself and it was all stuck in his hair in a big clump. Blecch. I went into the bedroom and the bed was soaked, too. I called daddy Michael down from where he was telecommuting so he could help, and got kidlet out of his pajamas. He had to go back in the bathtub so I could wash the chunks out of his hair, he once again screamed the entire time but sat still. I could tell the tepid water was hurting his skin - I think he was having that hot/cold sunburny feeling one gets when they're feverish. Poor twerp.

While I was bathing kiddo, daddy Michael was stripping and remaking the bed, this time with a waterproof pad under the sheet and a towel on top. After I got kidlet washed up I put him in fresh jammies and he went back to bed without incident.

The next moring he was still pretty wrung out, though he woke up early. Bleah. His temp was back up in the 102 range but he was playing, even though he looked horrible. We met Jenn and Leonard for brunch and he was in good spirits, though he looked so tired the whole time. He held up well. We bought some high-heat engine paint to finally finish the radiators in the living room and at home Michael taped up everything in preparation. We learned a few lessons that day - the first being that if you intend to paint radiators, do it FIRST before you do any other work in the room. That way you can tape everything up, get it done, then just leave it taped up for the other wall and trim painting. Lesson learned.

On Sunday kidlet woke up Damned Early but seemed to be feeling fine, which was a relief. We planned our day around radiator painting. Michael closed off the room and we put all of the animals in the extension, which is separated from the house by an exterior door (as it used to be the outside door of the house) so it was sealed up tight. Michael donned a mask and sprayed the radiators, then changed his clothes, opened a bunch of windows, and we went out for a few hours. Before we left the house it really stank - even the dining room smelled like fumes even though all of the living room doors were closed. Phew.

- this entry interrupted by sick kidlet -

- tuesday -
We went the Chaneez Boofay for lunch, while we were at the restaurant Michael said, "I'm starting to not feel very good." Uh oh. He was better in the car so we decided to drive around while kidlet slept since it was his naptime. We took a road out of Sabattus that we'd never explored before and ended up in West Gardiner, which is pretty far out there. We connected back up with the highway and went back to Sabattus, where I stopped to get some coffee. I suggested that we check out Jillson's Sugar House, every time I'd been through Sabattus I'd see their signs but had never visited. We followed the signs and as we came up over a hill the farm came into view - there were cars parked up and down the road for about a quarter of a mile! Smoke and steam were merrily pouring from the sugar house and I said, "Well, it certainly looks open!" There were people everywhere!

It turns out that Sunday was Maine Maple Sunday, I had no idea! Jillson's was rocking. We went into the sugar house to watch the boiler boil sap, which wasn't all that interesting but kidlet was impressed with the heat and the fire. We went to the barn to visit the animals, which is always a huge hit with the kid. We baaed at sheep and oinked at the pig and clucked at the chickens. Jillson's even has five hives, so we watched the bees buzz in and out for a few minutes. Michael really liked the big red tractors, of which there were two, and we looked at another defunct tractor mired in some grass and mud. Kidlet is nuts about tractors lately. I ended up buying a few gifties of fresh maple syrup for some friends, you can't get fresher than poured into a bottle that day! Yummy. Also some more syrup for us as we were nearly out. There are few joys as simple and wonderful as real maple syrup.

After that we headed home, and I dropped off daddy Michael to clean up the house, taking down the plastic taped up and vaccuuming the dried spray that had turned into powder and was coating the floor. The radiators look amazing. Seriously. We should have done this a long time ago, and it was so easy - originally I was going to get aluminum powder and a mixing medium and brush it onto the radiators, but the auto chasse paint ended up being so quick, so cheap, and totally awesome results. I love it!

Something random...last week we went to Quizno's (the second and last time, both times they sucked pretty much equally) and saw Pat Callaghan. He's much more handsome in person. I remember watching him as a little kid.

Sunday afternoon daddy Michael wasn't feeling well so I went to Jenn and Leonard's with kidlet while he stayed home. We had a nice time though when we got home daddy Michael was in a pitiful state and running a fever. I tended to him and the kidlet and caught the damned dog in the compost pile again. I NEED to get the time to put a piece of fencing over the opening of that pile, dammit.

Monday kidlet seemed better and daddy was still sick so he stayed home while I headed to work and dropped kidlet at daycare. At 9:30am I got a call that kidlet had a temperature over 101 so I had to come pick him up. When I arrived I found him to be slightly warm (I'm not sure he was that hot, but whatever) and a strawberry next to his right eye. Apparently he went into the "alone space" with about six other kids so it wasn't so alone any more and while jumping around whacked his head on the corner of something. Poor kidlet. He told me he cried and his friends hugged him, and the other kids crowded around to tell me their side of the story. It was sweet how concerned they were for him.

I took kidlet home to my pitiful husband, then spent the day taking care of two sick boys. Kidlet seemed all right, just much more lethargic than usual. I washed his boo-boo and put some Neosporin on it, then let him pick out a Winnie the Pooh bandaid to put over it. He seemed very pleased with this and kept going to the mirror to admire himself.

I did something very out of the ordinary as I hadn't yet eaten anything when I arrived home at 11am, I had just had coffee so I was pretty shaky by this point. I sat on the couch with kidlet and we shared a quarter of a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Yum. Kidlet loved it, he has never had that much ice cream at once before, and the good stuff too. He didn't like the fudge pieces in it, though, I gave him one and he chewed thoughtfully, then said, "Chok-o-lit too hard. Not like chok-o-lit." The way he pronounces chocolate, in three distinct syllables, cracks me up. So anyway, we ate ice cream. Sign me up for the mother of the year award. I figure when a kid is sick for pretty much five days in a row he deserves some ice cream. After a few spoonfuls he sighed and said, "All done."

That afternoon was pleasant - we made art projects in the form of coloring cards for the grandparents. I traced his hand and he traced mine, then he colored them, added stickers, and I found some duplicate photos I'd gotten made of kidlet in Ogunquit that I cut around his picture, then helped him tape to the cards. He also 'wrote' a postcard to Grandma, which I'm sure she'll love. After craft time we sat on the floor and played with his wooden trucks. I knew he wasn't feeling up to snuff when he stopped, looked at me and said, "Michael tired of playing." Well then.

We had some lunch, then kidlet and daddy went to the bedroom to lay down for a nap. They napped a good long time, I was so glad. I watched a really terrible, boring movie and napped through part of it, then made a few pairs of baby booties to Etsy out of some yarn ends I had lying around. Kidlet and dad came out of the bedroom, kidlet looking somewhat refreshed and dad looking wrung out. He was still feeling pretty miserable.

I changed kidlet's diaper (potty training is still in fits and starts) and got him dressed to go outside. He seemed enthusiastic about it and I had more yard work to do, so I figured he could run around and play with the dog or with sticks or something while I scooped wintered-over dog poo. Yay.

I got him outside and he just stood there on the deck. I tried to interest him in helping me find poop (I know, but it was the best I had to offer) and he said, "No, Michael want to go inside." I was able to keep him out maybe ten minutes, then as I had my back turned I heard the sliding door open and then shut. I went back into the house and kidlet was already in the dining room, peeling off his jacket and boots. "Michael tired. Want to watch teevee." Ah well. I tried. All the art projects, books, toys, and outdoor exploits in the world won't do a bit of good if the kid's too wiped out.

We ended up spending a good part of the evening watching Teletubbies. I tried to get him interested in some books and we read a few, but he even got tired of that. The poor kid was just weary. At 7 o'clock after I got him changed into pajamas he was just sitting there on the couch, spacing out. I came out of his room after tossing his diaper in the pail to find him zoning, his eyelids at half mast. The television was off, the radio wasn't even on, he was just sitting and staring. I tried to interest him in dinner, suggesting veggies, fruit, toast, but all he wanted was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He didn't want to sit in his high chair, saying, "Mommy, I want YOU," so I convinced him to sit on the counter while I made his sandwich. He sat there and ate, drank some soy milk, then started saying, "Mommy, up." "I can't pick you up, you're eating. When you're done I can pick you up," I replied. He immediately put his sandwich down and said, "All done, now you pick me up." He had a point.

We went out into the living room and he had his head on my shoulder. I asked if he wanted some boobie, so we sat on the couch and he nursed for a few minutes sporadically, then fell asleep in my lap. I tried to get up and he said, "No, no..." so I sat back down and watched him sleep for about fifteen minutes. He looked so perfect,I just stared and stared at him. I carefully ran my fingers over his perfect cupid's bow lips, touched that soft little divot under his nose, caressed the curve of his cheek, followed his nose to its slightly upturned tip. It was one of those moments that I told myself I absolutely must remember. At times like that I think about the future, about how someday he'll be grown and have his own life where I'm not the most important part of it. How I'll cast my memory back and remember him just like this, lying snugly in my arms, his hair so soft and silky, his skin peachy and tender and gorgeous. How his eyelashes lay on his cheeks, how his ears curl into themselves. His little shoulder sticking up and his feet snuggled into my stomach. I tried to soak in everything, to inscribe it on my brain so it became a part of me and I'd never forget it.

Eventually my leg started to fall asleep so I whispered, "It's time for bed, Michael," and I got up. He put his head on one shoulder, then the other, and said groggily, "Want to sleep on couch." I paused for a second, then figured why not, so I lay him on the couch on one of our bed pillows, snuggled his nursing pillow up to his stomach so he'd have something to hold onto, and covered him with an afghan. "Are you comfortable?" I asked him, and he shook his head yes without even opening his eyes. I tucked the afghan around him and said, "Are you warm enough?" Another nod. I turned on the stereo with the As The World Sleeps CD playing, then sat in the chair in the corner to do some knitting. By 9:45 I was starting to get sleepy so I checked on kidlet, left the light in his room on and our bedroom door open so he could find his way in, then went to bed. I couldn't bear moving him when he looked so snug and content (and was breathing through his nose without snot, which was a first in a long time).

He did end up in the bedroom come 5am when he woke me up, and when I did get up I found dad on the couch. Weird. We don't stay still in my household, apparently.

This morning kidlet had a slightly elevated temperature - 100.2, and the daycare cutoff is 101. Dad was still feeling ill but was well enough to stay home with kidlet, so the boys are keeping one another company today. I offered to stay home again if he needed it, because I didn't want to drive kidlet all the way to Portland and risk his school calling me to pick him up again and driving all the way home. Daddy Michael said it was fine, I could go, and I told him to let me know if he needed me to come home. It'll be easier for me to leave here and get home without picking kidlet up from daycare should it be necessary. I hope they're having a good day together.

I also forgot to mention that on Saturday night daddy Michael went out with Leonard to buy some new work clothes (it's about time, his stuff is literally falling apart). While they were gone kidlet and I baked a cake from scratch. Yum. Of course with everyone being sick it's still sitting on the counter and hasn't even been cut into yet. Sigh. Kidlet really enjoyed helping measure and mix, he's gotten really good about behaving himself while sitting up on the counter with me since it's a dangerous place to be with the stove and the sink and the knife block all within reach. I never leave his side for a second, but he is very good and never touches anything. I do let him play with the breadbox, he likes to turn the big "key" on it. It's harmless so I let him vent his curiosity on that.

I'm also starting to save boxes and cans that food come in for him to play with. Daddy Michael took a big piece of cardboard from a wok box and drew stove burners on it, so it's kidlet's "stove". We give him a bowl and a wooden spoon and he goes to town. Now he has a few "food" items to play with, too - I just tape the boxes shut and line them up near his stove. He loves them.

If you've read all of this, I commend you. It's not that interesting but it's what I've got.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just filing away my life in little bits and pieces...will it ever be of interest to anyone but myself? Should I package it all up someday to pass on to my children? Will they even care? So many of us sending our words out for all the world to see. Where does the fascination end?

MILF, the ASS GZLR

2006-03-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

- wednesday -

Last night on the drive home we saw a license plate reading 'MILF'. I didn't get close enough to see if the woman driving it were actually a MILF or not, but since she was driving a Seabring I'm going to assume she wasn't. I wonder what compels someone to put something like that on their license plate.

The other morning we saw a weaselly bespectacled guy driving an SUV with the license place GSS GZLR. I was tempted to follow him and then replace that first G with an A.

Does Orbit really give you that "Just Brushed Clean Feeling"? Let's find out.

*chew chew chew*

Hmm...not too bad, but not "just brushed" either.

- thursday -

I don't know if this is a by-product of being sick for so long or what, but my appetite is just shot lately. I can't eat more than half a sandwich at a meal. At first I thought it was just a temporary thing, but the past month or so I've noticed I garner a nice crop of half sandwiches in the fridge at work. I'm starting to think that this is just how I eat, now.

I'm also not finding any pleasure in eating - I'll eat something that tastes good, but then ten minutes later my mouth tastes like ash. It's very weird. I don't understand why this is happening. I guess I should be thankful, in a way, because this can only lead to weight loss, but it's sure a bummer. I don't want to cook, either. That sucks. Lately I've been eating just because I need to, not eating a lot, then feeling just sort of eh shortly thereafter. Perhaps once my head is finally cleared up and I don't feel like I'm full of snot things will taste better and I can enjoy food again.

Speaking of weight loss, I'm going over to the gym tomorrow afternoon to fill out enrollment paperwork. One of my coworkers has already started going during the lunch hour and has the process down to a science. It'll be nice to have someone to go with, it'll motivate me to get out of my chair if another person is waiting on me. I'm looking forward to it. Monday will be my official first day. I've been wanting to wait until I'm completely over this cold, but I think I'm at the very end stages and exercising will kick it entirely once I start. The first day she went I was home sick with the flu, so since then I've been saying to myself that I'll join as soon as I'm better. I'm better enough, I think. I need to get off of my ass.

- later -

Took a nice walk at lunch with one of my other coworkers. She's cool beans. It's so nice out here today! Sunny and blue sky and puffy white clouds...makes me believe that Spring may really be on its way!

doggies and timmy ray

2006-03-22T20:48:00.000-05:00

A few more things about St. Bernards, based on peoples' comments:

1. Yes, a lot of Saints drool like mad. However, some of them don't. It's genetics and the shape of their mouths and all that good stuff. We lucked out with Brigid as she doesn't drool at all, really. The only time anything comes out of her mouth is right after she drinks and if she runs around outside, sometimes she'll drool a little. Growing up my father had a Saint named Buster and my mother had a Saint named Sam. Sam never drooled. Buster, on the other hand, was so prolific that we could literally find him by following the drool trail. Gross, I know, but it was useful!

There are breeders that will claim to breed dogs with "dry mouth", meaning they don't drool. This is a load of horseshit. There's no way to control this attribute and you don't find out until the dog matures.

2. Saints are fantastic dogs with kids, I haven't met one yet that wasn't gentle and mild with children. Brigid mostly just sits there and lets kidlet crawl all over her and maul her, the only time she gets fidgety is if he puts any weight on her hips (she has mild dysplasia). Regardless, we're careful to always be there when kidlet plays with the dog and we've taught him to be gentle with her. He doesn't climb over her that often any more, and when he does he's careful to stay near her shoulders.

3. That look on her face? "Oh no, not again." For some reason she always turns her head away when I try to take her picture - maybe the flash bothers her. She definitely knows what a camera is because I've been snapping photos of her all her life. I'm surprised to see that the amount of foldy skin over her eyes has increased, however. She's looking vaguely Sharpei-like.

4. Brigid is...(thinks) five years old. Saints have a lifespan of about 10 years, so she's middle aged for her breed.

Brigid is a great dog - though Saints aren't for everyone as they're pretty unique in temperament. As I mentioned before she's extremely low energy. We have to get her up and out more this Summer as she's getting on in years and needs the exercise. If we kennel her outside during the day (which we do in warmer months) she'll just sit all day long, panting and looking around the back yard. If we go somewhere, though, she'll be right there with us. So we'll take walks in the woods behind our house and she'll very happily accompany us, running about snuffling and snorting and smelling every rock and leaf. When we get back to the house she'll drink two bowls of water, then sleep for three hours. Yeah. Very low energy dogs.

It's also 100% necessary to train a Saint. Those who have been reading me for a while (since I got Brigid as a puppy) know that we spent A. LOT. of time training her properly. This is so important. I get very annoyed with dog owners who own large or gargantuan breeds and then don't train the animal. It's dangerous to humans, as well as dangerous to the dog. I won't say that Brigid is completely obedient, she definitely has her own personality, but overall I know that I can take her out in the woods without a leash and still have control over her should a jogger run by. She can't run fast or far, but the joggers don't know that, and 150 pounds of barking dog chasing you is enough to cause someone some distress.

Anyway, enough about my dog. I have other things to move on to at the moment so I will close.

...but not without sharing my new favorite website!

All behold Timmy Ray

I think I like this site so much because I used to live right where he refers to - Chelsea in NYC. I get all misty eyed!

Ciao babies!

For those of you wondering just how large Brigid is, refer to this photo:

Behind her is our upright piano, which are generally 60" wide. At 5'3" I'm 63" tall, so you can do the math :)

Pimp My Dog

2006-03-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

She does smell very very good, and is back to her proper colors of orange and white. $55 is such a pittance to pay, there is no way in hell I would ever be able to get her completely cleaned up the way the groomer does.

When we arrived tonight she was up on one of those tables - which is pretty amazing considering how BIG she is. We also found that we can indeed fit a St. Bernard and a carseat in the back of a Hyundai Elantra. Not for long distances, but the half mile home was easy peasy.

Here are some pictures of my freshly-coiffed pooch...I don't have any before photos as she was so gnarly I didn't take any of her. She also smelled like a giant stinky foot. Now she's fragrant and not at all offensive. Except right now she's farting. That's offensive.

The only thing they did that I didn't like was to really trim her head down - it makes her look a little weird as her head is so much smaller than I'm accustomed to. It's not a big deal when she's shaved, but with the rest of her body being hairy it's a little disproportionate. You can see some of the "feathers" on her ears are much lighter when trimmed and stick out all weird.

Ah well, it'll grow back.

They did a fantastic job on her back and rear end, which were developing huge mats from her sitting on her butt all the time. I was trying to get a photo of how fluffy and fuzzy she came out.

Ah, so clean!

Okay, enough already. I want to go to sleep.

And, five minutes later, her usual pose. It's impossible to take a photo that imparts just how loud her snoring is, however.

When they hear I have a St. Bernard, people always say things like, "She must eat a lot of food!" or "I'll bet that's chaotic!" Honestly, a St. Bernard likes to follow you to whatever room you're in, then go to sleep. If you move, they wake up, follow you, then go back to sleep. Brigid gets lots of outdoor time but she spends most of it sitting on the deck at the back door looking out over the yard. She very rarely gets up and runs around unless we're out there encouraging her to. VERY low-energy dogs. As a result I'll fill her food bowl in the morning before leaving for work and most nights it'll still be full when I get home. After she's been out for a good pee and a quick once-around the yard, she'll come in and drink a whole bowl of water, then eat her food, then I'll give her some more water and then she goes to sleep. Not at all chaotic.

The only drawback to a dog this big is that she takes up a lot of room when she sleeps. Since our kitchen is the size of a postage stamp, it is of course one of her favorite places to snooze so we're always stepping over her. I've learned how to balance the dishwasher door on her so I can load it, she doesn't even wake up.

Just, whatever.

2006-03-21T20:46:00.000-05:00

One of the applications I'm working on has a field labeled "Reason for leaving" and I keep typing "Reason for living." There's a message in there somewhere, but I don't quite see it yet.

Last night we went to Filene's for the final day of their closing sale and got a nice rug for the living room. There were some really nice rugs there at 75% off, but a beautiful $35,000 (gasp!) rug is still a huge assload of money even at 75% off. Oh well. We settled for a less nice yet still nicer than we could normally afford rug for $400 for the living room.

Our living room echoes. I've been enjoying the spartan layout since we repopulated it (I've been working with too many databases lately) a couple of months ago, but overall it's too empty so we finally bit the bullet and bought the aforementioned rug and some new curtains. The curtains are nice - we got them from Lowe's along with some decorative rods and holdbacks. I was waffling on making my own curtains, but the panels were only $30 apiece and I think it would have cost me at least that in time and materials to find what I wanted and make them myself. I consider it time saved more than anything. We're going to put them up as soon as we get that final coat on the trim (hopefully within 2-3 weeks) and then things shouldn't be quite so cavernous in there.

We also got the paint for the hallway between the living room and bedroom, passing by where the washer and dryer are stashed under the stairs. Michael had a moment last weekend where he just peeled off all of the wallpaper in there as it came off in huge sheets leaving nothing behind. That must have been fun. He took out the rickety old shelf that was above the washer and dryer and built a real-and-true wooden one, I really like it a lot better as it offers more space and I'm not afraid it's going to fall off of the wall every time I put the laundry detergent back. I need to look in the remnant bins at Joann's and see if I can find some good fabric for making a curtain to go across the laundry "nook". Previously it had accordion doors going across, but they were always in the way and a major pain in the ass so we took them off. The only concern I have is that Michael wanted to get a darker shade of what we painted the living room, only this hallway has no lighting of its own and no windows - I'm afraid it's going to be really dark. Well, I suppose I can choose something light for the curtain and put up some bright pictures. It's already nicer not being a bazillion tiny little flowers.

What is it with French Canadians and flowered wallpaper?

Brigid is spending the day at the doggy spa today, otherwise known as the groomer. It costs a pretty penny to get her dolled up ($55), but the fact we can drop her off at 6:45am and pick her up at 6:30pm is a huge benefit.

Speaking of which, time to go get her. She's going to smell so nice! I can't wait!

Sic

2006-03-14T20:27:00.000-05:00

Hello, flu. Please, come into my body and take up residence.

I was home sick yesterday, and when I say sick, I mean sick. My head hurt so bad that I couldn't sit upright without throbbing pain, and then all my joints hurt so bad that it hurt to lie down, it hurt to sit up, it hurt to do anydamnthing. It sucks that 99% of normal human positions involve the ass in some fashion as my hips were screaming.

The part that sucked THE MOST was the fact that we didn't have any acetaminophen in the damn house, just tons and tons of ibuprofen. Seeing as we've been allowing nature to take its course this month and have no idea if there's a reason to be concerned or not, I didn't want to take the chance and take the ibuprofen. Just knowing that relief was only a medicine cabinet away was torture. In the afternoon I drank the half bottle of infant's Tylenol that I scrounged out of the cabinet and it took the edge off enough that I could get in a nap.

Today I'm feeling a lot better, partially because I'm getting over the worst of it, and partially because Michael brought home a bottle of acetaminophen caplets. I'm also drinking as much water and herbal tea as I can force into myself (which isn't much, incidentally). I'm not as sore as yesterday but I'm in a major fog.

I did discover that a great movie to watch while home sick is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. My favorite line was:

"Oh, my goodness - get down fat crucifix, somebody needs the wood."

I don't know why, but it made me laugh so hard I nearly coughed my lungs out.

That was the only bummer, that I laughed in a few spots and it gave me coughing fits, which then made my head throb. Like the part where they use the blow-up doll in the red dress as a beacon, and the camera cuts briefly to Bernadette who rounds her mouth in an O while looking up at it. That made me lose it.

I don't know if it was the effects of being sick or what, but I'll admit I cried at the end a couple of times.

The best part for me was watching the entire movie saying to myself, "Who IS that actor playing Mitzi?" He looked so familiar to me and I kept puzzling over it throughout the film. "Who IS that? Who IS that?"

Then, right at the end, it hit me.

"OMGAGENTSMITH!"

Saturday, sunny day

2006-03-11T20:25:00.000-05:00

Today Michael has been sick with the ick, which sucks as I've been tired with the depression. I wanted to stay in bed, he needed me to get up to watch the kidlet while he vomited forcefully enough to make me cringe. I guess he had the better excuse.

As the morning wore on and my headache got worse he seemed to feel a little better...hopefully he purged the demons that were plaguing him. My brother Bob was due to pick me up so we could go order Mom's headstone. I thought he was going to be here at 1:30, but at 12:55 he was knocking on the door. Turns out our appointment was at 1:30. Whoops. One of my brother's best qualities is that he's very punctual, if not consistently early. I excused myself to get dressed while he talked to the Michaels.

I had told him on the phone earlier that morning that Michael was sick, and as a result my SIL decided not to come and stayed home with my niece. We drove over to the place and were met by one of the saleswomen, who explained "I can't sell ya today," as the family who owned the business had a death recently and the funeral was today, so they were staying closed. We made another appointment for next Saturday and looked around a little bit. We both agreed on the type of stone, a dark reddish composite, and the size and shape. I asked Bob if he wanted an inscription other than Mom's name and dates and told him my idea of "Her path regained." I think he liked it, but I said to mull over it and let me know if he had other ideas. I choked up a little explaining how I came up with it.

Suddenly we had all this time on our hands that we weren't expecting, so on the way back to my house I suggested we stop at Starbucks and get a coffee. Bob agreed, and it was fun bringing him inside. He said that he "didn't normally order fancy coffee like this" and looked out of place in his fishing vest and "Bassman" tee shirt. I ordered whatever their blend of the day was, and Bob ordered a Chai Latte. I raised my eyebrow at that, I didn't know he liked chai.

We sat down and chatted for about half an hour or so. Bob exclaimed over how good the chai was here, "It's really strong, not like that crap I get at Dunkin Donuts! I can feel my hair standing up!" and we talked about our families, work, things like that. It was really nice to be able to just sit with him, brother and sister, and talk. Usually we're together at a meal or a gathering with the kids and spouses and we have a lot going on, but here it was just us. Bob talked about his desire to learn to do graphics on the computer since he works in the silkscreening shop with my stepfather, and I told him I'd see if I could dig him up some community college courses or seminars, and that I'd be happy to install stuff on his home computer and train him myself. It's nice to see him the way he is now...he's still a big kid, and he drinks too much and smokes too much pot, but he's growing up in other ways. He wants to be a bigger part of the family business and buy into it if possible, and he wants to secure his career for the long haul. I like seeing these changes in him.

After we finished our drinks we got back in the car and continued home. As we passed the cemetary where Mom is buried Bob said, "Since we're here, do you want to stop by and see Mom?" I said yes so we pulled around to where she is buried. I told him I had come by the other day and he said, "Oh, that was you? We came out on Saturday and saw that someone had brushed the snow off of Mom's grave and were wondering who was visiting her." It pleased me somehow that my little nocturnal visit had been noted by them.

The snow is all melted now in the 50-degree weather (in fact, people were walking around in shorts and tank tops today as it's gorgeous and sunny out) but the ground was pretty squishy. We went over to Mom's grave and stood around it, picking off bits of fallen tree branch. We talked quite a bit about her, and it was a relief to me that Bob hasn't reverted to this peachy vision of who our mother was. We both love her fiercely, but we also both went through a lot of hell at her hands and I'm glad he's not ignoring that now that she's dead. I told him about my idea of the eternal light and he laughed when I mentioned the gnomes playing checkers. The only thing he's worried about is someone stealing it since Mom's grave is near the road. Well, we'll see. I thought of that, too, but they're only $30 so it's not like it would be hard to replace.

The other nice thing is that Bob bought the plot next to Mom, so we'll be able to make a huge garden there if we want since we can plant on both plots. I think we're going to do something really nice. I'm looking forward to it.

When he dropped me off at home we talked about getting the family together for dinner tomorrow night. I need to make some calls to see if we can make that happen. We said goodbye (is it weird that I still kiss my brother on the mouth?) and I watched him pull away and head home.

When I got back into the house I gave Joy a call at home - they're all doing well. It was nice to talk to her and catch up. One of these days when they build a bridge between Maine and Montana I'll be able to pop in for a cup of tea at her kitchen table. That will be nice.

Life is funny, isn't it? Everything can change in the course of a day, in the passing of a moment. It's hard to remember that when being wrapped up in your own life, but there's so much out there if you just take the chance to discover it.

I'm not sure what that all is about, it's just how I feel today after a nice couple of hours with my brother, talking to a couple of friends on the phone, the sunny day, and just feeling generally sufficient with the world.

Et cetera

2006-03-10T20:24:00.000-05:00

Let's see, what exciting things can I regale you with today?

Well, it's been a lot warmer this week, in the 40s and supposedly going up to the 60s, maybe. It definitely smells and feels like Spring. I cannot wait. I'm not looking forward to all the yard work and doggie doo scooping that awaits me, but once that's done we'll be able to relax outside on the deck in the evenings...

...not while the black flies are out, though.

...and then there's the mosquitoes.

Maybe we can get one of those bug tents.

I have been fairly psyched that it's still visibily light outside at 6pm. Every year I think "Seasonal affective disorder, it doesn't exist, I'll be fine," but by the time the birdies come back I'm clawing at the walls.

Etsy's been going fine. I haven't made much the past week or so, finishing a stocking cap and working on some socks for Jenn's baby, Katy. I hope she realizes just how much time goes into even the simplest garment and learns how to knit herself. Ha.

This weekend my brother (and SIL, oh joy) are going to order Mom's headstone. I've been trying to figure out what to put on it, whether it be her full name or just her middle initial, and if there should be an inscription beneath that. Here's what I have so far that I like:

Margaret Jane Wallace
June 24, 1945 - Oct 13, 2005
Her path regained

I'm not sure about the 'path' business. The way I see it, my mom worked hard to provide for Bob and I when we were kids, but along the way lost a major part of herself and never regained it in life. She sacrificed so much, and then was consumed by the loss and stumbled off the path, so to speak. I want to figure out how to convey that thought, that she was so selfless before falling away and causing us so much pain. That even through everything, we still love her and recognize what she did for us.

I was also thinking of something like, "Love triumphs over struggle," or "Love shines eternal," but they sound so trite. I want something that doesn't sound like a Hallmark card. I guess we could go with "Stop standing on me," but I don't know how the rest of the fam would take that.

And, as I mentioned, my SIL will be there. Joy! It's a family affair! Of course, I'm leaving my son and husband at home, because it's not really their bag, right? Yet she will be there, giving her input. I. Can't. Fucking. Wait.

But, anyway.

Life is good. I need more sleep. A new gym opened up near work and has really cheap grand opening rates. I'm thinking of joining with a couple of my coworkers so I have motivation to go.

That's about it. Have a good weekend, folks.

Yes, I'm dwelling.

2006-03-07T20:25:00.000-05:00

I finally bit the bullet and cleaned out my Yahoo! mailbox. Well, I took care of the unread messages, anyway. I had a bunch of things coming from an automated mailing list that I never read, plus other junk. 800 or so messages later, I'm at least caught up with unread stuff. Next I'll tackle the read messages. Someday. It's hard to justify when you have 2GB of memory and are only using 2% of it. It's good for the soul, though.

