(cont)

I haven’t written about it, because my rule of websites is, “Always assume the one person you don’t want to read it, WILL.” Heehee. Good rule, eh? So, now that it is all gone through, it’s OK to share.

James got a great job offer from a great company and has accepted it. We have a couple of our friends that work there and like it. He has actually been in touch with the company since before CHRISTMAS, and he put his resume in for it LAST SUMMER, so it’s been a while in the works, though progress has only really been made in the last week or so. Turns out the HR person he was talking to (and kept missing) left, and he was contacted by someone new, who really took charge and got things done. He went in for an interview yesterday, and was offered the job this morning. My only beef with him is that he didn’t even do the courtesy, “Let me think about it, discuss it with my wife, and get back to you,” spiel, he just TOOK IT. Hahaha! However, we both knew he was going to take it, and the offer was even better than he expected, so I can forgive him not talking to me about it first 🙂 The money is good, the benefits are good, especially in that they HAVE SOME, whereas in his old job there was vacation, and that was about it.

He told his boss about it this morning, and apparently there was some carrot dangling that was probably kind of laughable, because the boss has dangled the carrot before, in terms of yearly review/ raises end of year bonuses, etc, and when the carrot actually comes, it is always a let down. James pretty much told him that even if he matched it (which I don’t think is even possible, due to the benefits) he would still leave. There was a lot of, “ahhh… well, you might be tossing a lot of money away..” sort of talk, but it was a bunch of HOOEY.

I don’t know if James is a good interviewer, because I’ve never seen him in interviews, but I do know that the one fault he has is that he undervalues himself. He is too modest. I never have that problem, honestly, I’m a greedy bitch 🙂 When I was leaving the second “real” job I ever had, I shopped myself around, got myself two offers, played them against each other, and took the better one at a 15k raise (remember, this was at the very beginning of my career, so it was basically raising me out of the level of poverty, haha). I’m just that kind of person. James is a much nicer, genial sort of man. The job he has now, he took after being laid off for 2 months (with only 3 months severance pay) with me being SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT. I was working, but as a contractor with no benefits, and I would not have paid time off to give birth. He was under a good bit of pressure (talk about an understatement)! He took the first decent job that came along, at a salary that he should have laughed at. Four years later, some job benefits that made up for that lack of salary have eroded away, and the salary/ bonus promises that were made originally never really paid off.

When we went into this situation, he even turned to me one night and said, “Now you’re going to have to tell me what to say in the interview, when they ask about money, Miss I-had-two-offers!” I did tell him things he could say, and we discussed all the bogus froo-froo-y interview questions that might come up, “If you were a tree, what sort of tree would you be?*” and what he could reply to them. Maybe I said something that helped, but more accurately, they recognized a good nerd when they saw one 🙂

* I actually have never been asked this, but you have to agree that there are definitely weird interview questions that sometimes come up. Like, “What is your biggest weakness?” that you’re supposed to somehow make be an asset, like, “Oh, gosh, I guess I’d have to say, I’m just TOO ORGANIZED, it SUCKS.” Yeah right.

Seeing him get this offer is just the best feeling in the world. He is the hardest worker I know, he hardly ever misses a day sick, he works his ass off, he doesn’t complain (except to me!) gets the job done even when he has his family to take care of and school to attend. He has not really liked working with the people he has worked with the last four years. He hasn’t minded some of them, but he hasn’t had the nice camaraderie of colleagues that become friends to help him get through his work day and make going to work ENJOYABLE. He hasn’t had a good company environment, he hasn’t been appreciated for his SUPREME talents, and if anyone deserves a rewarding, well-paid position IT IS JAMES. I am just so proud of him and excited for him and excited for getting out of the suck-joy hell hole that he is currently employed at, that I could just burst.

No one deserves it more, honey.

WAY TO GO!

Plus now, as my friend Greg said, we can definitely get me a bike for my birthday. 🙂

I mean, WAY TO GO!

It’s been an exciting day, here at the Panders’ household. Except that we weren’t actually in the house when any of it happened, but you get the idea.

First up. Health. And a Project Skinny Update.

I wrenched a muscle in my back on Saturday night. You can probably noodle through exactly what I was doing when it got wrenched. Ahem. It showed up Sunday, and DAMN did it hurt. The knotted muscle was just under/to the side of my shoulder blade, but it was knotted so badly that it radiated all through my back and shoulder and down my arm and even through my rib cage and made it hard to breath, if i was slouching. Monday was no better. I woke up feeling GREAT, and even told James that it appeared to have unkinked. By the time I got to work, however, I was dying. I took two Aleve, and another by the end of the afternoon. The total you’re supposed to take in a 24 hour period is 3. I’ve never taken 3 in a 24 hr period. By night fall I was in agony. My arm felt like I had carpal tunnel syndrome, and my neck kept twanging strangely and it brought on a massive headache. By last night at bedtime, I decided I was going to the doctor, because I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So on the way to work, I called to make an appointment. I switched insurance when I got my job, so I haven’t been to the doctor I selected as my primary care before. Because of this, I couldn’t just see the nurse practitioner, I had to see the Dr., and the receptionist informed me that the earliest time open was February 10th. I was literally flabbergasted. I couldn’t seem to form words.

her: “We have an opening on February 10th.”
me: *silence, and then* “But…. I’m….. How….”
her: …..
me: *trying to form a coherent sentence* “But I’m sick now.”
(I’m sick now? What am I, four?)
her: …..
me: “I just.. I don’t… I … Should I find another doctor then, I just.. I don’t know how to respond to that.”
her: “Hold on a minute.”

She put on someone else, who listened to me whine and then told me they’d try to fit me in at 11am.

