Archive for November, 2005

Nov 14 2005

in my quest of the decorating gene!!

Published by under house

My brother Joseph is quite a talented photographer. Or at least, as he says, if you expose enough film, eventually something good will turn up. Well, this photo is one of my favorites. Like, ever, out of everything in the world. I’m going to get a print made, frame it, and put it in my front hall.

Joseph, Amy's brother
This is my brother Joseph.Piano photograph

This is the photo that I love. It is of my mother’s piano.

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Nov 14 2005

Monday Morning Blues

Published by under amy's head,kids

I wasn’t suffering from the “MUNDAYS” or anything, in fact, I actually was feeling pretty good. Until I went to drop Ethan off at his pre-school, and he didn’t want to go into his classroom.

When I went into his room this morning to wake him up, he didn’t get up right away (he usually does). I had to go in a second time and turn his light on and make sure he was getting up. He is usually very excited to get out of bed, visit the bathroom and get dressed all by himself (a recent accomplishment is the ability to snap his own jeans, which at one point, he showed to each person in turn at yesterday’s soiree). So I was a little worried that something was wrong, but he seemed fine and his usual boisterous self after he got over the initial sleepiness. He didn’t seem to be that hungry though, and only ate about 1/4 of his morning bagel. He seemed fine walking in to school, but when we got to the actual door to his class, he wouldn’t walk in. I pulled/carried him in, and sat with him in a snuggle, but I didn’t want to draw out the inevitable departure. He didn’t bawl, but there was a few tears shed. When I left, he had gotten out his naptime blanket and was huddled up in it, ignoring his teacher’s attempts to engage him.

My morning commute was lengthened due to an accident that blocked one lane of traffic. I didn’t get in until 8:30, a half hour later than usual. I think of this as an additional half hour that I worried about my poor little son, berated myself for being a bad mother who is working instead of staying home with him and his sister, and decided that I was ruining his life forever. I got to work and promptly called his school (I had forgotten my cell phone, or I’d have called on the drive in) to hear that he was doing fine.

I always say that I wish my kids would just stay this age forever, and of course in a way I do because they’re small and just cuter than big-eyed kittens in baskets hugging the Snuggly teddy bear on top of sleeping long-eared puppies. WAY CUTER. But a part of me dreads them growing up because parenthood at this stage has got to be so much easier than parenthood to older kids with actual problems and concerns. Right now, I can hug them away any tears and kiss their boo-boos and help them get through being scared of the dark, and let them “DO IT MYSELF MOMMY!” and show them their letters and what sounds they make. It still kills me at times like today, when I wish I had never HEARD of going back to work, just so I could stay with my boy and hold him. But surely even this will be easier than what is ahead. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to help them with fights with friends, problems with school or teachers, having the wrong sort of friends, storming off to their rooms with slammed doors and huffy silences.

Motherhood is hard right now, but I know how to be a mother to toddlers. I don’t know how good a mother I will be to older kids, or dread the day, pre-teen and beyond.

So, yeah. Mondays suck.

I’ll write more on my weekend later.

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Nov 10 2005

There’s a little birdhouse in my soul

Published by under amy's head,daily,house

One thing you may not know about me, is that I like to talk smack.

Of course, I’m not very good at it, so my smack talking is usually pretty lame. But if I drink enough, the urge to talk smack increases. So at our usual poker gatherings, and even at my monthly Bunko game with the suburban neighborhood ladies, I tend to get happy and loose with the, “YOU’RE GOING DOWN, BABY!” “IN YOUR FACE!” and the general merriment of loudly lamenting my own suckiness, if that’s the case.

It’s not so much that I HAVE to win, or hate to lose. I just think that getting all boisterous is part of the fun!

