Tag Archives: life

Projects

Right now I am working on/need to work on:
-finish cleaning out the garage. Noah helped me make HUGE progress this weekend. Yay Noah!
label/send out pictures of Shanna. I never got around to doing the 9 month pictures and now I have 13 month pictures (I procrastinated and missed 12 months–whoops) sitting here. I’ll be shocked if they are done before she is 15 months old. Thank god our family tradition is to not do pictures again until 18 months.
-make jam for the first time!
-put together the storage stuff for the kitchen.
-put together the night stand.
-return the broken night stand to Ikea. (long stupid story here)

-figure out more decluttering/getting rid of stuff. I want us to fit comfortably in this house, damnit.
-deal with the meat in the fridge.
-go to laundry mat to wash the frickin comforter.
-upload pictures from the camera to picasa.
-do more laundry.
-take all the lovely poisonous chemicals in the garage to the recycling center.
-find a frickin electronics recycling place.

I hope that is it for this week. Oy. There is no way I will finish this all this week with my sweet, wonderful little helper. 🙂

so much to do and so little time

Today I made dinner. It took pretty much all day. I made pasta, pasta sauce, strawberry mash, and shortcake–all from scratch. That kind of preparation is a pain in the butt. All of the fresh ingredients came from the CSA box, the farmers market, or my back yard. 🙂 I’m tired. I don’t know how people used to cook from scratch every day. This is a pain in the butt.

Yesterday I finished my tattoo. I want to do a full post about that very soon with pictures.

Shanna continues to astound me with her development. I’m thrilled that I have a willing sleeper. When she realized she wasn’t going to get me to go lay down with her “nigh-nigh” “I can’t right now Shanna” she more or less asked to be put on my back and she took her nap there. I’m extremely sore but she’s in a great mood thanks to sleeping and I got my chores done. w00t.

Tomorrow we are going to Friday Night Waltz! I hope to see many people there. 🙂

I should ping because I keep thinking about her. I’m obviously awesome at initiating contact though. Oy.

I’m at day 42 of my cycle. The stupid sticks I’m peeing on still say I’m not pregnant though. This is making me fret for a variety of reasons.

I’ve been ordered PT for my knee and a hearing test to get more of a baseline on my disintegration a la (insert accent mark) Meniere’s. I really like my Kaiser doctor. She said despite my eyes, ears, and knee I am in excellent health. She didn’t even blink hard in the direction of my weight and she told me that I should have a bunch more kids because obviously I’m a great mother. 😀 She thinks I have a great attitude about the Menier’s and I think there is no point in having a poopy attitude. 😀

My house is a mess and I have dinner guests showing up sometime in the next half hour. I should probably get off livejournal. 🙂 I get to see my Sarah! I’m excited. It’s been so long. 🙂

Bits and pieces to get them out of my head

Looks like trying to have more of a relationship with my family was a bad idea. 🙁 It’s time to withdraw from that again. Noah gave me some really good advice on how to do it without exploding a drama bomb.

I got into a really bad place for a while there where I was doing the martyr thing full time. That doesn’t help anyone least of all me. I need to knock that crap off. Noah can take care of his own happiness.

Shanna now, quite delightfully, says “owwwww sigh”. For those of you without children this means outside. It’s awesome. She loves her swing so much. I’m thrilled that I got the idea from and and I bought one. 🙂

I’m shifting things around in the house a lot more trying to figure out what arrangements will make me happiest long term because the long term is how long we are here. I really really want to make a cool playroom for the kidlet so I’m looking into that. I have a bunch of cool links that I might post later.

I’m feeling frustrated by the fact that people very very rarely initiate social interaction with me. Why is it that I have to do all of it?

My last tattoo appointment is on August 3rd. We’ll be stopping birth control after that. That means I’m taking advantage of the ability to drink. 🙂

Noah and I had a wonderful date on Monday where we had breathtakingly good food. Being married to a foodie is the best thing ever.

I’m not being good about exercise just lately. This is another thing I need to work on.

Urf and arf. Time to start walking towards the bus stop. I bet Shanna is going to love the trip on BART again. 🙂

Real life is really annoying.

I fixed my Quicken problem today. I did it all by myself. Go me! This resulted in me being able to load the last couple of months into Quicken. I almost wish I hadn’t.

The sad truth is that we need to not buy Christmas presents, not go on any more trips, and seriously cut back on what we are spending on food. That spiffy new roof has more lasting effects than my comfort. Money kind of sucks. But if we are really really good then we might be able to go on a trip next year. *cross fingers*

(Icon just because I’m posting naked. :P)

Not writing

I have all this stuff I want to talk about. Moving. Houses. Writing. Evolution of sexuality.

