Tag Archives: random

Good little housewife

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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. 🙂

So this is what freedom feels like.

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At the very least I have two weeks of freedom. Wow. That’s pretty incredible. I am still in my Spanish classes until May if I wuss out on the translation test, but honestly they take up about 7 hours of week for class time and homework time. That’s just not hitting my radar compared to what I’ve been doing for uhm years. My job is to take care of Shanna and do at least my share of housework. If I do more than my share of housework then Noah has more free time to spend with me and he’s in a generally better mood–which is a pretty damn good trade-off in my book.

I started off this freedom by cleaning up the garage to the point where we can now put our car in it! I’m thrilled because putting Shanna in and out in the rain really blows. I also cleaned the bathtub. Today I will putz through more cleaning and laundry. I also want to do cooking and prep stuff for meals for the week because we eat better when I do that.

My projects for this week include: putting furniture together, more house cleaning [we have a lot of cobwebs, finish dusting, finish cleaning the bathroom, maybe vacuum the living room, do a real scrub down of the kitchen], read more books to Shanna, start sorting Christmas stuff [I’m so excited about Christmas this year it isn’t even funny. I’m not doing the major decorating stuff till after Thanksgiving, but I can get a head start on stuff like Christmas cards so that I don’t feel much pressure in December], and enjoy the fact that I don’t have to read anything I don’t want to read! Do you know how many years it has been since I had no pressure about what to read?! For the past five years I have always had it hanging over my head that I needed to do reading for the exams. I haven’t always done it but the pressure was always present.

That said: what books do you like that I should add to my reading list? I may read a summary online and decide oh hell no but feel free to make suggestions. 🙂 I don’t even know what is out there past the canon…

Oh! and posts I want to write: “Ok snarky bitch, here is why I use cloth diapers despite your snotty article you sent me”, “Why are some books included in the canon while others are excluded”, and “Why I’m feeling some unpleasant feelings about the constant barrage of requests for money.”

Not tired

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But it’s time for bed. Shanna is sleeping in the swing. Noah is in bed. Tonight for no good reason I feel antsy. I want… something.

Ack! Frustration! No, not really. I’m ok. Just energetic at a time I shouldn’t be. 🙂

God damn technology.

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I’m not an early adapter. I don’t trust all these “advancements” until other people suffer through the bugs. That said, I am lazy. I looked around for a better cash back rate on a credit card and was lead to the wonders of American Express. This card is some serious shit. Right now I am suffering through the hassle of setting it up to automatically pay all of my monthly bills for me. How cool is that? I won’t have to do it anymore! w00t! And they will give me 1.5% of that money back. Seems pretty neato to me given that I have to pay the bills anyway. (No, there is not an annual fee–I checked.) This is a serious pain in the ass.

And my phone is dying. It was fully charged yesterday afternoon. I haven’t used it and it is aready dead. Stupid phone. I’m not sure what I want to replace it with.

bitch.moan.complain. 🙂

Whoa

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So the current cover of the Blowfish catalog looks an awful lot like a dancer. One who is like 18/19ish ok maybe more like 20/21ish cause I forget how long ago I did Fezzi’s. She’s a natural redhead who recently went blonde. She was in the 16 year old gaggle the year I did Fezzi’s. Spurious-Logic seems to hang out with her. She was at waltzingmatthea‘s going away party.

Uhm, is it actually her?

Quirks

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Shanna stops smiling when she sees the camera most of the time.
Shanna, like her father, likes to suck on m chin.

An easy way to let me show love for you is to let me cook you food.
I think that milk product + potato = heaven.

I’m fairly obsessed with my birthday. I just don’t tell people about it most of the time. I secretly want people to pay attention but I hate having to ask. So many years I have sat at home fairly miserable.

I’m not boring

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I just need to talk to people who share my interests. Someone who will not be annoyed at my incessant conversations about All Things Baby. Luckily, I have an angelkatharine and she is quite thrilled to hear my baby-related babble. It’s great!

Yesterday was an errand-running day and she came with me! I went to Ikea to find picture frames (I actually like the super cheap ‘clips’ ones) and to restock on candles. I had a great time discussing decorating choices in the display rooms. Noah isn’t interested in doing that with me. 🙂 Then we went to Target for non-stick skillets which will allow Noah to make me breakfast with greater ease. 🙂 I found some clothes and I am quite thrilled about this. Lately I’ve been wearing two pairs of low-rise maternity pants and about five shirts over and over because other stuff isn’t fitting. Oh sure, I can keep wearing the generic stretch pants I had for maternity, but they wear out and aren’t real flattering. I really want to put maternity clothes away so that they aren’t worn out the next time I get pregnant. This is complicated by the fact that while yes, I now have jeans (w00t!) I had just uhm expanded into this size before getting pregnant so I have very little clothing in size 14. Noah is challenging to live with if you want to not gain weight. I apparently can’t stay thin. All of my size 14 stuff is work clothing and I don’t really want to lounge around the house that way.