Speaking of suburban neighborhood ladies, I have succumbed to the inevitable and am hosting a Pampered Chef party this weekend. “Pampered Chef?” you wonder. “What’s that?” Well, just think back to when your mom hosted or attended the in-your-living-room tupperware parties where the gals gathered and oohed and aahed over the latest and greatest food storage device, talked with each other and caught up with the various ongoings, and then occasionally bought said food storage devices. Now update it to the present decade, and there you go. I’m thinking about doing my hair up in a beehive, donning an apron, high heels and dishwashing gloves* for the event. If you are reading this and are in the near vicinity, then it is likely that you received an invitation. (If not, then call me! you can come too! come come! dishwashing gloves optional!)

* I actually have dishwashing gloves. They’re pretty neat. I got them because sometime a few years ago I started getting a mysterious rash on my hands after I was working in the kitchen. Once I had them, I was hooked – my favorite time to don them was cleaning out the baby formula bottles. At least when Jocelyn was breast-fed, the breastmilk didn’t smell so bad when you were cleaning the bottles, but damn, formula (especially old formula) is particularly rank. Now, I use them all the time, it’s so nice to not get your hands wet. However, I do have a strange urge to don an apron, apply mascara and wear high heels when I’m wearing them.

Back to Pampered Chef.

I am looking forward to this event with some trepidation. First, it involves people in my home. Not just any people, but neighbor people. This freaks me out. First off, I am not the June Cleaver type, and my household shows it. The friends we’ve known forever know that we’re slobs, and slobs with kids, so I like to think they don’t care or notice, even though they probaby do. But it seems like our neighbor friends always have spic and span houses whenever I drop in with table runners and pictures on the wall and tidy play areas where the toys never venture out or look like a ten children play there instead of just 2 or 3.

I did manage to run the vacuum around the main floor at least once a week when I was at home, and I remember when we lived in our temporary townhouse while waiting for our current house’s completion I had a pretty good weekly routine down for making sure the kitchen floor didn’t develop new and deadly diseases. That routine switched over to “Oh the dog will get it.” and other non-cleaning actions. But even then, and moreso now that I’m working full-time (and the dog is away), our house is in sad shape. It would be even worse if not for James, who always, ALWAYS empties and fills the dishwasher, which is the job I hate most in the world. Even when we do manage to pick up the toys that are scattered EVERYWHERE, they just come out again the very next day, so when I’m tired, it’s very easy to look around, think “what’s the point?” and curl up with a book instead.

But even if all the toys were picked up, floors vacuumed, and surfaces cleared, my house is just lacking that grown up look that the other bunko gals have. Pictures! Fake flower arrangements! Furniture that actually have decorative items on their surfaces other than stacks of unread mail and magazines! Seriously. After attending a few Pampered Chef, Southern Living, Tastefully Simple, Party Lite (that one is candles), and some other parties that I can’t remember the name of, and not to mention Bunko nights, my house just doesn’t match up. I don’t think I have the decorating gene. I am always afraid that what looks nice in the store or magazine is going to look yucky in my home, or won’t turn out to be my style. I think my problem is that I don’t ever really think of myself as grown-up yet. I mean, I do think of myself as grown up, but wasn’t it easier when you could collect all sorts of random shit, stick it up on your wall, and call it good? I’ll have to hunt up a picture of my dorm room. I guess I’d like my house to look nice, but still reflect ME (I guess it could reflect James too) and my taste, and once again, my inner picture of myself isn’t “married 31 year old suburban wife and working mother” but rather, “hip, groovy chick who cares not for responsibility or convention”. And also because I don’t know what I like, rather, I like everything, and thus, I’m afraid if I bring it into my house, it’s just going to look junky instead of sleek and planned.

Well.

This subject is lengthier in this blog than the trepidation is at the upcoming gathering in my head.

The gathering isn’t in my head. The trepidation is. Just to be clear. Didn’t want that sketchy grammar up there giving you weird images of gatherings in my head. Although if I did hold a gathering in my head, I would want YOU to be there. Won’t you RSVP in the affirmative? I must say, the decorations THERE are very nice. Funky and ecletic, but most of all, ME.