While poking through my email I came across all of the ones I saved from my mom since 2002. At one point I had more, but I recall deleting them to free up space (back when Yahoo mail was only 10MB). Now, of course, I wish I hadn't, but I suppose there's no need agonizing over it.

I read through a bunch of them and was shocked to find that things she would say that used to irritate me are surprisingly, well, normal. I mean, she was still her spiteful, vaguely evil self at times, but the day-to-day stuff she would write me about were pretty standard. I also realized that she loved me a lot, that's apparent by the things she wrote.

It kicks me in the ass, hard, that it's taken until now to see my mother for who she really was, but I also think that in a way I'm blessed to have come to know it at all.

I always miss her, but some days I really miss her. It doesn't take much for me to be reduced nearly to tears just thinking about her. The worst times are when I'm driving by myself or with kidlet, which happens about once a week when Michael has to go off-site to visit a client. It's about 40 minutes home and I'll think about her the entire time.

Last week I was driving alone and I started thinking about going to see her at the graveyard. I hadn't been back since the funeral in October. I was waffling as it was already getting dark and we haven't gotten a marker for her grave yet, when I changed the station and Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" came on. That's not really a song you hear every day and it was my mother's favorite song. I took that as a sign from her to come visit. So I did.

I got to the graveyard and there were a couple of inches of wet snow on the ground. It took me a few minutes to find her as she's unmarked. I think there may be a ground marker but I wasn't able to find it shuffling my feet around in the snow. There was a big tree branch on her grave so I cleared it away then stood for a few minutes, puffing warm breath clouds in the beams of my headlights. I told her a little of what's been going on since she left us and that I missed her and I loved her. I didn't have any great epiphanies and I didn't break down like I thought I might - just stood there in the cold for a few minutes, then turned and walked back to my car.

When the ground thaws I want to plant a little rock garden around her stone, when we get it. When I was little she would spend hours in the yard working on her flower gardens, all enclosed by stones. I think she'd like that.

I also want to get her one of those solar-powered cemetery lights...I used to think they were creepy, but now I feel that she shouldn't be left alone there in the dark. It just feels like the right thing to do. I don't want to get one of those maudlin lights with the cross on it, though...maybe I'll get a frog or a gnome. That would be funny.

Don't you think?

I think Mom would get a kick out of it.

Actually, I think she would like this better:

It's not an angel, though, it's a fairy. Duh.

From: [Mom]
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 21:30:34 EST
Subject: Kerry, Bush and chicken wings.
To: [me]

Hope Dave remembered to drop off Mikey"s sweater. I have a question I thought of today which no-one can answer.
Now that Kerry has given his consession speech, what would happen if in the final count it was found that he had actually won? The facts of the count could not be denied...so does the cencession mean even if he won by votes, he could not take office?
Man, the whole world is madder than hell that Bush "won". Tony Blair might lose his office due to Bush being re-elected! I think this one was rigged just like the election in 2000 was...or I believe it was.
I remember when Kennedy ran against Nixon and it was later proved that the "bosses" in Chicago had rigged the ballot boxes for Kennedy to win. Illinois at that time was a key state.
Yes, Hon, I am worried, I am scared, I am madder than hell. What the fuck did this country have in mind? Can't they see the facts that are in front of their faces?
Thanks for calling today. At least I am glad someone else (particularly you) were as angry and upset as I was. Dave just says "oh, well".
I am going to get together a goodie list for Thanksgiving. We have started having those "On The Go Bistro" things from Hannaford. The Honey-Garlic Chicken Wings are delicious. I thought maybe we could include them this year. :)

TTYL...Lovya...Mom

My mother and her stupid food talk. God, that would drive me batty.

Miss you, Mom. Love you.

Whew!

2006-03-02T20:24:00.000-05:00

Work has been picking up, as well, I'm much busier than I was last week and I really like it. I feel like I'm finally a part of the team! I'll have been here for three months as of next Monday. I've gotten great feedback from my manager, the director, and one of my coworkers who is acting as my mentor. So far it seems like everyone here operates on forthright honestly, which I love. Just tell me where I'm at, give me a pat on the back if I deserve it, and if there's a problem I want to fix it asap. The way it should be.

With that in mind, I need to go rock on some work right now. I've put "I Am The Radiskull" remix on repeat and I'm going to go rattle off some cases.

The regular report.

2006-02-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

I am still having a fantastic time at my job. The people are awesome, the work is awesome, I feel like I'm really succeeding and being recognized for it. Getting to work by 8am sucks major ass, but other than that things are pretty peachy. I am doing a hundred times more than I was at my last job, and stretching my mind in ways I never thought I would and still get paid for it. I just love feeling smart again.

Kidlet is enjoying "school" as we call it, and Michael got a promotion to team leader at work. This is a pretty big deal as there wasn't a team leader position before this, so he gets to define his job responsibilities and it looks very good for his review coming up in early Summer. My man, he totally rocks.

Dragging

2006-02-22T20:20:00.000-05:00

Man, have I been tired lately. Like, every day. I thought it was due to lack of sleep as I was pulling some pretty late nights for a while there, but the past two weeks or so I've been getting plenty of sleep. I'm talking about 7-9 hours a night, average, and on weekends I've even slept in until 9 or 10. I'm literally dragging ass out of bed in the morning to get to the shower and barely making it. I manage to wake up by the time we leave for work, but I just have very low energy. By the time I get home I nearly collapse, can barely do a thing and am yawning by 8pm. Am I just getting old?

Then it occurred to me - I've been taking a multivitamin without iron as it was upsetting my stomach, and the naturopath said she wanted to see if I was anemic. I guess I probably am, that would explain this bone tiredness all the time. I need to call my GP today to see if I can get a prescription for a blood test to find out for sure. And here I thought I was eating enough leafy greens and beans. Maybe I'm drinking too much caffiene and eating too much dairy so what iron I am getting I'm not absorbing?

Sigh. I wish I could just take a pill every morning that gave me all my nutrition and calories and kept me from craving anything, so I could just be healthy and not have to worry about what I eat and cutting everything out that I actually enjoy. I don't drink, don't smoke, don't take drugs, don't eat processed foods, eat whole grains, eat non-hormone, non-GMO, organic local produce, dairy, and the occasional meat, avoid dyes and preservatives, I even take natural vegetable-derived damned vitamins yet I still feel like shit. I guess I could say "Imagine how terrible I would feel if I were doing all those things I'm not," but it's not cutting it nowadays.

I would be thrilled if I could wake up tomorrow 80 pounds lighter and feel completely normal. You know? I have all the habits and the desire, it's just that I can't start at zero, I have to get there first and that's the part that sucks.

I've been adding more things to my Etsy store but haven't had a lot of sales yet. That's a little demoralizing, but then I realized that it's partially due to my being one of many sellers. I think my chances will be better if I start being more active in the forums and things like that, so I'm working that angle to get some exposure.

I also decided to sell that knitted hat, the one that came out all Whosville. It's very cute, just doesn't fit anyone I know so up it goes. It's so hard to price knitted items, because I use really nice yarn (being a yarn snob and all) and I want to get a fair price for my time on top of that. Anyway, if you have any interest take a look and let me know what you think:

And of course if you buy something I won't be devastated or anything ;)

The other day our credit card statement came in...we have one LL Bean MBNA Visa that we use for all of our expenses, and for the most part we pay it off in full every month so we never carry a balance. After xmas we've had some money on it that's still lingering, so when I noticed that the interest rate was 20.99% I nearly freaked! WTF? We have never had a late payment on this credit card, and we even have an autopay set up with our bank every month to ensure that at least the minimum gets paid if we should somehow forget. I was pissed. I called them last night and spoke to an "APR Specialist". She looked at our account and said, "Oh my, that rate really is much too high, isn't it?" and lowered it to a fixed rate of 12.99%. Apparently the old rate was a variable rate and was creeping up over the past few years and we hadn't noticed it. How fucking irritating is that?!

It just goes to show what credit companies will try to pull on you if you don't pay attention, and that usually all it takes is one phone call to bring them into line. It really burns me that there's not some way to penalize companies for pulling this shit on consumers. They're the same company that keeps increasing my credit line, too, even though I've asked them on multiple occasions not to. I mean, really, is there a need for a credit card with a $31,000 limit? Please. Like I ever want to OWE that much outside of my mortgage. And that's with my calling them to ask them not to raise my limit, they still manage to slip raises in there. "Please, come spend," they say. "F You!" I say back to them.

I'm thinking once we pay off xmas that I might like to cancel this card and use another one for our expenses that has better benefits...frankly, the LL Bean coupons are nice, we get a couple hundred dollars' worth a year, but lately nothing that LL Bean has been selling is at all appealing to me. Michael and I were at the store a couple of months ago and he commented that the buyers they have must be terrible.

Grumpy.

2006-02-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

I get so irritated with customer service bullshit. I went in to the local eye doctor's office near my work on Monday, February 13th to get an eye exam and buy some glasses. The doctor was nice and everything with the exam went fine, no troubles there - my prescription actually got better since the last time I had an exam two years ago. However I ended up with a very annoying optician who kissed my ass when it wasn't necessary and I could tell was trying to be all "salesy" with me. She kept bringing up my 2-year old in a familiar manner, such as, "Oh, you'll definitely want the scratch-resistant coating, seeing as you have a 2-year old," things like that, when it was obvious she didn't have kids and had no experience with them. For some reason that obviously false salesman technique, trying to link my life in with the product, just irritates me from the start and I have no tolerance for it.

As it is, I always spend a lot of money on glasses since I need them in order to function, and I wear them all day, every day. I used to buy cheap glasses but every time I would end up regretting it. So I'm pretty much a guaranteed sell. Yes, decent frames. Yes, high-index lenses. Yes, UV and scratch-resist coating. I always get these three things and I've accepted that my glasses will always be expensive.

Yet this woman keeps treating me like she has to convince me that I need these things, when all I really want to do is pay for my damned glasses and get out of there. Then, of course, I find out that it's going to be 5-7 business days before I even see the damned things! Friggin hell. I had avoided going to LensCrafters in the mall due to the inconveneince of traveling all the way out there, but now I'm starting to wonder if having to wait a week was worth saving me the trip to get them in an hour.

So, okay. Fast-forward to today, a full six business days after my visit. I call to ask if my glasses are in, they aren't, quite predictably. The moron optician gets on the phone and tells me that my glasses will actually take 7-10 business days due to "the manufacturing of the high-index lenses you purchased." Then, pray tell me, why did you tell me 5-7 days when I first bought them? That was annoying enough, and THEN she says, "Let's see...they were ordered on the 15th..."

Wait just a minute.

"Excuse me, I had my appointment on the morning of the 13th. They weren't ordered until the 15th?" That's right. The order wasn't placed until a full day and a half later. So THAT means I'm now looking at getting my glasses around March 1st. "I'll try to get them a little sooner," she says, and that was the final straw that has led to my writing this entry. She told me the same damned thing when it was 5-7 business days. She even winked at me. Gah. Gaaaah.

All I want are my fucking glasses. It does not take ten days to assemble a pair of eyeglasses, and it sure as hell shouldn't take a day and a half just to order the friggin things after I paid for them!

I remember the day I went in for my eye exam and bought the glasses that right toward the end the optician seemed rushed. She practically leapt from the table after filling out the order form and went out back to get her coat, then I saw her meet her boyfriend at the front of the store and dash out to lunch as I waited to pay. Well, I'm certainly glad she made her lunch date and forgot to order my glasses.

*seethe*

Bad dream

2006-02-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

I'm having kind of a shitty day mom-wise. I've been having nightmares about her all week - not surprising as Monday was the 13th, which marked four months that she's been dead. The dream last night was a long one and I don't remember a lot about it, except for the very end. Mom was lying on the floor in a tent or a camping trailer or something, there were lots of people around. I bent down to speak to her as she was dying, and instead of being inert and senseless as she was in real life, she was trying to talk to me. I was lying next to her straining to hear what she was saying. Suddenly she seized up and the black stuff came pouring out of her mouth, only it went all over my chest and arms. I looked around for Michael and could only whimper for help. Then I woke up.

I guess that's all there is to say. I'm listening to The Smiths Meat Is Murder album and it's making me all maudlin.

Boring fat talk.

2006-02-16T23:12:00.000-05:00

So. I've been tracking my intake with FitDay for two and a half days now, and I am happy to see that my diet is pretty good. Having to account for everything keeps me from eating that occasional mid-afternoon boredom snack, the one that goes like, "Man, Cold Stone Creamery sure would be great right now!", and I'm eating more slowly to sense when I'm actually satiated instead of just eating the entire portion given to me. That's a bad habit, and it occurred to me just how stupid it is to let a restaurant determine how much I "should" be eating.

The past few weeks I've started noticing that I don't eat as much, as I had three leftover half-sandwiches in the fridge at work. So now instead when I meet Michael for lunch I'm getting a sandwich to split with him and sometimes we'll share a salad, things like that, and that usually does it for me. I worry a little about him eating enough as the guy only weighs 150 pounds and needs every pound he currently has.

So I calculated my calories eaten vs. burned and for just two days it looks like this:

2/14: 1513 consumed, 2942 burned
2/15: 1181 consumed, 2956 burned

That adds up to a 3204 calorie deficit for two days - a pound of fat is 3500 calories. That can't be right...? Hmm. At this rate I could lose 3 pounds a week without increasing my exercise (which is currently about 1.5 to 2 miles a day of walking before and after work, and during my lunch break so it's not all at the same time but it's better than nothing). Last night Michael started assembling the elliptical trainer, however, so once I can get on that I hope to do at least 30 minutes every evening (or morning, if I get up early enough... hahahahahahahhahaha *wipes tear from eye*).

There's no activity for elliptical training in FitDay, but this website tells me that in 30 minutes I'll be burning 580 calories. Whoa! Well I'll be durned. Hopefully he'll finish putting it together tonight. Whee! He said he has "only three more steps, but they're big, complicated steps."

I'm hoping that as the weather gets warmer I'll find ways to get out and exercise while doing something with the kidlet. I don't want to simply push his ass around in a stroller (not to mention the only stroller we have is a cheapy $20 umbrella stroller that we've used maybe ten times, and I don't even know where the damned thing is), he won't stay in a sling or a backpack, and it needs to be enough of a workout for me to be worthwhile.

And here, because I like to categorize everything, is what I've been eating the past three days.

2/14/06
Breakfast
Uncle Sam's Instant Oatmeal w/Wheat Flakes & Flaxseed
Clementine
Apple
Coffee w/1 tsp Sugar & 1 tbs Half & Half

Mid-morning
Black Tea w/2 tsp Sugar & 1 tbs Half & Half

Lunch
1/2 Cup of Thai Chicken & Rice Soup
1/2 Sandwich w/Focaccia, Sliced Turkey Breast, Mayonnaise, Apple Slices, Mixed Greens, & Brie

Afternoon
1/3 Clementine (shared with the boys on the ride home)

Dinner
Leftover BBQ (cleaning out the fridge): 1 Pork rib, 1/2 Chicken breast
Mashed potato, 1/2 Cup
Ravioli, 3 pieces

Dessert
Chocolate/Caramel Mousse thingy split with Michael (it was V-day, after all)
Strawberries
Whipped Cream

2/15/06
Breakfast
Banana
Clementine
Tea w/2 tsp Sugar & 1 tbs Half & Half

Lunch
1/2 Sandwich - Veggie Italian, 6 inches

Dinner
Pork chop, broiled w/herbs
Soybeans, 3/4 cup
Broccoli, 1/2 cup
Quinoa, 1/2 cup
Ketchup, 2 tbs

2/16/06
Breakfast
Uncle Sam's Instant Oatmeal w/Wheat Flakes & Flaxseed
Tea w/2 tsp Sugar & 2 tbs Whole Milk

Lunch
Tomato & Basil Soup, 1-1/2 cups
Package of Oyster Crackers

Afternoon
Altoids Tangerine Sours, 5
Tea w/1 tsp Sugar & 1 tbs Half & Half
Apple
Luna Bar - LemonZest

Dinner
Baked Chicken Breast breaded w/breadcrumbs & egg
Green Beans, 3/4 cup
Basmati Rice, 1/2 cup

I gave in to the marketing for Blistex Spa Effects lip balms, partially because the colors were really pretty, and partially because they came in a pack of three and I'm thrift-minded like that. (Of course, they're smaller than standard lip balms, but whatever.)

Blistex claims that "Blistex Spa Effects is a trio of great tasting lip balms that brings the pampering sensations and luxurious aromas of exclusive spa products to your lips everyday. All contain 7 effective emollients & moisturizers in a unique clear gel formula that hydrates lips while massaging your senses!"

I guess that "great tasting" means "tastes like plastic doused with gasoline" because though the scents are nice, if a bit cloying, and the initial taste is pleasant, the aftertaste is blearrrgh. Nasty. Don't buy these.

I hate being fat. I hate hate hate it. Probably the worst thing is that all of my pants that fit when I was fat before don't fit well any more if at all because having a baby causes a continental shift, so all of the fat that was evenly distributed throughout my torso is now all in my ass and hips. Stupid body. Shirts fit better, though, so go figure. In any case, I am far too cheap and lazy to go out and buy an entire wardrobe's worth of new pants, so I absolutely must lose some weight.

Dude, I've got camel toe today. No joke. I'm embarrassed for myself! We've had to wear business garb the past two days as corporate folks are visiting the office and my pickings are slim. I wore a long shirt so no one else can see it, but I know it's there. Must. Banish. Camel. Toe.

Fed to a cat!

2006-02-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

Found a funny 404 page today:
http://www.isfullofcrap.com/404.html
(Check it out in Firefox.)
(IE will give you a generic 404 page because they're all We Know Better Than You like that.)

Ah, the smell of red sauce at midnight.

2006-02-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

On a gross note, after the indoor playground we went out to Gritty McDuff's for dinner and got kidlet his favorite, pasta. He had fettuccine with some sort of red sauce, which he wolfed down voraciously. He was even twirling the pasta around his fork before eating it - again, just another example of how amazing my son is. He was such a good boy throughout the visit to the playground and then at dinner, we made sure to tell him how proud we were with his good behaviour. Then we went home, got him dressed for bed, and he went to sleep pretty much without incident. I was so wiped from following him around and helping him up and down from the toys at the indoor playground that I went to bed early, too, snuggling up to him and going to sleep immediately...

...to awake at 11:45pm with the sense that something was very wrong. I reached over to kidlet in the dark, who was making weird gagging noises, and suddenly felt a nearly solid tube of pasta coming out of his mouth. I said, "Michael! MICHAEL! Wake up, quick! Get a towel!" and daddy Michael leapt out of bed to grab one off of the rack on the back of the bedroom door. He slid it under kidlet as I turned him to the side so he could spit out the vomit that was coming out of him. I don't know if kidlet was asleep or confused or what, but he kept putting his hand over his mouth like he was either trying to keep from puking or trying to push it back into his mouth. It was so pitiful! I kept saying, "Spit it out, baby, it's okay, just go ahead and spit it out." Daddy Michael turned on the light and kidlet had miraculously not gotten any vomit on the bed itself, it was all either on his sleeper or on the towel (or in my hands, eugh). We wiped his face and carefully peeled his sleeper off, and the moment we finished he was already half asleep as we lay him back down. We put another towel under him and I roused him enough to wipe his tongue with a wet cloth, the poor thing. I watched him sleep for a few minutes out of concern for his grogginess, but other than being sweaty nothing else was awry.

Then I got to sit over the toilet, picking bits of half-digested pasta off of his jammies and the towel and dropping them into the bowl. Those two items went directly into the washing machine. The things I do now that I'm a mom, and I didn't even gag once. The worst part by far was walking back into the bedroom and smelling regurgitated tomato sauce. Blecch.

Fortunately the next day kidlet was his old self again, seeming no worse for the wear. We suspect that it was the activity of the evening coupled with eating too much at dinner and then the bedroom was warm. He was wearing a fleece sleeper and tends to run pretty hot in general. Poor hot baby.

In less disgusting news, I'm back on the "let's see if I can stick to 1200 calories a day" wagon, and so far it's going fine. I discovered that a lot of my calories are coming from indiscreet half & half usage in my coffee...now that I'm measuring how much I use, I'm using a lot less. What can I say, I like my coffee to be a dairy product. I started using FitDay to track my intake and it soothes my anal retentive tendencies. Plus I really like seeing how many calories I eat, how many I burn, and what the breakdown of Carbohydrates/Fat/Protein is. It also encourages me to get out of my chair more as I get to write it down. Weird, I know, but I'll do whatever works.

B.C.

2006-02-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

People keep posting pictures of their new babies, nieces, nephews, etc., and it's making me crazy!

BABY CRAZY.

Two of my friends are pregnant, one due in a month (!!!!). Babies everywhere!

Babieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

In a fit of Red-Hot Baby Fever I Googled "newborn babies" and the first thing that came up was this:

Yipes!

Those are hedgehogs, by the way. In the Google Images thumbnail I wasn't sure what the heck I had stumbled upon.

I've started stalking hospital websites again, peeking at their New Arrivals.

Whoo, is it hot in here? I need to loosen my collar.

Pictures on my desk.

2006-02-13T18:27:00.000-05:00

I brought some pictures to work to put on my desk, one of which being this one:

That's kidlet when he was but three months old. I can't believe he was ever that small! Yet when I look at his face it's undeniably him. His teensy little fists fascinate me.

I haven't been taking pictures lately, I'm out of print film and my digital camera is a POS that I can't use with a battery. I'll have to settle for a shot I took in early November:

He's grown so much. I simply can't believe it. He's two and a half as of last week, and every time I look at him he's different.

I have this one right next to my monitor so I can look at it any time:

Quick layman's explanation...

2006-02-10T21:27:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd take a moment to sort-of explain what I was doing here:


x = (Replace(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME"), ".aspx", ""))
filename = Right(x, ((Len(x) - (InStrRev(x, "/")))))

You see, I do the bulk of my work on a web application written in VB.Net that uses ASP.Net mingled with VB.Net on my end, and this particular bit was for some work on our company's website.

Every website has (or at least should have) meta data including descriptors and meta keywords. The old school way of handling this was to have code containing


‹meta description="This website is for Widget Enterprises, where widgets in blue, green, purple, and all the colors of the rainbow can be purchased at discount prices."›
‹meta keywords="widget, widgets, enterprise, enterprises, discount, wholesale"›

in the header of each page, tailored to the specific content of that page. The meta information I'm dealing with is used by search engines to describe and index your web pages.

In my case, I didn't want to have to cut and paste tons of information into each web page, and since the bulk of our site is driven dynamically anyway (meaning the content isn't static, it's all pulled in from somewhere else) I thought it would be cool to do that with the meta info, too.

The old site design has a web user control that basically assigns a value to plop meta information into, then automatically writes the header into your page. Then each page has a string containing the two types of meta information, which are passed into the page in question on load. This still means each page had to have this string pasted into it. Still too much work.

I recently learned to love ASP.Net multi-dimensional arrays when I built the left sidebar navigation - rather than writing a huge bunch of code for each menu that would appear, I wrote a series of multi-dimensional arrays that contained key information that changed based on the page you were on, allowing the JavaScript rollovers and case statements to use one set of base code that pulls from the arrays instead of typing everything out multiple times.

So, after that foray into the unknown and emerging victorious, I thought to myself, "Why not put all of the meta data in an array so it's all stored in one place, that way if it's ever changed or added to it can be done all at once?" That would cut down on errors caused by forgetting to update a specific page, which is easy to do.

Now to explain what I did that took so long. Before I could write my array for the meta data, I had to think about how I was going to call it. The best way would be to figure out what page I was on, then use that information to pull the corresponding data from the array.

How would I do that? I'd look in the URL. Since all of our pages are VB.Net on the backend with some mingled ASP.Net code mixed in for flavor, I was in pretty much completely new territory. I read up on server variables and learned that there is a lot of information one can get just by asking for it...except, apparently, just the file name of the page you're on. Sigh.

After much much much MUCH experimentation and research, I figured out that I could get the path and file of the page I was on, getting something much like this:


/Directory/SubDirectory/Filename.html

What I want, in the end, is the string "Filename" as that's what I'll use to determine which part of my meta data array I want to use. Hence the "Careers" string would pull meta data for the careers page, "Press" for the press page, etc.

How I got this string is I looked at the path (used by calling Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME") - I had originally been using "PATH_INFO" but that would have included any POST data which I didn't want) and first chopped off the file extension on the right hand side, which was ".aspx", or in my example, ".html". That turned this string:

/Directory/SubDirectory/Filename.html

into this string:

/Directory/SubDirectory/Filename

So far, so good. At the same time I named a variable "x" and assigned it to this value as shorthand.

The second line does a number of things, specificially it counts the string after appending .html, then uses the InStrRev function to count backwards through the string until it hits the first forward slash, and giving me the position of that slash, which is just before my file name. THEN, I'm taking that number and subtracting it from the length of the appended string, which gives me the number of letters in my file name, and THEN I'm using the Right function to count back from the right end of the string the number of letters I just figured and assigning the resulting string to the value "filename".

So the length of /Directory/SubDirectory/Filename is 32.
Starting on the right end of the string and moving left until hitting the first "/", finds it at position 24 in the string.
Subtracting 24 from 32 results in 8, which is the number of letters in the filename "Filename".

The reason I have to go through all this instead of just looking at the file name and counting the letters manually is that I don't know which file name is being called, and they are all different lengths. It could be the Press.aspx page, or the Careers.aspx page, etc. This way I get the exact string that I want.

What THAT allows me to do is put these two lines of code in the code behind my master header for the entire website - place it once, and every time a page loads it runs and pulls out the file name for that page. The beauty of this is that if I add pages in the future, all I need to do is add the page, and add the meta data to my array (keeping all of this data in the same place), and it will automatically be populated when the page is loaded. I don't have to touch the code of the actual new page at all. It's completely dynamic.

I'm going to set it up, of course, to have a set of default data in case none exists in the array, that way every single page in the website will have some sort of meta data.

Isn't that cool?!

Well, I think so.

Then tonight I was in the restroom at a local BBQ joint and it occurred to me that all of the other page-specific variables being set in the individual page headers can be crammed into the same array page and called at the same time! That will allow me to create a new page, and it will grab all of its necessary navigation, meta, and alt text information from one array.

All of the important data is kept in one place, and the pages that are being created for the website contain minimal code.

(And yes Sharon, I know of regular expressions, and started looking at them today. That's another fish to fry entirely!)

I was most excited that I started the day having NO idea how I was going to get this to work, and through talking to other coworkers, my husband (the SQL/VB god), and reading a lot of stuff online I figured it out. No one had the one solid solution for me (resulting in my killing the server with an loop that caused a huge memory leak in aspnet_wp.exe, oops) but everyone gave me ideas that led to my final discovery.

My first working set of code looked something like this:


x = (Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
x = (Replace(x, ".aspx", ""))
Str1 = Len(x)
Str2 = InStrRev(x, "/")
FileLen = (Str1 - Str2)
filename = Right(x, FileLen)

The final code was just this same expression, condensed down to replace all of the variables with the actual expressions:


x = (Replace(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME"), ".aspx", ""))
filename = Right(x, ((Len(x) - (InStrRev(x, "/")))))

If I wanted to be really anal I could condense this to ONE line by removing "x" and stating the server variable request each time like this:


filename = Right(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME"), ((Len(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")) - (InStrRev(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME"), "/")))))

But honestly that's way more characters and the two lines are such a small statement that I'm not saving processing time by sacrificing readability.

*happy sigh*

There!

I'm realizing that this wasn't much of a "quick" explanation, and I'm sure a lot of people just glazed over it. I guess I went into it for the folks who do understand what I'm talking about as I wanted to share my success, and also because I find it fun and exciting to talk about this stuff.

The next time you wonder what I do all day, just read this entry and that's pretty accurate.

In the emotional/touchy-feely aspect, I got to use my brain and figure something out and realize that I'm not a stupid shithead after all. After my last manager I really thought that I wasn't cut out for technology jobs, she had me convinced that I was useless. I seriously haven't learned this much since I was a contractor in the late 90s. I am so excited to be learning and utilizing and figuring this shit out! THIS is why I am so thrilled with my job, I get to do stuff like this every day.

My manager said "Nicely done!" when I showed him the end result, and the other person I'm working with on the website (it's her project, I'm just assisting) was as thrilled as I was. It's so nice to be around other people who appreciate the same things I do when it comes to feeling helplessly excited over code.

Best of all, one of the application programmers from upstairs (who clued me in about "SCRIPT_NAME", actually) came down to see my streamlined code and complimented me on it, then stood around and chatted with me for a few minutes about geeky things. I've said hi to him in passing up until now, but he's NEVER come down to just shoot the breeze with me. I think that he finally sees me as a peer and not just the new guy. I have arrived!

Ok, off to bed. Tomorrow I'll take pictures of my current knitting projects and share them with you.

Woo hooooooo!!!!

2006-02-10T17:49:00.000-05:00

This will only make sense to other total and complete nerds.

The culmination of six hours' work:


x = (Replace(Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME"), ".aspx", ""))
filename = Right(x, ((Len(x) - (InStrRev(x, "/")))))

Programming endorphins! Yeah!

Stupid things I do.

2006-02-08T19:16:00.000-05:00

Here's the stupid thing I did over the weekend - got to bed late (of course), then woke up around 2am ravenous. Stumbled out to the kitchen to find a snack, decided that some bread would be nice. Picked up loaf and bread knife and proceeded to cut a slice off in my hand. Yeah. I know. I ended up cutting a shallow slice out of the inside of my middle, ring, and pinkie fingers just above the first knuckle crease. AIEE! I went to bed with my hand clamped shut to keep it from bleeding. A handful of days later (ha), it's mostly healed. I won't be doing that again.

Stuff. Lots of stuff.

2006-02-08T19:11:00.000-05:00

So last week daddy Michael was home sick three out of five days, the poor guy. I mentioned this earlier but I really must trumpet it to the skies - while he was home he not only worked on painting the living room trim, but he also cleaned the house from top to bottom and organized a bunch of stuff that I'd been avoiding for months. Seriously, I do not deserve this fine man. He folded a veritable mountain of laundry that had been sitting, clean, piled in the rocking chair for weeks. I have this folding phobia - if the laundry piles up I'll wash and dry it all like a madwoman, but dump it in a huge pile and then get so overwhelmed that I can't fold it. I'm weird like that. He got through the whole thing! Amazing. He also cleaned the pantry (where we keep the litterbox), vaccuuming the floor and washing the litter mats. He neatened up every room, leaving my desk alone, however, which was probably a good choice as it's an avalanche waiting to happen, but vaccuumed and swept and dusted and everydamnthing. We had visitors this past weekend and I didn't feel at all ashamed of letting them into my house. Rock on.