So I went to the doctor’s office, early of course, because there’s always new patient paperwork. I filled it all out, being careful to mark everything correctly especially in those, “Do you feel anxiety, sadness, or agitation with no explicit reason?” type questions. Here’s my chance to make sure I’m basically evaluating myself correctly. I went in and did the usually nurse flibber flabber, and then saw the doctor. first we discussed the back issues. I cannot lift my children, under any circumstance. I knew this. Jocelyn weighs 30 lbs, and she’s not even two. I am going to have to really really really try to remember this. Ethan is 40 lbs, and I lift him up and down every day into the truck. Ugh. She gave me some muscle relaxers too, that I can use 3x a day if they don’t make me lose focus, and if so, then just 1x a day, before bed. I can feel them working already.. Ahhhhh..

So, next, we discussed the mental health, which I had noted. I told her about last summer how I really was doing poorly, but going back to work seemed to alleviate a lot of that. I explained how it seems to come on about once a month, and she suggested it might be premenstrual. James and I discussed that too, once, and I told him I’d rather be crazy then have it all be PMS. James of course would rather be able to blame the hormones than a crazy brain, but then that’s a man. All the men who are reading this are probably nodding along with the James take, but I don’t know, it’s just FRUSTRATING, when you vent and storm and get all crazy and then have ALL YOUR EMOTIONS INVALIDATED by someone saying, “Oh, it’s just PMS.” It kind of invalidates YOU, and that sucks. I can see how it would be nice to not be crazy, but it is just as not nice to have yourself and your feelings totally ignored and labeled under “PMS.” SUCKS. I’d rather be crazy, and get to OWN these emotions and actions. But there it is, could just be hormones. Anyway, she said it sounded fine, and if it seemed to get out of control to come see her and we would work it out.

Then, she asked about the general health issues in the past, and I told her about the 2 c-sections, and the gall bladder going out. I hadn’t brought up my weight, so she did, and I quickly told her that I AM working on it, and I have managed to lose 10 pounds since Thanksgiving, but that I was getting frustrated and it was very hard. That is when she suggested an appetite suppressant. (!!!) Honestly, I didn’t think there really was this sort of thing around anymore. I was skeptical at first, but she talked me into it. The downside is that they do beat up on your heart, but as she said, carrying around this extra weight is much worse for my heart. The usual dosage is to take them every day, but she wanted me to take them 5x a week instead, to give my body a break now and then. I had an EKG to make sure I was good to go for them, and I am also going to go back in 6 weeks. It’ll be good motivation to really stay on track.

So, I will state my goal right here! March 7th, is 6 weeks from today.

My goal is to lose 12 lbs by March 7th. that is 2 lbs per week, a very doable goal.

So, trip to the doctor = good. SHe was very nice, very knowledgeable, very good communicator. Muscle relaxed obtained, currently doing their trick on the back, YAY! (Oh my god, you have no idea how much better I feel already). Mental Check – not crazy, if I get crazier, check back in. Project skinny has got the a-ok by the Dr. and now I have a secret weapon in my corner to help out.

So, good day! Cool! I’m feeling good!

But this was actually the LEAST of the goodness that happened today!

This is a long post, so I’m going to break it up into to, because I especially don’t wnat the next part buried at all, because if anything it’s way cooler than me going to the doctor!

So, continued.

Wow, what a weekend.

I had SO MUCH fun last night playing poker with mostly strangers. It just made me realize how uncomfortable I have been feeling around some of my neighbors lately. And since it’s always a good idea to write as if whoever you’re writing about is reading it, I’m not going to say much, except that I was talking with some friends in the neighborhood and aparently it isn’t JUST me who feels this way. I am not sure I agree entirely everything they were saying, because I didn’t experience it myself, but I feel much better, and definitely the next time bunko rolls around, I’ll be able to cut loose and have fun without feeling weird, and that’s always good.

LIKE I DID LAST NIGHT. Oh my, I may never get invited to poker at this guy’s place again, tee hee. See, when I cut loose, I tend to blabber a lot (gee, a lot like this web space!) and sometimes really random things come out of me. So.. what were the highlights? Well, I was introduced to a new brand of vodka which seemed really good – very smooth, but affordable. I don’t know vodka, but this brand “Tito” (you can remember it because it rhymes with “Tivo!”) is apparently just as good as a premium vodka, like grey goose. Let’s see, so there was vodka, yum, we did have a bubble blowing contest at one point when some bubbilicious was passed out. And then after it wsa too hard to blow bubbles, there was a snapping/crackle contest. Of course there was poker, and I did win a few big hands, but ended up down over all. It was a nickel, dime, quarter game, and I took the cup of change that I used to use when I played change games a few years ago. The problem with this sort of game is you never know how much you started with, and therefore how far up or down you are when you’re done. I did know I was down though. The pokering was a lot of fun, a couple folks were fairly new to the game and caught on fairly quickly, and luckily my habit of staring at the cards and thinking out loud (usually talking myself out of calling when i should really stay in) was “HELPFUL!” instead of the usual “GAG HER UNTIL SHE STOPS TALKING! NO WAIT SHE’S GOING TO FOLD SO LET HER BLABBER SOME MORE!” Other than that, I will spare you the actual poker details because hearing about how I had 2 kings on the turn and then an ace came in that paired the board so that WE SPLIT THE POT AND OH IT WAS AMAZING! is usually about as boring as hearing someone recount their adventures in Risk. “And then I rolled a TWO! I tought I was done for, but then he rolled a ONE! HAHA!” Yeah. Boring.

I came home, and James wandered down, and I could tell something was bothering him. I have to say, I’m really patting myself on the back about this one, because the minute I looked at him, I could totally tell he was irked, even when he said, “Fine.” to my, “how’re you doing?” and he ‘fessed up when I pressed him (luckily it wasn’t about ME. Shew.) We cleaned up a little and went to bed and proceeded to talk until 1am.

I would have to say my worst fault is I get so freakin’ chatty when I’m tired. I mean REALLY CHATTY. I just talk and talk and talk and finally I just had to clamp my mouth shut and thank my lucky stars that my husband loves me and doesn’t want to slap me around when I keep him up until 1am before a work day.