I so feel like running out and dying my hair this color today. I shall try to resist.

That is all for today. Farewell kind viewers! All … six of you, I think. I’m not counting James who is contractually obligated to read what I write, if for no other reason to discovery whether or not I’m pissed at him for something that I can’t bring myself to say to him. If I did count him, that’d be seven.

FAREWELL!

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Nov 09 2005

Mirror mirror on the wall

Published by under kids,photos

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Nov 09 2005

“You have a Brain Cloud.” *

Published by under amy's head,daily,random

* Name the movie! It’s one of my favorites!

It’s storytime!

I am walking down the hall from my cube to the kitchen when I remembered that I wanted to fill up my water bottle. Water = good. So, I turned back.

Then I thought, I can put my lunch in the microwave and THEN come get my water bottle thus saving time waiting around for the microwave to finish. So I turned back toward the kitchen.

THEN I thought about the distance between point A, my desk, and point B, the kitchen, and decided that my progress between point A and point B was less than 50% and thus turned back to head to my desk to retrieve said water bottle.

It was at this point that I realized that I just circled in place like a dog and if I kept this up someone was going to walk by and give me a bone or something so I beat it back to my desk and sat there, peering around the cubicle wall to see if anyone had seen my strange behavior and was shooting me “weird crazy new-girl” looks.

What’s that? Another story? But I just told you one!

Well, all right, but JUST THIS ONE.

The people that design women’s work wear, have no compassion. DO WOMEN NOT NEED POCKETS IN THEIR SKIRTS??? The answer is NO. Err, Yes. What was the question? I need pockets! And yet, none of my skirts have any. NONE. This is my fault, of course, for buying them w/out pockets in the first place, but seriously, if I waited around for pockets, I’d have no clothes. And while the walking in place in a circle thing would have been embarrassing if someone had caught me, I’m guessing it’d have been even more so with no clothes.

So, no pockets. This has led to some drastic changes in my being. For one, my cell phone has always been my mode of telling the time. I haven’t worn a watch since I was in high school. For some reason after the one I wore broke, I just never could find one I liked as much, and then I was used to NOT wearing one, and didn’t like the way they felt. The cell phone is always in my pocket, so if I needed the time, I just fished it out and checked.

So, when I was working in DC, taking the train, taking the metro, walking walking to my office.. Well, I really needed somewhere to stash my phone so I didn’t have to go rooting through my bag looking for it. One would think “Just buy a watch, dumbo,” but seriously, so strict was my non-watch attitude, that it never even occured to me. Until I found the perfect place for my phone – right in the middle of my bra. I would look around covertly and snuggle the phone down in between the boobs. I would walk merrily from office to metro station and be able to check the time with only getting a few strange looks a day. However, the “non-watch” philosophy was quickly shaken to it’s foundations after I had it on vibrate a few times and just about jumped out of my skin when it went off. Now, THAT will wake you up in the morning!

So, I wear a watch now. I searched and searched and found a watch that I could live with. It’s more of a bracelet, a piece of jewelry really, than a watch. It’s awful purty! The lasting effects of the no pockets situation however, is that now I randomly stick things in my bra when I have no where else to carry them. When I drop Ethan off at school, we have a security card to get into the building. Ethan likes to hold it and “beep!” us in, but then I take it and stash it away securely.

Other items that have been known to reside with the breasts:

  1. My keys (this one is a daily occurance).
  2. Many packets of Equal sweetener (also daily).
  3. Spare Kleenex (but not in the usual way tissues are stuffed in the bra, I promise I don’t need them like THAT.)
  4. Pens, paperclips, and various small office supplies.
  5. Socks (Mine, Ethan’s, or Jocelyn’s. Never James. Ew.)
  6. And in the last week, cough drops.