Since then, I've been set and determined to keep the status quo since he worked so hard to get there...I have so many weird hangups, I can ignore clutter and mess for as long as necessary, but once things are cleaned up and everything has a place to be put away, I have no problem motivating myself to maintain that state. I think it's something about not being able to wrap my brain around cleaning up AND finding places to put things at the same time. I get overwhelmed. I know this means I need to get rid of a colossal amount of crap that's cluttering my life, which I am doing little by little. Goodwill is going to be getting a lot of donations this Spring.

I took a page out of Babs' book and set up two laundry baskets in place of our ancient nasty plastic laundry hamper (another college throwback). As we take clothes off, whites go in one basket and everything else in the other. When a basket is full, I wash the load. Since it's only one load at a time, I'm able to take it out of the dryer and fold it. So far, so good. As long as I keep up on things I think I'll be okay. I've also been making sure the kitchen is clean before going to bed, which is more work than the laundry but not impossible. I'm hoping to start integrating other regular chores like cleaning the bathroom, vaccuuming, etc. If I could do one of these major chores every other day, for instance, and just go on a rotating schedule. Well, let's see if I can simply keep up with the everyday stuff first.

What I've found is that between making and eating dinner, feeding and watering the cats, dog, and chinchillas, letting the dog out, scooping the litterbox, putting away clean dishes, washing the dirty dishes, wiping down counter and stovetops, doing laundry, giving the kidlet a bath, nursing him, getting some play time in with him, getting him in jammies and to bed pretty much takes every minute from when we get home around 6pm to when we go to bed around 10. We try to get kidlet in bed by 8pm, but it usually ends up being 9-9:30pm that he actually goes to sleep. Getting him to bed earlier is pretty much impossible unless we want to more or less put him in jammies the minute we get home and have no time with him at all. Once in bed it takes a while to get him to settle down and drift off, though I will say it's a heck of a lot easier than it was a month ago. So that more or less leaves us two hours to do all of the aforementioned things before his bedtime. While one of us is putting kidlet to bed, the other works on housework, though we have to be careful about laundry as the washer and dryer are right next to our bedroom and any extra noise will keep kidlet up.

Last night the kidlet didn't want daddy Michael to put him to bed, he wanted me to, and it took jumping around with him for 20 minutes singing "Clap your hands! Stomp your feet! Jump in the air!" (TMBG again, sigh), then another 30 lying with him, talking about his favorite fruits and vegetables. Even then he started crying for boobie in the end and I had to stroke his hair and calm him down until he fell asleep. By this point it was after 9:30 and I still had stuff to do. Daddy Michael was kind enough to scoop the litterbox while I was in the bedroom with kidlet. I didn't finish everything until after 10:30, and by that point I knew I should go to bed, but I hadn't had any time to unwind. I ended up sitting up and knitting while Michael went to bed, and as a result I got to bed late. I went to sleep on the couch around 12:30 and at 4am was roused by kidlet whispering, "Mommy boobie?" in my ear. Sigh. Got up, went pee, got into bed and lay half-awake while kidlet nursed for a while, then got him detached and fell asleep for another 30-45 minutes until the alarm went off. Thankfully Michael let me sleep in a little longer while he did his thing, and kidlet was out until we woke him up. Overall a good morning as we got out of the house by 7am, though from the state of the three of us I think we should all be going to bed earlier. Michael got the most sleep at 7 hours, and he still looked rocked. So when do I think I'm going to be able to fit in any elliptical exercise on a regular basis? Maybe I can start getting up at 5 and doing it before showering in the morning? I wish I was a morning person, I am so not.

Speaking of which, with the blitzkrieg of getting the living room done and preparing for house guests, my elliptical machine is still in its box in the garage. Now that the extension is cleaned up, however, I think we're going to drag it in some night this week and put it together. I also want to get a small television set with a VCR and DVD player so I can use my exercise videos in the extension, the floor out there is very stable and I won't worry about knocking things down like I would in the house where I'd be jumping on a 130-year old hardwood floor. We're not making any purchases this month, however, so it'll have to wait until March at the earliest.

I forgot to mention - the living room is (nearly) done! It's done enough, anyway. We moved the furniture back in on Friday night and it is SO NICE to have our living room back. I can't even tell you how nice. Two of the doors and some of the trim around the windows still need a second coat of white paint, but it's passable enough that we can starting using the room again. We also haven't done anything with moudling or light fixtures, we wanted to see what the room looked like after it was painted. I love, love, LOVE the color, and it's so much better than that horrendous old wallpaper. After we put our sad old couch back in the room, Michael stood back and said, "Now that the room looks nice, our furniture looks like shit!" We put the couch cover over the couch to hide its hideousness (though ironically it now matches the walls), and hopefully sometime in the next year we'll replace it. Seeing the room with furniture in it made me decide that I definitely want to get the slightly fancy Tiffany-styled pendants I was eyeing at Lowe's.

- later -

I've decided on something else, I looked up the website of a locally-owned lighting place and went to the website of one of their distributors, I plan to pick out what we want and ask the store to order it so my money goes to the local economy instead of Lowe'$. Here are the two Michael and I are fondest of:

Which one do you like best? I'm leaning toward the first one. Keep in mind we'll need to get two, as there are two ceiling fixtures in the living room. There were some REALLY nice ones that I liked, but they were $800-$1100 apiece and took SIX lightbulbs each! No thanks. The two above are under $200 and I have a 15% off coupon for the lighting store so that'll save a little bit of money. Maybe they'll give me a better deal!

S.S.

2006-02-08T19:10:00.000-05:00

In other news, I have TMBG's 'Here Come the ABCs' stuck in my head. C Is For Conifers, The Alphabet Lost and Found, and E Eats Everything most prominently. We've also been listening to TMBG's 'No!' album in the car, so I've also got In The Middle and Robot Parade stuck in there, too. I love TMBG, but I was disappointed to discover that they've become yet another Disney incarnation. How sad. I guess it gets their stuff out there, but still.

Last week I took advantage of VideoPort's Free Family Video Friday and picked up Follow That Bird for my kiddo. Imagine my delight to find that, while a movie with a very stupid story and bad acting, was a walk down memory lane for Old School Sesame Street fans. Frankly I was shocked at how much CTW has changed SS since the 80s - I had completely forgotten how ghetto the whole neighborhood was! Big Bird's 'house' was made up of old doors blocking off an old alley, covered in flaking lead paint. There were auto body shops and Asian grocers right next door, Hooper's store was a loosely held-together assemblage of stationery supplies, craptastic plastic toys, and a lunch counter run by a filthy Grouch. Do you really want to buy a 50 cent hot dog from a matted green monster who lives in a trash can?

Today's SS is an encapsulated environment, clean and bright and primary colored. There's no real life in it any more, not compared to old school SS. It was also a huge kick seeing everyone so young again - Metrosexual Luis wearing a tight-fitting v-necked striped muscle shirt, for instance, and Hot Maria in a short skirt and pedal pushers. Gordon was looking positively hunky, as well. It also made me realize - what the heck happened to Olivia? And Linda? Where did they go? They rocked. Overall, I enjoyed the movie simply for the memories of the SS I remembered as a kid, before it was all cleaned up and made 'presentable'.

Insomnia & Somnambulation

2006-02-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, so let's see. Had a decent weekend though I appear to be battling some major insomnia and then the resultant exhaustion. I don't understand where this is coming from - I mean, I have some stresses in my life, but why can't my brain just shut off for the night so I can get some sleep?

The weird thing that's happening is that I'm having these very lucid dreams of impending doom...they're very hard to describe. The best I can do is to say that I'll wake up in my dream (making me semi-conscious in real time) and sense that something is coming, or changing, nearly imperceptably in the room...I can't even get it straight in my own head. For instance, I had a dream that if I tried to detect anything by smell that the smells had been changed and I would be somehow taken over...? See, it makes no sense. Last night I looked at my husband and son and sensed a change falling over them, moving toward me, and I knew somehow that if I breathed in a certain way while sleeping when the change reached me that we would all stop breathing and be changed somehow into something else...?

Okay, now I really sound nuts.

Anyway, these dreams all revolve around something happening in the room with me and it being necessary for me to actively avoid it, usually by waking up and therefore 'defeating' it. Last night I jerked myself awake after peering over at my family (with my dream tainting what I was seeing) and seeing the unknown change as a dark cloud settling over them and coming towards me. I sat up and told myself, "You're imagining it, this isn't real. Since it isn't real, you should just go back to sleep and let whatever it is happen. It can't hurt you, just go back to sleep." I lay down again, telling myself to just let the nonexistant 'change' happen so I could move past it once and for all. Of course as I drifted off again my mind started screaming, "This is what the change wants you to think!" so after an imperceptable amount of time I jerked awake AGAIN, breathing hard and turning to watch my son to make sure he was breathing.

There's always that terrifying moment between when I look at Michael and when he takes a breath that I think, "That's it, he's dead. I didn't stop it in time." That amount of time isn't more than a few seconds but it stretches out like years.

Why do I keep having these waking nightmares that something is after me, and it's my responsibility to stop it?

I remember waking up three, perhaps four times last night, and one of those times I woke up with my glasses on so I must have gotten out of bed and walked into the adjacent room where I keep them on top of the bureau. I don't recall that part. Michael has also noticed me getting up frequently at night, too. This has been going on for months, but it's been more pronounced since my mom died (for obvious reasons, duh).

Then the insomnia, that sucks balls too. I'll get focused on something and won't be able to stop myself, whether it be a knitting project I'm working on, a movie I'm watching on DVD, or the other night when I put those Etsy items online, I was up until 3:30am taking photos, cropping them, and posting everything just so. I get obsessed with finishing a task and can't settle until it's done. Last night it was folding laundry. Michael was home sick three days last week and somehow cleaned the ENTIRE house while he was home, making him eligible for Super Hero status. Since I'm such a terribly cluttered person, I've become obsessed with making sure what has been cleaned up STAYS cleaned up. Hence, I folded a couple of loads of laundry that I had previously dumped into the rocking chair, then rotated some more laundry and ended up washing, drying, and folding two more loads. I couldn't go to bed without making sure what he had spent time cleaning up stayed that way. I didn't want to start the laundry mountain all over again now that it was defeated. I ended up going to bed at 11:30, and then still couldn't sleep due to dwelling on Mom. Once I did get to sleep, see beginning of entry on weird-ass nightmares.

When Michael roused me at 6am, I could hardly move. In fact I turned from side to side for another twenty minutes before he finally coaxed me from bed. Once I'm asleep deeply enough, I don't dream and I can get some rest...unfortunately this always seems to be around 5-6am, when I have to get up. When I nap during the day it's often an immediate very deep sleep that I'm very hard to rouse from. I think the insomnia results in my not wanting to try and sleep until I'm so exhausted that hopefully I'll just conk out and not wake up every half hour.

Whoops, I hadn't intended to make this a diatribe on my sleep issues. I guess it's what's on my mind.

Juicy entry about FRAUD, or, how I am dumb.

2006-02-02T20:54:00.000-05:00

In the fraud update department, I received a check from the volunteer organization for the money I was defrauded at xmas-time. I'm feeling better and not so much "Oh my god I'm a fucking idiot" about this now, so I'll go into detail for the curious. I keep thinking to myself, "At least my heart was in the right place and I was naive for all the right reasons."

It still stings a little, though.

Here's the gist. I wanted to do something nice for someone as it was the holidays, and I wanted to do something I could get kidlet involved in so he could learn the true meaning of xmas. I got in touch with a volunteer organization here in Maine, explaining my situation and desires, hoping that they would give us some sort of gig giving toys to sick kids or something like that. I'd do the traditional soup kitchen route, but I think Michael's too young as yet.

I got a call back from a woman, I'll call her (Org Lady), saying that there was a "perfect" opportunity for us in the town next door to ours. They had received a call from a nurse at a local hospital about a woman who was an end-stage breast cancer patient, not expected to live past 2006. She had a 3-year old son, no family, no friends, and no money to buy xmas gifts for him. She said she had spoken to (Cancer Patient) and she was a sweet, lonely woman who just wanted some companionship. (Org Lady) asked if I would be able to buy some toys for her child, to which I readily agreed. I said I could go by and visit her on xmas and have some coffee, talk for a bit, bring her some presents, that sort of thing. Cool.

It's easier if I just paste in the two emails I've exchanged with (Org Lady) over the past month and a half that explain what happened next. I know you'll be rolling your eyes at me, but I gotta tell you, no matter how many misgivings I had, actually being there makes the whole situation that much harder.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hello (Org Lady),

I never heard back from you after the holidays, so I'll just email you now.

I'm very concerned about this whole (Cancer Patient) issue...here's what happened in detail and I would welcome your advice as to what I should do next.

I called the number you gave me for the nurse named (Nurse) (###-####), you said she was from CMMC but when I spoke to her she said she was from MMC. In any case, at the moment I called her on December 23rd (right after speaking with you), she claimed to be at (Cancer Patient)'s house in Xxxxxxx as (Cancer Patient)'s electricity had been turned off, and (Nurse) had arranged to pay the bill of $626 to get it turned back on. She said at the time that (Cancer Patient) was running oxygen day and night which is part of why it was so high.

She continued, telling me that (Cancer Patient) was out of her pain medication and that she didn't have the money to get more until she got her check for $800 from the state on January 1st. She told me that if (Cancer Patient) didn't get the medication, she would have to go to the hospital that night and be put back on a morphine drip, and would not be able to spend her last Christmas with her son. She was very insistent about this and asked me if I could help by paying for the prescription. I told her that I would have to check with my husband before committing to anything and she pressured me, saying that she would pay for it except she had just paid the electric bill and wouldn't have any extra money until the following Friday (12/30). She said if I could cover it that she would personally pay me back, or that (Cancer Patient) would make sure I was paid from her check from the state.

I had called (Nurse) (as I mentioned to you) hoping only to get some background information about (Cancer Patient) before actually speaking with (Cancer Patient) or committing myself to anything, but as (Nurse) claimed to be at (Cancer Patient)'s house and her urgent attitude I felt pressured. She told me the medication would be very expensive and I asked how much - she said around $400. It was a lot of money but I told her I thought we might be able to swing it as long as it wasn't an issue for us to get paid back, she said that it wasn't and repeated her offer to pay us personally the following Friday or that (Cancer Patient) would see to it that we were paid when she got her check.

I went to my husband's office and talked to him about it, he agreed that we couldn't leave this woman to
spend the holidays in the hospital instead of with her son, and that we could manage the temporary
expenditure to help her out. I called the number back and got (Cancer Patient) - she told me that (Nurse) had left the phone with her so that she could make calls if necessary. We left Portland immediately and went to her apartment in Xxxxxxx.

Upon meeting (Cancer Patient), she seemed nice enough and showed us into her home. The apartment smelled of cigarette smoke and I was surprised as I'd think someone using oxygen wouldn't be lighting a cigarette in the same space. Her son, she said, was across the hall at the neighbor's - again, I was surprised as both you and (Nurse) told me (Cancer Patient) had no one and (Nurse) claims to have personally watched (Cancer Patient)'s son for her while she was in the hospital. We went across the hall to meet her son and let him know we would be going out - I noticed a sign on the neighbor's door reading "Caution - Oxygen in use." Inside the apartment were a lot of people working on something in the kitchen, "getting ready for Christmas," (Cancer Patient) said.

My husband and son stayed at (Cancer Patient)'s apartment while she and I went to the pharmacy - on the way there she told me that her neighbor's husband had heart cancer and that she had become friends with her after finding out about it. We got to the pharmacy and she thanked the pharmacist for "Not treating me like dirt," to which the pharmacist responded, "Of course not - you're proactively doing something about it," which I didn't understand at the time. I paid for the prescription, which was $510. Again, I was feeling very uncomfortable with this, but I was there with her and what was I supposed to do, just walk away? I didn't feel as if I could morally do something like that. She repeatedly assured me that she would pay me back when she got her check from the state for $8000, which wasn't consistent with what (Nurse) told me.

On the way back to her apartment I started to get uneasy about the whole situation as things didn't
completely add up. I won't go into detail but there were a lot of inconsistencies between what she was
telling me, what (Nurse) had told me, and what you had told me. Back at her apartment I gave her my contact numbers and asked her if there was more she needed, to which she said no. We left her apartment and on the drive back to my house she called me on my cell phone, asking if I could help her get to the drug store to buy diapers, then saying never mind, that she would handle it herself. I asked her if she could call a cab (she also claimed cab service had been set up for her to use by a donor) and she claimed the service was closed. When I got home, I called the service and asked if they were open - they were.

That was when I put the call in to your cell phone, wanting to talk to you about the situation as I was
feeling extremely worried about it. I went online and looked up the name of the medication I had paid for (I looked at the slip while at the pharmacy), called Suboxone. This medication is used to help opiate
addicts deal with withdrawal symptoms. As you can imagine, I was extremely concerned at this point and I called my credit card company to report a possible fraud.

My credit card company advised me to get in touch with you (which I did), and the pharmacy that dispensed the medication. At this point I didn't want to ask (Cancer Patient) directly in case she was telling the truth and the Suboxone was being used for withdrawal from morphine or something.

The next day, the pharmacy contacted me and could not give me any personal information about (Cancer Patient) so I was unable to verify whether or not she has cancer. They were only able to tell me that Suboxone is used for opiate withdrawal and not to their knowledge used for treatment of pain for cancer patients. The pharmacist also told me that the prescription appeared valid otherwise she would not have filled it.

After the holidays, I received your phone message stating that you would call me back to speak to me
personally. I've tried to call (Cancer Patient) a number of times to see how she's doing and hope that we could discuss repayment for the medication, but I've only been able to leave messages and have not spoken to her.

At this point, I definitely feel that I have been the victim of fraud and I'm not sure what to do next. I'm
still hesitant to try and track down (Cancer Patient) in person, because if on the off chance she really does
have cancer I'm going to look like the biggest jerk in the world questioning it. I'm readying to call my
credit card company back and find out if I need to file a police report - again, I am hesitant as I don't know if (Cancer Patient) is for real or not. I also have no way to contact (Nurse), if she even exists, to find out more information.

I need your help. Please email me or call me at ###-###-#### or ###-###-#### so we can discuss this.

Thank you,
- (Me)

-------------------------------------------------------

After this email, I got one back from (Org Lady) apologizing for what happened and offering to send me a check for the money I lost. She was good to her word and a check for $510 (told you it was a lot) did arrive at my house last night, and appeared legitimate. I won't breathe completely easy until it clears the bank, but it does a lot to help me not feel like such a schmuck.

The interesting thing is that after I left (Org Lady) the original voicemail on December 23rd, I got a message on my answering machine back telling me that she would call me on another day and that "frankly I don't know what I can do for you, all we did was refer you to (Cancer Patient)." That really pissed me off, and I heard nothing for most of January. After I sent that email I got a reply the next day - I wonder if it got copied to her boss or something? Hmm.

Today I received a call from (Org Lady's Boss), I spoke to her for a few minutes then sent them both this email.

-------------------------------------------------------

I received the check in the mail yesterday, thank you so much for sending it. I just spoke to (Org Lady's Boss) from your organization and gave her some information, but I'll email it to you as well so you can have it on hand:

(Cancer Patient)
(Address)

Her 3-year old son is named Xxxxxxx.

The "nurse" from MMC whom I originally spoke with, and the number you gave to me for her:

Xxxxx Xxxxx
###-###-####

The prescription was filled at:

(Pharmacy Address)

When I spoke to the pharmacist on Saturday December 24, she seemed willing to discuss the medication dispensed and confirm its uses but not (Cancer Patient)'s medical history for confidentiality reasons.

I could definitely identify (Cancer Patient) if I saw her again, and I could possibly ID her son. He seemed older than three, had straight dark hair cut short in the back and straight across his forehead and a medium build. (Cancer Patient) is a slight woman, about 5'4", with frizzy blonde shoulder-length hair and a pale Caucasian complexion. Her face is very thin and her mouth is drawn as if she were missing some teeth (I don't remember if she was or not). I believe she had light eyes, though I'm not positive. She smokes and carries a fake fur pocketbook in a leopard print. When I saw her she was wearing a white crocheted net cap on her head and a winter ski jacket in pink and white.

My husband also met (Cancer Patient) and spent a good amount of time in her apartment while we were at the pharmacy, and he also spoke with the neighbors so perhaps he could give more detail if they turn out to be involved.

There were 5-7 people in the apartment across the hall from (Cancer Patient)'s (#1, I believe), an older woman and a bunch of kids, some teens, the others younger. I didn't see them for more than a minute. I had asked (Cancer Patient) if I could meet her son, who was being watched by the neighbor, and walked through the kitchen of this apartment to the living room where (Son) was watching television.

My suspicion is that the woman in the apartment across the hall is "(Nurse)", as she mentioned that the electric bill was so high due to running oxygen night and day, and it was her apartment (#1) that had the sign indicating that oxygen was in use and not (Cancer Patient)'s apartment (#2).

Also...I don't know if this is relevant, but when I saw (Cancer Patient)'s last name on her prescription I asked if she were related to (My Friend), who is a friend of mine from high school. She hesitated and then said that she was, but that was her father's side of the family and she wasn't in contact with any of them. I didn't press the issue and have not asked (My Friend) to confirm this. If necessary I can get (My Friend)'s contact information.

I hope this information helps.

I'm going to give (Org Lady's Boss) a call this evening to discuss what will happen next. Thanks again for all of your assistance and let me know if you need more information.

- Jen

-------------------------------------------------------

During the two calls I spoke with her, (Org Lady's Boss) apologized profusely about what had happened and told me that she and the CEO would ensure that I was compensated for what happened (which I assume to be the check I received). She was very nice and also said that they were filing a police report and would like my help if I were willing. I told her I would call her tonight to go over the specifics - she offered to go with me to the police station to file the initial report. I'm cool with all of that as long as the fraud artists never find out my address. THANK GOD our phone is not only unlisted, but it's under Michael's name and I kept my maiden name when we got married! (Cancer Patient) has my name and my telephone number, but doesn't know Michael's last name and even with the information she has she wouldn't be able to find out my address without a lot more detective work that I don't think she's capable of doing.

I'm feeling better, because hopefully we can make these people pay. It's terrible to think that someone would do something like this, play on the heartstrings of generous people, during the holidays, no less, resulting in the people who really need help not getting it. Fucking assholes. I think I feel stupidest that I actually sat in a public park and cried about this lowlife, that I sobbed to Michael that we just HAD to help this poor woman, this poor mother who was leaving her son and would only have one more xmas with him.

It makes me feel even better about helping Eric, who was over the moon that I'd buy him a cookie and a $10 gift card.

So, yes, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "What a stupid ass." I feel that way, trust me. I haven't even breathed a word of this to anyone but Michael and a couple of online friends who don't know me in person...I couldn't even tell my best friend whom I've known for over 25 years! (Of course, she'll read this and then she'll know, hee hee!) Now I want to tell people so they don't make the same mistake. As much as it will make me feel bad, in the future I will insist on being cautious before helping a stranger. I'll be able to say, "Please don't take this the wrong way, but I need to verify that you're legitimate. I've been scammed before and don't want to have a reason to distrust you."

As I said earlier, I did what I did with the best intentions in mind, and though I may have gotten abused for it, I won't stop acting on my good intentions.

Wednesday stuff.

2006-02-01T19:59:00.000-05:00

The living room, it is 95% done. Michael was home sick yesterday and not only did he get a coat of white on the trim (and a second coat on some parts), he also completely cleaned the house while he was at it. He is Superman. No joke. I got home and was all like OMGBBQ!!!!!11eleventyone!!!1!

Heh.

I am still super duper majorly enjoying my job! I have a lot to say about it but I don't have a lot of time to get into it right now. I was talking to Jenn the other day and she said, "You're happy and you're enjoying your job - there's something wrong with that." Next week marks two months here and while it still may qualify as new-job honeymoon, I'll take what I can get! I think what's been the best is that I work directly with five other people, and each of those people possess a different aspect that I really identify with. It's so cool. I don't work with anyone I can't stand, and that, my friends, is a first.

Thinking about Mom at lot lately, and it's bumming me out a little. I was looking at cards today and saw a couple of happy birthday cards for mothers. They were really sweet and it makes me miss her more than ever. I think about how I would get so imaptient with her constant pointless phone calls, I would literally be jumping from foot to foot waiting to get off the phone. Now I wish she would call and tell me all of the silly little non-things going on in her life. I miss being annoyed by you, Mom.

With that, I think I'll close. That's plenty for one day.

This is the entry.

2006-01-28T02:44:00.000-05:00

This is the entry I am writing at 2:45 in the morning.

We bought a new shower curtain tonight. And a wok. I'm replacing the craptastic Teflon thing for a steel one. Then I found some cute little frames with rhinstones and fake gemmy things and they were 75% off so I thought, "Why not have some girly picture frames as I don't have any?" And so I did. We also got a toilet brush but that's not all that exciting. No, not really.

Whoo, my life, just a whirlwind of excitement sometimes.

We visited Jenn and Leonard and baby Katy afterward and had dinner with them - that kiddo is getting HUGE! Michael was a skinny little chicken-legged baby, Katy is a fatty fatty bo batty and oh my GOD I just want to pinch her chub all day long. She is so friggin cute I am nearly beside myself. Michael was so sweet, went into her room and sang her a little song while she went to sleep. I think the words were, "Katy go to sleep." Ain't he creative?

Last night kidlet was tired and cranky and I asked if he wanted to color, he said yes. We sat on the bed with the coloring book and Michael directed me where to color and with what crayon. He showed his appreciation for my talents by patting me on the head and saying, "Good job, Mommy." He was still a crankypants from being tired, so it was funny and yet distressing when I decided to color autotonomously and actually colored something before consulting kidlet. When I did he threw the fit of all fits. Three times this happened, and by that time I was like, "This is SO not worth it!"

I rented Dancer in the Dark again because apparently I like to be depressed. No, actually, I've been listening to the Selmasongs album and the songs on it are different than the ones in the movie, so I rented the movie again so I could hear them. I wish I had a way to record them. I love Netflix, though. I also watched Ringu because Japanese movies make me smile.

Okay, I should really slip into bed before it starts getting light out - we're meeting Dad, Bob, my SIL and my niece at 9am in Norway for breakfast, then working on the living room, then I'm alone with kidlet for the night.

I really should have gone to bed before now.

Drat.

P.S. Heather and/or Leah - if you read this, could you please give me your email address? I don't have either of them. Thanks! :)

Bunch of stuff

2006-01-26T19:32:00.000-05:00

I had this Next Great Idea the other day, we'll see if it actually works. I get so bored with working out and I have a terrible memory for remembering routines. I've been getting Fitness magazine for the past couple of years and I'm still flummoxed as to why I receive it - I never ordered it and I never get renewal notices. It did occur to me that maybe someone I know is sending it to me as a hint...hm.

I've been looking through them and they have regular features showing a new technique or set of exercises for different things. There's usually four different small sections in each issue. I went through the magazines I had on-hand and tore out these pages, I'm going to put them in clear plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder. I figure every day I'll do at least two pages, and just go from the front to the back of the binder. That way I'll be doing something different every day and shouldn't get bored or overwhelmed trying to figure out what to do. It's cool because some of the routines use the ball (which I've never used for anything but labor) and I've been wanting to figure out how to use it without killing myself.

I am having a super great awesome time at work lately. Maybe I'm a nerd but I totally have days when I sit back from my keyboard and think to myself, "Oh my god I love my job!" So, yeah. Things are going really well lately, at least from my perspective. I've been working on a ton of new stuff and getting the chance to learn things while putting them into practice. Right now I'm messing around with multidimensional arrays in ASP - I'm so rusty from having too many brain-atrophying jobs so it's fun to be exercising the poor thing.

I have an appointment to get my moustache ripped off. I'm alternately excited and terrified. It'll hurt, I know that, I'm just hoping that it happens quickly and my lip doesn't blow up like a big red balloon.

- later -

I survived! I had a wonderful 'aesthetician' named Richard, he was so sweet and most importantly quick. It took about ten minutes and cost me $8. Talk about a bargain! My lip has a slight red area in the little divot under my nose (that part hurt the most) and the area is a little numb with its sensor hairs removed, but overall I'm back to my old self, only less hairy.

I had a great telephone conversation with my friend Kerry last night - we hadn't talked much in the past months and had last seen one another last Summer, I think? It was a long time. I tend to get wrapped up in things and forgetful and of course whenever I'd think to call her or try to get together it was either a bad time (like while I was trying to go to sleep) or I'd feel guilty about not calling her sooner and feel paralyzed. It's a vicious cycle. In any case, she was justifiably feeling cheesed off at me about my behaviour, and I don't blame her. She called me, much to my surprise, and after a few minutes of catching up she put everything out on the table about how she felt and how I had treated her. I'm so glad she did, because I was so sorry for making her feel that way and never would have done it intentionally. We talked about everything and made up, then proceeded to have one of our marathon hours-long phone calls. It was so great to talk to her and I'm extremely grateful that we're friends. We've been sending make-up emails to one another all day :)

I'm hoping that now that I'm settled into a new job and have my life more or less under control that we can start seeing one another frequently again. Not to mention she is pregnant again and I am so jealous! Sigh.

I'm feeling all compartmentalized today, which is why I'm using all the horizontal rules.

See?

Sleep is still going well, except I'm staying up too late and I'm tired from that as a result. My own damned fault. Still, last night I got into bed with the Michaels and kidlet cuddled right up to me, no groping. Hooray!

Last night I made an awesome copy of the Thai Chicken and Rice soup I had at JavaNet the other day - here's my approximations if you want to try it yourself:

Jen's Thai Chicken and Rice Soup/Stew
1/2 can Mae Sri Panang Curry paste (this makes a fairly spicy broth, use more or less as desired)
2 cans coconut milk
2 cups water
handful of frozen basil leaves (or fresh, don't use dried)
2 skinless chicken breasts cut into strips, or 1 package previously frozen firm tofu cut into strips
2 tbs sugar
1-2 cups leftover rice

You can add veggies or mushrooms if you want - if I had baby corn on hand I would use that.

