Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker that made me sick. It had a picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat on the left side and one of W in a cowboy hat on the right, and in the middle it said "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys." That is so pathetic! Neither of those assholes were ever cowboys, unless your definition of "cowboy" is "rich poser who buys a ranch so he can ride around on a horse acting like the Marlboro man."
A few weeks ago I saw a really good one: "Be Nice to America or We'll Bring Democracy to Your Country." Hee hee...
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Everything I Know I Learned From Watching America's Next Top Model
Did you know that Vh1 showed every single episode of America's Next Top Model ever this past week? I happened to turn the TV in the first 10 minutes of the first episode from the first season, so I did what any reasonable person who just started watching this past season would do: I set my DVR to tape every single episode for the rest of the week. And after watching many episodes each night since Monday, I am now a little over halfway through Season 3 and still have roughly 40 episodes left to watch -- only a problem if Reasonable Man dumps sattellite TV for cable in the next few weeks (don't ask).
Even though I have plenty of other stuff to do, I can't stop watching this show. And even though I know I'm a little late in coming to the ANTM party, I wanted to share a few things I've learned:
1) Even though I enjoy this show, I still hate the fashion world and what modeling is all about.
2) Even though I didn't watch the first six seasons of this show, I have evidently been paying enough attention to know the names of the the winners of every season, which kind of sucks as I go through and watch them.
3) One of the best parts of each season is when the girls get their hair cut/colored/styled and at least a handful of them lose it. As obsessed as I can be with my hair and as much of a crybaby as I am, I don't think I've ever actually cried about my hair, no matter how short I've gone. Some of the ANTM girls go into hysterics over having their hair cut to below shoulder-length. They need to get over it.
4) That dead-eyed vacant look you see on the face of every model in fashion magazines? Will get you picked on week after week after week on this show even though you better have it down when you actually go out to work as a model.
5) If you are a well-known supermodel who hosts a reality show, it's perfectly acceptable for you to lecture girls who live in a house decorated almost entirely with pictures of you about being more humble.
6) There will always be a token plus-size model. She will never win the competition, no matter how fabulous she is, but she will probably get lots of plus-size work after she leaves the show.
7) As insufferable as Tyra Banks is, every season includes at least one stuck-up ANTM contestant who is even worse.
8) If remaining "Christ-like" by not posing nude is important to you, you should maybe take enough time off teaching Bible Study to to thumb through an issue of Vogue one of these days. I'm not saying you have to like it -- I find a lot of it pretty questionable too -- I'm just saying ANTM, where you might have to do a naked girl-on-girl photo shoot, might not be the place for you.
9) Having ANTM on while I do my hair and make-up causes me to give more attention to those things. Having it on when I get the munchies every night doesn't help me lay off the snacks though.
10) I will never be America's Next Top Model. But if that means I will also never have to hang around with Tyra Banks, I can deal.
Even though I have plenty of other stuff to do, I can't stop watching this show. And even though I know I'm a little late in coming to the ANTM party, I wanted to share a few things I've learned:
1) Even though I enjoy this show, I still hate the fashion world and what modeling is all about.
2) Even though I didn't watch the first six seasons of this show, I have evidently been paying enough attention to know the names of the the winners of every season, which kind of sucks as I go through and watch them.
3) One of the best parts of each season is when the girls get their hair cut/colored/styled and at least a handful of them lose it. As obsessed as I can be with my hair and as much of a crybaby as I am, I don't think I've ever actually cried about my hair, no matter how short I've gone. Some of the ANTM girls go into hysterics over having their hair cut to below shoulder-length. They need to get over it.
4) That dead-eyed vacant look you see on the face of every model in fashion magazines? Will get you picked on week after week after week on this show even though you better have it down when you actually go out to work as a model.
5) If you are a well-known supermodel who hosts a reality show, it's perfectly acceptable for you to lecture girls who live in a house decorated almost entirely with pictures of you about being more humble.
6) There will always be a token plus-size model. She will never win the competition, no matter how fabulous she is, but she will probably get lots of plus-size work after she leaves the show.
7) As insufferable as Tyra Banks is, every season includes at least one stuck-up ANTM contestant who is even worse.
8) If remaining "Christ-like" by not posing nude is important to you, you should maybe take enough time off teaching Bible Study to to thumb through an issue of Vogue one of these days. I'm not saying you have to like it -- I find a lot of it pretty questionable too -- I'm just saying ANTM, where you might have to do a naked girl-on-girl photo shoot, might not be the place for you.
9) Having ANTM on while I do my hair and make-up causes me to give more attention to those things. Having it on when I get the munchies every night doesn't help me lay off the snacks though.
10) I will never be America's Next Top Model. But if that means I will also never have to hang around with Tyra Banks, I can deal.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
You Know How It Is...
You go awhile without posting (although 6 weeks may be a record for me -- I hope so) and then each time you think about maybe getting back in the saddle, you feel the need to write some huge long thing to explain about why you've been gone or what the hell you've been doing all that time or whatever. And that thought is just exhausting, so you end up posting nothing at all.
Well, I'm doing an end run around that and making my first post since mid-November something brief and completely random:
We saw two movies over Christmas break: Eragon and Charlotte's Web. Eragon was tolerable -- I suspect it was more exciting for a kid who a) has read the book and b) is too young to recognize the fact the story is about 3 parts Star Wars, 3 parts Lord of the Rings, and 1 part Harry Potter.
Charlotte's Web was enjoyable. I'm not a huge fan of the animated version so I thought doing a live-action version was a decent idea, though I didn't expect it to be as good as Babe -- and it wasn't, but it was very sweet. Two questions, though:
1) Dakota Fanning is a perfectly competent actress, but why does every single pre-teenage girl part go to her? What is so special? She's not bad, and I don't have a problem with the fact that she's not particularly pretty either, but I don't see what's so appealing about her that she gets all the parts.
2) Why does all the voice work in Hollywood have to be done by well-known actors these days? Charlotte's Web had 10 "names you know"-level actors voicing farm animals, including Robert Redford and Oprah Winfrey. Of those, the only voices I recognized were Julia Roberts as Charlotte (and I might not have been able to place her voice if I hadn't known she was doing the part), Steve Buscemi as Templeton the rat (actually very good voice casting) and Thomas Haden Church (from Wings and Sideways) as one of two crows. Even Oprah's voice wasn't recognizable, and I was listening for her because I'd read she did one of the voices. So what in the world is the point of hiring all these stars to do voices when you don't recognize them? Aren't there plenty of talented voice actors out there who could do a better job?
I blame Disney, of course. They had to go and hire Robin Williams to be the genie in Aladdin. And it's not always a waste -- most of the Pixar movies have made good use of their big name stars, as have the Shrek movies, and I even came to appreciate Scarlett Johanssen's work as Princess Mindy in the Spongebob movie. But Robert Redford as a horse in Charlotte's Web and Rachel Weisz as the dragon in Eragon is just going too far if you ask me.
Well, I'm doing an end run around that and making my first post since mid-November something brief and completely random:
We saw two movies over Christmas break: Eragon and Charlotte's Web. Eragon was tolerable -- I suspect it was more exciting for a kid who a) has read the book and b) is too young to recognize the fact the story is about 3 parts Star Wars, 3 parts Lord of the Rings, and 1 part Harry Potter.
Charlotte's Web was enjoyable. I'm not a huge fan of the animated version so I thought doing a live-action version was a decent idea, though I didn't expect it to be as good as Babe -- and it wasn't, but it was very sweet. Two questions, though:
1) Dakota Fanning is a perfectly competent actress, but why does every single pre-teenage girl part go to her? What is so special? She's not bad, and I don't have a problem with the fact that she's not particularly pretty either, but I don't see what's so appealing about her that she gets all the parts.
2) Why does all the voice work in Hollywood have to be done by well-known actors these days? Charlotte's Web had 10 "names you know"-level actors voicing farm animals, including Robert Redford and Oprah Winfrey. Of those, the only voices I recognized were Julia Roberts as Charlotte (and I might not have been able to place her voice if I hadn't known she was doing the part), Steve Buscemi as Templeton the rat (actually very good voice casting) and Thomas Haden Church (from Wings and Sideways) as one of two crows. Even Oprah's voice wasn't recognizable, and I was listening for her because I'd read she did one of the voices. So what in the world is the point of hiring all these stars to do voices when you don't recognize them? Aren't there plenty of talented voice actors out there who could do a better job?
I blame Disney, of course. They had to go and hire Robin Williams to be the genie in Aladdin. And it's not always a waste -- most of the Pixar movies have made good use of their big name stars, as have the Shrek movies, and I even came to appreciate Scarlett Johanssen's work as Princess Mindy in the Spongebob movie. But Robert Redford as a horse in Charlotte's Web and Rachel Weisz as the dragon in Eragon is just going too far if you ask me.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Mystery of the Finger Update
I just realized I totally forgot to post about what the heck was/is wrong with Enthusio's finger. The orthopedist we saw kinda cleared things up for us, based on examination of xrays and the MRI. Yes, he had a finger MRI, and boy was that fun. Anyway, evidently the deal is that when a person is still growing, their bones have an outer layer that is almost like a skin, and that is the part of Enthusio's finger that is inflamed. There is also a layer of extra fluid around it. Apparently you can get some kind of infection in your body and it can travel all through your body in your bloodstream and just suddenly stop and say "okay, this looks good" and irritate some random part of your body. So presumably Enthusio had some kind of little bug back in July that was enough to make his finger skin swell up but not enough to make him sick at all, and now it's long gone, but the fat finger remains.