So new clothes! Yay! I also have the new constraint of nursing accessibility. Whereas I don’t have a problem with raising up the bottom of my shirt (I don’t care who sees my stretch marks) it is a lot easier to have boob access from higher up. Raising a t-shirt in the wraps is kind of a pain then we get all sweaty together and I don’t like that feeling. So yay for shirts that lower for boob access. I also found some cute jammies cause I don’t really have any. I mostly have nightgowns and nothing is more fucking pointless than having to raise the bottom of a nightgown from your knees to above your boob for nursing. (Ok, there are probably more pointless things…) So now I have two-pieces and I’m happy. I also found two dresses that are nursing compatible. One is even cute and not black so I can wear it to the wedding next month. (It’s grey, but I’ll take that as good enough.)

And Noah got nearly drunk last night. It was very amusing. 🙂

Much celebration is felt. And now I sit very still and pray that the munchkin goes to sleep soon for a really long nap cause she was up longer than is strictly speaking awesome yesterday.

blurbs

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I seem to be reverting to my teenage years, by which I mean: “I’m booooooooored….ooh! I’ll eat!” Dangerous.

Tonight I am going to look at my oldest friend in the world as she parades around in very little clothing. Given my normal friends-group this shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s weird. (She wants costuming feedback before a photo shoot and her husband is one of “those guys” who won’t respond. I’m so nice.)

Shanna has taken to moaning a little as she eats. It sounds like that low mournful puppy moaning when they are locked up for the night. I feel like I must be doing something terrible and I can’t figure out what.

I would love to have a book club sort of thing about the Harry Potter books. Since I succumbed to reading them there are all sorts of nuances in the story that I would love to hear other opinions on. Noah is a nice start, but he doesn’t seem as motivated as me. 🙂

Our neighbors two doors down came over to introduce themselves. This is really awesome because they have a little boy who is 5 1/2 weeks older than Shanna! Yay! I doubt Shanna will be as lucky as I was with the kid across the street (uhm, the girl coming over to show off her underwear tonight) but you never know. 🙂

Been spending a lot of time thinking about how my friends are by and large having shitty stuff happen to them lately. I feel almost guilty that my life is so easy right now. It’s a weird feeling.

I’m not doing a very good job of reaching out to those women I obsess over. I think I fear rejection. But I miss them.

I’m spending way more time thinking about the trip to Portland than is necessary. Hey! Uhm, we’re coming up to Portland at the end of August for a wedding. I’m trying to decide how long we should stay and a lot of that depends on how many people want to see us. We will probably head up to Seattle for at least a day because Jefe will shoot me if I don’t come see his restaurant. He’s pushy like that. I’m not feeling very secure in the “people want to see me” department so if you want me to spend time with you on the trip feel free to nudge in my direction. I will probably be quite happy to figure out time.

Noah has this friend. I’ve never met this friend. I have mixed feelings about this friend due to a variety of things that hit buttons for me. I’m thinking maybe it is good that I not meet this friend due to a variety of triggery sorts of things. But I feel terrible and like I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

I’m judgmental. I judge peoples’ actions and beliefs. I feel like this makes me a terrible person. I can’t seem to stop.

If you are now totally paranoid that I am judging you, feel free to ask and I’ll tell you. I might be.

Hm. Maybe I’m not just bored. Maybe I’m actually hungry.

Muddled

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I’m starting to be fuzzier and fuzzier in my thinking. My normal brilliant observations (hey–I have them sometimes) are coming fewer and farther apart. Instead I feel like I’m swimming in a fog. It’s strangely reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Dude. I’m totally Bromden.

We went out and were social this weekend, more than once even. I was pretty amused at how the party we went to basically segregated into the monogamous breeders and the poly people. 🙂 I had a lovely time. 🙂 I need to spend more time with Lauren because she is obviously a really good mom (you don’t get a kid that good on accident) and maybe she can rub off on me. It was nice to see the various poly folk as well–don’t get me wrong. They just weren’t as interested in orbiting around where I flopped and I’m not doing the get up and move around social butterfly thing just now.

Then Noah wanted to go watch the fire show at the Tiki Bar last night. He wasn’t willing to go without me. So I dragged my grumpy ass out. Luckily I had the brilliant idea of sending Miss Jenny a text message and she came and talked to me. It’s a good thing cause I was being pretty sucky and unenthusiastic and that was probably hard for Noah. Then my delightful acupuncturist showed up with her husband. She’s neat in general and I had a great time fucking with her husband. 😀 That was probably the best social interaction I’ve had with a new-to-me person in months. Normally I just sort of retreat over to my chair and don’t talk to new people. 🙂

All of this on top of Noah vacuuming the whole house on Saturday. Whee! My life is awesome.