One of the things I blathered on about to James last night, was I seem to have some sort of THING every couple of weeks. Maybe it’s because I let something bug me or build up for a few weeks and then it’s just too much to keep hold of, and I just need to let it spill out and throw something. Then it’s over, and I’m good for a few more weeks. Rinse, repeat.
Anyway, so there’s my weekend. No fancy ending. just,

THE END!

– amy will stare out at you for eternity from an over-sized pickle jar – stick an oversized novelty afro wig on top for fun, amy prefers purple.

If Jocelyn spots you resting your eyes or even in a relatively motionless horizontal position, she’ll walk over and holler, “WAKE UP!!!” and giggle until you look at her.

Other things she is doing – using the word “too”.

me: “Let’s go downstairs.”
jocelyn: “yeah! downstairs, too.”

me: “I’m going to have some oatmeal!”
jocelyn: “nummies! meal, too!”

Everything she says usually has a big pause in the middle.

“Here… Ethan. Here…. ethan.”

“Hi. … Mommy.”

However, she is stringing more words together, and the other day she said “I” for (i think) the first time.

Sitting at breakfast, she cast some unwanted piece of food off the table, looked at us, and said, “I dropped it.” Usually, it’s just, “dropped it.”

Last night was a great night out, though we are old farts who came back and sent the babysitter home at 9:30. NINE THIRTY PEOPLE! It’s actually because there really weren’t any movies we wanted to see. We had a nice time though, and of course had an even nicer time once we were home. Ahem.

After all the niceness, we decided that we should get our scale out, lay down on the floor and try to weigh our heads. I told him it was just in case I went missing and he got a box in the mail he would know by the relative weight whether or not it is my severed head. Oh yeah, afterglow in our house is just so damn sexy. Then I told him it might come in an oversized pickle jar. Maybe I should leave that in my will. “I wish to have my head severed and preserved in a pickle jar.

I really really really don’t. But it is a funny thought, heads in a pickle jars.

We’re off to Ikea to look at things that may or may not be purchased to put in our basement once our extra room down there is finished. I also want to check out their laminate fake wood flooring. Then tonight I’m off to POKER I’M SO EXCITED IT’S BEEN SO LONG SHOE MONEY TO-NIGHT!

– have a lovely Sunday.

So, there has been an odd smell floating around our living room for a while now. For a while I thought there was an old, wet diaper hiding somewhere, like under the couch. Close inspection proved that to be wrong.

Then I decided it wasn’t a “diaper” smell, just a “old wet” smell. I disassembled our cool mist humidifier, pitched the filter thinking it was mildewy, and emptied out the base. Still, the smell hovered.

Usually, I’m the one to complain of weird smells. I inherited my mother’s keen sense of smell, who can sniff out ANYTHING as if it were a wet St. Bernard. But even James’s nose was with me on this weird wet smell. I started to worry about leaking pipes in the walls, but there aren’t any water pipes where the smell was eminating. Maybe the outside hose spigot? Nope, it was closer to the front door.

Finally, last night we figured it out. PLANTS!!! In the fall, I took cuttings from the impatiens in my garden cultivated them in pots indoors. I’ve also forced quite a few bulbs (which are really doing spectacularly). I’ve taken pictures, but haven’t gotten them off the camera yet (maybe I’ll have to do that before posting this post). Anyway, one of the forcing methods I tried out was using those glass marble things that you use in floral arrangements, stuffing a bulb or two down in them, and then adding water juuuuuust to the tippy rooty bottom of the bulb. I had 2 glasses done up this way. They were not doing nearly as well as the ones I had planted in actual pots. With dirt. Anyway, I had actually THOUGHT maybe it was these bulbs, but when I stuck my nose in there, I could NOT SMELL THE SMELL! So I figured it wasn’t that, and moved on.

But it WAS THE BULBS! AND NOT JUST THEM! I beleive I have over-watered my potted impatiens and they have developed root rot. First, last night, in an effort to determine whether or not it WAS the plant items that had the smell, we moved them from the windows in the family room to the top of the fridge (this was to prevent forest fires kitty damage). It become evident that it was definitely the plants, as minutes after they were moved, the smell was in the kitchen!

So I took the bulbs out of the marbles/beady/glass/water thingee and oh boy did it stink. Rinsed out the marbles well, though I see a bath in cloroxy water in their future. This morning, I thought, “hey, I’m going to take some of these into my office!” and picked out an impatiens pot that I had stuck some tulip bulbs in as well.

All day long, that nasty wet ROTTING ROOTS smell has been plaguing me. We all already know that my delicate little nose can’t seem to take any instrusive smells, and now after smelling this damn plant all day, my nose is all stuffed up and red from the constant blowing. I even relegated the plant to the top of my little hutch/shelves thingee on my desk, but the web diaper smell drifts down anyway.

So I spent some time at lunch looking up root rot and proper soil and watering techniques and tonight when I go home, I shall re-pot my plants using proper potting soil (I think most of what I used was just from the ground outside, a big no-no) that has been pasteurized (Pasteurization! Not Just For Dairy!) in clean, sterilized containers and hopefully my plants will be happy and healthy and the nasty wet-smell will GO AWAY BECAUSE I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Seriously. At least James could smell it this time. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going crazy with the things I smell and rant about only to hear him say, “What? I don’t smell anything.” *honks as he inhales* “What? There isn’t any smell.” Grrrr.

It could be worse.

OR EVEN WORSE!

OK, I’ll stop with the links, lest I get all mimi smartypants on your ass.

AHHH! I LINKED AGAIN!

Ok, done now.

So, while I’m talking about plants, one of the handy things I did when I was home with Jocelyn in all her sickness, was put up a shelf in her closet. However, I didn’t have enough brackets that the back of the bracket packet called for so that called for a trip to Lowes.

Well.. RIGHT in front of the entrance… was a beautiful standup of SEEDS. My eyes glazed over, my tongue started hanging out, the drool machine started that would put any teething 4 month old to shame. Jocelyn, Ethan and I had such fun picking out some seeds to plant that now I just can’t wait until I can GET GOING! I have grand plans for the garden this year. We bought some green bean, cherry tomato, rosemary, and BROCOLI seeds! On arriving home, I discovered that I already had rosemary, what I need is SAGE! My basil seeds have also gone AWOL, so I need some of those as well. I also bought two pots designed to be the final living space for the herbs – I’ll start them out in smaller thingees* though.