Heat coconut milk and curry paste to a boil - turn down to Low/Med to simmer. Add sugar and basil leaves, stir. Add rice, chicken and veggies, cook until chicken is done through. Leave on Warm until serving.

It's so simple, and it came out great. There was a ton left over which I will bring to work for lunch next week. I also made some sort of naan/flatbread to go with it, I made this recipe up but it was very easy and tasty.

Some Sort of Bread-Things

2 cups flour
2 tsp sugar or honey
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup water (or so)

Mix dry ingredients, add water little by little while mixing. The goal is to have a soft, pliable, and preferably not sticky dough. Heat canola oil in frying pan or wok until hot. Pinch off bits of dough, roll into balls and flatten to 1/4" thick. Fry in oil, turning periodically until browned on both sides.

The bread was fun, I made some of the dough into a kitty shape for little Michael, he really liked it. It's something that you can get creative with and tastes good. It reminded me a lot of the fried dough you get at the carnival, actually. A little more water and sugar and I think you'd have it. It could probably be adapted into easy donuts, too, with some yeast, sugar, and spices.

These certainly weren't the healthiest recipes I've made, but after so many nights of steamed vegetables, rice, and beans, it's a nice change.

I'm thinking about doing the MS Challenge again this year, in September. I need to raise $1500 to qualify, however, hopefully my coworkers are generous people or I can get my company to sponsor me or something. If any of my readers are interested in helping, I'll let you know how you can contribute once I sign up. I'm definitely doing the MS Walk on April 8th here in Portland, I figure it'll be fun (and a lot shorter).

My elliptical is arriving tomorrow! Yay! I have the weekend to put it together, now. I am so psyched about this - I'm going to turn the extension into a mini workout room. I asked Michael if we could get a small television that plays VHS tapes and DVDs as I have a bunch of workout videos that I want to use, and he said yes! I also want to try out my ball without injuring myself. Wish me luck!

All right, that's all the news that's fit to print for now.

My friend Eric

2006-01-24T19:34:00.000-05:00

There's something that happened to me that I haven't discussed here yet because I was incredibly embarrassed about it, but now I'm feeling less stupid so I'll talk about it a little. Only three people know about this up until now, I didn't even tell my best friend.

Right before xmas I was looking for a volunteer opportunity and ended up being scammed out of a goodly amount of money. The problem is I knew something was up while it was happening, but the situation was such that I didn't feel comfortable walking away once I was committed. Michael and I talked about it and were okay with it being a rather expensive lesson in naivete. That's as much detail as I feel like going into at the moment.

Much to my surprise, a couple of days ago I got an email from the volunteer agency who hooked me up with the scam artist, apologizing for what had happened and offering to pay me back for the money I lost. I was surprised as I had originally contacted the outreach affiliate right after this happened and she left me a message saying that there wasn't much she could do for me. I've checked up on the organization and it's legit, at the very least, so I have good faith that the check will actually be sent to me.

In any case, I feel a lot better knowing that my gut feelings were indeed correct and I also know that I will handle generosity to strangers much differently in the future. My thanks to M and Joy for listening to me freak out on the phone and for offering me counsel.

The past few days when I've gone out to get lunch and knit at the coffee shop I've noticed a middle-aged man standing outside of Starbucks, asking for change. He didn't look filthy or under the influence, and yesterday when I passed by him he very politely asked, "Excuse me, Miss, would you have any change you could spare?" I told him that regretfully I didn't, and continued on my way. As I reached the corner I realized that I had my bag with me and in my bag was my wallet, so I actually did have money on me that I could have given him.

I felt very guilty about this and today when I went out I kept an eye out for the man. As I was headed back to the office I saw him again in the same place. I went into Starbucks and bought a chocolate chip cookie and a $10 gift card, then slipped a $10 bill into the bag with the cookie. I walked up to him and said, "I'm glad to see you today, I felt bad that I didn't have any change for you yesterday," and presented him with the cookie and the card, saying "this is so you can get a hot drink since it's so cold out." The man was incredibly grateful and we ended up standing there for half an hour, talking.

He told me that he was a recovering alcoholic and that he had been in and out of a number of halfway houses, and that in the past few months had finally gotten help from a couple of organizations in town. He had a benefactor who was paying his bills and he was able to get an apartment (though he has no furniture), but with paying his security deposit in installments he had very little money for everyday necessities like food. I told him about my mom and said that I thought he was doing a great thing, quitting drinking, I hoped that he could hold the course and I was rooting for him.

Over the next half an hour we talked about all sorts of things, he was obviously very intelligent and had done a lot of things in his life to this point. I enjoyed speaking with him and he definitely was not drunk when I talked to him, my gut told me that he was on the level and just trying to get back on his feet. The look on his face when he talked about having to panhandle to buy food told volumes about his bruised dignity. He also seemed very lonely, which was no surprise. I told him about the time I lost my wallet on the day I had everything I owned in my car and had just quit my job, moving to NYC, and how a kind stranger had given me all of his pocket change so I could afford the tolls from MA to NY, and how since that day I try to find ways to help someone in need. He said he was so thankful for people like me, and I said it was no problem, that I was happy to help.

I felt very good as I walked away from my new friend Eric. I've decided to put together a bag of toiletries and bring it to him later this week. Rather than letting my bad experience sour me against helping others, I'm going to use part of the money I'm getting back to help Eric in little ways, just things to make his life a little easier on a daily basis.

Snow

2006-01-24T19:32:00.000-05:00

A few things, first...I watched Serenity two and a half times before sending it back to Netflix - I say two and a half because I watched it the first time while knitting, then a week later watched it again with undivided attention and ended up rewinding and watching some parts multiple times. Man, that was a good movie, and not just because I watched the whole series before seeing it. I think people who weren't familiar with Firefly would still like it. The actors did a fantastic job with little gestures and reactions, that's what really made this movie for me. Not to mention watching Summer Glau kick some major ass over and over again was inspiring. Did she do her own stunts?

I might even get Serenity on DVD someday. That's saying a lot as I don't own a lot of movies, I'm very picky.

This morning everything was so beautiful outside - we had a bunch of snow yesterday and driving to work it was all awash in sunlight. It looked like a freakin Currier & Ives lithograph. The fascinating thing about trees all frosted with snow like that is that you know in a matter of hours it will all be gone, the sun will melt it into nothing. It's cool to see something that isn't permanent like that.

2006-01-23T19:33:00.000-05:00

Had a very odd weekend, it was neither all good or all bad. Some of both.

Friday I was out sick and I slept most of the day, which was restorative and good. However, being sick I was still all out of whack so didn't feel right. Friday night I don't remember what we did. Hmm.

Saturday Heide and Thomi came over for a while, we ran some errands with the kids. It was really nice to see her as it had been a while. She's at 32 weeks now and looks amazing - once again, one of those tall thin people with the perfect round stretch mark free baby bellies. Color me green, green, green. She also had a cute new haircut that really suited her. She has dark features and shiny wavy hair that looks flirty and bouncy cut the way it is and she can put a scarf in her hair to hold it back, cute cute cute. Again, I felt positively pale and squat and washed out next to her - sort of like a forest-dwelling mushroom.

That aside, it was great to visit with her and see how much Thomi had grown (a lot). I felt terrible that the house was such a wreck and there was nowhere for all of us to sit down due to our living room being in the dining room and the housework having taken a back seat the past couple of weeks. Sigh. We couldn't get the kids to nap and Michael was getting very wild. Daddy Michael had already left for his Saturday D&D game so I was going to be alone with kidlet for the evening.

Heide, Jay, and Thomi eventually left as they needed to do a bunch of things before going home, and I tried to make the best of it. I was feeling generally blah due to my head cold and the kid was being very hyper.

I won't go into details of the blow-by-blow of the evening, I'll just leave it at saying that it was one of the worst nights I have ever spent with Michael, ever. He was angry and exhausted from not napping and I was wrung-out and frustrated with his behaviour. There was a lot of yelling and crying. The past week or so he's been extremely agressive about nursing in bed - once he's latched on and falls asleep I can't get him off of me without his waking up and throwing a fit. This means that the moment he wants to nurse and will fall asleep, my evening is over, and that wouldn't be so bad except my nipples start to hurt from the constant pressure (like, hours long).

We finally both fell asleep somewhere in the vicinity of 10:30, I think, and this was after an evening of destructiveness and the first attempt at going to bed occurring at 7pm. The next morning Michael asked me how my day was and I pretty much unloaded on him. I felt bad but at the same time he gets to go out for at least eight hours, sometimes more, every Saturday and other than work there is no time when I get to be kid-free to do anything I want to do. I was just so frustrated. I feel terrible wanting time away from kidlet when I spend so much time at work as it is, but I think it's more that when he has a bad evening I can deal with it when Michael is around to help take the pressure off. When we're having a terrible time and I know it's a matter of hours before my husband will be home I start feeling trapped. I was already sick, had spent the whole day wrangling him, so by the evening it wasn't a good scene.

Sunday was considerably better. Kidlet woke up happy as a lark after finally getting enough sleep, and we talked about what happened the night before. I told him I was sorry for yelling and being angry with him, and he seemed to be okay with it. We were able to discuss our behaviour with one another and he didn't get upset at all, which made me feel positive. Michael definitely lets us know when he's uncomfortable with something that he sees or hears; for instance, last night he saw a bit on Extreme Makeover Home Edition where they were using a felled tree to knock down a house, and that made him visibly upset.

We had a nice morning together and I was feeling improved so it made things a lot better. We met my dad and stepmom for breakfast and they took him to visit their house while we went back to our house to work on the living room. We got a lot done - got the second coat on the two largest walls, and there's one coat on the front and rear walls. We teamed up to paint the walls, one of us doing the edges while the other used the roller, and then I primed the doors while he worked at painting behind the radiators. All that's left is the second coat on the front and rear walls. then two coats of paint on the doors and trim. It definitely felt good to get so much done - we painted for about five hours all told.

That evening we headed out to my dad's house to pick up kidlet and have dinner. On the way there I stopped at a local sub shop and ran into a girl I went to high school with, she was a year ahead of me, I think. She and her husband were in the marching band with me. It was such a surprise to see her! Actually, I didn't see her at all...I walked in and was looking in one of the cases and she had to call my name three times before I looked up. Durr. It turns out she and her husband recently moved back to Maine and had a son, who was four months premature (!) and currently two months old and living in the NICU at Maine Med. She seemed to be doing well and we exchanged information so we can get together for dinner some night after work. It was really great bumping into her, I'm so glad I did. Maybe we'll have more friends in the area, that would be nice.

We continued to Dad's house and had some fair Chinese food for dinner, then went home and pretty much went right to bed, we were so tired. Today the backs of my thighs are sore, probably from all of the painting I did using the roller with the long pole on it. I did a lot of reaching and stretching and I can feel it today. I also pinched a nerve in my left palm and when I hit it directly, it hurts. Home improvement related injuries, ha.

Today it's snowing to beat the band! It was balmy and Aprilesque on Saturday, frigid yet gorgeous on Sunday, and today January has returned, bringing 2-4 inches with it. As of yesterday we had only a few dirty dots of snow left here and there, and now the ground is coated. It looks lovely coming down, like a movie. Too bad I have to drive in it later.

Soupy knitty booky nerdy

2006-01-23T19:28:00.000-05:00

Wow, how neat. I went out for lunch to the local internet cafe where they have some comfy couches and chairs that are perfect for parking and knitting. I've gone there a handful of times, now, and the only actual foody-food they serve is soup, which changes daily, and bagels, if you count those. Other than that they have coffee, tea, and lots of baked goods and other sweets. I've found that their soup of the day has been consistently excellent, today I had Thai Chicken with Rice. It tasted something like panang curry, I'll bet I could replicate it easily. Only I'd put in tons of basil for greens instead of bell peppers. I could live on panang curry - honestly.

*drools*

Anyway.

I sat at a stool in the front window to eat my soup and noticed two young women sitting in the comfy section knitting! OMG! I got so excited I nearly fell off my stool. I tried not to rush while eating my delicious soup, telling myself that they would still be there in ten minutes. Then I started to worry. What should I do? Should I knit in my seat there at the window and hope they call me over? Plunk right down on an adjacent couch and introduce myself? I wasn't certain, and as I've mentioned I am so very painfully shy that these sorts of decisions are major stress.

I screwed up my courage and decided to walk right over there like I did this every day. So I did! I went over and said, "Hi, I noticed you were knitting so I thought I'd come over and knit, too." One of the women was sort of lukewarm and didn't seem completely thrilled by my dropping in, but the other was very open and friendly. We chatted, starting with the requisite "What are you working on?" and things like that. She asked me a lot a questions, which always puts me at ease as I find it easy to answer queries because they make me feel that the person is at least marginally interested. I asked some questions, too, and the conversation was pretty comfortable. The other girl didn't say much but I didn't let it get me paranoid.

After a few minutes it came out that the woman I was talking to was the same one that had put a sign in the window of the coffee house about a book club she was starting up. I had seen this sign in December and put her number in my cell phone, meaning to call her to ask about it but ultimately chickening out. I said, "Are you book club Jen?" to which she replied, "Yes!" How cool! She showed me the book they were reading for this month, I took down the title and author and wrote the date of the next meeting.

She asked me if I was part of the Portland Stitch n'Bitch to which I replied I wasn't, but that I had been in contact with a few of the members online and hoped to attend sometime. Maybe I'll go and then encourage her to come, too! I haven't gone to any of the SnB meetings yet as they're not always held in town so I can't always make it - perhaps I will make a special effort to go the next time they're in the Old Port, just to get out and see some new people. That would be a nice opportunity for Katie to see little Michael, too, maybe she would be willing to watch him while I attend, or Michael and kidlet can visit her at the same time. Hmm.

I feel great this afternoon - what a nice surprise, and a window of hope - I may have just found a new friend, with the possibility of meeting more new friends in the Portland area. I hope things work out. For now I'm all giddy.

Today I am home sick.

2006-01-20T14:31:00.000-05:00

It finally caught me, the creeping ick that's been sneaking about the past few weeks. To be perfectly honest I'm not all that sick, just reeeeally stuffy and I have a cough. And I sneeze a lot. But overall, I feel pretty good for having the creeping ick.

I decided to stay home today and burn my precious 8 hours of PTO to spare my coworkers having to walk by me thinking, "I can't believe she came to work to make us all sick too."

I know, I'm such a giver, aren't I?

Honestly, I think it's a sign of getting older and more ma-toor when one decides not to be 'that guy' who sits at their desk coughing and wheezing and making a cloud of pollutant for everyone to walk through. I sit right at the entrance to our department and don't have a separating wall, so everyone would literally have to pass within three feet of me every time they got up. So not fair to do to them. Technically I think I would have been fine to do my job, but I didn't want to be 'that guy'.

So here I am.

I did sleep deliciously long this morning...after my shower which partially opened my passages I conked out naked on the bed with no blankets on - now that's tired. Michael asked me a couple of times if I was going to work and finally I said, "No." He gave me the phone and I left a message for my manager. I had gotten all of my cases wrapped up yesterday so I wasn't putting myself or the department in a bad situation, so today really was an ideal day not to come to work.

After the guys left I burrowed under the blankets and didn't come out until nearly 12:30. I have to say, that was pretty friggin awesome. Not being woken up once by kidlet pawing at my shirt wanting boobie, just sleeping and sleeping and every so often turning over and finding a new soft spot before drifting off again. I think I might just have to take a day off a month to stay home and sleep, it was that good!

The only thing that wasn't good is I had a lot of nightmares last night, so my morning dreams were actively attempting to avoid dreaming about bad things again. I awoke with my runny nose having crusted all over my face. Eugh. I love having a cold.

My online banking annoys me. Why I should have to click four times to pay a friggin bill is beyond me. Hello, usability, people! At least now we have DSL - paying bills when we had dialup could take hours as the thing would time out before the transaction went through.

Well, I have a few things to do around the house before the boys get home. I still feel like I'm experiencing the world from under water, but I know if I stay busy it won't be as bad. More later, peeps.

2006-01-18T20:29:00.000-05:00

I am valiantly fighting off the impending ick - I've been progressively stuffy the past few days and have developed a dry cough, Swell. I've been taking Airborne (I picked some up at the health food store last night) and it doesn't seem to do much, and drinking lots of Herba Tussin and Throat Comfort.

While I was at the health food store (actually, we went to two) I was able to get most of the herbs in bulk that are used in both of these teas, and I plan to make my own from here on out instead of shelling out big bucks. Same thing with Garam Masala - I paid way too much for a small bag of it (didn't notice this until looking at the receipt later) and it's only a mixture of cumin, coriander, cardamom, black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and saffron, all of which I have at home. Boy do I feel silly.

I really want to find a place that has bulk herbs and has everything - even after going to two different stores I was still missing a few things I wanted, and pretty common things, I would think. There must be a place online but I don't want pounds of the stuff, just a few ounces of this and that (which, when referring to herbs, is a lot).

I also picked up a few pounds of basmati rice, a half pound of jasmine rice, and about four pounds combined of various dried beans. I've decided I don't want to buy canned beans any more, they're too expensive and I worry about contaminants during the canning process and botulism and all that. Canned beans are so much easier to use, but I think I can set up some sort of soaking/sprouting area in my pantry where I can have a constant rotation going on for daily use.

I haven't had the chance to do a lot of knitting lately, and it's bumming me out - by the time I get home at night and the necessary chores done, I'm so tired that going to bed looks so attractive to me. If only the kidlet wasn't being a pill in that respect, too. Trying to be productive after a night of wakefulness is tough, and doing it for a couple of weeks straight is just this side of insanty.

This weekend we have to get the living room done. By 'done' I mean at least get two coats of paint on the walls and trim. We still want to get new light fixtures and moulding, but we're going to wait and see what the room looks like once it's painted. Michael's got a list of tasks I can do to help him, the first one was priming the switchplate covers, which I did on Sunday. I want to get the living room furniture back into the living room so badly, I'm getting tired of our current "studio apartment" setup. I swear, when I sit on the couch looking into that tiny office with the piano, the entertainment center, my desk, and a set of bookshelves crammed into it, I feel like I'm back in NYC.

Once that stuff is back in place I plan to attack the office and throw a bunch of crap out. My desk is turning into a pile of papers and boxes. Not good.

Bleah - I blew my nose and now my ears need to pop, everything sounds muffled. I hate that! It's also weird that only my right nostril is plugged. More hot tea! I want to find myself one of those neti pots as well. The last time I needed one the health food store in my town didn't have any in stock, hopefully they've ordered some by now.

Two things that make me very happy nowadays:

Knitter's Little Helper

Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Jar

My hands get so dry in the Winter and these two products are wonderful for them. Knitter's Little Helper has a lovely lavender/herby scent and is great for working or for knitting as it doesn't stain my yarn and leaves it smelling nice. The Palmer's is more or less straight cocoa butter in a jar, and it's great for when my hands feel really dry. It smells like chocolate, too, which is never a bad thing. The only drawback is that it's a little greasy until it soaks in, so my keyboard and mouse at work get a little shiny. I usually rub it all over the palms, fingers, and backs of my hands, then give my palms a quick swipe on my jeans to remove the excess from my fingertips. It's great stuff, though.

I use a lot of Palmer's products, in fact - the Bottom Butter for kidlet's bum, the Nursing Cream was the one thing that would make sore nipples feel better overnight (even better than lanolin, believe it or not), the Stretch Mark cream helped ease my itchy pregnant belly, and the regular old lotion is one of the stock I rotate on a daily basis for after-shower moisturizing. What really appeals to me is that their packaging is no-frills and their products don't have a lot of weird ingredients or added colors, scents, etc. I should buy stock in their company.

Ooo, I just saw on the Palmer's site that they have an olive oil line, too. :D

Here's the last thing for today, something to utterly confuse you:

The first thing you'll say is "Nuh UH!"

Socks. Whee. The whirlwind that is my life.

2006-01-17T20:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday being MLK Jr. Day, the daycare was closed and Michael stayed home with little Michael while I went to work. When I got home Michael said to me, "I should be a stay at home dad, it's so easy!" I had a quick flash of guilt, then I realized that one day at home does not an expert make. He was just lucky :)

In any case I am very glad that the boys had a nice time together. Michael didn't do anything in the living room, understandably, but he did get all of the laundry washed and folded. Amazing! I furthered the cause by going through the kidlet's dresser and taking out everything that no longer fits him. It made me a little sad, but it also made me realize that kidlet has a lot of shirts, and not a lot of pants. Enough for the time being, but he'll need some more when he gets taller. I also want to get him a new crop of socks, his current ones are getting grungy.

Now aren't you glad you stopped by to read this exciting, pulse-racing entry about socks? Friggin hell. I need to join a band or take a trip or something.

Kate

2006-01-16T18:57:00.000-05:00

Today's album indulgence: Kate Bush - The Kick Inside...the original CD release of the 1978 EMI album, even. Fucking-A booyah! I found it in the used bin on Friday and how psyched am I?! I love Kate Bush. Man, she looks young on the album cover - 28 years ago, no wonder.

I want to be Kate Bush. Well, okay, I'd just like to look like her, and have her voice. That's all.

A note about the living room project.

2006-01-15T23:55:00.000-05:00

With the exception of a few hours Keith came over and helped sand trim and radiators, this project has been completed 100% by my husband Michael. I am truly and honestly in awe of him, not only his skill, but for his ability to just start a thing and power through it. I am NOT like this at all, so I don't understand how it is possible.

If it were my project, there would be a pile of wallpaper ripped off the wall with dust on it an inch thick. I tend to procrastinate.

He took his entire week-long vacation after New Year's to do the bulk of the work on the living room, and has been chipping away at it every night and weekend since then. All the work that has been done has been accomplished in the span of fourteen days. He astounds me.

I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. The most I've done to help the cause is keep the dishes done, cook the occasional meal and occupy the manchild while Michael works.

This week, however, he's given me a few tasks of my own, so I'll be able to give him a hand. All the credit, however, will be his.

(Part of me thinks he should do this for a living!)

Living room pictures - Stage 5

2006-01-15T23:54:00.000-05:00

*NOTE: Please leave kind comments that I can pass on to Michael regarding his progress. He has days where he needs the extra encouragement :)

The moment we'd been waiting for! The time has come where the walls can actually be painted!

This is just the start of the process, what you're seeing here is the first coat on one and a half walls. I love the color and it looks great on the wall, which is a bonus. It would have sucked if we bought four cans of paint only to slap it up there and hate it.

Michael beginning the landmark first coat!

Here's the bulk of what's been painted. The trim is still only primed but you can see that it's going to look great once it's got the actual white paint on it.

The hall door from another angle.

Rear windows - you can see where he left off.

The door to upstairs, again, I can't wait to paint the doors too (bleck).

Here's a better depiction of the color we chose, the room photos are a little dark. I need to take more when it's daylight.

Here's a nice shot of the plaster wall Michael repaired, then filled, sanded, and primed. It's nearly perfectly smooth, I don't know how he did it but it's truly an amazing job. I am more impressed with his mad remodeling skills with each passing day.

That's it for now - remaining for the initial remodel is to get two coats of green on the walls, paint the trim white, then after that we're going to talk about crown moulding and chair rails, rosettes for the door and window casings, replace light fixtures, get new switchplates, etc. That's something we're going to worry about only once we have the room squared away.

This is so exciting!

Living room pictures - Stage 4

2006-01-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

Here we are, stage 4. There's not as much dramatic change at this stage, Michael has sanded and primed all of the trim and the radiators have been worked over with a wire brush in preparation for painting.

Here you can see the boys, coming up with a game plan for the evening (kidlet has a package of baby wipes, but he still feels very integral to the process).

An abbreviated tour, starting with the French door.

Rear windows.

Upstairs door - the doors have not yet been primed, just the frames.

Here is the swatch of wallpaper that we are preserving, Michael primed all around it.

Little Michael conked out and insisted on sleeping on the couch. Aww.

Living room pictures - Stage 3

2006-01-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

Stage 3! The ceiling has been painted with two coats of white paint and the three wallboard walls have been primed. The room is finally starting to look salvageable. Michael has also done the repairs to the plaster wall next to the French door, using plaster anchors to reattach the bulging horsehair plaster to the lathe below and filling the holes with flexible caulk to prevent future cracking.

French door, repaired wall.

Taking the clockwise tour once again, the office door. With just the primer on the walls the room looks ten times better.

Moving to the right, the rear windows.

Hall door. Look at the nifty white ceiling!

The door to upstairs. You can really see the difference in the old crappy trim color and the primer. Oh, how I hate cream/eggshell/putty/whatever the hell you want to call it. Every apartment I ever had was this color and I detest it. It looks dingy.

Living room pictures - Stage 2

2006-01-15T23:51:00.000-05:00

Stage 2: Cleaning and prepping of walls.

What a difference a couple of days make! Michael got all of the wallpaper off of the walls except for a few tidbits on the front wall, and washed everything to remove old paste. Then he filled holes and sanded everything smooth. He's also filled and sanded cracks in the ceiling in preparation to paint it.

Starting at the French door again. If you look to the left you can see where the plaster wall was badly patched at some point, it looks like small sections were cut out and replaced. In any case, it wasn't a good repair as that is the wall that was bulging out and soft when pressed.

Moving clockise, the door to the office and one of the rear windows.

Another view of the wallboard and the weird partial wall that was probably a wall that was removed - note the two sections of ceiling are different heights.

The rear windows overlooking the back yard. To the right of the windows you can see where someone anchored quite a few things, the wall was a mess.

The wall between the hall door and the door to upstairs.

The door leading upstairs, you can see the remains of wallpaper on the plaster wall beside it.

A closeup of that wallpaper - this was the second layer beneath the blue and gray paper, we decided not to preserve it as it was ugly. We did keep whatever we could peel off the wall to make a collage and frame later.

Another bit of that old paper.

This is the one piece of first layer original paper that we found intact - most of it had been partially ripped down and primed for the vinyl wallpaper that existed before we started. We've decided to leave this section intact and preserve it somehow. I'd love to find out more about this pattern and when it originated from.

A closeup of one of the holes that developed in that bad patch of the plaster wall. The original horsehair plaster is still in place on this wall, it appears that it was regrettably torn down and replaced with wallboard in the remainder of the room.

Living room pictures - Stage 1

2006-01-15T22:49:00.000-05:00

Stage 1: Wallpaper removal.

We discovered that three of the walls were wallboard and the the wall facing the front of the house is the only remaining plaster wall. On the wallboard walls there was one other layer of (very ugly) wallpaper under the vinyl top layer. The plaster wall had a few bits of original paper still clinging to it, one section of which we were able to preserve.

Michael scraping wallpaper. Fortunately the vinyl layer peeled off without difficulty, but the layer beneath required saturation and lots of elbow grease.

The room is tricked out like the house in E.T.

Here you can see the ugly old vinyl wallpaper on the right, and the uglier, older paper wallpaper on the left. Even if it were a lighter blue/grey when it was new, the room must have been so depressing.

The vinyl layer removed from the rear wall.

To the right, the hall door, not yet ripped. You can see the extensive taping job Michael did before starting.

In the upper right corner of the front plaster wall there is evidence of some water damage. In fact, once we were able to take a good look at it, it was obvious that the plaster was bulging out. I think it was due to this being the original outer corner of the house, the dining room a porch that was later made into a room. A lot of water runs down that edge and likely seeped in, causing the plaster to come away from the lathe. At this point we didn't know if it would be salvageable.

Ah, this was a balm to my spirit - a pile of the despised wallpaper, ready for the trash bin.

Living room pictures - Before

2006-01-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

I have A LOT of pictures of the progress on our living room, so I'm going to post them in stages by entry.

This entry is the living room before deconstruction began. Excuse the mess as we had just taken down the xmas tree and were in the process of vaccuuming and putting decorations away.

This is right after taking away the xmas tree (note all the spruce needles on the floor), Michael riding around in the suddenly empty corner on his new trike.

Closeup of our new lamp and a couple of Michael's paintings.

Front windows and French door to the dining room

Continuing to the right, the door to the 'office' (where my desk resides)

Continuing clockwise, the rear windows overlooking the back yard

Continuing clockwise, the door to the hallway that goes to the master bedroom.
Note that the giraffe is really not amused.

Continuing clockwise, the door to upstairs

There is no photo of just the front windows, but you're not missing much.

Kidlet looking at me quizzically, wondering no doubt why everything is covered in plastic.

Next to the French door we had our fish tank set up, and this is the photo collage I made myself that will eventually go on our new walls.

This is our temporary home for Michael's toys, in the dining room.

Temporary 'living room', crammed into the tiny 'office' next door.

Temporary home for the fish tank beside the front door.

Temporary placement for the chair in the dining room as there's nowhere else to put it.

Painting, poo, and toxicity.

2006-01-13T22:54:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day, mostly because it was Friday. Fridays I get out of work at 4pm, which rocks. I feel so elicit, leaving the building a full hour before everyone else in town.

This weekend we're hopefully going to get the bulk of the painting work done on the living room. Katie is coming to watch kidlet so Michael and I can work on it together. He's in there right now priming what still needs to be primed, and we've already gotten the paint. It sits ready in the middle of the room.

This week also saw a rather disgusting series of explosions on the part of my pets...first, one of the cats projectile vomited all over various parts of the house, including the sofa. A day or two after getting that cleaned up, Brigid unloaded all over the dining room, the kitchen, and the extension in front of the back door. Michael was the most amazing husband in the universe and cleaned it up, the stench was incredible. Apparently the dog ate something that didn't agree with her and it caused a violent unloading of everything she had in her guts. We put her in the barn that morning before going to work, and when we got home that night we found a huge green puddle of bile-a-rrhea on the slate floor in the mudroom, and Michael found another pond-sized area in the barn. Poor doggie.

Michael described that mess as "the worst mess I've ever had to clean up." I will be submitting him for sainthood.

Fortunately the temps have been in the 40s so last night Brigid stayed out in the kennel in the yard. I was worried she would be cold but she seemed unaffected by the cold over night. She continued to squirt liquid shit all over the kennel, but miraculously got none on herself. Tonight we let her in and fed her a banana to try and bind her up a little. Her mood is good and she's acting completely normal, which is most perplexing, but I think it means that this too shall pass (ha).

Last night the house still smelled vaguely of poo so I asked Michael find me one of the few remaining bottles of toxic cleaner left in our house, it was actually under the house in the basement. There was about half an inch of Lysol disinfectant floor cleaner in a bottle thats at least five or six years old. I used a quarter cup in a few quarts of hot water, then mopped the entire dining room and kitchen floors. It was really weird using a "traditional" cleaner...I never realized after not using them for so long what a difference it made. The stuff stunk like artificial clean and it was a radioactive orange color. When in the past I wouldn't even think twice about it, I felt suddenly very paranoid about letting the cats or kidlet anywhere near the floors while they dried. I closed the cats out in the extension and instructed Michael to stay on the couch.