But I don’t seem to have any energy to write about any of it. Even when I have uninterrupted time to sit down with the keyboard (or paper) I just… can’t do it. But I’m thinking about a lot of things. I’m thinking all the time. I just… can’t write.

Looking up

So I was feeling all grumpy and cranky for a bit. Then we had sex. Then I was miraculously in a good mood. I think there is some sort of correlation there. 😛

Yesterday during Tango class I started having significant pain in my right buttock. Like a muscle spasm. It really sucked. Luckily I married the best boy ever and he worked on my thigh/butt/back and it stopped being agonizing pain. Now it is merely discomfort. It’s progress!

On the dance class front: mostly I’m having a great time. Last night I had a series of guys who had no frame so I started feeling a little frustrated with them. Luckily I kept managing to get the same specific guy over and over and he actually had frame so that was nice. 🙂 Noah is doing far better than he gives himself credit for. I think he has to overcome his mental block around “I’m a bad dancer” because when he’s not stressed out and freaking out he does alright. 🙂

I’m getting to socialize a lot lately and that is really awesome. It’s really wonderful that I am spending so much time with lots of friends. w00t!

In general things just feel so much better. I hate the hormones that come along with being a chick sometimes.

+/-

+ Getting to go visit friends yesterday. It was a great day.
+ Having a friend who is going to help me make my yard look better.
+ Shanna is starting to walk longer distances!
+ Having a husband who is willing to listen to criticism and look for the bits of truth instead of ignoring me because of course things aren’t that bad.
– Multiple internet outages in the past few days.
– Feeling stupid pressure about money. It’s all my fault and I need to get over it. erf.
– Lots of weird/awkward/bad/uncomfortable emotions lately in general. The past few days have been a roller coaster and I’d like off, thanks.

Looks like the +s outnumber the -s but the -s feel stronger. I need to do something about my attitude. I’m not sure will help me feel less angsty.

Six things

First: I am a good wife. I told Noah to go game because he hasn’t been able to much and he’s really stressed out and overburdened at work.

Second: I still haven’t heard about the comp exam. I took the test 25 days ago. I have been patient. Now I’m starting to freak out.

Third: I bought a nasal irrigation thingy. Hopefully this will allow me to resume my normal course of breathing.

Fourth: New diapers arrived! I am nerdy enough to find this very exciting.

Fifth: Family support today over the fact that both my sister and mother are over-the-top crazy. I appreciate the validation there.

Sixth: In other family news, looks like my sister is dealing again. But of course it would be my fault if she went to jail.

Strangely exciting, and a video

Noah says that one of us should post this video today and I’m up earlier:

 

There isn’t a great video, it’s about the song. Thanks tsgeisel!

And the strangely exciting is: I’m selling diapers. It amazes me that I have gotten all the use out of these diapers and now someone is paying me for them. Ok, technically a bunch of someones are paying me for them. I’m going to buy a few more one size diapers with some of the proceeds. And then with the next kid we will have only all-in-ones and one size diapers so we won’t have to deal with diapers and covers ever again. It’s kind of cool. Snaps. Snaps are the way to go. Velcro wears out.

Uhm yeah. 🙂

No happy medium

I’ve been rather slacker lately. Of course I feel guilt about that because I’m that sort of girl. So today I woke up early (5:30) and got moving. Before 7:15 I have:

started diaper laundry
taken out the recycling
moved stuff from the garage to Noah’s office
found a box in the mostly dark shed out back
packaged up books for shipping
went to the Post Office and shipped said books
stopped at Safeway for a couple of things we were out of
bought Noah a doughnut 🙂
picked up the kitchen a little
made steel cut oats for breakfast
read all my email and livejournal
and pottied Shanna.

Not terrible. 🙂

Good day

It looks like they are getting started on my roof very soon! Yay! And I get to feel awesome about the fact that I am the first customer for the guy who will be installing my solar panels. (He has a lot of experience but he recently started his own business. He is the ex-boyfriend of my sister and they are still friends. I’ve known him for almost a decade and he is a really good guy.) We also got a hit on the books we listed on Amazon. So between taking most of our books to the used book store and putting this one set on Amazon we made over $300. (Are you happy, Rebecca?) That’s probably only like 10% of what we originally paid, but such is life. It’s better than nothing. 🙂

Shanna’s toys are now organized and out where she can play with them. I’m probably two solid days of working away from being done in the garage. I feel competent and cheerful. At this point my only big angst is the comp exam and there isn’t a thing in the world I can do about it. Have I mentioned that I’m grateful that I no longer have to study? It feels really good.