* I’m still learning all this farmer of the earth lingo. You knew what I meant.

The outside is going to be fun, though I need to figure out what is going to go where. We have a deck now and that means I can put in some more beds, which means some grass is going to need to come up, and some soil is going to need amending, and aerating, and some plants in front need to be moved in back and I have to decide where to put the vegetables and where to put the flowers and I want to get a raspberry bush too, because won’t the jam be oh so yummy? and I sure would like a rototiller but that’s probably overkill but OH I JUST CAN’T WAIT!

Luckily, I don’t have to wait until spring, I can start indoors with my little seeds in flats.

As long as I don’t overwater them and use the right media*!

* Look. I used the term “media.” Bet you were impressed. Really, that just means whatever it’s growing in. Me learn gooooood.

It is going to be busy this weekend. I have Bunko tonight, a date with my husband Saturday night, with just the two of us, and poker with this guy and some of his work buddies on Sunday.

SHOE MONEY TO-NIGHT! (or, ahem.. sunday night)

– amy lines up angels on a head of a pin

I feel all stifled and squished, even though I’m out of work clothes (sometimes very stifling) and in pajamas (comfiest clothing ever) and pink fuzzy slippers. I can feel my health slipping out the back door into an alley.. And on the way out, letting in a large heavily muscled thug carrying a club with the label “unending misery and pain” on it just waiting for the perfect moment to sneak up and bash me upside the head with it. I am going to attempt to reason with the thug of misery by brushing my teeth thoroughly, gargling with salt water, drinking lots of nyquil and crashing to bed very early tonight. However, by the simple of merit of thugs being thugs, they rarely listen to reasoning. If there’s a club of misery with my name on it, I’m not sure I can dodge it at this point. I guess we’ll see.

What is worse, is that I’m not the first victim Mr. Thug With Club Of Misery has staked out. The first was Jocelyn, the poor little dear. This weekend, holiday though it was, has been pretty hellish for everyone involved. Me and James, dealing with the sick girl, Ethan, being healthy and fine and without parental attention whatsoever because we were so focused on Jocelyn, and Jocelyn herself, sicker than I have ever seen her. Is that a true statement?? I can vaguely remember another bout that was very very bad when she was an infant that may be tied or a close second, but no way it beats this time.

Friday, James picked up Jocelyn from her home daycare, and her provider told James that she has been pretty sick all day, runny runny nose, cough, etc. Sure enough, she seemed pretty bad that evening and the next morning, that I took her to the doctor. While listening to her lungs, she said she heard a slight crackle, which can mean pneumonia. A trip to Target later, and Jocelyn was started on antibiotics. Saturday, she was sick, but it was Sunday that was really pretty scary. Not that Saturday night was any picnic. She could not breathe through her nose AT ALL, and she is a thumb sucker — I’m sure you can see where this would leave her, you’re a smart audience. She was so miserable. She would cough every 15 seconds and then cry, one long pitiful plaintive moaning cry of anguish. James would rock her and put her back in her bed and eventually she would start crying again and I’d take a turn. Finally, I just took her into the guest room, propped myself up with pillows on the guest bed, and held her. She didn’t sleep, but she was able to get some comfort from her momma. I eventually laid her down next to me (thank goodness the bed is pushed up against the wall) and we both slept that way for a while. Every time she would cough, I would rub her back to let her know I was there. I put her back in her crib around 2am and went back to my own bed to try to get in some rest.

Sunday was worse. She started running a fever, and started breathing much heavier and faster, like a panting dog. Her poor little body wheezed out coughs, it seemed constantly. I called the doctor to see how worried we really should be and was told that if she still was having so much trouble breathing after the fever was brought down, then we should consider taking her to the hospital. James let me nap that afternoon and it was niiiiiice. I never nap. Maybe I should investigate it further as a pastime, because I woke up feeling so refreshed (even though I’d slept with bra on and contacts in, yuck, yuck). Sunday night, she did a little better at bedtime, with James going in and rocking her every now and then, until around midnight, when she started wailing. When I went in, she had a high fever and I could see she had the chills, her entire body was trembling. She was so worked up that she kept fighting everything I’d do, she didn’t want medicine, she didn’t want Vicks on her chest, she REALLY didn’t want saline drops in her nose, she didn’t want ANYTHING, not even me to hold her. Apparently, her life wouldn’t be complete until I put her down, left the room and let her scream on the floor to her heart’s content. Luckily, once I took her out of her room and into the guest bedroom, she calmed down and snuggled up to me with a right good will. It was a little scary, her fever being so high, but Motrin brought it down and soon she was sleeping next to me. After a few hours, dozing now and then, her skin felt normal to the touch and I returned her to her bed and went back to mine.

Monday was much better. I am SO thankful that we took her to the doctor on Saturday and that she got started on the antibiotics right away. The possibility of it getting worse than it was on Sunday was really scary. But by monday, the breathing was much improved, still kind of wheezing, but not panting like a dog with her whole huge baby-tummy sticking out and her ribcage pulling in with each and every breath. Today (Tuesday) I went to work and James stayed home with her. She had an appointment with her doctor who made the appointment Saturday to check her progress (have I told you how much I love our pediatrician?? she’s wonderful. I’m building a temple to her greatness) and gave her another prescription to help the cough that sounds like she’s been smoking for 20 years. Fevers have been minimal today and we think she may be able to go back to daycare tomorrow. Her doctor said she could as long as her temperature stays normal, but there’s the whole misery quotient to take into account as well. Her nose wasn’t running nearly as much today, so hopefully it will be even better tomorrow, as well as the cough.