Fortunately for my transgression I was rewarded with a non-poo-smelling house. That's one small relief, even if my floor is so clean I would NEVER want to eat off of it.

And now, kidlet is asleep on the couch. He went to bed, then woke up and wanted boobie, then after that wanted to sleep on the couch. I'm not sure how to go about moving him.

Oatmeal good. Walking good.

2006-01-12T22:36:00.000-05:00

I've been eating oatmeal for breakfast every morning this week, and I have to admit that I feel the difference. It makes me feel full longer, which is a great thing considering I'm sitting on my ass all morning long. I also have more energy, which could also be attributed to my walking during my lunch hour, but I'll give it some credit.

Speaking of which, walking at lunch has really raised my energy level, and it's only been a few days...at night when I get home I have much more energy to get chores done, which is awesome. Imagine that - eat less, move more, feel better. I'm glad I'm getting back on the horse and being more conscious of how I'm treating myself, it's easy to slide into a routine where maybe you don't eat as well as you should or sit still for longer periods than is good for you.

Blah, blah, blah. I can tell that I have nothing of import to say today. I could just condense it into two phrases:

Oatmeal good. Walking good.

1/11/06

2006-01-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

Today and tomorrow we've had a client in-house so of course that means we all need to look presentable. The problem is when Jenn went back to work I loaned her the majority of my business casual wardrobe, so I have more or less nothing to wear. I managed to find a somewhat dressy sweater that resembles a waterlogged green sheep and a black skirt, which of course is covered in pet hair. Sigh. Oh well, I am what I am. At least my desk was cleaned up and I took the time to de-hair my chair. I even brought leather work-y shoes to wear in the office, taking off my customary hiking shoes after walking from the parking lot.

I didn't realize until putting on my shoes at work this morning that I had a humongous hole in the bottom of one of my socks. Classy. Well, on the bright side I was wiggling my toes around on the way to work, wondering if I could justify getting rid of these socks as they're old and tough. Now I have a reason.

(Of course, the crunchy side of me is wondering how I could recycle these socks instead of simply throwing them away...they are cotton, I could compost them?)

Things at work are still going swimmingly, just over one month in...I found that one of my coworkers is a huge music fan so we've had a number of great conversations about music and traded a few CDs back and forth. Another coworker and her husband went to high school around the time when I did and our HS marching bands competed against one another...talk about a small world! Her husband is a music teacher and I got talking with him at the company xmas party, what a fun guy. Everyone is super nice and I am enjoying spending my days with them.

The job itself is still challenging and I'm finding that stuff I was introduced to in December is now familiar, even easy, when I revisit it - isn't learning such a cool thing? All of a sudden this stuff just makes sense, and I did little in between to hasten comprehension along. My brain just needed some time to process. I love the brain, It's so amazing.

I do indeed have my first implementation (I made sure to spell it right this time, Lincoln ;) and that's going well, and in addition I've been shadowing all of my coworkers during their daily tasks to see how they process things. That gets a little tedious sometimes, sitting and watching, as my butt falls asleep and I start to feel sleepy, but they've all been great about making sure I know what they're doing and that I understand the process. Overall, I've received a LOT of formal and informal training, it's been fantastic.

I put a wall calendar up in my cube as I tend to need at least four around just so I can remember stuff (wall calendar at work, wall calendar at home, Outlook calendar on desktop, and pocket planner in bag). The nice thing is you can buy calendars in January for 50% off, so I splurged and got a pricey one as it only cost me $5 in the end. This one has fairies on it...I like it, but I hope my coworkers don't think I'm weird. Or girly. But it's so cute! Oh well.

In other news: Yay! I am ridiculously excited. This is our xmas gift this year, and I'll be keeping an eye out to find the recumbent bike Michael wanted on sale somewhere.

In other-other news, we bought the paint for the living room last night, both the wall and the trim. This is extremely exciting to me as it means we're getting down to the end...well, sort of. We're getting down to the painting part, after which we'll be near the end. I'm looking forward to being able to put the couch back. We talked some more about moulding and decided to wait until we get the paint on the walls to decide what style we want. That's fine with me, as I found I was second-guessing myself looking at what we had picked out previously. Was I sure I wanted this style of trim after all? That sort of thing.

In any case, that's the latest with me. Not all that interesting I'm afraid, but it is what it is.

Until later!

1/9/06

2006-01-09T22:32:00.000-05:00

I saw TWO movies this weekend, in the theatre. I'm stunned at this myself! I haven't seen an actual movie in forever...possibly not since the last Lord of the Rings flick came out. I can't recall for sure. Anyway, I saw Harry Potter with Jenn on Saturday while the guys watched the kidlets, and on Sunday Michael and I saw The Chronicles of Narnia while my dad and stepmother watched Michael at their house. I liked both movies, though they had their drawbacks. I also discovered that I can't sit still for over two hours any more, I kept fidgeting in my seat halfway through the movie. That sucked. Maybe I have Restless Ass Syndrome.

This weekend was taken up mostly by keeping in touch with family, which is hard to do unless I actually schedule it in like I did this weekend. On Saturday night I met with my brother, SIL, niece, and stepdad for dinner, and on Sunday after the movie we had dinner at my dad's house. It was nice to see everyone, though in the back of my mind I was thinking of all the things we really need to get done around the house. I know that it's worth it to see family on a regular basis, but it's tough being so darned busy.

Speaking of the house, Keith came over on Sunday morning to help Michael - they finished the priming of the walls, washed all of the trim that had drips of scummy wallpaper glue on it, and sanded the radiators in preparation for painting. They got a lot done and we're in the home stretch. This week I know Michael plans to dedicate a couple of nights to working on the living room, and this coming weekend we're going to ask Katie to come watch the kidlet so we can both work on it. Hopefully we can actually get to painting sometime soon.

I don't know if it's easier to paint all the trim first, or to paint the walls first? I'm a little afraid of painting the walls, taping them up to do the trim, then pulling off the new paint while taking off the tape. At least if we did it the other way around touching up the trim is a lot easier. Well, anyway.

I'm also not sure the best way to go about attaching the chair rails and moulding...finishing nails, I suppose. I just hope they hold in the plaster wall, I'm not concerned about the wallboard walls. Also in regards to the rosettes for the windows and doors, I'm not getting the blocks, I'm getting just the sculpted wood bits as they won't add much height to the existing trim,and I'm worried about using nails to attach them as I don't want to split the wood. Maybe I can glue them and then paint over them? This is all stuff that can be done at the end, so I'm not going to worry too much about it.

Saturday - well, Sunday.

2006-01-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

It really is sobering, picking and choosing benefits. All those things you hope you'll never need, yet you know they're smart to have just in case. For instance, Basic Life Insurance. How much is my life worth? Is it my salary? 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x my salary? How much money do I want my family to get if I die? Basic AD&D? How much do I want to invest in my untimely death or dismemberment?

Even better yet, let's decide the same things for my spouse. How much is his life worth? His arm? His leg? What do I choose?

Even better than THAT, let's think about the baby. What if he dies? What if something happens and he gets a limb torn off? For only $0.52 a YEAR I can ensure that should my child lose an appendage, we'll get a check in the mail for $2,500. A great deal, and one that I should definitely invest in. Cashing in on my child's body parts. I feel like a ghoul.

The more costly items are the short- and long-term disability. Short-term disability is easier to justify and not as scary...if I take a spill on the ice patch that keeps reappearing in front of the building or go on maternity leave to have a baby, I'll get 60% of my salary for 18 weeks, all for around $4.50 a week. Long-term disability, though - that's a lot scarier. It costs around the same as short-term disability, but it's like preparing for a storm you never know will come or not. Do I want to take the risk that something horrible happens to me and we don't have coverage?

I ended up choosing everything. I even elected the highest life insurance coverages, the ones that require a Statement of Health from my doctor. The way I see it, $2.50 a week is a pittance to pay to ensure that my family would receive 5x my salary should I die.

It all adds up, of course - it's about $60 a month on top of health insurance (which I take as a given anyway). It's not quite chump change, but it's not a heinous amount, either. But in the end I signed up for all of it. I didn't have it before, but now that I know I could have it, I need it. Insurance companies make so much money off of people like me, we who always prepare for the worst and pretend that we don't even think about it. I've had friends who never even realized how much insurance I have on my car or that I hoard things away, like dry goods and glass jars and bits of cloth. I hide a lot of it under a charming crafting obsession, but really in the back of my mind I'm thinking about armageddon. Sometimes I feel like I'm one step away from digging myself a fallout shelter in my back yard.

I feel safer. I might have less money in my pocket, but it gives me a few less things to worry about while I'm planning escape routes in my head, for that time when someone breaks into the house while we're sleeping and comes to shoot us in our bedroom. I'd bash out the window at the head of the bed, wrap little Michael in a blanket, and throw him out. Then I'd push my husband out while throwing things at our assilailant, and try to leap through the window myself. I keep heavy items on the dresser next to the bed for this purpose. I'd shield the bodies of my family with my own and hope that I make it out all right.

I've been having a lot of dreams lately of my husband or son dying. I wake up halfway and my dream superimposes itself over reality. One night I jerked awake and looked over at my sleeping husband in the dark, choking back the emotion of knowing he was dead. I got out of bed, went around to his side, turned on the light, and leaned down to peer into his face. How could I fall asleep and let him die right there next to me? Why didn't I help him? What could I do? He woke up and looked at me, bleary-eyed. "What are you doing?" he asked. Oh no, what should I do? I thought. I don't want to upset him by telling him he's dead. "I'd tell you, but you wouldn't like it," I replied, and went back to my side of the bed. "What? What are you talking about?" he asked. "I'll tell you later," I said, and went back to sleep.

Michael was up for a long time after this, pondering what it was I was keeping from him. As he gave up sleep and went to the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom to find the light on again and me sitting up next to our son, palpating his stomach gently while staring into his face. "Jen, what are you doing?" he asked me. I looked up at him for a moment and said, "I'm doing what the doors told me to do." My son wakes up and wriggles a bit, annoyed at being poked awake. I grumbled a bit and lay down again, commenting, "But who believes doors anyway?" and immediately fell back to sleep. Michael was now up early and stuck with an also awake kid. I was completely dead to the world.

When I finally got up the next morning (late), I remembered having dreams that Michael had died in bed next to me and I didn't want him to know for fear of upsetting him, and I dreamed that my son had died in bed next to me and I consulted a panel of the door which told me to check his abdomen for blockages, that he couldn't breathe because of them. It all seemed very real to me. It always does.

It's no wonder I sleep like shit...even when I do get to sleep I'm still up all night. It worries me slightly that my sombnamulism has increased since having a child, as has my insomnia. I have the hardest time getting to sleep, I walk around and talk all night, then I can't drag my ass out of bed in the morning. I think one of those sleep study places would have a field day with me.

Speaking of which, it's 1am and I really need to get to bed. I don't know how I got off on this tangent, probably just feeling maudlin after seeing piles of limbs and dead bodies in my head with price tags attached to them.

I'll bet I don't sleep all that well tonight. Stupid brain.

whatever.

2006-01-06T22:29:00.000-05:00

Friday. Man, am I tired and out of it today. It was hard to focus at work - fortunately my workload is still somewhat light being the FNG. That and I got out at 4. Fridays rock.

I hit my one-month mark yesterday and was given my very first implementation! Wow! I'm so proud :) It's a little nerve-wracking, but at the same time I'm very glad to have something to work on that will challenge me and keep me busy.

I'm really enjoying the The Divine Comedy by Milla Jovovich today. It's sort of an eclectic and slightly dated album, but it has a lot of appeal.

Ha, I did the book thing again for fun and got:

George Bush: The First Reality T.V. Star Elected as President
by Martin Scorsese

Hee hee.

I watched Dancing with the Stars last night. I feel dirty. It was entertaining, though.

Talked to Michael and he's got the walls more or less primed, that means we could conceivably get the first coat of paint on tonight! Whoa! The ceiling, by the way, looks fantastic. He got this funky white paint that goes on purple, then dries white to help you see where you've painted and where you haven't. He told me that it dries pretty fast so you have to work quickly. Just that makes the room about five times brighter, even with the walls exposed wallboard. The old ceiling was dingy and when the last people put glue on for the vinyl wallpaper they used a roller and got it on the ceiling all around the edges. Durr.

Perhaps tonight we can calculate how many feet of moulding and chair rail we need and pick that up, too? I could paint it while Michael paints the living room! Eeee!

I can't believe this is actually happening. The living room is getting done! Of course it took a solid week of work on Michael's part, but it's still amazing to me as I've never had the guts to do any real home improvement and I have a terrible habit of not finishing things. I've gotten better in the finishing things department as far as my crafts are concerned, but I still need to work on it.

I really, really want to make one of these to put in my new living room. I'm partial to "DO NOT FUCK WITH ME" but "whatever" is probably more appropriate. Heck, I'd like to make "whatever" to go on the wall at work.

Deep, meaningful entry.

2006-01-06T22:26:00.000-05:00

Ha, yeah right.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Wednesday 1/4

2006-01-04T22:25:00.000-05:00

Whoo, this getting kidlet to daycare on my own thing is kicking my butt just a little. I fell asleep last night while putting him to bed and still didn't want to drag myself out of bed this morning. I had to wake him up, too, which he was none too pleased about.

When we got to daycare, as soon as I took his jacket off he wanted to give a hug to one of the preschool teachers, Ms. Nadia, who often watches him in the mornings before his regular teachers are in. I brought him over and he dashed to throw himself in her arms, she said to him, "Thank you for making my day!" and then to me, "You know, I don't want any more children, but this child is so sweet that it could make you change your mind." That made me really happy. I made one mistake and forgot to give the poor kid breakfast, fortuantely his teacher Sara had a waffle and an apple ready for him. I love all the teachers at his daycare. He gave me a huge clingy hug then said goodbye cheerfully, off to play guitars with Leo and the other Michael.

So here I am at work, drinking my first of a few cups of coffee. Someone here usually makes the first pot way too strong - I think they're trying to just make it strong, but there's a difference between strong coffee and a total waste of grounds. There's a threshold that, if exceeded, results in something bitter and burned tasting. Blech. Incidentally, I make my coffee strong, but the times I have made it here people have commented how good the coffee is. My short stint as a barista is paying off (of course back when I was working at a coffee house they didn't call it that, I think it was more like 'counterperson'), I guess...or maybe I'm just good at guessing. I like a really bold, strong coffee, but not something that pickles your tongue upon first touching it.

I know, I'm picky.

- start boring house talk -

I took a bunch of pictures this morning of the living room as it exists now - all of the terrible vinyl wallpaper is gone, gone, gone! Three of the walls are some fairly nondescript wallboard that Michael has scraped, filled, washed, and will be sanding. I discovered he also sanded the doors in preparation for a new coat of paint, which was rather unpleasant to touch unawares.

The front wall of the room has most of the paper off of it, he's left a few sections of older paper up and is thinking we may not paint those bits, rather preserving them so one can see what used to be there. He's also saved any bits of old paper that were salvageable for a future project.

There's a section that looks like it was patched at some point, there are a few really small holes and the horsehair plaster has come loose from the lathe. I don't want to take the plaster down as the old-style plaster is unequaled in its ability to insulate and dampen sound, it's far superior to paper/gypsum wallboard. The other three walls, I believe, are simply wallboard put over the existing plaster - apparently this is a common solution to crumbling plaster rather than replacement, both to save money and to preserve the structural quality.

The patched bit is on the outer corner of the room, I think it's due to old leaking as it was simply papered over in its slightly bulged-out state. That corner used to be the outer edge of the house before the porch was turned into the dining room, so it got a lot of wind and rain exposure considering our location at the top of a southeast-facing hill. When the porch was made into an attached room, the new front door had a small roof put over it, which then routed more rain down the channel between that corner and the new bits of roof. Now that Michael has sealed up the eaves on the outside of the house and the roof has been replaced, I feel confident that it should stay more or less dry from here on out. There's some other evidence of water damage near the baseboards in the same section.

Today Michael is slated to paint the ceiling, how exciting! After that's done we'll be getting primer and picking wall paint. I was feeling a little bad about painting what was previously wallpapered, but now that I've seen three out of four walls are wallboard, I have no qualms about painting them. Now...I wonder if we could do something funky like whitewash the front wall instead of painting it? Hmmm...

What I really want to do is rip down a couple of those wallboard walls to see if the old plaster and wallpaper are underneath them...well...that's a project for next decade, perhaps.

- end boring house talk -

- after lunch -

I just went and had a lovely bowl of chicken and dumpling stew and a cup of hot cocoa at JavaNet. After I ate my stew I sat in one of the comfy chairs and knitted for 30 minutes or so, it was lovely. It would have been better to have a friend there to knit with, but one has to start small, I suppose. The Portland Stitch 'n Bitch meets at JavaNet on occasion, but not every week so it's not really that convenient for me. Sometimes they meet in Westbrook or out near the mall; with a kid it's just not feasible to pick him up, drop him with Auntie, then drive out of town for 6pm. They were playing a funky 80s mix which is always all right with me.

On my way back to work I noticed that the Portland Press Herald has the headline "MIRACLE! 12 Survivors Found" in regards to the WV mining accident. On their website they have a statement:

CORRECTION: The front page of the Portland Press Herald in York and Cumberland counties today carried an incorrect story about the mine explosion in West Virginia. Only one of the 13 miners trapped inside the mine survived. Our story reported that 12 miners survived. Between 11:45 p.m. Tuesday and 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, wire services and major newspapers with staffers at the scene were reporting that 12 miners survived. At 2:50 a.m., those reports changed, after it was learned that initial information from the mine was incorrect. In fact, there was only one survivor. That period - 11:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. - is when most East Coast daily newspapers are printed. An internal review here in Portland found that many East Coast newspapers carried incorrect stories in the print editions delivered Wednesday. We will follow up on the mine explosion in Thursday's Press Herald.

I guess I'm surprised that they didn't immediately run another paper to replace the ones on the street, or at the very least distribute something with the correction instead of leaving the headline shouting out from all of the paper dispensers at 1pm.

I don't really have a lot else to say today, so I'm going to close.

Housie stuff

2006-01-03T22:30:00.000-05:00

Michael is making huge headway on the living room. We got home around 3pm on Monday and I started in on laundry and dishes and general cleanup while he changed clothes and got to more wallpaper stripping. We discovered that three walls of the living room are wallboard (though I wonder if they're covering plaster, I plan to take out one of the electrical boxes and shine a flashlight inside the wall to find out) and one, facing the front of the house, is plaster. I haven't seen evidence of horsehair yet, it looks like a patch job may have been done over older plaster but there are no holes so it's hard to tell what the base layer is made of.

On this plaster wall we've discovered a number of layers of old wallpaper, the bottom-most layer something that's fragile and looks hand painted. It's really gorgeous. Talk about cool! The sad thing is this layer is inextricably stuck to the back of other layers and/or the vinyl layer - it looks like the older layers were partially stripped off, then whatever remained was primed over and papered. Talk about a bummer. There are a few nice tidbits poking out here and there that survived some of the stripping - I plan to photograph them before attempting to peel them off. I'd like to preserve any old pieces that are salvageable and frame them, a la something I saw on Extreme Home Makeover. Michael wanted to leave one section of wall untreated and put a frame around it, but I don't think we'll be able to get a single section with enough intact paper to do that.

I also want to try and find any information online about the pattern and paper to determine its age. I'll share the photos once I take them. I'm a little disappointed that whoever remodeled this room obliterated most of the history from it, but then again I'm thankful that at least one wall survives that records the soul of the house.

Tuesday of the new year.

2006-01-03T22:23:00.000-05:00

Tuesday morning that feels like Monday morning. Urgh, I'm sleepy. Michael is on vacation from his day job this week so I have the task of getting the kidlet to and from daycare alone. At least we had Monday off so it's only four days instead of five.

We were in CT for the weekend, though it was a long drive (it always is) we had a nice time. I deliberately didn't pack ten different crafty things to work on, only opting for a scarf I had barely started, the Flora hat which was about a third done, and a wee kidlet hat I had just started from the leftover Manos. I didn't bring any extra yarn - even though I was tempted to throw another skein in there, I only brought a book to read. And, of course, for the first time ever, I finished all of the projects I brought with me and had nothing to do on the way home! Drat.

I mean, it's good that I got those things done so I can move on to other unfinished projects, but it's bad that I ran out of yarn on a holiday weekend where NO yarn stores were open on Sunday or Monday. Double drat.

I also recognize that if the most dire thing going on with me right now is that I'm out of yarn while away from home, my life is pretty damned good.

I had a few weird dreams about Mom, but I don't really remember them. The last one I remember I was dozing in the car and replayed her death again, except instead of it being 3:40 in the morning it was clear and sunny outside. That was somehow nicer.

I miss you, Mom, and I think about you every day.

Bjork Bjork Bjork!

2005-12-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

I am obsessed lately with Bjork's Medulla album, especially the song Triumph of a Heart. Did I mention that yesterday? I think I did. Anyway, I found the video in Quicktime here, I really like it and not just because it has a giant dancing cat who knows how to drive. I'd recommend you right-click that link and "Save As..." to download it to your own computer as it's ~38MB huge. This album is very different from her other work and it's something that you need to wrap your head around properly. I've listened to the album all the way through twice, and in bits and pieces repeatedly over the past few days. It's not immediately likeable, but there is a lot to like when you get into it.

I'm reading a good book, too, picked it up brand-spankin-new from trusty old G-Will with the original receipt for $14.95 still tucked inside the front cover and not a crease in the binding. It's called The Little Friend by Donna Tartt, who apparently wrote another book called The Secret History which I haven't read yet but I will see if the library has it. People really seemed divided on The Little Friend, however, either loving or hating it. Personally I've been enjoying it a lot - I'm a little over halfway through and it's not an easy read becuase it's extremely detailed and rich. I like books that I can't just rattle off over a weeekend. We'll see how the end grabs me, if at all.

Other good things...

Tea - currently drinking Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical. Yum yum. Bought a box from a local coffee joint, and after looking online realized they charged me $3 more than the regular price on the Mighty Leaf website. Sheesh. Learned my lesson.

12/30/2005

2005-12-30T22:19:00.000-05:00

OMG am I tired. It's all my damned fault but still. Since making the Jayne Cobb hat I wanted to see what the Firefly fuss was all about, so I Netflixed the entire series. I wasn't super duper impressed with the pilot and the first two or three episodes after that, but by Disc 3 I was definitely hooked. I stayed up very very late watching discs 3 and 4 after getting them in the mail last night - 1 and 2 had already been returned earlier in the week. My favorite episode so far is War Stories - I didn't particularly like the semi-graphic depictions of torture, but I think it was the best plot and character development story out of them all. Most of disc 3 and all of 4 were very good. I could definitely see how the series and the characters deepened and matured, if you will, as the cast and crew settled in.

Now, of course, I'm bummed that there are no more episodes. Sitting on the table at home, however, is the movie Serenity which I ordered at the same time so I plan to watch that on Monday night when we get home.

Some other little thingies...

Just got around to stuffing my xmas cards in the car on the way to work this morning. Good god, you'd think I'd manage to do it earlier in December, but no matter how I try I always end up sending them out after xmas. At the very least they're out before New Year's, eesh.

Micahel is way ahead of schedule with the destruction (and hopefully subsequent reconstruction) of the living room. He's already taken the wallpaper off of two walls, and has gotten into the groove of scraping off old paper and adhesive. There is only one layer of wallpaper under the floral vinyl hell layer, and it's not all that interesting. I was hoping for better, oh well. Two of the four walls so far appear to be wallboard of some sort and not horsehair, which is a bit of a relief as they'll be much easier to clean up and paint.

I am so impressed with him, he is just rawking out on this project. Next week while he's home on vacation I predict he'll get a whole assload done. And, true to our OCD Virgo tendencies, he did a fantastic job of taping up everydamnthing so as not to get paint on the floors or radiators. It looks like a scene from E.T.

Did you know there was such a thing as radiator paint? I didn't but I do now! And while we're at it, check this out! Wowie.

I fear I can feel myself being bitten by the old house renovation bug. We're not looking for restoration-quality work, here, just something that looks nice and is somewhat authentic. We're both fond of early American color schemes and antique hardware, that sort of thing. I would totally plotz if we could redo the kitchen by smashing out the interior walls to open it up, then doing up all the remaining walls in whitewashed rough plaster panels between beveled boards. My mom did that in her kitchen, then even made a custom stencil of a pineapple that she put all around the edges. It was way cool. I didn't like her color choice for the wood trim, but otherwise it was a fantastic design. Speaking of which, I told my stepfather of my kitchen/dining room/hearth dreams and he thought it was a great idea - hm, he's never said anything like that before. I was flattered. Maybe I can get him to help :)

Wednesday

2005-12-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

OMG YOGOURT

Sexy, sexy yogourt. I will acknowledge your wacky Canadian spelling because you are just that delicious.

I went to the Portland Greengrocer today to find that it's about half the size it used to be. Walked to the entrance and found it to be a curio shop - then went to what was once the exit and that was the entrance now. Kind of a bummer, though I'm not altogether surprised - they had a large space for what they were selling and I wondered in the past how they afforded the rent.

The answer now? Beer and wine, apparently. The only fresh produce were some apples and citrus. Depressing.

But they still had fresh bread, of which I purchased a loaf, some premade sammiches, one of which I also purchased for too much $$ and won't likely be purchasing again, a small selection of foo-foo drinks such as the overpriced Fizzy Lizzy and the delectable San Pellegrino Aranciata.

I quickly discovered that buying groceries rather than eating out really isn't going to save me any money...at least at the places in the Old Port i can buy groceries. Back to the drawing board.

But that yogourt was damned good.

I found a copy of Selmasongs in the used CD bin and have been listening to it over and over and over again. I've always liked Radiohead so of course I am entranced by I've Seen It All featuring Thom Yorke as it was a poignant song to begin with but now it's just, just.

I don't have a lot to talk about today, work's great, things are fine, kidlet was even in a good mood when I dropped him off. He cried yesterday. That sucked.

Oh wait, I do have something to talk about...last night when we got home we attacked the living room and took down all the xmas decorations, then pitched the tree out the front door onto the lawn. I'm thinking about setting it up to feed birds for the remainder of the winter. We'll see. Then we moved all of the furniture out of the room, Michael set up dropcloths, took the hardware off of the windows, and started filling nail holes and repairing ceiling cracks. The room looks much bigger and echoes a lot with nothing in it. I'm pretty excited, I know that our couch being in the dining room will be enough to keep us motivated to hopefully get this living room remodel done quickly. The only thing that may be a problem is the horsehair plaster under the wallpaper - on the front of the house it seems a little loose and lumpy. I have a bad feeling it may just fall out in chunks when we take the paper off. Hmm.

It's finally happening! We're finally working on the house! I'm so excited. I'm hoping we can keep the cost of our remodel under $150...until we get the new trim, anyway. That's going to be a little costly but it'll be worth it. We're going to get the ceiling repair, plaster repair, and painting done first, then we'll start on any moulding after that.

OMG I'm so excited.

Last night I got the majority of our CT gift-wrapping done, the only things left are a bulletin board for Katie and I have to finish the collage frame for my MIL. I have all the photos and the frame, I just have to sit down and arrange, trim to size, etc. Preferably I want to wait until kidlet is in bed so I can spread it all out on the dining room table. I wrapped all the things for The Aunties (my FIL's sisters, we always see them together so that's what we've dubbed them), other aunts/uncles and cousins last night - mostly framed photographs of the person in question with kidlet, and for The Aunties I got cute little ceramic xmas tree tea light holders. It was tempting to keep them but honestly, I have a billion candleholders already and as cute as these are I'm not much of a holiday decorator. Maybe when kidlet is grown up or I have more space.

I filled the rocking chair with gifties, I think I did well this year getting things that people will actually use, hopefully like, and just foo-foo enough that they might not get it for themselves. I put a lot of thought into things. I'm actually coveting the gift I got for Aunt Susan - they recently remodeled both of the bathrooms in their house so they each have their own, so I got her a really nice cake of French soap and a hand-carved stone soapdish. It's a huge, rough, organic looking block, stamped on all sides. Very cool. Like I need soap, however...I've been steadfastly working through what I have on hand before buying anything else for myself. Let's just say I've been at this for over two years, now, and I'm still nowhere near through my supply. My years down the street from Carapan took their toll. (I just Googled Carapan and apparently it is now closed...what a bummer.)

I just suddenly had a pang. I miss NYC. Sigh.

Oh, Caffe Dell'artista...how I miss thee. If you look at this VR Quicktime movie, the table the man with glasses is sitting at had a drawer in it where people would leave notes. I've left quite a few. I wonder if they're still there. I see they've painted, it used to be dark and dingy and not bright green. They've reinstated the giant candle burning wax mountain on the mantlepiece, however.

We really need to get to NYC sometime - maybe in the Spring. Maybe -b- would meet me there?

Things at the job are shipshape. I'm still feeling good about it and doing lots of challenging things. I like the people, the commute isn't bad, being downtown rocks. Overall, I feel like I'm settling in and doing well.

More later.

xo

Santasies.

2005-12-28T22:15:00.000-05:00

A note left on my last entry:
I see that you don't want little Michael to believe in fantasies. Do you think it's harmful?

I'm not sure how to address this, I guess the first thing I want to say about this is: Fantasies are not at all harmful. Chri$tma$ in America, however, can be.

The reason I don't want my son to believe that there's a jolly fat man driving around a flying sleigh, sneaking into houses and leaving presents for good girls and boys is because this legend of the traditional "Santa" has morphed into a capitalist money machine in this country. I wish it weren't so, but, it is what it is.

Personally, I think that there is far more fantasy in thinking of Santa as a man who may have lived and done kind things for people, and now serves as a symbol of generosity and goodwill. Instead of his being objectified, used by parents to bribe children and the harbinger of greed, he is seen (at least in my eyes) as an ideal to strive for. WWSD?

I am all for fantasies, I think they're healthy and wonderful and fun. My son loves to play kitchen, wave around pretty balloons and ribbons, fly Kiki's broom around my living room, borrow his cousin's fuzzy pink telephone when she comes to visit, carry a bag, and put on lip gloss. He also likes tractors and vaccuum cleaners and trucks and mud. He's not being raised one gender stereotype or the other - if he wants to take ballet lessons or play hockey, he's going to get the same reception from me.