The next step would be to biopsy the bone, but the orthopedist thought that would be an overreaction, since the finger doesn't hurt and isn't getting worse. We will go back and see him next week, when it's been a month, although I don't think there's been any change. Maybe he will just have the fat finger forever. There are worse deformities, I suppose...
The next step would be to biopsy the bone, but the orthopedist thought that would be an overreaction, since the finger doesn't hurt and isn't getting worse. We will go back and see him next week, when it's been a month, although I don't think there's been any change. Maybe he will just have the fat finger forever. There are worse deformities, I suppose...
Sunday, November 19, 2006
I could go upstairs and get dressed, but...
... what fun would that be?
Yesterday I got up late (after 10) and took a shower first thing. Then I sat on the couch with the computer for hours, accomplishing nothing, fell asleep for 2 or 3 hours while Reasonable Man took the kids out to play golf, and then woke up and paid the bills and watched a lot of the TV shows that got tivo'd in my absence this past week. Didn't even touch my novel till late in the evening, and then stayed up till nearly 1 am trying to get my 2K in before I went to bed. A stunningly unproductive day, all said.
This morning I got up at a normal time (8 am), and while I've been sitting here on the computer for 5 hours, I've gotten a whole lot accomplished. I wrote a message to my nov98 list, wrote my first blog entry in weeks, wrote a plot summary for most of the second half of my novel, and wrote almost half of my daily 2K. So sure, I'm not dressed, but I'm already feeling better about myself right now than I did this time yesterday, or even 4 hours later.
I've been reading about the TomKat wedding because how can you avoid it. A few observations: she looks like a bobblehead in the wedding photo they released -- did she maybe go a little overboard on the post-baby weight loss thing she did recently? Also, they appear to be the same height for the first time ever, so he is standing on something or maybe wearing lifts in his shoes? That would be a weird thing to do now, after we've all seen her towering over him in every photo for the last year and a half.
Of course, all indications remain that these are some seriously weird people. This morning I read some speculation that perhaps baby Suri has been mostly kept from view for so long because of a large birth mark on her forehead, which did appear to be there on an enlarged photo. I can't imagine keeping a baby cloistered from view for that reason, but then, I also can't imagine getting engaged to someone I've only known for two months and immediately adopting his weird religion and cutting myself off from everyone I knew before and only hanging around with Scientologists and dropping my career and getting knocked up by this guy who is clearly a complete weirdo either, so I obviously don't understand much about what it's like to be Katie Holmes.
In any case, I still think we didn't see the baby for so long because she's about two months older than they say she is.
Also: I don't get it when people are engaged, get pregnant, have a baby, and then have the wedding later. Let me rephrase that: I don't approve of it. I know it's practically the worst thing in the world to come off as judgemental of this sort of thing anymore, but I don't care. I think being married to your babydaddy or babymama when Jr. makes his or her arrival if at all possible is a pretty nice thing to do for your kid. I don't mean we should go back to the bad old days when it was a huge stigma to have a baby outside of marriage so you got married in a hurry even if you weren't at all sure about the other person. I don't think anyone should get married just because they're having a baby, but I do think that, if you're already planning on getting married, and whoops! a baby's on the way, maybe you can set your vanity aside and go ahead with the wedding a few months earlier than planned.
Or maybe that's just me. But I don't think so.
Anyway, the whole TomKat wedding appears to me to be just the big fat cherry on the whole ridiculous overblown spectacle that their relationship has been from day one. I honestly could care less if they are for real or not, but I can't respect the way they complain about what's been said about them in the press but continue to do every on the grandest scale possible, attracting as much attention as they can. Boo hoo, TomKat. Now go away.
I do want to hear more about the Britney-KFed bust-up though. Bring on the gory details!
Yesterday I got up late (after 10) and took a shower first thing. Then I sat on the couch with the computer for hours, accomplishing nothing, fell asleep for 2 or 3 hours while Reasonable Man took the kids out to play golf, and then woke up and paid the bills and watched a lot of the TV shows that got tivo'd in my absence this past week. Didn't even touch my novel till late in the evening, and then stayed up till nearly 1 am trying to get my 2K in before I went to bed. A stunningly unproductive day, all said.
This morning I got up at a normal time (8 am), and while I've been sitting here on the computer for 5 hours, I've gotten a whole lot accomplished. I wrote a message to my nov98 list, wrote my first blog entry in weeks, wrote a plot summary for most of the second half of my novel, and wrote almost half of my daily 2K. So sure, I'm not dressed, but I'm already feeling better about myself right now than I did this time yesterday, or even 4 hours later.
I've been reading about the TomKat wedding because how can you avoid it. A few observations: she looks like a bobblehead in the wedding photo they released -- did she maybe go a little overboard on the post-baby weight loss thing she did recently? Also, they appear to be the same height for the first time ever, so he is standing on something or maybe wearing lifts in his shoes? That would be a weird thing to do now, after we've all seen her towering over him in every photo for the last year and a half.
Of course, all indications remain that these are some seriously weird people. This morning I read some speculation that perhaps baby Suri has been mostly kept from view for so long because of a large birth mark on her forehead, which did appear to be there on an enlarged photo. I can't imagine keeping a baby cloistered from view for that reason, but then, I also can't imagine getting engaged to someone I've only known for two months and immediately adopting his weird religion and cutting myself off from everyone I knew before and only hanging around with Scientologists and dropping my career and getting knocked up by this guy who is clearly a complete weirdo either, so I obviously don't understand much about what it's like to be Katie Holmes.
In any case, I still think we didn't see the baby for so long because she's about two months older than they say she is.
Also: I don't get it when people are engaged, get pregnant, have a baby, and then have the wedding later. Let me rephrase that: I don't approve of it. I know it's practically the worst thing in the world to come off as judgemental of this sort of thing anymore, but I don't care. I think being married to your babydaddy or babymama when Jr. makes his or her arrival if at all possible is a pretty nice thing to do for your kid. I don't mean we should go back to the bad old days when it was a huge stigma to have a baby outside of marriage so you got married in a hurry even if you weren't at all sure about the other person. I don't think anyone should get married just because they're having a baby, but I do think that, if you're already planning on getting married, and whoops! a baby's on the way, maybe you can set your vanity aside and go ahead with the wedding a few months earlier than planned.
Or maybe that's just me. But I don't think so.
Anyway, the whole TomKat wedding appears to me to be just the big fat cherry on the whole ridiculous overblown spectacle that their relationship has been from day one. I honestly could care less if they are for real or not, but I can't respect the way they complain about what's been said about them in the press but continue to do every on the grandest scale possible, attracting as much attention as they can. Boo hoo, TomKat. Now go away.
I do want to hear more about the Britney-KFed bust-up though. Bring on the gory details!
NaNoWriMo, Take 5
I'm really struggling to make it to 50K this year. Part of the problem is that I kind of don't really know who my main character is. In the past I've always had that figured out because a) 3 of the 4 times I've previously done this thing, I was writing about characters I dreamed up about 20 years ago, and b) the one year I came up with something totally new, I started brainstorming about the characters and the storyline at the right time, ie in the 3 to 4 weeks before I started writing. This year I came up with the story and the characters and was all hot to get started... at the beginning of September. By the time November 1st hit, I was not the least bit into it. So although I'm still pacing myself and am on track to hit 50K by 11/30, it's all happening in a series of fits and starts, and I find myself just plain avoiding writing in a way I've never done during Nano before.
One very cool thing happened about a week ago, and that was that my main character turned unreliable. (See, I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't really know who she was!) I'd never had that happen before. That might sound kind of crazy, if you don't write -- the idea that your character might do or turn out to be something you didn't intend. I imagine characters in your more plot-driven stories probably don't get away from their writers quite so often, because they are completely in service to the plot. But those of us whose writing is character-driven know that sometimes the people we create have minds of their own. It's kind of like walking a really big dog who outweighs you -- you may be holding the leash, and you may be the one who feeds that dog and hands out the doggie treats, but every once in a while, however awesome that dog might be, it's going to drag you off the path and through the brush every once in a while.
Not only do I expect my characters to lead me off in unexpected directions -- I rely on it. Aside from the aforementioned characters I came up with 20 years ago, my approach to writing novels is like this: I come up with an idea -- not a plot, an idea -- and think up the characters who will bring that idea to life. Then I start writing and I see where the characters will take me. Though I count the characters as slightly more important, the idea, or concept, if you will, is pretty important too. The only time I've started a novel with characters only, it took me 10 1/2 years to finish. The characters did eventually lead me through a pretty decent story, but there was a lot of stalling before we got to the end of the path.
The unexpected detours characters make are one of the things that enrich your story. Last year I created a love interest for my main character, and was frustrated that practically whenever I put them in the same scene together, they'd end up arguing. After a while I got to thinking, how am I ever going to get these two together? But in the end, all the conflict they'd had made their coming together more believable. So even though I sometimes get annoyed when I'm trying to zig left and my characters want to zag right, I do generally trust them to take things in the right direction.
That's why I thought it was an encouraging sign when I discovered my main character was sort of unreliable. I'd written almost a whole chapter of her describing her life, but a few chapters later, she fell apart and the lead male character and I both found out at the same time that she hadn't quite told us everything. No wonder I didn't feel like I knew her. And who knows? She may have more secrets up her sleeve before we reach the end.
She's the only one who knows...