Sometimes when I get undressed for bed and take off my bra, the weirdest things show up that I have no recollection of putting in there. I think all the items are gettin’ busy and multiplying. PARTY IN THE BRA! NO COVER CHARGE!

Ahem.

OK, storytime’s over! Now off to bed!

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Nov 08 2005

Whirling Weekend Wackiness

Published by under amy's head,daily

So this weekend, aside from the inappropriate thoughts in the head of the amy regarding the ballet (why do i love to put ‘the’ in front of everything? I need help.) it’s been chock full of events and personal enlightenment. Friday night consisted of a “Let’s look inside Amy’s head!” experience. It was interactive, complete with waterworks and I’m sure a Tammy Faye Baker look since I was wearing mascara at the time. I got some insight on why I feel all mopey and depressed sometimes and managed to actually convey these things to James, the wonderful man who listens to my neuroses and tells me it will be ok.

I’ve also started contemplating how much is too much to spill here on this blog. While I would like to go the route of full disclosure, it’s probably not fair to those around me, and we all know how full disclosure can sometimes lead to being dooced so I definitely need to draw the line somewhere. I don’t like lines. I’m going to make my line a fuzzy, foggy sort of mist that I can wander into and out of at will. Yeah! Go mist! On the one hand, I could just pass on the funny bits of my life and call it good, but I didn’t start this blog with the intent of just floating through the events and not really delving into ME, and I don’t want to wanker out now. Because let’s face it. I love talking about ME. ME ME ME.

Anyway. To the weekend.

1) Friday night blubbering*

* To my credit, I got this out of the way FRIDAY NIGHT and then was fine the rest of the weekend – I highly suggest going this route in your mental breakdowns.

I volunteered to fold some brochures for work. So Friday night, James is settled in front of World of Warcraft laptopness and I’m settled in to folding brochuresness. So I’m folding away and we’re watching Gilmore Girls when it occurs to me, that if the situation were reversed, if James was doing some meaningless and menial task, I would offer to help him. What is it about me that I would automatically offer to help complete this boring, skin-drying task? James evidently did not have this “must help” gene, because he didn’t offer. Please don’t mistake me. I’m not trying to paint a “how dare he” or a “poor-little-me” picture here. I’m painting the “I am a PUSSY” picture. Why do I feel the need to offer my assistance? And somewhat related, why do I feel as if I must be in control? I don’t think I would paint myself as a control freak, but maybe I am deluding myself and am nuttier than Monica Geller. As the inner peering continued, into the wee early hours of the morning, I unloaded a bunch of stuff on James and he, as always, has come through it all right, with no threats of divorce on the horizon.

Then again, I hear certified mail takes a few days.

I think that’s far enough into the mist for one day. That was probably a toe, stuck into the mist. Maybe next time I’ll get the whole foot in.

2) Saturday morning weigh-in.

Well folks, it wasn’t good! Up 4.8 lbs. This is not good. I knew it wasn’t going to be good, because I pretty much have been eating halloween candy all week and been saying “Oh this one little thing won’t hurt” to all sorts of things for mealtimes. So this will serve as a wake up call for me. I have been doing this for FOUR WEEKS, and my total is -2 pounds. If I am going to meet my New Years goal, it is time to GET TO IT! Just think. If I had lost 2 pounds a week, I’d be down 8 pounds at this point.

Ok, so no more kicking myself. Just time to get busy. And I am. Saturday I do kind of whatever I want, within reason, which has worked for me in the past, but Sunday, I cooked up a storm and made my lunch to bring to work for the week. I cooked and assembled my favorite thing, brown rice, browned onions (mmmmmmm) and browned, diced chicken. I also made up some of that (startlingly yummy, reminds me of the old pot-luck dinners in the church gym) pineapple fluff so whenever James dished up his mountain of chocolate ice cream, I wouldn’t have to look at him and yearn. No working out yet this week. Maybe Wednesday and Friday. And of course, Water Water Everywhere!

3) Saturday Night Ballet.