The internet is slow

Or so complains a friend. 🙂 So that means I will have to entertain you all. Dangerous.

Hmmmm… yesterday I went and met a new-to-me mommy (*wave*) and she seems pretty cool. The right blend of snarky and crunchy combined with the fact that she is a non-techie married to a geek. I hope this relationship goes somewhere. 🙂

Today I had a Miss Laura over. That’s always lovely. Now we have chicken and potatoes in the crock pot with vindaloo sauce.

Hm. That’s not very entertaining. Ooh! I’ll play a game. How about if I say some number of statements (uhm… 20? Can I come up with that many?) about people who are regular readers/posters on my journal. Then y’all can see if you can pick yourself out of the list. (Of course I am only guessing at who the entire list of regular readers are, but I have some suspicions.)

1. Your art is neato. I think your blog is neato. You should post more. 🙂 Don’t be overcome by inertia!
2. I think I should come to BR and have you watch my kid. She’s fun. 🙂
3. You are the only short story author I actually take the time to read when you post new stuff. You should feel all special.
4. Competency and good cheer are the things I associate with you most strongly.
5. Yeah, Spider man shirts are totally over-rated. 😛
6. I wish I could build a house there. I really do. Poopy commuting.
7. I think your hair should be purple next. 😀
8. Dude, you should post about something other than travel. Like, I don’t have the foggiest idea what you actually do for a living and I’ve known you for a long time. (yeah you’re a geek, who isn’t around here? except for me of course.)
9. We would actually get around to having dinner if you CALLED ME.
10. I really hope we end up moving to the same place. That would be neat.
11. No shit dude, I think you are the funniest chick (I wanted to put person but if I did then everyone would assume it’s a guy and that’s just not so.) I know. Now, if we could work on your self esteem we would be golden.
12. You must know I love you. A day of eating chocolate is not my thing. 🙂
13. I don’t think I miss dancing as a whole all that much but I really miss dancing with you.
14. I don’t think I should call your dad anymore. I get the impression he would rather hear my news from you.
15. Can your family adopt me? Especially your mom.
16. I shouldn’t be envious, but I am because I can’t believe you dropped your baby weight already.
17. So, how is the weather up there? Are you freezing yet? Are you still happy you moved?
18. I’m glad that your cat is smart enough to know that you still need the routine.
19. I feel guilty when I read about your knitting and gardening. I would like to be so cool. 🙂
20. When are you going to visit this coast again? It’s always nice talking with you and it looks like I won’t be making it east this year.
21. I’m glad you finally got something like support from that stupid school.
22. You do a good job of giving tactful advice even when it isn’t solicited. I’m amazed at how well you walk the line of not pissing me off. And you have to be the most respectful debater I’ve ever encountered. Good job. 🙂

Ok. I need to go play with Shanna now. 🙂

Question and Purging

As for the question I asked yesterday–I didn’t ask because Noah and I are having trouble negotiating. We are both very happy with how we work things out. The only friction at all is because I have an insane work ethic and I would cheerfully have both of us work 24/7. He does all that I reasonably expect from him and more. 🙂 And I checked this morning–he thinks I do plenty. I asked because this is a frequent theme on some of the boards I read and I was sort of curious how people I actually know feel about it.

I’m starting to feel the urge to get rid of a bunch of stuff. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I am moving everything out of the garage and trying to figure out how to fit it all in the shed. 🙂 Part of it is honestly that now that I am done with the comp exam I would kind of like to get rid of the books I had to read but I never actually liked. Why am I storing all of those? Am I trying to brag about how well read I am? Yeah… I think I’m kind of done with that. I don’t need them anymore so they are going to go away. (Before you say anything Rebecca, trying to sell them online would add a lot of hassle to my life that would not be proportional to the time I would have to spend on the project.)