One very cool thing happened about a week ago, and that was that my main character turned unreliable. (See, I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't really know who she was!) I'd never had that happen before. That might sound kind of crazy, if you don't write -- the idea that your character might do or turn out to be something you didn't intend. I imagine characters in your more plot-driven stories probably don't get away from their writers quite so often, because they are completely in service to the plot. But those of us whose writing is character-driven know that sometimes the people we create have minds of their own. It's kind of like walking a really big dog who outweighs you -- you may be holding the leash, and you may be the one who feeds that dog and hands out the doggie treats, but every once in a while, however awesome that dog might be, it's going to drag you off the path and through the brush every once in a while.
Not only do I expect my characters to lead me off in unexpected directions -- I rely on it. Aside from the aforementioned characters I came up with 20 years ago, my approach to writing novels is like this: I come up with an idea -- not a plot, an idea -- and think up the characters who will bring that idea to life. Then I start writing and I see where the characters will take me. Though I count the characters as slightly more important, the idea, or concept, if you will, is pretty important too. The only time I've started a novel with characters only, it took me 10 1/2 years to finish. The characters did eventually lead me through a pretty decent story, but there was a lot of stalling before we got to the end of the path.
The unexpected detours characters make are one of the things that enrich your story. Last year I created a love interest for my main character, and was frustrated that practically whenever I put them in the same scene together, they'd end up arguing. After a while I got to thinking, how am I ever going to get these two together? But in the end, all the conflict they'd had made their coming together more believable. So even though I sometimes get annoyed when I'm trying to zig left and my characters want to zag right, I do generally trust them to take things in the right direction.
That's why I thought it was an encouraging sign when I discovered my main character was sort of unreliable. I'd written almost a whole chapter of her describing her life, but a few chapters later, she fell apart and the lead male character and I both found out at the same time that she hadn't quite told us everything. No wonder I didn't feel like I knew her. And who knows? She may have more secrets up her sleeve before we reach the end.
She's the only one who knows...
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Ahhhhh....
The Democrats took the House, we voted to get a Target in Davis, and Britney filed to dump KFed's ass. Yesterday was a great day!
I don't know why that third item makes me so happy -- I think she's almost as much of an idiot as he is, but whatever. All the news reports keep mentioning their "iron-clad pre-nup," and that may be true, but I'm sure she has to give him something, and we can all just fervently hope he uses part of it get himself a vasectomy, because four kids is plenty of spawn for that loser.
Evidently Davis is the first place in the nation where Target had to go to the ballot. There are still lots of folks here who want to keep the small town atmosphere. I appreciate that, but I'm sick of having to drive a minimum of ten miles just to buy a pair of underpants. Now if we can only get this Trader Joe's thing figured out, I promise I will never complain about the shopping issues in Davis again.
Nancy Pelosi will be the first female Speaker of the House in history, third in line to the President -- how much does that rule? I wasn't following the election and didn't think too much of all the predictions of a Dem sweep till last night, when Reasonable Man went back to his political junkie ways and spent the entire night pouring over election results on his laptop while watching the coverage on CNN (he did take an hour-long break so I could watch "Veronica Mars"). He called "woo hoo!" many times, just like it was the 90s again. Boy, it's been a long time since we had a good election. But I still want to know why couldn't people have gotten pissed off about Iraq in 2004.
I don't know why that third item makes me so happy -- I think she's almost as much of an idiot as he is, but whatever. All the news reports keep mentioning their "iron-clad pre-nup," and that may be true, but I'm sure she has to give him something, and we can all just fervently hope he uses part of it get himself a vasectomy, because four kids is plenty of spawn for that loser.
Evidently Davis is the first place in the nation where Target had to go to the ballot. There are still lots of folks here who want to keep the small town atmosphere. I appreciate that, but I'm sick of having to drive a minimum of ten miles just to buy a pair of underpants. Now if we can only get this Trader Joe's thing figured out, I promise I will never complain about the shopping issues in Davis again.
Nancy Pelosi will be the first female Speaker of the House in history, third in line to the President -- how much does that rule? I wasn't following the election and didn't think too much of all the predictions of a Dem sweep till last night, when Reasonable Man went back to his political junkie ways and spent the entire night pouring over election results on his laptop while watching the coverage on CNN (he did take an hour-long break so I could watch "Veronica Mars"). He called "woo hoo!" many times, just like it was the 90s again. Boy, it's been a long time since we had a good election. But I still want to know why couldn't people have gotten pissed off about Iraq in 2004.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Little Bits of Catching Up
Today I am writing in this blog, dammit!
Life has gotten so busy since school started. It's amazing how much stuff I end up doing, considering that I have no job and both my kids are in school every day! This past week, for instance, I had a meeting to go to Monday afternoon, a doctor appointment for Enthusio that ended up taking several hours plus taking him to Campfire on Tuesday, a trip to the Scholastic Book Fair warehouse in the morning and then two different hour-long appointment/meetings for the kids in the afternoon on Wednesday, and we had Girl Scouts after school on Friday afternoon. Thursday was mercifully uneventful. Last week, I hosted Bunko here and we had a little get-together for Ryan's birthday on Sunday. Today we have BLB and the Bride arriving for an overnight visit, Tuesday I host my book club here, at some point this month I need to have my little moms dinner club over here, and we'll be having Will's birthday party here the last weekend of this month as well. Then right into running the book fair and starting my Nanowrimo novel plus trick-or-treating the week of Halloween, and on Thursday of that week I leave to go back east for four days for a girls' weekend. The week after that, Carisa and my new nephew Zan will be through to visit, and the week after that, I will be joining Mermaid's sixth grade class for a week of outdoor education. Then it's pretty much the holidays, and we are going to try to squeeze a trip to Disneyland in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So if you've been wondering why I haven't posted much lately -- that's why. My usual caveat -- I don't mean to complain, as I know I've got me a pretty sweet life (daily trips to the gym take up some of that time, as does at least one shopping day a week) and a lot of what I've listed there is fun stuff. Still, it does get pretty busy, and it cuts into my time at the computer...
Mystery of the Week: Way back in July, during our East Coast Adventure, Enthusio's left index finger swelled up, and swelled up it remains. Reasonable Man hypothesizes that he jammed it when they were boogie boarding at Bethany Beach, but Enthusio doesn't remember injuring it, and it's never really hurt him. After much nagging, Negligent Mom here finally took him to the pediatrician about it this past week, and she was completely flummoxed by it. She frowned, went and stuck her head out the door of the examining room where we were, and called to her fellow ped, "Hey, Bob, come look at this finger." (Becky has now challenged me to put this line in my Nano novel. I love a challenge!) Bob did, and then he went and got his digital camera to take a photo of the fat finger next to it's much thinner counterpart on Enthusio's other hand.
The xray showed nothing out of the ordinary, so the ped ordered bloodwork to rule out infection (and I'm also supposed to be taking stool samples but I keep conveniently forgetting), and next we're going to have an MRI done and see an orthopedist. The ped seems more curious than concerned, so I'm not feeling worried about it at this point (as far as I know there is no such thing as finger cancer), but I have to admit that they all took it far seriously than I expected them to. Obviously I would have taken him in a lot sooner if I'd realized they would want to do all these tests...
I Forgot: aka, Mom's least favorite words this past week. Here are the things Mermaid forgot:
1) To give me the paper that's been sitting in her music folder for the last 3 or 4 weeks informing me of what new books she needs for saxophone this year and also the fact that morning band has been meeting before school on Tuesdays for the last two weeks, sans Mermaid because I didn't know anything about it
2) To bring home all manner of necessary instructions, notebooks, papers, etc. that explain her homework or which were needed in order to complete her homework this week, necessitating the exchange of notes and such with her aide at school and such to figure out what the heck is going on
3) To not freak out if I am approximately 30 seconds late picking her up from school and either bursting into tears or going into the office to ask to borrow the phone to call me when I'm actually sitting outside waiting to pick her up
I know she has some issues and that when she's a little distressed, logic flies right out the window, but geez. It's a little frustrating. On the other hand, yesterday she successfully rode her bike home from her Girl Scout meeting about a mile away, and I think she will be providing her own transportation to and from those meetings on non-rainy days for the rest of the year.
Beyond the forgetfulness, she continues to have a good year in school. A little defiance here and there with her aide, but I knew the honeymoon wasn't going to last forever, and apparently social studies is more hands-on/interactive this year, so hallelujah for that! Enthusio seems to be doing great too -- I haven't chatted with his teacher in a while, but I do know he has made a couple of little friends and that he's been playing kickball at recess instead of wandering around by his lonesome each day, so that is great news and couldn't make me happier :-)
World Travellers: A few weeks ago, my mom ended her 40-year nursing career with her long-awaited retirement. Way to go, Mom! We went to a lovely dinner in her honor and got to spend a nice evening with some of her very nice, but sad, co-workers who hate to see her go. Right now, she and my dad are on a three-week trip to Spain and Portuegal, and hopefully they are having a great time. Also off to far regions are Ryan's brother Jamie (of YouTube pet cemetary film short fame) and his wife Annette, who are visiting England for a week. I am officially jealous! Reasonable Man would like for us to take a trip to England in 2008 -- I am crossing my fingers...
Finally -- well, I don't know about you all, but I know I'm sleeping better knowing Paris and Nicole are friends again. It gives you hope for world peace, no?