This is covered territory, but I’d just like to reiterate: Freedom for ballet dancers everywhere!

4) Cox Farms Pumpkin Madness (MADNESS, MADNESS I TELL YOU!!)

We went down the big slides, ventured over to the goats (who on discovering that Jocelyn did not carry food, immediatedly butted her and made her cry) left quickly for the barn with baby pigs, baby cow, and baby chickens and a slide out of the loft which Ethan wanted to do again and again (“BY MYSELF THIS TIME MOMMY!”), watched them drop pumpkins from atop a lofty crane (Ethan loved it, Jocelyn was scared of the noise of the pumpkin hitting the ground), did more slides, ate apples and cider, threw some itty bitty pumpkins, played on the toy train, watched the ponies giving rides and then finally came home.

Regrets: James and Ethan always went first down the slide(s) with Jocelyn and I following, so I never got to see either kid’s face coming down. That would have been great. Also, James forgot the camera. Damn him. Oh well.

5) The afternoon and evening of Sunday TANTRUM HELL.

And it came to pass, that Jocelyn was exceedingly sick. And yay, the girl laid down her head upon her crib, and did not sleep at naptime. The Lord decreed that there be no sleeping, but there would be much coughing, and sniffing and crying. And the Lord looked down, and said, “Let there be screaming. Let there be running away from the parents who wish to console her, they must look upon their spawn and weep for their inability to comfort her.”

Well, a wee exageration, for we did discover a few things that helped her. Distraction. And I’m not just saying, wave a toy in front of her or turn out the Wiggles, because even the powerful POWERFUL draw of the Wiggles only worked for about 5 minutes. I finally tossed her in the stroller and took her around the block in BLISSFUL silence, only to return home, and watch her THROW herself on the ground in a fit just inside the door. She was so tired and so sick that she just hated life, poor girl. Daddy discovered the other distraction and took her to the grocery store where she probably amused herself tossing things out of the cart and watching Daddy run after them. Oh she’s good at that. When they returned, it was late enough to try to carry the distracted momentum into the bathtub, and then into jammies and bed, where she laid and coughed and sniffed and cried some more. It was truly one of the worst days of her young little life, and I daresay ours as well. Some Benedryl and Robitussin finally came through and she did get SOME rest that night. Today, she is much improved, and actually slept very well last night with minimal coughing.

So exciting, full weekend. That’s it. The end.

– amy “I AM A PUSSY!”

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Nov 07 2005

snotty

Published by under kids,likes & irks

At the rate I’m going, I’m going to go through all the kleenex in the world before I run out of snot.

I can’t feel too badly though, because Jocelyn is way worse than me, and has no way to deal with it (like blowing her nose).

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Nov 07 2005

overheard as someone is leaving the office:

Published by under overheard

“Ok Brian, you’ve got the bridge.”

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Nov 01 2005

Here you go, Greg. Netflix, order him up some SPORTS NIGHT!!

Published by under random

Dana: You have good ideas a lot. I find myself saying, ‘Natalie’s got a good idea.’
Natalie: But you also find yourself saying ‘Natalie, if you screw that up again I’ll set you on fire.’
Dana:That’s true too, and yet it’s the good idea thing that I’m focusing on right now.
Dana: What was the last good idea you had?
Natalie: When I got up this morning I decided not to stick my hand in the blender.
Dana: That’s what I mean.

—

Dana: I think your job stinks. You get to create your own show, and make all the decisions, and have a big staff, and make a lot of money. That’s not for me, Isaac, I like to answer to people, I don’t want to create. When I get a thought it my head, I like it to die right there.

—

Issac: Dana, the things that I say in my office, stay in my office.
Dana: Natalie’s my second-in-command, she’s the only one I told.
Natalie: Jeremy’s my boyfriend, he’s the only one I told.
Jeremy: … I told many many people.

—

I love Sportsnight. You should all go rent Season 1.

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