Monthly Archives: January 2009

Batty lately

For the past couple of days I have been on a really annoying emotional roller coaster. I’m angry, sad, giddy, and annoyed by turns. In the main I am able to keep my expressions of these feelings down to saying, “Wow, I am really really annoyed right now for no good reason” replacing “annoyed” with the emotion of the moment. But I’m *feeling* really intensely and it’s bugging me. I like having more moderate emotions; they are less draining. Nothing much has happened to trigger me in any direction that I know of.

My (minor) things wrong at the moment: for some reason I have started doing all the bad habits that make my jaw hurt really suddenly. I had stopped doing all of these for a long time. A have a tooth that hurts. I’m mildly fussed about money stuff but only in a stupid vague way–we aren’t exactly in trouble. And I’m starting to read towards the comp exam again but I’m doing it very slowly and mellowly with books that sound interesting.

Yeah, those are all very very mild irks. I have no idea why I am experiencing such intense feelings. I am also starving. By golly I’m eating my weekly points and my exercise points and I still kind of want to cry with hunger. Don’t worry I am continuing to eat when I’m that hungry whether I have points or not. I don’t think it is reasonable to be that hungry and not eat. I’m trying to figure out what sorts of food will make me feel full because nothing is doing it right now. I can’t figure out why I am so hungry. Shanna hasn’t been nursing more than usual.

Shanna is in fact being her awesome, mellow self lately so I can’t blame any of this on stress from her. She’s sleeping 11-12 hours a night with one, sometimes two wake-ups. I really have no complaints about her. She’s a little clingy during the day but not beyond what is totally reasonable and normal for her age. It’s cool watching her scoot all over the floor playing with toys. 🙂

So yeah. Feeling batty just now.

F’n piece of S#!7

Every time I try to bookmark this page firefox crashes.

So here’s the god damn link: http://cupcakeblog.com/2008/04/3-vanilla-cupcakes-with-vanilla-sea-salt/

They have really amazing looking cupcake recipes.

and it crashed the last time I tried to select an icon on lj. FUCK!

Good little housewife

I like the icon. It expresses to me how deep and thoughtful most posts are.

That said: man I’ve been a good housewife today. Because I am exactly this dorky, here is my list of accomplishments…

-I figured out Quicken. It was a major pain in the ass, but I did it. I used to keep track of our budget stuff using Excel, but it took forever and I am just not willing to put in that many hours of labor anymore. Hopefully this’ll work out.
-Called home inspector for an appointment.
-Put up the craigslist ad to get rid of the table. This involved going out and taking pictures of it so I’m happy I got it done.
-Did two loads of laundry.
-Did the dishes and otherwise tidied up the kitchen.
-Finished the last touches on cleaning up the garage. It is once again able to accept the car. w00t
-Changed three dirty diapers and caught one pee. I’ve been distracted.
-Did all the necessary steps to get the property tax check in the mail. Sometimes I suck at this.
-Put up more pictures of Shanna: http://picasaweb.google.com/somethingdifferent/Shanna
-Ate lunch
-I’ve cycled the Brita pitcher 6 times refreshing my water storage in the refrigerator. This is a big deal because it means I am more likely to actually drink water in the next few days. (I only drink it cold.)
-I went and had some cookies. (I haven’t used this euphemism in a while. ha.)

Hmmmm. What should I do next? Shanna is flirting heavily and seems to be leaning towards playing with her. Maybe that’s all the day needs to be perfect. 🙂

Do you like thrift store shopping for kids stuff?

Well, you’d better do it quick: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift2-2009jan02,0,2083247.story

The law is very hard to understand. I’ve tried to read it:http://www.cpsc.gov/ABOUT/Cpsia/legislation.html but it’s not clearly written.

It is sounding an awful lot like all small businesses that produce *anything* for children will be in trouble if not sent out of business entirely. I can’t find a super clear explanation for how this law will be applied anywhere.

(Quick and dirty summary: all products that are sold intended for children must go through rigorous testing to ensure safety, they are mostly worried about lead. This means all toys/clothes/household items/whatever marketed for use by children. The cost of this could be anywhere from $150/item to $4000/item no one is sure.)

Everyone who has been contacting their representative has been ignored. This really sucks.

I am very seriously considering going on a buying spree for all handmade stuff I want to buy for the next many many years. If you like shopping for handmade stuff for kids you should consider it as well. 🙁

More info at: http://nationalbankruptcyday.com/

Communication

I’m having trouble keeping track of dates lately. It’s pretty silly. I thought that my first meeting of the Holistic Moms Network (we’re going to talk about organic gardening and worm farms and such) was last Tuesday, but uhm oops–it’s this coming Tuesday instead. I found this out after I had already driven down to south San Jose. oops.

So I called my sister to see if she wanted to spend some time with Shanna and me. She did and we met up at the mall near her house. We sat in the food court and talked for about 45 minutes. Then we walked around the mall talking for another half an hour. Then we headed to my car and talked for another hour even though I was supposed to be leaving. It was really really good. Our talking meandered through many many different subjects from fluffy idle chit-chat to intense processy kinds of stuff. We actually managed to talk about her penchant for rewriting history. I got her to acknowledge that she does it. I was really really really happy she finally acknowledged it. We talked about why she does it. She told me that she sometimes can’t psychologically cope with admitting the terrible things she has done so she “forgets”. I think that is a huge thing for her to say. I told her about the book Shame and Guilt that I found very helpful and she said she would be interested in reading it and pointed out that her birthday is in a couple of weeks. So I’m ordering it for her. We talked about the blame and shame we each feel for things that happened in our family. It was kind of interesting to talk about those things finally with someone who was there with me through the trauma. Our perspectives are so different.

We spoke ruefully about our mother. I pointed out how I believe our mother’s behavior is about playing favorites and Denise said she thinks mom is just thoughtless. I hate to come down from my position on anything, but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Sissy pointed out a few ways in which she feels our mother has treated me badly and the sense of validation I got from that was intense and overwhelming. We talked about my brother (the one who is still alive) and how he has cut us both out of his life. She said that as far as she is concerned he is dead. I told her that he really isn’t dead, it would be easier if he was. That made her pause and think. After a while she admitted that I was right–we have less (internal) conflict about Tommy (the dead brother). We talked about whether chosen family takes the place of biological family. I told her that recently my experience of my chosen family is that they don’t take the bonds any more seriously than my biological family so I’m pretty lonely. She tried to do her blustery, “You don’t need anyone…” thing and I told her that I do need my family. She hugged me when I cried.

We talked about when I turned her in to CPS. That was an interesting conversation. I told her that, for lack of a less geeky way of explaining it, I am lawful good. I have to follow the law. I can’t live with myself if I don’t. She asked me how I would feel if my actions sent her to jail (I didn’t even quibble about whose actions would be responsible) and I told her that I would feel terrible and guilty and ashamed but I would have to do it anyway. I told her about the weeks of crying I did before and after turning her in. She seemed surprised that I cared. It was pretty intense but I think that discussing it might help. She said that she is waiting till my niece turns 18 to give me her address, but that she will do so then. I don’t really blame her.

We also spent a while discussing the sexual merits of our various partners over the years. That part was pretty funny. 🙂

The Kool Aid

Mid-way through writing this it occurred to me that I have multiple friends who are in OA and for whom this might be triggering. This is a lot of talk about food, weight, and body image. Feel free to skip this if you might have issues with those topics. 🙂 You don’t even have to be in OA to not want to read about my weight issues. 🙂
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