Life has gotten so busy since school started. It's amazing how much stuff I end up doing, considering that I have no job and both my kids are in school every day! This past week, for instance, I had a meeting to go to Monday afternoon, a doctor appointment for Enthusio that ended up taking several hours plus taking him to Campfire on Tuesday, a trip to the Scholastic Book Fair warehouse in the morning and then two different hour-long appointment/meetings for the kids in the afternoon on Wednesday, and we had Girl Scouts after school on Friday afternoon. Thursday was mercifully uneventful. Last week, I hosted Bunko here and we had a little get-together for Ryan's birthday on Sunday. Today we have BLB and the Bride arriving for an overnight visit, Tuesday I host my book club here, at some point this month I need to have my little moms dinner club over here, and we'll be having Will's birthday party here the last weekend of this month as well. Then right into running the book fair and starting my Nanowrimo novel plus trick-or-treating the week of Halloween, and on Thursday of that week I leave to go back east for four days for a girls' weekend. The week after that, Carisa and my new nephew Zan will be through to visit, and the week after that, I will be joining Mermaid's sixth grade class for a week of outdoor education. Then it's pretty much the holidays, and we are going to try to squeeze a trip to Disneyland in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So if you've been wondering why I haven't posted much lately -- that's why. My usual caveat -- I don't mean to complain, as I know I've got me a pretty sweet life (daily trips to the gym take up some of that time, as does at least one shopping day a week) and a lot of what I've listed there is fun stuff. Still, it does get pretty busy, and it cuts into my time at the computer...
Mystery of the Week: Way back in July, during our East Coast Adventure, Enthusio's left index finger swelled up, and swelled up it remains. Reasonable Man hypothesizes that he jammed it when they were boogie boarding at Bethany Beach, but Enthusio doesn't remember injuring it, and it's never really hurt him. After much nagging, Negligent Mom here finally took him to the pediatrician about it this past week, and she was completely flummoxed by it. She frowned, went and stuck her head out the door of the examining room where we were, and called to her fellow ped, "Hey, Bob, come look at this finger." (Becky has now challenged me to put this line in my Nano novel. I love a challenge!) Bob did, and then he went and got his digital camera to take a photo of the fat finger next to it's much thinner counterpart on Enthusio's other hand.
The xray showed nothing out of the ordinary, so the ped ordered bloodwork to rule out infection (and I'm also supposed to be taking stool samples but I keep conveniently forgetting), and next we're going to have an MRI done and see an orthopedist. The ped seems more curious than concerned, so I'm not feeling worried about it at this point (as far as I know there is no such thing as finger cancer), but I have to admit that they all took it far seriously than I expected them to. Obviously I would have taken him in a lot sooner if I'd realized they would want to do all these tests...
I Forgot: aka, Mom's least favorite words this past week. Here are the things Mermaid forgot:
1) To give me the paper that's been sitting in her music folder for the last 3 or 4 weeks informing me of what new books she needs for saxophone this year and also the fact that morning band has been meeting before school on Tuesdays for the last two weeks, sans Mermaid because I didn't know anything about it
2) To bring home all manner of necessary instructions, notebooks, papers, etc. that explain her homework or which were needed in order to complete her homework this week, necessitating the exchange of notes and such with her aide at school and such to figure out what the heck is going on
3) To not freak out if I am approximately 30 seconds late picking her up from school and either bursting into tears or going into the office to ask to borrow the phone to call me when I'm actually sitting outside waiting to pick her up
I know she has some issues and that when she's a little distressed, logic flies right out the window, but geez. It's a little frustrating. On the other hand, yesterday she successfully rode her bike home from her Girl Scout meeting about a mile away, and I think she will be providing her own transportation to and from those meetings on non-rainy days for the rest of the year.
Beyond the forgetfulness, she continues to have a good year in school. A little defiance here and there with her aide, but I knew the honeymoon wasn't going to last forever, and apparently social studies is more hands-on/interactive this year, so hallelujah for that! Enthusio seems to be doing great too -- I haven't chatted with his teacher in a while, but I do know he has made a couple of little friends and that he's been playing kickball at recess instead of wandering around by his lonesome each day, so that is great news and couldn't make me happier :-)
World Travellers: A few weeks ago, my mom ended her 40-year nursing career with her long-awaited retirement. Way to go, Mom! We went to a lovely dinner in her honor and got to spend a nice evening with some of her very nice, but sad, co-workers who hate to see her go. Right now, she and my dad are on a three-week trip to Spain and Portuegal, and hopefully they are having a great time. Also off to far regions are Ryan's brother Jamie (of YouTube pet cemetary film short fame) and his wife Annette, who are visiting England for a week. I am officially jealous! Reasonable Man would like for us to take a trip to England in 2008 -- I am crossing my fingers...
Finally -- well, I don't know about you all, but I know I'm sleeping better knowing Paris and Nicole are friends again. It gives you hope for world peace, no?
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Since I don't neglect this blog enough, I've decided to start a second one! I've been doing a lot of projects around the house lately, and the reaction I've gotten from a lot of people when I tell them I replaced cabinets in my kitchen, the tile around my fireplace, the vanity top in my bathroom has often been amazement. Happy as I am with the improvements to my house and the development of my skills, I don't really believe I'm doing anything other people -- other women -- couldn't also do. So I'm wondering why, in 2006, when most women do paid work, there's a Home Depot or Lowes on every other street corner, and the internet is rich with detailed instructions on how to do almost any home project out there -- why is it still so unusual for someone like me to pick up a drill or a crow bar and make things happen? I have a theory that a lack of confidence is what stops a lot of us, and I'll be writing about it at It's Not Scary, and sharing some of the projects I've done as well. Please check it out and tell me what you think.
Because I'm all about the innovation, the new blog is on a brand new, invitation-only blog service called Vox. Let me know what you think of that too :-)
Edit: I'm already over the other blog service and am moving It's Not Scary back over her to Blogger -- the correct address is http://itsnotscary.blogspot.com/
Because I'm all about the innovation, the new blog is on a brand new, invitation-only blog service called Vox. Let me know what you think of that too :-)
Edit: I'm already over the other blog service and am moving It's Not Scary back over her to Blogger -- the correct address is http://itsnotscary.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Recently I saw a story on the news about a new vaccine for the human papillomavirus virus (HPV), which is transmitted sexually and can lead to cervical cancer. This virus is extremely prevalent among sexually active adults, so the fact that a vaccine has been developed is great news. There are undoubtedly conservative types out there who are against it (since apparently any kind of medical breakthrough related to female reproductive health must be some kind of threat to home, family, and the sanctity of human life), but somehow the FDA managed to fight off the forces of the neocons long enough to approve it, so that's good, right?
Only the news story I saw was all about how a lot of parents are resisting the recommendation that girls should receive the vaccine sometime between the ages of 9 and 12. Because, you know, that's too young. And there was the obligatory shot of a pre-pubescent girl running around a soccer field and looking cherubic while her mom talked about how she wasn't going to follow the guidelines, basically because the whole idea made her feel kind of icky.
I have a few thoughts on this:
1) Why should my daughter be vaccinated now, when she's so young and isn't having sex yet? Duh. The vaccine can't protect her from potential infection unless she gets it before she has sex. And yeah, I know no one likes to look at their pre-teenaged daughter and imagine that her becoming sexually active is anything but a distant possibility in the far, far future. I've got an 11-year-old daughter myself, and I shudder at the thought. Still, let's be realistic here: even the most organized parent in the world doesn't have the date their child is going lose his or her virginity marked on the calendar. If you want your child to wait, talk to them about the reasons they should do so, but for God's sake, don't deprive them of something that could keep them safer and healthier if they don't follow your advice.
2) I can't get my daughter vaccinated against HPV because, at 9/10/11/12, I feel she's still too young for me to talk to her about HPV. This one really bugs me. I suppose you're going to have a long, in-depth discussion about lockjaw with her before you take her in for her tetanus booster? Now, I'm not saying there aren't maybe a few girls out there who'll have lots of questions about why they have to get this shot, but I feel fairly confident that most of them won't question things any farther than this:
Parent: You're going to have to get a shot at the doctor's.
Daughter: A shot? Oh, man. (whining) Why?
Parent: To protect you from getting cancer.
Daughter: Oh.
Some of them might be savvy enough to ask what kind of cancer, but I'm guessing a vague "You know -- down there" will be enough of an answer to satisfy all but the very most scientifically-minded girls. Most pre-adolescent girls do not want to engage in discussions about "down there" anymore than their parents do.
I'm not saying that parents shouldn't discuss the reason for the shot with their daughters -- I'm just going with the idea that you give kids as much information as they can handle and that they ask for, and therefore, the argument that girls whose parents feel they are too young to learn about sexually transmitted diseases shouldn't still be protected against them just isn't a good one.
3) My daughter is a good girl and won't be having sex till she's married, so she doesn't need to get this shot. To me this ranks right up there with the logic that kids don't need sex education because it will just give them ideas, and if you just don't tell them anything, they won't have sex. I realize withholding information and not having your kid vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease are not the same thing, but I can't help thinking that the parent who doesn't want their daughter to get this vaccination at 10 is the same parent who doesn't want her to learn about condoms and STDs later on in junior high and high school. And last I heard, the whole "preaching abstinance as sex education" wasn't keeping lots and lots of kids out there from becoming sexually active, only keeping information from them that could keep them safer and healthier when they do.
Getting shots is an unpleasant fact of childhood -- no question about that. But the fact that the reason for this particular immunization just happens to make some parents look ahead to the future and feel a little queasy doesn't excuse those parents from fulfilling their responsibility to make sure their child is protected. No one ever said this parenting thing was easy.
Only the news story I saw was all about how a lot of parents are resisting the recommendation that girls should receive the vaccine sometime between the ages of 9 and 12. Because, you know, that's too young. And there was the obligatory shot of a pre-pubescent girl running around a soccer field and looking cherubic while her mom talked about how she wasn't going to follow the guidelines, basically because the whole idea made her feel kind of icky.