So, while she is on the mend, I can sense the same thug that thwacked her upside the immune system is waiting around the corner for me. The stress of caring for her and worrying for her all weekend have taken some part in it, I’m sure. Plus I went into DC today and walked around in the semi-coldness, which usually doesn’t hurt anyone, but I think everything kind of conspired to weaken my immune system which of course just screams an invitation to the Thug. Hopefully I can outsmart him with lots of sleep, lots of water tomorrow, and no salt. Why is it that salt always seems to progress any imminent illness for me? Is that just me or does anyone else have that too? I think it’s the whole water thing – salt dehydrates you and I guess sickness likes dried out husks of bodies to plunder. I never feel thirsty, but after drinking a zillion ounces of water on weight watchers, I can tell now when I haven’t been drinking enough. When I drink plenty, my lips never get chapped. My lips right now are like dry twigs with the bark peeling off. Better start downing the water.

And then Nyquil.

Happy dreams.. wish me luck against the Thug..

James updated the OS on our server, and in so doing, accidently grabbed an old backup instead of a current backup.

All of my blog entries were lost. I started this thingee in Sept, and the backup was from Sept 6th.

So…. I have managed to grab quite a few from cached search engines, but am missing probably around 20. Also, with the server upgrade came wordpress upgrade, thus the default design.

I’m trying to get all my old posts entered in. then I’ll see about the layout.

james was very very upset when he told me what happened, and I told him it really is ok. I mean, what is this? Words? But the relief that came over me as I found more and more of these words was overwhelming, and the sadness at what I might be missing is growing on me.

Anyway. That is what is up. Oh, and I registered a domain. I’d be more excited about it, except for all the work that is ahead of me.

anyway. off to bed now.

(Originally posted on a temporary blog account until the server was back up.)

I have a whole list of things that I’ve been dying to write about but couldn’t because our server was down, and thus, no blog. “Why didn’t you just write it anyway and save it until you could post it?” Well, because I’m weird and if it’s just me that’s reading it, then why bother. Yes, that’s right, I think the reason why people have blogs and websites in general all goes back to wanting to be famous. We all wanted to be a rock-star or an actor or the president when we grew up, right? And why would we want that? Because they’re famous. So there you go, Kottke, the reason why folks have secret sites? It’s because we all want to be famous. Secretly Famous! And if they’re not secret, then the more famouser we are. Wheeee, internet!

So, to get back to this list. First off, you’ll be happy to know that there is no longer the nasty smelling tube of Mary Kay hand lotion in the ladies room at my office. I don’t know if it got used up or someone else was annoyed and had more balls than me and just pitched it, but it’s gone. Now, whenever I walk into the bathroom, there’s a faint minty smell. At first I thought it must be whatever cleanser they use in the toilets, but whoever heard of a minty toilet cleaner? Lemon-fresh, sure, but never minty. The toilet bowl cleanser marketing people probably ruled taht one out, as they don’t want anyone to think, “That smells so good I could LICK IT.” Maybe someone is brushing their teeth in there all hours of the day because it is ALWAYS minty smelling, not just in those few hours after lunch when the teeth brushing would occur.

I’m very grateful that the hand lotion is gone because lately I feel as if SMELLS! ARE ATTACKING! MY NOSTRILS! I have stopped using any hair spray (not that there was a lot of use of it in the past, but now, none at all) and I unwrapped a candle the other night and had to put it in another room because of the strong scent was accosting my nasal passages. It wasn’t even lit, just the smell from the scenty wax.

I was ironing these thin curtain things to hang up on our four-poster bed* when my mom called, and when she heard what I was doing, she suggested I use some linen water instead of the starch I was using. I have various bottles of scented water that she has given me over the years that I always forget I have, but they’re very nice and faint and a little spritz with lavender water on a freshly changed bed is nice come night-time, so I immediately went and fetched the bottle of sweet-pea linen water (it’s water for linens, do you think the linen water police will come get me for using it on curtains? I guess curtains could fall under the linen category) and started using it. And immediately, the sweet wonderful fragrance (it really did smell super!) did it’s number on my nose and I couldn’t breathe and my eyes watered and I had to stop using the pretty water and switch back to starch. Honestly. Can I get another nose please? This one is broken.

Speaking of pitching and mary kay, I don’t think I ever told you about the envelope that was in that same bathroom a few months ago. I saw it and ignored it during a few trips until finally my curiousity got the better of me and I opened it and peeped inside. It wasn’t sealed or anything. Inside, there was a letter to “Dear New Client!” from a Mary Kay consultant and had a smallish brochure of products. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to diss Mary Kay or anything, but come on! Leaving brochures in the ladies room?! Can’t you take out an ad or something if you’re that desperate for clients? I actually did throw that one away, and looked around all surreptitiously. Maybe the consultant worked in my office. Maybe she was spying, waiting to see what would happen to her line thrown out in the darkness. Would it hook her a little new client fish? OK, I’m stopping with the bad analogies now, (“thank god!” -oh shut up) and stopping with this story because, yeah, it’s dumb.

* Our bed has posts at each corner and then wooden slats that go across the top of each posts that make it look kind of like a canopy bed but without the canopy. I got these curtainy things some time ago, but never got around to actually putting them up again when we moved, 2 years ago. Oh I am ON THE BALL, only takes 2 years for me! Needless to say, they were very wrinkled.

I know this webspace is temporary, but it’s nice to have someplace to post again. Hopefully these words will be tucked into their own little beds at their own little home again soon.

amy smoothes your hair, kisses your forehead, and leaves the closet light on when she leaves.

I have been having poop issues. Now, you may hate me, but generally speaking, I never have poop issues. In fact, it wasn’t until a few years ago, when I was pregnant with Ethan, to be exact, that I actually knew what it meant to be constipated. It’s pretty common in pregnancy, especially because of all that iron they make you take in the dreaded pre-natal vitamins. People would tell me they were constipated, and I would nod and express my condolences, but honestly, I had no idea what that meant or what it would feel like. When you need to poop, you poop! What’s the big deal? I also have a pretty iron stomach. If something upsets my stomach, I can generally live through the pain until it subsides. I don’t go vomiting that much. James has some quirky stomach thing where sometimes he will eat something and he’ll just stop, because it’s upsetting his stomach, but I can eat pretty much anything under the sun.

