Tag Archives: travel

Brain dump

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I just kind of want to babble and I feel guilty doing it at folks on IM sometimes. 🙂

We bought into the Disney Vacation Club. It is probably not the very best timing ever given all the other financial schtuff coming up right now (teeth issues, birth, increased health insurance costs with the new job) but it’s not going to screw us over in any way. I have been feeling really trapped lately and just knowing that I have that ability to go to a hotel for a few days and it is already paid for is actually helping me feel less panicked. Not to mention that as I’ve had a few days recently of feeling fussy/not well I have really enjoyed the escapism of getting to look into possibilities for future vacations. It’s kind of like playing Lottery Fantasy only I will almost certainly get to actually do it. 😀

Loneliness comes and goes. I’m doing better than I was for a while. I have started scheduling specific time with a friend and it’s actually helping. Knowing that he cares enough to carve out a specific day every month even though he is pretty frantically busy is giving me a hefty dose of, “Yes I’m worth some effort.” It helps that he and I share some very strong core values of shared labor. Granted I can’t do a lot of physical labor right this minute, but I can provide a big vehicle that enables him to get supplies for his projects in a way that doesn’t cost him extra money. 😀 And he knows I will start doing labor as soon as I am able. And he loves my kid. 🙂 Stuff with other people is less predictable so I’m kind of hanging my hat on this hang-out with this friend. It’s a lot of pressure for him but he has indicated that he doesn’t mind. And it’s only once a month. 🙂

I’m strangely excited about the kids resale event this weekend. (www.outrageousoutgrowns.com) I’m selling stuff we don’t want/need and I’m getting a cheap thrill out of making at least a little bit of money on the stuff that we have already used as much as we want to. I’m hoping to make enough money to pay for the next size up in Shanna’s wardrobe. Given that I don’t spend much money on her clothes it is a relatively modest goal and I’m selling an awful lot of stuff. So it’s random but I’m excited. I’m less excited about going to drop the stuff off early tomorrow morning with Shanna because I have to place everything out on the sales-floor by myself. That’s going to be uncomfortable. It’ll be ok though. Would anyone have any interest in going with me to the sellers early buying time on Friday evening?

I think it is really funny that I have turned Fetlife into a place where I go to argue about parenting stuff. Not how I pictured that involvement…

I don’t feel all that present in this pregnancy, which is kind of a hard thing to explain. I had that lovely haze of pregnancy euphoria a bit for a few weeks a few weeks ago. Lately I just feel kind of clumsy and lazy but not particularly excited about being pregnant. I have constant low level sour stomach (it always feels wrong to call it heart burn) but Tums make me feel disgusting in a whole different festive way. I’m having trouble feeling really attached to this fetus. I’ve been feeling movement every so often for a while. I’m definitely growing. But… it’s like the miscarriages made me afraid to love the baby before it arrives. I don’t like feeling this way.

I’m having a hard time processing how I feel about the upcoming delivery and how I feel about Shanna’s birth in retrospect. I feel… kind of defensive. I feel like the fact that I got pain meds means that I can’t ‘really’ handle labor even though I never got to the point where it felt all that painful. I feel like I must be lying to myself about the experience. Even though no one has ever contradicted my experience of my birth in any way I feel like there must be people who think that I am weak because I went to the hospital. I feel overwhelming shame about the fact that I needed sleep that badly. Which is really pretty stupid. I know logically that I am not a wuss/weak/pathetic because I needed sleep but I feel like those things are true. I’m scared I am not going to be able to handle the second labor. I’m scared that if it takes a long time I am going to cave much easier and not see a point in fighting for a natural labor because I am obviously too pathetic to handle one. I really don’t know how to handle these feelings. This physical sensation of being too weak/pathetic is overwhelming and I can feel it shutting down huge parts of my brain/body. I know that being afraid is going to cause me problems. My labor with Shanna wasn’t painful until I was beyond exhausted and terrified wondering how many more days would go by before it ended. I really don’t know what to do with these feelings.

Shanna says I am out of babbling time today.

30th birthday musing

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In this filter there are currently: Mo, Alex, and Sarah(yes!) (all of whom I functionally think of as single), Mark/Laura, and Brittney/Joe (two married couples who at this point do not have children), and Ali/Mark and Deborah/Anthony (both couples have two kids and I think they don’t plan on more).

So this filter is relatively small. I’m giving you guys this run down so you have some idea of who I am talking to about this topic. 🙂 It is also worth pointing out that even though I like all the people in this group and I would want to spend a fair bit of time with you, I need my ‘family time’ and I need a lot of it. So we would not be locked at the hip by any measure.