Oh! I got painted green yesterday! Uncle Mikey came over and painted me and we took pictures. I don’t have any that I can mass share at this point, but I’ve seen some of them and they are neat!! Very freaky-creature-like. 🙂

The cat has been really fussy lately. After losing the teeth a few weeks ago she has also had this weird growth on her lower lip. Last week we took her in for a steroid shot and it seems to be getting better. I’m hoping that more doesn’t come up. *sigh* I think she has been over-eating lately out of sheer joy at being able to eat again (infected teeth and gums = lots of pain while eating) and she puked all over the carpet this weekend. *sigh* I think this is her 6th? 7th? time puking in her whole life so I don’t feel like I can be too grumpy.

The house has come a long way. I’m getting happier and happier with the house. At this point the house looks different enough that it doesn’t feel like it is the same house Noah used to live in. I’m pretty grateful for that. I was having a lot of trouble feeling happy here and at this point that is fading and the house is feeling more like it’s “mine.” The one remnant of former occupants that I am thrilled about is the roses. Thank you Christyn! They are soooooo pretty. 🙂

I’m not sleeping that well because a three hour stretch between bathroom breaks is a really long time and I usually can’t go that long. I have also started gaining a pound a week in the last couple of weeks (whoo hoo! 21 lbs!) but that means that I’m gaining about 1/2 lb a week of water weight. My feet are now swollen. It took till 39 weeks, but it happened. My pelvis is so sore I have trouble believing that my body can be this sore for this long. I’m just achey all over in general. Getting out this weekend was awesome because I’m not sure how much more time I have.

Oh, people: stop asking if I’ve had the baby. I’ll freakin let you know.

Snippets

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We went down to Monterey on Saturday. The day didn’t go how I expected, but it was good anyway. I got to walk on the beach and that was mostly what I was jonesing for.

I haven’t called Katie cause I suck. I know it.

Because of weird holiday-ness I don’t have class tonight so I effectively get two full weeks off from school. This is nice because I don’t want to work and this is bad because it lets me procrastinate on the seminar papers I need to write. Erf.

Today I will go help Miss Jenny pack. Sometimes you just need a little help from your friends. I asked Noah if he was comfortable with me going because I would probably be pretty physical. He’s been very concerned about me not pushing myself too far cause I tend to do that sort of thing physically. Though not this pregnancy. Man am I a slug.

I like to complain. I know this about myself. The thing is–I don’t have much to complain about these days. This is totally awesome on one hand, but it means that I am bitching about stupid shit. Like the fact that I have only gained 12 lbs, but I am still to the point where I have outgrown most of the fucking maternity clothes. I am feeling quite fussy that maternity clothes makers claim that you should keep buying your pre-pregnancy size. BULLSHIT!!!! Right now I am wearing size 18 in maternity clothes. Only it’s hard to bloody *find* size 18 maternity clothes. Maybe I just have no clue where to look? That’s up two full god damn sizes from normal. I don’t understand. And my belly is big enough that my midwife is commenting that I look full term. WTF?! WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?!?!! I’m very confused. And I’m carrying really low. So the “below the belly” maternity pants cut in the middle of the belly and hurt. So I’m rolling them down. This leads to lots of clothing-malfunction-anxiety. Mostly I’m wearing mens XXL pajama bottoms. And feeling like a cow. It’s awesome.

(It’s worth pointing out that I don’t mind being the size I am. I mind that in order to be comfortable I am wearing the ugliest, most shapeless clothing made. I would really appreciate it if I could still wear something cute once in a while. I have some dresses, but then I need to shave my legs [sorry, American guilt is in full force here] and that’s a pain in the ass. And WTF is up with most maternity dresses being above the knee?!?!! Haven’t the fucking clothing makers noticed that I CAN’T CLOSE MY FLIPPIN LEGS ANYMORE!?!?!?!)

I think I’m done now. 🙂

Maturity

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I was talking with someone recently about the idea that someone else believes that she is mature. The person I was talking to and I were a bit… skeptical about this assessment. I brought it up with Noah as a slightly more abstract conversation and he gave me a perspective that I haven’t ever heard before. He said that people like to say they are “mature for their age” and what they mean is they are doing things they were told they can’t do yet due to age. Like drinking before you are 21, this is not actually a sign of maturity–more a sign that you believe that the rules shouldn’t apply to you. I think we mostly agreed that actual maturity is more about learning to accept responsibility for your actions. I would be a bit harsher and say that I think maturity is when you not only have to accept responsibility for your own actions, but when you start actively learning from your mistakes and you stop doing things that have worked out badly for you in the past.

I’m curious though–what do other people think “maturity” means?