I have NOT been having constipation poop problems. That may have been better than the whole feeling the icy hand of death squeeze your innards while poop just keeps coming and coming and coming. It was a few days ago, it must have been Monday since James was also home. I was innocently working a sudoku puzzle when I felt the urgent call of the toilet, and so, fetched myself hither to the throne.

There, I can only relate the anguish that I underwent by telling you that I thought death was imminent. My abdomen felt like a fiery pit of hell. My head felt all feverish, goose bumps broke out on my skin, and I actually started sweating like a pig. I could not contain the moaning that seemed to come from my throat. My bowels were spasming about so wildly that I actually threw up in the trash can. That is right, there were bodily fluids (though thankfully, not of the same sort) coming out of each end. I thought I was going to die, and finally decided that I couldn’t die alone, and cried out in my pitiful “I’m going to die” voice to James to get downstairs. If I was going to die from poop-trauma, I at least did not want to die alone. And if I wasn’t going to die, then I wanted James to know that I was in serious pain here! Serious! He came down and couldn’t quite figure out where I was, found me, peeped in the doorway which I adamantly held closed except for a 1 inch space, asked, “Are you okay?” (NO I JUST LIKE TO MOAN FOR FUN) took and washed out the vomited-in trash can, and by then I gradually felt better enough to not feel all pouty when he went back upstairs. What?! You don’t want to silently sit outside the bathroom door and send me “feel better” vibes? The stench is starting to waft through the lower level of the house? Fine! GO UPSTAIRS I HOPE YOU HAVE CONSTIPATION AND THEN I WILL SAY DIE ALONE IN YOUR PAIN MY FRIEND. After my body had evacuated everything in the entire digestive tract, I felt much better and beat death back with my mechanical pencil (i was doing a sudoku puzzle, remember?) and resumed my day with some normalcy and kind of forgot about the incident until yesterday.

Yesterday! Thursday was my first day back to work after the holidays, and James got to stay home and watch over the kidlets. He had the brainy idea to bring them up and meet me for lunch. We sat down and ordered, and all of a sudden I knew I had to get me thither to the bathroom. I did, and I did the business, and I came back, and then I knew I had to get me thither to the bathroom AGAIN. I did and this time, I stayed a lengthy amount of time, experiencing some of the same symptoms as before, but not quite feeling like I may die and they’d find me on tech toilet and wouldn’t that be embarrassing.. However, I can’t help feeling like I ruined our nice little family lunch by spending 1/3 of it in the loo.

So! That is the extent of my poopiness lately. Aren’t you glad I shared? Aren’t you glad you waited to read this until after you had eaten?

Ok, so since I mentioned lunch with the family yesterday, I have to relate a Cute Kid Story. We were at Uno’s for the main reason that they have dinosaur chicken nuggets, which Ethan loves, and he’s pretty picky about his chicken nuggets – they can’t be too crispy or it’s hard for him to eat them, and often restaurant chicken strips/nuggets are too crispy. So if we go out with the fam, it’s often to Uno’s.

Anyway. So his dinosaur chicken arrived, and he informed us, picking up one of the pieces, that “this is the Mommy. And this is the Daddy! And this is the baby!” right before he proceeded to eat them. I don’t know what that says about my son, that he likes to personify his food before consuming it, but boy. It was funny. At least he didn’t engage in talking to them, or any role playing before eating them. At least, not that I know of. Maybe he did, while I was in the loo.* “And the mommy says to the baby, “Go clean your room!” and the baby says, “NO!” and the mommy says, “TIME OUT!” and then I EAT HER! HA!” (just to be clear, this is fictional. but honestly, that’s probably what I’d do if i was personifying MY food and I was 3.)

*Isn’t “loo” a great word? I think we should stop saying “bathroom” and “restroom” and just start calling it the toilet and loo, like in England. Let’s start a new thing, you and me. ARE YOU WITH ME? GREAT!

OK. I’m still feeling back about that viciously long post yesterday, so I’ll end this now. Plus, I have to go to the loo.

– amy’s a survivor, I’m gonna make it, I will survive, keep on survivin’

WOWEE CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT AND BOY WAS IT FUN

I feel like I need to do catchup on all the stuff that’s been going on since I last posted. Obviously, Christmas came and went. It was really wonderful. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last Friday I got to thinking about the weekend and decided I didn’t really want to be bothered going to a WW meeting Saturday morning, so I went to one close to my work during lunch. I had a very exciting loss. The bad side of course is the last week has been all Christmasy and staying at home and generally I do rather poorly during holidays and also when I’m at home. So today and tomorrow I’m really trying to get back on track to hopefully maintain that loss, or at least not gain it ALL back. Guess we’ll see Saturday morning.

Saturday morning (Christmas Eve Day!) Ethan and I went out to do some errands and get the Christmas present for James that I had inadvertently not ordered. Ethan was happy that it was a copy of Jarhead on unabridged CD, and thus, he got to play with the Thomas trains at Barnes and Noble for a little bit.

We had a pleasant afternoon making cookies (Chocolate Crinkles) for Santa and playing with the kids. Then night fell, and after waiting an hour to make sure everyone was asleep, the Great Christmas Eve Tryst began. You know, the tryst that every parent makes with their spouse on Christmas Eve, the tryst of putting together all the things that need to be put together, wrapping the presents that still need wrapping, getting everything down under the tree, and NOT forgetting to eat or at least put away the cookies and milk for Santa (we forgot last year. Luckily no one noticed). We were pooped by midnight. James did the brunt of the putting together work however. Maybe next year we should do it earlier, LIKE I SUGGESTED WE DO several nights before. Ahem. Not that I’m bitter or anything. It’d just be nice to have a relaxing Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning I was half awake when I heard the click of Ethan’s door opening and closing as he made his way to the bathroom. After I heard the toilet flush, I propped myself up to check out our door to make sure he didn’t go down the stairs. He started to, but I called him and he came running in and did a whole running flying tackle thing onto our bed. Well, it SEEMS like he did, but he had to climb up the bed first and THEN he did the flying tackle thing over to the head of the bed, where we were. He snuggled in with us for a while while we waited for any signs of life from Jocelyn, and then we all made our way downstairs for Christmas.