And in looking at how much kid stuff we have I reached the conclusion that I really really don’t want any presents for Shanna for her birthday. She’s turning one. She won’t feel slighted and we have way too much stuff for her already. I should probably send email to the family. If people really feel like they just have to spend money on her I will ask them to give money towards her college fund. 🙂

Good enough

One of my wonderful friends told me that I inspire her because I have accomplished so much and I started out with so little. If I stop and think about that even semi-objectively she is right. But there is always that voice in the back of my head saying, “But you didn’t do ‘x’ and you failed at ‘y'” and those things seem to cancel out my accomplishments. But why? How do I lose credit for the things I have done? I got a high school diploma. I was the first one in my family to do so. I managed to avoid pregnancy/abortion when most folks in my life circumstances didn’t. I am not an addict and I seriously doubt I ever will be–given my familial background that is huge. I have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential. I have been to five foreign countries. I have been to 30 states including an amazing backpacking trip in Alaska (have I said thank you lately, DA?). I am a fairly technically skilled top. I am a very good teacher. I have a good eye for putting together colors in interior decorating (if I do say so myself. :P). I’m a good mom. I’m a good wife.

I am sane. I own my shit. I am good about boundaries. I give and receive respect. I am an honorable person.

If I fail the masters exam what have I lost? I lose out on the chance to have a piece of paper to hang on my wall. I lose out on the ability to feel snotty and superior because of my formally recognized education. In reality I won’t be more educated if I get the piece of paper. I will still be in the top pay bracket if I go back to teaching because no one can take away the units I have earned.

I’ve been having a serious identity crises lately because I feel like who I am has somehow become less since I became a mother. It’s rather bullshit though. I’m not actively doing a lot outside of being a mother right now, but that’s ok. That is the season of life I am in. I wanted it and doing this does not devalue me.

I am good enough.

Just life

I made steal cut oats for breakfast. We had strawberries, walnuts, whole milk, and a little bit of brown sugar mixed in. It was fabulous.

Today was a cooking day. We have tri-tip prepared as well as chicken cooked with orange and pineapple and a little bit of rum. I boiled the rutabagas and potatoes and smashed them up together with a lot of butter and milk. I haven’t figured out what I am doing with the chard yet this week. hm. We still have asparagus and artichoke to cook but I figure those can wait a day or so.

Between cooking and cleaning house I don’t seem to find/make time to sew. This is very annoying. It doesn’t help that I feel like I really ought to be studying for the comp exam. Twelve more days.

Have I mentioned that I feel growing anxiety about this test? This is my last shot. If I fuck this up I’m just done. That’s kind of stressful.

I want to have an affair with my husband. I miss having that sort of intense interaction with him.

My daughter is getting more and more kid-like every day. I find her endlessly fascinating. And exasperating. Definitely exasperating. 🙂 She is sleeping for shit these days and that’s feeling really hard.

I need to get off my ass and plan the birthday party. *sigh*

I managed to get off the acceptance letter to the roofer and the information for the estate lawyer. I met with someone (ironically–he’s my sister’s ex-boyfriend. the only boyfriend of hers that I have ever liked) today about putting solar panels on our roof. It’s looking very likely. That’s productivity. We are still waiting to hear back from the accountant. By this time next month we may well be many tens of thousands of dollars poorer.

My back hurts and I’m not getting enough exercise. There is simply not enough time in the day.

Any feminist who questions the worth of what I do with my time can kiss my lily-white-ass. Those of you who are working moms–how do you manage to sleep?! I don’t have enough time for all of my stuff and you all have to do what I do and work. Y’all must be crazy.

More erf

I woke up at six and can’t get back to sleep. Too much going on in my brain. Physically I’m kind of off and I can’t figure out exactly what is wrong. I’m obsessing about all the deaths that have happened in the last year and some. I feel very anxious about life. The comp exam is in 18 days. I should probably review poetry. *sigh*

I can’t get driving directions online to the place we are going in Oklahoma. All the mapping software basically knows that the road exists but that’s it. Awesome. I have to wait until a more sane hour then call them. I’m sure there are tiny little motels in the town we are going to, but there is zero online presence for any hotel there. I lived in this town for a little while as a kid. I remember feeling very superior because I was from the big city. Now I find it almost charming in a severely inconvenient sort of way.

I still haven’t decided if I am going to deal with dragging the carseat around in the airports and gate checking it or if I am ok with actually checking it. I’ve heard some horror stories about baggage handlers destroying carseats. They are somewhat delicate and if you throw them too hard they are no longer useful in a crash. And they are so fucking expensive. But I’m not going to have much in the way of help. *sigh*

They don’t sell good travel potties that fit over elongated toilet bowls. Fuckers. You’d think that this would be a reasonable thing to have given that almost all public toilets are elongated. Shanna does not appreciate sitting precariously on a grown up toilet while being held up. It makes the whole pottying experience much more stressful. I think I’m going to bring her potty and disposable anti-bacterial wipes for cleaning it out. Not my first choice, but better than not being able to potty her. At this point I’m only having a couple of misses a day and I don’t really want to back slide a lot. I think it is funny that by volume more than half of what I am bringing on this trip is diapers. People still ask me when I am going to switch to disposables (not for traveling–just in general) because “Aren’t you sick of washing diapers?” The washing really doesn’t phase me in the slightest. However I was really really really tempted to not deal with lugging the volume on this trip.