Personally I'm going to encourage play centering around dinosaurs, space ships, and fairies, because I like all these things. I also encourage the concept of talking animals (because you just know they're talking about us when we're out of earshot). We encourage anything and everything having to do with music and art, which to me are two of the purest forms of fantasy. We thanked our xmas tree this year for giving its life to live with us for a short time and give us happiness. We talk to plants and rocks and animals and clouds.

I guess I took slight umbrage at the implication that not believing in Santa means I discourage belief in fantasies. The way I look at it, finding the true spirit of the thing and living it is indulging in the biggest fantasy of all.

xmas, home deco

2005-12-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

This weekend was busy busy busy. And xmas isn't even over for us yet, as we'll be heading to CT to do the holiday thing with the inlaws this coming weekend. That means I still need to get gifts squared away for them, too. Fortunately I've bought everything I need to buy, I just need to do some heavy-duty assembly. For the grands I picked up some nice collage frames and put/am putting together photos of kidlet and the husby and I for them. My dad and stepmom liked the one they got, it has photos from the past year of all three of us and one nice group shot of Dad, Pam, Adam, and little Michael in the center. The hardest part was choosing which pictures - I take literally hundreds of pictures each year and I had a chore sifting through Snapfish choosing reprints.

My SIL Katie badly needs stuff to put on the walls of her apartment, they are pretty much bare, so I got a nice three-photo frame in which I plan to put some snaps of she and the kidlet together. She's so pretty it makes me jealous. Here are the photos I plan to use:

For my MIL I have a combination of kidlet photos as well as some family shots and individual pictures of daddy Michael and Katie. I think she'll really like it. I got the idea after making a nice photo collage for myself, the frames are costly but the project itself is pretty easy.

We got some nice presents for xmas and some somewhat lame ones, but overall a nice time was had. We went to my dad's house on xmas eve for dinner and got to see most of my stepmother's kids as well as my brother, SIL and niece. I wasn't sure what to get my dad and stepmom so I settled on a nice ceramic trivet, a set of canisters and a utensil crock for their kitchen. I figured since they lived in a trailer up until they bought their house in 2004, having a real kitchen means they should have some nice kitchen things. Well, they didn't complain - mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. They got me a gift card to JoAnn's and a set of dishtowels, so I suppose we're even in the "I don't know my relative" department.

For xmas little Michael got a Radio Flyer Tiny Trike from my mother. Dave dropped it of a week or so before xmas and I didn't bother to wrap it up, just put it under the tree. Kidlet loves the darn thing. He sped all over the house on it from the moment daddy Michael put it together. My mother would be so pleased.

He is getting the whole "Santa" idea - for the past couple of weeks whenever we'd see a mall Santa he would scream out, "SANTA! HI SANTA!" from wherever we were. Then whenever he'd see people wearing Santa hats he'd shout, "Santa there!" I told him that those people weren't Santa, but just Santa's helpers. We got him his own Santa hat and he was extremely tickled. He liked to wear it himself, but he also liked giving it to other people to put on.

Everyone kept asking him if Santa was going to visit his house and bring him gifts, but when we were alone with him I explained that Santa isn't really going to come to our house, that he's a symbol who reminds us that xmas is about being generous and giving to other people. I don't think he gets that part yet, but yes, my kid will be the one who makes the other kids at school cry. I do plan to tell him not to burst anyone else's bubble, but I'm sure I'll get at least one angry phone call before he's ten.

Regardless, he was extremely excited about the presents part. I have to give him a lot of credit as we've had all the gifts under the tree for a week up until xmas and he didn't touch them at all (much to my surprise...we had a pile of gifts set aside last year that he helped open before they got to their recipients, oops). We would tell him "after dinner we're going to open some presents!" and he would get so excited. He'd dance around saying, "Presents! Presents! Hey, come on! Presents!" to everyone if we were still eating or cleaning up.

He seemed to like getting presents, but more than that he just seemed excited about the whole opening process, regardless of who they were for. We let him bring gifts to people and then he would ask to help open them, then say, "Ooo! Wow!" at whatever was revealed. I was pretty surprised by this - he did a great job sharing with his cousin when they opened gifts together, there was very little arguing. I was very proud of him. He was also very psyched about everything he received, which was nice for the givers, and gave lots of hugs and "Thank you!"s. I can only hope he hangs on to this sense of graciousness as he gets older. I hope to try and keep him from becoming one of those materialistic kids who gets pissed when they open a sweater and act ungrateful. I realize this may never happen, but hey, three out of three so far!

(And can you believe my kid is two and a half? Zowie!)

On xmas morning we opened our family gifts. We only got a few things for kiddo as he already has a bazillion toys. Little Michael got that wooden anatomy puzzle, a twirly ribbon on a wand, a couple of little tin toys, and the crowning item: a wee toddler-sized guitar, which he went nuts over. We made it clear that he can't play with it unless Mommy or Daddy are sitting with him, but he loves to sing and dance while playing it. He even found a place to put it away himself next to the piano, and he carefully places the pick on the side of the piano keyboard so it won't get lost. He calls the pick the "heart" as it's somewhat shaped like a heart.

I got a pair of gloves for daddy Michael and a couple of games for the family, and he got me a nice lamp that we had picked out a few months previous. He said that he wanted to start getting nicer things that we actually pick out and like so we can start making improvements to our house little by little. "I'm tired of living in someone else's house," he said. I got so ridiculously excited. We talked about his week off next week which was originally supposed to be used driving to PA to visit our friends down there, but now that I'm working and have no vacation time he's going to stay home and start working on the living room. Hooray! The plan is to repair cracks and paint the ceiling, remove all of the wallpaper, make any necessary plaster repairs, prime and paint the plaster, paint new mouldings and chair rails, then install them around the ceiling and the wall. I'm hoping he might be game to pull up the footboards, too, and replace them with something decorative. We're also going to remove all of the hardware from the windows and I'm going to find some decorative rosettes to put on the corners to make them more interesting than the plain boards that are used there currently. Last but not least, we're going to get new light fixtures to replace the ugly old ones.

Here, see?

If you look at the window frame you can see how the curtainrods are anchored right in the top - blech. I can't wait to fix them. Once all is said and done I plan to make coordinating curtains and Roman blinds to replace those awful ruffled vinyl roll shades. See that wallpaper? It'll be gone! We're stripping it down to the plaster, then priming and painting it directly. We've picked out a smoky sage green that will give the room more depth without darkening it too much. The trim and the ceiling we want to paint bright white, very traditional. Right now the ceiling has no moulding at all, so we've picked out a nice simple one with a leaf/vine theme, along with a matching chair rail. I am so looking forward to getting rid of all of that cream and eggshell, it makes everything look dingy. You can also see our baseboards, which are just boards, nothing else. Very blah. I'd love to replace all the doorframes, too, but that may be a project for the future. For the time being they ain't broke so I'll just embellish 'em.

I will be sure to take lots of before, during, and after pictures :)

Xmas afternoon my stepdad, brother, SIL, and niece came over. Dave had dropped off a huge (5#) pork roast the previous day and I cooked it up after stuffing it with fresh grated ginger and using a lovely olive oil/garlic/honey glaze. It was good, even if the honey ended up making some smoke. After dinner were yet more presents, including some very generous wads of cash from Dave for kidlet's college fund and for us to use on the house. It was nice but also very sad as I knew the money came from my mother's retirement fund. Dave told me after she died that he planned to use it to pay off her funeral expenses, credit card balance, and then the rest he would split up between the grandchildren for education. We'll add the money to kidlet's CD and once it matures I'm going to open a 529 plan with it, now that we have enough for the initial investment.

It's just sad, you know? All that's left of my mom is some cash in an envelope. I think I might sneak the money Dave gave to Michael and I into kidlet's CD, too.

The next day Jenn, Leonard, and baby Katy came over to visit and it ended up being a great time. Originally we were going to meet for lunch out and then go to someone's house for a gift exchange, but kidlet was falling asleep and extremely grouchy so we proposed we pick up lunch and meet at our house. I'm glad we did, and by some grace of all that is good both kids went to sleep and took long naps. When they woke up, they were both in great moods and little Michael was more or less content to play on his trike and with his guitar while the adults played Settlers of Canaan. This was the first time we were able to actually play a game without him utterly destroying it, it was awesome! We had a great time and they ended up staying until dinner so we got a pizza. Our planned weekly get-togethers weren't really flying lately and I was getting bummed out, but this impromptu gathering worked out great. Maybe that's the way we should do it from now on. It also helped that the kids behaved so well. It was very fun and refreshing.

After they went home we went out to Lowe's to start figuring out what we need for our living room project. We picked up primer, ceiling paint, and some color cards for the walls that we're going to pore over and make a decision once we're ready to paint the walls. It was a lot of fun even though we kept kidlet out too late and paid for it this morning when he resisted every effort to get him showered and dressed. Oh well.

And why is my husband so hot? Check out the email he just sent me:

Subject: Let me know what you think of the plan...

Tue Cleanup tree, oil change (or Wed), move furniture out of livingroom
Wed Setup tarps, remove window hardware, fill holes and cracks
Thu Game, pack
Fri Drive to CT, stop at Lynt
Sat Hang with folks
Sun Hang with friends
Mon Drive to ME, tape and cover everything not being painted, sand ceiling section 1, repatch ceiling section 1, remove one piece of wall paper
Tue Vet, buy primer and paint, finish sanding ceiling, paint ceiling, remove paper section 1, repair section 1
Wed Sand section 1, prime section 1, remove paper section 2, repair section 2
Thu Sand section 2, prime section 2, remove paper section 3, repair section 3
Fri Sand section 3, prime section 3, paint ceiling section 2, paint 1 short wall
Sat Paint all other walls, DnD
Sun Paint trim
Mon Cleanup
Tue Move furniture back into livingroom

Be still, my heart. He sure can schedule. Makes a girl weak in the knees!

Merry Chri$tma$

2005-12-23T22:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm getting older and more sentimental, or my hormones are screwed up or something, but I seriously teared up at the end of this one.

JibJab's Big Box Mart

Have a good holiday everybody, whatever you celebrate (or don't), and remember: it's not the stuff you buy that is worth the most.

xo
- Jen

Various thingies

2005-12-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

I can't help prickling just a little lately at the mention of mothers, and it's been happening a lot.

On Saturday I was at the coffee shop knitting and I went to use the restroom. On the wall was one of those cheesy "Rules For Life" plaques that had a bunch of cutesy sayings like, "Smile at strangers," and "Pet a dog" in different colors all run together in one huge paragraph. At the very bottom on its own line was the last rule: "Call your mother." It really bummed me out.

At a meeting yesterday someone made a comment about how easy it was to install our software, starting with, "Who's going to their mom's house for Christmas?" I didn't say anything.

My manager took us out for breakfast this morning and said, "We're going on a field trip, and you don't even need a note from your mother!" I realize he wouldn't have said this had he remembered my mom just died, but it still stung.

- later -

Just went out and did a little more wrap-up Chri$tma$ $hopping. I feel bad that the past few years a lot of Michael's non-immediate relatives have thought to get us little thingamajiggies, so this year I'm making sure we get thingamajiggies for them, too. Of course I'm putting some thought into them and trying to get things that they will actually use and like. That's the hard part. Fortunately working in the Old Port there is no lack of shops with neat foo-foo thingamajiggies in them.

I just went to a decentish slightly foofy antique/art/curiosities shop where they had some lovely pieces of furniture...I pressed Michael on xmas gifts for him last night and the only thing he could come up was "a nice piece of furniture for the house." I found a pretty neat kitchen sideboard/cabinet thingie, something I've wanted for a long time, in fact. It consists of basically a cabinet on the bottom about the size of a dresser, and half is shelves, the other half are three deep drawers for holding things like bread or dry goods. On top is a tall hutch with shelves and glassed cabinet doors, raised off of the base cabinet to provide a sideboard area.

It's German, 1890s, and looks like it was cobbled together from a bunch of different pieces of furniture as the styles differ in different sections (I watch enough antiques Roadshow to know this, me smrt). It's cheaper than many of the other more polished pieces in the place, but it's still hefty ($1600, yipes!), so I plan to bring Michael to see it and then we'll decide if it's feasible or not. The good thing is it's a very rustic looking piece so it's very unlikely that anyone will buy it any time soon, if we do decide to get it we could always save up and get it next xmas or something. It would also need a little work to make it actually usable - the glass in the cabinet doors is held in by some very brittle looking chunks of plaster that were falling out when I touched them, and one of the cabinet doors gets stuck when closing it. Overall, though, it's definitely something we would use and would look nice in our house so we'll see. Maybe we can find a modern-day ripoff of a similar design that's cheaper. Or maybe we could make something! That would rock.

The funny thing, however, is there was a nice armoire there that had a price tag of $5600 (yes, that's fifty-six hundred), and when I opened it up to look inside I found another older price tag sitting right in the middle of the shelf, facing up, in the same handwriting pricing it at $5100. Hrm. I think if we did buy anything there I would definitely use that as a basis for haggling down the price. I didn't mention it to the shopkeepers, I think it's funny and hope other customers see it, too.

I think the snooty ladies there were a little off-put by my appearance - jeans, hiking shoes, and a fleece pullover that looks like something a snowboarder would wear - and I could feel their eyes on me the entire time I was there. I think it irritated them that I was actually opening and closing the doors and drawers on things I was interested in...hey, ladies, if I'm actually considering spending a decent chunk of change on a piece of furniture, I want to see what it looks like inside and feel how things work. The funniest thing is they had stored all kinds of crap inside the furniture, which tells me they weren't expecting people to actually look inside it. Weird.

- changing subject from snooty antique store ladies -

My eyelid keeps twitching. It did this constantly yesterday, it was driving me mad! I also had an awful headache all day and into this morning, which has finally stopped thanks to loads of ibuprofen. It was the kind that lay dormant until you do something like stand up or sit down or bend over, at which time it would start pounding with every heartbeat so painfully that it made me stop and hold my head.

Fortunately I feel much better. Which is good because tonight is my company xmas party andI need to be sharp to remember everyone's names.

Wrung out.

2005-12-21T22:03:00.000-05:00

I was so sick yesterday, oh my god...it all started on Monday when I met Michael for lunch at a quick-e-Chinese place. They have essentially a steam table where you get to choose from two entrees, two starches, and two appetizers, they pile your choices on a plate and hand it to you. Michael calls the place "Soup or Soda" because the last choice you have is either a bowl of soup or a bottle of soda/water.

Later that evening we did some xmas shopping and went out to eat, but by this point I had started feeling a little bit nauseous so I didn't eat more than half of my meal. I didn't think much of it at the time. I also recall having a stiff neck, as if I had been sleeping on it wrong.

Yesterday I felt a twinge of nausea again in the morning, but nothing major. I had a cup of coffee, a banana, and bowl of Kashi for breakfast at 8:30. By the time I met Michael for lunch at noon I was feeling thoroughly green so I watched him eat and took a bottle of Coke back to the office for the afternoon.

By the time I got back to the office my nausea was more pronounced, and I spent much of my time with my head in my hands or sitting on the floor in the bathroom. It was that awful queasiness that made me feel like I could vomit at any minute, yet I wouldn't. I sat in front of the toilet hoping that I would just puke and get it over with, to no avail. I was also feeling very hot and was down to a tee shirt in the office. I tried sipping the Coke but it didn't help, and a coworker gave me some antacids but that only helped for a few minutes. I was miserable.

By 3:30 I could no longer concentrate and decided to call it a day, so I called Michael and he came to pick me up. I waited in the car while he got the kidlet and then I lay with my seat reclined, trying not to think about how sick I felt. Little Michael asked me, "Mommy sad?" and I told him that no, I wasn't sad, but my tummy hurt. I asked him to sing me a song and he sang while I lay my head back and closed my eyes:

Mommy sad
Mommy sad
Mommy sad
Mommy tummy hurt
Mommy sleeping
Mommy feel better
Michael kiss Mommy
Michael hug Mommy
Mommy happy
Mommy feel better

and so on. It was really adorable and I wished at that moment that I had a tape recorder in the car. We arrived home and I more or less stumbled for the house, and spent the evening lying in various places. The nausea was awful, and by this point I had a headache and my skin hurt all over. I couldn't stay in one place for long as it would start to hurt, and probably worst of all in the slow torture department were my feet - they were ice cold and nothing I did warmed them up. I went into the bathroom and clung to the toilet, desperately hoping that I could vomit and get it over with. I don't think there's much that's as bad as wanting to vomit and not being able to.

I eventually ended up lying in bed, moaning that my feet were so cold. Michael soaked a towel in hot water and put it on my feet, which helped for a little while. Then he ran the hair dryer under the blanket and warmed my feet some more, then piled everything he could find on them. Somehow I eventually fell asleep.

I woke a number of times during the night, weird half-wakings, each time thinking it was time to get up. My back was killing me from sleeping in a half-contorted position with the kidlet smooshed up against me, but I was afraid to move for fear of feeling like I was going to hurl.

Finally at 3:30am I got out of bed to use the toilet, then I wandered around for a few minutes before getting settled on the couch. I was able to sleep somewhat comfortably there until 6:15 when I woke up groggily.

At first I wasn't going to go to work and was formulating my plan for getting off the couch and finding the phone. I decided to take a shower and see how I felt after that. After showering I actually felt better, of course 'better' being 'like crap that was run over by a truck'. I still felt extremely weak and fragile, but I decided to go to work after all.

The ride down was uneventful, Michael was kind enough to drop me off in front of my building, and I had a decent morning at work concentration-wise. I finished my little project and reviewed it with my manager. I feel almost normal - no nausea, no skin pain, no stiffness, just tired. I haven't ingested anything since yesterday morning, no wonder.

Around 9am I made myself a cup of lavender/nettle/red raspberry leaf/peppermint tea with a spoonful of honey, to see if I would feel nauseous afterward. It went down okay, and at lunch I actually felt hungry so I decided to chance it. Just nothing that comes from a steam table, thanks.

Lunch hour compilation

2005-12-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

- From Friday -

Yaaay snow! I won't bother taking the time to bitch about the weather, as I'm sure just about everyone in the Northeast will be doing today...we live in Maine, for cripes' sake, what did you expect?

This is the second Friday in a row (and the second Friday at my new job) that the daycare closed early. Last night, however, we met up with Aunt Katie and did the Merry Madness thing. We had a pretty good time. We met up at the hotel hosting the event and it was PACKED...I was surprised, I guess free food will draw folks every time. I felt positively un-hip hanging out with what appeared to be the la-di-dah upper crust of Portland, Maine. Hehehe, there's an oxymoron there. At first I thought we had stumbled upon a tony company party, but the staff at the hotel were really nice even to a couple of ragamuffins like ourselves. I think it helps that the kidlet is cute, too.

We hung around the hotel for a while, listening to the live music, then Michael and his coworker met us for dinner. We went to Three Dollar Dewey's which was all right, then Katie, the kidlet and I continued on our exploration of the Old Port. We hopped the horse-drawn wagon and kidlet LOVED it. He was constantly talking about the horses and enjoyed watching them greatly. He pointed to the reins and said, "Reins!" I have no idea where he picked up that word.

After the wagon ride we tipped the driver and headed off to do a little shopping. It was getting progressively colder as we walked around so we didn't stay out too late. I put kidlet on my shoulders to give my arms a break, and after a few minutes he started squirming and saying, "Ouch, (unintelligible) hurts." "Does your finger hurt?" I asked him, as that's what it sounded like he said. "Nooo..." he said, "(unintelligible) hurt!" "Your what?" I asked, and he shouted, "Michael PENIS hurt!" Heh, oops. Apparently he was sitting on the elastic at the back of my head that was holding my hair in a ponytail.

- From Monday -

Friday I ended up leaving early to pick up kidlet from daycare, then driving in the extremely heavy snow/rain/sleet/ice to SoPa to visit Heide and Thomi for the afternoon. It was a lovely visit and I'm glad I made the trip, even though it took twice as long as usual to get there.

The weekend was pretty quiet, the guys watched the kidlets while Jenn and I did some xmas shopping...and I even got a couple of hours alone at a coffee shop to do some knitting! Wow, that was just short of bliss. I finished my Jayne hat and I have to admit it's pretty dang cunning. We then watched the kidlets so the guys could go play D&D...I think this could be a really good arrangement, if the guys want to play, they have to pay by watching the kids during the day on Saturday so Jenn and I can do stuff either together or apart.

- today -

Whoo, I was so at work today! I was given my first real-and-true project today and I've been working pretty much all-out on that. It's fun yet nerve-wracking to actually put into use all of the stuff I've been absorbing the past two weeks.

I need to go, so I'll leave you with this - for those of you who don't get a physical xmas card from me, consider this your copy:

Music music yum yum yum

2005-12-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

Today on my lunch break I stopped by Bull Moose Music, somewhere I had seen in multiple places but never visited. O.M.G. Talk about music heaven. They have a huge used music section, and, even better, a bin of $1-$2 CDs of mixed origin and condition.

My most expensive acquisition, an $8 copy of Lovegod by The Soup Dragons, is the joyful rediscovery of a new/old favorite. I had completely forgotten that I had a cassette dub of this very album when I was in high school (aaaand...I date myself) and loved it, only it was forgotten after undoubtedly being stomped under wet winter ice-melting boots on the floor of the Ford Escort in my college years.

Like, wow, man. I forgot just how much I enjoy this album. All of the lyrics are flooding back as I listen to it. I am so so soveryhappy to have it on CD, and now ripped to my machine at work. Now if I can ever manage to get an iPod one of these days, I'll be doing pretty good.

I also got some Stevie Nicks as my friend Sandy is a huge fan and I realized that I don't own any of her albums at all. I thought fondly of her and picked them up off of the used CD racks. Out of the cheapass bin I got some interesting stuff, I hope it's good but I haven't listened to any of it yet...

Tarentule-Tarentelle, some good shit after getting bitten by tarantula, apparently. We'll see if the same effect can be achieved by mainlining five or six cups of coffee.

Broomtree ...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Okay, a mistake there. Thank god (ha, punny) it was only a buck, no wonder it was still in its original celo.

Renaissance Masterpieces Volume IV: Rome, Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina...looks promising, we'll see.

Musick of Olde England: Historic Royal Palaces, no idea what this one will be like. It should be a good laugh for two bucks at the very least.

What a gorgeous day it was outside today. Well, except for the temps in the low to mid 20s. Looking outside from inside, it could have been the middle of summer if it didn't get all late-afternoon slanty at 3:15pm.

Sing with me!

2005-12-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

Fucking A my house is cold

doo dah doo dah

At 55 the temp's controlled

all the doo dah day

Oil is too much dough

To simply burn, ergo

Inside blankets we'll enfold

all the doo dah day

Actually, only half of the house is cold, and that half just happens to be where my computer is so this entry will be very short. The main part of the house, and only the ground floor at that, is on its own heating zone so we shut all the doors from the living room ot keep the blessed heat in.

Of course, if I ever realize my dream of opening up the kitchen and building a huge fireplace this will never be a problem again.

Until later, I'm off to get under a few dozen quilts.

Two months.

2005-12-13T21:45:00.000-05:00

Today is the two-month anniversary of Mom's death. I still can't believe she's been gone two months, and at the same time I can't believe she's only been gone two months. If that makes any sense. When it comes to thoughts of my mother I feel like I"m in a void, with no before or after.

Michael said he woke up this morning around 3:30 thinking he had heard the doorbell ring. He got up to check and there was no one at the door. It wasn't until I was at work this morning that it struck me - Mom died at 3:40am. I plan to ask him more about it when I see him tonight.

Various things.

2005-12-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

Last night Michael and I went to The Sports Authority to look at exercise equipment. He wants to get a stationary bike, I want to get an elliptical. I like the bikes except I feel like I'm just sitting there, because I am, and I don't feel it's as good of a workout since I'm not doing anything with my arms. I also can't use the upright bikes very well as they're not made for people with short legs so I always end up with a sore crotch no matter how I adjust the damned thing. The bike we looked at is a semi-recumbent jobbie which makes me feel even lazier. Michael's not as interested in the elliptical machine, he tried running on a few of them and the stride is too wide and weird for him. He wants to get something that I want to use, but I want to get something that he'll be happy with, too.

We found one bike and one elliptical that we both liked, and they were cheaper than I thought they would be. I'm urging him to let us get both as the total price is only about $100 more than I thought we'd end up paying for just one piece of equipment. That way we can both use what we like...besides, I know that I'll use the bike as well, just that I won't feel I get as good a workout as the elliptical. It'll be a good change so I don't get bored.

I did some research online and the prices offered at TSA are very good, I think they're clearing out older models for the holidays so they're a great deal cheaper than their original retail price. Anyway we'll see. Michael is skeptical about buying both machines at once, and I can understand that, but I'd feel bad if we got the elliptical and not the bike as he would make himself wait to benefit me.

God, I am such a grownup, talking about exercise equipment. Who knew the day would come that I would talk to my husband about setting up a workout room. I was saying we should set up the equipment in the extension and get a television or radio for out there, then when it gets warmer we can move everything to the barn as it's right next door. We don't use the extension during the winter much as it gets cold. I think it would be perfect for exercising with the heat at 60 - once you warm up you won't notice the chill. During the summer we could open the barn doors to let a breeze in.

We also went to get Michael a potty seat for the toilet and some underpants...his friend Thomi potty trained herself with no urging from anyone all in the space of two weeks, so now we're hoping Michael might follow along the same lines. He shows marginal interest in the potty, and lately says that he prefers a diaper, but when he's ready I wanted to have the right accoutremants. This morning he peed on his little training potty, so he hasn't completely forgotten how it works. Now I'm just hoping he likes the seat, it has Sesame Street characters all over it (he picked it out himself).

Since we were out shopping around last night we went to Vinny T's for dinner...man, I wish we could afford to eat there every night. I adore Italian food, and in Maine anything even close to authentic is scarce. I think I could live on bread dipped in olive oil and smeared with roasted garlic, seriously. Eating there always reminds me of my Boston days, even though my ex-boyfriend was a dick, his mom was a fantastic cook and I have to admit I liked the whole Boston-Italian 'famiglia' bit. Meals were always a huge deal with them and it seriously did feel like one of those Olive Garden commercials. Tons of people, tons of homemade food (and you haven't lived until you've eaten homemade gnocchi or ravioli), music, loud talking, hugging and air-kissing, lots of commotion and of course gossip. I always felt welcomed by his family, and even if some of them were the biggest jerks the rest of the year, during the holidays everyone was warm and open and generous.

This Thursday Merry Madness is going on here in the Old Port, and I'm looking forward to checking it out with the kidlet. I don't know if daddy Michael will be able to make it due to work, but I am set and determined to get out and about regardless. I let Heide and Jenn know about it, so I'm hoping that one or both of them will be interested in joining me. I'm not sure how I feel about the horse and buggy rides...I know kidlet would like that a lot, but I feel bad for the horses.

sleepy

2005-12-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

I just thought of something else that Bob did that made me mad. Back when Mom was in the hospital I wrote a series of three emails to her, knowing that she would never read them but entertaining the fantasy that she would. Apparently when Bob and Pam went to her house to clean out her Inbox, Bob read those emails.

Now, I'm not ashamed of anything I said in those emails, and I'm not worried about insulting anyone, but they were very clearly personal correspondence between she and I, and there was NO way to misinterpret that upon first opening them. Yet he read them anyway. All three of them.

What a shithead.

Honestly, if I found something like that and perceived what they were, I would stop reading them immediately and repsect the privacy of the sender and receiver. Especially if they were from my sibling to my terminally ill mother.

I take that back, he's not a shithead, he's a fuckhead.

So anyway. That's yet another thing that's got me riled lately. The insensitivity of it all just astounds me.

I keep thinking of Pam calling (having the gall to call at all since she started this whole mess) and saying that we should "put our hard feelings aside so that we can get through the holidays, for the kids." Oh, come now. My son doesn't give two shits if he sees them at xmas, he barely knows them. Their daughter is even younger, she has no idea and could care less. What a load of bullshit.

Last night Michael talked to Dave and established that my brother is indeed stirring the shit with no good reason other than to do so, as Michael suspected. Dave told him that he was going to split things as evenly as he could and had no intention of giving one person everything. Well, that's what he thinks anyway. I still plan to maintain my resolve, I don't want anything from that situation that would give Bob future ammunition because I'm just too weary to deal with his bullshit.

I am seriously inclined to never want to talk to him again (though I realize this is just an overreaction brought on by anger and stress) and I think if we were to divide my mother's estate and he were to make a single dissatisfied mention of it ever again it would put me over the edge. I don't know if I want to be in that position - my gut feeling says no.

I certainly don't want to see him for xmas, sitting around being all weepy-eyed with him that Mom isn't there...I'll just be pissed that he violated our privacy and is such a greedy shit-stirring bastard. My mourning, I am finding, is a very personal process and not something I wish to share with him. I am continually surprised just how deeply everything is affecting me and I'm not always sure how to deal with it.

Well, anyway. Let's stop getting all upset over that. I realize I'm writing about my mother a lot the past few days, I can't help it. I can't stop dwelling. My brain is going a million miles an hour. I think I'll have to force myself to get up and go to the gym every day this week just to exhaust myself so I can sleep at night.

As far as work is concerned, I'm really enjoying it. Things continue to move along nicely and I'm trying my hand at some exercises implementing our software. I'm pleased that I seem to be picking things up rather quickly and it's nice to feel like I'm doing something other than just sitting around reading and training.

Of course, I had turkey for lunch and now I'm feeling soooo sleeeeepyyyyy.

*zzz*

Conversations with Mom

2005-12-12T20:27:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking about Mom constantly lately. It's weird that I was able to pretty much put her out of my mind for long stretches of time (meaning hours) by keeping myself busy, but the last few days even that hasn't helped. I think it's because tomorrow will be two months since she died and my subconscious is running the daily picture show in my head in honor of this event.

Last night I had another dream about her, this time I was talking to her on the phone. Even stranger I was talking to her on the light blue rotary dial wall phone with the 20' long cord that we had in our kitchen when I was a kid; this kitchen has since been dismantled, cut in half to remodel the now-existing kitchen. The phone is long gone. I was leaning on the sink looking at the window - I say looking at the window as all winter long there would be a layer of opaque white plastic over it to help keep out drafts - and trying to find something out from her that I can't remember. I do recall having the knowledge that, being dead, she was unable to impart any new information to me, that she could only relate to things that she knew or had happened to her while she was alive. The conversation was disjointed and there were long pauses between some of our statements, again due to the distance which the messages had to travel.