I have a few thoughts on this:
1) Why should my daughter be vaccinated now, when she's so young and isn't having sex yet? Duh. The vaccine can't protect her from potential infection unless she gets it before she has sex. And yeah, I know no one likes to look at their pre-teenaged daughter and imagine that her becoming sexually active is anything but a distant possibility in the far, far future. I've got an 11-year-old daughter myself, and I shudder at the thought. Still, let's be realistic here: even the most organized parent in the world doesn't have the date their child is going lose his or her virginity marked on the calendar. If you want your child to wait, talk to them about the reasons they should do so, but for God's sake, don't deprive them of something that could keep them safer and healthier if they don't follow your advice.
2) I can't get my daughter vaccinated against HPV because, at 9/10/11/12, I feel she's still too young for me to talk to her about HPV. This one really bugs me. I suppose you're going to have a long, in-depth discussion about lockjaw with her before you take her in for her tetanus booster? Now, I'm not saying there aren't maybe a few girls out there who'll have lots of questions about why they have to get this shot, but I feel fairly confident that most of them won't question things any farther than this:
Parent: You're going to have to get a shot at the doctor's.
Daughter: A shot? Oh, man. (whining) Why?
Parent: To protect you from getting cancer.
Daughter: Oh.
Some of them might be savvy enough to ask what kind of cancer, but I'm guessing a vague "You know -- down there" will be enough of an answer to satisfy all but the very most scientifically-minded girls. Most pre-adolescent girls do not want to engage in discussions about "down there" anymore than their parents do.
I'm not saying that parents shouldn't discuss the reason for the shot with their daughters -- I'm just going with the idea that you give kids as much information as they can handle and that they ask for, and therefore, the argument that girls whose parents feel they are too young to learn about sexually transmitted diseases shouldn't still be protected against them just isn't a good one.
3) My daughter is a good girl and won't be having sex till she's married, so she doesn't need to get this shot. To me this ranks right up there with the logic that kids don't need sex education because it will just give them ideas, and if you just don't tell them anything, they won't have sex. I realize withholding information and not having your kid vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease are not the same thing, but I can't help thinking that the parent who doesn't want their daughter to get this vaccination at 10 is the same parent who doesn't want her to learn about condoms and STDs later on in junior high and high school. And last I heard, the whole "preaching abstinance as sex education" wasn't keeping lots and lots of kids out there from becoming sexually active, only keeping information from them that could keep them safer and healthier when they do.
Getting shots is an unpleasant fact of childhood -- no question about that. But the fact that the reason for this particular immunization just happens to make some parents look ahead to the future and feel a little queasy doesn't excuse those parents from fulfilling their responsibility to make sure their child is protected. No one ever said this parenting thing was easy.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Please Help a Good Cause
Remember my sister-in-law The Bride? Well she and Big Little Brother celebrated their first wedding anniversary on August 20 -- time flies! Anyway, she's got a new project -- training for a half marathon with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. I've known a number of people, including my other sister-in-law Dana and my good friend Sue, who have participated in TinT in the last several years, and it seems like a terrific program for a great cause. The Bride, who will heretofore be known by her real name, Angela, simply because I haven't thought of a good pseudonym for her, has a fundraising goal of $2700, and here is a link to her fundraising page
http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/angelagkluver
Please check it out and consider making a small donation. Every little little bit helps!
http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/angelagkluver
Please check it out and consider making a small donation. Every little little bit helps!
Monday, September 11, 2006
This morning I woke up at my friend's house in Livermore at 4:55 a.m., got in the car by 5:20, dropped my other friend off at the Oakland Airport by 6:20, and was home in Davis by 7:45. Reasonable Man was getting the kids off to school and I chatted with them and helped get their stuff into their backpacks so they could leave and I wished them all a good day and fell soundly asleep on the couch with the dog probably before they were even out of the driveway. My plan was to sleep for 30 minutes and then go to the gym, but I guess I didn't set the alarm on my cell phone right so I ended up not waking up till 90 minutes later -- at which point I did get up and go to the gym. I worked out for an hour, chatting with the mom of one of Mermaid's friends who joined recently, and then took off for Sacramento where I bought a buttload of groceries at Trader Joe's and then came home, unpacked them, ate some lunch and showered.
So really, on the whole, a pretty productive day, no? Still, the early rising and lengthy nap left me feeling off, and I have basically felt like I'm swimming through a fog since I woke up the second time. I really hope Mermaid doesn't have much homework when she gets home this afternoon because I really am pretty much feeling like like that commercial for cold medicine from a few years ago, where the little cartoon guy's head floats up above him like a balloon, only I haven't taken any cold medicine. I wish they still showed that commercial because it was such a good metaphor for the discombobulation I feel every time my sleep schedule gets disrupted in a major way.
So really, on the whole, a pretty productive day, no? Still, the early rising and lengthy nap left me feeling off, and I have basically felt like I'm swimming through a fog since I woke up the second time. I really hope Mermaid doesn't have much homework when she gets home this afternoon because I really am pretty much feeling like like that commercial for cold medicine from a few years ago, where the little cartoon guy's head floats up above him like a balloon, only I haven't taken any cold medicine. I wish they still showed that commercial because it was such a good metaphor for the discombobulation I feel every time my sleep schedule gets disrupted in a major way.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
I've been a bad blogger lately. I've actually begun about 6 different posts in the last few weeks, but the usual thing always happens: I get too ambitious, it starts to seem too hard, I have other things to do, and I abandon it halfway through. So today I'm going to write about a number of random things, just to clear the board, and maybe I can start fresh this coming week with the current minutiae of the my life instead of continuing to try to catch up on the old stuff.
Babies Babies Babies!
There was a baby boom in my life this summer. Welcome to the following little ones, and congratulations to their parents:
John Ronald Barnes, born July 10 to Josh and Emilie Barnes. Emilie is one of my best friends from junior high and high school.
Colin Martin Lee, born July 12 to Chris and Ninette Lee. Chris is a high school classmate of mine that I've become friends with over the last couple of years here in Davis.
Miranda Josephine Mains, born August 4 to Chris and Janine Mains. Janine is a close friend of mine from the November98 due date list I joined when I was pregnant with Enthusio.
Ethan Pierre Lund, born to Toneka Webb and Matt Lund. Toneka and Matt are longtime friends of my Big Little Brother-- he introduced the two of them, and Toneka introduced BLB to his wife.
Zanfirico Clark Izarn Kluver -- my nephew!!! -- born August 29 to Carisa and Marc Izarn Kluver. Carisa is my cousin, but we are close so I am claiming Zan as my nephew, and I could not be more excited :-)
I got to meet Colin a few weeks ago when we went to the Lee's for dinner; today I'm going to Livermore to meet Miranda, and next weekend I fly to Seattle to meet Zan. How fun!
Celebrity Stuff
I loved the alleged incident reported a few weeks ago wherein Jessica Simpson allegedly asked if she could kiss Britney Spears' pregnant belly and Britney allegedly replied "Hell, no!" This is, in my opinion, the only reasonable reply to such a stupid question. It almost gave me new respect for Britney.
I also loved the item where Mr. Britney, K-Fed, defended his own intelligence by claiming to have gotten "amazing-ass" scores on his GED. I'm not even going to touch that one.
I have a theory about Suri Cruise. Although her appearance on in Vanity Fair this week doesn't necessarily prove that Katie and Tom are her parents, I never really bought the idea that the whole pregnancy was made up and they don't have a baby. I do, however, believe that she was actually born 2 or 3 months earlier than was reported. Come on -- wasn't that "born down the hall from Brooke Shields' baby on the same day" thing just a little too convenient? Look at the evidence:
1) When Tom and Katie announced her pregnancy in October, not only was she already showing but she looked about 6 months along. I remember reading that she was due sometime in the spring and thinking "spring, my ass -- she'll never make it past the end of January." She continued to look way pregnant for the next 6 months -- except toward the end, when she sometimes looked like she was suddenly a lot smaller, and sometimes she literally looked like she had a basketball under her top. I think it's because at this point she'd actually already had the baby.
2) When people were asking if she was really pregnant, I always immediately thought, "yeah, of course" because in those last few months, there were lots of pictures of her looking, well, terrible. If they were faking the whole thing, wouldn't they have her continue looking fabulous? What I think is that when she was looking exhausted, sometimes enormous, bedraggled, and sporting cold sores at various times, she was actually post-partum and not in the later stages of pregnancy.
3) No pictures of the baby for several months. Duh -- they had to wait till enough time had passed that they could pass off a baby born in January or February as a baby born in April. The baby in the Vanity Fair pictures could be 4 months, 6 months, 8 months old -- that's how babies are during that first year of life.
Now, why would they do this? Well, do the math -- if Suri was born in January or February, Katie would have had to become pregnant almost immediately after she and Tom met. Planned or not, yuck -- one more log on the fire of "is this just a big stunt to prove he's not gay?" So they retreat for the rest of the summer and early fall and put off announcing the pregnancy until she's showing in October and just pretend the baby doesn't arrive till a couple of months after she's born.
Think about it. It makes sense.
School
It's going well. I've talked to Enthusio's teacher a couple of times since they started, and she's really put me at ease -- she says he's fitting in, being accepted by his classmates, and seems happy and comfortable in the classroom. He did ask her if he had to do the math book, since he already did it last year :-) But they do have this computer program the kids can use where they work on things like math at their own speed, so I know he can move ahead if he gets bored with the 2nd grade curriculum.