You people don’t post on lj enough. I tell you all about my life, where is the reciprocal reading material? 😛 (Essaying–you do well. 😀 And I have no complaints about Rbus.)

My house isn’t clean and I’m trying very hard not to care. It’s a struggle though. I will never again buy black furniture. Being able to see dust 15 minutes after dusting makes me feel like I am the worst, most terrible housekeeper ever in the history of the world. I really don’t need that guilt.

I had a good time at the museum on Sunday. It was nice to see people and play with kidlets. 🙂 Shanna is still not quite to the interacting large scale stage. It’s all about her. 🙂 It’s very cute.

It’s hard balancing things with Noah right now. His job is sucking the life out of him. I am trying as much as I can to be supportive and not demand much of him. I was doing ok for a while. Then I hit an emotional wall and started feeling really upset and crummmy and needing a lot more from him. I’m largely still not pestering him with those needs. He doesn’t have much extra right now. So I’m spending a lot of time crying. It’s interesting how I know this isn’t depression–it doesn’t feel that way. I’m grieving. I’m sad. It feels pretty lonely to feel like this and spend so much time alone. Shanna doesn’t count as a person in this way because she is pretty much a bottomless pit of need with not much to give. I’m ok with that–that is what she is supposed to be. But I’m having a hard time. I’m pretty sure my grieving isn’t impacting her negatively. She seems to be still very healthy and happy and delighted by life.

Oh, and she’s teething again. The diaper rash appeared instantly and is fierce. I don’t entirely understand how she can get diaper rash like that when she is barely wetting diapers at all and she never sits in pee. Babies are a mystery. Good thing they are a cute mystery. She has been asleep for more than 11 hours. This is very very good because it is going to be a long day of traveling and her naps are going to be disrupted. I’m nervous about traveling with her by myself but I’ll manage.

Wow that’s a lot of whining. And she slept through me writing it. w00t.

Eventful.

When I got up I thought today would be boring. I thought I would go to Whole Foods with my neighbor and maybe hit the nursery (for plant matter–not baby). Well, it was a starting plan.

I went to the nursery this morning and spent quite a while figuring out what sorts of veggies to put into the pots in my back yard. I selected two varieties of tomatoes (one is best for paste the other is best for being more solid like and mixes in well for sauce), squash, sweet basil, oregano, sweet peas, and a neato sounding pepper. I was planning to try and put them into pots basically immediately but when I got home I was derailed by a phone call from my mother.

It turns out that a family friend died this morning. She was 79 and in extremely poor health so I can’t really call it a shock. My mother and I had been planning to go out to Oklahoma to see them this summer at a big birthday party. It turns out that we will instead be flying out on Tuesday for a funeral. It took a while to find reasonable airfares for both of us.

Then I went to Whole Foods with my neighbor. We both had a lot of fun wandering around looking at the sheer variety of pretentious food. Of course we both spent too much money. Oy. That place is dangerous. While we were there we ran into one of my former students. It was quite lovely as she danced with joy and told her three friends extensively about how I was the best teacher ever. She was not one of my most dedicated students so we spent a lot of time together in 8th period social club getting to know one another. 🙂 It was great to see that she is trying to go to college. On the ride home my neighbor told me, essentially, that I make her feel kind of stupid because I know so many things and can answer in depth questions on such a wide variety of topics. I think that it was made even worse when she figured out that I am seven years younger than her. I don’t think she is stupid, I think she is simply asking questions about things that I have researched and she hasn’t. Oy. But I helped her realize a few things about her marriage and that’s to the good.

I came home and spent a while talking to Noah about how frustrated he is at work right now. I wish there was more I could do to help him. Then I made the rest of the arrangements for the trip to Oklahoma. Then I sat down for a few minutes to catch up on the internet and I received a phone call from Debbie! This is always exciting. She lives in Taiwan right now so I don’t get to talk to her much. I’m glad that she has been awesome about keeping in touch with me. 🙂

Noah decided that it would be a good plan for him to go to the gym for a while after dinner because it will be a break from thinking. As he was getting ready to run out the door he casually mentioned that his parents are trying really hard to come out here for Shanna’s birthday.

It’s been a day.