I would like to go on a Disney Cruise and to Walt Disney World for my 30th birthday. That’s a bit out, not till September 2011 but pre-planning is required for a couple of reasons. We just bought into the Disney Vacation Club because given my vacation habits it’ll be paid for in like five years. 🙂 If I have some idea of who might be interested it changes a bunch of my potential strategies and it gives people a chance to start saving money.

Here are some of my nitty gritty details that I’m pondering:

I can rent a 2 bedroom cottage (174 pts) or a 3 bedroom cottage (281 pts) at WDW for six days. A 2 bedroom can sleep up to 8 people and a 3 bedroom can sleep up to 12. (Children under 3 are ‘free’.)

A 3 night cruise is possible (90 pts for us 67 for someone else) or a 4 night cruise (98/77) or a 7 night cruise (157/127). [Uhhh… I’ll have a maximum of 695 points to work with.]

If 8 or fewer people are interested and sharing rooms isn’t a problem technically speaking Noah and I could pay for two state rooms and the cottage with our points. It would wipe us out for while but it would be the most wonderful birthday trip I can imagine. In exchange for that I would request that folks contribute some reasonable amount that would at least cover the rest of the trip for us (airfare, food, park tickets, some souvenirs) because dude…I’m saving you many many thousands of dollars.

Alternatively some different combination of people could say, “I will join you at WDW but not the cruise” or vice versa. Or some people could say, “I would feel more comfortable paying for myself but I can only afford a 3 day cruise and 4 days at the park.” There are many different options available. It is also possible (and pretty common) for people to stay at multiple resorts during their stay in WDW. If my family goes before anyone else we can stay in a small studio and move to a larger accommodation when others want to join up and save a bunch of points. WDW has a whole process set up for moving your stuff. It’s pretty cool. 🙂

I am partially starting this negotiation so early because I am excited about the possibility and partially because I have to make my reservations about a year in advance and this way people have plenty of dithering time before I have to commit officially.

So…. yeah! I’m going to have decades of joy out of speculating about trips. I apologize in advance to the people who talk to me on IM and who may already be sick of this. 😀

Two things

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As much as it does get annoying to be trapped under Shanna while she naps I love that she is still my baby. She is a huge, precociously talking toddler… but she’s still my baby. *love*

And! We are going to Disneyland in December and I am so excited I can’t stand it. I know that the trip is ten months away, but I haven’t been to Disneyland in years! As I’m sitting on the couch trying not to feel icki I’m really enjoying thinking about all the planning stuff I want to think about for the trip. Planning trips, even ones I never actually go on, is really exciting and fun for me. I love thinking about every possible detail and arrangement of plans. Shanna will be two and a half and I think that is just about the perfect age for maximum enjoyment of the magic. Of course, this means I need to show her a few Disney movies between now and then so she gets it. 🙂 I’m really tempted to avoid the Disney Princess movies and stick with the books for those stories. That way I can slightly edit the ‘helpless female’ schtick. But movies like Pinnochio, Dumbo, The Aristocats etc. are awesome and she’ll love them.

I’ve been bugging people on IM about this trip all day. I’m really enjoying poking around the website and making plans. 😀

Oh MY GOD!!

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I am so excited. I managed to get reservations to The French Laundry. Then I managed to arrange babysitting for Shanna so we can stay overnight. Then I found an awesome B&B. This is going to be a rather expensive weekend (it blows our ‘fun’ money budget for ohhhh six months) but it will be worth it! I am so excited I can barely sit still!!!

Oh man. Now I have to figure out what to wear. I’m just pregnant enough to look really fat (and not be able to wear most of my awesomest clothes) but not pregnant enough that I have that “awww what an adorable pregnant belly” thing going on. It’ll be great! I don’t care!

Happy dance!

Thinking

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So I’ve been taking some time off. Maybe you noticed, maybe you were grateful that I shut my mouth for once. 😛 But yeah, stuff. I’m going to try a different technique for handling some stuff and see if it works for me. I miss writing here.

I’m nine weeks now. This pregnancy seems pretty willing to stick and that is wonderful. I’m much much much less sick than I was with Shanna (thank all deities everywhere) so I’m even feeling ok. I’m not feeling ‘normal’ and I’m not feeling energetic or anything crazy like that. But I’m not overwhelmingly sick and completely incapacitated so I consider that a win. 🙂 Humble expectations are important. I manage to do an okay job of interacting with Shanna during the day. We do a lot of cuddling on the couch and I am also incredibly grateful that she is so willing and able to entertain herself for long stretches. I know it is unusual. As a result of her playing alone a lot of the day she has been pretty needy in the evenings and the bulk of that is falling to Noah. Let me take a moment to say that my husband has stepped up in a variety of ways and man do I love him. He is doing ALL of the cooking and most of the cleaning and a much larger share of kid-wrangling than usual. As a result this is probably our last kid. That’s… as mixed as that kind of thing might be.