I had a conversation with him that disturbed me a little bit, where he told me that he is playing by himself at recess and eating by himself at lunch. He said that's what he prefers to do for right now, and that he wants to get to know his classmates before he becomes friends with any of them. If that continues, then I will definitely want to talk to his teacher and such to try to facilitate his forming some friendships, but for now he is comfortable and that is the most important thing. I am feeling very confident that he is in the right classroom this year :-)
Both Mermaid's teacher and her new aide say she is doing beautifully and she seems very happy in her new class. I know this is kind of a honeymoon period for her with the new aide and issues will arise once the novelty of the school year wears off and she is confronted with work she doesn't want to do, but that sort of things has become less frequent over the last couple of years and I think she's going to have another good year.
The House
Since we decided not to move for the the time-being, I've been a busy bee making improvements to our current house. In the last several weeks, I had put tile around the fireplace, sanded and refinished the bannister (no more teeth marks!), and torn the tile countertops out in the downstairs half-bath and the kitchen. In the bathroom I installed a new all-in-one vanity top, and in the kitchen, we are having a new laminate countertop installed this coming week (I can't wait!). In addition to the projects that have allowed me to hone my own home improvement skills, we also have a new fence and gate between the house and the garage that we hired a fence guy to install, and we have beautiful new cornice boxes over the windows in the living room and dining room, courtesy of my father-in-law (thanks, Joe!). Upcoming projects include redecorating Enthusio's room, mounting the flat-screen TV on the wall, and refinishing the dining room table. I would also like to do lots of planting in both yards this fall.
Writing
I am excited about National Novel-Writing Month this year -- I've thought of a basic storyline for my novel, I have names for the main characters, and I think it's going to be good! One thing that especially pleases me is that I will get to write part of it about a gushy teenage romance in the main character's past, but most of it takes place when she's about 30. So I'm getting to do the silly stuff I love, but also branching out into something new, writing about a character much closer to my own age! We'll see how it goes...
Books
Probably in large part due to the reading bender on which I embarked during our vacation, I find myself ironically poised to pass the 50-books-read mark this year. Ironic because last year I actually tried to do that and fell just short, while this year I haven't even been trying.
Important Note: Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper is really 99% a very good book, but if you decide to read it, I highly recommend you close the book at the end of page 412, after the resolution of the lawsuit, because in the last ten pages, the story rides completely infuriatingly off the rails. I don't know what the author was thinking.
Okay, that's it -- that's all the junk that's been floating around in my brain the last few weeks. It feels good to get it all out there :-)
Babies Babies Babies!
There was a baby boom in my life this summer. Welcome to the following little ones, and congratulations to their parents:
John Ronald Barnes, born July 10 to Josh and Emilie Barnes. Emilie is one of my best friends from junior high and high school.
Colin Martin Lee, born July 12 to Chris and Ninette Lee. Chris is a high school classmate of mine that I've become friends with over the last couple of years here in Davis.
Miranda Josephine Mains, born August 4 to Chris and Janine Mains. Janine is a close friend of mine from the November98 due date list I joined when I was pregnant with Enthusio.
Ethan Pierre Lund, born to Toneka Webb and Matt Lund. Toneka and Matt are longtime friends of my Big Little Brother-- he introduced the two of them, and Toneka introduced BLB to his wife.
Zanfirico Clark Izarn Kluver -- my nephew!!! -- born August 29 to Carisa and Marc Izarn Kluver. Carisa is my cousin, but we are close so I am claiming Zan as my nephew, and I could not be more excited :-)
I got to meet Colin a few weeks ago when we went to the Lee's for dinner; today I'm going to Livermore to meet Miranda, and next weekend I fly to Seattle to meet Zan. How fun!
Celebrity Stuff
I loved the alleged incident reported a few weeks ago wherein Jessica Simpson allegedly asked if she could kiss Britney Spears' pregnant belly and Britney allegedly replied "Hell, no!" This is, in my opinion, the only reasonable reply to such a stupid question. It almost gave me new respect for Britney.
I also loved the item where Mr. Britney, K-Fed, defended his own intelligence by claiming to have gotten "amazing-ass" scores on his GED. I'm not even going to touch that one.
I have a theory about Suri Cruise. Although her appearance on in Vanity Fair this week doesn't necessarily prove that Katie and Tom are her parents, I never really bought the idea that the whole pregnancy was made up and they don't have a baby. I do, however, believe that she was actually born 2 or 3 months earlier than was reported. Come on -- wasn't that "born down the hall from Brooke Shields' baby on the same day" thing just a little too convenient? Look at the evidence:
1) When Tom and Katie announced her pregnancy in October, not only was she already showing but she looked about 6 months along. I remember reading that she was due sometime in the spring and thinking "spring, my ass -- she'll never make it past the end of January." She continued to look way pregnant for the next 6 months -- except toward the end, when she sometimes looked like she was suddenly a lot smaller, and sometimes she literally looked like she had a basketball under her top. I think it's because at this point she'd actually already had the baby.
2) When people were asking if she was really pregnant, I always immediately thought, "yeah, of course" because in those last few months, there were lots of pictures of her looking, well, terrible. If they were faking the whole thing, wouldn't they have her continue looking fabulous? What I think is that when she was looking exhausted, sometimes enormous, bedraggled, and sporting cold sores at various times, she was actually post-partum and not in the later stages of pregnancy.
3) No pictures of the baby for several months. Duh -- they had to wait till enough time had passed that they could pass off a baby born in January or February as a baby born in April. The baby in the Vanity Fair pictures could be 4 months, 6 months, 8 months old -- that's how babies are during that first year of life.
Now, why would they do this? Well, do the math -- if Suri was born in January or February, Katie would have had to become pregnant almost immediately after she and Tom met. Planned or not, yuck -- one more log on the fire of "is this just a big stunt to prove he's not gay?" So they retreat for the rest of the summer and early fall and put off announcing the pregnancy until she's showing in October and just pretend the baby doesn't arrive till a couple of months after she's born.
Think about it. It makes sense.
School
It's going well. I've talked to Enthusio's teacher a couple of times since they started, and she's really put me at ease -- she says he's fitting in, being accepted by his classmates, and seems happy and comfortable in the classroom. He did ask her if he had to do the math book, since he already did it last year :-) But they do have this computer program the kids can use where they work on things like math at their own speed, so I know he can move ahead if he gets bored with the 2nd grade curriculum.
I had a conversation with him that disturbed me a little bit, where he told me that he is playing by himself at recess and eating by himself at lunch. He said that's what he prefers to do for right now, and that he wants to get to know his classmates before he becomes friends with any of them. If that continues, then I will definitely want to talk to his teacher and such to try to facilitate his forming some friendships, but for now he is comfortable and that is the most important thing. I am feeling very confident that he is in the right classroom this year :-)
Both Mermaid's teacher and her new aide say she is doing beautifully and she seems very happy in her new class. I know this is kind of a honeymoon period for her with the new aide and issues will arise once the novelty of the school year wears off and she is confronted with work she doesn't want to do, but that sort of things has become less frequent over the last couple of years and I think she's going to have another good year.
The House
Since we decided not to move for the the time-being, I've been a busy bee making improvements to our current house. In the last several weeks, I had put tile around the fireplace, sanded and refinished the bannister (no more teeth marks!), and torn the tile countertops out in the downstairs half-bath and the kitchen. In the bathroom I installed a new all-in-one vanity top, and in the kitchen, we are having a new laminate countertop installed this coming week (I can't wait!). In addition to the projects that have allowed me to hone my own home improvement skills, we also have a new fence and gate between the house and the garage that we hired a fence guy to install, and we have beautiful new cornice boxes over the windows in the living room and dining room, courtesy of my father-in-law (thanks, Joe!). Upcoming projects include redecorating Enthusio's room, mounting the flat-screen TV on the wall, and refinishing the dining room table. I would also like to do lots of planting in both yards this fall.
Writing
I am excited about National Novel-Writing Month this year -- I've thought of a basic storyline for my novel, I have names for the main characters, and I think it's going to be good! One thing that especially pleases me is that I will get to write part of it about a gushy teenage romance in the main character's past, but most of it takes place when she's about 30. So I'm getting to do the silly stuff I love, but also branching out into something new, writing about a character much closer to my own age! We'll see how it goes...
Books
Probably in large part due to the reading bender on which I embarked during our vacation, I find myself ironically poised to pass the 50-books-read mark this year. Ironic because last year I actually tried to do that and fell just short, while this year I haven't even been trying.
Important Note: Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper is really 99% a very good book, but if you decide to read it, I highly recommend you close the book at the end of page 412, after the resolution of the lawsuit, because in the last ten pages, the story rides completely infuriatingly off the rails. I don't know what the author was thinking.
Okay, that's it -- that's all the junk that's been floating around in my brain the last few weeks. It feels good to get it all out there :-)
Monday, August 28, 2006
Wish Us Luck
Tomorrow is the first day of school. Last night was Kick-Off Picnic, where you go and find out who your teacher is. Very exciting stuff...
Enthusio got the teacher he wanted, the same teacher Mermaid had for second grade. She is a very soft-spoken, low-key, easy-going teacher and I think she will be a good match for him. We're a little concerned that the academics will be boring for him, since he's already done second grade once and had no problems with the work, but we also think it could be a real confidence boost for him to maybe be one of the best readers in his clas and that kind of thing too. There was a possibility of him being in a second/third combination class, and we liked that idea from the academic perspective (maybe he could do third-grade work if he got bored in the second grade stuff) but had the downside of possibly including kids from his old grade with whom he's had issues in the past. Overall, his being in a straight second-grade class is probably the better option and I am cautiously optimistic about this being a much, much better year for him.