It was at this point I realized that we only had like 10 minutes on the tape in our camcorder, as I taped the kids coming into the living room and seeing the little tikes play kitchen that was all set up.

James looked everywhere for more tapes but none were to be had, so I stopped rolling tape and we switched to the camera instead. While I’m disappointed, because when I’m old and they’re all grown I know I’m going to want to see this and FEEL the excitement of the 3 and 1 year olds on Christmas morning. Photos are always nice, but video is better for really feeling it. BUT on the other side, it’s hard to enjoy Christmas when you have to pay attention to the camera. I think maybe setting it up in a corner on a tripod might be the way to go next year. Of course, that’s only if we actually HAVE A TAPE TO TAPE IT ON. Later on we discovered we did not have any AAA or C batteries in the house. I scrounged some out of other older, and thus not important toys to put in the new toys. However, given the amount of toys that were opened, the ratio to those needing batteries and those which came with batteries already installed was actually pretty good.

It was a nice Christmas morning. Not really marred by the fact that the cinnamon rolls I made didn’t turn out at all. I made them the night before, put them in the dish, and then covered with saran wrap and stuck them in the fridge to bake the next morning. They just didn’t seem to want to get “done”, each time I pulled them out they were still doughy. Next year I’m not killing myself making cinnamon rolls from scratch, we’ll just buy the damn things and heat them up for Christmas morning. In my family, we always had homemade bran date muffins, which sounds nasty, but actually was super yummy. But not as yummy as cinnamon rolls, so I cast my own family traditions to the wayside to go with James’ family traditions. Cough. Hey, yumminess wins, what can I say.

POST-CHRISTMAS EVENTS

Monday was a day off of work for both of us, but Tuesday and Wednesday James went back to work while I stayed home, and now today (Thursday) and tomorrow, I work while James stays home. Jocelyn’s day care provider is on vacation this week, thus the staying at home. And while Ethan’s school is open, if Jocelyn is home might as well have Ethan home also. It has been really nice staying home with them. I don’t know if this JUST happened, like it FEELS like it happened, or it’s been gradual and I just haven’t noticed, but Jocelyn is just becoming such a sweet little PERSON. (This is where I probably will launch into Cute Kid Stories, just so you are warned.) She understands so much of what we’re saying, and while she doesn’t string more than 2 words together yet, she is starting to really get this communication thing down and is so pleased with herself for doing so as well.

I remember when Ethan was her age and was just starting to talk a lot, his stock phrase was, “Maybe later.” – And WHAT A BLESSING that it was, because you do not know HELL until you have to take away a toy or try to explain why you can’t go to the bookstore and play with the train table there and then put up with the fit that ensues. With Ethan, he just seemed to latch onto that concept, that sure, I may not be able to do it now, but there is always later, and he was always saying, “Maybe later!” to my, “Not right now,” and oh what a boon that was.

Well, Jocelyn’s stock phrase is definitely, “That’s better.” She says it all the time, whenever anything happens that pleases her. She is on the floor, “Up peas! Up peas!” and I pick her up, and she looks around and states, “Dat’s better.” I am really drilling the manners thing into her. It was only recently that she started to actually say, “Please” instead of just throwing a fit when she wanted something, and I try to NOT give her whatever it is she wants, until she communicates that she wants it. This makes for some unpleasant times if she doesn’t want to say it, but would rather throw herself on the floor with the Jocelyn Volume turned all the way up to “Burst Eardrums,” but generally, it seems to be working out well.

CUTE KID STORIES OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MIGHT AS WELL GET THIS UNDER THE PROPER HEADING ALREADY

Here is a list of cuteness I have observed or participated in recently:

• Jocelyn has an intolerance to dairy. She gets all snotty and sickly if she has milk proteins. Ethan was the same way, but outgrew it by the time he was 18 months old. Jocelyn still hasn’t outgrown it, and as such, has soy milk instead of cow milk. So, it’s fairly important that she not drink out of Ethan’s sippy cup. We let Ethan have soy milk whenever he wants. Anyway, so in the sippy cup department, we have purple and pink cups and lids, as well as green, blue, yellow, and one ghastly orange cup. So being a girl, of course we give Jocelyn some purple and/or pink in her cup and/or lid so we’ll be able to know which one is hers. I have never been all that much of a pink sort of person, and I’m always grumpy when I get her cup ready for the day. I mean really, she should have blue if she wants! Or yellow! Who are these nazis who decide what colors are girly and which are not??! Ahem. Anyway. So the other day, I got her a purple cup and purposefully put a blue lid on it. It’s got purple in it, right? Right! Good enough, dammit!So, the morning goes on, and I catch Jocelyn picking up her (full!) cup, and walking over to Ethan. “Here, Ethan.” I try to correct her, and tell her that it’s HER cup, but she will have nothing of it, and keeps “giving” Ethan the cup. She apparently totally knows which colors are hers and which ARE NOT, and she will not bring cup to lips that do not have pink or purple lids, by george!
• Still on the sippy cups, but different story. Jocelyn loves to pick things up and bring them to you. Even if you didn’t want them. It’s something to do with this age. Also interesting, it’s the same age that she would rather pick something up herself rather than take it from your hand. Case in point, I had a bread stick and broke some of it off and offered it to her, to an immediate protest of, “NOOOOOOOO!” – but when I laid it on her plate in front of her, she picked it right up and crammed the entire thing in her mouth. Ain’t development kooky?

  Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah! So Jocelyn picks up Ethan’s cup and brings it over to him. Ethan is otherwise engaged and didn’t particularly care if his cup was brought to him or not, and barely notices. Jocelyn puts the cup on the couch in front of him and turns to face him. “Dankooo” (jocelyn-speak for “thank you”) she says to him. “Dankoo!” She repeats. “DANKOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” She says again, until I realize that she is WAITING for him to say thank you! She is DEMANDING IT! “DANKOOOOOO!!!!” she hollers at him again, and I have to give Ethan a gentle, “Tell her thank you for crying out loud!” which he does and then she grins and trots merrily off. It was pretty funny.

• Especially when Jocelyn was a baby and couldn’t do any talking for herself, I’ve often referred to her to Ethan, as “our girl”. She would roll over, and I’d say to Ethan, “What is our girl DOING!” to get him engaged in the situation. It has dropped off more and more as she’s grown older and I’ve just used her name instead. The other day, Ethan had come downstairs after waking up from nap time and was playing with his train. Sounds of “HI! HI!” started to emanate from the baby monitor connected to her room. Ethan said to me without looking up from the train, “It sounds like our girl is awake, Mommy!”
• I bought a new plastic bin with a lid to keep Ethan’s GeoTrax train stuff in. I bought an extra one cause I thought it was especially nifty and knew we could use another one for something somewhere. So I brought them in from the car when I bought them and they were hanging out in the family room for most of the day yesterday. The bin height is exactly at crotch level for Jocelyn, which means she can climb into it fairly easily. Ethan was climbing in and out of one of them immediately, so Jocelyn decided to give it a try as well. She climbed in and out of that bin for EASILY a half hour, totally involved in the process of swinging her leg over and bracing herself and then getting her other leg in and sitting down. Then standing up and doing it all over again.

  Even more amusing is even AFTER she’s done it 20 or so times, she started to get all anxious at that point when she has placed one leg over, and her foot hasn’t quite touched the bottom of the bin and she starts to feel all, “oh no i MIGHT lose my balance and why was i doing this in the first place????!” and starts to “Uh! Uh! Uh!” about the situation until there we go, her foot hits the bottom of the bin and her hands are firmly placed on the bin’s sides and then she’s in (“Dat’s better.”) and she lowers her little bottom down and kind of slides until she’s almost laying down inside the bin. Then she looks over at me and says, “HI! Mommy! HI! LOOK! FEETSIES! HI!” and then temporarily freaks out as she tries to get upright again even though she has already done it successfully the last 30 zillion times without any help, manages to get up, and then does it all again another fifty zillion times.

• Ethan doesn’t quite know the meaning of some words, despite parental issued corrections. He will interchange other words for the actual word he means. In his head, it means what the other word means.
  • “Last night” is code for anything that happened in the past.In addition to this, I think he thought that nap time was actually nighttime, and after nap time it was a new day. He loves to get dressed, and he usually comes down from nap time in a new set of clothes, even when I tell him he doesn’t need to change clothes. So sometimes he’ll make a reference to “Last night” when he actually means “this morning”. It’s actually a little scary, because he thought that he was actually staying overnight at his school, with the whole nap time = nighttime = new day thing. This is how I actually realized his misconception. It’s tough, because everything in the past is already “last night”, but he referred to something as “yesterday” and when I tried to correct him, he was really adamant and to explain, told me that it was before nap time, therefore, yesterday. We’re working on correcting this issue.
  • “Anything” actually means “nothing” or sometimes, “something”. Same thing for “anywhere” and “nowhere”.

    James: “Whatcha looking for Ethan?”
    Ethan, all trying to be sneaky and hide his true objective: “Anything.”

    Amy: “Where did your hot dogs go?”
    Ethan: “Anywhere! – Just kidding mommy, they’re in my tummy!”

• That last example reminded me of something Ethan did once. It was a while ago (like, probably over 6 months ago) but I believe it went something like this:

  Mommy: Where did your dinner go?
  Ethan: It went in my mouth, and down my throat, and into my tummy!
  Mommy: It sure did!
  Ethan: And then it went down my legs! Into my toes!
  Mommy: It did not!
  Ethan: It did too! And then it went to my bottom and I poop it out!
  Mommy: Well at least that part is right.

  I belive at this point, Daddy pointed out that if you get technical it DOES go to his legs and his toes and everywhere.

• Last night it was my turn to put Jocelyn to bed, and they had had baths just before. I had Jocelyn in her room, and James was still getting Ethan out of the tub and bundled into a towel. We heard him pull the plug in the tub, and could hear the gurgling water going down the drain noises. Jocelyn heard it, and stopped what she was doing to sing, “BYE BYE POOP!! BYE BYE WEE!”

On Tuesday, I took down the tree. FIrst of all, it was not a good tree to begin with. It was CROOKED.

I never did post about the day that it FELL OVER due to it’s crookedness and *cough* our inability to get it into the stand straight. So one morning it totally just fell over. Also, I let it go dry for too long and once that stump gets all dried out no amount of watering is going to get moisture to those needles and if they’re dry they fall off and that’s that. So I was looking at our sad tree, no presents underneath anymore to direct one’s attention there, and no presents to cover up the MASSES of needles that had fallen off. So with some “help” from the kids, we stripped it of ornaments and lights, and I hauled it into the garage to await trash day. It took my three separate vacuumings to get all the needles up, because about 3 bucketfuls had dropped in the de-decorating of the tree. Plus tons of itty bitty branchlets that were too big to just vacuum up and therefore had to be picked up by hand. The kids actually were a very good help at picking those up and putting them in the trash. Ethan used his new garbage truck to “collect” them and then “dump” them into the trash.

So our tree is down, which makes more room for GeoTrax Train Setups Extraordinaire! I took some action shots.

The timeless “My Little Pony On The Tracks” dilemma.

I think I’ve inflicted enough word-pain on anyone reading this today, so I will stop. It was a nice holiday. This weekend, I may send out year-end cards. If I remember.

– amy brings her face close to yours and gives you a great big “MMMMMMMMMWAH!!!!”