We went to Arizona to see Sarah. That was really awesome. It was occasionally challenging to deal with Shanna, but mostly she was her awesomely obedient and friendly self so it wasn’t too bad. It was really nice to get to sit down and talk to my Sarah again. It’s hard having her so far away. I miss her. Unfortunately we cut the trip a bit short. Has anyone noticed this storm we’re having? Yeah, I had to drive home from Arizona through that and I am really glad I left before things had gotten too established. The drive home was pretty hairy at times and it would have been much worse another day or so later from what I can tell. Also: the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. So far in all of my travels I have set Alaska up as my own personal definition of Most Awe Inspiring Place but the Grand Canyon kicked Alaska’s ass. I would like to go again while not pregnant and seriously hike it.

Oh, side thing: people who bring a two year old on a 2.5 hour train ride without ANY form of amusement or toy are flippin stupid.

I’ve been hibernating a lot more than usual lately. On one hand it’s lonely. On the other hand it feels like what my body needs and I’m drained from the basics of day-to-day life without any extra stress. See, this is why I miss my Sarah so much. I could whine at her about being sad and lonely and not wanting to leave the house and she would come visit. Ok, I’m not really sad. But I am lonely. It’s interesting how sometimes those two things are tied together and sometimes they aren’t. I’m starting to move into that placid slow-moving-brain thing I had when I was pregnant with Shanna. I feel like I’m seeing most of life from under water. Things are just slower and less sharp and that’s kind of nice. I feel … honestly kinda stoned. Ha. But it’s in a very nice way. I’m just drifting through life and that feels ok and good and right. If I could have this mental feel without feeling so physically debilitated I think I would want to be pregnant forever. If I couldn’t talk Noah into being quiverfull I would surrogate over and over. 🙂 But, I don’t get to pick and choose so no permanent pregnancy for me. 🙂

I saw my brother on the drive home from Arizona. That was shocking. I knew I was going to be driving within 2 miles of his house so I called him and asked if he wanted to meet his niece. After double checking that I wasn’t going to force him to deal with our mother he said he wanted to meet her. When I told him that I am not currently speaking with our mother he seemed to feel much better. We had about two and a half hours of sitting around talking. It was a really good conversation. He admitted things out loud that I’ve always suspected. I was shocked and impressed that he has gotten to a point where he can admit those things. He’s grown up a lot. He seemed similarly impressed with my attitude about his behavior of the past few years. I told him that I understand why he has felt he needed to make the choices he made but they still make me sad. I think I managed to convey how much I would like a relationship with him without being pushy or demanding or needy. I’m proud of myself for how I handled my end of things there. I’m really grateful that he gave me a chance. I’m not sure we are going to start having a close relationship any time soon, but maybe it will be a beginning.

hard

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The drive yesterday was nightmareish. The GPS took me the most assbackwards way possible. It took almost 12 fucking hours to get to Eureka. *sigh* It was not a pleasant trip at all. Shanna and I are both out of sorts. Now we are hanging out with DA and boy is his house not childproofed. 🙂 I’m debating if I am going to try and drive to Eugene today. I may stop at a hotel part way if I am just done with Shanna being in the car. And my back hurts. It’s like I’m expelling something from my uterus or something. 🙁

It’s official

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I’m going to Portland. Just to visit people, I’m not moving or anything. 🙂

On the 16th of November I leave my house and drive to Eureka. I will be staying with a friend overnight and chit-chatting. 🙂
On the 17th I drive to Eugene and stay with a different friend. We have lots and lots to talk about because I haven’t seen her since before I got pregnant.
On the 18th I drive up to Dad’s in Vancouver. I am staying there till the Friday after Thanksgiving. It means I am missing Turkeyfest, which is very sad. Noah is thinking he might go without me. 🙂

So, would anyone like to see me up in Portland?

Out of town event

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We are thinking about going to the Hoes Down (http://www.hoesdown.org/) hosted by the farm we get our CSA from. It looks like a lot of fun. It’s a drive up on Saturday drive back on Sunday sort of event. It would be a lot of fun to go with other folks. It is the weekend of October 3-4. We have a HUGE tent that could easily hold another two to four people in addition to us depending on how cozy we want to get. We could potentially take one more person up with us if we pack pretty light. 🙂 I’m always up for that sort of challenge.