Mermaid was placed in a fifth/sixth combination class, which surprised us, as they've never put her in a combination class before. We weren't real thrilled with the idea, especially when we heard that the class had just been created (and the teacher hired) this past week -- we had to wonder how much thought had been put into her placement in this class? But then we met the teacher at the Kick-Off Picnic yesterday, and she seems just great -- very on top of things, very pleasant and easy to talk to. She said she'd heard Rachel had the same aide this year, so that's good (hopefully it's true). So we're feeling good about Mermaid's situation too.
Now hopefully the stuff I ordered from Land's End, which includes school shoes for Enthusio, will show up today and I won't have to take him out for an emergency pair tonight!
Enthusio got the teacher he wanted, the same teacher Mermaid had for second grade. She is a very soft-spoken, low-key, easy-going teacher and I think she will be a good match for him. We're a little concerned that the academics will be boring for him, since he's already done second grade once and had no problems with the work, but we also think it could be a real confidence boost for him to maybe be one of the best readers in his clas and that kind of thing too. There was a possibility of him being in a second/third combination class, and we liked that idea from the academic perspective (maybe he could do third-grade work if he got bored in the second grade stuff) but had the downside of possibly including kids from his old grade with whom he's had issues in the past. Overall, his being in a straight second-grade class is probably the better option and I am cautiously optimistic about this being a much, much better year for him.
Mermaid was placed in a fifth/sixth combination class, which surprised us, as they've never put her in a combination class before. We weren't real thrilled with the idea, especially when we heard that the class had just been created (and the teacher hired) this past week -- we had to wonder how much thought had been put into her placement in this class? But then we met the teacher at the Kick-Off Picnic yesterday, and she seems just great -- very on top of things, very pleasant and easy to talk to. She said she'd heard Rachel had the same aide this year, so that's good (hopefully it's true). So we're feeling good about Mermaid's situation too.
Now hopefully the stuff I ordered from Land's End, which includes school shoes for Enthusio, will show up today and I won't have to take him out for an emergency pair tonight!
Monday, August 21, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Staying in the Green House (For Now)
We didn't buy that house.
We put in an offer, but we withdrew it the next day. This market is just not right for us to put our house up for sale right now -- not for a lateral move, anyway. If we find the house of our dreams in the next few months, we will go for it, knowing we are going to be out some money, but to buy something in our same niche of the market, give up our excellent low interest rate, take a hit in property taxes and end up in a smaller how -- nope, it wasn't the right move for us. I'm still thinking about that house and all the things I liked about it from time to time, but I knew when Reasonable Man presented the situation to me what the right decision was, and I think I surprised him with the degree to which I was reasonable about the whole thing.
I surprised myself by not being that disappointed about it. In fact, in the week since we decided not to pursue that other house, I've spent a lot of time working on this one, and not only am I not disappointed, but I'm actually falling in love with this house all over again. All those shows on HGTV are telling the truth: moving your furniture around can make a huge difference. Last week I moved most of the home office stuff from the over-used dining room to the under-used living room, and today I moved around some of the stuff in the kitchen dining area and switched the positions of the love seat and couch in the family room, and in some ways it's like our house it twice as big as it was.
I'm not saying we're staying here forever -- in fact, it's entirely possible that tomorrw we'll we something new in the real estate section that just totally kicks our butts -- but in the meantime, we're looking at probably staying here till at least early next spring, and then who knows? Maybe we'll decide to stay. Either way, this is a great house that we love and whoever gets to live here will be some lucky folks.
We put in an offer, but we withdrew it the next day. This market is just not right for us to put our house up for sale right now -- not for a lateral move, anyway. If we find the house of our dreams in the next few months, we will go for it, knowing we are going to be out some money, but to buy something in our same niche of the market, give up our excellent low interest rate, take a hit in property taxes and end up in a smaller how -- nope, it wasn't the right move for us. I'm still thinking about that house and all the things I liked about it from time to time, but I knew when Reasonable Man presented the situation to me what the right decision was, and I think I surprised him with the degree to which I was reasonable about the whole thing.
I surprised myself by not being that disappointed about it. In fact, in the week since we decided not to pursue that other house, I've spent a lot of time working on this one, and not only am I not disappointed, but I'm actually falling in love with this house all over again. All those shows on HGTV are telling the truth: moving your furniture around can make a huge difference. Last week I moved most of the home office stuff from the over-used dining room to the under-used living room, and today I moved around some of the stuff in the kitchen dining area and switched the positions of the love seat and couch in the family room, and in some ways it's like our house it twice as big as it was.
I'm not saying we're staying here forever -- in fact, it's entirely possible that tomorrw we'll we something new in the real estate section that just totally kicks our butts -- but in the meantime, we're looking at probably staying here till at least early next spring, and then who knows? Maybe we'll decide to stay. Either way, this is a great house that we love and whoever gets to live here will be some lucky folks.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Here are the caricatures we had done of the kids in Central Park when we were in NYC a few weeks ago. Apparently Enthusio got the idea to have this done back in May when Reasonable Man took him to Legoland. RM didn't want to pay fifty bucks to have it done at Legoland, but Central Park is rife with artists willing to capture your likeness in Sharpie, so we didn't have a hard time finding someone to make Enthusio's dream come true for a much more reasonable $15.
He knew exactly what he wanted, and instructed the artist thusly: "I want to be like Batman riding a skateboard, only not with wheels -- with rockets." The artist didn't even seem to think this was a weird request -- he just nodded and went to work. At some point he asked Enthusio to make a face like a superhero. Enthusio complied:
Yeah, I've never seen superhero making that face either. Enthusio's picture didn't have that expression. He seemed a little disappointed when it was done -- RM and I think he was maybe embarrassed at the size of his teeth in the picture. We assured him that that was just the way caricatures are drawn, which is true, but between you and me, the teeth are actually not all that exaggerated. I imagine he'll grown into them some day.
While Enthusio was having his picture done, Mermaid decided that she'd like to have one done too. The guy who did Enthusio's had a portrait to do first, but he said he'd be available in about an hour if we could come back. Mermaid surprised us by agreeing that she wanted to wait -- it was pretty humid out and she'd not been enjoying the weather, so I had figured she'd want to head back to Aunt Dana's apartment sooner rather than later, but once Mermaid makes up her mind about something, that's pretty much that. So we took a little walk past the Central Park Zoo and had a snack, then headed back to wait for the artist guy to finish his portrait, and in the meantime, another caricature artist set up his stuff nearby, so we had him do Mermaid's instead.
I may not have mentioned it before, but this past year, Mermaid has decided she doesn't want to smile with her teeth showing. The first reason she gave was that her friend Allyn doesn't smile with her teeth showing, and later on, she told me that when she smiles with her teeth showing in a picture, it makes her "look like a ghost." Yeah, I don't know either. Anyway, no way no how was she going to show her teeth to the caricature artist. No big loss, since as you can see from the finished picture above, he captured her Mona Lisa smile perfectly. He also did a very good job of following her instructions that she wanted to be singing with the Beatles -- I'm not sure how well you can see it in the picture, but it's pretty clear that he's drawn, from left to right, Paul, John and George. (George has enormous ears in the picture. Did George have enormous ears? I have no recollection of that.) Of course, Mermaid did have to point out to me the other night that Paul is holding his guitar the wrong way (right-handed instead of left), but otherwise we all think the artist did a pretty awesome job.
First we went on vacation for nearly three weeks. Within two days of arriving home, I was sick with a nasty cold. So what do you think happened when I was finally getting over that? If you guessed that I pulled a muscle in my back, keeping me away from the gym for even longer, you're absolutely right! So now it's been a solid month since I've been to the gym with any regularity. No wonder I'm feeling so fat.
Of course the book I'm reading right now isn't helping. Fat Land by Greg Critser is a very thorough explanation of "how Americans became the fattest people in the world," and it's not a pretty picture. Contrast the amount of bickering and naval-gazing that goes on just for the powers-that-be to make a decision what they should tell the general population about how much exercise we should all be getting with the free-for-all that goes on with advertising sugar- and fat-drenched foods to kids and the terrible ingredients that make up so much of the food on the market and it's no wonder so many of us are fighting -- and generally losing -- the battle of the bulge.
In other words, my kids picked the wrong week to try to get out of swim practice. I may not be exercising much lately, but they are for damn sure going to if I have anything to do with it.
Of course the book I'm reading right now isn't helping. Fat Land by Greg Critser is a very thorough explanation of "how Americans became the fattest people in the world," and it's not a pretty picture. Contrast the amount of bickering and naval-gazing that goes on just for the powers-that-be to make a decision what they should tell the general population about how much exercise we should all be getting with the free-for-all that goes on with advertising sugar- and fat-drenched foods to kids and the terrible ingredients that make up so much of the food on the market and it's no wonder so many of us are fighting -- and generally losing -- the battle of the bulge.
In other words, my kids picked the wrong week to try to get out of swim practice. I may not be exercising much lately, but they are for damn sure going to if I have anything to do with it.
This house-buying thing has gotten complicated.
First, a caveat. I know there are bigger problems in the world. This town is an expensive place to live, and we've gone from contemplating a major kitchen remodel, which we can afford, to moving to a new house, which we can also afford, while many people around us aren't able to make a move or buy a house in the first place. We live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and none of us would suffer if we had to stay here for a good long while, even if we didn't remodel the kitchen. In other words, I know this doesn't exactly rank in the top 947 great tragedies of the 21st century. Nonetheless, it is currently a dilemma for us, so please bear with me.