She remained very calm throughout the entire conversation, I thought at the time because to the dead, eternity is like watching the goings-on of your former life as a movie. You have no direct interaction with it and your emotions are a milder watered-down version of first-hand feelings. What we talked about I know not, until the end when I had a burning feeling to hear her say "I love you" to me again. Her voice was so clear to me even if the conversation were muddled and vague. I said to her, "You love me, don't you?" to which she replied, "Of course I love you." At that I woke up.

The dream left me feeling somewhat unsettled and a bit warm and protected, as well...I won't kid myself into believing I was really talking to my dead mother, rather I was piecing together conversation based on my memory of her voice (which could be why it seemed so etherial in the first place). My brain wants to make sense of it while my heart wants to take it at face value.

This whole experience is so new to me, both losing my mother and having such vivid dreams that I remember so clearly. I know I had a couple of other dreams just before the phone conversation that were also vivid, but in the light of day the details are gone. I do know that the lucid moments before waking are some of the best dreaming time, and I tell myself to listen carefully to what my subconscious has to say to me in those moments.

I get the feeling that I will be talking to my mother for the rest of my life - we have so much to make up for that just wasn't possible while we were both alive.

12/11/05

2005-12-11T20:24:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling marginally better. I talked to Michael a lot and we got out of the house for a while. Michael has decided that now is the time for him to step in...he has for the most part stayed out of any and all family disputes that he wasn't directly a part of, but he said that he's decided to say something as he doesn't like to see my brother making me so miserable. I told him that it was fine to talk to whoever he wants to.

I keep thinking about how this all started...Bob called me to say that Pam wanted the sewing machine, to which I replied that I didn't want very much of Mom's but that the sewing machine was one of those things. I remember him getting a little dodgy at that point, saying that Dave wanted to clean the house out and was starting to ask him what to do with stuff. At this point I had no idea Dave was going to have a friend move into the house with him, no one told me. I called Dave that same day and told him that I was hoping to get Mom's sewing machine to which he asked, "Is there a way to switch the heads of the sewing machine you have with this one?" He was referring to my grandmother's 1935 Singer, which Mom had given to me over ten years ago. He was suggsting that we swap the two machines and give Pam the Singer so I could take Mom's machine. Um, what? I was confused and angry about this, as after owning something for ten years I didn't think I would need to justify why I should keep it.

The deal with the sewing machines is that the Singer only does an overlock stitch being such an old machine, and I really need a newer machine that does a zig-zag stitch among other things. I had been thinking of asking Mom to borrow or have her machine for a while as I have a bunch of diapering projects on hold that need a newer machine. So anyway.

I told Dave that I wanted to keep the old Singer and that there weren't many things of Mom's I wanted, and as far as I was concerned Bob could have whatever he wanted outside of that. "That's pretty much what he said," Dave said, "he doesn't want any of the tchochkes either." I didn't think much of it at the time he said it, but now I guess he was thinking that I wanted to take everything of value and leave Bob with the crap. Again, he made no mention of his friend Tom moving in, so not knowing that I was a little perplexed as to why he was so hot to unlead everything from the house. I figured it was just his way of dealing with things.

This whole thing is even more mixed up as Dave was asking us only a week after Mom died what we wanted out of the furniture in the house, etc., and I told him that we'd work it out later as I didn't want to seem greedy or only concerned about stuff so soon after Mom's death. I guess that was my window to say something if I were to do it, and I missed it. I wasn't anywhere near ready to even think about that sort of thing, however, and that's what sucks.

So, out of just those two conversations with Bob and Dave, I a was hoping we could just wait until after the holidays to figure things out (I had told both of them that with me starting a new job and the holidays that I'd really like to figure this stuff out in January). Apparently, however, from what I've heard from other people Bob has been bitching about the whole sewing machine ordeal. He works with Dave every day so I'm sure he talks about it a lot, and for Dad to mention it to me means that Bob specifically said something to him about it. My Dad has had no contact with my mother in the past decade outside of weddings and he went to her funeral at our invitation.

Michael made the point that Bob has a tendency to just open his mouth and say whatever he wants, whether it's correct or not, and not caring if it hurts other people. We have started calling it The Bob Filter, since my dad heard about it from Bob, Bob talks to Dave, and I don't get a chance to even defend myself if I don't know these conversations are going on. It doesn't make me any less mad, however.

I have to admit it also bothers me a little bit that Pam is chiming in at all about the dispensing of Mom's stuff...she might be married to Bob, but she's not a blood relative. If Bob were an only child, sure, I could see it, but there are two of us and it irritates me that she would even assume she could ask for anything that belonged to our mother. It would be like Michael asking for something of Mom's, or me asking for anything of her father's when they were moving him out of his house. It's just not done. I remember a few years back my mother gave her a whole bunch of my grandmother's knitting stuff - and Pam doesn't knit. That made me raise my eyebrow but I didn't say anything as at the time it beloned to Mom and she could do pretty much what she wanted. Now, though, I just feel ooged that she would say to Bob, "You know, I would really like your mother's sewing machine as I've been thinking about starting up sewing. You should ask for it." I mean, come on.

Well anyway. I've decided that I'm going to hold firm and just tell them to take everything, and after xmas I'll go out and buy myself a new sewing machine for all of the fancy doo-dads that I need. Whatever. If she ever does get around to "trying out sewing," I hope she thinks of me every time she uses it.

In other news, I'm knitting. This and that. I'm having a hard time finding vintagey-looking buttons shaped like honeybees, preferably some sort of metal, about 1/4-1/2" long. I want to make the Bzzz Hat for Queen Bees - I found the perfect yarn for it today. I've been looking for an orangey-gold that isn't one flat color, rather a very slight variation of color throughout. I'll take pictures at some point so those of you interested can enjoy the yarn porn.

Crazy dreams

2005-12-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

I've been having a lot of weird, crazy dreams lately. I remembered one from this morning. I woke up in my dream, realized it was a dream, and then realized that it was one year ago today. I knew that once I woke up my chance would be lost, so I immediately started running around the house looking for the phone to call Mom. I had to talk to her and warn her about what was going to happen to her. A year ago there still may have been hope that she could do something.

I found the phone and dialed, but it wasn't working. I tried a few times and no luck. My house kept morphing and changing, at one moment looking like our house, then another like Michael's office, then at another time like another place completely.

I tried to send her an email but the computer kept sabotaging me...I knew that my time was short and I had to hurry. I wrote her an email that I couldn't see due to the screen saver being on, telling her to please believe me, that I was writing to her from the future and she needed to get help or else she would die on October 13th, 2005. I finished the email and was able to get the screen back up, and feverishly entered her email address. Only I couldn't type the right name and ended up spelling it wrong, then I went back and tried again only to send it to another distribution list that I couldn't remember if she were a part of, then I typed as slowly and deliberately as I could, getting it right, and as I moved to click the Send button I woke up.

In real life, my dad called this morning about xmas and at one point in the conversation mentioned that my brother had told him about Mom's sewing machine and that we were having an issue with it. I don't recall if I mentioned it here yet, but out of the very few things of my mother's that I want, the sewing machine was one of them. Apparently my SIL was "thinking of trying out sewing" and wanted it. I talked to Bob and to Dave about it on two separate occasions, reiterating that "I only want a couple of things, and the rest Bob can have as far as I'm concerned," meaning that I didn't want Bob to think we were going to go to war over Mom's stuff because it's just stuff and I really don't care. Apparently Bob and Dave (according to Bob) took that to mean that I wanted to give Bob all the crap and keep a few things for myself.

Long long ago I told Michael that I never wanted to fight with Bob over Mom's things, that I would be willing to just give it all to him to avoid it. Now once again something I said in the spirit of avoiding conflict has been taken completely the wrong way and I'm the bad guy. Again.

Seriously, the sewing machine was the biggest thing I really wanted of Mom's - she taught me to sew on it when I was six, I sew frequently and have been needing a machine that can so a zig-zag stitch, and I was thinking of asking her to borrow/have it long before she died. Other than that there are a couple of book and record sets she has that I used to listen to all the time, an album of Mussorgsky/Prokofiev that she and I listened to together (and began my interest in classical music in the first place), and a few other trinkets. I don't want her antiques, I don't want her Hummels, I don't want any of a myriad of things that might be of some monetary value. I just don't care. Even if she does have something that's worth a lot of money, I would never sell it and I don't have the space in my mind to take anything.

I called Bob to tell him that after hearing about the g-d sewing machine for the third time from another source, that I didn't care and Pam could just have the friggin thing. Bob countered saying that "Dave is splitting things up anyway," as if to imply that he has no control over the issue, and then "well, Dave wasn't happy with your attitude about the whole thing, saying that you wanted a few specific things and that I could get all the junk."

WTF?

I started crying at that point and talked over him, saying, "I don't care any more, Bob, you can have everything as far as I'm concerned. All I care about is that I miss my mom - all of that stuff is just stuff. It doesn't matter." and then I hung up on him.

I called Mom's house and left a message for Dave telling him the same thing, that I can't believe everyone misconstrued my statement about only wanting a couple of Mom's things and that the rest could go to Bob if he wanted them as a selfish thing. I said, "You want to know what those few things were? A record album and a few storybooks. The sewing machine was one of those items, but it really doesn't matter." I told him to give it all to Bob and that I didn't care.

Bob also told me that Dave apparently is having his friend Tom move in with him, which is why he's so hot to get everything out of the house. I had no idea about this. I've talked to Dave a few times and he never mentioned it. So how the hell was I supposed to know this is why he was speedily liquidating everything my Mom owned from the house? I thought he was just staying busy to keep from being upset. Maybe it's a little of both. In any case, I thought it was shitty that no one bothered to tell me.

I am just so, so, so, upset now. I know for certain that everyone involved thinks it's my fault that there are "hard feelings." My SIL left us a message after we went out saying that they wanted to put hard feelings aside "just so we can get through the holidays." WTF? When Dave and Bob brought up the sewing machine in the first place, I said that I was just about to start a new job and the holidays were coming, so could we wait until after all of that was over to talk about this? Yet now once again it's all my fault.

The thing that hurts me the most isn't the stuff - I don't care about that. It pains me to know that I may never get my hands on any of the photos of myself as a child, of Mom when she was young, or the photos my grandparents took of themselves and their family from the 20s through the 80s. I'm willing to give those up and just live with their memories in my heart. I have everything I need. It hurts me the most that it seems like no matter what I say to my family, they always twist it to make me seem greedy or view it in the worst light. I can't believe they would do this to me, yet they do it every time. I don't know how I could have avoided getting to this point.

I know that Bob thinks that Mom loved Pam more, because in the last decade Pam has spent a lot of time with her and put up with her addictions without giving her grief or causing her any trouble. Of course Mom liked that, and I'm positive Mom bitched to Bob and Pam whenever she and I would get in an argument. I know that at one point Mom said to Pam that she was more of a daughter to her than I was. I know that they feel they have a leg up because they visited every Sunday for dinner.

However, part of the reason for moving back to Maine was to try and forge a relationship between my mother and I again. We did the best we could and I don't regret that. We fought a lot, that's true, but Pam also never had the history of abusive relationships that we had. She never went through that I went through at Mom's hands. She never had to deal with the need to leave completely and distance myself in order to even consider loving Mom again. She never said a dissenting thing to her about her health or try to urge her to get help. I did all these things, and for that I'm the bad guy.

The bottom line is, no one except Mom and I know what sort of a relationship we really had. Mom loved to talk and the complain and I know I was the subject of that more often than not, but I also know that she loved me and I loved her the best way I knew how.

I haven't even been able to visit the house yet. I can't even start to think about where her things are going because I miss my mom. I miss her too much to care about stuff.

Tuesday will be two months since she died. I feel like it's been an eternity and I feel like it hasn't happened yet. Why is it that I'm always the bad guy? What did I do to deserve this? At least I tried to save her life, and it's ironic that I keep thinking to myself that there must have been something else I could have done.

I hurt so badly today, no one understands.

My brain hurts.

2005-12-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

My brain! Eet ees so fuuuuuulllll!

Whew. Today was the Day O'Meetin's and tomorrow's looking about the same. I'm undergoing the usual "Welcome to the company here's our history and an overview of our flagship product" orientation, as well as an in-depth look at "Here's what your job is comprised of and oh yeah try and memorize all of this code and these databases and processes while you're at it - we'll review tomorrow" my actual job. You know, the one I'm qualified for.

Honestly, though, I'm having very little trouble following everything, it's just A. LOT. of information to absorb in the course of a few days, which distills down to really a handful of hours. I've been taking copious notes and asking a lot of questions. In fact, my manager (a very cool guy who I think is younger than me...sigh, I'm old now) said that he thinks I'll be "way ahead of the game" once I start working on some exercises performing some of the tasks of the job. He also said that I pick things up quickly and ask intuitive questions. That made me feel good, because I've always felt that I have the ability to learn things rapidly if they are presented to me quickly enough that I don't get bored and intelligently enough that I feel I can ask questions and get in-depth without hitting a wall. I hate (hate) sitting in training courses with people who aren't at the same level that I am, waiting for long-winded explanations of things I already understand inside out, and I especially dislike finding out that I can't get my questions answered because the trainer doesn't know more than what is printed in their presentation notes.

I'm finding that the people I work with are very knowledgeable and if they don't know something, they work then and there to figure it out while I tag along. I really like that as I learn something at the same time they do. My manager is extremely smart and communicates well, so I've been enjoying learning from him...even if today's session was over 2.5 hours without a break.

At the moment, I'm about to get out the door to pick up kidlet and then go visit Heide and Thomi, I miss them so much! I just wanted to get down how much I'm enjoying myself so far and finally feel challenged and valued. Imagine that.

Well, the free coffee doesn't hurt, either.

xo

Frigid Wednesday

2005-12-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

Okay, I so totally didn't get up and go to the gym this morning. I was way too tired and opted instead to stay in bed and sleep an extra half hour. Last night I walked up to the daycare in the prettydarncold weather to meet kidlet and Michael, we went to dinner at the Portland Public Market and then went grocery shopping. That was an experience.

Kidlet was great at dinner, hardly misbehaving at all and being generally cute and nice. In the grocery store, however, he was just short of a terror. Wanted to ride in the cart, then be carried, then hold our hand and walk...changing his mind every few minutes and throwing the occasional mini-fit. We found that trading him off frequently helped stave off his boredom-inspired naughtiness.

At one point Michael brought kidlet over to see the lobsters and, recognizing my chance, I buzzed through four or five aisles as fast as I could to take advantage of his being temporarily occupied. All told it took us about 90 minutes to shop, when it usually takes half that. The store was somewhat crowded and wrangling the kidlet took some time. Not to mention I was driving one of those damned car carts that's the size of a minivan. Nothing makes you feel like a fucking dork quite as much as pushing around one of those behemoths with no kid in it.

Fortunately for us, he fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep when I put him to bed. It was well past his bedtime by this point. I stayed up and did housework, mostly - put groceries away, did laundry, prepared lunches for Michael and I for the next day, fed the cats, etc. Michael was kind enough to scoop the litterbox and take out the garbage. I wanted to stay up and knit, but I was too wiped. I fell asleep on the couch for a short while until Michael roused me to come to bed, which I did, and I was out immediately.

So far, a benefit of working full-time and commuting is that I can easily fall asleep at night. Going to the gym and walking so much during the day can't hurt, either. Kidlet has also been sleeping so well, falling asleep pretty quickly and staying asleep all night even if he's jostled or moved around. I had to wake him up again this morning around 6:45 and he was not pleased, kept saying, "Pajamas on...pajamas on...nooo..." while I undressed him and changed his diaper. Once he was dressed and more awake, he was in a fine mood even though we had to rush him out the door.

In the car he ate a banana, then talked to the characters in the book he was reading. At one point we heard him saying, "Snowman, wake up! Wake up snowman! Birdie...hey! Wake up, birdie!" I think it was a book about a snowman resting after a big snowman dance party so the pictures were probably of everyone sleeping. Very cute. I looked at Michael and we both smiled.

Much of today is consumed with learning the application with which I will be working. I've been poking around the back-end and pushing stuff through the front-end, and so far everything makes sense. It's also a lot huger than I ever imagined, and much more complex. I remember thinking that this application sounded little more than a convenience app for busy people, but now I'm seeing it's a really powerful tool that saves a ton of time and money in addition to keeping important data from slipping through the cracks as it all too often does. It's pretty damned cool.

I've also done quite a bit of brushing up on my SQL - I haven't been able to utilize it outside of very simple queries in the time I've been using it, though I've always wanted to get into it more. Now I'll have my opportunity, and I'm very much enjoying having the time and freedom to sit here and plink through tutorials to learn about joins (which I have never personally used but read extensively about...it's not at all the same thing). I'm just loving it. My brain is getting a workout for the first time since...let's see...since I was a contractor living in Boston. Which was a long time ago.

I just checked my resume and that was in 1997. Good god. No wonder I was sick of the web business.

I remembered the other Really Cool Thing about my job...everywhere I have ever worked always has a clause in their company policy about personal internet usage. They all more or less say "None. At all. No excuse." even though it's well-known that people check their email and check out Slashdot once in a while from work. I also know that companies do this because then they can use it as an ironclad excuse to fire someone - since EVERYONE uses the Internet to at least check their email once in the time they are employed with a company, they've signed themselves up to be fired without warning and there's not a damned thing they can do about it.

My new company, on the other hand, has a clause stating that occasional, infrequent use of the internet for personal reasons is okay as long as it doesn't impact your schedule or your production. It's not much, but that one single thing told me volumes about this company. It makes me so happy to finally be working for an employer that seems to trust their employees to do their job and do it well.

Now if I could just get a wastebasket.

Did I mention that I was so desperate yesterday that I printed my own narrow-ruled notebook paper?

No, really, I did.

It was one of those things that in my OCD brain I just could not get over...I so badly needed something to write notes on and not having lined paper was driving me to distraction. I am messed up, I'll admit it. Or just really anal. Or some of both.

In any case, last night when we went grocery shopping I picked up a couple of spiral notebooks (college ruled was the best I could do, alas) and brought them in...only now I'm trying to figure out how to integrate my printed sheets into the notebooks. I've decided for now to continue making my SQL notes on the printed sheets, which I have three-hole punched and will put into a binder.

Can you see now why there are times I can get nothing done? Sigh.

Tuesday!

2005-12-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

Had a decent evening, though I was up too late checking email and doinking around online. Talked to Heide on the phone for over an hour, too. I miss her already and it's only been one day! we made plans to get together at least one night this week.

Slept pretty well, which is a first...I guess getting up early and keeping busy all day long helps with insomnia. Thank god. Actually got up this morning at 5am and went to the gym. Just short of amazing. I can't even believe it myself! When I got in the car in the frigid dark and turned on my defroster, I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing?" Then I just pulled out of the driveway before I could think about it too much and change my mind.

My legs were already a tiny bit sore just from walking around Portland yesterday (woot). I warmed up on the stupid cycle for five minutes, then did the elliptical for ten. I wanted to stay longer but the gym opens at 5:30 so I have to literally get there when it opens to get a longer workout as I need to be home by 6:15 if I don't shower or 6:30 if I do. As it was I showed up at 5:45, so I cut my workout short and left at 6:10 as I had forgotten my towel so I had to go home to shower and get dressed. Still, fifteen minutes is better than nothing at all. The elliptical machine is awesome, I can see it really kicking my ass if I let it.

Speaking of which, Michael was talking about getting a piece of exercise equipment for the house as our collective xmas gift. I suggested an elliptical machine as he can run on it and it's non-impact (better for me). I'm really not psyched about treadmills or recumbant bikes, they don't give me as effective a workout (not to mention I'm afraid of falling off of the treadmill).

(begin tangent)
Hm, whoops - I just christened my workspace by dumping a full cup of coffee all over my desk. Let's just say it's a good thing the new Dell cases have solid bottoms. Geez Louise. Can you imagine? What better way to make a good impression than to short out your computer the second day on the job. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to look under the desk and make sure the power strip was set to the side so the coffee running down the power cords wouldn't contact anything. Half a roll of paper towels later, all is well, though coffee-scented.
(end tangent)

Right, so we're talking about getting an elliptical machine. Yay! Here's hoping. Of course I still need incentive to go to the gym seeing as I already pre-paid for six months and didn't go at all in the month of November. I'll get my money's worth, just you wait and see!

The nice thing about working out in the morning, though hard to get psyched up for, is that I felt very awake and ready to go on my way home. I showered quickly, had the kidlet handed off so I could wash him too, then gave him some boobie for a couple of minutes before getting dressed and running out the door.

We both dropped him off at daycare and I walked to work, getting here right at 8am. I guess the policy of sorts is that 8am is when everyone targets to get here, but as long as you come in by 8:30 it's not a big deal. That's nice to know, in case I'm running late one day. Some other nice things about my job...

I asked about listening to music - could I bring in my own radio (as I've done in the past)? I was told, "Oh, just install iTunes and burn all your CDs to your hard drive, it's a lot easier. Um, okay!

I'm wearing jeans, a tee shirt, a sweatshirt, and hiking shoes today. Oh yeah, baby.

Twice a month the department goes out to Fuji for sushi. "I don't know if you're into that sort of thing," my manager said. I laughed.

As I mentioned before, free coffee. And soda, too, actually. I plan to bring in a tea blend to keep in my desk drawer as well.

There was something else but I can't think of it at the moment. In any case, I feel extremely relaxed and unpressured here, at least on a personal level. I can't wait until my job actually ramps up and I'm doing stuff. Right now the preliminaries are all right, just a little dull.

My coffee is now on my desk waaaay off to the right where I can't reach it easily - or inadvertantly knock it over again.

There is one drawback I just thought of...I have no trash can. This is odd. I've asked for one so hopefully I get it soon. I also need a handful of spiral-bound college or narrow ruled notebooks, which I could find nothing even closely resembling that in the supply room. Not even a pad. So I'm just writing on folded printer paper for now.

Obligatory first day update

2005-12-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

First day went well for all of us! I fell asleep last night around 8:30 and went to bed sometime after that when Michael woke me up on the couch. I ended up waking up at 10:30pm, fully rested. That sucked. I sat up and watched teevee until midnight, then went back to sleep on the couch. FarScape was on UPN, I used to like that show way back when I had cable in NYC. Watching it again made me realize how cheesy it really was. Oh well. I still enjoyed it.

Michael woke me at 5am when the alarm went off (I had this grand idea, see, to go to the gym before work. Ha.), and then again at 6 when it went off the second time. I hauled my ass off the couch and took a shower, then started a load of diapers and packed first-day stuff while Michael showered. Toward the end of his shower he called for little Michael, so I had to wake up kidlet. He was all flopped out on the bed and did NOT want to get up when I gently roused him. "No...no...sleep..." he whined, as he tunneled under the blanket and curled up. Ha. I pried him uot of bed and peeled his clothes from him, then delivered him to daddy. Michael daddy took our whimpering son and said, "How do you like it?" Heh. It's about time WE got to wake HIM up.

We only left a little later than ideal (7:10), so Michael dropped me off at work so I wouldn't be late my first day. I went inside and met up with my new manager, got some coffee (I'm glad the man has his priorities straight!), then chatted a little about my job while waiting for the rest of the company to get settled in to their desks. Then I went on the grand tour to meet everyone, shook a lot of hands, and found people to be generally nice. The day passed with some orientation, some training, poking around the development servers, getting set up, things like that. I was a little bored reading through tons of documentation but I know it will get better as I start actually working on things.

At lunchtime I walked into City Center to meet Michael and his coworker Anne (of the little spoon/big spoon debacle, for those playing the home game), we had sammiches and chatted. It was very cold out today, the coldest it's been this season I believe. It makes me glad I just finished knitting up another mobius scarf out of the Landscapes I got. They work up SO fast in that yarn (about three hours all told?), I had already made one for Katie for xmas and then I made one for myself. I'll take pictures at some point. I'll need that scarf as well as some gloves. The walk to Michael's work is 0.3 mile and the walk to the daycare is 0.5 mile. With dropping kidlet off, meeting Michael at lunch, and walking to pick kidlet up, I'll be walking at least a mile a day. Cool. I know I won't be as fond once it starts snowing a lot, but I'll take what I can get.

After work I walked over to the daycare to meet the Michaels and was told that kidlet had a great day. He was a little restless at naptime but only took a few minutes to calm down. Cool. Here's his sheet for his first day, written by his teacher, Matt:

Welcome Michael and family! M + S

How was school today?
Mood: Today your child was:
CHEERFUL
COOPERATIVE
TALKATIVE

Food: This is how your child ate today: (0=None, 1=Some, 2=Most, 4=All)
AM Snack: 1
Lunch: 1
PM Snack: 2

Sleep: Your child slept from 12:30 to 2:55

Notes:
Miichael had a terrific first day! He ate some snack then used some puzzles and other manipulatives. When he finished with those toys he asked Matt, "Computer?" so Matt played some KidsDesk games with Michael and some of his classmates. Sara pulled out some paper and chalk for a holiday art project - Michael seemed to enjoy coloring. At 10:30 we picked up to ready ourselves for outdoor time. Michael did a great job cleaning up and getting his coat to go outside. Once outside he ran with classmates and played inside the climber. Michael also see-sawed. What a fantastic day!

We drove home together, singing songs to entertain little Michael. He's started doing this really funny thing lately where he acts like a monster, going "Raaahhh!" He also has a variant, where he says "Quack!" in his monster voice. We call it monster duck (for obvious reasons). He didn't respond to many of our questions, but once he had sat for a bit he started telling us about his day. It was extremely cute. He looked wiped, though. I'm hoping he's getting enough stimulus where he'll sleep really well at night (for our sake).

We arrived home and the first thing I smelled when I opened the door to the living room was our xmas tree. It was so nice to come home to. We usually procrastinate and don't get a tree until a day or two before the holiday, but this year we had our shit together and did it yesterday. Yay! Michael, being the proactive type, immediately brought it inside and set it up, then spearheaded the decorating effort. I'm glad he did because it looks great and cheered me up.

Here's a generic picture of our tree, like you care but hey. Michael got the tree skirt - isn't it heinous? I asked him why he picked that one and he said it was because "it was the cheesiest one there." Heh.

(Note all of the unbreakable ornaments on the first 3' of the tree...the grouping was chosen by my darling son which is why there are lots of apples hanging out together.)

And here, while we're at it here are some pictures of kidlet. I took one obligatory shot of him with the tree (sort of), and the rest were just him being cute.

In that last one you can see the cacaphony that is our living room "decor", to use that term loosely...the awful Mary Englebreit couch, the flower shop explosion wallpaper, the 70s hassock in the background on the right, the Indian throw covering the back of the couch (and clashing with it horrendously), Michael's 'boobie pillow', and the mint green/cream thing is a lap afghan that I felt sorry for and bought at Goodwill for 75 cents. I think it was bigger once, but is made from wool yarn and was washed in hot water so now it's the approximate size of a postage stamp. It's great for the car, though, perfect size for Michael when he's in his carseat.

So as you can see, I am very much looking forward to the day when we can strip our wallpaper and paint the walls, and then I will rejoice when we can actually purchase our own couch in a fabric of our own choosing. Our entire house is hand-me-down chic, in fact I should make a sign reading "Beggars Can't Be Choosers" in some folksy font to hang over our front door.

God, he looks like a little boy, doesn't he?

Overall, I had a great day, kidlet had a great day, and it was so nice to be able to talk to Michael on the drive to and from work. I am really looking forward to many more days spent hanging around the Old Port. I picked up a copy of the Portland Phoenix to look for fun activities to do in the evenings.

I feel like I've rejoined the human race. I guess I thrive on people more than I thought I did. I'd make a lousy hermit.

Other stuff.

2005-12-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

I've had myself a good crying jag and feel a little better. My eyeballs feel all wrung-out and stingy, though.

Today I shaved my legs and my armpits in honor of the new job starting Monday, as well as Michael's company xmas party tonight. I wanted to wear tights and the hair on my legs was getting to be so long that it would hurt considerably to bend it. Even loose jeans made me uncomfortable. Anyway, I shaved it all off and even trimmed the shrubbery in honor of the xmas season. Deck the halls!

Of course, it wasn't until we had been at the party an hour or so that I realized I had neglected to remember deodorant. Ha!

I didn't have anything to wear...honestly! I ended up wearing the same long black skirt and chocolate brown chenille sweater that I wore last year. Oh well. I dressed it up by wearing a necklace this year, plus black tights and black shoes.

We dropped kidlet off with Auntie, as she lives in the West End of Portland and the party was at the DoubleTree Hotel near 295 so they were only five minutes away from one another. I am so grateful that she loves kidlet so much and was willing to watch him.

The party went well...Michael is a pretty reserved guy and doesn't like to mingle so he depends on me to be his social liason for these types of events. It's funny...I'm so shy and nervous talking to people I don't know well, yet when the need arises I can be extremely social and outgoing. I assure you I cringe during every minute of it. I wish I could remember names better, that's my one major social flaw.

When we showed up we talked to a few people we knew, and then got some cheesencrackers and sat down to drink our sodas. While we were sitting the president of the company came by to talk to us, and gushed on and on about how wonderful it is having Michael around. I'm so proud of my man. He's so amazingly smart and dedicated and this is the first job he's had in the eleven years I've known him that he's actually been recognized and appreciated.

I forgot to mention that the past month or so Michael has been working a lot of extra hours on a huge database conversion that's rolling out next week. He was not only staying late at the office, he was also doing a good bit of work from home, logging in to the remote server from here and from his parents' house in CT. He wasn't able to come to CT for Thanksgiving until Thursday morning, his workload was so heavy. On Thursday he was called into his boss' office and commended for his going above and beyond, not only on this project but with everything he's been doing for the company. He's also been spearheading an effort to get his team to assist other divisions within the company and not just outside clients. Anyway, they told him how awesome he was and then gave him a 6% raise! This is on top of the 10% raise he got for his annual review last Summer, AND he will still get his regular review Summer 2006. How fantastic is that?

So anyway, the president guy talked to us for a few more minutes and we all smiled a lot. He seems like a sincerely nice guy, I really like him. After that it was time to move to the banquet hall for dinner.