Would anyone be interested in this?

It was a good weekend! Yay!

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Noah and I had a fun time out on Friday and then we drove down to Santa Barbara early on Saturday. We were very mellow. We had good food and visited the zoo and very briefly went to the beach and let Shanna play in the water. We didn’t spend much time at the beach because we all sunburn like nobodies business. 🙂 A little bit was perfect. 🙂

I really enjoyed spending the time with Noah. He’s awesome to talk to. I think the hardest part of the weekend was how difficult it is for Shanna to spend that much time in the car. Oh and the massive disgusting poop explosion on the drive home. Dear god in heaven that was foul. But we cleaned it up fairly well and there was little stressing. w00t.

I think that the next weekend get-away should be a bit closer to home so we have to drive less. 🙂

(Oh: the gelato in Santa Barbara is nowhere near as good as the gelato in New Zealand. It was sad, really.)

Whoo hoo

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Adventure! We are going to Santa Barbara for the weekend. I’m excited. I’ve never actually been down there. And I asked the boyfriend of a friend to pick up our farm share and he said sure. Yay! That was a rather easily arranged weekend. 🙂

Today I need to: make banana bread, make jam, and pack.

Tomorrow Shanna has a checkup, more shots. 🙁 Luckily Noah can go with us because I just can’t hold her down for the needle. 🙁 I do believe that the choice we are making is right but it sucks.

And we are going to a festive grown up party tomorrow night. I’ve got some high hopes about that but I’m not completely sure how I would like it to go. There are so many choices! Mmmm I like thinking about my options. 🙂 And I am even more excited that I know some particular people are going because that makes my options so much more appealing. 🙂

More erf

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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.

New Zealand

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This is not going to be long or in any particular order. I am just feeling bad about not writing anything so here is a brief dump.

I liked the apartment we stayed in and the tremendous amount of time I got to spend with Noah. I had a rocky adjustment because all the travel, sleep dep, and weird eating habits made me pretty cranky. Noah pointed out that I was being a butt and I calmed down. It’s nice to communicate. 🙂

Things we “did”: Zorbing (way fun), went on a farm tour at the Agrodome (it was cute but not all that enthralling), went out briefly to Waiheke Island (we don’t like the wine but the island is beautiful), went to a blueberry winery (bought a bunch of TASTY food stuffs), went to the glow worm caves (they are really glow maggots! how cool is that?!), went to the Polynesian Spa (mmmm mud), and ate a lot of tasty food. Oh, and visited a buried Maori village and went to a Hangi (it’s a dinner/entertainment thing).

I am convinced that New Zealand has some of the best food in the world. Everything we ate was at least better than expected. The crappy cafeteria style food was still decent. The decent food was really good. The really good food was amazing. We found a Tunisian restaurant that we loved to death. The other folks we spent time with weren’t as impressed but what do they know? 😉 In general we loved the food (OH MY GOD the best gelato I’ve ever had was in Auckland) but didn’t like the alcohol. Such is life.

We had a great time. We liked the people. We liked the country. It was certainly awesome enough to make us consider moving there.

Oh, and if you somehow managed to miss it: http://picasaweb.google.com/somethingdifferent/NewZealand Some favorite pictures behind cut: Continue reading →

Oh yeah, I’m leaving.

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In 12 hours I will be arriving at the home of the lovely Ms. Laura to pick her up and drive up to SFO. Our flight leaves at 2pm.

I am SO EXCITED!!! I’m also kind of tired. We are pre-jet lagging hoping to make it a bit easier to adjust.

I’M GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!

😀

I’m totally taking the backpack in the icon. And one suitcase. And a diaper bag. That’s not too bad.

We are planning to be offline for most of the trip so I will probably not respond to anything internet-ish. A break will be loverly.

Oh yeah, pet sitting.

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We leave for New Zealand in 11 days. !!!! Holy Shit that’s soon!!!!

Uhm, would anyone be willing to come spend some time with Puff while we are gone? Two weeks is an awfully long time for her to not have company. Ideally if anyone is willing I would like it if someone stayed here for at least a night or two here and there in the two week period because she gets terribly lonely.

Anyone?

It’s time to start planning.

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We leave for New Zealand in five weeks and three days. I’m just starting to delve into guide books and it’s really neat. I found a neat one that gives the history of the country and it’s neat. Someone in New Zealand invented jogging: random, and neat. The place where we are staying is the area of the most geothermal activity as well as being the center of Maori culture. Yay!

I’m already starting to think about packing lists. 🙂