From day one of our decision to start looking for a new house, I have maintained that size is not the issue. Our house is small by the standards of some people, but I've always felt like we had more than enough living space here, and one of my biggest beefs with this house is that a lot of the living space we have -- our living room to be specific -- doesn't get used (we don't really need a second sitting room most of the time) or is unusable (the western exposure of our house makes that room too hot to sit in after 1 pm during the summer). The fourth bedroom we added a few years ago suffers from similar problems. And so we spend a great deal of our time in the family room, which is somewhat cramped. In addition, the upstairs of the house is difficult to heat in the winter and even more difficult to keep cool in the summer. Add the fact that the kitchen needs a major overhaul and we don't have nearly enough outside/garage space for bikes and such, and you have more than enough reasons for us to be shopping for another house.
Yesterday I saw a house that I really liked. I sent Reasonable Man over to look at it and he liked it too. The price is right. It has one story and four bedrooms, one of which is at the front of the house and could function as exactly what we would need it for: a place to put the computer, a place where the kids could keep their school stuff and do their homework, and where we could put the futon and have guests stay. It would be an extension of our living space when we didn't have guests and a guest room when we did. The layout of the house is big and open, there is a ton of built-in storage, and the backyard is big enough for us to put in a pool and still have plenty of room for patio furniture and our trampoline. The kitchen would need some work, but it's attractive and it has a pantry. And on the "location, location, location" front, it's basically in the same neighborhood where we live now, where we are very comfortable and where many of our friends live.
So what's the problem? It's smaller than the house we have now, by about 200 square feet. The space it has is everything I think we need when I envision the most efficient house possible for us, but probably not one inch more than that. The family room is not smaller than what we have now, but it's certainly not much bigger. There's no place to put anything bigger than a small dining table, so hosting things like Christmas dinner would be a problem. The family room furniture we have now would fit just fine, but there would never really be any options for moving things around too much.
I've looked at a number of houses since we decided to move, many out of our price range, and although I maintain that size is not that big an issue, the times I've walked into houses with a big, wide-open living space, I've swooned just a bit. The idea of having a family room where you could have one of those great big ginormous sectionals and not have it completely fill the room is awfully appealing. One house in particular stands out in my mind. It's on a busy street, and the backyard is pretty tiny, but when you walk in -- well, the word "cavernous" comes to mind. There is a huge living room, a huge kitchen/family room, and then there's also a huge loft. After Reasonable Man saw it and thought it was pretty cool, I said to him, "but don't you think that's way more space than we need?" He didn't, but I did.
I still think so, but I've definitely come around to the idea that I would like that much space. And therein lies the dilemma, because I can still walk into a house like the one we found yesterday and just feel so sure it could work for us. But five years from now, after doing the work on the kitchen and putting in a pool, will our family of two adults and two teenagers feel crowded, and will we wonder why we bought this house when we could have gone bigger?
This is similar to the the questions I have about my car. I drive a minivan, but I chose the smallest one available, with the best possible gas mileage. Even so, I often wonder: do I really need to drive a minivan? I only have two kids, and we only drive extra people around every once in a while. I could drive a sedan that gets much better gas mileage -- a hybrid even. Then again, it's nice to be able to haul extra kids around when we need to, or drive another family on outings. We have friends who have traded cars with us for an evening or overnight so they could transport more people all in one car than their sedan can hold. Long car trips are more comfortable in our minivan than they used to be in our old Toyota Camry, and storage is never a problem. We can even haul the occasional piece of furniture without any trouble.
In other words, we don't need the extra space every day -- but sometimes we really do need it. Does that occasional need justify the fuel we consume by driving it every day? Similarly -- do the occasional times we feel crowded or want to host a big holiday dinner justify buying a house that's bigger than we need, with the added costs of heating and cooling, not to mention furnishing it? A small house, one that has only the space we need to live on a day-to-day basis and no more, equals smaller energy bills and no reason buy new furniture. That means a smaller ecological footprint we're leaving, and I really do like that idea. It's very Davis. And it's not like we'd be depriving ourselves of nice things, like a pool and a new kitchen. In the end our quality of life still goes up.
Just as long as life with teenagers doesn't feel more crowded than life two grade-school-age kids does, I guess.
First, a caveat. I know there are bigger problems in the world. This town is an expensive place to live, and we've gone from contemplating a major kitchen remodel, which we can afford, to moving to a new house, which we can also afford, while many people around us aren't able to make a move or buy a house in the first place. We live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and none of us would suffer if we had to stay here for a good long while, even if we didn't remodel the kitchen. In other words, I know this doesn't exactly rank in the top 947 great tragedies of the 21st century. Nonetheless, it is currently a dilemma for us, so please bear with me.
From day one of our decision to start looking for a new house, I have maintained that size is not the issue. Our house is small by the standards of some people, but I've always felt like we had more than enough living space here, and one of my biggest beefs with this house is that a lot of the living space we have -- our living room to be specific -- doesn't get used (we don't really need a second sitting room most of the time) or is unusable (the western exposure of our house makes that room too hot to sit in after 1 pm during the summer). The fourth bedroom we added a few years ago suffers from similar problems. And so we spend a great deal of our time in the family room, which is somewhat cramped. In addition, the upstairs of the house is difficult to heat in the winter and even more difficult to keep cool in the summer. Add the fact that the kitchen needs a major overhaul and we don't have nearly enough outside/garage space for bikes and such, and you have more than enough reasons for us to be shopping for another house.
Yesterday I saw a house that I really liked. I sent Reasonable Man over to look at it and he liked it too. The price is right. It has one story and four bedrooms, one of which is at the front of the house and could function as exactly what we would need it for: a place to put the computer, a place where the kids could keep their school stuff and do their homework, and where we could put the futon and have guests stay. It would be an extension of our living space when we didn't have guests and a guest room when we did. The layout of the house is big and open, there is a ton of built-in storage, and the backyard is big enough for us to put in a pool and still have plenty of room for patio furniture and our trampoline. The kitchen would need some work, but it's attractive and it has a pantry. And on the "location, location, location" front, it's basically in the same neighborhood where we live now, where we are very comfortable and where many of our friends live.
So what's the problem? It's smaller than the house we have now, by about 200 square feet. The space it has is everything I think we need when I envision the most efficient house possible for us, but probably not one inch more than that. The family room is not smaller than what we have now, but it's certainly not much bigger. There's no place to put anything bigger than a small dining table, so hosting things like Christmas dinner would be a problem. The family room furniture we have now would fit just fine, but there would never really be any options for moving things around too much.
I've looked at a number of houses since we decided to move, many out of our price range, and although I maintain that size is not that big an issue, the times I've walked into houses with a big, wide-open living space, I've swooned just a bit. The idea of having a family room where you could have one of those great big ginormous sectionals and not have it completely fill the room is awfully appealing. One house in particular stands out in my mind. It's on a busy street, and the backyard is pretty tiny, but when you walk in -- well, the word "cavernous" comes to mind. There is a huge living room, a huge kitchen/family room, and then there's also a huge loft. After Reasonable Man saw it and thought it was pretty cool, I said to him, "but don't you think that's way more space than we need?" He didn't, but I did.
I still think so, but I've definitely come around to the idea that I would like that much space. And therein lies the dilemma, because I can still walk into a house like the one we found yesterday and just feel so sure it could work for us. But five years from now, after doing the work on the kitchen and putting in a pool, will our family of two adults and two teenagers feel crowded, and will we wonder why we bought this house when we could have gone bigger?
This is similar to the the questions I have about my car. I drive a minivan, but I chose the smallest one available, with the best possible gas mileage. Even so, I often wonder: do I really need to drive a minivan? I only have two kids, and we only drive extra people around every once in a while. I could drive a sedan that gets much better gas mileage -- a hybrid even. Then again, it's nice to be able to haul extra kids around when we need to, or drive another family on outings. We have friends who have traded cars with us for an evening or overnight so they could transport more people all in one car than their sedan can hold. Long car trips are more comfortable in our minivan than they used to be in our old Toyota Camry, and storage is never a problem. We can even haul the occasional piece of furniture without any trouble.
In other words, we don't need the extra space every day -- but sometimes we really do need it. Does that occasional need justify the fuel we consume by driving it every day? Similarly -- do the occasional times we feel crowded or want to host a big holiday dinner justify buying a house that's bigger than we need, with the added costs of heating and cooling, not to mention furnishing it? A small house, one that has only the space we need to live on a day-to-day basis and no more, equals smaller energy bills and no reason buy new furniture. That means a smaller ecological footprint we're leaving, and I really do like that idea. It's very Davis. And it's not like we'd be depriving ourselves of nice things, like a pool and a new kitchen. In the end our quality of life still goes up.
Just as long as life with teenagers doesn't feel more crowded than life two grade-school-age kids does, I guess.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
I am SO sick, and last night ranks among the most miserable nights of my life. The area around my nostrils is positively rubbed raw, my throat is the sorest it has been in my life, and one of my nostrils is either completely plugged or a veritable faucet at all times. I've gotten way past being glad to be home, being grateful that I didn't get sick until after we got home, or being able to appreciate the merits of our dry Davis heat over the humidity of the east coast we experienced a week ago, because guess what, people? It was 111 freaking degrees here yesterday. Please pray, cross your fingers, get out your worry dolls or do whatever else you like to do to wish our air conditioning unit health in the next couple of days, 'cause I am petrified that thing is going to die and then we will have no choice but to go live at the Holiday Inn Express for a few days.
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