I told Michael that we should get into the room early, and sit down at a table somewhat centrally located before the bulk of the people showed up. That way, we didn't have to awkwardly wander around looking for place to sit, and people would come to us if they were interested in joining us. I'm happy to report that we had a full table :) Jim and his wife whose name I forget sat with us again this year (they also sat with us last year), so I guess they liked us, one of Michael's awkward coworkers and his quiet wife sat with us, and another couple, the woman was someone Michael worked with but I had never met before. We had some very nice conversation and very few awkward pauses (mostly when I'd try to strike up conversation with Mr. and Mrs. quiet coworker).

At one point the vice president of the company came by and thanked me for the plant I had sent to him when his mother passed away. It was weird, when Mom died he sent a huge (HUGE) tropical plant to the house, the thing is four feet tall. No joke. Then I found out two weeks later his mom passed away. How sad! I sent him a cyclamen. I told him that I was happy to send him a plant, only I was sorry it wasn't as massive as the one he sent me. He said, "Was it big?" to which I answered, "My friends joke that they know it's the right house because they can see the jungle through the front window. We considered putting Christmas lights on it and not getting a tree at all this year!" He laughed. We talked a little more, we live in the same town and I told him that we had driven by his house while going to the apple orchard. It was a nice conversation. I really like him, he seems like an all-around nice guy. I told Michael that once the holidays are behind us that we should invite his family over for dinner. (Because I also found out that after the city's revaluation of all of the properties in town, our house is worth more than his :)

Dinner was decent, nothing to write home about but not terrible either. They had a huge chafing dish full of steamed veggies, which I was thrilled to see, and about four different kinds of meat. I made a joke to Michael that his company really was all about meat, it was a veritable meat-o-rama!

After we ate there were a few presentations to people who had been with the company 5 and 10 years, and then the DJ started playing music. I told Michael that it was time for him to get up and mingle. He wasn't keen on that but I dragged him out of his seat anyway and started making the rounds. We had a good time, overall, and with my starting my new job a few blocks away at least we had something interesting to talk about with people. I heard from a number of IT guys that they were really grateful to have Michael on staff to work with and that he had really contributed a lot to projects he had assisted with. That was cool.

While I was there I ran into an ex-coworker of mine, Brian. I had worked with Brian the last time I was working in Portland, the company that laid me off in the middle of maternity leave. He was there as the date of a girl who worked for the company. We chatted a little and I found out that they were still a very small operation, and from his body language I didn't get the feeling that they were doing all that well. I got a little bit of selfish satisfaction out of that, I'll admit. Frankly I've been waiting to run into one of those guys, as downtown Portland is a small place and especially in the computer biz everyone pretty much knows one another. I'm positive that once I start working down there I'll run into people while out and about. The conversation was very polite and I'm glad I had plenty to say about my new job.

We mingled a. lot. Michael got nervous and kept going back to the bar for another drink, so much that when he saw us coming the bartender said, "Diet Pepsi and ginger ale with cranberry juice?" while pouring them for us. Heh. Finally we decided we had had enough and I said we could go, but first we had to go say thank you to the president and to the vice-president before we left. "We already talked to both of them," Michael said, and I told him it didn't matter, that saying thank you to them was the right thing to do and would leave a lasting impression that didn't smack of ass-kissing.

We found the president and said goodbye, he immediately took my hand to shake it, then pulled me in to kiss me on the cheek and give me a hug. It was very sweet. We thanked him for having us and that it was a great party, and he gushed a little more about Michael and told me to definitely stop in to visit now that I was going to be in town every day. We found the vice president on the dance floor and said goodbye to him, more handshakes and hugs, then made our way out.

On the way to the car Michael took my hand and said, "Thank you." it felt good to be walking beside my successful husband after a very pleasant evening.

In the car I told Michael that this new job and the way childcare just fell into place feels to me like the start of an exciting new chaper of our lives...more than just the money (though I'll admit the money is fantastic), we'll be able to do more with little Michael after we get out of work. We'll be able to commute together in the morning and evening, and I was really looking forward to being able to chat with him and listen to the radio like we did before. We can go see Michael's sister any weeknight, either meet for dinner out or go to her apartment, which will be great for her as well as for kidlet as he adores his Auntie, we can hang around the Old Port with the kiddo and Katie if she's available, take advantage of events and exhibitions and whatever we wish. I feel as if our lives have just opened up with opportunity...instead of spending each day rushing home to our small town to pretty much do nothing, we'll be able to see people and experience things whenever we want to. I am just so psyched about this. I may be painfully shy, but I love being in places where there are lots of people and lots going on. I think I thrive off of the energy.

And the money...I can't discount the money. With the salary I'll be making and the raise Michael just got, every little bit means that we're closer and closer to being out of debt forever. We've got our own 401K/IRA nest eggs, a fat piece of our refinancing money in a high-yield CD, little Michael's piggy bank CD, and from the looks of it after paying bills we'll actually have something left over to plug right into debt. We don't have a lot of debt left, most of it was rolled into our mortgage, but we can pay off our cars quicker, then start shoving that money into our mortgage payment. It just seems like things are finally going our way. Once we're out of debt (meaning everything but the mortgage), we won't need as much income. I'm looking forward to that.

I have my fingers crossed that this isn't all a dream, that things are actually happening. I really want to have the time and extra money to visit friends of ours in other states that we don't get to see often enough, even fly to CA to visit dear friends that we haven't seen in years and years. Mauybe in a few years we'll even be able to take a real family vacation. That would be awesome.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

2005-12-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

I haven't really talked about this here lately, because frankly it's the same boring old shit. I'm still having a hard time sleeping because of Mom. There hasn't been a night since she died 53 days ago that I have been able to lie down and go to sleep. Every night I sit up watching movies, late night television, reading a book, burning my eyes out on the Internet, or knitting myself into a coma. I have to get myself to the point of exhaustion just to get to sleep, which I have found to be between 2:30 and 3:00 am. Then once I am asleep, I can't get my ass out of bed in the morning to save my life. I usually surface for a quick moment to realize Michael is leaving for work around 7am, then either doze on and off in bed or on the couch until 9 or 10am while the kidlet destroys everything he can get his hands on and watches hours of mind-numbing PBS. There have been a few mornings I manage to drag myself out of bed and drink a couple of mugs of coffee before 8am just to get myself going, but it's not very often.

I'm most concerned because I start my new job on Monday so that leaves me (not counting tonight) one night to get a real, honest-to-God decent night's sleep. I'm worried that I'll either be sitting here doing what I'm doing right now this time tomorrow, or I'll somehow manage to get to sleep and the kidlet will decide it's a good night to party like it's 1999.

Anyway, I haven't mentioned this because I know I need help and I haven't gotten it. I am having a really hard time concentrating on things, due partially to exhaustion I think. I have stupid little things that I can't even get started on because the idea of going from step 1 to step 6 is far too overwhelming right now. It's seriously fucked up.

On Monday morning we'll need to leave the house by 7am at the latest, ideally we should leave by 6:45 to give us enough time to drop kidlet off, get him acclimated, then get to our respective workplaces by 8. I just hope I can manage to get up and functional in time. Thank god my new job is a casual workplace. I've already decided to take a shower on Sunday night and make SURE that I have kidlet's bag packed and ready to go by the front door. Thank god they provide all snacks and lunch so at least I won't have to do that any more.

I fucking hate this.

Tonight the topic was, "What did Mom think about while she was lying on the floor for six hours the day she went to the hospital?" and other related concepts.

It always starts with the vivid replay of my mother's throat hitching as if she were choking, my perspective changing as I stood up and approached the side of the bed, then her fixed face as she died. She looked like a mannequin and not a mother. I see the torrent of black goo pouring out of her mouth and staining her hospital johnny, running down her right breast.

Then that image disappears and I see her lying in a coffin in her grave, a cross-section of dirt and concrete and her lying in the middle of it, illuminated by some unknown soft light. Every time I see her she's decayed a little more, and lately her nose has fallen in so her profile is nothing more than a skull stretched with her tightened skin, teeth protruding from receding lips. I think about her horrendously swollen feet and legs, and wonder if the men who prepared her body at the funeral home were disgusted by them. I imagine her traipising through eternity wearing that blue dress she sewed for her 30th high school reunion, only with huge magenta elephantine feet.

Then the Feature of the Day starts. Tonight I imagined her last weeks of life, wondering if she knew she were dying. Dave told us later that she had been throwing up every time she ate, and I imagine she must have felt pretty terrible. Did she know even then that the end was near? The day she was brought to the hospital she had fallen while Dave was out visiting his own mother, and she lay on the floor for at least five hours. She wasn't strong enough to get up or even pull herself to the phone to call for help. By this time her body had started consuming itself in response to being so severely malnourished and the muscles in her feet were twitching, causing unbearable pain in her feet and lower legs. What did she think just before she fell? Did she fall in slow-motion, like the feeling you get during an accident? When she hit the floor did she get knocked out? What were her first thoughts when she realized she couldn't get up? Was that the moment she knew she was going to die? Did she call out for help, even knowing that no one would hear her? Did she cry? Did she call the cats to her to try and gain some comfort from petting them? Did she watch television while she was lying there? Did she think to herself that it was really stupid not to have the phone within reach in case something like this happened? Did she think she would die on that floor before Dave got home? Did she continue to try to pull herself up at least to a sitting position to get to the phone? Did she panic? How did she pass the time? Did she try to sleep from where she was? Could she feel drafts blowing across the floor? Could she smell the dust under the couch? What did she do that entire time? What would I have done were that me?

Then I wonder what she did when she heard Dave's car come into the driveway. Did she cry with relief? Did she get angry? Did she immediately start screaming when he opened the door or did she wait for him to discover her? How weak was she and in how much pain?

I'm angry that Dave didn't call us after calling the ambulance. He told us later that she was still conscious and able to talk to him, was asking the ER doctor if she could go home that night. She was still there. Yet he didn't call us until well into the following day after she had been in the ICU and was more or less non-responsive. My mother was stolen from me, those last moments where I could have talked to her and she could have talked back. He said that once they were in the ER they had to wait a long time. He said he wanted to call us but couldn't remember our number. Why didn't Mom know the number? She used to call me all the time. Why didn't Dave try to look it up in the phone book? Why didn't he go home and get the phone book with our numbers in it? Why didn't he at least call us as soon as he got home to let us know what had happened?

Why didn't he call?

Why didn't he call?

I never got to hear her talk to me again. I don't even remember when was the last time I heard her say "I love you." I could have gone to see her in the ER. I could have seen her alive, not laid out in a bed connected to a bunch of machines. I could have seen her face one more time before it was transformed into a mask of death.

Why didn't he call me?

Why didn't hge call me?>

Oh mommy, I miss you so much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you./

And now I have all the time in the world to sit and dwell. Every night I live through it all over again and every night I find new things to feel angry or guilty about. I think of new ways that I failed her and more opportunities I lost. We all fucked up so bad and now I'm paying the price. This is my burden.

Cold Socks Treatment

2005-11-29T12:08:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting method I'd never heard of that I just found online, I plan to ask her about it. I want to try it the next time I get sick!

Cold Socks Treatment:

Randall Bradley, N.D. , a naturopath from Omaha Nebraska, frequently uses the cold socks treatment, a long-standing naturopathic therapy for stimulating the immune system.

Dr. Bradley finds this treatment to be effective in relieving the symptoms of many upper respiratory conditions such as head and chest colds, earaches, the flu, sore throats and even allergies. With this procedure, he says, relief is often seen within thirty minutes. If it is not, one can repeat the treatment while the patient remains covered and in bed. After four hours or usually by morning, the wet socks should be totally dry, the feet warm and the symptoms gone or much improved. Dr.Bradley says it is effective with both children and adults.

Step 1: Soak the foot part of a pair of 100% cotton socks in very cold water and wring them out thoroughly.
Step 2: Put the child's feet into a basin or bathtub of hot water, as hot as tolerable without burning. Have the bath deep enough to cover the ankles. Have the child sit on a chair or the edge of the tub, and keep the rest of the body warm. Soak the feet for about 5 to 8 minutes until they are hot and pink.
Step 3: Remove the feet from the hot water and pat then dry with a towel.
Step 4: Immediately put on the cold wet cotton socks, and then a pair of dry wool socks over those. At this point the patient should be covered and kept warm.
Step 5: Have the child go directly to bed, keeping the feet covered throughout the night. According to Dr. Bradley, this therapy will fail if the feet are uncovered, or if the patient walks around or sits in a chair uncovered.

Dr. Bradley believes that this home remedy works hemodynamically (by moving the blood to a specific area of the body -- in this case the feet). He suggests that when the blood is drawn away from the head to warm the feet, pressure in the head is relieved. As a result, the symptoms of the illness may disappear, and children usually fall asleep immediately. People who try this remedy will not only feel better the next day, but the treatment may actually boost their immune system, moving them through the illness faster.

11/29/2005

2005-11-29T12:03:00.000-05:00

(from Monday 11/29)

Our new toilet, by the way - so nice. It doesn't stink and it flushes well and it's even comfy to sit on without a flimsy seat. Toiletopia!

I got some stuff in the mail from Michael's new doctor. I might even see if she has any openings for adults, as I could make her my PCP as well. I have to fill out a food log for kidlet and answer a questionnaire about eating habits. After working on it, I realized that kidlet is pretty friggin healthy! I started with yesterday since it was the only day I could really remember...he has been SO hard to get food into these days, plus it was a five day stretch away from home, so getting him to eat has been even tougher. I feel ever so much better after seeing it all on paper. My answers in italics.

Dietary History
Write down the details of a typical day's meals and snacks. Include drinks plus sugar and milk.
* Nurses all night on demand and 2-3 x during the day (as desired). Water at all times.
Breakfast: toast or cereal (Kashi Heart to Heart), YoBaby yogurt, soy milk, apple/orange/banana
Lunch: pasta or sandwich (whole wheat bread pb & j, grilled cheese, etc.), raw carrots/cucumbers, fruit if desired, cheese, beans
Supper: cProtein: chicken breast/beans/pasta w/cheese
steamed veggie: broccoli/green beans/carrots/etc.
Starch: rice/potato/bread
Snacks: popcorn, carrots, fruit, Kashi, crackers, cheese, cucumbers, beans, olives (occasionally)
* Mom takes prenatal vitamins, no other medications, 1-2c coffee or tea per day

How often do you eat the following foods?
Red meat: occasionally - 1-2 x month
Fish: occasionally - don't eat a lot of fish at home
Chicken: frequently - 3-4 x week
Nuts: frequently
Beans: daily
Cheese: frequently
Milk: rarely - soy milk and breastmilk daily
Ice cream: occasionally - 1 x week
Bread: white: never whole grean bread always
Salads: occasionally
Vegetables: daily
Fruit: How much? 2-3 daily
Soda: NEVER
Candy: rarely - holidays only, 1-2 pcs max
Sugar in beverages: never
Do you think you have a weight problem? no

Client's Daily Diet Report

* Nurses all night on demand (co-sleeping)

Sunday 11/27
6am: nursed
8am to 9am: 1 slice wheat toast w/butter, clementine, 1.5c soy milk, Smartfood popcorn, water
11am: tomato & roasted red pepper soup (a little), 1/2 grilled cheese on wheat, 4 potato chips, water
11:30am: nursed
12-3: nap
3pm: handful TLC crackers, handful baby carrots, water
5pm: nursed
5:15pm: YoBaby yogurt, clementine
6:30pm: chicken, potatoes, carrots, bread (very little), 1/4c whole milk
7:30pm: a few bites ice cream
8:30pm: YoBaby yogurt, water
9pm: nursed

Monday 11/28
6:30am: apple, blueberry scone, egg, water
9am: YoBaby yogurt, 1c soy milk
10am: nursed

...and now he's still napping at 11:30. I've heard him toss and turn a little so I'm sure he'll be up soon. I wish I could remember further back in the weekend to record what he was eating, but I really can't recall times and I'm sure I'll leave something out. However considering we were on the road for most of Sunday and ate dinner at my brother's house that night, I think he did pretty well for an abnormal day. I feel bad but some days I literally am shoving anything that I can get into his mouth as he runs by, he just doesn't want to sit still for meals nowadays.

Maybe I should start keeping a food log for myself. Today I've had a Luna bar, a blueberry scone, and I'm drinking a cup of coffee. Some days I know I definately should be eating more, but others I choose snacks that are no good for me. Since I haven't been exercising at the gym since my mom died I've been holding steady at my current weight, which isn't great but it's what I've got. I feel healthy at the very least and I'm taking my vitamins.

Home again home again

2005-11-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

Left Wednesday, back today. I could write about a lot but for the moment I'm just glad to be back home and I'm tired.

Synopsis for now:

Drove a lot.

Knitted with TK.

Ate turkey.

Ate turkey again.

Sick of turkey.

Saw lots of Michael's relatives.

Had good time.

Met back up with TK and her family.

Went to many yarn stores.

Dyed Treliske yarn using Berry Blue Kool-Aid. How super-cinchy was that!

Yarn smelled good.

Kool-Aid stains everydamnthing.

Had blue boogers when I blew my nose from breathing in the powder.

Vowed never to drink Kool-Aid again.

Got little Michael's picture taken with Santa.

Walked around uber crowded West Farms Mall.

Met up with the Boys and my Lonnie for dinner.

Impromptu gaming with the Boys that was lots of fun.

Miss the Boys.

Miss Lonnie.

Miss Maura.

Miss CT, a little.

Don't miss the highways and the traffic and all the soccer moms in huge SUVs.

I hate driving behind SUVs. You can't see a friggin thing around them.

I hate driving in MA. It's a waste of commuting space in my opinion.

Came home today.

House only smelled vaguely of cat pee, as Leonard had kindly scooped the litter box at least part of the time we were gone.

Thank God.

Three cats can do a lot of damage in the space of four days if not kept in check.

Had dinner with brother Bob, SIL, and stepdad Dave. Had fun time.

Washing laundry from weekend.

Brigid is still visiting out in SoPa, having a wonderful time.

Getting ready for bed.

I'll talk about the latest yarn acquisitions and projects plans tomorrow. Much talk of felting forthcoming.

xo

11/22/2005

2005-11-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

(from Tuesday 11/22)

The plumbers are here! The plumbers are here! Yaaaay!

See me do a dance of happiness!

They're really nice guys, father and son. I got talking to the dad and he said that he's been a plumber for years, but just started his own business back in June. Cool. He even complimented our choice of toilet :) They just carried the old, hated potty out, and I am not at all sad to see it go. He said that the metal piece that fell out was one of the two bolts that hold the tank on, so no wonder it was leaking. When he went to loosen the other bolt, it just broke in half. It turns out this is a good time to replace it. Normally if it were only the bolts we wouldn't get it replaced, but this toilet has been a PITA since we moved in. The jets that rinse the bowl never worked in the front, and they may have been an easy fix, but it was just slight enough that we never did. As a result I had to scrub the damned thing every day (especially during the summer) so that the toilet didn't stink. Bleah. It also turns out that there was no wax sealer around the base of the toilet to keep water from pooling undeneath it and rottting the floor if there were a leak or an overflow (niiice) and the water intake is the older-style of solid pipe rather than a flexible hose, which is also being replaced. I'm so relieved, and in more ways than one!

I'm so glad to find a nice, reliable, good plumber, I will be adding his business card to the bulletin board in the kitchen. It's taken us a few years, but we are slowly builing a list of contractors that we can trust and won't cost us an arm and a leg.

The other thing that makes this guy great is when I talked to him yesterday he asked me if Lowe's had given me wax sealer or bolts to attach the toilet to the floor...I said no, they never mentioned it. He went and picked them up himself and didn't charge me for it. How great that he checked into that and didn't wait until he got here to ask?

I'm glad to be getting these names because if we ever get the time and money to do some major renovation, I know how I'll be calling.

Speaking of which, on my way home from Portland yesterday I had a sudden inspiration - I figured out how I would ultimately like to redo our kitchen! See, we have a teensy weensy kitchen. The room I'm in now is on the other side of the wall with a small fireplace sort of jammed near the corner and it would be great if we could knock the wall out to expand the space, only there's a pantry and a bathroom in between. The entire kitchen/dining room/entry/office are all in what used to be a porch and have their own roof independent from the rest of the house. I was thinking that we could knock out all of the walls from this section and tear out the ceiling to the rafters! How cool would that be?

We could rebuild the fireplace in this room and expand it into a real working kitchen hearth, I'm talking huge flagstones, wide mantle, and a wood-burning oven. Ultimately I would like to do most of my cooking and baking in the hearth rather than using an electric stove. Opening up all the walls would make the resulting room huge, so we could have the kitchen on the back half of the house, then a dining area on the front where the windows are, and the remaining space could be used for a butcher's block island for food preparation, chairs for guests, and whatnot. The kitchen would truly become the heart of this house, and I would love that. I'm such a kitchen witch that I could totally see me cooking and baking while friends and family visit at the table, or sitting drinking tea with folks, or teaching my child(ren) to cook and bake. I am totally jazzed about this idea. The pantry and bathroom could be moved to the other side of what is now the kitchen, and the pantry could even be expanded so I could put dough in there to rise and use as storage for canned goods.

That's my latest idea, anyway. If I could just live in a really huge kitchen I think I'd be happy. I was totally one of those kids who would go on those field trips to Sturbridge Village and wish that I could live in one of those houses.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Oh, I really like this one...

Rainy Tuesday happiness!

2005-11-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

Whoa, okay, I am having a GREAT day so far. I just can't believe it!

As I've mentioned, the last few days I've been searching for a daycare for little Michael starting December 5th. This sort of thing always seems to result in settling for something inconvenient, or too expensive, or not quite what you want, and is a lot of legwork. In short, I friggin hate searching for childcare. I spent Friday driving around getting repeatedly lost and visiting places that I never in a million years would choose for my son. Monday was more of the same. The only places we found were one in-town Portland that was PERFECT, only a few blocks from our respective workplaces...we visited and it was so lovely, the staff was wonderful, the director was great...the only thing is, it had a 6-12 month waiting list. So we got put on the waiting list for that place, and then were leaning heavily toward a place closer to home that was nice enough, but inconvenient for commuting. They couldn't take him until December 12th, AND they take two weeks off a year so our vacation would be blown on that. Since the last place Michael attended daycare was also out of the way, I had resigned myself to making that a part of my life again.

Last night I went through the phone book and searched online, writing down any and all daycares that were between here and Portland. As depressing as it was, I realized that if we had to find someplace that it would be acceptable to be closer to home even though that would mean we would have to rush home every night to pick him up before the daycare closed, and doctor's appointments would be a huge PITA.

This morning I got a call from the daycare in Portland, telling me that an opening had become available! I was astounded! I immediately called back and the director told me that a space had just opened up unexpectedly and everyone else on the waiting list before us weren't able to take the spot, so it was ours! OMG! I am so excited. We set up an appointment to get him signed up for next week, and he can start December 5th! Zowie!

This is so great...we'll be able to commute together every day, park in the lot where Michael has a paid space, then walk kidlet to daycare, drop him off, then walk to work! We can visit him at lunch time or even take him out to the Portland Public Market if we want to, we can walk to pick him up, and with Christmas coming there will be lots to see and do in Portland in the evenings! I am so excited! Instead of an hours' commitment every day, this will cut our time expenditure dropping off-picking up to about fifteen minutes. Whoa.

The best thing is the huge weight on my shoulders just lifted as I no longer have to make calls or drive around visiting places, I don't have to choose the least inconvenient option. I feel so much better already.

On top of that, I got a call from the plumber yesterday about our new terlit, and when I asked him about when he could come to install it, he said, "How about tomorrow?" So he'll be here today at 1pm! Whoa! Talk about service!

On top of THAT, Heide and Jay are ecstatic about taking Brigid for the Thanksgiving holiday...they've been wanting a dog and we've told them that any time they want to borrow Brigid to see how they like St. Bernards they are welcome to take her for a week or two. (We actually do that a lot, we've loaned out our dog and our cats to various people considering getting pets, so they can see if they like it before the actually adopt an animal.) Heide just picked Brigid up, so now we don't have to worry about getting a dogsitter while we're in CT! I called Jay to let him know they were on their way and to thank him for taking care of her, and he said that he wanted to thank me as it was a pleasure, they were all so excited about having her over. Wow. Hopefully Brigid has a wonderful doggie vacation with them. They have all of her vet information and my cell phone number in case of emergency.

The very best of the best is now that Michael will be in Portland I can look for a new doctor for him. I haven't been happy with the pediatricians here in town as they're very traditional and love to prescribe lots of drugs for everydamnthing. I always seem to get stuck with the one doctor I really don't like, the one who tried to tell me my son would be irreprably scarred if I didn't get him the chicken pox vaccine and he caught it naturally. Jerk.

Anyway, I've been in touch with a couple of naturopaths and one is accepting new patients! Best of all, they're only a few blocks from where we'll be, too! Woot!

Man, I'm having a great day so far. My SIL is even coming to visit after she gets out of class this afternoon. I'm excited to see her.

I need to go - kidlet is getting antsy and needs some lunch. That and he dumped a cup of cereal on the dining room floor and I really need to vaccuum it up before the plumber gets here.

Ciao!

See me...feel me...touch me...DSL me...

2005-11-19T12:02:00.000-05:00

Let me start off first by saying

OMFGDSLOMGOMGWTFDSLOMGBBQ!!!!!!1!!1!!!!11!!!eleventyone!!1111!!!!!

Not only was DSL available, but Verizon actually came through and got it set up two days ahead of the rescheduled-scheduled date. Woot! We're still working some kinks out - if the phone line is picked up or the phone rings while downloading/streaming, it stops the stream, then restarts it - but overall it's so nice to be able to load pages in about an eighth of the time it too using dialup. My Earthlink account is SO going byebye.

I started watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on television tonight, only it's horrendously edited for length and I had to stop because too many bits and pieces were missing. I'll just rent it again when I want to see it. Speaking of which, I'm kind of hoping to get the time to go see the Goblet of Fire, maybe over Thanksgiving weekend while we're in CT I'll ask Grandma to watch kiddo so Michael and I can go on a date.

In other news, every time Michael and I are in a store that carries those Brio wooden train sets we talk about getting something for kidlet. Michael says that he always wanted something like that when he was a kid, so we've been pining over them for a while. The other day we found the Country Crossing train set on clearance for 50% off! That's pretty good considering, getting a $50 train set for $25. Even my husband Stingy McPennypinch couldn't argue with that. We got it home and opened it to find that the two y-shaped curved connectors were missing. Damn and double damn. Maybe that's why it was on clearance, but no matter - I've emailed Brio to see if they'll send me the pieces on good faith, and if that doesn't work I'll bring it back to the store and pray that there are still some left. Or, at the very least, they should be able to order the two pieces of missing track for us as I think you can get just the individual pieces. We would love to set up a train table where the track was installed permanently, I've seen those in a number of places and they are so cool! Kidlet loves the train, by the way - he has played with it every day since we got it. He loves making the little wooden horse and cow eat the apples off of the tree and the hay that's carried one of the train cars. He pushes it around making little choo-choo noises.

Last week I started looking for a new daycare for kidlet. The one he was going to is in the exact opposite direction we'd be going to get to work, so I was hoping to find something close to where we're working in Portland. It's more expensive but the extra cost would be worth the time savings. I found one place with the perfect location, only with no openings at the moment. I'm going to get on their waiting list, then find somewhere else for him to go until something opens up (hopefully sooner than later). I saw a few sufficiently horrifying places, and one nice place that was very expensive and ever so slightly inconvenient to make it not worthwhile. Instead, at the forefront currently is a place closer to home that is the same place Jenn and Leonard's daughter goes. And it's $50 less a week. Yeah. I can't justify the same time expenditure for $50 more. Nuh-uh. The place in downtown Portland is expensive but it'll be worth it if I can walk to pick kidlet up. I have a few more places to visit on Monday and Tuesday, and then we'll make our decision from there. I hate this part, but it needs to be done and I am determined to get it resolved before we go away for the holiday.

Something very exciting happened today - we bought a new toilet! Now I know for sure that I'm a grownup. Last week a metal doohickey fell off of the back of the toilet, and by the time I noticed it sitting there it was in a rusty puddle of water. Something was leaking. This toilet has been a problem since the beginning. The bowl doesn't rinse all the way around, so I'd literally have to scrub it daily just to keep it from starting to smell bad. It embarasses me when people come over and use it. Michael took a look at the toilet and decreed that rather than fixing this one we would get a new one. I was relieved at the prospect. We found a nice one that's lower to the ground (something I was thinking of for potty training purposes) and we even sprung to have someone come to install it. I insisted that the one thing I did NOT want was a plastic toilet seat. I hate those friggin plastic toilet seats that feel like they're going to invert if you sit on the cover. I sit on the closed seat while kidlet is taking his bath, and if I prop my feet up on the wall I feel like it's either going to invert, taking me with it, or break off from the sideways pressure. We got a white wooden toilet seat to go with the new toilet, and even got a new white wooden seat to go on the other toilet, whose black seat was nasty looking and starting to get worn around the inside edge - not pretty. Tonight Michael said, "I really like this new toilet seat," in a way that sounded like one would say something like, "I really like chocolate." I laughed at him. He's so funny. But I'll admit, the new seat is about a hundred times nicer than the old one. Who knew happiness could come in the form of a $20 toilet seat? With stylish brushed nickel hinges, no less. I danced around singing "Movin' On Up" in celebration of our new commode coture.

While we were at Lowe's we looked at lamps and light fixtures and bathroom sinks, dreaming and talking about the future. Our mantra has become "Once we're out of debt," which is awesome because we really WILL be out of debt very soon! I think my getting a job and a real income has gotten Michael all excited. He's such a Virgo, and not having to worry about money changes his whole outlook whether he realizes it or not. He's so chipper. With the barn roof and a new furnace first in line it might be a few years, but I can't wait to replace the Home Depot cheapie vanity in the bathroom that looks like crap. Brass and laminate, begone!

Because this would be pretty darned cool.

Last but not least, just before we checked out I noticed something reading, "Get a free gift by mail with purchase!" of the toilet we had chosen. At the checkout we got a rebate receipt to send in to Kohler, and they're going to send us a free toilet paper holder, towel ring, and towel bar just for buying their toilet. I don't know if we'll use all of them, but it's awfully cool to get completely free accessories without expecting it.

I'm going to get back to some knitting, though I have to say being able to browse free knitting and crochet patterns without having to wait two lifetimes to do it nearly took my breath away. I'm so glad to have DSL for $15 a month, especially considering we were paying Earthlink $20 for the privelege of dialup. Eff that.

Here's to progress!

OMG DSL

2005-11-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

OMG!